What's in my Pod

My Top Listens this Week (Week of 4/11/05):

1. Forever -- Puffy Amiyumi
2. Hollaback Girl -- Gwen Stefani
3. HiHi Puffy (theme from Puffy Amiyumi Show) -- Puffy Amiyumi
4. Teen Titans Theme -- Puffy Amiyumi
5. Love Won't Wait -- Atomic Kitten
6. Raindrops Fall -- Tamrya Gray
7. It's Like That -- Mariah Ho Carey
8. Move ya Body -- Pitbull/Nina Sky
9. Cappucino -- Elva Hsiao
10. Shine through the Rain -- ??


Am absolutely loving my new iPod Shuffle. It's sweeet and a big plus over my past CD walkman! Some songs are in my Pod from above, others are fave listens from the past.

Vacation

So I've been back home in the Bay Area after a week long trip last week to the American Southwest and my first vacation in four years. A road trip that comprised about 1300 miles, 9000 feet in elevation, and 4 states: California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona.

Drove from So Cal to to Las Vegas, where we stayed for 4 days and 3 nights at the pyramid-shaped Luxor hotel on the famous Strip. Though one of the older mega-luxury hotels on Las Vegas Boulevard, the Luxor still holds some fascination for me with its Egyptian-themed Sphinx and statues, as well as its 3D-city within the atrium-like hotel. While in the City of Sin we visited different hotels, including the newest Caesar's Forum Shops, which looked like a fancy mall gone out of royal Roman control with its new indoor fountain and 2 3-story statues that served also as buttressing pillars for the shopping center and looked like something from out of Lord of the Rings. We visited the Fremont Street Experience in Old Las Vegas, and also saw some free shows along Las Vegas Boulevard including the balladic dances of Bellagio's water fountains and the mystical call of the Sirens of Treasure Island. Of course, did a lot of gambling playing blackjack. Fortunately, Lady Luck kept us company here and there. The biggest prize was making $125 off of just $40 in 4 hours. The weather was quite cold from what I was used to in Vegas, especially with all the wind.

After Vegas, drove to Utah. Was my first time there and there was almost nothinggg there! (*laughs*) However, visited the impressive Bryce Canyon. The canyon overlooks the vast Colorado plateau with table-top mountains in the distance and Arizona at the horizon. A park of rocky spires that reminded me of something you'd see on a Looney Tunes Road Runner cartoon, these raised "hoodoos" were once thought to be people by Pauite Native Americans who once lived in the canyon. I admired the shapes of these orange, iron-color rocky spires, caused by the lifting of the earth millions of years ago followed by millions of years of weathering. And speaking of the weather, it was unfortunately too darn cold for hiking, with an unforgiving chilly wind that made our skin feel icy and kept us driving from lookout point to lookout point.

After Bryce Canyon, we drove in the late afternoon to Arizona. Crossing the vast desert under a dark, moonless starry sky, at times we were the only car on the road and couldn't see where the often windy road was taking us. We wound up in the city of Flagstaff, where we hung our hats for the night.

The following day, drove to Laughlin, Nevada. It was my first time there to this riverfront casino town along the Colorado River. It reminded me of a Lake Tahoe, only bigger, combined with a little of Vegas, only friendlier. Everyone in the town was quiet friendly, including the blackjack dealers who at times made mistakes and forgave us players when we made mistakes. We even had a blast taking a ride on the Colorado River in a water taxi used to shuttle visitors between hotels. Oh, and ya can't beat the $1 blackjack! (do they still have $1 blackjack tables in Nevada?) I broken even on a $20 bill.

After a couple final hours of trying our luck, we drove along Hwy 95 south to check out Havasu City. Somehow we overshot our mark and wound up in Needles, California. At the point, we returned to the highway labelled 95 and drove for what looked like almost no-where for an hour. We awkwardly eyed a sign pointing to Lake Havasu on the left as we passed it. Why would the sign be pointing to the left if the Colorado River and Lake Havasu were supposed to be on the right all along? Not too long afterward it dawned upon us that we had somehow driven on the California side on US Highway 95, NOT State Hwy 95 in Arizona! What transportation planning moron had thought it was a brilliant idea to put TWO Highway 95s parallel to and across from each other in two different states?! To make matters worse, we were down to our last 2 gallons of gas. As our car fuel tank light turned on a yellow, we nervously began to wonder where in the world would we find gas out in the middle of this rocky, parched tundra of California!? Someone must have been watching over us as we soon reached a junction where one lone gas station with $2.69/gallon gas was waiting to help people who thought they could make their way across the desert-like land on fumes and bravery alone. After we fueled up, to add insult to injury, at the intersection where the gas station was located, a brown sign held up on two metal rail poles said "Lake Havasu City" and "London Bridge", pointing back into Arizona. At that point, we said "forget it" and just headed back to L.A. That must've been the most suspenseful moment of my trip.

I spent one more day in the L.A. area, chilling and also catching "Miss Congeniality 2". That movie was so the laughs -- even better than the first "Miss Congeniality". I returned home by midnight of this past Sunday night after a six hour, slightly tiring drive back to San Jose.

I have to say that my trip this past week was quite an adventure and, in a number of ways, I learned about myself and my travel companionz. In all honesty, I was a little intimidated on the idea of driving lonely desert roads in the dark or not reserving hotels (except for Vegas) ahead of time. But I guess I'm amazed that maybe I can do a little more than I think with some faith in myself and others. And I'm glad that I took a step of courage or two and, as a result, grew a little more on the inside.

American Idol

Tonight it was Nikko, Vonzell, and Scott in the bottom three. And at the end, it was Nikko's turn to leave the competition. Given last night's loud-note musical soundtrack performances by the remaining competitors, I wasn't surprised at the results. I was probably more suprised at the lauding ovations Randy and Paul gave the night before to what I thought weren't over-the-top performances as well as at how unforgiving Simon Cowell was.

Back in Town

Am back in town after a week long vacation to So Cal, Las Vegas, Utah and Arizona. I'm too tired to write about it right now, so I'll have to write more in my next entry. Stay tuned!

Quote of Day: "The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty." ~ Winston Churchill