Monday, May 21, 2012

2012.05.18 Friday

I woke up a bit late today, but then when I arrived at Habs, he just woke up...because I knocked on his door.  Lollers.

Pretty fun day at work.  We had a lunch meeting with lunch provided.  There, us young'ns were recognized for finished our extra education.

Actually ended up at work pretty late.  Traffic on the way home was surprisingly light for a Friday.  At home I had some hunan chinese food, then worked on finishing up some cuts with the cupcake project.  Things are starting to shape up nicely.

2012.05.17 Thursday

Back to carpooling.  You're welcome Captain Planet.

Took a breakfast break with the intern.

Had a Vball lunch.

Double traffic on the way home: there was some vehicle that needed towing around Anderson Mill Rd and 183, and then around Anderson Mill Rd and 620 there was a guy being put on a stretcher in the middle of the road.  I'm guess somebody started having a heart attack?

Quick dinner, then felt super tired and took a long nap.  Too long actually.  I wanted to help out with the cupcake project, but snoozed through a chunk of it, and my dad didn't wake me up until later in the night.  Guess I was too exhausted.

2012.05.16 Wednesday

On my way to work, for the second day in a row, there was a black audi in front of me while leaving my neighborhood.  Makes me giggle.

Feels weird that I don't have class and homework to worry about.  Speaking of which.. I got my final grade for the class I was taking this spring.. B.  Woo hoo!  B's make degrees.

Took a nice VB lunch.

At home I went for a bike ride.  The goal this time was to have a higher average speed.  Goal Succeeded.  I normally average about 6.5 mins/mile, but today I went 5.1 mins/mile.  Score!

Worked on the cupcake project.  One of these days I'll take pictures to give everybody a better idea of what is going on.

sleep.

2012.05.15 Tuesday

Mmm coffee.  I feel like I'm starting to drinking coffee pretty consistently now.

Went out to Din Ho for lunch with our new intern and a few coworkers.  We actually managed to not talk about work the entire time.

Late day at work, chatted on phone with a friend from yesteryear to talk about Saturday's incident.  They thought it was interesting, but in some ways expected.  Good to know.

Home, ate leftovers.

Sleep.

2012.05.14 Monday

A little late this morning.  Then had to pay the restart tax on my work computer, so double delay.

Today at work was the summer intern's first day.  I got to meet him and "babysit" him for lunch.  The other highlight for the day was a huge chunk of coding done.  I like days where I can sit and focus on code.

Left work late.  My realtor called to talk about the decline of my offer on a house.  It was expected, but worth a shot.  I'll need to figure out where I want to go from here.

Home, workout, food, sleep.

2012.05.13 Sunday (Mother's Day)

I had an appointment with my realtor this morning.  I didn't really get much sleep last night, but I'm ok with that.  Life goes on.  We met up at Starbucks and went over a nice pile of paperwork.  Making an offer....

Back home, ate the scraps from breakfast, grabbed a cup-o-joe and started cranking out the rest of sketchup drawings.  Not too much later and family was coming over to celebrate Mother's day.  My brother is interested in renting out a room, and apparently my sister is wanting him to rent a room out from them.  We may have to battle that one out.

Picked up some Rudy's BBQ for a late lunch meal.  Then sat around and chatted.  There is still a lot of work needed for the wedding.

Spent the evening/night converting measurements in Sketchup to lines on wood.  Also watched Holmes on Homes, and got worried about what an inspector could miss.

2012.05.12 Saturday

Woke up a tad late.  Went to the Noble Pig for breakfast/lunch with Kelc and her dad.  They were cutting onions or something, so I was teary-eyed while I ate a delicious sandwich.

Back home, worked on some Google Sketchup manipulating.  Kelc ran errands and prepared for her upcoming vacation trip.

Later Kelc and I met up with Paul to hit the gym... but that didn't work out too well.  We just chatted instead.  Then more people started showing up, which led to more chatting.  Eventually Kelc and I left because it was getting late.  I was hungry so we stopped at Whataburger on the way home.  The drive-thru looked empty until I placed my order, then it felt like I had to wait 10 minutes just to get up to the main window.  The guy in front of me was leaving, but then went back around and swapped bags with someone inside... then I got the bag he originally got.  Yummy... pre-opened food?  Whatever, doesn't look touched so I think I'll eat it, just write in a concern about food handling procedures.

This is where my night takes a turn for the worse.

