oh boy

my manager wants to appoint me as the "morale rep" for her department. oh great! she thinks that our department still has a morale issue and she wants me to ask around at work and come up with ideas to boost morale. so umm, any ideas what a bunch of engineers would think is fun?? it might be cool to do some team building exercises or something, but i don't really have any clue where to look into that sort of thing. does having free breakfast every week boost morale?? i guess i would always look forward to it. like bagel wednesdays or something. but i like free food, i don't think everyone is as motivated by free food are they??

see, the problem is i can think of a BUNCH of ideas that would boost morale, but it would require the company spending money. it's not coming out of my pocket, that's for sure! but the company is trying to cut expenses...so there's the rub... i mean heck, if the company supplied free drinks, free snacks/candy, bagel wednesdays, free lunch every month, we would all be happy campers! unfortunately, all we get is free coffee from a machine and 25 cent soda, yippee. i can't really think of something that doesn't cost anything that would boost morale as quickly as free stuff!!

last work week of the year

this week will be my last one for the year! we're leaving for LA on friday. it seems so fast that vacation is almost here and it's almost christmas time. we still need to get a gift for julian's parents. my family is not really big on gifts and we don't really exchange anything, usually we just go out to eat to celebrate occasions. so it's such a foreign notion to have to buy bday and christmas gifts for family every year...it's soooo hard to think of stuff to buy! it kinda really sucks. but i guess it's similiar to when julian and i buy gifts for each other, since we exchange presents for valentine's, anniversary, bday, christmas, a lot of the times we end up picking our own gifts which kind of defeats the purpose of giving a gift! heh. this christimas, i got a great christmas present that julian didn't ask for, so hopefully he likes it =P

last week it was announced that our 2nd line (manager of my manager) is going to a new position, and her replacement will be tucson. it'll be interesting to have a new 2nd line, especially in tucson. we've all been so used to having our 2nd line here, so it'll be an interesting adjustment. it's pretty obvious where they want the team to end up in the future after everyone has left!

the end of the debate

ok, i guess that debate didn't last too long. we got a tivo! =P it was a housewarming/christmas gift from our friends simon and alex. yay! how nice of them. so we (julian) is setting it up as we speak. and i didn't even bring it up...they asked if we wanted it and my ears perked up and said "SURE!!" hehe. their other idea was a painting. tivo is waaaayyy better hehe. can't wait to use it!

DVR debate

soooo i'm trying to decide if i should get a dvr and which one to get! i think i would like one, but i dunno, i think that i'll end up becoming like sharon and having soooo much backed up tv! heh. but i'm already starting to get a lot of backed up tv on my vcr already, so maybe it's a lost cause hehe. i want to be able to watch my recorded tv downstairs on the nicer tv instead of in the bedroom with the bad tv, and tv upstairs will only work with the vcr connected to it, so moving the vcr downstairs is not an option.

ok so here are the options:
Tivo box:
Pros:
very easy to use
fixed cost ($350)

Cons:
can only record one show
can not record HD

Cable DVR:
Pros:
able to record HD programming
able to record 2 shows

Cons:
user interface really sucks, hard to record stuff
monthly cost ($10/month) might even be $20/month to add digital cable

the new wave of the future is HD, so if i got Tivo, it would kind of be obselete, but i don't really need to record HD in my opinion. the value of tivo is still pretty high, on ebay Tivo boxes with lifetime subscriptions are selling for $300+ but who knows if it'll still be that high when HD gets big. but some people *still* don't have cable, and i don't think HD is *that* big yet so might not be an issue. Supposedly Comcast is teaming up with Tivo and the cable DVR should have Tivo software mid 2006. So next is the cost, *if* the Tivo box doesn't fail within 3 years, it's a better "value" to get the Tivo because it's just a one time cost, and not a monthly cost. I've heard some bad things about Tivo boxes not being able to last over 2 years though, so I'm kind of scared about that. anyone have any problems ??

i *think* i'm leaning towards the tivo and I'll just have to live with only being able to record 1 show on Tivo and then maybe using the VCR if necessary, any opinions anyone?? is the 40 hour one big enough ??

do dogs get cold at night ???

tofu has been getting up between 5:40-6am every morning...she used to wake up at 7, but i've noticed that starting last week, she's been waking an hour earlier. we don't leave the heater on at night, so it gets reaaaaally cold at night. i'm wondering if that's why ?? she definitely wouldn't use a blanket, so i'm thinking if she should get some pjs ?? hehe. i'm really tempted to have her sleep on the bed with us, but i don't know if that's a good idea. she starts making noises when she wakes up so i get up and take her to potty. and after that i make her sleep on the sofa with me hehe. so i've able to get some sleep, but it's really starting to tire me out. i don't like getting up when it's still dark!!

i think for the most part she's potty trained, we haven't had any accidents that i can remember. when she needs to go potty she'll go sit by the fence and wait for one of us to notice haha. we got a steam vacuum cleaner, so this past weekend we cleaned our carpet! the next challenge is to alleviate her separation anxiety. we've been leaving her in the mornings and coming back during lunch time, but she still starts shaking when we put her in her kitchen area because she knows that we're leaving. and then she has her scared pee. ugh. we have to find a way to alleviate it, but i'm not really sure how. sigh sigh. i just hope she outgrows it because it's sooo hard to leave her when she's like that!

H&M

on saturday i went shopping with shal and pearl in SF! it was fun. the h&m is pretty big so we spent 2.5 hours in there! it wasn't TOO crowded, the wait to try on stuff and to check out was about 10-20 minutes, so it wasn't too bad. it was fun to shop at h&m again hehe. and luckily we all came away with some stuff! at first when we walked into the first section, i didn't really see anything i liked and i thought, aww that sucks, nothing that i really like, but i ended up buying lots of stuff! and by the time we left, there was a line to get into the store! good thing we went early! after that we checked out dsw and gap. we had a very very late lunch around 2:30 at boudin and got some yummy clam chowder and tomato garlic soup in a bread bowl. it was soooo yum to have warm soup on such a brisk day! i'm still kind of in denial that winter is upon us, still wearing my sandals/flip flops, unwilling to break out my winter jackets, refusing to turn on the heater, but i don't think i can deny it any longer. winter is finally upon us, and it's sooooo cold! sucks. gotta find my socks, gotta break out my winter jackets, gotta start paying through the nose in heater bills. boo.

today is my last final and i can't wait until this day is over!!

thanksgiving weekend

it was so nice to have 5 days off...only 3 weeks until my 2 week christmas vacation!! can't wait!!

wed night we went to whole foods to pick up our turkey and the supermarket to get the rest of our ingredients. the menu was: turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, potatoes au gratin, brazilian cheese bread, green beans, and stuffing. and some dishes that my mom was making. the only thing we actually made ourselves was the brazilian cheese bread, the potatoes, and the green beans. hehe. everything else we bought... =P

thanksgiving day we started preparing everything at 10am, julian's family arrived at 1, my family came at 3. right when everyone was here, we started eating! haha. most of us didn't really eat lunch, so it was our lunner. everything was ok, nothing exceptionally good or anything, but at least it wasn't bad =P oh, everyone liked the potatoes au gratin! julian actually made it last year for my birthday and i loooooved it. but i like anything potato-y, remember it's my favorite vegetable?? ;) we don't make it too often though, cause it's quite fatty with all the cheese and cream! yikes. after dinner we were all very stuffed, we just sat arond and looked at black friday ads. a couple hours later, we ate some pie. julian's mom brought 4!! 2 pumpkin, 1 apple, and 1 pecan. the pecan one was the best, probably because it was REALLY sweet hehe. and we had soooo many leftovers. i've eaten leftovers 5 meals in a row and we still have a bunch!! crazy.

fri morning, julian's parents knock on our door at 6am and ask if we want to go to gilroy....it was too early for us so we went back to sleep! we woke up at 7 because of tofu, and julian and his bro went to Fry's and Best Buy. I stayed home and worked on my paper. They got back around 11 and said there were crazy lines, they only ended up buying stuff at Fry's (where they waited 2 hours in line!). julian's parents came back around 12 and they got some really good deals on kitchen stuff. one of the stores was going out of business in jan, so their friday morning sale was fill a bag with any items for $20. the items had to have a special sticker or whatever, but they got some pretty good stuff. we now have some new knives and silverware heh. for lunch we went to banana leaf and then for dinner we went to dynasty (his dad wanted to eat the sea bass again!)

