Just came back from having dinner with Rod and Rene at Ghengis Khan. It's a pretty interesting all you can eat buffet where you grab different kinds of meat and grill them at your table. They also had sushi, sashimi, shumai and potstickers. There was plenty to eat and it didn't cost too much.

I let Rod and Rene grill the food since we all know I'm not the best chef...but I did get a chance to do a little grilling, too. Fortunately, I didn't set myself on fire. There were a lot of flames everywhere. All the better to thoroughly cook our meats! Everything tasted really good, though the tiny scallops didn't fare too well on the grill, they got stuck and fell through the slots.

So I sit here with my laptop on my lap, and my belly full, and I STINK. I smell like barbeque. My hair smells, my clothes smell, and the smoky scent is coming out of my pores.

Just smelling myself is making me hungry again.

This is my last day of non-healthy eating before I start my 'gotta get in shape for Hawaii' diet. Which means nothing actually, because diets never work for me. But I just like to THINK that I'm going to go on a diet. Really though, I need to tone up a bit before I can even consider going in public in a swimsuit. Echhh.....

Off to shower!

Oh, and Rod sucks because he keeps on talking about being related to Whilce Portacio and that he met Mark Dacascos the other day. Hmph! *seethes with jealousy* He's never even watched 'Only the Strong'! It shoulda been me!

Well, she's already been nominated, but I hope they vote for her...

The little lady I'm talking about is Keisha Castle Hughes, from 'Whale Rider', which I reviewed below. The studio had pushed for her to be nominated as a supporting actress, but it seems that the academy felt her outstanding performance was deserving a best actress nod, making her the youngest best actress nominee at 13 years old.

She was picked by the same casting agents who found Anna Paquin (who won Best Supporting actress). They found her in school, and chose her to be in 'Whale Rider', even though she had no prior acting experience. She even lied and said she was a good swimmer, just to get the part.

But by watching the movie, you can see that this young Jennifer Beals look-a-like is a natural. Just watching the emotions go through her face, with no words said, is amazing. Her nuanced emotion changes, sadness, stubborness, pride, determination give life to the movie.

I hope this little girl wins...she's got tough competition, and chances are that Charlize Theron is going to win...but I'd like to hope that the Oscar voters will give us a little surprise and give this gal a chance. And if not this year, I hope that she'll have many more chances in the future...

I've been wanting to write this for a while now, but just haven't had the chance, nor remembered when I had extra time.

But if you ever have a free night, and you're looking for a movie to rent, rent 'Whale Rider'.

'Whale Rider' is the story of Pai, a young Maori girl in New Zealand who's grandfather is the leader of her tribe. Her twin brother, who died at childbirth, was to be the tribe's next leader. The death of her brother broke a line of male heirs way back to her ancestor Pikea, who legend said came to New Zealand from Hawai'i on the back of a whale. Her grandfather never forgave Pai for being the one who lived.

So she goes through life trying to live up to her grandfather's expectations, but never pleasing him. And her tribe is need of a new leader. Her grandfather takes all the young boys in the tribe to teach them the old ways, but will not allow Pike to learn because she is a girl. But she knows that she is better than any of the boys, and she knows that she can lead her people.

So it's your typical 'girls can't do this because of tradition' movie, yet it's so much more. All the performances in the movie are powerful, especially the grandfather's and Pai's. It touches on the differences between generations, trying to maintain a dying culture and learning that sometimes to move on, tradition has to change. And the movie blurs the line between reality and fantasy...the ending is just beautiful.

I've always had an interest in the Maori culture, and never knew how rich the culture was in New Zealand. The movie gives a wonderful insight into an unfamiliar culture. All the extras in the movie are from the actual tribe where the film was filmed, and the backdrop of the New Zealand coast is breathaking.

So see it. It'll make you feel good.

For those of you who love taking pictures and posting them on the web, here's a listing of photo meme projects to check out:

PhotoMemes.org

And for those of you who don't know what a 'meme' is (which I didn't know), here's the definition, courtesy of Noelle:

Now you know.

Haven't posted a short track-centric thread in a while...

I watched Apolo Anton Ohno at the 2002 Olympics, and I was impressed with his sportsmanship when he fell in the 1000m, and instead of getting the gold, got the silver. He had the medal in his grasp, but got involved in a pileup and had to scamper for second. Some people would have complained, some may have asked for race to be run again. Everyone expected him to win, people were disappointed. But he was happy to have gotten second, he jumped up and down on the podium holding up his silver like a little boy in Christmas.

Then there was the controversy surrounding Kim Dong Sung's crosstracking call and Apolo's 'theatrics' in the 1500m. I've seen enough short track by now to see that many people flail their arms around, especially when they're trying to avoid a disqualification. It was made a bigger deal than it actually was. But it was great to see him get his gold.

NBC made him their poster child. He was everywhere during and after the Olympics. I admit, I was hooked.

So I was talking with Claudine one day, and I said that someday I wanted to meet Apolo. She laughed at me, and said it would never happen. Because really, when would I ever have a chance to? So I made a bet with her that within five years, I would shake Apolo's hand. She was sure she'd make her five dollars, easily. Short track would be a short lived fascination that I would quickly lose interest in.

Of course, those of you who know me or have been reading this blog for the last year know that I'm WAY past that now. I've seen him more times than I can count, watched him race, gotten his autograph, had my picture taken with him, interviewed him several times, gotten the head nod of recognition from him...And really, because of that soul patched phenom, my life has changed. I've made so many new friends - fellow fans, webmasters, even an occasional skater or two. And some of these people I call some of my closest friends, you know who you are. As for Apolo, well, he's transformed from this celebrity I looked up to and almost idolized, to this regular guy that was faster than most. Which is still pretty cool.

So Claudine....pay up.

And for your entertainment, since I've got some extra bandwidth for this month, I'm including a clip of him from Marquette, winning the 500m race. It was already posted on the OZ, but I'll post it here so my non-short track readers can get a glimpse of it. This only gives a fraction of the speed, heart racing excitement, and noise that you'd experience at an actual competition. If you ever have a chance to go to a competition, definitely go to one!

Apolo's 500m Win in Marquette

18MB

This week's Friday Five:

You have just won one million dollars:

1. Who do you call first?
Dave. If he was with me, then my sisters.

2. What is the first thing you buy for yourself?
A kickass new computer.

3. What is the first thing you buy for someone else?
Well, I would pay off Dave's loans. That's our biggest financial worry right now.

4. Do you give any away? If yes, to whom?
Certainly. Close family (Claudine's got some massive loans and Fata needs to go to grad school), help some friends out, and charities.

5. Do you invest any? If so, how?
Yeah, I'd invest a good part of it. How? I guess I would as the Modern Pope for some investing advice. He seems to know what he's doing.

Photo Friday: Emptiness

Before the Reception - August 2003

You never really think that people 'invent' these things, but I guess they do!

'CtrlAltDelete' Inventor Restarts Career

Theme Thursday: Repeating Patterns

Stitches!

Posted by Yano at 11:16 AM | Comments (1)

Well, as you know, I've had a couple skiing/snowboarding adventures of late. It gets pretty expensive after a while, with buying the lift ticket and renting equipment. Also when you rent your own equipment, you need to get used to a new board, new shoes and you have to worry if everything will fit you correctly, or if the boots smell or how worn the equipment is, and it takes about an hour out of your day to wait in line and go through the motions.

So we thought of a solution.

Buy our own boards!!!

Muhahahaha....

Since it's the end of the season here, there are sales everywhere. Sportmart is having an awesome sale on snowboards. Most of them are 25% - 55% off. That includes bindings, boots, bags and other accessories. And if you buy a board, boots and bindings at Sportmart, you get an extra 10% off the whole package.

That's a pretty sweet deal!

But the toughest thing is finding a board, because at Sportmart, there are a LOT of ugly boards there. Ugly and damaged, since they've been out all season for people to pick through. We also discovered that every Sportmart here has a different selection of boards.

But I was able to find THE ONE. It was almost like finding my wedding dress. I saw some different boards and thought, 'Ehh, that's nice...' 'This one looks okay...' But then I found HER. As soon as I saw her, I knew it was meant to be.

So let me introduce you to Kitty.

The SIMS Mystique

Isn't she pretty? First of all, she's purple. Second, she's got a cape and a little cat mask on. Can't you just picture me wearing this get up?

Well, if you can't, I want you to know that I'm going to sew myself this exact outfit so I can match my board as I go down the slopes. Can you imagine me in a purple cape and cat mask whizzing down the mountain? Hahahahaha...

So where am I getting all this money? I don't know. Me and Dave decided not to go to the movies, have boba shakes or eat at Todai for two months. And after a couple years, the boards are going to pay for themselves, so it doesn't matter anyway. So really, it's not costing THAT much, at least that's what we're fooling ourselves to think...

So YAY! I've got a snowboard!

I was blog hopping the other day, and I read a post in Marilyn's blog about some of the questions that have been running around her head lately. Marilyn is like the little sister I never had. Oh wait. She's like the 12 years younger sister I never had. She is the sweetest lil lady I know, and I worry about her all the time, since I'm not home to watch over her or give her advice. It's not easy being a teenager, and I know I had many questions running through my head when I was her age...

So I thought I'd answer hers...as well as I could...

