2014: Orientation and Bonus Entry

6/11/14, 4:22 PM PDT

It begins again. Oh god, it begins again.

Alright, for those of you who weren't here last year, I'll give you a bit of an orientation. It's gonna sound a bit clumsy since I'm always bad at this sort of stuff, but just bear with me. So every summer, I write these journal entries about the stuff I do during vacation so that I can share the fun fun things that I experience with you poorer, less fortunate people who don't live as entertaining a summer as I do.

HAH. Kidding. Roughly 70-75% of my entries are probably gonna be boring, but I will try my best to make this blog as interesting of a read as possible without deviating too far from the truth. This blog will be updated daily and in the six years that I've written summer journals, I have been very timely with these entries. The only times I've been late on entries is when I don't have access to the Internet (usually when I'm traveling abroad) or when I do things past midnight, which is frequent. Every update will roll out at around 11:30 PM each day.

As I've mentioned, updates will come daily, and contrary to popular belief, I am not the most interesting person in the world (I'm in third place, behind Sean Connery and one of the baggers at Albertsons that used to be a POW and has war flashbacks when someone buys kettle corn). But since it's updated daily, my blog will pretty much reflect the current mood that I had during the time. So when I'm happy, my blog entries will be happy and when I'm sad, my blog entries will be slightly less happy (I'll try to avoid a repeat of last year where I got hit by a wave of depression midway through and a ton of my entries were just melancholic bullshit).

Two things to note. If you look to the very bottom of most entries, you'll see something that says "RFotD" and "SGAT." They stand for "Random Fact of the Day" and "Summer Goals Achieved Today," respectively. The random facts will be true facts that I include purely for the sake of educating the masses. And if you look to the top of the site, you'll see a page labeled "Summer Bucket List," which is a list of stuff I want to accomplish. Even though it's labeled as a "summer" bucket list, in reality it's just a list of stuff that I want to do before I die, so you'll occasionally see me add new things in there and cross stuff off even if it's not summer. SGAT basically notes if I tried to accomplish anything in my bucket list that day, just to keep me productive.

Oh, and one important thing that I feel people didn't use enough last year: tags. If you look to the right and scroll a bit, you'll see this big ol' column that says "Tags." Yeah, use that. With every update (unless I'm on my phone, where tagging is a bitch), I will include tags that usually give a gist of what the entry is about. They'll be fairly consistent, I don't typically add new tags unless I see myself writing about that subject more times in the future, so they act as a really reliable categorizer. And if I write an entry that I'm especially proud of or think is funny enough, I mark it with the tag "Favorite Entries." I'm fairly selective when it comes to tagging entries as my favorite (quality assurance, in essence), so if you want to skip all the crap and just read interesting things, definitely check that tag out.

Alright, recap. Summer blog, updated daily, 11:30 PM, RFotD, SGAT, tags exist, yeah, I think that about covers it. Hope you guys enjoy the blog! I'll see you in two days or so. Or hell, maybe I'll start tomorrow because I'm foreseeing tomorrow as being a pretty interesting day.

Bonus entry: New York Trip, written from 6/6/14 - 6/8/14

Friday, 6/6/14
10:27 AM EDT (7:27 AM PDT)

Jeeeeeesus. That overnight flight was all one blur. I alternated between being conscious and being under a coma because I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before because I was making the VFX for my group's APUSH video. I sort of remember watching The Grand Budapest Hotel, but not really since I slept for most of the flight. Partly because I had an awesome Tree Trunks neck pillow.

Isn't it adorable?

Anyway, now we're taking a bus from the airport to the driver. And HOLY CRAP is it terrifying. Our bus driver looked like he was straight out of Jersey Shore, if the people from Jersey Shore were over thirty years old and decided to let themselves go. But that wasn't the only reason that he was terrifying, no. He had THREE velcro strips attached to the dashboard of his card, two for his phones (note the plural) and one for his iPod shuffle. Seriously, if you looked up the phrase "distracted driver" on Google, this guy would be the first result. At EVERY chance he got, he was either looking at his phone, on a phone call, or changing the song on his iPod shuffle. And every time we stopped and the light turned green or space opened up in front of us or whatever, he wouldn't notice until someone behind him honked for three seconds straight.