sat morning julian's family leaves at 7am. i worked on my paper some more, and then in the afternoon we went to gilroy to do some shopping. it was pretty busy there, we couldn't find a parking space, so in the back area there's a yellow curb where a lot of cars were parked, so we just ended up parking there too. i went to max studio, and it was kinda crowded, i just browsed around a little but didn't really see anything i liked. then we went to the store that julian's parents got all kitchen stuff from, but we didn't really see anything we liked. then we went to coach (there was a line to get in!) but we only waited 5 minutes. i got a new wallet for only $30! i think everything in the store was 20% off and i think the wallet i got had the wrong tag inside. cause the price tag in my wallet was $50, but the sign where the wallet was placed said it was $89 and i didn't really bother to check the other wallets to see what price tag they had inside. so my wallet ended up only being $30!! then we went over to check out banana republic where everything in the store was 40% off. it was crazy in there! a lot of the stuff only had L and XL left, but still had some sweaters in S. i really needed to buy more sweaters because i would say half my sweaters that i own now have been eaten by moths! it's so sad! i still wear them though because i like them, but i think once i get some new ones, i should probably stop doing that hehe. even though everything was 40% off, the original price was still like $50/$60 so ended up still being $30+. i did end up buy 5 sweaters, but wasn't as good a deal as i would have liked..oh well! i didn't even both trying anything on cause the line was so long and we waited about 30 minutes to check out. after that, we were too tired to go to any other stores and we just went home. =P but all in all, an ok shopping day i guess. my new wallet was cheap!

sun i spent the whole day working on my paper and presentation =( no fun. mon was my 30-45 min presentation, wed i turned in my 20 page paper (SINGLE-SPACED!!!), sat i have to turn in another 5 page paper for my 2nd class and take a final, mon is my last final. can't wait until this quarter is over!!

wedding video

Here is our wedding highlights video from our videographer. It's about 4 minutes long, might take a while for it to load. He's sending out the full length DVDs on Monday, I can't wait to see it! Watching the highlights video made me tear up a little, ah such a joyous day. The actual day went by so fast and it's nice to see it again, all the happy moments =P I think it'll be a nice thing to watch every year on our anniversary hehe.

ETA: You have to use QuickTime to view the video! =)

soooooo sloooooowwwww

today is going soooo slow, probably because i want to get out of here!! ugh. i was hoping that we would get to leave around 2 or 3, but it doesn't look like it. i guess it's too much to ask for since we get tomorrow off hunh? =P all the managers are gone though, and most everyone took the week off, so it's sooo dead. i'm very very tempted to leave very soon.

this extended weekend will be pretty kick back, since i need to write my paper and presentation that is due monday after thanksgiving. the paper is 20 pages single spaced! and i have to prepare a 30-45 minute presentation. sheesh. i'm dreading it...i don't want to do it waah. tomorrow tofu is going to the vet again and getting more shots, and probably getting her anal sacs cleaned again, ick. and i'm getting my car tires changed. i can't wait until we can take tofu outside for walks and stuff. we've taken her outside in the backyard and she gets soooo dirty, her feet and mouth, so that'll be a big pain, especially since she's white. i still haven't decided whether or not to do any after christmas shopping, i don't really enjoy shopping amidst crowds, so we'll see. anyways....counting down the minutes...seconds...until i can leave.......aahhhhhhh

thanksgiving

all right! i get the wednesday before thanksgiving off!! =) i guess i should spend it planning/cooking for thursday, cause both parents will be coming for dinner! heh. and we have no idea what's on the menu!!! any ideas???

birthday madness

it's the middle of our birthday celebration week! this week is filled with eating way too much and no exercising! it started off with having dinner with my family last saturday (we went to palace bbq, we were soooooo stuffed) we were going to go to a friend's white trash themed party afterwards, but we fell asleep cause we were too full to move haha. i missed the deep fried twinkies =( anyways, yesterday we went to nola's for my bday, thurs we're watching a special pre-screening of harry potter, yeah! sat is julian's bday and then sun we're celebrating with our friends! yikes! and then next week is thanksgiving! oy. thank goodness it's winter, it's ok to eat too much cause it's cooooold =P

our cute little baby

she's so cute! i hope she stays cute when she's grown up and doesn't get too big! =P when we went to petsmart we saw another maltese and he was not very cute and so big!! it's kinda hard to capture pictures of her because she's constantly on the move and most of the pictures turn out blurry. and whenever the flash goes off she has those scary eyes hehe.

anyways, potty training is going well, she hasn't really peed much on the carpet anymore. i think she knows to go in the kitchen, but her aim is sometimes a little off cause her front paws are on the pad, but she ends up peeing on the floor, but at least she knows where to go! she's still a big baby though, she gets really scared when we go in the car and is not used to being in her doggie purse! and she doesn't really enjoy her toys, she likes to chew on our shoe rack and on the carpet!! those seems to be her favorite activites rather than playing with her countless toys.

having this new dog really makes me worried about having kids one day....it's so so tiring to have to watch over her so much! you have to keep an eagle eye on her just to make sure she isn't doing anything naughty. and since she's sleeping in our room, she usually gets up around 6:30am and rustles around on her puppy pad. since we're both such light sleepers, we're usually wakened by her, but we try to stay in bed until about 7ish. if we make any movements like we're awake, she'll start whining hehe. but she'll keep herself quiet until we "wake up". and when you have a baby, you'll have to wake up countless times during the night, i'm already so tired just waking up around 6:30 everyday! and with a dog, at least you can leave her home alone to go out to eat or whatever, but if you have a baby, it'll be a big production just to go out anywhere. ugh. so not looking forward to it....i'm glad we won't be having babies for another couple of years =P

wedding photos

if you ever have a lot of time on your hands, you can check out our wedding photos taken by our photographer! enjoy!!

busy busy busy

it's been a busy busy week at work this week. we have a new code release coming up, which has this very important new function, BUT the program didn't start any of the testing of this new function until TWO weeks before the release is supposed to come out!!! the timing of the testing has been so so poor, and as a result everyone is scrambling, throwing in last minute fixes without even having adequate time to test the fixes and it's a mess!! i really wonder how we have customers half the time!! and this is supposed to be a major quality release in which the quality of our code is supposed to increase dramatically. ha! anyways, the week passed by very fast and i'm so glad the weekend is here!

yesterday i took tofu to the vet to get some vaccinations, and i picked one that is kind of close to our house. it was in this kinda ghetto part (but i guess everything around there is kinda ghetto), and it turned out to be run by 2 indian guys. anyways, it's kinda weird hearing an old indian guy trying to calm down your puppy. she had anal sac disease, here's an excerpt from a website i found: "Anal sac disease is very common in dogs. The anal sacs are on either side of a dog's rectum and each one is filled with a 'sticky' fluid that smells rather unpleasant! The duct from this gland empties into the anus so that the feces are covered with some of the secretion, acting as a scent marker. Sometimes the duct gets blocked, the secretions build up and the duct becomes infected." it's very easy to treat though, the vet just has to squeeze the sacs and get rid of the build up, but at the time i had no idea what he was doing, all i know is that he was doing something near her anus and there was this really really foul smell. it was sooooo gross. i was disgusted. when we got back from the vet i gave her a bath immediately! in some dogs it can be a frequent problem (like needs to be cleaned once a month) .. i hope it's not the case for tofu! yikes! at least it's easy to treat, but unfortunately can't be prevented. supposedly you can learn to do it yourself, but julian and i are too grossed out to do it, so we'll happily pay someone to do it =P he didn't have to witness the smell!!! everything else went ok, she took the shots ok and she's healthy! one more month until her next shots. we still aren't supposed to take her outside for another two months (only to the backyard).

oh...i'm going to australia and new zealand with my mom and sister in december! yay! we're going on a chinese tour (of course) but i think it'll be fun. at least it'll be warm! =P julian will have to stay home with tofu hehe. i hope she remembers me when i come back! i'll be going to LA 12/15 - 12/20. i'll leave from LA to australia/new zealand 12/20-12/31. (i'll have to fly by myself =( which kinda sucks) and i'll be back in LA to celebrate new year's!

happy halloween!

our 2nd line manager brought in a huge bag of candy, and it's sitting RIGHT outside my office door, it's so bad. i've had AT LEAST five pieces of candy already, and it's all those fatty chocolate ones. no starburst or skittles which are semi healthier with those fruit juices and stuff =P i was all excited about giving candy to trick or treaters and seeing all the cute kiddies, but then i remembered i have class tonight. boo. i won't get home until 9 and by then there probably won't be any more!

it's definitely been interesting adjusting to adding a puppy into our lives. it definitely takes a lot of patience! she pees everywhere! she's getting a little better, but still misses a few times. she's very good about pooping though, it's always on her pad, thank goodness! she likes to sniff and eat EVERYTHING! she seems to have a very good nose and likes to sniff around our floors all the time. i really have no idea what she's eating off there! we've been leaving her alone for a couple of hours each day, but she still whines a lot. i just hope it gets better because when she's alone, she totally freaks out. she's so cute! although she gets these hyper moments where she's totally crazy and bites everything (mainly your fingers!), and she has this crazed dog look...she looks kinda evil heh, i got a new camera so i can post lots of pictures soon hopefully!

new cell

i got a new cell over the weekend and i got to keep my old number so you can all contact me now! =P i wonder if anyone even tried to reach me during the one week period i was cell-less? i did notice that on sat when i was called for work, they called my home number when they used to call my cell number, and at the time my cell was working. i guess it's random which number they use, heh.

