I was talking to this one guy on the street last night.  He was talking about how everything in Sacramento is underrated.  That's definitely a good word to use when describing Sacramento.

In any case, today is the day I get to perform with the December show group at the California State Fair.  Once all my costumes and make-up items are ready, it's just a matter of getting there and "doin' tha thang."  Hopefully I can get there a little early and look around a bit, and also after the performance.  I heard that the displays are really nice this year, but other than that and the performances on the Golden 1 Stage, I haven't really heard too much about the fair.  Hopefully a lot of folks will be there and they'll be energized.  Positive energy of course. 

It was another great episode of "Extreme Makeover Home Edition" last night.  The family was a husband, his wife, and stepdaughter, and the biological father of the man.  What was touching about it was that Freeman Sr. was homeless for what they said was thirty months, before Freeman Jr. found out and went looking for his father to get him off the streets.  Not wanting to impose on his son, Freeman Sr. lived in a motorhome outside the actual ranch home of the family.

The story is touching for two reasons.  First, it shows that good people do receive good things.  Second, it shows the strength of the family.  Yet another great thing to see was Freeman Sr. smile.  You could definitely see that this was a gentleman that had been through a lot, and you could really see how much he was smiling and how his countenance had changed.  Oh and for a bonus, the motorhome was turned into a fully decked out theater, with theater recliners and all.  Awesome.

Is it me, or is a lot of the media negative?  I think it has a lot to do with how negative people are.  It's an endless cycle.  We see negative media.  We think negatively.  Since we're negative, we want to see the next poor, unfortunate soul that is more unfortunate than us.  The media, wanting to make a profit, give it to us.  Of course, if the media isn't negative, well then my whole theory is wrong.  Prove me wrong world. 

What's dedication?  Persistence?  It's when you're not feeling it and you still do your best to make sure that you don't let the people down that you think are counting on you.  It's when you just can't seem to be excited about what's going on but you search high and low to find that thing that will get you excited about the event.  That's how I feel about Tuesday.  That's the way I feel about life right now.  I'm looking for that spark, that ember that will get the fires going on again.  I have nobody close to me to do what I do for.  It's easy when you're driven, when you have someone, something to fight for, to live for, to strive for.  I'm looking for something right now.  For someone.  Any takers?

In the mean time, I'll just do what I do.  It seems to be enough for most.  For me though, it barely scratches the surface of my potential.

There's a problem when Grant Napear is commenting for football games.  The good thing is that it means football is on another channel.  Oh, it's that much closer to football heaven.  In any case, the oh so nice weather has become scorchingly hot.  I haven't had rehearsal for a couple of days, so I was able to catch up on a few items, like rest, some bills and even watch all three-plus hours of "Kill Bill."  I had a lot of time to myself and really felt productive. 

I got to thinking of a new program that I'd like to start.  The HOY program.  HOY stands for "Helping Our Youth."  I'd like to run a few YES events.  YES means "Youth Enrichment Seminar."  However, to help the youth, it's important to update the parents of what is going in children's lives nowadays.  Although a lot of the pressures are the same as before, a lot are also different from when the parents were growing up.  Haven't come up with an acronym for that.

Unfortunately, I did miss an all you can eat spaghetti fee that I bought a ticket for.  Oh well.  I probably didn't need to eat all that much.  Especially if I expect to lose weight.  The portions there would've been ridiculous.  And all you can eat?  Please.  No faster way to gain weight.

One of my fraternity brothers, Patrick Villa, got married today.  Big stuff.  I'm real happy for him.  In my opinion, he's one of the more successful brothers, and has a huge amount of respect from me based on his values and integrity.  he's worked hard to get to where he's at.  He's another testament that people get what they are.  He's smart, a hard worker, and a good guy and he gets good things.  Still waiting for that philosophy to work on me.

I guess I won't meet anyone by staying at home, but I have a huge responsibility in my lola.  Maybe I use that as an excuse.  Everyone has family after all.  In addition, there are plenty of busy people that socialize way more than I do.  I'm just not comfortable being away from home when my lola is at home alone.  Just yesterday I opened up my lola's room door in a panic that she wasn't alive.  She hadn't been answering my calling or my knocking on her door.  Thank God that by the time I had gotten her door open I saw that she was just asleep.  I woke her up to make sure she was okay.  Fortunately, she was.  Not many people that I know understand what it's like to schedule your life around someone else's. 

My uncle is drunk and laying down on a banig in my garage.  I opened the garage door a crack so that he could get some fresh air.  Otherwise, I hope that no stray cats come into the garage and mess with him.  He knows he shouldn't drink so much.  It's simple to stay sober.  I guess it's simple not to do also.

I'll just continue to hope for the best and that everyone's lives are happy and content.  My own feelings are nothing compared to what most of the world wants and goes through.  If only everyone felt the same way.  If everyone just cared more about others than themselves, then the world would be a much better place.

