the near-death elevator experience
still being utterly amazed at how busy and entertaining my summer's been, i am still looking for that day when i can flat out bum it at home, and not feel guilty about it...
thursday, joseph and i headed over to church to meet up with everyone going paintballing... initially, i didn't think it would've been a fun experience, considering everyone going weren't exactly my closest friends... i was a little disappointed, b/c pamela got sick that morning with a 24-hour bug, joyce and jamie didn't wanna go, and everyone else was either too busy, too scared, or flat out flaked... after a quick worship thought before we were going to head over to shoot each other, we headed over to hollywood land... signed the waivers that protected the company from people that would sue for injury (already a warning sign, when you need to sign your life away for going paintballing, haha)... got our paintball markers and loaded them up, and we were set...
teams ended up being justin, brandon, tim, mj, jr, joseph, and i versus edrey, matt, junjun, zach, allen, ian, ryan and his friend... the games ran off testosterone and adrenaline, considering only guys went, and being thrown into makeshift battlefields with markers that fired paintballs at just under 275 feet per second was exhilarating... we played on three fields, two games each... the first field was a small field with barrels serving as our only protection, which required a lot of squatting and ducking out from our cover... the second field was a larger field, equipped with a makeshift maze and tunnels... the last field was a large, urban area with abandoned cars, traincars, and a jet... the other team, since they outnumbered us AND had ryan, beat us every single round... it got really annoying, so on the final round, we decided to screw it, bunch up together, and just surprise them... best strategy all day, since we totally wiped them out... poor edrey was cornered by four of us and although he tried to surrender, we flat out shot him bad... each round usually turned into a faceoff at the last minute with one from each team, but that round, five of us were still standing at the end...
^ look at me, trying to be all hardcore, haha!
after inadequate planning of not having water, being out in the blazing sun with constricting face masks, and running around full energy for three hours, we were done... a couple of us headed over to the familara's house to take showers and just relax... jason picked me up for praise team practice, but after pamela, allen, jason, and i had dinner at islands... practice went well; i ad libbed a lot and played everything by ear, which amazed auntie arlene, since i was doing it all without music, haha...
friday, went to choir practice... planned to go with pamela to bring valerie and ben to the airport on saturday...
saturday, pamela woke me up early to meet her at her house... started to feel all unreligious, considering that i haven't been to church in practically 12 weeks... i mean, i may have been IN a church building, mostly for choir purposes, but i never listened to a sermon or was actively engaged in the process... oh well... i figure that i'm at that point in my life where i am figuring out what really works for me anyways... pamela drove to ben's place, and we eventually left for LAX... had lunch with ben, valerie, and pamela at the airport, after patiently waiting for the "fast" food to be ready... sheesh, must've taken them almost 20 minutes to prepare pamela and my food, no joke... valerie shared this one story about how the band she hired at her wedding listened to the wedding music i prepared, and actually felt a little intimidated, knowing that music was taken seriously at the wedding, so they had to step up their game... good to know that it was so well received and perceived, haha...
we saw val and ben off, and pamela and i went back to the parking lot... we parked on the top floor, so we took the elevator up... on the fourth floor, another couple came on, and the elevator started to head up... when we were almost on the fifth floor, the elevator came to a sudden stop, started jerking violently around, and the aura became tense... the elevator was trying so hard to force its way to the top floor, and we tried to keep our cool, hoping that the cables wouldn't break and plunge us five flights down... my eyes scanned for the emergency button and tried to figure out what to do in the worst case scenario, but i didn't wanna lose my cool, uncross my arms, and prepare for that until the last minute... the other lady started freaking out, saying that she would never take an elevator again, haha... after what seemed like an eternity, the elevator finally cranked its way to the top and the doors opened... pamela ran out as fast as she could, and although the couple needed to go down rather than up, they decided to take the stairs instead... we laughed to shake it off, but sheesh... we could've died, haha!
i had to drive val's car back to the house so that pamela could drive her own car back, and then from there, i had to drive my own car back to church so that pamela would have a way back home afterwards... a lot of unanticipated driving on my part... last minute, decided to go with the pathfinders to the windsor convalescent home, and ended up becoming last-minute accompanist for myrtle and the girls... turns out all the kids are getting into solving a rubik's cube, which is sorta cool, since i can solve it, haha...
