October Update

Wooh! It's been 3 weeks and I didn't get a chance to update my blog.. I was so busy checking my facebook. Oh! I just love it! It's soooo addicting especially all those quizzes. Here's a quick run through of the things that happened this month.



Oct 6 - Birthday party of Janet's co-worker. Darwin was invited as the DJ so we're all there to hang out. I had LOTS of mohitos. Got drunk!! Danced all night with my girl Janet. Now they call us the "dynamic duo" and Go-go dancers... =P Of course, we'd like to support our DJ. mwah!

Oct 7 - We finally saw "Knocked Up".. Oh it's sooo funny. That guy cracked me up. Silly... (Chris' fave line.. hehe)

Oct 9 - Did some laundy from 7-12mn. There's like 10 loads of wash and there's this girl who keeps removing my stuff from the dryer. We share two dryers in the complex. It's just so disrepectful coz she didn't even put the clothes inside the hamper. I was only late for like 3 minutes. I got really pissed, so I had to wait 5 minutes earlier just to stop her from doing that (again). I was sooo tired that night. I didnt have enough sleep.

Oct 10 - Cooked sinigang... It's Darwin's fave =)

Oct 12 - I had my annual check up at Kaiser. I was expecting that the whole process will take me 2hours but it came out really quick because everything is computerized. I dont need to fill out those forms that asks about my medical history, etc. My previous clinic was really slow, they should come up with the same system as Kaiser. I remember back home, I have to pass the medical exam just to get hired. Here in the US, you cant do that coz companies cannot discriminate people according to their health, age, disabilities. Just as long as your qualified to do the job, they must hire you.

Oct 13 - Long Beach Marathon (will post details later), bought a new bed, and went to a birthday party.





Oct 15 - The new bed got delivered! We chose the queen diamond matress which is a better type of orthopedic matress. It's bigger than the old one coz we used to have full bed.. now it's queen. It comes with a wood/leather headboard in dark brown which I really love!

Oct 16 - I did a presentation on our quarterly team meeting. I'm the newest member of the team and my boss told me that this is one way of introducing me to everyone. He gave me a heads up a couple of weeks before the presentation and I cannot say NO coz he's relying on me. It's a big team, there's about 20 in California and 10 in Texas so we have to do teleconference. They only gave me 15 minutes to present and I was really nervous when they called me to get ready. But it came out good coz our director told me that I did a good job =P He was sitting just right next to me. My hands were really cold. =P

Oct 18 - On my way to work, a BIG rock hit my windshield while I'm driving at Interstate-5 freeway. It is caused by Santa Ana winds that comes to Southern Cali every October. It's gusty wind that goes from 50 to 60mph. I called Darwin right away coz I'm scared that the glass might just crack while I'm driving.





Oct 19 - Party at the twins. I did some catching up with the girls, played the liar's game then danced Top40s music from Darwin's ipod. Chris was our bartender and he made mohitos, peach schnapps, pina colada. Booze keeps coming in and everyone got really crazy. It's all good though but we're kinda loud =P When we're about to get home, I went to the bathroom and passed out. I'm not really sure what happened after that but I remember I want to lie on the floor coz it's cold. Darwin told me that I even cried for no reason at all.





Oct 20 - I woke up with a bad headache. Darwin bought tapsilog and longsilog for brunch. Around noon, we started moving out stuff from the storage. We donated most of it to Goodwill Center and the value of the things donated is tax deductible. We watched Snatch on HBO HD movies then had Yoshinoya for dinner.

Oct 25 - I finally went to the gym to train for the upcoming 5K marathon at Santa Clarita. It took me 22 minutes for 1.5 miles, that means I average approx 15 minutes per mile. I wish I can finish the marathon (crosses fingers)

iPhone update 1.1.1

I just had to do it! The only setback I had is that I will lose all my ringtones. But the updates will fix/add the following:

1) Louder speakerphone and receiver volume - love it!!
2) Wifi iTunes - I can now DL song straight to iPhone
3) Home Button double-click shortcut to phone favorites or music controls
4) Space bar double-tap shortcut to intelligently insert period and space
5) Mail attachments are viewable in portrait and landscape
6) Stocks and cities in Stocks and Weather can be re-ordered
7) Apple Bluetooth Headset battery status in the Status Bar
8) Support for TV Out
9) Preference to turn off EDGE/GPRS when roaming internationally
10) New Passcode lock time intervals
11) Adjustable alert volume
12) ability to play MP3 audio files attached to mail

Cool.

