Saturday, February 28, 2004

Addicted

When I gave Bertrand a Playstation 2 for Valentines Day, I was worried that I had handed him my own doom. The couple of weeks that came around before Valentines Day, I had debated whether or not I should give him this highly distracting toy or just give him something else less distracting...like a cute outfit or something. When we walked through stores, I'd have to look around behind me everytime I'd lost him, and without fail, he was always staring at the PS2 display like a little boy. I finally broke down and decided that I would give it to him since I knew it would make him really happy.

As a compromise, Bertrand said that he would leave the PS2 at my house so that he would only play it when I was there and wanted to. The plan was working out great. He was willing to give a little so that I would be happy and so that he wouldn't be addicted. But...I didn't realize that in all of this, it would turn around only to bite me in the butt. After work one day, I turned on the PS2 and started playing the 'Ratchet Clank' game and sat there until I had accomplished the missions on 4 planets. I was trying to prevent Bertrand from being addicted to the PS2 and now I think I am!

Friday, February 27, 2004

I saw Mel Gibson's The Passion tonight. I left the movie deep in thought and speechless. Wow.

Thursday, February 26, 2004

Goud Spaeleeng

The lights in one of our hotel rooms in New York were flicking on and off every couple of seconds due to a bad switch. We called the front desk to have it fixed while we were out for the day and came home to this note. There was another taped on top of the switch that said, 'Out of Oder'.

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Stormin'

I actually woke up early, or rather when my alarm clocks went off today for the first time in...months. I woke up because my stereo came on with it's usual morning timer and the radio DJ was saying how bad the weather and traffic are today. I somehow incorporarted all of her words into my dream, and dreamed about the man she spoke about and then about the additional 45 minutes that you should add to your commute to deal with the visibility and the traffic. It already takes me an hour and sometimes longer to get to work, so I did the additional computation and woke up in the realization that I would be sitting in crazy traffic for at least a couple of hours. That thought alone, made me sit up in bed and actually wake up before 7am. I ran downstairs and turned on the T.V. and opened the shutters to stare at the rain and saw pieces of my neighbor's roof flapping in the wind. That's when I decided to work from home.

Monday, February 23, 2004

Fore!

I went golfing again this past weekend, but this time with my very own clubs! When I took my golf class last year, we were only allowed to play with our 6, 7, and 8 irons so this weekend I got to try playing with my woods. The furthest I hit was 135 yards but with more practice, hopefully I'll get much better. Watch out Michelle Wie.

Friday, February 20, 2004

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

The Big Apple

I New York.

I had such a great time at the Big Apple. It was so much more than I expected. We took a red-eye to New York from SFO on Thursday night and landed early in the morning. From the point that we stepped off of the plane in New York till the time that we stepped off of the plane in San Francisco Monday night, we were going non-stop. Originally one of my friends had made a schedule planning out all of the sites that we wanted to see. In my head, I really didn't think we would be able to accomplish all that we had on our list, but we did. And more!

On Thursday morning we went to Grand Central station to see all of the shops and people. PEOPLE. There were so many people everywhere. Taking the subway was pretty neat, it was very similar to BART or the subway in England, just dirtier with more people. After walking around the city for a bit, we went to see the Statue of Liberty. That was sooo cool! Too bad they closed it down so that we couldn't walk up the statue. Either way, the pictures that we got were great and the view of the city behind it was even prettier. We also went to Ground Zero to see where the Twin Towers used to be. Being there in person made the tragedy so much more real than seeing it on T.V. or reading about it. You could still see all of the building that were damaged around it. That evening we went to see a show on Broadway called, 'The Boy from Oz starring Hugh Jackman (better known as Wolverine). The show was pretty interesting, but I admit that I nodded off during parts of it. I was exhausted from all that we had done all day and on only the sleep that I got on the plane.

