GabrielMathews.com | Biological Log

OK. So now I’m back from Japan. What should I do? I know. I’ll finally deal with moving out of my place. What’s that? I only have 2 weeks to do it? Party on!

So the first week is spent hum-drumming along on craigslist and the like. I was getting nowhere fast. Finally I decided that a more analog approach would be good. I walked south out my house and within 15 minutes of walking saw a small building on Everett with a ‘Studio for Rent’ sign. I called the number, was shown the place, and within 25 minutes had my deposit down. Moral of the story–don’t forget that even though the computer is extraordinarily powerful for networking, real organic interactions with the world around you can yield some pretty incredible results.

I spent the the next couple weeks at my leisure moving things in. April 1, I was all moved in and totally beat. Work blew up with some pretty fantastic clients and I had zero time to really settle in. Then, within a a couple weeks, I had to take a trip to New York for the 99% conference. (www.the99percent.com). It was a great trip. The Tuesday I came in, I came to the Aka Times Square Hotel. A pretty sweet suite.

Anyhow. The conference was great. Jack Dorsey can’t draw. Stefan Segmeister’s accent in real life sounds like someone who knows how to professionally torture people. But more relevantly, ideas are great and execution takes time to learn. You can read the recap on their site.

The next day, I went to MOMA for the Tim Burton show, ate at S’Mac, and got a full tour of the photography and PR department of Showtime thanks to my old friend Rick. Walked out with some great swag. My feet are still a little sore from all of the walking.

The full batch of photos can be seen over here.

I left on Saturday after much food and travel, I’m now back in Portland with a weekend to relax. Yesterday I bought a kite. Its name is Carlos. I flew him after a fabulous breakfast at Screen Door on Burnside. Oh! And! Saw my good friend Tad from Phoenix. He cut my hairs….see?:

I’m very happy to be home and have an uneventful weekend to myself. Silence and blogging. *sigh of whimsy*

Next up: My new place. ~maybe I’ll write this next weekend.

This past weekend, I went up to Seattle to play with my good friend iLan and his amazing fiance Vanessa. I love them both and would murder you if you ever wronged them.

I came in at about 915ish in the evening. Sheila, iLan’s space heater, greeted me with a hot blow. I was instantly relaxed. After V went to bed iLan and I went to Safeway for energy drinks, a habanero pepper,  random sale items, and Yoohoo. He informed me that he is the proud owner of a carbonizer. Needless to say, we immediately carbonated the Yoohoo. Not exactly the best, but still a little bit of tingles. We sat and talked on his couch till four in the morning about life, love, and all things in between. It was wonderful.

In the morning, after the best sleep I’ve had in a couple months, we went to Costco to visit V at work, drop some stuff off, and then roam the food aisles for samples and price ogling. After a bit we came back to the house and chilled out. Soon enough, V was off work, and we went to 5 Spot for brunch. I had a great forest scramble and some coffee. I really recommend that place to anyone visiting to the Pacific north-west. During brunch, iLan asked me if I would officiate the wedding. I was really flattered and accepted the duties immediately. I’m going to have to spit-polish the little Hebrew I know as iLan requested I sing some traditional Jewish songs. Oy vey.

In the evening, we wound up meeting up with my good friend Joerael Elliot and surprising him with me. He didn’t know I was in town and we haven’t talked/seen each other in about 3 years. Crazy. I love that guy. So we caught up, at Shorty’s bar…another awesome spot. I met his wonderful girlfriend and spent a large chunk of time talking to this cellist Nancy. (EEK…I hope I got that right! Memory is a little fuzzy)…anywho very cool peep. I tried talking her into moving to Portland and being my friend. She lives in Jerome, AZ…my condolences.

After a great night of chatting, we came home, I passed out, and the day was over. Sunday, iLan made breakfast bagels, we ate at Red Mill Burgers. Holy shit you have to try the onion rings. I got a sandwich for my trek home too. At a certain point, as the day’s timeline was a little convoluted, iLan and I ate the habanero…who need drugs? That thing was crazy hot…I felt it move through my digestive system, only to wind up making porcelain violence later in the day…whew. I drove home after a quick couple stops downtown. I got home around 6, did some laundry and enjoyed the rest of my evening before the week started again.

Tomorrow I am going to see Roger Martin at Ziba talk about his book The Design of Business. That should make for some great brain candy.

Nighty taters.

~G

Recently, I’ve jumped the train to indexhibit town. The problem being that I am a very impatient person, I tend to rapidly delete files without question and wind up causing a lot of knots in my hair, and sometimes others.

Going back for a minute to good old project Synesthesia. John Locke, an architect in NY had conveniently already did this code. He graciously gave me the source code to mess with. I’m going to be syncing the line-in to the output of the audio analysis so it isn’t file dependent. Right now it is referencing the minim library. This is fine, but because I am impulsively brand loyal, I will be using the Sonia Sound Library. More importantly, because I want to be able to control the number of analysis channels. (my V spans for the final purpose…speaking UVW).

Combining this with a ton of random doodles. I am filling up nicely this winter with creative momentum. I hope to spend a fair chunk of time in Michigan drawing at a coffee shop and voice recording thoughts. We’ll see what happens.

~G