It’s almost December now and I’ve been thinking a lot about my new years resolutions and how I’ve mostly kept them. I say mostly because I have already bent the rules on my 365 Project tumblr,
today's 365 post!
bought 13 items that contribute to my wardrobe this year (instead of 12) and am behind on reading 24 books right now. Still, I’m actually pretty pleased with my progress so far and already have plans for bigger and better resolutions for next year!
The relative success of these resolutions have me thinking about projects that I’ve tried to hatch and incubate in the past. I have one in particular that I’ve been thinking about picking up again next year, which involves video and interviewing people. As grandma gets older I feel more and more that it’s really important for us to capture her stories I had been thinking that it would be good to capture some moments and stories with her while she is still able to share them. She’s 85 now and I still don’t know much about her life back in Vietnam. I feel that we should get something to remember her by on video. I’d like to learn how to set up a shot, basic lighting, and how compose and edit a compelling video interview.
I’m hoping to do more of these interviews with people in my life and questions that I often wonder about. This sounds vague but the whole concept itself is pretty general so let’s go with that for now.
Where has the time gone? Last time I posted something was back in spring, I completely skipped summer! I wasn’t in crygenic freeze or anything, I was just too busy to get a thought down that wasn’t under 140 characters.
The most notable thing I did this summer was enroll in a design class at Art Center’s Art Center at Night program. I took a class called Design 360, which is like a sampler platter of all the disciplines that Art Center has to offer. It was nice to know that there are at least 13 other people in the world who wanted to do something artistic when they were in school but ended up not pursing anything remotely artistic (in terms of a career path) and decided they wanted a second chance. Well, that was more or less our collective story.
I had a lot of fun trying to be a teacher’s pet and an A student. I learned how one combines process and creativity and applies it to any work that has to be done to meet the needs of a client. We my favorite of the topics covered was probably product design with graphic design coming in second. Surprisingly, photography was not a session that I enjoyed at all. I also did not enjoy the day before the final was due and sleeping for only 3 hours. (Oh, riiiight, that’s why I don’t want to go back to school.)
transportation design inspired by other iconic designs
My resolutions have been going well(ish)Â 365 is on track, 24 books is pacing slow (I’ve been buying more books than I can read though) and 12 items is pacing too quickly! Currently at 15 books finished and in the middle of reading 2 now. And I can’t buy anything until November… but at least I’m not overspent AND I have saved an amazing amount of money this year from not buying clothes. Gee who’d have thought?
You hide my clothes? I'm wearing everything you own!
Patrick and I have done lots of fun things together like glow in the dark mini golf. Planning vacations that we won’t go on to exotic places like Seoul, Berlin, Riviera Maya, and New York City. Last weekend we went to LobsterFest where he de-shelled his first lobster. He didn’t really grow up in a seafood kind of family, I don’t think they have oceans in St. Louis. Hell, we even got our motorcycle licences on American Badass Weekend (aka 4th of July Weekend).
Technically, I've been riding since I was 4. No big.
My little IndieClick was bought by Demand Media. When I say “my” IndieClick I don’t mean I started it or own it, I mostly mean that’s been not just work but a big part of my life for the past 5 years so I feel like I’ve put a lot of myself into the company. It’s awesome to see what has happened to it. Our new CEO is Richard Rosenblatt, who sold Intermix Media (MySpace) to News Corp (Rupert Murdoch), which is kind of amazing. Then he started another company which bought my company, also amazing.
The downside to all this is that now I work in Santa Monica, which sounds horrible, I know. This is the worst thing to happen in the history of things! The problem is that I live across town from work (the “town” being the City of Los Angeles), instead of at least living on the same side of La Cienega. Almost all my friends are on the east side, the food is better, the extracurricular activities are better, the snooty hipsters are better. Instead of spening 20-30 minutes riding the train in to work, I spend 1h 40min riding a train and bus.
I will now leave you with this which Clint shared with on Google Reader:
With “Carmageddon” looming in Los Angeles, I decided to take my “LA with no cars” video and re-edit it with new music, coloring and opening shots. Editing was done in Final Cut, coloring done with After Effects and shot on a Canon 60D.
Music: Wim Mertens – Often a Bird
Here’s the basics:
1. Record for 20-30 mins.
2. Go frame by frame and grab pieces of the road that aren’t obstructed by a car. Eventually, you will have every piece of the road.
3. Put the static image of the road in with the moving background.
For more information see: http://rossching.com/running-on-empty
I finished reading Zero History last night and like most of the Gibson books it takes a while to build up but the action is all at the end. The action was pretty great but the reveals were what really made it. I thought the action at the end of Spook Country was much better but this book, having met most of the characters previously, was a good second parter to Spook Country. I would talk more about it but I don’t want to spoil it if you (whoever you are) are going to read it.
I finished sometime after midnight and then started Googling things like Gabriel Hounds and Hollis Henry, like I always do when I finish a Gibson book. Nothing aside from book reviews came up though, that was expected but also a little disappointing.
Now I’ve started on Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, which I guess is aover 10 years old now! The copy I have has a new Preface that was written in 2000 which was some time after the first edition of the book came out and the whole of the restaurant world had a chance to read it.
I watch No Reservations now and can’t really believe he’s been around for 10+ years doing this kind of stuff. Mostly because Bourdain didn’t really enter my atmosphere until a year ago, people don’t exist outside my realm of awareness.
So I bought a super lotto ticket the other day because the jackpot was something like $300,000,000 and I started imagining what I would do with that kind of money.
I would give 1 million each to all my co-workers. I think we all deserve it. I’d of course take care of any of my own debt as well as that of my parents and put money away for my sister’s college education.
I’d probably purchase some real estate. A place where I could retire when I get older. Then I would travel the world, go backpacking through Europe, I don’t really want to take the easy road for everything, the money would just be my safety net. Then I’d probably start a couple businesses. Not really sure what kind of businesses but I’d have as much time as I wanted to figure that part out.
This is of course the same way that people find out what they really want to do in life. I was never able to mentally put myself in a situation in which I had the means to do whatever I wanted, so I felt like this never worked for me. Somehow. imagining winning $300 million worked for me.
Thinking about it now though (and realistically) the best and most successful businesses come from people who are doing things that they love so much they would never give up on them. That would be the tricky part. I have the capital to start a business but do I have the devotion to make it a success? I guess I just have to find out what my passion is.
Oh, I didn’t win, by the way. Didn’t match any numbers at all.
