Recently in Life Kills Category
Camp KoralKids came out to the Tigertail ropes course and apparently had a great time! Check out this video about KoralKids... notice anyone running around there in his obnoxiously green shirt? Yep. That's me.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b46944a3-c7d2-4a57-8cb3-f031149973ec)
Great group of kids, lots of fun and very enthusiastic!
There's a place on the web where us nerdy types can find nerdy t-shirts that are both nerdy and awesomely hilarious (if you're a nerd, of course.) No, not Threadless Dot Com. That's funnywear for 'cool people'. There's some semi-nerdy stuff, but by and large what you see there is trendy and associated with pop culture. There's also ThinkGeek Dot Com, but no, that's mostly gadgets and other crap. Their t-shirts are so overpriced it's really, really not funny.
I'm talking about this site right here. Check it out... but only if you're nerdy. Or aspire towards nerdiness, I suppose that's okay too.
I'm talking about this site right here. Check it out... but only if you're nerdy. Or aspire towards nerdiness, I suppose that's okay too.
Months and months even. What's new?
Well, my time with Motorola is over and done with. The economy worsened, times got tougher, Motorola's management got more and more convoluted, and finally this last man standing did indeed fall. Such is life, I'm glad I had that opportunity. Good times, good friends, and lots of experience. Big corporate has its charm, without a doubt.
Since then, been working on getting another business venture off the ground: Standard Bamboo. We design and build Green construction. Standard Bamboo has several pre-engineered and pre-designed lower-cost structures for sale (i.e. the Karma Shade), as well as plenty of neat Green materials, like bamboo fencing and panels. It's surprising, once you get into it, how much there is out there that is made from bamboo and sustainable materials. In general, they may have a slightly higher initial cost, but they're very durable and they're all-natural.
I'm into the Green thing, not gonna lie, and this looked like a great opportunity to join the Green community with grace and aplomb. We're having fun, we're designing really interesting stuff, and so far, so good.
Well, my time with Motorola is over and done with. The economy worsened, times got tougher, Motorola's management got more and more convoluted, and finally this last man standing did indeed fall. Such is life, I'm glad I had that opportunity. Good times, good friends, and lots of experience. Big corporate has its charm, without a doubt.
Since then, been working on getting another business venture off the ground: Standard Bamboo. We design and build Green construction. Standard Bamboo has several pre-engineered and pre-designed lower-cost structures for sale (i.e. the Karma Shade), as well as plenty of neat Green materials, like bamboo fencing and panels. It's surprising, once you get into it, how much there is out there that is made from bamboo and sustainable materials. In general, they may have a slightly higher initial cost, but they're very durable and they're all-natural.
I'm into the Green thing, not gonna lie, and this looked like a great opportunity to join the Green community with grace and aplomb. We're having fun, we're designing really interesting stuff, and so far, so good.
I hate to say it, but I think real, truly epic euro-style house music is... gone. Replaced by the likes of Basshunter.
That's not a bad thing, per se, but man do I miss the full-on epic anthems of yesteryear. Or maybe it's just been redefined and I, like my parents and the generation before them, have been left behind to wallow around in 'classic rock'.
But I don't think that's true - the fact is that I still recognize their 'anthems' as anthems. And I think the era of anthemic rock-n-roll music, the epic power ballad, the timeless rock tune, is pretty much over. Once and a while you get one that comes up but what happened to The Beatles? The Rolling Stones? Led Zeppelin? Black Sabbath? Who stepped up and replaced them? To some extent, I suppose, Metallica (although when I was growing up I would never have imagined that happening), and I just can't think of any band of epic enough proportions to match the "classics". Nirvana? Maybe they could've achieved that status - who knows?
But the epic techno-anthem used to be so prevalent. I mean, who doesn't remember "Firestarter", or "Get Busy Child", or pretty much *any* Chemical Brothers song? And that goes way, way, way back. How about Orbital? Actually, I think nobody would recognize the name, but if you heard the song you'd nod your head and smile. Fatboy Slim was responsible for a whole slew of timeless songs - tunes that I can literally listen to at any given time, any given place, and always love.
