Vegas Vacation

So I just came back from Vegas and I figured the only way I could fend of my normal Sunday night depression is to blog about it.

I love, love, love Vegas, and this time was no disappointment. I went there because a bunch of Gary's friends were meeting up there, and he invited me to come along and hang out with them. When I got in on Friday evening, I got to meet all of them. They are all really nice.

We stayed at the Excalibur Hotel. I was happy because it was on the strip, so it was easy to visit the other hotels. The nice thing is that although it is one of the lesser expensive hotels, gambling is cheaper which makes the losing process sustainable over a longer period of time. I probably gambled more than I ever have before, and won $70 bucks playing the Price is Right slot machine. This is by FAR my favorite slot machine. If you get to certain rounds, you get to play mini games. So its not just pressing a button over and over, you get to play games also. I also played a little "Let it Ride" Poker at the Excalibur, but came out even.

We also visited NY NY which is one of my favorites, a long with the Venetian. I love both because of the areas where they have outdoor like streets indoors... I love walking around in there. We were in the Venetian particularly because we went to go see Phantom of the Opera. We had gotten the cheap seats in the back, but when we got there, we found out there were seats up front that were not sold, which were probably valued at around $250 per seat. Gary saw the usher offer some seats to another couple near the front, so he asked if we could get upgraded also. He said yes! So we got to sit 10 rows back, right in the center, and it made it so much cooler. The actual theatre is AWESOME. It was remodeled for the musical, so it was very authentic and dark. Also, I loved the music, I am going to buy the soundtrack soon. The whole thing was awesome. See pics below of Gary and I at the Venetian:

We also went to the MGM to see the lions... see below:

Overall it was a fun weekend. Out of everything, I enjoyed Phantom the most. It's a different experience going with Gary than going with the girls, but I enjoyed it just as much. I hope that I can see more musicals and plays in the future, they are really fun. I'd love to see a Cirque Du Soleil show one of these days, they are supposed to be amazing.

Alrighty, I'm tired.... time for bed.

Meet the Parents

This weekend I was fortunate enough to go home to visit my friends and family. I arrived late on Friday evening, around midnight due to a flight delay. I met Gary at the airport, who had to wait two hours for me because his flight had come in on time. Go figure, there are airlines that actually travel on time. It's an amazing concept.

Anyways, overall the trip was really good. My family and Gary got along well, and I also got to see Emily and Jeff in Olympia, which was fun also. We also met Gary's friend Alex who drove down all the way from Vancouver BC to meet up with him. He hadn't seen him in 5 years.

I felt a little bad, Gary got a little bombarded with family and at one point during dinner my uncle proceeded to tell Gary how my aunt makes him eat Taco Bell twice a day and that how he couldn't expect a home cooked meal in this family... Although I don't think Gary thought anything of it, since he already knows my culinary skills aren't exactly my strong suite. Anyway, it was pretty funny.

I didn't get to show him too much around Portland, since our trip wasn't too long. We had lunch one day on 23rd street at Rose's and walked around a little bit. I think I'll have to break him the wondrous sites of Washington slowly over the next few visits. We also had a chance to see "Burn After Reading," which is a terrible, terrible movie. Please, for the love of God do not watch it. The Pitt/Clooney combo totally isn't worth it, don't be fooled.

Anyway, it was a pretty chill visit, and it was great to see everybody. I'm also glad that my entire family got to meet Gary. He fit in perfectly with them, even I think most of them when they were all speaking Gujrathi he was just smiling and nodding.

On to the next trip... this Friday I'm leaving for Vegas. Woohoo I can't wait!

A Major Corproation is Not the Same as Running a Country......

Famous words spoken by former CEO of HP, Carly Fiorina, now economic advisor to John McCain. Today she publicly said she doesn't believe that John McCain or Sarah Palin are capable of running a corporation.

