Last Day of September

Can you believe it's already the last day of September? What did I say I was going to do by end of September? Get going with my trading activity that's what. And I hadn't done it still. And I think the other-than-conscious reasons for that is something I still have to work on. I reminded myself how I did NOT feel like going golfing just because... or that I didn't feel like filling out my speaker thing with NACHC just because... A level of fear that I simply needed to push past. A part of me that fears failure and rejection. I think it's the same thing with the trading stuff. It seems like I am constantly distracting myself. It's like the Universe is asking me is this really something you want to do? I remind myself that I still have to put in the work no matter what it is I choose. I just simply decoded how to do it within the context of my current work environment. But really I remind myself I don't really want to work for anyone anymore either. I would much rather report to myself. Which is why I am looking forward to paying myself bi-weekly from passive income. THAT I'm still trying to do. If not by this month, then i have next month don't I? In the meantime there are still other questions that rile me. Among them: why is it that no matter how nice I get Johnnie's hair in the morning, it is completely unruly by the time I pick him up. I wonder when it is that it starts unraveling like that?! Anyway I didn't have much time to spend on that one this morning. That's because I had back-to-back-to-back meetings to last the entire morning. First the OCHIN Quarterly Meeting, which I think got spent more with the issues rather than with the charts that we usually talk about when we don't have issues. The hour went by fast. And we never did get to the charts after all. And then I had my one-on-one with Dennis which is merely a check-in. And finally I had the weekly team meeting with the EHR team, which was attended by Dr Liao our CMO as well. He had some project in mind regarding provider burn-out. Great. I'm now trying to help solve that as well. You know what though, if I do make headway with it like I think I could, wouldn't THAT be something to talk about at a public forum...

With those 3 meetings out of the way, I realized that now I don't really have any more time to do relaxation things or ME things. Maybe I'll do them tomorrow. But I did watch a couple of new series on Hulu. La Brea, which is about some time dimension loop in the middle of LA, and then Reservation Dogs, about some Indian kids trying to survive in Oklahoma. Ya I know they're mostly distractions. But hey, it IS Thursday after all and winding down the week. Heck, it's winding down the MONTH considering it IS the last day in September. Now we move to thinking about Johnnie's birthday coming up next week. I picked him up at 5 PM and he was playing basketball yet again. It's going to stick I think BECAUSE he is now in the middle of a once-a-week camp until November. I gave him the option of doing Mitsuwa udon tonight or Panda Express and he chose Mitsuwa. And AFTER we picked up his udon, I had a hankering for tacos myself. Don't know why really. So we stopped at Campos Tacos on McLaughlin and dad and son had a pretty good dinner. And then after said dinner, Dad and son kind of sang some songs on YouTube, the one we took a pic of was Bruno Mars and Anderson.Paak doing Leave the Door Open. I tell you my kid is a hoot. Tonight is of course Lisa hand-off night and I had no hallucinations that she was going to come early like she did last week. But I didn't call her either. She texted at 8 PM saying she was on the way. And when we went out there we still had to wait 10 minutes for her to get there. And of course when she did there was the usual litany of things not going right at her practice. The best I could do was to listen and these days I don't pretend to try to solve her problems. I think she can solve them just fine. I would just piss her off or twitch her brain the wrong way if I offered anything other than a listening ear. And so that's all I did was to listen. And assure her that hey, no matter what happens things always end up working out. And then watched mom and son drive off. It's the best possible hand-off considering what Lisa is going through at her practice these days. But then again, was it any different when things WERE going better? I say NO, NOT REALLY. And so off I went to my relative peaceful apartment and let myself drift off to sleep. Goodbye September 2021. No matter what, I appreciate you.

Wednesday Routine

It's Wednesday, it's the middle of the week and it didn't feel out of the ordinary from the get-go. I mean even when taking a shower this morning instead of last night, Johnnie and I have become pretty efficient at getting breakfast and getting him to school by 7:45. When I do that, I'm home before 8 AM. I did shove an IS Team Meeting today at 9 AM so we could have just the one instead of having 2, simply because Kennedy was out for the last couple of days. That means I had to do back-to-back meeting with 2 of my teams before lunch. Despite my early week panic, everything seemed to be in control and all was good. As far as the rest of the day, it seemed like I pushed a REPLAY button. That meant you could find me grilling some pork chops at the barbecue at lunchtime. And it was a nice, warm, late summery kind of day. That's about as good a win moment I could file away as any. If there was a recurring memory of this past summer it would be me grilling something in the barbecue on a warm middle of the day. Anyway it seemed so far away from lunch at the FRB cafeteria with the regular crew that I used to do for years. I wonder how the old characters are. Mark. Jose. The guys that used to prepare my lunch every day. I hope they are doing ok. It does not look like we will be back at the FRB even in 2022, or at least not me, based on the Board Meeting yesterday. Today we had another meeting in the afternoon, this time to plan for the Town Hall next week. Nothing out of the ordinary for me since it is back to the all-hands webinar format. I get to play Arnel the DJ. And I still don't know how that came about really. Just my ham self coming out I guess. Anyway, the meeting was just to get people to get their content in and coordinate. After that meeting I officially shut down for the day. And I got caught up with my steps, and watched some of the stuff from the Lakers Media Day. NBA season coming up. Dodgers winding down, Lakers winding up. As it should be. As i walked around the block I envisioned myself already being the millionaire that I am and still doing the same things really. I'm ok with that. Which means I get to pick up Johnnie at 5. When I got to the school I found him in the yard practicing dribbling. Boy he really is picking up on this basketball stuff. I couldn't be happier. THIS I can teach him. I wonder if he can sustain the interest?

When I asked him to write about his day he wrote all about basketball too. And actually created a story board on how the morning went. I feel pretty good that at least now he can write something on command. And tonight we gave Panda Express a break. I made us both pizzas. We went to the store and got some Boboli. And he got a pepperoni pizza and I made myself pepperoni and pineapple. I will say that I got upset at him for not eating ANY of the lunch I made. I mean I baked the chocolate croissant myself! He didn't eat that, nor the string cheese. And just had a few bites of the strawberry. What in the heck does he eat? I got frustrated and yelled at him that he has to eat something. And I made him eat the string cheese before I made him the pizza, making it clear he wasn't going to eat anything if he didn't eat that. I had to remind myself that these meal battles are not uncommon at all. And that I did not need to bully him into eating stuff. I know I shouldn't force him to eat. But I can't be a short order cook either. I just have to keep trying without losing it like I did tonight. I mean he had tears in his eyes while he ate the string cheese for god's sake. There's no need for that. Fortunately, Johnnie always checks in and make sure everything is ok. And although he ended  up eating his pizza and then watching Wild Kratts, and I ended up in front of the computer, he kept checking in and telling me stuff and he was even playing games with me and joking around. That's when I know everything is ok. And to conclude, we ALWAYS ALWAYS signal bedtime by me carrying him on my shoulders to the bathroom to brush his teeth. See pic. It's a nightly thing that has been going on since I moved to this apartment. When we do that as part of the bedtime routine, we both know all is well. I went to sleep early myself. I hadn't slept well in the last few days even though there really wasn't anything that was causing me stress. At least not consciously. Now below the surface? We will see...

