Tuesday, February 19, 2008

President's Day Weekend

What an action packed weekend!!

Fri night was kooza..

On Saturday -- bridesmaid dress fittings with Sherry n Margaret, dinner with my family for my cousin Russel's bday and belated Chinese New Years... and then we celebrated Roel's bday at Poleng Lounge.

Sunday -- I was able to catch up on some z's... and we got dinner with linda, kelvin, wendy, dom for linpin's bday.

On Monday, I shot a fun and artsy shoot of LinPin in downtown San Jose.!

Check out some pix!

Family Dinner


the whole fam, plus one of my best friends margaret


Ryan, me, and bday boy Russ

Roel's Bday at Poleng Lounge



Happy bday roel!!


The girls


me n my jt


me, sherry, n kat



My big brother!

Photoshoot...


We got Linda's crazy hair n crazy makeup done at the mall hehehehe.. more pix to come.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

vday post part #2



GERVAIS in Saratoga was awesome.. My fav was def my entree... It was something I've never had before... a filet mignon with mushroom and spinach around it IN a puff pastry... and sauce around it. Seriously the best combo eVER. It came with potato gratin on the side and some veggies. DELISH.



Last night, we went to KOOZA - which means 'box' in sanskrit. I loved how creative they were with the circus in a box theme...



Friday, February 15, 2008

My Top Five Favorite American Idols!



Yay! It's American Idol season -- I think this season has some of the BEST talent. =) Very exciting. Here are my top 5 favs. I hope they all make it to the top 10!

Ramiele Malubay



David Archuleta


Syesha Mercado



Kady Malloy



Brook White


Who are your favorites???

Happy Valentine's Day!

JT and I had a delicious dinner last night at a French restaurant called Gervais in Saratoga. I will post pix of it later.

~~

JT and I did a TFP (Trade for Prints) engagement/portfolio shoot with Tiny Water Photography a couple months ago... Here are some of my fav shots:


coffee and JT. two of my fav things in the world in one pic! awesome!


That's me enjoying my coffee buzz and love buzz. ahahhaa (corny eh?)


hehehe I love how the little girl is running past. There were a couple of kids running through for fun while we were shooting. Caroline is pretty awesome to have caught the moment so well.


lovely shot!


hahahah JT is such a silly head. I love it!

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Unclaimed Money!

So I got a letter from Pettinato & Associates informing me about about some unclaimed cash. I was skeptical about the letter, and decided to look it up online where I found this other blog entry about it... and it turns out, I really do have unclaimed salary/wages from my internship at Grey Global way back in 2004... woohoo. Over a thousand bucks that I didn't know I had.

So I found out you can look up any unclaimed cash or unclaimed property you are entitled to at the California State Treasurer’s website. You can download forms from their site and simply follow their instructions to claim your cash.

Here is the link:
http://www.sco.ca.gov/col/ucp/aboutucp.shtml

Search here: http://scoweb.sco.ca.gov/UCP/

You should definitely check it out! I randomly checked up some of my friends and found out that quite a few people I know also have unclaimed money!

Check it out.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Happy Bday Han Hong!

Happy bday to the one and only Han Hong who beats everyone at ugly dancing. Love ya!


What a dorko!












work it baby, work it!


Han's soulja boy dance. hahaha

More pics can be found on my flickr site.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

here comes my second wind...

After sitting around with my unfinished website for nearly two years now -- I finally decided that it's time to get back into the groove of things and really start cranking it out. I had said this many years before -- having a website somehow keeps me grounded, reminds me who I am, where I came from, and where I want to be. It helps me to be much more inclined to hold myself accountable for the things I promise to accomplish.

I guess I stopped updating my site since so much was going on... with my millions of jobs, then traveling, then buying the house and moving, and fixing up the house.... Things are finally starting to get a bit more comfortable...

...but comfortable is not what I'm striving for.. comfort is just what allows me to go and reach out for newer and richer experiences. I just hope that every year can be even more exciting and eventful than the last.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Las Tunas ramen place

Last time JT and I went down to LA, we found a little ramen house on Las Tunas that was sooo yummy.

They had the BEST enoki wrapped in beef..


Here's the view from my side of the table... jt looks 'fierce' ahhaha... I like making him pose for me.


Then I made him switch spots with me so I could get a shot of him looking 'dreamy'


Here's me:


and the yummy red bean mochi dessert we shared

Friday, January 11, 2008

Em moves to Seattle...

