Little Memories

My cousin Tammy found a few pictures of us from when we were tiny little munchkins and sent them to me.

Can you guess which one is me?

Here is a hint. I am the cheesy one in almost all of them. :)

Weekend full of friends

My entire weekend was jam packed full of fun activities, good times, and good friends.

Friday afternoon, we had the Google Picnic at Shoreline Amphitheatre. It was the usual Google fun. My loud and crazy cheers during Google Idol resulted in a raspy voice for a short while.

Right after the picnic, Bertrand and I fought traffic and went to the Chris Tomlin concert. So amazing. Wow.

Saturday morning, after playing with my dogs, Toby & Max, we met up with some friends and went to another picnic at Ardenwood Farms.

After some picnic'ing, we headed to Costco to buy some necessities and a lot of non-necessities, DSW for some major shoe shopping, and then some Tapioca drinks, before driving to Stanford to see the premier of Adina's Deck!

After saying goodbye to our friends who we'd spent all day with, we headed to San Jose for a housewarming party with another group of friends. Some sangria, good conversation, and wii ended the night on a great note.

After a nice morning at church, our good friends came over to spend the afternoon with us catching up, playing with the kids, billiards, and of course...Guitar Hero.

What a fun fulfilling weekend.

American Idols on Tour

Last night, Sarah, Jen & I went to see the American Idols on Tour at the HP Pavillion in San Jose. I felt like it had been so long since the show had been on that I could barely remember who the Top 10 were in the first place! But as soon as we arrived, it all came back to me from the signs and posters everywhere.

It was great! I went last year and this year's format was soooo much better. Last year, each contestant sang 3 songs on their own and took turns singing then at the end, sang together. This year, almost all the songs were duets, groups and compilations. It was very entertaining. The little pre-teen girls screaming for Sanjaya, Blake and Chris were also quite entertaining.

I was actually very impressed with most of the singers and how well they performed live, especially Blake and Lakisha. Lakisha sang Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" and I got chills. Wow! I wasn't even that excited about her during the show, but that girl has got some talent. Blake is definetly an entertainer. Sanjaya.....Sanjaya has many screaming little girl fans. :)

Yay for American Idol. I'm excited for the next season to start.

Game Night

Friday night, we had a bunch of friends over for a competitive game night after a girl's dinner out at PF Chang's. Pictionary, Trivial Pursuit, Guitar Hero, & good friends. It doesn't get any better than that.

Swag Experiment Results

So...nothing happened.

haha.

Nobody noticed. For four days in a row, I wore the same shirt but in different colors: blue, red, yellow, and green. My "experiment" wasn't exactly scientific.

My theory on what happened:

• It's so normal to wear Google clothing at work, that there was nothing "out of the ordinary" about it.
• I didn't see the same people every day. I had different meetings each day so saw different people on most days.
• People noticed but didn't say anything. They are all probably talking with each other wondering, "What is wrong with this girl?" Or, it could be Jen's theory where people think I just bought a house so can't afford to buy clothes and only wear Google clothes.

Regardless, it's over. I can go back to having a little more variety in life and appreciating my swag on the rare occasions.

Swag Experiment: Day 4

It is the fourth and final day of my "experiment". It is also the final color of the Google colors....green.

I am so glad that I did not commit to wearing ALL my shirts and doing a month straight of swag. I need some more variety in my life.

Nobody has said anything yet.

Swag Experiment: Day 3

It's Day #3! Yellow!

Number of people who have noticed (or said something to me) equals zero.

Oy...what a day

I just realized...an hour ago...that today is not Thursday.

I have basically gone this entire day, thinking it was Thursday despite the fact that it is actually Wednesday. How many conversations have I had...meetings...email....and nobody said anything to me?

It is very dissapointing to screw up the days to realize that you are actually even one more day away from the weekend than originally believed.

Swag Experiment: Day 2

It's Day 2 of my swag week. As you can tell...I'm on red.

It's only Day 2 and I'm already tired of this shirt. :)

Swag Experiment: Day 1

I'm going to go in the order of the Google colors, so Day 1 = Blue.

Swag Experiment

This weekend while putting my laundry away, I pulled out all the things from my stuffed "Google drawers". That's right...drawers. I refolded everything, and I realized that I'd probably be able to wear a piece of Google clothing every single day for over a month and not have to re-wear any of it.

I am going to do an experiment for the remainder of the week. Every day for the rest of this week, I will wear the same exact Google shirt but in different colors each day.

Think anyone will notice?

Site enhancements

I've added my latest tweet from twitter onto the top section of my blog and my new favorite addition, with the help of Bertrand, I now have my latest post from my moblog on the sidebar.

Enjoy!

When you marry a geek...

I went shopping with my cousin this weekend and we came home with a bunch of things. While doing show and tell, I tried on one of my new shirts, turned to Bertrand and asked what he thought.

His response?

"Cool. You look like a Jedi."

So needless to say, I am returning that shirt.

Grand Canyon Skywalk

As part of our trip to see the Grand Canyon, we decided we'd do the extra drive to go see the Grand Canyon Skywalk. I'd heard a lot about it in the news and on TV and thought it sounded like a cool thing to see. The Grand Canyon Skywalk is a horseshoe shaped glass walkway that overlooks the canyon. You can walk out on the glass and basically feel like you are flying/hovering over the canyon.

