1:45 in the middle of the night.

I took care of the other items I wanted to earlier today, and earlier in the night. But I still have work to finish by tomorrow noon. Damn it. I hate it when I'm stressed and there's no one to vent my frustration to. I miss Sydney.

Maybe I should get a dog... but dogs will probably be sleeping at this hour too. Maybe I'll get a goldfish. I've never seen them sleep before.

Happy 2008!

The last couple of days winding down 2007 were some of the most hectic and stressful days for me. Christmas was actually really nice. It was a blast, but soon after that I was trying to juggle the tenacity I had for work, with a desire to seek a more meaningful life. It helped some that I had friends visiting, but it made for a very odd mix of feelings and events.

And it was such different experience between December 31st and January 1st. Like night and day. Like walking from one door through to the other side. I hate disappointing people, and the end of the year felt like I was working for something really really big (which I was) and I was making a lot of sacrifices to make it happen, probably at the expense of those close to me. And then.... nothing.

The thing that I was working really hard for didn't succeed. The window of opportunity had passed and now it is there's no reason to get all worked up. Such a weird feeling. I don't know whether I'm upset the situation losing you put all your heart and soul into, or whether I'm regretting that I got so worked up giving so much up when it didn't have a reward at the end.

In short my last hour of 2008 went something like this. Got back home at 11pm. Hurried up to change into a suit and rushed to the metro with Yuki for a New Years Gala event. We cut it too close. The count down happened somewhere on the escalator ride up from the Metro Station. We paid over $300 for those two ticket, and we missed the dinner, missed the desserts, and even missed the countdown. Unbelievable.

So stepping out into the streets... It definitely felt like 2008. All the mistakes of the past. The disappointments. The pains. They didn't seem to matter anymore.

...

So we checked in to the event, and it turned out that there was still open bar for about another hour and a half at the place. And there was still music and dancing, so we set out to enjoy ourselves. It was actually a really fun event. I would definitely do something like that again, but do it right and have the complete experience.

We partied hard and ending taking the taxi back. Not to mention confusing the heck out of my roommate when I asked him to come out and pick us up from the station, but then having to change that up when we realized the Metro was no longer running.

Quite odd these last two days.

I haven't fully declared my new years resolution yet, because I'm still forming something in my head as to what the details are. But it has to do with seeking out something meaningful and finding a new direction.

Here's to a New Year! Cheers!

I really like Sundays. I think it's my favorite day of the week. Friday are great but there's so much going on. Many times there planning involved for some event. You still work that day. It's a work hard play hard day. It's fast pasted.

Sundays are a nice dichotomy to that. I feel good about life on Sunday mornings. It's mellow and laid back, and I think it suits me when I need time to myself. Today I did mostly everything I can think of as being an ideal Sunday.

1) I sleep in.
2) I wake up and it's quiet.
3) I do my morning routine, and actually take time grooming. Then change into comfy clothes that I would never wear out in public.
4) I did the dishes, did my laundry, took out the trash, and cleaned the apartment. Some of you probably think I'm weird to list this as something I enjoy doing, but I actually find it therapeutic.
5) I sift through my mail and pay bills.
6) Ate leftovers.
7) Start on work for the week ahead. That's when I actually enjoy the work I do. When I can go at my own pace and when I can focus.

I think once the sun goes down on Sunday though... I seem to lose that feeling, that Sunday morning and afternoon feeling. Sigh. I'm listening to the Lionel Ritchie song right now. Wow I never paid attention to the lyrics before. It sounds like it's about a guy who's wants freedom to be himself, so he leaving to find it, and not really worrying. Heh.

Begin Rant.

Office 2007 sucks. Excel is by far one of my favorite applications. I have to
admit I'm an Excel dork. I use it organize my task at work, my tasks in my
personal life. I make my spreadsheets to plan my vacations and when I did my
job interviews. So if they were to make any improvements to the application, I
would have thought that Microsoft would have chosen people like me in their
user study, and picked things that worked for me. I just installed Office 2007
on my work computer today and I found it very frustrating to use. What use to
be a short click away, now I have to flick through tabs before I find anything.
And I can't figure out how to customize my toolbar yet. Grrr. The interface is
driving me up the wall. And the bright sharp colors are too much in my face.
And why did some icons have to be four times as big as other one? Why? Do I
need a giant size paste icon?

I tried the new version of Outlook too. Things are so big now, and so
compartmentalized it's like  there's a border around everything. All the
soft touch of things... the simplistic approach to organization... that seems
to be thrown out the window with the new age of Office. I would not be as
annoyed if they accomplished the put the same amount of information in the same
amount of space (or less). But rather... things seem to get bumped for in your
face gigantic icons. Really. Do I need both a red flag AND a box to color the
type of item I'm flagging. What was wrong with a colored flag? It wasn't broke.
Why fix it. 

I ending up late to a conference call… because I could have
sworn I accepted the meeting invite, but never saw it on the calendar. Then
looked everywhere for it. Turned out it was on the calendar, but because it was
the third meeting in that day, and I had it on the month view… apparently it
wouldn’t show up. It only can show at most two.

