I'm back! Did you miss me?

I've been quite busy with things...conferences, parties, meetups, ski trip, snowboarding, broadway shows...just a lot of other things besides blogging. Surprising? Yes...I know. Anyhow, I'm home now in my nice comfy bed. It's been a long time and I am so happy to be wrapped up in my warm familiar blankies. I'm going to bed to rest my sore aching body and won't wake up for a long long time.

A Gorgeous Day in Tahoe

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I heart Itunes.

Mac came out with a great thing when they came up with Itunes for Windows. I love that you can share music with those around you so that they can listen, but don't need to download. No need to hide from the law or feel like a criminal. After the days of my uninstalling Kazaa and moving on to actually buying my music, I haven't been able to listen to other types of music or even listen to an album before I decide to buy it. This afternoon, I found the album John Mayer - Heavier Things on one of the shared playlists. I wanted to buy this album a couple of weeks ago, but wasn't sure if it was one of those CD's that I could listen to all the way through. Now, I know! I'm headed to the store tonight to get it. I've been listening to the song, "Come Back to Bed" on repeat all afternoon. I think I'm in love.

Earthquake!! Actually...two of them. Within the past 20 minutes there have been two minor earthquakes. They were pretty small. I think that means a big one is coming..or it could mean another bigger 'small' one since the little ones might have taken some of the 'oomph'.

T.V. what are you doing to me?

For the past four years, the only television that I watched was on Tuesday nights for 24 and Thursday nights for Friends. I didn't really have that much time nor did I have an urge to watch T.V. And then...I graduated and started working. Suddenly my nights were free again and boy was it a great feeling. That's when I was re-introduced to T.V. For awhile I kept my regular routine of shows until recently. Suddenly there are all of these shows that I 'need' to watch. All of a sudden, rather than being my one show night, Thursday became my night of sitting on the couch, cuddling with my blankie, and being a couch potato. I sit through Friends, CSI, and ER. Yes, that is 3 hours of television all in at one time. Now within the last couple of weeks, there is The Apprentice, The Bachelorette, and My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee. Uh..It's not my fault...really. These shows are so bad and I am so intrigued/annoyed with these people that I can't help but watch. I'm becoming a T.V. junkie.

In order to graduate, I had to take an upper division speech course specifically for engineering majors. One of my assignments was to give a speech on something 'technical'. I gave a speech on how CD's work, how they store information, and the more nitty-gritty stuff about CD's. A great resource for my speech was 'How Stuff Works'.

I should have given a speech on 'How Blogs Work'.

The other night, I saw on one of my friend's AIM profile, a link to a clip from Comedy Central's The Daily Show. As I watched the clip, I was giggling here and there and screamed outloud when I saw one of my ex-coworkers make an appearance on the show. The clip was about a Republican's 'coming out' day which just happened to be during the same week as Gay Pride Week in Davis. For some reason, UC Davis, its' students, and alumni are a big thing on cable tv. Prior to working here at Google, I worked at IET for UC Davis. In the office that I worked in, three of my coworkers made an appearance on cable tv. One of them was on the first season of Sorority Life, another on Tough Enough, and now The Daily Show.

Jeff and I are waiting for our turn to be on T.V. I got called for an interview on Tech T.V. Close enough right?

Earlier this week, my friends had a get-together for one of our friends who is moving to Arizona. One of the couples had gotten a board game for Christmas called, 'Battle of the Sexes'. We split up into two teams, guys against girls, and got ready for the battle. Of course..the teams were far from evenly split..11 guys against 4 girls, but the girls weren't too worried. How the game works, is the girls are asked questions on facts that any typical guy would know such as...(cars, golf, superheros...) and the guys were asked questions that girls would be more familiar with (hair, makeup, clothes...). I had one of the greatest nights full of laughter in awhile. Some of the guys got a little jumpy and way into the game and started pouncing on a couple of the quesitons with answers...even when it was the girls' turn. Lucky for us, since we didn't know the answers to, "What does the double-O stand for in James Bond 007" or "What is the top sellion brand of motor oil". I'm pretty proud of myself for knowing some of the 'guy' questions though, like.."What is a double-bogey?" or "What sport did the 'Dream Team' play in during the Olympics"...and I'm surprised to know that the guys knew what color hair dye "Tigerseye Stone" was.

I woke up this morning feeling as if a truck had run over me. My whole body is sore and my chest is really congested. I guess I knew this was coming though, so I can't say that I'm surprised. Yesterday, I went to the doctor's office to get checked on a couple of things and while doing a check on my vitals, she told me that it looked like I was starting to come down with something. I didn't really need a doctor to tell me that since my body pretty much told me, but it was nice having the confirmation to know that I wasn't hallucinating. I have been taking naps throughout the day and each time I fall asleep, I wake up from some crazy dream. From my most recent nap, I remember a skinny man dressed in a white suit, a little girl in a pink sweater, and a large drain. What those three have in common, I don't really know but I woke up feeling scared. I hope this is one of those times when you get really sick and then it's over quickly because this isn't too much fun.

I can't believe that it's already Sunday night. This weekend has gone by so fast and for some reason I feel as though this is my last night after the long holidays rather than the last night of a regular weekend. It was a pretty uneventful weekend with nothing that was too exciting or out of the ordinary. I spent a couple of hours hanging out in a bookstore with my boyfriend, reading parts of various books and just browsing around after watching a movie. I spent most of Saturday by myself running errands and wandering around, then met up with some friends later for dinner and watched old DVDs. And today, I wandered around San Jose and then played some Atari games. Sometimes, the 'regular' uneventful weekends are the best ones.

I don't usually make 'New Year's Resolutions' since I find it pointless to disappoint myself when I never follow them through. This year I decided I would make...'New Year's...goals'. I've decided that I don't get enough exercise. Well, actually, I don't get any exercise anymore since I graduated. My goal this year is to increase the amount of physical activities I do. Baby steps. To me, this means walking up the 4 flights of stairs from the garage to my desk rather than take the elevator. I've been doing a good job the past 3 days back at work. Another 'goal' of mines is to drink more water. I have also been doing a pretty good job at that since 'more' doesn't mean much considering how little I drank before. Anyhow, as a result of these new goals of mines, I have been going to the bathroom about 15x more often and have a minor pain in my hip everytime I lift my leg.

Oh well. No pain, no gain.

Do you ever have one of those days...


when you don't jump out of bed, don't not want to get up, but just crawl out

when you're not feeling great, but you're feeling terrible either

when you don't feel sick, but not well either

when nothing is great but everything is okay

it's just a blah mood and a blah day


that's how i feel today

Although it is already 2004, I was doing some thinking about what a great year 2003 was. There were some ups and downs, but I think overall, 2003 was one of the most monumental years of my life so far. I managed to graduate with a degree in Computer Engineering in four years, something I would have never imagined if you had asked me 4 years earlier. I learned to golf and bowl. I started my obsession with board games. I got a new car that was totaled a month later, but was 'reborn' in the form of another car that was the exact same model as the original. I got a job with Google doing something that I love to do. I went to Las Vegas for the first time and came home with more money than I left with. I actually started reading books again for enjoyment rather than just studying for school or sitting in a lab all day. I took a trip to the Caribbeans and barely escaped the tornadoes that were plaguing the area at that time. And...many other things.

I had a great 2003 and I hope that 2004 will be just as eventful. I have a feeling it will be.

Happy New Year!

Hope that you have a great 2004.