My parents said they would help out with the down payment for the house, and they’ve started to transfer those funds into my account. I’ve sent out feelers to several loan officers for the best home loan rates, received a few responses, picked one, and now I’m sending over a bunch of documents. I’ve looked over some potential houses online, and Jaymi’s showed me one house already (though it was a foreclosure and it was hella beat to sh!t inside. It’s definitely a major fixer-upper (walls, cabinets, & carpets), which would push it way out of my budget. Apparently that’s real common for foreclosures, with the previous owners not giving a f@ck since they’re losing their house. It’s kind of messed up, but totally understandable). I found another potential house that just got posted on Friday,and it's not a foreclosure (it's actutally a short sale, whatever the hell that means), so we’re going to look at it this coming Friday. If I like it, I may put in an offer.

It’s the end of June, my apartment lease is up in mid August, and I’m starting to look for houses. It’s getting kind of exciting. The market’s kind of bad right now, but that’s ok cause I’m in no real rush. I can bite the bullet and pay a little extra to do a month-to-month lease at my apartment until I do find a house that I like.

Story was just meh, but the Minions made it totally worth it. If the creators are smart, they'd come out with a Minions cover album every year, a la Kidz Bop. Their language sounds cool, I don't even care that I don't know what they're actually saying. And that wouldn't even matter if they did covers of popular songs, since we'd already know the lyrics. They did 2 covers in the movie, so I don't see why they couldn't do more and release an album.

....that f@ckin' piece of bull$hit, and I mean that in the most loving way possible. But foreals though, I was kind of surprised, but then again, not really. This time it was upper motor mount (it connects the engine to the body). It's filled with oil and it basically absorbs the vibrations from the engine so that you don't feel it through the entire car. Sooner or later, the oil is going to start leaking from the sealed unit. In 2010, at about 130K miles, the original upper mount blew.

Brand new on left, exploded'd on right:

It left a big ol' exploded'd mess:

Not too shaby, considered some people's blow at around 50K miles. It cost around $100 to replace, I did the labor myself, no biggie. I figured I could get another 130K miles out of this new one, right? Pshhaw, yeah right. 3 years and only 30K miles later, the replacement has started to leak.

It hasn't gone and exploded yet, but if I continue to drive it, it eventually will. And doing so will place more stress on the lower motor mount, which is only made of rubber, and is also known to eventually go bad and would need to be replaced too. I have no idea what condition my lower motor mount currently is.

So, my options are to replace it again with the same OEM, oil-filled upper motor mount, but that's $100 and will eventually need to be replaced again, who knows how many miles or years later. Or I could get an aftermarket, all-rubber upper motor mount. It goes for $300, but I will NEVER have to replace it ever again (according to the manufacturer). I did my research on the MINI forums, and everyone recommends it for that very reason. Replace it once and forget about it. The only downside is the high initial asking price, but that will eventually pay for itself the longer you keep your car running, and I, for now, plan on keeping the mini forever, barring anything horrible happening to it or my funds become too lacking, whichever comes first. And I'm ordering the lower motor mount too. Why not? It's eventually going to fail, so might as well take proactive measures. So I've "grounded" the mini until the new mounts come in. Dont' want to take any chances and mess up for stuff.

With taxes, it's about $500. Fffuuuuuuuuu.......at least I'm saving some $$$ doing the labor myself (I estimate at least $200). I suppose it's worth it. I don't really have a choice, so it has to be worth it. The alternative is to buy a new or used car, that would in theory be more reliable and have way lower maintenance costs, but that's probably not going to happen any time soon, since I'm supposedly saving up to buy a house. With these stupid unplanned maintenance costs, and the housing market being super sh!tty for buyers right now (too many buyers, not enough houses), I'm not even sure if I can find a house that I both like AND can afford. But I guess we'll see. My promotion raise should be on this next upcoming paycheck, and then another additional 5% from the furloughs going away should show up on the following paycheck. So this may all still work out. I'm still worried cause I haven't actually seen any total amounts yet. I'll only be happy when I see the additional funds in my bank account.

F@ckin' mini.....

