fire!

so many homes were lost last weekend. over 20,000 people evacuated from diamond bar. twin engines were flying over our apartment all day making the windows rattle. it was a sight to behold seeing the enormous dc-10 flying in circles above our city. it was massive.

Scion Night @ Halloween Haunt

Yesterday, me and my coworkers all went to the Scion Event at Knott's Scary Farm. The deal is, the first 2000 Scions that arrive get in for free (including all belted passengers) and they have a giant show all day until the park opens at 7. So we all met at Applebees at 930 in the morning and drove down. We werent allowed to wait in line until 1 so we decided to go down to Huntington and eat fish tacos. The air was so clear and dry from the Santa Ana winds, you could see Catalina perfectly.
Anyways, we drove back around 1230 and they let us in. It was insane the amount of Scions driving around Buena Park. There were thousands of them everywhere you looked. Parked at gas stations, driving the streets. Even when we left Walnut i saw more than i normally saw. There were people trying to get in all day.
We all hung out at got food and partied in the parking lot and even my old coworkers from Barros were randomly parked a car away from us. It was fun seeing all of the different xBs and tailgating all day and blasting music.
Later more of our coworkers came down that didnt own Scions after it got dark and we all had a blast going on the rides, the mazes and getting scared all night.

I'm bummed this is the last year they are doing this event but I'm glad I got to go at least once.

here are some pictures i found on the forum i use. I didnt take them but its basically what our day was like.

i hate to say it

last night i was watching comedy central and I caught the last 30 minutes of the movie Waiting. it intrigued me. I was completely astounded by what I saw.

I've heard some of my coworkers say that Waiting is the best movie ever and that I should see it. yadda yadda.

So I bought it off of iTunes tonight. And yes, watching the movie is as close as you can get to working at Applebees. Every single scene of the movie is what Applebees has been like. Every actor is someone I know or knew. Every line, every joke, every party scene, everything. The testicle pranks, the underage hostesses, even the "quit whining and join army" I've been there. I've seen people drop food on the ground and tell me to pick it up but I have always thrown away anything that touches the ground. I take pride in my expo shifts. It wouldn't surprise me that others wouldn't. Nevertheless, I'm sad to say that Waiting is, in fact, a mirror image of working in a chain restaraunt.


My favorite scene of the whole movie is where all of the cooks are watching the clock count down until closing hour, like it's new years eve. And then they get one last order two minutes before. I cant tell you how many times I've been there. From Renatos to Barros to Thats Amore to Applebees. It BLOWS.


No grade.

was once brown is now red

i havent posted anything in a month i think. this should be lengthy. and in no particular order.

everyone, say hello to Raining Red, my new/oldest band.
















How can a band be new and old at the same time you might ask? Well Devin is in there. And so is Alex Rodriguez, our constant Code Brown fill-in for bass and guitar when Devin and Eric began to work in high school (he basically became a full-time Code Brown member after he printed a t-shirt with Devin's face on it with the text "MISSING" that he wore to shows he played). The last is Chin, the asian guy who hung out with us all throughout high school. Is it Code Brown? No. I wrote the majority of songs for Code Brown, and this time I would really like for Devin, Alex and Jason to put their creativity into high gear considering it's their band, I'm only joining and doing what I can to fabricate their ideas into something good. I want all of the satisfaction after recording to go to them.
Its strange for me to go from playing in a high caliber band like Tiefighter, one that was constantly booking tours, studio time and had an acute sense of how to write songs that people would always get into, to playing in a garage band again. With guys who never play shows and have never assimilated themselves with a scene. But then again, it's extremely liberating. Just to head over to so-and-so's garage and jam for an hour or two and be stoked about what we came up with.

We posted two demo songs on our myspace. The first, "when earth became sky" is a song i wrote for Raining Red. I recorded it in my bedroom with my computer. I synthesized the drums and I honestly think that it's one of the most well rounded songs I have ever written. I love the way the lyrics punctuate themselves to the different tones each riff takes. I'll post the lyrics.


"with eyes locked out on the horizon,
your hand in mine, we waited for the flash

whats happening to our modern west romance?
a simple, celluloid tragedy on edge
of everything that we've ever hoped for
and everything we were ever promised
I feel the future bearing down on me
one I don't want, one I don't need
so I run anywhere
so I run nowhere

with eyes locked out on the horizon
your hand in mine, we watched the world collapse
"we're not going to make it, are we?"
you asked but you knew
that we'd blow apart like leaves

and I cant grasp this moment
your blue dress, the ocean
the overwhelming sense of urgency
that this will be the last chance
to tell you that I wanted more
than what Sumerians planned for
a future, a life with you

with eyes locked out on the horizon
your hand in mine, we waited for the blast
"we're not going to make it, are we?"
you asked but you knew
that we'd blow apart like leaves"

I bet you cant guess what movie inspired it. If you cant, the little breakdown in the middle of the song should tip you off right off.

The second song, My Downfall, was written by the rest of the guys. I just re-did the vocals.

Go check them out at www.myspace.com/rainingred1


School is going well. Math is math and math is hard work. Swimming is great, I cant believe how fast I can swim using only my arms because of all the surfing. Photoshop is fun because Ruth is in it, I like talking to her during lab. And my english class, I'll have to record the lecture because my professor is, hands down, the funniest one I've ever had.

I still love my xB. I take the long way to work just to drive it as much as I can. I've put 2000 miles on it since I bought it : X I wipe the bugs off the front every time I find one and I park in a spot at work that I can see from the video cameras on the Expo Line. Total new car syndrome.

Cant wait to see you guys!

yuck

I forgot to mention this and I'm not sure if you've heard, but they will most likely be building a new Los Angeles Football stadium and bringing a team in for it. Where will it be you might be wondering? The hills directly above our apartments. The plans are in full swing and it's expected to begin it's development this year. It's rumored to be completed by 2011.




























Scope the map out. it will be off of Grand avenue, directly built into the hills behind the old Honda dealership and Burger King off of the 60 freeway. The background in the drawing is the hills of Hacienda and outward stretching southeast LA as viewed from Grand Ave. The third picture is what I can make out from the video as it's precise location. Total bummer.

I am not happy about it. The 60/57 interchange is hell as it is, there will be fireworks and noise constantly coming from it and I'm pretty sure we'll see a huge increase in crime. I'll move if they bring the Raiders in.

The only good I can see from it is if I'm still here, it will pretty much secure serving jobs for me.

check out www.losangelesfootballstadium.com for more info and a video.

swim class

So one of the classes I enrolled in for fall is a beginning swim class. I'm not sure how in shape I am with actual swimming because of all of the surfing I do, my friend Ron says "if you're not swimming, you're not surfing" (in regards to not wearing a leash and losing your board back to shore) but I didn't want to enroll in the intermediate classes and die.

Anyways, I thought the instructor was Marc Ruh, the Mt. Sac water polo coach. I checked back today and sure enough, it's Lani Ruh, my old high school coach (and Marc's wife). Gross. I've got a fat belly, I'll probably drown, and I'm sure she still remembers me quitting the varsity team a month into the season to ditch sixth period and hang out with Lindsay every day. Pretty awkward.

