Skip to content

a year of real jobs

One year ago, I spent this whole weekend in San Francisco visiting a friend of mine that I hadn’t seen in a year or two. We went touring all throughout the city, seeing a lot of great sites as well as enjoying some wine up in Sonoma County. I also went through some mess on my last day there.

My car got towed the moment I arrived in the city. So I spent the following Tuesday paying the city whatever cash I had and walking around town or riding on the bus to various locations just to claim my car. What a total waste of time and such a crappy way to end my beautiful stay in that city. Luckily, I’ve been back again to reclaim my love.

The day after my return from the bay area, I began my brand new job as a Website Content Manager, which was disguised as Front End Web Designer. I spent the next 9 months of my life working for the man before finding another job doing actual Front End Web Designer work. And I’ve been there 3 months and counting.

It’s weird that I’ve lived 27 years and I’m only one year into working full-time. Most of my peers back in Texas or around the country have had many full-time jobs since they graduated college at around 22-24. It just took me longer. And for good reason.

I moved out to LA just over 2 years ago to find work. Houston had nothing there for me and I was at the end of the line trying to find anything worth my time. LA, however, wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The opportunities I thought I had quickly dissolved and I was back to square one quickly. This time, however, I had a part-time job at Magic Mountain and some freelance gigs which I took for granted.

I’ve battled laziness all of my life. I enjoy the moments where I’m doing absolutely nothing. It’s easy, it’s relaxing, and I don’t have to think about anything. But this has severly kept me from doing the things I really ought to be doing.

I love traveling.
I love music.
I love photography.
I love performing.
I love producing.
I love desiging.
I love technology.

I had a year and a half to get any step of my career going, something that involved any of the above. And through all that time I wasted, nothing happened because I made excuses and went back “home” for weeks on end. I don’t regret all the traveling I’ve done. I just regret the actions I never took when I was here. And it’s my own fault.

If this past year of working two full-time jobs has taught me anything about myself, it’s that I deserve to spend my time doing the things which I love. All of the above, and much more. I am an ambitious person, one with dreams and desires. And I hope that I can accomplish living a life full of passion. Not for anyone but myself. Day in and day out should be spent smiling and enjoying life in everything you do. And if people accuse me of lacking focus, it’s because I want more from my life than most people.

I’m not going to settle because I plan to live. In the meantime, I’ll continue what I am doing and figure out my next moves.

backend upgrade complete

Nothing you can see but I had to reload the whole backend and make a few upgrades. I had put this off since last summer when my previous host took my site offline all of a sudden. So I’m now up to the latest MovableType software and I completely reloaded my phpBB software.

I’ve also decided to make my comments only available to registered users. No more anonymous comments because spammers have been abusing it and it’s really annoying when I’m having to clean a lot of spam out daily.

Next on the agenda for this site is new designs. I need to refresh badly.

I also hope to integrate more cool things and make my site more interactive for others who visit. One thing I’d love to do eventually is have a database for my groovy albums. But that’s work that I’m not ready to take on right now.

I also hope to get a photo gallery up and running. There’s a really cool software package that I’ve found but can’t seem to get it working just yet.

updates

If you see this, it means my new update to MovableType is working. I’m not completely up and running yet, but I’m working on it.

In the meantime, I’ve gotta plug the new Opera 9. I’m reeeeeally liking it. Firefox is getting so slow and Opera is so streamlined and slim now. And free! Go try it.

in the mind of the shy

I know he’s trying to say something to me.
I can see his lips moving, and I hear noises coming from his mouth.
I hear a few words ‘funny’ and ‘the’ and ‘tonight’.
I wish I was better at reading lips.

We arrived at the Back Alley around 10pm last night and before I got there, I was excited to be going out but I was worried that the noise of the bar was going to be too loud. I have super sensitive ears and my ongoing tinnitus really affects how well I hear what’s going on and what people say.

It was a typical bar with typical patrons. Lots of twenty-somethings. All enjoying themselves, mingling and trying to figure out what to do next. I was probably the only one who decided not to drink anything at all. I had every intention of drinking before I stepped foot in the bar. Yet, as soon as I saw the crowd of complete strangers we were hanging with, I suddenly lost my thirst.

‘Are you drinking?’
‘Naw, I have to drive home so I won’t have anything’

That set the course for my night right there. I’m not quick enough to think for myself, that maybe having a few drinks would help me loosen up. I didn’t feel uptight by any means, but my body language sure gave off that vibe.

I don’t have any clue what I should say to these people. I don’t even know them. Besides, even if I do strike up a conversation, I can’t hear half of the things they say.

I knew she was having a great time and I hate being the buzz kill.

‘Go enjoy yourself, I’m fine. I’m totally ADD right now and am watching everyone.’

