Bloglines and some catching up to do

I have been home over a week now and not a single post. Isn't that something? I was in North Carolina for probably the same amount of time and how many posts did I have?

For those of you who don't know what Bloglines is, here's how I found out about it. My library cataloging class. Bloglines is a website that lets you subscribe to, duh, blogs. It's an easy way to keep track of all the blogs you read. When you log in, it will tell you if any of the blogs you subscribe to have any new posts. As part of our library class, we have to read blogs about library-related stuff. Naturally, I already added all of the blogs I read there. So instead of opening everyone's blog individually, I can just check there! The website, you may ask... duh, bloglines.com

Since it is now after midnight, I will have to do the catching up part later.

Another cool feature

Can you figure out what that feature is?

Pictures!

My cousin Kevin is my hero! I asked him if he might have any USB cords for a digital camera. He pulls out a cord from a box, and voila! It worked. So here you go guys!

This one is a picture of the airplane's wing and the horizon as the plane was entering the Atlanta area. It was close to landing.

That's one of the goldfish(?) at the restaurant. Everytime I see the fishes I think about Alan and Diane's little goldfish, Starvin' Marvin. Would Starvin' Marvin get this big if he was in a bigger tank and not in a tiny bowl?

I don't know if ya'll can see it ... but that's the mysterious bruise! Most of the lighter part has faded to a lighter purple. But the darker part is now like a blotchy red.

Cows! Look guys, cows! So, who wants to go cow-tipping with me? Any volunteers? Shelley? That's just down the street from where my cousin Karen lives. I remember my first visit here, which happens to be the previous visit, one morning after it had snowed, I went out to get the mail. I had watched one of the neighbors walk down very carefully to his mailbox to get his mail. Didn't know why, until I tried it myself. The driveway was very slippery. So, when I got down to the end and got the mail, I looked down the street and there they were! Cows! Karen says you can hear them sometimes too.

Then this morning, my cousin Nelson and I were just sitting in the living room when I looked out the door and saw a ball of fluff on the frontyard. I went outside and the little ball of fluff disappeared up the tree. I found it, snapped it's picture and voila! It climbed down and started to jump away. Yes, jump. It didn't run or scurry like the squirrels back home in LA. It hopped!



Then after the squirrel, I spotted a dog across the street. It came over and played with me for a little while. It was quite friendly. It even gave me a kiss on the lips that I totally didn't expect.

Much different from Karen's dog, Romeo. He just lounges there all the time.


Gotta say, I do love my camera. Like Stacy said, I'm on cloud nine.

The Ar/Eav Family Tree

In case you get confused. Let me break it down what family members I have here.

In Asheville, there lives my Uncle Tony, the oldest. He has three boys: Ling, Steve, and Michael. Ling has two kids, Alicia and Justin. Steve has two kids, Asia (3) and Paris. I just found out about Paris the other day. Michael is expecting (well, his wife is).

Here in Brevard, I have the rest of my family. I'll start with my mom's side, because there's just one. My Uncle Heng. His two kids are Nelson (11/8/91) and Joanne (9/29/94). Growing up, they were ALWAYs at my house. Joanne used to follow me around the house all the time and we'd play board games.

Where do I start with my dad's family? I guess I'll start with the boys, the twins. There's Uncle Sann. He's got two kids, Richard (2/20/91) and Eileen (3/30/94). Then there's the other twin, Uncle Meng. He's got three: William, Brandon (5/7/92), and Brenda (8/26/95). William is in college, so I won't be seeing him during this trip. Hehe they used to live in the same apartment as we did. I remember when Brenda was born. I used to go up to see her all the time as a baby. She was so cute. My brother and Brandon are about the same age. So they used to play together a lot. One time, my brother came downstairs in tears, saying Brenda hit him. She was a baby at the time, mind you. And Billy had to be like two or three. I know he was no more than four because he was four when we moved to the house.

Then there's my Aunt Christina. She also lived in LA until over a year ago. She's got three kids: Stephanie (9/10/86), Philip (5/10), and Peter (3/4/94). Stephanie's the same age as my sister and going to college at UC Davis. Then there's the youngest, my Aunt Letty. She's also got three kids: Karen, Kevin, and Kelly.

There. Now if I mention a cousin, you'll know (sortof) who they are. Then there's the rest of us who don't live in NC. That's me, Tina, Billy, Jenny, and Wendy.

Bye-bye Chris, Hello Gabriel

Today Sherisse texted me to tell me that Chris, our shipper/receiver, is no longer with us at our store. Do you know what that means? Gabriel can come back. He asked me awhile ago if we still had a shipper/receiver. At the time, we had Chris. But now... Gabriel... hee hee hee. *SMILE* :-D

