Turbo Catch Up

I used to be a productivity junkie, a GTDer. I spent hours each week reorganizing to-do lists, reprioritizing task lists, and reading productivity bloggers' latest secret weapons. I had an epiphany when I started (your mind is for idea generation, not for idea storage) and an epiphany when I largely purged the lifestyle (feel, don't think, about what you should do at any given moment).

The fastest way to shrink one's task list is to cross items off without completing them first. Sounds shortsighted, but it works well. Try it... feel the peace that flows through you as you count the tasks you no longer have to pay mind or time toward. "Done" with no effort... it's bliss.

One area that's nearly impossible to streamline is my social life. I like one-on-one interaction, staying in touch, and photojournalizing the madness that goes down in the day-to-day (night-to-night) of my network. Even something as simple as editing my photos, pulling 'em off the digicam and pushin 'em onto the web is something I slack on much more often than not. Do I crop? Caption? Contextualize via blog? Is anyone paying attention... is it even worth it?

Could be... but I've done that most of that. It would take me another hour to even list the albums I've uploaded since I posted last. If I waited for that to happen... it wouldn't. The backlog would grow and I'd fall further beind. In the interest of mutual benefit, I should go with the flow, shut up, and post. The only thing left to do now is to broadcast the link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mattawalker

Edited, cropped, and (for the most part) captioned. A visual document of what I've been up to for the past six months. Camping, hiking, waterfalling, raving, dancing, surfing, biking, bowling, partying, drumming, tide pooling, cup flipping, happy houring, beer tasting, and smiling.

Thanks for paying attention :) Hopefully you'll hear from me again soon, but no guarantees.

Who is Max Vantage?

Who is Max Vantage?

I went back and forth about whether or not I should bother dragging my turntables, mixer, effects, laptop, headphones, and army of cables into work. Wouldn’t people be just as, if not more entertained if I simply created a solid iPod playlist of soulful hip-hop and melodic house music? I had a party to go to afterwards... I didn’t want to be burdened with all that gear. Yeah, no one‘s going to pay close attention anyway... they won’t care either way, right? Meh, probably not.

Then I found out about the disco ball. A disco ball without a DJ? Let’s think about this for a second. No, that doesn’t make any sense. Who’s going to enjoy the party the most if I do DJ anyway? Well, me! Stop making excuses. The cost of failure is very low. As Luna-C (the greatest DJ in the world) expressed: “Don’t Die Wondering”.

So I spun... live at Jive. And no, most people neither loved nor hated it. Some people asked about ScratchLIVE, many were amazed at the concept (as I still am). Some asked about the art, I showed them a bit, even let Nick try his hand at scratching. Expecting the crowd to die out after an hour, it went on for two. The practice was priceless and I had a blast. I mean, I’ve been spinning off and on for a decade now, I’ve got the technical skills down, I’m just lacking in public performance experience. And so...

Do you need a DJ? Not a wedding DJ, a real DJ. One who mixes records, drops effects, even scratches a bit? Listen to this mix and if you like it, let me know, whether or not you want me to rock your party.

I will spin for free... anywhere, anytime. You need the awesomeness and I need the experience. Let’s work something out.


This just in: I'll be spinning with Chris Coda at Beerforge III (Jive's OSCON afterparty), held at Bossanova on July 24th.

San Francisco Trolley Race

I finished with the “business” part of my business trip at 2pm. My client dropped me off at SFO airport, and I began to wonder what I would do with the six hours I had left before my flight’s departure. Sure, I could search for an earlier flight, but I was in San Francisco! And... didn’t BART connect SFO to downtown and Oakland?

I knew that area pretty well. Four years ago I stayed at a hotel near the corner of Powell and Market, chosen for its proximity to a BART station and the end of a trolley line. My mission was clear.

I hopped the BART, rode to Powell, grabbed a round-trip trolley ticket and got in line. The last time I rode the trolley I took a seat, but my general state of consciousness has evolved since then. I’ve learned to let go of fear, to keep that which I cannot control out of mind. I stood at the front of the car, hanging off the side, my backpack against my belly, and we were off.

The Powell-Market line has the most dramatic hills on the trolley line, and leads you through some diverse, scenic areas. It’s familiar to anyone who’s ridden before... it’s the one that ends at Ghirardelli Square.

So... BART to trolley... trolley to bay... bay walk to Fisherman’s Wharf... quick photo op with the seals... quick walk back through the pier... crab cake sandwich... brisk walk back to Ghirardelli Square... trolley to Market... BART to SFO... SFO to PDX... MAX to Hollywood.

Plenty of time, plenty of pics. Got my San Fran fix and life is good. Now that’s a quality business trip.