First of all, let me emphasize that Carly Fiorina, is the FORMER CEO of HP. That's right she was asked to leave once she ran the Company to the ground, cutting the Company's market cap in half, and lost HP employees over 20,000 jobs. Oh, and she didn't walk away empty handed. Under Hewlett-Packard's severance agreement, Carly Fiorina received US$21 million in cash, which was 2.5 times her base annual salary. Some people argue that HP's later success was attributed to the foundations she laid down, but, these of course are speculations and the hard numbers speak for themselves, along with the fact she was asked to leave by the board of directors.

Moving on to her comments. Although slightly humorous that she is supposed to be McCain's economic advisor, and jabbed him with this remark, I don't completely agree with her statement. Yes, obviously it isn't the same, I think that is apparent to everybody. Running a Country is much more complex. Having an education, experience and understanding of finance and economics is vital to be a good CEO. So is the ability to "think outside the box" and be innovative, moving the Company forward. These qualities and MORE are necessary to run a country. It's scary to me to think about that there is a presidential candidate, whose economic knowledge is limited, is relying on somebody like Carly Fiorina for economic advise.

Considering the fragile state of the economy, how can somebody like Fiorina turn things around when she couldn't even do it for a corporation she was being paid to run? What will happen when McCain, relying on Fiorina's advise, looses 20 million American jobs and doubles the deficit? What board of directors will ask him to leave then? Using her logic, anybody that is authorized to run a Company could not run a country. Isn't that ironic considering she is the one who provides the presidential candidate, who has a serious deficiency in economic knowledge, advise?

I have so many issues with McCain that if I put them all here it would be an incredibly long blog, so I'll stop. I think my point has been made.

If you are interested in seeing the CNN coverage, please see the link below:

http://www.cnn.com/video/savp/evp/?loc=dom&vid=/video/politics/2008/09/16/tsr.fiorina.palin.comment.cnn

The Great Northwest

Ah the great nothwest. It is where I grew up, spent a majority of my life, and then left seeking oppertunites to further my career and come into my own. As I was driving home from work today, I was thinking that, if my life is to continue on the path it is now, I will never live in the great northwest again (for reasons that are to complex to mention here).

I don't know if its whether you remember things more fondly in retrospect, or if its a true genuine attachment, but I feel like me a piece of me died. Part of it is understandable. My roots are there as the majority of my life's memories are captured within the walls of the Salmon Creek Motel.

Also, despite the reason that I've decided to live so far away, I think a part of me always thought I'd come back. I love the thought of my parents helping me raise my children, teaching them to speak gujrathi like my grandma taught me. Aside from these reasons, I realized there are little things that I will miss, and miss today since I live in San Jose. As I am a dorky auditor, I've bullet pointed them below:

• Family and Friends. Okay this is an obvious one, a majority of the family that I am close to lives in the northwest, as do my friends. I've been fortunate to make friends outside of the northwest, which is comforting, but doesn't make me miss those there any less.


• Seasons. You really appreciate the warmth of the summer when you don't get 365 days a year. It becomes more special. Christmas wouldn't be so special if we had every day right?


• Cold weather. I love wearing cute coats, matching gloves and scarves during the wintertime carying hot chai or cocoa to my destination. Also, lets face it ladies, we all love the extra 5 pounds of winter weight we carry because its so easy to hide in these oversized coats.


• The Scenery. Although I don't appreciate it as much as I should, anybody that lives in the northwest is lucky to live amougst such beautity.


• No sales tax. Nothing more need to be said, it's wonderful.


• Christmas. It's always cold during Christmas time. Any type of weather is just wrong.


• People. Most are unpretentious, unvain, friendly people. People who have better things to do then assume the demise of their life if they go from a size 0 to a size 2.

Those are the ones on the top of my head. There are many more subtle, smaller nuances that will be missed. Although it's not as I will never visit, but lets face it; its never the same as living there And although I'm excited about the life ahead of me, there is a part of me that can't help but to be sad to lose that part of my life.

People I love!

