Goodbye September

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends
Name the artist of my new favorite song. I guess I've been listening to them a lot lately.

Not S-Z but A-C
Just got back from an emergency drill at work and I had to line up in the A-C line for the first time! :) It was fun seeing my name first on the list.

Maybe next season
Good run Giants! Too bad we couldn't beat those darn Padres. Hopefully Barry will be back next year, hitting more home runs!

Double Play Wednesdays at McAfee Coliseum
Last night we went to the A's game since they had $2 tickets and $1 hot dogs! Alan and I took BART from our station (South Hayward) which I loved since I love taking public transportation. We bought 3 hot dogs each but I ended up eating only two. They reminded me of the Gray's Papaya hot dogs in New York. A's won, but too bad it doesn't count since they're already eliminated too.

So You Think You Can Dance!
Last night was the last competition round with the final four! I hope either Melody or Nick wins - they're both great dancers - plus Alan's sister knows them :) Alan and I voted last night while we were at the A's game, while on BART, and when we got home too!

Split the signal
I finally hooked up the splitter to the Tivo so I can tivo one show while taping (on VCR) another! Since Alias and Smallville are both on Thursdays at 8pm, I needed to. Now which one gets digitally recorded? Probably Alias! I need it also next Wednesday since the premiere of One Tree Hill is on at the same time as the finale of So You Think You Can Dance...

My fall lineup
After watching most of the new shows' premieres, I've come up with my fall lineup:
Monday: Prison Break
Tuesday: none
Wednesday: One Tree Hill, Lost
Thursday: Alias/Smallville, The Apprentice
Friday: Ghost Whisperer
Saturday: none
Sunday: Desperate Housewives

:)

I (HEART) CHICAGO!
Got back from our weekend trip to Chicago on Sunday night. We left Thursday after work and spent three days in the Windy City. It was an awesome trip - I love seeing new cities! Especially those with great subway systems, since I love taking public transportation that reminds of me of NYC subways :)

Here's a summary:

• Friday: Cubs game - we saw a Cubs vs. Astros game at Wrigley Field! We ate lunch at a small diner nearby called the Salt and Pepper Diner.
  
  
  Chicago-style deep dish pizza - We went to Lou Malnati's for dinner and had deep dish pizza!
  
  Funky Buddha Lounge - after dinner we hung out at the Funky Buddha Lounge, had drinks, and danced the night away until around 2am!



• Saturday: Lunch: Woke up late and had to wait until all 10 of us took showers in our one-bathroom apartment :) Then headed downtown for lunch at Heaven on Seven! Yummy cajun-style southern food!
  
  
  Millenium/Grant Park in the rain: Saw the Buckingham Fountain (from Married with Children) and then it started pouring! Stood under a restaurant umbrella for about 30 minutes and then decided to run into Filene's Basement (like a Ross) and 'shop' (really - getting out of the rain). It stopped after about an hour, so we went back and finished looking at the monuments in Millenium Park, like the big metal BEAN :)
  
  
  Shopping on the Magnificent Mile: Headed down Michigan Ave aka The Magnificent Mile (like 5th Ave in NYC) with all the shops, including GAP and H&M! I bought two sweaters for work.
  
  Dinner at a Thai Restaurant: called Sweet Basil close to our apartment... it was actually pretty good. I had the Pad Thai with shrimp.
  
  Kings! Played three rounds of kings - I lost one two (!) of the rounds and had to drink the king's cup.
  
  Sound-Bar: Headed over to Sound-Bar after we were all a bit tipsy off beer and danced the night away - this time until around 4am.



• Sunday:
  Another late wake-up day - got out at around 1pm.
  Lunch: Went to Portillo's Restaurant downtown and had pesto chicken pasta which was really really good!
  
  Walked to the John Hancock Building and had drinks at the bar on the top floor -with gorgeous views of the city. Ironically, the best view was from the women's restroom. Too bad the guys couldn't see it :)
  
  Then went back to the apartment, got our stuff, and took the subway to Midway airport!

What a great weekend! I had a lot of fun!

Tahoe

Had a great weekend up in Tahoe with the fam. We rented this 4-bedroom cabin which was awesome - totally remodelled and looked brand new. There was a jacuzzi, gas BBQ grill and even a DVD player/TV with surround sound. We relaxed, caught up on the last 2 discs of LOST, ate a lot, had a picnic near the Lake, and of course went to the casinos!

First time we went was in the afternoon after our picnic. I decided to go to Horizon and play slots - the same kind that I won with at Cache Creek. When I left after about an hour, I was up $45! Then we went later that night and I try the same game at Harrah's and Bill's but lost. Then played Blackjack and lost some more. Darn it! I should've just stopped playing :)

On our way back, we went to eat at Sizzler! Mmmm.. I had been craving their cheese bread for a while and it was good. I got the Steak and Endless Shrimp and ended up peeling the batter off the shrimp just to get to the shrimp to dip in cocktail sauce. It ended up not being "Endless" for me - I didn't even order a 2nd round b/c I was so full already! Nonetheless, it was good food.

LOST Premiere tonight!
Can't wait to see what they find in the hatch. Also, find out what happened to the guys on the raft who got attacked by the "Others"!