now on to replacing my camera! =P

cutie tofu

here are some pics of tofu! pearl came to visit on wednesday and took some pics for me hehe. so far it's been a lot of fun, she has her hyper moments and then she'll just plop down and sleep. she's very good at pooping on her wee wee pads, but not so good about peeing. it's about 60% on the pad. she sleeps in our room so we can get some sleep at night! the first night we left her in a playpen downstairs and she whined and cried alllll night, it was not good. the next night we moved her to our room, and it was so much better.

the latest

i checked my vm at work, and i got a message from kaiser saying that someone had found my kaiser card and some other cards. so i contacted that person, and all she had found was my kaiser card, southwest card, and my macy's card that is invalid. so nothing too useful so i just told her to throw those away because i got a new kaiser card with my new name. but it was very nice of those people to try to contact me. she said she found them on the sidewalk while she was taking a walk near her house on this street that i'm not too familiar with. i wonder what's happened to all my other stuff???
i called our insurance company and our deductible is $1000, but i think at least i'll be able to get some money back. with all my stuff gone, i am researching about which cellphone and camera to get. and a new wallet! i've had my wallet for over 4 years, so i got good use out of it. it was a really pretty color though, oh wells. it was really heavy and it only had 3 slots for credit cards, plus i got some pink nail polish on it, heh. i hope i get my ATM and credit card replacement soon, so i can start buying stuff! =P

bad karma =(

both my sister and i have had some bad karma lately...she filled out one of those fake paypal emails and entered in all her personal information and has had lots and lots of fraudulent charges.

this morning around 6am my NEW red bag was stolen from julian's car! they broke his passenger side window. i was soooo pissed. it was my own fault for leaving it in the car, but i forgot about it cause i was so excited about getting our new puppy the night before! ARGH. it's no fun losing your wallet, cellphone, digital camera, sunglasses AND a bag that i've only used for a month. all of those things together are worth $2500!! we're going to file a claim with the car insurance company so hopefully i can recoup my loss. i also had to cancel ALL my credit cards, including my ATM card. and i had to suspend my cell .... so uh yeah, if you need to contact me, you'll have to email me. anyways. it sucks. i have to go to the DMV AGAIN to get a new license. SIGH!! it feels so strange not having anything. i'm just thankful that i didn't have any of my house or car keys in there. while julian was cleaning up the glass outside, our across the street neighbor came up to him and said that he's had his car broken in twice!! i was like...great. what a great neighborhood we're living in. boo. well, at least we know never ever ever leave anything in the car (which i knew and NEVER do) but i guess just gotta be even more careful. i just can't believe the first time i did it, it got stolen! GRRR.

ok, gotta stop thinking about it. but at least we have a cute new puppy, we named her tofu. but i don't have a camera to take pictures! you guys will just have to come visit! she spent the whole night whining/crying, i didn't get much sleep. i actually heard the car window being smashed in the morning but didn't know what it was. it was a really loud noise, like a really loud crashing noise, and i said to julian, did you hear that?? was that the dog?? he was like...yeah. i was thinking...really?? how could he have made such a loud noise in his little playpen?? so i went down to go check, but nothing looked out of order. i was kind of groggy so i didn't really think to investigate the noise, i didn't think it was someone breaking the car window!! so we didn't realize it until i was looking for the camera in the morning and realized that my bag was still in the car. i went outside and there was glass EVERYWHERE. i was like... SH*T!!! WAAHHHHHH =*( and julian was like, F*CK!!!!!! heh.

i hope all this bad karma goes away for a long long time. my parents must think we're sooo irresponsible, but it's not our faults!

new obsessions

now that i don't have any wedding related stuff to obsess about, i've been frequenting forums about handbags and diamonds =P it just sucks though, because seeing all the pictures of diamond rings and handbags makes me want to get them! sigh. i think it would nice to eventually have a 3 ct 3 stone ring and also an asscher. asschers are really really pretty.

and reading about how obsessed people are about handbags is insano! like...people will buy 2-3 $1000+ bags every month?!! and actually most of the high end bags are $1500-$2000. now i'm thinking a $1000 bag is actually a pretty good price!!! but it's fun to look at the pictures, mostly people carry lv or gucci in the bay area, so it's kinda boring. it's fun to see what other bags are out there. there's this one chick who's 15 (from ohio!) who's brother gives her a monthly allowance, so she spends it all on bags! so her allowance must be $2000-$3000/month because she buys a bag/month. what kind of brother would do that??!! anyways, most of the people on that forum are handbag crazy, but i guess only people that like handbags would frequent a forum about handbags eh?? =P

puppy!!

this sat (oct 15) we're going to check out this puppy, and if we like her and everything looks ok, i think we're going to get her!!! she'll be 8 weeks old. julian put out an ad on craigslist for maltese and westie puppies, and surprisingly he got several responses!! it's going to be hard to have a puppy though, you aren't supposed to leave them alone when they're so young, so hopefully i'll be able to work from home 3 days out of the week and julian the other 2 days until the end of the year. i *think* it should be ok, i'm sure my team and manager wouldn't really like it, but i don't think they would say no if i asked. so we need help thinking of names!! julian wants a funny but cute name. like meow or roar. he thinks all the names i've thought up are too "boring". sigh. he thinks pixie is too gay. any other ideas??

yay

we're having a nice luncheon at La Foret today and then we get to take the afternoon off! yippee! all of us have been looking forward to it, and everyone keeps on saying how it's a very good French restaurant, so hopefully it doesn't disappoint! Wed-Fri I'm taking a class for work, and then Saturday I'm going to try out a new salon that Shal recommended since it's close to my house. I'm going to get it cut and highlighted again. Finally! I can't wait to get rid of my long long hair, ugh. My hair gets really really tangled when it's long and sheds so much, so I'm going to chop off 4-5 inches I think.

Ever since I started coloring my hair in college, it seems like I can never go back! I've told myself countless times that I should stop and just let it grow out, but I think it really looks ugly when your hair is half black and half dyed, so I just end up coloring it again! The only reason I wanted to stop is because I think I'm damaging my hair, but so far I haven't really noticed that much change. My grandma, however, thinks dyeing your hair is very bad because of all the chemicals and thinks it's not good that my sister and I started dyeing our hair so young since we don't have any white hairs!! She says it's not good for the brain. Hmm. I guess I do feel like my memory is going hehe Oh well. For my haircut, I'm going to try for long sideswept bangs, so we'll see how that turns out!

honeymoon

i'm sure you've all been anxiously waiting for this, so here it is! =P
Enjoy!

Click me!

boo

so now that i've officially changed my name, i went to look up what i needed to do for my passport. guess what! they changed the policy FOUR days ago that now if you change your name, you have to re-apply for a new one and pay the $67 for a renewal. what?! before you would just get an amended page to your passport stating your new name, and you keep your old passport until it expires, but now you have to get a totally new one. since my current passport is valid until 2008, i feel totally gypped! sigh. well i think i'll apply for a new one when i think i'm going to take another international trip, since i don't really need one now and it would be a "waste" of my new passport's 10 year period. boo.

i went to the dmv yesterday to get my new license, i hope my picture turned out ok. while they were taking it, i heard a click and then a flash a second later, but i heard the click and thought the picture was taken already and kinda moved when the flash went off. so hmm, hopefully it doesn't look funny, but the lady said the picture was good so i hope she's right! i also had to sign my new name, that was weird. i think i need to practice, i'm not changing my name on my credit cards until i get my new license, so i have 3-4 weeks to practice! it's so strange to have a whole new name, but i guess i'll just have to get used to it. i changed my email at work and emailed everyone so it's pretty official now!

on a better note, it's friday! i have a bunch of tasks to do this weekend. i hope and pray that no one calls me from work!

here's a pic

Here's one of my favs...i'm still waiting for the proof cd so this is all you get for now!

halfway there

i went to the social security office and my name has been officially changed! Tomorrow is my appointment with the DMV! i'm so glad they have a ss office and dmv near my work, so convenient! i'm working very diligently on the honeymoon recap with pictures, I think I'll definitely have it ready by this weekend, so look out for it!

can i catch a break??

yesterday (sat) i was called 4 times for work but 2 out of the 4 times i missed the call! oops. i'm very very bad at picking up calls on my cell, i just don't always have my cell with me at all times. and i guess they don't try my new home number? i dunno, i changed it recently but maybe it hasn't taken effect yet, i dunno. when we lived at avalon, they would call home and cell.

