Presidential Tag Clouds

This came around in an email at work today, just as a "this is interesting" note...

Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud

And it did not disappoint! I think you'll agree.

Feeling like a human again

It's a good feeling.

1. Going to work feels normal again (after completely changing jobs within the company and losing two friends from my close social group at work -- yerks! Stupid grad school and stupid Taiwan). Anyway, I've settled into the new responsibilities, and the new group of people, and it's going ok, all in all.

2. Jesse and I have made a few decisions about the wedding, and that's nice.. the location, obviously, is set, and we've all but signed ourselves up with a caterer. Also, we've found a band or two that we dig, and still more are writing to us (from our Craigslist ad). I'm planning on ordering my dress this weekend, and Jesse has a tux appt coming up... oh, and "Save the Date" cards are in the mail, and people are receiving them all over the place. That's good.

3. There are games coming out over at Lucas which is awesome. Jesse has been working really hard for a long time now, and it's nice when things are completely done, and in the end user's hands... that means there are no more revisions, no more late nights.. for those games, anyway!

4. I'm back to eating better.. our house sort of turned into a junk food pit for a month or so there.. it was pretty bad. I just kinda felt mildly ill on a daily basis. I think part of my clarity and desire to sit down and blog today can be attributed to the fact that I feel healthier, after only a few days of eating better foods.

5. I bought a bunch of new clothes. This helps my state of mind because I'm not in a total panic every morning, running late and whining about having nothing to wear.

6. We have Tivo! This makes our evenings more calm -- we're not racing home to catch the TV shows we like, and we're not calling our friends in the middle of the day to ask them to tape things for us... we can just sit down and watch something whenever we want. It's so relaxing, and it's a nice burden to have had lifted.

Anyway, the overall change is that I'm just a little calmer. I guess that means that at some point, I'd lost my grip, but I've apparently found it again. It's really, really nice.

Holy Moses!

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness!!!

Jesse set up our new old router just now (using the "Super Easy Set-up" button), and now we are both blogging SIMULTANEOUSLY. Amazing. Please welcome us to 5-7 years ago.

Next things next -- TIVO. It's waiting downstairs, our joint birthday present to each other. Suh-weet!

And now, just to prove that this is not a hoax, Jesse and I will click "Publish Post" at the EXACT SAME TIME...

For my birthday...

On Friday (my work birthday)...

1. my friendly co-workers took me out for lunch (awwww!)
2. our super-nice waiter sang to me and gave me free chocolate cake
3. after lunch, Sharlene surprised me by coming back to work (she quit(!) to go to grad school) and bringing me a homemade peach pie -- amazing! I was so touched. =) Aaaand it was yummy.

For my actual birthday (today), I...

1. got several birthday cards from: Tina, Jesse, Pip, my mom, my dad and my uncle
2. had a grilled cheese sandwich for breakfast
3. went on a picnic with Jesse at our favorite picnicking park (Vasona)
4. flew a kite (a flying stained-glass-like honu -- a sea turtle)
5. shopped for shoes
6. bought 2 new pairs of shoes (sweet! dress-casual shoes comfortable enough to walk in to and from the train)
7. went out to dinner with Jesse
8. ended up at dinner with Jesse and my mom, dad, brothers and uncle (Jesse surprised me!)
9. worked a little, so that my Monday would be less stressful
10. blogged

Jesse baked his first-ever cake today, and it was a total success. =) It's a pretty pink strawberry cake with fluffy white frosting.

Anyway, all in all, it was a really nice birthday, and I think 26 is going to be a good year. =)

Thank you, Technology.

I am so out of the habit of blogging. Good thing I told Teresa I would keep up with this thing, otherwise I might just quit altogether. Here's the problem (shh! don't tell): my old job allowed for more time to read funny articles online, emailing friends and blogging. Now, in my new job, I tend to be busy and slightly more tense all day. It's not that the job is stressing me out -- it's that it is made up of 100 tiny tasks to complete throughout the day, and I'm constantly worried that I've let something dropped, which would screw up a dependency and mess up the delivery schedule for some project... so I'm always "on." I have post-it notes everywhere, and Outlook reminds me of tasks I have to complete every 10-15 minutes. =P

So anyway... Life is good right now. =) I've been taking the train to work for pretty much the last 2 weeks. I love it. Although we sometimes have to rush to get to the train station, Jesse and I (I think!) are more calm in the mornings. The train schedule sets up a rigid go-to-work time and a rigid come-home-from-work time, and I am enjoying the routine. I also like walking a few blocks to work in the morning, then back to the train station in the evening, and the community feeling of travelling in the same direction as a large group of people at the exact same time. Although this phenomenon also occurs on freeways, I'd say that rush hour is not a community that I miss being a part of. =P My car also loves not driving 40-50 miles per day.

