In about an hour or so I am going down to Soho to celebrate NYE with Jenn. For those of you who are regular readers, you may recall that Soho is not my favorite place in the world. However, apparently some Brazilian band is playing, and Jenn is a big fan. Since it’s just going to be the two of us, I felt obliged to go along and keep my dislike of the venue to myself. Besides, I suppose it could be fun, especially since I’m not actually eating there.

At any rate, I’ve never really gone to any sort of venue for New Year’s Eve before, either in SB or elsewhere, so at least it will be something new, and better than staying inside watching New Year’s Rockin’ Eve on TV (which is what I did last year! Though, in my defense, I also had a cold)

When next I write, it will be 2007, so I hope all of you have a safe and fun last day of 2006!

Posted at 7:27 PM | (1)

In a meme sort of way, I present to you a recap of 2006 as told by taking the first line (or two!) from the first post of each month.

January
Happy First Day of 2006! So far the new year has been….dusty.

February
You know what’s kinda fun? Driving out of the parking structure that is adjacent to the library downtown.

March
Steve’s birthday is coming up, so I had to trek to the stores to get him a gift.

April
I had this great idea that I would check out some knitting books from the library.

May
Yesterday Steve and I had a late breakfast at our favorite locale, and since it was a nice day, we walked around a tiny bit and headed to Borders so that he could return a book.

June
My new laptop arrived today at around 10am this morning.

July
On my way to LAX with my cousin.

August
Back from the trip.

September
Last night after work I met up with Potential Friend #2 (PF2) in front of Border’s.

October
I found out that last night, I double booked some plans.

November
Last night I attended the meeting of my book club—we went to go watch Running With Scissors, as that was the book we had just read.

December
Damn, I guess it really is like they say.

Summing up, I suppose one can take away the following things:
1) I got a new-to-me desktop and a new laptop
2) I hung out with Steve
3) I knitted some stuff
4) I went on some trips
5) I met some new people to hang out with
6) Am on occasion busier than I was before

What did you do this year?

Posted at 3:21 PM | (2)

Not much to say here, just enjoying my week off of work. However, I did just want to say, DAMN IT IS WINDY OUT!

After getting what sounded like buckets of rain suddenly (and, at least for me, unexpectedly) poured on us last night, today has been filled with giant gusts of wind, the likes of which come only very rarely.

The power went out in a few places downtown, but just to be contrary, my place with the ancient, finicky wiring has remained steadfast in providing lighting and television entertainment for me.

The wind still continues to blow outside, occasionally picking up speed and the occasional tree branch or other debris, probably just to make sure we’re still paying attention. I really dislike strong winds—they scare me more than lightening storms. It always sounds like your house is going to blow down, or something smash into it or your home or car, and the aftermath on the streets are messy—branches, leaves, dirt everywhere. Not to mention you can’t walk without being blown in the wrong direction or having your hair become one huge rats nest.

Thankfully this is a rare occurence, so I’ll just sit here and wait it out.

Posted at 5:24 PM | (1)

Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate!

Last night we had a gathering at my parents’ house with my aunt, uncle, and all the respective kids who come with them. We also did the gift exchange. I got a tripod for my camera from the cousin who had me, so that’s totally cool. One of my cousins also got an ’80s version of Trivial Pursuit, so we played that. Man, some of those questions are HARD! Especially ones that were based on TV shows or news headlines we were too little to know/care about.

This morning my sister and Dominic came over to open presents. I got all kinds of cool shirts—lots of which I can wear downtown, a new bag for my camera, big enough to hold more than one lens, and Animaniacs on DVD! All in all a good Christmas haul. :)

In a few hours we are going over to my sister’s house so that we can have Christmas dinner. She gets to host it in her house now that she’s all settled in and stuff. Dominic’s family will be there as well, and I’ve never met any of them.

I should go get ready now, so hope everyone has a great day! :)

Posted at 11:16 AM | (1)

Yay, it’s Friday! This means that I now have a full week off of work (well, sort of. I will still have to do some work that I didn’t get done today, but that is a mere technicality).

I’ve been home with my family since I surprised them by arriving late Wednesday night. Why not? They have central heating, and with my laptop, I can work from anywhere!

Hope you all have a great weekend, and a Merry Christmas if I don’t post before then! :)

Posted at 6:12 PM | (3)

I got tagged yesterday by Mikey for this meme. After doing some thinking, I came up with 5 things of my own that you (maybe? hopefully?) don’t already know about me. Well, at least those of you who aren’t around me on a regular basis.

