not lucy liu

i don't know how many times i've heard people comment on how i look like lucy liu. i remember being at the bergamo airport this year and dolly and i were dropping off our rental car and this italian hertz rep kept calling out - "lucy, lucy...you are lucy liu!".

some people are blind, i think. the only thing we have in common are the scattered freckles on our faces. uncommon to most asians, i guess i would have to blame that on my mother.

anyways, i found this silly facial recognition site and thought it would be funny to see if i matched up with miss lucy. it's hilarious the only asian person that popped up was some guy named, stephen chow. wtf? i know i was a tomboy growing up and sometimes wondered if i was half man/half woman but i'd hate to be in some foreign country one day with someone hollering at me, "look...there's stephen chow!".

happy birthday kerbear

to the sweetest little birthday girl...

thank god her party was up in vancouver. i could only imagine if we organized something down in seattle - it would of been a party with no lights, that's for sure. we all got together to have dins at the hamilton street grill on saturday night, the home of the infamous ginger bread pudding that ker always raves about. it was nice seeing ker's rock girls again and i'm sure at some point ker thought she was being followed by the paparazzi. at one end of the table we had kells, dante and myself going trigger happy with our little digi cams. i guess for those who want to capture precious moments in the most creative way ... it's all about da pix.

congrats mr.d

just thought i'd congratulate my friend dante on his new position that commences in mid jan'07 as VP, director of strategy for a top notch marketing/ad firm based out of san fran. yay!!!

the three t's

i was driving home last thursday night and was only minutes away from the house when the torrential downpour began. ker called me on my cell phone telling me she had never seen the traffic this backed up before and that the weather was completely spinning out of control. i immediately called work to give them a heads up of the sudden change in weather and nutty driving conditions that i was faced with. as i drove through the main street leading to the house, i freaked out by the depth of the water that had accumulated and how my mini was nearly covered in the feet and a half pool of rain.

almost 700K of puget's customers were out of power by late thursday night. it had been reported that this windstorm was far worse then was recorded back in 1993. no lights were on when i got home and it took nearly three days for the crew to restore the power in our area. thank god i had plans to be out of town. it would of been miserable to have been stuck here with absolutely no power - i would of gone nuts.

so it's wednesday now and about 100K customers are still without power. i was at work yesterday and was told that many executives are fielding phone calls at the call centre from severely irrate customers. i witnessed directly a well dressed elderly man walk up to our front desk at pse's headquarters demanding that he speak to someone about his power situation and refusing to leave until he did so. though the outage was caused by natural forces it makes you wonder about the basic human needs and how best we can function when things aren't as easily accessible to us.

so here's to the three t's in reference to the eastern seaboard outage that happened over three years ago. now that wasn't caused by an act of nature....moreso by miscommunication and units tripping in ohio and ny state (NOTE: can't blame canada). but what further escalated the widespread outage came down to: trees, (sagging) transmission lines and lack of training.

so in respect to trees and transmission in our pacific northwest situation...

shout out loud

what a lovely evening it was to see mr. amos and his band play at the commodore. kells was given a ticket for her birthday and she was quite excited to hear his sound live. he's smooth, he's soulful and he and his band groove like no other. i was introduced to his music from nic a few years ago and really took to his lyrics. we were talking about that the other night about what kind of genre of music that connects with your soul. nic and kells, both major music lovers, dig all kinds of sounds but for some reason soulful chill really hits the spot for me. and i gravitate to music that is written from the heart or from an artist's life experiences that can move or inspire you and take you to places where you'd never thought you'd go. i'm gonna keep placing tabs on amos and i think i'll look out for martin sexton and patty griffin next...

enjoy the famous amos pix!

da animal hospital

wtf? it has been confirmed that my dog is officially a re-re. i had mooks down here for shy of a week so we could reconnect again. i felt a bit horrible as mr. alpha male mooks was taking over da pepper's homefront. on saturday morning he was playing with her stuffed squirrel so i thought i'd go to the pet hospital (and retreive some long lost stuffed animal that had already been destroyed). i gave mooks this little doll and to my pleasure, he joyously walked away with it. i went up to take a shower and twenty minutes later took his toy away and threw it back on top of the fridge - da pet hospital. so on monday, when i was back home in vancouver i was awoken at about 5am by mooks' stomach convulsing erratically. i'm thinking, 'god no....not another landscaping rock again!". so in the haze of the early morning i managed to clean up after him and then realized that there was this soggy four inch cylinder shaped piece of mush. i figured it could of been an old raw hide bone that he might of gobbled up when he was in the petting zoo at rob & lana's. but then i realized ... i wondered why the stuffed animal i gave him only had one arm? such an idiot - but i love him to bits.

