my family all went down to LA to drop alice off at school a couple weeks ago. she was the first one to move into her dorm room so she got dibs on everything she wanted. upper bunk, desk next to the bed, big dresser/closet thing. as kristin and i were helping alice unpack, we began to fully realize just how many pieces of clothing she has. and alice only brought the clothes that she wears. which means there's still clothes in her closet at home with her "reject" pile of clothes. kristin and i have decided that alice has twice as many clothes and the two of us put together. slightly ridiculous.

i went to the download festival with sara, michael, nina, and nina's friend alex on saturday. it was fun but i didn't get to hang out with nina all that much. which is sad since we don't really get to hang out with them too often. later, we also met michael's friends andrea and jeff. they're cool ppl. towards the end of beck's set, lots of people were leaving. so sara, michael, and i asked two people for their tickets and snuck into the good seats. nina, alex, and their friends were somehow able to get down to the good seats before us. best acts: kinky and beck. not so good acts: yeah yeah yeahs, the shins

on sunday aimee called me to ask if i wanted to work in catering at shoreline. i was the ticket marker/not let ppl get seconds at the buffet table person for the vip ticket holders. the server portion was only until 7:30 and then we started to clean. that wasn't bad at all. we weren't responsible for the dishes. which made me super happy. but also made me wonder who was in charge of the dishes. by 10pm, i was off and got to sneak over to watch john mayer. that was fun. too bad i couldn't see sheryl crow's set. that would have been fun too. but i wasn't heartbroken over missing any of it. i'm not too into either of them.

all these school shootings are not happy topics. especially the most recent one at the amish school. the amish are non-violent and were even exempt from the draft. for those girls to die in such a violent manner is insane. that man! if you want to commit suicide, go off and do it. don't kill and injure innocent girls in the process. even if you want revenge or whatever for molesting girls 20 years ago. that man needed a shrink. not a gun.

facebook hopping

yesterday, i decided to facebook hop. i found groups to join, people to add, and very few to stalk. but my most interesting find is that timi wusu is a rookie for the raiders! i never had a class with him but i think i took a cooking xl with him back when we were at jordan. when he was skinny and not football bulky. his website picture makes him look mean and scary. but his facebook and myspace (yes.. i'm a stalker) have him in happy pictures. so yes. i think i might become a raiders fan. except that i've always been much more of a 49ers fan. another nfl guy from paly is drew hodgdon of the huston texans. i remember seeing him around paly and thinking that he was uber bulky. but i guess you need to be uber bulky in football.

REI, petsmart, chipotle, etc all moved into a new shopping complex thing near costco recently. and because of the stores, a left turn signal light was installed. but the lights were on timer instead of sensor. i have to pass through it every day to get to 101 for work and having the light on timer mode slows things down. i got annoyed enough to email the public works dept of mountain view to ask them what was going on with that. and this is what they emailed to me today:

Thanks for taking time to notify us of your concerns. Yes, this is a temporary condition related to the construction. This project required traffic signal modifications and removal of an existing power pole at Charleston/Independence. The electrical sub-contractor is scheduled to complete their work today and the signal should be operating in actuated mode (“on sensor”) by the end of the day.

that email pretty much made my friday. yay for sensor traffic lights!

Ghiradelli chocolate festival!

on saturday, i went on an adventure to sf. except that i missed the 1:30 train which ment that i had to wait an hour for the next train. missing that hour made it so that i only had a bit less than an hour to spend exploring the vendors. but i did have time to try goats milk ice cream, fudge, cake, and cookie vendors. but since i got there after 4 (it closed at 5), alot of the stalls were already empty. i'm assuming that they ran out of samples. at about 4:30, sara met me and we walked around a bit and then headed for dinner in japantown. i had udon for dinner. sara had a tekka bowl. good stuff. but they were a bit understaffed and we had to flag down a waiter to order and get more tea. after dinner, we got a hold of my cousin jake and decided to meet up. we spoke in korean/spanglish to each other and finally met each other at tommy's tequila bar and mexican restaurant. jake the tequila connosauoir pointed out all his favorites, which ones were only worth drinking a shot of at the bar, which ones went through what process.. yes. jake likes his tequila. when i told him that tequila and i are not friends, he said that we just weren't introduced correctly.

