Europe

Oh sigh. It's that time again. I'm flying back to LA. It's been a fun couple of weeks. Honestly I don't remember the last time I wrote anything. I have a feeling it was in Paris or after leaving it.

I know that after I met up with Anna I was too busy running around Europe and having fun. Oh such joy. I'd forgotten how good it feels to have a companion with me on my travels. We were inseparable and saw Milan and Amsterdam together. I was fine leaving her at the airport but when I got on my flight it was like usual again, lonely and I was filled with longing for something different.

There's not that much that we did. We walked around a lot in Milan, saw Duomo di Milano, one of their old cathedrals and we saw The Last Supper. That was fun. In Amsterdam we walked around through parks, went to the Van Gogh museum and enjoyed the red lights district. We played pool in a couple of places and had a good amount to drink. Enough to feel good and get home sober.

On our last day together (full day, because the next day we woke up and headed for the airport), we went on a picnic. We got a ton of food, ate it in this beautiful park and fell asleep on the grass. We rode bikes there. Anna was terrified of using the bike lanes and riding on the road. And I couldn't figure out why the whole city doesn't have any post offices. That aside, the afternoon was splendid. We didn't do much of anything else after. Just walked around and killed time.

I spent the last couple of days in London. Thursday I went with my brother to an MIT alum meetup. I drank a lot but didn't get drunk. I think they dilute their vodka, or something. I had 3 double-shots and got home sober. 0o. Then Friday, my mom and I went to museums. I went to the National Gallery and then her and I went to the Victoria and Albert museum. It was so cool. And FREE! As was the National Gallery! Ooh, and we went on the London Eye! Such a full day. In the evening we had dinner together with my brother's family. Family. I miss family. I want more family. I want my own family. Le sigh.

On Saturday my mom, brother and I went to the Hampton Court Palace where some royals lived from 16th century on. Cool history. Very beautiful gardens. Too bad it was raining the entire time, but it was cool nonetheless. Then, of course, dinner at home with the family. Oh how lovely. And then today they're celebrating one of my nephew's birthdays. I'm not there for it. :( All I got was my mom getting me to the train station. Which is more than I had hoped for. Thank you, mom!

I should be sleeping on this flight, but it's not late enough yet given my Circadian rhythm. That's going to suck. I'll have to try to stay up until midnight by LA time. Oh joy. I did get invited to a party. So maybe I'll go and that will help. In the meantime I still have like 6 hours on this flight and there's nothing to watch except Big Bang Theory. It's a fun show, but it reminds me too much of Cate. Nothing too personal. Just makes me feel nostalgic for companionship.

Milan

Getting back on the horse of writing often. Yesterday I spent the day in Milan. What a pretty city. I looked it up, Italy is a poorer country, but the city has a lot of history. And that was enjoyable to witness. I met up with Anna here and we've travelling together. Turns out Milan is a small city. And even better than in Paris, all of the cool stuff is walking distance from each other.

We went to the Duomo di Milano Cathedral. It's so huge and pretty. Not as gothic as Notre Dame, but it doesn't have compartments. It's just one giant space. So that was cool. We went to see the Last Supper. The security around it is pretty great. It's so fragile. Mostly gone, I see. Still it was interesting to read all the history about it. And then in the evening we went to the canals. Well.. one canal. It was sponsored by Martini, the brand. They were everywhere. And then in the evening we found what looked like an american bar where the guy let me try all of their vodkas before pouring me the one I liked. :) Tipped that bartender 20%.

Paris

Well this sucks. There’s no WiFi. The good news is that this is the worst thing that has happened to me on my travels so far. But, still. I just landed in Milan. I’m sitting on a train heading for the central station. I have so much to be happy about, like that there’s still charge in my laptop so I can type, and the lady at the ticket booth spoke enough english to tell me which train to hop on. But that being said this is the first airport that didn’t have WiFi nor an information desk. I almost asked the armed guards for directions. At least they would have been entertained.

So, lets see. I remember I wanted to write a little when I was in Paris, but honestly I didn’t have time. I spent of all of time trying to be out and seeing what it had to offer. It was pretty. The only thing that kept coming back was that some people really smelled. Like normally-dressed people. I’ve gotten so occustomed to only bums smelling bad, I forgot they don’t always shower in the rest of the world. There were days when I took showers twice a day. Well, my train isn’t departing for another 20 minuts or so and it’s going to take like an hour, so I have time.

On Wednesday night when I landed in Paris I walk. I walked a lot. I went from the station East past Louvre where I left the train to the apartment, climbed 5 flights of stairs up. Then set out to find the Eiffel Tower, which I could see from the train, but lost it the closer I got. Building angles and all that. I found it eventually and went up. Then I walked to the Triumph Arc and then walked home, back to Louvre. I was trying to find somewhere to eat, but everything seemed too slow, or everything had ham in it. Now I don’t eat meat and I really don’t appreciate when nothing on the menu is vegetarian. I hate it even more when all the salads have arugala. I hate arugala. I hate it more than some meats. And it was everywhere. French food sucks! I ended up going to a restaurant and getting an $18 salad that had arugala and was gauzed in mayonnaise. Now don’t get me wrong. Nothing wrong with dressing. I just don’t like it. The waitress didn’t speak enough English to understand me when I asked for tea, much less that I had specific tastes. Gah. Oh well. At least I had some food in me. And the tea only cost $8.50 (sarcasm).

Thursday I went to the Louvre. I was a little woried that I would miss something cool. But honestly, I went through the whole thing except for Roman artifacts 0-500 in like 3h30. I learned to use “h” as a delimiter between hours and minutes. I like it. It’s descriptive and easier to type than “:”. In the museum I didn’t find anything super spectacular. But I did love being in Napoleon’s chambers. Damn that dude loved luxury. I saw some kids kicking the ball around outside in the vast Louvre Gardens. I would rather be playing with them. But I didn’t have time for that. I headed back home to get ready for work. I did pick up a sandwich on the way buck inside a rustic baguette with cheese and tomatoes. It was bland and hard to chew. French food sucks. At work I worked surprisingly well. I was concentrated. It was quiet. Nobody spoke to me. Damn Frenchies speak English but would rather stay silent than use it. That was disappointing. There I kept snacking in the kichen. They had pre-packaged falafel sandwiches. I had a bunch. That and nuts. The sandwiches were pretty bad. Poorly made, soggy, and unfilling. And I had an allergic reaction to the nuts. French. Food. Sucks.

The next day I went to the Notre Dame Cathedral. It was pretty. It’s located on an island in the middle of the river next to an expensive neighbourhood. It’s kind of like being in mini San Francisco, but much prettier. I liked it there. I liked it there very much. I got inside at a good time. I’ve just been avoiding any lines whatsoever, and here I got lucky because I made it in immediately to the Cathedral. It was everything I thought it would be. A good, dark place with pretty gothic things inside and out. I absolutely adored the gargoyles and the the gothic windows and statues everywhere. So awesome. I took a bunch of pictures there. And thsoe who know me know that I don’t take tours or fill my head with useless facts. Well, there, I stopped and read the whole history of the building. I even paid money to go see their treasury. Cool stuff. I almost felt spiritual. I went into the prayer section and prayed a little. Just for shits and giggles. No religious experience for me. :( Oh well. I guess I’ll continue to be an atheist without doubting my beliefs.

My train started moving! :)

I had a lot more time to do things but I didn’t feel like walking anymore so I got a boat tour. It took an hour and we went from Notre Dame, to Louvre to Eiffel Tower and back. The tour guide sucks. I couldn’t understand his accent. And he maybe shared 20 facts about everything altogether. It was disappointing. It was cheap, but oh well. One other thing to note was that nobody spoke freaking English. I couldn’t spark conversations with strangers. It was just a bother to talk to anyone at all. At first all the French sort-of sounded like Russian so I was hopeful, but ultimately I just gave up. The was true on the boat. I came up to some people in hopes of joining their conversations, but then I realized they were talking in French and I turned away. Yeah, I didn’t like it there very much. Not by myself. Either way, after the boat tour I bought a water from a dude on the corner and went home to get ready for work. Then I realized it was tap water filled into a bottle he probably found on the street. Oh FML. I took a sip and threw the rest away. Then right before I got home, by the Louvre, this girl came up to me asking for donations for the dead. Sounds like a scam, but she knew how to work a sucker like myself. So I gave her $10 (Euros… $ is the currency symbol on the keyboard). She pointed to a sign on her paper that said $20 minimum. HA. I got angry and walked away. Someone with the same sign came up to me today, but I didn’t even bother acknoledging them. :( Bad experience.

That’s about it for France. Today I walked through Louvre gardens again. Went on the Ferris wheel. Had an expensive lunch. Actually it wasn’t that expensive. I had a big salad with potatoes and hard-boiled eggs. It was delicious. I had a sandwich with Norwegian Salmon. Yes, I got 2 entres (or courses, how they call them here). It came with an arugala salad. And I had a shot of Vodka. All together it came out to $33. I even tipped. I’m not sure if it’s okay in France, but I did anyway. Then I walked to the Eiffel Tower again because that’s where the direct bus to the airport was. And now I’m in Milan. Hoping to post more later.

Fraser

I'm in the airport again. My plane is already boarding. This feels like the right time to blog about last night because it was awesome! I spent the day in the company of strangers who were all cool people. I will use their real names, because, well, they are strangers and they were cool people.

So I woke up...

Edit a few days later:

Woke up. Had lunch at a local sandwich place. The service was amazing. The food was alright. Then I went on a hike with Amy and Vitaliy. It was insanely beautiful. Fields like in The Witcher. Horses. Wild hoovesteps everywhere. I saw so many birch trees I thought I was in Eastern Europe for a second. Just gorgeous hike.

Afterwards I went to the wedding. The ceremony was great. Very simple. Very elegant. The groom cried. So did I. This was the first wedding I had cried at. It only went uphill from there. I don't remember it because it's been a while now, but I know the food was delicious. I had my fill. It was buffet style. Yay for any-portion-size-I-want! My table didn't have any singles, but they were all nice people. We made jokes and had a few drinks. Got a photo together. That was a great time. I met someone else from Minsk, too.

