You know what’s more nerve-wracking than having a job interview? Having one that no-one told you about. I just found out that I’m scheduled for an interview in two days and the recruiter never emailed me. Whoops.
You fat fuck.
That’s what I say to myself pretty much every time I look in the mirror. Yeah, I’m sure that’s not healthy, but it’s still how I feel about myself and I try to use that guilt and low physical self-esteem to motivate me to work out. For a while, it worked really well. Since moving my office to Seattle in September, I’ve lost the routine I had that allowed me to work out regularly. Motivation has rarely been my problem. Consistent motivation is.
Historically, I’ve gotten so disgusted with myself that I’ve become overly motivated to diet and work out, generally taking both to extremes; often hurting myself in the process. After a month or so of seeing no results, I’d get frustrated and find reasons to cheat, which quickly turned into quitting. Last April, after spending about six weeks at the gym by myself, I decided to hire a trainer. I knew that with him watching over me, I’d be doing the best possible workout which would essentially guarantee results. If I didn’t see them quickly, I’d at least know that they were coming. When I was working out on my own, there was always that chance that I would never see any significant results from my effort, and that is what allowed me to quit.
For a while, I was doing really well. I was working out at least four days per week; often five days at the gym and then something physical on the weekend. I felt great. I didn’t look as good as I wanted, but I was making progress, my mood was improved and I was impressed with my own stamina for the first time in a very long time. I had a recurring meeting on my work calendar that showed that I was out of the office from 12 – 2 every afternoon, which was enough time for me to do cardio, weights, shower and change and still grab some lunch. I’d come into work, read my email, have my daily meeting, head to the gym, then start my real work day. It was perfect.
When my office moved to Seattle, I lost the convenient access to the gym. I also had a new project, new people and all the restaurants Seattle has to offer, so it was hard to get motivated to go during the day. I tried going in the evening for a while, but as has happened so often in the past, I find reasons why I can’t go in the evening: I’m tired, I have dinner plans, I’m too hungry to wait until after the workout, etc. I’ve also tried to work out in the morning, but again, it’s too easy to find reasons to skip it. Lastly, my kickboxing membership has run out, although I’m pretty sure Pat is so disorganized that I could continue to go for months before he realized it.
So, here I am, summer just a few months away, full of self-loathing for my lack of motivation. I’m in the perfect situation right now where I’m back in Redmond and have very little work to do and yet, I still haven’t gotten back in the habit of going to the gym every day. Part of the reason is that the self-esteem boost I used to get from going to the gym has reversed. Now, when I go, I’m so unhappy with the giant steps backwards I’ve taken that I don’t want to go. It just reminds me how far I’ve fallen and how hard it will be just to get back to where I was. I know it will take time and I have to just gut it out for a while, but I think it’s actually harder to climb the hill again knowing that I was already halfway up it than it was to climb it for the first time. I know a big part of it is just establishing that routine again, but I haven’t been able to pull it off yet.
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I know Amy would kill me if I ever put this on Facebook, but I rediscovered this amazing picture and just had to share.
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For me, there is no meditative joy like riding a bike I truly love. The noise of thought made quiet by the sound of wind, engine and music; the clarity of vision brought by narrowing focus to instruments and the road ahead. Welcome home, dear friend. I’ve missed you.
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I really neglect this blog. I just don’t have enough interesting thoughts that coagulate into something worth documenting. Well, unless you count me reposting lyrics.
So, I again find myself attracted to music that’s dark and somewhat depressing. One of the reasons I stopped writing as much poetry as I used to was that it tended to be dark. Of course, that’s what you do when you’re a typical emo teenager: write dark, sad, desperate lyrics. That kid is still in me. Thankfully, he doesn’t have that same dark cloud around him, so he doesn’t feel the need to write the way he used to. Instead, he apparently talks about himself in the third person. Regardless, I’m still attracted to a lot of that dark music. Lyrically, it tends to speak to me more than most other music. So, here we go again…
This song seems to be in contrast to Potions. Rather than being written from the perspective of someone who wishes they felt nothing, it’s written from the perspective of someone who really doesn’t feel anything. It’s an interesting position to me. It seems a rare standpoint from which to write. My take on it is that the writer has been hurt to the point that his only defense is to become numb. I know people like that.
Like a Machine (Tragedy Machine, from their untitled EP)
No shelter from the storm I call my own,
But tell me, who really has control?
When the dam spills over, chaos everywhere.
For once, could I just pretend to care?
A lifetime of callousness from the start;
Another casualty of a star-crossed lover’s heart.
Take my eyes from me,
‘Cause I don’t deserve to see.
