Only Child

Lulu has been an only child for the past week or so and she has been acting like a big baby. On her first day alone, I took her to work with me (against office rules) and she was -so- excited. She hadn't been to the office since before the new rule was put into place and she was bouncing around in the car in anticipation. Unfortunately I was "reprimanded" and she had to spend the next few days alone at home.

She was glad to be alone for the first few days. She didn't make a mess and she was uncharacteristically cheerful when we came home. She ate well, played a lot and asked for attention. Over the weekend it started to die down a little bit. When we came home late on Saturday night, she didn't even bother meeting us at the garage door and I found her knocked out upstairs on the bed instead.

Then this morning she was a cranky, whiny little baby! She refused to go outside to pee or poo. After numerous attempts, we finally had to force her out the front door. I think she knows that we leave for work after she does her business so she was trying to prolong it and come with us to work! After we left, she sat at the door barking continuously. It was so sad- I hate leaving her alone when she wants to come along. :(

So the next couple of days shouldn't too bad-- work is a little slow so I am going to try to work from home the rest of the week. That way, Cora can come back home too since I'll be there to monitor the Christmas presents! I'm wondering if we should keep the tree up until after the new year (to make our New Years' party more festive) or get rid of it immediately after Christmas so Cora can stay at home again. Then again, I'm sure she'll find the next best thing to chew on!

GV Nonsense #1

I'm going to start a series of nonsensical Google Voice transcripts. Here's one from my greataunt to start. The original voicemail was about pearls.

Hello Sheena you need to call in the promo I need to have a media 9th and she's not. He must whacks at my mom buddy and we'll be at a what I mean yeah daddy gonna get a pass it on the all hello money at project and and. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Thank you. Bye bye.

I ♥ Facebook Ads

I wonder if this one was targeted especially for me.

Imagine Them Naked

I think at some point in our lives we've all heard that public speaking is the number one fear amongst people. And at another point, I'm sure we've heard the old line "imagine everyone in their underwear."

What I'm curious about is, where did this come from? I'm sure sayings like this don't just come up randomly in several different situations and catch on and spread... there is usually one originator. Like the saying, "for Pete's sake," probably started with a certain Pete in mind.

So, which perverted public speaker came up with this advice?

How much effort?

Props to Mr. Persaud from Long Beach BMW who took the effort to write out an automated dealer response e-mail ENTIRELY in initial caps. Unless he was using notepad to write this, his grammar/spell check must have been SCREAMING at him to use proper capitalization.

That New Car Smell

I feel a little obligated to write about the new car I bought last weekend. I'm not sure I have much to say about it (not that it's not exciting), it feels a bit surreal yet completely normal at the same time. Although my lease is coming up and I'd been thinking about replacing the RX for the past couple of weeks, it still felt like an impulse purchase.

I've always been a same-day car buyer. In fact, until this experience, I'd never walked out of a car dealership without a new car, granted I walked in with the intent of buying a car. This time, I waited until the second day. :) I suppose I get this from my dad. One of his infamous negotiating tactics was the whole I'm-leaving-unless-you-give-me-this-deal.

So before this weekend, I had the Mercedes ML350 and the all-new RX350 on the top of my list for replacements. (Adding the "all-new" is a bad work habit) So to avoid making an immediate car purchase, I decided to go to BMW as my first stop. As I approached the X5 to check it out, I was immediately repelled by the sheer size of the car. If my RX was a soccer mom car, this is a soccer mom of 4 kids car. I didn't even bother sitting inside or test driving, but I was intrigued by the diesel version and even more excited to hear there was a 335 version of the diesel.

I proceeded to test drive the 335d and the 335i for comparison. I loved it. It may have to do with the fact that the salesperson encouraged me to gun it after a 4-way stop sign and to take a sharp turn without braking. It might have been the donuts he had me try in an empty parking lot. I was sold. But, Max wanted to check out Mercedes before any decision was made so I headed next door to House of Imports.

