elgeeko’s blog

This is the last of three in the series about Shibrowner, the much adored (and worn) car throughout my high school years.

Until a few months after high school, I smoked cigarettes. As smokers know, smokers congregate in groups; your friends, lovers, and hangouts all become smoke friendly. What I truly miss about smoking is the perfect excuse for a little break, a few moments to myself or to converse with friends. Cigarettes were a social utility that connected strangers and friends alike.

In what would become a beloved tradition for myself and three friends, we escaped the bustle of suburban life to a quiet mountainside with a view of the valley below. Shibrowner’s windows rolled down, and the four of us climbed to sit over its doors, feet resting inside the car, elbows resting on its roof. Cigarettes flare up as we watch the sunset over the valley, our attention frequently turning to one of the heads bobbing above the roof. Our regular participants included two Americans, one German, one Swede, and one Norwegian, though occasional guests were invited to join.

To the best of my recollection, there were some rough guidelines about Top of the Car Conversations. They became an honest, open, and a unique way to exchange thoughts and ideas. We felt as friends, and equals, and will remember these moments as some of the best in high school.

This is the second of three installations that, in some way or another, revolve around my 1983 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. Age had faded its beige color into a soft brown, which warranted the nickname “Shibrowner”. For its age, it was surprisingly comfortable and fast, boasting its speed on a dashboard bearing a needle that swept horizontally (as opposed to the modern circular design). Shibrowner was the only car in which I was able to bury the needle; at a speed at which we could only estimate was between 100 and 110 mph, the needle actually disappeared beneath the dashboard. At such a high speed, the age of the car became apparent, as worn sealing leaked air through turbines that sounded like the engine of an airplane, and loosened bolts and fixtures rattled in a symphony of restlessness. Shibrowner was purchased in 2001 at a price of $600, and died roughly one year later when a bearing in the engine locked due to heavy throttling. Shibrowner lived hard and died hard.

One Saturday afternoon, my friends and I were raising hell in our hometown of Logan, Utah. Having offed enough of the city, we roamed into the construction zone of a new mountainside property development. With all of the arrogance and bravado of youth, we concluded that Shibrowner was the perfect sport utility vehicle, capable of handling the most rugged of terrain. Shibrowner and its six occupants sought to digging (off-roading to the layman) through the mountainside. We whirled about, tossing rocks and dirt everywhere, spinning the car wildly in the smooth but unpaved terrain. My passengers cheered and laughed at the ride, with every moment more exhilarating than the last.

As we inched towards the mountainside, I saw a hill of dirt that was begging to be climbed by my awesome SUV. It was if I was at the base camp of K2, doped on oxygen, and propped up by the confidence of a Sherpa. I turned towards the mountain, gunning the engines despite the screams of my friends who had less confidence in my Himalayan experience. A quick leap through the air and sudden impact with dirt yielded a car propped against the hill, its hood embedded, its rear wheels suspended above the earth.

For nearly an hour, we tried desperately to free our car, but alas, Sir Issac Newton had other plans. With the hood stuck, the rear bumper sitting on the ground, and the rear wheels suspended, there was little hope of freeing Shibrowner from her entanglement. I left the driver’s seat, stepped away from the car, and took in the desperation and despair of my friends. My heart sank. While there was worry of tow trucks and cab rides home, I longed for the cheers and laughter of the moments before the impact.

“Friends,” I said, “let’s watch the sunset.”

My friends turned to notice sun as it was beginning to set in a brilliant show of colors carried through the warmth of an idle summer. My friends took but a moment to observe my sincerity, that the car should be left for the time being, and that we should live in the moment. We climbed over the car to the top of the hill, sitting in the dirt, arm in arm, laughing and watching a beautiful sunset. At that moment, we were the kings and queens of our world. We were young, and energetic, and could roll with whatever life threw our way. We knew our youth and enjoyed every minute of it; moreover, we were solaced and comforted by our friendship. Until the sun would escape below the horizon, we had forgotten all about Shibrowner and the mess we were in.

