I'm inspired to write again.

Look at the timestamp. Fuck. Whatever. I actually got to bed at a good time tonight. 10:30. But the stupid timer on the heater started making some god awful banging noise. At first I thought it was the neighbors downstairs hitting it again. But it wasn't. And I got a ton of sleep this weekend and I think I just burned it off staying up the past three hours. Sucks.

Anyway, I have all next week to catch up on it again. And it's going to be an adventure. Today I did a little shopping. Picked up a pair of gloves at REI. A sweater from BR. On the way home, I stopped by Borders and picked up some Lonely Planet guide books. Switzerland and Milan.

Tonight the Giants won the World Series. I was able to catch most of the game on the radio on the way home from work, and the last couple of innings and the late night madness on TV. It was beautiful seeing so many people out and having a good time. Of course, I was home. Munching on my Gordo's burrito. But still enjoying it. It would have been wonderful had the Giants been more exciting when I was really into baseball years ago. But it's still kind of nice seeing them win now, especially with the staff they have. Truly inspiring how sports can bring people together.

So I think I have renewed goals for writing this blog. And I have to set up some ground rules too. No moping. Stick to details. And have fun.

Tomorrow, I have a meeting with Nisha at 9:30 in the morning. Not going to miss it. If there's one gift that I've acquired, it's the ability to not let the lack of sleep make a difference with my performance at work. Sometimes you make impossible decisions, like standing up against fatigue. I know I have a lot of challenges in life to overcome. Let's hope they can all be as resolute.

Late night at King of Thai.

Today I was so tired when I got home I face planted on my bed and passed out. Woke up pretty groggy. Talked on the phone a little bit. Got a call from the previous tenant, and I arranged to get her deposit back to her. Didn't have dinner so I was kinda hungry. Called up Ryan. We decided to go to King of Thai. Had a Sopporo and pad kee mao. Dinner of champions. Ok, maybe not so much so.

Got home, played a couple of games of Starcraft. Lost one, won one. Got online again. Hmm...what else have I been up to lately...

At work, I got handed a couple more responsibilities. The first is a pretty big one, I'm going to be taking over the newsletter. I already write the company newsletter, which delivers to all of our customers. But now I'm gonna be holding monthly meetings to gather information from all the product managers, writing copy, coordinating with our designers and production, scheduling reviews, and finalizing the newsletter. Pretty cool stuff, since it is more marketing related, and not just creative.

Second, we have a big project coming up having to do with our welcome emails. Basically, once a customer signs up for our service, we send them a few tutorials on frequently used features. We're gonna be adding in some extra bells and whistles to add to the effectiveness to those emails. While it's going to be a lot of work, it should be a pretty interesting project.

Some other things going on, but whatevers. Lol.

Sydney is coming home this weekend. I'm going to be watching him for the month of November. So it should be fun getting reacquainted with him. Aside from that, looking forward to a relaxing weekend.

I've been drinking a little more lately. Friday night went out with some guys to a lounge. Was pretty beat Saturday, then Sunday decided to meet up with a friend for an evening beer with Brian. What started out as one beer, turned into 6-7 beers and half a pack of cigarettes, as we were dragged up to the upstairs room, and ended up singing karaoke for 5 hours (that explains my drunken karaoke post the other night.) Then last night, went out with Brian again, this time to Hooters in San Bruno. Man. Hooters is freaking disgusting. Deep fried pickles. Nacho tater tots. 4 pints of beer (4 pitchers total). And a Western BBQ burger. I wanted to get out of there early since I was so stuffed, but we had to stick around since some of the guys had the all you can eat wings. Gross. I still felt kinda full when I woke up...

Feeling a little brain dead. Also my passport comes in next monday. That should be cool. Hmmm...I guess that's about it for now. Ciao.

In 1995

I auditioned for a jazz acapella choir at George Washington High School. It was my senior year. I was inspired by brother, who under the tutelage of one Mr. Ray, developed a voice that still inspires me today. After Mr. Ray retired, there was a new, young, and ambitious teacher who took his place. As time has passed, I can't even remember her name.

I had seen the poster on butcher paper and permanent marker on the wall. I wanted to join. I auditioned with the song, Please Don't Go, by Boyz II Men. The teacher was impressed. It could have been a simple lack of male vocalists that wanted to sign up. Whatever it was, they put me on the choir. In 1996, after several months of rehearsals and performances, we entered into a Pacific Northwest Jazz competition in Seattle Washington. Our group took first place.

