One good thing about not having a project to worry about is that I have a lot of free time on my hands. While I guess that’s good as long as I continue to be gainfully employed, it has given me some time to rededicate myself to writing. Yes I know, that’s been a relatively empty promise I’ve made in the past, but I mean it this time, damn it!
I think the main reason for that (again) while I love home, the lack of cable TV and speedy internet hampers what I can do and I can only take so much zombie killing in Resident Evil per day. So I’ve been trying to get the know the coffee places around the area a little bit better, mainly because sadly, due to budget, the library will be closed from Christmas to New Year’s. So much for plan A.
However, to my chagrin, the two Starbucks I’ve visited do not have free wifi (even after a free wifi site noted that the Safeway/Starbucks combo had free internet). But actually, that turned into a good thing, completely blocking me from any distractions and thus enabling me to finish up one short story (about 170 lines) that I’ve tentatively titled “Change”. Tentatively because I’m sure once I wake up tomorrow I’ll have a much better title and probably lots of rewrites to work on.
In any case, hoping that the rest of my time in Maryland can be used for some constructive writing, maybe some more short stories outside of my comfort zone or some real progress on the novel, which has seen relatively no progress (sadly, ever).
As a byproduct of this, I’ll have to work on getting a “Writing” section up for rolandcarlos.net. Something simple most likely but I might resort to another WordPress template (although I don’t think a blog would be the right format for something like that).
Well, I finally managed to get out of the house. News had been reporting the main roads were relatively clear so I wanted to go out and get my new MD license. When I applied for California license, they had the foresight to punch a hole in my old MD one so that it “expire” when I get my new CA license.
Several weeks later, I am still waiting for my CA license to show up at my apartment so I decided I might as well get an unpunctured MD license so I wouldn’t raise any suspicion when driving on the CA roads (I’m sure the police would know what is up with the hole punched license).
Thanks the snow, most people didn’t put down “going to the DMV” as a high priority on their minds (in fact most people took to the malls to catch up on holiday shopping they couldn’t do over the weekend) so the whole license retrieval process took 10 minutes end to end. And wisely, MD has printers at the office so there’s no need to wait by your mailbox. They print your license for you on the spot. If CA is so great how come they can’t figure that out?
One goal for my time back complete! Now to try and find time to upgrade my old Verizon phone (the Razor has gotta go).
Gotta love the timing on this, as I leave San Francisco, which had been mired in rainy and cold days, I land in DC and by the weekend, it gets hit by a historic December storm, which dropped 16 inches of snow on the DC area. By the way, the Bay Area is enjoying sunny 60 degree days in my absence. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
In any case, my time back in Maryland has been relatively quiet. With no real project to work on, my days consist of waking up at 12PM (I have made no efforts to adjust to East Coast time) and playing PS3, browsing the internet, and trying to catch whatever TV shows the digital signal would like to show me. By the way, I’m convinced now that the switch to digital was a conspiracy by our cable and satellite providers because I seem to get nothing worth watching. Sad times.
While Saturday was nice and beautiful to see the snow continually fall on the already white ground, everyone had to deal with the unfortunate side effect of snow, which is that it needs to be cleared out. And that means, shovel time! So while Saturday was spent watching TV reports (basically you couldn’t nor shouldn’t have gone anywhere during the worst of the snow storm), Sunday was spent mostly outside trying to clear a path through the soft snow. Yes, it’s soft now, but if you were lazy and did nothing about it, the snow could easily freeze over and make any attempt to go anywhere on Monday just plain old horrible. So better to do it now rather than try and wait for Mother Nature to do its part and melt the snow away.
With the weather forecast saying that we might have more snow later this week, we had to take to the shovels now lest we truly be dug under.
Since I’ve been working in Salt Lake City for the good part of a year (I’ve been consulting there for a year? Wait, I’ve been consulting for a year?) company policy dictates that I have to spend a month in my home office, for tax reasons. Mainly because while we work in Utah, we charge our time as Utah non-residents. But, if you charge 12 months of time in a place, then you’re basically a resident, which loses you on a lot of fancy tax breaks.
