My Social Life as a Boob

Blog Ends

2007-08-19T05:14:00.001-07:00

This blog ends, the http://tokyoaction.blogspot.com begins.

My night in HNL was KK wedding. A few things that I thought about..

1) There was a girl there at my table that was drinking and really emotional. In fact she got totally trashed in the end and was crying really intensely. Really sobbing.. more than just a "friend" should be crying at a wedding. I looked at Kawak's wife Jofi and didn't see a tear in sight, know what I mean? It wasn't that sentimental. But this gal she was bawling like a baby. I suspect she had her chance but rejected KK thinking he was a playa and now regrets it because.. now Kendall is married, she is 32 and still single. Not sure, KK would not disclose.

2) KK's final statements to me were odd and still ring in my mind. Paraphrasing: "He was happy to finally be done with being married. Now he doesn't have to go look for someone anymore." Hmm.. kind of makes me think, from what he said that he was desperately looking to get married. Now KK shouldn't be desperate since he was a very eligible bachelor, but I can understand his mental state to some degree. After dating alot of random losers and getting dumped a few times.. your confidence really sags. Not sure if thats the case, but thats the vibe I got. Remind me not to get into that state.

3) It is an odd pairing but I believe they can make it all work. Perfect pairings are rarely that perfect anyways. I got to finally meet her and her family this week and they are nice people. The brother bought Kendall a Cartier watch too! Wow!!

4) Marrying someone who you can't speak fluently with is a real challenge. Oh boy. Its hard enough communicating with someone who speaks your language.

Anyways thats the end. I may close off this blog or leave it up but it won't be updated much if ever from this point on.

Farewell.

This is the end

2007-08-18T13:08:00.000-07:00

I haven't categorized the various phases of my life but this one comes to an end. I'm not sure where this phase started and ended.

I think I'd say this ends the SF/Bay area phase of life although there were many subplots in them. Let me recap a decade with a few lines.

1996 - graduated, started in the working world, life is tough paying back debts
2002 - broke up with PL, almost moved to Tokyo backed out, then started dating GB
2003 - bought a condo, life shifts to building empire mode
2006 - I am finally granted a masters degree!
2006.8 - start the year of living dangerously (as a single dude). life shifts to money spending mode
2007.8 - tokyo bound

Interesting that I leave the US at the same time that KK gets married, a month after TBone (Tombo) has a baby, and a few weeks after Boo moves to Vietnam. Everyone is having major changes in life it seems. I wish everyone the best. No one knows the future so here isn't much sense second guessing.

Regarding KK's wedding, it was a nice event. The venue wasn't the best for the ceremony, but the reception was nice, and the overall feel was good. I talked to DLii alot, the chairman of the wireless empire in Hawaii. Personable fellow, pretty much what I remember of him from the HS days. He and his wife were looking good, I guess being successful does that !

My eyes are sore. I may have cataracts. Better live it up while I can. According to the prophet of fremont, I can only score with young 24yo's if they are from 3rd world countries and poor. Hehe.

Da Wedding...

2007-08-17T03:59:00.000-07:00

So KK is getting married tomorrow.

I've said enough about it I suppose. I think the language barrier is going to make for an interesting time. Inability to share deep thoughts and have meaningful conversation outside of "whats for dinner" is something I could not deal with. Well, I suppose if the girl looked like Jessica [Simpson|Alba|Biel] then maybe it'd be okay (for a while).

My other friend Gimil married a J-national last year. They just had their 1yr anniversary apparently. Wow eh? She is apparently a 24yo estocian that he met thru some friends (supposedly) and fell in love with and chased down in Tokyo. I have to say though her english isn't too bad. But he doesn't speak any japanese so they have some challenges.. but at least one person is speaking natively.

The fact that he married a 24yo (23 when they married) somewhat disproves Tombo's theory that young girls wont date and marry older men in their 30's. Hmmmmmm... well I suppose if its a super hot party girl maybe not. This gal obviously wants a family more than anything because he told me that she is already pushing to start having kids! At 24?? wow... man.. why the rush.

Well I have 2 days left in the USA.

I was really tired today and I did absolutely nothing. I think my eyes are going bad. How the heck am I going to make it in the real world. Hehe.

Famed Quote

2007-08-13T23:29:00.000-07:00

"Just because you have traveled the world, it does not mean you are Worldly"

-kt 8.13.2007.

Damn my last day in the bay area. Ended w/ a visit to Fremont Hooters where 2 21yo working gals said they wouldn't date a guy any older than 23 and 25 even if the guy had 100m dollars in the bank.

Career Planning

2007-08-12T19:30:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I wish I had a career plan early on. Or a life plan. I think about this more nowadays.

Interesting article on this idea:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/worklife/07/30/cb.job.goals/index.html

2 more days in SF and then bust!

Can't wait for Fantasy Football!!

Visa-a-vie

2007-08-10T18:31:00.000-07:00

I got my elusive Visa today. What is whacked is that they gave me a 'single' entry visa. what does that mean?

It means that I can only enter the country once with this visa. If I want to leave and come back in, I need to get a re-entry permit! What the hell man? Apparently there is a 'multiple' entry visa but they didn't give me this. I don't understand who would want a 3yr visa without the ability to exit and re-enter the country. I am not going to Tokyo to be in prison for 3yrs dude, I do plan to leave the country pretty often.. duh.....

Oh well. I have to figure this out when I get to tokyo.

Mortgage and housing market is crushing the stock market. I took a poorly timed position into financials and got burned. Goes to show, better to stay long and steady than to jump in and out. I was lucky to time my exit of 70% of my portfolio last month before this collapse, but then I jumped in on a speculative buy which pretty much negated any benefit and then some.

I think its wise to stay out at this point. My coworker said to short BSC. He said they are going to have to consolidate and get bought out. Hmmm... interesting. Of course everyone is a stock market guru so u never know.

Ironic.. I am going to be working in the MBS market. I wonder if the market will exist after this meltdown. Damn. Oh well my formal job is ABS/Structured Finance Analytics Developer. But we'll see what my title is when I join, probably just "Associate" or "Developer" so who cares.

One more week of slacking!! Then the new tokyoaction blog takes over!

see this wiki entry for details on the man 2nd from the left.

Gotta have those video memories

2007-08-08T03:34:00.001-07:00

Munich

2007-08-08T02:01:00.000-07:00

Munich and Frankfurt were fun to visit. I only stopped by in Nurnberg via train.

Traveling alone is kinda lame, but I have done it enough that I'm somewhat okay with it. Fortunately my high flying friend Booby was able to visit with me.

Things I noticed in Germany....

Lots of beer drinking. Esp in Munich.
Lots of bread. Good bread. I love the sandwiches at the train station.
Everyone smokes. Everyone. Esp the hot girls. Hotter the girl the more smoke.
Having a semi-socialist economy means people are done working at 4-5pm. When I walked by an office building at 5pm, it was pretty empty as I peered thru the windows.
Way too many Koreans visiting or living in Frankfurt. What gives??
Its really green. Lots of rolling hills, greenery as you take the trains it is esp noticeable. Kinda nice.
Reminds me of Holland, probably since Holland is next door.

I could live in Germany. However, I hate not speaking the local language when I go somewhere.

Pic to the left is a typical sidewalk where people are sitting drinking beer, coffee, and of course smoking.

Oh btw, I happened upon a Bally store in Munich. It is really weird, I went to Bally in Ala Moana, then Waikiki, then Las Vegas Caesars, Las Vegas Fashion Mall, then South Coast Plaza, and finally in Munich! Thats 6 stores in 1 month. Thats weird eh? I'm not a big brand name snob but I find I like Bally shoes despite my reluctance to spend $200+ on shoes even at 50% off.

One last pic, this is surfing in Munich. Can you believe it? They surf under a bridge in a river where a fast flow of water is flowing into a lake.

Wii and Frank

2007-08-01T18:35:00.000-07:00

I'm in Frankfurt Germany this week.

Why? No reason.. just have a week to kill and had an offer to fly for almost free. So its a mini vacation but I have to control spending as it is spiraling out of control. I will do alot of walking in Germany I think to save money. The $ to Euro rates are also killing me.

A big accomplishment in my life this year is that I scored a perfect 300 in Wii bowling. I found I was doing quite well casually playing this over the past week and after consistently getting 7-8 strikes a game I felt I should be able to do it. But alas.. I had 3-4 games where I had 9 strikes in a row and then goofed on the 10th frame. I vowed to get a 300 before leaving the USA. Then I said nah screw it, I am happy w/ my 279 score (11/12 strikes).

The key to life is being satisified with what you have!

But I still desired 300, so I went for it, and did it!! Haha!!!

It poses the question though.. should we be satisified so easily in life? If humanity were so easily satisifed then there would be little drive for invention and innovation. If we were happy walking everywhere then why would someone invent a bicycle, car, or airplane? Obviously we should have some dis-satisfaction, or better put, some desire for higher achievement. It is a blurred line between being unsatisified and striving for more or are the two completely different? While I can say I am happy with what I have in life, I can also say I strive for a heck of alot more.

Do you remember what Li Mu Bai said in Crouching Tiger: "The things we can touch have no permanence. My master would say there is nothing we can hold onto in this world. Only by letting go can we truly possess what is real."

Or what Maximus said in Gladiator: "Strength and Honor."

I strive to live as did Maximus. Not sure if I can live like Li Mu Bai and truly escape materialism.

Babel Revisited

2007-07-30T23:08:00.000-07:00

I saw the movie Babel recently. I thought the movie kind of sucked. I guess the theme has something to do with the careless disregard for life that people tend to have. I wasn't sure what the japanese folks had to do with the theme.. something with babel and languages I suppose. Too deep for a small towner like me.

For me Babel became very personal tonight as I was shot at on the Bart going from OAK A's stadium -> Fremont. I had a window seat and all of a sudden BAMN, the glass by my head has a huge circular bullet hole in it. The bullet (or whatever it was) did not penetrate since the glass is like 3/4" thick, but geez man it was right by my head maybe 3" away. This is a pic from outside -- that is where I was sitting!!!

So.. tomorrow I will buy a lotto ticket and them fly to Germany. I have literally been spared a life tonight. Eerie!!

Note I finally learned how to upload pics to blogger. Geez I am lame. This is me, Booby, Glori (Veric's friend) and veric at the A's game before my near death experience.

On the Crouch all day

2007-07-30T03:02:00.000-07:00

I didn't do much today. I slept alot.

I am at tombo's house hiding out for now although I am going to Germany on Tuesday. I slept, watched TV, scored 279 in Wii bowling in consecutive games where I had 9 strikes in a row, failing to strike just in the opening of the 10th frame! Arrggggg... the perfect game is so close I can smell it the way I can smell Kaia's poo.

Otherwise.. I just chilled today. I read a chapter of my MBS book which is a big accomplishment.

