Digital Meditations

I spent my childhood filling buckets with wisps of accomplishments.

Now I have started to see; giving is the only way to fill them up.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

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25) I first started programming when I was in middle school. I would skip recess to chill in the library and code in BASIC.

24) I have been singing A cappella since I was in high school. First as a founding member of what was eventually called "Live from the Men's Room", then in "Kaskeset" in college, and now in "Slapdash Graduate".

23) My most amazing singing moment was singing Biebl's Ave Maria with 100+ men at a Cornell Homecoming concert.

22) I first took serious photos in middle school with my Grandfather's camera to take B&W photos and develop them in a dark room with the help of my elementary school art teacher. Now I do gigs as a concert photographer and the occasional gig for a local paper.

21) My humor has been greatly influenced by the insanity of online content. End of Ze World, Rejected and Homestar Runner to name a few.

20) Given the option, I prefer to observe than interact. This influences just about everything, for example my photographic style leans heavily on candid portraiture and found object.

19) I test extremely well with little effort. I graduated with the highest combined regents score in my class.

18) I tend to bite off more than I can chew, then burn out and get discouraged. When I'm able to let things happen organically its much better.

17) I tend to feel like I let my life lead me instead of leading it. However, I think the reality is I'm good at putting myself in the right place at the right time somewhat instinctually.

16) I spend a lot of time trying to optimize my life. Its not always healthy.

15) I went through a phase where I would watch Extreme Make Over Home Edition so I could cry at the end when they reveal the new house.

14) Ever year I make the trip back to Ithaca to camp out, drink, smoke, dance, and revel in life with the best people I know at Grassroots festival.

13) I've traveled in North America, South America, Europe, and the Middle East.

12) I hated running until I forced myself the summer after graduating grad school to run. I ran a 5k on a tread mill 6 mths later and a 5k road race 6 mths after that. I think a 10k is in my future.

11) I believe humanity is good at its core but we tend to forget it.

10) I don't believe in a deity but I liked when I was observant and still find a lot of comfort in ritual. I also understand the instinct to give appreciation towards a larger something when confronted with the awesome grandeur of nature and humanity.

9) I lost 30+ pounds after college. I think that had a profound effect on my happiness. More so then I tend to remember.

8) I have a strong yearning for deep human connection but I'm very selective regarding who I want that with.

7) I believe in fairness and equality above any sort of allegiance to an arbitrary subsection of humanity. However, I very inspired by those who have a deep loyalty to their "group" whatever that might be.

6) I think I'm afraid of my emotions.

5) I like minimalist structures, thoughts, processes, ideas, design. I enjoy the simplicity and elegance of the solution. This makes for an interesting dichotomy of having paper notebooks and a free cell phone while being the most web 2.0 enabled person I know.

4) I read more rss feeds, have more facebook friends and twitter followers, listen to more podcasts, than just about anyone else I know.

3) I find anger confusing, there's no reason for it. It just hurts you.

2) I have jumped from a plane, found it boring. I hope bungee jumping is more thrilling. SCUBA on the other hand is pretty sweet.

1) I have found 3 women so far who I can't get out of my head. I hope that it won't take too many more before I find one that sticks.

0) I am very aware of how my actions, purchases, habits, activities, etc. impact this world and I try and minimize that impact wherever possible.

9:30 am Our cto just said he was at a store with beats and Crunchy Shit and the gestured at me. Nice.

3:45pm At the company off site. Thanks to cisco for the previous lazer tag training I was two time high scorer.

4:00 pm Now we are on the party trolly. Ya thats right, the party trolly.

5:00 pm Now im on barcast

8:15pm Just blew a 1.7

8:30pm Getting crunk at the locamoda party. Its crazy

8:45pm I hate being this buzzed

My friend John is biking cross country and needs your help. Hes looking for couches and backyards to crash on. Check out his route and let him know if you can help out. Hes a great guy and who wouldn't wanna help out someone on a cross country biking trip!?

http://www.john.stechschulte.net/stay.html

Came across this lovely idea here.

After trying a few mobile photo blogging sites that don't work at all (like can't even get a photo to upload to them) it looked like I was going to be forced into using flickr to auto post on LJ. (Cool that they do that but I still dislike Yahoo). Luckily I realized that tumblr would work perfectly for this so I now have http://crunchyjewfood.tumblr.com. I thought of using twitpic but I want something a bit less ephemeral.

http://www.benwillmottmusic.com/photos.html

Check out the photo credits!

