Category: Life and Stuff

Ever try to paste something using “⌘V” but accidentally just hit “V” instead which opens the Scratch Pad? Well, I just did on a huge project and it crashed (M1 Max MacBook Pro 64GB Ram) making me lose some work (thankfully auto-save is a thing).

If you’re clumsy like me and keep hitting that dang “V” key by accident, do yourself a favor and remove that hotkey assignment (or if you use the Scratch Pad frequently, assign it to a different key) in the preferences pane as follows in the screenshot:

• Left 3 screens: iMac 27″ retina (1st gen!) for coding
• Middle 2 screens: Windows gaming, streaming, and video editing
• Middle CRT: Hooked up to SNES for Super Metroid speedruns
• Right two screens: Mac mini DAW

I forget when this picture was taken, but it has to have been around 2014-2015. One day, I will have enough space to make a new mancave 😀

Sabrina and I have been engaged for four months now! Eeeee :D She got me a gift, but couldn’t wait to give it to me, so she gave it to me a day earlier hah.

She has been raving over a pair of Zorries that she bought herself a week or so ago, and I guess she wanted me to have a taste of it too. They’re called Nike Comfort Footbeds.

When I finally unwrapped and opened up her gift, I was so excited! My recent pair of comfortable zorries had just retired indefinitely, and she knew I was on the market for a new pair. Plus, she kept making moaning noises whenever she put on her own pair, so it was nice to finally see what the fuss was all about.

And holy crap, these are the most comfortable pair of zorries you will ever own. All shoes should have whatever the bottom of these are made of. Thank you, Sabby! :D yayay

I reciprocated by taking her to get some sushi! We went to go try Rotary Sushi, which I know has been there since forever, but neither of us had ever been there, so we decided to go for an adventure. I don’t have any pictures from it, but two words can sum up the food there: fresh and expensive. Totally worth it though.

I went to Walt Disney World on Christmas 2013 for my brother Alan’s wedding. I hadn’t been there since I was a little kid, so I was stoked, mostly because I would be able to finally ride all the rides this time.

So one of the first things I see when I enter the Magic Kingdom is some teenager wearing a Sorcerer Mickey hat. He looked so boss wearing it too. I just knew I had to have one. So I did. I went to the nearest merch store I could find and I bought it without even thinking twice. I spent the rest of my week is Disney wearing that thing nonstop. I loved it so much. It was my most favorite thing ever. As a plus, when it would rain (and it did a LOT…c’mon, it’s Florida), the hat made a great hat-umbrella to keep the rain out of my eyes.

So, the next day after Magic Kingdom, I go into Disney Hollywood Studios, and I see the huge hat right in the middle of the park. Oh. My. God. I was so happy. And I saw a band playing under it too. It was the greatest thing I had ever seen in my entire life. I had no idea that the hat I was so in love with was a centerpiece of an entire park.

Anyway, when I read the article, it broke my heart a little bit. I really I hope I get to see it one more time before it goes down. Sabrina and I plan to take a trip there in a few years for our wedding/honeymoon in Florida (yayay), so here’s hoping!

Wow. Thanks to one of my best friends, Tim Fox Dominguez, for stalking my blog and showing my original post to me. I completely forgot about it until he showed me. I guess there’s no time better than now to provide an update to this post, exactly 5 years later.

Before I say where I am now, I’m going to criticize where I was 5 years ago, based on what I’m reading in my post. I worked. Hard. I mean, I still work hard, but I work less nowadays and give myself more breaks and more time for fun. I’m still just as ambitious as I was 5 years ago, but I definitely am bigger than I was 5 years ago. Ok, moving on…

Let’s check out my checklist for where I wanted to by 5 years from now:

• Day Job: Web programmer Full-time
• Day Job: Emergency Wedding Pianist (max 20 weddings instead of 40 I usually do)
• Saturday: Teaching Lessons
• Late-night: Gig one or two nights a week
• Sunday: DAY OFF

Let’s start off with what I’ve been successful with. SUNDAYS DAY OFF! This is definitely one of the huuuuge plusses of my life right now. I can’t believe I worked 7 days a week before. I mean, the income was good, but I’m glad I have way more time to do the things that I want to do (which is sometimes nothing hah).

