Live or Memorex?

I've always been fascinated by technology and how we both we communicate with each other through it but also how it shapes what we say. So when the Kindle 2 came out and it was a product that people were really engaging in, I immediately thought about how does this affect poetry. We know it's a medium for novels and prose text, but what about the poem? Since I still had the layout files for Kali's Blade, I decided to transform the book into Kindle form. Because if I really want to know how this medium changes the face of poetry, I might as well dive right into it.

And not only put it up on Amazon, but also sell it at the special price of $0.99. Unlike the web, which shaped language, the Kindle brings about another important avenue for authors, the price of poetry. How does interacting with poetry on your iPhone change the experience? How does not having physical media to print change how authors make their work accessible to the public? And is the public willing to pay for it? If so, how much?

We know a good poetry book from a small press might sell 100 copies. 1000 copies would be astounding! But even author's who get their texts on their friend's reading course lists will be lucky to hit 1000 copies sold. Let's be honest. Plus how much of the actual cost of the book does an author really get? Not much because of the labor of production. But how many copies could you sell on-line for the right price? And while less and less people have room for shelves, there is growing storage on their computers. But do we want to interact with poetry through technology?

Right now Amazon isn't charging people to put their books on Kindle, so any price is a good price for now, but I suspect like the cuts publishers and distributor's take on paper books, how much Amazon eventually charges will affect the profitability of all of it. And since we're talking business, what of the publisher's, small print distributor's, and book stores? And even the non-businesses like Libraries? Imagine that libraries truly simply become cafes with reading tablets, instead of vast halls of books.

I'm not judging right or wrong, good or bad, I'm simply exploring possibilities. I've already had some lively exchanges with Jean and I'm looking forward to having lively exchanges with any of you!

Kindle Edition (will be up in a few days)


or

Print Edition

Will the real Sarah Palin please stand up!

We thought it would be fun to see how many Sarah Palins we could muster for the office Halloween party. So 4 of us got out our knee high boots, fanciest power suit, and various accessories.

Since I couldn't find a pair of glasses, I went for the pre-Palin years as Miss Wasilla 1984 complete with sash and flute, though I could no longer play mostly because my braces got in the way. I attached a toy MK47 with McCain-Palin stickers in the proper red, white, and blue. One the Palins worked on her Alaskan accent, while another attached various price tag stickers on her clothing and yet another decided to show off her hockey mom skills. We didn't have a Joe the Plumber or a Joe Six Pack, so we settled for the Six Pack body armor of the Dark Knight.

There's swag

Ernesto continues as our bestus campaign manager for the Tabios/Bautista 2008 ticket running on the Peace and Poetry party ticket.

Yes, indeed, we have swag:

campaign materials

Ernesto continues to do a fine job as the Tabios/Bautista 08 campaign manager.

We even have some "press":

http://www.tsgnet.com/pres.php?id=46832&altf=Fjmffo1Ubcjpt/&altl=Njdifmmf1Cbvujtub

The Peace and Poetry Party marches on!

(Thanks to another friend for the link to this site!)

time to move things around

Spent Saturday driving in traffic for nearly two hours to finally find parking then hike a mile or so to the Berkeley Kite Festival. We had never gone. I had always wanted to go. Though I think if we ever went again, we would stay at the hotel right next to the park. The kite festival was entertaining and fun. We got to watch the Japanese team try to launch a few of their kites and watched as another that was in the air took out another large kite. Those guys are working hard to tame the air. Plus their kites are scary when they come down, built with light wood and paper. I always like watching the choreographed kites that chase each other like an elite squadron.

Walking back we passed by the Takahara Sake tasting. The sake there was decent, but didn't feel anything was fabulous enough to buy a bottle. They even had a raspberry flavored sake, one of their modern mixes. But since we had gone to Hangar One and tasted their real fruit infused vodkas, you could really taste the difference. But the nice part about this place is that it does introduce alot of people to sake.

Sunday went to Kali class in the morning. My arm which I injured last month still isn't up to par but have been working around it. It was quite a workout mixing through numerous weapons: 3 sectional, staff, stick open hand. I'm not sure what it was, but the hits seemed to all hurt more today. At the end my body rebelled with a nice sharp pain between my shoulder blades. Tuhan did some onsite chiropractic moves on my neck. Thus I spent the rest of the day with really great posture because I really couldn't move otherwise. For me this is usually a sign to rearrange something in the house as I'm sensitive to environment changes. The body is telling me there's something that needs to get unstuck.

