We are the product of our mistakes...

Read the title of this here post.  Humor me... and read it again.  Take a moment to think of what the word "product" means to you.  Again, please humor me... really think for a moment... I can wait.

Not a single one of you is (or was) thinking the exact same thing as any of the others of you reading this.  Not. One.  Instead, we use our words and communicate... or at least that's how being a human being is supposed to work, so I've been told.

Today, we can see our government, or at least one ridiculously narcissistic subset of our government, forget the entire point of our government is to communicate... actually exchange ideas and barter a compromise.  Again, the point of being human... especially a political one.  If you cannot acquire this non-trivial skill, you will fail over and over again.  This shutdown has occurred because mistakes have been compounded upon one another.  But I digress, kinda...

To draw your attention again to the title of this post, and the connotations you have for the word "product", I would (as usually without a shred of humility) ask you to consider mine...

I could have said "... the sum of our mistakes..."  Each mistake, one added atop another, like a pile of rugs just begging for a pea... that pile of rugs is who we are.  Okay, but not what I think is true.  If we're the product of our mistakes, it confers a responsibility upon each of us to own our mistakes... and learn from them.  Mistakes from which we learn naught are doomed to repeat, compounding the initial one.  Sound familiar?  But... mistakes from which we grow, ideas and realizations that make us grok our inner being just a little bit better?  Rather than compounding, your mistakes become fractions of what they would have otherwise been.

All that said, we still make mistakes.  Again, that human being thing.  Learning from one's mistakes, and owning them, can help us grow.  I'd like to think I understood all this before my divorce.  May have caught glimpses of the benefit? of making mistakes, but it took something as final as a divorce to really ram the idea home.

My clearest memories, off the top of my head...  Dodged phone calls and waiting weeks for responses to emails...  Realizing I was tired of being afraid, fortunately in that moment finding myself in the company of beloved family...  Trying really hard not to bitch about how long it took to finalize things...

Standing in line in a downtown Los Angeles courthouse building with a stack of forms and a check.

The marriage had been signaled by fanfare, surrounded by scores of family and friends.  Here I was standing in line alone... with no clue what came next.  How was this not the biggest failure of my entire life?

I'm writing this from the "library" of the home in which I reside with my wife and brother.  All that comes with writing that... makes me so happy I'm crying.  This amazing life, married to a woman I adore, who is more than I could have ever hoped to have in my life... only happens because I stood in line with a stack of forms and a check.

For the person who's going through their own "divorce"... to you I say:  Breathe.  In time, you will be sitting in your own version of amazing.  And it won't have been possible without living through now.  You're already fairly amazing, so it's easy to be confident in this assertion.  It's only a matter of how many breaths until you're there.  Oh, and come visit.

That is all.
~NCMSW?

Boston's Strength

For those few of you who ignore my FB statuses, I'm in Boston this week for the CamelOne and RedHat conferences.  The convention center where the sessions are is just a few blocks down the street from where the marathon ends... and the bombs went off.

My colleagues and I have walked past a few times, on our way other places.  But even across the street you can see the flowers.  Hundreds of them.  Signs and notes are everywhere.  At some point this week I anticipate having some free time and I intend to go take pictures.  UPDATE:  Like this one...  Too many people and not enough time to do it justice...

What's even better?  Everywhere we've been, not just this area, but throughout the city:  "Boston Strong".  It's almost ubiquitous and reinforced so much that I can't help but feel it in a surprisingly visceral way.  Tis one thing to see it on tv or read an article... neither of which, for me, are comparing to being here and feeling it.

Good for you, Boston.  Good for you...

A thought or three...

I've been listening to Snow Patrol's album, Eyes Open, quite a bit the last few days.  Liking it enough that it'll be on the next +disc of mp3s I never actually burned+.  So that's the first thought.  I'll give you a minute to recover.

