NY Day 1 - posted by Darwin ;)

Time Square


49th and 5th ave - SATC billboard


Serendipity III


Inside Serendipity, we had their famous Frrrozen Hot Chocolate

Merry Christmas

It's the season of giving and sharing.. I hope you have a merry one too.. Lots of love!!!

~Mitzi

P.S.

I won't be able to update my blog for a week or so.. coz we're on our way to NY!!! Our flight is 840 tonight at Burbank to Vegas then we'll fly to New York and we'll get there hopefully around 6am-ish (Dec 27) I don't know if I'd survive without access to the internet in a week... hehehe I hope the free wifi hotspots in Manhattan that I printed do exist.. Pray for our safe trip..

Signing off...

It's Mah Day...

Yeah it is.. It's my Birthday!!! Usually, I don't go to work on my birthday but I had to, coz I have a scheduled meeting with AT&T for the VoIP solution they're offering (too bad). Anyways, everyone greeted me at work and we had pizza for lunch (no cake to blow??? huhuhuhu) Darwin called me around 3pm-ish coz his mom told him that he needs to accompany his uncle to the airport. We're supposed to have dinner that night and he'd meet me at my apartment. I told him there's no problem with that since we met last night naman and he was the first one who greeted me at exactly 12MN (how sweet...) When I was about to leave, he told me that I can go with him to the airport and we'll have dinner at the valley afterwards. I went home first to change coz I looked so harrased on my outfit and I need to look good on my birthday. Took the freeway and to my surprise, it's empty (Thank God). I arrived at 7pm-ish and Darwin is still sleeping.. he looks so tired and I feel sorry for him. We hugged. After a few minutes, we left his pad and went to his uncle's apartment to get the car. We're not going to the airport anymore, instead we'll just drop his uncle's car at Burbank... so we need to convoy.. Darwin on his uncle's car while I drive his Acura. We met his uncle then we looked for a place to eat. We choose PF Chang's.. I've never been there so it's another first for me.. The ambience is really nice. I like the color of the lights and it's effect on the antique display on the wall. We got a seat after 5 or so minutes. I had shrimp (my fave) and Darwin ordered mongolian beef. The food tastes good. Everything's perfect... just the way I want it to be..

Movie Marathon

Saturday, I'm not in the mood to go out so we stayed at home the whole day and watched DVD. Darwin rented Blade 1 and 2 in preparation to watch Blade Trinity. Blade 1 is boring while the sequel is more entertaining coz it has a lot of fight scenes.. But it wasn't that good for Darwin so we didn't watch the 3rd movie installment.

Went to Fry's Topanga to buy an SD card for my brother and to check the Portable DVD player that I want to give Darwin for Christmas. He doesn't want it, neither the 200GB hard drive that I secretly researched and almost purchased. It's hard to think of a good gift for him coz he's so picky.. Went to Circuit City then Nordstrom rack afterwards to do more shopping.. I need to buy warm clothes for our NY trip. On our way home, he asked me if I want to see the light decors in Woodland Hills coz I told him weeks ago that I wanna see one.. Since we're already there, we went to the so called "Candy Lane". A lot of cars are going to that direction so I guess this is something famous.. We got stuck so we decided to leave that place and have dinner (since we're pretty hungry). We ate at Jerry's Famous Deli in Ventura. I had short baby backribs and Darwin ordered corned beef. After dinner, we went back to Candy lane. The christmas light designs are really beautiful. But we have to cut it short coz we'll hear Simbang Gabi at St. Genevieve in the morning the next day.

Sunday, Bishop Solis held the mass at St. Genevieve. He's the 1st Filipino bishop of LA County and his homily strucked me. He's a good speaker. We are breakfast after the mass. It is sponspored by one of the parishian and we had pandesal, corned beef, egg and lugaw. A lot of people were there and took pictures of Bishop Solis. Too bad I dont have my camera with me coz I had the battery charged last night. Watched Collateral at my brother's portable DVD player while doing laundry (mostly comforter) before I send it to the PI.

Christmas Party @ Byblos, West LA

It's my 2nd Christmas party with the company I'm with right now and it was held in West LA. Byblos is pretty near from my place (2 miles) and it's 2 blocks away from Westside Pavilion. It's a fine dining restaurant in Westwood. We have a long table reserved and Lani and Brack were already there when I arrived at 9pm-ish. Archie, Obi and his wife, Ida, arrived in a short while. Ida told me that she saw my website and it's nice.. She had fun looking at it coz there's lot of picture.. I told her the site wasn't updated since I got here in the US. We ordered cocktails at the bar and Archie gave me Apple Martini. The drink is too strong for me that's why I asked for Midori sour (it's my fave). When Fred (our boss) arrived, he ordered appetizer and it tastes really good.. It's something new coz I never tried Mediterranean type of food before.. The DJ started playing loud Mediterranean music and group of ladies went to the dance floor. We danced too and Fred told me.. this is the "Puff Daddy" of Persian.. hehehe He's funny.. He danced with his beautiful wife while I danced with the girls.. Janet and Cynthia.. Got tired so I returned to my seat and the main dish arrived... it's Kabbab. I remember our Christmas party last year, we ordered by ourselves and I got the most expensive entree... Filet Mignon. I have something in mind that night too.. it's Lamb Chops but Fred already ordered for everyone. I guess his bill sky rocketed last year and he doesn't want to do the same mistake again.. hehehe

I had a great time. I wasn't able to see the belly dancers to their thing though coz I left a little bit early with Archie and Obi. I think we're the only Asians in that restaurant.. it's mostly Armanian.


