Monday, June 29, 2009

Insurance

I got married last Friday. Just a small ceremony at the courthouse. The whole thing took 3 minutes. We went to McDonald's after for breakfast. We were joking around that that was the reception. It was a rainy day, and the judge said that was a good thing because it'll be nothing but sunshine after.

I don't really feel that much different. I don't think you need a wedding to prove that you love somebody. And half of the married people in America get divorced anyway. So I don't know that having a ceremony even ensures anything. And besides, our families are far away from us. Mine is in the Philippines, and hers is in Oahu.

I was planning on having a traditional Hawaiian wedding like that Jon & Kate episode. We would have it on our anniversary on September 9 of this year. Then our marriage date would be 09-09-09. That would have been cool. And easy to remember.

However, that would have cost money. And not that I have any more time to take off from work. And of course, the fall semester would just be starting, which is a busy time for Gail.

So when Gail's mom was here a couple of months ago, we decided to tie the knot while she was here. We asked for her blessing. She said to make sure it's what we wanted, and that we weren't doing it because of Ryan. So I said, "Of course not. I'm doing it for the health insurance!" Just kidding.

Anyway, we went and got the license. Of course, it takes time to process, and Mommy was leaving for Alabama already. So unfortunately, she couldn't be there for the wedding. Then we figured, okay, Gail's cousin BJ is coming over here to study, so let's schedule it after she gets here. She'll represent the family.

Fast forward, and now I'm wearing this wedding band on my finger. I gotta get used to it. I don't really wear rings or other kinds of jewelry. The last time I had one was during my heavy metal look phase late in high school and early in college when I always dressed in my black Slayer shirts, long chains and my skull choker and matching cross-bones ring. (I still listen to metal but don't bother with the look any more.) I've already been yelled at a couple of times for forgetting to wear it. Man, I sure hope I don't lose this thing.

That's the only thing that's changed really. This thing on my finger. I feel like I've been married to Gail since we started in 2005. And we've been living together for a long time already anyway. But now I can officially call her my wife. And she's changing her last name to mine. And we'll keep loving each other and loving Ryan and make seven more babies like Jon & Kate Plus Eight.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Metropolitan

Happy Father's Day to everyone!

Today is my first Father's Day as a dad, and I just fed my three-month old son four ounces of milk.  He is now in his crib sleeping peacefully in his cute little New York Jets jersey.  It finally fits!  I actually bought it for him when he was still about two weeks old in his mommy's belly.  These days he's quickly outgrowing his newborn clothes, so I made sure he got to wear this one and take some pictures in it.

Last week we bought him three New York Mets onesies, but they're still a little big for him even though they were the smallest size we could find.  Hopefully, by the time they fit late this summer, the Mets will be playing in some meaningful games.

I was never a baseball fan growing up.  I did go for Little League once in the Philippines.  There was this white American guy teaching us how to stand in the box and hold the bat and stuff.  I remember he kept insisting we just talk to him in our own dialect - which he understood but didn't speak - instead of our awkward sounding English.

It went okay, I guess.  And I don't know what happened, but I just never went back for some reason.  Weeks later in school, my friends were deciding who should play what position in the field.  They were saying, "Ryan* should play first base, Robert* should play second, and Sunny* should play shortstop."  And I just remember thinking, "What's a shortstop?"  I never asked them, though.  

I don't remember if they included me in there.  I think they did.  I remember them asking me to be at the field on Saturday.  I never did show up.  I was too busy riding my bike, I think.  I simply forgot.  It must have had something to do with my mom not being around, because she would have been on top of it.  But at that time she had already left to work in the States.

As for my dad?  Well, I'm not too fond of the guy.  I'm not too sure how I feel about him exactly.  When I was a little boy, I used to actually pray that he would die.  That's bad, yeah?  But I'm not sure if I really had enough reason to feel that way or if I was overreacting.  I'm not too sure.  I'm still thinking about it.

Not that we didn't have some good times.  But they were few and far between.  Or they would start out to be happy but turn out otherwise.

Once when I was nine, my mom sent us some baseballs and gloves, and my dad, my two older brothers and I went outside to play catch.  I've never played catch before in my life, and I definitely wasn't used to wearing a mitt or catching with my left hand.  (If you're right-handed, you have to catch with your glove on your left hand so you can throw with the right one.)