What college do I want to go to?
Urbana, baby! If not that, Northern is cool, too. Though their Ricebowl team blows.
What should I major in?
Social work? Hotel Management? Nutrition?
Wait...do I even wanna go to college?
YES YOU DO. What else are you going to do? Work at Dunkin' Donuts?
Should I go to my prom?
Yeah. And if you bring a date I'll need a picture, medical records and a blood sample.
Why's it so fricken hard to find a job?
Have you tried the mall? Phone sex operator? Dunkin Donuts?
When will I get my own bank account?
I dunno. Ask your parents. Maybe once you graduate.
Am I ever gonna get my driver's license?
You are part of the curse. You won't get it til after you graduate. But if you'd like, go ahead and break the family curse and get it while you're 16.
Would I make it on my own if I moved out at the age of 18?...19?...20?
If you go away to school, it's just like moving out.
What's the deal with insurance? --there's life insurance, car insurance, health insurance--wait--is health insurance the same as life insurance? And why doesn't your health insurance or whatever insurance take care of your dental work? or does it?
This is the way that I understand it: With Life Insurance, your beneficiaries get money if you die. Car Insurance is for your car, Health Insurance helps pay for doctor bills, so it's not the same as life insurance. Depending on what kind of health insurance you have, eye and dental may or may not be included.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
They just do.
Where should I get my tattoo?
Howabout NOWHERE.
Should I still get my belly pierced?
Sure. Just no tattoo.
Do I wanna become a photographer? a nurse? a physical therapist? a speech pathologist? do I wanna work with kids???
You can be whatever you want to be. Try out different things in college and see what you like.
Why am I so horrible with numbers?!
I am too! It must be a family thing...
My hair's getting long--should I cut it?
I like your hair long.
What if I fuck up on SATs?!?!
You can take it again, can't you? Don't freak out too much about it...
How many friends from high school will I keep in touch with?
Probably not too many, unless you REALLY make an effort.
Should I move out of Chicago?
No!!!
Should I move to another state?
No!!!
Will I ever visit the Phillippines?
Yeah, let's do a cousin trip one day! We'll have fun with the chickens and pics on the family farm!
Why don't I have cousins my age?
Because you're special. And by the time you came along everyone else was to tired to have another kid.
What's it gonna be like if Michael or Marian get married?
The same, more or less.
What if I get married before them?
That's fine as long as you don't get PREGNANT before you're married. I don't care WHO gets married now, just as long as I was first. *snicker*
When am I gonna get some nieces and nephews???
I'm working on it, woman!!!

[added 6:27pm - I forgot two questions]
Why am I so afraid of change?
Everyone is. Change is an unknown, and people are afraid of the unknown. There's nothing wrong with it, as long as you learn how to deal with it and not become freaked out with it.
Why does my dad karaoke every Saturday morning?
So he can entertain us as events like baptisms, wedding receptions and other places. Having him sing gives the bad singers courage to sing - 'Dude, I can sing SO much better than that guy!' Man, I LOVE your dad's singing!!!
ok...love you, cuz....I'm out.

I'm working at home today, and it feels like I've finally gotten a chance to sit down and breathe. Seems like since the beginning of the year my life has been in fast forward and I've been doing so many things. From working every week in Thousand Oaks to all our little side activites, I've been a busy little lady.

I've been wanting to update this site for a while now. Some of you may have seen little changes here and there, with links being added to the sidebars or new pictures in the picture pages. It's continually a work in progress, but I can't wait for the day that I can say to myself, 'Hmm....there's nothing else to fix in here!'

Being a Gemini, (yeah, I believe in that stuff), I'm constantly starting things and never ending them. But this year (I'll give myself a year) I want to complete some things.

So for my own reference, here's the things that I've got my sticky little fingers caught up in right now...

- adding my artsy photography to the pictures page
- updating and adding my convention sketches to my art page
- actually adding my OWN art to the art page
- adding new links and taking out dead links to the links page
- expanding the me page, because you should all know by now, it's all about ME!
- getting the book club site up and running...
- creating a page for blog templates, because I know a lot of people out there who need them...
- finally giving my Psylocke site a much needed makeover and update. They may have killed her in the comics, but her memory will live on my site.
- updating rustysmith.com. Because if I don't, I don't think anyone else will.
- adding some reviews to Dan's site. Which means I'll just cut and paste the reviews on this site onto his. *wink*

I just had some terrific sushi. I don't know if it's because I haven't had it in a while or because it was actually good. I finally found a place in Thousand Oaks that has sushi, and it looked like a dive, but when I looked at their menu, they had some pretty interesting sushi rolls. And the fish was really fresh - it was that melt-in-your-mouth fresh. I got an eel/avocado roll and the sashimi combo, which included seared ahi tuna, tuna, fatty tuna, yellowfish, salmon, and one mystery fish that was super tasty.

Yum, yum, I'm in sushi heaven.

And the best thing about it is my client is paying for it!

You know, there's nothing to do on Tuesdays. There used to be that 'This or That Tuesday', but I think it's gone.

So to give y'all something to do...well, ok, to give ME something to do on Tuesday, I'm starting up 'Top Ten Tuesdays'. Who knows how long it will last. I might get bored of it next week, who knows!

So either post your link here if you've answered on your blog, or just post your answers in a comment if you don't (that means you, Lara!). If this thing takes off, maybe 3T (see, I've already given it a nickname) will get it's own page. (Oh, and don't worry, the book club is coming soon!)

Let's begin!

Top Ten Brand Names You're Loyal To
1. Johnson & Johnson Q-Tips
2. Crest toothpaste
3. Spam
4. Honda cars
5. Covergirl eyeliner
6. Cool Whip whipped topping
7. Heinz ketchup
8. Microsoft Office (I know, I'm a sucker)
9. Adobe Software (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.)
10. Boston Gas Permeable contact lens solution

If you're going to link to this, link here:

http://www.yanowhatimean.com/archives/001046.html

Careful, this is a long one!!!

Last weekend, me, Dave, Cathy, Vinnie, Dean and Brooks drove out to Mammoth Mountain, which is a little less than 5 hours away from LA. I had gone snowboarding the week before to learn at Mountain High, so I didn't waste any time at Mammoth learning. Of course, snowboarding looks a LOT easier than it actually is, unless you've skateboarded before. And unfortunately for me, 1000 hours playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater doesn't count.

We packed up two cars, one with groceries and luggage, and my little CRV with the guy's snowboards. Of the six of us, Cathy and Brooks were the only ones who haven't snowboarded before, I had one day of experience and Dave had two. We left early in the morning, and as we got closer to Mammoth Lakes, the view got more and more breathtaking. It's incredible to see the beautiful snow covered mountains so close to LA.

We got to our destination at about 4pm, and we settled into our little condo. Our place was only about 2 blocks away from the mountain lifts, so we had a great location. Our place was on the second floor, but was actually up two flights of stairs, and let me tell you, climbing up the flight of stairs at 9,000 feet above sea level just about killed me. I was winded when I got to the top and I had to take a break. It didn't bode well for the rest of the trip. How was I going to snowboard if I couldn't even make it up the stairs?

After putting our stuff in our mini-cabin, we headed out to rent skis/snowboards. Dave wanted to maximize his time at Mammoth, so he planned on snowboarding the second day (the guys brought an extra snowboard for him) and ski the first day, so he could explore the mountain. Dave's been skiing since he was in 6th grade, so he's pretty good at it. He didn't want to spend the whole weekend putzing around on the lower slopes on a snowboard when he could explore the whole mountain the first day on skis, then putz around the second day.

We went to the rental shop that had the cheapest deal on rentals and got our gear. The rental board boots STANKED to high heaven. (If stanked is even a word.) Brooks had to actually turn away a pair because it smelled so foul. Me and Cathy both got clicker boards, where the board clicks to your boots, rather than what is popular now - the strap-in boot. Clickers are just easier for me to put on. I know that eventually I'll have to give in and get the strap-ins, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. We got our stuff together, piled it into the car and went back to our place.

Since our condo wasn't furnished with a rice cooker, we had to figure out how to do it the old fashioned way, at a higher altitude. It seems like Cathy has about the same level of cooking expertise as I do, so we were a little apprehensive. We found some small pots and pans and tried cooking some rice, but at the altitude we were at the water boiled away quickly and our rice ended up soft on the outside, kinda crunchy in the middle. But food is food, and no one complained. But a note to all of you high altitude people out there who plan on cooking rice - you need more water!!!

The next day we headed out to the mountain, which was HUGE. I've been skiing before, and this mountain was easily four times as big as any mountain I've skied on. During the whole weekend there, I only went about a tenth of the mountain. Since Dave was skiing the first day, he traveled off on his own, which was fine with me because when we ski/snowboard together we just hold each other back. We actually have more fun going off on our own, then meeting later and sharing our experiences.

The rest of us spent the first day on the bunny hill, which was actually much bigger than any bunny hill I've seen. It's about 5 times longer than the bunny hill I learned to ski on in Wisconsin. Rather than a tow rope to go up, you have to take an actual lift, and the lift takes about 5 minutes to get to the top. We got up there, and then the more experienced boarders took a newbie to help down the hill. Vinnie got Brooks, their cousin Mikkel got Cathy and I had Dean. The first time the mountain, I fell about 50 times. Three quarters of that was me just trying to get up from my board. Dean was trying to teach me the right way to get up, and I was trying to do everything he was doing, but after a few dozen falls, he said, 'Just grab the top of your board for balance' and when I told him I couldn't, we both realized that old, creaky me isn't limber enough to get up the normal way. So I figured out my own way to get up and after that, things ended up being a lot easier.

After lunch at Mikkel's house that he was staying at, we went back for a couple more runs. I was definitely getting better - able to control my speed, brake when necessary and maneuver around fallen boarders. But I wasn't doing the proper weaving motion - sking down, then doing a heel turn, facing down and doing a toe turn. I was basically on my heels the whole time. My body refused to turn facing the mountain.

That night we were so exhausted, we just popped in a movie, played some Texas Hold'em and ate some hot wings.

