Dave was on call yesterday, so I had some alone time.

At first, when Dave would be on call, I would get a little depressed, trying to think of ways to keep myself busy. I didn't like being alone, especially in an unfamiliar city where I didn't know a lot of people. But I realized that as time went on, that I really enjoyed these times that I had all to myself. I love taking my little adventures around town, going to places that I would enjoy, but which Dave may not feel like going to or doesn't have time to do. After being married for this long, having moments to myself, where I'm doing something independent of my husband are a nice change of pace.

So today I went to the Los Angeles Zoo. I think after going to the zoo in San Diego, I've been ruined for all other zoos. The LA zoo wasn't as great an experience for me. It didn't have the same wide selection of animals, and the layout of the animals wasn't easy to follow. I found myself backtracking a couple times to see animals I missed. It could also be because it was H-O-T today! I was burning up and I wasn't even at the entrance of the park yet. I took a good amount of pictures, but I have enough pics of sleeping animals for a whole gallery. I wasn't the only one that was lethargic because of the weather! All the animals seemed to have this, 'You know what? It's too hot. Leave me alone' look on their faces.

But it was still a good time. I'll post up my sleepy animal pics...then the rest will be in my upcoming galleries. When will those be up, you ask? Um. I dunno. In time...

Photo Friday: Natural

Haleakala Crater - Maui, HI: March 2004

The Haleakala Crater in Maui creates a very un-Hawaiian landscape with red soil, jagged peaks and lava formations. Almost like being on Mars!

Theme Thursday: Purple

Purple Cottonball Flowers - Vancouver, Canada: May, 2002

In keeping along my spring flower theme, another pic from my Vancouver trip.

PhotoTime Tuesday: It's a Spring Thing!

Irises: Vancouver, Canada - May 2002

Photo Friday: Junk

Knick Knack Drawer: Long Beach, CA - April 2004

I actually had to take this picture, because I have no pics of junk anywhere. This is our 'I don't know what else to do with this stuff' drawer. I'm sure everyone has one!

Phototime Tuesday: Curves

The Metro: Washington DC, December 2002

Here's the pics I took at Disneyland a couple weeks ago...they're all pretty cheesey, but well, Disney is cheesey. Didn't take a lot because we had a pretty busy day planned...maybe next time!

I was going to post my Disney pics today, but I think I forgot to save the file where I put all the captions, so you'll have to wait til tomorrow...anyway, here's a pic of me when I was a wee little baby. I had a lot of hair and my mom liked to put my hair in curlers. As you can see, I was very enthusiastic about the idea.

Photo Friday: Self Portrait

Webcam Archives: 2002-2004

I don't know why, but Photo Friday and Phototime Tuesday always seem to have similar subjects. Rather than posting the 'Self Dorktrait' that got the rave reviews and laughs, I decided to go a step further, and give a sprinkling of pics from my webcam. I'm a Gemini, and I think these pics show my dual nature - smiling and posing pretty for the camera, and being a complete dork.

Theme Thursday: Noise

Overhead View of the Chicago Chamber Orchestra: June 2003 - Chicago, IL

This Phototime Tuesday's theme is Self Portrait. For a while, I was trying to think of the prettiest picture I could find of myself to show you, to put my best face forward. But then I stumbled across these little gems, taken during one REALLY boring day at home, and I realized, this is me. How I love my webcam! I revel in my dorkiness!!!

Self Dorktrait - January 2004: Long Beach, CA

Photo Friday: Discovery

Flowergirl Finds Her Dress - May 2003

Theme Thursday: Heavy Metal

This is all I could find on my server for this...

The Bronze Medalist Wave - June, 2002: Chicago, IL

After one too many, it didn't take a lot to persuade me to throw on that bronze medal and do my beauty queen wave to all the patrons of Bubba Gumps. That dark Filipino man on the right is trying to steal my bling from right under my nose. Sneaky!

This week for Phototime Tuesday is something representing your hometown. I picked this picture because after living in Long Beach for the duration of the winter, I really miss the lights of the theater district in downtown Chicago.

Snow in the Theater District: Chicago, January 2003

Disneyland was a lot of fun, through I like Disneyworld more. I'll say more later, but I just wanted to share this picture with you. I took it during the afternoon parade. It's a dancing mushroom from Fantasia. After seeing this, I just felt dirty, and, uh, slightly aroused. I turned back to look at Dave, and he eyes just had this 'WTF?!?!?' look. We made eye contact and just bust out laughing. Janet Jackson gets shit for flashing her boob, and Disney has THIS dancing in the afternoon parade? What's going on with the world?

Dirty Dancing Mushroom: Disneyland, April 2004

The commute from Thousand Oaks to Long Beach can be a pretty long haul, sometimes taking more than 3 hours if the traffic is bad enough. And although I love the view of the mountains, sometimes the ride home gets a little boring.

So thanks to these guys for their attempt to liven up their ride home. I didn't give them a show, but they got a hearty thumbs up wink from me.

Fun on the 101 - April, 2004: California

This week's Photo Friday: Atmosphere

Sunset Over Buffalo: February 2004, Buffalo, NY

Ask, Maricel, and you shall receive:

Wacky Shoes: August 2003

This is for last week's Theme Thursday, and I took this pic just for the theme:

Artist Michael Turner Sketches for a Fan - March 2004: Santa Monica, CA

Photo Friday:Neglect

Dirty Car Windshield: Thousand Oaks, CA - September 2003

Got about 40 pics to post up...plus the ones Mel will be sending me...

But here's a good one:

Me and Wolvie: March, 2004 - Long Beach, CA

The review will come later tonight, as well as more pictures!

I'll just keep on pimping out my Maui pics for these photo memes. Once again this is Haleakala crater, this time a but after sunrise and in black and white.

Photo Friday: Morning

Haleakala Crater: March 2004, Maui

Theme Thursday: Sport

Well, I've posted enough short track pics for these things, so we'll move on to something else. Body surfing! Dave brought his bodyboard to Hawaii with us, and it was always in the trunk, ready to come out when needed. He caught some really great waves!

Bodysurfing: March, 2004 - Maui

Phototime Tuesday: Golden

Couldn't choose between two pictures!

Sunset in Maui: Maui, HI - March 2004

Sun Rises over Haleakala: Maui, HI - March 2004

I'm totally swamped with work (I thought I was going to be there only one day, but I'm here all week) so I haven't had much free time to do anything...but here's some Maui pics to tide you over until I finish them up...

Sunset on Our First Day

A Thai Statue at the Hyatt

Luau Dancers

Photo Friday: Clean

Even Bunnies Need to Shower - Navy Pier, Chicago: April 2003

Wow...this page looks pretty empty without me posting in the last week!

Got some pictures here for you to tide you over while I work and write my trip memoirs...

A solitary hula dancer at the luau

A man painted with Maori tattoos

Sunrise above Haleakala Crater

A picture at the bottom of the Seven Sacred Pools

The sun sets over the ocean

Our new friend 'Whalea' comes to check our boat

Theme Thursday: Unfinished

A Few More Snips Left - Seattle, WA: May 2003

FotoFeelings: Busy

Mace Windu Gets Busy: Chicago Comic Convention, August 2003

I know it's a day late, but here's this week's

Phototime Tuesday: Green

South Michigan Ave in Green: Chicago, IL - March 2003

Theme Thursday: Orange

Lift-off Sunset - Buffalo, NY: Feb 2003

Phototime Tuesday: What's Up?

Big Fat Leaf, February 2004

Photo Friday: Abstract

Windmill, Portland Airport: Portland, OR - March 2003

Theme Thursday: Fences

No Nachos for You! - San Diego, CA, November 2003

Phototime Tuesday: Patriotic Colors

I decided to do something a little different...represent the Filipino side of me...

The Philippine Flag on Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL - June 2003

Photo Friday: Glamour

Inside My Makeup Bag - Feb 2004

This week's Theme Thursday: Connected

The Capilano Suspension Bridge, Vancouver BC - May 2002

Here's this week's Phototime Tuesday: Patterns.

Monkey Puzzle Tree, Vancouver B.C. - May, 2002

Photo Friday: Emptiness

Before the Reception - August 2003

Theme Thursday: Repeating Patterns

Stitches!

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

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:

This week's Theme Thursday: Monkeying Around

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

Photo Friday: Motion

Rusty Smith: Marquette, MI, October 2003

This weeks PhotoTime -

Black and White

Bridesmaids: August, 2003

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

This weeks Theme Thursday: Eat

Filipino Eggrolls : July 2003

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.

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.

Just thought I'd give you all a collection of my favorite pictures from this year. I've taken most of them, but one or two were taken by others. A new year's resolution many years ago was to take more pictures, and I think this year I've really lived up to that. My camera, "Cammie II" is always in my purse, which is actually a camera bag. And I don't care that people always make fun that I dn't have a real purse. There's just so many beautiful moments that I see that I love to share with my camera, so I need to have her around all the time.

So enjoy my pictures. I'm sure you've seen them all before, but it doesn't hurt to see them again!

Coming next year: Christine's artsy photo gallery

Photo Friday: Childhood

Catching Pigeons

You know, I'm really starting to like these weekly picture things...anyway, here's:

Theme Thursday: Discipline

Chicago Police in Riot Gear - 01.09.2003

There was a big convention in town, and Chicago stepped up it's police presence, and it was pretty intimidating to see all of them, lined up, dressed the same with the helmets, batons and plastic shields.

FotoFeelings: Complete

Sisters - April 1997

This was a toughie, but after some thought, I chose my sisters. We've all been away at school at different times, so anytime we get together, we feel whole, like all the world is right again.

OK, I've finally added my Marquette gallery. Click on the pretty picture for the gallery. Sorry to you dialup peeps, this graphic is kinda big, but any smaller and it wouldn't be as cool. ;)

There's a lot of pictures in there, I know. Most of them are just OK, but I think there's a few in there at are really good. But then again, when you take 400+ pictures at an event, you would hope that at least one or two turn out really good! I believe in quantity, with the hope of catching some quality in there. These buggers move too fast for my so-so camera to really catch any quality shots.

