Tag: pandemic

How I Manage My Time & Money

2 years ago (2020) the world experienced for the first time in this modern age, a pandemic. Right before everything pretty much shut down, I was working 7 days a week at a dead-end job that was burning me out. Sure, the money was good. But where’s my free time? When am I going to be able to spend this money? I couldn’t. For the longest, I was miserable because it was work, eat, & sleep, and not a whole lot else. My boss at the time jokingly said to me that I wasn’t getting any action. As in no sexy time. No making the bed rock. You get my point. I didn’t say it out loud, only thought about it to myself. I said to myself, “No sh*t. How am I going to meet women when I’m stuck working here every day?” Most of my energy was drained from the job. Yes, the job was easy. But when your boss asks you to do all these extra tasks and work, it’s difficult for me to say no. Not just that but the job can be stressful. Especially when things don’t go right (which was more than half the time). Machines would break down or not work properly, and half the time the lead engineers would not be around. That’s where I came in to start learning some of the stuff they did when they’re not around. My boss would rely on me quite a bit to do so much more than everyone else. He knows that I have the capabilities to do that because, and I say this lightly, I’m his best worker. No extra benefits. No incentives. No pay raise, nothing. Just a job well done (well, we did manage to get a dollar pay bump when I threatened to quit). I’m sure he didn’t do it on purpose, that is to take advantage of me. I was Dwight Schrute to his Michael Scott. Except he was no Michael Scott. The Assistant to the Manager. Overall, I will say he was a good boss though. Outside of the facts I mentioned. He lacked the charisma and hilariousness of what Michael Scott represented. Still a good boss, nonetheless.

Anyway, the lockdown happened, and I was off work for just over a month. I was collecting a nice treat from unemployment. To me, this was more money than I have ever made. From 7 days a week paycheck to the unemployment paychecks, I was transferring a good chunk of that to my savings account. With some proper budgeting, I know what was needed for my expenses and what could be used for leisure. I was still saving quite a bit. For the first time ever, my savings account was at its’ highest, and it continued to grow every week. So, what did I do with the free time that I had? I spent a good amount of it golfing with my nephews & their dad. We went out about once a week, and I forgot how good that felt. Forgetting how incredible of a golfer I was when I had time and practice to work on my golf game. Despite the terrible lasagna incident (loss of muscle mass and weight), I was still driving my tee shots pretty far. Money was definitely not an issue, and this was coming from someone who probably made about 50K a year. That’s it. That’s all it was, and need I remind you this was including overtime work, otherwise it would be much lower.

The point I’m making is with time and money, I could do so much greatness that will make an impact on not just my life, but those that are close to me. Not having the luxury of a wealthy life, I could only imagine what difference I could make with more time, more money. And without even realizing it, I’ve always been giving back to the community. The donations may be small, but it’s still something. Like rounding up my bill when I’m ordering food from a restaurant for a good cause or donating my clothes to Salvation Army and Goodwill instead of selling them. Growing up, I used to sleep on the floor. To make a living, my parents had to put in a lot of work to feed us kids. We didn’t have much, but we did make the most of what we had. So, if that tells you anything about my childhood, just know that I’m okay with the rough start to this incredible journey of my life. A journey with a story I hope to someday tell my future kids, and grandchildren. Something I never received myself considering I never met my grandparents. And being that I was transitioning from one language to another at a young age, I never got to hear the stories of my parents and what their life was like. How they met, the struggles in their everyday lives, coming to America and having me… the journey.

Outside from what this pandemic has brought us, it has gotten me to slow down my life a little bit to embrace it more. With a little soul searching, I am so grateful for this life I have and most of the people that are in it. Although, there are some things about me that is considered bad, I finally picked up on some of it and am working on bettering myself. Every day I try to be a better person. Every day I try to inspire hope for others. Helping others out towards their goals and dreams is a part of mine as well. I have a passion for life. All it took was a little perspective. Let’s change the world for the better!

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A Pandemic Lockdown

It’s Monday and I’m back at work. My colleagues (most of them) were pleased to have me back. Back to the same witty, self-deprecating, sexual innuendo-esque me they deserve, but not the one they need (… Batman!). And as we’re all aware of Covid spreading more and more, and state governments going into a lockdown, we were still working (as per usual). Now, this is just my opinion but seems very likely, our department for the company felt like the only reason they didn’t go under. At least this branch that is. There was talk amongst my colleagues and I that the company was struggling to maintain a float. Could be why our scheduler kept giving our supplier numbers we could not produce even running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Eventually, some of our products we made ended, thus leading us to working 5 days a week. But that wasn’t until later.

