Posted via email from The Pensieve Continue reading

"Let your yeah be yeah and your no be no now." - Pioneers, Let Your Yeah Be Yeah In a meeting this morning, someone claimed that today was the most miserable day of the year. While a little googling revealed that, actually, consensus was that Blue Monday was last week, it still felt apt as I have been thinking a lot about my lows rather than my highs lately. Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does: otherwise there wouldn't me much of a story. But in life? -The Sense of An Ending Tony, the protagonist in... Continue reading

"Do you believe in what you see?" - Zero 7, In The Waiting Line At the moment, the little green globule burst in mouth, my eyes widened and I had to stifle an unexpected laugh of surprise and delight. The number of firsts in my life are few and far between these days and even more rare when it comes to food. I can have exquisite meals, interesting meals, unique meals but a true "I've never had anything before in my life" kind of meal? Not really. Except for last night when a molecular gastronomic interpretation of an olive exploded... Continue reading

"It ain't the end of the world. It's just a part of the game." - The Foreign Exchange, All or Nothing The Foreign Exchange. In particular, Leave It All Behind. This isn't new information but on those rare occasions when I'm feeling emo these days, I turn here. Phonte is my spirit animal. Fitbit. I got one of these this week and am already loving how it's impacting my physical activity decision making. I take the stairs way more often at work and really notice when I'm being idle for no good reason. Also love the sleep data. I'm actually... Continue reading

"In my head I'm only half together." - Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack, Be Real Black For Me It was fitting to end the long weekend in Atlanta Airport's E Concourse in a restaurant, One Flew South, that features a Black Executive Chef and sitting two tables over from Nikki Giovanni. A few yards away from the restaurant entrance stands an exhibit celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This is America. This is Blackness. This is Post-Blackness? I ask the question because it's been the topic of conversation with my wife, with my in-laws, and in my head for most... Continue reading

Posted via email from The Pensieve Continue reading

"We'll overcome the things they do." - Joy Denalane, Change (feat. Lupe Fiasco) "I don't have any personal challenges about throwing away the past. If you're not changing, you're giving others a chance to catch up." - Pete Cashmore Fast Company's This Is Generation Flux: Meet The Pioneers Of The New (And Chaotic) Frontier Of Business, is highly quotable (and I'll quote quite a bit in this week's wake up call) but I encourage you to read the whole thing. Particularly if you work with me. I talk a lot about pushing forward and embracing coming change (even when we... Continue reading

"Sometimes I still need you." - The xx, Heart Skipped A Beat Said The Gramophone's Top 100 Songs of 2011. The list is wonderfully and thoughtfully compiled and all 100 songs are available for download. As I mentioned in my end of year music post, I listened to less music last year and this list proves that out with at least 75 of the tracks being completely new to me. Post-Blackness. Tiffany and spent a good hour or so last night talking about Toure's book (which neither of us has read yet) and Baratunde Thurston's upcoming one and what it... Continue reading

"Here's a pencil pad. I'm gonna spread some information." - Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Inspiration Information (a Shuggie Otis cover, obvs) Much like a diet for weight loss, limiting the intake of information I receive every day is harder than you might think. One week into taking the Information Diet challenge and rescue time is telling me that I spend more time on social networks than 87% of other people using the service. And an amazing amount of that time is on Facebook! Ugh. But not the most. Friendfeed is my most common distraction which is both surprising... Continue reading

Soundtrack to this post: Matthew Halsall's Colour Yes I want to tell you a story of a woman born in the 1930s in a small town in Arkansas. Born to a father who came into the world at the turn of the century and a mother who was half his age. Her father's parents are a mystery shrouded in whispers of murder. I want to tell you of the only "grandparents" she knew, an anomaly of the day -- a white family who wasn't afraid to openly show kindness to a black child in the Jim Crow South. I want... Continue reading

"Cash it in or throw it all away. Never needed any of it anyway." - Zero 7, Throw It All Away Just a few short years ago, San Francisco was my dream city. I imagined myself moving up there and living a certain kind of life. It involved sexy, smart progressive people changing the world. We'd wear our freak flags and march against everything while padding our bank accounts with whatever brainy technology magic we'd come up with at our day jobs. We'd sit in parks dressed like we were going to a show at the Fillmore after and marvel... Continue reading

