Tragedy

Today, while on our way to Glendale for Cuban sandwiches, Emmanuel and I were in a car accident on the freeway - I hit a Toyota pickup truck that had stopped suddenly as I was getting ready to change lanes. It was a really crummy afternoon and I feel horrible about messing up my car so much - it'll take a few weeks to fix it and of course it's no fun that the accident is considered my fault. I don't want to post a picture of the car until I can do a true before/after photo (it's less painful that way).

Going to Korea!

I'm not going anywhere! But Marie is off to Korea for the next year to teach English with Nick! Check out their blog at http://nickandmariegotokorea.blogspot.com. We saw her off at the airport this morning and while she will be missed, I hope she enjoys herself on her long trip. I spent the rest of the day watching Tekzilla and putting some movies on my iPhone :)

I Graduated!

With official certification from the University of San Francisco - I now have a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics! My diploma finally came and I was thrilled to finally have tangible proof of my achievement. Tonight we had a final family dinner at Claim Jumper's and tomorrow is Marie's big day! But really, look at how pretty my diploma is, that's the most important thing after all. It wouldn't be nearly as impressive without the gold and green gilding right?

When I Copied the Paintings

These were the ones I had in mind. The ones Bunny and I made have different color pallets obviously (and he used square canvases, we couldn't get those from the store). Tomorrow is Marie's last day in the USA - so tonight she had a girls' night with my mom, Teenie & next door neighbor. My dad and I watched "Stranger than Fiction," which was pretty fantastic I think; I would recommend it for anyone who likes well written movies.

Nothing Much on a Monday

A few months ago, Bunny and I watched a documentary called "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and were rivited by the tale of the General Motors EV1 electric car. While at the Petersen Automotive Museum last week, we had the opportunity to see one of (if not the sole) surviving EV1's on display. What beautiful cars - I wish they were still around, I'd definitely want one (or the Bugatti Veryon around the corner from the EV1). No work today, so I just stayed home and enjoyed the air conditioning.

The lounge area of the Sofitel was really pleasant this morning, Bunny and I shared a chocolate eclair for a morning snack before heading into the city to meet her father. I'm really sad to go, and don't really enjoy driving alone for such a long time, but I've done it so often lately that the time really does fly. When I got home I barely felt as though I'd been driving all afternoon. I guess that's a good thing, since memories while driving that long stretch usually involve something scary happening (never to me of course), so an uneventful trip is an ideal one. I had dinner with my dad and Marie at Love Sushi, and luckily don't have to work in the morning. I already miss Bunny though.

Stuck In a Moment

Today I drove Bunny back to San Francisco. Well, not quite San Francisco, Redwood City. We stayed over at the Sofitel San Francisco (a 4 star hotel) to get some rest from the drive and to prepare me for the long ride home alone. The last week has been absolutely wonderful. While Bunny was in SCV, it really felt as though we hadn't spent any time apart, despite the three week gap (I know, I know, three weeks isn't that long, but being so accustomed to spending every day with Bunny makes her absence feel that much greater). The drive tomorrow begins a month-long separation until my parents and I take Teenie to San Francisco for her move into the USF dorms - I'll have three lovely days in the city at the very end of summer (so the weather should be gorgeous). I'm already looking forward to those days as this one comes to a close (but not at the expense of the moments at hand of course). Having Bunny stay with me has made moving so much easier, and I'm very thankful for the opportunity to share this time with her.

Play-Doh

When I found a little container of Play-Doh in the laundry room, I couldn't stop thinking about how much fun it was when I was little. So today I went and got a little case of 10 colors (Play-Doh is cheap!) and Bunny and I had a blast making this little diorama. From left to right (clockwise) is my purple pterodactyl, Bunny's lovely cow, Bunny's stegosaurus (or raver-saurus as Eman called it), my volcano and Triceratops lake (complete with mini dino and eggs), and my T-Rex skeleton.

Major Upgrades for the Mini

Opening up a Mac Mini is a terrifying experience. From the fear of cracking the case as you pry apart the dozens of tabs clipping it together, to unscrewing and removing the top half of the assemblage to get to the memory slots, it's not an experience I want to have again. But I now have 3GB of RAM in my machine and have still spent less money on it than I would have to get the upgrade from Apple. So I'm very happy.

