I've always had a healthy outlook on death and departure from this world. Ever since I was a little kid I've had relatives passing regularly since I can remember. When I was in Junior high and elementary school I lost a number of friends and acquaintances to shootings, car accidents and various other unnatural deaths. The saddest was my friend Robin who took his own life and that was hard mainly because I couldn't conceive of a reason he would.

My college years were largely uneventful and I would receive news from home of the occasional death of someone I went to high school with or knew growing up, but there was always a balance somehow and mortality was never that apparent to me. I knew that life was fragile and fleeting, but it never really became something to embrace.

Somehow in the past years though these people who have managed to make it through my life and become some sort of fixture in it, it began to matter even more and when they would pass or be taken away. Losses left a piece of my jigsaw puzzle missing. I hate it when you can't finish the puzzle. My family friends named their son after me and my brother, and when Zachary was shot and killed a few years ago it was a moment that really left me confused on how some people can value life so little. Zachary was killed because his father broke up with one of the first women he had dated after his wife had passed away. He just wasn't prepared to be dating yet and she became so enraged at being spurned that she took Zachary's life before taking her own.
Because she had ended that thread of life that had branched off from my own, I still feel it.

More recently my friend Hiep lost his brother while he was home for his Fiance's graduation and their wedding shower. Hiep and Trami had adopted me as family when I moved to Orlando. I had no friends there before them, and they introduced me to people who I still consider to be some of the closest friends I have ever met. When our friend Nellie called me the night of the accident, I assumed she was drunk dialing me to tell me of the fun I was missing in Orlando and didn't initially answer the phone until she called a second time. The news was leveling. Hiep's brother and I weren't that close, but as he had become part of an extended family his loss had an impact on me that I didn't expect.

Today I find that I have lost another friend, Mike Don Carlos. MDC was a friend from Colorado who patiently taught me a lot of the ropes of working with the information security software I learned in and out and also opened my eyes to a lot of things in Colorado. He was also a craftsman and made his own exquisite mead. He died in a rafting accident on the Colorado river in Utah yesterday. I'm glad he passed doing something he enjoyed, but I know he left behind a girlfriend (who has been with him for the better of a decade) and many close friends and family. It's amazing how much his passing reminds me of how important my friends and family are to me. My own existence feels small in such a huge tapestry of the threads of my friendships and I love to know that each of their threads is as colorful as any that has existed or ever will.

I'm not really writing this for much more than a simple mental dump. After splitting with my girlfriend recently, I've had a hard time with the combination of logic and love and it's taking me more time to make sense of things like this.
As always, life continues.

but yesterday was incredible.

My friend Jax gave me tickets to attend the youtube live show at the Fort Mason event center here. I invited my buddy Ed to accompany me to check things out. I assumed it was going to be a fairly geeky event with very little mass appeal.

WRONG.

Tons of stuff going on when we arrived. Jugglers, Acrobats, Parkour, Kung Fu, Break Dancing oh and Jeremy Fish, Sam Flores, Alex Pardee and David Choe were each painting one side of a giant cube. That had to be one of the best parts of the pre-show. Just watching them work. (photos later!)

After that was the Main Event at 5:00 and that had an intro by Katy Perry (I kissed a girl, and I liked it... GAG) followed by introductions by Tay Zonday (chocolate rain) and then the Mythbusters guys bringing out the Van Gogh (2.0) cannon (11,000 paintballs fired simultaneously) but this time they weren't painting an image... They were painting JAMIE. He came out in a suit of Medieval Armor and was pummeled by 11,000 orange paintballs. knocked him into the wall.

Then to add to the short attention span theatre show was, Planet B-Boy, Chad Vader talking with the Blendtec (WILL IT BLEND) guy and offering up his least favorite broom to be blended and we finally had to pack it in as Will I Am was starting up his act. Had we known the show was going to be as good we would have allowed more time but we both had prior obligations and ran off to them.

Wow...
Oh and then I went to see My Brightest Diamond perform and was amazed at what an incredible and whimsical show they put on!

damn fine day.

it's been a long time since I've shown photos in the real world and it was really awesome to get this invitation.
It started out as an invite to do a solo show but I didn't feel comfortable going it on my own so I invited several of my friends and really incredible photographers.

It's almost finally time to do it and it's been a long road getting everything together. I still have a LOT of work to do to make sure everything is framed and ready for the show, but it feels damn good to have finished the flyer and get it off to print.

