drums, paint, peonies

Brooklyn Took It -jeru the damaja

this week's job for my internship we went on site to a cafe under construction. we installed some seating, painted, caulked, and filled brad nail holes. fun. a good change from the traditional workshop atmosphere. the cabinet i worked on the week before i got to see in its final setting so that's comforting.
note to self: wear gloves when working with adhesives and other non-soluble media.
went to the guitar center last night too. so inspirational... i want to play again. i need to get a practice pad again. main reason going to guitar center was to check something out for scotty the otter. im excited.
i just saw danny carey has his signature stick... he rocks big ones. and he's fast. what.
dude from Drum Magazine was there too and was randomly interviewing drummers to be put in the may issue of the magazine.. asking the question, "what's the most difficult/fatiquing/hardest technique etc. on the drums for you?" i said paradiddles. damn it's been years.

drums

the cafe under construction

Denver, Bob

i just got back from denver. B and I had planned this trip back around Christmas time figuring why not... we love snowboarding and the flights are cheap. i met her there on friday the 20th. firstly, thanks to katie, heath, and scott for being of huge assistance with their hospitality in hooking up room and car deals, and overall good times in Denver. we got a 4wd dodge dakota. so that was nice. we then met katie at their house, rested a bit, and then had dinner at the den. oh man... what a treat! the interior design was sweet and the food was even sweeter (not the taste kine, but the feeling you get from your taste buds). so good... love the tuna crunchy rice thingamabob. for more fun, katie and heath exhibited their expertise in hand towel animals.
sat morning, headed to breckenridge. only wanted to go there bc i'd heard much about it. B and I saw/rode it for ourselves and realized, eh... the next day, when we went to copper, we both realized how much more fun/comfortable/.... copper was in comparison.
sat night, went out to the town of breckenridge. we were troopers and walked up n down main st. had peculiar service at this restaurant and then had a bomb ass crepe for desert- banana, strawberry, nutella, and grand marnier... whaaat. (which we prob could've had for dinner hahahah bc it was so fulfilling)
sunday morning, checked out of the lodge, then met up the polzers at copper. well, sans heath, but with a sub in with scott. did a tree run with them once, and rode a bunch with B. on that note, the highlight of my day, B learned how to carve!! so proud of her. progress. she's loving it so much she's wanting to come back here to hit up tahoe with me to wrap up this season and sharpen her newly found skill. yeah B!
we then caravaned to beaujo's pizzeria in idaho springs through stupid traffic. holy ayatollah, that pizza and hearty arty was killer; just what we needed after a day long session. we demolished that pie and dip.
went back to denver, back to the polzer's house to pick up stuff (thanks for the banana dildo container), then headed to embassy suites. hit up the hot tub and that was like dessert to cap the day.
got to sfo around 10am and hung out with B till her delayed flight boarded around 2. I agree, today was tough (again) to say goodbye. :/ i realize over and over again how much this girl means to me. and i know, it's not always perfect our times but it's all good bc i know it's part of the process. it's progress. practice makes perfect, or at least close to it to where we can say, i'm happy. my overall feeling when i left the airport today: i am in love and it would be extremely extreme of a situation to stop me. (im getting verklempt, talk amongst yourselves. here's a topic: limonite, and how it affects our color perception of Mars.)
im looking forward to march! shat, i can't wait till she calls me later hahahahha

last day at timbuk2

dont be jealous bc my girl's dope... and it will keep getting better. she sent me flowers. very impressive :) we're going to denver this weekend. whaaat.
so tonight, i sprinted along side the rear of the bus, until the light turned red on me before i could cross the street to get on the bus. what's new.
it was my last day at timbuk2 as well. good times but i'll be around. and apparently, i can still get my prodeals if i ask. well, that's what keri said. if not, my cohorts are cool enough to hook a brother up.
my lululemon staff card expired, or rather was depleted. i forgot to read the stipulations on the back, that if you don't use the value on the card within one year of leaving employment, each month will have $2 subtracted from the value on the card. well, it's only been about 2-3 months so i guess it wasn't much anyway.
i got a letter from bay area fastrak indicating they caught "my car" evading toll payment. funny thing is though, this was in January and i got rid of my car in november. three possibilities i can think of:
- someone from the toyota dealer
- new owner; someone bought my car already from toyota
- someone stole the car from the new owner

hi mr roley poley, who let you in?

