I went to second two sessions of the 48 Hour Film Festival today. It was showing as part of Cinequest. It is also referred to as filmapalooza. It was a pretty good deal. Four hours of short films for only $10. It was pretty good bang for the buck.
What surprised me was how processional all of the shorts were. I know these were the top of the top, but every one of these looked professional. They look like they had professional lighting and sound. Most of them looked like they had high level acting also. I wonder what they city compositions are like. I wonder if they have lower level films. I wonder this because I come from the world of National Novel Writing Months, where most of the writers are amateurs. I wonder what a project like this would like like from a bunch of amateurs.
I will warn you their website, 48.tv, is kind of wonky. I had a better time finding some of the 48 hour film festival Films on YouTube. That includes the winner from San Jose, which is the movie embedded at the top of this post.
If you participate in San Jose, let me know. I would love to blog about your process. I would love to take pictures of your process.
The Amgen Tour of California came rolling by my door. I was there to see it. This is something else that I have been missing over the last couple of years. Yesterday I worked from home so I could see it. There are lots of cool things that happen around here, but it is not always easy to find the time to do them.
This view no longer exists. There is a building that is going in between the camera and the buildings in the background. I have living in San Jose long enough to remember how the skyline has changed.
I keep on saying that this year does not feel like Christmas. That might be because I do not take the time to do anything that is really Christmas themed. I might go to a party or two, but I do not take the time to find my Christmas spirit. I might need to engage Christmas more for San Jose to have the Christmas feeling for me.
Now this location is the New San Jose City Hall. You can still see those pilers if you go down to the parking garage. This is the good part about time never stopping. Time gives you the chance to change. It gives you the chance to become something you do not expect. Before City hall this was two bad city blocks that included rundown apartments, the Worst Taco Bell in the World, A huge dollar store, and a pizza hut. Now it is a beautiful building that is the headquarters of San Jose.
I really do not have anything to say about this photo. I would like to say it is boring, but it is no more boring that the area it is off. I think it is realistic for San Jose. It is realistically boring. I am not sure what that means. I used to live near this corner. I kept on hoping that it would become more exciting, but after years it has not. I guess is a hard thing to shake.
There is something about neon signs that I just love. That captivate me like few other things in this world. I really love vintage neon signs. I should really make a plan to do some more night time Neon sign shooting. There are some good ones in and near San Jose
The San Jose Grand Prix is no more. Next Year Champ Car is not coming back to San Jose. There will be no cars racing around the streets of San Jose next year. I missed the San Jose Grand Prix all three years. It looks like I will never get to one. I kept on telling myself I wanted to go. This year could have been the year, but it was at the same time as Comic Con. Of course Comic Con won for me. Now there is not next year.
I am sad to see the Grand Prix go. Many of my friends did not like the Grand Prix, but I thought it was good for the city. San Jose has to find ways to get more people to come here. I think San Jose has a lot to offer, but it needs to be pushed to develop. Lots of people are happy to see us as a suburb of San Francisco. I think that San Jose can be more than that, but only if people have vision. This is a sad day for San Jose in my eyes.
It has been six years since 9/11/01. It might be the biggest thing that has happened yet this decade. I have lived in San Jose eight years tomorrow. Six of those eight years have been since 9/11. That event set the stage for my life here.
One of the things I remember about that day was how quite the streets of San Jose were. I walked around the streets after dark and there was no one around. I remember how the whole city felt empty. That is one of the feels that stuck with me.
My life in California has been mostly post 9/11. For most of 2001 I wanted to move back to Philadelphia. It was not until after 9/11 that I really came into my own in California. I know that day change my life. I know that approached my life in a different way after 9/11. I tried harder to be more engaged in what was happening around me.
I am not sure how big of an impact 9/11 really had on the world. Would George W. Bush found another way to invade Iraq without 9/11, maybe. Would have something else happened if 9/11 did not, maybe. Is 9/11 really that important in the history of the world, it is hard to say now, give it time. I can say that my life is different because of 9/11. That is what I will remember.
I am trying to figure out if this photo is any good or not. I like the lines and the color, but I am not sure if it is anygood or not. I am not sure it really says anything. I might need to view it in the context with other photos from San Jose for it to mean anything. I am not sure every photo can stand on its own. I think that is just the reality of photography.
I am happy I was not the guys that figured this out. I would have been cheesed off, the same way I was when I finished reading the Crying of Lot 49 back in 1996. My reaction to that novel when I was finished was, "really, I just spent a week reading a novel and that is the ending I got." I guess I am just not a Thomas Pynchon fan. I have like see his appernces on the Simpsons.
This is one of my favorite photos of city hall under construction. There is just something about the frame work that appeals to me. Maybe I like it because it is no longer there. I know that I cannot take this picture again. I think that is important to remember. No matter how much you like something from the past, you need to be able to see when it is no longer part of your present.
I have been back at my parents house long enough for it to feel like I have been here a long time, yet there are a whole bunch of things I did not get done. I did not take many pictures while I was here. I would have loved to go out and photography Christmas decorations. I just did not find to the to do it. There are lots of things that I wish I could have done.
On the other hand I feel like I have been away from work forever. I am hoping things have been smooth when I have been away from the office. My guess is that they have been, but you never know. I do not want to be too buried in work when I get back.
It was good to see my family. it is a same that I only see them once or twice a year. I do not see that changing as long as I live in San Jose. It is hard for me to travel to see them and harder for them to travel to see me.
I did not spend much time in Philadelphia on this trip. It would have been nice to get into the city more. I just ended up staying out in the suburbs. I had so many little family events I just did not have the time to get away for a long enough time.
