I met my prince charming an @sshole

I found a coupon code for eHarmony which got me a 3-month subscription for only $29.99! This is a crazy good deal because the usual cost is $59.99 for ONE month!! I'm about 2 months into the subscription now, and I've only communicated with two guys. One guy I just started "open communication" with today. The other guy, the prince charming, named Todd initiated communication with me on Labor Day. I wasn't sure that I'd be attracted to him based on his pictures, but we emailed back and forth during that week and even talked on the phone one night for 2 hours! He was funny and we obviously had enough in common to have easy conversation for 2 hours. He asked me out for that Friday night. I accepted, and we went to the San Francisco Giants game.

I had fun, and he was nice and funny, but totally cheesy. Sometimes that's good, but sometimes it's annoying. And good Lord, it was TOTALLY obvious that he thought I was hot and he was like so lucky to be out with me. haha. Very odd for me because that never happens to me. When we first met at the train station, he came up and he was grinning from ear to ear and he was like, "It's nice to meet you." I was waiting to pay for my parking, so I said "it's nice to meet you too" then he repeated it. And after I paid, we walked away from the pay station and he said it AGAIN. and continued grinning like an idiot. And then I said, "You wanna say it again?" He knew I was joking cause we'd joked on the phone and via email.

Then on the train ride there were no open seats so we had to stand. He kept staring at me, smiling, and he continued to all night. It's nice he thought that I'm so gorgeous, but seriously, calm the frick down and stop staring at me. Oh, and I was 100% not attracted to him.

When we were walking to the stadium he told me that I look great, and then as we were walking up the stairs to our seats, he was walking behind me and said, "Yeah. You definitely look great" (as in he was checking out my ass). I was annoyed - definitely not cool for a first date. I'm looking for someone with a little more class. So I stepped into an aisle, turned around and said, "Excuse me?!" and motioned for him to walk ahead of me.

When we were sitting and watching the game, he kept trying to touch me... touched my knee a couple times when I was joking and said something stupid and then put his arm around me for a quick side hug when I realized in the 8th inning that BOTH teams (not just the Giants) were wearing red hats (in honor of 9/11).

On the train ride home we ended up in seats facing each other and he continued to stare at me. At one point I said, "What?" and said, "I'm just looking at you." Awkward! When we were parting ways he said, "So maybe I'll see you again soon?" and I said, "Maybe." and he was like, "Oh? Well, I guess if I ask right!"

But, I did have fun, so it wasn't a total loss.

I didn't hear from him that weekend, so I thought I'd gotten off easy. Nope... Wednesday night I got an email from him:

Subject: Hiya

From: Todd

To: Julie

Hi Julie,

I was left with the vibe that you weren't really into me (if I'm wrong, let me know) and since I haven't heard from you, I figure that was what was going on, but I wanted to thank you again for coming out to meet me. I did have a good time. :-)

~Todd

*********************************************

From: Julie

To: Todd

Hi Todd,

I did have a good time as well, but I did not feel any chemistry. Thank you for the fun evening! Best of luck to you in your search.

Julie

*********************************************

From: Todd

To: Julie

You're welcome. As a helpful hint, it's nice to show thanks on the date, or offer to pay something for the evening (especially if you didn't feel chemistry).

~T.

*********************************************

From: Julie

To: Todd

I'm sorry you didn't notice, but I did say thank you multiple times during the evening. And you didn't really allow me an opportunity to pay for anything as you paid for the game tickets and train tickets before I arrived, and then made the offer to get the food on your own. I'd be happy to send you money to cover my portion of the evening. Just let me know what your address is and how much it was.

And as long as we're offering helpful hints, try not to make your date uncomfortable by staring at her or making comments that she looks great while you're walking behind her (and obviously commenting on her ass).

*********************************************

Seriously?!?!? RUDE!!!

Here's hoping you are either in a relationship or don't have to encounter a loser like this in your dating adventures!

Peace and love.

J

Where has the time gone?