Wins All Day

When you talk about raising your vibration, it is really simply about feeling good about yourself and the stuff you do. Which is why I am now focused on stacking wins all day long. And so today I had it in my mind that a win is to do well at the QueensCare Board Meeting where I'm supposed to present on Risk Assessments. The whole thing should last no more than 5 minutes if that. But to do well means to win the perception that I know what I'm doing and that I am extremely competent.  And before all that, it is Picture Day at Mar Vista today and of course I want to make sure Johnnie looks picture good. I spent extra time making sure his hair was just right this morning. And with the shirt and tie he actually looks very VERY handsome! How about that. My kid is actually good looking! Getting him to this point is already a WIN. And of course I got a kick out of the other kids all dressed nice for picture day. I posted a pic of Brooklyn too. Next to each other it's like the yuppie and the hippie Bohemian girl. I would so laugh if that's the way it ends up being in the future LOL LOL. I hope Johnnie ends up at least keeping the hair-do until his picture gets taken. And then of course later on this afternoon is his first basketball session at STAR NOVA. He had been looking forward to that all week. And now he gets to play basketball with his jeans on because I forgot to pack some shorts in his bag. Oh well... After the school drop off I focused on the Board Meeting. I mean it's not something to be taken for granted. And so even if I just had a few slides I had to make sure they were at least professional and that it tells the story that I want to tell. Fortunately since I only did have a few slides, it took all of 10 minutes to spruce it up and get it ready to go. The meeting was not until after lunch and so I had time to make myself some pasta and sweet Italian sausage. Hey I'm not going hungry just because I had a presentation. And so my turn didn't come until well into the meeting. As in it started at 1 PM and I didn't go on until it was almost 2:30. Until then the takeaway was that QueensCare is doing very VERY well because of its investments. Heck, they're in the stock market aren't they? It's funny about this dichotomy I work in. At QueensCare Health Center Board Meetings, its mostly about scarce resources, making do with what we have, doing the best we can with said resources. QueensCare Board Meetings talk about what to do with the excess. I mean it does have almost $490M. Let me wrap my head around that. I actually work for a half a billion dollar corporation! How did I manage that right? Anyway I did my 5-minute schpeel on cybersecurity and then I was done. I thought I did just fine actually. That's a WIN. And although it was only 3 PM, I considered myself shut down workwise too. I parked on the couch and watched Y- the last Man on Hulu LOL. And then I picked up Johnnie. I was just as excited to hear about his day as he was. Photo day went well. Basketball went well! WIN WIN! Off we went to Sawtelle Panda Express. Got a parking spot immediately. Another WIN. Got me an old standby - rice and chicken with green beans. Healthy dinner. Another WIN. I made Johnnie do his page on what he liked about today and it was all about basketball. He learned the rules, the sideline, the paint, all the mechanics and logistics of the sport. Here I was focusing on just dribbling LOL. Who knew that after all the spaghetti we threw at the wall, the one that stuck would be basketball? I would have never thunk it. Of course it IS early. I mean after all a year ago, he was learning computer programming for the first time and he was working on swim strokes and I introduced him to Master Kelly's karate class. Still, even if it doesn't stick, at least it's all about experiences... something I was never exposed to growing up. He can pick and choose as much or as little as he likes. And so it was that I got my WINS where I wanted them today. And I even got to bed early. As in 9:30 AM early. I hadn't had good sleep in a few days. Rest is always good.

Not So Calm This Monday

I woke up with a bit of a sense of dread this morning.  Kennedy had sent a message late last night that he wasn't coming in today. And so I thought that with Noriel and Nelson already out today, that leaves Larry all by himself to hold the fort. Not good. And so I spent the morning prepping myself to be unbelievably busy today.  Ahh there was the Universe testing me again. Instead of just going back within and making sure everything was calm from an energy standpoint, I gave in to anxiety and panic. Sigh. Still work to do. As it turned out I would find out much later on... as in closer to lunch that in fact, Nelson and Noriel were scheduled to be out NEXT WEEK. Not today. I panicked for NOTHING. And something tells me that even if they had both taken the day off, I would have panicked for nothing anyways. Therein lies the lesson isn't it? Oh well, at least I got a chance to walk to the bank like I did last week, but brought my Fitbit this time. And so by mid-morning I was still right on track to the 15,000 steps Monday this day had evolved into. And at mid-day during lunch I walked some more and got myself French Dip sandwich and onion rings from Marie Callenders. And had my lunch right there at the fountain in my backyard. This would turn out to be the theme for today. Eating out there as I would find out later. Today I actually had a couple of things due: deadline for getting officially signed up and uploading our speaking material for the NACHC FOM/IT meeting next month. AND it's HRSA survey report week. Although that isn't officially due until tomorrow. I wanted it done today. So right off the bat those were 2 fairly huge outcomes I wanted to get done today. And then of course there's the Johnnie pick-up later on. I reminded myself to simply focus on piling up wins. Little wins, big wins. Hey I was at 8000 steps before it was even 2 PM. That's a win. Actually I got all my speaker stuff done by lunchtime. AND I had already downloaded all the data I needed for the HRSA survey report. It would have been great to get a nap in too, considering I didn't exactly get good sleep last night. But the best I could do was a meditative semi-alpha state. At least I got to focus on gratitude while in that state for a half hour, even if I didn't get my nap. 

I guess it was too much to ask for a quiet Monday evening and a quick pick-up at Lisa's couldn't it? Yeah yeah I know everything is me pushed out.  Still, at least Lisa had the foresight to realize she wasn't going to make it to STAR by 5:30 to pick up Johnnie. So she called me and I was happy to do so. Except of course it never stops there. She asked if we could all have dinner together. She was at her office overseeing the installation of her compressor. I guess it would be ok... after all I was going to El Pollo Loco to pick up my dinner. Wouldn't be too much out of my way to pick up food for Lisa as well. Except that she suggested we eat at my apartment. Not IN my apartment obviously, she is never going to see the inside of it. But she suggested eating outdoors by the barbecue. That we've done many times actually. We did have to stop at Lisa's house anyway because tomorrow is picture day for Johnnie's school and I needed to get his nice clothes for him to wear. And while there I picked up some soup brotht o go with the penne pasta I had already prepped for Johnnie. It was 5:45 when Lisa and I spoke about meeting up. Johnnie was so hungry I got him to eat HIS dinner.  Which was a good thing because Lisa didn't come until it was almost 7:30. Just Lisa once again being Lisa. She simply hijacks your time and energy. But I made up my mind I wasn't going to let her put me in any kind of funky negative vibe. Even though we were going to discuss stuff to buy for Johnnie and when we do that somehow we end up arguing. It's a control thing I know that now. I allow myself into the argument anyway. Fortunately, we didn't really have any kind of tension this evening. We ate dinner out there and then we talked about reading books Johnnie was supposed to buy this semester.  Not quite sure how I ended up footing all of the $65 it cost but that's ok. I'm not going to cheap out about it. Anyway Johnnie chose his books and after I purchased them online with Lisa, off she went home and off we went to my apartment. And concluded our Monday night. I actually did some work this evening. I still had to do the HRSA survey report. And though it is always a pain in the ass to do the thing, finish it I did.  It was midnight by the time I went to bed. Johnnie had already long been asleep. Wasn't exactly a calm Monday this day. But I really can't complain either. It's all good.

