I had to do it...

Today I say, with a heavy heart that my girl and I have ended our relationship. Yeah, she tried her best, and it was tremendous for a while however in the end I had to move on to something more appropriate. Today my friends, I found a new barber (for those just joining, go check the archives for a post entitled "have a fun") Joon you will be missed...

Yeah so apparently(I'm just gonna assume y'all have read and know who Joon is, I'm really not trying to type all that, who knows what types of tangents I may go on as is) Joon has not been at the shop the last few times I've gone in, and even more startlingly so, each time it has been a random medley of Asian woman barbers that come out of a break room to cut the hair of whomever walks in the store. No, I'm serious. When you walk up to the place, it looks kinda like a Hair Cuttery/Urban Barber shop in that it has all sorts of pictures of their "illest cuts" and random magazines but also with a nice selection of pomades and other stuff. (you like how I just got tired of describing the place and said "and other stuff") Anyways, you get there and unless there are other people getting haircuts the place is empty, but once you walk in, two ladies walk out from a door that STAYS CLOSED one of which decides "yeah sure I'll do it" then the other trolls back to the room. I promise you, I have been getting a cut, and witnessed two new customers walk in and see a grand total of 17 different barbers come out. Needless to say, in all this fun and ballyhoo, my haircuts have been getting jacked. Which wasn't a big deal at first because I wasn't working or entering the world of humans. However lately I got big boy work to do and I can't be walking around looking like Sling Blade. So finally I just asked straight up where the heck Joon was, they let me know she had moved back to Taiwan and that was that, and with that I said an unofficial good by to the ladies of Skyline Barbershop.

Today I went to a regular urban barber shop, complete with incense, KING magazines and arguments about Kobe v Lebron for ultimate NBA supremacy (Lebron). I got in the chair, and I will admit, it was like riding a bike

Barber- what you need
Me- lemme get a one and a half all the way around, round the back, and bring the sides down.
Barber-bet

and with those four words I knew it was legit. I'll spare you the details of some long story about how glorious it was yadda yadda yadda. I read a KING, by read I mean looked, got my cut, paid my loot and tip, dipped out. Then of course, as any young sir will tell you, I fully checked that cut out in rear view mirror and when I got home. To make a long story short, if that's even possible at this point, The Lady spontaneously shouted I LOVE YOUR HAIRCUT (no, she did not yell I just type in caps) I had to say that because 1. she did not yell and 2. she always gets nervous after she says embarassing things and goes "augh are you gonna put that in the damn blog" but she did say she loved the cut.

Alright, Conan is on, I have to run. Joon, my girl, take care of yourself, Have a fun.

this might take a few posts 1.2

okay so there was no real reason to start a new post, but I had already committed to the whole number, decimal, number thing, so I kind of at least had to have a . two.

now I'd like to take a second to get a little something off of my chest. Since moving up here (Northern VA/DC) I run into a lot more people just in day to day life, which is fine by me, but the real blower, is how serious so many people manage to take themselves, really? wow. I will admit, I am not the first person to say this and will not belabor the point here. However, it bears being said that people by and large, will wield whatever bit of authority/and or power, at their disposal for ANY REASON. I mean, it doesn't matter where you stand on the overall totem pole of,well, anything really, people will indeed get a "tone" with anyone beneath them.

Me and The Lady are in Random Grocery Store 237 and check out boy is straight HEATED(yes, typing in caps is my new thing, don't worry I don't see it lasting long as I keep forgetting to stop undoing caps lock)HEATED that The Lady has done something to warrant calling his supervisor over, who has the "ultra code" that will fix this. Now, I can say the following with first hand experience, I used to work for Random Super Mega Store Membership Only Store 178 for a few months and used to think this then. But, why in the heck don't they just let everyone working the line know this dag on code? I mean really, what is the big secret? are you going to invite all your buddies in so that they can come in your line and get all the 4 for $3.00 Ritz on sale? The manager with the code, or the key, or the wand, or the shamwow, whatever, they use these days is never just standing around. They are never just standing thinking,"man, I sure wish someone would flick on their light so I could enter the password" no, these managers are off doing something way obscure like restocking Western Union Spanish forms from storage, which is upstairs, yeah, you didn't even know there was an upstairs, or they're mopping up some pickle juice cause the part time kid just didn't show up today, or my personal favorite, they're five lanes down putting in the code and have to make two more stops before they get to you. Which really comes down to a matter of simple productivity, does it honestly make more sense for one person to know a magic sequence of digits to make work easier, or for a lot of people to have this same information.