We tried out the E550 coupe and the C63 AMG. Both were characteristically Mercedes and although I loved the C63, I didn't think it was in my price range. The next day, we headed back to a different BMW dealership to check out the competition. Max loved the 335 diesel but they only had a black on black in stock. I refuse to do black on black. After much pleading, Max convinced me to take the new Z4 for a spin. I tried both the 30 and 35 versions and I loved it. So much so that I was pretty convinced that this was the right time to buy a roadster. But, of course, there wasn't a color combination that I liked (seemed to happen a lot at McKenna BMW) so we headed back to Shelly BMW in Buena Park.

{Wow, this story is longer than I thought I could write}

So back at Shelly BMW I fell in love with a space gray Z4 sdrive35i. Unfortunately it was also fully loaded so after pricing it out, I felt more and more like it was the impractical choice. Back to the 335 diesel with the $4500 ECO credit. Only then we found out that it had a premium APR to offset the incentive. What to do? "If you want to stick to your price range, take a look at the regular 335i," he says, "we can do much better deals on the regular 3-series."

"But I don't WANT a regular 3-series," I think, as I begrudgingly walk through the lot.

Then at the very end of the row we find him*. A 335i sedan with the M sport package in manual. Hmmm... could be fun.





After a bumpy test drive (hey, it's been 10 years since I've driven stick!) I decide this is the one. We went into the negotiating room one more time and when my hunger couldn't take it in anymore I settled on a deal and drove it home.

*Is this car really a male? Max thinks so but I'm going to wait until a name calls out to me before I decide gender.

Omnigraffle for House Things

Marcela and I got into a lengthy (and involved) discussion this morning about landscaping and I was eager to plot some ideas down on paper. (Well, digital paper) Max and I have thrown some ideas around about pavers, flagstone, cement and shapes and I thought it might be fun to sketch out some of them to share with friends and family for feedback. (Plus it will also help when it comes time to getting bids)

I use Omnigraffle everyday at work so I decided to browser through stencils online to see if there was anything that might help me plot out the backyard. Score! Found one for gardening.

I started with a rough sketch of the backyard as it is. I wanted to send this empty plan to Max and Marcela so they could come up with their own plans. I tried my best to be true to the proportions but it was hard to imagine since I am rarely in the backyard and don't remember how big (small) it is. It took me 10 minutes to put together with various stencils in Omnigraffle.



I showed the picture to Phil (who sits in front of me at work and is working on his own landscaping) and he gave me a couple of ideas of things he saw on the web. I immediately took a liking to two of them.

I've been hearing more and more about colored cement, or even painted cement, and I thought the colors in this example would be perfect for our Spanish-style house. It might be fun to come up with a pattern for the main area as well, or would look great as big tiled slabs. I do want to explore what kind of coatings we can add on top to make it look more "clean".

I thought this example with the vines was a great way to make a place look full without taking up too much space. We could do something similar off to the side and put a lot of large bushy pants and flowers to create a garden-like seating area.

So now it came to plotting on Omnigraffle. I found the stencil incredibly easy to work with. I was able to shrink some of the trees to make into shrubs and grow some tiles into slabs. I played with overlaying opaque layers to create a "cement" look. It's such an easy and visual way to plan something out -- I should have used something like this for furniture!



So the basic idea here is that the main part of the backyard will be made up of these colored cement "tiles" and the base color will extend to one side, which is the side we use for trash and storage. The other side will have the colored tiles layered on top of grass with a small strip of flowers and plants near the fence. We'd cover as much of the white fence with vines as possible and have an area on the top right dedicated to fruit trees and our more colorful plants. I think this layout works well with the house because the elememts closest to the house still look Spanish but we can have more fun with colorful flowers and fruit trees away from the house.

I think this is a good layout to start with. We can always do flagstone or other hardscaping in place of the cement or add a curve to the border so it doesn't look so boxy. We can move the patio furniture closer to the grill and add a little patio terrace (is that what it's called?) and string some cute lights and lanterns. We can get a combo table/fire pit and get larger, lounge chairs to go around the table. We can shape the area more with potted plants and trees too. I can't wait until I have time to do an option 2 and 3. :)

Pizzeria Mozza

I rarely get the chance to eat dinner up in LA but on this uncommon weeknight Max and I left work early for a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. I thought it would be nice to share a pizza and some wine at the outdoor venue so we headed to Pizzeria Mozza for some to go. We arrived so early that the normally 45+ minute-wait was only 10 minutes for the bar so we decided to eat there.

