Posted by Joel
Mon, 29 Jan 2007 22:50:54 GMT
I turned 25. I approached this birthday with dread rather than excitement, as I realize the extent of wasted opportunity in my life, and I realize every birthday from hereon out will likely be that way.
I didn't really celebrate. I was considering going to the city with some friends but was too tired. So basically I played WarioWare on the Wii with a couple friends and had some drinks. It was really a lot of fun but I worry about how unhealthy it is for video games to be my main source of entertainment.
Speaking of which, the WoW expansion came out so I've been playing that. Not as much as I thought I would. I'm only level 62. I try to play most nights but I usually only get in a couple hours. I've really been enjoying it though. The areas, music, and just general gameplay are great. I'm not as much of a carebear as I used to be when I levelled to 60, I just attack people if I think I even have a chance of killing them and I don't care if it's unfair. Makes it more fun, especially since they usually come back and try to kill me, and when they do I know I deserve it. Sometimes I lose even when I jump them and they're fighting a mob but I don't care. I think that's what the game is supposed to be.
This weekend I went to SLO to meet with my family. Dad flew in and Ben drove up from LA. Julia and I have close birthdays so we celebrated both. Ben picked up a bunch of food from the LA Portillo's, since it's kind of a tradition I have a Portillo's chocolate cake on my birthday.
I got another haircut. I like my barber because he is a zany Seattle hippie who believes crop circles were made by aliens and hallucinogens caused Christianity. He talks a lot and is great to listen to. Does a decent cut too I think, and is very polite. Always has tons of people waiting, clearly lots of repeat customers like myself.
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Posted by Joel
Wed, 03 Jan 2007 01:00:50 GMT
The last 18 days have been full of stuff and I apologize for not writing. I'll try to keep it short.
First there was a major site downtime on LuckyOliver one Saturday starting at 3 am due to a technicality in a nightly process I'd just modified for our new storage. And because my mobile phone temporarily wasn't working properly and wasn't accepting calls -- it's been a bit screwy for a while now and needed a restart -- and (for once) I didn't use the internet for nearly the whole day, I didn't find out about the downtime in order to fix it until well into the day. Since then I've replaced my cell phone and tried to keep my ability to be contacted quickly one of my high priorities.
A large company contacted us wanting to buy some images from our site, but they needed an extended license. So I just pushed through the feature within a few days, eventually finishing on the midnight before I was leaving for Chicago for my holiday vacation. It was pretty satisfying to see it go up and actually work properly due to our heavy testing.
So it's my first time back to Chicago in a year and a half, since the day I loaded up my beat-up Toyota and drove across the country. Dad picked me up at the airport and we got some Portillo's. I spent time with him and Nancy and her extended family for Christmas Eve. I mainly just tried to actually relax during the first part of the trip, sit around and do not much of anything. Of course I was still on call for work the whole time and working on things most mornings but only for an hour or so.
I spent a lot of time with Katie, going shopping with her at Woodfield, which was one of the better parts of my trip, just because I find her individuality refreshing. She doesn't seem nearly as susceptible to groupthink as some others and just does what she is interested in, a quality I've always liked. The next day she and I went with a friend of hers, Tim, to see Pan's Labyrinth, which was a very good movie but also surprisingly violent, so be warned. It was so hard to watch at times I kind of had to de-immerse myself and remind myself it's just a movie with actors and effects, which is a point I don't like to have to reach, but seriously. On the 30th I went to a birthday party with her and some friends at a bowling alley and then at a karaoke bar.
I saw my old friends again, many of them, at the Fox and the Hound in Schaumburg. Brian and Toby were in from out of town, Gim was there, Tiesch, I got to see Kim which was cool, and I was very happy to see Sean and his girl. We had a similar night a couple days later in the city, with Hans there, went to the Signature Lounge and looked out on the city, then went to a couple bars, one of which was kind of seedy and adolescent and crowded and we couldn't sit down in and the other was a relaxed karaoke bar which we actually had a really good time at.
New Years was ok. Went to some bar which had beer and pizza included in the cost, the only person I knew there was Hans. Unfortunately after the terrible Bears game it basically turned into another terrible hip hop club so not long after the new year I left. Hans and I went back and got some burritos and played pool at his place and had a better time then I think we could have had in that place.
OK this is too long so I'm going to cut it short, but those are basically the events of my vacation. I'd love to talk more about them, but, well, I should have been writing every day.
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