My grandmother passed away over the weekend. She was 96 years old. This was the grandmother who raised me when I was little as my parents were always busy working. She made breakfast for me and my brothers every morning before school. She made us snacks when we came home after school. She took me to the park. She favored me and sided with me every time I argued with my brothers. She slept in the same room with me all through my childhood and because of that, she was the one I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom with me as I was scared of the long dark hallway. Needless to say, I am saddened by her departure. But as sad as my family and I are about losing her, we also feel it is a relief for her. She had led a pretty harsh life. It just might be a good thing for her to move on to a better place.

My grandmother led a hardworking life from childhood up through her middle age. Her family was poor. She started working in the plantations at a very early age. Things didn’t improve much after she married my grandfather because he too was poor. They worked really hard to sustain life for the large family they made. My grandfather had two wives and together they had eight children. That was a lot of mouths to feed. One might think that my grandmother’s burden would have been eased from the help she should have gotten from my grandfather’s other wife. That wasn’t the case. My other grandmother was weak in a lot of ways – health, strength, personality. My grandmother had to care for her as if she was another dependent. To this day I’m still not clear whether my grandmother held any grudges towards her husband’s other wife. Back then in the villages, it was common for a man to have multiple wives. But still, it must not have been a happy affair for a woman to have to share her husband. For sure I know my elder uncles did not, and to this day still do not, like their stepmother nor their half-siblings. They shunned her for being a mistress and discriminated against their half-siblings as being “wild kids”, as illegitimate. Unlike her older brothers, my mother has a bigger heart. She respected her stepmother as she did her birth mother and treated her half-siblings as if they were from the same mother. I commend my mother for that.

Back to my grandmother who had led a hardworking life up until her middle age. As my grandfather’s health started to decline, my grandmother bore most of the burden of keeping the family together. The family’s economic condition started improving after my mother got married. My parents started to own businesses and money was starting to be less of a problem. Thus my grandmother was finally able to relax her responsibilities. Life was finally getting better, or at least easier, for her. From there she was able to live a calmer life of babysitting her grandchildren while her children worked to support the family.

Here I’m missing some pieces of the puzzle. I don’t know what my mother’s older brothers did in terms of helping the family. It seems to me they didn’t do anything besides holding grudges against their stepmother and half-siblings. My mother pretty much took over the burden from my grandmother when it came to supporting the family. My mother also had an older sister, but she married off to another village really early so she was no help.

Eventually my grandfather died and my grandmother went on to live with our family instead of with my uncles’ or aunts’. She looked after me and my brothers as my parents ran their businesses. When my family immigrated to America, my grandmother came with us. My brothers and I were very young then, ages 4 to 12. Being new immigrants, my parents had to work very hard to put food on the table. My grandmother was great help to them as far as taking care of us kids while they worked all day. As such, my grandmother played a big role in our family as we were growing up. And we loved and respected her very much for that.

About 10 years ago, my mother’s second brother immigrated to America as well. At that time my grandmother’s health was starting to decline. She especially started to lose her mobility. She could no longer walk and needed to be transported everywhere with a wheelchair. Even the simple act of going to the bathroom was a problem. As such, she needed a lot of care and attention on a daily basis. Since my parents had to run the family restaurant and my brothers and I either had to work or go to school, we couldn’t give her the kind of attention she needed. Therefore it was fortunate that my uncle came to America because he then took over the task of taking care of my grandmother. At first my uncle lived with us at our home and cared for my grandmother there. Then a couple of years later he and my grandmother moved into an apartment closer to downtown where it was more convenient for him to take care of her. From then on, my grandmother was under my uncle’s care at his apartment. Once in awhile we visited them and once in awhile my uncle would take my grandmother, in her wheelchair, to “walks” as far as to our restaurant as a small little field trip.

