vel's journaly thing

Today I had my aunt lop off about 15 inches of my hair. Ahh, it feels so much nicer and lighter! I'll be sending the hair in for donation shortly.

My hair grows like wildfire, and this is about the fourth or fifth time I've done this. I grow my hair out, cut it once every few years, donate the hair, and start over again. My last cut was almost exactly three years ago, sometime in the Fall of 2007.

I only ever cut up to about my shoulder blades, though, because short hair and I don't get along. Once in sixth grade I got my hair cut to just above my shoulders, and it was such a disaster I swore I'd never do it again! And I haven't. See, I have thick, wavy hair, and when it was that short, it was no longer heavy enough to be held down, so it just kind of went POOF. I looked like a French poodle, it was horrible. So now when I do have it cut, I make sure to leave enough that it stays weighted. The other reason is I'm lazy and only ever wear my hair up in a bun. Really, I have no idea how or inclination to do anything else with it, and buns are the easiest thing for me.

Eventually I get fed up with how long it's gotten, due to how much time it takes to brush out and wash and comb, etc., and need to cut it off to a manageable level again. Usually when it reaches my butt is when I'm at my limit. Since I always wear my hair in a bun and never go to a salon for anything, occasionally my aunt will trim the ends for me just to get rid of split ends and even it out a bit. Since I was going to be seeing her today for a family gathering, and I'd been meaning to get it cut off for a few weeks now, I thought I'd just have her hack off the donation part for me as well. Yay!

( Pics )

Had my 90 day evaluation at work today. I hate evaluations, they are so scary to me! I don't handle criticism well, even when it's minor. Oh well, just got the same thing I always get: "You're doing a great job, but smile more!" Dude, my face just doesn't work that way; believe me, it's been like this my whole life. I'm just not a smiler! I don't sit around grinning for no reason, my face is just sort of neutral at all times. At least it feels completely neutral to me, people tell me I look like I'm frowning or something. And apparently my idea of smiling must be on a much smaller scale than everyone else. Sigh. This is how I smile, just deal with it! =p

Went to the Sharks' fifth playoff game of the first round with my brother last night, and they KICKED ASS!! It was SUCH an awesome game! They absolutely dominated and were finally able to get the puck past Colorado's goalie, clobbering them 5-0. Woohoo! So glad I got to go to that one! It was the first game in this series where they've led by more than one goal. One more win and they move to the next round of the playoffs! GO SHARKS!! =D

( Pics from the game )

Then last night as I was driving home, I saw a freaking big spider crawl across the INSIDE of my windshield!! D= Aaaaauuuuggghhh! Spiders freak me the fuck out! Normally I don't mind them, as long as they stay the hell off of me and out of my space! And inside my truck is definitely my space! I was nearly home when I saw it and had to stop for gas anyway, so I pulled into a station to fill up and try to get the damn thing out. Well it FELL off the windshield, and I had no idea where it went! I looked all over with a flashlight trying to find it without any luck. So then I had to get back in with the mysterious missing spider and drive the rest of the way home (about four blocks). >_< I damn near had a panic attack on the way, thinking about it coming crawling out of my steering column or something and was driving with one finger on the wheel and jumping at every movement out of the corner of my eye. I'm such a freaking sissy. I made it home safely, but the spider is still missing. ARGH.

Where to start? Well, I have a bit of a cold at the moment so I'm just resting up, and I see I've been neglecting lj again.

Easter Weekend

Friday night I had to work, and after that I met up with Josh at the Sonoma Chicken Coop in downtown San Jose for a group dinner event with his motorcycling friends, the South Bay Riders. It was pretty fun; much of the time was spent trying to convince Josh that he should go to Disneyland at least once in his life.

On Saturday we got up relatively early to drive down to Fresno for my cousin David's 20th birthday party. It was held out at my aunt's ranch in Clovis. While we were there some of us walked down the road to a neighbor's place to see my remaining duck in (her?) new home. The surviving duck turned out to be Kikumaru (I seem to be the only one who could tell them apart), so I guess Ooishi is fox food now. =( Maybe I shouldn't have named him something that sounded so close to "oishii"... ^^;

But all reports say Kikumaru is doing well and has buddied up with a black and white duck in the new pond, so I guess that's good. The neighbor is really nice and says we can visit anytime; we also went to another neighbor, a friend of my aunt's, and I talked horses with him for a while.

( Kikumaru at the new pond )

Then back at the ranch we went to visit the cows grazing in the pasture. My aunt and uncle don't live at the ranch (my aunt inherited it from a friend of Oma's; she's hanging on to it, but they actually live at their own house), but they let a guy who raises cattle graze some of them on their land. There are 10 acres split into three different sections; right now there are five cows in one of them, and some of them were actually friendly. Josh didn't seem to think much of the cows, but I thought they were cute!