Anyway, today's energy went into unstucking the thing known as the hubby's closet. I had reorganized my own closet to better reflect what I've been wearing now. The hubby wasn't sure about me touching his closet, but then I showed him mine. We pulled a couple of boxes which I'll bring to the downstairs closet. I then refolded his clothes while he decided which shelves and drawers the clothes would go in. Later we went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and picked up some shelving and various other gadgets, like a hanger caddy, and a tie hanger.

I've been reading the book called, "The Influencer". It discusses the ways that influence works and how people are influenced and uses examples like Delancy Street and the Carter Center ridding the world of Guinea worm disease. It breaks down influence into 6 sections: Motivation and Capability on a personal, social and structural level. I might write more about this later, but certainly if you like "the Tipping Point" I would say, "the Influencer" is a good follow up.

Somewhere in my brain there is a significant and tangible relationship between the book, the closet, and the kites. I just don't have time to discuss that at this point.

Tomorrow is a wine tasting at the Ritz-Carlton. Time for bed.

cheap drinks

It's been a food filled weekend.

Scored a couple trays of leftover bbq pulled pork and now I'm trying to discover different ways to work that into dishes. I gave most of the food away since the two of us can't eat that much meat.

Saturday was a fun filled day. In the morning kali seminar focused on ground fighting. Of course, it turned out that I was one of the few people who could still really do the ground fighting with the rule of thumb being, "if you can still pick yourself up off the ground..." Alot of the guys in particular had already worn out their knees from the years of hard hitting karate and tae kwon do styles. Part of it looked more like movie stunts, like lying on your back and rolling away before a 3-sectional staff comes crashing onto the ground where you were. So yeah, you better move, I don't care how tired you are. We also practiced some throws on the grass and tumbling which I hadn't done in years and wasn't all that interested to tumble on the grass. All I can say is that gravity is exhausting.

Afterwards, spent the afternoon swimming with the nieces. They arrived around 3. We went to greet them at the mini-van where the parents were cleaning up both of the kiddie seats as the twins decided to puke in union. oh yeah. While we went swimming, the hubby did laundry of the car seat covers and accompanying clothing. That's not a whole lot of lounging either since the twins weren't all that happy sitting in their nice inflatable seats. And it took us forever to inflate those things! But I liked the water so much more than the ground. The nice part is that the kids aren't too grumpy when it's time to come out of the pool, since now they know that they can come back fairly often.

Since the sister-in-law is part of the Rosenblum Cellar wine club, we headed to Alameda and got there about 30 minutes before closing and tried out 5 of their wines. I ended up buying a bottle of their North Coast Zinfandel and the Santa Barbara Roussanne which is perfect for a nice summer day. The hubby stayed in the car with the kids. 2 out of 3 of them were fine with the whole thing.

Next stop was Hangar One, which is down the street from Rosenblum. A $10 fee gets you a glass and taste of all their spirits which was at least a dozen from their liqueurs to their whiskeys. We shared it between the three of us which was enough to just coat your tongue with a taste. You can get completely wasted if we had gotten one each. Then they wanted to try some absinthe which is a separate $10 tasting but again you get to keep the glass. They have one of the best absinthes on the market today. We waited for the ice to melt. Between the three of us we only managed to drink half of the glass, so I switched places with the hubby to watch the kids in the van.

Remember the 1 out of 3 kid? Well by the time I got there she was into full on tears, so I let the twins out of their car seats with the instructions that they remain in the mini-van, which was fine with one and only momentarily fine with the other because she was still concerned as to where mommy and daddy were. I took that one into my lap and ran through the gambit of songs she knew from "I have two hands", "Twinkle twinkle", and "itsy bitsy spider". And even though she kept crying a touch, the songs kept her from all out bawling.

The parentals and hubby returned. The hubby, with a bottle of their Qi White, which is a mixture of white tea and their spirits which I like so much better than Qi Black (though I have to say that their Qi Black is vastly improved from the initial batch I had tried over a year ago).

With the kids happy about swimming and the adults happy about the absinthe tasting we headed to our parentals house to give grandma and grandpa some enjoyment. E, the eldest, remembers the house and the people inside, so she loved being there. The twins, went into their shy mode for a few minutes before finally relaxing and running around. They still weren't sure about mom and dad, but they did like the bowl of fresh grapes they provided and couldn't get enough of eating those.

Sunday, went to class. I woke up with my sore and achy legs. Just because I can do the movement doesn't mean I don't pay for it the next day. The hubby had been interested in learning to braise food for quite some time but we didn't have the proper pot that went from stove to oven. Fortunately we had numerous gift certificates from Williams-Sonoma that were still unused (I love that California law that doesn't allow gift certificates to expire.) We ended up getting a 5.5 quart Le Creuset in flaming red, which felt like was half off since the gift certificates. We followed that up with watching Iron Man which was an awesome movie (again using some gift certificates), dinner at Fuddrucker's, then grocery shopping at Ranch for the oxtails and veggies to christen the Le Creuset.