So for everyone’s benefit (maybe not the state of Utah) I was told to work in Foster City from early August to Labor Day. But wait a minute, wouldn’t my home office be San Francisco? This is true. But because we had some other team members coming from San Jose, we all figured that Foster City would be the nice happy medium in between SF and SJ (it more or less is actually). If anything, I would be charging time to the great state of California.
I actually really like the situation I have working in Foster City. True, it’s not a cushy with all the flight/hotel points and free meals, but after 11 months of doing that, it’s actually very nice to be able to worry about how much dinner costs, drive myself to work, and sleep in my tiny twin sized bed. I don’t think I was getting spoiled enjoying the life out there in SLC, since I was always aware that someone (our client) was paying for everything, but as my Japan study abroad in 2005 taught me, I do enjoy the simple things.
I think it really helps that the commute to Foster City is not terrible at all, as it is a reverse commute from most people (trying to get into SF in the morning, get out at night). Foster City only clocks in at 30 minutes and you’re treated with a nice view of the water along the way. Pair that with a good selection of music from an Ipod on shuffle and you’re good to go.
The biggest change that has come through has probably been in the eating habits. For the better or worse, I’m not sure, as I’m still not really watching what I’m eating but I would imagine cooked food is better than restaurant/hotel room service. Although, I do miss the weekly sushi trips in SLC, I’ll have to make do with my curry bowls and yakisoba. There are an inordinate amount of Japanese markets/restaurants in nearby San Mateo, so I’ve eaten my fair share of Japanese food these last couple days.
But alas, the main problem with consulting is that there is so much instability. I won’t be doing this nice work situation forever. Come post Labor Day, if I’m still on my Utah project, it’s Utah bound I am.
The first rule of Shiina Ringo...don't talk about Shiina Ringo
First off, a small aside about the ridiculous conditions that the Shiina Ringo official fansite (http://www.kronekodow.com/index_e.html) has imposed on fansites. Take a look if you’re so inclined, but for some example there are some gems such as:
– Don’t put up pictures of Shiina Ringo.
– Don’t put up pictures of Shiina Ringo you’ve taken.
– Don’t put up any drawings you’ve made of Shiina Ringo.
– Don’t put up any recordings of her music.
– Don’t put up any recordings of her talking.
– Don’t put up any recordings of you imitating Shiina Ringo.
Basically, don’t do anything that appeals to your eyes or ears related to Shiina Ringo. I’m surprised her company even lets her have a musical career.
Anyway, I won’t let that detract from my enjoyment of the artist (as I post up pictures and links to her videos here, which shows my level of respect to those ridiculous fansite conditions). In a quick summary, Shiina Ringo is a Japanese musician who has enjoyed about a ten year career and major success in the Japanese market. Starting out as a solo artist, more recently she’s been more involved with her band “Tokyo Jihen” but has just released a new solo album “Superficial Gossip”. She was also known back in the day for her famous beauty mark, which she had surgically removed several years back.
But talk is cheap, what’s her music actually like? She’s one of those musician types that you can’t really tie down to one genre. Many musicians try to do this but most fail. Shiina Ringo does not. A random sampling of her music on YouTube will turn up slow ballads, fast poppy pieces, and everything in between. One of my older favorites is Mayonaka wa Junketsu, a collaboration she did with Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra.
Her newest album, Superficial Gossip is musical gold in my book. As I said before, the album doesn’t stick to just one genre of music, but everything she puts out on the album seems to work with her unique voice. For example, just take a listen to two singles from the album:
She can be as energetic and up front with her voice as needed and then she can turn it off and bring you down. Now just imagine a whole album of this, where you’re going along for pretty much a musical roller coaster. But it’s never jarring, you just go with the flow and enjoy whatever she serves.
Now pretty much realize that she’s been doing this for the 10-or-so years she’s been in the music business. It’s scary good.
Now if only her official fanclub could get their act together about media usage.
It’s scary how much music can envoke feelings in people. Case in point, I was just (as always) wandering around the internet and saw this relatively new Japanese song pop up. I had never really listened to Superfly before, but desperate for something new (as I had been listening to Wonder Girls for the good part of the week) I clicked on it anyway.