Throughout the next few days we went to the Empire State Building, Little Italy, The Metropolitan Museum, Soho, Chinatown, and Times Square. Of course in between all of that, we went shopping. Oh man, did we go shopping! I love New York if not only for the sites but for the shopping. I came home with 4 more purses, 7 more DVDs, a new pair of jeans, and other random souvenirs. I had my first 'real' bartering experience in Chinatown and made a pretty darn good deal on one of my purses.

Although the skies were clear and it was sunny, it was freezing. I wore layers upon layers of clothes and I was still cold! I don't know how people can live there. Being in New York over the long weekend made me appreciate California so much more. I had such a great time with my friends and seeing the sites along with freezing my butt off. I think I'm pretty New York'd out. Maybe I'll go back in a few years...and next time I'll go in June.

Patched up

It's fixed! Wahoo!

After much frustration, my host finally responded to my email about my site not updating and it turns out that I have this whole system I never knew about. All of my previous email addresses were deleted along with my additional subdomain. I think that they basically wiped out all they had before and started over without notifying their users. I went in and found out that I have a new server which is the reason why I wasn't able to update. I have all these new fancy features like a chatroom and other things. Do I care? No, not really. I switching as soon as I can to a much better host. These people give me a headache.

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

Warm home sweet home

I'm home! Thank goodness for warm weather and not needing to wear 5 layers to walk outside. I actually got home not too long ago and still need to take a shower and unpack. I'm exhausted. Although it's about 1:30 AM here in California, it's 4:30 AM to my body. I had a great time and I can't believe that I did and saw as much as I did. Hooray for being a tourist.

Friday, February 06, 2004

Packing it up

I'm going to New York for the first time next President's Day weekend. To say that I'm excited would be an understatement. Last night I was putting some things away in my closet to clean up around my room and somehow ended up planning my clothes for New York. From what I hear, it's been pretty cold over on the east coast. Or rather...freezing. I don't remember ever having been in a climate where the temperature was lower than 10 degrees Fahrenheit. My friend mentioned that at night, it gets into the negatives in New York. Negatives?!? Are you kidding me? In the words of my roommate, 'Kimmy, basically you're going to die.' It's all about the layers. Last night I started pulling out all of my long sleeved shirts and sweaters trying to figure out how I was going to pack all of my stuff. My group of friends that I am going to be traveling with told me that I was only allowed to bring one bag so that we can do carry-on. One bag? How am I going to pack my sweaters, layers of clothes, and boots into one bag? Sweaters alone are huge and bulky. Unless..I wear the same sweater throughout the entire trip. All of my pictures will look the same. "This is me on Saturday...and this is me on Saturday...and this one must also be from Saturday." You know what I say? Screw it. I'd rather be warm than save a couple of minutes from waiting for baggage.

Wednesday, February 04, 2004

Lost in translation

We are allowed to bring dogs to work and many of the employees do. There is always a cute little puppy somewhere around the corner or sitting in the hall. In our old building before we made the move over to this modern looking area, there was this guy who would walk around every once in awhile, up and down the halls saying 'Brad'. He would walk around and just kind of smile and keep saying 'Brad' to no one in particular as he walked up and down the halls. After a few times of this happening, I figured this guy was either looking for his dog 'Brad' or he was on crack. It started getting annoying after a few times of him walking by our office saying 'Brad' repeatedly and smiling.

We moved to our new building a couple of months ago and I completely forgot about the 'Brad' guy. Until today. There I was working away all nice and peacefully when I heard him walk by again saying his usual phrase. In Graham's words, 'Get a leash or something.' So I started getting annoyed again as all the memories flooded back of the countless times this guy kept losing his dog. That's when Graham stuck his head in our cubicle and said, 'Hey, want some bread?'

This WHOLE time...this nice man has been walking around telling all of us that there was fresh bread for us to eat, and I thought he was looking for his dog.

Monday, February 02, 2004

Favicon

See my new icon? Bertrand made me a little matching icon for kimbalina.com. Some of you can see it in the location bar of your browser and others might not be able to see it unless you bookmark the site.

It's so cute. I love it.

Mr. Groundhog

Cold? Get used to it. Winter's gonna be here for awhile. Or so says the groundhog.

via Shellen