Monthly Archive for May, 2004

Time and a half

Published on May 31, 2004 in Recentisms. 2 Comments

The silence was eerie. Where eighteen-wheelers and cars and blue collar workers usually fill the street, there now resided the scariest feeling of nothingness. I could hear my own footsteps and breathing as I stepped out my vehicle, approaching the door of my place of work. The lights are dimmer than usual in the hallway and I finally entered the office, all seeming even lonelier. I hear a greeting from 2 yards away.

“Heyyyy,” Manny yells with a smile.

“’Morning,” I reply in a low tone.

I’d rather be home. I’d rather be sleeping, enjoying the bed I’ve neglected of my presence. I’d rather be saying “Good Afternoon” or “What a beautiful Tuesday, no?” but alas it is still the quiet Monday I have been forced to face. It is Memorial Day and we are the only two human beings inside an office. Elsewhere there are people enjoying the free day, spending their hours under the sun and on the sand, eating sandwiches and KFC from a bucket as they sip their ice cold sodas fresh out of the cooler indented on the beach towel. Here I am, sitting in front of the glowing monitor with a glass of warm water at my side and an Actionscript book in front of me, struggling to make the animations work at my command. Needless to say, I’ve had better days.

After a few hours of work my bosses are ready for lunch, so we head out of the office to a nearby italian restaurant and begin chatting about plans for the big conference in New York in two weeks. We conjure up different scenarios, prop ideas and clothing to wear when the time has come to set up our booth, which will hopefully hold a flat screen tv and a stack of t-shirts we plan on giving away. The ideas are flowing and the hunger persists. The dishes finally arrive and we eat the pasta and chicken joyfully. They order coffee, I order a chocolate dessert. Once again, food has provided a sense of satisfaction only possible from great cooking and great company. The day is not so bad.

We return to the office and I sit down at my desk again, working on the digital puzzle that is our website and I smile. I’ve gotten the hang of this. The book is a great aid in this whole process and before I know it I’m ready to go, book in hand so I can study some more at home. I bid my employers farewell and hop into the car. The streets are emptier than before. I hit my brakes only once at an intersection with no cars passing by and then I’m finally on the highway, listening to the radio and feeling the cool air conditioned breeze in my cheeks and hands as I cruise my way home. It’s been a nice day, and now I’m ready for my nap.

Knock On Wood

Published on May 19, 2004 in Recentisms. 7 Comments

Yay! I have officially finished creating a completely functional flash website for one of Thirdeye’s clients. After programming it and creating the animations for a few days, I finally managed to transfer the new site to a new hosting company and set up new email accounts for the clients. So if anybody here is interested in custom wood tables or furniture, make sure to check out the flashy new sewoodcrafters.com.

What’s next? A completely new redesign and construction of Thirdeye’s website. That’s right, and it’s crunch time. I had been working on the redesign for about 3 months now and it finally occurred to all of us at the office that we didn’t like it, so we scrapped the project and started from scratch. The project is supposed to be completed by this coming Tuesday, which means I’ll have to master a few more Actionscript tricks for the snazzy new transitions and features of our site. I guarantee one thing: you’re going to smile when you see it.

On another note tomorrow is Nerd Night at youth group. I don’t really have a costume prepared or anything, so I’ll have to improvise in the morning. Alls I need are some dorky looking clothes and maybe a few lame catch phrases everyone will recognize. I was undecided as to go as a book-nerd (i.e. Urkel) or as a socially weirdo nerd (i.e. Trekkies, Pokemaniacs, or those guys who compete in robot wars). I’m sure they’ll be room for all kinds of dweebiness. Whoa I think I just invented a word. Did I doooo thaaaaaat? Hehehe snort

On Phone Conversations

Published on May 17, 2004 in Bummer. 3 Comments

Anytime I see someone close to me get involved in a heavy relationship that requires plenty of phone time, I find myself feeling as though this person is slowly drifting away from all that I feel I have come to love about him/her. The hours pass and there they are, chatting away, laughing, repeating inside jokes and accusing each other of being too funny. They walk around aimlessly, phone to the shoulder, avoiding any possibility of peers hearing in on this sacred discussion. All the while life goes on and before one realizes it, the day has gone by. Questions were asked, favors were requested, music was enjoyed and yet the phone conversation has survived all that is genuine through a strategy of pure shallowness.

I think it bothers me so much because I am reminded of myself a few years ago when I considered my girlfriend as the center of the universe. Time seemed to be zooming by, so naturally I spent it all on the object of my attention: Her. Our personal time together was always restricted, so we settled for the next best thing, the telephone. I didn’t have a cell phone back then, hardly anybody my age did, but we all had beepers. Beepers provided a whole new language. 143. 123. 50538. (I love you. I miss you. Kisses.) My fingers itched with desperation awaiting the next tune or vibration at my hip to see what romantic digits she would send in response to mine. Heaven forbid I would see 423 (Call me now). My fingertips were dialing before I had time to decipher the message.

In the middle of all this silliness, my friends and family saw me in my crippling state. I look back now and picture myself as a young Gollum, desperately seeking my own ring, only my ring would talk back and all seemed peaceful at the moment, as if in a state of euphoria from a poisonous drug. I’d ask everyone to borrow their phones, even when I was the guest of honor. I secluded myself to an object that only exposed my insecurity, their insults and jokes not bothering me a bit. They don’t know what’s it like to be in love. They don’t understand. Forget them. And to my own misery I did just that, I kept them all away and forget them.

