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The Monday before I met her in person

I was going to school again. On yet another monochromatic grad school day, I parked my car in the newly discovered second floor of the Circus Circus parking lot. The Circus Circus is this dingy casino in the northern most part of downtown Reno; walking distance from the University of Reno, Nevada. The parking lot was always full of cigarette butts and homeless residue (cigarette butts, old sweaters…) around the stars and the entry ways, but it was better to park there than pay 200 dollars to walk the same distance from the opposite direction.

The casino itself was constantly filled with old retirees that had long settled and decided to waste what was left of the life savings at the tables. It was displeasing, but not enough for college kids, such as myself, to float 20 dollars every now and then for the free drinks, and the occasional stuffed animal when you get a blackjack. Seemed weird to give a stuffed animal to people at a casino, but I suppose it’s better than the alternative: a voucher for their buffet. Fuck that buffet.

You know when you’re close to arriving somewhere and the radio finally decides to play a song that you like (yeah, I know, a 23 year old listening to the radio in 2018) so you decide to stay a little longer afterwards to listen to it? For Alice 96.5 at this particular time, it was Queen’s Somebody to Love. How apropos.

As I was slow-head-banging to the repetitive “somebody” chorus near the middle of the song, someone parked to my left. Glancing, it seemed like a normal car, just some Nissan Leaf. It had this plush Kirby hanging from the rear view window. Inside was the most beautiful person I have, and will have ever, seen.

B was scrambling to get ready for school and was collecting her things. She seemed to be on autopilot as she parked her car and picked up her purse with her ambitiously decorated key chain; it had one of those brightly colored, springy wires you used to see on old telephones on it. These undulating black swoops of dense hair framed these gentle eyes. They seemed dark brown at first, but I would later learn that they had this beautifully warm hint of honey when she looked up in the sky and had the sun hit her eyes just right.

I immediately pretended to look at my phone while I tried to wait until she left and strained my head to look straight instead of to the side. I felt flustered trying not to clench my jaw after I had overcompensated in closing it after it had dropped. Wait, she didn’t see me look down too quickly, right? Should I try looking down again but slower? But wait, I’d have to look at her again, right? Wouldn’t that make it look lik–

She left.

I waited for her to at least reach the stairs of the floor before I even tried to make my way out of the car. I didn’t want her to see my dorky violin that I had to lug out of the backseat of my car. I didn’t want her moment of sonder towards a stranger to include something that embarrassing just yet. I was in the school orchestra, and I had no reliable place to leave my violin where I could keep it on campus. Also, I was late for parallel programming. So I went on my way.

When I had gotten back to my car at the end of the day after a long day of trying to worry about what I was going to write into my thesis (which was supposed to be at the end of the semester), her Leaf was still there. Grad school was sluggish, but the most exciting part of my life thus far, see; I had nothing else going on that I could actively try to keep alive in my life.

I mean, I guess I was already trying to write music back then too, or dabble in my 3D modeling/shading, but everything had taken a back burner to my life up until then. The craziest thing I did regularly, something that not even my Mexican (and thus helicopter) parents knew about, edibles. Marijuana was legal in Nevada now, and I had figured out that I could go and restock between classes and keep it in my desk in my grad lab. No one used, let alone checked, the lackluster drawers from the equally drab and gray cubicles. Every now and then, I would take an edible on my way home, such that the effects wouldn’t kick in until I reached home. It was roughly a 20 min walk from my lab to the car and another 20 min drive home, so the timing almost always worked out.

This day was no different. I swear I don’t think I could feel the effects of the edible by the time I had gotten back to my car, but my word isn’t reliable on a couple of accounts. I have a notoriously bad memory, as well as a low tolerance to weed, so it’s possible the benign effects of being more open were starting to take hold before I could perceive it. I swear I wish I could say I hadn’t taken anything. It would make what I did more significant.

Notecard with handwritten note. It reads, "The person that parked to your right through you were very cute and thought to give you his number. He thought Why the hell not?" There is also a redacted phone number on the notecard
I left her a note on her windshield.

I couldn’t find anything better than an old parking permit that I had from when I had to go to the med school for my senior project just a year prior. That’s why you see the wrong date in reverse from the other side. I left my number there on that white space.