The second thought is one Bella and I derived together: sarcasm tags.  As we obliterate our ability to focus our attention with the constant bombardment of posts and tweets and a plethora of digital cacophonies, sarcasm becomes ever harder to communicate to, or more likely about, deserving parties.  Hence, sarcasm tags.  For example, compare the following:

• "I saw Jane's baby.  Most adorable thing I've ever seen!"   versus
• "I saw Jane's baby.  +Most adorable thing I've ever seen!+"

Now the recipient knows that Jane's baby got hit with the ugly stick AND can read the message out loud even in mixed company.  Ta. Dah.

The last thought with which I will bombard you:  Boston.  Where I will be mid-June, attending two open source conferences.  The nerdy part of me is totally excited.  The aspe part of me is starting to get anxious.  New place, off routine, blah blah blah.  The aim is to focus on what I'll be doing when I'm there, rather than stress about what I won't be doing.  We shall see...

My lovely wife just informed that dinner be ready, so leave you I must.  Be well.

~NCMSW?

Getting better all the time...

It's been a couple months since my novel and I have utterly failed to get on here more regularly as I'd intended.  I'll skip the excuses and just get down to filling you in on what's been going on in NoPo... that's North Portland for the foreigners.

I got my wife to play a video game.  By her own volition.  If you know Bella, you'll recognize the import of those statements.  She even played on her own when I wasn't home.  How did I accomplish this seemingly impossible feat?  It just so happens that the video game for the movie Brave is kind of awesome.  It's clearly for kids, but it incorporates game play that reminds me of Ninja Gaiden... which was most definitely not for kids.  You get to play as all the main characters, including Mumsy and the wee brothers as bears.  (Btw, if you've not seen the movie, rent or netflix it...  Super adorable...)  We can also play together: Bella as Merida and me as a wisp.  If you'd asked me a year ago if I'd be on the couch playing video games with my wife, I'd have laughed my a$$ off.

Anyhoo, what else is been going on...  Ah, the job.  I was converted to full-time at the beginning of the year and I'm not sure I could be happier.  Meaningful work, bright/entertaining coworkers, and the trust of management... didn't realize how much I'd missed it until it was all but gone in my Portland career to this point.  Some good coworkers at Odious and DCrap, but otherwise kinda crap.  But I'm settling in nicely and am looking forward to a nice, long tenure.  I've even golfed a couple of times with said b/e coworkers...  Let's just say they're patient with how crap my golf game still is...

On the concert front, we saw Muse and are seeing Mumford & Sons again.  I'll bury the lead and say I'm mega excited about the M&S show.  If it's half as good as the last one, awesome won't even cover it.  As for Muse...  Wow.  Best show ever.  The music, the lights in time with the music... Amazing.  I could go on and on, but will try and characterize the awesomeness of their show by describing how they played one of my favorite songs, 'Knights of Cydonia':  As an anthem.  With everyone singing along, so much so that I could feel the pressure of the sound on my ears in time with the music.  Blissful moment...  Just an amazing show...

As for the autism, it still awaits official confirmation from a medical professional.  Bella found one... who charges $250 for a consultation and four times that for a full diagnostic.  I don't have that kind of money to waste on something I already know, at least not now.  Bella and I continue to make headway on handling me at my worst, and she continues to be patient and awesome to a degree for which I have no words sufficient.  So even as I struggle in moments here and there, overall life continues to improve apace.  Can't ask for more...

~NCMSW?

Four Discs of Music I Love, Part IV

I've heard you can fit about six albums worth of mp3s on a cd-rom.  I've +never+ tested this out, but I believe that it's possible.  So if I were to share some music, which of course is not usually condoned, this is what I would burn on those four CDs, broken into four installments so as to not overwhelm...

Disc #	Artist	Album	Favorite Songs
4	311	Grassroots Universal Pulse	Maybe 'Offbeat Bare Ass'?
My favorite album and a short little gem of an album, respectively, from one of my Top 5 favorite bands.  Bouncy dance hall awesomeness...
4	Ben Folds	3 EPs	'Dog' (if only for the reparte at the end...)
I'm lazy and lump these three EPs into one album...  Just great jazz pop, and that's underselling it...
4	Fall Out Boy	Folie A Deux	3. 'She's My Winona' (Bella knows why...)
Hard to pick favorite songs, so I chose my favorite album from these melody poppies...
4	Imagine Dragons	Night Visions	7. 'Hear Me' 4. 'Demons'
This is the album that broke the YoungTheGiant run...  I'm waiting for their sophomore effort to see if they stay in the Top 5...  I can't say enough good things about this album...
4	Metric	Synthetica	Haven't chosen yet...
I'll lead with the admission I've barely listened to this album...  Bought it mainly because I recognized at least three songs I liked from the radio here in Portland...
4	Passion Pit	Gossamer	2. 'I'll Be Alright'
Another one of my favorite albums of the year, this and last...  The second track reminds me of Gnarls Barkley's 'Go Go Gadget Gospel'...  Very yummy album...

