HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hope you have some bubbly beverage.
Apple cider should be OK for the kids.
Andre (Yuk!), Cooks (No way), Anything else but those two is good to celebrate this new year's eve.
My Favorite List

J- Jordan
Schramsberg
Iron Horse
Louis Roederer-California (Not the French stuff) Too expensive and over rated.
Perrier Jouet- Fleur du Champagne. Not bad if you can find it cheap.
Krug if you have plenty of money
Billecart De Salmon-"Pink" champagne. worth a "C" note.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you. May all your dreams and wishes coem true or at least somehow you get a glimpse of them.

Paz en el mundo tambien.

TRADE IN!

The following is an estimate that Olympuswants to give me for my digital camera. The deal is; you buy a new camera and send your old camera with the receipt and Bam! they send you a "rebate check". I know my camera has seen better days and with its (now) low 3.5 megapixels it still takes great pictures as you can see on previous posts or on my flickr account.



No, I am not trading. I might get more if I pawn it (which I will also not do).

Trade-In Estimate
Point & Shoot Olympus 3.0 to 3.9 Megapixel
CAMERA CONDITION: WORKING BUT WITH SCRATCHES OR DENTS
OPTICAL ZOOM OR DIGITAL ZOOM: 3X Optical
CAMERA FOCUS TYPE: AUTO FOCUS
EXTERNAL MEDIA INCLUDED WITH CAMERA: No External Memory Card
FLASH: BUILT-IN FLASH
LCD DISPLAY BUILT IN: YES
ORIGINAL SOFTWARE INCLUDED: NO
BATTERY TYPE REQUIRED: Uses Standard AA or AAA Alakline Battery(s) - Not included
AC ADAPTER / CHARGER: NOT INCLUDED
INSTRUCTIONS / OWNERS MANUAL: NOT INCLUDED
ORIGINAL CABLES AND/OR DOCK: SOME OF THE ORIGINAL CABLES ARE INCLUDED (not ALL)
PC CONNECTIVITY: USB and/or FIREWIRE
BLUETOOTH CAPABLE: NO
EXTERNAL TELEPHOTO CONVERTERS / LENSES: NONE
Estimated Trade-in Value:
(includes a Prepaid shipping label) $3.72
+$20.00 Bonus Cash
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$23.72 Total Trade-in Estimate

TO BLOGG OR NOT TO BLOGG

Over the last year of blogging, I have seen blogs disappear and some that write about stopping just to come back a few weeks or months later.
I think the reason given is usually lack of time.
Of course a blog should probably be the last priority when it comes to family, work and other social activities that prohibit you from writing. So why do people blog?. A recent survey found that the majority of people blog "for Themselves" as a record or story of their own personal lives. There are other more specific blogs that deal with a particular subject such as; politics, national news or current events. there are others that are about cooking, religious, or other etc, etc.
Mine falls under the average category. I see it more as a "picture" of my state of mind at any given point in time. I cover just about anything that happens around me as well as my family, as long as it is not too revealing. There are a lot of things that the Internet should not know and does not need to know about me.
Readership is also a funny subject. I can count on one hand the people that visit my blog. They may not necessarily comment on every post but sometimes they leave a note. (Thank you)
Some other times there are no comments. It does not bother me and as long as this interesting tool that Blogger provides free of charge, I will continue using it for my own entertainment purposes. Though I am thinking of getting an account with Wordpress and start a new blog with a "single" particular subject.
Any thoughts?

NY PICTURES

I said I was going to post pictures and here they are. It's been a good two days here. Traveling like any Ney Yorker through the "train" or subway has been fun. It reminds me of my childoohd in Mexico where to get just about anywhere, all you needed was a ticket in. Not about the same but similar. I have decided against using my Ipod to shut the noise out. It is "soothing" to hear thousands of feet as they shuffle along moving through the tunnels, or the NY noise of cars stuck in traffic or sirens blaring in the middle of the night. I couldn't do this everyday, su to me it's a novelty which will eventually wear off. Now it's off to work, but first I gotta grab a cup of coffee.
Here are the pictures.

