First CDs

The other day somebody said something about how everyone is streaming music all the time instead of downloading. It made me think about how short the era of CDs were and which CDs were my first owned ever.

1.) B*Witched

Because all the girls in my class were creating dances to "C'est la vie" and I was like, hey, I want to do that, too? I think?









2.) Savage Garden

Because "To the Moon and Back" was sexy. Actually, I think this was someone else's CD and they didn't want it, so they gave it to me.









3.) NSYNC - No Strings Attached

Because Justin, D'UH.










Anyone else remember what their first CDs were? Or are you old enough to remember which your first track tapes were? LOL, 90s.

#feelthebern

Before this year, whenever I heard the term "politician" I would make a stink face. We all know why. There's a negative connotation with politicians because they're often associated with negative terms like "lying" and "money-grubbing" and "self-serving", what with any given politician voting on legislation based on what their corporate sponsors want them to do. It's clear that this nation isn't run as a true democracy.

1. Oligarchy, government by the few, especially despotic power exercised by a small and privileged group for corrupt or selfish purposes. Aristotle used the term oligarchia to designate the rule of the few when it was exercised not by the best but by bad men unjustly.

This small and priveledged group of billionaires have been settled in and unchallenged for quite some time, and even though times are getting rougher for the greater population and the environment, not one politician with a great deal of power has had the backbone to turn down all that cash being thrown their way as incentive to make the wrong decisions (like Citizens United).

This is one of the reasons why I have so much respect for Bernie Sanders, one of the 2016 presidential candidates running for election. He is running an entirely grass roots movement, refusing corporate money, and he has done so in the whole of his political career starting from Mayor to Senator in Vermont. His presidential campaign is paid for by small donations by the masses and union groups. In fact, this is the first time I myself have ever contributed to any kind of presidential campaign in any way, and when I look at comments on Facebook it seems that there are a lot of other folks in this country who feel just the same way as I do. Getting excited about the possibilities, wanting to change this country for the better for everyone, volunteering and donating money to the Bernie Sanders campaign. I wholeheartedly believe in his viewpoints and solutions to current issues that have been constantly plaguing the country. He doesn't skirt around the issues because there aren't any corporations breathing down his neck, and it's almost surprising how much more freedom you can have talking about issues and real solutions that way.

So, why do I like Bernie Sanders so much, besides his bad ass integrity? From the education I've had in college as well as online documentaries and discussions with my peace-driven father, I have a lot of opinions on how the world should be run. I have come understand that most issues stem from money: either from wealth inequality or corporate need for profit. If both of these money issues were magically rid of, I imagine we would see a lot of societal issues dwindle and even disappear. Firstly, people would have adequate living wages and guaranteed paid family leave and vacation time. Poverty and hunger would dwindle. Nonviolent crimes driven by poverty and hunger also dwindle. Incarceration rates decrease. These would-be nonviolent offenders have more opportunities to find and keep a job. Unemployment rates would decrease. The average low-income family home is under considerably less stress and can focus on raising their children well. The extra money from holding less prison inmates can go towards education. Children would have more opportunities at a better education and then higher education. High school graduation rates would improve. These graduates have opportunities for better, higher paying jobs. These kids will steer the course of the future in a time of environmental distress. They'll be the ones making medical and technological advancements that you will benefit from. Or... maybe if minimum wage wasn't increased, they wouldn't have had the opportunity?

It seems Bernie Sanders had come to the same conclusion. But not only does he know the issues all stem from money, he has the will and determination to actually bring these dreams to fruition, and most importantly the strength to fight the oligarchy alongside your average Americans. His solution is to redistribute the wealth by closing tax loopholes for corporations and increasing tax rates for the obscenely rich. Does it not seem ungodly that 99% of new income is going to the top 1% richest people of America? He plans on increasing the number of jobs by investing this money into rebuilding the infrastructure and by increasing the minimum wage to a living wage. He has a solid plan that makes a whole lot of sense. The only things in his way are peoples' misguided selfish ideas about low income families and the corporate powers that be.

Usually when people oppose Bernie Sanders it's because he's a progressive socialist. I'm not really sure why people think socialism is a bad thing. From what I gather, they just really don't like the idea of having their money taken from them in order to pay for other peoples' health care or education, or their general lazy nature, because, of course, if someone is poor, it is because they're lazy.

