Thanks for stopping by! You’ll notice that I’m not your typical Dominican from Paterson, NJ living in San Francisco. Try to blog every Tuesday, but you know, life happens. Please follow on social media.
Change, lots of change this year. This year can be summed up in that quote from Han. There were a lot of moving pieces in my life, and some of those changes will carry on aftershocks into 2022, but I am ready for them.
Biggest change of all, I finally did it, I moved out of Utah. By the time I wrote my 2020 reflection I already knew I was leaving Utah, I had picked the move out date in November, I just didn’t tell anyone outside of my immediate family because of how COVID changes everything. Nothing is guaranteed, and if anything that was exacerbated even further in 2021.
Moving brought a lot of unwanted changes, good and bad. I can go on and on about what was good and bad, but I am going to keep it short and sweet. A co-worker asked me one day when I moved here what is worse than I expected, and better than expected in SF. When he asked me, I had only been here a few weeks, so my answer was not accurate. A few months later I reached out and said hey I lied here are the real answers:
Worse than expected from the move to SF? The noise of a bustling city. My room is right in the front of the building of a corner street that isn’t too busy, but at 6 am you’ve got the garbage truck rolling in, street cleaners after, and upstairs neighbors walking around. So I am abruptly waken up everyday except Sundays.
Better than expected from the move to SF? How much I missed living near the ocean in a coastal city. I grew up my whole life near iconic water fronts. Northeast Jersey has arguably one of the most beautiful cityscape waterfronts in the US, and Santo Domingo is home to the first European establishment in the Americas.
This year was definitely better than 2020 for me, but not as productive. I ended up dropping out of my master’s program, not reading as much, and not blogging as much as I did in 2020. However, this was my most active year by far, I feel in great physical shape, been eating just as healthy as I did in 2020, and have been meeting lots of great people out here in the bay. I do have a plan for turning around the reading and blogging, but school, I am done with that for now. I need a break, a well deserved break, I want to focus on my overall mental and body strength and build those up even more.
Here’s to 2022!
Highlights
Memorable Moment: My trip to New Jersey in May 2021. I always love going back to NJ, someday I might even end up living there or in NYC in the future, who knows. But I got to see my family, all of them, for the first time since the pandemic began, and also got to see my father, who I hadn’t seen in over six years (longest we’ve gone).
Worse moment: When I discovered Champ had an infected dog bite
As weird as it may sound, I first found out about backpacking through the movie Wild. My first time backpacking was one for the books. Outside of what I saw in the movie, I had zero knowledge of the activity. I went to REI to buy and rent shit on my own. My first trip was to Havasupai–a Native American Reservation in the west side of the Grand Canyon.
The trek to the Havasupai campground is a 10 mile downhill hike. I made all the rookie mistakes you could make during this trip. I packed clothes for several days, entire loafs of bread, with your regular bottles of peanut butter and jelly, and if that was not enough I brought several items to make pancakes in the morning (SMH). I was smart about my sleeping gear. A friend lend me a backpacking hammock, and I rented a lightweight sleeping pad and bag from REI. I felt my over-weight, over-packed backpack about 5 or 10 minutes into my trek. Heading out of this canyon I cheated because going in was brutal for me; I ended up getting the worse blisters you could imagine, and could not imagine having to do the trek, the uphill trek, so I took a helicopter ride out. First thing I did was book a nice hotel suite in Vegas, and made dinner reservations at one of my favorite steakhouses in town.
Here’s a picture of me and massively overpacked backpack… Wish I would’ve taken a pic of the full backpack.
After this trip you’d think I’d be done with backpacking… Nope! This really got me going, and left me wanting more. Luckily some of the folks in the group I was in knew quite a bit about backpacking, so I picked their brains for as much as I could. This trip happened in the summer of 2018, and I knew I wasn’t going to get into this in the fall with how things were in my life by then.
