Camera Gear

Am I crazy?  With $600 in the bank from uncle sam and rumors of a $200 rebate on the canon 40D I’m really contemplating it.  I have purchased just about everything I want (maybe a zoom lens is in my future at some point) and that would drop the price to ~$900.  Minus the say ~$300 or so I could get for my 350D since its been used for less than 6mths that would end up making good use of the stimulus money and make El Presidente happy.

Goals

Monetary Goals:

I just crossed the 1k mark on both my short term savings and my emergency fund thanks to my tax refund.  I’m gonna have to make use of that savings fund over the summer doing something interesting.  By the end of April I will have been to Brussels and Cancun both for close to free so I don’t even know what else to get myself too.

Fitness Goals:

I ran a sub 26min 5k.  My goal is sub 25min but this is a good step on the way.  So far I’m working on an 8min pace but I tend to need a quick walk at the 1.5 and 2.5 mile mark.

I haven’t been up on my weight lifting though I do mean to get back into that.  I’m thinking it will be more appealing to get to the gym when I can do my running outside instead of inside at the gym.  5 days a week at the gym is just no fun, It would be much better if I could do 2-3 days and the other days just run close to home outside.

Spiritual Goals:

I was getting there on the meditation thing but its hard to keep up, particularly when there is this fight for time between meditation and exercise.   My hope is that the weekday evenings calm down after this past week of dress rehearsals and this weekends concerts so that I can get to bed earlier, get up earlier, and pack everything into the morning.  Getting over this illness that was killing me the early part of this week should help as well.

Photography Goals:

This is really down on the list of priorities but I did take an hour or two last weekend and got through all of my pictures up to and including Cornell.  I was even able to start posting the art photos I came across up at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bdarfler.  There is still a lot to go through starting with Europe ‘06 but I’ll get there.  I was able to take some pretty solid pictures last night before and after the concert including probably the best candid portrait I’ve done yet, just capturing that perfect moment.

Thoughts on a day long meditation

Yesterday I attended a beginners workshop at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center.  To being with the facilities there are gorgeous.  The upstairs meditation hall is a beautiful open area lit by a huge skylight and lots of windows allowing us to watch the sun change through out the day as it traveled across the smooth hard wood floor.  The class itself fluctuated between various types of sitting and walking meditations in the morning with a Q&A session before lunch, a silent lunch, a short social time and then more sitting and walking meditations in the afternoon with again an Q&A session at the end.

When we came to the end of the day we were asked what we had taken away from the day and I realized I had some difficulty answering the question.  I have already taken a beginner meditation class before and started my own practice for a few weeks or a month before the craziness of December/January with all the holidays and events that have been going on that have thrown my “usual” schedule for a loop.  Because of that I didn’t feel that the day was that much of a learning experience for me.  What I was looking for was to be reinvigorated about meditation and to some extent that occurred.

I again realized that my biggest difficulty in meditation is not restlessness as it seemed most of the younger crowd  and some of the older crowd was grappling with but was instead lethargy (sloth and torpor).  Part of that can be blamed on it being quite warm, getting over a cold and being generally sleep deprived but I also see it as something indicative of how my mind works and will be interesting to work with, assuming I get back into a practice.  I often skip meditation to sleep more but maybe it should be just the other way around.

The other thing I again realized is that I either completely ignore my internal dialog or mine is significantly less active than many others.  The instructor would remind us from time to time during the meditation that we should “come back from the story”; however I never found myself in a story.  I would have thoughts from time to time but they were usually unrelated ideas that I wanted to ponder and were never stories about my life.  On the one hand I’m quite happy about that but on the other I I don’t have much of a personal narrative.  I in fact generally dislike the idea of a “personal narrative” but I have come to understand the use/necessity of one.  Because of this I want to try and take up blogging again.  It forces me to take the time to digest and reflect on my life or my “narrative” if you will and develop it how I see fit.

Finally, there were two new things that I took away from the day.  One was a sound meditation we did.  The idea is to simply sit and listen to the sounds around you.  I loved it because, where as breathing meditation is about focusing the consciousness  in a very narrow way, this was about focusing the consciousness in a very expansive way.  Moreover, being present to the breath is very separating from your surroundings where as the sound meditation brings you in closer connection to your surroundings.  For someone who is naturally more internally focused I enjoy breaking out of that and focusing externally.  The second thing that I took a way was a few personal connections with some of the younger participants.  Its great meeting people at events such as meditation since their being there says a lot about their personality and they tend to be people I connect with.  This guy Payton and I got talking about the best place to buy loose leaf tea and an awesome sounding Boston vegan group that has a food co-op in Cambridge.

Over all it wasn’t what I had built it up to be but it was still a learning experience and I hope to use it as a restarting point none the less.

Slam Poetry

For those not paying attention there is some amazing slam poetry going on these days.  Moreover, its all over the country.  However, if you can’t find a live venue near you, you should check out the Performance Poetry podcast on IndieFeed.And, for the history buffs among you,  check out the new book Words in Your Face by Crisin O’Keefe Aptowicz.  It looks to be an awesome look at the history of the NYC slam scene.

Man thats tempting

“An experienced baritone is needed to play the role of the “Jewish Man” in the premiere of Boston composer Delvyn Case’s chamber opera “The Prioress’s Tale”, directed by Andrew Ryker.”

Sure its about as anti-semitic as it gets but it would be really interesting.  I just don’t have time to be in an opera. 

 

Job Offer

Anyone interested in working in the Boston area for Cisco Systems?  There is a job opening on the MPLS team.  I would imagine its a lot of C (maybe C++) coding.

Seriously, what is this crap?!

The “Millennials” Are ComingYour telling me that we finally have a generation that is not going to break its back working 60+ hours a week. Ones that understand life is more than just your job. And now that is twisted as not having a good work ethic? If only we would be good cogs in the machine.What the crap is that?! Man this has gotten me furious.(Be sure  to check out the comments for a more detailed rant)

Bring in da funk

Sometimes you need to get in a good funk to kick your ass in gear.

Reanimation

Zombies pass me as I walk through the streets.

People struggling to stifle back the signs of humanity for fear of a connection. Empty faces belie empty minds keeping distances vast, stymying bridges of connection.

But there is a boat we can float through the sea of speration.

You See:

We all want the same; love and respect for our humanity and existence.

Take this thought and fill their empty minds with visions of simple desires, reanimate the dead and walk among them.

If we are to rise above the ditches we dig it has to start with each other.

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