jozjozjoz.com

It has taken me two days to come up with words for this post, but I still don’t feel like I have any.

I met Dan & Teresita Dabrieo in 2000 when I was living and working in Washington DC. I was nearing the end of my projects & planned stay in DC and from the moment we met, I knew she would always be someone special in my life. She was kind, exuberant, and most of all, we just “clicked.” I extended my stay for a couple more weeks, staying at their home & spending almost every waking hour talking, laughing, and crying with Teresita. I recall staying up into the wee hours, curled up on her couch with one or both of her dogs and gabbing the night away. When it was time for me to go back to L.A., I knew that I had made a friend for life.

It was Teresita’s friendship & love which helped me get through some of the darkest days; without her, I would undoubtedly not be in the place that I am in today. Even though we could go many months without talking, we always seemed to pick up as if only a couple of days had passed. I’m lucky that I am able to consider her one of my closest friends in the world.

A few years ago, I was shocked with the news that Teresita had suffered a severe stroke. However, with Teresita’s indominable spirit, she recovered from the stroke at a miraculous speed. I don’t remember all the details of her medical history, but I do know that after sometime that, her doctors discovered that she had some heart problems. Of course, Teresita bounced back and was the “Miracle Patient.” Despite these obstacles, Teresita was always positive and amazing.

On Monday afternoon, after the morning of car hell, I looked at my phone (which I’d left at home all morning) and saw that I had a missed call from the morning. It was from the Dan’s cell phone and I thought it was strange that Dan was calling me and not Teresita. When called him back and heard his voice, I felt a horrible sinking feeling in my chest.

Teresita had gone into the hospital for a planned surgery in late December and went through a series of ups & downs. On Monday morning, Teresita went into cardiac arrest and passed away.

I was so touched that Dan thought to call me and let me know. With everything else he was going through and handling that morning, I am so grateful that Dan knew that I would appreciate knowing, even if it was the worst possible news I could’ve heard.

Two days later, I am still in shock. I spoke to Teresita about a month ago and we talked about our plans for the future and how excited we were about things that were going on in our lives. I am honored that I ever had the great fortune to learn from this great woman. I cherish all our shared times together & all our phone conversations & all the laughs we shared.

I posted one of the only photographs of the two of us together, taken sometime in early 2003. If you look carefully at Teresita’s shirt, you can see a food stain on her shirt. We are definitely kindred spirits in more ways than one.

(Warning: Long post ahead!)

I should’ve known better than to get into my car when that’s what it said to me this morning.

This entire saga actually began last week when I realized that my car registration is up for renewal & the deadline is 11/16 and that I needed to get a smog check before I could get my tags. What was to be a routine trip to the car place for an oil change and a smog check has turned into an ordeal that is going to cost me many hundreds of dollars that I wasn’t prepared to spend.

I found out after spending three hours sitting in the cold car repair shop waiting for my smog check that my car was going to fail the smog check because the check engine light was on. Well, my check engine light has been on for several months and I didn’t worry about it because my dad had taken my car to the shop for repairs and they “fixed” a broken sensor and then *insisted* that there was nothing wrong with my car and not to worry if the Check Engine light came on again. As long as I took my car in for regular oil changes/maintenance check-ups, my car should be fine.

(more after the jump)
Continue reading ‘Is this proof that my car is evil? (Part I)’

Thanks to your votes, I’m gaining in the polls for Best Overall Blog in the 2004 Best of Blog Awards!

I’m still quite a bit behind of the leaders but jozjozjoz has made an incredible leap from seventh place to fifth place! ALMOST UNBELIEVABLE!

Rooben the Roomba thanks you for your votes! (Thanks for the Roomba Moniker, Mikey2!)

