Third generation

It will only have been five months since my camera broke ...
Five months without taking a single picture on my own digital camera ...
Five months was how long I lasted.

Too bad I didn't do this a month ago!

If you haven't figured it out yet ... I'm getting a new digital camera!

It's a Canon Powershot S3 IS. Here's some of the things about it:

• 12x optical zoom lens with USM and UD lens element
• Optical Image Stabilizer
• 6.0 Megapixel CCD
• Larger size 2.0” Vari-angle LCD
• 30fps VGA movies with stereo sound and Photo in Movie feature
• DIGIC II, iSAPS and Flexizone AF/AE for fast, precise results and 2.3 fps continuous shooting performance
• 20 shooting modes and My Colors photo effects
• High ISO Auto and ISO 800 for low light flexibility
• Widescreen (16:9) recording
• Photo In Movie feature enables the capture of full resolution digital stills during video recording
• Offers 20 shooting modes including full Manual mode, Aperture Priority and Shutter Speed Priority
• My Colors (Off, Vivid, Neutral, Sepia, B&W, Positive film, Lighter skin tone, Darker skin tone, Vivid blue, Vivid red, Vivid Green, Custom color

Newsboys Concert Spill

Caption: One of the members of the Newsboys takes quite a fall during a recent concert. Okay, so it couldn't have been that recent because Phil is no longer with the Newsboys, as of December 31st. But still.... poor Phil! I hope he didn't hurt his bass or himself. Awww...

Going to North Carolina!

For TWOO WEEKS!!! Not for good, for anyone who remembers that debacle. And technically, I'm only going to be there for little over a week. I'm arriving on the 6th and leaving on Russ' birthday. Of course I have to be back in town to celebrate my hubby's birthday. JUST KIDDING!!!!
Here's some pictures from when I went three years ago.
The first one is of my uncle Sann (dad's younger brother, #4), my aunt letty (dad's youngest sister, #), and my aunt letty's two youngest kids (Kevin and Kelly)

Then there's my twin uncles above, Meng and Sann (#5 and 4). The picture with me in it is with my twin uncles and Letty's youngest kids.

If that's confusing, try this:

姚明耀 (姚文堅) (b. 1948) -- Uncle Tony

姚明宗 (姚文龍) (b. 1949) -- Uncle Long

姚明哲 (姚文斯) (b. 1955) -- My dad

姚明雙 (姚文彬) (b. 1962) -- Uncle Sann

姚明全 (姚文彪) (b. 1962) -- Uncle Trung

姚慶玲 (b. 1965) -- Aunt Christina

姚慶涼 (b. 1966) -- Aunt Letty

Now in case you didn't know, that's seven out of 16 or 17 children, and ten that survived past infancy or something like that. I forgot the numbers. Can you imagine having that many aunts and uncles and cousins? Yeesh. I think each sibling had at least three kids each ... except for Uncle Sann. He only had two. But everyone else had three. And to complicate things more, my cousins kids call me aunt.

But I'm excited. When last I went, only four out of the seven siblings lived out there. In 2005, my Aunt Christina moved her family out there. So did my mom's youngest brother, Uncle Heng. So the only people out here are my family and uncle #2 (which I'm closing to Jenny anyway). But not too long ago, I got really homesick for my cousins and uncles. My mom's youngest brother (don't even ask me how many siblings she has! There's at least four that I know of, maybe five or more) used to come over to our house every night after he got off work. When we were growing up, my mom babysat his kids every day. Joanne's ten years younger than me and for years she was my shadow. She followed me everywhere around the house. And my uncle always took us everywhere. Anywhere we needed to go, he would take us! Sigh. No wonder my brother bawls every time he leaves NC or they leave LA.


And the good looking guy in the red chef's hat? That's the guy whose heart I broke when I left. Again, JUST KIDDING! His name is Epimenio, but they call him Pime. Wonder if he's still working there. Then again, three years is a long time. And I heard that when my cousin Stephanie visited last year or the year before, he like fell in love with her. What can I say? She's the favored one (and pretty one) in this family of seven aunts and uncles.

Bad start for a new year

Okay, so I haven't posted anything of importance in a long time because I didn't think it mattered or anyone paid attention to this thingy probably because I don't post anything of importance anyway. After the first few days of the new year, might as well post something. Even Chris has posted! Though ... it seems the blogging world has died down quite a bit.

