Living With Less: The Mix Tape

This week I'm saying goodbye to my mix tapes. Hours of work, hours of research, hours of fun.  I tried to listen to them in the car. Too slow! Too hissy! In the trash. Glad to get rid of something this week.

Lets get ready!!!

In light of the amazing amounts of earthquake events in the last year and as denizens of the San Andreas Fault area.... it behooves us all to prepare for the worst. The truth is we haven't been able to get our own shiite together so we have decided that there actually is safety in numbers. We are trying to get together an Emergency Pack Party in order to force ourselves to get our craape together.

Multiplex global villaige class neutral distributed resource gathering

Getting Ready

2010 is two days away and for the first time I have a real New Years Resolution: get this blog up and running! I think the first subject to tackle: budgeting. I know all the stuff I'm supposed to do but I've never been able to sustain record keeping. For one thing, it takes a long time and  I get stuck on things like: how do I separate out my grocery store trip between food and household items? Then I just get mad and decide "I'm not going to buy anything ever again!" That never works either.  I'm looking around the internet for some different, creative and realistic ideas that Joe and I could both do easily. I came across this idea where you spend 60% of your gross for living and "commited" expenses, 10% "irregular" expenses, 10% savings, 10% on retirement, and 10% "fun" money. It's an interesting idea and I think I'll try in out next month.
I've also been researching schools for the last two years. Why? Well, I live in Los Angeles, home of one of the most confusing public school systems in the county. Sandra Sing Loh has written some very funny and very true stories about what I'm going through. There are some interesting theories out there about how children learn. Most of it I don't understand but the part I like is when schools use more than just talking to get kids to learn. It compliments blogging nicely because instead of just reading while researching I can make movies, snap photos and cut together podcasts. I'd like this blog to have all that stuff, I think I'll learn more (well, we'll see)

Getting Ready for the "Project"

I finally decided on what to do with this blog thanks to some help from my friend Danica. We are in the process of coming up with a structure, something that we would be doing anyway but will benefit from doing in a group. So far I've got my twelve things: budgeting, entertainment, time management, homekeeping, organizing, The Future, Shopping, Art Studio,  Inspiration, Health, Style. Danica also has a list and Joe will be making one soon.

The Longest Journey Starts with a Single Step

This blog exists because I'm interested in how computers are changing the way I think. I have been working on computers for quite some time. I made a living knowing a specific computer program inside out, Avid Media Composer. It's used for editing movies and tv shows and is based on what an editing room used to look like. I have worked with many experienced editors and it didn't really change the way they cut or the way they thought about what to cut. It did, however, change the way everything around editing is done.
I asked two people this question last week: How do you pay your bills? My mom collects the mail, opens it once a week, writes the due date on the envelope and balances her checkbook once a month. My friend goes to her bank website every moring to see what needs to be paid, what's cleared and if anything looks funny. They seem to each spend the same amount of time but there is something fundimentally different when you sit down for 20 minutes to complete a task versus checking in and overseeing a task.
I learn by doing. I had a lot of fun learning the avid and right now this shift interests me. This blog is all about the journey. I don't even know where I'm heading.