Surface of the Sun

I do wish someone could have warned me that living in Texas in the Summer is like camping on the Surface of the Sun. Three words best describe it: HOT, HOT, and oh yeah, HOT!

But it's not just the heat (90 degrees, maybe 100), it's the humidity. I've endured plenty of 90-100 degree weather in my day -- but most of that was a very dry heat (picture the T-Shirt with a Skeleton: "Yeah, but it's a dry heat"). Humidity literally adds something to that mix that is hard to describe.

When the Sun shines down directly on you, the humidity adds another 40 pound anvil for your to carry around. In ten minutes time, you are soaking wet in sweat. There is very little escape other than to hide away in an air conditioned room.

Compare this to a place like Las Vegas, where the temperatures are around 95-110 degrees this time of year. But throw some mist in the air and because of the evaporation, the temperature drops by 10 degrees or more. In the mountains (ie. Salt Lake City), the evenings cool down dramatically -- there is nothing worse that temperatures at 75-80 degrees at 11PM. It means there is no hope for cool weather.

What does one due when faced with the idea of sitting on the surface of the Sun for the summer? I devised a plan to run away for a month (August is said to be the hottest month), get out of the heat/humidity for a bit.

So my road trip is soon to begin. I'm probably a week or so away from the start (the beauty of owning your own company and driving, no hard dates). The journey is set to take me across the West Coast of the United States with stops along the way to visit friends.

Let the countdown begin!

To ebb and flow

We cannot seem to define one set of attributes unless they are contrasted to another. Day is nothing without night. Happiness is nothing with sadness. Highs aren't visible without Lows.

So I guess it comes as no surprise the ebb and flow of work energy. There are days where I'll do everything to avoid working on projects. It's almost a depressed state of not wanting to do anything or sometimes just not accomplishing anything even if the hours are put in. Other days it's like I'm in a super-drive mode. Code flows from the fingers like water from a faucet.

Is this all part of the process of understanding ourselves or simply the realization of life (which we've ignored)? Hard to say.

I think the thing to take away from all this is to realize that during the ebbs, they're cyclical and will turn upwards again. During the flows, we should embrace them for we don't know how long they'll be here.

Perhaps over time, the ups and downs become less extreme, hopefully with a slant more towards an upward slope.

Black Sabbath and Kirtan

I had the wonderful opportunity to see Shantala tonight. Apparently, I'm becoming a bit of a groupie as this is my third show! :-)

Seriously though -- it was a great experience. It was both heartening and humorous as we heard Black Sabbath during the quiet times. Ahh, the mixing of Black Sabbath and Kirtan.

My voice is hoarse, as seems to be the case after each one of these -- but that's a good thing.

Namasté

Dear Mr. President

I'm just counted it and apparently I have written 25 letters to the President.

I don't think much is done with the letters, other than being added to my FBI file (you know they're filing them away -- they live for that kind of crap).

Obviously, the President doesn't care, I doubt they even get read in their entirety by his staff. A few keywords are searched for and then the email is deleted. They don't even send an automated response to give you the illusion that your voice counts anymore.

So, I may just go and publish the entire set on the web. As I scan through these and look at the contents and the dates, it's interesting to see that things haven't changed much in the past year.

Get your Haircut!! Get your Haircut!!

Finding someone to cut my hair in Austin has been an ordeal. I've been to several stylists and feel a bit like Goldie Locks.

"This haircut is too expensive", "This haircut is not short enough", etc..

Well -- I think I finally found someone who can cut my hair at a reasonable price, cut it short enough for me and has a nice personality so I can enjoy the experience of getting my haircut.

I feel five pounds lighter too. :-)

Click! Click! Is this thing on?

Well, time certainly flies.. It's been almost a month since the last post.

But I have good reason. I've been very busy this past month. Just put out a new release of the Mac product on Monday and that was taking a lot of my time.

Hopefully I'll get back to a regular schedule here soon.

Life is not so Random

In November, I wanted a pure RAM-based MP3 player (the iPod mini has a tiny-tiny hard drive) so that I could run with it. I had tried using my iPod, but it kept conking out on me about 10-15 minutes into my run (which is very annoying if you're out for 45-60 minutes).

So when Apple announced the iPod shuffle in January, I knew I wanted one. Luckily, I was able to pick one up that week at the San Francisco Apple Store. I was a bit reluctant about the whole "no screen" thing, but all the players were pretty bad and I was hoping Apple's user-interface skills would come through.

The short story is that basically they have made an incredible product. I don't miss the screen from my iPod, in fact, I don't really miss my iPod that much. You put on your favorite music and just play it. Best of all, throw it into shuffle mode and it will shuffle the songs around for you.

Apple's ad states is "Life is Random".

Well -- not quite so Random. I've got 267 songs on my iPod shuffle and keep it in shuffle mode when it is on. What I've noticed is that the same songs seem to be repeating themselves. Now, I'm no math expert, but I'm thinking hearing the same pattern after 40-50 songs is not "random".

Run Forest Run

After having taken a couple months off from regular running this winter, it was time to get back into the habit.

So today marked the first run of the season. All I can say is "Ouch!" Even though I've been doing various cardio, the act of trail running is completely different. I'm sore and a bit worn out after a simple little run. I guess it isn't really a surprise. Just an observation.

It'll take a few weeks to get back in the groove, but I've got to start sometime.

No-No-Notorious!!

I went to the Duran Duran concert and let me just say, if I took one more step, I'd have been playing with the band. I managed to get front row center seats (I bought the VIP package which had a lottery of seats for the first 5 rows).

The various band members were not 2 feet from me at times. It was pretty damn cool!!

It was like Duran Duran was playing in my living room. Definitely a once in a lifetime experience.

Note to self: I need to start wearing earplugs at these things.