| Significant Other Meme |
[28 Feb 2009|12:18am] |
Man, I haven't done one of these in forever, but I needed a break from working all day while on my "stay-cation". This looked like fun. :D
Taken from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) aznaphrodite who took it from boba_cha:
1. Your SO is sitting in front of the TV, what is on the screen?
Probably a Ducks or Kings game, Heroes, House, American Idol, or possibly a Premiere League soccer game
2. You're out to eat; what kind of dressing does your SO get on his/her salad?
Honey mustard
3. What's one food your SO DOES NOT like?
Lobster
4. You go out to eat and have a drink. What drink does your SO order?
Alcoholic: Sam Adams, Non-alcoholic: Diet Coke
5. Where did your SO go to high school?
Eisenhower
6. What size shoe does your SO wear?
7
7. If your SO were to collect anything, what would it be?
Hockey memorabilia
8. What is your SO's favorite type of sandwich?
YATM (Yet Another Tuna Melt), French Dip, or Turkey & cranberry (btw, I asked him to confirm, and I totally missed, though he said he did like all those, but he's just sick of YATM. He said Panera's Chipotle Chicken, pastrami, and grilled cheese.)
9. What would your SO eat every day if they could?
Mac & cheese (the Blue box).
10. What is your SO's favorite cereal?
Cooooookie Crisp
11. What would your SO never wear?
Emo skinny jeans
12. What is your SO's favorite sports team?
Anaheim Ducks
13. Who did your SO vote for?
Obama
14. Who is your SO's best friend?
Yours truly
15. What is something you do that your SO wishes you wouldn't do?
Work all the time
16. What is your SO's heritage?
Flipagringo (Filipino/Caucasian of Western European descent)
17. You bake your SO a cake for their birthday; what kind of cake?
Chocolate
18. Did your SO play sports in high school?
Not on a high school team, only with friends on the street/at the park
19. What could your SO spend hours doing?
Playing hockey, golf, or video games
20. What is one unique talent your SO has?
He can type around 120 wpm
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| Emergency Root Canal |
[03 Feb 2009|01:26pm] |
I'm at home right now. I had an emergency root canal this morning. :( Last night after dance class, my tooth really started hurting. It's been hurting on and off for a while now, but I couldn't understand why because I had already gotten a root canal on it. It usually would get worse after a lot of activity, then go away after a while, but last night, it was blinding pain that wouldn't go away. I was literally crying even after I took 800mg of ibuprofen.
Well, this morning, I walked into my endodontist's office and after a few tests and x-rays, he determined that I needed a root canal on the tooth next to the one he last did. After he numbed my lower jaw though, I was still feeling pain, so he re-tested the upper teeth. He still felt it was that back lower molar, but it didn't make sense that I was supposed to be fully numb but still feeling intense pain. He then asked ME what I wanted to do. I was like, um... you're the doctor. YOU tell me! Anyway, I decided to just get the root canal anyway because all I knew was that I was in pain and that tooth was the likeliest culprit. He numbed me up some more, but halfway through the procedure, the pain returned, so he had to inject anesthesia directly into the canal. The other painful part was the bridge that forced my jaw open. When we were finally done, I couldn't even close my mouth.
Now I'm drugged up at home and watching Wolf Blitzer. I want to go back to work because I have stuff to do, but after the stress of the last few weeks and the pain and stress of this situation, I think I need to just sit at home and relax. I'm going to be missing quite a bit of work this week though. I happened to have a doctor's appointment for Thursday afternoon already, and now I have the appointment with my dentist for the crown on Friday. Jeez... I actually feel bad for missing work... why am I such a workaholic?!? :(
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| Will says I haven't posted in a while... |
[01 Feb 2009|10:53pm] |
So I guess I lied... I didn't post any pics of the house yet. :( I've just been so busy with work and the house too, it's been exhausting. I've been working on a big project the last month as part of the Disney Celebrations marketing campaign. We built this application called Celebration Central to help guests learn about little-known products and services at the Disneyland Resort.
You can build scrapbooks and share them with friends too. It's got a lot of bugs though to be honest, but given the compressed time-line we were given to get this thing built, I'm really proud of the team. I was tech lead on the project and worked harder on this project than anything I've ever done. I got to the point of being so stressed, I felt sick to my stomach (I still do...). We finally launched it this past Thursday, though it was supposed to be launched last Monday, and technically speaking, we still have hyper-care (i.e. fix as many low priority bugs that we skipped before launch as we can).