Laundry anyone?

Last night I was doing laundry and we ran out of detergent! Since we have a front-load washer, we only use HE (high efficiency) detergent, and if you get it at regular price, it can be pretty pricey. So I looked online at all the ads of the stores I usually would go to (Longs, Walgreens, Safeway, Albertsons, RiteAid) and I found that ALL HE was on sale at Safeway for only $3.99 for the 100 fl oz size! What a steal! So I went during lunch and stocked up - I bought 4! :) Maybe I should buy more?

Softball win!
We won our first softball game of the season on Tuesday night! It was a great game - 13-10! Funny thing was that most of the girls who played were my friends - me, Kitchie, Judy, Johanna, and Rowena. Hey, it's not my fault that none of the women at my company don't want to play! :) It was fun having that many friends around though!

Blog slacker
I know! Sorry! This past weekend was really really busy, and so was this week at work!

Recap
Kitchie and Jerry were in town, so we tried to spend as much time as possible with them!

Friday night, the 4 of us went to see Wicked at the Orpheum Theater. What an awesome musical! I knew all the songs since I listened to it the whole week before. Afterwards, we went to Mel's for a late-night snack, and Jerry even popped a big question to Alan :)!

Saturday, Alan and I had our official house blessing with family. Our parish priest came to do a blessing and afterwards we had lots of grubbin' food. That night, Alan and I met up with K & J at Velvet Lounge to party it up. The Acaba's were also there :) The DJ was awesome that night! Jerry even made friends with him since he was also from Chicago and got him to play Ditty - one of our old school favorites...


Sunday, we had Kitchie's 30th birthday/graduation at SBC Park for a Giants game! Since we bought group tickets (40!) we got to put a free message on the scoreboard - it read "Congrats Kitchie & Jerry"! We were all going crazy when we saw it. I finally got to see my two pregnant cousins and they're so cute with their bellies.


What a weekend! I'm so glad Kitchie and Jerry were here and can't wait to have them back! I'm so excited for their wedding!

Roses and a digital camera - the way to Alan's woman's heart
I got my birthday present from Alan yesterday afternoon - a new digital camera! And not just any camera - the Canon S70! 7.1 megapixels, lots of features (that I need to learn how to use), it takes videos, and most importantly - it uses compact flash cards... which means I can use all of Alan's :)

Thanks darling! And also for the roses you sent to my work on Friday! :)

Weeding, Wedding, and my 27th Birthday
That sums up the long weekend.....

We pulled out all the weeds in our backyard on Saturday morning - getting ready for our housewarming next Saturday with family. We haven't gotten our backyard landscaped yet, so in the meantime, we have pull the weeds that grow - and boy was there a lot of them! Alan's dad came over on Monday to help finish up and fix the front yard a bit too.

We went to a wedding at the Palm Event Center on Saturday night. The ceremony was held in the back, overlooking the vineyard and the reception was awesome! Open bar, good food, fun games played (Stacy picked me for the hula-hoop competition!), and we danced crazily all night long. Afterwards we went over to this huge house nearby since our friends were housesitting - jumped in their pool and jacuzzi, ate all their food, and had fun!

Sunday was my 27th birthday, so we went to church and then had dinner with family and friends at Pasta Pomodoro in Union Landing - one of my favorite restaurants! I got the Mafaldine and it was reallllly god :) Then we came back to our house and had cake and ice cream sundaes! Alan prepared an ice cream bar - complete with crushed nuts, oreos, sprinkles, cherries, fudge & caramel topping, and whipped cream! Everyone made their own sundaes and hung out! Thanks everyone who came to celebrate with me :)

Monday was a relaxing day - my mom, sister, cousin and aunt stayed over on Sunday night and so we hung out on Monday. My mom made crepes with her crepe maker that we bought for her about 2 years ago and only started using now! But she's good at it and the crepes were yummy :)

The long weekend is over, but a short work-week ahead! Woo hoo!

Our little company is making strides...
Check out the article about the new research findings our company has done! We even made the front page of the paper yesterday :)

Tell Me Why, Ain't Nothing But a ... Blackout?
Alan and I went to the Backstreet Boys concert at the Chronicle Pavilion in Concord on Tuesday night and it was going along well ... we were on the lawn, laying out, enjoying the concert underneath a warm, clear summer sky and in the middle of "Larger Than Life", the all the lights go out, then I guess a few emergency lights go on, illuminating the audience.

At first I thought it was part of the show, since that song is a kind of tribute to the fans, but after about 5 minutes we figured out that it wasn't. All the lights near the concession stands were out and we hear BSB come out on stage, with megaphones, while Kevin starts saying something about a brownout in the whole city. Hmmm.... but they were nice enought to try to sing something a capella on the megaphones - it didn't work out too well for us since we were really far back, but they sounded good nonetheless.

Then after about 20 more minutes of just sitting on the lawn, some guy said that the concert was over and if we wanted to go to the Sacramento show the next night, our tickets would be honored there... but who would want to drive that far?

Anyway, so we got a good hour of the BSB show from their 'Never Gone' tour. Too bad we didn't get to hear their new song Incomplete. Fitting name, I guess.

I'm not complaining though... I did get to see Kevin :)