on sunday, sarita, her friend jessica, and i went to watch breakfast at tiffany's at the stanford theater. good movie. then we went to the nuthouse b/c we were supposed to meet up with sara, michael, and travis there. but they weren't there and only creepy old guys were there. so we went to starbucks instead. i had the pumpkin spice latte. i like pumpkin spice but don't like coffee. i asked for extra pumpkin spice but it still tasted like coffee to me. then jessica went home since she had to be up early for work and sarita and i headed back to the nuthouse to meet sara, michael, and travis. lots of pool was played. little beer was drunk. personal low point: when michael, sarita, and i played cutthroat and he sank all our balls and all his were still on the table. personal high point: when i beat travis. then kristin, travis and i went to happy donuts to play scrabble. kristin won and travis and i tied. i think it was 160 to 92. pretty ridiculous. i pretty much suck at scrabble. i could not put down a word longer than 4 letters. but in my defense, i kept drawing vowels. specifically, "E"s. for three rounds i had 4 or 5 "E"s, 2 or 3 "I"s or an occasional "U".

funny little things

last night, as i was driving down alma, i saw mr. mid-life-crisis. he was an older man in a red convertable with the top down. at a red light, i realized what he was listening to in his car. it was a language cd. i wish i remember how to say thank you in the mystery language. in any case, it was a fun drive after seeing that.

i was at the free jazz concert at santana row yesterday. it was in the grassy area behind hotel valencia and maggiano's. as i was sitting and waiting for kristin and sara to show up, i started to people watch. one guy who caught my eye had clearly just come from the gym, club one. as he walked past me, the first thing i saw were his feet since i was looking down. that's when i saw that his toes are painted black. once i noticed the painted toes, i had to do a once over to see how normal his looked. he was wearing a tshirt, shorts that looked like they could be swim trunks, and sandals. and normal looking. which allows for my imagination to run with ideas about him. maybe he likes to look punk when nobody's looking. or he somehow banged up his toes so he thought he'd paint them to make them look ok. or his girlfriend thought it'd be funny. or his friends thought it served him right for passing out. the possibilities are endless.

labor day weekend fun-ness

on thursday night, sarita and i decided to go for a bike ride and we went to the new soccer field and stanford. then sarita gets a birthday surprise from jason (he came to visit for the weekend). but now jason must think that all we ever do late at night is bike around since that's what we were doing the last time he surprised her.

on friday i hung out with sara, kristin, and sam. sam said that he had never experienced so much girl talk before in his life. haha... later on, sara, kristin, and i went to the old pro where we ran into a very drunk michael f. and his coworkers. he gets a bit cocky when he's drunk but i think it's hilarious b/c when he's sober he's so shy and quiet.

on saturday, sara, michael h., sam, and i went to an a's game. they lost to baltimore. sadness. they were on a home game winning streak. sam taught me a lot about baseball and baseball strategy. on the way home, we saw an accident happen on 880. a girl braked (i'm going to assume that braked is a real word) really hard and lost control of her car. she tried to over-correct her steering wheel and went from the 4th lane all the way to the 1st lane and hit a car. i guess that technically the car hit her. kind of like a "T". michael pulled over and we stayed with them until the cops came. both drivers were fine but pretty shook up. the girl's car is pretty much totaled and the guys car will need work done. he was saying that he lives in hayward but works in redwood city and was worried about how he'd get to work. hopefully his insurance will pay for a rental. the airbags deployed in both cars. craziness. and the girl's car's front wheel was in a 45 degree angle, was leaking oil and other fluid, and looked undriveable. but a cop drove it to the shoulder of the freeway. i was pretty impressed that the car could do that at all. after michael gave his info to the two drivers, we went home. so eventful! later on that night, kristin, sharon, esther, and i went to boss, a korean club in sf. there was a $15 cover (BOO!!) but we know the bartender so all the drinks were free (WWOOOOTT!!) they don't carry seagrams so i couldn't have my usual 7&7s (boo) but they had fun music (yay!). they played sexy/back three times. which i thought was a bit excessive. but they also played a couple 80's songs. overall: good day.

on sunday i went to anna marie's bbq. good times. i hadn't seen her in a few months and got to catch up with rachel. she just finished archaeology field school so she had alot to say about it. and i was able to sympathize since i when through the exact same thing last year. when i got back, kristin, sara, and i went to the nut house and felt like we were intruding on a wedding reception. a bunch of ppl descended upon the nuthouse for a wedding afterparty. apparently, they used to come to the nut house all the time and wanted to wax nostalgic. i was ok with it since they picked good songs on the juke box.

