on friday i met up to have dinner with thanh and tung. i haven’t seen thanh in so long, i had almost forgotten what it was like to talk to her in person! most of our communication these days is over IM. anyhow, i met her and tung at their new home. it’s quite nice, i like it, cozy and inviting. their walls are painted various pastels that i think really warm up the place.

we had dinner at this korean restaurant in oakland. the food was great and i was stuffed. after dinner i headed over to eric and ivy’s place where we talked about photography stuffs before settling in and getting ready for warren’s bachelor party.

last night at volleyball i introduced myself to this japanese girl.

me: hi, i’m mike.
japanese girl: ah, i’m atsuko.
me: oh, you’re japanese!
japanese girl: yes. and you are?
me: i’m japanese too.
japanese girl: what?? you are? no…
me: …
japanese girl: you must be japanese american.
me: …

why do i keep getting this reaction from japanese people? am i not good enough to be in your club?

of course the second that i decide to go outside it starts to rain HARD and the wind picks up.

i ran over to my car to get a jacket and an umbrella. main, how did this weather come to be?

i wonder how bad paintballing is going to be now tomorrow.

i had mitchell’s ice cream yesterday as part of the employee’s appreciation day. it was superbly good. they had a very interesting flavor, thai iced tea ice cream. man, that was some gooooooooood stuff!

i think that i’m going to try and make some thai ice cream now. just have to go find the powder.

Today started with the realization that my server was down. Add to that that i had a huge presentation at work and i started the day rather grumpy. I woke up around 5 this morning so that i could finish up the work for the big presentation and got into work a little after 7. i worked feverishly until the moment of the demo and all the work paid off. The demo went successfully and i am happy to report that a big load has been lifted from my shoulders.

Now that the work stuff has been taken care of, i need to see if i can revive my server. I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but i guess i’ll soon find out. Hopefully all it needs is a little push of a button to power itself back on. We’ll see soon enough. I’m going to make the trek over to redwood city soon and see what the deal is there.

I am tired. I need to go home and crash. Unfortunately, the apartment is in a bit of disarray so i should probably go and clean it up a bit in preparation for the return of my roommate. She hasn’t been around for a few weeks now and when left to myself, i tend to get a little sloppy.

But it’s all good. I’m just glad that things went smoothly at work and i’m hoping that things will go just as smoothly with the server. I haven’t had any access to email all day today. That is a little distressing. I wonder how much email has bounced.

i just heard today that a friend of mine is engaged to be married. this, by itself, is not uncommon. what is a little surprising is that they’ve only been dating for 10 weeks.

wow.

when i first heard the news i was shocked because it just seemed so sudden. but wow. i’m happy for the guy. he has been on cloud nine since he started dating her and they seem like they are really in love.

and that’s all it really takes. fate to step in and you can suddenly be whisked away into a whirlwind of happiness that can’t be described as anything short of perfection. circumstances can change and where once one was filled with sadness one can now be elated beyond any recollection.

that’s the thing about love. its power overwhelms you. it inspires you to do things that you did not believe you were capable of.

i still believe in love, after all these years and after hearing that my friend has found it, i couldn’t be happier for him. it just reaffirms my belief in the institution of love.

as i was going out to get my free ice cream, i knocked over my glass of water and it spilled all over my desk.

a small voice in my head told me, “do the responsible thing. clean it up!”

the louder voice in my stomach told me, “it’ll still be there when you get back from your FREE ICE CREAM.”

you’ll be happy to know that i did the right thing. i got my ice cream.

today’s free cone day at ben and jerry’s. go check ’em out! i know i will.

i got my hair cut over the weekend and i’m not terribly happy about it. it’s a little shorter than i would like. the problem stems from the place i went to. my normal guy is on vacation for three months (which means about three bad haircuts for me) and so i’ve been rotating around to different people. so far i’ve had two bad haircuts and i would imagine that i’d have another bad one before my regular stylist comes back.

oh well. such is life. at least it only costs me $7 to get a bad haircut. it’s far worse to have to spend much, much more and be that unhappy. i remember a friend of mine once got her hair cut for something like $75. she was so unhappy with her hair that she called the stylist back and told him how unhappy she was. he set up another appointment for her to fix it, free of charge. of course, if you are going to be charging that much money for a little cut, you better make sure that your customer is happy with it!

if you sent me a link sharing me your death valley pictures, send me your email, too!