Sometimes you get a lot done...

**This was a post from 5/29 that I hadn't finished/posted**
Today, I am not sure why, I got quite a bit done. I took Sophie to school, worked, did laundry, washed dishes multiple times, processed most of the pictures, made dinner, picked Sophie up, went to the store for some missing ingredients, and probably did a couple more things here and there that I can't recall right now. So it was a productive day.

Here is a pic of the de-clicking of the Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens. Super easy, because if I can do it, there's nothing to it haha.

A while back I also felt like some sushi, so I made some. And the rolls came out pretty damn good looking. Had some fried tofu w/avocado for some and pan seared asparagus w/avocado for the others.
Vegan sushi ftw!

Sometimes you eat a lot...

Today for dinner we had chinese food because we didn't have time to cook. Then we also had potato chips and watermelon. It was overkill...but delicious. I have tons of pics to post, but no time right now. Hopefully soon haha

Now, back to the routine -_-

Sometimes you fail at your tasks...

Today we went to go see a house, and to the library to get some books for Sophie. Then we came home to eat dinner. We were supposed to go to the coop and Trader Joe's afterwards. Totally failed at that. We really need to go grocery shopping! We're running low on everything. We haven't gone in like 2 or 3 weeks(we normally go weekly). If it wasn't for the weekly box of produce we get delivered, we would be eating nothing but rice for breakfast lunch and dinner(we have like a 20 pound sack of rice lol).

Tomorrow, I have to work :( which sucks because it is a holiday and Geli and Sophie have it off, but I have to work...

Sometimes the planets dance...

And I can't see it. Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury are dancing in the dusk sky. And I can't see it because well...this:

Portland is awesome in soooo many ways. But in this respect, it does not cooperate. Clear skies....I miss them.

Sometimes your day is nuts...

So I haven't been posting, sorry about that. I don't know where time goes, but lately it seems like I am living my life on fast forward. I'll try to make it more of a regular thing. So some things have happened. We went out last week to the Lo' There Do I See My Brother show, and it was very cool overall. The venue was very interesting. Some very cool art, also a coffee house with some food for sale as well. And a bar. And a weird merch store. And they have shows too, so it's this one giant room with all that in there. The first bands were pretty bad, or at least not my taste in music at all. The sound was pretty bad, they had a very small PA. But Lo' There Do I See My Brother plays mostly instrumental, so it still sounded very good when they played. To my surprise, a lot of new songs, so I didn't know many of them, because they only have the 1 album out. It was really cool though. We took the bus there and back to the apartment.

Today was kind of nuts. I worked a half day, rented a car for 2 hours to to take the 70-417 exam, and went to go take it. I have pics for all these things, but that will have to wait. No time to process them right now(how many times have I said this? lol). The exam was 3 parts, since this is an update to Server 2012(if you didn't have the MCSA Server 2008, it is 3 exams to get the MCSA Server 2012). You had to pass all 3 parts to get it. So even if I passed overall, I would still fail if I didn't pass one section. But I did very well, so now I also have the MCSA: Windows Server 2012! w00t :D

So I drove there because there's no testing centers in Portland(wtf?!), so I drove to Beaverton about 15 miles for this. If I take the bus it takes like 90 minutes each way, plus the time for the exam, it becomes a whole day ordeal. Like this, in two hours I am done(25-30 mins road time each way, and an hour for the exam). Then I get back home, order chinese(I have a serious problem with that -_-), start cleaning the apartment, go get Sophie, keep cleaning, then meet Geli at Food Fight for taco night! Vegan taco bell style tacos! A taco inside a taco(flour tortilla + beans + crunchy taco inside w/tvp or soyrizo, vegan sour cream, vegan, cheeze, lettuce + tomato)!!! It was super awesome! There was also a line around the whole store for this, took like 45 minutes in line to get one haha. Also had a vegan smore, and a vegan chocolate chip ice cream sandwich! Then biked back to the apt, finished cleaning. The sitter was supposed to get here at 9pm, and I assumed she remembered, but she had not. I texted her at 9:15 to see if she was close by, and she had forgotten. I thought I was not gonna get to see Keith Lowell Jensen, and I was bummed out. All that cleaning for nothing lol. But I came up with an idea, rent a zipcar, get there quickly, and we would have enough time still. So I called her back, told her to pick up Sophie at the comedy club, and come back to our apartment lol. Not conventional, I know, but I didn't want to miss this. I had already bought tickets($8!), and I really liked this comedian. So in the end, it all worked out, but it was a crazy day.

