GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Life

  • Home and car….from three years ago!

    DSC_6806

    Maybe I posted this three years ago…maybe I didn’t. And maybe I wrote up a couple posts earlier this week that I can’t find now. Well digging around my draft box, I found this post which apparently never got published…so does that balance things out?

    It was pretty deflating to lose a couple posts. But then again, I’m not writing long form essays here! The thoughts will come back if they are any good. And if don’t come back to mind, then y’all missed out on nothing. After three weeks at this I suspect that if this blog continues for an extended period, it will be have a core group of ideas that will be repeated and repackaged and reworded and revisited again and again.

    By the way 2009 feels like yesterday, how on earth did it get to be 2012 already!?!

  • What is a musician?

    This post was originally actually a response to a question “What is a musician?” out in the modern blues harmonica forum.

    I had also posted it in boardgamegeek because this ethos is tangentially related to gaming because I think it is good example of my populist approach to the production of art and why I agree with BGG’s liberal distribution of the “game designer” badge. I know some people think its a shame that these badges are watered down, but I think its a good thing. More people, especially hardcore gamers, should try their hand at actually designing a game. Trite as it sounds, getting the “game designer” badge motivated me to take some loose ideas for the decktet and spend the time to shape them into something “designed”. My games aren’t great, maybe not even good, but the exercise was definitely valuable.

    …

    A musician is someone who practices music.

    Like a doctor practices medicine, a lawyer practices law, or (my profession) an architect practices the design of buildings. For better or worse, the government hasn’t deemed music-making to be worthy of official legal status so I think one is free to set the bar pretty low. And that’s great, I don’t think exalting the word “musician” is a good thing.

    Making art is intimidating enough, and I think we should eliminate as many barriers as possible that keep people from practicing art. This world needs more people who practice music; we have enough people who consume and purchase music. I constantly think about the fact that you only had two options a century ago: listen to someone else play music “live” or make it yourself. Even though it is amazing that a couple mouse clicks can get you to all the Little Walter you can handle, there is something deeply powerful and transformative about actually practicing music, making music. I’m not saying I’d want to listen to noises that all these musicians are making, but society would be better if each individual practiced music, it rewires the brain and uplifts the soul.

    This was brings up an interesting thought coming from my own musical history. My parents had me learn piano for a short while. The also let me play around with the trombone to get just skilled enough to make it into the UC Berkeley marching band (for one inglorious year). I am very grateful that my parents put their efforts and money into learning me some music, but it never truly clicked. Nor ten years ago when I purchased and practiced a banjo for a while on my own.

    I think each of those attempts died because I never actually practiced music. Obviously there are a lot of great pianists, banjo pickers, and trombone players, playing in all styles and training under different systems in ways that feed their souls. But unfortunately for me, each of my previous forays died out because I had approached practice as executing a performance using that particular instrument. I was practicing an intense exercise in mental and motor skills that happened to produce pleasant noises on a good day. But I wasn’t practicing music – there wasn’t the inspirational foundation that could keep me going for the long haul.

    I’m still in a honeymoon phase with the harmonica so who knows if it will last, but I have high hopes. This time I’ve approached this endeavor differently from before, emphasizing playing by ear, improvising, and just enjoying the journey instead of shooting for a destination. There has certainly been a lot of noises made…and just occasionally I’ve made some music. Nothing you’d ever want to hear, but music that came from me and music that I heard! That’s why I call myself a musician. A couple months ago I wasn’t a musician. I am a musician today. I suck at being a musician, but with constant effort I’m building up the skill, knowledge and experience towards being a better musician…maybe even a musician that someone other than my pet rabbits could stand listening to!

    I should make it clear, I’m not at all denigrating skill nor the endeavor to become more skilled. The music that one produces is limited by their own skills and anyone serious about their art should be pushing their limitations and capabilities. I’m just saying that making music is something everyone should indulge in. To be doubly clear, I agree that the definition of a professional musician is a totally different beast…that “professional” word adds a whole new level expectations and standards…just like the difference between a “designer” and an “architect”.

    …

    And for the record, I would fully support a “published game designer” badge that was not easy to obtain. However, I wish there were more amateur game designers, I think it would be good for the hobby.

