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Every year I seem to miss the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and
Last edited Sun Jan 1, 2017, 11:18 AM - Edit history (4)
By YuiYoshida
The Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena on New Years day. I don't have a TV and once found a link to the Parade that was an hour old, not live. Was told to check out Youtube, but most of them were from Last Year.
(Makes me wonder if someone got a Big Huge Balloon of Trump floating in the parade this year kinda, Like the Joker did in that Batman movie years back. )
I don't know, maybe its not worth it. It was something I enjoyed as a kid, and I always enjoyed hearing stories of people who made the trip down to Pasadena to watch the Parade in person and all their interesting stories about those beautiful flowered floats and how it took 30 man hours to get them ready.
When I worked in Santa Barbara, I worked for an answering service who had Bob Eubanks as a client. He would always ask me every year if I was going to head down to the Parade and I always told him, no. I told him some of us a had to work on New Years day, like he did, and he said yes but He enjoyed doing this kind of work. Good for you Bob. I am sure you got paid better than a bunch of low income Answering Service Operators who had to work, just to make ends meet in expensive Santa Barbara. Often I worked all the Holidays, because yeah it was that expensive.
News Year day was always a big day in our household, as that was the day they always had a ton of football games that my dad would watch. He would always brag how he had a bunch of sure fire Bets going on certain College teams that in reality he knew nothing about.
These days, he and my mom go to Las Vegas from December 23 to January 3rd to enjoy the thrills of gambling. He will always come back and brag about how well they did, usually yanking out a big roll of bills to show me... Once, I noticed there was a 50, on top with a bunch of one's hidden under it.. Yeah. Okay, sure... congratulations, Dad you broke the bank at MGM Grand Casino!
I normally spend Christmas and New Years at home by myself. I bought a bottle of Sake for last night but never bothered to open it. Not with this new year being what it will be, with Trump becoming President in 20 some days. Its not worth the celebration to me, sorry.
Besides, I may need it some day when Trump removes some item from the agenda that fully affects me, like taking away our Social Security and replacing them with vouchers, or some such crap.
I really wanted to feel positive this year, but some how that's been replaced with gloom and doom, of a Trump Presidency. I may go out and get involved in Gavin Newsom's political campaign as I heard he is starting early, trying to build up momentum. I haven't been politically active in years, and will have a lot of time on my hands, since according to someone on twitter, it will take about 6 months before the first Marijuana Store will get its licence and products to start selling Legally in California. (Provided the Trump Administration doesn't try to come in and squash every store selling the stuff, unless, someone tells them, "Hey, its to your benefit and advantage to have all those people high, as they won't work against you! They will be too busy getting stoned.) I do plan on buying as many bags as I am allowed to..
Years ago, living in Utah, of all places, I lived with some girl friends who had a constant wooden bowl of pot, under a small table in the living room. The rules were simple, if you wanted to smoke some from a pipe or a bong, just slip a ten dollar bill into the locked box sitting on the table. At the end of the month, that locked box was opened, counted, and taken to the nearest dealer, for a grocery bag size brick of marijuana that would last a month. It was fun for a while, but eventually I got really bored with smoking weed all day long. I needed to get out and find my own apartment, which I did. A year later found myself in Scottsdale Arizona, growing Aloe Vera cactus on my back porch in 119 degree weather. I had so many I was giving the little ones away...
Someone told me I could sell them, and I did, making enough money to help buy a bus ticket back to San Francisco, where I returned home to live with my folks. (during those Years, I lived in Arizona, Utah and Idaho of all places.) Idaho was way too cold for me, and most of the people there didn't know what to make of this Asian girl, who was living among them. Most were not that friendly, saying under their breath that I should return to where ever the hell I came from, and I took their advice and eventually left.
I have no wanderlust now. Who can afford it, anyway? Coming back to San Francisco I could not find a local job and was so depressed, I went to visit my former language teacher, who was from Japan. He said he had just the thing and set me up, at first with a great job doing English Sub-titles for a Japanese Anime company, who had a small office in the City. Later, they brought me in, and said, despite doing a great job, they found someone in Tokyo to replace me. They could see, that I was crushed, that I lost my job and offered me a distribution job from my home.
"All you do is log on to the website, follow instructions and start sending us orders, for stores on the list, who needed to either expand their Anime list or refresh their current list."
Seemed like an easy thing to do, so I started and haven't stop working for them for five or six years now. Got one raise recently, as they know its expensive here in San Francisco. Several times I have been invited to go and visit their main office in Tokyo, but had to politely decline because of the air fare, but they did contact me, and told me,
"we are sending one of our executives to your city". Oh god, I thought....
"Please show him around and help him with his English."
So for a while I had a bit of extra work to do and the guy was fairly nice and eager to learn about life in San Francisco and the United States.
Trump followers would have hated this guy, as he requested information about living and working in San Francisco. I helped him find information via Immigration Services and after a while he eventually left here for Tokyo.
They, however had no intentions of letting him come back, as they needed information from him about how things worked in our fair city and how American cities would benefit from the company's services.
I have since gone back to doing my regular work each day as usual. Maybe they will notice, that I did this big favor for them, and send me other executes to chaperon around. (The free meals on company expenses were nice!)
Anyway, I have wandered way off the subject, and probably should tell everyone, I have no plans of going anywhere, and to have a Happy and prosperous New Years. In Japanese we say:
akemashite omedetō gozaimasu, 明けましておめでとうございます。 Enjoy the Rosebowl today, I have
no clue who is playing.
30 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
As to trouble... the more, the better. Just make the goal one worth defending, which you unflinchingly do. That's why I am proud to be on your team.
My best to you. Happy happy to you and yours.
I have a team? Don't tell my dad, he will want to bet on them! 
Just keep it up. DU needs people like you.
The most I've ever done here is flap my gums. However, I think I know value when I see it.
Someone once sent me a inbox message saying, "Hey, I thought all you Asians were brilliant??, Just Kidding, LOL"
no, we're not. Thanks for pointing that out 
Wish you all the best! 
I couldn't help thinking of this and laughing ....
