Another birthday...

We celebrated Thanksgiving at Aunty Pauls house this year...which also met more presents and cake for Jack. I was a little nervous that Jack would not share with Aiden (who is 5 month older) but they got along well.


Jack and I went to Angel Maid to get his cake. Jack picked out his own cake. It came down to Curious George, Thomas and the Wiggles. Once Jack saw "The Big Red Car" that pretty sold the cake.

Can you believe that crappy Big Red Car cost 15 bucks?! Yup, that is what sold the cake and that was the first thing Jack wanted after he blew out his candles!

More Birthday Pics...

On Jack's birthday we came home and ate MORE pizza. We asked Jack if he wanted to go to a restaurant and eat or have pizza delivered and he wanted pizza again!

We got Jack a shopping cart for food. He pretends to ring up food on his cash register. We used to use lego's and dumptruck but now Jack can use fake food and his own shopping cart. Jack also likes Scooby Doo so we got him some Scooby Doo action figures:


Jack doing 'shaka-brah'.



Jack and Aya:

Jack is 3...

Today is Jack's 3rd birthday! On Sunday we went to Grandpa and Grandma's to celebrate. We couldn't get just regular pizza for Jack's birthday so we went to Westwood to get Lamonica's.


Jack asked Grandma to make him chocolate cake:

Then we opened presents. This was the first year Jack was really able to 'tear' open presents and understand that it was *HIS* birthday.

Jack loved getting all his presents but the Forklift from Grandma and Grandpa was the big winner:

Sadly, Jack got sick for his birthday. Hopefully he can go to school and have his party. Ever since he started going to school he is sick almost all the time! Boo.

End of the MY birthday week...

Friday Aya and I got off work early and we went to see the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. The movie SUCKED. The action was good, but nothing you have not seen before...in fact it reminded me of Bourne Identity movie. Maybe too much time went by from the last Bond movie but I couldn't remember anything so the plot made ZERO sense to me.

Afterwards Aya and I were suppose to go to dinner at Second City Bistro with Jeff and Melanie but as we got ready to leave Aya started to turn green and ended up having food poisoning. So, Jeff and Melanie lucked out and got me all to themelves!


Man, El Segundo is not that bad of city. The restaurant was good. They had a small main street area and the homes looked good. Close to the beach. Seemed like a good place to live. I might have to start looking into home prices in El Segundo.

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Okay, another favor to ask. I know some of my loyal and faithful reader have bought my book. I am in the process of making a web site dedicated to the book and I was thinking of posting pictures of people that bought my book. Something like what is at the top of my website where pictures of Jack scroll on the header. Thus, if you are interested in having a picture of you or someone else please take a picture with you AND my book and email it to me. Thank you!

My horoscope...

Nothing great...nothing bad...just my horoscope for November 19th.

Scorpio (Oct. 24-Nov. 21): You see so much around you that could be better, and many of your ideas would work if they were applied. Getting others to hear you as a supporter and not a critic will be key.

Today's birthday (Nov. 19): In December you learn who really digs your style. Socially you are in demand through the winter. A new client in April improves your financial bottom line. You'll be appreciating wilderness in June. Capricorn and Sagittarius adore you. Your lucky numbers are 21, 4, 39, 17 and 10.

More birthday...

This week has been all about EATING and drinking! Monday night Aya and I went out with the Korean versions of us, Rose and Dave. Needless to say Dave is Great like me and Rose...well....Rose is like Ayako...so that means not great like me and Dave!


Tuesday night I went out to Trader Vic's with my two favorite Optometrist's . Well 3 favorite Optometrist's. Neil wasn't in the picture since he was taking the picture.



The only sucky part about dinner was we happen to go the night the Beverly Hilton was hosting a conference for World Human Rights. The place was packed and there was tons of security. The line at valet was so long that I self parked. No problems. However when we left dinner it coincided with the conference getting out. I was on the Top level (5 floors). It took me 36 minutes to leave the parking lot. Grrr.

