stevengharms

Ho ho howdy.

I saw a horrible movie from the 80’s. “Slam Dance”. Terrible.

I saw a very good, albeit intense movie from a few years back, “Mean Creek”. It was a bit like “Stand By Me” but with a body count. I have to give incredibly praise to the adolescent and teen actors in this movie. They all showed skill beyond their years. Particularly impressive was Josh Peck playing a bully with more complexity and depth than such a character is usually given when Our Hero is the smaller picked-on kid.

A lot of great and heavy questions were asked: who has the right to judge, if you could kill your tormentors would you, the bond between brothers…it was all there and very, very real.

I saw some good lighthearted fare as well. My sister and Lauren and I went over to the Alamo and caught the new Will Smith movie. It was, of course, pretty by the numbers. Hard situation, adversity, more adversity, and through pluck and luck and determination it all works out. It’s good for the holidays and I left with a smile.

To be perfectly honest I was feeling a good bit burned out Saturday and seeing a movie like that was precisely what I needed.

Sunday we headed down to the outlets in San Marcos and, having arrived there, I thought we would make a visit to old San Antone for an early dinner. We drove into town and parked near the riverwalk. After a stroll we ate at Rio Rio and then wandered about some more before heading over to the Alamo, the real one, not the movie theater.

I also had the chance to read a bit more of Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. Having seen “The Hours” I was inspired to pick up the source. It’s very slow going, being proper ‘litra-chuh” and all, but it’s good to do hard things

Hello, thanks for stopping in yet again for the life and times of Steven and his, quite often, wunder-fraulein, Lauren.

The Fourth saw me get up early to make 9 o’clock ( - 40 (+11 5)) yoga class. Afterwards I got some Fourth of July gas when it struck me that no fourth of july is a Fourth of July without Bar-B-Q (to say nothing of being components in two Robert Earl Keen songs).

I headed home and the lady and I headed over to Rudy’s for some lean brisket on whitebread with gallons of iced tea. Rudy’s is so fine, and I do mean so fine.

While we were getting ready to go Lauren mentioned going kayaking on town lake and that sounded like a capital (ho ho ho!) idea. After Rudy’s we wound through Westlake (the more direct route via Barton Springs Road was in closedown preparations in advance of the Austin Symphony extravaganza) to Austin Rowing Dock. The day was rather cool owing to a rainstorm that had passed early in the morning so it was a fine time for heading out.

I had never kayaked before, but it was really good exercise and quite a bit of wet fun. We headed through Town Lake on towards Longhorn Island when suddenly we found ourselves being flanked by one of those energetic Texas thunderclouds. Moments later we were being poured on.

We made the best of it and made for some shore-side cover and tried to get slightly less drenched. As things let up we head back closer to the dock only to encounter another storm. I espied a small dock on the side under which we found shelter.

Moments later the rain let up again and we paddled back to the dock. Slightly waterlogged, we left the boat and drove home. After a shower and a snack we started walking down to Zilker park for the evening’s symphony / fireworks show. We wisely left with our umbrellas in tow; chastened by our morning’s earlier experience we had become.

It took about 30 minutes to walk to the field where we sat and listened to the warm-up music and watched people toss balls about, banter, play cards, and relax. As the show got underway droplets started to fall.

….purple lightning seared the sky

…droplets became more regular

…thunder became more regular

The MCs told us that the event would go off rain or shine and that the rain wouldn’t last long as it passed over. As conditions worsened Lauren decided to scrub. Her hiker’s aversion for ‘open field, lighning, and me’ kicked in and we decided to demonstrate that contrary to the human animals instinct for gregariousness, we are smart enough to get out of the rain.

Umbrellas a-hike we headed soggily up the Barton Spring’s exit adjacent to MoPac back to our apartment.

Back home, a warm shower and a cup of tea set things aright and we went to bed.

You’ll note that we missed the fireworks and the 1812 Symphony + howitzer from Camp Mabry. That was a bit of a drag but sitting in mud with a field full of other lightning rods was not the ideal viewing venue.

It drives me nuts when sports fans talk about what they would have done had they been coaching.

“Well, if you’d called a time out at 48 seconds you could have run the clock etc.”

