June 30, 2005  NYC Baby!

I love New York! It is so vibrant, alive and dynamic- you can feel an energy in the streets, almost like blood rushing to the surface of your skin. Don't get me wrong, San Francisco is a fantastic place to live, but Manhattan is so much more alive and responsive.

Tom and I stayed at this fantastic modern hotel, Hotel on Rivington, on the Lower East Side. I don't normally enjoy hotels, but this one was DEluxe. Everything about it was cool- the lobby, the elevators, the lounge, the rooms. The beds are huge with super firm mattresses. The windows have partial frosted glass and a long electric curtain. Our room was equipped with modern furniture- a few chairs, end tables, a coffee table as well as a flat panel TV. The bathroom had a massive shower that doubled as a steam room.

We planned on taking it pretty mellow while there and as difficult as that can by in NYC, I would say that we had a nice, relaxing time. We went to the new MoMA, Central Park (one of my favorite places in the whole world), had dinner in Little Italy, ate at an AMAZING Italian restaurant near our hotel for our anniversary diner, did some shopping, and paid our respects at Ground Zero. We were so wiped out from walking around all day that we usually chilled out at our hotel in the evening, watching TV (quite a novelty for us as we have no TV at home).

Trips like this are just a reminder that we really do need time away. Seems like we are always getting caught up with work and life and the next thing you know- 6 months go by! It's out of control.

In other news, we got permits for construction on our house! The only hitch is that the architect forgot to expand our bathroom in the plans. We are petty pissed because it has taken so long and it isn't even right. Hopefully we won't have to wait another four months for permits to correct the problem- we really want to get to work as soon as we can. Someday we will have a house we can actually put our stuff in and use- what a lesson in patience.

June 25, 2005  NYC Photos

Photos are up from NYC. Had a great time and love love love New York! Will write up what we did and saw shortly.

June 14, 2005  1984

Tom and I are going to NYC for our wedding anniversary this Friday. We haven't been since right before September 11 so I am really looking forward to hanging out in Central Park, checking out the new MoMa, cruising new restaurants and seeing some old friends. I also would like to pay my respects at Ground Zero.

Seems like I've been pretty busy lately. I have some projects on at work- nothing too stressful, but enough to completely fill my days, and of course I am still training capoeira 3-4 nights a week. I started doing my own yoga practice in the mornings before work, which is great, but it also means I get up at 6:30am so I've been going to bed pretty early these days. I like the rhythm. I think I am one who naturally rises early, but it used to be pretty hard for me to go to bed early. Now it seems like I am so tired that I just fall asleep.

I found out that a famous tattoo artist from Brazil might come to the studio. He used to be a mestre but always did tattoos. I am getting my back piece done by Jesse Tuesday at Temple Tattoo in Oakland (in less than a month!), but I might have this guy fix up my ankle with some Japanese style waves. I already have an ankle bracelet that I did (with some help of course) when I was 19 and giving tattoos while in art school. It isn't that horrible, but it looks dated and I want to cover or conceal it with something that matches my current tastes.

May 27, 2005  Picnic

Having a picnic this Sunday at Golden Gate Park in the Botanical Gardens. Please come - it will be fun! And Royce is bringing a watermelon injected with vodka! How can you miss that?

May 27, 2005  Jury Duty

Had jury duty last week. It was for a murder trial and I am really glad I got ejected by the defense attorney. I believe it was my strong opinions regarding gun control (I believe it should be stricter). Now I am back at work, trying to finish things up I should have done during that week. I'm not overly swamped, but busy.

May 26, 2005  Cinch

My first appointment for my tattoo is for July 9! I can't wait!!!!!

May 6, 2005  CUBE Life

Updated the album section of the site. I was getting sick and tired of seeing the same photos over and over so I set it up to randomly generate an album to display each time the site loads. When I have a nice feature to display I will keep it up for a while and then resort to the random selection when I get bored of seeing the same pics up there.

April 27, 2005  Adjustment

Just had an adjustment last night from the bestest body worker in the world- Dr. Gabrielle Francis. She is the only chiropractor who has ever been able to adjust my lower back. She rocks because she is a doctor, a licensed chiropractor, massage therapist, acupuncturist AND nutritionist. Last night she worked out the kinks in my muscles, did my chiropractic adjustment and then I received an acupuncture treatment. I feel so much better today- so aligned and loose!

