Good-bye 2008! While still 9 hours away, I'm wrapping up the year now. It's been a blur of homework and travel. 2009 is already better due to no school!
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In this time of economic downturn and layoffs, I'm at motivated to put together my first full resume in years. Writing one totally is a sucky process and now I understand why the world is so full of bad ones! The hardest part is summing up your value with impact but without overstating facts. For all of you (including myself) who have often wondered how you'd sum up my career this is my life in one short paragraph: Accomplished people and special projects development professional with strong international operations background with successful negotiation and mediation skills between parent company and franchisees. Background includes key training role for major point-of-sale and back office software system-wide implementation. Adaptable to other fields by bringing new market to system with record first year sales. Strategic experience in adapting existing domestic programs and implementing in global markets.
Note to self: Don't use mouthwash and then drink from a water bottle. The next swig hours later will taste like mouthwash. Ugh. So the retail recession must not be in San Diego county. I've seen the news reports showing packed malls and thought it would be safe to go out on Palomar Airport Road today being a Monday and all. I even thought 4:00 pm would be a great time for a Rubio's run but the Carlsbad Outlet parking lot was still packed and overflowing into Armstrongs. Guess I'll steer clear another week. Another war is in place with wider implications than the parties involved, the Taliban is gaining strength in Pakistan villages, and random men in Kuwait have formed their own voluntary religious police group. I sometimes wonder if the entire region really believes that nothing like that will happen in their country? It certainly seems so. 2009 seems to be arriving on a tornado of change.
The Spirit
The Spirit is in the visual style of Sin City which gives you something to look at even during the slower paced scenes. Based on a comic book the story centers on a cop who came back from the dead and is now immune to death and his nemesis Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson) who is a bad guy, also immune to death. The basic premise of the movie is about the two and their personal fight that involves the posse from both sides. I didn't love this movie and at best I can say I mildly liked it. The visuals were good, the side plots unique, and Samuel L. Jackson as Octopus was fun to watch. The movie itself plodded along and in no way was the Spirit believable as a ladies man. The character you're supposed to care about was dull and the bad guys outshone the good guys for entertainment value. What I liked - the visuals, the over-the-top bad guy storytelling (Nazi's & all), the mindless clones, and the music. You could look at this as a two hour music video I guess. What I didn...
The Weather Channel has shown Carlsbad with a high mold spore count for the entire month of December. I travel, I can breathe. I come home, it's all over. No amount of allergy pills can fight this. My next home is going to be a concrete city. I'm grateful that I made it without any sneezing yesterday so I could enjoy the movie and eat my fill at the buffet. Yum - seafood stuffing dish! Updates: Sorry Homer, I'm not reloading the bar photos. Dark they will stay. Movie: Spirit review coming once I can breathe and think. I sort of liked it. Didn't hate it. Neighbors: New kids and dog playing on my yard right now. The kid must be visiting her grandparents a couple houses down. Christmas: It was good. I hope yours was too.
I have a picture but I forgot my camera cable. Venice Beach was the tourist destination of the day and I took a couple of people from China to check it out. As we drove in, I explained about Muscle Beach and how Arnold and other famous bodybuilders used to work out there. As we got out of the car and approached the gym, Jason gasped "Is that Hulk Hogan there?" Sure enough, the Hulkster was working out. Picture Tuesday. (It's not great but it counts)
Dark restaurant - not the best for mobile pix. Aussie Mac is in town so we adventure ate last night at a Thai restaurant. The place was unique in decor, lacking in wine menu, and the sauces were the specialty rather than the food. I could have spooned the garlic sauce over anything and would have been happy. The red snapper under the sauce - eh. But I still ate too much and am full this morning. Not sure if I'd go back.
Unusual for the group as we had a birthday and Irish music happenings last night, not a single picture was taken. Tonight I must remember camera. Ms. Kitty had a birthday this week so we all celebrated at Nati's for good food, fun, and margaritas. As usual everything was perfect and the food nice and fattening! Ms. Kitty enjoyed her Happy Birthday chorus and polished off the meal with the birthday dessert. Later, Mondo and I headed over to Harp to listen to an Irish singer. The place was packed and after all these years, now I finally understand how they stay in business. During the day or early evening the place is always empty. The singer was great and fun to watch as he bossed people around to drink their pints and put the empty glass upsidedown on their head to prove they drained the pint. The surprise was when he told some girl to drink the last half of the pitcher and she did, including turning the pitcher upsidedown on her head. Most people fled to the other side of the roo...
I went to get the oil changed in the Subaru yesterday and I realized that my paranoia about taking care of the car resulted in two oil changes within 1000 miles of each other back in September! That's what happens when you travel all the time, you lose track of everything even if the records of what you've done are right in front of your face. Yesterday's change was late and needed as the oil was low and I'm doing the LA/Ventura routine again this week. Another boring routine of calls, hotels, long days, and driving.
The rest of the family is doing a mileage run to New Orleans this weekend but I'm good on miles and have no need to fly until 2009. Working on the last 4 nights needed to secure SPG status for next year. Go hotel points! I hope Homer, OB & Mrs. OB are staying at a point earning hotel. I'm going to enjoy a rainy (maybe) weekend in Carlsbad.
