November 2008:
We wend to the Madonna concert at Petco Park the same night as the
election. It was our first concert, and likely our last. Madonna
was awesome and she sang some of her older songs, as well as new songs from
her Hard Candy album. For someone in their 50's, Madonna still puts on
a good show. We were a little disappointed with the outcome, both at
the presidential election and the passage of certain state propositions;
most notably Prop 8.
October 2008:
The backyard landscape project is coming along, we're about ready to put in
trees. Can't wait until next month to see it all finished. Also
had our first Halloween in the new house. Lots of cool costumes,
including Ryan's Pizza Man costume. Perhaps the most memorable was the
little girl who was dressed like a little pink sheep. Her mom was
Bo-Peep. It was too cute!
July 2008:
You can see that we don't keep this blog much up to date. :(
April - July 2006:
Wow. These months have just flew by. We were very busy with
work and the new business, threw a dinner party in there with Ryan's
co-workers, and considered buying a car (but didn't). June was a
blast with the San Diego country fair with Yennie and mamma. Never
been to the fair and the fried food (fried tomatoes, fried avocados, fried
Twinkies, etc.) were all the rage. We ate enough food to give us
health problems, but it was wonderful! In July we upgraded our Tiffany
rigns. We now have a larger, 1ct. version and they are absolutely
gorgeous! We'll also be moving in August, as we've found a new
townhouse closer to our new Qualcomm buildings and in a more quiet
neighborhood. We finally were able to tell the La Jolla Crossroads
management "kiss our a#$!", as this has been the most rowdy, noisy,
apartment complex we've ever lived in. Hopefully the new place will be
much better, and it will be bigger than our current apartment. Yep,
we're over the multi-unit apartment complexes now. After this it's
million dollar mansion time, as we get ready to finally purchase a house
down here.
February & March 2006:
Wow! What a different two months make. In February we
released FU Greetings,
an alternative greeting card site offering free, fun ecards with attitude.
We had been working with our card providers for over four months getting
ready for the release, and then scrambled to get St. Patrick's day cards
developed as well. For both the Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's day
holiday, we got a *TON* of visitors and cards sent. This is the first
business we've started together, and it was a lot of fun. In March, we
also went up to San Jose for Chau and Mike's
wedding. They finally tied the knot!
January
2006
Ryan's still coughing from the flu bug he picked up in New York, and
we're fighting to make him better. Eric got extremely sick (food
poisoning) from eating a bad sushi roll from a up-scale Japanese
restaurant. A word of warning to all of you out there in San Diego ...
never, never, never go to Japengo. It's the restaurant next to
Fleming's at the Hyatt La Jolla on La Jolla Village drive.
It's getting down to the wire and we're so excited! Development on
our new business plan is coming along great, and we're working as hard as we
can to get it out by Feb. 1st. You'll know when it hits, as we'll be
spamming all of our friends with the news.
December 2005:
Yeah! It's Christmas time and that means sending out Christmas
cards to all our friends and planning vacation for the end of the month.
This year Ryan and I wanted to do something romantic and special, and to
visit a place we've never been. We choose New York city, and were
hoping for a white Christmas. We booked well in advance and decided to
stay at the
Westin in Times Square ... central to everything we wanted to do.
The room was fantastic, being on the 33rd floor and having panoramic views
Times Square, the Empire State building, and the West side of midtown.
Times Square was busy and packed with people, but we wanted to be close to
the theater district to see several plays we had booked in advance.
Wednesday: We arrived early Wednesday morning, having taken a
Jet Blue direct red-eye. The plane was packed and sleeping was a
little difficult, so we arrived a bit tired. The transit strike made
it a two-hour ride from JFK into the city, and we had a crazy SuperShuttle
driver. Too early to check into the hotel, we decided to walk about a
bit and have a local breakfast and catch some of the sites. Times
Square was at our feet, and Rockefeller Center was just blocks away.