I'm going to stick with it though. The swim class is right before my math class. And in high school I had water polo right before first period math and that was the year I aced the class. I think chlorine and a good breakfast really makes a difference in one's ability to concentrate and retain information.

I bought my car, and within some pretty lucky circumstances as well.

Yesterday I was looking through ads on craigslist and autotrader all morning without finding anything I was really interested in. We decided to go check out a black 06 in Fullerton to see if I liked the options for that year. The car was thrashed, it was dirty, the overhead light was missing, there were random cables sticking out of everywhere and it had like 60,000 miles on it. And on top of all that, the dealership had it listed at 14,000. Nobody really bothered us while we were there so Dad and I got to fiddle around with it as much as we wanted besides being able to turn it on. After a while we headed home. When we got there, right when I walked in the door I sat down at the computer just to go through the ads again before I got ready for work. Dad walked up next to the computer after he walked in the door and I found one that wasn't there when we left earlier and it was EVERYTHING I wanted. I called the seller and he said we could go look at it immediately, but my work wouldn't let me come in late so Dad really stepped up to bat and drove out to Glendale in rush hour traffic to check it out for me. He made a deposit on it and later that night he drove me back to look at it for myself after I got off work. The seller seemed really nice, a young Armenian guy with two little kids, and he even let me take it for a spin that night when I got there at 11:30. The price we agreed on was less than blue book value for the car I'm sure but I haven't checked yet, it's definitely thousands less than what a dealership would sell it for. Today we took care of the loan business, drove out again and picked it up. I drove home blasting the A/C and some sweet tunes :)

2006 Scion xB
Automatic
Polar white with black interior
Factory warranty
One owner
16,000 miles





































I was talking to my coworker, Keith, about buying a car earlier this week and he said something very important, and something that often gets overlooked during the heat of purchasing a car: "the small things become big things once you realize you're paying for them every month."

When I bought my truck, it was what I wanted, but it still wasn't a new car. Driving home today, I felt absolutely no reservations to what I've signed up for. A super clean, superbly maintained brand new/used car in the color I wanted and all the options I could have asked for. It even has a little jack that came factory installed that year for an Ipod. It really was a good feeling humming down the 5 freeway, quiet and chilly at rush hour, not having to shift gears or listen to a screeching fan belt. It must have been what it was like for you buying your new Jeep after years of Sammies.

Here are some songs I'm listening to. I dont have the money to buy the albums so I just search them on this Project Music Playlist website and download the ones I really like on Itunes.

1. A Song For Milly Michaelson- Thrice, The Alchemy Index Vol 3 Wind. This song reminds me of Death Cab For Cutie. Both groups I love. It's still strange listening to the four volume EPs from Thrice's latest release, they sound absolutely nothing like the first album of theirs I heard in high school. This is my favorite song from the Wind EP because they added wind chimes and xylophones in the background, really capturing the feeling of listening to air. I reviewed the water and fire EP's last year. You should definitely check them out.

2. Set Your Body Ablaze- Shai Hulud Misanthropy Pure. I really like direction Shai Hulud has taken in terms of being a hardcore/punk band. I love the way the guitars cascade over each other with little direction and especially the drumming. I've never gotten the chance to see them live, but I would definitely dogpile during this song.

3. Scream My Name- Over It Unreleased. This song hasn't been released on an album, only on the band's myspace. It's super catchy, and like the rest of their songs, fun. Not fun in a cheesy cornball kind of way, the kind of lyrics that don't really take much thought. Nothing explicit, no swearing, just good alternative punk to go surfing to. I recorded it streaming from my sound card using the same program I use to record my own songs. It sounds awful but I listen to it all the time anyways.

hooo ha!

So I sold my truck. But counting my chickens has always led to a few broken eggs. It didn't go as swimmingly as I had expected. Let me recount the ordeal as briefly as possible.

-The woman called two days after I posted my ad. She said she lived in Ukiah and that she was really interested in buying my truck but needed time to get the money together and a flight down to LA.
-I (in the interest of selling my truck and not making a bad promise) told her I had already received other calls on it and would not hold it.
-She called back and said she booked a flight for the following morning.
-I offered to send her more pictures of the truck (my offer)
-I insisted that her grandfather(who lives in La Habra) come look at the truck that evening to make sure I had it and that it was legit (which she turned down on the phone because "she didn't want to bother him")
-twenty minutes later her aunt calls and says they are on their way to see it (No call from the buyer telling me that she had asked them to come look at it)
-Three uncles, two aunts and a grandfather show up 20 minutes after I race back home. They test drive it, rev the engine, I showed them that the 4wd drive works fine, and explained to them that the engine check light has been on for two years but every mechanic hasn't found anything wrong with it. It has passed smog as recently as April. The family approves of the truck and says they cant see anything wrong with it.
-After she emails me her flight confirmation and I take the price 750 dollars down to an even 7,000 (to help with her ticket and gas back up north), I agree to hold it until the following afternoon.
-The morning she arrived, I spent a good ten minutes showing her what I'd found to be wrong with the truck (torn driver seat, broken locking mechanism on camper, the in dash cd player needed to be replaced) all to her. She didn't seem interested and insisted that it was fine. I made one last offer for her to take a test drive around the block before she bought it. She declined and we proceeded with signing the bill of sale and me counting my 7,000 dollars cash. I gave her the keys and she left.

Within the following week she called to tell me that it didn't pass smog because of the engine light. Her mechanic said that it was in perfect operating order but that it would need new O2 sensors or a replacement of the wires. She left a message saying she would email the invoice for the total and that I could send her a check. I spoke with a lady at the DMV, I asked my friends and the general consensus is that even though the seller is responsible, the smog check needs to be negotiated before the transaction... leaving me clueless as to who is really on hook for coughing up the money. Before I found an answer she called back and I told her that I took 750 dollars off of my asking price and that as a college student working on minimum wage, the only money I really had was the money I had made off of the truck. She offered to split the cost and that I would only have to pay 100 dollars out of the 300 in repairs and smog the truck needed. I told her I would call her back.

I didn't end up calling her back because I had to go to work. Boy did she leave a nasty voicemail about taking civil action against me and that "it would be prudent and in your best interest not to try and punk me" or some bullshit. I fumed over it for a good hour or two and when I got home I checked online and found out that it IS my responsibility after sale to have it smogged, despite it being sold "as is". The next day I called her and apologized for not calling back and that I would have a check in the mail that day for a hundred dollars and then said goodbye. She seemed satiated by it. She hasn't cashed it yet so I'll be interested to see if she asks for another. You can bet your ass I'll be thoroughly checking my accounts from now until then.