Wow! I haven't posted in 20 days! I didn't realize it had been that long! Sorry folks. I am alive, but things are crazy. We had month-end and quarter-end stuff at work that kept me busy so I couldn't be web surfing or blogging. And because we implemented a new accounting system at work on July 1, I have continued to be extremely busy. I have people stopping by my desk ALL day long, so I try to keep work-related stuff up on my monitor. ;-)

I also went to Las Vegas over the 4th of July weekend. I did a LOT of partying and was intoxicated three nights in a row, so I was exhausted all of last week. (And with all the calories I consumed in Vegas between the buffet, the numerous drinks, and the late night/early morning pizza binges, I only gained a half a pound as of last week's Wednesday weigh-in!!! I was pretty damn proud of myself! But the weigh-in wench made her comment AGAIN. I finally gave her a piece of my mind - told her I didn't appreciate it and it was only a half a pound. She better not say anything to me tomorrow or she'll get another piece of my mind, although hopefully tomorrow the scales will tell me I'm a loser!) I fell asleep (way earlier than usual) on the couch every night last week. Now I'm caught up on sleep, but thanks to physical therapy on my shoulder, I've been in quite a bit of pain. The pain is so bad that I took 800mg of ibuprofen and a muscle relaxant, and I STILL felt it. And pain makes me very cranky. And when I'm cranky I don't want to do anything, including blog. So there's that.

Hopefully I'll be back to my usual self soon. I know you're all riveted to your feed readers waiting for me to post something witty. hahaha.

Peace and love.
J

Question on posting photos

Do any of you have advice for posting photos with Blogger?

The only thing I've found so far is uploading my photos to Photobucket.com and then using the generated HTML code to post photos here. I tried Flickr, but the photos were too large and I could only include one photo per blog post.

Please share how you post photos on your blog.

Thanks!

Peace and love.
J

Stumble Upon

I love the internet and all of its vast amazing-ness. My life would be so boring without it.

Have you ever heard of StumbleUpon? It's a plug-in for your browser that adds a toolbar with a Stumble! button. Just click the Stumble! button and you'll be taken to a random website. Rate the websites you stumble to (thumbs up or thumbs down) in order for the application to learn what your interests are so that you StumbleUpon sites that are of interest to you (and you don't end up on some dumb WWE site). There are also "Channels" so you can Stumble for only images or videos or within networks like Flickr, Wikipedia, Blogspot, CNN, Youtube, universities, US government sites, The Onion, etc.

I think my Dad is the one who told me about this a few years ago or perhaps it came with Firefox when I downloaded it. Either way, I've had it on my browser for a few years, but haven't used it much. Out of the blue of couple weeks ago I started getting emails from StumbleUpon with "Recommended Environment Sites" for me. I'm a little perplexed as to why they just started emailing me weekly, and why the email says "environment sites"... very few of the sites in the weekly emails are actually related to the environment. Regardless, I've found some pretty cool sites via StumbleUpon (and some extremely strange and random sites), so if you're bored and want to explore all the treasures that the internet has to offer, start Stumbling! And if you want to add me as your friend, I'm Jlkmustang.

Peace and love.
J

Meme (I so hate that word)

I think the word meme is annoying. I don't know why. I just think it's ugly.

I'm taking this meme from Kori. 7 random/weird things about myself:

1. I can't chew minty gum. It makes me nauseated. I also can't chew gum for more than about 3 minutes. I just have to spit it out.

2. I hate sandwiches. No idea why. I just do. The only sandwiches I'll eat are turkey or pastrami from Togo's. At Subway I'll only get the pastrami. Togo's is my favorite. I don't like Subway, but I do like that they have olives. Togo's doesn't.

3. Apparently it's really weird that I haven't seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies. I just don't care to. I prefer action movies and comedies over sci-fi.

4. My joints are "shallow and loose" according to an orthopedic surgeon. My knee-caps have dislocated since I was in third grade. In 10th grade I dislocated my shoulder after falling on the ski slopes. Now it's loose and has dislocated when I rolled.over.in.bed!! LAME! My knees have been pretty stable for a couple years, so I hope they stay that way! Dislocation is seriously the most traumatic thing I've ever been through. It is PAINFUL. I was very close to going into shock when my shoulder popped out in bed. I was nauseated and almost blacked out.

5. I am a total freak about spelling and grammar. I could NEVER date or marry a man who is a bad speller. Shallow, I know. I also correct people's grammar when they're speaking, and apparently people don't exactly appreciate that.