Then I hit the dance floor. I kept drinking and dancing until I couldn't breathe anymore, and then I would dance again. Actually what happened was that they ran out of Vodka. Probably a good thing. Since I don't know how to dance I usually have to have a drink in my hand. So I switched from vodka to water. So much water. :P Served me well, because after everyone'd left and I was leaving, too, I was driving and got pulled over. They gave me a sobriety test. My first one. :D Officer Dave was nice enough to say that I wasn't acting all that sober. I told him it was the adrenaline and my knees were weak from all the dancing (which was true). But I got a breathalyzer and got a .045, so below the 05 legal limit. They let me go. Officer Dave gave me his card.

Then... drive.. airport...another Dave. Long story short is that I don't remember all the excitement anymore. I remember feeling amazing about it, but I've lost all the names.

Some other notable things from the night included me finally meeting Jasmine (a girl I drew Freshman year in college) for the first time actually in real life; taking a picture with Elizabeth, Roman's sister, who was the hottest person at the wedding, and single; a couple coming up to me and telling me they like me (<3); and so many more moments I can't remember like Shura tying my shoes etc. etc.

Boulder and more.

I'll try to keep this brief, too. I have to check out of this hotel in the next 30 minutes and I haven't even gotten out of bed.

Yesterday I woke up early and went to a rock climbing gym. I didn't have any pants for it so I went to Target and got a nice pair there. There was a lady in the line I struck a conversation with. She seemed nice. Her face turned sour when I said I wasn't local nor had just moved here. Womp womp.

Rock climbing was fun. Their walls were weird. I could do some V2s on one wall but on the other couldn't do the V0. I think it had a lot to do with drinking last night. My hands just felt weird.

When I got out my newly-found single serving friends messaged me saying they're going hiking in Boulder. So I joined them. They're so fun! We took a ****-load of photos. Had many interesting conversations. Then we went down to Boulder and had lunch. This was my first time requesting an item not on the menu. I asked for a salmon burger with all veggies on it. It came out good. Yum-yum! Then my friends (Carly and Christine) took me back to Denver. They headed on to a concert and I drove into the depths of Colorado for a pre-wedding get-together.

The drive was gorgeous. And when I got here (I'm still roughly in the same hood) I realized how cold it was. But it feels awesome! I pretty much didn't know anyone but the groom, but he showed me around. I met some cool people. Lots of drunk post-Soviets. Ha. Fun times. They kept saying that it's easy to get drunk at high altitude. Well I wasn't so lucky. I had to keep drinking to feel something. And after I got back to the hotel I just felt sick, not drunk. Funny how that works.

Things to note: I was in a hot-tub in my underwear! Hell yeah! I was the last one out, too. I'm awesome like that. :P And I saw my first wild bear. He was crossing the street on my way back to the hotel.

Denver

It's late. But long story short today I had the best flight of my life. I ran into Christine and Carly who were the best single serving friends ever. We spent the entire flight chatting and cracking jokes and sharing experiences. We even got drinks. And they were cheap. $7 for a drink of vodka. That's less than half of what they charge me in Venice at a bar. Woo!! It was going so well I even got another one! And when the lady brought it over and I took out the card to pay, she just patted me on the shoulder and said "it's okay".

0.o I got a free drink on a flight. I was so ecstatic! The rest of the flight went even better. Before heading off I caught the flight attended, thanked her and told her she's super nice. She looked back, smiled and said "It's just an act!". WOW! Best answer ever!

And then afterwards I went to the botanical gardens. So beautiful. A little lonely, but so pretty. Then my phone was dying so I went to go find a cafe and found a bar. I was chatting it up with this very pretty girl who was very welcoming and outspoken when she started talking about this woman she was engaged to. Wait.... pretty girl with a female ex, rainbow coasters, women bouncers with the words "butch" on their shirts. I was at Denver's only lesbian bar. :P Hahhaha. I stayed as long as my new-found friend was there. Liz was her name. I asked where I should go to catch some live music. She kept insisting I go to this place called "Charlie's". So after she left I set out there. I stopped by a few other bars. Watched some people sing karaoke. No live music. I headed to Charlie's and... it was full of half-naked ripped dudes with glow-in-the-dark underwear. I'm not sure if it was a gay bar, but there was no live music. That's what I get for being straight at a lesbian bar. :P

I played some darts there. Then bar-hopped some more. Played some pool and finished it off back at the lesbian bar. Then headed to Extended Stay for the night. I had a voucher for the night. Good times. My phone was dying... or rather dead. I had to wait it out until it charged to 1% so I could use it to make a reservation. And then when I finally got there  I had to wait for them to finish the daily audit. On the other hand I got to talk to the nice woman at the front desk. Her name escapes me now. :( She had a think Philly accent though. It was cool. Hard to understand but fascinating!

Long story short I'm in bed now. Goodnight.

Flying to Seattle

It's that time again. Things are happening. Nothing happened in July. NOTHING. I'm not even kidding. Looking back... I met a couple new people, who I'm not sure are going to stick around. I came over to a friend's place ... once. I went a bunch of movies... and I spent too much time working on ProjectEuler problem 566. :P

I'm at the airport right now. My flight to Seattle is boarding 20 minutes ago... so they should start letting people in in 10. I want to have this out so I have something to do on the plane.

Speed Dating

I've been sick for the last few days. So nothing much happened. The only notable thing is that on Friday I went Speed Dating. Ooh. It was supposed to be a 10:10 somewhere in Beverly Hills. But they lost the venue, moved the thing to West Hollywood. Then one of the women dropped out and so did her 4 friends. So the ratio was 2:1. I got there a little early because I didn't want to be late. The host apologized and said I'll get a code to go to another event for free.

When I got there I went straight for the bar. I talked to one of the other guys who was waiting. Another broken heart trying to go out there. I told him I didn't want to look out. He did. He said he didn't see anyone he was remotely interested in talking to. I got the same vibe. Either way, I asked him why he's even there then. So he finished his drink and left. Good lad. I was considering leaving, too, but I was a few blocks away from Anotio's where I could meet Alex L after.

The actual 1:1s with girls were extended to 7 minutes instead of 5. Plenty of time to get to know someone on surface level. Lots of smiling, pleasant faces. That part was good. I learned that nobody goes to these things alone. Every girl brought a friend. Or rather, every girl got brought by a friend. There was a clear distinction between those who needed to get out more and those who could manipulate their friends to go out with them. This one girl literally said she's doing charity work by bringing her friend out when I asked her what she was doing there. Ha.

So I met two teachers and two nurses. The last lady was crazy. This slimy unpleasant person. She was at least 50 in a 24-35 speed dating event and she's already had a few too many drinks. She either kept getting offended or talking out of her ass about some bullcrap topic she knows nothing about. When she started insisting that I get a drink with her I mentioned that she's probably already had enough and she started yelling "This guy doesn't think women shouldn't drink". The host kept apologizing to me for her behavior. It was kind of funny at first, but after more comments like that I just left.

At Antonio's Alex and I had a couple of drink. I figured out he's lost a lot of his Russian. Ha. And I called it a night.

Saturday I was sick. I mustered up enough strength to go to Tempest, but that's about it.

Sunday I was sick, but I mustered enough strength to go to the beach and give Hope a ride from the airport doing movies and a hike on the way.

Today I'm sick, but I think I'll go to work anyway. It really does always feel like there's too much work to do on my team.

New Team

Yesterday was my first day on the new team. Nothing amazing has happened. Nothing bad either. I found out that they have a lot of things together that I didn't know they did. Like they have a lot of process in place. It's probably a little stunting, but right now it's a good thing since I have structure! Finally.

I was invited to lunch 5 different times today. Haha. What a good-wishing team. I ended up going, but too late after everyone finished. Hehe. Then had a 1:1 with the manager and went to work. I had a goal for myself to get something done. But at the end of the day I was nowhere near started. Lots of documentation to read.

There was a Plain White T's concert that Chris and Alina wanted to go to to. I was thinking about making it out, but it would've taken an hour and I didn't feel like sitting in traffic. I needed to go to the gym anyway to pick up my gym bag.

At the gym I did a move before warming up and pulled a muscle in my back. It still hurts. I'm not sure how to fix it. So the rest of the session wasn't as productive. I still did things though. Olga brought the exercise sheets again so we did some trampoline drills.

Another thing that happened yesterday was that I had some closure talks with Katya (from San Clemente). She said she's upset with me for still going on OkC and not expressing a lot of interest in her. I told her that she needs to tell people if she expects something from them. At the end I asked what it is that she'd want from me. And she sent me a video of waves crashing on the beach. I think I'm supposed to do an interpretive dance or something. I give up. I don't know how to communicate with people like that.

Last vacation day.

Sadly my 6-day weekend has come to an end. And what did I do with it? I hung out with my niece. We went to get Which-wich. She wanted to go to LA zoo, but I knew better than suffer in traffic and heat, so I took her to Malibu instead. We sat on the rocks and watched waves crash on the giant rocks. We picked up some bottoms some arseholes left behind themselves and threw them away. Then we drove (thought could've walked) to the self-realization shrine. So calm and peaceful. Saw a duck with so many ducklings. Always so cute to watch animals. Then we drove West on Sunset and decided to go bowl. After bowling we went to the movies and saw Swiss Army Man. What the hell did we see?!? We concluded the day by going to the Grove and having tea.

After I took my niece home I drove to Tempest and put in a work-out. I still felt pretty social so Andrea, Lonnie and I went to get food after. I got home late. I woke up in the middle of the night unable to sleep. I'd forgotten my gym bag at Tempest and I'm really worried something will happen to my stuff. Given that everything in it is pretty new, rebought after the car break-in, I would be devastated if I lost it all again. :(

I had a dream where I was playing Frankenstein in a cheap play and there were many girls surrounding me wanting to stay in touch after. Ah, the romantic life for an artist. I tried finding them (a particular one, again), but failed and woke up. Story of my life.

I start on my new team today. I'm not ready. Ill never be ready. The only thing left to do is to get out of bed and face the day.

