JustinMar.com: The official website of Justin Mar

I just wanted to squeeze in a short post before the year of 2006 comes to an end. There were many events that happened within this year. Some good and some bad. Overall, it always feels like every year passes faster and faster. 2006 sure did fly by fast. The biggest personal milestone that I can say that happened in 2006 is the fact that I turned 30 years old. I feel the same, I look the same, but only a year older. I had a spectacualar birthday celebration with family and friends. It was good to see people I seldom see often; so seeing everyonewas a huge gift in itself. We played games, ate until we were stuffed and had a merry time. I hate to say this, but 2006 was not a good year for some friends and family that I know. A lot serious health issues derived and some almost close to life threatening. Not a good year, but at least we survived through it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed with wishes that 2007 turns out better. Hopefully 2007 will be starting year of a new career

Mickey the innocent little dog with dominance aggression has a little problem with his intestines. He has Tapeworms !!! We're unsure how he contracted this problem, but it's obviously not from eating McDonald's Hamburgers. Mickey possibly contracted the tapeworm problem from eating a flea that hosted the tapeworm larvae. I also noticed that he also licks plants and grass, which can be another way he contracted it. Tapeworms can be contagious to humans, but only contracted if we too eat the larvae from fleas or his stools. I noticed that Mickey had this issue when I was taking him out for his routine walk around the neighborhood. As I picked up his poop, I noticed a white object about the size of grain of rice on his poop. Holding my breath and observing it a little more, I noticed that this grain of rice started moving!! This discovery now gives me a solution as to why he has an increased appetite. Mickey is usually in the ballpark of seven pounds. He feels much heavier no

Today embarked the sad announcement of the death of James Kim , a CNET senior editor that died in the Oregon forests from a family roadtrip that went bad. It's been all over the news since his family and himself were announced missing. The fortunate news was that his wife and two children survived and found in good health. It's just very sad that he wasn't able to survive the cold weather, with limited food, and with very limited resources. My deepest sympathy goes out to his lovely family that he left behind. He is a man that gave his life basically to assure the lives of his family. I don't know Kim personally, but I did read his reviews on MP3 media players on CNET. May he rest in peace. To turn this subject into a happier moment, I wanted to announce Mickey's 7th birthday! Mickey is my dog that has a loveable innocent demeanor, yet can quickly change into an attack dog that bites. His personality is unpredictable, but lately he has been a good dog. So it's

I can't believe that people still camp outside in the wee hours of the morning for all the deals offered on Black Friday. Yes, there are good deals, but is it worth the headache? You basically have to camp out in the cold, sometimes rain, fight with other consumers, whord as many items, and then stand in line for hours to pay for the money saving deals. Again I ask....is it worth it? I honestly think black Friday is just the retailer's form of creating chaos to get the consumers in the spirit of spending money. What spirit does this create when you basically view the store as a battleground! Have you ever thought of this from another perspective? All the savings you are gaining actually turns into wasted money later? Getting a great deal is just a state of mind. A good deal from someone's perspective can honestly be different from another person's perspective. Saavy buyers know a good deal when they see one, but in reality they end up buying some useless obje

Don't worry! No one died. A wonderful friend/neighbor to S and myself moved away. This person will be named, "T" for the sake of confidentiality. T now lives about a 15 minutes away from us. We'll miss her companionship, the late night food runs, eating ice cream while watching movies, more eating, tapioca/milk tea drives to San Mateo, watching channel 728 in HD, picking on S, and above all......FARTING. Having a great friend to hang out everyday made coming home more entertaining and enjoyable. It was convenient that T lived next door to us and it was one of the main reasons why we decided to purchase the condo (to live next door to her). Now that she's gone, things will be a bit different. I'm sure that S will be taking it hard because T was her friend since Jr. High. We will still see T, but not as often. Our condo will be a little quieter, a little less active, and I hate to say.....more boring. I guess the change will also help S and I concentrate on thin

The Cobalt (aka Clare) has been out of commission for awhile. It's been awhile since I've blogged and I wanted to update everyone on what's going on. In my previous blog, I raved about the POM tea and now we have plenty of empty bottles. It was good as it lasted. Ok, back to the subject. On Sunday, October I was driving to work and just so happened to run over a bouncing SUV tire on the westbound section of highway 580 in Oakland. Avoiding debis on the road always causes havoc and it can also potentially cause an accident. The car in front of me ran over the tire and kicked the tire into my drive path. As I see the tire bouncing in front of me, I had four choices to make in a matter of seconds. 1) Hit the center divide to my left, 2) Hit the person to my right pacing at the same speed, 3) Slam on my brakes and have the tailgater butt ram me, or 4) Hit the tire head on. I chose option 4. I cringed as the tire goes under the car and listening to the loud "thump". I