So my brother throws the ball to me, and it goes past my glove and straight to my sternum.  I couldn't breathe.  And instead of teaching me how to catch the damn thing properly, my dad and my brothers laughed.  And so I was never that crazy about baseball from that day.

Three years later, and I finally went to live with my mom in Queens, New York.  This was in 1991.  We were living in a nice house with my aunt, uncle and little cousin.  My uncle was Irish.  A white guy.  And I never understood what he found so interesting with baseball that he would sit on the couch for hours and watch the Yankees lose.

My uncle and I were never close.  I'm not too sure of why that is.  I think I was just too different for him.  He offered me chocolate pudding one time, and I refused to try it.  He gave me this odd "Are you insane?" look.  He seemed to think it was the greatest thing in the world, and he was excited for me to try it.  It just looked too damn squishy for me, okay?  Sorry, but I'm not interested.  So yeah, I think that disappointed him.  I was definitely not a typical American kid.

We moved out after a couple of months, and my mom and I lived in a small apartment in New Jersey.  It was there in 1995 when, having nothing else to watch, I tuned in to a baseball playoff game.  It was actually pretty exciting.  I watched Buck Showalter's Yankees lose to Tino Martinez and the Seattle Mariners.

The next year, I watched the same Tino Martinez win the World Series with the Yankees.  And on my birthday, too!  I started watching more baseball since then.

I never paid attention to the Mets, though.  The Yankees would go on to have the most wins ever in a single season, as well as another championship in 1998, and the Mets were just that other team in the city.

Until Mike Piazza arrived.  He was traded to the Mets in 1998, and they were gonna be a good team now, and I wanted them to be a good team, too.  So I followed along from time to time and rooted for them.

In 2000, the Mets made it to the World Series, and they played against the Yankees.  I actually found myself rooting for the Mets.  I figured the Yankees already had three rings out of the last four.  The Mets lost, of course, and they haven't been that successful since then.

But I'm still a Mets fan, and I hope I can bring my son to CitiField soon.  And someday, I hope to coach him in Little League and teach him the fundamentals.  For now I'll just watch the games on TV with the volume low so the noise doesn't wake him.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Dave's World

I'm sitting here in my office watching DVDs, as things have been slow at work lately. Actually, for a long time now. In fact, we even moved to a new space in order to cut costs. The boss signed the lease so hastily that he didn't even consider the wiring of the place, and we short out the circuits whenever we use the microwave, which is all the time, as we all pretty much brown bag it every day.

As far as my office, it's not the most ideal for a Video Editor. The shades are so thin and the lighting is so bright, that I've pretty much been getting major headaches everyday. It's not easy staring at a monitor with sunlight behind it, and there's pretty much no other place to put it as we are physically limited.

I've been asking my boss for thicker shades since we moved in here a month ago, and he keeps saying he'll get right on it. But he's here three days a week, and he spends his four-day weekends in Florida. So I finally decided to grab some cardboard boxes and propped them up against the window. They help ever so slightly, and it makes me feel that at least I did something about it. But it doesn't look very professional, and there's still a glare coming in from the inside lighting.

Recently, I've been telling our clients, "We're a no-frills company. We don't have a big space, couches, rugs, plasma TVs or vending machines, but we do offer experience and expertise." That kind of bullshit.

I would take another job in a heartbeat, but there is no other job to take. Unless I start out as an intern or freelance. And I need the steady paycheck, as I have a three-month old son at home. But more and more these days, I'm considering taking a chance as a freelancer. The situation at work is getting scary, and I don't know if one day my boss will just say, "Sorry, guys, we're done." Then where would I be?

My fianc
é is getting promoted next month, although we're not sure how much more she'll be getting. We're hoping it would be twice the amount, but it's highly unlikely. Once we find out, then maybe we can make better decision for me career-wise.

In the meantime, I'll just sit here and watch episodes of "
Dave's World." I remember enjoying it when it first aired on CBS in the 90s. But I was still in the eighth grade back then. Not that it's not funny. I just thought I would be laughing more.

Also, for some reason, they changed the
theme song from a version of Billy Joel's "You May Be Right" to some slower instrumental, which just doesn't fit. The title sequence has a dog running around and craziness ensuing, and the music to it should be a little more upbeat. I wonder why they changed it. Maybe they're suffering from the recession, too, and didn't want to pay the residuals.