Maybe I should just go play Destiny, do some dailies, or find a group to grind since I can’t sleep. Or maybe put on some ambient music to sooth my mind instead of searching for music on Soundcloud. Well I have a meeting in a few hours, I better decide if I want to be productive and level my toons or just play some tunes, flip my pillow to the cooler side, and fall asleep. Times a ticking.
Category: Random Rant
Random ramblings that are just off tangent from the rest of my topics.
New Year’s Resolution
With January coming to a close, I figured that it is time that I set and make plans for 2015. This year is going to be a short year for me since I’ll be headed to basic training in June with the Navy. Which is good, puts pressure on me to accomplish things on my list below:
- Create art installation for the kitchen/dining room
- Sketch everyday
- Truly carry my Pentax with me everyday
- Get back to church porn
- Blog more
My girlfriend and I are giving our apartment a face lift since our roomate moved out. We are now in the kitchen/dining room, they share the same space, and the walls are screaming for help. We wanted to stay on a budget but still create something unique and great looking. After cruising Pinterest for inspiration, we decided to create a bipyramid origami art piece that is roughly 5′ x 3′. Once the project is done, I’ll post pics.
I used to be a decent doodler, but that was when I drew on a regular basis. Now my doodling skills are no better than a kindergartner. Drawing is like a muscle, the more you work at it, you get gains. So for 2015 I plan to sketch everyday…. starting tomorrow.
Photography is a hobby of mine. I’m not great at taking photos, I’m decent at it but I enjoy it. Last year I planned on carrying a camera (asides from my cell phone) on my person everyday but never did. This year I’m going to do so, even if I don’t take a picture, and just carrying a camera on me everyday will give me the opportunity to take a photo.
Church porn? No, it’s not the new sex club in SF. Church porn is a photo project where I plan to take a photo of every church, mosque, and house of worship in San Francisco. I started this photo project a couple years ago, just never followed through with it. Will 2015 be the year that I accomplish and finish this project? Only time will tell.
Blog more…. Well this post is a good start. My last post was from a very long time ago that I don’t even want to check the date on it. I’m not going to lie to myself and say that I’ll post a blog every week, but I know that wont happen. My aim is for one post every other week.
These are ambitious task that I’m planning for 2015, most of them are habits that I need to form. Once these tasks becomes a habit and I do them everyday, I’ll have my new year’s resolution done!
WWR: Insomnia & Production
It’s fifteen till four, the shades are down so I can’t tell if the sun is ready to be awake, and I’m sitting in front of the keyboard mashing away like a keyboard warrior that is armored by a single piece of chonies. In a few hours I have to be awake, teeth brushed, coffee drank, and out the door running up the hill to catch the train to work.
Not getting a lot of sleep is something that I am accustomed to, averaging 4-5 hours of sleep. lately my average is slowly dwindling down to 2 hours. Just yesterday I went to bed before four but was up by 5:30. Tonight, or should I say this morning, I am going to bed after four with hopes of getting at least three hours of sleep. When people find out that I don’t sleep much, they wonder how one can function with the lack of sleep. I wonder that too. Does the lack of sleep reduce the quality of work that I produce, attentiveness at meetings, and producing work efficiently?
I’ll tell you right now that the quality of my work is equal whether I get sleep or not, but since I ‘m not keeping any sort of record to defend what I’m saying, you can call bullshit. As for attentiveness, my attentiveness at meetings is rather high when well rested but rather low when tired. So… By not paying attention at meetings, that action alone can affect how effective I am at producing work and completing projects in a timely manner.
What about the things that I do when I’m up in the middle of the night, am I being productive with myself? No. The tasks that I do while not sleeping in the middle of the night can range from playing games to staring at the ceiling and to something random such as typing up this blog post. Meh.
Well… We are about to go off in a tangent, actually more like rambling. Lack of focus should be one of the traits from the lack of sleep. Actually consumption of alcohol is an insomnia trait that I wished I currently have. But back to the subject. No. I don’t think that I am just as productive at work when only receiving less than three hours of sleep. I told you to call bullshit. But! I work just as well, if not better, when I receive six hours of sleep or less versus sleep over 6 hours. I don’t want you to think that I don’t like sleeping when the fact is that sleeping is an activity that I do enjoy doing, especially once I am asleep.
I should be asking myself what is in the back of my head that is keeping me up… When I started this new job is about the time when my sleeping pattern shortened. Shh…. Don’t tell my girlfriend, she’ll use it as ammunition to force me to quit. Prior to starting this new job with a new company, I was getting roughly over eight hours of sleep but going to the gym at the same time. New job, no more gym time, equals lack of sleep.
