I’ve talked on here about the concept of bad faith and the need for one to be authentic to ourselves. Half that battle is knowing who we are and what we want because those things are moving targets. The dissonance between those two realms of the inner and outer is what leads to unhappiness and un-fulfillment. Yet none of us are automatons with singular wants and needs, we are tapestries of desires and we twist and fold in on ourselves in a myriad of ways. Yet to simplify this paradox we abstract these internal battles into two opposing forces. All decisions can be broken down into a series of two choices: yes or no. This is at the heart of how we think, so it is no wonder that when creating computers we have embedded them with this sacred knowledge of yes or no, 1 or 0. Two opposing forces that build into a unified self.
Sometimes I feel my two selves at war, and the battlefield is my mind and body. Yet aren’t we always in constant battle with ourselves? There is the push and pull of time in every situation. If our decisions are the fundamental exercise of our existence and we cannot remain in a state of non-existence then time is both the cause of our existence and the measure against which we exist. The existential relief that comes from having chosen lasts only as long as the next choice remains looming in the distance. Putting off that next decision is at the heart of the human condition. It is the agony of consequence that keeps us in a state of complacency, an inactive participant in our daily lives. Yet if our biological imperative is to survive, then to live is to wage battle with ourselves over and over until we perish.
Under the tongue root
a fight most dread,
and another raging
behind in the head
These are the lyrics of Duel Of The Fates (before they got loosely translated into sanskrit), it’s a snippet from Cad Goddeu (The Battle of the Trees). The lines refer to the fight amongst a tree yet it applies to us as well. The roles we embody with our words may be in opposition to the self in our minds. The act of decision can sometimes feel like a violent rejection of one role or fate over the other. The song plays during a battle as the two greatest opposing forces in the Star Wars Universe battle to lay claim to Anakin’s future. Light vs Dark, Yin vs Yang, and yet ultimately unification through balance.
Last weekend I tried to do a bike ride that I objectively failed at. Having planned it very poorly I ran out of water on a hot day and turned back having done only about half of what I set out to do. The heat was exhausting and every second I was on the bike was a decision point to continue riding or to stop. The mounting pain, onset of heat exhaustion and mechanical troubles that I was facing were forcing me to keep deciding to continue as opposed to the state I wish to be in which is passive activity, the role of cycling. Yet is willpower more like a status check that may or may not fail you depending on the severity of the decision or like a reserve that whittles away little by little as you are forced to take action over and over? To be an athlete you must be able to tolerate pain, that is the nature of strength and growth. The athlete in me told me to keep pushing forward, yet the pragmatist repeatedly questioned why I was pushing to the brink of suffering. So who is my true self? In that moment the pain, doubt, and realization built to a crescendo and I knew then I was cycling in bad faith. Eventually I chose to stop and turn around. This is a microcosm of the decision points we face in life yet it illustrates the profound effects the simplest ones can have. To wit, having invested in my identity as a cyclist I feel like I have failed myself yet undoubtedly I made the right choice that day lest I ended up on the side of the road with heat stroke. Who we are is a conjunction of the forces that shape us and it’s important that our identity and our confidence must come from different sources.
There will always be me and the shadow of me, the me I aspire to be. There will be times when they are in opposition and times when they are in agreement, they both may grow or diminish but through constant reflection and interrogation they should always remain in balance.
At 3:30 am June 22nd 2022 I awoke to the booming sound of thunder rattling my windows and lightning illuminating my room. At first I thought it was a car exhaust, a firework, or a gunshot which are all known culprits for waking me up in the small hours of the morning. But as I heard the rolling boom fade away I realized it was a natural occurrence. There is much fun made of us southern Californians and our over-reaction to real weather. Believe me when I say though that thunder and lightning of all things is so, so rare. Even more rare for me was the proximity of it, it felt like there were explosions just outside my window. I silently cursed to myself because of all the nights this night I was trying to get as much sleep as possible because I had a flight to catch at 7:50 am. The jolt, along with the adrenaline that came with it virtually guaranteed I would no longer be sleeping that morning. I didn’t know it but the thunderstorms would follow me all the way to my destination: Washington DC, and even further to Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia on the second leg of my journey. Although the thought crossed my mind I chose not to dwell on this fitful start as an omen of what would come and before I knew it I was touching down on federal land.
