on top of the world, looking over the edge

Calgary - Bon Iver
New Theory (RAC Mix) - Washed Out
Cannons - YOUTH LAGOON
Cloudbusting - Wild Nothing
Cynthia - MillionYoung
Half Heart Full (Old Circular) - James Blake
Pulling Our Weight - The Radio Dept.
Dreaming - Seapony
Song in Three - Here We Go Magic
Kisses (Lake Heartbeat Mix) - Kisses
Outside (reprise) - Sun Glitters
Images From The Lighthouse - Porcelain Raft
Glass Jar - Gang Gang Dance
Albatross - Wild Beasts

Let's keep this party going

Climbing Walls - Strange Talk
Houdini (RAC Remix) - Foster The People
Young Blood - The Naked & Famous
Take Me Home - Germany Germany
Impressionable - Star Slinger
Rill Rill (Clique NewTrends Remix) - Sleigh Bells
Civilization - Justice
I Go Away (The Oos & Ahhs Dubstep Remix) - MNDR
ID (Levels) (Original Mix) - Avicii
Barbra Streisand (Fare Soldi Remix) - Duck Sauce
On A Train The Magician Remix - Yuksek

I knew this was always going to happen

I had a tough week last week - I was on call so I was getting paged late into the night for a couple nights. By Friday I was ready for a restful weekend with no thoughts of work. I did not do any overtime work over the weekend, as I had been for the past 4-5 weeks. I needed the break. We had a really good weekend, and I feel really good at work today, even though it's busy as usual.

I've been running again. I ran 19 miles last week plus one cross training day. I'm on week 2 of Hal Higdon's marathon training program. Luckily it's warm outside these days and it's pleasurable to go running outside. My new neighborhood is not as scenic as our old neighborhood, but I haven't explored every possible running route and it's cool to explore the neighborhood a bit. On Saturday my brothers and mom came over to watch the babies while K. and I took the opportunity to do our unpacking of the house once and for all. We didn't finish, but we made a lot of headway. Maybe by the end of the week we will be done with completely unpacking the house and setting everything up the way we want it. Maybe my mom will have to come over again and watch the babies for an afternoon while we do this.

I did two long runs over the weekend. Relatively long runs - I mean they're pretty short compared to what I was used to at the end of the marathon season last year when I was doing 20 miles runs. But I'm nowhere near the same shape these days - I lost a lot of endurance, strength and flexibility. I also weigh about 10-20 lbs heavier than I should. I basically did not train all winter due to the demands of having a new baby/new job/moving, and also because the Chicago winter is just brutal. I'd like to lose the 10-20lbs by L. and N's wedding. Maybe if I am dilligent with my training I'll be able to. One thing I'm also going to do this time is the military pushup and situps workout I found online, and also make sure I do my stretching every day. Also no cheating with my cross training and make sure to chart my heart rate and progress on the Garmin.

On Sunday I took N. with me to do my 7 mile long run on the lake. She loved it. I stopped a couple of times to let her walk by the water and pick dandelions. Watching my daughter play just makes me so happy, I can't describe it. After running we packed everyone up and went to to visit my grandmother, and meet up with M. and L. and give their son E. his birthday present. Nay loved J. I could tell he made her happy. I'm glad for that at least, seeing her always makes me sad - she's so old and frail these days. I don't know how long she'll be around. After visiting with the family we went to Ikea and bought some miscelleneous shelves and organizational things for the house. We also got Swedish meatballs.

On the way home we discussed ordering iPads, by the time we got home we logged onto the Apple store and ordered ourselves 2 new iPads:) I can't wait til they arrive. I know my life is going to change. As we hit the 'submit' button, the President came on the tv and told the country that Osama Bin Laden was dead. Today I got up early to read about Bin Laden and run 3 miles before work.

don't judge a man by his mix tape

What you need - The Weeknd
Feel It All Around - Washed Out
Abducted - Cults
Marriage - Gold Panda
The Look (Fred Falke Remix) - Metronomy
Please Stay - Summer Heart
Let Me Go - Phantogram
Blue Eyes - Destroyer
Lofticries - Purity Ring
Bizness - tUnE-yArDs
Little Raygun - Cloud Nothings

You know it's yours and noone else

So this is my life. I usually wake up around 5 o'clock. About half the time N. cries at night and crawls in bed with us - sleeping with that baby is very difficult, because she tosses and turns a lot, and she likes to pull on my ears while she sleeps for some reason. Lately I have been making it a point to get at least 6-7 hours of sleep at night, I just can't function on less than 5 hours of sleep, it's not healthy, it ages you, and I am too groggy and irritable to be effective at my job. Around 5-5:15am the alarm on my phone starts to go off, and I hit snooze a couple of times. I then go upstairs to my bathroom to take a shower and get ready for work - I usually play news on the radio as I get ready in the morning.

We have been living at this house for almost month and we have not finished unpacking. I still feel like we're living out of boxes. Some of the rooms are partially set up - but I feel like we need to leave the kids at my mom's house or something for a weekend while K. and I finish unpacking once and for all because I can't live like this and also, just doing unpacking for a half hour a night is not cutting it. So it's around 5:30 - K. usually gets up at this time, and after my shower I usually change J. and give him his bottle while I put my clothes on and shave. Sometimes I have enough time in the morning to take the garbage out, or get N. ready if she wakes up, or take stuff out to the car so K. doesn't have to carry multiple bags plus two kids to the car. At 6:20 I'm usually out the door, K. will have to finish getting the kids ready and take them to daycare on the way to her work. Her schedule in the morning is just as tough as mine, if not more.

I kiss my wife and walk to the train station, which is only a block away from our new house. I take a train and a bus to my corporate job in the suburbs - my commute is very long, an hour and a half. It takes just as long coming home - we can drink on the train and sometimes after a long day I grab a beer from the liquor store and drink on the way home. I've been working this job for about a month and a half. When I first started I liked the commute - I could study for my certifications while in transit, also taking the train with the other corporate drones made me feel good for some reason. I still feel that way sometimes. I'm doing really good at this job, I've been given a team lead type position, and I have several people to manage now. Noone in the group I've started has risen so quickly. I am definitely working hard though. I work on average 60+ hours a week - and when I'm at work I'm unable to take any time for myself, I usually skip lunch and don't really have time to answer personal emails or calls. It's just constant work, a constantly growing set of responsibilities. I feel like I can't say no to things that are asked of me, because certain higher up people here have put a lot of faith in me and it's just in my nature to not want to let them down. So I try as hard as I can to do a good job.