Anyway, I'm going to take some time off later this month to recover. Will and I are spending Valentine's Day weekend at Disneyland Resort (as if I haven't had enough, right?). I booked a night at the Disneyland Hotel and I'll be reserving a Sweetheart Dinner for Two at Napa Rose this week (check it out on CC!). Hopefully, they're not fully booked yet. We wanted to get massages at Mandara Spa at the Grand Californian too, but the price list is ridiculous.
The other stress in my life is with all the drama with the house. I've handed the reins over to Will though, and things are getting taken care of. The garage is fine now, but we've been dealing with getting the AC permitted. The city requires us to get a new access built to our crawl space because all the existing ones are too small if we ever need to take the fan coil in and out for servicing. The foundation company we had come out to give us an estimate for the access found that a lot of the support beams down there are rotted, there are vertical splits in the foundation walls, the sump pump isn't properly encased with a drum, etc. etc. They also highly recommended that we get the house bolted and reinforced for earthquakes, which is something I wanted to do anyway. The guy showed me photos that gave me the impression that this house would have toppled in the next major earthquake. Grand total cost of work we'll need? $13k+. Oh, we also had to get all the ducts strapped up and properly insulated, but that was only $350. The mechanical permit for the AC was around $100+ too. Fortunately, the foundation company is giving us interest-free financing for 11 months, though we had to put $4,500 down. With that, my plans for a big vacation this summer has gone out the window... or down my crawlspace rather. :\ I had planned to take my parents on a Disney cruise.
Oh well... at least I'll have peace of mind once they're done. There are so many other things we need to do for the house too. Right now, the hard-wood floors are warped (probably because of the poor foundation), so I'd like to get them redone and leveled somehow. I also wanted to insulate underneath the house because it gets so cold. In a few years, Will and I also wanted to add a real 2nd bath to the master bedroom. Currently, it's just a toilet and a sink tucked into the closet, which is kind of weird to me. (Needless to say, house rules include no going #2 in the master "bathroom").
In other news, Kristie, Casey, Steph, Will, and I have been taking hip hop dance classes at the Athletic Garage. It's been really fun and great exercise. Will's even enjoying it. I miss performing so much. I think once the economy improves and work isn't so insane anymore, I'll be able to take more classes and maybe sign up to perform in one of their shows. I was just thinking about how I used to attend the USA Dance Camp every summer in high school. I miss those days... If only I knew then what I know now.
Anyway, I should probably get some sleep for another tiresome week.
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| Anyone interested in an HDTV? |
[17 Dec 2008|10:20pm] |
I'm selling my 50" DLP HDTV for $500: http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/ele/959395745.html
We bought it for around $1200 a little over a year ago, but it came with an Xbox 360 and Halo 3. We'd keep it if we could because it's a good TV, but it's about 2" too deep to sit on the mantle safely. We want to get an LCD TV that we can mount on the wall above the fireplace and can't afford to have both. It's only 720p, but most TV networks don't actually broadcast in 1080p, so it'll only matter for Blu-ray and games.
We're in Glendale, on the border of Burbank.
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| It's (almost) 3am |
[16 Dec 2008|02:27am] |
Damn it's effing cold! I'm watching the Kings/Sharks game on my DVR so no one ruins the score for me tomorrow.
I really should be asleep now though. I had a shitty day today (yesterday). The garage flooded again, so Will and I were at home until about noon sweeping it out and attempting to sub-pump it out. We ended up calling a plumber who charged us $110 to clear out the (ridiculously tiny) drain next to the garage door with a roto rooter snake. I didn't get into work until around 2pm. I didn't bother changing my jeans either, so I smelled like a gutter.
Work wasn't any better either cause I had a million things to do. I didn't leave the office until 9. I have a 10:30am meeting tomorrow. Then one at 11. Then Weight Watchers meeting at lunch. Then I'm training someone at 2pm. Then I have another meeting at 3:30. And my team meeting at 4. Somewhere in between all that, I'm supposed to fix a bug or something.
At least I had a good weekend. I got my hair did. It's super short now, but still with blonde highlights. I cooked a salmon dinner in our new kitchen. I also met with a freelance client. My roller hockey season started too, and I got to play in a 2nd game as a sub for a friend's team. I got an assist in both games. I also got to see a pretty funny comedy sketch show that Shannon was in, which also featured James Kyson Lee (Ando from Heroes), Sandra Oh, and Alec Mapa (lots of stuff, but currently on Ugly Betty). Oh, and I finally got caught up on House.
Ah damn. Kings lost in shootout. Oh well. BED TIME!
