./janella.com

ok, after thinking i screwed up the page somehow, i find that the reason it looked so darn funny was that i haven’t written anything! wow, a program that forces you to write! i like it.

so, i just write this quick quick paragraph here right now, just to occupy some space. there are some topics i do want to write about, and some pictures i want to post. it will be just a little longer.

tonight i had dinner with some ex-netscape customer care people at chevy’s in sunnyvale. it was good seeing everyone who made it.

peter and sue i had only seen several months back at peter’s wedding. the last time i saw heath was at a dinner with dave. david, luis, tricia and michelle i hadn’t seen since being laid-off.

dinner was at chevy’s in sunnyvale. i had the habanero steak tacos which was exteremely hot! whew.

anyway, i guess this would be only of interest to scott (since he knows who these people are and he’s read this home page), but here’s a quick rundown:

• peter: working, married in may (i'll post the pics sometime), and driving a nice black mazda rx-8. yeah he got rid of the mustang.
• sue: not currently working, but i think she's doing some campaign work for general clarke
• tricia: working at a biotech company that some former egain employees work at.
• michelle: recently laid-off from the same biotech company that tricia works for.
• luis: happy and working for a auction site for car dealers (if i remember correctly).
• david: working in brisbane i think? he was all the way down he table and i only caught bits and pieces of his whereabouts.
• heath: working in sales and the gym.

it was good seeing everyone. found out shelly is working at the clinique counter at macy’s in valley fair. those who’ve seen her say she’s looking really good. i don’t think anyone knows where nancy is other than she’s married. karen couldn’t make it, but i think she’s married now also. jason and peter f. couldn’t be found either.

it was good getting together with everyone. somewhat interesting to take stock of where everyone is at. this tech slowdown has put a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth, and i seriously think nobody really loves what they are doing for work. not that netscape was all fun and games, but it sure was exciting.

farrah and i headed down to the [sony metreon] to watch the [matrix revolutions], the last a trilogy by the wachowski brothers. i would have to rank this third in terms of quality of story and action, behind the other two. so it works, i guess, in descending order.

what i liked about the film? the action scenes defending zion were really well done. part initial battle scene in a club was cool. oh, and monica bellucci in a red latex get-up made the movie too.

the bad? well, i thought it was still too talk-y. not as much as the second one, though that had the car chase scene and the twin dudes going for it. i also thought the ending was so-so.

i say give it a shot as a matinee if you want to see it. i hear it is playing on imax. i don’t think this one is worth it on that big of a screen. may be the first two, but definitely not this one.

the chicago cubs are losing right now, 9-4. it seems it shouldn’t have gotten to this point but it has. last night they should have won the game, but a fan got in the way. you can see a still of the play at [thesmokinggun.com]

the poor sap will probably have to move out of the chicago area if the cubs lose tonight. if they happen to win tonight he will just be a minor footnote. i can’t imagine how he must feel with all those eyes, the stares of hatred towards him for possibly screwing up a chance to go to the world series.

but they say one play shouldn’t make a whole game. wait, i think that actually only applies to football. oh well, the guy is screwed.

i’m not saying i’m a cubs fan. out of the teams that are left - the marlins, cubs, red sox, and yankees - i am rooting for the sox and cubs. i am actually a yankees fan out of all the teams, but want to see someone else playing in the big game.

i sort of feel sorry for dusty baker. he goes to another team, after giants, and gets this close to the world series - two years in a row - only to lose it in the eight inning of game six. it must hurt.

ugh, it’s MY monday. it is kind of cool working off the normal monday through friday routine, but man it can wear on you. today everything is being thrown at us. gotta work through it right?

the [matrix reloaded] comes out today on dvd. at least that is something to look forward to, or is it? if you saw it you know that there is a lot, a lot lot, of talking in the movie. it wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t feel so compressed. but the movie has two things going for it: the car chase and [monica bellucci]! so it’s a must buy.

ah, better get back to work.

for some reason lately i’ve been trying to use different tools than your basic microsoft install tools. i guess with all the security and virus alerts i’ve been looking out more and more for good web tools. funny thing is i should have done it earlier.

i used to work at netscape. for those of you who can remember netscape, they came out with a popular web browser which was fairly dominant. until microsoft set their sights on the company. netscape tried its best to survive but couldn’t do so on its own. eventually it was bought out by aol.

anyway the tools i’ve been using lately? well, i like mozilla’s browser. you can download it at [mozilla.org] it’s a cool little browser, but for some reason some of its functions stopped working for me.

after that happened i started using opera, which you can get at [their site] it has been a fairly good stable browser with a lot of features. i have only had a couple of sites where i had to go and use internet explorer or mozilla to view, as opera couldn’t handle the page. but those are few and far between.

for email i have been trying eudora’s latest version, which you can get at [eudora.com] so far it has been an all right email. i’ll have to be honest and say it took a bit of time to import my email from outlook to eudora. i’ll have to give a full report later on how it works.

as far as instant messaging software goes, stay away from the msn thing that comes with windows xp. i’d rather use aim or yahoo! instant messenger, which most of our friends are on. if you are interested in an all-in-one tool consider [trillain]

welcome to a new test page for janella.com. yes, i have gotten bored again and wanted to try something new. the new item used is called movabletype and is a personal web blogging program.

most of the time visitors are just looking for the link to the photo gallery. well, that is located under the links section. more links will be added soon.

i’m not planning on changing the photo gallery program. i just wanted to mess with a new tool that has been on the web for some time. i’m going to see how configuration goes for the time being.

so i had the pleasure of meeting mitsuki for the first time today. i saw her as i was picking up doug to go to the s’vale dump (extra dump weekend). saori and doug look great as parents.

if you haven’t already you may want to see her photo gallery on [worldwhereyoulive] she seems so tiny in the photos, slightly bigger in person, and i’m sure growing everyday.

seeing matsuki makes me realize i need to visit scott, stefanie and skylar. i have to meet skylar or see scott and stefanie in a long time. time to give him a call.

while farrah was studying in the room tonight we watched the dvd confidence. it stars edward burns, rachel weisz, and dustin hoffman.

the movie is about a crew of grifters who accidently con the bag man of a local crime kingpin. in order to get out from under possibly getting killed, they make a deal with the kingpin to pull a grift for him, allowing him to choose the mark. it gets a little complicated from there.

well directed, written and acted it would make for a good rental for more information see the imdb.com entry for [confidence]

the giants lose to the marlins. no world series this year. ugh.

today we went to see kayla perform at a church play (photos of course to follow when developed). she was fantastic in her performance, both dancing and speaking. she had so many lines that she had to be hooked up to a wireless mike!

i was amazed at the production effort put forth by the church. i could tell kayla and those in the performance worked hard to pull it off without a hitch.

i noticed, besides the previous post, it has been awhile since i have posted any thing. i’ve been trying to get the photo pages up using the new system which i like pretty much…for now. i’ve only been jobin' it for these several months.

i’ve been trying for other positions at work but they haven’t panned out that well. i’m not sure if it’s my interviewing skills, my lack of time in the company, or my experience but it just hasn’t clicked. i guess i’ll try some time early next year to make something click.

another challenge has entered the workplace for me: time management. we’ve been tasked to take on other roles in our group. we were quickly trained on the tasks - which i’m not 100% comfortable with right now - but we have to do them. this makes me have to do what i already know quickly while being able to do that which i don’t know meticulously. it’s tough but slightly challenging.

i’ve taken up ping pong at work which i’m not good at compared to the other guys in the group. i blame the paddle though.