“Shit,” I thought, “how are we going to get out of this. Guys, can we give it one more try?”

What great friends - lifting the bumper from behind and pushing the hood in front, the car escaped the earth’s grip in a slurry of gravel and dust.

“What should we do now?” my friend asked.

Minutes later, dirt and cheers were flying through the air, illuminated by our headlights in the night.

I had an awesome trance session last night. Someone posted a four disc trance collection that blew my mind. I was home, programming, chatting with friends, and seriously jamming out. When it was time, Goldfrapp brought me down with her latest reinvention. I experience music surrealistically, and am ever so thankful for my occasional departures from typical consciousness. Monks have meditation, naturists have rainbows and butterflies, nerds have World of Warcraft, and I have trance music.

Assuming the legal statute of limitations for prosecuting arson has expired, as has any interest in pursuing the matter anyway, tonight I share one of my more reckless adolescent exploits. As an epigraph, please note that no useful property was damaged, no one was hurt, no animals were used in producing this story, and no daemons were summoned that were not immediately returned to hell.

I burned down a school bus - from a private Catholic high school.

Judge me not, for first I was adolescent and therefore immune from adult capacity or responsibility. Second, the bus had long been abandoned and lain to rest in an automotive graveyard.

As to why my friends and I chose to spend time in this remote location in the mountains of Utah, I shall not elaborate more than to say we were idle hands.

Sitting in the bus, I retrieved my trusty lighter (ever the modern Dennis the Menace) and set to lighting a seat on fire. Damned seats were flame-retardant. Eager to continue my quest, I saw a cardboard box near the front of the bus. My friends remained in the back as I walked the aisle to the front and peered into the box. The box was filled with old car parts - seemingly harmless, I thought, so I lit the corner of the box on fire. I returned to my friends who had formed a circle and were conversing at the rear of the bus.

A moment later, my friend pointed towards the box and said, “huh, that thing is really going, Jeff.” I turned from having my back towards the fire, took a moment to see two or three foot flames and moderate smoke emanating from the box, and replied, “yeah, I guess so”. I turned away again to rejoin the conversation, with little concern of the fire spreading.

A minute or so later, the cabin of the bus was beginning to fill with smoke. Determined to enjoy what we had claimed as our domain, we merely scooted towards the very back of the bus. We took little interest in the increasing flames or blackening smoke, until it became difficult to breathe. “Damn, Jeff, what was in that box?”

“Just some old car parts, it must be the grease that’s burning.”

We jumped out of the emergency exit, but remained behind the bus. It was minutes later when my friend rudely interrupted the group, pointed into the bus and exclaimed “guys, THAT’S A FIRE!” We turned to see flames pouring from the front of the bus, through the side windows, seats burning, and black smoke pouring into the air.

Had the windows of my two-door ‘83 Oldsmobile been open, we would have jumped through them to save the time of opening a door. We ran to my car and sped away from the scene of the crime. We passed a fire truck on the way, lights flashing and sirens blaring as it barreled towards what was surely our creation.

I have since made peace with school buses, and there is a feeling of mutual respect when I see them. I stop at every school bus stop sign I see. However, I appreciate this memory as one that captures the recklessness, anarchy, and adventure of my youth.

Disregarding the recklessness and risk, this story speaks to a part of my personality that has both gotten me into trouble and led me to great success. Maturity is knowing when to unleash adventure (safely) and when to persevere (non-destructively). Sometimes, when life throws you a “STOP” or “DO NOT ENTER” sign: melt it.

The Santa Monica Civic Center hosts an annual Thanksgiving event where medical care and warm meals are provided to the needy. Today, I am reminded of my disappointment with the experience of volunteering at this event four years ago.

