It's time to downsize the alphabet

I think we should reduce the size of the alphabet by one letter by getting rid of the letter "x". In my opinion, it's a needless character. There is no word that contains the letter "x" that cannot be spelled using other letters in the alphabet. Words such as extreme, can have the "x" replaced by the letters "cks" to create the exact same sound. Extreme --> Eckstreme.

Words such as xylophone can also be updated to the 25 character standard. In this case, the "x" can be replaced with the letter "z". To illustrate: Xylophone --> Zylophone.

In this world of downsizing and cutbacks, I think this streamlining of the alphabet is something simple that has been overlooked, but whose time has come.

Other things that have happened in the past month

Just after the Fourth of July weekend, one of my life-long dreams was finally realized. I got to play on a company softball team. The Human Resources department challenged one of the other departments on campus to a softball game. The game was a blast (it was especially enjoyable because it was during work hours). I managed to play pretty well, considering that I haven’t participated in a ball sport in over 10 years, and got on base every time I was up. I even caught a fly ball or two when I was in the outfield.

The following weekend, I joined Michelle, Kevin and a bunch of their college friends (the same group that does the ski trip) up in Pismo Beach for a mini-vacation. Even though I felt like we spent the majority of the weekend driving up there and back, it was still worth the trip. The weather was perfect and it was great to see everyone again. We stayed in a rented beach house that was a couple hundred yards from the water. On Saturday, Jeff got us hooked up with one of the local wineries (Jeff works for Gallo) and we were able to enjoy a free tasting as well as a behind the scenes tour of the grounds. Once we left the winery, we went down to the beach to hang out for a few hours. Then, we were treated to a huge gourmet dinner, courtesy of Jeff. On Sunday, we did a little shopping at an outlet mall and then drove into SLO for lunch. After lunch, we were back on the road, headed for San Diego.

On the Friday and Monday surrounding the Pismo Beach weekend, I had to move offices. What a royal pain in the ass that turned out to be! I spent all week packing up boxes and throwing away half my office (I managed to fill 24 trashcans worth of old junk). Then, everything had to be moved into holding areas so that the offices could be painted and recarpeted over the weekend. Nothing like getting back from vacation and having to move tons of boxes around. I was so not into the whole thing that I still have boxes to unpack. Naturally, everyone who comes into my office feels the need to comment on that as well.

Last week I had a routine dental appointment. Looks like I’m going to have to have a couple of wisdom teeth removed in the near future. Can’t wait for that day to come.

This past Saturday, Mark organized another sloshball game. For those of you not familiar with sloshball, it basically means softball + alcohol. The field is set up like a normal softball field, with one exception. There is a keg (or in our case, a cooler) full of beer at first base. In order to make it past first, one must drink a beer. Needless to say, the game gets pretty interesting fairly quickly. Al and I met up with everyone at the field just after noon. After a quick warmup, we took to the field and started playing. I managed to drink quite a bit, but I never seemed to catch a buzz (must be all those happy hours I’ve been attending lately). As we played, hamburgers, hotdogs and other grill fare were being cooked up on the sidelines. In short, it was a great way to spend the day. Al ended up skinning up his leg as he slid into third base during the game. Long story short, it became infected a couple days later (you can read the full tale on his site).

East meets East

On the day after the Fourth of July, Michelle, Dana and I headed up to Simi Valley for Manu and Pattie’s wedding. Being that Manu is Indian and Pattie, Chinese, it was a fusion wedding of sorts. Actually, the whole thing was really interesting; the main part was a traditional Indian ceremony, while the Chinese influence infiltrated the reception and remaining parts of the ceremony. The mariachi band was gravy. I got to see a lot of people who I haven’t seen in years and get caught up on their lives.

Manu is the first of our group from college to take the plunge. It was kind of surreal to watch and think about, but at the same time, it was neat to see that the two of them know who they want to spend the rest of their lives with.

My downfall of the night came at the hands of the open bar. The bar was to be open for exactly 4 hours, so I was intently keeping an eye on the time, especially as the countdown of the last 15 minutes got underway. In preparation for the closing of the bar, I began to stockpile glasses of beer in front of me. I did such a good job, in fact, that when the bar shut down I had about 10 glasses in front of me. Not wanting any of the beer to go to waste, I began working my way through the glasses. Unfortunately, the cleanup crew started to come by at that point and began to clear the table. I was insistent on holding on to some water to help keep myself hydrated, so I made sure to keep our table’s pitcher of water in front of me. Well, a momentary lapse of concentration on my part resulted in all of the water glasses being removed from the table. Fear not, however, as I was able to maintain control of the pitcher, which, in turn, served as my water glass for the remainder of the night.

It was right around this point where things started to get hazy and details escape me. I guess I asked Manu a few questions that I repeated verbatim in the morning, having clearly missed the given answers. But, I think the real highlight of the night came as we were leaving the reception and Michelle made a reference to the centerpiece, to which I responded, “why don’t you just take it with you; chicks like that shit.”

Back at the hotel, I was hoping to rally and hit up the Elephant bar across the parking lot. Instead, I ended up passing out on a heap of towels in the bathroom. The next morning, I awoke in a bed, but I (or anyone else for that matter) have no clue as to how I got there.

