Author Archives: lastdanstanding

18

I didn’t blog yesterday for the first time since August 26th. To be honest 18 straight days of posts blew away the expectations I had set in my personal challenge to post something every day when I rebooted this blog.

Posting every day is difficult. It’s hard to consistently unearth topics to write about and even more than that, it is very hard to find the time to do it. Often it’s not until the end of the day, well past the time I should be in bed, when I find myself with some time to sit down at the computer and compose something.

On the flip side, posting daily is a good exercise for my atrophied writing muscles. The self-imposed daily deadline also forces me to be constantly thinking about writing, and formulating posts, or parts-of-posts, in my head.

I don’t know what will happen moving forward. It’s pretty clear to me that I won’t be able to sustain daily posts consistently. There’s just not enough time. Hopefully what it means is that the posts I do make will be longer and more meaningful, than some of the more rushed ones. Also hopefully it doesn’t mean that I let the blog stagnate again as I did for years. Time will tell.

Pixarpalooza

It’s pretty ridiculous how great my job is. Among the many perks I get, today was our every-other-year music festival “Pixarpalooza”. It’s basically a big party with bands (and now dj’s) comprised of Pixar employees. The bands do mostly covers, running the gamut from punk to country to classic rock, performed in a range between adequate-with-heart to holy-crap-these-guys-are-good! There’s a craft fair, food, drinks, a professional stage and soundboard, and all the fixings for a rocking time.

The one downside is that we’re instructed not to post pictures of it to the Internet. All of our events have that policy to protect privacy, and intellectual property, and I get it, even though it’s a bummer. I mean policing that kind of thing seems like a nightmare, so I get how having a blanket policy makes it easier, but it sure would be great if we could find a way to stay secure, while allowing some personal sharing.

But, sigh, it is what it is, and overall Pixarpalooza is just outstanding. Thank you to my friends and colleagues in all the great bands tonight. Thanks to the volunteer bartenders, the caterers, the dj’s, the executive leadership for making these kinds of things happen, and pretty much everyone at Pixar for just being awesome.

9/11 Grab Bag

I’m not much for patriotism, politics and the like, but suffice it to say 9/11 was a tragic event. It’s hard to overstate the impact of the imagery, sounds, and video, not to mention the aftermath of 12+ years of Mideast war and chaos.

I came across three 9/11 related items today. Each of them was new to me, and compelling enough that I will share here.

The first is this video which relives much of the chaos, fear and anguish of the day.

The second is this article Fear and Loathing in America by Hunter Thompson. There are many good lines, but this prescient one really sums up 9/11 and its legacy to me:

We are At War now — with somebody — and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives.

And the third, because if we can’t laugh then the terrorists have won, is this Internet gem right here:

Death Star

 

About Face

Just a quick note to announce that I’ve followed through with last week’s post about ditching Facebook. I did wind up keeping the account active, just in case I ever need to “use Facebook to authenticate” as many sites are doing lately.

What I did do though was to go through and un-friend everyone, and remove most of my information.

What do you think of my new profile pic below?

No Facebook