Pictures of You

I'm still trying to keep the song title theme going so I had to go to the Cure, which actually worked out since there is a big Cure festival going on here this weekend. :)

The news today is that I finally got a chance to shoot a first roll of film with my Lomo camera. You can check out the company at http://www.lomography.com. It's a really cool point a shoot 35mm camera that a friend recommended to me because it uses older Russian technology that creates some interesting effects. So if you're into photography I would recommend it also.

You can check out some of my pictures from the first roll at http://www.lomohomes.com/drifterx2 .

Running Down a Dream

The end of last week things started to slow down at work so I got to have a fairly relaxing weekend and a day off today. I also got to see some of the olympics on Saturday night. As I was watching the 100m races I caught a story about how that Iraq and Afganistan had women on their olympic teams for I think the first time. Even though I don't like a lot of things about Bush's policies or the war, I thought it was amazing to see a really quiet but abrupt change like that. I do think that it's a positive change to see a group of people that have trained and worked hard finally get a chance to reach a goal.

Only Superstition

Recent events, and being in the dating world have led me to do a little reevaluation. I've never gone into a relationship trying to be a player or anything, but I've always been out to learn the rules of the game. The first girl that I ever really dated and got involved with I ended up hurting because I was starting at a new high school where I thought I had all options open to me on top of being insecure about being hurt by my first crush, the girl next door. This led to being even more insecure because I had hurt someone that I really did care about, and I ended up being very over cautious for along time because I made somewhat of a pact with myself that I wouldn't do that to someone again.

Once high school ended I was still somewhat over cautious. Later in college I ended up starting to go in the other direction because I had felt like I had missed so many oportunites after girls that I liked would come up to me and introduce me to their boyfriends on almost the same day that I would get the courage to ask them out. Finding the equilibrium has been the trick recently since I've been on both sides of the coin. It's not like I don't have patience or that the girls that I've gotten or tried to get involved with have not been worth the effort. Being shy and the feeling that I missed oportunities has been the biggest reason for my fear of losing. The main thing that has saved me has been the fact that as I've kept getting out there I've figured out more about myself as well as make me less shocked when things go wrong in a relationship so that hopefully if the right relationship comes along I'll be more prepared for it. All of this is mostly just trying to get things off my chest, but hopefully it makes sense to an audience. :)

Some guys have all the luck

I wanted to say sorry for not posting much recently. Work has been fairly busy, and I ended up at least trying to help my Mom and stepdad with their move this weekend. :) Work will be much slower at the end of this week so I will post more then. Blogging has been a lot of fun so far, and it's been fun to read other peoples blogs also. I will definitely say thanks to anyone who's been reading also. There seem to be a lot of good blogs out there, and meeting new people as well as getting a few comments has been more than I could have asked for so I will be back with more.

Weird Science

Today being lucky enough to be a part of the video game industry also afforded me the opportunity to go to Siggraph, a 3d animation convention being held up in Los Angeles. The convention is a lot of fun, and it is mainly classes, lectures, and recruiting mixed with high profile late night parties. The best way to describe it would be the way someone would describe the old 80's hairstyle, the Mullet, which would be "business in the front and party in the back." The best example would be the Industrial Light and Magic t-shirts that had a picture of Darth Vader's helmet on the front and the slogan "Who's Your Daddy?" on the back. Most of my day was spent in classes, but it was fun to part of a geeky atmosphere outside of work. Who knows why they let us out? :)

One Mike at a time

I got a little inspiration from another blog. :)

http://sabiv.blogspot.com/2004/08/whats-up-mike.html

It is funny to think that I have the most common name because I think I've just gotten used to the fact that all my friends know at least one other Mike. Even though I do like to think of myself as one of a kind. :) It hasn't really ever bothered me, except at times when I hear the name Mike being called in the distance while I'm out doing something on my own because I always have to make the call on whether to turn around. Turning around to see if someone I know is calling me is not a big deal, but when it happens a few times a day is when I start to think about not even bothering to try. There's only been a couple of times that I've actually ignored someone who was calling me, but I did have the excuse that I thought someone was talking to another Mike.

Blue Moon

Well, this weekend of the Blue Moon turned out to be a fun but mostly family weekend. My stepdad had his Mom and Niece in town. I had met my step grandma (I think that's the technical term) before, and all of the family that I have met of his have been really good people so I was happy to hang out with them. I ended up having a lot in common with his niece, Amberly, and it seemed like we became fairly fast friends. It was a lot of fun getting to know her over the course of the week and a half that they were in town. They invited to me to go out to dinner with them quite a bit as well as a Disneyland run so it was fun to feel like a spoiled kid again. :)

I had gotten into a conversation about music and the bands that she liked so when I saw that one of the bands, Switchfoot, was playing a free concert, I offered to go see the concert with her. The concert was packed, and it was a very minimal standing room only show. It took a little bargaining with people to get to a place where we could see the band, but it was a good show even though I only recognized their big hit Meant to Live and maybe one other song.

Saturday I helped with the garage sale that my Mom and Stepdad were having in order to get ready for their move. I almost forgot how much I have a love/hate relationship with selling things at a garage sale. It's great to great to get rid of any crap that you don't use or don't really want, but most of the time you're thinking of how much you paid originally for whatever you're selling while someone is offering you a dollar for it. It always seems like a weird interaction because you have memories of all the great times you had with an old boombox or bike rack that's been gathering dust in the closet, but at the same time you should be happy that you're making money off of it.

Soon after being burned out by the sale, I got a call from my friend Chris, who was throwing a party that night. All of my friends from work and a few other people that I knew were going to be there so I decided to take a break from the hectic family schedule in order to have a chance to hang out with friends. It was a good party, and a good chance to get out as well as relax. No major stories, but it was still a good chance to recharge.

Sunday was another touristy day with the family, so I decided to tag along since it was the last chance I would get to see them before they went back to Ohio. It was actually fun to get a chance to do the tourist areas since I don't get to actually relax and enjoy the city, even though I live here a lot of the time. And that was my weekend, straight up.