Whew! The hubby finished cooking it at around midnight so we haven't tried it out yet. We'll find out tonight.

Grant it I need a weekend from my weekend, I am glad we have such a fun filled life.

Abstract Eiffel

Sorting through our photos of our Europe trip last year (we did take hundreds of photos), I found this set of light painting eiffel tower photos. These are all free hand, extended exposure. I especially like the ones where the Eiffel is still clearly distinguished in the blur. Must have been all the inspiration from having walked through the Pompidou anniversary retrospective exhibit.

I posted them to our Your Exquisite Photos site on Facebook. I'll try to post an example in the blog post directly later.

Did I mention

Did I mention we got the Wii Fit? Nintendo is onto something. It's so much fun! OK maybe not the push ups. But it certainly makes the yoga workouts more interesting as it provides feedback on where your center of balance is. And I love the ski jump game where I can re-enact the "agony of defeat" from ABC Wide World of Sports safely from the living room.

I've gone at most 45 min but usually go for 30 minutes. I only wish some of the exercises lasted longer than a minute, like I can do several turns in a row rather than have to click through screens. The time bank is cute as it keeps track how long you've played. You really do start to sweat after 30 minutes and don't really realize how tiring it is until you are.

Skiing and snowboarding are alot of fun and I look forward to what other game companies can do with the new device.

the wind turns up the soil

Spent yesterday afternoon in Livermore winetasting that area. We ate at Garre. They are a restaurant/winery. Their spinach/crab dip appetizer was quite good. The duck confit was overly sauced for my sister's taste. The meatballs and linguine were more meatballs than anything else and slightly overpacked. But a decent meal overall, not great, but decent.

The wind kicked up outside and we walked by the Bocce Ball court where a group of friends popped open a couple of bottles of wine and aimed for the small white marker ball. Their tasting room was free. We tried their flight but weren't really impressed by any of them. I was sipping and spitting since I was driving afterwards. Maybe they needed more time, maybe more aeration and maybe we won't buy a bottle right now.

Next stop was Bodegas, where my sister loves the pinor noir or was that petite syrah. They carried a very tasty flight. I bought a bottle of the merlot. The wind whisked away any warmth between the doorway to the car. And my sister thought her tongue was done, but I convinced her, eh, let's try one more, a threesome, so we stopped by Steven Kent and LaRochelle which sit on the same lot. Steven Kent was packed with folks since it was in the middle of their winery row, called Tesla Road. They set aside large blocks of gruyere for you to carve and a table full of costume jewelry for sale. Lots of distractions. The wine was a bit better than Garre, but the price and the taste just didn't work for us.

Off the main building was nice cute building marked LaRochelle. It looked closed. But when we entered, there were tables and wine glasses lined up on each side of the tables. For $15, you could pick one of two flights and share a food pairing for the wines. Hmmm...ok...we could find room in our stomach for this one and we could sit in the car while I waited out the wine consumption. We had a great time here, nice leisurely sipping, with a full plate for various cheeses, olive and fig tapanade, and truffle mousse to mix and match. My sister got one flight and I got the Pinot Noir flight. We found the Pinot Gris just as the description noted, "assertively acidic". Fortunately the triple creme French cheese killed its assertiveness and really brought out the softer fruity side. I ended up buying a couple of bottles of an Oregon Pinot Noir that I thought was both good and at a decent price.

My sister tells me that they don't want to be like Napa. And even though they don't want to be like Napa, some of the places sure price like Napa! Alot of young wineries here many which cropped up only in the last couple of years, so it'll be interesting to see how they develop.

If you like Colma the Musical

received this today from the makers of Colma, the Musical:

CALL FOR EXTRAS!

We're seeking extras for our musical feature, Fruit
Fly, by the makers of Colma: the Musical.

We're shooting this Saturday and Sunday - doing a song called "Public Transit" appropriately enough on Muni one day and BART the other day. We're looking for extras to play commuters on their way to work in the city. However, the fun part is that our extras
actually get to be part of the performance - with some minor lip-syncing to the song and basic choreographed movement (not dance). So it's a chance to really perform in the film.

The shoot times are Saturday 4/19 from 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm on Muni downtown, or Sunday 4/20 from noon to 4 pm on BART.

Anyone interested can email our Associate Producer
Krystel at krystelgapasin@yahoo.com. If possible,
send a photo, contact number and day available.