Driving back into the neighborhood, cruising along around the speed limit and changing songs on my mp3 player (which doesn't require me looking down, in case you were wondering).  There is another road that comes into the neighborhood from 620, and it looked like there was a line of cars waiting to make the left turn. I blurted out something like "weird, I wonder where all those cars came from simultaneously at this time of night" and just then a car felt like darting in front of me when it was clearly not a good time to take the left turn.  I had to brake moderately hard, but not so much that Whataburger was flying all over the place.  The car in front of me was a black Audi that didn't properly aim for the turn, and swerved into the bike line before correcting.  (Just for reference, the road used to be 2 lane, but they converted the right lane into half-striped and half-bike lane, so the car making it all the way to the bike lane means they missed it by over half of a lane.) At this point, I knew something was up.  Maybe a really distracted driver?  Maybe lost?  Anyways, they continued on this 40mph-speed-limit road at a cruising speed of maybe 25-30.  Then we both took a turn onto the same road. This road had a limit of 30mph, and the car was going at most 20mph.  Then we both took the same next couple turns.  The car pulled into a driveway, while I turned around in a cul-de-sac to park facing the opposite direction.  At this point I wasn't really paying attention to the car anymore because they were out of my way (to enjoying some fancy Whataburger).  I put my car in park, started turning off my mp3 player, and turning down my stereo.  Kelc said something like "oh he's coming" or "he's got a gun" but (silly me) I thought she was joking or making a reference to something.  I turn off my car and start opening my door, and there is a guy on the sidewalk on the other side of the street from me yelling something like "why the f*** are you following me?".

Woah. At this point, time seems to mutate as the seriousness of the situation starts to kick in.  I end up saying something like "sorry man, I'm trying to go home, not trying to follow you" among other attempts to diffuse the situation.  While I'm trying to de-escalate the situation, it becomes more apparent that this guy 1) does not have a shirt on, 2) is quite drunk and is refuting everything I have to say, and most importantly 3) is holding an object that looks very much like a small 6-shooter.  What is there to do from this point?  I said "sorry sir, I wasn't trying to follow you" and "I wasn't tailgating you" with him drunkenly saying "you're not sorry" and "I know your kind".

Really?  I have a kind?

I had no chance to win a vocal argument.  I also had no chance of "winning" if he decided to use his firearm.  (I'd like to believe that I could hold my own against someone at that level of sobriety, but I did not feel like testing that theory.)  I said that "I'm going home" a couple times, then just started walking.  I like to believe that drunk people act more normal when nobody is paying attention to them anymore, instead of being all show.  He screamed out a few curse words, and went back to his house, while Kelc and I went inside.  Once inside, it still took me a moment to compute what the heck just happened.  Spoke with Kelc's siblings for a second, but then ended up going out back to call up the police.  (For the curious, 311 forwarded me to 911 because there was deadly weapon and a drunk driver involved, both of which escalate to "emergency" level even though I was pretty much safe at this point.)  I confirmed addresses and was finishing up my reporting duties when the operator said that officers would be there shortly to address the situation.  Cool... and not cool at the same time.  I don't want to re-escalate the situation.  I'm also running off pure adrenaline, so I'm already wired and don't feel like having a chit-chat.  Oh well, within probably 10-12 minutes there were 2 cars outside with officers ready and willing to take a report and try to make contact with the subject. Unfortunately for us, but fortunately for drunk man, he didn't answer his door.  Out of all the moves he made that night, that was probably his smartest.  The officers came back to say they were unable to make contact, but will be filing a public disturbance report.  They also suggested not trying to make contact (that would be silly).

I tried to eat some Whataburger, cold.

Then I went home and did google snooping instead of sleeping because I was still riding the adrenaline.  I'm very thankful that the night turned out as it did, and not worse.  So far, my worst "Wrong place - wrong time" situation.

2012.05.11 Friday

Met up with the realtor with Kelc and my dad.  We went to see the 3 houses I am most interested in.  As expected, Kelc and my dad did not like the house that I was excited about because of all the fix-up work it needs.  That was the part I liked.

After the house viewings, went over to Kelc's work to drop off paper.  Then a quick hop over to have lunch at Mighty Fine Hamburgers.

Then took a nice nap.

Met up with Kelc and Taylor and Habs, then drove with Habs down to The Salt Lick for Taylors birthday extravaganza.  We thought we had a long wait, then they said there was no wait.  We also thought there might be upwards of 20 people showing up, then 10, then something in between.