I was disheartened by the blare of the megaphone directing volunteers towards the needy like the corralling of children towards animals at the petting zoo. Organizers dedicated enormous resources to shuffling about the legions of volunteers - volunteers who, because of their staggering numbers, were idly seated by the hundreds until their numbers were called. After service was done, volunteers were given a meal, eaten at tables alongside other volunteers, away from the tables filled with struggling families, veterans, the homeless, or the destitute.

I was saddened to think of Santa Monica, a city with thriving commerce, booming real estate, beautiful beaches, and the citizens such a city attracts. There are many homeless in Santa Monica, but they are few in comparison to those who have so much. I asked myself, how many volunteers arrived in churches in South Central? How many volunteers arrived in soup kitchens and clinics in Echo Park? Where help is needed most, are there people with money or skills or elbow grease or compassion or a warm smile?

If you are volunteering on Thanksgiving day, I commend your spirit and humanitarian effort. But I challenge you to make an additional commitment: choose one more day to reach out and help someone in any way you can. If you can spare part of your Thanksgiving day, then surely you can spare one more of the 364 remaining in the year. Remind yourself that people need help every day.

YouthBuild USA
One Laptop per Child

In an interview on the ABC News segment “Faith Matters Now”, author Marianne Williamson had some intelligent, insightful comments about the political environment and the roll of spirituality in political conversations.

Accepting the fact that, for now, atheists and religious followers must live together, I wish there were more Marianne Williamsons in the world.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

I adore a woman’s lisp. A mild lisp is distinguished, striking in the unique sound and rhythm it perpetuates. For some reason, I am hugely attracted to a woman with a lisp.

As for the genesis of this particular fancy, I have little insight. My mother, a speech pathologist, trained me to enunciate and articulate my words carefully (unbeknownst to my poker buddies); perhaps my ears prefer to be graced by a foreign and exotic sound. I am captivated by and find beauty in what is considered an impediment. Despite the weirdness, I am totally content to seek out a lispie. Will someone please found http://elispharmony.com?

People flowed into the streets of Emeryville, Oakland, and Berkeley. At every corner, there was an Obama sign, people cheering, and cars honking. Bars and restaurants spilled people into the sidewalks. Streets were lined with students and residents offering salutes and high-fives to crawling cars.

Berkeley Celebration

Dancing in the Streets

On Friday night, while returning from an evening with friends, I was the victim of what I believe to be an attempted carjacking. Just a few blocks from my home in Emeryville, I was driving through a residential neighborhood in Oakland. Shortly after making a left turn, I heard a loud crack on the frame of my car, loud enough to be heard above the trance music blaring from my stereo. I silenced the music and quickly looked around, but saw nothing, and continued without stopping. Perhaps a rock was kicked up by my tire, I thought. I slowed to a stop before a red light at the next intersection. A moment later I was startled by a loud crack followed by a crumbling sound outside my door. My first glance was to my rear view mirror, revealing three men in black hoodies sprinting towards my car. I threw open the throttle and barreled through the red light and empty intersection. Less than a minute later I was home - though not by my usual route - and on the phone with police.

I parked my car, inspected it for damage (I found none), and walked to the nearest street corner to meet the police. A marked cruiser with two officers inside arrived seconds later. I briefed them on what happened, and was asked only one question: “Could you identify them if you saw them again?”

It was pitch dark, half-past midnight, and my glance at the attackers lasted only a fraction of a second. Three men, black or blue jeans, black hoodies.

“No,” I replied, in an instinctively honest demeanor, “I can’t even tell you their ethnicity”. While replaying the event in my head, I thought I saw black faces beyond the hoodies, but I could not have been reasonably sure in such poor lighting. The cops told me to go home, that they would contact me if needed, and then hurried towards the intersection with lights off and engine roaring.

The next day, I returned to the scene to investigate. There at the intersection where I had stopped the night before was a large block of cement, whose broken remnants amounted to roughly ten pounds. The block had crumbled under its own weight as it landed a mere two or three feet from my door. The cement block would have blown through my window or windshield effortlessly, and could have knocked me unconscious or worse. The three men running towards my car demonstrated the least of their intent was to hurt me.

