good beer

i like good beer. that is, i like beer that is brewed to be enjoyed, not the glorified runoff made solely for overconsumption & non-sobriety. considering i learned to enjoy the brew in colorado & oregon, it all makes sense.

that said, i appreciate carlsberg's effort to prevent heinous ruinations of what is "probably the best beer in the world." i also appreciate, given my profession, a mockery of interweb fads.

faded

i came across this blog last week and it seemed to me that the blogger's observations only went so far.

he's talking about a new book entitled The Writing On The Wall: Economic and Historical Observations of New York's "Ghost Signs" put together by a 17 year-old son of a marketing prez. focusing on its industry for obvious reasons, ad age strolls through the biggest of apples with the book's author, ben, and his dad admiring & discussing the book's topic: fading advertisements. the cited ad age article learns:

“The lesson one gleans, however reluctantly, is that whatever seems absolutely immutable, isn't. Not what is advertised. Not how it is advertised.”

while i agree with him that neither products nor media are always permanent, we can't stop there. is anything on this earth "immutable," that is, it cannot be silenced, its "voice" lingering and our attention continuously in its hand?

if i think of myself as one of these signs, i can picture myself going in & out of mindshare (brightness of paint for the sake of the illustration) as i go through high school college and from town to town after that. in each community i'm in at the time, it rarely occurs to me that most of these people will likely forget who i am (or vice versa) within a period of time proportional to the depth to which i knew them (except in the strange cases when you remember someone who you don't remember, like victor in middle school). even so, i generally conduct myself in a way that will maintain my good legacy as if they'll remember me beyond their grave.

i'm going to bet that, when we're not thinking about it, we simultaneously believe ourselves and our actions to be immutable while knowing their finite, even shortlived, prominence. that's the longing for legacy: the building of tombs, the battling for territory and the unending pursuit of success that makes one's name great.

way back when, somebody made their living by these then-bright advertisements. others "learned" of their "need" from these now weary proclamations. these "ghost signs" presumably fulfilled their purpose for a time. they satisfied the needs of their makers only temporarily until other needs arose as the bigger & better arrived as it always does, always too soon. and so i have to ask myself (and my imaginary readers) how does (can?) one transcend the power of memory? how does one leave a legacy that inspires life, not fading into quaint, nostalgic wonder of irrelevant days.

wii need to exercise

 
as i previously mentioned i'm wanting to run a race in september and my current shape is softer rounder heavier than it should be. my plan was to commence a disciplined & specially formulated training plan and enjoy the results. to be honest, i haven't run since that initial post but ames & i have played a few games of tennis. not surprisingly, the former high-school tennis star has given this rookie a good runaround on the court. and then, as if to interrupt my precious momentum, comes this. the nintendo wii (which i've wanted since launch anyway) breaks out the geek-fitness accessory of the century. now, in lieu of my current humid-heat-assisted weight loss program i can jump around in the comfort of our own home.

UPDATE: now i really need a wii.

we're number one! we're number one!

turns out that my peeps are pretty good at getting new business. i'd like to say i had a hand in this but i wasn't here in '06. regardless, i consider myself fortunate to be among people whom other people want to work with. maybe someday i'll be someone someone wants to work with....

fat man running

i like to think i can take a hint. and i realize that since i've taken to office jobs in chairs all day, i've acquired what doctors call a little bit of a weight problem. so when i get two emails this week concerning running, i take notice. to start, i work for an awesome company that gives back to its community. 8am on september 9 will mark the beginning of the vml sponsored, 5th annual head for the cure and i fully intend to participate in this event. it's a fundraiser for brain cancer research and was started in memory of a former vml-er who died of said illness.

i stumbled on adidas' myspace page (it's work related, i promise), fill out a brief form and the next thing i know, i get an email from adidas welcoming me to the first week of my "customized training schedule." customized? i answered two questions, how can it be that customized? i appreciate their focused interest in my health & effective training regimen, but two criteria is no basis for the custom label. anyway, lesson one introduces the "warm-up." i'll let you know how that goes.