Monetary Goals:

After a month without income while between jobs I'm finally back on my feet. No real cash on hand but the credit card is back to being paid off in full each month, I just rolled my Cisco 401k over into an IRA and signed up for the 401k at work. Not really thrilled about the options there but the tax benefits still make it worth while. At this point I am maxing out my Roth IRA and I'm contributing to the 401k at a rate which, if I were doing it for the full year would have maxed that out as well. My goal at this point is to re-asses my savings plan (beyond retirement) once I see what my paycheck looks like after the 401k contribution. I need to get back to contributing to an emergency fund and a tzedakah fund, the short term saving fund is up in the air since it makes life less stressful to just keep that in my checking account. I'm also trying to get back to tracking cash purchases. Everything else is taken care of by Mint

Fitness Goals:

I ran my first 10k without walking on Friday, felt great. I did it in 1hr 1min so I'm not focused on getting that below 1hr. However, I'm not sure I can find the time to run a 10k that often, probably once a week on the weekends. Meanwhile I'm gonna continue focusing on getting my 5k under 25 min. Haven't run one in a while so not sure where I stand on that. I had to take a few weeks off after my cycling accident. I also want to get back to doing a great dumbbell routine from StrongLifts since that slipped as well. For now I can do all of this in and around the home but I'll probably have to look into a gym when the weather turns south. The question is if I want to keep to the morning routine or switch to a lunch time or evening routine.

Spiritual Goals:

Still working hard on the meditation goal here. I keep falling off the horse. However, I just got the new schedule from the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center which reminded me that they are around the block from work. They do a wed night sitting and Dharma talk which I'm going to look into. I'd really like to get to a daily 30 min practice in the morning, particularly if I move my work out routine. I'm also going to include spending less time on a computer and more time on the back porch as part of this goal. I find myself very relaxed sitting outside on the porch reading, playing guitar or doing just about anything else.

Interpersonal Goals:

This is probably the hardest section. I've have a real desire focus on my friends as of late but its a much harder subject to have specific, measurable goals around. I'm gonna start with sharing a meal or drink with someone (other than co-workers) once a week.

Professional Goals:

Photography is the shining star of accomplishment at the moment. I have finished running through every picture I've taken since buying a digital camera. The best ones have been tweaked, tagged, and uploaded to smugmug. I'm now blogging them 3x a week on wordpress and submitting them to vazzar where I have already been featured twice. I've sent emails out to The Phoenix and The Weekly Dig to see if they are interested in having me do any event photography and I have been approached by a friend's band about being paid for shooting one of their upcoming Boston gigs.

On the technology front I have started a professional wordpress blog and kicked it off with an initial posting. I hope to post weekly.

Well, the stitches are out and the healing is coming together quickly. Wait, I should back up.

A week ago Saturday I got up early after an evening out with the Slapdash Graduate guys, grabed some breakfast, and hopped on my bike headed towards MIT to play a friendly game of ultimate. As I cruised down Mass Ave, looking for for my turn, I realized that I'd gone too far. At the next available side street I cut in looking for an alternate route and instead I found a dead end. I pulled a U turn and thats where my memory ends.

Next thing I remember is waking up in an Ambulance, I pass out again, and wake up at Mass General Hospital. Six hours, a head/neck CT, x-ray, and 13 stitches later I'm finally released. I called my housemate to have him pick me up only to get a call back 15 min later to let me know that I have a flat on my car and he can't come to get me. I cab it home.

Stage One: Denial
The next 48 hours are actually a lot of fun. Between hanging out, skipping work, watching movies, and receiving lots of get well calls and messages I was a pretty happy camper.

Stage Two: Anger
However, the reality of it all caught up with my by Monday evening. Upon going to bed I wanted nothing more than to wake up and have it all be over. But of course it wasn't. I was pissed that I hadn't paid more attention, I might have been able to prevent the whole thing.

Stage Three: Bargaining
I think I slept through this one.

Stage Four: Depression
On Tuesday I tried going back to work which was certainly too soon but I was getting stir crazy at home. I ended up being incredibly unproductive though I did enjoy getting out of the house, I ended up heading home early, exhausted, both physically and mentally. I crawled into bed defeated.

Stage Five: Acceptance
I woke up Wed and decided to work from home. After a moderately productive morning I went for lunch with Jen which ended up being an enjoyable two hour break. I came home feeling recharged by the personal interaction. Riding that wave I ended up cooking up a storm listening to podcasts and great music. It was exactly what I needed. Between the music and the meditative cutting, chopping and stirring I got out of my head and just relaxed. After I cleaned up I spend the evening hanging out and chatting with good friends, still wanting to feed that need for human interaction. By the time I woke up Thursday I was feeling great.

The stitches came out on Friday and now on Monday most of the scabbing has fallen off. There is gonna be some noticeable marks for the near term but even if it doesn't get any better the scaring is probably gonna look pretty cool.

( If you wanna see a nice pic, check it out here )