I decided instead of eating and taking a lunch today, that I would post blog entries instead. Go Figure. Here are some pictures of people I love. Once I starting doing this I realized I love a lot of people! Hey, the more love the better right? Although the nature of love I have for these people are different, they are still all love. Also, these are in no partiular order, and I don't have pics of everyone.

See below:

Dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuun!!!!!!!!!

I am writing today regarding the CPA exam. I had a meeting at work, where obtaining CPA certification (thereby passing the CPA exam) is essential. So they say.

For anybody that knows anything about public accounting the CPA is a ever so elusive certification that makes you golden for opportunities outside public accounting, and is required to be a manager within the public accounting realm (assuming you stick with a big firm).

Here is the problem. There are four exams. Each about... um 4 hours long or so. Not so bad, but this requires preplanning, and most importantly studying. Don't get me wrong, its not that terrible BUT....

a) I feel like I am too old to be studying anything. The last thing I want to do after I come home from a long day of work is crack up a book and learn about bankrucy law or corporate tax forms (can we say snoozefest?)

b) Aside from not wanting to study, I rather spend time doing other things. Here are visual representations, of just SOME of the activities I rather be doing (I left this PG-13, but we all know that there are other activities that can be added to this list.. wink, wink...) :

c) I have somebody else I rather spend my time with instead of a CPA study book (awww please don't puke on my blog) :

And lastly, I am just plain lazy. Given the things above, I hardly feel I can be expected to find time to devote to subjects I don't find remotely interesting. I guess a part of me also thinks that if I dedicate my time to this, I'll be just putting the nail in the coffin for being an accountant forever. I really don't like the idea of that, sometimes I think I could do something completely different. I must admit though, getting the CPA will help me rake in more money if and when I decide to leave my current position. That could be a huge motivating factor.

Given that, I guess I really have to weigh the importance of that with reasons not to do it. Life changing decisions are best put off for later... :)

I will not let the man, or the cold keep me down!

My 26 hour work day on Thursday/Friday not only left me tired, but it also left me with a terrible cold. I'm not sure why I have such a terrible immune system, but I don't think the lack of sleep helped my case any. In any case, the following became my armor to not let it ruin my weekend:



I do not recommend working 26 hours in a row, its a terrible idea. Not that I really had a choice in the matter, but it made me angry mostly because I was visiting Gary this weekend and I didn't want it ruining our weekend. Unfortunately, my plan of attack didn't quite work, and I ended up feeling like crap for most of the weekend, making me a coughing, snotty, sneezing, snoring (due to the congestion) , icky mess. Incredibly sexy, I know.

Despite this, Gary was totally awesome. The fact that I was sick didn't bother him one bit, and he took really good take care of me and got me everything that I needed, I couldn't ask for a more wonderful guy. When he picked me up on Friday, we went to the Cheesecake factory to celebrate our 4 month anniversary. It as fun. Although I can't have liquor (b/c of the medication I was on referenced above), I still had a virgin Daiquiri. Oh, and we saw the craziest thing! We saw a guy that must have been in his 70's with a female "escort" that was probably 19 or 20. She was dress very scandalously, which took out the possibility, in our minds at least, that they could be related. It was pretty funny, for a more visual image see the picture below:

Anyway, the rest of the weekend was pretty chill. Because I wasn't feeling 100% we kind of laid low most of the weekend. On Saturday night, I was feeling a little better so we had dinner and Chevy's, and saw a movie called Bangkok Dangerous... which was pretty much a guy movie. There were times when my eyes closed for a few minutes, but I think that's because I was a little sick. Overall any action movie lover would enjoy it, Nicholas Cage's acting was pretty decent. After the movie we went to a place called Yogurtland for some frozen yogurt.... mmm :)

Today, we spent the morning home while Gary watched a Dodger's game and I took a nap.. that medication makes me really tired. Other than that we had Thai for dinner before I had to leave to come home.

