Month: February 2010

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-28

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Renewing My Passport

My passport expired awhile back, and I’ve been meaning to get it renewed. Turns out if you meet certain requirements, you can renew your passport over the mail.

  • At least 16 years old when you got your last passport issued – Turns out I was 16 and change
  • Within 15 years since you got your last passport issued – It’s only been a little over 10 years. I did find it weird that unlike driver’s license which expire on your birthday, passport’s actually expire from when they’re issued.
  • a couple other requirements which I met

I needed to get some passport photos. Xyon had mentioned that he got his from Kinkos. I started searching and calling the Kinkos around me. The one in Factoria apparently doesn’t do passport photos, but the one in downtown Bellevue did. It also turns out that location is open 24 hours. Another interesting fact is that FedEx is apparently dropping the Kinkos brand. Both the website and the automated phone system say “Formerly FedEx Kinkos now known as FedEx Office”. The passport photos were a bit more expensive than I had anticipated ($13 for 2), but saves me the hassle from taking my own and having to get them to the correct size.

Since I got up at 11am on Saturday (it’s surprising how much more time there is on a weekend when you wake up early), I finished my shopping and stuff around noon. Since I was in the neighborhood, I wanted to see if Chad was up for lunch. Turns out I don’t have Chad’s cell number. Haha, oh well, missed opportunity. That issue has since be remedied.

The cost for renewal was $75 and they only accepted checks and money orders. Had to bust out my checkbook. It’s been so long since I wrote a check.

It sucks that I have to send in my expired passport for this renewal. It has so many cool stamps! I contemplated on stating I lost it or that the passport is damaged, but I think it required me to fill out another form or having to go apply in person.

I guess I haven’t really changed that much in 10 years, though I definitely looked a lot more nerdier back then ;p

old passport photo new passport photo

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It’s Friday and I’m Sad

Just a few weeks ago, I was content with life. Things couldn’t have gone much better. But humans are greedy and when once you realized there’s an emptiness, there’s no going back. I’ve been trying to find something to fill that emptiness, but have not had much luck. It’s Friday and I’m sad.

Have you realized how colorless the world can be sometimes? How TV shows and movies you usually enjoy seem boring? How time moves ever so slowly? How exercising doesn’t seem to make you tired anymore? How 5 minutes into video game and you just want to shut off your console? The only thing that seems to make me feel anything anymore is rewatching my favorite movies and animes, ones that pack a lot of emotional punch. I have to say The Twelve Kingdoms and Rurouni Kenshin has kept me sane for the past week, but even those are slowly losing their power.

Update: I don’t know how mom’s do it, but my day (or night) is 100x brighter. Thank you. 🙂

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-21

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Snowboarding at Snoqualmie Summit

I’ve always told people to not visit me during winter as there’s nothing to do here besides sit in and watch TV, but I can now tell you that with Snoqaulmie Summit only 40 mins away, if you enjoy snowboarding and skiing, it’s definitely something worth considering.

I was invited to go snowboarding with some colleagues of mine earlier this week. I haven’t had a chance this season to go snowboarding and was very excited. I couldn’t find my previous pair of snowboarding pants (think I left it back at my parents’ place), so I had to go to Rei to purchase a new pair. Snowboarding pants are so expensive! Even the one I got that was on “clearance” was $80. Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve, waited for a deal online, but I really needed this snowboarding trip.

I got everything ready last night:

  • jacket
  • pants
  • gloves
  • beanie
  • sunglasses

I went to bed early (10pm – if you know me you should start really worrying). I wasn’t feeling well and even declined to go out with some coworkers for dinner last night. My head was hurting (been wanting to bash it all day to stop the pain – banging it slightly against my desk didn’t help much). Anyway I also wanted to get enough sleep for tomorrow’s activity since we were leaving at 8am, which meant I had to get up at 7am. Apparently the sand man decided not to pay me a visit last night until it was ~4am. I realized whenever I try to fall asleep, the sound and thumps of my heart beating prevented me to catch any shuteye. I tried to sleep on a different bed, try sleeping in front of the TV, all failed attempts. Eventually I gave up and who knows when I really fell asleep, but I woke up to my alarm blaring at 7am.

I drove over to Rafael’s house as we were going to carpool. We reached the Snoqualmie Summit about 8:50am (park opens at 9am). Rented my stuff and did a couple runs, then met up with Andrew, Jessica, Jaideep, and Pallavi. Apparently I was the only one snowboarding and everyone else was skiing.

Today was HOT! I mean the sun was blaring and even with just a t-shirt + jacket, I was sweating the lie crazy. After several runs, Andrew, Rafael and I went back to the car to dump off some clothes. I was planning to just wear my t-shirt, but then noticed my lift ticket was attached to my jacket. Arggggh. I did take off the beanie. Afterwards I decided to snowboard with my jacket unzipped to catch the breeze, which turned out to be a great idea.