The encounter feels to me like a carjacking. I drove through an empty street, late at night, in the model of car most frequently stolen in this country. Alternately, it could have been racial - the part of Oakland I drove through is almost entirely black, and I have gotten the sense of racial tension before. I’m a blond caucasian guy driving a Honda - an appealing target if you’re pissed off at white people.

I am relieved that I kept cool, quickly assessed the situation, and decisively got out of danger. My doors were locked, I watched for traffic ahead of me, and had the police on the phone immediately. There was, for a fleeting moment, a temptation to abandon my flee, flip my car around, and turn the assailants into targets; clearly, an unwise (and unfulfilled) impulse. However, this is not my moral dilemma: I’d have gladly run the assholes over had it been safe and legally justifiable.

The officers found the attackers. They were young black men, wearing blue or black jeans and black hoodies. They were a block away from the reported intersection. Clearly, these were the guys, and there isn’t a sad story in the world that would prevent me from pursuing severe criminal and civil recourse. They were let go because I had earlier said I could not identify them.

It is this honesty I call into question. Had I thought for one moment, thought to say “yes, I can identify them,” three criminals would be in jail. On all accounts, identifying the assailants would have been a positive force in the universe. I cannot understand why I was so emphatic in the first place. There was no doubt as to who they were. What meaning existed in telling the truth? Would there have been any cost in lying? What value was there in infantile honesty?

What would you have done? In all truthfulness - without which thought exercises are meaningless - would you have positively identified the assailants, leading to a criminal conviction? If so, would it have been a lie? Would it have been immoral?

GI Joe was one of my favorite shows growing up. Each show ended with a corny (and sometimes inexplicable) public service announcement. Below are original PSAs, which demonstrate the moral obligation felt by the show’s producers, followed by irreverent (perhaps immoral) parodies.

Don’t pull false alarms
Don’t pull false alarms (parody)

What to do if you catch on fire
What to do if you catch on fire (parody)

Don’t skate on thin ice
Don’t skate on thin ice (parody)

After a frantic 3am team programming session in a lab, we decided to call it a night. Too amped up on caffeine and ginseng to sleep, I opted to take care of some neglected errands. I filled up my car at a 24-hour gas station, picked up some household items at a 24-hour Walgreens, and then went to pick up groceries from a 24-hour Safeway.

The grocery store was mostly empty, though there was the occasional customer inspecting produce or shuffling through shelves. At 4am, I had no interest in perusing the store, so I filled up my cart quickly. Despite my hurry, I paused for a moment to inspect a bottle of salsa. Off in the distance, across the isle, I noticed an employee staring at me. I decided it best for my mission to simply ignore him. However, his prying eyes were unrelenting. I looked at him and shot him my “what the hell, man?” expression.
“Sir, we’re closed.”

“What? Aren’t you open 24 hours?”

“No, no, we closed three hours ago.”

Looking at down at my cart, full of fresh meats and produce, I exclaimed “but I have all this stuff… can someone at least check me out?”

A crowd of customers - who were in fact employees dutied with restocking - began to form around me. “Sorry, sir, we can’t even turn the machines on.”

Miffed, embarrassed, and wondering how I passed so many unquestioning employees during my spree, I looked up and said with a near-purple face, “okay, well, I’ll let you guys take care of this cart.”
…and I walked out as quickly as I could.

I now shop at Trader Joes.

Hereafter referred to as “The Blond”, a once-familiar Ashley requested to add me as a friend on Facebook. Who was this woman?

Venturing into a dust-covered high school yearbook, the once treasured relic of a past that seems beyond the horizon of my willing recollection, I found The Blond. I remembered her as being married - no, wait, that was her Facebook relationship status. Were I to care, I suppose marriage would be an interesting informational tidbit. In fact, marital status was the only fact I knew about The Blond.

