Monday, June 21, 2010

Brazil, World Cup, Kung Fu and Summertime.

I've been neglecting my blog... too busy or too lazy, maybe a bit of both. being a chef - changing a whole menu and training an all-new staff -, editing a video due this week, the wedding coming up in 5 days, a baby coming up in 3 weeks and the World Cup is kind of keeping me too busy.

I'm struggling with my weight, I really want to start working out and eating better. My work schedule kind of makes it hard... excuses, excuses.

I put together Christian's dresser, rite of passage type feeling. I felt a little bit proud... I installed the baby car seat in my car this weekend, what a weird, pretty cool feeling. Never thought that would happen :)

My fiance is pretty awesome, she got me a really cool present - a steady-cam stick - for Father's day, even though I'm not a father yet.

I wanna get back to doing Tai Chi. I hope my kid likes martial arts, it'd be really cool to do Kung Fu with him.

Mexico plays tomorrow and the US on Wednesday in the World Cup, I hope they win.

It's getting harder for me to go to sleep... I just don't want to and I don't know why. I guess I feel like I need to do more even though I'm super tired.

I caught myself listening to Janis Joplin's Summertime... weird.



Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Baby car seats, restaurant business and becoming a family man... scary stuff. Rock Me Amadeus!

Wow... it just hit me: In about three weeks I'll be a married man. In about five I'll be a father. I need another beer!
I wont deny it, I'm a little scared... heck, I'm really scared! Mostly because I wanna be a good father and a good husband... Do I even know how to do that? Where is the reboot button? What if it doesn't work or I'm a shitty dad? Can I undo it and restart it? I'm scared... really scared. yet, I'm really excited about this new life that's coming to rule mine. I guess I can do it like pretty much everything else in my life: just bullshit my way through it... I just don't want to be a loser dad. I really don't. I hope Kristen and Christian put up with me :)
I had a successful day at work today. New restaurant, new menu, new crew and people loved the food. I overheard a couple of waitresses talking to each other: "Have you tried any of the new food? It's SOOOOO good!" They didn't even know I was there and it felt good to hear that - My head swell a little bit :)
Today is my nephew's birthday. He's 20 now. A really nice kid but kind of naive.
My Sunday's softball team made it to the playoffs. Pretty happy about that.

Kristen took a picture of me hitting a home run.




Tuesday, June 1, 2010

General Theory of Relativity and gangsta rap

I got home tonight after a long, busy, but somewhat mellow day at my consultant chef job. On the way home talked to my buddy Ed on the phone about how we sometimes - not often, but every once in a while - envy the other's life. Meaning, sometimes I'd like to go home and just relax and do nothing, no responsibilities and he'd like to come home to someone and have family hang outs, etc... but only sometimes.
Anyway, I got home, have a lot of work to do (video editing) but somehow I found myself immersed in reading about Albert Einstein on wikipedia (one of my favorite websites, by the way). I had a lot of work yet I couldn't stop reading about his theories and his life... pretty interesting stuff.
I missed my fiance today... Kristen's belly is getting big and Christian is moving a lot. Pretty awesome stuff. I kiss her belly and talk to it like I'm a crazy person. I repeat the same things over and over again in hopes that when he's born, I'll say the same things and he'll feel comfortable with me... who knows... I'm hopeful... maybe I'm just weird.
Today at work it kind of hit me, I am a professional chef... I always felt like I was full of shit, like some day they will find out that I'm a fake, a phony, a failure, a fluke, that I don't know shit, that I'm just pulling it out of my behind. But today I felt like I knew my sh-tuff. And the general manager other managers, cooks and personnel really listened to me, looked to me for advise and followed up... I felt like my words meant something... weird... funny... awesome.

As I was checking a delivery for the restaurant from Goldberg & Solovy, their delivery guy was talking to me about how proud he was on how accurate he is with his orders - and he is by the way. He mentioned he is from Compton and his cousin (?) was in Eazy E's last music video and his grandma lives next door to DJ Quik's mom. Next thing you know, we are talking about growing up, gangsta rap, DJ Quik, NWA, Ice Cube, Snoop, Dr. Dre and Luke Skywalker and about how knew most of them in person... Good times.
As I was teaching one of the cooks, the delivery guy came back, shook my hand and said he'll get me backstage tickets for the next time Quik's in town... What an awesome guy... made my day and took me back to the old days.

Back in the day when I was young,
I'm not a kid anymore, but some days
I really wish I was a kid again...

Ok, gotta go back to edit video.

A picture of me from a magazine and a picture of Kristen visiting me at work.