In other news, Jesse and I have cemented the date for our wedding. It's going to be on January 27, 2007. We have updated Wedding Central (2.0) with this information, and pretty soon, we'll get around to adding more text and pics to that website, so go there for wedding-related updates. Aaaand at some point soon, we're going to figure out the "save the date" thing, too. People (especially those with crazy schedules or people who have to travel long distances) should get either an email or a paper notice.. we'll see how that goes. If you're reading this blog post, you're pretty much one of the first to know the date. =) Congrats. Thank you, Technology.

Gah! My ring finger is naked.

Jesse made me do it! =(

I am without my engagement ring. It was too big. It has to be re-sized from an 8.75 (it fit easily on my thumb) to a 6.75. You may be asking yourself: Was I insulted to receive a ring that was that much too big for me? Not at all. It's not one of things that crosses your mind when your best friend gives you a diamond ring and asks if he can spend the rest of his life with you.

(w00t!)

Anyway, back to the point of this whole thing...

It's gone! I feel a little bit lonely without it. =( I won't have it back until Wednesday the 16th. That means that when I see two people tomorrow at Jesse's birthday party for the first time since the engagement, they won't be able to check out da ring. =(

Oh well... Apparently, when I get it back, it will fit tightly to the point where I won't be able to yank it off my finger very easily -- it'll get stuck at my knuckle. Does that mean I'll have to shower with it? Sleep with it? Will I ever be able to take it off, or will they have to cut it off of me to prevent the deadening of that finger once I've swelled into my 60s?

...the answers to THESE questions and more in 40 years, folks!

I think I'll go back to pining for my ring now...

Jesse is 30!!!!!!!

Run on over to Jesse's blog and wish him a Happy Birthday! Or better yet, send him a ridiculously sparkly piece of Happy Birthday animated web art on MySpace.

Have the happiest of birthdays, Bug!! I think it's going to be a great year!

Change of pace

I've been working at the same company for 3 years -- I started out doing orthographic transcription for just about six months, and I have been an analyst for the past 2.5 years. Now, on Monday, July 17, I'll be moving into Project Management. That should be a slight change of pace.

But the most important thing is that I am finally done interviewing and considering various offers -- I can just concentrate on transitioning out of this position and into the next one. As stressful as that should be, it seems totally relaxing to me after the past month.

And as proof of that fact, I actually went to bed before 11:00 last night, and I slept soundly until 8:00 this morning. It was awesome.

WOW we're busy.

This was a three-day work week for us. It was the longest short week I've ever worked. There was so much stress and anxiety crammed into those three little days. But it was quickly followed by the weekend -- sweet, we get to relax! Not quite yet.

Last night (Friday), Jesse and I went with a group of friends to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 -- pretty good flick. It was the 9:40pm showing, and it was about 35 minutes from home, so we got in around 1:20 or 1:30am. Then we wound down a little and went to bed, just to get up early today to run to a Bridal Fair in downtown San Jose. It was supremely low-key there. We basically just entered a bunch of raffles, picked up some magazines, looked at a bunch of ugly dresses, and left.

Then we went out to lunch with my mom at the Spaghetti Factory. Yum! Jesse accidentally left his hat there. But we didn't have time to go back and get it, because we were already working on being late for the wedding we were supposed to go to today at 3:00pm.

So, we went to my mom's work and changed into our wedding clothes in their bathrooms there, then ran out and raced to the wedding. That was really nice. The happy couple had two ceremonies: one to reflect her Hindu background, and one to celebrate his Jewish background. Super interesting. We hung out with nice people, ate good food, and eventually left around 9:30pm.

At which point, we drove back to my mom's house -- because she'd gone back to the Spaghetti Factory and picked up Jesse's hat for him. So sweet. And we were so exhausted. We finally made it back home around 11:30pm tonight, and we're exhausted.

Tomorrow morning, I need to get up early so I can clean the house and hit the grocery store -- we're having a big group of people over for an ebelskiver breakfast at 11:00am.

Goodnight!

Down, down, down, down...

In general, I've been down for the past five days or so. I am working hard at work, and long hours. Jesse is also working long hours. We might come home late, or we might leave work early to rush across the bay to look at a potential wedding location, effectively killing an evening... we aren't eating altogether well, we aren't relaxing much, we aren't sleeping enough. In short, my (our) routine has changed drastically for the past week, and I'm none the better for it. Add to that a heaping helping of other stuff that's going on that I don't feel like discussing in a public forum, and you've got one very tired, stressed-out and down blogger.

