the interview

I submitted my resume last Monday for a graphic designer position at this place. I only found out about the position a few days before the Monday deadline, so scrambled to put a resume together. I didn't plan on looking for a job yet, until after the semester ended, because the last project in my Graphic Design III class is to produce a portfolio.

The hiring folks called me this past Monday to schedule an interview for this morning. Originally I scheduled a Tuesday afternoon meeting, but called them back right away to re-schedule me because I certainly don't have a portfolio ready. All I have right now are crappy student work anyway. The good thing was that they said a CD presentation would suffice. That's good news because to reprint my work would cost major $.

I stayed up until about 4am last night to create the CD with jpegs of my stuff, and once I got that done, I turned my attention to creating a case for it. That took another hour because my body desperately wanted to sleep, and my brain said, "enough!" But anyway, I came up with some crappy case, but whatever. At that point I even contemplated just submitting the CD in one of those paper cases with the plastic window.

I made sure to tell myself to wake up when the alarm went off, no matter how tired, so I didn't use earplugs for ny "nap."

I didn't feel nervous, but I felt a little stressed. I figured I had nothing to lose, and everything to gain. I even think that they only conducted interviews to abide by some laws stating you must interview x amount of folks in order to fill this position. I mean they've had someone working the position temporarily for six months now, and I'm sure they want to keep that person, but in order to hire him/her, they needed to post the position, and then show that they interviewed other candidates. I know this procedure all too well ;-)

Anyway, so yeah, I am looking for a graphic design job.

it's like heaven in your mouth

Yeah, that's what SPAM tastes like. Everyone gives Spam a bad rap, and yeah, I can see where they're coming from, but the secret to loving Spam is not knowing where its ingredients are coming from. I just like to experience the pure joy and bliss of it in my mouth.

I grabbed Bancy and took her to Lucky Chances today, as I craved to taste that greasy, deliciously greasy and garlicky food. I ordered the same thing as yesterday, albeit with much anguish about whether to combine the Spam with some other "meat." Unfortunately, I think I jinxed myself by saying that LC's service was fast, and today, more folks dined there, so we waited a little longer than usual for the food.

tuesday lunch happenings

Sakomi called a little after 11am to set up a lunch thing, I agreed. She craved breakfast food, and I told her I needed to get some make-shift photography lighting from Home Depot, as I left most of my photography stuff in Elk Grove. We decided to lunch at Lucky Chances Casino in Colma(?) since she then started craving tocino, and that was somewhat close to HD.

On the way there, on South 280, I saw a bunch of cars ahead of us put their brakes on, and I also saw some other vehicles stopped on the middle divider. On the other side of the divider, we saw a car that flipped over. I don't know if that car started on our side and flew over the divider or not, because I saw some damage to the stopped cars going south. It was pretty glorific. People need to stop freaking out when the rain slicks out the road. Remain calm!

At Lucky Chances, I was shocked that we couldn't find parking after circling several times, and we had company too, as other cars waited and circled. Thank goodness they offer free valet service, because at that point, my stomach started to ache from hunger. We thought all those people were there for lunch, but once inside, we find out that they're all gambling, WTF? Don't they go to work? Well, maybe gambling is how they make their dough, and that place was jumpin for the middle of the day Tuesday.

Sakomi ordered Tocilog and I got Comsilog, a combination meat plate and I picked SPAM and longanisa sausage. I tore into my plate fast, too hungry to talk. I must say that LC is probably the FASTEST place where they serve Filipino food. We didn't wait long for the food at all. The only thing we waited for was our check, but that's only because our server took an eating break at the bar and had her back to us.

By the time we left LC, I realized that getting back to work on time wasn't possible because I was already late. But we jetted on to Home Depot for the lighting equipment nonetheless.

dottie's

For brunch on Sunday, my friends Stiv and Chie-chie wanted to eat at Dottie's True Blue Cafe on Jones and O'Farrell. Thank goodness Stiv lives two blocks up, so they stood in line for I believe 45 minutes while Roomie and I drove separately to meet them there. Stiv actually was one of my first roommates when I first moved to the city way back in '95 in the same apartment where he lives now.

