Christmas '05 in the books, New Years coming up

Well, another Christmas has passed and I pretty much enjoyed it. My brother got me a new George Foreman grill for Christmas. It's The Next Grilleration G5 with the five interchangable plates that you can take off and easily clean. I haven't tried it out yet, but i'll probably enjoy cooking on it!

I'm hopefully planning to go down to Los Angeles for New Year's because my relatives are throwing a little New Year's Eve party. I haven't seen my relatives for over two years now and I think this will be a perfect excuse to visit.

Christmas Eve

Yep. It was down to the wire. I hurried out to the stores before closing to get some last minute gifts and gift wrapping supplies that I didn't get a chance to get eariler.

I just want to wish everyone a safe Happy Holiday season, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

How do people get their driver's license?

There's never a day when I'm out on the road people are courteous to one another. There's lane swerving, not signaling, tailgating, people cutting you off and giving you the finger and the worst part: speeding at 150,000 miles per hour (I know it's exaggeration, but you get the point). Before you know it: road rage. People are always complaining about "people speeding through my neighborhood" and all that crap when it's them themselves doing it, so they're pretty much hypercritical about it. I also hate it when middle-aged people always put down the younger people about their driving habits when it's also them doing it, too. Oh, and for all the people who like to show off with their souped up sports cars or BMWs or Mercedes or whatever gas guzzling SUV it is by speeding down the freeway -- stop it. It's not impressing anybody and you're putting responsible drivers' lives like mine in danger. That is all.

There's always a first time

I seemed to have done that twice yesterday when I was getting lunch and getting something to drink.

For lunch, I went to L&L Hawaiian Barbecue. I walked in and the workers up front greeted me "aloha". How cool. A little taste of Hawaii. =P Anyway, I tried the Chicken Katsu meal complete with rice and macaroni salad. It was really good, especially the macaroni salad.

Later on, instead of going over to Jamba Juice like I usually do, I went over to Robeks Juice, another chain that recently opened up here. The worker briefly explained to me about what they offered and I tried the Mahalo Mango. It was pretty sweet and tangy, but really good.

Catching up again

It's been awhile so let me get myself up to speed. I've been getting out of the house more spending some time with friends. It's better than staying home in bed feeling sorry for myself. My therapy is going well and I'm trying to get back on my own two feet. Everything seems to be going well. Last week, my friend and I spent the day at our friend's ranch just outside of Marysville. I even helped feed some of the animals, which was a pretty dirty job. Hey, someone has to do it, but it's not going to be me!

Hurricane Katrina

From CNN to Fox News Channel to MSNBC and, of course, The Weather Channel. The big story I've been seeing for the past few days is Hurricane Katrina. It roared into Louisiana and Mississippi with a vengeance and caused unimaginable flooding and widespread destruction that I've never seen before. I am really feeling for all those people who've lost everything and are forced to start over from scratch. It is really sad to see how New Orleans, Biloxi and other surrounding communities are going to recover from this, but I know they'll have courage and strength to get back on their feet and rebuild.

Catching up

It's been awhile since my last entry so, let me get myself up to speed. My mom's on vacation and i'm stuck here at home with my dad and my kid brother. It's been almost a month since my mom's been away and the tension at home was kind of building for me. There's been a few altercations, but I try not to let them bother me.

I went up to Reno about a week ago. I first stopped at Boomtown and had their special all-you-can-eat lobster buffet. I've never ate so much lobster in my life! I probably had around seven. After that, I played a little bit on the slots and headed into town. I played a little more of the slot machines and when I got tired, I decided to sleep overnight at the Silver Legacy. In the morning, I pretty much drove around town just to look around. I left Reno at around 9:30 that night and headed home.

Eariler, a friend of mine went up north to see a friend of ours for awhile. We browsed around his ranch for awhile and then went into town later that night for dinner. We went to a buffet that I know i'll never go to again. It was a good value, but the food overall was mediocre. Even my fortune cookie tasted like it's been sitting in that restaurant for years! I knew I should've gone to Sonic across the street.

You know, I just had to say this: to the person in the red Honda Civic that drove past 28th and G Streets in Sacramento at around 2:20 AM early Sunday morning on 8/21/2005 that also revved at me... grow up.

