Willo O'Brien

• the ted leo show last week
• a little more about SD and post photos – and videos (hech hemm brian!)
• my new espresso maker
• shows coming up
• more laptop discussion…
• more stuff that I can’t remember, but now that this list is started, I’ll add to it.

Sorry… for some reason I just haven’t been in the mood to blog. Weird, huh? I’ll give it a shot here for a second, but then it’s back to work.

Alright, so SD was fun… but coming back here was a little depressing. Although it’s nice to be home, that means laundry, dishes, work – and freezing cold RAIN!!!!! Toto, we’re not in San Diego anymore! hmph.

I went & worked out this morning… which was good. I’m looking forward to having my knee be good enough for cardio again. I’m skipping my second apt w/ the expensive knee doc, since I know he’ll just see me for 5 minutes and say I’m doing fine all for a pretty penny straight outta my pocket – so no thanks! (which by the way I am in the process of changing my crap health insurance now!) So, I may just get my arse to physical therapy and be sure I’m doing good exercises for it, etc.

knee status: I still can’t straighten it the whole way w/o a little pain, or bend it / squat down on it without pain… but for the most part even when I do those things on accident it doesn’t kill like it does before, it’s just sensitive… so I think I’m on the mend. I’m walking fairly normal… it’s not my normal confident fast pace, but it’s not as limpy as before so that’s good!

Alright. Sorry – that’s all I got for ya…

Wowie this is cool… it makes me want to travel soooo bad!!!!

The red is all the places that I’ve traveled – first marking the states, then below it, the countries.

Note: Yes, I greened out Alaska, on purpose. Even though it’s in the US, I felt it was falsly representing yet another huge and beautiful part of Northern America that I *haven’t* yet explored.

I’ve gone quite a few places in the U.S. but hardly any compared to some… and an embarrassingly small amount of trips outside the US (London, Spain and Mexico). That doesn’t seem possible!! And it sure as heck isn’t RIGHT! I gotta start getting out there!! :)

So now, in sad (but extremely impressive) comparison, look at my friend Rick’s US map (43 states!) and then his world map (41 countries)! This is one of the reason’s Rick is so damn cool… the boy has traveled a TON!!

Create your own maps link via rachelleb

Hey there…. I can’t post today… but here’s some photos from our trip to hold you over.

settling in at the bristol hotel

mixture sign, on our way to the casbah

gorilla sillyness at the san diego zoo

iceeeeee!!!

W Hotel San Diego, taken from The Beach (also what the future empire of WilloToons may look like :)

yummy cosmo at gaslamp strip club

willo & rick at onyx

lastnight we hit the casbah for a fun punk show and some pac man and donkey kong… very nice. entertaining photos to come..

today we hit the san diego zoo… lots o kiddies… and some animals too… entertaining photos to come…

now we’re chillin at our sweet hotel and then headin out to catch the sunset on the boardwalk before goin out for dinner and drinks!

bye!

Lastnight’s dinner cruise was fun… we all boarded onto a bus (feeling like total tourist oohing and aahing out the window and asking people “what’s this bridge called?”) to get over to the docks where the boat was departing.

On the way over we chatted w/ a few guys Rick’s met at previous conferences… and since they reside in San Diego, we asked em a few q’s about places to go, etc. They hadn’t heard of a number of the places I’d been recommended to hit. Like The Whistlestop Cafe – which apparently all the indie kids who are tapped into Keep it Like a Secret go to on Sunday nights. They had heard of The Casbah of course (for those in SF, it’s like the Bottom of the Hill of San Diego) – and we’ll be hittin that for sure either tonite for some old school punk (TSOL) or tomorrow night for the Dirtbombs show (Detroit garage band type o rock, but Grandpa Ajax just saw them and said it wasn’t so good, so I’m wary)

OK – so back to the boat story — Our dinner on the boat was DELICIOUS, the most notable I must say was the dessert: Chocolate Mousse in a square of thin crisp chocolate witha strawberry on top. MMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Chocolate Mousse is my absolute favorite dessert EVER. Funny thing is that I hardly eat sweets anymore. (I may have mentioned this another time, but it’s just kinda big news to me) I used to have SUCH a sweet tooth and go for a little “sweet & treat” most every single day. But lately I don’t crave sweets at all… and 1/2 the time I will even decline offers of a taste or dessert cuz it just doesn’t sound good. I think once you’re out of the habit of eating sugar like that, your body looses the addiction for it. Pretty cool, really. That said, put some creamy chocolate mousse in front of me and my eyes get big & my mouth starts watering. YUUUMMM!!!!

After dinner the Captain came around saying hello to everyone and passing out a photo of the ship we were on. We all joked looking shocked, “Well, if you’re down here… who’s drivin this thing?!?!” Comically (actually to him he was being quite serious) he looked out the windows and said, “Oh, I’ve got someone up there… he doesn’t have a license, but I can see it looks like he’s doing pretty good”. ha!