Watched "Garden State" last night.  That was a good movie.  It's a growing up sort of movie, and Natalie Portman, a supporting actress, is stellar in it.  She has so much more depth of character, than in her Queen Amidala stints in "Episode I" and "Episode II."  The main actor is Zach Braff, from the show "Scrubs" according to Lorraine, so I'll just have to take her word for it until the very slim chance that I catch the show.

I guess what really drew me into it was the relatability to a lot of the characters and the events.  Yet, there was enough that I wasn't able to relate to that kept the movie fresh and unpredictable.  There was a lot of humor in the movie and at the same time it gave me a lot to think about, like the "infinite abyss."

Hopefully I can run into a Sam as well.

I've neglected a few things lately, and need to kick myself back in gear.  Funny how we all know what we need to do, but we often don't know how to do it.  My supervisor, Sandy even said that I haven't been the same Bobby.  Luz, agreed, suggesting that I need a vacation.  Another coworker, Lorraine, said I looked tired this morning, even though I felt fine.  My body language is obviously saying something that I don't mean to say.  The vacation sounds nice though.  Edmonton, anyone?

I found this in a notebook that my mom kept.  She always jotted down bits of inspiration to help guide her through her life.  My mom was amazing.  A little internet research reveals that it was originally written by Charles Swindoll.  Regardless, it's still very applicable.

"Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what other people think or say or do.  It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill.  It will make or break a company, a church, a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for the day.  We cannot change our past.  We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certiain way.  We cannot change the inevitable.  The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude."

She apparently didn't get the whole thing.  Further internet research reveals that it continues as such:

"I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it.  And so it is with you.  We are the owners of our attitude."

I do have to add a footnote to this whole internet research deal.  I am not to fond of internet research, because anyone can put whatever the heck they want on their website, true or not, with or without documentation.  The result is that a lot of folks take stuff off of it, and don't really check the more legitimate sources.  I like to be right, so I like to do my research.

Stop me if you've heard this before.  Sacramento has more strength rolled up in it's little pinkie of suburban squalor than most major cities got in it's body and soul of infrastructure.  The cost of living is lower, there are more people per capita getting a living wage over here, and it's not as cutthroat as in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or New York City.  We don't have to pay bridge tolls, we don't have one hour traffic to get across a four mile bridge, and we can move freely into carpool lanes, because there isn't a yellow line telling us that we can't until three miles down the freeway once you've passed your exit already.  It's the capitol.  Yes, this state is the ninth largest economy in the world and most of it is run right out of Sacramento.  We don't have all the forest fires, and the earthquakes don't hit us that bad.  Sure the weather can be a little unpredictable, but we can still see the sky, and breath fresh air, and that unpredictability has led me to be able to witness hail, snow, and even rain that led to a minor flood in the area.  So we took the canoes to the streets and made the best of it.  We get natural water, and aren't dependent on some sort of water passage that brings water to us.  Yes, that's second hand water.  If you need to get to a casino, go drive a couple hours east.  If you need to go to the city, drive a couple hours west.  A one hour flight down south and one can hit either Los Angeles or San Diego.  We aren't overpopulated and there is so much room to grow here houses are going up side by side, not on top of one-another.  This is a vibrant, diverse community, with lots of personality and pep.  What a lot of people mistakenly call "cowtown" and "lacking in diversity" is only going to get bigger and better, and pretty soon, this will be exactly what everyone wants.

Knowledge, in and of itself, is not nearly as powerful as knowledge that is combined with action.

Saw another allusion to "Pushing the Envelope" yesterday during the parallel bar competition.  It's awesome to raise the bar of expectations.  Only then do people improve.

I went to a "Debuau" on Saturday.  If you're wondering what a Debuau is, it's a debut/luau.  Hence, debuau.  That was cool.  Good food, good people.  Really want to learn to play the guitar now.  Seems like you can have hours of fun if you know how to play. 

Rebecca is leaving for New York on Thursday to attend her first semester at NYU.  Went to her party on Sunday, which was cool, but when it came down to trying to say something poignant and practical on the mic, I just couldn't.  So I cracked a couple of jokes and told her good riddance.  To be honest, I am going to miss her and her ability to make me feel young.  For as long as she has tried to be older than she really is, she hasn't been able to quite get away from her young emotions and the typical hormonal stuff that pubescent teens go through.  Maylyn was sort of that way.  Then Maylyn went off to USC and basically came back "most likely to succeed."  I wouldn't be surprised if Rebecca did the same.  However, I wouldn't be surprised if Rebecca didn't come back.  Jeremy Rye took that trip and stayed. 

Part of me wants to go back to the summer between high school and college.  I'll always wonder if I had chosen University of Rochester, Rensallear Polytechnic, UC Berkeley, Stanford, or what not, if my life would be better or worse.  I don't regret going to UC Davis at all and I even think that if I had gone to a university further away from home, I doubt I would've finished once my mom was sick and passed on.  It's a waste of time to dwell on the past though.

