7:51 AM (of Tuesday, April 6th 2021)
Today is Monday, April 5th 2021. I woke up today feeling very refreshed and in control of everything. My plan for the day was to complete some work I have for work and turn that in, and after turning that in, go out to Wal-Mart mainly to get something from La Frutera, but to also buy some peanut butter and bread I guess, since I've almost run out. I don't know what else I would want to buy at Wal-Mart other than those things. The last time I went I bought a table, and that was the main reason I went, but since I didn't want my visit to go to waste (since it costs me $40 to Uber back and forth), I bought some jelly and some bread too.
I looked all around the store last time for something to buy. I went to the exercise equipment section because maybe there would be some weights there I was interested in buying, but nothing was affordable. Are weights normally pricey? There were 10 pound medicine balls that were selling for $30+ I think. There was a 14 pound medicine ball that was selling for $63 or something. That's very expensive. There weren't any actual barbell weights though since those were sold out, the only weights I recall were these medicine balls and slam balls. There was also a weighted vest I recall, maybe I could get that and wear it while walking around outside.
One thing I thought about doing last year was hula-hooping while walking around, but wearing a heavy vest while walking around sounds even better, and while carrying a medicine ball around too. My biggest gripe would be the sweat, because it's hot here, hot enough that I can sweat indoors at night while lying down on the floor. If I go outside to the sun, and walk around while wearing a vest and carrying a 10 pound ball around, I'm going to sweat tons, and get the vest all wet and dirty. Oh well, that might be a thing to try out regardless. I could also get some wrist weights and use that while playing Beat Saber.
Anyway the last time I went to Wal-Mart, I just didn't buy much. However, it cost me $40 to go to and from Wal-Mart, because the Uber rides are not cheap to get there. I think I should spend at least $200 if I want to make my trip worth it each time. So next time I go, I'll buy those weight balls even if they're expensive, just to make my trip worth it.
In the morning I got two new Facebook friend requests. One of those friend requests was from a guy I met in 2016 while I was staying late in the office one day. I don't know why I was there so freaking late, but yeah at around 7 PM I was still in the office, I think it was because I liked chilling there and because there was free food and everything else I could ever want; like there was a couch to chill on, I had two monitors on my desk, I could do whatever. Also the office was on the 8th floor of this skyscraper, so I had full view of the city, and it was so nice and beautiful, I felt like I was on top of the world.
The Clif bars, the mixed nuts, the dried fruits, etc, that the office provided for free, those are the foods I ate every single day for lunch at work for 3 years. Everyone else went out to eat, spend $10+ on some meal daily, probably because they were like "heh I need meat bro," while I realized we don't need meat ever, especially not for these arbitrary eating periods we call breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We have these cultural concepts for what they should be, but they don't necessarily have to be that, and they can even be skipped entirely. I could have just a banana for lunch, and that's it, or I could just have water and call that dinner. So that's why I just ate Clip bars, mixed nuts, and dried fruits for lunch for free daily, since that was very practical.
I also didn't make much either, just $40k a year salary and my main expense was a $1000 a month rent which took a huge chunk of my meager earnings (I really only earned like $26k a year after taxes). For my first 5 months or so of working, I walked to work, 1.5 hours each direction. Unless I would be late, then I'd take my car. I only spent like $10 to $20 a week on food, since rice was free since my parents bought it, and I basically only just ate breakfast and dinner because "lunch" was free at work (Clif bars, mixed nuts, dried fruits). I don't even remember what I ate back then, I think it was mainly rice and beans, and veggie patties. I remember tofu, I remember those $1 frozen mixed veggies bags, kale every now and then, bananas, but mainly the rice and beans and veggie patties. Since my expenses were so minimally low, it didn't matter that I didn't make much. It was all very liveable to me.
The next workplace I got a job at didn't provide any food for free, and I wasn't disciplined enough to pack meals, so I just skipped lunch entirely, this also went on daily for around 3 years.
Anyway so I was in my old workplace office late one day, at 7 PM. So, most people leave by 5 PM. Because everyone else lived far away. I lived 5-10 minutes away driving (1.5 hours walking), and we could hang out in the office for as long as we wanted, so I often just stayed longer.
2:42 AM (of Thursday, April 8th 2021)
I actually have a bunch of memories of leaving work at 9 PM, and just walking home really late at night. No one ever walked the path I took home whether morning or night or afternoon, because everyone else drove. The sidewalk I used had so extremely little foot traffic you'd think its entire purpose was just so I could walk to work. Also I would take a shower in the work gym when I got there, because I'd be sweating. That was fun too.
