Secret Projects, Workouts, Xanadu & Family

Woke up this morning and the first thing I did was apply for unemployment. I don't know if I have any left after my nine month stint with it last time but it never hurts to see if I can get any more assistance. I don't know how long I'll be out of work this time around. I have funds to help keep me afloat for the next two months. But there is gonna be a lot of belt tightening.

After that I was in the mood to work out. I haven't worked out in months and months but for some reason I felt like getting out there. I only did 20 minutes on the elliptical before the heat got to me and had to stop. It's a start.. not a great one but a start. I hope to continue to work out and finally get in shape.

Was visiting the family today. Haven't seen them in about three weeks which is far to long to be away. On my drive I started talking to my bestie Chris about our "secret project" and missed my exit, then again a half hour later I almost missed another exit. So instead of taking the 210 east I jumped on the 5 south and then the 60 north east before finally getting back on track to the 71, then 91. That little mistake added an additional hour to my commute and instead of a 2 hour drive it turned into a 3 hour drive. It all wasn't bad as I did get to talk to Chris the entire time and work on a project that he and I are so excited about.

Finally got to see the family and they were having a BBQ with friends. Soon as I walked in my niece got one look at me she started to scream bloody murder (she hates me). Kenobi was being shy for some reason so I didn't get to spend any time with him either. My brother showed me his finished Star Wars Toy room.. it was pretty EPIC.. I had some BBQ hamburgers and then took my dad out shopping. We went to Target because I was looking for the new Ultra Edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows parts 1 & 2 Blurays. They were an exclusive at Target. While there I got some socks, the HP blurays, along with Avengers bluray and a cool E.T. shirt. Unknown to me my Dad was paying for all this as he said it was for my birthday...yay!!

Got back to Mike's place and the party was in full swing. I hung out for another hour before saying goodbye as I had to meet my buddy Christopher in LA to see a play. I left at 5:15 with plans to meet Christopher for dinner before the play. Unfortunately traffic was horrendous so I had to cancel dinner and was hoping I would make it to the theater in time. I did get there by 7ish, found an El Pollo Loco and grabbed a quick bite before meeting up with my buddy at 7:30pm.

We were going to see the stage play Xanadu. I love the movie and both Christopher and I saw a version of the play 10 years ago. Chris had gotten preferred seating which was fantastic. For the next two hours we laughed, cheered and sung along to one of my favorite musicals as a kid. It was a great night.

Play was over we said our goodbyes and I headed home. It was a full day of crazy fun. Time for bed.

LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out

Just watched the second LEGO Star Wars special. LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out and it was AWESOME!!! These shows are so poorly promoted that I had no idea this was even created until listening to a Forcecast podcast a few weeks ago. And even then there was no airdate. Suddenly the day before it aired I caught wind of it... lucky for me.

I loved the first LEGO special LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace, they are fun Star Wars goodness and this one was the same. The first one took place during the prequel era and the latest one takes place during the original saga era. So this one had Luke, Leia and Han. Though the first on had Han as well but he was a kid. Lot's and lots of laughs. I wish this was a regular TV series, but if they keep surprising us with specials every now and then that would cool.. they just need to promote these better. Check out the trailer below.

Suddenly Unempolyed Again!!

Today at 4pm the executive producer of the current show I am working on gathered everyone together to announce that the show is going dark (meaning being shut down). Which meant as of that moment I was out of a job.

Now let me back track a few days.. On Monday my supervisor asked me to go for a walk (meaning he wanted to talk to me). He said that I should get my resume in order as there are rumblings of this show being shut down. He wasn't sure when or if it would happen but he wanted to give me a heads up. So I've been kind of waiting for this to happen all week. Then today at around 2pm he asked to go for a walk again and he told me it was happening today.