From what she mentioned on the phone and within her emails, it's obvious she's regretting buying it. I took good care of the truck, I was the second owner, there were no accidents, and I had it painted and thoroughly cleaned before selling it. I feel no remorse for selling it for what I sold it for and I have no sympathy for another adult who ten years older than me and completely capable of scanning the used car market thoroughly before making a big ticket purchase. I have no compassion for someone who hastily purchases a car and complains about "a rip in the seat and broken rear window" three days after I made the damages explicitly clear. And lastly, I completely disapprove of someone who tips their cards in negotiating by saying they have "10,000 saved for a truck like yours", has "a full-time job", is running for "ELECTED OFFICE" (she gave me her campaign pamphlet) and feels the need to try and bully a 22 year old community college student, working minimum wage in a kitchen trying to make ends meet, by means of a lawsuit. It's chickenshit and it's definitely not keeping your reputation in mind for your upcoming election. I'm not a perfect person but I do know that I keep a strong sense of guilt over things I've done wrong. I've bent over backwards for this woman. I didn't know smog legislation so I paid the agreed price to have it fixed, whether she is satisfied on the price she signed on for the truck is past me. AS IS means IS YOURS. Stay the hell out of my inbox.

I could kick someone's head in over how ignorant people are over stuff like this. I've never called anyone back saying "Hey, give me more money for the car you just bought off of me." But then again, I guess we just do things differently in Los Angeles.

Ok. End rant>

It's shaken me up a little as to buying a new car, I'm holding onto the funds until it all blows over. But I've made up my mind on what I want. 2006 xb, white, automatic, cooooold AC booya! it will be an lengthy adventure finding it. But one thing I've learned is you have to be patient while searching for a car. While I'm being patient, I'm going to compile a couple of new mixed cds with new tunes to listen to on my first drive to the beach :)

six servers are leaving applebees this month and next. I've never seen this many employees leave at once. It's a bummer because all of them were really good friends of mine but on the bright side I'm pretty confident it means I'll be a server before september. I'm next in line for promotion. $$$$$$$$$$$$

Here's a couple things I'm enjoying:


Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland. B+
I read this book the year it came out, my freshman year at Mt. Sac. Coupland's later novels delve into the supernatural here and there, but they mostly adhere to the normalcy of western suburban living. It's not the most memorable of his works but it hit close to home at the time I read it. Definitely worth a read.




















music:
me first and the gimme gimmies- havin a ball
no use for a name- the feel good record of the year
bad religion- new maps of hell delux edition

sold?

Here are nine reasons why I'll miss my Toyota pickup after I sell it (taken from wikipedia)

The Toyota Hilux has gained a reputation for exceptional sturdiness and reliability, even during sustained heavy use, and is often referred to as "The Indestructible Car". This was further reinforced when on the BBC motoring show Top Gear, a 1985 Toyota Hilux with 190,000 miles on the clock was subjected to extraordinary abuse.
This consisted of:
1. driving it down the steps behind Bristol Cathedral
2. scraping buildings in Bristol
3. crashing it into a tree
4. tying it up to a jetty to be washed out to sea by the incoming tide
5. driving it through a garden shed
6. dropping a caravan onto it
7. hitting it with a wrecking ball
8. setting the cabin & bed area on fire
9. and placing it on top of a 240-foot block of flats that was subsequently destroyed by a controlled demolition

Although it was now suffering from severe structural damage, the truck was still running after being repaired without spare parts and only with typical tools and equipment that would be found in a car's toolbox, such as spanners, motor oil, and a monkey wrench.















The ad came out in autotrader on thursday online and in the book, i also posted a listing on craigslist. I had it highballed at 7,750. After a bunch of calls from people with bad accents and skeptic attitudes about it, I got a call from a nice woman named Estelle who lives up above San Francisco. She insisted on buying it flat out sight unseen, and we settled on an even 7,000. I insisted on sending her more pictures of it and that her releatives who she mentioned live in La Habra could stop by and take a look at it. Two aunts, three uncles, her grandfather and her brother came over today (all really nice people) and I feel a lot better that they came to look at it. She sent me her flight confirmation for the morning and that was enough for me to promise I'd hold it for her until tomorrow afternoon. So I'm happy. The person I'm selling it to is polite, the price is where both of us want it and I think there's a good sense of confidence between both parties, the way buying and selling a car should be. I'll definitely let you guys know tomorrow if the deal has gone through.


I had it repainted, I degreased the engine and tightened a squeaky fan belt. It was kind of sad cleaning it out all week but it's always interesting cleaning a car as cluttered as mine and getting to discover old treasures. I found mapquest directions to old shows i've played stuffed under the seats, old movie ticket stubs, and when the sun hit it at an angle while I was cleaning it, I even found little hearts drawn on the passenger side window by a certain ex-girlfriend's finger from a long time ago.

Sigh...

YES!

i saw The Dark Knight tonight with some of my coworkers. It was a really good movie, very long though. Dad said you guys went to see it. Did you like it? As I'm sure you guys already saw, it's no wonder I had a hard time paying attention to the movie after seeing a trailer like this...





utterly STOKED.

update

First off, I'd like to congratulate Heidi and Daniel on their new home. I'm so stoked for you guys to have a nice house for yourself and free from landlords. I cant wait to see it. Post pictures whenever things settle down.

Where to start, where to start. Brad, Junior, Brad's chiropractor Scott and I went surfing last weekend off of trail 3 in San Onofre. It's south of the SONG power plant and the surf beach we usually go to. Since the trails are so steep and long, there's usually less people there and we happened to be some of the only ones out and the waves were sweet. It was so much fun and I caught a bunch of really awesome waves. It was a total burn having to leave and go to work. Brad's wife, Melissa, took some pictures of us from the shore.



















































































From top to bottom:
-me surfing a right and making a frontside cutback down the face of the wave
-me riding a left in with a nice hollow line
-brad is wearing the hat. he's a good surfer
-scott is wearing the boardshorts. he prefers shortboards instead longboards
-junior is about to start entering into competitions. his body weight helps him catch more waves than all of us. people compliment him all the time on what a great surfer he is
-so you can imagine how much brad and i enjoy pictures of junior wiping out really hard. hahaha


On July fourth, Brad and I drove to down to cliffs at Palo Verdes to catch fish and stuff off of the reef because the tide was really low from the new moon. It's like a sheer 100 foot cliff to climb carrying 5 gallon buckets and my legs were killing me the entire next day or so but I caught some neat stuff. A few conch slugs, some fish, a few anenames, a brittle starfish and a ton of hermit crabs. The large black fish is the only damsel that lived, and sadly, Marvy the little red crab I've had since I bought the tank in january passed away last week and was then quickly consumed by the brittle starfish. It's interesting. I'll post pictures soon.

I've been giving it a lot of thought over the last few months or so and after discussing it with dad a lot, I've decided its finally time to sell my truck. It's been a good truck and I think it's the toughest looking truck I've ever seen (it's the company car for the Taliban hahaha) but it's time for better gas mileage, an automatic and definitely some AC.


























So I'm going to try and have the paint rebuffed and clean everything out and then it's going up on autotrader in the next few weeks. Afterwards, it's down to the LAPD credit union I go to see what it's going to take to get me a loan, and then it's off to shop for my new/used car. The one I've decided on? Drum roll please...



