Celebrate the birth of your country by blowing a piece of it up

The Fourth of July was a relatively tame holiday for me this year. The night before, Jenny was in town and I got together with her for dinner down in PB. We had some sushi and threw back a few sake bombs and got caught up to date with each other. After dinner, we crossed the street to hit up PB Bar and Grill with a couple of Jenny’s friends. I drank enough that night to make me not really want to drink on the Fourth. After a short night’s sleep, I made my way up to Temecula to meet up with my parents for lunch. It was a pleasant 110 degree day, so I wasted no time getting from the air conditioned car into the air conditioned restaurant and back again.

When I got back into San Diego, I drove straight down to Pacific Beach to try and meet up with Michelle and her friends. As expected, the traffic was an absolute nightmare and it took me well over an hour to get down to her place. I parked and then walked over to Fanuel Park on Mission Bay. The place was a total zoo. I had no idea where Michelle was and the hordes of people using their cell phones made getting in touch with her near impossible. After walking around and exhausting the redial function on my phone, we were finally able to find each other. About 30 minutes after doing so, it was time to leave in search of food. So, we walked all the way back into PB, grabbed a quick bite and then went back to Michelle’s place to rest for a spell.

After building up the energy to face the crowds again, we made our way back down to Fanuel Park to watch the fireworks. The show was about half over by the time we got there, but I became too focused on dealing with the people around me to catch the remainder of the show. As soon as the last firework hit the sky, total pandemonium ensued. 1000’s of people suddenly decided that they needed to leave the area and the majority of them opted to head up the path that I was standing on. Miraculously, I was able to find Michelle and her friends and we got the hell out of there. Drunken people lighting off their own fireworks in a crowded area is a certain recipe for trouble. We pretty much called it a night at that point.

Back in the Saddle

It’s been just over a month since I’ve made a post, so it’s time I get off my ass and back to work. During my hiatus, I celebrated my one year anniversary of writing in this online journal. A lot has happened over the last 12 months. I feel like I’ve grown quite a bit personally and gained quite a bit of introspection on my life and where I came from. My priorities have shifted a bit (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing) and I’ve come to enjoy some new aspects of life.

Hell, just the month that I was away was pretty eventful! It started off with Alexis’ graduation from Stanford. The agenda for the weekend was for me to drive up to Hemet on Thursday night, spend the night and then leave at the crack of dawn with my folks to drive up to Palo Alto for the graduation. Well, the Thursday night before I drove up, Michelle and I went downtown to meet up with Mark (bowling, hockey) and his girlfriend, Shira, at The Stripclub. The restaurant is basically a new version of the Turf Supper Club. Both restaurants’ claim to fame is to bring raw meat to the table and then have the patrons cook the food themselves on large community grills. Dinner was quite good and we all split a bottle of wine with the meal. After dinner, the plan was to head over to Café Sevilla to meet up with more people for Salsa lessons and dancing. Things took a little longer than expected at The Strip Club, so we arrived at the club later than planned. Unfortunately, Al had been there for about 30 minutes before we showed up but I had no way of getting in touch with him, and understandably, he was a bit upset with our tardiness. Actually, a bit upset is a gross understatement. It was probably the maddest I’ve seen the guy. Without making a huge scene, he let me know that he couldn’t stick around and took off for the night. The whole situation was pretty surreal and I ended up feeling pretty bad about it for the remainder of the night.

Before we hit the dance floor, I ordered up a pitcher of sangria. Unbeknownst to me, nobody besides Michelle and me wanted to drink sangria, so I ended up drinking the majority of the pitcher myself. Loaded up, it was time to hit the dance floor. The first hour of the night was a free lesson and then they opened the floor up for dancing. The majority of the women in attendance that night couldn’t dance, weren’t attractive or managed to bridge the gap between the two. Regardless, I swept the floor with them as I worked my way down the line; or, at least that’s the way I remember it. Towards the middle of the night, Michelle’s roommate, Stacey, showed up with another friend of hers and another pitcher of sangria. Not wanting to be rude, I was all too happy to help them work their way through that pitcher as well.

Needless to say, when we left the joint, I had Michelle drive us back to her place where I could sober up before driving all the way up to Hemet. I ended up getting to my parents’ place around 2:30 in the morning and going straight to bed. Three hours later, my folks were ruthlessly kicking me out of bed and trying to get me in the car so we could start driving up to Northern California. I made up for the night before by sleeping for the majority of the drive. We made good time and arrived in the late afternoon. After moving a few things to Alexis’ new apartment and getting cleaned up, we all had dinner at a Gordon Biersch in downtown Palo Alto. From this point forward, the weekend was spent doing one of three things: Moving Alexis from her dorm room to her new apartment, watching one of the graduation ceremonies or eating/imbibing.

In order: whenever moving is involved, it is a royal pain in the ass. The process took the better part of the weekend, leading to somewhat heated emotions on more than one occasion. The ceremonies were certainly different, namely the processional. It resembled more of a variety show than a solemn ceremony. All of the graduates entered the field emulating total chaos. Everyone was wearing or performing some sort of self expression; there were pillow fights, jousting knights, dancing palm trees, and humorous signs, to name a few. The president of Peru spoke at the all campus commencement ceremony. His speech was interesting, but seemed to revolve more around self-promotion than a means of inspiration. Above all, though, I will say that no one who spoke during the ceremonies was short on words. As for the gluttonous side of things, we had a lot of good food and drink. I only managed to go out with Alexis and her friends on one of the three nights, but we all had a good time that night. Of course, it made sitting through the ceremony a little more difficult the following day.