creanium.net

Alrighty … so some new stuff to post about. (I would hope so considering it’s been 3 months since my last one).

Okay, well since the last thing I posted about was my new sway bar, I’ll start out by talking about the car. Since the sway bar was put on, I got a new suspension installed. Nothing too fancy, just something that lowered the car a little bit and improved the handling, but didn’t make the ride too harsh. In case anyone is interested, I have Vogtland Sport springs and Koni adjustable shocks and struts. I have to say, overall, I’m very pleased. The new setup makes the car handle and look a lot better. The ride is noticibly rougher, but it’s not harsh by any means. Some bumps can be pretty loud, but overall it’s just fine.

I’ve been in school for the last 2 1/2 months, and that’s been nothing really special. Calculus and Human Anatomy, oh boy! Yeah, you know you’re jealous.

Been busy working on websites. Still working at SPARTA, doing the same stuff I have been doing for the last 6 1/2 years. Can you believe that?! 6 1/2 years at my first at only job, and it’s still going strong. I also made a website for my sister and her husband as well as for the Associated Engineering Student Council at SDSU. I also set up and maintain a European car forum called EuroTuned. If you drive a VW, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, or any other kind of European car, just come on over and join up, it’s some good fun. So as you can see, I’ve been managing to stay busy.

I replaced the photo album software that I created for my website with one that is easier to use and add photos to. So basically, you can expect many more photos to come. I already added A BUNCH of new photos, so just hit the Photos link at the top of the page to view them.

Went to a couple of concerts recently. MEST in early October, and Good Charlotte with Sum 41 on Halloween. All were good and I’d highly recommend you attending one of them the next time they’re in town.

For the last couple of days, my time has been consumed by Halo 2. Josh and I went to GameStop around 11:30 Monday night and waited in line to get the game he preordered. We ended up playing until 5:00AM before I went home to sleep. Then on Tuesday, FedEx dropped off the copy that I had ordered that included free overnight shipping, so I still had it on the day of the release because they shipped it out on Monday. We had our first true Halo 2 party last night. I won’t bore you with the details but just know it was pretty fun.

Also on Tuesday, I received a 20GB iPod, completely free of charge. How cool is that?! All I had to do was sign up on a website, complete an advertiser’s offer, and then get 5 people to do the same. It was pretty effortless on my part. The only downside is it took me almost 3 months from when I signed up to me getting my iPod. But, it’s here now, and definitely not a scam. I had already bought a cable that allows me to listen to the iPod in my car; and I also bought a little cradle that the iPod sits in when I have it in my car. I posted pictures in case you’re interested.

That’s about it for now. Erica’s on her way up to my house and we’re gonna go shopping for Robin and Jacki’s birthdays. Can’t wait until Christmas when they’re both home again cause I miss them a lot. Oh well, that’s all part of growing up I guess.

Alritey folks … it’s been a full 3 months since my last entry (which seems to be my usual cycle). And away we go …!

The biggest exciting thing for me is I’m getting some modifications for my car. I’m putting in a whole new suspension on the car which should make my car a bit sportier. It’s going to end up about an inch and a half lower than it is now, and a little stiffer of a ride; so my car should handle a lot better. I’m also installing a new rear anti-sway bar. What that does is it kinda stiffens up the rear of my car and allows it to corner better. So overall, my car should handle much better than it used to. So that’s cool.

Tonight, Erica threw a BBQ as a last-hoorah for Robin and Jacki because they take off for Michigan on Monday to go to school. Overall it was a good evening, had some fun and good food; but it was quite sad saying good-bye because we’ve all had some great times together and it’s very saddening to see it end. I don’t really want to go too deep into it because I’m going to miss them quite a bit …

I also got a new cell phone: the Motorola v710. Yeah, that’s right, go ahead and be jealous. =o) I’ve been waiting for this phone for quite a while, and it’s pretty awesome. It’s great to have a pretty reliable phone once again.

Work has been pretty hectic for me this summer. We have a big project that we’re working on and we’re going to develop it the “correct” way by documenting everything and holding meetings often. I’ve been appointed the testing lead, so that means I have to develop a plan of how I’m going to test the software, administer the test, record the results, and file any change requests needed. It’s a bit more complicated and time-consuming than it sounds; but in the end I think it’s going to be a good experience.