Fast forward to Spring 2019 and I was poised to overturn every rookie mistake I made. Signed up for a few REI classes, joined several subreddits, revisited the notes taken from my backpacking friends and this pic sums up the results:
Looking at lot better this time… No crazy items over my head, and a much more appropriate gearset at a reasonable weight.
This picture was taken in the San Rafael Swell in southern Utah. Unfortunately was not able to test out all of my new gear during this trip because me and my friend got lost and couldn’t meetup with a group we were supposed to. Luckily my friend and I ran into someone from that trip (whom we did not get to meet during that trip). He invited me to go to Grand Gulch in Bears Ears National Monument. This was the ultimate test them all trip. Three Days, Two nights, and roughly 35 miles to go through. Guess what? I kicked ass during that trip. That then opened the flood gates and in 2019 I backpacked the following:
Coyote Gulch in Escalante National Monument
Uintas National Forest
Cirque of the Towers in Wind Rivers, WY
Maroon Bells Loop in Aspen, CO
Small Portions of the PCT in Oregon
It also opened the flood gates to many camping trips that happened that summer and fall. Since then I have continued to backpack and also brought along a new friend with me:
TL;DR Went to Havasupai for my first trip where I brought too much shit I didn’t need or use. Got help, adjusted my gear, and have been backpacking lots since.
It was 7:09 am on Wednesday March 18th, 2020. I was still sleeping when all of a sudden I was abruptly woken up by a 5.7 magnitude earthquake. It was scary. I was laying in bed, and immediately got up to find cover and hang on. I kept calling Champ to come to me, but the little guy was terrified. He went to a corner of the apartment and just sat there scared. He even peed himself and he has never had an accident as an adult; understandable given he or I have been through something like this. The quake lasted for a good 30 seconds if I’m not mistaking. I was living in one of those newer condos in downtown SLC, so I could feel the whole building sway. Once the earthquake was over I immediately put on some clothes and went outside. Did ya catch the date above? March 2020, what else was happening in March? Hmmmmm….
Right, we’re in the beginning of what was at the time a scary new coronavirus spreading! As soon as I exited my building I saw everyone was distancing and just scared because of what just happened. Right across the street there was a park with a big soccer field, so I went there to go wait things out a bit. Luckily we ran into Champ’s best friend so I just let the two of them play out there while I contacted my family and friends.
It was safe to go back in, but unfortunately the power was out and not coming back until 10p that day; I found it weird Rocky Mountain gave us a specific time. So I decided to go to my company’s office; it was going to be empty anyways, and empty it was. I did bring Champ with me because he was frighten. The aftershocks were scaring him and we had more than 50 aftershocks 2 hours after the quake, I couldn’t leave him home alone without power. In the office one of the Security Guards saw him, but gave me a pass saying “I didn’t see a dog here;” thankful for that. Afterwards I went to my sisters place to wait for the power to come back, and right when the clock struck 10p lo and behold the power was back.
What’s the moral of the story? 2020 was weird. This was just one of those weird moments I went through. I’ll never forget how this felt, or Champs’ reaction to the quake; he looked so innocent and scared, I can tell he even felt guilty for the accident, but I wasn’t going to get mad at him for it. Whenever we ran into our next quake, hopefully we’re prepared.
TL;DR Scary quake, Champ peed himself, and this all happened with the coronavirus started spreading.
I am a big Kevin Durant fan. His game is just out of this world at times. For those NBA fans keeping track, 2016 was a particular interesting year. It was Kobe Bryant’s last NBA season, Golden State established the record for most wins in a season, the Cleveland Cavaliers came back from a 3-1 deficit in the finals to win the chip, and 2016 was KD’s last season in Oklahoma City.
When the season began I had a feeling this would be Kevin Durant’s last season in OKC. I’ve been watching him and this team for years and really admired their home court advantage. My cousin, Randy, who was living in Utah at the time, was also a big KD and OKC fan. We both decided we had to get out there before KD left and witness a game in person. We began planning for this trip towards the end of 2015. My sister had recently moved into Utah and wanted to tag along with us; had no interest whatsoever in going to the game.
