managing stress in a fast-paced world

This past weekend my company had friday off for easter. I didn’t really take advantage of it, I spent Friday shopping and just hanging out, at night we went fishing again in Foster City, pretty nice night again, kinda cold, but not bad at all.Before I started fishing, I drove over to San Mateo and got some takeout from Sushi Sams, the place is now bigger, they expanded into the store next door, almost double the size of what it used to be. I waited 45 minutes for takeout… we wandered the streets of san mateo, I hit up my bank down the street for some cash. It was a nice night to just get out and walk around.

I had some free breakfast this morning and now my stomach hurts…

…10 minutes later… I feel better now.

Sometimes when you see someone in a difficult position, I have to tell myself, “don’t help them, they need to learn.” And sometimes, you want to help them so bad that you drop little breadcrumbs so they hopefully pick them up and start going in the right direction. And sometimes, you just don’t know how to put it on the table, except to just put it bluntly and tell it like it is.

I’ve never been very good at managing people, I prefer it if people just didn’t have insecurities or self doubt. That they wern’t so sensitive to being criticized. Hmm, that’s alot to ask for huh?

In Oakland, near where I work, there’s this restaurant, it looks like a gingerbread house from outside. We planned a lunch there for a co-workers last lunch with us, from the minute we left the office, the group of us just knew something was… not right.

As we left the confines of our office building, the rain began to fall, we walked maybe 30 feet before we decided to not walk the 5 blocks, but instead drive. I headed back to the office for my keys. Into the car umbrellas and all we drove over a dozen blocks, circling through a maze of one way’s to eventually find an amazing dry parking space just one block away. As we approached, there was a large group which we found out had rented the entire place for lunch. Or so it seemed… we stood around thinking of another place to go, but as we walked away, they called us back and after a short wait we were led into an empty back area where we were seated.

And so the lunch from hell began… the group of us had 3 waitresses, who seemed nice, but busy. One walked around as if she was asleep. Another had almost doll like makeup on. And the last seemed to be the most cheerful, but had dark sunglasses on the whole time. As we were seated, it became clear that the room wasn’t really ready for us. Everything looked fine, but it was cold (they did bring us a heater) and we were the only ones there. The waitress left us with one menu and was supposed to come back with more, but 20 minutes later and no menu.

We finally got a nice fruit salad appetizer, then ordered… I got the combo plate. Later another appetizer came, cornbread, probably the 2nd best cornbread I’ve ever had, it had a nice butter/oil glaze on top and was very tasty. More time passes, we’re talking about this and that, eventually we wonder when the food is going to come. Had they forgotten about us? is the service normally this slow? Looking around at the walls you can’t help but feel a bit uncomfortable.

To end this story short, we finally got our food had to flag down the sleepy waitress 3 times to pay our bill… and in the end it was a 2 1/2 hour lunch. I forgot about my meeting which had been scheduled for 1pm, and after returning to the office, it was practically time to go home.

Rob in the current Amazing Race is really turning out to be a good player, he so on top of everything, always doing things the best way. I remember him in Survivor, he was a good player then too.

Anyways, I’m impressed with his mindset, he thinks carefully about every choice they have to make and always chooses the logical route. He’s got his game on and it’s killer. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wins in the end, I’m actually rooting for him to win!

So it’s been a week or so, not much going on. I tried to go and get my drivers license renewed… what a pain in the ass. Friday night Greg, Mike and I went to Foster City to do some night fishing, that was pretty fun. Saturday Nelson organized a trip to go see the Film Festival. We watched his brothers short “Top Woman Shooter” which I really liked, more than the main film, “The Grace Lee Project” both were good, but I wasn’t so crazy about a funny film.

Anyways, I finally fixed the car again, somehow I triggered a different check engine code this time, probably because I connected something improperly. Sometimes I think it would be easier to just get some plain old cookie cutter car and drive it into the ground.

So next weekend should be fun, there’s a big car meet I wanted to go and check out, plus friday is a day off of work for me so I think it’ll be a welcome vacation.

I started out the day by fixing my car again, it’s alot of work, hopefully it fixes all the problems for now.

Anyways, at about 4pm I headed out to Half Moon Bay to go fishing, the piers are pathetic there, but there is the jetty which by the way was downright dangerous at night. Since it was my first time there, I gave up pretty quickly and headed out to Pacifica. Got there around 8pm and left just before 10pm. Managed to snare 3 keeper crabs and had to throw back 3 undersized ones.

I had dinner tonight at Krung Thai, as I got there and stood in line to get a table, just before I was about to ask for a table, a woman jumps in and stands right in front of me.

At first I didn’t know what to say, she was uncomfortably close and her hair was in my face. I tried to be polite, “excuse me…” she obviously heard me since she started to turn around, then she noticed the hostess coming and started talking to him. “Hey!” I said, “you cut in front of me!” which got her attention. Now here’s the funny thing, she continued to talk, she told the waiter, “oh our party of 4 is actually a party of 6 but those 2 are babies so they don’t count right?” That was funny, the place was so crowded that after she turned around and tried to get around me, she ended up just standing there, the top of her head just below my chin.

Once inside the restaurant, I was so annoyed, their table was close to ours, and they were annoying… she was obviously vietnamese, but their party was loud and the men had high pitched voices, when she spoke, it was a mix of vietnamese and english. Something like, “blah blah SCENARIO blah blah SCENARIO” kinda amusing to listen to if you ask me.

Remember me my love
I’m the one ya dreaming of
I’m going for a ride
I’ll keep you warm inside

Gonna roll up the sidewalk
Gonna tear up the ground
Coming round to meet you
The long way round

Sooner or later
I’ll get me off this track
Gotta do what it is that I do
Then I’m coming back

Got the sun in my face
Sleeping rough off the road
I’ll tell you all about it
When I get home

Gonna roll up the sidewalk
Gonna tear up the ground
Coming round to meet you
The long way round

I started shopping again, alot of random stuff this time. Here’s a quick list off the top of my head.

1. Tripod bag


2. Reflector


3. Canon ST-E2


4. Photographic umbrella


5. Umbrella stand


6. Brackets


7. Dickies pants, shirts, etc…


8. Laptop power supply