Independence Day weekend

It's late, again. It seems my life is never at that good steady state where I have things to do and I do them and yet have time to write about it for perfect chronicles of my existence. I'm perpetually stuck in a cycle of too busy experiencing something to take 30 minutes to write it down and not doing anything of importance that I want to preserve the memory anyway.

Thursday we got on a bus which took us to Las Vegas. Jake was my bus buddy. In Vegas we did a photo scavenger hunt. Then we stuck around for the "Open Bar" that turned out to only serve bad beer and bad wine. I have had it. I walked out. I went looking for tickets for a show but couldn't find anything. So I got a small bottle of Russian Water and drank it. I went back to the party that was now largely depleted and had another 4 glasses of wine. Then I had silly conversations with people and followed a group of coworkers to a club. I wore comfy clothes for a change. I may still be able to do flips and tricks in a collared shirt, but I can't jump well in my usual pants. So I wore my parkour pants. Well turned out they don't like what I was wearing at the fancy-pants club. I wasn't let in. I went back to the hotel room and drunk called the girl I've been dating. She said some unusual things that I was in no mental state to fully discuss, especially over the phone.

The next day I spent running around going to shows. Saw Tarzan the movie, Popovich the act, Recycled Percussion the musicians, Sin City comedy cabaret, and the cherry on top was the Absinthe performance, which was, you guessed it, amazing. Chris and Alina made it to Vegas that night and we concluded the day by going up the Stratosphere tower.

Almost forgot. I won in roulette. Made 2 bets of $3 and won $19. Then later bet $3 and won $39. Yeah. Good luck!

Anyway, the next day we walked around got food etc. I played roulette again, but with less luck this time. I lost $25. Then won $20. Then lost $40 and then lost $15. Overall, it's been negative, but ultimately fun. We went to two magic shows. We saw Mat Franco and Pen&Teller. Pen and Teller were amazing, just like I thought they would be. I wish we'd had the time to take photos with them. Alas, we needed to make the drive back.

I woke up at a normal time the next day despite everything. Sunday it was. I went to the beach. This time I spent a good amount of time there. I got water. Did things in moderation. Then... it was almost late. It was Heather's last day in LA. People were going to play board games at a bar and then go over to Colin C's place. I didn't want to go to the bar. I was getting sad, too. That happens, still for all the same reasons. So I went home and crashed.

I woke up around 20:30 and had this desire to go do something. I decided to have a conversation with the girl, but I wanted to have it in person. She lives far away so I suggested I come over. She said she sees why she'd say that because she's under the impression I don't want to come after. I was confused. But I did explain that yes, she's right, I did have plans for the 4th. But.... she told me to not bother and just spend time with other people. 0.o I didn't need more than that. I'm looking for a woman who will say "Fuck yes! Come over!". She wasn't the one and that was the end of that. Have to be honest, it bummed me out a little. Life goes on though. I signed up for speed dating and RSVP'd for board games at Colin's. He didn't reply that night. Well, that was disappointing.

I started today by wanting to make things different in any way that I could. I went on a hike. Did the Los Liones trail in 30 minutes again. Showered. Went for lunch with family. Washed my car. Told my family I wasn't coming to picnic/fireworks after. Decided to not go to the lagoon beach family independence day thing. I was unhappy. My dad made remarks about me looking unhappy again. I didn't want to spend more time with them nor the beach family. I went to Oleg's party. I found it refreshing in a sense that he knows a lot of Russian people. And at some point the 4 of us hanging out on the balcony were all from Belarus. That was cool. But that too, got old after a few hours. I felt a wave of "Do something!!!!" coming on. I asked around if anyone had a coin I could flip. Everyone just said no without really engaging. Not my crowd. So I just left. I hauled my ass to Pacific Palisades High School for their fireworks. It's been the only consistently good place for me to go to see a fireworks show. Everything else has been disappointing. And I made it. I parked a mile away so I wouldn't have to deal with cars again. Out of the last 2 times I was there, once I got hit by another car and the other I got stuck in traffic trying to make a right for over an hour. This time I just ran a mile back to my car and was home 20 minutes later.

Those are the facts. I don't have time to get into my emotional state about any of this. Queue in behavioral therapy. Not digging into anything right now. I did things. They were fun. I was lonely. I will do more things. The end. Good night.

Weekend

And now ladies and gentlemen, lets do the news:

I suppose the thing that I care about the most is that GB has voted to leave EU. And it's retarded. There are so many reasons for which it's just such a terrible idea, but ultimately, over the years they will see  their economy fall and GDP not live up to it's potential in relation to other countries. It's very sad, really.

With that being said my weekend was fine. I chatted with Katelyn on skype for a couple of hours then went out with Katie. I ate so much  pasta Saturday I can honestly call myself pastaman! We watched Finding Dory. Then I hauled my butt over to the other part of town and watched Independence Day with Chris and Alina. Finding Dory was so much better. :P

Sunday I went on a hike. Did the whole Los Liones thing to the first viewing point in only 30 minutes. That made me happy. That's a 4-minute improvement on last time. Thought I don't know if I'll be able to do so well every time. I ran parts of up-hill as well.

After the hike I picked up Katya from Union Station. We walked around the historic downtown. It was underwhelming. Then we drove to Echo Park and spend some time on the padalboats. Then we had some fish-n-chips and clam-chowder and I put her back on the train. Short and sweet.

I was trying to see Hope after that so I drove to Burbank. But her thing ran 2.5 hours past due and I just basically walked around. Bought some small things I don't really need and left the valley. I stopped by Alex B and Alina's. Met their baby for the first time. That was nice.

Then... (tun-tun-tun) I went home and watched the last episode of the season for Game of Thrones. What a delight. I mean.. I was so happy. It ended with 4 people sitting on thrones being very straight-forward about what they're going to do next. I hope John marries Daenerys. But I'm glad to finally see Cersei on the throne. She's not hiding anymore. She's ruling like she's always done. And she check-mated all her enemies with one move. Quite genius.

And I finished the evening watching a comedy about Hitler in modern times. It's called "Look who's Back". Quite enjoyable. Raises good points. At least it's the first thing I've seen where Hitler isn't demonized but at least shown as someone who's done things for his people, which he did much better than so many of modern rulers.

Exes dating friends

So my ex messaged me yesterday saying she wanted to get coffee. At first I was excited because woo, more people wanted to hang out. But then I got a little nervous I've been remembering more of the stuff rather than good about our relationship. And then I got even more nervous when she was being especially punctual about this meeting.

Long story short, she told me that she's now officially dating one of my friends. :/ At first I was surprised and happy for them. Then she said that's surprised I'm not flipping out. I thought about it. It's a bit back-stabby, but it wasn't outside of the realm of possibilities. But then she said something that made me lose my appetite: they just spent the week together.

Somehow, knowing that while I was on vacation having a blast, I felt good about it knowing that at least I was having a better time that others. Now that I know that she's having a magic getaway with one of my friends. That shatters my believes.

She could tell I wasn't happy anymore. I tried to rationalize it and realized that this isn't the first time this has happened. Cough, Chris and Krystle. And cough(?) Igor and Monica. Somehow some people grow up without realizing that their friends might have feelings for their exes. Those who do then, in order to preserve friendships, stay the fuck away from their friends' exes. Or make abundantly sure that they wouldn't be hurting anyone's feelings. Chris talked to me before dating Krystle. This friend didn't.

I don't know what the difference is between the people. Maybe some just don't have feelings for their exes, or just aren't super capable of empathy. Whatever the reason, I was hurt for aforementioned two reasons. That, plus I wanted to move on first. So much for that.

Either way, that evening coupled with us terribly losing the pool match in the tournament last night made my day kind of shitty. I was looking forward to at least watching Game of Thrones, but I was too late for that, too. I spent the rest of the night drinking and talking to strangers on Omegle. And I talked to the OC girl on the phone a little.

When I woke I was dreaming about my ex telling me that she's dated other ones of my friends and I shouldn't judge. 0.o I was angry while still waking up. I'm feeling a little bit better now. This deep-rationalization I'm doing is helping me understand myself as a person and be sad in a constructive way. But honestly I wish I knew how to do self-behavioral-therapy so I can just move on without going through the struggle. If this last sentence didn't make much sense to you, look up "Behavioral Therapy Revolution".

Wedding then back to normal.

Last Sunday was fun. I woke up in Toronto then went back to LA. I talked to a pretty girl in the passport line. I was lucky because the passport check happened at the Canadian site and I just randomly decided to get there 4 hours before my flight so I had time to go through it. But the real joy came from the fact that with my plane landing at 12:30 and Father's Day lunch being at 13:00 I could make it!

It was nice to see family. Our reserved tables were outside and in 35 degree weather some of us have refused to sit outside. So we had to wait for an hour before we got our table. Well, at least the food for delicious.

After that I came home, relaxed for a few minutes, then I had 15 minutes to get ready for Rui's wedding. So much rushing. Lina helped lint my suit. Stuff randomly still fit so I think I looked good. The wedding was good. Large restaurant. Many people. Not enough drinks though. But everyone around me was that... pregnant-age so it's not like anyone was actually drinking. I barely got someone to help me finish the bottle of champagne I got for the table. We took some silly photos and not-so-silly photos. Good photos all around actually. The wedding was supposed to wind down around 23:00, but everyone at my table left at 22:00 and I decided to follow suit.

Instead of going home I drove down to San Clemente to see one of the women I met on OkC. We walked by the the beach and then sat at a life guard booth watching the waves crashes on the shore under the full-moon moonlight. But when I was driving back I was pretty tired already. Remember, it's been a long day. And this guy with bright lights kept following me. Eventually I pulled to the right-most lane and slowed down to let him finally pass. That's when the sirens went off. Luckily the officer understood when I complained about this creep following me. :P

Monday was ordinary. Work. Tempest. Sleep.
Tuesday was mostly ordinary. Work. Then at the end of the day the Movie Club at work was showing the first Independence Day in the court-yard. Wine, beer and candy were provided. I got Lina and Chris to come out. Alan invited AnneMarie. So at least I was in company of good people.