I realized just now that my master plan of visa processing has a fatal flaw. I may get my certification docs tomorrow in the mail, and I was planning to drop them off at the Japan Ministry/Consulate but I would also have to give them my passport.... and I'm going to Germany.. thus this plan doesn't really work.

I guess its okay, I can do that when I return, although that does mean I may not be able to get to Honolulu on Friday as was planned. Hmmmmmm... maybe maybe not. Or I could take the docs w/ me to Honolulu and file for a visa there. Kinda cutting it close!!

I should fly to Frankfurt tomorrow. I'm ready to go!!!

Moved Out -- Moving On

2007-07-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

I had the movers come and its done. Wow it was stressful to move. I was sleepy during the move too, I was about to knock out while the 3 slaves were working away wrapping my worthless furnishings up as if they were treasures to preserve.

I canceled my DSL and was shocked that they are trying to charge me $99 to early terminate. WTF is with early termination fees they should be illegal.

Me: Why do I have to pay a $99 fee
ATT: You agreed to it when you renewed your contract at $24.99 for 1yr.
Me: I don't remember agreeing to this, can you show me proof like a signed letter or verbal recording.
ATT: We dont record calls and I dont have a copy of the contract but you must have agreed to it when you signed up.
Me: If I did then you must have a copy right? I want proof that I agreed to this contract. Otherwise I don't think I should have to pay.
ATT: Okay let me put in a request to send you a copy of the contract.

I know this is silly but I have the need to give them shit about this in some way. Its frickin lame, if I stay 2 more months @ $24.99 I am out of contract but if I quit now I have to pay $99 ?? that is ridiculous.

I had an eye doc appt because I felt my eye was feeling odd after my pink eye incident. I had an exam and the doc said my left eye is a bit stigmatic but overall i am 20/25, slightly worse on the left. However she said the opening in the back of my eye or eye socket where the optic nerve enters is oblong on the left and round on the right which is a slight concern. Could mean there is a brain tumor squeezing my eye or who knows. They want to do more tests but I'm going to Tokyo so I will just have to keep an "eye" on it. No pun intended! I feel my brain is going to explode at times so I suspect I have a brain tumor or an impending stroke. More reason to get to Tokyo asap and to goof in Germany next week on vacation.

Is it my last week?

2007-07-22T14:32:00.000-07:00

This might be my last week here. Not quite sure yet. We'll see if my Visa clears by Weds.

I read Getting Past OK -- some random book about a guy who found his way to ultimate happiness. I can't seem to remember who referred me to this damned book. Then I started reading my 800page ABS/MBS book which is a sleeper. I knew I would not finish this, so I instead did the ultimate sin and went to Barnes & Nobles and bought Liars Poker at full retail price. (The sin is to pay full retail price for a book). I was desperate.. I was in SoCal and needed to read. Plus it was good background reading into the business I am getting into. I also picked up Traders, Guns and Money, more background reading on what it is like to work at an investment bank.

Liars Poker was a pretty good read. Ended without a bang, but was quite useful for me as research. Getting an idea of what traders and salespeople/marketers really do was bugging the hell out of me.

So in my final week.. I ponder, with some compunction about my move, but mostly with anxiety and anxiousness of really going thru with it. I guess this is like a wedding -- maybe KK has some serious anxiety as well? I sure would if I were him!!

Anyways my main task at this point is to separate my goods into the categories:
- Air Ship
- Sea Ship
- Carry-On
- Throwaway/giveaway

I have mostly been procrastinating. The book I read had several tips on fighting procrastination... but alas, its just a book not a bible.

From SoCal With Love

2007-07-20T02:10:00.001-07:00

I am in SoCal now. Visiting the sista and bro-in-law. They recently adopted a kitten. Its an animal farm here, i don't know whats up with them and pets. They now have a zoo. Oh well. Interesting to peek into my sisters life. They save alot of money because they live very conservatively. While I will go and buy $400 shoes and not blink an eye, they are busy saving and spending cautiously. They debate whether they should buy a $1200 TV to replace their 10 year old non-HD model and its a long debate!

But alas we all live our own ways, and as long as we are living happily but responsibily I think its okay.

Lately I've been burning thru cash like a bastard. But its okay I suppose, I've made most of it up on the market lately. Although now I've liquidated alot my positions.

Anyways next stop is to visit some friends in SanDeijo.

If my Visa is not completed next week for me to make my 7/29 departure to Toyo then I may consider yet another trip to either S.America or Europe. Have to see whats feasible.

Mating rituals

2007-07-20T01:58:00.000-07:00

I have some deeper thoughts on the mating rituals of people in their 20's, 30's, and beyond.. kind of a thought as I think about myself and my pal KK who is getting married next month.

I think about my other two sets of pals the K&J's. Originally there were 3 K&J's, but now only 2. The 3rd K&J (KK) kind of went thru a traumatic end much like my last relationship ending. The observations between the K&J's and myself are the basis of this mini thought.

I think of relationships that start in their 20's as something that creates a special bond. It is because during these 20's you are really growing and learning alot about life. You experience starting work and being on your own (early 20's), to establishing yourself in your careers (late 20's) and buying property and building a nestegg (early 30's). It molds a person to go thru all this, and if you are fortunate to go thru it with a partner, then the struggles and joys you experience together create a special bond.

I've had that growth and bonding stage. Twice. I admit it was nice. While it doesn't assure permanence in relationships (obviously not for me), I feel it is a strong pillar to build on. Alot of fond memories (and mammories).

So I look at KK and his bride to be, and wonder whats happening here. I'm concerned about him because I see myself in his situation in many ways. After being in a long long relationship, I've found it hard to connect and start building a new history with someone at this age. People are a bit more molded and are basically grown up already in their 30's. Dating game is different post 30.

Not to alarm you all, I don't plan to jump into marriage by any means. I'm no a risk taker like KK, so it will take me a while to get to that point of proposing -- I'm way too skeptical to jump in quickly. But I feel for his perspective -- he is ready to get married, wants to move to the next phase of life. He hasn't met anyone he has really connected w/ after dating countless gals, and this latest one, while not ideal, is ready to go! All the warning signs exist, but he's willing to take a chance. I should applaud it -- one needs to take risks in life.

I think the key thing that troubles me with KK is that he set expectations early on that he may not be able to meet. He courted her with lots of $$$, fancy trips, his luxury pad, his BMW, and never seems to refuse an expensive request from his bride to be. The man isn't made of money and feels once the marriage is done, she will slow down. I don't know if that is a safe assumption, I imagine it could get worse after marriage. His perspective is that she isn't a spring chicken and has few options at her age, so she is going to make it work as well. It is logical, but logic doesn't always play favor with crazy women. I hope he is right.

Anyways no more about KK -- I need to be more supportive now that I've offered him my concerns.

Files of my life

2007-07-18T03:01:00.000-07:00

I am going thru all my files that I've packed away over the years. As much as I throw alot out, it has piled up on me.

I found it interesting and nostalgic, and also sad to look thru some of this stuff. Alot of it reminds me of where I was, 2003 for example, having just bought a condo, going thru alot of presonal growth because of it and experiencing it with my ex-gf. The memories are still a bit too close to heart I suppose.

Anyways an interesting thing I noted is that my paychecks from 1999 till today aren't that different. But go back to 1997 and I noticed wow I was really barely getting by back then. Interesting as well to note that in 1997 at BoDacle I got like a 15% bonus (over the year split in 2 parts) which is really quite good. I guess I got used to 2% bonuses at BigHQ.

So its tough to go thru everything like this and throw out random bits of history. I had little knicknacks etc which are junk, and immaterial, but represent memories of my past. I try not to cling to the past by throwing this out, but am I losing all memory of it when I do so? For some things thats good, but others... maybe not?

Shrewd Living

2007-07-18T01:15:00.000-07:00

Dictionary.com -> astute or sharp in practical matters

Anyways, what is shrewd.. is it shrewd to move to Tokyo? Hmm.. perhaps not, but one must sometimes exchange pure shrewdness for some level of gamble in life. Perhaps the right amount of gambling is part of truly being a shrewd fellow.

Our friend KK is getting married, and I have spend a great deal of time w/ him recently, from partying in Hawaii to partying in Vegas. In Vegas.. I learned more a bout his ideas on marriage and life. You see, everyone is skeptical of this marriage because he seems to be rushing into it.

I too question it.. but in the end, he's just willing to take a big chance on this and ignore some of the warning signs in the road. You have to admit, even with no warnings and all green lights it may not work out -- there is never an absolute. To be shrewd is to gamble effectively within your means. In KK's case, I don't think he's being very shrewd, but it doesn't mean he won't be happy. He's a good guy and if he loves the girl and has thought this thru, then I congratulate him on finding true love. I need to do that oneday. I wish him the best -- wedding is in 1 month!

This weekend I gambled w/in my means and lost all of my means! Hhaaha. Yeah it was pretty sad. I was winning at first, but lost in the end. Alas... tis a tragedy.

Anyways there is more to report, but not all at once. I met up with his friend Res the Godfather who is an interesting chap. KK and Res both were way more excited than I am about my moving to Tokyo. I guess it is an exciting thing to do. Hmm.... I'm more anxiety driven now.

My cashflow is sucking. I bought alot of crap (shoes, shirts, ties, suits), along with travel, gambling, etc so it is a rough month financially. When I sell my car and get my apt deposit back it should help get me back in the black.

Passing of an old friend

2007-07-11T01:55:00.000-07:00

So I went to the N-man's funeral. I haven't been to one in ages and never really went to a Hawaii buddhist style funeral before.

I must say, N-man had alot of family and friends, there were probably 600 people packed in the Gosoi Morturary. Really sad to see so much love in the room all wondering what happened and what they could have done to prevent this tragedy. It was a really weird thing to be at, it was surreal and confusing all at the same time. Can't explain it.

Anyways the gist of it was that it seems no one really knew the N-man. It was interesting because the two friends who gave eulogies were actually his wifes old friends and they admitted that N-man was a man of few words, thus my impression... quite sad, could it be that he didn't have a close personal bond to a buddy that he could share his inner thoughts with? I think that is really key for everyone to be able to share your misery with. Sharing misery.. thats what tibetan buddhism is all about.

So this mystery will end unresolved. No one seems to know what happened. The "why" bothers me as it does many people.. but we may never know. His brother didn't know. His cousin didn't know. I approched the eulogy girl to ask her, and she didn't know either. They all said no one has a clue. Geez.. it is really sad. All the family he left behind... parents, brother, wife, 3 kids, etc. Really sombering.

On a lighter note, I talked his cousin (Gen Badoyama) who is 1yr older, but someone I knew from HS and UH and from hanging at N-man's house over the years. Wow I had a major crush on her during HS and even College. She looked good at 35, but has been married 7 years, has a 2yo baby, etc. She's a sweetheart, I admit I thought way too much about her during this funeral. The eulogy girl was also pretty cute. Am I sick? Yeah I think I am maybe I need help.

