Tag Archives: pwc

Ups and Downs

No doubt that this is a really hard time.   For me, for sure, but for everyone.   But yeah, I’ll say I’ve got a bit of an extra heaping of bullshit that can overwhelm me at times.   I had a bad Wednesday.  It was not good.  My friends helped me out of it.  I would like to say I’ll avoid getting into that mindset again, and I’ll certainly try – but that kind of feeling kind of is just hard to avoid 100% of the time.  Anyway, I guess that’s enough to let you know that I’m trying my best to keep going and I can do so because of my friends and certain parts of family.   Enough said I guess there.   I’m just going to post some fun pictures and tell some stories briefly about good things that have been going on, fun stuff I’ve been watching or playing, howza bout that?

Crossrope:  I added jumping rope to my exercise activities.   So in addition to my daily yoga (I’m up to 126 days straight! go me! Thanks Yoga with Adriene!) I now will either do some jump rope routine or I’ll do the Bodyboss band system.   Hopefully that’ll help in the long run.  I need the cardio and the strength training.

The jump ropes are really good and assist in making it easier.  I had bought some junky Amazon rope and it was totally the wrong length and material.  Anyway, here comes my swimsuit body, lolololol.

2 weekends ago (June 14), I met up with my PwC friends and coworkers out at Valley Village park in North Hollywood.   We were nicely outdoors and socially distanced, and it was great to see people again.   It was a really wonderful day, perfect weather, and we got to celebrate Mel’s engagement from the day before!  It was the first time I’d been out to a social gathering of any kind since the lockdown.  Crazy.

While at the park above, Mel & Josh (her great fiance) brought a cool Bose portable speaker.   I was jealous and bought one online right then and there as my roofdeck needs something and the Beats Pill that Larry had got so long ago back in Silver Lake as a way to get that AT&T phone extender is getting gross and totally dead.  So, problem solved.  I highly highly recommend it if you’re in the market.  The sound is fantastic, bluetooth, etc.

Very exciting recently was Michancy came down last weekend (June 18-21)!   I’ve missed her so much and it worked out for her to drive down and we indulged in drinking everything, watching all of Picard, playing Ticket to Ride, drinking more, inviting Nicki over for rooftop fun and games, cooking wonderful meals (filet mignon on Friday night, and spaghetti carbonara the next even though I had basically passed out after daydrinking, managed to wake up and motivate myself as I knew the ingredients were there and goddamn it came out good), playing Just Dance and burning off alcohol, and overall, just having a fantastic time with BFFs while the world continues it’s march to destruction.  YAYYYYYYY.

After Michancy left on Sunday, I admit I think it was hard to come back down to reality and be alone again.  Maybe that was why my Wednesday was so hard?   Combination of reality check, my mom isn’t doing that great and keeps falling (I ended up buying a whole new bed after I had already bought her a whole new bed when moving her in March), and I really really miss Larry still.  I’d give anything to have him be here to get through all this with – whether it’s the pandemic, the issues with mom, my resentment of a lot of my family, the political nightmare that is our presidency…any one of those things would be enough to justify my alcohol consumption, but all of them at once?  And the fact i’m still grieving Larry and stuck alone for most of it?   It’s hard.   The good times pre- his final descent are what keep me smiling, but I can remember those last 3 months vividly and it wrecks me.  What he went through and to witness it.  It’s just fucking not fair and I fucking hate everything at times. Most times, really.

My friends talked me from the ledge Wednesday and on Thursday, as we had a nice zoom call and I can’t tell you how much I love them.   We’ll get through this all together.  I think Nicki probably recognized that maybe I might need some friendship and I recognize I do, so I invited her over this weekend to hang out, so we did.   It was a fun day and a half – we hung out and enjoyed the roof deck yesterday and I introduced her to the game of Mastermind, which is an old favorite my mom and I used to play way back in the day.  It’s a classic, and perfect for 2 players.  Then we watched two seasons of Search Party and damn, that show is something else.   It’s funny as hell and I love the characters, but it is a show that goes to some surprisingly dark places and there’s really no way it doesn’t continue to get darker.  The 3rd season is out now, so I guess we’ll be able to catch up.  We also watched a super fun movie on Netflix:

Eurovision, ABBA, Will Farrell, Rachel McAdams… hot Russian backup dancers and promises of even more great European songs?  I was in long before this came out, but holy shit, the final product is fantastic.   I really liked that it didn’t make fun of Eurovision – the original songs are like, really good.  Anyway, Jaja Ding Dong!

