Well, I should finally put it up here:  http://www.youtube.com/user/ShowerSandwich

That’s where you’ll find most of the stuff I’m up to these days.  Takes the steam out of my actual writing, honestly, so just head over there, at least for now.

That’s all.

Head over to the ShowerSandwich channel on YouTube for Episode 5.

It’s important.

Not sure why I didn’t just start here, but I’ve now moved the “podcast” to YouTube, and I’m done calling it a podcast. If YouTube does RSS for folks, great, and if it allows folks to get stuff on mobile subscriptions, also awesome. But it’s not really a podcast on YouTube, it’s just awesome on YouTube. (Hopefully.)

Episodes 1-4 can be found here!

Any & all feedback is welcome, either here or in my YouTube channel.

Episode 3 is up!

Note: PodOmatic, while largely a very easy & great way to keep these things up here, only lets me embed player code that just takes you to the latest episode – so if I keep embedding it here, every embedded player will take you to the same episode. That’s less than ideal… so here’s the links to each one.

I’m officially over my “free” storage limit at podomatic, so if anyone has better ideas on where to post ~400MB video files for your enjoyment, I’m all ears. (Let me know if any of these episodes don’t work & I can save some space.)
Episode 3!
Episode 2!!
Episode 1!!!

A friend has convinced me I really just need to keep doing this sh*t & eventually something will come of it – I can stop worrying about the planning, the editing, the censorship, the material, and just MAKE it.  In his words, “There is no win, there is no fail.  There is only MAKE.”

With much ado, Episode Two.

Well, it’s certainly been entirely too long since I wrote anything like a substantive update., so I won’t even waste your time with foreplay.

Job:  On the plus side, I’ve been doing it for 4 straight years (exaclty), so it’s much easier than it used to be, and I’m much more adroit at getting help when I need it.  On the down side, I still need a lot of help… mainly because we’ve got the work for 3 people and really only have me right now, and should really only have the work of 2.  (It’s the quantity driving the need for assistance, not the subject matter itself… I’m “approaching awesome” at what I do.)  We also have some of the world’s worst systems, and in case you were wondering, being on the other side of the country from them does NOT make them easier to deal with.  In related news, I’m starting to pick apart my day-t0-day & understand what parts of this I actually enjoy & which parts I want to avoid in the next role, whatever form that may take.  So far I’ve identified a minute part of what I do everyday as “Fun”, and the rest is all in the “Not Fun” supercategory.  *SURPRISE!*

Family:  Kate’s 15 months old now, and she’s awesome.  According to the world’s best Chinese pediatrician, she’s on track to be ~ 5’10″ tall, weigh 130lbs, and to have a head too big for any hat.  She’s literally off the head-size chart… which means she’ll either have a GIANT brain, be a REALLY awesome candidate for performing arts on stage or screen, or she’ll have trouble dragging her melon through the halls at school & will be mocked for blocking everyone else’s view of the chalkboard.  Speaking of chalk, put one in the W column for Renee; without her efforts over the last year, we wouldn’t be all the things we are: great parents, homeowners, landlords, composters, members of our community, good children, good siblings, and good friends.  (Okay, I think that means “put several” in the W column.)

Acting:  I’ve floated my headshot out to a few things, but the most promising comes up this weekend.  It’s a traveling Dinner Theater Troupe based in South Jersey, and it looks like they do mainly fun comedy stuff and/or mystery dinners at a number of different venues around NJ.  I’m anxious to find out more & see if they think I’m a good fit; stay tuned on that.  Mostly I’m just glad to be able to feel like I now have the time/energy to give to the performance side of life again.  It’ll be an even bigger challenge than it was in SF given we have Kate & a home & a rental property … in short we have even more commitments than we used to, and now I’m trying to layer on this acting thing as well… so you can imagine I’m bracing myself to be a completely exhausted dude if things pan out.  But it’s all been worth it up to this point, and I know the acting piece is a worthwhile venture when it goes well (which really comes down to the commitment of the people involved), so I’m actually looking forward to the exhaustion.  It’ll come with an equally large benefit of satisfaction and fulfillment.  Maybe then I’ll stop complaining about IT support & work problems that frankly just aren’t worth the hassle.  R would love that.

Friends:  One of the many excuses I lean on as to why I only blog once in a blue moon is that we’re a very busy family when it comes to the social calendar.  In the year we’ve been here we’ve spent probably 3/4 of our weekends hosting or being hosted by some of our best friends and/or family.  I get to see a lot of the folks that would be reading this anyway – and to make it worse, when I see them I don’t feel like I have much to talk about other than work & the fam – so the motivation to blog just hasn’t been there much.  But in the last few weeks I’ve been pinged by a number of friends I haven’t seen or talked to since we moved, so a) my apologies for the long-overdue “update” format of today’s post; and b) now that I’ve written it I realize I ALWAYS have stuff to talk about – but somehow it’s easier for me to write it than to think of it in the social setting & deliver a diatribe on the spot.  HOWEVER: if you count yourself among the number of friends I haven’t seen since last September, get in touch & let’s get something on the calendar to visit – wherever you are or wherever you’re coming from, there’s always some possible solution.  (A clear example that proves we’re BUSY people if not geographically distant people:  I haven’t seen Cermak since his son was born in January, and he lives less than 200 miles away – and we’ve done exactly 3 podcasts together since then… that’s right, we barely have time to do THAT any more.  Meanwhile I’ve been to SF 13 times since October.)