Anyways I wish N-man and his family the best. He was a good guy no doubt about it.

The Twisted Life of the S-man

2007-07-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

Wow I was out all day in the sun, well from noon. So I am tired. I'm going to pass out soon but I want to start talking about the S-man, aka Math-God.

I've wrote about him before, but I never link back to blogs... so to recap, he's a math genious, and one of the most brilliant guys to come out of my HS. He could have easily gotten into MIT or CalTech but instead he, with his lazy personality and lifestyle, decided to take a full scholarship to UH so he could watch porn in his room and skip class and still pass as an honor student with a BS in Physics. If you aren't a scientist you should know.. very few people in the world can breeze thru Physics of all subjects.

Anyways, I meet up with him for the first time in many years.. after he dropped out of a PhD he stared working as a programmer. I meet him, and am shocked at his newfound life in Hawaii.

- He is living at home
- He saves no money
- He goes out drinking all the time
- He goes to hostess bars all the time
- He goes to strip bars all the time
- Travels to Vegas and Maui all the time

He is essentially living it up. However, he claims he doesn't want a girlfriend because he has all the company he needs at the strip & hostess clubs and they are much less hassle than a real gf. Now that is some twisted stuff.

He also has no desire to work anywhere but his easy government contract job at Blockhood. Right now he says its easy why change. Interesting eh? He claims his life is good and he is happy.

Part of this reminds me of Good Bill Hunting, where the prof is upset because he knows that Bill is genius of a caliber much greater than him, and yet Bill is throwing it all away. Quote:

           Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I
          wish I never met you. Because then I
          could sleep at night. I wouldn't have
          to walk around with the knowledge that
          someone like you was out there. And I
          wouldn't have to watch you throw it
          all away.

You see, for most of us, including me, its frustrating for us to see it because we wish we had his potential and wish we could do what he has the potential to do. Seeing someone wasting their talent is annoying. If I had his math genes, I could be a super-Quant or something. But in truth, if he is really happy, then he doesn't need anything more and we should get over it.

N-Man Part2 and Hawaii

2007-07-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

Sad to find out the N-man took his own life.

You always have to wonder what thoughts went thru a mans head at the final moments before executing on this.. I tend to think its due to an heightened moment of despair or clarity that momentarily puts you over the edge. I don't know. I wonder how many people who attempt this and fail try again. Its really sad to leave behind family and friends.

Anyways Hawaii is pretty nice. The older I get the more I seem to enjoy coming back to Hawaii. Its hot and humid, but for some reason.. this time, I don't mind it. I walked from Nauru to Waikiki Surfrider and it was a nice stroll. Warm weather, blue skies and really blue water. Its relaxing and it is nice to sit under a tree on a blazing hot day like this and just be able to relax. If real estate ever drops (and if I have any spare money) I would consider investing here.

I noticed alot more non-japanese tourists which is a big change from when I grew up here. I think Japanese have way more options nowadays (Vietnam and HK for example) so its tougher than the old days.

The N-man...

2007-07-04T16:59:00.000-07:00

Wow I just heard news that a guy who was in my inner circle of best friends in HS just passed way. I have no idea what happened to him, just got his obiturary from another friend. Wow.. that is really sad. I have to say that while we aren't close by any means, not since HS, he is the first of my friends to pass away and it is really sad to hear.

He was a good guy. Definitely smart dude, but was probably the victim of not having the right environment to cultivate his potential. His parents were divorced, his dad was an alcoholic, and he pretty much worked and paid his own way thru life as a blue collar worker at various sales jobs after dropping out of UH. Reminds me of another pal Van and Jerry who also supported themselves since getting out of HS, having a Vietnam Vet dad w/ mental problems who smoked out more than did anything else.. its sad, not everyone has the easily life and easy breaks, so I have to remind myself not to judge people on where they are, especially when I don't know where they came from.

Nonetheless, Nate was married, had 3 kids and was probably having a fulfilling life, probably maybe more than mine. Its sad. I may be able to go to the service since I'll be in HNL at that time.

Yep, we can go at any time.

The T-man

2007-06-24T23:11:00.000-07:00

So the T-man visited from Hon. He came cause he has a nephew and I told him he should come up to hang out. I fear I didn't show him the best time possible since my social life has been slowing down of late and there wasn't much he wanted to do specifically except eat. Eat we did, although I picked a subpar chinese place (House of Nanking) that didn't deliver what I would say is "the best". Oh well he said it was OK.

So T-man has also got an easy life. Its simple, no worries, just slowly moving along. He is happy the way most hawaii folk are happy, just happy doing the same old stuff it seems. He doesn't seem to long for more in life the way I do. Of course, he didn't have a significant loss in his life make him think about things the way I have.

In the process of the T-man visited I saw the J-man, the ex UH prof who is now a gayster out here in gayville USA. The J-man is another case of a guy who is searching for some meaning in life. Even though he has $2mm of Smoogle stock, he isn't quite happy. He is also doing menial work in testing which is far beneath a PhD like him.. alas, he lives just between miserable and OK. As many of us do. I strive to get beyond OK!!! God dammit!!!

We also got together with L-man and I-man (the Bum bruddas) in the process. Those two are also doing about the same as before with very minor changes in life. They are also around OK-level. I fear the only one who is living beyond-OK is Tombo! What the hell man. He's struggling with life but at the same time he seems happy.

I met a 23yo redhead today. Let me tell you, those redheads really peak early. I think they peak at like 18 and at 23 they are already looking like they are 30. At 35 they look like they are 45. Its quite sad, because at their peak they are quite hot. But to peak at 18... so sad. But I am just talking about exteriors. I shouldn't focus on it, I am so shallow. Hehe.

Vegas!

2007-06-17T23:16:00.000-07:00

Different type of trip to Vegas, but very fun.

It was Booby, Boo, CRS from NY, Dr.PH from NY, and Boo's roomie ANG as the core team.
Related teams were VJ and her pals from Big-OH, and Boo and CRS's friends SuperHotGal (from NY) her Sister and BF, and her HairStylist friend, and Boo's coworker Yala and her husband J.

Anyways Friday we had awesome BBQ dinner, then went to a bar, had alot to drink, met w/ VJ at a cafe, gambled sparsly.. was quite hammered in the end. Got home at 4am and slept till 1030am and missed my Royal Shave appt!! Dammit. Bad planning. So we just went to the MGM residence pool since KRS is an owner there! Let me tell you, its quite relaxing to have a 5-star residence and private condo pool. Its way different than the hellhole pool of Harrah's or even Mandalay Bay. Really really relaxing. But god dammit it was hot like a dry sauna. 102F maybe.

Sat night went to Spago's for dinner, then to the famous club inside Caesars. Apparently it is not possible for men to get into this club in most circumstances unless you want to pay $400 to bribe all the staff (which husband J wound up doing) or wait 2-3hrs. We got in due to luck, and due to the fact that we were with SuperHotGal and that we had 5-guys/5-girls , and since we bought a VIP table w/ 2 bottles of Vodka, etc for $1,000 after tax, tip, etc. Apparently there is a long list of people who would love to just pay $1k for a VIP table, but there is even a long ass wait for that. Man that is crazy!

Gambled later till 6am, slept till 10am, gambled then checked out and then went shooting. CRS is bigtime into guns. Shot some Walter 9mm, Glock 9mm, 22 cal revolver, and a fully auto HK-MP-5. Guns not my love, but it was fun to shoot the auto. My aim sucks even at 7ft I may not kill my target. Chilled at pool till 6pm and headed home!! Sounds semi-eventful!

Club scene BTW is way better w/ a VIP table. Otherwise clubs are lame. I didn't look at many other girls, I was mesmerized by the amazing beauty of SuperHotGal. She is some 26 yo 1/2 thai, 1/2 norweigan mix 5'10" who was just god damn hot. It inspired me to try to date hotter women like this. Haha.

Another topic for later is the Beautiful People in the world...

I was down at the New Amsterdam staring at this yellow-haired girl
Mr. Jones strikes up a conversation with this black-haired flamenco dancer
She dances while his father plays guitar
She's suddenly beautiful
We all want something beautiful
I wish I was beautiful

BTW I ended up winning $600. I barely gambled, didn't have time! I had to sneak it in between hanging at the bar and club and early mornings.. I also tried playing on a $25 craps table. Man that is a wicked game. You must buy in $400 and that may only last you 2 shooters!!! My gambling has been on fire......

New Blog Coming up

2007-06-13T22:03:00.000-07:00

I'm going to create yet another new blog when I move to Tokyo.

Thats all I have to report!!

I was discussing this odd thing today w/ my coworker. He said he got the most action in his life when he was about to move to Canada (from Shanghai). This is weird, my friend Boo has been getting action after he decided to move to VN. What is up with that? Do girls want to meet guys who are about to leave? Does some genetic propensity to have a NSA (No Strings Attached) fling kick in or something?

Anyways.....

Peak of Life

2007-06-03T09:32:00.000-07:00

I wonder when my life will peak. Hopefully it hasn't yet, otherwise I haven't really lived.

For LeBron James, his peak may be really soon, at a young age too. Peaking too early like this is problematic.. if he wins the championship then damn, what to do next? Its a nice but tough life in some ways.

For those guys in Friday Night Lights, they claim their peak of life was their Sr. year in HS while playing for the Dillon Panthers varsity football team.

For Tombo, his peak was when he was hanging out w/ the boys in HK in 2005. Nah, but really I wonder if one can pinpoint their peak in life?

Being sick.. meaning.. optimization.. life

2007-06-01T22:14:00.000-07:00

Well I don't know whats in the future but one things for sure I guess I need a change.

I have given this SF life about 9 months since my big breakup, and while its been fun, I think it will be more fun and meaningful elsewhere. When I think back to my purpose in life back then, in my old life, I don't know what it was. It was more to save money and buy property. Was that living life? Not really. But it was a purpose.

In my current life.. I guess my purpose should be to find a hot new girlfriend. But alas, haven't found one that is hot, nice, and worth my waking up in the morning to call. Yeah life is tough. I pretty much zoned out of finding a girl because I was doing fine just chilling on my own.

Anyways I need to get my ass in gear. I'm not getting jack shit done in life right now. Been watching lot of CSI though.

Gotee, iTunes, random rants

2007-05-28T22:19:00.000-07:00

I've often tried to grow a goatee (or is it Gotee or Gotie or what the heck??).

I don't think I can grow it thick enough. I tried over my vacation in Vietnam, but in the end I gave up because it was annoying me, and I felt it was ugly. Oh so vain I am!

I tried again in Japan, but had to shave for interviews, etc. I am trying again. Why? I don't know, something interesting about it. Maybe I'm just bored with life? I don't know how long I'll keep this up. I sometimes will shave it when someone is having a dinner or party or if I have a date. I am not dating right now though, I think I'm over that already (although I admit my last date was a few weeks ago, so I get in and out of that phase).

iTunes is something I recently discovered and started buying music from. I'm just too lazy to hunt for free music... I just need it now!! The $.99 add up, but I guess at my hourly rate of pay its worth it to just click and buy, takes like 15seconds vs 5-10min on Limewire. Yep, Apple is genius to get all the labels online and keep it cheap enough where even the cheapest people around like me will say "Screw It!" just pay the damn $.99 for it.

