The DerfJam Chronicles

I had this crazy dream where one of our friends had passed away. The scenario was she got into a minor car accident but wasn't hurt too bad. Since she wasn't really hurt she didn't go to a hospital or anything. After a few days she started to feel a little weird so then she decides to go to a hospital. It turns out she had some head trauma and it caused some swelling in her brain and it put her into a coma or something and she never woke up from it. I remember talking to her and trying to get some explanation as to why she waited so long to go get checked up and she said she was trying to be tough.

This one hits me pretty hard cuz for the past week everyone I know has been trying to get me to go see a doctor and I kept saying imma tough it out. It was only after Karmen hit me up from her death bed and tried to convince me to go see a doctor that I decided maybe it would be a good idea to actually go. Karmen had to go to the ER the other day cuz she couldn't breathe and it really scared her. It scared me to see her in that condition. And here she is asking if I went to go get checked up. She thinks we have the same ailment, which we probably do, but I don't smoke so I don't have it as bad as her. It meant a lot to me that she tried to reach out even though she was in a weakened state. Next time I get sick, I will go to a doctor right away. But right now I think this sickness has pretty much ran it's course so I won't go.

I think I'm at 70% right now. The only thing that bothers me is a dry throat and I feel like I have fluid in my lungs cuz when I exercise I can feel it as I breathe harder. I guess I shouldn't exercise yet. I also have an occasional cough when I feel the fluid in my lungs. My cough is to try to get that fluid out.

...to recovery. I feel like my body is at 60% right now. I say another week and I'll be back to 100%. Everyday I've been feeling better and better and this morning when I opened my eyes I thought I was all good. And then I stood up and I felt all the congestion in my chest and throat. My tongue is still slightly numb and swollen. I also have my appetite back, which I'm happy about.

I got an award at work for providing a service to the entire floor. Fred's Diner is a hit with management. They love the fact that everything at my store is half the price than the vending machines. Chips, $0.25. Sodas, $0.40. I wonder if the guys who stock the vending machine notice anything fishy? Hahahahaha.

I've been feeling like making a change lately. Be on the lookout for something different.....

I probably slept for a total of 12 hours yesterday. I went home a little before noon and slept til 5:30pm. I was then wide awake until about 11 and then slept til 7am this morning. I feel slightly better.

I've been taking my Mom to work in the morning cuz my bro is up in Newport all this week getting CATIA V5 training for his new job. He keeps asking me if I'm siiiick in CATIA and I always say I'm alright. I mean I don't do any design in it but I just manipulate parts/assemblies already made and what not.

Every time I cough it feels like I'm getting punched in the throat. I mean I'm not coughing very much, maybe like once an hour, but it's pretty powerful.

I've been drinking about 3 gallons of water a day since I'm not eating that much and I'm sweating out all my fluids. But for the week that I've been sick, I think I've lost 10 lbs. I started wearing some shirts I haven't worn in about 2 years. And my regular shirts now feel all super baggy.


You know how guys will open the car door for girls? And then I'll walk around and open my door. There's this girl that I took out a few times and she opens my door for me from the inside. That's never really happened to me before. I find it to be very impressive. She appreciates my gesture and returns the favor.

I was working this weekend and here is a link to the pix I took. I can officially say that I am a professional photographer. I get paid now! YES!

So on Saturday I drank some some TheraFlu to try to help me get better but after the first sip it felt like I bit my tongue. I thought that the TheraFlu was just that strong and it's attacking whatever virus/disease/sickness that I have. After I finished the cup of TheraFlu I felt something behind my jaw and under my ear start to hurt. It was as though it was swelling up. I didn't think anything of it.

Fast forward ahead 2 hours and now we're at Phil's BBQ for my sister's b-day. So I'm there eating my ribs and chicken and I could feel that something behind my jaw and under my ear getting bigger with each bite of my food. Halfway through my meal, it was painful to even open my mouth. I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror and saw that this huge mound had developed on the side of my jaw. It looked like I had been hit by a baseball bat to the face and this huge grapefruit sized welt was developing. My tongue was going numb and the left side of my face was 3 times bigger than my right side.