anyways. yesterday morning i check my cellphone at 7:30am (i was up early cause i had class at 8am) and i got 2 missed calls! they're both from tucson so i know it's the manager from work calling, one at 6am and another at 7am. the first one asked to look at a problem, the 2nd one said to ignore the first call. whew, dodged that bullet! my cellphone usually stays downstairs in my purse when i'm asleep, i don't usually bring my purse into the bedroom at night, so i didn't hear the ringing at all. next call comes at 4pm, but again, i'm upstairs watching tv and my purse is downstairs and i didn't hear the ring. but this time, the manager didn't leave a message, so i guess it wasn't that important. whew again! at 5:30pm when we're driving to dinner, another call! this time i picked up, but since i wasn't at home and i couldn't log in to look at the problem, the manager just asked me some questions. so that was ok. but then at 10:30pm, another call, and since i was home i had to login and help look at a problem and worked til midnight. sigh. i really hope today is not the same. but i'll be out again for most of the afternoon...i checked my messages already and haven't gotten any so far! =P

to top it off, i think i'm getting sick. i should be sleeping still but on weekends i still get up early between 8-9am. i feel like since coming back from hm i've been thrown back into my busy regular life without any easing back into it, so it's been causing stress to my body i think. it was too used to the luxury of lounging all day. who stays at work until 7:30pm on their first day back from their honeymoon?? argh. work has just been too busy, it was so nice in tahiti where i didn't have to constantly worry about, am i going to get called today? the first week back at work was crazy busy, and i had class on sat, so i haven't really gotten a chance to relax. my goals this week are to get my name changed and work on hm recap. i'm also hoping the photographer will have the wedding photos ready this week. he said 4-5 days last tuesday, so that should mean mon or tues right ??

a little interlude

man, it's been busy at work so i haven't been able to update my blog with the wedding stuff! oh well, most of you guys were at the wedding anyways, so you can check that entry periodically to see if i've updated it heh.

anyways, the good news is that my job is staying in san jose! woohoo, now i don't have to worry about my pension and how i plan on finding a new job! so yeah, sometime next year we're moving into the building across the street, and then sometime 2nd half of next year we'll be moving to the almaden research center which is little bit more south, it'll add about 10 minutes to my commute. it's at the top of a hill and the building is a lot nicer. so it'll be a nicer environment to work in. yesterday we took a tour of the building and ate in the cafeteria, i wish we could move earlier! they spent a lot of money making the building nice, i guess the researchers (all the phDers) get the VIP treatment. i wonder how they'll feel about all of us moving up there...oh well! i hope i get a window office!

actually, the execs wanted our group to move to tucson (that was their initial reaction) but they decided that we needed to be able to support manufacturing which is staying in sj, so they're letting us stay in sj. whew. but they are not hiring anymore people in sj, so if someone in sj leaves, the position will get filled in tucson. so the group in sj will shrink and shrink. in addition, in order to cut office costs, they requested our dept to select 7 people to work from home permanently, so there will only be about 15-20 that will move to the research center. my officemate was one of those chosen, so i'll be getting a new officemate!

tonight is my first day of class and i have class on sat. sucks. i'm happy that the new season of tv has started woohoo. i missed the first 2 episodes of the OC though. i'm researching options on how to record the thousands of shows i'm into, i need something where i can record 3 different channels at a time =P

the wedding saga

we're back from our lovely honeymoon! i'm nice and dark! anyways, here i go with the wedding saga, it'll probably be very long

thursday:
this is the day julian's parents were supposed to arrive. their whole group consisted of 16 people. 11 of which were going to stay in our house, the other 5 rented 2 rooms at the cypress hotel. they rented a 16 person van and said they were going to drive to yosemite, and then come to our place. they estimated their arrival to be 5pm. My friends wanted to hang out that night at Santana Row at 8pm, but since Julian's family said they were going to be here at 5, I told them I couldn't go. So, 5pm rolls around, we try calling his dad, his mom, his brother, none of them have reception. from 5-8pm we call them and can not reach them, so we have no idea where they are. so julian said i could go hang out with my friends, how nice hunh? =P so we hang out, i talk to julian around 9pm and he said he finally got in contact with them and they are near tracy. i was like...ok, still got two hours to hang out then! =P so i go home at 11pm and his family still has not arrived yet. julian picked up two of his friends from the airport at 9/10pm and was hanging out at the cypress hotel (where they were staying) when i got home.

so around midnight, julian was still at the cypress, and i hear the door bell ring! his family has arrived!! they all come in soooo tired, they were in the car for 17 hours! they ended up having to take two vans, cause the family from london was leaving on sunday after the wedding, so they had to bring all their luggage with them, but they had so much that it didn't fit into the 16 person van. so they had to bring up their family van as well. anyways, in all the scramble to try and stuff everything in, they forgot to bring the air mattresses/sleeping bags for people to use! so i had to run around looking for stuff that they could use to sleep on. luckily we had enough blankets and pillows and everyone. julian comes back, and then he has to take the 5 people to the cypress cause his dad was soo tired from driving. everyone gets changed/ready for bed and we all go to sleep at 3am!

friday:
at 8am, i hear people in the backyard. everyone is awake already! so julian and i get up too, they were picking the apples from our apple tree! julian went off with his aunt to take her to the bank, buy some coffee and other things, and pick up the women from the cypress so that they could do their hair/nails. so i hang out with his family until about 10am. the women were off to do their hair and nails at a salon close by our house. i pack all the stuff i'll need for the wedding cause i'm staying at the cypress tonight, and then go to my parent's house. hang out for a little while and then go with my sister to lisa's tea treasures in campbell for the bridesmaid luncheon. we have a lovely lunch (even though shal and sharon were very late =P ) but we end up 20 minutes late to our nail appointment. we didn't even eat our dessert either! the nail salon that i chose was very strict about the time cause they have appointments scheduled every half an hour, so my sister and i got our full pedicures, but for our manicures we only got our nails painted. the salon was really cute though, but kind of sucked that they were so inflexible, alas they weren't vietnamese =P it was very very busy, they had lots of people working there and people coming and going. but it was in downtown los gatos, so i guess that's to be expected with all those preppie whities and such.
after the nails, we go to to the rehearsal and practice the ceremony. intially the ceremony was going to be in the area outside where you walk in, but during the rehearsal it was waaaayyy too hot, so we moved it to the back area. we practiced twice, and then went to dinner! the rehearsal dinner was at sonoma chicken coop. apparently julian's family decided to go to gilroy ?? (to be continued later...taking a break now)

WE'RE MARRIED!!

hooray, the wedding is over! since thursday night it's been crazy crazy crazy until about now. julian's family has left and julian's friends are about to take off as well, so finally it'll just be the two of us. we still need to buy some stuff for our honeymoon and pack! i'm so excited about our honeymoon, but one thing i'll miss is my lovely internet =P i'm addicted i know.

maybe if i feel up to it, i'll do a mini recap of the craziness before the wedding when i get back. hope the rest of you keep your blogs up to date so i can read what you've been up to ! =) tata! i'm off to relax and get tanned !

sigh

the sucky thing about having wed & thurs off is that i've been delegated the jobs of cleaning boo. i'm taking a break now =P some of julian's family is staying at our house so i have to make it semi-presentable. my parents came to my house the day after we moved in so we had stuff everywhere and it was sooo messy, and now whenever i talk to them, they ask me if it's clean yet hehe. but yes right now, it's definitely A LOT bettter than after we moved in.

we bought sheets and pillows from ikea for the guest rooms, the cheapest stuff, and it SUCKS. omg. the pillow is sooo flat. if i had known i would have opted for something else! geez. oh well. kinda sucks for those that are staying over.

site plans

currently we're leasing some buildings from hitachi (the site was sold about 3-4 years ago) and the lease ends at the end of 2006, so they are starting to plan where they're going to put everyone. there has been soooo much speculation for the last year about what is going to happen to us. and yesterday, all the managers were in a meeting where they found out! supposedly all us employees won't find out until next week. and i won't be here! i just want to know if i'll still have a job in san jose when i come back! i think the 3 possibilities that have been floating around are 1) moving to another building on this site but will continue to be leasing from hitachi (extending the lease) 2) moving to another ibm site even further south! 3) TUCSON!

after the meeting yesterday, all the managers didn't seem down or shocked, they seemed happy and chatty. so i don't think it's tucson ( i hope ). and 1 or 2 is fine with me! it's just kind of lame how everyone knows that's where all the managers went and what they were discussing, so they might as well just tell us all now! although, it's a topic that gets debated and speculated about so much, what else would we talk about once we KNOW what's going on?? =P

advice from coworkers

they seem to think the buggier the code, the better! cause then you get the visibility (even though it's bad) and save the day! i think they're kinda joking, but they believe it's true. if you work on high visiblity problems, you get a lot more recognition.

hmm, do i just have the wrong attitude? i would prefer to never get called and have perfect code =P i don't mind not having the visibility. i actually feel kinda anxious when i get a problem and they say stuff like, "if we have to bring down the box, we're going to send all 4 machines back". hmm, i really have no idea how to respond to that!

