Three Hundred Twenty-Sixth Entry

It's been a while since I've updated this! Lots of stuff happened...

My brother got into an ATV accident the day before Easter...Here's what happened...

I got a call about 2:30am Saturday:

Fred (obviously in pain): Phillip...
Me (half asleep): Yeah.
Fred (drugged out): I crashed an ATV tonight.
Me (waking up): What? Are you hurt?
Fred (wincing): Yeah, it hella hurts.
Me: Did you go to the Emergency Room?
Fred: No, I took some Vicodin and I'm going to try to sleep.
Me: You should go to the hospital! Do you want me to go over there and take you?
Fred: No, but call me when you wake up in the morning to make sure I made it through the night.
Me (stifling laughter): OK.
Fred: Don't tell mom.

The whole thing was hella funny! I get up in the morning and call him. He answers and sounds no better than the night before. He's decided he needs to go to the hospital. 4 hours of hospital sitting and waiting and x-raying, he discovers that nothing is broken. Apparently, during the wreck he dislocated and relocated his left knee and right shoulder, and bruised a lot of internal stuff. They sent him home. He's an idiot.

The story is, he was "mashin" on the ATV across the street from his house in an empty field, in the middle of the night. He swears he was going 40, no 50 miles an hour. Then all of a sudden, this ditch appears out of nowhere and BAM! he crashes into it. Luckily, his buddies were out there with him and found him within several minutes. They wanted to take him to the hospital, but he wanted to "sleep it off".

He kept his humor the whole time. I'm sure the drugs had something to do with it. He wore his evil bunny slippers to the ER and for the rest of the weekend. He received many compliments on them. He claims that he asked everyone in the hospital if they watched House, and when they said yes, he informed them that "it's never Lupus." When I took him to get his scrip, the very kind Pharmacist asked him what happened. Without even thinking, he shot back with a tale about falling into the gorilla pit at the SF Zoo.

Easter evening through Wednesday, I stayed at his house and did stuff he couldn't do: laundry, make food, wash dishes, put on his socks and shoes, administer his Norco's. The really sucky thing is that he had to work the whole week. I guess things are going bad at his work and he can't miss any days. I offered to drive him, but his stubborn ass said he could drive. And no, he did not go to work under the influence of Norco's. He struggled through with just Advil.

It's funny because he really is healing quickly. You can hardly notice his limp (he stopped using his "House" cane after a coupla days), and he isn't using the sling anymore.

I slept on an air mattress in the living room. I awoke one morning to the cat meowing loudly at a peacock on the other side of the sliding glass door. I sat up for a spell, shushed the cat, noticed the peacock and went back to sleep. I realized later that sometimes the cats meows sound like peacock calls.

My mom relieved me of my duties Wednesday and I came home, to two televisions still with no cable!!!

I called Comcast on Wednesday and they still weren't able to fix it. They conceded defeat and scheduled a tech to come out to the house the next day, between 2 and 4 pm. Finally! Someone was going to deliver me from my cable-less room!

The guy (let's call him Ed) came a little after 2:30pm. I was in the middle of watching Springer on the "cabled" TV. I was more than glad to give up watching the battles of the toothless, in order to restore televisual balance in the house. Ed wasn't even here half an hour and he had fixed everything. There wasn't anything incorrectly plugged, he informed me. The problem was that our devices (digital TV receiver, cable modem, and two problematic digital adapters) were in the wrong order in the system. I asked if that wasn't something they could have fixed over the phone. Ed said that the problem could have been easily solved over the phone, confirming the laziness and ineptitude of the technical staff I spoke with.

I was stoked about the cable being fixed and watched TV in bed for the rest of the afternoon and night.

Friday, I packed a bag and headed on down to Tulare to visit my family. I got there and the first order of business was getting Rock Band!

Now, I hate shopping at Walmart. In fact I haven't done so in years. But, they do have everything. I was disappointed when Target didn't have Rock Band for the Wii. Walmart 1, Target 0. Target did have fresh produce, so I bought tons of fruit for my world famous fruit salad. They also have a Starbucks in there! So I got one. Target 2, Walmart 1. Target still won for the weekend, even with the Rock Band let-down of '09.

We get back to the house and the girls hooked up Rock Band. Next thing I hear is someone butchering "Spirit in the Sky". Hilarious! We all got into it. I'm super good on the drums and on the mic, but sucked on the guitar. I sang "Lump"...Paula and the girls were looking at me all weird because they had never heard the song. Really? Never heard Lump?? They must've been living in a cave in Afghanistan for the past 10 years.

