Hello, Lovine.com

Not my day today!

Wokeup pretty early by any standard, but spent the morning doing laundry and errands for the dog. Bath and blowdry, takes an average of 2 hours for a white and fluffy dog. A cotton ball!

Yesterday late afternoon, I ordered a new SATA 500gb Western Digital hard drive from NewEgg because I'm planning on transforming one of the new desktops at work into a file server running Ubuntu. Imagine my surprise when the package arrives this morning, barely even 12 hours when I ordered the thing!

So I rush to the office, but pass by a Mcdonalds to load up on their crap McChicken and even more chicken nuggets (I'm a pig like that). I'm busy contemplating the schedule for the rest of the day, as I calmly get back onto the street after the drive-through. I stop at the intersection, but for some reason, made a left... and before I know it, a cop on a motorcycle pulls me over. Apparently there was a red arrow light, which of course I didn't see. Yay. Here goes traffic school.

I get to work, and cheerily open the box while snarfing down my nuggets. Open up the computer and... tadah. I find out that the new hard drive doesn't have the normal 4-pin power cable, and I need a new set of SATA power and data cables. Ugh. I was getting excited too. The nerdery will have to wait until tomorrow I guess. Fry's, here we come. And online traffic school.

Death Valley, 010408.

Photo by Kat.

I hardly write, because inspiring moments are far and seldom in between. And when they do appear, they tend to come and go, without any perceptible lasting impression. Or so we think.

I guess that is exactly what makes life exciting - the randomness of chance, and the beauty in which any given moment presents itself to us. How we may shrug off some things, or our sudden "aha!" moments when the unraveling of events lead to our perceived understanding of "life", and all the varying gray areas in between. What we bring out of our own conclusions, a lot of times become bigger than the actual events themselves.

I left my house at around 0830 to catch the last wave of the winter season at Big Bear with Wacky Abad-Santos. As I turn outside the gate, I'm greeted by a flock of blinky squad cars and yellow police tape around the entire lane going downhill. Police are interviewing a couple of bystanders standing around a parked Lexus SUV, there is some random debris on the road, and in front of the car is a go cart.

Someone got killed again outside our community this morning.

Apparently, there are (illegal) soapbox races down my hill every second Sunday of the month, and I never even knew about it. After a little bit of googling, I came across a quote worth noting on their group's forum. Sometimes, it may be applicable to a lot of other things in our lives as well:

Never put a question mark, where God has put a period.

Took a flight to the bay area last weekend, and caught Helio Sequence at the Independent as part of the Noisepop Festival. Pleasantly surprised with the gig, in a really intimate setting, and great acts to boot. HS was pretty impressive live, and just sounded gigantic onstage despite being a two-piece. I was on antibiotics for the past few days to combat the stubborn cough, and therefore couldn't imbibe wonderful nectar of beer lest I destroy my liver, but still had a lot of fun nevertheless.

I rode the Vespa to catch my flight, and cut through rush hour traffic like a hot knife through butter. Got to the airport, and scored front-row parking right in front of the terminal for FREE. So let's see, saved an hour and a half on the commute, $30++ on parking fees, plus the time it takes to shuttle to/from outlier pay parking robbery structures. Wind on my face, the excitement of a throttle in hand, and mind engaged over subtleties of the experience (versus grappling with parking-lot-AKA-the-four-oh-five road rage). Vespa, I love you.

I'm back in Los Angeles. Flew in last week (Valentine's Day, nonetheless) at around 7pm, repacked some bags, and drove out to SF with the final destination of Lake Tahoe for President's Day weekend. Here is the baby boy on ice, photo by Kat:

Someone needs a haircut! Or a ponytail...

I still haven't been feeling well, cursed with a radioactive spell of coughing and a sore throat the past week. I feel like my throat is harboring a desert with one giant Saguaro cactus that has only one prick, a naughty little prick, that tickles the walls of my throat at his random whim and fancy. And I can imagine the douche having lots of fun at my expense as I succumb into an uncontrollable coughing spat as he once again pokes the insides of my throat. Sorry for the weird graphic.

I took the day off yesterday and spent it wallowing in bed, but decided this morning that a week of feeling like shit is ridiculously long so I decided to test my limits by pushing through with a short notice Big Bear trip with ex-coworker Peterphile. I have an amazing capacity to ditch common sense and choose the path with most resistance just for the fun of being able to do so. And so I did.

