shielded

i live in a bubble. i live in a bubble where i can take in sanitized knowledge, feel anger, talk to my peers about the injustice of this war, but not have to feel the immediate pain of loss associated with this war. as i have no family in the military aside from my little cousin, who has returned after being deployed to kuwait, i can remain reasonably sure that i can continue in my bubble and not have to go through the anguish of those losing loved ones. i know people who have family there, and i live in fear on their behalf, but i know that that one degree of separation is a critical degree that allows me to stay safe in my bubble.

i was shocked to discover today the brother of someone i knew in high school was a casualty of this senseless war. i was looking around on www.moveon.org which led me to check out the ad clips on www.realvoices.org, and stumbled upon an ad that turned out to feature yet another brother of that schoolmate, which led me to some old articles, which led me to the salon article. reading the words cannot help but conjure the voice of the schoolmate i had casually known. i can hear the note of anguish in his writing, and i am so saddened by his family’s pain. at the same time, i’m inspired by the words and the conviction behind them.

—

i read my words above and they seem so hollow and devoid of meaning and relevance.

comapny bbq

we just had our release party/bbq. we celebrated the release of three products and the end of a successful quarter. featured were:

• pine box derby (we assembled it 30 minutes after it was due and came in 2nd to last of 17 teams; one may say it was symbolic, but one may also observe that the car that came in dead last was beautifully painted/lacquered [rumored to have cost $200 to get painted] car that the sales team submitted may be a more symbolically meaningful entry)
• the “good enough band” featuring songs such as “Stacy’s Palm” and “All the Small Screens” (i’ll have to post the lyrics at some point; they are hysterically funny)
• tasty food!

when we got back to our desks after a two-hour fest, we found good-branded duffle bags at our seats. maybe they want us to pack up our things and leave. heh.

seriously, it was nice to have a nice party and feel like we aren’t clinging on the edge of despair every constant minute. it was nice to party like it was 1999 — which, by the way, was the last time i attended a company function as fun and laid back as this one.

in-n-out’s not-so-secret menu

i finally looked up in-n-out’s secret menu. this is the best list i’ve found so far:

“3-by-3” = three meat patties and three slices of cheese.

“4-by-4” = four meat patties and four slices of cheese.

“2-by-4” = two meat patties and four slices of cheese.

Note: You can get a burger with as many meat patties or cheese slices as you want. Just tell the cashier how many meat paties and how much cheese you want and that is what you’ll get! For instance, if you want 2 pieces of meat and 6 pieces of cheese tell them you want a “2-by-6.”

“Animal Style” = the meat is grilled with mustard, then pickles, extra spread, and grilled onions are added.

“Whole Grilled Onions” = onions are grilled whole and not chopped like animal style.

“Double Meat” = like a Double Double without cheese.

“3-by-Meat” = three meat patties and no cheese.

“Animal Style Fries” = fries with cheese, spread, grilled onions.

“Protein Style” = this is a burger with no bun, wrapped in lettuce.

“Grilled Cheese” = no meat, but everything else.

“Extra Toast” = buns are extra toasted giving them a crunchy texture.

“Veggie Burger” = aka “Wish Burger,” burger without patty or cheese.

“On the Sal” = this is just lettuce and dressing. Nothing else.

“Animal Fries” = fries with melted cheese, grilled onions, and dressing.

“Fries Well-Done” = extra crispy fries, even better than the regular!

“Fries Light” = opposite of fries well-done, more raw than usual.

“Flying Dutchman” = two meat patties, two slices of melted cheese–nothing else–not even a bun!

“Neopolitan Shake” = strawberry, vanilla and chocolate shake.

“Choco-Vanilla Swirl Shake” = chocolate and vanilla swirled together to perfection.

“Lemon-Up” = half lemonade and half 7-up drink.

“Root Beer Special” = half root beer and half Dr. Pepper

“Tea-Ade” = half iced tea and half lemonade.

a lovely addition to our household

i am so excited! we went to best buy monday night and looked at this oven, but chose to look up the model number when we got home instead of buying it right away. this turned out to be a good move because the floor model was displaying the wrong model number on the little sales sticker. we went back on tuesday and decided we wanted it, but the best buy guys told us that it couldn’t be delivered until october 27th at the earliest, which was not good for us. we then went to sears with the hopes that they would have the same model, but were disappointed to find that they did not have it out on the floor. undaunted, we asked the sales guy, and he was able to look up the proper model and order it for delivery for us. the best parts are that they did price matching (679.99 at bb, but 699.99 at sears, with an additional 10% off the difference) and that they can deliver it as early as thursday. we asked for saturday delivery instead, since we would be available to take the delivery. oh! i almost forgot. we were also able to put it on our pre-existing sears card (we bought the dishwasher with it), which gives us 0% interest until the end of september next year.

yay!

