already almost 2009?!

2008 flew by. it may have helped that i took 3 months off at the beginning of the year, but wow. it's been hectic since thanksgiving, so i haven't really had a lot of time to reflect on the year, on this christmas season, or prepare myself for the upcoming year. but i have a 2-week shutdown at work, and though i'm gone in mexico for the first week (leaving thurs night, yay!), i'll still have the second week to slow myself down a little bit.

so until then, pictures of cookies o & i made. let me say how i'm never doing this again... it was such a pain! next time, IF there is a next time, i'm finding pre-made sugar cookies and just icing it. making the dough, chilling it, rolling it out, cutting it, baking it, icing it - i'm too impatient for all of that, plus it's so messy! by the time we finally got to icing, i was tired and messy, so i did it kind of quickly.

candy canes were the easiest to ice, but i think they actually turned out the ugliest. but they were also the first that i iced, so i was getting used to icing these things.


o iced all the bases of the cookies while i did the details. she says the snowflakes were the most difficult, but i think they also turned out the best looking. still... the ugly candy canes were our friends and we regretted cutting so many snowflakes...


these were my favorite. easy to cut, easy to ice, and so cute!


and... o's specialty. can you tell what these are?


ok that's all from me for now. merry christmas to everyone!

broken body

so my back is better, in the sense that i can walk, move around, etc, but it still aches, bending over is no easy task, and in the morning, i have to roll myself out of bed.

i went to see a chiro, and what he told me made a lot of sense. it all boils down to... my knee. the sciatica i'd been experiencing in my left leg is also related. basically, my left pelvic bone is misaligned which is interfering with my sciatic nerve, and one of the muscles in my left hip majorly spasmed. it's not actually my lower back, but lower than that, kind of in between my lower back and my butt. the chiro thinks that it's just been a build up of overusing the entire left side of my body, and my muscles finally tensed up and spasmed.

so, why am i overusing the left side of my body? see broken right knee. i've known that i've been favoring my left leg over the past three and a half years only because i can see physical evidence - like, the left heel of my shoes wear down much faster than the right heel of my shoes, or my left heel is cracked while my right heel is not. the problem is i can't tell that i'm doing it, and i don't know how to fix it.

*sigh*. shaking fist in more anger at stupid first orthopedic surgeon who jacked up my knee. who knew how much suffering i would endure from picking the wrong surgeon. :(

i've got... worms?

i made my first trip ever to the ER this morning. last night, something in my back just gave out under me, and ever since then i've had severe pain in my lower back as well as my butt and legs. i could barely get around my house last night, using my rolling office chair as a walker and rolling my way very slowly and painfully around the house. i went to the bathroom, and after i was done, it hurt so bad to try to take the two steps to my office chair that i collapsed on my bathroom floor and thought i was going to spend my night there. i finally managed to get myself back to the chair and rolled myself to my bed.

this morning, i tried to roll myself out of my bed back to the office chair and got stuck. no matter how i moved, it hurt like mad. again, i somehow managed to roll myself back onto my bed where i thought i was just going to lay on my back in my bed all day. long story short, thankfully, i was basically told i was going to be taken to the hospital, and after taking some vicodin (my stash of vicodin sure has been coming in handy), managed to get out of bed and painfully out the front door. took like 20 minutes and help from three people, but at least i made it out. at the ER, they didn't do squat besides give me valium, and an injection of some pain meds. they told me i was in too much pain for them to check me out, so gave me the meds to see if it could relieve enough pain for them to check out my problems. except i think they got too busy and instead just discharged me an hour after i was injected. they prescribed me some medicine, and then sent me on my very not-merry way.

i get home and some other people bring by my prescription. two of the pills they prescribed to me seemed normal. prescription strength ibuprofen, and a muscle relaxer. the third (vermox) puzzled me quite a bit. there were two tablets, and commonly used for people who have worms or parasites in their body. what the?? i don't have any worms, no big D, no stomach cramps, nothing. go figure, but i decided not to take that medicine. i think the PA at the ER made a mistake b/c i definitely don't have worms.

