changes

I got laid off from Sony and was a part of a month-long trial as a jury member for the federal district court. The federal court experience was a good one, though there were certainly many boring moments. The hard thing was that it coincided with the store closing. There was a 2-week period where I had not been that busy for awhile. I could have just done jury duty and put off work at Sony, but decided against that since the store was closing. Therefore, I ended up going into Sony during the evenings after being in court as well as when I had days off from the trial. But now all that craziness is over. I miss the people I worked with at Sony but I'm thinking it's a good thing to be done.

One smaller change is that I finally got internet at home (though I am writing this in a coffeeshop). Like I told my friend, Mary, I like to join the current decade a little late. It's probably why it took me so long to get a digital camera or an MP3 player. Working at Sony definitely helped with getting my electronics updated.

2 things to check out that you may now know too much about

One book and one movie on two very different topics. But they are both enjoyable and give you lots of information on its given topic. The first is a book called Staley: The Fight for a New American Labor Movement. The second is a documentary movie called Scratch. The former gives you an in-depth look of a labor strike in the mid-90s from the workers' point of view. The latter gives you the history of the DJ in hip hop music.

I grade part time for the Labor Education dept at UIC. Staley is a new book published this past year by one of the professors, and is really an engaging story. Not only does it talk about the struggles the Staley workers faced, but also gives you a brief history of the company as well as some nuggets of labor history in general. I found myself very drawn into the story while reading the book, and was fortunate to go to a Q&A with the authors and a couple of the workers who were a part of that labor movement.

In a similar fashion, the documentary, Scratch, gives you an overview of how the DJ started hip hop music with some turntables. It is plenty enjoyable for those both familiar and newly initiated with the genre and lifestyle. A lot of rare interviews and performances from legends in hip hop including DJ Shadow, DJ Q-Bert, DJ Babu, and loads more. If you find a copy of either of these, I highly recommend checking it out.

Braveheart...and Collateral

The last time I watched Braveheart all the way through was a few years ago...until yesterday. I finally dusted it off my DVD rack. Strange since it was one of my favorite films of all time. Watching it again reminded me of why I love the movie so much in the first place. As Robert the Bruce's father says in one scene- "Uncompromising men are easy to admire." For all you Braveheart lovers out there, just a quick note that while it is based on a true story, many characters, events, and details where fictionalized or altered to fit the movie story better. Despite that, it's still obviously a great movie.

The action scenes are still exciting, from the first revenge battle sequence to the Battle of Stirling. The dramatic scenes still work amazingly well, particularly the ones with no words and filled with stares and looks. I was just reading through all the goofs on imdb and was surprised to see so many. I don't care though. It's still a great film. I'd probably watch it more often if it wasn't 3 hours long.

The last time I watched it in its entirety was really late at night with some friends during a visit to Iowa a few years ago. There's a girl I know there named Jaime who absolutely loves the film, even more than I do. She can pretty much quote the whole thing. I miss those Iowa friends. I haven't seem a lot of them in awhile, especially Jaime.

Another movie of note is Collateral. It's probably my favorite movie with Tom Cruise because his assassin character is so well developed and he sheds a lot of the personality that you see in most of his other films. It's also directed by Michael Mann, which almost automatically means that it's good.

totally not getting married

I know most of my friends don't agree with me, but this is something that I've considered for the past year or two now. I was just at my cousin's wedding in Detroit this past weekend. It was beautiful, from the rooftop ceremony to the non-conventional breakfast food reception "dinner" to the beautiful couple that is my cousin and his wife. With all the relatives around, of course it was prime time for them to ask me where my girlfriend or date was. Not seeing anyone, I respond. Well when are your aunts from Hawaii going to come back and visit then, they ask me. I don't know. Hopefully another occasion will come.

