::: Old Junk :::

September 4th, 2005, 1:41 AM: Holy fucking shit, Against Me! is amazing!
Summer recap: Finished finals, Yosemite with Will, Santa Cruz/Pt. Reyes with Akash, Marin/SF with Evan. Drive home. Did nothing for 5 weeks (which included an absolutely amazing day with Jacob and his friend Jaimey driving to Santa Barbara via the PCH and stopping at a few beaches, a sand dune, and eating amazing strawberries). Worked/summer school for another 5 (it sucked). Kim left me for Australia. Camped with Jacob in the most amazing place ever. Drove to Boston, toured the city (+ Martha's Vineyard), saw family. Flew home, hung out with my parents, sold my car (and stole my dad's), drove back.
Now:
+ Back in Berkeley.
+ My own room finally.
+ Akash, Will, Matt, Anthony, Amy, and Dominic.
+ Working towards a goal/no longer wasting my time.
+ Energy and Resource Group 100 + new ERG minor program.
+ Akash and I are talking about Europe/Israel/India
+ Sid Meier's Pirates
- Bio 1A (proteins, DNA, + boredom)
- Kim's in Australia and I miss her.
- Jacob's in LA and I miss him.
- 8:00 AM class three days a week.
+/- I'm finally moving on/growing up. I'm losing touch, but trying to keep up. Berkeley is getting closer to home and San Diego is getting further from it. Things will never be quite the same.

May 19th, 2005, 2:12 AM: I have new kite aerial photos from the lighthouse in Santa Cruz as well as from the Berkeley marina. The Santa Cruz pictures are by far my best yet. Yesterday my roommate Akash and I went to San Francisco to celebrate the end of finals and after hiking around the Cliff House and the bath ruins for a while we got bored and decided on a whim to go to Santa Cruz for the day. We ate lunch downtown, rode the roller coaster on the boardwalk, and then flew kites (and took pictures) at the lighthouse. It wasn't the nicest day, but the wind was nice and steady to lift the camera. I have a week and a half left in Berkeley and then it's back to San Diego for the summer. In that time I'm hoping to see the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Yosemite, the Exploritorium, Tilden County Park, Point Reyes State Park, and take lots more photos. We'll see what happens. All in all, it should be a good end to a good semester and year.

March 27th, 2005, 2:13 AM: I'm officially out of the loop. The Transit War released a new full length in January and I just found out about it tonight thanks to myspace. It is absolutely amazing. I miss that band. I miss seeing San Diego bands in general. Off the top of my head: organic chemistry is kicking my ass, writing essays for english classes still suck, it's almost baseball season.

February 8th, 2005, 9:32 PM: Back in Berkeley and starting to get busy with classes. Tonight I took pictures of the jazz musician Herbie Hancock for the Daily Cal. I like jazz, but his show seemed really boring. They also sent me to Modest Mouse (with second row tickets!) last week, too bad they had no energy on stage... Other than that I haven't done anything too exciting.. A trip or two to SF (saw Moving Units play an in-store in Amoeba, visited SF MOMA, and the Cheese Cake Factory), a nice hike behind campus, and lots of studying...

January 1st, 2005, 6:12 PM: I went and took my first official kite aerial photos today. They didn't come out so good, mostly because I didn't know what I was doing, and because my controls weren't working that great. Hopefully I'll get a few more days of clear skies to try everything out and make adjustments...

January 1st, 2005, 1:47 AM: Just got back from New Year's Eve at my brother's house. Good times.
Highlights of '04:
- Moving out of Freeborn
- Moving out of the dorms into my house
- Drop Bush Not Bombs night
- ESPM 10 with Steve Welter
- Flim 50
- Ken Griffey Junior, Major Leage Baseball for Nintendo 64
- Starting to paint
- Hiking/beaches/tidepools/exploring with Kim and Jacob
- Big Sur Camping
- Israel, Amsterdam, and 10 days of not knowing when I could sleep
- Root Beer Kegs/bonfires
- Wiffleball
- Cliff house exploring in SF
- Anthony's rolling video game
- Watching West Wing with Akash
- Kite flying at the Berkeley waterfront
Looking forward to in '05:
- Kite Aerial Photography
- Camping with Kim January 5-7
- Wildlife Ecology with George W.
- More camping
- More traveling

December 25th, 2004, 10:14 PM: After almost two months of waiting, I finally went KAPing (Kite Aerial Photography) today with my brother and Jacob. I've been pursuing this hobby ever since Jacob sent me a link to some examples awhile back. Essentially, you attach a camera to a rig that hangs from a kiteline, and then use radio control features to take pictures and rotate the camera. Today's experiment wasn't quite so fancy (we just tied the camera to a suspension from the kite line and used the camera's 10 second timer to take pictures), but it still produced some interesting results... Hopefully I'll have a radio controlled rig up by the end of break. In other news, I reset the counter for this site so it registers each visit rather than each IP address. I can't believe how many visits this gets. Who are you?

December 23rd, 2004, 6:16 PM: Reason number one to live in Southern California: It's the week before Christmas and I'm still walking around in shorts and a t-shirt, pretending it's summer. Kat and I went to Hodad's today. We got to sit at the bus booth, and when I brought out my camera to take some pictures, the lady that was behind us in line came up from the line to our table and said, "Oh you brought a camera, that's so cute! Do you want me to take your picture." "Um, sure." And she did. It was a little weird, but totally awesome. Then we walked around Newport Street for a while, found out Eatopia went out of business (or moved?), saw the Christmas tree on the beach, and went kite flying. It's amazing what you can do in a day when you're not going to school...

December 15th, 2004, 8:58 PM: New "day in the life" pictures of my roommates and me at the Berkeley waterfront.

December 12th, 2004, 3:17 PM: I posted some pictures from the last Counterfit show here. Enjoy.

