Distinctions and A-ha's

I had a distinction first thing today. I had just dropped Johnnie off at school, I had just done 3100 steps and gotten 22 active minutes in. It was a pretty good start. I had just brewed my green tea and was waiting for it to steep. And then I put together what I called a Learning Plan. I was growing frustrated that I hadn't even gotten to the Enlightened states material. And I've had it for more than a couple of weeks now. FOR SURE I'm distracting myself into just putting my head down and getting the thing done. The fact that I haven't makes it pretty clear to me that I had NOT PRIORITIZED it. Why not? There is clearly something other-than-concscious at play here. Something I have to work on to reverse.Case in point I found myself updating the Scrapbook that held a whole bunch of Johnnie's pictures for FeiFei all the way back to when we first brought him home. It's a true running picture log of Johnnie's life to date and I had run a couple of months behind. But it didn't need to be done today. For some reason it seemed like the time to update it, meaning I was trying to keep myself busy. After all, it was a Tuesday and after my meetings in the morning got done before lunch, I was pretty much all clear until the QueensCare Health Centers Board Meeting at 5 PM tonight. I was asked to present something on the UDS Reports and I had my slides done since early last week. That said, it had been a while since I had seen them and I have almost forgotten what I had put in there to present. But instead of getting to the things I thought were the most important, I did busywork. Still I do seem to get to the most important things right on time, it's just that I don't have to always wait until the very last minute either. I can't believe it's already been almost a week since I was prepping myself for the NACHC webinar. No such anxiety-causing event in my calendar this week. As I said, I'm all clear. I put more effort into choosing what Johnnie was going to wear this morning than anything else I think. On his calendar it's red-white-and-blue day and so I had his TEAM USA T-shirt on the ready.  Look at his goofy pic on the post...

So I didn't really think about the Board of Directors Meeting I was supposed to attend tonight. I could only think THANK GOD we're still mostly remote so I don't have to deal with driving to the FRB and back and wondering what I was going to do with Johnnie. On that note I am still very much grateful that I can take a walk in my neighborhood in the middle of the day to enjoy the afternoon sun. Not like I couldn't do it when I was at the FRB. In fact, I did it in the middle of the afternoon quite often. But this is different. First of all, its MY neighborhood. Secondly, I don't have to worry about getting back at all. I could just keep on walking. Lastly, I'm doing it in the comfort of my own shorts LOL. And so it was that when I got back from my walk, a mere 2 hours from the start of the Board Meeting, I did realize that I had the wrong Powerpoint slide background. And the one I used was the one that had both companies on it. Faux pas faux pas faux pas. Then again I would get grief from mostly Barbara who nitpicks on these things. And so I spent a half hour fixing my slides. Thank God I only had a handful of them. I literally created one from scratch LOL. Oh and I added one to boot. And then I picked up Johnnie early from school, put some chicken broth and penne in front of him. And Jack-in-the-Box chicken strips that I picked up before I went and got him and told him to stay in the living room for a couple of hours or so. My presentation (about UDS) took all of 5 minutes. I think I spent more time introducing myself and reminding the Board what I did in the organization. By 6 PM, I was done. Made myself dinner <tonight it was turkey bolognese on shiitake spaghetti - I figured it was the carbs I wanted to cut down not the fat from turkey... which was minimal anyway> and then the usual shenanigans with Johnnie. I felt bad shoo-ing him out of the room when he went in while I was in the middle of my Board Meeting. But I went and recovered with him very soon after that so I think we're all good. I am very sensitive to the fact that it is a comprehensive amount of those rejections that eventually become negative programs in the future. Anyway off to sleep he went by 9 PM and he was still his same joyful, playful self. I went to bed but not to sleep right away. I watched Mayans MC. Hey I can wind down anyway I want. After all, I got stuff that I wanted to do done today didn't I? Yes. I. Did.

Memorial Day

Ahh Memorial Day, the timemarker for the start of summer. I remember I used to have these rituals to commemorate that time marker. One of them was watching the movie Indian Summer. Then going to some carnival. Or watching a blockbuster movie. At least I got to that last part when I saw Top Gun yesterday at the movie theater. What I did not do however was clean up my apartment. And only when I got a call from Fed in the Philippines asking if Sofia could stay with me for a night on her way to Vancouver some time in January did I think I actually do have to keep my apartment clean don't I? Funny how that gave some sense of urgency although it is still so many months away. But I didn't clean my apartment yet, at least not right away. After all Memorial Day or not it still IS Monday and I still do have Monday routines. First was meditation for the week. Should be a fairly easy week since it IS a short one. Still lots of stuff going on but not with the urgency of the last couple of weeks with the NACHC webinar.  And then of course I still want to keep on track for 15,000 steps today which meant I had to get a third of that done by mid-morning.  Although I got a later-than-usual start, I still managed to get to 5000 steps and 40 active minutes by 10 AM. AND you can see from the picture I actually stopped at Mar Vista Park to do some pull ups. And while there, I threw in 26 push-ups too without resting. I'd say I got a nice workout in. So nice that I spent the rest of the morning resting on the couch LOL. And finally, while I noticed my attention was flitting back and forth between YouTube videos, my journal, other stuff on the web, AND about how dirty my apartment was, I at least got to the robot vacuum and turned it loose in the living room. Thank God for this thing! By lunchtime I had actually cleaned the living room. I'm still IFFY about getting to the rest of the apartment this afternoon. I guess it depends when I have to get Johnnie though I'm pretty sure they are over at Lisa's parents house in Sierra Madre. Still I held the thought that I at least DO NOT HAVE TO WORK TODAY. Nor do I even have to think about work. And that, by itself, is already something I am really grateful for. Oh and the fact that I could still do 10 pushups at my age is notable to me, though that bar is low - no pun intended. I actually NEED to focus on getting my muscle mass up now that my skin is noticeably looser where I used to have more weight. For lunch I had the rest of the ahi tuna salad from Friday and also some yellow lentil soup. I am determined to get back to vegan/pescaterian eating since I fell all the way off the horse yesterday. I was also grateful that I rearranged Johnnie's wall pictures and now they are much neater and arranged much better. In doing this, I had to throw out a lot of the pictures he had hung up in the past couple of years. They sort of signify what Johnnie was interested in at the time. A year ago, he was into the Wild Kratts. He had a lot of dinosaur drawings up too. And his other drawings were very much rudimentary. Those came down and were replaced. Now he has a drawing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, other art material that looks much better than his earlier work. The evolution of the artist such as it were LOL. I wasn't done there either. I also got rid of some of the clutter in the living room. That cardboard doghouse? Gone. No longer needed. Those toys Lisa palmed off to me simply  because she didn't want to see them in her house? Gone. I took them back to her house. Incredible that she doesn't think living in a 1 BR apartment would mean significantly less space LOL LOL. By mid-afternoon, I had gotten to the bedroom and used the robot cleaner to do that. AND did the bathroom floor as well, including mopping it. Only when I finished making myself dinner did I get around to the kitchen. Which left the shower. When I got a call that Johnnie wouldn't be by for an hour yet, I finished cleaning the shower AND got a shower in too. It felt good to clean the apartment. Let's see how long it stays that way. So Lisa dropped Johnnie off at 8 PM. By then I had finished 15,000 steps and 150 active minutes. Just a usual Monday. Long weekend is over. Memorial Day was quiet for me but considering the last couple of days, quiet was good. Cleaning the apartment was good. Let summer begin!