Like I’ve said before I like road trips. I like the planning, the driving, the everything involved with road trips. So I took it upon myself to get everything arranged for us. I went ahead and scouted best restaurants in our routes, places to see and go. Here’s the route we took for our trip:
In case you didn’t notice that’s roughly 2600 miles of driving without detours; not the most I’ve taken on, but quite a bit.
Day 0 – Friday, March 11th 2016
The day before the trip began. We were planning to leave early on Day 1 because of the amount of miles we were driving. I scheduled to pickup the rental late because I had a snowboarding class that day; I think I scheduled it for 9pm. When I arrived at the rental counter I was asked for my insurance card. I didn’t have my car or my insurance card with me. My car was in Orem where I was living at the time. To this day this has been the only company that asked me for this; I’ve rented all over the country and from several companies and not once have I been asked for my insurance card. The rental company closed at 10p and it was impossible for me to go and drive back from Orem before 10p. The representative said they would honor my rental the next day first thing in the morning. So I left, went to go get my insurance card, got ready for the trip, and went to bed early so that I could pick up the rental early.
Day 1 – Saturday, March 12th 2016
Woke up early, had everything ready, so I hopped out of bed, put on clothes and went straight to the rental company. This rental company canceled my reservation, and charged me a penalty for not picking up the car. The representative that was attending me was not left aware of the situation I ran into the night before. But wait there’s more, this company did not even have a car to rent out to me on this day. They made me wait a long time before telling me this. I was beyond furious with them and just left because I did not want to be mean to the representatives, they were just doing there jobs. Luckily I found another rental just a few minutes away within the amount we had budgeted for a car. At this other company everything went really smoothly compared to that first one.
On Day 1 we had planned to leave early so that we can go to both Monument Valley, and Four Corners. Because of the delayed pick up we had to choose between one of them; Four Corners unfortunately closes at 4pm, and we were just barely going to make it there before they closed, and it didn’t make sense to go back to Monument Valley afterwards. One rule I have on Road Trips is, I do not like to drive at night. I want to keep that to as least as possible, which is why I plan on having a day wasted just for travel.
We hit the road from SLC at 8:30am. Stopped in Orem to pickup my cousin, and went straight to Monticello, UT. My cousin was a big fan of Shake Shack, and I had found this bootleg Shake Shack in UT. I was planning for us to have lunch at this joint, but unfortunately this placed was closed for the season. There weren’t many options open in this town, so we had lunch in Blanding instead. We were still on schedule to make it to Four Corners before 4pm, and to our hotel in Farmington, NM before dark. Four Corners, was meh, we took some fun pictures though. On our way to Farmington we saw this weird shaped rock. We kept getting closer, and closer. We were all startled by it, like confused, because it looked like an Alien Ship, and funny enough I looked it up afterwards and saw that it’s called Shiprock. Checked in at our hotel as scheduled and called it a day. This was a long day, with the rental fiasco, and all the driving, so we all needed some rest.
Day 2 – Sunday, March 13th, 2016
I had planned lots for us this day. I noticed there was this nearby dam that had some beautiful east facing views, so I woke up the crew before dawn. Our hotel did not include breakfast, and the only place open was McD’s, so we went thru their drive-thru. Drove straight to Navajo Damn and just took in the sunrise. It was beautiful and peaceful.
We hit the road and headed towards Taos Pueblo. We drove through some mountain passes on our way there. Luckily the weather was on our side because if it had been snowing we would have been screwed. The views were beautiful. When we made it to Taos Pueblo we found out the historic monument was closed for the season; what?!? I was so bummed because I had found this little gem, but did not know it was closed for the winter months. We did drive around the town a little to take in the architecture views. This town definitely has an Aztec feel to it. After driving around hit the highway again with direction to Santa Fe, NM. To my surprise we drove over the Rio Grande. We had to stop to take in the views.
