Birthday

they say its my birthday.....
ever since about 24 hours ago, its been my birthday. and I've been getting well wishes from my friends pretty much since then... nathan was the first to tell me on my actual birthday... he literally IMed me at 1200. thanks man. and since then my awesome friends have been sending me messages and such. its a great feeling.

anyways, after I finally got some sleep I was suddenly awoken by a visitor at the door at around 9:25... it was my sisters friend from down the street. apparently my sister had a game at 10. and she has to be there a half hour early. which.... was in about 5 minutes. it was at that point I figured I should prolly wake her up... the game was at the usual location, the soccer field by the airport... only something was different. there was a thick fog that I haven't seen the likes of since my days in Daly City. mother nature's sick idea of a birthday gift? sure, we'll go with that. (pics in moblog, a few pics back).
anyways, my dad decided to join me at the game and afterwards we went home and decided to..... ready? ......... clean the house. yes ladies and gantlemen, from about 11 o'clock till around 2 there was vaccuuming, cleaning, folding, putting away, scrubbing and straightening out to be done. and what a glorious time it was! remind me never to celebrate my birthday at home again..... too much damn work. way too much stress. anyways, we went out to eat, at long last, and returned home still before my mom was done working. she finally gets home at around 4 and guess what? she decides to disturb my watching spiderman on the new laptop by having me wash dishes. thanks.

the rest of the family finally arrives and we visit a bit but soon begin to get ready for dinner. we had reservations at this new spanish restaurant on the north side of town. it was a lot nicer than I had expected.... I think its slightly different on weekends.... as they have live entertainment and a different menu.... no prices... just a flat fee that covers any of the 7 or so menu choices including soup and salad, and of course, the show. they had live flamenco dancers with a live music (singer and guitarist) and I must say, the show was quite good. there were 2 female dancers who danced very well and a male singer who even did a little dancing of his own and a guitarist who sat through the whole performance spewing chord after vigerous chord of foot stomping music. that along with the clapping and stomping of the other made for some great music.... independent of the dancing, which was, as I said, great.

after dinner I drove my bro and sis home and the rest of the family followed. within about an hour, my cousins arrived and we all hung out for a while, had some pie, and then I got to open gifts. the thing I think I wanted most, despite its lack of creativity, was money. there's alotta stuff I need to buy, and I don't expect people to get me such things as a gift, so money would be very helpful.and I did indeed get cash (or checks) from several people, which was nice.... I also got a sweatshirt (kinda random...) and a pink floyd tshirt (dark side of the moon) which I was expecting.... all in all it should have been a pretty enjoyable day.

hey, wouldja look at that. its not my birthday anymore... happy halloween.

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking for

last weekend was fun. saturday, i cleared out the garage a bit, but it still needs work. some boxes still need to be put away in the rafters and i need to clear out the stuff that we took out of the van, which is finally departing. when it didnt pass smog twice (long story) we basically, finally, gave up. so sood our driveway will be vacant and clear for the truck to pull into the garage once again. definitely looking forward to that.... even though i dont drive the truck anymore.

sunday was a little more interesting. i went down to the city to join nathan, crystal and ken. it was the first time i drove the acura into and throughout the city. and my lower back is still sore from all that damn clutch action. (as it turns out, the route i chose was closed sunday for a marathon. so me and 40,000 other poeple took the same alternate route.) anyways, when i finally got to nathan's, crystal was setting up to take some pics, for details on that, i direct your attention to her Live Journal ("The Crystal Ship" under links). and ken and nathan were... doing something. i had to piss like a racehorse, and when i returned, ken and nathan were setting up for a game of donkey konga. oh joy, nothing like mindless, musical, exploitation of a lack of rhythm. not that i have no rhythm, but its just not my kinda game. i havent quite developed the second-nature quality playing such a hand-eye coordination based game requires. basically, i sucked. winning only one round but never besting the almost flawless computer. w/e. after that was some mario kart, followed by a trip to Toons for an early dinner type meal.

