Overdue Weather

Man o Man... Today sure felt like NYC should be. The weather is nice for a change. This weather allows me to get off my ass and do some walking around while I decide what I'm going to be stuffing my face with. Normally, we have to order our food because it's too freegin cold to walk outside and go and get your food.

Not to mention, all the restaurants in this part of the city deliver even if it's just one person ordering food. It was so nice outside that even Stewie and Brian were outside enjoying the weather.


Does the fact that Stewie and Brian are all over 6th Avenue say anything about our society now a days? You might understand this question if you've ever seen an episode of Family Guy. It's a cartoon, but it's definitely not a cartoon for kids.

Who knows...but all the tourists were getting a kick out of them.

Are you American?

What does it mean to be American? Is it unAmerican to question the president? Is it unAmerican to NOT vote? Is it unAmerican to not believe in God? Is it unAmerican to despise the president?

You've heard all these crazy ideas about illegal immigrants and how they're affecting this country now a days. I've had the priviledge to speak to different kinds of people on this subject and the opinions are quite interesting.

I think before anything we should understand why people come into this country illegally. Poor education, corrupted governments, and no jobs are usually the starting points for any person who wants to leave their respected homelands. Even working 60 hours a week with a $6.00 per hour job is better than anything immigrants get back home, so the need to provide for their family is severe.


Every person I hear crying about illegal immigrants normally says that they're taking "our" jobs away and that's why they don't want them here. Well, those are the same people who go to unemployment because they don't want to do the jobs most illegal immigrants do, so that argument is null.

I was speaking to a border patrol lady the other day who mentioned that she didn't want them to come illegally because the majority of the time the coyotes who bring them over usually get them killed.


If they don't suffocate inside cars, they get killed during the transport for their money.

Getting rid of all illegal immigrants would have an effect on you and me as well. The jobs they do for dirt cheap money would have to be given to "legal" immigrants and therefore the pay would have to go higher. So, that means the prices for everything we buy would double as well in order to meet the sellers price. Unfortunately, this topic affects us all.

Being latino myself, I know of way too many people who are illegally here and are just trying to make ends meet for their families back home. It's actually rather sad more than anything because these people went to school back home and were architects, bankers, etc...and they come here to clean toilets and all the jobs you and I don't want to do.

They swallow their pride just so that they can get their $110.00 weekly check for cleaning an entire building. What the hell can you do with $110.00 dollars in NYC?

What's the solution to this problem? I guess we'll know soon enough.. But making these people felons is definitely not a solution. That's more punishment for a person already being punished for just being a hard worker.

Thailand 2001

Before I started "blogging" I was always reluctant to put my thoughts on paper or a word processor. I always thought my wordly expressions sucked and therefore I never liked the idea of keeping a blog. I always referred to pictures to do the talking for me, but after some rethinking I started this blog.

As I was cleaning house last night, I was going through old files on my server and found a little hidden gem. I found a folder I had saved from a laptop I had taken on my trip to Thailand. Inside the folder there was pictures, and what we would now consider a blog.

Yup, back in 2001 I had basically written about 5 days worth of entries. I contemplated posting all of them in one shot or giving them their own day as I was living it during those days.

Well, it's the weekend and because I never write anything during the weekends I'm posting all of the days I wrote in Thailand. The following is unedited so if you catch any mistakes it's to preserve the thought of mind back then.

Sit back, relax, roll a fattie, get your beer, or wine glass and enjoy these few days I managed to catch back in 2001.

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Tuesday December 18 2001.

The night before the flight, the anticipation was great. I was too excited to go to sleep, but I was extremely tired as well.

The next morning I woke up, took a shower, and got myself ready. I really didn’t have to do much except grab my bags and get going. I had prepared during the past few days so that I wouldn’t have to rush during the day of the flight. I guess I’ve always liked preparing so that everything goes smoothly.

I called my brother in law and my sister to see if they were ready at 8:00 am but they had just woke up. I told them that I’d call them in half an hour to see if they were ready. As it turns out they weren’t ready till about 9:15. I got the car and picked them up, and we made it to the airport at 10:00 am. I was a little nervous because the highways seemed to be busy and congested. On my way back the traffic wasn’t any smoother. I made it back home at 10:45 and got back to the airport via cab at 11:20 am.

