Drunk and Tahoe

Had a work party, had 5 glasses of wine. I am somewhat drunk. Garglays is good about having alot of alcohol at parties. Saw that our company really has alot of cute girls. Damn I need to make some moves!

So.. tahoe this weekend?

Well I went this past weekend. It was an adventure. First off we stayed at the Nugget off Reno. Very odd hillbilly hotel with all white trash. Reno was totally sold out so no choice. Cost us $140 a night which isn't that great for a 3-star hotel at best. Also lost there.

I won big at Harrah's, which would continue my streak if not for the massacre at Nugget.

At Squaw, we hit blizzard conditions and visibility for me sucked ass. I need to learn to wear goggles more rather than shades.

On the way home Sunday, it took a whopping 5 hrs to get from Reno to 80/89 junction, then 5 hours to get from 80/89 to Auburn. During the treck my spikes-spiders detached and I had to go run across the highway to recover them! Geezus christ!! I didn't screw them in tight enough, good lesson learned! It was literally 50 miles of chain controls in the more bizzare weather imaginable. Gusting walls of snow and ice, snow down to 3000 ft elevation, crazy. We had to pee 2 times on the side of the road due to the 13 hour total commute. Yeah left at like 1230pm, and got home at 130am. Oh my god.. it was horrible.

I have a room booked for this coming weekend.. but I don't know if I can survive another long drive. I am dead.

Life is hell.

Perhaps a Realization

Perhaps I've realized something.. its that I haven't been that happy a person either w/ or w/o a girlfriend. I think having a nice gf was covering up for alot of other inadequacies in my life. I hadn't been that happy with my career/work life and hadn't really found greater meaning in life.

I can distinctly and succinctly recall that struggle over finding some passion in life even while w/ my ex-gf. I think having the gf around kind of dulls some of the pain and lets you live day to day because you have a partner in life and you realize its not all about work. Take out that one piece of the puzzle and you have exposed a house of cards. It comes crashing down all of a sudden.

Equate this to my situation at work. It was never great at my present job, but factor in big bonuses and fat OT and you cover up the pains. You remove the OT and alas, another house of cards is exposed. It exposes alot of the pain and misery of the situation.

I didn't mean to be so dreary! Work isn't that bad. Its been a bit of a downer week since my boss decided she didn't want to pay OT anymore! But alas.. gets me to think about what it is I really want to do, rather than letter the benefits hide the problems.

I must recount my Tahoe trip this weekend.. it was so intense, it deserves a seperate blog.

My week of being 34

Well I think I had a bit of a shitty week.

Lets see.. was really tired on my birthday morning. Been going to work late all week as a result of being unmotivated. Got somewhat rejected by this girl I was hitting on at Jillians on Weds. Got rejected by a girl online who I hadn't even met because she thought I made some type of sexist comment about how girls don't eat Pho! WTF is going on man? Korean class was tough, I feel that I'm falling behind there too!

And then the topper is that my boss tells us we shouldn't be working OT! ?? wtf dude, life is getting really lame. Oh man, I gotta turn things around before I kill myself. Its all nagging stupid things though. Alas.. what can I do god dammit.

Life at 34 is starting rough. Oh well.

Passions Part 1

"People who don't have passions don't struggle."

From Po.Bronson's famous book.

Hmm.. yes its interesting to read that. I had often wondered if others have such conflict in their lives or if they are just happy palappy and lived on day to day and accept things as they are.

Pres Day Weekend

This weekend always falls around my birthday, so happy bday to myself.

Nothing too exciting this weekend, my friend karakka is in town so we are hanging out w/ him in sacto. Sacto is a town.. probably much like Charlotte. I wonder how life would be in Charlotte. The only reason I consider this outside possibility is that Bachovia is there, and my coworkers are from there. You can basically take you SF salary into this town where a nice 5br house costs about 600k. At times i'd like to live the easier life where I don't have to worry about trying to make an extra buck just to get ahead.

Anyways I dominated in tennis today, but tombo was a bit injured. 6-3; 7-6 (7-4); 6-1. My serve is getting better and I'm coming to the net more. Just gotta work on hitting more forehand winners. I tend to play too conservatively at times instead of trying to kill the ball and hit with dominance.