So I hope you like them, whether or not you're a short track fan or not.

Galleries coming soon:
Updated Bay City
Updated SLC
The return of the Milwaukee gallery
and....the long awaited WEDDING gallery! Yes, I know you guys have been waiting for it....(LARA). There are just so many pictures I don't even know where to start!

I know a lot of this isn't going to make sense, or may be inside jokes, but hell, it's my blog, so I'll put in what I want! It's really long, so if you don't get bored after the first few paragraphs, feel free to continue by clicking on the link below. Without further adieu, here it is:

- I flew in and my plane got in late at night. Our shuttle also had a pick up for the flight after mine, so we waited. While we waited, our driver told us his life story and we gave him some consolation about his upcoming divorce, and he gave us some advice about marriage.

- Unfortunately, the flight after us was WAY delayed. But you know what totally made up for it? It was Yang Yang A we were waiting for. I was giddy like a little schoolgirl. She was very nice, and amazingly beautiful. Those helmets don't do her justice at all.

- Friday morning, me and my roomie Bernadette went to breakfast with Noelle, Corin, Torrie, Denise and Susan at Tommy's. We had a lot of good laughs, and we were really excited about the upcoming races. I don't know if it was senior citizen's day at Tommy's or what, but the average age in there was about 70. I think we were the only ones there outside of Butta and Tysha who DIDN'T get the discount.

- I love our little short track family. Coming to these things is like a mix between going to Thanksgiving Dinner at grandma's, going to your 10 year high school reunion, and spending quality time with your teenage cousin. There are so many different kinds of fans out there, from different backgrounds, from different locations, each with a different reason why they came to Marquette, whether it be because of a love of short track, or of one particular skater, or just to come out and see the circus that is short track fandom. We all came, we had a good time. True, it wasn't one big group of fans that hung out together all the time, and I would be lying if I said everyone gets along. Because they don't. Too many different and strong personalities. But everyone was happy with their own group, and there's a single purpose that brought everyone together, and that's good enough, because it looks like everyone had a great and memorable time. And nothing could beat the enthusiasm that each one brought to Marquette. We were crazy fans, and we loved it. It was truly wonderful to see everyone again, whether I talked to them or not. I apologize if I didn't, but most of the time the time didn't feel right, or I was just too shy to approach people to talk, just as people were too shy to come up to me I later found out. I just hid behind my camera most of the time. Or my laptop. But to those of you who did say hello, thank you. It was great to finally meet Monique, Tysha, Lucinda, Sue and Jill for the first time. And I can't tell you how much it meant to me to have people ask about my mother and how she was doing. Probably the top two questions people were asking were 'How's your mom doing?' and 'So how's married life?' Sooz even went so far as to tell me to come to the next competition with a little one in the oven. We're working on it, Sooz.


- There was some AMAZING racing in Marquette. The Koreans were definitely a force to be reckoned with. Ahn and Choi seemed almost unstoppable (almost). And I had never thought that the ice in Marquette was known to be particularly fast, but there were a couple records broken - the top 4 finishers in the 1500m all beat the world record. When I heard that Korea, China, Italy, Canada, and Japan were all going to be in attendance in Marquette, I knew we'd have some good races. I was a little concerned for the US team, since all the major players would be there, so it would be a lot harder than SLC, but we did well enough to have Apolo and Rusty in the 3000m. And both of them did extremely well. The 1000m final was great to watch - when Apolo and Rusty came in and broke up the Korean chain the crowd was roaring. The 3000m was an excellent race, as well, with two Koreans, two Canadians and two Americans. But probably the most exciting was the men's relay final, with Korea, Japan, Canada and China. All the teams were close throughout the whole 45 laps, and it was a clean race, with no DQ's and no falls. Watching Korea and Canada switch leads in the last laps had the crowd screaming and biting it's nails.

- Some people may say I got a media pass so I could get kickass seats. Or so I could be closer to cute guys in skinsuits. Or have an excuse to talk to a cute guy in a skinsuit. Or so I can sit in on the press conferences. Or because I needed the internet connection. But the truth is, I got the media pass for the free food. Those Bavarian crème chocolate éclairs were to DIE for! I ate half the box, and took a couple home with me.

- Even though the media was comprised of mostly fans, there were a couple media people there that were, uh, actual media people. During the 1000m races, I sat on the media side of the arena to get some better pictures of the start line. Me and the rest of the gals in that area were playing a little game of musical chairs, trying to get the best seat without any obstruction from the block chasers. There was a point where the only seat left was next to this localphotographer/reporter, and we had a little exchange:

Me: Um, is this seat taken?
Dude: Yes it is, by you!
Me: Well, thank you!
Dude: Just don't tell my wife.
Me: It will be our little secret.
Dude: (staring at my chest, but in reality, trying to read my credential, or maybe not) What media group are you with?
Me: (showing him my creds) I'm with rustysmith.com
Him: Oh, I see. Are you his wife?
Me: (busts out laughing, then stops) HA! Uh, no. I work on his website. I have a husband. But it isn't Rusty.
Him: Oh. So do you come to these things often?
Me: About once a year or so. It's a lot of fun, isn't it?
Him: Oh yeah. It's really cool to see. You know, there's a lot of cute Asian girls skating.
Me: Uh, yeah, there are, I guess.
Him: I love to watch them.
Me: (internal alarm starts) Yeah, well, I think I forgot something in the media room. I'll see ya later.
Him: OK, I'll keep this seat open for ya.
Me: Uh, thanks...

- Thanks so much to Denise for driving me around. She is the coolest chick around. And I'm not saying that because I think she might have mafia connections. Or because Rusty Smith gave her his supersized check from the banquet. She's just the best.

- We came in late to the banquet, which is typical of me. Always late for everything. It was the first time I've ever gone to one of these things, and when we came in late, I felt like all eyes were on us crying 'Shame! Shame on you for being late!' I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be. It was pretty cool to be sitting with the Finish Lynx guys and between the Canadian team and the Korean team. Seeing the skaters outside of their skinsuits and helmets was an eye opener. The helmets do the women no justice. The Canadian women were gorgeous, as were the Italians. The food was excellent, and I was Susan's drink orderer for the night, and I didn't disappoint. It was cool to see the awards given out. When the Koreans were called up, they were so cute because they did this little run up to the stage. Those Koreans, always on the move. When Apolo's name was called, there was this huge roar of applause, and we heard one of the Canadians exclaim 'Ohno! It's getting hot in here!' Which made us all laugh, because he was referring to a sign that Lupe was carrying which was featured on the front page of the local paper. There was this huge rush of people that went to the stage to take pictures. I took a picture of it, but it didn't turn out too well. After that, it was people milling around, finding skaters to take pictures with, chatting with different people, and Apolo constantly had a good sized mob of people with him. I basically took pictures of people with other people for them. The camera gal. I got to talk to Rusty a little, and got our traditional picture taken together. I did manage to see Apolo for a split second as he was trying to leave, and I made eye contact and did the 'nod' of acknowledgement, but then he was swept up with other fans so that was that. I pretty much went through the banquet in a daze. Too much to watch, too much sensory overload.

- I didn't get to see much of Corin and Torrie of World Short Track in SLC, but I got to spend a lot more time with them in Marquette. Outside of the arena, they are just about the cutest couple ever. It's great to see them interact, and they are such great people. And they love and know the sport so well, it's great to talk to them about it. I know a good amount about the US skaters but not tons about other skaters. But Corin and Torrie were glad to educate me! Every once in a while, it's nice to take a break from talking about the skinsuits and ass and talk about the actual sport. Even outside of the arena, Corin was all business when he saw skaters, chatting up skaters left and right. All WST, all the time.

- Guinness, lemon drops, jack and cokes, pucker shots, kahlua and cokes, jager bombs, vodka tonics, car bombs. All the right ingredients for a fun night. From what I remember. Which isn't much. But I do remember helping out the owners of the bar, who were taking the place of their bartender. I gave them the recipes for drinks and educated them in the finer points of making drinks and mixing shots. I also learned that a drink called Bomba is the perfect replacement when you run out of Red Bull.

- My favorite media person was a Korean girl named Choi. Not the skater. The girl who had her head stuck in a notebook for the whole competition who would growl and snap at you if you interrupted her during the races. She was one of the hardest working media people I saw. Not the best pool player, but a pretty good reporter.

- I have to remember that my actions may be misinterpreted by people from another country. I had videotaped a couple of the races while I was in the media section. Behind the media section was the area where a lot of the athletes sat in between races. As I was reviewing my tape on my viewer screen, I could feel the eyes of the Bulgarian team (who were sitting behind me) watching my tape, too. I turned around, gave them a serious look, then pretended to hide my viewer from their line of sight. I laughed then smiled at them and gave them a better view. But they weren't smiling. I don't think they got the joke.

- A big thank you to the Japanese lady who taught me how to say 'Smile with your teeth' in Japanese ("walla te"?). I never got to use the line on Satoru Terao because I didn't see him at the banquet, but it's good to know for future reference!

- Sometimes I felt like I was still at work. I fixed the copier in the media room, helping with other people's computer problems, and taught people how to use their cameras. A consultant's work is never done.

- One of my favorite images from Marquette was seeing Susan's Fabio Carta sign amidst all the OZ gals. It was so big she was hidden behind it when she held it up. Fabio was the best. He came and sat behind us during the men's relay heats, and was giving us information on the relay. It was so cool to have him there, and I laughed because every time the Italian men would have a bad pass, or when they would be passed up, he would exclaim, 'Uh oh!' to himself. He definitely made himself a lot of fans that weekend by being so friendly, personable and photogenic!

