This past weekend I moved.
At first, I had a nice and simple plan for our move. I like simple plans; the pieces come together so easily. My plan involved only a few trips of Adrienne, me, and my small pickup truck. We wouldn't need a U-Haul since we were only moving 30 miles and we weren't going to bother our friends since we had so little stuff; I also hate asking people for things (it's something that I know I should work on). Since we didn't 'need' the help, we didn't ask for it. I figured that moving our stuff wouldn't really be a logistical problem.
Then I started having the sniffles on Wednesday night. People asked if I was taking medicine for the cold. I thought "Nah, let me try to fight this one out naturally by just drinking lots of water... ooh, and eating a burger. I have a craving for a juicy burger with swiss cheese!" My body is tough; after all, I'm young!
By Thursday afternoon, I had to go home early from work and ditch my Spanish class to rest up. I decided that maybe hamburgers weren't such a good idea and that I would try drinking more water, still keep my greasy meals, but add in vitamins into the formula to help balance out the bad.
That didn't work either and Friday sent me home early with a slight fever and sore eyes. By Saturday morning, my eyes felt like I was back in college trying to catch up on a semesters worth of reading at the last minute. My body felt cold, random, dull pains all over; the pains felt like Karma poking at me for eating that hamburger and thinking that I was above modern science and medicine.
The pain wouldn't go away, despite how much rest I got. On Saturday morning, we had our walk through of the apartment. In a normal walk through, tenants would have to sign all the necessary paperwork and point out the apartment flaws so that they are not held responsible for any preexisting flaws. Well, I was literally sprawled on the ground with my sunglasses and hoodie pulled over my head, trying not to drool on myself. I couldn't concentrate on anything and could barely put my signature on the papers. (As if legalwork wasn't boring enough, amirite?!)
I didn't see the landlord when she walked away to do the rest of the walk through with Adrienne, but I'm sure she must've had second doubts about renting the place to us. Here we were, two pretty young adults, both fairly new out of college, and the person with the only source of income was lying asleep on the hardwood floor drooling on himself. Somehow, the landlord trusted us with the keys...
Now that we had the keys, my simple plan wasn't going to work. I was sick. Although there wasn't that much stuff, there was no way Adrienne could pack, load, and unload all our stuff herself. With some last minute phone calls, we had a few friends come over on Sunday and lend a helping hand! I started to get feel better and by late Sunday, I was back to lifting things myself.
As we plopped all our stuff into our new apartment, we wanted to say that it's nice to be able to count on friends when you need them. Thanks guys.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Easter Trip
Screeech!! - the tires squealed across the highway concrete. A gray patch of smoke appeared from under the SUV, followed by the distinct thud of cars colliding. A small pickup truck started to fishtail, but quickly lost all control as it swung 180 degrees across 4 lanes of busy California traffic. Large pieces of wood and debris flew out the truck bed, scattering itself across the lanes.
Within seconds the SUV rested on the far right hand side of traffic, its horn unable to stop blaring and its front bumper laying a lane away, while the truck remained motionless on the far left hand side of traffic, directly facing the oncoming traffic.
I saw the accident from about 100 feet away. By the time my vehicle stopped, it was near two shattered pieces of the 2*4 and within 30 feet of the SUV. I knew my phone was dead, as it had died minutes earlier while I was listening to a friend's voice mail message from New York wishing us a Happy Easter. I asked Adrienne to let me borrow her phone, which she promptly handed over and warned me about running into traffic.
I scanned the scene and noticed that all traffic had halted. I was a bit careful since I was the first one coming out of a car. I ran past the wreckage, past a few stunned cars still in shock, and towards the SUV to check if the passengers were ok. Inside were two Hispanic adults and their child, all who responded that they were ok and appeared without any visible injuries.
I looked across the highway and saw that someone had started checking on the driver of the truck. He seemed to be all right, considering he was rear-ended at 70 miles per hour. Adrienne had come out of my truck and I passed her the phone to call 911 while I helped to clear the lanes of debris. A few others hopped out of their vehicles and started helping as well. As soon as the wreckage was cleared and the call was finished, a Highway patrol car finally appeared on scene and took over.
After the adrenaline rush was over, I noticed that my foot was slightly bleeding. I was only wearing my Chaco sandals since we were out at the beach with some of our Peace Corps Tonga friends this morning. They were behind us and navigated through the traffic to check if we were ok. We signaled that we were good. After I got back inside the truck, I felt a stinging sensation in my foot and noticed a cut.