My roommate recently got us a TiVo for our apartment. A sweet deal where he got
it for free and made $40 on top of that. It's a pretty cool machine but has one
of the most annoying interfaces I have ever seen. The guy who put that together
should be fired. I joked that they need to lock him up in a room without
communication to humanity and be forced to preset 200 shows to be recorded on
TiVo. It took me 10 minutes just to get through 2. The interface is not
intuitive.

Of all the different job titles out there on a development team, I think it's
highly valuable to have one guy, one sole guy purely devoted to responsibility
of a user interface. Mainstream applications like these should not be like
this.

End rant.

First off. I have immense respect for the Denver airport. They give free public Wi-Fi
internet connection. In my opinion, the hands down best way to feel the most
productive as well as most entertained at an airport is to check emails, and do
things you often do on the internet… that won’t get you in trouble in public
that is. Case in point. Blogging. 

So Denver
is a short stopping point for me. I flew back to the San Francisco Bay Area to
see family and friends. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal on Thursday, got
smashed drunk (in a good way) at friend’s house on Friday, hit the Sushi House
and played Mahjongg on Saturday. God I miss Sushi House. Their sushi is so
unique, as no where else have I ever found baked sushi. I ordered all my
favorites: Lion King, Bay Scallops, Spider, Crazy Horse, Caterpillar, Power
Roll, and much more.

Sunday I met up with a high school friend whom I hadn’t seen
in ten years. I was surprised at hearing that fact when it was actually stated.
You can see folks change but yet they still stay the same. We found each other
again on Facebook. It’s definitely a great way to keep in touch with old
friends.

All in all it was great time visiting home. And now I'm waiting for my flight back to DC. Denver is a layover spot. An interesting thing just happened. I was pacing around the airport earlier looking for an outlet to connect my laptop power cord into. It's a thing in high demand these days, and I was wondering whether airports will have a better solution for this. I mean everyone has cell phones, many folks carry laptops, and everyone and their mom has an ipod (except for losers like me). Well needless to say outlets nearby gates filled with people were all taken. So I had to go pretty far in order to find a free socket. It was a closed gate near the end of the terminal, where it was so quiet the only real thing you hear are the cleaners vacuuming.

So I sat myself up nice and comfortably by in a chair with laptop open, checking up on emails. When along comes and extremely well dressed young woman who walked by and sat herself perhaps ten feet away in the 11:00 direction. She looked like she just wanted a place to get away for a little while. I can't help but glance every once in a while I was typing. She finished a call on her mobile phone. Then tucked it away and brought out a magazine (Us I think) to read.

Well I've been trying to pick up whether she notices me, or any sign at all. You see I was never the kind of guy who flirted in High School or approached strangers at bars so I've been pretty green when it comes to knowing body language and picking up signals. Odd enough I think consulting helped me with that, but mostly I'm learning it as I go. So I did notice that whenever there was an announcement over the intercom she would flick her hair and glance around, and would happen across my general direction while she scanned. Hmm... subtle. That's good enough for me I thought.

There was another guy who also sat down a few more feet to the left of me, and did something for a while. Then walked off circling around this beautiful woman, and I could see he was staring while his back was turned. Yup that confirms it. She's hot.

I was only working on my computer for a few more minutes before I decided. Fuck it. This is an airport. You don't have to ever see the people here ever again. Since I have quite a bit of catching up to do versus seasoned veterans of the dating scene, this a perfect opportunity for me to practice.

I put always my stuff and walked right over. I seated myself two seats away and leaned over.

"Excuse me miss. Hi." <This is it.>

"Hello."

"Do you happen to know this airport well. I was looking for a place to grab coffee, but didn't see many places open at this hour." <Okay. That sounded alright.>

"Well I'm not sure. I'm only stuck here because my flight's delayed. I think I you might find a coffee shop down back toward that direction."

"That's okay. Actually I really wasn't thirsty. I just thought you were cute and wanted an excuse to come talk to you." <This is. The absolute. Very first pick-up line. I have ever. ever. ever. used. ever. First time. First person.>

So that's how it happened. She was super nice and we got to kick off a very interesting conversation. I learned that there was this concoction called a Turducken, which is a turkey stuffed with a duck, stuffed with chicken. Turns out she's going to fashion school. She designs shoes. Wow, I was utterly fascinated with her knowledge. She likes Italian food. Hopes to travel to Italy.15% of the worlds shoes are made in Italy. 80% are made in China. I realize maybe 10% of the time I would stutter a bit with my sentences, but I kept chugging along anyways. I mentioned to her that I worked with computers. I don't know. Are tech folks not sexy? Or is there a geek factor about it that turns some people off? Because not long after I told here that, she mentioned the time, and that she had to catch her flight soon. I said it was very nice meeting her and we exchanged names. That's when I realized that it would have been much better to ask her for her name from the beginning. Oh well mental note for next time.

I felt I made an importance achievement just now. I never had a goal to get her number, or anything elaborate. No, it's one step up. I became more confident.

It's amazing! I just had a revelation. A complete breakthrough.
I realize I'm attracted to positive energy. Not really happy people... happy people are good too. And having a smile on your face helps. But there are regular folks that rant about life, that I'm attracted to too.  More importantly what I like is to be around people that inspire others and get themselves going. People with motivation.