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| Great Newsweek cover story |
[12 Dec 2008|10:38pm] |
http://www.newsweek.com/id/172653
I have never read the Bible cover to cover. I doubt most Americans have. The author of this article may or may not have, but she's probably done more research than most have and at least has read most of it. I think it's great to finally read some arguments citing the Bible in favor of gay marriage, or at least one saying that the Bible shouldn't be used against it or else we should all still be sacrificing goats and buying slaves. Yes, that is a bit facetious, but I think it was a worthy point noting that the same texts that cite homosexuality as an "abomination" also recommends the best method to sacrifice a goat and the best price to pay for a slave. There were a lot of good points in the article, but I think the biggest take-away is the idea that we should be following the Bible as a general set of guidelines and not so literally.
I'm thinking about emailing a link to this article to my aunt and uncle, but I'm not sure how it will be received. As Will put it, he's never met a religious person who thought for themselves. They just do as their told by their pastor, reverend, the pope, or whomever. I feel obligated to do send it, but am I really going to change her mind? I can only hope that she would take the article seriously and read what other religious folks, who do support gay marriage, say.
I'm not religious anymore, though I don't consider myself atheist as I don't think you can say for sure whether there is or isn't a god. I'm agnostic. I think I was raised with good values though, partly because of church, but mostly because my parents had good values, neither of whom are religious. (One could argue that Chinese culture is practically Buddhist though.)
Anyway, I think I've talked myself into it. It's my moral obligation to email them at the risk of being "disrespectful of their beliefs".
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| Obligatory Post Because It's Been Too Long |
[08 Dec 2008|11:49pm] |
Hi everyone... Happy late Thanksgiving and Merry early Christmas... and Happy New Year in 23 days. Might as well get it all out there.
I've been really busy with the house and all. It's been nuts, but through it all, despite all my bitching, there's a great sense of pride in knowing it's mine. :D I'll probably post more about the house and some pictures once we've got things closer to a state that we want it to be. The house-warming probably won't be for another month, but I'm having a mini-get together with some close friends in lieu of gifts this year, since we're all feeling the squeeze.
Speaking of which, my company let go all of their staff augs from Accenture. Which means my team went from 5 to 2 people... me being the tech lead for 1 other person. :\ They've let go of a lot of contractors too, and I know of a few Cast Members (not in tech) that are gone. They say that there are no plans for layoffs within tech, but if the economy gets any worse, all bets are off. Park attendance is only down 1%, but I've heard that they had projected 12% growth, so that's a huge difference. Everything's all about budget now. I'm not allowed to work overtime without my director's approval. Travel is only if absolutely necessary and entertainment is completely cut. They even canceled the DIMG holiday party, though we still have the park holiday party. I was pretty pissed at first about the no overtime thing, but things are pretty hard all around, so I should just be grateful that I still have my job. It's not like my base pay is bad. I've just been worried because all of our savings were spent on the down payment for the house. The hardest part is that it's not like the amount of work has gone down. I'm pretty exhausted.
In other news, I was in Candlelight over the weekend. It was a unbelievable. I almost burst into tears as we processed from "it's a small world" down to Town Square. John Stamos is a pretty funny guy. He messed up during rehearsal and cracked a joke about how we could have had Bob Saget instead. Performing itself was not as nerve-wracking as I though it'd be, but my back really hurt from standing upright for so long and trying to project my voice. I was right up on a mic too, and Will swears he heard me. Anyway, I can't wait to do it again next year.
I should sleep now. I want to blog more, but I'm exhausted, and tomorrow night's the DL holiday party. Oh, I finally have a Facebook account now, so feel free to find me there.
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| Chickens - 1, Gays - 0 |
[07 Nov 2008|09:19pm] |
( Op-Ed from Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese on Approval of Proposition 8 )
Like many of you out there, I was very saddened and angered by Prop. 8's passage. I even sent an angry reply to an email that my very religious conservative aunt sent me to vote yes on 8. I flat out told her no, I would not and that discrimination does not belong in our constitution. She tried to make this about tradition and vocabulary, arguing that they are trying to take back the traditional definition of marriage as the Bible defines it, which is preposterous. a) Traditions change over time. b) Meanings and interpretations of words also change over time. c) Religious definitions do not belong in the constitution or in any law because not everyone practices the same religion or even a religion at all.
It's unbelievable to me that the supporters of 8 have deluded people into thinking that this is about "protecting" marriage. Gay marriage doesn't hurt anyone! Your children will learn what YOU teach them, not just what they're taught in school. Do they think they're going to "turn gay" just because they learn about it in school? Do they not think that they're not already exposed to homosexuality EVERYWHERE they turn, in the movies, on the news, by their peers? And is it so wrong that they learn about something that exists in the world? I heard a Mormon interviewed on the news today saying that he isn't a bigot. Right, keep telling yourself that. Because Prop 8 is TOTALLY just about vocabulary. If it truly were, they'd have asked for the state to no longer use the term "marriage" and that both gay and straight couples would both have "civil unions". But of course, how many straight couples would be upset that they're getting their "marriage" taken away from them?
