Loosing A Dear Friend

Coupled with some issues at work, this day is quite sad for me. I just lost a friend. Mind you, my friend did not die or whatever, we just stopped being friends but definitely not enemies...I hope. Kind of weird but its hard to explain. It actually pains me to talk about it so I wont go into details. A problem came up and both of us were just too proud to admit each of our own mistakes. It was foolish of me to think that our friendship was rock solid but its not. I can now go on with my life and I just hope that it would be the same with my friend (ex-friend), too.

More Shopping

I went to Wal-Mart yesterday to buy some christmas ornaments for our Christmas tree. I had also a chance to buy some items for gift-giving for my close friends here. I'm actually half-way of my shopping list. I'd probably finish everything next week. Actually this is good because as Christmas approaches I dont have to beat the time to do the shopping on the eleventh hour.
My Christmas tree is almost done. I'll complete everything by next weekend or my day-off. I will also start decorating outside of our house next week. I'll be putting some colorful lights outside, too. I'll just post some pictures here when I'm done decorating.

The Start Of My Shopping Spree

I spent the later part of today shopping. I shopped for a digital camera for my parents as I heard that they wanted one. This would be my Christmas present for both of them. I was happy because at last they are starting to be more high-tech now. They used to be negative with regards to transacting business online like shopping and banking as well as paying bills online. They still own the camera that I gave to them several years ago and its a film camera. Right now they have seen already the convenience and the advantages of owning a digital camera.
I also shopped something online for my friend as my Christmas present also. I also bought somethng for myself, a pair of sweaters, a pair of casual shoes. I still have to buy some Christmas decorations and trimmings for the house,I might do that on the next day as I'm still off from work. Overall, I'm still way below the 50% of my shopping.
By the way, I went to a new shopping center in Las Vegas, it's called The Town Center. I went there by early in the everning so I was not able to finish in exploring the whole area. I promised myself to be back there as soon as possible. The place is the coolest place to shop. We do have a cool shopping mall here, The Fashion Show Mall but the Town Center is the best. I have posted in this blog some pictures I just took using my LG Shine phone/cam. Looking at these pictures would make you decide the best time to visit the place would be the evening.

Long Day For Me

Yesterday, a Sunday was quite a long day for me. I was working the previous night and as I left from work, I have to meet a friend from Michigan who was here in Las Vegas for a visit with her family. Actually they were here during Thanksgiving Day but since I was working, I did not get a chance to meet them. At last after 7 years, we meet again. I spent the whole day with them even without sleep because I'm off on Sundays anyway and I can have all the sleeping time I want afterwards.
I had lunch with them in a Filipino restaurant as she was longing for pinoy foods. There's no Filipino restaurants in Michigan according to her. Fortunately, her husband, a white guy and her daughter had no problem eating pinoy food, in fact her husband's favorite was halo-halo for dessert.
I went to bed around 5pm already and I slept up to 2 in the morning. Since I was wide awake plus it was so damn cold, I went to my computer and start chatting. Unfortunately, none of my close friends were online until someone buzzed me. I went on chatting with him even opened my web cam for my new friend. He's cool and I would say very polite person. I'm looking forward to build a good friendship with him.
After this post, I think I have to get ready for the gym...its already 8am.

Start Of The "Shopping" Season

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, after Thanksgiving Day its the start of the holiday or should I say shopping season. This kicked off during Black Friday, the name shopping maniacs call the Friday after Thanksgiving Day. People were lining up and or camping out in front of their favorite stores as early as midnight because most of these stores will open at 4am...can you believe that? If you go to the store late that day, I wonder what else you could buy as most of the popular items were gone. Most people would go to electronics outlets like Best Buy, Fry's Electronics and Wal-Mart.
I was also bitten by the shopper's bug as I went to the nearest Best Buy store right after work, that was like 6:30am. My main purpose was to buy a portable game gadget specifically ordered by my nephew from the Philippines as the Gameboy. Unfortunately I cant find Gameboy in all the stores that I went through for several days now. Instead, they have the newest offering of Ninendo DS where you can can still use the Gameboy's games with it. The bad thing about me when I go shopping for someone else, I tend to feel that I was shopping for myself. What I did was, I started looking for another game gadget that I liked. I was comparing between Nintendo DS and Sony's PSP (play station portable). Then I heard myself justifying why I would choose the PSP against Nintendo. Well, you must agree that PSP is far more advanced in terms of portable gaming as compared to the other brand although you might consider that these are different systems. My inclination though was geared toward the PSP. Aside from being portable, and aside from playing games, you can also view your digital photos, can play mp3 music as well as watch videos and movies. What's more cool about this gadget is that you can go online whenever there is WiFi available or you are in a Hot Spot.
I guess this is too much advanced for my 7-yr old nephew but hey, I justified it by looking at the future, he will outgrow the Nintendo system while with the PSP, its features are still acceptable towards older "kids". Just watch their tv ads, the endorsers are always these cool guys and gals, enjoying music, videos and at the same time playing their favorite video games on the go.
Also, I'm now in near panic mode as Christmas is just around the corner and I havent started my Christmas shopping for gifts. I will let you know on my next post as how am I surviving this crazy shopping season both physically and financially.