The next day we woke up sore. I checked out my bruise from the week before and it was worse, since I fell on it a couple times the day before. Fortunately, I had no new injuries. The second day of boarding was similar to the first, though I did venture out to the harder slopes. But I was a bit intimidated by the fact that I saw so few people falling on their asses. People on the blue slopes knew what they were doing. So I decided to head back to the easy slope to perfect my technique. I did run into a problem when I discovered that I had a blister on my ankle from my cheap snowboard boots. It made it really painful to walk. But once I put a bandaid on it, I was good to go. I tried to spend the rest of the day trying to turn on my toes, and near the end of the day and after many falls on my right ass cheek (which some call a 'splitter', different from the 'shitter', thank you Jamie) I finally figured out the balance needed to turn on my front edge without falling over. However, I was unable to turn back on my heel. I would end up turning on my toe, then doing a complete 360 back to the beginning. Not the proper technique, but it looked pretty cool.

Dave was supposed to meet me at the lift, but he wasn't there, and me and Cathy waited for a bit and then started heading back towards the lodge. I looked up the hill and noticed a figure walking down, holding his board. It turns out that during his last run, Dave noticed that he was unable to turn his board, and looked down and noticed that his bindings were loose. So he just walked down the rest of the mountain, poor thing. Then as we were walking towards the lodge, his bindings just completely fell off. Luckily they fell off when he wasn't on the mountain!

After our last day of boarding, Mikkel invited us over to his house for dinner. We stopped by the grocery store to pick up some pie, and the cashier asked Dean if he was Wilmer Valderama from 'That 70's Show'. When he said no, I don't think she believed him. Since his hair has grown out, he REALLY looks like him, and I guess people ask him all the time. When we got to the house and got out of the car, it was unbelievable how clear the night was, and how bright the stars were. They looked so close and so bright we felt like we could reach out and touch them. It was definitely breathtaking. I could have stared at the stars all night if it wasn't so cold! Mikkel's whole family was staying at the house, and they had a lot of food. We ate really well there - pork chops, shrimp, sinigang, salmon - it was like going to a Filipino party. Afterwards, we went into the outdoor hot tub. That was challenging in itself because it was about 10 degrees outside and it was about 15 feet from the door to to hot tub. But once we were in it was SO nice! We hung out there for a while talking and joking around, and no one wanted to be the first one out. It was so cold that if we dipped our hair in the water, it would freeze on our heads since we had our heads above water. Finally, we decided we had to get out, and Mikkel was the first to jump out, run inside, dry off, throw on a winter jacket and come out, ready to hand each one of us our towels as we jumped out of the tub and sprinted inside. It was so cold during that 15 feet of space between the tub and the house that when we got in we were almost hypervenilating from the shock of the cold. I'm sure if someone was watching us it would have been a sight to see, people running around soaking wet in bathing suits in 10 degree weather.

Once we got back, me and Dave pretty much passed out. Once we got up in the morning, we packed up our stuff, took some pictures and checked out. We drove around to the scenic places around Mammoth, but couldn't take a gondola to the top of the mountain because it was $17 a person. But we did get some nice shots on our way home.

All in all, it was an awesome trip. We had a great time, great laughs, great snowboarding. I'm not an expert yet, but I can get down the mountain without falling. Cathy picked it up pretty quickly, and we're at about the same level right now. Brooks did alright, but since he was so tall, he was having problems with his board a lot. He was just happy that he saw another black family at the mountain. There weren't too many people of color out there! I managed to get through the weekend without breaking anything, though my wrists are really sore from falling on them, and my right butt cheek has a bruise. Unfortunately, you're not going to see it. But you CAN see some of my pictures here. Here's a sampling of my favorites:

Well, I got back early Sunday evening from our mini-vacation to Mammoth Mountain for a weekend of snowboarding. Me and Dave went out there with his cousins Cathy, Dean and Vinnie, and their friend Brooks. We had a little condo rented out, which was really close to the lodge.

The drive out there was beautiful, the snow capped mountains were breathtaking. Mammoth Mountain was GIGANTIC. Probably about four times as big as any resort I've been to. I'm really happy that I got my boarding lessons in before the trip, because I got to concentrate more on perfecting my boarding skills at Mammoth, rather than wasting a day taking lessons.

We had a lot of fun. I'll tell you more later today, but right now I'm pooped (it's 1 am).

And sore.

REALLY sore.

But don't worry, I didn't get any more nasty bluish/purplish/yellowish bruises, though I did make my current ones MUCH bigger.

So for now, I'll leave you a picture to keep you hanging 'til tomorrow:

Mammoth Mountain

More pics tommorrow....

Thanks to Fatima for updating while I was gone. I'll give you your dollar when I get home, sister.

Posted by Yano at 12:51 AM | Comments (3)

This week's Unconscious Mutterings:

1. Political:: Conspiracy
2. Concentration:: Camp
3. Fish:: Fry
4. Lunacy:: Craziness
5. Red:: Square
6. Imply:: Accuse
7. Recognize:: You Better
8. Sexist:: unfair
9. Commercial:: Coke
10. Stricken:: Cancer

Friday Five, a couple days late...

At this moment, what is your favorite...

1. ...song?
Step In The Name Of Love by R. Kelly

2. ...food?
Sushi

3. ...tv show?
Smallville

4. ...scent?
Fabric Softener

5. ...quote?
"It's Delux, son! Delux! It's not that hard!" - from the cokemusic.com commercials

Back from Mammoth, lots to catch up on!

Found this one on Noelle's...though when I went to the link, it had different questions, so I'll do both...

Thursday Three: Fonts:

1. What is your favourite font?
There are too many favorites. I've been collecting free fonts over the web for years now. But I think my favorite all purpose font is Della Robbia. Unfortunately, it's a hard font to find. Coming in a close second is 'festus!' But for every day use, it's Tahoma 10pt.

2. Which font do you use for essays and set type?
Anything for work is Tahoma 10pt.

3. Which font do you hate?
I guess Arial, just for the fact that it's Excel's default font. It's so, blah.

Thursday Three: Zodiac:

1. What astro star sign are you?
Gemini, baby!

2. Do you favour your star sign traits?
Hmm...I guess I do. I think the more accurate answer is that I believe them to be true for my personality - good and bad. Youthful, adaptable, communicative, superficial, inquisitive, tense, indecisive, ambivalent...yeah, that's me!

3. Do you read and/or believe the astrological star signs?
I don't have time to read them, nor do I believe the day to day horoscopes anyway, but I do think that your astrological sign does describes some aspects of your personality.

Okay, so i didn't write here yesterday for her, so she'll prolly be mad. BUT, i didn't know her password, and i just kept on trying to see what mine was, cuz i fergot wut it was.

Anyways, many of you have been wondering where the heck Christine is. so did i until she gave me call (sheesh). she's at (or WAS at) some mountain skiing. mammoth mountain???? heck i dunno.

aight, so she just wanted me to update her page. hahahahahhaa....how funny.

and now i can write my own stuff in here too...just to try to amuse u. and for those of you who have never seen any of my posts, yes, i purposely write how i talk. i know i misspell things. :D

and how about those mutterings!

1. Political:: party
   
2. Concentration:: orange juice
   
3. Fish:: yummy catfish
   
4. Lunacy:: secrecy
   
5. Red:: bull
   
6. Imply:: suggest
   
7. Recognize:: understand
   
8. Sexist:: pig
   
9. Commercial:: waiting
   
10. Stricken:: inflicted
    

oh, and here some recent tests i have taken, either from christine or melanie:

What Classic Movie Are You?

my elf name...Gilraen Ciryatan...kinda cool...iffy on the pronunciation...
my hobbit name...Pansy Foxburr of Fair Downs...DAMMIT!!! pansy?!?!?!? fack. yeah, that's not kewl. fackers. hehehe...

lessee, i went out last night to moxie for jeff, norway & amy's party...drank alotta wine, downed a diablo, and had a bit of amaretto sour. it was awesome. no hangover, tho i was a lil shaky in the mornin. anyhoo, we had so much fun...me, abby, liss, pj n cathy. the place looked really posh, but since we prepartied, we didn't really care. so to sum up the night: truth, drink or dare jenga n wine mix, spinning and wine don't, cab 755's name is korea lee, and it's driver's name is andre, and he's a cool romanian guy. yeah it was an awesome night!!!

aight, so this is enough for now. christine will be back soon for your regular broadcast.
have a good evening!

This week's Theme Thursday: Monkeying Around

No, That's His Tail He's Playing With!
San Diego Zoo, November 2003

This week's yanowhatimean ¿Question?

What is your favorite sport to play?

Today, the Mystery Machine got into it’s first accident. ‘Mystery Machine?’ you ask? My car – I have a lot of Scooby Doo stuff in there, and it’s big and green and I like to solve mysteries. Hence, the Mystery Machine.

But I digress.

I was driving into Thousand Oaks from Camarillo and the traffic was so-so. I slowed down with traffic, and stopped, because it got pretty bad. Then behind me, I heard a screeching. I looked at my rearview and saw a truck swerving. After living near a busy street, I knew such a screeching was usually followed by a crashing sound. This time, instead of a crashing sound, I heard a thump. Surprisingly, it was a thump that I felt, too. It all went in slow motion. Then I realized that I was hit. And I wasn’t even moving.

So I thought “Oh fuck!” and pulled over to the shoulder. I got out of the car to inspect the damage, and saw a palm sized abrasion on the side of my car. It was barely dented, and you could hardly tell that anything happened at all. But it was there. My baby was damaged.

The other driver had pulled over on the shoulder as well and came out of his truck to check on his car to see if there was damage. Then he walked over to me to make sure I was OK. We checked out my car, and he apologized often. I guess the car right in front of him broke really quickly, and he swerved to avoid it and hit me.

He gave me his address, driver’s license number and insurance information. He was really helpful and seemed genuinely sorry.

What sucks is that since I’m working with the president today, so I had set out early to get some extra work done, but since I had the accident, I didn’t have much time to do the things that I wanted to do.