About 2 weeks since the state issued a mandatory lockdown to non-essential workers when we got to be ourselves, outside of what was going on with the world, I was relieved… because I already had plenty of toilet paper to last me about half the year. It’s a good thing I only have to supply for myself! Unfortunately though, I didn’t have much supply of food. So, I knew eventually I would have to head to the grocery store to stock up on that, sooner rather than later. 5 weeks. That’s how long I was off work. My sleep schedule within the first week changed instantly. I would go from sleeping around midnight to 8 in the morning, to anywhere when the sun came up to the early afternoon. I read that it’s not as healthy not to have a sleep schedule (plus my doctor told me that as well), but this is a pandemic we’re dealing with. So what now? To go from having no-days-off to all-the-time-in-the-world, what do I do?

School’s Out For Summer

As I’m doing my best to stay safe and quarantining myself at home, I take a trip down memory lane. Back to playing video games online with some of my friends. And instead of Socom like the high school days, it’s Call of Duty: Warzone. Probably the hottest selling game on the market, and they picked a perfect time to release it. My role in our team playing battle royale was “The Wildcard.” You’re not sure what to expect when we play together but one thing’s for sure, I’m normally the first one into the Gulag. One of our favorite spots to start out is at the prison… because it’s a lot easier to transfer me to the Gulag when I die. Here’s a little-known fact, we always tried to spray paint anyone that was in there with us. Makes it easier to spot them if they make it out (not that it matters now considering this game probably isn’t relevant anymore). I won’t forget the moment I won it for our team in a 2 on 1 situation. Everyone, including myself thought it was over. But lady luck was looking down on me that day. She was probably looking down on me doing other things, too (a celebratory wank followed by a good night’s sleep).

Away from Call of Duty, I was collecting unemployment and just started saving a ton of money. Being how we were in a lockdown and I had just recently moved into an apartment with my roommate, Joey. I thought the place could use a little sprucing up. This part of my life was called, “Amazon and chill.” For the next several months I would shop almost on a weekly basis from Amazon. Which by the way, a huge thank you to the Amazon team for continuing to be essential and deliver us products we don’t need. Our place was very welcoming, we had a rug and a neat coffee table along with a lot of other things. I would have friends over for a dinner party that summer and received high compliments on my place and hosting. I was very grateful for that (thank you HGTV for all the inspiration in the past decade!). Unfortunately, none of that lasted. Going into the place, I was expecting to stay at this apartment for at least a few years, but my plans changed again, so I ended up leaving and getting my own place. But that’s another story.

While I was still living with Joey, he brought me out to the shooting range for the first time in my life. Before this, I had never shot a gun before, not even paintball or a bb gun. The most I’ve ever done was playing with sticks that look like guns out in the woods when we would go camping. I’ll admit, that was still recent. It wasn’t just when I was a kid. But that’s life! There’s that kid in you that won’t ever burn out. So anyway, we’re at the range, and Joey is teaching me the basics and techniques of holding and firing a gun. I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt learning a new skill like this. Maybe because I was never into guns in the first place. Joey’s cousin brought a shotgun with him, and I tried that out… very interesting. That had quite the recoil/kickback. I remember not setting my feet correctly when I fired the shotgun, and it nearly sent me back to the womb… just kidding! I did almost fell down. That was pretty wild though. As of now, I’ll just stick to shooting guns in video games or sticks.

One Of Many Passions

The late 90s brought so much in its’ history alone. I had just learned about who Tiger Woods was. And after watching him golf for several years, my uncle introduced my brothers and I to it. It was one of the most frustrating, yet relaxing sports I ever played. Who knew hitting a tiny little ball hundreds of yards could bring joy to someone? I played this game for over 20 years with the exception of certain parts of my life where I hardly played. I loved the sport but as I got older, I noticed I wasn’t golfing as much as I used to or would like. A lot of my friends who I played with when we were younger found new passions or just did other things. On several occasions I would have some colleagues at the time to go with and it made me miss that feeling of why I used to golf as much as I did. Then with Covid, a couple of my nephews were bored staying home and playing video games, wanted to do something else. When the golf courses opened back up, it was something they wanted to get back into. They hardly played when they were younger, but this was something different than staying home and they wanted to get good at it. When they would ask me if I wanted to join them, I had forgotten myself that joy it brought me. I was very thankful for them for bringing that passion back in my life.

