poop.
reef's not coming to town anymore. sounds like his work people are even worse than mine. oof.
anyway, since i now have a bunch of free time this weekend, i have the time to surf.
so im getting out of here as soon as i can.
i'll be surfing out west side. then to ihilani for the day. life is sometimes pretty good.
so i'll have to work a bunch this weekend. and next week. yes, it's when reef is in town. maybe he'll want to come with us while we inspect manholes on military bases? right.
so i'm making a list of stuff for him to do during the day with my car while i'm living the good life at work. here's what i have so far:
touristy:
-diamond head
-arizona memorial
-blow hole
-north shore
-pali lookout
-sea life park
-surfing at canoes
-dukes
less touristy:
-waiola's or matsumoto's
-kua aina
-surfing at barbers point
-searching ala moana for the pancake flipping girl from american idol. (i know she's from maui, but he really wants to find her. i figure giving him a place to look would keep him busy, even if she probably won't ever be there)
-hiking (maunawili or somewhere else)
-maitai's
-tantalus
i'll put more stuff on the list. but i should probably do some actual work today. or maybe mark can do some of it for me. hm...
remember that Fundamentals of Engineering exam that i took in late october? well, i passed. bring on the salary adjustment.
non-related: reef is visiting this weekend. for a week. it's gonna be fun. the only bad part is that i'm out in the field all week for work. that means no short days and probably almost no daylight hours to show him the good things about this place. he'll have to find them on his own, i guess.
i went to the dentist this morning. the beautiful dental hygenist worked on my teeth. she's this beautiful afghani woman with delicate features, incredibly smooth olive skin with the slightest hint of a tiny handful of freckles, and the more enchanting green-hazel eyes. she also has the faintest hint of an accent, which makes her almost irresistable. she has the kind of beauty that could easily make a guy crazy.
maybe that can explain the problems going on with the middle east. maybe they have hotter women than anywhere else in the world and now they feel like the US is somehow messing with their hotties. shit, if i lived in a desert and someone was messing with my superfly women, i'd wage a holy war. i can relate. i feel for them. think about it, we revolted against england cause they fucked with our tea! what if they were messing with our women? and what if our women that they were messing with were as beautiful as my dental hygenist?
but back in reality, here's how it went down:
1.the woman flosses my teeth and makes them bleed as much as she can.
2.then she tells me that i have beautiful teeth.
3.we then talk about her HUSBAND AND TWO YOUNG CHILDREN. (no!!)
4.i leave, as depressed as when i entered.
i failed to ask if she has younger sisters or maybe equally beautiful cousins who are lacking husbands and children. maybe my beautiful teeth will win them over. when they stop bleeding.
hello. my name is eric. i spent a buttload of money and time to get a masters in environmental engineering with a focus in IT. that stands for "information technology": computers and stuff.
today at work i stood in the sun and occasionally knelt down to put dirt in jars. then i put the jars in ziploc bags. then i put the ziploc bags in an ice-filled cooler.
brilliant.
it's neck and neck.
www.chairmanlau.com
www.ericmartinlau.com
if you care, let me know either way. it's gonna happen this week.
yippee.
if monster.com's median estimated salary for an environmental engineer in honolulu, hawaii, is correct, i'm fairly upset right now.
damn you, girl scouts of america. damn you. your cookies are delectable and i am powerless against them. your thin mint cookies are probably laced with cocaine or something. my boxes are already empty and i'm beginning to look for boxes of girlscout cookies that my coworkers might have left at their desks.
the blog is prettier now.
like i'm an actual person that knows actual things about actual somethings.
i don't much like the big blank space on the top of this page. pictures, probably.
indeed.
but tell me what you think. ok bye.
this is embarrassingly unacceptable. just look at this blog. boring and ugly and straight from the fricking blogger.com do-it-yourself-template deal. ugh.
at one point in my life i was at mit. i actually felt like i knew things. sure, it was painfully obvious that, compared to other mit kids, i knew pretty close to nothing. but the comfort came in knowing that i had at least some kind of leg up on the other normal people of the world.
then i click through the random "fresh blogs" on the left of the main blogger.com page and i realize that probably every elementary school child has a blog that is better both in appearance and content.
for this, i apologize. i'll try to do something about it, but it'll have to wait until this wave of feeling horribly useless passes over me.
where has the last week gone?
i'll tell you where it went. it was in boston, ma. depending on who you talk to or overhear, the first two days back in boston were the coldest days in the past a)10 years; b)50 years; or c)100 years. all that really mattered to me was that the only piece of exposed skin was the tiny area around my eyes. and i just learned that when it's -9 degrees F, my eyes freeze.
but as horrible as cold is, i kind of realized that i miss it. i miss putting on a wool sweater and feeling all warm and cozy while it's horrible outside. i don't really know how to explain how comforting that is. the temperature is always perfect here, but that contrast between how you're feeling and how you could be feeling just makes things that much sweeter.
