Robots Don't Sleep

I have neglected this blog so much in the past 3 years. I’m not going to promise to post more, but I don’t think anyone reads this anymore anyway.

Regardless, I have a weekly podcast now, so if you miss the sweet sultry sounds of my voice and/or you like ridiculous, nerdy comedy, then give it a listen! I am going to start posting episodes on here in a shameless attempt to get more listeners. It’s called 40s and 20s (think “Drinking 40s and Rolling 20s” – as in, 40 oz malt liquor and rolling 20-sided die) and I record it every Friday with my friends Raul Sarmiento and Mike Kaess. New episodes are usually posted Saturday evening. I’d really appreciate if everyone checked it out!

You can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes or stream the latest 3 or 4 episodes online at SoundCloud.

Also you can become a fan on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

This is the latest episode – Episode 10: The Adventures of Gary Fry.

Oftentimes, I find myself at a point where I can take a chance to reflect on where I am in my life and how I got there. Strangely, I arrived at that point a couple weeks ago and I still feel like I am there. I feel pretty good with my identity and I just feel like there are a few things that need to be refined before I’m entirely satisfied. However, as always, certain things happen that cause a shift in my thinking and I have found myself still staying up late and thinking at night.

One event in particular was the fact that one of my brothers was in a car accident this week. He was the passenger and his friend’s car ended up flipping one and a half times while they were driving home from golfing. Luckily, neither of them was hurt, aside from feeling extremely sore the next day. Thank God he’s the only one of my brothers that I never had to yell at for not wearing his seatbelt in my car. When I found out, I immediately wished that I was home. I just can’t imagine if things had been worse and I were stuck here in California. However, things were fine and I just continued worrying all day, reflecting on everything and trying to remember that things like this happen, and will continue happening. There’s no stopping it, so I realized that you just need to accept it and move on.

In other news, I’m just about done wrapping up my first major project at InterKnowlogy. It went extremely well, and I’m very excited to share the details of the project as soon as it’s ok for me to do so. This was my first chance to make an impression, and I really hope that I have shown them what I am capable of.

I will also be visiting Utah this week from Thursday til Saturday to represent InterKnowlogy at Neumont’s quarterly Career Week event. I will be presenting during lunch, covering the more technical details about IK and probably showing off some demos of the projects we’ve done. I’m really excited about spending a few days back up in Utah and seeing friends. I can’t wait to BBQ!

Finally, I’d just like to say that I love Grand Theft Auto 4. That is all.

Well, the new blog is up and running, and I think I have the layout at a place that I like at the moment. I really like playing around with CSS, but for some reason I always forget what time it is while I’m doing so. For example, Saturday night I got to a good stopping place and figured, “Alright, I think I’ll head to bed now… it’s probably around 1 or 2 in the morning.” Nope, I was wrong. It was 4am. Things like this happen when I get intensely focused – I lose myself in trying to accomplish a task and forget everything else.

Anyway, WordPress is all set up and I added a little RSS button in the top-right corner of the page. I’m hoping that maybe this attempt at blogging won’t be a miserable failure like my past attempts. Maybe people will actually read this time.

Now that I’m done with school and working, I can see how some people start aching for a side project to jump on. During school, it was always really hard for me to focus on getting my homework done and do work for a side project. Now, I’m finding little projects to do like upgrading the Media PC to Vista, swapping out hard drives, and installing themes and applications on my brand new phone. Oh, that’s right. I got a new phone and I love it! It’s an HTC Mogul and it is awesome. I also got on the Sprint SERO plan (1200 minutes, unlimited messaging, and unlimited data) right before it died, so that made me extremely happy. Only 50 bucks a month! Whoo!

Uh oh… time to go to the gym. Today’s my last day with my Personal Trainer unless I buy more sessions, which I won’t be able to do for a little while, so hopefully he can show me the workouts I need to do until I’m able to afford some new sessions. My goal is 20 pounds in 10 weeks. Let’s see how that goes.

I like to make myself feel sometimes that I can make sudden decisions and go somewhere without extensive preemptive planning. This, oftentimes, is a way for me to bring myself out of a slump or just make an otherwise boring weekend seem worthwhile. I hadn’t been feeling myself lately so I figured that at some point, I’d see a couple opportunities out of the corner of my eye and I’d just go for them. This weekend, I went to Sundance.

Ok, so I didn’t actually go up to Park City and rub elbows with all the rich celebrities and wannabe indie-movie elitists. I heard from someone at work on Friday that Choke, the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, had been made into a movie and its last screening was that night at midnight at the Tower Theater in downtown Salt Lake City. Apparently, the theaters will usually sell to about 85% capacity, and say that it’s “sold out”. Then, on the night of the show, other people that didn’t plan ahead can line up and get wait-listed, which doesn’t necessarily guarantee them a spot to get in. But, if there is enough seats and your wait-list number is below that number, then BAM! You’ve got yourself a ticket.

Fortunately for me, I had nothing really planned for Friday night, and I had been dying to just jump in my car and do something spontaneous. So, I got a couple friends together and we drove down to 9th and 9th to stand in line in the cold from about 8:30 til 10 just to get a wait-list number. Let me tell you, Friday night was cold. Myself, I was wearing a hoodie beneath my new leather jacket, and I was still pretty freezing.

The movie itself was pretty darn good. It was extremely funny at parts and touching in the usual strange Palaniuk sense. It wasn’t Fight Club by any means, which isn’t at all what I went into the movie expecting, but it was good in its own right. It actually won an award at Sundance – Dramatic Special Jury Prize for “Work by an Ensemble Cast”.

I only hope that this semi-spontaneity keeps my motivation and inspiration moving forward. This is how it used to feel in the old days with Josh and Leon at Bridge, learning new things and getting excited about the future.