TGIF

initially i was planning on working until next thursday, but now we get comped if we get called at night or on weekends and look at customer problems, so i'm going to use those days i have to take off wed & thurs. yay! it's cool cause i still have 10 days of vacation left too! i got an extra week of vacation for getting married! yes!

even though the wedding is only a week away (eek!) i don't really feel that stressed. i was kinda stressed a month before the wedding but that was because there was the whole wedding & moving/painting/cleaning thing, but now the moving stuff is out of the way, i feel i have a handle on everything wedding-wise. is that normal? i feel like i should be really stressed or something, i dunno. i'm just worried that maybe i'm forgetting something BIG. oh well, i can't think of anything, but if i do, hopefully no one will notice =P

new address

this last weekend we moved! we're now officially living in our new house! yay! it's sooooo messy though, all our stuff is EVERYWHERE. i don't want to unpack! i think we might just end up stuffing a lot of stuff into the closets for now, and slowly putting everything away when we come back. i tried to put away all the kitchen stuff, but my uncle left SOOOO much crap. omg. there's nowhere to put our stuff! and i feel kinda bad just throwing all the stuff away, but where the heck are we going to put our stuff?? at least it's only the kitchen stuff, oy!

i've seen soooo many spiders in the house, it kinda sucks. is there something that we can spray so that spiders won't come inside ?? i hate spiders! eww. anyways, i've kinda put the wedding on the back burner and concentrated on packing/moving, but now that's over, back to wedding stuff! once that's over, i can concentrate on the house stuff again, ugh.

lovely bag

here is the handbag i'm currently coveting, the chloe paddington, the red color is my fave, it's so pretty! and doesn't the leather look so soft and luscious?? unfortunately it seems everyone else seems to covet it too so it's impossible to get, which is probably a good thing for me since it saves me $1500 =P would it be bad to use wedding gift money for this bag??? hehe, juuuuust kiddding honey... i think =)

i've actually been pretty good this year, i haven't bought any expensive bags because of the wedding. but once it's over...i have my eye on a gucci bag hehe. we'll see though, i'm not entirely sure if i like it enough and having a mortgage doesn't help, waaahh

whoa

i missed this by 5-10 minutes!! this is the mercury news article. for work i exit the blossom hill rd exit, one exit before the bernal rd exit! luckily the closure of 101 was while we were all working. they announced the closure over the intercom twice at 11am, once at 1pm saying they didn't know when 101 would be open, and then 2:30pm saying that it was now open. Oh yes, they also sent two emails, one saying it was closed, one saying it was open! Yikes! while i was driving home from work, there were all these news vans next to the highway entrance which was causing a slowdown so i thought there was still traffic, but once we drove past all of them, no traffic to be seen! it was like nothing had happened...

101 reopened after acid spill

By Elise Ackerman and Chuck Carroll

Mercury News

U.S. Highway 101 in San Jose was shut down Thursday after a southbound big rig developed a leak and spilled more than 500 gallons of a toxic stew of nitric and sulfuric acid onto the roadway just north of Bernal Road.

The closure, which lasted more than 4 1/2 hours, snarled traffic throughout the South Bay, frustrating motorists from Monterey to Morgan Hill. The freeway was reopened in time for the evening commute.

The backups began building shortly after 9 a.m. when the driver of a truck owned by R. Padilla Chemical Transfer pulled over to the side of the highway to try to fix a corroded valve.

As the driver worked, passing motorists began calling CHP about the smell. Southbound lanes were closed around 9:15 a.m. and northbound lanes were closed about 15 minutes later.

Traffic was diverted onto Monterey Road, which runs parallel to 101 to the west, while the San Jose Fire Department worked with CHP and contract cleanup workers to contain the leak by placing pans underneath the valve to catch the acid. In the early afternoon, a pump was brought in to transfer the acid to an empty truck.

CHP Officer Chris Armstrong said the entire highway was closed because sulfuric acid is ``an extreme inhalation hazard.'' Exposure to the fumes can cause burning in the eyes, nose and throat.

However, authorities on the scene said there appeared to be minimal impact to the surrounding community. An air monitoring test taken at 11:35 a.m. showed no sign of acid in the air.

The main casualty of the incident appeared to be the truck driver, who was transported to Valley Medical Center for observation. Some of the acid splashed on his clothes, but he didn't sustain any serious injuries.

lots of random things

travel bug:
recently my coworker friend was considering going to vancouver and hawaii for vacation, and my other coworker was like..."omg you can't go on two vacations in a year! that's too expensive!" and the other guy was like..."yeah i know, i should just pick one" internally i was thinking hunh?? it's too expensive?? these people are the same age as me, males with girlfriends, so i was kinda taken aback by that comment. just this year i've been to taiwan, seattle/vancouver, miami, and going to tahiti! i guess people just have different priorities with how they want to spend their money. at least julian's friends are very travel-oriented also, so it's just not my group of friends. one of his friends went to australia this year (i want to go!) and his other friend is in turks & caico this week. still have sooo many places i want to go, but here are the top 4 places for now (in no particular order): 1) somewhere in mexico 2) greece 3) australia/new zealand 4) somewhere in the caribbean

us weekly:
i'm really frustrated by how inconsistent the mail delivery of my magazine is. it *usually* arrives on thursdays, but if it doesn't come on thursdays i'm lucky if it arrives on friday or saturday, but *usually* it will come the same day as my NEXT issue (the following thurs) or the day after that!! it sucks! every thursday night i look forward to kicking back with my celebrity gossip magazine, it kicks off my weekend (cause who works on friday anyways?? =P ) and i'm always so bummed when it's not waiting for me when i come home from work. i really wonder where my magazine goes?? someone reading it at the post office?? there was a period of time where it was really consistent and would arrive every thursday as expected for months. but recently it's only been on time about 1-2 times out of the month!! argh!! i hope when we move to the new address it will be more consistent!! it's thursday today, and i still have not received last week's issue, so i'm hoping i'll have TWO issues today!

receiving packages:
i've been an ordering fiend recently, buying stuff for the wedding, buying stuff for the house, buying stuff for the honeymoon. i hardly ever go to the mall anymore, usually it's just to return stuff i've bought online! =P plus i spend most of my working hours "browsing" online so i spend enough money just shopping online. last week, this week and next week i'll be receiving packages 3 out of the 5 weekdays! it's so nice to come home to new things. the nice thing about living in an apt is that they leave the packages at the front office, but when we move i'm not sure what they'll do. it'll suck if i have to go to UPS or the post office to pick it up, it'll also suck if they leave it at the front door. either way, that's one thing i'll miss about living in an apt.

bad bad bad

hrm, it seems when i get nervous or anxious i crave SUGAR!! over the weekend i HAD to have coldstone. yesterday i bought two packs of red vines and made brownies! so bad!! this wedding diet thing just doesn't seem to work! sigh!!

18 days to go!

it seems kind of surreal that the wedding is coming up so fast, 18 days just seems like such a small number! omg! it seems like the most asked question is always "are you nervous?" now, are people asking about nervous about making such a huge committment or nervous about the wedding itself? hmm, well in any case i usually say no. i'm excited about starting this new chapter in my life and can't wait for all my planning to come to fruition and have a wonderful beautiful wedding day. i'll be so relieved when it's all over. also, some people at work ask if i am coming back to work after i get married? i'm like hunh? why wouldn't i? maybe some people do that?? i dunno, i found that so odd. maybe they think i'm marrying a sugar daddy or something so i don't need to work anymore! hehe i wish! =P

yesterday we bought our new bed! i soooo can not wait to sleep on it! we got a california king bed, heh, so we'll have sooo much room! we originally were planning on just getting a regular king size bed, but the store we went to doesn't stock regular king size mattresses, so it would have to be a special order (wait longer) AND the price is the same as the california king size, so might as well get the bigger one right?? i had already ordered new sheets in the king size (cause that's what i anticipated we were getting) but now i have to return those and i just ordered more online in the new cal-king size. so we'll have to wait for those new sheets to come in before we can use the new mattress. oh yeah, the salesguy kept on referring to us as husband and wife, which just seemed so odd! i guess i'll have to get used to it, cause in 18 days we really WILL be husband and wife! weird!!

hehe

guess where rachel ray went on $40 a day in ft. lauderdale, taverna opa! i guess even though it's in south beach, it was fun enough to be featured hehe. it looked exactly the same, with the napkin throwing and belly dancers, but the show said you get a free shot of ouzo! we didn't get it for free! hmph. i feel gypped.

the superficial

yes yes, if you are as big a fan of celebrity gossip as me, you should check out this site!! it sometimes has very funny posts of celebrities not at their best moment. case in point:
Tara Reid is still a drunken whore
Jessica Alba picks wedgie
Britney Spears Pregnancy pictures

