Author Archives: Alan V

Old entries

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Reading back in my journal archives (especially my first journal) is interesting, amusing, and often cringe-worthy. I was such an arrogant bastard back then.
Reading back in IM logs (especially to middle school) is even worse.
Anyone else done this and felt similarly?

Other things in life (which mostly follow from each other in some weird convoluted manner):
Work is awesome.
API is hard.
Airfare is expensive.
Yay for (tenative) Christmas plans.
Airplane meals are look tasty.
Domestic first class airplane meals look stupidly easy to make.
Cooking helps me relax.
Cooking for just one person sucks.
Groups make me uncomfortable.
“Group” now seems to be defined as more than 4 people.
Dim sum is tasty.
Tiny, cheap cameras are awesome.
Everyone is getting married.
I’ve never been invited to a wedding. But I have gone to one as a guest with a friend who was invited.
Facebook is creepy.
Love is awesome.
Sleep should happen.

Edit: How is it 3 AM? :(
In any case, I should make more entries like this. Blorp.

Growing Up

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This weekend, I went through and tagged (on my computer) all of my photos from middle school and freshman year of high school, as well as about 1/4 of the photos from sophomore year.

I also posted random selections of the middle school photos onto Facebook.

Overall, this has left me with a huge sense of nostalgia, and a feeling of jealousy that kids today have access to cheap cameras to document their childhoods.

The first part, I suppose, is expected. It seems like not too long ago when we were eighth graders, feeling excited that we were soon growing up and going to *gasp* high school. Yet, it’s been 9 years. Some of the people I sat around the lunch table with are engaged or married. Most have graduated with degrees and gone to get jobs. It’s amazing how much can change in a decade.

Even high school photos, which somehow seem significantly more recent, are now remnants from a time long past. Going back and seeing the first photos of some people I now consider close friends… seeing all the relationships grow and change and end. It seems strange to consider that there were times before you knew the important people in your life. It seems even stranger to consider that some of your closest friends then are people you rarely, if ever, communicate with now.

I suppose this entry is rather disjoint and I’m not really sure what I’m writing any more. At least I don’t find myself missing the past as much as simply reminiscing on it. Hopefully this means that my life is such that I have no regrets about where I’ve ended up.

Yay life.

Food (Chocolate Pasta)

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Still feeling kind of meh (see yesterday’s rant), but I did some cooking today.

This morning I woke up early and made myself a tasty breakfast sandwich.

A mushroom omelette with cheese inside a toasted english muffin.

My camera arrived today, so I put it to work taking photos of my attempt at dessert: chocolate pasta.

1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3 tablespoons Ovaltine
1 egg white

Mix ingredients into a moist dough. It should not be crumbly, but should not be sticky. Roll out flat with a rolling pin and cut into strips. Boil about 5 minutes. Serve with cherry sauce, hot or cold.

12 cherries
1 tablespoon sugar

Cut cherries into small pieces and add sugar. Cook over low heat about 5 minutes until slightly syrupy.





It wasn’t bad. However, I would add more chocolate (so you probably want more like 4 or 5 tablespoons of Ovaltine).

Life

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Dinner today was a salad with mushrooms, grilled garlic-herb salmon, and some jalapeno cheese bread. It was fairly good.
I’m also currently working on a new incarnation of PPA TCG/Student Wars called People Wars:

Really though, I’ve lately been feeling like I’ve lost all my passion for things in my life.

I used to enjoy designing webpages. The last website I designed was my photos2 layout, and that was over a year ago.

I used to enjoy writing code in my free time. The last bit of code I wrote “for fun” was the backend for life.alanv.org, and that was mainly because I wanted a way to share photos (so more out of necessity than desire to code). I have a bunch of project ideas in my head that want to be turned into applications, but for which I can’t find the desire to work on.

I used to enjoy creating card games. Even as I work on People Wars, I keep feeling like it’s not something I really want to be doing. The past 3 or 4 TCGs I’ve started work on have stalled in various non-playable states. The older TCGs I used to like working on haven’t been updated in years (PSO TCG?).

I used to enjoy photography. Lately though, every time I pull out my camera, I feel more and more like I’m compensating for my utter lack of social skills. I rarely look through the photos I take anymore. I don’t really sort or tag the photos I take anymore. When I take photos, it no longer brings me the joy it used to. (Even the recent fourth of July and related photos were sorted mainly out of a sense of obligation rather than a desire to do so, and they still haven’t been tagged.)
I guess the purchase of the point-and-shoot was an attempt to get me interested again, but part of me is doubting that it will work… in particular after yesterday’s picnic where I kept finding myself wishing I had left my camera at home and was forcing myself to interact on a less superficial level.

I used to enjoy spending time around people. More and more, however, it feels like I’m incredibly out of place. There are times when, no matter what is happening, I can’t get myself interested. When there are people over I increasingly spend more and more time alone in my room clicking through the same 4 webpages or listening to the same dozen songs over and over. I simultaneously feel like I want more social interaction and social interaction would only serve to make me miserable and feel even more left out.

I used to be passionate about work and look forward to heading in to work every day. Lately though, it’s become more “same old, same old,” and I get up and get dressed and head to my desk every day out of necessity. Part of this may be the bad couple weeks I’ve been having WRT work, but I feel that it’s likely part of the larger issue where I’m losing interest in everything.

I guess I’m not entirely sure what’s wrong with me, other than I wish I had something I actually enjoyed doing instead of having a bunch of things I do to pass the time. Hopefully this is nothing more than a small rut and I’ll find my interests again. Maybe it’s time to go out and seek new interests. I want to enjoy, rather than simply live, life again. I just can’t seem to find activities that allow me to do that in the same way that I once did.

I should thank Greg, Tim, Ian, Mars, and Dan though. Sometimes I feel like you guys are the only thing keeping me sane, and when we play games or just talk, everything feels like it used to and I find myself being interested in things again.

Meh.

(I suppose this should include a small disclaimer that there’s still one thing I’m passionate about. You know who you are, and I hope that never changes.)

Camera

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I bought myself a new camera today.

It’s the Samsung SL30 in Silver (because they sold out of Black literally 30 minutes ago).

I paid $69.99 for it, plus about $12 shipping and taxes (because the retailer is located in California and so must charge tax on items shipped within the state). Overall not a bad deal. After the shipping and taxes, it’s around $17 less than other places online.

I’ve been wanting a compact point and shoot for a while, and this one has some pretty nice reviews. Hopefully soon I’ll actually suck it up and plop down the money for a new SLR body, but this thing should tide me over for a while.