my goal is to write about the process in a sort of circular accountability deal: i run so i have something to write & write because the training letter reminded me to.

foreign hilarity

we americans are a proud folk. (ok, maybe i'm projecting my own inadequacies onto the population at large, but for the sake of my point, let's just roll with it.) we're self-conscious and aware of how others perceive ourselves. that's why we never see the same game show goodness as they get in japan. we like our bob barker and wearing our own clothes. i really think we're too proud of ourselves to look so goofy playing goofy games. we'd rather look cool and with it than have a little fun at our own (and others') expense. and it's kind of sad when you think about it. living life isn't important anymore. this isn't to say that we are without fun. youtube & karaoke wouldn't be around were that the case. but as a culture, we typically reject that which trades fun for foolishness. like i said, it's kinda sad when you think about it. so stop thinking about it and watch this hilarious japanese game show clip.

home movies clip of the week

"they taste like old man mouth"

google pwns all

we all know google is out to organize the world's information, but who knew they would do it by giving out usernames & passwords? i mean, for all you know, haxxor joe could be writing this entry just to screw around. it won't be a very long post because this is a pretty boring blog that nobody reads.

quote

why not go out on a limb, that's where the fruit is.
- mark twain

thank you, down the avenue

in the news

last week we (digital insights group at vml) were the featured subject of an article in the wall street journal. referring several times to the agility with which we handle the interwebs, they mention a couple high profile clients and the solutions our work provided them. it's a good 101 on what i do, even though i had nothing to do with the projects contained therein.

if nothing else, it's awesome pr for seer and vml. within mere days we (not me) had several calls from big companies with lots of money wanting us to work with them. apparently, people read the wall street journal.

thanks, ariel, for the pdf & image. if my blog made any money, i'd buy you cheesehead in return for your links.

home movies

best. show. ever.

not who we think we are

my job consists largely of sifting through the noise of the interweb to discover and interpret the discussions surrounding my clients. one might call it digital anthropology. one of the highlights of such a job is that i am able to tell a client what the world 2.0 thinks of them, whether they like it or not, and i have data to back it up. it's not unusual for the client to perceive their brand differently (always better) than the rest of us (somehow we're wrong). while this may be expected, the same cloud creating this value discrepancy is the same that affects us all: ego.


as far as we know, we are who we believe ourselves to be, and we live according to that perspective. the problem is that this is in no way an honest assessment. attempts to obtain such a perspective can be summarized in these two websites. on one hand, we have those who think the outside is all that matters. on the other hand, we have those who think how "popular" ("friends" are perhaps the worst. indication of actual popularity. ever.) one is is all that matters. note that these two hands are often holding each other dearly. what happens though, is that these measures of self imply that they are all that need to be measured. hotness only matters. friends only matter.

it's impossible for me to step outside the box and look at the way i treat people, what i think about people and the ways they think about and treat me. somehow there's so much that i overlook so easily. i imagine, though, that if i had my very own digital anthropologist, i would find that i'm not all that similar to the tyler i think i am. sadly, though not unpredictably, i am no better than the clients whom i scoff for their misappropriation of identity.

my maps

sometimes i pretend that people read this blog, and i don't have to wonder if i ought to maintain its relevancy to our lives. it's times like these that i take up new ways to communicate with nobody.

this time, i started a my google maps project (there's a link at right as well). i've posted the cool stuff that we've done so far, cool places (mostly chipotles) and other localities pertaining to our lives. that is, except our house. i'm too paranoid of weirdos stalking us and taking my home movies collection.

this is also a great way for you to get excited about the places you'll go when you visit us!

lowell

i think i knew a guy named lowell once. he would have been old, tall, wearing overalls and a dirty truckers cap.