As usual, many folks stood in line for a while because it's a real small place. It always seems like the smallest joints are the most popular ones. I made sure that while we stood in line no birds pooped on us. Thanks to Ted Green for the warning. Several diners kept saying that the wait's well worth it.

This was our table, so it's a real conversation piece while you wait for the waitperson or for your food. It's a super charming place. Like Ted Green says, the food is fresh and delicious. There's a certain excitement and energy in the air, that kinda makes you feel real comfortable. Seems like everyone that eats there feels that they're eating in a real special place, kinda like Mama's in North Beach.

And this was the table next to us, freshly vacated by previous diners and quickly taken over by more hungry mouths. The woman looks like Marlene Dietrich, or is that Greta Garbo?

I remember mentioning the restaurant to Stiv many years ago, and that I "introduced" him to it, but I don't recall ever eating there, but if I dig enough, I feel like I can come up with some memory of eating there. I don't remember the tables or the interesting chandelier.

post tg blues

And by tg, I mean Thanksgiving, not transgender. Anyway, I woke up a lot later than I wanted to, well I stayed up later than I wanted to, so there's the cause and effect. I felt tired all day. It's the let-down from last night's festivities. And the weather made things more blah.

Roomie called me from Elk Grove and said that Meek and Fredo and him were gonna see "Rent" at the 1:15pm show. He called me at Noon. The drive from AC to EG takes one hour. I rushed to get ready and got going. I hit stop-and-go traffic even before Fairfield, so I just went back to AC. That whole emotional rollercoaster took a lot out of me. First I was all excited, then bummed out in a matter of minutes.

So I hung out with the folks, and went to town with my nephew. I bought some cheap used DVDs: "Team America World Police" from Blockbuster and "Father of the Pride" from Rasputin's.

I feel weird. My energy's whacked.

hey thanks!

Thanksgiving Day started off pretty nicely. First thing I did; I went out to my little patio and soaked in a November morning...finally! The clouds scattered across the sky, just blocking enough of the sun so everything turned a little gray, and the air filled nicely with a slight chill. A nice and lazy morning, Roomie stayed overnight and I played the CD of the broadway version of "Rent." Season of love indeed. I also played a video tape with "Drawn Together" in it and Roomie actually watched it with interest and laughed too!

We planned to lunch together, but we went on a driving rampage to several low-key joints, but all the places we wanted to go to closed for the holiday. We wound up at Todai, the buffet place in Daly City. I really don't like the food there, because it seems like the main spices they use are tons and tons of salt and some ammonia.

Roomie left for Oakland, and I went back to the apartment to get ready to drive up to American Canyon. I fell asleep for 90 minutes, so my travel up north got delayed.

My bro and his family from Seattle came down, and my sis from Arizona arrives on Friday. We ate lots of good food, we got stuffed...no Tofurky this year. We had so much fun hanging out together again. The musicians of the family played music and sang together, my niece and I had a drawing session.

Now it's raining, and that rain smell fills the air. I could sniff that all night. It's now cozy, I feel warm inside.

we are gonna pay RENT

Saw the screen version of "Rent" earlier tonight with Roomie. The viewing experience wasn't how I thought, since Ashley proposed months ago that we should see it together, Samandy also wanted to see it with me, but they went to the preview screening last week. But I love love love love this movie!

The migration from stage to screen was an absolute success. It felt at home on screen as it did on stage, much like "Chicago." The entire cast gave knock-out performances. I was so relieved that the x-factors Rosario Dawson (Mimi) and Tracie Thoms (Joanne) kicked major ass with their characters. The only one I can't give mad props to was Adam Pacal's Roger. His performance felt a little stiff and lacking in something, but that's just my opinion, oh and that hair had to go, and i didn't like the way he tweaked his voice, and did i mention he felt stiff? But he was good otherwise.

Amazing movie!

"Tango Maureen" and "Over the Moon" stood out especially as most memorable scenes.