I've always loved singing. Songs by R&B groups like Color Me Badd, Shai, and Hi-Five were all the rage. There was a sweetness to their harmonies and a strength in a sound that came from the streets I wanted to emulate. I wasn't that great at reading music, but I eventually memorized the harmonies. Learned about time signatures. Had a general understanding of measures and notes. Crescendos. Falsetto. Vibrato. They were all terms that I had a feel for, but didn't have a name for. I learned how to sing from my diaphragm. How to properly enunciate syllables. To exaggerate my t's and take staggered breaths between phrases to maintain a continuous sound. It was fun learning how to control my own voice.

Sure, I never actually wished to perform as a recording artist. But I have to say the arts did enrich my life. Gave me an appreciation for voice that many people enjoy, but few can articulate. It aided with my graduate study of poetry. And turned me into a karaoke mic hog.

Some of the nights I'll never forget were in K-town NYC, singing karaoke. Either with coworkers, when somebody was leaving the company. Nights filled with a kal-bi dinner and soju. Or with friends for birthday celebrations, or simply a night out. To properly strike notes. To know how to strike a chord with another voice, either cause I knew knew the harmony to a song somebody was singing by heart, or simply out of gut instinct. It was a lot of fun.

One of the bars that I frequent in San Francisco, Firefly Sportsbar, has a private room upstairs with an excellent sound system, a plasma screen, and a karaoke machine. They don't even charge cover, if you know the bartenders there, you get access. The past couple times I've gone with one of my high school friends, who's a regular, people from the bar drag us up. And once I get the mic, I get to do my thing.

Tonight was a similar night. I enter in a few songs here and there. I belt out notes till my voice goes horse. Wait for my voice to get a second or third wind and belt some more. Absolute strangers are hollering. We clink glasses, swig our beer, and sing. The Bee Gees. Michael Jackson. Jimmy Eat World. We'll sing whatever we can remember. And it's perfect.

Long after my friend decided to call it a night, and after most of the people cleared out of the room, there were just four of us left. One chick, dressed for summertime, who loved to sing, but was clearly off key, entered Take a Bow by Madonna.

"Give me the mic, I'll sing the guy part."

"What? I didn't even know there was a guy part?"

"Trust me, it's Madonna and Babyface, I know this song by heart."

And we sang it. The room. The dusty ashtrays and empty beer glasses, remnants of foam slipping to their bases. The lights. The empty street, diagonal stripped lines of perpendicular parking spaces, slicing up Noriga street. The rows of houses stacked like books on a slanted shelf, all the way towards the Pacific Ocean. The misty, Indian summer sky exhaling with a chill of night. It all seemed to disappear.

It was her voice, completely untrained, off-key and full of joy. And mine, singing backup lines, somehow steering her voice on course. Till it was just the two of us enjoying music together. Like two strangers at Ocean Beach, in silent, platonic acknowledgement of a beautiful sunset.

After that, I called it a night. Gave her a hug, shook hands and got the names of strangers I can't remember. Hopped in my roadster and sped home.

I love singing. When I'm on my game, and with a relaxed voice, lubricated with alcohol can hit all the notes I strain to hit in the shower, or in the car during the commute to work. Or when I'm completely drunk, vocal chords burning with a build up of lactic acid, not unlike muscles recovering the day after a strenuous workout. And now that I'm home, I thought I'd write it out.

There's a Mexican on my roof!

I wake up to a loud noise. Could be footsteps on the roof. Or maybe the new tenants downstairs unloading boxes. I look at the clock, it's 3AM. Probably not the tenants. I hear a crack give in the ceiling. Maybe it's the neighbors across smoking pot on the roof. Who knows.

I go to the other bedroom, where the window opens up to the fire escape landing, to see if it's the neighbors. Their window's closed. I listen. Nothing. Then I see a pair of sneakers coming down the fire escape ladder.

"Hey, who are you?"

The sneakers scamper up the ladder.

Without hesitation, I yank off the window screen and give chase. At the top, it's completely dark. It takes a while for my eyes to adjust. Then I see a silhouette of a dude, lying face down on the very corner of the apartment building—three floors up—trying to hide in the shadows.

"What the fuck are you doing up here?"

He gets up, walks towards me slowly and apologizes profusely. "I'm sorry, I have no where to go. Please let me leave. I'm very sorry."

I look at his face. He's a hispanic guy, maybe 5'7" or so, dressed in a baggy grey sweatshirt and faded baggy black jeans. Short hair, slicked back. Round face with a neatly trimmed goatee.

