Archive for the 'yoshi' Category

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Going back to work sucks.

Published on December 20, 2007 in :: mom ::, General and yoshi. 7 Comments

I had to be in the office by 6:45am to get ready for a 7am conference call/webex/training session when I went back to work on Wednesday.

That training session lasted until almost 1pm with only a couple of short breaks.

I can’t believe how quickly my calendar is filling up from now until the end of the year. Yikes!

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Since I am really bad at buying Christmas gifts, I decided my present to Yoshi and my Mom would be to take them out for a nice concert. I had heard that Chanticleer was going to be in LA and performing a Christmas concert at Disney Hall.

We had dinner in Little Tokyo at Usui and despite a little rain, it was a lovely night on Tuesday night.

The Chanticleer concert was very enjoyable, a full house… we ran into at least 3 different people that we knew but didn’t know were coming in our section alone.

And the celeb sighting of the night? Gedde Watanabe sat exactly 3 rows in front of me. It’s kind of funny because this is probably the third of fourth time I’ve gone to a public event where Gedde was seated next to/near me.

Because it was raining so hard, Mom spent the night and was still asleep when I left the house to go to work at 6:30 in morning.

Glad we got to spend the time together, but sucked that I had to be up and out the door so early.

On the verge of tears…

Published on December 19, 2007 in General and yoshi. 5 Comments

…I hate shopping.

Especially Christmas shopping.

Seriously.

HATE.

This is why I am grateful my family does not exchange gifts. And that Yoshi usually does most of the gift shopping and giving on my behalf.

Rear-ended by a guy with no drivers license, no insurance

Published on October 14, 2007 in General and yoshi. 11 Comments

I figure it was bound to happen, but it still sucks. I’m wondering if I did the right thing… let me know what you think…

I was going southbound on Vermont (south of Beverly) and was stopped in the left lane (for a light) when the car behind me didn’t stop in time and hit the car I was driving. I didn’t see it coming and my head flew forward and then came directly back before the headrest stopped it from flying back further. I had an instant headache and my neck felt like it had been wrenched. But I could tell I hadn’t been hit hard enough for major damage.

I immediately put my car into park, turned on the hazards, and stepped out of my car.

Behind me was a small blue Nissan with a Latino man in the driver’s side, a woman (I assume his wife) in the passenger seat, and a baby in the back seat. It looked like the guy was hoping I either hadn’t noticed or was going to drive away because he looked disappointed that I got out of the car. The expression was kind of like, “Oh damn, she’s not driving away…”
Continue reading ‘Rear-ended by a guy with no drivers license, no insurance’

Blur of a Weekend

Published on September 30, 2007 in :: bro ::, :: dad ::, :: family ::, :: mom ::, b-school, General and yoshi. 3 Comments

-Yoshi was sick all weekend. Boo!

-On Friday I started to feel ucky so I left work early. Mom and Bro came over in the afternoon since we had to do something together on Friday. Mom and I went to visit Grandma shortly in the evening and we went grocery shopping together. Mom and Bro stayed at my place until almost 11. We watched the episode of Bizarre Foods episode that Andrew Zimmern did in Taiwan. Woot to Andrew Zimmern for describing Taiwan as an “independent nation” during the episode.

-Mom, Bro, and I went on Saturday morning to visit my Dad’s ashes together. We didn’t stay long, but it meant a lot for us to all be together again.

-Spent all Saturday afternoon working on a class project for school. It’s a tough project and I’m frustrated at the slow pace at which everything on it is progressing.

-Had dinner Saturday night with Mom, Bro, and Bro’s gf. This was the first time Mom met Bro’s gf, but I think it went pretty well. Second time in a week that I dined at Olive Garden, after not having it for many, many years. Yoshi couldn’t join because of aforementioned sickness.

-Sunday: Woke up and watched a little TV. I worked the auction and came home to watch a little more TV and then actually do some work. I didn’t play the Wii today, but I made Pro at Wii Tennis earlier in the weekend, after only having the Wii for a week. It will probably take me a long time to master the other sports. I’m quite terrible at them, especially golf.

-Oh yeah. It’s nice having Mom back.

What happens when I wake up at 4am because it’s raining outside?

Published on September 22, 2007 in b-school, General, i love la and yoshi. 2 Comments

First, I go to the bathroom, because, WOW! That’s a lotta water out there…

Then, I wake Yoshi up and go, “Listen! It’s raining hard!”

Then Yoshi asks says groggily, “Yeah, it’s raining. Why are you awake?”

Then, I say, “Because I heard it rain and then I had to pee.”

Then Yoshi says, “Great, now I have to go, too.” And gets up to go.

Then Yoshi doesn’t return right away and I hear futzing in the office. Yoshi is taking the fan out of the window because rain was getting it wet and rain was coming through the window.

Then I go and take the fan out of the window in the den. Same reason.

Then we both go back to bed.

But I can’t sleep now, so I get up.

And Yoshi goes back to sleep.

And then I get down with my nerdly meteorological self and make a post on blogging.la about how there is a drought in L.A.

Now it’s 7:30 and I’m tired. I might take a nap before all my meetings (group projects for school) start up today.

Beat the heat

Published on September 2, 2007 in :: bro ::, General and yoshi. 10 Comments

This morning my Mom called from Taiwan to chat for a bit. It was nice to catch up with her and not need to rush off to work, like usual.