In short, there are tons of reasons why we HAVEN’T seen you, but very few reasons why we CAN’T see you soon.

KJ, Becca Rufer & Joan – miss you ladies.  Joan, have a great 40th birthday… I’m sure you will, considering I still can’t believe that’s a number associated with your indomitable enthusiasm, energy & optimism.  World’s Youngest 40-Year-Old.   To you & Becca:  I’m out there soon & will be in touch to try to make something happen.  KJ, you too… perhaps another lunch with the C-Monster?

Ahh… that felt good.  Was it good for you?

Our pricing analyst just told me she’s quitting & going back to school.  I’m depressed.  And slightly jealous.

Been a while since I wrote any suggestions or Top 5 lists, and even longer since a reader shared theirs (okay, that’s yet to happen ever).  So here you go; please read, then PLEASE suggest new stuff if you like.  And please don’t point me to one of the myriad ‘favoriting’ social sites like del.icio.us or whatever the hell teenagers think is cool these days.  (Okay, you can point me there, but if it sucks, I’ll come back & scold you publicly.)

Currently reading The First Tycoon, which is a massive biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and also my first foray into non-performer biographies.  Kinda digging it.  Learning a lot I didn’t know about US history, railroads, origins of capitalism, etc., but it’s not the type of biography (nor am I suggesting it SHOULD be) where you get much of a sense for the subject’s personality.  The author (TJ Stiles) obviously had very few primary references (CV’s been dead for more than 130 years), so the direct examples of his persona are nil, and even the secondary ones lead you to conclude the guy never wasted a breath on words he couldn’t squeeze a penny out of, so his persona has a very bright tinge of money around it.

Currently watching… well, we’re still reveling in the DVR we finally got.  We DVR a lot of things & “watch” them later - most of them we turn on & then end up doing other things or playing with the Nugget while it plays in the background.  But a current sample consists of:  Holmes on Holmes (HGTV), Your OWN Show (OWN), Enough Already! (OWN), Conan… there are actually an embarrassing number of additional shows from OWN.  But it’s no surprise really – the woman set out to launch a network full of shows that help folks lead their own best lives, and she succeded, and A LOT of us are really interested in that stuff.  We still make appointments out of all-time favorites:  Modern Family, The Good Wife, Grey’s Anatomy, The Office, Community & 30 Rock.  The newest winner:  Nurse Jackie.  Comcast has turned on a free month of Showtime On Demand.  In the last two weeks the wyf & I have gone through all 24 episodes in the first two seasons.  The stories are okay, the characters are GREAT (I *heart* Zoey Barkow), and the writing is FANTASTIC.  It has the flavor of a darker, more personal Sorkin.  Not sure which of the three writers from those seasons it comes from, but it’s addicting.

As for movies, we just screened The Black Swan & True Grit last weekend.  From the comforts of our living room.   A friend of a friend has some not-so-ethical colleagues at an agency in L.A. that happened to send copies of the Awards season screeners.  They were both fantastic movies & well worth the hoopla.  Jeff Bridges deserves accolades, as does Natalie Portman.  Also Hailee Steinfeld, the young girl in True Grit.  Not so much for Mila Kunis or Matt Damon - both were good, and I loved Damon’s slightly naive take on a Texas ranger, but there are better supporting actor nominees in the running.

We also recently saw Due Date.  All I have to say about that is that we would’ve seen The Social Network instead if it had still been out, and we would’ve felt far more satisfied with our use of the grandparents’ babysitting capacity.

Finally, I’ve been keeping up with a few more blogs recently.  I check Zen Habits a lot.  I check Mark’s Daily Apple, although my interest is waning.  And I always find something interesting at The Happiness Project.  They all seem to speak to my desire for simplicity, for doing & owning & using less.

There’s a purposeful lack of musical influence.  Why?  I don’t listen to new stuff.  AT ALL.  My new car (2011 Hyundai Sonata) has XM radio, which has 3 or 4 comedy stations.  Since I bought it in October, I think I’ve listened to all the material they have for one of them, and the other two or three are either All Canadian or All Contemporary African American comedy, which I’m generally less in the mood for – only so many days I can laugh at bits about bacon & being poor or fat or fat & poor.  And the Blue Collar channel is abysmal – there’s no way the target audience for that crap can afford to pay $8 a month for radio.  They can’t even afford public schools, and those are free.

So I’m COMPLETELY MUSICALLY STAGNANT.  The last new suggestions I got were from my sister, in 2007.  That’s three years’ worth of evolution that my mind has gone without.  I thought maybe Ping would help, but either it doesn’t work well or it takes too much effort to get value out of it, because I’ve yet to get value out of it.  I’m in this situation because I generally don’t listen to music (even pre-XM), and when I do I just listen to whatever radio station is on, or to my iPod playlists.  I’m generally fine with that, but three years… three years was long enough to build the Hoover Dam.  A lot could’ve changed since then.  Thoughts?  If not, no biggie.

However, I could REALLY use some new inspiration for running mixes or great songs to run to.  I have 5 or 6 different playlists on iTunes that I use, but there are still only probably about 70 songs between them, with a lot of overlap between lists.  I’m even running to a lot of John Williams themes.  Would love it if someone could help me spice that up.  (If I’m unsuccessful in this post, this may become a new post all on its own.)