crystal.dot.me

I bought a new domain name, I’m going to be a super star. Probably not.

This sounds kind of strange, but I don’t like posting personal feelings or things on Facebook because I don’t really want the sympathy. For a superfluous instance, I want to be like, hey I really had a shitty day today and missed Murphy (see post from 2007) but then I’d get 10 what’s wrongs and lots of comments.  In theory that’s what Facebook and social media is for, but sometimes don’t you just want to vent into the silence? Knowing that people read it but that you don’t really want sympathy? Maybe I’m strange. It’s also probably because I judge people who I feel are trolling for sympathy. I guess we all have that in us. I’m just a harsh critic.

I am missing the somewhat anonymous nature of this blog I used to enjoy. If you care enough you could read about thoughts x, y, or z, but my sentiments weren’t being shoved down anyone’s throats. I think this is why I only post things I think people will find entertaining or very “Crystal” in Facebook. My personal emotions I keep more private, though reading old posts I was kind of a trolololol. My bad.

Also, I cannot sleep. I have a lot of work to do the next few weeks. Time to enter this election year with a stacked portfolio and complete client Christmas cards. This year will be my 3rd year in business and the last year (hopefully) as a single income couple. Almost there.

Ever try to stalk your old screenames and usernames from college or high school? Yeah? It’s weird.

With Hung’s encouragement I’ll be resurrecting my blog soon with a focus on all my weird hobbies I’ve picked up in recent years.

With all the useful information I’ve gleaned on the internet I should try and contribute a little bit.

My goal will be to fill it with useful information that I’ve learned on the way with a heavy dose of my nerding out on video games, computers, and politics on occasion. I’ll be back with a new theme and a new focus. Give me a few weeks! Is anyone still here? Probably not, I should make an announcement on Facebook.

I’ve been gardening for two years now and one of my most prolific plants is my tomatoes which I randomly pick and make small amounts of sauce with.

So one of the big pains of making tomato sauce from scratch is peeling the tomatoes. You’re supposed to score the bottom into a little X and then poach them (dip them in boiling water). You then take them out and rinse them with cold water. You can now just pull at the little corners of the X and peel the tomato. There’s a shortcut to this whole madness if you’re not making enough sauce to boil a whole pot of water just to peel some tomatoes.

When I make my tomato sauce from scratch I just take my tomato, slice it in half, and then grate the thing on a box grater into a bowl right after I squeeze and save the liquid in a bowl. It also works for salsa. Now if you want chopped tomatoes or are making a huge batch of sauce I recommend the boiling water.

Yes I seriously returned to the blog after 8 months to write this.

I couldn’t really figure out how I felt about Obama winning the Nobel Peace prize. I went trolling to read a few articles at the usual suspects this morning, NY Times, Huffington Post, etc., till I came upon this article from the Washington Post with an excerpt that perfectly described how I felt about the situation:

“The Nobel Peace Prize award to Barack Obama seems so goofy – even if you’re a fan, you have to admit that he hasn’t really done much yet as a peacemaker. But there’s an aspect of this prize that is real and important – and that validates Obama’s strategy from the day he took office… America was too unpopular under Bush. The Nobel committee is expressing a collective sigh of relief that America has rejoined the global consensus. They’re right. It’s a good thing. It’s just a little weird that they gave him a prize for it.”

Ah exactly how I feel. Good job and making the world love you. Did you really deserve it? Maybe not, but does the world not hate as much now? Yes. Phew.

I know I haven’t posted in ages but I thought I should somehow document random useful stuff that I couldn’t find myself on the internet.

Recently I got Dish Network which meant that I acquired DVRs and satellite boxes. You have to plug them into either your phoneline or ethernet port so that the boxes can call home to Dish to make sure everything is legitimate (this seems to be the same with DirectTV also) or else you pay $5.99 a month. Sure the TV by the router in the living room was no problem, right into the ethernet. The TV in our bedroom was another story. Our phone jack hasn’t worked since the house was remodeled and we were way too far from a router. We could run cords but it wasn’t exactly ideal. I thought about bridging a router to communicate back with the router in the living room but couldn’t find an extra one laying around.

Then fate brought a solution. I got a Linksys gaming adapter for about $30 from Woot (refurbished) made for wirelessly connecting your Xbox. You just set up your router settings with your computer (passwords and such), after that’s done you plug in your Xbox and voila it’s connected. Apparently it works with anything that has an ethernet connection, computers, PS2s, etc that you want to wirelessly connect . In my case it worked perfectly for the HD satellite box. It’ll pay itself off in 5 months.

So there aren’t any ginormous new beginnings for me really, but I’m starting off the year technically unemployed, actually self-employed. I’ve decided to go full time in business for myself and devote a large chunk of my time into my own business.

