Then I hustled through Canada/Chicago, and bummed with my family on the beach in Florida for a week. It was incredible to see them after nearly a month abroad. Anyways, another trip back to Florida (this time to St. George's Island) and I'm back to normal life trying to plan a trip around Halloween to DC/Baltimore/NYC. Until then I have a lot of work to do. Back to normal living, and getting ready to move to South Carolina in January, but more on that later. So yeah, I survived the summer so far and I'll be back soon to fill you in on more of my life but for now I have to catch up on all of the stuff that has been left for me to deal with now that I am back in Tennessee.
It's mid August, but you can stick a fork in my summer because the traveling is over and I am facing a mountain of work as the year moves towards fall. In the past two months since I've last visited this space I have traveled to Japan, Canada, Chicago, Florida, Tennessee, Florida (again), and finally back home. Let me take a moment now to emphasize that Japan was probably the most incredible place I've traveled to so far. It was my first immersion in an eastern culture and the experience opened my eyes to a type of society that was completely different than what I've been exposed to in the past. I went there with no agenda to speak of and so I spent a lot of my time walking around Kobe, Kyoto, Osaka, and Hiroshima just watching and listening (not to mention smelling) the city life that I was often in the middle of. For weeks I explored the hidden alleys and neighborhoods that most foreigners will never see. Unfortunately I never saw very much of Tokyo because I got the opportunity to spend time on the beach that is pictured above with a brilliant group of Irish kids that work as engineers in Japan. I didn't know anyone in Tokyo and I figured that the city would still be there when I get back to Japan but I probably wouldn't get the chance to be on that beach with those kids ever again. I wasn't disappointed, although by the end of our time together my liver was on strike from the amount of alcohol I had ran through my system. I also have to mention Taylor. I got to spend some of the best moments of my life bumming around Japan with her and sleeping as a stowaway on the floor of her small dorm room at the Kobe University International Student Housing. Anyways, hanging out with my god-sister in a foreign country was definitely one of the highlights of my life.
Then I hustled through Canada/Chicago, and bummed with my family on the beach in Florida for a week. It was incredible to see them after nearly a month abroad. Anyways, another trip back to Florida (this time to St. George's Island) and I'm back to normal life trying to plan a trip around Halloween to DC/Baltimore/NYC. Until then I have a lot of work to do. Back to normal living, and getting ready to move to South Carolina in January, but more on that later. So yeah, I survived the summer so far and I'll be back soon to fill you in on more of my life but for now I have to catch up on all of the stuff that has been left for me to deal with now that I am back in Tennessee.
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Okay, so life moves pretty fast. As much as Ferris was for lying, he spoke the truth about that..
I fly out for Japan in four days and I'm still getting all of that sorted out. Bonnaroo is over (read previous post), and summer is moving on. For me, the next month will consist of roaming around the far east for the first time, Chicago, and a week on the beach with the family. In between that though I have a lot to do. I'll be working on stuff with FERN and I'll be maintaining a remote presence with the Business Foundry. The main things I'm concentrating on for myself consists of getting better at Ruby on Rails and working on my tech research stuff, but I'm also going to overhaul the site or at least start to contribute more to the technology section. As far as the science section goes, I think I'm just going to consolidate Science & Tech since it would be more broad and thus a lot easier for me to generate content that doesn't get too boring to write about (let alone read). I also want to start putting up more of my own creative writing stuff too. We'll see what happens. I might even end up crash this Weebly and migrating my content to a Wordpress or something, but then again this thing is pretty damn convenient. I dunno. Anyways, that's what's up for now. I'll check in later. Oz It's been over for five days but I am still trying to process what happened. This is what I know for sure: It was the best (and sluttiest haha) Bonnaroo of my life so far. I could go on and on about the different acts that blew our minds and melted our faces, but that wouldn't really get to the root of the magic of this past weekend. For me, this weekend was about the people that I was with and the experiences that we shared. I don't know what I did in a past lifetime that gave me the karma credit to cash in on the friends and family that I am thankful to call mine, but I know that I do not take them for granted. As I write this I am searching desperately for the words to try and express the love that I feel for all of you guys without it sounding cheap. Even if I don't find just the right ones I want you all to know that you mean the world to me. I have never been so fortunate to find myself surrounded by such a group of incredible souls in one place for an entire weekend of insanity, but I know that I will never forget the times that we shared this past weekend as long as I live. It has changed me forever. Thanks to each and every one of you, old friends and new ones, for what you gave me. Now I can say for sure that you aren't just friends to me anymore, you're family. Forever and ever. Amen.