The hard part is being away from my own bed. I am happy to be sleeping in the guess bed at my parents' house, but it is still not my bed. I often find myself almost falling out of it. It has been a long time since I would rather sleep away from my home.
I am looking to get back to San Jose. As much as I like this area, I still have a home of my own to get back to.
Being here for Christmas is very relaxing. Whenever I stay in San Jose for Christmas there is always something missing. It just never feels like Christmas. It might be because I have a family in San Jose. After 7 years, I have a network of friends, but no real family. When I am here I have family around. Even with the drama that every family has, it is still a good time.
It is also good because I am not at the office. I have not had to deal with one work issue or read one work e-mail. That is pretty nice. I know this means that I will buried when I get back. It is nice to not have to deal with work while I am here.
Jenny Lewis is playing in San Francisco tonight. The Beauty Shop is playing in San Francisco on Wednesday night. If I lived in San Francisco I would be going to see one or both of these shows. The problem is that I do not live in San Francisco, I live in San Jose. I was already in San Francisco last night. I feel bad about going there more than once a week. It feels like a lot of time and gas to be spending getting around.
While I was driving around San Francisco last night I was asking myself why don't I live there now. For a long time I have been saying that it is because the daily commute from the city to TiVo would kill me. I think that is only one of the reasons. A bit reason is because I am pretty comfortable in the south bay. It is never easy to disturb a comfortable life.
Maybe it is time for a new Pro-Con list about moving into the city.
I went to the State of Grace Tattoo Show in San Jose on Saturday. Tattoos are one of my favorite things to take photos of. They seem to get a lot of views on my Flickr Photostream. I wondered what I would see at a show like this. I saw lots of people with tattoos, but few chances to take photos. People seemed too caught up in everything to ask them to stop for a photo.
I was there because I am thinking about getting a tattoo. I have been thinking about it for a while. When I was young I thought the idea of a tattoo was stupid. I could not think of an image that I would want on my skin forever. That might be a good thing. I know I would have made a bad choice when I was young.
With age comes wisdom, hopefully a little wisdom. I know what I would get a tattoo of, a hippopotamus. I like the hippopotamus because it is very awkward in one setting but very graceful in another. That is how I feel much of the time. I just have not seen the image of a hippopotamus that I want on my body. I have the feeling I will know the image once I see it, but I have not see it yet.
Going to the tattoo show was an eye opening. It was cool to see people get tattooed, but it seems like a very intimate activity to do in on the floor of a convention. Lots of people were doing it. I wanted to ask more people about their tattoos, but it did not seem like the thing to be done.
I spent a lot of time looking at books of tattoos. After looking at all those books of tattoos I learned a couple of things. The books seemed to have a lot of the same tattoos in them. There were a lot of dragons, birds, hearts, spiders, dice, pinup girls, and playing cards. I wonder if people fill their books with tattoos that look the same because of the audiences at these shows. I did not see any hippopotamus tattoos in any of the books. But I did not see any Monopoly, Tick, or Pacman tattoos either.
There was a lot of good tattoo work at this show, but very few of the artists had examples in their books that made me want to get work done. I know that a first tattoo at a show is not a great idea. I talked to a few people. Out of the few artists I liked, I found one local one who I would think about getting a tattoo from, Holly Ellis of Idle Hand. I liked the number of styles in her book. It made me think I could get a tattoo that I might like.
If you have any tattoo advice, ideas, thought, stories, or images for a hippopotamus tattoo, please let me know.
I met a woman who got a tattoo right before she left the bay area. She was moving back to New Hampshire. Maybe I will get a tattoo here before I leave.
I am sad to say that I live in the kind of city where a Group of men beat teen over an iPod. I know it is just a mugging like any other mugging. The idea of being mugged over an iPod just depresses me. It might be because I am always wearing my iPod. I will say if you try to beat me over my iPod it will end poorly for all of us.
As of today I have been writing and publishing Sad Salvation for five years. I am not sure if publishing is the right word for it, but I do not have a better word for it. It is hard for me to get my mind around the idea that I have been doing this for five years. It has become such a big part of my life while I have lived in San Jose. It is hard to remember living in San Jose and not writing Sad Salvation.
The funny thing is that much of my social scene is connected to Sad Salvation in one way or another. I have a whole collection of friends I have meet because of blogs and the internet. I think that is why Sad Salvation has lasted this long. I keep on doing it because it is easy for me to see the rewards.
A few things you may or may not know connected to Sad Salvation
- Invisible City had the first blog I ever read. - Sad Salvation started as a result of the 9/11 attacks - The End Of Summer Party was a blog my friends started to keep in touch with each other. It is long past gone. - The Zines I helped publish were, Senseless Banter, Read Our Minds, and Baggage. I was also published in a few other zines. - Super Karate Monkey Fist, Is my backup blog that I keep doing different things with. - Jeremy designed my current Sad Salvation look. - Vox, and LiveJournal are my other blog
If you want to know what is different now than five years ago you can read the archive. I know it has changed over that time. I should go back and read those entries to see who I have been over the last five years. It is not always easy to keep track of while you are living your life.
Here is a reprint of my first Sad Salvation entry. I hope you enjoy it.
--------------
Welcome to Sad Salvation
I looked at my life a few years ago and thought about something. I was sitting at a coffee house thinking about starting a new zine. I was trying to rack my brain trying to figure out what I could personally publish that would be interesting for people to read. I was thinking of the zines that I had read recently. There was nothing that I was reading at the time that really excited me. Most of it was pretty meaning less.