Once you email Krystel more info will be emailed to you about the shoot.

espetus

Yesterday I stayed at home most of the day: slept in, did laundry, cleaned the other half of the balcony, cleaned the bathtub, vacuumed. It was rather relaxing since usually when I'm doing chores it's as if I'm trying to cram them in just before going somewhere else that there isn't time.

Afterwards, went bowling where I got to play with some of the toddlers roaming around (one guy brings his daughter on a regular basis and another brought his granddaughter). The kids are quite friendly and in general will let most of the women there carry them. Though they have some reservations about some of the guys. We're all in the same section of the alley so people keep a general eye out for the kids when it's their parent's turn to bowl. We managed to win 4 games and remain in 1st place!

Today, the hubby decided to join me on vacation and took the day off. The morning I spent taking a cartful of stuff from the balcony to the reuse and recycle shelf in the garage: plastic trashcan, five cinderblocks, a wooden plank, a neglected jade plant, and bag full of dead leaves from the surviving plants. I'm not sure how we got all that stuff on the deck in the first place, the thing is only 20 sq feet or so. But so goes with the rest of my life of weeding, and refocusing.

In the afternoon we headed to Golden Gate Park and wandered around. Ate at the de Young cafe but didn't tour inside. We asked the security person at the museum if the metal had been the bright orange color. She said yes, and it will eventually turn into the green color like the Statue of Liberty. "I'm not sure how you design ugly, but they did." I'm not sure what to make of the building, but it was striking in terms of the angular design and the texture of the metal. It will take a bit longer before it reaches its green hue. But I do think it's a daring design in the way that it's ultimate look with really at the whim of the elements. It's very chameleon-like. The Academy of Sciences is still closed, but I'm looking forward to it opening as we could see the two domes of the rooftop gardens emerging. With the two museums across from each other it will really be a dynamic contrast in architecture.

Went instead to the Japanese Tea Garden and took pictures of all the flowers. Even with a bit of a crowd at the garden it was a serene place to walk with various alcoves shaded by large Japanese maples or bamboo. The cherry blossoms were gorgeous!

For dinner with went to Espetus, a Brazilian Rodizio style restaurant. All you can eat, but fancier with better service. A metal disk on your table rotates between green and red. They have a salad bar for starters, then when you switch it to green, they come by with long skewers of meat (and roasted pineapple with is wonderful!). Our friend told us they had 12 different dishes on the skewers but we only got through nine of them before we couldn't go any further. But it's hard to resist saying yes. The hubby kept saying he was done, then when the next new thing came, he had to have a taste. We decided we'll have to come back another time with more people to try the other dishes. High grade meats infused with wonderful flavors. And their cheesebread is so yummy! (cheese is just baked right in)

It's back to work on Monday. So I still have a couple more days to stay in vacation mode.

wandering parnassus

Went to the city again yesterday. Spent the morning sitting in the UCSF food court reading and occasionally surfing the web on the local kiosk (not bad for a 9 year old iMac). Contemplated buying a house lease-to-own, as it might be a good time to do this during a bad housing market and slightly worse financing market. Thought of an invention to amplify your cell phone alarm sound when using it as an alarm clock. Wondered if I could get paid to do what I was doing that morning. As I realized I not only like creative writing, I just like any kind of creating thinking and doing. Can I get paid for creative services and have the time to sit around and think?

Alot of the leadership and management work I'm not doing has been pushing me in this direction. Using my creativity to lead and manage in such a way that provides actual, tangible benefits and change. Maybe not in a huge global way, but in my own small ways. Thus the brain has not been producing alot of poetry or been involved poetically lately. But that's ok, I'm enjoying expanding the use of my creative brain to other areas.

For lunch we headed to Joe's Cable Car Restaurant that was featured on Food Network as one of the best burger places and they were right. We often go to Barney's, but even Barney's doesn't have that certain sweet smell that only fresh ground beef has when it's being cooked. You can order a 4, 6, or 8 oz burger. I got through half of the burger before I realized maybe I should eat a few fries too. Table service was quite excellent along with the milk shakes and onion rings. I don't think I'll be able to go back to the fast food franchise burger joints again.

Afterwards, spent 40 minutes looking for parking around UCSF. While my sister went to work, I wandered the neighborhood. Stopped in an organic grocery and bought some blood oranges that I thought would be nice to photograph and eat. Then travelled down the street and found a place that does mani/pedis, though my sister said there was another place a block over that was much better. Oh well. In any case, I had a relaxing time. Though most of the business there was for the tanning booths. I have never been to a tanning salon, as tanning is a strange concept for me since Filipinos tan practically instantaneously. I watched the regulars go in and just head to their assigned rooms. Must be a necessity in SF since there is a lack of full on continuous sunshine in many parts of the city. Having only recently delved into understanding beauty and make-up, the beauty secrets of caucasian women have perplexed me. So, most blonds aren't really natural blonds, except maybe when they were a kid? And you use an airbrush to spray on a tan?

