I must admit that going into this Christmas season I wasn't all that stoked on the holiday. With my dad being sick, my spare time consumed by back and forth trips to the doctors, pharmacy and various hospitals, I'd had very little time to do any Christmas shopping. Work felt like it was breathing down my neck and the holiday season just didn't have that same Christmas-tree-in-the-living-room, air smelling like chimney type of feeling like it used to. Yes, Bah Humbug.
Well, that all changed after a couple of great visits with family. After waking up and sharing some funny stories with my dad about how loud he snores, I headed over to my uncles newly remodeled house to hang out with the Araneta's (moms side). I was greeted with the usual showering of sniffs on the cheeks and tentative hugs from my favorite little nephew Lex. I did my rounds, hugging and small talking with all of my family and many aunties. The food spread was absolutely first rate, home style, Filipino-American, holiday grub.
As I sat and ate and chatted with family I realized how emotional Christmas had become for me. With all the feelings of worry and stress and not having bought that many presents, I forgot how good it felt just to be in the presence of a loving family. My cousins made me laugh, my little nephew did youtube worthy theatrics and my aunts and uncles all took time to check in with me and see how I was doing. I even made out with an emergency Crank-Powered radio from a game of White Elephant. It was just what the Dr. Phil ordered. Some good times with the fam.
After leaving the festivities from moms side, I headed over to spend some time with pops. I was pleasantly surprised to find my grandmother (dads mom), my uncle and 4 of his kids all hanging out with my dad! They had drove down from Sacramento to make sure that my dad wasn't by himself for Christmas. I only get to see them about 2-3 times a year so it was just wonderful to spend time with them and see how much my cousins have grown up. We hung out and ate and as my gramma Poland would say "talk story". Its incredible how much of a report my grandmother has with her grandchildren. Even the youngest one, whose 10 years old, considers gramma like his mom. My grandmother has always been the hands on type, taking us to the beach, on hikes, helping us make toys instead of buying them. She always shows us that the best things are free. Myself, gramma, the cousins and Mila the wonder dog all took a walk around the neighborhood. My gramma led us on a slow paced walk, guided by a story of how our dads (uncle Robert and uncle Dave) used to hike around Hawaii with her. It was a great way to end a very hectic but rewarding Chrstmas with family.
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I'll include some pics when they're uploaded.
Best present: Family, Food, KK's engraved money clip, Christmas cards with money so that I can have money to put in my new money clip :-)
Hello Earthlings,
As much as I've wanted to update this blog daily, I just havn't found the time as of late. I told myself when I started this blog that it would be important to update bi-weekly and I hope to get back around to that in '07. Much has been going on with my dads health so I've just been trying my best to be there for him.
In the meantime, I've been reflecting a lot on the past year. December was certainly a rollercoaster, but what about the rest of '06? Well, here's some of my favorites from the past year. Unfortunately my memory only goes as far back as 2 months ago, so I'll be updating this list as things trickle back into my memories. :-)
New favorite restaurant: Yuet Lee (previously Ozumo's)
Movies: Broken Flowers, Scoop, Little Miss Sunshine, Duma, Borat!
Least proud-of sports team: Raiders (formerly Warriors 10 years running)
Party: Rehab @ hard rock pool in LV, Tita Christine's Wedding!
Sports moment: Marco Scutaro's double to clinch the A's first round of the playoffs
Websites: Yelp, Google Spreadsheets, Sfgate
A good movie. Watch it.
A little in the hole after buying an 87 dollar prime rib roast, I decided to cash in my Frequent Player Points on Pokerstars. This was over 2 years of of bonus points that I had saved. The tournament was 9 players, the winner gets a $530 entry to the Sunday Million poker tournament. Free 99 to $530? I was all over it.
You finished the tournament in 1st place.
You qualified to play in Tournament #36154288 and are automatically registered for it.
See Tournament #36154288 Lobby for further details.
If you choose to unregister from this tournament your account will be credited
with $530.00 Tournament dollars. Tournament dollars can be used to buy into
any tournament.