November 22nd, 2004, 7:41 PM: I just spent $100 to fly home Saturday December 11th for the last ever Counterfit show. I have a final the following Tuesday in Chemistry. I'm not sure if I'm incredibly stupid, or if I just started to really live life. Either way, I'm so excited I'm not missing this show.

November 3rd, 2004, 5:54 PM: How to become a Canadian citizen. Electing to Leave. Jumping ship may not be the answer, but God Vancouver sounds nice about now. I should be at the rally in SF, but I have a midterm tomorrow. How many more people must suffer before this country can learn to progress?

October 29th, 2004, 11:13 PM: Another reason why I'm a dork.

October 23rd, 2004, 4:58 PM: Greatest day ever. I slept in. Made oatmeal with hot chocolate and got a cookie from my roommate. Sat around the whole morning listening to just about every Pinback album and enjoying a rainy morning at home. Went out shopping around 2:00. I played a snowboarding game at Best Buy that had an Atom and His Package song on it! And then bought some good food at Trader Joe's. Now I'm off to watch game one of the world series. So glad to be done with midterms.

October 1st, 2004, 1:07 PM: Do yourself a favor, listen to From Monument to Masses, (thanks Jason).

September 27th, 2004, 11:27 PM: Today was the best chem lecture ever. We watched a clip from the governator's Predator, and then our professor re-wrote and sung Green Day's "Pulling Teeth" to have chemistry-based lyrics. Fuckin' genius.

September 15th, 2004, 4:01 PM: Even though I need to be doing work, I decided to waste twenty minutes on the facebook (myspace for Universities) and found a Padres Fans group for Berkeley. I'm stoaked! Too bad there's only three members.

September 14th, 2004, 10:54 PM: So I got the Daily Cal job, but it doesn't look like I'll really get to take that many pictures. They were like, "Yeah, we want to hire you as a freelance photographer. So, um, when we need stuff, we'll call you... Alright, later." I'm still stoaked about it though, and I get to use a nice (read real) digital SLR. School is still finding ways to suck. It's funny that no matter how interesting your classes can be, when it comes down to doing real work I'm totally ready to quit and go back to San Diego State or something... Whatever. Scarlet Symphony and Gasoline Please (!) are playing this weekend at Gilman St, I'm super excited to see them and get to hang out with Dan again. I also have Padres versus Giants tickets, and except for the fact that the Padres have been pulling the curl up and die move over the last few weeks, it still will be a fun game. Mental notes for myself, I need to:
- take more pictures
- paint more
- play more guitar
- spend less time at this damn computer screen.
Shana Tova!

September 12th, 2004, 12:53 AM: My first real update now that I'm back in Berkeley... All things consider, I shouldn't be complaining. Today I made banana and chocolate chip pancakes with my roommate Heather, they ruled. And we have enough mix left over to make them tomorrow as well. After that I went to the Cal vs. New Mexico football game... It was fun, I guess, but I wound up leaving at the start of the fourth quarter because I was bored... I'm still not sure why I decided to buy season tickets, but at least it's an excuse to get out of the house... After that I hit up the books for a bit and did some painting... I think it's been over a month since I last painted... It's definitely nice to get back into some form of creative release despite my lack of artistic talent... What else... I "auditioned" for a photographer job for the Daily Californian (the campus newspaper)... They liked my portfolio, but the pictures I took in my audition didn't turn out to well, so we'll see what happens... My classes are okay... I'm taken Environmental Economics, Forestry, General Chemistry, and introduction to Nonviolence Theory and Practice. That's about it,not too much excitement going on...

September 10th, 2004, 9:39 PM: Alright, something is seriously wrong with me... I'm listening to Melee. Voluntarily I might add. What's happening?

August 21, 2004, 9:28 PM: I posted a ton of pictures from my summer in the "A Day in the Life" section linked above. I'll be updating this periodically with new pictures of whatever I've been doing...

August 18, 2004, 10:48 PM: Here's the rest of the update on my Israel trip as promised:
Day 4 (con't): We wound up going to a restaurant in the harbor district of Tel Aviv for dinner. We didn't leave til around midnight and there was horrible traffic on the drive home. I'm talking bumper to bumper and not moving. I was so bored I decided maybe it would be fun to try to find cute girls who had their windows down and talk to them in Hebrew (I only know about 30 Hebrew words). I spot one and wave at her. I get a smile and nothing more. I keep waving, now I get a small, concealed wave. We pull ahead and I see there's a guy sitting in the passenger seat, I decide to move on to my next subject... Cute girls were pretty scarce in our neck of the traffic jam so when we pulled next to a middle aged woman with the window down I decided to try again. I yelled, "Shalom (hello)." I get a smile but no response. I say, "Mashloam Meh (How are you?)" She responds, "Beseder (okay)," lacking knowledge of any other Hebrew words I say "Ani Tov (I'm good)." So I guess this story really isn't that funny, but it was fun when it happened. Anyway, we got home really late (around 2:30 or 3:00) and then had to get up at 5:50 AM the same morning to catch a train to go north to meet up with my aunt and uncle in Akko.
Day 5: The train ruled cause it had outlets on it so I could listen to my ipod without fear of the battery dying. We got to Akko around 10:00 in the morning and went sight-seeing all day. Akko is in the north of Israel (a little north of Haifa) and right on the Sea. It's been inhabited for the last 5000 years, the Crusaders came through and built a castle (which I got to walk through), and Napoleon was stopped there on his march north from Egypt. The whole "old city" (which we were walking around) was surrounded by a huge wall (like a medieval town), all the buildings were super old and museum quality, but it's really strange cause you walk around from landmark to landmark in the city and in the same buildings that you want to explore cause they seem really old and historical, people are living in them... It was awesome. We got back from Akko late, I think we went to the bar, and then to sleep.
Day 6: Slept super late (2:00 PM) and then spent some quality time with my grandma. Went to the poolhall/club in the evening...
Day 7: Slept late again, had all the family come over for a huge dinner. Did some coloring (see the pictures) with my five year old cousin (and even gave my grandma the finished product to hang on the fridge) and then headed the long trip home. About 28 hours after I left my cousins house, I made it to San Diego.

