As my week started to wind down I began to think about all the things that I have on my personal to-do list … Clean, laundry, pay the bills, sort thru old things to donate, unpack boxes still lingering, clean up my desk, run errands, etc.  The list goes on and on and on.  The weekends used to be something for me to look forward too.  They were a a time when I could relax, unwind and do whatever I felt like.  I’m not sure exactly when that all changed, but somehow my enjoyment of the weekend has been overshadowed by the growing beast of responsibility.  I just can’t relax until I get some thing checked off the to-do list, the only problem, the list isn’t getting any shorter.  I know I’m the bearer of my own misery, and I keep thinking there is some light at the end of the tunnel, the only problem is that I’m always relying on just one last weekend to get everything done and that last weekend has yet to come.  

Perhaps it will never happen but I dream for the time when I can get back to a guilt-free weekend where I can lay in bed and watch tv, pick up a new book to read, or just watch movies all weekend without feeling like there is something else I have to or should be doing.  I wish I could just brush off responsiblity, and let things become a mess around the house instead of keeping a mental to-do list because no matter what anyone tells you, growing up into a neat, clean, minimally responsible and slightly obsessive-compulsive adult is so completely overrated.  Cheers.

Since im sitting here bored I thought I would try out the offline ability of the WordPress iPhone application. It’s pretty good but due to the nature of typing on an iPhone, I think it would be functional for a quick blog posting but not my usual tirades.

Anyway only a hour until I land in Denver to catch my connection to Los Angeles. While it was a good trip, I’m looking forward to getting back home to my boys, Justin & Berger. I hate being away from them.

I think I should download some more games for the phone for situations like this. Maybe I’ll play solitare or something to pass the time since I actually have that one. Cheers.

Manhattan

Well with everything that’s been going on I neglected to write about my brief business trip to New York City last week.  This is my second trip to the Big Apple in the past 2 months, so I’m not complaining.  I was there primarily for business but since I had to travel to the other side of the country for a meeting I figured I would take advantage of the opportunity to stay in the city.  Luckily, my meetings scheduled on Thursday ran late enough to keep me from being able to get a reasonable flight back to LA, allowing me to stay in the city on Friday night as well.  My meetings were in New Jersey, but since I decided to stay in the city, I chose my usual spot in Manhattan, the Sheraton Four Points Chelsea on 25th & 7th, which provided me with a prime location in the event I felt like walking somewhere for dinner or going out on the town for a few drinks.  Both of which I did during my trip.   

Bryant Park

It was cold, windy and very blustery outside while I was there, but it didn’t matter to me, I put on my wool overcoat, a scarf and gloves and took advantage of being back in New York.  On Thursday night I walked down 7th to my favorite corner hot dog shop, Chelsea’s Papaya and grabbed some chili cheese dogs.  After taking off my gloves and scarfing them down I walked over to G-Lounge, had a few drinks and enjoyed the scenery.  I only stayed until about 2 AM before heading back to the hotel because I knew I had to wake up in a few hours to head over to New Jersey for the meetings. On Friday night, I took a long walk up 7th to Times Square to grab dinner & drinks followed by watching about 20 super hot NYPD officers run into McDonald’s to arrest a slightly intoxicated girl for punching the McDonald’s security guard.  There was no lack of entertainment while I was there.  It started to snow just a bit while I was standing in Times Square, which really made the evening for me.  I’ve never actually seen it snow in New York before, so it was a nice change.  I was actually hoping to get snowed in so I could say another night, but the big storm missed the city by several miles to the south.    

Empire State Building From My Hotel Window

I’m really not sure where my love of big cities comes from, especially since I grew up a small town boy in the Pennsylvania countryside, but there is something about being right in the middle of a city that appeals to me in a way I just can’t describe.  New York ranks up there as probably one of my favorite big cities along with London, Paris and San Francisco.  While I love living in Los Angeles these days, LA doesn’t really compare to NYC with the big city feeling.  Los Angeles is a big city in population and size, but New York, like San Francisco, is a walking and public transit type of city which yields a completely different experience.  One of the other things you quickly notice about New York City is the lack of blond hair, blue eye boys scattered everywhere in California.  New York City has no lack of diversity as a city, and that in itself is one of the other reasons that makes it a great city.    

All said, I really do love New York City.  Even though it was a brief trip it was a good trip and the only thing that would have made it better was if Justin was there with me and we had a little more time to explore.  I think a trip out this summer is in order for us.  Cheers!

Around the same time frame I began keeping a formal written journal, basically for my own sanity. It wasn’t until around 2000 that I was in the midst of the dot-com boom and living in San Francisco that I decided to merge both my journal and website together. I started writing static HTML pages about my adventures around San Francisco and manually publishing them on my website for my friends to read. Little did I know at the time that I was blogging (term later coined from web-logging by Pyra labs who developed Blogger.).