Hey Mad props to SF's own Sixth St. between Market and Mission, the first area we lived in when we came to America. I looked for the Tu Lan sign, but missed it.

The movie takes you all over the place. The strength of the music and the characters really draw you in. For the longest time I feared that it fall flat like "Phantom of the Opera" did, and I wasn't impressed with the trailers for "Rent." The only thing flat tonight was the audience reaction. I expected more electricity from the Kabuki Theater crowd, like some clapping here and there, but they all watched in silence, well except for the laughter and the crying. Roomie and I wanted to catch the next showing, but we opted for dessert instead.

the icebox

Just as I predicted, now that the weather's finally letting some chill in the air, well at least at SFSU, the damn heater finally turned itself off, or someone sure did. I arrived this morning to frostbite. Seemingly, the heat turned off sometime during the weekend, because there certainly wasn't any trace of warmth at all.

Luckily, I did work in another room for most of the day. But now, my nose is a little runny, my throat feels a little scratchy, hmm, it's gotta be the sudden change in that room's temperature. I just downed some Emergen-C; hopefully I can nip any illness in the bud. Family from Washington and Arizona are coming for T.

Before I went to work in the other room, I corresponded to my former instructor to have him check out my resume. Unfortunately, he emailed back all his great "corrections" after I already submitted the thing to HR. Oh well, we'll see if i even get an interview. What the hey? But I hope they don't laugh at the resume though. The last time I did one was back at the end of 2001.

more lines

Epilogue to the "Walk the Line" experience:

1. This morning, after a long rest, I thought about the movie. The theme about "living life as the second best or the never good enough one like your other siblings, so you need your own gimmick to get by" spoke to me.

2. After the movie late last night/early this morning, KuyaJC decided to grab dessert at Serramonte Denny's. I parked Angel right next to this black car with wind-splattered vomit on the driver back passenger side. I'd never seen that before, sure I heard stories of party-hardy drunks vomitting like that, but that's just lore. On the walk from the car to the Denny's entrance, there were several puddles of vomit as well. Oddly enough, we didn't lose our appetite, but the place was packed like sardines so we opted for IHOP by my place instead. I really wanted this Oreo Blizzard shake from Denny's, instead we settled for day-old nasty chocolate mousse cake with bad service.

3. Listened to Johnny Cash's rendition of the Nine Inch Nails song "Hurt" most of the day. It's a striking song, with a stunning video. Thanks to SG for that.

we walked the line

I did it. Didn't think it would happen, but I watched my first movie in months. I asked KuyaJC if he wanted to see "Walk the Line" with me, and he agreed. We caught the 11:35pm showing at AMC Van Ness, since we couldn't catch any earlier showing because he'd come from work in Belmont.

I finally used these two 2 dollar gift certificates for AMC that slept in my wallet for oh, perhaps 5 or 7 years that I got as a gift, and in addition to our student discounts, the two tickets only cost us $12.

I guess the movie was pretty good. I'm so unfamiliar with Johnny R and June Carter Cash's music that I went in to just appreciate their story. I won't analyze the flick, but the acting was pretty good, and the actors' own singing voices were pretty good as well.

Can't wait to see M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village." I got the used DVD at a Blockbuster Video in Elk Grove two weeks ago. I liked "the Sixth Sense" and "Signs" with Joaquin Phoenix. I had no idea that Joaquin is Latino. Go Joaquin!

it's over. it's over! ...it's over

After Wednesday night's class, with the super help of Design Substance, I worked on the final push to finish my infographic poster. By 6:30am, I felt like I did all I could do at the point where the damn thing had to get to print. I put in all the required elements, even though it's not the best refined piece, "stick a fork in me, I'm done."

6:30am, set the alarm for 8am, just take a 90-minute nap, enough time to pass one polyphasic sleep cycle. In mid-sleep, I hear my cell phone ring, it's Sakomi, flipped open the phone, and the clock read 12:15pm. Long story short, I missed the whole morning of work. I called in to say that I'm on my way...well after lunching with Sakomi. But then I needed to drop off my poster file at the printers, but everyone says they'll have it ready for me by Friday night, or Friday noon. Hello, class starts at 11am, and the instructor sent everyone a very threatening email saying she'll lock you out if you arrive later than 11:15.

