I found something interesting on the web the other day. The Knight Foundation is sponsoring a contest to fund the development of online projects that would improve local online news and deepen community engagement. When I first saw the site and read the goals of the project, I immediately thought… ‘Where is the online resource where I can get comprehensive and unbiased political information about what’s going on in my local district?’

Well, there is none… so I put in a proposal.

The more people that I can get to view, rate and comment positively on the proposal, the better chance I have of getting it funded. I think it’s an idea whose time has come and I would appreciate your assistance in getting it considered as a viable plan by the guys at Knight.

So if you can, please take a look at my proposal (link below) and rate or comment on it:

My Proposal: The Open Government Project

Thanks!

-Aaron

Hi All,

Just wanted to let you know that I'll be teaching one of my Energy Awareness classes at a dance/performance/sound meditation event at Bala Yoga this Saturday. The event is sponsored by zaadz. Come out and suport local talent and say hi!

http://events.zaadz.com/1785/barefoot_dance_perfromance_and_sound_meditation/1850

Hope to see you there...

-A

Well, we made #10 ;)

http://ypulse.com/archives/2006/12/weirdest_social.php

Well, I knew it would all make sense by the time I was thirty... so here I am and I was right.

Yes, I admit it, I haven't been blogging a lot here at Zaadz. I think I had this notion that I wasn't supposed to be mixing my personal life with the 'techie' stuff until I at least had that categorization thing worked out, but hey, the split between our business and spiritual identities is something we're trying to heal here anyway right? So here we go.

It's been quite an eventful year for me. Probably one of my best. And when I say that, I don't mean that everything was happy and good, rather, it was replete with challenges and opportunities for transformation.

Unlike most people (as far as I can tell) I'm a bit of a change addict. If things aren't changing quickly enough in my life, I tend to get bored. So for me, dramatic life-altering circumstances are welcomed with open arms, and luckily for me, with this year heraling the fabled 'Saturn Return' period I've been hearing so much about for the past several years, I've had no lack of them.

So, a little background... From Wikipedia:

The Saturn Return is an astrological phenomenon that occurs in a person's natal chart at approximately 28–30 years old and again around the age of 58–60. The planet Saturn takes approximately 29.5 years to orbit the Sun; when it returns to the exact degree along the ecliptic it occupied at the time of a person's birth this is referred to as their "Saturn Return".

Saturn is symbolically/astrologically associated with time, challenge, fear, doubt, confusion, difficulty, seriousness, heaviness, and hard lessons, among other more positive things such as structure, significance, accomplishment, reflection, power, prestige, maturity, and order – this is why astrologers believe that the thirtieth birthday is such a major rite of passage and is considered by many astrologers to mark the "true beginning" of adulthood, self-evaluation, independence, responsibility, ambition, and full maturation.

Typically, Saturn return can be a challenging time for people when circumstances come about that force large changes and challenge them in a manner that might catch them off guard. Luckily for me, I have this knack for 'surfing the currents' (see The Tao) and I was well aware of the flavor of what was coming for me several years in advance.

And therein lies the beauty of this transition for me. Even though the past year may look tumultuous from an outsiders perspective, the experiences and challenges that this year have brought for me have firmly rooted me in my truth and the path before me is clearer than it ever has been.

Last weekend was a sort of 'rite of passage' for me. I attended a rather exclusive party in San Francisco (I could tell you about it but then I'd have to kill you) and used the whole night as a journey to discover what this new phase of my life is bringing. It was an absolutely wonderful experience. I'd love to share more about my insights and dicoveries but that would probably be better saved for a future blog entry. I can tell you though that it has evrything to do with: community, relationships, sensuality, energy, intentionality, consciousness, and... well, love. (I threw that one in for you Scott)

Incidentally, I got a vedic astrology reading and it only confirmed this whole transit for me. I just got through a 7 year period of transformation and expansion am now entering into a twenty year period of manifestation into the material world.

Wow... 30-50, a whole twenty years' time to implement my vision... I just hope I don't get too bored ;)

ok, this is one of the coolest things I've ever seen...
(and speaking of, we're gonna have the ability to easily add videos to the site soon!)

I've never been a big fan of the whole myspace thing. In fact, just yesterday I cracked up reading this hilarious post on vox about myspace that was favorited nine times and thankfully hasn't yet been removed for it's use of explicit language.

But after getting forwarded this link today, I wonder... is there hope for the myspace generation after all?

In the wake of the recent buzz about Mark Pincus' re-takeover of tribe, I sent him a message on tribe letting him know I was happy that he was back and that zaadz was open to collaboration with the new tribe.

Mark's response?

"hey aaron, thanks. what does your company do?"

ok...