We made it to Santa Fe and had brunch at this cute little restaurant. The food was phenomenal. The weather was great, so we sat outside and just embraced the weather, sunlight and great food. Afterwards we explored around Santa Fe, NM. This town has a like a Spanish feel to it. Reminded me of the Zona Colonial in my hometown of Santo Domingo. After sight seeing found our way to the interstate with direction towards Albuquerque.
I only planned for us in Albuquerque to go up the Sandia mountain since we had to make our way to Amarillo, TX that night. I did leave it open for Dianne and Randy to do anything they had in mind. Randy wanted to go see Walter White’s house from Breaking Bad. Funny enough they were several people there who went to go see the house. The owners seemed so disgusted that we were there. They had signs all over the place saying TO NOT THROW PIZZA on the roof, lol.
We drove around downtown Albuquerque, found a descent empanadas spot, and drove through Route 66. It was pretty cool driving through Route 66 since there were lots of choppers, and old school car meet ups. After all the sight seeing went up the Sandia mountain not thinking much of it. When we made it to the top we were mesmerized by the views. Do yourself a favor and go up there to the very top viewpoint; it is beautiful. Even for a few Utahns where we have great views everywhere. We were running late at this point, so we didn’t spend too much time up there and went straight to Amarillo, TX where we had a hotel reservation for the night.
Day 3 – Monday March 14th, 2016
This is it. This was the big day. This was the Portland vs. OKC game, so we had to make it to OKC for the game. Luckily the game started at 7pm, so we had plenty of time. Since OKC was a 4hr drive from Amarillo I gave the crew the morning off so that they can catch-up on rest. When they woke up we checked out of our hotel, had an awesome ribeye steak lunch in Amarillo, and checked out the old route 66. Made a few stops here and there to see a few sights. Afterwards went straight to Oklahoma City. Made it to our hotel at a really good time. Rested a little and went straight to the game in order to catch the pre-game workouts. Man, I don’t know how games in OKC are nowadays since Westbrook and Durant are gone, but back then that was quite the show. Like shit, we had a blast starting from the moment we were outside the arena with some drummers, all the way to the end of the game. OKC has this tradition in their home games where the crowd does not sit until the first bucket is scored. Take a look at that next time you see a televised game from OKC. OKC obviously blew Portland away and easily won the game. We got to see Durant and Westbrook kill it. Mission accomplished! After the game we went to a nearby bar to get something to drink and eat with my sister.
Day 4 – Tuesday March 15th, 2016
For Randy and I the trip might as well could’ve ended after the OKC game because that’s why went out there for, and it was a hell of a game. But we were still in OKC, so it was worth exploring while there. I had planned for us to have this entire day to just get to know Oklahoma City. First order of business was food. I gotta say the most underrated burgers in all of US are the Onion Burgers in OKC. My gosh them burgers were good, really good! After eating we were torn between going to the National Cowboy museum or this lake Randy had found on his list. We went to the lake and weren’t at all impressed; should’ve gone to the museum instead, oh well. Drove around downtown for some sight seeing. We split from my sister and went to a baseball game where the OKC Dodgers play; some other team was playing that day. Randy wanted to go eat at KD’s, a restaurant dedicated and themed after Kevin Durant at the time. KD’s didn’t open until dinner time, so to kill time we decided to watch a movie, 10 Cloverfield Lane; heck of a movie if you haven’t seen it. Went to KD’s for dinner, and I gotta say the food was really good. I didn’t order anything myself, only tried some of Randy’s, but it was really good. After dinner did a little bit more site seeing at night and then called it a day.
