The topic of life with reference to Jesse Donat

Some Recent Life Changes

2009-09-19T08:01:00Z

I do believe this to be the longest I have gone without a real post to my live journal, and what a shame eh?

So what’s happened since my last real post in January you ask? Quite a lot really.

Lets start with the basics. March 12^th I met a wonderful girl named Elizabeth who I’ve been seeing now for just over six months. There’ve been a few rough spots but overall its going well. We’ve gone on a couple of trips to Iowa, Wisconsin, and quite a few to visit her family in Duluth. Overall it’s been a great time.

The other part is that end of July Stephanie, my former room mate, left in a huff over some complicated stuff I’d rather not get into – I more or less kicked her out but she took the pleasure out of it saying she was already planning on leaving, but she’s now moved back in with her parents.

So I’m living alone now, which is interesting if not a little Spooky – having this whole house all to my self can be a little disconcerting at night when there’s noises coming up from downstairs. I try my best to ignore it.

I do believe my self in an overall better state of mind than I have been in quite some time. When I moved back to Hopkins I was a little bit crazy – I was scared of people, terrified of public spaces, and all that ridiculous stuff. Looking back it seems so silly now, I drive, I go to the store, I hang out with Liz, I’m active for the first time… ever really, and all this adds up to one thing, me sleeping better. Why do I bring this up you ask? The only time I ever really wrote to my Live Journal was late at night, because that is the only time I’m allowed the level of verbosity I enjoy writing with.

Ooh, also, I got a promotion – I am now Senior Developer, or Señor Developer as I prefer it.

Haha, also I have a new love of spending $2 bills – I generally get $100 back as cash when I deposit my check, and I have been explicitly asking for it in $2 bills to varying levels of success. I went to the State Fair and spent only $2 bills and no one even looked twice. Some friends and I were going through the drive through at White Castle though and we paid for 12 sliders with $2 bills – he had to call over his manager to approve the bills; he did.

On an interesting side note – my sister Natalie has/had swine flu, she’s mostly recovered now though. The doctor gave her antibiotics (yes, flu is a virus, but its to prevent other infections – that was my first question) and sent her on her way. Guess theres not too much they can do for flu other than waiting it out. She had a mighty fever for a while. I was asked “Why don’t you bring us chicken noodle soup” and my immediate answer was “Because you have swine flu” which seems a logical response.

I hope to update a little more often, but I think this will be good for now – I should be getting to bed as I am to hang out with Liz tomorrow if she’s feeling better – she has been sick.

Voice Post

2009-08-15T22:38:39Z

A Day at Work

2009-07-17T13:10:52Z

This is a day at work.

A Short Update

2009-01-19T05:28:24Z

It has been a long time since my last post. I don't even know where to start, a huge number of things have happened. I don't know if anyone even reads this who wasn't there to experience at least most of it.

On the friday after Thanksgiving I moved out. Moved back to Hopkins after... a little over 4 years. A friend, Stephanie, rents a room down stairs. I'm living in my parents old room. Living out on my own is interesting, I'm liking it quite a bit. Taking some getting used to, can be lonely at times.

Friend Jeff stayed with me for a few weeks over Christmas break, which helped me get settled in.

Well short post for now. I'll go into more details later. Just don't want to give up on my Live Journal

A Simple Post for the Purpose of Posting (In Bed)

2008-10-19T07:08:42Z

This is my inaugural post from my new laptop in bed. I had a long habit with my old laptop of writing from bed. A habit I wish to continue with my new one.

For anyone I haven't blabbed to about my new Laptop yet, its one of Apples new MacBook Pro's. Link Its machined from a single piece of Aluminum. Has glass in front of the CRT as well as a buttonless glass track pad. Its not only the largest, most sensitive track pad I've ever used, but its multi-touch capabilities are amazing. This thing is soo sturdy feeling... I love it. I also love that the vents are on the vents are not on the bottom, where my Dell had them, so I can in fact safely set this on my bed.

Well its 2 am, and I'm tired. Look forward to another post tomorrow or the next day on some major changes in my life. as well as possibly some updates to this post (photos of the laptop, etc.) I'm just too tired at the moment.

One More Not Japan - I got my license to drive an automobile.

2008-09-22T07:21:25Z

Been over a month now since I’ve updated. In that time quite a bit has happened, biggest of all? I got my license last Thursday. I have not driven on my license yet.

All goes well though, I’m moving out into the Hopkins house when the pipes and van get fixed. Should definitely improve my commute time.

Moreover here is why I’m writing. I got my license Thursday and I was ecstatic. By Saturday I was back to my gloomy self. As I receive more and more of the things I’ve always wanted and they all fail to bring a lasting lack of gloom I question whether or not anything will ever help. I had always assumed it was from lack of being around people, but even in Japan, around good friends for two solid weeks there were times where I was quite gloomy. Well though, now that I have my license this will allow a higher degree of freedom, certainly, and we will see where this leads. This could be a brave new world for me.

Here’s hoping I don’t kill my self driving.

Here's hoping that rant wasn't too crazy for you... its 2 am on a Sunday and I can't sleep.

