Category: Uncategorized

golden years

On the 7th my son turned 7.

The following day made 17 years since my dad passed.

I've been trying to find this old picture I love.

I only found 1/2.

I was sure it was around here somewhere. At one point I even had the old polaroid.

What happened?

Where did it all go?

I hope it's not lost.

That would be really sad.

To lose something for good.

Gone.

Once I found this old t-shirt on the floor of my attic when I was in high school.

I wore it without even washing it first.

Our attic was unfinished. High up in an old well built house.

High up on a hill too, and man, that hill was a bitch to mow.

It used to get real hot up there in the summer.

That smell.

We had bats in our attic. And a beat up pool table. My older brother used to have his friends over to hang out.

They didn't like me up there with them.

So I faced my fears and snuck up when I was alone.

It was cool, mysterious, and we could see the fireworks from the front window on the 4th.

That t-shirt was a treasure.

My dad's.

From Gilley's in Pasadena.

It still fits like a glove. I wish they still made t-shirts like that. It's gotta be 50 years old.

I lost a box of t-shirts too.

Ones I'd been lovingly lugging around in my travels. The classics I collected since middle school.

Man I miss them.

My first basketball team. That worn to shreads sea green shirt from the crab shack in Florida. The eco-marathon one from Denmark. My dad's Larry Bird.

So many favorites.

All gone.

The person I was then.

The life I was living.

And now my son asks about him. Tells me he's sad that he's gone.

Me too dude.

What a gift.

This life.

We never know how long we have.

But right here, right now, for me, it's golden.

I'm trying to reflect that, in light of all the loss.

How we've been lost.

And all our treasures too.

It sparkles in the light.

The opportunities we have.

The life we give.

Golden.

I'm doing my best to keep that flame lit.

Put the pictures on our walls.

Tell the stories.

He always said not to 1/2 ass things.

And don't be afraid to get your hands dirty.

Less perfect, more play.

I'm starting to grow out of my old shirts, but his still fit.

Spin Up

It's been a minute.

I'd planned on updating the server anyway.

Then it went down.

Green light.

Go.

Let it rip.

Giving spinupwp.com a try.

Wow…

I just looked at the info for my Digital Ocean Droplets and the old server went up exactly 7 years ago.

And a little guy's about to have his 7th birthday.

Howbout that.

I don't think I have a database backup… might lose a bit… but nothing critical.

Rebooted the downed server for shits while the new one was spinning up.

Now they're both up.

Nothing's lost.

Green lights.

Let's get to work.

Gonna borrow some old Chewist steez for my buttons.

It holds up.

Weekend's about to start.

Let's wrap it up.

Lifecycles

Oh man do I know how to crash. You should see all the ways. I've got the scars to prove it. An old friend even got it on video once. Back in high school when everything was just starting to go digital. We had our mountain bikes over at the firestation where my grandpa used to work. There is a nice diagonal dozen step stair drop with a railing to clear. We both nailed it a few times. I was feeling bold. On my last run I came in hot but mistimed it a tad, catching the front wheel on the rail. It was an ass over elbows affair, several feet in the air.

That feeling… the switch that gets thrown when shit goes down. And it all slows down. The raw survival instincts kick in - eyes go wide, butt clenched and braced for impact.

I swear, sometimes that sensation can last for years. Perpetual crashes. Contorted. Limbs askew. Smacked around. Bikes, bank accounts, broken hearts, gigabytes of burnouts… you name it, I've either crashed it or it's crashed me.

But who hasn't, right? It's in our nature, isn't it? Isn't that how we learn? To see how far we can take something before it falls to pieces. Then we scratch our heads and try to figure out how to put it back together better. Bonus points for learning from our mistakes. Let's hope right?