From the national portrait gallery
Columbia is a personification of the United States because we love anthropomorphizing things, and it lets us assign optimistic traits to ourselves. Yet Columbia is named after Columbus who as modern revisionist history points out was more akin to the Americas’ first slave master than hero. Washington is a founding father and the first president of these United States, and perhaps most curiously…a Virginian. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Mason and Patrick Henry were also Virginians and together they formed some revolutionary heavy hitters. They helped write the documents we still refer back to almost 250 years later. So I say it’s curious because not 85 years after declaring independence from Britain, Virginia declared independence from the United States along with the rest of the confederate states. It would seem that slavery was too precious to their economy to get rid of even though most of the rest of the world had outlawed it already. Economic concerns trumping humanistic decisions are a recurring theme in our nation’s history. We refer to ourselves as a democratic republic but our system of government might better be called Capitalism. If the government is a political machine running the nation then money is the lubricant, the fuel, and its necessity is the guiding force behind the whole apparatus.
Looking through our nation’s history in DC presents a problem, the danger of storytelling. Even here on this post I present to you my opinions, mixed with some factual evidence, laid out in a way that accentuates the jaded, pessimistic, yet still prone to inspiration mind behind these words. There are around 74 museums in the capital, they stand majestically side to side with a who’s who of massive federal agencies. Walking through some of them I found it interesting to see descriptions of Benjamin Franklin with addendums of how he used slaves make his inventions, or descriptions of how many slaves each founding father owned underneath their portrait. It would seem that we are at last trying to hold a mirror up to the story of our national identity. For how long though was all this subtext and context missing, left buried under the rug in order to present a satisfying tale of tenacity and doggedness against the tyranny of King George. I’m an avid visitor of museums and I like to do a depth first dive into the exhibits which often means I leave the museum unfinished as I’m forced out by docents. The museums in DC were vast, varied, and detailed and yet for all that has been written about history what has been left out?
Lincoln’s Death Hat
I sat in the very theatre that Abraham Lincoln was in when he was shot to death by John Wilkes Booth. Exclaiming “Sic Semper Tyrannis” he ran from the stage where now a ranger was telling us about his fate. The latin phrase was a reference to the murder of Ceasar and it also appears on the seal of Virginia. Presumably Booth believed Lincoln was a tyrant, abusing his war time powers against the confederacy. Yet how could Lincoln abuse his power against the states that had seceded from under his rule? Even though the Confederacy lost it hasn’t stopped them from unloading a slew of pro-confederate propaganda immediately after the war to this very day. The Lost Cause is an attempt to couch what was a pro-slavery war in romantic ideals and heroic deeds. I visited Richmond Virginia, the capital of the confederacy on the last bit of my trip and couldn’t believe our bloodiest conflict erupted basically between two capitals barely more than 100 miles apart. Statues of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis were barely taken down two years ago. Only recently has the nation started to take an active part in rejecting the siren song of a feel-good story. How long will we keep it up and how far will our memory go, after all when I visit statues of Alexander The Great I don’t think of the man, I think of the god, and his list of accomplishments and atrocities float through my conscious mind with ease and without emotional burden.