So we get home and I ice it down but it's painful as heck. My Mom tells me that I might have the Mumps. I don't know what the heck that is so I look it up and sure enough, I'm displaying all the symptoms of it. I read about the causes/triggers of the symptoms and lemon was one of the irritants. The TheraFlu I drank was Lemon flavored and I had some raspberry lemonade at Phil's BBQ.

Right now, the left side of my tongue is still a little swollen and slightly numb. It kinda feels like I was at the dentist. I woke up this morning to excruciating pain. My tongue was twice the size it is now and it was painful to chew anything.

Karma. The time is coming for me to give up a lot of the things I love. I need to make things right.

It turns out that I'm not the only one who is suffering from these fever and chill symptoms. A good number of people in the office are experiencing the same thing as me. The only person who I know was sick was Scott. And we go get our morning coffee/tea together all the time. So I think I got sick from him.

This morning I had the crazy shakes. My entire body was shivering so much that my lower back muscles tightened up and it was all hell. I tried to curl up in the fetus position but that didn't help.

I took some Motrin IB at 5am and I feel pretty good right now. The only thing that's bothering me right now is my throat. It just feels dry as hell and no matter how much liquids I drink it still feels this way.

I'm not really used to drinking hot drinks but I've been drinking it alot for the past few days and I've drank so much hot stuff that a layer of skin on my lower lip has been burned off. I can feel it when I press my tongue against my lip. It also hurts when I drink hot stuff now.


After work Andie wants to get together for some beers and she wants to hear stories from Vegas. She's been bugging me ever since we got back from Vegas. I told her there are no stories to tell. We basically stayed in our hotel rooms and watched TV all day every day. That's not really the truth but I dunno if she should know what we did. I don't want her perception of me to change. I mean if her perception of me changes, it should be because she saw it first hand and not because she heard something.

I have to work tonight at Thin so if any of you guys feel like stopping by to say hello, feel free to cruise on through. I think Thin is right by Onyx. I'm not too familiar with the downtown area yet but I'm slowly learning.

Last night was one of the worst nights of sleep I've ever had. I went to bed at 6pm and for some reason my extremities were freezing. My hands and feet felt like they were gonna fall off but the rest of my body was so hot that I was sweating profusely. Because of this I was not able to sleep. I kept tossing and turning and trying to get comfortable. I woke up at 4am and the 10 hours I was in bed I probably only slept for a total of 1 hour.

I had this weird dream that I was a real estate agent and every time I tossed and turned I would be at a different location. I was probably at over 50 different location and I'm pretty sure I sold all the places I was at.

Right now I'm at work and I'm sweating up a storm. I can feel my back all wet and the beads of sweat trickling down my forehead. Every time I cough it feels like I'm gonna yack. It hurts. I thought about calling in sick but I'll save my sick time for when I really can't function. I just sit at a desk all day and it doesn't take much effort.

My arms and legs feel so hot that it almost feels like I'm sunburnt.

I feel better now that I've drank a half gallon of water, ate an orange, a banana, and a box of raisins. I also had a cup of hot tea and rubbed Vicks Vapor Rub all over my chest and neck and I also took some tylenol and took some multi-vitamins. I got a couple apples calling my name in like 30 mins.

Did I ever mention my mission of eating a piece of fruit every hour? It's pretty hard to do. I've been doing this since late Novemeber and it's hard to eat a regular meal now. I also drink at least a gallon of water throughout my work shift.

I should quarantine myself to living in a bubble cuz guess what? I'm sick AGAIN!!!! Yaye! NOT. This is like the 6th time I'm sick in the span of 3 months. I'm pretty sure it's due to my lack of sleep and me sweating when it's cold outside.

My chest hurts when I cough. And my abs also contract and squeeze and it feels like I'm trying to drop a deuce every time I cough. I've been on a sort of liquid diet for the past couple days cuz my throat hurts too. I have a bunch of soft stuff that I'm eating like oranges and bananas. My face feels really hot and I'm drinking hot tea.

We usually have our meetings for my other job on Wed. nights but I'm pretty sick and today is also my bro's b-day so I dunno if imma be able to make it tonight. I can do a conference call or I could have everyone come over to my place since my Mom will probably cook pancit today. I like that option better.

We had a meeting for my other job over in Otay ranch yesterday. We discussed business over at Chili's and then cruised through the mall and watched a movie after.