6. I am hyper-aware of my surroundings. I always notice if someone drops something or if they leave something behind, and I'm the nice kind of person who will let you know. But at the same time, my hyper-awareness is annoying to people. Just the other day my friend (a guy) hocked a loogey in my presence and I said, "Wow. That was sexy." and he said, "Gah, why do you have to notice EVERY single little thing?!" (But in my opinion hocking a loogey is way more annoying that me saying, "that was sexy." LOL)

7. I LOVE office supplies and well organized spreadsheets. Yes, I'm a nerd. I love accounting and auditing. I'm so lucky to have discovered it at a young age and to have had the opportunity and the brains to get into a good school that helped launch me into the workforce. :)

Peace and love.
J

Hilarious websites!

Thanks to the 2008 Weblog Award nominations I have found two awesomely hilarious websites:
mymomisafob.com
mydadisafob.com

For those of you who don't know, FOB stands for "fresh off the boat". Growing in up in very multicultural San Jose, I've been familiar with this term for quite a while. Some people feel that the term is derogatory, but my friends (as well as the website creators) use it tongue-in-cheek.

I've been reading through the sites all afternoon, and this is my favorite so far.

Enjoy!

My secret life on the Internet

(I’m a complete moron because I’m putting off studying for the CPA exam, which I’m taking in LESS THAN 36 HOURS!, to update my blog. If I fail this exam, I blame the Internet.)

I feel like I’ve climbed the next rung in the popularity ladder. Since being commenter number 4 on dooce.com’s post yesterday, my readership had more than doubled! Yes, I went from 2 known readers, to FIVE! (Hi new readers, Jen, Sassy and Julie!) That is, if I still have my 2 previous readers. (Hi Salome and The Pope!) I wouldn’t blame them if they stopped coming by my blog since I don’t post very frequently. (I suck.)

Anyway… on to the details of my secret life… I have probably only told three or four of my real life friends that I write a blog, and I bet money they all forgot because none of them ever make comments on or about my blog. It feels like this blog is my little secret, and I have all these secret Internet friends that no one else knows about.

I think blogs are AWESOME! because they allow us to make acquaintance with people all over the world. It’s super cool how many people have blogs, and how we all support and related to each other. And that leads me to wonder, if everyone I’ve “met” here in the blogosphere are so awesome and kind, who the hell are these people out on the roads who honk, swear, and make obscene hand gestures? Ya know what I’m saying? Maybe not, because I live in LA, and some of you probably don’t. But geez, it seems like getting into a car just transforms anyone into an angry asshole. Enough with that tangent… I love connecting with people all over the country and the world via the blogosphere, but a lot of my friends and co-workers thinks it’s weird that I write a blog and that I love to read so many other people’s blogs. They’re like, if you don’t actually know that person, why would you want to read their blog?

Funny story – I turned my friend/co-worker June on to Dooce.com because I had saved a picture of Chuck (the dog) balancing Dr. Seuss books on his head as my desktop background on my work computer. She approached me the other day and said, “I’ve been reading your friend Heather’s blog everyday for a few months now. She’s funny!” I laughed and said, “Heather? I don’t know anyone named Heather.” She replied, “Dooce.com!” And I laughed, “Oh, she’s not my actual friend, I just found her blog on the Internet on day.”

I wish I could quit my job and just read blogs all day. There are seriously so many witty, creative, well-written, artistic people in this world. It is awesome, and I LOVE the Internet for bringing this to light and facilitating the sharing of our talents. So inspiring.

Now if only my friends and family would get with the program, and stop calling me a computer nerd! :-/

peace & love.
J

In retrospect, that wasn’t a very exciting, well-written, or cohesive post, but give me a break, I’m brain dead from studying for this exam!

Depressed

Last night I found the blog of Matt Logelin (www.mattlogelin.com) who lives in LA. His gorgeous wife, Liz, passed away in March, just 27 hours after giving birth to their little girl, Madeline, who was 7 weeks pre-mature and weighed 3 lbs 14 oz. He writes each night about what he and his daughter did that day. It's so sweet and beautiful, but at the same time horribly, horribly sad and painful. His posts made me cry multiple times last night and today. I couldn't access the site at work, so I read it after work. I've read all his entries up to today. And after I finished reading, I almost felt sick like throwing up. I was so sad and I feel like I know his wife now and I'm so so so terribly sad for him. There's that saying - "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." I don't know if that's true. I've never loved (romantically, that is), and I feel like I'd rather keep it that way than fall in love and lose him. It's so oppressively devastating!

