Stay

I just saw a movie by Mark Forster. I love the photography and the architectural look of it; how the camera plays a part in the movie, the visual clues. The scene transitions are great, and the music was very well chosen to enhance the general feel of the movie. Above all, I like the originality and unpredictability -you don't feel for a second that you are seeing a retelling of a hundred similar stories.

The critics are mostly negative. While it is true that the movie could be more, the style and atmosphere alone are worth watching. But I can see why people may not like it, be upset by it. The movie is not linear and logical, breaks a lot of rules of filming and story-telling, and there appears to be no point to all this, until the end. The problem is, I think, that most people assume a movie is always told in a sequential, logical way.

But what if the story is told from the point of view of an individual experiencing some kind of psychological disorder, or a dream. Does that make it any less valid as a story? Imagine you are attending an art exhibit: you thought it was about photography, but the pictures look nothing like reality, they are surreal, distorted. It turns out they are paintings -there is absolutely nothing wrong with them, other than your own wrong assumptions.

Luckily, artists need not be bound by their audience's comfort zone.

Detachment

Us humans have an urge to make things our own; objects, ideas, other people. Knowing, seeing, touching, are not enough: we have to posses. The more we are attracted to something, the more we are driven this way. And if we can't have it, we become restless, distraught; we suffer, even. Why this urge? As a way to incorporate them into our own identity, or as a way to counter the fear of loss, perhaps. As someone once said, the things we own end up owning us -or in the words of Master Yoda: "train yourself, you must, to let go of that which you are afraid of loosing." Giving up on something we want can be harder than straining every muscle in our bodies, and yet it requires no physical energy; why is that drive so strong? If we do let go, however, the benefits become clear -a sense of liberation, of freedom, of lightness. Why then, is it so hard sometimes, to just let go?

Black Rocket

Way back when, at the turn of the millenium, I was part of a big family called Genuity. As in all families, there were disagreements, triumphs, bitter fights, great friendships, and the bond of common goals and struggles. It was in a way, a coming of age, a rite of passage at a critical time. Though for me it only lasted three years, it seemed like much longer -they were after all, not regular years, but internet years, and events that would normally develop over months, took only weeks. We were all still riding the internet boom, and things happened fast. Not surprisingly, they also ended fast. The much anticipated crash was finally beginning to happen. Then came the coup de grace on 9/11. Three rounds of lay-offs later, there was no longer a "u" in Genuity, as the joke went -and a pink slip was my inspiration to migrate westward. A few months after that, Genuity was little more than a billion-dollar garage sale.

It is amazing how quickly time erodes the past. Today, while updating my resume, I decided to google Genuity. I had to dig deep to find any links, and then all I came up with were old IT news articles. It raises all sorts of existential questions when three out of four employers in your resume are little more than dust in the wind. If not for the few trinkets with Genuity lables I still have, I would be wondering if I had just imagined the whole thing.

When I found this link, I couldn't at first believe my eyes: that looks exactly like Black Rocket... -I thought to myself- could it be that somebody made a replica...!? No, wait! It is THE Black Rocket!! It is flying, flame shooting out of it, for real!!!! At first I started laughing, exhilarated, it was just too cool -then mixed feelings crept in. To see the icon of so much effort used as a toy, the remains of a previous life bought at some online auction for a few bucks...

Black Rocket was Genuity's prodigal son. Conceived by marketing, and suffered by the rest of us, its needs and wants extended to every corporate nook and cranny. To accomodate it, adjustments were required, processes expedited, trips made, people trained. Inevitably, we all developed feelings for it. When the first TV spots aired on prime-time, we would all proudly point at it and say to whoever would listen: "pretty cool, isn't it? -I worked on that", then launch into a monologue about our Network Services Platform, and how our stock would shoot straight up like a black rocket, or just show our Black Rocket tattoos -yes, I even had a fake tattoo in my arm, they used to pass them around at meetings -and was secretly proud of it, too.

Funny, even though the commercials were really cool, it somehow seemed like something was missing... the black rocket was just sitting there -it had a presence, they got that part right -but it didn't move. Nice to finally see it flying after all these years -as a rocket should.
Team Vatsaas, your next beer is on me.