    Also posted on Boardgamegeek.com

  • Hello!

    Its been a few months and I thought I’d just say hello! Not much else going on, keeping busy with Gables Bering. Hope y’all have a lovely holiday season!

  • 25 Games I wanna Play

    listed here on boardgamegeek

    but I’ve decided that I should start doing some things on this blog site too just to keep it moving along after a half hear of stagnation!

    So here’s the list as I wrote it down with notes, not as ordered by boardgame geek ranking.

    Brass – Martin Wallace
    Troyes – Dice and Hype
    El Grande – A classic I haven’t tried
    Tigris and Euphrates – good online, I hope its better in person
    Le Havre – I liked Agricola
    Modern Art – Auctions, good first play
    Princes of Florence – Auctions, I didn’t like the first play but its well regarded
    Hansa – Mark Johnson
    Africa- Mark Johnson
    Bohnanza – Mark Johnson
    Caylus – Great Game
    Tichu/Thirteen Combo – I’ve been trying to get this game played for a while!
    Caroom – Pool meets Crokoinle
    Arabian Nights – sounds crazy
    Australia – area control and another continent
    Manhattan – very abstract but sounds like light crazy nastiness
    Aton – great 2P area control
    Foppen – Trick taking AND shedding, interesting
    San Marco – you distribute I pick…and a gorgeous board
    Through the Ages – it seems long but well regarded
    Stone Age – it was very popular at one time
    Shogun / Wallenstien – seems to be well regarded
    Mu and lots more – a bunch of interesting card games
    Mexica – part of a trilogy where I didn’t like the first game that I played, but this one has a nice looking board.
    Power and Weakness – somehow it intruiges me

  • Welcome

    Now starts my first day on the job.  Its been a hectic three weeks since I was first contacted by Mr. Ziegler during the first week in January and now its the end of the month and I’m now about get dressed up and go corporate.  Lets hope the last few years of training at John and Suzanne’s place will have been good preparation for going corporate

  • Happy New Years, 2011

    So just a quick note….other than HAPPY NEW YEARS! This a a great website to get the etymology for chinese words on the fly. Nciku is my primary dictionary and generally its word “decomposition” entry at the bottom is enough, but when there are words that make me scratch my head, this is the site I go to. It handles both simplified and traditional and is really good a showing how we got from there to here. Here’s to a happy 2011!

  • Quick hits while in China

    So during near the end of the trip I took some notes of things that struck my attention. I’ve finally gotten around to going over them (very lightly) and added a couple at the end. I wish I had gone over the list earlier, I’d bet I had have more things to add, but here it is.

