[ Sunday, January 29, 2006 ]
Happy New Year!"
yam [3:47 PM 0 comments ]
[ Wednesday, January 25, 2006 ]
What a Difference a Day MakesWell, it looks as if things are pretty much back to normal. Matthew got up this morning and was running around trying to hide from me, had a big breakfast, and was singing while brushing his teeth. So, it was back to school for him. Yesterday it was about 80 degrees around lunchtime, but today it was really chilly and maybe 60!
Idol
Yup, I'm back to watching American Idol again this season (watched every show since last week's Season Opener) and I have to say that so far it's just as entertaining as previous seasons. I know that the producers pick out a handful of wackos for maximum entertainment value to trot past the judges, but man, some of them are just insane. Are these people so crazy that they actually think they are that good? Hmm, I even wonder if some are just actors playing the part? And then there are just a few of them that just blow your socks off with how good their voices are. Someone just cracks me up with their hilarious IM's during each show! Tonight are the auditions from San Francisco!
yam [12:55 PM 0 comments ]
[ Tuesday, January 24, 2006 ]
Wasn't Meant To BeI guess today was one of those days when I just wasn't supposed to go into work. After dropping Matthew off at school, I came home to wait for installers to come and put in the LoJack on my new car (they scheduled the visit between 8:00 AM and 1:00 PM). The installers came by at around 9:30 and it took them about half an hour to install. Right after the LoJack guys left, L stopped by for a nice visit before she headed off to work. Then I picked up some lunch on the way to my office and got in at around 11:20.
I ate lunch and followed up on some e-mails until I got a phone call a little after 12:00 from the school nurse. Matthew was complaining about his tummy hurting and when I talked to him on the phone he sounded so patheticly sad :-(. So, I picked up the little guy from school and it was back home again. Heated up some chicken noodle soup and sent him to bed for a nap. My head was hurting and I was feeling kinda worn out from all of the unusual activities and took a nap myself.
For dinner I made Matthew some rice porridge (a cross between Japanese okaye and Chinese jook), with ume (pickled green plum) and furukake (seasoned seaweed) and some pork sung (dried sweetened pork). He had a slow start but ended up eating two helpings and wanted more! So it was pretty much a wasted day. But, I did finally blog after a bit of a break!
Quickie Catch Up
So what have we been doing the last week and a half? (Photos to come later.. some are here)
- Matthew's baseball tryouts and basketball practice got rained out last weekend, so we ended up spending 2-1/2 hours in the car dealer buying a new car!
- Went to see the Clippers game at Staples Center with Matthew's basketball league and saw them beat up the Seattle Sonics. Mmm, and thanks to L for those Beard Papas cream puffs after the game!
- Another basketball game loss for Matthew's team. Darn.
- Took off from work for MLK Day, had breakfast at Bob's with L&R. Kathi and kids came by and we spent the rest of the day playing including lunch at Chili's.
- Had a full body massage for nearly 2 hours. Yum-O!
- Cooked stuffed pork chops with rice pilaf and candied carrots for L and M for dinner.
- Took Matthew to baseball tryouts and he did very well! He even had several compliments from people who watched him. Very proud of his efforts!
- Bah, yet another loss for Matthew's basketball team, even though they played pretty good for a while.
- Washed and partially waxed (ran out of time, so only did the top surfaces) the new car for the first time.
Yeah, we've been busy. And the next couple of weekends look to be even busier! Oy.
yam [9:10 PM 0 comments ]
[ Monday, January 23, 2006 ]
81!omg...
yam [8:52 AM 0 comments ]
[ Wednesday, January 18, 2006 ]
OK, so we've been really busy and I haven't been able to blog for the last few days. Briefly, the weekend was filled with mostly the usual stuff, I took off from work Monday for the MLK day holiday since Matthew's school was closed, and we played all day with friends. And work has been pretty busy. Oh yeah, and I've been "playing" with my new "baby" too. Oh, not her, I meant the new car! Hehehe.More details later.
yam [12:26 PM 0 comments ]
[ Saturday, January 14, 2006 ]
Ahhhh, love that NEW car smell.....yam [3:22 PM 0 comments ]
[ Friday, January 13, 2006 ]
Happy Friday the 13th!Hope you don't suffer from Paraskevidekatriaphobia! Here's an excerpt:
It is said: If 13 people sit down to dinner together, all will die within the year. The Turks so disliked the number 13 that it was practically expunged from their vocabulary (Brewer, 1894). Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue. Many buildings don't have a 13th floor. If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil's luck (Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names).