Oh the crashes of life…

Anyway, I lucked out that day and walked away with just scrapes. It could have been so much worse. I brushed myself off and felt like a bit of a badass. And with the pixels to prove it! That is until he recorded over it with boobs a few hours later. Storage was at a premium. And so were boobs I guess. My street cred lost in the technological ether. Overwritten by teenage hormones. Deleted and never to be recovered.

Such is life. Sometimes things get lost forever and we have to start again from scratch. Sometimes scratch is just what we need.

So I continued to crash, repair, repeat. When I was younger that meant time in the basement workshop, learning the tools to keep the wheels I love running sweet. I crashed so much they had to fix my broken face. But I was hungry for more. So I crashed through classes, curriculums, careers, even a few countries. Patching jeans and snapping pics along the way.

But I'll say, all that crashing adds up. Over time it coagulates into creaks, cracks, and aches. Slowly eroding my confidence for surviving any more crashes. It gets scary. So I'd crash on the couch instead, and cram food in my face for comfort. Which only crashed my poor tummy. Then the universe was done with metaphors and sent a bus crashing through me. My poor back. Where are the tools for fixing all that?

Yet miraculously I emerge, from a thick hazy cloud of damp farts and dust, and crash into love, community, and parenthood. A magical place where 1 plus 1 can make 3. Where all my dreams are somehow coming to be. Crash by lovely crash.

After years upside down and spun around, eventually I crash to land. It feels good to be on solid ground. I've cultivated a curious kind of resilience, a craftsman of sorts. I get fixated on fixing things. How to build something to last through the crashes of life. Both without and within. Learning how to slow down, crash less, and unclench. Build up instead of break down, and leave myself something a little softer to land on when I fall.

It's a whole new set of tools.

I'm slowly put it back together. Lubing out the squeaks. In the grand scheme of dreams the crashes are punctuation marks ~ weaving my jumbled words and ideas into some kind of coherent narrative that keeps me in motion. It may be chaotic and clumsy, but I'm recognizing the rhythm. There's a tap in my toes and I'm letting everybody know.

But what do we build?!?! How is it suppose to come together? It's easy to crash apart. But couldn't we also crash together?

Those are the pedals I want to be pushing. Sure, it's a climb. You'll have to pump, but god damn that view! So worth it. Have you seen what's on the horizon? It's starting to come into focus.

And then my computer crashes and it all disappears. Swallowed into the void of a blank screen of death and digital despair. Ffffffaaaacccccchhhhhh….

The only crashes I'm contending with these days are on my devices. Been pushing old tech for way too long. I can be stubborn like that. My 9 year old MacBook finally shit the bed. They say it's the logic board. But I can't see it. It's too tiny and complex. Nobody around here will repair it. But I rubbed the chassis just right a couple weeks back and it ran like a champ for a whole week. Man was it sweet. Still chugging along, more than capable of doing what I need when it stays booted up for more than 15 seconds. But I couldn't trust it. My notes, code, images, work, all my tools of the digital trade… Gone. But not lost. No. Not this time. I've got backups bitches.

Ugh. Tech can be so tantalizing. Powerful if you know how to use it. But also sticky and tricky. Hard to pull one's gaze from that glorious sparkly interweb haze. And the bytes being all itty bitty, so easy to misplace. When shit goes wrong, as it often does, it can be a real pain in the ass to diagnose. The hardware grows ever tinier and more complex. It's impossible to fix what you can't see. Most of it just isn't built to be repaired or to last. I've tried. I've cracked them open many times. Repairing batteries, keyboards, trackpads. I love seeing what's inside. How it all comes together. I've been one crafty mofo fixing what I can and jerry rigging software work arounds. But at a certain point it becomes a huge time/energy sink. It's disappointing.

It doesn't have to be that way.

But we're not there yet. And that's alright. End of life is a universal truth. I must accept it. I can't rely on janky tech in my line of work. I've been getting by on Rachel's OG Chromebook from 2013 with hickety hack Linux instance rendering me mostly functional for the past couple months. I'm proud of the work around, but it hasn't been pleasant.