When I got there I got the news that apparently our travel agent hadn’t re-confirmed our tickets so we were on standby till about 12:00 noon. The time between 11:20 and 12:00 was brutal. I thought we had reserved seats were we would all sit together, but the mixup put us all apart.

Before taking off, thoughts of fear rushed through my head as I thought about a roller coaster ride that could go wrong at any minute. The very first move made by the plane had an ill effect on my stomach. Looking out the window seemed to make this feeling go away a little bit. Once I heard the engines at full blast and felt the gravity on my back, I knew there was no turning back. I was finally on my way to Thailand.

The cool thing about this flight is that they have TV’s all over the place. There’s a monitor in front of everyone’s sitting place. Immediately after taking off the flight attendants served us refreshments and food. The food tasted somewhat like Teriyaki Boy food.

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Wednesday Dec 19th, 2001.

We finally got to Tokyo and there we waited for the next plane to Bangkok.

The flight to BKK was a little rough but nonetheless we got there. In BKK we stayed at a hotel and tried to go out the first night, but nothing was able to be done. We got to BKK really late (12:00 midnite). We tried looking for places to go, but everything seemed to close at 2:00. The next morning we woke up and proceeded to prepare for the trip to Samui. The thing that I noticed was the smell in BKK. It smelled really bad, and the food didn’t seem edible. Maybe it was just me, but my hunger seemed to go away faster than before due to the smell. We ended up getting lost in the city while looking for a record shop that Gary had suggested we find. We made it back just in the nick of time because we had to leave by 4:30 that afternoon.

One thing that I forgot to mention was that we had all gone to a huge shopping mall in BKK where the clothes and most of everything else seemed dirt cheap. I ended up buying a pair of pants, which were relatively cheap in comparison to prices in the states.

That same day we managed to send of all the excess luggage via Cargo status and we tried changing my flight back but our flight to Samui was changed and we had to leave earlier.
The plane ride to Samui was not that interesting except for the fact that we rode on one of those two engine planes. I was so tired that I slept the entire flight. The flight was only about an hour and a half, but I was dead tired. The reason why I woke up is because I thought that we had hit some heavy turbulence, but apparently we had landed. I was sure that we were going to crash, but luckily we didn’t.

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Thursday December 20th, 2001.

Finally! We’ve landed in Samui. Gary was there to pick us up at the airport. He seemed like a young Russell Crowe to me, good-looking guy with a heavy British accent. He took us back to Gecko and showed us where we were going to stay. I personally lucked out because I got the “presidential” bungalow. I got bungalow 1. It has the dopest view of the sea. That night that we arrived we had a dinner with some people from a place called “ministry of sound”. They were there to see if there were any good parties. Of course I didn’t eat anything because most of it had some sort of live animal in it. Mostly everything consisted of seafood. YUK.

I ended up drinking and getting bent out of shape. After the restaurant we went to one of Gary’s friend’s place. His place is called “Sunset”. There we had more drinks and tons of smoke. Everyone was so cool.

After spending about an hour there we came back to Gecko where the party continued. At this time I was so ripped that I couldn’t even speak straight. I was given a mushroom shot, and smoked like a chimney. I finally made my way back to the room and passed out.

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Friday December 21, 2001

The next morning I woke up with the biggest hangover you could imagine. At first I had forgotten where I was so for a brief second there I thought I was back home. As soon as I heard the waves crashing, I remembered that I was in Thailand.

I tried opening my eyes and looking at the window but they hurt too much. The view was magnificent and I quickly got up and took a shower. At that same time my sister had come and we both went swimming. The water was awesome! It wasn’t cold at all, but I got tired quickly. We had breakfast a little bit later and proceeded to go to Chaweng.

Chaweng was nice because it had so much stuff to see. We only drove by briefly because they needed to get cash and what not. We did actually stop by a pizza place and ate there. In comparison to NY pizza, that pizza was extremely terrible. I mean, I almost choked on the fist bite. The flavor of everything is so different. Nevertheless I ate the pizza (with a lot of coke) and we started making our way back. For a brief moment we stopped by a beach in Chaweng, and it was beautiful. The sand was different and the water was crystal clear. Finally on our way back I saw so many different things that I wanted to stop and see. Tomorrow we’re getting little scooters sent over here and we’re going to ride around the town. I ended up sleeping real early today because I got litup too early in the day and no food.

