Going to San Fran again.

Last May I went to San Francisco for a few days to attend the Google Developer Conference.

This year the City doesn't have any money for conferences so I wasn't planning to go. But being the Google-fanboy that I am, and after reading an article about this years conference and looking at the schedule, I said to myself, "Self, lets go on a vacation!"

So I signed up for the conference as a student, which I am, and bought tickets from Virgin America for $49/each way, and reserved a king size bed hotel room with a view over at the Parc Fifty Five Hotel.

Last year since the city was paying for the hotel I went for just the conference, with a half day to walk around. This year I'm gonna go three days early. Sunday will be checking in, walking around, and maybe seeing a theater performance. Monday will be Alcatraz tour, 2-hour bay area cruise, pier 39 walking around, aquarium of the pacific with behind the scenes tour. Tuesday is culture day, taking the culture bus to city hall tour, museum of modern art, culture arts center, botanical garden, etc. Wednesday and Thursday is the Google IO developer conference.

S.O.T.W Creature Fear by Bon Iver.

Heard it on Chuck again last night. They must love Bon Iver too.



and again at the end



I was full by your count
I was lost but your fool
Was a long visit wrong?
Say you are the only

So many foreign worlds
So ready for us
So ready for us,
The creature fear

Teased by your blouse
Spit out by your mouth
I was loud by your lowered
Seminary sold

Tear on tail on
Take all on the wind on
The soft bloody nose
Sign another floor...

The so many territories
Ready to reform
Don't let it form us
Don't let it form us
The creature fear

So did he foil is 'own?
Is he ready to reform?
So many torahs
So many for us

State of the Jonathan Address

Last Friday I worked the State of the City Address presented by Mayor Maryann Edwards at Pechanga Resort and Casino.  One thing happens every year without fail...I get corrected on my Pechanga pronouniation.  Like I said on my twitter, you cant pronounce it like Topanga, you have to say it as if your were a snobby old bag from Britain.

Schools been going well.  Im taking 2 classes this semester at CSUSM and I have abour 4 classes to remaining to get my BA in Communication.  Its taken so long because 1) I'm lazy when it comes to school and 2) I've been workin my career job for the past 4 years and its difficult to work full time and go to school.  Hats off to the "moms" out there that do it, its super tough.  So far I aced both my midterms and aced my first term paper with two to go.  I've never done really well in school because I am not as passionate about it as I am my work.  I love creating websites, graphic design, photography, and video.  I'm glad I have a career that utilizes all my passions.

Work has been going well...with exceptions.  The economic situation our country is in due to subprime lending has really affected us at work.  I work for the City of Temecula where half of our general fund is sales tax, and as you all can guess, sales across the country have been hit really hard.  In December, the city laid off all our project employees.  Project employees were full time, hard working people that because they were defined as "project" they didnt get benifits or were represented by our union.  We lost 5 people from our department, 2 were crucial losses as they were our helpdesk.  Helpdesk is who everyone calls when thier computer/software/phone stops working.  We had two people working this job fulltime and lost them.  So January was real tough on us.  I had to cover part of that helpdesk job as well as my own full time job.  I'm not complaining, we all must work together though this, but this extra job has been taxing on my stress levels and energy.  Last March we also lost another employee/position due to the early retirements.  This landed me another job to do, the AV Room and AV related work.  This job, unlike the helpdesk, I'm excited about taking over.  AV is one of my passions.  Plus we are building a new Civic Center in Old Town Temecula and I will be an integral part in designing the new council chamber's AV Room and Community Rooms.  The overall story is works been super busy, super stressful, with no end in sight.  Thats whats been consuming most of my life.

Ever since reading listening to Timothy Ferris's book "4 Hour Workweek," I've gotten excited about expanding my side project of movie theater websites.  Currently I do the websites for 3 movie theaters.  Ive been working on weekends re-programming the back end getting ready for a new and improved version of the site that can scale to many more theaters.  What this means is that its my hope some day to have the income of 50 or so movie theater websites and afford to travel and spend lots of time abroad emersing myself in thier culture and learning other languages.  This project could also open the possibilities of me being a stay-at-home dad if I ever get married and have kids.  The beauty of the movie theater website project is that I can work from anywhere that has an internet connection.  Although lately I've been lazy at progressing this project as works been real taxing on my energy where I spend most of my off hours playing Halo with Luke, Aaron, and Oscar.