It's time for an upgrade.

And my oh my would you look at that. It's Apple season. There's fruit on the trees and on the keys. Mere minutes away from the announcement of new hardware. And daddy's been saving up. Yay.

Man it brings me back. 2012. The last time I bought a new computer. All these dreams of what might be with my startup. Setting off on this grand adventure. Didn't go as planned… But looking back at all the crashes, I've gotta say, in many ways it went better.

Alright. Time to hit the pedals. Got wheels? Wanna go for a ride?

Backward Dreams Aloud

A chapter is about to end.

It is our last full day on this beautiful farm. We have lots to do. Packing and cleaning. We hear a hurricane is coming, though I haven’t even taken the time to read the news about it. We’re trying to get out before it comes. Tomorrow we head to the city.

The normal me is the planner, the worrier, always looking ahead. It’s like I have binoculars permanently strapped to my face. Or a crystal ball slowly dangling back and forth inches from my nose. It makes for a lot of collisions. Mostly between me and my interstellar expectations. But if I’m farsighted with the present and future, then I’m incredibly nearsighted when it comes to my past.

So let’s practice. Rewind. About 13 months.

The 17th of July. We were pumped, and packed tight, in an old car carrying our lives. It’s hard to express the excitement. It was our way of going big. Big as a budding romantic unit, but also as individuals. I suppose there was a vague sense of where we were going, and what might be waiting for us. Generally west’ish for a farmsitting gig we knew to be filled with bleats and beauty. A good start. But beyond that, everything was so wide open.

We have a tendency to dream aloud when it’s just the two of us. There was a lot of that during our roadtrip. We ran with it. Shutting off the music and turning up the make believe. We dreamt of where we might be a year from the farm. Which just happens to be our 2 year anniversary. And next week!

Where in the world would we find ourselves?

We almost made a bet. We planned to. Whoever’s closer would get some elaborate feast.

But the bet never happened. A month disappeared before our eyes.

To be honest, so did a lot of our dreams.

Oh reality… sometimes you’re so blunt.

At that point, I realized how important it is to see. While the long view captivates me, I also need to be able to see and take the steps in front of me. In all their wonderful and abundant variety.

Sticky ones, crowded ones, some cool underfoot. Others can be slippery, and some start to crumble right under your toes. On some steps you’ll have company, on others who knows. You may find yourself totally alone. Some are fun, awesome even. Others simply suck. They can hurt, leaving scars on our skin and on our hearts.

But the best ones, the ones that are just right for you, you won’t find on any map. And it’s impossible to know where they might lead.

That can be terrifying.

Also liberating.

But let’s be real. For a shy and calculated occasional control freak like myself, it was mostly terrifying.

At some point, after enough steps I suppose, I realized things would be alright.

And if they aren’t. If we find ourselves in a pickle. Approach it just as you would any other. With clear eyes and hunger.

A hunger to live well. To feel emotions as if they are a spectrum of color. To love.

In that, I begin to find my rhythm. Each awkward and stuttered step, gradually smoother. On beat. In sync. I suppose that would make this a dance. And dancing alone is dandy but it’s better with company.

To share those steps.

All those steps make me sleepy.

The past couple months have been some of my best. In terms of work I’ll continue to be critical, but in terms of life, growth, learning to be happy, I’ve come a long way.

To look back and see where all those steps have led us.

It’s certainly a weird place.

But I like it.

And with this I celebrate.

To that incredibly bizarre and wonderful year, and to the one ahead.

Rebuilding the Pyramid

The abstract has structure too. A base on which things are built. It's simple physics. If the foundation loses its structural integrity, there is risk of collapse. I'm an engineer, I should understand that.

But what I was doing felt too much like floating. Why worry about physics if I'm defying gravity?

But I wasn't. I'd been trying to tell myself that. The cruise was terminal.

The road had not yet been built.

This thought had not yet fully manifested. A gentle knocking. A wisdom nugget shaken loose after months of introspective calcification. I ignored it.