I really need to stop taking after-work naps. Especially when I have something cooking in the oven. I had a timer all set, it was only 15 minutes, but I completely slept through it. BY AN HOUR. I woke up kind of confused, but then had the "oh SHIT!!" moment of realization. I immediately sprung up out of bed hella fast and ran to kitchen to turn off the toaster oven and pull out the pizza. It was burnt to a crisp, it looked like a regular pizza but spray painted completely black, and it was hard as a bagel left out for a day or two (those things get rock hard after maybe a week, which I think is kind of cool...). And it tasted horrible, like a completely burnt anything would taste like. But the sad part is, this isn't the first time that this has happened. I hope it doesn't take an apartment full of smoke or a kitchen on fire for me to finally learn my lesson. Stupid, comfortable bed with the the soft pillows and the ceiling fan on low to cool of the room a bit....it's all your fault....it's like I can't not take a nap.

I joined Xanga on 8/30/2003. I don’t remember why I joined, probably cause everyone at the time had one. I knew my cousin Chris had one, and I even copied his profile’s naming convention (his was cbunggay, so I named mine ebunggay). I really wasn’t much of a writer, let alone a blogger, and it’s quite evident on my first couple of blog entries. My first entry was in June 2004. I remember that I started to write because I had just graduated from college and wasn’t quite ready to look for a job yet, and was bored, a lot.

I was an infrequent blogger at first, mainly complaining about my life. Then I got the job in Roseville, and started to write almost everyday. Looking back on those posts, I don’t remember a lot of what I wrote, and then I remembered that one of the reasons that I started writing is so that I would remember all the little things that happened in my life. If it weren’t for those posts, I would’ve never remembered what “taking the monkey” or “going to Disneyland” actually meant.

The reason I started reading my old posts again was because I just found out that Xanga might be going away for good. With their revenue & user base declining, they can’t afford their host servers anymore. So they started a crowdhoster (very similar to kickstarter) to raise funds to migrate their service to something like WordPress. They want to raise $60k, and with less than a month left, they’ve only raised $27k. If they don’t get the full $60k, Xanga will be shut down forever & ever. Sad face single tear drop (I find it funny typing out emoticons instead of using the actual emoticon).

And for some reason, because of this, I’m going to start writing about stuff again. My writing lately has been very infrequent, and I haven’t been voicing any meaningful opinions. I’ll try to write more and write things that I actually think & feel. And if Xanga does go away for good, I’ll start writing on Blogger or WordPress or wherever.

I didn't take any pics this weekend, so I had to get pics from the fam's facebook or instagram.

Friday

- drive down to SoCal (w/ Jaymi, Jacqueline, Tj, & Kimmie)

- stopped by Porto’s in Glendale to pick up flans & fruit tarts for Chris

- stayed in Ontario / Rancho Cucamunga area

- Comfort Suites receptionist being shady about # of people in room (ended up not being an issue, but still kinda had to )

- Gameworks - waitress was nice, but kind of ditzy, 1hr unlimited gaming, stayed till closing

- Tj locked keys in X5, luckily AAA was close. Took a while to work the flex-rod, though. kind of like drop-claw arcade game.

Saturday

- Met up with everyone at Chris’ hotel in San Bernadino. There was maybe 35 of us. We caravaned it to Chrissy’s house.

- She lives on a steep hill. Not fun walking up that, since we parked at the bottom since we were in the back of the caravan

- Their piece of land is pretty big. They have a big koi pond in the front, a swimming pool & basketball hoop in the back. Then the side of hill, they have a walkway that snakes up the hill, and they have hella plants & fruit trees. They plan on making a gazeebo at the top. It’ll have a great view.

- the engagement party traditions didn’t take too long, maybe 20 mins. but since everyone was inside the house, it got hella hot up in therr.

- groomsmen had to do a video interview (John, me, Shann, & Tj). John’s was funny but probably inappropriate. I honestly didn’t know what to say. As everyone knows, I’m not much of a talker. I brought Chris slipping in the fountain during Jacqueline’s cotillion video. Shann’s was funny too, and he brought up the knee incident on the cruise. Sounded like he gave good advice too. I don’t remember what Tj said cause I was thinking to myself, “why didn’t I give good advice like Shann?!?! i’m soo stupid!”

- super-sized jenga was fun. yeaup, I toppled the tower

- 1st round of rage cage sucked cause the ping pong balls wouldn’t bounce right

- 2nd round was way better, on a different table, but was still awkward cause then it was late and wasn’t a lot of light

- hope their family doesn’t think we’re alcoholics cause our fam went straight for the beer when we first arrived, then played rage cage & beer pong. They had to make another beer run cause we killed everything.