But I’m ok, which is what really matters.

----------------------

In other news, I was working with the prez today, and he started saying, “Tomorrow we’re going to walk over this…” and I said, “Um, I’m not going to be here tomorrow. I’m on vacation.”

”WHAT?!?!?!” he said, as flames started coming out of his ears.

”Well, I gave in my two week vacation notice, and no one told me No, and no one told me Yes. But in the past, it’s always been a Yes if they don’t say anything.”

He was pretty upset, since that means he has to be there on his own tomorrow, and worked me really hard for the next few hours after that, but it’s what I expected. Fortunately, I was able to keep my cool and not make any stupid mistakes and I think I could actually have impressed him, which is pretty hard to do. But he was still pissed at me.

But I got done all I needed to do, which is what was my goal for the day.

And when he left at 4:45, one hour and 45 minutes before I did, he quickly said, “Good job.”

And I shook my foot like a dog being scratched behind the ears.

So I'm up in the Oaks this week. But this time, the president of the company is working with me. He's here to talk to the clients, work on the site, check out the data, see what I've been doing for the past 2 months, order me around, make me nervous, watch over my shoulder, fun things like that. It's been a while since we've been at a client site together.

So we were working through some issues that I had fixed that he needed to transfer over to his files, and he told me that there was a new build of our product that would fix some of the problems I was running into. He told me to call Dan and ask him to upload the newest stuff to our FTP site. So I call Dan and asked him if we had a new build of the product, and he said he had the same files I did. El Presidente took the phone from me and asked Dan if we had new website files. Dan said that there were some new ones. So the prez told me to ask Dan again, but correctly.

So I asked him again....correctly. My voice was dripping with sarcasm when I asked Dan again because I felt like a schoolkid told repeat her timetables. Luckily the prez thought it was funny or I'd be typing this from the unemployment line.

So I'm stressed. When the president is around, I feel this need to be the best and make everything perfect, but I also get nervous and make the silliest mistakes. We rarely if ever get praise, but when it does happen, it's like waking up on Christmas and seeing the presents that Santa left you. We're all hungry for some sort of attention and good words from him. When we get that rare pat on the head for doing a good job, for a millisecond you think, 'Wow! He's proud of me!' In a way, it's pretty sad.

What could even be sadder was the other day I was talking to him on the phone about my project, and I had mentioned to him that I was going to be taking time off this week. He was giving me a hard time about taking time off since I'm so busy this month, and I was getting annoyed. He then told me about these issues he was having when he was at a client's site, and I snapped at him and said, 'What do you mean it didn't work? Did the thing blow up? You can't just say it didn't work, you have to tell me HOW it didn't work or I can't help you. Just saying it didn't work means nothing!' Of course, after saying that, I thought 'Oh shit!' but he then went on to describe the problem, and he was caught off guard. Then he paused, and my heart was in my throat...and he said, "you know what?" "What?" I asked. "You sounded just like me just now! See! You're starting to question! You're not afraid to get some answers!"

Whew!

Whoa whoa...wait, he said I sounded just like him?!?!

What am I turning into?!?!

*runs and cries*

Shh! I'm secretly posting as I'm working with the president of my company. I'm a rebel!

Three engineers and three accountants were traveling by train to a conference. At the station, the three accountants each bought tickets and watched as the three engineers bought one ticket.

"How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?" asked an accountant.

"Watch and you'll see", answered an engineer.

They all boarded the train. The accountants took their respective seats, but the three engineers all crammed into a rest room and closed the door behind them. Shortly after the train departed, the conductor cam around collecting tickets. He knocked on the restroom door and said, "Ticket, please." The door opened just a crack and a single arm emerged with a ticket in hand

The conductor moved on.

The accountants saw this and agreed it was a quite clever idea. So, after the conference, the accountants decide to copy the engineers on the return trip and save some money (being clever with money, and all that). When they got to the station, they bought a single ticket for the return trip. To their astonishment, the engineers didn't buy a ticket at all.

"How are you going to ride without a ticket?" said one perplexed account.

"Watch and you'll see", answered an engineer.

When they boarded the train, the three accountants crammed into a restroom and the three engineers crammed into another on nearby. The train departed.

Shortly afterward, one of the engineers left his restroom and walked over to the restroom where the accountants were hiding. He knocked on the door and said, "Ticket, please".

Here's Dave's Unconscious Mutterings:

1. Berry:: Rick
2. Fiendish:: Villain
3. Bar:: Exam
4. Frank:: Thomas
5. Bend:: Knee
6. Fanatic:: Philly
7. Belch:: Ogre
8. Flagrant:: Foul
9. Burden:: Task
10. Flimsy:: Girlieman

When I was a little kid, there were many things I wanted that I never got - cabbage patch kids, the Barbie house, an Easy Bake Oven, hungry hungry hippos...but the one thing that I wanted SO much that I never got was a Lite Brite. I wanted so badly to create works of art on that black background with those colored pegs. But it never happened.

Until today.

Thanks to Joanna for this link!

Online Lite Brite

And you can see my creation:

Guess Who This Is!

Yesterday me and Dave went to Mountain High for some snowboarding. Since I suck so badly at skiing because I didn't have the proper instruction, I decided to go to snowboarding school. Dave had already gone on Monday to learn, so he was on the slopes while I waited for class to begin. Before class, I watched the technique of the boarders on the slopes. It didn't look to hard at all. Much easier than skiing!!!

My instructor reminded me of Judge Reinhold. Tall, friendly, funny and easy going. He was also very patient with us, making sure that we all were able to do the basics of each move. After going over the basics, we went up to the mountain to the beginner hill. On my first run down, I lost control and landed really hard on my knee. It hurt pretty bad, my eyes got teary. I knew I'd have a pretty bad bruise. We continued the lesson, and we were all falling like flies. We weren't going too fast, so I think it looked comical, because we were just sprawled over the top of the hill.

By the end of class, most of us could do the basics down the hill with minimal pain. Thankfully, I wasn't the worse in my class, but I wasn't the best, either. My turns were good, but sometimes I would go too fast. My instructor told me that I did well, but really needed to work on my speed and control.

So I went up with Dave on the hill and practiced. I fell often. There was one time I hit a bump, landed on my chest and got the wind knocked out of me. At least I didn't dislocate my arm again. But it did take me a couple minutes to catch my breath again.

For the last couple hours, the hill go really icy. It kinda scared me to hear the *sccccrrretcchhhhh* of my board against the ice. Everyone was falling. And when you landed, you landed HARD. It hurt! And I fell a lot on my ass. But I still had a lot of fun. The best part was the point where it all started to make sense to me, and I only fell 3 times down the hill, rather than the regular 10 times.

When we got home, it hurt to move. My knee was a blueish swollen softball. Every part of me was sore. I didn't want to move, I just wanted to be still and watch TV. Dr. Dave iced me up and checked out all the other damage on me, which wasn't too bad, except for my ankle, which I seemed to have messed up even more.

Waking up this morning was worse. I was stiff and sore, though fortunately the swelling went down in my knee. I met up with Melinda for her skating practice, and getting into the car was the hardest part. It was fun to watch her practice, and then to watch her lesson during the public skate. There were a bunch of different kinds of people at the public skate, different ages. The kids were adorable, especially the ones just learning how to skate. They were so cute!

We later went to the Howard Hughes Center for some lunch/dinner. As always with a fellow fan, we had a great time just chatting about our lives and our side-jobs. It was nice to hang out and get some good Thai food.

So now, I sit here and baby myself, giving my poor little knee some ice and eating chocolate chip muffins. I was tempted to buy some icy hot or something, but the pain is subsiding...

So here's some pics, because I KNOW you wanna see some pictures!

My Forearm

My Pretty Purple Knee

Posted by Yano at 11:17 PM | Comments (12)

This week's Unconscious Mutterings.

1. Berry:: Straw
2. Fiendish:: Villain
3. Bar:: Drink
4. Frank:: Beef
5. Bend:: It Like Beckham
6. Fanatic:: Fan
7. Belch:: Burp
8. Flagrant:: Foul
9. Burden:: Beast
10. Flimsy:: Fragile

Today I hung out over in Corona, and even though I was warned about the cow smell, I snobbily said, 'I went to college on a farm! I can handle it!'

I didn't expect to be slapped in the face with a smell that I can only describe as the smell of the elephant house on a hot day at the Brookfield Zoo. Damn. How can anyone live in a place where it smells like cow shit? I guess you get used to it.

Watched a couple minutes of the Lakers game, played some pool (did crappy) and ate some Kentucky Fried Chicken, which I haven't had in a LONG time. I definitely want to get a pool table in my house.

I had a good talk with a friend about my mom. I think I've said this before, but in a way it comforts me the most to talk to people who have lost a parent. Before my mom passed away, I don't think I could have ever fathomed what it feels like. It helps to talk to someone who knows where I'm coming from, who knows the grief that I'm going through and is familiar with the emotions. To feel that I'm not the only one who is going through such a hard time.

I know that the sadness isn't going to completely go away, ever. There are still many times in the day when time stops, and I think about my mom's smile, or something my mom had done, or see her favorite show on, or see her picture, and it all rushes back to me. I relieve my last moments with her, the funeral, holding my father and sisters in my arms, just watching her after she passed and whispering in my head 'Goodbye. Goodbye.' And during times like this, it's like I'm standing over a big gaping hole, so deep and so black that I can't see the bottom. If I keep on thinking about it, dwelling on it, then I'll fall in and it will take forever to get back up again. Living for me right now is a day be day thing, trying to keep myself busy with whatever I can to keep on moving. So I don't have time stop. Because when it does, I see that hole, and there in this incredible aching in my soul, and my whole being just yearns for things to be different.

I still miss her so much. I know I always will.

