Entries this day: CKS_update Hakone_Ekiden Jen_is_great!! Zeitgeistmovie_at_Pink_Cow shawn_is_so_funny!!! zzzz

CKS update

3:02pm JST Wednesday 2 January 2008 (day 13797)

HI Kim

I am glad to report that I completed my goal of 50,000 words on my novel by 30 December.  I actually
reached 50,015 words.  I'm working on spell check now and then will be doing a rough cleanup to get
the chapters in an order that approaches final form.

- - -

I have reduced the number of days that I spend working super late at work; this claim is actually
just my sense of it; I haven't kept track of my hours per se.

Each time I leave way-earlier than my co-workers, I have some conflicts in my brain:

1) Perhaps I should stay about as long as they do
2) Perhaps I should encourage them to take care of themselves by going home as well
3) I can't presume to know what they need to take care of themselves
4) As per culture, should I be apologetic when leaving before the rest?
5) It feels good to be part of a team effort and really putting forth my best
6) I can do better work when I'm better rested
7) etc

They don't deride me when I leave early, but they stay probably 3 to 4 more hours than I do each
day, and I wonder what they are really thinking.

- - -

I'm working on a website for myself that I hope to leverage in two ways.  I'll have the code for my
own site that can hopefully make some money (through ads) and use the same code on a site with
Tariq.  The project that we worked on together has been (for our purposes (including Tariq's),)
stopped, but we will use the work we did on the project on the new website.

- - -

The idea of looking for other jobs slash sources of income is crossing my mind a bit more
frequently.  Three basic ideas are there:

1) a different IT job
2) modeling in addition to IT
3) IT projects on the side

I will also be taking 10 days off including the end of this January to make $5000 (by participating
in a drug trial) that will put me totally out of credit card debt and well into paying back my mom
and brother for loans after I broke my shoulder.

- - -

I am beginning to look into places to show my paintings in Tokyo.

- - -

Ami and I are doing well; I've gone through phases of thinking it would be better to date a woman
with whom I have a common language, but when I mentally step back a bit, I see it's not all that
important.

- - -

I have haphazardly been meditating more.  I'll be taking a meditation course this weekend
("opening the 3rd eye")

Hakone Ekiden

2:49pm JST Wednesday 2 January 2008 (day 13797)

There's a collegiate marathon from Tokyo to Hakone and back, run early in the year. Today was the first leg, and Ami was watching it on TV. Interesting to recognize some of the areas through which they ran; "I rode TJ Bike there!"

I wondered about the race and looked it up: Hakone Ekiden on Wikipedia. The entry didn't include deets about the endpoints nor distance, so I added those.

Jen is great!!

7:17am JST Thursday 3 January 2008 (day 13798)

http://robnugen.com/journal.pl?type=all&date=2005/10/02#sleeping_with_Jen

boberts youre brilliant! i often have that memory and
share it with people...im often the only one laughing
uproarously as im telling it...but i dont care!
Happy New Year!
Im pretty slack on the emails etc...im never at home
it seems these days! but i think of you
often...becuase i think of japan often and you make up
a pretty decent chunk of my hilarious japan moments!!
are you well my friend??
hope you are smiling as always and being the quirky
bobertos i know and love!
jj
xxxx

Hey cutie!!

I just told Ami the sleep-first story yesterday and she was like, " " and I was like, "don't you get
it???  It was so much fun!!"

What time is it in Pu-th, the most remotest capital in the world?

It's 7am in Tokyooo; I've been up all night, most recently watching http://zeitgeistmovie.com which
is pretty depressing until the very last 2 minutes, but well well worth a watch!

I am doing well in Japan, and before I amble off to bed, I want to relay an interesting thought that
one of my mates here pointed out.

If, for example, I moved from Texas (yee haw!) to New York, my parents wouldn't say, "so, when are
you going to move back to Texas???"  Or if I had moved from Houston to Austin, no one would be like,
"hey man, when are you going to move back to Houston?"  But for some reason, when we change
*countries*, people expect we'll be right back!

