Alex

I don't know!

Hmm, I haven't updated in a long time, but here goes.

Yep, ran out of steam, cya LJ!

Burning Man was great. I will post more when the pics come out. Just had to note that to myself before I forget.

Some other time

Okay, so I figured if I don't write something now, I will probably never write anything, and I did promise to try really hard to update my LJ more often.

So last Friday, I went and saw Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction at Shoreline. Nine Inch Nails is a band that I used to like a long time ago, still do now, and that I've always wanted to see live at least once. Just before this tour Trent Reznor announced that this would be the last tour/album from NIN for awhile, so I figured now might be the last chance to do just that. Anyways, NIN was pretty great, they played a lot of songs that I didn't know as well as some that I didn't. I'm kind of sad that I missed the light show from the last tour, which was the best thing ever as I heard it. Jane's Addiction was cool, I didn't really know what to expect, but their singer was just as weird as you would think. Also, I think he was either incredibly high or drunk, because he kept greeting us as "San Francisco" and was talking about Bill Graham. I think he thought he was in the Bill Graham Civic Center.

Umm, and then I worked a lot for the rest of the week. So now I guess I'm all caught up on LJ!

Oh yeah, I also installed a bunch of lights in my room, which is nice, I think it's starting to become somewhat livable now. I'm excited.

I think it might be fun to run in the Bay to Breakers next year. Just a thought. For some reason I can't wait for the weekend. I really like my new toothbrush. Umm, yeah, that's all I thought about today. But at least I'm blogging about it right??

More updates from Alex!

Actually, there really isn't a whole lot to write about. I just keep saying that I want to update livejournal more frequently so here I am...updating.

Currently I'm at my parents house. Doing laundry, eating steak, and waiting until 7:30 so that we can go to the theatre and to see Star Trek. I'm at my parents house about once a week, if not more. Part of the reason is that I want to do laundry without spending a handful or quarters and eat good homecooked food. I guess the other part is that I made up my mind a little while ago that I want to have a better relationship with my family.

For starters, I guess should say that I have never really had a bad relationship with my family. Strained sometimes, maybe a lot of the time, but never bad. I guess my parents have kind of resigned that I am sort of the black sheep of the family, and I am resigned to accepting that title, but I think all in all we try to make the best of it.

Anyways, I came to this conclusion for a number of reasons. I think one of the main ones is genuine curiosity. From what relatively little I know about my grandparents, they seemed to have accomplished so much in their lives and I don't want to miss out on finding out about what my parents have done. As an example, yesterday I found out that my mom apparently synthesized street drugs in a drug screening lab at one point. A kind of random but nonetheless interesting fact.

Another reason is that I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I kind of person I want to be when I grow up. I think that having a closer relationship with my family can only serve to help me in my relationship with others, especially if I ever decide to have a family of my own.

I guess there's also the idea that they won't always be around forever, and I don't want to look back an regret not spending any more time with them while I had the chance.

That's it for tonight Sorry if this wasn't very interesting and just another really long Alex post. I'll get better about that as I start to write more often.

The previous post is what has been stored as a half finished draft by livejournal for the last 2 months. At this point it's kind of moot to try and finish it, since things are different (for the better) right now , but I kind of felt that it was an important to post what I felt in that moment even if it is just a mish mash of thoughts and words.

I figured the very least I could do is give you an up to date post. I really should post more often. I need to go to bed soon so I'll also try and make it quick.

First off, I bought a new bed! This is completely awesome for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it is a queen sized by wedged into 10 x 12 room. I like it a lot, but I need to buy sheets and pillows for it. Oh yeah, I also painted my room, so instead of being a soul sucking blood red it is now a a light age textured peachy color. That's an improvement right?

Umm, last weekend I took 2 days off from work and drove down to LA to visit my friends. I wanted to see them all before they all graduated and moved far, far away and for the most part I think I got almost all of them. On the first night I took my friend Angela out to eat at Black Angus in Ventura. I was actually pretty surprised as I had never been there before. Ribeye steak with sweet potato fries is the greatest. I got into Westwood at about 10pm and I met up with my old roommate Rogelio and we went out for drinks at Brewco. When I got to the Casa de Bonitas, I finally gave out xmas gifts. Five months really isn't that late when you really think about it. All of this while I was drunk. Not really sure how that happened... Anyways, note to self: Girls love chocolate and wine.