Halo 2 comes out November 9th, you better believe I’m going to be quite preoccupied for quite some time after it comes out. The more I read about it, the more excited I get; can’t wait!

School starts up again in two weeks. I’m only taking two classes this semester, and they’re both on Mondays and Wednesdays, so it’s like I have a 5-day weekend every week. =oD It’ll be nice because I’ll be able to work more when I’m not in school, and you know that means more money!

Welp, I think that’s it for now. Look for more to come as I might have some more free time coming up when I’m not playing Doom 3 or working or messing with my car.

Hey guys … well the site has been successfully relocated and things went smoothly I must say. I’m sure most have you noticed the changes I did to the site visually like the new banner graphic and I tweaked the background image a little. And you may not have noticed yet, but the site runs amazingly faster now.

I changed my calendar, or “Schedule” as it’s labled in the navigation bar. It’s got a little bit different of a design, but it’s cooler. You will notice certain days are red/pink. Those are days that I have something scheduled. All you need to do is hightlight over the day in question and you will instantly see what I have going that day.

I’ve also added a Message Board to my site. You will be able to find it using the Forums link in the navbar. I’m not expecting a high volume of posts and visitors or anything, just thought it would be nice to have a little place where we could all converse on occassion.

So what’s up with me? Not too much, I start school next week. Blech … I have like 3 different websites lined up to make. So on top of regular SPARTA work, I’ve been able to keep pretty busy while on break. I AM looking forward to school, but at the same time, I’m kind of not. But we’ll see how it all pans out. I supposedly have some good teachers, so I have that working in my favor.

That’s about it for now, I’m going to dinner tonight at my aunt’s because my cousin is in town; woo. K yah, that’s about all.

Yeah, you heard me … It especially sucks when I have a spasming back and the painkillers I’m taking make me feel stoned. But oh well … at least it helps alleviate the pain.

So I’ve been spending the evening studying my Spanish book, working on my Visual Basic program, and playing around with MS Office 2003. The new version of Outlook is cool! I finally took the time to sort through my 2000+ emails in my Inbox. So now I’m down to like 119 and a bunch of messages flagged for review. So I’m trying to get things more organized in my life.

Anyway, now that I’m done with that, it’s time to go back to work on my VB program as I sit here in my chair, with a heating pad on “high” setting on my back. Brian wanted to go to Krispy Kreme tonight, and he and Courtney have been wanting to go since at least Saturday. And I feel bad because Brian’s been trying to get me to go shopping with him all last week and they’ve been trying to get me to do stuff with them this week, but it just hasn’t been the best week for me. I’ve been busy working, or studying, or getting sick, or no money, or this or that. I don’t like it any more than they do I’m sure. But what can ya do? Sometimes things just don’t quite work out.

I’m really going to be enjoying the 6 weeks I get for winter break. No books, no homework, no nothing. I’ll be able to do stuff with everyone again, and not feel or look like a damn hermit.

K … it’s 10:00, I REALLY should get back to work.

Well … here we are, the middle of December, and I’m finally writing in here again. See, the thing is, my life is so routine anymore, that it’s not even worthy to post up for you all to read. But there have been some recent events, so I’ll write about those.

Let’s see, the last I left off was about 6 weeks ago when the fires were raging on. Well, I’m happy to report the fires are out, and we’re all safe. All in all, I think I heard something like 350 homes had burned down. Thankfully no one I personally know had their house badly damaged.

On Halloween, Erica, Robin, Jacki, and I spent the day at Disneyland. It was great, no real crowds or anything. Then for dinner, we met up with Brian and Courtney and had some good Italian food in Downtown Disney. After dinner, we all did a couple more rides and then watched Fantasmic. It was great, just as I remembered it. =o)

Nothing major happened in between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Well, except I put new headlight housings on my car. The new ones are European-spec and have a nicer beam pattern. And these new ones also have the foglights in the housings (my old ones didn’t). There are pics up of the install in the “Jetta” album in my Photos.

Oh yeah, and Evan left for boot camp the week before Thanksgiving. We all threw him a good-bye bash full of food and Xbox fun. It was sad to see him go, but we’ll get to see him again for Christmas. Even though, it’s still not going to be the same without him around. He brought a certain “flare” to us all and it will be sorely missed.