I started my day with a smile on my face, because one of my biggest worries has been appeased. Well perhaps not completely. But considerably. Now... most person who think they know what this is... are probably wrong. It was a vary rare moment.

There are many aspects of positive energy. Being able to let go of your pains is one such trait. And witnessing such positive energy... just made the long night I had last night that much easier to bear. I didn't sleep last night... and yes I'm getting tired now because I've gone more than twenty four hours with just work, red bull, coffee, lotsa water, and lotsa bathroom breaks.

But that positive energy that started the day helped keep me going.

It's great when old friends visit. Old as in long ago friend back in the days. Not old as in elderly.

I picked up my college buddy from the airport earlier this evening. An old friend the boys affectionately called pimp-daddy. He was actually one of four. There was a mac-daddy, and big-daddy. I was sugar-daddy. Yes it's lame I know. But at least it's better than the alternative they were going to choose for me... which was pink-daddy. It's some long winded joke connected to Reservoir Dogs... but I never watched that movie until much later so I never got the joke for the longest time.

The rain was pelting. I hated the weather today. I hated that I had to work late. I hated that I didn't finish the work I needed to get done today before I had to pick him up. I hate that I still had to work from home afterwards. But alas I must be a responsible person.

The thing about conversation with old friends is that they can always lighten the mood of anything. All of the sudden the rest of the evening was much more chill. We chatted about just anything and everything from the car ride home, during dinner, while I was wrapping up work, right up to before he got tired and crashed on my couch.

Over dinner... which consisted of beer and Ledo's pizza, we had a random visit from two girls soliciting us to subscribe to magazines. They knocked on our door and claimed to be new to the apartment... right upstairs in fact. They were friendly enough but it was still really odd to for them to go door to door. On a Friday night no less. Who does that? Pimp-Daddy, Clef, and I apparently each had three different perceptions of the situation, but we each declined their offer. We gave them a beer right before they left. Hell it's a Friday. Why not? They left and went to next apartment.

Not too long after, it sounded that there may have been another knock again at our door, but none of went to check whether it was them coming back. So our assessments of what just happened went something like this.

Pimp-Daddy: "Those two girls are getting ripped off. They have to sell all those magazines for a chance to $1000, but that's very unlikely that they get it."

Me: "Really? I though it was a scam. I wouldn't want to give them my name or any money. (They probably already have my address.)"

Pimp-Daddy: "I don't think this was a scam, but there crimes where you might open the door for a woman and some huge guy jumps out from where you can't see him and breaks into your home."

Me: "If stuff like this happened before then I'm actually not that surprised many people didn't open the door when we knocked around the apartment the first week I got here."

Clef's: "I don't think that was a scam either. People are jerks if they open doors when others knock."

Me: "You know, I may have been persuaded to buy some magazines if they were cuter."

Pimp-Daddy: "You know the knock probably was? Them coming back for a bottle opener."

So I was perusing around Facebook and saw that an old friend updated his profile picture. It was a very nice picture from his wedding. I was like... wow he's married.

Not that it was that big of a surprise, since I knew he was engaged for a while now. But it's just one of those moments when you see more and more things change around you. I know people talk about this situation all the time. But I dont think people's feeling are the same about it. For me at least, I've never genuinely heard anyone express that they feel the way that I feel about the situation.

To me it's not really restlessness like some people may think.
To me it's a sense of wonder.
Not awe wonder. (aka "Ahhhh...")
But not confusion wonder either. (aka "I wonder what's going on.")
And I have to stress again. It's not restlessness. (aka "I wonder why I'm not married?")

No it's a sense of wonder that makes me want to say...
"Life is really something. There are so many great stories told. I would not have been able to dream up how things turn out so far. I wonder what's next."

Here's my Facebook status.

J is hoping in the future they will invent a computer where you can smash it bits on Friday, and come Monday it reconstructs itself back all over again... if you want.

As an artist, I was always fascinated by creation... that and expresssion. I recall hearing once. I believe it was Clef that told me the word "philospher" comes from Greek and means "lover of wisdom". One time I drew art pieces for several good friends, and had two specific pieces had a message written on the back. The first was "To the lover of wisdom. From the lover of expression." The second was "To the lover of creation. From the lover of expression."

Creation and destruction are two very interesting notions. They both can be thought of as very primal... as birds make nests, and monkeys crack open coconuts. They can also be thought of very spiritual... as bringing a new life into the word, or taking it away. And when times get really stressful, I notice have these primal/spiritual urges mixed in with the reality of day to day civilized life... and so idea like the status I wrote pop up.

You think you know well the things you have in your possession.

I glance at Clef's silver "white-board" hanging on our fridge. There is an untapped Island hanging in place with a magnet. I thought that it was a very clever idea for some engineer to put a thin piece of metal, so you can use magnets on the board.

Then I glance across the room at my Ikea Mikael workstation. I walk over there with and press a magnet against the whiteboard on the unit.

Click.

Holy Totoro, what do we have here? The magnet stayed put. I've owned this thing for over two years and never knew it could do that.