so close...

if you follow phoenix weather, you'd know that we haven't had rain in ages. sound good? not so much if you haven't had rain in 133 consecutive days. that's why i was delighted when i was out tonight and i felt a slight pitter patter of rain. though i didn't have time to sit around and enjoy it, i was glad. however, later on i found out that it did not in fact rain. apparently the rain had lasted for all of thirty seconds, giving us less than 1/100th of an inch of rain. and since there was "no measurable rain", the drought continues...

come again?

one of the things you get to do if you work in my organization within company 'i' is work with people from all over the world. well, not really all over the world, but with people from malaysia, the philipines, costa rica, and china at least. while working with people from different countries, it is inevitable that you will learn something about their culture, such as new words or foreign phrases.

one such phrase, "pura vida mae", is used fairly often by my one of my malaysian counterparts/coworkers. he has already used this saying with me several times, but each time i just sort of pretend like i know what the heck he is talking about. it's gotten to the point where i really want to know what it means. in an attempt to learn more about this saying, i slipped the words into conversations with some of my other malaysian friends. unfortunately their responses were along the lines of "what the heck are you talking about?" and i sort of pretended like i never said any such crazy phrase.

after a bit of googling, i was finally able to track down the meaning of "pura vida mae". apparently it is a costa rican term which would be literally translated as: "pure life, dude", or in a more meaningful rendering of: "cool, dude!". now why my malaysian co-worker would use this term when the things we were work on blow up in our face, i really don't know.

buble

michael buble. if you're a guy, chances are you'll shrug. if you're a girl, chances are higher that you'll scream and want to rip off your clothes. anyway, i had the pleasure of taking person 'S' to the michael buble concert in fabulous las vegas. buble was quite the performer, integrating audience into the act, he often interacted with those in the closer rows. he came down to take a picture with one lucky front row lady. where did we sit? in the second row. i thought we couldn't get much closer than that, but apparently, during a certain song "save the last dance for me", the entire audience runs to the front of the stage to scream and attempt to touch michael buble. so person 'S' and i did likewise. while the crowd was primarily female, buble did take the time to shake the hands of the guys who deigned to rush to the front--which totaled about 5. i, however, passed on the opportunity to allow person 'S' the opportunity. at the end of the show, i even almost wanted to rip my clothes off. on second thought, maybe not.

nine months in the making...

a soft and gentle breeze blew past the beach
as i walked along with a long lost girl.
to her swaying hand i wanted to reach,
only thinking so made my stomach swirl.

as i longed to touch her ivory skin,
we talked of memories from years gone by.
our hands did brush but all i did was grin
and kick myself for failing to but try.

time spent with her was oh so heavenly
and so i opened up my heart to her.
i wanted to be her one and only;
there was no other woman i'd prefer...

while fun to reminisce of beaches gone,
even more so of beaches yet to come.

life, the universe, and everything.

it knows not when or where it might bear fruit.
even under the most adverse conditions possible,
love can find a way to take root.
like a budding sapling, it is vulnerable
to the whim of us gardeners in life:
to be dispatched with the fell of an axe
or encouraged with the pruning of a knife.
but in its growing, one cannot be lax.
constant attention is required,
as occasional trimming and coaxing will show,
that to obtain the results desired,
certain pains must be endured in order to grow.
like a stout tree we can decide to cultivate
and have it become something truly great.

washing the car

the other day, i was messing around with my house, when i noticed that the exterior of my car was getting dusty. this happens quite often here in arizona and is annoying because you can see the prints of hands and fingers left over from closing doors or the trunk. since i had the hose out already, i figured that i would give my car a spray down to get rid of the dust. water > dust = dust free car! brilliant!

the problem with my brilliant plan was that the water here in arizona is some of the nation's hardest. this means that there is a large amount of minerals (calcium, magnesium, whathaveyou) in the water. while i was able to rinse off the dust on my car, i left this water on it to dry. the water then evaporated away and left these infinitely more conspicuous and annoying water spots from the minerals in the water. so now i'm the guy that drives the spotted car--that is once again, quickly accumulating dust.