It’s not a lie, but part of me wishes I was better at approaching people without making a mess of myself verbally. I’m too self conscious about sounding stupid or looking stupid. So I watch people. I typically don’t stare at one or two people, I am constantly moving my head to the left and then to the right. My eyes wander the crowd, trying to understand what people are doing and saying. But I turn my head in just enough time to not even comprehend what’s going on.

There’s so much going on.
There’s too much to take in.

He’s going up to her.
He must know her because she responded right away.
Maybe it’s just that he’s cute and knows what to say.
That sign is so blue.
I have no idea how to approach someone like that.
Look at her, she’s smoking and looks bored.
Why is the ceiling so open like this?
That sign looks pretty cool.
Interesting, she couldn’t care less about him.
Why is she staring at me?
She’s probably just also making random eye contact with me.
Oh well.

I turn my head to the TV and watch it so that I’m looking interested in at least something. I don’t care that it’s Bravo or some other random channel playing some random syndication of some random TV show. It’s my distraction from having to actually make eye contact and talk to anyone.

‘You ok?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me! Just go have fun’

It’s uncomfortable when people worry about me. By now the whole group of strangers notices how uncomfortable I look, again not intentionally. At this point, I can’t give in and order a drink. I still don’t want one but I’m pretty much the one person who’s not drinking in the whole city of Fullerton.

Am I ever gonna change?

no more comments for a while

i’m getting spammed way too often now and have decided to just disable comments until I make the time to redo things around here. The website is barely functional as it is so this isn’t a big deal anyway. If you want to leave me a message or comment, just contact me. I’m writing this from Hollywood Blvd btw. Having internet on your phone rox!

oh the merry month of June

Destinations:

San Francisco
Monterey
Hollywood
Houston
St. Louis
Nauvoo
San Diego
Venice Beach
Hollywood
Beverly Hills

Activities:

Chinatown
Golden Gate Bridge
Fisherman’s Wharf
Russian Hill
Walk of Fame
Hollywood Sign
Koreotown
Rodeo Dr.
Venice Beach scene
San Diego Zoo
Business trip
Memorial trip
The Arch
Ted Drewes Frozen Custard

Life is busy.

I bought a Nikon D70s a few weeks ago. Here’s a few shots from the Pasadena Mountains.
pasadena mountains

pasadena mountains

pasadena mountains

99 cents is a ripoff

Welcome to the world of digital music. In today’s world, we can go online to download software such as iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, MSN, as well as a few others and buy music from these digital stores. You can buy a certain song, just about any song you like for about 99 cents. However, I do not support those ventures for the following reasons:

  1. When you pay around 99 cents for a certain song on one of those sites, the artist gets maybe 2-8 cents per song, if even that. It’s very likely that the artist doesn’t get but fractions of a penny for those purchases. Most of that money goes to the RIAA, which I will continue to try and never support.
  2. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) says they represent the artist and tries to protect his or her rights, but in fact they are only looking out for number one and are actively taking the money away from the artist.
    When you download a digital music file from stores online, you are downloading a compressed, inferior quality file than if you would had you bought the CD. But it’s only 99 cents you might say! Well, let’s say you bought the CD from the store for $15. The CD that you buy from the store is straight from the record company and the songs on the CD are uncompressed and in their original forms. The digital music that you download from the Internet is compressed, which means its of poorer quality. What this means is that random digital information from the song is deleted so that even though you’re hearing the song like it sounds on the CD, the quality of that song is nearly 60-80% less than what it is on the CD.

    Let me make this comparison. You have a whole cake, and it costs $15. If you divide that cake into 15 pieces, you have the equivelent of the 99 cent download, right? Wrong. Take one of those pieces, cut about 40-80% of it off. Now you have the equivelent of a 99 cent download. It tastes the same, it smells the same, it looks the same, but it’s only a fraction of what you should be getting.

  3. So, assuming that a CD costs roughly the same as the album costs online, you should be purchasing a CD or song for about 40-80% less than you pay for a CD in the store. Yet, you’re not. Why? Because of convenience. But is convenience really worth that much of a premium? You don’t really get the complete, full version of the song and it’s for sale at a bloated price, nor does the artist really get any benefits from your purchase. You’re just making rich people richer.
  4. A lot of the music that you buy online has something called DRM (Digital Rights Management). This means that it’s protected from things such as pirating, copying, transferring to another computer, etc. I’m not sure what MSN does in terms of DRM, but it’s likely that it has some heavy protection so that you can’t really do much with this file once you download it. If you were to buy the CD instead, you could legally and illegally do with the songs what you want. You can make your own digital copy and have full control over it.
  5. Let’s assume you only want one song from a CD. Why buy the CD when you want only one song? Yeah, this puts a little more justification into downloading it from iTunes, but not too much more. I can possibly even find that soundtrack for free online at one of hundreds of sites. Then I could take the one song that I want and delete the rest. And it didn’t cost me a thing except time.
  6. For someone on a modem (unsurprisingly, there still are plenty) trying to download a file, what’s the chances that your modem connection gets interrupted and you lose the download? Would you have to go back to iTunes and pay 99 more cents to download the rest of the file or redownload it again? I’m not sure I’d want to take that risk.

