Strange, yet memorable dream(s)

Actually, it was really one of those dreams where it was two dreams sort of morphing into one, with no transition at all between them.

The first part of the dream was rather brief, but dealt with my family going to an amusement park. This dream I remember the least, but I seem to remember something about me chasing my younger brother throughout the park, getting in the way of the path of some rides, only to have me grab him out of there in the knick of time. The rest of my family didn't really seem to care what he was doing though, except for me. Read into that as much as you'd like.

The second dream was much more memorable though. I was in a direlect part of some town. I don't think it was where I live, but I'm pretty sure it was the bay area...maybe Oakland or Richmond or something? Possibly, as I was near that part of the region last night. Anyway, I recall there being a run down storefront with a gutted building and several windows smashed. Every building was like this. There was trash in the streets.

A group of people were acting like they'd had enough of that lifestyle, and wanted to rise up and take action. Before I knew it, a riot broke out! I thought at first, it might be fun to join in, so I kicked in a few windows with my boots and smashed a storefront. Good oldfashioned wholesome fun. But I noticed things turning ugly quickly, especially when the police showed up in riot gear, and they started beating up people left and right. It was really brutal, and the whole situation devolved into a sheer, utter, brutal chaos seemingly within minutes, as fires broke out, and blood ran through the streets.

Fortunately for me, I had my camera with me, so I could chronicle this mayhem. And indeed, I did--I was able to capture some amazing, breathtaking shots, that surely would be a visual indictment on the system as a whole when--shit! I was caught! Surprisingly enough, I wasn't beaten up or anything, but rather sat down in alley with a few other folks who had been caught. Much to my surprise, my friend Felix was there (btw, sorry dude if this embarasses you or anything ;) ). After sitting for a while the cops took me aside and gave me a lecture on protecting the face of the police force, and how taking such photographs would destroy the integrity of the city, or something like that. Of course thats exactly what I had in mind. Oddly enough they didn't confiscate destroy my equipment, they just let me be on my merry way, along with Felix. Him and I went to a safehouse of his where many of his other friends and confidants were. Oddly enough, he then changed into a hippy, complete with super-long hair, a headband, and a tie dye shirt. And almost instantly before my eyes. We all ended up smoking pot, and reviewing the photos I had taken earlier in the day. That was pretty much the end of the dream.

Newsworthy news!

I have an interview with a company in San Rafael next Thursday at 11...and its for graphic design! Huzzah! I won't give too many details, but I remember sending them a resume about a week ago and thinking it was kind of a longshot that they would get back to me. Hey, I guess you never know. We'll see how this goes...

Friday Thoughts

I haven't taken any new photos lately, so here's a random one from the NASCAR race I went to last June. Now looking at this photo, I've really no clue why I took it!

Got my new glasses yesterday afternoon, and after a few hours of wearing them, I decided that anti-glare lenses were a total necessity. The glasses I have now are anti-glare, and compared to the new glasses, they really make a world of difference. Driving home last night, I was seeing a lot of reflections and "ghost images" in the lenses that I was just not used to at all, and were quite distracting. So I decided today to take the new glasses back and have them put in the anti-glare lenses after all. It was $60, but now that I've seen the difference between the two with my own eyes, I think its well worth the cost. After all, its only money.

And speaking of spending money, I made a completely foolish impulse buy, which is nice because I haven't had one in a while. I went to the "Suncoast" video store in our mall yesterday after picking up my glasses, and saw that the store was going out of buisness, and all DVDs were 30% off. I've been wanting to get the Yogi Bear complete series DVD set ever since I knew it was out, and it just happened to be there. Granted it was $30, but the regular price at that location was $45--which is an inflated mall price, I'll admit, but I haven't seen the DVD in any store or online for less than $35. So yes, a savings was had after all!