The memorial to the Korean War haunts me still
The history of our nation and of the world is riddled with bloodshed, revolution, and turmoil. The many monuments devoted to the countless wars since our nation’s conception make that obvious. On the third day of my trip the supreme court struck down Roe V. Wade and protests erupted immediately on site. The only way to get lasting, real change in the US is through tireless coordination and effort, by constitutional design. I can’t help but think though that as a democracy, a crowd of protesters is inherent with the threat of violence against elected officials. After all if there is a disconnect in what the people say and what those in power do then the system has failed and what’s the ultimate and final way to take back the power? How long can we build towards our idea of a utopia before it all bubbles over again and we are forced to regenerate the only way we know how?
English philosophers, scholars, and musicians Napalm Death have continuously pushed forward the discourse surrounding the atrophy of the mind living in service of multinational corporations. Their debut album Scum harbors intense dissections of amoral corruption, guilt via complacency, mass media control, and the exchange and origin of power. I want to focus in on one song in particular though, the voluminous epic You Suffer.
Make sure you carve out a healthy amount of time for this one
Clocking in at 1.316 seconds, the song is pregnant with existential quandary. Let’s break the song apart into its different dimensions by starting with the lyrics:
You suffer, but why?
The first half of the song sets the stage and forcefully reminds the listener that they suffer. The key to interpreting this part is of course knowing of suffering. Napalm Death cleverly removes the glut of having to explain the concept by assuming the listener has indeed suffered and continues to suffer. This assumption condenses what would otherwise weigh down an already lengthy song into abstract layers that maximize the use of its time. The words have been carefully chosen to make their thesis clear. The listener is forced to either reject or accept the hypothesis that they suffer. If accepted then they will have fallen into the trap made clear in the second half of the song. If rejected then the listener has been at least forced to self-reflect on why they think they don’t suffer. The emphasis is because inevitably one comes to the conclusion that even if they are not currently in the throes of pain and hardship, they have known it in some form or the other. Again, because of the carefully chosen language, tense is irrelevant. In a general sense humans suffer, and being directly addressed by the song brings forth memories of personal suffering whether it be physical, mental, or existential.
The second half of the song presents the listener with the central dramatic question, “but why?“. The guerrilla transition from exposition to challenge only serves to increase the impact of the lyrics. The listener is indeed in the middle of recounting the times they have suffered, or accepting that they are currently suffering when they are sonically assaulted by the tour de force second half of the song. Napalm Death makes the listener reconcile their personal pain with causes of it. On the surface it’s a simple question but the effect is that it shifts the thoughts from external evaluation of the self into the inner evaluation of the self. The band knowingly posits the question that will lead the listener on a bread crumb trail to self realization. Whether the addressee wants to or not they will come out on the other side of this experience having gained knowledge of themselves positive or negative. Rather than providing an answer, the band provides fertile ground for self examination, especially via the instrumentation which I will cover next.
Through a clever grindcore vocal technique of combining words, Napalm Death manages to condense the exaggerated 5 syllables of the lyrics into a more respectable 4 syllables. In doing so they allow the rest of the band members ample time to explore the sonic dimensions of suffering. The drummer, bassist, and guitarist first choose to use their respective instruments to imbue the words of the vocalist with weight and gravity by timing their notes to the cadence of the lyrics. This extra punctuation disarms the listener having a counterintutive effect of narrowing their focus on the words by removing any nondiegetic noise. Finally near the end of the song as the final words have been spoken the guitarist performs a virtuoso solo that dovetails into a final sustained note. This note provides the listener with a sort of mutable vessel on which they can fill with the answer to the question asked by the song. This liminal space between the lyrics and the song’s conclusion is inhabited fully by the catharsis of the listener.
Like the philosophers of old Napalm Death have tricked their listeners into interrogating the nature of not only suffering but their own suffering. Furthermore by providing no answer but instead a space for a response they make sure the addressee takes ownership of it, there can be no deflection. So what is your answer? I think at the root of the matter there is but one: “because I choose to”. Yet reading or hearing these words is not enough for understanding, they must come from within, from your being. Then and only then will the journey to apotheosis start.
