October 2008

Back to Basics

The inevitable result of lots of travel and upcoming moves has the minimalist in me jumping for joy at the thought of paring down the clutter as much as possible. I got rid of far more than half my stuff at the beginning of 2007 but almost two years later, getting rid of a storage space and moving into a larger apartment has brought the stuff quotient back up a bit. I’ll probably be posting pics and listing crap on craigslist in the near future before giving them away to friends and then eventually bringing things over to people’s houses and accidentally forgetting them there. I’m really trying to stick to the hard and fast rule that if it’s not something I regularly use I don’t need to have it. “What if” takes up way too much space.

Homer Kappa (and me)One area where I need to change course a bit is back to the clothing world. For years I had a pretty straight forward simple uniform of sorts that served me extremely well. Packing was easy, getting dressed was easy, and replacing things when they wore out was not something I even thought twice about. Last year I talked a lot about reexamining paths and how just because I did something yesterday doesn’t mean it’s something I should be doing tomorrow. I wanted to make sure I hadn’t painted myself into a corner that I didn’t even know about so I consciously started buying things that didn’t fit the uniform.

The uniform, while not a super strict get up had a few simple guidelines that I tried to stick to. Black whenever possible, as it matches everything and is rarely inappropriate. Classic in design, meaning it’s not something that 6 months down the line will be out of style. Multiple copies, in that I could buy several of the same item (now, or in the future) to ensure I had it when I wanted it. Utility, they need to do the job they are designed for. No major branding. Breaking out from that mostly resulting in buying non-black items.

On a piece by piece basis, there’s nothing wrong with that and having the occasional variation has been kind of fun. That said, the stress of getting dressed and more so of packing has gone through the roof. It’s something I hadn’t been able to put my finger on until just the last day or so. It used to be I’d pack for a trip and bring exactly what I needed, but recently I’ve not been able to figure out what that might be. Do I want the brown sweater or the black on? The blue pants or the grey ones? Will the brown sweater go with the grey ones if I decide to go that route? But what about jackets? Ack! Oddly enough, it was standing in Nike’s new high end super designed NSW store in Harajuku when it hit me. There are somethings I like to have choices about, and want many options, clothing isn’t one of those and I don’t want to think about it.

Boris at the Nike concept store

It’s funny that being in a Nike store is what brought that to my attention but in a way it kind of makes sense. At this store, a giant custom built building with 3 floors of show rooms, they maybe sell 10 items. The items they do have are about as spot on as it gets. Solid colors (including black), almost no branding, and every detail designed and attended to. I was looking at a jacket thinking about how perfect it was, and then started thinking how I used to have one jacket that I thought was perfect and worked with everything. Now I have 3-4 that are all kind of different, just slightly, and I regularly beat myself up trying to decide which one to wear, but find myself unable to choose because the differences are so subtle.

So I realized it’s time to cut a lot of the excess in the closet and go back to the things I know I like and I’m comfortable with. Lots of stuff will be going. If you think you are my size, let me know as I might have some stuff for you in the near future.

So demanding!

Just got this fun e-mail:

Hi,
I hope you received my previous email (below).
I’d appreciate your response.

Best,
Lior Friedman

Hi,
I’m Lior Friedman, marketing manager of [REDACTED]. We are about to launch a new search engine that will be dedicated to online games.
We would like to buy a sponsored text link on your blog.
Please contact me for more details.

Best,
Lior Friedman

So I responded:

Hi Lior-

I didn’t respond because I’m not interested. Please take me off your list.

Thanks.
-sean

The nerve of people these days…

Fixed Gear Tokyo

Given that Tokyo is a mecca for Keirin racing and having lusted after my fair share of NJS frames you know I’m keeping an eye out for cool bikes while I’m walking around. I was hoping Tokyo Fixed Gear would be helpful but either the connection from this hotel is spotty or something is up as it just won’t seem to load for me at the moment. I found a blog post listing a bunch of shops that specialize in fixed gear bikes and if possible I’m going to try to hit up one or two of ’em. At least one is right down the street from my hotel anyway:

CARNIVAL (map)
J-SIX BLDGS 2F. 6-23-11 Jinguu-mae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo.
TEL 03-5485-8581
Open 13:00-21:00

I’ve also been skimming the past few posts on Jitensha-jin hoping for some other details. This is exactly why I set up Fixedr.com and I’m going to try and put some of these links and resources there. Hopefully more people will continue to use it and that’ll will make future hunts like this much easier for me and others.

Matt Alt also pointed me in the direction of Alin and Jean.

A few other addresses after the jump

Frame Frame Flame

When I got to my hotel in Shibuya last night the first thing I did was turn on the TV and see what gameshows were on. I don’t know what the one I finally settled on was called but it consisted of a host saying a string of 3 words like “frame frame flame” and then a panel of 6 contestants who would have to figure out which was the different word. Was amusing to say the least.

I barely unpacked before deciding I had to hit the streets and hunt for something to eat, which I found quickly at the corner mart near the hotel. Natto maki, Inari, and Pocari Sweat. The dinner of champions!

Dinner!

