another crazy day at work. i can't believe that i was able to get a certain test up and running--kudos to joe wilson. he totally saved me.

Look! I'm an Internet appliance!

what a long week---and i havent' written anything here in so long. i feel guilty about it somehow. like, y'all come here to see what i've been up to lately--and i don't write for one week and suddenly it seems like i dropped off the face of the earth.

on wednesday, we threw a birthday dinner party for betina at the melting pot---yum yum yum.
on friday, i made a very serious decision about my life here at work...i decided to leave my current team and to join another. it was kind of hard but i just needed to take that risk and do that. i've had such a tough year too and just need something refreshing. it'll be sad to leave but at the same time, i'm ready for a fresh start elsewhere. anyhow, my transition won't be for awhile--like, next year so that there's time to train a new person.

jed and i won the "dumb hikers" award yesterday. so we decided to hike mt. si...but we started off a little late and still decided to climb the full 4 miles up to the top. by the time we started descending, there was only like one hour left of daylight left; needless to say, we ended up walking at least the last 1.5 miles in almost completely darkness, led only by the light coming out of the LCD monitor of my digital camera. and it's a pretty rocky trail too...my ankles were not happy with me at all. [sigh] but all in all, it was a crazy and unique experience. never going to do that again.

finally finished reading Hannibal this last week. it was just like darren explained it to me--it's pretty good throughout most of the book, keeping the reader captivated in Harris's words..and then the last 40 pages just blow up and all hell's loose. what the hell happened?! it'll be interesting to watch the movie...now I know why jodie foster decided not to take up clarice's part again.

geekcruises.com. this is a little scary. I read an article in Wired magazine last night about some guy's experience aboard the Perl Whirl cruise to Alaska with people like Larry Wall and Randall Schwartz.

boy, it's been awhile since I wrote here. the weather's starting to get colder here in seattle. i can't believe it's october already. whatever happened to the pretty fall leaves to remind me that fall was around the corner? oh yeah, i'm in washington. it's bizarre being here in this city where it's green year-round. it always looks the same---just a little colder and some rain here and there.

last weekend was fun. betina had a friend come into town that she's known for years. turns out her friend's mother knew my mom growing up in hong kong. this world is too small. we attempted a night out in kirkland, which failed. then tried to cross the bridge back to seattle and ended up getting stuck because of some random test for boat crossings. and finally, we went bowling until 3 in the morning. not a bad game for that time of night.

i'm alone in the apartment now. betina's in vancouver to recruit UBC kids like I did last week. what an interesting experience. i wasn't sure what to say when a computer science student came up to me and asked what the URL was to "my company's website". * * * * doh. I just tried archiving my entries for the first time cuz' they're way too long. now i've got 2 of the same entry...oh well.

what a yucky day. it was such a gorgeous weekend too. on saturday, i had lunch with jed sitting in the sun down at the waterfront eating clam strips. then we drove around to the aboretum and volunteer park. this city is beautiful.

matthew comes back today--yay!

ate brunch with katrina and had the best conversation with her. also met up with phoebe to talk about the first potluck dinner with 'junior smith grads'.

i don't know what i'm doing with my life. i'm still doing what i did when i first graduated. i've always wanted to open up my own massage/spa shop.

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.