finally starting to freak out

getting married on saturday. totally not freaking out about getting married. but the logistics of the wedding reception are a lot to tackle. it's going to be a great party. and i think i have enough cuervo to get through the week...

books for peace, learning, and enlightenment

"A Return to Love" - Marianne Williamson
"Ishmael" - Daniel Quinn
"Life of Pi" - Yann Martel
"Insight Meditation" - Joseph Goldstein
"Linked" - Antonio Lazlso Barabasi

tunafish and bachelor parties

i cannot believe it--rusticco can make even a tuna sandwich greasy! but in such a good way...

last weekend was my "bachelor party" if you wanna call it that. friday nite was 3rd party 4th fridays at the BPC. we rocked with a live band, all improv on the spot. it was amazing... such good musical vibes--except when i forgot my own chord progression and had to sit that one out when i realized i was just playing wrong notes... 4th fridays just keep getting better. i think we sold like 25 CDs or so too! not too shabby.

after the show, rabbi, the V.O.G., mtume, and i think hired gun were out grabbing some fries at the diner, and someone busted into art's car and grabbed all of the cash we made that evening, about 40 or so of rabbi's freshest vinyl, all of the say word mailing list, financials and business contacts, and HG's legendary mcnabb jersey... oh yeah, and art's laptop... but say word has a very positive attitude about it... we're not going to let some bullshit spoil what was otherwise a fantastic evening. material things come and go. the energy that we had at our show is timeless and magical.

the next day i had brunch with my brothers in law and then rabbi hosted a barbeque where most of my closest friends (holmes family put themselves to shame with 0 atendees) gathered to become both inebriated and conversated. it was a great day. we capped it off with a 10:10 showing of batman begins... no strippers, no one puked or ODed on anything, just good times and good vibes. that's definitely the way i wanted to do it.

happiness is...

grabbing an old pair of speakers and hooking them up to my computer at work... music sweet music... listening to my two newest beats (at low volume) chillin out getting back into the monday morning vibe of the bad temp job... this will make it easier.

buddhism

http://www.buddhaweb.org/

I got this link from my friend Brian's blog, where I engaged in thought and discussion about the nature of the universe. Yeah, Brian's pretty deep. Anyway, It reminded me that while I'm not a practicing buddhist, I do try to guide my life by the principles and philosphies of buddhism. I am pretty far from being "enlightened," but I have certainly attained a level of peacefulness and mindfulness that has made my life more or less a constant flow of joy despite the hardships I have endured.

True happiness and the life that consumer society encourages people to live towards the attainment of that happiness are antithetical. Rather than accept suffering and sadness, we are prompted to mask that suffering with material things to keep our minds occupied. I don't think capitalism was designed to do this, but the persuit of material things and the attachment to them is directly opposed to the buddhist ideal of what leads to true happiness and contentment. Yes, we need food clothing and shelter... But no, we don't need much else. We WANT them. And our desire for things that we think will lessen our suffering, or at least destract us from it, is what causes our suffering to continue.

jaded or busy?

jaded or busy?

i pretty much stopped writing songs (like guitar and lyrics) 5 or 6 years ago. i've written several since then, but they were mostly broken heart breakup songs that i never listen to and would never play for anyone. i just popped the headphones on and listened to some beats i've been working on and some new ideas, and i really wasn't inspired or enthused by what i heard. i can imagine the super-funky best beat ever in my head, and then when i go to put it down, it just doesn't translate, or it sounds like a million other beats that were made previously. and i think that's why i stopped writing songs too--i just feel like there are no original chord progressions left and really nothing to say that hasn't been said a million times before. plus i have just a few hours to myself all week. creativity can't be forced...

i think part of the beat making doldrums is lack of new or good drum sounds. i've used most of the ones that i have that i like already... i do plan on raiding the record store on thursday (they're open until 7) and picking up a few new records for some inspiration. and i think some good drum sounds could be had with some more manipulation of the samples i have (eq, pitch/time shift, etc). maybe i've put up too many barriers for myself in terms of what i will and won't use/sample/rehash for my beats. i think mostly it's drum sounds...

if i had ample money and ample time, would i instanly become productive and hapily creative again? am i being too hard on myself with all that's been going on in my life lately? i guess time will tell. in the mean time life brings what it may and i really am enjoying the ride and the struggles. i just long for the days when i could write music and it would feel new to me...