Anyway, ole boy is all huffy puffy, and sighing all heavy, carrying on. Speaking OF WHICH,(testing you) sighing has got to be, the most punk/powerful way to get your point across. In any situation sighing will either convey a powerful message, look at me sighing over here proving my point. Or you will be what I call a sighee one who is sighing as a misfortunate course of events leading him to this predicamenet. Few Examples: You get laid off, You step in gum, You forgot to DVR your show last night, He's late...again, She's Late...again. Anyhow you get it, that really had nada to do with nada, but I was just thinking about sighing.

So old boy is trying to be the sigher like "lemme sigh flex on these two right quick before boss lady gets here" but it came across as "oh look at me I'm 16 and think someone cares Im sighing" I mean really, what did he expect from me, an apology, sorry man shouldn't have got the bread, didnt know it would short the system. But when I looked down at the bagger, this chick was EATING IT UP, I mean she was like all into it on some, ohhhh he just punked them wit dat sigh!!! kill em, kill these aisle 7 breakin fools, break em down boy break em down!!! Because honestly, to her, in their world he has more power and therefore he's really coming across as "that guy" meanwhile Im over here on some "this guy"ole ashtmatic. Boss lady comes over all flustered and talking backwards grocery talk, "wonk gnorw stahw?" soon as he tells her, she unleashes a mother load of a sigh that slices directly through not only his previous punk fairy like sigh, but through all breaths he had ever took, heck, if memory serves me correct, he may have even hiccuped through some wierd sort of wind suction voice modification, what? Once she finishes the sigh which was complete with matching eye roll, she parlayed that into a one hand ultra sonic key-code combo that Im sure went down in the grocery hall of fame. I mean she did the whole code and key thing, and didn't even have to touch the other set of 53 keys in her other hand ( I mean damn, how many doors yall got in here). See now in this instance she was definately flexing her power on old boy, and would have been little lady to but she scurried off to aisle 13 when Boss Lady walked up. However, her total disdain for this boy and his mere insolence even got me a little shook, in retrospect...sorry about the bread

this might take a few posts 1.1

alas, yes, I have been gone for a little bit. For the record I said that first sentence in a medieval voice as I typed it for added flair, so please, humor me and go back and read it with said accent. New job's had me real busy but I'm back on solid ground again and have time in my brain to babble.

New job hmm lets see I work as an Assistant Director of a Rec Center, it's pretty good work, I'm an official employee of the county I have a .gov email address for whatever that's worth. All that means to me is, PERSONAL COMPUTER does not mean the same PERSONAL COMPUTER that you have at your house. Note to those of you whom may be reading this at work, ask yourself, can this be traced? if so I suggest you at least learn how to manipulate your history as best you can. Yeah, work is going well, I over see a staff in day to day operations of said Rec Center. While that job in and of itself has its own elaborate events worthy of its own daily blog. I AM ALMOST JUMPING UP AND DOWN TO TALK ABOUT THE JOB. However I feel it in my best interest to not speak candidly about my current employer while said employer is .gov and the current job market is in its current state. Now lets get down to foolery...

1:44

It's 1:44 a.m On Tuesday January 20th 2009 right now, and while there will be billions of words written about the events that are to take place today. Oh, the stories that will be told about today, the anecdotes, and memories, the I remember, the you should have seen, the my mother made me go's. I would just like to say the following...

