Steven Sanchez, Jr.

So I did it. Brother and I finally caught our fireflies. We definitely don’t have these back home, so it really was a treat when we saw our first ones during our first week here. Then we moved into our house – and they light up our backyard in the evening. Yesterday we tried catching some using a glass jar and the lid. We were unsuccessful. So today, we bought ourselves a small net, and caught close to twenty!

Now, if you haven’t seen a firefly, this is what they look like:

Also, how do fireflies light up? Pretty much, it is a chemical reaction in their body between oxygen, ATP (a type of energy), and calcium. Why do they light up? For the most part in what I (briefly) read, it is all for mating purposes. If you want all the scientific low-down, ask the Scientific American.

Alas, we caught them, put them in a jar, and now I’ve got a treat. I took a video. It’s short, not the best quality, but shows them light up! Enjoy!

Today is June 30. I have not posted since June 27. I have slipped.

Woops.

Part of it is my fault – the other part was out of my control. On Sunday I simply decided to take a day off. It was a chill day. Tried a new church, went and had lunch at Famous Dave’s, and then watched the new Transformers movie. I just really enjoyed the day away from my laptop.

Yesterday, however, was a different story – kind of. We spent the day out of the house. Dave was doing work stuff, and I ventured off to Borders. I read a whole book while I was there. It was a photography book. Actually, was one of those “books for dummies” made for my Canon Rebel. I picked up a few pointers and am finally getting the idea of aperture and depth of field.  So now I’m really to go out with my camera.

Also at Borders, I purchased another book. It is an adult’s self-teaching guide for piano. So what does this mean? It means that while Dave is at work, I may just start staying at home and teaching myself how to play on his keyboard. Stay tuned for that one, as I’m hoping to post small pieces that I learn to play.

But – why didn’t I post yesterday? I’ve found that I like to post either at the beginning of my day, or at the end before I go to bed. Since I was in Borders yesterday morning, I wasn’t going to post until closer to bed time. My laptop needed to be charged, so I plugged it in.

…it wouldn’t charge.

I tried plugging and re-plugging it in several different ways, still no go. I need to order a new cord for my charger. Boo. So I had to use Dave’s charger to charge my laptop over night. This will be interesting to see how this works out until I get my new cord. Dave needs his cord to power his laptop during use, so pretty much I’m gonna have to be a moocher whenever he isn’t using it to keep my computer charged.

— Aside from all of that —

Nights out here are way legit. We had gone into our backyard yesterday evening because I wanted to catch fireflies. They were going to be the feature post on my blog (when I finally catch some, you’ll be in for a treat). Those buggers are hard to catch. There was a nice breeze, the night was cool, the skies were clear. Ha, honestly it was a perfect night to take a special lady out and just lay together under the stars and it would be  a perfect evening. BUT haha it was just Dave and I. Even though we didn’t have ladies to share the evening with, we still ended up staying out there for a couple hours having a good man-to-man, no homo, real-life talk.

Alas, it was an evening like that which made me fall in even more love with Nashville. One thing I really, really need to do is to start taking pictures and throwing them up here. Normally I’m a lot better about this sort of thing, but I will get some. I promise. So, so many people have been bugging me to post pictures. I’ve got a few ideas in store as far as some themed sets I’m planning on doing. So also, stay tuned for that.

Now – I’m going to finish enjoying my mocha, going to look into ordering a new cord for my charger, and then pick up some pictures that I sent to print. Until next time!

Today was my first day of home-sickness. I miss the people, I miss things we do, and I really miss my parents. Today, too, is the day that my brother moved to Washington (state). My parents are taking him out there via car. They rented a u-haul to take his stuff up there and they are driving back. They’re making a trip out of it for themselves, which makes me really happy. They never really got to do anything like this much growing up.

I talked to them several times today on the phone as they updated me on their travels. They made it into Medford, OR today. Over Christmas break I had taken a road trip on the very same route they’re taking. Our goal was to make it to Canada, but only made it to Seattle because of the crazy snow storm that passed through. I don’t know if it is the fact that they’re not at home in Riverdale – that they’re further away – that’s making it so hard? I don’t know. *Shrug*

It’s definitely been a day to say the least. Because of said and other happenings, my post today will be brief.

Over and Out.

Waking up in the morning is evil. Granted, it is also a blessing everyday to know that you have been given another day. So I guess it’s a bittersweet deal. While we were driving into town this morning, I was actually thinking on my wake up pattern. For the past couple weeks that Dave and I have been living together, the mornings have been quite funny.

I’m not the happiest person in the morning. I don’t talk. I just sit and stare. Dave’s been one to find that out quickly. However, on our drive this morning, I realized what I do. When the alarm goes off, I wake up right away. I’ll talk, joke around, and be normal me. However that doesn’t last long. At all. By the time I’m finished getting ready in the morning, I’ve fallen into a relapse. I’m once again a silent, stone-faced, grumpy being.

This is when I need my caffeine boost. Well, I don’t need it, but it sure makes me a more pleasant person. Without it, it can take several hours for me to wake up. However, I have also found that music in the morning, puts me in a WAY better mood. But I can’t do that often, because I like to blare it loud. I guess, now that I’m living with others, I could invest in an mp3 player, and be in my own world with earphones.

…yes, that is a great idea, actually. Why haven’t I thought of that before?

Now, I’m not expecting any replies or anything, but I am curious about other people’s wake up patterns. Are you a peppy morning person? Or are you a grump like me?