( Cows in the field )

It's amazing how green it is out there from all the rain California has had. Normally it would all be brown and dried up by now. I'm glad it wasn't raining while we were down there, though. We stayed down in Fresno until about 7:30, then drove back up to San Jose.

Sunday morning I went to work and it was pouring and windy. That was good because it meant nearly no customers and I was able to leave early like I was planning on doing anyway. I left work at noon and went to Josh's aunt and uncle's place in Saratoga for Easter brunch that was really good. After the food we watched a photo album DVD with pictures chronicling the life of one of Josh's relatives...his grandfather I think? I wasn't paying all that much attention and fell asleep on his shoulder. When I woke up it was time to go over to my parents' house to have Easter dinner with them, my brother, and my grandma.


New Apartment

Josh and I are pretty much settled into the new place. I think all that's still left to bring over is my bookcase, and there's still some more decorating to be done. I don't have too much to say about it; it's a pretty decent place, and I'm happy wherever Josh and my computer and high speed internet are. *g* Anyway, onto the pictures...

( New apartment pics )

Sunday I spent the day with a small portion of Josh's family (which is huge, apparently, but most of them live in Connecticut). This was because his father was in town on business, and since he had never been to the Bay Area before, we wanted to take him for some sightseeing.

Josh and I picked up his dad from his hotel in downtown San Jose around 9am, then had breakfast at a diner not too far from there. It was REALLY foggy, I couldn't even read the street signs until we were almost right in front of them; very strange. Around 10 we left the diner to go up to the James Lick Observatory (giant telescopes) on top of Mt. Hamilton, the highest peak in the area.

Okay, let me just say I'd never been up there before, even though I live basically right below it. Also, although the word "Mount" is in its name, it had never occurred to me that it really is a freaking MOUNTAIN. I tend to think of all the surrounding scenery here as "hills," not "mountains," even though that's apparently what they are.

So anyway, we went on a drive up to the observatory. I knew it would be a long, narrow, winding road; no problem, I like those as long as I'm the one driving (I start to feel carsick if someone else is behind the wheel), which I was. We went up...and up...and up...and up some more. I had NO idea just how far and how many thousands of feet up this place was going to be. It took like an hour just to get to the top from the base of the mountain (which I am now well aware really IS a mountain!). Also it was a tad bit nerve-wracking driving along the edge of the road because it was fairly narrow and there was no guard rail, and I'm afraid of heights. I didn't look at anything but the road ahead of me for sure! But eventually we made it to the top, where there are some really great views of the valley below. Although the weather was clear and warm and beautiful, unfortunately the valley a little hazy that day so it couldn't be seen very clearly, but it was still pretty neat. We walked around the observatory and looked at the telescopes for a while (those are huge), then headed back down to the valley. The drive down was a bit better because this time I knew about how far I would have to go...going up it was like driving into oblivion, you never knew when it would end.

When we came down from the mountain we went over to Josh's aunt and uncle's house to meet up with them for a trip up to San Francisco. Thankfully Josh's uncle drove (I hate driving in SF), so I didn't have to worry about that. It was me, Josh, his dad, his aunt and uncle, and one of their three daughters for the trip to SF. First we did the most obligatory thing for any tourist in SF, namely see the Golden Gate Bridge. We drove over it and then up to a lookout point just beyond it to take pictures. You couldn't have asked for a nicer day, either. This was one of the maybe ten clear days SF gets a year...the rest of the time the whole city is swamped in fog and you really can't see much of anything, the bridge included. I've never seen so many sailboats out on the bay at one time, it was kind of nuts. I don't know if they were having some kind of group outing or race or what, but it seemed like every fifty feet on the water there was another one.

After this we drove back across the bridge into the city and went down Lombard Street, the most crooked street in the world (or something like that). It's crooked all right, and it's also insanely steep; I really don't know how anyone can manage to live or park on a street like that (and there are plenty of steep ones in SF). One reason I don't like driving in SF is because of having to go up the hills they have there; you have to stop every block for cross traffic, and when you try to get going again you roll backwards a little bit due to the steepness. It's really freaky and I don't like it one bit.

