For USJ fans, Mecha Samurai Empire is the long anticipated follow-up to Tieryas's alt-history, sci-fi novel, The United States of Japan. Mecha isn't a sequel, but rather another story inside the USJ universe told first-person through Makoto Fujimoto's (Mac to his friends) journey into the elite Mecha Corps of the Japanese Empire. Tieryas's prose is quick and witty, with a deeper look at life in the alternate universe he created, originally inspired by Philip K. Dick's, Man in the High Castle. ...

I don't know what professional triathletes do the day before a race, I don't even know what age-groupers, like myself, do for that matter. I can see what gets posted on Instagram, but we all know social media isn't real life, don't we? To prepare for my first triathlon (where the 40-49 year olds will run into the ocean at Main Beach at 8:20 a.m.) I decided to do what I do best these days, listen to what's deep inside and move from that place. The mindset I've tried to maintain for the week lea...

Hey @airjoshb, going to @robinsloan’s talk at Santa Cruz Bookshop on Tuesday? "YES! see you there?", I tweeted back, leaving 121 empty characters that could have been used to admit that I had only just heard of Robin Sloan days before and the only thing I knew about him was that there were now two people, whom I have a geeky level of admiration for, that were alerting me to his book. The 19 characters I did use (and my internal response of "of course, now I have to go") led me to the dis...

At twenty-one, already a college dropout, I talked my way into one of the most exclusive art schools in Boston, The School of Museum of Fine Arts, with only a couple of sketch books I had filled while traveling across the country by train. My final acceptance depended on the success of a show I would put together at the end of the semester, judged by a group of peers and faculty. The semester-end exhibition is how “grades” work at SMFA and was one of the many things that drew me so passionatel...

Last night while walking around the halls of Stanford Hospital where I have cumulatively spent over a month in the last twelve, I started feeling the rush of something new coming at me. Trying not to come across simply as being overwhelmed post-surgery (or just heavily medicated with a variety of controlled substances), I struggled to find a way to communicate what was happening with Amanda, who has been through every moment of this journey with me. Our exploits over the last six years started ...

http://bit.ly/2nfDXYr I just found out my dear friend Carl passed away only a month after discovering he had stomach cancer that had metasticized to his liver and lymphs. Carl radiated kindness, compassion and a deep caring whenever you were with him. Despite having been given several months to live, I went to visit him right before I went into my own surgery because I felt like he may not be here when I got out of the hospital. He once told me that I was his hero for how I faced all that I’ve...

I read more books in 2017 (46) than any other year that I can remember, nearly 17,000 pages and the average book length was over 400 pages. 2017 was also the first year where the amount of ebooks outnumbered the physical books I read. While I still prefer something that you can hold in your hand, feel the paper and turn the pages, it is practically impossible to get over the deals, storage and convenience offered by Amazon and others. Overall, I read at least twice as much as previous years and ...

I listened to over 70 hours of podcasts in 2017 from about a dozen different podcasts (many of which I only listened to once). I spent far more time reading books than any other medium for entertainment or enlightenment, but I also found that not having a great (read: simple and effective) app after switching to Android made me far less likely to listen to a podcast. My favorite listens from the year tread some familiar territory with a few new people and concepts coming on my radar. Many of the...

2017 started off heading toward a major, three part, surgery that led to spending nearly half of the year under the direct care of my Stanford surgeon for complications. With a miraculous turnaround, the second half built up to peak levels of joy, struggle and health. Many of my haiku are written in a tea house, so there are several that refer to the pu erh I was drinking that day. The final section are the haikus I have written after reading, listening or watching something. These get posted...

The paradox of productivity and creativity is such that the former requires a near ruthless approach to distraction and optimization and the latter flourishes in moments of daydreaming, exploration and even kismet. As things become more efficient they begin to lose a quality of humanity that people identify strongly with. Efficiency is the Toyota Way and while Tesla's engineering is also efficient, the design and attention to detail pushes on our sense of vanity and desire. The Alfa Romeo Guil...

Work-life balance is an increasingly popular topic as we struggle to feel happy and content with growing levels of stress in our lives and an external world of boundless possibility with no end to what we can consume and create. We talk about this balance as a binary state, but both sides encompass many other areas including our health, extended family, friendships, professional development, finances and more. We measure the balance by the inputs—our time and energy—and we expect that by splitti...

Confidence is often attributed with success and being successful and yet it does not always coincide with virtuous behavior or people we also believe to be trustworthy. Confidence is a sense of self-assurance, bolstered by certainty and that is where things can go off the rails. It is relatively easy to generate feelings as needed to project to ourselves and others that we know what we are doing. The certainty bred from confidence is practically guaranteed to keep someone defending things beyo...

"while you meditate you are speaking with your own spirit. In that state of mind you put certain questions to your spirit and the spirit answers: the light breaks forth and the reality is revealed." - ‘Abdu’l-Bahá ...