Hi there! How’s it going? So yeah, realizing that our time is (once again) coming to an end, I figured i’d write you. Oh how did I know this was the end? Well, earlier I was outside and the weather felt cool yet humid…you know, that feeling of limbo where you don’t know if it was worth bringing a jacket or not. Anyway, I must admit, we had our share of memories. And compared to your previous visits, there where more good than bad.

Ah Orlando, I probably lived more those 4 days than I ever have staying a month in Colombia. Sure there where goals to complete (it was the ALPFA Convention after all), but just being away from it all in a different location was amazing. I lost weight, I met some interesting people, completed my goals, and I lived. I also learned many lessons too:

1. packing lightly is nothing if i couldn’t pack efficiently.
2. stop being so humble and get a closer room.
3. after-hours plans usually never come to fruition.
4. a professional tailor calling my measurements out loud will be more effective than a personal trainer in terms of me doubling my efforts to stay fit.
5. don’t forget my ID (i have a feeling that my friend krystal is giggling as I speak).

I’ve learned a lot about people too and you didn’t disappoint in giving me such an amazing selection of quotes from friends:

“dude, Tosh.0 on a plane!”
“pop tarts store in times sq…that’s it im going on my break”
“venegas just touched my hand”
“dude this pan pizza looks like an albino hockeypuck…i want my $15 back”

…there’s more I could think of, but you get my point

But you know me Summer, can’t have the good without the bad. And though there have been less bad moments this year, I still have to vent..I vent because I care.

- Firstly, you continue to give the NY Mets just about the worst luck in baseball. It’s bad enough they have a bad record, but then you had to include “k-rod” and his inability to stave off his tantrums as the icing on a cake of fail. No matter what I’m a Met fan all the way, but seriously, a fan can put up with so much from the media, Phillies, and Yankee fans.
- The BP oil spill (and its greedy execs).
- The MTA. Seriously for the price we’re paying, we should be entitled the luxury of kicking the TA’s president in the cojones at least once for the board’s inability to carry the 2 and balance their checkbook.
- Apple’s inability to take responsibility for a failed antenna where instead they gave out free “hush cases”. Seriously Apple, free bumpers wont repair your cred when you’re too much in denial to accept that you have a defective product.
- Women who use the b-bomb to weasel out of a friendly coffee meetup…..it’s just fscking coffee, not a proposal!
- And Jersey Shore on MTV…enough said.

But aside from that, it was a good run fellow solstice…possibly the best in a long time. I already look forward to the next time when I get too sick and tired of cold air and ice. Tell Spring I said hello…i know it’s been a while. Lets just hope that Fall goes easy on me this time, and not ruin a good thing we got going.

Sincerely,
Jon

“you’re like that little angel that pushes me to go the right direction even if i feel like i’m not worthy”

“damn, she let herself go in that outfit”

“dude, poptarts in time square…no don’t look at me like i’m crazy”

Rog: dunno what im doing this year

Me: word

Rog: but will def see u guys soon

Rog: just been busy

Rog: love u f**kers

Rog: lol

Me: lol, right back at you guey

…never a dull moment, hah!

Time Keeping
After briefly reading at this article the other day, I couldn’t help but to reminisce the way i’d act whenever I took exams during my undergrad days.  In the end it really depended on the type of class, so I can’t say I stuck to one type of behavior.  During my calculus courses, I was a classic “yawner”…either because I used it as a way to refresh my mind with some oxygen on a tough question, or because I was just puzzled like 80% of the students in my class.  Don’t believe me? Observe this sample question:

Seriously, you try taking an exam with 10 of these questions without batting a frustrating yawn.  As for all other exams, I was (and still am) a proud time-keeper.  My specialty came in the form of multiple-choice exams where i’d always set some time before skipping or making a wild guess (kinda like the $100,000 pyramid).  If 5 finished earlier, I’d spend all my time carefully circling those !@#$% scantron forms…a hanging chad is more accurate than those damn sheets.

iPhone limbo
So the iPhone 4 is out…I mean I already knew about it thanks to Gizmodo, but still…I love it.  The hardware is a huge step up, so here’s my take on it:

• I love the extra battery power this can take…and I use my 3GS heavily so this is a welcome piece of news.
• So what if this doesn’t have 64 gigs? I have 32 gigs and it’s just fine for me.
• I’m not to big on the 5 megapixel cam because it just counts as how big a photo can be.  What IS the selling point is that not only does it have an LED flash, but it can also record HD video.
• Front and Rear camera? Yes please
• I think the glass/metal enclosure is sexy…so as long as it’s durable.  I’m not saying i’m a klutz, but mistakes happen.
• I think the “Retina” resolution will be a big step up…but I need to see to believe.