Lani and her cousin, Brack, me, Janet and Thom


Cynthia on her Santa costume and me


The lovely couple, Simin and her boyfriend


Amy, Nicole and Azy (Fred's wife)


The newly hired Fred in Purchasing, Fred (our boss) and Amy


The Noypis.. Obi, Ida and Archie

Gift Basket

Just got this beautiful gift from Smarter.com, one of our contacts that provide product advertisement on the net. I thanked Joanna after opening the holiday basket with lots of goodies..

Wala lng.. tuwa lng ako... hehehe (babaw!!!)

Ice skating @ Pershing Square

I never tried ice skating before so it's another first for me. I'm kinda excited and somewhat scared to do it.. Scared of falling.. Mads (the planner) called me to check if I already left. We're suppose to meet at 730pm but I'm still infront of my computer checking mapquest and figuring out how to get there. I'm afraid I might get lost coz there's a lot of one way street at Downtown LA. Well, Mads hasn't left either so it's ok. The other guys were there already and Ollie called asking where I am. I took the freeway instead of side street because it's pass rush hour already.. I was wrong, there's still plenty of cars at I-10. Mads and I were late (as usual).. I got there at around 8pm-ish just in time for the next batch to start. I met old faces again, some are Tins friends. Most of the time I'm with Ollie and Mads goofing around. They patiently thought me how to ice skate and I can say I learned how to skate the "right" way. I never fell and I learned to balance on my own.

The rink is pretty small and it's too crowded. They should limit the number of people to skate coz almost everyone is just walking, not gliding.. The fee for an hour ice skating is eight bucks and validated parking is five bucks (not free mind you). It's a rip-off!!! Mads told us that the skating rink in Pasadena has more room so we might go there on our next skating gimmick..

After ice skating, we had our drawing for our Kris Kringle and group picture taking. I wont be present on our Christmas party though coz it's set on Dec 25 and Im out of town that weekend.

The gang (from left) Tins, John, Mitzi, Ollie, Mads and Allen.


I took this shot on our way to the parking lot.

Cold December

Ooooh, it's freezing here in South Cali. It's been like this since Monday and I'm currently wearing the thickest top I have in my closet and my bubble jacket. Wazzup? It's all pressure on me. I'm in-charge (temporarily) of the IT Department since yesterday because my boss already resigned. She was offered a job that's near her place and she told me it's a good career move for her. I got emotional when I hugged her the last time. She taught me a lot of things about the business and I carpool(ed) with her for a month when I had a problem with my daily commute. She'll be missed. We had a meeting earlier and our CEO told us about his plans.. that his gonna get a new voicemail system and is leaning towards VoIP to cut costs on calls. He wants to integrate all our system and make it paperless..I can say we're already 80% paperless.

Last week, the day before Thanksgiving (Wed), I was sick and I didn't go to work. I watched the first season of Arrested Development dvd with Darwin and that series is really funny. It's somewhat like Malcomn in the Middle and Parker Lewis. Nov 25 (Thu), we had lunch at A&W seafood restaurant then watched National Treasure at Northridge. The movie is ok and it's way better than Da Vinci Code (I'm not done with the audiobook yet though.. hehehe) After the movie, we visited Darwin's mom and had a short chit-chat. Nov 26 (Fri), woke up really early for the "After-Thanksgiving-shopping-galore".. It's the busiest shopping day of the year here in the US coz almost everything is on sale (except those iPods!!! hmph) We first went to Best Buy at 4:30am coz Darwin wants to get the Toshiba laptop that on sale for $500 (almost 40% off). The store opened at 6am but we weren't able to get a laptop flyer =( After Best Best, we headed to Comp USA then Circuit City but didn't get any either. We ate breakfast at McDo then went to Fry's after. I bought blank CDs. Nov 28 (Sun), hear mass then watched Seinfeld DVDs. We had boneless bangus for dinner.. yummy!!! Nov 30 (Tue), started my web project for my soon-to-be part-time job (cross fingers)

DECEMBER!!! Last night, had a date with Darwin at Versailles in Encino then watched Kill Bill vol.2 when we got home but wasn't able to finish it. We'll continue it tonight though.. Good night