They had opened the Top of the Rock, with breathtaking views of central park
and all of Manhattan. It was a very clear day and we got to see
everything. We walked back past the NY Public Library and Bryant Park,
where they also had an ice-skating rink there as well. Checking into
our room proved awesome, as it was a corner room with great views. At
night it got even better. We were off to Blue Fin for a fantastic
seafood dinner, another trip to Rockefeller Center to see that awesome
lights and skating rink and the light show at Saks, then early to bed.
We had a long day ahead of us.
Thursday: Another
transit strike day, we we decided it would be easy to walk to places that
were somewhat close to us. We headed off for Chelsea and were a little
bit saddened that none of the traditional "cute boys" were out and about,
like in SF. This area was bigger and it was a holiday, so we decided
to keep walking and take in more sights. It was then off to Greenwich
Village, which is supposed to have some of the best food and areas to eat.
Eric must have gotten lost because there didn't seem to be anything good and
we ended up having just some creme puffs (very good) and coffee. We
decided to keep walking and made it to SOHO for a very good lunch at a
cooking academy and boutique shopping. Canal street was so close, so
we headed downtown for some "cheep pee" shopping (as they call it in NY) for
some knock-off goods. A little haggling and we had our first Christmas
present. Chinatown was next, where it was packed. Eric made the
silly decision to say, "Hey, we're close to Wall St. let's go visit."
So off we went to see commuters scramble for shuttled out of town.
Luckily the brass bull was a sight and we got a good picture with it.
It was getting dark and we had a long walk home. And by a long walk,
we had a very long walk back up Broadway to our Hotel. We didn't know
we had walked so far, and for Thursday we ended up walking half of Manhattan
from Times Square to Battery park.
Friday: The
transit strike was over and we were able to take the subway around.
But, we had agreed that today was museum day. Our first subway ride to
museum mile to see the Russia collection at the Guggenheim. They had a
fantastic audio tour of the works of Russia that was awesome.
Unfortunately, they don't allow any picture taking of the exhibits.
That collection was great, but we were a bit tired. Eric wanted to
head off to the Met to see their stuff, and it was just a quick walk down
the street. The Met was gigantic! We spent all afternoon there
looking and doing audio tours of exhibits. It was so big that we
didn't get to see everything, but took in the major stuff like the Van Gough
exhibit, the medieval collections, most of Egypt collection, and the Italian
statue garden. We had lunch there, and although the Met is "free" if
you want it to be, the food was extremely expensive. That's where Ryan
wouldn't share his plum dessert with Eric, causing all the more museum pain
for both of us. By the end of the day we were exhausted. And
that was the first evening where we started coming down with the flu, either
from all the people at the museums or from the subway.
Saturday: Christmas-eve and we had our first show to go to ... the
Odd Couple with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. We had awesome
seats and it was great seeing the original producers playing the roles of
the Odd Couple. That evening, we had a fancy dinner at Jean-Georges at
Trump International Hotel. We had the 6-course tasting menu, and it
was a romantic topper for Christmas-eve.
Sunday:
Christmas day, and most everything was closed. Still recovering from
the flu, we decided to venture out in to the fog / rain to see the
Cloisters. The museum, holding medieval tapestries was unfortunately
closed, but the subway ride out and Fort Tryon was a great experience by
itself. We decided to head down to Chinatown to eat some dim sum.
One thing we noticed, the food in New York is not as good as we expected,
and the dim sum place (Golden Unicorn ... which is supposed to be one of the
best and was very packed) turned out to be so-so in quality. We cut
the adventure short to go home for some rest.
Monday:
Another museum day! This time we walked up 8th avenue, stopping to get
some Pho noodle soup (bad as well), onto Columbus circle for some shopping
and photos and then to the Museum of Natural History. Again, what a
massive museum to go through and it took the entire day to finish. All
sorts of sea creatures, safari exhibits and dinosaur stuff to keep you busy.
