Wednesday, December 31, 2003

I got Bertrand an Atari Classics 10-in-1 games joystick as one of his Christmas presents. I bought it as a little joke to the 80s and the days of the old 8-bit video games. This thing is so cool. All it is is a joystick that has all of the games inside and you just plug the joystick into the T.V. and play. We had some friends over last night and that little joystick provided us with hours of entertainment. We had little challenges on who could get the highest score on Centipede, Breakout, Asteroids, Pong... It was a little trip down memory lane.


Saturday, December 27, 2003

A conversation with a 4 year old about his 2 year old brother

Jordan: Kirby can't talk, not until he's 3.
Me: Oh really?
Jordan: Yeah, right now he's just deaf.
My back is aching, my shins and thighs are tight, and my stomach muscles cry for help everytime I laugh or cough. I went snowboarding for the first time this season yesterday. It was a little awkward for me at first. I started out on the bunny slope and ended up riding on my edge the whole way down because I was afraid of actually going one foot in front of the other. It was almost like re-learning how to board all over again. Luckily, I got over it and got the hang of it all over again. There was a storm the night before and freshly fallen snow the morning that I got to Tahoe. The powder was great while I was moving, but when I stopped to look behind me, I fell into the powder and couldn't get up. I struggled for about 20 minutes, constantly trying to push myself up but ended up just falling deeper and deeper into the snow. I ended up unstrapping myself and walking out of the hole that I had dug for myself. Hopefully, I'll go a lot more this season and I'll also start working out regularly so that I won't be so sore in the future.

Aside from the boarding, I've been playing around with my new gadgets that I received for Christmas and watching the various DVDs that my brother got. I especially like the camera feature on my Zire 71. I also got to talk to a few of my closest friends over the phone and catch up. Hope you are enjoying the holidays.

Thursday, December 25, 2003

Tuesday, December 23, 2003

It's been a long..3 days. My family and I went on a trip to Southern California for the weekend. Within the past 72 hours, I have..driven to LA and back, went to the UCLA vs. Michigan State game, cheered so hard and loud that I lost my voice, shopped in Westwood, gone to a family reunion and Christmas party, got a mini rice cooker and steamer in the white elephant gift exchange, spent some quality time with family, visited with family friends who recently moved, taught a 2 year old how to pedal on his tricycle rather than just wave his legs around, went to the Getty Museum of Art and saw some gorgeous pieces along with an exhibit on Houdon, visited the other side of my family in Anaheim, learned and played my first 'real' game of Chess, ate some yummy Thai food, took a bazillion pictures, and finally came home in time to finish wrapping all of my last minute gifts last night.

And now, time to relax.

Saturday, December 20, 2003

Friday, December 19, 2003

I went to a Christmas party with a bunch of my close friends on Wednesday night and one of my friends told us about a great deal for flights to New York from San Francisco. He proposed that we all take a trip together in February over President's Day weekend. We all thought it was a great idea...but ideas like that never really seem to go through. He emailed the rest of us the next morning and showed us that he had already booked a flight and told the rest of us that if we wanted to go too, we'd have to book by that afternoon. I don't know how we did it, but we managed to get almost 16 people booked on one flight to New York in February.

I've never been to New York and have been dying to go for years. I am soooo excited!!!
Things are starting to wind down now, or maybe they are just starting to get busy. I've been preparing for the holidays for awhile and finally finished all that I needed to do before the time came. I am going to see my extended family for a few days and spend some 'quality' time with them. This year was going to be a 'big' year since Bertrand was going to come with me this time to meet all of my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. This means a lot in many different aspects. My family has known about Bertrand and I for awhile, but I think that the act of me bringing him home to our large family gathering also means a lot. Luckily, Bertrand is great in these types of situations and is actually very excited.

When we had first met, my cousin and I were talking in a group about our last family gathering and Bertrand was sitting there. We had talked about how much fun our family has playing the white elephant gift exchange, Taboo, Killer, and Tic-Tac-Boom. We were both laughing so hard reminiscing about how even our youngest cousins and our grandfathers were playing. Bertrand said when he first met us then and heard the stories about our family, he was thinking about how much he would like to be a part of a family like that. It's so neat to think back to that time and how this year that thought would actually come true.

Unfortunately, with this big flu epidemic going around here, Bertrand became a victim of it and has come down with a bad case of the flu. He's been lying in bed for the past couple of days and will probably not be able to go with us tomorrow morning. I can't really say that I'm not dissapointed, since I know that there will be plenty of other opportunities later, but it's still a little sad. Especially since tomorrow is my honey's birthday and I won't get to spend it with him. I wish I could stay behind, but I can't.

Monday, December 15, 2003

I was awakened at 8AM Sunday morning by a 180 pound male jumping up and down on my bed and having a Snoopy doll shoved in my face.