We watched Cloverfield last night and I wasn't feeling it all that much. The first few minutes had me already dizzy as shiite cuz of the camera all shaking and what not. After that, it was hard for me to watch it. There were a bunch of funny lines that the cameraman was tossin' out there so that kinda kept me into the movie. When I saw the cause of the destruction, I wasn't all that impressed either. I think when they had that trailer for it in Transformers, they shoulda kept it that way: no name, no details, no anything.

I also bought a few new books yesterday. I got Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk, the new book by Neil Strauss (the title will stay unmentioned), and Love Is A Mixtape by Rob Sheffield. That last book caught my eye and the title sounded interesting so I read the synopsis and it's about some guy trying to explain the memory of the love of his life through music of the times. It's like a eulogy through the songs popular during that moment in their life. I think it's a genius idea. When I hear songs I'll remember where I was at and who I was with and what emotions was going on through my head at that exact moment. I remember being with my high school crush and the song "You're Still The One" by Shania Twain being the current hit. I remember the mood it would put us into whenever that song came on. I remember being at my house and the two of us singing along to it. I actually saw my high school crush last Wednesday but we've drifted so far apart that we don't even acknowledge each other anymore. We used to be really close. We'd walk home from school together, we'd play guitar in my garage for hours, and just be stupid and act like little kids. I remember the exact moment where I lost all respect for her. I won't discuss it on here cuz that's between me and her. But yeah, back to the books. The current book I'm reading is called The Mystery Method by none other than Mystery. Y'all might think I'm weird for even having it but I'm not ashamed to say that I need all the help I can get.

My bro's b-day is tomorrow and I don't know what to get him. Everything I ask him he says he doesn't want. And then I ask him what he wants and he says he doesn't know.

I got randomly picked in a drawing by the Chargers ticket office that if we had made the SuperBowl I had access to buy 2 tickets. $700 a pop, only cash or cashiers check accepted. I would have jumped on that in a jiffy. What a shame.

She's trying to find things out about my past that I'd rather not discuss with her. I told her I didn't want her perception of me skewed because of what I did before. She knows me now and the type of person that I am now and my past is irrelevant, but she keeps prying. I don't know if I should give in and just let her know or if I should just keep trying to change the subject every time she brings it up. She keeps reassuring me that I don't have to be ashamed or afraid to tell her anything. I don't know what to make of this......

Here's to a great season and looking forward to next season. Cheers. I'm proud to be a fan of the San Diego Super Chargers.

I woke up at 7 this morning. I'm usually at work by then. So by the time I clocked in it was already 8:15.

Jerry came over to my place with Zoua last night. She's pretty slammin'. I showed them some of my Vegas pix and now Zoua totally wants to go. And me and Jerry discussed some business for these coming weekends. We have a meeting again tonight in downtown. I thought this whole photography gig was all fun and games but it is very time consuming but well worth it. Did I mention I get paid now? Hahahaha. YES! So I go to clubs, take pix of people, and give them a card where they can find the pix. Go here to see some of my pix.

I doubt I'll be getting any sleep again tonight. My body hurts. I bet imma get sick again. It'll be the 5th time in like 3 months.

Still hurting. Need sleep. Now.

No sleep + craziness = Good times.

Tonight we leave for Vegas. Directly after work, we're goin' straight to the airport.

I'm friggin' tired right now. Last night I had a meeting for my other job. Meeting started around 9:30pm and we finished at almost 11. And after the meeting we made some rounds in downtown to make our presence known. We stopped by Confidential and passed through Red Circle and Belo and then made a quick little stop over at Heat. When we were talking to the doorman at Heat, I was taking a peek inside cuz it looked like there were a good number of people inside but I didn't see any ladies. And as we're talking to the doorman we see a couple guys step outside and start putting on some make-up and then we realized it was all guys inside the place so we just took off. After that we stopped by Croce's cuz they had some live jazz. After Croce's was when the most interesting part of the night happened. We're walking around downtown and then all of a sudden we hear this growl of pain behind us. There were 4 of us cruisin downtown last night and me, Punla, and Bitches turn around to see The Gentlemen hunched over in apparent pain. Let me take a few steps back now. We had our meeting over at Hooters and we had a few bites to eat. After we finished eating, someone asked what we should do next. I suggested we all take dumps before we leave. It got a good laugh but I got up and went to the bathroom. I came back and then we left. Ok, back to the growl of apparent pain. So The Gentlemen is hunched over and I asked him if he squirted a little. All he said was "We gotta stop somewhere." we spot a Ghirardelli's and he starts running across the street. We slowly follow him and we ordered some ice cream inside. The Gentlemen finished and came out to tell us that he almost didn't make it. The goods squeezed out before his cheeks made contact with the seat.we were cracking up so much that somehow I bit my lip and I was eating some Mint n' Chip ice cream, which is green, and then I started to see swirls of red everytime I licked it. The Gentlemen was all like, "Did you order Mint n' Chip with strawberries?" I bit my lip so hard I felt a chunk of skin missing.