- uncle elcid, lol

- a couple of Chrissy’s cousins are cute, but kinda younger, like 19-20 ish. then the older ones were with someone already. but they all seemed cool

- Albert lost 2nd round of rage cage, & did not look good. thought he’d be the one to yak. but it ended up being Chris. good thing i happened to be holding zip-lock bags, which were originally meant for Albert. Side note: smart thinking with the zip-lock bags, Chrissy! Way, way ,way better than a regular plastic bag, that is, if you can aim the yak into the bag.

-Chrissy’s bro Charles los the 1st round of rage cage, ended up yakking & I think passing out for a bit before coming back later in the evening

- I’m not sure if we wore out our welcome. Party started at 2pm, the older fam left around 7ish. We ended up staying till about 11pm.

- In-N-Out drive-thru only - wait was hella long

Flip Cup - Bride vs Groom. We killed both rounds.

Sunday

- Chrissy’s mom’s homemade pho. BEST PHO EVER!!! I had to ask for no noodles, though (panaramic pic by cliff)

- Porto’s on the way home. They're not all mine, I swear!

- I Love Teriyaki for dinner

This morning, I arrived at my desk with a blinking red light on my desk phone, indicating a new voicemail.It was the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) in Oakland asking when I would be available for an interview (and they also sent an email). I had applied for that Staff Programmer Analyst position a week after I applied for the same position here in my office (which was 5 weeks ago). My interview here was almost two weeks ago and hadn’t heard back from anyone yet. Before responding to the DIR, I wanted to check on my status of the position here first.

So I ask one of the people who interviewed me, and they tell me they’d go look into it. Maybe 10 minutes later, that person, along with my boss, come to desk and officially offer me the position. Of course I accept, and a few minutes later, I’m signing the duty statement of the position. My official first day in this new position is this Friday.

So I send an email back to the DIR, telling them my situation and respectfully declined their interview request. So now, this sets other stuff in motion. I didn’t want to start looking for a house up here until I got the promotion or didn’t hear back from the DIR (since they are in Oakland, I would’ve preferred to work there since it’s closer to home, and I could go to way more A’s games). It would’ve been nice if the DIR had moved a little faster with their interview process. I would’ve liked to have had the opportunity. Technically, I still could’ve gone on that interview, but I didn’t want to second guess myself or constantly ask myself “what if....”.

I’m sure things will work out for the best. I’m still relatively new to the state, and could always try to transfer to other departments later on. But for the foreseeable future, I’ll be in Sac.

Apparently my iPhone doesn't want me to call or text anyone cause it keeps on deleting my entire contacts list. This is the 2nd time in 2 weeks, the 3rd since March. Thank God for backups, but it's kind of a pain in the ass to restore from old backups since I lose recent pics, texts, calendar entries, phone logs, etc. Most inconvenient.

So now I'm seriously considering android or windows phones. I'm due for an upgrade and was eying the HTC One and the Nokia Lumia 920, but have been hesitant because there was nothing really wrong with my iPhone and I have been trying to cut down on unnecessary expenses. But that's no longer the case, since now it's been frequently effing up. I'm hoping that this problem just magically stops. If it doesn't, I hope that my iPhone will hold up until they announce/release the HTC One Mini or the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini. I want the mini versions cause the regular ones have huge screens, and I'm used to the iPhone-like screen size. We'll see.

So I had an interview on Friday for an open promotional position in my office. I was told there were 3 other interview-ees. I think I did well. The 3 interviewers were people I know and work with, so I felt comfortable talking to them. I wasn’t really that nervous at all. I was super antsy the hours before the interview. I was just anxious to get it over with than anything.

I feel like my body of work thus far has proven that I deserve this promotion. The feedback from everyone that I work with and for all indicate that I deserve this promotion. The lead interviewer told me straight up “this position has your name written all over it”. If I somehow do not get this promotion, I can not take it any other way than personally. I will feel slighted, wronged, etc., and will go into silent rage spite mode. I will put the “it’s ok” face on and act like it’s all good, while applying for any & all positions in all the other departments/offices. I won’t do anything evil to the system that I support, because well, I’m not evil. But I totally could.

So in a few weeks, or however long it takes for them to make a decision, I’m hoping that I’ll be in a happy place, a higher pay grade, and receiving congratulations from other coworkers. If not, they will learn that spite is one hell of a motivator.

Every year since the original factory 4-year/48,000 mile warranty expired sometime in mid 2008 (hit the mileage before the years), the mini has averaged $1300 in unscheduled maintenance costs: