A Day Too Late, But I Found Mai USB Drive!

And almost in time, too! 

Here’s to my 26th birthday!

Now… time to get some sleep!  After spending about 30% of my waking hours today playing Arcanum (reinstalled it even though I’ve beaten it twice over the past eight years) I think my mind – and my eyes – are totally shot to hell.  I’ll be back soon with additional … ummm… what was I typing?  Oh yes – must get sleep.  Good night everyone, and thank you to all those that called me to wish a happy birthday, and a shout-out to all those who posted on my Facebook wall!

EDIT: I forgot that the wordpress servers are located on the west coast… hence the 6/11 posting.  Oh well. EAST-SIADE!

I’d Drop a Demot Here, But I Can’t Find My Stupid USB Drive

How fucking pissed have I been today!  I mean damnit, of all the USB drives to have lost, it had to be my navy-blue, semi-transparent drive that holds all my demotivational posters on it.  I had over 300 of them which took months to collect from all over the great Internet cloud.  There were other things on that drive, too, though the demotivational posters are most likely the most valuable items on there… <sigh> I would’ve pulled my hair out over this if I had any, but oh well – maybe I’ll take it out on some expecting warriors in UT2004 later this evening… provided I can get out of the stranglehold that “Sims 3” has over me.

Yes I, umm, purchased the game the day it came out and as expected it is crack on crack.  My goodness, it is SO addicting I want to slit my throat for thinking that I wouldn’t have gotten hooked, but I’m sure that deep down my entire being was like “You got hooked on the first and second game… it will happen again, foo.”  And sure enough, it did.  Fortunately, my boy Eddy got me off the crack to watch an E3 video he linked me to – and thanks to him, I’m now able to type this fine entry to you fine people for your fine eyes to read.  I won’t start talking about Sims 3 because if I do I won’t be able to stop and next thing you know, this entry sudden cuts off at a random point because I ended up double-clicking the sims3.exe in my Games window, which is sitting minimized, but the little blue trophy in my taskbar is staring at me, calling my name oh so softly, asking “May you kindly…?”  Ahhhh, the addiction!  It’s strong!

Alright, enough!!! <unloads a whole clip of bullets from an assault rifle into a Tank> Better, much better… <reloads> Now then, I wanted to discuss an interesting subject tonight, that subject being parallel universes and you and me.  I’ve read quite a bit of material on alternate history so it’s something that I can talk on, perhaps not so much on the scientific plausibility of there being a multiverse, but definitely on the various hypothetical scenarios that would be possible if a single event was changed in history, whether that history be on a global or personal scale.  One reason that the theory of a multiverse is tied to this is because of the concept of paradoxes, which would be a reason why time travel wouldn’t be possible in nature – because if there’s only a single universe then obviously time travel cannot occur, or if it is, nature already has “temporal protection” in place so the past cannot be altered.

But in any event, these types of hypothetical scenarios are great mind benders and can give you a greater appreciation of the timeline we are presently in today.  A great example that’s used frequently to get newcomers to better understand alternate history and parallel universes, think of World War II and it’s outcome: the Nazi’s get crushed, Japan gets nuked and the Allies come home the victors.  However, what if Hitler, the small-mustached man with the Aryan plan, was successfully assassinated before the Nazi’s began down their one-way path to defeat (namely, when Hitler thought it was a good idea to trigger a two-front war by declaring war on the Russians).  That’s what one novel, Fox on the Rhine, plays out, but instead of having you read that, how about this simple question: What if the Nazi’s won World War II?  As you can imagine, our world today would be VERY different, and I’m sure a number of us that simply exist would not in that world because one or both of your parents may have been killed by the Nazi’s as they invaded (or nuked the crap out of) America in the 1950s or 60s.  Or another popular one: What if American Civil War had the Confederates be the victors instead of the Union?  With the CSA (Confederate States of America) and USA side-by-side – and blacks still heavily persecuted in ways that makes today’s racial relations seem like paradise – who knows how many more wars there could have been on top of WWI and WWII (assuming they’d still occur – the butterfly effect would see to that).

If you sat down and really thought about it, there are a lot of worlds where your life would be very different provided one key event in history was changed just slightly (lets not even dive into one awesome What If: Jesus not crucified? OOHHHHHHH SNAP!!!).  How about we take this idea another direction: at the personal level.  There are many events that mold us into who we are today, from our childhood through high school and past old-age.  If one were to think about it, it’s conceivable that you could think of a number of key events in your life that, if they were altered or didn’t occur altogether, you would be a very different person when compared to who you are today.  For me, there are many many points that I can refer to that, if they were changed, I’d be very different.  When I was born I had a cleft lip and palate which was subsequently repaired when I was around 6-months old or so (I still have the Brooklyn Union paper that documented the procedure).  Following that, my parents put me into special programs at Brooklyn College when I was very young so I could learn to speak and everything, as the cleft lip and palate would’ve stunted that part of me if I didn’t go there.  SO, for me, the question is “What If I never got the surgery to repair the cleft lip and palate?”  The circumstances behind such a scenario aren’t too hard to imagine: perhaps they were hard on cash and couldn’t afford it.  But the end-results of that lapse would be certainly dramatic on me as a developing young boy: odds are good the initial friends I made in pre-school and lower school wouldn’t have been my friends; the kind of teasing a child like that would have to tolerate is probably unbearable, so social skills and emotional development would’ve been very altered.  By the time I’d be four or five I would’ve been so different I’d have a hard time recognizing myself, let alone how I’d be later in life.

