August Update

So the family is finally moved back (75%) to the house which I loved in Rancho Penasquitos and while that's all great, my schedule for August has changed dramatically.  I loaded the end of the month with all the trips from the following week giving me another week off in San Diego to help tidy things up.  You have to love the oppurtunity of Open Time that allows you to swap things around.  All of this just means that I won't be coming back for the rest of the month, or at least might not come back due to the tight squeeze in commuting.  If you are around the SoCal area, hit me up.  I'll be around till next Sunday, August 10th.  CYA! Quick notes:  driving back and forth to downtown at around 2200 last night was fun, eating pizza on a curb on 5th with some old friends sure brought back some memories, the padres lost to the giants again, I got two free shirts at the game 1 from from Scripps (thanks Adelle) and the other from the Padres giveaway.  I'll post pics of a deal-e-o that ended my night rather early thus the driving back and forth multiple times.

Update: Here are the pictures that I promised.  It's House vs. 26' U-Haul!  U-Haul won hands down!

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Murphy's Law

If anything can go wrong, it will.  It all started last night while doing my post flight walk around in Harrisburg, PA.  As I was walking down the stairs, the moisture on one of the steps made me lose my footing, and I came close to doing a face plant on the asphalt.  Of course, because of that close call, I sprain and twist my ankle a bit and just continued to limp around the aircraft.  We finally arrived at the hotel and while getting off the shuttle, I hit my head so freaking hard on the van door that I end up seeing stars and falling forward a little, almost, once again catching myself before the concrete sidewalk.  I'm still feeling a bump about 26 hours later. 

I wake up this morning, have a great breakfast and head back to my room.  After my shower, I grab an undershirt out of my luggage bag, head back to the bathroom and slip on some water but caught myself on the sink by holding onto the tile counter.  I'm definitely not that clumsy at all, and over the previous 12 hour period, I find myself already with 3 strikes.  Today was going to be a great day. 

Of course, after a deadhead back to Atlanta, we find out that our flight to Southbend, Indiana is delayed about 1.5 hours.  This has to happen on the last roundtrip of a four day trip.  We finally take off and once we land in Southbend, we find out that the flight back Atlanta is delayed also another hour.  So that means that my connection back home to San Diego edges closer to being a non-reality.  With all the weather in the vicinity of the Atlanta Airport, I luck out and find out that both Delta and AirTran flights to San Diego are going to be delayed.  We fly back, hang out on the taxiways in Atlanta waiting for the ramp to open up and I run to the next gate. 

I'm finally on the AirTran plane Flight 616 that finally ended up leaving around 1:30AM.  The flight was originally scheduled at 9:45PM, but I guess things have a funny way of working out.  I'm going to land in San Diego around 2:30AM, head to the DMV around 10:30AM to take care of some car registration an then finish up some loose ends back at the house.  It's going to be a good start though.  August is here and so is the last half of the year.  At least most of the little karmic critters are out of the way. 

4 Day Trips vs 3 Day Trips

You ever have the feeling that you should be done with work that day but then you end up at a hotel again?  Well, let me try to put it in another perspective.  It's the feeling you get after sleeping for 3 hours on a 6 hour plane ride to only wake up with 3 hours left!  It never ends!  I'm lucky that I have a great crew this trip and that the days aren't that bad.  I've also been playing quite a bit on my new toy so that's occupying quite a bit of time. 

It was a little depressing having to fly on my birthday, but what can you do?  A friend of mine told me that she has birthday leave which is hard to believe because I don't think we get that here in the US.  I'm definitely jealous. 

I'm heading home once again to San Diego only to be tasked with moving a bit of furniture from one house to the other as well but at least it will all come to an end soon.  Which reminds me...

August Schedule / Apps

My new updated schedule for the month of August is up and over to the right -->

I've been twittering a lot lately with the Twinkle by Tapulous application and have found it to be quite fun.  It shows you who is nearby as well as the people that you follow on twitter.  The program is just a tad buggy as it ends up resetting my device once a day or so, but either than that and some other random programs, I'm on it the most.  Riding the bus to an from the parking lot is quite boring and this keeps me occupied. 

It's about 25 minutes till my birthday and I think I'll call it a night.  I had a great weekend which included a little birthday gathering at the house with some of my friends friends and I'm off again for another 4 day trip followed by a quick trip to San Diego (<36 hours) then by a nap then a 4 day trip.  Check it out on my August Schedule. 