Then a few years ago, my grandmother had a stroke which rendered her bedridden ever since. She could not even sit in a wheelchair. Therefore in the last few years she was always in her bed. With her poor vision, poor hearing, and poor memory, she pretty much didn’t know what was going on around her. She couldn’t recognize us when we visited. She probably couldn’t even feel her own existence. But she hung on. My grandmother was a strong woman. From her early years of working hard to take care of her family to her latter years of fighting to keep her life, my grandmother was a strong and amazing lady. Her strength, her will, her capabilities, none of these can be slighted.

Then last Tuesday, May 3, 2005, my grandmother suddenly coughed like mad. We sent her to the hospital. The doctors told us she had some internal bleeding in her lungs. She was in critical care for two days and then she was transferred back to a regular room after her condition stabilized. I visited her as often as I could while she was there. Then on Saturday, May 7, 2005, her kidneys failed. Shortly after that, she stopped breathing and passed away peacefully in her sleep. My brother and my uncle were there with her when she passed. My mother had just stepped away from the hospital to drive a visiting relative home when it happened. Therefore she wasn’t able to be at my grandmother’s side at the moment of her passing. I myself also wasn’t there at that moment. To be honest, none of us expected her to leave so suddenly. We all thought she could overcome this episode. When I visited her on Friday evening, I had asked the nurse on duty for her assessment of my grandmother’s situation. The nurse told me that she looked pretty stable and that after a few more days of monitoring, she may be able to go home. And that’s exactly what we all thought – that she might be able to overcome this one and go home in a few days. She had always been able to “go home in a few days”. Why shouldn’t she this time? Banking on that, I had planned to visit my grandmother later in the evening on Saturday so that I could do some stuff in the earlier part of the day. Unfortunately, I missed the chance to see her one more time before she left. It was more unfortunate for my mother though. She was there all morning and had just stepped out for about an hour and still she missed her mother’s last moment.

I’m sure my grandmother fought very hard this time around just like she always did in the past. It may just probably be the time for her to let go and free herself. She should be at a better place now, a place where she can have peace and comfort to rest her tired, overworked soul.

She will be missed.

I had a very eventful week last week. Went to many places. Did many things. It was fun while it lasted. But like always, all fun eventually comes to a stop. Reality always finds its way back in to ruin things. This time was no exception. The fun ended and reality is kicking in.

It’s so ironic that sometimes the more fun you have, the more consequences you have to suffer later. Does this take away from the initial enjoyment? I don’t know. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. If only fun and enjoyment can come with absolutely no strings attached. But we all know that’s not possible.

An interesting question was posed to me while I was in London. First allow me to list the facts involved.

(1) The normal liquor license in London (or maybe in England as a whole) allows pubs to sell alcohol until 11pm. With a 15-minute allowance to wrap up all drinking, pubs usually kick customers out by 11:15pm.

(2) Certain clubs and/or restaurants have extended liquor licenses allowing them to serve alcohol later into the night, till as late as 2am.

(3) Because of items 1 and 2, there has been a long standing problem in London where people kicked out of pubs at 11:15pm migrate over to clubs with extended licenses in attempt to continue drinking. But seeing that most of these people are already half drunk or have had enough to drink for the night, bouncers at the clubs deny them entrance. With both sides persisting on their stands, fights often break out between the two groups.

The question posed to me during a casual conversation at a pub was, “If London extends drinking hours to 2am for all pubs to match up with the clubs, do you think that would alleviate the problem with fights between club bouncers and pub-to-club hoppers?”

I was asked this question because the person knew I was from San Francisco where drinking hours end at 2am uniformly for all establishments. He wanted to know if doing what we do here in SF would help them with the problem of fights they have there. My answer was no, it wouldn’t help their problem. It would only create other problems instead. Everywhere there is drinking, there are problems. For us, the problem is at 2am when the streets are filled with drunks who are at least loud and raucous if not fighting or driving. The threats of these problems are as troublesome, if not worse, than the problem London currently faces. Also, with their culture of hitting pubs earlier in the evening than we do, extending the drinking hours will only increase the amount of alcohol they will consume in one evening. That just creates drunker people on their streets by the time the pubs close. I think I have some valid points here. Feel free to comment.

