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sometimes you find the strangest, most unconnected things in your life somehow all intersect and form some sort of vehicle for reflection of your life… recently, it’s been an odd mashup of work, celebrations, travel, and youtube.

i always seem to be quite meditative on my life on 2 occasions in a given year: my birthday and new year’s. both occasions give way to reflecting… the former on my life as it has changed over the course of an “age” so to speak, and the later on life over a generally agreed upon set of time. i find both to be different reflections and both to have different meanings.

i’ve worked a lot of hours in the past few weeks. somewhere in the range of almost 3 weeks worth of hours in less than 2 weeks worth of time…. it’s in these times of lack of sleep and pure exhaustion that your subconscious kicks in and brings to light new perspectives on yourself, your world, your relationships, and your desires… it sucked to have to have done all that work, but it wasn’t so bad to have the subconscious do a lot of calculating for me.

iris and i also went to the east coast recently:to d.c., cincinnati, and detroit. while our schedule was packed, there was a lot of time during our drives to look around at the greenery (that’s all you really see when you’re driving out there) and contemplate. not on anything specific, but just to contemplate and let things come to you. i imagine this would be some sort of meditation, but with out your eyes being closed and chanting.

there’s also been a few youtube videos which i can’t seem to stop watching/playing/listening to. the overtones from uc berkeley sing a wonderful a capella version of frou frou’s let go, which of course was a prominent track on garden state. andy mckee does a kick ass guitar version of toto’s africa a song that should be familiar to us who know a little bit of 80’s soft rock. finally, there’s birdy nam nam, a group of turntablists from france who just have some funky shit going on. i’ve been watching them all at least 3 or 4 times a day.

so where has this all led?? i think these things have kind of mashed together to teach and tell me some things: 1) i really like what i do as a career, even tho i’ve been on the edge of burnout. 2) i like music and music videos way too much, and i miss getting down and dirty running doubles with pip on the turntables. 3) getting old isn’t so bad, it’s the weight you gain that sucks (altho i am trying very hard to control my diet and get down 15 lbs by the end of the year). 4) i am surrounded by awesome people, and i can’t be thankful enough to have them. 5) i think i know where i need to go next after i’m done working at PV, i’m just not sure if i’m brave enough to do it.

it’s strange i know, and i don’t expect anyone to really know how these all connect unless i was really asked about them… looking back at the post, i’m not even really sure if i was typing proper english, but i’m sure it made sense at the time. in any case, i hope things continue to swing upwards as we descend towards the end of the year.

thanks to everyone who is in or has been part of my life. you have all played a small role in making me who i am now.

-m

a good portion of my 20’s has been spent finding a place to cultivate my career ambitions… i’ve tried some good places, some bad places, some fun places, and some not so… i got really lucky this time around and found a place i think was everything i had hoped for in a job… i think that’s what has caused me to really grow a lot this past year in a lot of different aspects of my life.

that all took a big flip yesterday… since the beginning of the year we have heard nothing but good news for our company… the numbers were going up, we were getting noticed, talks of acquisitions in the works. and yesterday we were told that we’d have to cut back and essentially hold out for something… it wasn’t bad news, but it didn’t really do much for morale yesterday… and of course there were the various talks and musings that occurred around the office of the potential future of both ourselves and our company.

i don’t think anyone expected it. i know i didn’t. but truth be told, when we signed up to work for a startup, a .com at that, we all knew that it was a risk we had to take. finally that risk comes full circle, and many of us are faced with looking at ourselves and our futures… thankfully we have been given this notification, i think there will be some people who will take it upon themselves to look elsewhere, and i think there will be people who will ride it out.

for me personally, i don’t really know what to think… i’ve never been one to give up on something, and i really don’t feel the need to give up on this. but that is the optimist in me talking. the realist in me says that i should start looking around and find a place to secure my future…. who knows what to do *shrug*

the one thing i do know is that i’ve wanted to work in an environment like this since i started college: small, always challenging and always changing, with unlimited potential… i am a product of the budding internet age, and part of the folklore of the age were the internet startups that peppered the ‘net, all hoping to be that company that helped define the internet. lucky for me, i found one right here in LA.

now i don’t know what my point was to begin with, but i think what i really wanted to get across was this: working at a place that has always been on the verge, even if i didn’t notice it, has been a really awesome experience. i’ve learned so much, and i think that regardless of what happens, i will be a better person after having experienced it.

and one can’t ask for more.