Uh-oh, that answers a lot of questions. MY NAME has 13 letters in it, and I was born on July 13th! I'm cursed! Eeeeek!
Oh, and a belated welcome back to gg! (uh, sorry gg, this was not meant to have any relation to you).
yam [8:27 AM 0 comments ]
[ Wednesday, January 11, 2006 ]
December Photos
As promised, HERE are all of the photos for the month of December, shown on one page (may take a while to load for slow connections) with little captions under each one. I may get around to putting together previous months if I get the chance.
Enjoy!
yam [11:58 PM 0 comments ]
Aloooooooha!
Belated Thanks
A belated Thank You! to Gracie, who sent us a whole bunch of Aloha from Hawaii before Christmas! Mmm, that bacon Spam was so onolicious! I WILL repay you for your kindness!
Calling Plan
Yesterday I was caught in the middle of a funny situation. My friend B called me at the office to find out the pager number of someone she knows that works for my company, that I don't know. Then she calls back a few minutes later saying that she can't contact this guy on his pager or office phone and wants to know if I can e-mail him for her. So, after asking the pertinent question about why I need to do this, B tells me that she is with her friend who is locked out of her car and would I e-mail him (her friend's hubby) to have him call B so he can help his wife out of her jam. Sheesh, who doesn't have a cell phone these days? I would guess that if that woman had one, she must have locked it in the car, but why doesn't her hubby have one? Man, that hurt my head just trying to recount that trail of communications and write it so it made some sense. I haven't found out what happened yet.
Sunshiny Day
The weather has been incredibly nice the past few days, in the mid-70's, but today it's cooled off to a more normal 65, although still very clear and very little wind. I hope it continues through MLK day on Monday, when we plan on doing a little something fun since Matthew's school is closed for the holiday. If it's warm enough, hopefully we can go bike riding on the beach! (I know, at the beach in January... what a concept).
Sporty
Already for the New Year our calendar is really filling up. We've been invited to a couple of birthday parties, have out-of-town guests arriving and the usual sporting events. This weekend is mostly sports (all for the kid, of course). Baseball tryouts start this Saturday, followed by his basketball practice and then in the evening is the Clippers/Sonics game, sponsored by the kids' basketball league. And on Sunday is Matthew's basketball game. Sometime this weekend I need to do a lot of yard work, since the warm weather is making everything grow! Whew, I'm tired just thinking about it all.
yam [12:44 PM 0 comments ]
[ Monday, January 09, 2006 ]
Weekend UpdateWe had a relatively quiet weekend, although we really should have taken advantage of the beautiful weather (but at least we got to wear our shorts both days!). Mid-70's in January? Ahhh, that's why we live here in SoCal (but a bit more rain would be nice so we could do some skiing!)
Saturday we had to get up early for Matthew's haircut, dropped off some bottles to recycle and then went to the car dealer to shop for a car. I've got a pretty good idea of what I want now, and will probably make a deal somewhere this week after I figure out the financing. After lunch, Matthew had basketball practice and then we did grocery shopping and ate dinner at Marukai.
On Sunday we slept-in for a change, spent some time cleaning up around the house, took down the last of the Christmas decorations from the outside of the house, and then went to Matthew's basketball practice again (since there was no game this weekend). Matthew's coaches have started giving "report cards" on each player, to help everyone know what they need to work on to get better. Matthew got a really good report!:
Player: Matthew Date: 01/07/06
Players are assessed on a standard scale of 1 (needs improvement) - 10 (fulfills coaches' expectations).