Dream Five

2008-08-19T04:09:41Z

Last night I had a dream, one I’ve had may times before. It was different last night though, so detailed that it sticks with me. I dreamt I was drowning. I found my self with water in all directions, I could feel the temperature change of my body as the water rushed in, I jerked around in the water for a while, but that faded soon, and then there was a just a cold calm. It was terrifyingly beautiful. I can’t shake it; every moment today not spent on other things was spent on thinking about this dream. I’m probably just crazy, but in all seriousness it actually feels a little hard to breathe right now…with a slight warmth in my lungs.

Not Japan - Exccuse Making

2008-08-04T04:49:33Z

I know someone out there, probably Jeff is still waiting for me to talk about Japan, it has been 2 months now for crying out loud, but my mind is just a mess. Its settled some in the last few weeks, but there's still a ways to go. For now, I give you my favorite photo of me ever, taken in the most amazing hotel I've ever stayed in.

I have been playing a lot of video games lately (finally using my PSP), I have to say though that I don't think they're indusive (not a real word?) to a propper grip on reality, (I know at least once person who does nothing but play games and has a grip on reality far worse than my own) although they have certainly been helping me deal. I think though like as though methadone, they should only be used to help me ease back in to the real world rather than act as a substitute for it.

I was scheduled to take my drivers test this coming Wednesday but canceled because I've missed so much work lately (kidney stone) and didn't feel I should be missing more. I'll reschedule at a later date, hopefully with more driving experience.

There are things I would like to rant about, but I'm tired, and I think I'm going to head to bed. Look forward to more posts soon, anyone left reading this.

Not Japan - Surgery!

2008-07-08T03:52:24Z

Someone somewhere out there is saying "Jesse, when will you talk about Japan?" and I assure you soon, but in due time. Actually, probably no one, but oh well.

Anyway, Japan post is still pushed off by recent happenings. Re: My Surgery.

Last Wednesday I had an appointment to see the urologist if my kidney stone hadn't yet passed. It had not. After some discussing my options he decided it would be best to put a stint in my ureter to allow my kidney to drain and prevent damage, as well as determine if we would be able to break it up with sound. They wanted to do the surgery that day but they couldn't get an operating room, so it was moved to the following day.

The next day, Thursday, they do the actual surgery. Allow me to describe the basic concept to you, They insert a scope and a probe into my urethra, locate my left ureter, and navigate the probe with stint to the stone. I'm not certain the exact positioning of the stint as related to the stone, but I do know that they believe the stone to be good and lodged, and the area well inflamed. Breaking it up with sound was not an option due to these facts as well as the location.

Instead they put me on a cocktail of drugs (pictured) in an attempt to dissolve the stone (these are on top of my pain killers), and this coming Wednesday I'm going in for a scan to determine whether its helping or if they're going to need to cut me open to laser it.

As painful as the surgery was (urinating the first few times was one of the most painful experiences of my life) the constant excruciating pain I had since returning from Japan has entirely lifted. I think I got more done at work today than I did in the last two weeks combined.

There is at least one surgery left, where they will remove the stint, possibly two if they remove the stone at a separate time. I'm not sure what they'll do.

I need to do something, being trapped at home / work in pain the last two+ weeks after getting back from Japan has been probably the worst cabin fever of my life.

What a pain in the... back

2008-06-21T07:21:16Z

Just when I thought my life might be starting to get back to normal, getting over the Jet Lag, all that good stuff, I wake up Thursday morning with a pain in my back, and not just any pain, a terrible pain, a pain that just keeps getting worse no matter what I try. I end up calling in and heading to the Emergency Room in what happened to be the least comfortable car ride of my life. In fact I might call it the worst pain of my life. I get to the ER and they do some tests, give me a cat scan, and put an IV in me. Doctor comes over, ends up I have a kidney stone. I have to say better now than when I was in Japan if it had to happen, but my preference would certainly be for the route where it never happens.

They've got me on some pain meds for the time being, and I get to strain my pee, sounds like fun, no? Its been almost two days now though and if I don't pass it soon, I'm going to need to go back in.

Japan post is still coming, I promise. Here's hoping I pass this thing soon and its not too incredibly painful, as I'm sure it will be. I'd just like to say of everything on the trip, the one thing I miss most is being with people, the daily intelligent conversation. I miss that quite a bit.

Not About Japan Yet

2008-06-19T05:02:57Z

Trust me, I want to write about Japan. Seriously. I just can't yet. I need time for it to sink in, and this jet lag is terrible. Anyone whos talked to me after 10 pm since I got back Saturday knows that there have been periods where *I* don't know where I am or whats going on, and I have a tendency to freak out. I do not deal well with lack of sleep, at all.

Hopefully early next week will be better. Until then, I'm going to bed.