Before heading out that way, I looked up their website for directions and information. They mentioned an elaborate tour where you get to hop on/off a bus on your own time, see multiple sites, cultural shows, Indian villages, and walk the skywalk. Sounded great!

What they did not tell us, was that we would be driving on a dirt road for over an hour. There were no signs and we were just hoping that somewhere at the end of this road and through the dust, was what we were looking for. Once we arrived, we parked and walked up to 2 portable trailers where people were crowded all over the place trying to escape the heat outside. The packages were displayed on poorly photocopied pieces of paper we had to ask for. After many questions, we were finally able to figure out which package we needed to buy.

Ultimately, we paid $75 per person for nothing. This operation was poorly organized and they did not seem ready for the tourists they were trying to attract. There were no "real" bathrooms or buildings aside from the porta-potties out in the dirt parking lot or the crowded one in the trailer. We were picked up by a coach bus that took us out to the Skywalk. Which appears and seems much bigger on TV than it actually is in person. They did not clearly advertise that no cameras or belongings period would be allowed onto the skywalk. So when we got there, we had to pay more to get a locker. If it was required that everyone have to lock up their stuff, I think they should have had a security area where we could store our stuff for free, not pay for lockers where nobody was prepared with change for. We walked on the skywalk for about 2 minutes, which really was a neat/scary experience. The "Indian Village" they mentioned were 2 tee pees. The "Cultural Show" was little kids jumping around in Native American Clothes. The "get on/off whenever you'd like" is a scam. You are in the middle of a desert with nothing to look at, no shelter, and the bus comes every 20 minutes. Of course you'd hop on the next bus. They also advertised an "all you can eat buffet", but failed to mention that it was walking through a small metal building that was the "kitchen" and getting served food that was pulled out of a box, worse than a picnic, and sitting outdoors in the scorching heat.

What I really didn't appreciate here was I felt like they hyped it up to be more than it was and made sure to charge every step of the way and not give back much in return. If it had been more clear to me what we were getting into and going to get to start with, I would not have felt as poorly leaving. They took advantage of "tourists" who ultimately bring them the money and falsely advertised everything.

The Grand Canyon Skywalk is a lot more hype than it is worth. Unless you really want to walk on the glass over the canyon, I would not waste my money on the visit.



The Grand Canyon itself was gorgeous, amazing, and massive. If you are there to see the canyon, I would suggest going to the South Rim where there are clearly marked paths, railings, and park rangers who can give you information about the canyon.

Behind the times

One of my girlfriends, Jennifer, sent out an email the other day to a bunch of us on her discovery of the Forever Stamp. With the constant increases in prices to postage, it's hard to keep up and I always end up with the little one cent stamps flying around. I rarely send mail anymore since everything is electronic for me, so I don't hang on to many stamps. Usually I just send it through work, or steal a stamp from the hubby or parents. So when I and all the girls had this magnificent discovery of the Forever Stamp, we were blown away by its greatness.

This morning I wanted to share our discovery with Bertrand:

Me: Did you know they have this really cool thing called the Forever Stamp???
Bertrand: Yeah, we have some. Do you need some?
Me: WHAT??? I thought we just discovered them.
Bertrand: No, they've been out for awhile. I bought them at Safeway.
Me: Oh.

Hoover Dam

After leaving Vegas, our first stop on our mini road trip through the Southwest was The Hoover Dam. We happened to make our trip out to Vegas/Hoover Dam/Grand Canyon during a heat spike where they were reaching record temperatures....120 degrees Fahrenheit. Crazy! So needless to say, it was very very hot.

The Hoover Dam was one of those things that I've always heard about but never actually seen, or really cared to see. I mean...really what is there to see, it's a Dam right? But it was sort of on the way, and it was a landmark, so we stopped. I'm glad we did!

I am so impressed by this thing. It is amazing. It is huge and the engineering involved to design, build, and create this thing is mind blowing. I absolutely love seeing things and their inner workings and knowing that some brilliant people worked together to create something so magnificent. We signed up for the tour and headed on our way. This gigantic Dam was created to provide energy that is divided between 7 states, over 40% which goes to Southern California. Why can't we be as innovative and energy efficient everywhere? They started the designs in the 1920s and build these various pipes to divert the water, pour the concrete, and build it. It amazes me how much work and thought went into it.

So, needless to say. I was impressed and very glad we stopped despite the scorching heat. Seeing things like that or some amazing bridge make me wish I would have been a civil engineer. Too cool.

Vacation from vacation

I need a vacation to recover from my vacation.

I'm back at work today. I've really only taken 2 days off from work (plus the July 4th holiday), but it feels like it's been ages since I've been here. Also, my inbox welcomed me back with many-an-email to go through and respond to.

After a full weekend at home, Bertrand and I flew out to Vegas, spent the night, then started our road trip to the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon. We arrived home yesterday morning and as soon as we set our bags down, started our 11 hour day of painting.

It's been a fun, productive and exciting few days. What else would you expect? :)

Trip via moblog