May go snowboarding tomorrow. Otherwise I may do some laundry when I return.

Part of my new plan is to cut expenses. I realize after looking at my tabs that laundry close to $100/month to outsource it. My expenses to cut:
- rent (hard to do)
- laundry
- gym
- phone/internet
- lunch
Some aren't worth cutting or are not feasible. We'll see how it goes.

Tennis Again!

Dammit, I lost tonight. I played 5 sets. It was excruciating to play for almost 3 hours, but it was fun. I feel like Rocky in the 10th round.. when you are tired as hell its all about who has the will to win.

Apparently my will is not quite there. Lost to tombo. 6-4; 1-6; 3-6; 6-4; 3-6

My back is tight/sore now. Its really great to play 5 sets. You gotta dig deep !!!!

I actually cut my korean class to go play tennis! haha

V-day here

I think this is the first valentines I haven't had someone in mind. I've been in serial relationships for so long.. its hard to remember what the heck life was like when I was single before.

I have alot of time to focus on something. I think I'll focus on Math. Yes, math!!! Its the only thing pure left in life. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I think that is a better and more fruitful focus than Korean class or finding hot babes to mess around with.

I will start with linear algebra, since I hate to admit I never took.

Thats what my life has become.

I have to try not to feel old. If I want to do something, I still have time in my life now to do it.

Feelings.....

are that life kinda sucks. all i can do is just keep going forward man.

can't let things get you down at times. i don't think its because of valentines day or anything. i think its just the overwhelming fact of life that the grass is always greener, and that you never really have what you think you want, or not when you think you need it.

i had a few glasses of wine tonight, so i'm on a rambling fit.

anyways, i know life isn't bad. life is okay. life is good. i live in the 99-percentile of living standards in the world, probably 93% in the US, etc. not much to complain about right now. but still.. we are human so we want more and more.

i can't say its a woman i need. maybe.. who knows. i've been looking for something for years and years. once i used to say that i was looking for something that doesn't exist. i am not sure about that, but still i feel i need to find some focus soon.

maybe i can just play wc3.

V-Day Approaches!!

And what do I have lined up? Nothing!!

I actually don't think I'd want to go on a date w/ anyone because its too much pressure to go out on that day. Too cheezy. But alas, what will I do instead? I don't know. I was thinking I should go out with either a) guy friends, or b) female friends, or c) a gang of friends. Not sure yet.

I had recently converted most of the girls I dated more than a few times to 'friend' status. I think it is going well. Although I don't know how well. Good to have new single friends to hang out with, but I'm one who is not too sure that guy-girl relationships can really be purely platonic (a word we all learned as kids due to Three's Company).

Oh well, v-day is coming up, I guess by default maybe I'll go to the gym or something lame like that. Alas.. thats how life is now.

I love to think of Rocky Balboa.. life is going to beat you down man, you just gotta keep going forward!!! Yes!!! Thats exactly it!

Life in the Bay

Interesting thing.. I met this girl tonight after a work event somewhat randomly.

Girl is a wharton MBA and works in corp strategy. Power player. Alot like my friend Breg who worked at BCeeG and later went to corp strategy.

Bay area has alot of power players. I can't tell you how many top 10 MBA's, lawyers, and doctors there are floating around. Alot single, alot married, alot soon to be single. I personally am not intimidated, but I wonder at times what type of guys they are looking for. If you are like Bally Hu, one of our top portfolio managers who is an ex-MIT, ex-NY/Wall Street analyst, where do you go from there? In her case she married some PhD researcher. Its tough out there when you are at the top!

My old boss from BoneyPage recently quit (or was asked to quit) Boradle. He has the same problem finding jobs. When you are an ex VP, you have only so many VP jobs to pick from. It often means traveling the earth to keep your prestigious title and salary.

Oh well it was a long night. I need to try to wake up at 6am like the rest of the CEO population.