Super Crazy Time

2008-06-16T09:16:04Z

Well, I'm back from Japan. (Had an amazing time, I plan to write all about it at some point) My sleep pattern is all screwed up, I've gotta get up for work in a few hours here, I'm imagining that that entire process is going to be less than fun. Andy has 99% of my photos on his laptop, so I can't post them, not to mention I can't seem to connect to the server (that's why if your reading this the page is still trying to load) I'll look into that detail tomorrow. If anyone happens to remember why this live journal was created and is actually looking at this, send me a shout out, because I'm going through pretty much the same thing, 4 years later. Gar. Well hoping to still manage to get some sleep, signing out

Your Friend,
Jesse G. Donat

Thoughts on...

2008-05-18T05:19:22Z

It has been a little while since I’ve written a live journal post. I never know what to talk about anymore.

Two weeks from Friday (yesterday, its been a few nights since I wrote this) I leave for Japan, its so exciting I still don’t realize it’s happening I think. I’ve had trouble comprehending reality lately if that makes sense, it’s just been a flow of go to work, come home, go to sleep, repeat. I’ve had absolutely no introspection, and it’s a new form of dull. The self-loathing is gone, and replaced with just a general zombie like “life” if you can even call it that.

Since I don’t think I mentioned it, new version of Oasisband.net has launched with next to no fanfare. Alas, still haven’t finished the admin among other things. I wonder if we actually lost any Omnipresence users? We’ve had maybe 30 signups of people I don’t know actually, many of which still had the original account text.

Quite literally had a rude awakening a few nights back. After having been in bed for maybe an hour I noticed something poking my back. I assumed it was a ladybug because we tend to get a lot of them in the house, living across from a cornfield and all. On grabbing my flashlight to inspect, it was the bottom half of a wasp, stinger in tact. At this point I was fairly unsettled, and looking around I managed to find several other parts including the head and a wing … yuck

I got a new old stock Apple Design Keyboard from 1996, paired that with an ADB to USB adapter, and its making for something much nicer to type on than the beautiful but painful flat aluminum board this thing came with.

Final thought. This was written a few days ago as I mentioned above, but I never got around to posting it. In that time I found out my father is going in for angioplasty and possibly a stint on Tuesday. We’ll see how this turns out...

Final Final thought. This working thing sucks, its 12:18 on a Saturday and I'm thinking about going to bed.

Kraftwerk

2008-04-21T04:28:09Z

I've written out several posts lately, but they all seemed too whiny to post, I guess my self censorship everyones been talking about is finally kicking in.

Lot of things went on this week. First and foremost you probably notice the new LJ design? I got sick of the hassles of modifying the old one, so I found a new one I liked and went with it.

Its been 4 years since I created my LiveJournal in a moment of extreme sadness. Its weird how things that were so important to you other people can forget so soon. I mentioned the circumstances leading to the creation of this to one of the people involved, and they had no recollection. I probably need to move on.

Earlier this week, maybe Tuesday(?) our lead developer gave me a case of beer for my hard work on a project I've been working on since before Christmas, which is finally going live.

Went a Kraftwerk concert with Jeff. who came down from Fargo for it, last night (Saturday). Ran into Nick Miller, its been a few I hesitate to say years since I've seen him last, didn't have too much to say to him. Had a good time. The PSD was quite high, heh... PSD is an arbitrary measurement Jeff and I came up with a few years back for measuring the Bass output of a speaker, it stands for "Pants shaking distance". As Jeff said last night though, there were points there where he could feel the bass in his muttonchops.

Up until a few hours ago I still had the band on, because I'm cool like that.

Well I should get to bed, so thats about it for now. I'll try and update again later in the week.

Planet of Sound

2008-03-19T01:09:20Z

As you probably notice on the left there theres something funky with my live journal, varying levels of funk depending on what browser your using. PC browsers seem to universally have more funk with it than mac browsers. This is from a failed renovation of my live journal that presented problems. Notice the beautiful drop shadow it allowed though, hehe. I’ll fix it soon enough, until then it’ll be a pain to get to my previous LJ pages, as if anyone other than I would want to do that.

I had prepared a post several days ago about how after nearly 2 months of colds I was feeling better, and how when your sick you forget how great it is to be healthy. Well the universe decided otherwise, and I’ve had a soar throat for a number of days now, not to mention last week getting out of the car last Thursday I hurt my hip and was in excruciating pain for nearly two days. Yeesh, so that’s why I’m not posting that post, hehe. That and I can’t find where in the heck I saved it.

Anyone have any musical recommendations? I’ve been listening to both these Weepies albums like 4 times a week for the last few weeks and despite how great the albums are, I’m growing tired of it. I’m listing to The Pixies – Surfer Rosa at the moment. I suspect what happened to The Pixies is what would have happened to Nirvana had Cobain not gone the martyrdom route, that is to say faded out, then come back for some mediocre reunion tour.

I’ve been oscillating between being in mild like with work and hating it the last couple weeks, its crazy.

Some more crazy:

Do I come off as mean? I’ve been thinking I’m mean lately, and I don’t mean to be mean. If you’ve thought I was mean to you I apologize, it was almost assuredly my austerity.

Also, side note, the worst thing that can happen to a person is not to want. I am nearly wantless and that that I do want is so far flung that I’ve written it off, not for exuberant price because things of extravagance fail to impress. The things I want are worthless, and yet would mean the world to me. I’ve spoke of this before, and Jeff, surely you know what I speak of as you had me explain it to you in detail at one point.

