Halloween

Tonight was alot of fun. I met up with Melissa at her place to help her out with the costume. After that we headed over to Dave & Busters for the night. They had a show on the roof bar and two of our favorite bands were playing. We met up with Jamie and her firends for a bit that night and stayed at the show till our bands both had played. I was a good bit of fun :-) Melissa took a picture of me in my costume, once I get a copy I'll post it. Hope all of you had a good Halloween too.

My Weekend

Nothing big went on this weekend, but a few little things did. Friday I had a meeting with the client for my Software Project class and after that I was in the lab working of a bunch of stuff for it with the group. Anastasia and I were going to have lunch on Friday, but she wasn't feeling very well. I stayed at the lab and just continued to work on the project. After I headed to Waikiki and stopped over to see her. We hung out for a bit before Jordan got home. We all ordered in some dinner and watched a bit of TV, Anastasia fell asleep shortly after finishing dinner.

A little after dinner I headed over to Lily's place. She had invited me over for a bit and had a little gathering of people over. I stayed there till around 2:00am. The rest of the people stayed longer but I was getting tired and had a 30min. bike ride to get home :-) The night was fun, we all were playing a drinking game and just hung out for a bit.

After that night I really didn't do much of anything on Saturday. After I got up (very late I might add), I got a call from Holly. She and I talked on the phone for about 45min. before I headed to the lab to work on my HTML class. Its an on-line class but the teacher is being extremely unrealistic with the expectation for an intro level class. Not many of us are happy and a few of us are going to be going to the dean. After that I came home and just hung out there for the night.

Its Sunday morning now and I'm killing a bit of time before Jamie gets here. She is picking me up and we are headed to the theaters to catch two more Hawaii International Film Festival films. We are planning on grabbing a quick lunch between them and making a nice day out of it. Tonight I'm going to have dinner with Melissa and catch up with her. We haven't seen each other at all this week. She has had her brother and his friend visiting and they leave tonight. From the texts we sent it sounds like they all had a very busy but fun week, I'm looking forward to hearing about it.

A.P.T.

I went to see a Hawaii International Film Festival film called A.P.T. with Jamie and Richie. Now I had not heard a lot about this film, just that its about people disappearing from an apartment building every night at the same time. I was thinking and therefore expecting the film to be a mystery type of thing. Well to my surprise it was a suspense/thriller. It was a very well thought out plot and the filming was done perfectly. Not a lot of blood or gore in the film at all, but packed full of suspense. Needless to say I was a bit creaped out leaving the theater... I'm going to a few more on Sunday but already have an idea about them :-)

The Weekend and The Future

This past weekend was very low key. I went on Friday night to Detox and listened to some bands. They had both the upper and lower levels going so it was about 6 bands for the night. Black Square one of my preferred bands was playing. Well they play most Fridays. :-) Saturday was a nice catch-up day with Jamie. We went to Island Burgers at Ala Moana mall. Neither of us had eaten there before so it was new to us both. The spinach and artichoke dip with chips was really yummy and burgers are big, but come with no fries. A single order of fries is 4 bucks, but it is worth it. The order would be enough for four people. After eating our lunches we went to the movies. Guardian was well done, not quite what I expected but a very good movie none the less. Not much happened on Sunday at all. I cleaned the apartment (it was my week) and worked on the Software Project for a bit. The project is basically an event management and registration system.

Well, if everything goes as planned I'll be graduating in January. I've put in a petition and ordered a cap and gown. On the 10th of January I'm walking across a stage and getting deploma. The next step is basically back to the "real" working world. I have about 2 and a 1/2 months to find a job. I'm not to worried about it right now though. But that said I need to get my backup plan in place so if there is no job then I can get on with a Masters without waiting. To do this its a little complicates.

Hawaii Pacific University (HPU) does not offer a masters in Computer Science (CS) only in Information Systems (IS). The difference is CS is a coder and IS is a administrator, more or less. I would much prefer a CS major than an IS major so I would have to go to the University of Hawaii (UH). This isn't a big deal in and of itself. I wouldn't have to move and in the end it would probably be cheaper as I'm a Hawaii resident. The problem is that UH requires a Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) for the masters program. What's a GRE you ask, well its a Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) for masters. There are two tests a general and a subject, they each cost 130 bucks!

Now I've done my digging and I can get a waver from financial aid here at HPU to the test cost 0 bucks each. This is a one time waver because I'm not dependent and I'm poor, at the moment. So I went and got the waver. :-) The process took about 10 min. to print stuff of the internet and walk to financial aid, then about 30 min. to get them to give me the waver. Its not a normal thing they get here at HPU because to get a masters here does not require either test.

So I got the waver and I got the application, next step it to fill it out and mail it in. That's on tap for Thursday. So my plans for the future are a tiny tiny bit safer now. I hope to get a job, but if not I can get a masters. I was a CS masters but that requires a GRE. If for some reason I fail the GRE or just can't get into UH, I can still take the IS masters here a HPU. :-) So my goal, backup and 2nd backup are coming into place.

