Snow in Portland

Woke up this morning at 8:00am, and saw a winter wonderland outside my apartment window. Great, it finally snowed in Portland, Oregon. Decided to take some pictures to show you since its not an everyday thing that snow drops out of the sky during Christmas season on Saipan. Now I have to get ready soon for work and get on the road early so I can catch the morning traffic to endure a long 30 minute drive while speeding at only 25mph. Better safe than sorry. On my journey while gripping the wheel tighly with two hands due to high winds that could swerve my vehicle in the wrong direction, I saw two accidents that has taken place. Tow trucks, police lights, and an ambulance has arrived at the scene. Pretty typical for a snowy day. First thing that came to my mind was, glad it wasn't me. Then second thing on my mind was do they have car insurance because that sucks and it will cost a lot for a car repair. Oh well, making snow angels are always fun, but driving in snow is never a favorite for anybody. So to be random, if there is one thing that I learned when driving in Saipan, its stay away from telephone/power poles and don't drink and drive.

D.I.Y. -lighting feature on your digital camera

Besides shooting breathtaking pictures on your digital camera, have ever wondered what else this expensive device could do compared to the once cheap disposable kodak cameras, which is probably now fifteen to twenty some dollars at your local retail stores. I was playing with my digital camera settings and read about the macro part of taking photos with a high resolution mode. Some settings may differ on your camera, but here is a few steps to create whatever image you have in mind. When taking a picture, switch the mode to macro, the one with the M on it. Set the ISO level to 100 and the shutter speed to the highest possible level, ex: 1 to 15 (If I have lost you, then refer to your manual). Next, set your room settings to dark, ex: switch off your lights lol. While taking a picture, you have about 15 seconds to create your masterpiece. You may need any type of LED light to create the effects. After 15 seconds or so, your camera will click and the picture is taken. Fun stuff!

A comment relating to posts from Road-blocks on the Saipanda issue:

Read Road-blocks if you want to.

From a marketing stand point, the Saipanda mascot is a great figure in relating to tourists for generating revenue for the CNMI’s economy. Now when the campaign took off in 2000, just like anybody else in Saipan, I did not understand the concept except that the name matched with Saipan (more info on Saipanda). I was one of the others who thought that this was a joke and should portray the sea turtle or coconut crab as a mascot, but not sure if this would relate or appeal to tourists from a marketing aspect. Also, not sure if a fanihi would probably scare tourists away, but I did think about this as a mascot too. Hmmm… If only we were open minded to how we could market our islands and think outside the box rather than sticking to what we know as Saipanda “a figure of jack in the box”. Some also gave Saipanda a local name "Pikaru" to try and convince themselves that we could accept this mascot, but then again, not sure how many viewed it as a sure thing. I would like to see an educating subject in Saipan Tribune or Marianas Variety if possible for others to know what Saipanda has grown into, what it has generated for the CNMI, and what the world thinks about it, instead of misc. news such as neighbors threatening each other with a machete (In other news Issue 1, Issue 2, Issue 3). Every body talks about tourism for the economy yet some negate the Saipanda figure that is intended for this reason. Lets take a survey, bota bota! How many of you think Saipanda should stay or go based on what you know? If Saipanda is still bringing home the bacon for the CNMI, I say stay.

Party season

Once again it is Monday and the day begins with brushing your teeth and getting ready for school, work, or running errands that was put off on Sunday. A week is going by faster day by day and as you noticed, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas is only months away. Party season is on the way, or must I say spending season, hooray. For this reasons we all must be thinking on whether we should budget our savings or celebrate the wonderful holidays. Tough call, but I think we should wait till Friday comes along and celebrate our happy hour with friends to let things sink in and then take a minute to rethink on what you have accomplished so far in the past week. A lot I bet. I watched too many baseball playoffs and NFL games this last weekend, and it only prepared me to be more prepared to watch more games. Anyway, I have plans to celebrate the holidays as always, and my plan begins with a song that makes you go hmmm. What does your playlist say about your mood on the upcoming holidays?

