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Food glorious food!

12.30.2005
Last night I helped cook for a dinner party for 12 friends including myself. We made Chicken Marsala, garlic mashed potatoes, and steamed lemon-almond buttered broccoli. Everything came out really really good. The first time I have ever made Marsala but it was pretty good! The mashed potatoes I've made before, so those were easy to make. I'm surprised at how easy it was to cook Marsala. A good night and it was fun to see everyone enjoy the cooking.

I've noticed a lot more people saying hi to me. I don't if it's because of my orange hair or not but the frequency with which I am greeted has increased about 10%-20%. Weird.
Posted at 09:20

More car stuff

12.29.2005
So I was thinking more about this yesterday and put my head a little more in reality, and realised that some of the car choices I made yesterday weren't exactly the most pragmatic of picks. The A6 is just way too expensive, and the A3 doesn't really make sense for me because I could get another with more options and a different power train for around the same price. The Outback still remains a good choice, but I'm going to throw out a couple of more options today. First off:

The Audi A4 Avant

This car is much more within my price range. It's not as fancy as the A6 but it'll get the job done.

The next car, which also happens to be another subaru:

The Subuaru Impreza WRX Wagon

This is very similar to the Outback but smaller and with a different engine. That narrows it down to my two potential picks. I'm sure there are other cars out there, but for now these are my main choices.
Posted at 07:57

A new car!

12.28.2005
I want to get a new car. I figured I don't want another SUV because of gas consumption, but I still wanted something big enough that I could haul around stuff in case I needed too. I also wanted an all-wheel drive car just because I like the feeling of having that added stability and control. There aren't many car manufacturers out there that make all-wheel drive cars so my choices were somewhat limited. I have narrowed down my picks to the following though:
The Audi A6 Avant.

It's a stationwagon so it's got the room I want, plus it has all-wheel drive. In addition it's sporty; Stationwagons seem sportier than normal sedans. The A6 also has reasonable gas economy, and it's an Audi so it's a pretty darn nice car. I'm not sure if I could afford something like this, but I'll keep it on the backburner.

The other car I had in mind is very similar to the A6 but a much cheaper alternative:
The Subuaru Outback 2.5XT

I like this car for many of the same reasons as the Audi, but it's about $20k cheaper. I really would love to get the Audi, but I'll probably end up getting the Subaru just because it's cheaper.

Update:

I found another car that has piqued my interest. It's another Audi but cheaper than the Audi A6 Avant:
The Audi A3 Sportback

Spiffy!
Posted at 08:20

Thoughts

12.27.2005
My relationship with my mum has been sort of strenuous although it hasn't always been like that. When I was a kid I was attached to my mum mostly because I didn't like my dad. However after my dad died I became more distant from her. I'm not exactly sure why, and I know I'm not qualified to perform any self-analysis as to why. In any case by the time I had left home I wasn't exactly sad to leave. The next few years were hard on our relationship because I wanted to distance myself emotionally and physically from my mum. I wasn't really tolerant of my mum which put added strain on our relationship because I would tend to lash out at her for little things that I found wrong with her or things that she was doing. Again I'm still not exactly sure why, but even now I'm still not as close to my mum as perhaps I should be. I haven't been the best son, but I'm trying to get over my own hangups and learning to become more communicative and more "sonly." I realized that she's the only mum I have, so I have to learn how to appreciate my mum more and treat her better much better than I have treated her in the past. I really have to learn to appreciate what I have in front of me.
Posted at 21:56

Good to be back

Ran a bit today for the first time in a couple of weeks. I only did 3 miles though I still felt few aches and pains but nothing too bad. What had me struggling a bit was my cough and sniffly nose which I picked up from having the flu, but it was nice to get out there and run again though. I'm probably going to start my training again come early January, however until then I'm just going to do some light running to keep my cardio capacity up. I'm going to the gym later today for the first time in what seems like forever. I'm going to do some leg exercises that I've been neglecting for a while. There are some weak spots in my legs that I want to strengthen, so I can get rid of some imbalances.
Posted at 15:00

Blond, well not exactly

It's sort of blond here















It's more red in this picture than anything else. That guy beside me is one of the many inanimate friends I made why I was in Hawaii.


















Here's me with a clownish sort of fellow. I think his name was Rupert? I think Allie there on the right just wanted her head to be floating in the picture.
Posted at 09:51

The Itch

12.23.2005
I sure hope I recover from this flu pretty soon because I want to get back to running and exercising. I haven't done anything in a couple of weeks. I've made a decision as to what my next marathon will be:

Avenue of the Giants

This is up in Humboldt and takes place May 7th, 2006. This should give me plenty of time to rev up for this one. I'm going to try and break 3:10 here. Hell if I give it my all maybe I could break 3:00...
Posted at 09:32

Hawaii 05: Oahu and Maui will never be the same again...

Posted at 06:58

I'll have more photos up on flickr soon, but in the meantime...