To start off the new year we have new scratches on my car! Actually more than that. I scratched the passenger side and broke part of the driver side where the mirror is. Pictures down below. How did I do it, you ask? Well, I was backing out of my drive way last night and on the phone. Mind you, I've done this a million times ... though usually in broad daylight. Didn't realize I wasn't backing out straight till I heard the crunch of metal. I looked to my left and saw my rearview mirror had caught the fence! Boy oh boy. I pulled forward to straighten my car and hit something on the side of the house. So now my car has a piece of it broken off and new scratches.

On top of that, the other day a customer got really mad at me. She kept glaring at me every time she saw me. Before I went on my break, she asked me in a demanding tone to put her things in a fitting room. I come back twenty minutes later and get stuck on the register. She comes out, asks me where her clothes are, is very accusatory. I tried to calm her down, but she wouldn't have none of it. We found her things on a rolling rack. She went back into the fitting room, came back out later (all this time I was at the register still) and told my manager, "I think there's something wrong with the girl who's helping me." She said she had a skirt in her room and it wasn't there anymore. She said something about it was hard enough to look for something the first time around and she didn't want to look for things a second time. Mind you... the entire time she had been in the fitting room, I had NEVER gone in and taken anything out.

So yeah, not having a great start to this new year. Plus, I almost got into like two car wrecks today. One was my fault, the other ... the car in front of me abruptly stopped when we heard sirens but didn't see anything. I heard the sirens and looked to see if I could pull over to the right in case they were coming our way. Next thing I know, I'm hitting my brakes so I wouldn't hit the guy in front of me. My steering wheel turned completely, something it has never done before. I swear, I thought I felt like I was gonna lose control of my car. The road was slick because it had just started raining like an hour ago. Grrr... I told Nina I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the year I ended up in some huge car wreck. She joked about the end of the week.

Newsboys Bass Player Leaves Band

Newsboys Bass Player Leaves Band

By Anne Thomas

Christian Post Correspondent

Tue, Jan. 02 2007 10:09 AM ET

Internationally renowned Christian band Newsboys recently announced that their bass player, Phil Joel, has left the band to devote more time to family and personal goals. He parted ways with the band Dec. 31, 2006.

"I'll always be a newsboy, it will remain a strong part of who I am", said Joel. "I've grown up with the guys and they'll always be brothers to me and the past 12 and a half years have been amazing."

"We will miss him," said frontman Peter Furler. "We appreciate him, and wish he and his family only the best for the future."

The band just completed a successful tour of Singapore and China without Joel as a four-piece with mates Paul Coleman and Jeff Frankenstein taking up additional vocal and bass duties.

The boys have decided at this time not to replace Joel, but to perform on their upcoming North American tour as a four-piece.

"The four of us have known each other for many years now," said Furler, adding that "it would feel strange for us to bring someone new in at this point."

The band will be featured at the Frenzy 2007, one of the largest one-day Christian music festivals in the U.K., which is slated for June 9.

In addition to Newsboys, the Frenzy line-up will include artists Chris Tomlin, Casting Crowns, Starfield, Leeland, All Star United and Andy Hunter.

From the Newsboys Website

Phil Joel departs
Posted 12/30/2006 -

Bass player Phil Joel has left the band to devote more time to family and personal goals. He finishes up with the band December 31st.

"I'll always be a newsboy, it will remain a strong part of who I am", said Joel. "I've grown up with the guys and they'll always be brothers to me and the past twelve and a half years have been amazing."

"We will miss him,", said frontman Peter Furler. "We appreciate him, and wish he and his family only the best for the future."

The band has just completed a successful tour of Singapore and China without Joel as a four-piece with Paul and Jeff taking up additional vocal and bass duties.

The boys have decided at this time not to replace Phil, but to perform on their upcoming North American tour as a four-piece. "The four of us have known each other for many years now", says Furler "It would feel strange for us to bring someone new in at this point."

To find out more about what Phil is doing, visit www.deliberatepeople.com.

The newsboys kick off their 40-city North American Tour on February 15th in Jeff's home town, The Motor City, Detroit. For all the tour dates and more, visit the tour page.