The next thing I’ve been semi-successful with is a gig one or two nights a week. From where I was before, I wasn’t in a band, so that was my way of saying that I really thought I should be in a band. Well, I was in a band, High Rise, for a couple years. I still technically am with them, but we gigged for a couple years straight (and for a short time, twice a week). We eventually decided to take a break, but we are still for-hire for private gigs. So I guess I fulfilled my want for being in a gigging band. I’m glad we stopped gigging though, because staying up til 2am during a night can really take a toll on you.

Next subject! In terms of teaching lessons, I’m teaching 6 days a week now instead of 7. Teaching lessons is really good money, and I don’t think, at least at this point, that I can sacrifice my weekday teaching. Maybe when my programming business picks up, I can take it easier on the weekdays. I really hope that’s the case, because sometimes it can be such a drag to teach until 7 every day.

As for my day j obs, I am still a wedding pianist full time, although the wedding biz is slowing down. I think I actually may catch “the fear” (Friends reference) and be scared into trying my hardest to be a web programmer full-time. We are losing one of our most popular wedding chapels, Crystal Chapel (Nikko Hotel), so I expect my numbers to go down by a lot starting early next year.

So it looks like I’m doing pretty good for where I wanted to be 5 years ago. I’m extremely happy with my life right now, so there! That’s my update for my 5 year ago. I guess there’s nothing left to do now but to maybe post another 5 year goal pretty soon. Guess I’ll get started on that pretty soon :)

Yes, yes, I know that Frankenstein is the name of the doctor who created the monster.

So Sabrina and I were walking around The Dungeon (store in Guam for all things costumes) for a good hour or more, looking for a quick costume we could put together for Livehouse’s Sunday Night Showcase.

After picking up $50 worth of items, we were still hesitant to check out because of how expensive our items were just for one night. So fast forward, we found these nuts and bolts that go through your head, and they were only $0.50 each! So we just picked up some green face paint, and voila! A couple’s costume for less than $10 :)

We rocked out hard that night to Trey Cunningham, FiF, and Freedom Fries before we had to call it an early night. We did, however, get runner-up in the couple’s costume contest, so that was pretty fun.

More updates to come on actual Halloween with our for-real costumes!

On the Seventh Night of July, 2014, I asked my girlfriend, Sabrina Borja, to marry me. And she said uhhhh…ummm….uhh.snifffffffff..whaa…snifff..wha..uhh..?!! *nods*

The short version of the story of how it built up: We were in Sydney, Australia for a Guam Territorial Band trip. Her favorite band piece for the longest time is entitled “The Seventh Night of July”. So since I knew we’d be in Australia on July 7, I bought a ring before we left and planned to propose to her. Little did I know that we were scheduled to play in the Sydney Opera House, playing The Seventh Night of July ON July 7, 2014. Everything lined up perfectly, and at the risk of sounding overly romantic, it was really magical.

So her response? It was the cutest thing ever hahaha. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind she would say yes! So, when everyone was asking me afterwards if I was nervous about asking, I would just say, “Pshhhh naw.” It was the most natural thing for me to do, and I’m glad she reacted the same way :)

Happy engagement to us! I love you, Sabrina Borja <3

Here’s a video of the song that inspired this night!

A new coffee shop has opened up near my house! My fiancee, Sabrina, saw it and suggested we go there, so here we are this morning. The inside actually has a really nice ambiance, despite the building looking a little bit old.

