jeffrey + upstairsloft

Kate hella sucks. So, the ground started shaking. She had no idea what was going on. In the split second I felt the earth’s jolt, I knew it was an earthquake. It was the strongest earthquake I felt since 1989. All the other ones were baby quakes. But there was no questioning this one. There was no major damage.

On the news, I saw that some lady’s shampoo bottles fell off her shelf. That kinda sucks. She has to pick them back up. Anyhow. A 5.6 earthquake hit the Southbay. Kate and I were in the photo darkroom, in Fremont. My brother experienced his first earthquake. He was born a year after the big San Francisco one. I, however, was hanging out with my friends on the second story in his apartment.

Kate has an interview in less than 14 hours. Kate has to a portfolio submission by this Friday.

Jeff tries printing. Print quality shows banding. Jeff runs printer head cleaning. Ink runs out. Jeff just replaced the ink over a month ago and hasn’t used much of it. Ink still runs low. Jeff prints Kate’s process manual. It’s all fucked up. Jeff tries to print Kate’s leave-behind. Leave-behind looks all fucked up. Jeff cleans nozzles. Now printer doesn’t feed paper. Jeff gives up and goes to brother’s computer. Jeff tries printing. It feeds two pieces of paper at the same time, depleting his stock of paper. Jeff feeds one more of the good stock. It totally misaligns. Jeff quits using Preview and tries installing Adobe Reader onto brother’s computer. It says it’s incompatible even though it says it’s for PPC and Intel Macs. Jeff tries again. it doesn’t work. Jeff then tries to install Adobe Acrobat Professional 8 onto brother’s computer. Jeff gets a kernel panic.

Jeff finally gives up. Kate goes home. Jeff jams his fingers into the printer’s feeding mechanism and violently yanks. Jeff breaks printer. Jeff feels better. Jeff hates technology. Jeff should have been asleep 2 hours ago. Jeff is a good guy and tries to help out his fiance for her interview but Jeff fails. Jeff wants to collect used syringes and stick them in his eye sockets.

Jeff wants to sleep but he is too distracted.

And of course. As Jeff expected. The blog doesn’t publish. (1:23AM).

In Other News:

I asked Loomis Group to place an order for a couple of techie gizmos that will help “increase my productivity” (Muahah. Perks of working at an ad agency). One of several items included a 6×8″ Wacom Intuos3 tablet (I originally asked for the 6×11″ but that thing is way to huge). I love it. I’ve been confined to a mouse for far too long and I thank Jun for letting me borrow his cute little 4×5″ Graphire4 tablet. It worked quite well for what it was. I happily embrace a new piece of technology into my life.

On that note. I guess I’ve been quite out of the loop with the news (You can’t blame me. A mall in Manila’s financial district explodes and that news doesn’t reach the light of day; but a white mother loses her child and CNN exploits the hell out of that story). Anyhow, back to what I was saying. I Googled the daylight savings time deal because I haven’t heard anything about it and normally it falls just before Halloween. I was surprised to see that it was pushed back a week (this explains that Apple update a few months back). I turns out the Bush Administration decided to change the date. Ben Franklin is rolling in his grave.

Adjusting is much slower than I anticipated. Of course, this is justified. From being in school for over 20 years to being employed full-time is a huge mental shift. But all that stuff aside, working in SF, finally, has been awesome. This past week, I got to attend a few events in the city. The Mohawk Paper Show and the 50 Books and 50 Covers. I met up with friends, mingled, free drinks, free appa-teazers (Oh Bernie Mac). Which brings me to my second point.

As much as I love home, as much as I love my parents, as much as I love having breakfast prepared, dinner when I get home, clean laundry and hugging my parents goodbye before I head out the door, I find myself hating to leave San Francisco when I know how soon I will be living there. Every weekday, I arrive in SF, greeted with beautiful scenery. My walk from the Embarcadero BART station to South Beach is beautiful. I past all these businesspeople, all suited up, my detour to walk along the Embarcadero is a live landscape painting no matter the weather conditions. This is all within a 10 minute walk to work.

Then there’s work itself. A huge learning playground. Less than half a year out of school, I am designing, invited to brainstorm sessions, one client meeting, and a handful of work-in-progress meetings. I am presenting work. My art director is extremely personable and, and, and, I have my own workstation.

