Month: March 2005

The birthday boys with their party hats.

Go Donald Go!

Hooray! He’s home! Let’s see… On Friday, Vince went to school and had pizza day and I went to the a coffee clatch given by a German’s expat’s wife Annette. Annette has two kids, Ben and Henry. She usually hosts this coffee on Friday, I went a few weeks ago. Patricia, Zilka and Jackie were also there. It was such a wonderful time, we talked about our families and our kids and our trips and nude beaches and the kids all played wonderfully with each other.

Then I drove to Bard. That night, we tried to go to a Habitat for Humanity fundraiser at the Bard Student center, but they were giving out free food and the line was waaayyy tooo long. So Vince got a bag of Doritos and we went back to the Martin’s house for dinner.

This morning, Bob and Vince took the doggies for a walk to get the newspaper. When they got to the spot where the newspaper is delivered, it wasn’t there. They waited for a little while and they were about to turn back, but then the truck came by and the driver threw the paper out. Vince was very impressed. Bob left for NYC to hear cellists audition for the conservatory and Katherine and the kids and I went to the mall and bought some socks for the kids. Man, those socks disappear really, really quickly. I always seem to need to buy more. We had lunch at the food court. Then we went home and read stories and I left at 2 pm. Came back home and waited for Jeremy to come home (he got a ride from Bob). Emy came up too and is spending the night here in our apt. Tomorrow we are going to celebrate Bob, Vince and Edda’s birthday. I baked a chocolate-sour cream cake, we’ll see how it turned out tomorrow.

Yesterday, I saw the copper bowl that Donald made. It is great, especially with initials. I have to do more taxes and can not blog too much. Hope, Jeremy, gets a bottle of tax free German ice wine on the plane.

When I decided to visit Doris last week, work was pretty slow. That was why I drove off to see them before they are leaving for overseas. I thought the work load might drips, drips and drops to a complete stop. But, work is picking up again now. Part of it is due to re-analysis with revised input.

Well, I will submit a request for 3 weeks vacation without pay later this month. Hopefully, they will extend my job after that. But, not sure. If not, I will collect my un-employment insurance in Washington State for 6 months. But, hopefully, I will have something before that. If not, I will cook for Mom for 6 months with help from Mom & Doris before looking for another job. Doris showed me some of her cook books and a lot of ingredients from her pantry while I was in NY.

Do you folks still remember Ms. Pan? Our in-house keeper while you were young. She is a realtor. She is around Deerwood area and is asking, thru one of our common friends, whether we will sell our house or not yesterday. I told her friend not now.

Oh, the mediation session by the Maryland State will be held on Monday, March 21 in Baltimore.

This morning, I got on two more weight machines and walk “2 miles/30 mins/200 cals”. Right now, I am on total of 4 weight machines and more to follow.

I am leaving around 8:40 AM to see Mom. Everything is ready and hope the snow will not affect the trip. Cannot wait for Mom’s food.

Vince’s birthday was nice. I dropped him off at school with his supplies and when I picked him us, Ms. Pat said that he had a nice day and that he had fun.

In the afternoon, we went to Bard and met Alex Cook who was up at Bard giving a talk on the Gang of Four. Started learning Chinese in college and now he says that he reads a lot of text in Chinese, but since he doesn’t really speak it to anyone, he’s forgetting how a lot of it is pronounced. He’s married to a woman who writes for Glamour magazine. I asked if that makes his life more glamourous and he said no, that his wife gets invited to stuff, but usually he stays home.

Today, we went to see Eileen, Bob’s assistant at Bard. We haven’t seen her in a long, long time. It was a lot of fun hanging out with her. She is such a cool person and she lets Vince go to the Thomas the Tank Engine web site to play games. Shhhh…. Don’t tell Vince you can get it on any computer. Only Eileen’s computer.

I will be with Mom this weekend. My tickets were the cheapest ones. It took me to everywhere that you might imagine. This time, Friday noon time, Pittsburgh to Newark, there to Seattle and then to Richland. The forecast is for snow in the NE and Pittsburgh. Well, should be okay and hope there will be no delays.

This weekend is our tax time. Getting very complicated. A lot of States and a lot of something else. Need to wrap up before going to our 3 weeks trips (April 16th -> May 7th) with friends in Las Vegas. Also, need to get and mail birthday card & gift to Donald. Donald, what do you prefer? Please just let us know, besides a dinner for 4, traditionally. Hope, at least, one of them is a lady 🙂

Will get back by red-eye flight on Sunday evening. Also bring back dumplings, duck and may be turkey. Oh, good stuffs! BTW, Doris’ cooking is also marvelous. Donald, don’t eat out while in NY.

I am still here, kind of not hating my work. This temp work keeps bringing back a lot of memories of 20 years ago during the hayday of this industry. Funny.

But, the Atlanta’s one is still there. No decision and pending. North Caroline, the support manager job requisition was postponed due to client’s $$$ issue. The other day, I got a phone call that, in Oklahoma, a company is looking for someone. Too bad, the compensation was not as good. But, just in case, if I want to pay my bills without other options and tour the continent, I may take it. Getting pays to see places is not that bad. Right? Since I always like to be close to Mom, so sometimes ago, I applied for a IT support personnel position in Oregon. Guess what, I got a reply saying that I did not qualify to their minimum requirements. It was in black and white and typed in a written letter, with a hand written signature. What a insult! I almost jumped to the phone and called this fellow :(–>

Well, from time to time, I hopped on the machine and looked for opportunities. And as I said “Keep Looking and Smile a Lot”, no matter what. All I need is just one. And one is enough, at least, for the time being.

Bottom line, I still would like to work at least a couples of months a year to pay my bills and be with your Mom 🙂

I am going to check out the spelling option. I saw the ABC thing and it should be very helpful for me. I am very bad in spelling and I am even worse in typing. Daddy is my dictionary. His spelling is excellent. So is his typing. When we were dating in Taiwan. We went to grandpa’s office. Grandpa wanted to type a letter. I volunteered to type ( I was learning how to type at that time and very happy to show my skill!). I was very nervus and finally, daddy typed this letter.

The ABC spelling check deos not work.