My only gripe about this phone is that it’s on AT&T…seriously Apple? It’s like unveiling a brand foreign new car with all the bells and whistles while saying it’ll still primarily run on the same crappy domestic gasoline.  C’mon…I love you guys but you’re inching me ever so closer to jumping ship to Google Android as my next phone of choice.

So in the end, will I give in and buy the iPhone 4? Well…I have the 3GS, and it’ll still be good for another year…so unless an extreme opportunity allows me to get it for dirt cheap, my 3GS and I will still be spending some quality time together.

Tooling
So i’ve had this blog since October of 2005…time certainly has flown.  Blink once and it’ll be the end of summer, blink twice and it’ll be five glorious of my rambling and musing that started as a suggestion from a friend to start a blog as a way to help cope with the passing of my late dad.  So where do I take this? Do I keep on the tradition and make this blog-only for the foreseeable future? Or do I try to make it into more of a portfolio? Who knows.  What I do know is that I will not be stopping any time soon.

Sunday morning @ Jamaica…no, not the country, the station.

The idea for this post game from reading a New York Times column with the same title. So I figured I would put my own personal spin on my routine on a typical Sunday. I must warn you in advance, if you’re looking for fireworks, skydiving, or hangouts at the crowded Studio Square…then you’re out of luck.  I do a lot of work and play for the rest of the six days per week.  My Sundays are always my time off from just about everything, my day to re-coup, unwind, and re-charge.  The only time I really go out on a Sunday is when I really need to. Otherwise, I keep it local.

- Sunrise what?
If there’s one thing I can guarantee you is that for most of my Sundays, I will rarely wake up early.  I love my sleep, my pillow, and the ability to check emails on my iPhone while lazily lying under the covers before i rest for “5 more minutes”. On rare occasions, I may find myself awake by noon…so in an essence, the day is sorta half-way done.  Taking advantage that my phone’s nearby, I put on some streaming internet music to get the blood flowing.

- Breakfast of choice
Most of the time I can survive just fine with a bagel or a breakfast bar with some tea.  I’m a tea fanatic as well as a coffee lover.  However I never drink coffee at home, and before you label me as a snob let me tell you why in one word: decaf.  On Sundays I like to splurge a little and have more than a bar…my favorite has always been waffles.  But lately it’s brought up some bad memories, so I’ve found myself joining forces with the pancake squadron.

- Best seat in the house
My desk can be a mess at times, but when I sit down to make my rounds from my laptop, I’m treated to a view outside my window to my neighborhood that looks artistically-pristine in any season. It’s late-spring, so everything is green, flowery, and allergically-beautiful.

- Take a minute
Since I’m usually at home or near home most of the day, I get the grand opportunity to think back on what has happened this week.  I get to re-evaluate everything so that I can figure out what steps when the next week begins…because by the time Monday rolls around, I’m usually making too many split-decisions to have time for a deep thought.

- Opposite of staying within the lines
In my family, I was raised by strict parents…I love them, but they ruled with an iron fist.  Nevertheless my twin brother and I where always the free-thinking rebels of the group.  And by “rebel” I don’t mean we where part of some underground gang…no.  We just thought outside the box and liked to challenge every rule, with thought.  To our family, it was “abnormal”.  To my twin and I, it’s just a different way of thinking.  Sometimes when I’m working on a project, I find myself working better late night than during the day.  My eldest brother will ask me

“why can’t you wake up earlier and work on it like a normal person?”

My reply is something along the lines of:

“because I’m not normal”

…where I answer with a grin.  See? I embrace my inner abnormality.