For most of today, we sat in our one air-conditioned room all day until we decided we needed to go to the movies to beat the heat. When we left the house at 3pm, it was 105 degrees outside. When we got to the Valley, it was 107 degrees. Yikes!

We met up with Bro and his girlfriend (BGF = Bro’s GF) at her place and finally got to meet her new puppy. The puppy is a total sweetie pie. I felt bad when we had to leave him at home and go to the movies.

We went to Universal CityWalk and caught Transformers on the big screen (finally). After the movie, we had dinner at Camacho’s Cantina and bitched about all the things wrong with the movie. Like how stupid the plot was. And how Optimus Prime’s mouth moved stupidly. And how annoying the gazillion little pieces moved when things transformed. And of course, how Megatron is NOT a plane… he is a gun. (We already bitched about Bumblebee not being a Camaro a long time ago.)

Dinner was pretty good and since it was BGF’s birthday this past week, we ordered 3 huge desserts between the 4 of us to share. Holy sugar coma! It was sooo good. I managed to make it through the entire dinner without spilling hot sauce or salsa down my shirt, but on the last bite of dessert, somehow chocolate sauce ended up all over my front side. Doh.

I haven’t put a picture of my chest up in a while, so here’s a treat for all the perverts… a picture of my boobs covered in chocolate sauce.

Chocolate Sauce on my chest

Yeahhhh right! (Do you like how I tried to wipe it up with water? Instead I just ended up spreading the chocolate all over my shirt.)

Anyway, on the way home, the power was out right outside CityWalk. (See my post on blogging.la).

I couldn’t wait to get home and stain-stick my shirt.

Now I’m sweating in front of my computer and trying to finish blogging so I can go sit in the room with A/C.

Psst – I also made a post and backdated it to August 30: Joz’s Picks for (Famous) Sexiest Asian Males

Eye am so glad everything is ok.

Published on August 17, 2007 in food, General, joz = dork and yoshi. 11 Comments

Eyelid. Before.
Photo of my eyeball + contact courtesy of me, March 31, 2005

So for a couple of months now, I’ve been having minor vision problems.

Specifically, I had something floating in my line of vision (looks like a black speck) since June. At first I always thought there were gnats flying around my head; I was constantly swatting at imaginary flying things in front of my face. After a little while, I figured out it was my eyes. I thought it was due to lack of sleep, but since the spot didn’t go away after a few days, I made an appointment with my ophthalmologist to make sure it wasn’t anything scary like a retina detachment.

Since it was just one floater, I wasn’t too worried and when I went into see my eye doctor, I got seen by a visiting doctor who looked all over and thankfully couldn’t find a retinal tear or, worse yet, a retinal detachment; just the floater. He said that due to my extreme myopia (nearsightedness), this wasn’t too uncommon and that the floater was in my vitreous humor and that more likely than not it would settle over time. I was to return for a follow up in six weeks, but of course, if I experienced any symptoms of a retinal detachment, to call right away.

Six weeks passed and thankfully, no major changes except I saw some occasional flashes and the floater got bigger (but blurrier). But it didn’t settle. So I went back for my follow up, as directed.

Since I figured they would dilate my pupils again, this time I got smart and got Yoshi to come with me so I wouldn’t have to drive home with blurry vision.

This time, the regular ophthalmologist (not a visiting doctor) saw me and right away she said, “Oh look, I see your floater.” But then she got really upset because she saw some something else and some “elevation” which would typically indicate a retinal tear or detachment. She asked me, “Did I see you last time? No way I would have missed this. Did (the other regular doctor see you)?”

“No!” I said, not wanting the other regular doctor to get in trouble. “The visiting doctor saw me and said everything was ok.” (Incidentally, it was the other doctor’s birthday that day and she had just received a huge arrangement of flowers from her boyfriend. Wouldn’t have been nice for her to get in trouble on her birthday.)

Now I was getting a little panicked and she said she was going to put a giant contact lens thing in my eye to get a closer look. She was extremely thorough and kept looking and looking for a tear because, as she reminded me, “if it’s a tear, I can zap you right now. I have a laser in the other room.” Yikes! Eye zapping?!??!

After 25 minutes of looking for the tear, she started to wonder if I’d had a tear or detachment and then (lucky break for me) my eye started healing itself on its own. She said she couldn’t see anything wrong and chances were everything was fine now, but she wanted me to get a second opinion. She called over to the retina specialist doctor she personally went to and got me an appointment for “as soon as you can get there in Friday traffic.” She started yelling at Yoshi “Get directions! I’m getting on the phone so that Joz gets seen today!”

And out we ran to head over to the L.A. office of Retina-Vitreous Associates Medical Group. (Nice name, eh?)

So now I’m a little freaked out, even though my doctor had said everything was probably fine. Both my eyes were dilated and I had to wear those ugly “instant sunglasses” (they’re called “slip-in myds”) when we exited the building and headed toward downtown. In my hand, I had a referral form with my information filled out at the top and the reason for the referral: RETINAL DETACHMENT. Zoiks! (I was slightly comforted that my eye doctor said that she was going to write that to “make it sound more dramatic so that I could get seen right away.” But still.)

When we got to the Retina-Vitreous office, I filled out the paperwork even though I had a hard time seeing. I asked what my appointment time was and the lady behind the counter said, “Your appointment is for ‘As soon as you get here.’” Yikes!

