Thursday, June 24, 2004

A bird pooped on me

So I was at the carwash and there was a line. There were probably three cars in front of me. So I decided to turn the engine off, turn the AC off and then I opened the window. As the window was sliding down a bird pooped and hit my driverside window and my jeans as well. Right on the side of my left thigh. What were the chances of that? Well, I think getting pooped on by a bird is a good sign. In some culture, they consider that a good luck. Woohoo, more luck for me...

Sunday, June 20, 2004

I'm not evil after all

Just for the heck of it, I did this



How evil are you?


Father's Day and This Week's Journal - Part Deux

It's Father's Day!
I called my Dad at home, but as it turns out, the whole family is in Bataan. So my "Happy Father's Day" greeting will have to wait a few more hours. But to my readers, if any of you are Dads, Happy Father's Day to you.
****
So on to this week's recap.
Tuesday-Kay thought that I was going back to Sacramento this day because of my class later that afternoon, little did she know that I wasn't really planning on leaving until Wednesday. So she was surprised when I slept in. When she found out I'm staying, she made plans for her mom to go golfing since I can drop her off at the golf course. That was fine with me. While Marilyn was golfing, I decided to see a movie. So I went and saw Garfield. It was okay...it's a kid's movie but I still enjoyed it nonetheless. After the movie I did a little bit of grocery shopping so I can make Pork-Chicken Adobo for dinner. I picked up Marilyn from the golf course and then we just rested, and took a nap, before dinner. After dinner, Kay and Marilyn played some more dice while I watched the Detroit Pistons humiliate the Lakers in Game 5 of their championship series.

Wednesday-I left early so I would miss the traffic. I wasn't really going any faster than I usually do but I got pulled over by a CHP. He said he tagged me at 92 on a 70-limit highway. Arrrgh, this will set me back around $300 (hopefully not more!) Oh well! So I got home at around noon and watered the plants and the yard right away. I also checked on Azuli (my cat) to see how she's doing. What a good cat! She didn't create any mess although I was gone for almost 5 days. She would usually throw up or pee somewhere to piss me off if I leave her for more than a couple of days. I guess she's getting used to my travels. The rest of the day, I spent online and studying for my midterm for the next day.

Thursday-I usually cannot study at home so I head out to Sac State at around 10am to do my studying there. The test was pretty easy. After that we watched a German avant-garde movie from 1919 called The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Our professor let us out early again so I decided to go to Macy's to see if there's something that would catch my eye. There were a lot! And I was very tempted to get some of them but I decided otherwise. Not right now, since I suddenly thought of that speeding ticket I'm gonna have to pay soon.

Friday and Saturday was back to my regular work grind. I really don't have much to complain about work since I'm hardly there and I still get paid well. It'll really be hard once I leave this job and move to Pomona. I have no idea what kind of work I'm going to get there. One thing is for sure though, it'll be for less money and more work hours. Ayayay!

Saturday, June 19, 2004

This Week's Journal

Damn, I just got a paper cut! I hate when that happens. I was just opening an envelope and now I have this cut on my finger. Oh, no point in being a baby about it. Okay, on to my post.
So I've been wanting to post something every night but as you could probably tell from my past posts, I'm just such a procrastinator. And now I can't think of anything to write. So I'll just run down my past days since my last post.

Friday, June 11, was a good day at work. Not much happened, but I had a full, productive day. I actually felt like I accomplished something. I hate it when there's nothing to do in the office.
Saturday-I worked half day in San Francisco and then head out to LA (Pomona) at around 2:30. The only traffic was along I-580 between Livermore and I-5 Junction. I didn't have lunch at work so I stopped at a Denny's to grab something to it. I didn't want to go to a fastfood so I settled for a club sandwich at Denny's. I reached Pomona at about 8:30 and Kay and her mom were home already. They just came from the Pomona 2nd Saturday Art Walk. They also told me that they got a new barbecue grill and a lawn mower from Sear's. Woohoo, I guess I'll be putting together the BBQ grill tomorrow.

Sunday-Kay's mom (Marilyn) went to church in the morning while I started to assemble the grill. It usually takes me a whole day to do this kind of thing. I'm not really a handyperson, but I guess 4 years of homeownership have taught me how to use a wrench! By around lunch I was pretty much done and ready to start on another project. Yeah, didn't I tell you? Kay usually has a list of things for me to do around the house. It's my honey-do-list. So I worked on the sprinkler (repaired a couple of nozzle heads that she ran through with the lawn mower), helped her unpacked the rest of our boxes, run a new cable in the bedroom so we can move the TV (an LCD that we bought from my previous trip), made dinner (yes, we barbecued) and did other little errands around the house. Boy was I pooped. And I had to come to Pomona for this?

Monday was uneventful. Kay went to work while Marilyn and I stayed at home. After lunch we went to Pomona Library so I can go online and take another online quiz for my class. Kay doesn't have cable and internet connection yet. After that, I finished my honey-do-list by installing the pump in the fountain. Kay got home at around 6 and we decided to go out for dinner. I thought I'd treat Marilyn since I won't
be able to go to her birthday in Canada in August. We went to Copacabana (a Cuban restaurant) first but it was closed (yup, they're closed on Mondays). So we went to Pomona Mining Company instead. Kay and I have been there before and liked it the first time. We liked it the second time as well. When we got home, I had to sneak out to go to Albertson's to get Marilyn a birthday cake. We sang her Happy Birthday when I got back and had the cake with coffee and tea. That night we also played dice. I forgot the name of the game but it was fun.