Another scenario that I’ve played out several times in my life that is easily one of the biggest events in my life: my being left back in pre-K.  Yes, it’s possible, and for me it was possible because back when I was three my language skills weren’t good enough to warrant my moving with the rest of the class… SO they kept me back a year.  However, because of this I met the guys who would ultimately become by best friends in life.  In addition, because of that I met everyone that I know today, from lower school up to college and beyond.  In addition, many extracurricular activities and interests that I have today were planted in my mind by others (directly or indirectly) in one form or another, this subject included.  So What If I was not left back?  Well… that list can go on for a long time… a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG time – it’s one of the few personal What If’s that I actually extrapolated out to a good couple of years past middle school, though beyond that it’s a complete toss-up, and even the stuff within what I covered can be subject to change.

So what to take away?  If you thought about all that was said regarding the past and how small changes can have big effects, you probably have more questions than answers.  I know, cuz I’ve been there, and it’ll keep your mind occupied for a long time unless you dismiss the idea of alternate history as nonsense.  But if you have an open mind, it’s a great thought experiment!  The implications of such concepts, though, run far deeper than the hypothetical: it can be used to help govern how you operate your life.

And with that, I must call it a night – all this typing is really starting to drain me.  Or perhaps that’s just the midnight oil burning its last drop.  Or the thoughts of my missing USB drive has finally drained the last ounces of energy from me.  Whatever the case, I’m sure there’s a parallel universe that addresses all of them, along with the one that I’ve decided to go with tonight.

Time to Play Catch-up!

Healthy Day Everyone!

It’s been awhile, but it’s time for a BIG post so I can fill you in on what’s gone down in the months following my return to DC.  Man, it’s been awhile, and being that I just completed a 1hr10min bike ride – most of which in heavy rain – I hope I’m up to typing all that’s in my mind at the moment.

Over the past month, I’ve been very actively looking for work here in the DC area.  My goal: submit my resume to at least five businesses daily, which should be pretty good to set me up for interviews.  So far, I’ve gotten a few responses and two interviews (one of which is this coming Friday), so at least I know I’m getting through whatever filters these companies are using for resumes.  That, and I must look damned attractive as well!  But alas, the first interview (it went down a few days after I updated my info) didn’t pan out, but that’s ok.  Given the state of this economy, it’ll be tough to land something, but I know I’ll be able to make it happen.  Plus, I am financially sound at the moment; many people have asked me if I’ve become bankrupt yet!  Fortunately, my money skills didn’t stay behind when I got my last corporate paycheck, so I am good.

Speaking of finances, one of the drains on my finances has been frequent trips to and from NYC.  By frequent, I mean almost weekly since I’ve been back in DC.  And $40 really does add up when you tally it all.  <sigh> Starting this week, I’ll be staying in DC for the long haul, which may even include the 4th of July!  In all likelihood I’ll be staying in DC for that as well – I mean come on – it’s the nation’s capital – they BETTER have some sweet fireworks to celebrate America!

Although I am spending time to submit my resume to various businesses, I still have a significant portion of my day unplanned, so what have I been doing with my time?  Well, the first few weeks have been spent simply gaming – hard. Being unemployed definitely made me realize how “little” time I’ve invested in the many games I’ve picked up in the last year or so.  Once I got settled in DC (again), I went to work, starting with Galactic Civilizations II, finishing up my 400+ turn campaign that I’ve already invested many weeks and months into.  Jumped to Fallout 3, where I started a new game (with over 40 mods implemented this time around), completed the main storyline in about 60 hours, and then played another 20 just trying to find everything and complete all the sidequests.  Then Burnout Paradise… ahh, yes!  Got my Elite License, started to compete online, and started to discover all the hidden things they have in the game – and there’s a LOT.  I tried getting back into GTA4 early in my time here, but after patching it, the game CTD whenever I attempted to load my savegame – a save where I’m over 50% complete!!!  FUCK THAT.  I haven’t touched GTA4 since and will patiently wait for yet another patch.  I also got sucked into Left 4 Dead, which I’ve been playing almost daily w/ John and sometimes Wu – if he came online as frequently as the two of us, that is.  They really want me to pick up Portal, so we’ll see what happens with that!

And that’s just PC games.

Needless to say, my Wii has gotten a LOT of attention as well, along with my older consoles, all of which are plugged into my projector.  And with my attending the latest Too Many Games convention in PA in May, I got a chance to rekindle my childhood with Battletoads and Zombies Ate My Neighbors.  Of course Mario, Zelda, Samus, and many other famous characters got their time with me as well.