I waited for a short while and then I had to go for a little intake session. The guy made me do some vision tests (Can you see this?). (I we seeing 20/20 out of my right eye and 20/25 out of my left eye). Then he gave me some numbing drops (which burned) and then took my eye pressure by poking me in the eye with a tonometry device (similar to this Tono-Pen). Surprisingly, getting poked on the eye with this thing didn’t hurt (maybe it was the numbing drops), but then he had to dilate my pupils AGAIN, even though I’d already had them done at my first doctor’s office.

After sitting around for a while, I got moved to the doctor’s office (I asked Yoshi to wait with me) and Dr Boyer peered into my eyes with a bright light (via the slit lamp). He agreed that my doctor was right to have me come over; he could see the elevation that she saw and said that it was understandable why she thought I might possibly have a detached retina. He said what I had was white-with-pressure (WWP) and white without pressure (WWOP), not a retinal tear or detachment.

According to Page 83 of Clinical Pathways in Vitreoretinal Disease By Scott M. Steidl, Mary Elizabeth Hartnett:

White With Pressure, White Without Pressure
These terms describe geographic areas of whitening in the midperipheral, equatorial, and peripheral retina. During indirect ophthalmoscopy without scleral depression, these areas are described as white without pressure. When a white reflex is detected with scleral depression, it is termed white with pressure.

All this means that my retina is OK, but I’m still at higher risk for a Giant Retinal Tear, but that as of now, things are ok. I just have to keep my eyes peeled (no pun intended) for any symptoms.

Thanks to Yoshi for being my chauffeur across town, and also for taking me out to dinner in Little Tokyo afterwards. Thanks also for feeding me guava gelato from Mikawaya. Yum.

This post was brought to you via Google.

A bunch of randomness to keep one day differentiated from the next

Published on August 16, 2007 in General, travel and yoshi. 5 Comments

-Had lunch with EB today at 1:30 at Fabiolus; twas nice to finally sit and chat with him. We found out a few weeks ago that we are connected from high school. Small world.

-Found out that I am getting sent to Tampa for two days of training next week. My coworker who is traveling with me keeps updating me on the two hurricanes in the vicinity. Hooray. [/sarcasm]

-I am really really really bad at bowling. One game at Lucky Strike tonight after work: I had the record setting low score of 46. I consoled myself with an root beer float + a fresh baked cookie topped with vanilla ice cream.

-After I already filled my tummy with dessert, Yoshi and I had a late dinner with (former) Bossguy.

-EB is getting over a bug. I am now trying to overdose on Airborne. I CANNOT get sick before I travel on Sunday night.

Hooray hooray!

Published on August 11, 2007 in :: bro ::, General and yoshi. 7 Comments

The never-ending project has ended!

Thanks to Yoshi for doing so so so so so so much on it.

Thanks also to my Bro for showing up in the afternoon and helping me finish the things I couldn’t finish.

It took me all day today (from 8:30am until close to 10pm), but I’m glad it was all wrapped up today.

Now I must shower because I am covered in a layer of dirt. Ewwwwww…

Weekend round up…

Published on April 8, 2007 in :: bro ::, :: dad ::, :: family ::, :: mom ::, food, General, i love la and yoshi. 1 Comment

I just wrote a post for blogging.la about the Rose Hills Columbarium, which is where my Dad’s ashes are interred. Check it out if you are interested.

Saturday

  • To Rose Hills for a chanting service for my Dad with my brother
  • Brother and I went to visit Grandma/have lunch in Alhambra (Kang Kang Food Court)
  • Hung out at Grandma’s for a bit
  • I went back home, watched TV and played some Sims

    • Sunday

  • Woke up fairly early
  • Did laundry
  • Put dishes away
  • Vacuumed
  • Made meatloaf
  • Washed dishes
  • Swung by to drop off something for cousin Nina and her daughter Ashley (first time I’ve seen Nina with bulging belly for baby #2; also saw cousins Sarah and Daniel)
  • To Orange County to see my brother
  • Dinner at ESPN Zone in Downtown Disney with Bro & Yoshi
  • Dessert from the Jazz Kitchen Express: Beignets and Bread Pudding
  • Back to the house to take care of a few things with Bro
  • Called Mom with Bro
  • Filled out our census survey
  • Back to L.A.
  • Blog

    • Oh and even though I don’t celebrate Easter, I hope you had a good one.

    The dangers of being home alone

    Published on March 9, 2007 in General, i love la and yoshi. 3 Comments

    Yoshi has been out of town since Wednesday and doesn’t get back until this weekend.

    In the meantime, I have:
    -Not done the dishes
    -Not taken out the trash
    -Not done the laundry
    -Not gone to bed at a decent hour
    -Not been eating healthy foods
    -Not made the bed (even once)
    -Not put anything away upon coming home from work (dumped everything by the front door as soon as I walked in)
    -Not worked out

    Granted, even when Yoshi is around, I don’t usually do the dishes or go to the gym. But I do sometimes do the other things.

    I am only admitting this because by the time Yoshi gets home, I must make sure I do all those things.

    Well, I can’t go back and eat better, but I will starting tomorrow.

    Happy Valentine’s Day!

    Published on February 14, 2007 in General, joz = dork and yoshi. 5 Comments

    Except for having to get up early to go to work early today, it’s been a great Valentine’s so far.

    Yoshi sent a beautiful flower arrangement to me at the office! Wheeee!