There is also a dark side. Why is it that every job eventually devolves into internal political struggles, jockeying for interesting projects, leadership positions, status within the team? I feel like that is the main motivating factor at work, even more than money, at least on a day to day basis. I'm as guilty of succumbing to this as the next guy. It's interesting that I still fall into this trap here at a consulting position. I get so tense with all the work. I don't want to be the tense type A guy at work - so I feel like I have to struggle against this phenomenon all the time. So I have to put this front on that I'm nice easy going relaxed guy. Is this normal? At work whenever I have a spare moment I look at pictures of my wife and kids on my cell phone. I remind myself that I put up with all the stress of work because of love for my family.

I could go on and on about work, maybe I will later. After work I come home taking the reverse route. I usually get home 6-6:30. There's really only enough time at night to help fix dinner, do some chores around the house, play with N. and J., give them their baths, clean up after dinner - then read N. some books before tucking her in for the night. It's usually 9 o'clock or later by the time this stuff is done. At this time I'm really tired, and I lay down with K. and we usually talk to each other, or watch something like the Daily Show on Hulu before falling asleep around 10-11. There's no time to work out anymore, or play guitar. I have to start training for the marathon next month, I'm not ready. Also my clothes don't fit well because of my crappy diet and lack of exercise. I haven't played guitar in like 3 months or more. And I promised N. that I would play some complex classical pieces at her wedding. I don't know how I'm going to do it - the wedding is in 3 months.

too fast to understand

Honey Mine (Memoryhouse Remix) - Korallreven
Talamak (Robot Science Remix) - Toro Y Moi
True Romance (Seven Saturdays Remix) - Teen Daze
Ungirthed - Purity ring
What a Pleasure - Beach Fossils
Lemonade - Braids
New Chain (Phone Tag Remix) - Small Black
2 Sunbeam Show - Candy Claws
hold me - Teams Vs. Star Slinger
Ash/Black Veil - Apparat
You Know What I Mean - Cults

Original

I used to love a woman, she was just a girl but I was old enough to know better.  We were together for seven years, longer than I've been with my wife.  What we had together was something pure, it was puppy love but that can be very intense sometimes.  Her love brought me through a lot of tough times in my life.  It still seems strange that were no longer in each others lives, like it never happened or happened to other people.  I don't miss her.  It just makes me sad to think about how fragile love can be.

Nothing more than this

I'm always out of balance in my life.  The only way I know to accomplish anything in life is to focus all my attention on something, eventually some other area of my life breaks down.  I'm still reacting to situations that happened years ago, and I still think about people who I've long since lost touch with.  Life keeps getting stranger every day, and I'm more afraid of the world than I've ever been.  One thing has changed however, and that nothing is more important to me than what's happening to me in my life right now.  I feel like that's all I need to be happy.

First day

So I was really nervous at my first day at work.  Met my new team - some were in another state.  They sent us home early.  Here's some pics of the beautiful campus.

The long commute

Took the metra for my trial run of the commute to my new job.  Right now K. drops me off at the train station in the morning then I take the metra an hour into the suburbs, then a bus or shuttle (or cab if I miss the shuttle) to work.  Here's the view from the train station waiting for the shuttle.  When we move I'll be able to walk to the train station from our house.  It's about a 2 hr commute right now but after we move it'll be about an hour and a half.

5 year Career Development Plan

5 year Career Development Plan 03/07/11

I’m making this career plan after leaving UC, where I’ve worked for five years. I have 11 years experience in IT, mainly as a software developer. As of now I have XXX and XXX on my resume, soon I will have a stint at XXX as a contractor. My career development plan for the next five years involves developing my technical skills to an elite level in a focused range of marketable technologies, starting my own business and developing business management expertise, obtaining experience working with Fortune 500 corporate clients, and increasing my financial compensation level so that I can comfortably provide for my family.

Name:
Goal: Elite consultant/owner of consulting company --or-- IT manager or architect at a great company that I respect
Current education and experience: BA, MS, 11 years experience as a developer
Current skills: Various programming languages, open source softwares, and operating systems (see resume) - mainly database driven J2EE development on Linux

Objective 1:
Maintain employment as a contractor for 5 years, focus on working with Fortune 500 corporate clients and gaining experience in a focused range of marketable technologies. Develop a supportive network of contacts and references.
Target completion: 03/16

Objective 2:
Research phasing out of contracting through and agency and contracting through your own LLC or an umbrella company. Become familiar with the tax structuring implications of starting your own business and working as a contractor. Start LLC or sign with umbrella company and start soliciting work.
Target completion: 03/12

Objective 3:
Obtain a series of professional certifications that would position you as an expert software developer and architect.

1. Set of sun java certifications - SCJP, SCWCD, SCBCD
Target completion: 03/13

2. Oracle database certiciation - 11g database certified associate
Target completion: 03/14

3. CISSP
Target completion: 03/15

4. Project manager cert, this should be last one - PMP
Target completion: 03/15

5. TOGAF or SCEA
Target completion: 03/16

Objective 4:
Gain professional experience in a variety of marketable technologies for which I do not plan obtaining industry certification or for which there are non available - while making money. Do this by monitoring short term development projects posted on sites like scriptlance and elance that correspond to what you are currently studying. Do these projects and eventually start profile/company and bid on new projects.
Target completion: 03/18


Objective 5:
Raise industry profile by continuing to develop technical blog and attending users group meetings and networking.
Target completion: 03/18

More word vomit about major life changes

So work is not paying for my phone anymore, and I had to sign on to K's plan. I decided to get an Android phone this time. K. and I walked in the rain to the Verizon store while her parents watched the kids. Later we got dinner at Garcias and brought it home for everyone to eat.

K. set up appointments with realtors to look at new rental properties. We are interested in 3 bedroom places within walking distance of the Metra. She is anticipating the long commute to my new job starting this week, and anyways we wanted to move to a bigger place with an extra room for J. We almost wound up renting a place in Bucktown close to C. and J. - but someone beat us to it, it was small anyways. On Sat., we found a place that is as perfect as it gets - a 3br/2bath place in Old Irving within walking distance of my mom's - all new gut rehab, great kitchen, in unit laundry, first floor, whirlpool, ample space for our various strollers, virtually across the street from the Metra, etc. The only problem with this one is no parking spot - but our neighbors assured us that street parking is no problem.

