CSI: The Experience

Elaine came up with the idea to get a group together to check out the CSI: The Experience exhibit at the California Science Center. Being a superfan of CSI, I immediately said yes and started recruiting people to join us. Max, Vina, Eddy and Joanna (after a threatening phone call) indulged in our inner geeks and joined us for the event.

We met for lunch first at Wako. My bright idea to order an extra cheese set for the table to share put us all over the top in level of fullness. We could barely walk afterwards.

The CSI experience was actually designed for kids but we had fun with it.

We all started at the crime scene, looking for clues.





Apparently my observational skills are not up to par with those of a 10-year old. I had to use the cheat sheet at the exit to make sure I had everything.


Vina and Aai at the fingerprint station.


The labs had informational posters and signs explaining the CSI process and the scientific methods behind all of the labs.


CSI Vina looking through a microscope to identify a larvae state.


The older, more thorough group was falling a little behind. Here is Max using an old school magnifying glass to identify a fingerprint.


So fun!


Elaine getting the medical examiner's report.


The younger, faster but less accurate team completes their report.


The older, slower but more thorough team is next. 3 out of 3 right!


Grissom congratulates the team on work well done.


We are done, and leave with our CSI reports in hand.

What a Long Week (and it's only Tuesday)

I can't focus. I have work to do, I just can't do it. Absolutely no will-power to click on the Microsoft Word icon sitting dormant on my dock. How is it only Tuesday? I feel like I've done so much already this week. Let's review.

Had to wake up extra early on Monday to swing by the Lexus dealer to pick up my car before work. After that it was a mad rush down Lincoln Blvd to get to work by 9:30 for a meeting. Then it was back-to-back meetings until lunchtime, when I reheated some japchae from dinner at Gushi the night before. I spent the next couple of hours working on some wireframes and UX flows for a Prius campaign before rushing through 2 meetings to leave work by 3.

Rushed to Culver City to the DMV and got my renewal sticker in under 10 minutes. Drove in traffic to Centinela Pet Feed to buy Lulu $75 worth of dog food (fatty) which is still sitting in my car because I am too sore to carry it up. After my errands, I went home and heated up an early dinner to prep for my evening workout. I watched Desperate Housewives and did a load of laundry before heating up Max's dinner and then headed out to the gym.

Met up with an old co-worker for the cardio kickboxing class and completely exhausted myself of any residual energy I happened to have left. Came home, cooled down, showered, then plopped in front of the TV for some Grey's Anatomy. Tried to fix my iMac computer (been super slow lately) and got it started on the next set of downloads and conversions to fill up the Apple TV. Watched CSI:NY while pretending to chat with Vina and Eddy until I fell asleep.

Woke up at 8am this morning and immediately went to the computer to work on some business requirements for Toyota to e-mail in so that I'd have time to pick up Yona from the airport. After quickly putting together a 2-page doc I packed a toy full of treats to keep Lulu occupied then rushed out the door to the airport. Looped around twice, picked up Yona, then raced to Max's office to pick up the keys he accidentally brought with him for no good reason. (:P) Then rushed to work for a 10:30 creative review with the Hasbro client, explained our new design rationale for 45 minutes, then got pulled into Milton's office for a recap of the meeting I missed with him. (Double-booking is painful)

And that brings me to the last 2 hours where I have been sitting here completely unwilling to do any work. Let's play a game: how many times did I use the word "rush"?

Just joined a gym!

Finally~ after a good year and a half I've finally joined a gym! I quit Bodies in Motion after not using my membership in almost a year since my car accident. Being physically unable to workout coupled with a new work routine made it almost impossible for me to go to the gym.

It took me a while to suck it up and finally pay the premium price for Equinox gym but I think I got a pretty good deal to start. My friend Linda has been trying to get me to join since last fall, even offering to train me in the evenings to get me back on track. Sometime last week I was feeling overly bummed out about what a lasy fata$$ I've become and I finally called Equinox back to work out a deal.



So basically I paid $125 to get started which included the rest of March and the full month of April. This is a pretty good deal since startup is typically about $250 initiation + first month. And because I signed up during the Vernal Equinox promotion, if I work out 25 times by Memorial day I get my $125 refunded -- which basically makes my first two months free. After that, it's $153 a month for all California access, which excludes Century City. (Makes me curious to know what exactly is so special about Century City!)

The plan is to work out at the Manhattan Beach location during the week on days we get out early since it is about 5 minutes away from work. On the weekends, we're going to ride our bikes out to the Santa Monica gym for weekend yoga and classes and Westwood will be my main choice for weight room and boxing classes. It's been a week and I've already gone 4 times so far... now it's a matter of keeping it up. =)

Coraline in SF

One of the most memorable parts of my trip to San Francisco will be the Coraline experience. The night we arrived, we checked in then set out in the light rain to the Metreon theater to watch the movie. We had a long day of driving so it was a welcome pleasure to sit down in a warm theater and enjoy a movie.