At Harbor Once Again

So we're at Harbor Park this morning at 9:50 and Chris is joining us for the first time a month. We've pretty much reduced his participation to those times when are able to get a tee time at Harbor. And really that's ok. So far we've been able to get paired up with some good folks whenever we play here. So I'm not caring so much anymore anyway. It's just a matter of time before I'm one of these guys that just books a tee time for a single too. And that too is ok. It's not like I couldn't carry my weight. Hopefully I'll get even better hitting shots off the fairway. Off the tee, I'm legit. Really I only hit one bad shot off the tee, a cringer on Hole 5 that went way wide. And I was still able to get that one on the green on the next hole for a par putt. which, of course, I missed. Today I ended up tying for a win on the very first hole where I barely missed my par putt. That already means I was on in 2. AND at least I hit a very rare birdie on Hole 4! I don't usually do well on that hole. But I placed my tee shot in the middle, Hit a 6-iron 135 yards to the green from there, and made the long putt. First birdie in quite a while! It's a win! Too bad I had a really bad 2nd hole after the great first hole. And really I didn't play all that badly. With the exception of the 2nd hole, I minimized my whiffs, but I also didn't make my putts after Hole 4. Still I hit a bomb from the tee on Hole 7 right down the middle and hit another bomb from the tee on Hole 9. Those were just a mere few feet from Chris's longest. But I also kept hitting trees when I was way left or way right. So I didn't score well either. But I felt pretty good about the way I played. And really it was good catching up with Chris too. I even tried a purple ball today... not that it helped. in fact I couldn't see the damn thing on the fairway.  On the way back I took the 110N home. I didn't want to cut through the 405 knowing the Rams were playing the Super Bowl champion Buccaneers at Sofi at 1 PM today. And it still took me almost a half hour to get home. Can't dodge Sunday traffic westside which ever route you take. Oh well. At least I got my usual salmon kabobs at Crimson and managed to get home well before the Ram game started... 

And so it was that I spent the afternoon doing what most Americans do, which was to watch NFL. After catching their first game live at SoFi, I am most definitely a fan now if I wasn't already. I think we are fortunate in LA that most of our teams are very competitively and actively competing for a championship. The Lakers are in the conversation. The Dodgers have the 2nd best record in baseball. And are the defending World Series champs. And today the Rams beat the Bucs and GOAT Tom Brady. Putting THEMSELVES in the Super Bowl conversation.  They most certainly looked good and are now 3-0 to start the season. Heck even UCLA is looking good after last night's win. And the best part? USC lost! Bwah hah ha. And so I split between watching the football game and taking a nap, letting myself close my eyes and drift wherever my mind would allow me to drift. I thought about doing some work. I mean it's payroll day tomorrow, it's HRSA day on Tuesday and the talk for the NACHC is due as well. PLUS I wanted to get started with paper trading this week. THAT is what I do want to accomplish. But that's for next week. I still have the rest of Sunday. And I was not planning on leaving the couch much. If the NFL is what will give me a recharge today, then so be it. I had already done most of my grocery shopping really so the only thing left to go out for is dinner. I could have made something here at the apartment, but I did not feel like cooking. I ended up going to Chipotle simply because it IS the fastest, closest thing to get from the apartment. And I ended up concluding my Sunday with another episode of the Walking Dead. I am not really all that interested in it anymore. I feel like they are just recycling bad guys now, calling them different things. Although tonight's episode did feel like Halloween fright night but with humans/cannibals instead of zombies being the things that came after you. Still I let myself chill with a little R&B covers.  Don't know how I got into that one and that's ok. Another weekend is done, the end of September is coming up.

At the Pool Saturday

It was 7:30 AM in the morning when Johnnie called me inviting me to breakfast. I was half-awake at the time. I knew I was already coming to pick him up, it was Saturday after all and so I think Lisa was just making sure. After all, 2 weeks ago she was in her funk that led to Johnnie and I having breakfast ourselves without her. This time, clearly, Lisa wanted to make us all breakfast as she sometimes gets in her head she has to do.  And so it was that I came over before it was even 8 AM and Johnnie was already dressed and ready to go and Lisa was already in the kitchen cracking some eggs. And so I banked on the same magic that I did last Thursday and got myself emotionally ready for anything. And as it was, it was not necessary for this morning. Breakfast was uneventful and Johnnie and I were off to our morning without any kind of not-quite-normal energy. I gave Johnnie his morning bath in my apartment, and then gave my car IT'S bath in the carwash across the street and then I let Johnnie watch a couple of videos. This morning, we already agreed we were going to hit the pool. I framed it like we were going to play some pool games. And that it was going to be hot today like it had been all week long.  Wasn't it just a couple of months ago that Johnnie did a couple of Saturday lessons with Stacy? He isn't doing lessons anymore but I wanted to make sure he was still good to go in the pool. I mean here stories of him diving in Hawaii and at Mama Vicky's house, I had to see if he could go to the bottom of the 5-ft pool. And so it was that we went before mid-day and I posted pics of our morning at the pool.  We of course played the get-the-rock-from-the-bottom-of-the-pool game. He was much better at retrieving it at 3 1/2 ft than he was at 5 feet and I think that's because he simply wasn't inclined to swim downwards. But you can see from the video I posted that he could have easily done it.  Just not something he naturally thinks about doing. It's ok... hey at least I KNOW he wouldn't drown and he CAN swim. AND when we got done by the pool, Johnnie still wanted to go to the jacuzzi. And so we spent the rest of the morning there before it was even lunchtime. We played a little more then dried off and headed off to Panda Express Westwood for lunch.  And so this version of Saturday morning with Johnnie turned out to be pretty fun actually and when I dropped him back off around 1:45 at Lisa's I felt pretty content that dad and son had another pretty good day together.  I went back home and knocked off for a nap. Binge watching that Daredevil series had me pretty tired and that powernap lasted almost a full hour. And so it was at this point that I realized I had the rest of the weekend to myself. And I turned my attention to the UCLA football game which was being played in the middle of the afternoon. They were playing Stanford at the farm after all, where they hadn't won in more than a decade. I remember actually going to a Stanford - UCLA game at the Farm. That was when we were still visiting Joe and Sam at Palo Alto. That was almost 13 years ago. Heck Stanford's QB then was Andrew Luck and he retired 2 years ago already. Time flies.  Anyway tonight UCLA out-Stanfored Stanford. Played bully ball. RUN, run, RUN then pass to the tight end. Attack the QB. And UCLA won! How about that! Dare we get excited about their season? Anyway I made it through the 2nd season of Daredevil tonight. Made a DIY pizza for dinner using Trader Joe pizza doe. Not as good as Boboli I'll say. But I felt like I had to use it since I had bought IT and the ingredients to make that pizza. Oh well. So Saturday went much like Friday night and once again I am asleep with some binaural beats helping  me snooze. Still all good. I'm not letting myself think of anything else but to recharge this weekend. It's still all good.