Afterwards, hung out at Taylors+Habs and played Cranium.  Soon Marisa and Ray showed up to throw a wrench into the unbalanced teams.

Home late.

2012.05.10 Thursday (Thrice Concert)

Took a good amount of effort to get out of bed today.  Not sure why, but I felt pretty exhausted.  Must have been a culmination of the week up to now.

Good way to wrap up the work week though.  Smooth sailing, productive with least interruptions.  The weather is still a bit gloomy though.

Off to the new Emo's East to see the Thrice concert.  The roads and weather was pretty bad, then parking sucked.  They have some huge parking lots surrounding the place, right off of Riverside, but most parking lots will tow unless you are there to shop at their stores.  We had to park pretty far away, on some dark road.  This show was part of their Farewell tour. Wait...what?  Pulled out the smartphone... woah, they put out a new album without me knowing.  This is the second time this has happened to me.  They played songs from all over their repertoire. They also left the stage a couple times, but came back twice: double encore.

Back home, I looked up some more about this farewell tour.  Sounds like they are indeed taking at least a  long break after this tour, if not just being "done" with Thrice.  They are starting and ending with a series of shows in California, their home and strongest following.  I'm not sure how I feel about this being the end.

Then sleep.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

2102.05.09 Wednesday (Final? Final)

Well, today is it.  My last day of schooling for a while.  Exciting and a little nerve racking.

Work was a little action-packed.  Didn't really spend much time reviewing.

The Final started off a bit different that my other college experiences: Took pictures, ate cupcakes, listened to praises... then took the test.

Left work soon after.  Kelc was at Habs place, so we hung out there for a while.  Seth came over with a trivia board game.  I also got the fully upgraded elevator in Tiny Tower.  Good times.

Then we went to Chik-fil-a for dinner and made comments about how Chik-fil-a supports organizations that views we may not agree with.  Feels bad man, but tastes good bro.

Home, sleep.

2012.05.08 Tuesday

The day started off nicely, sleeping in.  Well, as much as I could with my mom clanging pots and pans together in the kitchen.

Went to the dentist to get a cavity taken care of.  It only half sucked.  The weather sucked, to top it off.

Work went by quickly.  So many interruptions and it felt like nothing really got done.

Spent the evening finishing up studying while Kelc had fun elsewhere.

2012.05.07 Monday

Running around all weekend is nice, because of the feeling of accomplishment.  The flip side of that is now I feel like I'm running out of energy and I have a busy week ahead.

Took some time off over lunch to play some volleyball.  This might be the only chance I get this week to play, so I had to jump on it.

Went home with intentions to go for a bike ride with Kelc, but that fell through because there was a ton of lightning and gloomy skies.  Seems like the forecast should have mentioned something about a huge storm heading this way...guess not.

I cooked up a meal for myself, then started studying for an upcoming final.  Eventually Kelc came over and we watched an episode of Game of Thrones.  I thought I would be able to get back to studying after that, but the show was too draining for me, so I just went to bed.

2012.05.06 Sunday

Well yesterday was super productive.  I must counteract that with some laziness.  To start off the day, a gentle headache.  Good stuff.

Sipped on coffee and played some Ace Combat.

Drew out some cupcake pieces, and updated the google sketchup model.  Rounded out the evening with Holmes on Homes.  Rumor is that Kevin is back in town.

2012.05.05 Saturday

I set my alarm early but just on quiet radio so I could fade into being awake.  Well that didn't happen as planned, but I woke up at just the right time.  I showered and grabbed a quick breakfast, then off to...

Meet up with a realtor to check out a house I am interested in.  I got there slightly early, and we ended up having to wait around because the key box wouldnt grant us access.  The internal clock was probably off by a few minutes.  The house was nice, but you can tell it has been vacant for a while now; bugs collecting in the corners, dust, musky air.  Overall, I like the floor plan.  That is one thing that is hard, if not impossible, to change in a house.  There are some things that definitely need attention, but nothing that is preventing it from being livable.

Back home, my brother showed up to hang out.  After some chatting, we went outside to wash his car.  We did a wash, clay bar, dry, wax, and headlight restoration.  Looked pretty sweet after all was done.  Then he left to go get new wiper blades.

My fa ja and I pulled out the power tools and started cutting some wood for the cupcake project.  Things go much much faster the second time around.  It really helps having a stencil to use too.  Good that we worked on this instead of washing my car too, because I could tell my arms and neck were a tad burnt from the little time I was in the sun for my brother's car.  Good stuff.