Friday, relaxed and hung out on campus. Went to a pot luck at night and then we all went to Spring Sing '09! That was really fun. They moved the show into Pauley, which seems to hold a lot more people than the tennis center, and that seemed like a pretty good move. For the most part I think it was a lot better than last year (although last year was good), although I have to admit I was a little bit disappointed about some of the awards at the end. The Taiko drum groups never seem to win anything, and they're probably one of my favorite acts. I guess the thing is that Taiko might not fit a proper award category since it is Spring "Sing" and it might be a bit of a stretch.

Umm, I'm going to stop writing now since I've already spent 30 minutes writing this entry and it's getting late. If you're wondering, the reason why this is appearing in the middle of my post is because I decided to go to bed in the middle of editing this post. To wrap things up, I had a lot of fun and I already miss all of my friend down in LA. Hopefully I'll see them in June!

Saturday night Liz and I made Girl Scout thin mints from a recipe from topsecretrecipes.com. It worked out pretty well, and by the 3rd set of cookings I think we had some decent thin mint clones. Couple notes for next time. More butter in the chocolate mint coating to help liquify it, bake the cookies a little longer than 10 mins to make them more crisp, add a lot more peppermint oil than the recipe requires and keep the chocolate very hot while dipping. I'm not sure if I'll actually make them again since it was more of a fun project than anything, but we'll see. People seemed to like them so that's always encouraging. I think my next cooking project will either the chicken strips or fish and chips, or maybe both at the same time.

Sunday - Tracked down my friend Lynn and caught a late brunch. I guess technically a late brunch is really just a normal lunch. Whichever. I had a really good chicken panini sandwich, went grocery shopping in 3 different stores, and then hung out at her place. I'm glad that I got a chance to see her since I almost wasn't able to catch her.

Today at the monthly production meeting I got awarded Villager of the Month, which is kind of like an employee of the month deal. I got a Shamwow and a day of PDO.... And a really massive trophy. Excellent. Oh yeah, and it's almost for certain that I will be spending 11 days in December in Peru, visiting Machu Pichu among other places.

Hmm, what else. Oh yeah, kind of thinking about getting laser eye surgery. Not really sure though. I guess I can afford it but it's still expensive enough that i need to give it some thought.

Hmm, so I guess to follow up on my last post. My dad got laid off from his job the other week. He had been working as a electrical engineer at the same place since before I was born, for the last 35 years. I guess I'm not really sure what to think, a mixture worried and pissed about it.

I guess to give the back story a little bit. my dad was actually planning on retiring in September. He had been making those plans for awhile, even before the recession hit and as far as I know was still going to stick with that plan regardless. When he got laid off, he was given enough severance to basically offset that. His company doesn't give pensions, so I guess financially, I think he got the equivalent of 6 months vacation. Supposedly part of the Obama stimulus plan might pay for a portion of his health insurance, but that isn't really for sure yet. I guess if he wanted to, I think technically he can file for unemployment, although I'm not sure if he wants to do that.

I guess what bothers me the most is the whole principle of the thing. I know how I would feel if I that happened to me. I think that my dad probably wouldn't have minded working those 6 months and then retiring and getting his little plaque. I know that getitng laid off can mess with your head. My dad says that he's okay, but I don't really know for real. I hope that he's fine and happy with it, but I guess I don't really know my dad that well.

My dad called me yesterday to tell me that he got laid off from the company that he has worked at for 35 years last week.

Hi Livejournal. Like always I've been meaning to post in you but never seem to have time. Tonight is not really an exception since it is 2 AM and I do have work tomorrow, but one of my goals for the weekend was to at least start writing in my blog again.

A few days ago I found out that I may have misplaced my labret piercing jewelry, having needed to swap it out for a retainer for work. I figured that this weekend I would head up sometime and buy a decent quality piece to make up for it. Didn't really have time for it on Saturday since that was the day that my family was celebrating Chinese New Year, and I didn't really have time for it on Sunday, what with the Super Bowl and all, but somehow I managed to fit it in. I convinced Chris to go too, and we decided to go to Staircase in Santa Cruz before we went to the big Super Bowl party.

It also helped that Saturday had gorgeous weather and I really wanted to get out of the apt. I also secretly wanted Chris to get his reverse PA again, but that was a secrety not so secret. Anyways, back to the story.

When we got there, Chris wanted to ask some tattoo questions because he was interested in getting his Capcom tattoo on the back of his neck. I think he figured that setting up an appointment could take weeks or months, but surprisingly they said they could do it right then. So yeah, the reverse PA plans turned into a tattoo, but I think it was a worthy trade. I won't really get into it since I'm sure Chris will post something.