A 2004-2007 Scion xB. I'm surprised at myself to say the least. When Scion first began marketing, I (along with many other people I imagine) had a hard time getting used to the idea of "crossover suv's". For a while I even labeled the xB's as "the new Stanzas". But they've finally grown on me. My coworker has one and she loves it. My good friend CJ has one and he loves his. Jessie from Tiefighter had two and he loved both of his. I really like the way the larger 2008 models look but they have a larger 2.4 liter as opposed to the first gen's 1.5. It doesn't make sense to spend an extra six grand on aesthetics when I'm buying the car almost completely to increase my gas mileage. I think Suze Orman would go for the older model that gets 26/31 mpg.


So that's that. Wish me luck with selling the Toyota, I'm pretty confident I can get enough from it to put down a substantial chunk of change for a down payment.





p.s. I saw Wall-E. I liked it. It was no toy story or finding nemo, but it was cute. B+

i went to vegas last weekend. it was good seeing everyone. really hot, but dry hot. not humid nasty hot like southern california. on the way home, there were a bunch of accidents on the 15 freeway and the traffic was completely stopped at 11am. so we got off at stateline to ride the rollercoaster at Buffalo Bills (scariest experience ever) and found out that the freeway was going to be shut down until 9pm. We got a room for 28 dollars (which smelled like a fart) and spent the night at stateline. When I got home, one of my fish was missing and my window had been closed all weekend and it was uncomfortable. But it was a lot of fun seeing everyone and having fun with some friends on the last day.

speaking of my fish, the silver one disappeared completely while i was gone, and i found the little black one dead at the bottom a couple days afterwards. now it's just the big black one and i'm kind of waiting for him to croak as well. bummer.

yesterday i was surfing with alex serafin and brad and his son down at san onofre and a guy about 20 feet away from me was talking and i thought he sounded familiar so i paddled up next to him and asked him what his name was.
"Benjamin"
"Delameter?"
"Yea how did you know?"
"I used to go to the Vineyard in La Habra. I'm Heidi Lynn's little brother."
"Oh crazy. Yea I havent been walking straight. Dont be like me man."
and then he caught a wave in a left. I dont think he remembered me but he has a very distinctive voice. Funny huh?

thats about it. hope you guys are doing well.

moovs

I'm bumming a ride out vegas next weekend from either my friends or my coworkers. im stoked on seeing everyone.

been surfing a little here and there. mostly work and finished with my easy semester.

thats about it. i've seen a ton of movies in the last few weeks as well.



Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull or something
B
I've never seen any of the Indiana Jones movies. Most of the people I've talked to about this movie were die hard fans of the series and the general consensus was that it was unrealistic and corny. I thought it was fun though. A good popcorn movie. I wasn't expecting a Dr. Jones documentary on the History Channel so aliens and nuclear explosions were very satisfying.

Gone Baby Gone
A-
I like how it's set in Boston. It has great cinematography and even though I've never been to the city, I think Ben Affleck captured it well much like they did in Good Will Hunting. The question the story asks of the viewer is a tough one to answer, skewing the viewer's perspective on who the real antagonist turns out to be. The opening sequence of the movie was my favorite part. The only thing that I didn't like was how it felt like it ended three times in different parts. I would wait for the credits and then sit through another thirty minutes of movie. Definitely one I would own.

American Gangster
C
I thought this movie was directed by the same person who directed Training Day but I might be wrong. Maybe it's just because it has Denzel Washington in it as a bad guy. I loved Training Day, this one was nowhere near as good. Typical mafia type story. Newjack kills some people, sells some drugs, turns on everyone and then gets busted. If you're into this sort of thing, I'd recommend watching Scarface again. That way you don't have to listen to Russel Crowe for two hours. "Tuggah, I love me a good foight!"

Lars and the Real Girl
No grade
I started watching this at my friends house but fell asleep like twenty minutes into it. It's about this guy who's a shut in and cant socialize with other people so he orders a mannequin online and pretends it's his girlfriend. The story is about how the town reacts to it and eventually starts to treat his doll as if it were a real person. It's hard to explain without actually having watched the whole thing and I don't think I'm doing it very much justice right now. Basically I thought it was going to be a mushy chick flick with the doll as just part of the story, but I think it's neat that they made the whole movie simply about him and his doll.

Point Break
A
I cant believe it's taken me all this time to finally watch this movie the entire way through. 7.50 at Walmart. Keanu is an FBI agent on assignment to catch a band of surfer bank robbers. In order to catch them, he has to learn how to surf and infiltrate their group. Sounds cheesy huh? It is, and it's great. But it's not so corny that you don't like it. It's corny like, "yeaaaa, that's sooooo 90's." I've always liked how the bank robbers wear rubber president's masks too. It's a sweet action movie with surfing in it, cant go wrong with me. An added note, an old friend band of Code Brown, Wester, wrote a song a while ago using only lines from the movie as lyrics. I was catching them the whole time I watched it.

final

I'm supposed to turn in a finished short story for my creative writing class this wednesday or next wednesday. My professor and most of the class already knows that I'm writing a novel and that whatever I present probably wont leave them with much. It's supposed to be 20-25 pages, I'm turning in a rough section from the first chapter next week to my professor so that she can grade it as my final, this however, is another shorter section which I'll present to the class tomorrow...

Imagine if astronomers discovered a planet way beyond the borders of our solar system, a planet that was far bigger than our own and perfect for sustaining human life beyond any means earth ever could for us. Pretend these astronomers were brilliant enough to invent a machine capable of transporting everyone on earth across the universe there. But between figuring out how to build this machine and how to get us there, they realized the only resource we needed to fuel it ran out six years ago. How would they break the news? Would they even tell us? Would all 6.7 billion of us even know?

Now lets say they did. And you and your neighbor had to see each other every morning before driving to work, before going to the store, before continuing living with the knowledge that both of you had blown it. That between the two of you and the rest of the twenty first century, you had the means to live the rest of your lives in harmony and beget children who would beget thousands of other generations of children who would also live in harmony, but you lost your chance before you even knew it was there. Would you still be able to face them? Or would your resentment towards them overpower your own guilt?

Sometimes I think thats the only way I'll ever be able to describe having to see your mother every week. The weekly visits, the apprehended knock on the door, the feigned pleasantries while you stuff your Carebears backpack with coloring books and things to hold you over for the next three hours.

The sun is dangling over the hills of Simi Valley and you're tugging on my leg and asking me to pick you up. A Frisbee floats by and flops across the grass closer to us than the little boy across the field, intending to receive it. I forget what I'm saying for a moment and remember that you're too young to understand these things and that telling you isn't healthy. When I pick you up, you tell me that you can see the moon and that it doesn't make sense because the sun is still out. And in a way that only a five-year-old is capable of, you surprise me by reaching your hands out towards the sky in an attempt to grab it. You tell me that it's still too far but you think you can reach it if I lift you up a little higher. And instead of explaining why the moon is visible during the daytime or how far away it really is, I lift you up above my head, your My Little Pony sneakers dangling by the side of my face while you stretch your fingers towards the moon.