    What’s funny is that Bossguy knew that I was getting flowers… because he had called the same florist to send me flowers too! The florist goes “Oh yeah, we’re already doing something for her; Yoshi already called.”

    TWO flower arrangements… roses no less!

    Wheeeeeee!!!

    (Pictures to come)

    Private to Yoshi: Thank you, Yoshi! I love you, too!

    Didn’t mean to make you worry…

    Published on January 13, 2007 in :: dad ::, :: family ::, :: mom ::, General and yoshi. 3 Comments

    …I’m ok. Thanks for all the calls, emails and IMs asking if I was ok.

    I’m just a little blue. I got something in the mail this week that reminded me that it’s been more than six months now since Dad’s passing.

    My days have been so incredibly full and busy, I have been avoiding reality by watching mind-numbing television after work at night; probably not the best use of my time or energy. Also, there’s been a flurry of stuff happening with family.

    -Grandma has been recovering from her surgery. She’s been home for over a week; I haven’t been able to go and visit yet.

    -Bro and his friend from out of town came to visit last Saturday night. I had class all day Saturday (8:30am – 4:30pm) and then worked most of the day Sunday, so Saturday night was the only time I had to see them. Went to dinner, then a movie (Curse of the Golden Flower, which is possibly the bloodiest movie I’ve seen in a while), then stayed up past 3am talking.

    -Mom called me earlier this week before I started my Monday night class. Miss her; worry about her.

    -Uncle Peter called me Wednesday about stuff happening in Taiwan. Had to get Mom and Uncle Peter in touch with each other.

    -Talked to Mom again Wednesday two separate times about two different subjects. Found out my Uncle S (her older brother) had gone to the ER the night before.

    -Spent a few hours trying to track down my aunt/cousins to see how Uncle S was doing and to pass a message on for my Mom. (As of Thursday, Uncle S was doing OK; getting better after having been admitted to the hospital. I didn’t get check if he was released to go home yet.). Got updates from my cousin S, and my aunt that night.

    -Also talked to briefly to Nina, glad to have her number in my cell.

    -Good news: Heading to Vegas this weekend to spend time with Yoshi’s parents. Not sure if I’m going to do any gambling, but I doubt it. Ask anyone; I’m a scary gambler.

    New Year Day Mayhem

    Published on January 2, 2007 in :: family ::, General, i love la and yoshi. 1 Comment

    We rang in the New Year quietly, at YoshiMom’s home with both YoshiParents. It was nice to stay in and have a peaceful evening, watching TV, napping, and helping with cooking (or rather, staying mostly out of the way).

    We slept in, but once we were up, we had lots to do. Our first stop was near San Francisco for a late lunch/early dinner, Japanese Osechi. There was a fabulous spread of delicious food, including some of the crab we picked up at Half Moon Bay a day earlier, fresh sashimi (maguro and hamachi), butter mochi, and lot more. I forgot to take pictures this year, but believe me, it was a lot of food. All of it very yummy!

    Around 6pm, we left this gathering and headed toward Sacramento to another New Years Day gathering; less osechi-style (though there were a few more “traditional” dishes), more potluck-style. By this time, I was too full to eat. Except for more butter mochi, of course. We had a great time catching up with everyone we hadn’t seen since last New Years Day. Later on in the evening, I did go back for another round of food, and also got to play the bowling game on the kids’ Nintendo Wii. I officially want a Wii!

    Anyway, after this incredibly long day, YoshiMom drove us back to San Jose (but I kept her company and talked the whole way home).

    Today we slept in (again), but we drove back to L.A.. I had to promise not to drive too fast and stayed under 80 (most of the time). I did get caught (by Yoshi) driving 85, but I was only doing that to pass someone and also had my foot off the pedal when I got caught. We were going to stop by the Gilroy Premium Outlets, but (wisely) skipped it. As if the entire trunk and backseat full of stuff wasn’t enough!!!

    Anyway, I always love seeing everyone on New Year Day, but I’m also glad to be back in our messy home again.

    Oh yeah, the diet begins officially on Wednesday, January 3.

    Hmmm… maybe I did need to sleep all day.

    Published on December 17, 2006 in :: family ::, :: mom ::, General and yoshi. 1 Comment

    I was awakened around 8 this morning by a phone call from Mom in Taiwan. I think she’s feeling lonely and sad in Taiwan and it makes me sad that she’s feeling that way. She says she can’t come back until she takes care of a few things there… how long that stuff takes is beyond her control. Anyway, I talked with her for a bit and then she began to worry because she could tell I was sick (my voice was all wonky), and then she started to worry about my health. I told her not to worry, but you know how Moms are.

    Anyway, after talking to Mom, I decided that I should eat something and take some meds so I would stop coughing so much. I was heating up some food in the microwave and *poof!* I blew another fuse in the kitchen. Did not know that the slow-cooker being on at the same time as our microwave would cause a blow-out. Ooops.

    I was futzing around the place we keep the extra fuses and realized that we only had one fuse left. All this noise woke Yoshi up who told me that since I have blown the fuses in the kitchen 3 times, that I need to go to Home Depot BY MYSELF and get replacements. Needless to say, I began whining and pretending that I wasn’t the one who blew the fuses. (“Nice try,” says Yosh.) For the record, I did change out the fuse, all by myself. Unfortunately, I accidentally turned the power off in both the bedrooms, so our computers/server got rebooted and all the clocks were flashing 12:00 after that.