Which brings me to my second new beginning, I won’t be writing here very much, not that I have at all. I’m thinking of splitting my time between two blogs. The first one being business related. We’ve dubbed the collaboration Plus 1  (or is it Plus One?). Regardless it’s going to specialize web design and politics, so I’ll be posting on our progress, trips and tricks of the trade, how-to-network and how some twenty somethings manage their lives using the power of the internet.

Why Plus 1? Well on campaigns your goal, obviously, is to win the majority of the vote which is usually “fifty plus one” perecent of the vote. I know it’s technically incorrect since you can win with just 50.3 but I digress. I’m hoping that my skills plus his design skills coupled with some business savvy and networking can really make inroads in progressive politics. Furthermore Plus 1 is bland enough that other businesses won’t be scared of using us for their own websites. So far it’s been pretty successful and I’ve worked pretty hard on this project in the last week everyday with full attention. So I’m hoping to keep it up even if means I have to hide out at Starbucks awhile.

The more personal blog, I haven’t decided to do yet, but Hung and I wanted to start something about ourselves, more relationship focused and maybe dabble some of our interests. I guess we’ve got this notion that we give out pretty good advice and we just want to stroke our egos a bit. This was formulated on the ride to my family’s house for Christmas so obviously it’s not ironed out. Anyway keep your eye out and until then I made a tiny portfolio website for myself: http://crystaltran.net.

And lastly, wooo January 20th, 2009! Inaguration Day!!

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted. Since then we’ve elected a new President, freed chickens from their crates in California, and then re-banned gay marriage, all of which I had some small part in. During the six weeks my office was open and manned we made approximate 20,000 dials to voters for Barack Obama, Yes on Proposition 2, and No on Proposition 8 and Proposition 4. Eight’s result was the biggest heart breaker. I made a short reappearance into politics for this job and I enjoyed every stressful sleepless minute of it.

I already miss my office and the completely fantastic and WONDERFUL people I met in it. I’ve experienced a lifetime of graciousness, generosity, dedication, diligence, and stress in about six weeks from so many involved in the campaign. I already miss it even though I don’t miss not sleeping. The beautiful things about working in politics is that the effects of you work are often tangible. You know how many people you’re talking to, what you’re saying, how they’re feeling, it’s a very hands on occupation. Furthermore its rewards are intrinsic and the gratification you feel everyday is unmatched by most jobs.

Before this post gets to lengthy, I’m back to being a civilian now, taking a break. I just went on vacation to Miami to visit family, thinking about the next step in my young career, and making jambalaya tomorrow for dinner. Life is good, I am still riding high from the victories we did succeed in.

As for my feelings on Proposition 8, there’s a lot for me to say about it and why I think it lost, but I will leave it with a few sentences. First, I think the ban on gay marriage is something that is temporary, whether it be the courts, or public opinoin. I feel that at the very least, in a few decades we’ll look back on this and say “Why did we ban this in the first place? Why are the private lives of others so important to us?”. To me personally, marriage is a means to create families, and families are the backbones of our society, providing the support and love needed for so many individuals. Anything that encourages families is only going to help society. Alienating groups from society just gives them ambivalence to the majority around them, and it’s just not constructive. Furthermore marriage is not going to change someone’s sexuality, just because they can’t get married doesn’t meant that my neighbors aren’t gay. Really, it doesn’t change that at all.

There are a lot of reasons on a political and strategic level as to why I think Prop 8 passed, but one of the biggest things is that I think a lot of people took California’s progressive image for granted. Because of that they stayed home, didn’t talk their neighbors, their friends and family, and tell them why. The grassroots movement needed bodies, they needed people on the phones, and knocking on doors, and the sense of urgency wasn’t there. I hope the next time around that this doesn’t happen, and that others don’t take their positions for granted. Things do not win or get defeated by themselves without a strong base of activist and supporters.

I figured most of you know that I moved to the San Gabriel Valley last summer, but another move is on the way. About two weeks ago my Mom sold my house, a house I lived in since 1993. I’ve been coming back and forth before the CDP office opens up in Monterey Park that I will be bossing over in time for the November election.

It’s crazy all the old stuff we have around in the house, I found letters and yearbooks from elementary school. Old paintings, invitations to birthdays, Mami Otaki’s address when she moved from Laguna Niguel back to Japan and she gave me a Domokun card with a her new address in it. I didn’t even know what Domokun was. I of course have lots of toys and relics from Mew Mew and Murphy and of course Dave leaving me a little sentimental.

So with that news I leave you a poem I wrote for my Mom on one of my “Meet the Masters” bamboo painting projects from 2nd grade.

My Mom

Mother
So forgetful
So gentle, so caring
Who is trying to lose pounds
My mom

How’s that for tact? For those of you that are wondering, my Mom is moving to West Covina temporarily while she shops around for a new house. She has plenty of time as she is taking the rest of the year off.