- Kimo is like Santa at these things. He's always got something up his sleeve or a little something to give away. And he never fails to crack everyone up! Ghetto Santa and sweet, pretty Jan, holding up her 'Apolo we had dinner with you' sign. Must have been a bitch to bring on the plane!

-I actually got a chance to talk to Hyun-Soo Ahn. Well, kinda. There was a bit of a language barrier. After he won the 1500m, he came into the press room, and Apolo wasn't there and Turcotte was being interviewed by the local press. Ahn was looking around like he needed help, and since I guess I was the only Asian there, he came up to me. Since my Korean is pretty rusty, well, ok, non-existent, it was hard for me to understand him. At first I thought he didn't know where the locker room was. But then I realized that he was going to go back to the locker room. I told him that it was all right (as if I had some authority!) but made it a point to tell him that he HAD to come back. He never did. But then again, he probably had NO idea what I was saying or why this strange Asian girl was making these weird bird-like hand gestures. While we're on the subject, Ahn has REALLY grown up. He's taller and he even colored his hair. We were joking around during dinner that I'd start a site for him: www.LetsGetItAhn.com.

- One of the most memorable things about Marquette for me was the people of Marquette. They just embraced the sport and all the athletes. They just weren't cheering for the US team, they were cheering for everyone. All the local people I talked to had such a hunger for knowledge about the sport, it was incredible. For most of the races I sat in front of this father and son who were new to the sport. Every now and then we would answer their questions about the sport, and Corin even gave them his worldshorttrack.com business card to check out the site. The next day, they had visited the site, printed out the helmet sheets and everything. On the first day, the son seemed pretty lukewarm to short track, when I turned around and said, 'Short track is really cool, you'll see,' he gave me this, 'yeah right' look, since he was a hockey player. By the last day, he couldn't get enough of it. The whole town of Marquette was hyped up about the World Cup. From all the posters in the airport by school children welcoming each of the countries to the cut out skates adorning the light posts in downtown Marquette, I don't think there was anyone in Marquette that didn't know the World Cup would be there. And who knew that clowns, swing bands, and a wildcat mascot would add so much to the festive atmosphere? Me and Corin did some swing dancing on the side, but it didn't catch on...but it was a lot of fun!

- I didn't take any pictures with any of the skaters other than Rusty, mostly because I was too shy to ask, and it just seemed like they had a lot of people taking pics with them as it was. I was happy with just watching other people take pictures with them. But the one person that I KNEW I had to get a picture taken with was someone that I had seen around the rink throughout the competition. Someone who had caught my attention, who had that certain je nais se quois. A fire in his eye, the agility with which he moved, his smile, his attention to style, something about him drew me like a moth to the flame. He was the NMU Wildcat. Holy hotness, Batman!

- I need to start a petition. A petition to make it mandatory that all ice arenas serve churros at their food stands. There wasn't a churro to be found in Marquette!

- One of my favorite moments during the women's relay was at the end, when Caroline Hallisey was helping Maria Garcia skate off the ice. Maria had suffered a concussion earlier in the day, but the women needed to do the relay to get points so they could do it at the Worlds. I think Maria may have skated a couple laps, but the rest of the girls covered for her for the rest of the race. Afterwards, Caroline linked her arm with Maria's and gently skated with her off the ice. It was really touching to see.

- Phone service in Marquette sucks for Sprint users. I was roaming the whole time and didn't realize that my phone rang 5 times during breakfast - I thought the ring belonged to someone else. Roaming sucks! I'm scared to look at my phone bill. I got and received a lot of calls that weekend, some having to do with work, or when trying to coordinate a meeting time, or searching for lost friends who come in 2 hours late to the competition. You know who you are.

- I got a lot of exercise in Marquette, mainly because my seat was all the way on the other side of the rink from where the media room was. And the media room was down a set of stairs. And my seat was down a set of stairs. There was a lot of running around in-between races to upload pictures in the media room then back to my seat to catch the races. Fortunately, years of working in downtown Chicago has taught me the long lost art of people dodging.

- It was great to hear Andy Gabel call the races. The energy and excitement in his voice was really infectious. You could tell that he was just as excited about the awesome racing that was going on as the crowd was. He also made sure to add in little tidbits about the sport, like strategy in races, when the skaters start speeding up in a race, etc. He did an excellent job!

- Apolo was definitely a favorite for the weekend, and everyone in a way expected him to do well. It's a lot of pressure, but I think he handled it really well. The Koreans were definitely strong throughout the whole competition. Apolo got third in the 1500m, which was great, but there was nothing better when he came first at the finish line in the 500m final. He knew he had it, pumped his fist in the air and went around joyously for his traditional hi-5 around the rink. The applause and cheering was deafening, the crowd was out of their seats, and the smile on Apolo's face was a mile wide.

- In Marquette, it was easier to figure out who DIDN'T have a press pass than who DID. I swear, it seemed like everyone was in the media room the last day. Between rustysmith.com, ohnozone, fabiocarta.com, usspeedskatingfans, world short track, ohnovelocity, apolo anton ohno portal, speedreading, and so on and so on, there were a lot of media/fans in the room. I almost felt like I was at an Apolo signing. It's truly showing the speedskating community how dedicated the fans are to supporting the sport and covering the sport for other fans, since there isn't a lot of regular media attention to it (like NBC or ESPN). And it also shows that the number one source that fans use to get information on competitions is on the internet. On the down side, in a way, is that I don't know if press passes were given out liberally, but it seems like anyone and their mom can make up a website and get a press pass. Is that a good thing? I dunno. Hopefully press passes aren't limited to websites in the future!

- On a similar note, I had my 14 minutes of fame when I got interviewed for the local paper. It was so weird to see 'Christine Estacio' in print, but it was really cool, too. Basically the article had to do with what I stated above - how the internet community gets its short track information through fan sites and official fan site, mostly from reports from competitions given by other fans. The interview covered a lot more than what was in the article, but I was honored just to have my name in print.

So yeah, all in all, I had a great and memorable time. There's a whole bunch of memories that will never see the light of this blog, mostly because I don't remember them. But as much as this short track world can be stressing, Marquette showed that it could be wonderful, as well.

Photo Friday: Structure

The Olympic Oval
Salt Lake City - February 2003

Posted by Yano at 11:03 PM | Comments (1)

FotoFeelings: Free

Claudine Jumps Logs
Vancouver, BC - May 2002

Photo Friday: Work

As Always, Hard at Work: Chicago, March 2003

The crazy antics never end at my office. Here, the professional services group does some bonding. I tend to think better with Sam's ankles next to my ears. That sounds dirty, but it's not.

Photo Friday: Downtown

Unfortunately, I'm not home today so I don't have access to my kick ass pictures of downtown, so this one will have to do. This is taken from the museum campus, right behind the Shedd Aquarium.

Chicago Skyline

It was a gorgeous drive down to San Diego, going along the coast on the 5. It wasn't even a long drive. It took me 2 1/2 hours to drive up to Thousand Oaks last week to a client. It only took us an hour and a half to get to the zoo. And the time went by fast because we were listening to the Bears vs. Chargers game on the radio. It's a totally different experience to listen to broadcasters that are biased AGAINST the Bears.

So we got to the zoo and met up with Melinda, who is about the only person I know in San Diego, and who lives only minutes away from the zoo. We had a great time going around the zoo, taking the tour, riding the sky gondola thing and eating churros. I love the zoo, and I love animals. It's a beautful zoo, and it's HUGE. We didn't get through everything (we got there late, of course) but we got through enough. Maybe we could have gotten through more if we didn't stand entranced by the playful antics of the pygmy chimpanzees for an hour. It was really cute to watch them do somersaults and wrestle with each other.

Of course, we had to head out to the hippo area, because if you didn't know, I love hippos. We cleaned out the gift shop of all its hippo paraphenalia. I bought a hippo t-shirt, stuffed hippos, hippo photo album, hippo magnet, and a hippo backpack, that you can see in some of the pictures.

As for pictures, I went crazy - took about 200 pictures, of which you'll see a sampling of here. Once I get some time (which means NEVER) I'll post up some galleries of my artsy pics. I've got tons of pics of animals and of my drive to California that I never posted.

So here's the pics, enjoy!

This weekend is Dave and Christine's animal weekend. Today's stop was the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific. It was a ton of fun, though I was really hungry for sushi afterwards. *evil grin* We had a pretty good time, and they had some beautiful fish there. They also had a petting area where you can pet sharks, horseshoe crabs and stingrays. The sharks felt a bit like sandpaper, and the rays were slimy without being slimy. After a while, I didn't want to go. I just wanted to stay and pet my new friends. Dave also made friends with a green sea turtle.

So if you're ever in Long Beach, I'll take you there. I splurged a bit and got a membership to the aquarium, so I can go whenever I want. It's only about 15 minutes away from my place, and it's a great place to take kids. I was waiting for one of them to fall into the petting pool, but no luck.

Here's a couple of my pics I took. I'm a picture taking freak - I took about 150 pictures. God bless my digital camera!

Just a couple pics from the World Cup action today. Well, it was yesterday.

Since Emer always complains that I post up too many pictures of speedskaters, and not enough of him, I present to you the 'Emer at Betty's Blue Star Lounge' collection. Once I get my pics organized, look out for the special 'Pictures of Emer' page.

He calls this one 'Alki-Man!'

Fatima and Emer

Emer and me

And so the others don't feel left out...

Jen, Gil and me

The birthday boy, Angelo, me and Deo

Sorry Emer, but this weekend there's going to be LOTSA speedskater pictures being posted. But the next time I see you, I'll take a more pics. Maybe even start a fan page. *wink*

Photo Friday: Body

My Feet: Huntington Beach, September 2003

I'm in Chicago, so I don't have access to all my other pictures, so I'll post an older picture that I've posted before.

