I’m fairly certain that no one reads this, and I haven’t been too much in the updaty mood lately, hence no posts.
Been pretty busy at work, with a little bit of travel, and some late nights back at the office.
On the plus side, the climate control issue has been fixed and we are at a comfy 75 degrees. I was getting a bit tired of going outside to the 95 degree heat from my 65 degree cubicle.
Saw a few movies since the last time I really posted. My favorite so far this year is Star Trek. Transformers and Harry Potter were both entertaining as well. The Ugly Truth is recommended if you need to see a chick flick with more of a guy’s perspective. Highly predictable but lots of lovely crude humor.
posted by irv at 2:27 pm
What’s new:
Got a new car! Woot, I love the S2000 so far. Going to put the IS300 back to stock and send it back to my parents. Yeah I’m pretty sure about putting back to stock, even if I was going to sell it.
Refinancing the house. Yeah, it’s only been a year, but we can’t pass up saving an extra 1 1/8% in interest. All told, we will recover our expenses from this re-fi process within the next two years! Not to mention our monthly payment is a lot cheaper!
Gearing up for next month’s Alaska cruise with the entire Lai family. Should get out there and practice with my camera, I’m pretty rusty by now.
posted by irv at 9:54 am
So I guess I skipped over the entire month without a post. I guess we were on the go a lot, all things considered. I was home for a few weeks from Japan, then headed out to Virginia for a week. Finally back and looks like March will be tripless as far as I can tell.
Been playing a ton of Street Fighter 4. Finally got all the characters unlocked and there’s still tons left to do.
Still feels like we are always on the go on the weekends. This past weekend we went to Petco to meet up with one of Esther’s friends. It also happened that there was a dog adoption thing going on, so we played with some of the puppies that were available.
This week we are back with our trainer. Although I can’t say “back” since once again we are getting a new trainer. Not sure why, but it seems that we keep getting the trainer that ends up leaving. Though this time we ended up with a “Master Trainer” which apparently means he’s gone through with several of their training sessions and hopefully plans on sticking around for a while.
We’ll see.
posted by irv at 8:30 am
Back after the holiday break. For starters, it was a lot busier than I expected. Though I guess that’s expected for the holidays.
Didn’t get to finish my bathroom projects like I had planned, but oh well. There’s always time to do more projects!
Amy and Sean were in town so we spent a lot of time with them and hanging out at the Lai house. Sarah got a new 2008 Highlander Sport, which was pretty neat.
Not too much excitement on the home front. We had a little get together with some friends and then spent our first New Year’s Eve at home.
In 2009 we are considering getting a dog, a Lai family cruise, and it’s starting to look like a busy travel year for work.
posted by irv at 12:44 pm
RAIN! Wow, it seriously hasn’t rained like this in years. I love the rain… except when I have to be outside or drive around in it.
Somewhat concerned about the recently burned areas, since the land is probably in a fragile state. Hopefully the hillsides hold up.
It’s supposed to rain through Wednesday. Check out this map!
posted by irv at 10:14 am
Esther and I decorated our house for Christmas! Woohoo! Actually, with the small amount of lights that we’ve put up, it really didn’t take us long at all. First time decorators, both of us. I’m thinking of trolling around for post-Christmas deals on lights and other decorations…
In the meantime, we’re going to look around for a tree. For the sake of cleanup and laziness, we’re looking for a pre-lit fake tree. I brought back a hand-blown and hand-painted ornament from Germany, so it’d be neat to have our first ornament on the tree for our first Christmas together.
posted by irv at 4:55 pm
Just catching up here.
As you may already know, Esther and I were forced to evacuate our house two weekends ago due to the Yorba Linda/Anaheim Hills Fire. There was much excitement to be had, but we escaped with all three cars and lots of our belongings. The evacuation was lifted on Sunday, but we didn’t return home till Monday. Thankfully everything was okay, just as we had left it. I believe the closest point of the fire was about a mile and a half or so away from the house.
The following weekend I headed out to Germany for a work trip. While I had never been to Germany (besides the Frankfurt Airport), I wasn’t too excited about this trip. I ended up having a white Thanksgiving in Germany (snow started early this year), and since the trip ended early, I was home on Black Friday evening. With temps in the low 30s, i realized yet again that I am seriously lacking in the warm winter coat department. Yeah, I never really think about it since I live in sunny southern California, but generally when I go on my work trips it can be REALLY COLD!
One of the nice things about being in Germany is the month long Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) that takes place in most of the cities starting the week of Thanksgiving. Basically it is a giant fair that pops up in the town squares and people sell crafts and other random stuff. It’s a place to get your Christmas shopping done. And to go along with being a fair, there’s tons of fair food to sample, such as rostbratwurst (grilled bratwurst on a roll), kartoffelpuffer (potato pancakes served with apple sauce), giant brezels (pretzels), and of course gluwein (hot spiced red wine). I managed to try most of the food, which was definitely good. Tried a non-alcoholic version of the gluwein (hot spiced grape juice) and must say it was pretty tasty as well.
Now I’m back, and just counting down till the holidays!
posted by irv at 10:09 am
After our little pumpkin carving fun in Seattle, Esther had the idea of carving pumpkins for our house too.
Sarah, Arnold, Irene, and Jerome came over on Friday night for some jack o’lantern fun. I managed to find a website for patterns while I was looking for a Super Mario template. Anyway the pumpkins turned out really nicely, but unfortunately have already pretty much expired. Oh well! I guess our house won’t be decorated for Halloween afterall!
I’ll edit this post with pictures once I get them.
posted by irv at 9:30 am
I’m not sure if it happens to everyone, but the ‘freshman 15′ that I never gained in college became more of a “newlywed 10″ for me. I have a pretty good guess as to what happened, but I refuse to lose and am now on a semi-serious mission to get back down to 175 lbs while also converting my bodyfat into muscle mass.
Luckily Esther is really supportive of this decision, and we started going to a trainer together twice a week. Additionally, I’m still doing basketball on Tuesdays, working out separately on Thursdays, and we’ve gotten back into tennis recently. We’ve been pretty much alternating between the gym and tennis on Fridays AND Saturdays (I know, pretty crazy).
The results? I guess I’m seeing results. My metabolism is way up and my max bench is getting really close to where I was at my best. I’m feeling much stronger. But I haven’t been able to shed any weight yet. Hopefully it’s just getting converted to muscle… hahahahaha
posted by irv at 3:01 pm
Esther’s good friend Linda held her first USC football party of the season this weekend.
We got there plenty early so I could help with the grilling and ended up fixing up her garage opener as well.
Lots of yummy food ( too bad Esther is still recovering from her wisdom tooth extraction 
) and a big USC blowout victory. All in all a great time.
Thinking about having friends over for a future game. Seems like it could be doable.
Fight On!
posted by irv at 2:50 pm