1932 Duesenberg SJ Convertible Coupe by Murphy

This Model J Duesenberg carries roadster coachwork by Walter M. Murphy of Pasadena, who bodied more than 50 Duesenbergs of the 481 originally built. Despite the relatively large number made, it is unlikely that any two were exactly alike. In addition to color, trim, and fabric choices, buyers could specify side- or rear-mounted spare tires, forward- or rear-hinged doors, disappearing or non-disappearing top, rumble seat or trunk, and a variety of other details. Murphy designed and built more bodies for Duesenberg than any other coachbuilder and helped establish the Model J as an international styling leader (as written on the plaque). It's also Bunny's favorite car. The museum is amazing with cars from a 24k gold-plated DeLorean to a Bugatti Veryon (the fastest road car produced today).

Big Bones

Skeletal remains of a bison found at the La Brea Tar Pits. Tuesday was quiet - I had work for a few hours in the afternoon, but overall nothing too exciting. Tomorrow should be fun, Bunny and I are going back to the city to visit the Petersen Automotive Museum.

I copied Josef Albers...and Bunny helped!

After seeing his paintings at LACMA, I decided I wanted some colored squares ala Josef Albers for my wall (provided I find a proper space for them now that they're completed). While watching the 1981 film "My Dinner with Andre" this afternoon, I spontaneously decided to go buy some canvases with Bunny and that we would paint colored squares on them. The result are these two, I painted the purple one and Bunny painted the green and blue one. We worked together to pick out color combinations that worked well (I made sure her color theory class wasn't wasted when I grabbed paint vials) and then I drew squares out in pretty much a random order. So now I have these Bunny/Johnny collaborative paintings, but we can't decide on a spot to hang them on the wall at the moment...but it was fun that we did them together.

Oh, German Expressionism

A poster from the German Expressionism room at LACMA (I thought it was really funny). Bunny and I went back to LACMA to see more paintings, her favorites included: Clyfford Still, Richard Diebenkorn, Miro, Jasper Johns, Richard Sera, Elsworth Kelly, Georges Braque, and Alexander Calder. After the museum, we got home and my dad had made barbeque, and we looked at old slides of baby Johnny with my dad - until the projector got jammed and we had to figure out how to take it apart. After that hour or so of tinkering, we looked at more slides.

Don't fall into the tar pits!

Bunny, Marcus, Julie and I went into Los Angeles today to visit the La Brea Tar Pits and LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The tar pits were really interesting, lots of different skeletal remains from various animals that got stuck over the many thousands of years - among them; giant sloths, American lions, sabre-tooth tigers, American camels, buffalo, bison, and of course, the mammoth. After that, we headed over to LACMA to look at some modern and contemporary art. We didn't see anywhere close to all that the museum has to offer, but there were some notable pieces that I'll post in coming days. Tonight the four of us had dinner with my parents and sisters at Love Sushi, the friendly neighborhood sushi restaurant. Everything tasted great and we all enjoyed ourselves a lot. Bunny and I are heading back to LACMA tomorrow to finish looking at the galleries we missed today.

Friday and feeling good

Bunny and I watched "America's Sweethearts" this afternoon - what a weird movie. And Julia Roberts could never pass for the sister of Catherine Zeta Jones. We laughed, but sometimes it was more of a nervous laughter. In the evening we sat in the spa for a bit under the moonlight (it was cute and romantic). Bunny bought a cute swimsuit for her trip :) And finally - a close up shot of the Enterprise all lit up :p

Driving, again.

Drove back home with Bunny. Driving down seems to go a lot faster than driving up, though a lot of it probably is due to the fact that Bunny was in the car with me today. We started off leisurely, and after a stop in Gilroy picked up speed and got home in plenty of time. Tonight we watched "Frost/Nixon" about the interview of Nixon after he resigned. It was a fascinating film, presented as more of a documentary about the making of the interview, and all of the work that went into securing and actually doing the interview. We really liked it, the film is kind of a sequel of sorts to "All the President's Men" since it chronologically follows after, and is riveting throughout. No special picture tonight, but this is an awesome sight Bunny, Joe and I saw at the Golden Gate Bridge a few weeks ago.

Driving driving driving

I had such a long day - working 5 hours and then driving to San Francisco is difficult on my body - I wanted to fall asleep a lot. But I'm so happy to have made it up and to see Bunny again - it's only been a few weeks, but it's really wonderful to get back to the city, if only for the night. Another picture from the 4th, but it's how I felt when I saw Bunny.

Let's wait in line!

