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