Clean-up Friday

Today's version of breathe-out Friday started out like most, you know up at 6 AM to get a tee time for next next Sunday and generate a day pass for Johnnie to send to Lisa. While I was up anyway, I checked on the stock market just to keep my attention on trading. But as I go through some YouTube videos on trading I end up seeing some other metaphysical videos as well. But with all the things dueling for my attention, what won out this morning was a continuation of what I had started last night, which was clean my kitchen. Yep, I wanted to clean my apartment, since I hadn't done so in a couple of weeks at least. With the kitchen being clean I wasn't going to make breakfast already anyway, so instead I made a pitstop to Lisa's to drop off Fuzzy and then did the McDonald's drive-thru to get a double sausage and egg McMuffin. Oh and my hot tea of course. But after that, I focused on cleaning the bathroom, and then the bedroom. I went backwards. I usually started in the living room. But I wasn't thinking very linearly today. As for work stuff, there wasn't much. Hey, it's Friday and everything seemed to be under control anyway. Besides I answered all posts and chats and pings which signaled to everyone that needed my attention that I was around. Hey it's the week after Tech Council. It isn't supposed to be busy. By lunchtime, the momentary haze had melted away and it was back to being a warm day again. I walked to El Pollo Loco and got me a chicken tostada salad for lunch. I still wasn't going to cook anything, not on my stove anyway, not after I cleaned it. It's going to remain clean for at least a couple of days. Anyway I got the apartment all clean before 5 PM. AND I had gotten most of my steps done for the day done already. Funny how your heart rate can go up just by cleaning and wiping your floor on your hands and knees. I thought that was an old wives tale LOL. And when I got done I got back to the metaphysical videos. Funny that today the focus seemed to be on the videos that talked about the Bible. No, not in the way you might think. They weren't Bible study videos. It was the reverse actually. They were videos that focused on how the Bible stories were allegories, never meant to be taken literally. THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU. I heard that particular phrase over and over. And the videos talked to how that meant that YOUR POWER IS WITHIN YOU. And that you and ONLY YOU control your reality. But you must work on your awareness pretty much 100% of the time. I know this to be true from my own experience. And I also know even though mostly from an intuitive point that when it is said that we only use 10% of our brains, that IS true since most of our thoughts are repetitive. And it takes a great deal of focus and energy to unlock the other 90% by working on what you focus your thoughts on. And it's always about asking questions of yourself. The right questions. I mull all this over as I conclude my Friday by taking a dip in the hot jacuzzi. I hadn't done this in a while. I had almost forgotten how relaxing it was. How it could help me with clearing my head and clarifying my thoughts. In any case it was, at the very least, the play-of-the-day. Even better than getting my apartment cleaned. The other play of the day was dinner. I decided I was going to get ramen tonight. But i did not want to go to Sawtelle which is what I did the last time i had a hankering for ramen. Instead I went to an old standby-- RamenYa which is now on Gateway, right next to Oops. It's scooter distance from my apartment, but i drove instead. And I enjoyed a very nice chasu pork ramen and some gyoza. It was the secondary play of the day. I could have spent the rest of my Friday night watching any one of the newest movies I downloaded. But instead I ended up binge watching Daredevil. Yep, a Marvel series from 2018. I wonder why I didn't watch it then? Maybe it wasn't Disney+ material? LOL LOL. Anyway I binge watched until well past midnight. And then I had to shut myself down reminding myself I was picking up Johnnie tomorrow morning. It was all good. I got today what I wanted to get done. i got my wins. 

Chill Out Thursday

So I started today thinking that the last TWO Thursdays had been such a gift in terms of not working much at all and enjoying non-work stuff in the middle of the week LOL. Watching Shang-Chi with Johnnie last week and playing golf at Roosevelt the Thursday before that would certainly qualify as giving me a taste of life without having to work at all. I thought about how to continue that today but I had no advance plans. So I took Johnnie to school as always, got back home before 8 AM as always, got a lot of early steps in as I have all week and simply let the day unfold. I actually had an interview today... as in me interviewing someone for the open EHR position. This was at 1 PM which pretty much ensures I wasn't going to do anything outside of work today. And that's ok. It was an older gentleman, and as far as fitting in with the current EHR support team as constituted, I don't know if he would bring the right chemistry to the team. But I interviewed him anyway and as far as getting along with me, he reminded me a lot of myself in some ways. He simply wanted to not be a consultant anymore and wanted a full time position somewhere. Been there done that. He's also not that young anymore... he has grandchildren after all. So he probably was close to my own age. He was a RAMS fan. So yeah, I saw some similarities between him and myself. But the similarities stop there. I reflect on that because here I am putting together a plan to not to have to work anymore and he was simply looking for a home. For that I AM grateful that QueensCare gave me one when the need arose 8+ years ago. I was him then. And so I did note how different life was a mere 8 years ago. A relatively short period of time. And it made me focus on the fact that it's about the journey not the outcome. There are and will be many outcomes. And its what we do along the way that counts the most. I remind myself of that. No bigger an example of how my routine is now. I picked up Johnnie at school on the dot at 5 PM today. He was playing basketball in the yard, his new NEW HOBBY I suppose. I hope it sticks because I just talked to STAR about getting him in to STAR NOVA basketball on Tuesdays. He was excitedly talking about it on the drive back. We made a pit stop at Mitsuwa. For the 3rd consecutive Thursday he had udon for dinner, now a large regular bowl compared to the small one I used to get for him just a year ago. And I got myself some pork katsu too. Of course tonight the thing was all about the hand-off. I know Lisa had been way off center the last few Thursdays. And I reminded myself yet again about how that is about ME PUSHING OUT stuff. Negative stuff. She merely embodied my own projections. And so tonight I focused on a different outcome. How she was going to be in a good mood and how hand-off was going to be a non-event. I focused on that all day. And what do you know Lisa would call in early tonight. 7:15 and here she was letting me know she was on the way. Her compressor at the office went on the fritz and they had to get a new one. But this time, she didn't do much dentistry. And she came in a good mood... MUCH better than the last few Thursdays. Gee, what a shock! She talked about breakfast on Saturday. Gave Claire a big old hug. And then drove off. A TOTAL non-event. In a very good way. WOW. I manifested that one huh?! And so it was that I ended my Thursday early too. After I cleaned up the kitchen. Going to clean the apartment this weekend I told myself. As I wound down I thought about Johnnie because he had left his Fuzzy yet again. But I didn't drive over there tonight. I didn't feel the need. Johnnie and I had a nice night anyway. I totally enjoyed his antics, talking about his day at school (I make him write it down these days), him getting ice cream, talking about the latest creature power from the Wild Kratts. My little boy is not that wee little toddler any longer. But him just clutching my hand walking around Mitsuwa this afternoon is still something that makes me feel good and raises my vibration just thinking about it. I may not have done anything today. But it was still a good day anyway. A very good day.

Fall Equinox

So today marks the OFFICIAL end of summer. It is fall equinox and I mentioned that to Johnnie as we were driving to school and happened to see that the moon was still out. Even though it looked to be another warm day today. I for one was reminded all day, particularly a stop-and-smell-the-roses moment when I was taking a walk in the middle of the afternoon. The clouds had made it cool and breezy for just about the span of 10 minutes. And on Purdue St, the wind was blowing all these tiny yellow pollen-like flowers seemingly right at me. I thought to myself, yep, it's fall. I felt good that I was able to stop and be aware of that. Of course though it may be fall already, it was still a warm day out today and summer may just be saying I'm not totally out of the picture just yet. To that end, another SASTR moment was simply being able to go to my apartment "yard" such as it were [that's what I call the barbecue area} and grill me some Italian sausages for lunch. Made the day still feel like summer anyway. And the fact that here I am in the middle of the day on a Wednesday grilling Italian sausages on my barbecue is DEFINITELY something to feel good about. Claire liked it because I gave her a couple of pieces of the sausage. She definitely wanted more but I refrained just in case... The other thing of note this morning was that I actually got my work day started early. I had an appointment with my co-speaker for the FOM/IT conference so we could collaborate on the presentation. You know.. the one I stayed up until 1 AM for last night. Our meeting was at 8:30 AM this morning since he was in Florida and was 3 hours later than me. I went over my presentation and we actually got through the whole thing and got a game plan for the content together within an hour. THAT is a win I think. Anyway I felt good that I had something very much worthwhile to present and I think Michael my co-presenter and I will do just fine. I kept getting pinged about the event actually. Guadalupe booked my hotel for me. The CCALAC crew were asking me about it. Now I'm a little excited. If anything I get to go to Vegas right? I haven't been since... was it 2013? The week before I started at QueensCare? Couldn't have been that long could it? That was 8 years ago! Wow.