Looking back, I have no idea how I could have helped. Adrienne was the actual EMT and if the SUV family didn't understand English, my Spanish could only direct her to the nearest library. I'm glad it didn't come down to anyone needing medical attention. If they did, Adrienne would have been able to help. I don't know why I became so overprotective of her.
Within seconds the SUV rested on the far right hand side of traffic, its horn unable to stop blaring and its front bumper laying a lane away, while the truck remained motionless on the far left hand side of traffic, directly facing the oncoming traffic.
I saw the accident from about 100 feet away. By the time my vehicle stopped, it was near two shattered pieces of the 2*4 and within 30 feet of the SUV. I knew my phone was dead, as it had died minutes earlier while I was listening to a friend's voice mail message from New York wishing us a Happy Easter. I asked Adrienne to let me borrow her phone, which she promptly handed over and warned me about running into traffic.
I scanned the scene and noticed that all traffic had halted. I was a bit careful since I was the first one coming out of a car. I ran past the wreckage, past a few stunned cars still in shock, and towards the SUV to check if the passengers were ok. Inside were two Hispanic adults and their child, all who responded that they were ok and appeared without any visible injuries.
I looked across the highway and saw that someone had started checking on the driver of the truck. He seemed to be all right, considering he was rear-ended at 70 miles per hour. Adrienne had come out of my truck and I passed her the phone to call 911 while I helped to clear the lanes of debris. A few others hopped out of their vehicles and started helping as well. As soon as the wreckage was cleared and the call was finished, a Highway patrol car finally appeared on scene and took over.
After the adrenaline rush was over, I noticed that my foot was slightly bleeding. I was only wearing my Chaco sandals since we were out at the beach with some of our Peace Corps Tonga friends this morning. They were behind us and navigated through the traffic to check if we were ok. We signaled that we were good. After I got back inside the truck, I felt a stinging sensation in my foot and noticed a cut.
Looking back, I have no idea how I could have helped. Adrienne was the actual EMT and if the SUV family didn't understand English, my Spanish could only direct her to the nearest library. I'm glad it didn't come down to anyone needing medical attention. If they did, Adrienne would have been able to help. I don't know why I became so overprotective of her.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
New Job, New Travels
I quit working with Sony about a month ago. I'm now working with a nonprofit for the homeless. It's definitely a different environment going from a corporation to being one of only two full time employees in a nonprofit.
Before I started the new job, I took a couple weeks off to travel. I went home to Reedley for Christmas and later went to VA to meet Adrienne's family and friends. We made quick trips to New York City and D.C. to visit friends and sites. We did the cliched Times Square at New Years. It was very interesting; somewhere during the trip we all ended up wearing adult diapers (that's for another post). I'm really thankful for all the great company.
Before I started the new job, I took a couple weeks off to travel. I went home to Reedley for Christmas and later went to VA to meet Adrienne's family and friends. We made quick trips to New York City and D.C. to visit friends and sites. We did the cliched Times Square at New Years. It was very interesting; somewhere during the trip we all ended up wearing adult diapers (that's for another post). I'm really thankful for all the great company.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Unnatural
It's not natural to sit in front of a keyboard slaving away one keystroke at a time. It feels like the longer I stare into this lightly glowing screen, the closer I approach the cliched flash of light that appears just before a near death experience. One minute it's Wednesday morning and we're typing away about the latest ad-hoc test report. The next minute someone's typing up our obituary. Click. Click. Click....
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Design
I haven't been climbing for a while, partly because I think I sprained my wrist.... about two months ago. So two months after the injury, I just now decided that I should take it a little easy and give my body some time to rest.
The temperatures are high enough that I don't want to go outside much. With nothing to do, a friend and I decided to work on a design project. We looked around at different designing tools and narrowed our choices to Microsoft's XNA, the NeverWinter Nights Aurora Toolset, Blizzard's Warcraft 3 Editor, and the Unreal Editor.
Each toolset had distinct advantages over the others. At first I was leaning towards the Unreal Editor, mainly because the game that I was interested in working on was built on the Unreal engine. However, Unreal is naturally a First Person Shooter engine. The extra scripting that was required to change the engine from a FPS to a MMORPG was beyond how much time we wished to put into it.