“Well, if you’d told your defense to step up their offense wouldn’t have had a chance to score.”

Most of these observations are absolutely vacuous. I’m pretty sure that the quarterback who just took cleet to the guts probably thought “Hm, perhaps I wouldn’t be in this position if my offensive line hadn’t crumbled. When I stand up again, I shall have to confer with these chaps about Bill Swarkowski’s keen observation that they should ‘Grow A Pair and Stop Defending Like a bunch of little girls’.”

I’d always hear people talking about this (particularly at Texas during the Macovic years, ‘twere dark times here in the Burnt-Orange belt). If I were so-and-so I’d fire the Defensive Coordinator and have called time out at 42 seconds and made a sneak play for an onside kick within the infield fly zone, blah blah blah. I mean, hell people, I’d like my team to have won, but it’s 9 a.m. and I’m trying by best to convince at least 3 brain cells to start thinking about the finer points of the Glass-Steagall act, can you put a lid on the Monday morning quarterbacking / offensive coordinating / defensive coordinating / ad spot programming?

Sweet goodness gravy, and this was in the days before Tivo. I can just see these guys now, rewinding each frame by frame becoming all the more sure in the superiority of their coaching.

But I suppose it’s easier to talk about sports than to discuss the merits of the free press as an agent of disclosure in modern times in opposition to selective leaking employed by shady governmental bodies.

Very minimalist
Originally uploaded by sgharms.

I saw a bumper sticker driving around town that had this simple verb as the content: simplify.

Wow.

So much of my life in the Bay Area, I was carrying around too much stuff. Too much mental baggage, too much physical stuff in disarray. I was so consumed with the stuff pursuit that, well, I allowed myself to start believing one of the great myths of the Silicon Valley:

Working that hard for what you get here is worth it.

And I’ve still got that toxin in my blood, it’s still German autos I think about, it’s still hand-crafted asian furniture I dream of resting my 30” Apple Cinema display upon while sitting in a Herman Miller chair. The dream of all these things, the imagined ledger book that adds up how many ducets would be required to fulfill that vision, it’s all part and parcel of teaching one to hunger for malnourishing things and then to hate being starved.

If Vedic India took a third of a lifetime to push Siddartha Gotama to realize that thinking this way is a trap, Silicon Valley can do it in thirty months.

Therefore one has but two choices:

• to exceed and succeed: This is why Wall Street and similar keep looking to this area to find the next starved person who will be so driven with hatred of the upper-class meagre lifestyle to create a great startup
• to Simplify, really simplify: This is essentially the message of Buddhism. Your want is limitless, you want, because you want you are unsatisfied, because you are unsatisfied you suffer. The Buddha said to end this cycle of pain, we must un-learn the wanting and not be attached to that which we do posess

Our move to Austin has been motivated, even before we saw this bumper sticker, by this idea. We sold off about 3000 worth of stuff: computer parts, TV, bags, furniture, etc.
I’ve never felt so much more like I’m getting “better”. Walking outside, the humid days for indoor study, the warm twilight for walking and relaxing on patios, the evening where I speak honestly, openly, and peacably with my girl.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not espousing some sort of know-nothingism. Get thee back to living simply, but think deeply about difficult important things. You’ll do this a lot better once you’re freed of some of that damnable stuff you’ve got.
You may be saying that my bucolic vision is quaint and cute. How could you implement it? Well, if you were really serious….Hmm….If I were to coach someone on simplification I’d suggest.

1. Buy / rent a place smaller than what you think you need. You will be daunted by this at first, but do it. As an added incentive, get the place up 3 flights of stairs and move in the middle of the summer. You will be rather motivated to shed any inessentials you have to haul up that kind of stairway on a hot day.

2. This place should cost you less than your present circumstances, therefore you should have cash leftover.

3. Simplify-ing is hard. A lot of us have an addiction to stuff. Take the aforementioned cash differential and buy yourself a nice storage unit.

4. Pack suitcases, etc. for a 2 week road trip vacation. Everything else box up. Mark dishes, silverware, critical clothing (if you have to wear suits, etc.), a few favorite books, etc. and put them in storage but mark them special.