I feel as though I looked a gift horse in the mouth today, but alas I already had a horse, and I wanted to keep it for my self.

I need an adventure. Something to prevent my constant self criticism, and I await Japan for this exact purpose. I always need something to look forward to. This will do.

Any questions for me? I’ll try and answer them. I’m bored, nothing better to do.

I’ve recently fallen in love with JavaScript and its Lambda goodness in a way LISP could never show me. Mootools, a framework I’ve been using quite a bit, takes all the suck and a lot of the cross-browser badness out of JavaScript.

I’m thinking about buying another domain, though Oasisband.net is ignored enough as is. It just doesn’t seem the proper forum for my programming / css / design rants, did you enjoy that JavaScript rant? Probably not, that’s why this isn’t a proper forum for said topics either. And yes I know there are already thousands if not millions of said blogs, what could I add to the conversation? Not much, and yet I feel the need, burning in my soul.

I feel like I’ve been pestering people at work, I’ve certainly been pestering someone who may glance at this. I apologize but I’m just in a pestery mood.

Mischke’s podcast hasn’t been working for weeks, although… Checking… woot, they fixed it tonight. He’s only been broadcasting a few times a week anyway because of twins spring training anyway. I’ve been forced to listen to music at work, which is odd when having been listening to spoken word almost entirely since about October.

Well that’s a longer and more ranty post than I’ve had in a while.

With Love,

Jesse G. Donat

Enter the Dragon (it leave just as abruptly, wrong room)

2008-02-25T04:47:43Z

It’s about that time again. For some reason I feel obligated to continue to update my live journal despite nearly everyone else who once updated regularly having ceased.

So last Friday I went to get a copy of my birth certificate so I can get my passport (going to Japan with some friends but that’s for another more cognoscente post) following which I hit up Best Buy to see if they had any Xbox 360 Elites, I’ve been looking for one since I mailed in my dead 360 Pro over a month ago. They’ve been completely out of them this entire time, yet having an overflow of the “Arcade” models which leaves me to question whether or not they just weren’t stocking them in some attempt to sell Arcades, but alas. Anyway, on this Friday they had a fairly large stack of them, and I grabbed one from the back from some superstition about the front ones being hit by carts or such. I’ve re-downloaded all my old arcade games, and man I didn’t realize how much I missed having a 360, the social aspect of the system is just so much stronger than anything the other two offer, the ps3 for instance it’s the furthest right message, and my friend Andy hadn’t realized I’d sent him a message for several weeks despite using the system regularly. In contrast on the 360 the social is presented front and foremost. If someone sends me a message I know it right when I turn on my system. What’s more is that I will for instance quite often private chat with Paul while we play completely separate games, and all of this can be done while I listen to music I stream right off my iMac. I mean certainly the Playstation 3 will do all these things, but not concurrently, and that is why despite already being down a 360 its still my favorite system, and it will continue to be my preference for any and all multiplatform games until something major happens to upset that. Of course games that well utilize the PS3 or Wii’s motion sensing may be exceptions.

Anyway, to why I opened this line of thought to begin with: Assassins Creed. I had meant to buy this game for PS3 a little over a month ago, and when it arrived it was for 360, checking my order this was correct, so how I managed this I am uncertain. It had remained unopened until last night, ~10pm I saw a coworker on live playing it and thought I’d check it out. That game is pure crack cocaine. I didn’t stop playing until around 4am, when my dad came and asked why I was still up. He’d been having trouble sleeping. Today again, I played from around 11 am until 5 pm, and I am infact thinking about the game right now. It has an unexpected sci-fi twist, which Is forgivable, but at least for me detracts from my immersion.

Well, that’s about it for now I think. Its getting close to spring again, and we all know what that brings. Jeff (Yeah, I know you’re probably the only person going to read this anyway) is coming into town this week though, so that should hopefully help to lift my spirits.

Well, until I have more to say,
Jesse G. Donat

On The List of Most Depressing Things Ever...

2008-02-04T05:21:33Z

Today while rummaging through some things in the basement my dad found a box with my name on it. In the unopened box was a set of toy trucks, receipt dated 1992, and a birthday card from a dear dear family friend, Jerry Beverdorf (Beversdorf? Mail order receipt says the prior, spell check the latter) who passed a number of years ago now. My dad remembers him saying that I was probably too young for the toys and to hold onto them until I was old enough not to break them. I am happy and yet at the same time quite sad from this discovery. Attached below are pictures of the gift and card.

Short and Sweet

2008-01-19T05:09:37Z

Alright, first and foremost I’ve offended a friend. For this I apologize. It was a case of honesty probably not being the best policy, but if you’re reading this, it was honestly my complete and utter fear of social situations, and not meant to reflect on you, I’m just lame, I hope you can forgive me.