- Hulu-hooping
Unless the news is on, chances are there’s usually nothing good on tv.  So I like to take the time to hop on Hulu Desktop and catch up on all the programming I missed (LOST, FlashForward, V, The Office, How I Met Your Mother). Sadly, LOST is finished and FF has been canceled, so my choices are now limited.  By the time I hit the sack, I’ll be watching a podcast or playing a game on my phone from bed ’till i get sleepy, tucking the phone nearby as it’s light turns off while i sleep…only to scare me shitless awake the next day when it’s alarm blares at 545am.

Stay tuned…

It’s been something that’s been eating my mind for a long time.  As far as I can remember, the job hunt has never faired well for many of the nation’s unemployed because i’ll tell you all off the bat, being unemployed sucks…especially in a market like this when so much is expected and required in order to get a job that now we’re all resorting to pickling off the bones and bits of scrap left for us.  It’s become so scarce that we all become desperate and hostile just to land that dream job…but in the end, we’re all still talented people caught in the middle of a storm…and yet, sometimes we’re still pre-judged as less than who we are.

Yes,  I’ve been unemployed…and despite that I run a fairly successful freelance business, JK Design, and being heavily involved with the successful non-for profit organization ALPFA, i’m out for something big, with benefits, something steady where I can support myself and my family.  I have big goals and even bigger expectations.  Some of my other friends are unemployed as well but are just as dedicated as ever to succeed.  But lately, I have found that some people these days, usually the ones with jobs, like to prejudge the unemployed as less than who they are.  And as much as i’m sure there exists a very small demographic of “lazy” types, it seems that more people are becoming wrongly typecast towards that demographic…and not only so I think it’s demoralizing…frankly, it annoys me.  I’ve seen and known people with MBAs, experienced professionals, and those fresh out of the undergrad oven…unemployed and yet talented and trying. Yet when some people see them or meet them and they’re not in a suit or catching the rush hour out on the subway, assumptions start to fly…and let me tell you, it’s happened to me before.

I’m not perfect, but I’d never prejudge…simple as that.  I recall this girl I met at the gym weeks ago…I was minding my own when all of a sudden she caught my eye as she was working out in her suit.  Later on while stretching, I overheard her talking about something related to the job market and keeping busy.  I asked her jokingly if she liked to workout before hitting the cubicle, and she answered:

oh, actually I just came from an interview

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks…not only because my joke backfired (good one Jon), but because she was in my same shoes and the shoes of every unemployed American.  So I passed no judgment and immediately offered to help her out of unconditional goodwill.  After an exchange of resumes and numbers, a new friendship was forged.  This week she started her new job, and I’m happy for her.  Will I ever hear from her again? I hope so, who knows?  What i do know is that whether she was unemployed for weeks or years, i would have never prejudged her as someone less than who she really is, a talented person with potential and quintessential uniqueness.  Erika, if you’re reading this…I’m proud of you.

The second yet brief story happened in Colombia last January when I was heading to the theater downtown with my cousins.  We squeezed in a cab and where on our way to a bar when I noticed the music playing on the radio was classical…and not reggeaton or vallenato like every other cab.  Here’s how the dialog between the driver and I went:

Jon: i like this kind of music, its relaxing
Driver:  me too
Jon: not often i hear it in bogota, i hear it a lot in NY
Driver: that’s good, reminds me of my teaching days
Jon: you teach
Driver:  i taught classical composition at a college before being laid off
Jon: wow..i didn’t know that

I would’ve never prejudged that humble cab driver, but I can only assume so many others have.  I guess to sum it up, more people are unemployed these days…it can be frustrating to receive rejection after rejection from recruiters, it wears down our patience, but we all keep on fighting nevertheless.  To those who like to prejudge…please don’t.  Believe me you’re making yourself look very bad when, if any, you should be finding out why A or B person is unemployed before labeling them…you ever know, they could end up being your boss one day.

Fish-bone phobia
So, it  has been a while since I have posted an entry. Was it because of  Writers block? Partly. However, the other reason was because someone in the family fell gravely ill due to a fish bone lodged in the small intestine. The experience itself was dramatic, so I will not go into detail. However, what I can say is that it has changed my eating habits.  My best friend Abner is a bit of a health nut…however he has given me some of the best health advice on healthy eating and exercise.  And by “good health advice”, I don’t mean fancy numbers or charts or paying for equipment from infomercials, I mean the ability to work towards a goal in a realistic manner.  However, the only issue is that I have too nervous to eat any fish of any kind due to some fear that one day I’ll have a bone lodged somewhere in my system.  Chances are, it’s probably all in my head.  I’ll get over it, but until I feel ready I don’t think I’m going to be dining on mojarra any time soon. There are other ways to keep healthy, and so far I am doing a good job at it.