August 15, 2004, 9:21 AM, Home: Full update with the rest of the details of my trip, pictures from the whole summer, et cetra coming in the next 1-2 weeks. In the meantime, I just wanted to post everything I wrote while gone...

August 10, 2004, 3:01 PM, Be'er Sheva, Israel: Sorry, the new picture section isn't completed yet, maybe by the time I get back from my trip... A description of the trip since the last update:
Day 1 (August 6), Amsterdam: I got off the plane in Amsterdam at 9:00 AM local time, my connecting flight to Israel wasn't until 7:50 PM so I went into the city. I put my bag in a locker in the airport and leave with only my passport and camera, already nervous to be in a new place by myself, I become scared shitless when I realize I forgot my boarding pass in my bag within the secured area of the airport. I try not to think of it as I go on with the day, since there's nothing I can do until I get back (it turns out they were able to print me a new boarding pass no problem). I took a train into the city and got off at central station, I guess I was in the heart of downtown or the tourist district or whatever. I spent the whole day walking around the city aimlessly, getting lost, then finding my way back. I stumbled upon the Red Light District, not nearly as cool as I had hoped, just tons of porn shops and prostitutes behind glass doors banging on the window hoping you'll look over at them and decide to pay for sex. The streets were really narrow (especially the sidewalks next to the canals) so that there's no way a trash truck could fit down them. Because of that (or at least I assume) there was trash everywhere. We're talking bags of trash in front of people's houses, empty bottles and cups and paper on the sidewalk, etc, it was really disgusting. It seemed like without the drug and sex industry in the city, no one would go there. All the souvenir shops sold some type of weed or porn item (they had penis water guns that were actually pretty cool) and everywhere you walked you could smell the pot... Oh yeah, everyone rides bikes there, and it took me all of five minutes after arriving to nearly get hit by a bicyclist. So I guess it was cool, but also kinda boring after a whole day walking around alone... I got back to the airport around 5:00, paid six euros to use a computer for thirty minutes and got on a flight to Tel Aviv.
Day 2: I woke up at my cousins house in Be'er Sheva around 12:30. We had lunch, went swimming in an Olympic size pool (I was painfully reminded of how hard swimming can be, 21 twenty-five meter laps and I was dead), and waited around until the rest of my family came over for dinner. We BBQed and ate outside, nothing special, but kinda reminded me of an American summer night...
Day 3: My aunt, uncle, cousin, and I went to see some archaeological sites... We went to these caves in the middle of the desert, apparently Rambo 3 was filmed in one of them. It's hot as hell (it was over 100 degrees outside with no shade) and we're walking around from cave to cave. Inside the caves was amazing though, they were all dug out by hand and some of them were huge with several rooms and super high ceilings. After that we drove over to the Israeli army armor memorial site/museum. They had TONS of tanks just sitting out on display that you could climb on. It was totally awesome. Tanks from the 1940s to the modern ones, as well as howitzers and other types of armored vehicles. I got some pictures of myself sitting on the barrel of one of the tanks.
Day 4: Probably the craziest day of the trip. I woke up at 11:00 the previous night to start getting ready to go to Eilat. Eilat is the city at the very southern tip of Israel on the Red Sea, if you're facing south and look east you see Jordan, west is Egypt, and straight ahead across the Red Sea is Saudi Arabia. Anyway, we caught a three hour bus down to Eilat at 12:30 AM and got there at 3:30 AM. The bars in Israel don't have a mandatory time to shut down, so when we arrived on the boardwalk at 4:00 AM there were still tons of people out as well as a ton of street vendors. We killed about an hour in an outside bar right on the beach (there's no age limit for drinking in Israel), and when the bar closed at 5:00 AM just kinda sat around outside til 7:00. We then took a cab about two miles south along the coast to where the coral reef starts (at this point we were about a mile away from the Egyptian border). There we waited another two hours for the dive shop to open to rent snorkeling equipment, and then we finally got to go in the water. It was amazing. I saw two eels, a sea snake, a shark, tons of multicolored fish and schools of what must have been a 1000 small, one inch fish. I also got a killer sun burn on my back. After snorkeling we killed a few hours until the 3:30 PM train at a mall and then headed back. Back in Be'er Sheva I took a three hour nap, then my cousin and I went out to a bar with my other cousin (his brother). We shot some pool and met another American who is studying at the local university... Finally around 2:00 AM I was able to go to sleep for real...
Day 4 (today, August 10): Woke up late, went to the mall to buy a paperback copy of the DaVinci Code in English (they don't have paperback in America yet because it's selling too well) and got some real falafel. Later today we're going out to dinner somewhere on the Mediterranean to eat with my other cousins and to look for some gifts for my brother... That's about it... Having fun but definitely missing home...