after food we returned for more mario kart, followed by some super smash brothers. good clean fun if i ever had any. this went on for a while until somehow we decided to play mario party, which i heard ken and nathan complaining about all afternoon.... w/e. so all 4 of us played that for a while. then ken left and crystal, nathan and i finished out the game... destroying ken;s character and crystal embarassing both nathan and I (some of which lends itself to pure dumb luck that the game has incorporated into its mini-"games." though some of them are just shy of flip a coin.... so the term "game" is used loosely.

anyways, after that i took crystal home and then went home. it was then that i realized that i had gone down to accompany nathan to The Legion of Honor to look at and draw a statue. woops. i knew we forgot something.... i wonder what happened to that?? i dunno.

since then, life has returned to its everyday normalesqueness (yes, thats a word... cuz i said so.) til today when i got my brand-spankin new laptop. yay. im so happy. though i dont yet have the wireless router and netwrok cvard for it so its still not net-enabled. but when that happens, it will be sooo sweet. i'm stoked about it. certainly more so than when i realized i spent nearly 1000 dollars on it last week. i got an awesome deal so i shouldn't be so.. i duno. whatever it is i am. anyways, with a couple more days and maybe after i get some cash for my birthday, i will get it online. until then.. i have a really powerfull mobile word processor.

Dude (Looks Like a Lady)

today in soc, we had a couple of guys come in and talk to our class. on was a former race car pit crew mechanic, the other a career fireman from the north bay. both enjoyed various outdoor activiteis. the former mechanic was wearing some baggy shorts and chico state tshirt. he had a gotee and shoulder length straggly hair. the fireman was clean shaven with a relatively clean cut hair with somewhat long sideburns and a conservative looking golf shirt on tucked into a pair of jeans.

they are both gay. and not just gay, but they SHATTER every pre-conceived stereotype thrown on gays. they were there to talk about basically anything gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer or pansexual (gender fluid, ambiguous). anyways, i really enjoyed their presentation. they handled every question thrown their way, and my class was prettyt rough with the questioning. it really made me think... for one, several years ago, about 1 in 10 people in the US was gay. that has since been accepted to have increased to 2. and those are just those who have admitted, whether to others or themselves, that they are gay. but lets say 2 in 10. that means there are about 3 or so gay people in my class..... statistically speaking. i dunno why that comes at so much of a shock to me.. and probably alot of the class. it seems that homosexual is the last frontier in the battle for civil rights. since mostly, i am sorry to say, they are seriously treated as outcasts in our society. it has gotten much better rescently, but people who are either known to be gay or percieved as such, are still alienated. i dunno. its a weird subject. the class discussion was all over the place. touching on religion, politics, saxuality, everything. very informative. these 2 guys were from a group called spectrum and they travel around to schools educating on the subject. good for them.

as for other news, nothing really worth spending alot of time explaining. just more of the same. school, work, eat, sleep, repeat. weather has been funky. first warm, then rainy, now friggin cold. sposed to start raining again. w/e. might head down to the city this weekend to hang out with... those people i tend to hang out with once in a while. or i may stay at home and clean out my garage.. the decisions.....

btw. photoblog and moblog updates. ttyl.

Sunrise

awesome random awesomeness. today, in bio, while i was being distracted from the normal boredom that is that lecture with 3 friends on aim, one f them, lacey, randomly invited me to her house for lunch. ok. so after bio i head over. she lets me in, i am greeted by her dog. we go into her office/living room and i sit at her boyfriends desk. where there is a chicken salad sandwich waiting for me. how freakin awesome is that?! so we ate lunch, she played the new Duran-Duran song (see title) and talked about stuff. it was good times. she had to work at 1 so we only had about 45 or so minutes to hang out and talk and play with the dog. but it was fun. and it was a good sandwich too. anyways, that was really freakin awesome of her to do. and i just had to tell the world. ok, i think im done. thanks lacey. again.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

today i ate well. more on that later.