Toronto

Dear diary:

I'm on the train back now. It's the same train. This one's taking me to the airport. It's so exciting that it has WiFi! I've spent the last 6 days in Toronto. I haven't had the chance to sit down and "chill" on the computer, much less reflect on anything. I haven't slept much either. It's been great last few days. The couple of days before that were pretty lame. But even so I wasn't sitting in my room. I was out and about and looking for things to do.

I'll try remember things backwards. Today I woke up super early after only a few hours of sleep. Last night I went to bed after 01:00 because I was packing. Somehow my backpack got a lot heavier. All I've added to it are 3 t-shirts. I bought two of them and one was free from the concert. I had a day pass to NXNE for the rock day. The highlights included me dancing through the crowd. I skipped a lot. You know. Hop-hop. I did that for hours. Twisted my ankle a few times. It hurts. So worth it. I was there walking/dancing/skipping from 15:30 to 23:00.

I must've put at least 8-9 drinks into me. I had a really interesting time buying them though. You see that was the only place that didn't accept credit cards. It's cash only. I didn't have any CAD on me and ATMs are useless if you don't carry a debit card. So my method was simpler: I waited for 30 minutes to download gWallet and PayPal on the super-slow 2g network that TMobile provides. I chatted with... (insert two names here because I don't remember) for that time. These guys were walking around taking Polaroid photos of people and just giving them away. So I got one with the strangers!
But back to the drinks. They didn't have any money to share. So I was just walking around asking if people had cash I could buy off of them with PayPal. For the first 20 people or so I asked about Google Wallet. But I don't think anybody in Canada even knew what it was. Haha. But at least people have heard of PayPal. Most politely declined. Some said they would help if they had extra cash. One woman just looked straight at me and just said one word "No". She's a bitch. I don't want to sugar coat it. But I digress. Eventually, after around a 100 people I found my savior. Her name is Dee and she just watched her whole family reject me and then she just pulled out her phone and said she can make it happen. <3 Being pretty young all she had was $15 on her and she shared it all. I want to praise her for kindness. But in retrospect the favor is a small one. I'm frankly shocked that it was that much hassle.

When I was in line finally buying my  first drink I was ecstatic. One of the people I'd asked for help from earlier saw me with money and gave me a high five. They asked if I finally found someone who "just gave me money". 0.o. No douchebag. It's the 21st century. How the heck do people not know how PayPal works? But I digress. To my future self: reminder, the first drink I got was water. It was hot and I was thirsty.

With all that being said. I had a blast. I hung out a little with Katrina, a photographer I had met earlier. I chatted with Toni (female) from Russia for a while. I danced with a random stranger toward the end of the night. I talked to hundreds of people. :P I talked SXSW promoters from giving me free vodka shots. I got hundreds of high-fives. :P I learned that Zolas make good music. Got a photo with their bass player, too.

But all of that was after I went GoKarting. You see I didn't have in-and-out privileges. And I got there really early when it just started. There were barely any people. So I went across the street and drove around like a maniac. :P Then I had a pack of green-tea ice cream. Come to think of it my major meals that day was a pack of ice cream and a lot of smirnoff ice.

--

And now I'm at the airport. Sitting in my terminal. Already passed passport control and customs. Flying into a domestic terminal. That means I might make it to father's day lunch today! That's exciting. And I can make it to Rui's wedding! Today's going to be a good day. Or something! :P

Before the ice cream and the go-karting I was on a boat tour around Toronto islands. I spent most of that time enjoying the summer breeze, sound of waves, waving at passing boats and writing postcards. :P The boat tour was free. Came with the tour bus. So I hopped on the tour bus after.

Friday was a good day. I decided to be a tourist. And after working for a few hours I took the sight-seeing-tour. I had tickets to a local castle called Casa Loma. The tour bus took me there. I had no idea how convenient hop-on-hop-off tour buses are. I got to meet people. Listen to silly facts about the city. And I got to got where I needed to. So, that being said I had this super blissful moment at the castle, sitting on the patio having an insanely good drink. It had St. Germains in it and peach. Do I need to say more? Yes... with champagne. The grounds were gorgeous, too. I mean... it was just a house, but it had towers, a ballroom, a library, a canon, cool attic and an underground passage under neighbour's house to an extension down the block.

When I was tired of the sun I hopped back on the tour bus and headed downtown to work a little more. I knew the NXNE had a free stage in a square where I really wanted to be a few years ago. So I wanted to get there. I hopped off the bus a little too early and ended up walking up Younge St. Somewhere before King St. I found this restaurant market called Marche. I don't know how to describe it. You walk in and get a card. You make purchases at the buffet with that card and then pay the tab at the end when you leave. I like the idea. The food however was really good for buffet food. I had... a salmon quiche that was yum-yum. That and literally the best piece of cake I've had in my whole life. It was hazelnut chocolate something-something. I don't know how they made it, but it was like .. a soft brownie that's not dense but not too fluffy. Super rich flavor, but not sweet.

I worked from the Marche. The atmosphere was amazing. Great music playing. Better than at any of the shows prior. I didn't want to leave. Working was fun, too. That is how I wish I'd spend more of time. Sitting at a cool spot. Looking at regular people. Listening to soulful music. Eating delicious food. Doing good work.

I made a decision that I didn't want to go to another show that night and bought an improv ticket instead. This one was called BeerProv. You know... because everyone was drinking, especially on stage. It was alright. I appreciated doing something different for a change. It wasn't a better improv show I've seen, but I did laugh a lot. Like a lot. Some of the jokes were stupid, but nothing got offensive. So that's cool. This dude made a remark about being dumped after 7 years together because he wanted to pursue a career in improv. Everyone on stage, his-mid-sentence gave him a hug. I don't know if they train to provide emotional support, but that was an inspiring moment. I want a collective like that.

Gotta go board the plane. Maybe I'll finish this there.

--

Thursday...  I went to a concert at the Rivoli pool house. I played pool. I listened to music. I walked around a lot. I met Katrina, one of the photographers covering the festival. It was a good day.

The other days before that in Toronto weren't eventful. I worked and walked around a lot. I was kind of aimless and just exploring. Took a while for the night life to pick up. I kept going to the same bar in the evenings almost every night for the lack of better of things to do. They had this barrel-aged porter which was $35 for a liter. So good. But that's about it. The next time I go I think it'll just be around the weekend. On Tuesday I was walking around asking if there was a good spot to go to.. but the answers I got were things like "Hard Rock Cafe" or "McDonalds".

Travel.

Hey diary.

I'm not dead. I've forgotten that you exist. I'm still sad, but less so for the last few days.

Summary:
 - Friday went to have a drink with Alex
 - Saturday went to Singles Mixer
 - Sunday to a birthday, then beach, and then went on a date
 - Monday flew to Toronto

It was Tuesday that Katie at Tempest was telling me how to throw front-fulls off the trampoline into the foam pit. It was so much fun. I even did a double. But people quickly told me that I'm pulling too early and going off axis. So I'm back to doing just 360. But it looks better, or so I hear.

So then on Thursday I played with them some more. It was awesome. They don't hurt and they're a new fun thing I can kind-of do and work on improving. That's what Tempest is supposed to be about!

The whole week at work I was participating in a fix-it. A competition to do most things to boost engineering productivity. I got #8. I think I get some toy or something like that for it. Or maybe a coupe of months of Youtube Red. He-he.

Friday I was trying to get Alan or Ethan (intern) to go see X-Men. But they refused. So I worked until 21:30 then went to Basement Tavern where they were supposed to have live music already. Well, I was wrong. I had a gross beer and waited until 22:30 for the music to start. All that just to find out that it was karaoke night and the band sucked. So I left. I think that was Friday. I might be confusing my days. Either way, I know that Friday night I ended up at Snake Pit (bar in West Hollywood) with Alex L. I had a drink. We laughed over nothing. Then I went home.

Saturday I didn't get to sleep in. I woke up early to let the maids in. Yay maids. Two short old guys. Hehe. I wonder if they also do the "topless maid" thing. But, they scrubbed the bathrooms and the kitchen for a couple hours. I spaced out after that and went to Tempest. I had one goal at the gym: do the front-fulls 20 more times and I succeeded! I figure this puts me at 40 attempts already. Another 60 and I'll start throwing it onto a mat. Later that evening I went to the single's mixer. The same one I always go to at 3110 Main. This one was a little less lame than the previous, but the ratio was still 4:1. There were 40 guys and 11 girls. I decided pre-game this time and had a drink at work first. I ended up having another drink at the event anyway. Too boring otherwise. The games this time weren't as much fun, but I think I did decently well. There were some nice people there. I don't mean to brag, but I got two callbacks the next day. That's a first. :P

... Getting of the train. Will continue when I get to my AirBnb.

... Woah and now it's almost 02:00 and the day is over. I'll have to pick this up later.

Venting

So lets go with "Angry". Because it's my mood. I'm angry. I wish there was some big-ol reason why, but it's a few things. Lets list them:
 * The morons at the security company dropped my footage request and the video of my car getting broken into disappeared.
 * Bernie lost the primary today. This is the last stop for him.
 * My tolerance couldn't keep up withe shit-storm of people freaking out over a "too-light" sentence that this kid got for having sex with a sleeping girl or something like that. I don't even know about the actual story because all I get from my neck of the woods is hatred toward the guy, his father, the judge, the system, the f**king everything. Thing rationally you sheeple!
 * I'm in pain. Has to do with working out for the last 4 days.
 * I spent the evening booking tickets and scheduling events. None of that was fun today. Delta crashed twice on me and told me to "start over". Had to book a flight by phone. :/
 * I'm angry with myself for eating too much sugar. I had an apricot-oat bar that had 14 grams, and then I had 6 bookies, that's another 16 grams. That's 30 grams from just sweets. I'm disappointed in myself. Damn stress.

That's about all I can think of. I'm sure there are other things. Like Wayo yesterday was supposed to go to the movies with me, but totally bailed right before going. And I messaged Hope because she said she wanted to go, but she never replied. And then there're the angry comments with Katie on Facebook. I need better friends.

