Jonathan Field - Maker of Random Stuff

You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

Is it okay to feel for the eggs?

Monday night was the Zappos 7th anniversary party. We’ve done it three years in a row now and it’s always a wild and crazy time.

First up we had a private, employee only event at The Joint at the Hard Rock. This included unlimited food, drinks, and Carrot Top. Yes, that Carrot Top. I was pleasantly surprised, and thought his show was pretty funny. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but it was cool for the company to lay out like that for a private performance.

After the private event we open up the big party. The WSA shoe show is in town this time of year and so we invite all the vendors. Actually, we call it a “Vendor Appreciation Party”. It’s somewhere around 2000 people out at the Hard Rock pool, with an open bar and various forms of entertainment. This year The Spazmatics played the party. The pool was open for swimming unlike previous years (yes, I took a dunk). They also had a cool mechanical surfboard that worked much like a mechanical bull, except with less of a chance at breaking your neck.

Last Wednesday Tony asked me to put together a little Zappos logo video loop to play on the plasma screens sprinkled around the place. Here’s what I came up with. Yeah, it’s just a minor tweak of a couple of the default Motion themes, but I had never done a project with Motion before so it was pretty fun to put together. Only took a couple hours to learn and get everything just how I wanted it. Very cool program. So yeah, that video was playing for hours on the plasmas in the background. Apparently is was also playing in every room in the hotel if you went to the right channel. Crazy!

I had a good time; and paced myself well with the alcohol. It’s tough going nearly 8 hours with such a party crowd. But I messed up big time by smoking a cigar at the end of the night. Made me ill. And I don’t mean like 80′s hip-hop ill. Ended up sleeping on the floor of Marvin’s room. No, not the movie, the generous Zappos guy who had a reservation at the Hard Rock.

So yeah: I smoked a cigar. And a couple cigarettes. And I drank. And I swam and danced bare chested. I ended up sleeping on someone’s floor. It sounds pretty trashy. And perhaps surprising for those who know me from before I moved here. What has become of the old Jon? He’s still here. Really. I just think living in Las Vegas and not partying like a rockstar is kind of like going to Europe and eating at McDonald’s.

No no… I’m not a Bush hater. I just happen to vehemently disagree with every decision he’s made.

Since my last post I’ve gone to Kentucky, hiked up Mt. Charleston to a 3000 year old tree with Sophie, got a mild sunburn, then had a massage and facial at the GVR spa. I also worked a lot.

Oh, I also had a physical, and got back decent results. My cholesterol was 206, which is a little high, but so much better than the 270 it was at its peak, I’m not complaining. My best ever cholesterol was a 170 about two years ago when I first came to Las Vegas… I was eating a little more seafood and less red meat back then, so this past week I’ve tried to make some adjustments. I must admit I do love me a broiled halibut steak. Mmm good. I was in good shape then too, 15% bodyfat. I’m trying to get back there… I’m about 18% bodyfat at the moment. I’m only exercising about twice a week, but I’m eating pretty well; cooking at home a lot.

Saw A Scanner Darkly today… pretty good. I usually like Linklater’s stuff. I dug the animation style, which I guess is the same as Waking LIfe, though I’ve never seen that. I should check it out.

And I got an iPod today too! Went with the black one (my last one that got stolen was white). It’s the 30GB video iPod. I just cleaned my car today and wanted to get rid of all the CD’s and start listening to a wider range of stuff. I had been putting purchasing one off since I only commute about 3 minutes, but heck, I want more music in my car. I’ve suffered for my sin of leaving my car unlocked. So off the Apple Store I went.

Karen tagged along to the store because she’s been thinking of getting a MacBook. But the Fashion Show Mall closes at 8PM on Saturdays? We made it but she wasn’t willing to make the decision in just a few minutes, so I grabbed my iPod and we stopped for a bite at PF Changs. I ordered Oolong marinated Sea Bass, which was quite good, and she ordered “Unremarkable Duck”. It was unremarkable.

