December 2000

12/12/2000

Today I had my German 143 final. Have you ever had one of the professors that is so out there in the academic ether, that after 10 minutes of lecture you go…what the hell just happened?? This quarter I had one of those for a class called German 143, Superhuman. The intent of the class was to explore the concept of the superhuman. More to the point we were trying to explore how someone might transcend humanity, and the road to that transformation. There are atypical traits of someone trying to achieve it. In broad strokes there are elements of strife, moral and ethical departure from societal norms, and did I mention pain? Lots of pain!! Physical, emotional and psychological pain! Part of the class was a research project. We had to do a case study on a fictional figure we hadn't discusses in class.

I chose Neo from The Matrix! Woohaaa!! I essentially called his characterization, a sort of Neo-Christ. I argued and according to the TA, argued successfully, that Neo represented a 2 parts of the Holy Trinity. To me his story looked disturbingly close to the Son and The Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost. 5 pages later, I think I constructed a good argument. My TA said that I nailed it!

12/13/2000

Requiem to a friend…

You ever have one of those friends you kick it with, think the world of them, but something happens and you go WTF? I had one of those epiphanies recently about someone I used to kick it with.

Perception is a helluva thing. You may perceive a situation to be cool and totally benign. You may get swept up in the 'fun' of a thing. I love to have to fun! It's one of those things that make life worth living, ya know? Unfortunately, I think this thing called maturity is kicking it. Dammit maturing sucks! Anyway, this person showed me something about themselves that I was consciously avoiding. The 'fun' was masking other stuff.

In a way, I will miss them…I miss them already…

12/14/2000 Today Max had ear surgery. He was having problems hearing. Beth and I went to see him in outpatient surgery during our lunch break. They went in and removed fluid from his ears, removed his adnoids, tonsils and did some other stuff. He was really groggy afterwards. When I went back to see him, his mom Cami introduced me as his Dad…haha. Mind you Max is blonde! Lol! I call him my other little brother. The surgery went well and they expect him to fully recover his hearing. He has to limit his activities though…so none of the sports he likes to do so much.

12/15/2000

Our holiday party was today. I was on the committee and some how I got put in charge of music. I found out later on, they just wanted me to man a 5-disc changer and make sure the music was loud enough. Bleh. The food was great and everyone had a great time. The high light of the day was that I was getting compliments left and right! Lol! It was probably the suit…black single breasted, with a metallic teal shirt and matching tie. Yes that Regis look! Haha! Well it must have been a shock, because I'm usually in t-shirts, shorts, or running pants and my nikes. Lol! People were saying I lost weight too. Could ya ask for a better X-mas present!?!? After the party I went home and got ready for my drive to LA. Why not leave straight from the party you might ask? Well hell, if you don't time it just right a 90-minute jaunt to LA becomes a 3-hour ordeal!! Not fun stuff.

12/16/2000

Lights! Camera! Action! The youth of my father's church had a banquet/fashion sort of thing. As usual my father was handling the sound. That translated to arriving 2 hours before everyone and leaving 3 hours after everyone left. The show went very.

12/17/2000

Pops and I played tennis…lol. It was fun! I went easy on him. :-)

12/22/2000 No work till 1/3/2000!! Wooohaa!! Can we say very nice boys and girls?!?! I am so looking forward to this break!

Took my car to get the brakes looked, cause I'll be doing A LOT of driving over the break. Is customer service dead or something?!? Took my car to Discount Muffler and Brakes in SB, and the guy was a total jerk! I took my car there less than a year a go to have the brakes done, on advice of a co-worker. Ended up getting new front rotors and pads. 11,000 miles and 6 months later I'm getting rotors resurfaced and new pads put on. 10,000 miles and 5 months later I'm having problems again. They say I'm riding my brakes. They say it's too much heat. I say it's too easy to point the blame some place else. I don't race my car and I don't ride my brakes. I will NOT be taking my car back there again. Truth be told, I've always wanted to upgrade my brakes and suspension. The car is really heavy but powerful (lots of torque), but it's sloppy around corners and doesn't stop very well. Someone suggested cross-drilled rotors and beefier pads to improve stopping. That idea sounds good. Plus changing the springs, shocks, adding a stiffer ant-sway bar (front and back; the rear wiggles a lot), and better tires would help. There's no way I'm doing all that right now, but better brakes are in the works.

After I got my car (thanks to a very nice coworker!), I went over to John and Cami's (Cami=Cammy's in the entries, I've been spelling her name wrong lol). Beth, Michael, Sammy (their new baby girl), Dave and Eydie came over and we all hung out. We didn't do anything major or anything. All we did was hang out chill with each other, and that was cool enough. Max is doing much better. Tasha Fed-Ex'ed us a whole mess of 7-up cake!! Damn they're good! Had no idea the girl could bake! It was a cool night, especially seeing I probably won't see them till next year.

Happy Holidays you guys!!

12/23/2000

Drove down to Ventura and hung out with KC. She's house sitting for a friend of hers. Our schedules have been as such that this was the first time in months that we have been able to see each other. From what she said, she works crazy hours...12-14 hours days for 7-10 days a time. I'd love to have that OT!