In my spare time I've been re-listening to the Harry Potter books which I forgot how amazing they are, they definately deserve a future post to this blog.  The movies are still amazing for the special effects and abridged version of the story but nothing beats the books.  The books really go into detail the relationships people had with Harry's father and those get overlooked in the movie, and I think discovering those relationships are real important to Harry.

If you're reading this last paragraph I will be amazed.  If I looked at a blog post this long I may not have read it, hahahaha.  Well thats my life in a nutshell, a friggin huge nutshell but you get the point.

Kicking the Bucket (list)

I'm dying...well we all are technically...unless I find that fountain of youth I've been looking for.


Yesterday 22 year old rookie Angel's Pitcher Nick Adenhart was hit and killed by a drunk driver. Im not necessarily an Adenhart fan, actually never heard of him until the news. But it makes you think about when you will die. As my friend Jon put it:

Nick Adenhart isn't the same as a best friend, but the feeling of knowing that he passed before his time is the same as losing one. I have been in that situation already, and I know how it feels. This isn't as close to home, but you still have that feeling of loss, of disappointment, of waste.

So what do I want to do before I die so that my life is not a "waste"? My list (a work in progress):

• Learn and speak Spanish, French, and Russian fluently.
• Live for 6+ months in a country that isnt the United States.
• Sky dive (who's BL doenst have that one)
• Get married (learning French may help as I have a thing for French women)
  
• Have my baby son or daughter grab my finger with their whole hand.
• Have the last check I ever write to bounce. (Can't take it with me)
• Become President (jk, thats way too much work and I'm a huge slacker)
• Live a life with purpose.

Living a life with purpose is the hardest thing to do. I think people to often go on autopilot and just go to work and home and to work again. I don't want to get caught in that.

SOTW - Blood Bank by Bon Iver

I heard this song back a few weeks ago on an episode of Chuck. I love the guitar and melody.



Well I met you at the blood bank
We were looking at the bags
Wondering if any of the colors
Matched any of the names we knew on the tags

You said "see look thats yours!
Stacked on top with your brother's
See how the resemble one another
Even in their plastic little covers"

And I said I know it well

That secret that you knew
But don't know how to tell
It fucks with your honor
And it teases your head
But you know that its good girl
Cos its running you with red

Then the snow started falling
We were stuck out in your car
You were rubbing both of my hands
Chewing on a candy bar

You said "'aint this just like the present
To be showing up like this"
AS a moon waned to crescent
We started to kiss

And I said I know it well

That secret that we know
That we don't know how to tell
I'm in love with your honor
I'm in love with your cheeks
What's that noise up the stairs babe?
Is that Christmas morning creaks?

And I said I know it well
I know it well ...

No One Cares What You Had for Lunch

I recently came across a book called "No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog" and it got me thinking.  I do like the blogs that give everyone a glimpse into ones life, which is why I love facebook so much.  I love reading stories more than accounts.  I find it boring to write about what I did, day to day, which was why the 365 project failed.  My life is pretty boring, work/school/a few hobbies thats about it.

After seeing that book title, it inspired me to write yesterday's Zombie post, in which I had a lot of fun doing.  Noone cares what I did that day.  I ate a bagel for breakfast, wrote a blog post, pulled weeds, finished rereading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and then watched the movie again.    Wow, I bet you all are real interested in that last sentence(sarcasm).


If I'm gonna spend the time to write a blog, I should put some effort into it.  So in addition to what I had for lunch and the occaisonal video, hopefully I'll come up with some more meaningful and/or comedic posts.


By the way, I had EZ Take Out Burger for lunch.

This morning I saw a Zombie.

I know what you’re thinking, “you must be out of your mind! there’s no such thing!” But nay, it is true. He was at the bagel place eating a herb cheddar bagel with cream cheese with two slices of brain on top.

Hahahahaha well not brain, but he was making weird groaning noises and kept talking to himself.