My trip so far

If you didn't know, right now I'm sitting behind my cousin's computer in North Carolina. Wow, there really isn't much to do. So let me start at the beginning. My dad took me to the airport at 9, considering my flight left just a little before midnight. He shelled out 100 bucks so he could send two boxes to NC. First he paid 50 because i could only check two items, and I had a suitcase. Then they charged him 25 per box because they were over the weight limit. So by the time eerything was done and I made it to my gate, it was like 9:45. So I found an electrical outlet because my phone was practically dead. Plugged it in and talked to Sherisse and Nina. When I finally boarded my flight, the flight was fuller than it was when i checked. There were people sitting behind me. It was a man with two kids. One was like a baby, mebbe a year. So she cried in the middle of the night. I slept like maybe an hour and half or so. There was no one sitting next to me, so I got to stretch out. But I couldn't recline my seat cuz there were people behind me. The person in front of me tried to recline her seat till she realized i was behind her. So we landed in Atlanta a little before 7 EST. I walked past a starbucks but didn't realize there wasn't a Starbucks in the terminal I was going to. I was going to Terminal C, but there wasn't a starbucks there. Since I had a three hour layover, I walked to Terminal D to get something then went back to C. Time went by in a blur cuz it was early and I was tired. Probably jet lagged too cuz it was 4 AM LA time. Finished my starbucks. Did who knows what. Got something at Seattle's Best and then boarded my plane at ten. Now that plane was much nicer! Plus, I was in row 10 and there wasn't a single person behind me. The flight attendant asked me if I'd like the rest of hte can of hte coke she had to open for me, but I declined. I would've said yes, but I couldn't hold anymore liquids at that point. The flight was about 35 minutes. My uncle picked me up. One of the air crew told us one of the boxes was "comprimised" back in Atlanta. It broke and there was food everywhere. We got our boxes and it was one of hte jars of pickled mangos. So everything stunk. We drove back to Asheville, passing through Hendersonville so he could go to the bank. We even passed Talbots! I wished we could've stopped cause man I need another pair of pants. I only packed two and uh the one I wore got "comprimised."

When we got to Brevard, we went to the restaurant to drop of the two boxes. I changed my pants and said hi to whatever relatives I could find. We went to the house where I showered. My aunt and uncle left to do something at the DMV. I was bored out of my mind. I didn't want to turn on my cousin's computer because I didn't know if there was a password required or not. and plus... it felt kinda weird because i felt like i should ask for permission first. Weird, right? So I watched whatever I could find on TV, played my cousin's DS... then finally my cousins came home. From there, we went to my other cousin's house. That was about it yesterday. Hehe as soon as I can, I'll post with some pictures. I haven't taken too many yet.

As for today, since I only got about an hour and half sleep on hte plane yesteday, I caught up on my sleep today. I didn't get up till Nelson (my cousin) came home. That's when I got up showered, and discovered my bruise. See blog entry below for that. My aunt came home and asked me why I didn't go to the restaurant today to help. Hehe I needed sleep. I was so tired. So I got ready and went to the restaurant around five. Hehe I went to the cash wrap and there HE was. Well, he wasn't at the cashwrap. He was behind the grill like he always was. But then he disappeared for awhile. He never looked at me or said anything to me. Oh well. Maybe he doesn't remember me after all. But his brother does. Alex came up to the cashwrap and said hello and "como estas" like he always did when I was here last time. He was always saying hola, como estas. He asked me if I remembered him. And I did the same thing I did last time I was here. I thought he was his brother. Oops. I felt so embarrassed. But I did remember his name. I just mixed him up with his brother again. Hehe I still think Pime is pretty cute. That's about it.

I think I'll probably be blogging more here than I did back in LA. There's nothing else to do. Man, I'm craving a white chocolate mocha right now. Then again. I have been all day.

The weirdest thing

When I got in the shower this afternoon (it was like 2:45 EST) I was just waking up. Then as I looked down, I see this humongous purple thing on my ankle. As I try to scrub it off, it wasn't coming off. It was a bruise! Guys... there's a bruise on my ankle. Not only do I not know where in the world it came from, it looks like a smile. I should put two dots above my ankle to turn my bruise into a smiley face. The bruise itself is about two and a half inches long and mebbe half an inch wide. And the corners turn up, so it does look like a smile. At first, I was like, somebody tell me my cousin pranked me in the middle of the night by putting paint or something on my ankle. But as it wouldn't come off, it was like, oh goodness it's real. It's really a bruise.

Angelina is the coolest!

So this afternoon, while I was resting in NC after a red-eye flight with minimal sleep, I get this text message from angelina:

Russell Martin is at PCC! But only the first one hundred people get autographs and I missed it by 2!

He is right here in front of me and I can't even get his autograph!

I heard they might let ten more in so I'll wait around... but I didn't know they'd be here so I don't know what to get signed!

He signed my sunglasses too you can have them if you want lol

And btw Andre was way nicer than him

Anyway, so I talked to Angelina and this is how it went I think. HOpefully she'll put it up and we can hear the whole story. She told him she had a friend who was in North Carolina who was his biggest fan. And that her friend wished him a happy early birthday (his birthday is February 15, the day I fly back to LA). Technically he was only supposed to sign one thing, but he signed her sunglasses and a notecard for me! Yay! And here's what Andre Ethier (outfielder) had to say about the sunglasses: "she wants you to sign her sunglasses...dude, Russ, that's hardcore."

LOL If I ever get a chance to have Andre or Russ sign something, I'll be sure to bring SUNGLASSES!

I've been wanting to try this for a long time