I feel like it was five weeks ago that I was graduating college, elated, thinking I had my whole life ahead of me to make my mark upon it. It’s been almost 10 years since that and life continues to evaporate on sight. Where does it all go? Is it pooled up somewhere beneath the floorboards of my home waiting to be discovered? It’s 80% air and 20% chips. The more life I try to have, the faster it goes. Time dilation is a hell of a drug. Yet my purse holds but a meager three decades of life whereas others have lost more than that on a bet.
At a child’s birthday party last weekend I was acutely aware of the whole spectrum of current human existence. I’ll chalk it up to the first big event of the kind that I’ve been to since the great stop-gap of covid 19 but I could see the generational lines in the sand. The baby boomers were sitting, observing, and vibing with the kids, generation x was taking a chill pill and laying back as their children took on the duties of the party, the millennials were hurriedly looking after their kids and frantically making sure the festivities took place as planned, generation z was talking about the latest music and sitting in a corner laughing at tik toks, and the children…running around with boundless energy, ready to replace all of us.
I was there with my baby brothers who my father decided to have later in life. So I got a taste of what some of my friends are going through right now having to manage two walking, talkings ids. There was an octogenarian acquaintance of mine who I touched base with briefly since we hadn’t spoken in a long time and as we watched my little brothers marvel at the animals in the petting zoo he wasted no time delivering straight cold hard truths to me in only the way a man whose shed all pretense can. He told me how all the friends he went to high school with were dying, “that’s just the age I’m at.” I thought how crazy and distant that sounds, all my high school friends are buying homes, getting married and having kids. Yet I remember how quickly the last 10 years have flown by. When I was 15 I thought living on my own seemed almost impossible and here I am in the third decade of life in the blink of an eye spinning the plates of self-sustenance. All of a sudden it seems like getting to 80 and watching the world crumble around me doesn’t seem so far away. What’s the lesson here? Be present, self-reflect as much as you can, the saying goes that you don’t know you’re living in the good times until they are over but that sounds to me like that person never stopped for a beat to evaluate their happiness. Better yet, assume it’s always the good times and don’t ever stop making them so.
At a bar last night some poor woman had the misfortune of asking me what I was currently reading and I proceeded to vomit half-formed ideas on existentialism, freedom, authenticity, and self-discovery at her. Today I realized I desperately needed an outlet lest the flood gates be open upon more unsuspecting bar patrons. Sometimes I loathe the question “what is it about”. Can you truly summarize such a dense work of prose in a sentence or two? (Spielberg would say yes) Yet as humans we are constantly compacting, contextualizing, and abstracting vast amounts of information. Not only that but it is the foundation of the creative process to absorb and produce. So, as my platform, this blog shall serve as the repository for all further fruits of my creative digestive track.
I have about two dozen half written drafts of posts I was inspired to write but subsequently got cold on. In fact I have about a dozen of them that have the preceding sentence written into them, as if such a sentiment holds the key to actually, finally publishing one of these damned things. But so help me God this is the one that will make it through because I’m deciding to keep these short and sweet. My problem previously has been to try and write thematically cohesive, well thought out essays (or stories) but really my mind has never worked that way. So today I am presenting my thoughts just as I currently have had them today.
I mention God because he is on my mind. And I mention he because he is the patriarch of the church as was made clear by the Great Mass I witnessed today. Mozart’s other great unfinished work was performed handsomely by the LA Philharmonic at the illustrious Walt Disney Concert Hall. As usual I was the only one there wearing a Sleep hoodie and a t-shirt and below the median age of 50. I’m trying to make classical concerts metal again but I’m fighting a losing battle I fear. The LA Phil was kind enough to display lyrics of the translated Latin up on the wooden beams behind the orchestra. For something that sounds so divine the lyrics are so boring. Oscillating between “we worship you great father” and “we thank you for your glory”. That’s not to say the music was boring though, quite the opposite, it feels rapturous to sit in that theatre and listen to the rich sound of the orchestra delivering some of Mozart’s most inspired writing. I could not help but wonder how he wrote something that could make me feel as if I believed in a divine being without actually doing so. To me, belief in God was never even a consideration so although I grew up Catholic, I wouldn’t call myself a lapsed catholic, I simply never was one. Which brings me to my other rumination of the day, that I am nothing.
