As a busy professional who works those “9-8s” you don’t get the opportunity to really watch your shows when you want. And then along comes the ability to record your shows and watch them at another time either with a DVR or TIVO. I have become the biggest fan of this magic device, as it regards all of my shows and patiently keeps them until I can watch them in all their HD glory (or sometimes SD if the channel doesn’t have an HD feed).

However, I have hit a bit of a dilemma. My DVR is 95% full, which means any day now I will run out of space. So what will go? NCIS? Law & Order? CSI? Eureka? Robin Hood? Either I have to make time to somehow watch 20 hours of recorded shows, or somehow make the tough decision to delete something.  Sadly, I looked at the “upcoming” shows being recorded and there are more coming in than I can filter out.

Damn you DVR! You are a blessing and the bane of my existance!

I wrote this entry on July 23, the day before my birthday but held it for a while before I published it.  I think it was because I started the entry one way, revised, and revised until it is what it is now.  If you know me well, and a lot of people don’t really know me as well as they think they do, you will know that I am not a fan of big birthday celebrations. The two exceptions have been my 25th and my 30th.

The 25th was because my girlfriend at the time really wanted to put on a big birthday party for me, and it was a landmark as it was my quarter of a century birthday.  I remember it like it was yesterday, some good friends, a nice keg of Seirra Nevada and mellow night of just chilling and having a good time.

My 30th was because, well it was my 30th and to be honest there was a girl at the time I wanted to impress so a bunch of us got 2 VIP Booths at On Broadway and I think at final headcount there was about 50 people there throughout the night, some we got into the VIP Area, some we couldn’t.  I was flipping through the photos the other night and kind of laughed…those days of my hard partying and dance clubbing days are long gone.

Somewhere in my early 30s I started to become more concerned about work, professionalism, career, and education.  I was more concerned with how I looked, how I acted, who I befriended, who I could help, where I was,  where I was going, and where I had been.  Not to wax in religiousm, but it reminds me of a passage from the Bible 1 Corinthians 13:11, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

Now as I get older, I started to wonder about what lies around the bend…and yet, I eagerly await it.

On Saturday I had to go to the DMV to get my new drivers license, title for my car, and registration for my car. When I pulled into the parking lot it was packed with cars and I started to think, “Hmm, maybe I should run in and get a number and then come back out and look for parking.” So I pulled into the next-door parking lot behind a gas station and mini-mall and walked over to the DMV. I got my number and went back out to go search for parking in the DMV parking lot.

Funny thing, my car was gone. I was staring at where I parked it in complete disbelief. First reaction was that my car got stolen, but then I realized no it got towed. How could my car get towed in less than 5 minutes? I was amazed that they could tow me so quickly. I literally walked 50 feet to the DMV building and got my ticket, gauged the wait time, and walked back out in under 5 minutes.

I walked to the front of the gas station and sure enough there was another tow truck hoisting a car up. I walked up to the tow driver and I asked him if he towed my car. He informed me that it was probably towed and they have 4 tow trucks working the parking lot. I mentioned I had only been gone 5 minutes and I can’t believe they towed it so fast, he hinted they pretty much are waiting for you to leave the car and they load it up. I watch him hoist the car up in a minute. He was nice enough to drive me to the lot where my car was towed to, which happened to be near my apartment complex. It cost me $100 (that is the max they can charge apparently) to get my car back and I was back at the DMV in 20 minutes.

Ironically, I had to wait another hour before the DMV called me up to the counter. Heh.

I joined yelp.com back in 2006 and to be honest, just joined. I didn’t do much, which is kind of lame in hindsight. However, I have rediscovered Yelp and have been “yelping” a lot in DC now since I arrived. I have become mildly addicted to it, and would totally yelp more if my job didn’t keep me so busy.

Yelp is reviews by users for users. The concept is simple and the value is that you can sort of tell that these are REAL people. Not like some review sites, where you get the feeling they are employees of the company. Here you can see other reviews they have written and make up your mind for yourself. Do yourself a favor, check it out see what you think, take it for a spin, and try not to get addicted.

I suspect like most things, my interest could fade over time. But for right now, I am enjoying yelping.

I have held back for a little time on posting this, because I have not been quite able to put it into words.  I had an amazing meal a few weeks back in Philadelphia at Morimotos.  You may have heard of Iron Chef Morimoto and he opened a restaurant in Philadelphia and then based on that location’s popularity he opened one in New York City.  If you were not aware Masaharu Morimoto worked at Nobu Matsuhisa’s restaurant Nobu, and a lot of his dishes are the same ones he created/borrowed from Nobu.

Anyway, I had the Omakase (Chef’s Choice) which is about 7 courses and takes you on a taste of adventure.  You get decadent Toro Tartar with Caviar and then move on to Spicy Lobster with a brilliant creme freche to cool it down a little.  Then when you think you are in heaven, they bring out Wagyu Beef (you may have heard of it as Kobe Beef, which is only served in Japan I might add) that literally melts in your mouth.

The only tip I would suggest, do not get the Beverage Omakase.  You get 7 drinks coursed with your meals, and well after 7 glasses of wine and sake you’ll be staggering out of the restaurant.  Either way, if you are in Philadelphia or NYC you should give it a spin.  And go to Nobu, just so you can compare the two.

I know everyone goes through the feeling they need more minutes in the day, more minutes for their phone plan, more minutes to sleep, and more minutes to day dream about more minutes. Tonight, as I sat on my floor with my laptop, I realized I just don’t have enough minutes in the day to get anything I want done. I haven’t decided if it is because maybe I am not efficient…or maybe its because I trying to perpetually multi-task and doing nothing effectively. Hah.

I have a list of projects I want to really get sorted out:

1. Update my Plaxo so that all of my contacts are current (or at least accurate)
2. Load the said Plaxo contacts to my mobile phone so my phone has a current information
3. Unpack from my move from San Diego to VA/DC (yes I am still living in boxes)
4. Organize my files on all of my removable drives so that I consolidate my data (yes, my pictures, files, and data are strewn over 3+ TBs of hard drives)
5. Email all of my friends who I have neglected for the past 3 months (what is left of them)
6. Invent a time freezing device that will allow me to get projects 1 - 5 completed in a nanosecond

That is a good start…haha, and should keep me busy for the next few weeks!

Today I had grand plans of going out and photographing the fireworks tonight, but as the day wore on (and the rain came down) I just lost motivation. I do have some photos to upload to my Flickr account, but again even that is lagging behind. I have realized I am becoming more and more “slug-like.” I tend to enjoy laying on the couch on my downtime and just catching up on my DVRed shows.

And thank goodness for my DVR as I have been pulling late nights over the past few weeks. All of my shows are auto-magically recorded for my viewing pleasure at a later time. And one of my favorite features is I can fastforward through the commercials to truly just enjoy the show. Ironically, I find myself sometimes watching the commercials before it dawns on me…”Hey I can fast forward through them.” I guess I am truly becoming slug-like.

On that note, I am going to watch the commercials instead of fast forwarding through them…because I can.