Death in the Family

Well my uncle died a week or so ago. I never met this guy. My mom hadn't seen him in years either. Basically it was a stranger, but yet, it was family. Interesting to think you may not talk to your own sibling for years. Back in the old years before internet and telephone that would be normal. Today.. there is less of an excuse. Mom had 6 bros and sisters. Many died young, and now there are like only 4 left of the 7. She is getting old.

A bit of six-degrees of seperation, but a very shocking story on life and death.. My friend Boo's roommate has a redhead friend who is a lawyer and bartender. I've met her a few times. Redhead has a boyfriend who was an artist and apparently unstable (met him once). Well 3 nights ago they were fighting or having issues (redhead and bf) and he said "I love you" and then proceeded to climb to the roof of her apt and jump (3 stories). Redhead heard a pop/crack outside and looked down on the street and her boyfriend was there lying motionless face up. She ran downstairs to his side and while he was not quite dead, blood was oozing out of his eyes and back of his head as he looked up at her with his last breaths of life. She screamed (3am mind you) and yelled for an ambulance and eventually ran up to call 911. By the time she came down his head had swelled up and he was dead. Coroner said his skull was fractured into hundreds of pieces.

Now is that the most shocking story you've heard before? I met this guy but don't remember him at all. But still, it is shocking that someone would do this. The thing about suicide is that it is a selfish act in some ways because you hurt your family and friends in return for escaping your personal suffering. The pain that this redhead is going thru now must be unbearable. She's going to think all her life how she could have stopped this and etc etc. His friends and family will also think the same. Lives will be forever changed and damaged. Even me, as a person well seperated from them is shocked.

Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done. Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that!. -Rocky Balboa

Dice and Craps

Interesting thing I thought of with regards to rolling dice in craps.

For those who don't know, if you roll 7 anytime except in the beginning (more or less) you will lose. 7 is the most common combination for 2 -6 sided dice so the house has a tremendous advantage. Hit almost anything else and you can win!

Some basics on probabilities.

Different combinations of 2 dice: 36
Ways to hit 7: 1:6 2:5 3:4 ... so 6/36
Ways to hit 6: 1:5 2:4 3:3 ... so 5/36
Ways to hit 5: 1:4 2:3 ... so 4/36
Ways to hit 4: 1:3 2:2 3:1 so 3/36
..
..

Anyways you can put a $25 bet on the 4, which pays you $50 (buying the pt), but they charge you a $1 vig (vigorish). You get paid 2:1 on the 4, because the odds of hitting a 4 before a 7 are 6/36 vs 3/36 or 2:1. Same principal applies for all the other #'s (4,5,6,8,9,10).

There's another way to bet the 4, you can put $25 on the line (no vig) where $5 pays $9. So $25 pays you $45. Buying the pt earns you an extra $4. Buying a 5 ($25 pays 3:2 = $37.50 - $1 = $36.50) vs placing a 5 ($25 pays 7:5 = $35) earns you $1 bonus. Buying a 6 or 8 is a losing proposition.

Well thats not my point, but it was interesting wasn't it? Now you are a craps master. Throw down $100 and yell "buy the 4 and 10 $50 each". Note you may have to pay the vig up front in some casinos (so keep $4 change ready).

Next interesting thing I pondered was how to throw the dice optimally. Physics aside.. if you could roll dice and keep the dice rolling on a single axis, what would that mean? There is something to this. Oddly enough most people pair up their dice 3-3 up, facing the same way. I've come to find that this is the worst possible lineup of dice you can do!

More later.. getting tired. And bored of this stupid topic.

Dinners

Tonights dinner?

Broccoli and Chili.

While I am single and alone, I need to live it up with these types of meals. Its quite a good meal.. not sure if canned chili (turkey) is good for you given all the preservatives, but brocoli certainly is.

I'm eating like a college kid again. Actually I eat healthier this way at times. I often will just eat cereal, salad, tofu, brocolli, etc.

As a joke I spelled brokoli different everytime. Wow I'm so clever. Lame.

Hows the latest action? Nah, no action (well had some action recently but nothing big to report). I'm done with dating already. Admittedly I'd like to find someone.. but alas its not happening now. My only resort is to just move on with life and let it take me wherever it is going to take me!