I can't even describe how much I enjoyed the movie. It was my first full-length movie in 3D and the animation and score were both so amazing. I loved the story, the characters, but I'll have to admit I was a bit creeped out by the other world. (Or actually, just the other mother)



The next morning, after brunch, Max and I headed out to the cartoon museum to check out the Coraline exhibit. They had about 80 pieces of artwork from the movie on display including sketches, paintings and actual figurines.



It was so amazing to see the level of detail on such small figurines -- I can't imagine the effort it took to place each item in the set and the process of filming and editing to get the cartoon effect. One of my favorite displays was a tray of about 30 different jaws they used on Coraline depending on what she was saying or what facial expression she had. The bottom jaw was interchangeable with 3-4 faces that made a combination of different looks and emotions.



Check out this video to get an idea of how much work and artistic effort it took in piecing together this movie:

Thanks for lunch, Yona!

I brought Yona's leftovers for lunch today. I was hesitant since it was all veggie (fingerling potatoes and cauliflower) but it was pretty good! The cauliflower had a lot of flavor and tasted good with the rice. The potatoes were a little oily and I could not eat it with the rice -- it was like eating baked potatoes with rice, so weird.

But overall it was yummy and I'm feeling pretty healthy. =)

Craigslist is Awesome

About 16 hours before Max moved out, I posted some of his furniture on Craigslist as a last minute resort to get rid of some of the bulkier items he wanted to trash anyway. I snapped a few pictures on my iPhone and wrote a quick 1 line description.

A few hours later I only received 2 inquiries about the IKEA wardrobe I had listed for $75 and both were from girls without the physical strength or means to move the wardrobe. I was ready to give up until around 10pm when a girl was going to drive out from Downey to "check out" the wardrobe. We were going to be around all night packing and throwing stuff away so I figured why not. Turns out she bought it on the spot and even paid $80 for it -- a small tip for Max for the help in carrying it out.

Throughout the rest of the night I must have received 4-6 more inquiries and another 2-3 the next morning before I finally went in and deleted the listing. Lesson learned -- give Craigslist a good 24 hours to fully work.

Shelter Dog

Lulu has a thing about taking shelter under things. At my work she often sits under the chair or my desk. At my old apartment she liked sitting under the curtain or the coffee table. At home now, she likes sitting under the bike rack.

So it's no surprise that when Max took her to work for the first time, she immediately took to the space under his desk.

Kindle for iPhone

So I'm a sucker for all types of gadgets and when one of my co-workers bought a Kindle a few months ago I started to evaluate my own need for a digital book reader. At $300+, I could not justify purchasing a gadget for the sole purpose of reading books, when there are already $300+ worth of books in my bookcase at home waiting for me to read.

So just the other day Amazon released the Kindle app for iPhone which I think is super genius. Of course, it sucks for any new Kindle owners but makes the casual reader like me happy. So far I've downloaded samples of a couple of books I've had my eyes on and if I can successfully go through these, I may just start purchasing books through Amazon Kindle now.

Funny thing: I was browsing through the Kindle Top Sellers on Amazon.com and was surprised to find that a lot of people download romance novels to their kindles. I guess this is to be expected -- what's more embarrassing than being caught lurking the romance aisle at Barnes & Nobles? I'm expecting that in addition to business books, the Kindle will be VERY popular for romance novels and self-help books -- anything people don't want to be caught at the cash register with.

Lazy Saturday morning

She's smiling!

Delta, You Suck!

Not sure why I have been angry at correspondence I receive from various companies lately or why I have been reading them more often, but here is another stinker. So last year I had almost 20,0000 points on Delta SkyMiles which is the equivalent to a ticket to anywhere in the U.S. I didn't have a chance to redeem it and it expired on Dec 31, 2008. Bummer.

Today I get this e-mail from them saying I have a chance to "reactivate" and get all of my points back before May. I was thinking, "Yay! That's so nice of them! Smart way to get a customer back-" until I kept reading and realized I'd have to BUY the points back. $50 for every 5,000 points. Dumb.

To get back my 20,000 points, it would cost me $200, which is the price of a plane ticket anyway! Is this some stupid plot to make revenue because the economy is shot and travel sales are down? So dumb! Is there some award for dumb marketing plot to trick people out of their money I can nominate them for! Augh!

Lulu will do anything for a cookie.

Starting a Blu-Ray Collection

I just ordered my first Blu-Ray disc: John Mayer Live in Los Angeles. This should be a super awesome concert to watch in 1080p. :)

And definitely a keeper to test out the audiophile-worthy sound system I will be getting one day.

So far we've only been able to test the Blu-Ray with some borrowed Blu-Ray discs from Max's co-worker... Into the Blue and 007. Needless to say we haven't taken full advantage of the hi-def movie experience just yet. We tested out a couple of water scenes from Into the Blue (which all included Jessica Alba swimming in her bikini) and the opening scene of Casino Royale. I want to collect some of the recent action flicks like Dark Knight, Transformers and Iron Man -- which should be visually stunning in Blu-Ray, but buying Blu-Ray discs gets expensive and adds up fast. For now we upgraded our Netflix account to include Blu-Rays and I'll continue to hunt for bargain Blu-Rays on eBay. :P