Is there a better legacy one can leave behind?
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Graham Oakley
I’ve always been a big fan of Graham Oakley’s cheeky Church Mice Series. The illustrations are great, and the stories are really fun. My sister and I loved reading his books at the library.
But they are out of print and you can’t find any copies at the library. Though oddly enough, they do have some taiwanese translations that reformatted his books to a portrait format.
It’s a sad tale of what can be discarded with the ebbs and flow of fashion. Or reframed more optimistically, a tale of what the internet enables — a couple clicks of a button and I’ve got a copy headed home.
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Frisbee
One of the local parks has a frisbee golf course so we brought one with us this latest visit.
First, I most likely could use “better” frisbees. I remember the game store in Berkeley having a whole wall of different frisbees for aficionados of this hobby.
Second, I have no idea if it made me any better, but I was constantly reminded of what I learned in Tai Chi. I tried to root my self in the ground and let the body relax, whipping around to initiate a wobbly sad flight trajectory.
Third, my almost 40 year old body was pretty compliant while on site. But it only took the ride home for my left arm to decide that this sudden uptick in this particular repetitive action was traumatic enough to send alarm bells for the rest of the day.
Finally, my daughter had a ball running up and down the hills chasing the frisbee and throwing it around.
My last two decades in a nutshell, encapsulated in a plastic disc.
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Studio Ghibli
A straightforward ranking.
• Top tier
Whisper of the Heart
Pom Poko
My Neighbors the Yamadas• Almost top tier
Spirited Away
Only Yesterday• Really good
My Neighbor Totoro
Kiki’s Delivery Service
Grave of the Fireflies (should be near the top by its heavy)• Quite good
Porco Rosso• Good
Princess Mononoke
Howl’s Moving Castle• Maybe good?
Castle in the Sky
Arrietty
Naussica• Decent but too long
Ponyo
Tale of Princess Kaguya• Doubtful quality
The Wind Rises
The Cat Returns• Definitely not good
When Marnie was Here
From up on Poppy Hill• Bad
Tales of Earthsea -
Trust in a Trade off
In order to have a little breathing room for my other projects, I had to hand off some work to a colleague who graciously took it on.
Even though this bought me the space to really make sure all my other projects are on track, it has still been difficult to let this my direct control.
The basic transaction has been trusting my colleague on one task so I can avoid being mediocre on all projects.
Rationally this makes perfect sense, but it’s easier said than done.
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Specials and Secret Menus
I’m a fan of the animal burger at In-N-Out, but that is the exception that proves the rule.
What really matters is getting the main menu squared away. Make sure each item is a blockbuster (or get it off the menu). Do it again tomorrow. And the day after that.
Once you’ve got that set, then you can play with these one-off items, or if you want to be cute, go ahead and add something on to the secret menu that is actually a main menu item, just unwritten.
But let’s be honest, how many of us actually got the main menu down?
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Twitter (for Nevada)
Like most people in my demographic I haven’t figured out how to quit Facebook, though I won’t shed a tear for its demise. However, right now it has become my best spot for friends news, national opinion, and random art (since I refuse to go to IG).
I also have this blog which has become a repository of all my deep thoughts. Privacy? Aww, lets just make it 100% public!
So where does Twitter come in? In one of my better decisions early in this young year, I decided to completely overhaul my feed to be focused on the State of Nevada, in part due to my new gig and the legislature session happening up north.
I’ve kept two national figures on my feed – Bomani Jones and Atul Gawande – but otherwise it is all Nevada and local reporters, politicians, opinion makers, and government agencies. Anyone that is consistantly national with their perspective gets booted off the list (I’ll find out bout the most recent outrages in Washington DC via the Nevada Senators and House Reps).
It has been really nice to differentiate between my Facebook and Twitter feeds for their own own specific use-cases, and so far, twitter has functioned really well as a “local newspaper”. We’ll see how long this lasts, but so far, it’s definitely worth a shot if you have a languishing twitter account.
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Ugh
This weekend, our little guy got slammed with a full on cold for the first time.
Fever, chills, sweats, cough, phlegm, the whole package. Poor guy was totally miserable. I’ve never seen him so bummed out.
A couple days later he smiled and crawled towards a box of Duplo blocks.
It’s easy to forget that normal can be a really big deal until it disappears for a moment.
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A good trade?
Life is a series of tradeoffs.
Usually the probem is not being willing to make any trades. We want it both. All.
But the flip side is when we get caught up with the choices that are presented to us.
I’ve only been to church once in the past few years, a talk at a local buddhist temple.
The speaker spoke of the third way, finding other routes instead of just following the binary.
So I guess it’s really a question of more than the tradeoffs at hand, but which ones to contemplate.
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Colds
The kids are sick.
So is momma.
They get to play.
She still gotta work.
Things calm down.
Then another one comes home.
Here we go again.
What a winter.