Congratulations are in order, to America, and to all that have helped get us to where we are. Job well done, Yes We Did. Now go out there and give them a speech we'll be telling our grand kids about President Obama.

my mother the cool

The year is young, but already with a bolt, my mother is staking her claim for "coolest person i know" title early. Allow me to plead my case if you will. I call her madre, so keep up, and no she is not Hispanic, I just call her Madre, in return she calls me hijo (son) pronounced e-ho, which is only slightly different from the way she types it to me in emails or has it in her phone: eho. I've told her it makes me sound like an electronic-ho, and that pointed out the right way to spell it to which she lets me know "thats how you spell it, this is how I spell it e ho". Shes the madre so I listen, but alas, back to my point. TANGENT ALERT, TANGENT ALERT again I repeat, tangent alert, I can smell it in the air, wait for it, wait for it...and HERE. I really, really appreciate, all of y'all that hit me up in passing to say you've been reading. And no, I'm not thanking you for reading, I am actually applauding your attention keeping skills, cause I go back through occasionally and read these things and half way through Im like what was he just talking about, oh thats right. So to all of you good job, I suppose it truly is amazing what you can do while bored at work, or while stalking it out a little. Right, back to madre....

Okay so just a mere two years ago good ole madre, was adamantly against text messaging. Would have a baffled face when I mentioned any social network site, and was plenty content with adding a new contact to her emails as "thing". Fast forward to 2009 and I present to you, the Blackberry toting, text messaging, facebook machine. Just to put it in perspective, she got me a bluetooth headset (my first one) after I didn't even ask for it, she was like, oh yeah, you'll love it. Did I mention she has her phone all set up to her car's bluetooth, bought my stepdad an iphone, then jokes him for not using it enough, or properly. And madre is becoming the facebook wizard. Although I will admit that it is rather funny to be on the phone with her while we are having a chat at the same time, she says out loud what shes typing then asks me how to send it, She's coming to my spot for the innauguration, and is all ready to hang out. I dont want you read this and think, oh goodness, some other woman trying to get fresh, It is safe to say that _ _ r _ _ _ _ is genuinely getting her cool swag up. (too many wierdos out there to put her name out there). It helps to have a mid twenty year old kid a daughter in high school and one in middle school to keep you up on whats what. I did about loose it when, while driving I heard her wake up from a nap to sing along to "weee oh wee oh weee oh weee oh wee" yes, the Lil Wayne and Bobby Valentino song, only to later say "did he just say Rodney King?" she says thats the only part she knows, and yes, that was the part she was walking around humming while making Christmas Eve dinner. And please, please don't get me started on her Beyonce love, I don't think one artist could better help galvanize any mother daughter relationship over the past 45 years, and yes I just pulled the number 45 out of the air. Anyway, Im about to get some food, text madre, then check out the pictures Im sure she posted of me are up. Y'all be sure to send your mother a nice little note, I hear stamps are 42 cents these days

new job update

Alright so Ive been absent for a bit cause the new job has been consuming a lot of my time and energy, so lets get up to speed.

So for those of you just clicking in, I am now an Assistant Director at a community center in the county of Fairfax. I've got a staff of 11 that I oversee and of the 11, 8 are a good 15 years my senior or so which is pretty chill. I do a bunch of stuff yadda yadda. But the more important thing I wanted to get to were to points.

Numero Uno. Speaking of which, for those of you who took Spanish in high school, you better get to dusting up on it, I say it all the time Spanish is the new internet (try stealing that phrase if you want, but this post is date and time stamped so I have proof I said it first) but just like you essentially do not NEED the internet to live, it sure does open up a lot of the world to you. The same can, and will be said for the country's "second" language. I try to throw in some espanol when I go to any retail chain where all the employees are speaking Spanish, it normally gets me one of two looks 1. "good stuff American boy" or 2. "just stop, please, this is bad". In any event, I give it a go...but no that's not what I was going to talk on.