All in all, today I worked, rented a car, I got a windows server certification, cleaned the apt, stood in like for almost an hour for tacos, ate said vegan tacos inside of other tacos, smores, and cookie ice cream sandwich, failed at reminding the babysitter about the comedy show, then schemed a plan to make it work, rented the same car again, saw a comedy show, and then wrote this super long post....yeah, pretty crazy day.

Sometimes time flies...

Well, I had this long post, and then somehow "Ctrl + Z" undid the entire post, then auto-saved...and I couldn't "redo" so yay lol

I was just saying that I don't know where time goes. So I haven't had time to post. And that yesterday I took Sophie to a birthday party. She had tons of fun. It gets absolutely crazy with a house full of sugared up six year old kids.

Also, as expected, we didn't get the house, despite offering $21K over asking price. I expected to not get it, but it is still a bummer. The location was spectacular, and we are almost surely not going to get another shot at such a good location. Oh well...all we could do is try.

I am also very excited about this show we are going to on Saturday. It is this "local" band from Tacoma, WA. Lo' There Do I See My Brother. I really really like them. Definitely looking forward to it. Tons of pics from the show to follow, since it is a low-key show, cameras should be a non-issue.


If you dig, here's a whole set from them(Skip like the first minute or so, they're just talking about the venue):

Sometimes you should be studying...

I have an exam on the 24th. I have not studied at all yet...I need to get on that. It is really hard with this schedule though. I need to make time somewhere.

We were supposed to hear back about the house today, we did not. Sometimes I wonder about this real estate agent. Today I got a gift for one of Sophie's friends. I have to take her to her b-day party on Wednesday. I got her a cool play-doh thingy with molds and tools, and all sorts of cool things. I kind of wanted it for me. So I got Sophie one too haha. I also got Thai curry for lunch. The asian "mole". I love it!

Sometimes you make mole...

A lot of it. And it is awesome. Since we weren't going anywhere today for mother's day, I made Geli one of her favorite dishes: Green Mole. Tons of it. And red rice. So we had enough for dinner today, dinner tomorrow, 2 of her lunches, and one of mine. Other than cook and clean the kitchen, we watched the first half of "The Brothers Grimm" because Sophie likes it.

Also, we may have bought a house. We'll find out tomorrow lol. We put an offer on a house that is in the perfect location. We are offering $21k over asking price, and I bet you we will still not get it.

Sometimes you finish the week....

This was a brutal week . Glad it is over. Now, to try to refuel. Tomorrow we go see 2 houses. Pretty excited, although I know I shouldn't be. One of them is at the perfect location, and at a good price. Which either means it will be in poor state, or we will be in a bidding war with 5+ people.

We watched Fargo. I really enjoy the way the Coen brothers write movies. The dialogue is great. Very funny.

Also, Geli answered a call from Lisa, which could mean hours on the phone haha So I don't know why, I thought I would check if people still play Warcraft 3. I logged on expecting a graveyard, and I was pleasantly surprised otherwise. People still play a game that is like 12+ years old!! That's when you know it is a damn good game! 12 years in PC games is an eternity! And not only that, it was super fast to search for games, so lots of people are still playing it. Kinda odd, but cool. Still one of my favorite games of all time.

I kind of still have it in me, cuz we won, and I helped out pretty well(ranked 2nd overall in the whole game out of the 6 players, and red was useless. Level 24 my ass haha). Rifles/Priests ftw!! It is mostly nostalgia for me with this game. It reminds me of simpler times. Even before my music adventures. 

Sometimes you work a lot...

Today I am drained. Work was very tiresome today. And on top of that, I might have to answer to my boss tomorrow for not getting enough "closes" today. I can't wait until I am in another role where I am not judged on statistics and numbers. The days I work the hardest are the days I get the least closes, because those are the days I work the hardest issues, that take up the most time, and many times they aren't fixed right away. You would think our bosses would understand that. But instead, I might have to explain why...