Tear my skin off of me,
‘Cause I don’t want to feel anything at all,
Just like a machine.
Just like a machine.
When the sky starts falling
And the seeds refuse to grow,
I’m unaffected by the callous casted stone.
To my savior: don’t waste your precious time on me,
‘Cause my heart and mind never fail to disagree.
Take my eyes from me,
‘Cause I don’t deserve to see.
Tear my skin off of me,
‘Cause I don’t want to feel anything at all,
Just like a machine.
Become the machine!
(Under everything)
This shell of mine
No longer hides
The broken circuitry that I keep inside.
Take my eyes from me,
(Take my eyes from me)
‘Cause I don’t deserve to see.
Tear my skin off of me,
(Tear my skin off of me)
‘Cause I don’t wanna feel anything at all,
Just like a machine.
Just like a machine.
Just like a machine.
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Jeff Henshaw and I were talking about our bike history, which is fitting because he’s the person who convinced me to buy my first bike. He did it somewhat indirectly, but he’s still responsible.
When I first joined the Xbox team in 2000, we worked out of Microsoft’s RedWest campus. Adjacent to that campus was an empty parking lot owned by Nintendo that was perfect for learning to ride. One day, Jeff Henshaw and Jon Thomason were sitting in a conference room, waiting for a meeting. Jeff had been riding since he was a kid and Jon was saying that he’d always wanted to buy a bike. I guess Jon hadn’t been able to convince himself to actually buy one, so Jeff being Jeff picked up the conference room phone, called University Honda and asked them if they could deliver a new Honda CBR600F4 to us at work. They could, so Jeff put the bike on his American Express card. The story ends with Jon saying, “I guess I’m buying a bike.”
I was in a similar boat to Jon, having always wanted to ride but never being allowed to. When I was a kid, my friends had dirt bikes, but my parents would never let me ride them. I think that did more to foster my love for bikes than anything; seeing other people enjoying theirs but never being able to enjoy one myself. I was afraid of something as big and powerful as the F4 at the time (funny how times change), so, being inspired by Jon’s purchase, I bought a Kawasaki KX250 dual sport instead.
I’d never ridden anything before. I didn’t have my permit. I paid a salesman at the shop $75 to ride the bike home for me. Later that day, I sat in my garage, sucking exhaust fumes, trying to get a feel for the clutch friction point. The first time I actually engaged the clutch, I wound up driving out my driveway, across the street and into the curb, throwing me over the handlebars. My first though on picking myself up was, “I hope no-one saw that.”
After that, I made the smarter decision to aim the bike down the street before trying again. That was it. I was hooked. I drove the bike to work within a day or two and I rode it all over Woodinville at night, looking for parking lots and interesting streets to practice on. Within six weeks, as predicted, I had outgrown the bike and wanted a new one. Still knowing nothing about motorcycles, I decided that since Jeff knew bikes, I’d just get what he’s bought for Jon. I bought an identical Honda F4.
By the next spring, I had added a cruiser to the stable. I bought a Honda Magna. I really wanted a Honda Valkyrie like Jeff had, but I was terrified of a 1500 CC, 900 pound bike. I rode the Magna for just a few weeks before I hated it. I decided to suck it up and trade it in on a Valkyrie. I loved that Valkyrie. I loved it until an SUV rear-ended me on it.
I was sitting at the stoplight at the intersection of 124th and SR-202 in Woodinville. Traffic had been stopped for a while. There was a line of cars ahead and behind me. I was in-between a full-sized pickup and a mid-sized SUV. Suddenly and for no apparent reason, the SUV driver simply stepped on the gas, sandwiching me between her bumper and the bumper of the truck in front of me. The impact pushed me back in my seat, bending the stem of the seatback I’d added to the Valk, then tossing me off the bike and into the drainage ditch. The frame was bent, my custom fiberglass saddlebags were shredded and I was wet. When I pulled myself out of the ditch, I saw the SUV driver standing terrified. I asked her, “What the fuck was that?” Her reply: ”I have no idea why I did that.”
I’m not really sure where this post is going. I didn’t have any kind of a story in mind or anything. Jeff and I were talking bikes, we compared the list of bikes we’ve owned and we briefly discussed the old days of riding around with the Xbox team. I initially was just going to post the list of bikes I’ve owned, but I guess I couldn’t get there without sharing at least a couple of stories from the earliest days. There are plenty more.
Here’s the list of bikes I can remember owning in the last 10 years. I feel like there’s one I’m forgetting. I only have pictures of a few of them. I really wish I’d taken at least one picture of every bike.