With what little optimism I could muster up,

While waiting for a response, the message from The Blond surfaced repressed memories of junior high. To drop the bomb: I was not popular in junior high. Shocking, to be sure. Moreover, my brother was older and hugely popular, an athlete and a rebel. One day, Mindy - the cutest girl in my grade - approached me in the hallways between class. She was accompanied by a fellow beauty, who could hardly constrain herself from hopping to and from the ground in excitement.

“Are you Jeff Jensen?” Mindy asks.

Confused by sudden attention, but ever eager for the prospects of being sought out by two beautiful girls, I enthusiastically replied “Yes, I am Jeff Jensen”. (The ‘C.’ was not added until college). At this moment, I was one with Denny Crane. I was the wherewithal, the Alpha and the Omega, the doer of cool stuff.

Bubbling with energy, Mindy exclaims “Wow… your brother B.J. is so hot!”

Which sets the stage for the return of The Blond:

*sigh* High school managed to not only to bite me during its temporal reign, but to invade the present.

And you know what? I like my profile picture. No one else can bridge the duality of the post-shaving expressionism of Macaulay Culkin and the champion of parted blond hair, David Spade.

Coding C++ on a Sunday afternoon in Berkeley is a dream. Cool breeze flowing in through the windows in Cory Hall, the soft pitter-patter of a keyboard like dancing raindrops, a heavenly experience.

As is typical, my programming solution is overly elegant and scalable.

Deceivingly simple is the light at the end of the tunnel, the redemption at the end of the rainbow. Today, this redemption was found:

It would be nice to venture into the skies again, to 18k feet, only to fall back to ground minutes later. To the diver, those minutes are dilated, stretched out of shape. There is no more personal and exhilarating experience. It is the most extreme form of freedom.

Skydiving is to surf mind-altering acceleration through air and gravity. However, if you are going to be a space traveler, as I hope will be possible in my lifetime, you need to escape gravity altogether. You need more juice. Modern rockets have anywhere from three to five separate stages of acceleration. Distant shores require planned and powerful bursts of energy.

The lack of a destination has fueled my current existential crisis. Grad school, industry, or couch surfing… nothing is clear. What is important? What about choices that affect geography, friendship, or love? What is my next purpose in life? It’s like being grounded at Cape Canaveral because clouds mask the path ahead, chilling on a landing pad with five stages of kickass underneath me anchored to the ground.

While speaking with friends on this topic, I wonder how in the hell so many people can know exactly where they want to go, and with such resolve. Half of the time I think they are fantasizing, and might as well tell me the goal is to rocket into outer space. I’ll need to see your riggs and a flight plan before I’m convinced it’s a done deal. Not to be cynical; I think most of my friends are going to achieve great success, I just don’t think they know how yet.

I’m not all that concerned with success right now (a statement reemphasized by the grad students who grade my problem sets). I honestly don’t care - I’m confident in my ability to land a great job. Right now I think I shouldn’t focus so much on the clouds as in the people with me on the ground. I should spend more time with friends, travel, and connect with people. If it were sustainable, I would couch surf after graduation. Despite the absurdity, couch surfing seems like the most grounded trajectory right now.

I have my head in the clouds enough with theory and music. In fact, of any force that has propeled me out of existential stinks, music has been the most powerful. Maybe that should be my destination - get a job in the music industry. God knows Britney Spears and Ashley Simpson need the help of an audio engineer. (Well, engineers have limits… there are some constraints that are unbreakable, which is when the Theory of Milli Vanilli applies.) Pandora needs AI people. Apple needs embedded systems guys. I should surround myself with music. And friends.

I write tonight with a heavy heart. Sometimes I just wish time would stop - if only for a few moments - so that I could collect myself, catch up with paperwork, manage my finances, finish homework, prepare for exams, get ahead in research, write graduate school essays, apply for jobs, and (oh yeah) focus on my existential crisis, which has lasted far longer than any I have had before.

