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jawajames's journal
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James in words.  Last week, I got the chance to ask Star Wars comics writer Tom Taylor a few questions about this week's first issue of "Blood Ties: Boba Fett Is Dead", and that went up this morning on Big Shiny Robot! On Saturday, after going action figure browsing with him, I interviewed Jason Fry, author of 'Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Warfare', 'The Secret life of Droids' and more, when we came to Mysterious Galaxy for DK's "Attack of the Authors" tour. now to catch up on this week's and last week's comics reviews... but i need sleep! Backstage with General Grievous at Star Wars Weekends at Legoland. This past weekend, I volunteered as a wrangler to help the 501st Legion and Rebel Legion at Star Wars weekends at Legoland. and i took a bunch of photos of the legoland dioramas and folks in costume. so this past weekend, I organized a group trip for my Fan Force up to the orange county Discovery Science Center to check out the "Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination" exhibition. lots of fun checking out the costumes, props, and models and how they relate to the future of transportation, robotics and humans. Here's the full album! I have an idea for a website that would send you a daily discount on a creature that is likely to eat you if you are alone in a dark place. I call it Gruepon. this week, did some IT work at my mom's office - helping to migrate data from the existing system over to a web-based system. next week, i'll be starting back part-time with a training gig that should last through june (and ramp up to past full time in the last few months of it). also, this past week, i got to guest-host the weekly bar trivia that whitney and i have been frequently going to. i was pretty nervous as i was driving in, and getting set up (esp with the audio system), but once we got going, it was smooth sailing. and some friends came out to participate. i started a new project - taking a photo every day for this year of something that we did or happened that day. so far, i've only forgotten one day or so, and so we faked the pic the next day. some days might get two photos... or is that cheating on the conceit of the project? so the plan was to go to Houston for whitney's brother's graduation, then come home and start christmas shopping. but after returning from houston, i got a bad cold or flu or something. yesterday i vegged out in the afternoon, watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and then six episodes of The Clone Wars (season two), and then after dinner, the season finale of Terra Nova. what's in the box? Dinosaur! so what we did in houston: - i was the driver for the family. Houston freeways are slightly different than California freeways. - shopping at the Galeria (a very large mall) - they have a LEGO store, but no bookstores. - graduation ceremony - fancy dinners - meet up with John, who used to come to our church way back in the day - visit Space Center Houston (with a tour of the Johnson Space Center) left my camera battery on the charger in the hotel on this day :( - more shopping at the Katy Mills outlet center. their bookstore has a LEGO aisle?! went up to the bay area for thanksgiving with my wife's aunt - lots of feasting, some crafting, with the family (one of Whitney's brothers also came out to visit with aunt and cousins and such), and a day trip up to san francisco to visit the California Academy of Sciences with Pablo and manraysky.now to order some pizza. got official notice this morning that a former boss of mine had passed away this weekend. :( been really busy in the past week - getting ready for the San Diego Fan Force halloween party, which we hosted at our house on saturday, and i did a costume (separate post on that), and also i had a big presentation to do on our church's census results (last year's big pastoral council project) to our church on sunday for two of the masses - put together the results in a handout, and did a brief review during the homily. since last time: in late september, went to Portland to host the Urban Dare race in Portland. Portland is a really cool town, and really great for urban adventure races - so many downtown parks and the downtown is a free transit zone. Urban Dare went really well - 75 teams came out, and no major problems. lots of good beer too in portland. tacked onto my trip was a visit to Corvallis, where i stayed with Leah and Jon and their kids, and got to also see my wife's cousin Amy, and also Ana and Cale, who came up from Eugene to play dominion. See some trip photos from going around Portland, the Urban Dare race, a visit to Fort Vancouver across the river, some more Portland and its parks, and visiting Corvallis. - got elected president of my local fan force chapter. not much to say except that i have been president or vice president now for 5 years running. this year, the president spot was uncontested -- i was the only candidate who was nominated and didn't decline the nomination. - also now officially the chair of our church's Pastoral Council. better finish the census results for that. - publicizing (and updating the official website for:) the Burke Lectureship. i now have a UCSD email account again. - started preparing for the San Diego Rocket Race 2011. - started playing "Adventure World" a Facebook game based on an Indiana Jones theme from Zynga. addictive. too addictive. - last week, we had a day of solid rain that sent the ants into the sunroom. ack. - this past weekend, played broomball for Jon E.'s birthday. though i scored a goal, i also fell a few times, including one nasty fall that really hurt my arm, so i sat out the latter part of the second half. went to the doctor yesterday and got x-rays. Fractured Radial Head = sling + painkillers. it feels better today than it did yesterday, but the doctor warned me to start exercising it right away after the pain subsides to prevent loss of motion. - also, Booboo is in town this week for her birthday, Joseph flew back for the weekend so we could all go out as a family to celebrate with a double round of meals: Dim Sum at Jasmine for breakfast then China Max for dinner. did some brainstorming with Joseph on a business idea. - and the usual writing up of reviews of episodes of The Clone Wars for Club Jade, and Star Wars comic reviews for Big Shiny Robot.  P1100323 Closeup on University City - you can see two police cars and a few other cars, a photo by jawajames on Flickr. back at home, our battery backup was beeping in the house when i came in, and thus i realized that it was an actual blackout that affected me. after checking the fuse box, i asked some of my neighbors who were outside. stupid beeping. i read Bryan Young's "Lost at the Con" in the afternoon in the sunroom, and then whitney came home, and decided to nap. so i finished hte book, then dug out the guitar and started doing chords in the sunroom. it's been a long time since i've played the guitar at all. finally it got too dark to see my chord practice sheet. i got out some candles and the big flashlight/radio and listened to an update on the blackout. also got out some leftover pollo asado and ate it by lantern-light with whitney. then i decided to go see what san diego looks like in the dark during a blackout, so we drove around University City and then over to La Jolla to go up to the top of Mount Soledad, which is usually closed at night. well, last night it was a beehive of activity - i barely found parking in the lower lot, and cars kept milling up and down the top loop. the place was crowded with couples, families, photographers, etc. i took a handful of photos of different views of San Diego: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jawajames/s While the residential parts of town were all in the dark, you could tell the main roads that you can see from up there: Interstate 5, 52 and 805 (or was it 15 way off in the distance), and even traffic on La Jolla Village Drive. You could also see a few buildings at UCSD, the VA medical center (and its parking lot lights) and a few of UTC area buildings (or at least their aviation warning red roof lights), the runway at Miramar, some stuff in Kearny Mesa, and a large patch somewhere towards downtown - maybe the airport? maybe MCRD? Though the city lights were mostly off, it wasn't great for star watching, since the moon was 3/4 full, and it was rather moist in the air. On the way home, i swung by our nearest intersection that would have streetlights, and there was a police cruiser there, along with maybe a dozen flares to help guide cars through the intersection. Got some interesting photos there of the lights - crazy lens flare action means I can be J J Abrams! back at home, we listened to the radio a little more to learn that schools would be closed today, and that some parts of the county were starting to get power again. we didn't get power until around 1 am when our bedroom clock suddenly (and brightly) lit up, waking me up. milk was a little funny smelling, but it is close to expiration. |
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