5. Take vacation. Think about simplify-ing.

6. Move in. Your “critical boxes” should be fairly small in number and you should be able to move this by yourself in your truck or rented vehicle. It’s the threat of this pain that makes sorting essential from inessential effective. Naturally your bed, dresser, art supplies, etc. should come along. Also, for me, a computer and networking gear are required.

7. Try to live. You will have forgotten things. You’ll need a colander, or an iron, or swim trunks. Fish them out of storage.

8. Realization: Hey, all that stuff in storage, I’m doing pretty well without.

9. Enjoy the clean zen asthetic of your new home minus tons of bagage.

We have done this with our move and are enjoying all the open space. Even more we enjoy the freedom from furniture, trips to Ikea, boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff to empty.

I think the above is a generic formula whereby people could become well simplify-ed. Here are some things that we’ve done that may be “phase 2.0”.

Sell your TV.

I have mixed feelings about this one. I like movies, I like entertainment, I like to play video games.

But….without a TV i still use up all my time but with other things: writing, talking with Lauren, kissing Lauren, walking, cooking meals. In short, things that I’d rather be doing anyway. I mean, I’m sure “Deadwood” is great, but Lauren and I have had some great conversations and have spent quality time together. I ask myself, would I trade that for 30 minutes of some recycled sit-com pablum?

Put your book stack away

Now most “I don’t have a TV” people are all on about how they read: Harper’s, New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Dostoyevksy, and Molière. But if you read, and love to read, you could quickly find yourself breaking under the weight of your purchased dead wood.

I have such a stack of unreads that I find it hard to face the stack. Put that in storage in a box called unread. Take out one book, have it around.

I understand that books are a great decor item, and smart people use them to make smart people feel good about coming to a smart person’s home. I think that smarty-pants people should come to appreciate the calibre of the conversation and the cleanliness of the asthetic as the new calling card of the focused mind.

I’ve not really thought this philosophy or HOWTO out to its fullness, but I’d welcome any further insight from anyone reading this.

Dear Readers,

I must apologize for not having put together any real entries before this date. I would have liked to - I really would have - but things have just been so busy what with moving in, getting settled, and living that strange sort of “tourist / resident” life you live when you first get somewhere.

When I first got to Holland, I admit. I went to Amsterdam often and just hung around: went to musea, had many drinks. When I first got to Silicon Valley…uh, well there’s nothing to do there. When I first got to San Francisco: dinners, bars, taxis, etc. So, it’s normal to be a tourist in the town that you have adopted ( or in my case, re-adopted ) as your home. Since the 6th, I’ve felt so much like a tourist in my town.

Looking back at the last posts they’re incidental thoughts, postcards from my visit in Austin.

In the last few weeks it’s been dinner at Whole Foods on 6th and Lamar, trips to Magnolia Cafe, unpacking and boxes. In short, I’ve not faced the music and the reality that this is now my home.

So this weekend began with the completion of my first full week of work at my new location. That evening Lauren and I ate at Magnolia. We live one exit south of there and the proximity makes it for a very tasty fall-back option. Saturday morning we were awoken by an early morning thunderstorm. After remembering lightning and thunder we started breakfast and then did the last 10% of unpacking / cleaning required to get all of the moving paraphenelia gone.

With that done, it suddenly hit us with a real gravity: We live here.

We headed up to the Target ( how many more times, I wonder? ) and bought a new iron and some other stuff. While fishing some other necessities from our storage unit ( ironing board, natch ), my Dad called and he and my sister were free of a morning obligation and wanted to know if we were free to meet for lunch. We headed back home, dropped off our loot, and then headed to meet them.

We all walked from my sister’s place to Kerbey Lane, the street and the cafe, and enjoyed great meals all around. Lauren had the Cobb Salad and I had a Very Good Burger. The real coup in that meal was getting the sweet potato fries. They were excellent. if you love the sweet / salty mix of flavors, the fries + ketchup are a sure winner. Speaking of a winner, I followed up that not-so-meagre plate with pecan pie a la mode. The state tree of The Lone Star State is truly giving in delicious bounty.

Afterwards we headed back to my sister’s and while she had to leave, my Dad, Lauren and I got a chance to chat. My Dad had only met her briefly before, so it was great for them to have an opportunity to talk about life, work, love, relationships, and what’s important. I tried not to moan too much as I processed my delicious lunch.

Having rested, we went our separate ways and Lauren and I headed down Lamar to 6th street’s BookPeople. Our relationship really kinda starts in a bookstore, so they seem to keep cropping up. Lauren was hungry ( you’ll recall she had the reasonably-sized salad for lunch ) and we got her a calzone from Whole Paycheck Foods.

Our meanderings at BookPeople took us until the warning of the cafe closing. At that time we realized we’d been there a long time and it was time to go home.

Sunday we slept in - again with the appearance of a pre-dawn storm - but spent the morning and midday working on our programming projects. Lauren is undertaking to learn programming ( her first language ) with C++ and I’m learning Ruby. She did some classic CS programs working with compounding interest and I wrote a simple script to try to make a simple class ( “Car” ) do some trivial instance tasks ( myCar.turn_key, myCar.accelerate(10) ). After a day of working on these things, we decided to go do some grocery shopping at the HEB.

While out my sister called and invited us to go for a walk around Town Lake. It was a good opportunity to balance out or keester-sitting morning, so we went along. A few fun pictures can be found in the flickr photoset.

Here’s a sample or two:

Tomorrow I begin my 2nd week back after a 2 week vacation. I feel kinda caught up on the “what happened while you were gone” material ( emails, obligations, etc. ), so I’m looking forward to actually being able to start some work and make some real progress this week.

Some quasi-revolutionary thinking in a place where revolutionary thinking is rarely found:

He [Brother Consolmagno] described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a “kind of paganism” because it harked back to the days of “nature gods” who were responsible for natural events.

Brother Consolmagno is entirely correct. The human mind has sought to apply reason and narrative to the disorder of our world of experience since the very first humans. First we attributed the creation myths and the “why does X happen” myths to mysterious forces. We then structure those forces to have relationships to one another (The goddess of wisdom erupted whole and unborn outside of the ruler-god, etc.)

Ultimately a revolution happened in Greece a few millennia ago, these paltry explanations were set aside for the love of wisdom: philosophia.

I like to imagine it was the work of Xenophanes that undermined this “story-telling” as explanation of phenomena:

<

blockquote>“Mortals fancy that gods are born, and wear clothes, and have voice and form like themselves. Yet if oxen and lions had hands, and could paint and fashion images as men do, they would make the pictures and images of their gods in their own likenesses; horses would make them like horses, oxen like oxen. Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed; Thracians give theirs blue eyes and red hair.” (from Diogenes Laertes “Xenophanes,” iii.)

<

blockquote>

Christianity, for many years, seemed to be at peace with a transcendent God. Yet the plausability of evolution chafes at them (why should you care, if you have faith, ask I) so they posit this nonsense called Creationism. Creationism goes back to making the Christian God a “maker god” not much different than Zeus. I don’t think that’s progress for the religion.

Today I spoke with my boss and she, very graciously, consented to allow me to work remotely from our Austin, Texas office. Actually in a bit of a sign of the times moment, working remotely means working 2 time zones closer to her. Isn’t that the internet age?

I love Austin and I can’t wait to get back. LL Cool J can go back to Cali, but my ears long for KGSR, my mouth for Tex-Mex and Mexican Martinis, and my eyes for SXSW.

I’m going back to where I’m from and I’m taking my lady with me.

I’ll miss the South Bay and its mild climate, its dispassionate precipitation. I’ll not miss the ennui, the cubicle mentality, the dearth of community, and the cost of living.

In any case, myself and Elle will be packing up and headed direction east in early-mid June.

See ya’ll Californians at WWDC and SXSW.

This post is sticky

Wow. I love space stuff. The Spirit rover, atop a mountain, caught sight of several dust devils crossing the Martian surface.

It seems Spirit is using the same CSS file for color scheme as my blog. styles-site.css?

May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

• Traditional Gaelic Blessing -

…without Ol Monkeyface around to harass.

Right now is about the time I would stand up, walk into his cube, and do a strange dance.

…or peer over his cube

… or pretend to be a giraffe

Yawn.