1/20/09 back to the grind
Friday, January 30, 2009
Day 108
1/16/09 soup plantation. $20 for both people all you can eat and kids under 3 eat free! we love this place! vaughn is weird, he licks ice cream once or twice then he says he's done eating it lol!
Day 106
1/14/09 tinkerbell. my co-workers decided to start a soda fund now that mickey is not providing sodas and snacks for us anymore =( we stash the money in my tinkerbell box.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
365 still behind
but slowly recollecting what happened over the past few days...will post more pics soon. uncle mac i have the tahoe pics, but no time to post yet. promise i'll post and i'll msg you =) i still have to post christmas pics. other pics. sigh. basta, i'll catch up. just need the whole month of feb to crank on the test kay last chance na gyud. xoxo.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Day 104
1/12/09 DVD hookup! Jordan my co-worker used to work at Warner Brothers. He still has friends over there and they gave him some dvds. I told him I've never seen Dark Knight so he gave it to me! Thanks JBthe3rd~ =)
Day 102
mark and i went to the americana to try the sushi restaurant katsuya. umm, it was ok. sushi was not that great but the lobster dynamite was phenomenal! i think you are better off ordering cooked food in this restaurant than sushi...great service though, really friendly staff. they don't take your order down with a pen and paper, instead the waiters carry around a little device where they touch screen what you want. cool!
Monday, January 26, 2009
stolen from http://getrichslowly.org/blog/
this is my favorite blog at the moment. i'm trying to revamp my lifestyle and live a THRIFTY life! in these uncertain times it's important to save money and eliminate debt. hay buhay amerika! puro utang! i'm planning to get rid of our credit card debt -- all of it! it's gonna take me a while but i'll update everyone with my progress as time goes on =) wish me luck! xo
Here is a really great article. I want to go the Warren Buffet way, how about you?
I want to conclude this book by asking you to reflect briefly on this 1957 observation on successful American business leaders (“Titans”) from Max Lerner:
There is one division which cuts across most of the Titans of the earlier prewar era of America — the split between the puritan and the magnifico.
J. Piermont Morgan, the greatest of all the Titans, was a magnifico in the sense that he operated on a scale of magnificence. So also were [James J.] Hill, [John W.] Gates, [Jay] Gould, several of the early Du Ponts, and [Charles Tyson] Yerkes himself.
There was a lustiness and grandeur of scope in their private as in their business lives. They bet and gambled, lived conspicuously, gave parties, sailed yachts, were seen in the European capitals; there were legends of the stables of women they kept; they built palatial homes and crammed them with art treasures rifled from the museums and collections of Europe. There was native optimism in them; in business as in private life they were “bullish”…
There was another strain, however, represented by Daniel Drew, the Rockefellers, Henry Ford: not the strain of magnificence but of the taut Puritan qualities. These men came out of small towns and remained at home in small-town America. They were abstemious, church-going, taught Sunday-school classes. They spent little on themselves, and what they did they spent quietly. Like Rockefeller, they handed out shiny dimes; like Ford, they ploughed everything back into the business.
They had the eccentricities in which men can indulge when they sit on top of a pyramid of power. They were apt to be gloomy men and presented a stern vision of the world, at once unsmiling and unrelenting. Yet they were probably closer than the magnificos to the theological roots of capitalism: the demonstration of virtue through success, the doctrine of calling, the gospel of work and thrift.
— from Max Lerner, America as a Civilization, 1957
When I think of this same basic division today, I think of Donald Trump and Warren Buffet.
Donald Trump
Donald Trump, one of Max Lerner’s magnificos if ever there was one, is a billionaire real-estate mogul and owner of gambling casinos, who has also in recent years become a best-selling author, TV and radio star, and tabloid media celebrity — the latest and possibly most shameless in a long line of out-sized American gamers who get famous by being rich and stay rich by being famous.
If we ever need a poster boy for “Thrift—Not!” we surely have one in Donald Trump. For him, everything is about high living and fast bucks, or what Trump calls “the art of the deal.” He is a caricature of egotism. Much of his money is from his gambling interests. He leaves behind him a trail of indebtedness and messy bankruptcies. He is a man whose core philosophy seems to be that bigger is always better and that more is always good. A man who cannot have his name on too many buildings or billboards, or in letters too large. A deep craving for glitz, flash, and conspicuous consumption — Donald Trump was bling before bling was a word. Quantities of bragging that, in most places, would gag a horse.
Heaven help us, we all, or at least most of us, have a bit of Donald Trump in us. After all, is it always wrong to want it, have it, and flaunt it? As Lerner recognized, being a magnifico in America can be quite exciting and, often enough, lots of fun! I imagine that more than a few Americans play the lottery today hoping that they’ll get lucky and become a somewhat smaller-scale version of Donald Trump, a hometown magnifico.
In any case, there is a reason why so many, and growing numbers, of our signs across the country have the word “Trump” emblazoned on them. If Trump were a U.S. city, he would doubtless be Las Vegas or Atlantic City, but there is also a sense in which all of our cities, and our society as a whole, have been moving steadily in recent decades in a Trump-like direction.
Warren Buffett
Warren Buffet is also a famous billionaire. But any similarity to Trump ends there. Buffet lives modestly in Omaha, Nebraska. He eats lunch at the Dairy Queen. He has never borrowed money in business [J.D.'s note: this doesn't mesh with Lowenstein's biography of Buffett], and has never been in debt. Throughout his career, nearly everyone associated with him has made money, usually lots of it. Lerner describes his American puritans as typically “gloomy men” who are “at once unsmiling and unrelenting.” But Buffet seems to be cheerful enough, and by all accounts has a great sense of humor.
