Dancing, Re-learned

I spent this past weekend having the time of my life at EDC in Vegas. For those not aware, EDC stands for Electric Daisy Carnival, is a multi-day event held in many cities where hundreds of thousands of people get together to listen to DJ after DJ play music on various stages, all through the night. Literally all through the night... it goes from from 7:00 PM to 5:30 AM each night(may-or-may not be a little sleep deprived as I type this).

But the most important part: all of us want to dance, so we danced.

Standing in the sea of 300,000 people, we somehow forgot that we were supposed to be self-conscious of our dancing abilities, that other people actually care whether we can actually dance or not. We learned that people couldn't actually care less about other's dancing abilities, because they were too busy being focused on what they really wanted to do.

And that was to dance.

Dance, If You Want to Dance

Like my last post, this is another about amazing traits we somehow lose as we grow up.

A few weeks ago, I went over to one of my old neighborhood buddie's, Steve(not to be confused with my uncle of the same name), house. Inevitably, his mom whipped out old an old VHS tape of the 8 year old versions of the two of us dancing our hearts out in the basement, not giving a care about who was watching.

We didn't care if we weren't the world's best dancers.

We didn't care what anybody else in the room thought of our awesome moves.

We just wanted to dance, so we danced.

Here, Uncle Steve, Open Your Shirt

That is what the 3-year old me said to my Uncle, whose name is Steve(if you didn't gather that much from the title), as I handed him his Christmas present, which just so happened to be a shirt(another thing that you hopefully picked up).

Kids have a knack for such amazing honesty.

If they love you, they will tell you so.

If you're not being very nice, they will also tell you(could have also named this post, Mommy, you're not being very nice, which I may-or-may-not have been prone to saying when she didn't get me a toy that I just had to have).

Somewhere along the way, though, we lose that amazing quality.

We stop building quirky cards that say I love you in macaroni and glue. We gossip to others about someone not being very nice, instead of letting them know to their face. We get a little better about keeping christmas presents secret.

Start tapping into your inner kid... let people know when you love them and when you're not so fond of them. Maybe even ruin a surprise every now and then.

Dragsters

You don't need a 2000 horsepower dragster to get groceries.

You don't need a Mac Pro to check Facebook.

You don't need the fanciest parallel algorithm to process a relatively small amount of data. Learned that one today.

Many problems get hard at scale, but many times things simply don't get there. Don't bother building(and maintaining) a dragster, when a simple one-speed bicycle will do.

Wander

"Not all those who wander are lost" - J.R.R Tolkien

I moved out to San Francisco 2 weeks ago, and it has renewed my love with a good wandering session, I actually spend my Sundays doing exactly that.

Wandering is the perfect solution to the problem posed by Seth Godin, in the Problem with Top 40 Radio, where the masses end up making your decisions for you; when you only listen to radio stations that play the top 40 hits, you effectively defer your decision making to others. Yelp has actually done similar things to dining out(eating is probably my favorite thing to do in the world), and it is very easy to fall into the trap of only eating at the highest rated places, taking your decision away from you.

Wander. You might to find the highest rated, but you will find what you enjoy.

My Beef with Rice Cookers

I don't always use a rice cooker to cook rice.

But when I do, I inevitably forget to flip the switch from warm to cook, and end up with uncooked rice when I am expecting to eat.

Maybe, I am just getting spoiled; so many things are doing "do as I mean, not as I say" incredibly well.

Maybe, fancier cookers do have the rice-cooking, mind-reading ability that I so desire.

Either way, I don't think it is too much to ask for my cheap, Wal-Mart brand rice cooker to know when I want to cook my rice, and when I want to keep it warm.

Closed Sign

Saw a really awesome coffee shop on Sunday, but unfortunately I stumbled upon it during non-business hours, which was made very clear from the closed sign hanging from the window.

Closed signs are great at letting people know that an establishment is, indeed, not open. However, closed signs aren't very good at letting people know when a place re-opens, which is the information we really care about.

Readings of 2014, May Edition, Part 2

Inferno by Dan Brown:

Another epic adventure through a day in Robert Langdon's life. This time Robert Langdon wakes up with amnesia in an italian hospital, only to shortly flee from the gunshots and troupes of armed men chasing him.

As the name suggests, this journey necessitates Robert and crew deciphering clues related to Dante's The Inferno(which I have unfortunately not yet read), to save the world from yet another (arguably not) mad genius.

Would you flip a switch to kill half of the world?

Obviously not.

But what if the whole world would die in 100 years if you didn't flip the switch?

Read it to see how it ends if that switch gets flipped.

The House of Hades by Rick Riordan:

Yup, I read children's books. Get over it.

And in my defense, it is a really good children's book, full of enlightenment of greek and roman mythology.

In this iteration, Percy and Annabeth try to escape from Tartarus(pretty much certain death), which they fell into during the cliffhanger of the previous book, The Mark of Athena, and seal the Doors of Death to keep the monsters from regenerating.

</end nerdout session>

Best Commercial I Have Ever Seen

And that tile belongs to... drumroll please... Canon.

Some commercials have jingles that get stuck in my head, but leave me not having any idea what brand the jingle is for.

Some commercials are all about showing off the brand.

Some commercials are all about people, but their is no connection from the people back to the brand.

However, Canon stated that they make epic cameras... but didn't leave it at that, they were able to perfectly capture how their epic cameras enable us to make epic stuff. Essentially, they show how they make us more badass. I am not really into photography and videography, but the below commercial might have just changed that.(Can't actually find the commercial online.... but when I do, there will actually be a commercial below)

Enough (or Enuf)

Stiving for Enough is simultaneously brilliant and lazy.

On one hand, doing more(or less) than Enough, is usually detrimental. If you eat more than Enough calories to support muscle gain,  they will likely be turned to fat... if you eat less than Enough calories to lose fat, you will lose muscle.

However, Enough comes with a dirty side, Enuf, that comes from gaming of the metrics. If you are trying to fit more quotes into a paper for the sole purpose of inflating word count, you aren't aiming for long Enough, you are aiming for long Enuf.

Be good Enough, not good Enuf.

Readings of 2014, May Edition, Part 1

You are a Badass by Jen Sincero:

The perfect mantra for any twenty-something with a potent mixture of skills, debt, self-confidence and "WTF is going on with my life". So basically me... and almost all other millennials.

You are a Badass candidly tackles the issues in life that most millennials are facing daily... money, relationships, faith and fitness, just to name a few. These issues are tackled via bite-sized, quirkily titled("Your Brain is Your Bitch") chapters, that suck you in.

I couldn't really do it much justice, so I won't even attempt. Go buy it, or check it out from the library(those places are godsends, by the way), as long as you read it is fine by me.

Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh:

Welp, it looks like you can add Tony Hsieh to my growing list of badass dudes that I may have a man crush on. Seriously, it was rather eye opening how much awesome stuff he has done.

Delivering Happiness is one part documentary of Tony Hsieh, one part Zappos corporate culture, and one part science of happiness.

In the documentary section, Tony goes over some of his unsuccessful(earthworm farm and magic tricks), mildly successful(button printing and pizza selling) and uber successful(LinkExchange and Zappos). Interestingly enough, Tony thought his earthworm farm would make him insanely rich, while LinkExchange started as just a side project.

It is easy to assume that a company, like Zappos, had a smooth ride en route to being acquired by Amazon for a billion dollars. However, Tony candidly points out that that is not the case... he actually sold his penthouse apartment in San Francisco to keep the company afloat for just a few more months.

Alas, another book that my attempts at capturing its epic-ness would be futile, so go read it!