anyway, i'm back at home, and am going to try to get an appointment tomorrow with a primary care doctor. i'm still in excruciating pain, but it's slightly better since i'm loaded up on pain meds right now and i'm laying on my bed again.

i cannot thank God enough for the awesome brothers & sisters from sg. from forcing me & driving me to the hospital & waiting there all morning (even going as far as driving my rolling office chair to the hospital since that was the only way i could get around. and no, they didn't actually take it out since the hospital brought out a wheelchair), to bringing me food, to bringing me my meds, to praying for me. to even figuring out that some of us were not at service and piecing together that they probably took me to the hospital...THANKS GUYS!

all byyyy myself...

it's quite lonely living by yourself... it'll have to take some getting used to. i keep thinking jenie's on vacation or something and will return. i also need to do a major cleaning session of the house. and i could find another roommate, but i need to figure out what i'm going to do within the next year before that. it doesn't make that much sense to get another roommate if i won't be there in a year.

today also marks the one-year birthday of my knee. it also marks the first time since 2005 that there has been no intrusion into my knee for a continuous year.

actually, i'm not even sure what to count as its birthday, but this is the one-year birthday of the 5th (and LAST!) surgery on my right knee, the second complete reconstruction. to be honest, it's a pretty darn crappy knee that won't let me go up and down stairs, among other things, but i'm thankful that God's finally given me peace in this whole knee situation, even if it didn't turn out the way i wanted it to. hey, at least i still have a knee.

to celebrate the one-year birthday of my right knee, my left leg decided to have a bout of sciatica. no fun indeed. it's so painful to bend over, sit in certain positions, or to lift my leg. i'm trying to do certain stretches hoping that i won't have to see a doctor about it and that it'll eventually go away.

Us vs. Rats pt. 2

Previous Score:
Rat(s): 6
Us: 0

Current Score:
Rats: 8
Us: 1

continuation of below story...

7. Saturday night, jenie & i get home really late, about 1:30am. i go check out the traps. one of the traps is standing up vertical against the wall right next to our couch, with the trap side facing the wall (so we see the back of the trap). i poke at the trap with the end of a broomstick. the trap kinda moves, but doesn't flip or fall over. starting to get a feeling there's a rat there. too grossed out to try more. jenie doesn't have her contacts in, but pokes some more at the trap. pretty sure there's a rat as there is resistance from the trap flipping over. really grossed out. we go to bed.

yes.

we leave a dead rat in our house overnight. hey. it was 1:30 am. we weren't going to do it that late and we weren't going to call someone to come over that late.

sunday morning, i wake up, and we're supposed to go cheer on our small group's softball team (since our service is at 4pm for the next month and a half). i go check out the trap again and see a furry body. confirm there's a dead rat in the trap. i say we cannot leave a dead rat just hanging out in our house. so... jenie and i, as completely grossed out as we are, clean up joseph (what we named the rat). we started with a bag, but neither of us wanted to get NEAR the thing, so we grab a box and set it on its side close to the joseph & the trap. i hold the box down with one stick and jenie pushes joseph & the trap into the box with another stick. we get most of him in and flip the box up to get the rest of him in it. i put the box in a garbage bag, and we throw him into the garbage.

SICK.

we pull out the couch and find a lot more rat droppings. we proceed to vacuum it up, but our stinking vacuum cleaner breaks and starts smoking in the middle of this process. we try to fix the vacuum cleaner. finally give up, and go to the softball game very late.

Rat(s): 6
Us: 1

8. I check out the glue traps next to the hole in the sliding screen door. there are NEW rat prints on the glue trap. confirm there's more than one rat, especially since jenie heard more noise sat night, when joseph was already dead in the trap.

Rats (now confirmed plural): 7
Us: 1

after the game, charlie & michael come over to help us clean the rest of the rat poo and try to fix the vacuum. we fix the vacuum long enough to clean up the rest of the poo before it totally breaks. charlie & michael look around our backyard and find a hole in one of the grates that leads to underneath our house. we find the entrance to our crawl space in a closet, open it up, and shine a flashlight in. we can only see the area right underneath the opening, but it is LITTERED with rat droppings.