this weekend has been... well.... different. for one i actually sat down and wrote this freakin biology paper that i have been putting off for weeks now. naturally its due monday. i have it finished, ive been mostly polishing it off today. i did the bulk of the writing friday and saturday. its basically about how fortunate we are (those of us who live in the US) because we are able to literally waste tons (literally tons) of resources. i went to this site to figure out my biological footprint. basically the number of acres it takes to support me. and according to its calculations, i require 15 acres of earth to support my lifestyle. the average american requires 24 acres. there are 4.5 acres of available land for each person on earth. that was a disturbing figure. but it gets better. the site then calculates how many EARTHS it would take to sustain earth's population if everyone lived as i did. it would take about 3 and a half. yikes. and to think that if the whole world lived like the average american, we would need 6 earths. 6 earths. no wonder we are hated the world over. even i hate us. we suck. anyways, i went on to talk about how i could improve my footprint and stuff. basically eating food from nearby or garden, driving a car that gets better mileage, stuff like that. anyways, i think i can honestly say i can improve myself. everyone should take that quiz just for shits-n-giggles to see how bad they are. or good? who knows....

anyways, after that, i went to the EPA website to see how many greenhouse gasses my household is pumping into the atmosphere. in this case we are pretty good, producing about 10,000 lbs. less than the average american family of 2. i guess all those double pain windows, energy star appliances, and fluorescent light bulbs really do work. so... at least i can sleep at night knowing i am saving energy. i highly recomend you people do the same. NOW. we only have one earth.

ok, enough of that. onto the party. well... sorta. today, after some final touches on the essay, we came down into the city. i scouted out Fudruckers for my birthday thing as i had never eaten there and i wanted some experience as to what it is like. pretty cool stuff. i love the unlimited toppings and the self serve-ness of it. definitely know what not to do next time.... i.e. put assloads of mustard, mayo, ketchup, barbeque sauce. makes one helluva mess.

anyways, after that we had dinner at the clement street bar and grill for my grandpas birthday (pics at moblog) he turned 85 a few days ago. and going strong. he puts me to shame physically, as he walks just about everywhere he goes and he does yard work like one wouldnt believe. he has a huge garden at home and is always willing to help out when he visits. so, happy birthday to him. and many more. the other awesome thing about him, is he has a ridiculous memory. he can remember SO many stories from childhood. just today he was telling my siblings and i a story about riding a young bull at about age 14 and how he was suposed to look down and keep an eye on the bull's head to anticipate its movements (this came up when i was telling my sister how to try and avoid car sickness by anticipating the course of the car). he also had a bunch of mexican proverbs which he told my mom at dinner time and she wrote down on a place mat. i think i'll blog those later.

just spent the last 4 or so hours writing this post and helping my friend with her bio paper. three cheers for procrastination. i gotta get some sleep....

[update] new pics at photoblo and, as always, moblog.[/update]

Big Bang Baby

so tired am i. this morning was art history. would have been inomnia curing... if not for some company on AIM to distract me. thanks for that. but it did get interesting at the end when we discussed northern rennaisance art and Durer. (see moblog a pic or so back) this guy was like the Leonardo of Germany. awesome painter but also did some great wood prints. ("four horsemen of the apocalypse" being a wood print). anyays, the class was ok. then i went home to my sister who has been sidelines, so to speak, from a soccer injury. she had a doctors appoinment. after which i took her to lunch at Quiznoes, so that brings me to work.

first thing i walk in i am pulled to my bosses office. he has a task for me. i am to vaccuum the house nextdoor. the entire house (minus the floor in the resception area which has been rescently refinished). its a 2 bedroomw one bath with a medium sized kitchen, breakfast nook and living room. all of which need to be cleaned of all dust and dirt left from all the constraction that has taken place these last couple weeks. OH JOY. but first i had to run errands and do my usual stuff. long story > short: i got off work at around 7pm. physically tired.