    Anyway, after all that, I decided to go back to bed. Which was probably a good idea because I crashed out and slept until 5:30pm (at least 6-7 hours) when some inconsiderate telemarketer(?) called my home number and woke me up. Since we don’t have a phone in the bedroom, I ran out of bed and into the office to get the phone.

    “Hello?” I answered groggily.

    “Mrs. (Joz’s last name)?” came a wimpy male voice.

    “Huh?” I asked.

    *click*

    I got hung up on.

    GRRR! Not only did I get awakened, I got hung up on! Doh!

    So I’ve been up since then, waiting for Yoshi to get home. We were supposed to try to make it to our friends’ holiday party, but since I am not 100% and Yoshi called a few minutes ago saying, “I think I have a fever,” the party is probably not a good idea.

    So that’s another holiday party I am going to miss out on because I’m sick. Booooooo!

    This is what

    Published on December 8, 2006 in General, travel and yoshi. 2 Comments

    This is what

    2 hours of sleep looks like… And as of 8:45am, we’ve been stuck on the tarmac for an hour. Something broke on the plane and they need it to take off. They don’t have one here so they are having it couriered from lax. We had to deplane & waiting for the part.

    UPDATE: We are now sitting in the terminal again, waiting for the part to arrive. They are giving us an ETA of 11:45 as the new flight time. This was supposed to be an 8am flight. We were supposed to BE in Seattle by 10:45. I’ve been up since 5am and here at the airport since 6am. And Yoshi stayed up all night.

    There are gonna be two grumpy people this afternoon.

    Gah! Still up! Need sleep!

    Published on December 4, 2006 in :: bro ::, :: family ::, b-school, General, joz = dork, joz = weirdo magnet and yoshi. 3 Comments

    Dammit.

    I was so tired all day. And now that it’s almost 4am, I am wiiiiiiiiiiiiiide awake. For frick’s sake. I have a crapload of stuff to take care of tomorrow. Er, today. Whatever Monday is.

    Well, seeing as I’m not doing anything right now, here is a brief rundown of stuff that happened last week… if I can even remember that far back.

    Thursday, 11/30/06:

  • Good news: Had a holiday/client lunch event for work. Got a ton of cool stuff.
  • Good news:Went to my Finance class. Found out that the Final exam is now “optional.” Seeing as I got A’s on my first two exams, did all the homework, and hopefully turned in a good group project/paper, I doubt I’m taking the final exam… whoo hoo!
  • BAD news: On the way back to the office from lunch, noticed a very, very bad thing. I SWEAR IT WAS NOT MY FAULT! I have no idea what happened to the sapphire that flanked the diamond, but I thank the universe that I didn’t lose the diamond. On the other hand, I have a very bad track record with these damn sapphires. This is the THIRD time the sapphire has fallen out. (See below. This picture shows the setting intact, but the sapphire gone! I swear I wasn’t doing anything to cause it to fall out. I was not playing basketball. I did not punch anyone in the head. In fact, I have barely been wearing it since last year when we had to get the setting made again because of the “mangling” incident.)
    The sapphire fell out of my ring again! I swear it wasn't my fault!

    ::the second time. 6/26/2005 (but I never got around to posting the picture or blogging about it. So this was definitely somewhat my fault. I don’t know how this happened except that I know that I was applauding during a concert and then as soon as the concert was over, I noticed my ring was TOTALLY MESSED UP! Luckily, I was able to go back to my seat and FIND THE SAPPHIRE. They did have to totally redo the entire setting for my ring, though. Seriously, it wasn’t like I was clapping THAT hard!)::

    Mangled Ring - 06-26-2005

    • ::the first time i lost a sapphire. 5/30/2003 (thx to Mike Doss for keeping my archives alive, since they didn’t import into WordPress. Sorry no pix. Since it was the first time, and because it happened within 6 months of us getting the ring, the jeweler replaced it for free. Somehow I doubt that they’ll do it again, though.)::

    Friday, 12/1/06:

  • After work, I went to visit my Grandma & take care of some business for my parents. I ended up being there almost all afternoon and evening.
  • Is it really December?
  • I got bacteria from Efi for my birthday. This was a late shipment after previously receiving a book about yogurt and an Atari video game. Thanks, Efi! I know you must love me lots to send me bacteria for my birthday!!!
  • Talked to Bro on the phone a bit.

    • Saturday, 12/2/06:

  • Where the heck did the day go? Got up “early” but got distracted with junk online and almost didn’t get to pick up my snail mail in time.
  • Ran Rooben around the house.
  • Drove the Yoshi downtown in the afternoon for a brief appointment.
  • Came back, got ready for our friend Lauren’s robot birthday party.

    • Sunday, 12/2/06:

  • Cleared a whole bunch of crap off the TiVo.
  • Went to my former classmate’s place for a Holiday Open House. Had a lovely time. They had a great mix of guests and had it catered and everything. I had an extended conversation with a Finance professor (not mine) about the errors he found in a text book. (Weird.)
  • Talked to the Bro on the phone again.
  • Took a 20 minute nap on the couch in front of the TV. (Thanks, Nature!)

    • Things I did not do:

  • Clean my desk
  • Organize any of my crap around here
  • Clean the house
  • A lot of other stuff I was supposed to do instead of lying around and being a bum.

