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Home for Thanksgiving

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Being home for the hol­i­days is a good thing. Going home on a 6:40am flight is not so good. Espe­cial­ly if you do not want to pay $25 for a cab to the air­port, and want to just get a free ride from a room­mate that goes to work at 4:30am like me.

Maybe its just poor plan­ning on my part last night. I tried to clean up my room as much as I can when I got home from the city, as well as do laun­dry. I also tried knock­ing out some easy tasks for work since I’ll be OOTO (out of the office) till Tues­day next week. I think I fin­ished clean­ing and pack­ing my lug­gage around 2am. So by that, I only slept 2–2.5 hours and got up at 4:15am to get ready to leave with Big­gy for the air­port.

It was get­ting busy when I arrived and lined up on the secu­ri­ty check line. I was for­tu­nate enough to get in group‑B for South­west. I think I was the third per­son on that line. The thing with that is, or at least being alone on a flight, would prob­a­bly be not hav­ing a bud­dy to watch your stuff when you go to the restroom.

Any­ways, the fligh was on sched­ule for a 6:40am depar­ture out of Oak­land. We arrived in Bur­bank right on time, 7:50am. Got picked up by my broth­er in his tweaked Civic Hatch­back ’95. It freak­ing only had two seats. The rest of the inside was pret­ty much the frame. Some­times, I don’t know how he thinks. Then again, it’s his car.

Mean­while, the ride home was bumpy. Dropped cars ain’t real­ly your typ­i­cal smooth ride. Don’t get me wrong, they’re good for rac­ing but com­mon… when was the last time you’ve been on a real rac­ing cir­cuit? So yah, got home a bit before 10am after eat­ing some break­fast. I real­ly want­ed to do stuff and not just sit at home. But alas, 2 hours of sleep ain’t going to get things the way you want­ed to. And all I can remem­ber was turn­ing off the TV, pulling the sheet over me and wak­ing up at 3pm.

So, here I am: check­ing email; look­ing at my fan­ta­sy foot­ball and bas­ket­ball leagues; and wait­ing for my mom and aunt to get home so we can do some­thing. We’ll prob­a­bly just end up eat­ing (as usu­al) and chill at home. But we’ll see, a 5 hour “nap” real­ly does some weird stuff to peo­ple’s body and clock. Maybe the movies?

Alas, hap­py Thanksgiving/Turkey Day every­one. Den­ver at Dal­las seems like a good game to watch for NFL this Thurs­day. That should keep you enter­tained after/before you hov­er all that deli­cious food. “Eat, drink and be mer­ry” as Dave would say. Go Turkey!

Back Up North By Southwest

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Damn, that was one rough flight com­ing into OAK. Don’t do it again SW, or… NO SOUP FOR YOU! (I’ll update this entry lat­er today, sooo tired from the week­end… lots of stuff to write about. Good times.)

I flew down this past Thurs­day night by SW. Seems that they were delayed by 30. But oh well, I got to do online checkin and got sat with group A—yayer! First time I actu­al­ly got to sit with that group, as its usu­al­ly C and a cou­ple of times in B. I just dont like sit­ting in the back cause by the time you get your drink (for an hour flight) you’re already land­ing.

Fast-for­ward to Sat­ur­day
Woke up pret­ty late, as late as 11am. Yah I know, thats pret­ty ear­ly for a Sat­ur­day but I’ve been get­ting up pret­ty con­sis­tent­ly around 8am on the week­ends for some rea­son unknown. Got ready and went with my bro to his band’s prac­tice in the val­ley. Man oh man, it was freakin’ nice, warm weath­er. Its been a while since I have worn shorts and actu­al­ly felt com­fort­able to wear through­out the whole day and night. But yah, these suck­ers are crazy when they prac­tice. I took some doc­u­men­tary of it as well.

Mean­while, 5:30pm rolls around so fast that we were in a rush to get back because of Tinz’ hula recital (which was first-come first-serve seat­ing). I guess its real­ly true when you’re hav­ing fun, time flies. And as a char­ac­ter­is­tic of LA, good ol’ fash­ioned traf­fic (plus smog of course). Oh LA traf­fic, how I miss thee…

I final­ly got home to change a bit. Might as well, so I can just go straight to the club right after. But yah, I real­ly want­ed to take pics of Tinz’ show but could­n’t cause there was this huge ass doo­ds with sarongs(?). Kin­da like the ones that are on those “hawai­ian pow­er” shirts. Yah man, alo­ha to you too brotha. Fur­ther­more, the stage was real­ly damn close to us, thanks to the patience showed by BelLou.

Flash­doms
It was Jevon, Jua­na­ton, Tom­my, Ryan, Jovan­horne, Cice­ly, Jay, Bel­Lou, and I attend­ing. I swear, we were like the press—a cam­era per indi­vid­ual. Even though they were strict about the cam­era, Lou man­aged to get some cool pics since he got the great seat—right up the mid­dle and away from the “mus­cles” to see. Besides that, I learned that you can use nylon (from under­wear) to make the harsh­ness of the built-in flash of dSLRs soft­er. I am label­ing that thing as a “flashdom”—kinda like a con­dom but for flash, keepin’ it safe from over­ex­po­sure-titis. And who bet­ter to teach me this? Yes, its him, Con­fu­cious rein­car­nat­ed… Jua­na­ton. I tell you, those “flash­doms” are gonna be a great hit.

Feel the Aura
The hula thing went well, kin­da remind­ed me of PCN but no “Cel­e­bra­tion” song. I was glad some­what that it was done as it took a long time to fin­ish. The head guru (I guess) planned giv­ing out the raf­fle stuff at the end; which dragged for more than 30+ min­utes or so. I was step­ping on it to go back home cause I left a bat­tery for my cam­era.

But alas, I got to the Rhythm Natives’ album release par­ty and show @ Aura Night­club in Stu­dio City. I was stress­ing out cause it was daaamn packed. The line was extend­ed pro­l­ly a good 100 feet; and that aint sin­gle-file. I freakin’ just paid $11 for VIP park­ing since I know I ain’t drink­ing cause of meds. Got out quick­ly with all my gear and pro­ceed to call T (my bro’s gf), which did­n’t pick­up… thanks. So I rushed through the back and made my way inside. First time I’ve ever done that; got lucky cause there weren’t any bounc­ers when I went through.

I took quite a lot of pics, or tried too. It was way packed inside, more than I was expect­ing for a gig like their usu­al ones. I tried tak­ing clear pics but that was a prayer since I had no clear sight to take a good expo­sure on. But any­ways, I got a hand­ful show­ing how great of a show it was. If you haven’t heard any of their stuff, you can go to www.rhythmnatives.com. Go and sup­port, they’re real­ly good—surprisingly.

Besides hear­ing that Lil’ Wayne was there, we saw JC Chasez with a cou­ple of hot ladies. Did­n’t real­ly get to take a pic of him, I shoul­da cause I just remem­bered that Gwen like that dood (if I can recall). But yah, he had some weird haircut—I think it was a mul­let.

Great Week­end
Got to see the doods/doodettes from Irvine, the fam and catch anoth­er RN gig—a band on the come up, I swear! And oh yah, got to eat one of my favorite late night spots—Sanam­lu­ang! Man oh man, can you say “mmm mmm good” in Thai?!

From my mind to yours, sup­port my bro and his band—the Rhythm Natives.