So this week has been split between living in a hotel and camping out in my empty apartment which to be honest is just depressing as hell. It’s jacked up how much an empty home affects your mood. I remember being in the same sort of funk when I moved to SD initially. It’s totally like when you break up with your gf (or politically correct non-contractual spousal partner) and they take their stuff and move out and everything is all hollow and echo-y like your heart and there’s this void and maybe this Loreena McKennitt album will make the pain go away and…

Uh. Yeah. You get the idea.

Anyway in my efforts to keep busy I noticed I had 800+ photos on my phone and Holy Jesus did the camera roll ever take forever to open. I decided it was time to clean it out and spent um, 3 hours deleting the bad and blurry ones and archiving the naughty ones for ‘later review’. *wink*wink*nudge*nudge* I came across a lot of good memories- about 70ish- dating back over the last two years. Apparently my camera roll dated back to the week I came to San Diego to do some vacation / job hunting, which was exactly a week ago two years ago. Here’s a gallery of a few but check out the Flickr stream here. There’s actually like, captions and junk there on Flickr explaining them.

Two years ago today I was on vacation in San Diego. At the precise hour of this writing in fact I was in my interview of a certain large Japanese gaming company; it had been bumped from 11am to 8:30am and I was definitely still feeling the effects of splitting a bottle of Jack with Dorian and Spaz the night before. I wasn’t hungover and I wasn’t drunk, I was just really REALLY thirsty. We’re talking Saraha during the dry season here. So what if I did fall back in bed the first time I tried to get up; don’t judge me. The point is tipsy me apparently knocked it out of the park (or I was cheapest) and I got an offer before I flew home on my birthday two days from now.

I first visited San Diego probably close to 4 years ago now. I don’t remember what I was thinking when I flew in, but I do remember what I thought when I flew out; I knew beyond any doubt that I WOULD live here. San Diego clicked with me in ways I couldn’t fathom or explain. Everything looked somehow familiar and yet was glisteningshinywetnew at the same time, and that feeling that hasn’t dimmed in the slightest over the past two years. I’m perfectly content to sit at home reading while ocean breezes waft through the apartment, driving to work along the 101 with surfers as my fellow commuters, or even walking around downtown looking at the unwashed masses of humanity. I’ve never encountered such a diversity of experience in such a concentrated area- seals and sea lions basking 3 feet away from you in La Jolla, sharks and dolphins nosing you while surfing in North County, coyotes skirting you with their sideways walk out in the desert, the list goes on and on. Even after all the time I’ve spent here I MIGHT have seen maybe 10% of what there is to see here. The idea of moving and leaving it all behind was pretty lackluster to say the least.

Frankly it went way beyond just not appealing to me; I outright dreaded it with the cold shivering certainty that I’d hate it. It was the cold and clammy lump of iron dread coupled with the blind unreasoning panic that prehistoric man felt in the dark. I was grumpy and I certainly wasn’t sleeping well. I kept trying to reassure myself that it would be fine, that I would come down to visit San Diego on the weekends like that would somehow make it OK. It didn’t work of course; it was a repetitive mantra that was overlaid with an overpowering stench of fear and a subtle touch of desperation. Why was I so determinedly unhappy with this? Was it because it San Diego first city that I ever felt like I fit in, somewhere I could call home? As it turns out, that was pretty close to the truth- I had put down roots in San Diego in 2 short years which was something I hadn’t ever managed in 30 odd years while living in Alabama. Perspective is a bitch; this must be what most people went through when leaving home for the first time. Once I realized that everything began to make sense. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to move up to the Bay Area, I felt safe and secure here and I didn’t want to give that up. I was more fighting mentally for that security and comfort than anything specific to San Diego. I was willfully locking myself in complacency, like the little kid with their eyes screwed up tight and fingers in their ears singing at the top of their lungs.