Which doesn't make for an interesting blog... which is why I haven't been blogging... I just decided to say "hi" today to anyone who might be concerned about me. =)

Karaoke Night

Did you know that Comcast Digital Cable offers free Karaoke?

(I'll assume you said "no.")

Neither did we! So, last night when a commercial told me that tidbit of information, I thought to myself, "I've never felt so happy to have been informed by paid advertising! This is awesome!"

So I immediately stopped the show we were watching, and went surfing through Digital Cable menus (not pretty). Sure enough -- karaoke! So, Jesse and I had an impromptu karaoke night last night. You should've been there! (You could've stopped us...)

We sang such classics as:

"Somewhere Out There" in the style of Linda Rondstadt and James Hogan
"La Bamba"
and
"Pour Some Sugar On Me"

So, whereas at 7:00pm yesterday, I was totally ready to get rid of Digital Cable, by 11:00pm, I was sold on why we need to keep it. ;)

Wedding Central

We created our little Jesse+Amanda engagement space over at TheKnot.com. It's linked over there on the right-hand side of my blog. -->

There isn't much there yet, but we did write up a little synopsis of the proposal. It's in writing now, so we don't risk losing our voices from telling the story over and over. More details will be added as we, you know, decide on them. Enjoy! =)

"pop!" goes the question

... "yes!" goes the girl.

Most of the people who read my blog (Jesse, Jesse's friends & family, two of my friends) know already, but maybe I'll get a few surprise comments from other lurkers I don't yet know about, by informing the Blogger public that:

We're engaged!

That's right! On Sunday, May 14th, Jesse popped the question on the side of a Kona-Waimea highway (190). I had to de-code a numeric message, we were checkin' out a particularly awesome rainbow, etc, details... Apparently, he had already asked both of my parents for "permission" to marry me, and basically all of his friends and family already knew it was going to happen.. I was the only one in the dark. =)

...and none of my friends knew (not that Jesse's friends aren't my friends ... you know what I mean). So, if any of my friends are lurking, this is your sneak-peak at the news. ;) (Psst, let me know you're here, so I don't expect you to act surprised on Monday!) Otherwise, you'll have to wait for your email, phonecall, or glimpse of this near-blinding gem I'm cartin' around these days.

Any questions you have regarding our engagement or impending wedding will be answered tout de suite! Hopefully, we'll have one of those wedding announcement website things up within a couple of days.. We have lots of decisions to make, and people to keep updated!

Oh yeah, and we're back from Hawaii, too. Hello!

...and there we went.

Jesse and I are headed for Hawaii tomorrow morning. By 3:00pm Pacific time, we'll have arrived on the Big Island. If you want us to bring you back something, you're a little late. We're totally exhausted from cleaning, working and packing.. and now we're going to go to bed. Or, soon, anyway. Aloha!

Hey, is that Jesse?

I went over to MySpace.com today and saw the usual little "Cool New People" section right below the username/password fields, and thought at first, "Meh, whatever," but then I realized that one of the pictures looked just like Jesse!


That one on the left! With that other girl that's not me!

So I looked over at him (he was sitting right next to me) and said, "Hey, is that you with some other girl?" and he craned to get a good look and said, "Woah...that's strange."

Naturally, I had to investigate! So I clicked on that picture, logged in, and checked out the user's pics. Found it!



Yeah, no.. that's not Jesse. That's just some dufus who, when compressed down to thumbnail size, is lucky enough to resemble my Bug. I mean, I'm sure he's a perfectly nice guy, but he's no Jesse. Hooray!

Flaming piles of poop?

I found an ad for this product in the back of a home and garden magazine I'm fond of... it was an odd find, so I thought I'd share it with my blog patrons.

That's right, someone has capitalized on the idea of setting fire to human waste. It's the Incinolet, "The World's Only Electric Incinerating Toilet!"

I can't think of anything funny to say about this. It's a toilet that burns poop in the comfort of your own home away from home. The point, I guess, is that you'll no longer have to truck your waste to a treatment facility, because you can now go anywhere you want and just toss a bag of poo-ash in the nearest park trash can. Score one for you, score zonk for the elderly lady who sifts through that trash for lucrative recyclables to pay her rent.

And beware, fellow KOAers, the Incinolet requires good ventilation out the side of the RV. This may mean that your alfresco family lunch won't be sporting that fresh country air feature you were hoping for.