RMV

many of you know it as the DMV. we here in MA call it the RMV. any way you spell it... it's pronounced FRUSTRATION

that's all i have to say on the topic...

just walk

it's a mile and a half from my house to the train. i'm walking instead of driving. 2 reasons. first, i've been wearing the same belt since 1995. i've had to let it out a couple of notches. there's only one notch left to go... gotta reverse that trend... second--why waste gas when i can enjoy the weather and get some excercise at the same time? i'd rather be lazy but of the mind/body/soul balance--i gotta say my body is the one most often neglected.

peak oil coverage in the mainstream media

So i'm sitting on the train this morning, and i glance over at the person sitting in the next row over, and she's reading an article in the Metro titled "Oil Gone," which in and of itself as a title is a horrible misrepresentation of the peak oil problem. but as i found when i flipped my own copy to said article, overall--the article was pretty good. Obviously with only a page of editorial and pictures and such it didn't really get too in-depth, but it was really pretty accurate and informative. I'm sure it was the first exposure many folks ever had to "peak oil," and for that purpose, it's not bad. it's not full of scare tactics and doomsday scenarios, like LifeAfterTheOilCrash.net (link below)--which was the first peak oil information that i ever saw.

let me break it down for you. and believe it or not, this is a bright and cheery outlook. you can check my numbers. they're correct. globally, we consume close to 82 million barrels of oil per day. that number gets higher and higher every year. and with a huge industrial and economic upsurge hapenning in China, expect it to grow even more rapidly. at peak operating capacity, we can "produce" about 84 million barrels of oil per day. we have extracted about half of the original 2.2 trillion barrels that were originally in the earth before we started extracting it in large quantites. so if you take what's left over, that's 40 years worth in the ground. plenty of time to get alternatives up and running, you'd think. yet over the life of an oil well, after half of the oil has been extracted, the maximum production of the well declines exponentially. recent technological improvements have allowed us to pump oil out of the wells at the same rate even after we've extracted half. so we've been able to maintain a longer period of maximum production. there's only so much the world can pump out in a day, and we've reached the point where that number--maximum production--is never going to increase. at the same time, global demands will very soon be larger than global supply. remember the oil shocks of the 70s? well neither do I but i hear they sucked. and that was something like a couple of percentage points of oil shortage for a short period of time. imagine that sort of economic unrest but over a longer period of time and getting worse and worse every year. unless we start to use LESS oil instead of more... well... soon we will have no choice. and it will start to happen as soon as supply outgrows demand--not in 40 years or so when what we are using mathmatically equals what we have... how much can be produced in a given time compared to what our economy demands? when those numbers no longer match... well, we're fucked.

and the fact remains that while demand keeps going up and up, supply at this point is not physically able to match it. we have been discovering less and less new oil every year since the 70s. the amount of oil that can be pumped out of the planet earth over a given peroid of time has reached its maximum and it will NEVER increase, ever again. the 13 billion barrels recently opened for extraction in alaska? 13000/82=159 days. america itself consumes about 20 million barrels per day. that 13 billion barrels that Cheney wants to destroy the arctic for? it's even less than two years of oil for the US alone at our current rate of consumption. that seemingly HUGE amount of oil is a drop in the bucket. not to mention how much of that oil is going to be available on a daily basis? will the peak production of the new extraction make a dent in the supply vs. demand issue? not much of one...

think it's just about gasoline prices? what gets food from the farm to the store? trucks. what runs trucks? diesel. hmm... what fertilizes the crops? petrolium based fertilizers. what keeps the bugs off? petrolium based pesticides. what drives the tractor that plows the fields? petrolium... of course agricultural science has alternatives to petrolium based fuel (biodiesel) and fertilzers, but they're not widely used. anything plastic (your computer)? made from oil. where do you think natural gas comes from? it's largely a by-product of oil extraction. where do you think electricity comes from? natural gas, coal, very little nuclear, almost negligible wind/hyrdo and virtually none solar. our dependance on fossil fuels needs to stop now, or it will stop later without our consent.

the solution? EVERYONE needs to do what they can to consume less. walk/bike more, drive less. and i say this in full hypocricy because i have just received a gas guzzling toyota 4 runner as a gift (which i do plan on trading in for a prius as soon as i can afford to pick up the payments)--drive more fuel effecient cars!! we also need to start getting more involved in local economies. stop shopping at the megastores and keep your business local. especially food--go to the farmer's market and support local argiculture. megastores use huge amounts of resources and funnel money spend in local communities into the coffers of businesses not located in the communities where the money was spent. most of the local employees who work at this store earn low wages... we need to change our current system of agriculture and stop eating so much fast food. a huge majority of the amount of land currently devoted to agriculture is used for grazing land or feedstock for beef. if the same amount of land were devoted to a mixture of veggies, grains, biodiesel crops (not soybeans, they're SO innefecient for biodiesel production), and free-range meat, we'd have more than enough food to go around and our oil consumption would decrease.

