I usually don’t pay attention to American Idol but when I watched the YouTube videos of Jessica Sanchez it was a “wow” for me. For someone who is just 16 years old she can sing Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Beyonce, and Aretha Franklin. I hope that she wins the competition.
This Monday, I had a new intern at work so I have been busy training her with stuff.
It is now over 100F in Phoenix. On Saturday, I had the girls’ lunch at Olive Garden. I had hot tea, chicken & gnocchi soup and salad. For dinner, Matt and I met up with Vanessa, her two girls, and Michael at Sweet Tomatoes.
On Sunday, Matt and I ate at Smashburger, which was healthy and delicious. Then we watched “The Avengers” in 3D, which was exciting.
On Wednesday night, the conference had dinner and a reception at the NCAA Hall of Fame (http://www.ncaa.org/). Since I was recovering from the cold, I decided to take a taxi with two people instead of walking. Unlike Sunday and Monday, it was warming up and not raining at all. I took lots of pictures of different sports winners and interactive exhibits.
Women and Shooting Sports
On Thursday after a majority of the sessions, I went to the Indy Speedway Museum with my co-worker, Dan. We shared the taxi fare. Of course, the taxi driver who took us to the speedway was on the phone most of the time while driving. At the Speedway, I bought an Indy Speedway Trivia book for Matt and the trivia group (Matt’s library). For returning to the hotel, I called Yellow Cab and the driver was not on his phone and was the most professional.
On Friday, it was a busy half day of meetings, checking out from the hotel, saying goodbyes, and shipping the humidifier back home.
My observations are that a majority of the taxi drivers in Indy are originally from Africa and they like to be on the phone while driving. Indy is a very densely populated city with people working at the tourist attractions, Chase or Key banks, or visiting for conference or Speedway purposes. There are many panhandlers in the downtown area.
I think people are accustomed to not being tipped that much so showing change earlier convinces people that you want better service. I do think that Arizona gives better service, in general, than Indy.
Last Sunday, I took Southwest Airlines to Indianapolis, IN. It was a nice flight with very little turbulence and arrival was early. I also met a Japanese lady (Kyoko) whose daughter is a pharmacist in Phoenix. I met her other daughter in Indy, who was a lawyer but now is a stay-at-home mom. Kyoko offered giving me a ride to the hotel but I declined.
Indy is famous for popcorn so I saw many popcorn stalls at the small airport. I pressed a button at the airport pier and a taxi driver (1st in line) took me to the hotel.
I checked into the Sheraton Hotel and there were a lot of strange noises that night and it was hard to sleep. I watched tv and the news showed storm/tornado chasers that need to be licensed by the National Weather Service. I wonder how we get to watch tornadoes up close.
On Monday morning, I decided to walk to the zoo and spent several hours at the zoo. Then I walked to the State Museum where I looked around. I did not have time to watch the IMAX about tornadoes but I saw many historical Indiana clothing, artifacts, and art.
Elephant at Indy Zoo
The conference was mostly working sessions and networking breakfasts, lunches, and receptions. Tuesday morning, I started sneezing and came down with a cold. I bought some medicine, water, and a humidifier from the CVS Pharmacy. I also visited Paradise Bakery for their chicken noodle soup. I really did not want to get sick but sometimes these things happen….
On Sunday, Matt and I went to the D-backs game. We took light rail, which was extremely crowded. I did some shopping at the beginning of the game and the D-backs did a slam. I was in the store when the associate told me to look at the screen.
The weather has been wild this week. It was overcast on Monday and Tuesday, and then it rained on Wednesday. On Tuesday, I took the Design and Construction of ADA Facilities at work. It was a good class and we got to push wheelchairs, walkers, and canes around with a partner for the field exercise.
On Wednesday night, we played Rock Band, and I got the highest score so far of 271,523 singing “Bad Romance” on expert. I also earned 5 gold stars with a score of 128,416 singing “Imagine” on expert.
On Saturday, Matt and I went to Cathal’s birthday party. I drove and we got there about 5 minutes late since the street sign was very small and there was road construction. We gave Cathal a D-backs cap and a Star Wars card. When you pressed on the button, the Star Wars theme came up and Yoda’s wand had a light that turned on.
This was a very busy week. On Tuesday night, I took Computer Repair I with the city’s recreational department. It was a very informative class on how to maintain your computer daily, monthly, and quarterly. It gave good advice on what to do with a computer virus and doing a system restore.
