http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:phil-light&section=today deviantART RSS for by:phil-light en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:16:35 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/27061995/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/27061995/ Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:16:17 PDT
like a summer moon as seen by gypsies without any chance. durgin. overthrow communism, would you? not without talking. and the b3 organ enters unapologetically. into a tie i tithe, boy. ball liberal golf is not auto increment.

]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/25483710/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/25483710/ Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:24:02 PDT
habits must be labored at first, but then they sometimes grow. we'll see how this one does.

-PL-

]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/19448893/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/19448893/ Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:27:08 PDT
i'm tired of coming back to this page every week or two and seeing the same negativity.

what have i been doing? a year ago, i shaved my head. i graduated from the etc. i started a company. kdka recently was kind enough to do a segment on us. i love building things and i'm trying to use my powers for good. in a week or two i'll post a link to the latest version of an art toy i'm working on.

work consumes much of life and doesn't pay real well. but sink or swim, i'm doing it on my own terms and learning a lot.

i'd like to post some things soon, mostly older pieces that were never shared. more than that, i'd like to be back in the habit of creating. i got dem ol' kozmic blues again mama.

as i break my silence, you might expect some more measured tones. i used to share a fair amount of detail, but now i find i prefer to distance my public self from my private self.

-PL-

]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/11990519/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/11990519/ Tue, 27 Feb 2007 16:43:58 PST everything must go!!!

Actually, I'm just stuck. (Don't know why I can't get an XMLSocket to connect to a server I wrote.) For the last 2 months or so, I've been teaching myself more Flash, and now, actionscript. Here's what I'm working on. It's going to be one of a pair of toys my team and I are building for ArtThread. The idea is to create toys online to help make cancer treatment suck less for the people who are touched by it. We're building a comic maker because it will hopefully be a way for kids who don't consider themselves artistic to make awesome little stories or compositions, as well as a chance for family members and other loved ones to send little greeting-card-type messages to kids undergoing treatment.

(If you click the link above, realize that you're looking at a prototype. The idea is "build it, make it work, then make it pretty.") Actually, if anyone's interested in seeing how I develop games, I could do a little writeup and link to a number of prototypes and tech tests i built along the way.

FLASH IS THE WORST PIECE OF SOFTWARE I HAVE EVER HAD THE MISFORTUNE OF WORKING WITH. Want to see an engineer get mad? Lie to him in the documentation he relies on to do his job. Build a framework which fails in completely unpredictable ways, then make him sift through the rubble. Build an entirely new language to do things that dozens of previously established languages have been doing for decades.

The designers of Flash are to programming what Dick Cheney is to politics.

I've been on this topic before, so I'll shut up.

I'm pretty excited to be back on "team hobo," though. Our last project (a kiosk to entertain kids stuck in the ER waiting room at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh) has been running like a champ, handling about 1.5 million touches to the screen since we installed in late June. We're spending this semester trying to become incorporated, and hopefully to make more of these kiosks.

Artwise, I'm not idle. Last semester, I was going to figure drawing on campus on Sunday nights pretty regularly. Someday, I'll scan in the backlog of various drawings I have from that and other things, and post. I'm also back to actively recording music I've written. The goal is 1 song/month. I missed it for January, but might squeak it in for this month.

Oh, and I'm still playing (and helping develop) Skyrates, a sporadic game made by some of my friends here at school. Check it out, it's designed for busy people to play for a few minutes at a time. If you do, say hi on the radio. I'm "phil."

-PL-

]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/10003380/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/10003380/ Thu, 07 Sep 2006 20:29:11 PDT
It's hard to say what I'm still doing on DA. Although I love my small cadre of friends, part of me knows that with my schedule I can't possibly dream of keeping up contact as I should, so i lurk and dream of winning the lottery or something. Reveling in the warmth and happiness of neglected projects.

It's ironic. This site was absolutely instrumental in awakening and legitimizing the artistic side of myself that i'd been supressing all my life. It made me seek out, work towards, and finally enroll in the ETC so that I could give that other half some training, some oxygen as it were.

It's been fantastic.

So much more (and less) than I ever expected has come out of it. I've nestled into a crowd of brilliant, determined creators and pinged, then ponged, ideas with them. I've worked at least as hard as I ever have in my life, and been master of my own ship. I've made things that were awful and things that are joyful and good.

But my faults still haunt me. One of the prime, A-1 reasons I'm back in school at all is that I must love what I do or I am doomed to fail at it. That's true to an extent for most people, but I feel like for me the problem is magnified--drastically--by my insta-distractability. And it saddens me deeply to learn that daggone it, that's just who I am. I'm working right now doing sound design and programming at Schell Games which by all accounts is about 98% of my perfect job. And I go home most nights at 2am not because of some noble desire to overachieve but my spaceout time, which cuts like a yawning chasm through my day. If i could close that gap, i could be climbing now, or watching the Steelers, ideally with some pretty young woman.

But enough pessimism.

This spring, one of my small-but-not-small-enough jobs was to make a website (to get hired now.) Here it is. There are photos on there that aren't uploaded here, but that's about it. I like the design though. Oh, and there are samples of the things I built this fall. Actually, when I get a chance I need to redo that site. Poetry doesn't help much in job applications for my field, and the "bio" really doesn't say anything about me.

The site which needs attention much more desperately is the spring's. It's for one of the best things I've ever helped make: a kiosk of simple games that sits in the ER waiting room at Children's Hospital here in Pittsburgh. From January-June I slaved over that thing, the lone programmer on the team, orchestrating the little details which take a project from "passable" to "proud." At least once a week, on average, I crashed in the lounge after working--really, truly, working--until the sun came up. It installed on June 22, and has logged over a half-million touches and more than 90% uptime, which I'm pleased with since there's basically no one watching over it. We're presenting at a conference at the end of this month, and thinking about starting a company. It's a good product.

One more year of school and I'll have this master's. I'm staying with Schell Games through December, and then I don't know: possibly another student project, possibly another "co-op" where I basically work on taking the kiosk to market. I could also conceivably work on something else.

life is luscious but at times exhausting and overwhelming. So i'm not on DA much, nor do i expect to be. but i still know that this is (in some ways) where it all started. i remember.

-PL-

Oh, and i played in pittsburgh's summer ultimate league on an awesome team. it was so much fun. i lost weight and we won the whole shebang, only losing once all season.

and i chipped a tooth in May by taking a faceful of SUV during my bike ride home one night. I'm finally getting it fixed tuesday. so i've been slightly uglified all summer... whatever. ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/7131289/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/7131289/ Thu, 24 Nov 2005 10:16:57 PST
I can think of no one who has given more to the quality of experience at this site than Steve, except maybe Jark--and oh yeah, he was booted too.

Happy Turkey day.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/7067939/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/7067939/ Wed, 16 Nov 2005 21:22:57 PST
I've been continuing my massive amounts of work on my latest virtual worlds. In round 3, my team spent one week making a hungry hungry hippos game. In round 4, we built a game show around the concept of dumping a bucket of stuff on contestants. I'll post videos on my under-construction website when I get a chance, though I'm not sure when that will be. We just started on round 5, the final round for the course. My team is going to be making an audience-participation world in the spirit of books like the eleventh hour or seventh guest, using virtual reality and a volume meter so that the audience can scream to indicate who they think committed the crime. Tonight's idea was that we would set it at a celebrity gala, and make the performer (in the headset) a photographer.

Today was a slightly unusual day here at school. But it works as a typical day in the life:

Last night, I got home from school sometime around 3:30 am. I was discussing the new team and project with my roomate, who is also in the program. He revealed to me that I have a tendency to be too aggressive, especially in terms of simply talking too much. I really try to actively yield the floor to my teammates, and seek out their opinions, but I'm apparently not doing a good enough job--so I'll try to get better at that, obviously. Good, honest feedback is priceless.

Slept a few hours, got to class (visual story) as attendance was being taken. Today's lecture was a good one: we discussed differences between cinema and games. We went into some degree of depth with some captures from Jade Prophecy in which the professors pointed out all of the myriad ways in which dialog, voice acting, and camera work paled in comparison to what is seen in a half-decent movie. That class is so fascinating to me, because it has been consistently laying out rules which I've only felt in my subconscious as I've been raised in a video culture.

Following class, my team had another meeting, I scarfed down some lunch I'd brought, and so on. Then we got ready for a visit to the labs from 3 or 4 extremely high-ranking executives at Electronic Arts: the sole remaining founder, head of their European division, and so on. We prepared to demo a number of our projects, and my Hungry Hippos world from last round was on the list. But they were rushed and wound up only seeing 2 of the 7 planned first-year projects. Ah well.

Then, into another meeting in which my team went through a more solid brainstorming session. Several of my teammates had been pretty excited about the idea of creating a world in which you get to race a grocery cart around, and collect things, knock things over, etc. But not everyone was on board, and we need everyone to be in support of the idea. So we went in and hashed it out around a whiteboard and round table. We wound up going with another idea, the one I described above: basically, a photographer character will put on a Virtual Reality headset, and what he sees will be projected onto the theater screen. One possible scenario that I really like is that we watch him take pictures at a hollywood party. At some point, a crime is revealed: for instance, maybe someone has kidnapped Paris Hilton's chihuahua. Then, the audience will review the photos that the photographer took (which contain clues to solve the mystery), and finally we'll essentially show them a lineup of suspects. We'll write code which automatically runs an applause-o-meter to let the audience say who they think did the crime by shouting louder or softer.

So that's what I've been working on. I'm pretty excited, I think it will work out well.

The other thing which I can barely believe is that the ETC (the "Eating and Traveling Club" as we call it) just flew me down to the bahamas for the weekend, after round 4. Early Thursday morning, I got on a plane, flew to Philadelphia, then Fort Lauderdale, where I boarded a cruise ship and sailed to Nassau. I spent a day sunning and two nights singing on board the Regal Empress. It was incredible. Not 24 hours prior, I had no idea where they were taking us--I suspected Niagara falls. Surprise trips to the bahamas are sublime.

It's been a pretty decent travel year for me: Las Vegas (paid for by IBM), Zion National Park (by me), Tokyo (by me), and Nassau (Carnegie Mellon). Add in the move from Austin to Pittsburgh, and you've got a pretty interesting year. I write nearly every day, but for myself because I assume people don't want to hear about my self-absorption all the time, and I can write in bed... ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/6730334/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/6730334/ Mon, 10 Oct 2005 13:03:38 PDT
Basically, a huge chunk of my life can be summed up in 3 words: Building Virtual Worlds. It is the most intense, most informative, most excruciating class I've ever been through, and probably some of the hardest work I've ever done in my life. EVERY day for the last month, I've woken and come straight down to the labs (a 20 minute bike ride) and gone back to work on it. So far, I've built 2 worlds:

- Dr. Rock: A virtual reality world where you strap on a special guitar I built and VR headset, then find yourself rising as we fade in from black. A young woman is facing you, talking about how afraid she is; she had come to pay her respects to you, her favorite musician, but she's scared of the creepy graveyard. Your task is then to (strangely enough) raise your sleeping ghost neighbors, because they're your band and you're going to play a song to make her feel better. At this point, you look around and see patterns of colors and hear little musical phrases. Your task is to mimic those phrases, and when you do so, the ghost associated with each part rises and joins the jam. There are 5 ghosts in total, and each one adds a track until you finally hear this mix. And all the while you've got a guitar with 4 notes mapped to touch sensors on the neck so that when you touch each one, a note sounds. You are in key with the music, and so are the phrases.

On the first project, I contributed to the basic idea, built the guitar input device and the code to handle it, wrote the song you hear, directed my friend Michelle's voice talent, and wrote maybe 25% of the basic gameplay code. (I was officially only responsible for sound.)

- Pink Panther: For this world, I was on a new platform: playmotion. The basic idea of this device is that you project an image onto a wall or the floor, and the user gets in front of it and interacts with it by casting a shadow. In the game we built, you are the Pink Panther in a museum, and you are running around defacing great works of art in funny ways--such as painting whiskers and pink ears onto the mona lisa, etc. But there are guards who shine their flashlights around, and you have to dodge the flashlight; if you get caught in it, you are temporarily stopped and can't paint until you get out of it. It's a surprisingly fun, and really beautiful world. My team had a huge amount of talent.