I scramble; I visit and call several print places like Copy Edge, Kinko's, Copy Central, BPS, but all say they can't print out my poster by later that same evening, all said they have a 24 hour turnaround, and some even closed by the time I got to their door. I also call several classmates to help me figure out a solution and find a place where I might print.

Went to BPS last, even though they said they don't allow rush orders anymore. Luckily, a very nice girl named Denise worked the counter and asked one of the printers if they could help me out. I did my best to put on a sad puppy face, sprinkled with desperation and urgency. Swoosh, she answered back that they'll squeeze my work in. So a few hours later, I picked up the trouble-maker poster.

Had some slight mounting issues, and during the crit I got mixed feedback. Some people liked it, others hated it. Whatever! I'm just so glad that that 5-week project nightmare from hell is finally DONE!

...til tuesday

1. HHWWhat is up with this weather? I don't recall the middle of November here in SF ever feeling this hot. It's like American and East Indian Summer! Schwing! Don't get me wrong, I loved how gorgeous it was today, but I want chill and fall already! Makes me think of two things: "this is earthquake weather" or "it's soo gonna rain real soon." I can guess that because I honestly haven't seen any weather reports the last few days.

2. Picked up the new Madonna "Confessions album at Tower Records after work. Haven't read a single review for the disc, but it's like one continuous dance song throughout the entire album. It has its standouts. I smell a Grammy! haha, j/k. The best thing about though, Tower stuck a $13.99 sale sticker, but it only rang up as $11.99. YES! And Bancy, thanks for reminding me!

3. While at Tower, I impulsively grabbed Dane Cook's "Retaliation" CD/DVD combo. I can't listen to it tonight, because I'll never get any homework done! That was also on sale for $15.99. Can't pay full price for any of these things. Buying CDs all the time in the late 90's was one of the big factors that me to go into mega debt, a place that's no fun for sure.

4. I actually went to work super late; I'm supposed to start at 9am, but I got there oh around 1:45pm! The reason? Well let's just say it's a little something called my infographic poster for GD III! Worked on that little bastard all last night and all morning just so I could print out a rough bw to present to my instructor one-on-one for one final crit, since I missed class last Friday.

5. It's a full-ass moon today, so everything weird I did today, whoever I wronged, now you know why. Lo siento, okay?

ring of fire

The new movie "Walk the Line" looks intriguing, simply because of the graphics I saw for the wallpapers, screen savers and promotions online.

I think I'd like to watch this movie. I only really know one Johnny Cash song, and that's "Ring of Fire." I heard the Social Distortion version of that song first, way back when, either late 80's or early 90's.

So far, I do like Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix; only seen one film he starred in: Signs.

effing scary

So both my parents went to Jerusalem last Tuesday as part of a group pilgrimage. Then the next day we hear about the bombings in Amman, Jordan. I worried a little bit about it, but I thought they were safe in Jerusalem. I didn't have details about their trip, only the dates.

Then yesterday, my sister says to me, "Oh, 'mother' and 'father' are ok." I was like, yeah...because they're far away from the most recent bombings. "Well they first landed in Amman and stayed at a hotel there overnight! And they have to go through Amman again on their way back" WTF!!

At that point I freaked. And so now I'm worried. Effing terrorists, my sister worked at the Pentagon back in 2001 when they attacked then, but thankfully she survived.

i'll have a venting mocha please, yeah thanks

1. I've said all semester how much I hate my Graphic Design III class, and I'll say it again. The biggest pain in the arse, ever! Our stupid current project is killing me! (cry like a baby here).

2. Saw something really disturbing on Mission St. by 6th. This man hit another person to the ground and it turns out that person was a woman while another woman, a friend of the guy, watched. WTF! Didn't know the situation, but it bummed me out. Later, I saw the struck woman walk back in the direction of the incident with a male companion...perhaps payback time.