Got a jury duty notice in the mail today, uh oh! I made sure to fill out the notice right away, and Ive already mailed it off. It's for March 27th. This is surprisingly enough the 3rd time I've gotten a notice since I moved into this house 3 and a half years ago. Before that, I only had one notice ever. Generally I've "lucked out", jury wise at least. The last time, I ended up serving half a day, and before that, the notice was for Christmas Eve, and I didn't have to serve at all. I wonder what will happen this time.

There were quite a few promising job postings on Craigslist just now, 2 of which I responded to. A shame so few of them put any kind of contact info besides an email address now. Many of them don't even bother to say what company they are, and I generally don't respond to them if they can't provide such details as to which company they are, or where exactly they are located. However I broke that rule and sent a resume any way to a company that provided little info, because the position looked fairly desireable.

Also, my younger brother is officially moving out to a group home this Sunday afternoon. I guess he'll come back on the weekends, but will be at the home on the weekdays (in addition to still going to school).

Lastly, regarding a family function, I was invited to a dinner by my aunt and uncle on my dad's side tomarrow evening. I haven't been to their house in a long, long time, and I'll probably be seeing people I haven't seen in a long, long time. Here hoping that goes well...

Late Feb already...

First of all, an update. The other day I posted a few pictures of the snow that had fallen nearby. Heres what the mountain looked like today.

As you can see, heres what 3 days of California weather does to a mountain of less than 4000 feet with snowfall. Granted, it was pretty cold on Sunday and still fairly cool on Monday, but the snow had diminished significantly even by Sunday. Today it was in the mid 60s, and tomarrow it will be even warmer, so I imagine the snow will be all gone by then. Sorry about all the power lines and trees and shit, but I had to shoot this from the street in front of my house, as I didnt really have the oppertunity to shoot where I shot from on Saturday morning.

I think...I'm going out of my fucking mind. I've been browsing job boards online a lot this weekend, and even emailed in a few resumes, but it just doesn't seem like theres anything I'm qualified for, or anything that looks particularly desireable to me. And just about anything that promises work to entry level job seekers, I almost immediately suspect is a pyramid scheme. Which reminds me too--those bastards that I interviewed with in November are still trolling the job boards as much as possible, so watch out for them!

I guess my younger brother is moving out next week. I really don't know how to feel. I do know that my younger brother is moving out of the house before I am is a severe blow to my psyche right now. Like I said, I think I'm going out of mind. I have nothing to do, nothing to look forward to, and really, nothing to live for. Of course I don't mean that to sound as dramatic as it might seem to some, but it's true.

If something, anything, could come along, short of an outright scam, I think I might just jump on the oppertunity. At the samet time I think I'm being too picky in the job selection process, I also think I'm not being picky enough, as I dont want to get into something I'll hate, or even worse, something sketchy like that pyramid scheme.

So if there are any prospecitve employers in the SF Area reading this blog, drop me a line, why dont you.

Snow!

This is Mt. Diablo, whose summit is...oh maybe 5 or 6 miles from my house, as the crow flies (much longer if you hike or drive. Every so often, this mountain of 3800 feet gets a nice dusting of snow. However, while this used to be a near-yearly occurance, I don't believe much if any snow has fallen up there for several years, so this is the first time in a while that the mountain has seen significant snowfall. Of course, it very very rarely snows here in the valley in Concord. I can only recall one time about 7 years ago, and even then it was mixed in with rain, and it did stick for all of 20 minutes or something.

This photo gives a little bit better perspective. Like I said, the moutain is about 3800 feet, so I would put the snow level at or around 2000 ft. These photos are actually taken a couple miles closer to the mountain, at one of the entrances to the state park. This photo actually makes the mountains look a bit more distant than they actually are. The one at the top is a photo of the main peak zoomed all the way, and pretty clearly you can see structures at the peak, so that should give a better idea of just how close it is.