weekend rating: good times and fun had by all. well, except for those two in the car accident.

lack of human interaction

kristin made a surprise visit to me at work today. that was when i realized that i have no human interaction. today especially. i was the only one in the office since everyone else was in a meeting. when krisitn came, i literally jumped out of my chair and skipped to her. and then she started to teach me how to dance. she taught me the two-step and the cha cha cha. that was pretty fun. then we just sat around and talked. as i was petting her hair. it was after i started petting her that i realized that i need more human interaction.

another sign that i need more human interaction is that i keep talking to telemarketers. today a lady from DHL called to ask if we wanted to switch from fedex/ups to dhl. i let her keep talking and quoting prices and giving her false information. it was a fun 10 minutes. yes. definitely need more human interaction.

non-drowsy medicine should be NON-DROWSY

i officially have a cold. before it was just my throat and weird voice. now coughing has been added to the mix. the hydrogen peroxide experiment kinda worked. gargling it in a 1:1 solution with water helped my throat. but putting it into my ear didn't prevent a cold. but maybe it was b/c i didn't do it often enough. and i'm my own test subject so who knows. maybe it works better on others. sarita told me to take a shot of vodka and follow it with a couple glasses of water. i tried that too. i don't know how well it worked on my throat but it helped me sleep. i've also been taking a yucky, unnaturally blue, "non-drowsy" cough syrup. it put me to sleep yesterday. which is not good. today i took it with caffeine. so i haven't fallen asleep but i haven't been awake either.

over the weekend i ran into nancy wong, the dermatologist i used to work for back in high school. she was painting a watercolor of a landscape when we saw her. and she won the most recent weekly photo contest. such an artsy doctor! she gave me and sarita a raffle ticket. and i just got a call saying that i won! woo! i get $100 from the pacific art league to either buy a piece of art or take a class. i think i'm going to take a class.

i think i'm getting sick

so i'm getting sick. i have a sore throat and a mini cough. yesterday i drank alot of airborne but i don't think it helped me too much since i woke up with a sore throat. this morning i bought hydrogen peroxide and i put some in my ears and i'm gonna gargle with it later. i wonder if this will work. lots of people online are saying that hydrogen peroxide is the best thing for colds and such.

yesterday, i had problems bringing food from the plate up to my mouth. for some reason, lots of the food i ate decided to take a detour onto my shirt. maybe it's a sign that i should do my laundry.

i tried making hummus from dried garbanzo beans (as opposed to canned) yesterday. i didn't know that after you soak the beans you have to cook them. instead, i soaked the beans for a few days and then tried to blend them. i thought it was unusually hard but i went with it. until i tasted the "hummus". EW! i tried to make it taste better with cayenne pepper, lemon juice, and garlic. but still. no. i had only ever made hummus from canned beans and i guess they take care of the cooking part for me. booo... i really wanted hummus too. ah well. maybe next time.

weekends are when fun happens

i've forgotten how good back to the future is. last night i watched back to the future 1 and 2. they're pretty much awesome. someday i'll watch the third. and i'll watch the commentary too. i heart commentary.

on saturday i went (back) to the old pro and rode the bull. i also ran into a bunch of paly guys. hi glen, hans, matt, greg, and rob! even though you don't know that this blog exists. i didn't last. i slid off. which means that someday, there will be a rematch. WATCH OUT!

random hs reunions at the old pro is interesting. always good to catch up with people you haven't seen in about 6 years.

lately, i've been drinking alot, staying out way too late, meeting new people (shout out to michael, travis, phil, and mama d and her other homeless friends!), and having alot of fun doing it.

sara and i have pretty much been dating for that last month. we see each other almost every day, we walked around shoreline and watched a pretty sunset, ate at date restaurants, and did other date like things. the best part: we don't annoy each other to death.

yesterday, sara, her friend brianna, michael, and i went to sf to go to ozomatli. but we got there too late and weren't allowed to see them. which sucks b/c ozomatli is so good to see live. so we left. instead, we went to the stinking rose for some yummy-ness and a candy store. i really like candy stores. i bought chocolates that look like rocks. and michael bought us each a truffle. too bad sara and i got ours confused. i guess i'll never know what a champagne truffle tastes like and sara won't know what a peanut butter truffle tastes like.