the biggest change we need to make? we need to overthrow corporate america. the reason these other changes haven't started to happen is that for the time being, there are HUGE profits in oil and factory farms. there are some very selfish and shortsighted people making some very bad decisions. and fuck you if you think i'm generalizing. there are individuals who make these decisions. i would say it to their faces if i was granted an audience... "Mr or Ms. CEO of whatever random company that put profits over people: your business practices are shortsighted. you're making huge profits and your workers may even being doing well, but your profits are not sustainable and your business practices are pushing our economy and our global resources to the limits of their extent to produce more profits for you. even in the face of this knowledge, you do nothing but endeavor to increase those profits ever higher while you still can. your greed is contributing to the downfall of our civilization."

i'm just happy to see some coverage in the mainstream media. the sooner people realize that we're going to have to make some changes and compromises to avoid a complete economic collapse the better. i know some very intelligent and worldly people who simply refuse to accept the facts and trust that the system will fix itself, because humans are really smart and determined to survive. well, many of us will survive. but the fact remains--a system that requires constant growth to prosper is not sustainable in a world with finite resources.

Economics dictates that demand creates supply, but geology states otherwise and to the best of my knowledge there aren't many economists finding oil these days...

• Learn more and discuss with people more smarter than I is
• Get scared shitless by questionable facts and misunderstandings but learn the scope of the problem.
• more information than you wanted, but you'd better read all of it
• What the scholars and scientists say.

struggles

yesterday's positivity not withstanding--what a struggle the working world has been this year!!! everything keeps piling up on top of itself and getting more and more stressful as we approach our wedding date. all i can say is something's got to give... beth certainly deserves better. and i'd like to think i deserve better too. i'm praying for the career tidal wave to come along and crash down some barriers to success... i am NOT a money motivated person. this is about life satisfaction and survival.

wonderfulness and hope

what a spectacular day! woke up whenever my eylids decided to open, beth made us pancakes (the only thing other than popcorn that she can cook reasonably well), we went for a nice long walk along the salem harbor coastline (78 degrees and super-sunny), checked out the swans, checked out forest river park (i found my 1st favorite spot in salem up a hill behind a huge rock), stepped on home with a second stop off to hang with the swans and dip our feet in the water, hoppped in our vehicle and went out to the mall (i know, how could the mall exist in a story about a good day?? just wait and see...) to return some engagement/shower gifts. we got some cool foodstuffs at williams sonoma, a coupla tray tables for some back porch dining at BB&B, about $150 on a macy's gift card, some RCA cables from radio shack and still had $100 left over in cash, so we went back to salem and had a great late lunch overlooking the harbor and then put the rest o' the cash in the bank... since then i've just been cleaning up the house, listening to music, chillin... beth is at her folks' doing laundry. we're gunna be able to get everything done and still be able to get to bed early enough to not be hurtin waking up at 6am tomorrow. tomorrow--when i will hopefully hear good news about last week's job interview... beth was in a really great mood today which makes me really happy to see. did i mention the red sox won, too? yeah this has been the best sunday in a while...

a good interview... again

hate to be sarcastic or pessimistic, as negativity only inhibits progress, but i'm in a familliar situation. just had a great job interview, impressed people, established a good rapport, showed an understanding of the project, answered all of their questions eloquently and intelligently... they have one more interview to conduct and i expect to hear from them next week. this is what happened the last time i interviewed at mass health. they ended up giving the job to someone with more experience with the specific software they were using. in this instance, i think they really liked me, but i'm still lacking some specific experience. instead of software this time, it's the fact that i have not worked on a project of this magnitude yet. i know they think i can do it, but if the person who comes in to interview with them this afternoon is also personable and intelligent and has also worked on a large-scale project like this in a simmilar role--i'm dead in the water. and if i do get it, i hope they're prepared to be without me from july 1 to july 10--wedding and honemoon...

i have a good feeling about it. i think i could do the job and do it well. it's something that i'm interested in. it pays well. i would learn lots of great things that would help me in the future. it would be a great opportunity to put myself in a better place 5 or 10 years down the road. fingers crossed...

hoping to get my job on

so i have a job interview tomorrow and i'm both really hoping i get it and knowing that i'm totally underqualified. MassHealth is redesigning their MMIS after 20 years and it's a huge project spanning 2 years. the job is "functional coordinator for conversaion and interfaces." basically, someone who can see the big picture and put all of the little pieces in place and organize all of the different team members and make the project run smoothly... i've never had experience planning or implementing a large project--hell, i've never even worked anywhere with more than 10 employees. however, i am smart and personable, and the reason i got this interview in the first place is that i interviewed for another position in this same project that i didn't get but they liked me so they recommended me for this position... anyway, it pays really well and it would be nice to be doing something intellectually stimulating and that in some way helps people in need of healthcare...

firsts

my first blog entry
my first job in boston
my first REAL job in boston (soon please)
my first marriage (also my last if i have anything to say about it)
my first week of 30
my first last line