So somewhere between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning I managed to convince myself that I needed some more piercings. I had actually given them a lot of thought, but wasn't quite sure that I could pull them off. I'll give the short summary since I really need some sleep.

-Got to the store, asked if I could get the piercings, and told my piercing Katrina that I was thinking about eventually stretching them
-Trina said that I didn't have to waste time waiting to stretch a piercing, because she had some 8 gauge needles that could do it right then and there.
-Piercing was pretty straight forward. THe most painful part wasn't the initial entry penetration, but rather the exit puncture. I swear there was an audible pop even though there wasn't any cartilage in the area.
-Actually getting the jewelry in was a bit uncomfortable.
-I didn't actually get the jewelry I originally came for because it was such a simple piece
-I'm really happy with the way my new stuff turned out
-the end, goodnight.

Ok, I would write more but I really have to go to sleep now. Night livejournal!

So this weekend I woke up early Saturday morning to head down to Los Angeles. The plan was to try and surprise my friend Liz for her birthday, albeit two days late. I wasn't quite sure that would be happening however as my old roommate the night before had posted something to the effect of 'OH MY GOD HOW COME YOU DID'T TELL US THAT YOU WERE COMING TO LOS ANGELES' on my facebook wall. I was kind of sad that my original totally badass present to her didn't quite work out as planned, so I ended up getting her a cupcake book instead.

Some stuff happened in the hour or two between these two paragraphs, but this entry is getting way too long.

The venue that Automatic Drawing was playing at was the Viper Room. The Viper Room kind of surprised me because I had expected something a little bigger and fancier from what I had heard, but it turned out to be a small intimate venue not unlike the Pound in Hunter's Point. Advantage goes to the Viper Room since walking out the door takes you right to Sunset whereas walking out the door at the Pound could get you shot if you took a wrong turn.

Anyways, Automatic Drawing turned out to be really good. Liz's friend Drew had a really good stage presence and was able to touch the crowd pretty well. The rest of the band, while not quite as engaging, was eclectic enough I think to make things more interesting. As far as sound goes, I would say the vocals were akin to Death Cab/Postal Service with a hint of Irish Punkiness. See 'Captain and the Sea' if you want to hear what I'm talking about. The first couple songs I wasn't so sure about, but once they got into it things really took off. There were at least 3, maybe 4 songs that I could easily imagine hitting 105.3's regular playlist and at least for me that says a lot.

The next band on stage was United by Sound. I thought they put on a pretty kick ass live show, although I'm still not sold on them. Little bit of reggae/hip hop and some other improv music styles. The singer had a really smokey sexy voice, but yeah, I guess it's just too far away from what I normally listen to for me to have a solid opinion. Like I said though, great live show. I'd link their myspace but their live stuff has a completely different sound, so I'm not too sure what's up with that. Oh well, I guess it couldn't hurt. Oh yeah, I'm told that all the band members were total hotties, except for Eugene Levi.

Spent the night on the couch after watching Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I was originally planning on leaving relatively early, like just after lunch or something, but that didn't really work out so well. It really didn't occur to me until I got to Los Angeles that the amount of time that I would be staying there was only slightly longer than the time it took to drive there and back. Anyways, I ended up making chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast for everyone. They didn't turn out half bad, considering I had never made pancakes before. I also decided to make some artichokes from a recipe that I found on the internet about a week earlier. I didn't really expect them to take about 3 hours to cook and prepare, but whatever. I think they turned out alright, although next time I think I'll be a lot more liberal with the chicken stock and the salt.

Hmm, what else.. Met Ashley's parents who were really cool and I got a chance to talk to her dad for a bit. Watched Yevi spontaneously zonk out on the couch on multiple occasions. Got lots of awesome Liz hugs. Got squished by a couple Alex hugs. Avoided paying 15-20 dollars for a dragon fruit thanks to Ellen. Hmm, then I went home!

The trip home was pretty uneventful except for that one epiphany and the enormous police escort guarding a mystery giant white cube strapped to a truck at 1 am in the morning, blocking the whole 4 lane road, and using signal changers to prevent people from getting within 50 yards.

Okay so you may have noticed the large number of posts spewing out of this account. Basically they were all backlogged in the form of word docs that I wrote in the week after we got back. Some of them are not as complete as I would like, but I kind of figured at this point it would be better to just get them out and post them rather than sit and nitpick for the next six months. Plus I promised not to write another lj post until I got them out, so yeah here they are!

I think the most obvious thing that got left out was the section about the Hoh Rain Forest, which was probably one of the highlights of the trip. I figured that because we literally took hundreds of pictures of the area and it was a mostly visual experience, I would let the pictures speak for themselves.