The concept of nothingness as it relates to existentialism is a void to which all meaning can be ascribed to. Simply put (from a simple understanding I’ll admit) it means absolute freedom, infinite possibility because nothing has no attachments, duties, wants or needs. We are born nothing and we die nothing. Which sounds nihilistic but in fact is rife with excitement and opportunity…and anxiety. I sat at a coffee shop today to try and parse through this concept and after the last bit of caffeine ran its course I decided a bar was more suitable for the punk rock philosophers of the 1900s. A single beer can go a long way towards helping you understand the concepts of Being and Not-Being, nothingness, and time. So I was swimming in this philosophical milieu as I watched, experienced, the LA Phil play Mozart’s exaltation towards his heavenly father. If we are nothing, walking voids then naturally we try to fill that by collecting identities, roles, occupations, ideas. It would appear to me that God, the church, and any religion is the ultimate answer to that void, certainly the easiest to adopt since the processes and mechanisms have all been laid out for you by generations preceding. I can’t help but admire the creative work of geniuses that are moved by a singular focus and devotion to religion. Having that clear of a purpose is work in and of itself, but it’s not for me.
Imagine Mozart in 1782 composing a tribute to God, hoping his audience would worship in unison with his music reaching a height that neither would on their own. Enter me in 2022 using the performance as a springboard to ponder the absence of God and my ability to free myself from religious attachments whilst experiencing second hand spirituality. I’ll admit that this sort of intellectual hijacking is always a delicious treat when I am present of mind to notice it.
2016, what can say about it that hasn’t been beaten into our collective consciousness already. It sucked for the world. On like a scale of things I didn’t think could happen, 2016 hit a pretty high note. Legendary musicians and actors dying left and right, a bitter and embattled election, more mass shootings, civil strife around the globe, Harambe. But it’s not all bad, Leo finally got an Oscar. But I think everyone is well aware of that part of the year.
Things for me personally though have gone pretty well…for the most part. The first couple of months were rocky at best, but it led to great new opportunities, mainly my new job. My health is still a concern as well, though it certainly doesn’t seem like it. I’m not a fool, I know I’m pushing the “youth invincibility” thing too far already and I’m getting ready to take steps towards a healthier me again. Anyways people love lists at the end of the year right? (I’m people too I think). So here you go:
Top 10 things Jairo did in 2016 (In a particular order):
1. Landed a new job
Code Conf
Yep, you get number 1 right away. It’s awesome because it was finally a step in the direction of the career I always wanted when I was programming on those sleepless nights in college. My coworkers are great and they are very much focused not just on squeezing out great automated testing, but improving quality of all code and fostering a culture of testing. Having that shared focus really drives my inspiration and lets me get into that groove on a day-to-day basis. I’ve also been able to attend my first industry conference and a couple of meetups. Not to mention Silicon Beach perks are top notch 😉
10. Bought a House
Yeah that’s right you got the best good thing and the worst good thing right next to each other, this list doesn’t give a FUCK. Buying a house is painful. Half the time I wasn’t really sure what I was doing but you have to do your research as with all things in life. I can say I think I got the property at a good value, low enough interest rate on my mortgage, and Lancaster while being kind of on the wrong side of nowhere is an up and coming city that I think will propel the property value. So let’s avoid crashing the market again for a another century or so please. The house itself is great: 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a nice living room with a fireplace and chimney, lots of open space in the backyard, and the neighborhood is nice. Oh god…why am I talking like this.