Subliminal Out Of Whack

So last week I did subliminals and some hypnosis-like exercise first thing  before I went to golf. And wouldn't you know I ended up having probably one of the best golf games I had ever had at Eaton Canyon. I mean I used to suck at playing that course. And immediately from the first hole on it felt different. Even the holes I didn't play well I had at least one good of great shot. And I felt great afterwards. I was hoping to repeat it this morning at Harbor. AND I reminded myself the last time we played Harbor, without the benefit of subliminals or energy work, Scott and I actually played really well. That's because we were paired up with 3 guys who played well too and we didn't want to embarrass ourselves I thought. THAT was one of the best rounds I had ever had at Harbor. So repeating it today was the goal. Our tee time was at 8:40, and I had plenty of time to do subliminals first thing again this morning, although I think I did a whole different set of them this time around. And this time it WAS different. My first shot off the first tee was a topped ball that went all of 20 yards. Second shot from that didn't go much farther, although I did recover to at least get a 6 on the first hole and barely missing my bogey putt. 2nd hole was crap, as was the 3rd and by that tie I realized I didn't have it today. And whatever I did in the morning did NOT work. Not only did it not work, I was convinced it actually reversed last week and got me what I didn't want. Sort of like the first time I had all that pain in my kidneys a couple of weeks ago. I played a morphic field and I got the reverse effect today. WHAT THE HECK does that? So now I not only need to find out the "how" for that effect, and the "WHY" too and make sure I can actually do stuff to get the outcomes I do want. A cursory read on the web sort of told me that I was too attached to the outcome. That I needed to let go significantly. I might agree there. But isn't there some kind of switch I can flip to change the polarity BEFORE I do the subliminal or morphic field? Or maybe right after it? OH well... at least it turned out to be a nice warm day, it was only 3 of us that tee'd off, and the guy we were paired with wasn't really very good <maybe that was the reason for my shitty game...  I played down to the competition>. Still we got done by 11:30 AM which was totally early by Harbor standards and I was home by noon, eating my vegan tuna sandwich and yellow lentil soup. About as healthy as I could have gotten for lunch... that I made myself anyway. On any normal Sunday I would have stretched out on the couch and chilled the afternoon away. But today being the Sunday before Memorial Day and I had nothing planned, I thought I would do something different. I thought I would at least get my butt out of the house and keep enjoying a nice Sunday. 

And so I did. I got out of the house. But I did not necessarily stay outdoors. Instead I went to the movies. Watched TOP GUN: Maverick. Yeah I know I know, I did download a copy already and watched it. But although I already enjoyed the movie, I also KNEW this was a movie that would be better watched in a movie theater. Which was why I drove to Marina del Rey and watched it again. And enjoyed it again, this time with popcorn. Yeah it really was a pretty good movie wasn't it? It did justice to the original movie which showed 30 some odd years ago! Wow. The scene with Val Kilmer <Iceman> was particularly poignant. Boy talk about watching someone go from the youthful vibrancy of 30+ years ago to present state is sobering. And perhaps there's a lesson there for me as well. Seeing my mom yesterday and IceMan and my own reflection in the mirror does make it appear that we are all susceptible to time does it not?! OR... perhaps instead of trying to beat TIME we can merely work with it in our favor. After all, most of what I could complain about physically is merely wear and tear and older age related isn't it? But does it have to be? I'm not saying I want to stop time. But I can minimize it's effects could I not? Wasn't the body vessel designed to last longer in the state of where it was when I was, say 40 years old? Something to put on my outcomes list? After all, being the best 50, 60, 70 that I can be also means feeling like I was in my 40s. That I think is very do-able. And so it was that I went home and finally did chill away the rest of my Sunday. And the cool thing was that the weekend was not over yet. Awesome.

Reality Is An Illusion

Reality is an illusion. And this illusion is carefully structured so that we can not catch on to the depth of the illusion.  Within third density each of us came to struggle, came to be confused and befuddled, came to develop fears, to do all the wrong things, to clutch and grasp at everything including money, ideas, feeling needy. And why? Because it is in working with these honest feelings, that the entity within you, the Spirit, the consciousness may float about the Being with all these concerns and may interact with it in such a way that consciousness is transferred into the working brain, the working Mind. Basically your job here is to within incarnation begin to allow the programming of consciousness to replace the programming of your mind which deals with the illusion in a polarized manner. See the concern for money as the challenge it is. What consciousness does to this concern is to lend it the awareness that there IS enough, for consciousness is Infinite. Celebrate your problems, they bring you to the point of desiring and seeking a higher Truth. Discomfort is encouraged that leads you to seek and seek and seek again. There is an alternative to seeking within the Illusion, that is simply seeking the Consciousness and it's Infinite Plentiness.

Alex's Birthday Lunch

So today Johnnie and I are headed to San Diego as I had promised we'd take Alex to lunch for his birthday this weekend. And then Grace asked if I could pick up my mom in West Covina. And so I picked up Johnnie at Lisa's at the usual time. Lisa had made him breakfast but had not given him a shower. So I gave him one, then we went to my apartment to get me some breakfast and then off we went to West Covina. My mom was already ready to go. I hadn't seen my mom in a little while. She's now looking so much older. But then again I've noticed MYSELF looking older too no? I think I need to put THAT on my list of outcomes too. To somehow find a way to reverse aging. My aging anyway. It wasn't really my mom's age that got my attention though. It's her mental acumen. She started to tell me about our relatives in Canada on my father's side, how she talks to my Ate Lorie almost everyday. She mentioned how bored she was. The thing was she kept repeating the same stories as if she never remembered bringing them up in the first place. At least she had Johnnie keeping her somewhat amused. WE needed that. Because once we passed San Clemente, we ran headlong into traffic. Heavy traffic. Stop and go 20mph traffic from North San Diego all the way to our exit. It was a stretch of 14 miles that took almost an hour to traverse. It was excruciating. We finally got to Grace's house close to noon. And then came the other concern. How Claire the dog would behave around Grace's big dogs Bucky and Pia. I remembered when we went to Dexter's house, how their dogs were large too but in no time at all, Claire had made friends with them. And it turned out the same here. Claire is pretty excitable anyway but at least she didn't try to attack the bigger dogs. She still couldn't be left with them outside though as we all went to lunch. So she was left IN the house. We went to Pizza Nova, which apparently was Alex's favorite and his choice of lunch spot. And then I had to figure out what I could eat LOL. Today I simply threw caution to the wind. I had only had a celery/apple/carrot juice for breakfast so I thought I'd be ok eating a little more than usual and with some meat and carbs too. Like a regular lunch that I would have had 3 months ago. I did have a salad. But I had a pizza too with pepperoni and sausage toppings. Oh and I had garlic bread AND some fried calamari. Man I really went all out didn't I? And of course I felt really full afterwards. I hadn't eaten this much since 3 months ago. I was so full I almost took a nap as we were watching Shang-Chi, which was Johnnie's activity of choice for the afternoon. That and then we ended up watching Kenobi (for me, the 2nd time in a couple of days). Johnnie sat with me in the recliner and I must say, he is no longer the little kid either. Certainly not as big as Alex, who is now a strapping 17-year old, but he's all elbows and legs. And I will say I held him close like he was still my baby boy. Because he will ALWAYS be my baby boy. Late afternoon, we had a Swedish bread dessert that Andreas cooked up. Pretty good too. I figured I had had all that food earlier. Why refuse this one now LOL? Now I'm really full. And I hadn't had any opportunity to do steps at all too. By this time it was already 5 PM and I decided to head us back home. But not before we took one more picture of my mom with her grandkids. My mom is not getting any younger was what went through my head when I took this picture. And look at Johnnie being such a goof. Driving home went so much faster than getting here this morning. It was barely 7 PM when I pulled over to stop at Panda Express so at least Johnnie could have dinner. I didn't know when Lisa was going to pick him up but at least I figured one more full meal. And by 8:3o some milk too. And then finally I tried to catch up with steps. Badly needed considering how much I ate today. When we came home, I barely had 3300 steps in. I got to 8500 in less than an hour after that. And I could almost feel the fat burn kicking in. I actually did make it to 10000+ steps today. And I didn't need to eat anything for dinner either LOL. Although I did have some veggies and chicken from Panda Express. In my mind I'm going to have to recover from today for the next couple of days. By 9 PM I hadn't heard from Lisa yet. And so I decided to just go ahead and bring Johnnie and Claire to Lisa's house and put him to bed. He knocked off in less than 5 minutes. He must have been tired.  Heck I was. While waiting for Lisa I thought about today and felt good that at least I did get to hang out with my own family. I pondered why I acted as if I didn't like them. And maybe I don't. So many things from the past I need to still release and let go I think. Nothing really terrible. But to a child that was pretty much ignored or didn't get any attention and didn't have the sense of connection nurtured, do I now wonder why I'm detached from my own family? I mean I don't even now my relatives on the Mendoza side, the ones from Canada that my mom kept talking about. I mulled these things as I drove home. I have no relationship with my brother. But do I really want to cultivate such relationships? Am I ok with things as they are with my mom and my sister? Truth is that I am. And the reason is that I can only have enough energy for a limited amount of people in my life.  Only enough for Lisa and Johnnie really. There isn't much energy left for much else in terms of close relationships. Which is why I never even made an effort with Michelle, my date from a week ago. I'm going to leave it as today was spent with my fam and it was a good day. And I was glad Johnnie was with me. 