Life is too beautiful to spend it always catching up.

I have spent an incredible amount of time fighting bureaucracies. A win/loss summary:

I’m running out of time and energy to fight crap like this. I am standing atop a cliff in the fog, screaming at unknown depths, the only person who can hear the echoes.

I was hesitant to admit that I didn’t have a partner for a class project. I feared that, by contacting the course assistant, I would be called to the front of the class of 200 and auctioned off. I never was first pick for pickup basketball, and I feared this might be the same. So, I figured I have to have a partner, so I’ll own it. I sent the following message to the class mailing list.

Unpartnered EE 122 Student,

Hello, my name is Jeff. I am a lonely electrical engineer in a class full of computer scientists.

As an independent person, I am seeking someone who enjoys dividing and conquering joint tasks. I think the most beautiful thing in the world is when two independent codebases come together in a union of compiling and linking.

I may not be as attractive as Linus Torvalds, but what I lack in boyish good looks I more than make up for in C++ cooking skills and cool-headed error handling. My coworkers at Cisco say my TCP stack is both elegant and robust, and that I encapsulate the best destinations. During my extensive industry development experience, my work has been referred to as a symphony of data structures - a symphony I yearn to conduct with a partner.

I enjoy candlelight dinners in front of my laptop, listening on my headphones to trance music from the epoch or euphoric periods, long walks through well-documented code, gazing into a backlit debugging environment, and the occasional glass of red bull.

My hobbies include flexing my schedule to work with others, dramatic hamsters, sharing development tasks, and submitting completed projects on time. I like to think of myself as a bright spark who could ignite a shared library path with binary potential.

If this sounds like you, then give me a call.
-Jeff

(P.S. Seriously I need a partner…)

Ugh - I wake up at 5:30am and can’t get back to sleep. Bummer!

I’m sure it’s a stress thing… it’s kind of a downward spiral, because coffee compensates for the insomnia, and stimulants only amplify anxiety.

Another late night ahead…

Life is hard. Deal with it.

When I was a young student at Santa Monica College, I took a trigonometry course. I didn’t understand it (nor would I, until I took early transcendental calculus). I bombed an exam, and asked the professor (who was quite cold) what I needed to do to do well in the course. His answer was short and simple:

“Nothing. Just work your ass off.”

When my financial circumstances unexpectedly changed, and when school was bearing down on me, and family was non-existent, a close friend offered solid advice: “You don’t have time to complain. Just work harder than you ever have before.”

In each of these cases, the advice was right on. So, I think I have to work hard. I resolved financial aid (though questions are left to be answered in regard to future students), I resolved my class schedule, and I resolved my research arrangements. Now all that is left is to work my ass off.

Thanks to Armin van Buuren and Above & Beyond for the help.

At the time of the Manhattan Project, a minority of physicists predicted that the first explosive fission reaction would start an unstoppable chain reaction of catastrophic nature.

My father e-mailed me a couple of days ago. He said he wanted to fly to Berkeley for lunch.

It was the right gesture; but with my recent existential questions and financial hardships, I am hesitant. A fear the instantiation of a chain reaction…

In The Theory of Education in the United States, Albert Nock writes that education can be divisive, isolating, and unforgiving. Though I consider education an enlightening and necessary process, I agree with Nock’s assessment. Education can be cold, competitive, and at times intimidating.

Nock’s critique has become increasingly relevant in my life, especially since I determined that I will not pursue a career in academia (your children have been spared). Unlike vocational training or group work, education seeks highly specialized knowledge to which I hold in the highest regard, though its very nature requires an enveloping commitment that converts happy humans into subverted PhD-wielding monks.

I am completely engrossed in and disoriented by an existential crisis. School may end, or not; work may be in Silicon Valley, or not; home may be in America, or not; I may be Hot, or Not. Friends have disappeared as they are hiccupped out of the churning belly of academia. Even my Facebook relationship status has changed (I am now remarried to The’Open Sea). In such a state of flux - perhaps despair - it is difficult to contextualize and prioritize the opportunities ahead of me.