"Leave. Go back the way you came and get the fuck out of here. Don't ever come back."

He mumbles out a few apologies. I quickly get back into my apartment and slam the window behind me.

Did that just happen?

I grab the phone. Dial 911. Looking for my keys. What should I do? The dispatcher picks up. I tell the tell her what happened and give a description. She says she's sending a patrol car over over.

A few moments pass. I slip on my shoes and go downstairs to check if the other tenants are OK. By the time I get downstairs, I can see the squad car pull up from behind the frosted glass on the garage door. I open it up and let them in.

They do a quick inspection and check out the roof. My first thought was that the dude must've come in from the backyard, which opens directly into my garage, and has access to the fire escape. But while the cops survey the roof with their Maglites, one of the cops finds a three-foot gap on the second floor landing that leads directly to the roof next door. He climbs down the fire escape, hops over, and takes a look. I hear the other cop who's still on my roof, "Be careful. It makes my stomach sick watching you down there."

Nothing. The dude is long gone.

As I'm showing the cops out of my apartment, they say that since I confronted the guy, chances are he's not gonna come back. I realize the cop talking to me is a lot younger than me. His partner looks like a buff Kendra Wilkinson. Pretty hot.

They leave my apartment. I follow behind them and tell them good night as I close the garage door.

When I get back to my apartment, I'm shaking. That guy could've had a knife. There could've been other dudes downstairs unloading stuff. Who knows. I knew that if something happened to me and I yelled out the window by the fire escape, most of my tenants would hear me since their bedrooms are right next to the fire escape. But when I saw those sneakers panic and shoot up the ladder, I threw all caution out the window. My instant reaction was to chase.

I get on my computer. Play some Starcraft. Lie in bed. Play some Words with Friends on my iPhone. By the time my eyes start closing, it's already 5AM. I write on twitter "WTF, I found a Mexican on my roof!" I think to myself that sounds kinda racist. Who knows, maybe he was from Guatemala. Or Honduras. To my one half-Mexican friend on Twitter, "@chrisalverez I hope it wasn't one of your homies trying to steal my flatscreen TV!"

I pass out.

God, what a night.

Weird thoughts driving home.

Driving home during the commute is a crazy thing. Although some Bay Area arteries serve tens of thousands of commuters daily, you actually don't come across that many people heading in the same direction as you. Take highway 5 for instance. You could easily stay with two or three packs of cars for an entire seven hours or more.

Anyway, I've driven a lot. Clocked a lot of miles driving back and forth from schools, colleges, from S.F. to L.A. and S.F. to Eugene. My guess is over 200k miles. There are a couple things you notice about the flow of traffic:

- When you hit a traffic jam, the fast lane is the first to slow down.

- Aggressively cutting lanes gets you nowhere, unless you can cut a clear path three lane changes ahead or less.

- It's good to know which exit lanes take you back on the freeway, so you can exit and reenter.

- Exit lanes are also good to ride in during a traffic jam, you just have to get back into the flow of traffic before you hit the end of the lane.

I've also identified a few different kinds of drivers:

The Drone - Most drivers fit under this category. They're generally safe, but they also don't pay that much attention to the road. They simply want to get from point A to point B.

The Liability - Like the done, only dumber. Sometimes they make lane changes without signaling or looking, they just start drifting. Or they're more focused on their phones or their makeup. Or they're just old. Or they're drunk.

The Scowler - I've been running into these guys a lot lately. 98% of them are male. Enjoys driving and takes it competitively at times. Are generally good, focused drivers unless on tilt.

The Reckless Adrenalin Junkie - These are pretty rare. They usually look like they're literally bouncing in their seat, almost nervously, with their hands at the 11:30/12:30 position, like they're flying like Superman. Or sometimes they're singing at the top of their lungs, to the point where their eyes are literally shut with passion. These guys scare the shit out of me, and I try to stay as far away from them as possible.

I actually have a lot more to write and rant about commuting.

Today I was in a weird mood. For once, I actually had too much energy, having recouped my sleep from Vegas, and buzzing off a few cups of coffee. The top was down. Was practicing my downshifting, zipping around traffic like a zipper on a vinyl raincoat. I was head banging. Making a few cuts here and there. Tried pulling ahead, but didn't make the third cut. Put the top up, rolling into a stop at a red after breaking into the San Francisco fog. A little restless. Having a little fun.

Sometimes the world is so beautiful and crazy. Even on a commute.