DISGUSTING.

confirmation there are rats living underneath our house.

Rats: 8
Us: 1

we still have a trap set up as well as the useless glue ones (rats are obviously too big for the large-glue-traps-made-for-rats to work on them). for your viewing pleasure... joseph (since his head was caught in the trap, and we were too grossed out to fully flip the trap over, all you can see is his body and tail. check out how long the tail is! plus this is a large rat trap. not a mouse trap. joseph is big.)



click on the joseph link above for more.

saga to be continued...

Us vs. Rat(s)

Current score:
Rats: 6
me & jenie: 0


1. Wednesday late night, i hear jenie scream at the TOP of her lungs. jenie is not a screamer. she doesn't scream at spiders. i come out of my room, into the family room where she is. she's standing on the couch. i ask her what she's doing. she said she saw a rat run across the room. i jump on the couch and scream.

Rat(s): 1
Us: 0

2. Eventually I go back to my room. a few minutes later, jenie screams at the top of her lungs again. rat came out and ran around our family room again. i grab a broom, and while we're both standing on the couches, we start poking at things on the floor & removing them. we have some extra pillows & blankets by our side table, i remove those, and we find rat droppings. we also find two holes chewed through our sliding screen door.

Rat(s): 2
Us: 0

3. Thursday morning, jenie buys 2 types of rat traps - the snapping kind and the glue kind, and set them up around our house. later she finds holes chewed through other screens. one small one in our window screen in our family room, and one small one in our window screen in our third bedroom. she closes all the windows.

Rat(s): 3
Us: 0

4. Thursday night, after small group, i come home. no rats in traps. i look at the holes in our window screens. they're pretty small, to the point where i was thinking maybe those holes were already there and we just didn't notice them before.

friday morning, i get up and go to our family room. no rats in rat trap. look at window. say "oh. my. gosh." stinking rat has chewed through the ENTIRE bottom portion of our window screen!!! as in like a foot long and a few inches high. rat must have chewed through our screen during the night trying to get into the house, but the window was shut so it couldn't get in. at this point, we're not sure if there's one rat in our house and others outside, or if it's the same rat going in and out of the house.

Rat(s): 4
Us: 0

5. Friday night, we show olivia the traps. we leave our house at about 10:45pm. we come back home about 12:30. no rats in rat trap. we look closer - one of the snap traps is upside-down! we discover our peanut butter bait gone, the trap had snapped, but NO RAT. we re-set the trap.

Rat(s): 5
Us: 0

6. Our house is stinking hot because we can't open any windows or doors. so we leave the sliding door open, with the screen shut. we set up two glue traps next to the two holes that were chewed through. we go to bed. saturday morning, i wake up. there are rat footprints on the glue trap!!! it (they) escaped AGAIN!!!!!

Rat(s): 6
Us: 0

Saga to be continued when the rat(s) makes the next move.

july update

okay, so i guess i'm on this once-a-month-update cycle. guess that's better than nothing.

-happy er, 21st... birthday to alinna!

-congrats to bob & shally! i've been waiting for that engagement announcement :)

-congrats to the tais! didn't take any pics from their baby shower, but yay! next step is to get them to finally leave atlanta for the green pastures of california.

-congrats to kevin & kristen! beautiful wedding in sonoma county. i'm too lazy to post pics here. go check out my smugmug for pics from their wedding weekend.

-i bought a bike! after a miserable experience at Peformance Bikes, which i will not recount here, i finally ditched them and bought a trek hybrid at chain reaction (thanks to andrea & andrew for the recommendation!)

-between weddings & other events, this summer has been/will be pretty busy. i seriously cannot believe it's already july.

-new job's ok. maybe a post for another time. company is fine, job is fine, just trying to find God's purpose for me in general. though it's nice to go from one company with practically free food to another company with a lot of free (& better) food.