I'm sitting at my desk on my first day at the Center, getting my workspace set up, going over the software, just all in all getting myself adjusted to my surroundings, when after about honestly 4 minutes, I looked at the clock, and was like "dang 3 more hours". Now here I am, been out of work for three weeks, begging to get back to work, excited about the new job and everything, but even then at my most prime urge, I was hour counting. Which got me thinking, am I the only one? Or are we just a whole set of folks steady walking around backwards counting the time till we are free. Cause I can tell you, I have worked some jobs, some I liked, some I loved, but anyway you put it, I was backwards counting. I mean full fledged pulling out my hand and counting on some ole "...2 o' clock, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock.." and don't tell me I'm the only one to do the count and be like...what 6 hours?!?!? lemme try again "...2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock..." That's cool and all when it's the waiter getting you a re-fill trying to get off after your table, cause she wants to watch American Idol, but its not really all that great when the Medic on his way to get you after that heart attack at 10:02 just text his girl friend at 9:59, "no matter what Ill be home in 15 minutes I been here 9 hours". Or the Surgeon looking at his schedule like "auggggh not another brain thing, thats 13 hours just down the drain". Speaking of hour counting, who else out there is counting off on their hands how much sleep they are about to forfeit for some more fun? I started this in college when 8, and 9 ams were my foe and drinking more was at stake, now I just sit on the couch staying up for staying up sake rationalizing it in my head " okay, if I go to bed in 30 minutes at 2 how much sleep will I get...2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock..."

Now the second thing I want to bring up might not be so clean, but thats okay, and no I don't mean vulgar, I mean literally clean. I was at some training for the new gig and went to the bathroom and just as I stepped to the urinal I noticed a huge puddle of urine in front of the urinal so I just stepped over to the less puddled other urinal. Now to all you who have never been to a male public restroom, this, is, the norm. See, and it never bothers me unless, ohhhh I dont know? Maybe when I don't want to step in pee? Seriously its not as gross as it sounds, its actually a bit grosser, especially at sporting events and concerts, and theme parks, come to think of it yeah come to think of it theme parks are down right barn like. So much so that I could make a business that put down hay in men's restrooms at theme parks and that business could single handedly turn around the economy. It's not that men are gross, and can't hit a target right in front of them, ok, well thats part of it, but not as huge a part as you might think. My beef here is with the actual design of the urinal itself. The damn thing is just right there on the wall, made of porcelain (tough word to spell, note to self: poor ci layn) anyway. Would you think to yourself to even throw water right against a poor ci layn wall from six inches away and not expect to get some on yourself or at least the floor right there? Not to mention the whole fact you have to get close because the dude next to you might be the one, the one out of every 48 guys you catch gazing around, so you're all huddled up on this thing feeling your own pee splash on your hands just hoping no remains show up on your jeans, or khakis you dastardly steed you, and for your accomplishments what are you rewarded with? thats right, a nice puddle of urine from the previous 17 men to have been here before. I actually took the time to look up new urinals and that photo is apparently some new trendy one in Euroland or something. (note to all Americans Euroland is not some new theme park in L.A) it's in Orlando.

Okay Ive got some walking around to do, and I'm sure you've got some facebook stalking to get back too.

two thousand and IX

Okay new year, let me just get right to you and say I'm not so big on resolutions, not because I feel as though I won't be able to keep them, but more so because I don't have the attention span to stick to something for that long. Normally I'll make a general goal for the year of things I'd like to get done within the next twelve months, like learn to cook an omelet (for the record omelet took me three guesses, and an eventual right click to spell it correctly omlette was where I was going with it) speaking of which (tangent alert, repeat, tangent alert, if you have a report to get back to or a paper that needs writing, go away now because this is a tangent alert) am I the only one that will try to respell the word again, the exact same way? as if the computer "heard" you wrong...nah nah computer, you see, I said OM-LETTE like the egg thing you flip...and the computer is thinking, yeah I know, and you said om-lete all wrong, that's what this function is for, not you to keep misspelling the word like tricking me into getting it wrong and quit spelling their wrong, its not going to change.. Okay where was I? Oh what the heck, lets go ahead and new paragraph it.

Alright, Ive got a lot to catch up on, but I'll probably break it up into two posts, one because I get tired of typing, the -v- key on my keyboard has been acting up so I have to SLAM on it to get it to type. Which can be alternatingly annoying (yes red line under alternatingly whatever) because I can sometimes go for a good 15 to 20 minutes with typing the letter after U, but sometimes Ill hit a patch where every third word I type has a post U slammer. Okay, so enough babble, for the new year a few things I would like to get done, should you have any methods by which to assist cool shoot me some advice or a suggestion.

