Greetings from the inbound N-Judah on the Embarcadero on what looks like a nice day so far, even though a filthy window masks our view of a Monday that's potential won't suck. Is that to optimistic for a Monday morning?

I have had the new Samsung Instinct for two weeks now, and it's an ok phone. Nice features but nothing eye popping. Today, moonfl0wer and I went to Crabtree Valley mall, and I stopped at the Apple store.

After five minutes with the iphone, I decided that I'm giving the Samsung back this week and getting the new 3G iphone when it comes out.

I had never touched an iphone before, and I had NO idea what I was missing. Gotta get one. :)

My only concern is that I have heard about bad experiences with AT&T service, and I have not had any severe issues with Sprint. I guess I will see how that goes.

Our Housewarming Party went much better than I'd thought it would. My guests who showed up included Jeff, Claudia, Sean, and Nicole. The other 15-16 people who passed through our apartment during the course of the night were either Nick's friends or friends-of-his-friends.

We had a big game of Apples-to-Apples before the screening of That's Our Ghost.

I don't remember the names of most of Nick's guests, with the exception of Kevin and Jermaine (who starred in the comedy sketch with Nick) -- Lars couldn't make it, even though he (in my opinion) was the funniest one in the sketch.

There was also the 12-year-old Hispanic boy who appeared in the fake tag scene of That's Our Ghost, as well as his older sister (who I forgot the name of).

Jeff brought us a HUGE gift basket as a housewarming gift, which was very sweet and generous of him. And Claudia gave us a frying pan as a housewarming present.

We had a decent amount of food left over...the catering cost $84 total, and I decided I'll pay Nick for one-third the cost of it (since he had WAY more guests than I did).

After a bunch of people left, we picked up with another game of Apples-to-Apples (which I won), and screened That's Our Ghost! again for the benefit of a bunch of chicks who'd just arrived. And we played a crummy game of Family Feud on Sega.

And, apparently, two of the guys from the party invited Nick to a July 4th party (last night) at a mansion in Beverly Hills. I'm jealous.

...but I think this is hi-larious. Here's Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy walking on the beach outside their place in Malibu. They are being hounded by the paps.



( Quick change! )

In my apartment, not just Los Angeles.

( Political paragraph, potentially polarizing )

As for what I did today, there was a lot of sleeping late involved, followed by a brief run on West Campus. Tomorrow the gym will be open again, and I shall rejoice in the air conditioning. I came home, had lunch, showered, and spent a lot of time cleaning up and preparing for company! Emily, Caroline, and Jon B. made their way over around 6, bringing artichoke dip and chips, black bean/tomato/avocado salad, pasta salad, veggie burgers, and green salad to add to my potato salad, chicken, and hot dogs. We cooked it all up and then carried it down to one of the courtyards with lots of beer and had a fabulous dinner. My metabolism stayed home. After a couple of hours we staggered back up just in time to avoid a crazy storm. Then we spent the evening playing some Wii, watching a movie (see below), and then washing up the piles of dishes that resulted. Everyone just left about 45 minutes ago and I've been watching the neighbors light fireworks out my patio door since. A pretty awesome day, as I said. And I have an entire weekend ahead. :)

Finally, two movie reviews of the political variety, since I'm on that topic:

Charlie Wilson's War: I hadn't heard a whole lot about this movie beforehand but was definitely interested in the subject matter. Tom Hanks was a fabulous Texas Congressman; he was given a lot of meat to work with and he didn't disappoint. And of course the story is plenty amazing as it is, with people like Joanne Herring involved! However, I just wasn't too taken by Julia Roberts in this role; this woman is supposed to be a 50-something Texas socialite with an MVP card from her plastic surgeon, and I really would have preferred someone more age-appropriate. And she couldn't get the accent right. Nevertheless, the film exaggerated Washington life in all the right places while not fucking up the actual history. B.