Yes, my brother is home for Christmas break...

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

WAHOO!!!



I am DONE with my Christmas shopping! Let the celebration begin...





I did it.

I stopped debating and finally bought a new digital camera this morning. I've been holding out hoping that my camera would miraculously fix itself after being dropped on cement a few months ago. It was quite painful for me to not only not have a camera, but to know that I ruined a great gift by not being a little more careful. But the new one should be on it's way in a few days, just in time for Christmas. I bought the same exact model and am going to pretend that I never even broke the first one and that this new one is the original.

Monday, December 08, 2003

I went to Google's Christmas party this past friday night. It was extravagant to say the least. We walked into the walkway to be greeted by a lady dressed in lights and men playing with fire. There were several large rooms with plenty of people, music, dancing, and food with a different theme in each room. There were also smaller rooms with different themes. Bertrand and I got away from the crowds for awhile and played a few rounds of pool and he taught me how to play pinball. We ended the night acting like little kids and jumping around on this big jumpy thing with a tons of other people. Something about a bunch of adults in dresses and suits jumping around like crazy totally cracks me up. It was great to see all of my coworkers and their guests looking all beautiful and handsome in their dresses and suits.

Thursday, December 04, 2003

What a small world we live in. A couple of months ago, I was showing Bertrand my pictures from the Blogger offsite. All of a sudden he goes, 'Hey! I know that guy! It's Rudy!' and points at one of my coworkers. He asked me his name and sure enough, it seemed like it was the same guy. I emailed the guy the next day to ask him if he had ever worked for a small start up a couple of years ago and knew a guy named Bertrand and whaddya, they used to work together. They were both pretty excited to hear from each other after losing contact when the company started to go downhill. Today, Bertrand came to pick me up from work to go to see TSO in concert and came up to check out the new place. I was showing him around the kitchen when all of a sudden he goes, 'Rudy!'. There was Rudy in one of the meeting rooms sitting in on a meeting. Rudy doesn't work in my building but happened to be there at that time for a meeting, which happened to be the same time that Bertrand ever visited me at work, and we happened to walk right by the room he was in. There are millions of people working in the tech industry and thousands of companies to work for. What are the chances of Bertrand and Rudy, who worked together at a 30 person start-up a couple of years ago to meet again because I happened to show my boyfriend pictures from my offsite? Apparently, the chances are pretty good. =)

I just got back from a really great concert. We went to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra perform at the Flint Center in Cupertino. This group plays classical music mixed with electric guitars, keyboards and orchestral instruments. I have been in the Christmas spirit since July, but after tonight, I'm even more so after hearing some of my favorite christmas songs rocked up. Sometimes artists don't sound as great in concert as they do on CD, but this group sounded even better. My ears are still ringing and I feel like I'm underwater from the blasting electric guitars but it was worth it. How could I not love cute tuxedo wearing guys rocking away on their electric guitars?

Monday, December 01, 2003

I feel like so many things have happened in the past few days and that's probably because a lot has. Thanksgiving was great as usual. My brother came home and I fought the airport traffic just to pick him up and a bunch of other family members came home also for a night of blessings, teasing, and of course eating. Of course, with my luck, I woke up Thursday morning feeling like a truck had run me over. I had gotten my flu shot a couple of weeks ago, but somehow still managed to get the flu pretty bad..and on a holiday too! I ended up lying on the couch going in and out of consciousness the entire day until the family started to arrive. But, even being deadly sick didn't stop me from waking up at 6am the following morning to do my Christmas shopping.

All I have to say is...people are CRAZY. I was able to avoid the Walmart mania that was going on and headed to Target instead. The mayhem going on there was crazy enough. They had a worker in every single aisle standing there to help people and guide the masses around each other. Shopping carts full of items were set along the center of the aisles with huge sale signs on them. Somehow, I made it to the toy section, or was rather pushed in that direction and found some adorable remote control cars for $5. There were plenty of them in the racks and a shopping cart full of them in the aisle. I spent my wee little time picking out various colors and then continued throughout the rest of the store. After going on to another store, I realized that my remote control cars were a great deal and that I had forgotten to buy gifts for a few other kids and headed back to the store to buy more. By this time, the mayhem had picked up even more and every single car was GONE. The entire rack full and the shopping cart full. My brother called me later on to tell me that he had gone to Best Buy and was able to grab a $20 DVD player but was standing in a line that winded around the entire store and out the door. I saw later on the news that some poor lady had gotten trampled at a Walmart over a $30 DVD player. If that had been me, I would have pulled some people down with me too. I managed to get 99.9% of my Christmas shopping done that day by 10AM and went home to collapse. In all honesty, I enjoy the hustle and bustle of it all. It's a day to be focused and get everything done so that the rest of the month, I can relax and just enjoy watching everyone else.