Shrek the Halls

Tonight was a very specal Christmas show. Shrek the Halls premired on ABC . It had all the original voice cast and looked like a mini movie. It was short only 30 minutes but it was very funny and a new holiday favorite that I'll be watching year after year.

Decorated my Office

Today I decorated my office. Since I'm going to be in this little room for the entire month of December I figured I might as way make if festive. I put up lights all around the room, garland on my desk and stockings on the wall. Everyone seems to really like it. And of course I have Christmas music playing on my computer. Having my office decorated is a great way of keeping down my stress.

Seat cars

Seat

Seat Ibiza Cupra wallpaper

Seat Marbella, my first car, 300 000 km with zero mechanical problems!!!

Seat Sport Leon Tdi

Seat Toledo

Seat Altea wallpaper

Seat Leon supercopa

Xmas Shopping

Today Harry and I planned on doing a bit part of our Christmas shopping, of course I would have preferred to shop online but I can't get everything online and sometimes it's fun to actually go shopping. We made lists of all the presents we needed to get and started to work our way around town. It wasn't horrible out there, traffice was okay and parking was pretty good. We hit Michael's, Koels, Mervyns, Target, and Toys R Us then headed home for some lunch. Once we relaxed a bit we hit the Burbank Mall and Ikea. Every place we went to we managed to find something that we were looking for. So we are about halfway done with Christmas shopping this year. One more weekend and a few online purchases and we should be good. While watching TV at night I wrapped up everything we have gotten so far and if the pile is any indication we are going to have a great Christmas.

Christmas Lights

Today Harry and I finished putting up the lights on the house and then worked inside at decorating the inside of the house. We of course had to use our reserve lights that we had planned to return because we thought we were have plenty. You don't realize how many lights you need to cover a house. So on and off all day we would decorate and by nights end we had our living room/dining room all Christmas out and the outside looks like the Christmas Light fairy came by and work her magic. Christmas is both Harry and I favorite holiday so we go all out. And we still aren't done, this is only the beginning.

A Day Off???

Normally the day after Thanksgiving is a day off, but my current job do not have "holiday" pay and in order for me to get a full check this week I had to work Today and tomorrow to make up for taking off Thursday. There were only two other people who worked today so it was a fairly quiet day.

When I got home I had a surprise waiting for me in the mail. A friend’s documentary called "Pegwarmers". http://www.pegwarmers.tv/ This is a documentary about Geeks, collectors, DnD players, Costumers and anything else geeky. It shows people that we are like everyone else. We aren't all 40-year-old virgins living in their mother’s basements. This put a positive spin on being a geek. I have been dying to see this for about a year and he's been working on it for a long time. He said he was going to send me a preview copy and after months of waiting it finally arrived. Of course I had to put it on right away and watch it. Luckily Harry wanted to see it as well. It was great, you wouldn't believe it was a 'fan' made documentary. They currently have several companies interested in distributing it. I wish them the best of luck.

After watching Pegwarmers I decided to get a start on hanging Christmas light on the house. Harry and I pulled out all the Christmas light and started to check and see if they were still working. We also bought quite a few new strands and my Dad gave us a bunch of his. I figure that would be enough. It was getting dark quickly and I wanted to at least get the lights up on top of the house before it was too dark. After several tries and bad light strands we managed to hang all the lights ups on the rooftop. At least all the lights we had. We ran out which I didn't expect. So that was it for the night.. I plan on finishing tomorrow.

Thanksgiving

Like last year Harry and I went to my cousin Renee's house for Thanksgiving. This year was a bit different as her brother Darren and his family were not coming. Instead they had 10 young (19 -21) mormon Elders (priests) joining us. I don't know much about Mormonism but I guess when you become a Mormon priest you spend your first two years on a "mission" and since they didn't have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving Renee invited them to join her family. Anyways it was a fun night, good food and great company.

Half-Day... Yeah Right!!!

Today was a half day here at work.. at least for some folks. Seems like people started to leave around 2 and by 3 almost everyone was gone.. well everyone but me and a few loggers. Instead of getting off early I actually stayed an extra hours and a half past my normal time I get off... so much for a half day.

