today's 365 post!

bought 13 items that contribute to my wardrobe this year (instead of 12) and am behind on reading 24 books right now. Still, I’m actually pretty pleased with my progress so far and already have plans for bigger and better resolutions for next year!

The relative success of these resolutions have me thinking about projects that I’ve tried to hatch and incubate in the past. I have one in particular that I’ve been thinking about picking up again next year, which involves video and interviewing people. As grandma gets older I feel more and more that it’s really important for us to capture her stories I had been thinking that it would be good to capture some moments and stories with her while she is still able to share them. She’s 85 now and I still don’t know much about her life back in Vietnam. I feel that we should get something to remember her by on video. I’d like to learn how to set up a shot, basic lighting, and how compose and edit a compelling video interview.

I’m hoping to do more of these interviews with people in my life and questions that I often wonder about. This sounds vague but the whole concept itself is pretty general so let’s go with that for now.

The most notable thing I did this summer was enroll in a design class at Art Center’s Art Center at Night program. I took a class called Design 360, which is like a sampler platter of all the disciplines that Art Center has to offer. It was nice to know that there are at least 13 other people in the world who wanted to do something artistic when they were in school but ended up not pursing anything remotely artistic (in terms of a career path) and decided they wanted a second chance. Well, that was more or less our collective story.

I had a lot of fun trying to be a teacher’s pet and an A student. I learned how one combines process and creativity and applies it to any work that has to be done to meet the needs of a client. We my favorite of the topics covered was probably product design with graphic design coming in second. Surprisingly, photography was not a session that I enjoyed at all. I also did not enjoy the day before the final was due and sleeping for only 3 hours. (Oh, riiiight, that’s why I don’t want to go back to school.)

transportation design inspired by other iconic designs

My resolutions have been going well(ish) 365 is on track, 24 books is pacing slow (I’ve been buying more books than I can read though) and 12 items is pacing too quickly! Currently at 15 books finished and in the middle of reading 2 now. And I can’t buy anything until November… but at least I’m not overspent AND I have saved an amazing amount of money this year from not buying clothes. Gee who’d have thought?

You hide my clothes? I'm wearing everything you own!

Patrick and I have done lots of fun things together like glow in the dark mini golf. Planning vacations that we won’t go on to exotic places like Seoul, Berlin, Riviera Maya, and New York City. Last weekend we went to LobsterFest where he de-shelled his first lobster. He didn’t really grow up in a seafood kind of family, I don’t think they have oceans in St. Louis. Hell, we even got our motorcycle licences on American Badass Weekend (aka 4th of July Weekend).

Technically, I've been riding since I was 4. No big.

My little IndieClick was bought by Demand Media. When I say “my” IndieClick I don’t mean I started it or own it, I mostly mean that’s been not just work but a big part of my life for the past 5 years so I feel like I’ve put a lot of myself into the company. It’s awesome to see what has happened to it. Our new CEO is Richard Rosenblatt, who sold Intermix Media (MySpace) to News Corp (Rupert Murdoch), which is kind of amazing. Then he started another company which bought my company, also amazing.

The downside to all this is that now I work in Santa Monica, which sounds horrible, I know. This is the worst thing to happen in the history of things! The problem is that I live across town from work (the “town” being the City of Los Angeles), instead of at least living on the same side of La Cienega. Almost all my friends are on the east side, the food is better, the extracurricular activities are better, the snooty hipsters are better. Instead of spening 20-30 minutes riding the train in to work, I spend 1h 40min riding a train and bus.

I will now leave you with this which Clint shared with on Google Reader:

Running on Empty (Revisited) from Ross Ching on Vimeo.

With “Carmageddon” looming in Los Angeles, I decided to take my “LA with no cars” video and re-edit it with new music, coloring and opening shots. Editing was done in Final Cut, coloring done with After Effects and shot on a Canon 60D.

Music: Wim Mertens – Often a Bird

Here’s the basics:

1. Record for 20-30 mins.

2. Go frame by frame and grab pieces of the road that aren’t obstructed by a car. Eventually, you will have every piece of the road.

3. Put the static image of the road in with the moving background.

For more information see: http://rossching.com/running-on-empty

January

1. Zero History – William Gibson

2. Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain

February

3. When You Are Engulfed in Flames – David Sedaris

4. Juliet, Naked – Nick Hornby

March

5. The Commitment – Dan Savage

5-1/2.  Scenes From an Impending Marriage – Adrian Tomine

6. Born Standing Up – Steve Martin

7. Water For Elephants – Sara Gruen

and I even read a little bit of

The Hundred Secret Senses – Amy Tan

but that totally doesn’t count. Even without though I am definitely ahead of schedule now

I finished reading Zero History last night and like most of the Gibson books it takes a while to build up but the action is all at the end. The action was pretty great but the reveals were what really made it. I thought the action at the end of Spook Country was much better but this book, having met most of the characters previously, was a good second parter to Spook Country. I would talk more about it but I don’t want to spoil it if you (whoever you are) are going to read it.

I finished sometime after midnight and then started Googling things like Gabriel Hounds and Hollis Henry, like I always do when I finish a Gibson book. Nothing aside from book reviews came up though, that was expected but also a little disappointing.