And that's not even the WORST part. If you guys don't know, New York traffic is BATSHIT INSANE. You know that Rush Hour board game where you have to remove the red car from the board by moving the other cars out of the way? Imagine that game except all of the cars are red, all of them are going the same direction, and all of the spaces on the board are full and you'll get a rough idea of how New York traffic is like. Seriously, if even the slightest space popped up in front of us and the driver that we were behind wasn't being as fast as he could, our bus driver freaking INTERCEPTED IT, even if that meant driving over sidewalks and switching lanes to cut people off literally INCHES from their car. I swear, I thought for sure we'd get in a car accident at least three times during that bus ride.

I don't know whether or not to be relieved that I made it to the hotel in time or impressed that the bus driver didn't total his car.

2:57 PM EDT (11:57 AM PDT)

Just barely made the 1 PM deadline for Carnegie Hall tickets and medal pick up. Here's a bit of the loot.

Pretty pretty certificate.

Pretty pretty silver medal.

Here's the ticket pick up area.

Me in the center. It's almost artistic, no?

See that projector up there? Yeah, they were playing this video on loop. And guess what? They played my video. I pop up at 4:29 if anyone's interested in watching that video. It's a pretty great video. But more on that later.

Anyway, dressed up for Carnegie Hall. It's a pretty formal event, so I bought a bowtie specifically for the occasion.

"Bowties are cool."
"Not on you."
"God damn it."

Currently, I am waiting in line to enter Carnegie Hall for our dress rehearsal. A line, which, stretches around AN ENTIRE CITY BLOCK. Over 1,000 students, each bringing at least one parent along for the ride, that is an INSANE amount of people.

And I feel so inadequate because some of these guys are toting two, three, effing EIGHT medals, most of which are gold.

My lone silver's not looking too hot right now.

3:35 PM EDT (12:35 PM PDT)

Look at how nice Carnegie Hall is!

The left side of the hall.

Aaaaand here's the right.

Panorama. Click for actual size.

See that large projector there? During our dress rehearsal, the director was playing a highlight reel of the introduction videos that students made. Not that last link, mind you, more like a music video that had 50+ different people in it. Anyway, so he was playing this in the background while the senior awardees went through their little stage movements. Nobody's really paying attention to it because they're all more focused on how the seniors are walking across the stage.

Suddenly, the director yells cut. The seniors stop walking, the music stops playing, and the director turns off his mic to talk privately with one of the stage hands. For a good five seconds or two, everything is quiet and nothing is happening.

Except for the video in the background. It's still playing. And, like a miracle, it happens to play to MY VIDEO.

It shows me putting on my sunglasses.

I walk away from the picnic table.

The explosion happens.

And the entire hall ERUPTS in laughter. Briefly, the director looks at the crowd, wondering what we were looking at. He sees that we were all looking at the projection and he turns to look at it, but the moment already passed. My video ended and he just stood there, confused on why suddenly everyone in that building that wasn't on stage laughed simultaneously.

Proudest moment of my life right there.

Saturday, 6/7/14

3:48 PM EDT (12:48 PM PDT)

Woke up pretty late. 11 AM in local time, which meant that I was late to the student showcase that was being held in New York. Dad already left to play golf with his New York friends, so I got to explore New York on my own. Awwwwww yeaaaah.

Took me awhile to find the museum where the showcase was being held because Google Maps was being slow as hell. But I found my way there. Eventually.

The museum had some pretty cool works on display. I only took pictures of the art that I thought was really cool.

OH YEAH.

It's a spoon lobster.

The Donnie Darko bunny meets Harvey Dent.

Okay, honestly, I loved this one. "World in Color" by Amy Moon.

This one was pretty cool too. "Religious Rifle" by Alissa Damato.

They also had a film screening of award winners. I'l admit, most of them were really strange and I didn't really understand them, but here's a few of my favorites.

Wings of Peace by Danielle Stolz

Goat Adventure by Abby Goss

Special Delivery by Jonathan Mendelson

Anyway, after the screening, I got to read my poem out to the people at the museum. They loved it and a few people even went up to me during my random roaming in the museum and said that they liked listening to my poem, which was awesome.

Enough museum stuff. Time for random strolling around New York. I hit the International Center of Photography because I had free admission as a national medalist.

I didn't understand anything. And no pictures were allowed so I didn't take any.

Then I hit up Times Square. And yes, vitamins are the solution.

CONCRETE JUNGLE WET DREAM TOMAAAAAAAAAATO.