I’ve pretty much had that stuck in my head the last week. I’ve been on a project at work that’s not only huge, but also there’s no good way to approach it, I’d almost argue they’re asking too much from the existing code base, and its ending up taking a lot more time than I would like. I am quite disenchanted with the project, especially because I end up redoing things on it constantly, one aspect of it I worked on for a sizeable amount of this last week may have to be nearly completely redone in a far more excruciating manner because its not as flexible as we need. As I described the process to a Project Manager its like giving me a boat, and saying “Make it drive on land, but don’t impact its seagoing ability at all”. Alas, I try to avoid talking about work, especially on here.

Lastly, Microsoft Word 2008, woot. For some reason its always been my preference to write in Microsoft Word and since my switch to Mac (first the Mini, now this glorious 24 inch iMac) when I’ve wanted to use Microsoft word I’ve been having to run it in PowerPC emulation because Microsoft is lazy and refused to release a Universal Binary of Microsoft Office 2004. A Few days ago they released Office 2008 and finally a decent app to write in. I’ve got a number of complaints, in example the style of font chooser being like that of Macs from the early 90’s, but I digress.

donatj @ 2007-12-30T23:32:00

2007-12-31T05:35:22Z

It has been a little longer than usual since my last post, but frankly I’ve had little to write about.

Tonight is the last night of a week long vacation from work, although I will be having Tuesday off as it is New Years. The vacation was for the most part uneventful, some visits from relatives, some much needed work done on the site. With the lack of Television with the writers strike, I’ve managed to completely empty my news reader, as well as beat a number of video games I’ve been meaning to including Super Mario Sunshine after I don’t know how many years its been shelved (Told my self I had to beat it before Galaxy, which I’m at 97 stars in and have yet to do the final level because I want all the stars first). I finally tried Elebits as well as Trauma Center which I’ve had lying around unopened for several months now. Elebits was rather entertaining, and we all got a good “wtf” out of the Lung Bat virus in Trauma center whereas you had to cut the lung open and then shoot the bat with a laser.

I received everything I asked for for Christmas, mostly because the only thing I asked for was socks. It is a dream of mine to someday be able to wear a fresh pair of socks every day, as shamefully wasteful as that would be, I find nothing more satisfying, more comforting than a new pair of socks. Its the little things in life. I am in fact wearing as we speak a pair of black socks fresh from the bag. I also received a Fedora for christmas, I have never been a huge fan of the style, but I must admit it looks nice on me, probably better than any of my other hats. It is a tad small for my head, but well within an acceptable range. Hehe, we need to bring back the hat. How is a person to look respectable without a hat?

I still need to get out of the house more often, too much introspection will drive me insane, a good friend told me this and as time passes I find it to be more and more true. Begs the question though if simply keeping ones self busy is just some kind of blocking of a dangerous thought process. In a literature class I took there was talk of a poet, who’s name I cannot find for the life of me whose poetry at least in my instructors opinion was so increasingly introspective that eventually she just offed herself. Just begs the question at least in my mind whether to know one self is to hate one self? I was definitely of the opinion at the time around of high school graduation that the sum of any persons sins far outweighed their worth, an extreme view I no longer hold. Perhaps though more correct than even I believe?

Heh, lack of sleep makes me write insane things, in fact generally the only time I write is in times of mental exhaustion. I’ve found lately that in social situations I am a completely different person when suffering from at least minor exhaustion. Seemingly far more candid, far more human in fact, and that in it self to me at least begs a number of questions about the human mind and its most waking states, and how my different abilities, graces, and even mental capacity fluctuate wildly with mood, environment, and as circular as this is ‘mental state’ (A conceited piece of me likes to believe I work on some higher level of consciousness, but this of course is a grandiose delusion as the sane part of me is fairly willing to admit, and is more likely a side effect of my own social inadequacies). Alas, I’ll touch on this more later. Perhaps in an Oasisband Insight post after the new site launches.

For now, I have to work tomorrow, so I’ll write more later.

Here’s hoping for one or more interesting comments? Too much to ask? Surely. (most snide thing I've said, ever I think, I appologize).

Two Weeks Ago y Last Night

2007-11-25T06:06:50Z

I’ve been putting off writing this one for a while, and all things considered, I’ll be surprised if this goes up tonight.

I think I’ll break this up into two sections well presuming I post everything I want to.

So what’s happened. As most of you probably already know my grandma had been back and forth between the nursing home for I’m guessing a little over a month, after having hip replacement surgery she developed antibiotic resistant staph infection She passed roughly 2 weeks ago today. At almost the exact time of her passing our grandfather clock stopped. I find this a little spooky.

The following Friday we had the service. I can’t put my finger on it, but I honestly believe it was the best funeral I’ve been to, and I’ve been to far too many for someone of my age. My sister read from the bible and after refusing to read aloud to us to practice mispronounced the same word several times in a row, but otherwise did a very good job. Following this a family friend, Wally, went up and spoke of how my grandmother had helped him find his heritage as a Native American, and spoke of her character, along with mentioning our clock, and a stone he found the day she passed. He closed by singing a Sioux chant, the whole thing was very nice.

Alright, so on to something more recent.

Last night Paul had one of his shindigs, and as shindiggery goes it was one of his better in quite some time. Only a portion of who RSVP’d on facebook actually bothered to show, but this is to be expected. It was mostly who I’d consider the core of the group.