So am I going to Japan? Well the book is still unwritten.

Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Health

2007-05-14T00:47:00.000-07:00

In the end health is whats most important in life. What you do now affects your future health, so remember that as you chomp down on the double cheeseburgers and sit on your lazy ass with bad posture.

My lower back is sore from time to time. I often wonder if I have a tumor in my back that occasionally pushes on something. I may go to a doctor if it hurts this week. I also felt a psuedo headache recently that was affecting my concentration in a mild way. I thought maybe I have a brain tumor. My doctor, who is this cute thai girl, said nah, if you have a tumor and it isn't causing big problems then forget it. She said taking MRI's just exposes various brain mutations that everyone has but no one understands so it can start a cycle of worry and useless testing or operations. Interesting eh? So live life!!!

This weekend I won 1 doubles match 6-4 6-4 and then lost one, 3-6 2-6. Damn, losing sucks because you feel you should be able to win god dammit. Tennis is fun. I wish I got more competitive earlier because at my age, its hard to continue to improve. I'm capped for the most part due to age.

My probability of moving increases btw. I was at 60, I think I'm at 62. What moved me 2pts? Hmm.. I think just seeing more and more what an easy life I have here is one. I need some challenge or change in life. I need something thats for sure. Not that my life is bad, its good. Its very good, very posh, very easy. I will be able to retire in style at this pace. But life isn't about planning your death, its about living till you die.

Today's number is.... 60

2007-05-11T01:40:00.000-07:00

Yep, today I feel like its 60. What made it rise? Tombo had some good points about how I am not going because I'm lazy and too comfortable. But hey you have to admit, if you saw my fancy apt and saw my lifestyle you'd say I am really living a good life right now. Relatively unlimited budget, nice housing, nice weather, easy job, etc etc. But life has no purpose, thats an issue.

Anyways I need to get my final offer #'s to validate it, but so far.. I'm feeling like my chance of going is on the rise.

Had an AAC social with Boo and Booby tonight. It will be sad to have the end of the AAC meetings for sure. But.. what can I say. Boo moves to VN, I move to Tokyo, Tombo is having a baby, Koondal is getting married.. AAC had its time, now its time to move forward.

Its funny to be discussing how we are chasing down different women and sometimes the same women. Take for example this gal Gooly that Tombo and I met on the plane. Tombo was the lead on this, playing his "i'm married and safe" card. I asked her out to a night w/ Boo and Booby, and now they are both asking her out! Interesting to compare notes on these situations when we meet a girl and everyone is chasing after them. Thats AAC I guess.

Anyways its great to hang out w/ these guys at times and I will miss it if I go. The 3 of us have a long history together, and its funny how we hung out all the time 9 years ago, and then didn't hang out at all for a good 7 years, and now we've been reunited for a year now. Fate is funny.

Body types

2007-05-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

Today I went to work late at 1030am. I had trouble sleeping due to jetlag. I woke up at 4am, 5am, then realized the fricking clock had gone into daylight savings so it was off 1hr! Damn.. the new DST rules screwed up my clock. I'm sure the clock can't be patched so I guess I will throw this one away. I had the bizzaro'ist dream about being on a farm and the running of the bulls type of stampede was about to go thru the road, and I had to secure the fences, etc. I also recall kicking a dog or doing something bad to some old lady's dog. Yeah dreams are odd.

Tokyo girls are really cute. They have somewhat of a mob mentality in fashion, but they do often have cute faces and nice hairstyles. Whats in fashion now is brownish/dyed hair with curls. I love those curls! Booby and I think most have attachments, but whatever. It is hot.

So the theme of this post is to be really sexist but I was at an Irish pub today on 5th and Howard and was served by this really curveacious latin girl. Wow, she was a knockout. Actually she was probably a few lbs heavy, but she had the lbs in the right places I suppose. Now in Tokyo you never see that body type. The girls are really stickly skinny and kinda lack curves. Okay I mostly have dated these skinny gals, but I am also attracted to the curvy ones so let me speak.

Point of this post is really nothing. I just have to say I was smitten by the waitress today. I wonder if I will remember her years from now. I must note was laughed at because I asked for Iced Tea at an irish pub and she was like what the hell? And I said, what? Is this a bar or something? You don't have Iced Tea? Its a very popular drink ya know? Hahaha.. whatever. While she was a bit below my class, she was also way out of my class at the same time. Weird but true huh?

Wow ch-ch-ch-changes...

2007-04-30T00:31:00.000-07:00

Wow Bay Bridge collapses, and Randy Mossman is traded to the Pats! Whats going on.. gone one week and the world totally changes on me!

BTW i saw that movie, "The Good Shephard" o nthe plane. Oh my goD.. this was a movie that takes us thru the horrificly painful life of this dudes life, and makes us also experience every painful and boring moment of it. It sucks. I felt like the shephard who had a tattered life so they succeeded in that respect.

Dream On..

2007-04-30T00:18:00.000-07:00

I had an intense dream last night about my old japanese ex-gf. I had dreamt that I somehow ran into her in Tokyo after moving back there. It was one of those powerful emotional dreams that make you wake up more mentally exhausted than before sleeping. Ever have those?

So in my dream she had gotten married since I last saw her but was supposedly seperated. I think in my dream we re-connected.

Thats my problem, I need to find someone I really connect with. Been alot of girls I found okay but didn't have a real connection with both physically and mentally/emotionally. Its not easy. Part of it is probably my current emotional state. Must let go before you can accept something new.

I'm in tokyo airport right now. On my way back finally. Man seems like I've been gone a long time. Will I be gone for the long haul? We'll see in a few!

Asia is HOT

2007-04-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

I don't mean the women, I mean it is literally hot in Asia. Being that I grew up in Hawaii I should know hot, and I know it was hot in Hawaii, but it is hotter in Asia!! Insane eh?

Actually I suffered thru a bit of heat and I think now that I can deal with it ok.

One big annoyance I realized with Asia is how close people stand by you. I always find foreigners from asia like to stand right god damn next to you, or behind you in line. Happens all the time and I step back and give them a look, but they don't get it. Sometimes I turn and elbow them. Bastards. Not to be ethnically or country-biased, but the worst offenders of this are from India and China. Probably because its so crowded in these two countries that they are not used to any free space.

Anyways enough ranting.

I really enjoyed my time in Tokyo. I can't say HK excited me that much. I was also pissed that the admin at YooBS didn't give very good instructions and the taxi driver somewhat abusively drove around in circles. YooBS also didn't offer to pay the cab fare so I was stuck with a ridiculously high fare. That alone pisses me off enough to say screw YooBS those bastards. Actaully didn't like the feel of the team, seems like a sweat shop. Plus I don't know enough people in HK to move there, it would be horrible. I think I will continue interviewing w/ them the final 2 more yards just so I can reject them.

Ramen!

2007-04-22T21:52:00.000-07:00

We went to the fabled ramen museum.

The concept of a museum in japan is much different than one in the US. A museum can just be a showroom.

We also saw a world luggage museum but it was closed. Did I mention that?

Back to the Ramen Museum.. the funniest part was getting there. We took the bullet train from Shinagawa. I never rode the bullet before so it was great. We sat down and noted it was just 1 stop away (..we will make a brief stop at Shin-Yokohama..) en-route to Nagoya. SO what happens? Well the train stops at ShinYoko and we are sitting there chattnig it up. About 30seconds pass and then I realize holy shit we have to get out so I jump up and run full speed to the doors and barely make it out, with Booby right behind me. We probably startled everyone around us.

We were laughing when we got out. Geez. You realize if we didnt get out we would have been on an hour and half journey to Nagoya w/ no stops. Haha. Probably would have to pay another $30 as well. Really escaped disaster there. Really funny.

We got a haircut in ShinYoko and it was great. I love haircuts in Asia they are so much better. Booby got a new hairstyle I think its way better. Hes already a chick magnet now hes going to be out of control with the new look.

Apparently stock value in the dating market for Korean men has been rising in Asia and esp Japan. Being black and white is still high value but its been decreasing it seems. Wow its like a perfect storm for me to move!

Tokyo Action

2007-04-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

Man we were out till approximately 6am last night. Tokyo is mad.

Its a good trip so far, every insightful. I got to see how Vics life is and how the action really is in tokyo for him and his friends. Basic conclusion that Booby and I have come to is the following

Lifestyle
- everyone works insane hours.
- it is fricking crowded as hell
- comfort aint no SF -- its hotter, colder, muggier, more crowded, hot on trains, hot in elevators etc
- food is awesome, and you can eat cheap in tokyo
- on the flip side, social scene is expensive overall

Social
- wow lots of eye candy/girls.
- a bit too mob mentality -- all girls look and dress the same
- girls at age 28+ are on aggressive hunts for men. shortage of men in general here
- lots of avg/above avg girls to hang out with. kind of the opposite of SF. SF has tons of guys who hang out, with 1-2 girls maybe. In tokyo its 1-2 guys with a hoard of girls on a typical night out.
- really tiring to stay out so late all the time! its a young persons town for sure.

Overall I have seen the life here and its not bad. I could do it. Its more an equation of what I leave behind vs what I gain. Something taken, something left behind. Back to Locards Principal.

Key Annoyances
1) no trash cans anywhere
2) keyboards are jacked up here i cant type
3) no paper towels in bathrooms anywhere

I think UBS is going to fly me over to Hong Kong for an itnerview. Wooooo.. free trip.

Golf and Good Times

2007-04-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

Today I shot my whole day by golfing at noon.

I have to try golfing at 7am or something because noon-1pm golf means your whole day is shot. Wake up late, hit some balls, play 18 then *poof* its like 7pm already. In this case its 9pm now.

Our usual 4-some (Tom, Booby, Gurt, and I) was broken by Gurt who flaked probably due to his wife's demands. It is tough having a demanding wife I imagine. So after searching far and wide, I found Mr. B.Boochay who is now a bigshot. Making big bucks I'm sure, with over $3m in revenues this past year and growing.

Fun day and weekend overall. It makes me realize the bay area has alot to offer. Golf and Tennis in the spring and summer. Skiing/snowboarding in the winter. Clubs and lounges all year around. Etc, etc, etc. List goes on.

Sonoma Film festival is lame though. Don't need to go there again!

Sat Bubble

2007-04-15T21:00:00.000-07:00

So Booby and I go to Bubble Sat night. Why? Just cause we had nothing else to do. We didn't meet anyone new, but our friend Moolisa joined us so it was fun to hear her perspective on dating. We took away 2 things from her:

1) NY people often have sex on the 1st date.
2) If you pay for dinner, the girl may feel obligated to put out.