Next we parked down by Fisherman's Wharf and went to the Buena Vista pub because Josh's aunt insisted we get Irish coffee there ("we" meaning the other adults, certainly not me! coffee with whiskey yeah don't think so). Oh my god that place was crowded. I'm sure a dozen or so fire codes were being broken. We got lucky and managed to actually get a table for the six of us just as some people were leaving, so they drank their coffee and I watched people going by outside. I saw a few horse-drawn carriages go by, but I thought they were being pulled by rather small horses for the job. Also there were people waiting for an hour just to cram themselves onto one of the trolleys that would just take them up a few streets, I guess just so they could say they'd ridden one.

After leaving the pub we went back to the car to drive to a restaurant called "Crustacean" that the aunt and uncle love for dinner. It seems to be a Vietnamese seafood place; excellent food but pretty pricey. The aunt highly recommended their famous garlic noodles, so that's what I had. Wow really good stuff! Josh got me to try some of his plum wine, which I was surprised by: it was really sweet and actually tasted good! Typically I can't stand anything with alcohol in it because it's just too...well I don't know how to describe it other than "disgusting." This is what I think of pretty much most wine. But if they can make wine that's sweet enough that even I can drink it, why don't they do that for all of them? Why are most of them so nasty... Well anyway, I liked it and he ordered a glass of it for me, which I tried to refuse because there's no way I can drink an entire glass of wine of any kind. I made an effort because I really did like it, and I did manage to drink most of it. So all of you alcoholicy friends of mine out there can rejoice, there actually exists an alcoholic drink that I like. =p

That was about all we had time for in San Francisco; Josh's dad had to get back to his hotel to meet up with someone he works with, so we all headed back to San Jose. It was a very tiring day, but I think we all had fun; at least I did. =)

Pictures coming soon!

Who the heck is Terushima Takuma and why are so many people voting for him on seiyuu?

I finally watched the new Phantom of the Opera movie. I knew it would be bad (Joel Schumacher directing? *shudder*), but GEEZ. I don't know what I was expecting, but it was awful, awful, AWFUL. If you're going to do a movie of a musical about a musical genius, at least cast someone who can SING in the title role!!! Dear lord, it was seriously painful to listen to him butcher all my favorite songs. >_< And why did they change some of the words/not sing many of the lines that are meant to be sung?

Oh, and the phantom is supposed to be absolutely *terrifying* to look at, NOT a totally handsome guy merely suffering from a second degree sunburn! COME ON. And Minnie Driver as Carlotta? WTF? She's not an opera singer, is she? She completely didn't fit the image I have of Carlotta. The girl who played Christine was really dull and had only one look on her face for the entire movie: vapid airhead. I guess her singing was okay, but not nearly powerful enough. The rest of the cast I didn't pay much attention to, but I did like Miranda Richardson as Madame Giry. Also I recognized the guy playing Andre was that one guy from Shakespeare in Love; he seemed pretty good.

People weren't kidding...if you like the musical and the original Broadway cast, stay the hell away from this travesty!

Yesterday I spent something like FIVE HOURS in a department store returning and exchanging clothes. Ugh! If you know me you know I HATE shopping like nothing else. Clothes shopping is the worst, though, because it takes so much time and effort to try everything on. At least I got some things that actually fit and that I'm happy with now, but sometime this week I have to go back to another store and try to exchange some other things. Oh yay...

Last night I went with my family to the Sharks game. The Sharks lost when they really didn't deserve it. That was the most blatantly rigged game I'd ever seen! The first two periods were fine, and they were leading 2-1. Then when the third period started suddenly the refs completely decided the Coyotes had to win and attacked the Sharks. They gave them no less than four or five penalties within the space of five minutes (most of which were completely undeserved, and they were really grasping at straws for things to call; "delay of game"? WTF?). So for at least four minutes it was 5 on 3, and with an advantage like that the Coyotes scored 4 goals in about 4 minutes. It was really disgusting.

I think poor Nabokov was pretty flustered by it all; one of the goals was his fault since he accidently kicked it in behind him. After that he was pulled and they sent in Toskala. And for the rest of the game no matter what the Coyotes did, they were never given any penalties! Tripping, interference, high sticking, who cares? But if a Shark puts one toe out of line, it's off to the penalty box with you! They did manage to score two more goals and make it 4-5, but the refs made sure that if they were coming any closer to scoring another goal they'd get a penalty. There's no question that whoever was making those calls was completely biased and totally destroyed any fairness there was in the game.

As for some good news, in about two hours I'm going to the airport to pick up Josh! ^_^ Also, today is my brother's 23rd birthday, so I'll be going out to dinner and a movie with my family tonight. He wants to see Fun with Dick and Jane. Is that supposed to be any good? It looks kind of stupid in the commercials...