ANOTHER TRIP - NEW YORK

I got to New York City this morning and it isn't as cold as I though it would be. This is a solo trip (work related) so it isn't much fun without company. Lasttime I was here, was with melissa for Valentine's. That was a really good trip. Next time she'll have to come along.
I have walked through the southern part of Manhattan throughout the day. I have also taken quite a few pictures which I will post as soon as I get a chance. The streets are full of Christmas shoppers. The Soho area was a zoo of people walking all over the place. I guess for lack of a traditional mall, like those on the west coast, you go to Soho. I got a couple of more days here, though the next two will be mostly about work. 'till then..

HOLIDAY TRIP

Once we left the town of Hanford, we headed towards the I-5 which takes you North towards San Francisco or south to Los Angeles. It was tempting to head south and just go hang out in Old Town Pasadena, but we had already commited to the family get together in San Francisco. The road continues East from Hanford, first through a small stretch of freeway then to a two lane road along cotton fields, acres and acres of fruit trees, all lined up in perfect sequence and at times, nothing but empty fields. Harvest season had just passed so there were quite a few acres of nothing but dirt. At other times there were huge rectangular mounds of cotton ready to be loaded onto trucks.
Once we got onto the I-5 it was a straight drive. There were a lot of cars on the road so the speed at times was slow. a couple of hours later we veered East to drive into Gilroy, Garlic capital of the world. It is a quick drive over the hills, with a view of large lake/reservoir and typical California landscape, bare hills with patches of trees here and there. We drove into Gilroy without much traffic and from there to San Jose and then Redwood city. When we arrived at Bill and Debbie's, they were cooking already so we dipped into the finger goods while we watched the required football game. I believe the Dolphins were beating some other team. The night progressed with good food, conversation, pomegranate martinis, wine and later in the night a good game of Texas Hold'em. The following day turned out to be a "trip into the city" for Melissa Anthony and me. Aside form the crowd at the mall and the half hour drive into "the parking lot", it was a good outing. We met everyone else at the movie theater where we saw, Happy Feet. I guess I could have taken a nap but I was waiting for something quite exciting to happen in the movie. A disapointing movie.
The next morning we hit the road to head back to Las Vegas. However, this was not going to be an easy drive. I had asked Melissa if she wanted to drive through Yosemite park since she had never been there. She is always up for an adventure so she said yes and off we went.
Cold In Yosemite, Lost on the dessert and a drive in the darkness to get home.
That will be for the next post.

MADAGASCAR DREAM

So, I had this dream that my brother and I were in the island of Madagascar to take a class, once a week and for an hour. When we got there, we went to the classrooms (2001 and 1010) we thought we were supposed to be in and the professor asked us to go to administration and find out where exactly we were supposed to be. He spoke in some strange language and we could not understand a word he was saying so, some of our classmates offered to take us. When we got there, the "officer" explained to us, that we needed to show our receipt along with our class schedule (which somehow had been left at home--Mexico?, US?) and without those receipts or other documents, he could not give us our class schedule. In my dream, I wondered how it was that we were supposed to live while attending class for one hour and once a week in somewhere so far off. i figured that since we were there specifically for "school", that everything else would fit into place. To get off the Island to go back and retrieve our documents, this is what we had to do. There was a very shallow part of the ocean where people were walking on to get to the mainland. So, we just followed the same path, water was dirty and it was not an even bottom, it had lots of big rocks or boulders. I was wearing a blue coat with lots of buttons down the center and white pants.
When we went over the water and ended up on a busy street with lots of people waiting for a bus. At this point, we ran into a friend form our childhood, who was wearing some old and raggedy clothes. He looked happy.
Later, I found myself in a hotel/resort-Still in Madagascar with some strangers. We were waiting for a cab to get us to the airport, where I ended up cutting off everyone while driving the cab, exited the cab, got my bags and apologized to everyone for cutting them off.

and you- What did you dream about?

UCLA WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is official.
The 7 year itch is Over!
UCLA beat USC-- by 4 points. A win is a win and the spell has been broken. The bell goes back to Westwood and hopefully a sign of things to come. USC in the meantime will have to wait to see where it is going to play. A lot of Trojan fans will have to cancell their tickets and resevations to AZ. Too bad. Then again, they may not have to travel at all and play in the Rose Bowl-----Again.
Fight Fight Fight