There were hoards of people there too. By this time Ryan was into full
swing flu and it was also affecting Eric as well, but we struggled on to
Peter Luger steakhouse ... supposed to be one of the best in the world.
It was a late dinner and it was in Brooklyn. No problem, we'll take
the subway there and it will be a short walk. It was a short walk from
the station, but boy was it in a bad part of town. The steaks turned
out of be very good, so it was well worth the trip. We ran back to the
subway, lucky to have just enough left on our metro card to get back into
the station.
Tuesday: Our last day in New York
(or so we thought) and we wanted to go se Wall Street again. Again,
Eric go on the wrong subway and we ended up in Queens, but quickly found our
way back to lower Manhattan. Still not as busy as the other day, we
decided to have lunch at Francues Tavern, the oldest building in Manhattan.
This is where George Washington said goodbye to his generals after the war,
and this also became one of the earliest government buildings ... with
congress right down the street in Washington Hall. The food was
awesome, and it was well worth the trip. We wanted to see sights we
didn't get to see before, and at Battery park the line to get to Ellis
Island or the Statue of Liberty was over 2 hours long. We got to see
the WTC site and shop at Century 21 (think a large outlet mall in one
store). Back up to Midtown to see Grand Central station and the
Chrysler building. We tried to get in line to the Empire State
building, but it was over a two-hour wait and we needed to see our next
musical that evening. Spamalot is a spoof on Monty Python skits and
the Holy Grail. It stared Hank Azaria and David Hyde Pierce (Fraiser),
although David Hyde Pierce had the "day off". (Slacker). The
musical was awesome and everyone was clapping and singing. After the
show we tried to go back to the Empire State building for night shots, but
they had closed early because of the "holiday rush". Oh well.
Wednesday: What we though was supposed to be a short day,
turned out to give us a break. Eric had forgotten we scheduled the
later flight back, so we had up until 3 pm to do stuff. This time it
was a Manhattan cruise where included a look at mid-town and lower
Manhattan, Queens, the Brooklyn and the Statue of Liberty. It was two
hours, but it was well worth it. It was the perfect ending to our
awesome trip, and afforded some of the better pictures. It was then
off to JFK for the 5-hour flight home. We were so glad to be back and
to see Tiger, who looked a little frazzled from his 7-day solitude.
November 2005:
November has started off as any other month, but has kept Ryan and I
busy. We're working on a new business idea ... *much* different from
our older business idea ... and have been expending lots of effort to make
that successful. We can't tell you what it is yet, nor even give you a
little hint, but trust us ... we guarantee you'll be shocked.
We also got to meet Francine Busby, the democratic candidate for the 50th
congressional district in California. Hosted at Judy and Steve
Forney's home in Rancho Penasquitos, a co-worker of Ryan's, we had the
pleasure to meet Francine, ask questions and learn her take on important
issues facing the 50th district. Your can learn more about Francine's
bid for election at
www.busbyforcongress.org.
We had Thanksgiving up in Ashland, Oregon with Eric's parents and then
Sacramento for Ryan's family. It was a great short trip up to visit
with family, new friends and experience our first taste of cold weather
before heading off to New York for Christmas.
October 2005:
October was a fantastic month. What better way to start out the
month than having a party ... and that's what we did. The big Qualcomm
CDMA Technologies division party (our division) is always in October and
it's an event to remember. This year it was a the Manchester Grand
Hyatt again, but also was outside on Embarcadero Park.
Chau and Mike came down
for the party and a nice weekend visit. We partied the night away,
then hit the
Beach Bar at the W Hotel. It's a rooftop bar with a sand ... like
you're at the beach. The weekend was topped off with shopping and
Tiffany diamond ring ogling. Ryan and I could sense that something was
up, and we're just waiting for happy news from the lucky couple.