Hello Earthlings, my apologies for not writing in a while. A lot has been going on. Here are my mid-November thoughts in no particular order:
- A's move to Fremont is good for A's baseball, bad for Oakland. I can't help but getting sentimental while thinking about it. The new stadium looks awesome though.
- Go Michigan Saturday afternoon.
- Go Pacquiao Saturday night.
- Go Warriors, lets keep up the consistency!
- Conan O'Brien is exactly 4 million times funnier than Jay Leno. Sucks that we have to wait until 2009 to replace the chin, Conan's in his prime. Seriously though, the anticipation for Leno's replacement is almost as strong as my feelings towards Bush leaving in '08.
- After renting the newly released Season 6 Sopranos; Whats gonna happen to Vito now that Tony and company found out he's gay? To subscribe to HBO or not, that is a lingering question for the upcoming Sopranos season.
- Randy Moss is a pompous bunghole. This, from the Raiders captain "Maybe because I'm unhappy, and I'm not too much excited about what's going on, so my concentration and focus level tends to go down when I'm in a bad mood. So all I can say is, if you put me in a good situation and make me happy, man, you get good results."
- While we're on the subject, which wide receiver in the NFL isn't full of it? Maybe thats why my favorite players are in the secondary.
- In an upcoming FOX interview, OJ Simpson is to describe how "he would have killed his wife" WTF!!!!
- Family and Friends time is valuable.
- How did my little brother get to be around 6'2, 210lbs? ...older brother 5'11, 175 :-(
- Lastly, a picture of my sister and I doing our best impersonation of our grandmothers coi coi cats. And me and Adamu doing our best impersonation of Hines Ward.
Five hundred years ago, the Spanish Conquistadors that landed in Mexico encountered natives practicing a ritual that seemed to mock death. It was a ritual that the natives had been practicing at least 3,000 years and is today known as Día de Muertos. The natives, unlike the Spaniards, viewed death as life continued. Instead of being afraid of death, they celebrated it. To them, life was a dream and in death they become truly awake.
Marc Jacobs released his limited edition shoe collaboration with Vans. I was never the type of person to wait in line at the mall for the latest edition of Jordans. As a matter of fact, I've never even owned or wore a pair of Jordans. But to be able to rock anything Marc Jacobs, within my frugal clothing budget, well thats just an opportunity I can't let pass. Paycheck Thursday!
I watched the Barack Obama interview on Meet the Press yesterday and if I'm reading between the lines correctly, he is definately going to run for President in '08. There had been much speculation about his finishing out the full 6 year term as Senator. KK and I had indulged in our own debate over whether the United States would be ready for an African American President over a Woman President (H. Clinton). My thoughts were that Barack had all the star power and momentum to take him straight to the White House. KK insisted that Hilary Clinton would bring out the woman voters. But in the end, we're both two liberal Californians, so really, what do we know about how the rest of the US votes.
There are many reasons why I like Barack Obama. He represents so much change in a time when the US could use it the most. His being born of an immigrant parent, with his ties to Africa, this could only help diplomacy when the US needs it most. I think there would be a lot of excitement around his being president, similar to a young JFK. And like JFK, he'd be coming straight from a Senate seat, with no real executive experience. Ahh, the youthful idealism that he would bring.
The green and gold get swept in 4 games. The tigers are just that good. Leyland is a great manager and the A's seem to be taking their loss with grace. It was a great season for a fun group of baseball players. All the money I spent on tickets this season was worth every cent. Thanks A's!
Winters aren't what they once were in baseball. There was a time when all the boys came back the following year, wearing the same uniform, and you were as familiar with them as your aunts, uncles and cousins. Contemporary off-seasons bring change, money demands, sudden departures. The A's will lose Zito, perhaps another cornerstone or two. Let's hope that Thomas returns, and Bradley returns an even better man, and the more impressionable A's come back a little wiser. This was a four-game sweep, won by the obviously superior team, but the A's were pillars of humanity.
The Game 1 winner is only a 58 percent shot to win an ALCS, which is not quite a coin flip but close enough.