    • Freaky deaky…

    Published on November 27, 2006 in b-school, General and yoshi. 3 Comments

    (Written Monday night, but inadvertedly unposted when written.)

    Earlier tonight (around 9pm) I was on the phone in my home office with a classmate, talking about our final paper/project, which was due tonight. In the middle of our conversation, I heard some banging on the window.

    *Bam! Bam! Bam!*

    “Hello? It’s the police,” I heard from outside my office window.

    That got my attention.

    I asked my classmate to hold and opened the window a smidge. “Yes?”

    “It looks like your neighbor next door was burglarized,” he said. “It looks like someone cut a hole in their screen and climbed in through their kitchen window.”

    Doh. That kitchen window is right next to my office window.

    “Your neighbor just got home and found the front door open. What time did you get home today?” he asked.

    “Um… around 7pm,” I said. “When I got home it was already dark, but I didn’t notice anything unusual.”

    He police officer asked me a few more questions and I mentioned that another one of our neighbors had sent a note around about some vandals (someone shooting BBs through peoples front windows!) in the area, but that I hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary lately. I said I’d give him a copy of the note and that if he had any questions, he could come to the front door and I’d be happy to help as I could.

    I got off the phone with my classmate (who had heard enough of the conversation to get freaked out on my behalf) and went to the den to let Yoshi know what was going on. Since the cops were already outside, Yoshi went out to check things out and to talk to the other neighbors.

    This is what we found out:

  • When our neighbor next door got home (around 9pm), she noticed that her front door was open and the lights were on. She called the folks in the next building to let them know she wasn’t going into her place and that she was calling the cops. She had been out since 8am and usually gets home earlier than 9pm, but had some errands to run.
  • The cops showed up shortly thereafter and searched the building (it was around that time that they talked to me through the window).
  • I had come home at around 7pm. It was dark and her apartment was dark. I didn’t notice if the front door was open or not, but I would assume it was shut.
  • Upstairs neighbor got home around 7:30pm, did not notice anything unusual.
  • Yoshi got home around 8:00ish. Says that the apartment was dark at that time.
  • Next door neighbors were home since 4-5pm.
  • Upstairs neighbors were home and watching a movie.
  • The best we can figure, ALL THE NEIGHBORS WERE HOME while the apartment was broken into and burglarized. Nobody saw/heard anything!

    • When we last heard, the neighbor had a bike, a PDA, some jewelry and other small items taken. I’m so grateful that we have bars on our windows because otherwise I’m sure we’d be an easier target than that other apartment.

    We live in what we thought was a safe neighborhood. We have neighbors that we talk to and we all watch out for each other. Our next door neighbors have lived here for 10 years and never heard of anything like that happening. The ones who live above us have lived here 15+ years. The ones on the other side of us have lived here 15+ and 20+ years. Except for the occasional car break-in, and the vandals we heard about (about a month ago), no one has had any major problems with crime.

    When stuff like this happens, it makes me think twice about living in L.A.. I know the crime isn’t as bad as everyone else in the world seems to think it is, but it’s certainly unnerving to know that our neighbor was burglarized within minutes and none of us knew it happened until it was over.

    Good thing I am a paranoid freak and keep everything locked up tightly.

    *goes and chains the door shut*

    I got a puppy for my birthday!!!

    Published on November 26, 2006 in :: family ::, General, joz = dork and yoshi. 4 Comments

    Please welcome the newest member of the jozjozjoz family!

    Pudding Puppy*! (Yes, he is filled with pudding treats!)

    Joz's new puppy!

    *This is not the official name. We just haven’t come up with a good one yet.

    I spent my birthday almost exactly as I’d wanted to… with family and loved ones all day, punctuated by birthday wishes from my friends via phone. Thanks to everyone who called, emailed, IM, etc.

    I got up early… considering Bro and I were up talking ’til 4am last night… to visit my Dad at Rose Hills (missing Nina and her family by just minutes, it turned out, who had gone to visit her Grandma). I stayed for the chanting service and visited my Grandpa, Grandma, and Nina’s Grandma, as well.

    I visited Grandma early in the afternoon, picked up some comfort food at Shiau Mei and headed back home to take a nap.

    Then Yoshi drove us back to Grandma’s to meet up for dinner with Bro, my Uncle Peter, and his family for an intimate birthday dinner. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was spent with some of the people I cared most about. And while we were waiting to be seated, Mom called from Taiwan.

    Then after dinner, Yoshi and I went shopping and picked up a puppy!

    What a way to top off my birthday!

    Orlando Vacation Debrief

    Published on November 12, 2006 in General, travel and yoshi. 9 Comments

    Highlights of the Trip:

  • Spending time with Yoshi
  • Not having to be at the office for a week
  • Getting to fly JetBlue and having DirecTV to distract me on the flights.
  • Finally getting to meet Stacy of MyDamnBlog.net (not .com!) ::here is Stacy’s post mentioning our visit::
  • Going to Walt Disney World with Yoshi and also Dave.
  • Going to the Kennedy Space Center and getting a “NASA Up Close” tour of the launch pads for the current shuttle missions
  • Using up our quarters to mash pennies everywhere we went (What’s up with the penny machines for Epcot Japan and China being outside of the countries?! What’s up with the displacement of the asian penny mashers?!!?!?)
  • Free wi-fi in the lobby of our condo (not that I really got to use it much)
  • Seeing them work on the giant (life-sized) gingerbread house in the Grand Floridian Hotel (and eating a piece of the house)
  • Staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and having a room overlooking numerous zebra, giraffe and wildebeest, etc.
  • Attending an awesome wedding
  • Going backstage at Epcot
  • Stuffing my face at Jiko Restaurant at the Animal Kingdom Lodge (Rehearsal Dinner)
  • Stuffing my face at the Garden View Lounge Afternoon Tea (Bridal Shower)
  • Stuffing my face at the Living Seas Lounge at Epcot (Wedding Reception)
  • Meeting lots of cool new peeps. And seeing old friends.