I had read a decent number of zines. I have even published about a half dozen issues. I looked at what other people were writing. I found something incredibly personal in zines. They were a place where people could try to construct some kind of story about their lives. The zines I was reading at the time where unlike any of the other stories I was finding in the rest of the world.
Being 23 years old there was something really empowering about zines. I was right out of college and I seemed to be going nowhere in the world. All of my friends were facing the same situations. We were working at bookstores and restaurants. We were clerks and temps. We spent our time watching clocks and find ways to slack off. Zines seemed to be the best way to work out our artistic frustrations. Using the office copy machine to cut the cost of a zine was a natural thing to do.
I was sitting at this coffee shop and I was not 23 years any more. I was 27 years old and my friends were starting to find their way into careers. They were becoming teachers, designers, and engineers. It was my day off from a dot.com start up. The way my life was happening was slowly sinking in for me.
For most of my life, my friends have been the artist type. Growing up we would tell stories, dream up comic books, and talk about the kinds of movies we wanted to make. We were all writers at heart. As I went through my life, these were always the kinds of people that I became friends with. We were people who dreamt about making our impression on the world. We thought about big ideas and big ways to express them. The problem was that we were becoming regular people.
There is a whole generation of people that are just like me. People that in their heart see themselves as writers and artists, but their job does not reflect that. We are sitting around playing in bands for recreation. We write zines and web sites as an artist outlet. We keep on thinking that someday we will be able to break out and become a true artist.
In this light, writing a zine is Sad Salvation. It is not only our artistic salvation, but it is also salvation because it is what we value most in this world. I am not speaking about everyone. I am just talking about a type of person I seem to be close with. We are not starting families, we are not growing roots in a community, we are not working toward building specific lives for ourselves. I wonder if we will ever find that Salvation we are looking for.
I have living in Silicon Valley for seven years now. I started my job seven years ago today. I am past the point where those seven years feel like both a long and and short time. Now it feels like a long time. When I got here everyone was talking about the internet boom. Now everyone is talking about web 2.0, but I am not sure everyone thinks they can get rich off it.
I have worked at this job longer then I worked all of the jobs I had as an adult combined. That might be why it seems like a long time.
Who knows how long I will be here. The last time I was home, when my mother asked me about moving back to Philadelphia my father said, "He has been there this long, I don't think he is in a rush to come back." There is something comfortable about San Jose. It is the kind of city that seems to fit me.
I would love for Downtown San Jose to become exciting and vibrant, but I have a hard time seeing it happen. I do not know if San Jose has it in it. One of the problems is that San Francisco is so close. San Jose is in San Francisco's gravity well.
I am just not sure what can be done. A social scene has to be a diverse system. There has to be all sorts of things to do. I am not sure a government or private group and just decide to change things.
One of the problems with San Jose is that are few good walkable areas. You have a few good area, but they are distance from each other. There is no good way to get from San Pedro Square to the Camera 12.
If it was up to me I would focus on the area from the Shark Tank to City Hall. I would encourage businesses that stay open until midnight. We do not need a sofa store that closes at 5 PM if you are trying to make a downtown vibrant. You would also need to get rid of all the ground floor offices on that street. Anything that does not interest night life breaks up the walk and is a bad thing.
I do not see things getting better any time soon in this town.
I have driven from San Jose to San Diego several times now. I have done it enough to say that I know the drive. This year Andrew is coming to comic con with me. This is the first time I have done the drive with another person.
Taking a long drive with another person is different that taking it alone. Andrew and I talked the whole time. We never ran out of things to talk about. The trip was a constant conversation. The miles just flew by. I think I did not speed as much because of the conversation.
In the past I have liked the solitude on this ride. I did not miss the solitude this time. It has been years since I have taken a long drive with anyone. I have missed taking these types of trips with my friends.
I love conversations on the road. You really have nothing to do but sit and talk. I am known as the kind of person who loves to talk. There are few things better than really good conversation. Andrew is a good match for this idea. He can talk just as well as I can.
It took us about 8 hours to make it from San Jose to San Diego. We made good time and we only spent about an extra hour in Los Angeles traffic. It felt great to get here. I even found Steve's place without directions, I left the directions at my computer.
We did not do much once we got to San Diego. The drive took a lot out of us. It is funny that driving takes a lot out of you. You are just sitting down, but it it not as easy as it seems.
Growing up outside of Philadelphia I usually think of Camden, New Jersey when I think about Mayors being indicted. People most have known I was getting hope sick. In San Jose, Prosecutor accuses mayor, aide in 'secret bribery, fraud scheme'. It looks like my boy Ron Gonzales might be on the wrong side of the law. Looks like he will not be running for governor any time soon
I just laughed when I read this this story about lawn signs in the mayor's race.
MercuryNews.com | 06/01/2006 | Lawns become battleground: "To a surprising extent, too, a sign in a yard doesn't necessarily mean that the homeowner is voting for that candidate. One Naglee Terrace resident ordered up a Mulcahy sign for her yard simply because she felt surrounded by her neighbors' dueling Pandoris and Chavezes.
``I'm not voting for him. I just wanted another'' sign, said the woman, who declined to give her name or preferred candidate. And just recently, she moved her pale blue-and-green Mulcahy closer to the street after realizing neighbors couldn't see it by her porch. ``I'm surprised they haven't stolen it yet,'' she said.
When I was growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia a lawn Sign meant you were involved. People with lawn signs were either volunteers for the party or had a personal relationship with the candidate.
