This stupid SOB….

I had seen it earlier in the evening, flying around the tv. It wasn’t annoying at first, since it only flew across the tv once. After the second time, I intended to kill it, but I couldn’t find the fly swatter, so I just let it be. NEVER AGAIN….

So I just continued to sit in the la-z-boy, watching tv, minding my own freakin’ business. Then outta nowhere, there was a buzzing around my left ear, like a fly or whatever was flying around it, so I did the usually knee-jerk reaction and flailed my left hand around my ear to shoo it away. But then I heard the buzzing INSIDE my ear….commence panic mode in 3, 2, 1….

I ran upstairs to the shower and tried to flush it out with a showerhead. No workie. How could I tell? I could hear it trying to spread its wings and fly but can’t. It’s a crazy sound & feeling that I can’t accurately describe with words, but trust me, it’s freakin’ nerve racking. So then I tried to drown it my submerging my head in water. But no, apparently moth’s don’t mind a little water.

Then I woke up my parents for assistance (it was around midnight and they were sleeping already). My mom tried the ear wax kit thing (the bulb thingy), but that didn’t work either. So then I try sucking it out with a vacuum. At first, I thought I got it cause I couldn’t hear it anymore, but didn’t see anything in vacuum bin, and after a little while I heard it again.

So at this point, I’m in a calm panic. I’m not freaking out, but every 30 seconds or so, the stupid moth tries to fly out, and I grow increasingly worried that it may be trying to eat my eardrum and I may have permanent hearing loss, which I was thinking would be one of the stupidest ways to lose your hearing, as well as hella embarassing. So I decided to go to the emergency room. I drove myself, and the entire drive there, I was shaking my head (more in disappointment) and thinking “this is soo stupid….this is SOO stupid…..”. Why would a moth fly into my ear? Why, moth, why? And really, it’s too big to straight up fly in there, it had land on my earlobe and then crawl/walk into my ear canal. Who does that?!?! Really, moth?!

It wasn’t busy at all for a Friday night, and I was seen by a nurse almost immediately. Maybe 20 minutes in, the doctor showed up. He said when someone says there’s something in their ear, most of the time there isn’t. So he gets out the ear canal checking thingy, puts the longest scope/cap or whatever on it, and then pressed it into my ear really hard, to the point that it was hurting, and he was silent for maybe a minute or so. I had to break the silence, cause I wanted to know, and it was hurting, so I asked if he saw anything, and he was like “Yeaup, I see him. He’s in there, trying to move……”

He said they were going to irrigate it out and called for a nurse to do it. They brought out a syringe, water, and a catch tray, filled the syringe with water, and then shot it into my ear. It was like a high pressure water gun. It took 2 tries, but the mofo finally came out. The nurse was hella excited and went to go show it to the doctor. Amazingly enough, it was still alive, as it was still trying to flap its wings, but now could fly because the water had made its wings to heavy maybe? So the nurse killed it with a paper towel. The doctor came back to check me out, and other than “wing dust” in my ear, I was all good.

So now I have a fear of moths, or any flying insects, flying into my ears. Stupid freakin’ moths…This is why I should just stay up in Sac.

So I haven’t written since end of August, right before they launched this new Xanga 2.0. It’s kind of different, and I’m not sure if I like it, but that’s not why I haven’t written in so long. I’ve just been really busy with house stuff. Shortly after my last post, I received the keys and became an official homeowner, but that’s when the real fun/work began. Filling a house with stuff is pretty fun & exciting, but it sure does get expensive. And I want to get everything now, but then my credit card balance will spike, moreso than it already has, and it has a sad . So I have to patiently wait to get my house fully furnished. In the meantime, I have to deal with my super picky HOA. I hate them with a passion. Really.

side note: I finally have time to post again because I took a day off to take the X5 to the shop in Dublin (overheating issues), so I’m once again waiting at my favorite Starbucks.

Since my last post, a bunch of stuff has happened that I would’ve normally written about, but never had the time. So my blog writing was relegated to a list format in a word doc. I’ll try my best to try and go back and write full entries about the interesting stuff.

Sh!t’s getting real(er)……

Not quite official yet, but it’s pretty damn close. After the payment posts, I get the keys, along with 30 years of the hugest financial responsibility of my life. I am totally not freaking out, man.