I can imagine how the idea that your money is going towards someone else's benefit may be disconcerting to think about, but it's not like everyone else isn't doing the exact same thing for you. After all, isn't that what Medicare is? Isn't that what social security is? Yes, right now, part of your paycheck is going towards some senior's health care and retirement income. You mad? You shouldn't be. Younger generations will take care of you when your time comes, too. Doesn't it sound like a good idea to apply this to health care and education for the whole nation? If you're part of a low income family, you'll still have access to higher education. If you're struck with a serious medical condition, you won't need to sell your house to pay for its treatment. Isn't that nice?

One thing I haven't heard Bernie Sanders talk about yet is the current privatization of public services like prisons and healthcare. Whenever profit is the goal, the people themselves become secondary, and that's unacceptable.

Update: Never mind, Bernie Sanders just talked about the moral repugnance of privatized prisons on Facebook four hours ago.

What [lack of] luck!

When my mom was with me waiting for Costco to open their doors among a hoard of other people, she brought up the idea of postponing our northeast adventure for next year because of a "bad feeling" she's been having about the trip. If this was coming from any other person, I would scoff at her and roll my eyes. But... my mom has had several experiences in her life that solidified her belief in the existence of God and that these bad feelings she gets is a warning from Him about some impending doom if she does not stray from her current course. So, here we are, thinking about cancelling everything over a whim. I'm more concerned about finding a way to reuse funds for Jet Blue, of all airlines.

Anyway, we're on schedule to replace the dry rotted exterior window trim around the house, starting with the most grievous one. Though, once it was removed, we noticed the wood within the walls was rotted, too, including some structural supports.

The window didn't seem to be the source of the leak, however, and so it was then that a hole in the roof was found where the rain gutters were improperly installed and was essentially pouring all the rainwater into the hole in between the walls.

Now we're trying to think about how to make this claim on the house or sue previous homeowners for negligence and incompetence. It's no fun having a lot of drama in your life.

Kitty Snuggles

The work conference in Orlando took place the other week, and I learned a bunch of good stuffs that I will be sharing with my coworkers. I slipped in a few tips on how to plan better as a Dosimetrist on the software we use under the guise that I was taught these things at the meeting. Otherwise, I think some of them may take offense.

At the work conference, I displayed my research poster (and don't know if anyone ended up looking at it), attended some seminars and workshops, learned that I ranked 3rd place out of 220 submissions and 770 registrants in the Sun Nuclear Plan Challenge (WOOOO!), met up with old friends from school, spent some time in the humid heat with my mom at Universal Orlando (check out dems photos in the Instagram reel), and wished that we could get some of the rain from these afternoon thunderstorms over to California.

I was glad to come back home to my cats. It's funny, the last time I was at Yoga Nidra the instructor asked us to think about our happy place, and my mind went to snuggling up in bed with my cats. LOL. My mom thought of the exact same scenario with her cat. Cats are the best. 

This 4th of July weekend I made an effort to paint my brother's room in a day. Didn't quite manage all of it, just three walls, but at least it didn't mess with his Twitch streaming schedule. It looks really good! We chose a light gray and a dark gray. The door-side wall and opposing wall were all dark gray, and the other walls were dark gray on bottom 40% and light gray on top 60%. He's really happy with how it looks; much better than the baby blue it was when we moved in.

I think the only rooms we (I) haven't painted are the guest bath and the master bath... But my next project will be painting the wood grid within the window frames black. 

Portraits Galore

Just sharing some of my newest drawings today! One of them is from much earlier this year, I just edited it some more.

Tweedleedlee!

Yoga What

My mom is trying out some mild yoga practices for the first time and has encouraged me to join her over the last week. The yoga practices I'm referring to aren't typical stretching and active pose holding; the purpose of Restorative Yoga (Yoga Nidra) is to deeply relax your body and being. I've never attempted any kind of yoga before, so I felt that maybe this is a good place to start? Yoga Nidra basically involves lying on pillows with blankets over you and closing your eyes during a visualization exercise that is probably a bit like hypnotism in suggesting your body to relax.