Later on in the evening, I worked on cleaning my car. (Wash, clay bar, wax, touch-up paint, longhorn logo)  It took a pretty long time, and I was exhausted.

Showered up, then went over to Kelc's to drop off some suits and pick her up for dinner.  Mmmm Torchy's Tacos.

The over to Hab+Tay's place to watch some Death Note with Habs.  Kelc fell asleep in the middle of episode 2.

Home, sleep.




2012.05.04 Friday

May the fourth... be with you.  (And also with you)

Woke up a little sluggish today, and somehow my shower time took much longer than it has any previous day so I was running late.  Turned out to not be a big deal.

Work was good.  Then I spent the evening relaxing.

2012.05.03 Thursday

Kelc snoozed her alarm today and woke up to mine.  I barely even woke up to mine.  Not really sure why we were so tired.

Played some v-ball over lunch.  3 days in a row? Nice.  Went for an evening bike ride.  Also Nice.

Late night shopping.

2012.05.02 Wednesday

Sluggish getting out of bed, but fine once I got started.

Nothing terribly out of the ordinary for work.  Finally had a volleyball lunch, and it was amazing.  3 very close games.

Last class today, with an extra special dinner of Donn's BBQ.  Delicious and filling.

Went home, then met up with Kelc to work on her bike so I can ride around with somebody.  Her front tire looked fine, but the back was really flat.  I tried moving the tire around to see if there were any issues and the valve stem fell out.  Oops. Off to wal-mart to pick up a new tube and some tire levers.  I used to change tubes with a flat head screwdriver and mistakenly punctured a few tubes that way.  I feel like 3 dollars is a decent investment, even if the tool is so simple.  Replaced the tube, adjusted the handlebar, adjusted the brakes, and did a quick wipe-down and this baby is good to go.  Only problem now: it's dark outside.

Back at home, sat around and looked at home listings to try and figure out if I want to see anything this weekend.

2012.05.01 Tuesday

Back to the normal grind, except today I woke up at Kelc's on her schedule before going home and starting my morning routine.

Spent the evening working on the last homework assignment for school for a long time (hopefully).  Also tried watching some Game of Thrones afterwards.  Keyword: tried.

2012.04.30 Monday

So glad I took the day off.  I still feel out of it.

Kelc and I took a relaxing lunch journey.  First stop was Five Guys Hamburgers.  They make a good hamburger.  Warning: the large fries are a very sizable portion.  We thought we would be able to split them, oh how wrong we were.

Next up we took a walk around to the turtle/duck pond.  Semi-scenic, but also semi-developed.  Unfortunately the ducks did not want any food, and the birds kept stealing it.

Went inside Barnes and Noble to look around.  I found some interesting non-fiction (of course).

The rest of the day was pretty relaxing.

Friday, May 4, 2012

2012.04.29 Sunday (New Orleans)

Woke up late, as expected.  Housekeeping was banging on the door to see if we were gone.  Some of the guys had already left, some had not.

We showered, then packed up our junk and got moving.  We weren't totally aware of this at the time, but some of the girls were stuck waiting for their valet to get their car, so we ended up being in front of the pack yet again.

Stopped by Waffle House for breakfast.  The greasy food was perfect.

I took over from Vidor to Austin.

Kelc arrived soon after I was home, so I unpacked and told a few stories of the journey, then went out to Taco C for a late dinner.

2012.04.28 Saturday (New Orleans)

Woke up at a reasonable time, and headed to Johnny's Po-Boys for breakfast (again).  The other options we checked out were crowded.  Jazz Fest really increased the congestion of the streets and locations.

Went around to a few restaurants and oyster bars for most of the day.  Some chose to gamble, others slept in the room.

Today is the day we finally met up with the girls group.  We took some cabs over to the New Orleans Hamburger and Seafood Co. for dinner.  I had the red beans and rice (finally something with a full on New Orleans style)  A quick walk over to a nearby bar and we were celebrating as a large group.  We might have made a few people in the establishment feel weird because we kind of took over the dart boards.

When we were about to leave, we called up the cab company and found out there would be at least an hour and half wait before being picked up.  That was not cool.  A big cab-van picked up the girls, and Tim's mom came to the rescue and picked up us guys from the bar.  Back at the hotel, some went to sleep, others wanted to go gamble, and others wanted to go celebrate on bourbon street.  I chose the bourbon street route.

Long night, good times.  A very interesting and memorable way of wrapping up the loose ends of the bachelor/bachelorette party.

