the start of this month found me down in jersey for my second visit to ikea with manny, then later helping his sister maureen move back to mt.holyoke. i came back to the house with the floors all refinished, took a few days to tape the edges, and then a few more days to cover up the whole place with rosen paper, in preparation for the painting. i've painted before in the house, last month, primed the guest bedroom, in preparation for claudio's stay (he ended up sleeping out in the living room, i took the bedroom). that was back when the floors were still old and it didn't matter that i got paint on the floor (which i did). this time however, with new floors, it was different, so i had to cover up. my father and i painted the walls of the living room and foyer. after a week of cleanup work, i invited some people (amanda, carrie, julie) to come and help me paint. originally we were suppose to do some vibrant coloring, but ended up just priming, although we did prime most of the house including the ceilings. after another day of edging, i started the final ceiling coat (with some of drake's help). the following day i started a week's worth of nonstop solo painting, doing two coats of color for each room, with only the bathroom and kitchen left uncovered. that takes us to th past few days where i've been busy taping the walls in preparation for the final offensive of white trim painting.

in this month more people came to visit my place for the very first time, including my aunt and uncle, my godmother, john miller, my grandmother, drake, paula and jonathan, eric beacom, and klea.

caught a bunch of movies in september, most of them at midnight down at the coolidge corner theatre in brookline: story of ricky, bring it on, and master of the flying guillotine. the only new movie i saw was one hour photo.

other than that, september was just another month where my life was consumed by the forces of home renovation. hopefully this will all be over in october. i'd like my life to be consumed with living in my new house and learning how to cook and finding a job.

i really don't know why it takes so long to tape, but do you know that in the process, not only do i paint each room three times, but in rooms with ceiling trims, i have to trace the perimeter 4 times with blue masking tape? once around along the floor (this i did a while back), once around above the baseboards, once around below the trims, once around above the trims. floor taping is easy, but taping around the trims is a really pain in the ass. i tape a little bit, climb down the ladder, move the ladder, climb up the ladder, tape some more, repeat, over and over again. sometimes i rest the spool of tape on top of the window frame or door frame, other times i just keep it in my hand, pulling off enough tape so there'd be enough slack so i can move the ladder. there's also a hidden danger on the floor, a rectangular vent on the floor where the forced air heating comes up, but these vents are covered, so i have to make sure i don't accidently put the ladder on a hole and fall into my basement.

it was very cold in my house this morning. i wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that the contractors ripped out a third of the insulation from the basement ceiling? i have to remember to staple gun all that pink fluff back into place. i figured it was just as cold outside, but when i went to the mailbox to send away my unemployment postcard, i noticed it was much warmer outside, so i opened up a few windows when i got back and things got more comfortable. i spent some time in my new backyard, and found a leaf skeleton. i love leaf skeletons. the word "skeleton" has a creepy connotation, but at the same time leaf skeletons are so intricate and delicate and beautiful. my shower curtains actually have leaf skeleton patterns on them.

eric beacom contacted me via aim, about a certain screen house artifact that i might be interested in acquiring. when you have your own house with an empty basement, you begin to hoard stuff you would never normally think about keeping. at least it's true in my case. the artifact was the large screen house sign that used to adorn the front entrance of the boston design office, featuring a metal 3 feet wide circular screen house logo and the accompanying letters (also metal, aluminum?) that spelled out the name of the company. i think it just blows my mind that i have in my possess two priceless artifacts that sort of embodied what screen house use to be: the foosball table, which was probably a ubiquitous centerpiece of many dot-com companies, symbolic of a time when we played just as much as we worked, and now the company sign, symbolic of when the company seemingly hit the jackpot and started to get big. i left cambridge around rush hour to meet joyce down in watertown at a storage facility that was housing a lot of screen house stuff from the boston design center. i got the logo, the board with the blacklit light where the logo was mounted, and a box full of letters. joyce was surprised to learn that i would want the sign. "i thought you hated the screen house when you...left," she said. i had mixed feelings back then, but now i look back on all the good and the bad as nothing more than history, and definitely more pleasant memories than bitter ones. tomorrow i'll bring it to cambridge and put it in my secret underground vault.

i got a forwarded e-mail from sooz today, from a guy looking for somebody who fit the "asian geek" stereotype to do some paid film production work. i immediately called the number, got somebody there. "do you fit the 'asian geek' image?" he asked. "i fit the asian image, but i don't know about the geek," i told him. he asked for a headshot, i stammered and said i have zero experience in this industry ("i don't have one"), but if he went to this here weblog, he could find little thumbnail photos of me. he did that, and after seeing what i look like, he said i'd be perfect for the part. still not quite sure what the part entailed, i had to ask, "what exactly is this job?" turns out i'm to be a model for a royalty free photocd photo shoot. they have different classifications, e.g. business people, and the one i'm doing is for their hip and tendy collection. it didn't matter to me however way i'd be classified, the bottom line is i get paid for a few hours of work, but it's kind of exciting to know that my image might be potentially used on some brochure or print ad somewhere. i hope i don't become that really geek asian guy with glasses that i've seen in a few tech ads. i think you know the guy i'm talking about. he's got spikey hair and he his a weird smile. i'm different because i have a pompadour and i only smile in ironic reaction to something sad. i should ride my motorcycle to the shoot, to further distance myself from the geek label. not that i care, really. 28 years old, the only things i'm afraid of are death, taxes, poverty, and std's.

my parents were due back from their 18 day china/taiwan trip tonight, but they never called me nor my sister about going to the airport to pick them up, even though i knew that's what they wanted. instead, they called my grandmother and aunt who relayed the message to us with no flight information or point of departure, just a time of arrival and the airline. i did some online searching to look for some possible flights, and then my sister and i drove to logan airport, not knowing if my parents would really be there. inside the central parking garage however, we got a cellphone call from them, telling us where they were. after a bit of searching (logan airport is so confusing), we found them and brought them home.

i'm not sure where they went to in china (southern china, close to burma or something), but i've briefly looked over the 981 digital photos my father took and pulled out a few sample shots to share what they saw over there (all photos taken by my parents):