My aunt said she had friends that were gay whom she loved and accepted, yet she'll slap them in the face and tell them they'll have to settle for something that is "separate but equal". Should we start labeling the whites only water fountains again? Even if her friends were not interested in marriage, what right do they have to deny it to others who do? In the aftermath of this passage with all the protests and anger, I hope she sees how many people they have hurt. I still love her and my uncle (who is my blood relative), but my level of respect for them has drastically decreased.
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| In Escrow |
[11 Oct 2008|12:07pm] |
They accepted yesterday afternoon! :D
Lot's to do...
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| Counter Counter Offer Made! |
[10 Oct 2008|01:23pm] |
So exciting! We countered their counter offer today, so let's see if they're reasonable people. We were a little insulted by their counter offer, but after talking to the agent, we found out more information that made us see their side of the bargaining table. We made a counter offer that we feel is middle-ground and a win-win. If they come back with the same stubborn offer, then we'll really have to think about whether we want to enter into a deal with someone this difficult. Even if we go into escrow, there are still a lot of things that need to be negotiated like repairs for anything the inspection turns up.
I'm so glad it's Friday, but I feel like the weeks go by so fast nowadays. I live for the weekend now, but then the weekend flies by, and it's Monday again. I guess I still do stuff on week nights like kickball and choir, but they're so limited to a couple hours before I have to go to bed for work the next day. Those few hours are so precious that I've been ignoring a bunch of things on my plate. I still plan to re-do my personal website so it's more portfolio/resume-oriented, and I wanted to change up our wedding website to be a blog-style "married-life" website for friends and family. I've got a freelance project for my uncle, but I'm basically waiting on Jason and JP to finish up the design half. I honestly don't want to do it because it's not exactly worth my time. I get paid a lot more working my day job. Despite my earlier assertions that we have to cut back to buy this house, I don't NEED the money. Jason could use some extra cash though, and without a web developer to build the site he designs, it's not very useful for my uncle. It shouldn't be too bad though because we're going to keep it as simple as possible. The non-monetary half of whether this is worth doing is another story though. Is it WORTH the stress and condescension working with... certain people? I'm not naming names here... haha... but it's fairly obvious I suppose. :P I love all my family and am happy to help when I can, but I don't like the way I'm addressed and treated by uncle sometimes. He's a powerful man though, so I guess it's just his MO.
In other news, my official start date as tech lead/senior web dev is the 20th. It's kind of weird because I'm basically already doing most of the job. There are still some administrative things that I'll have to learn, but so far, it feels pretty good. Speaking of which... I should get back to work. :D
PS - Yay hockey season's back! Boo @ the Ducks for losing last night. :(
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| Offer made! |
[08 Oct 2008|08:31pm] |
Will and I submitted an offer on a house today! It was a bit scary at first, then tedious after the 10th page of initials, then really exciting because we should hear back from them by 5pm tomorrow. We offered them list price but asked them to cover our closing costs, so they most likely will come back with a counteroffer if not to say no to the closing costs, then to change the terms to use their own escrow company of choice. I really hope they accept. This house was on the market a few weeks ago, and we had planned to see it the first time we went house shopping with our agent, but they had gone into escrow by the time Saturday came around. Then, we found out the week of the 2nd round of house shopping that the sale fell through because the buyer backed out. This was probably the week that the Dow crashed 700 points. In any case, we saw it, loved it, dragged my mom out to see it, she loved it, and decided to make an offer. Hopefully we can snag it.
It's a really cute Spanish-style home in Glendale bordering Burbank that's walking distance to my office. It's priced really well at $459,350 for a 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom home with a VERY nicely remodeled kitchen. It's not very big at 982 square feet, but it's enough house for just the two of us, and we get a yard for a dog! We don't plan to live here permanently, so we can move into a bigger house later when we decide to have a family or just simply want more space. I'd love to move into a really nice Colonial-style house in Burbank. I don't want to get my hopes up too high though if the seller rejects our offer or picks another buyer (if there are other offers). Hopefully our 3% earnest money deposit will show them how serious we are. We even included our bank statements to prove that we had the down payment money. Although it's generally considered a buyer's market right now, we've seen a lot of the homes that are available, and they're mostly junk--well, at least in our price range. So many of the short sales and REOs are total fixers. This house is move-in ready and in a safe neighborhood.