Anyway the reason I'm going through all this storytelling is because I'm introducing the environment of where I met this friend, who sent me a friend request recently. This is the first of the two friends, and I'll introduce the other one as well. I don't know why I'm going into such detail with them, but whatever. It's my journal, I can write about whatever I want.
I stayed in the office pretty late this one Friday. This huge 6'8" guy, Michael, comes around, I think that was the first time I saw him, and he sees that I'm the only other person on the entire floor, I think he came by and introduced himself, said he was hosting a LAN party in one of the meeting rooms, and I was invited to join them if I wanted. I wasn't doing anything else that night, so I hung out with them. There were only like 4 or 5 of us in there, everyone else in there but me was a software engineer, and everyone else was so much smarter. These guys talked about their backgrounds and their current positions and accomplishments when they introduced themselves, and not gonna lie, I was hugely intimidated. I felt like an insignificant worker ant that got to hung out with a bunch of queen ants that ran entire colonies.
The reason I made a meager salary was because I was just doing a simple, not data entry but basically data entry, kind of computer job. It was so boring, and not difficult at all, just clicking and typing (which I guess is the same as a regular development job, but mine didn't require any thinking). But I got to hang out with a bunch of "big shots" because I worked in this co-working space where a bunch of nerdy software engineer types work and hang out, and I got to be associated with them. It's not that I didn't know any software development either, I published over 20 apps and a bunch of websites on my own by this point, and I was a better developer than most people even with degrees, but I just never got a job where that's what I did. I had a really hard time landing any of those kinds of jobs without a degree and without any prior experience, so I settled for what I could get, and it was this glorified data entry gig.
We played Rocket League at this LAN party. It was the first time I ever played it, and I scored a few goals. I had no idea what I was doing, all I was doing was just running towards the ball and then hitting it. Due to good luck at the time, I'd make goals. Michael called me a "prodigy" at this game, because of all the goals I was scoring, but honestly I was just running towards the ball, and hitting it. If it went and scored a goal, that was by accident. Something similar happened in bowling, the first week I was at my first job, there was some bowling party event going on. I think I got 2nd place overall out of like 30 people there, and I hit a turkey which is 3 strikes in a row. I basically never play bowling, and this was probably only the second time in my entire life I went bowling. I've not played any bowling since then either. I have pretty good "beginner's luck" I guess.
Anyway it was Michael that sent me the friend request again recently, and we have hung out a bunch of times since we first met. For some reason he liked me a lot upon our first meet, he called me up a few times to talk about his companies and ventures he was working on. He invited me to be a part of his team early on, and I could have been a part of it. I just sucked so much. He asked for my resume, I sent it over, it had a bunch of past projects I worked on, and from that he saw I was a competent developer and probably assumed my job was software engineering, so he'd call me up and tell me about things and invite me to meetings and other events. He gave me access to his private github projects, we connected on a bunch of social media sites, but I was so uncommunicative. I made no contributions to his projects, I don't know why I didn't work with him.
Other than the LAN parties, I think Michael also created and runs a developer convention with over thousands attendees a year I think. He was 30 years old, everyone else I hung out with was around my age, which was 21 at the time, and I thought he was really successful. Ask me back then who I thought my most successful friend was, it would be him. Maybe still is. I met a bunch of people since then, but most I wouldn't call my friend. I've been to Michael's house a few times, went to a bunch of his LAN parties and so on, he's a friend.
But yeah I haven't talked to him in forever. Last time we talked he told me he got some investors for his company, like $20 million or something. That was the one he was telling me and calling me about that I could have been a part of. We still haven't talked since that day. Anyway maybe he might be interested in hiring my new company to do some work for him? Maybe? I'll pitch it to him once I create the website and bank account for Stealth Launch LLC.
The other person that sent me a friend request was Sarah, a classmate I had in high school that I actually had a crush on and asked out on the phone in an awkward way. Recalling some of that awkwardness makes me want to disappear. I started to like her when in 9th grade there was this geometry art contest in geometry math class. You had to use shapes and other geometric figures or something to make an image, and I worked hard, like an entire weekend, on my math artwork. It was the only one digitally created in the entire class, I made it using art software while everyone else just did theirs on a piece of grid paper. This was back in 2009, barely anyone used computers back then, or if they did it was for MySpace and Facebook only. So my creation was pretty advanced for back in the day.
Anyway she won because she got the most votes as the best math artwork as voted by another class. I don't even think I got second, but yeah I can't really explain why, but my attraction for her went up that day. Maybe it was because I was like "omg she's so good at art and so smart", or something. Her winning in the class just made me admire her, like she appeared on my radar. Then in 10th grade she won some other competition, I don't even remember what it was, maybe some raffle or something. Then maybe I was like "omg she's smart and lucky, I should ask her out," and so I did.