Unfortunately, we also had a large amount of internal tension because we were all very strong people who have no qualms about standing up to one another. Because of that, and some unforseen technical problems, we didn't test enough. Which killed us: the point of this project was to craft an experience that ANY person off the street can walk up and grasp immediately. In order to test this, our submission of the project involved an actual new user trying it in class. And the user, bless her, just didn't get it. She kept trying to paint the spotlight instead of dodge it, and couldn't understand what she was supposed to be doing. So despite 2 weeks of incredibly intense labor, we failed. And our professor lamented it in front of everyone, "this world is so beautiful, it's a great concept, and there's just this one crucial thing you missed." He said it reminded him of what we all call a Randyism: "So, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?" Lessons, lessons.

So that's work. My other two classes are interesting: Improv acting, which is a no-brainer. Show up, play tag and imagination games, and get an automatic A. Cake. The other one is visual story, in which we've been learning how to compose shots and do basic filmmaking. It has a lot of bearing on what we do in video games or museum exhibits or whatever. The projects for that class are 1 week apiece, always due the day after a BVW world (or halfway point, which is the same thing). So Wednesdays have been rough for me: on Monday night, I work right up to the 11pm deadline for BVW, after an entire weekend of nonstop work. Hopefully I get a bit of sleep, Tuesday I show the work for that in class and work on the editing of whatever we've shot for visual story that week. Putting together the final cut and publishing it to DVD always takes until somewhere between 2 and 6am. Then I go home and sleep for a few hours, and get to class at 10:30. And then I work all day. By Wednesday night, when we're supposed to be attending movies shown for that same class, I'm often at the point of involuntary col... ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/6378789/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/6378789/ Wed, 31 Aug 2005 13:48:29 PDT
Drive from Austin to Pittsburgh: packing took 3-4 days, of which I worked all day and felt like I did a very large portion of the work. First day on the road: 12-14 hours driving for me, made it to Little Rock. Second day: 19+ hours, pulled over at a truck stop after I'd been hallucinating some. That was too much, not safe. Slept for about an hour, then my friend tried to drive, but I was feeling groggy and sick, and asked him to pull over again so I could sleep, which he did. We were rolling again around 10am after sleeping from 5:30 to 6:30. Then on that third day, I drove the rest of the way to Pittsburgh, arriving about 3 or 4, I think. And immediately began unpacking the three guys' worth of stuff from the trailer. That took 2-3 days as well.

Once unloaded, i spent a few days unpacking, setting up furniture, and starting to meet my fellow students. In general, they are a truly awesome bunch. It's almost scary how fast we've become family, and the workload is terrifying. I'd been speaking confidently to my (awesome) housemate John about how I can handle any workload they throw at me because of my RIT background; but after the first day of classes, I feel miserably behind.

My "role" for the major class (i.e. full-time job) is sound guy. The class is called "building virtual worlds" and my first assignment is to do a soundtrack for a movie trailer. I'm probably going to do the trailer for fantastic 4. It's due Monday. This is supposed to be the easy, low-stress assignment to help me learn the tools. Speaking of, the tools are incredible. I have an entire sound studio with professional equipment at my disposal, as well as any software which I could possibly need, and a huge library of sounds. So basically, this is like a dream come true; when I was working on the recording and animation for my last submission, I was thinking, "Oh how I wish I could do this full-time!" And now I can. But full-time isn't going to be enough time. Crazy.

My other two classes rock the box too: improv acting lets my inner-extrovert crazy-brain just play, play, play. And in the visual story, we're going to be working on making animations and movies. The final project will be a music video, so hopefully I can get the time to write and record another song sometime this semester. Fortunately, I've got at least a half-dozen fairly mature, but unfinished songs that I started recording somewhere along the line.

There's much more to report: winning a scavenger hunt, playing my guitar at parties, the climbing, a trip to fallingwater, the bike ride to school, the rain in Pittsburgh, and girls (of course.)

And now, the living in the labs: today, for example, i got here in time for my first class at 10:30. That was 2 or 3 hours, followed by 2 or 3 hours of mandatory seminars. Now it's 4:30 and I've just gotten "free" to come up to a room called the "bullpen" where I will begin to dissect this trailer from frame to frame and figure out what I need to put in sounds for. I'll probably be working until 1 or 2 tonight. Sleep, rinse, repeat.

-PL-

]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/6173306/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/6173306/ Mon, 08 Aug 2005 21:59:00 PDT furniture I bought? Yeah, not looking like such a good idea anymore.

24 hours driving to Pittsburgh, 2 days to dump the junk and try and acclimate, locate classes, etc. Then a side trip to visit the 'rents back home, swap stuff, steal a canoe and a kayak, and go to Virginia or WV. Find a lake. Insert boats. Meet buds. Paddle. Drive back to the 'burg on Sunday, class Monday morning.

-PL-

]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/6000020/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/6000020/ Thu, 21 Jul 2005 22:31:11 PDT
I've been working on flash for the last 2 months or so, trying to make my first little movie, and I've got to say that Macromedia has got to have some of the worst UI designers on the face of the earth. It's like all the people who made the earlier versions of Microsoft products all got fired and went to Macromedia. Because it consternates me to no end, the same way word used to. You know, like you hit backspace twice, and it would adjust the margins and reformat your paragraph? And you sit there trying to figure out the exact sequence of keystrokes and clicks which would put the image on the page where you want it... flash is like that.

It blows my mind that the brothers chaps at [link] have been creating such wonderful animations for so long with a tool which should not have made it out of alpha test, never mind being on its fourth version or whatever. If they had tested this for usability at all, it'd be a much different product. And I would be a great user for them: I'm smart with computers, have some experience with Photoshop, and have the attention to detail which comes from years of testing and paying attention to usuability. But most importantly, whenever it backfires, I am quite vociferous about it. And vulgar. In fact, I have to close the windows. "No, ---! You're wrong! You're just, wrong! How the -- could you mother-- think that's what I --ing want to do!? This is complete --ing --!" And so on. I am the user, and I am right. But it's still somewhat discomforting to find this angry, hate-filled side of myself.

The help system is very hit-or-miss. Searching for topics can be frustrating unless you happen to remember the article name, and they give you some information but not enough examples. And sometimes following their instructions--to the click, because of the horror that is their UI--still yields failures.

It almost makes me wonder whether if the tooling wasn't so poorly designed, it wouldn't be used for nobler purposes; it's established fact that 95% of the flash use on the larger web is horribly inappropriate and intrusive. Homestar Runner is one of very few applications of it that I consider well-done. But I expect it to be used legitimately in school, and I really want to make this movie, so I'm forcing it down like bad sushi.

At this point, however, I consider the search for good movie-making tools far from over. I'm particularly interested in vector-based animation programs for consumption via the web, but if I don't like flash, there aren't many other choices. Sure, I could write it myself in a Java applet, but that would bring its own host of problems. And I like Java less and less the more I use it, too.

-PL-

]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/5852336/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/5852336/ Tue, 05 Jul 2005 23:15:11 PDT
flailure: n. to fail in a wild, catastrophic or devastating way. Particularly useful with regards to dancing and rock climbing.
swelterbelly adj. delightfully wholesome and wonderful. I mostly like the sound of this word, but it seems to mean that something's deep-down satisfying. I use it when I'm unusually happy.
nyktaphile n. one who loves the night. Another self-descriptive word I made by slamming together the greek roots. Perhaps I'm not the first to use it? I don't have an OED.
monkey bus n. a crazy, uncontrollable group or situation. Most commonly used in the phrase, "Hey! Who's driving this monkey bus, anyway?"
fat-tastic adj. sinfully indulgent, particularly with regards to food. Pretty self-explanatory.

I'm pretty sure that there are other words I've made up and used consistently, but these are some of the main ones. Of course, twists on words like "ridonculous" or "fantabulous" are pretty common as well. But those I didn't make myself, and they're usually just one-time combinations of other words, so I'm not listing them.

Here's a list of merriam-webster's favorite such words: [link] ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/5832608/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/5832608/ Sun, 03 Jul 2005 21:15:46 PDT
In days gone by, when one went a-commentin', one could expect thanks to be directed to one's own user page. Now, people leave their thanks on the dev itself. (I do it too, then I go through galleries and return them.)

But it was kind of motivating when a steady stream of people were leaving their gratitude on my page. I'm not upset, I don't comment at length like I used to, but I still miss having 20 different faces here.

Life is still grand, I've got 6 weeks of work left before the next chapter opens and I go back to school. I'm thrilled but busy.

Tomorrow I'll ride my bike down to Zilker (hopefully not for the last time) and catch the fireworks. If I can get my work done, I'll go early enough to swim at Barton Springs, which I haven't done yet in my year-plus here.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/5677073/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/5677073/ Fri, 17 Jun 2005 13:25:51 PDT [link] plays its summer games at 7, so off I went. (I'm not on the teams mentioned on the front page, I'm in their large (~450 people) summer league.)

When I got there, I found that our team was unusually understaffed this week, and one of our top players, a chick named Sheila, were absent. However, we picked up some new ones: a guy named Gino, middle-aged, hefty, and a ladyface named Jenna. Jenna's ladyface is lovely to behold. I tried to warm up a bit, but it is really difficult to get the fires lit in that kind of heat. A summer evening in Austin, and all anybody in their right mind is doing is sippin' on a nice cool Shiner. But once the game started things were more or less OK... my team plays well. In fact, in the first two weeks we're 4-0. *knock on wood.* I am also playing well, I've already doubled my points from all last season.

The first game was hard-fought and exciting, we had to come back from a deficit to take a lead into half, and had to take two consecutive points to end it for the win. I contributed; the opposition were great husslers, and usually that's all I'm good for: lots of running. The second game, when the sun went down, was much more pleasant. With only 2 men and 1 woman for subs, we were tired... but I figured I had more endurance than some, so I played almost every point, always marking one of their fastest guys. It was cool--in this game I actually tossed for the game-ending point, to Jenna. Gino ran over and picked me up, like I said he's a big dude, and spun me around like we were the super champs of the world. I was like, whoa, cool. I think Jenna got the same treatment, but I was a bit dizzy. Actually, I think Gino was just glad to be done running for the night. We stopped playing around 10, I think; 2-3 hours of continuous sprints. Good for the body and mind.

Afterwards, Jenna was asking a friend or two for a ride, to no avail, so naturally our hero stepped up and wound up performing the service. Nice young lady, we talked about programming and education and college, etc. Traveling abroad. Looking forward to next week.

Needed food, didn't want greasy ol' tacos, so I decided to go to the g-store and get fruit for smoothies. My normal grocery run is like 75-80% produce, makes me feel so good to be eating all those fruits and veggies. Came home, ate, and read the Helm's Deep chapter of LOTR. That book's been a June tradition for me since 3rd grade, I never tire of it. A masterpiece.

Just after midnight, I walked to work to fix some defects. I have about 7 open against my code right now, but they're pretty serious. One, I fixed, another I sent back as unreproduced, another I closed as according to spec. 3 bugs neutralized in 3 hours--not bad! Came home and slept from 3:30 to 9:30.

This morning, was in by 10, checked the email, read slashdot and the ny times, and got prepared for a meeting. This was for an issue which has been one of pain and anguish for months now, and I was expecting this call to be "spicy." In fact, what happened was exactly the opposite. For the first time ever, my demanding client saw that the solution we're providing seems to meet his needs, even though it's not what he asked for and has been generally making a big stink about the whole thing. You have no idea how good that feels, to finally get this scrappy little monkey on my back to loosen his grip somewhat. My shoulders have been all bruised up, not good for playing ultimate!

After that, one of my teammates that I really like IMed me asking for Java help that I could give. Apparently, the word has it that I write really good code; at any rate I've been helping him off and on for weeks, which is wonderful because he in turn is often in a position to help me with some data or deployment stuff that I need. Getting karma for something like that which is basically really easy for me is a wonderful feeling. And I LOVE--love love love--helping other people with technical tasks. In programming, everybody else's problems are always more interesting than my own.

