I need some specific help picking out a color scheme for Sad Salvation. I am little by little changing things to make Sad Salvation look better. I need help. The current Aqua and White are okay, but I know there are better combos out there. If any of my design savvy friends out there have good ideas, please tell me. I also need a good idea for a font to use
Every week at TiVo we have a company wide meeting. When I first started to work at TiVo the company wide meetings used to be big things. Everyone in the company used to cram into the open area. We would get updates from all over the company. We would hear about every effort to improve the company. The employees felt connected to everything the company was doing.
As the company has become larger these company meetings have become less important. Less then a third of the employees show up at the weekend meeting most of the time. The meeting are much more boring then they used to be. The information is not as thrilling as it used to be. I do not know if the information as change or if we are just used to it now. I should not be surprised that these things have changed. TiVo is Different, Silicon Valley is Different, and the whole world is different.
This week's company meeting was really strange. It was strange enough that I think I should write about it here. The TV Linux Alliance had sent TiVo a box full of Styrofoam Tux Penguins. Tux is the symbol/mascot for Linux. The box had about a hundred of these little dolls in it. At the end of the company meeting the people in the front of the lunch room started to throw these dolls into the crowd. After a few rounds the people in the front of the room just starting chucking the Tux Dolls at the crowd. The rest of the people started throwing the dolls back.
Somewhere this turned into a free for all. These little black penguins just started to fly everywhere. It felt almost like a food fight. For a good five minutes people where throwing these penguins at each other. I tried to only hit the executive staff. When else am I going to get the chance to throw something at a vice-president without getting fired. I laughed myself to tears when I saw that was of the development managers was sitting under the table hiding. This was one of those company wide moments of fun that TiVo has not had in a long time.
I will say that I have never been through something like the penguin fight before. I have never been at a company where a meeting has turned into something from summer camp. I am not saying this is a bad thing. I think we need this kind of fun more often. I know it will be increasingly hard to do as the company grows. I just think it is the kind of healthly fun that a company could always use more of.
Taken from the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary Pathos- Function: noun Etymology: Greek, suffering, experience, emotion, from paschein (aorist pathein) to experience, suffer; perhaps akin to Lithuanian kesti to suffer Date: 1591 1 : an element in experience or in artistic representation evoking pity or compassion 2 : an emotion of sympathetic pity
When I was in college a guy gave me the nickname Mr. Pathos. The nickname says something about the way I view art and how I feel about creating art. It was my sophomore year in college. Most of the people in the broadcasting department knew me by this time. They had seen most of the broadcasting projects that I had done. I was starting to build a reputation as a reliable person to have on a video shoot. I had technical skills and I knew how to solve problems. These were important skills at a University where the equipment was out of date and never seemed to work.
I was also starting to build a different reputation also. I was taking Advanced Television production. My first two projects were very emotional. They were not like the projects being made by the rest of the class. the first project was one minutes about having an ear infection. The second was a poem that I had written. Most of the people in my class where playing with comedy. I was making one minute art films.
At the time I did not feel that I was good at being funny. I did not feel that I could make a good project that was light-hearted. I felt the best project I could make was too turn the emotion way up. I felt that I could make a really good project if I tried to get to peoples' hearts. It applied to my artist sensibility.
I received the nickname Mr. Pathos for an editing project. Everyone in the class was given the same footage of our professor kicking a 50 yard field goal. I took the score from Born On The Forth of July. I read a script of the kicker reliving past glory. It was best described as sappy. This guy Chris called me Mr. Pathos after that. I found that nickname both to be a but of an insult and a badge of honor at the same time.
I tell this story because I feel that I still have many of those same artist sensibilities It might be a little worse now because I am mostly writing about myself. I am not hiding the way I feel about things behind the veils or fiction. Everyone who reads Sad Salvation knows it is about me. There is no other persona for me to hide behind.
I feel good when I write something really emotional. It excites me to spill my worst emotions out on a page. Maybe I am using this web log when I should be going to therapy. It still feels good to get all these things out. I am not going to write about the times I feel happy. I do not understand those moments as well as I understand the things that make me upset.
With a title like Sad Salvation, how can I be anything but Mr. Pathos. I am going to keep writing things where my emotions spill out all over the page.
TiVo has been awarded an Emmy. The academy give out lots of technical awards. Basically if you are a company that is working to improve television viewing, you are going to win an Emmy. There is something about the company I work for winning an Emmy that excites me. I think it is just the coolest thing in the world.
They showed us the Emmy statue at the company meeting this week. I wanted to get a picture of me holding it, but no one had a camera. I want to get an Emmy on my business card. I think it is cool that I work for a company that has won an Emmy. I want to tell all my friends about this. I know it is not the same as if I won the Emmy, but I can say I had something to do with it. It is just like I can say I have had something to do with the success of the company.
I know this entry makes me sound like a total geek. I think my obsession with the Emmy comes from going to school for broadcasting. The Emmy is the Oscar for unluckily people. I do not think TiVo will ever win an Oscar. This is as close as I am ever going to get.