observations in e minor

1. i used to wonder how anyone could stand people with really shrill voices, how they could eventually find a life-mate. then i realized that there are totally tone-deaf people who are completely unothered by the sound, perhaps even enjoy it.
2. i think that i don’t entirely understand modern art, but i’ve come to my own revelation on what it means to people and why they create it. i compare it to my past inability to completely understand why the concept of visual perspective took so long to enter the art world. it seemed to me an obvious concept that things look smaller when they are further away and bigger when they are up close, and that this is a better 2D representation of reality than drawing everything to scale, or everything with right angles. but that’s the thing with perspective: it’s not an accurate representation of reality (that box isn’t really supposed to be smaller in the back and things aren’t to scale), but reality as we perceive it from where we stand. and so it goes with modern art: the abstract works can, at times, better represent certain thoughts/states/emotions/concepts/realities than our concept of classical art styles by showing us what we see rather than what we see. i may not really understand the individual pieces, but having this bit of insight helps me appreciate the field of modern art better.
3. both jokes and advice are only welcome when they are not obvious. a lot of people say really obvious things and guffaw without any tinge of irony or self-deprecation, as though those things were genuinely witty or clever. i think with the appropriate amount of irony, any obvious thing can be made funny again, but it takes awareness of the obviousness to get there. if that awareness is not there, it’s better not to say whatever you think i that clever. but then again, how will you know that it’s not funny if you don’t have the awareness in the first place? in a similar vein, it’s best to hold back advice if you think it’s obvious. of course, there is the off-chance that being so close to the situation, the recepient of the advice may not have been able to see the obvious path, but this will depend on the situation and your knowledge of the person.
4. i just got my car oil changed at jiffy lube. it was really fast and people were really nice. it was a positive experience. i was stunned at the speed with which they pulled up my car records — the screen had my info before i had a chance to get out of the car. if only doctors’ offices were this fast.
   

dc wedding

Edward and Jeanne got married on saturday, october 2nd, 2004. the wedding started at 1pm and the reception started at 3pm and went on until about 10 pm. Kevin gave a speech as the best man, causing almost everyone to start crying when he spoke from the heart about how long he and Edward had been friends and all the things they had been through growing up. the parents of the couple were so cute. they were all obviously very moved. kevin proved to be an exceedingly good host.

i really liked their wedding. i’ve really liked the last few weddings i’ve been to. being in love and planning to marry, i see the wedding couples in a different light than i used to. it’s not like i didn’t get it before; i did. but there is a subtle layer of poignancy that was lost on me before. either that, or i’m becoming even bigger of a sap in my old age. 😉

we saw a part of DC on friday, the part that tourists see and marvel at. indeed i too marvelled at the sights. the lincoln memorial is every bit as enchanting as they say. reading his words made me feel a new hope for the country and sort of an honor to be a part of the country that he helped to build, as well as a note of bitterness that both Lincoln and W can hold the title of president. it was a jarring comparison, to be sure.

the weather was stunningly beautiful — foggy mornings and evenings, bright sunshine during the day with gentle breezes, lush trees all around. it was a joy to be there. my impression of the city is that i like it and would like to spend more time there.

the one ugly moment in the weekend was witnessing a couple engage physically in a fight near the end of the reception. that, too, was a jarring comparison with the wedded couple and the other people basking in the reflected glow of love. i don’t know how they can witness a love like E & J’s without realizing that their own abusive, hurtful relationship is not one that is driven by love and trust. they need to get their heads out of their rear ends. it’s dark there.

seppo looks exceedingly handsome in his suit. 🙂

from nowhere

it really feels like this came out of nowhere, this sudden anger at an old friend of mine. he stopped being my friend while we were in college, when he felt that i was not being a friend to him. the problem is, he was right. i was not there for him when he needed me, and i took and still take full responsibility for that, and know i caused him an unbearable amount of pain when he most needed me. i felt bereft when we stopped being friends, devestated that such a friend-of-the-heart would be lost to me forever. i tried over the years to make contact with him but he didn’t seem to want to hear from me. i’ve offered him heart-felt apologies, but he doesn’t want them.

but now, suddenly, i am filled with anger. maybe it’s the stages of grief. i don’t know.

i feel angry and hurt that he didn’t understand that when things fell apart, it was one of the worst years i had lived through. i was struggling in school, i felt lost and at odds with my beliefs and morals, i had made a horrendous mistake in my personal relationship that i still consider my great regret to date, i was under extreme financial stress about the cost of school & housing, i was being used by my roommate as an emotional dumping ground (and i was too naive at the time to understand the situation and get out of it), my family was going through some of the worst times we had been through, my mom had just given away our family dog, and i just couldn’t do anything right, get anything right. the only thing i had been confident about, which was being “smart”, i had lost. i felt like i had no one, and could no longer stand under my own stress and grief. in my lost state, i got involved in a situation that i believed was vacant of emotion on both sides, but i was wrong, because i’m not built that way, no matter what i tried to believe. in the midst of this, i was so ashamed of my mistakes and inability to cope that i stopped corresponding with my friend. i wrote him brief responses to his emails, telling him i was running off and that i’ll write him more later. later just never happened because i could never get my thoughts together enough, could never put to words the idiocy i was engaging in in every aspect of my life. i felt like such a … loser that i couldn’t face myself or him.