The owner of the place was there lounging in one of the massage chairs for the manicures with her cute corgi dog. She's done well I think. Certainly created a business with all the various things she uses herself and found a good location for it. A relatively easy business to upkeep. And has time to just hang out and read magazines.

Unfortunately I couldn't stay long enough for my toe nails to completely harden, so I messed up a toe, but that's ok. The french tips on my hands look nice.

I've been enjoying this vacation of doing, well, nothing. Sleep in or wander the city, sit in a cafe or get my nails done. I still have a couple more days of this. And tomorrow the hubby will join me for the wandering. We're going to try to go to Espetus, a Brazilian rodizio restaurant in the city that we heard is fabulous. It's one of my first vacations in a long time where I didn't really think about work, ok I answered one email and that was it. But none of the stress of wandering what is at work and if the work is piling up.

As I've adjusted to the management and leadership training, I've taken on a different kind of pacing. Part of that is realizing that things get done when they get done. There is always something that will come up, but because there is so much stuff coming up, you just have to learn to focus on what's right in front of you, then on what's next. You start to quickly assess if this is a problem for now, tomorrow or yesterday and then adjust to that. Because everything can't happen now and everything can't be done by tomorrow, and even though someone wanted it, they didn't really need it done yesterday. Being able to keep this kind of perspective is critical and while it makes it sound like well then you don't get anything done, in fact you end up getting so much more work done because you're not spending your time or energy worrying about something else that doesn't matter at the moment. In tech support, it's a bit harder to control the pace as everything seems to need to be done now.

It's a pretty good way to live. Life is good!

what I did on my week off

I've been posting the photos I've been taking in our in home studio up on the zazzle site. Same place to get your ligo sardine can tie, and such. Feel free to give stars to the products you like. I haven't been able to put up all the photos yet and will slowly get to all of them soon.


create & buy custom products at Zazzle

Change o' plans

A last minute change of plans has left my trip south for another time. Nevertheless, it wasn't a reason to cancel my vacation from work. So I'm going to tourist around here for the week. Fortunately late last week I was inundated by people giving me recommendations to their favorite restaurants, so I'll be restaurant hopping this week.

Friday hitchhiked a ride from my sister to the City and pasyaled (window shopped) around Bloomingdale's, ate a very yummy Cookie Crunch Beard Papa with Strawberry filling. Afterwards, came back to the east bay and ate at Sea Salt for there $1 oyster happy hour which is 4-6p every day! My sister and I slurped through a couple of dozen.

Saturday visited the sister-in-law and family which was an excuse to visit what some bowling buddies called their favorite Filipino restaurant Kuya's Asian Cuisine in San Bruno. It's quite good I have to say. We believe the cook came from years of working at Ong Pin. The Kare-kare had a nice thick sauce and the boneless bangus sisig was delicious! The tortang talong was huge and yummy!

Today I had lunch with the hubby at Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe in Emeryville. I had always driven by and it was almost always packed. We got in just before the noon rush. Americana food so I had the chicken fried steak and the hubby had the pulled chicken sandwich which was a bit dry. They're open til 1am which is great since there are so few late night options. They have some crazy alcoholic concoctions like Guiness Stout with a shot of expresso. They serve some good beers and wines including Guiness Stout on tap. The place has that kitchy road house kind of appeal with a row of barbie-esque dolls properly kitchified on display wearing the baby blue bowling jersey and a pin that say's Rudy.

Afterwards, went shopping at Bay St, which was nice, no crowds, lots of parking. I go a couple of winter season close out items and a facial scrub from Sephora.

Not sure what I'll do tomorrow or the next day. But it's been a long time since I've done a vacation at home and not because I had to go somewhere or do something. I've got a whole lot of nothing this week which is fine by me!

Happy Easter

Been tired this week (can't quite get myself on a proper sleep schedule this week.) but ended up in kali class this morning anyway even though I felt rather low energy and uncoordinated. Got nailed in the ankle by a kick that just rattled me with pain. Hmm...I have a low tolerance for pain this week as well. I didn't have much luck protecting myself from the hits as it seemed like when I did move I ran into the hits anyway. It was just one of those days. But the sun was nice and warm and I got to play with fan.