Now I’ve started on Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, which I guess is aover 10 years old now! The copy I have has a new Preface that was written in 2000 which was some time after the first edition of the book came out and the whole of the restaurant world had a chance to read it.

I watch No Reservations now and can’t really believe he’s been around for 10+ years doing this kind of stuff. Mostly because Bourdain didn’t really enter my atmosphere until a year ago, people don’t exist outside my realm of awareness.

I would give 1 million each to all my co-workers. I think we all deserve it. I’d of course take care of any of my own debt as well as that of my parents and put money away for my sister’s college education.

I’d probably purchase some real estate. A place where I could retire when I get older. Then I would travel the world, go backpacking through Europe, I don’t really want to take the easy road for everything, the money would just be my safety net. Then I’d probably start a couple businesses. Not really sure what kind of businesses but I’d have as much time as I wanted to figure that part out.

This is of course the same way that people find out what they really want to do in life. I was never able to mentally put myself in a situation in which I had the means to do whatever I wanted, so I felt like this never worked for me. Somehow. imagining winning $300 million worked for me.

Thinking about it now though (and realistically) the best and most successful businesses come from people who are doing things that they love so much they would never give up on them. That would be the tricky part. I have the capital to start a business but do I have the devotion to make it a success? I guess I just have to find out what my passion is.

Oh, I didn’t win, by the way. Didn’t match any numbers at all.

I figure it will be easier to post while mobile with the tumblr app than the wordpress app later in the year.

I think I am way over concentrating on this resolution and procrastinating on my 24 Book resolution. This is bad. I need to start reading. I’m actually thinking it might be good to go to the gym and read or ride the train somewhere so I can read. I guess I could go all the way both ways on the Gold Line.

The reading procrastination is doing something good for my room cleaning though as in order to avoid reading I am cleaning my room. Desk area is pretty clear now. w00t.

I’ve actually been reading two books simultaneously in December. They are William Gibson’s Zero History (part three of the Bigend books) and In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. I’ve been really enjoying Zero History, as I knew I would since the main character is one from a previous Gibson book that I love and it’s from an author I really like. In Defense of Food has actually been a lot tougher to get through. I had just finished Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma last month and I really enjoyed it so I thought I’d stick with someone I was already familiar with but I think the subject matter is the problem here. Just not as interested in nutrition as I am in cooking and eating, I guess. Since I don’t want to stop reading Zero History and I want it to count for one of my 2011 books I will start rereading as my first book of the year!

By the way, happy new year! 2010 ended suckily as I did not make it to Cat and Fiddle for English New Year with my friends due to an emergency car repair that needed to be performed. I got in my car to head over to Patrick’s to bring him some soup then intended to get over to Cat and Fiddle for English New Year but about a block from my place my car suddenly lost power and started revving low when stopped and having a hard time switching gears. The engine was also smoking a lot. It was pretty nerve wracking.

I got to Radi’s at about 4 pm and they found out it was a FUBARed spark plug. I have to go back next week. Great. So I missed English New Year and haven’t seen my friends for about 3 weeks or something, I have car repairs that need to be made and the boy is sick so we didn’t go to Kate and Andrew’s PJ party. I did enjoy spending much needed time with Patrick, watching 30 Rock and eating chicken noodle soup and drinking tea, but it would have been nice to see me friends tonight.

But sometimes you just do things because you should try everything in life at least once. This year I am not making just one NYR but several! Statistically speaking, my chances of following through with a NYR will be greatly higher if I just make more of them.

So here we go!

1. So I was thinking I will read 40 books by the end of the year. Now, I hadn’t actually thought about this until yesterday at work when someone suggested I go for the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge. That was when I actually realized the rate I would need to be reading in order for me to actually pull off this 40 books/1 year idea. Instead, by this day next year I will be finishing the last few pages of my 24th books. This puts me at 2 books a month. Still a challenge but a much more manageable one especially for me since I am a slow reader. Comic books will not count for this project but audiobooks will because it takes just as long to listen as it does to read in my head.

2. I am also going to actually follow through with a 365 project which will consist of  some daily record of my life be it a photo, writing, audio or video. I imagine the toughest part of this will be remembering to post something. I assume I will probably go camping at some point which will keep me from being able to post on exactly the day but every day will still be accounted for at the end of the year. I’ll probably post these here.

3. Only one new article of clothing may be bought per month.  I think this will be THE hardest of the resolutions. Mostly because I’m terrible at knowing what will actually be the most loved item in my closet until at least a 3-4 month residency. This is going to take some research and no more impulse buys or boredom shopping. I think the less clothes I buy, the more I can spend on one piece and that one piece better be f*ckin worth it.

The rest of the rules for 2011 are general guidelines for living that don’t exactly apply to just a year of amusing tricks (the resolutions above are probably not going to continue for more than the one year – though #3 probably should stick around for as long as possible). The other rules will be things like no more making excuses for not working out. No more making excuses about eating when not hungry, just make sure you’re actually hungry when you eat. Clean your room, once every two weeks at least. Pursue things that you’re actually interested in. General year round “spring cleaning”, pair down your material things, get rid of things that you never use.

no more of this

2011 is looking to start off pretty good, starting a 401K next week, still got a job, took care of my car, starting to make exercise a part of my regular life (well, not since before Christmas but I will be going back to Bikram yoga soon and I still have my gym membership), family is well, got an excellent boy.

Yays.