But I still want to forward SMS and the send-to-all feature on SMS. I hope they fix that too..



Lots of web 2.0 apps were added too such as multiply, beehive (I can chat through YM and AIM), Leaflets (flickr, del.icio.us, feeds), Mojits (online games), and a lot more!

Lunch out

I have tried 4 different kinds of food in 2 weeks. That's what I like here in LA because you can try any kinds of food coz it's a multi cultural city. My boss asked me why there's no Filipino restaurant in Simi valley and I told him there's a lot in other cities such as Glendale, Eagle Rock, etc which is concentrated mostly by Filipinos.

Last Sep 26, our team went to La Louisianne which serves Cajun food. The restaurant is filled by Mardri Gras decors and pictures from New Orleans. While waiting for our order, our co-worker told us stories about the city coz he stayed there for a couple of months before Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans. Up until now, locals are still recovering from its aftermath. I had Gumbo which is more like a soup and Jambalaya which is served over rice. The Jambalaya tastes like "kaldereta" but it's spicier than ours. I've been wanting to go to New Orleans for Mardri Gras. They said that in order for you to get the colorful beads, you have to flash your boobies =P

My Indian team mate invited us for dinner at his home on Oct 3. His wife cooked Tamil which is a South Indian food. He said I cannot order those from any Indian restaurant's here because it's sort of "Americanized" already, meaning it is not authentic anymore. We had the following: Chicken Masala (curry), Chicken Lollypop (baked chicken), Rasam (soup), Idli (rice cakes), Pulav (fried rice), Sambhat (gravy), Chatni (sauce). We talked about our hobbies, work life, and mostly baby stuff coz he has two kids who are adorable.





We had a send off party for Sandhya who's going back to India next week. We went to The Oak's for some Korean BBQ last Friday. We're supposed to go to our VPs car coz he has an SUV but he has to remove the car seat, etc so we took the Prius instead. So Sandhya was there, my manager, then our VP.. gawd.. it's soo stressful =P Anyways, our VP was telling stories about experiments which I didn't really get, so I just laugh like I get his jokes.. my bad =P We met up one of my team mates and I ordered Beef BBQ. The food is good! This is also the first time my VP rode a Prius and he asked a lot of questions like how to get the "yellow" sticker for carpool, its ROI, and mileage consumption. I think he's planning to get a hybrid car coz he takes the 405 freeway to UCLA. We call that freeway the "parking lot" coz traffic is really terrible. I used to take that freeway and a 20 minute drive will take you an hour to reach your destination. What's cool about the carpool sticker is that you can take the carpool lane even if you're alone. They're also aware that the resale price of Prius is high because DMV stopped giving out "yellow" stickers to new hybrid car purchase. Because of its high demand, you can add another $5000 with the yellow sticker on which was purchased for only $8. Our VP asked if he can steal my sticker, I said it's not possible coz it's gonna be distorted when you remove it and it's only applicable for 2 types of hybrid cars with a minimum of 40MPG consumption: the prius and honda crv hybrid. The prius averages 45MPG but they advertise it as 60MPG consumption for city drive.






Earlier, I had lunch with my co-workers after our training. The cafeteria is still closed so we decided to go to Sawasdee Thai. I had the usual, chicken panang.. which is my fave. We talked about the Pacquiao fight which I missed and gossips about Ara Mina which is his new mistress. Interesting...

Photojournalism class

I'm taking a photo class every Monday at OTIS college of art & design. It's a 10 session class that started last Sep 10. My prof is Adam Knott and he's a photographer of magazines, ads, etc. He's really good coz he gives us tips on how to do portraits, what's the right lens, etc. He has won awards too. See: http://www.adamknottphoto.com

Here are some pix from my new school taken from my iPhone. Enjoy =P





Last Saturday, I went to Hollywood to take pictures of murals. My former teacher from Valley college invited me to take the photo shoot and review session with 6 other hobbyists. We talked about our experiences in approaching people for pictures and what to tell them so they would not say no.

Check out my photojournalism project. I will add more pix every week since I need to get a story out of my subject. I first took an establishing shot so I'd know what to do the next time I'll go there. It takes a lot of planning for a project like this. I need to involve people on my next visit. Let's see....