Dribbling - 9
Shooting - 9
Passing - 9 ... Comment: Matthew's vision is so good that we had to incorporate the "Matthew Rule:" When Matthew has the ball, you have to be ready to get the pass no matter where you are.
Rebounding - 7
Footwork - 8
Defensive awareness - 9
Offensive awareness - 9
Discipline/Attitude - 10
Listening - 10
Effort - 10
Overall 90
Additional comments: This score should be no surprise. The only reason it isn't any higher is because we're stingy with the 10's. What sets Matthew apart is the fact that he doesn't go to school with anyone else on the team, yet he is genuinely liked and respected by the team. Whether he realizes it or not, he is one of the leaders of this team, even if its more by example than by words (which isn't a bad thing at all).
I think they were a bit generous with the scoring, but can you tell that I'm very proud of him??? *beam*
Iron Chef
Last night I played Iron Chef and made a nice Japanese dinner for L and Matthew. We had cucumber sunomono (pickled cucumber salad with crab), mochiko chicken, teri beef sticks, miso-yaki black cod, cabbage salad with miso-sesame dressing, shiso konbu (store bought - I didn't really care for this) and rice. If I do say so myself, it was pretty darn good eats!
Tooth Fairy
Oh, and finally, Matthew had another visit from the tooth fairy last night on a tooth that finally came out at dinner time, after several months of just hanging around (even though this tooth is coming out about two years early!). He was actually disappointed that he "only" got two dollars (he was hoping for $50 for some crazy reason.) I told him that we don't live in a rich enough neighborhood for that! Heh.
yam [12:11 PM 0 comments ]
[ Saturday, January 07, 2006 ]
Test drove this Bad Boy today, including the 425HP SRT-8! Hoo, I'm still wiping up the drool off my chin...
yam [9:33 PM 0 comments ]
[ Thursday, January 05, 2006 ]
BackfillHey, if you've noticed, I've been slowly backfilling some photos from the past month... I'll be setting up a page with just photos from the month of December (maybe even further back too), very shortly.
yam [11:58 PM 0 comments ] National Champion
Congrats to the Texas Longhorns for upsetting USC in last night's big game! Man, I have to say that the game lived up to all it's hype. It was a fun show to watch and it kept you on the edge of your seat almost the whole night. I think SC should have won that game, but made too many little errors, like Bush's lateral pass fumble (what the heck was he thinking?), that failed 4th and 2 play with about 4 minutes left, and a big mental error on the facemasking call on 4th down. But that's how you lose a championship. Oh, and big props to Vince Young, the Texas quarterback. That guy is so big, fast and such a good passer that he was very scary to SC. I'm not a USC fan, but was rooting for the SoCal team (although glad I didn't have to hear that annoying SC fight song if they had won!).
Bucking Bronc
Well, an incident happened to me last night that really woke me up and is forcing me to get off my duff and start shopping for that new car. I've really grown tired of my SUV and wanted to replace it. A near-accident while driving home told me to hurry up and get rid of it. While going down the 405 freeway at about 65-70 mph last night, some stupid idiot cut me off from the left side, and I thought for sure he was gonna sideswipe me. So, I swerved hard to the right to avoid him, and then had to swerve back hard to the left so that I wouldn't hit anyone on the right side of me. At those speeds, my SUV was bucking and yawing like a wild horse or wild animal, and I could hear my tires squealing on the pavement. At this point it was just instinct to try and get control of my vehicle, thinking that I was either going to hit another car or even flip over since I was almost out of control. After making a couple more corrections turning left and right, I was able to finally control the car and get back up to speed. The offending jerk was long gone by this time and I had flashes of anger and wanting to chase after him, but I thought better of it and just resumed my normal speed. I was surprised at how calm I was and that my heart wasn't racing after this incident, and just grateful that nothing bad happened. And as I said, with the way my vehicle lunged and nearly spun out of control, it really made me think it was time to get a lower profile vehicle and dump that "roll-over hazard waiting to happen".