12/24/2000

And 5 hours later I'm in Oakland! I could have made better time, but that whole CHP element was in the way. Loaded up like Santa I was clocking...hmm...his sled is red and my car is red...any correlation there you think?

12/25/2000

My brother made out like a friggin bandit! My Mom bought a computer recently, and we both had the same idea about getting him software. He ended up getting about 7 different titles, not to mention, all the toys and what not he also received. I made out REALLY well. My bro gave me a card with something inside straight from his piggy bank. :) My moms is giving me enough money to pay for about half of my computer!! Woohaaa! I expect by mid next month I will have a comp that will kick butt and take names later!

One of the games me and Nate (lil bro-ham) have been playing is Battleship. Peep this, I got him the board game and then my mom bought him the computer version. The damn thing is coming in, in stereo!

12/26/2000

Tasha and I went into "The City" (in other words San Francisco lol). We went to the Metrion center and I felt like a kid in a candy store! I guess the center is devoted to Sony products...you know what that means! Playstation 2, Surround Sound, and games oh my! It was my first time seeing a Playstation 2 in action...wooha! And the games (graphics and sound) were a helluva lot better than I had imagined! Yea sure you can read about the specs of the PS2, but seeing that badboy in action is a different story altogether! May be Santa will be nice next year...haha.

Hyper Bowling is off da hook!!! By way of explanation...there are "pins" and there is a "ball", but it's all on screen!! You and your friend(s) sit in front of the huge screen and you bowl down the streets of a particular city. You 'roll' your ball by pushing on this huge weighted trackball/mouseball looking contraption. The tripping thing is sometimes you have to roll your ball UP hill, around trolley cars, and other obstacles. Did I mention the time limit to get your ball from the start to the pins? The scoring and rules of regular bowling applied. Oh, did I also mention that I WON?! Before Tasha was all "oooh I gotta play this game...this game is all me and what not" lol To be fair to Tasha I won by one point...but a win is a win...if it's a blow out by 50 points or 1 point...it still gets you a win in your win column! wooha! wooha!

"Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger"...dude that movie is off da hook. The fight sequences alone is worth the ticket. Remember those old school 'Kung Fu Theater' flicks? Guys jumping up in one spot and landing clear across town, doing ridiculous acrobatics while fighting in the air, and all that? This movie is straight old school like that, but imagine The Matrix's fight scenes on crack! And guys, there IS a love story in this, so it would make a decent date movie. It's not that hokey foo-foo, boo-hoo, crappy love story either, it's actually kinda tight. On Tony's movie scale its worth "Full Price".

12/27/2000

Wow...a date...a real hey I think she's cool, she thinks I'm cool, kicking it, talking getting to know each other date. Whoa... I've been talking to Ilana for awhile, and since I was in the Bay Area we decided to give it a shot. Well aside from the fact that she's 5 hours away driving (in the Bay Area), it wasn't an easy thing to just pick up and do. She's tall with subtle mediterranean features (with her parents being Moroccan and Isreali), but her most striking feature are her eyes. Couldn't help but feel she wasn't looking in at me, but IN me. So we met up and drove around Marin county talking and site seeing, and then we headed into The City (SF; I'm gonna have talk to these Bay Area folks about calling it that! lol). We had sushi at this cool lil hole in the wall innocous sushi joint. We basically closed the place...yes the conversation was that good. The thing that brought us in was the rock garden that stood out like a sore thumb on Chestnut street. After that we walked around and popped into this random coffee house, cause I was needing something sweet (don't go there! lol) after the sushi. She got this incredible chocolate cake and I got some BOMB tiramisu. Sweet tooth satisfied, we went walked around some more. All in all it was good night!!

Serious thought: At the end of the night I started thinking about my grandfather (on my father's side in Virginia). He's a pastor and one of the coolest upstanding men I've ever met. Unfortunately, he had major heart surgery and things were getting worse for a time. I hope and pray he's getting better.

12/28/2000

Little brothers can be soo cool! My brother Nathaniel is da bomb!! The boy is smart as a whip, funny as hell to be around, and just da bomb! I am too damn happy that I was able to spend the week with him. HOWEVER, if any of you catch me saying that I want to have kids anytime in the near future, reach back and pimp slap me!! lol I love my little brother, I love kids in general, kids seem to like me back, but I'm not ready for them right now. I hope it's not incredibly selfish to say that I have a lot of personal growing to do before kids can be a part of the picture...school, work and so on. Not to mention that actually BEING with someone precludes having kids...being with someone in that committed for life kinda way...e.g. marriage. Another thing, that I'm not in a rush to do...

...everything in their own time...