i come home. sit down, check things online. melissa calls me. shes out of class and i am now to meet her at applebees to study for our Biology Lab Exam tomorow. i had never studied at applebees before. it went well as can be expected. its not the ideal study atmosphere.... but it was 8:15 PM by the time we got there and it was slowing/quieting down. the sound track was nice and the food was good. we go through the microsope lab, move onto plant strcture.... heres where it gets interesting: we are about to discuss flower anatomy, and she suddenly asks me if i believe in the big bang theory. WTF!?!? WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM!?!?! (the ironic thing is thati have been meaning to talk to her about her religious beliefs for some time now, especially with the thoughts brought up by my rescent posts.... and suddenly, she brought it up to me. anyways, this lead into a long drawn out discussion on religion and science. she believes in the big bang.. but also believes in god. she believes in evolution.... but also believes in god. and she got hell (pardon the pun) from her BF for saying that. she is caught between the religious beliefs her parents "drilled into her" (her words) and the science she has embraced on her own. i olny wish we did not stumble upon that random outburst of deep thoughtful conversation in the middle of studying for a test. we eventually made our way back to biology and finished off the labs... more or less. good times though.

~~photoblog = updated~~~

Imagine

and now to follow up that post.....
just click above and read. he writes better than i do.

moving on...

the last few days have been relatively mundane. last week i had tests in both Bio and Soc. Bio i studied for, more or less (i still dunno how to study.. but i think i did a good job of winging it) Soc, however, i didnt study much at all for. and when i took the test, i really honestly felt that i didnt know the answers to a good amount of the questions. luckily, my teacher isnt much of a test writer, so i think i was able to stab my way through that one. but, based on previous statement by me, and im sure a disapointing outcome from this exam, she will revert back to the essay tests i knew and loved. the test this time was a collection of statistic based questions that asked nothing of what we know about sociology and only tested us on how well we were able to memorize certain facts and statements, not much of a test. so.. i hope she will go back to the old fluffable essay questions that i aced time and again last semester.

work has also reached a certain level of mundanity as my jobs are growing less and less varied. most of my day is now taken up running off to the banks (8 in all) in town. and when the rent stops coming in, my hours may drastically decrease. gone are the days of photographs and sign riders. i really hope that the real estate industry picks up, cuz i havent photographed a house in over a month i think. instead ive been spending time around the office and our newly acquired neighboring building cleaning things up. vaccuuming nails = good times. my next project is sweeping and washing down the storage shed behind the "house" next door. (it was a house but is being converted into more office space now that we have purchased it). so.. that shuould prove interesting in the future.

as for the weekend, saturday was spent mostly doing nothing. i spent the morning in San Rafael finding out that they couldnt give us tires till today. i spent all afternooon talking to Bruna mostly. today was the conclusion of fleet week in San Francisco. so, after finally getting some tires on the Acura (among other things) we headed south to the golden gate and drove up on the hillside on the marin side to see what could be seen. we werent sure if anything was eveniong going on today, but we vaguely heard a jet fly by and the hordes of people along the roadside stopped and watching over the side of the cliff were solid clues. so, we found a spot to pull over and watched the festivities, which was somewhat disapointing, but we WERE on the opposite side of the bay (in fact, we werent even overlooking the bay, we were on the ocean side of the bridge) so we saw from quite the distance. the highlight for me was the breif fly-bye by an F15, with its powerful/loud engines, it really shook the ground as it flew around on its own. the canadian snow birds did perform as the main attraction. and though there were 9 of them, they were no blue angels. for one they were using some sort of obscure training aircraft or some crap. im not sure cuz i didnt recognize them, and second, they didnt do anything particularly exciting except fly around in tight formation and change formation a few times. w/e it was something to do i suppose.