I pointed him in the direction of some info about zaadz and how we played into that whole tribe exodus thing, but haven't heard anything back yet. I was actually surprised that he hadn't heard about us but my guess is that Mark has been out of the scene for a while and that was why he decided to leave the company in the first place.

I've always been a fan of tribe but with the direction that it's taken, it really alienated its core demographic by hiring a corporate exec and trying to go 'mainstream' without considering the impact those decisions would have on tribe's biggest advocates.

Pincus' return to the company has prompted comparisons to Jobs taking back Apple, but I'm not sure if Mark is that visionary. I get the sense that Mark thinks if tribe can become 'cool' again, that's all they'll need to survive, and I'm not sure that is the case in this market.

I'm eager to see what comes of the takeover though. I have some ideas for how they could take what they have and leverage it but I'm going to save those ideas for zaadz ;)

Well,

In the past few weeks, I've had the pleasure of slowing down a bit. Since we launched biz and events, we decided to take a little time to go back over the code and clean things up.

I just updated the mail system today. Not too much in the way of new functionality. The really groovy stuff in under the hood.

Now, I know the majority of you out there aren't tech geeks... but Josh introduced me to this cool little utility 'mytop' today that lets you see all of the active queries going to the database. Well, I tell ya, I was surprised to see certain 'devil spawn' queries running upwards of 20 seconds before they completed.

I spend most of this morning tweaking queries and indexes and now the site is much faster... especially the mail system.

I'm happy. Lots more to come. Pretty soon I get to work on tweaking the site design ;)

-A

So, this post is a little late. My Feng Shui experience went very well. We started out with an analysis of my Chinese Horoscope. Master Yau started out by telling me everything I needed to know about my life including an analysis of my personality, relationships, business, children and more. Apparently I'm not supposed to get married until I'm about 36. I'm also supposed to date women who are much older than more much younger than me. Sounds good to me.

The most important part of the reading was my elemental balance. In Chinese Medical theory, we look at the 5 elements and their properties and balance in the human energy system. According to my profile, I'm high in water, relatively balanced in fire and earth, and low on wood and metal. In terms of Feng Shui, this means that I need to fill my space with more wood and metal items and less water items to create a balance that works with my energy.

The beautiful piece of artwork pictured above is what happened when Master Yau started to do his work on the space. Each space has 8 areas on the compass that are set when the structure is built. These have varying degrees of luck from luckiest to unluckiest. My most lucky places seemed to be kitchens and bathrooms (red) and my unlucky areas were right smak in the office, bedroom and gathering areas (purple). No problem though. That's what Feng Shui is all about.

He suggested plants, guardians and other tips to offset the negative effects of the unlucky spaces. I know you can get the little Feng Shui creatures really cheap in Chinatown but I've decided that I only want to get things that I really love, so I've been gathering these items slowly.

Last week, my beautiful Jade Pixiu came in the mail and today I received two metal Kylin protectors for my office. They really hold the space together. I also just got a new desk for my office, an amazing organic shaped couch, and a low natural wood table. The space is really starting to come together!

My ultimate vision (I had this inspiration while sitting on the couch which has now been dupped the 'epiphany couch') is to create a collective of like minded people here in LA to host gatherings and events for the purpose of teaching and sharing knowledge in wisdom and community.

If you happen to be in LA, please join me at my first event this Friday, Tantric Beat. I'll be teaching an Energy Awareness/Qigong class there.

More to come... 

Well... I was going to wait until I added categories before I started posting about random, non-zaadz stuff, but hey, I'm too excited.

I'm going to get my brand new apartment feng shui'd by a real live asian person! I have this great yoga-inspired place in Santa Monica. One of my favorite thing about it is that it has these beautiful high ceilings with exposed wood and wood beams. I'd like to post some pictures but I am currently without a camera.

Anyway, I'm choosing a different theme of my life to focus on each month and this month is about 'environment'. I'm brining the elements into my space now: hooking up the water filter, air filter, getting natural spectrum bulbs, bringing in plants, looking at fountains, etc.

So today, as I was hanging upside-down in sirsha-asana I remembered that I wanted to get a crystal to put on the beam to disperse the energy that focuses along those lines in the living room and bed room. So, of course, I immediately jumped online and looked up feng-shui crystals. Man, the Internet hasn't evolved quite enough for me yet. The sites selling feng-shui crystals were kind of scary. Certainly no amazon.

But I did find this guy advertising on google and he happens to be in the Los Angeles area. (nice site, I know). So I contacted him by email and he called me like an hour later as I was hacking into a Japanese Pumpkin. Now if that's not auspicious, I don't know what is!

He's coming over on Saturday to do a consultation. A real live master in my place! ;) I even get to pay him in one of those cool red envelopes. I'll let you all know how it goes.