POM TEA (they have a cool website) is the greatest tea that you can buy at your local grocery store. Not only do you get the antioxidants that you need for good health, you also get a nice glass for a keepsake! I'm sounding like an advertisement for them! In any case, I love this tea! Especially their Pomegranate Peach Passion White Tea. It's sweet to the taste and smooth as goes down your throat. It also happens to be on sale at SAFEWAY . Their promotion is 10 for $10 (yes, a dollar each). The normal price is close to $2.50 to $3.00 a glass. Since they are on sale, we've decided to stock up on this great drink. Yes, call it overkill, but it's too good of a beverage to pass up and again, you get the nice glass to keep afterwards. The lids are resealable too! Now that we have a fridge full of these teas, who needs beer? At least it won't make you fat. We purchased 25 bottles, although two did not make it home. Ahhhh! Join the POM revolution! Try one today! Especial

From the title of this blog post, please be informed that you should not read this after eating a full meal. I somewhat wish I can transmit smells over the internet for this story. It's probably the worst I've ever had to deal with in a long time. I also hope that the customers that I dealt with don't have access to the internet. They don't seem like the tech type. In any case, here's the story. The customer calls the dealership early in the morning. They explain to the sales manager that they are without a vehicle and they are really interested in buying two vehicles. So my sales manager sends a salesperson out to their residence to pick them up from their residence. The customers arrive to the dealership and the salesperson walks back to the sales desk with a big smirk. It's a husband a wife and their look like they are in the mid-forties. The wife was disabled and she walked with a cane. So they look like a normal couple ready to buy two cars. So the salesper

It's been over a month since my last post and I feel really bad that I haven't been able to consistantly blog something everyday. There shouldn't be an excuse (i'm so harsh on myself)! I know this is a bit premature since we're not close to end of the year, but I've noticed that 2006 has not been a good year for some of us; especially for a lot of people I know. First of all for myself, 2006 embarks the year that I turn 30 years old! My health has not been the greatest this year. After my Peru trip in September 2005, I had to see the doctor to get checked out because I fractured my tailbone. So my doctor suggested that I have complete physical. Then from that point on, my health has gone downhill because I have high blood pressure, very high cholesterol, and a fatty liver. I find that it's good that I'm aware of these conditions at a young age, but it involves a lot of discipline to adapt your body to the changes for a healthier lifestyle. Now that I

I have my first weekend off approaching within a few days. Looking forward to a little R&R whenever these days approach. Especially when we are shorted handed staff wise. It's been nice that I have rotating days where I can sleep in and not show up to work until noon. So I feel at least a little bit more rested with the late start rotation. Yesterday, (Tuesday, August 15) I made a really good dinner with the ingredients we had in the fridge. We had some red potatoes. So I boiled them, mashed them up, added fresh chopped garlic, butter, and some milk...to make some good MASHERS. For vegetables, we had some zucchini provided from one of Sherry's co-worker's uncle. The zucchini was compliemented with red onion strips stir fried with butter and a zest of fresh lemon juice. For the main dish, I prepared BBQ Breaded Chicken breast strips. There was plenty of leftovers available. My sister made some fresh sourdough rolls....and we made chicken sandwiches out of them

First post in the month of August. I have a very busy work schedule ahead due to the fact that we are short handed. We used to have a management staff of four which is not currently down to two managers. We used to have a sales staff of seven and now down to four. It's nice to have a full staff, although if just makes work more tiresome since we have to work longer hours to compensate the slimmer staff. Change does happen fast without notice. Being able to adapt to these changes is what makes you a better employee. Wait a minute, a foolish employee. The result of the reduction of staff has to do with people moving on in their career or in a different career direction. One is working in the oil business, one just couldn't come to terms with upper management, one had to relocate to another store to fill in, and one will just follow the other. It's basically a ripple effect. There is some change in my work schedule. Now I have to work six out of the seven days in a week.