Really funny to hear that from a girl's perspective!

We were also talking about how some crazy girls will call you at 2am or 4am. I've had both happen and these were girls I didn't sleep with or anything so you wonder what the heck, its not a booty call or anything.

And sure enough.. a girl I haven't seen in months now calls me at 2am while we are eating chinese food out of the blue. I answer and chat and say, "wow its really late to be calling.." hehe. So whats up with that, is it okay to call someone you don't know all that well at 2am or 4am for no particular reason? Seems a bit inappropriate doesn't it?

100x odds in Wegas

2007-04-09T21:32:00.000-07:00

Casino Royale has craps where you can put 20x odds for $3, and 100x odds for $5.

For those non-crappers it means you can bet a lot with near even-odds (ie, no statistical advantage for the house). I once put a $5 bet down while Boo was rolling and backed it with FULL ODDS (20x) for a whopping $105 bet. Boo hit the number so I won!! Next step is to max the 100x odds and put a $505 bet down. Hehe thats nuts man.

All in all, I won again. Amazing.. so lucky in gambling, so unlucky in love.

I went out with a girl from bokaycupid at the suggestion of my friend. Big girl, like 5'8" and a bit chunky. I made out w/ her a bit afterwards. I am thinking to myself.. what am I doing? This wasn't really really a girl I was into yet I kissed her. Hmm.. very weird eh. Now I have to suffer the consequences and figure out how to ditch her.. ugggggg....... dating sucks man.

Otherwise Vegas was fun. I got a ROYAL SHAVE (not at Casino Royale). Pretty cool stuff. My shaver was a woman. At first I thought.. how can a woman know how to shave a man? But then again, they shave their legs daily. Also, the shave is more like a facial than a shave. Shave is 15% of the event, the other 85% is lotions, hot towels, cold towels, massage, etc. So all in all, I would recommend a woman. The only downside was that I had to pay (unlike our two friends Kawaka and Tombo who live without honor) and that the lady didn't give me a shave consultation afterwards!!!

Vegas has hot girls no doubt. No action for me though. I'm a wimp.

Cousin

2007-04-06T01:17:00.000-07:00

My cousin Kuna visited w/ her 3 friends. Interesting set of friends, more interesting than my cousin really.

girl #1 - 20 y/o taiwanese apparently very well off family. dad owns some pillow company with operations in 5 countries. Very happy girl, very outgoing -- almost sickening at times. I'd say her personality is really great, and if she were a bit hotter then she would be the score of a lifetime.

girl #2 - 27 y/o white girl, goth type, married to a navy dude. i found out she is very unhappily married and sounds like she is going to cheat on her husband fairly soon to get some affection that she is in need of. sounds alot like the double divorcee redhead i met. easy pickings for someone who can show them some affection.

girl #3 - 28 y/o japanese girl. this girl barely talked at all. goes to show, if you want to learn the language you need to fight being shy. girl#1 had amazing english and japanese skills. i wonder if its innate or just due to the personality type that wants to talk to everyone.

Anyways its interesting to hang out w/ different people. I'm glad I could host my cousin like this.

Had a good conversation w/ Booby about moving to asia. his insight was.. he doesn't want to do it just for the hot young girls because its hard to tell if that is a pipe dream or reality. when u are on vacation things always look great. you gotta go for the right reasons, and we both agree our home is pretty much here and we don't want to have to restart life at square-1 in like 3 years when we return.......

tough call, more on that later.

Booyah

2007-04-05T00:28:00.000-07:00

My life is brilliant
My love is pure.
I saw an angel.
Of that I'm sure.
She smiled at me on the subway.
She was with another man.
But I won't lose no sleep on that,
'Cause I've got a plan.

You're beautiful. You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you.

I went out with this chinese girl for a drink at this art gallery. At the gallery I saw this other girl who was totally my type. Damn.. those moments in life. You have to act. You gotta just go for it!

Alas.. its over. I have to keep my eye out for her.

House, BattleStar

2007-04-01T23:47:00.000-07:00

Great shows. House is good. Battlestar Galactatta is the best!!

Maybe being single means watching more TV? Is that possible? I don't know man.

Played golf today. My driving sucks bad. I tend to really slice alot of shots and have a nasty spin (l->r) on my balls. My irons aren't bad. I can actually hit the 3 even which is a shocker to me. Chipping game sucks. Short-mid game not too bad. Putting liveable. Maybe I should practice once in a while. Need to buy a sand wedge.... lots to do in life.

I need to figure out a direction. I'm all over the place right now with different ideas on what to do.

Deadnight

2007-03-31T00:07:00.000-07:00

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....

2007-03-26T22:31:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2007-03-25T21:47:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-03-22T20:36:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-21T11:31:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-18T21:59:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-13T00:30:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-11T22:33:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-03T19:31:00.000-08:00

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.

Drunk and Tahoe

2007-02-27T20:47:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-26T19:58:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-23T00:39:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-19T16:59:00.000-08:00

"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

2007-02-17T22:57:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-02-16T00:49:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-14T19:27:00.000-08:00

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.....

2007-02-13T21:05:00.000-08:00

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!!

2007-02-13T00:19:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-06T23:44:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-03T12:03:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-01T20:18:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-01T20:15:00.000-08:00

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!

Cingular

2007-01-30T21:30:00.000-08:00

One needs to find the good in everything that happens. For me, I try to think of how it is nice to be able to do whatever you want whenever you want. Being single means you really have time to focus on yourself and whatever it is you like to do. Being with a couple means you are, in a sense, only doing what you want to do like 50% of the time. [Yes, you should have overlapping interests so its > 50%, but in worse cases it may be < 50%].

Like tonight, I ate at Chipotle. In a relationship I may not be able to just eat wherever I want. And now I'm blogging. Next I may play some WC3. Or maybe just go to sleep.

Such small things I admit. I'm trying to enjoy the life while I can!

Pillaging the Casinos of late

2007-01-30T21:02:00.000-08:00

I am a pretty seasoned gambler. By that I mean that I know gambling is a losing proposition. And the more you play, the more you will lose. We can have a few streaks but in the end you can't win. At least most people can't.

Last 4 times though I've been winning. I don't get it myself, but its been mad. Tahoe in Oct, Vegas in Nov, Reno in Jan, Tahoe last week.. just been winning. I attribute it to karma of having been screwed in love life, so getting back in cash flow. I think my net from these 4 trips is almost $5k.

But to get to my original sentence.. what makes me seasoned is the knowledge that this streak will end and possibly end with a savage pain. I have to be careful not to chase my winnings next time. Its easy to lose 300-400 at a craps table in no time.

I had something else to say. Oh yeah, Paris hotel has been sending me free room coupons. I have a free room March 31st weekend, and anothe coupon for 3 nights anytime between now and Jan'08. Man they really want their money back!! Haha. Need more free tahoe rooms.

The Man

2007-01-29T01:21:00.000-08:00

Went to tahoe this weekend with the boyz and female coworker friend of the boyz. Lots of fun. I killed myself boarding. Jesus christ. The female coworker was all over us. She wanted action, it was really weird. Actually not a bad looking tall redhead.

Rendall was in town for some odd business venture. I met up w/ him late, @10pm at the Redroom. I haven't been to the Redroom so it was a nice place to check out. Fri/Sat's are super packed. There was an ultra hot looking gall who was hanging w/ one dude who may have been her bf, and another 20 gay dudes. Wow hot hot.. thats my problem, I am not dating and messing w/ girls I consider really hot. Alas... thats life.

Kendall and his buds are true hawaii folk. I hate to say they are simple minded since that is somewhat insulting, but they are really simple, easy going, friendly and generous guys. Thats the hawaii spirit that can be really great.

Anyways I got home at 1am. Dammit, thats jaceked up. Got a long week of work ahead. Feel like I should call in sick, but can't do that no more.

Whats the Catch?

2007-01-25T22:39:00.000-08:00

So Tombo comes over and tells me how I'm a great catch and that I should have tons of girls to pick from.

Then we were talking about how I need to find a girl who is cool, attractive, has a life, career, educated, etc. He then says if a girl has all that she's going to be taken! Yep, typically so true. Gotta have good timing.

So I walk him back to when he told me how I'm a catch, etc. Haha. What a guy. I guess he means I'm a catch to the homeless and jobless girls or the ones who are in Vietnam. That be true, if I went to an impoverished place like Vietnam, I'd be a like a super VK.

But nah, I'm past the serial dating phase. I'm not getting back to being me, which means reading, relaxing, exercising, sleeping, and doing my own thing more. I need to just add a few elements here and there and I'll be in good balance.

Taking korean class. Teacher is cute. I hate being in class 3hrs.. but its the best way to learn. Gotta get spoon fed this stuff and practice w/ classmates. Its fun. I wonder how much I will progress in just 1 quarter.

Tennis Loser

2007-01-24T00:36:00.000-08:00

Again.. tonight I lost in tennis. God dammit!! It pisses me off. Its not the losing part, its the not playing that well part. I feel that my service game is getting much better, but I can't seem to hit my ground strokes with passion! Arggg.... it kills me.

6-4, 6-3, 5-7 was the match.. lost 2 sets, won 1 in the end. Having a rivalry is key !

So whats my passion today? Hmmmm... nothing. Nada. Trying to lose the last 5 lbs of gut thats my passion.

Depression!

2007-01-22T21:50:00.000-08:00

I heard on TV today that Jan 22nd is officially the most depressing day of the year. WTF kind of news is that to report on? Something about the lack of sunlight right now and the cold and xmas bills.. haha. I admit I was not feeling at the top of my game today. I guess I know why !

My resolution has been to wake up earlier. I can't say I've been sticking to it. Damn.

I think I've been living more. Thats good. Thats a step in the right direction.

Patty the Mogul

2007-01-20T01:00:00.000-08:00

I went to visit my friend Pat who is the mogul from Baritas Software since he had a small dinner party. Interesting guy.. let me tell you some info on him.

1. He is really rich. Not sure how rich, but I estimate his net worth at $12mm, which is a total flopping guess.
2. He is very easy going, esp for a rich guy.

Interesting thing though.. he's really slowed down in life and in living standards. He has a nice Los Altos Hill house, but I noticed it was a totaly mess. What the hell is going on.. where is the maid service? The downstairs toilet is broken, his bedroom was a mess, etc. Geez man.. pull yourself together! Even my place is more tidy and I'm not the cleanest dude around.

Also his gf.. I am not sure about. She is mexican, about 8 years younger and all, but man she doesn't like asian food very much! Oh man.. that is a big problem. Compatibility of food. She was a bit cranky tonight too.

What was more interesting is that he also is hanging w/ married people who have kids. Wow, he is not surrounding himself with young kids anymore so thus the change in lifestyle pace. I need to bring him out to the city so I can get the real digs on what the heck is going on w/ the guy. When you have $10mm+ in the bank and a $2mm house, you should be really living life!!!