He could not be less interested in “the art of the deal.” As an investor, he emphasizes the fundamentals and looks for companies that are likely to thrive over time. 
He filed his first tax return at age thirteen, for his paper route, and took a $25 deduction for his bicycle. Because he does not believe that the children of rich men, including his own children, should inherit all or even most of their fathers’ estates, he recently announced plans to give most of his money away. He argues that “huge fortunes that flow in large part from society should in large part be returned to society.” He keeps receipts and is a stickler over small sums of money. For years — until he gave it to a charity auction — the license plate on his car read “THRIFTY.”
Most of us have a bit of Warren Buffet in us, or at least would like to. There is much to admire here. And as Lerner’s observations suggest, Buffet’s America — the America of “the demonstration of virtue through success, the doctrine of calling, the gospel of work and thrift” — runs quite deep in our history and still looms large today as an aspect of our collective identity and a shaper of our possibilities.
The question for us today is, which America? Looking ahead, in which direction do we want to go? Do we want as a society to become a bit more like Trump? Or a bit more like Buffet? To me, the answer is clear enough. Moreover, the stakes are quite high. If I had to pick the best word to describe the Trump direction, it would be “waste.” For the Buffet direction, by far the best word, and possibly the only truly adequate word, is “thrift.”
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Day 101
1/9/09 Dinosaur shaped bread. Vaughn doesn't like to eat the bread crust -- arte kaayo. so i got him a cheap dinosaur crust cutter. oh the things we do for our kids!
Day 99
baby uggs. i got him uggs 2 sizes up, i'm hoping he will get a lot of mileage with these...three years at least =)Tuesday, January 20, 2009
i absolultely detest performance reviews
the 5 pages of the most bs i've written is sitting on my desk waiting to be signed. i think i don't take criticism well, one of the skills i still have to master. every year i dread this -- i've had to do one ever since i started working. blech! one of these days i want to have my own business so i don't ever have to write a performance review...or maybe i should be a consultant? hmmm. lol. actually it's not that bad. i just hate filling it out and outlining my strengths and weaknesses in relation to the job. sigh! this is why a lot of people leave corporate america. to get away from red tape like this. no wonder there's a lot of aspiring actors/actresses and artists who hope to make it big one day. they rely on pure talent and love what they do. i know what i love to do. secretly i want to run my own thriftstore/clothing shop and dress up the mannequins with cool outfits. or be a stylist and dress runway models or just be a stylist for people period. but as the song goes, there's a muddy line between things you want and the things you have to do (especially now that I have a mortgage and a child) hahaha.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Going on internet hiatus and out-there-random-thoughts
Not like I have a choice. I gotta do what I need to do by the end of February otherwise the suffering will start again. Will blog about it as soon as I'm done. 365 will be resuscitated around March sometime.
Back to hurtling down the freeway and doing the 9-5 grind. Sigh. I didn't want my vacation to end.Some people need to mind their own business. If I was her, I would scream at the top of my lungs: it's my life, don't you forget! stupid ass nosy hitachis.
I am super broke…like, can't afford groceries, diapers, and wipes broke. Lol! Nah, but I like to exaggerate so people won't think money grows on trees and think that we have a lot of money to burn.
I feel really guilty about throwing away food. Next time we have leftovers, i'm taking it to work, or calling friends.
I need to figure out a way to make a lot of money so I won't have to blog and bitch about working and not having money.
If you need to get a hold of me, you have my number. Don't text too much because if I go over my text plan, I pay 10 cents per outgoing/incoming text. So no stupid jokes or forwards please (same goes for Mark btw) oh and If you don't have my number, there's probably a good reason why you don't. ha-ha.
=P adios!
Friday, January 09, 2009
Day 97
1/5/08- waiting for the shuttle
- to the bunny slopes we go!
- practice sa
- i fell a couple of times pero smile lang gihapon!
- mark, uncle mac and i decided to hit the more intermediate slopes (that's the view)
- i had to grab some coffee after cuz i got soo tired (gettin old gettin old hahaha!)
- then we all rode the cable car to high camp
- and while we were away slippin and slidin in the snow, vaughn met a huge siberian husky
1/4/08 
Thursday, January 08, 2009
stupid multiply
multiply is going crazy on me...i posted a blog entry three times and it didn't go. leche. maybe tomorrow will be a better time to post.
Day 96
1/4/08 Lake Tahoe! this is our cabin...vaughn sled down from the top of the stairs. he has no fear! (that's him in the blue and orange jacket. pics and videos coming soon)
Day 96
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Day 94
1/2/08 vaughn likes to sit on the really high bar chairs but i don't want him to (thus the face pout)
Day 91
12/31/08 New Year's Eve shindig at the casa. Yes I'm still a lush -- but a toned down version na ;-)
Day 88
12/28/08 horsey horsey with the lauron girls (elle, trina, beaux) with beaux as the horsey lol!
Day 85
12/24/08 Christmas Eve at Ate Kate's. missing ella and abby...and lex! lol. he came later after we opened all the presents!
Day 82
12/21/08 Metrolink Holiday Express toy drive. Vaughn had such a blast seeing the train all decked out for Christmas!
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