google street view

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google street view of downtown san jose

memorial weekend - rita's wedding

our weekend started off with a huge delay at southwest! when we checked in, the ticket lady said the flight was 40 minutes delayed. when we got to the gate, it was over an hour delayed. by the time we took off, we were almost two hours delayed. ugh. but after all the plane troubles, the rest of the weekend was great. i'm known for being last minute and not planning things out when i want to have fun. i like to do that so i'm flexible and we can do whatever our mood feels like and are not stuck to any schedule. it becomes a problem when meeting up with many people however so i'm grateful for those who were able to make it out.

saturday we got up late, hunny and i had lunch at cheesecake factory in pasadena and then walked around the shops. got our coffeebean fix and then met up with irene and jimmy before heading out to houstons to meet up with amy for dinner. for dinner hunny and i shared the ribs and the spicy tuna roll salad. after dinner we went to a wine bar to meet up with amy's friend george and his fiance. It's been years since i've seen george- since i moved back north 6 years ago. I had a glass of wine and tried cindy's blogged about drink - citron vodka with tonic and lemon. I used kettleone citron. yum! then irene, who hasn't had any alcohol since her wedding 1.5 years ago, decides that she wants to do tequila shots since she saw patron gold and silver and wanted to know the difference. so hunny and irene each did two shots - one silver and one gold. turns out irene likes gold because it tastes spicey and hunny likes silver because it has less taste and goes down faster. haha. after the two shots irene's cheeks turned red (indicator that she is a little tipsy) and so we all headed home since we had to wake up early the next morning.

sunday we woke up early and met up with amy's brother and dad for a boat ride. Her brother has a boat which he uses for his company and needs to take it out periodically to mix the gas in the engine so there is less water from condensation or something like that. although it was cold and overcast, it was still fun to go out onto the water. I learned a lot about boats from amy's bro and everyone got some time to catch up and get to know eachother better. jimmy and hunny have only hung out a handful of times and they were having fun goofing off on the boat. amy, irene and i all got to do some catching up since we have not all been on the same coast for so long. i think it hasn't been since irene's wedding that amy, irene and i have actually hung out together. and back then, irene was too busy with wedding stuff to really hang out. amy would update us on her exciting NYC life, dating up a storm while irene and i are more domesticated these days. however i do make it out of the house more than irene. haha.

later that day we all got ready and went to our respective weddings. amy was there for jen gu's wedding and although i was invited to that wedding, i was invited to rita's wedding first. Rita's wedding was beautiful, elegant yet simple. in knowing her, that's the kind of person she is. doesn't stress about the details and is just really easy going. The wedding reflected her personality. simple, elegant yet everyone just had a great time. in contrast i heard about jen's wedding - elegant but very put together with a lot of little details - coordinated flowers which matched the invitations, the table settings, the arch which was used in the ceremony, etc etc. the difference in wedding styles would get me thinking about what i would want for my future wedding. i flip flop - on one hand it would be so nice to have an elegant wedding for all to remember. on the other hand, my practical side says it's a lot of money for one day, i like chinese food better, and i don't like to stress about the details. also to me, i've always been more of the type of person who enjoys the company more than the environment i'm in. eh - we'll see.

we headed out of the wedding super early because we were so tired from waking up early. also perhaps the anti sea sickness medicine was making us extra sleepy. so we went back to irene's house at 11. haha. i'm embarassed i wasn't able to last longer! irene and jimmy even stayed up later than us baking cakes for a company contest they were having.

monday we woke up late - the bed in irene's guest bedroom is sooooo comfy. turned out jimmy was baking the cake sunday nite for us and not for the company! it was a european style cake with raspberry sauce, yogurt filling and white chocolate frosting. mmmmm..... sooo good. i finished my piece of cake in 5 seconds flat and practically licked the plate it was so good. haha. i wanted another piece but we were supposed to meet up with people for breakfast. doh. so we headed out after cake to the west side and met up with jyan and jen king for brunch at headlines in westwood. irene and i haven't seen jenny king since loveboat! it's been 9 years. =O we found out she actually works at UCLA now and just moved to LA a few months ago from boston. she went to med school at harvard and did her residency out in boston as well. she's still the same person i remember. playful and good hearted - you would never know she came from harvard since normally the harvard people i meet are so stuffy and snooty. after brunch (i had the blueberry short stack pancakes with fruit and hunny had the joe's special breakfast) we headed off to hang out at the beach. none of us were really prepared - dressed in jeans and nice shoes. but we just rolled up our jeans, took off our shoes and sat on the sand to chat for the rest of the afternoon. the sun wasn't too bright as it was somewhat overcast and i only got a slight reddish tint on one shoulder. even though the afternoon was so haphazard in planning, it was perfect. we sat in the sand chatting, joking around, catching up for a few hours. irene was telling us how she was in awe of girls who can charm their way into clubs by twirling their hair and showing skin. then she gave her rendition - "hee hee!!" haha...ok you had to be there.