I looked through the student directory books given to each student and it had everyone's names, addresses, and phone numbers for everyone in the school year, and then I found her name and phone number. I read some very loose dating advice that "if you ask a girl to meet you and you schedule a place and time, and she shows up, then it's a date," so that's the extremely loose definition I used. And I was probably excited like "omg my first date....". I don't even remember what I asked, probably something like "H-hey Sarah, c-can I w-walk you to the l-lockers after class t-t-tomorrow?" and she was like "okay..."
The weird part was after class. I guess she told her friend in class that sat next to her about me calling her up. At the end of class after the bell rung, I very audibly heard, after everyone else left, her friend going "there he is, good luck" or something similar to that. And she was blushing hard. She was a little nervous too? She also had expectations for this going well? I thought it was a one-sided crush thing, but maybe not? I was so nervous and hearing that comment made me even more nervous.
I don't recall anything we talked about at all during the entire 2 minute walk back to the lockers. We had to climb two floors and go through the entire school basically to get to our lockers, possibly the farthest distance away. Yeah, thinking about it now, we were on the basement floor, and our lockers were on the 2nd floor on the entire opposite side of the building, so it was the furthest distance away possible. I don't recall anything other than the ending.
We came across this split in the hallway and you could go either left or right, it would end up at the same place, the lockers. I always took the left and I guess she took the right because her locker was closer to the right maybe, but yeah I was like "I'm going left" and I went left, expecting her to follow I think, but she went right... and then we just split up... I wanted to keep walking her to her lockers, but I just went the opposite way unintentionally in the middle of our conversation. it was so awkward... She actually nudged left a little trying to follow me, but I said bye or something and she kept going right and so we split... So freaking awkward. It was so awkward.
The most awkward part is that it was at school, so there was a bunch of people there, classmates we knew, and they saw us walking together. We were close to our lockers too, so everyone in our class was there basically, and there I was walking next to a girl and she was walking next to a guy! Omg. I mean if we were just alone I wouldn't have felt so awkward, but since I was surrounded by people I knew, it was awkward af.
Anyway, that was the last time we talked to each other, until she sent me this friend request out of nowhere. Turns out she is also friends with my personal trainer, who is currently living in Brazil but is from some country in Europe and lives there normally I think. What a small world. I looked through some of her likes and posts, and she's likely vegan now too, she has some vegan posts liked and she has a shared post about how dairy cows are treated and why she drinks plant based milks instead. I was thinking of messaging her, but I don't know if she's in a relationship or not, her profile doesn't say, and she has 2500 friends. She's also hanging out with a bunch of people in her photos, some dudes too, so I dunno...
Anyway, I haven't even written about my day yet. For work, I turned in some work today, and worked on some other items afterwards. Hurray.
At lunch time, I went out to Wal-Mart. It was $10 to Uber there, which is less than average. Normally it's $20. I actually just wanted to go there so I could get some fruit at La Frutera. I ended up buying some fruits, peanut butter, jelly, and bread. This was only like $15 worth of food, so I wanted to spend more to make my normally expensive Uber rides worth it to come here. I went to the second floor of Wal-Mart and checked out the exercise equipment again.
I missed a lot the first time I went to this section. It turns out they had everything here. Now there were some barbells for sale, but they had even more than that. I looked through each item more closely, perusing them, and it literally had everything needed to make a home gym. It had weights, adjustable barbells, long barbells (for deadlifts, etc), bench (for benchpress, etc), weight rack, pull up bar, etc. etc. It had everything. I was putting in a bunch of weights and barbells and other things into my shopping cart, but I didn't know whether it would fit in the Uber driver's car, so I lightened my load a bit.
I still didn't buy that much. I ended up buying like $115 total worth of stuff from Wal-Mart, even though I wanted to really spend $200, but I just wasn't sure about the space in the Uber driver's car, and I didn't want to Uber XL because that could cost $60. There was some weird event today where each time I opened up Uber to go back home, the price would creep up. It started at $10, I was standing in line waiting to check out, and could have ordered an Uber home right away. But I knew I wanted to go get some food from La Frutera first, and that was another line, so I waited. But because the line takes a while, I'd open and close Uber a few times, checking prices to get home. It from from $10, to $12, to $15, to $19, to $24, to $26, to $29 at the peak. I was getting so flustered each time I closed and opened Uber, because the price would go up each time.
After ordering from La Frutera though, and once I brought everything outside, that's when I ordered the Uber, and it was only like $9 at last. It was very fortunate timing that the price came down as soon as I got outside and sat. I tipped the guy $5 because that beats paying $29.
If my writing started to suck, it's because I'm getting sleepy. I'm getting so drowsy and sleepy as I type this. That was basically my whole day today anyway. Mainly just going to the store.
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