Lunch was a box of Indian leftovers from the other night. The waiter asked, "mild, medium, or hot?" I said, "bring it! nuclear, my man!" And it was. I mean, one bite of this stuff (Lamb Rogan Josh) had me sweating profusely, my nose running. It was intense, literally like eating dynamite with a lit fuse. Awesome. *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/5510962/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/5510962/ Thu, 02 Jun 2005 15:18:34 PDT [link] I read it and thought, "my hypothetical kids are going to be raised simply, like I was... if they want something, they're going to have to earn it; they're going to know what the word 'no' sounds like. I'm not as weak as those parents!"

All well and good, and then I thought about my weekend activities: work on the new song, climb, learn flash a bit, and on Memorial day I went to a sale at guitar center. I'd been gulled by a mailing I got recently that they were having a sale for their "top 5% customers" only (a dubious group to be a member of in the first place, but let's ignore that for the moment...) A special early opening, "please don't line up before 7," etc. I thought it was like the REI sale I recently camped out for and got a $75 pair of shoes for $4.

So I go check it out, yadda yadda yadda, I walk out with another guitar. I feel bad, I'd been telling myself that I'd get myself a classical when I graduate CMU in 2 years, just like I got my Martin for my undergrad degree. But I was standing there, and all of these little justifications were bouncing around in my head, and well--we see what happened. Feels like robbing the cookie jar, I keep waiting for someone to come around and chastise me, but no one will. I'm a grownup now, spending my own money.

I realize now that I am my father. The man never makes a decision without lamenting it afterwards for a couple days/weeks/months/years. Whatever decision he made, he feels it was wrong. If I had put it down and walked away, right now I'd be writing about this great deal I missed out on. But this feels wrong on another level--buying a guitar is a deeply personal experience which shouldn't be done on a whim, even if the sale is good.

-PL-

Edit problem two is a girl--sometimes the nicest problem to have, always the murkiest and most difficult. This time there's a sense of urgency. All young females fall into a bunch of categories, more or less... there's the "not with a ten foot pole" category, the "i'll hang out with her", etc. Two or three times in my life or so far I've met someone who falls into the "God's Putty" category: that is, if I had some of God's Putty and a kiln, I would make a woman like this. I'm pretty sure this chick is in that one. She's effervescent, funny, drop-dead gorgeous, and we've got some common interests. Passions, rather, in my case--she's a climber and guitarist/musician.

So. Of course the chase is on. I've been in pursuit of several ladies in the last year when I can find the time, but there was always a sense in my mind that I was just sort of going through the motions, like a fire drill. ("15 days to call her back, eh Phil? I'm sorry to say, my friend, but you've been burned alive." "oh well, durn it.") This is a real fire. Unfortunately, I'm not moving faster. I met her the first time in mid-march, right around my birthday. Saw her again at the rock gym a week or two ago, started trying to go regularly when she might be there, saw her last night. Every time I've done so I feel like a huge bronze bell at the temples we visited in Japan; once struck, they ring for what seems like about a day and a half. And seeing her is pretty much equivalent to being hit with a huge swinging log.

The lie of the situation: I have no idea whether she's available. Since she works at the gym, she's not really in a position to be there with a boyfriend, so no hints there. She hasn't mentioned one, but if i overheard a conversation correctly, she seems to live with a dude. But obviously that could be a roomate. But given the way I feel about her, I'm afraid it's most likely a boyfriend.

Last night, I asked her if she'd like to get together and jam sometime, and gave her my number. Given the situation, I felt like that was the best I could do. If there is another guy, it would mean that a) she might be reluctant to give out her # to me, and b) he wouldn't like it if she did. If he knew my purpose. Which isn't hard to figure out.

I think the bigger problem is that I fall into a category too, and it seems like I'm at best in the "worth hanging out with" one. But of course that's a secret known only to her. But all the signs she gave as I was talking to her & giving the digits were that she's not going to call.

At least I can sleep at night feeling that so far, I've done as much as I could as fast as I could. But I'm really, really good at getting burned. I'm a fine steak that has been turned to charcoal by a bad chef. Except that I'm the chef too.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/5449578/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/5449578/ Tue, 24 May 2005 15:47:42 PDT
My next idea, I think, is a little better. Or, a little more mine, anyway. It's a visual one, could be used in an advertisement: the shot starts close up, two hands manipulating chessmen on an all-grey board with little grooves between the spaces. As we pan back, we notice that the board seems to extend beyond the normal 8x8, in fact it goes back to reveal a tile floor. And as we continue back, we realize that the floor is a bathroom, between two stalls in which the occupants are enjoying a nice game of chess. the caption: "At _____, we take games very seriously."

I went to Pace Bend state park this Saturday and had a lovely time getting mildly sunburnt and jumping off cliffs into the water. Scary at first, but addictive. I got over my fear of it a few years ago in Yosemite at a spot called Elephant rock which still rings sweetly in my mind. I'm hoping that I'll tan a bit here, I'm tired of my wan complexion. Sunday was spent working on a new song, the rhythm parts for it anyway. I also began teaching myself flash. It's very much like the first time I was working in Photoshop, and was like, "what's this, what's that?" Very daunting, but I'm a big bad software engineer now, and try to tell myself that I can learn anything.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/5367972/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/5367972/ Sun, 15 May 2005 19:58:57 PDT
The last few weeks, executive summary: Worked a lot. This weekend was "d-cut," which may be read as "d-day for programmers." The last months I've been consistently working very long hours.

When not working, I climb and play my guitar. I put on a few pounds during this work binge, so now i'm going to work them off. I'm on the eat-at-home diet, which is wonderful for its affordability and health aspects.

Tokyo
The other interesting thing that went down is that I visited one of my best friends, Jeremy, in Tokyo where he's been working as a programmer since we graduated. A wonderful time was had, we hiked, visited temples, ate lots of sushi and so on, played go, etc. There were a number of lovely surprises:
Japanese people are short. All my life, i've been in the shortest 5% or so of the american population. (I'm 5'4".) But there, I'm in probably the 25th-50th percentile. What a wonderful feeling! Amazing how your perception of yourself changes when you don't look up at everyone.
Japanese girls are beautiful, slender, and cheery. Knee-length skirts are practically the national uniform. And they love American men. Give me a few weeks in Tokyo with a few hundred thousand yen and a knowledge of the language, and I'd have more girls than I knew what to do with. Or so I tell myself Always an adept bachelor, I.
My go game has apparently not lost much, despite not playing with any regularity for years. That is fantastic. I want back in to that. I got a chance to learn from Kaz, who is approximately a 3p player. For any non-players, that's roughly equivalent to studying guitar with, say, Jack Johnson--that is, someone capable of making a very good living at it, but not at the demigod status of a Hendrix or Duane Allman.
The sushi I had in Tokyo was worse than what I've had in Austin, by a wide margin, though I did stick to more exotic ones: whale, urchin, squid, octopus, crab, tuna belly, shellfish, etc. Sometimes I had to choke it down... I've had squid, octopus, and urchin before and knew I don't like them. Don't know why I had so much weird stuff except that it seems kind of pointless to stick to salmon and yellowtail on my big exciting trip to Tokyo.
The beef I had in Tokyo was (blasphemy!) better than anything I've had in Texas. I don't know if it was Kobe or what, but it was the most beautiful, perfectly marbled meat I've ever laid eyes on. And on the tongue, it was like eating beef made of buttercake... don't think about that one too much. Plus, it does not put me in the moral dilemma of contributing to the rape of our planet by eating caught seafood. These cows lived good lives.
Flying X-teen hours to Houston from Tokyo, only to be delayed by weather long enough to drive the plane down the frickin' interstate to Austin, is no fun at all. I got a cab home after the ordeal. Mis-take. to the tune of $42. Oh well, I spent much more money much more frivolously in Japan.
Jet lag does weird things to a body. All week after my return, I was waking up at an average of about 4am. That means getting in to work at like 5. Which means that by about 2, I could legitimately go home--but I didn't, because that would look shady, and I wanted to be available at this critical time for the rest of my team. Instead, I'd come home and sleep from like 5pm-8, groan my way off the couch or bed, and try to work for a few more hours in an attempt to get back on a normal schedule. The whole time, my whole body complained mightily, then I'd go to sleep at 10 or 11 and be up again at 3:30. I thought my youth and natural nocturnal predilection would help, but alas.

Other news:
*phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/5096124/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/5096124/ Fri, 15 Apr 2005 14:31:12 PDT
The ramifications are many. But right now I'm gloomy and don't feel like writing more. This comes from my self-dissatisfaction with my work on the current job. Another weekend of toil lies ahead of me, and it's my own fault for not being productive enough. I don't have an unfair amount of work, or too much stress or anything like that. The company is truly marvelous to me, for which I am honestly grateful. Only my own shortcomings keep me from being effective.

I miss art. Maybe tomorrow I'll take a long quiet bike ride and find something to paint. Maybe I'll go to lake Travis. Or maybe I'll just work.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/4895723/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/4895723/ Wed, 23 Mar 2005 22:39:33 PST 1. I worked hard and got a performance bonus.
2. I had a birthday and made myself a cake. oh my fatness.
3. I attended south by southwest. Here are some synopses and links:
Mike Doughty: one of my top 5 favorite musicians ever. Put on a great concert. his thoughts on it: [link] My thoughts on it were that it was a great concert, i was front and center. Mike was nice enough to allow me to shoot pictures, which I did. However, i only used the flash once and it was the only shot that came out at all. It's not good, either. Also, the sound was poor as I had the keyboardist's monitor in front of me and the PA behind, so for me the mix was all unbalanced. But Mike's a charismatic guy and a professional. He puts on a good show, I've seen him twice now.
Nizlopi: I didn't see these guys, but wish (oh how i wish) i had. Their single--available at [link] -- graced my ears the day after their concert. Double punishingly, they played the same club as Doughty, an hour or two before. Blast that infernal job of mine.
The frames: new to me. Irish, very much like the pixies. An impassioned show with very few spotlight solos. Great musicians; would have liked to see them cut loose a bit more.
The last sentence also applies to Calexico, another new one for me. They are an amazing band, one of their trumpet players was playing vibraphone, keyboard, and lead guitar as well. The latter, he played in the back corner with his back to the crows--I wonder why? This show was good, until the lead invited down musicians from earlier in the night who were finishing blunts and drinks. Drunken singing sounds only marginally better when done by a professional musician than you or i at kareoke.
Bloc Party: [link] WATCH for these guys, they're going to explode, are in the process of it right now. Just like Franz Ferdinand came to sxsw last year and dropped jaws on their way to heavy rotation, this band is on a strong upswing. Played a packed crowd at Stubb's.
Apocalyptica: I've been listening to them for years; these guys and Doughty were the only two attend-at-all-costs shows I knew of going in. They did not disappoint. After they soundchecked backstage, the intro to path started playing. They came in, sat down, and as soon as the song kicked in, they went live. Very professional... in contrast with some of the other bands. The power, the energy, and the intimacy were unlike any show I'd ever seen before. I loved watching them hit triple power stances with their cellos and headbanging. Drumming also excellent. This was probably the single best concert I've ever seen. Highlights: Master of puppets, seek and destroy, somewhere around nothing, hell the whole thing was just unbelievable. I was front row center, and they didn't use monitors so the sound was as good as the view.
Global soul: [link] A local jazz outfit, played well in a smoky low bunker down off Colorado Street. Quite nice, I bought their CD. (one of many from this weekend.)
South Austin Jug Band: [link] After Apocalyptica (and a quick jaunt to see Saul Williams, who didn't impress me at all) I went to see the Grassy Knoll Boys, who along with these guys represent what must be some of the best local bluegrass that Austin has to offer. The Jug Band were surprisingly young, all my age +/- 5 years, and just tore it up. I bought... ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/4803511/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/4803511/ Sun, 13 Mar 2005 15:49:25 PST
I haven't been updating this journal in quite some time, nor to I intend to do so. For my own thought harvesting, I have my own (paper) journal. I don't want to subject the good people coming around this site to a report of everything I do every day.
Honestly, I'm not quite sure why I still seem to get a few pageviews, since I'm rather uninvolved here. I don't think that's a permanent condition, I expect to be more productive and involved around the grad school timeframe. But that's at least a year out. (still haven't heard from carnegie mellon, wish me luck.)