All these gave me a good laugh =P

painting

we started our first foray into painting our house on sunday. we worked from 11am-9pm and we still only painted one room, and actually we ran out of paint so there is still one wall that needs to be painted. we only took a half hour lunch break too! sigh. the other rooms shouldn't take as long, but that one day was killer. the master bedroom has high ceilings and is large, so took a while. we painted the room a light bright yellow, called sunny disposition. so whenever we're in the master bedroom, we'll always have to have sunny dispostions =P i think it's going to take a while to paint everything, we're starting with the bedrooms then the living room and then i think eventually i'll want to paint the bathrooms, hallways etc. it'll be a very slow process to have the house decorated how i would like. house stuff is so expensive!! (if you want it to look nice of course =P )

just thinking about all the moving, wedding, and painting during the month of august stresses me out, it'll be a big relief once the wedding is over and i can relax in tahiti. but right when i get back i start school! =(

pretty flowers

i met with my florist yesterday and she was showing me all the weddings she's done since i last saw her (which was a long time ago!). soooo many pretty flowers, sigh! even though i've already decided on my flowers, there are so many other flowers that I like. the same goes for wedding dresses. i see so many other ones that i like!! it kinda sucks that it only happens once =P j/k hehe i guess there are always vow renewals ?!

good news

yay, we received our first gift from my aunt who lives in texas and will not be able to make it to the wedding. oh, and my grandma from taiwan is coming to the wedding! she's going to be coming with my cousin that i haven't seen since we were kids! i think half the people at the wedding will be people i haven't seen in ages, hehe

one more month to go!

i finished!!

i finished reading harry potter! i liked this book a lot more than book 5, and i now can't wait for book 7 !!!! i can't believe i actually finished it, i wasn't planning on it, but i just kept on reading and reading cause i wanted to find out what happened! even though i didn't like book 5, i think i'm going to have to go back and read it again, to refresh my mind. but i know when book 7 comes around again, i'll have totally forgotten what happened in the previous books =P

beautification

i added a snappy banner to the top of my blog, just playing around, i guess i get *that* bored at work =P i dunno, ever since coming back from miami, i haven't really been working too hard, it's kinda bad. oh wells, i'm doing everything that needs to be done, but i know i'm not working to my full potential. i could do WAY more if i was actually working the whole time, but who does that?? heh.

those crazy vegetarians

i've been trying to figure out what to do with them for our wedding, there will be 4 vegetarians, but only two are friends with each other and would have been seated at the same table. so the dilemma is what to do! should i just put them all at the same table even though all their friends will be at other tables? if they all sit at the same table, i can order a couple of vegetarian dishes for them and they can share. if they sit with their friends, i would just order a vegetarian dish for them, and that's all she (all the vegetarians are girls!) would have to eat. every single dish on our menu has meat!! so hmm, what a dilemma. what to do what to do...

poor peabody

our cute little hamster has left us =( even though towards the end, we didn't play with him as much, it's still sad that he is gone. here are some pictures, it was hard to get clear ones since he was always constantly moving around. we buried him in the planter outside our apt. julian thinks we should get a dog, so soon we will have a new pet!

moving

we're moving on august 20th. i still have no desire to pack, and every time i look around there seems like sooo much stuff. i think it'll probably just get put off until the pressure is on hehe. i think we're going to start painting before we move, so we started looking at paint. soooo many different colors to choose from, and it's hard to pick just one color! i don't know how much we'll get done before we move, we'll see i guess. oh yeah, and when we went back to look at the master bathroom, i think it definitely needs to be remodelled. but probably after the wedding.

hooray!

i'm getting a new T42 laptop for work, yay! finally i am going to be rid of my piece of junk T23, hopefully it's a lot faster. i *think* this time they'll take an image of my computer so i will not have to re-install everything AGAIN! *cross fingers* it was SUCH a pain to re-install everything after my hard drive crashed on my current laptop!

p.s. i'm soooo glad it's friday. every monday i'm counting down the days til the weekends! it's such a relief when friday finally comes around

unluckiest weekend ever

this has been the unluckiest weekend ever...forgot my AC adapter and then i got called sat morning for work (while i was still sleeping at 9am) and got called on the drive back while we were at gilroy (at 5:30pm) and then at midnight last night! i'm sooo tired! worked on a customer problem until 2:30am sigh.

the only good thing is that everyone on my team is back today! hooray!

sooo, who's bought harry potter?? i haven't =P my sister is getting it and i'm just going to wait until she's finished. i'm actually not that anxious to read it, so i'm ok with waiting. i totally forgot what happened in the 5th book, i think i'll need to go find a synopsis page or something. i don't see why people even need to pre-order the book from like amazon.com or bn.com , i mean, today i went to target and there were sooo many copies. if you order it by mail, you have to wait for it to come to you!

awwww

isn't julian sooo cute?? =) he has sooo many cute baby pics!

his mom said everyone thought he was a girl hehe. she liked to keep his and his brother's hair really long!

oops

i forgot to bring my laptop's AC adapter!! so this morning i spent the whole morning downloading ibm's software to julian's dad's computer so i could log in to the internal chat program and check my email! it was a big pain in the butt but at least i got it all downloaded so i could get some work done =P

oh yeah, we stopped at panera in gilroy on the way to LA, it was soooo good. thanks for telling us about it nan!! i had the strawberry poppyseed salad, it had all kinds of fruit: mandarin oranges, blueberries, pineapples, and of course strawberries! it was yummy! now i want to stop there on the way back, i want to try the fuji apple salad =P

nothing new

hmm, no one else seems to be updating their blog, so i haven't really been updating mine either. i've almost survived half of our team being gone, just one more day! i feel kinda bad, my team lead gave me a list of 3 tasks to do, but i haven't been able to do any of them! i've been busy working on customer and test problems, oh wells. it'll be like nothing has changed when they come back!

we're leaving for LA tonight, but i'll be working tomorrow from LA. unfortunately the other guy that is on my team (that isn't on vacation) takes every single friday off. so it'll just be me. last friday i was really busy, so many people contacting me to look at problems, ugh. anyways, i guess i don't really have much else to say.

my life is consumed with the wedding planning...so many little things to do. and moving. omg. i'm dreading the packing. =(

group pics

these are the best group shots we took. the first one is before we went out on saturday, don't we all look lovely? it's because we haven't gone out into the heat and started sweating yet, we're still nice and clean and pretty. a lot of the other group shots are when we are hot and sweaty, not too flattering. the second is in the decorated room during my bridal shower, with all the presents! i'm glad people started downloading their pics =P

killer snake

see how it's about to strangle pearl?? see how it's head is tickling the back of my neck?? that's why we screamed!! =P everyone was laughing at us =(
it's not our fault we don't like snakes. i think the snake handler in the background was scared we would throw down the snake and run away screaming!!

miami!!!

i'm slowly working on a recap of what happened on my trip, and since nothing scandalous really happened it's ok to post it here =) most of the people that read my blog were on the trip but by posting it here, i can read this later and remember what happened (i have a bad memory!!) sorry no pictures to post cause i didn't take any (alice and nancy) took them all, so whenever they decide to give them to the rest of us i can post some of the pretty pictures.

the recap is below, i'm slowly updating each day at a time

friday july 1

shal, pearl, and i left sfo thurs night and arrived in miami around 9am. we had a layover in atlanta. the flights over were uneventful, but i basically got zero sleep on the plane.

when we got off the plane, we had to rush to go catch the free hotel shuttle which comes every odd hour. when we got outside, it was nice and steamy, felt like walking into an oven. we asked some airport dude if the hotel shuttle had left yet, and he said the shuttle didn't start running until 11. so we were like...oh ok, i guess we have to catch a cab. jody arrived at 9am as well, but at a different terminal, so we were waiting for her to meet us. as we were waiting for her, we see the hotel shuttle pull up. good thing we had to wait for jody or else we probably would have already left to take the taxi! anyways, so we got to the shuttle and asked if he could wait for our friend who was coming right now. jody's terminal was pretty far from the shuttle stop but she walked fast and our driver was nice and was willing to wait.

when we got to the hotel, we wanted an early check-in to our room but they said it would cost $40. since the four of us were dead tired, we decided to just pay $40 so we could take a nap. the hotel room was very minimalistic, and the bathroom was very small. it was pretty good for the price. we slept til around 1, 1:30 and by that time, nancy had arrived ! so we decided to go have lunch and go to the beach afterwards. our hotel was in a pretty nice location, middle of south beach, 2 blocks from the beach, walking distance to many things. we ate at a cuban restaurant puerta sagua, which had good food, very big portions. it felt like we were in costa rica again cause it was rice and beans! once we were stuffed, we walked to the beach and rented an umbrella. we had a lot of fun lounging around and playing in the water. the water was soooo warm and nice. it was so refreshing to be in the water instead of sitting on the beach in the hot and muggy weather. the clouds were starting to loom overhead and around 4:30 everyone was vacating the beach cause it was going to start to rain soon. we had stayed about 1.5 - 2 hours and i already had a tan. the sun is very very strong there, and i only needed a couple of hours to start turning darker. anyways, as we were walking back to the hotel, sharon called and said had landed and would see us soon!