A Quiet Friday Before the Long Weekend

I stayed up until almost 1 A.M. watching all that TV last night. Which means I'm waking up this morning more tired than the previous few days. But then again I COULD sleep in. After all, I already have Claire the dog so no need to wait for Lisa to call me to drop her off. She called me anyway, at which point I told her about dinner toniight with Johnnie and Brooklyn and Bailey at Rutt's Hawaiian. I didn't expect her to make it but I told her just in case. We ourselves will be coming from Spanish class. But I am looking forward to starting the long weekend on a good note with a Friday night outing. As far as today went, I already had plenty to be thankful for first thing as it IS also payday Friday. And I also found myself going through several videos about learning more about energy modalities. Today I seemed to have focused on Faster EFT. I had already been a big proponent of regular EFT and I have to say I have not been using it as much as I know I should. I know it already works. That's what the issue is sometimes. There are so many modalities available that I get myself sidetracked into perhaps trying all or most of them instead on seeing what does actually work. In my mind, most of them area a combination of multiple modalities anyway. So let me see what has worked for me thus far... Bengston Image Cycling has already provided results for me. EFT has worked in the past and I'm curious to try FasterEFT since it looks like it is EFT and NLP sort of merged together. Morphic fields has worked to some degree, though I am still a bit fearful that I may have triggered somewhat of a reverse effect with kidney pain a couple of weeks ago and then again a couple of days ago. I remind myself that i may possibly be dealing with undoing and unlearning generations of learned patterns and so it may take a little time. It's like working on a rubber band stretched to behave a certain way. Different pressure might make it behave differently, but it takes consistent effort over time or it will snap back to the previous position. How much time? That is the variable isn't it? I do notice that I am looking quite a bit different but I also need to work on that. I am looking older. And my skin is sagging under my neck and my stomach, presumably from the weight I had lost. After all, I did drop at least 16 pounds a couple of waist sizes fairly quickly actually. Which is why I am now looking for a morphic field to address that specifically. In the meantime, I did enjoy my neighborhood mid-afternoon to log some steps. And as a sort of preemptive exercise. After all, eating at Rutt's Hawaiian, I am LIKELY to veer off the vegan, non-carb eating pattern. 

I picked up Johnnie from school at 4:30, officially starting my long weekend. And then he did his Spanish class and then just as soon as he logged off we were off to Rutt's Hawaiian which was 6 minutes away from me. Brooklyn, Bailey and their mom Blair and grandmom were already there waiting for us. I was excited to be here because in the almost 4 years now that I've lived in my apartment, I have yet to eat here though it's so close and I cannot deny my affinity for Hawaiian food. At least until 3 months ago. And tonight I was willing to forego my new eating patterns if just for tonight. So what that I ordered katsu chicken? And it came with 2 heaping scoops of white rice AND macaroni salad? The rice went to Johnnie actually and it augmented his quesadilla very nicely. I actually ate a piece of his quesadilla too. It was as if I was going to break my streak tonight anyway, might as well make it a good one. As it turned out Lisa managed to make it to dinner albeit nearly 6 PM. We were definitely still there at the time and as Blair said, she had nothing better to do tonight. So we waited for her and I ordered her some chasu pork ramen. And ended up eating some of the chasu pork as well. At least I did not have that much carbs. The girls both had French toast and bacon and eggs. Breakfast for dinner. And we all had a nice get-together. Which produced the picture above with all the kids hanging around Lisa. There is only 2 weeks of school left and then Brooklyn is off to summer in Arizona and Johnnie is off to summer at Penmar. So it was good that they got to hang out if just for this evening. And boy they made a night of it too, the kiddos did. They had 3 frozen icees for dessert, chased each other around the restaurant. You know, kiddos being kiddos. And then after wards, Lisa simply followed me home to pick up the dog. Eezy peezy hand-off. And since it was relatively early, I was able to finish my steps just in time to hang out on the couch and watch some more "internal work" videos. I was supposed to finish the Sapien medicine training today but never did get to it. Probably a part of me distracting myself from getting focused and finally getting it done. While watching some more FasterEFT, I fell asleep. And woke up near midnight only to simply fall back to bed. Gotta leave in the morning for San Diego with Johnnie so sleep was a good idea.