This particular session I guess was different from the instructor's other sessions. She told us to bring awareness to each part of our body and to actively think about tension there and let it go. If I didn't attend the yoga class and experience this myself, I wouldn't have believed that anything would really happen... but to me, some moments of this "exercise" were really intense. She started out bringing us to our fingers, up our arms, our toes, up our legs, up our pelvis and torso, then through the head. When she finished talking about the limbs, she would say, "Now your arms are like a fallen tree branch, detached and at peace." I didn't really start feeling quite like that, at least not until she started going through the stomach. My limbs had been completely still for so long that I no longer felt that they were even there, as if I were completely dismembered, but not in a scary way.

Then when she brought awareness to our hearts, I realized I couldn't feel mine beating anymore, and I wasn't sure if that was supposed to happen or not. I was a bit weirded out. Immediately at her mention of the "emotional heart" I started feeling this flood of emotions welling up in my chest, and when she said to "release it" there was this huge surge of... FEELINGS going up my shoulder and down my side, and I started choking back the tears that began welling up in my eyes. I have no idea what that was about, but it was one of the most intense experiences I've ever had.

During the exercise, I was very relaxed, but as she counted down to a more awake state, I started feeling the pains and tension in my body again. So, I'm not sure if I can say the session helped me or not if I was only relaxed during the class itself.

Since I got an unlimited 2 week introductory pass, I'm going to try a few more yoga classes to see how they fare with me. For some reason, my mom is really proud that I went with her and feels that based on my reactions to the class I should definitely continue.

Off On Tangents

I've been reminded that this blog exists, so I will go ahead and update it now. Yay!

1. I'm watching my calories, again! I yo-yo a lot, because once I stop counting calories I gain weight. If I don't have this device in front of me telling me I'm eating a 2100-or-so calorie s'mores cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory, then the calories don't exist. You understand.

2. I'm simulating a Dot & Bo room in Pinterest because Dot & Bo is hosting a sort of a contest with a $5000 grand prize shopping spree on their website. They have some pretty neat stuff, and I wouldn't mind using that money to buy some dining room furniture. The thing is, once they narrow down finalists, it's up to friends and family to go and "like" the rooms so whoever has the most likes wins the moneybags. Expect that, if I somehow make it that far, I will be soliciting help.

3. The other night I had the weirdest and grossest dream. My skin was really stretched out for some reason and I must not have had any abdominal muscles because my intestines fell into the skin sack that I could literally palpate my bowel loops. It was really, really gross.

4. My cats have started to get super snuggly in bed at night. Mia lets me wrap my arm around her and tuck my hand under her belly and she sleeps like that. So cute!

5. I took the time to get together with an old college friend to see The Avengers. I'm usually really evasive about getting together with this guy because I know that he likes me (he asked me out once back in college, oh, 7 years ago), but I'm just not into him at all. So, the time we spend together is really awkward for me, especially when he is contacting me after break-ups. I'm pretty sure I've always been on his mind, and after confirming that he was attempting to make this get-together like a date, I've finally put my foot down. I literally had to repeat myself three times before he got the message, and it made me feel bad. Of course, he doesn't want this confrontation to ruin our friendship, so once he cools off we will see more movies down the road, just without pretenses. Maybe now I can be more comfortable around him.

6. I ordered some tickets to see a musical in June and a concert in October: My Fair Lady with my mom, and Ben Howard & Daughter in Berkeley with another old friend from middle school. We so excited!

7. Besides the new Avengers movie, I also saw The Age of Adaline and Ex Machina. Both were really interesting. The Age of Adaline was adorable, but I could tell that it was based on a novel. Sometimes plots work better for novels than movies, as in this case, because the little extraordinary occurances seem more far fetched in films than books for some reason. As for Ex Machina, which was quite thrilling, had an expected and yet unexpected ending. I want to say more, but I feel like I would spoil it!