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Saturday December 22, 2001

Today I woke up at 6:00 am in the morning. I feel great. I’m ready to rock the town and see everything. Luckily this laptop is working although it says that it has no more battery power. I’ll write about my adventures tonite.

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Thursday December 27, 2001

I haven’t written in about 5 days but it has been going great. The Christmas Party was great. I had lots of food, and got shitfaced as usual.

There was an after party, but I was too drunk to be alive; so I slept. The next day I heard that it was great, which made me feel like shit, as this was the 3rd party I’ve missed. There are more parties to be had, so I’ll worry about that later. I haven’t really done much since Christmas. All we’ve done is get up late and then smoke and chill. Have a few beers, but then you’re shitfaced all over again. What to do???

I think the main reason why we really haven’t done much is because of the weather. Samui is just coming out of Monsoon season. The ocean is supposed to be calm when at it’s best… but this time around there are waves all over the place. The skies have also been cloudy most of the time. Hopefully the weather will get better and we’ll be able to really see the dope stuff in Thailand. There are awesome waterfalls, animal ranches, and a bunch of little islands to go to. I hope I get to go. I’ve also taken a lot of pictures, which is cool. Too bad I can’t develop them here because it’s just too damn expensive. I’ll have to wait till I get to NY.

Today was Nat’s birthday. We went all around the island on bikes. It didn’t take that long but it sure felt it. Next time around we’re going to take our time so we can see the entire cool shit.

For the first time, I took target practice. I got to use a 45mm gun. Ten bullets, and they give you the target area that you use (as a remembrance).


The next thing we did today was go on these formula racing cars. They’re just simple machines with strong motors. They felt cool tho. We had a blast!


Now it’s back to the pad. Gecko has been cool so far. I never expected to be treated the way I’m being treated here. Gary and Noi have been really cool. I’ll try to write tomorrow, but I’m not sure what the hell I’m gonna do. Oh yeah…. I’m leaving on the 8th. I didn’t really plan for this to happen, but it did. More peace of mind I guess?

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There you have it folks.. I guess you can call the above my VERY FIRST blog entries ever.

No Freeging Way

I was in tears with this video!!!
You would think that this was part of a movie.
Unbelievable!

Where U at?

Reminiscing about the old days, I found this picture of my old boss Herb, Mike and myself. I look at myself and see that I haven't changed much, except I've gained a bit of weight, but not that much.

Herb owns a bakery that has been around for over 100 years on the upper east side of New York City. I worked as a dishwasher for the bakery during the summer of 1990 (I think). I worked with my friend Mike D and it was one of my most fondest memories of a job. We all got along great with Herb and it never seemed like a job working there. Of course we always pigged out on the fresh baked Jelly Donuts, Biscuits, and all the other goodies he would bake everyday.

Growing up during that time, it was normally Jayson, Mike and myself all over the place. We all went to the same high school and remained friends way past our teenage years. I actually knew Mike from Junior High School (age 12) and I met Jay during high school.

Looking back at these pictures I remember all the bad things we did during our teenage years. Cutting school, getting into fights, smoking the wacky tabacky, you name it, we did it. I remember that Jay and I devised a plan to get out of school so we enlisted in the march for women's abortion rights in Washington DC. We thought we'd meet women there and get a chance to get out of school. Last minute things didn't allow us to follow through with the plan.

As we all went our separate ways with work, life, goals, we distanced ourselves in ways we never thought we'd do.

Mike and Jayson remained closer during these years as I was following my musical career and had really lost communication with them. Of course we'd get together every once in a while and shoot the shit, but change is inevitable right?

Every so often I wonder about Mike. Mike is no longer with us. I don't mean that he passed away (but he might as well of) but rather he's just no longer around to be a friend. We had a falling out between the three of us and Mike no longer speaks to Jay and I. I miss Mike. I wonder and hope that he's doing okay. I never blamed him for anything he might have said about me or he might have thought about me or Jay. I know that Mike wasn't Mike when we had the falling out.

If there was ever a reason for NEVER allowing your friends to get too deep into drugs, it was the reason why we no longer speak. I think Mike is either in England or has come back but either way, I don't know. I know that perhaps in some distant future our paths will cross again and it'll be like we never stopped talking.

