July 03 - 17, 2009 (Friday - Friday x 2)
''(Double-Week Extention) in Review''

(The past couple of weeks were so much pressuring on me-- tired, depressed, unmotivated, distracted with other projects, etc. --that I just could not bring myself up to the point of maintaining any journal updates as somewhat significant events occurred.)

The Friday, the day just before the  ''Independence Day''  holiday, I made a mad rush to buy initially some grocery items that were part of the holiday promotion, but turned into more of an actual shopping trip, as I was running low on certain items anyway. During one of my trips I had finally given in and purchased butter for the first time in I can't recall how many years, only because I simply I learned earlier that I simply cannot eat any of my remaining lobster tails without it. I tried not to buy too much, because I was still somewhat unsure as to how much longer I may find myself riding the wave of uncertainty regarding any plans to return to the Mainland, but during my ''Safeway'' trip I was surprised to see that my  ''Amy's'' pesto pizza,  which I have so fallen in love with, were being stocked at their store (for how long, God only knows... after all, I do 'favor' the product very much, and I know all too well the ''pattern''); not only that, but they were ''regularly priced'' at 'nine-something' dollars each (unlike at ''Foodland,'' where they're priced close to $14!), and they were being offered at a ''sale'' price of SIX dollars! ...So I did the only thing I felt I had to do: I put ALL of what they had in the display case in my cart (13 total, barely able to fit all in my freezer)!

The next day (Saturday, July 4th) I received a call from my sister in Missouri and we yakked & argued about stuff for a couple of hours. I had planned to watch fireworks, but yet again I found myself being too lazy & too tired.

The next Thursday (9th) and throughout that weekend I was hit with the most severe case of facial rash as I'd ever experienced in my time of ''being allergic to Hawaii.'' Everything was burning, dry, tight & cracking, much like the healing process of a sunburn. I had to wonder if a combination of my having washed my face with shampoo, followed by the prescribed ointment, and later by petrolatum may have caused a side-effect reaction?

That same Sunday (12th) I answered a call from my former ''Kapiolani Community College'' co-worker, Mike. He was telling me that what I had predicted for the future of the company he still works for (my former employer) is beginning to come true in a big way, having lost nearly all of their major contracts with the State and the City/County, saying they've still managed to keep the University main campus at Manoa for the time being. He told me that the situation's getting so bad that they've actually been getting delayed in getting paychecks out on time and had even gone for an entire week without getting paid.

In other personal news, he's informed me that his relationship with his wife is still degrading and that he doesn't believe they'll be able to hang on much longer. After some probing & prying, he seems to connect the problems they've been experiencing to the computer his sister bought for them, when his wife began becoming immersed in becoming an active participant on the "networking" site,  ''MySpace,''  where she's been in constant flirtation contact with men from all around the country.

Speaking of being immersed ''online,'' I've been delving quite heavily into posting (and viewing) ''YouTube'' videos, which is a large part of what has been keeping me from getting all of my other important affairs in order, along with being just plain tired & unmotivated all the time. I've been trying hard to focus on getting my arguments structured & organized for a ''playlist'' series I've been developing on my rejection of Non-Straight ''marriage''.

This was supposed to be the week that ''YouTube'' was to FORCIBLY switch everyone over to the new, ''degraded'' channel pages. So since they were insistent on forcing us into using a format the vast majority of us did not like, I spent the day prior to the Wednesday, July 15 ''deadline'' scouting the internet for a viable & comparable alternative, and not finding much of anything that even remotely measured up. Even so, I did create an account on the site known as ''Viddler'' (using my same ''YouTube'' identity) and posted a video on ''YouTube'' to inform my few followers/subscribers what all was up. I kept anticipating the switch-over all day/night Thursday (which was a very active day/night for me on the site), but when it got to be late into the evening (''Hawaii Time'') and still no signs of change, I decided to check for any update information, and it was revealed that ''GoogleTube'' could not meet the deadline because they were still experiencing too many problems with the actual operation of the B.S. new design/format (Duh!), so they're not indicating when the switch is actually going to take place.

It also seems that ''Tube'' is trying some scare tactics in order to get people to ''up[chuck]grade'' to the latest web browsers on the market-- including ''GoogleTube's'' proprietary ''Chrome'' browser --by hammering me constantly in the face with their 'alert' that they will be phasing out support for my preferred browsers. But I came to discover that these things are only slapping me in my face in  ''Windows''  OS, and that no such alerts crop up anywhere on any of my OLD-ASSED  ''Mac''  OS or associated browsers (although I still cannot get  ''Opera''  to log into my ''YouTube'' account, even though I've installed the most recent version of that browser).

And very early at work this morning (Friday the 17th) I came upon a lost $20 bill lying just outside of the second-level's electronically secured annex building's doorway.