3. There's so much eye candy at the Trader Joe's at Westlake in Daly City! The eye candy made up for them not having the vegetarian/fake sausage in stock. I think they don't carry the product anymore, but you gotta love all the eye candy that work there.

4. Spent more dough, a lot of dough for school supplies at both Flax and Pearl. Items of note: 24"x36" self-healing cutting mat (yay), plastic poster tube (yay, now I can be like Design Substance!), and black 3/16" foam board for the stupid inforgraphic posters due next week for GD III.

5. Still struggling with infographic poster!

6. Resisted temptation to buy dinner from either Tu Lan or Ono Hawaiian BBQ; made big spinach salad instead. Huzzahs for me!

7. "Hurt" my knee. It's one of those things where it won't pop and thus painful and hurts when I put pressure on it like when I sit down. Must be the air pressure or wet air.

interesting, do go on...

I'm supposed to be napping right now, but I just ate loco moco and spam musubi because I was super hungry, so now I'm digesting. But I did take this personality test:

I am 72% Asshole/Bitch.

I am abrasive, some people really hate me, but there may be a group of other tight knit assholes and bitches that I can hang out with and get me. Everybody else? Fuck ‘em.

Take the
Asshole/Bitch Test
@ FualiDotCom

hmmm kind of day

So last night, I was so gung-ho about finishing my graphic design project for critique today. We don't have to show the final product, that's for next week, but we did have to show a full-size black and white version for the last crit for final revisions.

I got a lot of work done, but perhaps I started too late and didn't realize the amount of work the muthaf#@ker needed. Anyhow, I did the usual, staying up as long as possible, but last night, I could only manage until 2:30am. Fine, I calmly thought, I'd finish the rest in the early morning before work.

Well nothing I planned came to fruition: finishing the poster before work, getting a cheap b/w printout at kinko's, going to class. For class today, we have a short session, 1-4pm instead of 11-6pm. The time now is about 2:30pm and I'm in an undisclosed location, an "empty" office here at work, so no one can see that I didn't go to class. Only two people know that I'm here working on finishing my project. But I figured that by the time I finish, class would be over. On top of everything, I'm falling asleep and hungry and my carpal tunnel is acting up, and on top of that, I stopped working on the project, and on top of that, I read other people's blogs, and then now of course, on top of totally all everything else, I'm wrting this entry. WTF!?

What can I say, at least I'm inspired by something to do something. I guess.

Although my biggest fear is that because I'm missing class right now, my grade for the class will for sure get lower. See this is what happens when you're "forced" to make decisions when you're sooo tired. And the irony is, my project is about the positive effect that going back to school had on me and how a "model" student I grew into, as a "Late Bloomer." HA!

Maybe I'll call it a day and go home and get some beautiful sleep! yay!

i eat, therefore i'm fat

Part of my demise lately is due to the fact that I've totally fallen off my somewhat strict dietary rules/plan/guidelines that I started in the spring of 2004. The change last year coincided with me wanting to live a much healthier lifestyle and me discovering holistic approaches to health when I took a Holistic Health class as part of my "Segment III."

But this year, I re-introduced bad carbs, really bad carbs into my diet. I'd break down whilst shopping at Costco and buy oh, a whole cake, or a box of apple and cherry turnovers, or a box of danish, and scraf them down in a matter of days, all by myself. Sakomi said "I get like that," I suffer from these binges.

Within the last month, I've eaten at Ono Hawaiian BBQ sooo many times that even Bancy said I could support the whole Hawaiian population with the $$ I spend there, and I'd wind up looking like the famous Hawaiian singer Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo`ole!

Oh, and let's not forget all those Halloween chocolates that still linger: bite-size Twix, Nutrageous, Almond Joy...damn you all! WTF!

What's it gonna take for me to get back to protein breakfasts, protein lunches that comprise of breast of chicken with vegetables every frikkin day. I mean it gets boring and I spend such little time in the kitchen cooking that stuff. But hey, the good news in all of this is so far, I'm still eating my salads for dinner. Whew.

lol

Tonight treated me to several "burst-out-laughing" moments. You gotta love those.

