ugh. my right shoulder muscles are aching like crazy right now. i don't know why but it's making sitting at the computer quite uncomfortable for me right now. maybe i'll stop by the little chair massage place on the way to the gym this evening.

how well do you know me?



i created this mini-quiz of 10 basic questions about my life last year or the year before. i found it again and sent it out to a few more friends....really interesting to see how people do! ha ha. pierre really surprised me---he was the first to get a perfect score.

the ice hockey game was so much fun! what a difference music and fights can make to raise the thrill of these games. there were a lot of "ooooo, eeeehhhh, ouch!" sounds from the crowd. one player spilt blood onto the ice..and the referee waited til it solidified so he could scrape it off! ick! these players are just brutal towards each other...i can only imagine what watching a game like toronto vs montreal must be like.



been shopping around for a digital keyboard. i've been aching to play piano again...but figure if i'm not going to get a full out grand piano (which i'm not), i should just get a nice digital keyboard. i'm leaning towards the yamaha p120s---thoughts anyone? this seems to have the basic sound that i want..plus a few bells and whistles for some fun.



with one week left to go before the oscars, i'm in movie-watching crunch time. yesterday, i caught master and commander with sri---it was good but i didn't totally love the story. i felt like i was dropped in between stories and didn't feel a really good sense of closure at the end. the costumes, makeup, action shots, everything about the film itself was beautifully done; however, the lack of a really strong storyline just didn't do it for me. on the other hand, this film's intention seemed more to be to convey a sense of experience and adventure rather than to tell a specific story...and for that, it did a fine job. i can understand all of the nominations it received..but i don't think it has a chance for best picture. others to watch this week in order: mystic river, something's gotta give, monster, big fish, in america. i'll need to remember to send out an evite to people to watch the oscars with me....



saw the last episode of sex & the city tonight. [sigh] an end of an era. i love what that show brought. i love how it depicted the brutally honest lives of single, successful, independent women.

shisha night last night went really well. tons of people showed up, candles were everywhere, thievery corporation was playing and we had two hookahs. i think i had just the right amount of food too.



i sort of had three sets of friends come together last night, which was cool: the group i went up to whistler with, my usual shisha crowd and some work friends. i was just running around as the hostess all evening...very happy to see people enjoying the new lovesac---no regrets about that purchase. the nice surprise was having val show up with kaliah...and it was val's birthday--we got her cake and everything. it was awesome. and it was really really cool to hang out with my officemate, george, outside of work...and to meet his wife, Bobbi. i have to say the evening was quite a success! i can't wait for my actual housewarming....



tonight, i'm heading out to my first professional hockey game--seattle vs portland. matt got some free tickets in the microsoft luxury box and is taking me, jigna & brendan there. should be a lot of fun! sadly, i watched my first ever ice hockey game earlier this week when i watched one of brendan's local league games...it'll be cool to see the real, professional thing!

this is amusing

when i was at jason's house for eugene's birthday party a few weeks, i got to experience the lovesac for the first time . i'd heard about these things---> according to their website, "it's not a damn beanbag". it's better. this thing is made of some sort of dura foam that makes it really airy and soft. after a failed attempt to check out the store at westlake center last week (it closed!), i went out to the redmond town center last night, met up with brendan, and picked out a "ton 'o' love" lovesac. we went back to my place and "fluffed" it up. see, it comes all factory-vacuum packed and is just one big piece of dense foam at the onstart. after about an hour of fluffing, massaging the foam, pulling it apart, jumping on it, rolling it, twisting, etc...it's finally in a somewhat fluffed state. (apparently, it takes about a week before it ever reaches its full fluffiness) i'm sooo excited about my lovesac purchase! and how perfect---i'm hosting a shisha night with a bunch of friends this friday and don't have much room for people to sit. now there's the lovesac! (which looks quite overwhelming in my living room)