I have this friend named Jennifer. She's a friend from college. Didn't even hang out with her very much then, but now she's one of my favorite people here in Chicago. She's become a very good friend. I started to teach her guitar about a year ago. She's social enough that I could introduce her to other friends and she would carry on a conversation. I am very comfortable in my own skin when I hang out with her. Sometimes we would talk about relationships in general. She's asked me a couple of times what kind of girl that I go for. I would say the type of girl that I'm friends with and who I trust. Oh, and someone who plays guitar, too, but then she'd be onto me. I should mention that Jennifer met this wonderful man in Africa during her time in the Peace Corps who she is now engaged to. By no means would I get in the way of that. In fact, I'm very much looking forward to the day when I can meet him (he's still in Africa). But that still leads us back to the title.

In Blue Like Jazz, Don Miller says that if you like someone you should tell them. I never brought this up with Jennifer...yet. I will. Even though I have no intention of having a romantic relationship with her at all, I think it's still important to talk about stuff like that.

There really isn't anyone else in Chicago. I was just talking to my brother about this last night. I told him how I'd want to ask out someone who I started become friends with and who I trust. No one else really fits that criteria who is available. It's amazing that despite the number of people that I meet, hardly anyone takes the time to become friends and build some trust.

It was nice talking to my brother last night. We hadn't seen each other too much lately, but we got to have this nice, serious, but short, conversation on the ride home. He really put the whole "relatives bringing up girlfriends and other things every time you see them" into perspective for me. To be honest, it really started to bug me at my cousin's wedding. Don't get me wrong. I still enjoyed myself and was really happy for them, but I couldn't really reach out and be social too much while I was there.

I think I'll end here before I start branching out into a million other things...


blessings

reading

I was never into fiction before, but I totally dig spy novels now. I read Casino Royale and then went through all the Robert Ludlum Bourne books. Obviously the books are better even though I've devoured all the movies. But now I have no more spy novels and I can't decide what to read next. Therefore, I'm going back to read books I've already read. Stupid since I have atleast 117 books on my "to-read" list but I'm getting reminded of why I liked those books in the first place. Said books are Brennan Manning's Ragamuffin Gospel and Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz. I hadn't been into Christian spirituality books in awhile but as I said, I'm being reminded of why I like those books so much in the first place.

If you're not sure if you should go through those books or not I recommend a chapter in each of those books. I can't remember the exact chapter in Ragamuffin Gospel, but there's a powerful story about a time that Brennan Manning was attending an AA group retreat. In Blue Like Jazz, chapter 7 titled Grace (though almost all of the chapters are good to me) still sticks out the most.

I'l have to get back to you on that chapter in Ragamuffin. Until then, keep reading...

life update

Denver was awesome! Pics are up here. I got to see a bunch of people I wanted to see, including a band called the Autumn Film. I checked out some art in Boulder with Kim, met some cool people during a game night at my friends' Sara & Patrick's place, went to a couple bars, and watched the Oscars.

Checking out one of our DSLR cameras at work. Really need to learn more about these, especially since I want to own one in the future. So if you're around Chicago and want to help me learn more, please let me know. Otherwise, I'm sure there will be a lot of the city and my niece to shoot.

the most fun AND worst night in recent history

So I went to see Matt Wertz Friday night. It was a good show. It was with a couple friends plus a couple of their friends. You know how it is. The only problem was sitting back at the bar the whole time. I'm a fan of Matt Wertz but I don't know his songs well enough to where I would have enjoyed being down on the floor by the stage. And everyone back by the bar were talking louder than usual. I understand it's at the bar in the back and some talking. But there were some points where I was like- what are you doing at a live show at the House of Blues? A lot of people were not even paying attention at all to Matt Wertz and talking the whole time- rather loudly I might add. wtf. Why not go to a bar that is playing pre-recorded music?

Afterwards I went to a bar were my buddy Jimmy was performing with his band. That ended up turning out to be a lot of fun, but insane. The band was good and it was a good time, but ended up drinking too much alcohol and alcohol I shouldn't have had. I was in pretty bad shape and it took a whole day to recover but it was a fun just being with so many of the Sony guys outside of work.