On Wednesday night, I had dinner with Joy at Sweet Tomatoes and we caught up on stuff.
On Thursday night, I took the Asset Protection class at the recreational department. We learned about the different types of life insurance, the history of enactment, and long-term care insurance.
On Saturday night, I cooked pesto cheese ravioli with broccoli and carrots with sweet potato as dessert. Afterwards, Matt and I went to the Orpheum Theater to see “Legend of Zelda – Symphony of the Goddesses.” I had bought the Groupon vouchers and we exchanged the vouchers for actual tickets. We had nice seats in row 14.
Then we met up with Angel and Charles and they gave us a tour of the balcony and the basement. The performance was excellent as the music was arranged for orchestra very well and the video game clips shown were descriptive of the earlier and more recent games.
Since I had a busy week, I got Golden Eggroll for dinner on Friday night. I had the girls’ lunch on Saturday at Oregano’s since we wanted a change of pace from Olive Garden. I had pink lemonade and the pesto pasta bake. I could not finish the meal so I brought the rest home. For dinner, Matt and I had Golden Eggroll and Oregano’s leftovers along with mashed potatoes that I made. We watched the Firefly “Out of Gas” episode, which was very exciting. We thought that the Captain would die.
On Sunday, I went to see “The House of the Spirits” at the ASU Galvin Playhouse with Joy and a few of her friends. The play was done very well by the students. It was very artistic with the use of lighting for “let’s pretend” dog and rain. The play also portrayed violence and torture before and during the Socialist upheaval in Chile. It was somewhat disbturbing but showed the truth of race, landownership, and class status. Sometimes, you had to marry for politics, position, or wealth than for love.
Last Sunday, I formatted an older laptop and then I installed Ubuntu on it. That was the first time I have installed a linux operating system to a computer. Installation was not as hard as I first thought but I did have to tweak the bios several times for the laptop to install from the USB drive.
On Wednesday, there was a power outage in the early morning. I woke up at the normal time but it was an eerie feeling having the power outage. I had heard a saw going back and forth. I telecommuted that day and tried to install Citrix on the Ubuntu laptop with no success. Later, I bought Popeye’s Chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob for Rock with Matt and Steve.
Thursday night, I took a community Stocks & Bonds class with Joy. It was a very informative and informal class although a financial adviser teaches it. The class was about 1.5 hours and there was no pressure to join or do anything. I think the reason that most people take the class is to ask a financial adviser questions at a small cost by taking a group community class.
Weather was pretty warm on Monday but now it may be raining this weekend. When will it be the first 100F day?
It has been an atypical week. Last Sunday night, Matt and I skyped with my parents and aunt. It was good catching up with them.
On Tuesday night, Matt and I went to Trivia. I don’t think we won because we made some mistakes. I had side salad and chicken quesadilla.
On Wednesday night, Matt hosted Rock Band. He warmed up some boneless buffalo wings that tasted like breaded fish. I sung many songs on expert, including “Bad Romance” with a score of little more than 239,000.
Friday, I had lunch with my brother Kwi and former boss Mike at the Seoul Grille. I had the seafood meal and it was very delicious. We got to catch up. Mike emphasized on having enough food and water for 6 months in case a natural disaster hits due to the end of the world coming according to the Mayan calendar.
On Saturday, I cooked seafood ramen and did errands.
I came back to work on Monday refreshed, but of course, it was busy. The work out-of-office reply did not work the previous week so I had contacted IT on Monday and on Thursday to fix the problem.
On Wednesday night, I created my profile on Rock Band 3 as “Hera.” I also sung “Bad Romance”, “Poker Face”, “Living on a Prayer,” and “Our Truth” on expert.
On Thursday, I took First Aid/CPR/AED class training at work. I had taken the class more than 2 years ago when they told me that CPR was all compressions. The class was very informative and the instructor is one to recommend 30 compressions with 2 breaths. He said some associations recommend doing breaths and some don’t. Also, he said “Heimlich” is now “abdominal thrusts.” Although I did not breathe into the adult dummy, I practiced compressions and putting the AED on it. I also practiced how to respond to a choking infant (dummy).
Saturday morning, I went swimming at the gym and did some yoga. For dinner, I made chicken jambalaya and my mom’s okra soup (without the potato). Afterwards, Matt and I watched “Firefly.” It’s interesting how the series uses Mandarin Chinese like how Spanglish is used now. I explain some of the slang when they come up.