8. Even before the confrontation in #5, I've been thinking about relationships some. My mom struggled with codependency in her marriage and she had me review the characteristics of codependency to see how I fared, too. Now, I only had one serious relationship to use as a reference, but I was certainly codependent to a moderate extent during that time. I fear that this codependency won't go away for future relationships, as if I'm ruined by my last experience. If I do come across the perfect man who happens to think I'm perfect too, then great, I will do my best to be mutually happy. However, I don't intend to wait for that person to drop in my lap (I don't expect them to, anyway), and I don't intend on making it my life's mission to search for them either. I live better for myself when I'm on my own. Sure, it's nice to love and be loved, but I take better care of myself when I'm on my own: I'm not stressed over a relationship, I'm not obsessive or jealous, I don't have to compromise on anything, and (hallelujah!) I don't have to share a bed (suffer from lack of sleep) or shave my legs in the winter (at least until I start feeling like a woolly mammoth wearing a sweater made from its own fur). I have the love that I need from my family and from myself, and it's more than enough to keep me happy. I've been single for two years now, and I can honestly say that last year was one of the best and happiest years of my life. Don't need no man! Ain't nobody got time for that!

Teachers

When I was in first or second grade, we had the most inconceivable assignment: to invent something. As soon as I heard this, I immediately thought that my teacher was batshit crazy. Inventors are people who are in the prime of their life and maturity and have the experience to know what needs to be fixed and the insight into how it can be fixed. But we are mere children who most likely haven't even developed logic and common sense yet. We still believed things like eating a watermelon seed would make a watermelon grow in your stomach. How the heck are we supposed to invent something?

So, obviously, I failed this assignment. My "invention" was some kind of a pully system that allowed me to wake up my mom from my bedroom with a little poking motion. Why did I need to do this? I didn't. I'm pretty sure it was my mom who needed to wake me up in the mornings, anyway.

Obviously, the other children didn't do so well, either. The only memorable invention was an umbrella with a cup holder attached. And hey, that might be useful in some situations, but seriously? These kind of assignments are ridiculous for children; it certainly made me feel dumb.

I also can't stand when children get assignments/projects that really end up being for parents, ie: building models, sewing costumes, or cooking treats for potlucks. The kids will probably only end up doing 15% of the real work and that's not fair for the parents who have enough to deal with as it is.

Okay, I'll stop, but only because I am reminiscing about childhood and 90's things.

  

 

Inconceivable!

I've been getting added to a bunch of people's circles on Google+ and I'm not sure why or how they found out about me. Then I saw on my profile that I've inexplicably had over 37,000 views? Of what!? I don't even post anything! TELL MEEE

Remember how I renovated my kitchen and we couldn't move the refrigerator into its designated spot yet? Well, my mom's making yet another effort (3rd time's the charm, right?) to have someone git'r'dun. Next Thursday we'll have the contractor remove the ancient swivel door that's blocking our way and he's going to just roll her right on into that kitchen, it's going to go very smoothly. Yes, it will, don't backtalk me, fate.

My mom and I are planning a trip to Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. It's gonna be awesommmmme.

Progress

Over the past weekend I finished painting my living room walls, so now instead of the baby blue that didn't go well at all with my furniture and decor, I have greige walls that can probably end up going with anything no matter how many times I change my tastes.

Anyway, I've also been thinking about filling up my walls with photographs, and not necessarily my own. Looking through my digital curation of art on For Nostalgia, I've been trying to come up with a way to describe my taste in aesthetics, and I think my favorites all have to do with capturing a glimpse of a real moment of motion in time or space, which really isn't saying much because that's what a photograph generally is. HOW TO ESPLAIN? All I can say is that when I really sit down to look at them, I become emotionally affected.

Oh, hey. I got some new glasses. I would post selfies but I haven't taken the time to capture them yet.

Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe (Jan 2015)

My childhood memories are often represented by camping trips to Tahoe with my mom and brother, but like many children, I focused on doing rather than seeing things. I had no idea where I was when we were hiking or swimming or biking, but as an adult amateur photographer, scenery has become significantly more important to me now than it was back then. This year, I took advantage of South Tahoe's Restaurant Week, a friend's cabin to stay in for free, and my mom's extensive knowledge of the area in order to spend a few days driving around and taking pictures of beautiful places.

If you want to introduce yourself to Lake Tahoe in all the right ways, make your way from the south on Hwy 50/89 towards South Tahoe. The drive is stunning and precariously cliffy, with distant views of the lake and surrounding mountains from high above.