    • Parts of the Trip I Could’ve Done Without:

  • Paying an arm and a leg for DisneyWorld passes (when I could have gotten them for free)
  • Starting off the trip with Yoshi leaving a carry-on bag (with our boarding passes and confirmation numbers) at home
  • Having to navigate the Burbank Airport terminal carrying ALL FOUR of our heavy pieces of luggage (to check) + my two heavy carry on pieces while Yoshi went back home to get the missing carry-on.
  • Crashing and bumping into members of the Webber International University football team in the terminal while carrying all the baggage. The entire JetBlue check-in area was filled with BIG BIG guys wearing their green and gold team gear + various coaches, girlfriends, and tons of equipment.
  • Getting yelled at by some random guy for running over his foot with my 100+ lbs of bags. Oops. It wasn’t like I did it on purpose. For that split second only, I wished my bags weighed 1000+ instead.
  • Having to wait in line behind all these guys while carrying all the baggage to check my bags.
  • Finding out there was a separate check-in line for non-football members after I’d already waited for 20 minutes behind them. I was still carrying all that crap the whole time.
  • Finding out that the stinky football team (I found this out from standing near them and realizing they’d been in LA for 3 days and had no laundry facilities) was going to be on our 4 hour+ flight from Burbank to Orlando. Once we all got on the plane, it turned out that the team filled the entire back half of the plane and the flight attendants had to move several football players to the front of the plane to redistribute the weight on the plane.
  • The rain and tornado on Tuesday in Orlando.
  • Not being able to find postcards anywhere that didn’t cost an arm and a leg. Not being able to get my postcards out until we were about to leave Orlando.
  • Getting lost numerous times while trying to get from place to place on the Disney properties.
  • Realizing that I’m too old for certain thrill rides because I got queasy from doing the “Mission: Space” ride at Epcot.
  • Our friend Mary being sick and having strep throat the entire trip.
  • Being too tired to think clearly and putting two boxes of soy milk in a duffel bag which subsequently got punctured and destroyed almost everything in the duffel bag.
  • Getting airsick on the flight home. I didn’t barf, but I felt like I was going to for the rest of the night.
  • Getting reminders of all the work and stuff I have to come back to when I return to L.A.
  • Only getting a week of vacation.

    • ::this post was brought to you courtesy of the free wi-fi and yummy croissants at Aux Delices on Colorado in Pasadena.::

    Why does real life keep intruding on my vacation?

    Published on November 6, 2006 in General, travel and yoshi. 3 Comments

    Actually, it only happened a couple of times today and it really wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t even the Bossguy calling, either, so that was good.

    We spent the entire day yesterday traveling to Orlando, Florida. I’ve never been in Florida before this. The trip itself was an adventure. We settled in last night and got up early to be tourists.

    Spent most of the day at the Kennedy Space Center, had dinner in Cocoa Beach and almost got lost trying to get back to Orlando.

    Nonetheless, we’re back at our resort and I’m sitting in the lobby, taking advantage of the free wi-fi.

    Haven’t had a chance to download any pix off my camera yet, but if you check out Joz’s flickr photostream, you might get a peek or two of my vacation from my cameraphone.

    More later… I promised Yoshi a turn at the keyboard…

    UPSET!

    Published on October 9, 2006 in General and yoshi. 10 Comments

    Yoshi is in pain and it was all my fault and now there’s nothing I can do and I’m UPSET! (I was crying earlier, but that just made my contacts pop out and I stopped so I don’t lose them.)

    Way back at the beginning of this year, I sent Yoshi to a crackpot dentist/endodontist who not only messed up the Yoshi-teeth and caused severe dental pain, but also caused permanent (irreparable?) damage, and has already cost thousands and thousands in dental expenses.

    Yoshi finally had enough with this retarded dentist/endodontist I referred and asked if I could make an appointment with my dentist (who is very good, but not “in-network” and very, very expensive). My dentist referred out to a trusted and very good endodontist who took Yoshi in today for a same-day appointment.

    The upshot is that this endodontist doesn’t want to fix the mess the first one caused. Basically, to get this fixed, Yoshi has to go back to the first one. And, although I completely understand why, Yoshi refuses to go back to the first.

    Also, Yoshi has already “maxed out” on whatever insurance covers in a year… whatever that means. So let’s say this new endodontist agrees to fix things (which he already said he won’t)… it would be EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE to do so. Let’s say we wait ’til next year and “start from scratch.” Still will be expensive and more importantly, the damage has already been done.

    I feel upset (and guilty) because if I had just referred my dentist in the first place (out-of-network or not), a lot of this could have been avoided. It’s very likely that they would not have had to do so many root canals (yes, multiple) on Yoshi who had (up until this quack) very nice teeth.