Enjoy!

~NCMSW?

Four Discs of Music I Love, Part III

I've heard you can fit about six albums worth of mp3s on a cd-rom.  I've +never+ tested this out, but I believe that it's possible.  So if I were to share some music, which of course is not usually condoned, this is what I would burn on those four CDs, broken into four installments so as to not overwhelm...

Disc #	Artist	Album	Favorite Songs
3	Alex Clare	The Lateness Of The Hour	5. 'Hummingbird' 1. 'Up All Night'
Bought this album after hearing 'Too Close' on the radio and then humming it all day...  Then fell in love with the next song, 'Hummingbird'...  Great album and can't wait for the sophomore effort...
3	Chronic Future	Lines In My Face	3. 'Shellshocked'
An album from 2004, no clue how I came to own it... Started listening to it on a whim and realized it's pretty solid...
3	Lily Allen	Alright, Still	2. 'Knock Em Out' 11. 'Alfie'
Bouncy fun from start to finish... Hard not to tap your feet, no matter how much 'Smile' was overplayed on the radio...
3	Lily Allen	It's Not You, It's Me	1. 'Everyone's At It' 8. 'F*** You'
Sophomore effort, probably better than her first album...  Plus, anyone who works in "medieval" into a song deserves mad props...
3	Mumford & Sons	Babel	All of them...
This band jumped in to my Top 5 with their debut album... When they released the first song, 'I Will Wait', off this album, it brought me to tears...  Still can...  That's how good this band is.
3	XTC	Oranges & Lemons	All of them...
Favorite album from one of my favorite bands...  One of the strongest albums, both musically and lyrically, I've ever heard...

Enjoy!

~NCMSW?

Four Discs of Music I Love, Part II

I've heard you can fit about six albums worth of mp3s on a cd-rom.  I've +never+ tested this out, but I believe that it's possible.  So if I were to share some music, which of course is not usually condoned, this is what I would burn on those four CDs, broken into four installments so as to not overwhelm...

Disc #	Artist	Album	Favorite Songs
2	Coheed and Cambria	In Keep Secrets of Silent Earth: 3	8. 'TCV II:Backend of Forever'
I don't listen to much of what I'd qualify as heavy metal, but the melodies and complexities in this album won me over... Another album that listens well from start to finish...
2	Dance Hall Crashers	Purr	'Cricket'
The most recent album (AFAIK) from one of my all-time favorite artists, who are even better live... So really I should pointing you towards their live album, but I really love the song 'Cricket'...
2	Muse	Black Holes & Revelations	1. 'Take A Bow' 4. 'Map of the Problematique' 11. 'Knights of Cydonia'
My favorite Muse album, on par with their latest... Side note: Bella and I saw them recently and it was hands down the best show either of us had ever seen... No contest... Had I more energy, I'd of blogged about it... That awesome, seriously.
2	stellastar*	stellastar*	1. 'In The Walls'
Saw them at the Troubadour in LA... Great show, almost better live than on their albums... Random note: Their bassist is wicked hot... (Did I mention I saw this show before I met my wife? Because that's important too...)
2	The Butchies	Make Yr Life	3. 'Make Yr Life'
I describe this as rock bubblegum pop... Yummy and too short...
2	The Civil Wars	Barton Hollow	7. 'Barton Hollow' 2. 'I've Got This Friend'
Credit goes to my sister who calls me StrangerDanger for sending this to Bella... Wonderful harmonies...

Enjoy!

~NCMSW?