So we are packing again, preparing to move from this place we spent almost two years at, where my son was born and where my daughter spent most of her life. Really the best time in my life was spent here, we have been so happy here - I'd love to stay if it weren't for the fact that we need an extra room for J. It's crazy to think that in less than a month we'll be undertaking another major life change. We've decided to sell off all our books (this task will be a huge undertaking), and give away clothes we don't need to make the move easier. Oh yeah, one thing that's cool about the place we're moving to is I get to use the spare bedroom as a guitar room. We spent all day yesterday packing and looking up how much we can get for used books online, we'll probably be busy with that type of stuff all month until we have to move on the 27th, and then we'll be unpacking and setting up the new place. It will be a very busy time and it will cost a lot of money to move.

Not to mention on Wednesday I start my new job. I have two days off, during which time I'll probably worry about making a good impression. Feel frustrated with this agency I'm working with, they have not given me much logistical information about the first day on the job, and have been very impersonal after I signed the work contract. K. tells me that she felt the same way a few years back when she worked as a contractor. Feel nervous, as this is totally new to me, feeling like I may have jumped into something without doing the proper research, dragging my family along with me. There's really nothing to research though - you can't tell corporate culture from a google search, there's really nothing to do but show up to the job and do my best.

So that's 3-4 major life changes all at once. We went to a party on Saturday at K's friends house - we talked to some girl there about how we've been hit pretty regularly with life changes every couple of months ever since we met 3 years ago - kids, moving in, marriage, my dad, new jobs, layoffs, moving, etc. I remember when my life seemed to move very slowly and nothing changed for many years. So many things going through my mind right now. Felt overwhelmed last weekend and didn't do anything productive, gave myself a little bit of a vacation since I won't be eligible for vacation days as an independent contractor. Feeling guilty about my family's living situation, and putting them through the uncertainty of this career change, feeling guilty about this tax mixup situation that I haven't written about. Trying to stay positive and put these things out of my mind, it's not productive to dwell on negativity. Thinking about what lies ahead in my career, it hasn't been remarkable so far, I'm really grateful for this opportunity to start fresh. I'm thinking about how on Friday I was talking with D. about how I haven't learned anything on the job in 2 years and am basically leaving to put myself in challenging situations where I can learn new things. As a contractor, my job security, career development, and financial opportunities are no longer determined by managers or office politics. I always felt if I were ever in a situation where my livelihood was directly tied to my hard work and technical skills, that I'd be able to rise to the challenge.

Last day at my old job

The company threw a party for me on my last day, I got to invite around 20 of the people I worked with most closely at XX, and even more people I had forgotten came to wish me good luck. They bought an ice cream cake. I didn't do anything on my last day except clean out my desk, attend my party and BS for the last time with old colleagues. Not surprisingly, everyone seemed disgruntled at the current administration and a little jealous that I was (supposedly) moving on to bigger and better things at another organization. T. seemed shocked that I was leaving so abruptly, R. seemed shocked that it only took me less than a week to find a new job. I was surprised at the amount of people who attended my going away lunch and the amount of support - I didn't know I was that well liked. When I left the building on my last day at work, the permanence of the life change that was happening suddenly dawned on me, and I had to catch my breath for a minute. I'm not going to miss that job, but I'll miss that time in my life despite all of its inherent problems. I'll never be that person again.

Last day of my old life

In the morning the alarm on my iPhone rings at about 5am, I usually hit snooze once or twice. Sometime later N. starts calling 'daddy' and I go to her room, pick her up, and sit with her in front of the tv to watch cartoons a little bit. K. wakes up and takes a shower while I feed J. a bottle. When K. gets out of the shower, I take a shower myself quickly, then change N., then do N's hair, and play with her a little more while her mom and brother get ready. I also make coffee, and fill up our little thermoses with pictures of ourselves on them, in preparation for the ride to work.

We bundle N. into her jacket and J. in his car seat and lug everything to the car. I buckle N. into her car seat and they drive me a few blocks to the train station. I kiss everyone goodbye and I ride the train to work, while sipping my coffee, listening to my mixes on my iPhone and reviewing my notes for this certification I've been studying for. It's taking way too long to clear this thing, but life always gets in the way - I've had a marriage, and two kids, moved to two different houses, and buried my dad along the way. We'll be moving again in a month or two, we don't even know where yet. And I start my new job next week.

I work, you know, 8 hours a day. It has not been a productive 5 years, my career has basically stagnated, and I've become lazy and unambitious. I hate that, and every time I try to break out of that mold at the job I'm told to keep doing things that are not interesting to me and that I'm doing fine (or not fine, as of late). Regardless, things have not changed at this job in a long time, and I was content to just let the situation be because I was too caught up in all the events of my personal life. This new job could be the best thing that's happened to my career in a long time. At least I'll break out of this rut that I've been in. I always believed that if I put myself in a situation where I'm forced to survive on my hard work and initiative, and I'm forced to learn and grow in order to adapt to new situations, that I would do well. Now's the time to show the world what I'm made of.

Work ends, I take the train home usually most days, while listening to my iPhone and reviewing my notes. I will be commuting even longer to my new job, it will be difficult. I'll have even more time on the train to study. Oh yeah I've been writing Android apps lately too. More on that at some other time, maybe. I walk home from the train station and my wife and kids are usually there. I play with N., watch Disney movies, push the stroller around the neighborhood, go out to eat sometimes, make dinner at home most nights. Some nights I go for a quick run, it's difficult nowadays since the weather is so cold. Around 8 we give N. and J. a bath, then I tuck N. into bed with a sippy cup of milk while I read her books until she dozes off. Then K. and I sip tea in bed and watch Hulu or a movie I downloaded, K. eventually dozes off too around 10-10:30. Then I sneak off to the living room and watch tv while I practice guitar and work on my music until I get too tired to keep my eyes open, usually around midnight, then I crawl back into bed with K. until the alarm wakes us up in the morning again.

This chapter is ending, this routine is gone, another one will take its place. We won't be living in this house in a couple of months, and life will feel different again. J. will grow up and will take more of our time. I have the opportunity now to get my career back on track. I told K. about my five year plan, she told me she thinks it's a great plan - take this contract job at XXX, take a different contract job at other fortune 500 companies every year for the next 5 years, continue to develop my skills and credentials and references - so that at the end of 5 years I'm either one of those highly paid contractor guys who works at home and makes so much money that he only has to work 6 months out of the year, or else I land my dream job at some corporation. We'll see where life takes me. If there was ever a moment to follow my passion and do something that matters to me, that moment is now. I'm going to let my love of life and learning, and my love for my family radiate in everything I do.