I wasn’t expecting a text back or anything. I had had some conversations on Tinder that never amounted to anything and my in-person flirting skills made me sound either too desperate to align with people or too blasé to be taken seriously, so I didn’t think this would go anywhere. I was too nervous to ever approach such a stunning person like this, so a note would be the next best thing. But wouldn’t that be a cop-out? The worst that could happen is she has a boyfriend, and lets me know, or doesn’t even tell me back anything.

B didn’t text me until the next day either, so that night I went to bed that night thinking, “Meh, maybe next time.” Apparently, she had driven home and didn’t discover the brightly green colored note until the next day and decided to jump start the conversation until then.

I was elated it worked. She said it was an incredibly cute thing. I was so hoping she would think so. A little back and forth gave me an impression of someone that seemed high maintenance at first, if I’m being totally honest. She said she was very picky about her food, and that ended out being very true and, quite possibly, the only negative attribute I can think of of my very first would-be-girlfriend.

Overall, however, we hit it off nicely. I felt like even if the conversation ended up sour, I wouldn’t want to end it with that soulless “DTF?” texts you send to wasted Tinder matches. I could genuinely feel like I could meet and befriend this person. I felt like I could actually see myself talking to a person out loud instead of typing on a screen; something I had only ever felt with one other person beforehand. I also didn’t do that one thing flakey guys like myself always did which was to ghost out of disinterest; we kept the same conversation going for a few days. It was one long conversation that was interrupted by sleep and school instead of the little spurts of conversation one tends to have that are usually sparked by the cliché “Sorry I just saw this.”

We agreed to go to a local Chinese diner in downtown on that Friday for lunch; that was on the Friday before spring break, 2018.

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My First Blog Post

Help me, this is my first blog

Ok so because there’s no real reason for you, the audience member, to read my blog or give a shit, and I have no context over what it is you’d like to read, I’ll just start with exactly what I’m doing.

I’m starting a blog.

me

I’ve never actually done anything very “stream-of-consciousness” type that I’d let the world see before, and I’m excited to finally do it because, quite frankly, I need to vent. I figured the hive mind of the internet is a great audience under the blanket of “anonymous” because we can just say whatever we want, we get very equal and fair judgment and the wild wild west of the internet will always sort itself out for the better right? Not that there won’t be the usual trolls and what have you to add some color here and there, but there’ll be something of an audience that is convinced enough that i’m worthy of their time that could peruse my writings, right?

If you haven’t already gotten a sense of the blog posting that’s going to be happening here, it’s very stream of consciousness. Seemed cool. Always had wanted to try it. Watch; this’ll probably become like one of those blogs where the person only makes, like, three posts, then it get abandoned forever and then rediscovered cataloged in the cringiest corners of Reddit.

Ok so I’m making the “Introductory” post right now, concurrently with this. And this’ll probably be a living document as my posts help me redefine… myself, but if there’s anything confusing in there, maybe you care enough to look for context in the posts. So here come some caveats, and initial impressions.

Huh, like the typing style. Reminds me a lot of Word.

Ok I think that’s enough for my first post.

I promise I’ll talk more in my second.

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Sup?

You know those movies, where the guy decides to change for the better, and it happens under some dumb 80s montage, and it’s directed by Judd Apatow where the main character is trying to making self better after a painful breakup (typically comedic and in Act I)? Imagine that being the motivation behind this stupid website.

Allright, let’s get the demographics over with:

  • Latino Descendent
  • Software Engineer
  • Lonely

Socio-Culturally challenged software engineer in San Diego, who recently left Reno, NV. Likes writing classical music, nerd shit, and obscure movie references when writing a bio of himself. Idea of a perfect date? April 25th because it’s not too hot, and not to cold, all you need is a light jacket.

The cities aforementioned are hopefully the detailing of my life that will be posted here. Yes, I want to share my personal stuff with the world; No, I don’t want people to find out who I am. Fair?

She told me she gets me, but what’s the point now?

She just texted me again.

I know I haven’t been up to date with what I’ve been doing wthg my life, but to be frank who gives a fuck? No one reads this blog. This is just my way of archiving the thoughts that i have in my head because what are we if not the thoughts that we have in the moment?