Date: ? Time: ? Location: Somewhere in the air over the Atlantic: So according to my watch, it's 3:53 AM on Friday August 6th. But it's not really. My watch is on Amsterdam time, and I'm not there yet. I left my house this morning (which according to my watch is actually yesterday August 5) at (San Diego time) 6:00 AM. That means I've been traveling for thirteen hours, and I don't think I'm even half way there yet (mileage or time wise). I guess this update is pointless considering I won't be able to post it for several days... I'm riding on this plane, and I took out my laptop to watch a copy of Pulp Fiction I burned (I've never seen it), but I dropped it underneath my seat, and we're so cramped there's no way I'll be able to pick it up (which is a major bummer because I still have four and half hours left on this plane). So now you get this update, lucky you. I had a four hour lay over in the Twin Cities, and they had a mini arcade in the airport with Crazy Taxi! I lost about four dollars to that machine... They also had "extreme" Off Road, which really can't hold a candle to the classic version. So if my battery holds up and I don't get sick from looking at the screen, you should see a whole shit ton of new pictures up. I'm posting various pictures from this summer with captions (the same style as the camping pictures and the "new photographs"). Hopefully I'll keep it up.
Now it's 4:40 AM by my watch. I'm three hours away from Amsterdam. I have all the pictures set aside and ready to go but my ears hurt from wearing these new, expensive headphones too long, and my eyes can't stand looking at the bright screen in the dark cabin anymore. On the bright side, I was able to find a way to scoop up my copy of Pulp Fiction. Too bad I'm so tired of staring at this screen, maybe I'll try to fire it up anyway...
On a totally unrelated note, after going through pictures for the past two months, I realize this has been an absolutely amazing summer. (Sidenote: The "where we are" chart just popped up on the TV screen, looks like we're a bit south of the tip of Greenland with 3:47 minutes of flight time left, looks like my math is getting fuzzy from being in here so long). Earlier this summer Kim wrote in her livejournal something to the extent of "sometimes my life is so awesome, i just can't believe it." That seems to be becoming more and more true for me by the day. How did I get so lucky to have such amazing friends. My family and friends in San Diego are so exceptional, it is going to make going back to Berkeley unbelievably hard. But there are amazing people in Berkeley as well, I'm going to live in a house with seven of my friends and take classes I'm actually interested in. I guess I don't know what to say other than thanks to all my friends for giving me new adventures to look forward to everyday.

August 3, 2004, 4:49 PM: In the past thirteen days I've:
- Evacuated a building
- Driven over 2400 miles
- Seen some of the ugliest parts of California
- Seen some of the most beautiful parts of California
- Rafted down a river into the Pacific Ocean
- Saw hippies who look like they haven't left their home since 1964
- Climbed a fallen redwood.
- Hiked to a waterfall
- Lost a game of wiffle ball to a 12 year old girl
- Walked over the Golden Gate Bridge
- Rode a roller coaster and sky car on the Santa Cruz boardwalk
- Spent way too much money on a pair of headphones
- Eaten a shit ton of Mexican food
In the next 11 days I will:
- Spend thirty two and a half hours physically in the air flying
- Spend over 70 hours traveling from San Diego to Israel and back
- Snorkel in the Red Sea on the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
- See ancient Roman ruins on the Mediterranean Beach
- Listen to music with my way too expensive headphones
- Spend time with family
- Spend a 10 hour layover in Amsterdam and not get high
- Try not to get blown up
(Camping Photos)

August 1, 2004, 6:34 PM: So this probably will only be funny to the people that were there, but I'm posting this so that I'll remember it... Anyway, at the start of Jacob, Kim, Will, and my camping trip (full details coming soon) we were getting gas at the Emrald Oil by my house. We're all filled up and ready to go when I start screaming "yeah!" and "woo!" which is subsequently followed by some "yeahs!" and "wooos!" from Jacob, Kim, and Will. Then, there's another "woo!" coming from the other side of the gas pump, and this little, old lady comes to the other side. I forget our exact conversation, but it ended with me telling her we were going camping in Big Sur, to which she responded "Oh, just go!" It was great.

July 23, 2004, 12:49 PM: What a long day. I got up at 7:00 AM to take my final for my summer school class, ran errands all day, and got to Epicentre around 4:00 for an awesome wiffle ball game with Brad, Kim, Omar, and Omar's friends. I work "event staff" (I watch the back door) at Epicentre and tonight was a sold out show for Saves the Day, Hot Rod Circuit, and Boys Night Out. I saw my friend Justin who I haven't seen in forever, and was unsuccessful in trying to sneak in a cute girl (although, I think she bought a ticket off of someone, because she was inside later in the night). So it's about 9:30 PM, Saves the Day is maybe five or six songs into their set and someone is pounding on the door. I open it to see what's going on and find out the building is leaking gas (which I immediately begin to smell), apparently some kid outside the show was standing on the gas pipe and broke it. After a few seconds of panic, I then (along with some of the other staff who had figured out what was going on) proceeded to evacuate the entire building. I'm probably known to 400 people now as the dude yelling and screaming about "we're evacuating the building" and "there are two exits." No one really knew what was going on and if the gas was dangerous or not, so we had to move everyone to the park outside the Epicentre. While the firemen came Chris from Saves the Day played a six (?) song acoustic set in the park for everyone (which was totally awesome of him to do). After all that, it turns out the gas was not harmful, and someone could have even lit a match in the building and nothing would have happened. I guess this entry can't really convey it, but it was an extremely intense ten minutes or so. No one was hurt... What a crazy night, and now I can get all of five hours of sleep before I need to get up and drive eight hours to Berkeley to move stuff.

July 20, 2004, 10:21 PM: Random Notes:
- Saw Moneen last night at epicentre. They totally rule and are the nicest guys.
- Murder By Death may be the most amazing band you haven't heard of. Half GSYBE rocking out, half Cursive-ish songs about the devil and zombies, totally amazing.
- Jacob, Kim, Jason, Jon, and I threw another root beer kegger this past Saturday. We actually had enough people to finish the keg this time, as well as 9 on 9 wiffle ball game. Another awesome night.
- This weekend I'll be going up to Berkeley to put furniture in my new place. I'm actually really excited to get in there and set up shop, should be an awesome year (minus the whole school thing).
- New pictures coming soon (I might re-structure the site to start including random/fun pictures with friends and whatnot in addition to the "portfolio" pictures).

July 10, 2004, 12:16 PM: This upcoming Wednesday (July 14) we're playing wiffle ball again at Helix's JV Softball field. If you want to come, e-mail me.
The rest of the summer in summary:
July 11 - My mom gets remarried. Spend time with family.
July 17 - Another rootbeer kegger/bonfire???
July 22 - Finish summer school
July 23-25 - Move stuff to Berkeley
July 28 - August 1: Big Sur camping with my favorite people (Kim, Jacob, and Will)
August 5 - Start flight to Israel
August 6th - 10 hour layover in Amsterdam, see the city, fly to Israel.
Aigist 6th - 13th: Israel to visit my grandma
August 14th - Arrive back in San Diego.
August 20th - Back to Berkeley...
Where does all the time go?
Highlights of the summer so far: Carlsbad Four Seasons gelato run, Torrey Pines at 12:30 AM, hiking at Sunset Cliffs, Torrey Pines, and Cabrillo with Kim, Jacob, and Jason, wiffle ball, rootbeer kegger/bonfire, painting.

