memoryloot

This will be my last post for the year as well the last post in my apartment at Diamond Bar. I am a bit sad about leaving this place. I had alot of good memories for the past 2.5 years. Unfortunately, I will not have Internet access until the New Year arrives. So Happy New Year to you all. I will be at Sin City for the New Year so wish me luck!

Kicked off Christmas at midnight with a gift exchange with my sister, her bf, and San. I scored a nice beige jacket from my sis and her bf. I also got another Spurs cap and an incredible earphone from my baby. I never knew my mp3 player and laptop can play such rich sounding music! The Shure E3 is an incredible piece of equipment. You can hear a whole range of sound and it isolates it so that you block off outside noise. The review I read online explains this further. The yellow foam buds (PA750) gives the music more bass while the other buds were a bit lacking in the sound. I may have to order more once my pair gets worn down. I love my gift! San loved her new black Motorola Razr and a picture frame with the album photo from the motorcycle show from this post.

This moving thing is such a drag. I can’t really settle down and relax. I still have to clean and pack-up after all the excitement. I guess it was my fault for choosing to move during the holidays! Anyways, hope you all have a great Christmas. Spend time with the people you love and relax. At least do it for me.

I spent 2 joyful days celebrating Christmas with great friends. First we went to Anandia’s first company Christmas party. For those who don’t know what Anandia is, its a jewelry store which specializes in pearls. Go check them out at their web site or visit their store in Newport Beach @ 377 East Coast Highway, Newport Beach, CA 92660. We enjoyed a great dinner from our gracious hosts Eric and Erica at their lovely home in Corona. Not to mention playing Cranium and Set was fun too.

The celebration didn’t end there. We went to our 3rd Annual Christmas party held @ Salya’s place. The place was decorated with the holiday in mind. Enjoyed some food and played a few games. Did our White Elephant gift exchange. That was fun as usually. Especially with the love statue!

Finally my first day of vacation! I didn’t sleep until 6am because of fixing some issues for Drew’s website. It wasn’t his idea to make the fix but I was hell-bent on making the change. Ironically, it didn’t work so I had to rollback all my work before I went to sleep. After I was done “napping” for 6 hours, I was back at it again and finally fixed it.

I ran a couple of errands on my motorcycle and now I’m getting ready to go back to my folks with some boxes of my stuff. I’m glad I have almost 2 weeks to move completely out. This should give me plenty of time.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, one of my friends finally turned the big 3-0. Richy, a long time friend of mine since high school has finally entered his thirties. The celebration was very low-key. Lots of food, lots of company, and then there was poker. I hope he enjoyed the sweater we gave him. We had a blast and his family was very welcoming and accomodating. Thanks man! Hope you had a good one! Its just the beginning of the rest of our lives.

On a side note, I lost $40 there. Was playing completely off my game only because I didn’t really have the “eye of the tiger” and treat it like it was a worthy poker game. I actually felt bad winning but I guess I should really think, they know the risk and so I should play with the want to win. Damn that guilty conscious! I just need another chance to put on a better game. Live and learn.

Ever feel that your life is so disorganized and you don’t know where to start or end? Not a problem if you follow the Getting Things Done (GTD) method. Ever since reading/hearing this book, my life has been more calmer and I’ve actually “gotten things done”. David Allen sure knew what he was talking about when writing this book. Not only have I’ve been productive, I am feeling much less stressed for the last month. I also feel I am using my Palm Tungsten to its full potential using The PigPog method approach to GTD.

GTD gives you a way to collect, process, organize, review, and make choices on what to do. When done correctly, one can unload all their thoughts and ideas in one bucket, whether it being a Palm Tungsten or a sheet of paper. The idea is to have all things that you are stressing over out of your head so that you can deal with it as you go so that you’re not constantly stressing over it. This system allows you to organize and deal with your issues in a calm manner and keep thinking about the next steps for all your tasks. I urge those who feels overwhelmed with all the daily tasks and stress of life to give this a try. I have both the paperback and CD-ROM for those who want to borrow for a read. Please share any ideas you may have. Also visit 43Folders, and entire blog developed because of GTD.

What does December bring besides lazy work days and holiday celebrations? No not gifts. But rather the International Motorcycle Show. Like many other years, this was also held at the Long Beach Convention Center. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to ride there like I had planned last year, but we had fun regardless. We went in the afternoon when it was less crowded. There was arena cross, located at the same venue. We had plenty of time to go through each motorcycle company and vendors across the floors.

We then went to have a small poker game at Drew’s. After the dust settled, I ended up down $12.50. Guess who was the big winner? Yes, my baby with a whopping $50!

On a side note, this photo totally cracks me up!

As many of you may know, I am moving back home with my folks. After 2.5 years of living away why in the world would one do that? I have to admit, I am not looking forward to loosing all the freedom and little fringe benefits I get living away from them. The trade-off is a strategic maneuver for me to maximize my earning potential by not having to pay for rent and paying off my entire student loan and being able to save for my 6 months emergency fund by the same time next year.

This will put me in a great situation where I will be able begin investing or saving for investments which may be very good timing with the all the adjustable rate mortgages expiring next year (330 billion) and 2007 (1 trillion). What does this mean to all the people who haven’t kept up with this possible pop of the housing market? With all the mortgages expiring, we may see the terms of the interest rate to be raised and people not being able to pay their mortgages. Refinancing may not even be a viable option by then with banks setting up stricter requirements and interest rates being higher than before. So by 2007 I should have a some money ready to put a substantial down-payment on foreclosed property. Next step, find a source of foreclosures!

This cult classic movie was on Spike TV today. I remember the first time watching this as a kid and was blown away by the sheer violence and a similar story to alot of the action video games that was made since the 80s. For those who haven’t seen this movie, the Warriors are framed for the killing of a gang leader with other gangs looking out to kill them as they travel through New York City to reach their turf in Coney Island. Even after 25 years, this movie is still great! I’m not the only who thinks this movie is worth a look. They’re remaking the movie, the video game was recently released, and even action figures are seen through-out the Internet. Go Warriors!