And in an unrelated note…

I think it was today. I’m not exactly sure any more. I think I feel a little guilty about the fact that I don’t remember the exact day…but not really. The details of the thing aren’t all that important. It happened around this time or within a day or so in either direction.
On or about this day, my senior year of high school, my father died. The hows and whys aren’t important…it’s enough that he died. For those of you keeping track, that was 18 years ago. It had just occurred to me that I’ve lived half my life without my father.
Now, before we all get horrified and upset and such, my purpose isn’t to generate sympathy or evoke feelings of sadness or pain or whatever. Frankly, I believe I made peace with what happened years ago. Won’t say it was easy, or pleasant, and I certainly won’t say it happened quickly…but I’m pretty OK right now.
The point of mentioning this has more to do with the concept of Yahrzeit. If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically a rememberance of a departed loved one done annually. I stopped lighting the candles a long time ago, although there have been a few years when I did it because I felt the need to.
In any case, this is my new version of Yahrzeit.
I carry a picture of my father wherever I go. It’s actually his former Teacher’s Identification card. The ring on my finger is actually made by my father…he originally intended it to be my mother’s engagement ring…but just like me, there was a lot he never finished. My mother thought I would like it, and I’ve worn it since she gave it to me about 2 weeks after my father died.
My father taught me how to scuba dive, how to swim, how to run phone cable, how to fix swimming pools, how to respect people, how to work hard, how to take care of family and friends, to care about people, that the little things you do for people are important…often more important than the big things. Lots of good things about my father.
It’s true that I was young, and as such, I probably never really got to know him as a person…but everyone I’ve met who knew him told me all the things I think I knew…that everyone liked him. That he was a wonderful person. That there was a lot of good in my father.
Sometimes I miss him…mainly when there’s something I want to tell someone, when I want a pat on the head, when I want to hear a well-done. The whole concept of approval of a missing parent is not unusual, and I think it explains a lot about my mindset about a lot of things. But today isn’t about my autopsychoanalysis.
The Jews, as a rule, are about remembering things. They say that the best way to keep a memory alive is through telling stories, poems, movies, plays, music, shows…continue to introduce new people to something, and the memory of that thing will continue.
This is my way of remembering my father this year…and now other people who didn’t know him will remember him too.
I love you, dad.

I know I just blogged, but…

How fucking cool are my friends?
So I made the shirt, and I told Landry via e-mail, and she laughed, and immediately blogged it on her site, and I blogged back and, well, some days, I love my fucking life!

Because life’s too short not to make friends happy.

Landry’s comment got me movin’.
And, come to think of it, it was Landry that motivated me to start this blog, too.
But since I was having such a good time with the whole shirts thing, I made her a shirt. I (We?) came up with the concept when we were shlepping things out of Adam and Jennifer’s old apartment in NYC, and packing them in trucks to head to Bahstan. Which, in my opinion, is exactly when you need a sense of humor.
Anyway, we were all standing outside, waiting for Adam to return keys or something, and the conversation somehow slid to sexual-innuendo-related topics…which is fairly normal when Landry is around. Although, it should be said that usually it’s not innuendo…usually it’s explicit. Like the time we got around to discussing which colored hankies you’re supposed to wear for fisting and on which side…and I think it was an early morning brunch. But whatever.
So the topic ended up being fluffing, and how, somehow, Landry never needs any fluffing. So I mentioned (I think it was me…) that she needed a shirt that said “No fluffing required.” Whereupon she said, (and if you know her at all, you know she said it JUST like this) “I would TOTALLY buy one of those t-shirts.”
So there’s the gauntlet. Pick it up.
Oh, and the rest of you should buy shirts too. Because it supports me getting out of debt faster. And motivates me to keep working on new shirts.