NinjaCon

There's nothing special for me to describe here today. Yesterday was NinjaCon, a small anime convention. I had bought tickets a while ago. Rui was supposed to go. She invited me. But turns out she never bought a ticket so I was there by myself. I went anyway hoping that I'd find someone to hang out with or something to do there. I was from about 11:00 to 14:15 and it was boring for the first 3 hours. Then it got better with contests and more people coming. I mean there were only like 60 booths selling hand-drawing stuff and self-made trinkets. There was a panel with voice actors... for animes I haven't heard about. Aaaand yeah. Boring. I took photos of what I could. There wasn't much. When it was time, I left for Tempest.

Now at this point it's been days since I've done something wither another person besides having a snack with the intern on Friday. So I asked if anyone wanted to go grab food/drink after. Andrew was the only one who agreed and we had tea at Starbucks after.

In absence of other ideas I went back to the con. It was still going for another couple of hours. But when I got there it was pretty much all dismantled. So I went to get sushi instead. By. Myself. And it was cold and lame. I want my Saturday night back. I don't know for what... but I think there are better ways to spend it.

Ups and downs.

Thursday was a decent day. I worked hard. Then went on a meet-and-greet. The woman had a skin problem of some sort. And I'm particularly sensitive to that because of my childhood. So it was an immediate no-no. We had a short and pleasant conversation and then I got out of there. Went to Tempest. Had a good time there. Not sure why. Was teaching people again. Had a sense of purpose. So that was nice.

Friday however, I got a text from someone asking about something in the apartment. I thought it was about the AirBnb in Toronto.. but I recognized the number as my ex's. Le sigh. So I knew that was coming. The day went slow. As slow as they go. The morning meeting got canceled so I was rushing to finish some work in that time. Then I had a Project Euler meeting. I took the intern that sits next to me. Then I played soccer. The weather was crap. Very overcast and foggy. I kept messing up.

Alan and Bria were out and when I got back it was pretty much just me and the intern working. He's new. So I'm still careful about what I say around him. Nobody to talk to about life. Le sigh. That being said at some point I realized that it was the first Friday of the month. There are food trucks down the street. I wanted to go. Sucks to go alone though. I went with the intern. I needed to get food and it didn't look like I was going to find another human to go with.

I paid $17 for a piece of white bread with two spoonfuls of lobster on it. Seriously LA. That's expensive. We chatted about programming and ... that's pretty much it. The intern is 18. No much life experience yet. I went home. Not really feeling up to doing anything. I was hoping to run into my roommates but they weren't home.

Alex L stopped by to borrow a camera. He's going on a trip. Sounds like a good time. He didn't have time to get out of the car. I just chatted with him for a few minutes and he was on his way.

Then my ex stopped by. I brought out the thing she wanted. I didn't want it to be awkward. We sat in the lobby for a bit and talked about the little things. Small talk. You know. Trying to remain pleasant. I told her deeper things, too. She didn't. That's probably good. We kept it courteous. I had to clarify that I'm not a socially-uncomfortable monster unable to talk to those who've wronged me. Then it got late. She left... and I was unable to go find actual humans to hang out with. So I spent the new few hours chatting with strangers online. Therapy.

Today I'm going to NinjaCon. I don't know why. Bought the tickets a while ago. Might as well go. Going alone. Don't expect anything good to happen.

Looking for AirBnb

So I'm going to Canada soon and I'm looking for a place to stay. I've looked before and the prices seemed affordable but I was really hoping to find someone to stay with through a dating site instead. Well that didn't pan out. In fact the reply rate for that was much lower than normal messaging. So with only a couple weeks left I have no choice but to get a room. I don't need an apartment so a private room should do. I'm looking for something under $100/day and it's tough. My trip touches nights on the weekend and it leaves me with only two choices. One of them rejected me this morning. Hm. I don't see another reason but that I'm a guy. It's a woman host. The timing is somewhat odd because I was just listening to a podcast on discrimination on AirBnb. But that one was for being black. Well ladies and gentlemen: men get discriminated against just as much as Blacks.... and before someone checks my privilege, check it on a university campus. 

Aside from that, yesterday was another anti-social day. Woke up. Went to work. Worked really hard because I only have two days a week when I can do that. Came home. Played NeverWinter. Watched Game of Thrones with Alina. Chris couldn't join because he had too much work to do. Then spent the rest of the evening messing on eHarmony and AirBnb.

Memorial Day weekend.

Dear diary. I'm depressed.

At this point I think it's been 3 weeks and for me that's unusually long to be sad every day. It's Tuesday today. A work day. Yesterday was Memorial day so I had the day off. I had a somewhat relaxing weekend. Somewhat. It's been anti-social and revolved around being with family. But family doesn't help me with my particular problems. Anyway, here's a short account.

Friday evening I stayed out late at work. Until around 21:30. I had nowhere else to go. Alina and Chris (my roommates) asked if I wanted to go play pool. And we did. Went to a place where Gully and I went to a few years back. Gully was a guy I used to know from the beach. Bromance ended when I fell out with the rest of the beach crowd. Either way, we got to the place. I had a burrito because I was still hungry. I'd only snacked that evening. And I had a beer. The beer was a porter... which some asshole had put coffee into. I need to learn to send drinks back when I detest them. But in this case there wasn't another I wanted. So I just sucked it up. We played pool for a couple hours. Alina and Chris wanted to play on the same team. I don't know why we didn't play Cut-throat instead. But okay. So I got to shoot a lot. I won about half of the time. Chris was good at cutting and Alina was good at long-distance shots. If only they didn't do Round-Robin. Either way, we left there after 01:00. I wanted to keep playing. Loneliness and all.

Waking up was tough. I pulled my eyes open around 11:30 and started thinking about my day. It wasn't until 12:30 that I finally got out of bed and decided to proceed with my plan of skipping a morning hike and going straight to Rui's (one of my longest friends) wedding lunch. I still to pack for the weekend trip and I wanted to stop by Tempest to work off the disgustingness of the yesterday. Then I realized that I was already late. The lunch was starting at 13:00. I still needed to shower, get dressed, eat and drive there.. in 30 minutes. It was at a BBQ place... so I had to eat beforehand. I felt terrible, but I messaged letting them know I won't be making it and started trying to revise my schedule. Now I had time to pack etc. Long story short, I headed out at 14:30 and went to Tempest.

Because of the long weekend there was like nobody there. No girls. Wayo was there to try some things on the trampoline. I've finally got a chance to put all the mats by the trampoline so I could try doing flips off of it. That was fun. But again... it's a gym, so kind of lonely.

I still had 2 hours 30 minutes left go to meet up with my sisters in San Diego. Kind of far. I know there was a strawberry festival somewhere down South. Looked like it was on the way, so I stopped by. I got there around 18:00 and was there until 19:00. But I didn't do anything. Looked at people who all looked like they made less money than me. But I think it was only because the festival was on dirt.. so everything was dusty and dirty. As was I by the time I left. Haha. Well, I didn't go on any rides. Even the rides there were too extreme for me. So I gambled instead. Spent $35 trying to win a plush toy or something. I failed at raising the bottle. That one required keeping the rope aligned the with bottle, which I needed practice on. I failed at shoving the ball into a basket. That one required putting a good amount of top-spin on the ball, which my short fingers didn't do so well. And the last one, that I tried 3 times was shooting a start out of a target. With 100 pellets. I know I'm a pretty decent shot. But every time there was a tiny sliver left. So tiny. I was so close... Like 99% of the star was gone... each time. The pictures look good. But I still have no prize to show for it. Disappointed with myself, I bought a frame with a lame picture in it and left.

I got to SD at 21:00 and accompanied my family to the store. I got a Riesling since the store we went to didn't have vodka. That and I was just not happy with my day thus far. Good thing all they wanted was watch TV and have a glass of wine. I bestowed some knowledge on my nephews and then we went to bed.

Sleeping was tough for many reasons, but I was finally up by 11:00. It's Paradise Island. Summer in Southern California. I wanted to go for a swim. But the rest of the family had just pulled in and they wanted to hang out, eat lunch and move on with the day. Lucky for me they were struggling to find a place to eat, so I went to the pool with Tony (my nephew) in the mean time. The water was cold. I didn't want to stay long. The weather wasn't that good either way.

Then we went out to lunch. Long story short: great food, great prices, amazing service; got into a fight with one of my sisters when it was time to pay. It's always like that. Stingy bastards. I ended up paying for the lunch for the 8 of us and told them that whoever feels like giving me money back can do it.

After that we went kayaking. It was my first time. That was fun. I was paired up with Tony again. We weren't any good. We kept getting out of sync. And when we switched and Tony was steering he kept us going in zig-zags. At some point we started playing a game of fetch-the-water-bottle. Except one time Tony missed it and decided to do a quick 180. And we flipped. Hehe. That was fun. We had vests on and everything. I was excited to figure out how to climb on a boat from water. But the rest of the family swam to us and held the boat. Chance ruined.

And then there was nothing. Half the family went to get some food and they said they'll bring some back. I was with a half that waited. We didn't do anything for a few hours. Then at 22:00 the rest of the family came back. I had a sandwich and then 45 minutes later everyone left home or to their rooms. And we went to bed.

I wanted to head back early on Monday. I looked up the traffic and it would have taken me 2 hours to drive back. But I needed a ride to my car. I was told to wait. They were leaving, too, after all. They assured me that I wouldn't have to wait long. I said that if we wait until noon, the drive time will go up to 3 hours for me. Even more for them. While my sisters were packing, Tony and I went on a bike ride. We covered the whole island in 45 minutes. When we got back they were still packing. TL;DR; we didn't set out until after noon.

When I woke up I was thinking I could go for a hike, then go to the beach, or maybe go see someone. The way things panned out, I got home at 15:00, and after unpacking I only had time to quickly stop by the beach. I made plans with Chris and Alina to watch Game of Thrones in the evening. Beach it was! I took the rail. I was hoping to maybe have a conversation with a stranger on the train. But it didn't happen.

On the beach there was nobody there. Everyone had gone the day before. I got to say hello to Chris and Scott. The two local super-hero looking guys. That was nice. Otherwise I just spent the time breaking-in my new ring grips. When my hands were too sore I did some hand-stands. Still can't hold it. I did some Websters. Trying to do them every time I go to the beach now. Don't want to lose them. And then it got windy and I left.

