Deadnight

Tonight I did nothing. I should go to the gym or something and be active. I just went home.. and am doing nothing. I am becoming nothing.

I'm crossing journals again, because I shouldn't be writing work related things here. I talked to our Global Head of IT today and feel that there is opportunity in this team to grow.. but maybe not under my current line manager. GarGlays is a great company to be at for sure.

Anyways I need to start dating again. Need to start meeting some new girls thats the first step. I am in need of a new avenue or vehicle for meeting girls though. Hmmmm...

I need to go to Asia and see how Vic is doing. That bastard is in some CitiCard Advertisement believe it or not. I thought he left Citi. Quite odd. I have an interview at NikkoCiti on Sunday.

Hills Have Eyes -- So Horrifically Bad....

I don't want to be a mover reviewer but let me tell you... rarely will you see a movie as bad and brutal as this one. Its just bad. Real bad.

There was one hot chick in it and she doesn't even get close to naked. WTF???? Jeez what a royal waste. Well we had a few hours to kill on Sunday in SD, so we decided to watch it. Man, we should have just re-watched 300. Oh well thats life man.

In other news.. I am getting fat and old.

I recall I ran on the beach where the frolicking 20 y/o's were partying on Saturday.. after a slight warmup I raced tombo in about a 120m dash. I only ran about 90m and quit. He was going to crush me, I don't have the endurance. However, just from the 90m sprint my legs are sore. Isn't that sad? Running in sand is tough, but man... wtf. I need to get into shape. Like a Spartan.

I think its my last stand. I said that the last few years but I think its really true. I have only a few more years before I can literally not be in top shape anymore due to aging, sagging, and creaking bones.

Now if I can just wake up to go to the gym one morning......

Rosarita!!!

http://www.rosarito.papasandbeer.com/

During my life as an undergrad I really didn't party. My idea of a party was going to the pizza shack, sharing a pitcher and pizza with some CS dudes or going to a club w/ my Accounting classmates. Nothing hardcore by any means.

I went to Papas And Beer and got just a taste of the real spring break hard partying college lifestyle that a) I missed, and b) I fear for my future kids. Its a place of total wildness like the girls gone wild videos. Lots of drinking, lots of skin, wild times, and who knows what. It must be fun, but alas.. it can also be dangerous!

The weekend was to reconnect w/ the boyz. Gil, Karaka, and Tombo. Its fun to do an all guys thing. We mostly stayed in SD, but going to Mexico was interesting. I smoked some fake Cubans, drank alot, ate like 30 tacos. Pretty fun overall. SD is a beautiful city. I'd consider moving there, but my problem with moving anywhere is having a lack of people to hang out w/.

I find it hard to connect with people I have just met. Even people from work I've met recently for example.. while they are available to hang out, I just don't feel the real bond that I do with friends from 8 years ago. I guess it takes time.

In the social dating scene I'm feeling like I need to start dating again. I started to think about how girls are generally not that aggressive, and they depend on the men to be (not all, but majority). If you are a strikingly handsome or magnetic guy, then it may come easy, but for others its apparent that you need to be attack/hunting mode. I really avoided all that hunting in my old days because I was lucky to have girls fall into my lap for the most part. Times are changing for me!!

Budgeting!

I'm sad to say I've been burning thru cash like nobody's business. I'm not negative (I don't think), but I'm saving about $0.00.

Alas.. at least I'm not going broke. But man, its rough. I need to start saving a little more. Guess it means cutting back on the frills. Traveling like every weekend and snowboarding/etc was expensive. Golfing is expensive. Etc etc. Living life is expensive!!!

Lunch at Subway: $2.99
Chili and brocolli dinner: $6.00
Dinner at French Laundry with a hot date: Priceless (actually its just expensive!!)

Independence and Love

Love is a really strong emotion. I think about how powerful it is and how it killed me before (and still kills me), and I am really blown away. I was reading the synopsis to the latest episode of Friday Night Lights where this family is thinking of moving and the daughter who is dating the QB doesn't want to move away from her bf.. and I'm thinking, yeah that is some traumatic shit to be broken apart like that and have no control over what happens.

What I also thought interesting is how some people have transgressed beyond the need for a mate, or have convinced themselves of this anyways, and just live happy independent lives. I am somewhat skeptical of their true happiness, but perhaps they are happy. If they have friends and family and other things going for them then why not.

I once thought I was more of the independent type, but I don't know now. I think its because I was always in relationships before so independence seemed good. You know the human condition is to always want what you don't have and not appreciate what you have. Same can be said for my current job situation.

Maybe I just need some cialis.

Bach Party

I went to a bachelor party this weekend. It was 13 or 14 people and set in N.Tahoe near Tahoe City. I don't really hang out w/ this guy that much but I have hung with him before, and worked with him before so it was a good getaway to meet some of his other friends.

Most of his friends are from the famed Moston Consulting Group, and a few from Ganford, and few from HS back in Tacoma, WA.

I rode up with a friend of his who lives in the city and works at a small company as a product designer. He was a Ganford BS and MS in CS, 2 years my jr. Nice guy, it was interesting to talk to him during the first drive to learn about he preference in women and work philosophy.

In women, he noticed he is too asthetically motivated at times and ponders why. I ponder this as well and it troubles me at times to be so superficial. Others like my friend Booby accept it in life that looks matter alot.

