weee!

happy birthday to me.
happy birthday to me.
happy brithday to me.
happy birthday to me.

party, friday, here, 7pm.

although i'm sure everyone who reads this goddamn thing is nowhere near here!

suckers.

fooboys

sooooo live goes on. we're coming down to the last stages of our house repairs and pretty soon we'll be focusing on 'moving'. scary. my mom has a LOT of stuff. i've managed to keep my earthly posessions to a minimum (if you don't count the 7 surfboards and all the tools i've gathered) so i'm not too worried. i'm seriously considering selling raimi and getting some kind of truck or SUV...might be a good transition time. raimi's useless when it comes to moving shit :)

but yeah, the house looks good, we have a yard! front and back! that hasn't existed in about a decade here. maybe in a week or so we'll hit the paint jobs (inside and out) which are going to be a bitch. but yeah, it's coming to an end.

in other news, it looks like i'm going to be going into mechanical engineering. haha. i dumbly assumed that alternative energy would be in electrical engineering buuuut it seems like most of the program is in MechE...which means i'll have to take the GRE's...which means i'll probably have to be an unregistered student if i wanna start in the spring. maybe not, we'll see. small chance i could convince the profs to pull strings for me, i'll get on that.

got three recommendations on the way (tsividis, eleftheriadis and olsen if anyone's interested). first three choices, so i'm pscyed. eleftheriadis is even on sebatacle and agreed to do it in the two weeks he'll be back in august. i only had ONE backup, so good thing they worked out. i must say, it's a really good feeling to have these profs write back and immediately say, hey, i remember you. I'd be glad to help you out. one (olsen) said my email made her day! she was a biomedical engineering prof who (i think) did a whole lot more research than teaching. i was one of four students in a class called "sound and hearing" which went into all the biomed aspects of sound. really cool shit, i enjoyed it a lot. i was the only undergrad in the class, but she was a really good teacher.

other than that, lotsa ultimate, lotsa surf. tam and i are captaining a team (called red meat) which is losing EVERY game so far...but i don' tthink we've lost by more than 3 in any game. and i think 3/4 of the games we lost tied at hardcap. just can't give that last push *shrugs*. whatevers. some of the most fun i've ever had playing ultimate. tough, sweet ultimate. what more could you ask for. anyone who's played with me knows i'll sacrafice my body at any point, so you'll understand what i say that i don't care about winning, i just wanna play. but i will try my hardest.

mm...whiskey and ibuprofen.


aimin' for some hard work tomorrow.

then some hard playin' on tuesday.

do i need to blog more?

blah

so not much new's been happening in my life...but i thought i'd send a shout out anyway. actually i just like to hear myself talk.

finally getting the ball rolling and hitting up old profs for recommendations and hitting up UH professors to learn more about the program. was talking to my brother about how much transitions suck. all the bullshit you have to go through to get where you wanna go. i wanna just have a cool idea, snap my fingers, and let it be.

oh well, i guess i can handle it.

house is lookin' good. we're comin' down to the last few things and we're selling everything we can. big things first...furniture and such. making a good dent in things, the house is finally clearing up and looking like something doable instead of a huge clutter that would take a fuckin' dumptruck to move. getting closer. yardwork's ALMOST done...that's the one thing i don't like about all this. i hate yardwork. except using a chainsaw, that's kinda fun. the vibration absolutely destroys my hands, though...everytime i use it for a long time my hands ache for days...ugh. i have arthritis.

and tam and i made 6 months :) hopefully many more to follow (i expect there to be).

oh, and lewis bought me a new surfboard for my birthday :) what a guy. i'd been looking for a slightly bigger board for bigger surf and he came home for the weekend and in looking for a board for HIM he offers to buy me one. soooo that's like three more years i won't need a board :) and i STILL haven't paid a dime for a single one!

and it's a sweeeeet board. now i just need waves...fuck.


charmed life.


eat pizza.

*sigh*

just spent however long it was between these last two posts reading blogs.

i miss you guys.

when i was just a little boy

i really should've just been a fuckin' mechanic. or a carpenter. or an electrician or something. or maybe not. i really don't know what it is about me but all this work around this house is almost FUN. today i was working on fixing our kiln (bigass oven for ceramics for those confused fellows out there). one'a the steel bands that supports the hinges rusted off and buckled the hinge...almost destroying the lid (or more). unfortunately it's not a part that's normally carried by our supplier 'cause it'll go like once in a kiln's life so isami (my old buddy at ceramics hawaii) suggested i just make one. so i went to city mill and got two sheets of 16 gauge sheet metal...i needed 32 inches but the longest they came was 18 so i'm joining them with another plate. you know a stainless steel screw costs 40 cents!? expensive shit. but you need it 'cause at 2500 degrees farenheit everything'll rust, even stainless steel eventually. actually aluminum won't...but it can't stand the heat.

so to do this job i ended up using a chop saw throwing sparks fucking EVERYWHERE and bending the sheet metal to fit around a decagon...and i'm having a lotta fun. power tools are fun. sparks are fun. metal is fun. i wonder if i should just start a business and advertise myself by saying "i'll fix anything". maybe i could start a tv show about it. i could be the next marth fuckin' stewart, baby. only with power tools. maybe that's my calling.


right.


i think the problem is that i just can't end up behind a desk. one thing that really coaxed me into pursuing further education is just talking to a lot of the people i hang out with these days about research. i want to PRODUCE something. i want to invent something. i want to discover something. i don't wan to just do things that've already been blueprinted. i think fixing things works for me because it involves problem solving. gotta find the weak link, fix it, and hopefully strengthen it. my mom's amused by how i approach jobs in this house like i want it to last 20 years whereas she wants it to just look good enough for sale. fixing a buckle in our ceiling (gypsum) i screwed and nailed 20ft. of 2x4's all over the attic above the living room to (hopefully) strengthen a shitty design to keep it from slowly moving. meanwhile my mom's just telling me to cover the crack. couldn't live with myself.

i need a problem to solve. not just a contract.

consulting?

maybe i'll just intermittently work for a year and go back to school for something else. my new interesting idea is to do this gig with natural energy...and if i get bored i'll go get an MBA.


and a house.