1. Checked my yahoo email at work and yahoo usually features a rotating gallery of really annoying pictures of these people on the beach or having "fun" ek-ek. But tonight totally surprise me when I saw this:

Usually, I'd get all "eww, yuck, gross," and turn away to not look at it, but for some reason, this pic made me laugh out loud! So unexpected and so out there. Wacky indeed.

2. Right when I left work, the rain started to come down and fell heavy for one hot moment. I made a mad dash to my car, and I freaked out because I carried Angelina Rodriguez in my backpack and I can't have my laptop get wet! As I scrambled to get Angelina in the backseat and then grab my umbrella from the trunk, the car parked across the way from me started to flash their hi-beams. I noticed that it was Bancy's car. I don't know how long she'd sat out there in the car because she didn't call to tell me that she'd left her office already. Whatever. I didn't have time to play headlight games with her because I needed to head to class.

3. Watched "Drawn Together" while I ate my late after-class dinner. After my meal, I drank water to down my horse-pill-size glucosamine tablets, Unfortunately, this act coincided with an angry exchange between Captain Hero and Wooldoor Sockbat:

CH: Oh come on, you're the one who promised to marry her
WS: You're the one who promised to marry her first...and third
CH: Don't make me kick your ass!
WS: Don't make me suck your d!@k!
CH: Don't make me cuddle you like a baby!
WS: Don't make me suck your d!@k!

Yeah, so I spit my water out when I burst into laughter. It's a sick and crazy show, just like me, buwhahahahaha

relief?

I scheduled a massage for earlier Tuesday night with this guy that I met in one of my classes in spring semester earlier this year. We didn't know each other personally back then, but I saw him at Macys one day massaging some woman on one of those massage chairs and we acknowledged each other from the other side of the room, er, the fragrance/cosmetics department. A few days after that encounter, we talked about what and why he massaged that woman.

Apparently he's a certified massage practitioner, and so he gave me his card. He advertised his rate as $45 for one hour full-body. I was like, wow, that's an amazing price.

I have a nasty history of neck and shoulder pain, and suffered from stiff neck many times. Well now with all the stresses and mousing from my classes and work, the pain of the knots forced me to pick up the phone and call my former classmate to schedule an appointment. Luckily, he was available for earlier tonight.

He upped his rate to $60 for one hour, and $90 for two, but hey, that's still a lot cheaper than most other masseurs, so I took the chance and gave him a test drive. For the last few years, I've struggled to find someone who really can work my body with deep tissue therapy that still didn't cost and arm and a leg.

Anyway, this new guy was pretty good, he specializes in swedish technique, but he did work on my knots, and there were plenty of those on my back, neck and shoulders. I'm glad I got some relief, but wouldn't you know it, later on I went back to my nasty computer habits and posture so I still felt some amount of pain. Bottom line, I need to get back to my holistic ways: correct breathing and relaxation and ergonomic computer set up.

u got the time?

It's so bizarre to me how 2005 still feels like the beginning of the year. I usually notice all the different phases of a year, such as seasons, holidays, moods associated with a certain part of the year; like a biological yearly clock. In 2005, I didn't go through any of that, yet it's almost over. I mean I went through the motions, but looking back, I didn't get the emotional satisfaction. I feel robbed.

Roomie and I agree that it's because of school. I lost my senses because school's taken me hostage and not let me see the light of day. I think the funky weather all year played a role in all this too. Well, there's always next year!

no bueno

My little body's falling apart.

I didn't go shopping for my home meals in two weeks, so instead of eating salad every night, I ate junk food, remember the Halloween candy? All the poisons are finally surfacing.

In addition, my sleep patterns this whole semester are way whacked.

Right now, I'm suffering from a big headache that started the moment I opened my eyes this morning.

All weekend, my shoulders, especially the right, seem like a bunch of boy scouts practiced their knot tying on my muscles, because the pain is almost unbearable. On Saturday night, Roomie offered to massage the area. He applied some lotion with a burning sensation that supposedly takes away the pain. The next morning, my right shoulder felt so much tighter and more painful; WTF!

