spirit of the season

i live in a city where i hardly sense the changing of the seasons. for the most part things are relatively warm to scorching hot with a mild sprinkle of relative cold. things hardly change and ive always been a fan. but while our weather might not change as much, life does.
there is no forecast model, doppler or radar that can detect the next catastrophe.
life always finds a way to remind us that change isn't something simply confined by the falling of the leaves; that when you least expect it life will burst in and rudely remind you to buckle up.

last night, as my family and i finished eating and celebrating my little sister's 13th bday, we got news that my grandma's husband, (practically my grandfather) tony was shot 3 times in front of his house. he made it to the front porch where my grandma brought him in and called the paramedics. over the last 3 years my grandma has been in & out of the hospital and she's had a few operations for a weak heart. a few hours after the shots rang my grandma had a minor heart attack but luckily she was already at the hospital. nonetheless things did not look good.

a few days ago we were all eating thanksgiving dinner at the house. tony, eating like it was his last meal. grandma making 3 different batches of tamales. my sisters and brother in law joking with each other and telling stories with my parents. now i'm here seeing it all play in my head and i cant help but think that all of this will also pass. in the midst of this calamity i need to remind myself that God is in control and that He is good. He also speaks through these circumstances and so here goes & comes another season of change. 

summer spills and fall

i woke up from a nap that i really didnt need. i tried justifying it by the 11-hour flight i took this morning. the korean air flight from seoul to la went by quick but my friend michelle would say otherwise. im not sure how long i have to the next job/trip but for now im just glad to be home.

its been a strange summer and it doesnt feel like its over. i didnt have much sound work early on and i really cant register anything of significance happening at the airport. but then the work began to flow and a few trips began to take shape and form, which leads me to the middle of fall.

the summer whirlwind has softened and now i type. i didnt write much this summer. part of me would like to blame it on work but that wasnt it. i was and still am trying to work out some of the current and past friendships/relationships. the passion and inspiration has been lacking but not for long 

and somehow i ended up in haiti

mike and i landed in port-au-prince, haiti yesterday morning and spent the whole day speaking with UNDP leadership about the best way to document their progress with the haitians. we got some good contacts, took care of some logistics and now it's day 2. in a few moments we're going to start our 10-hour drive to Jeremie and it seems like we're in for a rough journey. but it ain't as bad when you have a morning view like this.

- merci 

summer-rut of 16'

the dreaded coffee shop is where i find myself again trying to accomplish adult things like organizing and prepping for the upcoming week but in between my serious attempts i easily get distracted at my disorganized itunes/google play music library. i migrated my pimsleur portuguese lessons to google play 2 years ago but most of the metadata came out whack and so for the past hour instead of getting my website going, my portuguese language is finally sorted out and maybe one day it might finally come to fruition. this whole summer has been somewhat of wash with a mix of old and new opportunities, aspirations, emotions, disappointments, much of the same in different wrapping. i haven’t written much and there lies the root so here goes. i also received my brand spankin’ new passport last week. 

im actually feeling much better. ok, on to adult things

Fireflies and Chicago

The last time I saw a firefly I was sitting outside the patio of a hostel in Tirana, Albania. I was halfway through the episode where *** game of thrones season 6 spoiler alert*** hodor dies and boom from the corner of my eye there they were. 

It is 9pm and I'm currently in the windy city of Chicago, Illinois. It is hot, humid and everywhere I go I seem to be surrounded by tatted up hipsters and joggers; pretty much LA but without as many d-bags (debatable). 

I landed about 3 hours ago and during this time span I hopped on the CTA to Logan's square and successfully found the keys to my friend's apartment, somehow managed to find the worst chinese fast food in Chicago, walked about 2 miles around LS admiring the fireflies while trying to calm the upset stomach from said shitty chinese food, walked into coffee shop/bar and ordered two brothers' cane and ebel red rye ale, and proceeded to relieve myself of the evil that the shitty chinese food did to my stomach. 

My friends from LA are flying in tomorrow but I decided to get here a day before for no particular reason other than I had the day off, I didn't want to be home, and gave me an extra day to catch up with my friend Deisy who I don't follow on instragram. 

I'm here till Sunday and the plan calls for day drinks, bratts, bbq, cubs baseball, music and a viewing of the movie titanic starring leonardo di caprio at the park.  

31 in bozeman

I can't remember the last time I spent a birthday in LA - I think I was in my mid-twenties - but the older I get the less important they seem to become. The importance of these yearly milestones have shifted to the people I've met in-between, which brings me to the cast & crew of the short film I worked on Willow Creek Road.

Last month I recorded sound in the beautiful state of Montana. The producer and AD, Jon and Josh picked me up from the airport and brought me to Lauri's. Lauri had kindly opened her beautiful house to the whole crew where I was lucky enough to have my own room. Sort of 

I really didn't mind my porcelain roommates partly because I was exhausted by the time I stepped into that room. Looking back now it seems crazy how we all managed fit in that house. Every member of our crew played a vital part in making the production a success. It didn't hurt that a lot of them were big game of thrones fans, which made for a great viewing of the season 6 finale. 

All of the good vibes made for a sad goodbye. 

On the last day everyone had early AM flights so by the time I woke up the house was empty with the exception of our 1st AC, Andy who I had worked with on a previous gig in LA. I can still remember the eerie calm of that morning as we sat in the living room and waited for Lauri to take us to the airport.

I'm 31 now. Nothing really has changed and I'm not sure if that's good or bad. Maybe it's a little bit of both? I don't know. I can't believe I still haven't finished this post. Adios 

Tripping through the Balkans (pt.4)

It doesn't feel like 2 1/2 weeks, it feels much longer than that; like I lived a quasi life out here. I got my first taste of the Balkans a few years ago via Belgrade, Serbia but till now I thought that it was a Serbian thing. Well, it turns out that it isn't. I always knew that this place was special but I didn't know to what extent. 

I dragged my feet but eventually I made it out of Ohrid with an unexpected stop in the capitol of Macedonia: Skopje. I met the owner of the hostel Nena, a 6'2" broad-shoulder bearded beast of a man and aspiring actor. He gave us a tour of the city and the ridiculous amount of statues that surround the center and then he took us to a local restaurant. We broke bread and then Nena shared his dreams of coming to LA and making it big as an actor, his two daughters, and the other obscure jobs he has. It was late into the night when we began to walk back to the hostel. A tiny car pulled up behind us, I naturally tensed up but it was Nena's other job. He said his goodbye and quickly sped off into the night.

The next morning Andrew hopped on a bus to Thessaloniki and Danny and I took another to Sofia. That was 3 days ago. My time here Bulgaria has been chill but I feel like my mind body and soul know that my time here has come to an end. A few hours ago I had to say goodbye to Danny, a complete stranger I knew nothing about a week ago but now I feel like I gained a Dutch/Chinese brother, along with another French/Serbian and English brother. Can't forget about my Turkish and German/Italian sister that I left bedhind in Ohrid or my other Montenegro brothers Urosh and Danilo, and the crazy Swiss-French Sebastian who I met up with here in Sofia. 

Sofia, you seem like an amazing city but you've caught me at a rocky time. I appreciate your city and its beautiful lasagna layers of culture, architecture and people but I'm feeling a little blue at the moment. But it's Friday night and I'm planning to shake those blues away because something tells me that this isn't goodbye.