Went home and worked a few hours on the very neglected balcony. Our building was painted and after they finished painting, I just never really got back to the balcony over the winter. So I spent a few hours today stripping away all the dead leaves from the various spider plants, aloe plants and orchids. I got a large basin of water to soak the pots in. I always feel a bit bad when the water runs off the balcony and down below to the lower unit balconies, but that's the consequence of living with units above you, gravity always works against you. But I'm liking the balcony railing pot holders. I will probably buy at least one more. It's nice having the pots off the ground to make it easier to sweep. The balcony had become overrun with just too many jade plants and spider plants and all the pots took up the room to actually spend time on the balcony.

At the farmer's market yesterday there was a nursery vendor and I bought whatever they thought might work well in semi-shade. The nice part is that they grew all their plants in Oakland, so I was hoping they had a higher rate of survival than say the ones from Long's. I picked up nasturtiums, a dragon flower plant, and a strawberry plant. I got all of those repotted in various containers. Oddly enough while digging through the pots I kept finding peanuts buried in the soil. The hubby reminded me that before they trimmed the nearby trees the squirrels often made visits to the balcony and my potted pots were much closer to them than the ground, the squirrels must have thought they would make a good hideaway. But then after the tree limbs were cut, they lost access to their stashes.

I stripped the various orchids in my greenhouse shelf down to their still green nibs. I was really surprised at how hearty orchids are. One, I thought was dead, still had a clump of white roots with green tips, a very good sign. Before I used to feel really guilty about killing plants. Mostly because my mother has such a green thumb and I felt like the plants reflected my lack of a nurturing spirit. As delicate of a flower orchids produce, they are indeed one of the more forgiving plants to grow. And while I don't beat myself up as much about killing plants, since plants tell you there is a cycle for them as well and just because there are no leaves or flowers doesn't mean that they are all and out dead. There are roots that survive simply waiting for their chance to grow and bloom again. Somewhere in there, there is a lesson on forgiveness and patience.

I still have another half of the balcony to fix and weed out. I think I'll take out some of the jade plants and spider plants. I just have too many of them. And spider plants are just so ridiculously easy to grow, they're almost weedlike. But that will have to wait for another time.

After a shower to get rid of all the dust (I felt like Pig Pen as I went from the balcony to the bathroom), we brought our plastic eggs across the bay to the nieces. Their older sister seemed to know what the eggs were about even though they had never brought her to an easter egg hunt. We filled the plastic eggs with animal crackers, goldfish crackers, raisins, grapes, and stickers. The twins had these cute Hello Kitty furry baskets that they used for bonnets, because really that's what empty Easter Egg baskets are for, to be used as bonnets. But since the baskets were furry they looked more like the London Beefeaters, but cuter and funnier. We hid the eggs in the semi-open, and even then there were a couple we forgot we hid, like the green eggs in the green kiddie chair that blended nicely to its surroundings.

The kids had fun opening up all the eggs, eating or dumping the contents on the ground. They ate them up as if they were starving. They played with the eggs for hours and hours, past a grumpy meltdown of one of the twins needing to possess all the eggs. Fortunately, the girls are really good at sharing most everything else especially food. They don't seem to mind sharing food. Even the 6 year old got into the act by throwing the eggs, which for her was quite an achievement since it was a physical act that she specifically initiated. Her genetic issue makes it difficult for her to learn repeatable acts, so feeding herself even by hand, or consciously picking up a plastic egg and throwing it, is a big deal.

The twins are picking up vocabulary quite quickly even though I think they speak to us in their twin language sometimes. But Nicky especially, is quite articulate, since she likes to copy phrases some she knows what they mean, others she just likes repeating. But both twins are quite good at saying please and thank you, words that are repeated readily on the Barney videos they watch. Go figure, Barney teaches kids good manners. But amazingly, when we were leaving, Nicky in particular thanked us for bringing the eggs. A sign that she's quite aware of what people bring and give to them and appreciates it. Catie will eventually speak to you, but not as much. They have their meltdowns that a good nap will often fix if you can get them there, but overall, so far they're shaping up to be some good kids.

Afterwards, Tikbalang, the spirit that often whispers in the hubby's ear to turn in very misleading directions, made us miss our exit home and we ended up on Piedmont Ave to stop for ice cream or gelato. We managed to find a parking space across from the gelato shop, but when we got there at 9:10, they had already closed. The woman inside, waved us in and opened the locked door. She was pulling out the gelato trays and defrosting the freezer but still took our order for two small size gelato cups. She piled the gelato high so the small cups were really more like the large size. We gave her a $4 tip. She really didn't have to serve us, and she didn't have to give us all that extra gelato.

All in all, a very good day. Got to feel the warmth of the sun, repotted plants that were giving me a second chance, got lots of wonderful hugs and laughter from some really cute kids, and topped the day receiving some awfully nice service for a sweet treat.