"All you need is love" John Lennon

Wireless

Most of us now live in the age of wireless internet. If you were brave enough to setup your own router at home, then you'll perhaps know some of the issues I'll be talking about here.

In my abode I run both Macs and PC's. I have a file server which also acts as an FTP server, which also runs PCAnywhere (for remote access), and Remote Desktop Connection. Why so many methods of connection? Well, sometimes one works better than the other and you have to leave yourself open to the possibility of one computer not having the communication methods you need.

So for a while there I've always used Linksys products and after about four years my router broke down. Linksys was wonderful in providing a new one without any charge and shipped it right away. At home I had been running AirTunes which works great for wireless music to your home stereo system, but it couldn't replicate the wireless signal because the router wasn't an Apple router.

When my trusty Linksys router broke down, I had a backup Apple Airport Extreme Router hidden away just in case something happened to my existing router. I was excited to use this new router because this would enable my AirTunes to become an access point (or repeater) and extend the signal throughout my place.

Upon configuring the Airport Extreme I found some things that already didn't make me happy. Configuring the router for things like PCAnywhere didn't necessary work like they should. The AirTunes device would constantly lose connection and I would always need to reboot the device. Both my Macs and PC's would constantly lose their wireless connections and they would need to be restarted because I have WEP encryption enabled and the router would act like it didn't know who they are.

After finally getting tired of this, I switched back to a Linksys router and from the start things have worked like nothing was ever wrong. I'm writing this in the endorsement of Linksys products and unfortunately Apple's Airport Extreme Base station is a BIG let down.

Thank you Linksys.

Hoaxes, Chain Mail, and Urban Legends

Even when I was a rookie at this email and internet thing I was always skeptical about emails I had received back then. I couldn't fathom the idea that a corporation would send me money for doing nothing.

As I started getting wiser with the technology I found that people out there must be really bored. I say this because there are tons of creative emails out there that just shock the hell out of me. You know which emails I'm talking about.

There was that Microsoft email that you had to forward to at least 10 people and you would get money back from Bill Gates himself. Then there was the Yahoo email that the president of Yahoo supposedly sent and if you didn't forward it to like 100 people your email account would be closed.

To this day now, people still fall for that kind of stuff. I like how I always get those emails and the sender will usually say "I know this is probably not true, but what the hell...I'll try just in case".

Let's get this clear people. There are NO ways for any company out there to be able to track the emails YOU send. The only people who can track that are your IT Admin (inside your corporate company) or your Internet Service Provider (if you use their mail). Why are you guys so gullible? Is it the notion that you can get money for nothing?

I've always lived by this motto "if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is". I cannot tell you how many times that has applied to these emails and it's usually true. What's the big deal if you send these out to everyone in your address book? Well, by now you should have a kazillion other SPAM emails in your inbox and frankly going through one of these is just wrong.

Let's not forget the emails that say "don't break this chain or you will have bad luck for the rest of your life". Really? An email can give me bad luck? Are YOU kidding me? So the next time you get one of those emails, don't forward it to all your friends, instead go to the link below and forward that to them.

I'm sure you'll get a kick out of it, and so will they.

Response to your annoying chain email friends

Mr. Geek

I will be attempting to use a Blackberry screen with an iPod body. Why? Well because I just want to see if such a thing will work. If it doesn't, well then...I tried.

The other items you see there are things that I found due to the show "How it's Made". This show is on the Science Channel and yesterday's show was about Clay. I remembered that I had bought some a while back and decided to bring it into work for those times when I'm doodling and feel inspired to work with hands.

So I wonder what the hell I will be creating pretty soon.... Hmmmm

Metamorphosis

I look at some of my friends now and see how they treat their new born babies. I love that new born babies have high tech toys, their own bedrooms, and just about everything you can imagine a new baby needing to have.

This (as you knew it would) brings me back to my childhood. From the little that I could remember neither I or my sister had any of the luxuries young kids have now. We never had a room to ourselves. If we had a crib it was rare because most young couples there could never afford something as simple as a crib.

I noticed that most of my friends born in the US have tons of pictures of themselves when they were young. Of course in my third world country cameras were a luxury, a luxury that mom and dad couldn't afford. I looked, looked and finally found some images of when I was a kid.

I always think back to how life started for me. If dad never came to this country, I would never known you. I would probably be in Ecuador somewhere, perhaps in something of the same profession, or maybe a thug. I don't know. I always pose these "what if" questions to myself, and then realize how fortunate I am to be one of the few that gets to leave a country like that and do something with myself here in the land of the free.

