No!!!!!!!!!!

This News Article from the paper today is a footnote to the Valentine's Day post.

Valentine's Day

I'm not the most mushy guy. I find that friends and family are generally enough to keep me motivated and moving in a forward/positive direction. Truth be told, I haven't made a big deal out of Valentine's Day in probably 15 years, and it looks like I'm not going to start this year either.

I would be lying if I said that being single didn't suck sometimes.
Generally,I don't have that empty feeling inside that a lot of people talk about.
Of course I also don't want to die alone--and I doubt I will.
I have a family and friends that are basically family who will make sure of that!
I am blessed beyond words in that area.

The only thing that does hit home on a day like this is... occasionally I want to spoil someone.

I guess that's why I have a dog.

Plan B

Plan B, the back up plan to Plan A. I'm realizing that most of life we spend working on a plan and only occassionally do we have a Plan B. For a lot of people (myself included) there is a huge motivator in making Plan A work--an overwhelming fear of failure. For the most part I don't usually have a back up plan. But recently, there's a dissatisfaction in the pit of my stomach that makes me think that Plan A isn't where I want to be anymore. I suck at pinpointing these gut feelings.

Maybe it's professional--I've already been burned out on Architecture twice. The first time I ended up getting a History Minor and a Japanese Minor. The second time I ended up getting an MBA and doing the dot-com thing. While historically my attention span has cycles of 18-24 months, when you actually START the company and OWN the company and ARE the boss, it's rather hard to quit and try something else. In the first place, you have obligations to your partner and your employees. In the second place, you need to have an idea of what you want to do next. I'm restless. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

Maybe it's social--I've been out of any kind of relationship for several years. My married friends are fully suburban, and my single friends have almost all moved away or are now part of the married group and dropped off the planet. Sometimes I feel really lonely so maybe I need to find a new social outlet.

Maybe it's the house--I'm ready to actually FINISH a project! I finally have the wood for the rest of the deck. Maybe if I can actually mark a renovation project off my to-do list--there will be a sense of accomplishment and the restlessness will go away?

I just hate this feeling in the pit of my stomach, and not knowing what it is or how to fix it.
....or maybe it was just bad chinese food?

You Tube

Here's my first attempt at embedding a video in my blog.
Let me start by saying I don't watch TV. But seriously... this is funny!
I like how she's so drunk she almost falls out of her chair twice--and the interview starts out "good morning Paula Abdul!"

Celebrity Playlists

I was browsing my iTunes store and happened upon the celebrity playlists.
Most of it was pretty common. I wasn't suprised by who listens to what, for the most part. Some of it was insightful. I think that Annie Lennox's list shows her influences. I was actually suprised that Liv Tyler had an Aerosmith song listed. What I did find interesting was that Bill Mayer's list was noticably gay with at least one show tune and a Barbra Streisand song while Andersen Cooper's was tactfully balanced with only a nod towards anything with his selection of a New Order song.

As any of my friends will tell you, I have very poor musical tastes and tend to listen to my satellite radio before anything else. Factoring out the Tower Records Fire Sale when they went out of business, i haven't bought a CD in 3 or 4 years. (even then, my CD purchase was classic Whoopi Goldberg stand-up from the mid-80's) This is why I'm not asked to be DJ in the office--we leave that up to Dean, the understated yet uber-hip intern.

Caught Orange Handed

After a night of much drunkeness, friend 'X' crashes with a drinking pal 'Y' (subject of another blog down the road), at another friend's 'Z' house. (Note: I am not part of this night of drunkeness--I'm an old boring guy who stayed in that night.)
X and Y end up making out and having 'happy fun times' that night EVEN THOUGH a 'pillow barrier' had been erected by X between them to keep both X and Y honest & pure. (Note: the pillow barrier's effectiveness has not proven well with either X or Y.)

I go to pick X up for church the next morning. Later, walking to brunch, I notice that his hand is VERY orange--disturbingly orange--like a rash gone REALLY bad.

Me: What's wrong with your hand?
X: I made out with Y last night when we crashed at Z's.
Me: The pillow barrier didn't work again?
X: Yup.

Me: So what did you do to your hand?
X: I borrowed some lotion from the nightstand and didn't read it well.
Me: Self-tanning lotion?
X: Yup.

A friend couple is going to brunch with us.
As we're walking to brunch, Kevin looks over at X's hands.

Kevin: It looks like you made love to a cheeto.
X: I know, it's bad, isn't it?