Thursday was National Bike to Work Day. For a while now I have been thinking about getting my bike fixed up. I always loved riding, but I have not been doing it much since I lived in San Jose. Last week I finally got off my butt and did something about it. I had no idea that bike to work day was this week.
Bike to work day has been an event at work for the last couple of years. It is not a huge thing, but I have seen the signs in the past and felt bad about not trying it. Now that my bike was fixed, I would have no excuse for not trying.
I have not rode my bike in years. I bought my bike in August of 1999 in Portland. I wrote it a lot that month. Portland is a great place to ride a bike. In September of 1999 I moved to San Jose. San Jose is not a very friendly bicycle city. It has been in storage (behind the couch) all that time.
My bike route from my apartment to the office was about 8.8 miles. It was not the most direct route, but I wanted to stay close to the light rail line. I wanted to be able to get on the light rail if the trip was too much for me. I got my bike from the bike shop on Friday, biked it around the block a couple of times Sunday, and rode it eight blocks on Monday. I knew I needed a back up plan for Bike to work day. The light rail was that backup plan.
I can finally say, Yes! I have biked to work. I made it all the way there on my own power. I did not have to resort to my backup plan. The trip was pretty interesting. Most of it was easier than I expected. The first 6 miles just flew by. I was not tired or aching at all.
The last two miles just killed me. I had two hills in those last two miles and it was just enough to zap me. I felt great when I got to work. I was happy that I was able to get through those tough stretches.
My only problem is that I was tired for the rest of the day. My legs felt heavy and I really wanted to take a nap. I got though the day, but every time I stood up I wanted to take a nap.
I did not ride all the way home. I biked two miles to a light rail stop and took the light rail the rest of the way home. My legs were so tired that I just had to take the light rail.
Now I have to figure out where to go from here. I know that I should keep biking to work. It is a good form of exercise and I like it. I need to make it so it does not wear me out and effect my work. I am thinking of riding 20 minutes and taking the light rail the rest of the way. That way I can build up my stamina. I know I just need to stick with it.
I have been thinking about place a lot lately. On Saturday one of my sisters asked if I was ever planning to move back to the area. The first thing out of my Mother's mouth was "he does not want to live here." Up to this point of the day I had been talking to my mother about my life and my friends in San Jose. This must have been the impression she got from me. The conversation changed to another topic quickly, but that comment stuck in my head.
Last night a friend asked me if I would move back. I know she wants me to move back. She said that when she got back to Philly, she missed some of her old friends. She keeps on telling me that she would love to see me move back to Philadelphia. I told here there are three things she could do to get me to move back to Philadelphia.
1. Find me a job that I cannot refuse. 2. Set me up a woman for me to fall in love with. 3. Give me the winning lottery numbers.
There is a very high standard for number one. I really like my company. I worry that I would not be able to find a job I like in Philadelphia. I know that I never had a job as good as my job now when I lived back here. That was more then six years ago.
I think that number 3 might be easier then number 2. My friend did not say that she would be up to any of the three. I am not holding my breath.
I know I have lots of friends who have plans to escape Silicon Valley. They talk that they want to live someplace else. There are things about Silicon Valley, like the housing market, that drive my friends crazy. I have said for a long time that once my friends start leaving San Jose I might have to think about my plans.
Right now I do not know what I feel about here v. there. There is something I just love about Philadelphia. My family is here, I still have friends here, and the area is special to me. The problem is that the area might be special because I do not live here all the time.
On the other hand I like the life I have build for myself in San Jose. I work for a company I love. I have a nice circle of friends. I have met lots of new people out there. It might not be perfect, but it is something I build. That means something to me.
I am not sure how these ideas change with my father being sick. I do not know how things change going forward with his recovery. I am not sure if the draw of my family will grow because of that. I guess I will find out as time passes.
I while ago Silvia posted a comment about an old German saying, Nur wo man hinggeht ist man gewesen. It roughly means If you haven't walked there you haven't been there. I have been thinking about this a lot since I moved into my new apartment.
I have been living here about two months now. I am been trying to walk around so I can get to know the area. I only live four blocks west and six blocks north of my old apartment. Downtown San Jose is so small that it seems like I am in a whole different city. I need to do more working so I can learn this place better.
I am so happy I am taking a day to get back into the swing of things here in San Jose. Most of the time I push my days off to the max. I have slept a lot today. It would have been bad if I had to go to work. I might have just called in sick. I need to remember this the next time I take time off.
It feels good to be going back to San Jose. I am not sure if it is good to be going there or if it is good to be going home. Those are two different ideas. I want to go back to my place. I want to go back to the life I have made for myself. I want to go back to having more control. Being happy to go back means that I have taken the time to make San Jose more of a home for myself. That is a good thing.
I really spend this whole day going back to San Jose.
Got up early to go to the airport. It looked like it was going to go all wrong for a moment, but it worked out find in the end.
Had lunch with Alice, Dot, and Kathy.
Had to take off my shoes at airport security, but I got through it quickly.
I stepped into my apartment yesterday and for that first moment I was surprised. My apartment looked fresh and new to me. It was the opposite of deja vu. I felt like I had never been in it before, but I know I had passed though that doorway hundreds of times. I feel like these were brand new walls all around me.
This was a really good feeling. I like the idea of San Jose being fresh and new again. It is starting to feel more and more like home. It is at least my base. It is the place where I come back do. I never dread coming back. I wonder how long I will be able to keep this new feeling.