Toy nostalgia
I was browsing around my friend Veronica’s website, and I came across an interesting blog post about not only how toys influenced the way we develop as kids, but also the way he toys have changed over the years. now, as much as the article was very interesting to read there was only one thing circling my mind: toy nostalgia. Back in my young days (wow, I can’t believe I am actually saying ” young”), my family was not rich, therefore my selection of toys weren’t exactly plentiful.  I was not too much into G.I. Joe or He-Man,  but I was so into Legos. The fact that I could build something straight from the blueprints of my imagination made me a Lego fanboy. My brother Kevin and I built lots of neat things. We even applied existing structures into other things, like building a Lego tunnel for a train set we owned. it’s a little peace of nostalgia I hold onto every day. The toys of today are more of all, smarter, interactive… and that’s nice. But nothing will ever beat the ability to create something where the prerequisite is a good imagination, and plenty of bricks.

Obligatory iPad babble
So the question is, Will I buy an iPad? Unless I win it in a contest, then I have no intention of purchasing one any time soon. And the reason is simple. When the iPhone first came out, it only had four gigs of RAM and no third-party apps available (I refuse to believe that web apps on a device like the iPhone were actually going to carry on, when it obviously had the ability to do so much more).  I did not buy my first iPhone until after the app store was available, and until the storage increased from 4 to 16 gigs of RAM.  When I lost my 2G iPhone last spring, I was patient enough to wait until the 3SG came out that summer where I would bask in 32 gigs of glory.

Point being, I would rather play it smart and wait until the second version of the iPad comes out to see if it comes out with any worthy improvements.  And you never know, maybe Google may come out with an Android tablet strong enough to convert me.  Yes, it is possible to convert Apple users as well. I am a big fan of of Apple products, and will always be that way.  However, they’re making it difficult for people to innovate and help make the iPhone perform to it’s full potential…which is what Google is not doing.

So let’s see how the iPad performs this time around…impress me Steve, impress me.

- i still hate converting to metric

- i love to eat fried mojarra

- i always get skinnier and sexier

…more to come later

So just because I’m celebrating the holidays in a village 4 hours from Bogota where it seems like time has halted, doesn’t mean I’m not going to find a way to keep an honored tradition alive and well…festivus. And it seems that 2009 did not disappoint in making my list of grievances quite lengthy. So without further ado, on with the show:

- Getting sick on the plane. Simple, I got bronchitis and paid for it badly. Regardless, it still beats the stomach flu.

- having to convert to metric for just about everything. It’s a pain in the neck, why can’t our country just jump on the metric bandwagon?

- The draconian rules that regulate the App Store. Then apple still wonders why people still jailbreak their phones.

- The Jersey Shore

- The earbuds that come with the iPhone that seem to last about a week before they fizzle.

- Cable TV in Colombia…and I thought Time Warner had a cheesy selection of channels.

- That telemarketer who called me while I was in Bogota. The caller ID did not look anything like a real number, but when I found out who it was, I hung up. Still. t-mobile was going to charge me $3 anyway…fail.

- ABC who decided to cancel FlashForward…why? I mean you couldve cancelled V instead.

- people who gloat about their vacation plans every day for weeks before their travel date knowing that in this economy, some people can’t afford said luxury.

- The NY Mets…as a fan, again you find new and amazing ways to dissapoint me. I won’t go into semantics, but aside from blowing the season, I now have to hear it from Yankee fans every day.

- Windows 7…it still annoys me even when I try to use it.

- Still no flash for the iPhone…what the hell

- The bigwigs of the NYCMTA…if this was a driving society like Miami, you all wouldn’t last a second. I hate you like I hate swine flu.

- repeated pop-up msgs on my phone reminding me about the affects of data roaming…yes, I get it, it’s been disabled already!

(I’ll add more as they pop in my head)