Ha! I found out why I’m still up so late everyday. The reason to the lack of sleep is that I stopped working out and my body just is not ready for bed with all that pent up energy.
After quickly skimming through this post I just realized that we all need a nice vacay and I need sleep.
I do pray that this post makes sense. An English major I am not but worried that this post is garbage. Not sure if I am trying to make a point or not. Hell… I just want four hours of peaceful snoring in bed…
Time to goo mimis.
Flash Back Friday: EDC
Happy Friday Folks!
It’s not just Friday, not just a full moon Friday, nor a Friday the 13th, it’s FLASH BACK FRIDAY! Or better known as #FBF!
With Electric Daisy Carnival a week away, I had to dedicate this FBF to EDC!
So excited to head down to Las Vegas and enjoy nights under the electric sky! For those of you that have not been to EDC, it is something that I recommend you to experience. EDC is about nothing and everything!
There is so much to experience that I don’t know where to begin. The rides! Some folks go to EDC to ride the carnival rides and have a great time waiting in line while listening to music in the background. Then there are your friends! Groups of friends go to EDC together and even though they lose each other over the night, they find each other in the end. The fireworks! I’ve seen 4th of July fireworks from both coasts, San Francisco and New York, and neither one can touch EDC when it comes to fireworks display! All I can say is WOW.
Then there is the music. EDM is not everyone’s cup of tea. But one can’t deny that enjoying the music while surrounded by friends and seeing all the lights and hearing all the sounds is an experience that you will never forget!
Below are my daily recaps of EDC from last year, enjoy!
A New Chapter
Today starts a new chapter in my life.
This new chapter will not be an uneventful chapter… Or easy. I am going from a 30 minute commute to a 2 hour commute. A salary that is a fifth more than what I am making, however I’m losing the commission aspect which technically means that I am making less. Worst of all, I am leaving my friends behind.
Sometimes one has to take one step back to take two steps forward. However this new chapter is not a step back, more like a step to the side then forward.
Friday Escape – Happy Memorial Weekend!!
Holy crap! What an unproductive night for me! Sun is coming up and all I managed to do was watch the final 2 episodes of True Detective and cook myself breakfast at 2am. Then spent the next hour on Youtube watching random shit about RDA’s, builds, vape reviews, etc. On the plus side, I stumble across one of Madeon’s old video, which is one of my faves!
Don’t forget, this weekend is Memorial Weekend! Memorial Weekend means that YOU need to go outside, enjoy the sun, bbq, don’t work to much, eat food, and say thanks to all those that gave their lives to make this weekend possible! As for myself, I am working my final 2 days at my job! Been a roller coaster ride these past 2 years. THANK YOU ALL! Then on Memorial Day itself, I will be tailgating with friends and family at O.co before watching the A’s beat on the Tigers.
Let’s Go Oakland!
Now.. I’m off to crawl under the sheets and take a quick power nap before I have to be at work in a few hours.
COACHELLA!
Coachella. How can I describe Coachella? Wow. That’s the only way that I can describe my experience at Coachella. I know that ‘wow’ is a very vague term but ‘WOW’ is what I am using. Just wow because the experience was memorably good, for the most part (more on that later).
Coachella is not EDC and to compare each other is like comparing Five Guys with In-N-Out, their just two different beasts. Beast is a good word to describe Coachella because that shit kicked my ass. I would do the walk. The walk. THE WALK. The walk to the venue from the streets was forever. Then having to do the same walk home from the venue after hours of jumping and dancing under the sun is no fun.
Now I did ride the pedi cabs all three days, but I was forced to. Forced to pay the $10 – $15 a person for the ride because my gf got a nasty blister on her foot from the walk from where we were staying to the front entrance. Stepping on her bad heel doesn’t help; I swear it was an accident! These rides were short, only a third of the way from where you’re going, so you would have to take multiple rides to get from the venue to the street (49th and Monroe). On the second day we did find out that walking in from 52nd and Monroe is a shorter trip that only required one pedi cab ride but going home we still had to trek through the Yellow Path (49th and Monroe) to get to the taxis/Uber stands. I spent more money on a single pedi cab than I did all weekend using Uber.
Using Uber versus waiting in the taxi line was great! Sucks to those drivers that had to take me home since I was staying across the street, I feel a bit guilty but feeling guilty is better than feeling the wrath of a mad woman that almost ruined her first Coachella experience because I can’t walk straight. The reason I feel a tiny bit guilty, and that’s big of me to say because I HATE taxi/town car/Uber drivers in the City, is because the drivers would have to sit
I’m still exhausted from the whole Coachella experience: drive down and back, the sun, walking for miles, lack of sleep, and being robbed to ride those pedicabs. So I’ll keep this post short and write about one more thing, then I’ll just link the videos that were taken and let you watch and listen to the music that I experienced. Watch those videos, you’ll enjoy them. Plus I know that you’re into voyeurism.