And even if it's instilled with us from the moment we're born to the moment we die, the desire to reach far away places, places suitable for living and ones that satiate our desire for exploring the profound, I don't think we ever make enough of an effort to learn what it takes to reach them. Your mother and I, we learned the hard way, and hypothetically, so did we all when we learned about the perfect planet we would never get to visit. But you, I'm holding you as high as I can for as long as I can, letting you reach to your heart's content-until you realize what it takes to get there. And I'm doing this all as soon as I can before it's too late. Before you realize that you've spent your life wishing to live in faraway places without ever planning out how to get there.

***

I've had a hard time deciding whether or not I want to incorporate drawings into my story, simply because I know the voice and theme I'm writing it with is so similar to Life After God. But I've come to understand that my novel is written like Life After God, I appreciated the fluidity and vagueness to it's characters and think it's the best way to portray my own. Whether or not thats a bad thing is beyond my concern, I'm just interested in telling my story the most effective way I deem fit.

"all i have is all i would give if there was some way to save you..."

writing a lot of stuff about WRITING A LOT OF STUFF

It is getting hot. Most people like it, but all it means to me is a reminder that summer is coming, how we rarely use the air conditioner, that every window in our condo faces the sun at 3pm in the afternoon and how easily my skin burns. Bummer.

It was great to see you guys this weekend. First and foremost, I would like to apologize for my temper on Friday. Living with Dad, it can get difficult to stay patient with him at times. I wish it were easier for me, but it isn't. I can actually count on my hand the number of times I've been significantly upset with him and said something about it within the last four years. I wish I wouldn't have let it get the best of me on Friday, but there's something about someone talking about me as if I'm not there that really boils my water. So, sorry about that. And as for the movie theater incident, sorry about that too. That was totally out of line and out of character. Aside from that, I hope you guys enjoyed your visit and had a safe flight home.

I'm really learning a lot from my creative writing class and I'm glad I enrolled in it. I've said this before, but writing a novel is the most arduous project I've ever attempted. It's like dumping five jigsaw puzzles out onto a table, flipping all the pieces upside-down "memory" style and trying to put them together all at once. It doesn't feel very productive, it wont make me any money, but I think about it every day and work on it little by little in hopes that someday soon it will be finished and I can be proud of it. And then I can tackle math or something more important.

Right now, I have the outline almost completely finished. I've been revising it for half a year or so trying to get it just right. Earlier this week I had the past-tense and present-tense narratives mapped out perfectly just the way I wanted them, until the next day when I had this totally amazing idea on adding a whole new twist to one of the chapters and then everything had to be revised again. I guess that's just a major factor in writing, all of the revisions and brainstorming one must do before starting or completing an acceptable work. I have brainstorms written everywhere, I've accumulated them up the wazoo. They're in between pages of my school binders, filled in journals, all over my whiteboard, about two dozen on my desktop alone and even one day i started writing them on the inside of my car door because i didn't have my notebook with me. It's been difficult figuring out where to start with them all but finishing the outline (the most basic, bare-bones parts of it) is definitely encouraging. When everything started coming together, it was enough to give me chills. It's really hard not to share with you too many of the ideas that I have or ask you what you think about certain characters, I want to keep it secret that way, if you read it, the story keeps it's momentum and velocity. But there is something I really need to ask you guys about, especially after what I've just found out about Dave Egger's sister, before I continue any further.

It's a dilemma I've been battling since I started working on this. The story is what someone might consider "creative nonfiction" as of right now. Basically, the main character is me, narrating a story about five years of his life within the present tense of three days. About eighty percent of the story is derived from things that actually happened within those five years and every character is based on someone who entered or left my life, even single fictional characters were sometimes derived from combining two or more similar living people. It would have been a memoir except for two key factors:
One, a memoir cannot be falsified in any shape or form. It takes a master writer to depict a living person to a T and an even more humble and introspective one to truly depict and disclose themselves for who they really are, including the very bad traits characteristic of most of us. Any dialog between characters would needed to have been recorded and documented verbatim in order for it to be admissible within the story's context. Some authors have fudged on these heavily (A Million Little Pieces) and others, I would assume, just fudged a little (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius). Either or, the outcomes have been nothing more than failure. AMLP was completely falsified and led people away from proven rehabilitative programs, and AHWSG, well, I already explained what happened there and despite it still being a success, I think he ultimately failed. It's a delicate subject, describing someone else and then marketing that description to an entire market of readers.
Two, my story just isn't that interesting, especially true-to-form in sequence. If you videotaped Malcom X's ENTIRE life and wrote a screenplay or book about every time he brushed his teeth or ate a bowl of cereal, it wouldn't have hit as hard. The premise behind writing my story is to elaborate on certain situations and years of my life that feel notable and significant and somehow tie them into answering the dramatic question I've chosen. An answer that justifies what makes me, me. As realistic as I would like this to be, it's very difficult to narrate five years, especially when the most significant parts happened out of order or too far apart from each other. So it will be fudged, there will be parts that didn't happen exactly as they should have or when they really happened, and the ending, as of right now, is completely false and I suspect, a little controversial. But after months and months of thought and reviewing my outlines, it finally feels solid the way I've written it. The question is, can it be appreciated written at the center of the spectrum? A spectrum spanning the range between complete fiction and absolute truth?

So I've begun changing names, changing streets, changing name brands. But the story still remains. The characters are still the people they're derived from. The things that happened, still happened. Some happened a little unlike they really happened, others happened exactly like they really happened. If that makes sense. But I want your opinions. Can you take someone's life, twist it a little and then call it a fictional story? Even if everyone knows the majority of it is based on truth?

As of right now, I will not be looking for a publisher. My friend railed me for it, about how it isn't fair to withhold it from people who might really enjoy it and take something from it. To me, it boils down to the same question I was asking myself after I read Bluebeard, whether or not an artist owns his/her own work after its completed and if they are obligated to release it. Well, this is a story based upon my life, including those of the few people close to me throughout it. I feel I'm doing a pretty accurate job of portraying it, and it's not my decision on letting everyone into it. It may not make much sense now, but I guarantee you that once you've read it, you will understand why it really doesn't matter if it's sold or not.

Here's something that might be fun. I have pretty much all of the character names. But Heidi and Daniel, if you feel up to it, pick your character names. It's been fun for me conjuring up lists of names for character's based on their personalities. A name truly has a definite impact on the reader's impression and I was wondering what names might fit your guys' personalities the best (minus your own).

Grand Theft Auto 4 comes out at midnight tonight at Walmart. And despite my xbox stopped working a week ago and Microsoft has yet to send me the prepaid postage to ship it back to them with, I feel like doing a little camping tonight :-) I guess I just got a kick out of camping the last time, I thought it was fun. Plus, videogames dont decrease in value if bought new, so I want to be one of the first to have this one too. Maybe I'll bring a notebook and an armchair and try and work on some dialog exercises while I wait. Oh, speaking of dialog, do you know how DIFFICULT it is to write believable and charming dialog between characters? Sure, using your character's word usage to further the plot is one thing, but I mean actually giving them character through their interactions is really something else. I have no idea how to make the reader love my protagonist.


