I felt like blogging today only because I am supposed to be working on my screenplay so I can submit it to this website, and blogging feels like a lovely distraction right now.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is on right now, and they just had the scene with the spiders which always gives me the shivers. I hate spiders, real or imagined.

I had what I think could be termed a life-changing experience last month, although the jury is still out on how much a life change it will be.

On February 2 I received an email about the Conscious Life Expo in Los Angeles which was happening on Valentine's Day weekend. On a whim, I decided to fly down to attend because one of the tour guides from my Peru/Easter Island trip, Sean David Morton, was lecturing on Sunday. I was also thinking that the people who were on my Peru/Easter Island trip would also be there, and it would so much fun to see them again.

I am such a whim follower that I bought my plane ticket, booked a hotel room at the Hilton LAX where the Expo was being held shortly thereafter. It is so exciting and fun for me to fly somewhere to check something out that I am interested in, even if just for a couple of days. I hope I never lose the thrill of exploring new things.

We have the same version here in San Francisco called the New Living Expo and I've been attending this event for years, but I've never been to a similar event outside of the SF Bay Area.

Sure enough, there were two women from San Diego who had driven up to see Sean, and it was so great to connect with them again. We became very good friends on our tou, and even though I exchanged information with everyone, I never got around to connecting with anyone. Now we are all emailing each other, which is so cool because we will at least stay connected that way.

And it was fun to see Sean and Melissa his wife again, even though I saw them several times last year since Sean is up here quite a lot to lecture.

So anyway, my two San Diego friends and I were sitting in the front row for Sean's lecture and then we decided to stick around for the next event which was a panel hosted by George Noory of Coast to Coast AM. The panel was on Prophecy and featured Sean as well as others talking about what will will happen in 2012.

The end of the Mayan calendar is not that far away, so everyone is talking about it and theorizing about what will happen if anything. It's all so interesting if you're into these kind of inquiries.

Anyway there was this guy there, David Wilcock, who really impressed me as someone who is trying to combine both the science of what is going on along with the spirituality. There are a ton of so called spiritual people out there talking about 2012, but no one has really combined the science like David.

That combination of the science and the practical with the spiritual seems so life changingto me, because I do just like the spiritual aspect of things and kind of leave the practical stuff alone. You know the practical stuff is all the things I do to live like have a job, pay my rent, work out, etc. It would be just so amazing to combine the two worlds together. I think the people who combine the spiritual and practical together are the ones who have jobs and careers they love, jobs and careers that they feel they were born to do.

So that's my life changing moment thing - how do I combine my spiritual life with my practical life. This is what I get when I named 2009 my year of alignment. I have to align my spiritual and practical lives, which will never be an easy task and will I feel be like walking on a tightrope over a vast chasm where you can fall into the abyss either way.

Someone told me that it's a good custom to name your year, so using my intuition I am naming 2009 the year of Alignment. I think this means I need to align my life with what I want, like being in a relationship again.

M-Square passed on in May. The man was interesting but like any stressed out executive, he didn't take care of himself and had the worst nutritional habits. I'm sorry but pizza and way too many drinks does not make for a healthy life.

I was very saddened to hear about him going, but I know he has moved to a more a peaceful and happy existence.

So it's time as well for me to move on to find another love.

I have not been blogging in ages. I have not been in the mood, but all of a sudden today I felt the urge to blog.

Let's see. Yesterday I drove down to Pacific Grove to hear Marc Gafni lecture - http://www.marcgafni.com/.

He wrote a book called "The Evolution of Love" and was giving a lecture in three parts on his book. This is his wikipedia entry:

Mordecai Gafni (born 1961) is an American bestselling author and former Modern Orthrodox rabbi, who was once associated with the Jewish Renewal movement. In 2004 and 2005 articles in Haaretz he is described as promoting a balance between the erotic and the ethical in Judaism. He is best known for his teachings on the relationship between spirituality and eroticsm, and his claim that all failure of ethics result from a collapse of Eros. Eros is defined by Gafni in his teaching as interiority, presence, yearning and interconnectivity. He also is described as promoting the integration of the feminine god head with the masculine god head through their integration in the lived life of every individual.

Gafni is a very good lecturer and he gets really deep and makes me feel like I am back in college.

I have been watching football all day and posting photos to Flickr. Check out my Flickr page.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brenda_sf/

I said I was going to post this photo back in June, so here it is. The live map from the LA bus.

At the Pemtimento Cafe at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The food here is exquisite and expensive but so worth it. The food at this restaurant makes me think I'm eating in SF, it's that good.

I am into champagne phase and had a glass of Pentimento sparkling wine with my warm chicken and pear salad. The dressing was amazing. The food here is sublimely gourmet without being too overbearing. I love eating great food in different cities.
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Live fron Los Angeles. I'm on the 156 bus heading south to visit LACMA. The LA bus has something called TransitTV. It's a computer screen with a Windows Live Local map powere by Virtual Earth that shows you on a live map the route the bus is driving. How cool is that! SF Muni should have this.

I took a pic of it and will post it when I get back to SF.
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Sitting at 13 Views, the bar at the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero. It is bloody hot in San Francisco today and it seemed a waste to go home. I was going to go to a work cocktail party at Cosmopolitan, but when I got there there was a person there I didn't like so I left.

Now I'm here having a champagne cocktail. I am for whatever reason into champagne cocktails. I just downed a really bad chicken quesidilla with the worst mango salsa, and now I'm a little tipsy because my champagne cocktail had vodka in it.

This is fun. I haven't gone into a bar situation by myself in years. Hotel bars are the best. No one thinks anything of a single person drinking on their own. They just assume you are a business traveller and it is acceptable for you to be on your own eating and drinking at the bar.

I have to go home and watch America Idol now. The party is over. But there's always tomorrow. A girl could get used to this.
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If price doesn't matter to you and you want an amazing water view and you live in San Francisco, you have a few options. You can live along the Marina, you can live on Coit Tower Hill or you can live in a highrise somewhere in downtown SF or along the Embarcadero or even south of Market. But if you want Baker beach, the view of the Marin headlands, and Golden Gate Bridge, you want to live at Seacliff.

I'm on the beach typing up this post and on my left side are these amazing houses with big windows and steps that lead down to the beach. Most houses have large balconies where one could sip one's coffee in the morning and watch ships enter the bay and sail under the Golden Gate Bridge.

This is my new neighbourhood ... not bad. And I'm just a ten minute walk away and up three long flights of stairs.
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Here's my Easter Island iconic photo otherwise known as Isla de Pascua or Rapa Nui.

Here's my iconic Machu Picchu picture taken with my new camera.

I haven't been posting since January and something happened to my blog page. Instead of figuring it out, I just picked a new template and lost whatever I had before.

This blog is just like my real life. I have moved from the Sunset section of San Francisco and am back in the Richmond. I lost my semi-ocean view and friends tell me Baker Beach is a 10-minute walk from my place. I haven't been to Baker Beach in years.

This is my first night in new apartment. It's 100 square feet smaller than where I was previously. Your real estate dollar doesn't go quite as far here since I am on the edge of mansion row. I think Senator Diane Feinstein used to have a house in this neighbourhood, or was that Laurel Heights. Robin Williams used to live close to here as well, but I think since his divorce he moved to Marin.

Maybe I'll go back to posting now. My life has been crazy so far this year. I was in Peru and Easter Island from February 13 thru March 2, and then after I came back I had to look for a new place and now here I am. What a whirlwind it's been. Hopefully now I can settle down and start writing and blogging again.

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.