Firstly the show did not get cancelled, the creative people behind the show and the network couldn't see eye to eye on how they wanted this show to play out. We've been working on this show for three months and have yet to finish a single episode and in fact are far from finishing a single episode. The production company was hemorrhaging money and needed it to stop. Their best course of action was to let everyone go. Work on re-tooling the show so that the network is happy and then start up post again. This could be weeks, months or years.

I'm actually happy to be done with this show and I think this is exactly what should have happen. Am I upset that I'm jobless again.. of course. No one ever likes to be jobless, but the 4 hour commute (there and back) was killing me and the stress of not getting cuts out on time was horrible.

I had a great three months with them and me being me I saved up a little bit of fund to survive a few months if needed. So I'm good, at least for now. Gonna take this opportunity to clean up my house (going to be selling soon) and catch up on editing some podcasts. Just because I'm out of work doesn't mean I can be lazy... okay maybe I can be lazy a day or two :)

Happy 25th Anniversary ST:TNG

25 years ago today Star Trek The Next Generation premiered (September 28, 1987). There were mixed reviews from fans who saw this new Enterprise with no Kick or Spock as a wanna be Star Trek. Who knew that this series would go on to be the fan's number one Star Trek series. 

I am a Star Wars fan, I saw the original Star Wars when I was 7 years old and it molded me into the geek that I am today. I do remember watching the older TOS (The Original Series) on TV and enjoying it but it didn't grab me like Star Wars did. I had heard they were going to relaunch Star Trek and saw the commercials for this new series. But because I wasn't a huge fan of the original Star Trek I missed the first few episodes of this new series. I began watching around episode five or six and all it took was one episode and I was hooked. Unfortunately back in the day we couldn't go to the internet to find missed episodes, so I had to wait months until they repeated the first five over the summer.

I was devouring anything and everything Star Trek. I became an instant fan thanks to TNG. I remember just sitting there and being glued to my TV each week. I had never seen any science fiction program like this before on TV. Every week I got to go on a cool adventure to some far off alien world. I would record these on my VCR and watch the episodes over and over until I wore out the VHS tapes.

TNG actually made me appreciate TOS and the movies even more. I instantly bonded with Picard, Data, Riker, LaForge, Troi, Crusher, Worf, Yar and Wesley.  They became part of my geeky family and I looked forward to seeing them every week.

And though 3 more series followed Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Star Trek Voyager and Star Trek Enterprise. Star Trek The Next Generation will always hold a special place in my heart for opening my eyes to this fantastic universe.

My Poem - Magic

I use to write lot of poetry in the 20's.  I thought it might be fun to share some of it on my blog. So I'll be posting various poems that I wrote over the years. Some deal with looking for love, some deal with being a father, some I wrote for friends. and some dealt with being alone. Each one was written from the heart and says alot about me as a young man during a very trying time of my life.

I thought I would start with one of my love poems, it wasn't written to anyone in particular. I was still in the closet, confused and alone. I desperately wanted to find that one person who could make my life complete. This is what I imagined true love to be like.

MAGIC

It was written in the stars way up above,

That you and I were destine to fall in love.

Right from the start you stole my heart,
I knew right there we would never part.

When I dream at night all my thoughts are of you,
But to live the rest of my life with you in a dream come true.

You have a hold of my heart and all I feel is amore,
It’s an unbelievable feeling that I have never felt before.

When I touch your sweet face and hold your soft hand,
Life can’t get any better, any better for one man.

There is a feeling inside that will never go away,
A bonding of souls that will always remain.

Love at first sight has always been a myth,
Until I meet you I could not resist.

Your eyes are so beautiful and your voice is so sweet,
My life if full of joy and all I can do is weep.

I'm thankful everyday, everyday I spend with you,
For what is life without love, the love shared by two.