Teenie and my dad are going to see the new Harry Potter movie tonight, so I waited with her at the theater for a while - The fountain near the theater looked pretty. Tomorrow I'm going to go to San Francisco after work to see Bunny and take her back here for a little vacation. I'm excited about all of that.

Monday Monday

I didn't do much of anything today - or at least I can't remember since I'm writing this on Friday (ooh, time warp!). Since I'm just getting caught up on posts, here's another image of my newly batteried Enterprise to show off the lights.

Two car garage

(image inserted Friday, Jul 17, 2009) Not to be confused with Three Car Garage, the debut album of 90's pretty-boy band Hanson (a CD I wish I never owned). Teenie and I cleaned up our garage today, playing probably one of the world's largest games of Tetris in which we re-arranged all the stuff in there so that we can actually fit TWO cars inside (it's a 3 car garage in reality, but who actually parks all 3 in there?)! So now I get a nice spot in the garage free from the dust and pollen of the outside world (and that means I don't have to wash it as much!). I also gave Twinkie his bath this morning, he was pretty smelly but now he's soft and clean!

Yeah...the batteries died

It separates! But the batteries died out on my after the red lights decided to stay on for hours on end (fun night light though). I didn't do very much today - I watched The Italian Job in my room, I like that movie (the driving sequences are great), and tonight my parents went out to dinner so Teenie and I had our respective take outs - she got Denny's breakfast, I had Del Taco. Yum. I also spent a good amount of time investigating new desks for my room - something small and convenient that doesn't clutter up as much as the current giant office-person desk I have now.

This room, it is a changin'

It's not quite perfect yet - I still need to get a smaller desk, hang the second shelf, and move my bookcase about 4 inches closer to the door - but my room is really shaping up into a much more "me" feeling space. In the bottom left corner of the picture you can see that my Enterprise has migrated onto my desk - I like seeing it out of the corner of my eye for now. I'd have better pictures of its lights - but the batteries died this morning and I haven't had a chance to replace them. Speaking of this morning - my car's weather stripping is basically falling off, the rubber seam between the door and the cabin that keeps wind noise out of the interior was never sealed properly - so I brought it in for service this morning. The only thing I asked them to fix was the one thing they didn't fix. Instead, they replaced a water pump and a drive belt (the drive belt without my permission) and then told me the weather stripping was going to be ordered. All of this took 8 hours so I had no car today. Needless to say I'm less than impressed with Frontier Toyota. On top of all of that, the weather stripping isn't even covered by the car's warranty! At least my room looks great. Don't forget to get your free Slurpee from 7-11 tomorrow!

Make it So, Engage

In what most certainly solidifies my geekery and Trekkie status - I FINALLY got my Diamond Select Enterprise-D tonight. The store "Things from Another World" on Citywalk (Universal Studios) had one in stock, and instead of ordering and waiting for it (like I've been doing since last year), I went and picked it up. Bunny wanted to give this to me for Valentine's day, and it's made me sad that we had to wait this long for it to be available, but I'm so happy that I have it now, and so thankful that Bunny bought it for me. It's HUGE! At 17" long, with lights, sound, and a separating saucer (I'll show that tomorrow), I'm ecstatic. I like having just the lights on - very calming with the blue nacelles.

Day-Glo Green

My new running shoes - for running. In San Francisco, I had the luxury of living in a cooler climate with a park less than a mile from my home that offered me endless opportunity for exploration and adventure (and squirrels to feed). Unfortunately, I cannot imaging walking more than a few hundred yards in 100 degree weather down in Southern California, so I'm really happy that my parents had previously invested in a treadmill. While I would normally walk in SF, here I have opted to run to stay in shape, and required some sneakers capable of supporting my ankles - enter these monstrosities. I will admit that they are kind of growing on me, but I doubt I'll ever think of wearing these outside unless I'm actually running outside (winter time maybe)?

Matching!

Bunny emailed me a picture we took together when she had her art displayed at USF in May - we were really matchy-matchy (see my gray pants and her gray top), but it was actually inadvertent and really cute. Today wasn't anything special otherwise - I watched the second half of National Treasure with my dad and Teenie & ate some more watermelon in the evening.

I didn't know he did that!

Apparently Twinkie very much enjoys watermelon - he eats it just like a person would. I pretty much finally finished cleaning my room today - I moved my desk over in my room about two feet, making my room feel much larger and easier to navigate (it was hard to get to part of the room with the desk so close to the bed). The next step is to replace this desk with something smaller, and change the orientation of my bed, but all good things in time. For now I'm satisfied just to know that the room is coming together smoothly.