What I'm listening to these days:
jem: [link]
the dresden dolls: [link]
ravi shankar and opeth--sorry, no good links
Naturally, the normal range of music is mandatory.

I guess I'm going to buy myself some recording equipment so as to get back into songwriting. It's been a few months (since my computer-based studio stopped working), and I'm getting a little better. I'd like to work on producing another song with the whole percussion-bass-trumpet dealie.

Oh, other news. I'm going to Japan in May; I've applied for my passport and bought the tickets already.

Oh, and south by southwest is this week! I'm psyched for all the bands.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/4370827/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/4370827/ Thu, 20 Jan 2005 16:57:11 PST
Oh, and I'm not counting beer money. I bought a round for the boys which wasn't cheap, but fair's fair. Other than that, it was all free to me--travel, hotel, food, and booze were all paid for by the company. This was for 18000 employees and business partners too, the bills are barely fathomable. All in all, it's a far far cry from my life just a year or two ago. On the final night, my team that was still in town went out one last time, and my boss bought the first round. I had to be careful because the bar had been open at the company festivities and I'd already had a few. Word has it I was alright though.

Following vegas, one of my teammates and I rented a car and drove to Zion national park. Absolutely spectacular mountains, which are one of the sources of my truest happinesses. 3000 foot cliffs, facing each other so indomitably proud, and naked. These were not like the ones in Yosemite, where the vegetation obscures some of the lines; these mountains were stark and close. Sandstone though... the protection would be scary for climbing, I don't think you'll see me on any unproven Zion lines anytime soon.

I took bunches of pictures and am currently working through sorting them out, leveling them in photoshop, etc. A few will probably be posted here, but the bulk of them will only be on my personal web server. Ask me if you want to see.

So it's interesting how much I'm loving my current life, although I'm giving so little attention to some of my pursuits--haven't played go in about a year, maybe, haven't been painting much, etc. (though I plan on fixing some of that.)

Oh, except for the flu: I got sick sometime in Zion on a cold desert night and had to fly home from Vegas in an undrugged stupor. That was one of the most miserable experiences I've ever had, flying sick. All day, I just wanted to scream because of how the torture was dragging out. I was drained physically, and mentally I was at about 1/4 capacity. I felt like I'd been up for a week straight, when in reality I'd spent about 11 hours the previous night in a cold sweat in the hotel bed passing in and out of sleep.

Oh, and the flu (fever, anyway) made me cancel my trip back to Philly this weekend for my Grandfather's 90th birthday. Major bummer. But a virus is no kind of present to bring to a party with your elderly relatives. And they're predicting a blizzard in PA this weekend anyway, there'll probably be major hassles with the flights.

It's looking like they might fly me back to Rochester mid-february too. I'll be on a recruiting/networking mission, and I'll plan on giving a technical talk or two, probably on Portal.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/4270629/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/4270629/ Sat, 08 Jan 2005 15:15:30 PST
updates later, maybe. Now, I study.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/4182054/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/4182054/ Wed, 29 Dec 2004 00:21:32 PST
1. The tsunamis have killed almost 66,000 people. So far. [link]
2. The American response to an attack which killed approximately 3000 of us was two wars which have cost hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands more of our own lives.
3. Our country's pledge to reparations is 35 million dollars. [link]

Why, why, oh why can't we spend our money to preserve life instead of destroy it?

My conclusion is that we have to take matters into our own hands. My family was a bit irked, I think, that their Christmas presents consisted of some used CDs I bought online and some things I came across in the last year which I think will be better enjoyed by them than me. But I'm going to take the money I saved, and the money I was planning on spending on clothes for myself, and give it to UNICEF. And IBM will match my donation, so that'll help. I just need to figure out how much I can give.

I'd encourage anyone who reads this to think about it and give to [link] . We just got finished spending lots of money to make our own lives a little bit better, don't we owe something to the survivors who are still in peril because they can't get clean water?

[/rant] ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/4112664/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/4112664/ Mon, 20 Dec 2004 16:10:35 PST

The weekend was busy and filled with various parties, and sunday I rode to the NARG and climbed a bit, and rode home. I also took care of some various bits around the house and... and... I just realize this is both vague and boring.

So.

Because I don't have time to write a funny story or something, I'm going to outsource being interesting to this guy. He's a professor at one of the grad programs I'm applying to--ITP at NYU. He's got a bunch of really interesting articles about social and internet patterns.

If that doesn't strike your fancy, you could try one of my all-time favorite musicians, who also blogs: [link] But he claims to be on some sort of vacation.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/4031003/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/4031003/ Fri, 10 Dec 2004 08:53:55 PST
1. Race trains across crossings
2. Stick paperclips in electrical sockets
3. Use your neighbor's unencrypted wireless connection to do anything remotely private

It would appear that several of my passwords were stolen, and quite possibly my financial information was compromised. Packet sniffing is not a difficult thing to do, and though my neighbor may be clueless enough to leave the default settings on a wireless router, there may have been other people on the network who stole my info. No idea. But a series of seeming coincidences have given me concern.

So tonight I called and reported my CC stolen, just to be safe; tomorrow I'll try to go change my bank account number and PIN as well. Changed all my passwords, and will possibly cancel my paypal, ebay accounts, etc. DeviantPrints also has some old expired credit card info of mine as well, last i checked. So that's a ton of fun.

The climbing trip to hueco tanks was fantastic. Here are the first of the pictures: [link] .


Uhm, other news... not so much. Applying to grad school. Working. Climbing. Writing songs, recording them. Occasional art. Rereading Catch-22, which is brilliant. Here is a song in progress: phonely

Tomorrow repeats the eternal question: go drinking downtown with friends, or try yoga in partial pursuit of a ladyfriend of mine? At the moment, I'm leaning yoga--I'm not much of a bar crawler. Been meaning to try yoga for a long time. Flexibility and strength are good for climbers and humans.

Also, tomorrow should mark the (near) end of my quest to decorate my apartment, when my custom-ordered italian sofa arrives. I peed myself with anticipation thrice today. Only the walls remain primarily vanilla. I have attempted to remedy that with a collage of watercolored newspaper, but so far I can't say that I like what I've done. Perhaps dyed tissue paper would work better. (Can't paint, it's an apartment.)
edit: it arrived this morning, here's a picture: [link]
the paintings are by *blindedangel, ` jasinski, and ~tokoloshee, from left to right.

Oh, in other news: I am finding this site increasingly difficult to browse at work, and therefore increasingly difficult to visit at all. In part, this is because of time. But more critically, it's because of the seemingly growing amount of nudity. It obviously doesn't upset me in the slightest, I just don't want to be caught browsing something inappropriate at work. And DA makes it hard to avoid. *garmr, your illustrated boobies are showing. And there's no way to know that before actually going there. If someone's got *signalbox's work in their favorites, and many do, there's no way I can know it before stumbling across it. DeviantART should really have more powerful censoring capabilities, for people in my situation, and for kids as well. There's a lot of goodness here, but there's a lot that is totally inappropriate for my 13-year old sister too.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/3908855/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/3908855/ Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:36:50 PST
I'd like to take a moment to say... *ahem*


...



WOOWOOOOOOOOOOO!


and trust me, if I could kick that font up about 70 decibels, I would. Pictures upon my (hopefully triumphant and uninjured) return.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/3879580/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/3879580/ Sat, 20 Nov 2004 15:28:26 PST
I also feel like I'm not getting out enough... but I did get out, just last weekend, and met someone new. She's cute and fun and outdoorsy. Called this Wednesday to see about making plans for this weekend; she said she was going back to the place where we met to try and climb again. (We got rained out last week.) But stupid texas rained on us again, and so when I couldn't find some friends to share the 2-hour drive with, I hedged my bets, staying home and working, cleaning, reading, guitaring, etc. I've spent very little time on myself lately, so I figured a rainy day writing and so on would be well spent. It did thunderstorm again, so I was sort of vindicated, but it seemed a stalemate, at best, not a victory.

Got my car fixed. $1226. Got it registered in Texas and plates on it. $85. So that's the end of that saga. I hate cars and I hate driving. I do it as little as possible, which is not much; I walk to work and ride my bicycle to the gym and grocery store. But I'm driving to El Paso for thanksgiving.

The reason I'm going to El Paso for thanksgiving--and the mere thought of this should thrill me--is to go rock climbing at Hueco Tanks, one of the premier destinations in the US, especially for winter climbing. I've been there once before but didn't climb especially strong. I hope to be better this time.

If you'd like to hear three of the new songs I'm working on, be my guest. Please keep in mind, these are simply practice sessions I recorded for my own purposes and to get feedback from family and friends. There are a whole slew of playing errors and weaknesses with my singing. I'm trying to practice those out. Recording is actually a big help with that.
kitty - a story about the stray I took in this summer. Needs a final verse. Also, I've heard that it doesn't have enough fire, but generally when I put intensity into a song, control falls out, and that's bad. Breathing issues. Counting issues.

sunday - I'm trying to figure out which octave to sing in... I like the higher one better for use in this song, but obviously my voice is a little sloppy the second time. I think it's a combination of over-singing and poor breath control. The vibrato in the chorus is awful.

sarah - this one's really raw, and really recorded strictly for my own purposes... it's hard to evaluate whether a solo is any good while you're playing it. the recording levels are quite a bit higher on this one than the other two, you'll want to turn your speakers back down. All I'm doing here is practicing a couple of licks. I'm an even worse soloist than I am at doing rhythm and vocals.

Sorry for the excessive length again. I don't update this thing very often, so it tends to have a big load of information to report.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/3752988/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/3752988/ Thu, 04 Nov 2004 14:12:27 PST
***

I've resumed my literary habits, and come home often these days to soak myself in the words of Billy Collins. I'm also journaling for the first time in my life, catching the little thoughts which crawl around in my head like so many leggy insects. I'll let you know if I find anything interesting.

I've also resumed climbing and my guitar. I've recorded a half-dozen or more new songs but cannot share them because I have no webspace. They're not ready for public release anyway... they're just little one-takes to share with the 2 or 3 people who care and give me good feedback.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/3687792/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/3687792/ Wed, 27 Oct 2004 16:00:39 PDT halloween story.

He was never seen again.

One week later, his text was found.

***

Walker's head hurt. It was bad enough that he had been drinking heavily for the
last 18 hours, but now, he was being subjected to the bucket treatment. An
eight-gallon plastic bucket covered his head. It reeked of vomit.

Crack! The broomstick fell to the back of his head for the fifth time. Finally,
it was over. He had done it. Though his ears were ringing so loudly he could
hear nothing else, he removed the bucket, staggered over to the couch, and
passed out.

***

Walker never forgot that night, the final one of his pledge campaign. Though he
soon won popularity within the house, yes, and power, he never forgot. Amazing,
really, considering how little he actually remembered. Perhaps it was the
omission of details, then, that was the explanation for his prolonged and
terrible reign as pledge coordinator. Every four quarters, he came up for re-
election, and every four quarters he made promises of greater and stupider
initiations.

There was the year he made those stupid pledges push the dean's car right out of
the parking lot and into oncoming traffic. The time he made them write the
critical mass of uranium in huge block letters on the walls of the science
building. (Though he wasn't sure what 'critical mass' actually was, one of his
geekier brothers assured him that it was classified and very, very, bad.) One
of his personal favorites was the night that the all girls of Sigma Omega Delta
unknowingly donated their lingerie to the trees of campus. All in all, he had
led many successful programs.

None of it - none of it would save him when he incurred the wrath of the house.

The incident occurred on a fine october evening, and they were preparing that
year's halloween prank. Walker had obtained some choice leftovers from the
butcher, a full gallon of cow eyes. They were bloody and disgusting. They
stank. Deke house loved them. As soon as Walker showed them his prize, many of
them vomited. (This was natural, of course, it was thursday afternoon, and many
of the business majors were getting ready for the weekend.)

The question was, what to do with them. Float them, leering, in all the toilets
of the administrative building? No, too easily flushed. Perhaps in the "honor
society" fraternity's apple bobbing bin?

"OOOh, that has possibilities," thought Walker.

