The UW steeldrum band played its first concert of the year about a week ago. I’ve wanted to learn to play steel drums for years now, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to join them. It’s been a fun year – all of us got on the instruments for the first time last fall, and now we’re playing concerts together! Fantastic.
Say Say:
Guantanamera:
Charlotte Street:
Bass Man:
This weekend, I had the chance to try wakeboarding for the second time. Without the dry suit, sitting in 60 degree water would have been a significantly less pleasant experience. It was hailing and snowing here just a week ago, after all.
And I got up for the first time! It turns out wakeboarding is way more fun when you’re actually standing on the board, rather than just being dragged face first behind a boat and having the tow rope repeatedly ripped out of your hands.
After many very frustrating runs, I realized I was holding the tow rope very low to the waterline, so the force from the boat was pulling me straight into the water. And I realized that if I raised my hands higher into the air, the force vector from the rope would pull me upwards as the board now acted as a fulcrum. I expected it meant I would face plant the first few times, but instead I just popped right up into a standing position. Was that all I needed?
Next, I found the front edge of the wakeboard was diving underwater as I stood up. It seemed reasonable to start putting more weight on my rear foot to lever the nose of the board out of the water, and sure enough, I found myself skimming happily over the surface of the water.
I wonder what other people think about when they’re learning to wakeboard. Am I overly analytical or is this just par for the course?
I do remember that when I first took the training wheels of my bicycle I wasn’t able to turn without falling over. But I suddenly remembered there was an article about riding a bike in my most recent issue of Owl Magazine, so I ran into the house, learned that you have to lean into the turn when you’re riding a bike, ran back out, got on my bike and began turning successfully. Score another one for physics.
It’s been a confusing week. Perhaps the multiple snowstorms at the end of April should have been my first tipoff. For some reason, socializing has been particularly difficult recently. Talking to other people has been nearly as exhausting for me as it used to be years ago. I’m still going to a lot of different events, but I find myself counting the hours and needing more recovery time afterwards.
I think a large part is the stress and uncertainty from my new job. It’s ironic – I used to be worried that I was running out of money, but now that I have money I’m worried that I’ll let down the people who are depending on me to come through for them. When do I get to retire?
And I had to make a really difficult decision a few days ago. The people I trust the most tell me it was the right one, and I agree, but I hate to make good people feel bad. I wish the right decision didn’t make me so sad, either.
I’m reading Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan. While the author does come across as a negative, pessimistic, elitist, anti-academic devil’s advocate, he does make some good points. He uses the analogy of a Black Swan to say that some events are inherently unpredictable, no matter how much information you need, and in fact it is those events that tend to define our world. He also points out that some careers (say, a doctor) trade time for money straightforwardly and are fairly immune to unexpected events. Others (say, rock star or entrepreneur) are dominated by black swan events, and your success depends on choosing a lifestyle that maximizes the chance of a black swan occurring.
I think I’m currently living a black swan lifestyle. I remind myself that a high-variance lifestyle is going to have these low times, by design, but it doesn’t make it any easier.
On the bright side, I did learn to make soap and cheese last weekend. And the next few days are jam-packed with more random events and random people.
As of last Friday, I am now working for Biznik. Biznik is a local Seattle startup, still run by its two founders, but if all goes well I will have the option of becoming the first employee. This means I can almost say I have my first real job, except that I’m employed as an outside contractor, still set my own schedule, and work from home.
Biznik is a community of independent business owners, built around a social networking platform. It’s kind of like Meetup plus LinkedIn. My role will be a combination of sales and business development, figuring out how to monetize a social networking site. Considering that not even Facebook or Myspace have really come up with a good way of doing that, it’s going to be a challenging position. But our userbase of independent business owners is a particularly valuable resource, so I’m optimistic.
Onward into the unknown!
Friday: I hear the Dalai Lama speak at a Seeds of Compassion event. He’s a funny guy, though somewhat more difficult to understand than I anticipated. Later, Craig and I talk our way into a independent fashion event in Capitol Hill. Coincidentally, the founder of the company we pretended to be with happened to be standing in line right behind us, but in the end it all worked out. Afterwards we drop by two different friends’ birthday parties and show Craig’s cousin around Belltown.
Saturday: Craig’s cousin gets us into the Seattle Green Festival, where we load up on free samples. We also talk to representatives from Sambazon and a wheatgrass company and get some really encouraging information about one of our business ideas. The grand opening for Trevin’s photo show is that evening, which we follow with a few hours at the Seattle Green Festival afterparty. Once that closed at 1am it was off to another friend’s birthday party at Viceroy and the Marriott and Noc Noc, culminating in us not coming home until 4:30 am.
Sunday: Up bright and early for breakfast with a friend and his sister, to whom I’m donating my old computer. That was followed in close succession by a noon cocktail party (moral of the event: don’t hold cocktail parties at noon, but it was still fun) and Brandon’s jazz band performance. And I returned home to find yet another job offer in my inbox – but this time, it’s one I can actually get excited about. More info on that once negotiations are complete.
Big weekend. And next weekend looks promising as well, I’m going to learn to make soap and mascarpone cheese!