As of Sun Jan 9 22:15:01 PST 2005
Best Overall Blog

Geese Aplenty 20.46% (490 votes)
Michele Agnew 17.24% (413 votes)
The Mommy Blog 15.03% (360 votes)
NiteOwl 11.77% (282 votes)
Joz Joz Joz 9.19% (220 votes)
Witt and Wisdom 8.06% (193 votes)
Ordinary Morning 7.60% (182 votes)
Filegirl 5.26% (126 votes)
Psychobabble 3.26% (78 votes)
The Metal Communiques 2.13% (51 votes)

Don’t forget, you can vote for me here every 24 hours from now through January 17!

I don’t know about you, but an amazing amount of gross stuff gets stuck on my screen.

Check out this great way to clean it!

(via presurfer)

P.S. - You can vote for presurfer (or my other pals Tony Pierce or Wil Wheaton) in the Best of Blogs Awards: Big Name Blogs category… that is after you vote for jozjozjoz for Best Overall Blog!

So aside from getting hit on by a bum I’d just bought food for, the other happy thing from last night’s Taco Hell run was that I now have a plethora of mild sauce packets.

Did you know they have random sayings on them? I like having things to read on my condiments… so I’ll share them with you:

-Mmmmmmm…. Sauce.
-My sauce is an honor student at Taco Middle School.
-Bike tires scare me.
-It’s okay… you can say it. I love you too.
-My best friends hang out on the menu board.
-Open quickly… I’m burning up in here.
-I voted for jozjozjoz for Best Overall Blog in the 2004 Best of Blogs Awards*

*May not be an actual mild sauce saying.

Perhaps you may have wondered why I haven’t blogged about how horrible the tsunami in South Asia/Africa was. Or about how much people need relief. Or about how sad I am that such a terrible loss of life has & continues to occur.

The truth is, the news and footage of the tsunami aftermath distresses me greatly and I wonder what I can do from here to help those who need it. I chose not to blog about it all sooner because I was still trying to wrap my mind around it all… but I don’t think that I ever can.

That being said, I think it’s rotten that people have critcized good people like Chris & Ponzi (see cowardly comment here) for “not blogging about the tsunami sooner” or for “blogging about frivolous subjects when so many people are dying.” I can’t speak for either of them, but I know for myself, I blog on my own timetable.

And just because I don’t blog about it as soon as others might deem it should be doesn’t mean that I am not thinking/feeling about it.

And just because I didn’t put links up about where to donate to tsunami victims doesn’t mean that I don’t think that you should, or that I haven’t.

Believe it or not, there is more to my life than my blog.

That being said, I had the tsunami on my mind last night as I was driving home from work. Knowing that Yoshi was having dinner elsewhere, I thought that I’d make it easy on myself by having some Taco Hell for dinner, instead of trying to figure out how to make dinner with the random stuff in our fridge. No, it was not a healthy choice, but that’s what I did.

Anyway, as I drove into the line at the Taco Bell drive-thru, I saw a older, African American man panhandling his way down the line of cars. Usually, I don’t give money to beggars because I know from working firsthand with homeless folks that money often goes toward unhealthy things like cigarettes, alcohol, or drugs. But it was an especially chilly L.A. night (40s) and I was feeling like if I couldn’t do more for the tsunami victims, maybe I could do a little more for the people in need around here.

Except for a parking token for the lot at the gym, I didn’t have any coins or change, so when he came up to my car, I flashed him my plastic and told him, “Sorry, I only have plastic.” He told me that I didn’t have to apologize & walked off to the next car in line. When I pulled up to the speaker, the guy had circled back from the end of the line. I asked him if I could buy him something to eat, and he said, “Yeah!”

“What do you want?” I asked him, proving that beggars CAN indeed sometimes be choosers.

“A burrito would be nice,” he answered, as he signalled that he’d wait for me at the other side of the drive-thru.

I ordered him a couple of burritos along with my meal and I paid for it with my credit card. Of course, the folks at Taco Hell screwed up my order, but I didn’t realize that when I got home. Anyway, I got to the end of the drive-thru where the guy was waiting anxiously for his burrito.