***Update*** as always, because of the awesomeness that ASA lets up swap around our trips and schedules with an open time pot, I was able to trade my nap this weekend for something else a lot later in the month.  Looks like I'll be in San Diego for most of the upcoming weekend.  Check out the updated schedule.  See you on the beach!

The Beginning

Well, here I am again trying out, not only a new service, but a new device that my friends and I are planning to develop for. So far, in the last 72 hours, I have crashed the new phone multiple times thus not allowing me to accurately time the battery life using the built-in "usage" calculator. It's frustrating alright and sometimes the phone is just a little too slow. One gripe with using the contact sync feature with Apple's buggy-shoulda-been-beta mobileMe software package is the 5 seconds that I have to wait while trying to pull up one of my buddies. I can't say that I'm sold on it the "Exchange for everyone else" and will probably cancel it after the free 60 day trial. It's nice to have a calendar and photo library sync up but I can't justify the $100/yr just yet. I'm flying again quite a bit and with the initial award for August, it looks like I'll be able to keep up the commute or head out for another out of country adventure. I need I save some money up for the holiday season but who am I kidding anyways? Life is on another upswing and as long as I can keep up the positivity, it'll be smooth sailing.

I'm going to be Twitter-ing more often and even uploading some mobile photos that can be found on my facebook profile. Facebook released a handy little native app so depending on whether I keep it up will determine the continuation of trelijah. The name is probably going to change again...introducing eliPhone...maybe. :)

On and Off Again

As before and many times ago, I have mentioned times when I truly believed that I was ready to only be once again let down by the simple disappointments of expectations.  No matter how much I attribute them all. or at least most of it to being my fault, I still find myself yearning for more.  It's been a hard year and it is almost to the date where I found myself questioning the whole idea more and more.  There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of the future and where I will be 3-6 months. 

I've been throwing applications out there to various flying companies but of course, the state of the industry hasn't been allowing me the opportunities to interview or even be an exception the rule.  It's definitely going to be a touch couple of months and holiday season due to almost every airline cutting back flying.  So with the onslaught of upcoming furloughs and less flying, it's going to be hard to move upward and continue my cross-country commute. 

Things are the crashpad have been great but as we only have about 8 months left on the lease, the itch is slowly turning into a reality that I will have to find another crashpad and be more out of cash every month due to the highly possible increase in rent.  I'm lucky that the roommates that I have tolerate my messy space in the 2nd floor loft, but that luxury will disappear next February. 

The last couple of days have been a blessing in disguise.  I tell you this because the flying in Florida, particularly Miami and Tallahassee reminded me how much I love flying.  Not only the love for flying, but the love for actually flying passengers around.  The views of the coast just truly are exhilarating at  10,000 going 320 knots.  I'm glad really that I was fortunate enough to end up at a company that has the backing of a great parent company.  I can only hope on how the fall schedule will turn out. 

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Victory!

Season 3 Episode 18 of HBO's Entourage is definitely the one to watch for an uplifting feeling.  The feeling that one can relate to Johnny Drama is hits home.  From failing reviews to how what those who judge mean nothing while everyone else's (the layman) opinion mean everything.  I'm still on the Airtran flight commuting home and have another ~30 minutes until touchdown in San Diego. 

I was able to sell my David Clark Headset that I never used for a good 20% Discount of retail in just 2 days after posting them in the company classified intranet.  I'm definitely happy with the price I got and now, I'm just in the mood to cleaning out the closet again.  There are a lot of things just lying around and although the DVD sale didn't take off on Amazon.com, I'm just going to list what I can on eBay.  I've listed my older Treo 650 for $75 but got nothing so far.  It's a little disappointing since I bought the device for $600 just 3.5 years ago, but that's the way electronics depreciate I guess. 

I got my car back today from the dealership and have my job cut out for me.  Or at least I can say that Kurt and I have our jobs cut out in the fact that there are two oils leaks that I have to repair hopefully in the next month or so.  The oil pan gasket on my E30 doesn't seem that difficult, but something about the rear engine seal is definitely going to take about an entire day to work on especially since I'll have to guess what parts I need in advance so my car isn't disabled while we wait for a shipment of goodies.  Anyone out there with an '88 E30 iC just drop me a line with some DIY instructions as I'm in need to save as much as possible by not getting the stealership repair it and not buying a new car that comes with a monthly payment. 