And oh-em-gee I wasn't sure what I was expecting but the food there definitely blew my expectations out of the water!

The first dish we had was the grilled corn. The outside was slightly caramelized and crunchy and the butter carried so much flavor. I have to say this was the best corn I ever had in my life and I've had some pretty good corn.

The next dish was more interesting in promise. The Bone marrow al forno was served with some toasted bread and natural salts and herbs for taste. I was a little greasy but it was a lot of fun to prepare.

The pizza itself was probably the least impressive part of our meal (though it was supposed to be the center point). We ordered two and although they were good, they weren't spectacular.

Overall, Pizzeria Mozza was a fitting dinner before Mozart under the stars. =)

Facebook Lite

So I was browsing Facebook when this message appeared above my feeds:



It immediately piqued my interest. Facebook lite? Does this have anything to do with Facebook acquiring Friendfeed today? My mind was a-flurry with thoughts about what this "lite" version of Facebook could look like. As my mouse pointer approached the link, my mind wandered to the Amazon redesign case study that was discussed in the recent UX meetup. How was I segmented to be included in this select group of people who get to test this beta version? Is it a select group of people? Do they have analytics in place to measure my engagement with the lite version, and if so, will they be using that to finalize their design?

So many thoughts flying through my head until... *click*

Nothing happened.

*click*

Still nothing happened.

Wait, is this a trick? Are they just doing this to test and see how many people would click on the link, hence gauging audience interest in such a feature? Or does "plenty of kinks" = page load fail?

Oh well. The thoughts were fun while they lasted.

Me vs. the exercise ball.

About a week ago I was having a super stressful morning at work. I had a couple of assignments to present at 12 noon while I was being bombarded with phone calls and e-mails on other projects... I needed some peace and quiet to focus on my work.

Cue wheezing sounds from the next cube, getting louder and louder. Wait -- is that an air pump I hear? At work?! Then I hear some giggling, some explaining, "<muffled> mdids fdk..skdsf.. chair..." Is my cube neighbor pumping up inflatable furniture in her cube?? I'm sitting here trying to crank out all of this work and missy in the corner over there is making a ruckus with her squeaky air pump.



So, as it turns out, she was pumping an exercise ball to use in place of her office chair. I've seen this practice being done around the office a couple of times before, ironically, by girls that were already thin enough to begin with. "It's better for posture," she explains, "it activates your core as you sit down so you get an 8-hour ab workout."

Anyways, fast forward one week and I notice she's still using the exercise ball. And even better, she repumps it every few hours because it deflates from her constantly sitting on it. AND even better than THAT, she slouches. So now I'm looking at her, sitting on her exercise ball, slouching so badly that her back looks like it's suffering from scoliosis, wondering -- is this the good posture you were talking about?

Front Page Jamaican Grille

A bunch of us from work headed up to Manchester today for a spicy Jamaican lunch. I haven't had lunch outside the office in a while, let alone with co-workers, so I thought this was a good way to break up the work day and try some new food. Front Page Jamaican Grille is in a little nondescript strip mall on Manchester Blvd.



And it was AMAZING. I had the jerk oxtail which was served with rice and fried plantains and a side of vegetables. She also gave us a sample of the homemade ginger beer which was a little too strong for me so I opted for the fresh watermelon juice. We all shared a reggae chicken wings appetizer which was way too spicy for me. I loved the home-cooking atmosphere of the place and the owner's wife who served us was very laid back and friendly. She even gave us some bread pudding and rum cake to finish off our meal. Needless to say I was stuffed after eating every last bite of food on my plate.

And now my cube neighbor Phil is playing spa music from his cubicle and it is slowly putting me into a deep food coma...

Where have I been the last 5 years?