2012.04.27 Friday (New Orleans)

Slept in a fair amount.  Those hurricanes have tons of sugar (and alcohol), and my body feels a bit worn down from that today.  Cleaned up and started wandering around town with the guys.

Still waking up for breakfast at Johnny's Po-Boys and Cafe du Monde.  That's right, double breakfast.

Next up, a few bars and wandering around the streets.  Also a quick stop at Harrah's Casino.  There we played some craps and blackjack.  Met some cool people at both games.  A notable one was a teacher from Houston.

Dinner at Restaurant August.  The place was rather fancy (4 dollar sign on Yelp) and we went at a really good time when the evening sun was lighting up everything with a soft glow.  The meal started off with some breadsticks, then a chef creation of a butter/fish custard topped with caviar all inside an egg shell.  (That is probably the craziest thing I've ever eaten.)  For the main course I chose the grilled poussin, which is apparently young chicken.  It was amazing.  Finished the meal with some desserts and french press coffee.

After dinner, we decided to stay in our fancy attire and head to a cigar bar.  There we chatted, some played chess.

Spent the later part of the day out drinking and more gambling.  Goodbye money, it was nice knowing you.

2012.04.26 Thursday (New Orleans)

Woke up just like any other work day, except today I am hopping in a car to drive 8 hours to another state.  I actually had to finish packing too, better late than never right?  We hit the road, then didn't get very far because we were picking up people and swapping riders.  Took us a good 40 minutes to get around town to do that.  It's pretty funny how it takes a good chunk of hours just to get out of Texas.

We stopped at a Whataburger on the way there, and just so happened that another vehicle in our dispersed caravan stopped there too.  Not planned at all, pretty coincidental.

Made another stop once we were in Louisiana to check out a gas station / casino combo, and get gas and use the facilities of course.  I'm not sure of the specific location we stopped at, but I think it was a chevron gas station.  We put in a few bucks in the video poker machines they had, but I hit nothing.  I think one of us cashed out when up something like 40 cents.

We were in the hotel room by about 6p.  I guess traffic affected us a fair amount.  I think we were also the first group to make it into town.  Somehow we were ahead.

We unpacked a bit and relaxed.  Not too much later a few more guys arrived.  We grouped up and headed out to go check out a few places.  The first stop was a random bar where they had a special on Guinness. And of course we took some "to go".

Next up was a walk over to the river.  We met a cool jester that liked to talk shit to us.  Absolutely hilarious.  Wish we had gotten his name.

Hop, skip and jump over to Corner Oyster Bar & Grill.  There we had some food and drinks while watching multiple screens of hockey games.  We think there was a group of Canadians watching the game pretty intensely.

After dinner, we went and picked up some hurricanes.  Not necessarily the best choice of drink, but its jumbo size lasted me the remainder of the evening.

The rest of the night was a bunch of walking around, back to the hotel occasionally to pick up people as they had arrived, and a few stops by the casino and bourbon street.

My feet were pretty tired and I was ready for bed by early morning.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

2012.04.25 Wednesday

Some awesome construction traffic on the way to work today.  Supposedly the winds delayed putting up some steel flyover parts, so they decided to screw up morning rush hour.

The work day started off with free doughnuts and free breakfast tacos.  I can't really complain much there.

Long day of work, then class.  Soon I will be done with school... then what will I spend my evenings doing?

Spent the evening running errands and packing.  Kelc and I took a detour to get some dessert at Applebees.  Mmmm maple butter blondie.

2012.04.24 Tuesday

No carpool today.  Makes the morning drive a little more sleepy.

Work was rather productive.  Only a few interruptions and a huge chunk of coding accomplished.  It's not often that I get to do that much software work (weird, because my title is Software Engineer).

Picked up some Double Dave's pizza on the way home.  They still have the 2-for-Tuesday deal on pepperoni rolls.  Brings back awesome (and not awesome) memories of college days.

Kelc came over for a bit to hang out, then left for trivia.  I went to run some errands.  At Autozone, I got into a discussion about brake pads with one of the guys that works there.  He said replacing brakes is pretty easy, and machining the rotors can be done for like $15 at a shop, just recommended that I get the Haynes manual to I don't run into any issues.  I've heard good things about Haynes manuals, lots of pictures, step-by-step for everything, and list of tools you will need.  Might be worth the investment if I want to do most things myself.  (And it gives me an excuse to get more tools.)

Home, watched some Daily Show and Colbert Report, then sleep.