chilling

i drove back home last night and was once again thrilled to be reunited with my little one. my uncle from new jersey will be flying in tomorrow to visit my gma and to celebrate my dad's bday (a tad earlier). going to go boarding up in whistler with pat's matt and hopefully hit some fresh powder. it's insane how much free time i have right now but i can't complain, can i? i have to report back to work for nights on the 13th...but then again that'll be just a day after catching amos lee play. yipeee!

it's all about hot pockets

tis the season to get your gear all ready and to prepare yourself for a fun filled winter on the slopes. whistler has reported some record breaking snowfall and i'm planning to rip it up next week. more pix to follow...

fender bender

lesson learned:

keep your foot on your brake at all times when you're at a stop, don't get distracted by reading a flyer.

missing home

i went to the canucks hockey game on saturday and realized how much i miss home. they were playing a video montage for remembrance day and after they sang the national anthem it struck an emotional chord within me. canada is such a lovely country and hockey has to be one of the greatest sports on earth. i think i'm going to do some investigating this week and i'll see if kerry will join in on a women's hockey league. i know it's a bit ambitious to think i can play when i've only laced up figure skates and i've never chased after a puck on ice but i'm determined to find some kind of fun, organized team sport and to be all that i can be ...

on a different note, here's a cute little video that i took of mr. mooks this weekend.

flying into cowtown

i had a lovely weekend going to calgary for the first time and hanging out with a bunch of folks in the industry. epcor hosted the texas hold'em event at the stampede casino where four full tables were filled with highly competitive poker players and my lonely female self, just attempting to outlast a few good men.

the top five winners walked away with some great prizes. kevin ended up taking home the xbox 360 as the grand prize. a few ipod nanos were given out, as well as a portable dvd player and a sony radio/cd player. the game got intense when it came down to the final four with the blinds going into 4K/8K ... insane!

after the tournament was over the epcor guys were so hospitable. they took us to a great little club/lounge called mynt and then shortly after we checked out another place called whiskey.

saturday we decided to make a trek out to banff. we had brunch @ the banff springs hotel and it was just mediocre. i think if we came in on a sunday or arrived earlier the selection of grits could of been better. we walked through the streets of banff in search for my baby blue snowboarding jacket - but to no avail...couldn't find it!

feds invited dean, his wife and some temu colleagues for dinner to a great little restaurant called the river cafe. the food was great and it was located in a cute little area in prince's island park. i'm hoping to come back to calgary one day and spend more time there. i didn't really get a chance to check out 17th ave or the kensington area.

i had a great flight back to seattle and was pleased to add calgary to my list of travels. i'm so embarrassed that i haven't travelled to more canadian destinations. my goal in '07 is to spread my wings to parts of the east!

i only have a few calgary pix to share as feds thought it was inappropriate for me to bring out my deadly ammo - the lovely canon 630. i'm all about documenting memories because we only live one life...i guess feds doesn't value it as much as i do!

going commando

grrrrrr!!!

the light shines on all of us ...

but on this particular day it was shining on ms. kelbel. although we had to celebrate it twelve days later from her actual birthday, it was well worth the wait. not only did we get a chance to meet up the night before for the halloween party, but we added nic, pat and JT to the festivities and had a wonderful meal at a trendy little moroccan restaurant on granville street called sanafir. afterwards we made our way to the republic for a few drinks and i would think a few too many for our little kerbear (sorry, girl!). the music wasn't too great so after a few hours of some drinkin', dancin' and some lickin' we decided to head over to forbes' to unwind and chat.

kells was thrilled having all the girls together for her birthday and it was a great way to celebrate her 'coming of age' as well as her little adventure that lies ahead of her next week. she's part of a key group of ten people who will be living and working together in new orleans and assisting families and the habitat for humanity group with the construction of new homes. way to go, sista!

here are some 'classy' pictures of us celebrating the night away...

spice up your life

When your feelin', sad and lone
We will take you,
Where you gotta go
Smilin' and dancin',
Everything is free
All you need is positivity
Colours of the world
Spice up your life
Every boy and girl
Spice up your life
People of the world
Spice up your life
Aaahh!!!

i attended the pwx halloween party this past friday at the mouse and the bean in vancouver. we had a blast and it was great seeing some interesting costumes and reconnecting with people that i hadn't seen in years. here are some pix to the fun filled event.

happy birthday mr. mooks!

today mr. mooks turns one

and will be pleasantly surprised tomorrow when he gets to

frolic around with other doogles at the dog lounge in seattle.

disclaimer

hey nic...