I have decided that I have a goal to have three meaningful dates before I turn 31. It could be three dates with one woman or one date with three women. I have not had a meaningful date since I have moved out to the West Coast. It is time I try to do something about it. I think I need to define meaningful date. I am talking about a date where there is actually some chance the woman is interested in me. In the past I would go out with a woman and I never had a chance with the woman from the start. I am not going to count that as a date.
Now I just have to figure out what women I can do on dates with. I am not sure I know any single women. I guess I have to get to work when I get back to San Jose.
This picture was taken while driving in San Jose. I have no idea how I achieved this effect. I do feel the whole world looks like this some times. More often it happens when I am on the streets of San Jose.
My first few days in Portland, I had a great time. Everything was just right. It almost seemed like too good of a time. I was remembering the best of Portland. I was not remembering the problems I had with the city. I could remember that I was happy to leave for Portland. I was afraid that I was not going to remember why I was happy to leave.
After a couple of days on my own, I started to get some ideas about Portland. I think Portland is a great city when you are in a relationship. It is a great city when you have a lot of friends around. It is a great city when you are clicking in your social aspects. It is a really rough city when you are alone.
Everyone seems to know everyone else and you know none of them. It is like they have all been friends for years. They great each other and you have the feeling they have great connections. The people are nice, but they look you like you are intruding if you try to talk to them. I am bad in those situations to begin with. I have a hard time breaking though that wall.
I would say San Jose is an easier place to be alone that Portland. I do not see people all around me that seem to be having such a great connection. Most of the people I run into in San Jose do not seem like they have the world under control. It makes it easier to deal with the doubts of my life. I do not want to fell like everyone else has all the answers but me.
Maybe I should make the list of all the cities I would live in. It would be a good list because I would have to think about why I like all these cities. I think it would be good to put these ideas down on paper.
As I drove around Portland I looked for things that were closed. I looked for businesses that I used to go to that are now closed. Most of the businesses I supported are still open. It looks like the current economic downturn is not treating retail Portland that poorly. In San Jose lots of retail businesses have gone down.
On the other side, I was told while I was there that Portland currently has over eight percent unemployment. A lot of people are having a hard time finding jobs. There have been a lot of cuts in the tech sector. It seems like all the new jobs that were created in the late 80s have gone away.
The Tech sector taking a dump is something that would keep me away from Portland. I have the feeling that my skills are best used in the tech sector. If I have to look in another sector, I might be looking at a lessor job. In the 80's the economy in Portland really took a beating. I wonder if it is a city that does not do well during recessions.
These things are important to be because sometimes I think about taking a second crack at Portland. It is still high on the list of places that I would live next. If I think I will not be able to get a job there, it makes it hard for me to want to move there. For some reason I always see myself 'moving cold' to my next city. That means not having a job before I move there. Maybe I have to wait for the tech sector to rebound before I try moving back.
Today was the big drive home. That was my only goal today. I went to bed early last night and got up very early this morning. I was out of bed by 3:30 AM and on the road by 4:00. I like starting early. I wanted to clear any major cities before traffic. I was clear of Eugene by 6 AM.
I also like to start driving early because those first almost free. We all have a maximum number of hours that we can spend in a car. I feel that the hours before 7 AM do not count toward that total. It is 7 AM before I realize what I have set out to do.
I was in California at 8:59 AM. It felt cool that I was in California at about the time I would be in work on any other day. I am surprised there are not any huge shopping outlets on the southern Oregon boarder because of the tax-free shopping. I guess there is not that many people close enough to the boarder.
I got back to my apartment in San Jose at 2:30 PM. If you do the math, that is 10.5 hours to get from Portland to San Jose. It is proof if you speed, you can save two or three hours in a full day drive. I drove like I was shot out of a cannon. I know that my car is not fast, but it might be too fast for me. I am not sure what kind of trouble I would get myself into if I hard a really fast car. I got up to 90 at one point and it still did not feel like I was going fast. I stayed between 10 and 15 mph over the speed limit at any time. The roads where empty the whole way back.
I was really sick of driving by the time I got to San Jose. For right now, I do not need to spend hours in my car any time soon. It was good for me to take a road trip. It is something that I have not done for a long time. I do not need it do it any time soon.
Whenever I get back to San Jose I am happy to be home. I wonder if that is a happiness to be back at my home base or if that is a happiness to be back in San Jose. The sun was shinning and it was a beautiful day in San Jose. I give San Jose a hard time a lot. I keep on staying that it lacks something. To be honest, it is not that bad of a place. There are a lot of worst places out there. I should try to figure out how I feel about the city.
Tomorrow I am on my way back to work. Now I am wishing that I took Thursday and Friday off also. It would be nice to have some time to rest before trying to head back to work. I have to try to get back into the swing of things tomorrow. It should be fun. I am looking forward to seeing what everyon says about my hair.
Now I have to figure out a lot of things. I have to figure out if I am going to drive cross country or not. I have to think about what I am going to do for my 30th birthday. I have to figure out what I really think of my life. Some of these things will be harder then others.
When I went Portland and the dot.com craze was just starting, I worked at 800.COM. It was an interesting place to work. It had that excitement that you see at start ups. When I first worked there they brought in Lunch and Dinner every night. I worked overtime almost everyday so I could get both meals. I worked with a great bunch of people.
When I worked at 800.COM I was really caught up in the whole idea of the New Economy. I thought that company like 800.COM would really change the retail landscape. I liked the people I worked with, but it was clear that we were on the bottom of the ladder at 800.COM. After temping for 6 months I left. I felt the company had no loyalty to me. I wonder what would have happened if I had been hired as an employee.