When I was in second grade, I had my First Holy Communion. Someone in my class asked about praying after we receive communion. The nun, whose name I cannot remember now, said that she has a simple prayer for after communion. She first thanks God for all of her blessings. Then she asks God to forgive her for her sins. Then she would pray her intentions. That is when she asked God to bless people and for things she needed help with.
This simple prayer has been the basis of most of my prayer life. It was the prayer I would say before bed for many years. It was the prayer I would say in church. It was the prayer I prayed during the moment of silence in high school. It is the prayer I use to today when there is a moment I feel like praying. I felt that these are things that I should be communicating with God about. This is a great prayer because it can be short as three lines or you could spend hours praying everything in your life with God.
There is something about this prayer that has informed my view of God. I think the order of the prayer is perfect. The first thing I want to do is thank God. No matter where my life is, I always have many things to be thankful for. When I was little I used to spend a long time on this part of the prayer. I will admit that I think that I am a sinner. I know I am not all I can be in the eyes of God. I know that praying intentions are an odd idea. No matter what you ask for, you could be greedy. It is almost a contradiction.
I have a strange relationship with prayer. Jeremy asked me if I hear God when I pray. I told him that I do not. As I wrote yesterday, Jeremy thinks he hears the Voice of God when he prays. I know that he was not being literal. In the past I have talked to people who say they hear God or feel God when they pray. I never trust people who tell me this. I have never heard God or felt God as I prayed. I have felt God at other times, just now while I was trying to talk to him. I feel that people who hear God are either lying to me or lying to themselves. It always seems to be the least balanced people who tell me they hear God.
For a long time, starting right after I got out of college, I mainly prayed for one thing. I would pray to God and ask him for more faith. I felt like my faith was weak and gave me no comfort. I would see other people who looked like they were getting something out of their faith. I would respect these people, but I would also be jealous. I would ask God to touch my heart. I would pray so receive comfort from my Faith.
Since that time I have drifted further away from the church. In many ways I have also drifted further away from God also. With that being the case I do not feel that God answered that prayer. He might have. God might have given me a better understanding of him and myself. It just does not feel that way to me.
For the past several months I have prayed for two things most of the time. I pray for guidance and I pray for God to show me the path he wants me to take. As I wrote yesterday, in the last six months I have read a lot about Islam. There are a couple ideas in Islam that really appeal to me. There are also other ideas that I have my doubts about. When I was reading about Islam I was afraid that I was running into something huge without any idea of my own motivations. This is when I asked God to revel the path he wants me to take. My interest in Islam has cooled in the past couple of months. I guess that God has set some kind of path out for me.
Praying for guidance is a has been very important to me lately. I ask God to guide me and to guide other people. I think this is very important. Asking God for guidance is also very easy. I am not sure if it is being answered, but it makes me slow down and think before I decide to do things. I think it makes me go over my decisions before I act.
After all this I can say that I do believe in God. I am not sure that my vision of God is correct or not. I think there is a higher power that created the universe. I can say that I believe in God even if my faith is weak at times. I think right now I am going to say my prays before going to bed tonight.
I know this is a stupid little thing, but a friend of mine, compared me to J. D. Sallinger. It is stupid little things like that which make my heart bubble over with joy. I know I do not want to make too much out of this but, (happy dance, happy dance, happy dance!!) it means something to me.
Now that I regained my composure, I want to know what more people think. I want to know that people are reading this.
While I was in Chicago Jeremy asked me If I pray. He was asking because he has been praying lately. It is kind of odd. Another part of this trip Jeremy described himself as a "Militant Agnostic." He said that even if there is no God, he can get something out of praying. He can hear a voice while he prays. He thinks it is his internal voice of God. I think I understand it, but I might not be describing this correctly. You can ask him if you like.
It means something that he asked me this. Jeremy knows as much about my life as anyone in the world. I might have to fill everyone else in on this. I was raised Catholic. I come from a long line of Catholics and it was important to my parents to bring me up in the faith. We went to mass every week. I went to public school. That means I spent my Tuesdays in CCD for during my school age years.
In college I stopped going to Church. I never got into the Church Scene at college. I had a lot of Catholic friends in college, but I did not feel anything for church at the time. I stopped taking comfort in the mass. I still considered myself Catholic, but I was moving further away from the Church. I did not see the glory of God in listening to a Priest every Sunday. About this time most of my friends who went to Catholic School also started to reject the church also.
When I got out of college I started to go to church more often. For a while I would go about every other weekend. I felt that I did not have much faith. I believed in God, but I was unsure about the word of God. I would see a lot of people around me who seemed to have a lot of faith. They seemed to get comfort from their faith. I could never seem to find that.
There are other things that made me start feeling apart from the church also. I agree with the Catholic Church's stance about abortion, the death penalty, and sex before marriage. I do not agree with the church about homosexuality, woman priests, and general ideas about sexuality. I would sit in a church and listen to the homily. I would feel that I agreed with nothing the priest was saying.
