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May 31, 2005
Still Moving
Don came home the other night at 4am. He stayed with the painter to get as much done as they could, then he drove the guy home (his girlfriend crashed his car). When he drove me home at 11pm, I was so tired that I put my wedding ring back on the wrong hand! Yesterday, Don put yet a third layer or paint on the walls in the red room. Then, put a layer of green in the bedroom and closet. I finished up painting the trim and the doors for the red room and unloaded a Jeep-ful of clothes for the closet.
It was nice not spending the entire day working so hard. Don and I took a nice little walk through our new neighborhood. At least it'll be very nice weather to move. It's supposed to be sunny and warm the whole week.
It's such stereotypical suburbian neighborhood. When I tell people we're moving, people ask where. I should tell them, "Wisteria Lane". (If you don't watch Desperate Housewives, you won't get that.) It's a very inviting neighborhood, with a lot of families and young children, but at the same time, it's kind of sterile and hoighty-toighty (sp?). Guess it'll just take some time for it to feel like home. Though don't expect me to become a desperate housewife!
Posted by Amy at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)
May 29, 2005
Still Painting
Oh, what a long weekend! I started cleaning up the old house on Thursday evening because our friends Eric and Lilly were coming to see the house. They might be interested in buying it. I really hope they do. I love this house and I'd love for them to have it. Besides, it's convenient for them to get to downtown or to campus. I showed it to them Saturday afternoon in the midst of our painting the new house. They seemed to really like it. Let's hope it's enough that they want it.
And we started painting Saturday. Don changed the master bedroom ceiling from dark green to white. Looks a lot less claustrophobic in there now. Then we started priming the second bedroom. The previous owners had painted it yellow with trees and flowers for their little girl. Cute, but very hard to paint over. We had to put 2 coats of primer on it. We actually called in some professional reinforcements.
It's 11:30 p.m. and the two of them are still working on the second bedroom. Since it is to be my room to do whatever with, I wanted it painted burgundy--my favorite color, of course. But it's becoming kind of a hassle because Don didn't get enough of it from Anderson Paint and since it's closed for the weekend, I had to try to get more at Lowe's. But they had such trouble matching the color that they did as best they could and the painter mixed the second can of the original red with the new red which isn't as good because the chemistry's different. I think he might end up putting on a third coat of red. He's offered to camp out at the new house to finish the job. I don't know if I'm comfortable with that, but if he gets the job done, I'll be happy. We still have to do the master bath ceiling and put maybe one coat on the walls in the master bed.
I'm SO tired and I wasn't even doing the harder work. I was priming and painting all the trim that's to go in the red room and around the new wood floors, running errands to Lowe's, etc. So Don dropped me off at home and went back there. Not sure how long he's going to stay, but he'll be mighty tired tomorrow. Maybe pretty cranky too. But I'll be glad if we get all the painting done this weekend!
Posted by Amy at 11:40 PM | Comments (1)
May 27, 2005
Prince of Persia 3
Oh MAN! They're coming out with yet ANOTHER installment of the Prince of Persia game. I watched the preview videos and it looks incredible! It's absolutely amazing what Ubisoft has done with the Prince of Persia story. They took a pretty good game from the 1980s and turned it into the greatest action/puzzle game ever. Then, they released a sequel with some hefty innovations and improvements.
Now, they're releasing another sequel to finish the trilogy. This time, the Prince has some wicked cool moves and can finish his enemies off even more swiftly than before. Plus, he gets a dual personality between the light Prince and the dark Prince. You can fight as either and each has specific skills and weapons that the other can't do. Ubisoft has really set the bar high for other games of this kind. Tech TV's X-Play gave the first one a 5 out of 5 rating which I haven't seen them give to any other game. Ubisoft's level creativity is absolutely UNPARALELLED and this game promises to kick ass on a whole new level!!
I found the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time hard enough. Then Prince of Persia 2: Warrior Within was almost impossibly hard. If the pattern holds, Prince of Persia 3 promises to be even harder than the second. I can't wait till it comes out, but I'm also scared!
Posted by Amy at 03:15 PM | Comments (2)
Brown Belt Rookie
Thanks to Senior Pablo Cuevas, a.k.a. Shimpotan Sempai, and his lovely wife Sue for this great picture of me trading in my old belt for a new and shiny brown belt, which everyone keeps teasing me about because it's ridiculously long on me.