Just thinking

I had an opportunity to do a bit of studying this afternoon which I, for the most part, enjoyed - reviewing fundamental material made me appreciate some of the things I take for granted most in the world of mathematics. The rest of the day was spent moving boxes around and taking them to storage for safe keeping - and trying to clear out clutter when possible. I stumbled across a gallery of Banksy artwork this morning - he's first and foremost a graffiti artist, but specializes in what could be best described (and not by me, but Bunny) as a modern conceptual artist. My take on his work is that his subversive and outspoken artwork is heavily ephemeral as graffiti, and the images he chooses to modify are typically involve a modern political message merged into an iconic visual - wherein he makes the statement that these iconic images are not themselves being lost, but are now at the same level as contemporary icons (be it political or consumer based or whatever else he chooses) and that as graffiti - these new icons should be scrubbed clean and fade with time, while the original visual (the Mona Lisa for example) will remain throughout history. I also watched a documentary about the TED conference which is held every year in Monterey, California. During the conference 1000 invitees gather to hear a series of 18 minute speeches by influential and progressive thinkers on topics from social justice, education, philosophy, art, music, technology, etc. TED stands for Technology, Education, Design - and it's been around for a long time, but recently began putting all of the videos from the conference online for everyone to see - I love them, but you can find one of my favorites here . My mind takes off during these mini lectures, and I'm left with a sense of responsibility to contribute to this movement of reaching out to do something incredible - I just am not sure what it is that I'm going to do yet. Someday I hope I'll have a chance to write about that future experience - maybe I'll even get to go to TED :)

4 days past July

Two pictures for very good reasons; 1) the fireworks were pretty and it's the 4th of July so Go America and whatnot. 2) Twinkie enjoying his BIRTHDAY CUPCAKE! Our little man is 8 years old today - and I think he's officially turned into a cat at this point - he sleeps a lot and treats me like his servant. My parents have me giving him plates of food as "peace offerings" because he only seems to ever attack my feet on a regular basis. We saw Ice Age 3 tonight in 3D - I'm not really a fan of the new style 3D glasses - they make the screen look dim and muddy. The movie itself was pretty good, I was laughing a lot, but the story wasn't quite as good as the previous two in my opinion. Before the fireworks started I got to try the Tuti Fruiti yogurt shop at the mall - their plain fozen yogurt is really good too (not quite Ce Fiore, but still nice to have) - but their pricing scheme is entirely new to me in terms of frozen confections - you dispense however much frozen yogurt you want into a cup, and pay by the ounce (though I realize you're probably cheated out of the weight of the cup). After the fireworks show, we drove home in my car with "Galvanize the Empire" (a remix using the Imperial March song from the Star Wars films) blasting and the lights in my car were flashing to the beat - I had a ton of fun this evening and my dad was awesome for turning UP the volume.

Cleaning the olive garden

Most of the day was spent lounging around and organizing some of my things - I still have 8 boxes that need to find homes, and some re-arranging of furniture to do, but my room is coming along nicely. I went to dinner with Teenie and her friend Lauren - we ate at The Olive Garden. My take on it after going to some of the best restaurants in the world with Bunny? The salad is still tasty, but the food in general feels exactly like what it is - overpriced TV dinners. But we all had a nice time and it was fun hanging out with my little sister, so I don't want to sound too critical. The picture is another one from Safari West (theres over 100 of these, I'll never run out of ones I like).

Mini's got a new home

So now my new computer rests peacefully on my ridiculously large desk (enhancing how tiny it is...see the little silver/white box with the iphone sitting on top of it to the left of the TV screen? yeah, that's it...) I fiddled with the mac for most of the morning and studied for a few hours to help be prepared for everything I'll be working with. And then fiddled some more. I wish I could figure out what to do with the stuff in the rest of these boxes so that my whole room would be as neat and clean as this desk. Oh well, one thing at a time.

Let's make it mini!

Today's post is brought to you by Apple in California - specifically, my new Apple Mac Mini! After nearly 6 years of building my own desktops I finally got a new one. There's a lot of work to get transitioned onto a Mac (I've never owned one before), but so far it's been pretty smooth sailing. Luckily I have a long weekend to fiddle with it and get files transferred over (and there are a LOT of those). Tonight I watched an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 with my mom - we watched "Eegah!" (and yes, you pronounce it ee-gah). What a terrible movie, but the commentary, as usual with MST3K, was spot on.