June 27, 2004, 10:58 PM: The weekend in recap.
Friday - Amazing:
I saw Bear Vs. Shark play at Ground Zero. Their set can be described in one word: amazing. Maybe two: simply amazing. Or a made up word: fan-fucking-tastic. I went with Jason and Andrew (and it's a damn good thing, because without Andrew's knowledge of Rancho San Diego I would have been completely lost). Afterwards we went to In 'N Out and I had my first double double in what must have been at least 5 years... I really don't see the need to rave about those things, it's just fast food...
Saturday - Long:
Saturday was the root beer kegger/bonfire. I got to South Mission Beach at 8:30 AM to claim a pit, Jacob and Kim got there at noon, I left at 3:05 AM, and the only part of me that got sunburt were my ankles. Mark that as success.
Sunday - Sleep:
Woke up at 3:00 PM today. Totally fucked up my sleeping schedule for summer school (I'm taking a joke of an English class Monday - Thursday 7:30 AM - 9:30 AM). Got yelled at. Went to see Fahrenheit 9/11, decided that movie is really made for people who don't have the time to keep up on the news from day to day, but still found it interesting...
Random Things:
- I have decided aim is the death of my productivity. Therefore I should turn it off more, yet for some reason I don't.
- Although Jacob and I deemed this our Summer of George early in June, I've come to the conclusion that it's really the Summer of Kim, since I've spent almost as much time with her as my parents since coming home. In fact, I've probably spent more time with her over the past month than I have over the past 3 years I've known her. It's amazing how friendships can develop and blossom.
- I started painting about a month ago. I got on a tear and did six or seven pieces, but haven't had time since I started summer school. Fuck me for being practical and choosing sleep or work or painting the house over something that I actually enjoy. The process is almost like a meditation for me...

June 11, 2004, 3:40 PM: This is hands down the coolest thing ever. Maybe someone out there can translate it for me, that would rule. I just spent $50 to get my shitty flash to work with my digital camera. I could have gotten a really nice flash for $150, but alas I am broke and still haven't foudn a job this summer. Damn damn damn.

May 21, 2004, 8:41 PM: My final update from Berkeley for the 2003-2004 school year. Amazing. Finals are over and I leave for the long car ride home tomorrow with the one and only Jacob. Highlights of the year brain stormed with Will on a walk back from Cold Stone: Super Bowl weekend where we both moved out of the shithole known as Freeborn Hall into a place that felt like the Taj Majal in comparison, saw Ted Leo in Los Gatos (while being visited by San Diego friends Roz and Alan, and ran into Darryl and Dan Mack at the show), and bbqed for the super bowl. [Insert my roommate Will saying something to get me away from the computer and lots of other stuff here which results in me not getting back to this for several days]. Tuesday, May 25, 12:57 AM in San Diego, CA.Continuing the list, other highlights include: catch phrases such as "does the fun ever start," "the internet," and "what a hilarious turn of events," the Santa Cruz day trip to the Mystery Spot, good seats at the Giants/Padres game at SBC Park, SF MOMA, random visits from Gary and Christopher, Against Me! at Gilman Street, and Mike Park playing acoustic on campus. Major letdowns include Pretty Girls Make Graves at Ameoba (I love the band, but the day and show sucked), letting random people into your dorm the night before you move out, only to have them throw up in your bedroom and refuse to leave. Plans for the summer: hang out with friends, find a decent summer job, read, actually finish the projects I set out to accomplish.

May 3, 2004, 12:18 AM: My friend Jacob started a cool site like this one. In particular, he has some funny videos of me being stupid. Go to his site > gallery > movies and then try the 007, 008, 009 (undoubtedly the stupidest and most random thing I've ever done) and the road trip 2003 movies.

May 1, 2004, 1:35 AM: Note to self: don't forget about your cool friends, they're fun to hang out with. In totally unrelated news, you should check out some lies. Don't think they're funny, that's okay, they're really not.

April 21, 2004, 1:21 AM: I didn't get the house - fuck. On the brighter side, I added some new photographs I've had laying around but never really put on this page... Check them out, they have captions with explanations and ranting.

April 17, 2004, 1:36 AM: It seems like once or twice a year I go on this kick of listening to UCSD's internet radio. I'm currently in the zone where the second I open my itunes, it's the first thing I click. I think what draws me in is the element of surprise, you never know what to expect, but it's consistently good. The reason for my recent obsession, however, hits a little closer to home as my brother has started DJing a show Sunday night/Monday morning from 12-2AM. Regardless, I'm still listening throughout the week because there's nothing like discovering some new, good music. What else. I am insanely in love with this house. My group turned in our applications today, two kitchens, two decks, an awesome neighborhood, and awesome people, let's face it, I need to live there. 3 weeks of school, 1.5 of finals and then it's home to sunny San Diego, god I love that city.

March 6, 2004, 9:24 PM: So I had two midterms last week and fell way behind in everything else and I really should be doing homework, but the Beatles just came up on my itunes and, let's face it, I can't break away from the headphones, I'm such a sucker for that band. A few things I've discovered (or rediscovered) in the last few weeks: friends visiting you in a new city = awesome, Against Me and Ted Leo live = amazing, funny professors = make early classes worth getting up for, and new dorm = make life livable. Exactly sixteen days til I go to Peoria, AZ for Padres spring training, word..

January 27, 2004, 6:13 PM: The awesome folks at bandphotography.com have added me as one of their "featured photographers." You can check out my album here and rate my pictures, post comments, etc. It's a pretty awesome site in general, so you should definitely check it out.