Unfortunately, Don was unable to be there for my promotion since he was at an International Martial Arts Federation seminar with Greg. Usually, he's on the testing board. One of the instructors who was on the testing board said I did very well, which made me feel very good because going into the test, I still felt like I could use a lot of work. But now the real work begins as I start attending the advanced class, where I'm back on the bottom of the ladder.
Posted by Amy at 09:20 AM | Comments (0)
May 26, 2005
House Update
We closed on the house yesterday morning. There were LOTS and LOTS of papers to sign. I hate when you have to sign a lot because my signature starts to fall apart and get ugly. Anyway, it was a not-too-painful experience, especially since the realtor gave us the keys and garage door openers. (Yay! I get to keep my car in the garage for the first time ever!)
So now, we're having new wood floors installed. We were lucky and got the more expensive stuff at the same price because the other floor we ordered never came in. Then we move in next week. Yay!!
But I'm not looking forward to this weekend. We'll have to paint a couple of rooms and get the trim ready for when they finish installing the floors. Plus we also have to get our house ready for sale: clean it up, do some yardwork, and do some packing. Ugh!
Posted by Amy at 11:20 AM | Comments (2)
May 24, 2005
Ball Don't Lie!
The Pistons pulled off another great win last night against the Miami Heat 90-81. And Rasheed was on FIRE! It was hilarious when Eldon Campbell was up against Shaq who could not move him one inch! He's not used to that. Shaq's a good player, but there's way too much hype about him. The commentators kept talking about him after the game, and Don and I said, "Hel-LO! He LOST!" I'm pretty confident we'll win the series.
Posted by Amy at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2005
Dr. Who Continues
The BBC has decided to continue the cult series Dr. Who. It all started in 1963 and is still going. I used to watch it back in the 80's in my junior high school days and I was a loyal viewer. I'd spend the hour and a half with my face glued to the tv waiting to find out the ending.
For those of you unfamiliar with the series, it featured a character known as the Doctor who was an alien from the planet Gallifrey. Their race was known as Time Lords who looked human and could travel through time. Each person of this race could be regenerated (or re-incarnated) 11 times while retaining the memories of past regenerations. A peculiar and eccentric fellow, this Doctor. He always carried around a sonic screwdriver which proved handy on many occasions and loved jelly babies (Jelly Bellies). He always had companions with him on his many journeys through time and travelled in a strange time machine called a T.A.R.D.I.S. (top left) which stood for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. It looked like a blue police call box the size of a phone booth. But when you entered inside, it was infinitely large with an untold number of rooms. The Doctor also had a fondness for Earth and its inhabitants as most of his companions were Earthlings. My favourite of all was a charming little robot dog called K-9 (bottom center). He proved very useful and was quite adept at complex computations and performing repairs on the rickety old TARDIS. A bit like Data on STTNG.
My favourite Doctors were the fourth and fifth. The fourth was a funny-looking man played by Tom Baker (bottom left). He had a cheeky smile, a dry and quirky sense of humor and wore a ridiculously long knit scarf. The fifth was a much better looking chap called Peter Davison (top right) who also starred in the British series All Creatures Great and Small, of which I was also very fond. Oddly, the fifth doctor also wore a stick of celery on his lapel. If memory serves, it was his way of detecting poisonous gas in the atmosphere. He'd always say that if that didn't work, it would serve as a handy little snack.
There were all sorts of nasty alien creatures with whom the Doctor had to contend, not the least of which included Daleks (often described as looking like giant pepper pots and who went around exclaiming "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"), Cybermen (bottom right), and the Doctor's arch nemesis, The Master—a megalomaniac Time Lord bent on destroying the Doctor.
I do miss the good ol' days when the BBC had such wonderfully fun shows such as Dr. Who, Monty Python and others.
Posted by Amy at 02:00 PM | Comments (2)
May 21, 2005
Finally a Brown Belt
The karate test went well. Even though it was in the smaller practice area, it worked out ok because Scottsan had some of us sit down while others would perform their material and we would switch out.
Of course, everyone passed. Though one person almost failed right off the bat. He's a young kid, probably 13 years old or so. He's not too bright sometimes—he shows up late, forgets proper (and formal) classroom etiquette, stands around for long periods of time in class just looking at the ceiling and not practicing, etc. He showed up 2 or 3 minutes into the test, but Scottsan forgave him because we actually started 5 minutes early, so if we had started on time, he would have been on time. Not to mention he didn't perform well, not surprisingly. But he passed, only barely. I told him after class that next time he should show up well in advance of the test time because Scottsan has been known to start early and next time he shows up late for a test, he'll fail.
