got back from l.a. last night. had a really great weekend, doing the family bonding thing. I saw relatives that I hadn't seen in so many years. The biggest surprise was a family I hadn't seen in over 10 years. The last time I saw the kids, they were only about 2 years old. Kids have grown up so much now...the oldest one is 14 years old and is taking AP Computer Science!! I can't believe they even offer that in high school nowadays...."Gung-Gung" seemed really happy with the celebration, having all his friends and family around him. yay! i also learned a little bit more about the family history. turned out that my grandfather was actually the son of the first concubine, not the first wife; however, the first concubine had all the children, so she was just as important. it's odd to meet his brothers and sisters and not know whether or not they had the same mother.

it was also strange being in L.A. again. It brought back memories of when I was last there and of people I was there with....

i leave for l.a. tomorrow. i get so stressed before i travel anywhere for any length of time. i have so much to do before taking off. i still have to assemble grandpa's birthday present. plus, i have no idea what I'm supposed to do at this celebration. supposedly, i have to "emcee in english". ack.

matthew is also leaving for europe tomorrow for about 2.5 weeks. =(

jed finally found an apartment...which is only like two doors down from me. i can literally see his apartment building from my bedroom window. also, he works only about 5 blocks from me. crazy huh?

[yawn] i hate monday mornings. this morning, i woke up late. i'm upset.

weekend was fun. an old friend from college--jed schmidt--moved to seattle and arrived on friday night. yay! we went to the cirque du broadway on saturday and just went around the city, looking at neighborhoods.

yesterday, i went to the puyallup fair. the place was huge with so many rides and fair food all u want. there were also a couple places selling spas/hot tubs on the fairgrounds. note, a coupla places. why would anyone drop a couple thousand on a hot tub while eating krusty pups and riding the zipper? but people do. i saw people signing papers and everything. i like llamas. it's rare to look at an animal that happens to be on the same eye level as you..and is not afraid of you.

ack, this is a bad omen. look at the time. i'm going to die.

went to the first board meeting of the seattle smith college club last evening. it was actually a lot of fun. we started off talking business and ideas for upcoming events, the budget, the schedule, the new focus of the mission, etc. and then we just launched into a more casual, laid-back conversation about each other and what we do since this was the first time meeting all of them. i loved hearing about what house each person used to live in. in my senior year of college, i worked on a group project in my psychology seminar studying the various factors that affect cohesiveness and living in smith college dorms. one of the factors i was interested in was the stereotype of each house and the way others may perceive you simply because of what house you lived in. for example, one may easily infer that was a big party girl because i lived in cushing, or the quad. during my research, i contacted several alums and asked them what they remembered about certain houses, and surprisingly, the stereotypes have varied through the years. so as i met each of the alums last night, i wondered what the stereotype they had of lamont house, my house, while they were a student at smith.
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four hours later...i just said goodbye and a "nice workin' with ya" to erik macki. so sad. he's leaving amazon to get his masters in education and teach foreign language in high school. what a wonderful thing to do. it was so awkward--i've known him here for so long and he just knows...everything. he was a great asset here and will surely be missed.

bizarre flash. check out nosepilot.com

hmm..haven't written in awhile. i'm sitting at work right now and we just got this ridiculous email about the heat and air-conditioning in the building. It reminded us that the hours when these are turned on are only between 7am-6pm on weekdays and 8am-1pm on Saturdays. And if want either to be turned on outside of these hours, we have to order it through our facility coordinator at least 48 hours in advance at a price of $23/hour/floor. We have to get approval first and then place an order for this service. Can you believe this?!!? How ridiculous is that? We are a 24 hour store and most of us work past 6pm every single day in addition to coming in on the weekends. How will sitting in a 90-degree cramped office space affect my productivity? how dumb.

last night, went to watch this cool Parisian band, Tahiti 80. They had a really positive vibe--most of their songs had a sad sort of theme but with a tone that everything's going to be all right. As if no matter what happens, life's going to be good. What was cool was the fact that each member of the band played multiple instruments--they each had a turn on the keyboard or percussion at some point during the show. they were just jammin' and having a lot of fun.

last night i dreamt that jeff few was given his choice of 3 SUV's to drive and he chose some orange and red futuristic looking one. but then he took off on some souped up motorcycle with angie sitting in the back and he started speeding through this crazy dirt road full of speed bumps. angie was wearing pink leather pants. then the dream ended with him and angie on the donny and marie osmond show talking about their experience. odd.

mp3.com lost its copyright case. damn.

i'm so tired. i stayed up until 2am watching the first "Halloween"--it was actually my first time watching that. did you know that, up until Blair Witch, it was the highest grossing independent movie?

check out aimster

labor day weekend is over. i had a pretty busy weekend. moved into the new apartment on friday---fortunately, had the help of a bunch of awesome friends and finished up finally around midnight. had a little trouble with my couch--it's a bit longer than we expected...but we got it in.
on saturday, i went to bumbershoot and saw george clinton & the p-funk all-stars and tracy chapman. in the middle of the day, emily arrived into town with her boyfriend scott and i was able to drag them back to bumbershoot with me.

on sunday, i returned to bumbershoot to see ozomatli--what an amazing band. they really should've played outside. they're an outdoor band. i love their music. should buy a cd. then saw ani difranco later---how cool it was that she was a mainstage show considering she was just a small stage performer last year. it was actually kinda strange seeing her in such a large audience setting....not really the same.

today, emily and scott left for their 15.5 hour drive back to san francisco...and i finally started unpacking.

just realized my long distance service didnt' transfer over in my move. i'm annoyed.

move-in day.

i've got most everything packed up in some sort of box or another. it's amazing how many original boxes I have---helps out a lot when it comes to moving though. i'm going to be sad and miss my apartment. most of all, i'm going to miss the view from the balcony.

so last night, i got a phone call from my kansas friend, emily, whom i haven't seen in a year and have barely talked to. anyhow, she's in san francisco now and she and her boyfriend decided to take a random drive up to seattle. more house guests. yay!

go to bumbershoot this weekend.