I like to think that’s not me. While I don’t espouse change for the sake of change, I don’t think we as human beings can grow without constant change and stimulation. We should fear stagnation in our lives; it’s an insidious rot that erodes you from the inside out and we’re generally incapable of seeing it in ourselves until it’s too late. I made the conscious decision to embrace this move as a chance for that and haven’t looked back. It might be a year, it might be for 10, but it’s a new experience and I want to learn from it and enjoy it to every extent I’m capable of. I’m trying to approach it with the same outlook and enthusiasm as I did moving here and it’s working. I’ve already got stuff lined up to do in September and October, including trips to Yosemite, Monterrey Bay, San Francisco, scuba diving, and going out to see the giant redwoods. I’m sure there’s a Napa trip going to be wedged in there somewheres. *ahem*

My friends here are still my friends, just like my friends back in Alabama. I can easily come down to visit just like I go back to the South now. The mistake that I almost made is in assuming that my old life would be somehow closed to me now, and I don’t think it has to be like that. There are people who will write you off for sure- I saw that firsthand when I moved to San Diego originally. Some folks just take you leaving personally, like they’re only in your social circle due to physical proximity. I expect it’s some a heady cocktail of subconscious envy and feelings akin to betrayal. They’ll either get over it or not; so far in my limited experience it’s been roughly a 50% turnover rate.

Funny how life comes full circle. Why does it seem I always move on Labor Day? In two days I’ll be camping out in my apartment in San Diego with most of my worldly goods making the trip to Sunnyvale. In one week I’ll be on a sightseeing tour bus in San Francisco. In two weeks I’ll (hopefully) have started unpacking. With all that living to do, I should probably get out of this freezing Starbucks and start getting ready for the packers and movers huh?

Something #1 – something old
I’m turning 33. Sweet Jesus Crimminey. The actual date is August 23rd, but due to Something #2, I’m probably having a gathering the weekend of the Aug 20th.

Something #2 – something new
Some people know, some don’t, but I’m relocating to Palo Alto in 3 short weeks. I’m still working for Playdom/Disney Interactive, the relocation is just an effort to cut down on the sheer amount of travel I’ve been doing for the past 8 months or so. I still plan to be in San Diego for at least a week of every month for a while. My combo going away/birthday bash will probably be the 20th.

Something #3 – something borrowed
I had an early exposure to photography (pun intended) in the 5th grade. For the past few years I’ve been using a Sony A100 DSLR I borrowed from Dad- as of last week, that’s changed! I’ve upgraded to a Canon 5D Mark 2, which is just…unbelievably sweet. The pics in the header up there come from it With the new camera also comes my new side gig as a freelance photographer which I’ll be talking about later.

Something #4 – something blue
Uh, at this point the theme fails me. The only things blue right now are:

• Me! I hate to leave San Diego behind!
• This sweet sweet panorama background you can download for free! If you like it, you can download the full size version all with some color variations here.

Tijuana to Temecula, from the top of Palomar Mountain

We’ll call it here for tonight- it’s a teaser post. I got lots to say on each of the subjects above but the laundry is done and it’s time to pack so I can fly out in the morning.

photo credit: craigemorsels

If the average American is anything like me you can’t avoid the recent deluge of Asian influence in our culture. By recent I mean the last 5 years or so, and by Asian I mean Japanese. I figure the average American likes to generalize like I do but just incase I got real specific for you non-average haters out there.

It’s not that I dislike Japan or its culture or its people. Nothing against any of that whatsoever. It’s just that the land of Japan is so damn scary. If the Internet and popular media is to believed, Japan is full of ghosts, evil witches that enslave your parents, random rampaging monsters, and sentient tentacles that do things to you that require a doll and a psychologist to explain (no I am not linking to that).

Doesn't everyone play peekaboo with the undead?

Sure, I hear what you’re saying. That’s all make believe right? Keep in mind that even if it is, SOMEONE thought it up. Do you want to meet the people who think this stuff up?!

Aside from the frightening imagination of Japanese people, there’s the threat of the islands native flora and fauna. It’s not a wonder that the average Japanese imagination is so out there when reality is filled with things like this:

The Aokigahara Forest. Also known as the Sea of Trees, apparently it’s the world’s third most popular suicide spot and ranks #6 on Cracked.com’s Creepiest Places on Earth list. More than 500 people have died in this forest since the 1950s. Urg.

Giant Wood Spiders. I don’t like to think of myself as a pansy, but these spiders are omfgholyshit horrible. Don’t believe me? As a member of the golden orb family of spiders (due to the color of their silk) guys have the strongest spider web of any spider. How strong? Uh..it’s not uncommon for birds to be stuck in their webs. And then eaten. We have similar spiders in the US, smaller versions commonly called garden or banana spiders. What makes the Japanese ones worse? Well, besides being 6-8inches in size they’re considered lucky if seen in the daylight, so you don’t see people disturbing them even if their giant 2-4 foot webs are stretched over a sidewalk or path. I wonder how many Japanese children vanished before they learned to respect these giant killers. The spiders probably blame it on the Aokigahara Forest.