Anyway, if they accept the offer, the ball is going to start rolling fast. We'll need to secure our loan, order up all the inspections, etc. Our agent has been great though, so he'll help us out. I'm getting ahead of myself here though. We need them to accept first... so nervous!!!!
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| BUMP |
[07 Oct 2008|10:26am] |
So the work-related news I mentioned before has been finalized. I just accepted a job offer to become a Senior Web Developer and to become team lead. :D I am very excited but nervous. I got a pretty nice pay bump, but I know I'll be working hard for it. Our team is down to a lot of fairly new people, so I'll be working hard to build up a stronger team. My former team lead went off to join the architecture team, but he'll still be around, so at least I can bug him for help. To be honest, I think they promoted me simply because I was the most experienced one left on the team, but that's not saying much because I've barely been here a year as of... I think this week actually. I'm not as technically skilled as my former team lead, whom I saw as a mentor. I always felt "safe" because I could fall back on his expertise, but now that I'm supposed to be that to my team... I'm feeling really insecure. I know I can do this though if I work hard though and just make an extra effort to study and learn as much as I can from others. I was hesitant at first to even apply for this, but my manager really wanted me to do it, and he, along with a few other coworkers, have said that they think I'd do great. We'll see... **deeeep breath**
At least my cholesterol is good. And my weight's down. :D
And we found another house we might make an offer on that's walking distance to my office! :D
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| Cholesterol |
[06 Oct 2008|11:33pm] |
For Scott...
Lipid Panel results:
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Cholesterol, Total |
171 mg/dL |
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Triglycerides |
87 mg/dL |
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HDL Cholesterol |
76 mg/dL |
| (!) |
VLDL Cholesterol Cal |
17 mg/dL |
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LDL Cholesterol Calc |
78 mg/dL |
Note: An exclamation mark (!) indicates a result that was not dispersed into the flowsheet.
(!) What does that mean?!
... TACOS.
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[26 Sep 2008|09:07am] |
'[Chris Rock] said Obama is more grounded with your average American -- not somebody like McCain with "12 houses."
"The other guy [McCain] can lose five houses," Rock said.
"I'll go with the guy with one house. The guy with one house is scared about losing his house."'
LOLzzzz...
I suppose that's true, but I'm still undecided. I like Obama's values and his appeal to the masses, but I'm not sure I like the policies he's proposing--in particular the economic ones. He wants to cut taxes on the middle-class and raise taxes on upper-class, which is typical, and although I fall in the middle-class, McCain's proposing tax cuts for everyone. It sort of makes sense to me that if the upper-class, who are typically business owners, catch a break, they'd be able to create more jobs and steer us toward a better economy. Most upper-class types don't just go out and spend any extra money they get on trivial things. They invest it, which puts more money into the economy, returns more money to them (hopefully), and they in turn put even more back in.
McCain was supposedly too "liberal" for a Republican, but he seems to be pushing a lot of the right-wing agenda--though I can't be sure he means it because he could just be trying to get their votes. I don't like that he doesn't support gay marriage, but I do like that he feels it should be left up to the states to decide--which should be true for most controversial non-nationally threatening issues. I don't like that he's pro-life when in his nomination speech he talked about how Americans should always have a choice. I do side with him on partial-birth abortions (against? he sort of flip-flopped), abortions because of rape/incest (for), and public funding (against) though. If you get knocked up because you were irresponsible, you should pay for it yourself, and you don't need to wait until your frickin' third trimester to figure out that you don't want the baby.
Anyway, I know there's a lot about both candidates that I don't fully understand yet. I haven't particularly looked into each candidate's platform, but I think McCain was absolutely awesome for putting off the campaign to sort out this economic bailout. It needs to be addressed and thought through because it's a complicated situation. I don't think it's fair that tax-payers are bailing out these companies, but something needs to happen to prevent a complete disaster. There are a lot of sides to the argument... the government could possibly make a lot of money on this... but prices on homes HAVE to be corrected because they're not sustainable... the global economy is depending on ours to stay afloat...
Ugh... too much to think about this early in the morning. I should probably start doing some work... Speaking of which... I may have some news soon in that regard, but I still have to go through some "processes". Oh, and that house we thought we were gonna make an offer on? A bust. Upon our second visit yesterday, it just wasn't as great as we remembered. :\ Oh well. The search continues!
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| Celebrations! |
[20 Sep 2008|06:31pm] |
This week wrapped up a very tiring few months for me and my coworkers. I had a project that launched on Wednesday, and they had 2 projects that launched on Thursday. All three went quite smoothly.