-m

it seems like it’s been such a long 2007 already, but it’s really only 2 months deep into it. and yet, so much has happened it’s hard to believe that 2007 hasn’t just passed thru already.

especially with all the great (hot) weather we’ve been having lately, you’d think it was summer already.

so this is my first real post of the year, and i’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but life has kept me well pressed at other things like usual.

this entire time i’ve been meaning to say something about my family…

my uncle passed away earlier this year, in january. now, while i personally wasn’t particularly close with him, i was (and am still) close to my cousins. they were my brothers growing up. my mom and dad tho, they were close to him. my dad was the best man at his and my aunt’s wedding.

needless to say there was grieving and sadness, but what really struck me the most about the entire thing was the presence of family… not just my aunt and cousins, but my entire family, both my dad’s (and my aunt’s) side, but my uncle’s side of the family as well. each time something was going on, there was an outpouring of family members.

my family, and most filipino families, have what i think is an awesome tradition that occurs in time of death: we pray the rosary for the 9 days after the death, again 40 days following, and every year after is a celebration… in spite of the occasion that calls forth this tradition, the greatness comes in the gathering. how awesome is it that we gather… to show our love and support… to show our unity… to show our bond as a family.

it’s just so profound how much family, food, and prayers helps console and strengthen.

strangely enough, it’s only really been the last few years that my bond with my cousins has really built up… i love how we can all hang out on a random saturday nite, watch some american idol reruns and make fun of how bad (or good) we all are at various games on the Wii. each of us has such a unique personality that there’s never a quiet moment.

and i love it.

i love my family.

i’m thankful every day, every time i think of them.

-m

i ended up not doing one of these last year, so i may be a little rusty at this… i didn’t really have anything big for 2k4, and i didn’t really write anything for 2k5, but something continues to remind me to write one each year at this time…

so what to say about 2k6… all in all, 2006 was a time of growth. and i don’t mean it just for me, but for everyone around me as well…

last saturday we had our annual christmas potluck at kat’s house… well, so it’s not officially annual yet, but i have a feeling we’re getting there. the big focus of the nite: we are professionals. yep, we’ve all gone from the carefree high-schoolers we once were to actual, active members of society. for some reason, it took us all back this year, to think about where we came from and to see where we’ve ended up. it was strange, yet comforting, in a way.

suffice to say, i think it was an important year for all of us… we’ve begun our life achievements, and we continue to struggle and live our lives as adults towards the other big achievements in life: careers, marriages, children, grandchildren, retirement. but for all of us in our mid-twenties, the road just seems so uncertain and scary.

2k6 was by far a year of growth, and i think having reflected on where we came from from last year’s party, we all realized that. i know that for me, there has been much growth: personally, professionally, musically. i hope that for all of us, 2k7 brings us more growth and understanding.

so here’s to a new year with new adventures… may we have the courage to encounter all that befalls us.

-m

one of the many events i try to catch every year are the fellow pimps’ annual Thanksgiving Fiesta…. derek and greg know how to do it right, even if it’s a nite of chillin’… i miss hanging with those guys, but it’s good to see them successful and moving up in the world…

it’s this time of year that i try most especially to remember and be thankful for the people i have in my life… even if i haven’t seen you for a long time, if i haven’t hung out with you for a while, or i haven’t seen you in ages, please know that you are in my heart and mind and that i am thankful for you and that role you’ve played in my life (you did it so well!)… Thank You!

i can never say it enough.

-m

let’s see if i can do it in bulletpoints:

• was put in charge of grindtv 2.0 rewrite. scheduled launch date: 10/10. actual launch date: 10/12, 4:33 AM (or thereabout). only missed it by a day and some change, but not too bad for 3 weeks worth of work
• iris and i went to NYC the first week of october. did a whole bunch of stuff, mostly tourist-y, and we met alton brown, one of our favorite foodTV people
• currently 2-3 on my fantasy football league. but i won an important week against megan, who is now going to make me a pie.
• iris had a birthday
• received a crock pot from iris’s mom as a late bday present. very awesome.
• PJ and Kat had their baby. her name is Noelani.
• russ came back to PV. still feel a sense of abandonment.

wow that was pretty easy… why does it feel like i’ve done more than i’ve stated here? maybe it’s the 60 hour weeks i’ve been working, which have not been nice, but which are thankfully starting to slow. at least i’ve finally gotten a weekend off… that’s all for now on the recap, more to come later!