Photo Friday: Translucent

Aspen Bust - Chicago Comic Convention, August 2003

Photo Friday: Heights

The Capilano Suspended Bridge in Vancouver, B.C.

Photo Friday: Found

In my adventures to California, I found evidence that, yes indeed, Bigfoot DOES like riding rollercoasters. However, he was a tad over the height requirement so he left.

Today's Photo Friday: Aged

OK, so I'm cheating a bit here and using the same pic from a couple days ago, because well, this picture IS aged. It's a picture from my Chicago to Long Beach roadtrip, and I'm a little unsure as to where it's from. I believe it's somewhere outside of Nevada. I had so many beautiful pictures to choose from, but this one is my favorite just because of the different colors of the mountain. From the road, the black bottom looks like tents set up at the foor of the mountain. It was quite breathtaking, and the pic hardly does it any justice.

Anyway, when we passed by it, my dad remarked, "Its incredible that it took thousands of years to make something that beautiful..."

Well, I'll wait til I get more pics from friends before I put up my wedding gallery. For now, I'll post up all of my Wizard World pics, which I took last August. If you've forgotten my experience, you can live it in my "Adventures of a Comic Book Booth Bitch" post. One thing about that post: You never know who's reading the stuff you post on your site, so beware!!! It's all good, I meant every word of it, and I had a terrific time.

Thanks to everyone who mailed me suggestions about galleries to use. It seemed like there was some sort of consensus on "Gallery" being the best one out there. However, since I like making things difficult for myself, and I'm just stubborn about the design I want, I'm going with a different kind of format. I had always loved the way that Mona had her picture gallery formatted, so, well, I just stole the design. OK, I asked Raven to help me out with it, which he happily did. I know I'm making more work for myself, but I like the control I have with this gallery. So thanks to Mona for using the format that I've always wanted, and to Raven for designing it. Now if only I could get my pictures as good as Mona's!

Anyway, tell me what you think of the new gallery. I still need to iron out a couple things, but I really like it, and I'll probably convery the rest of my pictures to this format.

Melanie has pics from my wedding up...and my bridal shower and the bachelorette parties, too. (The clean ones, of course)

Mel's Wedding Page

Here's a couple samples to whet your whistle...

The whole bridal party...yes, I know, it's A LOT

Dr. & Mrs. Estacio exit the church and kiss

Good times in the Escalade!

I could have danced all night!

Me and Melanie

Girl, I'll be home on Friday, cut me a CD of this...it's good stuff! Thanks Mel!

And now, I bid you good night as my body is wrapped up in Vick's vapo-rub. Doctor Dave's orders! At least I can breathe a bit easier, but now I'm all tingly!

My first post as Mrs. David Estacio!

It was a good day. Thank God for giving us perfect weather.

Although not everything went smoothly, it was an unforgettable and perfect day and night. I wouldn't change it for the world!

Tomorrow, I leave for Long Beach. Wish me luck! Don't know when I'll be able to post. My target date is early on August 27th.

So with that, I leave you with these images of our wonderful wedding. There are a lot more, and people are sending some that they've taken, so I should have a pretty good gallery done by next week...

Here I am, on a plane to LA. I'll keep on typing 'til my battery dies. I don't want to make this too long of a story (not like the epic 'Memoirs of a Ex-Short Track Stalker" from February) but I'll try to get in as much stuff as I can on my way to LA. I know these story won't appeal as much to my core readership (well, what I think my core readership is, although I know you comic book lurkers are out there, too) but let me tell you gals, these guys are sweet, friendly, and mighty good lookin'.

So, to start things off, I go to the Chicago Comic Convention every year, this is maybe my 5th or 6th year going. I was going even before it was called Wizard World Chicago. I dunno what possessed me to go that first year, maybe it was the promise of getting FREE comic book stuff. At first, I just went for one day, but when I discovered you can get sketches done and that there were panel discussions, I started going for all three days. And every time I told someone I was going to the con, I would get that 'You read comic books?' or 'Are you crazy?' look. Basically, because I'm a girl who reads comic books. Also, who could stand to be at a convention for 3 days?

But it's a lot of fun. Me and Fatima go every year. She is the Robin to my Batman. The Lilo to my Stitch. The Tonto to my Lone Ranger. The Silent Bob to my Jay. You get the picture!

So this year, we had bought tickets to go and were really psyched about seeing Jim Lee and Sean Astin. And I have a friend, and I don't know if he wants to remain nameless, but I'll let him be nameless for now, who asked me if I was going to the con, to which I said I was. And then he asked 'Well, if they need help at the Aspen booth, do you want to help out?'

HELL YEAH!

Aspen MLT, as I might have mentioned before, is the company started by my favorite artist, Michael Turner (see the 'art' section for some of his art - yeah, I know the section sucks right now...I'll fix it in time!). There's only a few of them in the company right now, and I guess they weren't sure if they needed help at the booth. So of course, me and Fatima jumped at the chance to help out. We were as giddy as schoolgirls.

So we stopped by the booth on Friday morning, and they told us that they were ok, but to check with them later on in the day. We got to do some cruising around the 'con, and came back, and they said they were OK with help for the day, but might need us for the next day.

The next day, we came by in the afternoon to see if they needed help. By then we were thinking that they would be OK with help for the rest of the 'con. But since Michael and crew had a panel to do in the afternoon, it would only be Liz working the booth, as well as two Wizard volunteers. (Sorry I forgot your names, guys!)

So me and Fatima got to be Booth Bitches for the rest of the afternoon, and although it was a lot of work selling the art and comics, and answering questions, we had TONS of fun. It was interesting to see what it was like behind the table, and to actually see how much stuff these companies sell at comic cons. It was a LOT. It was pretty amazing how much people were shelling out for the posters and comics. But if I had the money, I would have bought all the prints. But we had a lot of limited edition stuff to sell, and the prints we had were GORGEOUS. Me and Fatima were drooling over them the whole time. Michael, Talent, Peter & Co had some really great stuff. We were in heaven selling this kick ass art to other people who loved the art, and chatting with them and joking around. These people loved the art as much as we did. It was REALLY cool!

So we worked there Sunday, too, and were really sad to have to leave early. Everyone at Aspen was SO cool to us, and we have to especially thank Liz Brizzi for being so patient with us when we were learning the ropes and for taking in the questions we couldn't answer for people. And also Frank Mastromauro for letting us work there, and for getting us sloppy joes on Sunday. We knew that he was busy already, and he took the time out to get us something to eat. He rocks! And to Peter, who could be a bit intimidating at first, since he's the size of most skyscrapers in Chicago, but who is cool as hell. And to Talent, for being a really cute guy, and for taking the time out to make a SPECTACULAR sketch of Psylocke for me in my sketchbook (I'll scan in later). And to Mike Turner, for looking eerily like Noah Wyle and creating this cool company that for a brief moment in time we pretended that we were affiliated to. Thank you so much, Aspen!

So, here's some other highlights from the weekend:

- Got a sketch done by Mark Brooks, who will be doing the upcoming series of Deadpool. He was an AWESOME guy who took a lot of time to work on the sketch of Psylocke that he did for me. He was cool, friendly and funny. I promise Mark, when Deadpool comes out I will definitely buy it and preach to my other comic book friends to buy it because 'Mark is such a neat guy.' And no, I will not be selling your sketch on EBAY! But I stole one of your pencils and it should be up for sale as we speak. Just kidding.

- Also got a sketch from Tone Rodriguez, who did a Psylocke sketch for me last year, but I enjoyed talking to him so much when he was sketching for me last year that I went back for more this year. He's such a funny guy, he had me and Fatima laughing the whole time. And he gave me a hug! He's a hugger! I love hugs from big burly comic book artists! He's the best. He's someone I will definitely be looking up when I try to infiltrate the comic book world in LA. Note to all the comic book girls out there: Tone's a huggable guy.

- Saw what I'd like to call 'my old friend' the Chief, Mike Wellman, who did Mac Afro with Luke Lizalde. Remember that comic that I was in? Yeah, that one. And he assured me that yes, that was me in the comic. Wheee!!! It was great to see him again, and he's got a new comic out called 'Gone South' which I will definitely buying once I have the funds.

- Got a picture taken with a man dressed in a 'Predator' outfit. The first time I was rubbing his belly. Then I went back for a picture because he was such a damn cute alien, and I asked him for a hug, which he gladly gave me. Note to self: Do not accidentally stick your hand in the armpit of a man who has spent all day dressed up as the Predator, because your hand will be moist and smelly. But I thank him for the picture.

- George R. R. Martin, I will be cursing your name! He's one of my favorite authors, and he was supposed to be at the 'con, but since he had to finish his book (which I have been waiting for forever) he was not able to make it. He is SO lucky that I didn't lug my big hardcover books to the 'con to get signed. I apologize to the guys working the booth, who I think I scared by taking my books and slamming them onto the table and damning them all to hell. I didn't mean it guys, it was the heat of the moment. But George, I'm over it now. I will just curse your name every once in a while. Just finish the book, ok?

- Funny exchange #1: at the Aspen booth

Dude, just how old do you think Mike IS? He's only a couple years older than me!

- Sorry to our 'little brothers' that were helping out at the booth with us for being so old. I know they were a little disappointed when they found out I was 28, a mere 12 years older than them and much to old to hit on. Well, they tried. It was cute.

- Rafael was the most easy going and sweetest person I met at the 'con. He just had this melodic quality to his voice which just showed that he was a gentle and kind soul. He drew me a female Mexican masked wrestler. I thought it would be a challenge, but I guess it wasn't! Watch out for Somnabula, everyone!

