Standing on the Shoulder of Giants

Hello everyone from New York, the Big Apple, its a hell of a town, and all that jazz (oh wait that is Chicago). I'm here for the week for work so I plan on seeing the sights, eating some NY pizza to see what everyone is talking about, see some peeps, and oh yeah, do some work. I flew in a few hours ago...and boy are my arms tired! Yeah I probably made that lame joke many times beforehand. I flew in on JetBlue which is quickly becoming my favorite airline because of the Direct TV and Arizona Ice Tea. However, I am quickly becoming sick of flying since I have done so much of it these couple years. I like traveling but breathing five hours of recycled air is still something I don't look forward to. Anyways, what do I think of New York so far. Well, I haven't seen much of it since i have been here only a few hours. It was kinda cool seeing street signs and exit signs for places I have heard so much about in movies/TV. I saw a sign for Queen's Blvd so I got my Entourage fix going. I am staying in Chelsea, which apparently everyone thinks is in Mass and not in NY. Sorry, I am as NY ignorant as they come since it is my first time here. I did walk around 7th and 6th streets and tried to go to a CVS that was closed. I guess I will venture out more later this week when I am not so wasted from sitting on a plane for 5.5 hours and then a hour cab ride into the city from JFK. It is supposed to snow the next couple days so I guess I will get the full NY experience.

What else has been going on as of late? Well, this past weekend I had an unofficial SCU OMIS 5 year reunion at my place with Walter + Carolynn (line), Amanda, Camille, and Cindy. Yeah we couldn't believe it has been five years since we graduated from undergrad. It was fun catching up with them. Some of us (like me and Amanda) went to grad school and got our masters, Walter is getting his MBA, and Cindy and Camille have progressed in their careers. And Camille is now in charge of managing someone which is amusing to hear about since her reportee is dumber than a Texas redneck (which not ironically she actually is). And of course, we all lamented that many of our friends that graduated with us and now married, in the process of getting married, and/or thinking about getting married. Now I have been pretty clear about what I think of marriage and none of the attendees to the unoffical reunion have gotten married, but it is sometimes funny to hear about it. Especially, one of our former classmates who according to Walter, is about to walk into the world's worst marriage to a certified golddigger who he decided to marry after spending a whopping 5 days in person together with. Needless to say when your overseas bride demands you buy her a new car, a new house in Silver Creek, and a 1200 person wedding and gets insanely jealous at any other women who happens to say hi to her fiance, yeah that is a golddigger. Poor guy. I would feel sorry for him but he should have known better.
But we did trade stories about the past, especially annoying ass former classmates who wish would die horrible deaths. Including a former group member who still owes each of us $40 bucks from a project we did that he did roughly 2% of the work on. There is also another former classmate who will all hated because he was a condescending know it all who openly boasted about buying a disabled parking placard off someone at the DMV so he could park in the disabled parking spots. Anyway, we would be in the ocmputer lab working on our programs and he would come in and ask us for help. He said he was having trouble with his program and asked me how I did this one operation so I showed him. He then spent the next 10 minutes picking apart what I did wrong, that I passed too many variables or some shit like that. Walter pretty much summed it up, "I wanted to punch him in the face then and if I ever see him again, I will." I was so glad he got rejected from grad school. Sometimes you have to wallow in the misery of others, especially if those others are huge egotistical jerks who smuggly admit they park in disabled parking spots when they are in fact, not disabled.

Speaking of nostaglia, I recently finished reading King Dork by Frank Portman. I was a good book, especially if you were really into music in high school (no not band but debating artists, bands, and listening to the radio). It's a funny book and I recommend it. However, it did bring up something that I have noticed lately. While King Dork does not explictly state what time period it is, I assumed it was supposed to take place in a modern day high school. However, many of the minor things that are in the book probably no longer take place in high school. For example, he writes about how someone's answering machine tape is full, the main character goes to a library to find books for a paper, and the main character, at one point, frantically tries to find a pay phone to make a call. Now that would have taken place when I went to high school but not now, what with Google and cell phones. I noticed it again when I watched My Life Disoriented on PBS, a supposedly more realistic look into the currently lives of Asian American teenagers. Except the main character writes in a diary still. I mean, I thought teenagers these days would have at least electronic diaries, blogs, or Myspace or something. I suppose that is the flaw with older writers trying to write about what they think teenagers do these days. I know I have no idea. I guess Cameron Crowe had a good reason to pretend he was a high school student so he could do research for Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Anyway, this entry has gotten real long so I probably won't recounr the wedding I went to or the two housewarming parties I went to, other than that Cari was at Noor's housewarming party because there is a high likely hood she will comment if I don't mention that. Anyway, later aligators.

Peace