I went to the japanese new year ceremony at the asian art museum on december 30. I was so intrigued when I read the following: "As in past observances, a 2100-lb., sixteenth-century Japanese bronze bell originally from a temple in Tajima Province in Japan and now part of the museum's permanent collection will be struck 108 times with a large custom-hewn log. According to Japanese custom, this symbolically welcomes the New Year and curbs the 108 bonno (mortal desires) which, according to Buddhist belief, torment humankind. It is hoped that with each reverberation the bad experiences, wrong deeds, and ill luck of the past year will be wiped away. Thus, tolling heralds the start of a joyous, fresh New Year. "


Here are my pictures of the bell. I took these pics with my new canon sx-100 camera.

More bell.

I was going to vote for Hilary until I saw her commercial out here in San Francisco comparing her to Bobby Kennedy. That commercial irked me so much that I voted for Obama.

If I was a democratic party strategist, I would be freaking out because Hilary did not win a hands down victory on Super Tuesday. I dont' think that woman is electable in November. If I had to choose between her and John McCain, I would vote for John McCain. I'm not convinced that Hilary should be president.

It's sad. I should be celebrating that a woman could be president but I am so not!!!

My prediction is if Hilary wins the democratic nomination, she will ask Obama to be her Vice President in hopes that both of them can win the presidency.

But Im still a happy voter because it looks the three San Francisco propositions I voted for and against are winning, and that has never happened ever. So there is room for a voting miracle sometimes.

I am finally getting around to listening to my cds to figure out which songs to put on my ipod. I am listeing to Al Green's 14 greatest hits and I feel like I am turning into my mother because my mama loved Al Green. What a freak! I am putting my mother's music on my ipod. Heck, I already have the Eoors on my ipod, mummy's fave rock band, so why not some Al Green.

I'm listening to the song "Let's stay together" and it's occuring to me that this is a great song to have one when you're trying to seduce someone and I've never used it. I think one could do a totally hot strip tease to this song, dressed up in hooker heels, stockings, garter belt, and a matching bustier type outfit. Acutally I think I saw this scene in a movie only the woman also had a matching mask.

I only want songs on my ipod that I think I want to listen to on the way to work or going home from work, because that is when I mainly use my ipod. And I hate just downloading the whole cd because I only want my personal favourite hits on there and nothing else.

I forgot that this cd has Al Green singing "Take me to the River". It's a great song no matter who is singing it.

A Wall Street analyst said this "The economic news keeps getting worse. Just today, equity markets around the world took their biggest hits since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Three weeks into the New Year, and over $5 trillion has been lost in global stock markets.:

$5 trillion? Where is is this money coming from?

I think in the financial world things are getting really scary out there. Not that the NY Post is the best rag in the world, but check out this story about Wall Street firms starting to hand out the pink slips - Blood on the Street.

I got a dejavu feeling like it was the dotcom crash again when I saw this this headline -
Yahoo expected to cut hundreds of jobs. I see the Yahoo bus on 19th Avenue in the City every morning picking people to take them to Yahoo in Mountain View. I wonder how long before Yahoo cuts that bus service.

And then I saw this article about retired people in Japan - Half of Japan's Elderly Poor Won't Get Pensions, Nikkei Says. I can't believe that this kind of stuff is happening.

And you know people at work act like nothing is going on, like if you don't talk about maybe the recession will go away. The financial markets are in free fall and no one cares. I'm just happy I sold all my stock in the summer of 2007 while the Dow was still in the high 13,000. I missed the 14,200 Dow high, but at least I got out at 13,800 instead of trying to get out now. Half of my assets are in conservative funds. Maybe not the best way to make money, but at least I'm not losing any sleep or money worry about losing money because the markets are dropping little by little every day. I heard one Wall Street analyst say that the next few years should be about presevation of capital and not growth.

They say this is how it happened in the depression of the 1920's. The markets deteriorated slowly and by the time everyone figured it out and trying to get their money out of the banks, it was too late. And I'm like, thank god I bought into that gold fund in 2004. I should have known something was up when by 2006 the price I had paid to get into the fund doubled. That's where the other half of my assets are, in gold. Got rid of all the silver, which kind of bummed me out, only because an opportunity came along to take full advantage of gold's phenomenal growth. One analyst is predicting gold will $2,000 and I'm like I bought gold stock in 2004 when it was $400 an ounce and now it's trading above $1,0000 I believe. Those natural resources stocks I bought also doubled when I cashed myself out of the market.

Such crazy, crazy times ahead financially. Food is so expensive. I don't know how families are makiing it. My dentist told me that in El Salvador the local people are really hurting because Americans have stopped buying up the land and spending money. My dentist said when people with enough disposable income to buy property in South America start cutting back, you know the economy is in a ton of trouble.