After quitting my last job and before starting at my new job, I went to London for a week. This was the first time I stepped foot into Europe. I’ve been to Canada, Mexico, and all around China, but never Europe. Wish I had the time and money to go to more European destinations, like Paris and Italy, but at least I got to go to London. It was a long overdue trip. I have a friend there and he’s been bugging me to visit him for two years. And finally I did.

Overall the trip was good. It wasn’t the best trip I’ve ever taken, but it was definitely worth my while. The history, the architecture, the culture were all new and/or different to me somehow. London is one of the oldest modern cities I’ve been to. At the same time that it is a modern metropolis with a bustling economy, it is also a city full of history. Everywhere you go you see old buildings still standing from eons ago. For me this was good because I enjoy looking at old architecture. London definitely has lots of that to offer. Westminster Abbey, for example, is one of the most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen. And with all the royal coronations done on location and with so many important figures buried or memorialized there, I would also call it powerful. Other than Westminster Abbey, I was also impressed by Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and the London courthouse. London Bridge, on the other hand, was a disappointment. Having heard about the bridge so much and with the old nursery rhyme that pays tribute to it, I expected a beautifully designed bridge. To the contrary, it is the most boring of all bridges with no design aesthetics whatsoever.

The most beautiful area we visited was the city of Bath, which is two and a half hours west of London. On the last day of our trip, we joined a tour for a day-trip to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath. The city of Bath was built around the hot springs that the Romans discovered in the area in 90AD. The Roman Baths occupied a huge area of the city. To the present day only a small portion of it has been dug up. The bulk of the area still lies underground yet to be unearthed. Anyhow, with a beautiful river running across town, a charming little bridge lined with shops, and the entire city built with one single façade of yellow brick houses, Bath looks absolutely gorgeous. It is as picturesque as any scene you find on jigsaw puzzles. I can imagine myself visiting Bath often for weekend trips if I were to live in London.

The one biggest problem I had on this trip was the weather. London is too darn cold!!! I don’t deal with cold weather too well. This has always been the case throughout my life. I don’t know why. Maybe my body just can’t generate enough heat to warm me up when the surrounding is cold. For me to be in London in early March was not the smartest idea. But when that’s the only time I can go, what can I do? Nothing really. So I roughed the cold. It wasn’t fun, but I survived. The way I consoled myself at the time was to constantly remind myself that at least it wasn’t snowing or raining like it did the week before my visit. That was a blessing I counted.

Another thing that posed as a little of a problem was the poor exchange rate we got for the dollar. The 2:1 (dollar to pound) ratio we got really deteriorated our buying power. All the numeric values posted in pounds in London looked the same as those in the US in dollars. BUT…we had to multiply all the pounds by two to get the equivalence in dollars. As a result, everything was essentially double the price as in the US. That really hurt. Given that, we didn’t spend much on this trip. Maybe I should rephrase that. We didn’t “buy” too much but we still spent a lot of money. How’s that for Econ 101?

A lot have changed since I last blogged. I no longer work at the TV station where I slaved for over six years. I am now working at a radio station as an operations assistant. This is the sister station to the station I’ve worked at part-time since college. Throughout my nine years as part-time board operator for the station, I built up a strong rapport with the company and its employees. They like my work ethics and I like the company’s stability. So when we mutually decided we needed each other’s help – they needed a new assistant and I needed a new job – both sides came together naturally.

I’ve now been here two weeks. The work is easy. Not to be bragging, but I’m a fast learner. They didn’t expect me to catch on so quickly. There’s still some stuff they haven’t transferred to me yet. Those seem to be the more complicated stuff. Can’t wait to take on those responsibilities too because there’s just not enough for me to do now. (Hence, the free time to blog again.) I rather have things to do instead of sitting around all day waiting for stuff to come my way. Another reason why I want more work is that I’m afraid upper management might think this newly created position is not so needed after all. They created this position with me in mind, thinking I will be of great help to the Director of Operations who has too much on his plate. Which he does. I’m amazed by how much he handles in a day and how he managed to get by without an assistant in the past. This year he was finally able to convince corporate headquarters that he needs a full-time assistant. Hence I’m on board. I just hope he can continue to convince them there’s enough work to justify keeping me full-time. But like I said, there’s still stuff waiting to be transferred to me. Hopefully once those get going all will be fine. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy my stress-less work days. Such a thing was nonexistent at my previous job.