Now I'm here at work, feeling the events from last night hitting me. When I gotta wake up at 4:30am. I'm usually in bed by midnight. Well, I wasn't even home yet at midnight. I probably went to sleep around 2:30ish and woke up at 5. And I doubt I'll be doing much sleeping in Vegas. Not good.

On a side note, Michelle knows something is up so I'm keeping my distance from her right now. She doesn't know exactly what I'm doing but she just knows something is up my sleeve. I'll get back to her in maybe 3 weeks or a month....or maybe longer. For those of you who DON'T know what I'm doing, don't worry cuz it's nothing bad. It's just an unconventional way of "moving up the ladder". And for those of you who DO know what I'm doing, I might have to bypass the "Supervisor" and go straight to the "Manager". This is for the good of the group.

So I have this gig on the 19th with my band playing at this Charity Event. It's a benefit for the Children's Hunger Fund being hosted by the church for Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints. Pretty much every charity event or public service thing I do involves me playing music at the event. It's funny cuz people would recognize me and say "Hey, you did community service work with *insert name here*. I remember you." And I didn't actually do any kind of community service but I just played music to help them raise money.

It feels good when people enjoy the music I write. I mean, I write it for myself as a form of therapy but when it can lift someone else's spirits or make them feel better than they were feeling before or whatever, I think that right there is the real community service. It's all about giving someone a positive outlook on the future. If you can make someone believe, you can make someone succeed. And it's through music that I believe.

Did I mention that my bro got a new job? He now works for Nokia and he said they were gonna give him a phone and a laptop and his job is to do R&D on new phones. So all the latest and greatest phones, he gets to play with before they even come out. That's sweet. I was gonna buy a new phone but now I think I'll wait to see what he says and maybe he even gets discounts or comes up with free phones. I dunno, we'll just have to wait and see. Ha.

There was a scheduled photo shoot on Jan. 19 for my other job but that got postponed and now I have a gig with my band on that day. I got a call last night asking if I could do it. I had to make a few calls to see what the deal with the photo shoot was and that's how I found out it got postponed. I'm not even sure where this gig is and what time and all the details. They just asked if I wanted to play and I'm down. I'm excited. That just means we have to practice. We haven't practiced in a couple weeks, but we know our songs. The last few rehearsals we had we were writing new songs. So if you are free on Jan. 19 around 4pm, I have a gig. I'll post more details once I find them out.

I can't wait to see all the pix of Japan that Shanel took. She said there was this place in Harujuku that sells a bunch of clothes that I would wear. I bet they wouldn't have my size though. Hahahaha.

Being sick this time is totally worth it. Sitting/standing in the rain for 3 hours watching the Chargers win their first playoff game since 1995 was so much fun. I like the fact that 98% of the stadium was Chargers fans. I probably only saw like 30 Titans fans the whole time we were there. I might have saw the same ones twice. I really wish it was like this during the regular season cuz it would make things so much better. The whole playoffs atmosphere is a totally different beast.

Shanel is back from Japan. Yaye! I can hear hear from my seat but i haven't see her yet today. I'm jealous that she got to go on a trip and be away from work for 2 weeks.

I came in late and I'm gonna start coming in late for who knows how long. Some things I just have no control over and I just gotta roll with the punches.

My Mom told me we were gonna go to the Philippines this year in Oct/Nov. I haven't been there since 1998. It'll be fun. I'll get to see a bunch of cousins that were babies the last time I saw them.

We, as in me and Ramon and the fellas, were planning a Euro trip so we could go to Oktoberfest but I think that will have to wait for another time since imma be going back to the homeland this year. Too many trips = too little cash. This weekend is our trip to Vegas and it might be my last trip in a while. No Miami, no Cabo, no Europe.