Anyway, having my primary to-do out of the way and early it felt like I had the rest of the day to do whatever I wanted. And I didn't really want to do anything except to catch up on the sleep I missed last night. I wanted to take a nap. But I couldn't. My brain wouldn't let me. Even though I put on all these frequency videos on. Although those did remind me to be mindful of my awareness. To be mindful of what I was thinking about. To ask myself all the time: Why am I feeling the way I do again? Why am I doing what I'm about to do again? It made me become aware of negative stuff that may be coming up for one reason or another and to pay attention why. So all that stuff was good. It kept me internal for much of the afternoon actually. <Note: My distinction today was that I was thinking too much. I didn't need to think at all. All I needed to do was swim in the silence> As in, I didn't really leave my couch until it was time to pick up Johnnie. And then it was back to the mundane. Back to the day-to-day. I caught Johnnie playing basketball and putting his skills that we were practicing just this weekend to use. Another classmate asked him to ask his dad if it was ok for him to stay for a bit and play in the yard. I will never underemphasize that Johnnie has already made many friends and that they want to play with him. And so that's the pic I posted. Him playing in the yard. Boy that kid can now do the monkey bars. He couldn't do them just a year ago. This IS cool. And it was cool just sitting around watching him have a little kid good time. For me I was just watching how his hair was behaving LOL. After all, I did spend 10 minutes getting it right with the product this morning. Look at the pic HE made me take. Yeah, my kid is going to end up being pretty good looking I think. Anyway we went to Panda Express Westwood and right away the Universe sent tests my way. Can you be patient? Can you sustain your positive state the Universe seemed to be asking. This as I was met with a phalanx of drivers on Olympic Blvd. Hey we did leave later than usual didn't we? Still, dinner was fine and afterwards finally finally I had time to give Claire a bath. That isn't to be minimized. I hadn't given her a bath in the last 3 weeks. This time was much easier because her hair was much shorter. And therefore she got dried up faster too. And then of course since she was much MUCH cleaner, Johnnie just had to play with her. He still plays just a tad too rough I think and he manages to make Claire growl. But I think she likes it too. It's truly is like watching a brother/sister play together. Anyway it was an early night for Johnnie since he asked if he could wait until morning to take a shower. He WAS sweaty from a full day's worth of play when I picked him up of course but that's ok. I can always wash the sheets and his pajamas. I could tell he was tired. Which meant he had a good day. I did too actually. And TONIGHT I get to catch up on sleep...

Summer Not Quite Done Just Yet

Funny thing happened when I took Johnnie to school this morning. It felt warm. Unusually warm. I mean, it had cooled off considerably in the last couple of weeks. To the point where I was actually putting layers on Johnnie in the mornings anymore. Not today. In fact it was so warm out that I decided to do some steps before making it back for breakfast. After all, I looked at my Fitbit and it was barely 7:50 when I got back to my car after Johnnie had already been let in. That's a win... in the spirit of stringing along wins on a daily basis. I got to almost 4000 steps before I even had breakfast. That too is a win right? Heck I might even count the fact that I got Johnnie's hair combed out of his eyes with a little goop as a win. After all, I did spend more than just a few minutes doing that thing first thing. So today I wanted to get my presentation for the NACHC done before I meet with my co-presenter Mike tomorrow morning first thing. If we agree on the content, then we have an entire month before we even have to worry about it again. Already I'm getting pings on the event. Marina asking me if I'm going. Guadalupe trying to help me book my hotel room and to get me registered. And of course I have to transfer the presentation to the NACHC Powerpoint format too. But somehow I didn't get to any of that, at least not today. I got myself focused on other things. What other things? Manifestation things. Maybe it was seeing an Aaron Abke video on Higher Consciousness reminding me that I have to be aware of that part of me too, which basically gets glossed over with the distraction of the mundane day-to-day. I mean should I think about the awakening of humanity of which I have a contribution to make? Or do I worry about my NACHC presentation LOL LOL?! This is the duality of the process isn't it? And with that I'm off to getting the chain going... one video leads to the next video, and then another one, and then another one after that. I look at videos on 3D/4D/5D manifestation. I watch about Grabovoi codes and actually getting my head around why THAT works. It has something to do with the collective consciousness that you get to tap into. Makes sense though. I watch a video on why getting vaccinated is so not-a-good-thing to do. Here's my question: if it does lead to other stuff later on, can you weigh it with the fact that hundreds of thousands have already died? And if not Covid, would they have died anyway? I DO believe that Big Pharma is a menace and is distorting everything to their financial advantage. I do believe that the energetic body has not been harnessed so that it can activate the physical body's ability to heal, not by most people and that is what I myself am trying to learn. And so I am tugged here and there, and still I did manage to get some work done. So much so I had to take a walk in the middle of the afternoon. Warm or not it was a nice day out. Plus I needed to walk off the shrimp fried rice I made myself for lunch anyway. By the time it was time to get Johnnie, I felt like I got a lot done... EXCEPT... my presentation that I wanted to get done. Oh well, guess what I get to do tonight after I pick up Johnnie? Anyway we went right to Panda Express after I picked him up. And I picked myself up some chow mein that I can augment with the shredded beef and brocollini. A perfectly healthy dinner I'd say. All in all I managed to keep Johnnie occupied. Gave him a writing assignment on how his day went. <I'm patting myself on the back that I thought of that one>. Made him do his STAR camp math problems he didn't finish. And still he got to play and play and play. And watch his Wild Kratts. As for my presentation, I actually started on it by 8 PM and of course Johnnie was in bed and asleep by 9:30 PM. That's when I got up again to finish it. I did almost 50 slides in all and even put in some new ones, fixed some old ones with new data. And by the time I was done it was 1:30 AM in the morning. Reminds of the old days when I would procrastinate and I would stay up and do my Tech Council presentations. That's ok. I will catch up on sleep tomorrow. It's all good. I got done what I wanted to do. That's a WIN.