Our test was short too. Only 45 minutes compared to the normal hour-long. I felt like we only did a fraction of what we knew. We did the kata and a few of the 2-person drills, but that was about it. I had to help out with the white belts because they had an odd number of people. But I was complimented afterwards for looking very sharp. When you get your new belt, Scottsan only gives out one size which is waaayy too long for me. Now when I wear it, it comes down to my knees and everyone teases me about it being so long. Maybe I'll cut it down.
Scottsan also wants me to attend the advanced class at 11am on Saturdays. It'll be hard getting up for that since I'm bleary-eyed going to noon class. But it'll be great learning things at a more advanced level. I think he also might be on the path of giving me some admin responsibilities which may or may not be a good thing. But I also wonder if that means that sooner or later, he'll want me to teach intro lessons. That would be a good experience for me which I'd be interested in doing; I just don't think I have what it takes to teach an actual class. I don't think I want to do that.
Anyway, now that I'm finally a brown belt, I feel like such a green rookie who's just entered the big leagues!
Posted by Amy at 10:30 PM | Comments (3)
May 20, 2005
On to Round 4
So the Pistons eliminated the Indiana Pacers last night. They trailed nearly the entire game until about halfway through the 4th quarter when Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton and Ben Wallace stepped it up and they finally got the lead. It was a good game and even though the Pacers had the lead for most of the game, I was still very confident that the Pistons would emerge the winners.
And it was cool at the end when Reggie Miller was cheered for having served 18 years with the Pacers. The only other person I know of (though I'm sure there's more) who have spent their entire career with one team is the great Stevie Yzerman with the Detroit Red Wings. Even Larry Brown called a time out with 16 seconds left in the game so that the standing ovation Miller received could be prolonged and joined in by the Pistons. What a class act Larry Brown is. And he was quick to point out (and take a jab at reporters) in the post-game interviews that these two teams that had such history since the November brawl could just come together and play a good game of basketball.
So it's on to the fourth round against the Shaquille O'Neal and the Miami Heat. I think we'll be able to get suite tickets for the first home game on Friday. Woo hoo!
Posted by Amy at 10:35 AM | Comments (0)
May 19, 2005
Big Test, Big House
The floor in the dojo has been re-installed which means we will still be having our karate test tomorrow. I kind of feel like I could use a little more time to practice, but I'm also anxious to get this test over with. I've been doing a bit of extra practice with some of my karate buddies and I'm sure we'll all do fine. It's not usual for someone to fail a test. In fact, the only instance I ever heard of someone failing was because he came in hung-over and physically could not do the things he was supposed to. And I understand that happened a long time ago in a dojo not so far away. Actually, it was our school when it was located a few blocks away. And besides, our teachers never ask us to test unless they feel we've learned our material sufficiently enough to pass.
On a different note, things are looking good for the house situation. We got the closing packet and the closing is scheduled for Wednesday morning. Then the next few days after that, we'll be having wood floors installed in the main floor. The movers will come on the 2nd to pack up our stuff and will move everything on Friday, the 3rd. And in the middle of all this, we're going to a wedding for our friends Steve and Becky who live in Chicago, but are getting married in Grand Rapids. Hopefully, it won't take us too long to settle in. I'm anxious to start having our movie BBQ's again.
And the Pistons lead the series 3-2. Can't wait to see them win tonight!
Deeee-troit baaaasket-baaaaall!
Posted by Amy at 10:50 AM | Comments (1)
May 16, 2005
There Is Superstitious Writing on the Wall
Seems an awfully striking coincidence that I wore my Chauncey Billups jersey for games 1 & 4 of the round 2 NBA playoffs and the Pistons won those games. But I didn't wear it for games 2 and 3 and the Pistons lost. Guess I'll need to wear it for Game 5 and 6!
Superstitious? Perhaps. Do I wanna chance not wearing it? Hell NO!