Birthday...

I celebrated my birthday a little early with dinner at my parents house. My mom made my favorite cupcakes that my grandmother used to make:



After dinner we all practiced balancing on Dawn's Indo board which helps learn how to balance for surfing, snowboarding or skateboarding:


Jack practicing so he can go surfing with Aunty:

Once a bridesmaid...always a girly-man...

Early in the week, we got a nice invitation to attend Ron and Laura's baby shower. Now, it should go without saying, a baby showers and a wedding showers are reserved as "GIRL" related events. Guys should be exempt from going to these types of parties. It is just a given.

So this week I get this email from Ron after I pointed out the fact that ** I ** should not have to go his baby shower:

from Ron Fukute
to Miles the Great
dateWed, Nov 12, 2008 at 8:45 AM

subject RE: Hey Miles

As for the baby shower, come on, if I was a bridesmaid, of course, I’m going to want a baby shower. Ha ha. …but seriously, I’ve been to several co-ed baby showers lately and it seem like that’s the way the trend is going. It’s more of just a get together to celebrate the occasion as opposed to a girly baby shower.

--

One, how does Ron know this is a 'trend'.

Two, Ron HAS been going to baby showers lately...further providing evidence he is a girly-man.

Three, how can it really be a get together when you event spouses or significant others? That is like inviting your wife to a bachelor party in Vegas.

Four, the baby shower is at the park on Sunday. Sunday between 12-4 or something. Know what time that is? The second half of NFL Sunday. This coming from the guy that plays fantasy everything all year round!

Five, read the email thread below:

from Miles the Great
to Ron Fukute
dateWed, Nov 12, 2008 at 8:58 AM

subjectRe: Hey Miles

the trend of baby showers...how would you know? you should have been telling laura that you would not go to any of the prior baby showers because they are for GIRLS. i see i will have to post this on the blog, further detailing your girly-ness!

from Ron Fukute
to Miles the Great
dateWed, Nov 12, 2008 at 9:19 AM

subjectRE: Hey Miles

Ha ha. “Trend” is not my quote, it’s what we read and like I said we’ve been to a handful of co-ed ones (they were actually my friends). It’s cool. I only invited you, Jeff and Hanzo from the team and we figured that you guys might feel that way so no worries.


So, my point for #5 is that Ron know's baby shower are girly events AND he knows other dudes are not comfortable with it HOWEVER, apparently Jeff, Hans and myself are okay with going to girly events. Grrr.

I will be sure to post pics from the baby shower...I will be RSVPing tomorrow.

Embrace Healing...

Hmm, I thought I mentioned this before but I guess I did not. My sister has launched her own website: www.embracehealingwell.com

Dawn will now we offering both chiropractic care and accupunture from her Santa Monica office now. Mention you saw the website here and you get an 80% discount! Hahahaha...maybe...it doesn't hurt to ask. =)

I at least better "thank" Oscar for creating the logo for Dawn's company. Next time I will buy taco's at the taco truck...but for you only. No homeless, no tag alongs, no friends of friends, etc.

Wii...

This was SUPPOSE to be my last week at work but the client started messing things up and now I have to work until December 4th. Sucks. I was counting down the days to when I was going to stop working in 2008.

Since the client messed up, I was off most of last week. I didn't want them to pay me to do nothing although since they messed up I should have just went to work and collected a paycheck. Instead I was on standby every day to see if I was going to go in the next day. That sucked because I couldn't really make plans to do anything.

To make matters worse I had to work most of the weekend to catch up from being off. Naturally, since they took a week, I was not given the same amount of catch up time so I had to be done in 2 days.

It is a total catch-22. I am really thankful to be working and making a good chunk of change, but on the other hand, I am just tired of working. Not the tired, where I need more sleep...just tired of the rat race. I suppose who isn't, right?!