Cross your fingers and eyes for me. This should be a fantastic experience.


Update: Keep your eyes peeled and I'll try to get them all referenced here once I get everything framed and prepped.

since I know how much he likes the epic fail video of the kid trying to dive into the swimming pool.



LolTV - Funny Compilation #15 - video powered by Metacafe

Tons of activity this weekend but the highlight had to be last night. I went to the California Academy of Sciences for a member preview opening.
We only made it through about 2/3rds of the whole place and really only scratched the surface of that, but what we did see was incredible.

Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don’t change your clothes, don't fix your hair.
Just take the picture.
Post the picture with no editing.
Post these instructions with your picture.

no voice, but if I could talk this is what I'd sing.


via videosift.com

Any of you just want to screw this working towards your own personal goals and embrace the American dream?

I mean we can go in on a McDonalds or KFC franchise together and make a bucket of dough and not even have to think about it!

And the best part is that we can walk in and be leaders!!!

We can tell other people what to do, make decisions based on our beliefs (oh and Corporate policy) and at the end of the day we can pick up a few bags of To-Go and feed our families!

SO I just heard.

If McCain is elected, Sarah Palin has guaranteed that she will require all foreign automakers to include a hangable beer coozy on the passenger and drivers side doors of every vehicle made after 2008.

I mean, if that doesn't support my belief system, nothin will.

I love to check flickr for the new photos from my contacts every morning, but I also savor every new posting by people like Susan Rudat who are incredible with only a small rectangular device and smaller cylindrical device.

Just trying this out to see how the new flickr embed works on LJ.

After walking around hazed for the better part of two hours checking my ribs and arm to make sure I really was ok I'm doing ok now.

Took a while for it to sink in because it's really is incredible.
I've had more than my share of near death experiences in this life already and I'm probably one of the more gratefully living people you'll meet.

Thanks to everyone who pinged me to check up.
My head is slowly returning to a straight (if not normal) location on my shoulders.

Nothing about how it happened makes sense btw.
I'm going to just let that be what it is, and be happy that I somehow managed to hover however far he moved me on the front of his truck, because otherwise I'd be under a forest green late model dodge pickup with a lift kit and a load of what looked like plumbing supplied on the rack on top of it. To be honest I think when he hit me I was more concerned with catching a pipe in the side of the head than realizing that he had actually hit me.

I'm still processing all of this but I was hit by a truck 20 minutes ago.

He blew a light and pushed me a full foot through a crosswalk on my bike before he even realized I was right in front of him on his grill.
It pushed me and my bike. Didn't even knock me down.

I don't even understand it.
It's just now sinking in that the chances of me not being under his tire right now are very very slim.

I screamed a lot at him and then I rode the rest of the way to work.
now that I'm sitting down.
well, I'm shaking.
Just going to sit still for a few.

I just want the day to stop long enough for me to catch my breath.

I'm so freakin wound tight right now.
bleargh.
I've been on since I walked in the door this morning and nothing makes me happier than spending 3 hours with AT&T Tech support.
Especially after the first person tier 2 guy I was working with disconnected, failed to call back and was a squeaky voiced assclown who sounded like his balls hadn't yet dropped while he was busy trying to insinuate that everything was my fault.

Oh yes... I'm ready for Colorado.

so it's been a shit weekend for Tech stuff and a good weekend for me overall.

Last night I turned on my small Canon camera only to discover that the screen is shattered. SUCK.
I'm pretty sure I can find a replacement, but what a drag, I LOVE having that camera with me in my bag when I ride around town.

Then this morning in my post 4th of July haze, I manage to get up, check my email from bed, step over and grab a glass of water beside the bed and before it reaches my face... catch the bottom of it on a chair and spill the entire contents on my open macbook.

I'm typing this message on that macbook now... phew.
I immediately shut it off, pulled the battery and set to disassembling it entirely to dry. Pulling apart the macbook pro is a bitch btw. Well easier than a Vaio but still a pain in the ass.

The rest of the day got a lot easier as I was in Napa valley sampling ample amounts of GOOD VINO.
Then tonight I kicked it at a friends place, had dinner and more wine and watch an awesome PPV UFC fight.

Oh yes...
Things just got VERY interesting.

The Roku box will soon support other online video services (possibly Hulu) and they have gone Open Source, so the possibilities are now endless.

I'm REALLY happy that Top Gear is back.

I love it that they also spend an entire segment bashing the Toyota Prius.