And an interesting experiment I had was golfing while I was in the clouds. That was quite something! So, what else did I do when I was high and in the clouds…?

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The Worst Week Of My Life

Before Covid expanded throughout the entire United States, I was on the verge of moving closer to my job. The commute of having to drive a longer distance was taking a toll on me. But it wasn’t just that, a lot of it had to do with the fact I was working 7 days a week with no expectations of a weekend, or even a day off. I figured if I had to work every day then I might as well live closer so I don’t have to rack up the mileage, and use up more fuel for my car. About a week before my lease ended, I had gotten a place with a roommate. One day he made lasagna (frozen, not from scratch) and offered me some as I was bringing in half of my stuff from the move. I took a portion of it before heading over to my brother’s place for his birthday. It wasn’t long after I had the lasagna that my stomach was aching quite a bit. At first, the pain was mild but then became much worst when I was getting ready for bed. This was even after I took something similar to Pepto-Bismol. I thought for sure the pain would go away but when it didn’t, this felt like it was going to be food poisoning… until it wasn’t.

Little did I know, the worst week of my life had just started. Before I could even fall asleep, I was lying in bed in agony. The pain in my stomach felt much worse than when I had my stomach ulcer. Lying there awake tossing and turning of discomfort, I was lucky to get 10-15 minutes of sleep every couple of hours I was awake. Little good news/bad news situation, I finally had some time off from work! Unfortunately, I felt like I was on the verge of dying. While I was awake throughout the day, the pain was only just mild. But I couldn’t really eat anything at all. And that’s how the rest of the week was for me. By the end of the second night, knowing this pain wasn’t going away anytime soon, I made a decision to go to Urgent Care. With no help at all from the physician, who recommended me go on a BRAT diet (banana, rice, applesauce, toast), I had accepted death. (Please clear my browser history ehhhhh!)

So, with just a few days left on my lease, I still had a few more items to pack up and some cleaning to do. Even though I was struggling to move around, it was on my agenda and had to be done. After another restless night it was time to go to the ER. I may have spent a few hours there waiting for test results and being put on morphine. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, even after an MRI, but prescribed me with some opioids for the pain. I just could not believe all of this came from frozen lasagna, which I have to add that it was sitting out in room temperature all night before I had some. One of the few things I could think of was that bacteria formed and wasn’t completely killed off after microwaving it. To this day, I still haven’t had any lasagna since. By the end of the week, I was finally starting to get better.

When I was able to move around again pre-lasagna, I had lost about 10-15 pounds in just a week. Most of that being muscle mass. It was difficult for me already just to gain weight, so having lost the amount I did, it set me back quite a bit. The year prior (2019) was my most proficient year ever when it came to gaining not just weight, but muscle mass. I was working out 5 to 6 days a week on average, and just kept pushing myself more and more every day. Looked great, felt good, and was motivated. I could have worked on eating healthier but I was just going for size. Eating quite a bit of fast food and a lot of protein shakes kept that ass jiggling for days. Later on, during the pandemic I would find out about myself that I did have a little bit of an eating disorder. Picky with food and not liking to eat leftovers. It seems like I had an acquired taste for something different every day. The worst part about this is I would end up throwing out more food than I would have liked. Being aware of some of my issues like this, is a relief. Because I know what the problem is, and I can work on it and see what I can do to improve on myself. This was one of the few things I became aware of during the lockdown.

A week after my stomach bug, I was ready to go back to work and get motivated again to workout… and then the lockdown happened. The timing was just impeccable…!

by Categories: The Year 2020Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

My 2020 Experience

I think it’s safe to say 2020 was definitely something else. Anywhere from good to bad, to worst. You can call it what you want, the fact is, it’s now a part of our history. A crisis that shook the world. As an entire species, we had to get through it together. And to this day, we still are. As bad as it was, we still have to look on the bright side. To me it was more than just a pandemic, it was an opportunity. Taking the time to slow down and figure out more about life. My life. I was working at what appeared to be a dead-end job with no plans to change my future anytime soon. I wanted to try my luck with making YouTube videos but was never consistent with posting any content (maybe an average of 2 videos a year). Well, whatever was in stored for my future, I only knew one thing, and that wasn’t to work until I was 65 before retiring. Or maybe it was 59 1/2 (things may have changed and I forget what it is now). Either way, change was going to happen. It’s just a matter of when.