This has been a super rought month for me. The Coronavirus scare is the way I believe that the rest of the world is catching up to the emotional status that I feel just now.

Mid February, my roommate and his girlfriend, my coworker that we kind of dislike, and his girlfrie wife and friend, and myself went to Big Bear. (Like the metadata of this blog suggests I currently live in San Diego). It was a lot of fun! It felt a little lonely from time to time given that I ended up alone for long stretches of the day to try out different slopes and whatnot, but that’s besides the point. It was a long three day weekend trip. The day after we came back, however, my car stalled on the freeway on the way from work home.

It had been the third time it had stalled within a year. It was then that I’ve made the decision to to get a new car. It had to have been towed to a couple of places right before I went home (to Reno) for my sister’s 16th birthday (which took place in a wonderfully sad corner booth of Chili’s but I digress).

On top of having to get a new car, I had to get a new apartment. My roommate had expressed how had been wanting to move in with his girlfriend (with whom he basically lives anyways since she’s always around). I can’t argue with that; I’d want to do the same so I can’t really take it personally. I had been looking around the Mira Mesa/Sorrento Valley area to find an apartment. And by looking around, I mean two sessions of being on Zillow looking for single bedroom apartment complexes in between meetings at work. Now that I think about it, if I’m being really honest, I didn’t really put all the much effort into the apartment search; I was just saying that to people so that they wouldn’t think I’m not putting in any effort into my struggles. I only really saw once place with my roommate just to prove my struggles and it, for the same price was awful.

Fast forward to today, I had just realized that although I was waiting for my family to come visit my apartment and help me move from my current unit to anotger unit in the same complex. so I had to look stupid in front my team at work. Then I got a text out of nowhere

This is the entire conversation we had.

6:37 PM

B: Hey I shouldn’t talk to you or anything but I just really wanted to say something

it’s very off topic

well we don’t have a topicbut it’ll come out of nowhere

Me: What is it? Are you ok?

B: yeah i’m fine

Me: What is it?

*pause*

Me: Be safe from the coronavirus

B: i had to watch this movie for my chicano history class, idk if you’ve seen it, it’s called Real women have curves, but after seeing that movie and generally learning a lot about Hispanic households (mainly mexican) the past couple semesters, i just wanted to say i get why you were the way we were when we were together, and i don’t hold that against you

i think the movie describes what you spoke about perfectly
so i’d recommend it
and thx i think i actually had it last week but thats besides the point

Me: I haven’t seen it.
Why did you bring this up just now?

B: I have no idea

Well people kept telling me i shouldn’t talk to you for your own good

but also i didn’t know whether it really meant much me saying that

but after seeing the movie it just made everything make sense

Me: It means a lot. More than I can put in words. But, not to offend, what’s the point now? I fucked up. There’s no going back.

B: hey don’t ask the journalism major why they do things

we just do WORDS

I’m not sure though, something just compelled me to tell you that

idk hard to explain without writing walls and my WUPUM isn’t as high as yours

*pause*

sorry to both you though, hopefully i didn’t ruin anything, please be safe and happy and well

bye bye

Me: Please write why

But not here

Bye. And don’t worry. You would never ruin anything for me

Private Conversation, Facebook Messenger.

I know she doesn’t hold it against me. But how can I not?

I still love you, B.

How to Duplicate a Jenkins server for local plugin integration debugging

Suppose you need to quickly test to see if specific versions of Jenkins plugins aren’t working well with each other. Suppose also that you cannot debug these plugins in a production environment (or other sensitive reasons) and you need help to replicate the environment such that you can see if plugins can coexist.

Here’s an approach that I found by piecing together a few other articles together (links below):

  1. Get list of plugins
  2. Configure an easily resettable, local Jenkins server
  3. Prepopulate and launch

Get List of Plugins

Under Jenkins Home (you may need to ask for permissions) go to the script console

[picture of script console]

Type in the following to get a list of plugins.