I was not hired and I went on to San Jose later that year. I am still at the job I left Portland for. I think about how different my life would have been if I stayed in Portland. I still hear from a couple of my 800.COM Friends. It is not that often. It is still good to hear from them. I wonder they they think about all this.
I was thinking about taking a day trip this weekend, but it is not going to happen. I had a party to go to tonight and I am hanging out with a friend tomorrow. These are both events that I did not want to miss and I cannot move to another time. I am not sure now when I will get a chance to do a day trip. It might be a little while. Next weekend I am on call. I could do a roadtrip while on call, but I do not want to risk it. If I miss to many calls while on call, they might have us working weekends again. It might be two or four weeks before I get the change to hit the road for a day trip.
I am thinking I want to drive down to Hearst Castle. It is one of those things I want to see while I am living in California. I have been told it is four hour drive from San Jose. That is about the drive for a good day trip. My family used to day trip to Washington DC all the time. Four hours is enough time to really hit the road, but not so long you having to stay overnight.
I have not taken a day trip in a long time. The last real day trip I took was a trip too Mount St. Helen's with my sister Kathy. That was when I lived in Portland. We left at breakfast and got back for a late dinner. It makes me wish there was someone I could take with me to Hearst Castle.
I went to the San Jose International Auto Show on Sunday. It is one of the shows where the auto makers show off their models for the next model year. They are trying to hype the cars, get people interested in them. There was only one concept car, the Ford Forty-Nine. It is a cross between the bat-mobile and an old Lincoln. It would be cool if it actually got into production.
I walked around the auto show for a while. I could tell there were a lot of people that were looking at cars they could never afford in real life. I will admit that I sat in both the Mercedes and BMW convertibles. I stopped there. I did not want to be the guy sitting in all the BMWs. They did not let people in the uber-expensive cars like Ferrari and Rolls Royce.
I tried to sit in all the cars that I might buy the next time I am looking for a car. I have three main criteria, under $20,000, at least 30-MPG city, and I need to be about to get in without needing a shoehorn. I think that these things fit the way I few a car. I know that I want a car that is cheap to own. I also want a car that I do not have to worry about it being stolen. There are very few cars that fit all of these categories. The two cars that I liked the most are the VW New Beetle and the Saturn L100.
I am very divided when it comes to cars. There is part of me that really likes cars. I love to drive. I love being on the road. I love the freedom that my car gives me. I have been itching for months to take a good road trip.
There is another part of me that wants to get rid of my car. I want to never make a car payment again. I want to get out of the daily grind of the traffic jam. I want to be the person that asks other people for rides. I have friends that live without cars. There is part of me that is jealous of them.
I am not going to buy a new car anytime soon. I want to own my current car for at least another three years. I want to get every penny of value out of it. By the time I am looking to buy a car, the cars at the car show will be used lease returns. That is what I will most likely be buying anyway.
It does not get really cold in San Jose, but last night was a little cold and a little rainy. I stopped to get a cup of hot chocolate and read the Metro. Hot chocolate is just the right speed for the occasional treat. It is not as work-a-day as a cup of coffee. It is not as indulgent as a cup of luxury coffee. It warmed me just enough to enjoy the evening alone.
Yesterday I walked to the bicycle shop in San Jose. I knew it was somewhere south of the University, but I was not sure where. I walked down there, got the address, name and hours for the shop. I have not been good about my bicycle since I moved to San Jose. About six weeks before I left Portland I purchased a bicycle. I have only used it about six times in the past two years. I want to start using it again. I decided to get it fixed as part of cleaning up my apartment.
Last night I had a dream about riding a bicycle. In the dream I was taking a class in Horsham, PA. I have no idea what the class was about. One day I was stuck in Hatboro and had to ride a bike to get to the class. I had to ride down County Line Road in my own home town. The handle bars on the bike kept on changing shape. I kept on having to rotate the handle bars keep a grip on them. I got to the class late and the professor was really upset at me.
Today I took my bike down to Bicycle Express in San Jose. It is good to get this monkey off my back. I have been putting this off for over a year. I liked the look of the bicycle shop. Bicycle shops should look they are run by people who love bicycles, not like they are a part of a chain. Now all I have to do is ride the bike once I get it back.
It is has rained everyday since I returned from vacation. It is sunny today, but I am in the office. It was really foggy when I was coming into work today. I am usually not bothered by the rain, but it is starting to get me down.
I think there are two ways I can really do this. The first is to try to soclize more. I have a handful of work friends right now. I think with a little work and some social events, I can turn some of them into real friends. I need to get them away from the office. I need to set up things like poker night and movie nights. I think it is something that could be fun.
I also need to get out more in San Jose. I need to go to cultural events in the city. I need to pay attention to things going on around here. I keep on saying that San Jose is a boring city. I might not be trying hard enough. I need to try harder to get around.
Today Armando described San Jose as being just like an airport terminal. He said that San Jose is not comfortable or inviting. It is the kind of place that people just walk through. I think this is very insightful.
Before I left for vacation I felt that I was only going to be home for a couple of days. I felt like I was not going to get time to do much. I knew that I would not get the chance to hang out with all my friends. I felt bad for not being able to take more days off. I am hoarding vacation to use it next year. I could have taken more days, but I want to save all that time for a big trip.
Now that I am back in San Jose, it feels like it was a long vacation. I look back on my flight to Philadelphia and it seems like more then a weeks time has past. Between seeing my family and hanging out with friends, it seems like a lot more then one week has past. I think that I got a lot of what I wanted out of this vacation. A big chunk of that was catching up with people. I wanted to make sure I renewed friendships with people I do not see all the time.