Went to Reno with Elway, Patchi, Zoey, & Auntie Joyce for my birthday weekend. My parents also came up separately, but they stayed at the Silver Legacy. We stayed at the Grand Sierra Resort, which is off the main “strip” (Virginia St) where all the other big casinos are at. We stayed here because they had a bunch of other stuff to do other than gamble. They had an aquatic driving range, bowling alley, big arcade, and go karts. Last time I’d been there is maybe 14 or 15 years ago when it was still the Hilton. It’s essentially the same but remodeled a bit. Our room was nice. I paid a lil extra to get the nice renovated rooms. The bathroom was hella fancy, marble everything, mirrors everywhere, and had a fancy looking faucet. But for how fancy it was, they complete forgot about towel racks. There was one under the sink (why?) for face and hand towels, but every other flat wall surface high enough had mirror on it. Lol

We really liked the place and would totally go back again. They gave us soo much comps. We didn’t pay for any food there. When you first sign up for their player’s card, you get at least $5 in free comps. Way & Patch got $10 each!! It was my birthday, why didn’t I get more?! Then you accumulate more comps as you play slots or at the tables. And you can use the comps at their food cafe and restaurants. And then we all also got comped a free buffet. So yeah, that was pretty cool.

Gambling-wise, I lost, as usual. I tried to get my money’s worth in jack & cokes and white russians while at the tables, though. But I did win one of two sports bets. The Cleveland Indians ruined my day by beating the A’s the ONLY day that I bet on the A’s to win (on Saturday. The A’s won on Friday and Sunday. WTF!!!) But we did win the “no grand slams” bet (both me & Way bet it). It had us stressing the entire day. Every time a team had the based loaded, we would freak out. But no one hit a grand slam, and we came up. Totally worth it.

There also happened to be hella stuff going on at the Grand Sierra that weekend. There was a dog show, a gun convention, and the Vegas-to-Reno Race (Desert Off Road Racing) had ended on that Friday. So we saw a bunch of people with dogs, a whole bunch of racing teams, and then hella people walking around with guns (hopefully unloaded!). It was a trip. The entire hotel was booked, and this place is kind of huge. And here I thought my birthday weekend was just any old weekend.

Sierra Bay Aqua Range

Panoramic Night View

I bowled with a nice couple, Royce & Tina

Royce kicked my ass

Tina’s first time bowling. Here, she’s celebrating actually hitting some pins.

They totally didn’t tell me they were going to change their names like that (you had to give your name at the front counter, so they inputted it and I gave my name first, then theirs, and I couldn’t change mine after).

To another year of Good Times!

My dad has always been an iPhone guy. He always got the latest iPhone when it came out. But with bigger, non-apple phones coming out, the iPhone staying relatively the same size, and my dad’s eyesight not getting any better, he finally gave in and got a Samsung Galaxy S4, for the bigger screen. Apparently, he’s had it for a while and I had no clue. I only found out when I tried to facetime with him to help him use the scanner at home, and Androids dont’ do facetime. He had a iPhone 5. My iPhone 4 was slowly crapping out on me and was I ready to upgrade but was waiting on the the announcement of the new iPhone or the release of the HTC One Mini. So naturally, I called dibs on the iPhone 5. He said he was going to send it to the Philippines if I didn’t ask for it. REALLY?! He’s sent all his other iPhone’s there (that I hadn’t used). His friends over there must get excited when a new phone comes out over here, cause that normally means they’ll get his old phone.

I was adamant about not getting the iPhone 5 because of the stupid lightning cable, but I’m not going to say no to a free phone. I’ve already bought one 30-pin to lightning adapter, and I’m probably going to buy more, but I’m exploring other options, like the micro usb to lightning adapter. But I’ll wait and see if I actually stick with this phone before I buy more stupid accessories.