i had an awesome weekend. it started off with going to the olympus spa in tacoma with phoebe and susan...a full evening of total relaxation in this korean-style bath house. this is probably the third time or so that the three of us have gone down there with each other....we should go more often. i think it's great that we can be comfortable enough with each other to just frolic around naked. yay. the next day--> happy valentine's day! in the evening, i headed to the symphony with brendan (fred couldn't make it) to see beethoven's poetic piano concerto, which was just beautiful. we finished the night with a drink at the triple door, where dudley manlove was playing, and some wine at my place. it's always fun getting to know new people. today, i headed to bellevue place with sri, jigna & matt as we lazily wandered from store to store for registry ideas for jigna & matt. so now i'm going to figure out something good to whip up for dinner!

what a rip off. my brother created this prototype of a Pen-Cell back when he was in college this one summer...super proud of it, great idea..but way too much $$$ to get a patent for it or anything. Today, he sent me this article. Apparently, he'd demonstrated his design to Siemens about 2 years ago....too bad he won't be getting any credit.

Aaron's Pen-Cell	Siemens' PenPhone

okay, it's been a long time since i've hit the gym. like, a really long time. awful. bad bad me. but it's a new year, it's time to start afresh and get back into the swing of things. after work today, i headed to the gym. as i walked up the stairs of the broadway market to my local gold's gym, i wasn't sure if the membership id attached to my keychain would even work anymore...i was half expecting the guy at the counter to stop me and say "um..you haven't been here in awhile". but nope--it went through fine. i heard about a class called "body sculpt" starting at 6:45...sounded like something to try on my first day back in a long time. i walked through the mass of people---my god, the last time i was here, this was still a brand new, unknown gym. now, there were people everywhere and instead of smelling like rubber and brand new equipment, the place completely stunk of sweat. great. i made my way to the back where the kickboxing class was finishing up and found a nice, lady named stephanie and said "psst! are you doing the body sculpt class?" i quickly learned that this was only her 3rd time to this class and that she too hadn't been to the gym in ages. welcome to the club. soon after, we all pile into the classroom lugging the various bits of equipment that we'll need----things i'm familiar with: barbells, a bodybar, a mat...and then, a BOSU balance trainer. eeks--this thing looked scary. we spent the first 10 minutes warming up on this thing, bouncing up and down, hopping, balancing, etc. my arches started spasming from the tensity of trying to stay on this half bouncy ball thing-a-ma-bob. whew. but the class was great. i felt great. now let's hope i can keep this up.



weekend was fun---headed up to stevens with eric, jigna, matt, sri & mohit on saturday where we hit all sorts of terrain together the entire day. we finished up by having dinner at The Rock in Lynnwood, where eric lives. seeing his condo reminded me of how much i need to give my place some color.



yesterday, i went in for a brief but fun salsa workshop with "troy & georgette" for "On 1 Advanced". i can't wait to start classes again.

a friend of mine sent this over to me today---> the presidential match tool. pretty interesting. I came up with 100% Kerry and 26% Bush.



been going out a bit more. last night, i went to the w hotel with sri where i met up with jeanette, jigna, matt and a number of other people...very swanky and quite fun to be honest. this city is really rather small. everyone knows everyone who knows everyone.



tonight, i met up and had a crepes dinner with susan and phoebe...yum. us girls haven't caught up in a long time. i ended the evening with some salsa dancing at century ballroom. man oh man, it's been awhile. i have a feeling my body will be a bit sore tomorrow..there was some intense dancing tonight. it's interesting to not go salsa dancing for awhile...cuz when i come back, all the leads i usually dance with have new, funky moves! i can't keep up! there were some guest salsa instructors in town for some workshops this weekend who gave an impromptu performance---whew. it was quite invigorating to be out there on the dance floor again.

I need to travel more. I thought I had traveled a bunch---but after finding this website, it seems that I've only traveled to 12% of the countries in the world:







create your own visited country map



Whenever I meet new people (like I did in Whistler), a question I often get is "Where have you traveled to?". Now I've got this nifty map to point people to.