I was really sad to go, but I'll get to see him in about 2 weeks, we are going to go visit my family in Portland, which I'm really excited about. I'm sure they will will love him, just as much as I do. We are also going to meet up with Emily, and it will be really nice to see her as well.

As usual, not looking forward to work next week, although there will be no 26 hour work days, which I couldn't be more thrilled about.

It's 7:22 AM....

And I've been at work since 9:30 AM the day before. That's right, in about one hour I will be have been awake for 24 hours straight. Why you ask? Because I have a shitty job with shitty hours.... okay maybe that's a little extreme, but the job I am on is a mess. Sometimes I wonder why I decided to become an auditor in the first place. This is making me SERIOUSLY consider a change in profession.

I keep seeing ghosts in the bathrooms and blue spots when I turn my head too fast. Sigh, well back to work, hoping I can go home around noon.

Labor Day Weekend

One thing bad about blogging is that since I am blogging about something, it has ended. Yes, labor day weekend is over. So fast, its a tragedy really. Moving on, the upside is that my long weekend was awesome. Gary flew up this weekend to visit me. He flew in on Friday, and we went straight to visit a few friends of mine, Jared and Martha. We went to BJ's brewery (mind the obscene name) which I love mostly because they have an AWESOME dessert called the pizzuki, which involves a warm cookie and ice cream. If you haven't had it, go try it. Now.

The next day we went to Santa Cruz, which is more affectionately known for paranoid hippies protesting everything under the sun. We went to the boardwalk, where we went on a few rides (the rollercoaster and haunted house). And yes, I did get scared in the haunted house. I don't like thing jumping out at me damnit. However, nothing jumped out, so I just ended up looking lame at the end of it. See below for a picture of the rollercoaster. It's really big.

Anyways, we headed downtown for dinner. We went to this place called Kianti's, a pizza and pasta bar which is realllllly good. Highly recommended. I went there with Emily when she came to visit a few months ago, and I thought it was really good.

The next day we went TV shopping. I had a trageic accident with my last tv. Well, it was my fault I dropped it. Its a long/sad story which I'll skip, but the point is I needed a new tv. Gary as well as my brother, and everyone under the blue moon told me that I should get some thing better since I had to buy a tv anways. Ugh it always kills me to spend so much money on something like a tv. I mean, with the same money I could buy some killer shoes or a purse. But I figured the TV would probably last me longer. I got a 32 inch flat screen, and I have to admit, I LOVE it. See my tv below.

After tv shopping, we checked out Palo Alto unviersity street for dinner/baseball game. Naturally, I was more interested in the dinner than the baseball game, but it was fun. We met up with another friend of mine, and ended up staying until 11. When we got home, we set up my sweet tv (refer to picture above) and went to rent a movie so that I could see how it looked, and it looked awesome. We rented "What Happens in Vegas" which was my pick, but is a terrible movie, don't see it. Total waste of time.

Then we come to today, the day before I have to go to work. It's sad that I'll get depressed the morning BEFORE the day I have to go to work. I was really happy however, to have Gary visit me. We had a blast, and I'm going to be going down to the OC this Friday to spend time with him this weekend, and I can't wait because I miss him already. I am also happy this week will be only 4 days long (thank you long weekend)!

Welcome to my blog!

So I've decided to start a blog. Call it what you want.. a desperate move to deviate my attention from my night- before- I- have- to- go- to- work- boredom, or an inevitable occurrence, but I've decided that this is a good idea.

I don't know how long it will last, or how good it will be, but I'm going to give it a shot. And I figure I have enough nice friends who might actually find interest in the little nuances of my life that I don't get to share with them anymore, whether it be due to distance or other reasons. I figure that I want to tell you all what I'm up to, and instead of writing separate emails describing the same thing, a blog would be easier. Yes, this can be viewed as lazy, but I say its just down right efficient.

Anyways, welcome! I'm going to kick this off by blogging about my weekend, see the blog above.