Once that giant tsunami of gaming passed I was left with, again, a big portion of time free during the day.  What to do, what to do?  Almost surprisingly, I’ve started to work out daily, making a 10-mile bike run (at minimum) either in the morning or late afternoon.  Although the first few runs were pretty painful (my body was a bit rusty) I’ve gotten a groove going on that I now don’t want to stop.  Although I have my iPhone, I’ve decided to not purchase one of those arm wraps that allow me to listen to music while I ride.  Personally, I’d rather listen to my breathing, everything that’s happening around me, my increasing heart beats, and in a sense, listen to everything else my body is telling me, whether it’s “You can push harder – do it foo!!” to “Man, I’m dying here – stop it!”  I’ve been trying different routes around the DC area, increasing the range that I travel or at least travel to areas I’ve yet to even visit.  I’ve also started to document my bike routes using Google Maps, so here’s a link to the map I’ve made of my “Adams Morgan Bike Route“.  UPDATE: Here’s another link to yet another bike route I took a couple of days ago: “East Quadrant Bike Route“.  I’ll be adding more as time goes on, so I’ll be sure to post them here for easy access!

I’ve been making many extended trips to Wikipedia, which although it isn’t the best source to learn new things, it is certainly a start.  I’ve spent a lot of time there as well diving deeper into subjects I already have a strong base in while using the randomizer to kind of pick up matter from all over the place, especially areas that I normally wouldn’t check out.

I know there is more to this, but I am starting to get pretty tired, so I’m gonna call it for the time being.  Hopefully I can set aside more time to make entries like this (granted, they won’t be as long as this, I assure you), so just hit the RSS button up top so you don’t need to visit my blog daily to see if I posted anything new!  You’re welcome to do so, though.

Have a great day everyone!

Battle of the Buses

The primary way that I’ve gone to and from DC has been by bus, being that I don’t own (or care to own) a car and all.  That said, for several months I’ve been a pretty loyal customer to Eastern Travels, which is one of the bus companies that operates under the more commonly-known Chinabus – you know, the crazy-cheap busline that gets you to various places in the northeast on the cheap?  The past month, however, I have finally gotten around to trying the alternatives to the Chinabus: Bolt Bus and Megabus, the more organized competitors to Chinabus.

So without further ado, here’s my quick, early-morning review of all three buslines!  Personally (and at this particular juncture in my life), pricing takes top importance, followed by comfort and then extra amenities such as sockets and whatnot.

CHINABUS (EASTERN TRAVELS)

Pros: cheap ($21 w/ online fee); fun to be on, especially when you get a crazy driver!

Cons: when you get a crazy driver, you may be delayed thanks to the 5-0; very disorganized and sometimes shady; almost always packed to capacity; delays frequent on Friday’s.

I’ve spent the most time riding the Chinabuses out of the three, so I can definitely give some stories of what I’ve seen over the months, most of which isn’t good for this bus, especially after trying the alternatives.  Pricing aside, you have to be really careful when booking on Friday evenings; every time I did the bus was delayed at least 30 minutes, although one time it was delayed over 2 hours, long enough to say “Fuck it” and jump on Amtrak instead.  You definitely have to have a sense of adventure to ride these buses, since most of the time the drivers are plain psycho.  A common thing you’d see: Eastern Travel buses speeding while in the speed lane of a highway – like easily 75-80mph at times.  There was one time my bus was pulled over for speeding – ended up waiting about 25 minutes before we moved again – but we still got into NYC within 4 hours, which was amazing!  The departure and drop-off locations for Chinabuses are sometimes pretty sketchy, and can change on-the-fly, depending on the city and time of day.  In NYC, for example, they usually take up MTA bus line stops to pick people up.  But more drastically, they usually pick up and drop off in old parking lots between buildings or, in one case in DC, in a wide alleyway normally used for freight traffic.  Friggen awesome!  And Lastly, be ready for some crammed seating – because of the busline popularity, these buses are almost always stuffed to the ceiling w/ passengers!

BOLT BUS

Pros: very, very comfortable seating; sockets in every seat; all-American bus drivers that have bus licenses!

Cons: most expensive of the three ($25 w/ online fee)

I’ve ridden Bolt Bus twice, and in both cases I was not disappointed at all with my ride.  The buses never ran late, left almost precisely on-time, and seating was brilliant!  Everything about the bus was pretty slick: two sockets per person (very nice for my media player and phone) made the trip really good, and I personally had ample leg room, which is not a common trait in buses in my experience, given my height.  However, the pricetag makes it much less desirable today.  So…

MEGABUS

Pros: cheapest of the three ($19.50 w/ online fee); lots of space to yourself; movies shown that are good; double-decker buses!!!

Cons: sockets – ya either got ‘em or ya don’t; you could end up boarding a Chinabus chartered by Megabus.

The most recent run of buses has been Megabus, which initially blew me away by how cheap it can be, and then floored me when I had a socket to myself in the seat!  The fact that the buses are double-decked makes riding Megabus compulsory at least once, people!  The bottom level actually has tables and everything for groups of people I suppose, while the top houses the bulk of the seats.  Even with this arrangement, the seats are very comfy and despite the lack of overhead compartments, odds are good the seat next to you will be empty so you can utilize that!  However, the second ride did not have electric sockets, nor did the third, which leads me to believe that a small number of their buses actually have sockets, which sucks.  Also, when you go on their website you’ll notice that two types of buses run under the Megabus name: the trademark double-decker buses and then the single-level buses, which can sometimes “become” Chinabuses!  Whoa, dude, what’s up with that?!  I honestly don’t know, but because of this, I’ve always made sure I booked rides that were on the double-deckers so I knew I was going on a Megabus, er, bus.