Before I left I wrote about how I felt that this trip would either cure my homesickness or make me what to go back even more. I can say today that my trip has cured my homesickness. I feel that I am good for some time longer in San Jose. Like my last trip back to Philadelphia, I realized that I am not ready to move back yet. I do not think I am done in San Jose either. I feel that I have to spend more time in San Jose before I decide to move on.
There is a list of things that I learned.
1. Home is always a more complicated idea then expected. Before going back to Philadelphia I was not thinking about all the complicated issues that I faced there. It is like those issues are out of sight, out of mind. There are issues with family and friends that I do not face being on the other side of the country. If I moved back there I would have to deal with these issues more often.
2. I think I could live in Philadelphia in the future. I drove around the city with an eye on what I like in Cities. I think that I could live in a city like that. There are currently a lot of nice areas in the city. There are lots of parts of the city where I can live a very urban life. I can see why Cathy likes living there. Philadelphia has a lot of different identities for the people there. I think it has more personalty then San Jose.
3. There are still things I need to learn about myself. I moved out west for a lot of different reasons. One of them was to learn more about myself. I think there are still some things that I need to learn about myself. I think that I want to learn these things before I move. I think I have to understand more about how I feel about relationships, work, and living before I move back to Philadelphia. If I do not learn these things I could make mistakes.
4. Don't let turning 30 freak me out. I am turning 30 next year. I think it has been freaking me out a little. I think that I have been putting pressure on myself because of turning 30. I was upset that my life is undefined in places. I think that worrying about it is not making my life any better defined. I have to let these things develop at there own speed. I should not worry about the time that is taken. It is only time.
I apologize if some of these things are vague. There are things that happened that I cannot really write about in such an open place. These things are effecting my outlook. I am not sure I can give more detail without airing dirty laundry.
I will be writing more about this trip. There are a lot of specific things that I can write about. I just do not have the time to write about them right now. I know the next couple of days will be spend writing about things that happened when I was visiting home. I hope I do not forget about any before I get the chance to write about them.
I have spent most of today with a travel hangover. It is like a regular hangover, except I did not have fun getting it. I am not in the mood to go over all the details of my flight back, but lets just say I am going to think twice before flying America West again. I got back to my apartment at 2 AM this morning. That was almost three hours after I expected to get back. This was after having to fly into the San Francisco Airport rather then San Jose like I was ticketed.
I spent most of my time today sleeping and laying around my apartment. I really did not have the drive to try to do anything else. I am so happy that I took today off. It would have been a mess if I had to go into the office. I know for next time, If I fly into town late it is best to take the next day off.
Now I have to go into the office tomorrow. I wish I could take another day off, but I have to go into the office sometime. The good thing is that I am looking at a two day week. I only have to survive tomorrow and Friday. I will be able to relax a bit more after that. I know that I was just on vacation, but it was not all that relaxing.
Right now I am sitting at Cathy's Radio show. She is doing a Christmas show. We have been doing little skits for the songs that are not Christmas Songs. We played Pacman Fever, Ain't Nothing Going to Break My Stride, and The Dream Police to name a few songs. This is something that I would not have done if I was in San Jose right now.
Tomorrow, maybe today by the time I am done writing this post, I will be traveling back to my hometown Warminster, Pennsylvania. I have been looking forward to this trip for a long time. I have not seen my family at all this year. This is my only chance to see them for a while. I am not person that needs to be close to my family all the time, but I miss them now. There are a lot of things I feel left out on since I live on the other side of the country. There are a lot of things I wish I could be home for.
This year I have had a couple bouts of homesickness. There are times when I have missed my family, Philadelphia, and the East Coast. Either one of two things will happen. The first thing that could happen, what happened Christmas 1999, I can be reminded why I moved away in the first place. There is an old saying that nothing cures a bout of homesickness like a trip home. When you are homesick you forget all those little things you do not like about the area. You can only see the sweet things.
The second thing that could happen is that I might go home and decide I really want to move back. This idea really scares me. I do not feel that I am ready to move back yet. I do not feel that I am finished at my job yet. If I feel that moving back is a good idea, I do not know what I am going to do with my job. It is a scary idea because I would have to another leap. I am not sure my life is in the right place to take this kind of leap.
It will be good to get away from my job for a few days. It will also be good to get away from San Jose. The best thing about going home is that I have few responsibilities. I can go chill, slug, and hang. Everyone else will take care of everything. People do not care about what work I have to do for them. I do not have to put up with the job. It is going to be a good thing. Right now I only wish I would be home for more days.
It was not very cold in San Jose. It does not get very cold either. No one I know can remember the last time it Snowed in San Jose. I cannot see it ever being cold enough to get snow here.
I was walking around downtown San Jose this evening. They had these machines on one of the walkways. Every few minutes the machines would start up and they would spray things that look like snow flakes. It was strange for me to see these machines. It was odd to see this artificial snow flying around. After a few minutes I realized that the machines where actually shooting soap suds around. At times it actually looked like it was snowing.
The fake snow does not make it feel any more like Christmas. I think it will not feel like Christmas until I am in the actual cold weather of Philadelphia. Even if my shopping is almost done, it does not feel like Christmas yet.
I have not been getting out of my apartment for the last couple of weeks. When I do get out of my apartment, I have been leaving San Jose. I have not been sticking around my neighborhood. I have been driving and not walking. It almost feels like I have been avoiding San Jose.
It is strange to say that I am avoided the place where I live. I come here every night. I spend hours on end in this city. The difference is that I have not been getting out to see the town lately. I cannot tell you why I have been avoiding my town. I just do not feel like kicking around the streets.