3. Bought A New Car
https://youtu.be/JQRZVbsAMrk?t=20s
I think I got really lucky here. For a long time my car of choice was a Dodge Challenger. I wanted it now while I’m still counted as being young because when I get it later I don’t want to hear any mid-life crisis BS. I wanted the blacktop edition, I had notions of putting a giant Punisher logo on the back or that Immortan Joe skull from Mad Max: Fury Road. I had dreams of driving it down desert highways, blasting Space Truckin’. Alas, it was not meant to be because in the end my sensibilities won over. There is no reason to drop a fortune on a base model Challenger when I can get a tricked out Chrysler 300c for an even lower price. Seriously, I’m still looking over my shoulder every day trying to figure how this baby was so cheap but so awesome. Leather interiors, heated seats, rear shades, rear cameras, media center, premium audio, all the bells and whistles. It’s such a comfortable car, makes the commute from Long Beach to Marina Del Rey a pleasure. And honestly anything was an upgrade from my 2000 Toyota Corolla with the broken stereo, broken indoor handles, and chronic oil problems.
4. Attended Riot Fest and The Misfits Reunion
Jerry, Glenn, and Doyle
Never thought I would have a reason to go to Denver, but when I woke up one faithful morning to find out the classic Misfits lineup was getting back together I had a choice to make. Denver or Chicago? When you factored in housing and airplane tickets the choice was easy. Besides the Misfits the lineup was different for both dates and I’m still not entirely show which one was better but there was plenty to enjoy in Denver: Suicidal Tendencies, Chevy Metal, Jane’s Addiction, Bad Religion. We even managed to get out into the city a teensy bit for metal beers and food. But for sure the highlight was the Misfits themselves, they were on FIRE. It was like the lackluster Glenn Danzig covering his own misfits songs at the Legacy shows became someone who actually cared to put energy back into his performance. Doyle and Jerry crushed it and the set was and hour and a half of non-stop singing along. For sure it will probably be a highlight of my life not only this year.
9. Played Overwatch
That’s right, no thought being put into this ordering at all. I know what you’re thinking: wtf is a video game doing on this list. I would be straight up doing a disservice to the honesty of this blog if I didn’t put this on here because honestly…a huge chunk of 2016 was spent playing this game. I was a little turned off at the thought of an only-online, only-multiplayer game because Titanfall kinda ruined that concept for me years earlier. But through great peer pressure I purchased the game and never looked back. Blizzard’s steady stream of free new content and seasonal events keeps me coming for more. Now when me and my friends would usually be blowing money at the bars we tend to stay in and play instead. I know it sounds super lame but damn is it a money saver, the game has probably paid for itself a couple times over at this point.
8. Saw Bob Dylan Live
Best photo I was able to get.
Seeing the main man Dylan in concert was….interesting. Bob Dylan is one of, if not, the greatest musicians of our time. His songs have influenced other musicians and the very culture of America for decades. So of course I wanted to see the maestro live. Especially since I had utterly failed at getting Oldchella( Desert Trip?) tickets. I definitely enjoyed the concert but I knew almost none of the songs and the ones I did manage to recognize had been vastly reworked by Dylan into completely different tunes. I guess there’s no reason to expect an artist to play what you want to hear but man I really would have grooved along to Positively 4th street. Regardless, it was definitely a bucket list item of mine and I would probably see him again if given the chance.
6. Saw The Who Live
That-what’s-it-now?
Speaking of Oldchella acts I watched solo, I also had the opportunity to see The Who tear up the Staples Center earlier in the year. It was so great, the old Englishmen have not lost their energy. Pete Townshend can still rip through the guitar licks like no one’s business. I wish I could have seen them with Keith Moon on the drums but in this day and age I’ll take The Who any way they come. Their music has always stood apart for me in the realm of classic rock greatness. They have the ability to construct really epic songs out of devastatingly simple riffs or can get complex as hell with several layers of synth and effects, and there’s so much energy in each member’s playing, it’s infectious. It was great to see them and I would jump on the chance to do it again. Another bucket list item checked.