killed some time at church, and AY started, which was our cue to leave before being sucked into the corny afternoon events of the program... pamela, jason, allen and i went to indra to eat, and went back for alyssa... enjoyed our meal over a conversation about how to raise kids right, considering there was a whiny little brat on the table next to us that wouldn't stop crying b/c she didn't get to sit at the table where she wanted to sit... also had our random "give advice to the tordecilla kids as they're growing up" moments... decided to have a quiet game night at our house but before that, we stopped by target to buy new games, and help pamela pick out new clothes...
played a new game called imaginIFF... a LOT of fun, especially with a group of people that knows each other well... i ended up winning both rounds of the game... funny moment, where pamela and i had a challenge round, trying to predict what jason would do if he accidentally ran over the neighbor's cat, haha! when the options include 'apologize to the neighbor,' 'buy an identical cat and act like nothing happened,' 'drive away as fast as possible,' and 'run over it again to make sure it's dead,' just imagine the amount of laughter happening in the living room! also played loaded questions, which was sorta fun... played until almost midnight, and the other three went home...
^ geez, i told them to just keep playing... and of course, they have to ruin it and look all staged...
yesterday, eunice and anna came over... they didn't wanna play video games against me, since they knew i would win, so they settled for a game of imaginIFF... joseph, jason, eunice, anna, and i played, and i won that game anyways, haha! pamela came over, and we played two rounds of catch phrase, with eunice and joseph on my team... funny moment: when pamela said 'it's an animal that flies,' and anna chimed in with a serious 'a bear..." we had to stop that round b/c we couldn't stop laughing, haha! played a round of taboo before deciding that it was too serious for our tastes...
eunice gave me a quick chiropractic fix, and we played a couple of rounds of guitar hero... pamela stayed for dinner, and left pretty late...
today, mom wanted to take out yvette and nika for dinner and a movie, since she hadn't done anything with them for the 'adopt a youth' program at our church... our family ate out at olive garden with the two girls, and i figure that we're quite the entertaining and social family, haha... the two were very comfortable with our family as we shot out hilarious childhood stories and tried to get to know them better... also got to know more about how things work at a restaurant from joseph and his experiences working at BJ's... i guess good clean sarcasm is welcome in relaxed situations like that...
this week should be no different... hopefully, plans with jonathan sy work out... anyways, so many random philosophical musings during the course of last week, but by the time i get home to want to write it down, i'm never motivated enough... oh well, haha!
thursday, joseph and i headed over to church to meet up with everyone going paintballing... initially, i didn't think it would've been a fun experience, considering everyone going weren't exactly my closest friends... i was a little disappointed, b/c pamela got sick that morning with a 24-hour bug, joyce and jamie didn't wanna go, and everyone else was either too busy, too scared, or flat out flaked... after a quick worship thought before we were going to head over to shoot each other, we headed over to hollywood land... signed the waivers that protected the company from people that would sue for injury (already a warning sign, when you need to sign your life away for going paintballing, haha)... got our paintball markers and loaded them up, and we were set...
teams ended up being justin, brandon, tim, mj, jr, joseph, and i versus edrey, matt, junjun, zach, allen, ian, ryan and his friend... the games ran off testosterone and adrenaline, considering only guys went, and being thrown into makeshift battlefields with markers that fired paintballs at just under 275 feet per second was exhilarating... we played on three fields, two games each... the first field was a small field with barrels serving as our only protection, which required a lot of squatting and ducking out from our cover... the second field was a larger field, equipped with a makeshift maze and tunnels... the last field was a large, urban area with abandoned cars, traincars, and a jet... the other team, since they outnumbered us AND had ryan, beat us every single round... it got really annoying, so on the final round, we decided to screw it, bunch up together, and just surprise them... best strategy all day, since we totally wiped them out... poor edrey was cornered by four of us and although he tried to surrender, we flat out shot him bad... each round usually turned into a faceoff at the last minute with one from each team, but that round, five of us were still standing at the end...