FINAL CHOICE

~Megabus~

So there you have it, folks!  This will most likely be the bus I’ll be riding to and from DC for a good while.  Oh, never take Greyhound – they just suck 100%. Aight, time for me to pass out before I do just that on my keyboard… <yawn!>

“It is finished…”

(Thanks, JS, for giving me the extra push to type this entry!)

SO, IT’S FINALLY GONE DOWN. My time at the job I’ve held down since my starting in January of 2008 has finally run out.  As of this past Tuesday, April 21st, the giant axe that was patiently sitting on a slowly unravelling piece of rope since late-February raised high and swung down swiftly on top of what was left – a fairly clean break I must say.  I mean, nobody died and things didn’t blow up and break lines weren’t cut or anything like that – it was quite the cordial firing session.  True, I was given a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan, for those not familiar w/ the term), or a PIPBoy as it was humorously called by one of my close colleagues (a nice play on the item of the same name in Fallout 3), two weeks prior to the axe-swinging date, but really, something like this was coming from a mile away.  If you were me, you would’ve seen the red flags long before anything official was written up.

The biggest indicators that they were going to finally move forward and begin sharpening the blade for its fated use was in the body language given off by both HR peoples and immediate managers alike.  Trust me, folks, take at least a year of Psychology while in college, if not minor in it – you’d be surprised just how damned useful it is for a variety of areas, the business world included!  For those that read my blog (and especially for that one special, special person who’s been following this blog for more slanderous purposes at work – I know who you are), I will give you some advice: try not to act like I’m a walking target whenever you see me and continue acting the way you normally do – such changes in the way you behave are quite noticable; such character changes are even more apparent since I’ve seen some of you totally let loose outside of work.  So in the future, just be yourself (or try MUCH harder) when you’re actively working with and around people you know are gonna be fired or laid off.

How the whole thing went down is, I must conclude, very douche-baggian.  I say that because I ended up working for pretty much the entire day, only to be pulled into the conference room at 5:25pm to be notified of my being chopped.  From what I understand, based on my talks with a number of people (my parents included), most companies drop people in the morning, I suppose to make it clear that their time with the company is done and that you better start packing your shit before 9am, lest you want it sprawled all over the pavement in front of the building.  Plus, getting chopped in the morning can be viewed as a great blow to personal morale and character, being that your co-workers would inevitably witness the packing process and you being escorted out.  A lesson would be learned and you’d go to your next job making sure you don’t make the same mistakes twice.  However, what is there to learn from working all fucking day, thoughts of what was discussed diminishing by the hour as nothing that is to be expected happens, thus giving you reason to keep on working… only to be pulled into a conference room at 5:25pm to get canned? IMO, the one thing this generates for the majority, on top of feeling guilty for actually getting fired, is a degree of hatred for the company and possibly its managers.  If I were to be fired or laid off, I’d want to be told by 8:30am, if not when I walk into the office – at least then I can hang my head in shame around my co-workers as I pack what I can into my messenger bag and be on my way to think about what went wrong.  Get fired in the afternoon, and the first thing on one’s mind upon leaving the presence of your escort (in my case, the manager I immediately worked under) is “WTF?! Sons-a-bitches had me do all that fucking work all day, only to can me in the end?!  Motherfuckers!!!”

I will say that I did initally feel bad about it, especially since I respect (and still do) the manager I worked under – he was friggen awesome.  His management style and his methods to instill discipline into his peers were rivaled by few, and I say that because I’ve seen my teammates in action – they knew their shit and could get quite granular when discussing the more detailed, technical portions of the product we sold.  And on top of that, team cohesion was very strong, with lots of communication b/w us and our manager, as well as comm b/w each other.  And when Wendy walked in (and the other managers left the conference room), I also felt bad – not because of the fact that I was being fired, but because I would be leaving behind everyone that I’ve befriended and spent a good amount of time with outside the office.  It is definitely true that a few of those that I’ve gotten to know at work I will still be speaking with and meeting beyond this point, but like middle and high school, and college, there will always be a percentage of those that I simply will lose touch with.  Of course, Facebook and sites like that will make it harder to truly lose all contact w/ people, but who knows what’ll happen.  The point is, I wouldn’t be seeing them on a daily basis again, which sucks big-time.  And Wendy (along with many others) is someone I definitely hope to continue speaking with outside of work, especially since she’s a gamer.  And as I’ve mentioned to her before (putting on my geek cap now…), us gamers must stick together and keep on fighting! =)

It’s been a wild ride, but now a new chapter begins, and where that’ll take me I don’t quite know.  But rest-assured, this blog will go on!  What does THAT mean for its future – and how it’s tied to mine?  You have three guesses, but you should be able to nail it in two…

Good night, fellow readers.  And for that special reader whom I directed a sentence or two: You have a good night, too.  And next time I’m in the general facinity of your job, don’t shoot me daggers from your eyes – it’s quite amusing, especially since all I want is to spend some good times with the friends I made.  During their lunch breaks. =)

Risk-Averse or Risk-Taker?

