it’s been a while since i added a real entry to my site. i’ve had a pretty good summer so far.

i visited my aunt and uncle and cousins for a long weekend at las vegas where they live. they rented a house boat and we all hung out with my cousins friends on lake mead. it was very very very hot there though–over 100 each day!

i also spent a week in late july visiting my parents and some of my siblings who came to visit too. it was fun hanging out with all of them and seeing my baby niece for the first time. she’s 6 months old and can almost crawl. though maybe by now she can?

i’ve been running into some weird database errors while trying to update my website. i need to re-post all of my artwork… if i keep having trouble, i might try a “gallery” style of posting the art with one of the plug-ins for wordpress.

movable type has been giving me trouble when i tried updating to the new beta. it was also running pretty slow, so i decided to try out wordpress. which is much faster and better.

so now i’ll be working on the style as well as making sure the posts are all working right

This looks fun!

last wednesday night a couple of old coworker friends met up with me and we checked out this Salsa Dance Class that’s only about 5 minutes from the Sega building. actually maybe 3 minutes. it’s very close. we arrived a little late, and caught the last of the lesson on the basic steps. thankfully i tried another salsa class a few weeks prior that was near Konami and still recalled most of the basic steps. this class was much better. two teachers (who knew salsa), about 30 people and a large dance floor. i had actually been to the place, the Metronome Dance Center, years before when i took a friend to a swing dance class there cause she wanted to try it out. anyway, we learned the basic step, and some different turns. they combined it together into a routine that by the end of the class i just about had it figured out. we all partnered up and stood in a circle around the teachers to learn the different parts of the moves. every minute or so, the leaders would rotate. the rotation can be good and can be bad. good cause you can get the feel for many different followers, but bad cause we rotated so often that it was hard to really practice some of the moves. after the lesson they had a 20 minute practice time. i practiced with one girl for a bit just doing the same routine over and over and kinda got the basic step down enough that i didn’t have to think about it. i saw a couple other girls standing on the sides looking like they wanted to practice, so i asked one lady if she wanted to. i think she was twice my age, but she gave me a few pointers that helped. it looked like a lot of the people there were regulars (the drop-in class is every wednesday night), because they seemed to know many others there. i hope to go back and keep learning cause it was a lot of fun. i’d also like to find a dance partner, or a small group at least, to practice more together. i just gotta find some people interested

the 3 day weekend went by pretty fast. on saturday night i caught the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie with some friends. i liked it more then most movie critics did . it was as good as #2 i thought, which i enjoyed too

i also went looking at Macy’s for some sales, but most of the sales were on their clearance stuff. i’m pretty choosy when it comes to shopping for clothes, but found a few shirts i liked. i wandered the rest of the mall and found nothing else that caught my eye. i’m not too big of a fan of mall’s, but sometimes it’s fun to look at the clothing shops. i looked in Nordstroms and saw a $285 pair of jeans . to me it didn’t look much better then a $35 pair from Target . i guess the unknown (to me) name-brand on those jeans made it so expensive. i wonder if people can tell it cost $285 if they see someone who bought those jeans?

the rest of the weekend included church, major room cleaning, some game playing, and grocery shopping. it was nice overall, but wishing for another day off already

it’s the last day of my first week back at Sega. it seems i keep ending up here after working at other places…

let’s see, i started at sega as a temp tester, then went to sony as a temp tester, back to sega as a permanent tester, volunteered for the downsizing to go back to school but found out prices up in WA state were way too expensive and moved back to CA and got a temp tester spot at segasoft, then got hired again as a perm tester at sega, then finally got into the web department at sega.com, got caught in the downsizing and went back as a temp tester at sega briefly, then back to sega.com contracting, then sega.com got bought out by nokia (only sega.com and not sega), i got tired of nokia and worked at konami for a year and a half, and finally back here once again at sega as a web developer cause i didn’t want to move to LA since konami is going through consolidation. whew, that was long-winded

the commute is longer, the building is the same (sega used to be in redwood city and then moved to san francisco some years ago), i’m working with old coworkers again, and there are a lot of new people i’ve yet to meet. so far it’s been pretty nice being back

so if you see any errors on the sega.com site….

last tuesday there was a big all-hands meeting at work. since i was a contractor, i didn’t get to attend the meeting because it was for permanent employees only. well, after 15 minutes, i found out the big news when my boss came out and told me that the company is consolidating to Los Angeles! i waited around till the meeting let out to see everyone stressed and sad… my boss sent me off to this Web 2.0 Expo that we were planning on going to. it felt all surreal seeing and hearing it all.

thankfully, a position at sega is still open and they still want me to join. they were trying to recruit me, but i ended up turning them down before… it was a tough decision between staying at konami and leaving to sega. i know most of the people at sega and have worked with them in the past. with the pros and cons of each, i ended up deciding to stay at konami based on the worse commute to sega. it was very hard to decide between the two… i’m very thankful they still want me to come on board. i had an interview last friday which went well if it all works out, i could be starting there in 3 weeks.

i really hope everyone at konami who is not going to LA can find something better… is anyone hiring?

Here’s some great (common sense) advice we should all follow

VNV Nation’s latest album, Judgement, arrived in the mail the other day. I was very excited to listen to it, because i’ve enjoyed all their previous albums this album is just as good and ties with my other two favorites, Matter and Form, and Futureperfect. The lyrcs are deep and meaningful and a lot of them deal with the sadness of how there is so much destruction and war and sadness in the world, and also a hope that there might be better days of happiness and peace.

One set of lyrics i really liked is on the song The Farthest Star:

We possess the power

if this should start to fall apart

to mend divides, to change the world

to reach the farthest star

If we should stay silent

if fear should win our hearts,

our light will have long diminished

before it reaches the farthest star

That really affected me when i first heard it because i’ve always been silent and fearful. But it motivated me to try harder to not fear and not be silent anymore

Musically, many of the songs are very beat driven and easy to dance to, but some are slower songs that are more relaxing. All of them are electronic sounding. I like the very last instrumental song, As it Fades–it sounds like it belongs in the Lord of the Rings movies during a peaceful scene in one of the elf lands–it’s very nice sounding The band’s website has sound samples of most of the songs. Just click on Products

last night my roomate used some Buckhorn “bucks” and bought he and i dinner thanks roomate!! i got a tri-tip steak sandwich with grilled onions, grilled peppers, deep fried onions, melted cheese, bleu cheese crumbles, and bbq sauce. it was very good, but sooooo filling. also a small tub of mashed potatoes. i’m not sure why i ate it all in one sitting… i should have only ate half and had the other half tonight. i really need to work harder at decreasing my meal sizes and not over stuff myself.. i’ve been doing good with exercising. i’m on my 5th week now i’m starting to see my round tummy thin down a little bit i’m hoping after 6 months or so i’ll see some bigger results and the “padding” will be gone but i need to watch what i eat moreso then i’m doing right now as well as continue to exercise…