- Me and Fatima were hanging out at the Jay's Comics table, when the older woman there said she liked my shirt. I smiled and said 'thanks' and she looked at me, and replied, 'Have you been here before?' I said 'yes' and she proclaimed, 'I know you girls! You come here every year! Oh my, you both are so grown up now!' She was so sweet it was like seeing an old auntie. Then she saw my ring, and she said, "Oh my! And you're getting married, too!" To which I said, "Yeah, we grow up, then we get married!". She was such a darling. The next day, I was at the booth again, and her son came up to me and said " My mom was telling me about you yesterday, and she said 'There were these two girls there today and you would recognize them if you saw them!' and I saw you, and immediately knew it was you. Congratulations on the wedding!'. It was so cool, to be recognized by these people, it's like coming to visit old friends!

- Life as a comic book artist isn't easy. We didn't get to talk to Mike Turner too much because we saw how incredibly busy he was, doing signings, sketching for people, being part of panels and such. Poor guy was just packed with stuff all the time. There was one instance where he was doing a signing and sketches, and he really had to go to the bathroom, but he kept on getting interrupted on his way to the bathroom. I wanted to just say, 'Let the man pee!'

- Pet peeve of the con: People who get more than one sketch. Yes, I know you paid to get into the con, yes, I know that you waited in line to get a sketch, but spread the wealth, yo! There's a bunch of people behind you who've driven really far, just to get ONE sketch. Be courteous to your fellow geeks (i say the word affectionately, being one myself) and let someone else have the joy have having a sketch done. I had see too many people with the look of disappointment when the line was capped for sketches.

- There were so many great books there that I wanted to pick up, but didn't have the money. Hopefully once I settle down, I can grab some new titles. I'll definitely be picking up 'The Ultimates', 'Gone South', 'Violent Messiahs', 'Red Star' and 'Kabuki'.

- There were a lot of characters walking around, and one of them was Darth Vader. I watched as people took picture with him, some asking for poses where he was choking them or doing the jedi mind trick. I asked him if I could take a picture with him, and he said, in a low menacing voice, 'YES'. Then I asked if I could get a hug, because, well, even evil ex-jedi's need hugs, too. SO he said yes, and I took a picture with him. Then after Fatima took the picture, he reached behind him, pulled out a camera, and said "Can I have one, too?" Uh, yeah, sure Vader, as I could say no to you! So we took a hugging picture with his camera, too. Who knew that Anakin Skywalker had a Canon CoolPix? Not I!

- On Saturday I was wearing a 'Girl's Rule' t-shirt. Lots of comments on it, lots of men challenging the fact that girl's rule. But we do, so they all lost the arguments.

- A suggestion to my fellow geeks - try out soap. It helps. Sorry, but some people there just STANK.

- Talent Caldwell's mom is the cutest thing, and it's even cuter to see Talent with her.

- Although I liked to call us Booth Bitches, because we were doing the behind the scenes work at the booth, I would not go as far to call us "Booth Babes". Which brings to mind the Evil-Lynn that was there, or the Vampirella that was there two years ago, or any other scantilly clad lasses that adorn a booth. We were far from that! Guys would line up to take pictures of these girls. But to tell the truth, it made me and Fatima laugh really hard when guys would ask us if they could take our pictures. I mean, we're not babes. Just volunteer bitches. Nonetheless, it was cool that they wanted our picture.

- Funny Exchange #2 - At the DC area, taking a picture with Batman and Wonderwoman

- A couple people thought I actually worked for Aspen. I said no, I was just a lucky girl who got a break. I was also asked which character was based on me. I said none...yet. *wink* Then one person pointed at Aspen Matthews and said, 'She looks like you!' Nice try, guy! I said, 'Thanks, I wish! Sometimes when I read the book, I pretend she's me, but nope, it's not!'.

- Have I told you guys that Sam Campos is just about the coolest human being on the face of the earth? I just wanted to say that. Thank you.

- Although we were quite excited to see Sean Astin before the con, I think the excitement of working the booth took over. We waited in line to see Sean for a while, and saw him come in. He's really cute, and has lost a lot of weight since the movie. He's almost in 'Toy Soldiers' form. We knew that the wait would be long and tedious, so we stuck around for a bit, got bored of waiting, said 'fuck it', and left to check out the rest of the con. Another day, Samwise Gamgee. We shall meet another day!

Damn, didn't know this would be this long! Thanks for sticking around long enough to read it. Wait! I'm not done! There's more fun!

- Phrase that I can live the rest of my life without ever saying again (well, until next year anyway): "We've got limited edition prints here. They're hand numbered and each one is already signed by the artists. $35 for one, $60 for two, and if you get four or more, it's only $25 each, which saves you $40! Get them soon, because they're selling out fast!"

- More Aspen ass-kissing: Peter just oozes coolness, there's just something about him. Frank has the nicest smile, it's nice and big. Talent has gorgeous eyes, and he's just CUTE. I love Mike's voice, it's got a Disney stud quality to it. Liz has an awesome French accent, and as one guy said at the booth - 'It's really hot!' Aspen is DEFINITELY a good looking company.

- I got to see Jim Lee again. He's SO cool. Wow. No sketch, though, but SOMEDAY. SOMEDAY I will get a sketch from you, Mr. Lee!

- I saw this huge line at the back of the con, and I had no idea what it was for. Then I saw that Rob Liefeld was in the house. Wow. Haven't heard from him in a while. I guess people still care! And he was doing sketches, too! Damn!

- Best Fatima quote of the 'con: "When Mike was heading out to the bathroom, he looked at me and nudged me with his hand. Can you believe it? Michael Turner's magical, gifted hands touched me! I'm so happy!"

- Humberto Ramos looked at me. He gave me 'the nod', I swear. I don't know if it's because he recognized me as the girl who was stalking him two years ago and asked for a picture of Psylocke, or if he thought that he knew me because I was working the Aspen booth. Nonetheless, it was cool.

- Best pickup line of the 'con:

- Comic book kids are just about the most polite kids on earth. Just about every one that we gave a free sticker to politely said "thank you". It was so much fun to see the wonder and joy in their eyes when we offered to give them 2 stickers. "Two stickers? Really? Gee, thanks!" Ahh, to be young again!

- We were so happy to have Liz around. If we didn't, we would have been lost sheep. She was like our mother hen and we were her chickees. She was SO cool, and so nice. At first I was a little intimidated by her, but she was so easy to get along with, and we really grew attached to her.

- Best way to end off the day: We were sad to leave early, but I had to catch a plane to LA for work at 6pm. I'm sitting at the airport talking on the phone and reading my comics, when who saunters over to the gate but Mike Turner! So I sneak up to him and ask him to sign my book. He looks up, surprised, and laughs. He invites me to sit and chill with him before the flight. It was kinda weird sitting next to him while I was reading the book that he drew. And I don't know if my hands were shaking because I was sitting next to him, or because I had my first coffee in a month. I think it was the coffee. It was still pretty cool to sit with him. I didn't want to bother him much, though, because I knew he was SO exhausted from the 'con. I was content just being within spitting distance. *smile* Then again, he never DID sign my book. *evil grin*

OK, I think that's all. More will probably come to me later on, but I'll let you guys off the hook for now. I had a TON of fun, and once I get the pics formatted, I'll post them up. I might even have to make a seperate gallery for my Wizard World Chicago pictures, there's so many!

Thanks to all of you who made it this far. I'm thinking that only the geeks got to the bottom, but maybe you ST girls made it this far, too. Thanks to everyone at the 'con for making it such a fun time for me. Looking forward to the LA con in March! Don't know if I'll be working the booth, but I'll definitely be there!

I am definitely a lucky girl, and in no way will I take this experience for granted.

Photo Friday Topic: Sleep

This is my adorable little cousin Jillian, a week or so after her birth in November. She was the cutest thing, and every day since then she's gotten cuter and cuter. She's our first baby in the family for my generation, so she's spoiled rotten by everyone, but she's such a sweetheart it doesn't matter!

Well, as if I don't have enough to do, I worked a bit on the 26 things project during my lunch break. 26 things is a photographic scavenger hunt where you're given a list of 26 topics to take a picture of. Some examples are monument, animal, symmetry, footwear, etc. It was a lot of fun, and it helped me practice my photographic skills. However, I started it a bit late (last week) so I didn't get the kinda of pictures that I would have gotten if I took the time. anyway, check out my submission:

Yano's 26 Things Project

This is my favorite one - it was taken with a zoom from my office building at the building next to mine:

If you get a chance, check out Alan's and Mona's. They've got some great stuff!

OK, so Chris shared his right-out-of-the-shower pics on his blog, so I said I would reciprocate. It's so weird taking pics of yourself in the bathroom, especially in a towel. It felt like porn. Anyway, here they are! Enjoy! Remember, you can still sponsor me!!!

This next set of pictures is dedicated to the best roommates that a girl can ever have in college - Nikki, Emily and Jaygee. We had a 3 floor, 4 bedroom apartment on Elm Street in Urbana. During the time that the 4 of us lived together, we had some of the best times of my life. Jaybee graduated after a year, so it was just the three of us (and a fourth roommate, but she wasn't around much). Why the name "The Luscious Lolas of Elm"? Well, Lola means grandmother to most Filipinos. And to most people out there, we were the big sisters, the ones that had been around and who knew what's up. And I have no idea who came up with Luscious Lolas. But the name just stuck. That's actually where my bunny's name came from. And although Nikki is genetically, Italian, she's Filipino inside, baby. We had some great times in apartment 18! Pillow fights, late night cramming, potluck dinners, pre-parties, meetings, Papa John pizza nights, middle of the night talks, drunken revelry, barbeques, down low hookups, you name it, we did it. Good times were held in 18!

As you may notice in the second picture, I had a LOT of hair as a child. I was actually born with a full head of hair. And my mother loved putting curlers in my hair and treating me like a doll. As you can tell in the first picture, I'm not enthusiastic about the whole process.

Enjoy the young Yano pics. More coming soon!

Here's a never before published picture of the new sibling group that will be created after the Feliciano/Estacio nuptials. It's really great, because we all get along with each other. Fatima and Justin are like brother and sister already - they were very close friends in college.