Free Press

OK, maybe not free, but definitley affordable. [x][>]

Fight

...I didn't start the fight, but I'm definitely finishing it

Garbage

Moving to a new place made me realize how incredibly dependant our lives are on all kinds of non-essentials. One kind of soap for the dishwasher, another for hand-washing, another for laundry, another for manual dish-washing, another for hair-washing (called shampoo), another for car-washing; printer-paper, toilet paper, resume-letter paper, paper-towels, lens-cleaning paper, bureaucracy-related paper; usb cables, dvi cables, rgb cables, coaxial cables, ethernet cables, power cables, speaker cables, s-video cables, hdmi cables, rca cables... at times I felt like I was wading through a garbage dump, only I depended on the garbage for my daily existence. Such is the way of the industrial age -without the mass consumption of all these "goods" our civilization as we know it could not sustain itself -and so, I fill box after box with add-ons to accessories to things needed to make other things work, which together with yet other things, while connected to even more things, enable me to perform one simple action -such as making a blog entry.

Keyboarditis

I just coined this term to describe the condition where you suffer a temporary disorientation caused by typing on the wrong keyboard and not seeing anything happen on the screen -seen most often in those having at least two keyboards and screens on their desks.

Mount Rainier

Some pictures from last weekend's hike to Mt Rainier.
Though the mountain is majestic and the views breathtaking, the trail istsefl -if one can call it that- is less than satisfactory. Most of it consists of climbing over crumbling stones, gravel, sand and the occasional snowfield. With virtually no vegeatation to protect the rock, extreme temperatures, ice, and water, make the effects of erosion plain to the observer. The spectacular views, however, make it all worthwhile.

Mountains

About two thousand words worth

Mach 5

As a child, the Mach 5 was the coolest car on the planet, and driving it was the next best thing to flying an X-Wing. An entire generation of kids watched transfixed as Speed Racer beat the bad guys time and again in the best possible way: on a race track with the fastest, sleekest car ever.

The Wachowski brothers, better know for the Matrix trilogy, are making a live action film out of this cartoon. Given the fond memories of this cartoon and the credentials of the writers, I have high expectations of this movie.

Home

After being absent for most of July in an extended roadtrip, it is nice to be back home. Travelling only reminds me how much I like the Pacific Northwest; Yesterday I went hiking to Mount Pilchuck, only my third hike this season, I need to do some catching up...

iPhone

The best thing about the iPhone is that it is made by Apple.
It can do the same things PocketPC Phones have been doing for a few years, only better, smarter, and sexier. It is not, however, a ground-breaking concept at all -Apple simply took an existing product, and made it the Apple way.

I've had a pocket pc phone for about 2 years now, using it for phone calls, email, mp3 and movie player, web browsing, camera, voice recorder, games, office docs, Google maps, etc. It has bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and IR, not to mention 3G EVDO wireless broadband, which gives me an average speed f 400kbps or so, but sometimes I get up to 1mbps -you can also tether it to a PC and use it as a modem. Unlike the iPhone, it doesn't make you want to lick it, and any of the functions above except for 3G are much, much, better executed on the iPhone, to the point were there is just no comparison.

The iPhone, however, has 4 major drawbacks:

1 -You are stuck with a EDGE (2G) data network, which leaves much to be desired in this 3G age- just read the user reviews- so you're kind of relegated to browsing the web via WiFi only.
2- The onscreen keyboard is not great for typing.
3- It does not have a slot for a flash card, which it is a very practical feature that I would seriously miss.
4- You cannot install additional sofware in it, which is one of the major attractions on a PDA or PocketPC.

There is one other thing about it that I couldn't quite put my finger on until now: the iPhone is just too pretty. It looks like a toy, not a tool, and I wonder how successful it will be among corporate users.

If Apple comes out with a WiMax version of it to take advantage of Sprint's roll-out at the end of the year, it would make it very hard to resist, though.

Comfort

Deer Cave, in Borneo, is home to three million bats. The bats have produced a massive mountain of guano a hundred meters tall covering the cave floor, which sustains the cave ecosystem. The guano is litteraly carpeted by cockroaches and artropods of all kinds, feeding on it.

In order to document this ecosystem, a crew had to spend a lot of time filming inside the cave. In an addendum to the documentary, the crew described their misery in detail -how the guano and the cockroaches got inside their clothes, their underwear, and everywhere else. They had to do this every day for an entire month.