We then pushed to use Microsoft's XNA. We needed to install C#, update our version of Windows, and then download the XNA documentation. We got our computers set up at work, knowing full well that the intellectual property rights would be forfeited there. However, given the necessary compiling, the much faster computers, the conventional meet up place, the air conditioned work place, and the quick Internet connection, we simply couldn't pass up those perks. Plus, there's always free coffee, tea, and sometimes donuts (Yay for Mondays and Fridays)!
The advantages of XNA were that we could change our design down to the code level. Because of this, we could never use the excuse of there being no available tool. If we didn't have a tool, we could program it in. However, that was also a disadvantage. We'd have to make our own toolsets, or take the time to search for them online, then learn how to correctly use other people's toolsets.
Basically, using XNA would give us more work, but more flexibility. It would also focus more on coding than designing, though we could implement a lot more creative design. We decided to try it out, but for whatever reason (omg we be haxorz lol), our work didn't feel safe with us programming our own code at work. There goes the thought of using XNA.
We then installed Warcraft 3 and looked at the editor. The editor was simple to use, but I personally found that it was a bit too simple. We would be able to create some DOTA maps, but that was it.
Coworkers strongly recommended using the Neverwinter Nights Toolset. I had looked into the Aurora engine earlier, but my initial impressions was that it seemed rudimentary. I thought that the graphics lacked any substance. I took another look at it, this time buying Neverwinter Nights 2 and since I had spent about $30, I would give it much more than a quick glance.
Wow am I impressed. The engine is powerful to look fairly impressive, it runs quickly on my old computer, and NWN2 has a very tight knit developer and mod community. I haven't gotten into much scripting yet, as that will be the deal breaker to see if I stick with this toolset or not. Here's a screenshot of the engine and what I made in a couple hours.
NeverWinter Nights 2 Toolset
The temperatures are high enough that I don't want to go outside much. With nothing to do, a friend and I decided to work on a design project. We looked around at different designing tools and narrowed our choices to Microsoft's XNA, the NeverWinter Nights Aurora Toolset, Blizzard's Warcraft 3 Editor, and the Unreal Editor.
Each toolset had distinct advantages over the others. At first I was leaning towards the Unreal Editor, mainly because the game that I was interested in working on was built on the Unreal engine. However, Unreal is naturally a First Person Shooter engine. The extra scripting that was required to change the engine from a FPS to a MMORPG was beyond how much time we wished to put into it.
We then pushed to use Microsoft's XNA. We needed to install C#, update our version of Windows, and then download the XNA documentation. We got our computers set up at work, knowing full well that the intellectual property rights would be forfeited there. However, given the necessary compiling, the much faster computers, the conventional meet up place, the air conditioned work place, and the quick Internet connection, we simply couldn't pass up those perks. Plus, there's always free coffee, tea, and sometimes donuts (Yay for Mondays and Fridays)!
The advantages of XNA were that we could change our design down to the code level. Because of this, we could never use the excuse of there being no available tool. If we didn't have a tool, we could program it in. However, that was also a disadvantage. We'd have to make our own toolsets, or take the time to search for them online, then learn how to correctly use other people's toolsets.
Basically, using XNA would give us more work, but more flexibility. It would also focus more on coding than designing, though we could implement a lot more creative design. We decided to try it out, but for whatever reason (omg we be haxorz lol), our work didn't feel safe with us programming our own code at work. There goes the thought of using XNA.
We then installed Warcraft 3 and looked at the editor. The editor was simple to use, but I personally found that it was a bit too simple. We would be able to create some DOTA maps, but that was it.
Coworkers strongly recommended using the Neverwinter Nights Toolset. I had looked into the Aurora engine earlier, but my initial impressions was that it seemed rudimentary. I thought that the graphics lacked any substance. I took another look at it, this time buying Neverwinter Nights 2 and since I had spent about $30, I would give it much more than a quick glance.
Wow am I impressed. The engine is powerful to look fairly impressive, it runs quickly on my old computer, and NWN2 has a very tight knit developer and mod community. I haven't gotten into much scripting yet, as that will be the deal breaker to see if I stick with this toolset or not. Here's a screenshot of the engine and what I made in a couple hours.