Switching to new phones is usually easy: create a backup of old phone in iTunes, plug in phone, restore from backup, and that’s it. It worked when I went from the 2G to the 4, and so that’s what I did when I went from the 4 to the 5. Everything transferred over, all my contacts, pictures, ringtones, apps, everything. I could send and receive calls & texts, and connect to bluetooth and wifi. But the crucial thing that didn’t work was the data plan. No 2G, 3G, 4G, LTE, nothing. All that previously worked when my dad used it. When I got the sim card switched out, we didn’t test the network data portion. We tried calls & text, and I was connected to the AT&T Store’s wifi, so webpages loaded normally. It wasn’t till the next day, at work, that I found out that data didn’t work. During my lunch break, I went to the AT&T Store in the downtown plaza to have them fix it. They reset my settings, changed out my sim card, but still no worky. I had to leave before they could find out what was wrong because I didn’t want to be gone from the office too long. So after work, I go to the store where I got the sim card, and they do all the same things the other store did, but since I didn’t have any time constraints, they tried more stuff. And eventually, about 1.5 hours later, they got it work. They figured it was a software issue because they put my sim card in another iPhone 5 and data worked fine. So I had completely wipe all data from my phone, and then setup the phone as a new phone and not restore from my backup. Apparently there is some setting in my backup that’s preventing data from working. So I had to manually download all my apps, reconfigure my folders & layouts, and re-assign ringtones & other settings. Luckily I had a separate backup of all my contacts. That would suck to re-enter all my contacts info.

So switching to the iPhone 5 was a 2+ day process. I’ve more or less got everything back to way I had it on the 4, but I haven’t rebuilt all my playlists yet. Since my laptop crashed, I lost all my playlists and have to recreate them. I’ve only redone 2 of them and haven’t gotten around to others yet. Now if I had an Android, I could make a playlist on my PC, and then just drop & drag it over. So easy. And I freakin’ hate iTunes 11. They always gotta change things up to supposedly make things “easier” for the user. Yeah, it’s easier for me to get filled with rage trying to do simple stuff, like create a playlist. The old look & style is disable by default, and you have to search to re-enable it. So stupid.

Tim’s Bachelor’s Party

Paintball
– Super fun, but tiring. My quads are totally gone from all the swatting & crouching.
– Got hit on right (trigger) hand, in the same spot, on my middle finger knuckle, twice. First time it hurt, but it was fine. Second time, it got hella swollen, but it eventually died down. But the odds!!!
– I got hit dead center right between the eyes. I was looking right at the guy (Eric, Tim’s co-worker), right as he shot me. It was pretty cool, and didn’t hurt at all. Getting hit in the facemask is probably the best place (less painful) to get hit.
– I got hit on: right inner bicep, right rib cage, right side below rib cage
-Thanks, Vince. When I got hit in the right hand the 2nd time, I raised my gun, in my right hand, up, and and starting to walk off the course, to my left, like standard procedure. Freakin’ Vince still shoots me in my exposed right side (my arm is usually providing cover). He notices late and then from across the field was like “SORRY NEPHEW!!!” lol…
- Noticed the morning after that I also got hit in the left quad, but didn’t really feel it since my quads were burning with the fire of a 1,000 suns. Freakin, it’s like no joke. Walking down stairs is not fun right now (walkup up is surprisingly ok). I don’t ever do squats at the gym, just elliptical. The very first course was “the mounds”, pyramid shaped piles of dirt. If you were to stand up straight, you’re totally exposed from the neck up, so you had to crouch the entire time.
- Still, all totally worth it. And everyone wants to get their own gear and make this a thing.

Umigo Indoor Kart Racing
– The place was literally around the corner from the paintball place.
– A bunch of people brought their own helmets, since they ride.

– It was fun, but I was over it after the 1st of 2 runs. It runs on a small gas-powered engine, which is right next to you in the kart (to your right), and the gas tank is in between your legs right under the steering wheel. So you get a double blast of gas fumes and the exhaust fumes.
– Turning the wheel takes a lot of force, putting a lot of strain on your forearms. I was feeling it after the 1st run.
– The 2nd run, I started to get a little nauseous from the fumes. And constant tight turns was starting to get to me.

The groom-to-be & best man

Vince & Justin ready to go

Drinks
– Afterwards, we went to a bar in downtown Livermore, not too far from the go karts and paintball place. I had a bad headache & still feeling nauseous from the go karts, so I took a little nap in Jay’s car, maybe 20-30 minutes or so, before heading in.
– In that time, Jay had order 2 tall (22 oz) black & tans, and 2 for Tim. Jay downed his two in maybe less than a minute, all before Tim finished half of his 1st one. Tim’s co-worker ended up finishing his 2nd one. Then they ordered him another beer, but he barely touched that. He was already done. He was already falling asleep. We got some good pics.