And earlier in the previous week (I lost track of the actual date, but I'm almost certain it was the evening of Tuesday the 7th) I was pounding away on the computer when I kept running my tongue across a sharp spot in my far bottom-right 'wisdom tooth' inside my cheek. I kept thinking it was so hard food particle that got stuck that was trying to work its way out, which really did not make any sense, since I had not eaten anything quite that hard or shelly that day. Before I decided to get up & get around to taking a look & pick at it in the mirror my tongue finally managed to knock it loose. Curious, I decided to take a look at it in the bathroom, because it felt like a chipped piece of tooth, which I could not understand, since I had not caused any trauma to the area. When I got to look at it, the piece resembled a hard large yellowed chip of tartar, but before I could examine it more closely it fell somewhere and no matter how or where I searched (including shining flashlight, sweeping, & sifting through all the swept-up material), somebody hated me just enough to make certain I did not relocate it. Several minutes went by, however, and another similar looking piece fell loose. I swear, it looked nothing at all like a piece of tooth, but there was that huge tell-tale hole where about a third of the tooth was missing, along the side next to my cheek, down to gum level. Oddly, no pain or other discomfort; nonetheless, it's turned me into a semi-obsessed paranoid freakazoid, making sure I give the inside of my face constant care (or perhaps ''overcare'').

July 20, 2009 (Monday)
23:55, Hawaii Standard Time.

Highly eventful day, beginning at work where among other things that kept me unusually on my toes was a situation where I was stopped by & asked to render assistance to a woman who had claimed to have fallen into the canal-- the rat/leptospirosis-infested ''Nu'uanu Stream'' --and as a result of having engulfed some of its water was having a severe asthma-like attack with excruciating chest pains, gagging labored breathing, along with reddened eyes and streams of mucus from her nostrils. Of course, when the EMS ambulance arrived, my instruction to the dispatcher to have the vehicle drive right in to the central area of the ''Sun Yat Sen Mall'' where we were actually located at the municipal water fountain there, was either not expressed or completely ignored, so I carted the woman (''Diana'') down to where they had stopped the vehicle on Kukui Street rather than have them stroll with a gurney through the area to meet with us in the central area.

Before my work shift ended I presented my old 24-inch  ''Huffy''  bicycle (which had largely been sitting outside unused for months ever since the brakes finally went all shot to hell on it) to the maintenance supervisor of the facility where I work since he routinely accepts cast-off bicycles from people getting rid of them, fixes them up wherever they may need repairs, and ships them off to his nephews & nieces in the Philippines.

Back at the apartment, after working on the computer while eating in bed, as I was wiping pizza crust crumbs off of my mattress I noticed what appeared to be a juvenile cockroach crawling up toward where I was clearing the food particles off, but it did not scurry away in the same manner as these little invasive bastards normally do, and was still there when I returned with the roach killing spray. After zapping it I noticed that it also did not die in the typical fashion a roach does, so I decided to take a much closer look at it. What I saw resembled what I remembered ''bedbugs'' are supposed to look like, but I thought it was much to dark to be such, so I did a check on the internet, and sure enough that was exactly what it was! (Several months ago, the residence had posted alerts on the bulletin board downstairs regarding bedbug infestations, but I never dreamed I would be affected, since I basically keep to myself.) Because I could never identify myself as having any of the characteristic ''bite marks,'' my assumption was that this one had somehow managed to find its way into my domain -- but since I always try to operate on the principle that  'wherever you spot one pest, dozens more are in hiding close by,'  I checked all of the creases in my mats, and sure as gravy, there they were! Not a major infestation, but still, just 'one' is a hundred-thousand too many! I don't believe they are any more hiding anyplace else, but who knows with these things?

August 5, 2009 (Wednesday)
22:25, Hawaii Standard Time.

Kept myself busy running around yesterday gathering together & handing off all of the various paperwork I was told only last week Monday that was needed for my rental lease ''recertification'' which these ''jafos'' at the property management company are finally getting back on track with after how many years now. The newest resident manager, a big African-American guy named ''Redd,'' dropped this bombshell on me after having first informed me that I had until last Thursday to submit copies of my documents verifying my income, but during the apartment inspection that Tuesday (since he did not show up for it the previous day as we had originally scheduled) he informed me that the property management office had thrown the new deadline on his back out of the freaking blue too, changing the submission deadline to the date of our originally agreed upon 'inspection' date. When I got indignant about the last-minute switch he informed me that the property management office supposedly sent me several reminders in the mail which, keeping in line with their new way of bringing all sorts of misery & grief to my humble existence (possibly setting the stage for another attempt at ''legal action'' to be taken against me like the last time I dealt with this same sort of incompetence), never saw the light of day. I was given the name & number of the new site manager and called him immediately after the inspection was over and bitterly informed him that I did not at all appreciate going through all this mystery garbage again & finding out shyt at the lastest (sic) possible minute! (Of course, he wanted to hear no bit of it and was utterly unconcerned that somebody on their end was screwing up major 'big time,' being only interested in getting the necessary paperwork submitted a.s.a.p.) So partially out of laziness, partially out of distraction with other affairs, and partially out of spite, I waited until yesterday to try to get all of this stuff compiled (I had actually planned on getting it all together the previous day, Monday, but I was very groggy & fighting off a headache and wound up sleeping most of the day away).