REVIEW
Stranger Than Fiction
A-
I really enjoyed this movie. Will Ferrel's character was believable and more importantly, lovable. It had interesting CGI effects and the cinematography was excellent. The aspect of the movie that really took the cake for me was it's plot, and i think it was superbly written. Maybe it was just because I could relate to Will Farrel's character, or maybe i've been wondering about some of the topics brought up in the movie (the dramatic question, compromising the integrity of a work, etc), but watching this movie at the time i watched it really added to my enjoyment of it. Bravo Will Farrel, like Ben Affleck, you've made a single movie that's jettisoned you out of the turdburger bin, good for you.

quick update

I dropped math. Just couldn't hang this semester. It bummed me out about as much as the other two times I've dropped math class.

A couple months ago the guys in tiefighter asked if I would rejoin the band to tour Europe with them this month. The drummer couldn't make the trip so their guitarist was going to play drums and I would take over my old position on guitar. It was difficult turning the offer down (especially since they offered to pay my airfare) but in the end, the touring is exactly why I left the band so I said no. Well I found out that they had a head on collision with a truck on the autobahn by Eindhoven yesterday morning and totaled their van. Jesse, the other guitarist went through the windshield and landed on the hood. No one was seriously hurt or killed miraculously. but for as much as they party, I honestly wasn't surprised when I found out.

I have my preliminary application to fill out and send in for Los Angeles County Sheriffs, I'll be sending that in this weekend. I supposed next week I should get on LAPD and Orange County Sheriffs too. My friend who is a deputy is telling me all departments are going to hit a hiring freeze this time next year so now is the time to start the process. This is also the same deputy who tells me that no matter they ask you, "it never happened". I don't care if I don't get the job, I'm not going to lie. Wish me luck.

Here's an older picture of me surfing. The Miller's found it and gave it to me.









One California Day
A-

A surf documentary. A look at the California surfing experience. Showcases footage of 7 prominent surfers from different regions and counties, different surf breaks from Baja all the way up to San Francisco, and footage of the older guys who pioneered longboarding. Amazing editing for a surf documentary. The opening scene of the movie shows the two logs I park next to down at San Onofre beach. When I saw it I immediately thought "Hey! That's exactly where I park and put my wetsuit on!" Scored big points there. It was neat being able to see different beaches we surf at in the movie, along with landmarks like the two logs I park next to or Blackies Bar (the bar we park in front of down at Newport with the Millers). I enjoyed this movie a lot and I think they did a good job at showing images of California for what it truly is (runoff, tract housing, rural central california, LA basin, etc) but I think they omitted filming how crowded the breaks really get. They didn't have to make a huge point of it, but it needed to be in the movie more than it was. But anyways, I'm no professional surfer, and I'm not even sure if it's something I'll be doing for the rest of my life. But I'm glad I picked up this movie, I'm going to try and hold onto it for as long as I can because when I watch it, it reminds of how much fun I have when my friends and I are paddling up and down the coast looking for waves.

new surfboard

A quick little update because I'm extremely tired.

I got a C+ on my first math test for math 71. A lot better than I expected, I haven't been studying as much as I should be for it. Stoked on that. C's earn degrees.

I turned in a chapter from my novel to my creative writing class, it's also why I'm so tired. I procrastinated finishing it until last night. I had to print thirty copies for the class and our printer is broken. So I went to the Kinko's in La Puente at 12:30 in the morning to find out they closed at 12. I was under the impression Kinko's was open twenty four hours. They opened at 6am this morning and I had to be back at school at 8am. So I didn't sleep much fearing I wouldn't wake up in time. So I was at Kinko's all morning putting together tons of these little chapters. Not to mention I surfed yesterday afternoon and tonight, but that's beside the point. After the teacher read the chapter to the class, nobody said anything. Usually everyone claps after someone's story is read aloud. I think it kind of bummed them out. But I don't know. Maybe they were just bored. But it was really quiet afterwards and kind of embarassing. The professor liked my descriptions of the characters and imagery so much that she used the chapter to talk about her lesson plan for the day. After the class she said she has read a lot of student's work and that it's rare to find a piece of work written so well in her class. I'm really excited about this class. I had been pretty unmotivated to work on my novel for the last three months but this class has definitely given me inspiration and ideas I'm putting to good use. Like I've said before though, writing a novel is probably one of the hardest things I've ever attempted doing, even more so than math. The best way I can describe it is this. You know very little about computers and someone asks you to build one. Not build one like "Okay, here's the monitor, plug the mouse into the hard drive or whatever, speakers go here.." No. I mean like soldering together every transistor and circuit and all the wiring without ever having tried it before. You know what a transistor does, and you know what a power source does too, but you have no idea how many you need or where they go or if they should be at the beginning or the end of the circuit. The most ominous thing about writing a novel, to me, is that you wont even know if it's good until it's finished. Blah. That's my rant on writing this book. I'm beyond stoked to have these ideas in hard copy, if it turns out anything like I'm expecting it to, it should be a very memorable read.

I bought a new surfboard. It's about a foot longer than my old board. It's shaped a little differently too. A little more suited to a higher experience level. It's amazing how the smallest differences in the angle and shape of the foam can mean the difference between catching a wave or not. Check it out.

Plus Brad and I finished the damage repairs to the blue and white Isle board pictured in the background. That means I have an extra board for someone to use should they wish try it out.




















Reviews

Pennywise
Reason to Believe
C
Pennywise has joined the "free download" bandwagon. I downloaded the entire album for free this morning from the band's myspace. I think this free album trend is a great idea, I would have never bought the album. But since I got it for free, I've been listening to it all day and it brings me back to the days when I was thirteen, skating around Walnut with Geoff and Keith. Good nostalgia factor with this band. I gave it a C because it's pretty much the same album the band always comes out with. Fast drums, shredding guitars, semi-posi lyrics, lots of "WHOA's" and some gang chants here and there. It gets me pumped, makes me want to go skating, and mosh really hard. Big points there.


P.S. Apparently the owner of Barros didn't murder his wife. It was another restaurant? I don't know. The girl I went on a date with last week still works at Barros and she said that everyone has been asking about it and that it's not true. Speaking of her, I don't want to go out with her anymore, she's lame. Oh well.

Ok. I'm going to bed. Have a great week you guys.

Hi, My Name is Chad

I uploaded a podcast I made a couple months ago. I'm thinking about doing them on a consistent basis. What do you guys think? I'm having trouble finding a legit website for mp3 hosting. Podcast files are super large, the one I made was around 40 MB and most free domains don't allow files that big. Right now it's available to download here, but hopefully I can find a place that allows you to stream directly from the website. Anyways, if you're bored or have some free time while you're working on the computer, go check it out and listen to me talk about stuff and play rock songs. If the link doesn't work, let me know.

hmm.

I want to apologize to you guys for not calling while Dad was in the hospital. It was pretty irresponsible of me. I'm glad he's alright. When I got home from the hospital the night I took him to the emergency room, Woofie was sleeping by the door and Lila was sitting on top of the bar meowing. It's strange how animals know when somethings up. I think that night might have been the saddest night of my life. Probably the loneliest I've ever felt in my life. It sounds cliche to say "we take a lot of things for granted" and I don't really think that's what I'm trying to convey. But I guess after living with Dad for so long, trying to prepare yourself for the worst is nothing like when the worst actually happens. Standing in the living room and having the two of them looking at me, not sure what the three of us were going to do.