so i miss it and when i look into moving away, i'm gonna put boston and a few other east coast places on the list of considerations. i never thought i would say that. after 5 years there i figured that i wouldn't ever want to live back there. but who knew that i was an idiot who can't ever accurately predict my future feelings?
the hawaiiana shows went fairly well. we were at the trade show 8-10 hours a day, so it got pretty tiring. but i did manage to catch a phisig C-non-checking hockey game. unfortunately, i didn't play in the game. maybe that's why they lost. ha! i also met up with a bunch of them at 'roads. squanto, bones, stash, bucky, bolin, forker, and even those people with real names, like timmy, walt, bennet, heather... it was fun and i miss them. some of them. some of the time.
and now i have to do some actual work. boo.
so i just got back from a project site visit. it involves working on a "consolidation unit" that's a pretty name for land fill. and right next to the landfill is the treatment sludge drying area. you don't want to know what the ingredients of the sludge is. it smells like zoo and i need to change jobs rapidly.
there's apparently a bunch of horrible traffic-causing accidents between me and my home. what better reason to stay at work? well, how about hot chicks?! that'd be a great reason to stay at work longer.
this is my life. there are no hot chicks at work for me.
thanks, guys.
i now think that the pats will win it all. it doesn't matter who they play. i've never liked the eagles. and i don't like anyone who likes the eagles. you suck.
so i spent the weekend at the hospital. julie's sick with some kind of cyst in her abdomen something bladder something ew. they had to remove it and dope her up on goofballs. so i spent the night in the hospital with her. it was fun. i think i need to mount my tv into the top of my wall and get an adjustable bed, like the setup in the hospital room. it looks so comfy. i mean, julie didn't appreciate it much, with all the pain and swelling and IVs and everything. but imagine if you had that kind of setup and you weren't sick. it'd rock.
related story: there was a shooting at the pali golf course. there was one guy that survived. but shot in the head, i think. he was in the room right next to julie. there were two armored guards stationed outside his room. just in case. it was kinda scary. but luckily, the shooters didn't show up at the hospital to finish the job. at least i didn't notice any shootouts while i was there. i was busy watching football, though. stupid football.
it's 6:45pm. it's friday night. and i'm faced with going home and cleaning my place or staying here and working. hm. what has happened to my fun and exciting life? maybe it never was. or maybe i've become lame. lame as a lame man being lame. yes. THAT lame.
i'm calling for green bay to make it to the super bowl. i think they'll beat new england to win it all. you heard it here first.
i want to have more time to learn programming stuff. java and flash and blah blah blah.
but i somehow never have the time. between work and working out and surfing and sleeping and self-hating depressed time...i just can't get it done.
maybe the weekend will make it better. maybe i'll stumble across a java script example code that will make me richer and happier.
the reason everything is ok today:
one just opened up near the office a week or so ago. the secretary makes a run to grab lunch for people. i've had wendys for lunch for the past three days. it's like the $.99 frosty just tells me: "it's all gonna be ok."
so after the last post, i've worked a total of one day. half day on new years eve and this morning add up to that. i'm so not into it. i've actually been pretty productive, but i still just can't manage to enjoy it or focus really. the break from work was really good, though. it was relaxing and fun, but not really so restful.
i went surfing four times over the break. as many times as i surfed in all of november and december combined. that's just irresponsible. it was a great time in the water. it was pouring for two of the sessions, so there were less tourists out in the water. sizeable waves and fairly clean water. only later did they come out with the warnings about the sewage overflows. sweet. what's a little gastrointestinal infection? psh.
i also ate a lot. didn't drink much. didn't work out any, besides the surfing. it was a throwback to the days before my job. when i wouldn't do much of anything all day. i'd surf a lot, watch a bunch of tv (mostly football), eat a lot of food and spend a lot of time sitting. life can be so good.
but now i'm in the real world (kind of) and pay actual bills and have an actual income. i need to bust out, though. i need to think bigger. i need to start some kind of dinky company that makes small pieces of crap that everyone wants to buy. they'll be so cheap and dinky that there'll be no reason for people to not buy them. then i'll own things and buy my own island. or hold auditions for my own boy band like that fat guy did with the backstreet boys and nsync and the other boybands that sometimes almost don't suck but almost always end up sucking.
but really, i don't think i'd buy $300k bentleys. i'd probably buy a bunch of houses to live in. or maybe let my friends live in them. make them pay the utilities or something. cause then you have people who owe you big time. "can you go out and pick up some beer? no? remember that house that you live in for free...? oh, you CAN go pick up some beer? thanks!" i wouldn't abuse it. no...
i'd actually probably rent them out. but really, more of my money would be in working toward buying my own ridiculous company, like ted turner. but i'd probably buy my good friends cars or trucks or something. some of them, anyway.