For dinner last night, we made Larry’s arroz con pollo recipe and it really is just a stupendous dish and it was nice to make that, hopefully with Larry smiling in satisfaction somewhere out there.

What else have I been watching or doing?

  • Detroit: Become Human – I heard about this game by seeing a picture of this cute guy from it and because i apparently can’t help but be distracted by hot guys, I read into it.  Saw a sale for it on Steam, bought it, and wow, I’ve been so entranced by the game.  So much fun, and I find myself playing it far longer than I probably should some nights.   It’s a cool story game about androids gaining sentience, and the androids are of course all attractive.   Anyway, I Heart Connor forever and always. 
  • Twin Peaks: The Return: I’ve raved about this plenty before, and it’s just so good getting to the end section The Return.  Still hard to believe Larry & I went to Seattle and did a Twin Peaks day just after the conclusion of the show.
  • Control:  A really cool videogame about the ultimate terrible office building filled with possessed-by-demons humans and you have the only way of defeating it.  Trippy environments and a relatable protagonist help make this a really fun play.   Occasional challenging to the point I have to walk away and think about it.
  • Anno 1800:  This game is just gonna be an always-playing situation for a while.  It’s so good and mesmerizing.  I’m nowhere near done or at the endgame, which is what it’s all about.

Anyway, I guess that’s it.   Maybe I’ll update more often – maybe that will help my emotional state.

A Knives Out Wednesday

I went into PwC DTLA today to get my laptop issues resolved.  Took some time but it was a nice mental break, although I couldnt’ stop from crying when I visited with Derrick briefly.  It was also raining like crazy today, which made it annoying.  Larry got gaggy as I had asked for him to shower today, which he hadn’t done for quite a while.   The stress of the shower itself is a lot, and I’ve already bought a shower seat for him, as well as brought up a chair for him to sit on if necessary in the bathroom.  I got home around 1 with lunch, and then played some Jedi Fallen Order, which is a GREAT video game.   I also was weak and bought myself a Valve Index VR kit for my computer.   I won’t get it probably till next year.  Oh well, my Christmas gift to myself, I guess?  I was texting with Nicki today and I think the thing I’d like to get for Larry is a wedding album finally.  I think that will mean more than some thing.  Who knows.   Anyway, we then finally got to see Knives Out!

It was a lot of fun, and I am so happy that Rian Johnson is making great movies.  I still absolutely love watching The Last Jedi.  Such a great movie.  Nicki joined us for that at our Cinemark theater right here which is just fantastic.   Who would think that from how it looks on the outside, but it is wonderful little theater.  Will be interesting to see if the NoHo West has a movie complex there when it opens?  Could signal the end for this one?   But the prices here are just incredibly cheap and the seats are all recliner, which makes it lux.   Tomorrow we go to Santa Monica UCLA to sign the paperwork and get the clinical trials started.

Oh also the new James Bond movie trailer came out for ‘No Time to Die’.   Looks intriguing so far!

Cooking with Gas as We Exit the Awful 2018

I was no fan of 2018, that is for sure.   As 2018 ends though, there are good things on deck and I’ll hope that 2019 is a bit gentler and happier.  I felt like getting out the rest of the pictures I have from 2018 before NYE tonight, so here goes:

Last Holidays at AMLI:

Honestly, as we get ready to move into our new house, there will be some sadness at leaving our apartment here at the AMLI development.  We’ve been here for almost 4 years!  That’s one of the longest times I’ve lived anywhere.  The location was fantastic for being able to walk to dining, shopping, and movies, and it was a small apartment but not in a bad way.  Except for having people over – the small size definitely kept us from entertaining.   So yeah, the new house we’re getting will be much more amenable to having people over!

Cool Shot of the Grand Wilshire one night:

That’s the current tallest building in LA, technically, which is next to the PwC building in DTLA.   Pretty neat.

Paras & Carey Engagement / Holiday Party Fun – 15 Dec 2018

Our good friends Paras & Carey got engaged earlier this month!   It’s fantastic news and they’re such a fun couple and some of our favorite people.  They had friends over for a Holiday-then-Engagement party and man oh man did I get drunk.  What did me in was after a whole night of drinking red wine, we switched to champagne to toast the couple.   OOF.  Not a good idea, at least for me.  Definite hangover the next day.  Anyway – pics!