Paula and I talked for quite some time in the kitchen while I made my fruit salad and while everyone else played Rock Band. By this time Dalila's(17-yr. old cousin) friends had come over for a sleepover. They were all going on a fieldtrip to Universal Studios the next day. I volunteered to wake up at 4am, get all the fieldtrip kids up and take them over to the high school where the bus was picking them up. Dalila's three friends slept on the couch (it's a huge couch) and I slept in Dalila's room. I couldn't get any sleep. Dalila has this Aero/sleep number bed thing and I couldn't get used to it. She also insisted on sleeping with some discoball thingy on all night. So there I was, sleepless in the bed, humming "I Will Survive", and Dalila sawing logs on the trundle bed on the floor.

Four o'clock reared it's ugly head and everyone got up. I parked myself on at the dining table and waited for everyone to get ready. The sooner I could drop everyone off, I could come back and go to sleep! Calvin got home from work about 4:30. He offered to take everyone for me, but I insisted, since he was going to have a long day ahead of him.

We're out the door at just after five. I get to the school, and there are a handful of vehicles parked out there waiting for the teacher and bus to arrive. The teacher begged everyone to be at the school by 5:15. He didn't get there until 5:45! And I couldn't leave the kids there alone and without a car to stay warm in!!! Let me tell you, when he got there, I bolted, cursing the teachers name!

I crashed on the couch, and woke up at 6:30 to Georgia (my 11 year old goddaughter) asking if she could play Rock Band quietly. I said it was fine...at least she asked! I slept until about 9. Not bad...

I called another cousin, and she invited me over for breakfast. She made a stellar meal! Bacon, sausage and a biscuit/egg/ham/cheese casserole thing that can only be described as heavenly!! We visited for a while and I got to put my arms in her pool. Very refreshing, especially since it was hella hot already.

I got back to Paula's and helped her and Calvin prepare for a party/BBQ they were having that evening. I planned on taking a nap before everyone got there, but ended up sleeping through the eating part of the party. I woke up, scarfed down some awesome BBQ and played Taboo and Peanuts til about 3 am. A good time was had by all!

I left the next day I got up before everyone else and started to clean the kitchen. Dishes mainly. We all breakfasted on leftovers. Still hella good. Then I left for the Bay Area.

I got home late. I called up Amy and she came over. We watched "Two Weeks Notice" starring Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock. Does anyone else think it's funny that her last name sounds just like the British word for testicle?

Monday morning I got up at a respectable hour and called Firmino to see if he wanted to have lunch. He just got laid off too. Last Friday, in fact. I picked him up at his apartment in Alameda and we made our way over to La Pinata on Park Street. I wrestled with the parking meter for a few minutes, but I got it to work. I made that parking meter my bitch.

La Pinata in Alameda is the best of all the La Pinatas, in my opinion. It's hard to believe that they are even the same restaurants. The one here in San Leandro always serves their burritos in a pool of water. It's not even sauce! It's freaking water!!! And the chips are disgusting!! But the Alameda La Pinata is so different. Delicious food, served promptly with the appropriate moisture content.

After that unbelievably satisfying meal, we walked down the street to a bookstore and perused the aisles. Nothing good. So we went to the Borders and the "Alameda Towne Center", formerly "South Shore Center". I still call it South Shore. I bought a book entitled "How the States Got Their Shapes" or something similar. Very excited about it.

I went back to Firmino's apartment and we filled out his EDD application. Then he played me some hella cool clips on youtube. We played Phase 10. He hella cheated. I lost by 20 points. He is such a cheater!! But I ain't mad...

I got home to a package from Amazon.com. Very nice! My merch has arrived!!!:
-Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
-The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
-Earth Abides by George Stewart
-Jailbird: A Novel by Kurt Vonnegut
-Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut
-Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
-Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
-The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
-V for Vendetta (movie)
-Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (movie).

Now I've got lots to do, right?? Thanks Louis and Jen!!!!

Monday night I returned to Fred's house to relieve my mother of babysitting duties. She really doesn't sleep well at Fred's house. It's the strong winds that keep her up. They do make quite a racket!

By Tuesday morning I realized that Fred didn't really need any help anymore. The first week was the hardest and each day he sees some improvement. But I still stuck around. I wanted to soak in as much HD DirecTV as possible. He even has a DVR! Very cool. I'm a DVR pro now.