Makes you rethink the whole concept of "being uncomfortable", doesn't it?

Nonsense

On this barren desert
I stand overwhelmed
by a rapturing tide

Where is my strength
to flee fast and free
this ethereal charm?

To that bittersweet feeling,
my free will is bound
...for no reason at all

Union

European Union leaders just agreed on a new treaty that would replace the failed Constitution of a couple of years back.
One of the keys of the new treaty is that the word "constitution" does not appear in it. It has no anthem and it gives more power to members and less to Brussels. You could say its key denominator is more autonomy and less union -in appeareance. The failure of the constitution-though rejected by only two members- speaks about the fear of giving up local power -is the tribal instinct whispering in Europe's collective ear. The old "us vs. them". Granted, more sovereign power may have advantages for a member state in a particular situation -at least on the short term; that's its selling point, however, a Union with a single, solid foreign policy -eventually backed by a European armed forces- would be enormously beneficial, not only for Europe itself, but for the world at large. In my view, Europe has been, at least in the last decades, a tempered and benevolent -albeit weak- influence in world affairs. Iraq comes to mind: had the EU presented a united, solid voice opposing invasion during the last Persian Gulf crisis, it would have proven virtually impossible for the US to muster enough support at home to commit to war. I would imagine a united European foreign policy would have had a similar cooling effect on Putin's overbearing Russia.













Speculations aside, at first glance this yet-to-be-approved treaty appears as a step backwards, though this could be said to be mostly a cosmetic change to appease the public- regardless of your view, zooming out with the historical lens reveals a steady trend towards Union. What I am trying to say is this: Europe is the best example of the old national/tribal barriers being slowly, consciously, and laboriously torn down, to replace the old "Us vs. Them" with a new "Forward Together" way of thinking; and while some may not be too enthusiastic about it, no one really thinks about halting the process; so it seems safe to assume that in a few short decades, Europe will become a single entity for all practical purposes.

The remarkable thing about this is that political unions this diverse and on this scale have always been forced on their members by a conquering power. For the first time, the union was initiated by the member states of their own free will -I find it absolutely amazing to be witnessing what I think is the beginning of a global union of all nations, and the beginning of the end, for tribal warfare.

Photographs

For a long time I've been only taking casual pictures with my phone. Today I decided to try taking pictures with a real camera. Reawakening old habits was easier than I thought...

Unexpected

Looking back at all the years past, I wonder at the routine of every-day life. How can people do pretty much the same thing, day after day, month after month, and remain sane? Some don't -but for most of us (...ahem), the fact is we do a lot of different things, but the details get blurred and we tend to forget all but the memorable events. If I had to name a single thing that makes life what it is, however, is the unpredictability of the universe. Yesterday, I heard a snapping sound... a string in my racquet had broken.
Had I had to guess ten thousand things that could have happened that day, this wouldn't have made it to the list.

I can't help but wonder -whatever will happen tomorrow?

Evasion

When I finally made up my mind about what features I wanted on my new laptop, I realized that the only place where I could have it made to order -the HP store- charged tax. A number of other stores did not charge tax, but only had pre-built models. My stubborn self didn't want to accept either option. The solution: since the tax is calculated based on the shipping address, I had it sent to Maryland, where tax is a fraction that of Washington state. Since I was traveling there anyway, it worked out quite nicely. The morale of the story: computers are good, taxes are bad.

Impressionism

I have never been much of an artist. At least not in the traditional sense. Imagine my surprise then, when I found myself the author of the above piece, which in my mind qualifies as that of a promissing apprentice of Monet. It all started when I forgot my phone on a hike to Annette Lake, 2 and 1/2 weeks ago. The replacement I was sent came with a permanently out of focus camera.
The result: push-button impressionism.
Who would have thought I had it in me.

Vacation

At the beginning, I didn't much welcome the prospects of a trip to the east coast -using up vacation time already allocated for another trip, being trapped in a tiny seat for hours, the memories of hot humid weather and the hostility of certain family members.

I am glad to say that my fears were never realized. I had a very nice and restful vacation -I reconnected with my family, and even the weather was friendly. Except for the first leg of the trip, that is, which I spent in a dazed state half-way between sleep and vigil: the picture above reflects my lack of focus.
Luckily the picture is much clearer now...