January

One of my many passions is that I like to bowl. Almost to the point where I could have gone pro. Been a part of leagues since I was 18 and did quite a bit of tournaments. Every January my teammates and I would compete in the state tournament. It was normally the first or second week to start the 5-month long tourney. Being that we went early, the goal was to set the benchmark for other teams to try to take us down. Unfortunately, we rarely ever set the benchmark for anyone to beat. However, there are side bets (jackpots and brackets) that we do and that’s normally when I win my fair share. Most of the time it was enough to cover all my expenses throughout the weekend, which is a win in my book!

This time around it was much different. On our last day somewhere in the middle of the tournament, we had gotten news that Kobe Bryant passed away in that horrific helicopter crash… I was shocked. Could not believe what had happened. It was all over the news and everything. Along with his daughter and the other passengers, my heart dropped. On the car ride home from the tournament, I was watching Kobe’s highlight reels and could not stop myself from crying. Tears were just running down my face constantly. Kobe was an icon to me. That mentality to win each and every time he stepped out onto the floor. He had the mindset of a winner and I will always appreciate what he did on the court. The first few days at work was just whatever to me. I made it quite known to my colleagues of what I was going through. Then one of my colleagues, Anne, said to me, “David. You didn’t even know him.” The look on my face when she said that. “Anne. Really? I’m going through something.” I’m paraphrasing of course. But it was very close to that. Now that I think of it, I would consider myself a pretty dramatic person. Probably has something to do with watching a lot of movies and TV shows. Anyway, Kobe was a symbol to the world and he changed the game of basketball for everyone that enjoyed the sport.

So somewhere in the middle of all this, and for several weeks prior, I met this young woman named Lexi. She’s also a bowler and a very good one to say the least. I was new in this league we were in together and very fortunately; our team was paired up next to her team for a month straight. Because of that, it gave me an opportunity to get to know her. At first it started with glances towards one another, and soon a smile. Then some of my teammates started talking to Lexi and her teammates. Now that the ice was broken, we started talking a little bit. And I could never understand why people try to talk softly to each other about the people they’re talking about… when they’re like an arm’s length away from them. I heard just about everything her teammate was saying about us. She told Lexi, “You have 3 to choose from.” … uh, no! The other 2 of my teammates she mentioned both are in relationships. They’re just a**holes! Looking for that lay. One of them is Harvey (You’ll have to check out ‘My Hopeless Romantic’ post so you know who I’m referring to). I was doing just fine talking to Lexi but Harvey always has this mindset where if he can’t get the girl, he’ll make it seem like he was the reason you got with them. What he did was nudged me towards her when I was already standing next to her and having an honest conversation. Each week that went by, Lexi and I talked more and more and got to know each other a little better. But not too long before Covid hit, one of the last times I saw her I was going to ask her out to see if she wanted to get something to eat after leagues. Unfortunately, Harvey kept butting in and blocked me out of doing so. Keeping the conversation between them. Then they walked out towards the car and I’m left all alone again… (Worst. Wingman. Ever) I did reach out to Lexi during the early stages of when we were on lockdown. Figured I might as well try my luck only for her to tell me she just recently started dating someone else (no, not Harvey. He has a fiancé (like that’s stopping him from anything)).

During the time we were bowling next to each other, I was crushing it. Normally when I’m trying to bowl well and impress a girl, I end up derping it. Not this time. At least I assume I impressed Lexi. After I asked her out, she did say she wanted to stay friends and wanted to keep me in her life, and thought we should do tournaments together. I agreed with her. But I also felt like she was hoping to keep me around in case things didn’t work out with the guy she was with at the time. Not long after that she just stopped responding to me completely. Which is fine, because life goes on (can’t be a little b*tch about it) and you can’t dwell in the past. In a way, this one goes in my hopeless romantic stories and there’s still a few more left to be told. Let’s just say this one is a bonus for you!

And to end this chapter with what’s to come in the next; I have the worst week of my life… and it’s from lasagna. Tune in next time.

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