I submitted a piece to the Sorry Everybody site, but I don't think they posted it. It was probably too hateful for their liking. Oh well. I had to do what I had to do...vent. I'll share it with you folks here when my internet connection at work works better. It's been flaky lately.

2 weeks ago (about a couple days after the election) my friend had told me about the Sorry Everybody site, which Bpsnake mentioned in his blog yesterday. At the time that my friend told me about it, there was only 1 page of photo submissions by visitors to the site. Now there are 543 pages and counting. Each page has multiple photos of people apologizing to the world for the state of our presidency, his incompetence and our failure to vote him off. These submissions do not just come from our fellow disgruntled citizens of the US Of A, but also from people of other countries sympathetic with our situation. This site really shows the extent of our people's hatred of Bush. Having said this, I am still at a shock that he actually won enough votes for a re-election. What happened? I still don't understand. Or maybe I just refuse to.

A commentary by Joan Ryan on today's SF Chronicle is really dead on about the presidential election. I would like to share it with everyone.


We Barely Recognize Each Other
By Joan Ryan

Like others in the Bay Area, I was huddled with friends around the television set Tuesday night, my son pressing a blue-donkey or red-elephant sticker on each state as the returns rolled in. As we held out hope for Ohio, one friend related a story that, in retrospect, helped me understand Bush's convincing victory as well as any I have heard.

A young man, my friend said, was walking door to door on her street a few weeks ago to raise money for the Kerry-Edwards ticket. When he knocked on the door of one house, the owner responded to the young man in a huff.

"I'm a Republican!'' she said. "Didn't you see my flag?''

That, in the end, is what it boiled down to.

Somehow, as Bush and his party cut taxes to the rich, sent young Americans to their deaths in a war based on untruths (and managed with stunning incompetence), reneged on its financial commitment to education, and plunged the nation into crushing debt, they became symbols of morality and patriotism. They sold themselves as the party of God and country, offering comfort to people who wouldn't need comforting if the Bush administration had not created the very problems for which it then offered spiritual refuge.

Give them credit. They are like PG&E nabbing the candle concession for a blackout the company caused itself.

It is a confounding time to live in a place like the Bay Area. Watching the returns Tuesday night, and listening to voters across the country, I saw that John Edwards was right about the two Americas. But the two Americas are not divided by money but by belief systems that have drifted so far apart we barely recognize each other anymore.

In exit polls Tuesday, morals topped the list of voter concerns, and an overwhelming majority believed Bush is more moral than Kerry. Thus the resounding victory for the incumbent.

Here in the Bay Area, we, too, place a high priority on values and morality. But clearly, many of us define morality differently from much of America. It is not about church membership. The evidence of morality is in one's actions, not one's Sunday-morning rituals. Morality means more than prayer and more than proclaiming a personal relationship with God.

It is social as well as religious. Is it moral to wage war on a country that did not attack us, and to wage it on false pretenses? Is it moral to stuff more money into the pockets of the wealthy while teachers buy their own crayons and patch their own classroom walls, and while people with mental illness live on the streets and in prison cells for lack of services?

Is it moral to deny two people the joy of committing their lives to one another in marriage? Is it moral to prevent scientists from pursuing cures to devastating diseases because of our leaders' personal religious convictions?

Our country has always included a mix of religious and political beliefs. But we shared a foundation of certain "truths to be self-evident'' that allowed us to meet on common ground. Today, I don't know. Our belief systems - - what is right and wrong, what is patriotic and what is not, what is truth and what is not -- are so different and so dramatically shape how we interpret news and information that we seem no longer to be living within the same culture.

I can't for the life of me, for instance, figure out how anyone could watch those three presidential debates and even entertain the thought that Bush is qualified to lead the free world.