But finally, they settled on a much more visible and mean-spirited diplay - the
vegetarian cafe on campus. Minutes before the nice little establishment started
business, the boys snuck in and strung a line right over the main counter. From
the line, they hung little paper bags. Inside each bag was a single bull's eye.
the whole rig was nicely hidden by the tropical foliage providing "atmosphere."

Of course, the eyes were still bloody and wet with eye juices, and these began
collecting at the bottom of the bags. The quaint cafe had opened up, and
already there was a goodly sized crowd waiting for their lunches. The boys
didn't have to wait long. Within minutes, the first eye soaked its way through
a baggie. It gave up its tenuous position and gleefully fell to the counter.

It plummetted, splashing in a pool of blood onto the tray of a waifish looking
young woman. She screamed and fainted. The house, sitting nearby to watch the
fun, struggled to control itself. Giggles and snickers circulated among the
group as they all sat at the circular tables, eyes glued to the front.

The next few minutes were a joyful blur to the boys. People were attracted by
the screams, and so a crowd began to gather. This of course was perfect, as
still more eyes fell into the stunned and sickened crowd. Through it all, the
little men tried to sit still. Walker had allowed them all to come and watch
his genius in action - provided they didn't give the game away by making
themselves obvious. It was no use.

By the time the cascade had ended, several of the pledges had escaped into a
full tilt jeer. Hearty barrel laughs were heard from the rest; they leaned way
over their tables, faces stretched, as they struggled to breathe from laughing
so hard. Two or three had wet themselves. (This was natural, of course, it was
thursday evening, and many of the business majors... ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/3474285/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/3474285/ Wed, 29 Sep 2004 15:51:04 PDT
the 11-16th, I went hiking in upstate new york with my dad. We bagged a couple of peaks, one of which was new to me, bringing my total to 13. (Someday, I'll have all 46 in the area.) Spent a day or two back home, then flew back to Austin to catch the Austin City Limits fest--3 days, ~130 bands, ~100000 people each day.

Highlights of the festival, for me, included the Jack Johnson/G. Love/Donovan Frankenreiter combo, the three of whom shared each other's stages; Cake performed up to snuff; Los Lonely Boys put on an incredible show; and I made a few new discoveries (for me) which included Joe Ely, whose steel guitarist is a jaw-dropper; and a new band called Particle. For me, the best surprises and 5-star performances were Particle and a New Orleans band called Walter Washington and the Roadmasters. Check them out at [link] . He's got some songs posted, but they just can't compare to the vitality of his live set, which was unforgettable.

Oh yeah, Trey Anastasio put on a couple of very groovin' sets too. Some other acceptable acts included Modest Mouse, Ben Harper, and Sheryl Crow. In general, I found myself rockin' out a LOT harder with the smaller bands. Somehow, they seemed to put more fire in it. I like a concert to feature 2 basic parts: 1. some sort of mean groove that gets tirelessly laid down by the boys in back. 2. Intensity, building to catharsis, on the part of the soloists. Honesty in my singers, lightning in the fingers of my guitarists. yeah yeah yeah, oh YEAH! That's what I'm talking about! Seems like the bigger names all-too-often seemed content to stand up there and play straight ahead.

The next week was short as well, I had the afternoon off on Friday, and flew back to my buddies on the east coast. Landed in DC at 11, back to James's house by midnight, hit the road the next day, driving the 5 hours to go whitewater rafting. This trip was actually an IBM newhires trip, almost 70 of us, although they were all from Raleigh, where another of my best friends is working. Here are some pictures from that: [link] . In the boat pictures, I'm the third guy on the left of the boat, looking pretty focused.

So that's where I've been. Not that many people on DA would notice my absence anymore... sorry I don't have much time for you, I'm busy living a real life! (Believe it or not, I've actually been getting quite a bit of work done too. And I promise I'll have a few more submissions, maybe sometime in the next few weeks?)

Sorry that was so long!

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/3194852/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/3194852/ Mon, 23 Aug 2004 11:34:38 PDT
When we turned back and saw the roof of this (2-story) barge, the idea struck both of us at the same instant... we looked straight at each other with wide eyes and said, "Oooh! oooh!" It wasn't a roof, it was a slide! So it didn't take much longer for me to huck myself up there and give it a try. Turned out to be a bust though, my butt wasn't waxed enough or something, because even after pouring a cooler full of ice water (to chill the beers) down my backside, I still had to push myself down and just jump off. Oh well. (oh, in the webcam picture, I'm in long pants because I came straight from work. )

The next day, I went climbing in the gym. (First time since the pain in my arms.) I feel fat and weak. The whole time, I was walking around saying, "no crimpers, no crimpers, just climb the jugs."

The day after that, I was back up on a metal roof--this time with habitat for humanity, installing a vent from above the stove. I had to grind through the tin roof, which wasn't great because it threw red hot metal sparks all over my bare legs and feet. (It was very muddy, and I had to be barefoot to keep from falling.)

So I a regular monkey be. As an aside, they apparently have rated a climb I set at the gym a V6, which is a little harder than I had intended. (I wasn't done putting feet on it!) We'll have to see if it turns out to be a decent project for me. But first, I have to know my hands are back at 100%.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/3163317/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/3163317/ Thu, 19 Aug 2004 09:21:20 PDT
I have a few current projects: companion drawings for the one submitted with "untitled", and a couple mosaics made of torn, watercolored newspaper.

I'm starting to feel a need to do more art again so that I can put together a portfolio to apply to grad school. I don't think I can go next year, because I'll still be too poor, but I want to apply to find out how much they'll want me. The schools I'm considering are Carnegie Mellon and NYU. I've actually visited both programs. Great stuff.

It's interesting... on one hand, i'm still looking to the future, planning on getting out of here and moving in the direction I think I really want to go... on the other, I'm loving my job right here, right now. So the question: why am I trying to leave something I love?

Don't worry, I know the reasons, I'm not abandoning the plan. I just can't really explain them very well. The bigger question, the one which keeps me up at night is, "I thought we had such a good time! Why didn't she call me back?"

I mean, if she has to decline my next invitation, that's one thing. But the no-call? Why? And what am I supposed to do... find someone else and start again at square 1? A man gets tired of square 1, and the amount of work it takes to get to square 2 or 3, only to have it get thrown away.

It's tricky. And honestly, I'm surprised that a guy with an outgoing personality and bright future, who's in superb physical shape, would still have trouble in a city full of young women. But I do. *shrug* Oh well. Obviously I'm still doing something wrong, I can either work on fixing it or ignore the problem and play my guitar. She still loves me.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2868088/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2868088/ Mon, 12 Jul 2004 22:20:05 PDT
1) Using band names, spell out your name.
Presidents of the United States
Hendrix
In Flames
Live

Lagwagon
Indigo Girls
Gabby Pahinui's Hawaiian band
House of Pain
Trans Am

2) Have you ever had a song written about you?
no, unless you count something i've written, which doesn't count, i don't think.

3) What song makes you cry?
Melissa by the Allman Brothers is the only song to actually bring me to the brink

4) What song makes you happy?
PUSA - Froggie
I also have Hendrix - Voodoo Chile slight return in my head about once a day.

5) What do you like to listen to before bed?
Beethoven, Cannibal Corpse, Bela Fleck, Ween, whatever--look, there really aren't any short answers when it comes to my musical tastes. Music is the closest thing to divinity i've ever felt.

a p p e a r a n c e
HEIGHT: 5ft 4”
HAIR COLOR: brownish blonde, reddish on my face
SKIN COLOR: now that i'm in texas, i'm cultivating a stout farmer's tan.
EYE COLOR: greenish blue. i like my eyes, they're very adaptive.
PIERCINGS: no
TATTOOS: no


r i g h t - n o w
WHAT COLOR PANTS ARE YOU WEARING?: beige jeans
WHAT SONG ARE YOU LISTENING TO OR WATCHING?: Ani Difranco - Come Away from It
WHAT TASTE IS IN YOUR MOUTH?: plasticated rubber (my headphones wire)
WHAT'S THE WEATHER LIKE?: barely bearably hot
HOW ARE YOU?: now that i've recovered from a weekend illness (strep throat?), super awesome!


d o - y o u
GET MOTION SICKNESS?: Not in general
HAVE A BAD HABIT?: farting.
GET ALONG WITH YOUR PARENTS?: splendidly. my 'rents are awesome.


f a v o r i t e s
TV SHOW: Frontline, the PBS documentary. But i don't own a tv and i hope i never will. Life's too precious to give to a box.
MAGAZINE: Sports Illustrated, technical journals, science stuff, puzzles, cosmo, whatever. I think I prefer a decent newspaper.
SODA: i probably have about 3 cans/month. root beer, i guess--no caffeine.
THING TO DO ON THE WEEKEND: volunteer, rock out, get caught up on work, bake, clean, sleep, concerts

h a v e - y o u
BROKEN THE LAW: i have a substantial mp3 collection.
RAN AWAY FROM HOME: 200 times. i always come back right after i finish working out.
SNUCK OUT OF THE HOUSE: what, my apartment? not much cause for that, now is there?
EVER GONE SKINNY DIPPING: yes
MADE A PRANK PHONE CALL: yeah. but my answering machine messages were more noteworthy.
EVER TIPPED OVER A PORTA POTTY: i like to think of myself as not a jerk
USED YOUR PARENTS' CREDIT CARD BEFORE: well, before i had one
SKIPPED SCHOOL BEFORE: not before freshman year of college, and hardly ever after.
FELL ASLEEP IN THE SHOWER/BATH: no. came close a few times.
BEEN IN A SCHOOL PLAY: what are we, 14? yeah--about 10 years ago
LET A FRIEND CRY ON YOUR SHOULDER: yes
EVER HAD A MAJOR REGRET: karen. also a loooong time ago.


l o v e
BOYFRIEND: uh, i'm straight. so no.
CHILDREN: no
BEEN IN LOVE?: not for real
HAD A HARD TIME GETTING OVER SOMEONE: of course
BEEN HURT?: nyeap
YOUR GREATEST REGRET? uh. right now i'm dandy, thanks.

r a n d o m
DO YOU HAVE A JOB: a fantastic one.
YOUR CD PLAYER HAS IN IT RIGHT NOW: Faithless - Outrospective.
IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?: white. critical in nearly every composition.
WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY?: waking up
WHO MAKES YOU THE HAPPIEST?: hard to answer--maybe the combination of my family and the family across the street: the blend is one of cacophony and delight.
WHAT'S THE NEXT CD YOU'RE GONNA GET?: no clue. last one i bought was Mike Doughty - Rockity Roll, which I bought from the man himself. I don't like paying record companies very much.
WHO DO YOU CONSIDER GOOD FRIENDS?: my three closest are from college, we've all scattered though. and climbers make good friends--you don't trust your life to just any yahoo.

w h e n / w h a t - w a s - t h e - l a s t
TIME YOU CRIED?: when my father's mother passed away, in 1993 or so. in 2000 i came close once, on the job, and it wasn't pretty.
YOU GOT A REAL LETTER?: postcard, about 3 months ago
YOU GOT E-MAIL: a couple minutes ago.
TV PROGRAM YOU WATCHED: don't remember. it's been at least 2 months.
MOVIE YOU SAW AT THE THEATER: Casablanca


y o u r - t h o u g h t s - o n
ABORTION: pro choice
TEENAGE SMOKING: pretty stupid and revolting. look, if you want to, it's your lungs, but i've never taken anything... ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2735112/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2735112/ Fri, 25 Jun 2004 16:39:09 PDT
Career
- The new job is going great. I'm "ramping up" just about as quickly as I'd hoped, which means that when I sit down once a week for one-on-ones with my manager, it takes me about 15 minutes to describe all the work I'm doing and what I'm learning. My team is spread widely across the continent, so there are lots of cross-time-zone conference calls. I've been learning voices, not faces--kind of an interesting twist on things. This week I felt comfortable enough with the design to begin writing some code, although there's still quite a bit of studying I must do before I'm ready to tackle the "heavy lifting."

My officemate was actually let go in my first week here. The ensuing shuffle brought an instantaneous increase to my work; instead of going after some "low-hanging fruit" for the first few months, I'm on the development team for this upcoming version. It's a good opportunity for me to really step in and show what I can do. So far, I'm proud of myself--no screwups either technically or professionally. Only downer is that my hands are starting to hurt again from the typing and my hobbies.