1. I am an extremely “by the book” person. If you are helping me assemble something and it comes with instructions, by golly I will assemble the thing exactly like it says. And I will get annoyed and/or anxious if you try to toss the book aside and just wing it.

2. I am very good at reading maps (and even like trying to find my way around foreign cities using them), but I have a terrible sense of direction. Don’t ever ask me to tell you which way is North or West or something unless the sun is rising or setting at that moment.

3. My handwriting—both printing and cursive—looks somewhat masculine. In fact, a substitute teacher passing back papers once called out for “Joseph” when reaching the paper with my name written on it. There was no one named Joseph in my class.

4. After showering in the morning, I often like to hop back into bed for awhile. In fact, back when I had my office jobs, I used to set my alarm early enough to allow me time to do this.

5. When walking places, I often walk as fast as I can. Once I’ve decided to go, I like to get there sooner rather than later (this probably also explains why I always speed while driving).

Now to tag some people of my own. Ok, Leonieke, Sofie, Colleen, Marika, and Jessica!

Posted at 9:10 AM | (3)

Last night Steve and I exchanged our presents after going out to dinner. The plan wasn’t necessarily to exchange them last night, but he had finished up his shopping yesterday and was excited to see what I got him. So, on the way back to his place, we swung by mine, and I picked up the gifts I had just wrapped hours earlier.

I mostly got him some shirts and a sweater, which he seemed to like. He even wore one of the shirts today, so I suppose that is a good sign! He got me a calendar with cute little puppies on it, some super soft and warm slippers from Brookstone that I am wearing right this minute (and my feet are now not cold, yay!), and some pretty and sparkly diamond earrings. I really like all my gifts. :)

After the exchange of gifts we watched The Charlie Brown Christmas Special, since I remembered to bring over the DVD. I still can’t believe Christmas is only a few days away.

Posted at 8:37 AM | (1)

Last night Steve took me for the third year in a row to follow the trolley tour of Christmas lights around town. We had actually intended to purchase seats on the trolley and do it legit this year, despite the slightly steep price, but when i went to check on how to buy them a few days before the tours had even begun, they were already all sold out.

So, following them for free it was! We set my iPod to my special Christmas playlist, and away we went, getting into the spirit of the season by looking at lights and listening to festive music.

We did most of the tour, but then I realized I was staaaaaarving, so we went to eat at Chase, this place that is normally decorated with lights, but gets extra super insanely decorated during Christmas.

It was nice to continue the theme of lights, and eat some Italian food. We were at a booth with two tables, so we sat near an older couple clearly on their first date. That was interesting, especially the way he was BS-ing her in order to say impressive things. Gotta do what you can when you don’t get many dating opportunities, I guess!

Perhaps we will pick up the rest of the Christmas tour later in the week. But at any rate, I hope I remember to watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special before it’s too late!

Posted at 10:18 PM | (3)

Last night I invited all the girls I’ve gone downtown with to meet me at Joe’s. Steve’s company has a lot of international employees, and a bunch of them were in town for some meetings and stuff. He thought it would be fun to have them hang out and have drinks with some girls, so I got some people together.

There only wound up being 3 of us girls, but only one of the foreign guys came. He was German though, so I got to impress everyone with my mad German-speaking skillz. Well, sorta. I know I made mistakes, but as is usual when I’ve spoken to someone, he said I did very well. Probably more just amazing someone actually bothered to learn the language in a place where it doesn’t often come in handy.

Anyway, after a few drinks at Joe’s, we headed to Tonic for some dancing. At least partly because I was the girl with the common German link, I was the one who wound up talking to the dude the most and got him to dance. The goal was to make sure the out-of-town people had a nice time, and I think it’s safe to say he did.

Today I woke up with a headache, but I at least took comfort in the fact that I can do my work lying down. Trying to work reminded me of why it’s better to do these sorts of things on the weekend. Still, I think fun was had by all.

Posted at 4:28 PM | (1)

I did a similar meme last year, but I just don’t see a lot of good memes anymore (or at all, really), so since I came across this one, and it is slightly different, I figured I’d give it a go. I do so love all things Christmas! :)

Posted at 8:27 PM | (1)

Yesterday I went shopping at South Coast Plaza while I was down in Whittier for the family thing. I met up with Mikey and Domo and we made several laps around the large mall looking for gifts for family and our significant others. I even got my shopping done for the secret gift exchange I’m doing with my cousins again this year (thanks to Jo for her remembering the name of the item I wanted to purchase so I could actually find it without having to scour the entire store!)