I found an old post that mapped out all of the states I've traveled to. Very sad map indeed, as it showed only 7 states including the state I live in currently. So, I decided to do a new one.



I'm happy to say I've done a little better in the last 5 years, almost doubling my states visited to a whopping 12. This includes a visit to my mom's place in Indiana, a short trip to Chicago and New York, and two business trips to the east coast. I'm feeling more cultured already.

Old map from September 2004:

G'day Mate!

So, before today, I thought that no one read this blog. You see, this blog was always meant to be a private, personal blog, appearing only those who knew the super-secret URL. I started it a long, long time ago as an online journal and it morphed into a weekly log of activities for the purpose of updating my sisters when we all lived in different corners of the world. I've carefully set all of my settings to avoid search engines, crawlers and the like and I'm careful not to disclose the URL or alias to anyone other than my sisters.

So imagine my surprise when I see that it has collected 57 absolute unique visitors (according to Google analytics). This is a lot considering I've only published this blog at its new domain for about 2 weeks now. Also considering that my target audience is 4 people.

So who are you? I may never know, but at least I know where you are.



So, g'day mates, selamat datang and zdrastvooyte, I hope you enjoy your time here.

Quiet

Funny. I don't ever notice how much I like to talk, or how much I have to say, until there is no one around to talk to. Max left for Ireland at 5AM on Monday morning and Vina has been staying in LA for school/work. So for a full 2.5 days I had the house to myself. And Lulu and Cora (who make pretty good listeners, actually). It's embarrassing to admit but I end up going about my day with a mental checklist in mind. "I have to tell Max this. I have to e-mail him this. I have to text Yona now. I better tweet this. Oooh, I'll e-mail this to Aai and Vina. I better text Aai so she'll open my e-mail. Oh this and this is interesting, but my family will think I'm stupid for e-mailing it to them, I'll blog it instead."

Do I have that much to say? Or is it out of habit that I have to share everything I experience with someone? I mean, it's not out of coincidence that when I have less people to talk to, I tend to blog more. Which is actually interesting to note about the years when I started both of my blogs. I must have had nobody around to really talk to. So am I replacing human contact and attention with my online soapbox where I can freely communicate the thoughts in my head that are directed towards no one?

The concept of blogging, tweeting and Facebook statuses is interesting. Everybody dubs it as "social media" or "social networking" which implies that there is an exchange of communications or a two-sided interaction but if you think about it, it's actually a one-way communication. It is not any different than broadcasting. You expel information outwards, but just provide a feedback loop in case (1) someone reads it and (2) someone finds it compelling enough to reply.

So if this one-way broadcasting has taken over the way people socialize online and real-life (I know some of you have tweeted or read tweets while in the company of another tweeter) then how does that change the way we look at socialization? In theory one could live in isolation, void of any real-world human contact, but still remain perfectly sociable through these online networks. And no one would know the difference.

So then that raises the question, what does it mean to be popular these days? Is it the person with (a) a lot of Facebook friends, (b) a lot of twitter followers or (c) the person with a lot of comments/wall postings? In other words, the person with the most consented friendships, the most admirers or the one that engages more people in conversation?

Sigh. I need someone to talk to.

Oh, puppy shenanigans.

Spent the morning with the pups today. And by morning, I mean 5:30AM to 7:30AM. Who knew that I could be up and about in the wee hours of the morning? I haven't slept in since... well, since we got Cora.

Lulu is definitely warming up to Cora now. She lets Cora snuggle up next to her and is pretty tolerant when Cora climbs on her to chew on her ear. Also they playbite for a good 30 minutes straight in the mornings. I've even caught her wagging her tail a couple of times! It's interesting to see that Lulu uses a soft bite when playing with Cora -- I put my hand in between the "my mouth is bigger than yours" biting exchange once and noticed that Lulu is very gentle whereas Cora's bites are super sharp.

Japanese Daniel Radcliffe Interview

A Japanese Harry Potter fan won a contest to be one out of 10,000 to come to the Deathly Hallows set to interview Daniel Radcliffe about Harry Potter 6. Hilarious.



