Bring It On Down

Hello again after yet another long break from blogging. Life continues as usual for me, which essentially consisted of work and ummm non-work. So yeah work has been uber busy for me. Since I have been doing all these field studies, I now have the not-so fun duty of analyzing the data and writing the reports. I have a backlog of reports to write so that is pretty much how I planning on spending the next week and a half. And yes, I'll be heading out to North Carolina for hopefully my last work travel trip of the year. In addition to that it is performance review time which brings it fair share of stress. But there have been some cool moments. The week before last, I went to house warming party (or as they say across the pond, flat warming) and this past week I went Karoke Bowling where I got to sing "I'm Gonna Be (500 miles)" by the Proclaimers with an actual Scottish person. Although I am still unsure what the exact definition of "havering" is. And yes, I am on the UX Dodgeball team again and unbelievably we actually won a game.

So what else has been going on? Oh yeah, I was literally seconds away from a potentially serious collision yesterday. On Saturday night, DJ, CWP$ and I were carpooling up to Kenny's party. The party was in Lake Merritt part of Oakland, which doesn't have the best reputation. Yeah, my sister Jinah even warned me about locking up and not leaving anything valuable in my car. So we were driving in Oakland to Lake Merritt when I was driving through his intersection where my direction had a green light for literally 10 seconds. To my left, this other car comes speeding down 50, probably closer to 60 miles per hour through a red light. I slam on my breaks and the other car literally skims the front of my bumper and rips off my front license plate. The other car did not slow down at all after he hit me and speed off without stopping. A few more inches and yeah he would have slammed right into my front side full speed. And the even worse thing is that the other actually slow downed a little bit before running the red and then sped up when he went through the red light into the intersection. Yeah 3-5 more seconds and I would probably be typing this blog entry from a hospital bed or worse.

I fully recovered from the incident and enjoyed the rest of the party. It had more of those just graduated from undergrad, first post-grad job types there. It is kind of nostalgic looking back at the part of life but also kinda annoying to question I was that naive when I was that age. And apparently this party was attended by literally the stupidest 27 year old alive because everyone who talked to him wanted to punch him in the face. For the record, I am 28 so it wasn't me. After the party we went to the Lake Merritt bakery for chicken and waffles (I had only the chicken because I am not a waffle type of guy.) Today, I helped Jen move along with Percy and Doris. And I ended up inheriting even more of Percy's stuff to go along with most of his old dishes and kitchenware.

Oh yeah some random stuff that I am going to do mini-rants on:

1. Young couples with kids in stollers who don't say "thank you" when you open/hold doors for them. Geez I was only trying to make sure your kid doesn't end up with a malformed face when the door slams him/her in the face. Yes, obviously that sentiment doesn't deserve a thank you at all. Such rude behavior is the very defintion of being "lame."

2. Couples who are jonesing for kids who interogate couples with kids and make conversation very uncomfortable for single people. At Walter's BBQ, there was this newlywed couple that was clearly jonesing/wanting for kids who literally spent an hour interogating this other couple who had a year old kid about breast-feeding, labor/birthing techniques, and other topics that would great for a private consultation with a doctor but not when I am trying to eat.

3. Friends of my enemy who are my friends. Well I wouldn't go as far as to say "enemy" but I have a few friends who are still friends with people I am no longer friends with for good reason or with people I just find not to be good people. Hell, I am friends with people that some of my other friends don't care for. But my only qualm is to make sure to keep those friend groups separate. Usually, once the divison has been made clear, I choose a side and stick with it. And if I don't choose a side and remain friends with both, I keep the circles as separate as I can. Meaning I don't even mention any activites I did with one set of friends to the other set, who obviously could care less. That's the way it should be. Total separation.

So I guess this entry pretty much serves to wrap up my summer. I did a hell of a lot of traveling and had some fun times. All and all a very enjoyable summer. As for September, it looks like I got a few things coming up. A few parties to go plus I have to do some long overddue stuff. Oh yeah, there is a new person in my apartment community. Just goes to show yah that I have impeccable taste when it comes to apartments. Anyway until next time, peace.