What I wanna do…

So I’m making these uniforms for my uncle, finally. The cool part is that with the money I’m making, I’m going to finance some shirts for Limewear. Instead of the Cafe Press shirts that I usually sell at what I think are too high a price, I can bring my price way down, and have really nice printed shirts that have my woven labels in them. So I’m pretty excited about that.
I just have to decide which ones I want to print. I’m stuck between my Sniper shirts and my Size Matters shirts. I personally like the Sniper shirts…but I’m not sure which ones will sell better. The Size Matters shirts are certainly cheaper to print.
Anyway, it’s a gorgeous day out, I got to do some Limewear stuff, and I’m off to LA in a few weeks for E3. Things are pretty good today.

Underpromise and Overdeliver

When I worked at Modemmedia, that was the trick to client satisfaction. Of course, as everyone knows, in advertising, no matter what you get the client, they’re never really happy…and even when they are, all it guarantees is that it ends up being a bigger pain in the ass when they screw you in three months.
In any case, I will aim for updating this every other day…and if I manage to update it for consecutive days? Well, then aren’t you just the lucky ones?!
Today was a glorious day in the neighborhood. Went up to my uncle’s house to show some samples for the lifeguard uniforms I’m printing for him. Took about 45 minutes once I was there. Then I spent about 2 hours wandering around the upper west side…really more walking down Broadway. Somewhere in there, I stopped off at Ollie’s and had myself a tasty braised short rib with black pepper sauce.
I was wearing my Brian Leetch Toronto Maple Leafs game sweater…which caused some obvious Canadian to cheer when I walked past him. Weirdos.
Finally got home, finished cleaning up the apartment. I finally finished rearranging things, and the place looks pretty good, actually. I think I’ll do some laundry tomorrow.
Maybe if I get really inspired, I’ll clean out the equipment rack in my closet. I have this wire mesh shelf/drawer rack thing in my hall closet. In it, I have about 4 metric tonnes of computer hardware of various types and kinds. Video boards, hard drives, CD-ROM/DVD drives, sound cards, keyboards, a fleet of mice, assorted memory, and so on. I really need to just go through it and either sell it/give it away or scrap it.
Knowing me, I’ll probably just keep it. Even if it doesn’t work.

And then his head exploded.

Yesterday, I had the worst headache ever.
It’s not as if I’m a stranger to headaches…I’m actually pretty used to them. I have bad sinuses, I spend far too long looking at monitors, I sleep on too many pillows, and frankly, I eat so much chinese food, it’s like I’m taking a 2000mg hit of MSG daily.

Yesterday, I had all of those headaches at the same time. One of those headaches when you can’t even lie down on a pillow, because every time something touches your head, explosive pain shoots through your skull.
Sometimes, when I wake up with a headache, which doesn’t happen as much as it used to, I’ll grab two Tylenol Sinus, drink some water, and go back to bed for a half hour, and when I wake up again, I can function OK…makes me a bit late for work, but at least I’m there. Yesterday, that didn’t work at all. At all. If anything, it hurt worse when I got up…that’s when I called in sick.
Truthfully, I really really had a bad headache, and I couldn’t see…like there were stars in my eyes it hurt so bad. I walked into the door frame while walking out of my bedroom. So I called in sick, got a cold compress, slugged down two more Tylenol Sinus, laid down and put the compress on my face.
After various showers, dosings, liquidations, and other headache remedy-like actions, my head stopped shrieking long enough for me to pass out at around 12:30pm. Whereupon I slept until about 7:30pm.
I have no idea what caused the headache…but it’s like a bizarre Agatha Christie novel. There are so many suspects, it’s hard to determine who actually did it…although it’s always possible that it was all of them. Stress, poor diet, living downtown in NYC, noise, CRT emissions, poor posture, bad shoes, climate change, dust and pollen…no idea. All I know is that if I never get a headache like that again, it’ll be too soon.
Oh, and I now have a ship in Puzzle Pirates. I bought it with Jeho…and it’s a really cool deep cherry color with green trim.
I know…you can’t stand how cool it is, right?