Min

Today is my oldest sisters birthday Mihaina. she is turning 36 I believe, but when I call her tonight to say Happy birthday I will find out her true age and tell her how does it feel to have another happy birthday. Every birthday seems different every year, getting older is just an age. Whether we change to act our age or just stay the same and chill out until the next birthday comes along, we probably would all feel the same, just act accordingly to the ag number. If I could recall, the best birthday party I had was my 16th birthday because it involved family and that is one I could really remember. My 17th birthday, it was very different because I remembered Wayne asking me a question... "did i score yet?" And during the ride home from school we discussed more in details, mostly him telling me what he was planning to do. At that time, I was late in doing the grown up things, but I wasn't ready at all. So I tried to avoid my 17th birthday when the time came. Overall, birthdays are to be remembered, but I have a hard time recalling all others in detail. I'll just ask everyone who will read this, what is your most rememberable birthday?!

The things we work for

Work, the word work has all types of meaning that you could think off. To me, hearing the word makes me feel stressed which triggers something in my mind that causes my body to feel tired. We all need work though so that we could fulfill all the wonderful things that we want in life. Maybe I should start thinking of work as an accomplishment. I remember the days of just raking the yard was like hard work, and never liked doing it because I thought of it as a choir rather than looking at it as beautifying the yard. Now, raking the yard is something I really miss.
Well anyway, work is the driving force to saving up and getting something we really want in the future. Last last weekend just before the movie "Sex and the City movie" came out, my girlfriend had a twinkle in her eye (She is a big fan of the TV series). I did not know what it was but her eyes were shiny like puss in boots when he glares at shrek when he wants something. Monday came and I saw the Sex and the City advertisement on TV, coming out Tuesday. I was like okay I know what to work for during the week even though the DVD only costs $22.49, which is still a lot for me. And then that same day I saw an ad on TV about the new ipod. Damn, I want one for myself! And then the ads goes on and on, I want everything that is on TV. Anyway, weighing the options of which would really matter to me or to her, off course, I bought the movie for my girlfriend as a gift instead. In the end, I think I accomplished something for the greater good, a happy little girl watching her sex movie.
Oh, look its time, I gotta go to work.

Welcome September, its been a long time I don't see you

Labor Day, a holiday that I used to enjoy during high school because it shortened the day of the week from studies, which gave me an extra day to stay at home to rake the yard. I miss cleaning the yard now that I live in a fish bowl apartment. Unfortunately, my labor days are over since I work for a private company (Flextronics- a contractor for Verizon Wireless) and they won't take the Monday off to acknowledge this great holiday that the government produces for us workaholics. As far as working hard, I hit my required sales and data goals for the month. I am in the tech department and I usually prove to management that commitment and good work ethics are more important than the numbers. But of course, it's all about the numbers in business and speaking of numbers, what is 992 x 2? That's the amount of what is left to pay my medical bills back after the insurance came through. I am happy about the outcome given that the initial amount was way more than my dream car. Overall, the rain has settled over here in Oregon and it's starting to get colder. Working on Monday turned out to be a plus for me and a good start to getting out of debt, which happened to be one of my New Year's resolution and number 2 in the unofficial rankings for people who made it their goals for the New Years.
So when was the last time you washed your car? Hoped you did it on Labor day coz I just got a free car wash from the rain the other night.

Last Week

Sunday, the 24th was a lazy day as usual, probably because most of us are off from work and choose to do nothing. Actually on every weekend, we do expect to do nothing at all but to relax our backs, drink a cold beer, and eat sashimi till the sun sets beneath the dark water. Thats the way I live my Sundays until I got invited by my brother Wayne'R to join blogspot so that I could get up and do something educational. But before I ever got off my back to sign up for blogspot, my girlfriend came to me and interupted my queit time to propose a future plan. This plan was a list of things that most of us had done before that separated us from living like rookie adults to actual professional adults. She put a smile in my face and made me laugh. It was like an 'uhuh!' moment that made me see the light at the end of the tunnel. She got me thinking about resolutions. How many of us had a goal to fulfill our New Year's resolution and how many of us are still following through with our goals to make our lives better. Realizing that a year was too long to follow through with my resolution, I decided to break it down to weeks. If only I could start making resolutions about certain goals through a week, I could make my dreams for real. Think about how many things I could conquer in a year. So anyway, with my story in place, my resolution for this week is to find a solution to my sunday confusion of laying around on days off and start blogging.
Next week, I'm going to try and save for gas money because I rather drive than walk down the street to buy some donuts.