I watched so much TV the last few days. I watched lots of BBC America, TNT, TBS. Family Guy was a daily occurance since my brother was recording them all. I love that show. I also got to watch the Graham Norton show. Remember him Lisa!?!?!? Awwww, you guys!!

I also finally finished reading "I Am Legend". The print edition I bought has the first half of the book as "I Am Legend" and the second half of the book is a collection of short stories by the same author. And each and every short story was as disturbing as "I Am Legend". I usually prefer the book over the movie, but in this case it was very close. The book won out by a clove of garlic. I thoroughly enjoyed how the book delved into the science involved more than the movie, but was non-plussed by the ending. However, after reading the short stories, I understood, even appreciated the "Legend" ending more. This Richard Matheson guy is definitely weird.

I came back to San Leandro today! Yay!!!

Had a very good dinner at Vo's in San Leandro tonight. With Jen and Louis!! I had never been there before so I relied on their experience to carry me through the evening. We shared the sampler, which was very good! Spring rolls, noodle salad, fried calamari and some fried egg rolly thingy. I had Pho for the first time in a great while. It was Pho with thinly sliced beef and thickerly sliced beef and beef balls. It was sooo good. And FBI for dessert...very good! I hadn't had FBI in ages. I'm glad Jen is back! We got all caught up on things. She misses the birth center, but that's certainly understandable considering she was there for three months. And she was pleased with the additions/modifications Louis made to the decor of the house. Well done Louis.

Tomorrow the job search begins in earnest. I'm having lunch with ex-coworkers. That should be fun. Sushi...mmmmm...

Three Hundred Twenty-Fifth Entry

Today was a not that boring day. It started off a little boring, but picked up dramatically after about noon.

I met up with ex-Lea & Brazers again for lunch today. Had a tuna salad sandwich from Eden Cafe in Hayward. I've always liked that place. Found out lots of old company gossip, including discovering that Karma actually does exist. Never burn your bridges...

I returned home to a box from Comcast. Apparently, if we do not get digital converters for our televisions we will lose half our channels come May 1st. I didn't really understand it, my mom spoke to the lady on the phone. So, they sent us two digital converters, and one digital receiver. I called them to figure out what to do with all this, and Tiffany basically called me an idiot and told me to read the instructions. Yes folks, everyone with cable has become their own cable guy!!!

I opened the instructions and all the equipment. I connected all the hardware to the three televisions we designated worthy of them, and called to activate all the boxes. Well, once you've called to activate, you need to wait for 45 minutes, and then complete the activation through the TV. Melvin was unable to activate the two digital converters, and said to call back later. I tasked my mother with this since I had to leave to go take Amy her lunch. Easy enough!

I basically run out the door with Amy's homemade tuna salad sandwich and a bag of chips and speed on over to Safeway. I wasn't too hungry, so I just brought a yogurt with me to eat while she ate. It was Peach...mmmm... I didn't use to like the peach flavored yogurt, but it's grown on me. Amy really liked her tuna salad sandwich. :) After our quick nosh, we headed over to Peet's coffee where I finally finished using my gift card. Yes folks, I used up the 30 cents I had on the card and got a small mocha. Starbucks mocha is so much better. Starbucks in general is so much better: tastier, quicker, friendlier. I'll bet the plain coffee at Peet's is better than Starbucks, but Starbucks wins every time in the non-plain bevs.

As per usual, we sat out front of Peet's, talked and tried to ignore the two Pomeranians that were almost as annoying as Freddie, my mom's pom. I encouraged her to buy a "chug" of milk and she did. Chocolate milk...mmmm. The second she started drinking it, the phlegm started to form. It really was quite fascinating.

I left Safeway and headed home. I got home to a frustrated mother and no TV's working. Arrrgh! I called Comcast again and asked them what the hell was wrong with our TV's! I was on the line for about an hour as the guy told me to unplug things, turn things on and off, push buttons, etc. Finally the TV in the family room started to work. By this time I was transferred to some technician lady. I told her that the receiver was working properly, but the digital adapters were still not working. She said I needed to call some number to activate them. Fine.

I called the number and "activated" the new boxes. No sooner did I activate the adapters, but the family room TV stopped working!!! WTF!!!

I read the letter that came with the stuff, and there was a website where all of the equipment could be activated. Why didn't I see this before!!! I go online to activate everything, and only the digital receiver is there. No wonder they can't activate the two adapters, Comcast doesn't even know they exist. I saw a link for Chat Help. I figured, all of the clowns I've been talking to on the phone haven't been able to help me, maybe the internet guy could figure this all out.

