The nice thing about having a birthday in late October (other than the fact that we get to reset our watches on my b-day every seven years or so and I get to party for an extra hour) is that it is followed by Halloween (by far my favorite holiday). Except that I can never decide on a costume. I am now undecided between being a pirate or a 40s gangster. So I bought props for both… What will I do?

PS: I know they are pretty crappy choices but I’m not that creative when it comes to costumes. Plus, there are benefits to both choices. Pirate - get to wear an eye patch, tons of jewelry, I already have the hair, cheesy velvet jacket, red scarf. Gangster - the machine gun and the hat.

It was a good birthday (even though my parents got the date wrong). It started out with a call from Stefan which was a nice surprise (although now I need to find out when his b-day is. 1/5?). Then my sis called, then Sofia, my aunt, etc. I also can’t believe how many gifts I got.
I don’t think I had received these many gifts since I was a kid.

the trip

The trip was actually quite fun, much better than what I had expected. We went to this Hacienda del Sol Thursday night and had a great Spanish meal. There was also this “wine guy” there so we tasted some pretty good wines (all Spanish too). We started out with some sparkling wine then had an ok white wine with the appetizer. We then had this very nice (and cheap) red wine with the main dish and a not so good sherry with dessert. One of the marketing guys managed to bring a couple of bottles of the red wine back in the bus with us so that made the ride back to the hotel that much better. It’s amazing how work people become much more human after a couple of glasses of wine.

The sparkling wine (the bottle was beautiful, the wine was not so nice)

Omigod! I’m 31. That means I’m thirtysomething. According to Heidi, I should receive the manual any day now.

I’m leaving for Tucson AZ in a half hour. For work. I come back Friday night. We have meetings scheduled from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm tomorrow and for most of Friday. This is not fun. Hopefully I won’t be too tired to go out on Friday. I always enjoy the night before my birthday more than the actual birthday day.

It wasn’t super cold but it was cold enough that my toes were complaining. Unfortunately, I leave for Tucson AZ on Wed. so I won’t be able to enjoy the cooler weather for too long. But I’ll be back Friday night. Just in time for my b-day weekend. BTW, can I just say that it sucks that I won’t be able to start pre-celebrating on Thursday b/c of this annoying business trip?

I can’t believe my sister is 29. I actually thought that was a great age. Enjoy!

I guess I’m not as cool as Jenny. If I were a randomly generated product, this is what I would be:

“daniela is a shoe-shiner! It squirts clouds of black ink!”

What would you be?

I picked up my car today and I’m pretty happy with my choice. Ok, so it’s my 3rd A4. What can I say? I like them! I am just having trouble programming my garage door to open with their Homelink system but other than that, I am pretty happy. Oh, it does feel different to drive a 6-speed but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.
Just to prove that I am not completely loyal to Audi, I also test drove a BMW 330cxi. It was surprisingly nice to drive. And the sales guy was an ex-pro car racer so he took me for a ride first and let’s just say that I had never been in a car going 95 mph on a very sinuously curvy off ramp. It was a blast! But even that wasn’t enough to convince me to buy the car. I just couldn’t get over the image associated with BMWs and I would be embarrassed to tell people that that’s what I drive. I know, I’m weird.

I went to see the Audi Cabrio today. It’s beautiful! It’s also very expensive and I’m just not ready to be making car payments that are half my rent. It seems like way too much considering how much time I spend in my car. So now I have to decide whether I want the 2003 A4. I really don’t like the design of the trunk and the headlights. I don’t like too many other cars though. What to do?