The Coast

I took a short day trip out to the Bodega Bay area yesterday. It was really quite fantastic. The coast takes on a whole different life during the winter. Oddly enough, its usually warmer there this time of year by a few degrees than it is inland. And with the Pacific cranking out storm after storm, the sea can be quite wild...and dramatic. I was able to catch the beach at low tide, which made for some nice tidepool expeditions. Afterwards, I climbed up to Bodega Head, where a group of people were doing some Whale Watching. I saw no whales, but did see a few seals in the surf below.

The photos can be viewed here.

Work is still...work. Friday was a shitty, shitty day. Some of it was self induced, too. On top of that, I had a total migraine all day.

Oh well, maybe next week will be better.

I can't think of a title.

I watched the "Criterion Collection" edition of one of my favorite movies last night, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". The movie always leaves me feeling unfulfilled. Not by the film itself, as its fantastic, but the overall sense of searching for something, building towards something, and ultimately, failing. A huge wave of momentum that finally peaked, and crashed, and as Thompson puts it, if you look west, you can see the high water mark...

The search for the American Dream is ultimately unfulfilling, as is my own search for my own dreams.

But a part of me feels that I haven't een really begun to look.

So when will I?

Work was again incredibly hectic this week. I guess help for me up front is on its way, but there's no timetable right now. Until it, I'm going to have to take things as they come, one day at a time, and try to get as much done as possible. I'd love some long term plans, or something to look forward to, but when its just such a struggle to get things done on a day-to-day basis, how is that even possible?

The dream again goes unfulfilled.

I've done nearly nothing this weekend. Some friends of my parents came by yesterday and we went out to lunch, which was nice. Today I went out to lunch too, but nowhere special, and by myself. Aside from that, its been nearly non-stop video games, with an aside last night for chatting to a friend, the one known as EST.

You know who you are.

But who am I?

Mid-January, and already burnt out

The title pretty much says it all. Work is just killing me right now. Last week was maybe the hardest week I've had there so far, if you can believe that. One person got fired, and another one is quitting at the end of this week. Coupled with that, we had an unprecidented onslaught of business last week. Those two things really kind of combined to form the perfect storm, at least on my end. People were pissed because stuff wasn't getting done in time, and likewise, I had more stuff coming in on my end than I knew what to do with. One customer literally gave me a headache for half the day. Thats different than the headache I have today, though. Or hell, maybe it's not.

I did at least have a 3-day weekend, with Monday off in honor of Dr. King. Thank you for all you've done, Dr., and not just for the day off, heh.

But just when I thought things were going to be alright, I'm already starting to burn out. I'm still trying to get caught up on work left from Thursday, nevermind today.

Okay, enough of that crap, about the weekend. Saturday, I helped my stepdad and his friend briefly with his friend's trucks' transmission. Grabbing a solid block of metal when its 40 degrees out with your bare hands is *not* the best idea in the world. However, I made a good day out of it by going to Berkeley that afternoon and picking up some CDs. Ah yes, Amoeba Music...where would I be without you? One of the greatest havens of music in the free world; and thats nothing compared to the San Francisco store, which is much, much larger.

Sunday I kind of just fucked around...went and did some more shopping, mainly for stuff I needed (ie clothes, toletries). After that, a nap, and then later some TV. I got to stay up and watch all those insanely crazy Adult Swim cartoons I dig so much for the first time in ages! And I mean really stay up, like until 2 am...it was rad. Monday (and yes this is complicated so bear with me) my niece's mother (or my brother's daughter's mother...no they aren't married) popped out another kid, so we all had to go see it. Meh. The second half of the afternoon was spent wandering idly around Target, with me ready to pass out due to lack of any real food all day.

Now I've really gotta go back, because I realize I haven't posted in quite some time...New Years at my brothers was quite fantastic, really. The only buzzkill was that they decided to watch some dopey movie, which killed the party completely until about 11:15. I got nice and drunk, not to the point where I'm embarassing myself, or I could remember anything that went on, but to the point where I'm having fun with the little things in life...like the shape of my hands. Or lighting off a firecracker. Yes, theres an intelligent combination! On New Years my friend, his wife and I went out for breakfast.

I'd rather not talk about the following weekend. It sucked. But I did make a few hundred bucks.

Video Games are starting to consume my spare time, at least slightly. I don't know if this is a good thing or not, because it's not exactly a productive use of time, yet at least it keeps me from getting bored, and when I get bored, I start thinking really self destructive and stupid things. Plus, it's nice to take out some inner aggression. Better to pretend to blow random people away than to actually do it, no?

Fuck, fuck fuck fuck. Not sure why I wrote that, but so be it.