Street Fight: This is a documentary covering the 2002 mayoral race in Newark, NJ, and you should read a little bit about it if you're not familiar with their recent history. I had learned about it by the time of the 2006 election, right around the time Sharpe James rode in to City Hall on a bicycle to declare his candidacy for that year, so I was grateful to see the coverage of the prior election cycle. Even more important than chronicling how badly corrupt an American city can get, I think the success of this doc lies in getting folks to care more about local elections, and to see that they matter. I know that many people claim that they will not bother to vote in elections if they are a Democrat in a state like Tennessee or a Republican in a state like California, because their vote for president won't matter. This is the type of film that shows what can really be at stake in local voting, even if the election is not held in November. And besides, I think it's important to keep tabs on mayors; I couldn't name 10 mayors of major American cities until six months or so ago. If nothing else, Street Fight is showing why we should be paying attention to them. I promise this is still a movie review, but I don't want to give anything else away about it. A-.

Time for a little productivity before bed!

Enjoying a tasty cappuccino and delicious interwebs with midendian at Jumpin' Java. OMM NOM NOM NOM!

This afternoon, its off to the East Bay with midendian and outermarker on a BART adventure to join fellow Planner for a 4th of July BBQ.

Does anyone know if the new 3G iPhone is usable only with AT&T, or do we have other carrier options?

And I'm too tired to go catch it.

I've finally settled back into a routine after all the travel, work upheaval, and general madness of the last 7 weeks. Wassup summer, didn't see you there. Although it's been a bumpy summer thus far (like all of them, upon reflection), I'm pretty secure right now: in good physical shape, almost done putting my credit card debt to bed (let's not speak of my student loans D:), plugging along with grad school research, and should be ready to take the GRE in mid-August. This says nothing about my ability to get July 4th plans together, but I'll DIY a cookout or something.

New problem: I can't stop eating. My metabolism has been on fire in the last couple of weeks. Tonight it reached the point where I made sure to cook extra food at dinnertime so I could pack the rest for lunch tomorrow, and ... I ate everything for dinner. Back to the kitchen to whip up something else, I guess.

I thought I had more to say, but I guess not. Stare at the entrance to ICA Boston for a little while longer. :)

Tony's Updated "To-Do" List:

1. Keep plugging away at my novel
2. Lose more weight
3. Start thinking of a winning idea for my Medium spec
4. Win the lottery (or a scaled-down equivalent)
5. Go shopping before July 8 when many of the local deals expire

This afternoon I left work early to head down to Mountain View to close out the last of my commitments down there. My now former apartment was empty, quiet, and still, much like i found it over two and half years ago with the big move from Arizona. I remember how excited I was to fill the space with all my belongings to make it my new home. With nothing more than the fan turning, my head head was filled with all the things that happened while this empty space provided me shelter. The moment didn't last long as the building manager came in to do the final walk through. After a few other matters to take care of in Mountain View, I drove to the place that I can now can officially call home after closing a chapter and starting another.

It's a little disturbing that half the year is gone as of today. Fortunately I didn't have the biggest goals for the first half of 2008 except to control my spending and prepare to move. That being said, I think I've accomplished those barely, however one at the expense of the other. The move by its very nature negated my work on a budget. I suppose once I get things settled, I can work on that again. One more thing needs to be taken care of today that will official complete the move and transformation into a San Franciscan. More on that later.

For the remainder of 2008, my goals are pretty simple, and hopefully will start in the coming weeks.

AICP Certification - Last week marked my fourth year as a planner, which now makes me eligible to take the exam this coming November. The exam is pretty insane, and has a pretty high failure rate. As such, studying for it has commenced. The certification will be good for me on a number of levels, which might even lead to assisting with...

Graduate school preparation – The next few months Ill prepare to do what I did last year but ultimately decided to wait till this year. Most applications are due on December, so we need to start cracking on that now. I co-worker will be joining me on preparing, so I’ve got some company on this journey.

There are some other "wants" for the rest of the year, but given their priority status, they certainly come behind the aforementioned. Let’s hope the next six months doesn’t zoom us by.

Does this mean that I get more cake when I return to work tomorrow?