The last takeaway that I have to mention about Coachella was the bomb ass ice cream. OMG! I never knew that ice cream could taste so good! I’ve tasted good ice cream before from Lords to Thriftys to the high priced gluten free ice cream from gourmet food trucks that can be found at Off The Grid. The folks from Salt & Straw drove all the way from Portland to Indio just to share the Earth’s best ice cream. Thank you! I’m not going to lie, I was skeptic at first looking at the price: $7 for a single and $10 for a double scoop. My gf was craving something sweet and I felt bad for stepping on her heel, so took a leap of fate and paid the highway robbery price for a double scoop cone of ice cream. How good was the ice cream? Let’s just say that we got ice cream every single day and didn’t even blink at the price. That’s how good it was. Next time you’re in Portland stop by their shop, there are three Salt & Straw locations. You can thank me later.
Now the music… Well some of it. I’m taking forever uploading videos onto Youtube. I’ll post more videos in the coming days.
Hello World!
The title should actually read “Hello 2014!”. Can’t believe that January is almost over and that this is my first post of the year. For 2014 I was really hoping to be more active on this blog. Still am.
Anyway, I am excited since I uploaded my first mtb video!
In the past I’ve recorded a few rides but those were my first going mtb and they just seemed a little dull. The video that was uploaded is nothing fancy; edited with Youtube’s editor and using Youtube’s music. However I’m just happy that I was able to accomplish a simple post to my Youtube channel that also motivated me to do a blog post about it.
Here’s the video below:
This was the first time at Joaquin Miller Park for my brother, so we took it easy. JMP is a hidden gem in the hills of Oakland. The trails are short, fun, and a little challenging. Since I’m still honing my skills, this park seems like it’s the perfect skill level for me.
If you have any questions about the park, what I’m riding, my gear, why the sky is blue, or have suggestions, or anything just ping me.
Cheers and ride safe for you folks on two wheels (thats both motos and pedal power).
Teaching Myself New Tricks
Don’t know if it’s my bipolar disorder that has my mind wandering or not, but I decided to get myself better acquainted with HTML/XHTML/CSS. Sigh….
Well I’m burning through HTML & CSS – Design And Build Website since I do know a bit of HTML, not a lot and not very proficient at HTML, but enough to go through the book fairly quickly. The problem with self taught books and online classes is that I never really apply what I learn to real life projects. This time around I’ll try and make a website from scratch, just hope that the site doesn’t end up looking like a Geocities website from the 90’s.
Come back by the end of the year and see whether I made a new site or lost interest in HTML.
P.S. In case you decide not to come back to my blog, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Welp…
I’m not going to lie and write that I’ve been busy with work and projects as the reason why I haven’t posted anything new on this blog. I just have been busy. Wait, I just wrote that I wouldn’t write that but I just did. Well I have been busy, just not productive.
Right before my birthday (which is in September for those wanting to steal my identity) I discovered mountain biking. Actually it is more like rediscovered mountain biking (mtb). When I was small and 100 pounds lighter, I went on a few mtb trips to Lake Chabot but never really got into mtbing. Playing Gran Turismo peaked my interest more than going out and climbing 800 ft of elevation in the heat. Somehow I got hit with the mtb bug, and that bug has hit me hard.
Why has the mtb bug hit me so hard?
Maybe because I’m having a second round of mid life crisis. No, I am having my second mid life crisis. All of a sudden there is a need to feel alive by feeling physical exhaustion, pain, soreness, and fear. All that physical abuse and negativity reminds me that there is more to life than grinding the working man’s nightmare, that I need to go out there and live! There wont always be a tomorrow so I need to go out there and seize the moment! And for now that moment is mtbing.
Some may view mtbing as an easy task enjoying scenic views and riding through gorgeous forest and parks (which is not a fault) but for myself it is challenging oneself: pedaling up 100’s of feet, staring down a rocky path, overcoming obstacles,and letting go of the brakes to ride down a dirt path over 25 miles per hour.
So even though I haven’t been busy (productive) with: projects, designs, looking for a new job, vlogging, etc. I have been feeling more alive, am lot happier, and less stress. Did I mention that I am also ten pounds lighter, eating healthier, and in better shape? Well I am 🙂
Here are some Instagram pics from a few of my rides. In the future there will be some videos. Enjoy.
Now to figure out how to have my girlfriend go on more rides with me 🙂
Full disclaimer. Even though my life isn’t perfect, I do appreciate what I have: friends, family, girlfriend, job, and life.
johnydecali 