Birthday Wishes

Happy Birthday, Google. It's been a fun seven years. I would've gotten you a gift but I couldn't find anything. Oh the irony.

Lawta Joizey Accents Hea

I find it interesting that a good amount of the people working here speak with distinct accents. It's not unexepected, of course, but I find it mildy entertaining. It sort of reminds me of noticing the differences in accents while I was in Europe (which, come to think of it, happened just last year; perhaps I'll blog a retrospective on it at some point).

Then it got me to wondering how accents came about (my horribility at work is evident in my ADD; I go off on a lot of tangents). What do other Tagalog accents sound like? I'm sure if I were to speak Tagalog, I'd have an American accent of sorts. But do Tagalog speakers in different regions of the Philippines have accents? That one guy on TFC seems to speak a little differently. You know which one I'm talking about? I forget which show. Is it Balitang K? I think it's one of those Filipino Hard Copy shows or something. I think it's TV Patrol. That guy cracks me up. I've heard Italian spoken with a Filipino accent while in Rome. That was entertaining, too. Hoy, tutto benne.

"Jeng, party of one."

Nothing eventful has happened since I arrived back in the East Coast on Sunday. Freddy left yesterday for Florida leaving me on my own again. For some reason it doesn't feel too different from working at home except I just don't have the option of calling a friend up and hanging out - I get up early, make my commute, go to work, go home. I should probably become better friends with coworkers but it's strange since I'm only here for the week and not here very often. Most workers here are older, too.

Last night I decided to explore my surrounding area (I'm about forty-five minutes away from New York City) of East Brunswick, NJ. About a ten to fifteen minute drive away are two malls that I walked around. Nothing too exciting; a mall is a mall (unless it's the Mega Mall or malls of that ilk, I guess).

I'm tempted to venture into the city just because I'm so close but I'm not that big on walking around shopping, especially now with a budget not conducive to spending on random things. Haha. But even with that budget in mind, I'm also tempted to drive into Atlantic City, NJ and... do some sight-seeing.

Anyway, I should probably get back to work. Sorry this has been another un-exciting blog. I feel rather lacking in the amusement department. Hopefully some inspiration will find its way to me on this trip. I bet a trip to Atlantic City would remedy that. Or maybe Scores. Hmm... Haha.

No Luck

I haven't blogged a real blog in a blog time. So here's one for you, reader.

I'm in Santa Barbara right now, helping to move my sister in as she begins her Junior year as a transfer student at UCSB. She brought a good amount of stuff so we spent most of the day just moving stuff and then shopping for stuff she was missing. Then after a hard days work, we went to a local casino about 30 miles away (Chumash Casino) and played some poker. My brother and dad also played while my mom and sister hit the slots. Everyone ended up winning (except my dad) with my sister winning $500. Not too bad, right?

Later my mom told us that she had forgotten her credit card at one of the supermarkets and by now there were $2000 in charges. Retarded! I don't get why things like this happen to us. It's ridiculous. Anyway, hopefully we'll be able to get the charges wiped from the card but in the meantime, I hope you rot in hell, asshole.

I'm pretty pissed about it but I'm tired and have no other ideas on how to rant on such a subject. I should get some sleep since I'm leaving from the Santa Barbara airport (stopover in San Francisco) tomorrow morning and will be off to Newark, NJ again for some work related stuff. I'm meeting Freddy there but he's leaving on Monday so for the rest of the week I'm on my own again. Who knows what I'll do? Any suggestions?

This half-assed blog is now completed.

A blog.

Happy Birthday, Eileen Tinio Buenviaje.

"Sleep is for the weak."

So here I am in the United Airlines terminal at Newark International Airport in New Jersey, ending my first two weeks of business travel. So is the life of a consultant the life for me? I guess time will tell. As of now, I can see myself continuing on this path.

How have my last two weeks been? Pretty different. Here's a run down of events:

After arriving Monday, July 4 in Newark, Freddy, my cousin-in-law and now boss, picked me up and off we headed to New York to have dinner with his brother. It was strange being in New York for another July 4 but it was cool. Good food and a good way to begin this trip.

The next day we got to work around 8AM. It was definitely a learning experience - a learning experience that continued until about 8PM that night. And then an hour or two after we got back to the hotel. In fact, I guess you could say I'm still learning and will be learning for a good while. I don't think I've ever been at a place of work for that long but for some reason it went by pretty quickly.

The next couple of days were similar up until Thursday. Freddy and I were scheduled to leave for Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Friday but because of hurricane warnings, decided to try to hop on a Thursday flight. If we hadn't, it was possible we would've been stuck in New Jersey for the weekend and that would've been bad news for business. We were successful in getting a flight change for free so we headed down and arrived there Thursday night.

Thursday night we took a cab to Freddy's house and were met with a house out of power. Apparently someone forgot to pay the electric bill (this is Freddy's first time being home in three weeks and my cousin, his wife, and rest of family have been in San Jose the past month and a half). So we go out to Miami, play some poker, then go to Scores in Miami (we also went to Scores in New York the night before we left for Florida). We didn't get home until around 7AM Friday. It was fun.

I'll continue this story later. I think I'm gonna order some food. I'm at the TGIFriday's having a beer and feel like cutting this story short. Besides, who's read this far anyway? Haha.

And away we go...

My cousin-in-law is a successful businessman with his own consulting firm. I don't like to ask for help in the jobs department often so last week it was with a bit of reluctance that I went to him seeing if he had any openings. It turns out he didn't really have any openings per se, but wanted to train me in the things that he does. And now my next couple of weeks are a bit booked.

He had me book a flight to New Jersey for some training. I leave on the 4th of July. I booked that yesterday. Today I just booked another flight from New Jersey to Florida on the 8th. He wants me to go there so we can set up another business opportunity he's working on. Then I fly back to New Jersey on the 11th. I'm in New Jersey until the 15th when I fly back home.

However, I may not be home for too long. It's still possible that if I do a good job, they may want me to go back on the 18th for another week or so. I definitely want to do a good job but all this travel is a bit intimidating.

I don't know if the life of a consultant is the life for me. But at least I get to find out. Wish me luck.