Daily Wins Monday

So I started the day listening to a podcast from Joseph Goddard about how to practice manifestation by waking up and noting things during the day you can be grateful for because it had already happened. Even the act of going to sleep content with how things went your way during the day. I mention this because I got a call from Lisa first thing. First, she needed me to resend her Johnnie's daily pass. Turned out later all she had to do was refresh her gmail. Because I did send it to her at 6 AM this morning. However she mentioned that she wanted to support me for my October 19 talk and assured me she would there to pick up Johnnie that day I'm not there to do so. It was all I asked for. *** And I did note this as something that went my way today **** Huh... she actually thought of doing something for me. I am GRATEFUL for that boy! And then as I was doing my walk I noticed that I had gone all the way to B of A ATM on Sepulveda and I didn't put my Fitbit on! How the heck was I supposed to track all this activity? You KNOW how obsessed I get with my own numbers. I'm going to miss an entire 2000+ steps. But maybe not. I had brought my iPhone. And realized it did record the activity. And I still was able to get to 5000 steps recorded on my Fitbit when I put it on. Which means I got to 7000+ steps by breakfast and before I had even taken a shower. Things turned out my way anyway despite my own faux pas LOL LOL. And so with that there were 3 things I wanted to get done today for work. The first was the meeting with the NACHC people to confirm my live attendance as a speaker. With Lisa being cooperative, of course I'm going to go. I'm even looking at it as kind of a rehearsal for other speaking stuff in the future. Not on cybersecurity but maybe on manifestation and getting the outcomes you want. Yes I would like to help people do that. Anyway the meeting pretty much sealed the deal regarding my participation and all I have to do is put together my CCALAC presentation with the NACHC format and I'm good to go. I'll do that tomorrow. In the meantime I still have the Vermont construction meeting to do at 1 PM. I went out and got me a turkey hot lunch at Marie Callender's with the veggies and mashed potatoes and stuffing and everything. Cornbread too. It was a fine fine lunch. And then when the 1 PM meeting came, I wasn't even needed because I was the only one from QHC that showed up. And so I got to blow that one off. The last thing was to finish my Covid Vaccination reporting stuff. It was supposed to be routine but today my password for MyCaVAX got reset and I couldn't get into MyTurn for the state data. Damn. This one seemingly inconsequential event almost upset my entire afternoon. I tried to reset the password. Couldn't get an email to do so. Tried to look up old password. Seems like it wasn't recorded properly. Couldn't get into Chrome without a PIN to see it. What is that damn PIN? Now I get a last second request for the OCHIN HCCN risk reports for the Board. And OBTW I'm supposed to present it. I was never told this before. W-h-a-t? I don't have a copy of the report. My afternoon is u-n-r-a-v-e-l-i-n-g!!! Or not. I told myself THINGS TURN OUT MY WAY AND DO SO QUICKLY.  With that I took the correct actions. Called the MyTurn helpdesk. Got my password reset. Got the report I needed for the Board literally within minutes of asking OCHIN. So that urgency simply disappeared. And finally I got into MyTurn, got the data downloaded. Even finally found the PIN! It was the same password I had been using all along to get in to Windows!!! And so all that to simply finish my COVID vaccine reports. The last thing I needed to do for work. And then I went out and got to 13500 steps by 5 PM. Same amount I would have gotten anyway even without the extra 2000 steps that didn't count from this morning.  Yes things DID turn my way and I DID get my wins. Even the Johnnie hand-off ended up with me not getting the usual El Pollo Loco tostada salad. Lisa managed to keep me cooped up at home because I waited for her to drop Johnnie off. But drop Johnnie off she did and we had our usual Monday night anyway. So yes Monday did not turn out as neat and clean as I had expected. But things turned out my way anyway. Isn't that all that counts? And the vision of me sleeping early and soundly with Johnnie softly sleeping next to me? That happened too. It is all good.

Golf on the last Sunday of summer

I'm not exactly sure why I've wanted to blow off golf since these days on Sunday it's just Scott and I mostly. The newest guy the was supposed to join us, Daniel, hadn't wanted to play in the last few weeks. Maybe that's just the me that interprets that as some sort of rejection. It had been pretty simple to integrate Greg into the group back in the day. And that mostly happened during the time I was transitioning from being a married man to boot. Maybe it was because I took such pains to get us a 9 AM reservation at Harbor for today and when Chris and Daniel bailed, I let go of that hard-to-get reservation too. And replaced it with Altadena. I guess it was just easy when we had Greg. And no jab on Scott but it is different when it's just he and I. But then again, maybe I should just focus on how I can make changes and tweaks with my manifestation skills and use golf as my feedback loop. On that note when I woke up this morning, I focused on merely trying to stay as relaxed as possible when I'm hitting the ball. I know I screw up and mishit when I tense up. Which is the big difference between when i hit off the tee, which is now consistently pretty good and when I hit off the fairway, which is currently consistently pretty bad. And so now I know I need to bring that same level of relaxation to when I'm hitting on the fairway. And no better course than Altadena to practice that since this is the place I became aware of the fairway "program". And so it was that we were paired with just one more golfer this morning, which was really as good as it gets. And when I made a par on the first hole, I condemned the rest of my game by saying "I can go home now I made my par". Why did I say that? Still I blasted my tee shots off Hole 2 and 3 as if they were Chris bombs. And both times I hit the fairway shot well short of the green. But at least I didn't whiff badly. I still got on in 3 on both. And missed par putts on both. That's another "program" I have to work on. Still I told myself I need to control my whiffs. And though I had one off the tee on the long Hole 4, I at least got to the green in 5 shots. And THEN I missed my putt yet again. On Hole 5 I blasted it clean again and got it short of the green again. And chipped past the green on the 3rd shot. No par there. I got it in 4 on the next short Hole 6. And blasted another great tee shot off Hole 7. Man if only I can hit my fairway shots as confidently as my tee shots. What would have to happen for me to do that? Again on that hole, short fairway shot. On in 3, miss the putt. Sigh. Same on 8. Bad tee shot with an iron, but on the green next shot, missed the putt. Score a 4. And on the last hole, I finally yanked it left so bad, I hit the green sprinkler duct on the 2nd hot. And yanked it left again out of the sand. I made it on in 6. Got a legit 8. Sigh. It wasn't a bad outing. It wasn't a good golf game either though. But I'm glad I came out and I glad I got to play golf. And I reminded myself now that Greg isn't around I think about all the games we used to have. Scott is still here. We can keep playing. And hopefully, we will get to for a long time to come yet.

It took me an hour to get home today. Why I chose the route I chose is beyond me. I think I saw the congestion on the 5 and stayed on the 2 and when it ended, I took side streets all the way home. That WAS a mistake. I mean I did get to the course on time this morning even though there was the same trouble spot on the 110N. Today, We got done at 10:30 AM. I finally got to Culver City using Venice Blvd at 11:50. And so I just stopped at IN-N-Out and got me a double double for lunch. Hadn't done that in a while anyway. I went home, ate my double double and watched the RAMS win a thriller at the Colts. And watched the Dodgers win too. All these helped soothe the ache of the last minute UCLA loss last night.  And THEN I even managed to get a 30 minute nap in as well. There was nothing pressing or urgent for me to do today. I'm caught up with the journal. Most of the grocery shopping was already done yesterday. All I needed to do was laundry and I was good to go. Which meant I could chill the rest of the day away. Which is exactly what I did. I made a sort-of homemade stew with taco meat and veggies I chopped up and then poured sirloin steak burger soup all over it. Made me some biscuits and with leftover rice I was full for dinner.  So full, I had to knock off early tonight. Weekend is over. This is also the last Sunday of summer as the fall equinox is the week coming up midweek. Time to start thinking autumn...

Johnnie Saturday

So today is a Lisa work Saturday, which means that I get the whole day with Johnnie. For this entry I'm going to let pictures tell more of the story. From picking him up at Lisa's and then getting assigned some Lisa to-do's. Apparently it's her mom's birthday and she wants me to help Johnnie get a present and a card together. And then she handed me her pictures from Hawaii and asked if I could mail it to Joy. Just Lisa being Lisa. I'm not going to lie I like it that we just get to go off and have the day to ourselves. I gave Johnnie a shower, picked up breakfast at McDonald's and then off to do Lisa's errands. And then off to lunch. Panda Express Marina del Rey. Only because I wanted to get some Hansen's soda from Pavilion's. Only they didn't have any. I had to go get that from Instacart LOL.

The best part of today was hanging out at Mar Vista Park. Johnnie wanted to play basketball. I wanted to teach my son the basics and the fundamentals. And I had him to dribbling drills until he got tired. I'm not even going to say how that's the best part about being a dad. Teaching his son sports. Nothing beats that.