Day 5 – Wednesday March 16th, 2016
Travel day! This was our last day in OKC and we were facing the long journey from OKC to Denver, CO in one shot. First order of business was food, and I had to take Randy to the Waffle House since we were in the south because he had never tried it. Cleaned the car, checked out, and hit the road. On our way to Denver we stopped at The Top of Oklahoma museum in Blackwell. This museum while interesting was kind of creepy. Randy and Dianne were obsessed with this clown doll they found in a corner. Head straight to Wichita, KS for lunch. On our way there we crossed our first tollbooth in the entire trip. Randy was so happy to see one because we don’t have any in UT and it obviously reminded him of Jersey. Had a descent lunch in Wichita, afterwards walked around and went sight seeing. It’s a cute little town. Definitely liked the brickyard neighborhood. After Wichita we were running behind on schedule, remember I don’t like driving in the night, so we went straight to Denver.
A side story for this day. I really screwed up on this day. This is where I screwed . Instead of going to that museum in Oklahoma and spending so much time in Wichita I should have planned for and researched the town of Hutchinson, KS. What’s in Hutchinson, KS you may ask? Well let me tell you. The freaking spaceships and artifacts from the Apollo 13 mission! They’re stored in the Cosmosphere Museum. Along with that there is Strataca, a big salt mines where a lot of artifacts are kept because of how well they are preserved. Big mistake on my part, but oh well, definitely on my to-do list.
Day 6 – Thursday, March 17th, 2016
It’s been quite the trip so far, but oh you’re in for a treat. The trip has only started at this point, lol. We made it to Denver late the night before and had to wake up early. Today Randy and I were going to split from Dianne and go snowboarding in Loveland ski area. My best friend, my sister from another mother, my homie, Patry, lived in Denver, and she had free tickets to this ski resort. We picked up the tickets, got breakfast at the Denver Biscuit Company, picked up our rentals and went straight to the Ski Area. Little did we know a big storm was headed that way, and it was going to create a nirvana like snowboarding conditions. There was so much powder, it was crazy. This day was bound to fail for many reasons:
I got altitude sickness because of the insanely sweet and huge breakfast I had an hour before snowboarding.
The lack of rest from the night before.
My history with keys (more on this later) .
The snow storm (although it provided some of the best shredding I’ve ever done).
After I was able to hydrate enough to fight off the altitude sickness Randy and I shredded the shit of that mountain. We did Blues, we did a little bit of a Black, we went all the way to the very top of the mountain and snowboarded like crazy that day. It was sooo much fun. We had been taking a snowboarding class all winter and were ready to put our skills to the test, and boy were we ready.
This is where things go south. We were all done shredding and took a picture at the bottom to remember this majestic day. Right after the picture was taken I reached for my pocket to get the car keys, lo and behold my pocket was never zipped up and the keys were gone. Have you ever ridden a scary roller coaster? You know that feeling you get in your heart/chest during that first big drop, that’s what I felt. “Shit! Where are the keys?” – I said. We could not do much. I went to Ski Patrol, and they said they usually have ski patrol go through the runs after closing, but with all the fresh snow falling it will be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Long story short the keys never showed up. We were supposed to go to Patry’s house for dinner that night; she was going to cook for us. I tried getting help through the rental company, but they couldn’t help me since I was so far away from their location. I called Patry afterwards and she dropped everything and went to go pick us up. The drive back to Denver was scary because of all the snowfall; we even swerved a lot on the road, but luckily made it back safely. We ended the day by going to TGI Fridays for some booze and food since it was St. Pattys day. I was supposed to pickup my girlfriend at the time from the airport, but since this debacle happened I had her meet us at TGIF.
Day 7 – Friday, March 18th, 2016
Well our rental car is stuck in the mountains, the keys have not and will not show up. I tried getting a hold of several locksmiths in hopes of getting into the car but none of them would go out this far to service the car so I had to get it towed. Luckily it was a new car, so I found a loophole where I was able to get it towed to a Toyota Dealer for free. Anyways, back to Friday, this day was supposed to be Denver day. Get to go out and explore the city with the gang. Instead I spent most of the morning doing damage control in hopes of getting a car so that we can drive back to SLC. I have to say I was really lucky to have Patry in Denver, without her we would’ve been really screwed. She helped me get around town, and afterwards we were able to still explore a bit. We decided to go to Golden, CO to tour the Coors Factory. Later on, my girlfriend at the time had booked a hotel for me and her in downtown. She wanted to have a date night. Funny enough that also got screwed. I ended up somehow getting some kind of food poison and was sick all night so we weren’t able to do anything. It was a really gorgeous and romantic hotel I have to say, oh well.