Happy Hour with PwC

Before the PwC holiday break, the group I work with at PwC had a nice happy hour after work, when we all had come in to meet for a prep session.   It was fun, and I do love working with these guys.   All very smart and all a lot of fun.

Christmas at Mom’s

I’ve had the week off because PwC shuts down during the week between Christmas and New Year’s.  We didn’t expect to do much in terms of activities this week as we  knew we were gearing up to close on the house and buy a ton of appliances, so let’s just chill.   Unfortunately though, Larry ended up getting hit pretty hard with something that laid him out Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  I ended up going to Mom’s by myself to meet up with Mom, Stacie, and Trent.  It was a fun time, but certainly my mind wasn’t all there thinking about Larry.

When I got back home from Mom’s, Larry was ready to go to the ER as he had a fever and it was just the culmination of him feeling really shitty.   As we prepared to do that, his fever kind of broke and we ended up not going.   Larry had chemo the next day (Wednesday) and both of us thought there’s no way he’ll be able to get it, but when we went in, the doctor ran blood tests and everything was better.   Some of the pain that Larry had been feeling in his chest area the doctor predicted was likely an ulcer in his esophagus area, likely from stress.   He got a prescription and that medicine seems to have helped – and whatever bug or illness was messing with him looks to have also gone away.

The last chemo session (Number 12!) was started on Wednesday and on Friday, he was able to say goodbye to the pump, hopefully for the last time.   It’s exciting to know that he’s past that first, super-intensive phase and that we know it did it’s job.  Now we just have to get ready for what comes next.  Hopeful that 2019 yields some good news there.

The Glen LA update:

First, we have wired our down payment to the escrow company, so things are feeling really fucking real as of today.   A closing date of today was actually in the cards, but because of the gas company (again) not being done with the installation until last week, the city sign-off won’t happen until next week (hopefully).

We did have two walkthroughs with the builder’s service rep over the past two weeks and folks, we not only have power, we DO have gas as well!   There are a good number of small little things, mostly touch-up type stuff, for the builder to resolve, but basically, this house is almost ready to go!

You’ll also notice that the backsplash is in, which was one of the last things that we noticed as needing to be installed, and man, when we finally got to see it, it was such a joy.   The kitchen looks goooood.   The whole house looks great!

Walkthrough 1:

Follow-Up Visit to see if Gas worked!

So great!

Larry’s energy has been better this past weekend, so on Sunday, we went to Best Buy and bought the remaining appliances we didn’t have yet, a refrigerator and a washer & dryer.   We’re pretty damn happy with the choices we made:

Next thing we’ve got our eye on is buying a king-size mattress set, and we went to Macy’s yesterday and I think we know what we want but we didn’t pull the trigger yesterday.  Might have to do that tomorrow though.

Other Stuff:

We’ve been watching a lot of movies lately.  The weekend before Christmas, when Larry was feeling okay, we actually saw two movies:

  • Bumblebee:  Holy shitballs, this was the Transformers movie I’ve always wanted.   It’s fantastic, it’s got the old-school 1980s style of Transformers, it’s funny, there’s actual emotional performances to be found, it’s got heart, and it’s a blast.   Highly recommended.

  • Aquaman:  Look at DC, finally figuring out how to make their superhero movies.  Wonder Woman was finally something good from them, and of all things, they made Aquaman a thrilling and fun movie.  It doesn’t hurt at all that Jason Momoa is practically perfect in the role, even if there’s no way you would have believed they’d go with his look for Aquaman based off of his traditional comic-book appearance.   The movie is a touch too long, and there’s a lot of video-game style plotting going on (go here to get that, then go there to get this, but first get this other thing) but it’s still really entertaining.   I think DC really needs to consider jettisoning all the Snyder nonsense and figure out how to tell the best Superman movie they can.   Good luck though, as Richard Donner already did that.

At home, we’ve watched a couple of movies via renting them from ITunes:

  • Hunt for the Wilderpeople:  Oh my god, this movie is amazing.   If you watch the trailer, you’ll know immediately if you like it or not, as the movie is basically this but fleshed out into the full story:

The director, Taika Waititi, is the same guy who made Thor: Ragnarok and What We Do In The Shadows, which I’d previously raved about.   He’s got a wonderful sense of humor and tells a story with such a great wit.   I don’t want to go too much further in describing the plot, but the kid in the movie, Ricky Baker (played by Julian Dennison), is hilarious, and Sam Neill as Uncle Hector is wonderful.   Just, go, rent this movie.  It’s SOOO good.