Instead, realization came in the form of a collision. Pedaling down a road, I was struck by a bus.

Inversion is exhilarating. Disorientation. Lack of control. I prefer it when intentional. And over water.

Cool refreshing water.

Feet near the edge. Deep breath. Bend knees. Leap. Arched back. Water spins into view, then rocks, then sky again. Look down in time to watch my feet hit. Upon impact the water breaks. Being submerged. Ice cold. The invigorating chill charges the body from toes to nose.

No water here. This inversion was flanked by large crush capable vehicle and curb. My pedal powered buffer between my dynamic self and the pavement was bus-punched out from under. The unexpectedness made for adrenaline fueled hyperconsciousness pumping to the point of slow motion. Instinct took over. Chin tucked, arms up. It felt so natural. So smooth.

And… impact.

The pavement did not break.

There was no splash.

What I first felt was embarrassment. I do not like to fall off my bike. I needed to catch up to Tugboat who was riding ahead.

Wait.

I just got hit by a bus.

My ride lay in bent rest on the sidewalk. I looked down to see my hands dripping blood. As the sting from my intense road rash set in, so did the awareness of my less than ideal circumstances.

I wanted a couch. My own. One on which I could sprawl out and fart unabashedly. A bottle of bourbon. Some Papa Rico mac and cheese. The soothing company of Walter White. I'd be well on my way to recovery.

A home.

Not a road.

My emotions, I'd tucked them away like bright easter eggs. And rather than prancing with intentionality to collect them all, I waited for a bus, to take a swing at my brain basket. My worries, fears, my tucked away insecurities tumbled and smashed in a dazzling way on the hard blood stained pavement of life.

Just like eggs.

Why couldn't I see it before?

Things look different upside down.

Abraham Maslow, the Emmett Brown of psychology. Instead of time travel, he chases self-actualization, which most times seems just as elusive. His flux capacitor is the hierarchy of needs.

The hierarchy is this magic pyramid attempting to explain what exactly human beings need in order to kick ass. To reach true human potential.

My recent lifestyle has been an accidental practical examination of the tiers and their corresponding elements.

Can replace love?

Can replace employment?

Can replace a home?

Non-conformity sure is exotic. And it was fun, for a little while. Thing is, each element of that hierarchy is like an anatomical joint. Removing them can be crippling.

But I like to learn things for myself.

Knacked, KEN, this unwieldy beast of a dream, is perched on top of my pyramid. I give her my time, my love, my hard work. She voraciously consumes it all without question, growing fat. Huge. Heavy. Like Jabba the Hutt. She deserves it.

Meanwhile, I get the misguided sense that my life had grown complicated and clunky. Shackled with superfluousities. Clogged with unnecessaries.

As a kid I would take things apart. Examine the mechanisms. Learn. Reassemble. Is life any different? A confident tinkerer, I dive right in. But in the end, it turns out I'm more like Kathy Bates working on James Caan.

Hard to run or even stand, much less support the dense load of a dream.

But I had wheels, so I kept rolling forward. Trying to build something on top of nothing. Drifting forward on the only path I'd left open. But like floating down a river, it made avoiding obstacles difficult, and collisions inevitable.

I just wasn't expecting something so literal. Buses hurt. But being submerged in the shocking reality I'd been avoiding was much more painful than the bus/pavement two punch combo.

That cold truth hurt. It was also exhilarating. With it came a clarity I did not have before. I saw every obstacle and what I needed to do to get through.

At the end of that, a place to start again.

My reintroduction to gravity. A brush up on some elementary physics. It had been a while.

It was 8 months ago yesterday.

Slinging sandwiches for some steady money, I found myself a nice home, and some nicer people. It may just be snot and duct tape holding my pyramid together, but it feels a hell of a lot sturdier.

And so am I.

Ready for another go, I find myself in a familiar place.

But not the same.