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Right When You Wake Up

Well, things are good.  We had a great surprise party that was thrown by Ms. Buffington and Ms. Pitfick last Friday at an awesome bowling / dance club style place, the cake that they surprised us with was tremendous and I'm up and running at 100MPH once again. 

Of course, right as that happens, my car takes a dump and I had to tow it today to the BMW Dealership.  Who knows what I'm going to end up with now.  Oh yeah, the latest attempts (2 times now) to help Manoj get an iPhone have been failures due to everyone else wanting one and the lines at the Apple store just never ending.  AT&Ts in Atlanta have all sold out and it's really just been too much fun. 

I'll upload some pictures from the party and update this entry once I get them from the camera and onto the computer.  I also just got a wind of the potential shcedule that I might have in August.  Once, it's final, I'll try to upload it.  Till then, I'll write more later on.  It's freaking 3:00AM and I've just not been sleeping!  Gotta clean the up the mess the tornado left in my room!

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July Schedule

I think that I'm finally finished moving around my schedule swapping and trading around.  What I have posted at www.elijahnicolas.com/wp/img/08Jul.jpg should reflect all my recent changes and modifications.  Should be a pretty easy schedule giving me time to head back to San Diego to hang out with family as well as Palm Coast to tidy up the house and get it ready for tenants.   I'm finally up and running at 90% again and probably can safely say that I'll be 110% buzzing in no time.  Flying is going well, the birthday month is here and things can only get better, right?  Thanks to everyone who found the time to chat to me about the randomness.  

Oppurtunities

When opportunities knock, how can you tell which door it's actually coming from.  I mean, imagine yourself walking down the hallway of life and you hear a loud bang... where is it resonating from?  I came up with a great visual (in mind at least) of the phrase "Home Stretch" and in doing so, am posing a question to you out there.   It's your turn at bat, you swing with all the HGH induced body mass you can conjure up and starting running assuming the whole while that you might have just hit a home run.  Now, as you round first, you notice that one of the best outfielders, who is nicknamed Air Jordon, is getting ready to jump and make the catch but there is a possibility that he might not make the ESPN Top Ten plays and miss it by an inch. Obviously in corresponding with the fact that you are on the "Home Stretch" are you really even home free knowing that it's still not up to you...knowing that you're running around the bases could all be for naught, do you just pause and watch?  What can you do?  WHEN DO YOU KNOW YOU'RE DONE?!?!

Two Weeks...

It's been just about that much time since my last post.  I've been trying to "find" myself and it's been really hard.  Concentrating a little too much on random things rather than facing the subject at hand doesn't help, but then again, what is the subject?  I was able to find a passage from Jacques Lusseyran's book and with that, I'll end this post:

Suppose I am sad.  Or embarrassed.  I have things which upset me.  I am anxious.  Armies of small pains race inside my head.  I see black butterflies everywhere.

What happens then?

Suddenly I see almost nothing.

When I am sad, walking inside my house, I bump my forehead; I hurt my hand on a half-open door. And I no longer even have a sense of where I am.

...I understand quickly that in order to no longer be blind in the way I detest, all that I have to do is simply no longer be sad. 

Final Day in Singapore (lots of pictures!)

Well, it was the first day that I got to sleep in, so I took full advantage of it.  I met up with Charmaine again for lunch at another mall where the food was just...all over the place!!!  After seeing what there was to choose from, I was so over exposed that I was lost in selection.  I wanted to try a little bit of everything but we settled for Malaysian because I mentioned that I had never had it.  I was going to take a picture of it, but I had already messed up the presentation, so just imagine an Asian dish in a huge plate, looking like $30 for only $7.50.  Awesomeness!  I made the conclusion that afternoon that maybe the 24 hours of flying was worth it just for the food.  I couldn't get enough! 

I walked around the mall a little more but I couldn't find the gifts that I wanted, so sadly for you, I had to give up.  I needed to make my tourist rounds and Kodak moments.  =)  The first place we went to was the Merlion in Marina Bay.  I rode the MRT Subway system and the escalators leading to the train were freaking FAST!!!  I mean, they were on turbo mode and I almost fell back a bit.  They have to adapt that here in the states so that it increases your chances of making your connections by 5 seconds at the airports!  It just felt right.  Talk about rapid transport. 

We strolled along Boat Quay where restaurants were aggressive as heck trying to get us to sit down and eat, but instead I took a picture of the largest crab I could find! Keep click for more pictures!

I needed to hit the beach so we took a cab to East Coast Park.  I wasn't dressed appropriately but that wouldn't stop me from taking a dip.  We walked some more along the coastline which was packed with joggers, roller bladders and bikers.