six o'clock rolled around and it was time for hunny and i to catch our flight so everyone headed off to eat ramen while we went to the airport. darn them - we were talking about eating ramen and i told them how much i love ramen. next thing you know, they are all going to eat ramen without me! oh well, jyan said he would eat a bowl for me. gee thanks. haha. anyways..it was a great weekend to catch up with all these people who were all in town for the weddings. pics below! enjoy.

irene, amy and me


fun with a boat!



beautiful rita


beachyness

more blueberries!

i'm sitting here eating blueberry ice cream and drinking blueberry seltzer. i'm going to turn myself blue! haha.

this weekend was pretty busy. friday and saturday was tiecon - huge tech and entrepreneurial conference. I got a couple good cards and sat in on some informative panels. however i felt it wasn't a good place to network that much since there were so many people, it's so easy to forget who you met. anyhow, saturday was more geared towards the life sciences. there is a lot of activity towards coordinating global clinical trials since it's much cheaper overseas. healthcare consulting will be booming since hospitals will really have to streamline and keep things cost effective in order to accommodate the aging baby boomer population. i've been in biotech for so long thinking healthcare was so boring and not tech enough for me. however i'm going to be applying to some healthcare related things now since i think it can become very lucrative in the future. it also helps that healthcare is FINALLY embracing technology more.

saturday night was will's 30th bday. i can't believe this boy that i've known since i was 10 is now 30! that's just insane. dinner was at plouf in sf. i had coconut mussels, endive salad and the creme brulee for dessert. yummy yummy! it was such a cute location also - reminded hunny and i of europe with the small restaurants right next to eachother and people stationed outside to get you to try their restaurant. after dinner we went to vessel again. we had also gone for his gf chi's bday a few weeks before. it was fun hanging with people and they had great service. but i can't say i liked the fact that the place was so snooty - turning away customers from a half empty club just because they weren't "HOT". whatever. oh, and not like we are hot or anything, we just paid a lotta money for a table. so not worth it if you ask me- even if it was a nice place, it's ridiculous to pay over 1K for a seating area and some drinks.

sunday was kind of lazy. woke up late and then went to safeway to buy some things to bbq for hunny's bro's bday. we were going to invite all his friends but he was feeling a little antisocial. so we just bbq'd some chicken legs and a tritip with me and his brothers.

ugh, all the eating this weekend. must go gymming today!

mother's day present

oh yeah mom got a new car for mothers day!


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lexus rx350. nice huh? she's been looking at buying a suv for a while now. sometimes my dad can be such a fuddy duddy and not do romantic things. but sometimes he can be the sweetest, most thoughtful person in the world! most people know he hates buying japanese things but he gave in to make my mom happy.

garlic fries, dimsum, crawfish and cupcakes

time for the weekend recap! notice i put all food items? haha

friday hunny and i went to gordon biersch in SF for allen's bday. hunny and i shared a burger and salad to try to stay healthy yet fullfill our meat cravings - but of course we get to have garlic fries with the burger. yum! although they weren't as garlicky as i remembered. after the food, we headed out to a lounge. first we went to sip - and it was empty! then we went to rosewood room - which i really liked, but as soon as we got there, a bunch of people left and it became mostly empty. what's going on? do we smell bad or something? (could be the garlic fries - but i didn't think it was that bad!) anyhow we chilled there for a while just chatting things up. then allen decides he's ready to break his vegetarianism - during the week he's vegetarian and during the weekend he gets to eat meat. we were within walking distance to the "green place" so we left for some jiew yeem yow yu (salt and pepper calamari) and other late nite chinese food goodies. (beef noodles, fried stuffed tofu, salty fish and chicken fried rice). we weren't event hungry. haha...

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saturday i met up with family for an early mother's day dimsum at pan tao in cupertino. i'm so used to calling that place samkee even though the name changed long ago. grandma enjoyed seeing a whole lotta relatives and eating yummy food. however jon and i were holding ourselves back. why? crayfish!

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UOP has a huge crayfish boil which is sponsored by an alumni that has become well off after school. they ship in fresh crayfish from new orleans and cook it up free for the students and their friends. luckily i'm one of the friends. hehe. jon's best friend christine let us join her for the grubbing. luckily they all told me to change out of my dress and heels before i went. juices and shells were flying everywhere! jon also brought along a nice bottle of syrah to pair with the spicy crayfish. yum! i'm still drooling thinking about it. jon brought some home before to share with us, but it's definitely much better when it's fresh.

jon, christine and her bf tiger

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me and baby bro

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saturday nite was hunny's friend elaine's bday so we went to le colonial. i like that place since it's upscale and an older crowd. there are two areas - one with many chairs and couches, the other is for dancing. they play a good mix of hip hop, dance and oldies so the group loved it.