L-R: Justin, Claudine, Dave, me, Fatima

Last Saturday I had my second wedding shower. Last week's was for the young'uns, this one was for all the relatives. We had it at Dave's aunt's house, and it was quite an experience to see the aunts and uncles from both sides of the family in one place. Talk about worlds colliding! So of course, I'm not great at social situations like this, so half the time I was having a little internal freak-out. I'm not great at playing the hostess, and I'm even worse at being the guest of honor.

The basement was packed, there were a lot of bodies in there. I think I did an OK job of mingling, but I did a horrible job of remembering everyone's name. Both sides of the family seemed to get along pretty well. Everyone loved my dad's barbeque. I don't know who's responsibility it was, but no one had the bridal bingo ready. I mean, what's a bridal shower without the cheesey games? So we were tying to get everything together, and had sent Melanie out to go buy pens. The crowd was getting restless. People wanted me to open my gifts, but we kept on saying that we were going to play bingo. We didn't know how to hold the masses back until Melanie's return.

Then one of my bridesmaids, and her name will be changed to protect the innocent, fainted. At first I had thought that Pachel had just fallen down the stairs, but then I was told the she had fainted. We looked around for a doctor in the family and found one. Everyone was in a frenzy and wanted to see what was going on. Then they told me to call 911. I said 'Are you sure?' and they looked a little uncertain. But then Pachel started fainting again, and they yelled at me to hurry. Of course, this wasn't my house so I didn't know where they phone was. So I ran to Dave's aunt asking for a phone, and she brought me to a corner where the cordless phone was at, and it wasn't there. So she's yelling for the phone, and she tells me that there's a phone in the kitchen upstairs. I run past the crowd that is fanning Pachel and go up the steps and find the phone. I call 911, and say that someone had fainted and fallen down the steps. Then she asks me the address. I don't know! I yell out, what's the address here? But by then the dispatcher had found the address. The ambulance is coming.

So I go back downstairs, and by now they had moved Pachel over to the couch. She's lying there with her eyes closed and they're discussing what to do. We've called her fiance to tell him what's going on, and he's half asleep. Only after we tell him that she fainted and the ambulance was coming did he wake up. We're all sitting there when the paramedics arrive. I'm pretty sure he's surprised to see all the people in the basement. "Is there a party going on in here?" he asks? There are two other paramedics with him, and they ask Pachel several questions. She doesn't want to go to the hospital because she's feeling better. So she has to sign a waiver. So they're standing there, talking to her, taking her blood pressure, when two more paramedics come down the stairs. Now several of these men were pretty good looking. One of the aunts came up to me and asked, "Just how many times did you call 911?" Just once, I say. When the second set of paramedics came down, Jen turns to me and gives me a look. It was a devilish look, which echoed the thoughts in my mind. Was this whole fainting spell an act by Pachel, so the male strippers had an excuse to come down? Because some of them sure did look like strippers. I was waiting for the music to start playing and the lights to go down.

But no strippers. It was for real. She signed the waiver and the paramedics were on their way to go. But not before the Titas (aunties) had offered them food. Several times. And when they said that they had dinner at the firehouse, the Titas offered to wrap some food up for the rest of the station. Yeah, can't hide from the Filipino hospitality!

So Pachel's drama cut up the monotony of the party. As soon as the paramedics left, I cried, "Who wants to play some Bridal Bingo?" We passed the cards out and I called the bridal words. It was tough to be heard over the chitterings of 30+ women, but I think they had a good time playing. After the games, I made sure that Pachel was still doing ok, and told her that I knew she was trying to steal my thunder. I had realized that she was just jealous that I was having a party that she needed the attention drawn to herself. Just you wait til your bridal shower, missy, I'll show you drama!

To top the day off, I opened up my gifts. I never really realized how powerful having a registry is. I got everything I wanted, and more! It's incredible! Now the question is, where to store all this stuff for the year that I'm gone!

All in all, it was a good time. My panic scale was pretty low, as was my stress level. Pachel had apologized for ruining my party, but I told her she didn't ruin it, she made it that much more interesting. My party will be the bridal party that everyone wil be talking about - where they fit so many people in the basement that someone passed out. She's ok, so it's ok to joke about it. We had some really good laughs later when we were talking about the paramedics being strippers. I had fun. My guests had fun. Hell, even my dad had fun.

Long, long ago I wanted to be an artist. I have no idea where my drawings are, or I'd share them with you. In college, I discovered the wonders of computer graphics, and the greatest program ever, Adobe Photoshop. Nowadays, with this page, work, the wedding, and life in general, I haven't had a chance to play with Photoshop like I used to. However, I just wanted to share a couple of the things that I've stirred up over the last weeks. The first two are pictures of Psylocke, my favorite X-Men character. I actually have a site dedicated to her. The line art is from the original artist, but I've colored the pics myself. Photoshop is like a box of crayons with a million colors to me. The third picture was just me fucking around with brushes and layers in Photoshop. I've always liked Marilyn Monroe, so I made a little background image of her.

Photoshop is therapy. It always calms me down and makes me contentedly happy.

Enjoy!

Melanie has some pics up from my bridal shower, so go check 'em out! Fortunately, she doesn't have the pics from later on that night. *snicker*

Yesterday, me and Bryan went for a walk during our lunch break. Fortunately for us, it was Chicago's "Music on the Mile" - various groups and musicians, playing music up and down Michigan Avenue. We stopped to listen a bit in several locations. The tourists were out in full force, with shopping bags, cameras and whiny kids. Bryan enjoyed the eye candy that the warm weather brought out. "I'm glad thinking impure thoughts isn't illegal, or I'd be arrested right now," he remarked after a young strappy tank topped vixen passed us. We realy enjoyed the music, especially the Irish band. We were ready to break out the Irish jig right then and there. But unfortunately, no Guiness to give us the liquid courage, so we just tapped our feet. We also got to watch this hip jazz trio, and the Chicago Chamber Orchestra. Here's some pics:

So last Saturday, we took Nina out to hunt for her flowergirl dress again. The David's Bridal by my house didn't have much of selection in her size - she's pretty young for a flowergirl, only 2 years old. Well, 2 1/2.

So I stopped by her new house, with a a stuffed Nemo doll in hand. I'm not below bribing little children with Disney toys to make them like me. This time, I made sure that Nemo wasn't scary looking (see the 'Nina runs away from scary Stitch video') Of course, she loved him. She even requested that he ride in the car with us.

So we get to the store, and we pick out her dresses. I make a bet with her mom that Nina's going to be a dress flasher - that is, at some point in the wedding, Nina's gonna lift up her dress. Because you know, little girls do that. And Gail says no way.

So Nina goes in to try some dresses, and as soon as she comes out of the dressing room, BAM! up goes the skirt. Fortunately, there's enough layers in the skirt that there is no possibility that she can lift the whole thing up. Nina tries on the various dresses, goes to her regular pedestal, and this time, the sales lady brings shoes and a tiara. A little girl that was there with her mom helps Nina put on the crown, like a lady in waiting. Nina is in heaven!

And we knew that she had found 'THE ONE' after she refused to take off the dress, and went into the corner and stared off into space. After about 10 minutes in the corner, she came out and changed back into her civilian clothing. Her moment as a princess was over, at least until August.

I can hear my thunder being stolen as we speak!

I stole this from Kathy's page. It's a pic of the cousins at our old apartment building.

(L-R) back: Maui, Trully, Vernon, front: me, Mel, Kathy, sitting: Karen

This was taken before Claudine, Jeff, Fatima, Kristine and Marlon were born. This pic really brings back memories of the old neighborhood. Thanks Kat!!!

Dave graduated today from the Des Moines University School of Osteopathy. It was great to see him up getting hooded. He's worked so hard over these last 4 years, and made a lot of sacrifices in the process (one big one being having a long distance relationship with me - it wasn't always easy). His fellow classmates would be the first to tell you that Dave is one of the most studious, hardest working med students out there. And today, all that work, all those late hours studying, have paid off. He's now a doctor of osteopathy.

I am the proudest girlfriend this side of the international dateline. I'm kinda pissed that my camera flaked out on me when I was taking his picture while he was getting hooded. But that's ok, I've got him on my new Sony MiniDV digital video cam. That thing ROCKS! Dave's main goal was not to get his cap knocked off while they were putting the hood on him. He succeeded. Unfortunately, they said his name wrong, saying it 'Esta-show" rather than "Es-tahshow" (like pistacio). Luckily, one if his friends yelled out the correct pronounciation. Speaking of, I'm happy that Dave has made some great friends in school. They're some really good people. They've got their internships in all different places, so we'll have lots of places to stay when we go traveling.

So one major step down in Dave's medical career. Next up, an internship in Downey, CA, where Dave will be moving to in a couple weeks, and I'll be moving to after we get married.

OT - I'm in the car driving back from Des Moines, and earlier a bird hit my windshield. Now it's raining, and the windshield wipers are spreading the guts across my windshield. Eew.

Anyway, congratulations to my Dave. I'm really proud of you!

Got a haircut yesterday. Some of you may know the handsome gentleman who cut my hair. More later today. Gotta go to work.

Since the fall of 1993, there has always been a Feliciano sister attending the University of Illinois. I started in 1993, ended in 1997, Claudine started in 1996, ended in 2000, Fatima started in 1998, and finished up yesterday. An era has ended. And my father breathes a sigh of relief. No more three hour drives through cornfields. No more moving in the daughter to a new apartment. No more bounced checks. No more calling your daughter at school and 1 in the morning, and she doesn't answer. No more 3 hour fashion shows he has to attend.

But for, an era has ended. I loved Urbana, and even after graduating, I had a reason to return and relive my college experience through my sisters. Of course, as time went on, I felt older and older, and more out of place, but still. It was home for me. But now, I have no reason to go back. I'll miss it.