    If I was so intent on finding an in-network dentist, I should have asked around and found someone with a lot of good feedback instead of sending Yoshi to one I found in the book. To be fair, the dentist I looked up was well-established and had been practicing for many years, graduated from a good school. I did not know that that dentist would only see Yoshi for the first appointment and then have a different dentist take over from there. I did not know they would screw things up and actually *cause* Yoshi to have a root canal or two. I did not know that the endodontist they refer would be incompentent and not “get it all” so that Yoshi would have lingering pain and hurt while doing simple things like, oh, brushing.

    Still, if I had any idea it could have turned out like this, I should have referred to my dentist in the first place.

    And now I am going to cry some more because I inadvertently caused someone I love a lot of pain and trouble and there is nothing I can even do about it now. Because Yoshi won’t let me and says there is nothing I can do. The last thing I want is for this to get worse than it already is.

    I suck.

    Yawn.

    Published on October 8, 2006 in :: dad ::, :: family ::, :: mom ::, b-school, food, General and yoshi. 4 Comments

    It’s now about 2am on Saturday night/Sunday morning.

    I just realized I’ve had a grand total of 4 hours of sleep since I woke up Friday morning. No wonder I’m beat.

    The Ethics seminar is now over, thank goodness. While I appreciate the importance of stopping and thinking about ethics (I didn’t want to say “learn about ethics,” because can you really “teach ethics?” Maybe, but probably not in a 2 day seminar), it’s just kind of a drag to spend your weekend sitting in a classroom debating hypotheticals.

    After class, I made the mistake of not listening to Yoshi (who told me “Don’t get on the 10 freeway! There’s a Dodger game right now”) and sitting in more than an hour and a half of traffic on the 405 and 10 to get to the San Gabriel Valley. This mistake had been followed by the mistake I made of drinking 4 cups of coffee in one day to stay awake during the seminar… this coming from someone who generally doesn’t drink coffee at all. I felt nauseated after being stuck in stop-and-go traffic for 45 minutes and I could feel the caffeine coursing my system. I could actually feel the blood pumping in my head! (Note to self: coffee is not a substitute for sleep!) Needless to say, I was grateful to finally get to Grandma’s house (meeting place for me and Mom). I was also grateful to my friend Jim from high school, who listened to me rant for 50 minutes while stuck in the car. And I was grateful to Yoshi again when I called for more company for the last 25 minutes of my drive from hell.

    I met up with Mom to take care of the stuff I’d worked on late last night, went to the hospital to visit Grandma (she was sleeping), and then go out to a late dinner.

    My Mom had been busy all day today, too but we got to Grandma’s house at about the same time. And after visiting Grandma, we realized neither of us had eaten dinner yet. We wandered around Monterey Park a bit in the car and ended up at a Taiwanese “deli” (casual kind of diner-type place) called “My Way Deli” (味佳冷飲小吃). Turns out that the place is owned by a close friend of one of my Mom’s close friends so my Mom ended up chatting the folks up a bit. We ordered waaay too much for two people (click the links for pictures): deep fried pork intestines dipped in salt and pepper (don’t judge! they are soooo yummy), an order of small steamed “dragon” dumplings (“xiao lung bao”/小籠包), thin vermicelli/rice noodle soup with goose meat (found this picture just posted on flickr with the comment “NT$50/US$1.51. More expensive (usually these go for NT$30/$0.90 at a nightmarket stand or maybe NT$40/US$1.20 in a bigger shop) but not more tasty. It was okay.” I think it cost NT$180/US$5.45 here… cheap for L.A. Astronomically priced vs. Taiwan!), and a “ba-wan”/肉圓 a kind of a meat “circle” (see the wiki on “ba-wan”).

    I can’t believe the two of us almost all this food at one sitting. I don’t think it was so much that we were that hungry. It’s that we wanted to sit and talk and taste some authentic Taiwanese flavors. We reminisced a lot about our family in Taiwan, about trips we had taken there (it’s been almost 10 years since I was last there), about all the different things I broke in Taiwan (including something –I forgot what– at Nina’s Dad/Grandparents house in Taiwan and a glass table at my grandpa’s house I cracked as a fat toddler when I stood/jumped on it), about how my Grandma (Mom’s mom)/Grandpa met each other, and also (of course) about Dad. It was nice to just sit and talk to my Mom and feel close to my family and Taiwan for a little bit.

    I didn’t get home until past 11pm. Though I was tired, I knew it had been totally worth it to go out and spend time with Mom/Grandma even after the long couple of days I’ve had.

    a little help please

    Published on April 27, 2004 in yoshi. 15 Comments

    quick, think of 5 songs about mothers. or songs that pay tribute in some form or another to parents, or those who came before…

    lemme know what you come up with.

    UPDATE

    thanks so much for everyone’s contributions. now off to do some more research!

    yoshi in a bubble…

    Published on March 18, 2004 in yoshi. 7 Comments

    ok, so there is lots going on around our soon to be vacated house. they’ve cleared the plants and shrubs from the front of the property, they’re replacing the fence, and this week they’re painting both houses and garage.

    all is well inside this little house as well, packing is going smoothly, etc. but this morning i was greeted by the painter, who informed me that he was about to cover all the windows and our front door with plastic so he could paint. ok. never quite realized what that would entail. every possible way out of my house is covered with plastic.

    now i’m stuck inside while he paints the front of the house, no way out, can’t even see outside. is it getting stuffy in here?
    Continue reading ‘yoshi in a bubble…’