i wish i knew for sure if i knew him though, because we're going to be living on his street. ames & i just bought (hoping the inspections & loan stuff go well) our first house.

overland park is the sixth-best city to live in in the country so we figure it's a good place to grow for a bit. though it's about 25% farther than our apartment now (thanks, davereed), it's in a great neighborhood that's closer to other cool areas of town as well as a good commute for podcasts.

we're not sure when we'll move in yet, but we'll let you know when we do. we'll need your help and your truck.

throwing things

bowling is a guaranteed good time. (you disagree? then you probably don't like anything.) so when i was asked to help out in the vml bowling league, i naturally said, "alright, but only if i can use the bumpers." after a few weeks of playing proxy, i officially joined team tbd.

these were good times, people. regardless of how the team finished, there was much beer enjoyed and much fun had. my average increased steadily and i was even awarded mvb (most valuable bowler) for the last week of the season, having bowled my best game in recent memory.

i am entirely too proud of this accomplishment and am in the process of re-evaluating my personal goals & standards accordingly.

here

i've been in kansas city for a while now (couple months; amy's been here a month) and it's beginning to sink in last weekend we went to a royals game with some friends and enjoyed the gorgeous weather. they lost to detroit in the last couple innings, so i'm glad to maintain the minimal expectations of hometown baseball instilled in me by the rockies. apparently teams don't need elevation to be horrible.

that morning we got together with some folks interested in growing together and ames & i both left super encouraged. honestly, it's been awhile since i/we've been in a room with so many like-minded peers. we were really looking forward to these kinds of relationships when we got here, knowing we'd need them in this alien environment, and that we've already gotten to meet these people is pretty exciting.

alone

i saw the movie "babel" the other day and i have concluded that the entire 143 minute film speaks deeply of loneliness in the major characters, and thus humans in general. the final few minutes seem to reveal that this loneliness is a product of we humans: poor immigration policy, failure to cope with tragedy, disability, language barriers and the fallout of a shot heard around the world in a brotherly competition gone awry. somehow, says the film, we humans are collectively at fault and individually at the mercy of our collective behavior.

it's interesting to me that i watched this movie my first night in our new apartment in mission because i'm pretty much alone in this town for a bit. not that this is a bad thing necessarily; i think i can learn as much about myself on my own as i can surrounded by others. this time is especially tough having been married for a year and some and gotten used to (and enjoying) having my favorite around all the time. [so true, the words of bill withers: "ain't no sunshine when she's gone."]

what struck me is that loneliness is not a place. it is not a matter of how many people you know or how big your city is. it is a longing for community, for interaction. it is the realization that relationships define us on the most basic of levels, and without others (especially those close to us), we lose track of who we are and what we're doing here. who are we and what are we doing here? these questions are difficult enough in the presence of others, because they are so obvious. "i'm his friend and we're going to do this" or "she's my co-worker and we must finish this project." yet when we're alone, we are confronted with ourselves. often, that is too much too bear and distractions are sought out that we might not face the difficult depths of who we are: beauty, dirt, confusion and inadequacy all exposed.

the next step

amy and i are moving to kansas city.

we've been talking about it for awhile, but the time is finally here. a couple weeks ago i took a scouting trip to scope out the city and go through a few interviews. this week i accepted an offer from vml, a world-class marketing agency, very strong in interactive marketing. i'll be working with their seer tool, which basically measures the presence of a brand in user-generated content (blogs, forums, myspace, etc), sort of like a focus group. most of my job is to figure out what to do with the data seer brings back. and play more foosball. most importantly, i retain my hard-earned nerd status. you can't just give that kind of thing up. the office is the main terminal for kansas city's former airport.

we decided on kansas city not because of its plentiful snowboarding opportunities but because it's closer to amy's family in iowa (there's no way we were ever going to move to iowa) and my family in colorado and arizona. it's also home to cheap homes and already big and growing city with lots to do. and lots of chipotles.