I don't think the ad campaign has really started yet for Disney, but after Year of a Million Dreams, this coming year's campaign is going to be even better! The tag line is, "What will you celebrate?", and it's all about celebrating things like your birthday or anniversaries or anything at Disney parks. You can check out the online ad on the Disneyland homepage. The first time you load up, it will have a homepage takeover with the balloons and invitation, but if you reload it, I think you get the video ad. The best part of this campaign? Free admission on your birthday! Of course it doesn't matter to me with my Silver Pass, but for everyone else, that's HUGE considering the cost of admission these days. The national commercial airs this Sunday Monday (?) during Dancing with the Stars. It's a total tear-jerker to me because there are so many emotional connections I have with Disneyland and all the special moments they show. The balloons are really well animated and have their own "personalities", although we had jokes about "stalker" balloons. You'll see what I mean if you see the ad. :D
The project I worked on was the new My Disneyland landing page redesign. It's got gated exclusive content for registered members. It's pretty neat because you can theme your page, and it has some games to play. The best theme is Toy Story Mania because you can shoot down the targets.
In other news, Will and I looked at houses with our agent today. Out of the 10 we told him we were interested in, 5 had already gone into escrow, so he set us up to look at the remaining 5 today and another 7 he had found. When we met him this morning, he said one of them was already getting 3 offers written up on it and one was higher than we were willing to pay anyway. Then, when we went to look at one of the houses, there was someone there who told us that the house just went into escrow. :( I guess the government's plan to encourage buyers is working. Our agent said after Bush came out and said they were basically bailing people out, all the buyers just came out of the woodwork, and it was stupid crazy all week. Will and I are so pissed. We could have bought a home 2 years ago worth twice as much as we could afford, then have the government bail us out when we couldn't make the payments and give us an absurd 1% fixed rate loan on it. Seriously.... WTF?!
So of the leftover houses, pretty much all of them were a bust because they needed too much work to be up to our standards. There were 2 houses that were nice, but one of them really creeped us out because when we were trying to get inside, the door wouldn't open. We heard sounds coming from inside, but no one answered the door, so we went around back to get in. The TV was on, but no one was around. The front door had a wooden rod pushed up against it so no one could enter. The house was a short sale too, so that means the current homeowner was facing foreclosure. We walked around for a bit, but started getting concerned about finding a dead body or something, so we just bailed. It was a really cute house though, and the inside was nicely updated. They even had a deck in the back. The only problems were that it was in the Los Angeles Unified school district, which isn't exactly great, despite being in Burbank, and it only had 1 bathroom.
The other house, we really liked, and we're probably going to put an offer in next week after my parents take a look at it. It's 3 bedroom, 2 baths, and has an updated kitchen. The lot is a bit small, but we'd rather not have to take care of a huge back yard or front lawn. It's in a Blue Ribbon school district too, which is important for resale value later or if we decide to have kids. The current owner had these 2 dogs in the back yard that had the WORST temperaments--and one of them was a cocker spaniel, which are supposed to be one of the calmest breeds! When we peeked out the back doors to look at the back yard, they both LAUNCHED themselves at the glass door. The terrier seriously jumped AT my head. Yes... it jumped that high. It was kind of scary. So, needless to say, we didn't get to look outside, but our agent said he'll talk to the listing agent to have them put away when we come visit with my parents. Hopefully no one else will have put in an offer already. Will really likes it, and I could be very happy in it. It only needed a little bit of work unlike all the others... some paint, re-tiling, landscaping... I wanted to knock down one of the walls too to open up the floor plan a bit, but that should be cheap. I'm excited! :D
Alright, off to Cold Tofu!
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| Life Update |
[12 Sep 2008|09:01pm] |
Last night was our last ice hockey game of the season. We finished in 4th out of 9. We lost a 2 goal lead at the end of the third and gave up a breakaway with 4 seconds left that resulted in the other team winning with 0.1 seconds left. As pathetic as that is, I was smiling after because it was one of those fantasy plays, so I was happy for them. As selfish as it sounds though, I'm also happy because I wasn't the one out there that let any of those things happen. Serves my team right. I'm not saying those same things couldn't have happened with me out there, but I feel better knowing they didn't do any better than they think I'd have done. This has been a very frustrating season with a team that has no confidence in my ability. They were way too focused on winning and didn't care about letting me get fair ice time. I'm just glad it's over though. I had fun at times, but I was angry most of the time, so I'm happy to not have to deal with that kind of frustration anymore.