So I just got back from having lunch with Neil McCoy. He's a country singer for those of you who don't recognize his name. His latest hit is "Billy's Got His Beer Goggles On" or something like that (I like the song, just not sure of the exact title). He has a few other songs I like as well like.

As usual, Mom won this on the radio from our local country station. It was at Armadillo Willy's, a barbeque place I'd never been to before. I don't like barbeque at all, but they had good cornbread. There were maybe thirty people there plus some KRTY (the radio staton) staff, including the two morning DJs (Gary and Julie; Gary is a crack-up and the only reason I like their morning show). Anyway Neil came in and stood around for a little while answering questions. Then people lined up to have their picture taken with him, so my mom and I both got one of us with him.

( picture )

He commented on how tall we both were, and then was really surprised when Mom told him that I'm the shortest one in the family (at 5'8"). It's true, I'm the runt; I was wearing boots with 2" heels today so I look closer to my mom's height than I actually am.

Next we got food from the buffet and went back to the tables to sit down and eat. They had a bunch of small square tables pushed together in the shape of a huge L, and Mom and I were on one end next to a bunch of empty seats. Of course that's where Neil and the staff all ended up, with Neil right next to me. He's very nice and friendly, but I felt a bit silly sitting there because I only know a grand total of three or four of his songs and really had nothing to say to him. So I just listened while he mostly yacked with the DJs and occasionally answered questions from the other guests who either walked over or yelled out to him from other parts of the table.

When everyone was pretty much done eating he started signing autographs for anyone who wanted one. Not many people had actually brought anything for him to sign, so most people got their name tags (given to us before lunch; stupid girl spelled my name wrong so I flipped it over and wrote it correctly) signed. My name tag was stupid and ugly, so instead I had him sign my horse purse. :)

( autograph )

After he finished those I guess it was time for him to go. I said goodbye and that it was nice to meet him, and everyone clapped and he left with his road manager or whoever. He's doing a concert tonight at a club, but as Mom didn't win tickets to that we won't be going (we only go to things when they're free). ;)

So as you may know, I finally got to go to Magic Mountain this Saturday! It was my first time there after TWELVE years! I love roller coasters and they have some great ones, so I'd been wanting to go back for the longest time; the only problem is it's in southern California and a pretty long drive from where I live. But as it turns out, my cousin Daniel also loves roller coasters and Magic Mountain, but no one else in his family does so he has no one to go with. So I found a roller coaster buddy in my cousin :) He lives much closer to the park than I do, so I was able to stay with and visit his family for the weekend as well as go with him to the park.

( ducks )

( drive down )

( X )

( Log Jammer, Goliath )

( Batman, Splashdown )

( Superman )

( Gold Rusher )

( Batman Begins stunt show )

( Riddler's Revenge )

( Viper, Revolution )

( end of the day )

Oh! I forgot to mention that on Thursday night I went with gokumew2 and wasabi_fiend to the circus in San Jose (seeing my Pierrot icon reminded me). The clowns sucked, but the animals and some of the human performances were cool. They had some gorgeous Friesians and Arabians and Norwegian Fjords performing, and I also liked the elephants and tigers (but the tiger trainer was a total nutjob; he had one of the most annoying voices I've ever heard!). I wonder which of the circus people had gone riding at the stable two days before...After the circus we got In N Out for dinner and went back to my house to talk about anime and watch some of the Seki Tomokazu panel from AX this year. 'Twas much fun ^_^

At about ten to 6am this morning, I was awoken by a phone call from my dad. This was incredibly weird because he should have still been sound asleep at home. But he was calling to tell me that he was with mom in the emergency room at the hospital! She'd been having really bad chest/abdominal pain and they went to get it checked out. So as it turns out she has gallstones and will probably have to have her gall bladder removed. Anyway, dad called to let me know where they were, and to make sure I got up in time for work.

Work was nuts today. It was sunny but still really cold out, and although the mud is starting to dry somewhat, it's still really deep and sticky. What was crazy was this is the type of day we'd expect to be slow, but we had a giant rush of people. A group of 12, then 9, then 7 all came around the same time. We sent out every horse we could find and still didn't have enough, so people had to wait around. It was very weird. At least once the big rush was over things quieted down and there wasn't much of anything to do the rest of the day, but it was exhausting. My feet hurt from running around so much now.

Happy Birthday Ryan! Not that you read lj much I don't think...

Today is my brother's 22nd birthday. We're leaving shortly to go out to dinner and then see Lemony Snicket. We can never agree on which movie to see on someone's birthday. He wanted to see Meet the Fockers, but none of the rest of us did, so this looks like a better option. I know nothing about this movie, which is apparently based on a series of children's books I've never heard of, so I'll have to see how it is...