7. Attended Punk Rock Bowling
Flag
What do you do when you’re in between jobs and have a week off. Go to Vegas. I wouldn’t consider myself Punk by any means but I do listen to a lot of hardcore punk and crossover. The genetic identity of punk and metal really isn’t so different and the anti-establishment culture of Punk sits mostly well with me too. A lot of my friends were going to this too so why the hell not. It turned out to be awesome and a great way to relieve some of the stress that had built in the first quarter of the year. Going to Vegas is usually okay but being there with a bunch of punks and (I suspect) metalheads is what makes it next level great. It was like a little counter-culture takeover of the most mainstream party destination. Didn’t feel like I was surrounded by frat guys and old rich people anymore. I only attended one day of the festival itself and got to see the ‘Black Flag’ offshoot ‘Flag’ play their set and I could dig it.The icing on the cake was finally being able to see Rock Of Ages the musical.
5. Had a Rocktober Birthday
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This year I had one of the best birthdays in recent memories. Lots of bands were coming through L.A. on tour in the month of October, three concerts alone on my birthday week. 6 in total that month and I went to all of them. Devin Townsend Project co-headlining with Between the Buried and Me, Meshuggah with support by High On Fire, Opeth playing a monstrous double set, Ghost, Tiger Army’s Octoberflame, and Tenacious D’s Festival Supreme where I finally saw Weird Al and Flight of the Conchords amongst other acts. Maybe you’ve noticed a pattern here but I love going to live music especially bands I like that I’ve never seen before or bands that put on a great show and having all these great bands tour in October was a great birthday present. I also had the most birthday-ish party in recent memory at the new house in Lancaster with good friends and family.
…and drum roll please, the second best thing I did this year was…
2. Visited the Pacific Northwest
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Took a trip to Portland and Seattle. My cousin lives in Portland so I got a nice little insider tour of the coolest neighborhoods and bars, But I think what we really explored in Oregon was the nature. We drove along the Historic Columbia River Highway and it was breathtaking. We ended up at Multnomah Falls and we climbed up the stairs a bit to see the waterfall then we retreated to the lodge for some drinks and appetizers. We had a rental car on hand so we drove from Oregon to Seattle (like a 3 hour drive) and just seeing the forests and rivers on the way was awesome, you really get a sense of the life people lead up there. Seattle probably deserves it’s own post here because we did a lot but the highlight for me was the EMP museum. They had so many exhibits that were so relevant to my interests I had a hard time seeing it all. There was a sci-fi wing, horror, fantasy, a dedicated Star Trek exhibit. There was an exhibit on the grunge movement, Jimi Hendrix, Indie video games, the history of the electric guitar. There was so much to see, I will probably have to go back if I ever travel to Seattle again. Seattle the city itself was great too, we stayed on a tugboat that our host graciously took out onto Washington Lake for us one day. We also visited the Public Market, the Aquarium, took a boat tour around the city, visited the space needle, and the Starbucks Roastery. It was a great experience.
Honorable Mentions:
Iron Maiden: finally the show I deserved after seeing them the last time where they played almost none of their hits 🙁
Watching Cannibal Corpse twice in a year: brutal.
Finally launching this website: I toyed with the idea of writing my own code from scratch for a long time but I got over it. I just need to write.
Camping at Catalina Island: I kind of hated it but it was an experience I needed to have.
Destination wedding at San Luis Obispo: The wedding party stayed in such a nice little estate in the hills, and the reception was in a barn on someone’s farm land. It was good times.
Black Sabbath: I saw the godfathers of metal on their last tour and I kind of regret not seeing them again on the second leg but oh well. they still sound so evil.
Bachelor Party at Lake Tahoe: It was awesome, and that’s all I’m allowed to say.
The Adicts Show: Probably one of the best shows I’ve seen and I was not prepared for it at all.