For Eric it was then off to Santa Clara for a software licensing conference at the Santa
Clara convention center. One of the speakers was Kelly, the winner of
Season two of
The Apprentice Donald Trump. Being big fans of the TV series,
Maria and I had to sneak in a photo with Kelly:
(click on photo for larger size)
And don't forget to check out this season's newest apprentice series with
Martha.
In mid-October, Ryan and I took a trip up to the bay area, staying at the W
Hotel in SF. We got to hang out with good friends Randy and Seb,
talking about their business ambitions with
MuSync. We also
spent the day hanging out
with Trang, doing some sight-seeing in the city. Boy to we miss
the bay area. But we were really up there to attend Quang and Sara's
weeding and wish the happy couple our best.
Halloween was (thankfully) un-eventful. Not a single trick-or-treater
this year.
September 2005:
September was a fun-filled month, where Ryan and I got a new business
idea off the ground (can't tell you what it is yet), and had a fun-filled
labor day weekend with Binh,
Yvonne, & mamma. We went to the Del Mar race track for the first time
and lost money. Ryan was so close to winning a super-facta, but was
one horse off. His $2 bet would have resulted in $490+ dollars.
Oh well. :-( Eric attended a conference in San Diego and won an
iPOD mini, but since we don't have a large music collection, we don't really
know what to do with it. We also got a new mattress, and this one
seems like a keeper. We have different preferences in softness and
hardness of the bed where one mattress wasn't really doing well for us.
Enter the Select
Comfort bed system, where we now are able to adjust the amount of
softness on each side ... INDIVIDUALLY! No more complaints from Ryan
about his back! Hooray!
August 2005:
August is Eric's birthday month, but luckily this year, we didn't have
any large festivities planned. August started out with a bang of fun
with our visit to The Getty
Museum in Los Angeles. We've always driven past it on our trips
back and forth to San Jose, so this time Eric wanted to stop in and see what
it was all about. Parking was a breeze and there's a free tram to the
top of the hill which holds the Getty complex. The entire museum is
free, and the eclectic collection of artwork is impressive. We were
able to take some picture of them with our digital camera without flash.
Others, like the Van Gogh exhibit was off limits to cameras. The
grounds are also spectacular with lush gardens and architectural spots to
unwind and relax. The food was also surprisingly excellent.
We're likely to return. This it was a series of
dinner parties with
Ryan's co-workers to round out the month. It was fun having Ryan
perfect his awesome dinner party menu and have the great company of his
co-workers. We purchased a new computer and was able to give our other
one to Lorrie's family to
enjoy on our visit to
San Jose. We normally go up twice a year for our dental work, and
Eric was afraid that he would need massive amounts of work done. Turns
out his teeth were good, and it was only sealant that needed to be
re-applied. We topped it off with a large dinner with family and
friends at Hawg's Seafood downtown. For Eric's birthday, it was a
quiet walk and some Bronx Pizza (our favorite pizza place) for celebrations.
Nothing fancy, and nothing nearly as hectic as the large party last year.
Our hearts go out to all of those in Louisiana and Mississippi who lost
their homes and livelihoods to hurricane Katrina. We only hope that
things get better, and that others
donate to the Red Cross
to help the victims of this natural disaster.
Late July 2005:
We rounded out the rest of the month with a terrific visit from
Nicole and Trang,
who were able to come done and visit us for a fun-filled weekend. We
did the beach thing and relaxed. Nicole had a hot date, but ended up
missing baby Katlyn, so it was off to San Jose for them. We had the
first of our whirl-wind dinner parties with our friends, and then finished
out the rest of the month with some quiet time before August.
July 2005:
Just got back from a trip to Cancun with friends Jim, Jen, Chau, and
Mike. We had an awesome time and we've got
lots of pictures to share with everyone.