Within the first few seconds of the song, I immediately knew that I had heard the song before. It brought back a heavy feeling of nostalgia, almost to the point where you just lose focus of where you are and what you’re doing.
What was bringing this feeling around? I had to find out. Within moments I found my answer on Japanese wikipedia, it was a theme song for a morning TV show in Japan. I must’ve been exposed to it over and over when I was waking up during my last trip in May and while it was catchy then (TV theme songs usually are/have to be) I didn’t care enough to remember what it was after the show finished to actually look up who did the song.
At least until today. And I wasn’t even thinking about it. But listening to the song brought back a flood of all the good times I had during my trip, and by extension, all my time in Japan, including my time abroad. And of course, the decision I made to stay and work here for a year as opposed to working in Japan.
Heavy stuff from just a 4 minute song.
In any case, here it is, take a listen if you wish! (And man, that instrumental riff, doesn’t it sound like the perfect way to start your morning?)
As part of my daily internet wanderings, I found this quite interesting logic game. It’s similar to the chicken/grain/fox across the river puzzle we’ve probably all tried our hands at before, but with the difficulty apparently ramped up.
Simply put, you need to get all 7 people across the river. You’ve got a mom, dad, two daughters, two sons, a guard, and a criminal. (Edit: Sadly now aware that equals *eight* people.) How this group got together may be better left for another game but of course, it’s not as simple as you would expect.
Since the game is all in Chinese, here’s the basic rules:
* 1. The raft can carry only 2 people.
* 2. The father can not be left with any of the daughters unless the mother is present.
* 3. The mother can not be left with any of the sons unless the father is present.
* 4. The criminal can not stay with any family member unless the guard is present.
* 5. Only the father, mother, and guard know how to use the raft.
I got far enough to get 5 people across but then of course, I got stuck, and quit out of frustration. I’ll get you some day logic puzzle!
There’s a long storied history behind the “Giro’s Shack” blog name.
Basically, back in the dark ages of high school, I made my first blog, asked one of my online friend’s for a name, and they said “Giro’s Shack”. Giro being a nickname (for whatever reason), I had at the time. In any case, that nickname has fallen out of disuse in favor of much better nicknames (you know who you are).
Quite a long time ago. While the name has followed me along over the years and through various blog versions, I think it’s time to come up with something fancier. What that may be, I have no idea yet, but I’ll look at other popular blogs and steal get inspired.
Of course, if you have a comment on a new name, go ahead and comment! There’s the little button, right down there.
This song is honestly the musical equivalent of crack to me. I’ve listened to it nonstop since I first found it. How bad is the addiction currently? When I woke up this morning, I was excited to get the chance to listen to it again. It’s pretty scary.
I don’t know much about Wonder Girls yet, I just know they range from 17-20 right now, they’re a manufactured group from Korea who are pretty popular, trying to break into the US (a la BoA) and are reasonably cute.
You’re thinking, oh cute asian girls, of course Roland likes them. Sure, but that aside, it’s the damn song that’s catchy. The cuteness is a bonus, but I’m not playing them over and over on my IPod because I’m watching the PV.
But speaking of the PV, here it is (it gets started about 2 mins in):
(By the way, it was this image that started the search for the Wonder Girls site, as it was attributed to one of them. Pretty ridiculous.)
So here we are again, back to blogging it seems. Admittedly, I let the last one die, but I’m not sure anyone was reading anyway. So what’s the big difference with this version of the blog than previous ones?
For one thing, I’m working now, almost coming up on a year of work as I type this. With no more college in the way, I find myself on the internet much much more. I guess it’s because I’m next to my computer 24/7. At least with school, I could pretend to not to be attached to the damn thing by going to class. But no longer, my computer is where all my work takes place. There will be spill over to blogging, I hope, since I’m already hooked to that Twitter machine, something I never even considered this time last year.
What will go here? Deep thoughts? Possibly. But most likely, just casual observations. Or links to funny YouTube videos. Hey, it’s my blog after all, you’re not forced to read it if you don’t want to.
Why so antagonistic on the first welcome post? Sorry! Welcome welcome. Feel free to leave comments if you wish. I’d be interested to hear what you have to say about whatever gets thrown up here.