Will and I were going to find another team to play with, but since we've been house hunting, we've decided to save the $1k for our down payment. We're just going to play inline hockey on one team, which is 1/5th the cost. We met with a team of Realtors last weekend and checked out some listings they gave us. We're really excited about finding our first home. We're applying for pre-approval with a friend of theirs from Wells Fargo who also happens to be the co-owner of The Raymond Restaurant in Pasadena (awesome brunch). We'll hear back from him on Monday what we'll be able to get. I emailed him about 3MB (zipped) of documentation of our W2s, bank statements, etc. I'm so nervous! :P I also talked to a mortgage consultant at the Partners Credit Union, which is Disney's. She said they'd try to match or beat whatever Wells Fargo can offer us, so we'll see if we can't get an even better deal by pitting bank against bank. We'll also talk to CalTech's credit union.
Work's been pretty good. I've had to work some late hours, but it's not so bad getting paid OT. :) I got some mad props from the creative lead on the project I'm tech leading too. She emailed my manager and director with such glowing comments today, and it just reaffirms my confidence that I'm going in the right direction in my career. We're in the process of writing our '09 goals, and although I find it really tedious and somewhat superficial, at least I can communicate to my managers that I'd like to become a senior web developer by the end of the year. I don't know how realistic that is because one of my coworkers just got promoted a few months ago, and he's been here for a long time, but I'm hoping to continue to impress.
Anyhoo... I still have a ton of post-wedding stuff to do. We have to pick out the photos we want to use for the album and order the prints that came with our package. We finally got our marriage certificate today, so I can get started with the name change on Monday at the social security office. That'll be fun. :\ Once the name change is done though, I still have to update all my accounts, records, etc. with all the various institutions that have my information. I also need to get my car insurance changed since I'm still somehow under my dad's plan. I thought I became ineligible after 25, but I'm guessing maybe it's married and over 25? (Hey Wizzy, do you know? And how's Progressive??? :D) Besides that, I also have 2 freelance projects that I really need to work on plus my own websites to renovate. There are so many things I want to do too besides these things I have to do. I've been meaning to take a dance class for fun and to find a Flash AS3 class so I can expand my programming skill set. Oh! I forgot to mention that I'm also auditioning for the Disney Employee Choir on Monday too. They perform at the Candlelight Processional at Disneyland. I don't know if I'll make it, but even if I don't, I want to attend their weekly rehearsal so I can learn the music and try again next year. I attended their first rehearsal and heard the veterans sing. They're amazing! I really hope I make it, but it'll be a lot of hard work to learn all 12 songs. Steph performed in it twice back when she was in high school choir, so I'm going to be recruiting her and Shannon to coach me. I LOVE Christmas time at Disneyland! :D I can't wait for the holiday party!!!
Yes, I'm aware it's only September... **sigh**
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| EFFFF VISA/MC GIFT CARDS!!!!!! |
[06 Sep 2008|07:15pm] |
I am sooooo ridiculously frustrated right now. Word of advice: Don't EVER buy one of those generic gift cards for someone unless you absolutely HATE them and want them to KILL themselves with frustration!
Will and I got 2 for our wedding with $100 on a VISA and a $100 on a Master Card. We didn't open our gifts until after we got back from the honeymoon, so although the cards were bought in July, we didn't register them online until middle of August. Well, the Master Card apparently already had $95 charged to it by someone in Texas. I filled out their online dispute form, but never got an email confirmation or phone call. A few days later, I called their customer service line, which took forever to get to an actual human being! He said we would receive a form to fill out that was an affidavit of unauthorized card use that we'd have to get notarized (i.e. SPEND SOME MORE MONEY SO YOU CAN GET WHAT'S ALREADY YOURS) and send back.
So we got the form this week, and it says you need to attach a statement to it, so I tried to sign back onto the website, but now it says my card is INVALID. Great. I call the 800 # on their website. It says my card is invalid, AND DISCONNECTS ME. I call back and hit the option for people without a card number, then the option to dispute a charge. It says it will transfer me to a customer service representative, THEN DOES NOTHING. After about 5 minutes of silence, a voice comes on saying that if I don't want any charges to my phone, hang up now. I call the 800 number on the letter I received from the bank that issues these joke cards (RBS Lynk) that says in the body of the letter that customer service is available 24/7. THE RECORDED MESSAGE SAYS THEY ARE OPEN MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY 9am UNTIL MIDNIGHT EASTERN! I try the other number again and pretend that I'm trying to register a new card and get placed on hold with really annoying hold music... for 15 minutes. I finally hang up and try to find a Ripoff Report or something on this company online, and I find this blog with rants about gift cards spanning from September 2006 until August 2008:
http://pomomusings.com/2006/09/23/all-access-visa-gift-card/
Which led me to this Gift Card Advocate site, and this service that the advocate created for cashing out your gift cards into a PayPal account.
