Week 4: Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, or as they say in Vietnamese, Chuc Mung Nam Moi! Today marks the first day of the year of the Ox in the lunar calendar.

Here's wishing all my family and friends health, happiness and success in the new year!

This week's portrait is of me in my brand new Snuggie, reading a book with my brand new book light. That's right, after talking about Snuggies all winter long, I finally stopped into Bed Bath & Beyond and picked one up this weekend. The only color they had in stock was the Royal Blue, so I really didn't have any problems deciding what to get.

The funniest part was that there was another woman shopping near me, too, and I looked down to see no less than 10 boxes of Snuggies in her cart! Someone was stocking up for the cold winter! Hahaha.




Anyway, here's my honest review:

-fabric is a little cheap, not as thick and plush as one might think
-the fleece comes off and sticks to whatever you're wearing underneath (my white t-shirt was covered in a light coat of blue fleece)
-"one size fits all" is a bit of a stretch. The sleeves are about a foot too long and the length is about 2 feet too long... I can't really walk around in the Snuggie unless I want to be dusting my floor at the same time!
-the Snuggie may cause static problems

-the Snuggie is a really great accessory for playing the Wii. So much free arm movement while staying warm!
-there is definitely Halloween costume potential here... stay tuned...

Haters (you know who you are!), if you are going to say mean things, please use a *, #, @ or $ in the appropriate places. This is a family-friendly space.

Week 3: Happy Inauguration!

As everyone knows, this was a big week for the country, and especially a little place called Washington, D.C. For the long inaugural weekend, D.C. had a brief shining moment of hype, we felt cool, and everyone was talking about us!

Being here for inauguration weekend was a special experience, but after dealing with the masses, I'm glad to see all the tourists return home and allow D.C. go back to its uncool, normal self.

On Sunday, I headed down to the Mall to see the opening Inaugural celebration concert, "We are One." Despite the cold and crowd, it was a pretty exciting experience to be part of such a big scene. You could feel the excitement in the air that set the tone for the rest of the weekend.

The concert itself was not bad -- it was cool to see some of the big name acts up close and personal (on a jumbotron...), but there were definitely some awkward moments (Bald Eagle, anyone?) sprinkled in, that were as awkward to re-watch on TV as they were to see live.

On Tuesday, due to coming down with my second cold in as many weeks, I watched the Inauguration from indoors rather than battle the estimated 2 million* who braved the cold and congregated on the Mall.

All in all, it felt great to be able to witness such a big part of history right in your own backyard. I think I can speak for lots of people when I say I'm excited to see the Obamas take their place in the White House and am looking forward to what's to come.

Here's a shot of me and John on Sunday, January 18. We were en route to the "We are One" concert and stopped to take in the site of the swearing-in while we could get a close view.



I didn't get any celeb autographs and didn't hit any fancy balls, but I definitely still enjoyed the long, historic weekend! Hope you all did, too.

*If anyone has a more accurate estimate of numbers, please do share!

It must be my lucky day!

I just returned from a much-needed lunch trip to McDonald's, and I open my box of nuggets to find the following:



"Wow," I thought! A deformed nugget -- how freaky! But wait, it's almost the size of two nuggets, so It's like I got 11 instead of 10! This must be a sign of good things to come...

Thank you for rewarding this loyal Nuggnut, McD's. You just made my day!

Starting anew? week 1 & 2...

I was recently convinced to participate in a 52-week self-portrait project for Flickr. My cousin, Maitai113, is doing a daily 365-day project but I didn't want to get overly-ambitious just yet. So for now, I'll be posting one photo a week to my 52 weeks/2009 set. The rules are simple: the photo has to be taken by me, and some part of me (however small) must be in the photo. I decided that in conjunction with this project on Flickr, I'll also be blogging the photos here. That way, I'll have some sort of visual and written documentation of my year, and it will at least guarantee a blog post a week! Everyone wins!

For starters I'll post the first two weeks in this post and go from there... Enjoy, all, and Happy New Year! So far, '09 is looking pretty good and I couldn't be more excited about what's ahead.

week 1: 1/1 - Happy New Year!
This is my first selection, taken just seconds after midnight on January 1, 2009. You can see my hand in the left-hand corner of the photo, holding a glass of champagne to toast the new year.



week 2: 1/10 - ski weekend in Seven Springs
This is a shot of me and my sister, Auddie, on the ski lift at Seven Springs. About 20+ of us (family & friends) took over the mountain and spent a nice weekend there.



Stay tuned! We still have 50 weeks to go!