Love always, Oz (Fortunes I had saved and taped to my chalk board in my room at 1245 Pine Ave) I guess I'm struggling with my direction in life at this point. I suppose that I always have been now that I think about it. Looking at where I stand today I can safely say that I have a lot of open options and each contains promise for success in each area, but the problem is that I can't decide what I want to invest my time and effort into. I know it sounds like the dribble of every other twenty something college grad, but I mean, it's kind of a big deal. No, actually it's a huge deal. It comes down to what do I want to do with the rest of my life. The catch-22 is that I don't really understand what life is to begin with. Think about it. What is this situation that we find ourselves in day in and day out? It's life, I know that, but what does that mean? I don't get it, and yet I'm supposed to define the rest of it by the choices I make in the next few years? Yeah, like that's going to work out really well. No wonder our society is so screwed up. We've been making decisions of epic proportions about a thing we don't even understand to begin with.
This is what I know for sure: I don't want to screw up this odd ball existence. I don't want to squander it by chasing some falsified dream that has deluded our society for a long time. I don't want to waste it getting caught up in dollar signs and trying to compete with the monetary wealth of my peers. I know that whatever life is, that's not it. Even if a lot of people chalk theirs up to those pursuits it's just not something that I'm willing to cash in on. No, I want the real thing. The realest of the real. I don't want to hide the mystery and beauty of this surreal state of existence. It would be counter intuitive to trick myself into believing that I have discovered concrete answers to the big questions that humanity doesn't even have the capacity to effectively ask let alone to grasp what the answer ends up being. No, I think those might be the mysteries that the universe is going to keep hidden in her hand until the jig is finally up and all the cards are laid down on the table. Then will it matter anyway? If the end of me unfolds into some sort of moment of complete enlightenment right as it's all over does it suit me to obsess over those questions now? Or would it be better for me, and everyone else that struggles with this, to just go with the flow and try and just live for the betterment of yourself and those around you? It seems like that is all that we can hope to do in this bizarre situation. The entropy of the universe is going to continue in spite of our best efforts to make the intangible tangible. Things are going to get more complex and weird as we go forward from here. That's just the way the program works, and if we don't understand it now then how will we ever be able to understand it as things get bigger and harder to connect? The universe is expanding after all. Okay, so that didn't solve anything, but enough of the philosophical musing. What follows from here is what has been, is, and will be happening to me. Life has been hectic as hell over the last two months. I moved out of my college house of 4.5 years (I need to write a dedicated post to 1245 Pine Ave, it deserves it) so that has been extremely tough. My clothes are momentarily hung in the spare bedroom closet of my sister's apartment, but how long they will stay there remains to be seen. For her sake it would be better if they weren't stored there for too terribly long. This week I am keeping house for my aunt and uncle in Murfreesboro. They are away on holiday celebrating his 50th birthday in the British Virgin Island, lucky them I hope they are having an absolute blast. The good news is that they have some cool dawgs to hangout with and I have gotten to catch up with some friends who live here that I haven't seen in awhile. Plus, they're paying me to crash which will help fund Bonnaroo next week. So that's what I've been doing, and am currently doing, but I'm about to be doing a lot more worth talking about. Next week is Bonnaroo, which ranks higher than Christmas on my list of anticipated events each year, so I'm extremely excited about that. Then on the 27th of this month I am bound for Japan. I'm planning on spending about three weeks bumming around the country and hanging out with one of my best friends, Taylor Hennessee. She's been over there studying as part of her master's degree in international relations. Anyways, one of the few things I will definitely be doing more of is writing on this website. It helps me work through the tough questions even if it doesn't ever deliver any discrete answers. Anyways, that's all for now. Lunch time for the dawgies. Check back soon. Life is crazy, but I know I'm not the first person to make that observation. This past weekend I spent four days in the nation's capital at a conference that was hosted by FERN in tandem with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The focus of our meeting was to discuss issues in the field of strategic foresight on all levels of the profession. I met a lot of incredible people and made some friends that could potentially last a lifetime. I just can't say enough good things about my time spent there and with them. In other news, I have been named the Director of Innovation for a 14 county area of Tennessee. My position is employed by a group called The Biz Foundry, which is an entrepreneurial accelerator that has been birthed by an initiative by our state governor called LaunchTN. When we finally open our doors in June our job will be to provide financial and professional resources to high tech startups in the Upper Cumberland. Headquarters will be based out of my college town, Cookeville, Tennessee, and I hope to see us marry up to my alma mater in order to aid in facilitating company creation for the kids that graduate college and would rather create a job rather than go out into the world and get one. Anyways, life is filling up fast and my calendar is booked for the next few months with conferences and meetings. By the time summer gets in full swing I will definitely be desperate for an adventure or two and of course my life will require a weekend spent at Bonnaroo. That's all for now. I'll link our company page at the bottom of this thing. See you soon. Mechatronics Laboratory at Motlow College
www.thebizfoundry.org Hi everyone, It's been awhile. Just an update on my life: it's been insanely busy, and the busier things have gotten the more I've wanted to dedicate time to writing on this website, but I have always had issues with time management and discipline. I know I need to, and I really want to, but a lot of times I just can't bring myself to chip away at the keyboard until something emerges. Especially after jam packed days of dealing with other stuff. So, anyways, what's been happening lately? I'll fill you in on this past weekend. I made an appearance in Chattanooga at the inaugural Maker Day Expo. It was an exposition put on by a group called CHA MAKERS and the Chattanooga Public Library to introduce the public to 3D printing and scanning. I had talked to Mike, the event coordinator, earlier in the week leading up to the event and he placed the expected crowd to be at 300 people or so. In the end they totaled more than 1,200! Epic success on their part and I was glad to be 1:1200. Then on Monday, Patrick and I made it down to Nashville to the Frist Center to check out an exhibit on Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch painting, and then we met up with Emily and caught an Alt-J show at the Cannery Ballroom. Pretty incredible set and an awesome night catching up with the pals. Other than that, the last two weeks have been filled with Editlab, Fern, and trying to figure out what I'm doing with my life. Oh, and I've washed a few dishes at the restaurant on the side as well. Anyways, that's what I'm doing. Hope you're doing good too! Until next time, take care! Oz There I am, in the background, talking about technology. The usual.