^ look at me, trying to be all hardcore, haha!
after inadequate planning of not having water, being out in the blazing sun with constricting face masks, and running around full energy for three hours, we were done... a couple of us headed over to the familara's house to take showers and just relax... jason picked me up for praise team practice, but after pamela, allen, jason, and i had dinner at islands... practice went well; i ad libbed a lot and played everything by ear, which amazed auntie arlene, since i was doing it all without music, haha...
friday, went to choir practice... planned to go with pamela to bring valerie and ben to the airport on saturday...
saturday, pamela woke me up early to meet her at her house... started to feel all unreligious, considering that i haven't been to church in practically 12 weeks... i mean, i may have been IN a church building, mostly for choir purposes, but i never listened to a sermon or was actively engaged in the process... oh well... i figure that i'm at that point in my life where i am figuring out what really works for me anyways... pamela drove to ben's place, and we eventually left for LAX... had lunch with ben, valerie, and pamela at the airport, after patiently waiting for the "fast" food to be ready... sheesh, must've taken them almost 20 minutes to prepare pamela and my food, no joke... valerie shared this one story about how the band she hired at her wedding listened to the wedding music i prepared, and actually felt a little intimidated, knowing that music was taken seriously at the wedding, so they had to step up their game... good to know that it was so well received and perceived, haha...
we saw val and ben off, and pamela and i went back to the parking lot... we parked on the top floor, so we took the elevator up... on the fourth floor, another couple came on, and the elevator started to head up... when we were almost on the fifth floor, the elevator came to a sudden stop, started jerking violently around, and the aura became tense... the elevator was trying so hard to force its way to the top floor, and we tried to keep our cool, hoping that the cables wouldn't break and plunge us five flights down... my eyes scanned for the emergency button and tried to figure out what to do in the worst case scenario, but i didn't wanna lose my cool, uncross my arms, and prepare for that until the last minute... the other lady started freaking out, saying that she would never take an elevator again, haha... after what seemed like an eternity, the elevator finally cranked its way to the top and the doors opened... pamela ran out as fast as she could, and although the couple needed to go down rather than up, they decided to take the stairs instead... we laughed to shake it off, but sheesh... we could've died, haha!
i had to drive val's car back to the house so that pamela could drive her own car back, and then from there, i had to drive my own car back to church so that pamela would have a way back home afterwards... a lot of unanticipated driving on my part... last minute, decided to go with the pathfinders to the windsor convalescent home, and ended up becoming last-minute accompanist for myrtle and the girls... turns out all the kids are getting into solving a rubik's cube, which is sorta cool, since i can solve it, haha...
killed some time at church, and AY started, which was our cue to leave before being sucked into the corny afternoon events of the program... pamela, jason, allen and i went to indra to eat, and went back for alyssa... enjoyed our meal over a conversation about how to raise kids right, considering there was a whiny little brat on the table next to us that wouldn't stop crying b/c she didn't get to sit at the table where she wanted to sit... also had our random "give advice to the tordecilla kids as they're growing up" moments... decided to have a quiet game night at our house but before that, we stopped by target to buy new games, and help pamela pick out new clothes...
played a new game called imaginIFF... a LOT of fun, especially with a group of people that knows each other well... i ended up winning both rounds of the game... funny moment, where pamela and i had a challenge round, trying to predict what jason would do if he accidentally ran over the neighbor's cat, haha! when the options include 'apologize to the neighbor,' 'buy an identical cat and act like nothing happened,' 'drive away as fast as possible,' and 'run over it again to make sure it's dead,' just imagine the amount of laughter happening in the living room! also played loaded questions, which was sorta fun... played until almost midnight, and the other three went home...
^ geez, i told them to just keep playing... and of course, they have to ruin it and look all staged...
yesterday, eunice and anna came over... they didn't wanna play video games against me, since they knew i would win, so they settled for a game of imaginIFF... joseph, jason, eunice, anna, and i played, and i won that game anyways, haha! pamela came over, and we played two rounds of catch phrase, with eunice and joseph on my team... funny moment: when pamela said 'it's an animal that flies,' and anna chimed in with a serious 'a bear..." we had to stop that round b/c we couldn't stop laughing, haha! played a round of taboo before deciding that it was too serious for our tastes...
eunice gave me a quick chiropractic fix, and we played a couple of rounds of guitar hero... pamela stayed for dinner, and left pretty late...
today, mom wanted to take out yvette and nika for dinner and a movie, since she hadn't done anything with them for the 'adopt a youth' program at our church... our family ate out at olive garden with the two girls, and i figure that we're quite the entertaining and social family, haha... the two were very comfortable with our family as we shot out hilarious childhood stories and tried to get to know them better... also got to know more about how things work at a restaurant from joseph and his experiences working at BJ's... i guess good clean sarcasm is welcome in relaxed situations like that...
this week should be no different... hopefully, plans with jonathan sy work out... anyways, so many random philosophical musings during the course of last week, but by the time i get home to want to write it down, i'm never motivated enough... oh well, haha!