I so need physical therapy or some deep tissue massage right now. OUCH!

so, "sin"

In an old episode of SNL, the Church Lady "inadvertently" calls Sean Penn "Sin," instead of "Sean" back when he was a "bad boy."

Hooked up with my best friend from senior year in high school, "Sin" on Sunday. We reconnected a year ago after so many years of not hearing from one another. I basically never looked back when I graduated from high school. The majority of my pre-college school days were very unhappy for me. I started to feel comfort in my own skin when I started senior year high school. I hung out with Sin, he was my good friend. He was a very creative and kooky guy who introduced me to so many different things; both legal and not so legal. He's the reason why I had so much fun that last year. I even convinced my family to let him stay in our house for a few months. It was weird, I never had "real" friends like that; I lacked social abilities.

He called me out of the blue in November '04, around the same time when I reconnected with other folks like Ashley and Idante. For many years I avoided contact with him. When I heard that he'd come by my parents' house looking for me, I freaked out. I felt that my me-ness didn't agree with his religious beliefs. He made a comment way back when about how a certain group of people ("my kind of people") should be shot and killed. That killed me inside.

Who knew that more than ten years later, after he calls me to see if I wanted to hang out to catch up, and then I hesitantly agreed to, that the years changed him. I could actually open up and he accepted the real me, like it was no big deal. Big sigh of relief. The caffeine-driven talkative man that I met up with at Starbucks now ran his own business, got married, had a son, had big ambitions. He even got taller than me. Who knew?

Now a year later, and we reconnect once again through MySpace. He still has the ambitious business goals, but his personal life had some major bumps. It's good to see him still smiling and charging on.

gimme some sAshi

Drove up to Elk Grove late Saturday afternoon, almost dusk. I kept an eye on the traffic situatioin through sfgate, and I waited until the hotspots cleared. I left my place at around 4:50pm and got to EG two hours later. While waiting for traffic to clear, I fell asleep, then Ashley's phone call woke me up. The sleep helped to clear off my bad mood from earlier. And talking with Ash even for just a few helped to cheer me up as well.

Roomie took me out to a Japanese restaurant in EG called Satori (I think that's the name). I told him of my wariness about stripmall restaurants. I said that I prefer those hole-in-the-wall dives in old neighborhoods like TuLan on Market/6th, El Farolito in the Mission, even Eric's in Noe Valley. I really didn't crave anything particular when Roomie asked what I wanted to eat, so I let him decide because he was hungry and the Chef Boyardee mini ravioli still stuck in my stomach. The burps I expelled on my drive up burned my throat, yuck.

At Satori, the pleasant surprises that my mouth experienced threw me off guard. I ordered Sesame Chicken and Mixed Tempura dinner combo, and some kind of Crunch Roll sushi. I can't eat the "real" sushi with raw meat that connoisseurs enjoy, so our sushi was filled with shrimp tempura and some avocado. Anyway, it was so delicious!

The service at the place was fast real friendly too. I actually craved more the next day, for brunch, but they didn't open until 4pm or so. Oh well, maybe next time.

what's my age again?

Last night, KuyaJC invited me to a presentation for DuraFresh, a product he promotes and distributes.

Anyway, the presentation included buffet dinner at Jade Lounge in Daly City, right around the corner from the place where I stay at the moment. I got there late because of work, then meeting my instructor afterwards. The food was gone, only some fried rice and other scraps remained. I heard that the food went quickly anyway, that even KuyaJC almost didn't get any.

So one of his other guests, a friend asked me my age; I forget how the subject came up. I said, why, how old do I look? His answer: 22!!!! I was shocked. To play along, I said, "nah, I'm 26." I can't really say if I was flattered; I think the shock of someone thinking I'm that young caught me way off guard. Sigh.

It's just weird, I'm always surrounded by folks much younger than me because of my classes. Sometimes I don't feel age at all; sometimes I freak out that 40 is just around the corner and I haven't won that Olympic gold, or owned my own company, or earned my first million in one year yet; or sometimes I berate myself for missing one night of the Clinique regimen, yet sometimes I still feel invincible and well, young. Sigh, again.

honesty is overrated and expensive!