Ultimate
- I've signed up for the Austin ultimate frisbee summer league. I play on Tuesdays, and I play hard. I'm in great shape, so when I've fed myself properly I've got plenty of "go juice," but it can be tricky to get playing time--my team is quite skilled and large. Actually, all the teams are large because of the relative lack of women. The league is much more serious, and skilled than I've ever played before, but there's a lot of focus on sportsmanship, which makes it fun. Oh! And `matteo is one of the captains! He's really cool and throws a mean flicker from about ankle-high.

Guitar
- Thursdays, I've gotten started on my guitar lessons. They're going great so far, I'm recovering some long-lost knowledge and gaining some new stuff. I'm also pleasantly surprised with how much I already just know. I still manage to practice probably around an hour a day, averaging in days I miss it (which are very rare.)

Volunteering
- Saturdays, I've been volunteering at Habitat for Humanity. It's another(!) great way to work out, meet people, and have fun, this time while doing some good for someone else. Here's a pic of me onsite: [link] I'm the short dude leaning against the doorframe. Sorry for the big size and low detail, nothing i can do. So far, I've always eaten for free all day while doing this too--another benefit, considering the $30 sushi lunches which have become a weekly ritual as well.

Kitten!
- I took in a stray kitten which was on my stairs one morning. He's a little loose cannonball. I haven't picked a name yet (and I'm still half-heartedly trying to find him a better home) but I'm leaning towards keeping him and naming him Mamba. He's plain black. Suggestions?

Homemaking
- I'm still furniture/rug shopping. It takes hours and hours, and I hate it. I've picked out a modern Italian sofa which I love, but won't decide on a color until I can find a decent area rug to match with. This has proven much more challenging so far, although Austin has come through yet again with stores. I'm about a mile away from a furniture nexus--maybe 20 or more furniture stores. I've probably been to at least 15.

Oh! And I now know how to stir-fry. Yum yum! And I still bake my own bread from scratch every once in a while because it's good. Almost every day, I make a smoothie for/with breakfast, and hand-tossed salads with lunch.

Climbing
- I'm still climbing once or twice a week, I don't know how. It turns out that one of the new interns in the program I just completed is a really strong, (better than me, by far) uber-cool climber chick who's also a programmer. Needless to say, I have something of a little crush forming.

Concerts
- Tomorrow, I'm going to see a whole bunch of bands at the warped tour in Dallas. NOFX and Flogging Molly will probably be highlights for me, but there's a bargeload of great bands to see--8 hours, 6 simultaneous stages. Remind me to take earplugs though. Also, I highly doubt that tomorrow will top two weeks ago, when I went to Clapton's Crossroads Festival and saw a 1... ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2519431/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2519431/ Thu, 27 May 2004 07:51:21 PDT
On the day of the funeral I got a call from (who became) my new manager at IBM. She made me an offer which was significantly more than I was expecting, which thrilled me. I found myself in the extremely difficult position of having to choose between two exciting positions; it was a decision I'd been anticipating for a long time, and was really having trouble making.

I made a whirlwind visit to Rochester, climbed for a few days, treated the gang to sushi, and moved my sister's stuff back home from her dorm room. She also got a job offer on the day of the funeral--this one an internship in Boston for the summer.

So I bit the bullet, made my decision, and called both managers. Then I came home, and began scheming on how to get the rest of my stuff to texas and how to furnish the apartment. The last three months, I've been sleeping and working on the floor; a folding table and chairs was all I needed. But now, after 6 years, I'm moving out of "transient bachelor student" mode and into "young professional" mode. This means furniture. My first piece is a red leather recliner.

So it's a bit of the old, a bit of the new life for me. Familiar are the moving, the working, and the living by myself. New is having money--not just money to buffer the checking account, but money for saving, for investment, for grad school. It's weird--setting myself a stringent budget with that goal in mind while suddenly finding myself in the upper income tax bracket.

Creatively, I'm expecting to be having a lively time as well. I'm going to (finally!) get myself guitar lessons and take some painting classes. I'm also going to try and play more Go and Ultimate Frisbee. I'm going to try to run 2 hours a week in addition to the usual 3-5 hours of climbing. I swear I'm going to suck the marrow out of life and exploit every opportunity that Austin can throw at me. My brain is a voracious little bastard, and I feel like I'm sitting down to the best smorgasbord I've ever seen.

Honestly, right now, there's no one and nowhere I'd rather be. I just miss Gremere.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2337183/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2337183/ Sat, 01 May 2004 11:33:12 PDT
Then I went back to Austin and got not one but two (!) exciting verbal full-time offers at IBM. If they both follow through, it'll be a really tough decision. But I will be incredibly psyched to stay in Austin as well. Of all the places I've lived in the last five years, I like Austin the best (by far.) I don't think I want to get too established there, I still feel like I belong in the mountains, but for the next year or two it'll be wonderful.

So I went and told the apartment complex that I'm staying on, not moving as I said I was. They said that was OK at first, then the next morning called me and told me that they had leased out my place and that I had to move. So I spent Tuesday carrying my entire apartment down the row and up two flights of stairs. I did it all on my back and just made myself keep smiling.

And now I'm taking a week or two to visit friends, family, and RIT. At the moment, I'm in North Carolina visiting with two of my best friends, James and the Pratdawg. Tomorrow or Monday, I'll take the train to PA and visit my family, hopefully both sets of grandparents, and then head up to RIT. I'll give a lecture or two at school and hang out with my climbing buddies.

So I'm sort of here, online from time to time, but not really with much time to devote to the site. Screw you guys! I haven't seen my friends in a long time.

***

Hey, here's the first two paragraphs of a short story I started a while ago. It's a couple pages long now, but I hate it. does anyone think this opening is interesting enough that you want to see more?

The dead had nothing on Albert Morris. He had managed, through years of unrelenting neglect, to attain that rare state of putrefaction by which it is possible to outstink even the grim departed. Since leaving home and going to college, he had (completely) redefined the previously known limits of human stench. Lawless, wild, his odor raged throughout the dorms like a storm across the plains. There was no escape.

Not that his new floormates didn't try--for a few uneasy, uncertain weeks they underestimated the magnitude of the force they were up against. Surely, with closed doors and open windows, they could avoid the noxious fumes? No! Doors cannot stay sealed forever, and when they were finally cracked, the foul air raced in like an eager and horribly unwelcome guest. And it stayed even longer.

...



***



-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2231824/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2231824/ Thu, 15 Apr 2004 21:21:00 PDT
Tomorrow is the last day of my best "real" job ever. I worked harder, got more done, had more fun, ate more free food, made more friends, got paid more, and improved my career more than any job has before. For the first time in my life, I'm going to miss a computer lab. Not just the stress (which I've missed in the past, surprisingly) but the people, the work environment, the everything.

And I'm somewhat flabbergasted to find myself loving a company. IBM has been better to me than I ever thought a big, soulless bastion of corporate America possibly could be. I'm not only willing to go to work here, but I'm eager to find myself the place where I can contribute the most and make my mark. And I'm sure that wherever I wind up, I will be surrounded by top-notch colleagues. Quite a change for this would-be hippie who only a year ago saw a flock of bleating sheep in my jobhunting peers.

On DA, I'm about to go through a renewal phase. When I first came here, i commented myself sore (literally, carpal tunnel started then.) But over time, I got lured into the forums, particularly the writing one. Eventually, I all but stopped commenting, and posted a lot there. I felt bad for losing focus on what originally brought me here--the art and poetry. But as the site grew, it just became so hard to find the worthwhile stuff, and the forum always supplied a group of ready and eager participants.

But now, I feel like that's changed too. The threads, they are all the same threads that I said my piece in a year and a half ago, there's no point in posting anymore. The last 4 times or so that I tried to spice things up by running creativity games, the responses were lukewarm at best. Prizes don't motivate anymore. Formal contests seem to keep getting delayed or cancelled. My personal stagnation seems to be a common phenomenon.

So it's time to take my efforts back to where they will do the most good--to supporting and critiquing art and writing, in depth, whenever I can. To writing and painting and singing myself. I'll do my best--I miss that half of myself. I'll post when and if I can, but to be honest I don't really want comments anymore because I'm so horrible at getting back to people.



Anyway, enough negativity! Here's some things which have me super-excited these days:
- This weekend I'll get some decent speakers in my car and drive to El Paso, where I will go bouldering at Hueco Tanks for 3-5 days. I will also try to find time to visit Carlsbad. road trip!

- The honeysuckle is blooming near my apartment. There's perhaps no other growing thing which evokes such a response in me. The powerful, pervasive aroma takes me at once to my childhood, the first taste of nectar, and also to my future, marked by abounding love for my wife. I don't know yet who she'll be, but she's going to remind me of honeysuckle, that much is sure. And she's going to be happy.

- There are swallows under my eaves. Incredible birds. The way they swoop and zip around like little laser-winged fighter jets leaves me gaping.

- Running farther and longer than I ever have in my life, as was done recently in the parking garage across the street. "Alexander Salamander" "Elvis Presley, loves the lesbys." "I'm a wookie. Please don't cook me." These, and many more, get repeated ad nauseum when I run. I used to hate, to loathe, to abhor running. Now I'm starting to crave the endorphins.

- talking to Haley, chilling with Amy, eating with Ron, calling my sisters.

- visiting RIT and (hopefully) lecturing there when I do. Seeing the dudes at the barn and doing a little razing.

- The solo for one of my favorite songs (among my own) is starting to come together. I've been working on it for weeks. I'm also starting to get somewhere on Jesu, joy of man's desiring.

- the other night I bought myself some new peanut butter (having consumed 5 pounds in about 2.5 months) and nutella. Sweet ambrosia.



OK, gotta work--bugs to fix.
-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2121491/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2121491/ Wed, 31 Mar 2004 09:23:44 PST
i'm regularly found these days wandering around the IBM site at 2-4 AM either playing my guitar under the blossoming trees, (so as to not disturb the neighbors) or running laps on the top floor of the parking garage. I'm setting personal bests and it feels good. It's also the only time I seem to have for working out. although I've still been climbing some.

tomorrow, I'll be leaving to go to washington for an interview with microsoft. I'll be gone for a few days.

apparently, last night a small golden lizard slinked under my door and this morning was waiting for me as I went to my shower. i let him alone for a couple reasons: 1. i love lizards (although perhaps not in my apartment) 2. he probably enjoys eating insects. 3. that sucker was slick and fast. He'll be hard to catch. 4. the last thing i need on my carpet is a bloody, wiggling lizard tail.

It did remind me, though, of the last time i had a noteworthy pest/guest: two years in north carolina there was a roach in my apartment which was roughly the size of a school bus. That sucker was so big that i hunted it by LISTENING for the bastard. Actually, that was how i discovered it in the first place--lying in bed and hearing it scurry across my papers in the dead of night. not cool.

It must have been a funny sight, me in my boxers in the middle of the night, one bare foot, the other in a big-ass boot, weilding a toilet plunger like Thor's hammer. I can remember wailing on that thing and it just kept on running like it was nothing.

*ah, memories*

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2065324/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2065324/ Mon, 22 Mar 2004 19:55:37 PST suture) who sort through the piles of crap to bring me a couple of nuggets. To the ones (such as my watch list) who consistently submit those nuggets.

And also to those of you who continue to stick around, support, and laugh with me; I feel like such a jerk because I so rarely take the time to respond like I should. In a given day, I spend about 10 minutes on this site--enough to check my devwatch and the forums.

It very well could be, although it's hard to say at this point, that this site will wind up changing my life. It's one of the biggest reasons that I actually follow through on my creative efforts, and have allowed the artistic side of myself to open up the last few years. And now I've been looking into grad schools where I can get some more formal training, and add art/design/human interface to my resume. It is a goal that I will complete, barring any distractions such as money or women.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2043468/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2043468/ Fri, 19 Mar 2004 13:40:07 PST Name: Phil Light

Birth date: 3-13-81

Birthplace: Lancaster, PA

Current location: Austin, TX

Eye color: Greenish Blue

Hair color: Blond on my head, reddish on my face.

Height: 5'4", 5'5" or so.

