Top 15

That's Hiroko posing in front of the Garaventa sign in the Funitel at Squaw. So you may not know this, but Hiroko sells elevators and wheelchair lifts....I know...crazy....she's in like, construction. Recently she met her sales challenge of being one of the top 15 reps for Garaventa (her company is a reseller) so her sales trip is to Cabo or Puerta Vallarta or something like that - super cool.

Damnit we are cute!

pic of the ladies in the hotel just after we returned / or before we left for the evening? I can't remember exactly. Notice the lower half - how cool our jeans are - LOL.

Who dat is sharing a bed with Linh? Actually, she eagerly volunteered to share the pull out bed with Chester and then Hiroko had to warn him about her tendency to spoon nearby sleepers. I have shared a twin bed with Linh...not pretty - she's definately a bed hog.

We had 6 people overall in the hotel and it wasn't too bad. We had the bedroom, a murphy bed and sofa pull out in the living room...I think if we wanted to be super asian, we could have fit a few more people on the floor.

Happy Birthday Dad

January rounds out with my dad's birthday on Jan 31. It's a busy month for me with roughly a birthday a week. That's a picture of the orange mousse cake that my mom picked up at the korean bakery for my dad and Forrest to share since their birthdays are so close together.

Korean Visor Madness

That gigantic bill cresting from my dome is in fact...my mother's visor. Yes it's true...my Korean mother has a gigantic visor in the car...to protect her face from the sun. All she needs now is the flippin face mask. Playing with this visor and my camera proved to provide endless entertainment for me and Sam....we were practically crying/laughing on our drive to dinner.

Just like a japanese school girl...only much much scarier.

Designer Jeans

That Vy's and my rear views in our brand spankin' (no pun intended) designer jeans. Notice the emblems on the butt pockets. Also notice Vy's ghetto booty! WOOT WOOT...next to her nubian rear end, my butt looks merely like connector joints for some chopsticks :( Instead of glutious maximus...I have a glutious invertedus.

I hate to spend a lot of money on denim...but the Rock and Republics that I am modeling here, fit sooooo good...I am now a believer.

Happy Birthday Forrest

What time is it you say? Time to take the old fogie back to the old folks home before curfew! JUST KIDDING - although Forrest did turn 32 approximately two weekends ago. I should be one to talk with 30 nipping at my heels.

Nonetheless, we all had a great time out at Suppenkuche for dinner...gotta love the schnitzel. Who in their right mind does not love fried anything, especially pork? Drinks were originally planned for Place Pigalle which looked online like a little hipster joint - but after getting there the lacking of hard alcohol proved to be too much and we progressed down the street to a place called Sugar.

p.s. super cute - would totally go back.

And wouldn't you know it? we all turned into pumpkins around 12:00 and were all trying to find ways to get outta the bars and go home...so us old folks could go to sleep. Funny thing is, Sam and Michelle ditched first and they were the youngest people there AND the most recent college grads. I mean, if 23 year olds can't stay out past midnight...what chance do the rest of us have.

Brad and Sam with cupcake nipples... p.s. if you are ever looking for some super yummy desserts, you have to hit up Miette in the Ferry Building - they are absolutely wonderful, albeit a little on the pricier side.

Sam's "nipples" are the cupcake versions of their Old Fashioned which is a dark (extremely dense) Sharfenberger chocolate cake with an almost semi-soft marshmallowy top. The cupcakes have what I assume are boston baked bean candies at the top but the full cake version places a cherry at the center.

Sam and Michelle hamming it up at Suppenkuche.

The Road to Boston

Is paved with a million miles of dirt and cement....that I must unceremoniously slog through in order to train for the Boston Marathon. I have exactly 12 weeks to get in the kind of running shape that is needed to run 26.2 miles.

Initially I was really excited...then I got scared...now I'm just sore from today's run at Baker Beach.

Sign of Genius or Madness?

$2.99 Breakfast Special

I swear the pancakes were awesome.

First Snow of the Season

How many words do you see?

Boggle is taking my family by storm...and over Christmas there were many a tournaments with Forrest and his parents. Last night my brother and I played a few rounds...I smoked him with a 27 point round - wooo hoo!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! Champagne always looks so pretty in the glass, with all the little bubbles, AND they look especially great when it's Veuve Cliquot served for a special occasion. Chester always does a good job with taking the "cheers" photo.