An unlikely success

Heirloom - Memoryhouse
Wilhelms Scream - James Blake
She Wants - Metronomy
Will Do - TV On The Radio
Mind Drips - Neon Indian
Heartbeat - Blackbird Blackbird
Need You Now - Cut Copy
W o r d - Star Slinger
I Want You - Summer Camp
I Follow Rivers (The Magician Remix) - Lykke Li
He Gets Me High - Dum Dum Girls

Preparing for departure

A Case Of You (Joni Mitchell Cover) - James Blake
West Coast Bird - Dirty Beaches
Lotus Flower - Radiohead
New Beat - Toro Y Moi
Killin' The Vibe (feat Panda Bear) - Ducktails
Do What You Will - Papercuts
Tip Of Your Tongue (Keep Shelly In Athens Remix) - Porcelain Raft
Forget That You're Young - The Raveonettes
When I'm Small - Phantogram
Take 'em Up (John Talabot Remix) - Shit Robot

New job, life changes

So much stuff has happened to me and my family in the past few weeks, I feel like I need to write it all down, despite the fact that blogging seems like a chore lately. The big news is that I got a new job, contract position with XXX. I got a call out of the blue from a recruiter a week and a half ago, had a phone interview over the weekend, and I had a job offer a couple of days later. It's been very quick. I accepted right away but spent most of last week second guessing my decision. I feel like I made the right decision, though.

Definitely staying at my current job will be bad. They are laying people off here, so who knows how secure my position here really is. I can also continue to feel frustrated in my current role and lack of career development here, I've decided that that situation will not change, despite how much I complain about the situation. At least I will be getting a raise and going someplace where I'll have a chance to develop my skills and resume experience.

It will most probably be difficult, though. The new job is in Hoffman Estates, which is a pretty far commute. We only have one car right now so I'd have to take public transportation. I will be commuting for at least an hour longer than what I'm used to. And probably the most difficult aspect of the new commute is that it will be harder for K. to take care of the kids before and after work now that I'll be leaving earlier and coming home later. I'll also miss out on some time that I could spend with the kids before they have to go to sleep. We may have to buy a second car if the commute is too much, right now I'd rather take the train as it forces me to focus on my reading and studying.

I'm nervous about it. I was pretty hard on myself last week, for being indecisive, for putting my family in a situation where they have to sacrifice for my career, when I feel like I should be able to make their lives easier by now. I have a wonderful and supportive wife, that's all I can say. I really want this job to be a new start for me, I want to do well there and I will work as hard as I need to to make sure that happens. And I'll continue to study for my certifications outside of work to insure that my career continues to develop.

Read 'The Now Habit' recently, it's been almost a life changing book for me. I'm struck by how much perfectionism and procrastination are related to bad sense of self worth. Been making it a point to engage in compassionate self talk with myself, to the extent that I'm almost having conversations with myself in public. It feels a bit silly sometimes.

Weather's cold - low 30's. I've been running again though. Times are bad due to all the ice on the ground. I'm losing weight again though. I think as long as we try not to eat out as much as possible, and I bring lunches to work and continue to work out, I'll be down to my good weight again soon.

K. told D. that we need to be released from our current lease as we need an extra room to accomodate J., and I need to be within walking distance of the Metra station. D. said ok, so chances are we will be moving to a new house either in Bucktown or Old Irving sometime in the next couple of months. I feel like my life has been one major life change after another every couple of months ever since I met my wife. I have to admit that - other than my dad's death a couple years ago - most of these life changes have been good and my life is steadily improving.

Word vomit

After the blizzard there were piles of snow 4 feet high on every street corner.  People were engaging in the peculiar Chicago tradition of leaving chairs out in the streets to 'reserve' parking spaces near their homes.  In the past several days we had 30 degree temps, which flooded the streets with melting snow.  I finally motivated myself to go running again and ran 12 miles last weekend.  My shoes are soaked and my legs are sore again for the first time since November really.  A. and P. had a birthday party for one of their little ones last weekend, I told K. to tell H. and J. that I've been training all winter.
My mother in laws in town, she's been having a blast taking care of the babies.  We couldn't be more relieved to let someone take over for a change.  2 kids is definitely a challenge, I wish she could stay with us all the time.  My mom also watched N. Last Friday - N. spent the night at her lolas house which was also nice for us.  We went out to eat and had a nice relaxing evening with J. while our real high maintenance kid was away.  We tried to watch a movie in bed but fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow.
K. is all about dieting and losing weight these days, can't say that I mind.  Right now I'm about 10lbs overweight.  I guess I was so overwhelmed after J. was born that I stopped working out, among other things.  I was also driving N. 3 hours a day to daycare and back so I missed out on my study time on the train.
K's back at work now so she has the car again, and I'm back riding the ghettoness of the cta.  At least I'm getting a lot of studying done on the train.  Been reading this book on the psychology of procrastination and it's been pretty enlightening- I feel like I've been asleep all my life and just woke up.  I'm also amazes how much low self image, perfectionism, fear of failure, and self talk play into procrastination habits.  Been making it a point to talk supportively to myself whenever I catch myself falling into patterns.  I can't believe I never took this stiff seriously before.
Feel better about work, I'm still not where I want to be but I feel like I'm working hard and making good use of my time.  I feel like maybe people are noticing that I've been trying hard for the past few weeks, maybe not though.  It's really easy to slip through the cracks where I work.  I know that if I continue to work as hard as I do and most importantly, don't give up, that I'll eventually start to manifest positive change in my career.
What else.  Z. screwed up my haircut twice.  He made it too short and now I'm back to growing it out again.  It's not that big of a deal.  I've been playing a lot of guitar, a couple sings are coming along.  Mental note that I need to start practicing singing.  It's also our anniversary tonight, really looking forward to taking K. to the Signature room.  

Regarding weight gain while marathon training

I am currently training for my 4th marathon, and I always gain 5 to 10 pounds of weight as well before each marathon. Although I do lose the weight again after the marathon, I dislike the feeling of that extra weight on me, and always wondered what the cause was. I did cut out a lot of my cross-training activities and replaced them for training runs which I thought might be the culprit, because as far as caloric intake, I've kept a daily diary for years, and I had not been consuming enough extra calories to account for all of the pre-marathon weight gain. I did think that some of the weight might have been water and extra muscle weight, but was still convinced that those two factors did not account for all of the extra weight that I always put on.