Jenkins.instance.pluginManager.plugins.sort { it.getDisplayName() }.each{
  plugin -> 
    println ("${plugin.getDisplayName()} (${plugin.getShortName()}):${plugin.getVersion()}")
}

You should get an output that looks similar to

some-plugin:1.0.0
cool-plugin:1.0.3
company-specific-plugin:1.3.0 company.com/artifacts/plugins/company-specific-plugin-1.3.0.hpi

Save this to a local file: ./plugins.txt. Note that if you have specific URLs that you know that your start-up or company uses for local artifacts and plugins, you can place it afterwards in the same line.

Configure Local Jenkins Server

Write up a Dockerfile to get the latest Jenkins (or find the specific Docker image). It will also grab that list of plugins, and copy it in for installation. 

FROM jenkins/jenkins:lts
COPY plugins.txt ./plugins.txt
RUN /usr/local/bin/install-plugins.sh < plugins.txt

The script referenced in that Dockerfile, (./install_jenkins.sh) can be found here.

After building the image (you can call it whatever you want; I’m calling it jenkins) you can setup a script that will restart it (and display the initial admin password). This may be called ./restart_jenkins.sh and invoked as such.

// enter ./restart_jenkins.sh

To build the image, simply run this command.

> docker build -t jenkins .

Launch

Point your browser to localhost:8787.

Enjoy.

Credits

I go back home today later…

It’s 1:37 am. and I’m not done packing for a flight that leaves at 1 PM. I figure I should get a blog post out, right?

Fuck. That didn’t happen. It’s now a few days later, Christmas Eve 2019. Plenty within my family has happened during that time that I decided I’m not yet comfortable sharing. The relationship between me and my sister unrealistically soured. I’m still uneasy about it, so I’ll share later

Not because it’s personal, by the way; the whole point of having an anonymous blog is to be specific but nameless. The specificity is what is very important here: it’d be nice of people that I knew to eventually read this blog, but not be reminded of me just yet. I’ve learned people tend to have more empathy towards my stories if they don’t know I’m the protagonist. I’ve had this tendency to be blended into the background of people’s lives, like an extra in a movie, after they get to know me. For some people, however, it feels like that fade-out is more of an active choice than a passive one.

There’s a word for that type of realization, by the way: Sonder. Leave it to the Germans (or the Dutch I think?) for pinpointing a specific piece of humanity we have all experienced but never named.

Sonder – (neologism) The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one’s own, which they are constantly living despite one’s personal lack of awareness of it. 

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sonder

Anyways, the real reason I’d like to take this opportunity is to talk about my next few blog “category“. It’s about my most recent and most painful relationship with this girl from my hometown I will refer to only as B. Like every other post, I will limit everything to their letter, lest the people they represent read these and understand who they are right away.

I will be going into some specifics for a few reason. I have this… nagging feeling that something is going to happen after I lay everything out on the table. I’m not talking about a book deal, or a movie, or that my ex will come running back into my arms, or anything else that I’d obviously yearn for. But I feel this fear about keeping my stories to myself.

I want to tell you that I want people to read this story to help them out. Y’know, the whole “learn from the mistakes of others” thing you read from the old-school, black framed picture of a polar bear you always stared at in class instead of the whiteboard. That’d be a nice reason to do this. I hope it happens too.

I think that that fear, however, comes from seeing my own grandma slowly slip into a poorer and poorer memory. She hasn’t been formally diagnosed with dementia or anything else, although there’s a good chance that might be a physician’s first guess. I want to get this painful memory out before the memories start to get fuzzier around the edges. I had fallen in love before and I keep the few memories of P (the girl I had been with briefly 5 years prior that I was still hung up on) around there in my mind; replying like old TV time-fillers. I go back to them when I’m stressed, or in need of comfort. They center me. But only I know of them. I’ll share those at some point as well. But I feel like B needs to hear those stories before the internet does. I’m sorry, reader. She asked first.

I’m pretty sure though, as biased as one’s own self-reflection often is, that the real reason I want to share is this sense of validation. I know there were things that I did that were wrong. I know there were things I should’ve done. I want to say that there were also things that she did that were wrong. But I’m not quite sure about that. I feel as though my friends that have told me that what she had done is wrong, don’t have the full story. I don’t want to make the same mistakes again. The pain hurt more than I can describe in words. This is my trying to make sure I get the full story out there. So I can at least get close to describing it. I want everyone to know.

P, if you’re reading this, please continue to do so. I’d love your input on this.