Returning home, Eric came down with a combination diphtheria / flu which had
him staying at home for a few days to get rid of this nasty bug. It
must have been one little piece of a meal in Cancun, as we were all careful
to not drink any of the local water, not to have ice in drinks, and to keep
away from nasty food. We did eat at some wonderful places like the
Taco Factory, where they have the best carnitas and beef tacos. Then
there was the chicken in
Chichen Itza ... the town outside the ruins ... where Ryan devoured a
half-chicken all by himself, but didn't have time to finish off the tendons
because we were in a hurry to get back. Before that, Ryan defeated his
fear of heights by climbing the large pyramid ruin so we could take some
awesome pictures from the top. Going up was easy, but getting back
down we had to use the side with the rope to steady ouselves from falling.
On the way back, Mike took us all on an adventure of exotic Mexican chips
from a local drug store. Don't know what they're putting in those
things, but some of them (like the Mexican Cheetos) were nasty. And
Ryan also bought something on the way that was *supposed* to be fruit, but
turned out to be more like bitter, rancid green olives. Ah yes, what
an adventure. And then there was
Isla Mujeres,
an island off the coast of Cancun, which was a mini-adventure all to itself.
Renting the slow-as-a-turtle golf cart made us feel old, but we were able to
get to the other end of the island quite quickly and have tasty grilled
fish, sitting on the beach, drinking beer. It was one of those lazy
afternoons where you don't really think about anything, but just relax.
The final day is thunder stormed and we needed to stop in and see Lisa's
family who were staying at the Grand Melia ... a much, much, much better
resort than our little Oasis Beach hotel. Now we know how to do it
when (and if) we decide to visit again ... upscale all the way. Since
it was raining and nobody was at the beach, we left Ryan with Lisa and the
kids and headed south to
Puerto Morales to try and do some last-minute snorkeling. Earlier
in the week we had snorkeled at
Xel-HA, which is
supposed to be a fantastic water park with exotic fish and lots of fun.
It was relaxing, but it turned out to be sort of like a wet Disneyland.
The water was mucky from all the people, and there weren't many fish out
there. So it was Puerto Morales as our last hope. Turned out we did
see some fish, but then encountered the dreaded "agua mala" which turns out
to be baby jellyfish larva that sting you. Both Chau and Jim got
stung, and I developed a little rash on my foot. So much for the
snorkeling dream vacation. On Tuesday, both of us were tired and it
was time to head back to San Diego. All in all it was a very fun trip
that we were glad we we able to enjoy with our friends.
Previous New Year's Resolutions: It's that time of year
again and we've come up with our New Year's resolutions:
Resolutions:
Be good to our friends and family. We're so
blessed to have two wonderful families that love us dearly. We also
have wonderful, supportive friends that we enjoy the company of. Ryan's
resolution is to be kinder to everyone, not harping on them for showing up
late ... especially for dinner.
Shape Up. No longer can we sit back and
enjoy fabulous food. This year we're getting off our duffs, eating
less and heading to the gym to work-out. Our primary goal, trim our
Goodyear tires.
Travel! This year is all about travel.
We're looking forward to visiting Tiffany (Eric's sister) this April for her
wedding to Jeff in Batton Rouge, Louisiana. Shortly there after we're planning a trip to Paris,
the first time we've ever been to Europe. And then to Asia after
Europe.
Get Fashionable. Out with the Old ... Old
Navy that is ... and in with the new. This year we're not stepping
foot in an Old Navy store (honest). A/X, D&G, DKNY, Prada, and Versace
are on our list this year. Can we pull it off? Well, maybe we'll
start with Gap and Banana Republic.
Upgrade, upgrade, upgrade! Ever since
visiting the Tiffany store in Union Square (SF) and trying on the 1 carat
version of our Tiffany ring (check
it out), the vision of a larger diamond has been etched into our mind.
Start a Business. Ryan's been doing
fantastic in the stock market and Eric likes his job with Qualcomm, but we
have other aspirations and this is the year to make them real. We're
considering opening a retail store or working on our certifications for our own financial
planning practice.