During lunch break, I went all the way to the Castro, yeah I know Halloween's over, but the reason I went is because my teacher told me to. She told me I could get some props for our latest project at Cliff's Variety Store. So my mission: to find objects that could serve as game pieces for a board game, think Monopoly.

At first it's overwhelming to find all the little crap that they have over there, and while I couldn't find anything somewhat related to my topic of academia, I settled on "Homies" and "Executives/Wedding People," go figure. They represented the closest in what kind of shape I needed.

Oh, a bonus while I went to Cliff's: I ran into an old dance colleague, Jordan Varay, who was one of my heroes while I danced with Likha Pilipino Folk Dance Company.

So at the cash register, the lady ringing me up asked me how much each of the "Homies" and "ExecuWeds" cost, and I debated whether to lower the price, or flat-out lie. Well unfortunately for my bank account, the truth came out of my mouth: $.50 each for the ExecuWeds, $1.50 each for the Homies. An additional $.25 each for dice. I took 8 Execs, 8 Homies, and 10 dice, for a total of $20.07 after tax. Ouch, I said. I shoulda, shoulda.

Yeah, they're cute and all, but perhaps Cliff's was the wrong place to get them, unfortunately, i didn't know where else to go on such short notice. I'll just work with them anyway. And one of them is supposed to represent me, the other Roomie, and another for Pastris, and one for Ana Gabriela. My favorite's the girl in the middle; she even has freckles! We'll see what comes out of all this.

psa

My computer at work crashed late last night. It's a Dell, and I searched in vain to find a reset button, because you know, that fixes everything, right? Well there's no reset button on the computer, so I just pressed down on the power button for a few seconds and that seemed to start it up again.

The problem was that when it started, Windows wouldn't load, it'd go back to the very beginning of booting up. This cycle went on for a half hour late last night. Luckily, it was the last half hour of my work day. Fast forward to this morning, and I push the on/off button, and the same thing happens. I start to panic a little bit because what if all my data got lost? So I called the school help desk, our resident I.T., and another colleague upstairs who volunteered to tinker with it...but not until two nights later. He did seem to know what he's talking about, so that gave me some slight relief.

So now I can't really function because all my work's on that computer, and thank goodness I brought my personal laptop for class tonight, so that's what I'm using now.

Anyhoo, let me just say this: Back up your sh!t as often as you can because you never know when sh!t that happened to me can happen to you. I always thought, nah that won't happen to me, but it just did.

Message brought to you by: "The More You Know," or if you watch "Drawn Together" it would say, "What You Already Know."

sauna

My office, my corner of this old building has an uncontrollable heater. The thermostat can read how hot it is, but we can't reduce/increase the temperature. It also seems that in previous years, the heater is on during summer, but does nobody any good in the winter. This summer/fall is no exception.

Last night, at 6:30pm, when it got dark outside and the temperature cooled a lot from a blistering 80 degrees early on, I sweat buckets! I fiddled with the thermostat with no relief. I mean the maintenance people came in last winter to supposedly fix the damn contraption, but alas, I must make another service call.

I'm all alone in this office that fits four people. Luckily one of the former "tenants" of this room left his desk fan. So along with my own fan, I got both of them blasting, in search of some relief.

Don't waste your money going to a sauna, come to my office instead, sheesh.

post-halloween blues

I'm slowly seeing other people's pics and tales from Halloween. Now I'm bummed out because the only thing I did remotely close to the occasion was buy candy...for myself.

I love giving out the candy to all the neighborhood kids. I just think the kiddies get so cute upon receiving a handfull of unhealthy, delicious sugar. But this year, since I moved to an apartment building, and when I got home there were no kids roaming the streets in sight probably because the corporate pigs get them to trick or treat at the malls, I couldn't do that.

The thought of going to the Castro or doing something else fun was out of the question because of my best friend, Homework (insert hint of sarcasm here).

Oh well, there's always next year. Hmm, maybe I'll even dress up then.