Shopping Online

As I get older and the crowds get more rude I find myself turning to the internet for Christmas shopping. Not only do you get to avoid the traffic, parking lots and rude people you can shop while working, hanging at home or any free moment you have. The only down side to shopping online is that you pay for shipping, but since online prices are normally lower the shipping isn't so bad. I shop online mostly for DVD's and hard to find Ebay items. I still like shoping in 'real' stores but as I get older I can handle crowds less and less. After two hours of driving and dealing with people I'm ready to go home. So this year I'm trying to do more and more shopping online.

TV Strike

Well today was my first TV viewing casualty as a result of the writer’s strike. The Big Bang Theory is in repeats, no more new episodes. As much as I'm behind the writers it's hard to accept that this years TV season is going to be cut short.

Home Improvements

For our house warming party / bbq several folks gave us money and gift certificates so of course Harry and I had to go shopping. Our first stop was at Target. We got a new door knob for the garage (previous one didn't have a key), we got more Christmas decorations, we got another deep fryer (we love our french fries and our last fryer died), and we bought several Christmas gifts. Our next stop was going to be Michal's craft store. The only one I knew of was the one in North Hollywood, well after driving several miles we found out that it was gone, no longer at that location. So we decided to head to Home Depot. At Home Depot we got a screen door for the back door and a 6 foot ladder so I can hang Christmas lights.

When we got home we decided that we would put up the screen door. Well we figure we watch Trading Spaces and all those home improvment shows.. this was fairly straight forward... well we were wrong. Two hours later and three attempts to get the door on right we gave up and went to putting on the new door knob on the garage door. Again, this seemed like a simple task. I got the old door knob off.. no problem. I figure we could use the same inside guts and just put the new door knob on. We did this and shut the door we me inside garage and Harry on the outside. Of course I got locked in the garage and couldn't get out. Harry and to go around and open the front garage door so I could get out. Come to find out that the inside guts are different from the old knob.. so we have to replace everything and after several attempts we got the door knob on and working. YAY!!!!

Feeling good that we got that done we went back to the screen door. I figured you would measure your door and go and buy one and a few screws and it's up... yeah right. We got the screen door, and you have to cut it down, screw in the door handle, screw in the braces to hold the door on and so much more that I was not expecting.. of course we don't have the right tools so Harry and I use what we have and manage to get the door on and after five or six tries we got the handle on and working. We now have a back door screen door and it looks great. By this time we had spent about four hours putting up a screen door and putting in a new door knob... fun times.

House Warming Party

Today was our house warming party/ bbq. Harry and I cleaned the house from top to bottom the past few days. We had everything done by 11am and started to prepare the food. The part was to start at 12 noon. Well our first guest arrived at 12:45 and once one person came they rest followed quickly. Everyone liked the house and jaws dropped when folks saw my toy room. It was a good BBQ, our friend Gary was kind enough to take over doing the BBQ so I could continue to welcome guests. The final group of people left about 6pm. We had around 25 people show up, fun was had by all. BTW.. Daisy did really well with all the people.. she stayed in the backyard with everyone all day long.

Christmas Music

Well this morning we got into the car and I turned on KOST 103.5. Every year they play Christmas music all month long but they normally start sometime in November. And today I turned it on and I was there for there launch of there Christmas music. I was so excited. Christmas is my favorite time of the year and I am in such a great mood. And the other cool thing is that they are now streaming there broadcast online so I get to listen to Christmas music all day long at work which will help with the stressful enviroment. Listening to Christmas music has made me want to start to decorate. I have been trying to wait till after Thanksgiving,,, but I might start putting up lights this weekend :)

I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Preparing for the House warming BBQ

Today Harry and I went to Ralphs during my lunch hour to get food for our House Warming BBQ this Saturday. I expected to spent some money but didn't expect to spend nearly $200.00. But we did buy 30 burgers, 20 hotdogs, beer, soda, chips, potatoe salad, cookies and all the fixings and that stuff tends to add up. The weather should be nice so it's looking to be a fun house warming bbq.

Pushing Daisies

If you are not watching this series you are really missing out on a very unique TV series. Pushing Daisies has become on new favorite TV series this season. It's quirky, charming, romantic, funny and the sytle is very cool. Check it out Wednesday at 8pm. Of couse with the strike there is only a few episodes left before repeats. I hope it did well enough in ratings that they bring it back next year.

Toy Room is complete!!!

Well after four weekends I have finall completed my toy room and it looked AWESOME!!!!!! I'll post some pics as soon as I figure out how I'm going to light the area up. Right now there are some dark corners that the light can reach.. once that is figure out I'll take some new pixs... it's great having it done and I think it turned out great.

