About a week back I decided to start an online diary..     Why?
Well cause I am kinda bored, and figured its something to do.  I was lay'ed off from my job at Space Systems Loral on Feb 8.. So now, I am in the day to day job search.  This first entry, I will work on for a while, mostly talking about things from the past.   I am sure, I will from time to time bring up things from the past as well.  I am 34, a male, and live in San Jose, Ca.   My birthday is April 16, so I just turned 34. 

Last week I did a bunch of things.. One was on Saturday I went to a dinner with my Grandpa.  It was a re-union for the USCGC Taney which he served on during WWII.  It was pretty neat..  I made some boards for him to display a bunch of pictures that he took, and some that he has acquired on the ship over the years.  The dinner was a wrap up of several days of the re-union for about 160 men who served aboard her over the years.  She was commissioned from 1936-1956 50 years.  She is the last floating ship that survived Pearl Harbor, and current is a museum in Baltimore,  Maryland. 
  I was never in the military, but after being at the re-union, I kinda wish I though things differently when I was younger.  But I was in the Civil Air patrol for quite a while in High School, and at the time, I had enough drill as that all we did every weekend.  drill drill and more drill.. We never did anything interesting at all.   You can only take so many hours standing at attention on a tarmac... 
  My grandpa was disappointed in me at the time.. Oh, one thing, I was raised by my grandparents, so alot of what I talk about will be around them.  My grandmother died in '83, I was 15.   Anyways.. He wanted me to go into the military, and in fact, we really didn't talk a whole lot for many years after I got out of HS.  I pretty much moved out that christmas post graduation, and he sold the house, in Half Moon Bay.  I moved into a trailer in San Gregorio on my Aunt/Uncles property, and lived there for a about a year.  Next I got a place in Half Moon Bay again which actually was the original house an old teacher bought and rented out.  Mr. Dworfman, a Jr. High teacher at Cunha Junior High.  I never had him as a teacher, but I knew him, and well he knew me pretty well after I rented his extra house!  He actually took the original place, and built another house adjacent to it, and lived there.  He was a cool landlord.  Down the road he decided to remodel the place, when I decided to move out.  So I got my last month rent cheap, and I helped him with the remodel a little. From there I moved to Woodside, Ca and lived in a little cabin with no water.  I would sneak showers in the main house when no one was home, or take a road trip to a truck stop which was a long drive away!  I lived there until I moved up to Spokane, Wa. Which at the time seemed like a good idea.   But in all reality it wasn't.  I went from having one job for 5 years, to having many jobs over 1 year, and none paid what I got in the bay area, so I was screwed in many ways.  My credit was ruined by the time I gave up and moved back.  Also I missed the quake of '89 which I was bummed about. So in early 91, I sold as much as I could, and I moved back.  It was weird, but I changed alot in that 1.5 years..  When I went there, I went with a full size pickup truck, which had wood racks on the back, and it was packed up to the top. I also had an Opel GT which a friend drove up when he moved there too. (he didn't last long, he moved back pretty quickly.. - smart...)  When I moved back, I had one layer of boxes, and a mattress on top.  If you stood 10 feet from the truck, you couldn't tell anything was in the truck.   I also mellowed out alot.  When I got back I was waiting for my friend Bill Hickey to get ready as we were off to go to 3-Amigos, and he was trippin as I just sat in a chair, very quiet, and waited.  That was not like the old me.  At the end of my stay in Spokane, I had an ulcer from stress.  Some was from my mother, some was from lack of work, and lack of $ (no $ for food even..)  My mother was the reason I really moved there.   I wanted to get to know her better as she really wasn't in my life a whole lot when I was a child, and she was going through a divorce.  So I went to see if I could help.  When I initially got there, she wasn't there, so I broke in, and on the table was a note, and plate full of cookies.  I thought that was a good start (the note, and cookies) but her not being there kinda sucked.. so the good only lasted about 2 weeks.. then it was all downhill from there... When I finally moved back to the bay area, I didn't make *any* contact with her for about 8 years.. 
  When I got back to the bay area, I really had nothing.  I had my truck, a few things, and about $50 left in money.   Luckily I had friends.  I stayed at Bill's house for about 2 weeks until his folks got back home, then I basically lived on another friends property up in Higgins Canyon in my truck.  It was spring, and the rain stopped so it wasn't too bad.  I left the mattress in the back, and just slept on it.  During the day I got a job with Todd Pratt doing general construction labor.   Todd was the brother-in-law to John Evans, an architect who I worked for before I moved.  Todd helped me out alot at that point, with occasional work.  I owe him for that, but I haven't spoken to him in about 12 years..   When I look back, really.. I owe alot of people.. maybe someday I'll be able to help those people.  In the mean time, I try to do what I can to help others.  Hopefully it will all balance out over time. 