-m

people talk about their workplaces, and it seems they have been doing so forever (or so i’d like to believe)… the dawn of the internet has allowed people to be vocal to a broader audience, but it has also made it easier for word to get back to the office about what is being said. thanks to google, people have had to become more discreet about their rantings… it seems that freedom of speech isn’t all that free sometimes… as is the case with me, i know better than to put specific people, places, and things in my blog… granted, i doubt anyone ever took the time to check out my AIM profile to catch a link to my blog, but you can never quite tell. plus, i’ve learned that lesson already, so i tend to speak in general terms and keep things as broad as possible.

one of the things i’ve come to see over the years is that leaders are pretty easy to spot… their charisma, their attitudes, their swagger just projects leadership. the way they got there often is quite different. when i was marching TBK back in high school, often times you could tell who would be picked as one of the captains because those people were the natural leaders. but there were the other officers who came quite unexpectedly… these people often learned from their “natural” counterparts how to lead, taking bits and pieces from each until they built their image of a leader. and of course, there were those who were never able to take charge. but for the most part, if you became an officer in TBK, you became a leader.

when it comes to the working world, it doesn’t quite seem to work out that way… not all leaders are really leaders, nor do they ever learn how to get people to follow them. i suppose that since high school i’ve carried this notion of people being able to become leaders… it seems like a lot of it ends up this because of office politics.

when i was in TBK, there was little room for politics. if you didn’t do what was in the best interest of the band, there was still the director and the staff who would put you in line. they didn’t give a shit about your feelings, you were a leader and you had to face up to your responsibilities. but you also had to know your place, so anyone stepping out of bounds was put back into place. this is often not the case at work.

i think all too often people who are chosen to lead forget their place in the grand scheme of things… i know in my office for sure there are people who don’t accept their place in the chain, and people are not put in their place by those who are at the top. there are leaders who maybe shouldn’t be leading, and there are others who should be leaders but are not… and this all seems to be due to politics.

i don’t really know my place in it all, but i know where i want to be, and i think i’m doing what i need to do to get there. i want to be a leader… not now, but someday. i don’t think i’m ready to make the hard decisions just yet, but hopefully in time i will. hopefully by then i’ll know how to play the game and use what i can to give myself and advantage.

office politics suck.

-m

these days around the office i wonder what people think of me… i’ve been passing off people’s requests to everyone else – a lot of time it’s because i didn’t code that part, or i have no idea of what is going on… i’ve been quite vocal in the need for software development practices and i wonder how many people see me as young and idealistic and how many see me as experienced (or not) to recognize the need.

the past few months have been taxing on me: long workdays and many 2 or 3 hour sleep nites, followed by coding and calls on the weekends with little time for myself, let alone to spend with iris. it’s been tough. and yet, through it all i’ve seen our work go to shit and back and still it stands… i’ve also seen a good portion of my code go by the wayside as code gets stepped on and patched over… i’ve seen a good set of my hardwork go to waste really. yep, it’s been a really fucking frustrating last few months.

in it all i never expected to really see what i wanted my role in the company to be all along: system adminstrator. when i first dabbled into it i never expected that i wanted to be in it… mike warned me that system administrators don’t make as much as developers, and at first that took me back, mainly because i was very comfortable with my current salary and, as with many people, i worried about my future work and future salary. really tho’, at this point in my life salary shouldn’t mean all that much, i should be finding my career passion.

all of a sudden i realized: being in systems is where i wanted to be. maybe not forever, but it felt right that this should be my position on the technical team for my company.

yet here i am: in the middle of developing what is essentially 3 websites by november, trying not to leave the dev guys out to dry without someone to replace me… and yet, systems only has 1 person, and my help would be certainly needed. so here i stand halfway, feeling like both sides want me because of my experience in the other: a dev guy who knows his systems makes a better developer, but a sysad who is a programmer knows exactly what systems are needed for the applications.

so, mix all that up, throw in the constant office politics, and you end up with quite the sticky situation.

in all of this i’ve come to realize that the path to growth often requires one to lay down his pride and admit his ignorance. without this, how do you level with others on your need for knowledge and experience? you can’t force it out of people, you have to show them somehow that you want them to teach you. and while i may not be the best at doing this, i see people in my company who need to do this more than other.

so for the time being i’ll take what i get here and continue playing the game… maybe now really is the time to put that idea in my pocket and work on it for me and do it in a way that is not so… unplanned.

head down now, ready to trudge thru some more.