In jobs, its interesting because he feels he needs to start his own company or be a founder because he does not work with management chains well and wants more control over his destiny. He joined a 40person startup that is now 400, but he seems to have issues w/ not being on the management team and not having enough power. He also doesn't respect his manager enough.

The latter point is an interesting one.. he felt he needed a manager who he felt was better than him. In fact, I think he feels in general that he doesn't like management structure because he feels that even if he's better than most of them, but hasn't put in the time and political BS to be in those ranks and it annoys him. Yes.. the corporate structure! It does take time to move up! My crude analysis of him is that he is still at the phase where he thinks he knows more than most people thus has a hard time being managed. That type of attitude is good in many ways because you question authority, but obviously can be a problem too.

Anyways the party was fun. What happens in Nevada stays in Nevada, all I can say is that when you get a bunch of high caliber Ivy league type folk together the party probably isn't as wild as a party w/ guys who went to Chico St.

My social is lame otherwise. I need to mix it up. Bendall was in town, now that guy is living life! Not sure if he's living a smart life, but he's living !!

Korea

Well tonight I decided to reconnect w/ some of my Korean language partner people that I'd met a few months back. This girl I met is 25 or 26 and wants to be an airline stewardess. Its somewhat of a pipe dream (where the heck did that term come from? pipe dream??? who dreams about pipes? Guess its smoking the pipes). Anyways I'm not one to burst the pipes on her parade, but anyways...

She brought her friend along and we talked alot about this and that, about SF vs other towns and how Korea/Seoul is, and relationships and what kinds of guys they look for. They proclaimed they rank their interest in this order:

1. Personality
2. Money
3. Looks

I told them hmm.. I'd rank Personality and Looks very close, with Personality maybe a slight edge, and money last. But I admitted if I met two girls who had very close characteristics, I'd go for the one w/ better looks at first anyways, just naturally. They were shocked! WTF? These are girls from asia, they should know better! Come now, I'm just being real and admitting it.

Anyways had a few glasses of Guinness and had a fun time. I need to connect w/ my Seoul sisters more often.

My coworker Bosh had some wise words to tell us today. It kind of blew my coworker away though. More later in my other blog.

Something taken, something left behind

We lost an hour this weekend. Alas, we shall gain it back in the end. It goes back to the law of conservation of matter/mass. You net out as an 'even steven' kind of guy in the end. Others call it karma, same thing really. For some reason I thought it was Newton who coined this, but it wasn't it, was some other french dudes.

Something taken something left behind is the famous saying from detectives and forensic scientists due to the famous pet detective Locard, ala "Locard's Principle". I document it here, because I always forget the name of this dude and it takes me a while to remember who it was.

Another cool algorithm to check out is a Bloom Filter.

Anyways to my point!!! I looked at the fabled website http://www.payscale.com -- great idea, everyone wants to know what everyone else is making. As long as everyone is honest, it doesn't blow it off scale. But alas, I'm sure people will screw it up by posting fake info. Why? Well put it this way.. if I were curious what a Geologist/Diamond Cutter makes, I would enter a fake profile and pretend to be a Geologist/Diamond Cutter and enter my guess at my salary, just so I can see what the "real" salaries are like. Get my drift? Eventually the entire database is corrupt.

This weekend I went to SoCal to do my taxes. My tax person does alot of funny business to get me the optimal return. It is worth the $200 it takes to fly down there. Lets just put it that way and end the story.

While down in SoCal I noticed that Seal Beach, next to Huntington Beach is a nice thriving little community. Beachfront homes still cost $3-10mm easily, but other homes and condos can be had for $600k (1br condo) to $1.5mm (3br home). Being blocks from the beach is quite nice. I look forward to buying something like that as my retirement home. Seal Beach is still somewhat undiscovered so it would not be a bad place to get in before it goes ballistic.

Apparently we should all wait. I read in Biz-Week that subprime lending rates are rising like a cannon (subprime means home loans for non-prime people, or people with less than 730 credit). If you are sub-prime you may be facing a 10% home loan, vs a 6.5% for prime. The spread is increasing dramatically and it is causing a macroeconomic crash of real estate. Prime properties owned by prime people may not suffer, but overall it is looking ugly in SoCal. My bro-in law is doing a few fire sales for people about to default.

More on SoCal/OC. Life there looks kind of crappy compared to SF/bay area life. There are way hotter girls and way more of them everywhere, but man what a crappy place to live. Lack of any originality in most of OC. I suppose if you go to Newport or other beach towns it is much nicer. Otherwise it is all strip malls and chain restaurants.

Snow

Haha, on Friday I took the day off with almost no notice (kind of like calling in sick) and went to Tahoe with Booby. We left at 530am (closer to 6am) got to Heavenly at about 930am. Top of the mountain at 1030am. It snowed a ton last week so it was perfect conditions. Deep powder in between the groomed runs, and great coverage everywhere. We went pretty hardcore till they closed down at 430pm. It was great.

I love taking a day off to do this. Avoid the crowds, get better snow, and come back early and have a day to rest. Also if you aren't that hot about what you are doing at work, its even sweeter!

I'm a bit sore. Being 34 now means you don't recover as quickly. Yep, its tough now to try to be hardcore.

I lost this time gambling! Dammit. I was up for a bit, after entering a craps table w/ $350 and leaving w/ $700 after a semi-hot roll. After that it was all downhill for both of us. Streak is is definitely over. Its tough to win now that I'm focused on winning big. I push the bets pretty quickly. Its win $1k+ or go home broke nowadays.