whoa.. long time no blog

i guess an update of my life is in order.
my parents' company burned down in april and we're in the process of working the whole insurance thing out. thankfully, nobody was injured in the fire and we have some good people helping us out. shout out to uncle rick!
i finished my certificate in archaeology and GIS in may/june. which is nice. since i'm currently in the hate part of my love/hate relationship with school.
right now i'm working with my parents doing all sorts of office things. but i'm also looking for a job someplace else. geographically, i want to find a job in either san francisco or new york city. and maybe DC or alaska.
i've started walking the dish. yesterday i saw it move. pretty cool. i've learned a few things about myself while walking. 1) i have no endurance 2) when i run, i inhale twice and exhale twice. it's weird and makes me sound like i'm dying 3) my walking speed is the same as this one guy's running speed times 3. i've nicknamed him speedy gonzalez.
last saturday i went to holly's housewarming/superhero costume party. i was scientistwoman b/c the only thing i could find as a costume is my lab coat. duff man won the costume contest. sara used my graduation gown as a cape and her friend tomi wore my hardhat. i'm not very good at last minute costume making. there were 2 quailmen, a duff man, she-ra, a businessman, a supergirl, and surprisingly 4 ppl were in lab coats.
last sunday was my cousin julie's sloshball bday party. it was fun as always. except when i got home, i realized that i had a sunburn. also, someone threw away almost an entire pan of 5 layer dip. who does that??!! i would have taken it home if it wasn't in the trash first.
this weekend sara and i are gonna make a trip down to LA for a wedding. that should be fun. we originally wanted to go down friday, wedding saturday, vegas sat/sun, and drive up on sunday. but now we're carpooling with other people and it's become complicated.
on to current events:
the terrorism threat in england is pretty scary stuff. but i like that it was stopped before anything happened. it gives me hope that separate agencies are talking to each other instead of hoarding information. and it's going to be a bit more inconvenient to fly but all the security precautions are making me feel a bit safer.
lieberman should accept defeat and not run as an independent. it's kinda like giving up cigarettes but replacing it with cigars.
LC and jason from laguna beach (and later her spin off, the hills) have broken up. which leads me to say this: LC should have taken the internship in paris over staying in a beach house with jason all summer. really. for a girl who wants to get into the fashion world, she made a crappy career move.

long time no post

it's been a while since i last posted. it became 2006, i had a birthday, and other stuff that i can't remember. but here's a few things that i did recently that i deemed blog-worthy.
i went on my first ever paid archaeology dig thing. that was exciting. except that it had rained the night before so i had to dry screen mud. basicly push mud through a giant strainer. i was so tired by the end of the day that i would see things that i should have taken out like charcoal and instead smushed it up so that it'd "disappear" or "accidentaly" let little shell pieces fall through the dry screen. and the mud was so compacted, it took forever to actually screen a full bucket load. wowzers was i tired and sore the next day.
i got stood up for a job interview. i was supposed to meet a guy so he could interview me but then he called me a couple hours later saying that he found someone else. then the next day i get a call from him again saying that the person he hired the day before doesn't know english well enough (it's a korean company so they probably had the whole interview in korean and the topic of english somehow never came up). so we set up an interview for the next day. 45 minutes before the interview, he called me and asks if we can have the interview sometime after 2. I say that's fine and wait for his call. but he never does. how rude is that? i was not happy about that at all. b/c i decided to go to the interview instead of doing another archaeology dig. so instead i cleaned the house. angrily.
i love the police blotter. i just read one from half moon bay.
"Miramontes Point Road., 6:26 am: Officers responded to reports of a boisterous customer at the Ritz-Carlton. When they arrived, the apparently intoxicated man introduced himself as 'Crazy' and said he was the hotel owner. He was booked into San Mateo County Jail." hahaha!!
it was my cousin's engagement party on saturday. that was fun. it was a cocktail party and jake brought whiskey. which i drank. alot. and later paid the price. but the party was fun because i'd never met pete's family. he's half japanese so you can tell which half is which. i guess you can say that for julie too. but i already know julie's family. we met one of pete's cousins who transfered to usc and is a communications major. she instantly became alice's role model.