And so, with that, I want to congratulate Fatima on graduating from the University of Illinois, with a Bachelor of the Arts in Psychology. Hope that degree does you more good than it did me, little sister. We're all proud of you! I'm really happy to have you back home.

It was a pretty long day, waking up way early, driving to Urbana, going to the graduation, then driving back home. Thanks to Mel for keeping me awake while we were going there, and thanks to her again, for what she did on the way home. No, we weren't in deep conversation. Actually, I think she was in a deep sleep. But knowing that if I crashed the car, I would be taking her own life as well as my own was enough to keep me awake. Most of the time, anyway.

And also, I did my part to save a life today. While talking to Fatima on the phone as I was driving, a opossum skittered across the road, right in the path of my car. I swerved a bit, gently hunked my horn, and the lil critter turned and ran the other way. I had seen enough carcasses on the road today - I didn't want to create a fatality. I want to give life, not take it away!

For my once a week hit of culture, I'm going to show you one of the best things to happen to comic books in a while, the art of Greg Horn. It's not your conventional comic book art - he usually does covers. He specializes in painting. Right now he's been doing the covers for Wizard Magazine and Elektra. I love his art. It's AWESOME! So here's a sampling of my favorites...

So Nina is only two, which is pretty young for a flowergirl, but seriously, this little girl is a cute as a button, there was no way I could pass up the chance of having her in my wedding. Unfortunately, since she's so young, there wasn't too much selection for her to choose from, but she had a GREAT time trying stuff on.

So my Ate Gail, her mom, is helping her change in the dressing room. She comes out in the first gown, and she looks absolutely adorable. She looks in the mirror that is connected to the dressing room, and I can tell she likes it. She tries on the second gown, and she's really getting into it, going up to the mirror and smiling into it. When she came out in the third gown she looked like a little fairy. She walked out of the dressing room, glanced at the mirror that was next to it, then kept on walking. We called after her, and she went to the front area of the store, where the brides try on their gowns, and went up to this little pedestal that was in front of these huge mirrors. And Nina just stood there and admired herself for a while. The other women there were remarking how cute she was, and she just sucked it all in.

So for every dress after that, that's what she did. Come out of the dressing room, go straight for the big mirrors. It was SO funny when she had a dress that was too long, and she would try to run in it, and she would fall down, but in slow motion. She could tell when we were at the last dress, because she wouldn't leave the front, and she just lay on the ground, not wanting her moment in the sun to end. She's hilarious. She's definitely going to make the wedding interesting with her antics. I can't wait!

Amy and Tony's Cinco de Mayo party was a blast. Never thought white people could throw such a great Cinco de Mayo fiesta. Just kidding. And yes, it wasn't the cinco de mayo, but the tres de mayo was close enough! I had a lot of fun, a lot to drink, and did a lot of dancing. I've also got a lot of interesting pictures. There would have been a better picture of Jon's ass, but unfortunately, it's just TOO hairy to post on my site, so you're just gonna get a look at a cheek. The food was phenomenal. The cheese dip was amazing, the flautas were delicious, and I couldn't stop eating the steak that was grilled for the quesadillas. And Tyson's frou frou blue island flavored pucker went well with whatever I mixed with it. DJ Jerry did a great job dancing with that pole, even though he didn't let me take a picture of him. And he told me to post something here, but unfortunately, I wasn't in a state to remember it...it was something like 'Jerry loves [something] and [something].' I think it was something like 'Jerry loves dancing with poles and Mexicans.' Or something like that. I laughed a lot. And I realized that I suck at playing 'Asshole.' And that after a couple drinks, Dan gets just a little more annoying. Just kidding, thanks for the ride, dude. But Claudine, if you're out there, Dan slapped my ass. Really hard. You need to keep your man in check!

Here's my pictures...

I love art. I love downloading art from the web and pretending like I'm cultured. So, I thought I'd share some of my favorites with you, whenever the fancy hits me. *bam* I just got hit with a fancy. Here's a piece of work done by Jack Vettriano, entitled 'Dance Me to the End of Love'. I love paintings of dancers, and this one just looks so elegant, you can almost hear the music playing in the background.

Well, it was my last night in Thousand Oaks, and Rick, Lanie and Rusty drove up to come and visit. I love my Long Beach homies for coming up to visit me. It's not a short drive! First Rod comes up for a visit, then the rest of the crew. Thanks guys. You're the best. Sorry Thousand Oaks doesn't have much to offer. Dinner ended up being at TGI Fridays. Couldn't really find anywhere else to eat. But it was still fun, of course. Laughs. Lots of laughs. Good times. And I'm happy to know that when we move here, Dave will have people to play basketball with.

Next year will be VERY interesting...

So here's pics...one from my drive to Santa Monica yesterday, the other from dinner...

One thing that I like about Thousand Oaks is the drive. Nice long windy roads with beautiful green hills. I love to drive. I love to go fast. Then again, it REALLY sucks driving in the dark with pouring rain. No fun.

Yesterday's Cheesecake Factory experience was a good time. It was nice to hang out with Rod again. Lots of laughs. Dorks having fun together. And I was loud....pretty obnoxious. But I still want to see that interview footage, Rod! And everyone out there, Rod's losing weight - it seems like the buddha belly may not be jiggling as much as it used to.

Earlier tonight I met up with Walter, who I haven't seen in a LONG time. I drove down to Santa Monica and we walked along the Promenade on 3rd and had dinner at this little seafood place. Had my first raw oysters. Yum. Really great conversation. I have a feeling that I won't ever run out of things to talk about with Walter, he's a really cool guy. Single gals in California, come and get this one - he's a catch. I'd like to call him 'The One Who Got Away'. Or 'The Only Ex-Boyfriend That Still Talks to Me.' Hahaha. But we talked a lot about mine and Dave's upcoming move here, and Walter gave me a lot of ideas of things to do. We're going to be going on a lot of road trips after the wedding! It'll be good for Dave to have a friend here when he moves here in June (I'll be moving here in late August). And I'm going to bake Walter cookies and watch Buffy DVD's at his place. And him and Dave can play basketball, or whatever those guys do when they're hanging out.

So here's some pics:

Real quick, because it's really late, and I'm really tired, but I had a great time today. It was a tough day at work, but not because I couldn't get the job done, it's because they liked what I did for them, and they wanted me to do more. Wait, that sounds bad. But you know what I mean. (yanowhatimean? har dee har har)

During lunch I took pictures at an orchid show they were having in the concourse level of the Rockefeller Center. The flowers were gorgeous, and if I wasn't stuck on this freakin' dialup line, I would post up more pics. When I get back tomorrow I'll post more pics.

And for dinner, I hung out with two fantastic, wonderful, and fun Italian chicks. I met up with Denise again, but this time Susan, a fellow webmistress and 'enthusiast' joined us. This was my first time actually meeting her, but we had been emailing for a while now. We had dinner at Ruby Foos, this fantastic dim sum/sushi place (I've been eating sushi my whole time here!). Lots of good food and yummy desserts. Non-stop conversation. Laughing. A drink for the Goo. The drinks there were fantastic. Lots of story sharing. We were the last people to leave, for the second night, me and Denise closed the place out. After that, we stood outside talking forever. It was a great night. I'm so sad that I'm leaving tomorrow. I wish I had more time here!

As much as I like my hotel room, there are some things that suck. It costs $1 to make a local call and .15 for each minute after 15 minutes. Makes it a bit pricey to log onto the 'net. Don't want to use the company calling card too much - got in trouble for that before. So it looks like I'll have to go cold turkey on chat crack til I get home. Also, room service costs a TON! A muffin on the menu is $7. Eggs benedict (my roomservice breakfast of choice) is $19. I don't know about spending that much for breakfast. It's a little insane. And on the counter in my room, there's a whole basket of candy and chips, a jar of jelly bellys, a bear shaped jar of gummi bears (which always remind me of Hot Shots Part Deux) and on top of it all, a bar of Toblerone. Be strong, Christine! Be strong!

Unfortunately, it snowed today. Snow in April! How crazy is that? I hear that it snowed in Chicago, too. I don't think that I've been in Chicago yet this winter/spring to see it snow heavily - I'm always out of town when we have the snow storms. Well, at least I caught the snow storm in NYC. Later on, it turned into rain. My hotel is in a prime shopping spot, so I ran home after work, changed, and went back out shopping. Oh, there were too many tempting things out there! I swear I stood in the store for a couple hours fighting the voices in my head. 'Come on Christine, EVERYONE needs a pair of white linen pants! Get them! Get them!' But I didn't. See? I can handle the pressure. Uh, well, not the pressure to buy 3 tops and a pair of sunglasses. But come on, who can't miss a chance of buying $5 sunglasses?

So tonight, I'll be camped out under my sheets munching on toblerone, wearing a pair of white linen pants with my temperature/light/alarm clock room control in hand.

Finally got my pictures from Bay City up.

Pictures from Bay City

I also added about a 100 or so pics to my SLC gallery. It may seem like a lot, but when you take 700 pics, it doesn't seem like so much.

SLC Gallery

If you want originals, just send me an email and I'll send you a copy. I've already had a couple requests. Thanks to all the beta testers. You can also now right click and save the pictures. Still working on the picture page in general. Look for some great changes in the upcoming weeks.

Yesterday I ventured out from the safety of my cave and away from my beloved computer to re-introduce myself to the real world. It was quite exciting to be outside and being 'social' with 3D people. Just kidding. Um, ok, not really. Went to go play some pool with Ced, Don, Mike and Norina yesterday. For some reason, I played better during the first part of the night, then later I just sucked ass. But that's ok, I still had a great time just joking around and hanging out. Here's some pics that I took (because you KNOW that I'm always taking pictures). The last row are from Mike's camera. And I have NO idea why Ced enjoys taking pictures of his crotch. Everyone needs a hobby, I guess.