After the treatment we were talking about the Pope's funeral - she was in Rome with family and was there when the Pope died. As a kid I was all for the Pope, but then again, I was a practicing Catholic. I am really sad he suffered and died, but I have to say that I wasn't always happy with the choices he made- especially regarding the AIDS crisis, birth control and the priest scandal. I know he was old and set in his ways, I guess that is why they don't elect young hip Popes. I was a bit disappointed in the induction of Pope Benedict - mostly because of what I read about him being a staunch defender of traditional values, which to me translates to 'little room for change'. But then I read this column and thought, well, maybe there is hope, I mean- the man does have a sense of humor. All things said, I still think he is a doppelganger for the dark Emperor guy from Star Wars.

Speaking of the religion, What's on Jesus' iPod?

And, continuing with the religion theme, I've been thinking a lot lately about creation. Since I don't consider myself Catholic anymore, and I don't believe in God in the traditional sense, I have been trying to qualify my own spiritual views. Generally you could say I'm 30% Buddhist and 70% Hippie-World-Mother-Earth crap believer. Just started reading this book, Biomimicry by Janine M. Benyus. Tom works with someone who saw her speak and I just had to steal the book from him because I knew it would give me insight into my silly little spiritual quest. The basic premise to the book is to demonstrate how nature's solutions to problems (ie- temperature control, architecture, waste control) can give us humans insight on how to solve our own problems, all while living with nature rather than trying to control it. It got me thinking that maybe I do actually believe in a higher creator. Not God per se, but more of a designer/programmer who created this amazing, co-existing habitat (Earth) where defects are built into the system in order to make it stronger. The sad thing is, the human race might be trying too hard to make alterations to this system, and the design's own evolution cannot keep up.

April 18, 2005  The End of Macromedia?

Macromedia, the company I work for, just announced that it being acquired by Adobe. Read more about it here.

Not too sure how I feel about this. Change inspires fear, but can also bring improvements.

April 5, 2005  Tatoo

I'm looking to get my back tattooed, yep- pretty much the whole back. I've thought about getting another tattoo for 12 years now (I've had an ankle bracelet tattoo on my right ankle since I was 19) and I've always held back, mostly because I figured being a graphic designer meant that I had to illustrate my own tattoo. Also, I was never quite sure about placement.

I have finally come to the conclusion that I can pick out the elements, theme and style, but should hire a carefully selected tattoo artist to actually design and draw up the piece. I chose my back because it is an appropriate canvas for the design I wish to have and because I can still chose to be private about it if I want- by covering it with clothing, of course. I'm not getting a tattoo so strangers can come up and touch me and ask about it. I love the printmaking work of Katsushika Hokusai (1790-1849). He is considered one of the outstanding figures of the Ukiyo-e, or "pictures of the floating world" school of printmaking during the Edo period. You are probably familiar with "The Wave" or some of his prints of Fuji. I love the delicate line work and soft desaturated color, as well as the subject matter - water and earth (mountains). Here are some other examples of beautiful line work here and here. I am looking for something very delicate and soft, with a light amount of shaded and muted color so it doesn't overwhelm my own coloring. I want the design to have elements of nature and an element of protection. My back has been a source of pain for me most of my life. I want to combine the earthly elements with a protective dragon draped down my spine. I also want to include some text, but am having a hard time deciding how to incorporate this. The easy way would to have the words represented in Kanji (Japanese writing system employing Chinese characters) but I worry about misrepresentation of the characters. I would just write the text out in English, but the words are "Consciousness", "Confidence" and "Compassion". Not sure how that would look spelled out within the illustration. I think I might talk to the tattoo artist about ideas for that. Maybe typographically it could work out nice- as long as it doesn't become a primary element of the design. So now I am looking for the appropriate tattoo artist. I would like to start the work in June, which gives me a few months to meet different artists and discuss my tattoo. My friend Genevieve who I train Capoeira with has her back and two full sleeve tattoos that are really beautiful. I am going to find her artist and speak to him first. In the meantime I have been looking in tattoo books trying to find actual tattoos of the style I am interested in. This tattoo (done in Japan) comes pretty close to the scale, coloring and style that I am looking to get. I am assuming this is before coloring, but I actually like it like this- I would only add small amounts of shaded color to it.