Meanwhile, Louis showed up because we were supposed to go to dinner, so I was trying to get this all done quickly.

Well, after over an hour chatting with Antonio.37071, the family room TV was working but still nothing on the other two TV's. Antonio wrote that I should wait 45 minutes for everything to kick in and "download". Fair enough.

I log off the chat with Comcrap, and I see Jen pop up on IM! I chatted with her for a while, Louis chatted with her for a while. She had a long day and was on her way to bed.

Louis and I head over to El Torito at about 9:15, 45 minutes before they close. Plenty of time to eat, chat and get out of there. I think that El Torito really liked us because they tried to keep us there all night! Oh wait, I think it was just horrendous service! It took about 15 minutes to take our orders, we were only allowed one glass of water and I guess we looked content enough because nobody bothered to check on us at all. Yes I know they were close to closing, and I know that there are other customers in the restaurant, but there were maybe 6 other tables there, and as many servers! And if you don't want to serve people after 9, then close at 9! I'm sure all the servers were out back counting their tips and smoking crack. I left a 4 cent tip. I have never left so little a tip. For bad service, I leave 10% minimum. They just caught me on a frustrating day...and they sucked ass!!!

Louis and I head back to the house and I do a quick check on the TV's. Still nothing. I give it one more shot, and call up Melissa over at Comcrap. She basically can't help me either but assured me that she has escalated the issue and forwarded the problem to a better equipped team of technical screw ups who may or may not call me within 3 days.

I told my mom we should get the DISH Network.

Louis is asleep on the couch. He's hella tired. I think I'm gonna do the hand-in-the-warm-water trick!

Scratch that...he's on my couch.

Three Hundred Twenty-Fourth Entry

Today was even boringer than yesterday, save for several highlights. And now the highlights of my day, in chronological order...

One: I went on a shopping spree at Amazon.com. Well, not exactly a spending spree...I just finally decided to spend a gift card I received for my birthday last year! Thank you Louis and Jen!! I bought two movies and eight books! They are just slashing prices on Amazon. Maybe it's because of the bad economy...

Two: Lunch with Roxy and JR (sorry JR, ladies first)! We went to Red Chili in Hayward. I had the Pumpkin Curry with brown rice. I ordered it mild spiciness, but it was soooo medium!! That didn't matter though. It was so good I finished it all up! I'll be paying for it through tomorrow, I'm sure. I also had a thai iced tea(they make the best one) and the rest of Roxana's soup...mmmm.

For those who do not know, I worked with Roxy and JR at Lea & Braze. The three of us used to sit in the same room, and now we try to make it to lunch as often as possible, just so we can make fun of each others faces. Awwww!

Three: Jerry Springer! Today was "I have a latin lover" day. It was hilarious! It's sad, if the stories are true, that people actually do the things that they claim to do. It's even sadder that Jerry Springer was a highlight of my day...

Four: I got my EDD paperwork today. I qualify for the highest benefit amount! Excellent. I have a phone interview with them next Wednesday at 8am. I wonder if I should wear a tie...

Five: I took lunch to Amy today! Her lunch hour is between 4 and 5pm. Today, I stopped at Don Jose's in CV and got two orders of fish tacos with rice and beans. I'm not sure I would get the fish tacos again, as they were pretty bland. They did get extra points for lots of avocado and mango salsa. They also did get points for giving me the lunch special price instead of the dinner price. Muchas gracias Don Jose!

After Amy's lunch/My dinner, we went over to Pete's Coffee where I enjoyed a large mocha and Amy enjoyed a piece of pumpkin and cream cheese bread. I tried to spend my entire gift card, but ended up with 30 cents left on it. They don't have anything for 30 cents...

Six: I got a call from ex-coworker Arnel. He filled me in on what's going on at the new First Solar, and what I'm missing: laptops, blackberry's for everyone, free lunches, happy ending massages...just kidding about the free lunches... 8)

Now I'm pretending to watch the Spanish version of Ugly Betty, only because I'm too lazy and bored to change the channel. Oh...I've found Austin Powers on TBS!

I guess it wasn't that boring a day after all...

Three Hundred Twenty-Third Entry

I lied. There are lots of interesting things on TV during the day! I just wasn't surfing the right channels...

I'm watching Jerry Springer, and guess what?? They brought back all the fighting!!! No holds barred! It used to be like this, then they decided to cool the fighting down. But it's back! They just need to uncensor everything...

