Straight Edge Life

Just woke up. I was up pretty late last night programming. Still got a bit left to do before I’m done but it shouldn’t take too much time. It’s been a weird week. Like most of my weeks it’s been a blur. But it’s also been a little bit sad. My mom died from cancer on August 31st. This week, not so many years ago. I think for the rest of my life I will take that day to recognize that nothing is, or ever will be, as important as my family. This year it has been more like a full week as I have spent the majority of this week alone in my office. And trust me, being busy with work can never be busy enough to push something like this to the back of your mind.

This place, this house keeps me connected with everything that I love about my family. Both my old family and with the family I hope to start in the future. I can never be thankful enough for everything my parents selflessly gave or gave up to protect my childhood and to raise me as well as they knew how. They taught me about all the reasons to become straight edge and all the reasons to stay that way. They taught me about all the reasons to respect the people in my life, all people, and to respect the world around me. I can only hope I will have the courage not to bend when it comes time to show these beliefs to my own children. The strength to teach, the strength to show my own children an even better life than I had growing up. More importantly, to teach them how to find their own ways of staying healthy and loving life.

Anyway… I’ll be offline for a week or so. Heading out on a roadtrip. Back to a few familiar places to take a few unfamiliar photos I hope.

The dual exhaust of my twin G5 tower is like a pair of hair dryers in this room. A nice effect in winter, but not so much on a hot day like today. No doubt sensing the instability in my own mind, iTunes jumps chaotically from track to track with about as much continuity as a bingo card. Alpha Blondy, NOFX, Stevie Wonder. This unsettled mind of mine is getting to be a pain. I need clarity. I need the arrow. Direction.

I need peace between my heart and my brain. No… I don’t even care about that. Right now they are on equal ground, canceling each other out. It’s just not working. What I wish is that my heart would stop listening to my brain and just take over the whole show. For as much shit as my heart drags me through it always feels worth it in the end. Whereas I have never, ever, felt incredible after making a nice well-thought-out rational decision. No matter how safe and smart it may be to do that, it’s soulless. It’s a painful way to exist. And I’m put myself there not by getting good at being safe and rational, but by ignoring my heart. Rationality is the by-product of heartless decisions.

I stand when I need to jump. I know what needs to be done, what my direction is and where I am going to go. What remains to be done is to clear out the roadblocks, shut up, and just do it. This rational life I’ve built is not for me. I can think of a thousand things I’d rather be doing.

For some reason I thought this movie was going to be a bit scarier. I didn’t expect it to be so much the suspense thriller type thing that it was. And that’s ok, because it’s a good movie. In some ways it’s very plain, almost vanilla in it’s story line. A bit implausible, almost annoyingly so at a couple of points. But It’s not the story that makes this movie work. It’s the acting. It’s the camera work, it’s the general intensity of it. Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy work very well together. And there’s something just creepy about Cillian’s eyes when he plays those evil roles that just makes him totally believable. And Rachel, playing the victim, did a solid as hell job in maintaining a believable part herself. I definitely recommend this to someone looking for a good way to pass a few hours on a hot summer day. You won’t be bummed you saw it.

Ok, so here’s a hint to all house mates of the world. When any of your other house mates are gone away on a trip, be it for work, pleasure, or family emergency, don’t go into their rooms in their absence. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that it’s an invasion of privacy. Another reason might be because the house mate that’s gone just might really value his privacy… and have a redundant alarm system with boatload of motion sensors, alarms, triple power supplies and video cameras. An alarm system which faithfully notifies it’s owner, a second party as a backup and the police day or night, rain or shine on a redundant phone system. An alarm system which is very capable of revealing the trustworthiness of everyone in the house besides it’s owner.

I’m pretty bummed about this. The alarm worked while I was away. Which is great. I’ve done enough testing of the system, I wasn’t really expecting it to fail. But it sucks because I’ve technically experienced my first home invasion. By a housemate, who went into my unlocked but alarmed bedroom while I was away.

I think everyone has roommate and housemate horror stories. I used to live with this dude who threw spaghetti on the wall to see if it was ready to eat. It would fuse to the paint by the time anyone noticed in the morning. And of course we refused to clean up his mess, got mad at him and tried to get him to clean it off, which he never did… I guess that’s not so bad, but it was definitely annoying. I mean tonight… I have no idea if my housemate was looking to sniff my underwear, steal my data, steal my movies, fuck someone on my bed or borrow a book. And I don’t like that.

So here I am, awake a few thousand miles away from my home… knowing there’s someone still in my house that I sure as hell don’t trust.

I love the summer meteor showers in Oregon. A few nights ago I was driving up to Portland with Gabe and they were streaking across the sky in front of us. So cool. And with an evening like this, all warm and comfy, I’m psyched just to sit on this patio and stare straight up.