A panda walks into a restaurant, sits down and orders a sandwich. He eats the sandwich, pulls out a gun and shoots the waiter dead. As the panda stands up to go, the manager shouts, "Hey! Where are you going? You just shot my waiter and you didn't pay for your sandwich!" The panda yells back at the manager, "Hey man, I'm a PANDA! Look it up!"

The manager opens his dictionary and sees the following definition for panda:

"A tree dwelling marsupial of Asian origin, characterized by distinct black and white coloring. Eats shoots and leaves."

In Chicago, television shows are interrupted when big things happen. Like the US going to war, who wins the presidential race, or when the Brown's Chicken murderer was discovered.

But today, I couldn't watch the Sharon Osbourne show because they stopped for a special news bulletin.

Michael Jackson is leaving the courtroom.

No, not Michael in court. It was coverage of his GMC SUV slowly driving away from the courthouse amidst the thousands of spectators that came to watch the circus. Tons of people hover around the truck as Michael waves outside the window, sometimes losing his temper and shouting and waving his finger at a reporter. It's almost like watching a car chase, but in really slow motion. I applaud all the fans that are throwing their bodies on the truck. You look ridiculous and I'm having a good laugh watching the cops pull you away.

Oh my god. "And here you can see a fan, dressed in what looks like what Michael was wearing in Beat It. He's running to the truck. Oh, and he's dancing, too. The window is drawn down and Michael is speaking to him." I'm serious. This is just too bizarre to be even a joke. The dude was doing Michael Jackson moves right along the truck. I'm dying here!

It's on all the stations here. I can only escape by watching 'Monk' on USA. Tony Shaloob is a genius. You gotta watch that show. But it's a rerun.

Ohhh....LA is a VERY interesting place to live!!!

We're thinking of going to Maui for our overdue honeymoon. Does anyone have any suggestions, like things to do, where to go, where to stay, helpful tips, etc? I've never been there before, but we'll be staying there for about a week....

1. What does it say in the signature line of your emails?
What else? "http://www.yanowhatimean.com" I gotta advertise, baby! Unless it's to someone that I don't want to know my site address....

2. Did you have a senior quote in your high school yearbook? What was it? If you haven't graduated yet, what would you like your quote to be?
No. My school wasn't that cool. But if I did, it woulda been something generic like 'Carpe Diem' or something...

3. If you had vanity plates on your car, what would they read? If you already have them, what do they say?
We (my family) have family vanity plates, but I'm not going to say what it is. Let's just say it has 'Yano' in it.

4. Have you received any gifts with messages engraved upon them? What did the inscription say?
I got this little jewelry box from my ex-roomie that said 'Lucious Lolas' (it was spelled wrong). That was our nickname in college. I have no idea where it is right now.

5. What would you like your epitaph to be?
Hmm. That's a toughie. Maybe, "She wanted the world to be happy." Because I do. Or maybe, "She danced with Wesley Snipes in a bar". I don't know which.

Photo Friday: Motion

Rusty Smith: Marquette, MI, October 2003

This week's ¿Yano Asks a Question?

What are some of your favorite books?

Actually, I need this info for the book club...

Yet another link submitted by Dave, sent by cousin Cathy. Soon he'll be asking to start his own blog!

This is sure to bring a smile to anyone's face. Make sure you've got your sound on! (Don't worry, I'm not tricking you here)

Hippo Dance

You know how much I love hippos!

I think I remember complaining about my ankle a couple posts ago. I had Dr. Dave check it out, and he said it's a sprained ankle and that I need to be gentle to it. So I've got it wrapped up and I've been hobbling around the apartment. Hopefully it gets better before our big ski trip!

In other news...wait, there isn't any. My life is kinda boring right now. Working at home, watching a lot of TV, eating a lot, etc.

What's new with you?

This is the first time that Dave had ever asked me to post something.

During his daily internet sports rounds, Dave found the MLB's best pictures of 2003, and the very best was none other than our Sammy Sosa. So he told me to post it on my site, because it was really cool.

And now Dave shall speak:
"Faces of Death - 2003. Sammy's Sosa's death, if not for the helmet. Heh heh."

Well, I'm working at home for the week, and even though I'm working, I feel like I'm not doing anything. Since the intense silence of my empty apartment drives me batty, I leave the TV on for some background noise.

Much to my pleasure, today I found the the Oxygen Channel has been showing reruns of Xena: Warrior Princess in the morning. Man, I love this show! It definitely rates up there in my top 5 TV shows of all time. First of all, I love strong female characters, and second, I've been crazy about Greek Mythology ever since I was little.

Xena was a great show. There was always great costuming, great fight scenes, and great stories. Drama, action and humor, all mixed into one. Although there was a lot of cheeseyness, just like Buffy, there were some really dramatic moments in this show that were underrated. The relationship between Xena and Gabrielle was beautiful, even though it was a bit ambiguous.

I also loved how they incorporated different historical stories/figures into the plots of the episodes, like Caesar, Hercules, Hippocrates, and in today's episode, the biblical figures Isaac and Abraham. The story went to say that Abraham was being given some sort of hallucinogenic drug, through which his other son was speaking to him as 'God' to kill his heir, Isaac. Of course, Xena gets rid of the bad son, but is she in time to save Isaac from being sacrificed by his father? No!!!! But whaddyaknow...a mystery voice comes from the heavens right when Abraham is about to kill Isaac and tells Abe that his faith is enough. Was it Xena or Gabrielle's doing? No. But who could it be? *cue mysterious music here*

Gotta love the cheese that is Xena. She's the best.

Just wanted to wish Noelle a quick HAPPY BIRTHDAY! May the upcoming year bring you joy, happiness, and mind blowing experiences to rival the ones you had in the last year...you deserve it!

It's been a while since I updated my links here...I've updated the links to Andrew, Chris F, Crash and Mira.

I've also deleted the dead blogs of Monique and Lily. Sorry ladies!

And here's some new links for y'all to click on:

Dan: His link is no longer going to Redpac's House of Jailbait. He actually got himself a normal photoblog, and you can tell he's having fun with his new digital camera.

Jones: He's mean. He beats the elderly. He dry humps stuffed gorillas and lets people write on his hairy ass. But inside that tough hard exterior is a man who gets excited over olive bars and loves little fluffy stuffed ducks name Mason. Be forewarned, the guy pulls no punches.

Marie: One of my few comic book links, and the only comic book lovin' chica! She's cool and she's got some great art on her site.

Marilyn: My cousin Marilyn's blog. Hasn't been updated in a while. Hopefully it will be soon. *hint* *hint* But only AFTER midterms, ya hear?

Shannon: The newest member of the cousin clan. A pretty cool chica, and she has the cutest dog. Who likes to chew on people's heads.

Vern: He's like a little brother to me. Always eager to give a hug and a smile. I love to hug Vern!!!

Walter: A fellow Illini-who-moved-to-the-West. One of the coolest dudes I know. Who has great taste in music, TV and ex-girlfriends.

If you've seen a movie in the theaters lately, you may have seen my latest favorite commercial - Coca Cola's Delux_247. That ad just cracks me up. I was talking like him all during break. I think I was pretty much driving everyone crazy when I kept on telling to call me Delux.

So on New Year's Eve, unable to sleep, me, Marlon, Marian, Claudine and Marilyn started playing a game of Spoons. The object of Spoons is to get four of a kind in your hand. Once you get four of a kind, reach into the middle of the circle and grab a spoon. There is one less spoon than people playing, so once you see someone grab a spoon, grab one too, because the person left without one gets a letter - first S, then P and so on. So I guess the ultimate object of the game is not to be the one without a spoon. We haven't played the game ever since we were little kids, maybe because of some spoon related injury since we tend to get a little rowdy and violent when we play.

We let our little cousin Enzo play for a bit, but he just couldn't hang and he stopped playing midgame. The playing was close at the beginning, but then Marilyn started to lose really bad - she was just concentrating too intently on her cards she didn't notice that all the spoons were gone. And the way we play it, is that the person who ultimately spells SPOONS has to do a dare. We thought of some pretty gross ones, like she had to smell all our socks or wear her clothes backwards around the house.

But once she lost, we thought of the ultimate embarrassment. Our task for her was to go up to 3 aunts and one uncle of our choice and say to them, 'What's my name?' and when they said 'Marilyn' for her to snap back, 'It's DELUX, son! It ain't that hard!'

Of course, they would have no idea what she was talking about and think her to be crazy. Which is just how we liked it.

So like a gang of 7 year olds, the rest of us huddled together laughing and giggling behind Marilyn, who did NOT want to be humiliated like that. Of course, we chose my father first. So she went up to him, and asked 'What's my name?' And my dad already had the 'Are you crazy?' look on his face. 'You're name is Marilyn,' he replied. Marilyn, laughing the whole time, spits back, 'No! It's Delux, son! It ain't that hard!'

And runs away.

And my father looks at the place where she was standing, shakes his head, and walks back to the couch to watch the football game.

We only made Marilyn do it one more time, partly because we could tell she was dying, partly because she just got a blank stare from the aunt she did it to, and partly because we were laughing so hard we couldn't breathe.

Ohh....the cousins are a loveable bunch, but damn, are we cruel to one another, too!!!!

This weeks PhotoTime -

Black and White

Bridesmaids: August, 2003

Yeah, I just can't get enough of this picture!

One of the biggest searches to my site is 'what does milkshake by kelis mean'? I had mentioned the song once before and everyone seems to be wondering what the hell Kelis is talking about.

So they end up here.

And find nothing to aid their quest.

Until today.

Today, I tell you, straight from Kelis, what the Milkshake is.

Brought to you by BET.com.

CaitGregs: what does "milkshake" mean in your song "Milkshake?" I love the song but I don't know what it means. People say all different things but I wanna know the real answer.