1. Learn to make an omelet (would you believe I honestly spelled it wrong again)
2. Learn to spell omlette
3. Do the vegan thing for a month
4. Learn another language
5.Go to some more major sporting event
6. Find a church in the area
7. Read 40 books

There are a select one or two more, but thats enough for now. The books one was my major goal for 2008, not sure how close I came but I would say I was somewhere around 29 or so. If you have a recommendation for me here is what I like...a good story. Not so much into scary, gory, a murder mystery is fine, but often I can figure them out early, I will read historical, no sci fi, absolutely no romance, and will definitely read chic-lit. With that said I just got done reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao it was a 2007 Pulitzer award winner, I thought it was just so so. Right now I am alternating between Chuck Palahniuk's Choke (he's the guy who wrote Fight Club) and another book called Lucifer's Flood by a nice middle aged red head woman, Im too lazy to go get the book and read her name, or even google the title for that matter. And no, it isn't some end of time spooky mess. It's actual a semi comical telling of the war between God and Satan from the beginning of time from the perspective of an angel who has witnessed it alls lost diary. Yeah its weird to explain over type but whatever. My top three books I read in 2008 to suggest would be Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Its a true telling of the world fair in Chicago at the turn of the century and all the behind the scene drama that went on in the city politically and archaeologically while at the same time there was a serial killer on the loose, on some Jack the Ripper, Hannibal Lecter type murder, this book was brilliant. I also liked What is the What the authors name escapes me, but it was the first hand tale of one of the Lost Boys of the Sudan who lived a life of hustle and escape, lots of sad stories in that one, but its a must read, and my all around favorite book of 2008 was a Joshua Ferris Then We All Came to The End. Its an office comedy, that just tells a bunch of stories about office politics at an ad agency where people are getting laid off, I thought it was hilarious, get it if you teach, and have time to kill, or if you are gonna do some traveling. OH OH OH HOW COULD I FORGET I Love You Beth Cooverman I forget the author's name but its hilarious, about a high school valedictorian professing his love for the resident beauty and then the night he gets to spend with her and her friends...its straight comedy. But don't take my word for it

I went to Cleveland OH for Christmas stalkers. Good time all around, I'll spare you the memory lane and get right to the best part of the whole trip. December 23, 2008, my uncle had a few of his friends over, all classy people and all very well-spoken and polite. So no I'm not about to wax poetic about how people were running streaking through the house. However I will let it be noted that at a certain point my uncle did make a martini for my aunt, tasted it, and said oh no that's way to sweet for you, give it to Jamaal...really? That drink is far too sweet for a woman, we better give it to that boy...what's worse is I drank it. After about 2 hours or drinking my uncle was licking his two fingers and running around like a man simulating riding a horse would, and imagine that same man roping a lasso, but that this lasso is held up with just the two licked fingers, same said lasso man is slapping all the men present on the butt with his butt lasso, and while riding his invisible horse. Also my aunt who had, had quite a few drinks gladly proclaimed to all present her top ability to vomit, at will, and hit the toilet from any distance, I believe "I'm a pro, a pro baby doll, a pro" was the exact quote. All while my mom kept shouting at me "boy shut up before you make me pee my self" which at that point was the least of my worries, with a vomit terror threat at about level orange and butt lasso lick slaps being doled out, my weak bladder mom could take a joke or two. Fortunately no regurgitation, urination and only a minuscule amount of butt lassitation took place.

New Year's quick re-cap. One of my boys from home came up, and about 7 of us went out, a mix of guys and girls. Went to a hookah bar, with a pretty mixed crowd, and by mixed I mean Ethiopian mixed not black and white mixed, it was pretty cool, lost my favorite winter hat, but just chalked it up to obviously the hat didn't make the 2009 cut, oh well. Alright I'm tired of typing, probably go get some food and type a little more later....happy new year