today

i am just about to finish the third of dean koontz' odd thomas series and i am as pleased with this one as the other two. the third book is called brother odd and takes place at a monastery deep in the california sierras during a fierce winter storm.

the title character made the following observation early in the story:

when we hope, we usually hope for the wrong thing.we yearn for tomorrow and the progress that it represents. but yesterday was once tomorrow, and where was the progress in it?

or we yearn for yesterday, for what was or what might have been. but as we are yearning, the present is becoming the past, so the past is nothing but our yearning for second chances. ...

as long as i remain subject to the river of time, which will be as long as i may live, there is no way back ... to anything.

i tend to agree with this description -- we lose too many "todays" either looking forward or looking back. i am particularly guilty of this: i make plans and goals and constantly think about where i am going and what is coming next, rather than fully enjoy what i am doing along the way. sure, looking back i have many fond memories, but i definitely recall feelings of impatience in most every one. and that impatience remains my constant companion.

president monson once gave a talk in general conference with a similar theme entitled in search of treasure, in which he stated that "sometimes we let our thoughts of tomorrow take up too much of today. daydreaming of the past and longing for the future may provide comfort but will not take the place of living in the present. this is the day of our opportunity, and we must grasp it." there are so many good things to do *today*.

i heard a striking comercial on the radio the other day. the narrator went through a list of questions such as the following, "remember that one time you almost volunteered at the food bank? remember the day that you almost donated blood? and the time you almost visited a sick friend at the nursing home? ..." my dad used to tell me that "almost" only counts in horseshoes, grenades, and kissing.

president monson noted in the same conference talk that "there is no tomorrow to remember if we don’t do something today, and to live most fully today, we must do that which is of greatest importance. let us not procrastinate those things which matter most."

what are the things that matter most? and why am i not doing those? elder neal a. maxwell once commented that we may be filling our lives with so many good things that we don't have time for the most important things. we need to have priorities -- and allow those priorities to guide our daily decisions, guide our daily actions. so that we may accomplish "those things which matter most," as president monson counsels. and accomplish them *today*.

happy birthday

happy birthday to you,
happy birthday to you,
happy birthday, dear cute guy,
happy birthday to you!

he'll never see this ... but i wanted to post it nonetheless ...

hope this is a great birthday.

fa-reezing!

so every morning i look out the window and see what the weather looks like. and, well, since this *is* california and it still isn't winter ... my usual weather assessment is: hot.

okay, so then i shower, get dressed in some light-weight business attire, and grab a sweater. yup, that's what i said: a sweater. it is roasting hot outside and i grab a sweater. everyday.

the air conditioner at my client's office is a little overeager. err, a lot overeager. i don't understand it. i spend most days wrapped up in wool. today, however, i have resisted pulling my sweater on just because i get so tired of the on-and-off-and-on-again everytime i leave the building, but i admit that my hands do have a blue/purple tinge to them and i can see every one of my veins through the skin on my arms. if my toenails weren't painted right now, i am sure they would be a lovely lanvendar color.

fortunately, it's only 2 ½ more weeks here for this stint. then the next time i come back it will be december, and i will likely bring a sweater for use outside, as well.

the end of an era

i declare that i can now buy chocolate.

ha.

bring it.

a day off

the day started for the first time on friday at 430 in the morning. as i was laying down for bed thursday night around 1230, it suddenly occurred to me that friday comes after thursday: my friend vanessa asked me to take her to the flyaway friday morning. so i set my alarm for 4, knowing that i never wake up when it goes off the first time. at 430, my cell phone alarm went off. i texted vanessa to see what the plan was and she arrived at my house about 10 minutes later. we headed out to the flyaway: she had a 7 o'clock flight. she wouldn't make it if she tried the flyaway, so i drove her down to lax. got home at 6 -- back to bed!

the second time i woke up friday morning was at 730. should have been 7 o'clock, but, yeah, that didn't happen. got to becky's around 815 and we went to breakfast at marmalade cafe, bringing along her tourbook and my list of "fun things to do in l.a." so we could plan the day over breakfast: breakfast was so good!

around 915 we headed out to the zoo. i called and spoke to my sister eden on the way -- we were meeting her and her baby at the zoo. fun times. i love the hippos. the rhinos weren't out, so we didn't get to see them. but the baby orangutan was fun to see.

becky had a dental appointment at 1, so our time at the zoo was a little short -- though we didn't leave before hearing the howling monkeys that really just sounded like they were burping. like, amazingly long and *loud* burps -- any self-respecting man over 200 pounds would have been intensely jealous.