12.21.2005



Posted at 10:06

*cough*

Well I'm stuck at home sick. When I got back from Hawaii on Saturday I already had a headache, but by midday I was feeling woozy and had a bit of a fever. Sunday was worse, but Monday I felt a tad better, so I went to work. I made it through the day and got news of my promotion. Aw yeah! I also think my best bud Jon got a promotion too, because we got the same percentage raise increase. Although my old boss didn't make it quite clear to Jon if had gotten a promotion. I hadn't had left my old department neither of us would have received the equity raises we were given as they would have been split between us as opposed to being given seperately. My new boss also said that the equity raise he gave me was seperate from the merit raises we'll be receiving next year starting January. I'll finally pay off the last bit of my credit card, and I can start knocking off bigger chunks from my student loan. Debt-free-land here I come! Hopefully in a couple of years I can start thinking about buying a condo or townhouse.

Well back to me being sick. Tuesday was a bad bad day. I woke up feeling like ass and felt like ass for the majority of the day. I was seriously delirious yesterday morning and was having odd dreams about food on pillows with tails that kept on floating away when I tried to get near them. Combine that with a bad case of the chills and I was in bad shape. I eventually managed to pull myself out of bed, take a shower and some medicine, eat some breakfast, and then head to the store for some chicken soup and some herbal teas. The soups and teas helped enough that my fever finally broke late yesterday evening. I'm feeling somewhat better today, but I still have the aches, a headache, and a minor case of the chills. I'm also starting to develop a cough. I love being sick. I want to exercise dammit!

So this is Christmas?
Posted at 09:31

I'm a senior!

12.19.2005
I just got a promotion. I'm now a Senior R & D Engineer.
Posted at 13:10

random photos

12.18.2005

Posted at 11:03

Nice boat...

12.17.2005
 
I just got back from vacation... Posted by Picasa
Posted at 13:36

The time is wrong!

12.07.2005

cal_2
Originally uploaded by manjingo.
My chip time was 20 seconds faster than that! Oh well. Boy was I in pain.
Posted at 17:05

My new driver's license


driver_before_after
Originally uploaded by manjingo.
You think I should write a book or something?
Posted at 15:21

Will I have more fun?

12.06.2005
I'm going blond. Ha!
Posted at 12:48

In the Bag

12.05.2005
~3 hours 28 minutes. Aw yeah.

Update
Here are the official times:

Half: 1:36:04
Chip Final: 3:28:47
Pace: 0:07:59
Final: 3:29:12
Posted at 06:33

Something new

12.02.2005
Well I finally caved and bought a new cell phone. It's not that my current cell phone is bad, it's just that my contract was up and I wanted to switch to a new plan. Consequently I thought I'd upgrade my phone in the process.

Out with the old:


In with the new:


Note: Phones displayed at actual size...
Posted at 08:10

Sweet


I guess missed this watch over the Thanksgiving break. This might actually make me consider getting a GPS watch considering its small form factor:



I'd get this watch just because it looks friggin' sweet:



Yeah I'm a watch geek.
Posted at 08:00

Can I run yet?

I'm going out of my mind and body because I'm so anxious to run. I only got to run a mile yesterday. I need to do something!!!
Posted at 07:51

I am the Alpha!

12.01.2005
I went to go running this morning with some people, but no one showed up so I just went to work early instead. I'll get to run later on today guaranteed anyway. Well I get into work to take a shower and notice that someone has put their boxers on a hook on which I usually put my towel. There's a guy in the shower and his stuff strewn all over the place so I immediately think they're his boxers. I start to get territorial in my mind and wonder who the hell does this guy think he is taking my freaking hook? That's been my space for ages! Of course he has no idea that it's "my" hook.

Well I get in the shower, but when I get out the other guy is still in the other shower stall. I don't know how long this guy was in that stall before I got in the shower room, but he'd been in there at least 10 minutes by the time I got out of my shower. It wasn't until I was half dressed that he finally stepped out. Well before that I began to mark my territory again. First I put my running junk on one hook adjacent to the boxer and then put my towel on two hooks directly above said boxers partially covering them. If this were on Animal Planet, I'd have been pissing or rubbing up against some tree.


Well the other guy eventually gets out of the other shower stall, and I sort of watch him out of the corner of my eye to see if he grabs the boxers on the hook but he doesn't. My ire then became directed at whoever put the boxer there in the first place. I wanted to mark my territory a bit more by putting my gym bag under a bench which was under where I had put all my other stuff. However the other guy's stuff was still all there, so no pissing for me. I just went to my locker and put my bag in there. I'm going back in there later today to change again, so I'll see if the boxers have been removed or changed location to make sure I properly marked my area.

See I realize I could have moved my stuff to some other hook but it's the principal and I was a bit sleepy and cranky.

Update

When I went back in the boxers had moved to a different hook. I had successfully marked my territory and all was right in the world once again.
Posted at 07:20