So for these reasons, why would you bother paying 99 cents? I don’t think the convenience is worth the premium nor do I want to support companies which use a digital lock to prevent you from doing much with your files. You pay the price of honesty for the few that are dishonest out there. By dishonest, I’m not talking about someone downloading this song for free off of “illegal” sites. I’m talking about someone purchasing this music, copying/burning it to lots of CDs and pirating the music CDs to others for a few bucks per CD. That’s wrong. But downloading a copy of a song is just like, at least in my opinion, recording a song off the radio and listening to it. You shouldn’t be prosecuted for that kind of stuff. Which is exactly what the RIAA is doing by suing all of these thousands of people. It’s absurd.

patchy stubbles

No matter how hard I try, how long I wait, I will never be able to properly grow a full beard anytime soon. I have a decent 5 o’clock shadow, it creeps up on you after a day or two of no shaving. However, the longer I let my facial hair grow, the less decent it appears. After a week or no shaving, all I have is staggered stubbles in different areas of patches. In fact, on the left side of my fact just to the left of my chin, I have a completely bald spot. It just doesn’t grow hair.

Right now I’m wearing a 6 day old beard. I’ll probably end up shaving it later today or tomorrow but am somewhat hesitant. I just started taking some medication which has made my skin sensitive and it’s a little more broken out and swollen than usual. Having this beard is a unattractive but appropriate distraction from my red and acne filled face.

I actually enjoy growing out my hair sometimes. Not just my beard, but my head hair too. I’ve been through many different changes in hairstyles since junior high. I was never satisfied with my hair or I would get bored with it. I don’t like the normal combover that many conservative people wear; it just doesn’t fit my personality or the way I feel about myself. I’ve always desired something a little more edgier, often to the dismay of either family or friends.

I think the most radical haircut I ever had was my junior and senior years in high school. It was then that I had bangs. And they were long. Eventually, they became so long that it hung as low as my chest. The rest of my hair was usually shaven and I would push my bangs back across my head, velcroed by the shaven stubbles on the rest of my hair.

During my 5th year of college, I decided to let my hair grow out completely. After 5 months of growth, my bangs were down to my eyes and the rest of my hair covered my ears and neck. It was very Beatles-esque and I loved it. I tried once again, unsuccessfully, to do this in 2004. My hair does not like humidity.

The fascination with my haircuts will probably continue into the future and I’m sure someday I’ll get bored enough once again to grow my hair out. But right now, it’s all about the corporate, California style, white-boy-just-out-of-bed look.

years

I turn 27 on Sunday.

27 feels like 19. You’re not yet 20, but you’re past 18. 27 means I’m not yet 30 but I’m farther from 25.

26 has been rather bland. 25 was excellent. 24 was ok. 23 rocked. and 22 was not very fun.

I expect 28 to be better than 27, but it’s very possible that the end of 27 will be huge for me.

I think the best and worst year I ever went through was 19. It started out absolutely amazingly. It ended rather sour and depressing. Still, best summer ever.

I wonder where I’ll be at 30? I hope I don’t have to know for 3 more years. . .

Oh wait.
I guess I won’t.

But, as I close 26, I wonder what 27 has to bring to me. I don’t expect too much for the first three quarters of 27, but I’m expecting huge things for the last quarter.

I’m over half way to 50.

I’m also mostly to 40.

. . . I’m getting old.

2 replies

brb

I’ve felt like this for a while. I have so much going on that I want to put up a sign for all my life that says “brb” which stands for be right back. I’ve been to Texas twice, I’ve quit one job and began a new one, I’ve been to Monterey and back, I’m working like crazy, I’m trying to get my life back to a normal state and all the while I’m still adjusting to living in just one place.

It’s become more of a chore to live in one place because my focus is constantly in a million directions at once. When I was living in two places for the past nine months I could basically leave behind part of my life during the week and take care of other things during the weekend. With all the changes I’ve faced in the past 4-6 weeks my adjustments have been very quick and abrupt at times. I feel like I’m being pulled in a million directions at once and I know it’s going to get better but the guilt and pressure is weighing me down.

2006 is definitely bringing me great things and wonderful changes. However, I’m having to deal with certain personal issues which seem to keep coming up more and more often as I get older. I hope that I can accomplish a lot this year to prepare me for another adventure in the near future.

So, if my posts here at asuh.com seem to be lacking as of late, there are many reasons and I apologize for it. I’ll try to be back soon with more posts but for now I need to just get things accomplished and invest in myself in many areas.