Fallen Leaf Lake

Most of my childhood memories involved camping during the summer at Fallen Leaf Lake camp site, watching (from inside the tent, in the sleeping bag, in pajamas) my mom cooking breakfast at the fire pit, sunbathing and picnicking on the pebble beach after mountain biking up dirt hills, and my mom precariously passing a car on the cliff side of a single-lane service road towards a hiking trail to one of my favorite waterfalls. You could imagine how excited I was to hear that the service road down to the lake was open from the lack of snowfall. I only wish the trees would smell the same in the winter as they do in the summertime (they smell like a happy childhood). 

Unfortunately, the service road was too icy in the shade for us to attempt to make our way towards the waterfall, but it isn't likely that it would be terribly exciting anyway after a season of drought. I'm going to try to make a point of visiting again this summer, perhaps making use of the ol' camp site.

Hwy 89 & Emerald Bay

Feel free to stop at turnouts along the highway to take pictures of the views or of the rocky cliff sides above. Over around Emerald Bay are two vista points to view a small island called Fannette Island in the middle of the bay with a little viking castle perched on top called Vikingsholm. It's just adorable, and according to my mom, in the summertime it's a great place to kayak.

Hwy 28 & Crystal Bay

There's a lot of small towns through this route along the shoreline that showcases lots of docks, boat launches, water buoys, and the California/Nevada state line. I recommend stopping in Incline Village and making your way down to the shore of Crystal Bay for some wicked shots of Lake Tahoe and Stateline Point to the west. 

Along the east shore, there's a public parking area to walk down to the boulders where I managed to get some pretty awesome sunset shots on the lake. 

Hope Valley

Off of Hwy 88 South of Tahoe is a road called Blue Lakes Rd that hosts this beautiful valley and creek.

Monitor Pass

Lucky for us, Monitor Pass on Hwy 89 was open during the winter, thanks again to the bittersweet lack of snow California has been having. Take lots of stops along the way to enjoy the mountains, but be sure to make your way over the peak to view the distant horizon of Nevada from the top. My pictures of this didn't really translate the beauty of it in person. 

Kingsbury Grade

After visiting Monitor Pass, we turned back to Hwy 88 to Nevada in order to come in from the east onto Kingsbury Grade on Hwy 207. There are some good turnouts to stop at on the way up for some more Nevada horizon views. 

Meanwhile, going up over the top to the west, the trees often blocked potentially good views of the lake. Boo! It wasn't all bad, though. This road happened to be home to one of the restaurants I ate at for Restaurant Week: Chart House. Their food was delicious. I ate off of their pre fixe menu: caesar salad appetizer, flat iron steak entree, and mud pie dessert, while my mom tried the mango salsa chicken entree and crème brûlée dessert. 

Downtown South Tahoe

It was weird realizing that South Tahoe is both part of California and Nevada. We ate at Ciera Steakhouse within the Montbleu Resort in the Nevada side of downtown where the casinos flourished. The pre fixe meal was so delicious and the service was exquisite! It just felt a little awkward with my mom because the atmosphere was more romantic than anything. I had my first ever (real) french onion soup (my mom's was not real, haha) appetizer, mango/papaya salmon entree, and lava cake dessert with surprise chocolate covered strawberries to finish, while my mom enjoyed a salad appetizer, filet mignon entree, and pina colada cheesecake dessert. 

 

 

On our last day in Tahoe, we had lunch at Artemis Mediterranean Grill because for the last few weeks I've been itching for some gyros. They packed in so much meat in my pita, I had to bring my delicious spiced fries home with their dipping sauce.

As we were heading home west on Hwy 50, it was starting to sprinkle lightly and my car Milo got pretty dirty, but I managed to take a pretty cool picture of the mountains on the go. 

See you again soon, old friend!

There's a pond in my closet.

I wrote this awesome post about my little trip up to Lake Tahoe, but I still haven't put pictures on it so it's still saved as a draft. Booo!

This past weekend I had suffered my first woe as a homeowner. The water heater burst, but I didn't really find out until I walked into my closet and suddenly my socks were wet. So then there were lots of phone calls and dealings with insurance and home warranties and plumbers and heatvac people and water damage restoration teams. People have been in and out all week. I was sleeping on the couch while hot air was being circulated noisily in my room and taking sponge baths at the sink with water I boiled myself, like the old days. As of now, the floor has been dried and I'm back in my room, but our water heater is supposedly so special that they had to order it from the east coast.