Spring semester started last week. I'm taking Math 71, a creative writing class, a narcotics class and a class on "ethnic relations within correctional facilities." Most of the classes I'm taking now are just filler units while I finish math. Math 71 is harder than 51, like I expected it to be. I hope I do well. My creative writing class has given me incentive to write again, a drive I kind of lost since I stopped drinking. I would really like to finish my book. Narcotics and the corrections class are pretty much the same as every other Admin of Justice class I've taken, info on different departments and agencies, depending on who the instructor is and which he/she works for.

Work is the same as always. I was promoted again last week to To-Go. It's less hectic than Expo but my tips fluctuate since I no longer receive a tipshare from all of the servers who work my shift. My tips come directly from the amount of orders I get. So that's a bummer. But it's my last step towards becoming a server. Which would be pretty rad, I think they make a decent amount of money.

I'm going surfing for the first time tomorrow afternoon with the Millers since my accident. We patched up the large hole in the nose of my board. When we filled the hole with styrene resin, it started pushing blood out from the bottom of the ding that soaked into the foam and disappeared. It kind of looked like the board was bleeding. However, junior spotted a large hole behind the left fin box that we hadn't noticed, a hole thats irreparable for Brad's skill at patching dings. So with that, my old blue and white longboard saw it's final wave that morning. It was a good board. Brad bought a nice new Becker 9 foot longboard last week on ebay that should be more tailored to my skill. My old blue Isle board was mainly for beginners. I'm excited to try it out tomorrow.

I don't really have any reviews for this week. There are a couple old albums I've rediscovered and I'll write about them in another entry probably. Until then, if you have a $1.98 to spare, I recommend searching these two songs on Itunes.

Unlucky Stuntman by Bad Astronaut
Motionless by Osker

marv

so my stitches came out last monday. it looks like it's completely healed superficially. you can barely tell that it was gaping hole a week ago. there's still a giant lump on the inside and i cant feel the left side of my lip (i'm guessing i severed a ton of nerve endings?) but nevertheless, no infections, clean heal. i'm very thankful.

i haven't been able to go down and pick up live rock off of the reef yet so i just bit the bullet and picked up some live plants and a few critters for my fish tank from petsmart. one was a little red wag fish i named Pam. the other is a little red crab i named Marv. I say 'was' and 'is' because Pam swam around for about 10 minutes and croaked. I felt horrible. Like, for a day or two afterwards and everything. It's hard work. I thought I had the levels and everything where they should be. I guess I need to read more. Ol' Marv is just fine though. I bought a little pagoda looking house for him and he loves it. when i get home from work i hide a freeze dried brine shrimp behind a plant or a shell for him. he pokes his little eyes out of the window of his pagoda to see if the coast is clear and then he'll come out and snack. shrimpie time for Marv is becoming my favorite time of day. it's hilarious.

Call of Duty 3: Modern Warfare
for XBOX360
I'm no good at videogames. At least in comparison to people like Adam. I think over 80 percent of the videogames I've ever played since NES I never even got close to beating. Computer animated bad guys shoot at you, the screen flashes red, your health depletes, the controller shakes, it just a little too much anxiety for me. I bought an xbox360 because I wanted to play online with Adam and talk to him over the headsets since we live farther away. I guess this review is about how far videogame technology has come since the days of playing Duck Hunt in our grandparent's den.

Adam told me to pick this game up. He said it was it was super fun. It's also won almost every videogame award and has been dubbed "game of the year" and the most "photo-realistic game ever created". Most videogames you run around, shoot stuff, run around some more, and then it's over and I think that gets pretty old. Normally I only play one until I die and then I say "forget it" and go do something else, never worrying about getting shot at again. I was surprised that when I started playing COD4 I had to force myself to turn it off and go to sleep. It's that addictive and that engrossing.

It's split between playing two different soldiers. You play as a Marine fighting street combat in a depiction of the battle for Baghdad. The second you play as a British SAS soldier fighting along different fronts in Russia. The missions range from defending a tank while fighting insurgents from the streets of a fictionalized Baghdad to sneaking through abandoned apartments and alleyways of radioactive Chernobyl.

I cant get over how much detail and attention to realism they put into games now. Coupled with how powerful the xbox360 console is, it's as close as you can get to being in a firefight than actually being in one. I think? I've never been in a gunfight. And that's where this game shines for me, the amount of detail to realism. When a grenade goes off next to your soldier, the sound dims to near nothing and all you hear is the whistling of your ear drums. When you aim down your sights, the background blurs respectively in your peripherals. Your squad yells out for cover fire when they need it. Insurgents flank you in the alleyways. Even in terms of gameplay, it's not completely running and shooting between levels. Some levels are intermissions of the sort. Like during the scene when a nuclear bomb goes off and knocks your helicopter out of the air. You can look around from the back of it while it crashes and then walk around the burning streets for a few moments until your character dies. Your vision is all red and you can hear your character coughing. The screen lurches back and forth and you even have to press a button to get him back on his feet after he falls from the pain. It's all part of the story and it really draws you in. To some, that's just interference between running and shooting, but for me, it made the game really interesting and kept me playing. And it's full of little things like these.

Probably the sweetest thing I found in the game is that they incorporated my truck, the 1991 Toyota crew cab 4wd pickup truck into it. Perfectly modeled into the game. You can find them all over the streets of Baghdad. I spent about five minutes looking in and around it when I found one. Even the center console and the seats are like mine. And then I shot out the windows and tires and lobbed a grenade into the back of it and watched it explode. It was so awesome blowing up my own truck in videogame form.

So if you happen to be at Best Buy and they have a TV hooked up with this game running, take a minute and play it, or at least watch someone play it. I think it's the most advanced videogame ever made.

Here are a few videos of it.

Street fighting on the Baghdad level


nuclear explosion level (pause at 1:10 to see my truck :) )


Trailer

stitches

Yesterday, I went surfing down at San Onofre for the morning. It was the last time I was going to go out for the next week or so, in order to get ready for school and save some tip money for textbooks and stuff. We had a decent sized swell come in over the weekend and yesterday was supposed to be the end of it. I was having a pretty good time, catching waves here and there but I kept noticing that at that area of the beach, the waves were "closing-out". if you're not familiar with the term, closing-out is where a wave breaks in two different spots. it usually occurs at beach breaks with sandbars that are constantly shifting, causing the water to become deeper or shallower at different sections. What results for surfers is nothing short of getting trapped. If you're surfing on a waist or leg-high wave, its usually pretty easy to jump over the curl of the wave out behind it. But yesterday the waves were about head-high. If you get caught in close-out on a head-high, you're going to get rocked.
So I took one on the chest yesterday and it knocked me off my board toward the beach. As I was in the whitewater getting tumbled, my board hit me in the face, right under the left side of my mouth. The force was so strong that my lower teeth sliced through my cheek completely. My initial thought was that i had lost my teeth since my mouth was so numb. but thankfully I didn't. I grabbed my board and road the whitewater to shore (considering I was about 100 yards out). what bummed me was that while i was worrying about my mouth, i ran my board into a rock and dinged the rail. My neighbor told me he will fix it, but i've had this board for a while and haven't dinged it yet. Bummer. Some guys on the shore helped me bandage my face up to stop the bleeding. Then I drove to St. Judes in Fullerton in a ton of traffic. I thought it was funny that i was admitted to the same room they took me to after that accident way back in 2001. My PA-C was really nice, she got me numbed up and sutured everything. It was hard not to laugh while she was working on me, she was pretty funny. Twenty stitches on the outside and inside of my lip. The RNs that helped work on me all complimented me on what a "nice set of smiles i had." i have a picture of me before they worked on me, but i decided that you can let me know if you want to see it, its pretty gnarly. in fact, it still kind of makes me dizzy looking at it.
Some residual carnage.