Climb

After a long hiatus, I went hiking again. The Mount Si trail was much less streneous than I expected, and quite fun. Along the four mile climb, there are a few places to stop and take in the views. Close to the trail head there is a stopping area with natural history signs describing the different species and ecosystem. At the end of the four mile hike, lays the rocky peak, called "the haystack". As rock-climbing goes it is pretty easy, but you still need hands and feet to climb it. At the top, you have a rewarding view. As usual, the way down had its own difficulty -applaying the brakes for 4 miles left my legs and feet a bit sore, but all in all a satisfying first hike of the season.

There is something about hiking that is extremely rewarding -perhaps it is the sense of total immersion in nature, as you see trees, moss-covered rocks, streams, ferns -and when you reach a high viewpoint- the forest and mountains extending all around. Perhaps is the very tangible feeling of having accomplished your goal as you stand atop the peak.

Whatever the reason, right now I can't imagine ever getting tired of it.

Search

At first, I thought it'd be a simple task; after all, I am surely just one among hundreds of thousands of people -if not millions- who use their phones as digital music players.
All I wanted was to find a headset which was:

-Bluetooth (to avoid the messy tangle of cables and occasional snags)
-Passive noise-blocking (for use at the gym or outdoors active systems aren't good enough)
-In-ear (I don't want to walk around with two pounds of gear around my skull)
-Dual Use -for phone calls and music (who wants to swap headsets every time you get a call?)
-A2DP and AVRCP capable (for stereo sound and remote control functions)
-Boom-mounted mike -ideally retractable- (so that callers can hear me better in noisy environments, such as outdoors, or on a bus)

After hours spent researching this, it turned out there isn't a single product in the market that matches my wish list. I have to say I was a little disappointed -one would think the global electronics market big enough to support a number of products with all of those attributes, especially considering that most of them go hand-in-hand.

The one that came closest does not support phone use (no mike) and aside from being overpriced, they only had the version with the iPod adapter, which I don't need and bumps up the price by 50 percent. I could order that one and toss the adapter, but it would be wasteful-and it still does not work for phone calls.

Guess we'll have to wait for the overpaid product-manager geniuses out there to catch up with the market.

Aeria Gloris

By Origa

Ангелы и демоны кружили надо мной
Рассекали тернии и млечные пути
Не знает счастья только тот,
Кто его зова понять не смог

Налюбуйтесь, налюбуйтесь
Aeria gloris, Aeria gloris
Налюбуйтесь, налюбуйтесь
Aeria gloris, aeria gloris

I am calling, calling now
Spirits rise and falling
Собой остаться дольше

Calling, calling, in the depth of longing
Собой остаться дольше...

Налюбуйтесь, налюбуйтесь
Aeria gloris, aeria gloris
Налюбуйтесь, налюбуйтесь
Aeria gloris, aeria gloris

Stand alone... Where was life when it had a meaning . . .
Stand alone... Nothing's real anymore and . . .

Бесконечный бег...
Пока жива, я могу стараться на лету не упасть,
Не разучиться мечтать...любить...
Бесконечный бег...

Calling, calling, for the place of knowing
There's more than what can be linked
Calling, calling now, never will I look away
For what life has left for me

Yearning, yearning, for what's left of loving
Собой остаться дольше...
Calling, calling now, spirits rise and falling
Собой остаться дольше...
Calling, calling, in the depth of longing
Собой остаться дольше...

Налюбуйтесь, налюбуйтесь
Aeria gloris, Aeria gloris
Налюбуйтесь, налюбуйтесь
Aeria gloris, aeria gloris

. . .