I have a complex relationship with San Jose. On one hand I am a fan of the underdog. San Jose is an underdog city. People make fun of San Jose all the time. Lots of people act like they are too good for San Jose. I want to see the city do well so it can shed this image.
On the other hand I think San Jose is kind of boring. I think there are a lot of things this city is missing. For having almost a million people, San Jose feels more like a suburb. I got my hair cut on Monday. I was I was sitting the chair watching the woman cut my hair. I was thinking that I was never planning on living in San Jose. It just kind of happened. I keep on thinking that my destiny is in another city.
After the holidays I will have to make more of an effort to hang out in Downtown San Jose. I will have to try to find ways to have my friends come down here also. I need to hand out with people and bring them to my neighborhood.
For weeks now, long before TiVo had layoffs, I have been thinking about reducing the amount of possessions that I own. I am starting to feel weighted down by the things that I own. I live in a studio apartment, but it will be increasingly hard for me to move from my apartment in the future. I feel that I am getting too attached to these things.
I know there are good and bad results from getting attached to possessions. I know that sometimes, attachment to possessions can help root you in a place. It can help focus you on the maintenance of that place. Those are currently two things that I do not have. I am not focused and I am not attached. I am not sure that my possessions will help me do this.
The down side of my possessions is that they tend to close me in. My possessions make me want to go and buy more possessions. They draw me to them and help me waste my time. I really do not need any more help to waste my time. I am good at wasting my time as it is right now. My possessions give me short-term enjoyment at the cost of long term accomplishment.
I am not sure when I am going to move from this apartment. It might be as soon as early next year. If I leave this apartment I will have to think about getting rid of some of my stuff. If I leave San Jose, I will think about getting rid of a great deal of my possessions. I want to think about this now while I can make a good choices. It makes me wish that I could live without owning anything. The only way I can do this is by becoming a priest. I still need to find simpler ways to live.
After I found out that I would not be laid off, I spent much of the afternoon thinking about two things. I thought about leaving San Jose and I thought about staying in San Jose. Both of these ideas have a lot of weight in my head. They seem to be a central idea behind my last few months here.
I do not consider San Jose to be my home. I live here, San Jose is the address on my drivers licence, everything I own is here. I still do not seen San Jose as my home. I feel that there is some kind of distance between me and the city. I lack a connection to the city most of the time. I feel connected to my apartment, my office, and my car. For rest of city could be any other place on earth.
With all those things city, San Jose has a small place in my heart. I want good things to happen to San Jose. I think people from the rest of Silicon Valley should show San Jose more respect. I think the construction going on around the city is a good thing. I worry that the economic downturn might effect the money for those projects.
There is part of me that wants to leave San Jose. I want a new city to explore. I want a new place to figure out. I want to live in a city that has better parks. I want to go somewhere that has a different character. I want new experiences. I feel that somewhere out there I could find a city that I would enjoy more then San Jose. I miss parts of Portland and Philadelphia. I wish some of those elements where here.
I think if I leave San Jose, I will never move back here. I know that the dot.com boom period is over. It is something I will not be able to cash in on. Right now Silicon Valley is paying for those excesses. The whole Valley is depressed right now. If I leave now, that is it for me. I am not going to make my way back here.
In my heart I feel that Silicon Valley will come back. I think there will be another explosion of technology that will fuel Valley again. I still want to be part of something like that. I think once we get to the other side of this down turn there will be a huge upturn. If I can get thought this period in the Valley, I will find a huge payoff. I want to be around for the next big thing.
If the forces of fate turn against me I see myself leaving San Jose. If I lose my job at TiVo, there is a good chance I will be moving onto my next city. I am not sure what city that is. If TiVo does not let me down, I see myself staying in San Jose for a while. I know that I change my mind every other day when it comes to this city. As of today, this is where I stand on San Jose. It might change any day.
For the last couple of years November has been a big month for me. Things in my life seem to change in the fall. The things do not always happen in November, but they happen around November. Here is the list going back a few years.
2000 Moved to a new apartment 1999 Moved from Portland to San Jose 1998 Moved from Warminster to Portland 1997 My Brother Matthew passed away 1996 I lost my job at the Navy base and started working at Ficomp
I know there is a chance that something big might happen to me soon. Today we found out that the Vice President of my department resigned. This is the last thing in the world that I expected. There are a lot of different things that this might mean. I might be totally over reacting. I might be hitting right on the head. There is a vibe that my world might be changing. I just wonder how my life is going to change.
Today I am going back to work. My vacation is over and I have to go back to the grind.
Last night, right before I went to sleep, I realized I had a good vacation. As I was laying down in my bed I felt like I did not remember what it is like to wake up for work. It felt like sleeping in my bed was almost an unfamiliar experience. Intellectually I knew was just getting back to my life. It was my physical memory that felt different.
There is part of me that did not want to come back to San Jose. It would have been nice if I would have been able to stay on vacation forever. It would be nice if I did not have to work and I had all the money I needed. I know that I am a long way away from that ever happening. I knew that too much of my life is in San Jose. I do not have the kind of support system that would allow me just to leave here and never come back.
I will have to see how long it takes me to get back into the swing of things at work. I know I only took five days off. It feels much longer then that. I think that I really emotionally escaped my job while I was in Chicago. I did not think about any of the day to day parts of my job. It might be next week before I am back in the swing of things.
I might be getting back into work before I get there. Last night I had a dream about TiVo's Evangelist, Richard Bullwinkle. I do not remember anything about the dream. I just know that he was in the dream.