I've made a few changes to my weblog---first, I moved the entire thing off of blogspot and onto my actual website. I don't know why I didn't do that in the first place--probably because I didn't think sFTP was available...so change your bookmarks! I also added nifty little comments...so...make your comments!



Whistler was a really awesome trip. As I mentioned last, I ended up driving up there with Nick and Laurel on Wednesday night (although the original driver, Chris, changed his mind last minute and drove up on his own..arriving only 45 minutes after I did)---the roads were great and we got there by 11 or so, only to arrive with snowballs getting thrown at my car by giddy happy friends in the hot tub. Idylwood Inn is a really huge place---pretty much two townhomes mushed together. We pretty much took up both the "Deluxe Chalet" and "Executive Chalet" with 5 bedrooms and 5-6 bathrooms. 2 kitchens, 2 living rooms..it was great and super spacious for all 17 of us. Thursday morning, we headed for the slopes for a full day on Blackcomb mountain. Oh what a mountain it is. The group got split up mid-day and I ended up leading Gray & Aileen through a blinding yet ridiculously fun run down Blackcomb Glacier in the afternoon. The entire day it was snowing and snowing and snowing, making it rather difficult for all drivers. We had to park 2 blocks away from the chalet cuz' we couldn't make it back up the small road...as did Kutta's car. Later on that evening, Joe arrived with the two Brendans---their drive took nearly 7 hours as they also fought the slippery roads. We kept thinking "man, I wonder how much snow is falling down". The next morning, we woke up---



45 centimeters of fresh powdery snow had fallen. We had been dumped on.



It was amazing. My car was completely buried in snow and the mountain was full of crazy skiers & boarders with absolutely no fear, screaming with joy at the fresh powder. Sandra, Aileen, Andrew & I all happened to have decided to take advanced lessons that day to increase our skills...so I spent all day doing that. The morning was really unchallenging. Aron, our New Zealander instructor, kept insisting on going on a green run and watching me take really slow, wide turns so he could comment on my general form...things I've always known I needed to work on (bend my knees, don't turn my body so much on toe turns). After lunch, when Aron asked what we wanted to do, Andrew said "Audrey wants powder". Hell yeah I did--I wasn't going to spend a gorgeous powdery day like this just making wide turns on green runs. Our afternoon was completely opposite from our morning as Aron essentially took us on black diamond moguls the entire time, practicing going around those, going up banks and making mini-jumps. Much better.



In the evening, we headed back for another chill night of hot tubbing and good food. That night, Huat, Jigna & Matt arrived...completing our entire group of 17. Saturday was very painful for me as it was my third day straight for heading up to the mountain. The entire morning I complained of spasming arches and weary quad muscles. We had an early lunch and all headed to the Horstman's T-Bar where I was the only one to fall, of course (I did fine on Thursday!), causing me to go back in line and wait again. The second time was a charm, making it all the way up, but only finding the two Brendans there waiting for me. The three of us just enjoyed the Glacier with the sun cutting through the clouds, revealing the still soft and deep powder there. Man oh man it was amazing. We took our time coming down, just enjoying and reveling every moment of that day. Eventually, we got down, took our boards off, called it a day and got a drink together at the Amsterdam Pub & Cafe. That night, the group split up to get dinner (I went to the Sushi Village) and reconvened in the evening for another chill night of hanging out and shisha, thanks to Jigna.



On Sunday, only a few of us went up to the mountain--the rest of us (I included) had brunch at Crepe Montagne and headed into Vancouver for an hour or so of walking along Robson. Miraculously, most of the group got back together for a dinner at Vij's (13 or us), one of Jigna & Matt's favorite restaurants. Yummy yummy. I ended up only having to drive Nick back and we got into Seattle around 10:30pm. Nice.



I just had a great weekend--it was fun meeting all the new folks and hanging out with all those I already knew.