January 24, 2004, 1:09 AM: A few new band pictures are up in the "digital, G2 bands" section. Check them out if you're bored. Back in Berkeley, everything's the same, except my classes might not actually kill me this semester, yay.

January 16, 2004, 11:05 AM: So I know I promised a new site of some sort, but let's face, I wanted to spend my break with family, friends, and Mario Kart 64 instead of on redesigning anything. So instead of something new and grand, you're getting the same old package, just wrapped in a new way (actually, I think these colors work much better than the old ones). There are, however, new pictures in both the band photographs and the digital photographs. I also decided to get rid of some pictures I didn't like as well as some other minor touch ups here and there. Recap on my life since last update (not because you care, but because I want to be able to read this stuff 1, 5, or 40 years from now): finals = hell, studying for 12 straight days = will make anyone go crazy, going back home to be friends and family and sleeping in your own bed = best thing ever. This break I did a whole lot of nothing and enjoyed every single second of it. Highlights include: poker with Jacob and Josh, visits from Will and my Boston cousins, hooking up the N64 to the big screen downstairs, a newfound love for chess, hiking Cowles Mountain, The World According to Garp, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Bottleshop Pizza, Chilis, Pokez, El Cotixan, and Gelato Vero. Things left undone: the zoo, the Wild Animal Park, an IMAX movie, reworking my photo album. Today is Friday, I have a few more family dinners planned, two shifts at work, and a concert, than it's back on a one way plane to Berkeley for the next four months. That means four more months of working my ass off studying and have no fun. On the bright side, my new roommate (there's three of us in that tiny room now) is supposed to be a cool guy and into good music according to other people in my hall, we shall see.

December 7, 2003, 1:55 AM: New site, or at least a new layout for the pictures coming soon. In the middle of finals. Looking forward to going home, scanning pictures, and the luxury of my own room. Why oh why does Berkeley have to suck so fucking much. Finally watched High Fidelity instead of studying, it ruled. This update seem fragmented? Sorry, just a reflection of my reality for the next two weeks until I finish things up here.

October 13, 2003, 1:27 AM: Spare Change rules. They just posted a really awesome gallery of pictures on their site that has a ton of pictures I took. The pictures I took range from May, 2001 (one of the first times I took concert pictures with a real SLR camera) to June 2003, so they're not all great, but you can see my progress as a photographer over the past two and a half years. Oh yeah, the black and white ones I actually developed myself in my photo class.


October 5, 2003, 1:09 AM: Time for a real update. It took me seven weeks, but I finally feel settled in here, still it's really weird. I can't decide if I like it, but I know if were to go home after being away for so long I wouldn't be able to stand it either (and I would always regret not staying). It's not that I'm unhappy here, in fact, that's far from the truth, the thing is, I just feel indifferent. Berkeley (both the city and the college) is nothing like I expected it to be. And accept for my neighbor Will (who fucking rules by the way), I haven't made any real, consistent friends. Sure I've met a lot of people, and even people with similar interests, but for some reason or another, none of them have really stuck. Not to mention my classes are insane. It's sad when the highlight of your day is going to eat dinner in the dining hall, but at least two if not three or four nights a week for me that's all I have, because the rest of the day I've been either in class or studying and that hour dinner break is the only chance to I have to actually free myself. Maybe things will get better now that I'm through midterms, let's keep our fingers crossed.

I was in San Diego last weekend, it was amazing. I got to drive with Jacob, being in the car with him, it feels like nothing has changed. Catching the last twenty minutes of the 9:45 show at the NCT, eating Gelato at the one and only Gelato Vero, cruising PB, it was like the whole summer rushed into an hour and half tour de San Diego. But nothing could match going back to the parking lot at SDSU where we filmed Bystander. I don't know what it is, but after spending three or four nights there filming til 2:00 AM I've fallen in love with the concrete slab. The picture opportunities are endless, and the memories of staying out late, freezing my ass off, and almost getting hit by cars while I should have been studying for a physics final are in every nook and cranny of it's five levels. I need to graduate, and I need to get my doctorate so I can become a professor at SDSU. I can think of nothing better than having a house in Kensington between Van Dyke and Kensington Coffee Co. and driving 5 minutes to work everyday.

I should say though, one of the coolest thing about Berkeley is the opportunity to see cool people speak for free. Last week Jessie Jackson was on campus (I had to miss him, damn Physics lab), but Friday night I got to see Peter Camejo (Green Party candidate for Governor). It was downright amazing. The things we could do if we had the right people in office, the world really would be a different place. And the only way to get there is to start voting our conscious. Sure, even if everyone that believe in the Green's platform were to stop voting democratic and vote Green, it still may not be enough to defeat a republican candidate, but every Green vote is one vote closer to getting rid of our two party dominated system. Voting Green (or any third party for that matter) is not throwing your vote away. If 400,000 people wouldn't have voted for Camejo in the 2002 race, there's no way he would have been allowed to speak in the debate. The more votes the Greens get, the more we force the democrats to move to the left. If we just keep voting blindly for the lesser of two evils, we give the democrats no incentive to do anything but stay where they are. The fastest way to change the system is from within, and that starts from your vote. Enough politics, let's just say that after listening to Camejo, I feel like my vote can really make a difference, and that is a great feeling. Next free public speaker appearance on my calendar: Monday night, Larry Flint. Yes, you read it right, he's speaking about the first amendment and I expect it to rule.

Other highlights of late include getting copies of Fahrenheit delivered to my mailbox by Adam Gnade, he is the man.

These last few weeks I would be unable to survive without the music from Jimmy Eat World (Clarity in particular), God Speed You Black Emperor!, Cursive, the Dismemberment Plan, and the Beatles.