and i understand how it must have been from his side. he poured himself out to me, just as i used to to him, and he was in unfamiliar and stressful circumstances too, and i appeared to be shrugging him off, not just once, but over and over again.

so, i lost him.

where does this anger come from? it’s not fair, i think i know that. but i’m angry that he didn’t understand my pain and confusion and my inability to be his anchor. i also needed an anchor. neither of us could be that for each other, because we were both so lost. but he’s the one that walked away from the closest friendship either of us had ever had, and i was the one that got left behind. and that’s why i’m angry. because i was a shitty friend to him, and in return, he was a shitty friend to me, when we both needed it most. isn’t that really stupid of me to be angry at him about that? but there it is. it was the most unencumbered, simple, yet complete friendship i had ever had with anyone, and it was gone.

so, i am angry.

i’m sure this feeling will pass in a matter of hours, and i’ll be able to see my foolishness clearly. i see it now, but it’s a bit hazy.

it’s likely that over time, the simple, unencumbered friendship would have deteriorated by itself. nothing can be too simple for too long, i think. all my other important relationship are complex — seppo and i have a complex relationship, and he’s the most important person in the world to me, even beyond my blood relatives. my mom and i have a complex relationship, but it’s undeniable that i love her and will love her until the day i die.

maybe it’s that i miss the simplicity of it because friends don’t have to figure out the things that family and life partners have to figure out. but people are wrong when they say men & women (or people in the “attractive gender pool”) can’t be friends. because we were friends. maybe it’s because we were kids, really, and not really a man and a woman. it just wasn’t that way between us.

my net assets

i am only posting my net assets because it’s negative. if it were positive, no one would ever know, as i’d be squirrelling my moolah away from the world’s prying eyes. either that, or i’d be yelling, “i’m rich, biotch!” (tm Dave Chappelle) from the rooftops.

so here it is.: -$193,863.66

ruminations (not ruinations)

it’s a slow day at work, so i have a couple of random thoughts here and there. calling them “ruminations” is probably hyping the situation a bit. let’s see..

Seppo has been working like a dog at his job, and i hope he gets some downtime after this week. the guy certainly deserves a break after the hours he’s been working.

i just finished writing a stand-alone app for the palmOne Treo600, and i had a damn good time doing it. it’s a directory/file browser for the SD card, and it show only file types that have registered viewer applications, kind of like a very limited FileZ, with the added feature of being able to launch apps from it, instead of just browsing around for info. the reason i am just starting to have a little downtime is because we built our first release release candidate last week, and this week’s candidate seems to be the one that will be released to manufacturing. the product looks good! i’m really proud of the team and the product. i haven’t felt this “solid” about a release in a long time, because this team was so well-supported.

i’m curious about what i’ll be working on in the coming months. one of my teammates told me i need to be vocal about projects that i’m interested in, and i agree, except that everything is interesting to me right now. 🙂

my sister’s b-day is coming up soon. i have bought her some books and picked up a little thing for my big niece. i will prob pick up a few more things before sending them off, but i’m running out of time. heh. this is so typical of me.

i hope this “steel” thing that my sis & brother-in-law are trying to get going works out. it’ll be a lot of money for putting the right people and projects together. they deserve some time of financial ease. they hope to sell the factory, but the guy who claims he’s interested keeps changing his mind. i hope they sell up and move to the US. it’d be nice to have them closer, so i can see my nieces grow up.

the goodness, rewind

last week on thursday, my manager came upon me in my cubicle as i was banging my head against a large, high visibility bug (against which, by the way, i’m still doing the head-hanging thing — it would be better if there was some hair metal in the background), and asked me if i had a couple of minutes to spare.

gulping nervously, i let him lead me into a small meeting room, feeling like i knew what was coming. honestly, i didn’t think he was going to berate me, but i was fairly certain that he was going to say that he was going to take the bug and give it to someone else because he felt like i was underperforming and endangering the project, although a tiny part of me actually feared an honest-to-goodness berating.

instead, he whipped out an amex gift check for $100 and told me that it was a show of appreciation from the company, and that he wished it was bigger for how hard everyone was working, but that budgetary concerns put a hard limit on it.

i totally almost cried, but sucked it up and was all, “dude, that’s it?” ok, i didn’t say that, so you can stop yourself from passing out from indignation. [this does remind me of the time that one of my managers came upon me and said “looks like you’re working hard!” whereupon i gave him the double finger-point and said, “hardly working!” i almost slapped myself over that one.] i told him how much i love my job and enjoy the project and the people i get to work with. i tried not to gush too much, but it was hard, as i genuinely love my job.