  • Hearts Beat Loud.  This is a cute independent movie about a Brooklyn record store owner who makes a great song with his college-bound daughter, and the resulting path of whether they continue to do this at the expense of his daughter no longer going to college.  It’s a small story with a lot of great actors and good performances, and the music is very good.  I don’t know if I loved the movie?   It was cute for what it is, and the trailer below helps give you a sense of what to expect.   Nick Offerman can get it though – he’s a good looking guy in this hipster-y makeover.

  • The Spy Who Dumped Me.  I really wanted to like this more than I did.   Coming from someone who still actively adores the movie Spy, this looked to be exactly in that same sweet spot and it has two actresses, Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon, that I love as well.  But man, this was not it.   It had moments that were fun, and a ridiculously hot guy in the form of Sam Heughan, but just something didn’t feel pulled together about it.  Glad it was a rental!

Before I end this post, I had to post some posters I saved from the upcoming Godzilla: King of the Monsters movie.   Have you SEEN these trailers????   I need this movie in my bloodstream it looks so goddamn good:

O

M

G

Just make it Spring 2019 already.   Godzilla and King Ghidorah battling it out??????  Rodan fucking shit up???  Mothra all peaceful then throwing down???? GHIDORAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!   Just…too much.   It’s by far the movie I’m looking forward to the most this summer.   So exciting.  Anyway, I love these posters they made:

Just damn.

Anyway, that’s a long enough post for the end of the year.   As I mentioned at the beginning, 2018 was a shit year for all the reasons that you can think of.   I NEED 2019 to be better.

Two Weeks of Travel & Stress, But We Made It

I won’t lie – the last two weeks have been hard.  I’ve been having to travel for work and while of course when one hears where I went, they probably think I’m a little bitch because oh boo hoo, I had to go to great places.   But the fact that I had to leave Larry (even though he had amazing support from friends and family while I was out) was ridiculously hard to deal with.  Then the travel was all about work, but when you’re traveling for work, it’s very difficult to not fall behind on the regular work stuff you’re also responsible for doing.  So yeah, it has been a relief to be at this point and know that I am back to a regular kind of schedule.

It wouldn’t be me though if I hadn’t taken pictures while out and about!  So let’s start from long ago and work our way back to drywall.  It’ll make sense once you see the pictures.

Larry started his 4th round of chemo back on Monday, August 27th.  It was another round of the FolFoxIri + Avastin, which is the max approach we can take at this point.   I then was leaving to go to Mexico City on Tuesday.  EEK.  Larry wasn’t on his own though, as my mom was able to help take him on Wednesday for unplugging the chemo port, and Nicki also came by on Tuesday night to keep him company.  It was a relief to know he was in good hands.

I went to Mexico City to help with training up PwC Mexico folks on our code review template and to also, and more specifically why I was there, to give an introductory crash course on COBOL.  Yep, what was my life for 16 months in 2016 and 2017 is now part of what I’m known for here at PwC.  Good times!  🙂  I was slightly nervous about the whole ‘going to Mexico’ thing, but I managed.  Uber is prevalent in Mexico City just like nearly everywhere else in the world; my experiences from Puerto Rico also had me prepared for what to expect, as just like there, there’s plenty of the regular, non-touristy areas where people live as well as the more haute-touty places.   While during the day of Tuesday and Wednesday were spent at PwC Mexico, the evenings were good for enjoying the area.  My coworker who was there with me is Mexican and knew the area, so we had good ideas for where to go.  The first night, we went to a good restaurant right nearby, but on the second/last night, we got to go into historical Mexico City’s Zocalo, the city center.   It’s where you see James Bond in the beginning of Spectre – and it’s pretty damn great.

Mexico City, Aug 28-30, 2018

I was very very happy to get home though – which was Thursday night.    And god bless Global Entry – I was able to get right through customs without much fuss at all.  But leaving LAX on a Thursday evening is awful any time of the year, but worse before a holiday weekend.  I got home finally but I was exhausted.   Obviously Larry wasn’t feeling all that great himself, and in this case, one of the side effects of his chemo was causing him a lot of discomfort.  We had been trying to rig some solutions using OTC medicines but it really wasn’t doing much to help, regrettably.  Spoiler alert:  Larry was able to call the wonderful GI doctor (Dr Fisher) and get prescribed something that has drastically reduced his discomfort.  It’s not entirely gone, but to say that it’s so much better for Larry is entirely accurate.