In this time I also became bothered by way other Christians treated Christianity. I would see bumper stickers that say "Christ died for your sins" and I would wonder if those people missed the lessons of Christ's Life. I wonder if these people turn the other cheek or if love they enemy. All over the place people abuse the idea of religion. I know is should not effect me, but it did.
I have an image of God in my head, but it is not of him micro-managing my life. I used to work with a woman who would thank God for every little thing. She would thank God for getting to work safely everyday. She would thank God not having car problems. I can see the idea that God has a plan for everyone, but I do not see got running people's lives down to the smallest details. To me that would take out the whole idea of free will.
When I moved to Portland I really stopped going to church. I went to church a couple of times, but I really felt out of place. I kept on telling myself that I wanted to go, but I would get around to it. I have not gone to Church since I moved to San Jose. Currently I live six blocks from the Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph, but I never go there.
In the past six months I read a lot about Islam. There was something that caught my eye on the web one day and I kept on reading about it. For about three months, everyday I spent about an hour reading storied about people who converted to Islam. I was not sure if the religion interested me or it was the stories about people finding something that transforms them. The people in these conversation stories seem to radically change their lives. Both the ideas of finding religion and transforming seem equally as powerful. There was something that bothered me about Islam. I have put those ideas down for now, but they still linger somewhere in my mind.
Right now I can say I believe in God. There are too many things that point me to God's existence. If I am asked about my religion, I will say that I was raised Catholic. I do not know if I am still Catholic or not. I am not really sure about my faith. I will say that I pray. I will address the idea of prayer in part two of this post. It I do not break it up, I will be up until dawn writing about it.
I had a San Jose/Work/things From My Past dream this weekend. In the dream Ficomp had moved to San Jose. Ficomp was the last company I worked for before I left the Philadelphia area. Their new building in San Jose was only a few blocks from where I live now. My old boss invited me over to show me the new building. at the end of the tour of the new building my old boss showed me a room that they were looking to rent out as an apartment. It was on the second floor of the building. It was the only room on the second floor.
I learned that the controller from Ficomp would be my official landlord. He was the person I would give the rent checks to. The rent on this apartment was really low. It was half what I am paying now. It was a two bedroom apartment and larger what I am living in now. The one bed room had three sets of bunkbeds in it. It was a great looking apartment. The odd thing was that the apartment had no kitchen. The only way I could cook was to get a microwave.
I looked around the apartment and realized that I would be letting the people from Ficomp back into my life if I moved back into this apartment. I would have an outside entrance to my apartment, but I knew the people from Ficomp would always be in my apartment. My life would be attached to them again. That would be harder then moving to a new apartment.
I have just updated the rest of my web site. I have updated the Web According to Bill Gates page. I got ride of the broken links and the link that had changed to a porn site. I have also added the Senseless Banter Web Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame still needs some work, but I published it anyway.
I have a also made a couple other smaller changes to my web site. I am trying hard to make my web page worth reading.
We had a company picnic today. I am a big person for showing up at company parties. TiVo has thrown some pretty good parties in the past. I have been with the company long enough to say I have been to a good deal of the parties. The Parties now a days are not like the ones we threw two years ago. This party was a potluck. One of the guys in the band was the VP of IT.
Parties were a big part of the dot.com boom Silicon Valley. TiVo's IPO party was held in San Francisco. It was an expensive affair made to look like a Hollywood premiere. There were search lights, celebrity impersonators and a red carpet. The red carpet had people cheering for us and a guy trying to interview us as we went to the party. This was a tame IPO party by Silicon Valley standards.
Now Silicon Valley is a much different place. Most companies do not have the money to blow on big parties. I have not hear of any obnoxious in a while. Most companies are doing the best they can not to lay people off. I know that our last two parties have been funded by the employees.
Most of the people at the TiVo October-fest brought their children. We are a company full of young parents. Most of the people are around my age. There have been a lot of kids that were born in the past two years. This makes me realize that I cannot no longer talk about my childhood at work. Most of the people are talking about the childhoods of their kids. It is the difference between having kids and not having kids.
I had a good time at the party. I went by myself. I do not have anyone to take with me. I do not even have anyone I can take as a safety date. It is one thing I used to have back in Warminster. Only a couple of people came alone to party. I think that everyone that came alone were in the customer support department. They closed the call center early. I know that is a reason that a lot of the reps showed up.
I stayed to the end of the party. I was one of the last people to leave. I am usually one of the last people to leave a party. I felt sad when I left the party. I felt said because I was leaving alone. I did not have anyone to come to the party with and I did not have anyone to go home with. It has a lot to say about my life in Silicon Valley. There is not much going on in my life outside of work.
As I was driving home from the picnic I felt really lonely. It is a feeling that I have dealt with over and over again. I do not know how to get away from this loneliness. I do not know how to meet people. I am not sure if I want to be in a relationship. I do know that I want to get rid of this feeling.
I do not know if I will be able to get rid of the loneliness in San Jose. The problem is that I cannot leave here and still work for TiVo. How I feel about TiVo is a whole different entry that I am going to save for another time.