OK folks. I know I've been slacking again big time! Been busy with a lot of events. Spent a weekend in Yosemite, had a long work week, and dealing with the hot weather. I'll post pictures of the Yosemite trip in my next posting. Just haven't had time to publish the photos on my official website. Here's just a few things that have happened when I should have been blogging. 1. My 50" Plasma TV broke. It's under warranty, but it hasn't been in operation for two weeks because the replacement part is on order. 2. Visited Yosemite on the weekend of July 14-16th. Hiked up to Half Dome, but didn't climb up to the ropes. I dehydrated and ended up with some painful leg cramps. Was able to make it at least to the base of the dome and back down to curry village. 3. Installed a STRUT TOWER BAR on the Colbalt. The strut tower bar eliminates a small amount of body flex when making hard turns. Other than that, my days/weeks have been like any other day in

Today embarks a day where I was able to help someone from committing suicide. I will not go into detail about the end result just for the sake of confidentiality. We had a customer come in who suffers from post traumatic war syndrome. He was a Vietnam Vet who earned purple hearts and told me about the casualties he experienced. He even shared the detail of himself killing young children, helpless people, and families of all sorts. He wanted to buy a truck from us. His credit did not permit him to purchase the truck we had in the showroom that he fell in love with. He went into begging on his knees that he would not leave without this truck. So explained to him all the reason why he doesn't qualify. The bank simply will not finance the truck that he wants due to his poor credit. This obviously was not the answer that he wanted to hear. So he says, "If I can't have this truck, I minus well grab a gun and shoot myself in the head." I was shocked and thought he was jokin

Been slacking again. This time I have some good news. Since GM is having this 72 hour 0% financing, only for a limited time, and just for a few days; I've decided to purchase a new car. I know, I go through cars faster than I change my underware. I had my 1996 Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo, my souped up 1997 Nissan Sentra, and my Pontiac Vibe GT. Now I've added the 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt SS Supercharged Coupe to my family. This is probably one of the best little sport compact car that GM has developed. It has plenty of get up and go, european tested suspension, and still saves me on gas. It has a nice little 2.0 Ecotec Engine with a Eaton M62 supercharger that produces 12psi of pure BOOST. GM rates this car You won't believe the color. It's ORANGE ! Actually GM calls it "Sunburst Orange." It does stand out. Just hope it doesn't stand out to where I'll be noticed more by cops. Everything is stock at the moment, but good ol' Justin never le

Yes, I know. I've been slacking these past few days. It's really hard to keep up with blogging everyday when you have a busy lifestyle. Also, I also have to show that I'm still human and have a life other than sitting in front of a computer blogging all day. =) The past few days have been slow at work but eventful back at home. We've been occupied with a lot of important issues to be addressed. Nothing bad in particular to my life, but to a friend that is close to us. So we're just trying to offer some mental support to this specific person who is dear to us ("us" being my anonymous girlfriend and I). We're just trying to help her piece back her life together. For those who know who this person is, then you can understand. On Saturday night, we and a few friends decided to meet up in San Francisco's North Beach for coffee and conversation. It was nice to be out in the crowds enjoying the company with friends. We had coffee and delicious desserts at

The weather is nice and there's nothing worse than being at work. In the car business, we're not busy until we have customers. We just sit here and wait. Gas prices, rising interest rates, and the beautiful weather somehow scared all the customers away. The life of a salesperson is not the greatest. You only make money when there are sales. If there are no sales, then you don't make any money. In my case, I keep myself busy with projects to work on just to pass time. As much as I hate to say this, the heat does make you rather lethargic. I thrive on being busy. It makes the day go by much faster and there's more gratification that you have purpose in your job. Although, it's good to have slow days once in awhile. I would like to cherish these slow days, because it gives you time to relax. It's just unfortunate that we have to sit here waisting the day away when the weather is so nice. A reoccuring thought of wanting out of the car business comes up whenever it&#

so take off all your clothes. Whenever it's hot (weather wise), I think of the hip hop song by Nelly. The weather here in Richmond, CA is averaging in the range of 86 degrees. I'm so glad I can sit in an air conditioned office. I feel really bad for those who have to do labor in this intense heat. Honestly, I enjoy the hot weather, but hate working in it. The key is to hydrate and put on heaps of sunblock. The air quality has been terrible too. Tomorrow is a "Spare the Air" day so I believe that BART runs free all day. Not much going on in the life of Justin. No big events and just need to work on a few personal goals. The continuing goal of getting healthier is a big feat. I'm surrounded by co-workers who live off fast food. I shouldn't wait until my health escalates to something catastrophic in order for me to have my wake up call. A prime example should be learned from my father. He has a heart attack in his early forties, and it took a heart attack for h