and finally, the Penngrove episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition aired today. what they did to the house was pretty amazing. they actually leveled it to its foundation and platform. (the house is/was up about 5 or so feet off the ground.. the section the old house stood on remained). as i may have mentioned before, the girl who the house is essentially for is alergic to the sun. she has to cover her entire body or have her entire body under shade if/when she ever goes outside. and in her home, many of the windows were blocked with sheets and plankets. even then the sunlight would make her feel sick. the new home has all UV sheilded windows, so... kinda tinted. as well as huge overhangs in the fron and back with UV safe screens that let light through safely. also, they built a huge canvas overhang over the brand new swimming pool and surrounding sand (like a beach..... which she hasnt been to in... god-knows-how long.) also, her room has a special "sky light" which is actually a several panel light fixture with special UV free LED lights and trasparent sky panels that fit inside and make it look like the sky. a nice touch. another interesting idea they had was to place a bunch of solar panels on the property. ironically, making the sun, the family's worst enemy, work for them. their electric bill is estimated to be about 7 dollars now. very nice. an old barn on the property was converted into a very nice wine tasting lounge complete with bar and an enormous wine cellar. fully stocked with donations from a some local wineries. so like... hundreds of bottles of wine. its a cool house. no pun intended.

oh, and before i forget, check out my moblog which is now being updated regularly. sometimes several times a day.

Running On Faith

im going out on a limb here... but Ken's latest post, and more specifically the comments that followed, have compelled me to go out on this limb i now find myself... out on. the following is my own personal opinion, and as such cannot be disputed.... since it is just that, my opinion and not meant as a statement of fact or anything. ive actually been meaning to write about this for some time. anyways, here goes.....

i was raised in a somewhat traditional, very catholic mexican family. my mom and dad both grew up in very religios homes, and as a result have done somewhat the same for me. i have been taken to church darn near every sunday for as long as i can remember. with a few exceptions being made when we are on a trip somewhere or we have company or something like that, and even then we've somehow found the time and energy to go. anyways, these last several sundays ive been thinking about this whole god thing. partly because ive always been curious and partly because it has come up in conversation alot lately. ive also been reascently visited by the wonderful folks from the Church of JC&LDS (i really dont feel like spelling it all out.... theyre mormons) and also we just finished a huge section on renaissance art in art history so.. all this biblical stuff has been rattling around in my head for some time now.

it seems to me that the whole concept of a benevolent god was to give humans something optimistic to look forward to, as opposed to a one-way trip down The River Styx and an eternity hanging out with the one guy that got kicked off Mount Olympus. (sorry if i am not accurate with my stab at Greek Mythology..... which makes me wonder... how long does it take for religion to become mythology? the romans went through them like we go through fassion). anyways, by telling themselves that they would be rewarded in the afterlife for doing good to eachother now, it seems to me that this christianity thing was a great way to get the masses to be nice. not to mention by promising an eternity of paradise it probably wasnt hard to gain followers. but in all its rteousness, the catholic church has done some pretty shaky things in its relatively short history. as have many other denominations of suposed riteous and benevolent religions. (not to mention the not so riteous ones).

anyways, as for me, though i have been taught all my life the ways of the Catholic church, i have long questioned it. some of it seems logical enough... some not so much. i guess thats why they call it faith. but.. unfortunately, i just dont have it. not in that. i must say, they did all they could, but theres just no restraining my inquisitive mind. and for me, the whole evolution from a protist is just too logical to pass up. im sorry if i dont buy into the whole *POOF* "I have created man!" theory. now, like ken, just because i have chosen not to personally asociate myself with a particular denomination doesnt mean i dont have faith. on the contrary, i have great faith. i have faith in myself, as well as you people. i have faith that i will do what i think is right and that others will do the same. strange as it may sound that i would put faith in this world, with these people, i have. i really do believe that the vast majority of people really do want to do "good." granted, the definition of "good" can have enormously varrying interpretations. however, with this blog as my example, people DO care, and DO want to help and ARE willing to do something to help eachother. God, Allah, Buddha, whoever.... whatever works, whatever compells you to do good for your fellow human being and the earth as a whole, thats what i have faith in. the ability for you people to find one good reason to do something good.