This lasted for about 5 months, the constant secret conversations, the whispers in the late hours of the night, the submission to a short-lived relationship between my girl and our phone. My family grew to dislike me, and to this day my friends from those days accuse me of being a sellout. Very well. I deserve it. Even though things have changed dramatically since those days, I still find myself wondering what exactly I missed out on, and whether the ground can ever be reclaimed between my family and me. I look at the phone now and I see the frailty of the human heart, how sadly I thought acceptance from a girl would make me a better person and my personal neglect of those who actually cared for me all along.

I sit here today dreading the same behavior from a person I hold so closely to my heart. I see the first stages of their backward paces and the only thing I can do is hope the battery will soon fade out before our relationship begins to. Grief and Hope are my only companions. I miss you.

Yum Yum

Published on May 17, 2004 in Mindless Observation. 1 Comment

There’s a special type of happiness that only comes from chomping down on a nice juicy steak.

Break the chains

Published on May 14, 2004 in Inspired. 5 Comments

I long to travel somewhere and meet new people, start conversations, tell jokes, take pictures, make new friends, influence lives, tell people about Miami, tell them about Christ, about the coming Kingdom, about movies and books, about the frailty of the heart, the struggles I’ve felt, the power of a compliment, of smiles, of tears, of forgiveness unlike we’ve ever experienced. If there’s one thing the Bible makes very clear is that God chooses the nobodies of this world and uses them greatly for his glory. He picks the sheperd boys, the tax collectors, the poor, the weak, the lonely, the orphans, the widows, the cowards, the hobbits of this world and turns them into kings and great men and women. Living in a country where anything is possible, I’ve come to realize that all the cliche terms I’ve heard growing up are true. You CAN become anything you want in this country. A dear friend of mine finds himself and his family in the position of possibly being deported in a manner of months. Our time here is so limited. Do something with your life. Stop being a slave to the things of this world and become a slave to righteousness. Get out of your comfortable box and take a risk. Experience the life of faith and find that you are not alone. You were never alone.

A Step in the Right Direction

Published on May 12, 2004 in Recentisms. 11 Comments

So I went to the podiatrist yesterday to get my feet inspected. I’ve had a bad case of athlete’s foot for quite a long time and the doc made sure to point that out to me. He prescribed a bunch of cremes and powders (Gold Bond) that I’m going to have to be applying daily for the next six months. Am I excited about it? Yes. It’ll be nice to have normal looking feet again. Soon I’ll be able to go into the dojo and kick faces without worrying about passing on any bacteria. Also, I’ll be able to skank to my heart’s delight without worrying about having damp socks later. Thank God for modern medicine!

Cruddy Monday

Published on May 10, 2004 in Bummer. 5 Comments

Today really stinks. I wake up, prepare my clothes in anticipation of my new improv acting class tonight. The class meets down south in Kendall, which requires that I find a place to stay for the night. My aunt is willing to let me stay every Monday night for these classes so I’m even happier about not having to use up all my gas in one night. Once my clothes is packed I head towards the car and sit down only to find my sunglasses are missing. I must have left them in tony’s glove compartment yesterday. So I settle for the mafioso looking glasses I wore on eighties night. I drive to dunkin’ donuts for my $3.17 breakfast and find that there are new employees working. Slow, mumbling employees who take 20 minutes to prepare a coffee and croissant sandwich. Each time the new guy comes to the counter he offers my food to the guy next to me, forgetting who he originally got the order from. I get back in my car, biting away at my breakfast and driving towards the I-75 ramp. I realize my car is low on fuel, so I stop by the nearest Chevron station, the only gas station remotely near the I-75 ramp. Of course, gas prices have soared since last week, so I’m forced to cough up a hefty amount to keep my car running.

I arrive to work 45 minutes late, confident that I will make up the hours late in the afternoon since I’ll be sticking around later than usual. After all, my class doesn’t start till 8pm and I’ll be going there straight from work. I walk in, all smiles, eager to work on whatever projects I have assigned today. Assignment number one… find good plane tickets for my boss’ trip to NY. After doing a thorough search online we find the best deal possible: $171 for an roundtrip AA flight. After spending a few minutes discussing whether or not to choose this or that flight, this or that plane model, this or that everything, we find that the deal is no longer available. The price has just shot up $60 dollars per ticket. What a discouragement. We settle for the next best price.

Just then, as I’m getting all the information confirmed, a call comes in for me.

“Hello, this is Maria calling from Miami Dade College. May I speak to … emm.. David?”
“This is David speaking, how can I help you?”
“I’m calling to inform ju that jur improv acting class is cancelled and ju will be receiving jur refund within two weeks.”
“Awww, you gotta be kidding me! Why is it cancelled?”
“Der wasn’t enough students who signed up for de class”
“How many people signed up for the class?”
“Only three.”
“What was the minimum amount required?”
“At least seven.”
“Crap.”

So no more improv class until the fall semester comes. I guess it’s not a total bummer. This gives me time to recruit some friends to join the class with me. I was really looking forward to starting today though. Oh well. If it were up to me all things would work around my schedule, but I’m confident that the Lord’s timing is the right timing so I’ll be waiting patiently for the next few weeks. In the meantime there’s always books to read. Lots and lots of books.