Love it, love it, love it! Thanks for bringing this new and improved Jerry Springer show to my attention, ex-coworker Jen!

Three Hundred Twenty-Second Entry

I finished updating my resume yesterday and sent it out to some old coworkers for review. I kept it to one page, holding to my rule of one page for the first ten years of a career and anything goes after. I also sort of perused the net for employment only to find a few jobs that require twice as much experience as I have. I didn't spend too long doing that though.

It rained all morning and early afternoon yesterday. That kept me in the house, wishing I could go outside and finish the gardening I started last weekend. I didn't want to drive around anywhere since I should be conserving my monies in preparation for what could be a long unemployment. I'm over that already...I'm going to lunch today with ex-coworkers.

It was so boring yesterday. I did leave the house before the rain started just to go to the bank and deposit my refund. And then, once the rain stopped I went to have dinner with Louish at Le Soleil, which is always very fun. But the in-between time was sooooo boring. Daytime television sucks, and don't want to get sucked back into the soap opera world. I wasted too much of my time on that in college. I suppose I could have cleaned up the house some...I did do some laundry!

My next step is to start learning stuff. I somehow ended up with a huge cache of engineering reference materials on several DVD's. I'll probably start reading/watching some of that stuff. I also have two boxes full of VHS tapes of civil engineering lectures that I could watch. Talk about exciting!

Speaking of VHS tapes, does anyone know how to transfer a VHS tape onto a DVD? Is it something I could do at home with a high powered computer and a DVD burner? Is there a special dual machine(VHS/DVD burner) I could get that would do it all for me?

Jen's back next week!!!

Three Hundred Twenty-First Entry

A lot has happened since I've last posted.

In an environmentally responsible move, I quit my job at Lea & Braze Engineering, and accepted a position at OptiSolar Inc. as a Civil Engineer. At OptiSolar, I performed much of the same tasks I did at the last couple of jobs, except this time for solar power plants. It was a nice change from working on the greed and excess driven world of high-end single family custom homes. Unfortunately, OptiSolar sold off it Business Development division to First Solar, and I was one of the casualties of the deal, which was finalized last Friday. So, last Friday I was informed of my layoff. I'm OK with it. I get a decent "severance" thanks to the gubment, and in addition, I get unemployment. But hopefully, I will not be on unemployment for too long. I'm sure staying at home all day, every day will get really old, really fast.

I was one of two folks out of seven from my group to get the chop on Friday, not to mention the dozens of other folks from different departments that were let go the same day. There were no incidents, no one was yelling or anything. There really isn't much that throwing a hissy can do to get you your job back. It was a big relief for me, especially since there had been speculation all week about impending doom for the company and specifically our group. I lost sleep all last week stressing about it. I'm sleeping fine now. I'm even still on the working sleep schedule; I got up this morning at seven. Not bad, eh?

The worst part about leaving on Friday was saying goodbye to my coworkers. Three, in particular, I had worked with at the last company. They are a good group of guys, and I'm glad they survived the merger. They've got a great opportunity to work for a juggernaut of the solar industry, and hopefully they do well.

So, I'm unemployed. I've decided to take this week relatively easy. I'm updating my resume today, but I won't start looking for work until the end of this week. If anyone would like to review my resume, please let me know! It's been a long time since I've had anyone look at it. but for now, I'm just going to cruise on into Easter, pig out on candy and chocolate, have some pizza and taco bell, and get into job searching next week. By the way, I've given up sweets, fast food and pizza for lent(that should explain the last sentence.)

I would like to thank everyone who emailed, texted and called me since I broke the news about my sudden unemployment. Thanks for your concern and the job leads!
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I'm going to make a lasagna for Easter. I'm salivating just thinking about it! The last one I made was a great success. I was thinking of also making some tapas dishes from the new tapas cookbook I recently acquired. Everything in that book looks delicious! Especially the baked stuffed onion....mmmmm....I'll have to take a pic when I do make it.

Last week was a big week for Claim Jumper. I went three times last week! Sunday, Thursday and Saturday. Each visit was a very good time!
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I'd like to ask for an opinion...at what point is it OK to expand your resume to two sheets? It is my personal belief that after ten years in any given industry, you have earned the right to expand a resume to two sheets. Any thoughts?
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I got an email a few weeks ago with this video. It is quite adult content so be careful who you watch it in front of. Also, if balloon animal sex offends you, please do not click the link! It just has to be shared...
Balloon Animals!!