i start work on march 1, and i will officially leave eugene the weekend before that. knowing our time left in oregon is short, we're trying to make the most of it. we spent the weekend before last in pacific city, we'll be in seattle this weekend, going snowboarding the next and who knows what after that. we'll update pictures as we take them so you can pretend you were with us wherever we were.

amy has to work through the end of february, so she'll see kc for the first time a couple weeks later. her working future is in the works; something part-time might be waiting for her, but not until after she unpacks all the heavy stuff while i'm at work.

we don't yet have a place to live, but we're hoping for a house to come along sooner than later. a nice fixer would be a welcome test for everything we've learned from flip that house. you're all welcome to come hang out when we get our place. actually, we hope you'll come visit because we only have one friend in kc at this point. and that's a lot of pressure on dana.

our phone numbers will change, but our emails will not.

as you might imagine, we're both excited and overwhelmed, scared and overjoyed, and most of all, looking forward to the 16 chipotle's in the kansas city area. oh yeah, and uh, starting the next stage together. yeah, that too.

just passing through, thanks

i've been here since 3, it's now just after 8 and i'm flipping bored. when i leave, hopefully tomorrow night, i will have been in kansas city international airport for over 20% of my 4 (now 5) day stay in the kansas city metro area. it's not the greatest airport to begin with, but the limited room to explore doesn't help. also not helping is that many of the shops which would have potentially sold me some sort of distraction are closed so that their employees could go home before the storm which has cancelled almost every flight out of here took hold of them as well. fortunately, starbucks is open 'til 9, with their hip&fun "let's be hip&fun!" muzak juxtaposed against the nearly unbearable ennuye of everyone within earshot. even more fortunately, kci provides free wi-fi, unlike salt lake city, which charges 9.95 for 24 hours to get you initially online, even though the average layover is what, 3 hours? maybe? although, i suppose were i in this same predicament in slc, i'd pay the dirty 9.95. and all this is not necessarily to say that i have been forced into my best viktor navorski imitation. i could have gone to a nearby hotel, but that would have cost me money and a hotel isn't nearly as good of a story as spending the night in an airport. but this isn't much a story yet, is it? it's mostly complaining and wordy attempts to occupy myself.

airports are transitional and my home is residential. that's simple enough, right? yet, i find myself now expecting that this airport will function as my home with the regular amenities like a hot shower, soft bed, food, my guitar, my wife and so on. in fact, i hold it in contempt for not being my home, as if it were supposed to know that i am projectedly here for 24 hours beyond my original 6pm departure. man, am i an idiot.

nobody designs an airport to live in it. (although if they did, that could be sweet. they would have a normal airport and then have these skybox-type condos for companies and frequently-flying individuals to rent out. they could cleverly call them "airport-ments" or "skyboxes" or "really expensive.") simillarly, this life i now live is transitional, not residential. in the words of derek webb, "though not my home it's where i live." yet i consistently treat this life as if it's all i will ever have. i secure my livelihood, look for a decent house to buy someday and fix up into a nice house. these aren't inherently bad things, but if these things are the ends and means of my existence, there's something wrong.

the worst part of this and most of my observations is that i have no idea what to do about it. and, since nobody ever reads this self-important blog, i am forced to live out various attemptedly reconciliatory efforts on my own. but i know my wife will join me. she's good for that.

my socks don't fit

who, in their right mind would even suggest, let alone publish, the idea that a sock that fits my size 7 (40 European) foot will also fit the size 12 (46 European) belonging to my friend davereed?

let me guess: john w. size-eleven, who likes his socks slightly tight but not so tight they constrict the blood flow. who was in the focus group? sammy size-ten with his loose but not so loose that they bunch in my birkenstocks?

seriously. my socks don't fit. i do not appreciate the heel-seam scrunched up above my ankles, just above my shoe for all to see. i do not appreciate such huge generalizations. i don't care what sizes for which you consider your socks to be of adequate length. my socks still don't fit.