However, a month or so ago, I received a regional paper put out by a running organization in the Washington DC area, and there was an interesting article about marathon weight gain in it: The author of the article was a specialist in metabolic counseling and testing (I can't recall if she was a nutritionist by trade or something similar). She wrote about a woman who came to her also complaining of a 10-pound weight gain while marathon training. The author tested this woman's metabolic rate via blood and exercise tests. What she found out was that the woman's ideal fat burning range (was it maybe around 120) was well below the heart rate that the woman ran/marathon trained at. Therefore, the woman was doing all of her running and exercise work in the cardio range, and not burning fat. The author encouraged the woman to add 3 weekly 1-hour walking sessions to her exercise routine, and the woman lost the weight shortly thereafter.
Now, when I first read this article, I didn't agree with the conclusion because common sense tells you that calories in=calories out, and that this equation could not be altered by other factors such as heart rate while exercising or exercise type. However, although I did not have a metabolic test performed on me, I did decide to try the addition of low heart rate activities to my training routine, like the author had suggested. I have lost several pounds since adding low heart rate activities such as walking and biking to my marathon training schedule.
Sorry for the long post, but I just wanted to get that out there for those of you who seem to be suffering from the same pre-marathon weight gain phenomenon. I would love to hear comments to this theory - I still am not completely convinced that I'm right!

-a post on the Runners World forums, reminder to myself to try this out.

Do you hear the voice inside your head

To The Light House (Millionyoung Remix) - Memoryhouse
Under Cover Of Darkness - The Strokes
Mouthful of Diamonds (Alan Wilkis Remix) - Phantogram
Photojournalist - Small Black
Wet Hair (Japandroids Cover) - Teen Daze
Sun of a Gun (Savage Skulls Remix) - Oh Land
Plath Heart - Braids
Take_Me_Over_Thee_Loving_Hand_Remix_by_Tim_Goldsworthy - Cut Copy
Rad Racer Final - Work Drugs
Kaputt - Destroyer

Rollins Band - Low Self Opinion

Procrastination and self image

This is the self perpetuating cycle of procrastination and self image:

People who are perfectionists are often procrastinators. Procrastination is a way to deal with fear of failure. By this I mean, people who low self esteem and do not have an intrinsic sense of self worth use procrastination as a way to protect their self image. Procrastinators are first confronted by a challenging project, and since they have low self esteem they feel as if their worth as a person is entirely determined by their performance at a particular task. Therefore, if they fail at this task they will be a failure as a person. They are paralyzed by fear of failure, and they also use procrastination as a way of motivating themselves in an indirect way - in other words, if a person procrastinates a task long enough, sooner or later they are faced with a deadline they have to meet. So ther person completes the task because it has to be done by the deadline - but if they perform less than perfectly at the task they can tell themselves that since they completed the task under deadline, their less than perfect performance is not a true reflection of their abilities. In that way the person is able to preserve his sense of self worth, however shaky that may be.

You'd think that success at a given task will naturally reinforce a person's self image, but a person locked in this cycle never feels as if they've given their all and diminishes their chances of experiencing true success. A way to break this cycle is to change the patterns that prevent one from achieving a sense of intrinsic self worth.

Babies

N. is 2 years old, she has my face and K.'s complexion and hair color. She is an energetic, playful child with an overwhelmingly happy disposition. N. loves her mom and dad, and her toys, and fruit snacks. N. loves to dance and sing songs. N. loves movies about princess, especially movies by Disney or Pixar. N. believes she is a princess, and she is. N. dresses in princess dresses and glittery princess shoes, wears crowns and carries around a magic wand. In the summer N. likes to play in the garden and go running with her dad. In the winter, N. likes to go sledding and eat snow. N.'s best friend is kitty. At night N. sneaks into our room and crawls into bed with us, it's very difficult to sleep with N. because she likes to stick her finger in your ear and in kicks you in bed. I get up early every morning watch cartoons with N. on my lap. N.'s talking is not so good, we have a speech therapist coming to evaluate her next week - her talk sounds mostly like gibberish although I'm hearing a lot more words lately. Her talk is very cute, though. I will probably miss her baby talk when she starts talking like a big girl.

J. spends most of his life attached to his mom's teat - she calls J. her 'parasite'. J. was born skinny but he is getting a little fat. When J. is hungry, he will cry very loudly to let you know he needs his milk. J. is a very smiley and talkative baby, when he is happy he will sit on your lap and smile at you and talk to you for hours. J. is a very social and smiley baby.

Right As You Run

I know this guy who is a friend of a friend of my wife's. He is a single guy who owned a 3 br condo in , kept that place while he bought another place in . In order to afford these two places he would have to make a lot more than me and K. combined. How does he do it on a teacher's salary? His parents spoil him, his parents are both doctors, and he is an only child. I bet if you talk to him he'll say that he's worked hard for everything he has. I have been thinking about this dude, who is even more spoiled than my brothers are. I always compare myself to other people, it's not healthy. Probably a lot of people would say that I have it easy, and I think that I have the hardest life of anyone that I know. Me and K. have to be smart - nobody is helping us.

It's been a weird week. I've been working from home pretty much all week, due to the second to worst blizzard in Chicago history, and snow 10 feet high piled up in the alley behind our garage. I've actually been enjoying it, it's an opportunity to spend time with my family, play with my kids, watch movies. People are rioting in Egypt, I keep worrying about the economy, and this constant feeling of impending doom that does not go away. I remember this documentary I watched said that to be modern means to accept the fact that you could be annhialated at any minute, I'm paraphrasing. When I'm with my family, all that goes away and I'm happy. Also, it's easier to worry about my tiny little world and my petty ambitions than it is to worry about these huge macro issues that I can't even control.

They say that everyone has his Mt. Everest - it could be writing an album, writing a book, creating your own business, growing the largest watermelon in three states - it's different for everybody. Everyone will forgive you if you don't reach your goal, but on your deathbed you will be left with an empty hollow feeling if you don't make at least one serious attempt in your lifetime to reach the summit. Is my Everest raising a family? is it writing an album? is it being successful at my career - and what does that even mean? I can see myself in 40 years on my death bed. Probably if I never make an album I will feel some remorse, if I never advance in my career I will also feel regret at all the time I wasted when the kids were young that I could've spent becoming better at my job. I am always yearning for something better for myself, yet I don't know what I want. I'm also paralyzed as I've always been by perfectionism, fear of failure, and fear of being judged.

It's getting late for me to still be dealing with these things, I'm already old. When will I not be trying to 'figure it out' and just be in the flow? One thing J. always tries to stress is that I need to go easy on myself, and keep in mind that I'm dealing with major life changes in raising two babies. Anyways, the past week has been nice, cozy, enjoyable. I'm glad we had this week before K. goes back to work next week - maybe we won't see a time like this again.