Feels Like The Weekend Already

I know it's only Thursday. And already being a Thursday it is supposed to be an easy day anyway. Certainly the Thursday before the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. And it started with the vibe of a free and easy day. Certainly it was for the kiddos at Mar Vista Elementary. It's pajama day and of course Johnnie was as eager to play it up as anyone. Look at the picture of Johnnie, Bailey, and Brooklyn all smiles. So far away from the events in Texas where an 18-yr old kid who was not mentally right killed 19 4th graders and their teacher. So sad. I offer no commentaries here other than we should know as adults what to do that is right. It just makes me appreciate even more the smiles on the faces of my child and his friends. And so I keep my own vibration light and positive. And even though I had my meeting with my EHR team and then my boss right after that, I was done with everything by lunchtime. I had myself a nice shrimp salad for lunch and I had a nice nap waiting for me afterwards. But then I got into holiday mode and I ended up watching, or rather binge watching NIGHT SKY on Netflix. I guess I'm starting the weekend early alright LOL. And yet the afternoon took a decidedly unexpected turn. First a call from Lisa asking for help. Could there be a normal Lisa interaction? Of course there's drama. It's what she brings. Only this time it really wasn't so bad. She picked up Johnnie early so she could take him to one of her piano recitals in Pasadena. Of course he had to go <why? I'm still unclear really> She called because she forgot to bring good clothes for Johnnie for her foo-foo recital LOL. And so I find myself at Jack-In-the-box parking lot on Pico delivering a polo and pants for Johnnie while he's eating a box of chicken crisps. Some scene. And then after that I had it in my mind that I would go to Sprouts to pick up some shiritake spaghetti. Even though I had picked up a pouch this morning already, turns out I like the Sprouts version best. And I wanted to experiment on a sauce to cook it with this weekend. And so I headed on to the Sepulveda store where I was just this past weekend. Of course at 4:30 PM, there is some ugly traffic in some spots on Sepulveda, particularly where it crosses Sawtelle. So annoying. And so by the time I got home it was already well past 5 PM and only then did I notice how nice of a day it had turned out to be. No matter, I hadn't done steps all day anyway. And so now was the time to catch up before it got later and darker. I made myself my signature keto-ish pizza. That's the cauliflower crust with pizza sauce and alternative cheese, and alternative protein meat. All plant-based but I figured it's still a pizza. And it's not bad at all. I'm sort of used to it now. And so back to a usual Thursday... except that Johnnie wasn't here and we're not waiting for Lisa to call until 8 PM or later than that. THAT will happen tomorrow and the day after anyway when Lisa is working again. Tonight I get to binge watch stuff and I finished 8 episodes of NIGHT SKY. Pretty interesting about an old couple that has a teleport pod in their cellar that leads to a planet. But even more interesting than this series was that the long awaited Obi-Wan-Kenobi series FINALLY premiered on the Disney channel. It's the story of Obi-Wan about 10 years after depositing Luke in Tattoine. He's now rusty and older and reluctant to do anything remotely close to being a Jedi. But the old stories still wove together and these first 2 episodes were actually about Leia mostly. And the Inquisitors. Can't wait for the next episodes...

Webinar Part 2

THE MISSING SPEAKER So the fact that I was experiencing pain yesterday not 24 hours from the webinar I'm doing today (part 2) was a cause of concern. When the pain did subside in the afternoon I felt RELIEVED. However, that wasn't the only thing that was concerning me. I published my content on Friday last week and sent it to my co-presenter Michael. As of yesterday, still no ping from Sharefile that he had even opened the file. But I wasn't really that concerned. I just figured he was busy and I was pretty sure he could sleepwalk his way through whatever content I had happened to put together, just as he did last week. I thought we could even go until today at the Tech prep half an hour before the presentation before we could actually go over the presentation together. Then first thing this morning a dreaded email came. Michael was sick (or claimed to be) and was begging off the webinar. Yee-gads! You know what though? It didn't faze me for a second. Why should it? Did I NOT put the entire thing together myself? Do I not KNOW the content? Of course I did. I'll just have to go through the whole thing myself is all. I felt like I had enough material for an hour and 15 minutes anyway so I was not really worried at all. It just meant I wasn't going to have to worry about transitions. And so I tried to distract myself first thing this morning by attending the Hight Intensity Management Program Session (HIMP) at 9 AM. I figured it would be done by 10 AM and I would have NO TIME to think. And that is exactly what happened. I was on for Tech Check by 10:30, the webinar was underway by 11 AM. And away I went, did my thing, got done almost right on the dot at 12:15, and did Q&A until  12:29. My timing was very good. I think I did pretty well. There were about 140 people on, which was less than last week but I thought they were pretty engaged actually. All in all, I think I did provide value and I did it ALL.BY.MY.SELF! Maybe it was all about proving to myself that I could. But it went in my favor after all.

DINNER WITH LISA When it was over I did my breathe out, which really meant I crashed on the couch and watched the 2nd part of the Valet that I started yesterday on Hulu. That movie was hilarious. The 2nd part of the day was to pick up Johnnie and then drive to Lisa's and see if she would have dinner with us, since that is now a routine for Wednesday nights, Spanish class or not. Without the class, we would have no reason to come at all and I hoped that Lisa would think about that when she would undoubtedly be busy when we get there. But then again I realize that is why I get disappointed is that I expect her to think about other people. We do much better when I have zERO expectations and simply think Lisa being Lisa is what I will have to deal with. True enough she had to be on the phone for a good 40 minutes while Johnnie and I pretty much just wrestled on the couch and played around simply to pass the time. Still, I reminded myself that I had a very good morning today and none of Lisa's antics mattered and all I had to do was just be ok to have dinner with her no matter what. Which is exactly what we did. We walked to Panda Express, where I had the foresight to park at and walk to Lisa's office. We could have eaten at Daikokuya of course but then we're at the mercy of Lisa's schedule. She had to do a walk at 7:45 you know. And so like it or not, we all had dinner at Panda Express for the 2nd night in 3 days. And I was ok with that. I had shrimp and veggies stir fry over noodles. And yes I ate some of the noodles. I pretty much ignored whatever control stuff was coming from Lisa, still mainly focused on getting it over with and going home. I will call this my good deed for the day. And a 2-hour blip of my time. We still managed to go home and spend time together Johnnie and I. He was really into Prodigy at the same time I was doing my journal on my computer. Ok Ok maybe we weren't doing stuff together. But I got a quiet Wednesday and Johnnie got to play and watch Pokemon. And by the end of the evening when I got him ready for bed, I realized that I too was tired. Maybe my body is catching up from all that stuff from Monday night. I still don't really know what was the biggest cause of that. I let my guard down for a sec I guess. Tonight I was happy to sleep early and still knowing that it's already Thursday and there's a long weekend ahead. And a trip to San Diego to boot for Alex's birthday. Looking forward to that.

The Pain Is Back

And so this morning I was tired and still in some pain. I went to bed like that last night and focusing on the pain only made it worse. And kept me from going to sleep. I started to get really anxious and started to try all kinds of stuff. I slept on my left side, after reading an article about how the was supposed to help a kidney stone pass. It did help me with the peeing though, as if my kidney kept pushing out pee. But evidently not kidney stones, if the was, in fact, it. I tried to do meditation to dull the effects of the ache, but no go. And then I tried morphic fields to help break up kidney stones. And finally after a while, I even tried the morphic field to cancel any morphic fields and affirmations. I felt like it worked the last time I was dealing with an ache in my back that I attributed to kidney stones. That was a couple of weeks ago. And I thought then that the ache was due to morphic fields bumping into one another. And I thought I needed to reset and cancel everything. And the thing was right after I did the cancellation morphic field, the pain went away. And so right or wrong, I thought that was what solved my issue then and I thought it would solve my issue now. Tonight Turned out that it didn't. And so I was just hoping to get a couple of hours of sleep in just so I could have enough energy to take Johnnie to school in the morning. I think it was 3 AM by the time I did get to sleep and when I woke up the pain wasn't so bad. But it was definitely still there. It was like it was now down to a 4, from the 6 that I thought it had been before I went to bed. Unbelievable! Just 24 hours ago I was revealing in the fact that my RHR was now 60, the lowest it had been in a very VERY long time and so I felt like I was really in a healthy kind of place. Maybe it was just the thought of that triggered my monkey brain to manufacture an illness to convince me otherwise. And so this morning the pain had dissipated just enough so I could do the morning drop-off to school for Johnnie uneventfully. But seemingly on cue, when I got home, the pain ramped up again. So again I hit the internet, looking for anything and everything not only to relieve the pain but to address the underlying cause of it. Is it something emotional? Is it last night's interaction with Lisa? I did muscle testing on all these things seemingly without getting to my answers. I tried reflexology on my feet, and that actually felt like it relieved the pain some. For a few minutes. I tried to do charged water, I did another morphic field specific to kidney stones. I was throwing the kitchen sink at this thing.