Then came Thanksgiving. For the first time in several years, our whole family was together for the holiday. My parents, Michael, Gaile, and I all flew up to my sister’s house in Sacramento and had dinner with her and my brother-in-law Mikee. It was a BLAST up there and we all had so much fun. I got to try some interesting alcoholic concoctions. The food was GREAT and the family fun was even better. It’s great to see we can all still get along and have fun together. (You can see photos of the whole week in the “Thanksgiving 2003″ album). The most interesting part of the whole trip was when Michael and Gaile made sushi for us. It’s surprisingly simple, and it tasted pretty damn good. Two-thumbs-up in my book. =o)

Then, let’s see, the last two weeks have pretty much just been me working, schooling, and preparing for finals. I only have 2 finals, so that’s helpful, but I have at least 1 test in every class next week, whether they’re finals or just chapter tests. I’m not stressing TOO much, but enough that I’m a little worried and am studying.

Oh yah, and last weekend, I spent the whole weekend putting lights up on the house, and I’m still not done (got some cleanup work to do).

Possibly going Christmas shopping tonight with Erica and Robin, or maybe tomorrow with Erica. We’ll see how it pans out. Going to Robin’s polo game this afternoon. My first polo game (whoah). This should be interesting, to say the least. Bunch of girls in skimpy outfits beating each other up? Sounds like my kind of sport! Lol … just messin.

K … well I’ll try to make an effort at getting more blog entries posted in the future. I’ve promised that before, and it hasn’t faired too well. Ahh well.

… can you? I think it’s that new car smell … yes, yes it is! Haha okay, sorry. I’m going a little crazy. But anyway, my parents and I discussed getting the Jetta and we’ve agreed to get it and so I have a little more research to do and prepare my truck for trade-in. My mom is going to hawaii for 2 weeks so we’ll have to wait for her to get back before we can get the car. But yah, it’s happening, I’m getting a new car!

Anyway, in case you’re curious, or you don’t know already, I plan on getting a 2003 Platinum Gray VW Jetta GLS 1.8T with 5-speed manual.

So that’s that, the car is coming. I started school and I’m enjoying my classes. Math is a little too early at 8:00 in the morning, but it’s okay. I have spanish in an hour so I should get in the shower.

I’ll post more later.

Wow, so sorry for the COMPLETE lack of updates. But with the past couple of months being so distracting, I haven’t really had any motivation to post anything new.

As I’m sure most of you know, Erica and I broke up almost 2 months ago. I won’t go into too much detail here, so if you want to know more you can IM me or call me. But just know we’re still really good friends and hang out together and still have fun with each other.

Other than that, nothing MAJOR has occurred. We had Thanksgiving up at my sister’s in Sacramento. Did some sight-seeing and I took plenty of pictures. I’ll post those rather soon. You’ll also see pictures of my sister’s drunken cat. Seems her cat has developed a liking to alcohol, and can even drink it through a straw. It was quite humorous to watch. You’ll just have to wait for the pics to see for yourself.

Hmm, not much really happened in December, except for finals and the end of this school semester. I got 2 A’s and a B in my three classes, so I’m pretty happy about that.

Then Christmas came and it was better than I expected. I was a little afraid actually that I might end up feeling lonely, but it wasn’t bad at all. I got some cool stuff, mainly DVDs, but that’s mainly what I asked for this year so I guess you could say I made out pretty well.

My sister came home for New Years and her visit was really nice. I like it when my sister comes home, it really livens up the house around here.

Went to the Auto Show with Erica and Dan. I tried calling Evan because he had wanted to go with us, but I dunno if his phone wasn’t on or he wasn’t getting signal or what, but whenever I tried calling him, the call went straight into voicemail.

But yeah, saw a lot of cars. Sat in quite a few cars that I have been thinking about or considering, and I still settle on the Jetta. Overall it’s just a great car, especially the value for the money. I won’t get all obsessive and start naming off everything that’s great about it (like I did with the xbox) =o)

Oh yeah, my cell decided it would be cool if it just started acting up again. It was the 5th (yeah that’s right FIFTH) phone that I had gotten. The other 4 were glitchy too and I had to go into Verizon and they would swap the phones for me. So in getting fed up with the phone I decided to replace it with a more reliable one. Soooo, I got a Motorola T720. It’s a pretty sweet phone. It’s a flip phone with a color screen and everything else lights up white. I never thought I would be one to go for flip phones, but this one just appealed to me and it’s a great phone. Color screen, downloadable games, polyphonic ringtones; it’s got it all.