Anyway, let’s talk Labor Day weekend.  We had originally been going to go to the Hollywood Bowl to see John Williams’ concert, along with my mom.  But Larry’s discomfort basically meant we weren’t going to be leaving home this weekend for that kind of excursion.  It sucked, but Nicki and Rekha reached out to see if we wanted some company so they came over and brought delicious food from All’Acqua (which is a great Italian place in Atwater Village).  That evening, in addition to food, I got them to play Jenga with me, so yay!

Nicki & Rekha Cheer Us Up w/ Jenga, Sat, Sep 1, 2018

On Sunday, we again mostly just hung out at home and watched The Crown and relaxed.  It was nice.

Then on Monday (Labor Day), Nicki & Rekha came back over to enjoy our apartment’s pool complex, which is a very nice thing to have.  We not only enjoyed the pool, but managed to snag one of the cabanas.  It was a nice way to spend the day.

Labor Day Cabana Fun, Mon, Sep 3, 2018

Jetting off yet again on Tuesday, I went to Orlando for PwC’s Risk Assurance leadership conference.  This was a trip that had been scheduled for quite a while, and at one point (pre-diagnosis), I think it was something Larry & I had considered maybe him going on too so we could spend some time at Disney World.  That didn’t happen obviously.  It was a good conference though and I got to spend some time with current friends and connect with new people too.  Always about the networking in this company.  Like I said before, Larry ended up getting some medicine to help with his side effects while I was gone this time, but when I left it was definitely not a resolved issue.  Happily, by Tuesday evening, he was feeling better.  So yay for victories where we can take them.

So while I was in Orlando, we really only got one evening of pretty awesome fun – we were going to get a dinner in EPCOT center and then time to ourselves in the park!  Not a lot of time (<2 hours, actually) but still, this was my first time ever at a Florida Disney park so I was gonna take advantage of it.   Larry gave me the heads up on what rides were worth it in EPCOT so I had my marching orders.  A few others of my friends were on board for this too, so off we went!  Basically from our event space by the UK area of EPCOT, we headed straight to Spaceship Earth, which is within the famous geodesic sphere.   It’s a slow ride that drives you through the world of communication and how it’s evolved over 30k years.  It’s pretty great, to be honest.   It’s also cool to be inside the sphere!   After that, it was over to Test Track, and let’s just say that this ride is the shit.  It’s clearly a forerunner to Radiator Springs Racers in California Adventure, and possibly even more fun?  Finally, we ramped up the intensity for the last ride, Mission: Space, and geeeez, it’s a rough one.  It’s a G-Force simulator and fucking wrecks you.   It’s still a fun experience, but next time, I’ll take the less intense alternatives, which do exist!

PwC & Epcot Center, Wed, Sep 5, 2018

Again, it was wonderful to be back home after this trip, especially knowing it was the last one for hopefully a while.

This weekend has been good – our house has drywall up!!  It’s actually been a few weeks since we heard that process started, so waiting a few weeks means it’s all up now.  It’s very exciting – within the next few weeks, cabinetry will be going in.  Yay!

Drywall!  Sat, Sep 8, 2018

PwC View from Spire 73

Today, Monday, was a hell of a Monday.  Meetings starting at 8:30am in DTLA, traveling to Gardena for meetings, then back to DTLA, over to Koreatown for a block of more meetings, then back to DTLA for some fun at Spire 73 atop the Grand Wilshire Intercontinental (or whatever it’s called).  It was kinda crazy.  But I did enjoy the view up top and this time, I got to see the view as it overlooked the PwC building.  Pretty pretty cool.

After this, I walked over to the Ace Hotel and met up with Doug and Sloan, with Doug being one of Larry’s college friends and coworkers.  They’re out in town for work and we were able to meet up for dinner tonight with them and their adorable toddler son, Silas.   Ended up going to Perch and having a great time – very fun to catch up and also get to go to Perch as I’d been wanting to go there for a long time.  Got a pretty cool set of couches to sit on.  Fun times!