Kelis: "Milkshake" is just that thing that makes a woman stand out from everyone else. It's a thing that makes you sensual and warm and maternal. It could be about breasts but I don't have huge t*** so you gotta work with what you got.

And now you know!

Well, I don't remember if I posted it here before, but one of my New Year's Resolutions was to learn one recipe a month. I'm done with this month's recipe a little early.

I love catfish, but there don't seem to be too many good catfish recipes out there, but the recipe for Catfish St. James caught my eye, which I found on www.allrecipes.com.

I was a bit frazzled yesterday, trying to make dinner and juggle a chat with Derek Gray. But it all turned out OK. I know what kind of modifications to make the next time around. (Salt to taste? How can I trust my tastebuds? I need numbers!!!) I also made some rice and pasta to go along with the meal.

When Dave got home, he said to me, 'Guess what!?!?! I bought some dessert!'

I got a bit excited, because I have had a hankering for some good pie or ice cream or whatever. Those of you who know me know that I'm a BIG dessert person. So I ask, "What did you get?!?!'

And he looks intot the bag, all excited, and pulls out...

Two boxes of Nerds.

Yeah. You heard me, not tiramisu, not baked alaska, not cherries jubilee...Nerds.

I laughed, really hard. Dave was confused. I guess Nerds are an actual dessert in his world. So Nerds for dessert it was!

So he really liked the catfish. Wasn't raving about it, but he said it was really good. I'd like another crack at it. Maybe next month. But I admit, it was pretty tasty, and very juicy. I love catfish!

And guess what? The Nerds were GREAT as dessert!

I love my digital camera, as you may know, and I love to take pictures with it. However, as much as I love Cammie II, I have one gripe - digital noise in pictures. What is that? When you take a picture in low lighting, and you get a lot of extra dots of different colors: noise.

Noise is the worst for me when I'm taking action shots in low lighting. I try to clean it up in Photoshop by using 'Dust and Scratches' or by blurring the color channels, and other different ways. But it's time consuming, and the noise is still there.

But one day, Corin showed me the light, and is that light heavenly! He told me about a program called Neatimage which reduces the noise in pictures. Thie program is amazing! I take my digital pics, run them through Neatimage and PRESTO! Neatimage takes out the noise, or at the very least, makes the noise minimal. It even has multiple settings so I can decide how much noise I want to take out. And you can download presets off the internet for your camera type, so Neatimage knows exactly how much noise to take away.

The only downside is that there is some detail lost, but to me, it's pretty minimal. One run through the sharpness filter in Photoshop and it looks as good as new.

So if you're a digital photographer, and you wanna play around with Neatimage, there's a free demo that you can check out. I'm sure you'll like it!

So here's some examples.

Here's a picture of the backside of the man I'd like to call 'Big Shani' because damn, he looks TALL in this picture!

Original Digital Pic
Manually Modified	With Neatimage

And here's another example, using a picture of the lovely Maria Garcia:

Original Digital Pic
Manually Modified	With Neatimage

Don't they look awesome?

So why am I doing this? Well, I'm not getting paid by Neatimage, but I had spent so much frustrated time in front of my computer trying to fix up these pictures, I want to make it easier for other people. :)

In my quest to make everyone in my world happy, I have found someone sad, and I'm going to try my darndest to make her happy again.

If you've got an extra hug lying around, can you send one over to my cousin Melanie? She's going through a really tough time right now, and she really needs some support. I'm not in Chicago to be there for her and hug her sadness away, but I can send her some cyber-lovin'.

I love you, girl!!!

*hugs*

Here's this week's Unconscious Mutterings:

1. Mitchell:: Paul
2. Mercury:: silver
3. Cycle:: period
4. Engagement:: party
5. Alternative:: music
6. Gang:: bang
7. Emotional:: distress
8. Skinny:: fat
9. Hypochondriac:: imaginary
10. Insecure:: paranoid

Today we have a guest word association person - Dave! Here's his:

1. Mitchell:: Sha's kid
2. Mercury:: Venus
3. Cycle:: Bicycle
4. Engagement:: Christine
5. Alternative:: music
6. Gang:: bang
7. Emotional:: crying
8. Skinny:: model
9. Hypochondriac:: sickness
10. Insecure:: worrisome

Came back from the Oaks yesterday. I'm getting really tired of that place! Well, except for the pie. The pic is great.

We then headed over to Rick and Lanie's place for some poker. I've only played poker two times before - when I had my poker lesson at Rod's and on New Year's Eve. Both times I did pretty well for a beginner. Then again, it wasn't for real money those times.

We started out with some blackjack. I brought a bag of loose change with me, but since we haven't been here that long, we really haven't accumulated much loose change. Rick was the dealer and there were about 5 other people playing. He was taking our money like candy! If he had a 12, he would get a 9, if he had a 14, he would get a 7. He was spanking us! We were worried that all our hard earned change would go down the drain. Our kids wouldn't be able to go to college!

But then we switched over to poker. Texas Hold 'Em. And then team Estacio started winning their money back from Rick. The Estacio kids can now go to college! We also played a couple rounds of Screw Your Neighbor, which brought a lot of laughs. That's a really fun game. I definitely have to teach the cousins how to play it!

We weren't playing for much money. We were at the welfare table - the table were the stakes weren't as high as the high rollers at the other table. We were in it for nickels and dimes. It was shocking when I upped the ante to fifty cents once. But I'm ok with playing for nickels and dimes! I started to learn how to bluff and when I had just plain garbage in my hand. Though it's hard to throw those cards down when you think that something good MIGHT come up.

Had some drinks and shots, played some good card games, and had a lot of laughs. All in all, we left an extra three or four dollars richer. Not a fortune, but enough for fries at the bowling alley.

Real quick, happy birthday to DEO!!!

Here's a pic from WAY back...

Got this one from the Onion...

That last one just kills me.

I've always wanted to be a mermaid. Now I know how!

Lumingon is a word in Tagalog (the main dialect of the Philippines) that can be translated to mean 'to look around' or 'to look behind'. When I was in college, I was the chair of a conference by the same name, and the theme of the conference was to look into our past to help us go into the future. (but that's a story for another time)

With everything that's been happening in the few months, as well as the new year beginning and even watching 'Big Fish', it has led me to think about my past a lot, and my relationship with my parents.

I won't lie and say that my mom was my best friend, or that I could turn to my father with any of my problems. I can't say that I was never embarrassed by my parents, or that I never wished that I had other parents. But I can say that I now know that they love me and my sisters, and I understand the sacrifices that they made to give us a good life.

It wasn't always this way. Both my parents were immigrants from the Philippines. My mom came here in the mid sixties, and my father came here after they got married in the early seventies. (talk about a long distance relationship!) I was raised with Filipino values, eating Filipino food and surrounded by my Filipino family. When I was around 5, we moved to a predominantly Polish and Irish neighborhood. When I began school, it was a bit of a culture shock. I was one of the very few minority children at school. Seriously, there were about 10 of us in the whole school. I started to get embarrassed by my parents' accents. I didn't want to take smelly stuff to school for lunch. I insisted on getting Spaghettios and other 'cool' lunches. Sometimes I would win, most of the time I would lose. I resented the fact that all my classmates got to hang out with each other after school and go to sleepovers, but my parents never trusted the other families, so I would go to the parties, but then my father would pick me up early. All the other kids had cool Barbies and Cabbage Patch dolls, and I would get the Sonny and Cher doll or dolls from relatives in the Philippines.

In high school, I would constantly correct my mom when I would go to dances or formals and she would call them 'parties'. I thought it was the most unfair thing in the world that they wouldn't allow me to wear makeup or date until after college. (I broke them out of THAT one!) When guys would come over, they would ask, 'Is he courting you?' and I would just roll my eyes. 'No one uses the word 'courting' anymore!!!' I would say.

Sadly, growing up, I was rarely proud of being my parents' daughter, or of even being Filipino. All I thought of was myself, and how they reflected on me. I hated being Filipino - I wanted to be as American as I could be. When I would argue with my parents, they would say, 'But they're American! You're Filipino!' and I would shoot back with 'I'm American - I'm an American citizen, aren't I?' Yeah, I was a brat.

But when I got into college, my eyes opened for the first time. I joined a Filipino club and learned about the culture that my parents so desperately tried teaching me when I was young. I grew to appreciate it, find the beauty in the Filipino culture, and learn about the rich history of my heritage. I also realized the kind of sacrifices that my parents made by coming to America to start new lives. It wasn't easy for them to pack up, leave their families, and move to a new country where the culture is so different, the values clashing with the values they were brought up with. I'm sure when they first came to this country they had stars in their eyes, thinking of maybe living a wealthy life, being successful, living in luxury.

But the reality of it was that they had a middle class life, working hard to put three kids through Catholic school because they didn't trust the Chicago public school system. Not the glamorous life they dreamed of. In addition to that, their kids didn't appreciate their heritage, didn't want to learn about life back home. But no matter, they worked hard to give their children the opportunity to have an easier life, to maybe live the life that they dreamed of having.

I realized what sacrifices my parents had made for me. How proud of them I should be for all they went through, for still loving me even though I was so hard headed all those years. What a beautiful past, what a rich history was my foundation. I started to see them as people, not just my parents. People with stories, people with feelings, wants, needs and aspirations.

Luckily, I had time to make amends for my unappreciative childhood. I worked hard to become someone that my parents could be proud of, so their sacrifices weren't made in vain. I made sure to let them know that I loved them, that I was proud to be a filipino, and I wanted to learn about the history of my homeland - the history, culture and the values.

I am so relieved that I didn't realize this too late. I was talking to a friend the other day, who said that he still had issues with his father. It's hard to start bridging the gap, but it's something that must be done. You never know what can happen in the future, and you don't want to have regrets.