-went sailing for the first time & had fun! again, too lazy to post pics here, but they're all up on smugmug.

-i'm losing a roommate in about a month. :( :( :( we've been roommates for almost 5 years! can't believe it's been that long. craziness.

-ummm ok. that's all i can think of. i've uploaded pretty much all my pictures from april until now within this last week, so check my smugmug for all the other pics. till my august update!

in sickness and in health

ugh. i'm sick. not cough, cough, sniffle, sniffle, sick, but miserably sick. to put it in perspective, during my 6 years at nvidia, not including the time i took off for my knee surgeries, i never took a day off for being sick. at most, i worked from home, like when i had food poisoning - and those days were very few and far in between. actually, maybe only that one time when i had food poisoning.

i've been at my new job, what one month, and i've taken 4 days off. good thing my current company gives sick days separate from PTO because i'd otherwise be way negative in PTO right now. i actually tried to do some work, but was told several times to stop working. haha, i've never been told that previously, so that was kind of weird to me.

anyway, on a different topic - so i left nvidia, what - 4 months ago? and somehow i still managed to cause drama in my old group a few days ago! good gravy. i didn't think that was possible. i thought i left to escape all that madness! anyway, i did the best i could to rectify the situation, though why i even did anything is beyond me, since i didn't do anything wrong. ask me personally if you want to know what happened.

la di da...

okay, i barely update this thing nowadays, and i'm debating whether even to upkeep it since i don't know if anyone reads this.

so for those who don't know already, i started at a new company last week. i figured it was about time to get a job so my brain doesn't turn into complete mush. :) a lot of the culture and environment is quite similar to nvidia, though i think they are definitely way behind in terms of process & systems. for sure. though they're about the same size (employee-wise, and a little smaller revenue-wise), they are where nvidia was at maybe... four plus years ago. eek! so i'm just trying to make spreadsheets and stuff as un-manual as possible. eventually when i get up to speed, half of my job will be on implementing a system they probably should have implemented years ago. for some reason, i just can't get away from systems & implementation. people in my group tend to come in late and stay late, but i'm still trying to see if i can get away with earlier hours. traffic does kind of suck, but it's not too bad. 85 sucks, but i fly down 237. and, well, at least i still get free meals :)

so... yeah. my life is finally settling down. settled at a church, took a nice, long, 3-month break, and settling at a new job. God's bringing me out of the wilderness...

i'm in love...

...with my neighbor's new 7-week-old lab puppy! SO CUTE. he just brought her home on saturday, and i played with her both saturday and sunday. i also got to meet neighbors from 4 different houses, courtesy of one very cute puppy.

SO CUTE!

this video is WAY too cute. hannah & topher somehow discovered that they could make each other laugh by slamming themselves onto the ground. then they started adding "aiyo!" as they body-slammed themselves.



btw, thanks to everyone for celebrating my bday with me. though the semi-surprise (i thought i was having dinner with just some of the girls) was semi-ruined:

12:14 PM me: hm
i'll bring them on art's hard drive on thurs
i have his external hd
12:15 PM unnamed guy: or i can get it from you on fri
12:16 PM me: fri?
12:16 PM unnamed guy: ugh sorry i meant thurs
i'm not thinking
that's what you just said huh?
yeah bring them on thurs
i'll bring my computer on thurs
and get it from art's drive

hahahaha nice attempt at a cover-up.
but regardless, i had a blast, and was impressed at the number of people who willingly got their faces painted!

aloha!

sooo sad to be back from hawaii. :( lots to share, but the big island was definitely very different from oahu. more desolate, not as touristy, and lots and lots of lava/empty land. but it was a total blast and i have come home darker than i've been probably since the summer i spent in china in college.

we took a TON of pics, which are/will all be uploaded on my smugmug. other ppl are still uploading them, but mine are up. check pictures out here:

big island '08 pics


who would have thunk in hawaii. but yes, it was freaking cold. colder than tahoe. cold enough for us to run back into the car, without bothering to wait for people to climb into the very back row (the third row), five of us just crammed into the middle seat.