I do not know what specific modality actually worked. But after lunch I could sense the pain dissipating some. And finally by mid-afternoon, it was 90% gone. But I felt really tired too. So I had an idea it must have been one of the things I tried this morning. It wasn't until later than that though that I ran into this YouTube video on balancing the root chakra. And when I listened to it, I felt it activate something. And then it was like I felt the pain leave my body. I should have known it was the root chakra. All morning I was having sensation of coldness in my legs and feet. Like they weren't getting blood or something like that. I was also feeling muscle fatigue in my legs. So whatever was happening, it wasn't just my kidneys, it was also extending to my lower extremities. That was why I felt like the root chakra stuff could have helped. And I think it DID at that. At least I had enough energy to make Johnnie dinner. Penne pasta in chicken noodle broth. Augmented by some fried chicken from Ralphs. I made myself a salmon salad. The thing was that as the night wore on, I was getting more tired. As in I wanted to go to bed at 7 PM! The only things keeping me from doing so was that (a) Johnnie kept hounding me all night. Of course he did. He wanted to play. (b) I realized that I was barely at 7800 steps and I still had about a mile and a half of walking to go. When my legs felt the way they did, that seemed IMPOSSIBLE! I trudged on though even though it felt like I was walking through mud. My legs were really heavy! I slogged through step after agonizing step. And finally I did manage to get to 11,000 steps after all. I was working so hard I actually logged 101 active minutes. That's because my heart rate elevated easily and stayed elevated every time I took a few steps. Fortunately I did get through all that and by the time I prepped Johnnie for bedtime, I could barely keep my own eyelids from staying open. And OBTW I reminded myself that I had the webinar to do tomorrow. And I haven't gone over the slides since I put them together last week. But I fell asleep right as I put my head on my pillow. At 10 PM. I need to catch up on my rest. At least by this time, I felt like I had passed a kidney stone. And my insides felt healthy again. Like they used to anyway.

A Week Like the Last One

So it's another Monday and like last week I have a webinar to do on Wednesday. But I am busier than ever because this is HRSA Survey report week. AND I have to attend the Board Meeting next week to talk about UDS so I have to have at least a few slides done for that one. Still since I have last week's webinar under my belt already and I've already gotten all the slides pretty much done for Part 2, I don't feel any urgency at all.  In fact, if I could have stayed in bed all morning doing meditation exercises I think I would have. I was so relaxed when I checked my Fitbit, I saw my Resting Heart Rate (RHR) at 60 bpm! That is DEFINITELY the lowest it had ever been since I've been measuring it for the last 6 years or so. I mean it had gone down for 5 days in a row. Could it be all the subliminals and combo morphic fields I've been doing. That is a good possibility. The only thing is now I'm wondering if it's gotten TOO LOW in fact? I mean I don't want to have cold hands and feet all of a sudden. Still, it's amazing that it was just 3 months ago that it was topping out in the high 70s, a full 20 pts higher than it is today. Still it's pretty awesome that just by changing my diet I normalized my Blood Pressure and Resting Heart Rate. Now to focus on any other issues. And so I did my 5000 steps and 50 active minutes before 9:15, did 30 pushups and felt really good... except for perhaps I lost so much fat so quickly, my skin around my stomach area is definitely showing some sag. Gotta do some collagen morphic fields for that one to get it all tightened up nice. And so I worked on those opting to work on the other stuff for my job for later on this afternoon. And then of course I get a ping from Lisa letting me know about her schedule today. To me all I cared about was whether i was going to pick up Johnnie from school or not. Apparently Lisa had an optometry appointment and was going to get her eyes dilated. She won't be able to see. So there was a good chance i was going to be needed to pick up Johnnie. But not yet. At least she had her mom drive her to the doctor's. Sure looks like she's merely finding a way to keep up whatever attachment we have. And for now, I am ok with that.

And so this afternoon I focused on ramping up on my steps AND working on my HRSA report though really there isn't as much data as there was a year ago so I got done with the thing in a little over an hour. I remember it used to take me all afternoon to do. So HOW did we get to the picture I posted of Lisa and Johnnie, and of course myself eating at Panda Express tonight? Lisa called me at 4:30 and her pupils were dilated and she couldn't see. Clearly she wasn't driving and she was going to take Uber Home. Since she was just at Cedars on Wilshire and La Cienega I thought i'd play nice and offer to pick her up.  And then I get to pick up Johnnie from school right before. This would probably mean I get him earlier than usual tonight. Which was what I wanted in the first place. So I picked up johnnie, and then I picked up Lisa in Beverly Hills and since we were all together already and it was already 5:45, it was Lisa who asked if we could all just go to dinner. I was ok with that too. I mean we were here now. Johnnie of course was all for doing Oops. That kid. Lisa and I thought maybe not tonight though and so we just happened to be on Olympic and Westwood already and I thought maybe Panda Westwood? THAT is how we eventually got to dinner and the pic. We drove Lisa home afterwards and her vision was still pretty blurry. I hope she didn't think she was still going to play soccer tonight. No matter. The second she settled on her couch and closed her eyes we were outta there :) Not before we took the garbage bins in and fed the gecko and the fish... but Hey at least I had dinner already even though it was just a portion of veggies and shrimp. We stopped at Whole Foods to get me more food. A frozen cauliflower pizza. And so I got full, much more so that I usually would these last few months. I wonder where that came from? The need to eat more I mean? I mentioned that only because as I was working on my UDS presentation content and johnnie was watching his Pokemon, I developed a pain in my lower abdomen near my groin. It wasn't a sharp pain. More like a dull ache. But i called it a 5. Is it the prostate stuff again? I don't think so. I think it's another kidney stone episode. Just like a couple of weeks ago. WTF?! What is up with this? 2 weeks ago I thought I OD'd on morphic fields. Is it the same? I remembered I did the erase and reset morphic field and the pain magically went away. And so I tried to do the same. But it didn't happen this time. What is going on now?

Golf Sunday At Eaton

I hadn't played at Eaton Canyon in more than a year. Since April of last year in fact. Back when the three-some was still myself, Scott, and Greg. I don't usually play well at Eaton although once in a while I would surprise myself and sneak in a win, and only because Scott and/or Greg would NOT play well. This morning, I did something very different. I started the morning with an affirmation/meditation exercise about playing good golf, playing well, enjoying myself and played it with the morphic field amplifier that turns those affirmations into a morphic field itself. I did that for about 20 minutes. A morphic field about playing golf well. Let's see what happens. So for starters, there was a long wait at the beginning. We had a 9 AM tee time but apparently there was a couple of fivesomes that were holding up play already. And so we waited to tee off with 3 foursomes in front of us. It was almost 9:20 when we finally got to tee off. And lo and behold, my first shot was a great drive that skipped to the left side of the fairway more than 200 yards down. Great start. And then my second shot landed 40 yards from the green. I still had a par putt (which I missed) but I was happy with a bogey to start the round! I also had a nice tee shot on the 2nd hole but ended up with a double bogey. Still, I can remember many a time on this course where I would start with a 6 and a 7 and be ok with it. The field is working?? On the 3rd hole I had to have a mulligan, but my first shot cleared the fence, 2nd shot went over the bunker on the green. And I sank the par putt! I sank a par putt! A bogey and a par to start? I'll take that every time. On the next hole I whiffed on the tee shot but I got to the green in 4 and missed the bogey putt. On the short Hole 5, I got to another very make-able par putt which I missed for a bogey. On the longest hole I was within 140 yards after 2 shots, shanked the fairway iron but still had a bogey putt, which I made this time. 3 bogeys and a par after 6 holes? Not bad at all! 3 holes left. I was within 20 yardsof the green after 3 shots but overshot the hole on the 4th so I had to settle for a double bogey. And on the 8th hole I had another make-able par putt from 20 feet, which I missed so the count was now 4 bogeys and a par. On the last hole I had 2 strong shots. I was within 30 yards of the green after 4. It should have been an easy bogey. But my chip fell short of the green and that was that. Still I thought I played MUCH better today than I had in a while on this course. I guess the FIELD did work!!