I asked him if he’d autograph the photo he gave me and he said, in all seriousness, that so many people want it, however he doesn’t have time because he really had to get back to driving the boat (as he looks out the window to check if the guy driving the boat for him is still doing ok) — but that if we’d like his autograph, we could go up on the top deck, where he drives the ship, and get it there.

Well don’t you think I didn’t take him up on his offer, cuz I was going to get his autograph, dammit. This just isn’t any captain you know… It’s Captain John!

He’s been “on the sea” since 1953. Wow, huh? He said he used to drive some big boat (that’s my technical term) up to Alaska and back – so I asked him if he’d ever seen an Aurora Borealus – and he said yes, lots! Wow, I would love to see one of those someday.

He signed our photos alright (which Rick claims he put a little more love into mine :) and when we were getting off the boat, Captain John even remembered my name! I heart Captain John.

:::::::::::::::::::

Today I’m gettin just a bit of work done here – and then we check outta here at noon, head over to our other hotel and then plan the next big SD adventure! Will it be LegoLand? San Diego Zoo? Tijuana?

Stay tuned.

Hola!

Rick had a conference in San Diego, so we thought we’d piggyback that for an excuse to spend the weekend in warmer weather! aww yaa!! We arrived this morning and taxi’d to our hotel: The Hotel Del Coronado. It’s beautiful! 5 stars is right… ! The people are so damn polite we feel like pinching them to see if they’re real, and not just well programmed robots. :)

After enjoying some breakfast outside in the sun, Rick went off to his conference and I slipped on my bikini & hung out by the pool while waiting for our room to be ready. Making lists of what I need to do for my current clients and also listing out my purpose/ideas and action plan for my illustration business. It was soo nice.

I grabbed lunch at the beachside grill (This hotel is like a mini resort all it’s own, with a ritzi mini mall, art gallery, bakery, an ice cream shop, business center… everything!) and caught up on my HOW mag a little. I’ve been so busy these last couple months that I haven’t even been watching any of my TIVO’d shows or reading the magazines I subscribe to!

But that reading stint didn’t last long as the wind started picking up and the air was just a little bit too chili for my bikini barin bod & so I decided to go check on our room/get our luggage up here and get some work done.

Now I sit here, on a laptop (borrowed) staring out at the ocean view from our balcony and hearing the waves lap up on the shore.

This is the life!!

Tonite we’re headed out for a dinner cruise. Once again I’ll try to see how crazy I can get around Rick’s associates. ha! I keep threatening to do some dancing on the tables, but Rick asked nicely if I could save that for the hotel room. So selfish, doesn’t he want to share the fun? (JUST KIDDING!!)

Ok, now I’m getting punchy – and actually need to jump in the shower to rinse of the sunscreen & get ready for the evening!

p.s. I *will* post a review about lastnight’s concert! Probably tomorrow – but quickly I’ll just say that it is officially my first FAVORITE concert of the year. Oh my gawd was it awesome!!!!! Ted Leo rocks the house… but I have much much more to say (and videos to post! if they came out ok)… so just wait!

Ok – I want to post – and started one but then didn’t want to keep going on it – basically today is the day before we leave for San Diego and I’m racing around trying to do a lot of things before I go…

I’ll be online tomorrow though – hopefully – so I’ll probably have more to say then.

p.s. I got my new duvet cover & shams set today! It’s awesome. I’m not sure if any set is worth as much as I paid (especially the $60/sham – jeez!) but it’s pretty frickin sweet. The duvet cover isn’t actually shown in that pic – but it has the big dots on one side & stripes on the other. See?

p.s.s. About lastnight’s show: WOW is Kelley Stoltz awesome live. Really, really fantastic. Go buy the CD & then make sure to catch him live…. so awesome. Rogue Wave is fantastic as always. I love those guys (and girl). I can see them again & again and it’s always so enjoyable!!

Also – I’ll update my music calendar soon – There’s so much to add.. and I think I said I’d do it last weekend. But I’ll try to get to it in the next couple days, I promise! :)

later gators.

oh man… I’m in heavy debate in my brain about whether or not to get a iMac or a PC laptop. AK!!

Such a major decision, it feels like. I mean, it is… it’s a very expensive decision! See, the more I’ve been thinking about it the more I’m realizing it’s probably wisest just to get a kick ass suped up laptop and essentially replace my desktop machine (however, keeping my big screen & ergonomic keyboard, mouse & wacom at home for when I’m working all day here). This way I can skip the hassle of synching – and never have to worry about “oh that file is on my other computer”, etc. And that makes sense these days since laptops finally are really rockin and can keep up with a very cranked up desktop.