Honey have you seen the kids lately?

Last on the list is the Japanese Hornet. The wikipedia article does a fantastic job of summing up why these hornets are the devil incarnate, but in case you’re too lazy to click it let me sum it up for you:

• Masato Ono, an entomologist at Tamagawa University near Tokyo, described the sensation of being stung as feeling “like a hot nail being driven into his leg.”
• Each year in Japan, the human death toll caused by Asian giant hornet stings exceeds that of all other venomous and non-venomous wild animals combined, including wild bears and venomous snakes.
• The venom contains at least eight distinct chemicals, some of which damage tissue, some of which cause pain, and at least one which has an odor that attracts more hornets to the victim.
• An allergic human stung by the giant hornet may die from an allergic reaction to the venom, but the venom contains a neurotoxin called mandaratoxin[5] which can be lethal even to people who are not allergic if the dose is sufficient.
• Like all hornets it has a barbless stinger, allowing it to sting repeatedly.

YOU argue with him.

That is some tasty, tasty pie you see there: apple pie ala mode with caramel sauce. Today was a pretty good day so I decided to celebrate a bit with room service.

I’m up in LA for a few days getting to meet the development teams I’ll be working with and trying to absorb all the knowledge of my predecessor. I drove up yesterday evening after 8 and I gotta say; driving in LA was fun! 8 lanes of traffic, average speed of 70-80mph, and tons of traffic all dodging and weaving. It was like driving in a high speed go-kart track.

While up here, I managed to get my truck delivered ahead of schedule. The movers were in the area doing another drop off and called me to schedule the San Diego delivery. I talked them into dropping it here at the LA office instead and turned in my rental car a day early. Hurrah! It only took about 6 phone calls and twenty minutes to actually FIND the movers but we eventually did. My truck is filthy, smells like an oily boot, and the seat settings are all jacked up. But it’s mine. Further fun factoids? I didn’t realize until the day I drove up to LA that they only take payment in cash, money order, or cashiers check, and I’m nearly 1200 miles from my nearest bank branch. I’m probably the whitest looking person to ever appear to be doing a drug deal by giving him a wad of cash on a side street near the freeway.

After the truck trade we went up to the main Sony Pictures lot/campus in Culver City to meet some of the dev teams; we ran into them at The Commissary so we joined up for lunch. We got to hang out some afterward and see some product demos. It’s a kickass experience to watch technology like this in action and to realize it’s running on “my” platforms. Everyone I’ve met has been great so it sucks that I’ll be 100 miles away and not able to be up this way more often. The eye candy wandering the Sony Pictures campus is a pretty nice fringe benefit too.

Looks I’ll be heading back to San Diego a day early due to some network maintenance Thurs night / Fri morning. It looks like the rest of my belongings should be arriving this weekend too so hopefully I’m gonna be pretty busy. It’ll be nice to have …well a bed for starters. Maybe Wifecat will stop giving me dirty looks from across the room.

Food coma is catching up to me so I’m making an early night of it.

My trip out was fairly normal as far as flights go. The added element of Wifecat to the flight proved to be pretty anticlimatic. She cried a lot on the smaller flight and threw up on the air tram / terminal train in Dallas, but outside of that she did fine. She seems to approve of the new place (the counters are lower and easier to jump on) so for now we’re settling into what can only be described as domestic felicity.

Either way it’s late, and Wifecat has curled up on my foot after taking her first dose of “anxiety” medication for tomorrow. My flight leaves Mobile at 11:15am. We both need the sleep I think.

I got introduced to the Flying Biscuit when I went up to visit Chioke in Atlanta in January. I didn’t believe it was worth the two hour wait in 30 degree weather, but when I saw the line of people waiting on either side of the street, I began to reconsider.  It was ENTIRELY worth the wait.  Their menu is totally organic food, all fresh made.   I think I need to order their cookbook.

Atlanta at night as we drive around trying to find some new Chinese place in Atlantic Station. Turns out it wasn’t in Atlantic Station, so we ended up going to Outback instead. That’s not to say we didn’t find a Chinese place, we were just turned away at the door by the bouncer because I was wearing shorts. He was very apologetic, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the uncanny resemblance to DL Hughley.