One Man’s Walk through life

I Want A Wife

I want a wife.

I’m ready. I have spent a lot of time not being ready. Of messing around and playing. Of experimenting and looking. Of just plain being young and irresponsible. And it was good.

But I’m ready.

I want someone who will laugh at my jokes, even as she groans. Who wants for my touch, and understands it. Who challenges me, and tells me when I’m full of shit. I want someone to be there when I fly. I want someone to be there when I grieve. Someone that will embarrass the kids by dancing in the freezer section of a safeway. I want someone who radiates joy. and pain. Someone honest, and passionate, and authentic. Who knows me. Who knows me better forty years from now.

I’m ready.

It’s funny the way life works. Four years ago I met someone four years older than me who wanted a husband. And I didn’t understand. She said she had played enough, she wanted something more. And I didn’t understand. I found her, but she didn’t find him, in me. She would find him later. Good for her.

Now I understand.

And I am ready too.

Its Somehow Fitting

in two days it will have been exactly four years ago.

i had a date with a beautiful girl. new balance 997.5 a wonderful girl. new balance 999 we were supposed to go hiking. but my shoes were falling apart, and i really wanted to impress her, so i bought new ones. basket nike they made me late, but she didn’t seem to mind.

——

/>
i was wearing those shoes when during that same date i hit my head and she took me to the hospital to get stitches

i wore those shoes on my next date with her, and the next

i wore them when i asked her to come to london with me. nike air huarache pas cher and i wore them when we got there

i wore them when i taught salsa with her, and when i took her to barcelona. ugg shoe sale outlet when i saw paris with her and her parents. adidas adipure and i wore them when i took her picture against the temple of poseidon on the cape of sounio

i was even wearing them when i made the hardest decision of my life

i was wearing them when sent her back to the california. Adidas ZX i was wearing them when i said goodbye

and i was wearing them when i met her fiance. i was wearing them when i decided that she was so important to me that i actually wanted to be there when she married someone else

——

and now they are spent

they’ve had a good life and they’ve seen me through so much of mine

in a life as nomadic as mine, they are all i have left of what may have been the love of my life. kyrie irving and as i leave them medellin, alone, and replaced, two days from their fourth birthday.

This is hilarious

http://oldeenglish.org/gymclass.html

Look What I Found

/>
It’s Charles

Took long enough, sheesh… Hehe.

The long awaited IM came on Thursday that Charles had finally made it onto Colombian soil, and was in Cartagena. nike blazer And that was it. ADIDAS PURE BOOST I said goodbye to Santa Marta, and Taganga, and went back to meet him in Cartagena.

It’s good to see an old friend, I have to say. I’ve talked more in English in the past few days than I think I have since I’ve been in Colombia. But Charles’ Spanish is pretty good (and actually better than mine, though I think my accent is better than his) and when there are Colombiano’s around we switch easily enough. air max 2016 The problem is that geek talk is a lot easier in English, so…yeah.

Anyway, today we’re spending the night in Caucasia, on our way to Medillin from Cartagena. Charles also brought another motorcycle packing friend with him from Panama, an American from Seattle named Paul. The three of us are travelling together for now. ugg bailey bow for cheap

/>
Even so, the oft asked question from my friends of exactly how we’re going to travel together has yet to be answered. The shocks on Zulu, Charles’ motorcycle, don’t seem capable of supporting me and my pack. So. adidas yeezy boost Our options seem to be a) replace the shocks or b) get a sidecar. Only time will tell. …but we both think the sidecar would make a MUCH better story. air jordan en soldes For now, I’m taking the bus and they’re riding the highways…

As far as WHERE we’re going… Charles wants to take a Spanish course, and I could probably stand one of those myself. I want to cut some code with the cogent dude, so I’m not too bothered about where we end up. ugg boots online We’ve both had a lot of the coast and the heat, and I think we’re both ready to go back to the mountains for a while to escape it. So, first it’s off to Medellin to pick up some packages for Charles, then it’s off to Bogotá, maybe?

I will say this, Charles and Paul do NOT pass as Colombians. oakley fives squared clear frame Tonight someone thought I was their translater???

I am quite liking that people go through several other countries and Colombian cities and pretty much never hit the states when guessing my origin. new balance chaussures Spain, Bogotá, Italy, Israel, etc, etc. I was quite flattered yesterday when a cab driver thought I was from Spain even after talking to me in Spanish for a few minutes. Apparently my Spanish has improved.

When To Say No

When is saying no appropriate?
——

There are 2 “rules” that have played a big part in my life:

always say yes to a dance

always say yes when someone asks you for help

These are GOOD rules. I’ve seen what they do to a culture, and it is amazing. However, I am a pragmatist, and every rule has a context where it applies as well as a context where it is inappropriate. When should you say no?