September 3, 2003, 12:22 AM: So this is my first update from my new home in Berkeley. I'm living in a luxioursly large (note sarcasm) 13 x 13 dorm with two other people. But in all honesty, it's not that bad, I have cool roommates and cool people living on my floor. It's only the second week of school, but I can already tell it's going to be killer. The difference between SDSU and UCB is amazing and has me often wishing I was back in San Diego, driving my car, taking easy classes, and eating at the Falafel King (now the Garden Fresh Grill or something lame like that). Still, I know I made the right choice. The opportunity to live in a completely new city, meet people from all over the state (and the world - one of my roommates is from Thailand) is an experience I am extremely fortunate to endulge in. These past few weeks have been a blur. A roadtrip up the coast with my best friend of eight years, a mad rush to get ready to go to school, and now I'm finally here. I can't decide if it's like a vacation, or camp, or something totally different, but regardless, I'm thrilled to be where I am. Why oh why is my writing so fragmented? Anyways, there are some new pictures up... One day I'll reorganize them so they're actually pleasing to look at, but for now, they are what they are and I have an 8:00 AM class...

July 26, 2003, 11:52 PM:

Joelombo: dude, how can the beatles be soooo good?
MacBugg: music is amazing joel. music is so friggen simplify beautarific.
Joelombo: yes
MacBugg: music is so splendifertastic that I hereby declare it should have three m's.
so that it is mmmusic.
and then you can make an "mmmm" sound whenever you say it. cause it is so mmmm mmm mmmagical.

Word. Jacob rules..

July 4, 2003, 1:11 AM: Long story short, I got a new digital camera for my graduation/birthday/Chanukah. Needless to say, I'm as happy as a little kid on Halloween night with a full pillowcase of candy. I've already spent $100 on accessories for it. Don't ask me where I found the money, but sometimes impulse spending is good. Anyway, new pictures from the new camera are up. What else is new? Let's see. I have six weeks left in sunny San Diego, then it's off to Berkeley for school. I'm pretty excited. I just got back from orientation and I had a great time (highlight of the trip was going into SF, see the pictures). Super cool people, awesome campus/community, fun classes to take, and most importantly, plenty of places so that I'll be able to spend my whole first semester (and probably more) finding different things to photograph. Not too much else is going on, just lots of working (got a second job because I'm broke)... Drop me a line sometime and say hi and share your life story, I get bored on the computer....

June 1, 2003, 11:53 PM: So my dad is now remarried, finals are done with, and I'm enrolled to attend UC Berkeley in the fall. For those that are interested, I somehow managed to pull an A in physics, I guess all those hours of cramming before the final helped for something. It would be very fair to say that I will not miss SDSU in the slightest bit. I enjoyed not having to spend another year in high school, but you know when you don't belong in a place, and that's the way I felt every single day walking onto that campus. Enough of that. My dad is currently honeymooning for ten days in Hawaii and I get to reap the benefits of having an empty house. Considering I don't drink, throw wild parties, or have a girlfriend, those benefits are limited, but enjoyed nonetheless. The wedding went well, taking into account my thoughts going into it, I actually had more fun than I ever would have expected. Lots of nifty pictures and video of family thanks to my digital camera, and not to mention a few funny stories to tell friends; I guess you can't really expect much more than that anytime two fifty year olds invite 200 people to ballroom. Having family in town for the wedding was fun but stressful. We had good times cruising at Seaport Village, making runs for Jack In the Box Tacos, and telling stories in my dad's living room. On a side note, it's amazing what you can learn from letting an 85 year old talk without being interrupted, especially if that 85 year old was a Jew in Warsaw, Poland in September 1939 and spent all of World War II running from the Nazis (as was the case with my Grandmother). Moving onto brighter subjects, having the last of my family leave the Wednesday after the wedding (10 days after the first of them arrived) was a great feeling. Don't get me wrong, I love them all to death, but it's nice to get your life back. Although right now my life isn't exactly all that exciting. Besides devoting my life to updating sandiegopunk.com (which is no where near as exciting as it might sound), I'm in the process of cleaning out my entire room. This consists of going through everything that I own, deciding whether it is junk that can be thrown out, or something worthy of saving for the rest of my life (or at least another 5-10 years), and then boxing everything up, so that I can leave behind a clean, well-organized room for when I leave for school. Berkeley, well that's another problem all together. Yes, I'm more excited to leave San Diego to go to school than for just about anything I've ever done before (I'm a nerd, I know, just live with it), but at the same time filling out paperwork, paying $350 for airfare and registration fees for a pointless trip for orientation, and answering the question 'What's going to happen to San Diego Punk when you leave' five times a day isn't exactly what I call fun. (I will say, that asking what will become of San Diego Punk is a valid question, and one that I'm more than willing to answer [full statement posted to sdp.com coming soon], but as with anything done repetitively, it gets old real fast). So that's been my life for the past 3 weeks. I'd also like to say Padres tailgating at J5 Saturday night ruled, as did the party afterward. While the events of that night are probably more interesting than anything else I've wrote so far (how often do you hear about climbing a poop hill?), I'm tired and in need of sleep so those memories will have to remain engraved in my head only.

May 15, 2003, 9:28 PM: More new digital pictures are posted because Kat bugged me. Update on my life (not because you care, but because I want to write) coming soon.

April 12, 2003, 5:09 PM: New digital pictures are up, check them out, lots of nice stuff. This day light savings stuff is really tripping me out. It's 5:00 but it feels like 3:00... It's been like this all week. I like having the extra sunlight, but I keep putting off work because I think it's earlier than it actually is... Oh well. I got accepted to Berkeley and UCLA for college next year... Still trying to decide which one I want to go to. Have any good advice on either school? E-mail me and let me know, I could use some help. Things have been pretty good lately. Padres Spring Training was awesome. We were watching the Padres play the Cubs at a night game and there were these huge bugs flying around the entire park. Somehow some kid got dared or peer-presssured into eating one. It was pretty awesome. Especially when the whole crowd in our section started to chant "Eat The Bug, Eat The Bug!" I think by the end of the night he must have eaten five or six total. Good times. Let's see, what else? Spring Break was fun, but I was super busy. Had lots of fun (and am still having fun) helping Jacob shoot his film, going shopping and to the movies with Gillian, and chillin' with Kat. Going back to school is kinda lame, but there's only four weeks left until finals now. Speaking of that, if anyone has taken Physics 107 at SDSU with Dr. Rehfuss, first off I feel sorry for you, and secondly, if you could shoot me an e-mail and let me know just how killer my final is going to be, I'd appreciate it.