This is one of the reasons why I'm such a goober when it comes to those who are less fortunate than I am. I feel their pain in more ways than I'd like to. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing but nonetheless it's part of who I am.

Don't ask about the hair and the vest.... Mom... You kill me. LOL






How in the world did I go from what you see when I was young to the last picture which is about 7 years old when I was about 22 to 23 years old?

Black Hole Sun

It's beginning to look a lot like normal here in NYC. What the hell is normal anyways? Saturday was beautiful. We haven't had weather like this in a while, and the amounts of people out and about proved that.

Central Park NYC, as you can see from below everyone was out.

The face painters made an appearance.

Even the cotton candy homies were out in stride.

You know there always has to be that guy with his dog showing off.

What beautiful day wouldn't be complete with a little music on the street?

To take a break from the heat, we got to see Deep Sea 3D on the Imax theater.

Yup, that's me. Those were the 3D glasses we were forced to wear.


It hasn't been often that we have such nice days in New York. I was in awe of the Deep Sea 3D movie. Maybe it's because I love the sea life so much, or maybe it was because the movie really kicks ass. I hope this week isn't bad with the weather getting back to it's cold nature.

The beat goes on

There's about $160.00 dollars in your pocket. You've just had dinner for two and it cost you $60.00 bucks. You walk down the street and you see your favorite bakery shop and you decide to buy a cake that costs $20.00. Mind you, the cake is tiny but extremely delicious.

Life seems grand at the moment. You work hard to enjoy the fruits of your knowledge and your hard work. You acknowledge that there will always be those who are less fortunate than you, but you say to yourself "everyone has a choice".

In New York City you are told that you are not supposed to give money to homeless people in the subways because it'll only get worse. What kind of impression do we want to give the thousands of tourists that visit our city everyday? We don't want them to see that we too have poor people, yup poor people in New York City. The city where dreams come true, where anyone can be star.

I see the following and I'm compelled to make a photographic note of it.








Even though we have thousands of people in our subway system, the person there might as well not have existed. No one, and I mean no one realized there was a person there. Do I feel bad for that individual there? Yes, I feel bad for a immense amount of people. At the same time I feel conflicted.

My mind instantly goes back to the country where I come from. People there starve, have no TV's, no computers, no internet, no luxuries. People there earn $40.00 dollars a month as their monthly salary. With the little that they get, they make progress. Even if progress means being able to at least put some bread on the table, it's progress because they at least they will have some sort of food in their mouth that night.

My mind then jumps to 1979, when a young man got the opportunity of a lifetime and made his way to New York. Not knowing the language this man worked day and night to learn English so that he could find his way and get his remaining family over here. Twenty seven years has passed by and that young man now has his own home here in New York and his family with him.

If an immigrant with no knowledge of English and only the desire to better his life can make it in New York so can the people who are born here. In the U.S. we are afforded such luxuries as public school, free books, etc. Yet, we manage to produce so many people who end up worse than those who come here and take a chance on life.

Do I feel bad for the man you see in the picture? Yes, I do, but we all have choices. Some of us choose to take the easy road, and the rest of us keep working at it.

Looking Forward to

This is too funny. Sorry ladies, but it's true.

People Pics

I finally took a step towards photographing human animals instead of the wild ones I normally concentrate on. I've been reluctant to do this for quite a while because I normally don't like people. LOL

So a friend of mine who used to work here asked me to take some shots of her. Now, granted this was my first time shooting a real person I feel the pictures came out okay.

So you be the judge. Go here and tell me what you think of my first time people photography. It was freezing cold on Saturday and you might notice the hair all over the place and the wind hitting the coat. Brrrrrrr

Let It Snow

Man this weather is killing me. I wake up this morning and find this

and since I hate carrying umbrellas I braved the snow. Now, I'm not really complaining all that much considering the other day it was 6 degrees Fahrenheit here, so this is a welcomed rise in temperature.

For my buddy Nicole who was just crying about how they were going to have 2 inches of Rain in California......

This weather will not only mess your hair up, but it's the sticky kind of snow.

As soon as I got to the city, the snow had turned to hard rain and I'm sure we'll be having slush later on the day. Don't you just love this time of the year?