Blog

  • Observations from the Montreal ghetto

    Being in montreal over the past week was a great experience. I got to so the city and listen to a bit of jazz
    guitar. The trip was mainly business but the little bit of pleasure I got, was good: good food, good music,
    good sights.

    The odd thing about the trip was the last night. I had heard that my hotel was in the “seedy” part of town
    but I didn’t really click in, until I realized that every woman walking alone was scared of me. On that night
    I had decided just to walk around and take in the architecture, the life and the crisp cold air. Most of the
    time I liked to stay off the main streets, as the hustle and bustle takes away from the “moment” feeling. One
    after the other I noticed that the women who were walking in front of me or by me all reached into their
    pockets and purses. It wasn’t like reaching for a kleenex or a mint, I was sure that whatever they pulled out
    and held tight in their hand, could do some serious damage to me. It was an odd and scary sensation to see
    that they were actually afraid of me. And because they were afraid of me…made me afraid of where I was.

    How could I have been afraid of Montreal? It’s a beautiful city with heritage and diversity. Don’t worry,
    that last little experience won’t stop me from going back. I definitely want to see it again, and next time
    I’ll just stay out of the “seedy” neighborhood.

  • Breaking The Silence

    The other day in The Chrysalis, we covered off a topic Dari like to call Breaking The Silence. It’s a very
    personal thing but ultimately the message is this: As you grow up and learn and absorb you take in cues
    either directly from things like verbal teachings or more indirectly from things like social observations.
    These cues tell you what you can and cannot talk about. Of course everyone has their own person things that
    they “can’t” talk about. However, if you ever want to be a creative individual you can’t stop. It might never
    go away completely, after all psychological conditioning isn’t something that goes away completely, but what
    you can do, is recognize it so that you can move past it. Creative people can’t have a border around their
    creativity just like wild animals with fences aren’t wild anymore.

    For me, while we were going through the exercise I was reminded of a story about “The King of Togo Togo” (
    I’m still trying to find a copy somewhere ). At first glance it’s a wonderful harmless story. The idea is
    that everything is alive, even grass is a good one, and one I truly relate to. But when looking at it in
    context of this, it makes you think. I know I have topics that I just don’t talk about. I won’t talk about. I
    don’t share, and I keep locked away deep inside. Is this lesson that “each blade of grass whispered to the
    other” teaching that there is no real place of solitude and one can confide in? Does it teach that rather
    then venting, one should just never speak? Did the story actually have an impact on me so much that my
    SIlence is a verbal one?

    Of course, all these questions can’t all be answered in one blog post, but they are things to wonder. I
    really do wonder the implication the lessons of “silence” had on me. The funnier thing is most of them I
    sought out myself. But I guess now is the time I need to really evaluate the lessons I’ve learned and do a
    good spring cleaning on them, so that I can completely Break the Silence.

  • Trimorphic Protennoia

    A quote come up from last nights creative class. I thought I would share

    I am Protennoia the Thought that dwells in the Light
    She who exists before the All
    I move in every creature
    I am the invisible One within the All
    I am perseption and Knoledge, uttering a Voice by means of Thought
    I am the real Voice.
    Trimorphic Protennoia

    (Triple-formed Primal Thought)

  • Ant power

    You know when you wake up and your eyes just don’t want to open? Not for sake of muscle power, but because of
    the crusties? Well that was this morning. The best solution was to go back to bed.

    Regardless of state of mind I decided to drudge through and work anyway. Now to the point….I love
    ant. We are using it at work for building and I’m getting the swing and liking it.
    The bestis it’s xml/xslt parsing. I’m working on a clients site with numerous pictures. Now, sure you still
    need the time to chug through and resize and name them. But once you’re all complete you can hook up a few little xml config files and parse them through an xslt and voila, pages a plenty!

    <target name="xml" description="xml compiler">
        <xslt basedir="${basedir}/etc" destdir="${basedir}/web"
          style="${basedir}/etc/page.xsl">
          <mapper type="glob" from="*.xml" to="*.html"/>
          <outputproperty name="method" value="xml"/>
          <outputproperty name="standalone" value="yes"/>
          <outputproperty name="encoding" value="iso8859_1"/>
          <outputproperty name="indent" value="no"/>
        </xslt>
    </target>
    
  • The Machinist

    Finally got a chance to watch The Machinist last night.
    It’s been on my to watch list for some time. Man that movie is messed, but still very beautiful and intriguing to watch.

  • Audience Participation

    Last night was another performance by the illustrious Blue Morris 6 (+1). I’m sure Blue will be posting the
    outcome shortly, in which case you can then take a listen for yourself.

    One thing that made this night different from others was the feedback from the audience. We’ve played other
    shows and when it’s done, I’m walking out the door and people are watching me leave with my huge case, but
    not saying anything. For this gig a bunch of people came up to us and said “nice show” or “I was really
    entertained, thank you”. To those out there who did, I say thank you. It really does make a difference.

  • Dirty Dancin’ of Jazz

    Had the pleasure of playing for a private blues dance tonight. ( I’m sure music will be coming soon ) OMFG!
    You wanna see some hot moves…man these cats ( and I mean the truest sense of the term ) they were in dancing
    heat. I kind of felt intrusive to watch a couple dancing, the way they were moving it was more then dancing.
    It was like sex with clothes on. If anyone says, “hey, you wanna go to a blues dance?” The answer is always
    yes.

  • My Personality 3

    Took the personality test again. This time I did the
    Advanced Jung test. I think it’s much more interesting. It relects would your are vs who you want to be. It also shows who you are attracted to, so for the ladies…

    Actualized type: INFP

    (who you are)

    • Extroverted (E) 50% Introverted (I) 50%
    • Intuitive (N) 77.14% Sensing (S) 22.86%
    • Feeling (F) 67.74% Thinking (T) 32.26%
    • Perceiving (P) 79.31% Judging (J) 20.69%

    INFP – “Questor”. High capacity for caring. Emotional face to the world. High sense of honor derived from
    internal values. 4.4% of total population.

    Preferred type: ENFP

    (who you prefer to be)

    • Extroverted (E) 54.55% Introverted (I) 45.45%
    • Intuitive (N) 71.88% Sensing (S) 28.13%
    • Feeling (F) 64.52% Thinking (T) 35.48%
    • Perceiving (P) 71.88% Judging (J) 28.13%

    Attraction type: ENFP

    (who you are attracted to)

    • Extroverted (E) 59.38% Introverted (I) 40.63%
    • Intuitive (N) 67.65% Sensing (S) 32.35%
    • Feeling (F) 64.52% Thinking (T) 35.48%
    • Perceiving (P) 70% Judging (J) 30%

    ENFP – “Journalist”. Uncanny sense of the motivations of others. Life is an exciting drama. 8.1% of total
    population.

  • Laser from your eyes

    Check out this simple, yet highly addictive game called
    reflections. After an hour or
    so, you’ll be shooting lasers out of your eye because they will either be from your god like feeling of triumph or demonic rage of frustration.

  • Just oneword is all it takes

    A nifty community blog. They give you a word and you write about that word for 60 seconds. Then you post it.
    Easy peasy window to the soul. Give it a shot, why not?