i keep a diary

February, 2017

The February Roundup

Here are all the photos I took in February 2017 that didn't end up in their own entry!

Wednesday, February 1st

Went to the Rubin Museum to see Ethan Nichtern introduce his father and his new book...
book ˆ book party
The book cover is a very cool modern-interpretation of the Bhavacakra
bhavacakra
Green Tara!
After the lecture, we walked around the museum to check out some of the installations. A guide to the mudras.
gang signs ˆ museum
Very cool to see...
drawing ˆ museum
...the step by step process...
museum ˆ painting
...that goes into creating each thanka
museum ˆ painting
Yessss. Alex Jones on Joe Rogan. Hard to get through but I enjoyed it.
podcast
I'm gonna need a burrito an some guac for this!
food ˆ mexican

Thursday, February 2nd

Whiteboarding with Voray. Fun to help a start-up understand how they are currently identify, selling & acquiring new customers and where there are the best opportunities to improve.
flux capacity ˆ voray ˆ whiteboard ˆ work
maddy
Sleepy teef!
teeth ˆ maddy
leigh, randy
Thursday night we met up with Leigh, Randy...
restaurant ˆ leigh ˆ randy
jeet, leigh, lukas
...and baby Lukas for dinner!
baby ˆ jeet ˆ leigh ˆ lukas
jeet, lukas
Gurj and Lukas hanging for the first time.
baby ˆ jeet ˆ lukas

Friday, February 3rd

On Friday I got a great reiki treatment from Rachel Howe. I aslo picked up her great, hand-drawn Tarot deck and Guidebook. Check out SmallSpells.com
cards ˆ tarot
Pulling cards.
cards ˆ tarot
Listened to some Krishnamurti.
tv
Spent some time recording some tunes!
garageband ˆ guitar ˆ living room ˆ songwriting

Friday, February 3rd

Stayed home and hung out with my buddy.
Pulled these terrible and accurate cards. Feeling trapped, being offered but thinking about other things, unable to stop worrying heartache. lol.

Sunday, February 5th

maddy, meredith
Meredith came over for a hang on Sunday. We were supposed to go to Sarah's birthday party on Saturay, but it was cancelled when her friend Marc Spitz died suddenly. (RIP, Mark! <3)
e9th apt ˆ maddy ˆ meredith
Spend the evening catching up on the phone with friends and playing guitar.
couch ˆ guitar ˆ phone

Monday, February 6th

vin
Met up with Vin for lunch at Quantum Leap in the West Village.
food ˆ vin
maddy
Napped on the couch with this dum dum.
couch ˆ maddy
Spent the evneing trying to put words to new song ideas.
lyrics ˆ songwriting

Thursday, February 9th

Woke up to a snow storm on Thursday. When the weather outside...
e9th apt ˆ east village ˆ snow
...looks like this. It makes me feel...
e9th apt ˆ east village ˆ snow
maddy
...like this.
blanket ˆ maddy
jane anne
Jane Anne came over for a wintry visit.
glove ˆ jane anne
By the time the snow stopped we'd gotten quite a bit! Walked through the park on my way up to LeagueApps.
snow ˆ tompkins
Tompkins was full of people...
snow ˆ snowman ˆ tompkins
...making snowmen!
snow ˆ snowman ˆ tompkins
Another snowman spotted on my walk home.
east village ˆ snowman

Friday, February 10th

Got two excellent conspiracy books on Friday.
book ˆ conspiracy
me
Had my tiny mind melted.
me
Clear sunny day with blue skies. Three planes flew back and forth and left lots of contrails.
clouds ˆ contrails
Less than ten minutes later and the sky had turned a flat hazy white as they diffused.
clouds ˆ contrails
Went to the Home Depot and got a insulation kit to stop my drafty window
window
Ta-da!
window
Worked on this website in my messy office that's due for a cleaning.
home office
maddy
Played guitar. Winter loop over and over.
couch ˆ guitar ˆ maddy
Went back through all the recordings I'd made of song sketches over the past fews weeks and filed them away in my little songwriting book.
notes ˆ songwriting
Took care of...
plants
...my plants!
plants

Saturday, February 11th

In addition to tarot, I'd also been throwing a lot of coins to consult the I Ching - one of the oldest forms of divination. You throw 3 coins, 6 times to generate a hexagram (which is comprised of 2 trigrams). Here's the chart you use to look up the hexagram you've genereated with your coin tosses.
i ching
me
After lots of interesting coin-tossing results, I decided to sit down and...
guitar ˆ home office ˆ me
programming
...write a computer program that would randomly generate a hexagram for me so I wouldn't have to manually throw coins! NERD SHIT, BABY!
code ˆ i ching ˆ programming
You can try my I Ching hexagram generater out here! (Youl can use the chart up above to understand what hexagram you've generated!)

Sunday, February 12th

On Sunday I got a label maker and I immediately used it to...
label
...give all my plants names!
label ˆ plant
Dana
label ˆ plant
Tina
label ˆ plant
Thelma
label ˆ plant
Horace
label ˆ plant
Jean Michel
label ˆ plant
Donnie & Bonnie
label ˆ plant
Margaux. They saw if you name your plants they are healthier and live longer!
label ˆ plant
The state of my office bookshelves.
home office ˆ shelves
me
Was feeling sad and depressed and was losing weight and feeling too skinny.
mirror ˆ me

Monday, February 13th

maddy, vin
Vin came over to hang on Monday and I showed him the Small Spells Tarot book I'd recently gotten.
living room ˆ maddy ˆ vin