we went back to the hotel and all took showers to clean our sticky bodies from the sweat and sand. after we were done, sharon arrived! it took us a looooong time to decide where to eat dinner. we went back and forth and finally decided to go to opa, a greek restaurant. a cool thing about the hotel we were staying at was that there is open bar every night 7-8pm, so at 7 we went downstairs to get some drinks. i had a vodka cranberry and a screwdriver. we started our night out well and off to opa we went. the restaurant was only about half full when we got there. pearl and i went to the restroom and when we came back there were napkins EVERYWHERE and the music was VERY loud. we were like...what the heck happened?? i guess it was time to get the party started! they had two bellydancers come out and they danced on the guest's tables. my friends kept on trying to convince me to dance on the tabletops (since other people were doing it, but it was either 1) they were dancing with a group of people or 2) they were dancing with the belly dancer. the belly dancer did not come to our table and i was NOT going to go up on the table and dance randomally on the table by myself. while the belly dancers were dancing, they would throw napkins around, i'm not sure why, i thought that was kinda strange.

so we ordered our food and enjoyed the entertainment. there was one bellydancer in red that was really really good, it was fun watching people dance with her. shal and i shared a mojito during dinner, and in the middle of dinner sharon, shal, jody and i decided to try a shot of ouzo ( i had no idea what it was, all we knew was that it was some kind of alcohol that you drink with greek food). we took the shot and it was SOOOOO gross it tasted like licorice and was the worst thing EVER! yuck!! when we were done with dinner, they cleared our table and by that time, the bellydancers were on break. of course the alcohol had now taken effect on those that drank, so my friends kept on trying to convince me to dance on the table. i said i wouldn't dance unless someone went up with me. so finally shal and jody agreed to dance with me, so we all got on the table and started dancing! it was kind of embarrassing because we were the only ones on the table and now the restaurant was pretty full, i could see everyone watching us. but i guess we got the party started cause many other people started dancing on the tables as well! once other people were doing it as well, i didn't feel so weird. all of my friends eventually went up on the table to dance with me, yay, we had a lot of fun. we had another round of shots while we were on the table, i have no idea what it was. the waiter had come around and asked us if we wanted another shot of ouzo, we ALL vehemently shouted NO! so they came out with a different alcohol which was very sweet and pretty good. eventually the belly dancers came back out (i think they took like an hour break or something), the belly dancer in red was dancing on the table next to us that was connected to ours. my friends first made me put a dollar in her skirt and THEN made me go up and dance with her. so i danced a little and went back down =) we had a lot of fun, but the loud music was starting to get to us, so we decided to leave.

the plan was to go back to the hotel and wait for alice to arrive around 11:30. when we got back to the hotel we started losing our buzz and getting really sleepy and tired. those from ca were especially tired cause we took the redeye and didn't get much sleep. when alice arrived, she wanted to go out, so we decided to go check out one of the nice hotel's lounge. it was a pretty far walk and we got really hot and sweaty. the lounge was really nice but i think we were all pretty dead (except for alice) and didn't really feel like having another drink, so we just sorta sat there and looked around. since we were so tired and weren't going to be much fun, we decided to just go back and rest, plus we had to wake up early for our everglades tour the next day. we took a cab back home and went to sleep.

(hmm, this looks like this might take a long time...)

saturday july 2

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sunday july 3

the plan for sunday morning was to go to red porch cafe for brunch, however everyone had a surprise in store for me before we ate. when i went to knock on the other girl's room, the room had been decorated with ribbons and tulle and bows! so cute!! alice, jody, sharon, nancy and shal had stayed up the night before (til 5am!!) decorating! (thanks girls! what dedication!) shal said that they were really loud the night before, that's why she went over to help them decorate, but alcohol usually conks me out, so i didn't hear a thing!! there was a stack of presents for me to open, all pretty lingerie!

then we headed to our yummy brunch, they had really good french toast, i didn't order it but i tried someone else's. i had a good breakfast burrito and everyone else's food looked really good too. we then hit the beach! today the weather was perfect, no clouds threatening to pour rain, so we were really happy we could spend a few hours on the beach. at the beach they have umbrellas you can rent for the whole day, but each stand we went to said that they were all sold out! finally we were about to rent this little tent sort of thing which was a little more expensive, but an umbrella freed up for us to rent! perfect!

at the stand we were renting our umbrella from, i saw the rainbow flag blowing off of it and rainbow umbrellas on the beach, but i didn't really attribute it to a gay beach until we had all settled in and i looked around and saw all these gay guys milling around! it was cool though, cause they are all really buff and looked like they took good care of their bodies, so it was nice eye candy. even though it was a gay beach, there were other people there also, so it wasn't like we were the only non gay people. there were many women sunbathing topless as well. we spent about 2-3 hours on the beach, soaking up the rays and playing in the water. i definitely got a nice tan color, everyone was amazed at my tanning ability. everyone except me and jody got sunburnt! we headed back to the hotel around 4 cause nancy was leaving early. because she took this little vacation she now has to work 6 days straight!! =( but it was worth it right?? hehe

we took showers and then watched tv/sleep til dinner time (i swear we're the laziest people in the world, but i attribute it to the heat and sun, the heat doesn't make you want to go out and all that sun at the beach makes you tired =P ) we went to dinner at news cafe which is on ocean drive. sooo many people are walking around along ocean drive, and there are lots and lots of little cafes & eateries to choose from. the food was decent, we had really good peach sangria. we sat outside and sharon kept on complaining about feeling itchy, i guess she has the tastiest blood because no one else seemed to have any problems. oh yeah, during dinner they asked me questions about how well i knew julian. i think i did pretty well, some questions were kinda random so i had no idea or just guessed.

after dinner around 9:30pm the plan was to go back to the hotel and drink apple juice mixed with vodka and then go to a club. when sharon arrived on friday, she couldn't stop talking about it, so finally we were going to try this drink she loves so much. however, when we got back to the hotel, we started watching tv (our favorite pastime...) as we were watching, the power suddenly goes off, but goes back on again. 10 minutes later, the power goes off again, but this time it stays off for a couple of minutes. we're sitting in the dark thinking, what now? pearl goes outside and we see that the hallway lights are on and we could hear the music from the lobby, so it was just our floor with the power outage. a couple of minutes later, the power comes back on. we continue watching tv and everyone eventually falls asleep, except for pearl. the room starts becoming really hot and we realize that the A/C is broken, most likely from the power outage. what's weird is that the A/C in the hallway is still working, it's just the ones in the rooms. so we leave our door open so that we can have some cool air coming in.

shal, jody and i only napped for like half an hour or so, but sharon and alice slept the entire time we were in the room. around 12am, these 2 european guys from across the hall come by and say, hey, do you guys want to come out with us? we asked them where they had been (they had actually come from the club we wanted to go to, and they said it was good) and where they were going. they didn't really have a plan, so we weren't too eager to tag along. they went to their room and half an hour later they had changed and asked us again if we wanted to go out. alice and sharon finally got up, and i guess alice was very refreshed because she was very eager to go out again. since it was our last night, we decided ok, i guess we should go out even though we were tired. we drank some apple vodka drinks, but the vodka we used was kinda strange and gave the drink a funky taste. sharon had bought the alcohol from europe and it had a grass stem in it, so it gave the drink an herb-y taste. it was good, but kinda strange.

we didn't really know where to go, we didn't want pay cover to get into a club, so we just walked down the street our hotel was on, and found a club to go to. the guy outside said "free cover and free drinks inside" so we were like...ok let's go! but alice & one of the european dudes had to pay $10, but somehow the rest of us were able to get in for free, i'm not sure how. and there were no free drinks inside!! so that dude was a big liar. anyways, we got a drink and then went to the dance floor. everyone in there was african-american, although there was this other group of asian girls there which i thought was kinda strange. the music was all hip-hop, at first the music was ok, but then they started playing slow hip-hop which is really hard to dance to and the dance floor was getting empty. i must say though, they sure know how to bump 'n grind!! alice & jody danced with the european guys while the rest of us just danced together. eventulally we decided to leave and go somewhere else.

we went to a lounge really close by and we took a round of tequila shots and a blue colored alcohol (i think it was blue curacao but who knows). i could only take the tequila shot, i was not able to take the blue one. we danced some more, but my head was starting to hurt. half an hour later, the european guys bought ANOTHER round of shots, i was like..dang, they must really want to get us drunk! (we didn't pay for any of our alcohol except for the drinks at the club before!) i didn't take another one, but the rest did. i think they were starting to have a lot of fun =) my head was starting to bother me, so i wanted to head back. pearl and shal left with me while the rest of them stayed and partied. we came back around 3:30 almost 4, so they must have stayed out til 5am or later...crazy!

monday july 4

throughout the entire trip, alice kept on saying how she wanted to go shopping, so today was supposed to be the day we were going to go. since we had a late night last night, that wasn't going to happen. our room (pearl, shal, and i) checked out at 11, while the other girls decided to sleep in a little and check out at 12. so we dropped off our luggage downstairs and decided to walk over to lincoln road (many shops and restaurants). it was about 10 blocks from our hotel, we should have just taxied there cause we spent the whole time walking there trying to walk slow and minimize sweat. and taxis are only about $6/ride which is really cheap.