- Kawasaki KX250
- Honda CBR600F4
- Honda Magna (Traded in on the Valkyrie)
- Honda Valkyrie (Totalled)
- Honda Shadow Sabre
- Honda CBR954RR (Totalled at the track)
- Kawasaki Ninja 250 (Purchased for the wife to learn on)
- Yamaha R1 (Replacement for the totalled 954)
- Suzuki SV650 (Track bike; replacement for the totalled 954)
- Aprilia Tuono
- Yamaha R6 (Purchased for the wife)
- Suzuki Hayabusa
- Yamaha WR450F (Turns out I’m not a dirt bike guy; sold to Josh)
- Pocketbike (Wrecked; still sitting in a giant Tupperware in my garage)
- Suzuki GSX-R 750
- Yamaha FJR1300 (The OGB — old guy bike)
- Suzuki Hayabusa (#2)
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If there seems to be something of a dark theme to my music posts lately, there’s a reason for that: I love music that evokes an emotion. Unfortunately, dark music generally is the most effective at evoking a specific emotion. It’s simply easier. However, I’m going to turn things around a little bit tonight…
I’m going to post a dark song and talk about positivity at the same time. Didn’t see that coming, did you?
I’ve said it a number of times before, but Puscifer’s “C” EP is one of my favorite albums. It’s only six songs and I love all six of them. The remixes and live performances are better than the originals, and the new songs are all great. Tonight’s song is Potions.
The theme and lyrics are both simple and somewhat cliché: the singer has lost someone (presumably to death) and is wishing that someone could take away the memories he has of that person in order to kill the pain. That’s just fucking stupid. Memory is all we really ever have. Even when someone is still with us, what they are to you is a collection of memories and hopes. This is true of everyone in your life, not just the people you love.
We’ve all been in excruciating pain at some point in our lives; possibly even in your present or recent past. Everyone and every event that’s ever impacted you has helped shape you into the person you are. Why would you want to take even a piece of that away? From the most painful memory you have, you should be able to draw some kind of strength, even if it’s just in the form of a warning to yourself to not allow that to ever happen to you again. As I quoted in a previous post, “I am made of scars.” So are you. We’re all the culmination of the world that has shaped us. To erase any part of that is to erase part of who you are. If you’re reading this, then you’re likely one of my friends and therefore someone I consider beneficial to this universe. It’s a better place because you’re in it. To eradicate a memory; to deny part of who you are is to diminish your positive influence on the world.
Someone sang your name today
And a stranger saw me crumble.
Haul my broken hearted shell away,
Begging, “bury me beside you.”
The devil popped around today,
Selling promises and potions
That could take a memory away;
Help forget I’d ever met you.
Tell me,
Can you please
Kindly take away the misery?
Give me
A baker’s dozen please.
Wrap me up to go away.
But I want to,
I need to
Forget you.
Don’t want to,
But I need to let you go.
The devil bent my ear today
About his magical elixir
That would make the sorrow go away;
Help me forget I’d ever met you.
Give me
A baker’s dozen please.
Wrap me up to go away.
I want to,
I need to
Forget you.
Don’t want to,
But I need to let you go.
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There’s no more fitting music post for today than this one. The last year has been a roller coaster of highs and lows, sometimes happening at the same time. Without the lows, the highs lose their flavor, so we have to do our best to appreciate them both, even when it seems impossible.
Tonic is one of my favorite bands. Unless you’re Dan, chances are you don’t know who they or their singer Emerson Hart are. Tonic was something of a one-hit-wonder in the mid-90′s with If You Could Only See. One of the reasons I think some good bands become one-hit wonders is that their first single is so good that it’s all anyone wants to hear, and so it’s the only thing anyone ever does hear. If You Could Only See is a hooky, somewhat sappy, but good song. It’s not their best by far. With only a couple of exceptions, I love everything in their catalog.
A highlight of that catalog is Emerson Hart’s solo album. It was written over a period where he was in the process of divorcing his wife (I believe they’ve since reconciled) and when he also discovered that the father he’d never known had just died. The album is all about coping with loss. It’s impossible to listen to it and not empathize with Emerson’s feelings as well as be reminded of some of your own. Case in point: I Wish the Best for You.
The song whose music, video and lyrics I’m going to post tonight is what I consider the signature song on the album. It’s all about making that final, difficult decision to end things by trying to come to terms with the fact that things are never going to be right. It’s full of anger, regret and disappointment.
If You’re Gonna Leave (Emerson Hart, from the album Cigarettes and Gasoline)
Maybe I’m the joker.
Maybe I’m the fool in your eyes.