we left the zoo around 1220, and thankfully traffic wasn't too bad so we made it to becky's dentist appointment at ucla in pretty good time.

while the dentist was polishing becky's pearly-whites, i spent some time in the botanical gardens at ucla ... with my sister inge. she lives in texas. here's a photo of us at the botanical gardens:

beautiful smile, inge!

leaving ucla, becky and i grabbed some teriyaki at a nearby restaurant then headed up 405 to the getty museum and spent a couple hours enjoying the art and playing in the rain. i love museums. there are so many just truly talented people! makes me wish i could do so many things! in fact, i was talking to a friend last week about giving up the exciting world of accounting to become a painter. of course, i wouldn't be famous until after i die ... so i would have to fake my death and then my art would be discovered. and i could get rich! while dead -- err, hmm -- still gonna have to figure out that one, i think.

the gardens at the getty museum are beautiful! just amazing.

around 630, becky and i got tired and went home. i dropped becky off at her house then hurried home, changed, fixed my hair, and went out with a friend for dinner: yummy dinner! i don't remember the name of the restaurant, but it's an amazing mexican place in northridge. i'll need to ask him for the name of the place again. it was *goood*!

home from dinner at 103o, grabbed my flip-flops and picked becky up again to go dancing up in santa clarita. there weren't too many people at the dance that night, but becky and i danced our hearts out anyway. after the dance, a cute guy asked becky to meet up with a bunch of people at denny's, so we went -- i couldn't deny her after all the begging. ha. we met lots of new people and hung out at denny's until about 230.

*finally* got home for the night at 3am. man, that was a *loooong* day!! used almost every one of those 24 hours.

eleven thousand

fun times in the valley:

got home from work around 7pm last night. talked to becky on the way -- we're going walkin'!

becky just moved here from out-of-state, as such her father was nervous about her living in "dangerous" l.a., so he bought some pepper spray for her. protection. so she brought it over last night since we'd be walking in the twilight. so becky was letting me look at it, she showed me how to use it and stuff. and i wanted to know what it feels like. you know, before i spray someone with it, i want to know what it's going to do to them. well, kinda ... i didn't have any desire to spray it on my face. but i thought it would have some effect on my skin. becky tried to stop me, but i was determined. so i went into the kitchen to spray myself. i squirted a little on the inner side of my forearm. didn't feel anything. i sprayed some more. still nothing. i bent over to look a little closer ... and evidently breathed in ... heh heh heh ...

yeah, don't breathe in. i immediately started coughing and couldn't catch my breath. and my eyes started watering. i started laughing -- well, kind of: couldn't really laugh much because of all the coughing and choking. so becky came running in and saw me doubled over. she thought i was in horrible burning pain so she runs over to wash my arm off in the sink. and i was laughing and coughing too much to be able to tell her not to come and not to breathe.

soon enough, the two of us are just dying in there. becky washes my arm (which still didn't hurt at all -- pepper spray doesn't do anything to skin) and shoves me out the kitchen door. she comes running out behind me.

after we catch our breaths, becky pulls her hoodie on and covers her face as best she could and was about to go back in to open windows. i offered to do it since the whole mess was my fault. i went in opened the back door and as i was making my way back through the kitchen, the phone rang. so my 70-year-old roommate comes over to grab the phone. i told her to stay out in the living room and i brought her the phone. but it was too late: the pepper spray was permeating the whole house. coughing, my roommate went out in the front yard and then i overheard her telling whomever was on the phone what i had done ... great ... and the rumors start flying!

well, we survived. the house was airing out. so becky and i left for our walk. becky was holding the pepper spray: i lost the privilege.

soon after we left, becky asked, "so are you up for an adventure?" and, since i always am, i replied in the affirmative. there is this building/house/something up at the top of a hill we climbed once, and becky decided that it was time to investigate further. so we climbed back up that hill. reaching the top, we noted the the sprinklers were on at this place, so we timed it so that we could get up and over the fence without getting too wet. and just as we started over the fence, the sprinklers turned off. perfect! over the fence, through a couple short bushes and up about 35 stairs we went!

at the top of the stairs was a long wall with an opening and gate right at the top of the stairs. more stairs were behind that gate. we wanted to investigate the wall, though. so we headed west along the wall. when cars would pass we'd freeze in position, so as not to draw unwanted attention. we walked all along the wall, at the other end of which was a chain-link fence. that stopped us. hmmm. but there was another opening in the wall about ¾ of the way down, so we headed back there. up the stairs in that opening to a courtyard that was in rather disrepair. broken stone, dying weeds, and graffiti everywhere. what is this place?