Ok, so do yourself a favor and don’t mix generic toilet bowl cleaner and lysol. I did just this in my downstairs bathroom this afternoon, creating a rather large quantity of vinegar smelling misty smoke stuff. Had to clear out of there for a while, returning only 10 minutes later with a rag over my mouth and a broomstick to flush the cleaners away. Yup, that’s right… it’s cleaning time. Got a house mate moving in tomorrow. I’m trying to make the place a bit more presentable. I’m made a hard promise to keep all public areas clean. No exceptions. I’m convinced that keeping my place clean is feasible only in inverse proportion to the quantity of things in my place. The less shit, the easier it is to keep it tidy. I’m getting a complex about this. Being stuck here with all this stuff for the last month has driven me to the verge of breakdown. It’s maddening. You should see my car. It’s like almost really clean inside. My laptop bag, my camera bag… organized. It feels so out of character but it feels so good to bring order out of chaos.

Ok, so I had an excellent meeting yesterday morning. The last 48 hours have sort of been a blur with work and the house and all that crap, and I couldn’t sleep for shit the night before because my kitten decided to play shredding machine on my ear. I wasn’t in tip-top shape for this meeting. I was exhausted, but shaven and clean. Which is good because there’s nothing worse than a stinky and groggy contractor coming into your office trying to partner up on a project.

Anyway… Out of weird coincidence this meeting was all about the stuff I was talking about yesterday. The folks I met with were potential customers, not clients. Clients make you work, customers pay you for work you’ve already done with the hope that you would eventually get paid for it. You know, work I did because I wanted to and because I loved it rather than work I did because I was just getting paid. So yeah… the meeting was photography related and fun and made me feel so optimistic. I feel like I’ve very quickly taken a fast step back towards the direction I want to focus my life. Photography. It’s not a huge thing. It’s not going to let me retire or anything, but it’s something. And something is better than nothing. Makes me smile.

Ok, to bed.

As my friend Gabriel said “that cd mellows me the fuck out” and “…it’s like the road-rage vaccine”. I have to agree. Whenever I pop In Between Dreams into my iTunes sequence I pretty much instantly get into a better mood. Stress level goes down a bit, things get better. It’s a great CD. And all the girls LOVE Jack Johnson so if you’re looking for a nice gift grab it for your girlfriend. Assuming she doesn’t already have it, and a big poster of him up on her wall. I give it a clean 10/10. There’s nothing about this album that I would change.

I know no other way to get something off my mind than to get it off my plate.

The truth of it is that I let myself get totally hijacked. I had this plan about 8 years ago to build a stock photography system to help me manage and sell my digital images. I knew it was the way. The way to independence as a photographer. The way to life on the road traveling, writing and shooting as an independent journalist.

I had no damn idea how much I would need to learn to make it happen. I had no idea how much time it would take, or how exhausting that time would be. I didn’t know that it would be endless hours learning endless languages. I had no idea that it, in effect, would change me from a photographer into a programmer. But it happened. Silently and forcibly.

So there I was, 28 and realizing that my marriage was a failure, that I was pretty damn depressed, miserable in my job, hadn’t photographed for months and basically programmed only because it let me lose myself in a world of logic, structure and predictability. Safety. How messed up is that?

After that realization and the subsequent realization that I was taking on more and more demanding programming jobs (not related to Pixenter), I started to realize that programming had other uses. It paid the bills. And paid them well. I could feel my mind sharpening at the same time, and that was attractive to me. I actually felt smarter after facing the crazy array of problems you face when programming these systems. I’m sure any programmer understands what I’m talking about. This stuff can be hard. And you have to be good at getting better if you’re going to make a living at it. I’ve never really felt smart before. Sensitive, yes. Aware, sure. Artistic, maybe. Talented, yes (or so people at my first photography job kept telling me). But never really smart. I got good enough grades, but this was different. After programming for a while I definitely felt like I could solve problems rather than just watch them and interpret. The outsider perspective of an artist, or photojournalist.

So, programing started to take another role in my life: a tool. A tool for getting out of debt. A tool for feeling better about myself. I started to enjoy programming. it was useful, and in some ways actually fun.

Sadly, programming wasn’t supposed to be a goal in itself. And this is when I realized that I had totally lost track of my original reason for programming. To serve my photography. So there I was (and still am), taking on more jobs, enjoying the work, making customers happy, building a business. Hiring people, joining the chamber of commerce. Still paying my bills.

It feels like a big circle. I’m coming back to where I started. For as much as I hijacked myself (and gone some cool places) I have not forgotten that I am a photographer and that I have a desire to work and live as such. I have only one bid out for a new project and only three projects on my plate at the moment. If we get this next project, it will be my last major programming project. If I don’t, the current projects will be my last. I need to get myself back on track. Any new incoming projects will be handled by someone else inside the company, or referred to another company. I’d rather be involved with maintenance, upkeep, hosting, and development of photography related systems. The major projects take over your life.

Ok. I’ve written enough for tonight. Back to work.

P.S. I got a kitten. A friend found it abandoned in an apartment complex. He’s in a box. So adorable it makes me want to hurl.

A system to help you keep track of your fitness level and workouts