I'd like to know what type of yogurt they serve at MoMA.

I love the narration.

Sally's Spa

Sally's Spa has to be the best 99 cents I've ever spent in the iPhone app store. I have literally spent hours and hours (with Lulu perched on my shoulder, hehe) on this game. I completed all of the levels within the first few days of downloading the game but now I'm taking my time going through each stage and replaying it for a perfect score.



I'm trying to figure out why it is I like this game so much. It's a time management game so I guess it naturally piques the interest of my "project manager" side. Or maybe there is something soothing about looking at a spa for so long, makes me feel like I'm in the spa? Or is it the cute, bubbly graphics?

Whatever it is, my left wrist is starting to hurt from resting my head on it as I play for up to an hour before bed every night.

West LA Outing

Today was my first "LA" outing since we moved out of LA. I have to say -- didn't feel much different from when we were living in LA, but I did notice traffic and inconsiderate parallel-parkers a lot more today than I did before.

First stop was Century City mall to pick up some towels I bought on presale about a month ago. They are the super, softest towels you can ever imagine. To save an additional 15% off, I prepaid for them during the Bloomingdale's presale and haven't been back since to pick them up.

After spending hours at the mall (unintentional; bringing a puppy that stops all foot traffic really slows you down in a mall) we headed to the Barrington Dog Park to kill time before picking up Aai from her work. This was Cora's first time at the dog park and she did pretty well! We went into the small dog area only and woke Cora from a nap to let her play. At first she was a little groggy and reluctant to play with the other dogs. After walking around for 10 minutes she started being more interested in the other dogs, quickly learning to sniff butts.

When it was clear she wasn't going to go potty, we headed out towards Santa Monica to pick up Aai at her work, Bergamot Station.



This was my first time in the paper store and I have to say I was taken aback at the variety of traditional/hand-made Japanese papers. There were so many different kinds, colors, textures and more. I was most intrigued by the natural papers made out of thinly sliced fruit.

After Joanna closed up the register, we headed to Fritto Misto in Santa Monica for a quick dinner. I had the jumbo ravioli for the first time -- prosciutto ravioli in a garlic cream sauce tossed with sundried tomatoes, caramelized onions and bacon. Max had the garlic shrimp black and white pasta (as good as I remembered it!) and Aai had the plain jain spaghettini in marinara sauce. This place never disappoints!

We saved just enough room for the creamy Tiramisu -- I'd say the best I've had in Southern California! (My fave ever is Steps of Rome in San Francisco)

I love this face!

Just heard a slight whimper from downstairs as I am sitting here writing in my blog and I walked downstairs to find Cora next to the screen door, whimpering to go pee! Just a minute ago she was knocked out under the couch but at 10 weeks she can already walk down to the door when she needs to go.

So proud. ~.~

Maximum Level Reached

I've spent countless hours the last several weeks playing Restaurant City on Facebook. During work, while watching TV, before dinner, after dinner, during dinner, at night... all hours of the day spent monitoring and managing my restaurant.





Finally, I've reached Level 27 -- the maximum level possible in this game. Not sure all that time spent was worth the miniscule wave of achievement felt as I earned my last $300 cash bonus for leveling up.

But what makes a game addicting? What makes it so powerfully engaging you remember to play 2-3 times a day? That's exactly what I'm trying to figure out as I design a Facebook game for one of our unsaid clients. Hint: it's for a product that just launched into the marketplace and by product I mean car. :P

This is the first time I've ever designed or strategically planned for a game, especially one that will have so much exposure. It took us several rounds of presentations to get the idea sold to the clients and so far I've built experience maps, prototypes, content plans and design specs for it. We are scheduled to release the design assets over to the developers next week and the game will hopefully launch sometime next month. Eek!

Good Morning

This is what I wake up to in the mornings. Super cute, but super annoying when by morning I actually mean 4:30am.

Ooopsie

After a nap, I groggily walked downstairs to start heating up some food for dinner. My mom left an array of cooked Indonesian food on the kitchen counter and I just started mindlessly putting stuff in the microwave and the stove for reheating.