I think James Lafferty from the CW series One Tree Hill is signing autographs on the 4th floor of Macys Union Square. There are a ton of girls there standing in line, taking pictures, being giddy and screaming.
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It's going to be hard to vote democratic for president this year. First of all I really like John Edwards, but I doubt the poor man will get the democratic nomination. And no, I haven't jumped on the Obama bandwagon although the guy did graduate from a top notch Honolulu private school called Punahou. Obama is just way too young. I think he'd make a great vice president but not president.

And then there's Hilary. I loved Slick Willy although I am now annoyed at him for making all those nasty comments about Obama. But Hilary is not her husband and I don't think voting her in will mean Bill Clinton will be back running the country.

I like John McCain. I voted for him in the last open presidential primary, but I seriously doubt he will get the nomination from the GOP. There is a rumour going around the Net that Mike Bloomberg will step in as a last minute nomination for the GOP. Bloomberg is a billionarie and can put in his own money.

Or maybe I will just leave that section blank and not vote for president come November. We'll have to see what happens till then.

Yes, Virginina there is a Santa Claus because Brett Michaels is still single and will be seen in his new MTV show "Rock of Love II". Brett Michaels is so hot, even though he has a long hair. He is totally buff and tanned and not some scrawny hippie boy with long hair, which is what one usually sees when a man has long hair.

Memo to guys - if you absolutely must have long hair, you better be a rock star or frickin' look like one. Get thee to a tanning salon and to the gym and lift weights, so you can be hottie with your long hair.

I am alive but not writing in my blog. So funny because I was just thinking about my blog yesterday and how I've evolved from someone who was really into my blog and keeping it up to someone who only writes occasionally.

It's not that there aren't things happening in my life because there are. I am going to South America in February to visit Machu Picchu and then on to Easter Island to see the stone heads with a tour group. The actual tour is called "Power Moon at the Andes" because there's a full moon during one night of the tour and there is a ceremony planned in the House of the Moon. The tour will visit Incan sites at the Sacred Valley, Lake Titikaka and the Crystal City - Machu Picchu.

I only wanted to go on this tour because I had the idea to place part of my elf novel on Easter Island, and I thought well, if I'm going to write about Easter Island I'd better go and see the place. Two months later and I received an invite for this tour and a couple of weeks ago I told my new boss about it and he encouraged me to go. He said "it is a once in a lifetime experience and if I didn't go I was crazy".

So I'm going. The tour is booked, I have permission to take the time off from work, and now I'm busily shopping for items I need like waterproof hiking boots, a new camera and a new pair of running shoes. I can't believe I'm going because the tour cost a ton of money due to the Easter Island trip. Flying to Easter Island from Chile is so not cheap! Plus it will be the high season in February since it will be summer in South America.

My new boss is so great. He is such a nice guy and very appreciative of me and encouraging. I'm so glad I moved departments. But you know it's still an 80/20 world out there as far as work goes. I love my new boss and new department and the people are so nice, and I believe that's the good 80% of my job. Then there's the other bad 20% being that I'm still doing the same stuff and having to to work with my evil old coworker, who hates to work because she's a senior manager. But my new boss knows and he told me to let him know when I'm unhappy. I don't know how to tell him it's all the time.

I hate the 80/20 rule. I woke up thinking I am finally in a job I really like where I like my boss and the people I sit and have to interact with on a daily basis. Then right before I leave for the day, I feel like if I had all the money I would so quit this job tomorrow. People really make for a good or bad working environment. 80% of the people I totally love at work and 2o% of them absolutely make me miserable to point of me wanting to quit.

I was kvetching about something and our assistant says to me, "You're always whining, why don't you leave?" That really got me. I think she was having a bad day because she messed up on something, so she totally projects on to me. I mean, that woman is the biggest complainer on the floor. But it only got to me because she's right. I should stop bitching unless I'm willing to do something about it.

I'm never going to get away from the 80/20 rule. I let myself fantasize all day that I was 100% happy with my job, and then I got bitch slapped by the universe to remind me that the 80/20 rule is a cosmic universal law.

