Here’s a video for the lead single, Maybe So, Maybe No. It features a bunch of iconic LA spots, from Venice Beach to the Santa Monica skate park to Crane’s Tavern in Hollywood.

I keep coming back to K’Naan’s second album, Troubadour, as a place to remember why music is made in the first place – to tell stories. The song “Fatima” was playing on repeat in my head when the alarm/call from the photo lab/text from my sister all went off at the same time. There’s no video, but here is a decent version of the track.

Also, if you have 45 minutes to kill, watch this fascinating and moving in-studio performance/interview on KCRW:

I guess it really started Wednesday. I babysat Owen – played in the backyard, had dinner (delicious pizza from Two Boots) with Cyn, Josh and their Chinese exchange student QiaoQiao (pronounced “Chow-Chow” vagy csaocsao), had bath time and the towelly-towelly run, read some stories and put him to sleep. Then finished up season four of The Wire (NSFW) while waiting for Abby to get home from another Wednesday at The Edison. It’s hard to describe what a great show The Wire is, but I guess the best way is to say it’s not like a “show” at all. Rather it seems more like a window into a part of this country that I know nothing about, a sort of docudrama of urban life in America. Anyway, you should definitely see it.

Thursday I got up early to go climbing at Malibu Creek with Chris (and nearly bailed because I was so tired), who brought along his friend Annabella and her mother. I led the first climb of the day, a 5.8 that was one of the longer routes in the spot, and then we watched Annabella’s 67-year-old mother do it in tennis shoes without much trouble (though she skipped the hard start). As her daughter put it, “my mom’s pretty badass”. It should also be mentioned that she lives on a 40-foot catamaran and sails up and down the eastern seaboard most of the year, and she’s “always looking for crew members.” Um, yes please? Also led a 5.9 later in the day. We swam in the creek and ate PB&J. Hit the road and caught rush hour traffic back to Silverlake; I got home with just enough time to shower before my class at LA Trade-Technical College (sorry, Cole, no walk today buddy!). Spent three hungry hours learning about solar photovoltaic modules, alternating current vs. direct current, and laughing at our instructor’s funny stories. The students’ attitude is very colloquial – like high-school shop class – and many of the instroctor’s anecdotes start off with the groan-inducing “so I was talking to this guy…” Got home around 10pm and hung out with Howard, who had just returned from a week of food conventions in New York, for a bit, then watched the first half of The Seven Samurai, by Akira Kurosawa. It’s really pretty amazing that I haven’t seen any of his films, being the Japanese Art guy that I suppose I was, and though I did doze off in parts I could immediately see why he’s garnered so much acclaim.

Friday did my usual news-reading put-puttering around the house, then Howard and I met Jess and Emily at the Barbarella bar for happy hour. After tuna tartar, hummus, a so-so mojito and a terrible caipirinha (sigh, still drank it), we left and watched the sun go down from Crestmont between games of billiards (I won and lost every game on a technicality, scratching and so on). Next was a party up in the Mt. Washington area, which was nice because a) it had a great view that was different from the great view at Crestmont and b) there was a hot tub. People traded jokes and were merry. At midnight I got Jess to sing the Star Spangled Banner, with the group joining in for the last two lines. Three hours of singing, hot-tubbing, drinks and smiles later, we headed to our respective places of rest.

Saturday was little Abram’s second birthday and he performed like a champ. Pool party at Grandma and Grandpa Goldstein’s house in West Hollywood, with lots of the little tykes in attendance. Also met Leonie, Carson and Dajana’s two-week-old baby girl. The cake had a basketball theme – Abe loves the “b-ball”. Lifeguard “straight out of central casting for Baywatch” was on duty, and tried teaching QiaoQiao to swim (what’s with Asians and the fear of water? People I knew in Japan didn’t know how to swim. On an island nation for chrissakes! Maybe in China all the lakes and rivers are too polluted to warrant learning? Probably better off drowning than growing a stunted third arm from your hip or melting your face off.) After that headed home for a nap. When I woke up Eric had gotten home from 6 weeks in New York and Minnesota, so we caught up for a while. He’d been working on a job installing artworks at the newly-reopened Governor’s Island. Later on I caught up with Hilary and friends (also just back from a few weeks vacationing in Europe), Jess, Emily and QiaoQiao to see a screening of Jaws (“See it, before you go swimming.”) at the Hollywood Forever cemetery. It was packed and got cold by the end, but we’d brought lots of great snacks and drinks, so it passed nicely. After I dropped off QiaoQiao (not noticeably disturbed by the roboshark), I regrouped with Jess and Emily and friends and drove around looking for “The End of the World”, a semi-secret (and hella hard to find) lookout spot somewhere below and west of the Hollywood sign. We eventually found it and passed a bottle of wine while sitting on top of a wall painted with the American flag, toasting to the liquor laws in the land of the free. Home again around 3:30am.