I don’t want to sound… I don’t even know a decent word for it… like someone who does nothing but complain about their life constantly, because I know enough people like that as it is, and I know I’ve been guilty of it in the past. About half way into the party I got this wave of depression. I know I usually get it post party from the realization that the fun is gone and it’ll be weeks to months until I do something again, but it struck me early last night, and I’m just wondering if its because I knew it was coming mixed with alcohol being a depressant, this has been bothering me all day. Alas, I just needed to get that down for some reason. It was later in the night canceled out by something to most people would be completely meaningless, but to me meant the world, and to name it here would be to identify how terribly lame I am, so I’m not going to do it, no way, now how. Just know that something happened last night I’m sure no one noticed, and it sure as hell made my day. I probably just need sleep, I’ll get to that soon here. The end of high school “I’m loosing my freaking mind!” that actually resulted in my creating of this live journal was likely due to lack of sleep, combined with the fact that I’ve since discovered I get very depressed in the first few weeks of spring for some mysterious reason. Man I am so lame… look at me writing this, I’m like a freeking emo.

I’ve got a video from last night I’m debating posting, if I do, I’ll save it for a later post. Its low quality, sadly I had my phone set to the lowest setting.

All right, lastly, I give you a listening recommendation. The album “In Our Bedroom After the War” by Stars. Its terribly contrived like most of their other works, and it just, its amazing, I bought if off Amazon maybe a week ago, and I haven’t quit listening to it since. Perfect timing, I am actually on the very last track of the album as I write this sentence, having started the album on beginning this post. Of course there will be post formatting, getting the image and what not, but still it’s a neat coincidence.

There were a few other topics I actually wanted to touch upon, but I'll save them for another night

The Last Few Weeks of my Life...

2007-10-21T05:28:05Z

So my last post wasn’t very informative… There was a lot going on, and rather than give you information half way into it I figured I’d hold off until everything was settled a little. So here it goes.

My sense of time is a little off lately (times been flying) so excuse any date estimates I give, as they’re probably wrong.

About three weeks ago my grandmother (Who has been sick for some time, and was given “weeks to a few months” to live by her doctors about a year and half ago) fell down in her bed room and broke not only her wrist, but her hip as well. I believe this was on a Friday. The doctors questioned whether or not to do hip surgery, as her odds for survival were grim. Not doing the surgery meant she would never be able to walk again, and there was no way she was having that. The doctors waited for her levels to get into the operable range, and after a few false starts it finally happened that Wednesday.

Now to side track a bit, my mother has had a lump she could feel with her hand in her abdomen for a while and she finally decided to see a doctor about it. Her first appointment was a bit prior to all this if memory serves, and her follow up appointment to run tests had been scheduled for that Wednesday previous to everything that had happened with her mother. She kept the appointment, the doctors found what they believed to be cancer, and scheduled surgery to remove it for the next Friday.

Side tracking a little more, my dog Chewy hasn’t been doing the best lately, on top of already being mostly blind and completely def. That Wednesday she had been particularly bad, according to my dad at one point falling into the flower bed and being unable to right herself. That Wednesday night, lying on a rug laid out for her in the Garage she passed. She will be missed.

So all in one night my grandmother goes in for surgery she isn’t expected to survive, my mom finds out she probably has cancer, and my dog dies. There’s actually one more thing to top all this off I haven’t told anyone yet, but for the sake of the party involved, I wish to see how that unfolds before discussing it. Talk to me privately if you’re interested in details.

Onward and upward, my grandmothers surgery was a success, and after a few more days recovering in the hospital she has been moved to a nursing home until she’s found to be able to take care of her self again. They’ve got her walking a little, but still not as much as would be liked.

My mother’s surgery went favorably as well, and several days later the pathology report found the abnormalities to in fact not be cancerous but rather tumors and she should make a full recovery. She’s been home, mostly bedridden since the surgery, but she’s doing well mostly.

At some point during this whole ordeal, I believe a day after my mother returned home, we heard our cat Cally fighting with something outside and my dad went to investigate, whereas he found a Calico kitten. He caught her, and put her in a small kennel until she warmed up to us. She’s been living with us for a few weeks now. Seems an odd turn of luck finding another animal so soon after one has passed… My sisters named her “Luna”, my dad suspects her to be about 10 weeks old, she meows every second she isn’t being played with it seems, and she’s cute as hell… So its something nice to come out of the last few weeks.

Well I think that about does it for this post. Thanks for reading…

Some More Sketches...

2007-09-30T09:47:16Z

Note: Theres some crazy stressful stuff going on with my family right now, I'll write about that in weeks to come as it happens, but until then I give you: sketches A year ago on October 12th I did a post of a bunch of my sketches. I figured it was about time to post some new sketches as I prepare for my anual Halloween image. Still am uninspired for that though. Anyway, heres some of my sketches, hope you like them, if anyone actually sees them, heh.