Short side story:

• Sabrina: Let’s try out Brewed Awakenings!
• Doug: (didn’t hear the ‘B’) … that’s not a very nice name for a coffee shop
• Sabrina: Nonono BBBBBrewed Awakenings!
• Doug: Ohhh….damn that’s clever!
• Sabrina: Duhhhh dumbass!
• Doug: -_-

Anywayyy… The best part about it though is that Sabrina ordered her usual (double shot white mocha with soy), and she thought it was made very well. This is coming from one of the best former baristas from Infusion. I ordered a hot chai and was really impressed with the quality of their drinks too.

All it needs is a kitchen, and I don’t see any reason why this won’t become one of the places I frequent :) Like them on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brewed-Awakenings/1612854462275430?ref=br_tf

P. S. There was an acoustic guitar in the corner too, so it looks like they’ll be hosting some small kine music events here sometime.

So today, I had two weddings: 11:00am Crystal and 1:00pm Crystal, both with Gigi. So since we had about an hour in between, we went downstairs to Magellan restaurant for buffet. It’s like only the best buffet evar!!! Plus we got tip from the wedding ($20 each!), so like yay.

We got a table, sat down, then proceeded to the buffet table. When we I got there, I’m like… oh look, the first dish is seafood. Let’s take a look at the next dish… more seafood. I walked around the whole buffet table… ALL SEAFOOD!! WTF?! Oh, for those of you that don’t know me, I don’t eat seafood. :/

Anyway, since I’m already there, I figure I might as well just try… So I get one of everything. They still have the bread I like, which is awesome. They had some seafood veggie soup, which my parents make all the time anyway so I had some of that too. Got a piece of shrimp, seafood pasta, a fillet of sea bass…

It turns out I really like sea bass. At least, the way they prepared it. It was very un-fishy and nice any crispy with a spicy sauce. The soup was even better than my parents make it too (probably all the MSG), so I found a few things that I could really like.

Anyway, turning lemons into lemonade, I managed to get full, so it turned out to be alright after all ^^ Oh, and of course, it was so much fun hanging out with Gigi as usual.

So I just bought my tickets to go to the Phillipines with Rhea. Very excited :D

Hell week is finally over! Last week I had to rehearse for Cinderella Mon/Tue/Wed night. Thurs/Fri/Sat night were shows. On top of that, I had morning matinee shows on Thurs/Fri, and I had a pretty busy wedding & lesson schedule. So glad that’s finally over.

I went to Von’s Chicken last night for the first time. People were saying it’s better than Pochon. I was quite the skeptic, but let me tell you, it’s pretty damn close. The only problem I had was that the chicken wasn’t spicy, but it was definitely more tasty and more juicy. Pochon is pretty dry. Either way, great experience.

So Alan’s leaving tomorrow to go back to the states. He’ll be back before Christmas, though, and he will be moving here for a couple years :D I think that will be pretty fun. He’s having a baby with Marissa pretty soon, so it will be pretty fun to see how things change around here.

Alan bought me a couple early Christmas presents: Just Dance 2 and Rock Band 3 with the keyboard :D It’s pretty fun, but almost impossible to keep track of all the different colors. I’d do way better with actual written notation, but maybe I’ll take some time to mess around with it to see if I can sight read.

I finally see the Doctor tomorrow for my arm problem. I hope it’s nothing too serious. I waited really long to get this checked, so I hope it didn’t escalate. Will post an update about that ^^

So it’s one of those days you don’t really feel like doing anything.  I finally have a light wedding schedule this month after a few months of being crazy. My jury duty term is finally over. There are so many things I could be doing right now:

• Laddering Starcraft II
• Working on my “secret web project”
• Working out (something I haven’t done in a long long time!)
• Recording YouTube vid.

But there are a few things bogging me down. I woke up today at noon. I been trying to get up since like 9am or 10am but kept snoozing because I had a massive headache. The other thing is, I have this stupid shooting tingling sensation going down my right arm. I haven’t had time to get it checked by a doctor because of my really busy wedding schedule last month, but I finally get to see the doctor next week and I hope they can help me!!

I have so many things to do. I finally have a day off from weddings today so I can do other things, but I just wanna be lazy today. Haha well, who knows what I’ll end up doing… meh.