Sometimes it feels like life moves at a million miles an hour... I still can't believe Em moved to Seattle!

This is us the night before she left for the windy city for one last girls' night out...



We pounded down some lemon drops, Em called some guys douche bags, and then we called it a night hehe

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Happy New Year!

Sherry & David, Margaret & Spark came over to celebrate the new year. It was a fun chill night of yummy food, poker, and then wii games. =)

Good times. I'm so happy I was able to ring in the new year with some of my nearest and dearest.

Here's me n sherry gettin buzzed before diggin in to our feast =P



It's gonna be an amazing year.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Cleaning out the closet!!

I am an employee of an eBay company. Please click here to see the standards of conduct I must honor: http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/empl-agreement.html.
~~~~

Check out my ebay listings!

I've been cleaning out the closet, and have sold numerous goodies for great prices! Maybe you can find something you like?

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Ouchie!

Yesterday, at the eBay gym -- I was showing Linda how I couldn't do a single real push-up.

OK, actually -- It's worse than that. I can't even do a half push up... you know the kind where you're on your knees instead of your feet.

YA... so sad! WEAK! So I attempted to do ONE, and basically what happens is once I get down, I can't get back up... I think I just don't have any muscles there. =(

I attempted a couple times after that... and still no such luck. I'm freakin weak when it comes to upper body strength.

So today, a day after that work out, my freakin armpit muscles (I think they're called the subscapularis) were killing me!



I've realized that I don't think I've really ever had to work that muscle ... which explains what I like to call my "armpit fat" issue. hehehe No matter how fit i get, from running or the elliptical machine or bikram yoga or whatever.... I always have a stubborn pocket of fat in my armpit area. grrrr!

Ok..time to start attempting push-ups more often! My goal for the new year? Be able to do 3 REAL pushups! HAHAHAHA, sounds lame but I'm serious.

Not trying to get buff or anything, just wanna see if I can fix a problem spot!

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Thunder Valley Casino Print Ad

This was a fun gig =) paid well too.





-s

A sweet photo session with Wendy and Alan

Just to give an intro to this post -

After so many years of being on the other side of the camera (as a model), and also producing and art directing shoots -- I decided I'd give photography a shot. I got myself a brand new Canon EOS 5D a few months ago....and I LOoooooVE it. So I've taken on photography as my new hobby. For those of you who know me, know that I take my hobbies seriously. So be prepared to see some more awesome stuff. Below are some of my favorite pics from my very first shoot ever as a photographer. My friends Wendy and Alan graciously agreed to be my very first subjects and they were SOOO awesome!!! I have some more shoots lined up with friends this month, but if you're interested in modeling for me -- let me know!

~~~
On Sunday, I spent the morning with my buddies Wendy and Alan. We drove around their neighborhood in Pleasanton and got some amazing shots. Checkout my favorite images from our shoot below. *the first and last scenery images were taken from online pix just to add a nice effect to my image slide. The rest were all shot by me!

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Hairstyles for the BIG day

I've decided on going with a half-up do with a headpiece (not a crown tiara, but a nice headband type thingie). Here are some pictures I've found for inspiration. Also posted on my flickr.

The basic look - soft curls, very natural looking... I love that this look is very elegant in an effortless way


Very basic, but I like how the hair weaves the headpiece in


Modern half-up - love the slight poof in her up part.


Half-up with flowers


Half-up with headband


Formal Half-up with tighter curls


Let me know what you think!

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Monday, October 29, 2007

An action-packed weekend

I celebrated three birthdays over the weekend and then relaxed all day today. Here are some highlights:

Han and Elaine did an amaaaazing job throwing Em a red, white, and black cocktail party at Han's pad in the city. There were cute little appetizers, a chocolate fountain with an assortment of fruits and cakes, and cosmos of course. Em - the young-un... is FINALLY 25 which means we're officially ALL old now.


Diana, me, em, and kat
Happy bday EM!

My hair is extra curly cuz I got this new curling iron that is soo intense..and JT curled my hair for me. hehehe awww =) my own personal hair styler.

Check out the rest of the pics from em's bday on my flikr site.

Around midnight, Linda, JT, and I headed over to Suede where James was celebrating his bday too. JT and I put on our dorky animal beanies, and Linda got into full sailor costume (soooo cute!)