I went for a long walk on the pier. Surrounded by people I still felt alone. I'm sure the expression on my face wasn't a happy one. I didn't use the "Free hugs" people who were standing all over the pier. I got to the end, pulled out my phone and swiped left and right on a couple of dating apps. Then I walked back.

I wanted to go watch a movie or something, but then I wouldn't have made it for the game of thrones night. So I just walked around 3rd street promenade in Santa Monica and got some food. I saw exactly one beautiful woman at the mall there. But she was dressed so well and looked so good that my inner voice managed to talk me out of coming up to her. Le sigh.

Determined to do something when I got home I signed up for e-Harmony and started filling out my profile and answering questions. All until I realized their site is broken. Half of the things I had put in didn't save. I bought a membership to try to see matches.... but I got 4 matches. Within 30 miles. That's..... pathetic. I want my money back. And out of the 4, 3 weren't my type and one has 3 dogs. And I hate dogs. C'est la vie.

Oh, and Chris and Alina didn't get home until 22:30 because they had scooter problems. So I didn't even get to watch Game of Thrones.

The song by System of a Down comes to mind... "What a lonely day. And it's mine. The most loneliest day of my life." And now that it's 11:00 maybe I'll get up and start my day.

Lack of sleep.

Dear diary. I've stayed up the last couple of nights till around 01:00 playing Neverwinter. And even though I have no problems falling asleep. I have a problem staying asleep. Today I woke around 06:30. I didn't like the dreams I was having. And then it was hard to go back. Plus Someone asked me to do something for them. So I got up to do that. Le sigh. And now I realize I haven't updated this in a while. Le sigh again.

Yesterday at the gym was the first time I felt happy this week. It's a nice change. The rest of it has been stressful. Nothing work-related. Work's been good. I'm transferring so everyone's leaving me along until then. The only bad thing has been this guy kicking a football too hard into me. I'm bruised. But at the gym I got the social high. So many new people. And they were asking me how to do things on the trampoline. Best feeling in the world.

Not much else has happened. I saw Dwight. He's moving tomorrow to San Francisco. I'm not sure it will actually affect how much I will be seeing him. But it's sad nonetheless. Hope he finds what he's looking for.

My trip to Canada is soon. I need to start looking for a place or I'll be sleeping in the streets. More sighs.

Slipping

I don't know what the official length of time is for  being sad consecutively before you can call it a depression. It's been another week. And now it feels worse. I think I am getting depressed. Waking up has been more and more difficult. I keep doing crazier things and I find myself telling myself negative things. Things like "Why bother?". Or "You're not good enough". Or "Fuck it. This won't work anyway.". Notably, besides the cigar, this weekend I thought most of my exes for way too long in a way too nostalgic way. Yesterday I ate half  gallon of ice cream. I didn't see a single friend all weekend, and that's not for a lack of reaching out. But I also gave up on a few. Those who are too difficult to reach. Those either live too far away or never show any enthusiasm for hanging out.

So. Saturday. Tough wake-up after Jake's birthday. Lots of mouthwash etc. I wanted to do things. I can't recall what they were. I know I needed to fix some things at the Reseda apartment. I got up around 11:00, drove to Reseda. Bought things I thought I would need at Home Depot. Things like WD40 for the stuck door lock, thermostat batteries and new faucet handles for the faucets. Took me an hour to take the lock apart. I couldn't get it to function 100% because the no-lock pin is pushed in and won't come out. The drive-lever had a piece broken off which got stuck there. Surprisingly it still worked.. the lock... soaked in lubricant. So I put it back together since it's "good enough" however one of the screws had the head almost entirely scrubbed off. That's why it took me so long to take apart. I realized that the reasons they almost broke the whole thing is that the lock hooks didn't quite reach the holes. I moved the holes a little. It seemed to help. A lot.
P.S. I can totally tell the residents just pushed on it too hard too many times and broke it. Tisk.

The faucets needed handles. The ones I bought didn't fit. So I hauled my ass back to Home Depot and bought new ones. For one of the faucets I just decided to replace the whole thing. Bought one for $34. The nest one up from the cheapest piece of **** they had for $26. I also bought some screws.

Back at the apartment I replaced the screws and put some pads under the hole screws to make them stick out more. The lock was done. I replaced the handles in one of the faucets. And that was done, too now. But... installing the faucet proved to be a problem. I tried for 45 minutes to get the old one off. I tried being smart and using brute force. Nothing helped. The stupid screws down below just wouldn't bulge. And they were in this terribly inaccessible place behind the sink.

Chris and Alina invited me to go on a hike. I didn't make it. I was thinking about finishing early enough to go to Tempest, but I had already missed that. I then remembered that there's a Tempest in the valley. I would have to pay them since the membership isn't global. But whatever. I could do it. I left. I said needed to find a plumber and run some errands and drove to Tempest. I called 4-5 plumbers and got quotes ranging from $90 to $175. To install a faucet? It's hardly 30 minutes of work for a professional. What a fucking ripoff. When I had a maintenance plan a plumber visit to replace a faucet cost me $60. And I thought that was steep, too.

So I got to Tempest. I worked out a little. Felt kind of tired because of the evening before. But I still did some things. Not a whole lot. It was nice to be able to go up the wall high enough to touch my stickers. Woo. My stickers. No real improvement from 3 years ago but still. At least I'm not far behind. I chatted with Jon who tore all his ACLs in one of his knees. Then I headed back to the apartment. On the way I stopped by Lowes and asked one of the pretty ladies working there about what I can do to get the old faucet off. I got a plumber wrench, the 10" once since the space there is so tight. And I took a saw so I could saw off the old faucet from the top to loosen the screws down below. She laughed so hard.

On the way to the check out I called some numbers of craigslist. Most of them didn't pick up. One did. He said he could install a small faucet for $65. That was more like it. He said he could be free in 30 minutes. I said it's great and returned the saw. Just took the wrench and headed back.

At the apartment I tried some more to break up the faucet from the top. It was useless from the bottom. And then... a breakthrough. I managed to parts of the cover off. And it loosened the screws on the bottom to a point where I could move them! I broke off the rest of the faucet cover (with lots of brute force). Then I loosed the hold up top and practically undid the screws. below. Almost free... except...

...I'm slightly embarrassed by this but the water has been running the whole time. I tried so fucking hard to shut off the water. But it just kept flowing. And flowing. I opened up cold water. Then shut if off under the sink. Then I did the same with hot water.. but it wouldn't stop flowing. It wasn't full stream, but it also wasn't shut. I put all my force into shutting it off (which is supposed to be easy). But still didn't fucking work. Yeah, it was frustrating. So long story short... the water kept running this whole time.

My solution to taking the pipes off the old faucet was to unscrew them at the source, place something over them so the water would drop down instead of EVERYWHERE and I put a large pan underneath. The fan was filling up at about 3 minutes per pan. So I had 3 minutes to take the line from the old faucet to the new. And I did it. Had like 10% of the pot to spare! I was so ecstatic!

Then the plumber arrived and I went out to tell him that I had done it! The only thing left was to replace the drain pipe. But we had a problem. He drove on a huge van and there wasn't any parking. I had explained to him about how much progress I've made. He just stood there looking out into the distance. He didn't speak English very were. I think things were still seeping into his head. Then he gave me his card, shook my hand and drove away.

I went back. I still had the stupid drain pipe to replace. It was already like 18:00. The water stopped flowing and I had a new challenge. I wanted to replace the pipe since the faucet came with a new one. But it was tough. The old one was metallic and largely rusted. I couldn't get the U-thing that traps crap from the drain off. I couldn't unscrew the bottom screw again. And I couldn't do anything from the top. It was just shitty. But... after messing with everything and using the wrench I just got I managed to loosen the bottom screw. No room to do anything right. I had to move it inch-by inch. Took me over an hour. Not kidding. When I finally passed the silicone tape it went easier. I fucking hate that thing now. Never again. People just hated other plumbers back in the day so they made things that are impossible to repair. I swear.

Once I got the bottom screw loose I needed to get the sinkhole rim off. But it was rusted on. I tried ... very hard. But ultimately just went at it with pliers. A few minutes later I broke off a flowery looking thing. Haha. I was so excited. The U-thing wasn't coming off, but it was plastic so I could at least move it a little. Enough to take the old pipe out and put the new one in. Done and done. And put in the drain stopper as well. Woo! I cleaned up. Mopped the floors. And headed out.

It was 19:45. I was tired. I hadn't showered. I started looking for something to do. I was in such a dire need of socializing. I messaged Dwight and Katie. I thought about Mariya, Julia, Hope and Slava. But fuck Mariya and Julia. And Hope, too. Too many rejections. Hanging out shouldn't be so difficult. I didn't want to see Slava when I was that tired. I would rather seem him when I have the energy to enjoy sushi.

Katie invited me to a book club meeting at her place. It wasn't starting soon though. She didn't want to come out for food. And I can't say I like her roommates. That and I was wearing plumber wear, was covered in rusty water and probably didn't look good either. The final nail in that coffin was that she was 25 minutes away. Home was 26. I would have rather gone home. So I did. But not before stopping by Athenian Grill. Probably my favorite place in the valley. It's crummy and shitty. They stopped carrying my favorite thing there. Fish sandwich. But I still couldn't think of a place I would rather go. I got a falafel plate and took my sweet-ass time eating it.

I played NeverWinter for the rest of the night. I had no strength to do anything else.

Sunday went similar in terms of social isolation. I was really trying to go to Renaissance Fair to meet this woman from OkC. But Alan and Annmarie didn't want to go. Chris and Alina did, but they wanted to go on scooters. I really didn't feel like driving alone... or going there alone. I also felt quite crummy in the morning. I went on a hike. The same place Los... something. Don't remember. I didn't have my stuff since it got stolen at the break-in. So I winged it. Wore the knee brace. Had the Japan cap on. I asked a stranger for sunblock. And I even remembered to load music into my phone. But when I started hiking I realized I didn't have my headphones anymore. They're all gone. :( What a shame. I need to get new ones.

The hike went well. I walked up fast and pretty much ran downhill. I no longer have shoes I can wear to hiking. Need new ones. I went in shoes that really weren't made for it. So I was a little afraid to skip down. Running felt safer. Sigh.