Mom's Birthday

Today is my Mom's Birthday. She had a dinner part at Acapulco's mexican resturant. It was alot fun. Got to see some of my mom's friends as well as my aunt, uncle and two cousins.

Xmas Shopping

So it begins.... today Harry and I went out Christmas shopping. I love the holiday season and Christmas is my favorite holiday but man we were out only 3 1/2 hours and I was at my wits end with the stupid people out there shopping. I think the older I get the worse I get with crowds and traffic. We went to Target, Mervyn's and Wallmart and buy the time we left Wallmart I was ready to go home... I had had enough. So this was the best start to the holiday shopping season but we did buy a bunch of lights for the house.. I'm going to have a great time decorating our new house this year... I CAN'T WAIT.

Roaming Dogs

Maybe it's just because I lived in apartments all my life but I have never seen so many animals loose in the neighborhood. I see tons of cats but that's not really unusal. What surprise me were all the dogs running loose. Having Daisy and her being dog aggresive it's always tough when owners walk there dogs unleashed. But at our new place there are random dogs walking around the neighborhood unattended. This morning when I took Daisy out for a walk we noticed one across the street. As soon as this dog saw Daisy both dogs stopped and stared. Luckily I noticed this and started to head back to the house quickly as the dog started to run towards us. I got back in the house just in time but Daisy kind of gave me a look like that had to be the shortest walk ever.. instead I took her out in the backyard where it was safe. I think I'm going to have to buy some mace or pepperspray or something that I can use on "attacking" dogs.

Our Ebay Store

We now have over 200+ items in our Ebay store. We also just posted some very nice Holiday items and discounted some cool Halloween items. If you haven't looked at the store lately.. check it out...

http://stores.ebay.com/Federation-Outpost

Writers Strike

Well the TV and Movie writers have gone on strike. Many people have asked me will this effect my job since I work in TV. But for once I'm happy to say I work in reality TV and we don't use writers. That's not to say that reality TV isn't highly produced but we don't have official writers, plus we are a non-union show. So my job is safe and actually if the strike goes on for long there will be alot more reality show being done. I do hope the strike is resolved quickly. This strike not only effects the writers but soon it will have a trickle down effect and start effecting all the supporting jobs.

I'm a huge TV person and I know some shows have a few extra scripts already written that they can film.. but soon enough they will run out and then will get no more new TV. Which will effect production and postproduction a lot of people will be out of work. This could be the beginning of a very hard holiday season.

Feelling Better / Toy Room

Well today I was feeling better.. other then waking up in the morning with a stuff nose I felt 100% better then yesterday. So since I felt better I wanted to get some stuff done. Harry and I posted a bunch more items out our Ebay Store (which btw is doing pretty good). I also worked on my Toy room some more and got all but the bookshelves done. It looks great and I can't wait to show it off.

Mini cars

Mini cars

Under the Weather

Today was a horrible day.. I woke up with some sinus pressure, earache and sore throat. By mid day I was in the bathroom for hours on end have major stomach/bowel issues.. by the end of the day I was exhausted and didn't feel like doing anything. We did manage to watch the first five episodes of the new Bionic Woman series. It was very enjoyable, enough so that we want to keep on watching it.

Our First Meal

Today I got to cook on our stove for the first time... it was great. You don't realize how much you miss something until you don't have it. I made pork chops and chicken rice on our new magtag gas stove, it was great.

When Dusting Goes Bad

While I was getting ready for TV night I wanted to dust off my beautiful Star Trek Collector plates that I have had for 15 years. They are sitting on the fire place mantel. There are seven of them and I did a great job on six but when I got to the seventh one I dusted a bit to hard and knocked of off the mantel and watched in slow motion as it hit the chair then wall and broke into four pieces. I couldn't believe what I had just done. It was very upsetting. Those plates have managed to move from apartment to apartment and there has never been a problem... I get near them with a duster and they are dust.

Of course I go to Ebay because I have to replace it. It’s part of a 30-Year Anniversary set. And of the six different one I manage to brake the rarest and more expensive one of them all. Sometimes life just isn't fair.

The Stove Arrived

Yay!!!! After three weeks of eating out, microwaving and BBQing we got our new stove this morning. It looks great and is in perfect condition. The guys arrived at 9:30am and had it installed in less then 10 minutes. IT'S AWESOME!!! Can't wait to cook a meal.