But hey, I'm just excited that it's finally the weekend, that I just got my tax refund, and that I can finally shop for new work clothes. I haven't allowed myself to ever since last summer. Just can't wait anymore! I need the things!

Where is the snow?

Well, if you haven't been able to tell from my instagram feed above, the trip to Tahoe was photographically successful! Hooray! I was so pleased with how everything worked out weather-wise and timing-wise in each location. I'm just used to seeing more snow there in the winter; there was hardly any due to the drought this past year, I would assume. Booooo.

But wait, there's more!

My mom finally got to check off three of the major stressers off of her to-do list. 1.) Divorce! Sounds terrible, but it's really not! This process has been going on for 2.5 years and it's finally over and the relief is visible. 2.) Our old home on sale has gotten an offer (two, actually!) the same week we put it back on the market after our fixing it up some more. We did good, sirs, yes, we did. 3.) Ben is moving in tomorrow, and we finally figured out the logistics. Phew. I was wondering how we were going to pull it off.

On the drive back from Tahoe, there were many discussions about what to do for my birthday in two weeks. Originally we wanted to go to San Francisco to one of the restaurants participating in Restaurant Week, but we would want to do something else in SF besides just eating dinner, BUT that means we either couldn't bring my brother along to do something funziez OR not do anything funziez at all. He can't walk around anywhere, really. It's very restrictive and makes us sad about doing fun things when he can't join us. Anyway, the other option we were discussing was a flight down to San Diego for the weekend, but that also seemed silly. I don't know what we'll do.

Not New Years Resolutions

Feeling a bit listy today, I do, so too bad if lists offend you.

Happening things:

1. Fell asleep early on New Year's Eve, again. I don't believe I've ever been to a New Year's Eve party. Do I want to go to one? I don't know. I have this weird personality where I both do and don't want to do things with people, and I'm constantly conflicted like this 24/7.

2. For this week's $6 Tuesday special at the movie theaters, I went to see The Imitation Game. This man's life was so brilliant and tragic, there was heartbreak on both sides of the screen. I'm a sucker for films involving genius and misunderstood people, as well as romantic tragedies, and it had ALL THE THINGS. As a consequence, I've added it to my numerous list of favorite films.

3. My brother is moving in with me and my mom in less than two weeks! He will be taking up what was going to be a guest bedroom. There would have been another bedroom upstairs in my mom's space, but she converted it into a dressing room (it no longer has a door). So, poof! No more guests allowed. (Just kidding.)

4. I've finished the preliminary work on my research project, but I'm waiting on a physicist to help me with the second portion of my research. I just don't know how to do the thing, help me do the thing! Hopefully, he musters up the effort before the deadline in March to submit my poster abstract to the annual meeting I'll be attending in Orlando this summer. And yes, I will undoubtedly take the time to visit The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Duh.

5. Thanks to the numerous vacation days I have on standby, I decided to take some time off next week. I've been meaning to go to lots of picturesque places for my shutter happy finger to be satisfied, and with South Lake Tahoe featuring its Restaurant Week during that time, I figured hey, that sounds like a good time. Let's do that. Expect snowy mountain photos!

6. Speaking of picturesque places, I really, really want to go to other US states, Iceland, Canada, Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Austria, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Italy, and Japan. I want to buy a compact professional grade camera that's easy to travel with but takes great panoramic and wide angle shots.

7. At the same time, I'm conflicted about spending money on travel versus the house. I intend to make a lot of changes to my new home, and it will take years for sure. But I'm really excited about living in a space I've made for myself, and I already drew out a new floor plan for my master suite (not that anything will happen to it for a long, long while).

8. My mom and I have been neglecting exercise a lot recently, so we've taken it upon our selves to share in the expense of buying our own elliptical. Hopefully, by placing it within view of the television, I might be able to convince myself to exercise more often. I could say to myself, Abriel, look how easy it would be to just step over there while you're watching your show.

9. My ideal form of exercise would be to swim laps, though. I've had trouble finding an affordable gym with a pool, but at the same time, I've never really been good about keeping up with going to the gym at all. The best thing to do would just be for me to build my own lap pool in the backyard. Muy expensivo! This definitely won't happen for ages, if it ever does happen.

10. I don't have anything else to say, except that it felt weird to me to end my list at 9 items. Happy new year!