SO, I will quit asking you "when are you going to move back to Japan???" and just love you as my
dear friend Jen no matter where you live and no matter how many days pass between emails.  You take
care of yourself and I will do the same..  I will *also* always treasure our lovely times playing
with scads of cash and giggling with uproarious laughter and taking videos instead of photos and
counseling each other on love and life and Michael Jackson and karaoke and Dirty Wog and great
bicycles and swimming with Dan and No Pants Shoko Shoko and chillin' by ghetto river to play silent
footie and chillin' like movie stars in our ghetto yard with branchless climbing trees and all the
hilarity we enjoyed together.

Thank you for being special in my life.

     Love Love Love
   - Rob!  Rob!  ROB!!

--
The love that you give is the pain that you release.

Zeitgeistmovie at Pink Cow

2:13am JST Thursday 3 January 2008 (day 13798)

First I was all like

Traci!

Happy Moo Year!!

Have you seen Zeitgeist?  (http://zeitgeistmovie.com/) It's an awesome
world-government-alien-conspiracy movie that encourages us to love each other as fellow
humans, respect our diversity, know that we are one people.

The makers of the movie are proposing Z-Day on Saturday 15 March, having as many screenings
of the movie as possible around the world.  I'm looking for a venue to do that, and Pink Cow
is my first choice!  If you and your schedule are open to the idea, I look forward to
organizing it with you!

   See youuu!
    - Rob!

And then she replied

Hey Rob,

Happy moo year to you too:)

Of course we would love to have you and sounds like a film right up our alley! Our only problem
is that as a restaurant, and Fri/Sat being our prime-time and the time we need to pay our bills,
anything between 7-10pm we can only book people in for buffet dinner. Also, in order to do a
special event during dinner you would need at least 60-70 people for dinner otherwise it would
disturb other regular customers.  But, we have done it a couple of ways before by either
starting before and finishing by 7, inviting anyone who wants to stay to reserve for dinner or
inviting people to reserve for dinner before (for guaranteed tables) then show the film after 10
when dinner finishes, anyone who just wants to come for drinks only can come from 9:30 and we
can start the film after dinner. We could have djs after that and make a night of it if you
want:) How long is the film?

Please let me know what you think!  It would be great to do!

Cheers!
Traci

And then I was all

Thanks for the fast reply!

I've never really promoted anything so I don't have a sense of my ability to get 65+ people to come,
so for now I'll shy away from doing it during dinner (unless we just ran it in the background or
some such).

The movie is just under 2 hours long (1 hour 56 minutes), so it would have to start right when you
open to finish by 7pm.  That would be a great way to let early birds have a chance to watch it.

Hmmm; I'm now wondering if we could show it both before *and* after dinner!  That way we can support
both early and late customers with an after dinner movie until midnight and then DJs to kick it from
midnight.

The movie producers will support our showing with free DVDs to give away so I'm sure that would
bring some people in to check it out and buy a couple drinks.  I believe the movie is great, and I
would love to watch it twice and get tons of people to see it.

So in answer to your question "before or after dinner?"  both!  :-)

  Thanks!
    - Rob

shawn is so funny!!!

4:41am JST Thursday 3 January 2008 (day 13798)

Hahahahaha! Shawn is so funny!!

PS- 
I'm also on Facebook (for those of you who want to 
annoy me by sending me virtual beers or inviting
me to join your imaginary internet vampire gang).

zzzz

7:31am JST Thursday 3 January 2008 (day 13798)

Good news on the website front; I got it so I have an SVN repository of my website and can just do an svn co on the path and have a working website like *snap*. SO now I have *two* working websites: a test system and a live system.

I will likely use this technique for any future sites I make.

I just watched zeitgeist and highly recommend it to all humans. I'm coordinating with tracy to do a showing at Pink Cow on Z-Day.

But right now it's bed bed bedtime.