A minute later I notice that the flames under the soup pot were much higher than normal -- I've never seen the flame go up the side of the pot like that before. In fact, it smelled a little like burning.



Turns out genius little me accidentally left the cork pot stand stuck to the bottom of the pot before putting it on the burner. Ooopsie.

Please let me sleep!

I can't believe it's been about 3 weeks with the new puppy and I haven't had the chance to write a single thing about her! Exactly 3 weeks ago we went to Sandra's co-worker's house in Lawndale to look at her 7-week-old puppies. There were 10 total but only 6 survived.

Max immediately fell in love with the runt of the litter, who they called Pookie. She was the smallest of the group but had the cutest face. Jo-Anne met with us and picked up the largest of the group, Tiger.



We weren't fully prepared for a puppy so our first stop was Centinela Pet Feed. We named her "Cora" in the car -- short for Coraline. Her skinny body and long tail reminds me of the rats in the movie. She knocked out in the car and didn't do much. She looked so frail for a 7-week old puppy. I remembered Lulu as meatier and more playful at this age but I thought maybe it's because she was the runt and was malnourished.



Jo-Anne called her puppy Lady and the next week was puppy week at Rapp. We took turns watching the pups while we both worked/had meetings but most of the time they played or slept in my cube. Lady seemed to be twice Cora's size. They were very feisty when they played together. After that first week, Lady stayed with us for the next 10 days while Jo-Anne was on vacation. Luckily, I also had quite a few days off between my summer flex days and 4th of July holiday.



We always had to keep a close eye on Lady because she would steal Lulu and Cora's food when we were not watching. She was always so hungry! She seemed to be about a week ahead in development and did things like bark, jump, run up and down the stairs a full week ahead of Cora. She was also more playful and rambunctious.

After two weeks of puppy terror Lady went back home with Jo-Anne and Cora was stuck with Lulu. Lulu is a lot more tolerant of Cora without Lady around and even lets her play with her face in the mornings. The other day I completely stepped on Cora's leg and she cried for about 30 seconds during which Lulu came quickly to see what was the matter. I'm hoping these two get to become best buds so they can keep each other company while we're at work.





So the biggest difference in my life so far is that I have not had a good solid 6 hours of sleep in 3 weeks! Cora wakes up every morning at 4-4:30AM to ask to go outside, and then wakes up again at 6am to play. No matter how much we try to tire her out in the evening, she always wakes up at the same time. At first I was worried that she was unable to hold "it" longer than 4 hours but during the day she's shown that she can. Not sure why she seems to have an internal alarm clock that likes waking me at the crack of dawn.

iPhone spell check please

I mean, she doesn't even bother correcting her misspellings.

Double Graduation

This month we celebrated two graduations, Vina's Bachelor's Degree from UCSD and a belated celebration of Aai's high school graduation (coincidentally, at UCSD too). It actually came about as we were buying balloons and prepping for Vina's graduation -- we thought it would be nice (funny) to surprise Aai with her own cap and balloons while we wait for Vina's ceremony to end.



We didn't want to detract any attention on Vina's special day so we waited patiently for her to walk and then turned our attention to Aai. She had no idea that she had been holding her own graduation balloons all day (High School Musical & a green 2009 balloon). After the giggly surprise, we all gathered to take some pictures, being careful not to have the UCSD backdrop in the background.






The infamous "Price Cut" balloon my sisters got for free at Albertsons.


You would have thought the High School Musical balloon made it obvious...

And then finally after a long wait, Vina came out and it was time for more pictures.




Mommy with the two grads.


Out of order.




Getting bored on the sidelines.




And finally, the family picture.

Close of escrow!

Today we had our final inspection going through all of the items we marked in the first inspection. However, they took down all of our pieces of tape as they fixed everything so we couldn't even remember everything that was done.

After ensuring that all of the down payment moneys went through and all of the title documents were properly filed, we finally got our keys at the end of the day.





Here we are in front of the community park with "Aunt Jill" -- our realtor and Max's family friend.