gorgeous

as B suggested, i treated myself to a substantial lunch. chicken philly on dutch crunch accompanied by shoestring fries from stacks. hello.

i thought this was a great window display (at BR). not only amusing for a designer, but also very cool to expose the roots of the process to the public and do it in a way that's incorporated into marketing.

Corrugated Cardboard Chair

Be Good to Yourself -Journey

first assignment of Design Project 1- design/construct a working chair made from recycled corrugated cardboard. you have three weeks.
Coincidently, I went to Hawaii for homecoming '09 following up the first week. So I did all my conceptualization there; sketched and made very small scale models while hanging out with B at work. One of my ideas, the fan chair, took my final interest. I know i wasn't up to par with the scaled model or how much time i put into testing out different construction or form alternatives as the other students, but I just knew my design would work. work, in the sense of appearance, function, and ease of production. it reminded me of the song from lenny kravitz, "believe." in the end, the final stages of putting it together felt good and thus, the final product was exactly how i expected it to turn out. (wipe forehead, whew)

my reward, Bob's apple fritter.

roger's bday. school. shenanigans etc.

i forget if i posted this pic already. but what does it matter, i don't mind seeing it again.. and again. when's prom?
and today, lifetouch finally sent me my traders! hahahaha love it B. devised ever so cleverly.
and yesterday, i got a box from her. can't open it till tomorrow (Valentine's Day). can't wait!
i'm looking forward to her opening the package i sent her too. tomorrow night's going to be fun!

drawing class looking out to nob hill

twas roger's bday last week and to celebrate he invited a bunch of his friends for sloppy joes and drinking olympics in the park. this stash, not even half the inventory at hand. cobras, olde englishes, mickeys, etc... delightful. that funky monkey.

one of the games we played was- every 15 mins. the alarm would sound and whoever had the poker chip on them would have to drink a whole drink. yeah, this chick had no clue what was about to happen in a minute. um yeah, i speak to soon... because i was the last victim of the day as the chip ended up in my hood. bastards.

the moon amidst the trees.

roger's favorite cake- princess cake. fit for a .. princess. :) this cake is soooo good. the marzipan does wonders.

...as the teacher critiques, a student earnestly takes note. what a poser. hahahah

today, i missed the train. not because i "missed" it but because i went to the wrong side of the train. "why arent the doors opening? oh shit, it's the other side..." run around the tail, push the "open door" button. no dice. screwed. walk a mile, half of it up hill, to catch the 21 instead. good job smart guy.

did i say i'm excited for tomorrow? eljay's in town, and it's going to be the most fulfilling valentine's day to date in my recollection.
i love you B.
and you know this, maaan.

empathy in business

journey to the center of the mind -amboy dukes

i was just reading the latest post from palojono, an industrial designer who has his own blog providing insight on design and the nuances around it's effectiveness. or at least, how i read it.
whoever is in business and is reading this post, check this below. highly relevant for both service and goods business, B2B or B2C.
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Wired to Care: How companies prosper when they create widespread empathy