I've actually been semi productive at work, and I feel better about my job, more on top of things. I'm not performing like I want to by any means, and it's not like anyone's noticed that I'm working harder. I'm also not looking for any jobs although I've gotten a lot of calls and emails from recruiters, nothing looks interesting. I also haven't worked out in a few weeks, I really feel out of shape and bloated. H. has just signed up for the Chicago Marathon 2011 - it's time to start thinking about spring races again. I need to start seriously training again once all the snow in the streets has been cleared. I played a lot of guitar on Mon. and Tues. but I haven't felt like it the past two days. So far this year I have music for two fairly basic songs, no vocal melody or lyrics. That actualy doesn't seem like a bad level of productivity given the amount of time I've spent on music.

Coffee for dinner

M., my old college roommate whom I have not spoken to in more than a decade, added me as a facebook friend. I was happy to hear from him and responded cordially of course. I'm still mildly freaked whenever old people from the past come out of the woodwork on facebook like this. I like to think you become more of yourself as you grow older, I still relate to M., and C., and D., like we are back in college. We did not get a chance to grow older and develop together. Maybe now is our chance.

K. left with her mom to go back to MI for the week, she brought the babies with her. So I have the house to myself. I swear, when left to my own device, I revert back to living like an animal. The house is still a mess, I haven't cleaned up like I told K. I would. I've been going to work and then coming home and not really using my time effectively, instead taking advantage of my temporary freedom to catch up with old friends. Me and J. went to the Blackhawks game last night, for instance, I had a few beers. It was good to catch up with him, which is a weird thing to say since he works in the floor below me.

I've been running, it's cold here in Chicago and there's a lot of ice on the ground, the farthest I ran was about 4-5 miles. I've been taking advantage of the Garmin to track my time and it's slow - I attribute it to all the ice on the ground, but also I'm out of shape since the marathon. I went to my guitar class, I'm actually learning a few things, but mostly I'm too advanced for the class as usual. I still enjoy going to guitar classes at Old Town School, I just love being in that environment with 'guitar' and 'music' people, even though their taste in music may be a bit too folk and roots-based for my taste sometimes.

So as I was telling my therapist J. at my session last weekend - I've been thinking of ways to maximize my productivity given the time constraints imposed on my life by the responsibilities with the new babies and with the baby we already had. I'm going to try my best not to give up my hobbies of running and songwriting, although time is very limited. A couple of decisions I came to: I'm going to start following Hal Higdon Novice I training program, which is much less intense than the Intermediate I that I used to train for last year's marathon - you definitely run a lot less and make use of cross training time more. I'll just have to make sure I'm monitoring my progress on Garmin and trying to train smarter, if not longer, maybe I'll see some results as in a better time in this year's marathon, maybe not. I'll just be satisfied if I can finish it. After all there's nothing really dependent on a stellar time in the marathon, just my personal satisfaction. That's all I have time for in my life at this time.

Another thing that was really concerning me was the idea of having to give up songwriting for good. Writing and recording an album, that's something that young people who are single and have a lot of free time (and quiet) do. It may work out that I may have to ditch that idea while I still have small babies to take care of, but right now I'm thinking, maybe like marathon training, I may have to adjust my expectations in order to keep this activity as a part of my life. I really don't want to do that as, like I said before, it would seem to me like a spiritual death, although that may be an overly dramatic way to put it.

So I'm thinking with songwriting, I may have to cut back the expectations I put on myself, like I said before this may actually result in my being more relaxed about music and I may actually take more enjoyment out of music with all the deadlines that I impose on myself taken away. It may actually result in fewer songs, but better songs, and I may still wind up with an album written. I previously had this arbitrary deadline of a song a week, and an album at the end of the year - I'm thinking of just letting those arbitrary restrictions go. I'm just going to play my music, play the guitar, work on Ableton when I feel like it. Still try to write songs, but there's no expectation that I have to write a song by a given deadline or even write at all. There's also this idea about how I want the music to be - I want it to be acoustic based, as was my original concept, before I got sucked into the hole of learning music production software and tinkering with loop based sequencers. Ableton is just a musical sketchpad and recorder for me. I don't have the time to explore remixing and creating experimental electronic pieces, much less trying to merge my love of electronic beats with acoustic composition. That's a very difficult thing to do, even for experienced producers and songwriters, I don't know how I expected to do it myself. I want my music to be acoustic based, acoustic guitar, a lot of fingerpicking, maybe all fingerpicking, think Nick Drake. Whatever additional instrumentation I create in Ableton should support that idea.

My mom called, I get the feeling she's mad at K. for some reason. I don't know how that happened, K.'s been a terrific daughter in law from what I can see. Who knows. It's interesting for me to think that perceived problems in my relations with my parents used to take up so much of my time and mental energy and now they barely register. I just have too much going on in my life to worry about things that aren't going to change, it's too bad that my wife and probably my kids will probably be affected by it to some degree.

Work going ok, I've been working hard, as much as I can. Work should be my primary concern in life, and if I'm not happy about it, then I should be spending all my time trying to improve my work situation by working hard at the job I've got, trying to improve my skills, etc. This is like pulling teeth for me. I feel so burnt out, I used to be so passionate about software engineering concepts and programming languages, and open source. I don't know where all that passion went. So I've decided even if I'd rather be sitting around playing guitar all day (I mean who wouldn't?) I still have to act like a professional at work, and honor my responsibilities to my family and work on my career even though I'd rather be doing something else. Those babies deserve a dad who is a success at his career, and who's providing a safe secure environment for them to grow up in.

I got a feeling the club can't use somebody to MASH IT UP!!!

Mash It Up (Cee Lo Green Vs. Kylie Vs. Lady Gaga Vs. Flo Rida) - Norwegian Recycling
Money to Brightside (Lil Wayne VS. The Killers VS. Drake VS. Thin White Duke) - Mochi Beats
We R Who We R Vs. Grand Theft Ecstasy (Paul Farah's Mashup) - Ke$ha Vs. Feed Me
I Got More Than A Feeling [LongVersion] - [MMM] MadMixMustang
Club Can't Use Somebody (Kings of Leon vs Flo Rida) - DJ FOX
Decalogue (The Hood Internet vs The 2000s) - The Hood Internet
Where The Streets Can't Handle Me (Flo Rida ft. David Guetta vs. U2) - DJs From Mars
Britney Bitch (Mc Marcelly vs. Britney Spears) - André Paste
Love Butterfly (Lady Gaga vs. Crazy Town) - DAW-GUN
Lump Sum Of Paris (Bon Iver vs Friendly Fires & Aeroplane) - The Hood Internet
Heartless (Fray vs. The Police & the Black Eyed Peas) - DJ Earworm

Quote

"Not all who wander are aimless. Especially not those who seek truth beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond the image. "-Mona Lisa's Smile.