KM8/20/96

Jeep Woes, Glasses, Hobbitses & Buffy

Today I headed over to Jiffy Lube first thing in the morning. Yesterday when I got in my car to head to work I noticed that there was this liquid inside the wheel well of my back driver side tire. At first I thought it was water but when I touched it I noticed that it was some sort of lubricant. A few weeks back I took my jeep in to Jiffy Lube and they serviced my rear differentials so I thought maybe a tube or something came loose. After checking they couldn't find anything wrong and have no idea where that fluid came from. Since I'm not a big car person I have to take their word.  Guess will have to wait and see. I've been wanting to get a new car for a while now (something with better gas mileage) and I think the time is now.

On my way into work I stopped by Lencrafters as my new glasses were ready. I was in and out in no time and now have these new geeky glasses and I love them. I hated the progressive lenses so I asked for bi-focals.. man this is going to take some time getting use to.

Work moved along a nice pace.. wasn't too crazy or stressful. While at work I got word that the new Hobbit figures were now up for pre-sale. At first I went to Amazon and started adding them to my cart. I have several gift cards I could use. But being the good consumer that I am I checked to see if they were up for pre-sale anywhere else for a better price and came across Toys R Us. And there prices were $2 to $5 cheaper. So I ordered everything they had... They have released 13 figures so far, but one of the figures pre-sale was already sold out. So I would up getting only 12 of the 13.  I'll need to find that one somewhere else. So I spent about $200 on Hobbit figures and I can't wait until they are shipped out. Talked to my brother and he offered to pay half of that for my Birthday present... woo hooo.

My night ended by going over to my buddy Robert's place for our weekly Buffy Rewatch.  I got out of work a bit early so we were able to watch four episodes tonight. We also tried something new for dinner Chinese.. it's wasn't bad.. we started with S2 "Surprise" which changed everything between Buffy and Angel. Next was "Innocence" part 2 of the Angel goes bad story. Third was "Phases" were we find out that Oz is a werewolf and to end the night we watched "Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered" which I think was a great episode to end on. I've never seen Robert laugh so much at an episode of Buffy. As per usual I crashed at his place. We stayed up another hour or so chatting before finally calling it a night.  All in all a good day.

Dinner with a Long Lost Friend

Tonight after work I made plans to have dinner with my buddy Christopher, He's a friend I've known for over 10 years. He was one of my first "gay" friends after I came out. We actually went out on a date but came to realize that we were better friends. Anyways our friendship has been kind of on and off as of late. Nothing really came between us, we were both busy and never could find the time to hang out. The past few years we would see each other every few months and swear that we won't let another three months pass us by without seeing each other but then three months would pass by and we make the same commitment. Well it's been another three months and we finally got to have dinner tonight. We meet up at CPK (California Pizza Kitchen). We spent the next few hours catching up on each other's lives. We even talked about our friendship and not seeing each other as much as we'd like. He hasn't been doing so well lately and I feel bad as if I let him down. I got caught up in my own life with podcasting, work and "my geek mob" friends I let the few friends I had prior fall by the waste side and I am sorry for that. I must try harder to keep in contact with all my friends. Even if it's just a quick text or email. Lucky for me I'll be seeing Christopher this Saturday as we are doing to see a stage play of Xanadu... can't wait.

Goodbye Chris, Hello Robert

Woke up this morning, got ready for work and a half hour before I left I woke up Chris so I could spend my last half hour hanging with him. I was going to be taking him to the airport but last night Jen contacted him and said she would drive over and pick him up and take him to the airport. So we just hung out in the morning, watching some TV and talking about the weekend. I was suppose to leave at 8:30 but instead left closer to 9am as I didn't want to say goodbye.

I don't know if it's me getting use to saying goodbye to him or the fact that I know will be seeing him again soon but saying goodbye to Chris no longer brings tears to my eyes. So I said my goodbye got in my jeep and headed to work.

Work was work but instead of going home tonight as planned I went over to my buddies Robert's place. He was in the middle of a situation and needed a friend and I was happily that friend. We had Italian for dinner and just sat around his apartment chatting. I ended the night by crashing at his place.

