I'm a video editor based in Santa Cruz, CA. On this site you can watch my work, look at my photos, or read my blog below.

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• Hawk vs Crow - who would win?

  

• Finished reading: Stardust by Neil Gaiman 📚

  A fun cat-and-mouse-and-bigger-cat adventure. It took me a little while to settle into the rhythm of it. Things just happen, supernatural stuff hidden in the prose, and you kind of think, “Did I just read that?” Just like Tristran (a name unpronounceable in my mind) might have thought, “Did I just see that?” But once you learn to roll with it and let it wash over you it’s wonderful. The ending is a bit anticlimactic, but I think that’s ok. It reads more like a legend than a blockbuster so that works in its favor, I think.

• Good morning. 🌅

  

• CAW! SKRAW! (Welcome to Pleasure Point, traveler!)

  

• Some photos from a stroll yesterday evening.

  

• Speed Governor

  Yesterday, Scott Wiener announced a bill that would see speed governors installed in all vehicles sold in California starting in 2027. I think this is fantastic. And not just the term “speed governor” which evokes the image of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Mach 5.

  

  I am so sorry.

  Anyways I think it’s ridiculous that we just sell cars that can go 100+ mph and think humans can resist the temptation. But some of the biggest benefits might come at lower speeds.

  If you get hit by a car traveling about 25 mph, there’s about a 10% chance of you dying, and a 25% chance of you getting severely injured. That’s the standard speed limit for most neighborhoods (but frankly depending on the neighborhood that can feel too fast).

  Say someone’s late for work and trying to shave off a minute of their drive, and they hit you at a speed of about 40 mph. Your chances of death just jumped to 50% and your chance of severe injury is 75%. Basically it’s a small miracle if you’re at all ok after that. 35 mph is a standard for busier city streets and arteries, and I’d wager most people go at least 40 in a 35 zone.

  I greatly dislike the culture around speeding. Especially people bragging about how much time they shaved off their 30 minute commute. The fact is speeding often doesn’t get you places noticeably quicker – the risk:reward ratio is terrible. Maybe you save 5 minutes: what are you going to do with all that time on your hands?

  That being said, it’s not uncommon for me to realize I’m speeding because I got distracted by something and wasn’t paying close attention. I think it’s a shame we built our country’s transportation infrastructure around a system where people die if a human gets too distracted, and then built our economy around things that distract humans.

  Regardless of the reason for speeding, we don’t need it. If we can save lives by limiting the speed of cars, then we needed it to happen yesterday.

• Finished reading The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo 📚

  Fun, lightweight read - finished it in two sittings. A nice way to start my goal of reading a book each month. It was a bit difficult at times to wrap my head around the terminology, especially because the murders are intrinsically connected to traditional Edo-era building design. But the translation is explanatory in a way that feels fairly natural. I’m not entirely certain of the history of the book but it feels like it must have been a serial release because nearly every chapter ends on a cliffhanger. In any case, I’m looking forward to reading more like this!

• Kale vs. Donuts

  In this episode of the Techdirt podcast there’s a particularly great metaphor Ravi Iyer uses to describe bad algorithms that reinforce content you don’t want to see more of, and yet draws you in:

  I will eat donuts, and so I kind of “want” donuts, by one definition of “want.” I will eat them if you put them in front of me. But I don’t aspire to eat more donuts. I want to eat healthier food, right?

  When my wife was pregnant a couple years ago, Instagram started serving her more and more posts from people who had traumatic birthing stories, or who had lost babies, either during childbirth or soon after. When something like that comes up, you can’t exactly look away. Especially for her (and for me) being a hardcore empath. I don’t think it’s a bad thing that people post about their real stories, in fact I encourage it. But for Instagram to identify that she was more “engaged” with these posts and then to say “I bet she wants more!” is pretty messed up. It’s a negative spiral that might have driven her to spend more time on the platform (thus increasing her value as a user, from Instagram’s view) but produced a very negative mental impact on her. That’s what people talk about when wanting to get away from the algorithm.

• Nighttime Adventure 🌙

  

  

• 2024 goals

  This is a non-comprehensive list of some things I want to achieve in the new year. Maybe I’ll set reminders to check in on this as the year goes on.

  Downsize

  I want less stuff. Every time we move there’s a box or two full of random stuff that just sits in another box or drawer until we move again. Not great! But also so tedious to go through! I’d love to take a week and just really decide what things I need, and what things are weighing me down. And also figure out eBay.

  Read a book each month

  I read my first full books since high school this year, and I enjoyed it a lot. I always envy readers and bookworms. I have a lot of other media I like that can eat away at my free time (games, shows, films). Zelda especially has just torpedoed my free time. I’ve loved every second of it, but wow is there a lot to do in that game.

  Getting off topic. Point is: time short, want read book. I got a couple for Christmas so I’ll start there! To make it more of a tangible goal, I’ll try to read one book each month. I can already tell you I’ll fail but at least it gives me a framework.

  Brush up on a language

  I took three different languages in school: Spanish in junior high, Latin in high school, and German in college. I’d like to brush up on either Spanish or German in the new year.

  Spanish is vastly more practical for me because of where I live, and would be used weekly if not daily.

  German is of interest to me because my family is from Switzerland. Ideally I’d love to learn the Swiss-German my extended family speaks, but learning resources are scarce. And nearly all of them are fluent in English so it’s not a pressing matter. Just would feel nice to connect more with that family history.

  Then there’s an entirely impractical side of me that wants to learn Japanese. Japan is the Switzerland of Asia in a lot of ways and visiting this past summer made me want to go back so badly. Probably has the most uphill battle to learn though, so maybe I’ll leave that for another year.