On Wednesday night, I went to do some script readings for a friend. I love reading scripts dry. You get the script, you get the name of your character, and you start reading. You don't even leaf through script first before you start reading it. And on Wednesday there were some really good people reading with me. I'm not an actress, I act. I've been in a couple small things, but nothing major. But some of the people I was with are really part of the Chicago acting scene, so it was great to be reading with them, and it was also a lot of fun. I was a lesbian bar owner, a man holding a supermarket hostage, a reporter on call with the police who has aspirations to be a cop, a straight woman in a lesbian bar picking up men that go to lesbian bars, an actor in a discount murder mystery, Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: Next Generation, and tons of other characters. It was really cool, and a very good way to just relax and de-stress. Afterwards, I just sat there as everyone else talked shop about what's going on in the theater scene - what new theaters are opening up, what's going on with the different theater groups, what plays are looking for people, etc. Man, I'd love to be a part of that scene, but with my traveling for work makes it almost impossible to do rehearsals. Maybe when life slows down a little I'll get back into acting. We'll see!

Just thought this was cute. My favorite picture of Fata that she just put up on her blog.

All together now! "Awwwwwwwwwwww"

If only sisters stayed that cute and tiny! Muhahahahaha......

Here's my flowergirl Nina. She's the cutest thing ever!

The Oscars are tonight, should be interesting. Here's my predictions:

Went gambling yesterday. First, we went to O'Shea's to see what kinda of St. Patty's day celebration they were having. The place was totally dead! We were thinking that there'd be a party in there! We walked around the strip for a bit and played in a couple casinos. I pretty much did slots, since I'm TRYING not to gamble. However, in the Flamingo there was an empty seat at the Roulette table, and I couldn't say no. And I was on FIRE! Well, on fire for me. So I walked away with $100 in winnings. I was tempted to play more, but I knew I had to stop. Anyway, here's pics from yesterday.

Still processing through pics (they're really dark and pixelated) but thought I'd give you a couple to tide you over...

I'm exhausted after my 5 hour drive, but I did manage to get some pics processed before I take my nap. These are some of my favorite images of Bay City this weekend.

Well, that's all for now. Of course, I shall write a long novel for you to enjoy. But for now, I'm going to take a nap because I'm pooped.

Well, I'm still trying to get together a recap of the whole weekend, but until then, I've posted up all of my pictures from the competition on the pictures page. Enjoy! Comment or something if any of the links are broken. I haven't had a chance to test them all yet!

note: 5:45pm CST - i have some broken links in there, should be fixed by 9pm CST. --the management

another note: make that 10pm CST. i'm a bit slow

Just a short one for now. Wanted to post up some pics...We're late for the comp!

OK, while I'm waiting, we were hanging out at the hotel yesterday and we had two celebrity encounters. The first one was Pat O'Brien, from access Hollywood. We saw him several times, and the last time we took a picture with him. My pic didn't turn out well, though, but I'll get it from my cousin. The other one was Wynona Judd. As to why she's here, I have no idea, but that lady definitely has a presence about here. We didn't take a pic. We were too in awe. But we DID get roses from the bellhop that she gave her flowers to.

Well, the races started today, but not until 6pm. We got up bright and early to video the team breakfast. Lanie, Rick's wife, is here with us now so she came along. Since neither of us were taping (it was just Rod and Rick) me and Lanie kinda felt a little out of place there. I tried to be as unobtrusive as possible. I was almost gonna leave. But hey, there was a buffet there, and who am I to say no to a buffet? After that, we had a good talk with Paul Marchese, who makes the skates for a lot of the skaters - not just in the US, but internationally. He's a really cool guy.

Once breakfast was done, we hung out in Rusty's room and did some more filming, like his daily diary and him packing up his stuff for the competition. Then we gott suckered into watching this B-movie on HBO called 'Cheats'. It sucked, but it's one of those things that when you start it, you can't stop. Two hours in Salt Lake lost in the black hole known as 'Cheats'.

Once we were done at Rusty's, we went to pick up my cousin Karen from the airport. It's great to have her along. She's definitely an Apolo fan. Lanie, Rick and Rod are pretty much immune to the fannish-ness of it all, and every now and then I get flashbacks, but Karen's a fan. This is her first competition and she's never seen Apolo in person before. It's cool to see the competition through her eyes.

We got to the Oval at around 4:00, and there were already a lot of people there. Luckily, I have a press pass, so I coould go to the press area. At first I thought I was really cool that I got my own section, but I ended up sitting by Lanie and Karen as the races progressed.

The competition was awesome. Unfortunately, Apolo got DQ'd on his semifinal heat. Rusty, however, had a great preliminary heat when for most of the race he sat in the back, but within the last lap or two, passed up the other 4 people in his heat. It was a blast to watch. He made the finals, too, but unfortunately, he got fourth place. But that's cool, though - there's still races tomorrow! And every final he makes counts towards his overall score. The relays were breathless. The crowd was TOTALLY into it, and it was so fun to watch with eveyone.

Afterwards, we went to dinner with some other people that Rusty knows (Rusty had to get some rest - the races were done at 10pm, and racing starts tomorrow at 12pm). Dinner kicked ass. I mean, I've only met Lanie 4 times, and by the afternoon we were saying the same sentences. And we had just met Rusty's friends that night. But at dinner we all just got along so well that we were laughing the whole time. I swear I didn't laugh that hard since I did my dorky dance for Fata and accidentally drooled. But we had a lot of good laughs, and there were even times where we laughed so hard we cried. I'm proud to say that we closed out Chili's. The staff had their coats on already by the time we left.

Ahh....it was a good day. And I'm pooped. Goodnight!

oh, and here's more pictures!

Went to the Olympic Oval and took some exterior shots. The place is pretty big. Anyway, since the guys did some filming yesterday already, they knew a lot of the people. It was a little weird for me. I also got to meet a lot of the other fans from the different websites and such. It was really cool to put a face to a name. I did some more interviews yesterday, which went a lot better than the impromptu Rusty/Apolo interview yesterday. I think I'm getting a lot better coming up with questions and using the handheld mike. I got to talk to Jack Mortell, the team leader, and he was great. He's really enthusiastic about the sport and he had a lot to say. I also got to meet and interview Stephen Bradbury, the Australian that won the gold when Apolo fell. He's a really cool guy (and he's got that awesome Australian accent, too) and I had a fun time interviewing him. Also got a chance to do an interview with Joey Cheek, a long tracker who won a medal in the Olympics also. He was really easy to talk to. And he's kinda cute, too. And I adore Caroline Hallisey, and she was SUCH a sweetheart. I like her a lot. I will definitely be rooting for her while she's racing.

After practice, there was a fan presentation. Some of the fans got together and made t-shirts for the skaters. Jack Mortell was such a great guy to get everything together and give them a chance to present the t-shirts to the skaters.

After that, I went to a press conference (my very first) and just watched. It was pretty neat to watch, but not as crazy and hectic as I had anticipated.

So, it looks like we got a of good footage today. Hopefully we'll get a chance to get more interviews in tomorrow. Tonight, I'm having dinner with a whole bunch of the fans. It's gonna be REALLY interesting.

Whoo hoo! I'm having a ball!

Here's the pics:

Well, the newest addition to our family (and our first cousin offspring) was baptized today. The Filipinos rocked the church in huge numbers, there were a TON of us there to watch. Afterwards, we had a reception and I gorged myself with food because I hadn't eaten breakfast. I'm still full. Also so a LOT of old friends there. Looks like everyone's been having babies lately. I need to catch up!

Here's some pics from the big day. Enjoy!

Not much time to post, but I got to go watch Rusty practice today, which was pretty neat. I should read my manual, though, because all my pics from practice turned out pretty crappy. Afterwards, we went to the Outback Steakhouse for dinner. Good laughs. Good times! To end off the night, we hung out at Rick's and watched Rusty's races and interviews and discussed a gameplan for SLC. Should be a great time. I also had a great wedding conversation with Lanie. Might have found a cheap place to get a good dress! Sorry for the tiny post.

And the weather here in LA is STILL awesome. I'm loving it!

Here's a couple pics. I'm on a dial-up (which sucks ass) so I can't upload too many pics...

Tomorrow it's off to dinner with Walter, and hopefully Mike and Ann!

I'm in D.C. today. Whoo hoo! I'll be here til Wednesday, and I I'm hurtin'. I only have a dial up connection, and anytime I log in, it's on the company card. Argh! Well, it will give me time to work on my page and get it all nice and pretty. I'm watching 'My Dog Skip' right now, and it's the cutest movie. Anyone with a dog should watch it. It'll make you cry!

Where is Yano Today? Washington, D.C.

Yesterday we partied for Marky's birthday. It was a really good time, and I saw a couple people I haven't seen in a while. Emer was a bit hammered, which is a surprise. Ok, no it isn't. So early on in the night, he comes up to me (and he was already long gone) and asks, 'Christine, do you know what super hero I want to be?' I'm thinking he's going to say something like 'Superman' or 'Batman' or something. So I bite, and say, 'What?' And he says 'I wanna be Alki-Man.' It figures! And later on in the night, where I'm at the point where I'm holding him up, he says to me, 'Christine, you're gonna make a post about this. I want you to make a post about me. And put some pictures in there.' 'What pictures, Emer?' 'I don't give a fuck, put Psylocke or somethin'. Or me. Just don't post any more pictures of those skater guys.' Ha! When's the last time I posted a pic of a skater guy? You just wait til February, buddy, there'll be skater guy pics galore. So I tell him I'll dedicate my post to him, and I'll post up some pics. So here's some pics of my favorite drunk Emer, and Psylocke. (some of the pics are kinda old, you can tell by my hair)

On a side note, the room service guy just knocked, and when I opened the door, he just stood there. Then he said 'May I come in?' I swear, my vampire alert turned on. I mean, isn't he SUPPOSED to come in? Mental note, pack crucifix and garlic for next trip.