My Birthday Party Weekend - Sunday

It's my Birthday !!! I'm 42 years old today. After last night I was determined to make this day AWESOME. Got up around 8ish and the majority of the folks were up. I started breakfast, this time eggs, sausages, bacon, potatoes and toast. I made a ton of food hoping it would be enough to feed everyone and alas it did not. But on the upside all my guests ate breakfast, on the downside I did not. I was the one person who didn't get any so I quickly made some pancakes for me.

After breakfast we wanted to head to Vasquez Rocks before it was too hot outside. That was alot of fun. We had several folks who had never been to Vasquez Rocks which is always a treat. About 2/3's of the group decided to start the hike off by climbing the "main" peak. It's a tough climb but once you get to the top and take a look around, it's well worth it.

After that we meander around for an hour and a half. It wasn't crazy hard and the entire group stayed together, which made it even more fun. We did a big loop back to the cars.

We normally go out to lunch after our Vasquez hike but since we went a bit earlier we decided to head back to my place to open gifts and eat some cake.

Once back at my place I gathered the gifts around me and started to open them. I got DVD's, clothes, a book, Star Trek salt and pepper shakers, and a bunch of Harry Potter scrap booking material. Lots of cool things. Thanks everyone.

After presents it was time for a cake. I had asked Jes if she could possible make me my Birthday Cake. I know she's a great baker and I knew she would make something yummy. What I didn't expect was what it would look like. Chris covered my eyes and lead me to the cake. When I opened my eyes I couldn't believe what I was looking at. Jes made me a Hobbit Hole Cake. It was incredible. And the best part was that the Hobbit Hole was made of some sort of plaster so I could keep it, (it now lives on my fireplace mantle). Everyone sang Happy Birthday to me, I made my wish and blew out the candles. The cake was, as expected, very delicious.

While we ate cake and ice cream we put on another fun movie A Knight's Tale (again this seemed to be a favorite of many folks). I only recently watched the entire movie with Chris and loved it.

After the movie,  many of us headed out to Baja Fresh for a late lunch, early dinner. After this we said our goodbye to Jes and Olivia who has to drive back up north to the San Fransisco area.  The rest came back to my place.

I put in our final movie of the weekend, and one of my most favorites.. Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring. During this movie we continued to lose people. Soon it was just a handful left, we ate taquitos and what was left of the cake for snacks. Once the movie was over the remaining guests hung around an hour or so before our final guest left around 10:30pm , but before they left we put my house back together ( I always appreciate when everyone helps with that).

Now it was just Chris and I and I was soooo tired but since Chris is a new Whovian I wanted to watch the latest episode.. and that's what we did. We sat down in the TV room and watched the latest episode of Doctor Who "The Power of Three". It was another good episode and I have to say that so far season seven has been a lot of fun.

After Who Chris and I chatted for a bit before we said goodnight and went to bed.

So today was a really good day, other then running out of breakfast and not getting any, the rest of the day was a blast. It was a great way to end my Birthday Weekend Extravaganza.  Other then the little rough patch on Saturday evening this weekend was full of good times, great movies and best friends any guy could ask for. Thanks everyone for joining me to celebrate my 42nd Birthday.

Thank you Jes, Jen, Will, Josh, Justin, Jennifer C., Jennifer L, Matt, Jared, Adam, Anthony, Patrick, Kim, Robert, Rupert, Scott, Kevin, Doug, Luis, Troy, Olivia, Jessica, Brett, Dallas, Aaron and of course a special thanks to Chris for making this 42nd birthday extra special.

42 Pixs til my 42nd Birthday - Day 42

Well the time has finally come.. after 42 days and 41 pictures the day is here. It's my 42nd Birthday so it's appropriate that I post a picture with some of my awesome friends. I didn't know they were doing 42 behind me. That's Chris' thumbs up, as he was taking the picture and wanted to be in it. Thanks you all for following me and commenting on all my pictures. It was fun seeing me go from 1 to 42. It's amazing to look at yourself grow from a young boy, to a young man to and middle aged man. Not sure I will do this again.. maybe for 50 but will see.