When I surprised him with two, he thanked me profusely, sprinkled in some “God Bless You”s and took the burritos for my hand.

I told him, “Stay warm tonight, ok?”

He went and ruined this happy story by saying, “I would if I were sleeping next to you in bed.”

Yuck. What the hell?!

I laughed it off, rolled up my window & drove away, but I was more than a little creeped out. Instead of a warm, fuzzy feeling for knowing that I fed someone for a night, I felt icky and wanted to take a shower to wash the scum off of me.

Maybe this is why I don’t like it when strangers talk to me.

I mean, I know I’m a weirdo magnet, but I really wish that I could’ve ended the story differently.

I’ve been home for about 2 and a half hours and pumpkin time is setting in.

We’ve unloaded the car, unpacked the bags and are on the second load of laundry.

I’m glad we made it back safely, but coming down from that vacation high is quite the bummer.

And I’m behind in the polls…

Yoshi and I left the Bay Area/Silicon Valley and after having a big breakfast with Yoshi’s dad (Yoshi’s mom couldn’t join b/c she wasn’t feeling well), we swung by the Gilroy outlets and headed down the 101 where we ended up in a very nice hotel in the Montecito area. The drive was scenic and nice, with only a tiny bit of rain the whole way down. Up until this point, Yoshi had done all the driving, which was probably close to 1000 miles since last Thursday. I didn’t mind driving except I got “reprimanded” a few times for not paying attention to the speed limit. This was the first time we’ve driven this route back down from up north together.

It turns out that it is a good thing we didn’t drive down the 5 and through the Grapevine since it’s been snowing and the 5 has been closed all day and will continue to be closed through the night. Also, I don’t think I would’ve been allowed to drive the 5 since there was that whole snow/black ice conversation (Yoshi’s version of what happened) last year.

Dinner was at The Brewhouse (reviews here). I had the yummy prime rib, Yoshi had a half rack of ribs. I don’t order prime rib very often because if it’s not good, it’s not worth eating, but I’m happy to report that this was the best prime rib I’ve had in a long time. We split a creme brulee for dessert.

As we headed back to the hotel, I saw the sky flash as the lightning & thunder rolled in… we got doused heavily as we were walking to our car. Thank goodness we were protected from the rain when we pulled into the valet driveway.

The only complaint I have about our hotel is that their wireless network doesn’t reach our room! We are sitting in the lobby area (I’m in my sweats with my hoodie up, resembling the Unabomber) and Yoshi is playing with the iPAQ, waiting for me to be done blogging.

Since Yoshi has patiently waited for a chance to check email, I’m going to stop blogging, go vote for myself again, and then let Yoshi at the laptop.

After I blogged last, we decided that we’d explore the Metreon before we headed back to San Jose.

Now I’m hanging out on the living room couch at yoshi’s dad’s place as they try to hook up the HDTV-ready cable box to the new TV he got for Xmas.

Whoo!

So far, my 2005 hasn’t been going too poorly.

Even though I didn’t even have the champagne that was part of our room package, our first meal of 2005 was a “hangover breakfast” downstairs in the lounge of the hotel… a couple of slices of cold pizza and bloody marys. Yeah, it sounds kind of gross but I was hungry and it came with the room. We were supposed to leave the room to get our food when I blogged last, and that is Yoshi was telling me that I suck (because I was blogging instead going downstairs for food).

Anyway, that was just the beginning of a long day which included a lot more food (Japanese Oseki Ryori) at two different places, hugging and wishing a whole lot of people Happy New Year, and more than 300 miles of driving for Yoshi.

Anyway, we’re back in San Jose and it is definitely time for bed, but it was a thrilling surprise to find out that my blog is a finalist in the Best Overall Blog category in the Best of Blogs (BoB) 2004 Awards.

I’m in shock and awe, especially since this category includes some extremely fine blogs. If I get time in the morning, I’m going to check out as many blogs in as many categories as I can so I can vote in all the categories as I can!