You know what’s amazing?  What people will do in order to get what they want.  I will say that generally-speaking, most people will not do what they want to do, say what they want to say, for a variety of reasons, although in the end, all those reasons, in my opinion, collide at one point: fear.  Most people are just afraid of what would happen if they truly express themselves, even if it meant that they would have a ton of bricks lifted off them.  Now, there are many things that we, as a species, shouldn’t do to each other, as it would not be condusive to our future as a species, such as murder (in all its forms, barring self-defense – but I guess we could debate on that justification for murder later).  If someone has an impulsive urge to kill, they should be treated either with medication or with a life-long trip to an iso-chamber at a bigtime prison.  And if they do kill… well now, why keep such negative genetic traits in the global pool?  Castration should be a compulsory punishment across the board for anyone who commits murder, as they’ll be unable to spread their genetic defects to future generations – on top of throwing them in jail.

Hmmmm, I think that’s a subject worth discussing – but not right now!  What a tangent!  It’s great when you get in a conversation that just flows like the stream of consciousness to the point where subjects just switch up on the parties without entirely realizing it… and when you do, you’re so far down the river that you don’t recall what got you there to begin with.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh, stop it!  Back on track – this is a rail shooter, damnit!!!

Now, as I was saying, people doing what they want… most don’t.  If I take all the actions I’ve taken over just the last few years leading up to today, I would say that I’ve been shifting to the right of the bell curve – that is, I’ve been doing more of the things that I want to do and not be constrained by my fear of consequences for those actions.  My rationale for where I now stand today is pretty simple: If you feel you’ll regret not doing something, why not do it?  As life’s been teaching me (in heavy doses, I must say), there isn’t enough time to sit on your hands when they want to shoot out and make a painting, grip a steering wheel and drive, or reach out and tell someone how you really feel.  Sure, if you have no doubt that what you won’t do will bother you, I don’t think there’s a reason to worry about that sort of inaction – like watching someone get hit by a train.  The one time I’ve seen the end-results of such a thing (14th Street / 8th Ave A/C/E line about six years ago), the first thing I wanted to do was take pictures… but my camera was dead, so I just stood there and stared at the royally-fucked carcass, half of which was mangled beyond recognition and the other half I suppose covered by two train cars closer to the tunnel entrance.  Quite a site – and a smell – that I’ll never forget.  But that’s more of a situation that one has no control over.  So, if you meet someone that you find attractive, but don’t really care one way or another about them beyond friendship, then you wouldn’t have any regrets about not asking them out on a date because it was never something you were concerned with.

The main problems – and that element of fear – come into play when you are presented with a situation where of the two outcomes presented, one being the easier of the two, but you’d regret not taking the higher-risk outcome.  The problem here is the riskier outcome has a greater payout for success or failure, but then at least then you wouldn’t regret not making that decision.  But then the thought occured to me that one risky behavior can chain into other reactions that could be worse than if you did not take the higher-risk outcome.  Maybe you’d regret what would follow versus regretting not taking the original action in the first place.  A great example of this is cheating on your spouse.  If you take that big risk, then what could happen in the future could be way worse than if you had not committed the high-risk behavior, such as the dissolution of your relationship with your spouse and potentially worse, especially if you have mutual friends.

How does all of this apply to what I was saying about myself?  That can be something for another post, as that can get messy and most likely a much longer read than this.  SO… I will conclude with this fitting quote by Whittier:

“For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’”

I’ll be back soon!  In the meantime, introduce some Porter into your life.

Funny How Life Works

This won’t be a long post, mostly because it is being typed in my hometown, New York City.  But this is definitely something that has to be dumped out of my head before things begin to get fuzzy and ultimately fall into the realm of forgotten memories.

As what some high-ranking officials would say, there have been some organizational changes ’round these parts of Trevor’s life.  For one, I’m presently no longer in DC, as my job had me relocate back to the City after concluding that the office I was in wasn’t profitable to warrant it being in operation (of course it wasn’t profitable, what with it being three months old and all, but what of that?).  That gavel came down a month ago – crazy how time flies – which was proceeded by a few days of “stress relief” in the form of alcohol and girls.  Since then, I’ve been working back in good ol’ Jersey City, where I am with my corporate breatheren once again to ride the economic rollercoaster.

Much to the surprise of many of my friends here in the City and Jersey, I plan on ultimately moving back to DC.  There are a few reasons for this:

1. Despite all that I’ve outlined here in my blog about DC – most of which wasn’t good stuff by any means – I’ve found DC to be a great place to explore, as there is definitely a lot to our capital than meets the eye (including areas like Cap Hiii’ (thanks Andy for that awesome way to pronouce Cap Hill)),
2. When you don’t have to drive, DC is actually a decent place to be,
3. I have no desire to abandon my housemates, who have grown on me.