Posted by Amy at 11:45 AM | Comments (4)
May 14, 2005
A Bubblin' Crude
What a disaster at the dojo! The city of Ann Arbor is doing some work in the alley behind the dojo. I think they're putting in new sewer lines or something, so they had to dig up all the concrete. Whatever they're doing, it's messing up the pipes in the dojo causing clogs and backups. They've had to rip up the floor and snake a camera down through the pipes and the plumber still couldn't fix it. So we can't use the bathrooms at all or even the sinks.
What's worse is that our karate test is scheduled for Friday afternoon. I'm supposed to test for my brown belt. But because of this, they may not test us even though we've been waiting for literally for months. My seniors say that we may be able to use the other practice area, but no one's sure. Although, we're practicing as if it's still going to be on Friday. I'm very anxious to get this test over with.
And poor Scottsan! He's so angry about this; he's walking around the dojo with a black cloud over him. I really hope we can get this fixed in the next couple of days!!
Posted by Amy at 03:00 PM | Comments (2)
May 13, 2005
Storm Stories
Today certainly wasn't boring. I drove into work and parked in the remote parking lot (we have to do that every few weeks), then took the bus to the office. When we pulled up, EVERYONE was coming outside. I thought it was a fire drill or a terrorist bomb threat or something. Even the fire department and the paramedics came. But 5 minutes after they entered the building to check it out, they let us back in. Turns out, the guy cleaning the ducts blasted so much dust up that it set off the fire alarm.
And I was very busy at work too. And during our meeting, we could watch the thunderstorm as it passed over us. Lots of lightning and heavy heavy rain. When I got home, it started raining and hailing. (Only about the size of rock salt.) Makes me think of the time when I was in grad school. It started raining so hard, it was as if someone was holding a hose to my window. I happened to be on the phone and got struck by lightning that had hit the ground and traveled through my phone line. Both me and my stereo got fried. I found out that there had also been a twister 2 miles away, so I took Gabriel and hid in the closet for a half hour till it passed.
Though, that wasn't as scary as the storm I saw last summer. I was at Don's office and it started POURING LIKE HELL! It was so bad that the back third of the parking lot was flooded 2 feet deep--no exaggeration! And there was water running from the front parking lot to the back lot like a river! I saw a transformer blow up in a nearby neighborhood too. I was terrified! I started to gather up my stuff and was about to head into the basement of the building because I truly thought we were going to get an F4 tornado. Luckily, it let up, but the water had literally washed out the retaining wall of the Kroger's parking lot next to our lot and it took DAYS for the parking lot to un-flood. That was THE most unbelievable storm I'd ever experienced! Though, if a storm like that ever hits and blows out power, we're well prepared with a generator, canned food and a small portable gas range.
Posted by Amy at 07:02 PM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2005
Happy Belated Mother's Day
Unfortunately, I couldn't spend Mother's Day with my mom as she was out of town checking up on her condo that got damaged in one of the recent hurricanes. But Don and I plan to take her out to dinner once she gets back home.
To all my readers including Tara Beth, Jessica, Mary, Sue Rose, Sirasa, and to my mom:
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!
Posted by Amy at 09:45 AM | Comments (1)
May 09, 2005
Another Beautiful Day in A2
It was another beautiful weekend here in "A-squared" (Ann Arbor to those of you who don't know). Friday, Don and I went to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I thought was funny, but not great. I'm sure the book is much better--I gotta read that someday! It was still amusing, though.
Saturday, I spent some extra time practicing for my brown belt test and had a really pleasant lunch with my karate buddy Kate. Don was in E. Lansing for a private Japanese sword lesson. But when he came home, we went to our first barbecue of the year at Greg's house. Mmm! Yummy burgers! Unfortunately, my lower back went into muscle spasm. I thought I'd slipped a disc and pinched a nerve! I was in excruciating pain for about 5 seconds, then it subsided to nearly intolerable pain. I took a bunch of Aleve and put a heating pad on it for the next couple days. It's virtually gone now, thanks to the advice of my physician brother-in-law!
Then Sunday, Don and I spent the afternoon at the park, our first time this year! It was a GORGEOUS day. He went for a run and I rode my bike alongside him. We later sat by the dock where they rent canoes and paddleboats. I dipped my feet into the cold water which I found very amusing because the cute little fishies couldn't figure out whether my toes were worms or not—they'd keep swimming near my toes, then back off when I moved, then they'd come back and swim away again. After we came home, I grilled up a bunch of chicken and we spent the rest of the evening watching Star Wars: Episode II, which I need to see before we go see Episode III, so I know what's going on.