I am puzzled, too, by the reaction to the bin Laden tape. When bin Laden showed up on a video just days before the election, I figured it would remind Americans that Bush had yet to capture the man responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, that he got us sidetracked in Iraq, which had nothing to do with Sept. 11. Instead, the tape seemed to deepen many Americans' belief that ... what? Bush is doing such a good job on terrorism that we should renew his contract?

Some have suggested that the Democratic Party needs to reconnect with middle America and its values, that we should take a page from the Republican playbook and talk more about God and faith. Yes, the Democrats need to revamp their strategy. But I would hate to think we would try to win next time around by emulating politicians who get away with destructive and amoral acts by passing them off as directives from God.

Faith and flags won this election. But I haven't lost my belief in another f-word -- facts. They're bound to come back into fashion sooner or later.


E-mail Joan Ryan at joanryan@sfchronicle.com.

SF Chronicle - Thursday, November 4, 2004
Page B - 1
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/11/04/BAGOK9LGGR1.DTL

Googi went to Cancun last week.
Googi had a lot of fun.
Googi did a lot of water sports (swimming, snorkeling, jet skiing) even though Googi can't swim well.
Googi swam at the beaches.
Googi swam in the hotel pools.
Googi played beach volleyball.
Googi jet skiied in the waters of Bahia De Mujeres (Bay Of Women).
Googi sunbathed.
Googi got a tan.
Googi got bitten by mosquitos.
Googi habla Espanol muy mal (speak Spanish very badly).
Googi spoke Spanglish.
Googi ate a lot of ceviche.
Googi ate a lot of seafood.
Googi ate a lot of spicy food.
Googi likes spicy food now.
Googi drank good margaritas with her dinner at Gory Tacos.
Googi ate Yucatan food at Labna in El Centro.
Googi ate Creole/Cajun food while listening to live jazz at Blue Bayou.
Googi ate lobster at Lorenzillo.
Googi ate good burrito at Burrito Shack.
Googi ate seafood at Italian restaurant called Casa Rolandi.
Googi ate a lot of Mexican food.
Googi missed Chinese food.
Googi drank good tequila.
Googi bought a bottle of tequila.
Googi went shopping at El Centro (Downtown).
Googi hated the annoying vendors who tried to pull Googi into their shops.
Googi hated the annoying timeshare agents who kept bugging Googi to listen to their timeshare pitches.
Googi visited the Mayan ruins at Chichen-Itza.
Googi climbed the 90 ft tall pyramid called El Castillo at Chichen-Itza.
Googi did not eat chicken pizza at Chichen-Itza.
Googi went to Isla Mujeres (Island Of Women).
Googi snorkeled at Isla Mujeres.
Googi did the Zip Line at Isla Mujeres on top of the waters of Bahia De Mujeres.
Googi was afraid to do the Zip Line because Googi is afraid of height and cannot swim well. But Googi went through with it. Googi is proud of herself.
Googi slept on hammock at Isla Mujeres.
Googi smoked her first cigar.
Googi hated the cigar.
Googi should try Cuban cigars.
Googi went drinking every night (now you know why Googi is writing like this - Googi killed a lot of brain cells).
Googi said "I'm not gonna drink tonight" every night but ... Googi drank every night.
Googi got a lot of freebies.
Googi likes freebies.
Googi should be careful of freebies.
Googi can get in a lot of trouble with freebies.
Googi said goodbye to paradise and came back to reality last night.
Googi is back to work today.
Googi doesn't want to work.
Googi wants to go back to paradise.
Googi is dreaming.

Bye Superman. Your legacy lives on.

I recently watched two movies on DVD. I liked one of them a lot. But the other, I didn't. I'll talk about the one I didn't like first so that I can end this blog entry with a more cheerful note later.

