It is currently Tuesday, December 29th. On Friday it will be 2021. This year has been both challenging and ultimately rewarding for me. I know nothing will change at midnight on Friday but it provides point to ultimately reflect on the past 365 days at the very least.

This time last year I was getting ready to fly from Honolulu to Los Angeles. I was booked to DJ at a New Year’s Eve event in San Diego and I was going to stay about 2 ½ weeks. I was starting my new job at UCSB on January 2nd and flying back on January 18th. There was talk about COVID at the time but mainly as it pertained to the disease sweeping through certain parts of China. Nothing was any different at that moment. On the 5th, we had a Re:Love party at Woodley Park. It was a great time. Got to see some friends I hadn’t seen in a while. I spent the week near campus and my mom came up on the weekend of the 11th so that she can view some apartments with me. I flew home to Hawaii and sat next to a woman named Jesse. I knew she lived in the island because I could see some Trader Joes coffee beans in her backpack and she was flying alone. We sat and talked the entire 5 hour flight back to the rock. She reminded me and still does of an older version of my wife. When we landed my wife picked me up but I made her get out the car and come with me to baggage claim to meet Jesse. You could tell there was an instant bond. I am so grateful to have met her and we are easily lifelong friends. She owns a house in Sylmar and comes back to CA pretty often and in fact we got a chance to have lunch right around Thanksgiving.

Bernard and I DJing at Centered in Honolulu (Jan 2020)

When I landed, my good friends Bernard and Kathleen were already on the island and been staying with Kim for a few days and when I got home it was time to celebrate Bernard’s birthday. They stayed with us the rest of the week and I had 5 more weeks after they left of living on the island. It was a whirlwind. Between January 18th and March 1st the wife and I had multiple guests come over, which was a good thing because each one of them helped us pack up a bit. Also, during this time there was big festival I was booked for called E Komo Mai (which translates to Welcome in Hawaiian. DJ Dan, Doc Martin, Keoki and a host of others were coming into town to take part. The festival was set up across various venues in Honolulu. I closed it out on that Monday at some dive spot in Chinatown. It was really nice to hang out with my fellow DJ’s. Especially Dan. Love that guy.

DJ Dan, Doc Martin and I in Honolulu for E Komo Mai Festival

But there was work to be done for this move. But I also wanted to take some time to enjoy the island before I moved back to California. To celebrate this upcoming change and move, I surprised my wife with a weekend in Kauai before our big move. This was her first time there and we stayed up in Princeville in the Westin resort. It was the first time in the 14 months I live there that I actually felt I was on vacation. As soon as we came back into Oahu it was down the business of the move. The POD arrived on Tuesday, the movers came on Thursday and helped us pack and move everything into the POD. Friday we had cleaners come and do a deep clean to our rental and Saturday we relaxed in Waikiki. I remember waking up Saturday morning and walking around Waikiki. I knew I was making the right move going back to California. But I also felt sadness leaving. Sunday we were off on our next adventure.

Our friends Tiphany and Calif from Big Island along with good friend Dora. Without these three helping our move would have been a lot hard. Mahalo

This was March 1st. This was when you can see things starting to change. A few weeks prior while I was DJing on the island, I met someone who was from the CDC who was on the island to investigate the first COVID case in Hawaii. It was thought that since this appeared to originate in Asia that it would hit Hawaii first due to the frequent international travel. My first week back on in California was a bit normal, I even DJed on March 7th in downtown LA at some loft. But that second week is where things shifted, especially on campus. There were talks for shutting the campus down doing work and instruction remotely. That quickly became a reality. All of a sudden we were telling students not to return for Spring quarter and working on plans to support our workforce to work and teach remotely. It was a challenge for sure but it was really great to see how the teams on campus supported each other through this.

The POD takes time to ship, so were we living in an empty apartment until April 11th. Finally with our stuff in our new spot, our empty apartment became home. At this time, I was being asked about DJing via livestream. I got myself the new Pioneer XDJ-XZ controller and picked up a new camera and started to livestream out of my guest room. That first time, we got a knock on our door from our neighbors. This wouldn’t be the last time. As much as I miss DJing, the live streaming did little for me. At that time there was this big push to make your space that you were DJing and live-streaming in look as cool as possible. Plants, lights, cardboard cut out crowds, green screen, etc. I remember my wife trying to talk me into making our space cooler for the streams, but I told her, “I don’t want this to be something I get used to so I don’t want to invest in this”. I am glad I didn’t. I was over it before I even started it. Instead of DJing I focused on other things. Mainly centered around work. One would think without DJing that I would lose myself. I certainly thought so, but the one thing that Hawaiian taught me was to enjoy the slowness of things. Things aren’t rushed on the island. I was DJing there but not at the pace that I was used to. So when, things slowed here due the pandemic, I felt ok. I didn’t feel the need to DJ to feed my ego. I was ok with letting it go…for now.

With no gigs, I focused on my day gig. I really love my job. My boss is great and my team is awesome. After the jobs in Hawaii and Oregon left me somewhat damaged, it was nice to join a team and have some balance in my work life. It is certainly interesting starting a new job in a new industry during a pandemic. A lot of what I focused on was just trying to understand why we do things a certain way on campus. A large part of my job is to build relationships between my IT group and business stakeholders. Typically, there would be a lot of in person meetings across campus. That of course did not happen this year. Instead, a lot of Zoom happened. But we managed to get things done. I even was able to get my ITIL Expert certification this year. This was something I have been wanting to do for a long time. One of the things I have come to love a lot about my new job is my office. I was able to pretty much set it up how I wanted. I was able to have little project studio for music work during my off hours. I am just hoping things get back to normal in 2021 a bit so I can really dive into my role here.

Well, this is a good point to stop for now. I still have so much to write about. I lost a few loved ones and I want to touch on that and pay honor to them. So I will forcus on Part 2 right after the New Year. I have to start packing and moving (yet again, but this time into a bigger apartment down the street)….but more on that in Part 2.

2020: My Year (Part 1)