but the freaking, freezing, frostbite cold was worth it for pics like these. i think that was the most awesome sunset i've ever witnessed. at 14,000 ft above sea level. and yes, that's a layer of clouds that we're above.



my other favorite part of the big island was the volcanoes & lava tubes. lava tubes were these pitch black cave/tubes. you had to bring your own flashlights and headlamps to make your way thorugh it. we also climbed down to a huge lava crater. it was so incredible - so vast.













ok, there are tons of stories, and tons of highlights (we literally hit at least one beach every day we were there), but it would take me forever to blog them. so just ask me or check out our pics.

one thing, though - i've never seen so much blood spilled from one group vacation, ever. we managed to accumulate: gashes on the foot, between the toes, chest, elbows, knees, calves, arms, hands, an almost-broken nose, and total body sunburns. we went through 5 boxes of band-aids. i think i definitely won the casualty award, though, with: 1) twisted right ankle (swollen still, i fell into a ditch at night) - along with that twisted ankle, i scraped the skin off part of my pinkie toe and the entire right side of my right calf and the top of my foot, also from falling in that ditch. 2) cuts, scrapes, and gashes on my right knee and left thigh from getting slammed into coral reef by one of the waves while snorkeling, 3) rubbing those same cuts, scrapes, and gashes totally raw from surfing (kept rubbing the injuries against the surf board and waterproof bandaids came off), 4) slice on my thumb from climbing volcanoes, and 5) the worst sunburn i've ever gotten on my entire backside from surfing. it hurt to sit, and it was so bad, when i showed jean, she literally fell on the floor laughing. yes, i am pretty beat up.

but it was all worth it! had the time of my life, and praise the Lord, all 11 of us are still friends. :)

crazy wedding madness

wedding one of three for this week - done!

congrats to alex & cyn!! it was a gorgeous wedding, and my eyes, though still blurry, were decent enough to read my music & i made no mistakes during the ceremony. phew!



rest of my pics from their wedding.

on to the next two - tomorrow & sunday. slideshow is finally completed. after working on it all of last week, plus 17 hours straight on monday, i'm ready to say it's done. i almost had a near heart attack monday night at around 1am, when stupid movie maker stopped working, and i was ready to throw in the towel and say there will be NO slideshow. there was no way i was going to spend another 30-40+ hours rebuilding the whole entire thing. stayed up till 3am, and finally got it to work again, and immediately rendered a copy in case it crapped out on me again. yes, i'm definitely retiring from slideshow making after this one.

but all this makes going to hawaii after wedding week madness is done all the more desirable... can't wait! 8 nights of r&r. though people are coming & going on different days, there's a total of ten people going - should be fun.

time flies...

when you're not working :)

my recovery from PRK has been incredibly slow. they told me my eyes are really slow at healing, especially my right, and it didn't help that my right eye got inflamed and extremely irritated at one point. but almost two weeks later, my vision is blurry, at best. it's so frustrating because i've been pretty limited in what i can do on my first week of no work. i don't want to spend my entire "break" blind! plus, i'm freaked to death that i won't be able to read my music adequately for alex & cyn's wedding next weekend (err... pretend you didn't read that, alex!)

time does pass quite quickly when you're not working - i'm losing track of my days, and i can't believe tomorrow is already thursday. i've been kept quite busy with multiple wedding obligations, and mike & joy's slideshow will definitely keep me busy over the next two and a half weeks, up to their wedding - part of the crazy 3 weddings in the span of 8 days i have coming up.

other than that... i don't think it's fully sunk in that i'm now unemployed. mary & i had mary & karen's day of fun in the city on monday - complete with trips to tartine, sotto mare, my first ever drive down lombard street, and dine about town dinner at one market (definitely a good DAT value, and i thought the food was tasty). unfortunately for me, mary got a job offer the first day of my unemployment. so much for our wonderful plans of spending time unemployed together. we even had great ideas like starting an SAT tutoring business - with her verbal and my math, we practically scored a 1600. then we found out the SAT is out of 2400 now. 1600 out of 2400 is not so good. so much for that idea.

all in all, besides the vision, it's been a great first few days off of work. i could definitely get used to this. :)

YEEHAW!!