Music by Yoko Kanno, lyrics by Origa & Shanti Snyder, vocals by Origa & Benedict Del Maestro

Party

Saturday.
Dinner, downtown movie, a last-minute invitation -to go or not to go.
Queen Anne. Strangers. Surprisingly smooth merlot. Lapses of boredom. Meaningless chat in the midst of pseudo bohemian decor -a red ribbon and holes in the walls. Rich, thick, porter. Signatures in a door-frame, #11, a humble servant. Exchanges about who knows whom from where.A friendly surfer-turned-bureaucrat. Outstanding jambalaya. City-planning, friendly people. A ridiculous lamp, the source of the red ribbon discovered. Serious doubts about wasted time in empty socializing for no reason whatsoever. Suddenly, Sunday. More conversation. Fashionable outfits blurring the lines of poor taste. A pretty but too skinny architect. Wigs laying around for no apparent reason. Silly camera phone photographs taken in the spur of the moment. An Ethiopian delicacy -a jar full of tasty seeds, and talk about relationships in an Ethiopian-Italian family with a Spanish last name. A too hard to uncork bottle of something carbonated, passed around until the jubilant climactic cork-shot. Taking a load off on a too-low couch. Fatigue catching up. An art documentary playing in an old laptop screen. Unidentified glowing ornament, intriguing but not enough to take a closer look. Lemon scented chocolate cookies. The occasional exchange with one of two acquaintances. Winding down, slow good-byes. Going home.

Beauty

Geek

I am a geek. I know this because I just spent a Friday night installing a new hard drive in my computer and watching computer simulated dogfights in the History channel -and it was fun.

Espresso

For the last week or so, I have been getting only 4-6 hours of sleep a night. This is not good, even with the added energy of regular workouts, after a few days this routine has the -some say negative- effect of reducing my normal brain power by ninety percent.
Luckily, there is an all-curing balsam called Coffee.
I'm not talking about the filtered boiled-socks juice that passes for coffee for some people, I'm talking about coffee beans grown in the mountain slopes of Sumatra or Colombia or some place where coffee is supposed to be grown, then cured and roasted to perfection, shipped to your favorite coffee stand to be ground seconds before hot steam condenses as it passes through it, capturing all its flavor and other qualities in the perfect shot of espresso. Three of these, combined with chocolate syrup, steamed milk, water, and whipped cream make up my usual grande mocha with an extra shot. By means of a caffeine and sugar high, it has the effect of restoring -if not the actual, at least the illusion of- a normal mental state. But it does more than that. It is definitely a mood enhancer –imagine being transported from a modern, neon-lit, slightly cold and grey Monday morning in a plastic and metal office chair, to an old, warm leather armchair by the fireplace, in a log cabin somewhere, surrounded by an old-growth forest. Well, not exactly, but that’s the best way I can think to describe it. All this from a hot beverage. How I went from not liking coffee, to my current state, is somewhat of a long story, but let’s say that along the way I was in need of a sleep substitute.

Take enough caffeine, and your state in the morning after a sleepless night goes from zombie to alert. The price you pay is your judgment. If your brain is truly exhausted, it will still make mistakes; paradoxically, sleeping eventually becomes more productive than staying awake. And by the way... lack of sleep kills neurons.

Starlight

Gazing at the sky on a clear night, induces in me a special state of mind -a kind of exhilaration that is hard to describe; a sort of star drunkenness. If I see nothing but sky in my field of view, I feel a kind of vertigo, as if freed from the gravity well. Touched by the light of countless suns -threads of light connecting me to places and times almost too far to imagine: what was/is it like at the other end of those threads of light? I try to imagine one of them. A star system, desolate and majestic -or perhaps, inhabited by a civilization... Are they still around? What tides of history swept them, and what have they learned? Could we communicate -what have they achieved, how do they see the universe, what could we learn from them? What could they learn from us? Is there a twin soul among them looking at the sky, who thinks like I do? When I think about this, looking up into the night, I wonder how many others here have these thoughts. None too many, I suspect.

Perhaps I need not look farther than the mirror, to find an alien mind.

Cynism?

Watching a would-be presidential nominee answer questions on television, I realized that it was virtually impossible for me to take anything he said at face value. Without even realizing it, a part of my mind was thinking about how much of what he said was his position, and how much was calculated or tinted to be picked up favorably by spin doctors, please the public, and offend no one. How he directed every answer into something that may benefit his campaign -begun even before an exploratory commitee was appointed, but not as early at the -probably intentionaly leaked- rumours of his entering the race. And this was one of my favorite candidates. I realized that I do this quite often, even with people I know -after all, even the most honest and trustworthy people have subjective perspectives that bias their perception, and so I compensate accordingly, to get a more accurate picture. Sometimes I feel like I am doing a simultaneous translation for myself; when I find myself doing it, and reflecting upon this action on yet another level, I start to wonder: am I being cynical, wise -or just jaded?
I think, all of the above.