I've calmed down a little now, but I was absolutely infuriated earlier. I almost threw my phone through my balcony door. I can't believe these companies get away with this shit! The other thing I read in that blog was that if you try to charge an amount that's more than the card's balance, it won't even work. The cashier has to input the exact amount or less, then you can pay the rest in a separate transaction--so of course a lot of retailers probably WON'T do that. Plus, if you only use say $99 on a $100 gift card, you'll have to buy something that's $1 or less to use the remainder--thus, most people just lose that small amount. Fucking outrageous. This explains why I couldn't use the other VISA card when I was buying my sunglasses since they were more than the balance.
I can't decide if I want to dispute the MasterCard charge anymore though since I can't even access the site to print the statement with the details of that charge. All I know is that it was $95 charged on 8/19 to a business located in Texas. I just don't want to spend money to get the affidavit notarized just to have to deal with the headache of following up with the company to see if they even bothered to investigate it. Actually, I just did a quick search and found a Yahoo! Answer that says that some banks will notarize for free for their customers. I'll give that a try... maybe.
Ugh... BALLS!
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| Steph's birthday at Disneyland |
[04 Sep 2008|10:58pm] |
Random photos that Will took to "document" the trip
It was a lot of fun. I've never stayed at Disneyland Hotel before. It was really nice. I might consider doing some weekend trips with just me and Will during off-peak season. I hear with the Cast Member discount it can be as low as $79 a night. That way we can take our time visiting both parks and even just hanging out at the pool. We planned to go to the pool on Monday, but by the time we woke up, it was a little late and for some reason it looked overcast.
Dude! We're getting more HD channels! Including HGTV and Food Network! Woohoo!
So Flickr's pretty cool. I think I'm gonna pay for a pro account. I definitely want to try using the RSS feed and the available scripts out there to feed a photo gallery to my website. I'm planning to redesign since I never update it anymore anyway. I'm thinking of changing it to more of a portfolio/resume site too for when I do side-projects or contracting work. I'm going to convert the wedding website to our combined personal site and just keep up a simple blog and photo gallery. I'll have to transfer all the photos I have on the old site to Flickr, and I'll probably just copy/paste the existing comments into the description or something. I wonder if Flickr has any kind of guarantee that they won't lose all my photos though.
Anyhoo... time for bed. I was supposed to work on some upgrades to Jason's website tonight, but I got sidetracked with these photos. OH WELL. :D I have the weekend.
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| Cafe WA S on Vine |
[28 Aug 2008|11:58am] |
"Then where is it now?" **snicker**
We went to Eliot's new restaurant's friends and family dinner last night, where they do a trial run before official opening. It's owned by Ivan Kane, the guy who opened Forty Deuce. The food was pretty good, though everything I ordered was only OK, except for dessert. POT OF CREAM was great fo sho (Pot de Creme) and good PROFIT ROLES (Profiteroles). I know they're still working out the kinks though, so it'll be great when they open. Will enjoyed it, so we'll probably be back since he's the pickier of the two of us. We ate soooo much though. I listed out everything I ate, and it came out to like 46 WW points, so I'm done for the week in terms of "splurges". Ivan Kane greeted us, which was kind of cool. He looks kind of like a less attractive Bono.
Bad week to have used up my points already though. We're going to Disneyland on Sunday for Steph's birthday, and we're spending the night at Disneyland Hotel. Then Monday, we're going to Greg's BBQ. I'm going to have to make sure I walk around a LOT on Sunday and maybe hit up the hotel gym on Monday.
Speaking of which, before the honeymoon, I managed to get myself down to 126.8, but after 2 weeks of letting myself eat whatever, I came back from my honeymoon weighing 130.2. Not too bad though honestly. I'm now back down to 128.4 and working towards 125 by the end of this WW session around October. My ultimate goal is really 120, but for WW, I'm setting it as 125 so that I can get "Lifetime" status and go to sessions for free. I need to start going to the gym regularly again. I fell out of the habit during all the wedding planning, but I need get back in the habit now. Even with hockey, I feel like I need to fill in the spaces during the week when I don't play. Sadly softball is over, but kickball season is back, though that's not really much of a workout.
Will and I completed the registries this week. We'll probably keep most of the stuff in their boxes for our new house. I just cracked open the hot water dispenser though because I wanted some tea. Hm... it's almost lunch time... wheee.... (I'm working from home today!)
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| Wedding Photos |
[26 Aug 2008|10:33pm] |
There are 800+ photos, so if you want the summary, just look through "Your Story".
Wedding photos
I'll have honeymoon photos soon, once I get around to editing them.
Honeymoon photos
(Yeah, some of them are pretty cheesy, but whatever. :D)
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