Righty or Lefty: Write right, throw/bat left, racket sports right, guitar right (which means my left is doing the chords... ) It's funny, I do different types of frisbee throws with different hands.

Innie or Outie: Are any adults outies?

Zodiac Sign: Pisces

Current mood: Magnificent

Current hair: been cutting it myself for around 5 years now. long enough so i don't look bald, short enough so that i don't need to take care of it.

Current annoyance: none. really, right now i'm splendid.

Current thing you ought to be doing: writing code for IBM. (i'm waiting for the server to reboot.)

Current desktop picture: my latest fav, by ~lunarpig

Current worry: my grandmother's health, and that my ongoing fight with carpal tunnel syndrome will keep me from doing the things i love.



Layer Two: DESCRIPTION

Your race: german & irish ancestry

Your weakness: disorganization, distractibility, insensitivity, many others

Your fears: i don't scare easily. read 'highline' to see me scared.

Goal you'd like to achieve: musical talent, to design for a living


Layer Three: TELL
Your most overused phrase on AIM: hahahahah

Your first thoughts when waking up: hot DAWG!

Your best physical feature: the guns!

Your bedtime: naturally, 5-7 AM. responsibly, 12-1:30 AM

Your greatest accomplishment: Graduating from RIT, giving the commencement address before about 4-5 thousand people. Some of my climbing exploits make me feel like a badass.

Most missed memory: (illegally) sleeping on top of a boulder for about a week in Yosemite this past summer. good stories, and perhaps the most sublime contentment I've ever felt.



Layer Four: YOU PREFER
Pepsi or Coke: i avoid both.

McDonald's or Burger King: ditto.

Single or Group Dates: depends on the woman.

Adidas or Nike: I have some Nike stock, so them.

Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: don't care

Chocolate or vanilla: peanut butter

Cappuccino or coffee: don't drink either



Layer Five: DO YOU
Smoke: never a single drag. never will.

Cuss: too much

Sing well: not yet. but i will.

Have a crush(es): yeah...

Do you think you've been in love: been well on my way with someone i couldn't have, and therefore couldn't tell. that hurt.

Want to get married: you bet. i'd really rather just skip all this dating nonsense...

Believe in yourself: yes. push me.

Get motion sickness: very rarely

Think you're attractive: try to do my part.

Think you're a health freak: I have a Grecian mentality--strong body, sound mind. Neither can be at their peak without the other.

Like thunderstorms: love 'em

Play an instrument: guitar, trumpet, harmonica, drums.


Layer Six: PAST MONTH HAVE YOU

worked your ass off: yes

done much of anything else: no ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2007458/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/2007458/ Sat, 13 Mar 2004 22:08:18 PST
The application, featuring huge masses of poorly designed, sketchy and undocumented code which I did not write, is doing its best to make my life miserable.

I say, BRING THE PAIN. You think you can best me? Drag me down and make me stupid? You know not with whom you trifle, mortal.

The last few hours (12 through 15) have been pure adrenaline, but it feels good. It's amazing the way the body really does respond. I don't need food, water, or sleep. I NEED CARNAGE. I need these endless lines of spaghetti code bludgeoned until they lay twitching in a pool of their own blood.

It's been about a year since I've been in this state, and honestly I wouldn't want to stay here long. It's not good for you.


But it still feels pretty satisfying.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1975694/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1975694/ Mon, 08 Mar 2004 16:25:30 PST
lemme know what you think; although keep in mind that at this point not much time/effort has been spent on wording. For me, poems are icebergs falling off a glacier.


***

rumor spills out of her like a bounteous harvest;
succulent and exotic fruits--
in the very same colors
as the plastic curlers in her hair

***

his comebacks are canned,
recycled and canned--
but he's got enough
to endure nuclear winter

***

lawless, wild,
his stench raged throughout the dorms
like a storm across the plains
there was no escape

***

11:57
newborn high-volume dreams downstairs,
why can't they see it's a stillbirth?


***

covered in hallowed tourist-trampled dirt,
an overlooked man writes
the homeless interpretation to quantum mechanics

***



and here's something more mature, which I posted here in november. I now have another partial verse/stanza for it. I'm trying to finish it in time for a poetry slam (which I'll go to with Amy) although I'm really hesitant to rhyme, actually. Can I be forgiven because of the complex structure?

***

look at how the rain shimmers on the pane in the night
like a field of stars, lit up by the cars letting light
wander from their incandescent luminescent lamps
the jewels slide, then trip and glide, and leave me in a trance

leave me in a trance
leave me in a trance

watch a single drop loitering atop of the frame
waiting for a chance to do a little dance down the same
walking in a dazzling wet galaxy alone
he finds a mate, then races straight down to his waiting home

to his waiting home
two are going home

watch the wiper blades work their weary ways back and forth
rhythm that they ply helps me as i drive to the north
eliminating the perpetrating smattering of drops
da duh da duh, da duh da duh--the rhythm never stops

rhythm never stops
rhythm never stops

***

and I think it should come to a better close than that.

just like this journal.

hmm....

two hundred nipples! chocolate cake!

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1923859/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1923859/ Sat, 28 Feb 2004 21:46:34 PST
And at work, I write mediocre code very very slowly.

it's interesting, and believe it or not, it's kind of a good feeling. I think that too often I pat myself on the back for being multi-talented. Honestly, I'm not remarkably good at anything. Nor are any my skills particularly unusual.

The world is out there, waiting to be learned and felt and expressed, and I feel like I'm in a sort of perpetual kindergarten.

It's exciting, but I'm about to turn 23--will I remain a novice forever? How will I know when I've accomplished somthing?

Oh, interesting enough, I've been a member here for two years now.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1885957/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1885957/ Sat, 21 Feb 2004 22:05:11 PST NARG. (Great acronym, that.) The comp took all day and I placed well--won my division and placed 10th overall out of the 92 guys who entered. Not bad, considering I didn't have a particularly strong day.

I really didn't like the USA format as much as ABS, for a number of reasons. The biggest was the use of official judges, because it meant that between every burn was a 15 or so minute wait. It's all but impossible to get a good session going when you have to wait that long to try again. The other major downer was that you were only allowed 5 attempts per problem, which obviously hinders a guy's ability to send problems which are close to his limit.

And there were a bunch of other things I didn't like--but this is an art site, not a climbing site, so I'll leave it at that. The gym did a great job of setting problems and running the show, which is no mean feat with that many participants, many of them kids.

So after the comp, I went to one of my favorite parts of Texas--Taco Cabana! That place is just friggin' awesome, and such a staple now. I have probably been averaging 3 or so black bean burritos a week, they're scrumptious and (i hope) not as artery-clogging as, say, a burger and fries. Very filling, very good, very fast and well worth the money.

Overall, Austin is probably the best place I've ever lived in terms of the number of fantastic things I can put in my mouth. I've hit up a lot of different cuisines, and been loving them all. And I'm starting to really love Texan BBQ now, which is a surprise--I'd always thought of BBQ in the south as this superfatty, overspiced, greasy mess...

no wait a minute. That's exactly what it is. But sweet mother of mercy it's good sometimes.

OK, gotta go. Carpal tunnel flaring up again.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1849422/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1849422/ Sun, 15 Feb 2004 11:34:58 PST

Climbing again. Getting some strength back. Doing it to keep fit; had gotten horribly out of shape in the last few months. Sending "V4s" (gym ratings, bleh) pretty consistently, which feels great. Competition coming up, looking forward to it.

Creative pursuits primarily consisting of songwriting. Have recorded a bit more, will try to post before too long to put before my review committee. You have no idea how incredible it feels to have people asking me to write more songs.

***update:***
Three O'Clock (guitar, vocals): [link]
Snowy Day (guitar only): [link]
Star (guitar, harmonica, vocals): [link]
House of the Rising Sun (guitar, vocals): [link]

None of these are particularly good, because I recorded them all in one or two takes. That said, I like them all and will continue to work on them.
****




No scanner, no internet connection at home, so odds are slim on new paintings or drawings. Will try to finish a poem or two, however. Again, literary effort being directed towards lyrics.

Carpal Tunnel symptoms beginning to return--got braces for wrists. If I have to stop climbing or playing guitar, I may suddenly fall into pit of stressed depression. I'll keep my fingers crossed. At least this time, I got a jump on it and didn't ignore anything.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1845943/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1845943/ Sat, 14 Feb 2004 18:22:49 PST

Climbing again. Getting some strength back. Doing it to keep fit; had gotten horribly out of shape in the last few months. Sending "V4s" (gym ratings, bleh) pretty consistently, which feels great. Competition coming up, looking forward to it.

Creative pursuits primarily consisting of songwriting. Have recorded a bit more, will try to post before too long to put before my review committee. You have no idea how incredible it feels to have people asking me to write more songs.

No scanner, no internet connection at home, so odds are slim on new paintings or drawings. Will try to finish a poem or two, however. Again, literary effort being directed towards lyrics.

Carpal Tunnel symptoms beginning to return--got braces for wrists. If I have to stop climbing or playing guitar, I may suddenly fall into pit of stressed depression. I'll keep my fingers crossed. At least this time, I got a jump on it and didn't ignore anything.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1689604/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1689604/ Fri, 16 Jan 2004 10:39:07 PST
A yankee's observations about Texas:
1. There are virtually no cars. On the highway, I counted the number of cars: 3 in the first 50 vehicles, 6 in the second 50. Everyone drives trucks. Heck, even the cops have F150s! I couldn't believe it.

2. In other states, when they hang the state flag, it hangs on the same pole and just below the national flag. In Texas, the state flag gets its own pole, and durn me if it ain't a couple inches taller. Most people don't even bother with the US flag.

3. Grits, it turns out, are not any sort of meat at all, but instead some sort of bigger, blander, cream of wheat. I haven't yet figured out how you're supposed to eat them. The waitress asked me how I wanted them prepared, and I was stymied: I almost said, "medium rare." I guess I could have just written YANKEE in big red letters on my forehead, or better yet, FOREIGNER.

4. Good lord it's going to be hot here. I was running the AC briefly on the drive down, thinking, "this is insane--it's the middle of January. My sisters are in cities which are both well below freezing right now." (I later discovered that the reason I kept thinking I was hot that I had sunburned my left ear, just my left ear, from driving southwest all day long.


***

So anyway, I got all set up, managed to get the keys to my apartment on the same evening that I arrived, moved in, and collapsed. Now I have to figure something out for furniture: renting will cost about as much as an entire month's apartment rent. I'm thinking thrift-store or maybe inflatable chairs, bean bags or something.


So I guess I'll have to start working on my drawl... welp, I reckon I gotta git.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1525164/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1525164/ Fri, 12 Dec 2003 12:06:23 PST Man did I have to piss."



Modern novels:

guterson: snow falling on cedars 9
harris: five quarters of the orange 8
barron: the ancient one 1
sung-hwa hong: first kyu 5
rowling: harry potter 1-5 6
orwell: animal farm 9
shaara: the last full measure 6
kerouac: on the road (abandoned) 7
crichton: the great train robbery 7
crichton: prey 3
hemingway: a farewell to arms (abandoned) 2
hemingway: for whom the bell tolls (abandoned) 2
rand: the fountainhead 7


Short story collections, essays, poetry

orwell: collection of essays 4
sedaris: naked 10
sedaris: me talk pretty some day 10
dahl: switch bitch 9
dahl: ah, sweet mystery of life 9
collins: picnic, lightning 8
silverstein: light in the attic 8


Classics:
poe: various tales, arthur gordon pym of nantucket 9
melville: moby dick (currently)
sophocles: oedipus rex 7
sun-tzu: the art of war 3
billy S: othello 6
billy S: king lear 6


Fantasy and sci fi

tolkein: lord of the rings 10
tolkein: roverandom 2
tolkein: silmarillion (not read sequentially) -
jordan: wheel of time 1-7 5
orwell: 1984 10
asimov: prelude to foundation 6

Nonfiction:

LeMonds: deadfall 4
Dr. King: autobiography of martin luther king 6
Heyerdahl: kon-tiki 8
dahl: Boy 8
dahl: going solo 7
?: van gogh 7
?: mc escher 8
101 greatest works of western civilization 8 ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1513752/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1513752/ Tue, 09 Dec 2003 20:20:01 PST
2 scoops vanilla ice cream (out of vanilla yogurt. )
1 large banana
1 large clump of grapes
~1 C orange juice
~3/4 C applesauce
1 T grape jelly (homemade, very runny, not much extra sugar. very flavorful)
2-3 C ice

all in the blender, until smooth. What do I call this devine concoction? A " smoothie?" Pshaw! Obviously, this is the recipe for Uncle Phil's Flavor Taste-Style Health Sauce

My dad loved it. I managed to part with 1/2 of a tall glass to him, while I drank the other 2 tall glasses. I believe I may be starting an addiction...