While gathering, sorting & reviewing my documents I spotted a discrepancy in my paychecks which sent me into a mad rush about the apartment to try to find what appeared to be a missing or misplaced paycheck. I did find a lost check... however it was from back in January and had just exceeded the 180-day ''void'' date. So I took said check to the company office along with the ''income verification'' form they needed to fax over to the property management company and asked them to submit a request for a replacement. While at my employer's office I also put in a request for vacation time (which will be the first time I've ever been granted an 'employer-paid' vacation the entire time I've lived in Hawaii) and made mention that I'd finally like to trim off a couple of days from my routine work schedule, though it will most likely mean 'reassignment.'

Before leaving for the run about town I left my other docs with the resident manager so he could fax those items to the property management office, rather than my wasting my own money making photocopies of each of them. Then, as I suspected, because of having sat completely idle ever since the ''Pali Highway'' incident a month & a half ago, I had difficulty getting my motorcycle engine to crank over; fortunately it did, but not without worrying me that the strain might completely drain the battery again.

Before returning to the apartment I went to the post office to check on my mail, since I had not done so for at least a couple of weeks, and was pleased to find that my ''replacement'' DVD of ÅuâŒêÇÇÈÇÃïÊÅv(''Hotaru no Haka'' / ''Firefly Grave''), the ''Region-2'' $50-ish official Japanese release had arrived as soon as it did (I had noted just a couple of days ago that after a delay of about two months a charge had been made to my credit card, indicating that they were about to ship the title). What I did not realize until I got back to the apartment was that this was not the same material as the edition I had sent back to Singapore for replacement before they had informed me that the title was no longer in stock (which it had been again when I decided to put up the extra ducats for the ''R-2'' version rather than risking a repeat of the negative experiences I had with the other $10 job, particularly the sloppy ''translation'' subtitles), but was instead a theatrical feature motion picture which had been produced some years after the ''made-for-television'' special which I had originally purchased & which I was completely unaware of. (Now, of course, I want a replacement of the TV version disc all over again.)

After the post office I decided to hop into the motorcycle mechanic shop to ask them if they could adjust the brake levers for me, as the right lever was playing very loose as opposed to the tight feel I'd always known, and that having two radically different 'tensions' on each lever was severely throwing me off. The mech bled the fluid line a bit, which resulted in a much better but still not quite even feel.

Most of the remainder of last night and virtually all day today consisted of downloading, editing, accepting, rejecting, and sorting ''final selection'' images for my screensaver photos folder.

August 21, 2009 (Friday)
22:35, Hawaii Standard Time.

Been back to work since Wednesday, and was disturbed at how in such a very short time things can completely go to hell. One of the most infuriating problems we've been endlessly going up against involving a particular gaggle of elderly Chinese immigrants who (1) think their age entitles them to ignore rules & regulations and (2) feign lack of understanding of even the most rudimentary English and (3) have a hate-inducing habit of ignoring persons of authority anyway! They're clearly sneaky & calculating, always attempting to take advantage of any ''new face'' hired on at our site, and they really took over like gangbusters the week I was away when they took advantage of the several clueless (of no fault of their own) temporary workers who covered for me in my absence. After my first encounter with these disrespectful selfish old weasels, wherein I ended up calling police, who could do nothing by the time any responding officer arrived because they (including the two consistently most problematic women of the whole bunch who were the only ones who had still refused to leave even as the call to police was being made) had all already vacated the premises by that time. In discussing the situation with the responding officer, his only recommendation was that Plaza management post signs informing outsiders that unauthorized access means just that. True to form, of course, after I had submitted that recommendation to Plaza management I received answer this morning that the request was outright refused, thereby giving me further inclination that I should be seriously considering that my time both at that job and in this state are approaching their rapid conclusion.

Part of my reasoning for taking the time off was to prepare for that inevitable move, but I was caught up mainly in editing & assigning images designated for my computer screensavers, feeding my ''YouTube'' addiction, and sleeping, only getting myself outside the first day of my vacation to fight with the property management people again (re: making us ''mail in'' rent payments again), visit the ''Ala Moana Center'' food court, and washing my motorcycle several days later after  ''Tropical Storm Felicia''  downgraded to a tropical depression and brought almost no rain at all to this island.

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