Hi friends,
It's been quite a long time since I've written here. What happened? I guess it's partly technological- I've swung over to using twitter, youtube, google reader and del.icio.us and having facebook collect the summary of my web travels rather than posting here.
But I've been changing as well. I still enjoy sharing cool things through the above tools. "Cool things" were some of my blog posts. Many of my other blog posts- the original content blog posts- were coming from an angry place- a place frustrated with the state of the world, the people in it, and my powerlessness in it all.
I don't think I even knew I was angry. The first time I said "I feel angry" was about two years ago, and it felt so good to recognise that and say it out loud to someone! I've been on a journey to get more in touch with my feelings ever since. I find my certainty in what I *know* has been declining as I learn to appreciate other people's points of view. I've been busy getting to know myself in new ways, and I find that I don't have much to say in the meantime. In many ways you'll find that I'm still the same ole guy, but in others you'll find that I'm quite different.
I'm not quite sure where I'm going with all of this. Let's just say that I didn't want the myspace chapter of my life to have a dangling ending. Nor do I want dangling endings with any of you. A danger for me is to feel connected to you just because I see your photos and stories flow by in my facebook news stream. And while I enjoy that, I'm not sure how much heart there is in that.
In this chapter of my life I am seeking a lot more heart. Falk once told me that I was in my head too much. I at once knew exactly what he was talking about and had no idea what he was talking about. "Duh, of course I'm in my head! Where else would I be?" I had no idea that heart-felt, heartwarming, open hearted and the like were anything more than metaphors. Now I do know differently, and I know that my consciousness can be in my heart- which is the most amazing of all! That is where things feel alive, and that is where I want to be as much as possible! I'm thankful for the amazing people that have been helping me. Who knew that Christian Priests would smash up the best of what I had learned from the tech world with the most I had hoped for for my spiritual life!
Dear friends, I hope your lifes' journies are deep and quenching, and I hope for the day where we smile at each other soul to soul.
 
In the meantime:

• http://twitter.com/tbailen
  
• http://facebook.com

Rules without context can quickly delve into irrationality. Much like this non-contexual blog post!

This is a great story from an interview ("The long and happy career of a southern rag tycoon") with businessman Phil Hanes. He's speaking about the conditions in cloth factory he became in charge of:

We had black water fountains and white water fountains. We had two locker rooms. In the cafeteria the whites ate first; the blacks ate second. I knew we were going to have to get them together. So I waited until the hottest day of August. And a horrible thing happened. All of the white water fountains went out of order. And the whites had to drink out of the black water fountains. And it was hot as hell. What do you think they did? We took the signs off, and when we installed new fountains, we never put them back.

I can tell by the wear marks on my three year old keyboard that E, R, T, U, I, O, A, S, H, L, and N are the most used letters in the english language. LOL. Also, I apparently only press the right side of my space bar.

Here's a handy list of email address suffixes you can use to send text messages to people via email. Just stick their 10 digit phone number in front of the at-sign.

Alltel: @message.alltel.com
AT&T: @txt.att.net
Boost Mobile: @myboostmobile.com
Sprint Nextel: @messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile: @tmomail.com
U.S. Cellular: @email.uscc.net
Verizon: @vtext.com
Virgin Mobile: @vmobl.com

I used to do this to send haikus anonymously to Chris, but shhhhh! he doesn't know that.

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.

My reactions:

"The ability to connect dreams to a common and shared reality."
Left brain: That’s a cool way to express what we are all trying to do.

Right brain: Just wait until you feel the end of the speech!

 

Video: TED Talk: Jill Bolte Taylor

...when you parallel park, not between cars, but between giant snow piles.

Lake Peigneur was a 10' deep lake in Louisiana. In 1980, a miscalculation by Texaco regarding their location resulted in the drill puncturing the roof of a salt mine below the lake. This created an opening in the bottom of the lake, similar to removing the drain plug from a bathtub. The lake then drained into the hole filling the enormous caverns left by the removal of salt over the years. The resultant whirlpool sucked in the drilling platform, eleven barges, many trees and some of the surrounding terrain. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Peigneur

There were several other jaw dropping side effects. Catch them on YouTube::
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3G2ieDV-Wo

My boss has a page a day calendar from Freakonomics. I thought today's was interesting:

Five terms in real-estate ads that are correlated with a lower sales price:

fantastic, spacious, !, charming, great neighborhood

Is jumping out of an airplane the ultimate F.U to your feelings? I imagine your feelings are screaming "NOOOOOO! DON'T DO THIS!" and then you go and do it anyway.

Enough to paint a 60 sq. ft. canvas!

Check out this video: how much oil in a large fry? - goodbye art



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I watched a bit of the pilot episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles last night, so naturally I dreamed about Terminators. In my dream, I smashed one's head open, and out rolled two Energizer batteries. "No wonder they keep going and going!" I thought.