We ended the day really cool-like...my brother and I made cookies together. He was in charge of greasing the pans and rehydrating the raisins. Tasha sent some of us a letter, and in it she talks about watching kids learning things for the first time. I didn't get what she was saying till I was watching Nate. We made oatmeal raisin with coconut and white chocolate macadamia nut. The former of these came out MUCH better. The white chocolate chips one fell after coming out of the ove. Like a dope (!) I wasn't concentrating on that recipe while working with my lil bro...grr! Some of the cookies are for Jay and Allison whom I've made a trade with...get this...a 50 pack of CD-R's and a batch of soft cookies (cause Jay has braces) for an old IBM 7200RPM 14.5 GB hard drive...wooohaa!

12/29/2000

Went into SF with Mom and Nate to run errands...and you know what the place is beginning to grow on me. Think of all the cities you may have been to. Now seperate those cities that have character and those that don't. LA seems to be a wannabe city. It tries desperately to have character, but in terms of the social and cultural it's not really there. SF has immense character. While Nate and I were sitting on bench watching people go by and talking it really hit home. Parking and rent off the hook, but it's still a very cool place.

We also went to the SF Zoo...that was really cool too. Unfortunately Nate decided to pitch a fit all day. He needed talking to. Basically he was upset that I was leaving today. Damn I love that kid...

I drove down to San Mateo to meet up with Jay and Allison...woohaa! They got a Play Station 2..and dang it's tight! Allison was in line at Target at 4:30 in the morning waiting for it! Who said boys are the only ones who liked toys?!?! haha! So far I've played Ridger Racer V...it's aiight. But then they have SSX, this snowboarding game...now that's what im talking about! Graphics, moves, sound, the announcer...it's all off da hook!!

12/30/2000

Whoa today was a busy...drove down to Fry's and this other computer store (mickey mouse joint...bleh!) Why did we go? Well we needed to do some toy shopping! I needed to pick up parts for my computer and Jay and Allison wanted some stuff. Unfortunately, either a) the stuff we wanted was out of stock or b) it was too much. Check out the Technology page for buying info on stuff BEFORE you walk into a computer store.

You think CompUSA gives you the best price? Think again. Costco your answer? Wrong! There isn't a single merchant that has the cheapest of everything (why do think they try to beat each other's prices all the time??). Look around, ask questions, do the research, and don't impulsive shop!

Jay ended up getting a kick butt USB scanner. Allison got a cool Antec case in ruby (no less) for her new computer. I bought an Antec case (but mine has more drive bays and a bigger power supply), a floppy drive, and an ELSA Gladiac GeForce2MX 32MB AGP video card!! If you know what this is, give me some daps!

Finally tonight, as my X-mas present to Jay and Allison I made them dinner...first course/appetizers were carribean style spiced wings with a mango chutney glaze (chutney courtesy of Moms), main course of a chicken, beef sausage and shrimp gumbo, and finally bananas foster for desert. We easily consumed about 7500 calories because of dinner...lol

12/31/2000 > 1/1/2001

Tonight at the behest of Jay and Allison I stayed in San Mateo...truthfully I wanted to be here too :) It was most fortunate to spend New Years with such good friends. Jay fixed us this incredible dinner...filet mignon wrapped in bacon (marinaded and then grilled over mesquite charcoal to perfection), an assortement of sauteed wild mushrooms, twice baked potatos with truffle oil, and this very nice green salad. Dessert was coupe de grace...he made, from scratch: chocolate mousse, topped with freshly whipped whip cream, and dusted with cocoa...and along the sides of the desert dish were fresh blackberries. Whoever said that men couldn't cook, need to kick it with me and my friends! Woohaa! Earlier in the day we played tennis for a couple of hours, sorry to say, but I beat Jay. :-) Ok, so I can be a bit competive! lol We also played a lil PS2, hung out, and around midnite watched the Dick Clarke thing on tv. What's up with the blantant Disney presence on that!?!?

2000 is over...we've been spared the dreaded Y2K bug...lol...social order has remained (as well as it always was lol), the stock market didn't crash, and millions of people were not left without power. I look back and see a year of some serious ups and downs...personally, professionally, academically, socially, spiritually, and many other levels. The year however came out in the plus side. I was able to spend some quality time with my little brother Nathaniel. I was able to get closer to some really cool people (Jay, Allison, Beth, Tasha, Micheal, John, Cami, Mollie, Max, Dave and Eydie, just to name a few). I am now officially a graduating senior, and unless I really mess up, something unexepcted happens, I will be finished with my undergraduate work by the end of the summer.

I guess I could whine and complain about how much better this or that could be, or how this situation could have been different, or something else. Sure, I wish I was done with school sooner. Yea I wish I was loosing weight faster. Dammit I wish I could learn those forms in Tae Kwon Do faster! lol And of course the usual...no girlfriend, little money, and all that. It's hard, but still necessary, to remind oneself however, that as long as you are moving towards a set of goals, you are on your way to something. The alternative of being stuck, not knowing, feeling sorry for oneself, etc. is not very appealing...

I hope (for myself and others), they don't see this last year as wasted. Rather we look back and see the strides they have made...both the great ones and the small ones. Dream, believe, and do...we owe ourselves at least this much...

To everyone...Happy New Year!!

Here's to what might be this coming year...