Fast forward a bit, there's a few that were produced in the last decade (the Chemical Brothers came out almost 15 freakin' years ago!) Eiffel 65, Ayla, Armin Van Buuren and "The Sound of Goodbye", Paul Oakenfold's entire freakin' album (remember "Southern Sun"? Of course you do. Everyone does), pretty much any song that BT touched was epic by default, Ferry Corsten ushered in the new sound of Progressive House, Sasha & Digweed were incapable of preventing epic-ness in their music, JunkieXL just spewed epic all over crowds... I mean, once techno became more mainstream, it was nearly impossible to avoid getting swept up by the sheer waves of legendary anthems. Goddamn that DJ made my day. Yeah, I know you remember that one too.
Now what do we have? Justice, Basshunter, and a handful of other flashes in the pan. Here and there, a catchy song - and we're so starved for the epic thunder of yesterday's basslines that we consider these songs "modern anthems". They're not bad songs - I'm a fan of Justice, for example - but you can't possibly hope to put them side-by-side with Carl Cox, with Superstar DJ Keoki (okay, maybe not that guy - he was a big douche), with Roni Size. Kids these days just don't know what they missed.
So yeah, back 10 or 15 years ago, that was a golden age. It was a time of innovation and experimentation with music. Sometimes I miss it, and sometimes I'm glad we've all moved on. Most of us, anyway. And then I have to wonder if previous generations weren't thinking these exact thoughts while bitching about "these kids and their crazy rock-n-roll dance music..."
That's not a bad thing, per se, but man do I miss the full-on epic anthems of yesteryear. Or maybe it's just been redefined and I, like my parents and the generation before them, have been left behind to wallow around in 'classic rock'.
But I don't think that's true - the fact is that I still recognize their 'anthems' as anthems. And I think the era of anthemic rock-n-roll music, the epic power ballad, the timeless rock tune, is pretty much over. Once and a while you get one that comes up but what happened to The Beatles? The Rolling Stones? Led Zeppelin? Black Sabbath? Who stepped up and replaced them? To some extent, I suppose, Metallica (although when I was growing up I would never have imagined that happening), and I just can't think of any band of epic enough proportions to match the "classics". Nirvana? Maybe they could've achieved that status - who knows?
But the epic techno-anthem used to be so prevalent. I mean, who doesn't remember "Firestarter", or "Get Busy Child", or pretty much *any* Chemical Brothers song? And that goes way, way, way back. How about Orbital? Actually, I think nobody would recognize the name, but if you heard the song you'd nod your head and smile. Fatboy Slim was responsible for a whole slew of timeless songs - tunes that I can literally listen to at any given time, any given place, and always love.
Fast forward a bit, there's a few that were produced in the last decade (the Chemical Brothers came out almost 15 freakin' years ago!) Eiffel 65, Ayla, Armin Van Buuren and "The Sound of Goodbye", Paul Oakenfold's entire freakin' album (remember "Southern Sun"? Of course you do. Everyone does), pretty much any song that BT touched was epic by default, Ferry Corsten ushered in the new sound of Progressive House, Sasha & Digweed were incapable of preventing epic-ness in their music, JunkieXL just spewed epic all over crowds... I mean, once techno became more mainstream, it was nearly impossible to avoid getting swept up by the sheer waves of legendary anthems. Goddamn that DJ made my day. Yeah, I know you remember that one too.
Now what do we have? Justice, Basshunter, and a handful of other flashes in the pan. Here and there, a catchy song - and we're so starved for the epic thunder of yesterday's basslines that we consider these songs "modern anthems". They're not bad songs - I'm a fan of Justice, for example - but you can't possibly hope to put them side-by-side with Carl Cox, with Superstar DJ Keoki (okay, maybe not that guy - he was a big douche), with Roni Size. Kids these days just don't know what they missed.
So yeah, back 10 or 15 years ago, that was a golden age. It was a time of innovation and experimentation with music. Sometimes I miss it, and sometimes I'm glad we've all moved on. Most of us, anyway. And then I have to wonder if previous generations weren't thinking these exact thoughts while bitching about "these kids and their crazy rock-n-roll dance music..."