What was the point of "Passion Of The Christ"? Besides raking in millions at the box office, what did Mel Gibson try to accomplish by making this film? Was there a "for the record" statement that he wanted to make? Or did he want to point fingers at a certain group of people for the sufferings that Jesus endured? I am not a religious person. I do not have a religious background. I'm not sure if it's my lack of biblical knowledge that prevented me from appreciating this film. To me, it was merely a gruesome portrayal of the torture cast upon one man. I saw it as two hours worth of a whip-by-whip, nail-by-nail account of the sufferings of Jesus Christ. Do people, followers or not, need such a graphic depiction of this biblical event in order to appreciate Jesus' sacrifice for mankind? There is a growing argument that the material carried on the mainstream media is becoming too violent and/or graphic for the good of the audience. This film feeds into that argument completely. For that, I didn't appreciate this film.

Unlike "Passion Of The Christ", I really enjoyed watching "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind". The plot is about a man wanting to erase the memories of his ex-girlfriend. But during the procedure he changes his mind and a struggle to hang on to the memories ensues. Rolling Stone calls it "a smart, sexy, and seriously funny comedy" and I totally agree. It's smart because of the complexity and uniqueness of the script. It's sexy because of the bizarre romance shared by the characters. It's serious because of the heartbreak that was experienced by the characters but felt by viewers. It's funny because of all the lighthearted dialogue and witty images. Writer Charlie Kaufman wrote this unique love story and director Michel Gondry immaculately transferred it onto film. Gondry created beautiful visuals to carry the story along. He accomplished this not with fancy special effects, but simply with creative camera angles and transitions. The success of this film owes very much to Gondry's creative visions. The acting in this film cannot be slighted either. Jim Carry and Kate Winslet deserve much praise for succeeding in roles they don't normally play. Overall, this is an excellent movie. I recommend it to all.

What a month. 2 projects came and gone. Fortunately they were completed rather successfully. Completing projects always gives me a great sense of accomplishment, but unfortunately I'm starting to feel tired. Not physically, but mentally. How much more stress can I handle? How much more frustration can I swallow? How much more advantage can I let my bosses take of me before I go insane? Being conscious of all the flaws in the system does not help me turn my back on all these nuisances either. Either it's time for me to leave or I need to take a long break. So what if I take a long break? Who could guarantee improvements when I return? The underlying problems in the company cannot be changed easily, if even possible. Guess my best bet is to find a new job. Honestly, I really wouldn't mind changing jobs, even if it means going into a new industry and starting off all over again from the bottom rung. But knowing how sluggish the current job market is, I know it will take some time for me to find something. No problem. However long it may take, I'll continue to believe there's light at the other end of the tunnel. In the meantime, I'll take short breaks here and there to help keep my sanity in check. Last month I took a few days off to retreat to Las Vegas and Santa Barbara. Next month I'm going to Cancun for a week. Hopefully these short breathers will help carry me through.

What irks you more, working with incompetent people or working with bossy people? It's my luck that I'm working with both, and it's the same person! Yes, this person is incompetent, yet bossy. Bad combination. The worse part is this person also has the power to override any of our objections. Good luck to us if we want to get any work done, let alone quality work.

I didn't realize I haven't blogged in such a long time. My last entry was about my friend's visit from out of town and my playing hostess. Well, he's since been gone and the pseudo vacation that he brought on to me had also come to an end. But one lingering effect still lives on – the 80s music mode that he had gotten me into. This self-proclaiming "80s Junky" friend of mine stumbled upon an 80s radio station while he was here. Listening to this station with him somehow recharged my interest in music from that decade. I have since been digging up music from the 80s wherever I can. What with my brother's old tape/CD collection and the internet to bring about songs like "Careless Whispers", "Seasons Change", "Shattered Dreams", "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", "Foolish Beat", and of course, "Karma karma karma karma chameleon, you come and go, you come and go oh oh oh…" to play in the background as I blog tonight.