  My tentative plan is to put on some videos and such while I do dishes or other chores, when my ears and brain are a captive audience!

  Establish a workout rhythm

  This is such the stereotypical New Year’s resolution, but yeah, I’d like to get fit. Specifically, I want to know what it’s like to feel “in shape”. Especially since becoming a father, there are so many things in my daily life that I think would be so much easier if my muscles were just a bit stronger or my heart and lungs a little more efficient.

  How am I going to do this? Not sure yet. There’s a gym club near us that offers childcare so I might try that for a bit. I’ve tried running before and I liked it when I could find the time for it. And Fitness+ gets flack but I’ve done quite a few exercises through it and it’s honestly quite enjoyable.

  I’ll end up doing a combo. Or nothing at all. But maybe me saying this into the internet will provide some sense of accountability. Ideally I just want to get into a sustainable rhythm. Doesn’t have to be much, just something.

  Use public transit?

  This is a tough one for me. Right now I live in the mountains on a somewhat steep, busy, and narrow road with a lot of blind turns. This makes riding a bike a bit treacherous from my home, especially after dark. When the days start to get longer, I’d like to try riding my bike to the bus station and ride the bus to work more often. It tags on quite a bit of extra time in my commute, but I’ve just grown to really resent driving recently. Tough in a car-dependent area of a car-dependent nation.

  Unlock the power of Costco

  At the end of this year we went to Costco a few times and I forgot how much is there in terms of building blocks for easy meals. I want to come up with some meal plans using Costco stuff to cut down on grocery costs and also make dinner a bit easier at the end of the day.

  ---

  Well that’s about it. I have some other vague goals of journaling or meditating but I can’t really put it into words yet.

  See you in a few months, wall of text.

• If you drive a pick up truck, do you automatically forget how to use your blinkers?

• I just typed “th” and it autocorrected to “rheumatoid arthritis.”

• So happy to have scrolling timeline in Final Cut. But it’s so jittery! Would’ve thought a native implementation would be smoother than CommandPost. (Meanwhile DaVinci’s scrolling timeline is buttery smooth on the Cut/Fairlight page 🫢)

• This line of argument always confuses me. The vision for sustainable affordable housing = housing density, which often includes taller buildings.

  “Santa Cruz doesn’t need taller buildings; it needs a vision for sustainable affordable housing” via Lookout Santa Cruz

• Enjoyed this brief post about the difference between a tool and an experience and how the two are converging (or diverging?) right now.

• I have the least amount of rotates on Flipart! 😊

• Well, it happened. I cracked my first phone screen. The back of this phone is already cracked from a fall earlier this year. Yesterday night it was guillotined by the trunk of our car.

  The spot where it cracked is directly over the shortcut I use to post. A sign?

  

• Beach Walk 📷

  

• I’ve deleted my feed apps from my phone. That includes all social media feeds (Instagram, Mastodon, Micro.blog, Threads…) and news feeds (News, Artifact, RSS apps…). Through apps like Ulysses and Humboldt I can still post to Micro.blog, and I’ve set email notifs for replies. I just need a break from the scroll and hoping this might help.

• Puzzmo key acquired 🔑🧩

• Do you have a moment to talk about Javelin? 🎵

  It would be wrong of me to let a Sufjan release go by without urging people to listen to it. What a perfect way to enter autumn.

  This is arguably his most accessible album in a decade, not only musically but lyrically. It’s not at all as pretentious and historical as Illinois, and not quite as depressive as Carrie & Lowell (although, I have to briefly defend that album’s depressiveness by saying that “Fourth of July,” with it’s lovely choral refrain of “we’re all gonna die,” is one of my most listened songs, and pulled me through some very hard times). Pitchfork put it nicely:

  If the lyrics on Javelin lack the proper-noun touchstones of Stevens’ story-songs, these ones gain authority from an intrinsic sense of self and place. They are approachable like pop songs, but delivered with the same precision as his folk confessionals. They break our hearts from within.

  I should also mention the dedication to his late partner Evans Richardson. There’s not a lot I can add to this. I can just say I really appreciate Sufjan’s transparency through such a difficult time of life. Javelin makes it clear that it wasn’t always an easy relationship, and he says as much in his post:

  I know relationships can be very difficult sometimes, but it’s always worth it to put in the hard work and care for the ones you love, especially the beautiful ones, who are few and far between. If you happen to find that kind of love, hold it close, hold it tight, savor it, tend to it, and give it everything you’ve got, especially in times of trouble. Be kind, be strong, be patient, be forgiving, be vigorous, be wise, and be yourself. Live every day as if it is your last, with fullness and grace, with reverence and love, with gratitude and joy. This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

  ❤️

• Just finished The Second Sleep by Robert Harris. Really intriguing premise and immersive setting, but a weird and rocky ending.

  This is the second book I’ve read this year (the first being How Do You Live by Genzaburō Yoshino, in prep for The Boy and the Heron). It’s also the second book I’ve read since high school. 😬 I like reading, but other forms of entertainment usually take priority for me.

  It’s a goal of mine to read more this year and next, so please let me know if you have suggestions!

• THIS IS A TEST of the National Make Everyone Jump a Little System. The purpose of this test is to see what would happen if everyone jumped at the exact same time. No further action is required by the public.

• I was just thinking about wanting to try commuting via bus today, and now am finding out there’s going to be a big improvement to the bus lines come this December.

  Santa Cruz County: A Growing Transit Agency in a Beautiful Place — Human Transit

• I have a passing desire to watch sports this year, but the cost is ridiculous. I’m not paying $800+/year on YouTube TV for a casual interest.