thank you guys for the texts/emails/calls/prayers. i really appreciate them. sorry i havent been answering, i pretty much slept all day.

prayer

I've never thought of myself as particularly good at prayer. I've also had a hard time understanding how one carries on continual prayer and conversation with the Lord daily. If conversation is what you call it. Since I stopped going to church, reading the Bible and actively pursuing learning what Christ taught, it's been getting harder and harder to apply myself towards a life centered around what God definitely has in store for me. Duh. I could go on about this or that but what I really want to write about right now is prayer and what prayer is like in regards to myself.

Prayer is hard. The times when I do pray its usually over something that's going wrong (or seems to be at least) in my life. "I need this taken care of. This hurts, fix it. Do this, do that. I feel guilty. Etc." And that feels wrong to me. To shut out the Lord when things are good and only pray when it's convenient for myself or I feel I need help. When I pray, it all feels jumbled. It's hard to concentrate. Like you're searching for a radio station and keep missing the frequency. It's no surprise why I don't pray often. I don't understand it very well and the less you do it, the easier it is to not do it. I think.

So this is what I've doing. There are a ton of things about my life that need change. A lot of things I'm comfortable with and a lot that I'm uncomfortable with. Most of which though, is probably not in the Lord's big picture. So for the last two months or so, I've focused all of my strength on drinking. Something I've been doing a lot of for the last three years. It's not something I'm proud of and something that the Lord has been telling me needs to stop. It became a problem a long time ago. From the friends I made after Lindsay left. With touring and the bands. And now especially within the Applebees environment.

Every morning I go surfing, I say a prayer. Right on the shore before the sun starts coming out. I'm usually one of the only few out and I say it while I'm putting my leash on. I say it then because I'm so excited about surfing and happy to be there it's hard to think about anything else besides jumping into the water, thus I have to concentrate really hard and force everything out of my mind. I ask the Lord to watch over Mom and Bill and Adam and Zoe in Vegas. I ask him to watch over the two of you. I thank him for another day of health and the gift of being able to enjoy the things He has created. I ask him for strength to change things in my life that seem almost impossible to do anything about by myself. I ask him to work through me for the rest of the day. I tell him I want to be a role model to the people I am around and that I want to be an inspiration to those who are looking for one. And then soon enough I've finished paddling out past the breaks to the ocean and then I surf and it's nice.

I have a long ways to go on a road I know I'll never find the end to. But I've given up alcohol for good and everyone knows it. You guys, my coworkers, the Lord, Dad, everyone. It gives me the same apprehension I felt before ever telling anyone I had begun to write a novel. If I can't follow through, then everyone knows it. And that's a scary feeling.

But it's been about four weeks since I've stopped. It's getting easier. I'm noticing things about life I couldn't enjoy before. I feel a sense of confidence. The buzz around Applebee's is that I've given it up for good. Managers have asked me why, coworkers have asked why (some with their noses up) and I tell them because I just cant afford it. And it's true. In more ways than one. But I feel its best just to say it that way so I don't put anyone on the defensive or single anything out. It hasn't been easy sitting out on going out with friends, but then again, it hasn't been too hard either. If that makes sense. But you know what I heard last night? My coworker Jenn text me saying she was having a beer at Applebees and that she felt left out. When I asked her why she said "everyone gave it up."

That sense of apprehension, the pressure of following through. I think that's what I'll be giving to the Lord in the mornings before I paddle out.


Stage two of my fish tank is up and operational. Water is in it, the filters and pumps are working. The substrate is settling at the bottom. I've been working on getting the salinity just right and testing the pH levels and for nitrites and so forth. Lots of work. I can't believe how well it's been going though. Saltwater tanks seem so fragile, like they need meticulous care. I'm sure they do but I thought I'd for sure screw something up by now. We'll see how well it goes once we get some hermit crabs and stuff in. I hope my tank is habitable.

you can see the substrate at the bottom of it. Next step is looking for live rock off of the reef down at San Onofre.






The protein skimmer. This sucker cost a chunk out of my tips but is essential for a saltwater aquarium. It sucks water from the tank through a little pump (black thing inside the corner of the tank) and then creates a vortex of water within the large tube hanging on the side. It pumps these bubbles back into the water, catching the waste particles in the top chamber. The bubbles then catch more protein wastes within the tank and provide plenty of oxygen. It's neat to look at it. Kind of looks like something from the OOZE factory in teenage mutant ninja turtles.

It's been a year since my first fix of 24. I picked up season 2 last weekend and have been gratuitously enjoying it since. In this one, terrorists have armed a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles and Jack Bauer is trying to find it. Totally beefy. I'm about 6 hours into, meaning 6 episodes. I'm probably going to have Homeland Security knocking on my door tomorrow for the third sentence in this paragraph, just realized.


i found an acoustic version of an old Rufio song online right now. Reminds me of sophomore year. Has it already been six years? man...

Saltwater Aquariums by Animal Planet
B+
Great to read if you're interested in starting up a saltwater aquarium. If you're not, then it probably isn't. It's pretty adamant that you follow what the book instructs and nothing of what other people tell you. They quote a lot of things as "myths" so I found that kind of odd. But Animal Planet is a pretty distinguished publishing company so I guess they can't be too far off from right. I've got my tank pretty set up from reading it. This book is only for beginners, there is nothing of value for those interested in the chemistry of ocean water or the specifics of certain species of fish and invertebrates.

How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers
C
A collection of passages about various people. Some chapters are only a page or two long, while others may be fifty. I don't quite understand what connection they all have with each other, if they have any. Some don't even seem to have any significance. Like the one about a father building a tree house for his daughter and how he had to have at least three walls up before she came home. Others consist of a woman learning how to surf down in Costa Rica while falling in love with a friend. Another is of a man riding a horse across Egypt. A woman who climbs Kilimanjaro. I enjoy Eggers' work, but I don't believe the profanity is necessary towards creating believable dialogue. I'm beginning to think he's a great writer but that he hasn't honed his skills towards creating a polished novel accessible towards a larger percentage of readers. Like a diamond in the rough I guess.



Hope you guys feel better soon!