Fast Tracking in Korean

2007-01-18T22:23:00.000-08:00

I started my Korean class today. Man it is tough, the pronunciation is trickier than I expected. I have a slight leg up since I've been studying a little already.. but I suspect in 3 weeks I will have surpassed all that studying since now I'm in a classroom environment now.

Pedagology is interesting.. most people, like myself have no discipline and can never really study on their own. They need a classroom, tests, etc to get something out of it. Scary thing is that I am probably not even that bad, I do alot of reading and learning on my own, most people probably don't do jack shit in their spare time.

I got a fast track pass. Yes!!! One step forward. No more bullshit being in the wrong line or the long ass line when I cross the bridges. Little things can make me happy.

I am very thankful that my friend Kawaka the Krakka is now blogging. It brings me a little joy to be able to keep up with what is happening in the lives of my friends this way. Okay, so keep it up!! And write more about whats new with your little beby as well. Same for all others, keep blogging! Your customers are depending on you for entertainment in their time of need!

Socialization of the Masses

2007-01-17T23:34:00.000-08:00

I went out tonight with new people. I think meeting new people is key.

Tonight I went out for a drink and tacos with Boo's friend Toon and her friend Loonie. Toon is a Vietnamese girl that Boo met a while back. I had met her w/ Boo last night and I proceeded to squeeze in on her action tonight even though Boo wasn't there.

It wasn't a date, she has a bf. Not the guy she went out w/ tonight but some other dude down south in SJ where she lives.

Interesting thing. She looked alot hotter last night. Tonight she looked okay. I am really weird like that. Some days the girl looks really hot, the next day they look less hot. Really weird. I don't know what it is. Kinda don't like that I need to see a girl like 3 times before I can figure out if she is hot or not.

Haha. Oh well keeps life interesting.

Happiness Discovered Part I

2007-01-14T17:31:00.000-08:00

Okay I found I am really happy when I win $1,000 at the casino on a really hot craps roll.

I have to say, my gambling has been much hotter since my ex gf left. She must have been bad luck for me. Wow, amazing.. Thanksgiving time I was at a hot table and left with $2,500 ($400 buy in I think), and this weekend in reno, $200 buy in resulted in almost $1k.

Well this type of thing is not sustainable happiness, no more than is a drug high, or the high of having hot sex, but I thought I'd write a blog about it anyways.

Back home.. to relax. And I have tomorrow off! Yaaaah. Snow in the sierra's sucks really bad. really really bad.

Boarding On...

2007-01-11T21:26:00.000-08:00

It is funny, I was really depressed during my trip when I was sick, because I've found my biggest moments of weakness are when I am sick. I remember being sick when I wanted to get back together w/ my old ex-gf #1 and yep that was a frickin disaster. I was sick when I first started dating my ex #3 and fell madly in love w/ her after she nursed me back to health. And when I was sick in VN I could only think of one thing, my ex #3.

Aaa.. now if I were sick during the dating of ex #2, I may have gotten married or something. Funny isn't it.

Anyways I suspect my friend Booby is single. His profile on Friendster changed! Hmm.. very suspicious. I am sad for him if thats the case, but maybe should be more sad for his ex-gf since I suspect she will be crushed. Alas.. life has to move on. As we said, move forward!!!!

Going to tahoe this weekend. Truly living life?? Hehe we'll see.

Hapa Part N

2007-01-10T00:04:00.000-08:00

Well I decided to go to dinner w/ the hapa gal again.

You know, I really wanted to stop seeing her.. along with everyone else, but my weakness makes it hard to break anything off. She is a nice gal, but I'm just not passionate about her. I think I'm doing the wrong thing by not ending things quickly.. but I don't know, am I just confused?

Its tough man. Don't want to be on the receiving end of a situation like that, so I guess the right thing is to be a man and do the right thing. Hmmmmm.. we'll see.

For now, I think I'll go to Tahoe this weekend to escape it all. It is really going to get in the way of my NFL watching though!

Moving Forward

2007-01-08T22:55:00.000-08:00

Rocky Balboa was interesting. Final chapter of his life was different than what I had expected.

The theme was to keep moving forward. Thats what life is about. I found some similarities and things I could take to heart from watching this movie. Rocky was living in the past. He was thinking about all the good memories he had with his now deceased wife -- but as a result, he was killing himself by living backwards! I am living backwards at times because I admit I live in the past way too much and dream about what was and wasn't.

Rocky's wife didn't leave him, she died. Maybe I should just think of my ex as having died so I can be like Rocky. In the end it doesn't matter, memories are memories, and you have to move on when life deals you a heavy blow.

Its not about how hard you can hit, its about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.

I, like Rocky, feel like I still have some 'stuff' left in me and am searching for direction. I, unlike Rocky, am not 50+ years old though and haven't done jack yet in life. Thus, I should have alot more 'stuff' than he does. Its about heart, thats what made him a champ. I need dig deep.

Anyways enough nonsense for tonight.

What I realize about my goals for 2007 is that they must be concrete and identifiable. You can't just say "be more productive" -- you have to spell out the details. Here are my details to help myself this year:

1) Sleep before midnight every work night.
2) Wake up early every morning before 8am every day for work.
3) Do not put things on the backburner, take the time to get them done, or forget about them.
4) Focus at work and on work!!

Slight correctionon phaseass

2007-01-07T17:09:00.000-08:00

Correction in thinking from my last post.

I think the key is to live each segment of your life to the fullest, not because the next phase is a drag, but more because each segment is different, and you can't go back.

Thus if you didn't have a nice childhood, then you will always be suffering from that hole in your life. Same goes for your 20's, 30's, etc. Not living an adventureous 20's & 30's may haunt you in your 40's when you probably should be focused on family and paying for your house.

Life shouldn't be a drag at any segment of life. You should be happy having passed the prior one and look forward to the new challenges that are before you. But in order to truly appreciate it, you need to accept the end of the prior segment.

Risk Management

2007-01-07T03:31:00.000-08:00

I enjoy talking to Boo sometimes because we took such different paths in life and his perspectives are often very contrary to mine.

Boo took the path of enjoying life. Truly living life as much as he can despite the financial and career implications it has had on him. While I was saving money and working to figure out how to make more $$$, he was off to living in SF, Ireland, New York, etc having fun and trying to live it up.

Fast forward like 7 years and where are we.. we are probably equally happy/unhappy and content/ discontent with life and the big difference is that I have alot more $$ saved while he has done alot more in his life to date. But fast forward another 7 years, and will it be me who is thinking that in a flash my life is half over at 40, and that I missed something?

At a blink of an eye.. I'll be 40. Thats my latest saying. Thats how I feel. I know it. For many like Tombo, its a reality. After he has a baby, next thing you know, he's going to be old, 40, having just raised a child and set him/her going in 1st grade. I think about when I met my ex-GF and started dating here, and now in the blink of an eye its 5 years later, I'm 33 and single again. What the hell happened?

Anyways, its an interesting issue we have. Or I have anyways. I suppose part of the goal of youth is to try to live it fully in that phase because the next phases can be a drag. People go thru mid-life crises because of this sometimes.. because they find themselves, in the blink of an eye, at age 40, living the daily grind to pay the mortgage and there is no variation left in their foreseable future. My coworker says it, no action, no excitement anymore.

For me, I feel like that dull basic life was what I wanted and in many ways still want. Its probably some of what broke my ex & I up in the end. I want stability with someone and to start a life together with someone. But at the same time, I can only tell you my thoughts now, for in 7 years I don't know if I'll be thinking I'm trapped in a dead-end hellhole of life that I've created for myself.

So that brings me to an interesting thought thats been looming in my mind more clearly. I should move to Tokyo or Hong Kong, and do it soon. Why? Alot of things tell me not to do it. But the idea that when I'm 40, and truly needing to settle down, it will be way too late to do anything as bold as this (at least not in the same way a single man in his 30's can do it).

Again, I don't know if its really me to do it. I feel like its more me to just settle down here in the bay and find a stable life here. But its so true that you have to try to get the most out of life that you can.

BTW, I saw that movie, Pursuit of Happiness with William Smith. It was an okay movie. I rate it 2.5stars. It is inspiring, but only to some degree. Its more about watching a guy struggle thru tough times and make it. Its no Rudy nor Gattaca in terms of truly inspiring movies. In fact, maybe Rocky Balboa will be more inspiring.

Hoi An

2007-01-06T03:20:00.000-08:00

On the 2nd day, we traveled to Da Nang (1hr flight from Saigon), en route to Hoi An.

It was good because Saigon is a hell hole as I mentioned. Hehe, now thats being very crude and tacky since some VN may love the place. Its just so polluted, crowded, and hot.. that it is hard to enjoy right away!

HoiAn is a small resort town (1hr drive from DaNang) that has some charm to it. The only complaint I had is that Boo decided we would stay in el-cheapo $15 / night hotels (1-2star) and they sucked ass. After traveling 3-5star all my life (preferrably 4-star all the time), it is hard to go back to 2 star. Its quite miserable. Booby and I were dying. Never again.. whats so bad?

Lets see... Bedding was nasty. Sheets are gross. A/C sucks. Room is tiny. Rooms smell. Bed was made of foam and felt damp. Mosquitos were abound. Booby was afraid of ghosts.

HoiAn is a major tailor town, they make everything. We went and got alot of crappy clothes made pretty cheap (for the most part). Bobby almost bought a suite for $380, but thank god he didn't because they were not the best fitting stuff since doing it in 12 hours means its hard to get it perfect. But most dress shirts were $10 which was a great deal and worth getting a few. I got a goofy cordouroy jacket for $25 and a wool mid overcoat for $50. Also a few linen shirts for $10 each.

There was one tailor that was charging way more than others. We went there, and bought shirts for $50 which now I think is ridiculous. Their suits were $380 (the one Booby almost bought), and linen shirts $28. Its funny, we bought orange linen shirts and they made it a long sleeve with cuffs! Now what kind of fool would wear a long sleeve orange linen shirt with cufflinks??? Geez man, these VN folk have no idea about fashion, thus its dangerous to leave any details up to them! If you are going to a tailor like that, you gotta know exactly what you want!

We went to a gay tailor and he wound up making alot of our clothes too fitted (tight). Why? Because he's gay, and thats how gay people wear clothes. Yeah its jacked up. Hehe.

Hanoi Memories

2007-01-06T03:07:00.000-08:00

I remember in Hanoi we were at Ho Chi Min's memorial. It is a grand thing. They love the man in Hanoi. Northern Vietnam loves him, southern vietnam maybe loves him, I am not so sure. He was the main revolutionary (and later the president) who fought for independence, so in many ways he is like the George Jeffersons and Sam Adams of our country, but to I also suspect he had corrupt sides to him since it seems he was also a semi ruthless leader who squashed his ememies as needed. So I'm not sure what to make of him yet.