Life returns to normal after two exciting trips. Today was pretty good and busy! From a morning beach/stair workout, to Wal-Mart, Party City, Ralphs, then letters, and I even opened up a savings plan account with Ameritrade! Now I have a pile of photos from Malta facing me for cropping so I can start putting them in a scrapbook tomorrow! Rome! Those photos haven't made it to printing yet but soon...
Limonciello - the innocent looking drink that comes in a collectible yellow bottle. The waiter was taken aback when we wanted to order these before the meal. (Who were we to know?) He quickly told us that these are after dinner drinks designed to make you not feel the snow and cold after two of them! So we waited until after dinner and before dessert to try the drink. It was full strength lemony-alcohol and hard to finish!
After the Colosseum, my second favorite stop was the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It probably had to do with something from my childhood and always hearing about it, but the Tower is as cool in real life as it is on TV. The Tower leans, we lean. I'm glad it got restored back to the imperfect status since that is part of the charm. And after 300+ stairs, it feels great to be at the top!
We learned there are two kinds of trains in Italy. The nice high speed seat assigned trains without pickpocketers (pictured here) and the regional trains with pickpockets and scam artists. This is really Mrs. OB's story but you have to picture unsmiling us on a not as nice train as I tell the story. We got on the regional in Florence for our day trip to Pisa. Being an empty train, we spread out. I had my Carl's Jr. tote bag sitting next to me on the seat. After all, the train was empty so I wasn't concerned about safety. Then the gypsy dude came along with his full size paper of why we should give him money. He held the paper over my tote with one hand while reaching into the tote with the other. Mrs. OB saw this going on from her side of the train and she jumped up and quite angrily told the guy to stop that and to get his hand out of the bag. Gypsy dude was actually startled and turned around to confront her and got in Mrs. OB's face (without saying a word). T...
After a week of Italy, intense sightseeing and walking/stairs, I was ready to see friends and have salad and beer! But we were so happy to be eating and drinking Belgium Brown, that we forgot to moblog in the restaurant. So here's LJ with the Belgium Brown. Being the geeks that we are, our day's entertainment was Stargate.
Home! Yesterday was the day of speeding pilots. It was raining so hard in Rome that the plane had a 90 minute delay at the gate and 20 more minutes on the runway. We only landed 20 minutes late in DC for all that. Then the DC - San Diego flight arrived 35 minutes early - whoo hoo! Today is about remembering where I am, buying food, and celebrating being back in warm (compared to Rome) and sunny Carlsbad!
The two days in Rome has gone by fast and tomorrow we leave for Florence with maybe a side trip of Pisa. We have no formal plan for Pisa except to somehow get there, see the Tower, and return to Florence. My cell phone is fully charged once again so stay tuned and find out which city we made it to first!
It took 8 days to get back into the routine but I seem to have my office groove down. Too bad I leave again on Saturday but who needs a groove all the time anyway? The upcoming trip is family Thanksgiving in Rome. We've only had it planned for a year and now it's arrived in an almost unexpected and rushed manner. I was organized until news of a cold front had moved in and now I have to rethink my packing job. I feel lazy so I'll probably end up being cold and hoping it warms up. With that quick entry for the day, I'll switch back over to work mode.
Quantum of Solace
If it's been a while since you've seen Casino Royale , you might want to watch it before seeing Quantum of Solace . The current James Bond movie picks up where the last one ended, making it more of a second half of the first movie. I'd already forgotten the minor players from the first movie but they were back and for me, it was hard to make the connections as to why something was going on. Ignoring all that, the movie was good, not great, but good Bond. Bond and M were exactly how they should be and between them provided the understated humor that was needed in the movie. The Bond girls were there and I didn't have any issues with them as some reviews have. The bad guy was right for the movie and one of the better Bond bad guys in a while. Quantum of Solace is a bit uneven and for such a short movie, some scenes dragged on and I found myself passing time in the theater while waiting for the next good part. The opera scene was amazing and unique and far better than som...
Thanks to CVS MinuteClinic I now am vaccinated against the flu and was able to get a tetanus booster shot! The best thing about a walk in clinic is you avoid the long lines for announced flu shots and no 3 week wait to see a doctor. I was done in less than 15 minutes. I'm almost back on track with normal life after being home for a week. I feel somewhat back in the swing of things. If life is really back to normal then it's Quantam of Solace for me this weekend!
I finally looked at all my retirement accounts today. While not totally decimated, the 30% + drop in some of them made the 22% drop in others seem not so bad even though it is. The worst hit was Vanguard and the second worst was my work account with Merrill Lynch. I left Vanguard alone for now and reallocated ML and then decided to contribute another 2% per check to try and buy low and save high for that elusive future retirement. I'm glad I'm not retiring today because it wouldn't happen.
Lunch in Mdina. The photo looks like of bland but the mashed potatoes on the right were some of the best I've ever tasted. The chicken is covered in artichoke and mushroom gravy and was pretty good. The harbor near Valletta. On the bus! It started raining after this photo so we retreated downstairs. Mondo with the walled city in the background.