Same Old Song and Dance

saturday was spent buying a car mainly, so today we went to the city for stuffs. we had to get my grandma a new cell phone, as hers was stolen along with her purse. so our first stop was the tmobile store where we got a new sim card for her and stuck it in my backup phone, which she now uses. im gonna miss that crappy samsung. from there we went to redwood city to do random stuff. and after that i had them drop me off at nate's for some hot gaming action. nothing like some 4 way Mario Kart and Super Smash Brothers. CJ i think emerged as overall victor as we were usually having to team up on him in order for one of us to win. o well, it was bloody good fun.

after that i was picked up and we set off for home. fast forward about an hour. we went to safeway real quick before coming home since we needed to pick up a few things for my sister's soccer game tomorow. basically chips and drinks for her team. so we pull into safeway, my mom parks, turns off the car and lies back. she literlly falls asleep. HOLY SHIT! this was who was just driving us!!! JESUS! so i wake her ass up and we go inside, buy what needs to be boguth and drive home. the cold country air woke her up and she was able to drive the 2 or so miles home. i would have driven, but i have yet to drive the integra and i havent driven a stick in almost a year... i wanna drive it tomorow damnit! thats all for now.

Ticket to Ride

friday night, out of utter boredom my family decided to head out to the movies nd see whatever was playing. we decided on Shark's Tale. when we arrived 20 minutes before the movie started, we were the only ones in the theater lobby who wasnt employed by the theater. after several minutes f browsing the outrageously overpriced candy, 3 kids came in and hung out. we eventually decided to head to the actual theater where the movie was being shown. we were the first ones in there. it was kinda weird having the whole place to ourselves. finally, 6 minutes before the scheduled start of the movie, 2 girls came in, followed by a family of 4 a couple minutes later. a few more small groups came in, but there was no more than 2 dozen people in that theater during the course of that movie. if im not mistaken, Sharks Tale opened on friday.... WHERE THE HELL WAS EVERYONE?!? it was kind of scary, like perhaps the town of Novato knew something we didnt, and we were in for some sort of catastophic event that those who were forewarned had already taken precautions to avoid. like say, a movie. lol, i made a funny. the movie wasnt too bad. in fact, it wasnt bad at all. admitidly it had a few similarities, other than the setting, to the little known Pixar production Finding Nemo. like, say, a shark who refuses to eat fish, voiced by Jack Black. i wasnt a big fan of the whole "urban spin" on it, but thats just me. anyways, it was an ok movie. nothing id rush out to buy on DVD.

after the movie we drove to a large parking lot which is used for "park and ride" commuters during the week, and doubles as a make-shift used car lot on weekends. there we saw a few viable cars to replace our ailing van. a 96 VW Jetta VR6 and a 95 Acura Integra 4 door, priced 5500 and 5900 respectively. i was leaning towards the Honda built Acura given its lower mileage, sportier looks, efficiency, and reliability. today we pursued the Acura by calling the contact number. we talked to the guy who sells it (and countless other cars... he sells repos pretty much for a living) as it turns out, it was a repo, but clearly, the owner took very good care of it. it was extremely clean inside and out. so.. we decided to follow through with it. but it had to be first smogged. so we drove down to a smog shop he does business with, tested it and it passed with flying colors. we drove it home. all said and done, it was 6400 including tax, and all that other shit. oh, did i mention it is a 5 speed stick. fun fun.

[update] sounds like we are go, so far, for Incredibles on November 6. if anyone has issue with that date, now is the time to let me know. Rene says she will request the day off when it is finalyzed so.. the sooner the better. arash says he is free, and from the looks of it, Ken and Crystal are in. Ken, you are welcomed to bring Jerm if you so wish, and likewise, Crystal, you can bring Nathan if you want :P. am i missing anything? i dont think so... in that case, that is the plan as of now. [/update]