So with that said, you can probably make some assumptions as to what I am doing to make this goal a reality. Well, one part of this has been fulfilled as of yesterday afternoon: I officially got out of my lease in Brooklyn and am now living with my parents once again – at least temporarily.  Fortunately I had an excellent landlord who gave back my security in full so that money will help in my bills, one of the biggies being what I owe in NYS taxes.  This had to happen because I cannot afford to pay for two apartments on what I’m presently making, so one of them had to go.  And since all of my possessions are in DC… well, the decision was fairly simple, if not slightly painful.  After all, the place I have – had – in Brooklyn was suh-weeeeeeeeet; between it being the top floor apartment overlooking the JMZ line and having rooftop access, which in turn provided an even more amazing view at all times of the day, the place was an excellent first-apartment.  Can’t knock on my neighbors there too, or the neighborhood – both of those factors were very much in the green.  Hopefully I’ll be able to find a similar place in the future when I decide to move back to NYC… perhaps along the L in Williamsburg… nah, too many minivans (heh).

But in any event, I and my three weeks worth of clothes are in my old bedroom back with the ‘rents, but it’s ok.  After being greeted by a thick fog upon my departure from my apartment by Myrtle Avenue and Broadway, I almost felt that it was the City’s way of telling me that everything will be alright… and things will work themselves out provided I give certain events beyond my control their time to play out.  You may not be able to see exactly what the next street is down the block, but you know it’s there because of the blobs of red and green that you know are stoplights and walk/don’t walk signs.  It’s time to start fresh.  I can’t turn back now – I must keep moving forward.

Post-Purple Zone: Inauguration Day, Part II

To continue where I left off last night (I had to cut my entry short to start watching Lost)…

So after the ceremonies concluded and my housemates returned from the National Mall (they didn’t have tickets), we exchanged stories about our experiences. I let them tell all before I started my rant, as I figured their story would be a much more positive experience than mine. In brief: they left the house around 8:30am to begin their walk to the Washington Monument, their goal being to get a spot on the small hill in front of the monument to sit on and get a nice view of the jumbotrons. One key thing to note about this: when they arrived, they literally just walked onto the National Mall – there was no screening and no police officers anywhere to be found. This absence of authority figures throughout the morning, especially when the crowds got pretty dense (practically shoulder-to-shoulder standing room) left them a bit nervous. Much like those Tunnel People that were stranded underground with not a single police officer or Secret Service agent to monitor the actions of others, anything could’ve happened out on the Mall, and it could’ve been worse there, since apparently nobody was being screened for anything as they got on the grassy fields. As many have said in several blogs, major news articles, and on Facebook, it was the good nature of the roughly 2-million people (the Tunnel People included, as well as the Silverbacks and Blue Ticket holders (was a name coined for them too?) that prevented anything truly horrible from happening. And if you really wanted to see just how amazing us Tunnel People were during our multi-hour stint on I-395, check out this video; these are the group of guys I mentioned in the previous post. Seriously, this kept SO many people’s hopes up during this time…

So after exchanging stories, we brewed up more tea while listening to the Inauguration Day events as they unfolded on CNN. Fast-forward a few hours: I’m at another friend’s house out near Dupont Circle for dinner when I’m told that I can go to the Youth Ball! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT? But it’s friggen 7:30pm! Talk about an 11th-hour invitation! So as my friends (who already had tickets) jumped into a cab to first hit up the Mid-Atlantic Ball (to pick up the Youth Ball tickets), I ran like mad to the Metro station, got home in what seemed like record time, showered, changed, and slapped on an expensive suit that I’ve worn only once before that evening. By this time it was around 9pm, the time that the Youth Ball doors would be swinging open, so I spent a couple of minutes figuring out how the hell I’d get out there. Ultimately, I decided to drive, which really wasn’t THAT bad – I just had to keep my iPhone out between my legs as I drove so I could constantly reference the map if certain streets were still blocked off, which many were. The only reason why I drove was I figured that I’d find street parking near the Youth Ball, which I did! By 9:50pm I parked the SUV about 5 minutes walking distance from the Ball, on Decatur Street NW. And it was there that I waited to hear back from my friends… and after about 10 minutes I dropped a text message asking what the deal was. The response: “The Ball’s been delayed and is not opening till 10:45pm.”

Whoa… WTF?! Seriously? What was originally a no-brainer decision now became a choice between getting to work on Wednesday with barely 2 hours of sleep and possibly a hangover or bailing on the Youth Ball altogether. By 10:15pm my friend and I spoke on the phone: he was gonna stay at the Mid-Atlantic Ball till 11:15, which was when Obama was supposed to show. After some thinking, I quickly decided to screw the Youth Ball and try to see if he could get me in the Atlantic Ball. However, once I got close to the convention center it was clear that I wasn’t going to find any parking within a 10-block radius of the place… and by 11:30pm I decided to just call it an evening and go home. My friend and I talked a bit while driving down the re-opened 395 – he was fairly upset that I decided to drop out of partying, but I ultimately chose my job over this… it wouldn’t have been that way if everything started on time damnit!!