B, if you’re reading this… please… um, uhh…, keep reading. Please don’t give me your input, unless of course it’s absolutely necessary to set the record straight or because you don’t want me to share something; I will respect that. Please only let me know that you read it. It’s not that I don’t want your input. I just… honestly wouldn’t know how I’d react to it within the parameter I can. But only do so when I finish.

Also B, if you’re reading this, I still love you.

The day before the company party; when I was supposed to go ice skate

So that’s today (since this is posted late, this was Friday, the 13th; ooooohhhhh) in the relative sphere of my current life. If this seems long and too specific to be a legitimate title, that’s low key my bad but it’s because that’s how I’m going to best remember it. I know that there’s a lot of context surrounding me and that’s being missing but for some reason, besides you, reader, i’m considering my future self to also be part of the audience and i best feel that this is another way to help myself out.

It’s like when you’re programming and you write good commits or good comments throughout your code. I used to believe that dumb idea that all devs would always remember all the code that they get to write and for the most part it’s kinda true; I do remember when I worked on certain projects, like how they’re laid out and what i got to do on them. But I looked at some code that someone told me about becaue they were trying to call me out on them, and: nada. I had no memory of it at all.

meme of Gandalf going "I have no memory of this place"

So I’ll start off by why the title is the way it is here. I was supposed to go ice skating today.

The last day of some of the college temps in our company (they’re co-ops, but I’ll refrain from using that term since this blog is already super easy to tie to my name, so the least I could do is not use the vernacular) is today. There aren’t that many; I think it’s only 2 or so that I cared about anyways. Usually the company hires a handful of seasonal temps that are here for the equivalent of a semester of school (6 months at a time; winter or spring) and then a much larger group that are here for the summer (3 months). I was introduced to the company as one of the 3 month interns, twice. It’s around 200 people.

When I say there were only about 2 this year that I cared about anyways, well, it’s a bit of a misnomer; there were only two that I really… knew. I didn’t know a whole lot about them this time around and the two that I did kinda like… I did kinda… like. But that’s besides the point. I mean, that might’ve sounded creepy, but as anyone who has also grown so “crush-deprived” as much as I did, it’s easy to find yourself attracted to people you shouldn’t be as you transition from your early to your mid twenties.

“Holy shit, I’m in my mid-twenties”

author; outloud; realizing during the last sentence of the last paragraph.

I have this friend, M, who is also a full time employee at the company, and she’s… well, the sweetest person you’ll ever meet that you can never say no to, but probably should sometimes. She’s become something of a taboo as a person within my team since they all realize her technical skills are sub par, but I don’t see that as the negative part of her. That’s her frankness.

Today was a little example of her frankness. I was excited to go ice skating with the temps today. I was told that since the party planning committee (sticking to “The Office” terms such that I don’t give away stuff) didn’t get much done this year, the parties that are usually made for the temps year over year didn’t really come to fruition this year. M hadn’t been part of the leadership but was a big part of the hype surrounding the committee and other company related festivities for a while now. This was the first year she became a part of that leadership. When I asked her why there were hardly any off-campus events this year, she said something along the lines of “oh yeah the leadership just fell apart this year and couldn’t get things together”. I wonder if there’s any correlation between the fact that this is the first year that M was part of the leadership.

She had a small event prepared for the temps today, on Coronado Island. It’s this cool little island off the southern part of San Diego (that I think somehow is connected again to the extreme south) where some of the wealthy of the town live. She had invited me yesterday because she had just decided to do so then. She had told me today, however, to hang on, when I asked what time I would go where. I had also volunteered my driving services (lol) but framed it as a playful “I’m willing to drive anyone that’s willing to put up with me lol.” I did that because a lot of the temps are losing their temp car given by the company.

Earlier today, after I got off work, I got a call that was immediately hung up, followed by this. from M.

“[first name] [last name] : ) I think I’d like to try planning ice skating another night. It was the [temp’s] last day today and I invited [J] because he knows them both really well. I’m sure you’d all get along but i think I’d like to keep it as just our crew tonight.??? I struggle to have these conversations, and I’m sorry I didn’t have the balls to have it earlier. I did try to call! But I’m sorry, regardless. I’ll make it up to you.”