And yeah, I’m supposed to go report for Jury duty tomorrow . Just something about sitting in a room for 7 hours waiting to be called just doesn’t appeal to me. Maybe it’s just me. I was actually scheduled to report on the 6th, but since you can go any day within 2 weeks of your scheduled date, I tried to go last Wednesday. But on the way down there, I got stuck in traffic and ended up walking into the “Jury Room” at like 8:20 and the woman there said that they had already started orientation and that I was too late. So I had to go back home and I had nothing to do.

I think that’s about it for now. I’ll try to post things as I think of them.

Hehe … I’m in english class right now. The teacher is giving a lecture on writing concise sentences. In my humble opinion I firmly believe I do not have a problem writing sentences that do not contain a lot of words and are not run-on sentences. Hehe, that last sentences would probably make my teacher freak. Don’t mind me, I’m just in a weird mood right now. After class, I get to go help Brian move into his new apartment. It is a GORGEOUS place. It’s much bigger than the one he had before, many more amenities, and it just looks much nicer. I’ll probably put up pics soon because I’m sure he’ll want to show it off to anyone and everyone. It’s nice though, 9 foot ceilings, crown molding, gas stove and oven, fireplace, network outlets in every room, even the kitchen. So yah, I’ll be helping him move in today and get settled.

So yah, that’s that. I really should pay attention now cause she’s talking about the paper that is due in two weeks.

Hehe … I dunno why I named this one wow … maybe I’m just tired and it’s late. Oh well. I’ve had people complain to me that I should update my site more than every two weeks, and I agree. But seriously, I’ve been a little busy lately. However, I should be less busy in the coming days and weeks that I should be able to update this more often.

Honestly, not much new in my life. Doin the school thing for now. I’m enjoying my online classes since I can pace myself. I have a 97% in my online Java class. The only reason it’s not a 100% is because I missed one question on the first quiz that asked about the syllabus. Oh well, what can you do.

I’ve decided my next ambition is to get a new Dark Blue VW Jetta GLS 1.8T. The Benz was just too expensive, and no one could really see me driving one. I’m kinda tired of my truck. It’s a great truck, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just I would REALLLY like a car now. The Jetta stood out to me. I would get a Golf or GTI, but personally I would rather have a sedan than a hatchback, maybe it’s just cause I’m not asian. Yes, I also realise that the Jetta is sometimes considered a chick car, but that would only be the case if I got a Silver Jetta GL with the base 2.0L 4-banger and an automatic, which isn’t what I want. So I think I’m justified in saying what I want isn’t a chick car. Hey it could be worse, I could be wanting a bug.

School is cool, I like my teachers. My English class is really cool,and the teacher is nice. My math class is okay, the teacher is hard to understand because he has a thick Indian accent. The work load is decent, but I can manage it. Oh yah, and get this, I actually DO my English homework. No, hell hasn’t frozen over, it’s just I actually like the class for once .

K, know you’re all updated for the latest. And you’ll notice the web poll on the right side of the screen, please take the poll, I’ll be adding new ones as I think about them.

Well, school started this week. It’s fun, but then again it’s really not. I updated my “school” section, so if you want to read about what I’m doing in school, go there.

One of the biggest reasons I haven’t been logging much lately is because last week I bought a new 40GB hard drive, so I’ve been working on getting everything back up and running on my computer. And since things are running smoothly again, I can finally post a new log message.

I haven’t really been up to anything major and new the past two weeks. Played Halo with the group, bought a couple new Xbox games, and started school. Oh yah, I finally have a credit card! Capital One finally got their crap together and issued me a card. Granted it’s only got a $500 limit, but I’ll just use the card to establish credit and then apply for other cards to get more credit. Also my cousin Caitlin has settled into her new home and is actually enjoying it. She’s been kind of job hunting the past few days, because it’s kind of hard to live on your own and not have any money.

Check out the trailer for Halo 2, it’s pretty sick looking, I can hardly wait.

I think that’s about it for now. I’m tired, so I’m going to bed now.