sunday hunny had to work so i did some cleaning around the house and then started watching tv with his bro stanley. we generally watch the food channel and they had a bobby flay showdown with a lady who has a cupcake store in eagle rock, california. stanley eventually would like to open up his own cupcake store also in the bay area when he finishes culinary school so he was definitely into the show. flay made a gingerbread cupcake with mango icing and the challenger made her famous red velvet cupcake. note - the secret to moist cupcakes is to use oil instead of butter. anyhow, after all the cupcake watching we were craving cupcakes so we made some chocolate devil food cake cupcakes with vanilla icing. yum! i brought some home and they were devoured quickly with none left for me today. booo. it's ok, i ate about 4. hehe. from sunday to monday of course, not all in one sitting.

sunday i also went to janet's going away party and had a mini scimagician reunion. so sad janet is leaving! i barely even got to see her since she was always travelling. she was truly one of the best bosses i've ever had and that company had the greatest group of people to work with.

i was going to go running sunday, didn't go. i was going to go gymming monday, didn't go. so i went for a long run today. hooray i finally got my lazy butt to work out! haah. the good thing about weight training is that i notice i'm able to burn more while eating badly. of course i'm watching my portions during the week, but hey when it's weekend, yum yum! i'm sure i could see faster results of weight loss if i didn't eat so much during the weekend. but that would be torture. i don't mind slow weight loss if i get to indulge.

chasing cars

We'll do it all
Everything
On our own

We don't need
Anything
Or anyone

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

I don't quite know
How to say
How I feel

Those three words
Are said too much
They're not enough

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life

Let's waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads

I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life

All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I can see

I don't know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things will never change for us at all

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

*i just think this is such a romantic song*

life goes on

the funeral was good. as odd as that is to say... it seemed that most people had time to say goodbye since she was in the hospital. although there were tears of course, but not nearly as bad as i thought it would be. however life is a cycle and has to go on. everyone met up at a restaurant afterwards, it was kind of a reunion for many of us since many people traveled from out of town. towards the end of the day, it was nice to see smiles on everyone's faces. i'm sure that's what those that have passed would like to see - that all their loved ones are happy. i know that's what i would like to see...

the weekend just passed by too quickly. friday hunny and i had dinner with his parents and watched the two hour episode of grey's. i love that show! we played with grizzly and then called it a night. grizzly is so cute! i didn't know this but yorkie's apparently have really oily skin which makes their fur really soft. since he gets a bath every week, he's not smelly or oily, just cute and fluffy. his ears both stick up now like huge radars (before they were floppy) and he's always peeking from behind the boxes(he's kept in the kitchen area with some small boxes) to see what you're doing.

saturday we met up with hunny's friends dan and krista in SF and took the ferry to sausalito. we got to meet their new baby ella for the first time. she was sleeping contently most of the time but we got to play with her for about 30 minutes in a park - such big blue eyes she has! for lunch we went to some restaurant overlooking the water - i had cajun salmon. although it was good, it wasn't great. therefore i don't remember the name of the restaurant. for dinner we went to cheesecake factory in union square since it was close to their hotel and neither of them have ever been to a cheesecake factory. apparently they have always tried but the wait was always too long and the crowd they were with never wanted to wait. We arrived around 6 so we didn't mind the hour wait. being that we were in union square, we just walked around a little before dinner. the weather was perfect in sf that day - sunny and not too cold or hot.

fitness update- i'm back in the same good shape i was last summer. i can see muscle definition in my legs and stomach, but still have more progress i can make. i'm back to running 1 hr and now will concentrate on increasing my speed and distance rather than time. weight training is still going well, instead of increasing the weight, i'm increasing the number of reps. friends and family are noticing that i'm slimmer. yay! although my weight is the same, i know that is not what matters.

job update - had a series of interviews last week so i'm hoping to have more updates on this soon.

oils

paint that is...

Vladimir Kush is an artist I have noticed for quite a few years now. The paintings remind me of Dali, only much more whimsical and light hearted, reflecting a world which is imaginative with no rules. looking at those paintings somehow make me feel like anything is possible. Although you can't really see details in these pics, when you look at the real life paintings, you can see little details all over the painting which can only be noticed upon closer examination. kind of like little secrets he wants you to find. for example, if there is a picture of a tree, it you look closely at the wood grain patterns of the tree you will see a little wood person rowing a boat, with the wood grain patterns resembling rippling water. or if you look at the grass underneath a huge apple, you will see two blades of grass that look like two people embracing.

i think i like people who have little nice surprises as well. where on the surface they are already a very good person. but yet, upon closer examination, you find further gems which you would have never noticed unless you stopped to look closer.

The Heart Of Life

I hate to see you cry
Lying there in that position
There's things you need to hear
so turn off your tears
and listen

Pain throws your heart to the ground
love turns the whole thing around
no it wont all go the way
it should
but I know the heart of life is good

You know it's nothin' new
bad news never had good timing
then the circle of your friends
will defend the silver lining

Pain throws your heart to the ground
love turns the whole thing around
no it won't all go the way
it should
But I know the heart of life is good

Pain throws your heart to the ground
love turns the whole thing around
fear is a friend who is
misunderstood
but I know the heart of life is good
I know it's good, I know it's good
oh i know it's good

oh i do i do i do

oh i know its good