After the game I decided to stay in Pasadena for lunch and went to Baja Fresh. I could still have a shrimp burrito and not eat the burrito. There was shrimp and fajita veggies in and that worked just fine. OK OK I did eat the burrito. And since I saw a couple of familiar stores on the way home, I decided to stop at Old Navy to get Johnnie another shirt for $6, and me another pair of shorts. I hadn't worn a 32 waist in FOREVER! Probably not since USC Dentistry when I was doing all that running. I will point out that was more than 16 years ago. And then I stopped at Bed Bath. I broke my best porcelain knife a couple of weeks back and needed to replace it. I ended up getting another pillow too. And this, and that LOL. I ended up spending $50 LOL. Finally it was 2 PM by the time I got home. Traffic was pretty bad on the 210 and the 10. I coulda shoulda woulda taken a nap too. But I didn't. I just started with the regimen of myYouTube videos. And when it was time for dinner, I opened the stuff I wanted to try from Srouts yesterday. Usually I would make Sunday spaghetti dinner. Tonight it was shiratake spaghetti instead of regular spaghetti. AND it was cauliflower taco meat instead of regular meat. Other than being definitely spicy, it wasn't bad. It did fill me up. And it was low on carbs and had no sugars. Well, maybe it had some with the Prego I still use. I'm trying to remind myself too that meat is also ok every once in a while. And I hadn't had any all week actually. I did have that burrito at lunch though so I didn't want to double up on back-to-back meals. And then after dinner I got a surprise phone call from Lisa. She never calls on a Sunday. I guess they had spent the day at Pt Dume in Malibu. Nice. She was asking for "advice" about how to deal with rides tomorrow on her typically zany Monday of going from one health appointment to the next. She already knew her answer. uber. Maybe she was trying to dig up an excuse to call given the irritated way I left on Friday night. I didn't care and I didn't mind. At least Johnnie got to yelp at me about what he was doing too. I can never hear enough of "Dad! Dad!" no matter what the context. I never did get around to doing the HRSA survey tonight. But that's fine. Got all day tomorrow to do that. It was a pretty good weekend as it turned out. And I fell asleep tired well before 11 PM...

My First First Date In A Year

So today I knew I wouldn't get to see Johnnie, which means I don't get to see him this entire weekend, first time that has happened pretty much all this year. And today, that's ok. I had plenty to do and I wouldn't have had time to spend some quality time with him anyway. It's Lisa's turn to do that. Today I actually lined up a meet and greet with Michelle the woman I met on Match just this past week. She was attractive enough when we met on FaceTime on Wednesday and she was game to meet today especially since she is working in my neck of the woods this morning at Sprouts Culver City. Apparently she works in customer service and goes store to store at the many Sprouts locations and helps people in the vitamin and supplement section. No Johnnie? Perfect time to meet for lunch. I told her I'd be doing shopping at Sprouts anyway this morning and that wouldn't be a lie. What I didn't know was that the large Sprouts is actually not the one in Westwood, and not the one on Exposition a few miles from me. It would be the one on Sepulveda near the Fox Hills Mall, near the Target on Sepulveda that Johnnie and I go to.  And so I did my meditative exercises this morning, did some release work specifically about the Lisa interaction last night. I knew it was coming. I knew that because of the videos on narcissistic people that kept coming up during the day. And I was going to get tested. And I stood my ground. I didn't worry about hurting her feelings, as I reminded myself that she has NO feelings that would get hurt. She was simply all about doing her thing and doing her way and THE BEST THING I could do was not to get sucked into whatever drama she was weaving for herself. She did that already by choosing to work until 11 PM.  No wonder she had us come to her office. Turns out that would be the last time she saw Johnnie since he was already asleep when she got home. The thing that I reminded myself was NOT to talk about Lisa and her antics or our interactions. Nothing that would even FEEL negative. That's one thing you don't really want to focus too much when you're with someone new that you're interested in. So I went to Sprouts and there she was helping someone in the Vitamin Section. And she looked perfectly fine. Very attractive. Curvy attractive. Works for me. I gave her a hug and she told me to go ahead and do my shopping and when I got done we'd go to lunch. It was already noon by the time I made it out to the store anyway. By the time I got done shopping I even went all the way home and dropped off my groceries and then went right back to Sprouts to pick her up. By then it was 1 PM. Perfect. 

So we went to BJs at the Fox Hills Mall for lunch. It was busy. As in there was actually a 30 minute wait. But not at the bar. So there we went to grab lunch and chat for a bit. She had açaí with salmon, I had the ahi tuna salad. Who AM I? And it didn't really feel me up. But hey, that's why I did shopping this morning didn't I? So the purpose of a meet-and-greet was to see if there was some chemistry. You never really know until you spend time with someone. All I do remember was that my last date was actually a year ago. Early May last year. And no I didn't feel any chemistry after meeting up. As in when we hugged goodbye then, I was ok if we didn't go out again. We did have some pretty good conversation over lunch but then again I could have a conversation with anyone about almost anything really. Our commonality was that we were both Filipino-Americans, and first generation at that. Her kids were mostly grown but then again at my age I doubt there would be many women with kids the age of Johnnie. And that would be a decider for later on wouldn't it?  Turned out to be a negative a couple of years ago with this woman Jodi. Let's see what happens. I do know that this time, there was enough chemistry that I want to take her out on a date again. Maybe see if there are some sparks. It seemed easy and flowing to get from meeting her earlier in the week to today. So that's a good sign. We'll see what happens of course. More to come I think. I went on home and for the second day in a row, I didn't really get around to taking a nap. Too many things in my head most likely. That and realizing that I was barely at 1000 steps by 4 PM. I ended up staying in the rest of the day and reverting back to my couch potato binging on TV self. Hey it's ok to do every once in a while. I don't have to be go-go-go all the time. I watched the Dodgers win another game, then binged on the Lincoln Lawyer, the Netflix series based on the movie with Matthew McConaughey from a few years back. A former hotshot lawyer who fell from the perch, lost himself  and is trying to get back on his feet. And the series was about a high-profile case and then surrounded by smaller cases, each of which are seemingly tied together. It was good enough for me to binge on for the rest of the evening. Heck it could have been the Black List for all I care. Or Fringe. or any of the other shows I would binge on for my weekends. No 3 AM in the morning tonight though. There's golf tomorrow. And it's at Eaton Canyon. Can't be tired at all. But as today went, I had a date today. I'll call it a date. And as time markers go, that's a good thing.