This ones been sent to the top of the list not because its the newest, but because its on the top of my list of things I've never done anything with but should. The story behind this one was my friend Jeff told me to make an image to something like a man from the future dreams of electric love... something like that, I checked my aim logs and couldn't find it. Alas. If you full view anything, I sugguest this.

I drew this one today actually when my little sister asked me to draw her an eagle. Best dressed eagle I've ever seen.

This one is one of what my friend has titled "One of your rare nearly finished peices" which is very true. I like it quite a bit actually. Made thisone yesterday actually... My friend Jeff is aparently freeked out by the lack of black keys on the keyboard.

Kind of just a mashup of Anime people and emo people, heh.

I really like this one, its fairly recent, just an exparament theres a face in there no one notices (huge nose on the left...)

One of a number of exparaments drawing "paper". One of the ones I'd say worth a full view

A second paper exparament. Not quite as cool though I am very happy with that section on the middle right.

This one is also one of my favorites, idea came to me from something a friend said while over at his house.

Yeah, I have to admit this one did indeed start as a chalice as a friend suspected, but it was too tempting

I wanted to demonstrate my "Amazing" 3 dimensional reasoning skills to a friend so thats basicly where this one comes from

Prtty much just another in a never ending streem of strange looking women

Ditto

Just a woman taking a bath...

Rocketman. Need I say more?

On Getting my new Wacom I promised my friend a picture of an organ in a Bamboo forest. I have yet to complete this task.

Kind of a crazy looking alien humanoid thing, I don't know, give me a break, jeeze.

An Old Man... not too much else to say

Everything is Dandy... next

This ones an oldie but a goodie. Thought I posted this one last time but didn't, this was drawn with a mouse actually using a little java applet

I think I made this one litterally a few days after the sketch post a year ago, yes it is indeed an invisible man playing a theremin.

A Comedy of Errors & They’re All Gone (Almost)

2007-08-26T04:14:49Z

So I came in to town this weekend with two agendas.

Firstly, I thought there’d be someone who hadn’t headed back to their associated schools who I could hang out with, though that view seems to have been mistaken. Paul who I did know would be in town actually left tonight, Saturday night, which I was unaware of. He was going to teach me to drive, but the car we were going to use had a small engine fire earlier in the week. Had I know this was going to happen I don’t think I’d’ve bothered staying in town. Alas. Well Alek is coming back for a few days I think, he went to New York to visit family, he’s there right now.

Secondly, I had intended to buy a TV [link] looking at this LCD, it’s the same one my friend Andy has. Went over to his house last week to check out his PS3 and was impressed with the picture. There’s also a Toshiba DLP I have my eye on, and while I have been nothing but impressed with our DLP in Watertown (Its going on 3 years old now) we did have to have it repaired once already, the bulbs only last around 4 years, and it does from time to time make the most god awful noises, so I’m kind of on the fence with that, though I have to imagine the technology has improved. It is an incredibly neat idea though, thousands of little mirrors on a chip actuated by tiny electromagnets. Seems like a much cooler idea than LCD in my opinion. They all seem so brute force to me though as compared to CRT, whereas a single electron gun fires electrons, whose trajectories are then controlled with electro magnets to find their desired position in the phosphor layer in the front, so elegant. There are more moving parts in a single pixel of an LCD than in an entire CRT. Step in the wrong direction you ask me. Anyway, long story short, first my dad had to pick my sister up from work on Friday (she got a job at subway) when we were first going to go TV shopping. Then he said this morning he’d call me before he came in, and I waited and waited for the call, working my day around it. Ends up he decided to mow the lawn (in Watertown this is an 8 hour job) instead, and didn’t call me until ~7 pm. He said we could go TV shopping Sunday, but I declined as I wouldn’t be able to use the thing for a week.

Other Notes: I locked myself out yesterday accidently, after ordering a pizza. I went over to the neighbors across the street to use their phone, and the pizza showed up. Luckily I had the cash I laid out for the pizza in my pocket, though nothing else, not my keys nor my wallet. Then when my mom did show up to let me in I went to greet her, stepped off the curb and onto a rock I did not see and twisted my ankle, what luck! The pain at first was terrible, but it subsided in about 30 seconds while I stumbled around trying to catch myself. This was around 6:30 pm. It was fine until about 10pm when it started to dull ache, I told Paul and he said I should put ice on it, so I went down stairs to get an ice pack. Upon getting up the stairs I begin to realize that its hurting about 1000x more than it had before heading down stairs… Excellent. At this point I honestly believe it’s broken. I’ve never broken, twisted, or really sprained anything, so I wouldn’t know the difference. I call my parents because the pain is becoming unbearable, and I don’t have any pain killers because I use them at most once a year. I tell them I think my leg is broken. They tell me to call them in the morning because doctors won’t be able to do much in the first 24 hours anyway. I go to sleep with the ice pack on my leg, today it still aches some but it’s bearable, no huge problem walking on it or anything, so I doubt its broken as I thought last night.