Now pop-quiz time, define the following:
UH, GRE, HPU, IS, SAT, CS

Earthquake

Well on Sunday I was in my very first earthquake. The epicenter was about 200 miles off the coast of the Big Island was measured to be 6.5 followed by a 5.5 after shock. The first lasted about 2 seconds and the second about 15 seconds. I've never been in an earthquake before so it was a shock to me. When it happened the first was over so quick, by the time I got out of bed it was over. During the second I was standing in my room, then in the doorway to my room. I know its supposed to be the stucturally safest place to stand, but if the house is gonna come down, um... it won't help. The house itself shook quite a bit. Think of a rollercoaster and how you get shaken up, its similar but not quite the same :-)

After it was all over we (roommates and I) turned on the TV to see what was up. That lasted all of, maybe, 5 min. before the power went out. So no radio, no TV, no lights, etc. Not to bad as it was morning still. I typed to call Melissa but didn't have any luck with the phone, all circuits were busy so I texted her just to make sure everything was ok. I got a voicemail from her so moved on with calls. After I tried to call some people back home and I got ahold of Carmine. She didn't here about the quake yet (it just happened :-) so she turned on CNN and relayed me some information. Not much else I could so so I got up, had a nice hot shower and hopped on my bike to ride around. The first thing I noticed was no sound from most anywhere. Some people were in their cars with the radios on, but other than that just kids playing.

Once I was downtown heading to Waikiki I noticed that there were no street lights. Well most everyone was treating inersections like stop signs. You did see the occational idiot just blowing threw them though. Once I got into Waikiki not much was going on, no electricity can put a damper on things. The ABC stores were open, but would only let 2-3 people in at a time. Employees were escorting them around the store as it was dark. After riding around for an hour or so I got a call from Melissa. Her phone was dead so she was on a payphone. We met up for a bit before I headed home. Riding through town again the cops were out in most major inersections. Not sure they were helping much though..

I ended up getting power back at 12:25AM.

Friday the 13th

Well, its today, the 13th and a Friday.... never a good thing I guess. Well its a rare 13th too...
10 / 13 / 2006
1+0+1+3+2+0+0+6 = 13

Not much has been going on lately. I went to Lily's place a few nights ago to hang out. It was a good time. We had a few Corona's and got a chance to talk a bit. After that I headed home (about 2am ish). The only other big stuff this week has been working on my Software Project class. I have to say the group I'm in is working really well together. The project is moving along nicely and our grades have been nice and high. Tonight is going to be nice an relaxing. I'm hoping to go see a movie and hang out with some friends.

A Week Later

Its been a week sense my last post. Nothing big has happened but a lot of little stuff. Tuesday night was our gathering over at Chris' place. It was my turn to do food but we didn't know for sure if it was on till that day, so I didn't cook anything. I got pizza for everyone instead :-) We watched a movie and talked for a short while. After the gathering Melissa and I stopped off at McDonalds for coffee before heading home.

Thursday was the Poetry Slam at Hawaiian Hut. It was supposed to be a lot of us getting together, but it didn't work out. Chris and Jamie were sick and Richie stayed home to take care of Jamie. Melissa, myself and Melissa's friend enjoyed the show though. The slam is a mini contest in 2 rounds. Everyone who signed up gets to do one poem. Then the top three get to do it again. The night was enjoyable to say the least.

Friday was First Friday. Anastasia, Jordan, Melissa, Melissa and myself went to Bar Next Door for a few drinks. After we walked around some of the galleries. Some of the art is really very nice, others not so much. This week things were kinda dead for some reason, not a lot of people out at all. We ended up going to Murphy's for a late dinner and talking. Anastasia and Jordan headed home and Melissa and I headed to a party that Melissa was invited to. We stayed there for about an hour or so before heading home ourselves.

The weekend itself was nice and relaxing. I had dinner with Anastasia on Saturday before heading to Detox for a show. I had helped the manager of Black Square with something so I was on the "VIP" list for the night, didn't have to pay cover to get in. Three bands played and we all had a good time listening and dancing. Sunday was a nice mellow day. I took care of some homework stuff and just relaxed for the day.

Daughter of a Friend of a Friend

Well I got a call from Melissa inviting me to this "thing." Her friend from work has a daughter in a singing compitition. I said I would go. Now the show started after I got the invite, so I hoped on my bike and headed to Melissa's place. I made it to her place in time and we were off to Waikiki to see the show. One thing I have to mention, there are bike racks in Waikiki, but not nearly enought!

We parked our bikes and headed into the show, now it was around this point I found out the show was a TV show! Hawaii Stars is somthing like American Idol, but just for Hawaii. Over about an hour and a half we watched, clapped, oooed and aahhhed. It was alot of fun seeing the quick and yet still somehow slow filming process for the TV program. In about 3 hours time we filmed 3 shows.

After we finished watching our singer for the 3rd show Melissa and I headed out. We were on our way to grab some food to sneek into a movie. We were headed to see School for Scoundrels at Ward. the movie was extreamly funny. Both of us laughed our heads off most of the way through the movie. If your in the mood for a laugh I would recommend seeing it.

Sunday :-)

I went out today and had a coffee at Starbucks with Anastasia. It was nice, just the two of us. We got to catch up on the week for a little then we went and caught a movie. I'de recommend Open Season, its got a nice storyline and is animated very well.

Right now I'm outstide my appartment, as you can see from the picture, working on some school work for my Software Project class. I was lucky enough to find a wireless signal out here that I can use. Its not the best but it works.