M

Now, while this has a lot of benefit of the doubt I can give M, it’s valid to say this stings, no?

I mean, I know J isn’t a huge fan of my company (It’s been very noticeable when we’ve hung out). I like A and D (temps) a lot and never fail to say an enthusiastic “Hi!” when bumping into them in the hallways or by the tables outside. I like M too.

But come the fuck on.

Just tell me that you don’t want to hang out. Jeez.

Thanksgiving Day 2019

Ok so I guess I ight as well start with some days to see if i can make this bearable. Like I said reader, I’m using you as a way to make myself feel a little less lonely. I’d also like to let myself a little more known (or at least leave a pathway through this blog) to the hivemind of the internet. I, like many, have these weird social anxiety quirks that I’m trying to either suppress or just learn to work with that I don’t know if they’r enormal or anything, but I guess the best place to start would be with something anonymous like this. (As of the making of this post, I do not believe the website is anonymized just yet, but I will work on that ASAP).

I’m all alone today. I’m in my apartment while my roommate went to go to see his family. My family half expected me to go but they never asked me or spoke about any arrangements; it was just assumed that I would surprise them. It’s not that it was assumed that I would go, like this is a regular occurrence (so far I’m 0 for 2 since I moved out and started living solo), but more like it was expected. I’ve had a hunch and a problem about these little assumptions for a while.

Like since I started working, I now make more money than my parents would (combined) back in Reno, and when I went back last Christmas, they let me know that a car had been reposessed because they couldn’t make the payments and they gave me this sob story about how my dad’s company had finally gotten rid of overtime, which was the lifeblood of the family for the longest time. And not once did they mention or come close to say “so could you send us some money?” The request or anything resembling humility of a request was never spoken. It was more of a flat lip purse and a leaning-in-shrug of expectation as if to go, “so…?”

These little assumptions drive me crazy because of the potent dosage of guilt they give me, but because of the negative symptom of any controlled substance entering the body, really; tolerance. I’m starting to get used to it. Which I understand is bad. But I’m starting to just not care about feeling bad. I do end up supplementing that guilt with some self-generated guilt about my lack of guilt. But it can only go so far.

Also, I was an asshole to someone today.

This one is a little different because it revolves a little bit about my love life (which I do not want to write about just yet) but I did have to address to someone that I’m sorry for having ghosted them. This was someone that I was only seeing for about 2 weeks and that I had decided to nip in the bud before it got more serious. Here’s where the lying comes in; I’m trying to frame it as though it’s because of commitment issues (which although I do believe I have, I’m weirdly comfortable about sharing it) when it’s a combination of a valid and a shallow reason.

The valid reason: I’m not ready (i.e. not over my ex yet). The shallow reason? She’s…. kinda… repulsive.

Why did I decide to continue when I knew that she was repulsive since I had just met her? Here’s the shallow part of this really makes it worse. It took some intense reflection but I’m pretty sure it’s because of my desperate need to be intimate with someone and I had finally found someone who thought of me as cute (or something along those lines; boosting my ego) and I took advantage of it and ended up crushing this poor girl’s heart.

And on Thanksgiving, no less.

I’m not writing this to get vindication, or because you should care to listen. I’m not trying to get all Bojack Horseman and really try to just write it out to validate some internalized notion that I’m a bad person or have some ‘sadness fetish’. I know this was wrong. I didn’t want to do it. I put myself in a bad situation and I got out of it a bad way. I recognize that and will strive to never again do it.

I just wanted to be honest to you, reader, because if I don’t own my mistakes, even the ones that make myself cringe, who can I open up to? That’s why I paid the fucking $59 dollars or whatever to host this blog. I (anon, by now, hopefully) hope to just talk and talk and talk. I want someone to listen. Even if I personify you and project the people I talk to in my head to you and do some self therapy or something like that. I hear that’s supposed to work wonders. Write letters to yourself. Or to someone, and then don’t send them. But then… I did send the ones to my ex– that’s for a different blog post.

So far I don’t know why you would want to read my blog. If you’re a person with more decency to handle harsh situations gracefully and so far are disgusted by me, by all means, rip me a new one. Gotta learn somehow, right?