I can’t remember when it was that I started using Blogger. I think it was sometime around 2003 when blogging started gaining traction among the masses and gave ordinary people the ability to have a web presence. I found blogger an easy way to quickly post and upload photos to my website without having to go through the motions of coding the page manually. For many years my blog remained just a ‘part’ of my website. It wasn’t until around 2006 or 2007 that I decided to actually make my blog the main page of my site, with the rest of the website being secondary to the blog.

For over 10 years now I’ve had this marriage between my website and my blog, one being a complementary to the other, however things are about to change. I’m in a bit of a dilemma at this point. I received an email from blogger, with whom I have over 750 blog entries stored now, that in March they are going to discontinue the ability of Blogger to post to external websites. It’s an understandable move with the overwhelming migration of web apps and hosting to ‘the cloud’, however seeing that this is primarily how I use Blogger, just to post the entries I write to my own website, I have to make a decision on how I’m going to proceed. So many choices and hours’ worth of evaluation and design time ahead of me.

I always knew it was eventually going to come to this; it’s just happening a little sooner than expected and not exactly on my terms. I’ve wanted to redesign my website for over a year now, so this is probably going to be the motivation I needed and after all change is good right? Cheers.

We’re now a few weeks into January and I still can’t help to smile at the simple thought that 2009 is now a memory. A bad memory, but none the less a memory. I think it’s been the general consensus of everyone I’ve spoken too that 2009 was probably one of the worst years in recent history. 2009 was one big reality check. Not that having a reality check is necessarily a bad thing, because frankly I think it was a much needed reality check for most of us, but the events that brought about this reality check have not necessarily been the most pleasant to deal with.

I think the biggest impact to everyone in 2009 was the financial aspect. Most of us had to deal with either job losses, pay cuts, reduced spending or all of the above. Even for those who weren’t impacted directly by job loss, there was an indirect effect such as increased work hours and expected productivity increases as a result of decreased spending and downsizing. All of a sudden the ‘do more with less’ motto became the management slogan for 2009. Everyone became fearful of loosing their jobs and people either bucked up and worked harder or risked the possibility of being downsized themselves. It’s been a tough year for everyone in one way or another.

From my personal view the financial impact has been the biggest negative aspect of 2009. While Justin and I have always talked about leaving Arizona and heading back to California at some point, I don’t think either of us ever imagined this would be the way it would happen. We are both extremely happy to be living in Los Angeles, however in an economy which doesn’t exactly support the sale of a home which has now lost over $130k in value, Justin and I are still trying to decide how to successfully deal with a $2500/month mortgage on our house in Arizona while paying $2000/month for our small 2 bedroom apartment in Los Angeles. That’s yet to be seen how it’s all going to play out here over the new few months. I can’t help to look at that cash outlay and think about what type of place we could have in Los Angeles for $4500/month, not that I would ever spend that type of money on a single living space at this point in time, but still my point remains.

Anyway, I guess I’ve done enough of soul searching and introspective analysis to last me for the next few years. I’m looking back at 2009 as the container to leave all that last little bit of negativity and self loathing that I’ve been wheeling along with me like a set of bad worn out luggage for the past year. It’s a new year, a new decade, and time for a new outlook on life.

So with all that said, I’m really ready to leave 2009 behind and shift my focus on not only 2010 but also the new decade. This new year brings with it the promise of a more financially responsible society, a growing economy and host of new opportunities. I couldn’t be more excited to be living in a city like Los Angeles, an economically and culturally diverse city where anyone’s simple dream can easily become a reality. I’m excited about the new friends I’ve made, the business contact’s I’ve met and the growing professional and social networks that I’m building. It’s always difficult to speculate on the future, but the prospects of a good year are already peeking out.

It’s amazing how the simple act of rolling into a new year can shift everyone’s perspective into believing things can and will be better. If anything else, I’m hoping that this global perspective shift will have a positive impact on the world around us. “Can you feel it? Oh I felt it!” Here’s to 2010 and an amazing new decade for everyone. Cheers!

[One last side note ... While I personally have a renewed outlook for the future, my heart goes out to the entire country of Haiti, who is going through an unimaginable tragedy. My thoughts are with you and your families.]

Next week brings to close the end of the first decade of the new millennium, and for me this decade will be remembered by the fall of the dot-com era, the explosion of the internet, the start of my now 9-year relationship with my partner Justin, the iPhone, Facebook and my relocation from San Francisco to Phoenix to Los Angeles, among other things. For me, it’s personally been a decade full of changes and new experiences and I don’t expect the new decade will be any different.

I know it’s been a stressful and challenging year for most of us, but at the end of the day I look back on this year and am thankful for all friendships I have and the great people I’ve had the opportunity to meet and work with since moving to Los Angeles.

I wish all of you, your significant others, your children and families my best wishes for a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year as we start off this exciting new decade!

My Warmest Regards,
Rich Brown