Easter along with the season of spring is the season of rebirth. But to be reborn there is an aspect of forgiveness and appreciation for the life you lived before. But as the 3 year old taught me, simply learning to appreciate the life you are given today and that is a small way we are all reborn.

JabbaWockeeZ

I've been a bit of a JabbaWockeeZ fiend for the last few weeks after a friend got me hooked on Randy Jackson's America's Best Dance Crew on MTV. They are one of the two finalists with the winner to be announced on Thursday, March 27.

JabbaWockeeZ are from San Diego and all season have really brought a higher level of crew dancing. You watch them and they are actually painting a scene. There are the individual dancers but they force you to see how their movements interrelate with each other. It's breathtaking! The crew wears masks and gloves which gives them that Blue Man Group kind of feel, a level of anonymity yet creating a sense of unity in their movements. There's a link on youtube that strings all of their routines together and it's clear that they weren't just looking to create one routine at a time, they were looking to build a full story arc. This is hip-hop dance at a whole other level!

I don't have cable, so I catch the episodes on MTV or on youtube. The other Asian heavy crew was Kaba Modern, that I hear is from UC Irvine. They had pretty tight choreography too, half women, half men. They're big on isolations and intricate hand movements, which has worn weary on me. They made it to third place.

There's some uproar from facebook to youtube arguing that MTV rigged the voting so there would be a east coast (Status Quo is from Boston) vs west coast final. My reply to that, is that reality tv isn't about being fair, it's about ratings and according to the legalese of many of these voting shows there's a disclaimer about the producers having a right to not count votes they think are deliberately skewing the tallies (like a script or something that keeps registering votes). But whatever.

Status Quo, the other finalist, is an African American street crew from Boston that has been up and down this season. A very athletic bunch, they do alot more freestyling more often than not, but they represent that kind of raw energy in hip-hop.

In any case, I'm glad that the west side got major representation on the show. And I really hope the top crews get more opportunities from being on this show.

I have to admit I'm an addict for any dancing/skating/gymnastic type show on tv. If there's music and movement, I'm there. I'm not too into American Idol, but I can't miss Dancing With the Stars (especially with Kristi Yamaguchi on it).

turning green: happy st. pat's day

Decided to turn my blog green for the day, since it is St. Patrick's Day and don't you get pinched if you're not wearing green? At least that was the game we used to play in school.

Plan to head to Beckett's Irish Pub after work for a bit of St. Patty's celebration for a trip to the real Ireland will have to wait a while. A cousin of mine is heading to Europe on Wednesday as his very first trip outside of the United States. He'll visit family in Madrid and Paris then do his own version of European bar hopping as he travels to various beer loving countries. I'm both excited and happy for him! Once you get the travel bug, it's really hard to stop.

In the meantime, South America awaits and possibly Yosemite next month. And I've been cruising cruise tour websites hoping to plan a big family trip in 2009, hopefully with a stop to Alexandria to see the pyramids, which would the leave Australia as the last settled continents I haven't been to yet. But hope to add that to the list with a friend in maybe 4-5 years.

Sunday I went and bought the plastic egg easter thingys. We're going to visit the nieces and conduct an in house Easter Egg Hunt. I remember when we were small, we went once to a neighborhood easter egg hunt, but for the most part went around our backyard and house.

The twins are way to young to be introduced to a sweet tooth, so instead I filled the eggs with Disney Princess stickers and Mardi Gras type beads. We'll wait til Saturday to fill the rest with their favorite relatively healthier treats: raisins, cheerios, and gold fish crackers. It should be fun!

point and shoot

We've been looking to get a new point and shoot camera for a while now. We bought our last one about 4-5 years ago. It's still a good camera, but it is feeling slow and doesn't take as good of a resolution as the newer ones right now.

We have the hubby's real cameras, then we have the point and shoot what is nice and pocket sized so we can take pictures whenever inspiration strikes, which is nice. It's like a writer needing a pen everywhere they go. Our point and shoot has gone to New York, LA, Europe. A nice workhorse of a camera.

It's easy enough to buy a 8Megapixel camera for less than $300. Our 4MP cost that much 4 years ago. I tended to like the Olympus brand and had several very good cameras that were Olympus, but unfortunately their P&S were heading the way of the Sonys, the ultra thin with huge viewing screens. I'm not exactly sure who likes that, but I sure don't. Every time I tried to pick on up, I couldn't figure out where to put my hand and fingers to grip in. Am I supposed to delicately hold it between the thumb and forefinger of each hand with my pinkies sticking out? And how do I do that without it slipping through my fingers? And how am I supposed to do it with one hand?