In any case, there are two ways to go when you make a big decision in your life.  You'll either go down, or you'll go up.  Sometimes, you have to take a few steps back before you can leap forward.  However, what direction you head is dependent mostly on how well you plan, and how well you deal with unexpected situations.  Of course things could always be better.  Rather than talk about it, do something about it.  There are lots of people that do it.  I read about them, hear about them all the time.  One only needs to look around.  Let's not suffer from possibility blindness.

At Angel's party I saw Thea and Voltaire, and they brought up this what seems like a year ago crush I had on someone.  Then Angel comes up with this crazy idea of how I should meet her cousin, or course this was after she made the offer to Simon first.  Finally, my coworker is talking about how they need to put out an ad for me.  So I've been thinking.  You know how you used to put puzzles together, and sometimes you'd discover that there was a piece missing?  And you couldn't enjoy the picture because there was this hole in it, and you just kept looking at that empty place and wishing you could find the missing piece so that the whole picture would be complete? 

Sounds very similar to the puzzle of my life.

Sway balance and a waltz step.  I am not graceful.  It's a good thing I'm playing a Sakada, a Filipino plantation worker in Hawaii, although I bet they were graceful. 

I remember writing about how negative of a person I am.  I was wrong.  There are plenty of negative people, who focus on all the bad things.  "One often finds exactly what they are looking for."  They are constantly looking for something to negatively criticize, to attack, or something that they must defend themselves against.  They look for how something is a personal attack, and they are looking to get angry.  I don't do any of that.  Occasionally, I do get angry, but then I turn that anger around and use it toward something productive. 

When someone comes up with a plan, rather than embrace the plan and thank the person for giving them an option, they criticize that it is stifling their creativity to come up with their own ideas.  When someone tries to include the opinions of others and be open and honest, they criticize that it is airing all their dirty laundry.

Am I wrong in thinking that community organizations, particularly non-profits that serve the community, have an obligation to let the community they serve know about the going ons of the organization?  Is this not a legal and moral obligation at that?  If a group wants to be secretive, then become a secret society, a Masonic organization, a private corporation, or something like that.  Don't become a non-profit.  Even then, there are laws and guidelines that curb the going ons of even a secret society.  For example, I don't believe that human sacrifice is protected under the freedom of religion statute, if you are murdering somebody.

I'm still missing those Edmonton folks.  I've been thinking about a couple of them a lot.  I looked up some flights on Expedia and Priceline and found a round trip on Alaska Airlines for $332 for an October flight.  Anyone have any other leads?

I had one swell time with the folks of the Dula at Kwerdas cast.  It's hard to believe that they made it all the way from Edmonton, Canada, to Seattle, then Sacramento, to finally go to Las Vegas.  They are really dope folks with a lot of love for each other, not too different from ourselves.  Yet them being from somewhere different and having different experiences was intriguing and being able to share that with each other was such a learning experience.

They were diverse, and very close.  There were the hints of cliques, but for the most part they all interacted and meshed, and were not too rigid to even include us Sacramentans.  Some of my favorite folks were Sean, Cory, Marlowe, Jo-an, Nicole, Krescha, and Ling.  They were the most outgoing and willing to speak up, so it was easy for me to get along with them.

Apparently, the greeting for them was pretty overwhelmingly warm, and even caused a couple of folks like Nicole and Chie to tear up.  How sweet.  A bunch of us drove the hostel guys around downtown, even though it was a Sunday night, and then set up for the show the next day.  The show was awesome, reminiscent of a Pilipino Culture Night on college campuses.  A highlight was how they sang Magkakapatid, also known to us MK folks as "The MK Theme Song."  Afterwards, we went to eat.  Imagine 80+ Filipinos rolling into a Chinese restaurant and shutting them down.  Haha.  The next day, it was longsilog with the cast, of course pictures, and then they left.

As soon as they left, I felt an emptiness because I knew that they weren't coming back.  The bus left, and well, I kept on hoping that it would come back.  It didn't happen, and I just ended up talking about the good times we shared with my friends.  I hope to keep in touch with them.  It's cool to think I could be friends with folks in Canada.  I mean I've met Canadians, like Carlos and Phil, but they are here now, and go to school here in California.

It was refreshing.  Here were a new group of people, untouched by the disharmony in our own community.  This was a newly unveiled painting, ready for the world to view.  I really enjoyed hanging out with them.  I only wish I had more time to get to know all of them better. 

I'd like to go to Canada to do that.  Angel was telling me about a show in October.  It would be pretty neat to be able to see those folks again.  Maybe talk to some of the Canadian ladies a little bit more.  Haha.  The best thing was that it was love all around, and that was really what defined the time we spent together.  It was all love.