Where are u?
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Memo to Trader Joe shoppers. Never get in a line without a bagger. You'll be in line for an hour even in a short line.
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So this is my San Francisco Towing story. I was in my car on Saturday running around doing errands. I had to go to Fed Ex Home Delivery in South San Francisco to pick up a package, then since I was in that part of town I decided I needed to go to Target, Bed Bath and Beyond and Marshalls to look for things to buy. I found the cutest Spode Christmas plates at Marshalls and some really cool storage boxes, when the lights in the store went out. Talk about scary! The clerks made everybody get out of the store, and I was so bummed because I finally found items I wanted to buy. It had been raining all day and I guess something happened with the section of the mall stores. Then I headed over to Nordstrom Rack and ended up picking up some undershirts for $8 a piece. I drove back to the city and went shopping at Andronico's for groceries and when I came back, some jerk had parked his car so I couldn't get into my driveway to park my car.

I was so freaked out. I've lived in this place since 2004 and no one had ever blocked my driveway before. I knew they were new neighbours living next door so I buzzed their door bell thinking it was their car. No one came out. After about five minutes, I got so mad I just started screaming for them to open up. Still no once came out. Keep in mind that it's still raining a little and I'm getting soaked despite being under an umbrella.

I guess I was so loud my downstairs neighbor heard me and came out to see what was going on. He told me I needed to call San Francisco Parking and Traffic to get the car towed. So I go upstairs call SF P&T and thinking that they would get here quickly. In the meantime, some guy who lives two houses away comes over and talks to me about the parking offender. He had seen the car before and told me about his own getting cars towed out of his driveway stories.

Of course, SF P&T doesn't come right away and I had to call them to find out if someone was being sent. The neighbour guy felt sorry for me and called again for me. I think SF P&T didn't come right away because I kind of felt bad about getting someone's car towed, so I told the dispatcher that I wanted the vehicle cited but not towed. Neighbour guy told me I needed to get the car towed because the vehicle owner had parked in his driveway once before.

A SF Parking and Traffic person finally shows up an hour later, and talk about being in small world, neighbour guy recognized the P&T person as some he had met a party 10 years ago. How weird was that. The P&T person ran a license plate check and told us that the car was registered to someone in Santa Ana. I was like thinking that if the car was local, meaning the owner lived in the neighbourhood, then I didn't want to get the car towed because I didn't want to get hassled by my neighbours. But once we found out the car was from Orange County, we called for a tow.

Then downstairs neighbour guy from my building came downstairs and asked me if I was getting the car towed, because if I wasn't going to do it then he would. Honestly I still feel so bad about towing that person's car. How freaky would that be to go to the spot where you thought you parked your car, and then seeing your car gone. I know my first thought would be "OH MY GOD, someone stole my car." No way would I think that I got towed, unless of course I was parked in a very iffy spot like this dumb jerk who parked in my driveway.

And it's not cheap to get your car from out of San Franciso Towing. Besides the $75 blocked driveway ticket, I think it costs about $300 to get your car out. Talk about welcome to San Francisco for someone from Orange County; block a driveway and get your car towed and pay around $400 to get your car. That's an expensive lesson in San Francisco park etiquette, don't you think?

It's been so long since I'v written and the year is flying by. I think I picked up a bug last week from our department assistant who had been sick for three weeks. I came back from lunch on Wednesday and I was sitting at my desk, when all of sudden I just wanted to throw up. I was in the bathroom talking to our assistant and she said her symptoms started out the same way. I woke up with a headache, which didn't go away and my stomach was so quesy. The director of my department became very concerned about sick germs being spread, so she said I should go home.

I left and got home around 3 pm and slept till 6:3o am the next day. I didn't sleep the whole time, but I kept taking 2-3 hour naps. My stomach was quesy the whole day. I couldn't anything with oil and nothing would stay down. Finally I ate some yogurt and that seemed to be okay. I went to the work the next day, but my stomach was still quite quesy and I didn't really normal until Sunday.

Our poor assistant had no PTO to draw on when she was out of the office for 15 days, so she didn't get paid. Thankfully our company has a short-term disability policy so she'll be able to get paid once she fills out all this paperwork. That's the bad thing about getting sick and being on a PTO system. If you don't manage your PTO right and keep some in your bank, if you do become ill and you don't have any PTO left you won't get paid. And if you do have PTO and you become ill, they will use it first.

I like to carry over at least 10 days from PTO every year for illnesses, and it's not like I don't take any time off. I take over 10 days of vacation a year, and some years more and some years less, but never the full 20 days. Some people at work look at their PTO as 20 days of vacation which it's not if you think about it. On the PTO system your vacation and your sick time is something you have to manage. When I left my last job, I had about 30 days of PTO left and received 6 weeks worth of extra pay when I left. Talk about a nice little bonus of sorts.