March 23, 2003, 12:29 AM: Too long with no update. Sorry. New digital pictures are coming soon (meaning in the next month or two, I'm just waiting til I have a bunch I like so I can add them all at once)... Let's see, what's new with me? SDSU is super-sucking. Don't take Physics 107 there, EVER. Especially not with Rehfuss. You have to memorize so many equations... He's pretty boring too. I have three midterms next week. I have a feeling I'm going to bomb all of them, but hopefully I'll surprise myself. More importantly, Evan and I leave Tuesday to go to Peoria, AZ to see Padres Spring Training. It's only two days, but I could really use the break. I want nothing more than to sit in one of those hard, plastic seats with the sun beating down on me watching some good old-fashioned baseball. Then Friday is my last day before Spring Break. Woo! Too bad I'm not doing much fun stuff. A concert here and there and driving up to visit UCLA before I make my real college decisions... I've been getting really distracted lately because I have so much going on. I can't concentrate in class, can't do work outside of class, and really have no motivation for much of anything other than fun. I have all this college BS looming over me. I mean, I guess it's important, and I'm happy I'll finally be moving out of my house, but it's kinda weird too. And then I need to think about my major. How are you supposed to decide what you want to do for the next forty years of your life when you're only 18? Oh well... Then there's the thought of all my friends going somewhere else... At least Jacob got into USC, so maybe we'll both wind up in LA. And Kat will still be in SD... . With all of that my mind's been wandering... But I don't think I'd want it any other way. That's it for now. Thanks to everyone who's been checking out my photos lately.

January 31, 2003, 5:05 PM: All new pictures are up and the site has been slightly redesigned thanks my brother's discovery of jalbum. That program rules. So yeah, my photography services are officially "for hire" now. If your band needs live shots, e-mail me and we can set something up. To see different options/prices, check out the contact page.

January 16, 2003, 11:54 PM: It's been a while since I wrote here, so I figured I should put something up. I just got a new Cannon Powershot S200 digital Elph camera. It's really nice. I've been shooting a lot with it in the past week. You can look for a new "digital photographs" section to go up soon. I also have about 20 other new pictures I've taken that are waiting to be scanned and added. Hopefully I'll get some time in the next few weeks to take care of that and maybe pull a slight re-design of the site... In other news this site is up to forty one visitors, woohoo for me. Maybe someone will finally want to hire me to take some pictures! I think that's about it for now. Thanks for visiting and thanks for reading.

December 15, 2002, 12:43 AM: Words really have no way of describing what I'm going through. I've only been to one funeral in my entire life before today, and it was for someone whom I did not know very well. I thought I was going to be okay. I thought I would have some closure and be able to start moving on. I had no idea. I actually made it through most of the service okay, the drive to the cemetery was uneventful, I saw the coffin being pulled from the hearse; I was still composed. Then, slowly, the coffin was lowered into the ground. I lost it, completely. I couldn't move. Couldn't talk. All I could do was stand there, watch, cry. Last Sunday hearing the news was horrible, but I guess I've managed to do okay since then, today everything changed. This all seems so surreal, it can't really be happening. I can't fathom the idea that I'll never see Jarrod again, it just doesn't make sense. Twenty-three year olds aren't supposed to die, especially not like this. Let's hope it will be never again.
Thank you to the following people who helped make today easier for me: Doreen, Jerry, Gavin, Jay, Mike, Jeff, Jacob, and everyone else (you know who you are). Jarrod, I will never forget our few, precious moments together.

October 24, 2002: Relief. Finally. For the past three months I've been working on putting a benefit concert together, and tonight the line-up has finally been confirmed. Spare Change, Underminded, The Cause, The Classified, PBR, and To What End will all be playing the Epicentre Friday November 29. The show is a benefit for Stand Up For Kids to provide educational scholarships and sleeping bags for homeless teens in San Diego. Your attendance is appreciated. It's only $8, or $4 if you donate a sleeping bag. Enough with that though, I've been working on it practically all day...

October 17, 2002: So not too much is happening with me. I went to the San Diego Music Awards on Tuesday and it was awesome. Sitting with Larger Than Life, the Classified, and Rochelle, Rochelle it was nice to see all the unity and friendship between SD bands. Congratulations to Rochelle, Rochelle and Agent 51 for taking home awards! Too bad I have to spend the rest of my week and probably most of the next working on a paper for my english class. That class honestly makes me sick. I don't know what it is, but for some reason, I can't stand writing any type of analytical essays. Just the thought of having to write one brings me down. Whatever. Still there will be some highlights this weekend other than 10+ hours I plan on putting into writing my paper. Friday night I get to sell merch for PBR. I'm going to bring out some sdpunk t-shirts to sell too. These days I think I'd rather just sit in the back and sell merch at a show than watch any of the bands. There's something so relaxing about just sitting there, watching the bands from afar, not being caught up in the crowd, it's just really nice. On top of that, when I get to sell sdpunk stuff there's that whole feeling of accomplishment. It's hard to describe, but the idea that people are willing to pay money to wear a t-shirt for a website I made is flattering and confusing to me at the same time. I would never pay money for one of those things... Well that's Friday night. Saturday night I get to see the Color Turning. They're an amazing band and nice people,and I'm excited to see them again, but having to go alone is going to suck. Oh well. For now I need to get some sleep...

October 5, 2002: I've been thinking about making this site since before summer started and it's finally here... Sorry about the poor design, but I'm not too into fancy images or HTML, nor am I that good at it. Anyway, if you made it here, thanks for coming.