Today I went to my second yoga class, ever. The first was last week.

This class is the first genuinely new thing I have started in about five years. Sure, I have had many new and unique experiences in that time, but none of those were pursuits; they were discrete events and experiences. Yoga is the kind of thing I will keep.

Because it is a new thing my ego took a little self-inflicted bruising. I am not used to not being good at what I do. No; that is not quite right. I am not used to not being accomplished at what I do.

So having come to terms with that and getting it out of the way, I am free to enjoy it. I like not having any authority. I like having the luxury of practice and contemplation.

I love just being a student again.

White Male, 34, athletic, extremely well read; into poetry, martial arts, photography; completely burned out; LOOKING FOR cute fluffy puppy – preferably in 4 to 6 pound range- for kicking.

People have asked if they may assuage any guilty consciences by bringing drink to trade for books. This is just fine. Also, if you have bibliophile friends who are otherwise Good People, you may bring them, too.

I finished The Fountainhead on Tuesday, and now I am plowing my way through Quicksilver. 200 pages down, 700 to go. Then, at long last, I will give myself permission to buy…Another Book. No idea which one.

I have noticed that, as cool as Flash is, it loses some of its charm when I am required to use it constantly at work. Makes me long for a nice complex table to build…maybe some form elements…images…

Nah. I would still rather do it all in Flash.

When I am feeling a little less burned out I will dive back into the tile/adventure game. look for updates somewhere around the end of the month.

Last night I attended the 25th birthday party of one of the yoga students. It was low key and full of wonderful people, and as we were joking about car insurance and adulthood it hit me: 25 years old. Damn.

I turned 25 in St. Petersburg, Russia, on June 5, 1994. I had cake and vodka and made out with a beautiful Russian woman named Janna.

When I was 25 I had been working at the bookstore for about a year. I lived in one of the worst houses in Grand Rapids, on the northwest side a block from the Parkway Tropics strip joint. I had hair down to my shoulder blades and drove a Pontiac 6000.

When I was 25 I was heavily into Ken Wilber, Tom Waits, The Pogues, Jim Harrison, Vampire: The Masquerade, Anne Rice, black clothing, the cafe scene, and vegetarianism.

I began practicing tai chi, when I was 25.

That was a long time ago.

What were you doing, when you were 25 ?

MIT’s OpenCourseWare has gone Gold !!! If it wasn’t for this pesky job, I would spend every day of the rest of my life on this site learning EVERYTHING!

Selah.

…is my brain. A slow day at work, so I took the time to teach myself how to create fractals. They are linked in the Flash experiments page (Flash 6+ plugin required).

My term as teacher at Kendall College is winding down. Tomorrow is probably the last day, unless I get hired into a time slot next semester which doesn’t conflict with the martial arts class. Did I enjoy it? HELL YES!! As common wisdom has it, you really don’t know how much you know about a subject until you try to teach it.

Having smart students helps, too.

Well, I have my hands full teaching this class at Kendall College of Art and Design . It looks like my stint will last a week longer than anticipated, as the regular teacher is a little under the weather right now.

So since I don’t have time to thrill you with my brilliant insights into whateverthehell, here is a short list of places I think you should visit:

World Blogs
A catalog of english-language weblogs from all over the world, including two (two!) in Antarctica.

Book Crossing
Got books you no longer read? Release them into the wild and track their movements! (Link courtesy of Scott )

Wikipedia
A completely open-source, community-built and controlled, copy-lefted online encyclopedia. 150,000 entries and counting.

Browser Cam
This is one for the developers out there. Enter a URL and your target platform/browsers, and receive screen-captures on the fly. Price starts at $1.00 per url. An amazing resource!

Kuro5hin
Kind of a magazine, kind of a blog, kind of a hangout. Full of really smart people talking about really intelligent things. Like Traffic Zoology , an article I discovered while browsing…

Boing Boing
A directory of wonderful things.