I also realized that from the moment I get up(5:45am), to right now(9pm), I have been pretty much working the whole time. Eso, no es de dios...haha I love that phrase, I don't even know why.

But this is my day:

I wake up, make and pack Sophie's breakfast and snack #1 and 2. Pack her lunch, get ready myself, take Sophie to school, run back home, work, lunch, work, go get Sophie, make dinner, do her Spanish lesson with her, eat, shower her, pick up the kitchen more or less(put away the leftovers), prepare tomorrow's lunches with Geli and finally...stop....needless to say, I am very tired. I need some vacations, and we barely started this routine 2 weeks ago haha

Sometimes you got nothing to report....

Seriously, between the lack of time, and just normal routine now. I got nothing new or exciting to report. Been trying to organize the redshift photo pics so we can finally get the website up and running. Sophie loathes her bedtime being 8pm because it is still "day"(it doesn't get dark till like 9pm). She doesn't like that. But she has always gone to sleep at that time, and still needs to since we wake her up mega early to get her to school like at 6:45am. It's just axial tilt, so the days are longer now and she feels like we're putting her to bed earlier. Not much other than that. Good night.

Sometimes you write a lot...

I wrote something up for my mom, and Baudy, and my hand is not used to manually writing anymore haha. It is tired. As am I. Good night!

Sometimes you're not ready...

To start the week again...weekends are so nice. Then there's Monday. Not so nice. Yeah...so not ready to start work again tomorrow.

Sometimes the weather is perfect...

I know I keep talking about the weather. But it really is amazing how nice it has been. Today we went out to see a house, then to the co-op for some groceries, then back to our apartment. After a nap, we went back out on our bikes for lunch, then we went to another store to get Sophie some coloring books, which we didn't find, then back to the apartment again. The bike rides were amazing, just perfect weather(it was about 75-80 deg F) with a breeze. It felt so awesome...

Anyway, There's this awesome white tree at the apartments that looks quite stunning. All this green around it, then bam, this white tree with black bark. Tons of contrast. Again, I never thought I would like flowers, trees, and plants so much, but they really impress me here. So here the tree I am telling you about:

Most of this week we had a pretty cool "day" moon. And one morning, the white tree was framing the moon, so I took a pic:

Sometimes you see Saturn...

Tonight we had some clear skies here in Portland! w00t! :D

So I took a few minutes to step outside and look up. Saw some familiar constellations. It was nice seeing the night sky, even if just from here in a light polluted major metro area. I could still make out major constellations(Big dipper, little dipper, Scorpius, Virgo, Bootes, to name a few). But I went out for Saturn, and that's what I saw :) It was great. Still a great looking as ever. Super easy to find.

On the down side, my telescope needs some maintenance or something. It looks okay, but something is off. I feel like there's a haze/slight blur to the image. Like if I could never really focus is at well as I feel I should be able to. I will take a look at it tomorrow during the day and clean it up, see if that helps. Else, I will need to look and see if someone can take a look at it locally, which I doubt. It was used and $80, so really, the fact that it even "works" well enough to see the planets and the moon is getting my money's worth I guess.

Sometimes you take a quiz...

I read a post by the Bad Astronomer(Phil Plait) regarding some science and religion quizzes by the Pew Research Group testing general science and religion knowledge. The quizzes themselves are pretty basic, short, and easy. Here are the 2 quizzes:

http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/science-knowledge/

http://features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-religious-knowledge/

They're like  13 and 15 questions each. And you can get through it pretty fast. I missed one on the science quiz(that I knew, but was in a hurry answering). But what is sad is that these are all really easy, basic science. And yet...like 63% of the public failed it. 

 

The religion one, well, a little less important, but still telling. People don't really look into these things at all...and as bad as people did in the science one, they did even worse in the religion one. 
 

This I just found to be funny. Hispanic catholics did the worst on the religion quiz out of all groups. Having grown up amongst them, I am not surprised at all!

Sometimes time flies...

Okay so we're getting the hang of this new routine now, I think. But damn...time flies. It's like I get out of work, get Sophie, make food, Geli gets here, and all of a sudden it's time to sleep?! Where does time go?! Not cool....