Afterwards... I wanted to go to the Ren Fair.. but Chris and Alina had second thoughts... and decided to not go. I took a bath and watched TV. Didn't do anything. It was so draining. We started talking about going to the movies. But they couldn't decided on that either. I decided I needed to do something. Anything. So I hopped on my bike and went to the beach. I wanted to time how long it would take. And then I could take the train back and see how much time the train saves. Data!

When I got to the beach the train had a long line of people trying to get on. There was no way I could get there with a bike. So I went to the beach proper instead. Didn't do much there since I don't have my grips. Stolen, remember? I chatted with Olga briefly and ran into Katie, Sarah an Byung. Haven't seen the last couple in a while. These names aren't important so I'm not getting into details. Guess who else I saw? One of my exes. Not the most recent one.. but definitely one of the ones I'm not talking to. Le sigh.

I did some 3/4 front flips and headed out. And then... the roommates and I just watched a romantic movie at home, then game of thrones, then I played NeverWinter for a couple hours and that's it. By  my standards what a wasted weekend.

P.S. Still out of people to message on OkC. Maybe 5 new matches all week. No replies. At this rate it will be 6 months before I get another message. I need a new source.

Mistakes

Dear diary. I feel sick. I drank, smoked a cigar, went to bed late and it's just too much. It's mostly passed now. But I'm not a happy camper. I didn't think I would be, but I should have been a little better.

So, today wasn't that eventful. I worked harder than I should have and then I played harder than I should have. There was a talk on WarCraft the movie I wanted to attend. I didn't. There was a business meeting I was in instead. Then I wanted to get lunch, but I worked too hard. I missed lunch. I loaded up on power bars instead. I went to the Project Euler meeting and I even knew someone was coming. But I missed them. That's a shame. So I worked hard, more.

When it came time for soccer I went to a meeting instead. When the meeting was cancelled I was a little sad. I've made all this effort to be ready. And now it didn't matter. So I moved along and went to play. We played a lot. I should have left a lot sooner. I ended up ripping the skin inside the blister that I cut the skin off on Tuesday. I hate it when they're double deep. It takes so long to heal. I still don't have medical tape. I covered up with a tiny bandage and went back to work... and worked hard again.

I stayed at work late. It's Jake's birthday. I decided to go directly there and I didn't want to be too early. At 20:32 I was the first one to show up. Still took people some time to fill up the room. I got bored because it was mostly Jake's ex coworkers. I wasn't in with that crowd. I drank a bunch while waiting for cool people. Then I drank some more. I don't know what was making me sad. Maybe it was my lonely life, or the car break-in yesterday, or seeing couples everywhere. Or maybe it was the stupid cancer stories I've listening to on one of my podcasts. I couldn't contain tears this morning because it was like cancer story after cancer story. Fuck you, Moth.

Anyway, I went outside and had a cigar with a Jeremiah. I haven't had a cigar since freshman year in college. Or maybe it was sophomore year. Jake's father sent him a box-full for his birthday. So I decided to have one. Big mistake. I got so sick. I got dizzy and couldn't stand. Not enough oxygen. I sat in the bathroom until someone needed to use it. Then I sat in the bedroom. Just such a crummy feeling. It was so hard to get up. Eventually Tyler got me some water. Jake got me a pie and Rachel (I think that's her name) played guitar and sang. I think two hours passed. Around 01:36 I was able to walk around okay again and I went home. I've been sober. But I was tired and still a little light-headed.

I woke up an hour ago. Drank water. Finally washed the nasty smell off my hands. It will be another decade before I smoke again. Hopefully more. Blegh! I tried to add people I remember from the party on Facebook. There's not enough. I'm already friends with everyone I talked to except Rachel. Can't find her. Who knows why. I'll try going to sleep again. it's 05:27. Goodnight.

Car break in.

Yesterday was our annual bike-to-work today. I got up a little early so I would have time to bike. Got dressed warm because for some reason the weather was very un-LA like. I went downstairs to my car to get earphones when I discovered a bunch of glass on the ground. At first I thought that some assholes just spilled some during construction. Then I realized there's no construction next to my car... and there's only one source of glass - my car! I looked up and noticed that the back glass on my car was smashed and contents of my trunk gone. Fuckers. If I ever get a hold of them.... So mad now.

And the whole morning/early afternoon went into dealing with the fallout. I called the police and reported the break-in. I messaged the apartment management and asked for footage. I cleaned the car myself. Put everything from the car away. Chris helped clean up the glass from the ground. I started calling people for quotes. Chris made some calls, too. Eventually I settled on getting a very unpleasant person to come and do the work because his pricing was competitive and in absence of other clients he said he could be out in an hour fixing it.

The car was finished around 14:00. I couldn't drive it for another hour. I spent that hour working from home and riding my bike around the block hoping I would find my bags dumped somewhere. I was hoping they just wanted electronics so when they found that all they stole was clothing, beach supplies and athletic stuff, they would drop the bags. But I wasn't so lucky :( I found nothing.

Before driving to work I stopped by Ross and bought new bags. Much cheaper than the ones that were stolen. Much crappier. Maybe they won't look like anything exciting to the next burglar. I bought some basic things, but I'm still missing huge categories like athletic pants, or anything beach-related. Apparently it's not the season for pants, so they're nowhere to be found. I'll keep looking. Later. When I'm less upset.

The few hours that I worked after went fine. Got some new tasks to do. Or technically to undo the work that I did a month ago. Sad Sally is I.

Annmarie came over for dinner at our work. Bria and I joined, so the Japan gang ate together again. Then I went back up to work, but Alan and Annmarie came up not 10 minutes later and offered to have a drink with me. It was a Thursday. So, Tempest night. But I thought good company could be used. And I did. We went to Rose cafe. Had some shitty beer. Alan ordered a Mojito. They charged him $14 for it. Seriously fuck alcohol prices around here. That's just ridiculous. And it was a crappy one at that, Alan said.

Afterwards I went to Tempest. Only had 90 minutes there. I tried to not waste it. I did chest and biceps. Forgot to do back at all. Was out of it. One of the regulars, Katie, came in with full makeup on. She looked good... I ended the session with doing front flips. It's been a while. I had all this energy. It was the anger and beer in me. But it was pouring into beautiful front-flips on the floor. So I loved it. Did the until I went out of breath. Only took like 5 or 6. But that's still a lot more than my usual 0-1. :)

I went home and started messaging women in Canada. I have to at some point. So far no replies. I'll keep messaging. It will make my vacation better. I know it will.

Celebration

Dear diary,

Nothing happened on Monday. I went to work. Researched some things to do later. Then went to the gym. Nothing interesting happened. Played Neverwinter for an hour before heading to bed.

Yesterday was starting out the same way. Nothing fancy was happening. Then by the end of the work day my manager said he's addressed my concerns about the disagreement we had. 0.o Yay! We had a happy conversation. Woo. So now I feel better at work. :)

On Monday I asked Wayo out. Too bad he's not a girl and he's taken. But yeah, now I can say I made a friend. He's nice. Different from me. Very Catholic. Our world views are probably extremely different. But isn't it always like that between friends? We had Indian food and played 3 games of bowling. He won 2 out of 3. I couldn't get my curves right. I guess I have taken a long break. Pretty much since my ex and that's going on over 6 months. Time flies.

Nothing is happening on any other front. I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel on OkC; messaging inactive users. Nobody's replying. Maybe it's a busy time of year for people? Who knows. Either way, I need to find new ways to do things.

But this weekend is already seeming busy. It's Jake's birthday Friday. Saturday I'm fixing stuff at my condo. And Sunday, if I'm lucky, I'll be heading to the Renaissance Fair.

Big nothing.

Dear diary,

I spent the whole weekend going through the motions. I watched American Dad all Saturday morning. Then I went to the gym. I hadn't done anything active Friday so I thought I'd be full of energy. That wasn't the case. I felt drained and it took me more than half the session to get warmed up. Afterwards I was going to do one of 4 things: See Alan, go out to Sabrina's birthday thing, go to a meetup club event or meet Miho, a girl from Bumble (dating app). Miho never replied that evening. I decided that I should go to a birthday thing over a club. And Alan messaged me saying he didn't feel like going out.

I went to Sabrina's thing. But there was just her and Tabatha there (her roommate). And I did a foul, I didn't recognize Tabatha. :( I feel so terrible. She changed her hair color and I haven't seen her in ... 3 years. Yea, but still. I introduced myself like I've never met her. She was offended. :/ Either way after an hour two other people showed up and I bailed. I went to see Alex L at the bar for dinner. While there I texted Alan and asked if he wanted to go out later that night. To my surprise he said yes. And I left the bar and went out with Alan and Annmarie. 

I wanted to go to Basement Tavern, but the line was too long so we pressed on. We ended up at ... I don't even know. Some bar at a hotel. Stupid expensive prices. My double-shot of house vodka cost me $30. The only way I could justify it was that I hadn't done anything fun in a while. We had a good time. I told the couple about my adventures at Freeborn, my freshman dorm. We called it a night at 01:30. Pretty late for all of us. 

Sunday felt the same. I woke up late. Didn't go on a hike I wanted to go to. Went to the beach. I was really worried about my shoulder. So I took it really easy. I was fortunate to keep going until my hands hurt. Hung out for a few hours. I wanted to meet Jake's Morgan. Jake's the coworker and Morgan is the women he flew over the UK for a week to hang out with him. Good times for them. I wanted to be envious. I see so little happiness around me. It's sickening when I do, but that's probably because it never happens anymore. But I digress. 

I wanted to leave already, but decided to make myself do handstands. Met Heather from Atlanta who's in town for a few days. We exchanged phone numbers because she said she's coming back in a few weeks for another visit. 

Almost forgot. I met Miho yesterday. When I go to the beach I hung out with her on the pier first for about 90 minutes and only then went to the rings. She seemed nice. Not my type, but I'm not picky. She seemed like a good person. Works with animals. It's her first time meeting someone she met online. Hehe. I haven't contacted her after that, yet.