So, how was your weekend?
Posted by Amy at 10:00 AM | Comments (7)
May 04, 2005
Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye!
So it's round 2 of the playoffs for the Pistons! They won game 5 of round 1 against the 76ers 88-78. It was a really fun time. Don and I were lucky enough to get tickets to the Rock Financial suite (up above the nosebleed seats). I was home sick Monday and Matt, my team leader, calls me up about 4:30 and says, "Hey, I know you're sick, but do you think you'll be well enough to come to the Pistons game in the suite?" I said, "HELL YEAH!" However sick I might have been, I would have gone anyway. But I was feeling better.
We were up pretty high, but it was a pretty good vantage point. Almost a bird's eye view. The only thing was the shot clock blocked part of the court. And the refs made some stupid calls they shouldn't have made, but also ones they should have. The 76ers played a decent game and they were coming on strong getting ahead now and then, but I was very confident the Pistons would come out on top. Even when the clock had 3 minutes left, the crowd started singing, "Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, gooooodbye!" to the 76ers. And this was a hugely NOISY crowd! EVERYbody had those thundersticks.
All of us had a rowdy, ruckus time screaming our lungs out (I'm a little hoarse today) and just enjoying ourselves all around. There were a few stars at the game including Jalen Rose, who I'm sure was there to see Chris Webber, whom I went to high school with--I would have told Chris to go home, but he was already there. Also, Steve Mariucci, Tom Izzo (Go Green!), Lebron James (who we booed), Anita Baker and of course, Kid Rock who the crowd wouldn't let alone until he got up and showed his spirit for the team. He got up and waved a flag while his song was playing over the loudspeaker. The crowd went nuts! They also did their nightly celebrity lookalikes and when they got to Ashton Kutcher, the crowd (and I) was screaming "Korver!". The camera went to him, but he wouldn't turn around. I think he was afraid of giving away his secret identity. I mean think about it: have you ever seen Kutcher and Korver in the same room together? Very interesting!
Here you can see part of my marketing team. Clockwise from top left, Andrew Lovasz, Todd Albery, me, Michael "LET'S GET SOME BUCKETS!" Baird (who was kind enough to let us carpool with him so we could get VIP parking), SiRui Huang, April Buford and Matt Cardwell. Of course, you can see me wearing my new Chauncey Billups jersey that I've been waiting to get since last season, but couldn't get my hands on one. I think I'll wear it every game day until they win. I also got 2 more bobbleheads to add to my collection at work. I got Rip and Rasheed to add to Chauncey and Tayshaun. (I hope we can go to another playoff game and I can get Ben.) I think they should have an Antonio McDyess cause he's kicking butt this year!
I seriously think our boys can pull off a repeat! I'm just not sure I want to see them play the Pacers cause I think all the talk and emotion about the brawl will be a distraction. Either way, the PISTONS RULE!!!
Posted by Amy at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)
May 02, 2005
Long Time No See
This weekend, Jessica, Brian and Derek came to visit me. It's been months since I've seen them...Christmas, I believe. We had a really nice visit. We drove around and I showed them our new house. We stopped at the park in that neighborhood. It's a really nice park for the kids there. It has a small soccer field, another general use field, a large gazeebo with sitting benches and a swingset.
Then, we came back and met Don who was thrilled to see and play with his nephew. They're SO cute together!! Derek definitely has the face of a Prior. Then we went to the most honorable Emerald City Chinese Restaurant and had a wonderful dinner together. There, we happened to meet a man who claims to have taught martial arts at EMU. He was an 80 or 85 year-old Polish man...very friendly and talkative, though I suspect he wasn't nearly the expert Mr. Scott is. He kept trying to grill me about how much I knew. It was pretty amusing.
I felt bad because I wanted to spend more time with them. In fact, I wanted all of us to go see The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I've been sick the last few days with some sort of respiratory virus or infection and Jessica and Brian already saw it. Besides, I've been coughing so much and get so tired that I have to lay down after only a couple hours of any kind of non-strenuous activity. I've blown my nose so much I think I rubbed it off. So I called in sick today at work to get a bit more rest. I think (and hope) I'll have the energy to go back to work tomorrow. I've been on anti-biotics and hopefully, I'm over the hump of this illness.
Posted by Amy at 01:00 PM | Comments (4)