Today was the last day of my "four day" long vacation from work. I definately needed the time off and I'm really sad that it has already come to an end. It was nice to have the ability to sleep in, relax, veg out, surf online, do laundy, run errands, and ponder about what I want to do with my life. I surprisingly was able to accomplish all the items I had on my to do list and still have time to relax and rest. Life is great. It was a rather unproductive day. I slept in until 11am, shaved my head, showered up, watched television, and met up with my parents for dinner. Since it was my last final day off, I really just wanted to relax. There's a lot going on. For example my great aunt just passed away on Father's Day. I just saw her on June 6th and she looked in good health for her ripe age of 87. She wasn't in tip top good health, had to take everything slow, and she did have the braveness to do her routine walk around Clement Street with a walker. A very strong

Today embarked a day spent with man's best friend. Man's best friend can be anything, but most commonly, Man's Best Friend is his Dog. Mickey's permanent home (for now) is back in South San Francisco. When I have time off, I try to take care of him at my place. In my prior post, I mentioned about being way too tired from work, now I was fortunate to have FOUR consecutive days off! It was just a fluke on how our work schedule panned out. In my favor and I'm not complaning. I decided to take Mickey for a nice walk. The weather has been beautiful for the past few days. Since I had nothing better to do for the day, I decided to get a good walk and spend valuable time with my dog. The East Bay Regional Park District reserved an area entitled, " Point Isabel Regional Shoreline " as a park enjoyed by dogs and their companions. The park consists of appoximately 23 acres of land to freely walk your dog. The nice aspect of a dog park, you can walk your do

I tend to find myself burnt out on many occasions. It's probably from being overworked. I work long hours, eat at late hours, and don't get much sleep. It doesn't take rocket science to figure out that I need to take some time off to relax. You can tell that you're over worked when you are drained and barely have enough energy to even want to eat dinner at 9pm when your last meal was at noon. My eating schedule is terrible. No breakfast, lunch is eaten sometimes at 3pm, and dinner isn't until I get home at 8:30pm (sometimes later). The other drawback is the fact that I work on weekends too. When people are out enjoying the beautiful weekend weather, I'm stuck in a office pushing paper, and selling stuff to our customers. This is my ritual for all of the week. Then on one day of the week (sometimes two) I'll have time to myself. The drawback is the fact that my only day off happens to be on a day when everyone else is at work. Someday, I hope to find myself o

Our big sales event is over and now I have time to blog again. The last six days have been very brutal on all of the staff. As I mentioned earlier, we had a sales team from the SMART AUTOMOTIVE GROUP do a sale with us at our store to clear out our used cars. Basically, they send out a large direct mailing flyer to a group of individuals who fall within a specific credit score criteria, the customers come in for the event, and then we sell them a car. What's different is the fact that they take over the whole operation and we just assist them. They bring in their own sales managers, closers, and sales staff that incorporates with our staff. We were able to sell at least over 35+ cars in just five days! The have the sales talent and strong bank ties to get credit challenged individual driving in cars! Some of the staff individuals from the Smart Automotive Group originate from Louisiana. One guy is from New Orleans and went back into the car business because he lost his restaurant f

Damn!!! As much as I enjoy blogging, I've just been too tired to even turn my computer on at night when I get home. I have been working at least 13 hours every single day since Wednesday! We're having a huge used car sale blowout at our store. Selling at least ten cars a day. This should be a good month! Good for my wallet too! I'm also on this liquid diet. Trying not too eat too much fatty foods. Just been drinking soup and tons of vegetables. Hopefully this will help me lose some weight. I'm not really fat, but I can lose a few pounds to be a little healthier. Been noticing that nature does not call as often. There aren't much solids that have to exit! Too much information, right? So when this sale decides to settle, I'll be back to share some great stories. Just to give a teaser... I got to work with some fun people from the South. Southern people with southern accents. More to come.

June 5, 2006 (I'm a day behind) embarked my two year relationship anniversary with my special loved one who wants to be named anonymous. Those who know me know who this person is. We basically started the day early by having breakfast at Bette's Oceanview Diner in Berkeley on 4th Street. I had their daily special of Frittata with cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, and basil. It also included homestyle potatoes and toast. My anonymous girlfriend had two eggs. Breakfast was great and it's a small friendly All American Diner with a giant piece of pie hanging from it's ceiling. Secondly, we drove across the Richmond/San Rafael bridge to hike Muir Woods . The drive down to Muir Woods was really fun. I love two lane roads that constantly twist and turn! It makes the drive fun....especially when you can downshift and accellerate into the turns. The only downfall was having to follow a grandpa driving his big Cadillac. We arrived at Muir Woods early enough to get front door parking

