"My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?" — David Mitchell
Since the only real excitement thus far this month has been a (*ahem*) roundabout flight to Salt Lake City nine days ago, it seems that another subject for a journal entry is needed. While spending a very, very long time at the airport I started going through photos from the Autumn 2009 road trip and found a few more that I kind of liked:
There is a line in the James Clavell book Shogun that I’ve always liked:
“Always remember, child,” her first teacher had impressed on her, “that to think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral you down into ever-increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort.”
In a world where the country is fighting three wars, the economy is looking at its third straight bad year, and the environment is seemingly headed to ruin, it can be easy to overlook good news, but there are a lot of things going on that are worth feeling positive about:
It’s nice to step back occasionally and get a reminder of why, despite constant predictions of doom and gloom, the future continues to be a hopeful one. The comments link is available for anyone wanting to spread some additional positivity, as good news should definitely be shared.
The first of many Brother Days took place last weekend with a trip to San Clemente (roughly the halfway point between Culver City & San Diego). Seafood was eaten, baseballs and basketballs were thrown, and minor injuries were sustained. All-in-all a smashing success. Another highlight of the day was a new game – to answer the question “how hard is acting”, we decided the best option was to come up with lines and deliver them; it is apparently tougher to be a pirate, checkout clerk, or random pedestrian than might have previously been suspected.
Following Brother Day I flew to Utah for a week of work in the snow. Upon returning home Audrey and I became proud members of the Aquarium of the Pacific, where, amongst dozens of tanks, the best exhibit is clearly the birds. They’ve got an enclosure that you can walk through with a cup of nectar and be swarmed by colorful birds – the “lorikeet hunger meter” was at “very hungry” when we entered, and three of the voracious animals immediately landed on Audrey when she emerged from the entrance; good times. The aquarium’s fish weren’t bad, either, particularly a sea horse that looked like a plant, a sawfish (aka carpenter shark), and a giant pacific octopus. As card-carrying aquarium members we’ll likely be back a few times in the coming year.
The hope that March would yield journal-worthy moments has not been fulfilled; things remain slow in the world of Holliday. The most notable events over the past weeks have been the bi-weekly trips to Park City, Utah to be onsite at Backcountry. The specific project that they brought me back to work on has since been postponed until later this year, and in the interim I’ve been relegated to a “fill-in” role, helping out where needed. Some days have seemed a little long.
Aaron left Vail to take a new job in San Diego, making a monthly brother get-together a certainty. Sadly the major attractions located halfway between my home in Culver City and his abode in San Diego are a sprawl of stripmalls and a nuclear generating plant that looks like boobs, so our outings might not be as exciting as one would hope. Still, never bet against the Holliday brothers finding odd ways of entertaining ourselves.
And lastly, because it would be a shame to end a post without pictures of little dogs in motion, photos of basset hounds running single-handedly justifies every dollar that has ever been spent to create the internet.
A handful of moderately interesting bits that may or may not be worth recording:
And with that, February now has three journal entries. Hopefully March will yield slightly more material and the last minute panic entries can be avoided.
The three entry a month goal is being put to the test at month two… that can’t be a good sign. Sadly February hasn’t offered up many journal-worthy moments, but a handful of highlights from the last two weeks include:
Things may stay a bit slow through March and April, although the current work contract could potentially end on April 30, leaving the possibility for adventure during the very beautiful month of May…
I’ve spent the past two weeks in Park City, Utah, trying to remember what warmth felt like – the temperature bottomed out at -17°F, and my first night involved a forty mile drive through a snowstorm on roads that caused a pickup truck in front of me to fishtail for a good thirty seconds before the driver was finally able to regain control. Luckily I had been given a Chevy Aveo by the rental company, a car that was apparently designed to handle as much like a boat as possible during inclement weather; I was fairly relieved to eventually arrive at the hotel alive and in one piece.
The work this time around has thus far primarily been technical project management, which means lots of meetings, spreadsheets, and tasks other than coding – it will be nice when/if things move on to design and programming, but in the mean time I am the master of the SWAG.
Outside of work, last weekend was spent in Carmel visiting Audrey, who was working on a studio in the downtown area. A free room in Carmel is all good, and when she wasn’t working we enjoyed the scenery and some good food. I attempted two runs while there, but a note for anyone considering doing the same: one of the reasons why Carmel is pretty is because of the evil, evil hills that will sap your will to live should you decide to do some jogging. The 17 Mile Drive is much less appealing when you realize that the first mile is all uphill.