  Pretty quickly after I got back into the work thing, I sold my truck to Louie Barbosa (a friend from HS) and then rented a 2 bedroom place with Greg McLain another friend from HS.  That was a cool place.  It was in El Granada over the post office.  It has a great view of surfers beach, and Pillar Point harbor.   It was our bachelor pad, and the place we all hung out for various things from the random parties to just a bunch of us cooking, and BS'in.. Bill loved to cook, so we always ate good.  We also played cards sometimes and even D&D.  That's where I got the online nickname of Taz from.. A D&D character I called Tazameir Badgit. 
  We seemed like a pretty fun tight group, as we used to hang out all the time, even before I moved when I had the place at Dworfmans place.  It was a 2 bedroom, and my roommates changed all the time.  That is until Cherie moved in.  She was a girlfriend I got in a weird way.  She used to work in Los Gatos at the Walgreens there with Chris Kroninger, another friend from school, and well Chris had a GF already, and was kinda also seeing Cherie.  Then he introduced her to me one night in Capitola.  I went there all the time as my grandpa had a place there, and I would stay there on the weekends sometimes, and so anyways, Chris said to meet him there one night, so I did, and then I met her at the Dairy Queen in town.  we all hung out a while, then all went our separate ways.  Chris and I rode motorcycles, and went riding all the time, but that night, Chris went back home to Los Gatos, and I went to gramps place just around the corner.   So the next morning (Sunday morning) Cherie calls the house.  I was trying to figure out how she got the number, then realized that it was a listed number, and she just looked it up, she wanted to go on a ride.  So I figured what the hell.. We ended up riding to King city, and came back.  It was fun.  Then as time went she called all the time, and then came over one night to my place in HMB, and we rented some movies.. we didn't get half way through the first movie, and she wanted to change "into something more comfortable" I said sure, and she came out of the bathroom in a see-through nighty.. That's not what I had in mind!  Welp you can guess how the rest of that night went.  So within a couple of weeks, we finally told Chris what was going on, and we started a relationship.  That lasted about a year..  She kinda got me into the whole idea of being an adult, as she was 5 years older then I am.   Kinda a wake up call I suppose.. So during that year, the gang came over all the time, and it was lots of fun.. that same fun kinda continued a couple of years later in the EL Granada place.  heh.. One thing comes to mind.. on the 3rd of July one year, we had a bunch of friends over, and Mike Schneider was over too, he was a geek friend of mine.. We wanted to build a "gerbilator" or also known as a spud gun.  So we went across the street and picked up the parts and made one.  We were test firing it on the deck, and within about 30 minutes the sheriff were over wanting to take our "explosives"  They just barged in, and walked right past the other 5 or 6 people at the kitchen table playing poker! ($ on the table even!) and we said we didn't have any.. they insisted that we did. So we gave them the cannon, and said this is probably what you got called for. They still didn't believe us.  We actually had to explain how it worked, until they finally took it and left.. Note, that they left with a BIG smile on their faces.  I think one of em took it home as a toy for *them* to play with!  So that was pretty average there though, we would have people over all the time, and well.. it was a cool fun place. 
   So a little after living there 2 years, Greg decided he wanted to move into a house in Pescadero. When he did, I needed to find a new place.  I ended up moving out of the HMB area, and moved into my uncles place in Felton.  I did the couch surfin thing for a while, then moved into Sam's place, Sam is a friend of Larry's who I got to know over time from Fizzball Racing a car racing team I was part of.   I lived at Sams as long as I could stand it, and ended up moving into my own place for the first real time in Boulder Creek.  It was a small cabin, but it was all mind.  It was truly my "first place on my own"  In fact I found out about it from Kim who actually I ran into last week in BC, but I think she had no idea who I was even though I spoke with her for about 5 minutes.  She seemes more glazed over then I remember her.. I dont think I have seen her for about 5 years now.. Anyways I had that place for 5 years, and loved it!  My landlord Jeff Prosser, was a jerk, but hell.. it was a cheap place, and he rarely showed up.. I ended up moving when I got a hottub, and he freaked over it, and wanted to raise my rent by $150 on the spot.. I thought about it, and at the time I was not working, so I decided to check out a place that a former co-worker owned, and decided to move into one of his "cabins". 

Tuesday 2002-04-30

Welp, I kinda got side tracked last night, so I'll continue today..