:)


i can't believe it!! i'm almost done with work. i had a group farewell today, i have work next thurs, and a welcome lunch (for the new hire semi-taking my place) and exit interview on friday, and then i am no longer working at what forbes deemed the company of the year. (too bad our stock price doesn't reflect that...)

i went into work after small group tonight to clean up all the balloons and pack as much of my cube up as i could. i got hit with a bit of sadness and nostalgia as i packed the last six years of my life away in a box. it's been one hell of a crazy six years, but it's been... six years. almost all of my post-college life has been spent in that building, in that office.

but... i'm ready for a new journey God is going to take me on. bring it on. :)

tomorrow i get PRK... this'll be my ninth surgery, though it's my first elective surgery. i'm actually kinda nervous because i'm not looking forward to days of blindness and pain in my eyes. but a week of pain for a lifetime of freedom. i'd say it's worth it. :)

should have known...

after hearing and seeing all the antics that ted is capable of, i should have suspected something since this is my last real working week at nvidia. all the clues should have made me suspicious, at the very least - but no, i chose to ignore them.

-sunday night, i overheard ted telling jenie that he was going to go to work after core group. i butt in on their conversation saying maybe i'll go to work too, because i had a lot to get done, and i was supposed to train a new hire this whole week with no time to get my own work done. plus i needed to use ted's laptop b/c mine is too slow to run the necessary software. ted had this funny look on his face when i mentioned that, asking why i would want to go into work on a sunday night. i thought nothing of it and gave him a funny look back, asking why HE would go into work on a sunday night.

-on the car ride home from core group, kristy was driving, kristen in the front seat, and me & jenie in the back seat. i was to the right of jenie. jenie gets a text message, picks up her phone, opens it, looks at it, then turns to her right so that she's facing me but the phone is facing away from me. i thought that it was the oddest thing, but gave her the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe she needed light from the car window or something. while reading the message, the following conversation takes place:

jenie: what are you guys doing tonight?
kristy, kristen, karen: scratch our heads - why is jenie asking that? it's already past 8, and we're tired and she said she had a lot of work to do.
kristy: SLEEP
kristen: you still want to do something?
jenie: no, i mean what do you guys plan to do?
kristy, kristen, karen: still confused - why is she asking this?
kristen: um, i'm going to change my clothes, wash my face, and then go to sleep? is that what you want to know?
me: uh... brush my teeth and then go to bed?

conversation ends. i thought it was a weird conversation, but figured maybe someone texted jenie about hanging out and she wanted to see if we were up for it.

in the end, i decided not to go to work, but to go to olivia's for a little bit since i hadn't seen her or eliza dolittle my fair lady in a while.

well, the end result was that i got a shock when i walked into my cube monday morning. they definitely punked me. the balloons and streamers - eh, maybe makes packing up my cube a little more difficult, but otherwise harmless. but the pictures - at least they posted it inside people's cubes, and not in the hallways and stuff. but the pictures weren't just confined to my group, but to other groups in other buildings. the worst part is, they were MY pictures from MY smugmug!

anyway, i pretty much know who was involved. coworkers & coworkers finacees, and roommates. or i should say roommate.

oh, and apparently, i love flowers and yogurt.

pictures courtesy of... either ted, other coworkers, or coworker's fiancee. not sure. i stole them off facebook basically since i left my camera at o's.

edit...

um, so as an edit to the below post, my last day will now probably be jan 23. i found out over shutdown when i went to my pre-surgery consult that i can't get lasik, so i have to get PRK. the difference, in a nutshell, is that i get the same results, just more painful and longer recovery. with lasik i would have been able to see, drive, and operate normally by the next day. with PRK, i won't be able to drive to my own post-surgery follow-up, 5 days later. hence, i won't be able to go into work for my exit interview until i can actually see. but it doesn't change the # of working days i have left. i just use more PTO.