——

In Dancing
——

Throughout the world, swing etiquette is to always say yes when someone asks you to dance unless you have a good reason not to. new balance 696 If you say no to one person, it is extremely bad form to say yes to someone else.

Because of this, dancing swing is some kind of bizarro version of regular club dancing. New Balance Sale Not everyone at a swing venue is there to get drunk and hook up, sometimes no one is. People are smiling, talking, gossiping, and laughing, not to mention, dancing.

Stepping into a swing club “everone knows your name”, and that is because people say “yes”. Going to a new city, I can go to any venue and have a good night of dancing, meeting tons of new people in a safe 1-on-1 environment.

The fear of rejection that so permeates our culture, paralyzing guys who want to ask “that girl” out. The coldness that most girls feel they need to use to defend themselves from an unending flood of guys who just want to get in their pants. The whole clubland cycle of shit. nike internationalist Goes. oakley homme pas cher At a swing venue, the answer is always yes…at least, as long as the question is a dance.

——

At Work
——

One of the simplest and most important lessons that I’ve ever learned from a book is to always say yes when someone asks for help. New Balance Outlet UK ThePragmaticProgramer taught me this a year after I got out of college. I have seen this simple rule transform corporations.

*”What do I have to do to make you and me, become an us”?*

When you strip it down, this is what I do at work. This is what I rake in the big bucks, what I get flown, dined, and recommended for. asics shoes sale uk This is why I can afford to take year long vacations. I transform groups of individuals into teams. Or more correctly, I help a group of people transform themselves into a team.

It’s not ‘my’ problem, and ‘your’ assignment, and ‘his’ use case, and ‘their’ story. And it had better not be ‘his’ fault. Language is important. A team that uses this language is not a team, it’s a group of individuals pulling in different directions, redoing eachothers work when they are not undoing it, or putting cracks in it. It is wasteful, inefficient, and a terrible environment to work in, once you’ve seen the alternative.

This cover your ass mentality is what I struggle against. At the end of the day ExtremeProgramming is just a vehicle to get a team to gel. A team where everyone is team-oriented instead of self-oriented. Where everyone is pulling in the same direction. Where people will drop their own lines to help the people on the team that are pulling what is most important for the team. It is so much more fun, so much more efficient. What good is it if I succeed in my assignment if the team fails?

And again, the way this happens is by saying yes. When I say yes when someone asks me where the !CompanyThomlet is, or how to make a web service, or why this test is failing, when I go out of my way to be generous with my time, people respond.

By positively reinforcing their asking for my time, a cycle starts that continues with them being generous with their time. Not only do I always say yes, but I assume others will as well, and when you see someone that you respect (hopefully me) constantly asking unabashedly for other people’s time and giving of his own, it starts to sink in that maybe this is okay to do.

And after a while you get a team where people aren’t afraid to show their ignorance. Where my solution becomes your solution as well, where your failure is the team’s failure and the team’s responsibility to pick up. Where your story is equally important as my story, and I’m not worried about “getting in trouble” for taking time out of one part of the team’s deliverables to jump start another part.

——

But it doesn’t always work
——

In Dancing

Sometimes you’re not feeling it. jordan super.fly 2 The worst thing is to dance with someone who doesn’t want to dance with you. It would be much better to get the no, than to dance with someone who obviously doesn’t want to be there, not looking at you, frowning. nike air max 90 homme Fuck that. I don’t want to be that person to someone else.

And sometimes I can’t help it. I want to want to dance with everyone, I want to “love what I do” as opposed to only “doing what I love”. nike homme I think. But sometimes I can’t. Sometimes it’s the end of an exchange, and I’m not going to see my three favorite follows for a year and I just want to dance with them the entire time. It’s selfish. I’ll hate myself for it tomorrow, but right now…

Is that wrong? What is the line between being selfish, and being healthy in looking after your own concerns first???

At Work

I asked my last team for feedback before I rolled off, and a couple of them mentioned I was easily distracted. Saying ‘yes’ to one person often means saying ‘no’ to another. Often it is not ‘my time’ that I’m being generous with.

If I’m pairing the entire day, then what do I do when one of my friends IM’s me to ask me a question that will take half a minute to answer, and what do I do when that half minute turns into an hour. Helping someone means ditching my pair, and what happens when 4 hours of each of my days is spent jumping around? And if the answer is to not actually have a pair, then what happens when I’m helping one person and in the middle of that, someone else asks me a question, and in the middle of that…???