we found more stairs at the far west side of the courtyard. up those. and up some more. at this point we could see some lights on at a house not too far away. were we in someone's backyard? but it didn't look like anyone was home at that house. so we carefully climbed a bit further. and we could see that this was a big open lot. the house with lights was actually across the street.

okay. so it looks like this lot used to have a house on it that either burned down or was otherwise destroyed. so it's just an abandoned lot now with a really cool romanesque garden area. becky and i spent a few minutes up there looking out at the valley then headed home.

it was quite an evening!

the adventures of the evening brought me to a total of 11,700 steps that i took yesterday. that's a lot.

pedometer

in a continuous and creative attempt to get our firm's name "out there" (wherever "there" is), i saw that we had our very own grant thornton pedometers! nice, huh? so i got one, y'know, to be cool.

much to my surprise and dismay, however, i learned the following from the handy user's guide:

"under the following condition, the stepping meter can't count correctly:

(i) moon walking, wearing sandal
(ii) when walking in the tricky condition
(iii) vibration without walking"

sadness. and i was just *recently* thinking about learning how to walk in the tricky condition, now that i have finally mastered the moon walk (a pretty tricky feat, itself, while wearing sandal) ... grr ...

as a side note: yesterday, i took 4,500 steps. i was wearing some uncomfortable shoes, though, so i don't know if that impacted my walking. so far today, i am at 2,900. i wonder what is "normal" ... ?

time off?

welp, i am on vacation. though, been doing lots of work ever since i got here ... kinda the way things go, i guess -- recruiting events, painting and cleaning rooms here at my parents' house, loading out a concert, etc, etc.

anyway, just wanted to post quickly to say that i will post more later. i have been taking pictures and i am sure to have fun stories to post, too!

laters ...

kerplop!

so in the bathroom at lax i heard a fateful and dreaded sound and quickly turned only to discover that my phone took a swim in the toilet. eww!

well, i quickly grabbed it out and dried it with some tp and hand towels. then i opened her up and took out the battery and sim card. but there was liquid behind the screen: oh gross. and who knows where else. i couldn't take it completely apart, though, because i had unfortunately neglected to bring my insanely-teeny-tiny screwdriver with me on my vacation. so i just let her air out during the hour-and-a-half flight up.

after landing, i had to put it back together because i had to coordinate with the people i was meeting at byu ... so yes, i had to use a pee-phone, had to press it up against my face. and not just a my-pee phone. but a my-pee-and-who-knows-what-else-was-in-that-toilet phone. ugh. i had smeared some hand sanitizer on it, though. that made me feel a little better.

so gross.

funny thing, though: when i got to the hotel and got hooked up to the internet, the story on the msn mainpage was instructions about just such a situation. i'd say that's pretty good timing.

once a month

that's kinda how it's been lately, i guess.

cute guy came up on tuesday night. which i wasn't certain he was going to. we spoke on sunday and i told him that i was getting some people together to bowl and barbecue on labor day and i invited him. well, he had his kids that afternoon and so it wasn't good for him, but he said he could come up on tuesday night. great.

as i was leaving work on tuesday, i called him and he was having a horrible day -- just nothing going right. i asked if he wanted to just rain-check it, but he said that he wanted to see me. i offered to drive down there instead of him coming up, but he wanted to come up -- he'd been in his house all day and didn't want to spend any more time there. so i told him i would make dinner and he could come whenever.

so i rushed home, stopped at ralph's on the way, and started cooking! made yummy cheesy chicken enchiladas -- stuck it in the oven just as he walked in the door. we had fruit salad while we chatted and waited for the enchiladas. they were yummy! (not as good as my mom's, though, but yeah.)

after dinner we just sat and talked for a while. then we played scrabble and he totally kicked my trash! so embarrassing. i've been playing somewhat infrequently with my friend james from work, and had been doing pretty well ... but not on tuesday night. ha. cute guy won't tell me his strategy. grr.

cute guy had to leave kinda early on tuesday night because he had an appointment in the morning. so he didn't stay too long, but it was really nice to see him.

tat tat, looks like disney

took my car to the car wash on monday. and there were so many quarter machines!! ... becky and i just couldn't resist ...

o.t.s.

santa monica 3rd ward -- film festival -- july 2007