A fellow co-worker recommended that I try one of his favorite Mexican food restuarants in San Leandro. The name of the restuarant is, "San Gaspar" at 201 East 14th Street. I'm a huge fan of Mexican food and I must say that this place ranks way up on my top places to eat. The food is very authentic. It makes Chevy's taste like ultimate gringo food. Wait a second...Duh, Chevy's is gringo food. The portions at San Gaspar are generous and the prices ranges at around $7.95 for an entire dinner plate....with rice, beans, and all the traditional fixings. It looks like a hole in wall from the outside, random mexican beer posters, some cultural wall fixtures; although the dining area was very clean and the service was excellent. I ordered the #4 from the combination dinner menu. It consisted of a chili relleno, taco, and enchilada. The refried beans were the best! It had all the flavor is tradition homestyle cooked Mexican food. I will definately return again to this pla

I watched a movie today that basically has me be a bit scared about the future of our earth. It has been common for me to not even think about how bad we pollute and increase global warming. Especially from everyday appliances, the cars we drive, and tools we use....until now. The movie that I watched today was entitled, "An Inconvenient Truth" which is a political documentary by Al Gore on the global climate change and the consequences that we have ahead of us. He is promoting the importance of humankind by going city to city and addressing the increasing global warming effect. It's does have a bit of hidden political bashing, but in good taste, of George Bush Jr. and his large stake in the oil business. The biggest scary issue that he brought up was the melting of Greenland and Antartica. It's slowly melting away, and from increased global warming, the melted ice can raise the seas up to 20 feet higher. He showed CGI images of shores spanning the continent that c

We live in a society of status cars, designer purses, designer shoes, bling jewlery, big homes, and huge debt! Everyone would like to live the life of the Rich and Famous, but is it worth it? Sure, if you can afford it. There are so many hardworking individuals out in the world that are stuggling to live the life, keeping up with the Jones', and they're living in huge debt. Being in the car business, I see a lot of individuals who max out their credit cards, and still want to buy that gas guzzling SUV they cannot afford! I'm not sure what the statistics are, but a good majority of Americans are filing bankruptcy like it was going out of style. I constantly see CREDIT COUNSELING commercials for people who just continue to spend. It's terrible for companies that have to absorb these losses of uncollected money, and people still get to keep the goods. I would almost consider this a crime. I'm sure banks and financial institutions try to collect as much collateral as th

Is there something in your life that you are attached to that is very difficult to give up? Do you own something that has some personal value that is irreplaceable? I'm sure that everyone can answer "yes" to both questions. It's human nature to be attached to someone or something. Even nature (animals) have some form of attachment to their belongings. It's also human nature to be sad when you have to let something go or see it disappear. I'm sure that everyone encountered an experience where they had to say good bye to a close friend; whether the cause of the departure was by death or simply moving away. Can you remember the feeling of emptiness, sadness, pain in the heart, or simply "why does this have to happen?" All of the sudden happy memories of the past pop in your head which make your sadness escalate even worse. The bottom line...is the feeling of good ol' sadness eats you up! To my fellow blog readers...no one died, nor did I lose anythi

As I walk into my office in the morning, I stumble upon two boxes that I've been long awaiting for. One box is large and the second is small. Excited like child in a toy store; it was my normal instinct to open the large box first. Enclosed in the large box was my new Executive Leather Office Chair. The original office chair I normally sit on was due for retirement. I would pump the chair up in the morning and by mid afternoon, I'd would nearly be in a squat position close to the floor. So I open the box up assemble the chair. I lean the chair back, get comfortable, spin around a few times, and test the hydraulics. Everything is fine and I can get started on my daily routine of work. As I'm sitting comfortably in my new office chair, I clear off my desk for the smaller box. Enclosed in the box was my new Canon Powershot SD550 Digital ELPH Camera that I purchased from Dell . I've been eyeing this camera for a least six months, and it happened to be on sale with free shi

OK...so I guess I'm going to make a strong attempt to keep up with this blog trend that everyone is doing nowadays. Also trying to make an attempt to keep up to date with what's going on with my life, what I do, who I meet, and what I'm thinking. In the meantime, I hope that what I post on this blog will be a form of entertainment, because I have some entertaining experiences to share practically everyday. ---------------------------------------------------------- So as I'm sitting at home on my only day off....I ponder upon the life of a dog as I see my dog Mickey laying on the floor. Who can ask for a better life. You can sleep all day, eat, pee, poop, beg, growl, bark, whine, and go for walks. I'm sure it can get boring after awhile. Especially when your owner leaves you at home for long periods of time. Other than that, it's a simple life of rest and relaxation. I'm sure that are some fortunate dogs who are resourceful. Especially those who guide the bli