Anyways, despite what it may have looked like from some of the descriptions, I had a great time on this trip. Probably one of the cooler things about it is that Chris and I never really got sick of each other, despite being in close quarters for over a week solid. I remember specifically when we were sitting in our car at our campsite in Honeyman Dunes. We had just got there and found that our designated site had literally become a lake in the steady rain. The sunlight was starting to fade really fast, and it would have been so easy to just give up and sleep in the car at night. But no, Chris and I toughed it out, set up the tent in the dark with the freezing rain at our backs and I'm glad we did. There were a few moments like that, but I think both Chris and I were able to take something that inherently sucks (like sleeping in a puddle, or walking around in the freezing cold) and turn it into something really fun.

Okay, now I guess I can start writing about current events or whatever now.

Oh yeah, special entry for Ravi coming up next, make sure you're logged in if you want to see it!

Erm, Reno sucked. Every hotel was booked because of the long weekend. We almost snagged a motel room but this old guy ran in front of us and snagged the last room. We gambled a little bit, and of coarse lost all our money. We decided to look for a room outside the city a little bit, but nope, everything was booked solid and besides that, expensive as hell. At that point, we were pretty frustrated since it was late at night, we were exhausted from a 12 hr drive, and we said fuck it we're going home after seeing that the Bay Area was only 3.5 hrs away.

-The end

Boise sucks, its scary and dark and there’s nothing there at all. Yelp was right. ‘No local flavor’ whatsoever. Plus, according to my friend Ellen there’s lots of skinheads there. It wasn’t all bad though, we did stop at IHOP and met a crazy waiter.

Yeah, Boise doesn't even need an ljcut.

On sunday I went to hang out with my friend Lynn in San Francisco. She's one of my UCLA friends but she was up here visiting for the weekend so we decided to do the lunch thing. Anyways, she was staying with her friend who grew up in the Presidio. I guess I didn't really realize it before, but that part of the Presidio was really really ritzy. Maybe only a few blocks away from the Lucas Arts campus and the Palace of fine arts. Whenever I think of the Presidio I always just think of the army buildings or the places next to the Bay.

We ate lunch was at The Boulange, some bakery cafe type deal. I had a smoked salmon sandwich and a fruit danish. Decent food if a bit pricey compared to the quality, but I guess what you paying for is mostly location, which I guess was right in the heart of the Presidio.

I had a dream about my UCLA friends the other day and we were at a party, and when I woke up I was all sad.

On my way back, I passed a pretty interesting scene unravelling on 19th ave. On the other side of the street were 2 police cruisers blockading the whole side. Police officers were crouched behind their open car doors with their guns drawn. About 20 ft in front of them was a car with its drivers side door open, and a black guy sitting in the seat.

Ok, I promise that my next posts will be the follow ups to our road trip. Most of the posts have been written, I just need to take the time and create a flickr account to host the pictures.

We actually went to more than just 2 places, I've just been waiting to get all of the pictures together to try and make a more complete set of postings. I'll get back on it in a day or two, though as it is there's still about 5 or 6 pages of writing backlogged that just needs to be c/p'd into lj from word.

Anyways, today I officially moved out from LA for real. Spent the morning with some last minute goodbyes and moving my bed over to a friends apartment. After that I finished up 3 hours of packing that I probably should have done the night before. I drove up on 101 even though it added an hour or two to the trip just because I-5 is so incredibly boring. It kind of occurred to me that I have probably personally driven on every major roadway in california from top to bottom. Random.

Tonight I'll be staying at my parents house, and tomorrow I'll be sorting out all my stuff and deciding which things I can pack away in storage and which things i will bring with me. Oh yeah, Chris is going to be putting me up in his apt for awhile, so yeah..

I'm really glad that I came back to Los Angeles to finish moving up rather than go home early. I spent pretty much the whole time hanging out with my friends, some of whom had been gone for most of the summer, it at was great. I'm not sure quite how, but I think I totally lucked out when I got to UCLA. I miss them already, but I guess that just means I need to visit LA more often!

Oh yeah, so there's actually a couple songs out there in radio world that have given me a little faith that the music scene is still alive.

Wild Internacional - One Day as a Lion
Zach still has it, though I'm kind of curious about what's going on with RATM, and I hope their next album, if there is one, isn't just about how much they hate Bush.

Placebo - Pure Morning


This is actually cheating, because its actually a few years old, but I heard it on 105.3 today, so that counts as new-ish. I just find the lyrics to be ridiculous, plus it's Placebo who have yet to let me down.