Thankful
I know sometimes I whine and complain about things, but after this morning's drive into work, I'm thankful for life as it is. I must have just missed this accident because as I was driving slowly through the scene, people were running to help out this guy who had been thrown off of his motorcycle and was lying in a big curled up ball holding his leg, up against the center divider of the freeway, his mangled bike about 15 feet ahead of him and two other smashed up cars further down the road. Eesh. I hope he was OK.
Summertime?
Wow, today it's up to 80 degrees already and only the first week of January! What's going on here anyway?
yam [12:35 PM 0 comments ]
[ Tuesday, January 03, 2006 ]
Postage Goes Up This SundayI gotta hurry up and send out my Christmas thank you notes this week, because postage rates go up this Sunday to 39 cents. Wow, I know that I'm getting old because I can remember when it used to cost less than 10 cents to mail a letter!
yam [3:02 PM 0 comments ] Bleah... Back to Work!
Here I am, back to work after being off for 11 days and it sure was hard to get up this morning!
This year's New Year's holiday has been really weird, since it was on Sunday and most of the festivities (parade, bowl games) are taking place afterwards. But in some ways it was nice not having to get up early on New Year's day to watch the parade, after staying up so late the night before.
Yesterday we just sort of took it easy in the morning, watching the parade and staying in through all of the downpour. In the afternoon, we went to Mulligan's for Matthew's basketball teammate's birthday party, and he was there playing all afternoon. I took a bit of a break from the party and visited L&R and playing a few games of ping-pong with L! That was fun, since I haven't done that in years. And then last night we got in a good hour's worth of DDR (sorry, no video yet, Julie!) to help burn off some of the holiday fat.
Like some of my fellow bloggers, I'm hoping to do a "Year in Review" recap, either in words, photos or both, sometime this week. It was a year of many big changes for us and worth looking back on.
yam [12:01 PM 0 comments ]
[ Sunday, January 01, 2006 ]
No ResolutionsAfter many attempts at trying to make good on resoultions, I've conceded to the fact that I can't keep any that I might make, so I'm not even going to try. About the only thing I will say, which is not really a resolution, but just something that I need to do to live better, and that is to try harder to get in better shape and eat more healthy. After all the rich, fatty, yummy food we've eaten over the past couple of weeks, it's going to take some discipline to lose the extra poundage and get into good eating habits!
Bob's Big Boy
New Year's Eve
Had a very nice New Year's eve! Matthew had basketball practice yesterday afternoon, and then in the evening, L came over and we went to the newly opened Bob's Big Boy restaurant. Bob's has been gone from most of the SoCal area for many years and seems to be making a comeback. I had the corned beef Reuben with their famous Thousand Island dressing and it was wonderful! (I know, NOT healthy!) The location near me isn't even finished (converted from a Carrows restaurant) and being remodelled, but was just packed with customers. Then we went to see "Chronicles of Narnia". It was pretty good and way more intense than I thought it would be. I was a bit concerned that it would be too much for Matthew, but he was fine and enjoyed it. Man, that William Moseley is probably gonna be the biggest heartthrob of the year for the teenage girls after this movie! Then we came back home and watched TV and rang in the New Year with Dick Clark (Wow, did you see him? I was wondering how he'd been since suffering that stroke... didn't sound the same at all, but major props to him for making a comeback!).
Japanese New Year's Food
Near Year's Day
Got up at a decent time this morning to make the traditional Ozoni (Japanese soup/stew with lots of yummy japanese root veggies, chicken, seafood, etc.). My Dad came over to join us at 10 and we watched some football game on TV.
Eating and watching football - Grampa and Matthew playing a game
The rain has been coming down on and off today, so we're just kinda hanging out, watching TV, playing video games and surfing the net. Sometime today I need to get to the market for a few things, but that's about the extent of our day.
Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu!
yam [2:35 PM 0 comments ] Happy New Year, Everyone!
Here's to a great 2006 and hopeful that the new year will be filled with a lot of accomplishments, good health and love!
yam [12:15 AM 0 comments ]