At the Oakland airport on the way to Burbank. There are a ton of people walking around in USC gear because it's homecoming for USC, and people are flying down south for it. Someone just spilled their large cup of coffee in the walkway. And something I haven't seen in ages, policepeople walking around with a drug-sniffing, bomb-sniffing dog.
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Wow, that was wild. All of a sudden my laptop speakers stopped working. I could hear sounds when I plugged in headphones, but not the external speakers. I thought for sure I had blown my speakers and needed to buy a new sound card.

But, former not by choice help desk person that I was for six months, I decided to peruse the Dell Support forums. Not surprisingly, I found several posts on the same problem. I read a bunch of answers to this question, and decided to try a solution that kept popping up -- uninstall the sound driver and reinstall it. The answers to this common problem was that the main reason speakers stop working is because the sound drive has become corrupted.

The first time time I did it, it didn't work and I was so bummed. But then I thought maybe I didn't really uninstall the driver because I didn't get a message about my laptop finding a new device. So I tried uninstalling the driver again, and this time I got a message saying that asked did I really want to install the driver. I hit okay, rebooted, and sure enough I get the message the says my laptop has found a new device. I reinstall the sound driver, run the new update, and YEAH!!!! My external speakers started working again.

I love those computer support forums, because they really are a help sometimes. I was really freaking out, but thinking, okay, I've blown my laptop speakers, no biggie because I can still get sound out of the headphones. But that would have been such a drag!

I used to do that all the time when I did my help desk stint - when something was not working and I couldn't figure it out, I would reinstall the software because most of the time it solved the problem. My coworker told me that it didn't matter if we couldn't figure why the computer wasn't working, just get it working again and do it fast. 10 years later, the reinstall the software solution still works.

At the foodcourt at Westfield Centre, where Bloomingdale's is. I had pasta pomodoro at Pastamoto and it was ghastly. I will not be eating there again soon. I am so not in the mood to write tonight, but I forced to write two pages front and back.

There is such a strange energy in the air these days, that maybe I am being affected.
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At the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival sitting by the Rooster Stage waiting for Boz Scaggs to come on. But I'm only staying for awhile and then I'm going to see Ricky Skaggs
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Somehow I got in the mood to play those free games on the msn.com website, and ended up playing Chainz 2. I usually suck at games, but I did really well on this game and got to level 6. I think this is a cosmic joke of some kind because I am actually quite good at finding the links in the chain of events in real life and in my job. What a hoot.

God, I think you can really waste your life playing these games but they are so fun. I can see how people can get really into it and play the game till the get the highest score and figure the game out.

I should have gone to a movie tonight, but there isn't really anything playing that I am dying to see. I saw 3:1o to Yuma last week. The cinematography was beautiful especially if you like the dessert scene. Russell Crowe was fabulous as usual and so was Christian Bale. It was a gritty western and everyone looked incredibly dirty, like bathing was not a regular thing in those days. It would be fun to see the original to check out the differences.

What else. I worked from home today because our floor is being renovated and we are relocating to a different floor come Monday. It's going to be weird because for the last 6 years the person I reported to was located in a different city. On my new floor, my cube is going to be right outside of my boss' office. I mean we get along great and all, but I can't remember the last time I've had my boss so close to my working area. For the last month, we've been in the same row but at least there was some distance. That wasn't too bad, but right in front of his glass cage of an office is going to be an interesting experience. I wasn't supposed to be sitting that close to him, but he decided that since we work so closely together it wouldn't be a bad thing.

My boss knows I like logical reasoning, so when I questioned him about the new seating arrangement he like totally gave me these logical reasons that he knew I couldn't argue with. I mean what was I going to say to his face, that I don't want to sit next to you because you're my boss. I'm like sitting there listening to him trying to come up with a logical and rational reason why me sitting right outside of his office was not a good idea, and I came up blank. I think this means my boss totally has number and I'm not sure that's a good thing.

He knows I hate reasons that don't make any sense, and he so used it against me so I couldn't argue back and tell him I wanted to sit somewhere else. It's a good thing he's a totally nice, smart and very fair kind of boss because otherwise I think I'd have to figure out some way to retaliate against him for figuring out how to get me to agree to something I think he knew I was not very happy about.

I'm at the Palms hotel in Las Vegas having their buffet lunch. They have an amazing pie collection for dessert. The price of the lunch buffet was half the price of the buffet at the Mandalay Bay hotel, where we ate yesterday.
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M-Square was definitely a soulmate and a soul partner, but he was so not in the light and making bad decisions for his life. What's the point of being with your soulmate and soul partner if the person is not on the same level as you are? It's hard enough to keep moving towards the light, to keep moving towards what you want, to keep trying to be on purpose and the live the life you think god wants you live - without having some guy who you feel so connected to that you feel like you've loved this man for thousands of years, pull you down into the darkness and the abysss.