She said yes!

The manager I went out with Wednesday night wrote me an email asking if
I was okay. That was so nice of him. I let him know that I had a blast,
and that I was totally fine the next morning. It definitely was not my
proudest moment, but hey. In my mind a life that isn't filled with
things you can laugh at yourself about is not a worthewhile life.

Top Two funny quotes for tonight:

Number 1...

1. "Even the homeless people are not as poorly dressed as you." - Yukino

Okay... It's taken completely out of context. I didn't bring a jacket
with me when I went to work this morning. The temperature outside was
below freezing. She was only mentioning that the homeless people had
many bundled layers of clothes. And I had on a thin dress shirt and
t-shirt underneath.

Number 2...

2. "If I had a line of clothes, I think I might sell sarongs." - Jimmy

You know. Just like how Jimmy Choo sells shoes. Jimmy Kong sell
sarongs. But for some reason I got confused about what a sarong was and
thought they were a type of scarf or a strip you wrapped around your
waist. That just made Yukino bust out laughing. You should know your
product and market if you are going to open up a clothing line.

Here was what Yukino and I went to see yesterday evening:

http://www.cavalia.net/

The horses at this performance were stunning, and the acrobatic feats
displayed were a feast for the eyes. What I liked best about the show
was how well the horses were treated. No whips were flung toward them.
Instead the human performers communicated with these majestic creatures
by way of hand gestures, regular speech, and body movements. You can
see the deep respect and reverance held toward all the horses. I
imagine the worship Egyptians for cats may be similar.

It was a very enjoyable event, and I highly recommend folks seeing
Cavalia they ever appear near their town. One thing about it though....
I think that the people who are homophobic would probably feel
uncomfortable watching this. For one thing all the horses on this show
are male... and in some cases they can appear very friendly to each
other.

This was a very interesting page recommendation from a co-worker.

http://www.lightover.com/epic/

Kinda eerie after you see it. It introduced many interesting ideas. It's similar widely debated issue of machine power versus man power... technology's role and influence on society... whether pushing the envelope of the artificial makes us less human.

Yesterday I attended a class with a motivational speaker, and he asked the group a question. "What brand do you like?"

My response to him was Google. I like the Google brand for several reasons. The people behind driving the business are smart and creative. One of the most distinguishing aspects about Google that it's products contain highly relevant content, and less fluff. I also admire Apple for their opposite spectrum to balance out... More pretty fluff, but high in quality as well.... which makes them pricey.

Regardless of the many ethical questions that this world will face in the coming decade, I am positive that strong technology giants like Google and Microsoft will play intricate roles. Let's see how it plays out. I don't believe it will be quite like "Epic 2014".

"Don't let yourself slip. You're stronger than that."

I told myself that just now. Having good time management is essential to being successful. But at time all the tasks you have to deal with in life can get fairly overwhelming, and there seems little to no time to organize things. So you do the best you can keeping things straight in your head. And sometimes it gets really hard, and you begin to forget things. By the way, in case any of you were wondering about the benefits I forgot about from the last journal entry, I got word that I have coverage in a personal health plan. So that's good. 

Time is always the most valuable commodity in life. You never want to waste it, because you can never get it back. I'm starting to re-evaluate how I'm making use of my weekends. I don't feel I'm managing those days the best yet. I want to spend more wholesome fun time with my girlfriend, but she has a busy schedule too. I'm just getting rather tired of the typical dinner together and movie at home. I believe she is too. I long for a genuine vacation.

I heard my pops is going on a trip China. It came as a surprise, since I don't think of him as one who would often take them. But I think it would do him well, since I always felt he needs to lighten his mood.

But me... I just want more time in the day. I want to be able to crunch through all the tasks I have to do. It's starting to feel like a floodgate of items in my mind... and I'm just pinching for time... to handle them all.

Let me reiterate what a phucking moron I am! That's 90 days ago when I first joined the firm... The HR folks said, "Pick your health benefits, or you'll miss your chance."

I was like.... "Okay.... Let me do that... later..."

<procrastinate> <procrastinate>

Bing! Email from benefits department at the firm... "You do not have any medical benefits. Better luck next year, chump." (or something like that)

<sigh>

Let me look at what's out there that I can buy myself for three months. I hate it when I do things like that. Mail-in rebates also trick me up too.

What I don't understand is that if it's work I have to do, or if it's a matter of importance to a friend/family member, I'm really on the ball and prompt in handling things. Whenever it's stuff on my list I usually brush it really far in my mind that I tend to forget it easily. I definitely need to change that. It's becoming a very expensive personality flaw.

Here's my Till the End of the Year's resolution. (I'll stick to it for the rest of the year, and then move it to a New Year's resolution.)

Handle matters that concern my financial and physical well being with prompt and full attention, and see that the follow through completely. Woohoo! 

First and foremost. My thoughts and prayers to the lives effected by Hurricane Katrina. And a moment of silence for the lives lost in one of America's most tragic events I have come to know.

...