I've talked about empathy a number of times in the past year, in the context both of having empathy for eventual users of your offerings, and having empathy for other members of your design team. In particular, my thesis, Effective Framing in Design, was about getting these two aspects to align. Being able to put aside your issues and put yourself in other's shoes is a key ingredient to eventual market success because it allows you to develop offerings others really want.
I'm excited to talk about empathy again because Jump's CEO Dev Patnaik (and Pete Mortensen), who together with Michael Barry taught me needfinding at Stanford, just released a book on how creating widespread empathy - empathy across a whole organization - helps companies prosper. It's called Wired to Care.
I'm not all the way through it yet, but so far it's packed with engaging stories about different companies' efforts to understand their customers through empathy. It also makes a great case for why empathy matters to business and, ironically, how the skill we all have wired into us is so easily lost in the setting of large organizations. Fortunately, there's also plenty of examples of how some companies manage to build and keep a sense of empathy.
For an interesting exercise take a look at the Wired to Care website's empathometer: a popular gauge of how empathic different companies are seen. As of writing, for example, Delta Air Lines, whose employees I am told always get to fly first class, score low, while Virgin who seem to constantly be trying to make flying a nicer experience, score high empathy.
The low-granularity of the empathometer also signals an important challenge we continue to face, which is how to put a number next to the gut-feel sense of empathy if it really can have the impact we think it can have. In my research I drew from both self-assessment survey data and team interviews, but tying this back to business $ is an interesting challenge.
From my perspective it's great to see a topic that's received much academic research attention step over into the mainstream bookstore.
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To get a better feel for the book you can also watch an early Wired to Care presentation by Dev at a General Mills speaker series.

date night

tuff enuff -fabulous thunderbirds

B and I, not B & E, had our first date night last night over the phone. she came up with a great idea that we will designate every first saturday of the month as a "date night." To commence this concept, we started off by having dinner and a movie. we watched anchorman, as i had never seen the whole movie before. just as i expected from the goofy man named will ferrell; funny as hell!
i had sushi bistro while she had saimin from the punahou carnival. then we had our daily phone marathon. this time, we went to bed together... really, each fell asleep while still on the phone. hahahahah funny
and yesterday, i got an envelope in the mail from B. always love that. this time, it was a questionnaire she had recycled from a real simple mag. it had questions like, what feelings you may have that you have never expressed before or something that you've started but have not finished... i think this is great. helps keep one honest and that we should be living life to the fullest without any inhibitions.
(a guy just walked in our store. looks like dana carvey's brother.)
lake show in cleveland right now... would i rather be watching that than sitting here at Timbuk2. why ask. then i have a lot of work to do later. i want to do it now.
mm, angel by aerosmith is on right now, love this song. alright, let's hope it doesn't start pouring tonight. i gotta carry some cardboard to school.

live aloha.

do i smell? why is everyone uncomfortably stacked over there.

hello,
i just got back from Hawaii. don't be jealous. yeah, it's literally my second home now (along with santa clarita). of course, i prefer the first. before i got there i had Chinese New Year dinner with B's family. good times. good food. good people.

i had a memorable time. i saw my love and i think that was just enough for me.
it was the weekend of her company's holiday party. theme = homecoming. oh yeah, redemption time. i had a blast. i thank B for planning a great event and more so, selfishly, she made me feel welcome. remember prom? yeah, not so fun bc my date was just something good to look at. that's it.
she got us a room at the neighboring outrigger hotel and that shiz was niiice.
before i forget, how could i forget... when we were getting ready in the room, we did not want to look at each other till we were each finished. so when she said she was ready, she came out from behind the wall and... like whoa! hahaha man, for real though, i was awe struck. she looked so beautiful... man o man, i have the most beautiful girl in the world. i am so lucky :) i couldn't help but sing, "it's just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off of you, it feels like heaven to touch..."
met a bunch of her coworkers. great folks. i'm really happy for her that she's in a good situation right now. and on that note, we also hung out with chandra and dennis a bunch. i loved hanging out with them and their family/friends. real, quality people. i want to hang out with them more, a good influence.
anyway, the visit is complete, and i am back home. ready to get back to business for the benefit of myself and my loved ones. let's do this. we can do this.
i wasn't really sad to be back. i actually had naturally realized... i'm happy. but even more so, instilled with a rejuvenated sense of my relationship with my bb and my life in general. very hopeful. extreme adversity reveals true character. you can be better or you can fall deeper into your hole. specifically for me, i'm confident for what's coming my way. i'm better and it feels really good. (fist pump)