At the HCM memorial we met with some tourists from LA and one gal was quite cute. Her dad gave Booby his card and said to call him. Wow that guy picks up on girls and their dads! Haha. Anyways on the way out, we bought ice cream. I told Boo to ask the ice cream girl what clubs we should go to in Hanoi. Boo proceeds to ask and later comes back reporting that the girls had no clue what he was talking about and that we shouldn't ask ice-cream girls about clubs!! Very true.. so much easier to see that in hindsight!

To report, the club scene in Hanoi was not bad. We went to one club where the waitress/hostess would dance and do weird shows (PG rated), and would also serve you hand and foot at your table. Very interesting. It seems when you have cheap labor you can hire hundreds of young girls at a club to just stand around. At another club the hottest girls were the go-go dancers on the stages. Wow. Alot of the girls were really small and looked 14 y/o. That doesn't really turn me on so I said "this is gay".

Lots of white people in Hanoi. Kinda annoying to be in Vietnam and be surrounded by tourists. Maybe we were in the tourist zone (French Quarters).

Overall Hanoi was much nicer than Saigon. Or was it that we were in the nicer part of Hanoi than in Saigon? I think Hanoi is a bit more developed with better roads and more modern shops. Less motorbike hell as well. They had a few nice lakes you could walk around and the weather was WAY better! I think it was like high 60's to mid 70's! Wow thats really amazing. I guess for local VN people under 85 is cold so everyone had their puffy jackets on. Heh.

My memories of Hanoi will be of eating 2 bowls of Pho in one sitting.. one northern style, one southern style, having lots of coffee at cafes, seeing alot of Ho Chi Min history, and having a grand old time with Boo and Booby as a nice trio. Where was Tombo? Suffering in Mekong Delta! Hahaa!!

Saigon Memories Part I

2007-01-05T20:00:00.000-08:00

Arrival memories..

I actually stopped over in Hong Kong. I love Hong Kong. What a great city. Why so great? Well first off, its clean and they speak English!! I'd consider working in Hong Kong, but given most of the population speaks Cantonese, one of the most difficult languages in the world, I am not sure I could adapt to living there. Its also really hot the rest of the year.

You don't realize how good you have it if you are living in San Francisco.. the best weather in the world.

Anyways I arrived in Saigon at about 930am. Got thru customs very easily. Its funny, the vistor customs lines are shorter in many of these countries. They don't give a shit about the citizens, they are more concerned about getting visitors in so they can spend $$$.

Stepped out into searing heat. Okay it was probably 85F with high humidity. It feels like 95 when you come from the cool SF nob hill weather. Got to our hotel to check in and were merrily greeted by Boo an Booby! Wow its a reniun, the 4 of us were quickly ready to go.

I barely remember the day.. I learned quickly that the air is HEAVILY polluted with the bazillion motorbikes. There is no obvious order in traffic, bikes go everywhere and in any direction. Most streets have no signals. Its a madhouse!! Went to several cafes, etc for our first night. It was a blitz, it was fun. Met Bao's friends TinTin, Hannah, and the mysterious Mii of whom we debated about her sexual orientation (man or female/transvestite) during the entire trip.

Yet Another Year In Review

2007-01-04T17:27:00.000-08:00

Geez.. I can't remember jack about what happend this year.

Did I do anything? I can only remember the 2nd half of the year when I got fucked and have been really screwed up since.

I guess I could recap my blog. Oh well, but for the most part, 2006 will be remembered as a fucked up year when my GF left me and I scrambled to pick up the pieces. I hope 2007 is a year when I build myself back up to a place far beyond where I was in 2006.

Hey I'm sounding negative aren't I? Long story, but I have been feeling down despite coming back from vacation! I should feel envigorated no??

Back from 'Nam

2007-01-04T16:47:00.000-08:00

I'm back!

I'm alive!!

I have some tidbits to post, unfortunately I was not blogging from the front lines due to lack of connectivity, being busy, poor connectivity, and not feeling like blogging.

The main gist of it all.. land of the VC's is quite a place to visit. However it is really polluted and under developed (ala, 3rd world country), it is motorbike HELL, even during the 'cool' season is really hella hot, but on the flip side, its dirt cheap ($1.00 Pho, $0.60 beer).

I visited Saigon/HoChiMin, DaNang, HoiAn, Hanoi, HaLong Bay, and Mekong Delta. More tid bits to follow later.

5 wine, 3 champaign bottles later..

2006-12-21T09:02:00.000-08:00

Well I threw my party. It was fun, I have to say party planning is new for me, so it was a learning experience. First off, you really need to invite alot more people since the # of people who don't come is generally high. Still it was cool, I think I had about 25 people total, maybe 15 at once so it was a comfortable #.

I will have to decide if I'll throw another one like this again or not. I may opt for a smaller dinner party instead, or go for a full raging party and invite like 100 people (and expect 30 to show up??). Who knows. For now I'm off to vacation!!

Next report will come from HK or HCM

The Passion and the Party

2006-12-19T00:51:00.000-08:00

Did I mention how I am not at all passionate about any of the girls I have dated so far? It is a big problem. The last 2 girlfriends I had were girls I was totally head over heels into bigtime in terms of connection, attraction, and passion. It may be asking alot, but apparently its very critical to have that feeling. Thus I am ending my dating spree with a grand party at my place.

I don't know how grand it will be, I realize that party planning is an art, and its not easy!

First off.. you must balance the # of men to women. It is not easy finding single girls in general, let alone come to your party. Thus I have a good # of non-single girls, but thats okay, better to have the eye candy than just a bunch of dudes leeching on my free booze.

Second, you have to figure out how many people to invite, based on the knowledge that not all will show at the same time, and some will bring alot more people than expected, and some will not show. You don't want too many, but a few too many is better than no one at all.

Third, based on the unknown # of people, you have to plan food and drinks. Having enough beer, wine, ice, etc, and food. Food is tricky, as a single bachelor I am not cooking and really not in the mode of feeding everyone, so I said appetizers and snacks, which translates to random food like egg rolls, spring rolls, satay sticks, chips, dip, etc.

One amusing and potentially dangerous thing is that I'm inviting a few girls that I've dated before all to the same party. Hopefully no big deal.

Sunday sunday

2006-12-18T00:36:00.000-08:00

I didn't do much today. Ran some errands to get ready for my xmas party.

Throwing an xmas party is not cheap. I don't give out $20 jamba cards like tombo, but still buying booze & food adds up, and many people who come to parties are leechers and will gladly drink up all your booze. Thats why many parties only offer cheap ass stuff like Heineken and cheap wine. But alas, my party is not as cheap, so I offer Hennessey, Patron, Grey Goose, decent wine, and champaign. I'd estimate total cost to throw a party, $500 in food and booze.

While I have a big condo here in Snoob Hill, I should try to throw one every quarter though. More often if I can keep costs under control.

Otherwise I didn't do anything today. I felt lazy. I slept alot. Sometimes thats just what I need though. Kind of catch up from all the bad sleep I get during the week.

The burn rate

2006-12-16T03:37:00.000-08:00

Money is burning fast this last few months.

I think its okay, I was in recovery and I was burning money to help enjoy life. It was well deserved given I was a cheap bastard for a while.

Like tonight I bought a round of shots for everyone at happy hour. Only cost $35 (7*$5) this time, but still thats how you burn the $$$$ !! Also throwing a holiday party, that is probably going to cost me $$$$ as well.

My guilty pleasure of the month? A pair of shoes. Do you know what Cordovan leather is? Its apparently the toughest leather around and is from the ass-cheeks of horses. Supposedly its the best. Alden from New England makes them into classic dress shoes for a whopping $480. Yep, thats my extravagant purchase of the year.

My justification on shoes is that paying to redo the soles is a better deal long term.

Oh well, the way I see it.. you only live once. As long as you are somewhat within budget then screw it. I'm not sure if I'm in budget, but I'm not bleeding yet.

So I paid a bill

2006-12-14T21:18:00.000-08:00

My ex-gf semi-stuck me with the cancel fee for VZN to split our accounts. It was kind of stupid, because she just had to keep the damn account like 2 more months in order to keep within contract and then get out for free. But alas.. she transfers the # and closes it, sticking me with a $175 bill.

On the flip side, I haven't paid her deposit for the apt back which I think was like $1500 or so, I don't know now because the docs splitting the costs are all lost. So whatever.

I often think back to all the happier times and it kills me. I need to think more about the shitty times to get perspective.

Case in point:

I remember her telling me how the 2ndary market for video game rentals kills new game sales because the game publishers make nothing on rentals and it lowers new game sales. My counter point is that the rental market is a natural evolution of any commodity like video movies or books. I'm sure book publishers were up in arms at the idea of a place loaning books for free, they probably thought it would destroy sales and ruin the publishing business. You have to adapt your biz model to new markets. But when I try to bring out this type of intellectual conversation she would get pissed and feel like I was just trying to argue with her and that she is just trying to say it hurts their sales.

Bah, lame. Guess thats somewhat of a 'men from mars, women from venus' thing.

This one psycho I have to write about...

2006-12-11T23:11:00.000-08:00

I like to think I'm a nice guy. I don't think I'm a rotten guy anyways, ie I don't mess around w/ girls just for kicks, I am pretty much a relationship guy.

So anyways I went out on a meeting/date w/ this online girl a month or so back that I should document here. I was not that optimistic about it, because of various factors. Anyways she wanted to have dinner, but I am now experienced enough to know not to have dinner w/ someone you are unsure of, you should have wine or coffee or just meet at the water fountain maybe. Limit the time and $$ committment!

So.. my impressions of her was that she was kind of cute, but not that cute, but more importantly, she seemed like a bitch in many ways. Clues:
1) She got the impression I didn't have a car, and seemed shocked. I said no, I have a car, I just don't drive often. Then she asks what kind of car I drive. Impression: materialistic
2) She said she's gone on horrible date after date so rarely goes on dates now. Impression: hates men and has given up
3) She told me about a guy she dated who had leukemia as a kid, and how she didn't want to date someone w/ medical issues. Impression: not very compassionate
4) Talked about how she loves to gamble but almost always wins because she's good at blackjack Impression: gambaholic/idiot
5) Said she was turned off by one dude who said he's liberal and is okay being a house-husband because she felt he was saying he's a leech. and doesn't want to work Impression: selfish and materialistic
6) Talked about how when she was young she remembers being able to get any guy she wanted or something like that and how different it is now for her. Impression: wtf kind of thing is that to say on a date??

Anyways I have to say after all those faults I decided to give her a goodnight kiss on the lips at the end. It was wrong since I wasn't interested, but I thought in some way it would be nice since she seemed so negative on dating and maybe she'd realize that there are nice cool guys out there!

But alas.. it was a mistake for me, because she e-mailed me saying what a great date she had.. but alas I didn't want to date her again, so I told her later that I think I'm starting to get more serious w/ another girl so I probably shouldn't see her anymore, but told her she's nice and she should keep looking and not give up! I thought that would be a convenient lie to not hurt her feelings.