what else did i do during shutdown? well i finally paid off my car, then proceeded to get into a car accident. stinking point on my record too :( i was backing out of my driveway, and did not see my neighbor, who had just turned the corner into our cul-de-sac. sigh. my car will need a new bumper & taillight, his car... will need a new door and then some.

i also managed to slam my leg into this 1.5 foot high marble box statue structure thing at the mall in union square, fall over the marble thing, and hit the guy standing on the other side of it. a - no joke - 6 inch bruise is now finally starting to appear on my shin. i was in so much pain i couldn't even walk after that happened. the shin's got no padding... so imagine slamming your bone into solid marble. yeah. ouch.

but onto the good things...

i got *real* lights on our christmas tree. now seriously. compare the two and tell me which you like better.

tree #1


or tree #2


no contest, right?! :)

didn't have to work, which is always great. :) spent time with family... we spent a night in the city since my parents had a free room at the ritz-carlton. had dinner there, which easily may have been the best meal i've ever had.

in general, hung out with people, relaxed, read, went to a bday party, opened our house to people for new years eve, stayed up till 5am (when i had to crash... i don't think i've stayed up that late since college), watched art & bernd try that last song on guitar hero 3 for more than an hour until daniel came and schooled them all. i posted that video on facebook.

10 working days left!! and one of those is basically my exit interview. my last real working day will be thurs, jan 17. i actually have a buttload of work to get done, though i'm pretty sure i won't be able to finish everything they want me to get done by my last day. *shrug* oh well. i gave them a 3-freaking-month notice, so it's not my fault they still haven't found a replacement, or tried to start some projects so late. countdown begins...

drama-mama

i like to stay drama-free. and there's been too much drama in my life about work and when exactly my last day of work will be.

more stuff came up at work this week that pissed me off, so i did some calculating, and i'm going to stick it to the man.

jan 21.

yeehaw!

christmas trees, project inspire, and more

got around to uploading some pics, so this will be a picture post.

some people went up to pescadero to pick kiwis and a christmas tree. i went mainly to pick a christmas tree, as this would be the first one jenie & i would have in our household. if you haven't heard my story of the christmas tree "farm," ask me. quite an adventure. anyway, we finally found one and sawed it down with the little rusty saw the guy provided to us. though i gotta say... a 9' $15 christmas tree - not bad.







so... some certain people insisted that we get LED lights to put on our tree. well, you judge for yourselves. yay or nay? can you guess me & jenie's vote?





after sawing down the tree & decorating it, some people headed to bethlehem. i was expecting just a live nativity scene, but it ended up being a whole town, complete with real camels & other animals. pretty cool.









one of the cool things about nvidia is that every year, instead of throwing a huge, elaborate holiday party, they take the money, pick a charity and raise funds/work with the charity. so this year, they partnered with rebuilding together and east palo alto charter school to completely redo the school. it was pretty neat, seeing so many people come out to spend most of their saturday helping out. a lot of the kids from the school came with their families, and most of the teachers came out as well.





at night, they had a celebration at shoreline amphitheater - basically it was like family day, but in a big tent. and this time, i didn't sign up 12 "family members." :) it was fun, but a tiring day.





so during the evening event, ted went off to the bathroom and disappeared for a long time. i was thinking to myself, man, ted sure takes his time in the bathroom. just as i thought that, i see arthur rolling over in laughter, and i turn around and see this:



so everyone decides to get in on the action... each face just kept getting better and better... santa... spiderman... so awesome. the best was that steve went to valley fair & best buy decked out as spiderman.



we went to trendy bean cafe after, and jenie came and joined us. i just happened to turn my head to look outside, and i see jenie bent over in laughter. she couldn't even make it into the cafe because she was laughing too hard.



lots more pictures here:
christmas tree
we took down one of the strands of the LED lights off our tree and brought it to the christmas potluck/white elephant. unfortunately, though karen y picked the gift, ted stole the lights and put it up in his cube, so i now i have to stare at the ugly lights even more. that plan kind of backfired on me...

bethlehem
project inspire