With Lessons Come Tests

So today I already woke up tired. As mentioned, I ended up staying up until almost 3 AM doing my content for next week's webinar. It was as if I got revved up and got energized because I simply kept going and going and when I looked up it was already early in the morning. But I wasn't really tired. I just went to bed simply because I knew I needed to get some rest. A little rest for tomorrow. AND I was already nearly finished at that time. Still I was able to get some early meditation in and then by 8:15, the usual drop-off for Claire, Lisa on the phone with Silvia this time. And then off I was to my usual Friday morning, except.. it didn't end up like a usual Friday morning. First I had to do a good deed, which was to field questions from my counterpart at Saban Community Health Center. I remember this used to be a position held by Emmanuel and he and I got along fine. Apparently he's no longer there and his replacement reached out earlier this week because she wanted to talk. She needed some advice. And so it was clear after 15 minutes that she needed more time. And asked if we could have lunch. And so quite spontaneously on this Friday I found myself at Crimson on Ocean Park. I'm eating salmon kabobs and kale salad and discussing IT staffing with Sara, my counterpart at Saban. She asked if it was usual to be making under $200,000 a year in our position. I told her usual or not, I'm not close to that range. The funny thing was that Emmanuel was apparently getting paid way more than that at Saban. I don't begrudge anyone the salary they are making obviously. It's up to the individual person to get what the market is willing to pay them. Though more and more I do things like Wednesday's webinar and I am pretty sure I am worth that $200K by now actually LOL. What I told her was that she needs to leverage her position and take advantage of any offers that come her way from her vendors. I mean I can't do anything salary wise for my guys, But I CAN make sure they get offered sports events, dinners, even trips to Vegas (as Justin did a few years ago). I can make sure they have top of the line computer and electronic toys. And so by the time I came home from lunch I actually feel like I've accomplished something. And I had good food too. Didn't need to cook myself anything. It would have been nice to follow that up with a nice refreshing nap in the afternoon but I got wrapped up with all the videos I was watching for internal work. And today for some reason I was getting shown videos about how to deal with narcissistic people. Lisa being the biggest narcissist personality that I know personally I started to wonder if this has anything to do with the choice of videos I'm attracting to myself.  I do know we're supposed to go to her office later. We'll see what happens then. 

Lisa asked this morning if Johnnie could do his Spanish class at her office. I'm sure she wanted to see him though she has him for the rest of the weekend. They're supposed to be doing something with Sacko and the rest of her fam. When we got there it wasn't like it usually is on Wednesday nights when we would come. I thought her Friday nights were chill in fact. Lisa was still doing a procedure and since we had to start at 4:30 today, she wasn't able to participate in the class. And she declared she was so behind she had no time to go to dinner with us. She already had food in the fridge anyway. As it turned out, we came all the way here simply so Lisa could hug Johnnie. Confused the shit out of me since she has to pick up Johnnie later anyway and then on to the rest of the weekend. So Johnnie and I grabbed some food from Panda Express and went right on home. What a TOTAL WASTE OF TIME IT WAS TO EVEN COME TO LISA's OFFICE. And this was the kind of thing that irritates the shit out of me. Just Lisa being Lisa but then holding me hostage until she can figure out what the fuck she's doing. Can you tell I'm irritated? I at least calmed down enough so I could have a 45 minute call with Michelle, the woman on Match and it appears we might be seeing each other tomorrow. She works for Sprouts and she's at the Culver City location tomorrow. Same Sprouts I go to I guess.  That would be nice. At least I got that phone call in and Johnnie got to watch some Pokemon. And when it was 8:30 I took him and Claire to Lisa's house. Lisa already said this afternoon that she was going to be really REALLY late tonight. I didn't care. Or did I?  I gave Johnnie a shower, put him to bed. And then came 9:30 No Lisa. 10 PM No Lisa. 10:30. What the fuck? I called her and asked her what she was doing?!! Couldn't she do this at her house so I could go home? I was so tired it really led me to being that irritated. Finally at 11 PM she came home. I had fallen asleep so I was groggy getting up and trying to leave. Lisa said she had a present for me. It was a planter. It wasn't so much a present as she was trying to get rid of it. Man talk about bad bad timing. I don't want this thing. I don't need it and I had no place to put it. And tonight I simply stood my ground and told her I didn't want it. Never mind rude, if she doesn't want it she can throw it away for all I care. All I wanted to do was go home. She followed me all the way to my car with this thing until I told her flat out I didn't want it. NOW I understand why I ran into all these videos about narcissists this afternoon. Or is it watching these videos that attracted this latest Lisa interaction? Who cares. I figure the Universe was testing me? Or was it my ego again trying to be cute? Again I didn't care so long as  I got to home and I got to go to bed. Friday night over. Weekend is here.

Lessons on what to focus on

With the webinar over, I now can breathe and chill for the rest of the week. Until I realize that that was only the first part and now I turn my attention to the second part of the webinar series which is next week. And I don't even have the presentation for that all ready yet. And so guess what I focused on today? Finding content. If anything, that has proven to be a pretty damn strong skillset of mine. And I also thought I should be applying it to ANY OTHER THING and I can easily monetize that. I also can now say I've done a webinar for more than a couple of hundred people. And so I think I would be comfortable doing it for the next level. A thousand people! Pretty good huh? THAT can be monetized right? But first things first, today I'm merely trying to return to normal. So Johnnie up first thing, breakfast at McDonald's, drop him off at school. Later on there is a HIMP (High Impact Management) check-in and we will be asked about things to be thankful for. And to me, today, NOW, the mundane tasks I just mentioned is definitely something to be thankful for. As was doing my IS Team Meeting from the comfort of my own couch and getting my MAC to work to do it. By the time I finished my second team meeting with the EHR Team, it was 11:30. And all seemed to be rolling along. We like that. We like that just fine.

I also spent some time doing affirmations and doing my internals, today boiled down to a combination of morphic fields, and YouTube videos that help remind myself of the nature of reality. The idea that kept resonating and repeating itself was that there are many versions of myself in many parallel universes and meta verses and that the key to getting the outcome that I want is not to try to manifest from what is 3D reality, but to do so from other realities where that outcome is already taking place. Kind of like reality is just an infinite number of polaroid pictures stacked up and therefore, I have to find the the timeline I want and shift to that simply with intention. Is it that easy? Well, we all get started with the 3D reality and most never leave it. The key is to focus and align the subconscious with the conscious. As above, so below. And never let the perception of the 3D senses control that focus. Root out the fear, the anger, the anxiety. On that end, I sort of got led to watch the movie EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE which is about a couple weaving through various iterations of themselves in parallel universes so they could save the world of one of them in another universe. Interesting I get led to that huh? Before long it was already time to get Johnnie. And today I waited until well past 5 PM so I could let him play basketball. No Spanish class today you see. He would tell me later on that a 3rd grader told him he didn't like him and that he was too small so he didn't pass him the ball. Ahh kids. Fortunately, Johnnie did tell the coach in charge and the other kid got a timeout. Kids can be so cruel. I am not naive to think I can shield Johnnie from such things all of his childhood. What I can do is to prepare him mentally and emotionally to be strong. And to monitor how he feel about such interactions. Everything is about self-confidence. Johnnie is already that. Until he's not because of - once again - focus. Same lessons as me today. I must get him to focus that he IS ENOUGH. He will always be enough. And when he gets doubted, like by that other kid, it is merely an opportunity to prove the doubters wrong. Actually it didn't seem to affect him to much. That's because he came home with a coveted Pokemon card. Look at him in the picture. And then came pizza night. Regular one for Johnnie, cauliflower crust for me. Lisa came from Pasadena tonight and came around 7:30 PM. I was already almost done with my steps by that time. And the hand-off was a non-event. Interesting day even as uneventful as it was. I should have had an early evening. But I didn't. Because all of a sudden I started doing my content for the 2nd part of the webinar. And kept going and going. When I looked up, it was 2:30 in the morning!