Mt. Diablo is an interesting place though. Comparitively, its barely a mountain anyway, more like just a really big hill. But in an area surrounded by mostly smaller hills on the west and east, valleys on the north and south, and the great Central Valley a little further off to the east, it looks like a giant. On clear days you can see it from Sacramento, a good 60+ miles to the northeast. And likewise, the view from the top on a clear day is amazing. You can see up to 300 miles north to Mt. Shasta, but you get a pretty amazing panoramic view of the SF Area even when the distance isn't that great. It was also a very sacred site to many local native american tribes, and I believe got it's spanish name of "Diablo" from that association, as well as the many craggy outcroppings all around the mountain.

Right now the weather is a bit...uhdecided. It was raining like mad a few minutes ago, but now the sun has poked through the clouds and made everything brilliantly bright. I imagine it will be raining again soon though. And as you can imagine, this is a very cold storm, which of course brings the snow (I imagine more will fall up there tonight). Hopefully a day or two after the storm there will be some brilliantly clear days where I can get some better shots of the receeding snowline.

Some backyard photos...and passing thoughts...

Its a jungle out there, isn't it? I guess this is what my backyard would look like if you were 3 inches tall. An interesting perspective to say the least, to be so small and insignificant. Maybe this photo holds some meaning because this is how I feel. Not so much in that I feel like I'm being ignored, but rather that the tasks before me at this point seem insurmountable. Am I ever going to find a full time job? I imagine the answer is "yes", but then it begs the question, will I be pleased with it?



Here's my cat sitting in the windowsill of my bedroom. Sorry about the bad reflections, but I focused in on him as much as I could. He looks pretty happy there, doesn't he? Heh.









Okay, to continue on, there isn't much going on in life right now. Actually I take that back--there is something I could say but I think I'll save it for another day, when the circumstances are much more urgent and dire. The Daytona 500 is this Sunday, which I'll probably go over to my brothers' house and watch. Unfortunately it will be the first race I've ever seen without my favorite driver, Rusty Wallace, as he retired last year.

I guess treading into slightly political territory, I'm sure by now most know of the hunting accident involving Dick Cheney. I guess it's unreleastic to think that he will face any kind of punishment involved with this incident, but a man can dream, can't he? Anything to derail the current administration, even if it is something of this nature, would be most welcome. They should have been derailed a long time ago....hell, they should have never been there in the first place. Of course, others are quick to blame people such as myself, who refused to throw their weight behind the Democratic party, and instead choose to support one Ralph Nader; but excuse me for not wanting to take part in that dirty little political game of "the lesser of two evils". At least not now. This should be an interesting election year though. The wheels have clearly come off the Republican juggernaut, especially with regards to the Bush administration. But will they stop for a quick repair and be on their way, or will they finally get a much deserved kick in the ass? Perhaps that hinges not so much on the Democrats' ability to paint anyone associated with Bush in a negative light, but rather the Republicans' ability to paint the Democrats in an even worse light--which they've been quite successful at, I might add.

Also, Arnold is running for reelection this year here in California. This should be interesting, because while he has brought a sense of confidence to the Governor's office, the sorry truth is that he just simply hasn't really done *anything* of worth. California may be slightly better off than we were in 2003, but it really doesn't seem like it.

Okay, enough of this.

Eyes

Thats basically how my eyes still look after being dialated earlier. They aren't nearly as sensitive to light as they were earlier today, but the pupil dialation is about the same (actually, maybe a bit smaller). I also punched up the brightness, a little contrast, and punched up the saturation in the red hues to that I didn't look a nice sickly green. You can get a general impression of what my pupil looks like, more or less. The light was provided my computer monitor (I wouldn't dare use my camera's flash, even under normal circumstances using a flash that close is akin to occular suicide!)