Ah Napa… had a great weekend up there with Sophie. Hit some excellent restaurants and did a little wine tasting. I learned that I like wine best when it’s with food. I also learned that a $150 bottle of wine tastes notably better than a $25 bottle of wine, but certainly not six times better. And it only cost us $28 to learn that. Also got a little too much sun… it’s easier to get burned in Napa because it feels so nice out. At least in Vegas you can tell you’re getting roasted and to keep your ass inside.

Then on the 4th I decided to lay low for the most part. No human interaction… except with corpses. Seriously: I spent the day (well, two hours anyway) looking at dead bodies and body parts. No, it wasn’t one of those weird Las Vegas mortuary strip club… it’s Bodies… The Exhibition!

Though I’m fine with movie violence, I’m a fairly squeamish guy when it comes to real life blood and such… I don’t like watching operations on TV for example. I was a little worried about going to the exhibit, maybe I’d just feel ill being around a bunch of cadavers? Even the little kids who seemed to love it in the promotional video on the website didn’t allay my fears. Kids seem to love watching people break their limbs on Fox’s X-Treme accidents or whatever too, but it’s not for me. Nonetheless, after fretting about it for a bit I decided I ought to do something outside my comfort zone, so in I went.

I ended up really enjoying it. It was far less creepy than I had feared, and was in fact strangely beautiful. I’m up on basic biology, so I don’t feel I learned much in the way of book facts, but I definitely got a heightened sense of the complexity of the body and a more indescribable understanding of what it is… what I am, what you are. Probably my favorite bit was the room where they had filled the circulatory system with plastic and then dissolved away the rest of the body, leaving just a human shaped network of arteries, veins, and capillaries. The lung in particular with it’s perfectly fractal vascular structure, details getting so small I could just barely see… actually made me smile.

Anyways, I’d recommend it to anyone at all curious about such things.

Okay, it’s almost as if me liking a TV show brings about it’s death. This year’s casualty is Conviction, which was so good that I could work out to it and forget that I hated working out. Dammit, isn’t there some way for these non mainstream shows to find enough audience to continue? Does absolutely everything have to appeal to the masses to survive? Bah.

Well, the 80′s party put on by Rosalind and Dory this past weekend was an unqualified success. Lots of great outfits, great music, great food, and best of all, great peeps.

Here’s what I really looked like in the 80′s. But for the party I decided to go more with a low-rent Miami Vice type look.

There’s a 189 (!) pictures from the party if you’ve got a snapfish account. They came out pretty great.

Is it just me or are 80′s girl outfits super hot?

Good times.

So this past Sunday Dan and I set off a bunch of explosives, hiked and scaled rocks in 100+ degree desert heat, ate mediterranean food, and fired machine guns. No, we’re not stationed in Iraq, we’re just enjoying the offerings of lovely Las Vegas. That was Dan’s joke, so if you like it, please tip generously. We also watched Nacho Libre.

Add that to Saturday evening’s wine tasting at Matt & Kari’s and later a visit to The Whisky, and that’s about as much fun and excitement I can handle in one weekend. No worries, just five days at work should get me back into shape for next weekend.

After some success last weekend transferring some VHS to DVD, I’ve made it my raison d’être to eliminate all VHS from my home. It’s not that it hasn’t served me well, but it’s far too inconvenient to watch. Most of the stuff is home movies and creative projects from years ago. I actually had to go out and buy a VCR as the one I had wasn’t really working any more. Who actually watches videos on anything other than a computer these days anyways?

I’m not converting any of the hollywood movies… I’d just buy those again on DVD if I wanted them. The question remains whether to bother converting the porn. That would take a while.

Sophie just sent me this link to Henry Rollin’s love letter to Ann Coulter. Long time readers of my journal will surely remmeber my love letter to Ann Coulter from last November. I think mine is a little more nuanced, but I admit his has more… je ne sais. I wonder which would work better on our lovely lady.

I’m in KY again! Just for a couple days. I’ve been going through old VHS tapes recently of my high-school and post high-school antics, and transferring them to DVD. Man I was an obnoxious and annoying guy ten years ago. I wonder if I’ll say the same thing again in ten years.