- Bill had got Tim a “card”. He had told us to go to the trunk of his car to sign “the card”. “The card” was a blow up doll that he named Ursala. Lol. It was hilarious. After we left the bar, Bill took it out and Tim took pics with it. Good times.

Tim, re-evaluating his life in the double face palm, “the card”, and Bill.

49ers Fan Fest 2013
- no meet & greet – stupid raffle only for season ticket holders

- saw the gold rush cheerleaders

- decorated our own Niner-themed cookies

- watched live practice. kinda boring though. no announcers or anything.

- saw the 5 super bowl trophies & rings. very cool

Poker Night @ Cliff’s

- 15 Players
- 1st: $230, 2nd $140, 3rd $70
- Final 3: me, Ian, (other) Eric. I got 3rd, Ian & (other) Eric chopped the pot.
- Last Poker Night, me & (other) Eric were also in the final 3. I forget the 3rd person. I also got 3rd place then.

Kinda feeling like this:

And maybe a little like this:

So I’m kind of stressing the F out. To lighten up the mood, I watch this:

All that because a seller actually accepted my offer to buy their house. WHAT!?! Yeah, I know…..not your typical response, right? Most people are like “OMG!!!! YESS!!!!!”. But me? My initial reaction was “Whoa crap”, then immediately started looking for outs. Kinda crazy, no? I got a serious case of cold feet, that I was deathly afraid of turning in buyer’s remorse (like a first-time home buyer version of runaway bride). I mean, the house is really nice, with upgraded everything (kitchen counter top, laminate floors, new carpet, new paint), the parentals like it, I like it……which is kind of part of the problem: I’m not in love with the house. I guess I’ve been spoiled by the other houses that I’ve looked at, that had bigger/nicer yards, more garage space, more open floor plans, etc. The things I list as cons are things I don’t even think I even want or mind not having: very small front yard, small backyard, no formal dining room, and some other stuff that I’m forgetting. But none of those are even remotely close to being deal-breakers. To turn the cons into pros: low-to-no maintenance regarding yard work, and like I would even use a formal dining room anyways. And the location is kind of weird, it takes a bit to get to, but it’s like that with all places, and I’d eventually get used to it.

So yeah, I don’t know what my problem is. I guess it’s just my nerves. I kind of just talked myself into it by writing it all down like this. This is a major, major commitment. Shit’s getting real. Time to man up and put my big boy pants on.

At least for another month. I totally called this. The powers that be at Xanga decided to extend their CrowdHoster campaign till August 31 and have lowered their target goal to $50K instead of $60K. On the Xanga Team’s latest update, John (who I assume is one of the higher ups, if not the highest up) said he’d pledge $10K of his own money if they hit $50K (this, I did not see coming). As of right now, they’re a lil over $2K away, and at the current rate that they were going, it looks like they’re going to make it, and that makes me kind of happy.

Barring a flood of donations over the next few days, it’s more than likely that Xanga will be shutting down after Wednesday, July 31, 2013. They started a Crowdhoster campaign to raise money to re-launch Xanga on the WordPress platform. Their goal is $60K, and it was original supposed to end on July 15, but they extended it to July 31. They were maybe half-way to their goal on the 15th, around $30K, and as of today, the 29th, they’re only at $45K. I’ve already done my part and made a donation pledge. I personally don’t think it’s going they’re going to make it, but you never know. I don’t see why they couldn’t just extend the deadline again like they did last time. It’d be awesome if Xanga has a successful relaunch, but I’m prepared to move on. It’s been a good 9 years, Xanga. I’ll definitely miss it.

I know not very many people read this, and I kind of have a grasp on who does. For those that I don’t know, and want to keep in touch, here are my other social networking sites:

• twitter: erbun (I almost never post, I just follow celebrities)
• instagram: bungi (I almost never post, I just follow kpop stars & some fam)
• facebook: me (not sure if that link will even work)

As for my new blog site, I haven’t decided which platform to use yet. It’s either going to be Blogger or WordPress. I’ve created an account on both sites, but I’m not sure which one I’m going to use. I’ll probably blog on both until I figure out which one I like better.

So long, Xanga. It’s been real……