It was almost 7 PM by the time Lisa called to pick up Johnnie. Except that she wasn't calling to pick up Johnnie. She wanted to meet us at her house because she was in a rush to pack. Apparently she is going to her mom's house because they have a get-together for her birthday. And she and Johnnie are spending the night. So I had to help Johnnie feed the gecko and the turtles. And then I went on home and they went on to Pasadena. And then I watched UCLA blow a lead to unranked Fresno St with 54 seconds to go. Ruined a perfectly good day. No matter. The time with Johnnie was the best ever. It almost always is.

A Very Quiet Friday

So is Thursdays now my new chill day and Friday no longer the TANK DAY? After all how can it be a tank day when I'm still working at 4 PM? Actually Friday started like usual... which is get up really early and while still half-awake, get a tee time in for next Sunday AND generate a day pass for Johnnie, since you know - Lisa just won't be bothered to learn how to do the thing. I would definitely now put her in that bucket of healthcare folks that are technically challenged... kind of like some of the providers at QueensCare. That isn't a bad thing, and in fact it would probably serve me well to remember that about some of our QueensCare providers. That they are like Lisa I mean. But I digress... all i wanted to say was that I got up way too early like I usually do on a Friday and plopped right back to bed and when I woke up it was almost 8 AM. I wouldn't call that late really but I did want to see what was happening with the stock market today. That was when the idea of somehow being able to predict the stock market because you knew what it was going to do popped in my head. Like remote viewing the stock market. Has THAT been done I wonder? And if so, has anyone ever did it successfully? Clearly if I had that as a successful gig I wouldn't be telling anyone LOL. People would simply think I was a loon, even a rich loon at that.  Still the idea captured my interest and so there will be more to come on that to be sure. Honestly this morning I simply wanted to chill, have a nice breakfast. Take a shower even LOL. It had been a busy earlier in the week but now after the Tech Council Meeting I could allow myself to cruise. Even though I still had one thing left on my to-do for the week and that was to get up to speed on the upcoming NACHCH FOM/IT talk on cybersecurity.

There was something about thinking about that talk that made me super anxious. And it couldn't possibly be the talk itself. After all, all I'm doing is recycling the talk I did for CCALAC. Been there done that as it were. But here I am actually feeling a little bit panicky about it. Maybe it's because I thought I procrastinated about it so much I missed all kinds of deadlines (turns out I didn't and we have a meeting about it on Monday anyway). Sept 27 is the deadline to finalize sign on as a speaker. I can still back out. Do I want to? I'm thinking it's going to really put a crapper into the dropping-Johnnie-off routine but then again I have always pinch hit for Lisa when she has to go to the doctor or something. Isn't it about time she pinch hit for me for once? I time-travelled to a Friday 3 years ago when we were still working at the FRB (see pic posted) I went to the park to chill during that particular day. Did that on many a Friday. <Note: this was a period of time I did NOT need to time travel to. It was weeks before I ended up moving out of the Maplewood house so you can bet I was not in the best emotional state... smile on my face notwithstanding> Anyway these days all I have to do is step out of the house. But I never made it out today. Not even to do my steps. I stayed in pretty much the entire day actually. That is not only hard to do, it is rare. Even on a rainy day. After all, it IS a nice day out. Not even for lunch. I did a Trader Joe's Cuban chicken bowl for lunch augmented by the pork I barbecued yesterday. And then for dinner I made myself spaghetti bolognese a la Arnel. As I said I actually found myself to be busy in the afternoon, knocking off a meeting with Spectrum <they sure got me... giving me tix to the Rams game last Sunday, now I really had to meet with them at least LOL... but it really wasn't so bad> And then afterwards I actually did some work and I did more than I expected even. By the time I looked up it was already 5 PM. And then I let myself get sucked in to a mystery/thriller Chapelwaite which turned out to be an adaption of a Stephen King story Jerusalem's Lot. Great. Supernatural shit and scary to boot. Why was I watching this? Fortunately, only the first 3 episodes were free and I ended up getting to tired to watch anymore. And so it was this really did end up being a quiet Friday. Not a TANK DAY. But a quiet one at least.

Priceless

So today Johnnie has no school because it is Yom Kippur. And I started his day by actually having him watch a video about Yom Kippur and what it was all about. How it was the holiest day in the Jewish faith. How Jews practice atonement during this time. Of course Lisa and I have not raised Johnnie with any kind of religion whatsoever. He does ask the Universe not to give him bad dreams when he goes to sleep at night. I want him to know about the Higher Power of course and I will stick to steering him away from any type of religious practice. I am on the record that extremist religious practitioners have been largely responsible for most of the world's troubles for thousands of years. Yes that includes you too Crusaders. Hell why do you think I have a Spanish last name anyway?? But enough of that. Today I floated the idea that Johnnie and I should go watch Shang-Chi in the movie theater on his day off. And technically, since it's the Thursday after Tech Council Meeting day, it should be a TANK DAY for me as well. But alas I have back-to-back-to-back meetings all morning. I told him we'd go after lunch. I reminded myself just a week ago, I had a great golf afternoon after lunch and I intend to have a similarly nice afternoon today as well. Fortunately, Dennis cancelled our one-on-one which was the middle meeting. Kennedy was out so the IS Meeting went by very quickly, which left the EHR Team Meeting and that too was done inside of a half hour. And so I made Johnnie and I a boboli pepperoniand cheese pizza and off we went to the Landmark to catch the Shang-Chi movie. I posted a pic of the 2 of us. The last time Johnnie and I saw a movie inside a theater was a documentary about Egypt at the Cali Science Museum. When he was 3. This was actually the first time we're going to watch a big-boy movie together. And it sure was a BIG-BOY movie too. Funny how the theater actually had quite a few patrons. Much more than I thought for a 1 PM showing. As for the movie itself, I will admit there were parts where Johnnie closed his eyes and told me he was scared. But towards the end when Shang-Chi went to the mystical dimension of Ta-Lo and there were all these cool creatures, including a dragon Johnnie got really interested. Although by this time he had gone on to my lap. And there was where he saw the fight scene between good and evil, and the family scenes too. In my mind I was glad that there is a superhero he could identify with that looks like he does, just the same way African-American people identify with the Black Panther superhero and their advanced tech. Look at the last pic I posted of him doing imaginary fight scenes with his weapon(s) later on. In a word, the afternoon with Johnnie at the movies was... PRICELESS. It was one of those Magic Moment afternoons I won't ever forget. And I hope Johnnie doesn't either. And so it was that the rest of the afternoon we reverted back to script. I did some stuff for work, we went to Mitsuwa because I talked Johnnie into having a large bowl of udon for dinner. It was not too far from my mind that last week Lisa was having yet another meltdown about work. But I am prepared this time. And so when she called having the same complaints as last week. All I did was listen and ask how I could help. When I do that she will remember that all her problems have nothing to do with me. And in fact, she doesn't really even WANT ME TO HELP. I reminded her that perhaps when she sees her son. ANd Claire. And realize the magic they bring into life, then she can forget her problems if just for an instant. After all, I realized that magic this afternoon myself. Which made me able to handle whatever she can throw my way. She can TEN-RINGS me and all that will simply roll off my back harmlessly. And as it was it was a quick and quiet pick-up. Off they went and off I went to walk around my neighborhood. I reflected on my day some more. And basked in the gratitude of the afternoon. And quietly remote-hugged Johnnie and wished him a very good night. 