I Just Wanna Love The Way You Viva La MASHUPs!!!

Dynamite Pressure [queen & David Bowie Vs. Taio Cruz] - Dj Tripp
United State of Pop 2010 (Don't Stop the Pop) - DJ Earworm
Just Stop Believing - Lady GaGa VS Journey
United State of Pop 2008 (Viva La Pop) - DJ Earworm
Smells Like Ke$ha's G6 - Ke$ha vs. Nirvana vs. Far East Movement vs. Britney Spears
Virgin O'Riley (Madonna vs The Who) - Go Home Productions
I Wanna Bulletproof Dancer (La Roux vs. Robyn vs. Whitney Houston vs. Taylor Swift) - Titus Jones
Airplanes Countdown - DJ Schmolli
Big Booty Bitches In Miami (Bombs Away vs. LMFAO vs. Busta Rhymes vs. Sir Mix-A-Lot mashup) - DJ Schmolli
Love The Way You Lie in Paradise City (Eminem ft. Rihanna vs. Guns N' Roses) - DJs From Mars
Triple Double - Girl Talk

Return of the Return of the Undiscovered Self

So for many months I have not been posting more than these online mixtapes that I make on 8tracks.com. It's a new year and I'm going to go back to writing/journalling in this blog again hopefully. Writing is good for me, spiritually. In 2010 I tried to switch to journalling in a Moleskine notebook because I thought that this blog was too public, now I don't really care too much about that. The Moleskine turned out to be too cumbersome for me - I'm always online anyways so this blog always seemed the easiest way to keep track of my thoughts, I was always leaving the Moleskine at home, and it's too awkward to have to whip out a pen and write in a public place whereas I'm always messing around on my laptop. It's the 21st century - if Moliere and Hemingway had access to a MacBook Pro I think they would have ditched their notebooks. So, Cheers. Happy New Years to whatever readers I have left, if any. Cheers mainly to myself, this mission I'm on, to transform my life to something good, is constantly changing, and never ending. And it's more important now than when I first started posting journal entries online about how I'm dissatisfied with my life - because there's kids involved now who depend on me. I think about that every day, it's a heavy burden and I often feel as if I'm not living up to it. Maybe if I try really hard and not waste time anymore one day I'll feel as if I've succeeded. Even if I fail I still have to try.

The story of the past year of my life boils down to only a few main themes, as I'm just a simple guy and there is not a large cast of characters in my life and I live mostly in my head. If there's a protagonist in this story it would be me, and if there's an antagonist in this story that would also be me as I've always been my own worst enemy, as much as I try to convince myself that my parents screwed me up. I guess the basic premise of this blog is that we can determine our own destiny in this world, that any obstacle can be overcome with determination and hard work. The main people in my life would be my beautiful wife K., my gorgeous daughter N., and my new son (he's also handsome) J. There are also my mom, my two brothers, my various cousins, uncles, aunts, in laws, friends and associates that I know from work, the few friends I have left from my past, my therapist, various people from online. Anyways, my marriage is wonderful, my wife and my kids fill me with happiness every moment of my life. I feel like I don't have any time to work on my various friendships, that's just how it is. Also I feel like my relationship with my brothers has greatly improved in the past year, ever since they both moved back home with my mom after L. got a divorce. I'm really happy about that. My mom has been acting strangely for the past couple of years, ever since dad died. I don't know what I can do to improve my relationship with my mom other than just checking in with her whenever I can find the time and bringing the kids by.

The biggest thing that happened to my family last year was we got pregnant and J. was born in November. I feel that everything else that happened this year was a reaction to that event, planning for that event, the result of being stressed out or in denial of that event, recovering from that event, or contemplating that event. I'm still processing being a father of two, and having a new son. I feel like this will be something I will be working on for the rest of my life. But obviously it was a joyous event, he's just the chill baby, very different from his sister. And so handsome (of course). So I can't help but pronounce the year a success, despite how frustrated I may feel about lack of progress in other areas of my life. I'm an idiot. I feel like ever since we found out we were expecting in March, I was using our due date in November as some sort of line in the sand when I would be able to 'get back to the business' of life, whatever that means. I feel like I've been floating, and living in a state of expectation most of the year - which is a convoluted excuse for being lazy. And after he was born, we've just been feeling overwhelmed and unable to balance the demands of two kids with our career responsibilities and personal projects. I think we severely underestimated the work involved in raising two babies, the lack of sleep involved, the way the amount of cleaning and laundry seems to have exponentially increased. This situation is not going to change anytime soon, if I'm going to get any traction in other areas of my life I'm going to have to figure out some way to deal with it.

So this year I have 3 New Year's resolutions: 1. write and record original music, 2. find a better job and 3. beat my time in the marathon.

Other significant events in my life the past year: I trained for and ran a marathon in October. Weather conditions were brutal, and I didn't get the time that I had hoped for. It took me a while to come to grips with what this means to me - I feel like it was not a waste and plan to run another marathon in 2011. I got in great shape, lost weight, and had a lot of great experiences during my training. I truly love marathon training. I'll continue to post about running in the coming year, probably. My friend C. came to visit in July and we went to see the Pitchfork Festival. N's birthday party, a large number of children's parties in the fall due to all the babies in our family being born around the same time.

Music has not been going very well, mainly due to the demands of family life and career interfering with my music time. In order to write songs you need a lot of quiet time, away from distractions. It's just really difficult right now for me, I have to figure out how to work songwriting and recording into my life. I've been experimenting with late night and early morning songwriting sessions - the problem I think is the lack of sleep due to the new baby, I'm just not able to focus on music as much as I need to as I'm pretty much always sleep deprived and exhausted. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'd really like to realize the goal of write and record original music. I'll definitely post more about my struggle to create art in this blog as it's basically my only hobby and interest outside of spending time with my family and trying not to get fat. Very frustrated in my musical progress though - I feel like it should come more naturally and easily, and I spend way too much time overthinking the creative process. I also feel like I spent a lot of time this year learning Ableton Live, sound design and production, which I tend to confuse in my mind with the songwriting process, which is more important. This year I did manage to become very good at Ableton Live, which is not a small feat and took up a lot of time and research. I also became a better guitarist, despite practicing less due to spending time on Ableton - which I think is just a natural outcome of playing and would have happened anyway. I took a few classes at the Old Town School, a songwriting class and a music theory class and some others. So I feel like I learned an awful lot about the technical aspects of songwriting this year. I also wrote a few songs, I think I have about 20 songs written since I started my musical journey. That's being liberal and including some longer song experiments I did in Ableton throughout the year. So, some progress, but not as much as I would've liked. But I learned a lot last year, maybe I needed to learn more to get to a point where I can just create. Maybe I just need to drop any preconceived notions I have about the artistic process, or what I want my art to be about or sound like, there's definitely some type of internal block getting in the way of my creative output. One thing I talk about a lot with my therapist is my need to overcome my OCD tendencies and my perfectionism, which is really fear of trying.

