Christiana Mall

So Christiana Mall is undergoing a very large remodeling job and it's looking great! Here are some of the photos I took today:

Some of the new stores coming to the mall are:

• Cheesecake Factory
• Nordstrom
• Barnes & Noble
• bebe
• Bare Escentuals
• Brighton Collectibles
• Forever 21
• Sephora
• J. Crew
• Chik-Fil-A
• McDonald's

EXCITING!

Two Great Apps

I came across two exceptional apps:

Google Chrome - Great new web browser; very streamlined, very compatible.

Pidgim IM Client - accepts almost every IM service; great features; no-nonsense user interface.

HUGE UPDATE!

Okay WOW haha I have a LOT to say here. My last post was Thursday, February 12, two days before Valentine's Day. Since then, I moved into my new apartment, I started at MetLife (I'm two weeks in at this point), I have most of the festival concert planned out, and I basically have my own life! Here we go...


Moving Out

I cannot TELL you how great it feels to be living in my own place! I feel so independent, so free, so happy! I found a nice apartment complex off of Red Mill Road in Newark which is perfect for me - 1BR and all I pay is rent, electric, and internet; water and heat are paid for! This might be common, I don't know - I'm so naive haha. Anyway, moving day was intense! I spent the week before moving day packing so everything was pretty much ready to go. Alvina and Josh helped me out a LOT! I couldn't have done it without their help!

On moving day, my mom, dad, and I went to check out the actual apartment - everything went perfectly. They cleaned the place, replaced ALL the carpets (!!!) - it was a good experience! While they were finishing the cleaning, I went to get the U-Haul truck and went home to pack everything in. I stopped at the New Castle Wal-Mart to pick up a futon and then headed back to the apartment. When I got there, Alvina, my dad, and my mom were already unpacking things. I seriously could not have moved without all their help. Thank you!

I had one semi-major, semi-expensive issue - my desk. I spent about $50 at Lowe's on plywood, L-brackets, and 2x4s. Josh came over and essentially fixed the desk for me. This thing could be dropped from a 50-story building and would be fine. Mikey put all my posters up while I hung the license plates up. The place is looking pretty nice! I am SO close to everything - 5 minutes from UD campus and all the surrounding shopping centers/stores/restaurants, 5 minutes from Kirkwood Highway, 5 minutes from I-95, 5 minutes from MetLife, 8-10 minutes from church. Everything turned out really great!


Work

I started Met on Monday, March 9. I have had some 12-hour days and I've had a few days off. I like the volatility and flexibility of the schedule. I don't think I could ever work a 9-to-5 job. I have been learning a LOT; I just hope I can absorb it all in a timely manner (or timely enough, I should say). The hardest part for ME is going be the calling - I know I need to get over it but let me say this. I met with a friend (who shall remain anonymous) who has a lot of assets and after I left, I felt more empowered. I think this job will work out nicely. Just need to get through the first year. Next week is "Career School", which is 5 9-hour days of classes. Basically it's a pain in the ass - literally.


License Plates - My Other Life

There have been quite a few good sightings in the past month. Here are the most notable ones:











I think that's good for now; my fingers are about to fall off. Will update soon!

Valentine's Weekend

This weekend I'm going to NJ to spend the weekend with Mike! I asked Jean Scalessa to substitute for me on Sunday so I can be in NJ and not have to come down in the middle of everything. We are leaving Friday morning around 10am from Philly and heading up there. We're going to this really good Japanese restaurant called Takara and basically just chillin out the rest of the weekend. It should be a good time!

Today I am heading into the church office around 11am to help Barbe with the network and the printer issues they have been having. Then I meet with Jean at 1pm to go over the music for Sunday. At 2pm, I have Worship Planning and then basically kill time until 5:45pm when I leave to pick up my parents from PHL. Should be a good time. I'm glad I'm getting away this weekend hah. Will post pictures when I return. Have a good weekend!

Incredible Website for Car Wallpaper

If you love cars then Carwalls.com is a MUST for your bookmarks! They have every car imaginable in every resolution! It's an incredible website and I highly recommend it.

Lonely Week

Hey y'all. A few little updates here:

• I reorganized my photo albums. There used to be just one which had low-digit tags and personal) but now there's two separate albums! [Personal] [Tags]
  
• After paying my February bills, I have very little money left over which sucks. Perhaps I shouldn't have quit Applebee's so soon...
• I will be re-taking the Series 6 around 2/26 - I will be studying hardcore in the meantime.
• This weekend I'm going to Mikey's place in NJ. Should be fun!

Yesterday, Alvina and I went to visit Mikey in Philly. We brought the camera and headed to Old City to take some pictures. Here are the highlights:






We got realllllly good sushi at Mixx Asian Bistro and then Alvina and I headed home. We had some film left over so we went to Drawyer's Cemetery right on Rt. 13 and took the rest of the roll. Here are those highlights:






Haha I'm DEFINITELY going to hell for that last picture.