i have removed gunt out of my 'cobblestones and the gunt' posting. you know i'm not mean spirited and would never ever want to insult a single soul. thanks to you,

say bye bye to the gunt!

you have a piece of my heart...

so i had an interesting day today. i drove into seattle this rainy afternoon to go get an echo exam done on my heart. it was part of my routine physical exam from last week where i got some blood work done and the doctor went over a few things to inform me on my health and diet. i told him i worked out about 3-4 times a week and he actually insisted that i go five times a week. umm ... what else am i suppose to add into my work out routine?

he then asked me personal questions such as am i sexually active? i giggled. and then he was applying pressure on my stomach to ensure that there were no abnormalities - i laughed hysterically. see why i never go to the doctor's? but the good news is, it's confirmed ... i'm 5'5.5"! just 3.5 more inches away from my ideal height. yah!

anyways, though i fray away from going to the doctors i would have to say that today's visit was very educational for me. i asked the technicians a tonne of oddball questions and found out that officially they are called ultrasonagraphers. at one point when i looked at the monitor and watched the valves in my heart pump away, it literally looked like some kind of alien saying, 'hello' to me. the sonographer, melissa, applied that funky gel on the ultrasound tranducer and kept pressing away on the left side of my chest and over my chest bone. did i tell you that she was an intern? and she was putting so much pressure on my chest that i thought it was going to crack.

so just thought that i would share something with you. i was thinking that when you actually look at a human heart it doesn't really look like the shape of a heart as one would normally sketch it out. but after closely examining the screen today, it just came to me like a lightning bolt. if you tilt your head sideways to the left and look at the picture below ... from the view of my aortic valve, you can see the shape of my heart - enjoy!

my new rollerblading partner

Peppa - my new rollerblading partner

sleeping beauties

here's a fabulous picture of my dear friend pat. the only one friend who has an issue with her picture on my blog and who thinks it's unsafe to have your face plastered anywhere on the world wide web. sorry, just had to do it!

forbes and pat drove down this weekend to pay me a little visit and to do some shopping. funny how it works. forbes is always claiming that she's here to visit and refuses to waste time shopping. i think this is the second time around she's walked out of nordies after dropping five bills. and then to 'boot, pat insisted on going to trader joe's to stock up on some goods and reluctantly convinced forbes to drive her. then once again...forbes walks out with $70 of groceries! nice.

here's to another wonderful bitch fest and to my sleeping beauty!

feeling the love

so it was pretty much a lovefest this weekend. i drove up to vancouver (with minimal sleep coming off my fri night shift) and spent the saturday evening celebrating my cousin's birthday. it was great to see soohee, suzi, stephen and paulina again. think we should do it more often and get everyone out next time. perhaps a good game of cranium.

prior to dinner, i paid a visit to the senior care home and chatted with my gma. she's such a funny lady to be around. it's the never ending question of whether or not you've eaten. how come i'm not married? where are my kids? to once again, have you eaten? too funny... but what can you say, she's still in great spirits for a ninety-two year old and i am sincerely grateful that she has played an important role in my life. think i have to thank my lucky stars for having allowed her to teach me to be resilient and strong, yet at the same giving of myself to those that i care about. got to love her!

met up with forbes and J briefly on saturday to grab the keys to my place. i took a bunch of pictures and was sure not to interfere with the xrated love sessions that took place in my unit. easy there forbes! but here's a view of what you can see from my living room window. had brunch with the two lovebirds on sunday @ NU and then met up with my hungover bro at barber's apartment. it's been eons since i last saw mike and i was surprised that i remembered his cell number after trying several times to track my brother down. it was a pleasant reunion.

so i left van in the early afternoon and was worried that i wouldn't be able to pay my final visit to see brynja before she headed back to iceland. she had din plans already so i managed to swing by to rob and lana's new place in sammamish for a quick visit. OMG...talk about architectural digest/frontgate - their home is insane! i'm hoping that luck in some form will come my way via the villagio connection. i was thoroughly impressed by carrie's place in mercer island but she kept going on about rob and lana's killer pad. their backyard is landscaped so beautifully and in the springtime they'll be putting in a heated swimming pool (with a hard covershell that will protect the pool and easily allow luba, their bullie, to run around freely without any danger). they've inquired about wanting to babysit mookie so luba could have a playmate and now there is no question that my mooks would be in good hands with the pledger's.

after a quick visit, i drove out to snoqualmie ridge to bring some dessert and icecream over to the myren's. had a great chat with bryn about her life in iceland and how exciting it is to work for the us embassy. she's met a lot of interesting people along the way and is looking into putting in her time and then returning back to washington state and working for a local government agency. yippee... i miss her so!