I look like a uniformed schoolgirl in that jacket but other than that, I have to say I really like this picture of us - that fireplace behind us really makes a good backdrop :)

Nothing says "HOLIDAY" like a pound of caviar. I swear to god i was full for hours...my arteries must be clogged and in need of an angioplasty from all the added fat from those eggs :) But there is nothing like the taste of the individual briny, salty roe popping in your mouth - YUMMO! If you haven't already tried it, American Bowfin caviar is really reasonably priced AND tastes great. It goes for about $60 a pound ( Ithink, that's what Molly said)

Pre-New Year's Eve

Chester scouring the racks at the Barneys New York outlet. Thank god he didn't buy the ugly jacket.

The Gardner Girls

That's little Reese Gardner...actually she's not so little anymore. At 9 months she's about a healthy 20 pounds and just a cute little thing. Looks absolutely NOTHING like her sister.... I'm still trying to figure out who she looks like the most. I definately see a lot of Sarah in her features but I don't know where she got those chubby cheeks from!?!?!

And well with Zoe having recently turned 3, she's no longer a baby and practically a teenager with the full length sentances, negotiating on what to eat and telling us adults what to do. Poor Scott is going to have his hands full with this one.

Christmas at Sea Ranch

Picture of the view outside from the living room window. I don't know if it is visible in this photo but this was the day the rain strom started the day after Christmas.

Pic of the completed puzzle...a puzzle I won from the dice / $5 gift game. I actually scored big time by winning TWO puzzles but managed to refrain from wanting to put both of them together. This one above "looks" easy but those friggin plates of waffles were literally the bane of my existence.

Picture of the chapel at Sea Ranch. I thought it was a shell, Pat mentioned it looks like a hat...but in actuality it is supposed to be a wave. It was built / donated by some residents looking to provide a non-denominational place for prayer and "spiritual renewal" meaning codename for hippies...

My little fiefdom

Trisha just signed an offer from my company today...as if I couldn't recruit her hard enough...jeez! so on Jan 22nd the madness will begin again - YAY. My team here jokes that now, they will get to meet my first minion.

this is going to be fun.

Welcome Nadia

The littlest member of our marketing team. That's Marie's little baby at our team holiday lunch. Nadia was born at 4 pounds - can you believe that? The baby's stomach wasn't very big and neither was Marie's placenta so that baby just stopped growing after month 7 so they ended up making Marie stay at home so she's easier to monitor then eventually just delivered the baby early in hopes of having her gain weight outside the womb. Thankfully after 6 weeks, Nadia is now 9 pounds and climbing...

Happy Hiroko - three oh *updated picture*

In what will now be known as the month of 30 is Hiroko's march into a new decade of life. Being "the Eldest" we all felt that we needed to make the festivities as wonderful as possible in order to make leading the journey as pleasant as possible :) heehee

To wrap up the month-long list of activities we had...

• A joint birthday party with Andy on 12/9...pictures on Chesternet
• A happy hour event on her birthday eve at Santana Row as her "southbay birthday"
• Dinner at Perbacco on 12/20 (her actual birthday) with a big group of us DG's and SO's

So Happy Birthday Hiroko! And here's to a year of everyone turning 30 :)

Tis the Season

Sometimes I really love being in marketing. Especially around the holidays because we get presents from our vendors as a thank you for dutifully spending our company's budget dollars with them. I'm sure our sales team sends gifts to their top customers as well - as this is just common practice. Usually we get a gift basket from places like Harry & David or Wine Country Baskets but this year people got creative and we ended up with loads of run stuff.

Picture above is of a half eaten box of Shari's Berries. I remember Forrest's mom talking about these awhile back...and they really are that good - such a wonderful treat that I was forced to share because some berries were dipped in milk or dark chocolate..heehee

The evil empire really outdid themselves this year and gave me an Apple iPod Shuffle. I don't remember getting a gift from them last year but the shuffle is a nice touch, especially since I am pushing through a big budget line item for Google next year.