Since it was a Saturday, many families were out just enjoying the day at ECP and of course, I was there to just take pictures.  If you look at the pictures above, you can see the skyline / waterline just speckled with ships waiting to dock.  I haven't ever seen a sight such as that and could count roughly 25 ship just parked.  It's didn't make the sights calming at all but instead, more of an eye sore.  I guess that's what you're to expect from a country that doesn't manufacture that many goods. 

We took a cab back to the local area and headed back into Chinatown, where I took a few other random pictures. The fruits that were in the refrigerators were just there for the fast food types. I had to have my Asian Pear; a fruit that I've really been into the last couple of months.  I ordered a half cut from the vendor and when I took my first bite, I was surprised by the taste of salt.  Of course, my surroundings were also full of dried up fish so my initial thought was that my nose and my taste buds were confused.  We jogged a bit further down so that I continue my tasting experience and still, I tasted salt.  Obviously, the pear that I had was sprinkled with some and I'm going to have to try that when I get back.  It ended up tasting pretty good. 

I gave druian another try, but I can't say that it's up there on my top 10 fruits.  Sorry mom.  I didn't even have to touch it because of the left over wrapper so I was durian smell free!!! 

The night ended hanging out with some of Charmaine's relatives at their local condo where we BBQ'd and of course, I was just completely exhausted by then.  Thanks for cooking Love and Yang.  The chicken was great but I'm sorry that I didn't go for the squid.  I'm just too American I guess.  The food was great, the company was entertained and by the time I headed back to the hotel, I would end up getting about 2 hours of sleep.  Here you see me sleeping at the dinner table.  Pretty embarrassing but boy, the 3 day tour was over!  Thanks for everything Charmaine! 

Singapore (day 2)

Day 2 was pretty much just a bunch more of me walking around the local area.  I walked to a Catholic Church where I thought that there would be a daily mass, but I read the sign the day prior all wrong.  So, I just sat there and gazed upon the architecture and mediated a little bit then headed out again. 

Walking towards Chinatown, I had the chance to really experience the local grocery / shopping life with little tourist influence.  I was fascinated by the various types of fruits that one could choose and how relatively inexpensive they were.  Shops were lining up the streets, some with refrigerators filled with cut fruit for the on to go shopper and other with the latest an greatest in technology.  There was dried fish, an Apple iPhone store, dead fish, live fish, hanging ducks and chicken, plasma television, and some other herbs and random items that I have never smelled or seen before.  It definitely put me on sensory overload.  I saved all the shopping and fruit tasting for a latter day and after walking around for almost 2.5 hours, it was time for lunch.  I headed back to Central Mall to meet up with my friend. 

We headed to a mall food court and ate at a Japanese Hot Plate restaurant which was quite delightful.  Making it a short lunch, we bought some donuts on the way out and then I made my way back to the hotel.  The day was so hot that I once again found myself being a little lazy and took a nap.  The plan for the night would include hanging out with Charmaine's co-workers at a local restaurant followed by some true Singaporean Clubbing. 

Side note: I'm going to admit that I could just only barely recognize the English that was being spoken by the meer fact that the accent was too much to make out.  After a while, I got use to it but I can't say that I have ever heard that type of English mix. 

Charmaine's friends were very accommodating and had a lot of patience with me frequently asking them to repeat themselves.  It was a little embarrassing, but I got over it.  I hope that they did.  Everyone took their turns asking me questions and I tried my best to entertain them.  It definitely would have been great to bring some of my American friends down here for the trip.  Sheena, the girl in the white headband, got us into a club called The Butter Factory ( I still don't know why it was called that ) and we hung out there until I was so exhausted that I could barely keep my eyes open.  The alcohol consumption by the locals was tremendous!  The specials from 2300 to 0000 included two for one pitchers of whatever you call.  So the initial batch was screwdrivers and cosmos and they literally filled up pitchers with these mixes, dumped a handful of straws and off you would go.  Some people were even double fisting it with one straw! 

The dance floor was far too crowded to actually even move side to side so we reverted to little drinking games that were really awesome.  I can't say that I see my friends playing these games, because they are really "girly" maybe but then again who knows.  Maybe they could be coined as really "asian" but I have no idea.  It just depends on the group I guess.  The night ended with a short walk back to the hotel (3 blocks) and I passed out.  I couldn't believe that it was down to 24 hours left and I didn't even take that many pictures.