So I was at home, sad, but I had told my cousin Marcy I'd come over to her place tonight as she was having a "going away" BBQ of sorts. On Sunday she's leaving for Africa for the summer. I really did not feel like going. I took a nap for probably an hour and then headed over an hour after it started... fashionably late. Being there didn't cheer me up at all. I didn't know anyone else. Then a bunch of girls went into Marcy's room to do a Buddhist chant while a lady, who appeared to be a leader, rolled up the scroll they were chanting to (?). I was very uncomfortable because I'm Christian, I didn't know what they were saying, and I was sad that Marcy seemed to have fallen away from God and chosen to pursue Buddhism. It became overwhelming as they got louder and faster, and then once the scroll was rolled up, put into a box, and then placed in a cabinet the chanting slowed down before ceasing.

Marcy's Mom was there and she told me that Marcy recommended she try attending Buddhist meetings and get into chanting because she'd been having some relationship difficulties. She told me that she did try it, and everything is so much better for her now. I just kept nodding and listening. She said, "I thought at first this would be yet another of Marcy's crazy adventures... Like when she went to Ghana and became a born again Christian. Thankfully she got over that and is into this now. This is much healthier." I was so taken aback by that statement. Had she no idea of my faith and that it was such an integral part of my being, and has been for 26 years?! Her words brought me to my breaking point, and I started to cry. I told Marcy that I had to leave.

I hope that tomorrow is a better day.

Peace and love.
J

Becoming a Possibilitarian

Didn't have much to do at work today, so I busied myself looking at beautiful things on etsy and exploring artists' websites. One of my favorite mixed media artists on etsy is Kelly Rae Roberts. She is so creative and talented. Her work is gorgeous.



From Kelly Rae Roberts’ website:
i first heard the word ‘possibilitarian’ in a quote by dr. norman peale: “become a possibilitarian. no matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities – always see them, for they’re always there.” i’ve been hooked on its meaning ever since. do you see the bright light of your life’s horizon (even on the average days)? do you feel its warmth (even when you’re struggling)? have you begun to tough the surface of all that is possible for your life? does it give you goosebumps to think about it (i hope it does)? if so, then you’re a possibilitarian too. it’s the best feeling in the world, this thinking of what is possible. it’s energy. it’s passion. it’s dreaming big, and taking small steps. it’s the oomph of our everyday lives.

I know that I was meant for more than being just an accountant. Yesterday at work I was surfing etsy as I’m wont to do and I came upon a shop of a lady who had committed to donating some of her profits to Doctors Without Borders in the wake of the horrific results of the cyclone in Myanmar. I’d heard of Doctors Without Borders before, but I had never looked into it until this week. Not only are they looking for volunteers in the medical field, they are looking for people with office-type skills to manage their operations. One of the opportunities that jumped out at me is the Financial Controllership job. I could totally do this! Now since it’s a volunteer position, I certainly cannot afford, at this point in my life, to take a year off of being paid to do this. But, I have a meaningful goal to look forward to.

If you are interested in learning about Doctors Without Borders or in making a donation, please visit their website at www.doctorswithoutborders.org.

Peace & love.
J

FOUR

4 Jobs I’ve Had:
Team Lead at Jamba Juice, Shift Supervisor at Starbucks, Research Manager at a recruiting firm, Senior Auditor at an accounting firm

4 Movies I’ve Watched Over and Over:
Wild Hearts Can't be Broken, Shrek, Sixteen Candles, Old School

4 Places I Have Lived:
San Jose, Irvine, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles

4 Shows I Watch:
Grey's Anatomy, ER, The Office, October Road

4 Places I’ve Been:
Suriname, Australia, New Zealand, Seoul, Korea

4 People Who Email Me Regularly:
Dad, Papa, Amanda, Breanna

4 Favorite Things to Eat:
Filet Mignon, Mashed potatoes, Adam's Peanut Butter Fudge Cup Ripple cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory, Cereal

4 Places I’d Rather Be:
with family, with friends, Hawaii, Australia

4 Things I Look Forward to this Year:
Meeting an amazing man (I totally feel like I will!), seeing the new babies of all my friends who are pregnant right now, passing my last 2 CPA exams, losing weight