I walked around for a while after that and felt a lot of what I felt the last time I was here. People told me the awe and wide eyed amazement of Tokyo wears off quickly but I was here for 2 solid weeks last year and while it got more familiar it wasn’t any less amazing. This time it’s just as fantastic, I really love this city and could see myself living here or at least spending a lot of time here. It’s alive 24 hours a day, there’s a million things going on, bikes everywhere, and amazing trains and transport. All things that turn my eyes into pulsing pink hearts when talking about a city.

The fun wild card thrown into this trip is that I brought 2 credit cards to cover any expenses or things that might come up. One of them notified me about 48 hours ago that “due to the current economic situation” they are readjusting credit limits on all their accounts to reduce risk. That means lowering my limit to $100 above my current balance. Not helpful. The other, which I specifically called and asked them to approve for usage in Japan was throwing errors last night, so I gotta call them during US working hours today. That leaves me with the 9,000 Yen I have in my pocket, so adventure here we come!

My jet lag fighting techniques so far have just been to switch to Tokyo time as quickly as possible. I changed my clocks the moment I got on the plane and slept right away to match timing here. I made sure to be asleep by 11PM and awake by 6am this morning so maybe I can fool myself. We’ll see. Now I’m running out for breakfast before a day full of meetings. Will post pics on flickr when I’m able!

I know you, hope I do now

Mug o Joe

I’m sitting on the couch starring at my laptop when when I should be doing is packing. I should be looking at weather forecasts and deciding what is the most sensible sweater to bring. I should be running to the post office to drop off my hold mail notice. I should be taking out the trash and making sure the cats have plenty of water. I should be double checking that I have the power cords for the electronics I have in tow. Instead I’m still sitting on my couch.

My house sitter is confirmed and has the keys and in a few hours I’ll be on a flight to San Francisco, in a few days on a flight to Tokyo, then back to Vancouver via SF before finally returning to LA in time for my house warming party. Just in time. At some point in between there I need to start thinking about which bigger pieces of furniture that I own I will move into storage, which I want to sell, and which I want to try to move across the state. A lot of that will be determined by some of the meeting I’m heading to Tokyo for as Multibasing is taking another major step towards becoming a working reality.

LA has gotten it’s revenge on me for these thoughts as well. I’m definitely mid-course on a full blown sinus infection. I used to get these from time to time but over the last few years they’ve really picked up and my friend Shawn who has a wall full of very impressive medical degrees tells me the two biggest causes of that are the shitty air quality in LA (mostly the ash from fires rather than the smog) and my fondness for riding a bike very fast all over town (which results in frequent heavy breathing, often through my nose). One of the things I love to do most in this city is one of the things that may cause me to need massive head surgery. Excellent. One more reason I’m considering the benefits of spending much more of my time in other cities. Though recently it’s been less assured that it’s not all going to burn one way or another.

OK, dryer just finished. I really need to go pack.

Trees, and sitting in them

To answer a few questions I’ve been asked frequently in the last two days, yes, Tara and I are really engaged. It really happened on twitter. It wasn’t planned or rehearsed. We didn’t expect the overwhelming reaction. It was totally spur of the moment. I’m psyched beyond belief and can’t wait to see what will happen next.

Tara already wrote a bit about her take on it all and I wanted to echo much of what she said and throw a few of my own cents into the ring simply because I haven’t said much about it. For all the guts I regularly spill here I tend to lean more towards the “here’s what I’m trying to figure out” or “here’s what I’m thinking about” side of things and rarely venture into the “this is how I feel” zone. Well, I’m venturing there now. As you may have guessed from the whole marriage proposal thing I’m madly, deeply and completely in love with Tara Brown. I’m floored that she feels the same way, even more so because if you’ve been reading my blog for a while you know I’m the last one who ever thought this would happen.

The Coast!

I met Tara in Austin earlier this year, she was a friend of some friends and we instantly clicked. We talked a lot in the following months and about a week after a road trip we took, over text messages no less, we both confessed how infatuated we were with each other and how we both wanted to put some effort into “us” and see where it might lead. I dare say that since then, every day that we’ve been together and every day that we’ve been apart, those feelings have only gotten stronger. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with her, hell I can’t wait to spend another 5 minutes with her.

So why so soon, and why ask over Twitter? If there’s one thing I’ve learned through everything I’ve been through it’s that there’s no time like the present. I’ve been saying that my whole life, but I finally started living it and it changed everything for me. You only live once and when you are sure of something there’s no point in waiting. You regret the things you don’t do way more than the things you do, right? So I dove in. We dove in. Last month Tara wrote in a blog post about our relationship saying “I can definitely report that being with Sean means lack of routine. We pretty much plan things spur of the moment.” And that’s true. Tara and me in Golden Gate ParkOur entire relationship has been that way and it’s working famously, so why should the next step be any different. I can’t find the first thing I ever sent her on Twitter (since archives don’t go back that far anymore) but needless to say we’ve been using that as a main form of communication since day one and it just made sense. For us anyway, and that’s all that matters.

Lots of people have been asking about the future. Who is moving where, when is the wedding, what color will the brides maids dresses be, etc. My reply to all of this is have you met us? Christ, we barely have solid plans 48 hours in advance, do you you think any of that is confirmed yet? That said, this and a few other factors make it fairly safe to say that I’ll be around SF a lot more in the near future but where we’ll be a year from now is anyone’s guess. But stay tuned, I’m sure it’s going to be a wild ride.