The biggest downside of going to the eye doctor is that entire process of dialating the eyes so that the doctor can look inside them. But I've had worse done (stuff like field of vision tests and whatever). The good news, my prescription is still the same, which means my eyes have remained basically unchanged in the few years since my last visit. Likewise, he didn't really find anything out of the ordinary while looking into my eyes, so thats fortunate as well. Of course I will have to drop some serious cash on new glasses, but the prices frankly weren't that bad, especially considering I'm without insurance right now. I'll get the new glasses in probably 10 days or so. And the doctor was great too--very friendly indeed. When I told him I hadnt had a checkup in several years because I had been dropped from insurance and was in college, he gave a reassuring "oh yeah Ive been down that road too..." instead of some dumbass lecture about proper eye health or whatever. Few things piss me off more than when a doctor (or dentist) begins to lecture about such things.

The Super Bowl, and new glasses...soon

Okay, first of all, the Super Bowl was this past Sunday, just in case you didn't know. I think I'm pretty safe in saying that its the biggest sports event that America has going, and its practically a national holiday. In spite of the fact that I couldn't give two shits about the teams in it this year, the football fan in me was compelled to watch.

I got a call early Sunday morning from my older brother (well...9:00, but considering I was up until 2 the previous night...) inviting me over to his place for the game. Him and his roommates were having a party, and the past few years Ive gone over there, so why not? I had to pick up some drinks for the party though, which leads me to this warning for the general public: avoid the grocery store an hour before the Super Bowl if you can. That place was as packed as I've ever seen it. Lines full of people buying god knows what kind of snack foods, sodas, and beer. And few, if any of them with an actual functioning brain cell in their head. The people in front of me were taking up the entire line space in a way that I couldn't load anything up onto the conveyor until right before they were going to pay. Even more confusing was the fact that they only had 3 items! Gargh...

Okay so I got my drinks (which ended up only being consumed by me and me only, though I bought some fairly high quality stuff...) and I get to the party. There was probably 10-12 people at most there, which is about right as far as I'm concerned. I've never been a huge party person and when theres a huge gathering I tend to just stay out of the way more often than not. But since I knew most of the people there, and it was a small gathering, I could relax just a bit and focus on the game. Only I didn't even watch the game until the 2nd quarter, because I stood outside with my brother and one of his roomates listening to them talk, and grill. Of course, the weather was fantastic, close to 70 degrees out, so being outside was preferable.

The game was a different story though. The officiating was just attrocious, and the gameplay overall was mediocre at best. But in the end, the Pittsburgh Steelers prevailed, and they became the 3rd team in history to have 5 Super Bowl championships (the other two being my beloved 49ers, and the hated Dallas Cowboys).

This week has been punctuated by really just fantastic weather. As usual, our winter lasted all of maybe 2 months. Now begins out extended Spring, where we alternate between brilliantly sunny, increasing longer days, and rainstorms. The most schizoid weather begins this time of year. But right now, none of that matters, because its so lovely out. I should go out and snap a few photos before the week is over.

But some more good news, I finally broke down and decided I just absolutely need new glasses, so Friday I have an appointment to get my eyes examened, and then get fitted for a new pair (which I probably won't be able to pick up until next week at the earliest). This is something I've been putting off for a while, mainly because I was waiting for the right oppertunity (read: price) to come along. JCPenny's was having a sale where a complete pair of glasses can be had for about $100, so I thought this was as good a time as any. Of course I don't know how well their optician is at giving eye exams, I guess on that front I have to hope for the best. If any of you have ever been through the process where they flip different lenses in front of you through that machine, it can be a distracting and confusing ordeal. Its really a game of trial and error. I don't know how they were able to perfect it at all, and I imagine in the future they will able to just take one quick look at your eyes and determine how to correct them. Until then...which is better, A or B....

yeah, more dreams...

I'll try and be semi-brief. Again, more memorable dreams! I don't know whats with me lately--either I'm having more memorable dreams lately, or my life is so dull that theres little else to dwell upon.