Maybe I’m the weak one.
Maybe I’m a liar in disguise.
Maybe I’m angry
‘Cause I’m the one who’s always wrong.
Maybe I’m not the one who’s so strong.
Did you think about it?
Did you pour it in and pour it out?
Could you live without me?
Did you ever really have a doubt?
But do you understand it baby,
When you say it’s over, it’s done?
Maybe I’m not the one.
So If you’re gonna leave,
Yeah, you better get going
‘Cause I ain’t wasting no more time
On what you did, and what you didn’t.
So if you’re gonna leave,
Yeah, you better start running
‘Cause I ain’t wasting no more time
On what might have been.
We can stand on reason.
We can fight about all the things.
This isn’t forever.
This is more than a wedding ring.
But do you understand it baby,
When you say it’s over, it’s done?
Maybe I’m not the one.
So If you’re gonna leave,
Yeah, you better get going
‘Cause I ain’t wasting no more time
On what I did, and what I didn’t.
So if you’re gonna leave,
Yeah, you better start running
‘Cause I ain’t wasting no more time.
Oh, did it happen again;
With the things that you wanted
From being a friend?
How did it happen again?
Just look onward baby,
Someday you might need a friend.
So if you’re gonna leave,
Yeah, you better get going
‘Cause I ain’t wasting no more time
On what we did, and what we didn’t.
So if you’re gonna leave,
Yeah, you better start running
‘Cause I ain’t wasting no more time,
I ain’t wasting no more time
On what might have been.
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Tonight, I’m going to do something a little different. I’m going to post a song, but no lyrics because I want you to just listen. In this case, the vocalist is one of the best singers you’ve never heard of — to me, on par with Ann Wilson of Heart. Carrie Akre is a Seattle native who fronted the bands Hammerbox and Goodness in the 90′s and now performs solo occasionally in small clubs and coffee shops. Her three solo CD’s are self-released and mostly self-produced. She’s not only an incredible vocalist, but a great writer, composer and frontwoman and most people don’t even know her bands’ names, let alone hers.
I have everything she’s ever released if you want to hear more.
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Not mine, but Corey Taylor’s. Yes, I’m well aware that this blog has devolved into a repository of lyric posts, but these are the kinds of things I think about. When a song is worth it, I really listen to it. I try to understand the meaning behind the words and the way they’re sung, usually filling in the blanks with my own perspective. Today, as most days, I was listening to Stone Sour and I listened to Miracles on repeat a few times. Here’s my take on it…
Corey was in a relationship where his significant other had checked out. She (I’m assuming ‘she’) was still in his life, but not really part of it. He was despondent over the hole she left behind and, in his despair, had decided that he didn’t deserve happiness; he didn’t deserve love. At one point or another, I think everyone has had this feeling. Most of us pull ourselves out of it quickly or it results in a pretty severe depression and cynicism toward the world. Those feelings then become the cause of the loneliness, not just a symptom of it. The same is true of most negative emotions: they feed on themselves.
Being negative creates negativity. This is the cycle of the pessimism. When one is pessimistic, one both finds and causes bad things in their life and then uses that to justify their pessimism, not realizing that they are at the heart of it. It’s such a simple thing to take ownership of your own happiness and yet so few people do it.
Stone Sour – Miracles (from the album Audio Secrecy)
I’ve seen it all and I know better.
I’ve felt the bitterness and pain.
My soul keeps changing like the weather;
The only constant is the rain.
I know your black and white intentions,
And there’s no room for shades of grey.
I’ve never asked you to conform to me;
I only beg for you to stay.
I’m waiting here tonight for you to come,
But your luck just disappeared.
I’m waiting in the dark for miracles.
Miracles don’t happen here.
Miracles don’t happen here.
Miracles don’t happen here.
I still have dreams that we’re together,
And I can still taste your skin.
Reminders all around surrounded by your light;
I don’t want to die again.
I don’t deserve to be discovered.
I don’t deserve to know you care.
I only want my promised other,
Not someone who isn’t there.
I’m waiting here tonight for you to come,
But your luck just disappeared.
I’m waiting in the dark for miracles.
Miracles don’t happen here.
Miracles don’t happen here.
Miracles don’t happen here.
I’ve waited here all night for you to come,
But your luck just disappeared.
I’m waiting in the dark for miracles.
Miracles don’t happen here.
I’ve waited here all night for you to come,
But your luck just disappeared.
I’m waiting in the dark for miracles.
Miracles don’t happen here.
Miracles don’t happen here.
Miracles don’t happen here.
Miracles don’t happen here.
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