He made me think, what would I do if there was a freak accident at one of the bio tech facilities in Temecula and people turned into zombies and went on a rampage?

First off I get conflicting education from movies. Some zombies are slow walkers with their arms out in front, and some are fast as hell and would easily outrun my as I would make it probably 10 feet before my back let out on me. So what would I do? Where would I go? Who would I stupidly risk my life to protect and end up falling in love with?

To take a page from the xbox 360 game Dead Rising, a mall would be a great place to ride out my last moments as a free thinking, non brain addicted individual. Malls do offer a lot of security, not the Paul Blart type but the control of doors and windows. You could easily lock yourself in or out of a store. There is a food court to keep your non-brain eating tummy desires fulfilled. There’s usually bookstores and video game stores to keep you busy as you wait for the government to send in black ops marines to see if anyone has survived before firebombing the city. The Temecula Promenade mall doesnt have one but should have one would be a gun and ammunition superstore. That would make the remaining hours of my life that much longer. Considering our mall doesnt have a weapons cache, I would have to go MacGruber on their asses. Im sure the discount perfume and cologne store thats owned by that persian dude contains lots of flamable liquid.

It would also be nice to have some non-zombie company. “Non Zombie” being the key word. First I would need the ex-cop or ex-military explosives specialist, because honestly when it comes to blowing up zombies, I’m sorta clueless. I would also need the chubby guy whose full of wit and comedy. I know a lot of you reading this would say, hey that guy is you, I know, but I’m saving myself for another role. I also need a cool black guy, not to be racist or anything, but for the stereotypical reasons they always get eaten first, which gives me more time. Obviously a hot chick that never in a million years would hook up with me, thats the girl I will be stupidly risking my life to protect. In the end we will be lovers, its a given. And last but certainly not least would be me, the brains of the operation, pun intended.

10 Rules of zombie invasions I’ve learned from TV and film:

1. Zombies don’t care if you punch them in the face, only a bullet to the head kills them.
   
2. If your friend gets bitten, don’t hesitate to kill him, he WILL eat you when he gets the chance.
   
3. Inversely, if you get bitten, its very important to convince your friends you wont eat them, because after all, your different than other zombies, you’re the same ol buddy they’ve known since high school, just with a very slight hunger for brains. Plus, you don’t want to get shot in the head.
   
4. Hot chicks always end up with the main protagonist, which is why I chose myself for that role, I'm not stupid you know.
   
5. There’s always some sinister or morally corrupt company thats to blame, find out who, thats always the key to survival and its always makes you feel better to blame someone else.
   
6. If you walk around with a limp moaning “Brains” its a good chance the zombies will think you are one of them and will not eat you.
   
7. You can destroy an entire mall, steal or break anything you want, set fire to the Gap, ride the lawn mowers a Sears through a glass wall at Macy’s and no one will blame you (hence why number 5 is so important)
   
8. Everyone has once in their life wanted to shoot their coworker in the face, now is your chance.
   
9. No matter how much of a loser you are in real life, you will look like a badass with ripped clothing and an assault rifle hanging on your back while holding a shotgun.
   
10. Don’t let their blood get in your mouth or eyes. If you do, see number 3.
    

I think I have a pretty good plan for the next zombie invasion. However, if that day ever happens, I’ll be sure to blog about what I’ve learned from the experience, and will post pictures to my Flickr account of me and the hot chick making out.

Dust off the ol' blog *cough cough*

It's come to my attention that I have seriously neglected this blog.

I have prepared some excuses:

1. I was gonna try blogging everyday and let myself down, and you know when you disappoint yourself its harder to get back on the horse?
2. School. I'm working full time and going to school part time. School and homework sucks.
3. Work has been super stressful with around 100 layoffs and forced retirements. Our department has been cut in half and now I am doing the job of 3 people. So when I get home, I veg out by watching TV or play halo.
4. Last but definately not least, I'm a lazy bastard. Plain enough and probably the only true reason I've neglected this thing.

I'm real proud of my friend Tara over at http://soapboxfortara.blogspot.com/. Shes been blogging every day since February 2nd, and I've only caught her cheating once. She inspires me.

Credit Crisis Explained.

Best video I've seen about this.


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

I want to go on a boat ride now.