***

Tonight I played my first game of Go in about a month, perhaps. I had been avoiding it, unreasonably, because I don't like losing online. I hate feeling stupid, and Go does that to me sometimes. It's one of the few things in life (the guitar being another) that I am not learning quickly.

The subtleties of that game are almost incomprehensible. It is a dance, a fight, a puzzle, and elegant art all in one.

***

I applied for a job at a local grocery store. It'd be a way for me to make some money this month, but they haven't gotten back to me. I guess I might have to do the amusement park thing; I called around some other places and no one seemed interested in hiring for just December.

I need to start writing some code again, so I'm trying to think of projects for myself. My job is going to be in Java and work a lot with XML, so perhaps some more advanced XML/XSL studies... hmm.

There's also another idea I have that I want to start working on, but that would be C/C++, and it's such a huge undertaking (timeline, working alone: at least 5-6 years) that I don't even know where to begin. To prep for that one involves lots of study of physics and geometry, two subjects I haven't ever been particularly strong in, and haven't done for a very long time. Oh well, at least the physics would be mostly newtonian.

Oh, and it would involve a ton of calculus, probably, although hopefully I could avoid the differential equations. That would get ugly.

-PL-

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1496541/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1496541/ Fri, 05 Dec 2003 22:39:26 PST
The new pictures were taken by my friend tex on a recent climbing trip.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1484438/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1484438/ Wed, 03 Dec 2003 09:34:32 PST

I got a crazy cravin' for Sun-Maid raisins
Don't know what I'm gonna do
And every little time that I feel this way
I know I've gotta come and visit you

'Cause it's rainin' raisins and we catch 'em in basins
We catch 'em one by one and two by two!
Can't ever get enough, and even when I'm stuffed
I find a way to eat another few.

(dozen.)



and a song for an answering machine: (don't know if i'll ever be lame enough to use it)

I'm not here, but that's OK
'Cause you can leave a word
And just like that, I'll be right back
I promise to return
I always have returned [beep]


I'm kind of torn, because when I go to Tejas! I probably won't take my trumpet because it's just too dang noisy. But I should keep practising it...


-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1472453/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1472453/ Sun, 30 Nov 2003 18:06:27 PST
It makes me vexed and sad. I want to participate, want to be a positive influence to the community, but it's so hard when I'm just one jaded little man adrift in a sea of apathy. It's not even necessarily that there's a drought of talent here--more critically, there's a lack of people who care about what they're doing.


Second, the happier stuff: I had a lovely trip to NYU, rhode island, new hampshire, and boston. I did all of these:
checked out a very cool graduate program at tisch
sent some V3s, flashed V2s, sent a highball (25-30 feet or so) boulder problem (I'd call it V1/2)
had a great day with my sister at the Boston Science museum, saw an Omniverse movie about Lewis and Clark
purchased and read several new books on the train

and more recently, i've

gorged myself at 2 different thanksgiving dinners (including leftovers)
wrote a few new songs
made stromboli for my sister, who requested it before going back to RIT.
discovered about 650 forgotten dollars which I had left in my PayPal account.

life is good, and I look forward to work in a few weeks.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1422591/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1422591/ Wed, 19 Nov 2003 09:21:41 PST
I accepted an offer with IBM in Austin, TX. It starts in January. I'm very excited.

Microsoft has also been coming after me, I'm setting up a full-time interview with them. Makes me feel all warm and squishy inside... having income again will be nice.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1402751/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1402751/ Fri, 14 Nov 2003 23:35:08 PST

#1: rhythm study

Look at how the rain shimmers on the pane in the night
like a field of stars lit up by the cars letting light
wander from their incandescent luminescent lamps
the jewels slide, then slip-and-glide, and leave me in a trance

leave me in a trance
leave me in a trance

watch a single drop loitering atop of the frame
waiting for a chance to do the little dance down the same
walking in a dazzling wet galaxy alone
he finds a mate, then races straight down to his waiting home

to his waiting home
two are going home

... I'd like more stanzas, but I'm a bit stuck. Here are some rough ideas for next lines:

watch the wiper blades work their weary ways back and forth
never stopping once, 'till the job is done, swept away

... or perhaps i'd parallel the journey of the raindrops with my own (particularly after the "two are going home" bit.)




#2: the poem that won't die--written long ago and remembered, although i've always thought it sucks. But if I've remembered it all this time, it must have something to it, so I will revisit it at some point. Also, it's a subject that I feel very strongly about.


roads are the whip-scars across our dear mother's back
we drive her

and we unhoused our own brothers to make room for the track
deprivers

now we sit in our cars and just wait for the change
of red lights

but will we help it along or just stand like a deer
in headlights?



#3: really infant poem--living in the desert in a tent this summer was a really memorable experience. I'd like to try and capture the magnitude of that lonely sky in this one.


deep in the belly of the night along a stretch of desert highway
lost in the limitless sky, my eyes go soaring through the window




These poems have all been worked on while actually driving, and I suspect that is why they have such a strong focus on rhythm and rhyme. I don't always write with rhyme, although I'm always cognizant of meter. But driving, for some reason, seems like a very musical activity to me. Perhaps it's a deep association that I've formed from listening to so many hours of music while driving. Perhaps it's the sound of the road under your tires, the cracks in concrete and swish of the wipers. Perhaps it's the hours upon hours of monotony with nothing to do, all limbs and eyes occupied with the task of getting there safely, but the brain still churning away. ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1343391/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1343391/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 21:38:37 PST sat down with lord of the rings, and it was read.

have gone to the job fair, got interviews, gave interviews, took tests, applied to jobs, have taken climbing trips. Great pictures: (not taken by me) [link]

leaving again tomorrow--for last two weeks i've spent no more than two days in one city.

visited carnegie mellon, checked out grad school program. seems perfect match, am very excited. Must work on portfolio (pieces, and arrangement.)

am writing several new songs, very enthused.

working on getting caught up on criticisms offered to poets. takes many hours. cannot be done in wrong frame of mind

made more memories, more to come. still very happy.

this journal is a grammatical nightmare.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1274236/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1274236/ Mon, 13 Oct 2003 22:53:09 PDT
I sat down and wrote about it then in my sketchbook. I thought about how I was going to address the entire college community at graduation with my speech, and how I was spurning the entire way of life that my peers and I had worked so hard for, for the last five years. I was going to take some time off, climb some mountains, and live free for a few months.

Tomorrow, graduated and jobless, I'm going to go to a career fair. Honestly, in my heart of hearts, it's as much an excuse to visit my friends and go hiking in the adirondacks (after the show.) It's peak leaf season now, and I expect a spectacular few days. I will take a camera, I have some ideas in mind.

In some ways, it feels like a defeat, to go back to the school and try to sell myself like so much ground chuck. In other ways, it feels not merely inevitable, but necessary; dreams and time are one thing, but it turns out that I can't really succeed without both stress and structure.

Many, many times at RIT, I felt the pressure of an intense workload, balanced with the things I felt really important: my personal development in art, music, climbing, go, all of these side pursuits. But what's really amazing is how much I got done. Not only did I do mountains of classwork, and do it well, but I also somehow found the time for the rest of my life.

The last few months, all that structure has been suddenly removed, to great detriment. It turns out that when I'm not being pressed for time, I just don't get much done. I honestly spend less time drawing now than I did when I was in school, studying 40-60 hours a week and rock climbing 12 (or more.) And how I would dream of having days to spend as I wish! Oh, the projects I'd undertake and finish! Oh, the learning I'd do!

And I'm so disappointed in myself. Where is that fire?

Now, I haven't exactly been idle--quite the contrary, I actually have been working on many different projects. Lately, my emphasis has been on music and writing, but there has been some figure study and scholastic study as well. And I've been making and selling belts to help cover the expenses I'm placing on my parents while I'm here.

But things are slow. I have a few potential leads for temporary employment, no full time leads, and very few completed projects. In addition, and this is perhaps the most disturbing of all, I've been watching upwards of 4 to 8 hours of TV a week. This is a 4 to 8 hour increase from the last 5 years, and represents the absolute and irrevocable loss of my precious time. Every time I think of my lack of progress, I am filled with disgust and mild self-loathing.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1253006/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1253006/ Wed, 08 Oct 2003 20:50:17 PDT
well, i'm a little reluctant to do this, but what the heck: for those who might happen to stop by and be interested, here's me playing guitar and singing:

a song I've been working on--right now it's 9 tracks: in it, I play various percussion instruments, a couple of guitars, and trumpet. I also whistle and sing. (i don't think this version has the singing yet.)
[link] mp3, 1.8 megs.

ok, if your ears aren't currently bleeding, I also have a few which are a bit less polished.

this an unremarkable song i made up off the top of my head one day: [link] mp3, 2.2 megs The singing's a bit, particularly in the higher notes where I break into the falsetto. but that's why I practice.

Ok, finally, [link] is me playing "green eyes" by Coldplay. This has been good for me to work on: the highest notes are just at the current limit of my natural voice, so building the strength to hit them even this well represents good progress. Also, the farily steady pattern of triplets has been good practice for me to keep that beat steady and you can hear I've almost got it.

I swear, just give me 3 or 4 more years and I may be a half-decent guitarist/singer. It's starting to make sense.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1167067/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1167067/ Mon, 15 Sep 2003 22:59:28 PDT
I haven't given up hope, I'm continuing the search. I've also been keeping myself busy in other ways: finding grad schools to apply to, looking into the GREs, checking out the potential of a job managing the school's rock climbing gym, etc. I've also been playing my guitar an average of 1-3 hours/day, which makes me happy. I think tomorrow I'll watercolor or go on a photography expedition.

I've also (finally!) taken the time to install mandrake linux on my laptop. I did it for a couple of reasons: 1. to remember what it's like to solve problems on a computer, 2. to prepare myself a C/C++ development environment, 3. to be able to say in interviews that I have linux experience, that I know how to administer a machine. Oh, and to get rid of windows. That's always nice too.

I've also been studying go some more, playing an occasional game. Had a nice win and a crushing defeat the other night.

And I'm helping out with the chores too, gotta keep the 'rents happy, since they're putting up with me in the interim between vacation and employment. They're good people.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1114250/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1114250/ Sun, 31 Aug 2003 02:49:05 PDT [link] feel free to check them out. I only shot one roll from a disposable camera, so they're not very good pictures I'm afraid. Oh well. They get the point across.

Now I get to look for a job, and return to the real world. This is also OK because it means I'll have income again, which is always nice.

I suppose that other than that I don't have much to say. I'll try to make myself a presence on DA again, perhaps start up another poetry game in the forums, get back on top of my commenting. DAv3 seems to have swallowed about 120 of my comments, which I find discouraging because I've been trying to get to 1000 for a long time now.

-PL- ]]> *phil-light http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1037059/ http://phil-light.deviantart.com/journal/1037059/ Tue, 05 Aug 2003 14:24:57 PDT
Sometime in the next few days, we'll be heading back to Yosemite, which will be very exciting. I expect to do Snake Dike, a multipitch route up the side of Half Dome. It should be awesome.

I'm doing my best to stay cool in the desert, and avoid the sunburns which seem to be plaguing my partner. (he he, I'm such a sissy little girly-man when it comes to the sun. I dodge between shadows all day long.)



Some little bits of poetry are coming to me as I spend the days here, but it's hard to find the time to actually write. I'm also without a camera, and I'm sort of kicking myself over that. I'm just trying to remember as much as I can, in hopes of writing and such later.

I'm also without any art supplies, which feels kind of stupid. This is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of experience here, and I feel like I'm letting it slip away a bit. Oh well. I'm having fun and living life day by day. Whee!

-PL- ]]> *phil-light