I must point out that in the span of 13 weeks since I first attempted to snowboard, I've gone 6 times. Which makes an average of almost every other week. Huwaw, Batman! It would be pathetic to discover that I haven't made any progress after so many trials and bruises on my ass, but in being true to my Leo-esque humble pie, I must admit that the past two sessions were bouyed by the help of better gear - a real snowboarding jacket (women's size M because I'll wear anything that fits me properly and I don't GAS), wrist guards, and Mizuno sponsored knee pads. So while I'm a far ways off in competing for the X-Games, I'll give my loser self some brownie points for persistence and admitting that I may possibly have an addictive personality.

Best of it all, I got upgraded this morning when the cashier asked how old I was. My obvious reply: "Really young." And so she rang me up as a "Youth Ticket" for a discounted price, which is less than half of what Peterphile paid for his lift ticket and rental gear. Poor schmuck.

Everyone always said that it's good to look young, and I always thought it would only count when we're all pushing our 40's. Well, apparently I don't have to wait to start reaping the benefits, hehehe.

Manila is a circus.

Each man to his own, in his plight to run faster in his chosen hamster wheel, to excel at his own profession. Whether his trade may be architecture, banking, the arts, meaningless shenanigans, or dabbling in the compromise of emotions, we all are here to fight the good fight, and stand up for whatever it may be that eventually make us who we really are.

Well the world continues to move in spite of what you think, or how you react, to the things that it shoves down your throat, to the things that you count your blessings for. And you can convince yourself of all the worries you'd like to engage in, or all the blessings that you can possibly count. And you can accept things for what they are, or for what they're not. But at the end of it all, they are, as how they are, no matter what you think of it, but all at the same time, depending on what you think of it. And in between those two gray lines of acceptance and the truth, lie everything you need to understand what really is.

Happy Birthday, Pepper! The original Brother Bears 1.0 :)

Sincerest condolences, to the Alcaraz family..

In a few hours I head back out to the madness of Manila.

Guam was pretty good for understanding the rotations of my new hamster wheel. I think it would've been nice to stay a bit longer and indoctrinate myself deeper into the operational nuances of what put me through school and food on our tables, but I'll need to get moving to get an understanding of the bigger picture. Can't stagnate, and can't move too fast either. All that is the balance, that we keep ourselves perched precariously on.

Here's something I came across on the intarweb that I found really interesting. African-American Photographs (Snapshots and Portraits).

Greetings from the airport hallows of Saipan!

Such a small island.

Yet I would say it would deserve more than the 10 hours I spent here today, which is what happens with the 'first-flight-in-last-flight-out' procedure.

I'm mooching off the free WiFi here at the airport lounge, waiting for my flight to board. I am in dire need of a sedative to ease the pain in my stomach, which is probably a direct result of drinking for 9 hours non-stop yesterday with no decent meals in between. I feel like heaving my innards out into a cold and insensitive porcelain bowl.

Meanwhile, I have an hour to burn before my flight to Guam. And the beginnings of helping take over the world through the family empire will soon begin. Here we go, Batman.

What's interesting are the small nuances of existing. All of these small elements that make up who you are, i.e.: cultural identity, gender roles, familial ties, notable life experiences... all of which inevitably shape who you are, what you think, what flavor you choose. And what's wonderful is meeting and/or keeping in touch with old friends who have somehow shared the same experiences or have managed to choose their own path. We've come a long way, but the best thing is knowing that we'll go even further.

$4 24-hour breakfast buffets are the shit. Seriously, what more do you need, aside from finding the perfect sidekick for all seasons? Refer to exhibit 1a. Life is good. And however it may turn out, remember that it's always your fault.

Greetings from sunny Philippines!

I flew in earlier this morning. The latter part of the flight was spent chatting up a rather old gentleman from New York who was flying down to Mindanao for business. He was a banker, and financed infrastructure projects in the region. Very wise man, with lots of interesting things to say. He told stories of past presidents, of being 17 during World War II, of his 14 children, of being married for 60 years, of playing singles tennis three times a week (!). And in between the lines, of understanding what it means to be privileged and to accept the blessings of life.

And we never stop to think of it, but the decisions we make and the world we continue to change today, are the stories we will pass on to the next. Until then, it's always a pleasant mystery what stories the next stranger on the plane will be willing to share.

Went snowboarding yesterday. I feel like I got run over by a truck. I love it!