It's really early in the year and I already feel a little burnt out. I need to let my body rest. I need to put myself in better situations. I got a lot on my mind but I'd like to talk to someone in person and not type it on here. I dunno. I should visit a doctor sometime soon...

I woke up this morning and I needed to spit out some loogies and I went to the sink to spit but there was not spit that came out with the loogie. It was just solid loogie. I guess I was that dehydrated from last night. I dunno, I'm guessing I only had 6 beers but that combined with the running and "physical activities" Andie and I did to sober up was probably what got me. Andie and I got to work at the same time this morning, only by chance, and I was telling her that my hamstring was sore and I didn't know why. I totally forgot some of the stuff we were doing. And she reminded me that we ran 5 laps and that could be the reason for my hamstring. I'm pretty sure it is. Hahahahahaha. Andie also woke up to find a 10 dollar bill stuffed in her bra and then she was all like, "WTF? Where did this come from?" And I had to remind her that when we payed, she was too lazy to go into her purse so she put her change in her bra.

Oh snap, I just remembered that I got the privilege to Tap The Keg last night. Our waiter told the manager that me and my group of peeps have been coming to Strauss for the past year now and it's about time one of us got the chance to tap the keg. It was pretty cool. I aint never tapped a keg before so I was stoked to do it.

I went to bed at 730pm and I woke up at 530am. My alarm went off at 430am, but I went back to sleep. I still have a little bit of a cough and I know if I get 6 hours of sleep per night for the next week the cough will be gone. At least I'm hoping it will be gone.

Tonight is another Strauss night and this time Scott is not going. Scott was kinda like the "originator" of Strauss night. I don't think any of us would know about it if it weren't for Scott. We were planning on doing a huge group of about 30 people to rent the back room but then Strauss threw in all these demands that we could not accommodate for. So I booked a separate reservation for about 15 people. And a few people that we had on the list booked their own reservation, so hopefully we'll just all be seated somewhere near each other.

Did I mention that I don't even like beer? I really don't like the taste of it. I dunno, it's just not my flavor. I just drink for the social aspect. It's weird if I'm with a girl and she's the only one drinking. It might come off as me just trying to get her drunk to take advantage of her. That is not the case, which is why I will drink a little bit. And I think the fact that I'm allergic to alcohol factors in to the equation. I like the hard stuff better cuz I will feel the effect of the alcohol before I feel the effect of the allergic reaction. Hahahahahaha. So what happens to me since I'm allergic? Basically, I just start to get itchy on certain parts of my body (chest and back) and I start sweating and I also turn purple. I've built up my tolerance to where the purple and itching part take longer to take effect but the sweating is uncontrollable. I also feel my heart start to pound a little faster. When I drink, it feels like I took a short jog around the block. That could also factor in the sweating part. When it feels like I just ran a mile, that's when I know I've had too much to drink and I should start pounding water ASAP. My heart will start racing and I'll get a little light headed. That's only happened a couple times so I'm good.

Shocker foam hands are in place for the Playoff game. It'll be awesome. Hopefully this will get us some TV time. Hahahahahaha.

I've been sleeping super late the past 4 days. So last night I didn't sleep til about 4am. It wasn't by choice, it more by habit. And when my alarm went off at 5:30am, I didn't want to get up. It felt like I had just closed my eyes like 10 minutes ago. I had a headache so I went back to sleep. I woke up at 6 and the headache was gone so I got ready for work.

New Years Eve was spent with the little cousins and we played Madden 08 all night. We started around 630-7ish and didn't finish playing until 1am. We almost missed the NYE countdown cuz we were in the middle of the championship game and it went into overtime. The champ was down 16 points in the 4th quarter and made a miraculous come back to send it to OT. And in OT, the champ got the ball first and scored. It was truly the game of the year.

On a side note, I have yet to win a game in Madden 08 against a serious competitor. I am 0-35 or something like that.

Oh yeah, Michelle has been playing mind games with me. I don't know if she reads this or not, but I'm pretty sure she has found it. She's found other stuff that I do or belong to me. Hi Michelle! I am NOT trying to get in your pants if that's what you're thinking. You are not an object to me. Respect. But I am an arsehole so I don't blame you for anything.