So a really weird thing they have in Times Square are these people that dress up in costumes and offer to take pictures with you in exchange for tips. They are REALLY creepy because of how shitty their costumes are. And they are SO INVASIVE, every time I walk past them, they tried to get me to take a picture with them. Check it out.

Elmo grafted a tip bag onto his hip. Dedication.

Check out that creepy Mickey in the background.

Look at the picture right above this paragraph again. Do you notice anything creepy? 

Look carefully, because it took me awhile to notice it too. But once I did, it was really unsettling.

Find it yet?

If not, I'll give you more time, but if you think you got it, scroll down a bit and there'll be another picture of what I'm talking about.

I'll give you a few more lines.

Like... three more just for good measure.

Two...

One...

Alright, got it?

Okay, here's what's really creepy about that picture.

WHAT THE FUCK.

HOLY SHIT. LOOK AT IT. WOODY'S FACE GOT RIPPED CLEAN OFF. God DAMN, when i walked past this son of a bitch in Times Square I almost pissed myself in fear.

A few other cool pictures that I got while roaming around.

This sign was pretty much in EVERY street corner in New York.

Interesting little clock outside the IRS office in New York.

Caught one of those living statues walking through the subway.

Also took a few cool subway shots.

These subway tunnels are actually super intricate.

Lady played really nice violin music. Nobody really paid
attention though.

Someone dropped a bouquet on the track. There's something
poetic about this, I swear.

Pretty pretty infinite escalator.

End of the line.

Oh, and at some point in my trip, an Indian guy stopped me, shook my hand, said I had a "lucky face." 

I don't know what kind of drugs he's on, but if he thinks my face is lucky, I'd hate to see an unlucky face.

11:26 PM EDT (8:26 PM PDT)

Took a bus to New Jersey because my dad was there visiting his friends. Not really much to do there, so NJ was pretty much a scary movie marathon. Watched Sinister, Dark Skies (which was really bad), and part of this sort of obscure movie called Crawlspace, which had a really cool premise but I didn't get to finish it because we had to leave to catch the last bus back to New York.

Grabbed a few cool pictures of suburban New Jersey at night though.

Empty streets are the coolest.

This Dunkin' Donuts was right next to the bus stop. It smelled
really good.

Sunday, 6/8/14, 

5:46 AM EDT (2:46 AM PDT)

Time to fly back to San Diego.

So my dad apparently thought that bringing A SINGLE GOLF CLUB along with us in the flight as carry-on luggage. CARRY-ON LUGGAGE. ONE GOLF CLUB. AS IN SINGULAR. He brought his ENTIRE golf bag over here and he's heading back to San Diego with nothing but a putter.

I don't even know WHY he thought he could just walk on board with his putter as if it were his pimp cane even though the TSA practically leaps on you for having a picture of a nail clipper on you.

So of course, when we try to walk onto the NSA security checkpoint, they take one look at the golf club, look up at my dad, and tell us to walk ourselves back to baggage check in.

So we check it in. One golf club. No bag. Just a little golf sock that covers the fat metal part of the club. The lady in charge of checking in bags looked at us like we were completely insane. And it didn't help that at the time, I was nodding off from sleep deprivation while I stood behind my dad, she probably thought that I had schizophrenia.

10:38 AM CDT (8:38 AM PDT)

Landed in St. Paul, Minnesota for our layover. We were there for around two hours, so I figured I would go souvenir shopping. Look at this adorable shirt I found.

D'aww.

I also found THESE. LOOK AT THEM.

WHAT. WHAT.

JUST LOOK AT THESE THINGS. They're HILARIOUS. I freaking LOVE the stuff they decided to put on their box.

I wish I had a very small head.

Highway to the danger zone?

I was really considering buying these as souvenirs for my friends but they're TWENTY BUCKS A POP. Ridiculous. Baby coolness ain't worth that much.



2:07 PM PDT

Back on San Diegan soil. Awwww yeah.

Also, dad's golf club made it back to San Diego in one piece. Despite being bagless and protected by literally nothing, it wasn't crushed by any of the other luggage. Not sure if that's sheer luck or if my dad's just a genius.

RFotD: An airline's pilot and copilot are required to eat different meals. Despite strict health and safety regulations placed on prepackaged airplane food, the risk of catching a food related illness is still significant in the meals. However, since it's unlikely that both meal options in a plane will be contaminated, pilots and their copilots have to eat different meals in order to minimize the chance of illness.

SGAT: Restarted the summer blog.