This month, it looks like I will be keeping myself busy doing a lot of music projects. While I only mentioned two confirmed projects, I have a lot of other ideas that I have yet to bring into reality. I won't be mentioning that just yet.

Some time between March 14 to 18, my friend Twee will be coming down to Houston from Omaha, and we will be reserving ourselves some time to record videos of ourselves doing cover songs and probably re-doing our originals. This time around, I think we are given a little more time than the last time we got together and recorded that "Because The Night" cover using the 10,000 Maniacs rendition. These past few weeks, we have been keeping in touch using Facebook, voting on what we're going to do and what we're NOT going to do. So far, we've only agreed on two songs. lol

For those who didn't get to see our latest upload, I will go ahead and use this article to force it on your face!! lol

Now the other project involves my good friend Xuan Nguyen (Xwansongs). The next live performance Xwansongs will be doing will be on March 24 at the 2012 Vietnamese Festival here in Houston. This time, I will be collaborating along with Chris and Nez on the Xwansongs originals. Though this kinda conflicts with my work schedule, I am very excited to be a part of this project.

At this time, this project is still in the works and we have yet to set some rehearsal dates and planning, just like a few weeks ago. I have to admit, I wasn't as focused during the planning phases and the rehearsal sessions that we had for the Jumps gig. This time, I got my work addictions under control and I now know what I'm getting into when dealing with Xwansongs' music projects. It's a big deal!

I wish someone would've recorded our gig. I would've loved to show them all to you. But luckily, her graphics designer Mike Morones was there to take pics of the event and I hope you don't mind me sharing them here.



That gig at Jumps Bar and Grill is what drew me back into doing music again. Though I've always considered my ability to play the guitar as my curse and not a gift, I'll use this curse to my advantage. :) These two music projects coming up will keep me busy and keep me from doing things I shouldn't be doing. I'm happy that this is all falling back into place in my life. :)

...and I still managed to get them all done and delivered on time!

It's how I get away with tardiness at work.

This morning, traffic was exceptionally horrible. It took me more than an hour to get to the warehouse.

When I arrived at the warehouse, my co-worker asked me if I had called to check on what stop I had. I told him that I didn't. Then he went on to say "Oh, good, because we got robbed this morning and my phone was stolen, too." Damn, I know about drivers getting held up, but robbing the warehouse at gunpoint? Come on!

The operations manager and the owner of the company was at the warehouse's office, watching the surveillance tapes. I didn't even bother saying hi. I was late for work as it is.

I left the warehouse with my car full of boxes. I have to stop at nine delivery sites to deliver all these. The far stops I had were Richwood, Brazoria and West Columbia.

As soon as I finished all my stops, I drove back to the warehouse. I got there at 13:15. I had 6 stops, all of them were near town, except of course, my stop at Brazoria.

Yesterday afternoon, my route was a lot shorter than usual. All day long, I was trying to save on fuel, and I lucked out when my afternoon run was calculated. It was when I was on my way home when I had to get gas.

Today, both morning and afternoon routes, the farthest delivery site I had to go to was in Alvin (the populated area near TX-35 and TX-6). Surprisingly, I only used half a tank of fuel all day long! I wish I had more days like these!!! Between routes, I also went home and chilled for about an hour and a half, eating lunch and killing precious time on the internet.

I lucked out on expenses, too! Not a single penny was spent on food. Unfortunately, as a smoker, I spent $9.54 on two packs of cigarettes. At least I didn't spend over $10 like I normally would. :)

Yes, I may have lucked out on saving on fuel. But it doesn't mean I was tortured by the size of the cargo I had to deliver this morning. Remember, 90% of Wednesday mornings, I will have a lot of boxes to deliver to the Humane Society. This morning, 12 boxes! One box, was bigger than the 11 boxes combined! The Humane Society started to wonder, how am I able to fit THAT box in a Honda Civic Si Sedan? Hell, if I knew the answer to that, I'd take notes... All I know is that it took two people to load it (me and my manager), and two people to take it out (me and an employee of the Humane Society). It also took about 5 minutes to figure out how to get it out of my back seat! lol

Tomorrow, I may not be so lucky. But I know that I was able to skip a day of filling up my tank and have half a tank to use for the morning run. :)

This morning, late as usual, I saw three tiny boxes on my distribution section. Two of them go to Manvel. The other; Brazoria. Gee, sometimes, I don't like having to go to Brazoria for small packages. That is way too many miles for something so small.

Having two stops in the morning, I was able to give myself some time to do some medical deliveries at the Texas Medical Center. Well, I just did one: Proton Therapy to M.D. Anderson Main Lab.

I decided to run a few errands and then drove back to the warehouse before 12pm. This way, I'll have some time to eat and goof off.

The truck arrived at 1:15pm. In it, three huge pallets and a bucket was delivered. As we were breaking down the boxes, I observed how many boxes were going to my distribution section. It started getting filled with boxes, non-stop! I already knew, I'm going to be very busy this afternoon.

The image on the right is a screen capture of an app called "Best Route", which calculates and optimizes a route for trips with multiple stops.  It is very useful for time and/or fuel efficiency.

I soon learned that I had 10 stops. And with this many stops in the afternoon, it tells me that I will be at war with all my delivery sites' closing times. I didn't bother entering my delivery stops into my phone. I just loaded my stuff and left the warehouse as early as I can... 1:35pm.

While I was driving, that's when I did my best entering the addresses into my BestRoute app. With so many addresses to enter, the first two stops were visited out of instinct, meaning, it is pretty obvious that points two and three were the most efficient first stops, since they are in Houston.

So I drove on, delivering these boxes to their designated facilities. By the time I got to Point:7, I realized that I had forgotten to enter in a stop that is located in Pearland. That's where Point:11 is pinned. But it doesn't make any sense for me to make Point:11 the Point:8. The time calculations showed that if I did that, then the last stop I have will be visited past 5:30pm. Points 8, 9, and 10 closes at 5pm.

Moving on, coming from Alvin, TX., I went straight to West Columbia, and routed myself via TX-36 to hit the Brazoria stop. I could've gone to Lake Jackson first, but I'm gonna hit that last (as far as the far stops are concerned), since it will be closest to TX-288 and it will be my speedy access to getting to Point:11.

Today was an exhausting day. I didn't even get home until 6:11pm. But I did get to Point:11 at 5:30pm as the app predicted.

Normally, I do not mind having 10 stops. It pays a lot more. I just wish it would've happened in the morning. I hate fighting the closing times. Yes, it has happened before, where I didn't make it to a particular stop because I wasn't aware of their closing time.  But if I had 10 stops in the morning, I can always be late arriving back at the warehouse. That will never be a problem.

It was a long, tough day, and I still don't feel 100%. My muscles hurt and I'm still exhausted from this past weekend. So now, I'm gonna go to sleep!