Goin' out for a cap... wow

That's exactly what I did last Thursday. I had my heart set out for a New Era Cap, which would be my first. So I decided to head on out to Arden Fair Mall and walked around for awhile. I went into Footaction and Lids to see if there were any that I liked and they pretty much didn't have what I wanted. So, after I paid off my bill at Macy's, I left the mall empty handed. So as a last resort, I decided to head on out to Florin Mall because it was the only other mall in the area with a Footaction. When I got there, gosh. The mall didn't look any better. It still had two vacant department stores, not to mention the several vacant storefronts inside the mall. The only department store there was Sears and if they closed their Florin Mall location, that's probably the end of Florin Mall. Anyway, I went into Footaction looking for a new cap and they also didn't have what I wanted. So I saw Champs Sports and went in there. I found a black New York Yankees cap that I seemed to like. I had a coupon from Footaction and they accepted it, so I pretty much got $10.00 off and I was happy. So oh yeah!

4th of July Weekend

I hope everyone is playing it safe out there this holiday weekend. I know I am. I haven't really planned anything this weekend, so basically anything goes for me. I'll either stay home and have a barbecue or go to my friend's house and then later watch some fireworks at the park.

Sonic Drive-In

They've been around for a long time, but the first time I heard about Sonic was a few years back on TV when they started airing several of their commercials. I was wondering what and where the hell is a Sonic Drive-In. So I checked their website and I was trying to find the nearest one. There were none around here and the nearest ones at the time were down in Bakersfield, a four and a half hour drive.

A couple of years back, my friend and I would frequently take 50 minute trips up to Yuba City to visit a friend of ours. When I was up there one time, we were driving around and lo and behold I found a Sonic! I was surprised to see one and we decided to pull into the place and experience it firsthand. We pulled into one of the many covered parking spots with it's own menu boards, pushed the red button, ordered our food and about a few minutes later watched a carhop deliver our food on roller skates. It was pretty cool eating our meal in the car since that was the whole idea. The food was awesome, especially the tater tots. Plus, they give you little mints. =P

For the next couple of years, I would frequent Sonic at least once a month since it was a bit of a drive. Other Sonics were opening up and down California, but none still haven't opened in the Sacramento area. A new location in Woodland is about ready to open and that was good news, but what really got me excited was that I saw a "coming soon" sign right across the street from the Natomas Marketplace with the Wal-Mart and near where they're putting in that new Promenade at Natomas shopping center with the Target and the Sam's Club. I'm finally gonna have one near me! Woohoo! It'll be awhile before it opens, but it should be worth the wait.

Aren't we gettin' a lil' shaky

No, I'm not talking about some dance. California has been getting a lot of earthquakes lately. Two significant ones happened off the Northern California coast near Crescent City and Eureka and two happened in Southern California near Yucaipa and Anza. The one near Crescent City even prompted a tsunami warning up and down the entire West Coast, but luckily a tsunami never materialized. It seems like this "Big One" that people keep talking about just might come, but I just wish it didn't come during my lifetime. I have friends and relatives in the Bay Area and the L.A. area and I'd be so worried about what would happen to them if this "Big One" were to hit. My relatives survived the Northridge earthquake back in 1994 and I was glad to hear they were all okay at the time. This is getting crazy.

26 years ago today...

Yay my birthday is today! Not that I have anything planned today. I'm probably just gonna have a nice dinner somewhere tonight, I hope.

A day of surprises, good and bad

Yesterday, as I was leaving my treatment program at Kaiser in Roseville, I decided to go have lunch at Chipotle and have myself a Steak Burrito, chips and salsa and a Mr. Pibb.

After having lunch, I decided spontaneously to go back to my old work place in Citrus Heights and take in a little visit. I saw some familiar faces over there and they were surprised to see me. It was a good feeling. I was pretty much updated with the people I used to work with. Obviously some of my old co-workers still work there, some are now working at the Krispy Kreme in Roseville, one is now at a car dealership, a few left and one of the managers that basically expected too much out of me which pretty much led me to my depression was fired. I wasn't surprised at that. That sounded more like a relief to me. They also told me that one of my old co-worker's dad was involved in a horrific motorcycle accident a few months ago and didn't make it. I really feel for him. The biggest surprise was that I was informed that a old co-worker/friend of mine that I used to work the graveyard shift with accidentally killed himself a month or so ago. That was the biggest shock. I didn't know about it until they told me yesterday.

So after my visit over there, I decided that I'd go out to the cemetery and pay my final respects. I went over to Ralphs, a local supermarket, to get a rose and after that headed on over. I couldn't find his headstone, so I briefly went over to the funeral home to get help on finding his headstone. It was kind of embarrassing, but I had to do what I had to do. Luckily they helped me. So I went back to the cemetery and took a moment to pay my final respects.