Most of the strong emotions I had have subsided a bit now. What I wasnt to take away as lessons for the future is:

1. Be more aware about global warming and other environmental issues, as there is strong correlation suggesting that Nature responds with wrath when we decide to abuse and pervert our earth. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=181

2. Vehemently oppose election of incompetant officials. This is of course pretty strong criticism, but I'm sick of people being elected becuase primiarly out of nepotism and who they know. It's our duty to make smart choices for who we want in charge, and I want to people who know how to do the job and do it right running the show. Not just someone who can look good, speak well, or use their charisma to make people forgive them and feel good after the fact. Come on now.

3. Support new energy resources. Petroluem fuel and nucluer energy ar proabably the bigger ones. This of coure has a strong tie with Lesson 1. A shame I decided to buy a less fuel efficient car this time around... but I just love the horsepower on my new baby. I do want to look into hybrid vehicles in the future, when I can afford to invest more in my next car. SUVs and Hummers make my skin curl.  I have nothing against big families getting vans and other large vehicles to carry all their kids, but some people just buy them to look just to look more menacing on the streets.

4. On a positive side. The people are what make the difference. Both conservative and liberal alike. The goodness of man via Red Cross, Salvation Army, Habitat for Humanity, United Way, along with many other organizations and churches were able to fill in for the areas where the federal government came up short and where beurocractic red tape hindered. Action folks. Action, not words.

Onto another note...

After getting more experience as a consultant, I've come to realize something interesting about how to socialize in the corporate world. My first ideas about the business world many years ago was that it run on coffee and copies of papers. Then I thought it was all about beer and gossip. Now I've come to be more familiar that there is another important aspect to learn to mingle well in business. Football.

I just finished watching the Redskins vs Cowboys game. Aparantely the Skins are huge here in DC. So they lost 14 out of their last 15 games against their longtime rivals. And it was nice to see them pull a much longed for win. Many fantasy football leagues have been started among coworkers, and it's a topic that is always tossed around happy hours, lunches, and randomly at people's desks. Football is just one of those things that brings people together, gives a common subject things for people to talk about It's just as American as baseball if not more. After all... who else plays American football but the U.S?

I've been loyal to the San Francisco 49ers for most my life. Now that they have a fresh and new team, I in general am not overly excited about them. Doesnt' help that I'm not over in the Bay Area anymore and not many fellow fans are over here. I like seeing the Oakland Raiders do well too. But most of my favorite football players have gone and retired now. Rice, Montana, Young. Baseball is similar too. I sure miss the ole days. But here's hoping that my love for these American passtimes will burn again, as I revisit them and follow them again for the sake of business networking.

My car was towed away.
Scary news at work.
I'm rolling with the punches, and aparantly I'm handling it fairly well.
It's a very inconvenient, but I'm not that stressed.
Surprising? Hmm.... Maybe not.

Paying money to get you car back from towing totally bites ass. <sigh>

Stay cool.

Is it just me, or did I all of the sudden need a bigger budget? Part of it is the move. They say that DC was supposed to have a lower cost of living than San Francisco... Yeah, but it's a much higher cost of living compared to Alameda. My rent went up $300 bucks a month.  My car insurance went up close to $400 a year.  I also have to make regular car payments now. My electric bill was about over $70 bucks.  That's a lot considering that I use to pay less than $15. Must be all the air conditioning I've been pumping in. Friggin humid weather.

And that's not the biggest bill shock recently. My mobile phone bill this month… $240!!!  Dear lord, I didn't realize I was making that many calls. I was using it a lot during my transition over to the East Coast, since I didn't have a phone line yet. Those minutes sure add up. In addition now that I'm a consultant, I use it much more often for calls on the weekday peek hours. But that didn't explain one peculiar aspect of my phone bill. It was 48 pages long. Why? Well certainly I did not make 48 pages worth of calls in a month. The fonts on those bills are pretty small after all. It turns out that it was flooded with page after page of text messaging charges. It's 5 cents to send one. And 5 cents to receive one. And apparently my step-sister racked up over $40 in purely text messaging charges alone. Now she didn't use my phone, but my old man's. I signed up for to a family plan and decided to pay for his phone service too. Didn't realize that I would be affected by the antics of the kids too.

I was thinking of how I should punish my step-sister. In a way, it was a mistake since she didn't know it cost me money. In another way, she's absolutely culpable since she didn't ask my permission to use the phone in that way. She disappointed me there.  Also, she's old enough to learn that she needs to be responsible for her mistakes. Still it's kind of wrong to ask her to front up cash to for it. I was thinking of deducting from her birthday present. (Maybe Christmas too depending on next month's bill) But that seems rather cruel too.

I think I've settled on a plan that may work. First I'll tell her that plan to deduct this from the presents. Then I tell her that she can "earn" back her presents by working for it. That is, fulfill several of a list of tasks... most likely good deeds that I suggest. In that sense, I've allowing her to atone for her mistakes. I wouldn't feel she learned from her faults unless some sort of punishment was enacted. Such are the bitter but important lessons of growing up.