I tried to follow Dave’s (my carving instructor from last year) instructions, managed to go down half the hill with only 1 foot forward, then fell pretty bad. Knee first, followed by 2 flips. After attempting it several more times, and falling forward (not as bad as my 1st fall), I decided that I definitely need knee pads before trying to continue learning to carve. I have no issues falling on my butt, as there’s cushion there, but falling on your knees and wrists hurts really bad, especially after a few falls. Afterwards, I’ve just been seeing how far I can go down the hill without slowing down and changing direction.

Another thing I noticed is that my legs don’t get as tired anymore. Previously I would have to apply a lot of pressure to stop or slow down, but now it’s like stepping on the brakes in my car (okay I may have exaggerated a bit there). I wonder if I’m just getting better or maybe all that exercise on the elliptical has helped.

Rafael had to leave early and given that I also “hoped” to have plans tonight, I left with him around 2pm. Time sure flies when you’re having fun. For the first time this week, my mind was clear and I was actually enjoying myself.

Toland posing with snowboard at Snoqualmie Summit

I’ve applied Bengay to all my sore spots. Hopefully it won’t be too bad tomorrow. 🙂

Speaking of which, while applying Bengay, I remember a newbie mistake I made a long time ago. Never apply Bengay close to your private area. oooooh! It BURNS!

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Citi Credit Card Now Has Annual Fee

Ooooh! 3rd post in 3 days. Fortunately it’s a different topic today. I’ve calmed down a lot since last night’s spew, but my heart still skips a beat every time I think of it.

Anyway, I got a letter to day from Citi:

We’re writing to let you know about an important change we’re making to your account. Effective April 1, 2010, an annual fee of $60 is being added.

The reason we are making this change is to maintain the quality of our service amid the rising cost of doing business. However, because we value you as a customer, we wanted to give you an opportunity to have the annual fee credited back to your account.

Here’s how it works. Each year we’ll credit the $60 fee back to your account once you have made $2,400 in purchases during that year. That comes to an average of 200 in spending a month, an amount you can reach by using your card for purchases you already make, like gas, groceries, cell phone plans or your cable bill.

As always, you have the right to opt out of this change and close your account. Please read the Notice of Change in Terms and Right to Opt Out beginning on the back of this letter so you are fully aware of all your account changes. If you have questions, call 1-866-915-9425.

Wow… credit card companies must be pushed back a lot to now include annual fees. Unfortunately, I know longer use this card on a daily basis as the rewards structure is no longer beneficial to me. I keep it around as an emergency card since my credit limit on it exceeds $10k.

I was hoping I would be able to consolidate this card onto a different account, one hopefully without annual fees, but it looks like this is the only remaining Citi account I have. I’m going to give them a call later this month and see if I can switch my account to a non-annual fees (even reward-less account).

I would like to avoid closing this account, since it’ll hurt my credit score, especially if this account has been opened for a long time.

There was a Consumerist article on this just a few days ago: Avoid Credit Card Annual Fees: Just Charge $2,400 Per Year

Interesting… JerusalemCherry says:

I just called Citi at 800-950-5114 They advised “ALL” CitiCards will now have annual fees due to the congress changing laws etc. She advised even, non rewards cards do too. They also said the Citi-website will be updated with info soon. The customer service rep at Citi also told me its not fair to the Citi customers since tax payers bailed Citibank out etc.

I guess even non-rewards Citi cards will have an annual fee. Bummers.

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Sleeplessness

If you’re wondering why I’m up, at work, and posting a blog entry for the 1st time in so long, it’s because for the 1st time in ages, I wasn’t able to fall asleep. I went to bed at 4am, twisted and turned for 3 hours and finally gave up. I woke up, watched the latest episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, scanned through some old favorite movie clips, took a shower, and headed to work. %$#@! I forgot to turn off my alarm clock, which is set for 10am cause I had a PT appointment at 11.

Anyway, there are several reasons I can think of that may be the cause of this.

I was using the elliptical pretty much before going to bed. I’ve occasionally exercised right before bed, and never really had this issue. If anything, exercise would make me more tired. Though throughout the night, I did feel pain in my calves. Did I overwork my legs w/o knowing it? I also dropped below 160lbs for the 1st time in 6 months. I clocked in this morning at 158.6lbs.

I drank a full bottle of Lipton diet citrus green tea during exercise (so right before bed). I believe it has caffeine, but tea has never really caused me to be unable to fall asleep. It did cause me to use the bathroom twice in the middle of the night. Though I’m pretty sure if I fell asleep, that trip could’ve waited till morning.

I was hungry? I highly doubt this as I was stuff tonight with food, but my stomach was growling non-stop. Maybe I ate something bad, but my stomach isn’t really hurting, just growling, but not feeling hungry? What the %$#@ does that mean?

Nervousness. I met … for the first time tonight. Well 2nd time, but 1st time I got her name. %$#@! I’m going to screw this up.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-14

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-07