Tuesday, February 14th

maddy
My funny Valentine.
blanket ˆ cold ˆ maddy

Wednesday, February 15th

mom
Got a Valentine's Day card in the mail! (It's from MY MOM, OKAY?)
card ˆ valentines ˆ mom
On my walk home from work, I stopped off at the Rubin Museum again to check out a new exhibit. They had a cool soundproof booth where you could record audio for a collaborative art project they had set up!
museum
They also had some really great art pieces on display including this cabinet adorned with Mahakala.
museum
And this huge, detailed Bhavacakra.
bhavacakra ˆ museum
I had commisioned Vin to draw me his interpretation of a Bhavacakra a few months prior and was always taking lots of photos to send him examples.
bhavacakra
Here are some of the portrayals of Naraka, the hell realm.
bhavacakra ˆ museum
The close-ups are crazy. Check out the guy getting his tongue stretched out by TWO OXEN!
I bought this cool Shrivatsa (endless knot) woodcarving. It is the Buddhist symbol of Samsara.

"Saṃsāra in Buddhism is the beginningless cycle of repeated birth, mundane existence and dying again. Samsara is considered to be dukkha, suffering, and in general unsatisfactory and painful, perpetuated by desire and avidya (ignorance), and the resulting karma.

Rebirths occur in six realms of existence, namely three good realms (heavenly, demi-god, human) and three evil realms (animal, ghosts, hellish). (We are in the 4th realm and it's generally considered to be the best one because there is the most freedom to consciously work on your karma).
buddha ˆ samsara
Someone put up this great piece of anti-trump art in Tompkins.
art ˆ east village ˆ tompkins

Thursday, February 16th

maddy, me
Morning cuddles with Maddy makes the winter better.
bed ˆ cuddle ˆ maddy ˆ me
More whiteboarding with Voray helping them map out their Salesforce process so they'd have better communication between their Sales & Customer Success teams.
flux capacity ˆ voray ˆ whiteboard ˆ work
jeet
On Thursday evening Gurj came over with her sister who was visiting from the UK and we had a pizza party!
e9th apt ˆ living room ˆ pizza ˆ jeet

Friday, February 17th

david k, grant, sonam
On Friday night Grant and I went out with this gang! (Possibly to celebrate David's wedding? Lol)
david k ˆ grant ˆ sonam
On the way home I stopped by to see Meredith and drop Maddy off with her for while so I could...

Friday, February 17th

catrinel
...drive upstate to Fahnestock State Park to go hiking with Catrinel at Three Lakes Trail the next day!
hiking ˆ snow ˆ catrinel
catrinel
It had snowed overnight, but we didn't let that get in the way of our hiking plans!
hiking ˆ snow ˆ catrinel
dreiss
She'd brought along Dreiss and he was really excited about the snow.
dogs ˆ snow ˆ dreiss
After being cooped up in my apartment with lots of snowy weather is was great to be outside hiking in the sunshine!
catrinel, me
Good to see you, buddy! <3
hiking ˆ catrinel ˆ me
Wintry waterfall!
hiking ˆ snow ˆ waterfall
We also found this tree that had recently had the bark scraped off by a Black Bear.
bear ˆ hiking ˆ tree
catrinel, dreiss
Excellent day of hiking!
hiking ˆ catrinel ˆ dreiss
After our big hike we hopped in the car and drove to Ellen & Hans...
ellen, piper
...where we were treated to an indoor fire and a giant hot loaf of Hans' famous homemade bread with MANY CHEESES. Ellen & Hans we LOVE YOU.
bread ˆ cheese ˆ ellen ˆ piper

Saturday, February 18th

On Saturday night I picked up an Ethiopian feast.
ethiopian food ˆ food
Got me a side of Ethiopian spring rolls!
ethiopian food ˆ food

Sunday, February 19th

maddy, next lev kev
On Sunday night Kevin came over to hang and trade reiki.
couch ˆ maddy ˆ next lev kev

Monday, February 20th

meredith
Eat Veggies, Not Buddies!
jacket ˆ meredith

Tuesday, February 21st

On Tuesday night I pulled some tarot cards...
...about putting an offer on the cabin I'd seen in upstate New York back in September of 2016.
cabin ˆ map
me
The cards were favorable and I emailed the realtor and put an offer in! Eeeek!
me

Wednesday, February 22nd

Watched the kids in my neighborhood ride back and forth in a giant bike gang pulling wheelies.
bike ˆ east village
vin
Back in the beginning of January, I had commished Vin to draw me his interpretation of a bhavacakra. I showed him a few that I liked and explained the symbols and what it meant...7 weeks later he told me that he had a surprise for me...and came to my apartment with his drawing blown up huge and printed on silk!
art ˆ best ˆ bhavacakra ˆ drawing ˆ vin
vin
Amazing! I love it so much, Vin. You're my favorite drawer.
art ˆ best ˆ bhavacakra ˆ drawing ˆ vin
vin
An original 1 of 1 (8' x 5'). I hung it up in my bedroom!
art ˆ best ˆ bhavacakra ˆ mural ˆ vin

Sunday, February 26th

Went to Odessa for some afternoon winter borst because I am an old man like that.
food ˆ odessa ˆ soup

Monday, February 27th

On Monday after work at Voray we headed...
bowling ˆ sign ˆ voray ˆ work
david o, lauren w
to the bowling alley in Hell's Kitchen.
bowling ˆ flux capacity ˆ voray ˆ work ˆ david o ˆ lauren w

Tuesday, February 28th

maddy
Last day of the month! Took Maddy for a nice long walk in East River Park.
east river park ˆ maddy
And ended the night with a Thai feast from Thai Terminal!
food ˆ thai food
These delicious coconut scrimps wish you a very happy February 2017!
shrimp