On the way back home, my neck is craned up, admiring the exit scenery while buildings glow with gray and orange (if I’m not running to the BART station to catch the train). As soon as step foot on the BART, all excitement is lifted and I am as solumn and depressed looking as all these businesspeople around me. Everybody has a stern look on their faces, including me. Of course. We’re tired. But when has being tired ever stopped me from wanting to create?

Anyhow, as much as I love home and all the perks that come along with it, my life is on hold with music in the background to help pass time. I’m waiting for the other end to pick up so I know what’s next and I can make my move.

My biggest asset as a design student ( I will always and forever be a design student; damn, I’m a nerd) is to find or make the time to pause and think to come to my senses, despite the long, continuous hours of thinking, eating, breathing and producing design. By looking for those white spaces of opportunities, finding those gaps in between the chaos, I am able to come to my senses and digest all the information I a fed.

Many people get caught up, working their 9-14 hour days and leave little or no time to sit back and just think. Sitting down, channeling myself to think about shit, despite how tired I am, helps me move forward, makes things more efficient, and overall become a better designer and person. It keeps me sane and gives reason to the long hours we put into the day.

Fortunately, I have yet to spend 14 hours at my job, here at Loomis Group. Because I commute, in the meantime, to and from San Francisco, I naturally have those gaps in between to sit back and reflect while I’m on the train and driving.

When I make my move to the city, I know I can recall those resources I had when I was a design student in school, whether I am walking, on MUNI or just sitting at home, staring at a blank screen. I give more credit to myself for my ability to pull time aside than my sensitivity to design.

Dumbledore is gay. Awesome. I thought he was a smurf, being a genius and all.
>>> CNN

Paul, welcome to the fitness land. So last night, Jun and I were at my house, waiting to head over to the gym. Out of nowhere, Paul shows up at my door suited up to break sweat with us. Why is this such a big deal? Paul, Mr. Disney himself, is in his last year in school and illustration/animation is just bananas. We barely see him on the weekends but to see Paul on a weekday, like it was 3.5 years ago, in late October, what is that?

So we had a familia going on–being at the gym for nearly two hours. Kate, Jun, Kate’s sister, her boyfriend and now Paul. That was great. In between breaths and in between sets, we’d all have little things to say to each other. There were random hip-hop dance offs, well, due to my part, but it was great.

Yeah. I know. So what’s so special? Being in 9 to 6 club makes you appreciate all the little freedoms you had when they were much more frequent. Welcome to being an adult. I still much prefer the crazy, hectic, no-sleep design school life. I miss 15-minute power naps in the middle of nowhere. I even dress up to work, kind of. It’s like scrubby nice. I kind of feel pressured to because everybody at Loomis Group is attractive and I walk half a mile to and from work through SF’s Financial District.

Earlier at the gym, My hopes went up when I saw a 20-minute expose on Paris Hilton. Not because I thought she released another video, but because I thought she killed herself to some cocaine overdose. I know, horrible, right? (Well, is it?) Anyhow, stupid television coverage. Why the hell was there some CNN expose on her for over 20 minutes? Don’t we care about anything else than what goes on with celebrities’lives?

Me and Kate were extremely surprised and happy to see that our fortune plant, Bob, was still alive and well after not being in Sac for over a month and a half. Nobody was there to water Bob. All our plants were somehow alive. Now, Bob sits comfortably in the company of the Reyes family, with Kate’s caring mom who often has quick conversations with Bob to keep him healthy. Bob is awesome. Bob is our plant.

Being in Sac this past weekend with the families to pack up was extremely weird and awkward. I didn’t show it but I would have been downright depressed had we stayed the night in the, once, homie house de Jeff and Kate. Not it’s packed up, empty and the brightly colored walls are free from blemishes from my Lionel Richie poster and our huge Stendig calendar.

It wouldn’t be a post if I didn’t complain about my commute. So here it is. Damn you, commute, damn you.

New rule: I don’t exist on Sundays. Sundays are the days I get to selfishly keep to myself and do whatever it is that I want to do. This is the only way to keep sane. Because I commute, I have to wake up early and sleep early. Because of my commute, a 9 hour day is a 14 hour day. For 5 days of the week I am being paid for what I was trained to do–to think design and implement design. But Sundays, ahhh yes, Sundays, those are mine. Don’t take them way from me. Sundays are now marked as sacred. On Sundays, I am closed from obligation. I have to take what I can and I will obsessively hang onto my Sundays.