This is a slightly rushed review, because I need to leave for a pool party in about 30 minutes. Drinking on a Sunday afternoon when I have to be at work early tomorrow FTW. I definitely need to provide a little review of the last week, though, since I've only been writing about work and dreams and movies. In addition to my usual friends and routines (which have definitely kept me sane so far this summer), I've met new folks and done new things in the last week, and it's been a welcome sign that

Starting a full week ago, Jeremy invited me to dinner at Carrabba's with he and his friend Jon last Sunday, so I rushed over there from the gym and we had a two-hour long dinner or something like that, which included Jeremy's wine-courage leading him to ask our server to parade all of the male employees past our table so we could determine who was hottest. And she did it! :D (The bartender won). Following that we retreated to Jon's apartment in RTP to watch Across the Universe, and Jon invited me to his birthday party before I left.

On Tuesday night I went out for cosmos with Matt (head_of_fema), his fellow intern Julie, and Chris S. at Tyler's. Even though I got a bunch of mosquito bites from the American Tobacco Campus' "river," it was sooper fun and we all need to do it again sometime when they've gone off of the night shift.

On Wednesday I had lunch with Chris P. and it was a very necessary distraction from life. Hopefully he and I will hang out more now that we've established our boredom with our summer work routines, but it was nice anyway to have a lunch buddy (and Blue Express had chicken cordon bleu for lunch, mmm).

I say that my weekend is backwards because I did absolutely nothing on Friday night, and it was my opportunity to recharge and get some rest, although it should also have been and was not my opportunity to make a lot of headway on grad school research. In any case, I woke up on Saturday and went to Mantrap for a haircut immediately after breakfast. I had the same woman I'd had last time, found out her name is Emily, and she did an amazing job on the style, but I had to take a shower immediately afterward and no one actually saw it. :( I did take a photo, though, and I'll post it when I'm having low hair self-esteem. Following that I packed up and went to Jon's birthday party, which was a pool party! I applied gallons of sunscreen and sat in a corner of his apartment complex's pool drinking good beer out of plastic cups with Jon and his friends Jon (good job, all of our parents on the originality), Caroline (third Jon's girlfriend), Christy, and Anna, most of whom were his college friends from Asheville. After about 90 minutes of scorching sun and sketchy drunk people that kept throwing their children and footballs across the pool, we retreated to his apartment to dry off and drink three bottles of wine. And then! Straight Jon (I dunno how else to distinguish them) and Anna cooked an amazing dinner, which we had with sangria. We finished off the night by sobering up and going to Target for ice cream, but I had to leave before it could be consumed. Jon, Jeremy, and I are planning to make dinner a regular Monday night thing, so I proposed something on 9th St. this time around so that we can retreat to my apartment afterward for beer and/or martinis.

Immediately following that 7-hour adventure, I picked up Jason and we went to Jody's party. It was a little chaotic, but we talked to people we knew, met a guy named Bobby that looks suspiciously like Thom Yorke, and convinced Chris S. to show up at 1:00 a.m. Jody was a fabulous (and scantily clad!) host, and I thoroughly enjoyed his hosting us and chatting with us about life and his facial hair that doesn't match the hair on his head, lol. I slept extremely late today to recover from all of that (and my smoke detector started beeping at me at 7:30 a.m. to signal its impending death so I lost some rest to fixing that), and now I'm on my way to Snapper's pool party at his complex. I won't stay too long or eat or drink much, but I definitely think it's better to go than to stay home. When I do return, I'll get ready for my return to work tomorrow and hopefully clean up my apartment a bit.

Enjoying what I always envisioned a perfect Sunday walking over to a neighborhood coffee shop, meeting a friend, reading then news over coffee in a ceramic mug. Nice when life slows down from the fast pace of a paper cup coffee life in the midst of the doldrums of nine to five.

When Nick and I were at IKEA yesterday morning, we were circulating around the store, trying to relocate the particular rug (which we eventually purchased for the living room) that we wanted...

And two dudes walked in front of us, about in our age range (early-to-mid twenties, probably)...and just from their body language I could tell they were a gay couple.