…So that pretty much concludes my Inauguration Day: started at 5am with high hopes and ended at 12:30am with some disappointment and a little regret. I forget where I read about the Youth Ball online, but apparently there were also hundreds of people stranded outside for that too! And unlike us Purple, Blue, and Silver ticket holders, they paid their way into the Ball (mostly), so being unable to enter and paying $75 to get in must’ve been way worse for some. And I guess to be fair, I know there were thousands of people who paid way more just getting to DC and booking hotel rooms for Inauguration Day, only to be given the shaft, so I feel your pain too.

Hopefully the outcome of the Purple Tunnel of Doom, or PurpleGate as I’ve seen it described, is a much better Inauguration Day in 2012 (in terms of crowd organization – IMO the 20th was pretty flawless overall) and, oh, the distribution of fewer tickets!!! So with that, i wish you all a good night… and for those that haven’t told their Inauguration Day story from the Tunnel People, post it somewhere for others to read! Or better, send it to your Congressman.

Getting to the Purple Zone: “Yes We Did NOT!”

“Extre, extre, read all about it! Tens of thousands of people stranded and nowhere to go in the Purple Tunnel of Doom!”

Inauguration Day. Ahhhh, Inauguration Day. It finally arrived: the day practically the whole world was waiting for (though I’m sure Hillary had a different idea as to how it would go…). My friends and I woke up at 5am Tuesday morning, got dressed, wolfed down some simple breakfast foods, and left at 6am for one of the biggest political events in our lives. The 30-minute walk from my house in Southwest to the Purple Gates in the NW section of DC was uneventful, though we got an eyeful of military hummers, jeeps, buses, unmarked white vans, and black Suburbans driving around, parked everywhere, and generally making sure you KNEW what the hell was going on. As we walked closer to the Purple Gates, the increasing presence of police officers directing foot traffic definitely gave me that added amount of security, even if it got a little annoying at times.

Once we arrived at the Purple Gates around 6:30am, it was clear that we arrived late: the line looked to be endless, wrapping around the artificial barrier (made of 8′-tall metal fence) along C Street NW against some buildings, and looped back across the street, around the corner onto New Jersey Av NW, then around that corner onto D Street NW and finally banked left into the I-395 tunnel, where we got checked for the purple tickets, and proceeded in. Although I had my doubts, I was sure – sure – that we’d still get into the designated area. We walked down what would normally be an off-ramp into the closed 395 tunnel… and kept walking… and walking… and walking! Until around 6:45am, we reached the back of the line, which I’d say was about 1/4 of a mile into the tunnel at the time; we could still wee the offramp that led outside, but we were still pretty far in. And the people kept coming, making the line ever longer behind us until you couldn’t even see the end of it. (I learned today that the line for purple ticket holders stretched into my neighborhood, out to 2nd Street SW!)

It was here that my friends and I spent a good three-and-a-half-hours in, which includes the time spent slowly moving towards the tunnel exit. We didn’t get out of the tunnel until about 10:45am, at which point the true disorganization of what was supposed to be a very orchestrated process came to light. But before I get there, let’s focus on the positives, pretty much all of which resided back in the tunnel.

The thousands of people that were pretty much left stranded in what would ultimately be dubbed “The Purple Tunnel of Doom” were surprisingly jovial despite the circumstances and lack of security. A great example of this was a group of seven or eight guys singing a variety of songs in acapella, from “The Star-Spangled Banner” to “My Girl” seemingly to just keep the spirits of those around them up. And it worked in spades: scores of people sang along with them, their vocals echoing deep into the crammed tunnels, which followed by a round of cheers and applause from all around. This was kept up for about an hour, stopping only when they exited the tunnel.

Another great scene were the several drawings and quotes that were scribbled onto the very dirty tunnel walls, as kids and adults grew bored from the excessive wait. Some played tic-tac-toe; a picture of a lion and bear were being worked on by some pre-teens and an adult drew the Obama logo. Did I do anything involving the years of soot and dirt on those walls? Well, after listening to a couple of people constantly talking about “The Tunnel People” I decided to go ahead and write that on the wall as well, using my finger wrapped in a torn plastic bag to keep it clean.

Right after I completed “the” and began working on “Tunnel” I guess people got the idea of what I was writing because that was when the flashes of cameras and people cheering started behind me. Once I was finished, I pumped my fist in the air, cheered with them, and got back to my place in line. Unless the city decided to be complete douches and clean the walls (after all the years of just letting it collect shit from all the vehicles), I’m sure that message and all the other pictures will stay there for a long time.

So those were the really sweet parts of the time spent during the Inauguration Day campout.  And I can proudly say that I was one of the Tunnel Peoples.  But as I was saying before, once we got outside again around 10:40am, it was clear what the problem was, and that the rumors we heard while in the tunnel were true: the security checkpoint we were cleared for when originally entering the tunnel was no longer there, people who were already outside were simply cutting off everyone in the tunnel (hence our moving slowly outside, although that was compounded by us being funneled into a bottleneck back at street level), and the lack of police pretty much meant you could cut off whoever you wanted without repercussions.  Barricades were trampled on the streets as people streamed over what was once a controlled area earlier in the morning and there was little control over where people went, so entire streets became bloated with people all trying to get to the Purple gate.  By the time we got to about 40 feet of the gates, it was confirmed around 11am that the Purple gates were closed off completely and nobody was getting in.  At this point I was completely fed up and decided to go home to watch the inaugural events on TV.  It was a bit of a fight, but after breaking free of the crowds I managed to get home around 11:45am, just making it in time to watch VP Biden get sworn into office.  And although I wasn’t on the grassy fields of the Mall watching and listening to Obama live, I still felt like I was a part of something really special.  Hell, at least I can say I tried!