Cook for a day, eat sleep for a month.

We had a cooking bonanza at our house yesterday (Easter Sunday). I invited my mom and dad over. And so the four of us were around the house all day, with the world's biggest load of groceries and bowls, spatulas and muffin tins. It was fun, but it was a huge amount of work.

The impetus of the event was that, while we're all eating healthier (me, Jesse, my mom and my dad), we all cook dinner for just one or two people each night. Jesse and I have been having virtually no trouble with this effort -- we plan the week out in advance, and then cook dinners of varying degrees of complexity. No biggie. But my mom and dad both live alone, and so only cook for one person, which makes it slightly more difficult. And your food options can get boring after a while, with leftovers as a staple.

So I decided to plan this event, whereby we'd get together and cook up a storm, then cool the foods down (or in some cases, just prep them without cooking at all), and store everything as single or double servings. All of that goes into the freezer, et voila! Lots of dinners with virtually no prep required each night for dinner.

When all was said and done, we had a total of 9 different entrees, 2 breakfast dishes, and a bunch of cooked shredded chicken that can be added to various dishes on a whim (salads, soups, enchiladas, fajitas, quesadillas, etc.).

So, needless to say, after 10 or 11 hours of cooking and standing, there were sore feet and backs to go around. It was totally exhausting. And I would do it again in a heartbeat ... a heartbeat a couple of weeks from now.

Hawaii, here we come!

Jesse used to always talk about wanting to go to Hawaii. Well, last year (January '05) we went to Oahu, stayed on Waikiki, parasailed, went horseback riding on the beach, experienced a luau, and generally relaxed. I think it would be safe to say that he loved Hawaii. I loved Hawaii, too. =)

Well, I just wanted to take this opportunity to rub it into the faces of people who are reading my blog: we're going back to Hawaii in one month. In fact, we're going here. Seriously, that's gorgeous. I'm jealous of myself! =D I can't wait.

So, it's off to the Big Island (Hawaii) for us. One week. We'll be back, most likely as untanned as we were when we left! =) If I find any other gorgeous pictures of Hawaii that I have to brag about, I'll let you know.

The pain is all gone

I was reading through some of my old posts, just passing time.. when I stumbled upon this glimpse of my past. It serves as a reminder of why I blog, or take notes in any way about my life.

I had oral surgery on February 10, 2006. That's exactly 2 months ago. The wisdom teeth are gone. The pain is gone. It was totally worth any and all trouble I may have gone through to have the procedure done. Until I read that blog post, I had pretty much forgotten about that part of my life!

...Again, seriously, if you're still suffering with four extra useless teeth in your mouth, and you know who you are, please have them removed. I was the scaredest scaredy cat ever when it came to thinking about having that surgery.. but it was not a big deal, it was easy, and it's over. It has only been 2 months, and I don't ven think about it -- day in, day out, it's just pain-free jaw movement. Go do it!

Worst exposition ever.

Jesse and I spent most of Saturday in the studio at his work. He was mostly working, I was mostly hanging out. We decided to buy a new video game on the way home: Kingdom Hearts II. Yes, this is a Square-Enix collaboration with Disney. Yes, the first game was really fun. Yes, I liked this Disney product. No, I don't generally like Disney. But none of this gets to my point, which is: the beginning of this game suh-hucks.

It's about 4-5 hours of bland cinematics with brief "action" interludes, where you button-mash to do the most boring tasks on earth (beat the crap out of a bag of garbage on a cart to get it up a shallow hill and into a garage ... why didn't they implement a "push" action? .. or "defeat the strange enemies" seven or eight times for no reason -- they haven't even attacked). Dull. We would set the (wireless) controlled down for so long to watch the cut scenes that the controller would shut itself off from lack of use. Lame!

Follow that with 1-2 hours of "Oh my god, is the game going to start now? Wai--wha--crap, no. It's another movie. Oh my GOD this game is so dull!!" They give you so much time to dwell on how bored you are that you start to pick on other things about the game, too.. like why haven't PS2 graphics come further.. and why do they keep using that same music track for such different tasks... and why did they charge $50 for this piece of crap... and why did I even play the first game, if they were going to tell me the whole freaking story over again, complete with footage and dialogue from the original?

Anyway, about 6 hours into it, the game really took off -- and by "took off," I mean we finally got to do some real action stuff, in worlds that already existed in the first game (after that many hours, they still didn't deliver anything new?)

So yeah, can't wait to get back to that game soon. Of course, we will, because we still have an ounce of hope that it will deliver in the end. Please, KH2.. please don't let us down? Please?