And then I think, well will I be bummed that’s so heavy? (more goodies in the laptop adds a few lbs to it)… But I don’t really travel all that much anyway, so really it’d be just about taking it around to coffee shops & the occasional trip somewhere. (Really quite dangerous for me to have my computer be able to come with me everywhere I go, dontcha think?! Oh my… let me just sew it on!)

But all I can think about is how *EXCITING* it will be to be mobile. I have never had a laptop! I DESERVE A LAPTOP!!

I can’t wait to have some awesome laptop bag – like, just look at this stylish pair of “Laptop PJ’s“. Cute huH!?

And at some moments I’m sure – I’m gonna stick with PC… thinking after all these years, I just can’t give it up. I am soo quick and efficient on here (my pc), and I already have all the programs for this platform, and I know how to maintain it and upgrade and dammit….. I just LIKE PC’S!!!!!!!!!!!! In fact, I would even go as far as to say I LOVE my PC!!!! (now you’re starting to see the danger of this baby coming with me everywhere I go? mmwwaaahhahahhaaaa!!)

But then tonite, all of a sudden my mind is saying, “Nope, Willo… you’re going to make the switch dammit. Macs are so f*in cool – and that’s IT, YOU’RE SWITCHING!! And I get all excited about all the cool technology and how pretty it is and how I’ll be a part of all the mac lovers in the world and designers and I’ll get an iPod and, and, and……. !!!! ”

and slowly the excitement starts to fade and my fear and intimidation (oh, alright and some laziness) kicks in and starts whining, “… but, but, but… I don’t really know Mac’s that well.. and I have to relearn so many things – all my shortcuts and all the differences, and how to maintain them – and I have to learn how to get just as fast & efficient on a mac and what if that takes forever?!?!” (I’m serious – I can work my way around a mac a little – but it’s *scary* how little I know about them really – I get lost… and, and….. I just haven’t had to be on one, ALRIGHT!?!? *exasperated*

See how exhausting all this decision making is!??! *sigh*

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s still Monday – 5pm on Monday… so happy hour is getting closer – wahoo!! :) I actually do have a Happy Hour to go to tonite, too! A group of Flashers. Aww ya, that’s right! I’m heading over with *only* a trenchcoat on. I can’t wait to meet these like minded individuals!

HA.

It’s actually this kind of Flash and it’s organized by a few fellow Flash Goddesses, Kristin and Vera (whom I met by surprise last summer).

Those two girls in particular are way more smarty pants on the scientific/coding aspects of Macromedia’s Flash (Vera even works at Macromedia, I think) but still it’s fun to chat w/ other people who are into it. Maybe there’ll be some other fun people there, too. Ya never know!

I actually haven’t worked in Flash in a few months. I did a couple things last fall (I have *so much* to update my portfolio with!!) and have a few coming up. I miss it & really look forward for the opportunity to work in it more. Mostly with my illustrations, character design & animation… all that is so fun!

I actually have been working on an illustration today – and hope to have it finished up later tonite or tomorrow. woohoo!

Ok – off to get ready & then go FLASH some people up in Noe Valley.

Tonite I skipped going to see Travis, as originally planned. I was going to meet up with Kristin, Jee & Jane… but was feeling really wiped out from going out lastnight… and just having a very busy last several days. So I took a bath instead. :) aaaaahh… very nice. I also got some work done for some clients… which feels really good – I have a jumpstart on the week!

I feel like I’m a little off balance in my life right now. I’ve been insanely emotional lately… but I know so much of it has to do w/ changing BC methods, and having not gone to the gym in a month. I swear working out is like a mental health pill for me – so no wonder I’ve been all down & feeling off!

I feel like for the last several months, since my breakup, I’ve sort of had a layer of protection around my heart. Like I’ve been allowing myself to be very aloof… and remain on a very happy, light and carefree plane to enjoy this new chapter in my life.

However, recently I’m becoming more accutely aware of where I’m being aloof in my life… and with who. I’m starting to become more aware of my feelings of fear around allowing my relationships to deepen… feeling my instinct to protect myself further and run & hide or push people away.

I don’t know – could be just that I need to get in the gym and level out my hormones and shit, but all I know is it’s sure taking me by surprise! The good news is that I am in tune with it… and that it’s all (fairly) normal. :) I have to trust myself now more than ever… and not be afraid to lean on my friends when I need to talk it out. It always helps to just get it out… I feel like if I can just spill it all and get it out of my head, then I can go back to the light, carefree me! :) haa..

The good news is Rebecca & I are hittin the gym tomorrow. yay! I just have to be careful of what I do, as my knee isn’t 100% yet. But it’ll be good just to sweat a little, even if it’s upper body weights.

Ok – I’m sleepy. :) NIGHT!