Great things come from flux. Changing magnetic fields generate electricity. Changing air pressure carries music. Changing philosophies bring enlightenment. I do not believe (though I should hope) my current existential flux shall result in such useful and beautiful impacts, however the self-centric universe (of which, in the interest of resolving ambiguity, I am the unchallenged monarch) simply cannot fathom a more intricate challenge.

The first action one should take when a ship begins to sink is to drop ballast. (I have a particularly morose image of the Staten Island Ferry struggling to remain afloat while it is ticker-taped by a bulbous confetti of fat people hoisted overboard by the skinny.) The existential persona is perhaps best left to sink completely, leaving only its most crucial and necessary artifacts to be salvaged from the wreckage. The crack in the hull formed after I attended a number of events in Napa, with the hopes of connecting with sophisticated, well-traveled conversationalists. Instead I found this culture offered only gaudiness and booze. It was during a random couch-surfing party where I shared little in common with others by face value but connected with so many people - through poetry, music, stories of travels, and the kindness of strangers - that I began to take on water. Off course and sinking, I dropped the ballast of a fanatical commitment to academics, but it was too late and my personality sank to the bottom of the ocean.

I encountered the first artifact of my prior self not by salvage, but buoyancy. Floating atop the misty aftermath of my existential shipwreck was the need to connect with people. Sadly, and perhaps the result of education, this artifact was badly tarnished, but recoverable. I thought how detached and reserved I had been while working in Corporate America. I thought how myopic I had been in academic pursuits. I thought of how critical I can be of others and how difficult it can be for me to significantly connect with another person.

Of all the sunken treasures of my former personality that I hope to recover, I believe the need to connect with others is most crucial. I too often find myself wearing the “Safety Mask” that was instilled by my doctrinal family: pleasant but not too pleasant, interested but not opinionated, safe and never contrary is how one speaks to another. What a soulless, hollow existence if life were lived behind such a mask. It is now my task to revisit this behavior, as I have before in my past, to take off all of the masks - layered as they may be - to express my true self. (Sartre buffs will find humor in this last statement.)

Other artifacts that will likely be recovered from watery depths are my confidence, my sense of loyalty, and a damp ego that may, as many have hoped, shrink upon drying.

I end this entry with the hope of beginning a candid and open discussion. Feel free to reply below with your thoughts.

Should your personality sink to the bottom of the ocean, which artifacts would effortlessly float to the top? Which artifacts would you seek tirelessly to salvage? Which parts would you leave anchored to the murky bottom?

Add Comment.

Two sweet artists are all it took to make this weekend an incredible weekend.

Thanks to my friends for the kickass parties.

Artist: Behavior
Artist: Dt8

Weekend tunes: http://jeffcjensen.net/blog/attach/weekendtunes.zip

“Such a lush couldn’t even figure out where to begin…”

Breakups are hard.

Trance music - especially euphoric or epic trance - numbs the mind and soothes the soul.

Robots and topology are fun.

Friends are rocks.

“Without a hope or a prayer, you have to turn it on.”

I either need a big win or a long vacation… it’s been a while since both.

Sometimes I feel that academia is a harsh environment - information must be at your fingertips, knowledge on the tip of your tongue, and innovation must be second nature. Missteps are criticized and penalized, and there is very little positive reinforcement.

After six straight years of University, 196 credits, and miscellaneous internships, problem sets have lost their appeal.

Where’s the love in academia?

Philatelist and fellatialist are very two very different people. You are best not to confuse them as I have - during a meeting and in response to my boss’ hobby.

Existentialism is not about nothingness; it is about empowerment. It is not about essence; it is about existence. It is not about loneliness; it is about humanity.

If you don’t know about it, Jean-Paul Sartre writes a concise and thought-provoking essay in Existentialism as a Humanism.