The Rest Of the Day

With the webinar all done, the first part of it anyway, I could breathe out at last. At least for a little while. At least through the afternoon. I didn't want to think about anything, I simply wanted to enjoy the rest of the day knowing that I had done an exemplary job this morning. AND there is no Spanish class tonight. I toyed with the idea of going to dinner with Lisa anyway but then again something in me said NO. I'm not saying it was my HIgher Self mind you. But it was a significant part of me. I even asked Johnnie if we should reach out to his mom and have dinner with her. He seemed reluctant. And when i asked him if it should just be a regular home dinner night, he agreed without hesitation. It was settled then. When I picked him up from school, we stopped by Ralphs and got him some fried chicken to augment his penned pasta in chicken broth. I had waiter almost boiling and had turned up the oven so I could cook my dinner. Salmon tonight.  Until... I got a call from Lisa. She was with Roge and Anna and they were on their way out to dinner. And she was inviting me to come. And of course that meant Johnnie was coming too. I couldn't very well say no now could I? They were going to Tacos Del Barrio too, which was a little over a mile away from me on Palms and Overland. I had no excuses not to go. And so I made Johnnie wolf down his fried chicken and off we went.. 

It's always nice to see Roge and Anna actually. Especially Roge. He has always been nice to me. The only thing was that I couldn't really see anything on the menu that I could eat. Except for the shrimp. Shrimp tacos it was. I threw in a carne asada taco too. I figured if there ever was a day I could cheat simply to celebrate one heck of a day for me, tonight would be it. And so I allowed myself to eat that carne asada taco. And the chips that came with it. NO harm to eat that for just one night right? It was actually nice to hang out for a bit. And Lisa got her dinner with Johnnie anyway. We came home and Johnnie immediately flipped to his regular programming. Pokemon episodes. Pokemon battles. I took advantage and finally connected with someone on Match.com who reached out to me. Michelle from Brea. Our first time talking. I thought it went pretty well. Certainly well enough to keep talking and hopefully progress on to a date soon. It's been like a year for me. I think it's time to expand a bit on the social front. So Michelle and I talked for a liitle while, until it was time for Johnnie's bedtime. And then I put him to bed and stayed up to watch the latest episode of Mayans MC. Until I drifted off to sleep myself. Turned out to be a pretty eventful day...

The Webinar

So today is the day. Webinar day and I even blew off the Communications Meeting just so I could focus. Oddly enough I didn't really feel like I prepped much, other than a run through last night to see how long the content would go. It went an entire hour with just me talking so I thought we were good. I basically spent the morning trying to stay relaxed and trying to get the webinar off my mind so I wouldn't get anxious.  Fortunately, I didn't have to wait all that long since the webinar started at 1:30 PM EST, which is 10:30 AM my time. I made sure I had a larger breakfast than usual, usual for the past couple of months anyway. I ate a couple of scrambled eggs and an avocado toast. AND green tea. I wanted to make sure I was NOT hungry until after the webinar.

So 10:30 couldn't have come sooner than I wanted. A quick tech test, a gulp of water and away we went. I didn't start off all that smoothly I didn't think. Certainly not as smooth as Michael did. But after I got warmed up a bit, I think I did just fine. The webinar took up a whopping hour and 15 minutes. And then a 15 minute Q&A afterwards. I put up a picture that showed 233 people in attendance. It's the biggest audience I have ever presented to, about cybersecurity anyway. And then I posted the comment that an attendee said it was the best webinar she had attended. I got an email afterwards from another attendee echoing the sentiment. All In all I was very satisfied. My ego was satisfied. And I thought we provided awesome value. High FIVES for all! Here is what our moderator said: 

Good Afternoon Michael and Arnel –You both are Rockstars! Such an awesome job with part one of the cybersecurity series. We had over 240 participants tuned in, be prepared as some may reach out to you all with questions. 

Eezy Peezy

So today and tomorrow are supposed to be the toughest days of this week, tomorrow of course being the singular point of significance. Of course the wise man said... "You still have to get through today first, in order to get to tomorrow." So today I'm finding myself still working on tomorrow's presentation. Maybe it's all those affirmations stating that I PROVIDE MASSIVE VALUE. It's just not in my DNA I guess to provide a mediocre product. So I'm prettying up pictures, I'm clearing up tables, making my slides look even MORE professional. And that's even before Michael put his own slides up. I am fully aware I am doing the vast majority of the content work. It's ok I am HAPPY to share the glory tomorrow just as long as it all goes well. In the meantime, I still have the Tech Council Meeting to do TODAY. And wouldn't you know I almost missed the damn thing. I had swapped time slots with Eloisa and I thought it would be the same time slot, which was 2 PM. Turned out it was an hour EARLIER at 1 PM. And so here I am enjoying my lunch, being very casual about it simply waiting for 2 PM to roll around. Until i get a phone call from Marina. She's asking about the meeting. Uh-oh. That's when I realized the meeting was at 1 PM. Barbara had called Guadalupe and everything. I guess everyone was waiting for me to start the meeting. YIKES! Double YIKES! Fortunately, I did have all my material on the ready and all I had to do was pull it up. And so it was that only 4 people attended the meeting. The rest couldn't make it or simply gave up on me today. Hey, I apologized didn't I? Besides, as long as Barbara was there, then I could still talk about stuff I could "enhance". Today, that was bandwidth requirements for working remotely. I just talked about it with my team yesterday LOL. Today, I'm setting a requirement as if it were a decree LOL. Talk about manufacturing material out of thin air! And when I finished the meeting, it was already 2 PM! I had gone an hour after all. And in Johnnie's words, the meeting was as easy as pie LOL. 

After the meeting I went for a walk around my neighborhood. Stopped at the chin up bars at Mar Vista Park and did a set of 10. Hey I could still do 10 pull-ups. How about that! So not only was I able to do my steps today, but I also augmented that with resistance stuff. My arms got sore no question. But hey it's good for me. I noted that I thoroughly enjoyed walking around my neighborhood too. I wonder if I could find a small house here in the future? Hey all I need is 2 bedrooms right? It was 4 PM by the time I got back from the walk. It was already nearly time to pick up Johnnie. Of course he would be bubbling about what Pokemon card he picked up today. I have no idea where he gets these cards I swear! This being a Tuesday we went to Panda Express to pick up his dinner. It was then that Lisa called. Apparently Principal Choe had called her up but didn't talk to her and asked her to call back. Immediately I could tell Lisa's questions were about if Johnnie had caused trouble. Which disturbed me a bit. How do we know what the call was about? Why do we have to assume Johnnie caused trouble? I could sense Johnnie's discomfort while his mom asked him these questions about what happened today. I don't know what Principal Choe called about. What I do KNOW is that Johnnie is a good little boy who LISTENS to what you tell him. And no matter what it was that might have happened, I know Johnnie has a good heart and already has a good head on his shoulders and that he didn't cause any trouble. In fact, what he does is jump in quickly to defend friends. That's I'm finding out my little boy is all about. And I couldn't feel any better for that. I'm brushing off this call until I find out more info. In the meantime, Johnnie returned to his playful self once off the phone with Lisa. Thank God. I swear that woman can make a tick nervous. I energetically blanketed Johnnie with protective energy. And I made sure he knew no matter what his mom and I loved him very much. And that we believe in what he says. LISTENING IS EVERYTHING. Also making sure he KNOWS we hear him. The evening went by quickly. That's because I started to rehearse what I was going to say at tomorrow's webinar.  I mocked up the whole thing and it took about an hour. I think I'm good. Didn't go to bed until midnight. But good just the same.