Another Tech Council Meeting

Another 3rd Wednesday of the month, another Tech Council Meeting today and it was more like a ho-hum thought actually since I had been long done with my presentation. So much so my focus this morning was getting product on Johnnie's hair since it had gotten so long it is literally covering his eyes now. This time though i don't think I want to cut it. It is growing long in such a way that he actually looks good. We will see what his mother says of course since she calls the shots there. In the meantime, at least I took a picture of him with his hair all neat, of course while goofing around with Brooklyn. She actually left him another love note, and told me to read it with him when we get home later. Ahh those two. And so I did the school drop-off, did my Data Team Meeting which took all of 20 minutes really since everything seemed to be under control, and then it's chill time until the Tech Council Meeting. What do i do during chill time? I walked to Chase Bank and activated the debit card for the joint account so I could start using it to pay for STAR. That was good for a 25 minute active walk. I made myself some lunch... did the whole noodles and ground beef thing. It is strange that I buy all this food for me to cook but then I don't feel like cooking it. And then of course I walked the dog and did steps at the same time. AND I watched some trading live action too. That one I know I'm not actually doing any trading but I'm hoping to keep it in front of me enough to get me going sooner rather than later. I realize now that my mindset wasn't right. It's not about getting to a certain point and then stopping after that. Not really. It's about learning a new skillset that will provide me income even AFTER I retire. If I feel like working to the degree I want. That's the key really. To the degree I want. My choice. I'll do it when I feel like it. And certainly judging by my lack of effort right about now, it doesn't feel like I want to put a whole lot of effort into it already. Anyway finally 1:30 PM came and guess what?! No Faith, No Eloisa, No Dr Liao, No Emma. All of 5 people came to my meeting. Including myself. LOL. It did not bother me in the least. Barbara was still there. And although my presentation got done in 45 minutes, she did bring up the Business Continuity Meeting yesterday when she and a couple of other people started bugging Daisy our Enrollment Manager about a dashboard my team helped her build. She was trying to show it off. Instead she got barraged by questions. The questions were legit no doubt. But I was not going to let the meeting devolve in one of our typical, let's solve this thing right here right now thing. So I cut it off. And Barbara must not have liked it. But really I wanted to say talk about not learning Emotional Intelligence. All she will hear no matter the intention was that it wasn't good enough. Is she likely to do the same moving forward.  I understand it's one of the things Barbara wanted to solve but hey c'mon. I told her flat out I wanted to give Daisy a lifeline. We should meet outside of that forum. Not with Eloisa not there anyway. So I am standing my ground on this one. Anyway, despite that ending, it was still a quick and painless meeting and afterwards a breathe-out was in order. I took a walk around the neighborhood and enjoyed another nice late summer day. I know it won't be long before it isn't hot anymore. But I think we still have a few weeks. And by the time it was close to 5 PM and time to pick up Johnnie, it was yet another quick trip to Panda Express to get him dinner. That is now the new routine. Pick him up from STAR, then go pick up his dinner. Tonight all I picked up for myself was a chicken egg roll. That's because I heated up the grojnd beef and bok choy that I froze from this past weekend. See I had a LOT of food. In the meantime, Johnnie ate dinner, then ate TWO Klondike bars again. I hope he doesn't get a tummy ache the way this kid is eating. I KNOW he doesn't eat like this at Lisa's house. So usually I take the dog out for an early evening walk and then give her a bath. But tonight I didn't do that. Give her a bath I mean. I simply didn't feel like it. I got ready to do it. And then sat on the computer instead. That would be the third week in a row that I am not giving her a bath. Hey it's not like she stinks right now. And with far less hair she is far less dirty... though she has gotten used to jumping on the couch and chillaxing there. I wasn't worried like I said. She wasn't that dirty. Johnnie on the other hand knew he doesn't have school tomorrow. And told me he didn't want to take a shower until tomorrow morning. Ok then. It's a cut-all-of-us-a-break night. We will all just chill.

Tuesday of The Busy Week

I'm still trying to convince myself that this week was supposed to be busy. But I had been so organized since Saturday that I'm actually not in any rush to do anything. I've been knocking off tasks left and right and I'm not as behind as I thought. Or at least I don't feel behind. I for one like doing my "Johnnie's dad" job and dropping him off to school and putting together his lunch. And watching him walk off to the entrance gate with Brooklyn. Aww those two. So cute. And still I was home before 8 AM. And had enough time to walk for a mile or maybe even two. Got to 3000 steps before breakfast. And so it was that I did my IS Team Meeting and then I put my head down and kept on working on my Tech Council presentation. I need to be done by tonight after all. I have a feeling there isn't going to be a rousing attendance there tomorrow anyway but still I have content to provide don't I? I actually got done by mid-afternoon, after which I lost all the changes I made because of.. well Powerpoint carelessness. And so I had to start all over again. And still I got all done before it was time to pick up Johnnie. See what happens when one is focused. AND I was still able to do some internal work.  After all there is still the process of getting to financial independence that I am waiting on to allow, accept, and enjoy. That is the duality of my world these days too. And still I was able to take my late afternoon walk and I happened to notice how nice it was outside. I felt the cool breeze in the shade and simply being aware of that was pretty cool. By the time I picked up Johnnie it was 5 PM and he was his usual funny self when he got out of STAR. It was actually nice seeing pictures of what the kids do in there a few times a week. At least I know he's engaged and playing with the other kids. It was funny how he told us about a clique called the Bros headed by Aviv, a perceived troublemaker from their TK days. I hope this isn't a preview of the teen years for these kids because Johnnie is adamant he does not want to hang out with those "Bros" and that is probably a really good thing. What has to happen for me to keep him the sweet kid that he is? Johnnie and I went right to Panda Express from school. I mean it was already time for his dinner anyway and since we got there fairly early, there was no problem getting parking at the Westside Pavilion. In addition to Johnnie's teriyaki chicken I picked me up some broccoli beef for me too. I know I had food at home but I really didn't feel like cooking anything for dinner.  I didn't feel like cooking anything for lunch either. It was all I could do to put some turkey in between hawaiian bagels and eat that sandwich. I decided I was eating too much anyway. Something I can say for Johnnie too. He ate his chicken, then a couple of ice cream sandwiches, cookies. Look at the pic of him eating said ice cream sandwich yukking it up while I snapped a pic.  And later on popcorn. Because he started watching Space Jam Legacy again. I even watched some of it with him. AFter all, I was already done with my stuff. And so it was that this busy Tuesday didn't turn out to be too busy after all. Not urgent busy anyway. Felt pretty leisurely in fact. I even took Claire the dog out for a longer than usual walk. And then back to the routine of getting Johnnie showered and in bed by 9:30 PM. I already think that's just a tad later than I should especially when he mentioned last night that he was tired from not having slept enough from the night before. I didn't even want to know. For me, when he's under my watch, he's going to get plenty of sleep and he's going to get plenty of food too.  This day didn't turn out to be much more than routine. But that is exactly what i strive for, at least when Johnnie is with me. Routine. Because that so-called routine is plenty good enough for Johnnie and I.  Oh one more thing about today...today was the recall election for the Governor of California. I thought it was a stupid exercise, particularly if the replacement is some Trump fan boy like Larry Elder. Yeah right. Would heavily Democratic California really be apathetic and let a few loud Republicans win? Nope. The recall failed almost 2-1. Thank God there is some sanity in this world...