It's been fun digging up these old songs. Listening to them again in the present time has put me into a state of "recollection" and "rediscovery". "Recollection" because certain songs remind me of certain things. "Foolish Beat" reminds me of middle school. "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" reminds me of staying up late on Friday nights to watch "Friday Night Videos". "Rediscovery" stems from the fact that many songs didn't really register with me at the time. Granted I was just a little girl then. I pretty much listened to music purely on a rudimentary level. As long as the tune was catchy, I liked it. Lyrics, underlying meanings, vocal or musical talents, all meant nothing to me. Listening to them now, on the other hand, I've discovered a whole new appreciation for some of these old tunes. "Suddenly, life has new meaning to me. There's beauty up above and things we never take notice of. Wake up and suddenly, you're in love." Wow! Beautiful.

Too bad not all my discoveries are as beautiful as the previous example. Namely, what on earth is "karma chameleon"? I've only just realized these were the lyrics, and title, to this catchy tune. Can you blame me? Back then the little girl in me tried my best to stay away from Boy George!

I have a friend visiting from out of town this week. So I've been playing hostess and showing him around. So far we've been to Fisherman's Wharf, the Coit Tower, Ghiradelli Square, the Haight/Ashbury district, and the Napa Valley wineries. Next we're targeting either a cruise on the Bay or a night tour to Alcatraz Island.

I have to say, as a regular resident of the Bay Area, I wouldn't be doing some of these things or going to some of these places if I wasn't taking a visitor around. Fisherman's Wharf? Coit Tower? Alcatraz? These are tourist traps. They're for tourists only. BUT...as I went to these places with him, I suddenly felt like a tourist myself. Suddenly I felt like I AM on vacation and I AM sightseeing. It's amazing. Maybe it's because I don't go to these places often, if at all. Therefore in a way they seemed new and fresh to me. At a gift shop in Fisherman's Wharf, I found myself fascinated by those pendants containing a grain of rice with your name engraved on it. I actually wanted to buy one. Even though I didn't buy it, this shows how deep of a "touristy mode" I was in to be fascinated by things in a gift shop.

My friend is in town for another 3 days. That's how much longer my role as a tour guide will last. I should really thank my friend for visiting and bringing on this sudden pseudo vacation for me. If only I didn't have to work this week as all this is happening. But of course, that's too much to ask.

In reaction to JLo's marriage to Marc Anthony this weekend, bookies are offering 3-1 odds that the quickie marriage will dissolve by the end of the year. They are also offering 10-1 odds that JLo will marry more than eight times in her lifetime, beating Elizabeth Taylor. This is too funny! A little cruel, but definitely funny! How can anyone, even JLo, blame these bookies for recognizing viable opportunities to make a few extra bucks?

My question for JLo is...Why do you even bother? You know your own track record. You'll just be in and out of your lawyer's office signing papers. Why don't you just save yourself the time and energy and put them into better use. Oh, by that I don't mean another Gigli. Please!

Speaking of license plates, I have a question. Those cameras installed at intersections to catch red light runners are set up to take pictures of the license plate of the offending car. From that they trace the licensed owner of the car as the red light runner. What happens when an offending car doesn't have plates, eg new cars who's plates have yet to come? How do they identify those cars/drivers?

Whoopi! The scratch on my car is gone. Woohoo! I took my car back to the dealer to put in a rear spoiler. Besides installing the spoiler, the nice people at the dealership threw in a free buff job to buff out the scratch for me. So now my car is as good as new. Then again it IS new. Heck, I've only had it for a month and my license plates haven't even arrived yet. Wonder what my plates will be. If I were to get custom plates, does anyone have any suggestion as to what I should get? Let's see your creativity people. :)

AGHH!!!! There's a 1.5in scratch on my car!!! That hurts!!! Who the #%@& did it??? Feel my pain people...

I was up bright and early this morning. Actually, the "bright" part doesn't really translate cuz the sun wasn't even out yet when I left the house. Revision: I was up dark and early this morning. Reason was I had to monitor a very important technical switchover at the station. Fortunately everything transitioned smoothly. This is one big load off the shoulders, MY shoulders to be exact. This is yet another part of the improvements at work I mentioned in an earlier blog. I think I can soon start to relax a bit and enjoy the changes. God I need a break.