-m

for some reason this past july was… busy. i know i’m usually busy, but not this busy. or was i??

july is a favorite… it’s in the middle of the summer, my favorite season. it has my favorite holiday, the 4th. my (and my birthday twins’) birthday.

a lot of stuff happened this july. russ, my boss, quit as VP of tech at my company… we began venturing into coding things some of us have never coded before… went to ensenada for my birthday… got into some pretty serious fights with iris… went to a dodgers game and almost had a dodger dog (almost!)… spent time with my sister… started my carpool…

now it’s august. where did it all go??

i had dinner with fry tonite, and i had to say it was great… sometimes i struggle to define our friendship, and not in the sense of us struggling to be friends or stay friends or something like that… a few years ago iris once told me that fry and i are very much alike… and i thought about it and saw that it was pretty true. i mean, if you looked at our room situations when we lived together, i think any other way would’ve been a bit chaotic… between my roomies and i, i think fry and i are the introverts, and bean and gold are the extroverts… but i digress… what i’m trying to say is that we have some connection that, while not as outspoken as with our other friends, remains a deep connection.

who knew what kind of other things july would usher in… i’ve always seen that as another starting point in the year, not just because it starts the second half of the year (scary!), but it starts a whole new year in my life really. think about that on your next birthday.

in any case, i’m not sure what the next part of the year will bring… i’m hoping for new ideas, new ventures, new friends, new places to see, and new foods to eat. i’m also hoping to continue to hold close those things that are most important to me.

also, let’s hope i can keep this thing a bit more updated than i have been… heck, i even used a new template to spiff it up a bit.

here’s to the rest of 2006.

-m

i’ve been meaning to write about this for a while, it’s just that, well, life’s been happening.

a couple of weeks ago my cousins and i went to las vegas… this trip had been in the works since january, which was the last time we all went to vegas. what a great time it was!!

i know that back in january, when we first went, i hadn’t really written about it… i think it may have been because a lot of it wasn’t spent with family that time. a lot of it was spent just iris and i, mainly because we arrived so early and had to leave so early… but this time was different, and i really got to notice a lot of things about my family that i never really noticed before…

one of the things that i am ever so thankful for are my cousins… each one of them has their own quirks, their own flavor to bring to the table… for a long time i had felt kinda distant from all of them… it may have been that time with the rift in the family… being in irvine all the time probably didn’t help much either… but now i really feel close to them, closer than i’ve ever felt before…

take kenny for example. for a long time i really didn’t know him… when he and karen married, there was still this “thing” going on in our family (which i can’t explain really, hence the quotations)… because of that, i really never got the chance to get to know kenny, and it really hasn’t been until i would say the past year that we’ve gotten close… now i’m a godfather to his kid!! really though, i think kenny really turned out to be the right guy for karen and i am so grateful to have him as a cousin.

it’s funny how family really brings out the “you” in you… that weekend was very “real” in the sense that no one put up a facade… i don’t think any of us really put up a front in our family, at least not to each other… and it’s important to note that even if any of us did, we all know what really lies beneath.

what really surprised me was floyd. i’ve known for a long time that deep down, floyd is pretty much a softie. he likes to be tough and tends to be straightforward, which often comes off as rude or uncivilized. floyd is anything but. i realized this once long ago… when the “thing” was going on in our family, floyd once told me that he knows that my dad didn’t want me caught up in everything, and how he understood and didn’t try to force the issue… that saturday at the pool, floyd laid out his thoughts about Len, women, the whole works… what i realized in the end is that family really is everything to floyd. i hope he gets that tatoo he was talking about.

it was great to have pip and al hang with the family also… i mean, they are cousins as well. i think they’re a bit different from the rest of the cousins, but i believe they too play their place in the family… it’s too bad they couldn’t be more available to travel with the family some more, but hopefully someday they’ll be able to do it again.

the last thing that really got me thinking was PJ… i’m really glad that he and Kim are close, and that she checks up on him and stuff… i think that really makes him feel like part of the family… i remember him saying “we’re all family” at some point saturday when we were hanging out… that was really the last thing i expected, but for some reason was very awesome to hear.

i love my family, and i’m ever so blessed to have these people as part of my life. i hope we can do it again!

-m