Okay, I'm going to stop for now and start the next day on a new post. I'm getting feedbacks that my posts are too loooong. Ciao!

Thursday, June 10, 2004

Sometimes things just fall in their proper places

I'm taking a summer class on Film in Sac State. It's not a filmmaking class, just a course in understanding movies. Since last week, I knew that I have an online quiz that is due today. I've also known since last week that the preliminary writing assignment is due the same day (today). Being the procrastinator that I am, I put off both studying for the quiz and starting on the paper. Every night I would think, "I should really be reading that chapter on editing." But lo and behold, I would end up spending time browsing on my PC or watching TV. Last Monday I just ended up watching For Love or Money. Last Tuesday night, I watched Last Comic Standing and then the news and then Letterman and Conan O'Brien. During commercials, I would go on my computer and post in Barrio Alimasag. But I would never find time for the paper or the quiz. I somehow knew that I would cram the night before to work on the paper and to take the online quiz. Except there's one problem...the night before the paper is due is Wednesday night. That's Swing Night at the Tower Club. Somehow I have this urge to go swing dancing this Wednesday night.
Wednesday morning, on my way to work to San Fran, I had my front driver side tire blew up on me. No this is not just a flat tire, not just a hole in the tire, the whole tire was split in pieces. So okay, I can change the tires. I've done this plenty of times before. I'm just glad there was a very large shoulder on lane 1 of I-80. This shouldn't be a problem. But as I was changing tires, I thought about my plans to go down to Los Angeles this Saturday. I can't use the emergency tire for this 6 hour commute. I need to get new tires for the car. But when?
So I thought about ditching work and just take care of the situation now. But I need to work because I need the cash. I don't want to use my vacation time because I do have plans on taking a vacation this July. So I decided I'd go to work and get new tires Thursday morning before class or after class. I may just have to turn in the paper late and take that 5 point deduction. As I finished putting on the emergency tire, I noticed that the tire was low on air. After I lowered the jack, the tire was almost flat. Great, now I have to drive to the nearest exit on an almost flat tire during the busiest time on I-80.
To make the story short, I made to the nearest exit and to work. I was a few minutes late but that was not really a big deal. On my way home, I was thinking of the quiz, the paper, the tires, and I still want to go to Tower Club. I know that I can take the quiz without really studying, but I'm more worried about the paper and my drive to LA. I also know that if I don't go to the Tower Club and just stay at home, I'd probably won't start on the paper until 11 anyways and will just spend the early part of the night just watching TV. So screw it. I'm going dancing.
There's a swing lesson at Tower Club before they start playing music. And tonight, they were teaching Balboa. I used to do Balboa and Shag along with Lindy Hop in San Diego but never really got good at it. It was just refreshing learning how to Balboa again. It was a fun night. I put in a few hours of swing dancing and now I'm ready to go home. Maybe I can start on that paper now since it'll be due the next afternoon.
Of course when I got home and turned on my PC, I didn't open my MS Word right away to start the paper, but instead opened all my email accounts and started reading my mails. Soon I was browsing online and reading the latest posts at alimasag. I was getting sleepy, too so I just decided to go to bed. The paper and all that studying nonsense can wait until tomorrow. I need to get my sleep. But I just had to turn the TV on while I was in bed and soon instead of sleeping, I ended up watching Conan O'Brien interviewing Kristin Davis. Okay this has to stop. Where's that remote? Let's turn this power off.
The next morning my alarm clock went off at 6 am. There's no way I'm getting up at 6 this morning. I hit the snooze button and went back to bed. When I finally woke up, it was 9 am.
My class is at 12:40. So I have a few hours to study. I turned on the PC and guess who's online this morning? Brader Ace! So we chatted on YM and then at 9:30 I decided to head out to Starbucks to get some caffeine. When I got back, Ace was still online and we chatted some more. At a little after 10, I decided to finally take this online quiz. Maybe I don't have to read the chapter beforehand. It's open book anyways. There's only 20 questions and you have 20 minutes to finish it. So I told Ace about the quiz and then proceeded to take it. After I was done, I got the result right away. 100%. Nice. I went back to YM and chatted with Ace some more. Now it's about 11. I finally decided to just write the paper tonight and turn it in late. I still have to shower and get something to eat before class. But for some reason, I finally opened MS Word, and because I was so happy with the result of the quiz, I just started typing and wrote a paper on Reservoir Dogs. Next thing I know, it was four pages long and looked pretty good to me. And it's not even 12 noon. I took a shower, went to Sac State, had lunch at the Cafeteria and head on to class. I'm starting to float on air.
In class, we just turned in the paper, and watched Run, Lola, Run. After the film, we had the usual discussion about the movie. All these postmodernist crap and psychophysiological effect that the director was trying to evoke. It was all blah-blah-blah to me. I was still thinking of getting new tires.
Our class usually ends at 4:10, and the professor usually uses all this time, sometimes she'll even go on after 4:10. Today, she actually let us out early. So I head out to Les Schwab to get an estimate for two new tires since I noticed the other front tire is also bald. There were other tire centers right next to Les Schwab (Sears, Big O, Good Year, Tires4Less) and was planning on getting other estimates. But the estimate I got was reasonable so I decided to go ahead and get it done there. It's only a little after 5 and I've finished all that I've got to do today. No failing marks, no late papers, and no more flat tires. Boy, life is good.
Now, it's only 6 pm and I'm already home posting a new entry in my blog. And I can watch TV tonight with no worries. I am a happy man!