Blended Living

• listening to berlioz on pandora
• I’ve got a huge red lit keyboard on a small 2 pound netbook right now
• it seems wrong yet it works for me
• Waiter,  there’s a plane in my river!
• that was pretty miraculous today – no major injuries
• I can see the made for TV movie already – “Miracle on the Hudson”
• so it took a couple hours to pop up on google top 100 trends page
• then it pretty much dominated it
• with some exceptions like Bush address, sprinkled cupcake?%$%!, and some others I didn’t get a chance to check out yet
• caught gladwell on Kimmel talk show
• they spoke about 10,000 hours to expertise
• I thought about starting a few new habits
• like 1,000 short PHP, python, and perl scripts
• maybe 1,000 miles running for this upcoming running season
• and 1,000 drawings and trades
• could be fun, and as feasible and worthwhile a goal as any
• although not sure what the nexus of these goals and habits are
• what special skillset do they produce?
• maybe throw in some powerpoint stuff and screencasts
• sounds like a busy 2009
• I need to review fair use copyright rules
• could be fun to spruce up the blog with some multimedia
• that’s such a faded/jaded term now
• starting to like this saitek eclipse keyboard
• little “mushy” but its quiet and lit
• why are the migratory birds around here when its so cold anyway?
• or were they just sharing crowded flight lanes going south?
• and we think we can one day have millions of flying cars up there too?
• banks took a hit today…again
• but indices came back even, asia is up now
• there’s a new foldable diamond anniversary Scrabble game
• some nice new features bu they changed the color scheme
• which pissed off some traditionalists
• the quick vote at CNN has almost 80% unfavorable Bush presidency
• …just 5 more days

• sleep – these darks days have contributed to me going off schedule
• its late, but a quick nap has me wide awake…again
• that computer book on powerpoint will likely do the insomniac trick
• middle east is at it again- that’s depressing if you let it get to you
• so much for trying to get in a library fine-less year
• made it 5 days, maybe next year
• all things seem to come in waves, and reserved books at NYPL is no exception
• trying to read more and faster, but can’t seem to cover all my interests
• should minimally scan all the books first, so I can better prioritize
• first attempts at a better reading/diversion/exercise rotation has been good
• this was first thought off during my trading as a living period
• chunking by setting routine breaks actually allows me to digest more information or get more done
• which may seem counterintuitive at first
• but yet it works
• and burns some extra calories during the day as a bonus
• combined with a steady water drinking habit
• it becomes a nice detox benefit too
• I like the buddhist concept of good and bad seeds in all of us
• just that we need to acknowledge the bad seeds
• and nurture the good ones more
• otherwise we find ourselves doing bad things for no good reasons
• like watching TV for hours and hours to dull our senses
• or eating all the Ice Cream
• or shopping for yet another thing we don’t have money or space for
• or worse…
• its OK and actually very healing to notice these trends in us, and actually smile when we catch ourselves and postpone that bad automatic desire or craving
• and take a deep breath in and let it out with a smile
• which is an addictive habit but in a good way
• as I notice I’m smiling more because random strangers are smiling back at me
• I came across a nice quote today
• Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty
• I helped someone carry groceries for a ways
• she was receptive to the help
• which is more rare than you’d think sometimes
• as the world conspires to cause people to be so suspicious sometimes
• but she thanked me with a smile
• you know recessions can be bad things, but they can be good things if you make it so
• like it causes you to focus on some more important things

• Market looks like it may be building a base to make a move up
• but tomorrow may show us if SP500 has a floor at 900
• dollar made a turn and moved 10 cents quickly (vs Eur)
• Oil has dropped under 40 despite OPEC cutting back production
• I think Oil in the 30′s is a great opportunity for a buy and hold for a few months
• sell when it makes 50-100%, might take a few months to about a year and a half
• still think the market bottom will be sometime in the spring or summer
• unless there is some major sea change event
• like another war, major attack, or aliens landing
• states are being crunched in the middle  between
• federal policies that are shrinking funds and
• rising unemployment rates
• which could hit 10%
• the MTA raising rides 23% is a huge slap in the face of NYers
• Madoff news is dominating attention
• its the witch hunt and will be the poster child of this downturn
• like Enron was
• want to play with phpBB to launch a way to record predictions
• and other market news and ideas
• new HD channels appeared on my cable box
• but many of the content is still SD
• that’s annoying
• I’m becoming an HD snob
• but blue ray is still too expensive.
• and they have to fix that long load time thing
• 42+ inch 1080p LCD and blue ray player with DVD recorder for under a grand
• that’s my price point.  maybe 2009?