Whats her reaction? Well.. she was pissed and called me a cheater! Wow thats pretty whacked. I felt bad but oh well hope I don't run into that psycho.

What did I learn from this? Well.. its not good to give mixed signals. I am somewhat on auto-pilot on dates at times which is not too smaaat.

Did I mention I'm done w/ dating? Hahaaa.

My current state of thinking

2006-12-11T20:51:00.000-08:00

While walking home after buying some underwear @ Macys, I came to think about what I'm looking for in a girl. Its not easy to qualify.. obviously you want it all, but whats the most important thing?

I think the big shallow thing all people (guys especially) have is the issue of wanting someone who is physically attractive as the primary factor. I don't understand the reason for it, whether it is purely biological/chemical, or if it is a trained response to media blitzes and propaganda. For me, its not top of the list, but at times I wish I could put it lower on the list than it is because it is somewhat disturbing to be focused on looks too much.

I admire people who look beyond those things. I wonder if I can train myself to not focus on looks at all. Yeah, thats something to think about.

I think this came up because I meet alot of girls who I am just not physically attracted to. I try to give it a chance, but its not like my last 2 gf's who I was just smitten with. I feel the need to be smitten.

I Question

2006-12-10T14:40:00.000-08:00

Where is the best place to meet people for relationships?

I can think of the following..
1) Clubs
2) Bars
3) Friends & Family
4) Work or School
5) Online
6) Randomly in life

Problem with #1 & #2 is that you never know what you're getting from unqualified leads like these. Plus people look & act different in the club atmosphere, esp after you've been drinking!

Anyways this has no point to it. I think the best is to just get out there and be active and meet people and just enjoy life.

This Saturday I went to my friend Moola's birthday party w/ Boo, Booby, and my coworker Godd @ Medjool. Not a bad night out. Afterwards we had Pho which is always tasty. Funny, everyone goes to this Pho place after clubbing. In fact, we saw one group of girls that Godd hit on (and was rejected badly by) at the same tiny Pho place. Funny because its not next to the birthday party spot at all.

I think Godd is a fairly good looking white guy, but he got rejected like a schmuck by these girls that should probably be below his standards. Some girls are 'unhittable' and just don't want to be hit on. Some girls are really friendly. Some want to be hit on. Some only talk to asians or whites, or whatever their taste is. Never know till you try.

Ups and Downs of Living Life

2006-12-06T21:26:00.000-08:00

On the up: My 401k is +20.6% right now for the year. Wow, how'd that happen?
On the up: My other 401k is +19.2%.
On the up: My personal portfolio is +13.6%.

That means.. my active trading strategy is doing worse than funds. Interesting. Is it a timing issue or does this mean I should just stick with funds? My personal portfolio has alot of iShares (ETF funds) though. It must be the losers dragging me down.

On the down: Still feeling sick from Monday's party, or from my nagging cold
On the down: Feeling sorry for myself about my ex again
On the down: Not happy with the girls I'm presently dating
On the down: Concerned today about my career and where its going

Oh well, thats life man. You gotta just tough it out. I think being sick brings back the memories of how my ex used to take care of me and nurse me back to health like when I had Mono. Oh well, I will make it okay.

Went out to dinner w/ Boo and Booby and then to Minna and met up with McG. I wasn't feeling that good, but its good to just get out rather than mope at home.

VN trip is coming up quick!

Take it easy there...

2006-12-05T18:27:00.000-08:00

Thats so fucked up. I actually didn't remember writing that last blog yesterday where I'm saying how drunk I am..

Anyways like I said, I went to Boo's for a dinner party last night. Man I apparently drank way too much because I am still feeling ill like 24 hours after the party started. Hmm.. I didn't think I drank that much wine, but I guess over 5 hours I was continuously sipping.

Felt really sick. Bleah. I need to slow down or my liver is going to fail.

It was fun. I met a 1/2 japanese, 1/2 taiwanese girl who is pretty cute, although Boo already dated her a little while ago. Kind of gross, its like sloppy seconds.

Boo party

2006-12-05T00:58:00.000-08:00

Oh man I am so drunk.

Just came back from boo's party... his friend is really hot. wow. i'm drunk. gotta go throw up or something.

bye

Real World girl @ Rogue

2006-12-02T12:52:00.000-08:00

Oh it turns out that korean girl Jamie from the Real World San Diego goes to Rogue. McG and I saw her but didn't know who she was. We were trying to figure out if we should hit on her (or he should since he was hot for her), but she was surrounded by 5 layers of people. She knew everyone. McG thought he heard some random guy ask to take a photo with her and I was like ???? wtf is that.

Now that we have verified it is Jamie from Real World, it makes sense why someone would ask for a photo and why she would do it.

Well there you go. Friday night Bartops at Rogue has celebrities in play. That place sucks, I refuse to go there again.

Sometimes people look better/worse in tv vs real life. Jamie looks pretty cute in real life. I guess she is way cuter now that we know who she is!!

Dating Rules Revisited

2006-12-02T12:16:00.000-08:00

So I ponder what the current rules of dating are.

If I am dating a girl, and I kiss her, does that mean I shouldn't be going out on other dates and kissing other girls? What if I go to 2nd base, 3rd base, etc? At what point is a person a dirty rat?

Its somewhat up to the person I suppose. It seems some women feel that if you are kissing one girl, then you shouldn't be dating anyone else. To me that sounds a bit draconian. In fact, you could be sleeping with one girl, and still be dating around. It all depends on the mutual agreement right?

Or is there an implied agreement when things get to a certain point? Hmm... its tricky for shure (note the spelling of 'sure' in honor of Tombo).

I ask this because I wonder if I'm being a bad guy. I'm not serious with anyone, but maybe with one girl it is getting a tiny tiny bit more serious, such that I feel somewhat odd that I invited another girl to my xmas party, and still go on dates w/ other girls. Juggling dates.. its not too good. It may be a sign that I'm not into this girl enough.

Party On!

2006-12-02T02:40:00.000-08:00

Tonight I went to my corporate party at City Hall. It was fun.

I decided last week or so to invite this korean gal that I was trying to date.. unfortunately she is more into partying than dating, so I didn't get much dating in during the past 2 months or so. Also, she lives in fremont, so it makes it a bit inconvenient to date. But alas, she came with me, I figured she's good eye candy at the very least.

Met most of my coworkers there which was cool.

I think my date had a decent time anyways. She is a cool gal, but I don't think we're totally compatible in the end. I am thinking she has implants due to her busting out bustline shape that she exhibited tonight. But alas, who knows, I was sick today so my ability to make a real move was limited. Otherwise I would have at least gone for a base1 move. Oh well, thats life. She's a good contact since she knows a LOT of people and is a nice gal.

Thats the end of the 2006 party life!! Next stop, Vietnam!!

Vegas Memoirs

2006-11-28T21:38:00.000-08:00

I had some of this really great Scotch when I was in vegas. I paid $46 for one glass of this stuff so it better be good. It was 21year Macallan and apparently its $269 / bottle. Hmm no wonder it was good. I'm somewhat surprised though because I have 18 year Johnny Walker which is like $160/bottle and it is not that great. I think I like Guinness more nowadays.

Oh well I'm glad I don't drink that much otherwise I would go broke.

I keep saying I'm done w/ dating.. but alas..

I had a date tonight w/ this girl I met at Loft 11. Girl was young and naive, I'm not sure if I am into that. She's cute though, but a girl that lives at home still and works kind of a dead-end job.. and doesn't drink at all.. and also goes home from work at 5pm! Hard to coordinate with that type of gal. Oh well I'll give it another date.

Last night I had a date w/ an online gal. She was not quite my cup of tea. I feel bad for maybe seeming more interested than I am because now she e-mailed me and seems really interested....uhgggg, now what? It isn't a game. But on the flip side, she was one of those girls who had alot of bad dates and seems like she'd almost given up and rarely goes on dates. You definitely can't be like that, you gotta get out there and give it a fair shake and date date date!!! Me, I'm done dating. I am slowing down and trying to do my own thing now.

Sat night w/ the gang

2006-11-26T01:57:00.000-08:00

My saturday was pretty dull at first. I was thinking of going to Napa w/ PG to the private winery, but didn't wake up early enough, and found that the winery was a private house, not a big winery, so I figured nah.. long drive, can't drive back drunk, and need to rest.

I had a good nap and then got my ass up to go out w/ VJ and her gang (Shidofu, SuperJen, Kathroom). Went to Madjewl for drinks and snacks. That girl Kathroom was really cute, I dig the nice smile and dimples. I met her before and didn't think much, but I realize that while you have a gf you don't notice things as much. Also when the girl is now married or off the market they also look better. Its a standard 'grass is greener' type of mentality.

After initial drinks, we were off to Suede! Let me tell ya, there is a side of the nightlife that I'm missing out on. Seems Jen and VJ know people at Suede. There was a line of like 30 people there, but VJ and Jen just walk up and talk to the dude who works there, and BAMN, we are in there for free. Its like traveling VIP style. Quite cool. Funny thing is.. there was no-one inside the club. Literally no-one. They hold the stupid line outside to create a buzz, but inside there were 0 people. We were the very first in there....

Anyways it was still cool to skip the line. Goes to show there is another level of action out there. I talked to only 1 girl that night. A pair of thai gals who had a boyfriend. Oh well. There were a few others I should have hit on, but wasn't feeling it that night. McG bailed on me too, I guess he wasn't up for it either. I think Holidays bring people down. I was a bit down before going out, but I'm glad I went out. Sometimes you have to drag your sorry ass out, 'cause moping at home is sometimes not that good.

Back in the day

2006-11-25T02:40:00.000-08:00

I used to not spend much money. I probably saved $3000+ a month or something as a result. Now I save almost 0. Its really sad, but with my very expensive lifestyle of my apartment, going out, shopping, travel, etc.. its not easy to keep up even when in the 98% of world economic earning power (whatever it is anyways).

On the flip side, I used to not fully live life, whatever the heck that means. I didn't really enjoy the city, didn't go out to see what the city has to offer in terms of restaurants, clubs, etc.

Tonight I went to Rouge, and I realize that club sucks. McG and I both struck out and we have come to the conclusion it is not a pickup joint. Girls are not there to meet people randomly, it is waaaaaaay too clickish. We also went to Boss. Boss on a non-asian night is just another lame club. We also went to the Marina where McG and I checked out the Matrix, then demolished some dudes in foosball at Mauna Loa. No action but it was cool. On the way home while I was finding a cab, some girl flashed her boobs for me. Wow, thats like the 2nd set of boobs I've been flashed in 3 weeks.

Oh in Vegas I was on a craps table where I entered with $300 and left with $2500. It was quite a roll. My trip net wasn't quite that high, but I kept most of it (but spent alot on food for the family.. $45/person grand buffet at the Wynn for 4!! Thats like $200 right there!!)