My Life Archives

Resolution: Less Input, More Output

DECEMBER 31, 2007

I've spent plenty of time pondering the glut of information available to us, but this post isn't about that. Instead, I'm publicly declaring that I'm going to cut down on magazines, tv shows, movies, etc. and work hard to start making more stuff. As those now painfully annoying IBM commercials say, society is run by doers. While, the earliest years of your life should be about soaking up data and learning to process it, I'm ready to put down my Guitar Hero axe (for a little while) and spend some time making a bigger dent in the world.

Sure, my life is 90% output from 10am to 6pm during the week, but I have a greater sense of ownership of the work I do on this blog or projects like The Movie Binge. I don't pretend that Capn Design could make much of a dent on society, but it makes me feel good knowing I've contributed something. And like all aspsects of the world, those first, small steps could lead you just about anywhere.

Strategies for Making it Happen

I do have a couple bigger ideas to work on, but I'm going to focus more on making every input bear fruit. This means I'll only see National Treasure: Book of Secrets or listen to This American Life if I'm willing to spend time finding something interesting about it. It may suck some of the enjoyment out of my free time, but I need to train my mind to be more critical.

What may be even more important is taking the time to write things down. Some friends were leafing through my 100 page notebook I carry everywhere and we realized I'd been using the same one for over 4 years. While I do jot down ideas on the computer, far too many go the way of the Dodo Bird.

While cutting back on input helps, it won't give me the time I need to get things done. I've already started improving the systems I use to process data, but in the end it comes down to setting aside time to just think. To start, I'd like to have an hour of time to create something every night. It's not much, but I think it will get me going on the right path, which is what these resolutions are all about.

Posted in My Life at 8:10 am.
4 Comments |

There's No Time Like the Present

NOVEMBER 28, 2007

Jori was just telling me she was hesitant to contact a friend with whom she rarely communicates. "Don't worry," I said, "there's no time like the present." I figure it's time to take her advice and jump back in. Here's the big stuff that's gone down over the last couple months.

1. (with a bullet) I'm getting married.

In just under eleven months, Jori and I will be married here in Brooklyn. We've been together for over four years and said, "We want tax breaks wine glasses and hibachi sets to plan a huge freaking party to confirm our love in a religious and spiritual ceremony." In all seriousness, it's awesome. She's smart, beautiful and tolerates my ability to out-annoy anyone — it was destined to be.

2. In November, I had the Shingles

Updating you on my attempts to contract every old man disease (see: sciatica), some newfound back discomfort turned into a week of debilitating pain and two weeks of itchiness. I wouldn't recommend it. My doctor said it's mostly caused by bad luck, while friends and the internet all told me it was stress related, which is certainly possible. The good news is you can't pass shingles to anybody — it comes from the chicken pox virus, which lives dormant in your nervous system. While saying shingles makes me feel all old timey, I also think herpes zoster sounds kind of awesome.

3. The New Capn Design is Close

I've got some new MT templates all gussied up and my beta setup is on MT4. Considering I'm busy with the holidays and wedding preparations, expect the new hotness by the first day of 2008. While I've said it here before, Khoi reminded me that saying things out loud makes it real.

Smaller News

Thanksgiving was delicious, I'm one year into my time at Apperceptive (A+++), Jori and I had a fantastic time in San Francisco and Yosemite and our two new roommates, Zack and Herman, have been a pleasure.

Phew, glad I got that post out.

Posted in My Life at 12:45 am.
2 Comments |

Lowering the Bar

AUGUST 3, 2007

If you're a regular reader of Capn Design, you've noticed that I infrequently write full-length blog posts. Once upon a time I would post three to four times a day, but my blog was quite different back then. Still, it felt good to be writing consistently.

Thing slowed down when I start to feel internal pressure to only write posts when I felt the topic was "important". As a result, I would stop posting for long stretches and the site would lay dormant. I know lots of people follow this progression but I think I've had enough. As of August, I'm lowering the bar.

From now on, if I find something interesting, I'll get a post started right away and just see what comes out. If everyone has posted about a meme, maybe I'll have something interesting to say. If not, I'm leaving it up to you to tune it out. This is another way of saying that I'm passing more of the editorial reins to the reader. I'll do my best not to bore you, but I make no promises.

To kick things off, I'm going to post once every weekday for the month of August. This has confused and frightened some of my friends this week. "Where the hell did this bit of writing come from, you just posted yesterday!?!" Most of the discussion will lack any really theme, but for one week I will discuss the new components I added to my home theater this winter. I've been using them for a while and have a lot to say.

This is really part one of the redesign of this blog. Yes, I've been working on a new design for what feels like years, but the content is what really needed an overhaul. If this works out, I might actually finish coding the bastard.

Posted in My Life, Site News at 11:06 pm.
|

Bookmans and the Used Magazine

APRIL 9, 2007

For Passover I traveled to Tucson with Jori. Aside from quality family time and delicious food (more on that later), we visited a fantastic bookstore called Bookmans. Bookmans peddles only used media and has a great selection. It's incredibly well organized for a used goods store and has fantastic staff (had answers to all my questions and thensome).

My favorite feature, by far, is their used magazine section. You can bring in your used magazines — everyday magazines, although they have collectibles as well — and they give you hold hard cash. Then they resell most of the magazines for half the original price, older time-sensitive mags for much less (fifty cents) and some for a bit more than half (stuff like Readymade). Since I was eager to see Time's new design but wasn't going to pay five bucks for the privelege, I bought the latest issue for $2.50 and an older one for $.50.

In addition to magazines, we found half a dozen books we'd been meaning to pick up for half-price. If you're a book junkie and in Tucson or Phoenix, it's a worthy stop.

Posted in Music\TV\Film\Media, My Life at 8:02 am.
|

2006: Where I Traveled

JANUARY 1, 2007

Another year, another list of cities I visited. I was bit more thorough this year (asterisks stand for multiple visits):

New York, NY*
Riverwoods, IL*
Chicago, IL*
Gunisao Lake, Manitoba, CA
Palm Desert, CA
West Dover, VT
Cherry Hill, NJ*
Philadelphia, PA*
Hoboken, NJ
Los Angeles, CA
Binghampton, NY

You may also be interested in last year's list.

Posted in My Life at 11:56 pm.
|