Our ad agency got pretty creative and sent a big bath set gift basket in a red leather gift basket container thingy. Maybe they think I smell - HAHAHAHA. It's funny because the mailroom guy stops by our cube, then we call everyone else over and we pick through all the items in the gift baskets and everyone goes home with a few things....

Halloween Flashback

found this picture on my hard drive the other day and couldn't remember if I had posted it or not already and was too lazy to check. I have to hand it to him, he is VERY creative if not a complete lush.

You might need a haircut if....

you look like this in the morning.

Santa Pyramid

I have no idea what is going on here, except that a group of Santas are trying to form a pyramid in from of Bus Stop bar in Cow Hollow.

SFDC Holiday Party

I don't know if it's the chest flys i have been doing or the dress, but I think I see some "cleavage" if not just a slight shadow in the middle of my chest.

If we had a photo Christmas card, this would be it.

Erin and Sean at the SFDC holiday party. It was really nice to have friends to hang out with at a company party that are not just friends from work...because that is always a slightly different dynamic. Also heard that these two had a rough Saturday after the party...all I know is that they were fine when we left them....

Shoe Advertising?

Yes that's a poster of a girl grabbing a guy's ass. The caption of this Nine West print ad is "Grab it and Go" OMG - what is the world coming to.

Moving Minions

So Trish just interviewed at my company. I have been recruiting her for months and have been pushing to get her interviewed literally since I started working there. FINALLY today she met with a few of my teammates and some interesting comments came up.

MGD (My gay Dan) starts off the interview by saying "So Betty and I have different management styles" Trish and I both read that as I am kind of a bitch at work. Not kind of...I am a demanding at work.

Trish later brought up her codename "Minion" and Dan seemed to balk at the term - I can see it now, MGD's eyes all wide, mouth open and hand on his chest saying "oh my goodness" or "jesus, mary and joseph" and turning bright red.

HAHA - good times

Go Packers

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Just don't rain on Sunday. AHHHH This is really gonna cramp my tailgating style.

Not So Promising

Interesting article on MSN about breadwinner wives and the potentially negative effects of being a successful woman. Apparently many women are bitter about being successful - HA! And to top that off, as much as female roles have progressed for women to excel in the workplace, the equal progression for men to excel in the home has not taken place...so it's double duty for the ladies...huh, no wonder they're bitter.

Movie Review: Stranger than Fiction

If you haven't seen it, you should. If you are hesitant about your ability to Will Ferrel seriously, don't. Thankfully this movie is a little tongue-in-cheek about his seriousness and that's because of the nature of the story. He's painfully oblivious and that makes his character ironic and sweet all at the same time. Emma Thomspon's writer character is overtly dramatic at an attempt to be the "suffering artist" but it ends up being funny in a good way for the audience. I really enjoyed Maggie Gyllenhal's character too :)

Movie Review: Borat

Hieee - Fiiiiive. This movie rocked. it was by far the most disturbingly funny thing that I have ever seen in my life. From the public masturbation to naked wrestling to making out with family members...it's just all out funny. Now the quotes from Borat are especially fun to use with others who have also seen the movie.

"How's the back pussy?" is a favorite between some of my co-workers and I
"Great Success!" has been used in meetings
"Is this rice?" has been a good identifying question also used at work **

** this came from a collection of clips that did not make the cut - view them here

For the "cubicle lawn"

I have a strange love for Pink lawn flamingos...it's an irrational love that is beyond sanity. I dream of having them strewn across my future lawn (it will have to be an indoor lawn as the HOA would surely hang me). Forrest thinks I am insane but I can't explain a love like this...lol.

Recently, I learned that my beloved flamingos will never get a chance to be my lawn ornaments as they have been "discontinued" due to ass-holiness from the manufacturer. I cannot put into words how saddened I am about this...but lo and behold! Lookie at what I found at Barnes & Noble.

Breakfast of Champions

Starting the day with 2 oysters from Hog Island at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market before I head off to a world of "Friends and Family" shopping pain. The guy at the booth commented "You gotta love a customer who starts humming to eat oysters." Apparently I was humming a cheery little song as i prepped my oysters with champagne mignonette and cocktail sauce. Nothing says lovin like shucked, raw bivales in the morning.