Tuesday…a day like any other day…

I’ve decided that I really really like doing this coordination on getting uniforms done. I like the “hard” aspect of it. You buy blank t-shirts, you coordinate artwork, you find a printer, you mix them all up, and then you get printed t-shirts back…and you make a ton of profit on resale. There’s something really cool about manufacturing/sales that I really like.
I think I’m pretty much done with service industries. I like my job some days, and some days I just don’t. I know I’m helping people most days…but I always get odd feelings about how I’m perceived.
There’s nothing really unusual about that. I’ve always been the guy who no one really knows what I do…and in a way, I guess I let them keep guessing, because it gives me flexibility when the need arises. Which is odd…because I’d really much rather be known as the guy who does “this.” Whatever “this” is.
Maybe it’s because I get bored so easily…I like quick accomplishments that allow me to move on and feel like I’ve achieved something. And before someone tells me that big achievements are made up of a series of smaller accomplishments, I know that already. But somehow, I like being a problem solver and a do-er, rather than a “big picture” guy. In school, I loved being a cameraman…but I hated animating. I liked the craft of animation, but not the art. I’m a guy who executes. At least, I like to think so.
I think when I’m done with my current job, I’m gonna make shirts for real this time. I’ve gone through all this effort to set up Limewear and get woven labels and design business cards…and even set up a site…I suppose I should get out there and do for a change.
E3 is coming up…and I’m going. I hate LA…but whatever.

So I didn’t get back to it.

I got home, set up my new router-firewall-dhcp server, mucked about with stuff, and ended up taking a nap instead of writing more blog. I’m certain you’ll all forgive me. And if you don’t, I’ll try to get over it.
I am impacting the world. Phyxie started blogging…and he is undoubtedly more clever and charming than I am, being British and everything. Actually, he’s English…which are the only people who don’t really mind being called British. Unless they’re playing the footie, in which case they look at you as if you’re mad as cheese if you call them anything but England.
In any case, back to work. I need to get uniforms for the folks here. Not uniforms…but like work shirts and jackets and stuff. More tomorrow.

OK…I’m a backslider.

Missed Saturday. Color me loser.
Anyway, saw Kill Bill Vol. 2. It was pretty darned good. I’d recommend it, especially if you liked the first one. It was cool…as much as the first one was all Asian in flavor, style, and technique, the second one is like an old western. Great acting, I think. Maybe I’ll explain my interpretation of Kill Bill once I think it through more clearly.
Islanders got eliminated by Tampa Bay. No surprise there.
Montreal already wants to kill Alexei Kovalev. He’s got 5 goals in 4 games…but he cost them a game with a stupid move. Herein lies the dichotomy of Alexei Kovalev…he’s so good…and SO bad at the same time.
Playing more Puzzle Pirates. I love it.
Rearranged my living room to provide more computer desk space. What a geek.
And now, I need to run out to J&R to pick up a router, because now that I’m running off a cable modem instead of my 1.5MBit SDSL, I need the ability to hook up multiple machines to the connection. And no, I’m not going to use Windows Internet Sharing.
More later.

Four for Four…

Movie night, ladies and gentlemen. Very exciting, indeed.
Spent all night last night playing Puzzle Pirates, completed my fly outfit, and made mad booty. Yaar!
When I went to dinner with my uncle the other night, I mentioned that I have a tshirt company. It’s really not going all that well…mainly because I don’t do anything to sell them, other than have them online. But anyway, my uncle wanted to know why I didn’t mention it to him, because he buys 600 custom printed uniforms a year, plus or minus a few hundred for his business.
So he told me how much he pays…and I know I can beat that price, and still make some money. I spent a chunk of yesterday and this morning getting prices and such…and I have to admit…I really was enjoying myself. When Kyle told me how much fun he has running his business, I got vaguely jealous. Not like I want to kill him…but like I wanted to do that instead of what I’m doing now. I wonder if I could make a living making shirts. Anthony doesn’t really do it…he does fashion consulting…but I wonder if I really gave it a try, if I could do it.
I’ll have to find out some time. After I’m somewhat more out of debt than I am.
Oh, and my taxes got filed and paid…. Anyone wanna give me $11,000? I didn’t think so.