——

So…

So obviously this post doesn’t explain when to say no. adidas tubular shadow Instead, I’m asking y’all.

Basie Centennial

/>
So I’m in New York this weekend. It is strange. I know this town, I love this town.

I see so many of my friends around me here, and I am struck that perhaps I HAVE made a difference in this world. In 9 months here, I touched lives, I think, and made friends. I cannot tell you how moved I was to see this site http://geocities.com/bluesparties/. New York now has blues, and I helped that along, in a way that people appreciate.

/>
The people here… Steve Watkins, Devona Cartier, Ellie Thomas, Sonya Kranwinkel, there are so many more. I love them, they are my friends, they made the time I spent here one of the best times of my life.

And now.

So much has changed, so much is the same. But looking at what’s left 6 months after I left, I think I’m on the right track. I need to keep doing, and searching for more of what I did and searched for here in New York.

People keep asking me how I’ve changed since South America.

I’m a bit more laid back, patient, and more balanced. I’m a bit sadder, honestly, and I’m not sure why. My dream of going and finding my “big dream” is mostly gone. I don’t think it works that way. I think it works much more the way New York worked last year. Know what you believe. Know what matters to you, and live that. The “big dreams” that need you will find you. The little dreams will do the same. Greatness is not what I once thought it was.

Orlando Exchange2004

/>
aww, Nike Air Max 95 Baskets florida…

I love florida follows.

The weekend, cheap uggs ansley in brief:
* Hang out with Haley in Tampa
* Party to some nice blues and trip hop along w/ Liz, asics gel lyte Adrian, nike flyknit Julie Anne and some spaghetti

* Nicest meal I’ve had in a good long while w/ Haley and Mihai at Roy’s in Orlando
* Dance
* Dance

/>

* Sleep and hang out with Lisa and Tamar – I love my Florida girls…
* Dance
* Dance
* See Jacki again, new balance 515 and dance with her and Mihai till the sun comes up and we all pass out

/>

* Dance & eat, chaussures nike air max Orlando knows how to feed it’s guests – yay
* Dance, cheapest shop for uggs nice 2 room venue, adidas adipure with the DJ’s taking a good measure of chances
* Dance, chaussure tn pour homme I love Tina’s DJing
* Drive back to Tampa w/ Haley and fall in love with her all over again (along with most of the other leads in the states)
* Massage (yay!) and sleep (like the dead)

* Wake up and start driving to Asheville,

Heading Off To Cuzco

So a lot of travelling
——

Two days ago I woke up at 4:30 in the morning to take a 10 hour bus to Bogotá. new balance blanc Once I got there I waited 5 hours in the airport, and eventually got on a plane that took off around 9pm and landed in Lima at midnight. cheap adidas I spent yesterday walking around Peru’s capital city with a beautiful girl from England that I woke up next to…I love dorms. nike air max thea And right now I’m sitting in an internet cafe killing time until my bus takes off to Cuzco. – my 20 HOUR bus…

So far, I love peru. The people are very friendly. adidas stan smith Pas Cher It seems a bit cheaper than Colombia, but I’m not totally sure about that, it might be more or less the same. I definitely feel a bit safer, the police here are not all carrying uzi’s, but to be fair, I didn’t feel that unsafe in Colombia most of the time. It also seems a bit more low key than I think this same city would be in Colombia. But more on this after I see Cuzco.

——

As far as my plans
——

I have 3 weeks to make it to Buenos Aires. After my one hop on a plane, the day before yesterday, the rest will be by bus or boat. I think I’ll probably spend a week and a half in Peru. I’ll get to Cuzco tomorrow morning, and I’ll probably explore tomorrow and go out and stuff – there’s supposed to be tons of partying to be had in Cuzco.

But I’m not going to Cuzco for Cuzco, I’m going for Machu Pichu. I was planning on zooming through it, but the more I read, the more I think I really want to do the Inca Trail, which is a hike which is at most 4 days along several ruins until you finally get to the lost city of the Inca’s, Machu Pichu. I figure a) how many people get a chance to do something like that, and b) when’s the next time I’ll have that chance. soldes nike So we’ll see. It will involve renting a bunch of gear and going with a guide, all of which will probably be insanely expensive but it could be quite cool.

After Cuzco, I’m heading to Lake Titticacca. new balance minimus Hear it’s cool – the largest lake at anywhere near it’s altitude. It’s supposed to really beatiful with blue skies and stuff. oakley fuel cell Also there are a couple islands, some of them floating, and I was thinking of visiting them and spending the night at one of them. I’ll cross into Bolivia at the Lake, and … soldes ray ban Well, that’s as far as I’ve worked out yet.

Stay tuned, kids.