Day 8 – Saturday, March 19th, 2016
This was supposed to be a travel day where we get back to SLC, but we still didn’t have access to the car. The car was still in Loveland on this day. My hope was getting the car to a Toyota dealer so that they can make a new key. I have to say I had a guarding angel at the Rental co. When I lost the keys I mentioned how I called the rental company for help. This lady helped me and she said the best thing to do was find a way to get the car to their location at the Denver Airport. I don’t know why I didn’t stick to this first. After being unsuccessful at making a new key for the car at the Toyota dealer I called the rental company again, and lo and behold it was the same lady again. She didn’t want to tell me directly, but she kept insisting don’t worry about getting the key replaced, just get the car to the rental location and they’ll take care of me. It’s like she was telling me, dude we’re not going to make a big deal out of this and charge you all these fees. I got the car to their location, and I have to say there priority was helping me get my belongings out of the car and into a new car. Got the new car, was waiting for a bill, nothing, no charges. The gang was out and about without me this day. They wanted to help, but I told them this was on me, so I had to get this fixed however I could. Luckily I did. At 4:30p I was able to pick them up from downtown Denver. I put it up for a vote and said should we pay for a one night at a hotel and leave first thing in the morning to SLC, or leave right now. Everyone just wanted to go home, so we hit the road. We broke my role of driving at night, but luckily we took turns driving back to SLC. We made it back to SLC safely around 1:30am into Sunday.
TL;DR there was so much that happened in this trip. This is one of my most memorable trips because of the people I shared this with, the moments and places we experienced, how I fucked up by losing the rental keys when snowboarding, and how we pulled together at the end to make it back home safely.
When the iPad was first announced in 2010 I didn’t think they were worth it. I thought it was an oversized iPhone. I was able to help a few friends set theirs up. Skip to the second generation and I felt like it was the perfect present for my father. He loved to use his computer, but he was a really mobile person. In the second generation Apple really went in on improving the product. I still didn’t feel like it had a place for me. Back then my Macbook was still relatively new, and my iPhone was great. I was a little tempted with the mini, but still held out.
Let’s fast forward to 2014. I was commuting everyday between Salt Lake City and Orem. Total commute time was 90 minutes each way. For 60 of those 90 minutes I was on a passenger train called the Frontrunner. This train has free Wi-Fi for its’ passengers, but it sucks. Some seats had tables, but they weren’t always available, and they are pretty small. It’s when it hit me that this was where an iPad would help. My first purchase was the iPad Air with Cellular so that I won’t run into the issue of using poor wifi since I was commuting a lot. I immediately fell in love with the device. It was great for reading, doings some quick write-ups, watching videos, among others. The most beneficial feature for me was using it as a second screen with my Macbook whenever I was studying. I would keep my notes up on my iPad, and work on whatever problem I had to solve on my Mac. Another benefit that came with using this alongside my Mac was that it extended the life of my Mac. I was able to offload a lot of processes and it enabled me to use my Mac as my daily computer for 8 years; It is worth nothing that I did upgrade the RAM and the Hard Drive to an SSD. The longest a computer lasted before was roughly 4 years.
Old pic of when I was in school coding
Recently I decided to upgrade to the newer iPad Air (2020). It made me think how much this product has grown on me. I really love it. It’s still perfect for the aforementioned reasons, and it’s only gotten better since then. To this day, it is my favorite device to read a book on. I actually like reading an eBook on my iPad more than the physical book. My last iPad was handed down to my Mom, and hopefully it still stays strong for her. This device held strong for me for 6 years.
TL;DR iPads are great. Buy one if you need a computer, but don’t need a laptop.