I am no longer afraid to look behind me, where I come from, my past and my heritage. And knowing that, it makes my journey forward that much easier...

I have not yet bought Nelly Furtado's latest CD, but I really loved her last one, so I'll prolly end up buying this one.

I'm watching her perform on Jay Leno as we speak.

I saw her a couple months ago on TV singing songs off her new album. I was with Fatima at the time. I looked at Fatima and said, 'Whoa, Nelly Furtado has gained some weight! Look at her face...'

'Um, Christine,' Fatima replied, as if speaking to a child, 'uh, she's pregnant.'

Oh.

Yeah.

I knew that.

Watching her now, she looks great. For a pregnant woman. She's got that glow thing going on, and her eyes sparkle even more with her preggie chubbiness.

Man, when I get pregnant I'm going to be SO FAT. Karma.

I don't have much access to my pictures here in the Oaks, but lucky I brought my wedding pics. Here's a pic that I took of Jen when we were all getting ready for the ceremony.

Photo Friday: Woman

The Second Coat of Mascara: Chicago, August 2003

Still working at CompanyX. Since I'm too lazy to get in my car and find a fast food place, and CompanyX is paying for my food anyway, I always eat at their cafeteria. This is by far the best company cafeteria I've ever been to. With the exception of the company that had free breakfast, lunch and afternoon cupcake snacks.

This cafeteria has a ton of food to choose from, and an amazing assortment of desserts. I get pie or something everytime I eat. I've chubbed out a bit since starting to work here, but I don't care. I love food. I'll lose the weight when I'm off this assignment.

Usually when I get my entree, I tell the lady not to bother putting vegetables on my plate. I hate vegetables. They are my enemy. But today, I felt daring...dangerous...so I let her put the cabbage and carrots on my plate. It's been a while since I had vegetables.

Then I picked up my dessert choice of the day, Oreo Cookie pie. Hmmm...yum.

I went to my usual cashier, and she totalled the damage. The price was significantly less than what I was used to. I looked at her, confused. She gave me a smile and whispered, 'I didn't charge you for the pie. You come in here every day and get pie or cake. You can have this one!' I smiled and told her she was awesome and thanks. Yay! Free pie!

The vegetable gods have blessed me for accepting them by having their liason give me free pie.

I am DEFINITELY going to eat this cabbage! Not the carrots. Yuck. But definitely the cabbage!

Tomorrow, I'm taking on brussel sprouts!

This weeks Theme Thursday: Eat

Filipino Eggrolls : July 2003

Last Monday me and Dave went to see 'Big Fish'. I've been wanting to see this movie since I first saw the preview last fall. I'm a huge fan of Tim Burton, and this movie really intrigued me. Burton works magic with fantasy, he did wonders with Sleepy Hollow, Edward Scissorhands was a masterpiece, and, well, I even liked Mars Attacks. Even though at the end of it I was like, 'Huh?' Burton has a beautiful, colorful imagination, and I wanted to see how he did with tall tales.

'Big Fish' is essentially a father and son story, with Albert Finney playing Edward Bloom, a man who had gone through life sharing with others the tall tales of his past. His son, Will, played by the dashing Billy Crudup, used to love to hear the stories, but as he got older and learned that the stories couldn't possibly be true, became distant from his father out of embarrassment.

But the time comes where Will must go back home again, and try to make amends with his father. He begs his father for the truth, that he never knew his father, couldn't find him through the lies that he had told his whole life. He felt that these fantastic stories were an escape for his father from his boring family and his dead end life.

But once again, his father re-hashes the stories that he had told over and over. But this time, Wil discovers that the line between the fantastic and reality in his father's stories isn't so black and white. And he learns that all along, he had known who his father was, he just needed to listen.

No one could have done this story better than Tim Burton. He presents Ed's tales beautifully, filling each scene with magic. This is probably his most mature work to date. He balances the magical world so well with the real world, and in this movie he really does well with portraying the emotions of his characters. They are more real than any of the characters he has had before this. I love to see the world through Tim Burton's eyes.

Ewan McGregor was excellent as the young Ed - handsome, charming and ready to take on the world with his ambition. Allison Lohman was radiant as the younger version of Ed's wife, played by Jessica Lange. And Lange was suberb with her quiet strength, watching the man she loves slowly fade away. There were a couple great supporting roles - Helena Bonham Carter in a dual role as the local witch and a woman in love with young Ed, Gary Buscemi as quirky as ever as a poet, and Danny Devito, showing you more of himself than you would ever want to see.

I really liked this movie. Though for parts of it, it was difficult for me to watch. It brought back a lot of moments that I went through around the time my mother died. Hospital scenes and so much more brought small waves of emotion to me. But I left feeling good, once again feeling the love of my mother that I felt after her passing. Like Ed Bloom, she left an impression on all that knew her, and no matter what I know and don't know about her life, I know that she loved me.

This gets three and a half stars from me!

Just wanted to give an almost belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Gil.

He's 30 now....ohhh....scary!

But still looking as young as ever and the young ladies are still lining up for him.

Pace yourself during your party. Don't want you to pass out an hour into it and miss all the fun!

Still in Thousand Oaks. Bored as hell.

Posting a picture of this...just because.

There is also the original Icy Blue one, though I myself prefer the Passion Pink one. It makes me feel like a woman. Did you ever notice that feminine razors have really feminine names? Like Daisy, Intuition or Venus? Just an observation.

FYI - I'm not posting this because I've just shaved my legs. Actually, I'm going for the Chewbacca look this winter. I'm sure you wanted to know that, and I don't care if it's not going to get me any dates. I'm married.

Anyone wanna have a shaving discussion? I'm sure it would be quite interesting. *snicker*

This week's Photo Friday (i know, it's late!):

Office View - July 2003

Well, I'd already posted my best pics from 2003 below, so I wanted to give you all a picture that I hadn't posted yet. It was really hard to decide my favorite picture from 2003, there are so many. But I think I like this one the most, just because it was one of those pictures where the timing was just right. I was in our glass conference room for a meeting, and I could see my reflection in the glass, yet still see the skyscape. At the moment when I took the picture of my reflection, my coworker Bryan was standing at the window down the hallway. So in this picture you can see three things - the view from the conference room, me, and Bryan, whose reflection you can see as he stands at a window down the hallway.

So I'm back at Thousand Oaks for the week. In a weird way, it's nice to be back. Though my cubicle area is still pretty lonely.

My only interaction with people is through emails sent to my contacts and team meetings, where I go over the latest things I've built for them. But I've been at the site for more than a month, so I'm getting to know more people. Unfortunately, I work in a different building then most of them, and the campus is pretty big. But at least I'm making some friends.

It was nice to get together today for an update meeting. We had a long talk about what we all did during our break (they had 2 weeks off for the holiday, spoiled brats). I work with some really great people there, and most of them are my age, which reminds me a bit of my old office. Sadly, I only see these people once a week. But it's nice to know that I have people to joke around with, who are going through the same things at work that I'm going through.

But just like Mary Poppins, I'll be done with this project and moving on to the next, leaving these friends behind. :(

Since I'm at my client site, I'm wearing my boots, which look a little better than my gym shoes, which I've been wearing for a while. They're nice boots, with a bit of a heel. What I didn't realize, though, is that I must have done something to my ankle during one of my 399 falls at Big Bear, because when I'm wearing these boots, I get a sharp pain in my ankle. So all of today I've been hobbling around like Quasimodo's sister. When I get home on Thursday I'll have Dr. Dave take a look. But I fear that my speedskating career is over. *cries*

So now I'm in my hotel room, watching 'Stand and Deliver'. What a kick ass movie. Edward James Olmos is the man! And I miss the young Lou Diamond Phillips. What's he been up to lately?

OK...time for me to finish the movie...

Questions, questions, I love to ask questions.

And now, for the latest edition of ¿Yano Asks You A Question?

What's your favorite sports team?

It's been eons since I posted a test here. Got this one from Melanie:

What Classic Movie Are You?

Pretty accurate for me!

So I had Dave take it...and he's...

What Classic Movie Are You?

What the? I think I've heard of it...But he thinks it'a pretty accurate description.

How come no one told me that the green background I chose looked really gross with the rest of my site? Eew!

Unfortunately, even with this new laptop, I'm still seeing things a bit lighter than how they show on desktop monitors. So my green was a pretty light, soft gree, rather than the dark spring green that you all saw.

Ick.

Luckily Dave went to my site and exclaimed, "What did you do to your site?? Eew!"

What's a husband for if not to tell you that your site looks 'Eew'? It was ugly enough to make him want to comment. ALMOST.

Back to the O-G baby blue!

Guess what I've changed on my site...

Why? Because I've been working really hard today and I needed a break!

Don't worry, I'll be changing it again soon.

[2:45 PST - I have changed the color again. The light yellow wasn't doing anything for me.]

I'm working at home today and Dave has the day off, so he's sitting on the couch watching ESPN. They have a Charles Barkley special on, and he was discussing how people had made fun of his weight gain after he had retired from basketball. Then he said the funniest thing:

"I used to be fat.
Now I'm chubby.
I'm trying to get to'Big Boned'"

Gotta love him!

This week's Unconscious Mutterings

1. Vintage:: Clothing
2. Longing:: Needing
3. Specimen:: Lab
4. Mock:: Turtleneck
5. Shit:: Fan
6. Friday:: Five
7. Cruel:: Intentions
8. Insufficient:: Evidence
9. Pessimistic:: View
10. Grin:: Bear It

Yesterday I was going to clean and do some important errands, like go to the comic book store.

But a little bit after I woke up, I got a call from Rod asking me if I wanted to go with him and a couple people to the Getty Center. Since I can clean any day of the week, and Dave was on call, and I have been wanting to check out the Getty since I pass it every time I go to Thousand Oaks, I said yes.