Today got up about ten (for a change. It’s hard to sleep late most mornings because the light comes right in my window and pokes my eyeballs out right through the lids) and made some eggs and fruit. Got on the net and finally used up my Borders gift card that I got for Christmas to buy two CDs: K’Naan – Troubadour (convinced by Magee and others with quite dope musical tastes) and the new Mos Def – Ecstatic (convinced by the track with Slick Rick that is blowing up KCRW). Hooked up with Abby, Merlin and Owen (thankfully feeling better after five tough days and nights of high fever) and headed to Santa Monica for some beach action. It was packed, but windy and much cooler than east LA, so my three consecutive days in the water came to a close without an ocean entry. Had mediocre and over-priced sushi for dinner (but! $2 happy hour pints of Sapporo!), then got a couple of slings and locking caribiners at REI. Wanted to get so much more – a sport-climbing rack of quickdraws, a messenger bag, new biking gloves and shorts, a water bottle, headlamp, etc etc. but oh yeah, I’m still unemployed for the most part. Added to the list of other wants (new laptop, circular polarizer, 10-16mm Tokina lens, plane tickets) for when I finally sit my ass down and find a job. But that’s what Monday’s are for, right?

Life in LA is good. Pictures to come soon. And after all this, happy birthday America. We’ve come a long way, and we’ve got a long way to go. But it’s good to be here, and I wish you could be too.

Got ‘em from the environmentally conscious Greener Printers.

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The process was relatively straightforward – meet with client to assess needs and goals from old site to new (much more visual content, larger videos, easy administration), decide on an appropriate design structure (in this case, a WordPress theme served as a basic template, from which many tweaks and changes were made), deal with a server changeover and build it up, checking in with the client at regular intervals to make sure that things looked ok.

I have to say, having a positive, easy-to-work-with client and some great source materials made this job a real pleasure. While my last job for Freeman Energy Corporation (disclosure: I am an employee of FEC) was also an easy and straightforward approach to a business website, having such great photography and working with some flash integration gave this recent job much more satisfying results.

Thus ends my first web design gig since arriving in L.A. I’m hoping to pick up a few more while looking for jobs in the solar industry, as it’s a pretty painless way to pay the rent.

This is how it happened: I went skateboarding at the Glendale Verdugo park, one of the best in southern California, but pretty quiet now that the Santa Clarita megapark is open. I had tried to go on Sunday, but was stymied by the need for a helmet and pads (or long sleeves). So I went back, this time in a hoodie and helmet, and started rolling.

At first, everything looked huge. I’m six feet tall, and the idea of getting on top of six-foot-tall quarterpipes looks enormous. And those are the low ones – the clover pool has an eleven-foot oververt! Also, it was the first time I’d hit a snake run, which is a twisty series of varied quarters and basins designed so that you can work up a flow, like surfing a wave I guess. For the first hour or so I was pretty lame – timid at getting up high on things and not finding any lines.

Then one began to click – drop in on the bank, high backside kickturn on a quarter, low and tight frontside carve on a small pocket to…nothing. Then another line developed – ollie into the bank, backside slash, kickturn on the bank, frontside kickturn to enter the snake run or pop out over the quarterpipe. Flow. Working with the design, not against it.

Then I dropped in on the clover pool. Shallow end shoot into deep end carve low into the pocket and high out and – there it was, right then: a weightless feeling, wheels nearly coming off the concrete, wind in the face and under you – zoom. Can’t stop a huge smile as I fly back towards the big oververt pocket, which I still am a long way from “getting” but still – I felt like a kid again. This is all in contrast to skating street – the repetition, the stop and start, the slammed shins – it feels like work. I still like it, and I want to check out this new little spot downtown in Lafayette park, but I think I rediscovered the skating bug in a big fat concrete clover pool.

It was a good night to be there as a spectator, as well. The locals were ripping and everyone was cool. And then, whaddayaknow, professional skater Chad Fernandez drops by and just starts killing it. All kinds of flip tricks, lip tricks, airs, spins – just having a grand old time while the kids and I stood aside gaping. It made everyone want to go faster, push higher, skate better.

And the thing is, I really needed this tonight. It’s been a weird day, a weird few days – not bad but just kind of shiftless. I have two informational interviews set up with some interesting and connected people, I worked some more on some cover letters and my resume and thought about college a bit. That seems like a million years ago and it may as well be. But look at it this way – I haven’t had a written post in forever, and this made me want to write. I like that realization.