NeverWinter Nights 2 ToolsetThursday, June 21, 2007
The gym, the past and future
It's places like the gym where I wish I were back in Tonga and lifting with my buddy James. We used to just kick back, make jokes, and push ourselves in lifting (even though that noob did everything in the wrong order... but that's another story). In Tonga, there were no vanity mirrors to watch yourself or some stupid mind numbing pop music playing in the background. Nope, it was simple. Weights were the remains of what people didn't or couldn't steal and whatever that weight, that's what you lift.
The gym in San Diego is crazy. By crazy, I mean there's a lot of crazy people in there. It simply creeps me the fuck out when I see some of these huge guys flexing in the mirror for 5 minutes after doing a single set. They're not just flexing a little, I literally saw one guy inches from the mirror as he flexed and looked at his arms. It looked like he was going to kiss himself. I swear some people are there more to look at themselves in the extra large mirrors instead of actually trying to work out. *Sigh* Sometimes I miss the simplicity of Tonga.
It's been about a year since I first landed in Tonga, but it's felt like a lifetime has passed since then. So much has happened. During that time, I've lived in Tonga, backpacked across Europe, and now I resettled back into the States into a job I like. I've gotten the opportunity to meet such great people and learn more about the world. I feel really lucky. I know it's not the new year yet, but it sure does feel like a new chapter has begun. I had a great past year and I'm really looking forward to the next.
The gym in San Diego is crazy. By crazy, I mean there's a lot of crazy people in there. It simply creeps me the fuck out when I see some of these huge guys flexing in the mirror for 5 minutes after doing a single set. They're not just flexing a little, I literally saw one guy inches from the mirror as he flexed and looked at his arms. It looked like he was going to kiss himself. I swear some people are there more to look at themselves in the extra large mirrors instead of actually trying to work out. *Sigh* Sometimes I miss the simplicity of Tonga.
It's been about a year since I first landed in Tonga, but it's felt like a lifetime has passed since then. So much has happened. During that time, I've lived in Tonga, backpacked across Europe, and now I resettled back into the States into a job I like. I've gotten the opportunity to meet such great people and learn more about the world. I feel really lucky. I know it's not the new year yet, but it sure does feel like a new chapter has begun. I had a great past year and I'm really looking forward to the next.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Settling into San Diego
So I'm getting settled into San Diego and my new job. When I moved in, I had a sleeping bag, a guitar, and two backpacks. Now I'm fairly nestled in with a mattress, chair, desktop, and pillows! It's funny what my priority for things are. Before I bought the mattress or even a pillow, I bought rock climbing shoes, a chalk bag, and a new mountain bike.
I guess it's a weird mentality to buy things in that order, but ever since I got back from Europe and Tonga, I've been wanting to try new things. Ordinary sleep pales in comparison to riding up technical trails or conquering my fear of heights. When you've lived on an island where there's limited resources, it makes you appreciate everything we have here in the States. With so many things that we are lucky enough to experience, why let our brain and body atrophy?
Speaking of which, two of my cousins are far from letting their brains atrophy; yesterday they graduated from UCLA. Grats to them!!! :) After I met up with them, I realized that I haven't seen some of my family for a while; I guess I'm pretty bad at keeping in contact with people, even people as close as my own family. I'll try to work on that.
After dinner my mom gave me $100... for ice cream. I guess she knows me well! Woot! =)
$16 dollars of ice cream has been spent and 3 boxes of Mochi Ice Cream has already been consumed. Which flavor next? I think I'll pick up something that's new to me...
Expect to see more writing soon. I have lots to update now that I have my desktop back.
I guess it's a weird mentality to buy things in that order, but ever since I got back from Europe and Tonga, I've been wanting to try new things. Ordinary sleep pales in comparison to riding up technical trails or conquering my fear of heights. When you've lived on an island where there's limited resources, it makes you appreciate everything we have here in the States. With so many things that we are lucky enough to experience, why let our brain and body atrophy?
Speaking of which, two of my cousins are far from letting their brains atrophy; yesterday they graduated from UCLA. Grats to them!!! :) After I met up with them, I realized that I haven't seen some of my family for a while; I guess I'm pretty bad at keeping in contact with people, even people as close as my own family. I'll try to work on that.
After dinner my mom gave me $100... for ice cream. I guess she knows me well! Woot! =)
$16 dollars of ice cream has been spent and 3 boxes of Mochi Ice Cream has already been consumed. Which flavor next? I think I'll pick up something that's new to me...
Expect to see more writing soon. I have lots to update now that I have my desktop back.
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