The first one I can barely remember now, but I was taking a ferry across the river in the delta, apparantly going out camping somewhere with a friend. I didn't really know the person I was with either, at least not in real life, but I had to stop at a convienance store to get some supplies. I got two cases of beer and some fruits, and snacks. I also remember thwarting some kind of robbery or deception attempt on the part of another customer, and getting a free orange. Also, I have images of either swimming or rowing after a ferry in the water.

The second dream was a bit more interesting. I was on stage with King Crimson, circa their "double trio" formation, except for whatever reason Trey Gunn (bassist) wasn't there (or at least I never saw him). However the other bass player, Tony Levin, was. I was there basically to add "extra percussion", which seemed a bit absurd considering Bill Bruford and Pat Mastelotto ( the drummers) were already there, but basically all I did was bang on wooden sticks in different time signatures. But the show kind of started to fall apart. For whatever reason, we were playing to a kids convention or something. Robert Fripp (guitarist), an already moody person, was of course majorly pissed, because he didn't expect that kind of crowd, and he left mid-song to go have a word with the manager. Then Adrian Belew (their other guitarist/vocalist) fell ill, so we had no guitarist, but we just carried on. They asked me to sing one of their more well known songs named "Sleepless", but I was so awful to begin with, they just played a tape of Belew's vocals and guitar parts on the PA instead, while I'll lip-synched the vocals with the ban backing me up. After that we were so disgusted with the gig that I yelled out a sarcastic "thank you, goodnight!" and we all left the stage.

Okay, heres a photo of the model car I got last week, now completed. It actually wasn't too difficult to build, I guess because I do have quite a bit of experience with kits like this. But I rush through the job most of the time, and I never have the tools nor the techniques that the real hard core hobbiests use.
So I guess bye for now.

Already, its Feburary

Hard to believe. This time last year, I was deep in working on my senior portfolio and final project. Admittedly, while a lot of it didn't turn out as I wanted, it mostly turned out fairly decently. Unfortunately though, I've been unable to find a full time job, but those trials and tribulations have been well chronicled here.

About the only exciting thing I have going right now are dreams. After all the excitement of the holiday months, theres been absolutely nothing. Actually thats not completely true--I have the freelance design job going on, and I had the concert a few weeks back. Those were pretty nice actually. I need to commit to something though--maybe I'll do what needs to be done and finally redesign my website. I did spend yesterday reworking my resume in several different versions (one in word format, and two in pdf format, with accompanying graphics and actual work samples).

Let's see what Ive done this week...Saturday was the mini-photography drive (I've really got to do more and more of these...though paying for gas sucks, heh). Monday and Tuesday I didn't do much, but yesterday I took a nice trip to Fry's Electronics. I picked up a birthday present for my stepdad, and a USB hub for my mac. For those that don't know, or might have forgotten, I have several different computers. My main one is a PC, Celeron 733, running Windows 98se (gasp!) from almost 5 years ago. It still runs fairly decently, though within the last 6 months Ive noticed it getting just a smidgen slower. About this time ast year I got an Apple Mac G3 from a friend I know online (you know who you are, a million billion thanks). Really, it was the computer that helped me get over the hump, graduation wise. Granted it isn't a fast computer at all, but it runs the programs I need it to and runs them fairly reliably, if not slowly. My 3rd computer came courtesy of my dad, who had an old PIII 800 mhz that he wanted to get rid of. I gave that computer to my parents to run in their office, and also set up a broadband router so they could use the internet in there. Then this summer, I decided I needed a more modern setup, so I picked up a bargain laptop, a compaq machine with an AMD Sempron 2800, running the latest version of Windows XP.

Now, I intend to replace the PC 733 mhz with a newer Mac, I just haven't really gotten around to it. I wanted to do it after I had secured some kind of full time job, but obviously that hasn't happened yet. Until then though, I have this wacky frankenstien computer setup where I have both the PC and G3 hooked up via a KVM switch, with a bunch of external peripherals (CD Burner, Zip Drive, printer, scanner, flash card reader, usb hubs....).

Long live frankenputer, well that is until I replace it.