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