In addition to Carmel, last week included a trip to meet Aaron, Dave Pugmire, and Dave’s family for dinner. The Goob was driving from Vail to San Francisco after spending the winter snowboarding, and Dave lives in Heber, twenty miles outside of Park City. I’m not a big fan of kids, but Dave managed to make a couple of good ones, and we enjoyed a fun dinner and a nice trip out to Heber’s ice castles before I had to head home.
January wasn’t supposed to be the month of bird photos, it just sort of worked out that way. Here are two more from the pond next to where Audrey & I live in Culver City:
Full-time work at Backcountry will resume at the end of the month, but in the mean time here are two more photos from the recent La Jolla trip:
I spent yesterday and today in La Jolla attempting to photograph birds since it’s a good time of year for animals, hotel rates are distressingly low, I am at least temporarily my own boss, and an occasional trip to La Jolla is just plain old good sense. After about three hundred photos of seabirds in flight my talent for taking pictures of headless, blurry birds has been re-affirmed; call if you are in need of that skillset.
Having never been to La Jolla expectations were limited, but the town is now high on the list of places to visit regularly. Between seals, sea lions, pelicans, cormorants, gulls, and even a peregrine falcon there was a massive amount of wildlife on display. The photographs below are a handful of the keepers from the trip. Special thanks to Phillip Colla, someone I’ve never actually met but whose guide to photographing pelicans in La Jolla inspired the short road trip.
Following a recent and disturbing annual tradition, here are the predictions for the year to come. Based on past history, anyone with any sense should assume that the vast majority of the predictions below will be so utterly wrong as to shame a man with any dignity into never again putting in writing his thoughts on the coming year.
2010: 10,841 downloads
2009: 9,191 downloads
2008: 11,146 downloads
2007: 7,898 downloads
There they are, the fearless and (likely) completely wrong predictions for 2011. Check this space again in a year for the retrospective, and add your thoughts, predictions, and insults via the comments link.
Following a massive number of incorrect predictions for 2009, here’s the wrap-up of my predictions for 2010; clearly no one will ever mistake me for Nostradamus.
The rocket launched successfully in June, and a second launch took place in December. This is a big deal for anyone interested in space, and, even though I was off by a month on the launch date, this scores as a correct prediction since I’m doing the scoring.
When this prediction was made there was near universal agreement that the bill was dead, yet it passed about a month later. Two out of two so far for the prediction game, but it’s all downhill from here.
He was back for the Masters, then didn’t win a single tournament. Historically I think my record for sports-related predictions stands at something like zero-for-ten…
Everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times says this is happening in early 2011, but that doesn’t make my prediction any less wrong.
Another rare correct prediction. It rose from about 10,200 at the beginning of the year to close at 11,577 at the end of the year.
The program has effectively been canceled, although budget wrangling is keeping some aspects of it alive. While this scores as a correct prediction, in fairness anyone who is a big space dork would see this as a very safe prediction given the public pronouncements prior to the actual cancellation.
The Beatles came through for me, but Garth held out.
I don’t want to talk about this one.
Nope, didn’t happen. 2011 may be a different story though.
This prediction was spectacularly wrong. Democrats now have 53 Senate seats and 193 House seats, so I was only off by… A LOT.
They did do a very successful IPO, and the Model-S has slipped to 2012, but the new plant will be in Fremont. Two out of three ain’t bad.
…and it hasn’t changed. Things have been relatively quiet in that corner of the world after a very noisy 2009.
This is a prediction that probably should have waited until 2012. Oops.
Another prediction that would have made a lot more sense for 2012. When they do finally announce it I’m definitely going to want one.
Although Jane says China is already selling cars in Asian markets, I’ll be surprised to see them in the US for another 2-4 years. My prediction batting average continues to fall into the “scary bad” range.
While 2010 tied for the third most named storms and second most hurricanes in history, they mostly stayed out to sea or weren’t very severe when they did make landfall. Given the potential for damage, this is actually a good one to be wrong about, even if it is another blemish on an otherwise ugly prediction scorecard.
Nailed it! That’s right, for every month of 2010 there were at least two entries in the journal, even if many of them did come on one of the last days of the month.
The game will continue with predictions for 2011 coming soon, and the comments link is there for anyone who wants to join in the pain fun.