Happy Bday James! (more pix here)

On Sat, I woke up bright and early and headed back into the city for my first time wedding dress shopping!! It was suuuper fun -- met up with Em, Han, and Margaret, and went to 4 boutiques. I won't be posting pix here, cuz my dress will definitely have to be a surprise for everyone besides my bridesmaids and mom!

After a long day of shopping, I met up with JT and we headed over to Berkeley and met up with my buddy Eddy from the dorms. We chilled out at Bear's Lair for Eddy's first ever chill birthday.. had some beers, and hung out with some old friends.



Friday, October 26, 2007

Bomb in Fremont

UPDATE: My neighbor was definitely making bombs!!
I just read this article: http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_7319756

I'm really glad they were caught before anything serious happened.

~~~~

UPDATE: They arrested 45 year-old Fremont resident Steven Gilbuena and 29-year-old Yvonne Zuniga in connection with recently discovered explosives...

What I read in one article on insidebayarea.com:

Picking up shards of glass from the driveway, John Gilbuena, the suspect's older brother, told the Mercury News that his brother was no mad bomber, but a 'tinkerer" - an electrician and auto mechanic - who drove around with his latest invention in his car: a boxed, wired-up device intended to turn on household devices by making a cell phone call.


It's really hard to know what REALLY went down...and whether or not the police went overboard in all of this blowing out the windows and doors of the house business... But I do think after knowing arrests were made and devices were detonated -- I feel that it's safe to go home tonight.

However, if it was blown out of proportion and the devices were truly harmless attempts at an invention -- then my heart really goes out the suspects in question who were arrested.

My brother goes jogging in the neighborhood quite often and has seen the couple who live at that house. He said they just looked like normal people hanging out in the front with their little pet dog.

So I think it'd be terribly sad if they were just a couple trying to make something of themselves. If they were truly misunderstood for simply being innovative... I think it would be a real shame.

What kind of message does this send out? I think it tells people: Don't go around trying to invent anything on your own or you might be mistaken as a bomb-maker!

It seems as though it can be risky for every day people (mechanical engineers, mechanics, or whoever) who are working on any inventions that happen to look like intricate devices... Even if they are found innocent, I'm sure people will not look at them the same way, and I'm sure it won't be easy for them to rent ever again!

It makes me wonder: Is this some kind of media propaganda that's meant to discourage people to try out their own inventions?

My hopeful thinking is that there must have been some kind of substantial evidence that these devices were indeed explosive... or maybe an annonymous tip?

~~~~



Just thought I would share this interesting story – if you haven't heard about it in the news already.

I wasn't able to go home last night because our neighborhood was evacuated. A man was caught with an explosive device in his car in San Jose – and he turned out to be our neighbor who lives two houses down from us!

http://cbs5.com/local/local_story_298183655.html

My brother is in this video being interviewed! He was at the house eating lunch at the time the neighborhood was evacuated.



They searched the house with a robot all night and had to detonate two devices – people were finally allowed back at 4:30am.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

eBay Neighborhoods Launch!

eBay Neighborhoods has launched, and I have to give kudos to the 'hoods' team for their awesome work!!


Check it out and hang out at your fav Neighborhood…

http://neighborhoods.ebay.com

Here is the buzz from the street...
Mashable
"The best thing about Neighborhoods is the centralized manner in which you can find products related to the group type."
http://mashable.com/2007/10/09/ebay-neighborhoods/

Techcrunch
"Visually, the neighborhood pages are an improvement from the bare-bones utility I normally associate with eBay....What would really be smart would be if eBay allowed anyone to easily take any module on a neighborhood page—the reviews, the visual product search, the discussions, or the eBay blog posts—and embed them on other Web pages like Facebook, MySpace, or their blogs."

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/09/ebay-launches-shopping-social-networks/

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Some new pics

Uploaded a few pix from the JT concert this past weekend here






and some of our Maui pix here





Monday, September 24, 2007

Getting rid of some old DVDs... on eBay

Over the weekend, I decided to do some Fall cleaning, and listed 17 DVDs on eBay from my old DVD collection: http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/sandswirl

A good number of these DVDs are completely new and still in the shrink wrap. Just in case you're wondering why the selection is so random, a lot of them are from back when I did entertainment PR, or from when I worked for Warner Bros. Online. Some were gifts, or duplicates from combining my dvd collection w/ JT's.

If you're interested, please go and bid! =) All the auctions are ending in just 4 days, and you can win the auction for as little as 99 cents. If you live close, I can even drop it off at your house and waive the shipping costs. Just want to reduce clutter at my new place. Thanks.