One Man’s Walk through life

Seattle So Far

So I haven’t really blogged anything in a while, and people are starting to actually call, IM, and e-mail me asking what’s going on with my life. This is no good. So I will instead give the world an update. After a crazy week, I am exhausted, so I apologize if it is slightly incoherent…
——
So I’m living in Seattle, at least most of the time. In a house. I’ll be here till at least July or so, and it’s looking like it may even be a while longer, which would be nice. I have lots of friends here, interesting work, and tons of swing and tango. Seattle is a being good to me.

As far as work goes, I’m back at ThoughtWorks, and I’m here in Seattle along with Foemmel and Wadsbone working with the guys at Intentional on their intentional programming platform. I can’t really say anything about it now, but stay tuned, it’s exciting stuff.

Non-work wise, weekend before last was an amazing blues weekend up here. I threw a blues party on Friday that was a total success thanks to the help of some pretty wonderful people. We crammed around 70 people into my house, Miranda, Solomon, and Martin DJ’d (awesomely), and James threw a tango party 3 doors down . Saturday was a Blues/Tango/Swing fusion thing down in Portland, followed by another blues party there. I am constantly impressed by the level of dancing in the Northwest…

This last weekend was even crazier. I flew to Houston for the Great Southwest Lindyfest 2005. Way fun, lots of good classes, Steven and Virginie, et al. Amazing dancers, and more than that, amazing friends. I spent the weekend with Karen, Anna, and Hannah…and it was really good to connect with them all again.

Back in Seattle yesterday, I spent the day with Karissa. She’s been here a week, and it’s been really, really good. This morning I dropped her off at the airport. Sad to see her go.

In other news, I finally spent some time trying to figure out how to solve a rubix cube. Inspired by a friend, Lars Petrus, I am almost there.

All of which brings me to now. I haven’t gone to sleep before 7am for the last 3 days running, and I need to catch up.

Night.

God Is In Your E-mail

So I was talking to a dear friend yesterday, and we were talking about how a long, long time ago, God talked directly to Abraham.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if God sent you e-mails” I said.

“He does” she said.

She’s got a point.

My Life as a Gypsy

I have on my short list of things to do before I die to live with gypsies in Romania or someplace.

But it occurs to me that I am a gypsy.

People ask me where I’m from or where I live and all I can do is laugh. Then try to decide which version of my life story I want to tell them…

I think I’ve answered that same question about 20 different ways in the last month alone.

It’s a Saturn!!!

/>
It’s official, I was just signed over the title for my first car in 4 years – a ‘96 Saturn SC2. This one’s white, not yellow, and mine not leased.

It’s first mission will be to take me to Austin tomorrow morning. Hopefully I’ve learned something in all my failed attempts at buying cars and this one will prove a good buy. I did get a good mechanic to do a pretty thorough inspection of it, and he gave it the thumbs up.

It’s definitely fun to drive Of course, it’s a manual, and the shifting is wonderful, actually nicer than any of the 94-99 celicas I test drove. For a 4-cylinder it has a ton of power, and I’m starting to remember what I liked about driving.

This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Utah Lindy Exchange2005

/>
So there are times when you meet someone and everything changes.

I just had one of those times.

Somehow I found myself in Utah last weekend instead of New Orleans where I had been planning to go for Lindy Gras. It wasn’t about the music. It wasn’t about the dancing. It was about Karissa.

It was a good weekend.

We went climbing. We went to the Sundance Film Festival. We danced. We played. We talked. I met her parents…

Anyway, who knows what the future will bring. I will say, it was a wonderful weekend

Soflex2005

/>
There just are no words…

Great music, some of my favorite follows, and some of my favorite people are all in Florida. I got to bunk up with not just Lisa, and not just Tamar, but Lisa AND Tamar.

My favorite parts:

• Summertime…yet again, but this time with Tamar…wow…
• Getting bread with Tamar at 8AM on Saturday morning after staying up all night
• Hanging out with Lisa and going for a walk at 8AM after staying up all night on Sunday
• Having totally intense (and slightly inebriated) religious and philisophical arguments over the course of several blues dances with Amy
• Hanging out on the dark and stormy beach in the middle of the afternoon dance
• Meeting awesome blues follows from Jacki’s neck of the woods
• Disappearing for a while on Monday morning (and missing my flight) with…

Hawaii Lindy Exchange2005

/>
/>
So I’m way behind on posting about my travels

Went to hawaii, it was awesome. Heather dragged me out. I have to say nothing like going to a tropical island when it’s all cold and wet and miserable on the mainland…

——

Highlights:

• Blues Dancing on the Beach at 2AM (yes there was some skinny dipping, no I was not involved, though I did go in the water which was WARM)
• Hanging out with Heather, Cid and Nicole
• Meeting Becky
• Hanging out on the pier at night looking up at the stars and listening to the waves crash while speaking Spanish with Jenny
• Snorkeling and seeing a sea turtle – it was rad
• Trying to squeeze 13 people into an elevator, and getting stuck, hehe

Coming Back To Thought Works

Well that’s it. My year long sabbatical is over, cut short by the chance to work on an extraordinary project back at TW. My plane just touched down in Seattle as I’m writing this, and I can’t wait to report to Intentional for my first day.

It will be good to see Foemmel again, and Wadsbone gets here in a week. I’m excited.

That’s All Folks!!!

/>
Well, here I am. Sitting in front of my computer in El Paso at my Mom’s house. My travelling is done.

South America – over. Crazy insane roadtrip around the states – over. Blond hair – gone. Most of my money – gone. Hehe. But totally worth it

Next up?

Hangin’ out with the fam here for a couple months. Maybe substitute teaching a little. I’m planning on moving to Austin in January to work on a project with Charles and teach a cool dance/spirituality/meditation/something class with Karen. While the gypsy chapters are done, I’m really excited about what the rest of my year off has in store for me!

My Country Is Populated By Morons

It’s official. Four more years of Bush…god save us.

I have no love for Bush, and I feel more and more that I’m out of whack with this country. These exit polls are a very interesting read. They explain a bit about why people voted the way they did.

Couple things that caught my eye:

• upper and upper/middle class voted bush, lower and lower/middle class kerry – not suprising,
• whites voted bush, minorities kerry – again not suprising, minorities and the not rich get screwed over by republicans, if only more of us had voted everything might have turned out differently…
• religion didn’t seem to play anywhere near as important a role as churchgoingness, the more you went to church, the more you voted bush

What really suprised me was people’s ideas about how the war in Iraq was going. 44% said it was going well And more suprising, and disheartening, when questioned about the Most Important Issue, my fellow Americans said:

• Taxes (5%)
• Education (4%)
• Iraq (15%)
• Terrorism (19%)
• Economy/Jobs (20%)
• Moral Values (22%)
• Health Care (8%)

I’m moving to Cuba.