I think I have a serious problem with stripes, though. I saw them everywhere! And many of them looked so cute, I wanted to buy them. But worry not, my two readers who fear my love of stripes, I didn’t actually buy any. I’d mention what I DID buy, but several of the people I bought for read this site, so I will refrain.

At any rate, I’m just glad I was able to get most of my shopping over in one trip. I think I might be mostly done—I just have to lay it all out and see what I have. Oh, and then get some boxes and wrapping paper—I forgot to ask for boxes when I bought stuff, and I have to see how much paper I have left.

I can’t wait till Christmas! :)

Posted at 9:21 AM | (3)

I am home in Whittier again this weekend, to attend another family function. My mom’s oldest sister celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary today. The actual anniversary date is like 3 weeks away, but with Christmas and all that, they decided to make it earlier.

There were a lot of people who showed up, many of whom I didn’t even recognize, as they must belong to the same church or are also involved in the community or something. There was a renewal of the vows ceremony at the church and then a reception after.

My sister was charged with providing video of the event, while my dad took pictures of the reception, and my mom of the church ceremony. I brought down my camera for my dad to use, since his old SLR is in need of repair and, as it is film based, it doesn’t offer the flexibility of the digital format.

Hopefully the picture came out all right. It was also the debut of the spiffy flash I purchased a few months ago. I took a few photos, but really not many. I think my dad had fun with the camera though—he was showing it to everyone and talking about how cool it is and how he wished he had something like this 30 years ago when he was starting out in photography. :)

Posted at 6:45 PM | (0)

Ok, so I’m not actually an employee of said coffee shop, but I AM currently inside one. And I AM doing work.

The electricians are back in my building doing the electrical in the unit next door. Since everyone on my floor is on the same circuit (one of the problems that will be rectified when the electricians are finished), they shut the power off to work on it, and I was left without internet or power for my laptop. I was able to steal some internet for a bit, but my laptop doesn’t last 8 hours on a single charge, so I was soon on the move for other options.

I walked a few blocks to a nearby coffee shop—one that offers free internet, yay. I had looked up all the places that offer such a thing when I first started working from home, just in case I ever needed/wanted to work outside my apartment. It seems that today, knowledge really IS power, because it gained me an electrical outlet to plug in my laptop.

So for the past, like, 4 hours I’ve just been hanging out here in a coffee shop doing some work. I wish I knew ahead of time that I was going to be going out, especially since I actually ran into someone I know—the girl who runs my book club. Anyway, I guess I don’t look TOO freakish, but I definitely just sorta quickly packed up and left and have probably looked cuter. I know the town is small and all, but it does still amuse me these days when I see people I know around town.

Only 30 more minutes to go until I can make the trek back to my apartment!

Posted at 4:19 PM | (3)

Damn, I guess it really is like they say. When you’re busy doing stuff, you don’t have time to update the blog, so it LOOKS like you’re not doing anything.

Anyway, I’m not even SUPER SUPER busy, but enough so that I either wasn’t home to update, didn’t feel like writing it all out, or like now, too busy to update but making an effort to document it.

On Thursday I went out with Marika to go see the latest James Bond flick, which I thought was pretty good. Good to see her again as well, since it had been awhile.

Friday night I went with Jenn to watch the annual Xmas Parade, full of little kids marching in costumes, every single school in the district it seemed, and other random organizations. After that we had a huge dinner at Carlito’s, a Mexican place across from the start of the parade, and then we got a drink at Joe’s before hitting up Tonic to meet up with the rest of our group (and eventually Steve, when I texted him and told him to join us). I think I ate too much food though because I had 5 drinks that night and didn’t even feel anything. Good thing I didn’t pay for most of those drinks! ;)

Saturday night I helped Jenn with a party she was working. I was mostly doing stuff like throwing away plates/cups and making sure everyone constantly had a drink in their hands. For like $30/hr not a lot to ask, I suppose. Good for a little extra xmas money at any rate. Oh, and did I mention the party was full of hot firemen? Of course, they all pretty much brought equally good looking dates, but it was still fun to look at them.

Sunday not busy at all, but I took Steve out to Outback (well, he drove, I paid), and that’s about all I did that day.

Today I am frantically trying to get a site ready by Wedesday. Yippee. More to do than I thought, so forgive me if this post is scattered, I don’t really have time to go back and read it. :)

Hope you all are doing great. Have you started Christmas shopping yet? I HAVEN’T!!!

Posted at 11:07 AM | (1)