Calvin and Hobbes: It's a Magical World by Bill Watterson This morning, my friend Patrick and I were strolling through the neighborhoods around Tech taking in the new snow and trying to walk off the headache leftover from last night. In one of the lesser neighborhoods of the area, we passed a guy in his mid twenties who had stepped out of his apartment to smoke a cigarette in the cold. I guess what follows says something about me or maybe my state of mind at the time, but from first glance of him I immediately tried to analyze what kind of person he was. I saw his cigarette. I saw his shoes. I saw his basketball shorts. I saw his hoodie, and I'm disgusted to say that my initial impulse was to distrust the kid solely on his appearance. Then I saw him stoop down and begin to make a snowball. As we walked closer, he began to roll it over his deck, cigarette stuck in his mouth and his legs obviously cold in the winter wind. The nearer we got to his house the more apparent his snowman began to be. Shame on me for being judgmental. Boy, do I feel like an ass now.
Don't get me wrong, I don't know the kid at all, and as Patrick and I passed his yard we only exchanged a slight wave, but I can't help in having a little more faith in humanity. The guy, no matter what was going on in his life, still had enough childlike innocence that he brought himself to step out into the snow on a cold day and build a small snowman over the course of his cigarette. I feel like the entire world would be a better place if more people took the time to momentarily slip back into childhood. I know I could use it from time to time. My twelve year old self would kick my own ass for judging that guy in the first place because that just wasn't the type of person I used to be. I made a decision as I walked on through the snow to spend more time being conscious of my mental impulses, to think more like a kid, and maybe build a snowman or have a snowball fight later on in the day with my friends. After all, it's a magical world. World, I'd like to introduce you to editLab I've wanted to be an entrepreneur for awhile because I think that if you are going to maximize your freedom you have to go into business for yourself. That is exactly what Mitchell Taylor and I have done. We have started our own social media moderation and consulting firm that will initially operate out of our home area. As we garner more clientele we will hopefully begin to break out of our current geographical range in order to start maintaining accounts nation/worldwide. Wish us luck because we are set to have an interesting business adventure on our hands as we learn and grow from here on out. Check out our website by clicking on the logo.
Today I'm sitting down to get back at the paper I submitted for graduation. I received an A on it, but as it stands it is incomplete based on the outline I had originally intended to follow. I think that once I get more added on and (hopefully) the entire paper finished up I will go back and rewrite it but that is a long road ahead, it is still very early, and I'm still feeling positive because of my morning coffee.
I think all said it'll be a weeks worth of work or more. We will see. 2013, what's up.
Forecasting the future for my own life now that I'm post grad is weird as hell. It just doesn't feel right, any of it. I think it's because I've spent so much time on the school treadmill and now that I'm off of it I'm trying to keep myself from obsessing over the "now what?" questions. What do I do with my life now? Now I do everything I've ever wanted to do. So in 2013 I'm going to take it one day at a time and focus on being conscious of each day. I have a lot of things set to accomplish this year as it is without worrying about the tiny details, but as life goes forward from here I've resolved myself to pay more attention to my daily life. It might be impossible but I'm going to try and slow it down in order to minimize the blurring effect my life has had on my memory lately. I'll let you know how it goes. Anyways, my to do list for the year: Job Internship Washington DC Bonnaroo Japan Australia With plenty of reading, writing, studying, skating, climbing, fishing, hanging, chilling, and sleeping somewhere in between. |
Austin CleekGet inside my head. Archives
December 2014
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