    1. Shanghai is denser than anything you see in Manhattan, the first ring of burbs around Hangzhou comes close, and brand new luxury burbs just a little less.
    2. They don’t ever just make a residential tower out here….they make several at a time.
    3. Suburb seems to mean four units stacked on each other instead of a seven story apartment complexes.
    4. Hangzhou suburbs, while dense, are definitely trying their best to be utterly boring like those in the good old USA.
    5. But damn there’s a lot of cars and they drive like utter madmen!
    6. Walking (and driving) around Shanghai and Hangzhou is an almost contact sport.
    7. Food is fresher out here…bound to be when they’ve got live chickens and ducks in your supermarkets
    8. But their supermarets don’t have don’t have aloe vera lotion tissue papers.  That makes it close to a barbarian society to me.
    9. Other than that you can basically buy anything you want out here…and most things will be a little cheaper than the states but not nearly as much as you’d think since all the stuff in the states had to get shipped across the pacific ocean.
    10. The US really needs to get its act together and start making $1 and $2 coins.
    11. I wonder how obviously american I am to these folks.
    12. Not knowing what the hell anyone is saying is both not nearly as bad and much worse than it may seem when you think about it.
    13. I really dislike a lot of the fashion choices made by the women out here.
    14. That said, Chinese TV is full of ads for skin lotions…which is a step up from being full of ads for beer and cars.
    15. Guys don’t like to cut their hair too short and very few people have facial hair.
    16. Chinese bed (woven strings) really is a great system.  Not sure why others don’t emulate it.  But I can still sleep on anything (pulled out sofa bed with a big cross bar running down the length of it.
    17. People are very energy conscious…they all unplug their small devices.  Hell they even turn off the water heaters at night.
    18. A lot of people play cards out here.  I think it must be more convenient than Mahjong or something.
    19. Weddings involve a lot of firecrackers.
    20. There are a lot of people standing around.  And its awfully wierd to be saluted when driving out the complex.
    21. I’d love to hear how great US capitalism is compared to Chinese capitalism with a retirement age around 55 and reasonable health costs.
    22. That said, the air here is WAY worse than anything I’ve seen in the states
    23. I think grandma is taking this as a time to brainwash my girlfriend into making babies.
    24. It was quite an amusing lunch with Grandma and Jo-Ma watching them pressure her to make baby.
    25. Food sure is fresher and better.
    26. If in Hangzhou, definitely make a point to visit the Ling Yi Temple out here.  It costs 45 RMB to get into the park…skip the extra 30 RMB to get into that temple proper and go visit the other two temples that come for free with the park entry.
    27. There are Chinese people selling things everywhere in this country, even at the top of a  hill accessible only by trails.
    28. Chinese people are willing to buy things anywhere they are sold, even if they are silly little tchoskies on the top of a hill accessible only by trails.
    29. Custmomer service is an utterly non-existant concept around here…so its quite shocking the one time we received great customer service (buying prepacked ramen!)
    30. Yikes, at 58 RMB it seems that Starbucks will have been one of our most expensive “meals” out here…for a mango smoothie and a hot choc!
    31. There’s a cable stayed bridge in Shanghai on the way to the airport that is almost as awesome to drive across as the Golden Gate.
    32. The high speed rail on a viaduct elevated above the agricultural landscape is  a wonder to behold, it must be as impressive as the Eisenhower interstate system was to visitors from war torn Europe.  Three hours by bus, fortyfive minutes by train.

  • pie in the sky….

    I would emphasize the idea of process. Be more organized and scheduled. But also work on ways to streamline each piece of the process. Pre-design meetings with the whole team. I’d have to figure out how to integrate modeling as an integral a part of the process (just more practice using them?) Spend more time setting things up office standards, cad blocks, etc. Draw just enough, not too much not too little. Post occupancy review (what went right and wrong, with the client and the contractor). Aesthetic style isn’t particularly important to me but green is. And contextually, I’d love to work close to home.

  • How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie, 1948

    This is a tour de force in the quintessentially American genre of self help literature. A mix of down home wisdom and stuff pulled from the classics and the bible. Optimistic and upbeat with a pull yourself by the bootstrap message. All of it written in very plain simple English with plenty of takeaway points at the end of each chapter.

    And hey there’s a few good ideas in there too!

    Well worth the read.

  • 13 things to work on.

    I have been reading various books dealing with business and issues related to finding work. Along the way a couple years ago, I picked up a little book by Frank Bettger called “How I Raised Myself from a Failure to a Success in Selling” at a local thrift store. I finally read it this past week. And the best part was his last chapter. Inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtues Frank Bettger made his own list of 13 key skills for selling. Like Benjamin Franklin, he then advises the reader to make his own list, and then spend a week emphasizing each virtue/skill. At the end of the year, that would mean that you’ll have gone through the list 4 times and he swears that it is a great way to grow and get better at selling/etc.

    The super powerful idea behind Frank Bettger’s chapter is that he takes history and makes it useful for his own purposes.  I think there is a tendency to say “if a great guy did it, then that’s how it should be done.”  However, I think that often leads to inaction since the great person was doing something in the context of their life.  Instead one ought to take the example of history and make the most of it in the context of our own lives.

    And in that spirit I decided that it couldn’t hurt to try something similar, though I am kind of switching it a little to include fields of study to emphasize in my spare time.  We’ll see where it goes, I’ll start it up in a couple weeks which will time me perfectly at the halfway mark of this year.

    1. Introspection
    2. Enthusiasm
    3. Architecture (conventional details and construction)
    4. Sketching
    5. Reading People
    6. Business
    7. Assertiveness
    8. Thankfullness
    9. Networking
    10. Silence
    11. Sustainability (details and construction)
    12. Contemporary art/design/architecture
    13. Brain rewiring (catch up on old hobbies, ie banjo, novels, photography)