I keep feeling like I should write something decent. I’ve never been much of a writer, though I do write large volumes more than I probably should, but it has been suffering lately. I blame mainly decent amounts of sleep, as I do most of my writing / drawing / anything artistic while mostly out of it. I’ve got some thoughts I want to get out there that I’ve been building up, but I’ll probably save them for the Insight section of Oasisband, heh, where even fewer people will read them. I’m also got an idea for a system where I can post and manage things like this in multiple places, though I’m probably just going to create something with yahoo pipes. Oh well.

Well looking back this is probably one of most boring posts, feel free not to read it if you like.

Well, thats about all there is to it.

2007-08-13T05:03:52Z

Well it seems like lately I don’t have much to write about, so I’ll just talk about what I’ve been up to lately.

A week ago friday I went on a boat cruise on Lake Minnetonka with work. I am still as socially inept as ever though, but luckily I was among programmers, so at least I wasn’t alone in this. No offence to anyone from work actually reading this.Then that night I hung out with Jeff and Alek, both of whom are only in town for a few weeks, Jeff leaves next, I’m uncertain when Alek leaves. We watched “City of God” which I actually enjoyed quite a bit, and “Quills”, which could have been good but wasn’t.

Fairly uneventful week at work, cleaned off my desk again, which is always nice. Worked on a fairly large number of sites, little things mostly. Got a lot of things on hold, waiting on content, server settings, etc. Air Quality, my first “e-comerce solution” or the more colloquially and officially avoided term ‘cart’ as it has been known to freak out some clients “We didn’t want a cart! We wanted an e-comerce solution!” Yikes.

Hung out with Jeff and Andy this Friday, I burned a DVD to watch, which didn’t work in Jeff’s DVD player for some reason, and none of us were really in the mood to watch 300 which he had rented, so we sat around watching Univision or whichever spanish channel it is you can get on broadcast and ate cookies. It should be mentioned that Jeffs house has a bee hive somewhere unknown in it, and was indeed full of bee’s. This made me... less than comfortable. Apparently the week previous there had actually been a squirrel spotted, which they later captured. Crazy.

Saturday I was sitting at home, alone at about 9:30 and suddenly the door bell rings. I am hesitant to go down there, but I peek out the window and see no one. I go down there eventually, and there’s no one out there, so I get on my computer and comment to a few friends about how odd it was and then I receive an IM from my friend Todd who its been a few months since I’ve seen. He says “Did someone ring your doorbell about 8 minutes ago?” to which I reply “It was you!” and being a smart ass he replies “Nope” Anyway we hung out for a few hours, watched an episode of some anachronistic anime with space ships, and steam trains and the what not. It was decent, then we watched the first half of the live action Casshern, which was alright at best. It had a need kind of mixed time line feel as well, it was definitely the future but more as the 1930’s envisioned the future. Kind of like whatshisface and the world of tomorrow but with a definite Japanese twist. Allow me to quote my self while I watched the film to give you my level of confusion. “So thats the guy, he’s dead. Now thats his ghost? And that... thats his zombie clone? no? Just some other random zombie clone? But his father definitely brought his corpse back to life right?” Heh, the movie was decent. Either way it was nice to see Todd and to see he’s doing better.

As a final note Mountain Goats are just such an awesome band. The line from Deianara Crush off the album Sweden "And you tell me that Hercules died, burned, consumed by an article of his own clothing. Thats something I'd rather not be reminded of" just strikes me as amazing, always has. Everyone reading this should give the album Sweden by The Mountain Goats a listen, probably my favorite album, by my favorite band.

⁄¡Música Recomendations en la cara de Impresionante!

2007-07-15T08:06:30Z

Heh, I feel like when I don't have anything to whine about I don't have anything to write on my journal... I can whine about that I suppose.... Shows how boring a person I am, when things are going AOK, I'm dull. I trimmed my beard, that get me anything? No? Ok.

I give you now some Music Recommendations. There is sooo much I could put on this list that I'm goingg to limit it to just what I've been listening to lately. (Jeff, I'm sure you've heard most of these from me already):

Artist - Album

Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
[Very Quickly Became one of my all time favorite albums]

Andrew Bird - Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production Of Eggs
[Gloriously Instrumented, Lyrical Genius that hits you days later.]

Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die
[An amazing album, and if for nothing else listen to 1:30-2:15 of 'In Case We Die Pts. 1-4']

Stars - Set Your Self on Fire
[A more serious feeling... serious isn't the right word... robust? A better Architecture in Helsinki]

Lambchop - Damaged
[Understatedly Awesome. Tops my list of favorite albums]

The Juan Maclean - Less Than Human
[Very different from anything else on the list, *almost* techno... I can't really classify it, but it will pull you in to be certain]

Self - Breakfast With Girls
[I initially hated this album. The beats are thick and unforgiving. The lyricism lacks in spots, but is guaranteed to satisfy. Its almost pop, with a strong electric backbeat, and lyrics ranging from moronic to brilliant. I strongly recommend it, and listening to it *until* you like it, because you will, eventually.]

Mandalay - Empathy
[This ones an exception to the rule, I haven't listened to this much lately, but its a great album. It is very often mislabeled Portishead, which is a shame because Mandalay deserves credit for this great album. I can see how it would be mistaken as Portishead though]

Well, this has been my post proving I'm still alive. Peace, out.