Anyway, after the beach I needed to go to Plummer Park for the Russian Festival in honor of WWII victory. I left the beach and got a message saying I should be there by 18:00. And so I did... to watch it end at 18:30. Apparently I got bad info. Missed the festivities again. For like the third year in a row.

After that I went to the Russian store, loaded up on Russian food to eat then and to take home. We went to Olga's. Mange-d the food and some of the cake. Yes, I got a cake. Olga and Stacy weren't even there. They were visiting a friend. So we had fun without them. 

When I got home Alina and Chris were already setting up Game of Thrones. So I watched that with them. And I finished the day off playing Neverwinter with Alex (my nephew). I just realized I can't use Alex L because that's taken or Alex M because that's taken as well. Maybe I can do Alex M-L? Yeah. That's seems legit. Played Neverwinter online with Alex ML for an our. :)

P.S. Was in terrible pain last night because I had a bag of carrots for dinner. And I don't chew well so I'm still dealing with sharp pieces moving through my intestines. :(

Decision day

So the only thing that I need to do today is to decide which team I want to join. I've talked to the same number of people on them. I have a good idea of pros and cons. I'm leaning toward one team so I can make more impact. Both teams have significant downsides. But that shouldn't stop me. I have to transfer. Delaying the decision will only slow me down. I'm tired of stress.

Yesterday I went to Tempest. Haven't gone a couple of days and was excited to try things again. But 20 minutes into it I rolled my ankle and limped for the rest of evening. I bounced on my back a little ... and pushed some weights. Made another two hours pass by. But ultimately limped away. Now I don't know if I'll be able to play soccer. I'll have to get out of bed first.

Last night I was looking at the numbers of women I've messaged. Because given how many I've tried to message... it just wasn't adding up. So I added an extra check for the WebDriver wait to look for a confirmation before moving on. I think it would be very disappointing to find out that only 1 in 5 messages I sent out went through. So I didn't dig any deeper. Then I looked for more people and ran into Alex K (Sasha from high school) on OkC. Messaged her and we had a brief chat. Given that we've deleted each other as friends on Facebook a few times over the years I don't think it's a match made in heaven, but she's a cool person. And I've got nothing to lose.

Time to live the dream.

The deadline for me to pick my next team is fast approaching. It's getting nerve-wrecking. I might just end up tossing a coin. The fact that my manager is an jerk and his bad review will cost me $$$ is beginning to really sink in. I think I have a lot more fighting to do. Or I could let it go and focus on other things. But ultimately... I care about how far I make it. So... I'll fight on. But I am tired of losing sleep over it. Catch 22.

In other news, I bought a ticket to Canada yesterday. Going there mid June to catch the NXNE music festival and all other festivities that come with it. So excited. Paid extra to fly on the weekend because Rui is having her wedding right on the weekend that I wanted to spend in Canada. Siiiigh. So far I don't know where I'm staying and who I'm spending time with. This leaves the door open to find someone there online right now or find a friend to come with me.

Working hard again

So in news there's nothing too big. I'm asked to find a new team by the end of the week. So I'm looking. Had a 1 on 1 with a dev from another team. Need to have a few more this week. Today is going to be a short day though. I have a Skype call with Anna K and then Alex L is coming over around 19:00 so we can work on his grandpa's computer together. With all that it doesn't leave too much time to work today. But I don't feel bad since I left work at 21:30 yesterday. I was working. Hard.

I had a meeting with my boss's boss yesterday and he basically said I shouldn't pursue anything and should just let things go. I don't think he understands the gravity of how upset I am. But then again he has no incentives to take my side since I'm leaving his org. Well, there's a chance I will be. That's pretty much it. It's been dead otherwise.

When I got home I was yet again listening to another podcast that was trying to convince me to take action to achieve my dreams. Actually it was saying that dreaming too much hinders progress. And it's a mental tool to snap out of it - find reasons to take action. So even thought I was tired yesterday, I adjusted my script to message liked girls on OkC going through all the pages, instead of just the first. We'll see how that pans out. But I'm pretty sure  I'll need add a hell of a lot more filtering if I'll run out of search-results and have to resort to swiping again. I realize swiping is how I ended up messaging women in Canada. :/

Mother's Day.

So yesterday was Mother's Day. Not something we celebrate  in Belarus, so it's still weird and not even on my calendar. My sisters wanted to get together, so we went to a buffet. My older sisters went to a movie before hand. There was an idea that others could go after. However I'm not sure who was in charge of planning, so everything just kind of went weird. I ended up picking up grandpa. One of my sisters took him back. My dad called me if I could pick him up as well. I said yes, but I told him I couldn't take him back. I was keeping the evening free to maybe go see Katie, Hope or Alina M.

My dad drove alone. He got there on time. Grandpa and I were next. My sister and Chris were late. I kept rushing them out the door, but I ended up leaving first. And I knew I would get there faster because I'm on a car... and they're not. My older sisters were there shortly after. But I don't think it mattered that much ultimately. We had reservations but I think they would have accommodated.

This is the part where I review the buffet, but I'll just summarize it: cheap buffet, crappy food. Like a 3/5 crappy. So, edible, but I didn't go for seconds of anything.

My sister brought my birthday camera. It's nice. Takes good photos at night. That's why I got it. Makes me happy. I want to take time this week and actually read the manual to see all the cool things it's capable of. I went to Fry's after and bought an SD card so now I just need to order a strap and I'm good to own.

After the buffet things got confusing. Nobody knew what they wanted to do. I started looking up movies like someone's mentioned we should. My dad said he doesn't want to wait for plans to materialize and left. My older sister, niece and grandpa went home. Chris and Alina went to IKEA with my other sister. And I took my nephew Tony to the movies to see Avengers: Civil War.

What a good action-movie. The drama was pretty crappy and uncharacteristic. But I didn't even notice. Tony had to point it out. So I liked it. It definitely made more sense than Superman vs Batman. Though... not much more. I put myself into the villain's shoes and realized that the whole plan was banking on Iron Man being an idiot and being at the right place at the right time.

Afterwards I heard back from Hope, Alina M and Katie and they were all indisposed. I messaged Tatiana and Miho to see if they were free. But one was studying and the other already in her PJs. So I went home instead and started working on rooting my phone. Since I had it encrypted, just wiping it was taking over an hour, so I watched game of thrones with the roommates.

And today.. I don't want to go to work because of the political forecast.

Dehydrated

Dear diary:

I should probably stop drinking. It's become too often of an occurrence. This week I drank on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. And I'm not happy about it. I think it's too often, but most importantly it's detrimental to my work outs. I went on a hike yesterday. Same place as last week but I only went up to the first view point and back. So ~2.4 miles. I went fast and skipped/run down. But getting started was very difficult. And then at Tempest I was just fatigued. I used less weights than normal and I felt like my body was recovering from ingesting poison. Ethanol! And today I thought about going to the beach, or having breakfast with someone, but since it's 11:00 and I'm still in bed, it's not happening.

Friday was an okay day. My manager took a vacation day and didn't show up to work. I wonder if it has something to do with our disagreements. I worked diligently and was going to stay working late. But Alan suggested we go out or something and I took him up on his offer. Him, Annmarie and I got food at the food truck thing and then watched Harold and Kumar go to White Castle at their place. Good evening. Except.. I drank again. Siiiiigh.

Annmarie suggested I try this dating app called Bumble. It has a distinguishing features to favor women by making it so that only girls can make the first move. If you know about the Stable Marriage Problem solutions, you know that it gives an edge to the proposing party - women. So logically I shouldn't participate. However, such a marketplace would be more favorable to women not found in other settings online. So I'm trying that now. First day is a success as I've now had one conversation. That's a whole conversation more than I've ever had on Tinder (in LA).

But.. today is mother's day. I have people I need to speak to.

Management trouble.

Dear diary,

I guess now I have something not-so jolly to write about. It's Friday. I'm up at 08:00. I would like to think it's my debilitating shoulder pain that's keeping me up. I can't drive with my right, lift anything, or do literally anything at Tempest (gym). Sleeping is uncomfortable. But, the thought that keeps me awake at night isn't about my shoulder. It's about my work. On Monday I came in to work and read our performance evaluations and found out that my boss has been seeing my work very negatively. 

My manager and I had four meetings this week to discuss this. All that I've gotten from him was that his tone was overly negative and some of the numbers he sighted weren't accurate. But he keeps telling me he can't do anything about it now. It's done. We've both e-mailed HR about this and I'm meeting with his boss next week. It's so frustrating. 

Probably the most frustrating thing is that I was already pretty much on the way out from under him already because he had the brilliant idea to break up our team. Now I have been considering staying with a team under my manager because it's familiar... but not anymore. Him and I have been coworkers for 3.5 years. I saw him rise to team lead and then manager. And I saw him go from being a good developer, to a beginner manager to a self-righteous crusader who pulls opinions out of his butt when he needs to support his hypothesis. 

The caveat here is that it's my performance review that the next manager is going to see. And up until Monday my reviews have been very good. He's slapping on a final "fuck you..." right before I transfer out. So that's been keeping me up at nights.

In the mornings I've been waking up.. reluctantly going to work. Then back home and watching TV. No, I don't feel defeated or anything. I'm just stressed. And this is the stupid kind of stress. The kind that just messes with you. There's no benefit to me being stressed. Cards will fall where they may and I will go as far as I can to get my record clean again. 

It's hard to focus my thoughts right now. I think there are things I would like to discuss. Like I saw my ex's car at the grocery store yesterday. Or that I got too busy to message women. Or that my second date on Monday went nowhere fast. Or that it's been a gift-exchange week. Alex L got me my shot glasses, I got him a chemistry blanket, Tanya bought me a camera for my birthday and Rui asked for a Peruvian blanket as her Christmas present. Friends and family.

This Sunday I was going to drive down about 01:30 to meet a girl from OkCupid but it's mothers day and my sisters want to get together. I guess I need to change my plans. I also want to go on another hike same day. I didn't like getting destroyed last week. Wednesday was the first day I could walk upstairs without pain. Ouchie. Out of shape.

It's been 30 minutes. I should start the day. The sooner I start it the sooner it will be over. And I already want it to be over.