This morning I was on my good ol’ Facebook, and for some reason ended up looking through different pictures of me (narcissistic much? maybe. ha. who cares). As I was perusing, I came across a picture that reminded me of my short-lived fame on Fresno Famous.

You may be asking yourself, “What fame is he talking about?”. Allow me to tell you – even better, show you. But first, let’s rewind back to my sophomore year at FPU. It was close to Halloween. This particular year, I had decided that I was going to dress up as the full-blown Mexican stereotype  (I can do this because I am Mexican). To do this, I had been growing out my mustache. It was beautifully dirty – as you will soon see.

For some reason, though, I can’t remember why – several friends and I ended up in one of the quads and were taking silly pictures. I believe some of the girls had done ridiculous make-up and were wearing silly outfits. I kinda want to say they were trying out Halloween costumes, haha. Needless to say, some ridiculous pictures came out.

One day at work – this may have been the following summer? I was told that I was on the ‘Famous People’ section of Fresno Famous. I believe it was James who had found me. I had no clue how I had got on there. So, there you have it. I had become a Fresno Famous person.

After a lot of confusion and shock, I finally tracked down how I had ended up on the site. It had thrown me for an even bigger loop because I had never heard of the site before, either. But, alas, I found the culprit of my ‘fame’. My friend Shelly was the one who posted the picture to the site. She was there the night we were taking pictures, and had them all on her camera.

So that’s that. This morning I was able to go down memory lane and recall some funny times I’ve had with friends as well as reliving my “fame”.

Mmmm, coffee. I’ve enjoyed this black, liquid gold since I was a child. Although, when I was a child it was a cup of sugar and milk with some coffee. Now, the proportions have matured as well as I have – now I’m drinking big boy coffee.

We’ve been in Nashville for almost two weeks now, and we are finally settling down. Dave is working at his internship and I am jobless. I’m okay with that, though. I’ve got money that I saved up for this summer adventure. So while Dave is off at work, I have found myself a regular at the Starbucks on 21st and Grand Streets. I’m also slowly figuring out who the other regulars are as well.  I’ve yet to claim an ‘area’ to call mine, but neither have any of the others.

I really feel that the Starbucks over here in Nashville are really meant for long term visits. Unlike the ones I have seen back in California (which are small and have a few people sitting and lounging), these are huge. They are filled with numerous tables, chairs, sofas, laptop bars – you name it! And they are always full with people hanging out. One of the first Starbucks I visited over here even had two long conference tables with lamps on them!

I find myself here for a minimum 2 hour block at a time (what’s free on my starbucks gold card). But a few times I’ve stayed over, and used internet from my phone (a feature that I love I can do). Ha, and recently, I think I’ve been here 5 out of 7 days of the week. *shrug* I’m on summer vacation. I’m just gonna take it easy and really enjoy being away from everything that is FPU (meant in the nicest way possible) .

For those of you who don’t know, I’m in Nashville, TN. I left California on June 7th and drove over with Dave Watson. We arrived in Nashville on June 11th, and have been here since. Dave will be here for a while. I on the other hand, will only be here for the summer. I’ve gotta go back and finish school. August 15th is the day that I will fly back to Fresno. I wish I could stay here a lot longer, though. I am really, really enjoying the city.

Today, I was at a Starbucks doing some writing and stuff while Dave was doing some work-related stuff. He called me to tell me that he was on his way to come pick me up, so I began to pack up and went to wait for him outside. While waiting for him outside in the Starbucks parking lot, a girl who appeared to be close to the same age as me approached me. She introduced herself and I introduced myself. She continued to tell me that she was a student at Vanderbilt. I saw that she was carrying several books in her hands, and figured she wanted something more than conversation. I let her run her sales script, and let her show me what she was selling. She was selling Christian books and better lifestyle books. After she asked if I would like to purchase any, I told her that I wasn’t interested. Normally that is where a sales pitch ends, right? Well not this time! After, she asked if she could pray for me. I had just met her, and she wanted to pray for me. So I told her heck yeah. She then asked if I had any requests, and I did. I told her how I had just moved out, and how I’m having a tough time finding a job out here for the short few weeks that I’m going to be here. She prayed for me, we said our goodbyes, and went our own ways.

This was the first time I had ever experienced anything like this. It was truly beautiful. Then shortly after she left, Dave arrived to pick me up, and we went on with our day. I’m kinda sad I can’t remember her name right now to acknowledge her in this post. But I just want to say thanks to her.

Today was a good day.

So, I’m currently sitting in our extended stay hotel watching Dirty Jobs on The Discovery Channel. To be completely honest, I can’t wait until we get out of this place. We move into our new place on Wednesday. The room we’re in reeks of stale cigarette smoke (even though the room is supposed to be a non-smoking room) and is really hot because the air conditioning swamp cooler sucks butt.

Alas, enough about the room – today on Dirty Jobs he visited a place that made B.A.R.F. Now what is this you may ask? B.A.R.F. is an acronym for Biologically Appropriate Raw Food. This is a dog food made of pretty much all the parts of cows that we humans don’t want to eat. This place received shipments of all these random cow parts, and they ground them all together, and the mixture was dog food. The end product was a clear, plastic bag of what looked like raw chorizo. This apparently is a huge favorite food for dogs. I dunno. I don’t have a dog right now, but when I do get one – I’m pretty sure I’m gonna stick to Puppy Chow.

Wanna check out the makers of B.A.R.F.’s  website?

Check it: http://www.barfworld.com/