I'm kind of glad I stayed in that night and went to church the next day.
I wonder if Y will panic when he sees his cheeto?
I wonder what Z will do with those sheets?

Showering insights

I always think of weird stuff when I shower. The process is a 4 step one.

1. Wash Body
2. Wash Hair
3. Shave face
4. Rinse.

The tools of this process actually are pertinent for the post.

I use Dial. It's clean; produces a nice lather; rinses clean easily; and has a fresh smell that isn't too fru fru.

Tea Tree shampoo. If you haven't used this... it's powerful. If your hair could feel sensations, this flavor of shampoo would do it.
Like peppermint for the scalp.
If you're a GUY, you'll love it.

Edge Gel (latest purchase was the Edge Free with no added scents, colors, etc.). Edge just is a better shave. The dye free, fragerence free version has a very plain smell. It's almost like parafin or wax. The smell of sealing wax your mom uses when she makes homemade jelly or really cheap chocolate (which is really just parafin and food coloring--Think generic M&Ms or novelty chocolate bars that really don't have a smell like chocolate, but still smell like something).

My insight. (and why you should be glad I don't blog after the shower more often):
After washing my hair and shaving ...I noticed that my head smells like... Thin Mints.

I suck at blogging.

Word of the Day

I'm not a genuis. I test well, but when I think about everything I don't know--well, there's a lot of it. I KNOW a lot of smart people. Jeb is the guy that knows stuff both useful and not. When we were in High School, we were on the academic team together, and in college I would call him at 3 a.m. asking how to spell a word for a paper I was writing. He has a PhD and an amazing vocabulary. I have neither, so maybe that's why I'm always coming across words that just rock my world. My biz partner is on the board of directors for a fledgling non-profit artist colony that's forming in Dallas. The board president is a local journalist and in her bio she had a line with a word that just hit me like that. "...she aspires to inspire English majors and dilettantes everywhere."

I had to look it up.

dil‧et‧tante:

1.	a person who takes up an art, activity, or subject merely for amusement, esp. in a desultory or superficial way; dabbler.

2.	a lover of an art or science, esp. of a fine art.

It's a great word! It may sound a bit superficial to say "dabble," but... isn't that still a great thing? I look around at people and wonder how many of them that I pass on the street might be dilettantes?

The world is so fast and chaotic, it seems like no one has time to indulge in art or science purely for amusement. Maybe it's a change in our definition of amusement... and XBox and TiVo are arts now? Is the Renaissance Man a lost concept? Maybe my perception is skewed because of my profession, but then I also wonder how many kids actually still watch NOVA on Sunday afternoons? and how many teenagers may meditate with the pen or sketch in a moleskin. I think the internet is great... but I wonder about the dilettantes in the next generation?

Two paths...

It occurs to me that I'm a blogging failure. I think it's because I have unrealistic expectations for my blogs. I have drafted a couple blogs but can't seem to finish them--they seem to fall short of my expection for asounding insight.
It seems that blogging can take two paths.

1. insight and genuis, but rarely updated
2. short commentary, updated often

Clearly I suck at #1. So we'll try #2.

We'll see if I can blog as often as I make it to the gym.
This is when a nagging wife would be useful.

Procrastination...

So I've been threatened with banishment if I don't update this blog.
HONESTLY, I have 3 posts in "draft." Two are about the economics of urban design and parking based on a free market system and a third on midgets. Urban design is a passion of mine... and I have many theories on what would work better than what we have now--and midgets, well midgets are just inherently funny. No offense to the little people.

Okay, that's the tease. I went to work at 1.30a and it's 8p now, so I'm going to go crash for the night before heading to NYC in the morning.

G'night and g'luck.

B.

The Shower

Why do all the cool ideas I want to capture on this blog occur to me in the middle of my morning shower?

Convenience?

The Beginning of Chaos

I don't know why I'm starting this... I know going into it that I'm not going to be good about keeping this up.
Okay, I DO know why I'm starting this... peer pressure, guilt, and angst.

• Peer pressure because I just got another link from a friend who has started a Blog.
• Guilt because I secretely read about 4 of these a day.
• Angst because I need to stop bitching about stuff out load and annoying the people around me.

Hopefully I can actually be insightful with this, but I'll shoot for keeping my grammar above an elementary school level.

Organized Chaos has been my fanatasy football team's name for the last 12 years. It's also a pretty accurate description of my life and especially my desk. I've got this delusional idea that I have a handle on things and that I might be making progress towards something. I'll have to get back to you on WHAT I'm making progress towards. Sometimes putting a name on a goal is HARDER than making progress towards that goal.