Thanksgiving Day

Today, Nov 22 is Thanksgiving Day. Unfortunately, I'll be spending this holiday at work. I don't want to ask my other co-worker to work for me today, she's a single mom and I want her to spend this important holiday with her family and her daughter, besides its her regular day-off anyway. Although I have some invitations from friends to spend Thanksgiving dinner with them, I cannot stay any longer than 7pm because my work will start at 8pm. I planned to be at Ara's house around 4pm and probably once the other guests will be arriving, it would be time for me to leave for work.
The past two days were also memorable to me. I spent these days with my best buddy. He changed his days off to Tuesdays & Wednesdays. It was a good timing as my days off are Sundays, Mondays & Tuesdays. At least we have Tuesdays to spend together. I also availed a day off from work last Wednesday to be able to be with him also. By the end of the day, we went to Ara's house and spend some time with the Ramos family.
I'm now looking forward to the Chirstmas and New Year holidays coming up next month.

Off To San Diego....Again

I went to San Diego last Monday. Actually I was with Ara and her monther-in-law. We were going to meet Ara's husband, Zeno also my close friend, from his 7 month tour of duty in the US Navy.
We left Las Vegas, around 3am Monday and arrive in National City around 8am. Along the way, we saw the burnt areas toward San Diego after that massive forest fire last month. We had our breakfast at IHOP and met Zeno's friend who helped us get access pass to the Naval Base. Fortunately we rented a Dodge Durango SUV and the Naval Base has a new ruling that rented cars need not get access pass to be able to enter the base.
When we arrived at the pier where their aircraft carrier docked, there were also a lot of families and friends waiting for the Navy soldiers to disembark. Most were wavaing American flags, streamers and even one boy carryied a cake with "welcome daddy" written on it. It was a happy day for both soldiers and their respective families to see each other again after 7 months of deployment. Of course my friend Ara was very happy, too.
We returned to Las Vegas on that afternoon and arrived aroun 8:30pm. We had dinner at my favorite cafe where my good friend Willie is working.

Catching Up

Its been awhile since I updated this blog. I was kind of busy with work lately that I felt tired even to just surf around the internet. My attendance to the gym suffered, too. For the past 2 weeks, I wasn't consistent in attending my Step class. I preferred to do the Step class more consistently as I know that this would work for me in shedding more weight and fat than do the weight training or even run on the treadmill.
Anyway, I intend to summarize everything that happened to me for the past 2 weeks. My very close friend whom I said in my past blog entry who went to Hawaii to attend to his sick mother is already back here in Las Vegas...of course I'm happy that my partner in crime is back. We've tried to catch up with the lost time that we were apart. Ara, Willie and myself went to our favorite karaoke bar for a night of singing, dancing and drinking. After much prodding, Ara & me were able to sing a duet together on our favorite song. My friend Willie?...never mind he doesn't sing...whatever you do to him to make him sing, he'd rather drink a case of Red Horse beer...LOL. I might buy him a case of his favorite beer everynight when he's coming with me to Maasin next year. He actually was looking forward to that. At my work also, I have to train or orient a new technician who will temporarily replace my other co-worker whose going to have her vacation for a week. Also my boss was in town so I had to devote time with her for meetings and dining out during her visit....and that's on top of my regular working hours.
So far these were the most prominent things that I spent most of my time with. Right now , I think I'm back to normal...what's normal by the way...