Likewise, my career. I'm very very frustrated with my career, and really unhappy at my current job - I feel like I've been ignoring these issues for a long time, years. Even with all the stuff going on in my family life I feel like I could have made more headway in my career last year. I'm just lazy, and when I feel overwhelmed I just shut down and then nothing gets done, that's the basic truth about me that I have to always be mindful about. And I'm not like an unsuccessful guy at my career, I actually make a pretty good living, but I always feel at my age I should be more advanced in my career and be earning a larger salary. Definitely there are many who would love to be in the position I'm in with my career, but I have high standards for myself. This past year my previous managers were fired and I was put into another group with a new manager. This change at work has not resulted in increased job satisfaction on my part. I know what needs to happen in terms of my career - I need to work overtime at my job so that I'm feeling productive and on top of my job, I need to start working on certifications and personal projects that will make me a better developer, and I need to quietly start looking for a better job with an opportunity to grow in a more supportive environment. All of this takes time and focus, of course. Just like my music, I don't know how I'm going to make time for this stuff with the demands of two kids.

Also, I've given it some thought - and it has crossed my mind that my career is the most important thing, and that I could probably make more time for improving my career by letting go of my musical ambitions, maybe just play guitar in my spare time whenever I had the time. Or I could make more time for music, or at least not feel so guilty about all the time I spend on music, if I just accept where I am right now in my career and get too ambitious. I feel like if I give up music it would be a spiritual death for me. What I need to do is make time for music, but keep within strict limits of the time I reserve for music, and within the time I reserve for music really use that opportunity to create - this means allowing myself to create and not overthinking the artistic process or prejudging every song I create before it's even finished and allowing myself to finish my songs without judgement. This also means that I have to use my time at work more productively and not waste any time while I'm there, maybe reserve at least an hour or two during the day to work on career related research and stick with it, hopefully by steadily applying myself to the goal of improving my career and getting a better job eventually something good will happen. Definitely nothing good will happen if I don't work at it on a regular basis. This is a new life, and I'm never going to have the luxury again of being able to spend all day being really OCD and hack at some personal project, I have to adjust my way of thinking.

Get this rude f*king MASHUP waving up in the party, boy. Like, OMG.

What I've Done To This Dangerous Teenager (Akon vs. Linkin Park vs. Kardinal Offishall vs. Katy Perry) - MashUp Mike
Like OMG, Baby (Capital FM Summertime Ball Mashup) - deejay earworm
Rude Baptism (Rihanna vs Crystal Castles) - The Hood Internet
Bittersweet Electric Sky Touch (GlowTape!'s String Cheese Mash Up) - The Verve VS MGMT & Justice VS Kanye West & Lupe Fiasco
The Wavin Flag Mashup [Khaan vs. Kings of Leon vs. Matisyahu vs. Whitney Houston vs. Counting Crows vs. Gentleman vs. Jamaram vs. others] - Mashup-Germany
United State of Pop 2009 (Mashup of the Top 25 Hits of 2009, according to Billboard) - cool dj
Fuck the Kids (Eve Massacre Re - MGMT vs Soulwax vs Yeah Yeah Y
Give The Lying Boy Away (RHCP vs. Eminem feat. Rihanna) - MashMike teag
Get This Party Started (Mash-up) - The Ultra Girls
Komradz (Salem vs. 2Pac mashup) - Turbo City

I got summer on my mind

Gone For The Summer - Teen Daze
Pure - Blackbird Blackbird
Lately (Deuxième) - Memoryhouse
1088 New Theory - Washed Out
O Lilac - Wild Nothing
Shooting Holes - Twin Shadow
Fokionos Negri Street - Keep Shelly in Athens
STILL - jj
Empathy - Crystal Castles
Wide Eyes - Local Natives

Just like the movies, that's how it will be

Shine On, You Crazy White Cap - Teen Daze
Bored Games - Wild Nothing
Sleep Patterns - Memoryhouse
Third Wave - Work Drugs
KILL YOU - jj
Thanks Vision - toro y moi
Go Outside - Cults
Endless Sunset - Delorean
Slow (Van Rivers Remix) - Twin Shadow
Baby - Warpaint

lofi, dreampop, indie rock, remix

This Time Around - The Radio Dept.
Neon - Teen Daze
05 At My Heels - Twin Shadow
halo - ceo
Endless Spring - Houses
Calyer - Beach Fossils
Bermuda - Kisses
Golden Haze (Thunderlust remix) - Wild Nothing
Zebra ( Them Jeans Drum Edit) - Beach House
Texico Bitches - Broken Social Scene

I don't want to erase your memories

Youth - Beach Fossils
Learning - Perfume Genius
03_Love_Fade - Tamaryn
Running - Computer Magic
Erasers - Blackbird Blackbird
illuminata - ceo
David - The Radio Dept.
Memory Boy - Deerhunter
Burden of Tomorrow - The Tallest Man On Earth

Adrift in the shallows, a modest repose

Soak It Up - Houses
Live In Dreams - Wild Nothing
Daydream - Beach Fossils
08 Castles In The Snow - Twin Shadow
My Love For You Will Surely Be The Death Of Me - Of Oceans
Photojournalist - Small Black
Civilian - Wye Oak
Marathon - Tennis

You speak in tongues, I can't resist

Summer Holiday - Wild Nothing
Domestic Scene - The Radio Dept.
Hawaii (Niva remix) - Blackbird Blackbird
Still Sound - toro y moi
Let's Fall Asleep Together - Teen Daze
Children of the Revolution (T. Rex Cover) - Neon Indian
I Do Not Care For The Winter Sun - Beach House
Last Night At The Jetty - Panda Bear

dreampop, lo fi, rock, girl talk

Fax Shadow (Shlohmo Remix) - Toro Y Moi
PJ Harvey - Written On The Forehead - PJ Harvey - Written On The Forehead
Never Follow Suit - The Radio Dept.
Call Your Girlfriend - Robyn
Carolina - Girls
Oh No - Girl Talk
Got Something For You - Best Coast And Wavves
Derezzed (Breakdown Remix) - Daft Punk