Well, since I was off it coincided with the doctor finally clearing me for light exercise after 3 months. I ended up buying a Wii to help with my rehab. If I wasn't hurt, I would think the Wii is useless but since I am hurt it is actually helping me rehab my knee. Plus, Aya and I have fun playing together.

I went to lunch with Jeff and he said he was scoring way higher than me in bowling. Up until now I wasn't really trying but I thought I guess I should try harder. So after 30 minutes, this was my score:

Drat!! So close to a perfect game! Grrr!!

The beach...

This is why it is nice to live in Southern California. It rained Sunday morning and it started to clear up so we decided to head to the beach for a bit and have some fun:

That's my boy!

Halloween...

I took Halloween off from work and I went to Jack's school for the school's Halloween parade. It was lame. Totally unorganized with parents, kids and teachers. It should not even be called a parade because none of the kids marched or stood in line. It was basically a chance for you to see all the kids dressed up and playing. If I actually took the day off to solely go to the parade I would have been upset.



That night we went to Grandpa and Grandma to go Trick o Treating around my parents neighborhood. We cut our pumpkin:

Then we headed out to score some candy!

Funny how Aunty Dawn cut in front of me to take first dibs on the candy.

Asthma...

Last week JT relasped and caught a cold. Basically he got sick...my dad got sick...Aya and I got sick...JT got sick again. Well this time it sounded liked he was having trouble breathing so he went to the doctor.

The doctor said he was one stage away from Asthma and gave us an inhaler for a week or so. After 1 day of treatmeant JT got a lot better and we are close to ending his treatment now.

I actually think he likes taking the medicine becaues it takes about 8-10 minutes which guarantees him some tv time. Ever since our Alaska cruise Jack has liked watching old school Tom and Jerry and Scooby Doo. Luckily Time Warner has it On Demand for free:

The medicine just makes him hyper but the inhaler has smoke coming out so it looks like Jack has a baby version of a bong!

Boo at the Zoo...

This year Jack's Halloween costume is a....UPS driver!


We went to Boo at the LA Zoo on Saturday. The Zoo organized it much better this year and it wasn't as jammed packed as last year. It was still really crowded for a members only event and super packed when it became opened to the public. Still it was fun.


FedEx had a booth and they loved seeing Jack in his UPS outfit. They all wanted picks of Jack surrounded by FedEx workers.

I know this will sound biased since this is my kid but a lot of people liked the UPS costume. Not that we made it or anything, but a lot of passerbys commited about how 'cute' Jack looked as a UPS man. I just think it was a little different as most costumes were Superman, Batman, Ironman and the Hulk. Usually that is what we would pick as well, but Jack loves to see the UPS man come to my parents house, so this year it really was a no brainer for costume selection!

Just handing out money...

I got my car back tonight. Luckily insurance picked up 90% of the tab. I am still not confident that the repairs were needed or if my car was indeed damaged that much but it is done and I have my car back. Although it sucked because I picked up my car just as the shop was closing so only the valets were there and there is a scratch on my car! Idiots.

Oh well, I just happy that I paid 1000 of the 8500 bill for repairs. Phew. That was a big relief.

So after Sam helped me pick up my car tonight, Sam, Oscar and I met up for dinner. After dinner I headed home and:

1. My connection from the 10 East to 405 South was closed.
2. I was going to get off at Overland but there was a line of cars so I was going to cut in front
3. There was an accident.
4. As I avoided the accident, right in front of me is a tire ROLLING in the freeway while I am going 80
5. Luckily, I swerve to avoid it but the van next to me plows into it...sending the wheel towards me...but I avoided it...again.

I got home safe and sound. I go downstairs to ice my leg. I notice my ice pack isn't very cold. I get some juice from the fridge and then notice my OJ is luke warm. Hmm, luke warm ice pack. Luke warm juice. Crap. My fridge isn't working.

I just got done moving all my stuff into the downstairs fridge. I guess tomorrow I am going shopping for a new fridge.