From experience I know that we often hold the camera out at strange angles and just click, just to see what we get. And I don't think I could hold most of those cameras with one hand without smudging up the screen doing it. I love technology, but I most hate crappy design that prevents me from using the technology well. I don't need a smaller thinner camera, I need one that I can grip with one hand without getting a hand cramp!

So we settled for the Canon Powershot that (after the discount that the guy gave us to guilt trip us into buying a warranty that we still refused) was less than $200. A great deal!

Unfortunately, the store we went to had a lot of variety but none of the Nikon brand the hubby holds most dear. We do like to stay within the brand family. And we do like to stay with name brands that have traditionally been photography companies, so no Sony or Panasonic. Kodak is probably the only exception (and this is only because they were the last to get into the digital game and their first ones sucked; I don't know if that's still the case).

The Canon Powershot A720 IS still used AA batteries! (whoo-hoo!) While the others are running off of the Lithium batteries that run longer and hold more charge, for us they are not a good thing when we want to travel. When we travel, we don't want to remember if we recharged the camera, much less find a place to recharge the camera properly. And frankly, if you're desperate, you can get AA batteries everywhere in the world. And it's easy enough for us to have a stock of recharged rechargeable AA batteries with us. I know manufacturers are moving away from that as well, but like the rest of this post, obviously I dislike much of the direction of the P&S camera world right now.

In any case, I'm quite happy with what we got and it fulfills our biggest sell points: feels good in the hand/easy to grip, AA batteries, 8MP, good price. The pictures are pretty darn decent, especially the macros and the digital zoom ain't bad. The flash is really strong, so I don't know how long it will take to diminish the batteries using that, which is fine cuz we like using natural light whenever possible.

For accessories we got one of those small flexible tripods that you can wrap around anything, rather than precariously sit the camera on some ledge as well as a 2GB SD card. It's amazing that there's 2GB on something slightly larger than the SIM card in a phone. (That's postage stamp for folks unfamiliar with SIM cards). The guy tells us it'll hold about 600 photos one one card. The hubby then looks at me and asks, "Is that enough?" This coming from a guy who shot some thousands of photos on our 3 week trip to Europe. Um, 600 should be quite sufficient for me. Thanks!

new spaces, new places, new faces

Can you feel the year of the rat really kicking into gear?
I see it all over the place as people take steps to their new lives, new phases.

I managed to find a new space to teach Kali. Cheaper than my "fill-in/temp" space. It's shared with a couple of other martial arts groups. Narrow but long, so nice amount of space to do stuff. And lucky me, Tuhan decided to drop by to check it out as well. I no longer worry about him visiting as if the health inspector was coming to check my restaurant. But it does give me a chance to understand the differences in the way I teach and the way he teaches. It's a way for me to easily compare and contrast the direction and choices I've been making in teaching and in training.

I'm excited about the new space. It's different from the previous places I've taught at not only in shape but in energy as well. I'm looking forward to the things that will open up for me there.

Looks like travel is coming into my life again. I'm off for a weeklong vacation at the start of April. I'll have to leave the hubby at home this time, since it was an opportunity with a narrow window. The hubby likes the long planned vacations. These slightly spontaneous ones are rather hectic for him, but I love them! I love the feeling of being able to take off. I don't even mind the numerous plane jumping (best way to get a cheaper flight at the last minute). Once due to plane technical issues it took me 24 hours (don't count the time zone change) to get from Manila to SF, so everything after that is well not bad.

He'll get his chance to travel since he's planning a trip to the east coast with his brother later this year. I won't be able to attend due to work commitments. And we might take an in state trip in a few months.

But underneath all the excitement and fun stuff, we're still doing the basics underneath it all: the long term planning, the day to day chores, the paying of the bills.

When I was younger I was all about the excitement and neglected other things, but as we move along I found I need both. Have to take care of the little things, and have to have the excitement and trips and such. But it's the little stuff, the small things that sometimes you hate to do, but you gotta get done, makes the big stuff easier to get to and more satisfying to have. When I didn't take care of the small stuff, vacations were more stressful, but now it's not so bad. I know I'm doing what I need to do when I need to do it.

Life is good.

Every day should be the International Women's Day, dammit!

Ernesto Priego is a rockin' writer and live DJ over at his podcast.

Today he's posted a song in tribute to all the women he knows. Here's what he says:

It's a humble way of celebrating your intelligence, beauty and strength.

Every day should be the International Women's Day, dammit.

I know it's until tomorrow, but I didn't know if I'd have time to post it, so here it is one day before the Day.

You can share in the celebration as well, by popping on the headphones and listening to that song and other songs Señor DJ E has posted!