Sure enough, when they noticed Nick and I were behind them and trying to pass around them, one of the guys proceeded to gently place his hand on his boyfriend's lower back and nudge him out of the way so we could walk past them.

I just thought that was really cute and sweet, and it made me want a boyfriend.

This morning Nick and I went to IKEA in Burbank to get a new rug for our Housewarming Party on Thursday night (you're all invited, by the way).

On the way back, I voted in my local neighborhood council election at Andasol Elementary School. Here's who I voted for:

NORTHRIDGE EAST NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL (NENC)

[Board Positions]

Business Owner / Employee: (2 seats)
Yeprem Davoodian

Resident Property Owners: (3 seats)
Caroline R. Moore
Lucille Meehan
Nestor Fantini

Resident: Property Owner, Renter, Business Owner or Employee: (3 seats)
Peter McCarty

Property Owner, Business Owner, Employee: (2 seats)
(none)

At-Large: (2 seats)
Alice McCain

There was apparently one write-in candidate (whose name I didn't see listed/posted anywhere), and I just wish I'd known more about him/her.

Its too early to be annoyed by the MUNI slogan announcement "were experiencing difficulties and delays". I'd take a deep breah and accept it, but with California on fire that isn't wise. My eyes have been constantly burning for the last two days.

Just wanted to do a shout-out survey, to everyone who's on LiveJournal right now...am curious to see who here still reads their Friends Filter regularly? (even if you don't always get the chance to post a lot of new stuff about your life)...

If you're still here on LiveJournal, respond with a quick shout-out to me on this post. I'll be fascinated to see who's still "alive" on LiveJournal.

With a blink of an eye, June is gone. After the high that was May, June became four weeks in which I've become so disconnected from the world and the people around me. It does bother me that I've lost track of what my friends are doing, spending any real quality time with any, and perhaps worst, not having dealt with unresolved issues with others. Granted, in that same time, I've been so overwhelmed with everything else in life, of which moving and work has robbed me of all my time. While one can admit it's a valid reasoning or excuse under the circumstances, I can't help to worry that irrevocable impacts exist with my friendships as a result of such. I just lost out so much on June, but I suppose it was necessary to secure the much sought after urban life and the much needed change in geography. While things will return back to an [adjusted] state of normalcy, I hope that I haven't been left too far behind in the world.

With moving to the city, it was a foregone conclusion that I would require a roommate since my income as a planner doesn’t exactly afford me a [nice] place on my own. During the hunting period, I pretty much had secured a roommate, although that coincidentally changed when the great opportunity was bestowed upon me for the place I now call home. Not wanting to let this place slip away, I miraculously managed to get it on my own figuring out the roommate thing en route. Well, here we are at that point. Between Joe (who has remained on the fence for reasons Ill state in a later post) and another individual who is also weighing their options, I find myself stressing as we prepare to enter July. I was hoping that either of these two individuals would fill the vacancy as I either know them and/or can be vouched for. That might not materialize.

In taking measures to ensure that a roommate will be secure by mid/late July, I suppose I will succumb to putting this up on craigslist. While some people have had success, the idea of screening and holding interviews to determine if you can trust and actually live with this person is a little daunting. Mind you, I’ve been living alone for exactly four years, so you can understand my lack of enthusiasm for the task. So, if anyone wants to recommend anyone they know who is looking for a place, is reliable, and not resulting in wanting to strangle each other, let me know.

Since I live here and all, figure I would do my part in as a MUNI patron. And now (in my best jameth candor) please rate the following two outbound N-Judah riders and which is more likely to own an Ace of Base compact disc.

My [work subsidized] transit tickets for July came in. Unlike before, I am now authorized for travel between Zone 1 (San Francisco) and Zone 2 (Redwood City) as where before it was down to Zone 3 (Mountain View). In addition, I now have added the monthly MUNI sticker so I can bask in its entire dysfunctional car clogging tunnel glory! Transit is fun! (unless you’re pressin’ charges)