Once I get my hands on my camera I’ll upload a few more pics to help further sum up the day’s events, but since my camera is in the car – and the car is in possession of Jillian – and I’m not seeing her tomorrow cuz of an event she’ll be attending for the day – I won’t be able to upload anything till Friday at the earliest.

And with all that, I am through with this little rant.  I have a feeling I’ll be back with a Part Two of Inauguration Day, as I didn’t even tackle the other end of the day with the Youth Ball!  Stay tuned!

Dragging an SUV and Gran Torino

Today was an exceptionally long day, mostly because this Saturday I had to work.  And because I worked, I missed the company holiday party.  Don’t ask me why they have the holiday party a good two weeks after the holidays have passed.  Just hold it the Saturday before Christmas or something like most companies do.  And let’s make sure to lock in the date after I commit myself to a work-related event that would end up being the Saturday following the party.  An event that I would have no way of backing out of…

You know what I think of that?  It is this, my friends:

Yes, I went there.  It’s as fucked up as this blasphemous eyesore that is Loonatics, one of the worst uses of the eternally classic Looney Tunes characters.  Thank fucking god it was canned after a season.  And if any countries have syndicated this series, they should be glassed.  Period.

With that finally vented out, lemme tell you about my drive to and from work today… my 201-mile drive (402 round trip).  For one, I’ve been driving an SUV… a small one from what I’ve seen, but an SUV nonetheless.  Don’t ask me the make and model – I don’t follow that stuff unless I’m the one doing the renting, or if I’m stealing said vehicle in GTA4. All I know is that it has the Chevy logo on it… at least I think it’s Chevy… Anywayz, the point is this: flashing your headlights at people driving Corvettes and riced-out Honda’s is never a good idea cuz you’ll most definitely NOT win the race.  I think I averaged 80mph both directions to work today, and probably a little faster on the way home – at night, in the pouring rain, with no streetlights to guide me, and no guard rails to prevent me from flying into a tree, ejecting myself through the thick front glass window and make my head pop like a watermelon as it says hello to some 80-year-old tree that barely shrugs as the tonnage of the SUV and the 155 pounds of me settles onto its lower body.  So yes, I was speeding really fast, making rather reckless maneuvers through traffic, rarely dropping below 70mph – and MAN did it feel good!  And nothing brings out the racing fanatic in you like some good music, and fortunately I had two CDs with me (the SUV doesn’t have an AUX port to plug my Cowon into), both of which were perfect for hi-speed driving, so I was pretty jacked.

There were a total of three cars that I flashed my headlights at, which generally followed by me pulling up alongside them (usually at 75mph), turning on my interior lights, and nodding at them in approval (only one turn on theirs, but all got the idea), which then led to us taking “position” at either adjacent lanes or separated by at least one lane… and then at no particular moment, we’d just floor our respective pedals, usually leading to them blowing me out of the water like I wasn’t even there.  I tried keeping up with the one guy in the Corvette, making a LOT of risky moves like changing lanes with maybe 4-6 feet of clearance behind and in front of me while doing 80mph – this helped to keep up as he slowed down – but in the end they always got too far ahead to catch up no matter how fast I drove.  I’ve been told that people have been shot just looking at other drivers in the DC area… well, good thing I didn’t try this out here!

After I got home, I stripped out of my work clothes (finally!) and into my robe, only to get dressed again in record time to join my housemates for a movie!  The movie for the night: Gran Torino. I originally wanted to see this movie cuz it has an old white man being VERY racist and possibly killing lots of minorities.  After the movie concluded, I will say that I was smiling from ear to ear – and laughed a lot partly because it reminded me of my relationship with my boy Frank and how such a relationship can work.  Hahaha, just thinking about Frank makes me laugh… I gotta call that damned, dirty gook and see what’s up.  But in the end, I felt that Gran Torino was worth every dollar spent and is something that I am willing to see again – and I can’t say that about many movies anymore.  I mean perhaps I’d see Slumdog Millionaire again, but it would have to be on a date.  Or if I DL it.  But yea, I can’t think of many movies I’d want to pay to see, let alone pay to see more than once.  However, Monsters vs Aliens looks hilarious – I will definitely have to find someone to see that with!

So there you have it.  It is now almost 1am, I haven’t had dinner, I’ve been passing incredible amounts of gas (probably a side effect of taking a forced, semi-solid dump earlier today, which may have been triggered by my 100% solid dump that was incomplete two days before), and Noah called me like 20 minutes ago, which I will return following the posting of this entry. Now lemme find a quick snack to eat to settle my stomach as I go give Noah a callback.  G-Night everyone!