there weren't that many shops to look at, so we just browsed a little and looked for a place for lunch. we decided on nexxt cafe whose menu is almost exactly the same as cheesecake factory, it's kinda weird. alice, jody, and sharon met up with us at the restaurant, but they were smart, they taxied over! we had a nice lunch, and after lunch, we were working out all our finances. everyone was swapping money everywhere, it was like we were playing monopoly but with real money! after we had settled everything, i wanted to go get gelato, but when we checked the time it was 1:40pm!! our free shuttle left at 2pm!! pearl shal and i ran out of the restaurant without saying goodbye to anyone and ran to go try to catch a cab! alice also decides to go back with us, her shuttle to ft lauderdale was at 2:15. we finally were able to catch a taxi (took forever!) and hopped in. we asked the cab driver to wait for us while we went to get our luggage. we had to pick up the hotel shuttle from a different hotel 2 blocks away. as we were driving over to the other hotel, we could see the hotel shuttle a couple of cars in front of us! whew. so we knew we weren't going to miss it cause it would have to load passengers and stuff.

so we got on the shuttle and got to miami airport. the airport was pretty empty so we got through security really fast. we were still looking for dessert, but there was nothing to get. only starbucks and cinnabun. shal and i got a caramel frap and pearl bought some gummi lifesavers. we had a 3 hour layover in atlanta, but it totally didn't seem like 3 hours! the atlanta airport had sooo much shopping and food so we weren't bored. we had chick-fil-a for dinner, tcby yogurt for dessert. our flight from atlanta to sfo got delayed because of some weird power problem. we sat in the plane for an hour, waiting to take off. once we were in the air we spent the entire flight chatting, i had planned on taking a nap but we had a lot to talk about i guess! finally we arrived home at 11pm!!

overall the trip was fun, very hot & humid, but fun nevertheless. i have a very nice tan! thanks to everyone for coming and celebrating my last few days of singleness, hope you all had fun too! and thanks to shal, sharon, and pearl for planning!! hopefully i'll get my scrapbook ... one day =P

i'm sooo glad i'll be gone this weekend

work is so sneaky, they give us tomorrow off, but yet they need to get some testing done before the quarter is over (which i guess is by friday?), so they need people to call. WHAT?! luckily since i'll be on vacation and WILL NOT have my laptop, so they'll only call if they have some kind of question or something. grr. i guess every holiday weekend i need to go somewhere so that i won't have my computer. it also doesn't help that 2/4 people on my team will be gone for two weeks (out of the country), so they aren't available tonight or friday to call. When I come back i'll be busy busy!

wooow

i got friday off! that's so amazing, now i don't have to use a vacation day, yippee!!

weekend

this past weekend we were actually supposed to go to LA, but we postponed our trip to july. instead, a couple of julian's friends came to visit from LA so we spent the weekend at a friend's place in SF.

fri:
after work drove up to SF. two of julian's friends that live in SF (they room together) are moving out of their apt cause one of them is going to business school in chicago, so it was their "good-bye party". it was sort of sad though, not many people showed up..it was kinda chill. i drank about a can of beer, my tolerance is just not so good anymore. and of course my face turns bright red at the sign of ANY alcohol, so everyone thinks i'm buzzed or drunk, but i'm not =P but my face was sooo hot and my heart was beating very fast. i dunno, alcohol just doesn't make me feel comfortable i guess, especially if all we're doing is sitting and talking. and i started getting a headache at the end of the night...not a good sign for miami, ugh. although beer is starting to taste ok to me now, not as much cringing, still need to work on that for wine!

sat:
drove to sausalito and had a burger at a place that always has a long line out the door. we waited sooo long, it took forever. it was good, but not excellent. then we went to stinson beach to hang out. it's a pretty nice beach, even though it was very very cloudy, it wasn't that cold because there was no wind! it was kinda weird, cause most beaches i go to are very very windy, but this one wasn't. there were a lot of people out on the beach, it was kinda surprising. and there were girls wearing bikinis swimming in the ocean!! i wonder if they were cold??? for dinner we met up with some other people at this french bistro called bistro annex. it sucked. and was $35/person!! good thing julian and i shared an entree... afterwards we went to this bar, everyone else said it was lesbian central ( but i didn't really notice..?? they said there were so many girls making out, but i somehow missed all that??) anyways, we danced a little. i had about half a pink martini, and it was ok. and got red of course, but no headache this time.

sun:
today was the gay parade and they closed off sooo many streets. we were going to go to chinatown for dimsum, but there was just way too much traffic so we just went to yank sing which is close to their apt. we had 8 people and our bill came out to $190 (without tip)!!!! that is the most expensive dim sum i've ever had....ever!! we didn't order anything special and we didn't order THAT much food, it's just an expensive place i guess! i mean, it was better than the cheaper places but not THAT much better!

within julian's circle of friends, one of them is going to business school in chicago, another is going to law school in atlanta, and one is working on assignment in switzerland. so next year i have sooo many places to visit! julian wants to go to switzerland, and it'll be very nice if i could do a BIG east coast trip next year or something. visit cornell, philadelphia, chicago (i think chicago would be a loooot of fun), boston, ny, new haven. that seems like a loot...oy! atlanta might be sorta out of the way, but it's not a place i really want to visit.

this week and next week is a 4 day week for me!! yippee!!

email from sharon

looks like sharon is having fun in europe, she sent me an email that didn't make sense to me, does it make sense to you guys?

(this was in response to an email i sent thanking her for letting me know she'll be available a particular weekend)

sorry i'm drunk in berlin and not good for much now.
see you in a week!

--- Diana wrote:
>
> hehe cool, thanks for letting me know! =)
>
> diana
>

when i got this i was like...hunh?? perhaps she was responding to the wrong email, but isn't that funny though?? hehe, she's so silly. hopefully she'll have more moments like these while in miami =P hehe don't kill me sharon for posting this, i had nothing else to write about! haha

benadryl

hmm, my friends have suggested i take benadryl on our red-eye flight over to miami so i'll be able to catch some zzz's...but my officemate just came back from her trip to india and she gave her son benadryl so that'll he'll sleep on the plane, and after he woke up he was super super hyper. supposedly the doctor told her that was one of the side effects of giving her son benadryl. i wonder if that's true in adults too...i guess we might have to just wait and see =)

house stuff

i would kinda like to remodel our townhouse's master bedroom and bathroom since it's not exactly what i would like, but should we wait to do this later? of course it would be ideal to have this work done before we move in, but it would definitely be a lot of money right around the same time we'll be paying for our wedding and honeymoon. i'm kind of scared to broach the subject to my parents to see what they think cause they are of the mindset if there's nothing wrong with it, why remodel?

although i think new furniture and new paint is a priority over remodelling. i want to buy a looot of new stuff for the house. new bed and new couch are musts. i already have the new sheets i want to get picked out =P it would be really nice to get new furniture for everything, but i think we'll have to do that slowly heh. saving money is so tough, after the wedding we'll be sooooo poor. it'll be very very sad.

the plan is to take possession of the house august 1, the lease on our apt ends late september. in the month of august we need to paint the inside of the house, decide if we need to get new carpet, decide if we want to remodel???, and move in!!! (since a majority of sept we'll be in tahiti yipeee). and of course finishing up alll the fun fun wedding details. i'm not looking forward to august, hopefully i won't be too stressed out or anything =/

toolbar fixed

ok, i fixed my toolbar, yippeee =P
i couldn't use the direct image links, i had to save the pictures to my computer and then upload them, what a pain! ok, at least it's fixed.

pictures

Here are some fun pictures from our engagement session with our photographer last friday. we were really late so we didn't take as many pictures as i would have liked, but we only get to pick one in our package, so i guess the less choices the easier to pick right? =) the cool thing about digital photography is that we got our proofs really fast. we took a lot of artsy and fun poses, our photographer really liked kissing pictures too! in a couple of shots, kids were walking by and they said "ewwww, that's so gross! they're kissing!!" i'm not sure which one we'll end up picking, i don't even know if we're considering the ones below, but they're some of my favs. enjoy!

i like this one, but julian says he doesn't like profile shots, so boo.


i really like the pose of this, but too bad my hair is covering my face, i think if it wasn't, this would definitely have been a top runner, alas!


i like the background in this one, but i feel like it's looks like we're making out or something!


we took a lot of shots like this, where one of us is in the foreground and the other is in the background, kinda interesting i guess, but why would anyone pick this?


we did sooo many jumping shots, but i guess the rest of them must have turned out really bad cause this is the only he gave us. at the time i was thinking, why are we doing this?? and he kept on telling me to jump higher, i was like...argh, i can't, i'm wearing heels!! heh. it turned out better than expected i guess, but of course we took sooo many and only one came out!


boo, i screwed up my toolbar on the right by posting all those images in my previous post, sigh. i'll see if i can get around to fixing it =P