I quickly got ready, since he called a mere one hour before they were all meeting up, and I didn't have time to clean my contacts, which I had worn while sleeping since I had passed out asleep after skiing. I drove to meet Rod, Rocena, Stan and Jem to head out to the Getty Center. I started to have contact problems, and throughout the day, my right eye was bloodshot and stinging like a mofo. I tried rinsing off my contact, but taking out my contact actually made the searing pain in my eye worse, so I just sucked it up and looked like the crying girl all day. I think people just thought that the paintings were making me emotional as I dabbed my bum eye all day with a tissue.

Anyway, the Getty was GORGEOUS. There were a ton of people there, it took about half an hour to get into the parking lot after getting off the 405. But it's $5 for parking, and the admission to the museum is free, which is the best damn bargain I've seen here in California so far, because I would pay a lot more than that to see the beautiful things that I saw there.

There was so much beautiful art at the museum - paintings, sketches, sculptures, illuminated manuscripts, ancient art, photographs, as well as a beautiful garden. There was no way someone could get the whole museum done in one day. We tried to get to as much as we could and managed to touch on all of the buildings. We were also able to catch a spectacular sunset and since yesterday was a crystal clear day, we could see all the way to Catalina Island. Everyone I was with was so amazed that they could clearly see LA from the Getty. I guess usually it's overcast or smoggy, but we were lucky.

I love to see art. It's just so incredible how artists can portray emotion with a look captured on canvas, or with colors, or with a specific brushstroke. I could have stayed there for days just looking at art. Some of the big names had art there, like Renoir, van Gogh and Rembrandt. Some of my personal favorites had some pieces there as well, like Lawrence Alma-Tadema, William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Edgar Degas.

So here's some of the stuff that my camera captured...If you're in California, definitely take a day and check this place out!

Afterwards, we stopped by the airport to say goodbye to Rod's cousins from Australia and have dinner. I love listening to that Australian accent, mate! But it was weird saying goodbye to people who I only knew for an hour. By the time we got to the airport, my eye had settled a bit. Though it was fun to joke around that the reason I was so teary eyed was because I would miss the Aussies so!

All in all, a fun day with good people at fun places. It's been a busy two days!

So today, I must clean.

So yesterday, we went skiing at Big Bear. The ride from Long Beach is about 2 and a half hours, and the last part of the drive is up the mountain. The drive going there wasn't too bad, though I was worried about the overcast skies.

When we got to the ski rental place, I noticed that we were the only ones renting skis. Everyone else was renting snowboards. But I've never snowboarded before, and I have skied about 4 times before, so I got the skis. One thing I really loved about the Big Bear area was that everyone was really cool and really nice. They were laid back, friendly, and easy to talk to. After a bit of conversation, one of the workers at the store said, 'You guys are crazy to go out there today.' I asked why and he said, 'Because it's going to rain, and the conditions are going to be really crappy. You're going to be REALLY uncomfortable out there.'

But what could we do? We'd driven out there already and rented all the equipment, so we just decided to go.

Once we got to the ski area, it was PACKED with people. After overhearing conversations, most people said it was the most packed they'd ever seen. And about 80% of the people had snowboards. After watching the boarders, I realized that I really need to learn. It looks like a lot more fun, and easier to learn. Anyway, I've been told I have more of a boarder personality than a skier. What does that mean? I have no idea.

Dave wanted to start out at the top of the hill, but I persuaded him to start off on the beginner hill with me. I'm a horrible skier. The second to last time I skied and fell on my face in a patch of ice and scratched up my face. Think of rubbing some coarse sand paper on your forehead and you can picture what I looked like. The last time I skied I fell on my shoulder and dislocated it. A very unpleasant feeling, but luckily it popped back in.

So I was a little nervous about skiing. On the bunny hill, I was a little out of control. It was as if my body had forgotten how to ski. I just couldn't control my speed, and then felt out of control. We went on again and I had a little easier time with it. So I conceded when Dave said it was time to go to the top of the mountian.

So we took a lift that felt like it took an HOUR. We were high up there. When we were at the bottom, there was a bit of a drizzle. But on the lift, we could really feel the rain, and the freezing cold. It was like little needles on my face. I thought I'd never say this while in California, but I was FREEZING! It was like being in Chicago again.

We finally got to the top of the mountain, and took one of the easier paths. Unfortunately, I was still having problems with my speed control. I would have to say I fell about 15 times down that mountain. About 8 of those were in the last stretch, when the path was so icy and steep that when I'd get up I'd just fall back down again. I was really frustrated and being really snappy with Dave, who stayed with me the whole time. I just wanted to curl in a ball and roll down the mountain, rather than ski down. I was having a pretty crappy time. But I made it down eventually.

After eating lunch and cooling off a bit, I decided that it would be best that I split up from Dave and stay in the beginner hills. Dave's a good skier and I was just holding him back. So I went back to the beginner hills, rediscovered how to ski, and had a ball. Dave had a great time, too, exploring the other trails.

But it was raining. And things were getting really icy. And when I would bend over to fix my skis, a little river would pour from my jacket. And my gloves were soaked. It wasn't a pleasant experience, because I was wet and freezing. When I went to meet up with Dave at our appointed meeting time, he saw me and said, 'Let's go home! I'm soaked to the bone!'. I agreed. And so did everyone else at the mountain, even though there was still 3 hours left. The rain was getting pretty bad.

So we left and stopped at Starbucks to get something warm in us. This was the longest line I've ever seen, even beating the summer frappuccino line at my office building. About 60 people deep! After waiting for a while in line, we were off to go back home.

One of the road signs I've always seen, but never paid attention to is 'Caution: Falling Rocks' or something like that. But driving down the mountain, I learned that what the signs really mean. There were rocks all over the road. It was pretty unnerving, because there were times when we saw that rocks were still falling. The cars were weaving around the rocks, some as big as a large milk crate, if not bigger. It was scary to see these big rocks lying in the road. Dave said he felt like we were driving in Mordor. We were watching the mountin ready to see hobbits climbing up. It felt like we were driving down the mountain for hours. There were tons of cars on the side of the road, some stopping to wait for the weather to get nicer, some with flat tires. Fortunately, we got down unscathed.

But all in all, it was a good time. Even though I fell, I got no injuries, other than my whole body being sore.

Next skiing adventure: Mammoth!

Here's this week's Friday Five, given to you on a Saturday...

What one thing are you most looking forward to . . .

1. ...today?
Going to the comic book store. It's been about 3 weeks since I've been there last, and I'm itching to get the latest 'Wolverine: The End', 'Aspen Presents' and '1602'. And if the last 'Emma Frost' is out that wouldn't be to shabby either.

2. ...over the next week?
Just being back home again and getting back into the old routine. I'll be going back to Thousand Oaks next week, which I'm NOT looking forward to, but hopeuflly it won't be for long.

3. ...this year?
Married life! After getting married, my life has been so hectic that I haven't really had much time to enjoy it. But this year, I'm really looking forward to being a newlywed, going out and enjoying California and becoming 'domestic'. OK. Not the domestic part.

4. ...over the next five years?
I'm looking forward to the uncertainty of it all. When we were just dating life took a pretty steady route - working, hanging out with friends and family, dating Dave, etc. But in the next five years, it all changes. First of all, I'm married, next, we live in Long Beach, but we'll be moving back to Chicago later this year, and chances are, we'll have kids, and that's something I'm really looking forward to - Christine Jr. *snicker*. And then Christine the third. And Christine the fourth. A house crawling with little Christines. Dave's biggest nightmare.

5. ...for the rest of your life?
Kinda same as the above. Living life with Dave, raising a family, seeing where we eventually end up living - Chicago or going back to the West Coast. It's all up in the air. But it'll be interesting to see.

[I originially posted this yesterday before passing out on the couch, but I guess I forgot to publish it]

Had a WAY busy day today. So busy that I'm going to take a nap. When I wake up (if I wake up) I'll give you a nice account of my day. Til then, here's a funny joke for you...

Well, the New Year came and went. It was a little fun, it was a little sad, but we got through it. We're okay for major holidays right now until Easter, I think. But it was so heartbreaking to see my dad, going around wishing everyone Happy New Year, not getting his New Year's kiss from the woman he's kissed every New Year for 30 years. Everyone was concerned about him, but there was really nothing we could do, but just be there for him.

You know, when I was in college, I would always want to leave my annual family party to go have New Year's with friends. But my dad was always adamant that we could do whatever we wanted, but we HAD to be together as a family at the stroke of midnight. I always felt I was missing out on the fun of things, but now, well, I wouldn't have it either way.

The countdown comes on, all the aunts, uncles, little kids and cousins chant along. Everyone holds a plastic cup, either filled with champagne or sparkling grape juice. At the stroke of midnight, everyone yells 'Happy New Year!' and my Tita Rosie throws up handfuls of change for everyone to catch. This is a tradition to give everyone a prosperous new year. (I'm making that up, but that could very well be why) Everyone takes a drink and then we go around giving hugs and kisses to everyone, wishing them Happy New Year. Then the cousins go off to either play games, cards or watch a movie.

Sadly for me, Dave was back in California for New Years, because he had to work. But I called him and wished him Happy New Year when the clock turned 12, and I'm not really worried. We're married. We've got a lot more New Year's coming.

Usually me and my cousins stay up all night, which is what we did this year. I stayed up until I had to leave at 4:30am to get to the airport to catch my 6:30am flight back to Long Beach.

After a looooong 2 hour layover in Denver, I got on a plane and got back to da LBC. It's so weird to be back here. I feel like I've been gone forever! So now I've gotta take care of a lot of bills and house things.

So off I go to unpack...

Hope you all had a good new year!!!

Our Annual Cousin Picture