"Now that you're wiser, surely you've learned to read it." - Zero 7, The Space Between Don't know what this is all about? See 2011 & 2010. Broad Strategic Goals This year I want to Take Advantage of My Good Fortune. In my personal life, I want to Do More With and For the Things That Matter in my life. I will be more deliberate with how I Utilize My Time. Financial Planning will be a priority. Professionally, I will Champion Change. Creatively, I will write. Every Day. Health and Wellness This past year, I was most successful in two... Continue reading

"No more backwards thinking. Time for thinking ahead." - Rae & Christian, Wake Up Everybody Alexia Tsotsis of Techcrunch puts it like this, "When you’re starving you don’t want to read through thousands of Yelp reviews on your phone or download a random PDF from a terrible restaurant website that’s so slow-load it’s indecipherable. You just want to know where a restaurant is, what it has to eat, and whether or not it’s open." That's why my friend Michelle Jones is building the Menu and Hours app. Michelle has been saving people time and aggravation for as long as I've... Continue reading

"Ain't no drag." - James Brown, Papa's Got A Brand New Bag (Part 1) On the plane yesterday, the flight attendant offered me some two packs of peanuts. I wasn't hungry and I knew I wasn't going to eat them but I took them anyway. Her outstretched hand elicited a pavlovian response from me. I sent my left hand out to receive what was offered without even thinking. The nuts sit in my backpack right now...uneaten. This afternoon, I walked past a person I normally see as I come into the office in the AM. "Hello," she said. "Good morning,"... Continue reading

"We go hard. I mean macro hard. Never microsoft." - Phonte, We Go Off Refresh your memory with The 2011 Personal Operating Plan. Also, here's last year's performance report. My Broad Strategic Goals In everything I do this year, the goal is to Provide Value. In my personal life, I will be more deliberate with my Kindness and Compassion. I will also Love Harder. Health and Wellness will be a priority. Professionally and creatively, I will embrace Breaking Some Eggs, Breaking Some Rules, and Challenging the Status Quo. Overwhelmingly, my goals this past year were focused on my job. 12... Continue reading

"Like when autumn leaves fall down from the trees." - The Roots, Sleep Undun is the album of the year. For the second year in a row, The Unstoppable Roots Crew have shown themselves to be the strongest, most thoughtful, most interesting, and most adept artists in my field of vision. And that's saying something considering how excellent other bands, most notably The Black Keys, have been during this time frame. Up until sitting down to write this, Watch The Throne was going to be my album of the year. Despite it's sometimes questionable lyrical content, that is the album... Continue reading

"Migrating to a higher plane of consequence." - De La Soul, Stakes is High (Amerigo Gazeway Soul version) Prompt 31: One Word Earlier this month, we wrote about our one word to describe 2011. Today, let's write about our one word for 2012. What word do you want to use to describe how you will approach 2012? Big. In 2012, I want to go big. Love big. Share big. Care big. Real Gs do real things. Big things. I'm entering 2012 with life being very good. It's time to take advantage of my good fortune and hard work and not... Continue reading

"I should start living today. Today is gonna be the day." - The Roots, The Day Prompt 23: Today Is All You Have It's true, today is all you have, so why not make the most of it? Describe your perfect day, one that you've had this year or one that you'd like to have next year. What makes it perfect for you? Drunk as hell but no throwin' up. Halfway home and my pager's still blowin' up. I wake up just before the sunrise and look over to see her next to me, rising as well. I'm thinking about... Continue reading

"All the pieces matter." - Det. Lester Freamon, ...and all the pieces matter, Five Years of Music From The Wire Prompt 28: Five Things Take today to jot down five memories that you would like to never forget about 2011. Try to write about five things you haven't shared yet, but if you need to repeat, that's OK! What will be known henceforth as Our Creature Story The walk we took in Ubud (Bali, Indonesia) in which we found the source of the constant cock-a-doodle doing in our resort (caged roosters), saw cows and monkeys (one chained to a building... Continue reading

"I made it out of all a that but I ain't gonna be proud of that." - T.I., Here Ye, Hear Ye (feat. Sk8brd) Prompt 27: Everything's Going to be OK What is one thing, a sign if you will, that has shown you that things will be just fine in 2012? I don't think I've ever began a year fearful that things wouldn't be "just fine" so I'm not sure why I would start now. Every year is filled with it's complications and challenges, great and small. The question is always about how you will face them. Increasingly, I... Continue reading