Mars

Not far from us, mentally or physically, there is a whole new world. It has long been a subject of science, mythology, fiction, and hope. Its desert landscape has inspired plans for engineering on a scale that would give pause to his namesake deity. Its red sands have fueled countless books about adventures and romance. Today we have more detailed maps of its surface than of the bottom of our oceans. Aside from capturing the imagination of scientists and dreamers, it has inspired works of fiction where words like human, alien, or Martian, have their meanings reversed. Yet in spite of being so present in our culture, we don't know what it will be like once we begin to make it our second home. No doubt it will be a test of character and skill for our civilization -and an opportunity: perhaps the biggest we've ever had-to see how much we have learned from the bitter lessons of history; to leave behind the obsolete concept of nationality and tribalism; to build a truly enlightened society where our differences and diversity make up the texture of our culture, rather than creating fear and conflict. I wonder if this new world will transform us as a society, as we transform its surface into a sheltering biosphere.I wondder how many generations will pass, before our descendants sail the seas of Mars -and will they regard the wars and petty conflicts of our time as a part of history to be studied in books, but difficult to imagine.

I hope so.

Peace

Walking down the street Yesterday morning gave me an eerie feeling. It was more than the unusual snow -I couldn't figure it out at first -then I realized that in Seattle, snow, sun, and silence are seldom seen in sync -ah, another annoying alliteration.

Thurnesday

Last Wednesday night, as I was about to fall asleep, I realized I had forgotten about a pending task, so I decided to enter it in my calendar. I was surprised to see the date: Thursday, Jan 4th, 07. The time was still before midnight -puzzled, I got up and checked the time on my computer -same date. Well, if it was an error on my computer clock, it could have easily transferred to my calendar, so I did an update with the time server -the date and time were correct. Even though I now had proof that it was Thursday, I had a very strong feeling it was Wednesday, so still unsatisfied, I checked the date on several websites - Thursday still.

How could this be? Whatever happened to Wednesday? Where are my 24 lost hours? And the most interesting part: how could I miss a day and still not have any missing entries in my calendar? Well, the logical answer seems obvious now -I was transported to a parallel universe by some kind of freak natural event. other than the missing Wednesday everything seems to be pretty much the same -wait, this could be great! Let me check something, hopefully.....
....no, (sigh) we still have the same President.

Ca

Of all human activities, appointments with dentists are amongst the most pleasurable.

Tell me something I don't know, you say.

Well, I'm not just talking about the obvious enjoyment of laying down with your jaws wide open for what it seems like hours on end, while two strangers probe with drills, water jets, suction tubes, steel hooks, UV lamps, needles, x-ray contraptions, and other charming utensils evocative of the inquisition. There is also the gentle soundtrack (weeeeeeenkrrkrrweeeeeeenkrrkrr...) of the drills boring into your teeth, that you not only hear, but also feel as the drilling machine vibrations reverberate from your jaws to your skull. Accompanying this music, is the delightful scent of tooth ejecta -pulverized calcium.
Still, the best part of this experience is being completely trusting (not that you have a choice), hoping that the inquisitor -I mean, dentist- knows what he's doing, doesn't accidentally perforate the wrong tooth, or otherwise commits a maxilar aberration.

It makes perfect sense then, doesn't it, that we are willing to pay handsomely for this privilege.

2007

Well, a new year has arrived, again. Welcome, 2007!

Looks like this will be a pretty intense one for me. I have a few major resolutions and some specific deadlines...

1. Get in shape -not just excercise and eat right, but be in optimal condition by July 1st.
2. Not get a car before June 1st -and consider finishing another year without one.
3. Fearlessly complete all necessary dentist sessions no later than July 1st.
4. Complete detailed plans for a major 2+ weeks West Coast, Southwest & Mountains road trip.
5. Put in place a new, functional SIC website by spring.
6. Find ways to make my job more fun and dynamic.
7. Redesign, rethink, and reactivate my business by February 1st.
8. Complete at least half of the stages of my special project.
9. Do volunteer work on a regular basis

I actually have 2 or 3 other goals, but they are either too boring or too personal to share with the world.

Well, better get to work now :-)