• If I watched every TV show (that I liked at one time) that’s 14-16 hours of shows a week
• the DVR saves me about 4-5 hours for those shows (if I watched them all)
• found google trends
• the top 100 search terms updated about hourly
• or you can enter a term and it graphs its relative popularity over the last few years
• try soup, Olympics, money and elections
• when baseball season comes around that’s more watching hours
• the average household watches something like 60+ hours per week
• that is astounding to me
• but it also explains alot
• most of the google trends search terms made sense except for
• fibonacci sequence
• which was later explained when I watched Fringe on the DVR
• The proposed Metrocard fees are getting me pissed off
• Is there no rail, bus, plane line that operates well and on a profit?
• last night many search terms were from House
• on ebay they can actually see fewer bids when American Idol is on
• it was a mystery at first
• if I walked or ran instead of watching tv, thats about 45 to 100 miles per week
• or about 1 to 3 pounds in calories
• that’s every week!
• America needs to walk 1 hour for every 2-3 hours watched.
• imagine.

• Is it really “man created in God’s image”, or god created in Man’s image?
• Is it a fools errand to seek God, or rather to find god in us?
• One person’s dogma, is another’s myth, blind faith is so dangerous
• I’d like to take snippets of song lyrics and make a play – not necessarily a musical
• [this is a stream of consciousness- and my focus is that fleeting]
• entrain, entrain what is my perfect rhythm, my natural melody?
• who to dance with?
• I think that was the market bottom for the year
• it be nice to have a dog again, but the responsibility is daunting
• 40 days left?  Can I hit that goal?  Have to ramp it up.
• if only we took the literal figuratively, and vice versa
• where is the beauty?
• the park in the morning was beautiful
• have to do those morning pages
• fire up the new computer
• move the zune over
• setup the laptop for the morning pages
• subscribe to that drawing site?
•  netflix?
• enough

There’s 44 days left in the year, and the weather seems to finally decide that it is winter.  Just yesterday we were blessed with 65 degrees and a last chance to show off those late summer fashions.  I think I saw more miniskirts than ever before during a quick walk thru lower Chelsea.

Overnight, and I was up all night, the cold came in around 4am.  Suddenly my block is filled with fallen leaves while just a few days ago I wondered how long my tree lined street would remain verdant.  Like the markets lately these leaves lingered but when they were to fall, they fell quickly.

I like to observe society and do things just a bit differently.  Instead of New Year’s Resolutions, I am making a couple resolution due by year’s end. 

1. Learn winter running. 
2. Lose those last 10-15 pounds.
3. Arrange my life so that I have those 2-3 hours daily to start and finish what I’m passionate about.

This way you hit the ground running January 1st.

I’m watching my DVR and thinking how it was a time freeing technology at its onset.  Humorously, later on after programming in all my favorite shows and being at the mercy of finite video storage space and near infinite interests, I remarked with a colleague that I am in a race to see all the shows on my DVR before they “fall off the bottom”.  What freed me has enslaved me now.

On this viewing, John Updike is being interviewed by Charlie Rose and the topic of getting better at your craft in later years is being discussed.  This coincides with his ‘Widows of Eastwick’ which is a 30 year sequel to ‘Witches’.  (I wonder would “Witches” the movie be a good candidate for blue Ray viewing?)  The topic of how Clint Eastwood getting better as a director and actor comes up, how he might be the exception.   They mention how conductors get better in age and perhaps its because of all the arm movements that helps them live such long lives.

My mind escapes to wondering if that is purely the physical, or is it perhaps a clear example of blended living (the act of conducting involves the left and right brain, the physical, emotional, and perhaps spiritual).  Then I wonder if the Wii games will foster a new generation of longer lives.  Is there a Wii conductor game with New York, Philadelphia and other great cities’ symphony versions?  What a contrast to Grand Theft Auto pick your city version.  I doubt there is a Musical Conducting for Dummies book.  I think about adding some workouts with music and a lot of arm movements.  I wonder if Yoga is a starting point for a new workout, or best left alone as it is. [Most enduring multicentury  things are fairly mature]

Its fun to allow this SoC (stream of consciousness) to run along, until it becomes senseless gibberish (have I lost you already dear reader ?)  At many other times it is really true original thought.  Looking for the crevices between disparate fields, new combinations of old and current, east and west, modern technology and old world thought.  Some (most?) SoC could go into morning pages.

“Time Shifting” has been a fun read so far, and as it hasn’t seemed to be slow, I’ve spent more time reading 65 pages than most other books.  Ironic for the topic and title.  I guess in alot of my other reading there is so much overlap that I can pretty much scan past whole chapters but not in this one.  More details on this topic to follow.

Have you gotten tired of all this negativity about the global recession yet?  Unfortunately more bad news is likely to follow, as more jobs are lost.  Hope you stay solvent and ride this out.  It is after all a cyclical business the economy. Boom follows bust eventually – just like the seasons. It reminds me of the concept of cyclical time and linear time in “Time Shifting”.  There is growth and rest, not an endless series of higher highs.  Cultures that resist their societies’ tug for linear time thinking are happier.  That will be an essential ingredient to a good blended living recipe.  Otherwise no endless supply of time saving devices like the DVR will answer the rising need.  Its like time inflation.  Are you under time poverty?  Be here now. Be happy.