After that, I met up with my friend in Rancho Cordova. We went to the library, had a Frappucino at Starbucks and head back to my place to browse the Internet. After midnight last night, we went out to Jack In The Box to get something to eat and took her home. That's when I decided to call it a night. It was a pretty exhausting day.

Today, I'm just gonna chill at home.

Stuck in traffic

I left the house at around 8:30 AM. I missed the onramp to the freeway and instead took surface streets to get back to the freeway. I was supposed to be at Kaiser in Roseville at 9:00 AM for a treatment program i'm currently attending, but to my surprise I was caught in heavy rush hour traffic -- and it was the counter-commute, too. I swear, people must be heading out to the suburbs to go to work nowadays. Either direction during rush hour traffic is basically congested now. In any case, I made it there at 9:30 AM and didn't miss anything.

After leaving the medical office at around 12:30 PM, I headed back down the freeway to go to Country Club Plaza -- yes, that somewhat deserted mall. I walked around for a little bit and it was pretty much the same. The Athlete's Foot was about ready to open and yet there were several signs saying "Coming Soon: Speciality Retail" on several vacant storefronts. I was very curious about what was going to open. I know that I read in the paper several weeks ago that they were bringing in national chain stores, so that sounds exciting.

Anywho, it's Thursday and the 2-hour season finale of CSI: is on tonight. Can't miss that. Woohoo!

Customer Service? Oh please...

Going out to the store or to some place to eat seems to be routine. I went to Marshalls last night and bought myself a couple of new clothes. The girl at the register seemed very nice, sincere and professional. I was pretty satisfied with that.

The next visit to a Safeway store would be anything but nice and sincere. I went to buy a few groceries and as I lined up at the checkout, I observed the guy in front of me and the woman behind me and they seemed like they were regulars to the store. The checkout girl seemed to know them from before I guess, but when she got to me, she didn't say one word to me. Not even saying my total and a "thank you". As I grabbed my groceries, I kinda eavesdropped to what the checkout girl was saying to the woman behind me. The checkout girl said she wanted "a man that didn't smoke, drink, do drugs, have no kids, and was never married." I was kind of awed because that pretty much was me, but I kept my mouth shut and walked out of the store.

Just wingin' it

I started the day off yesterday by taking more steps to help me out with my depression. I met up with an small orientation group at Kaiser yesterday morning in Roseville to find out more about a program designed to help out people with certain mental illnesses. It felt pretty good just going. After that, I decided to hit up the mall nearby to browse around and have a bite to eat at the food court. Then I headed for home to relax for a few hours.

My friend called me up late in the afternoon and we decided to go hang out. It took me awhile to get to the other side of town. It was heavy rush hour traffic. I swear Sacramento is just getting bigger and bigger by the minute. Anyway when I got there, we went out to nearby Folsom to browse around the old town district. Most of the shops were already closed for the day, but we didn't mind. After that, we hit up Target nearby to grab a few necessities. After contemplating on what else to do last night, we figured that we should hit up drive-in and take in a double feature. I figured we might as well because drive-ins sadly are on the verge of becoming extinct. It was interesting and less cheaper than going to those super modern stadium-style movie theatres. Don't get me wrong about that. I enjoy going to those, too, but paying almost $10 for a movie ticket is gettin' to be too much. After spending almost four hours at the drive-in, we hit up the local Denny's for a bite to eat. After that, I decided to call it a night and head home.

Mall still looking dead

The last time I went to Country Club Plaza in Sacramento was Tuesday of last week. My main objective was to go to Macy's and pay off my bill because it was due that day. Leave it to me to procrastinate. Anyway, as I was walking down the mall corridor, all I saw were rows and rows of vacant storefronts of what used to be mom-and-pop shops. It seems like the renovation (which was completed a year and a half ago) really didn't help. I just shooked my head in shame. No wonder people are still going to Arden Fair Mall.

The mall does look promising still. They are opening The Athlete's Foot very soon and most of the national chain stores that opened after the renovation are still open (except for Villa Pizza). Now if they can attract stores like PacSun, Finish Line and Journeys to the mall, maybe it can be alive again. We can only hope.

Vulnerable

Right now I feel like crap. I'm feeling more inferior to everyone now. I feel like i'm pulling my own teeth just to go out. To be called a "lazy ass" by your younger brother is definitely not helping. He don't understand at all. I just keep thinking that I would rather be alone, and to think this is all supposed to help me out with my depression? No, it's just worse.