Well I guess I'll post more later. I'm getting sleepy now.

Later ;)

Little Update

Perhaps the most important update is that I failed my first attempt at the Series 6 exam. I missed it by 5 questions! This means a month of waiting, a month without work, and a month without pay. Sucky but it's okay - I'll survive. I sent my score report to Keir and one of the instructors sent me a custom-tailored study guide, focusing in on the areas I did the most poorly in. I suppose I will be retaking the Series 6 around 2/26 or 2/27. More to come on that.

The good news is that after three attempts I finally passed my health insurance exam! I took it at 10am this morning (2/7). I studied for about two hours last night and took several practice exams so I felt extremely prepared. I wouldn't be surprised if I scored a 100% on the actual test. Two down, one to go...

Yesterday I ate lunch with Jean at Cafe Scalessa's on Greenhill Ave. I highly recommend it to anyone that likes authentic Italian food! I had homemade ricotta gnocchi with homemade butter cake. I didn't even know that you could make gnocchi out of ricotta! Ya learn something new everyday! After lunch I took a stroll through Paul's place and saw this tag right outside the shop:

After that I headed up to Greenville and saw this:

I love that blue tag! I am pretty much over black tags. In fact, I put the blue tag on my car; my black tag is hanging on the wall:



And for those of you who want to see my current license plate collection here ya go:

RI - 1942 --- SC Legislator - 1986 --- VT - 1929
PA - 1940 --- DE - 1964? --- PA - 1919

Pennsylvania tags in descending
order of issue from current to ~1970

My Delaware tag collection. Top-right plate is a rare
prototype tag made by 3M as part of a test by DE DMV.
Only a few were issued.

So now it's a waiting game. Now that the insurance tests are complete, I need to study every day in order to pass my Series 6 at the end of February. I am confident that I will pass it; it will just be a lot of work. Talk to you soon!

Adios, Weekend

Yes, that's Dubai tag #1 on a Bugatti Veyron. Actually I'm not 100% sure if it's a Dubai tag because it says UAE (United Arab Emerites). If anyone knows, please correct me!

My weekend was pretty chill. I went up to Mikey's on Friday night and spent the night. We just chilled on Friday night and watched a movie. We went shopping all day on Saturday - it was way fun but REALLY cold. I actually bought a Lacoste fleece jacket just so I could walk around haha. I returned it like 4 hours after I bought it.

We went alllllll over South Street, mostly to consignment shops, vintage clothing stores, and Fabric Row. I got a vintage Christian Dior tuxedo for $70 hahahahaha that is an INCREDIBLE DEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean. It's an *okay* deal...

I also got a beautiful blue Zegna dress shirt. Neiman Marcus' price -> $295. Jordan's price -> $4. Haha. I love when that happens!

Mikey got some fabric for his schoolwork. Gotta love him...

Today was the annual meeting at Hope. Boring. It was only one service so it went by quickly. I left about an hour into the meeting to go to lunch with Robin and Anthony to discuss the Gala Concert. I got home and did a 225-question Series 6 practice exam and got a 72%. Considering that you need a 70% to pass, I'm feeling pretty good. There are three chapters I really need to review so I'll do that tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, I'm going to bed. Catch you all soon ;)

Aretha + Inauguration = HOT!

Ugh look at the mass of people! I love this video. It's just so inspiring. Look at all the people! They're all gathering for the inauguration of a great man to be president of our country. I love the shots of the VIP section. UGH! Imagine being up there!

Tags in Dover

Today I took a random trip to Dover and saw some pretty awesome tags. Here are the pics:

FT1 = Farm Truck 1 = the same family that has tag 5 and tag 16

Not a bad day for sightings! The gold tags were all out today - I guess because everyone is back in session. So yeah - pretty chill.

Kyle replaced my hub bearing tonight so I took him and the girls out to dinner at Friendly's. My car sounds so good! There is barely any road noise - just a little from the tires but it sounds a million times better! I get to see Mikey on Sunday so that's exciting :]

Time for some Series 6 stuff. I have one more chapter left, then the reviewing and hardcore studying begins. Test Tuesday. :]

A New Birth of Hope

Today was inauguration day, a great day in American history. Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in just after 12pm as the first African-American president of the United States and it was a wonderful day of celebration. Here are some pictures from the day. For some reason this is all I can find...



I will post some more in my next post.

Tomorrow I get my new wheel hub for my car and I will be installing it myself. I am so glad to have a nice smooth ride. I just hope that it's only the left hub that's causing the noise...

Today I shipped out my model cars to Mr. C in Argentina. Alvina and I went to the Middletown post office with my three boxes, only to find out that the boxes were too large for an international shipment. We had to purchase six smaller boxes and additional packing tape from USPS - it ended up costing me $650, which is $200 more than I was prepared to spend. I got home, sent Mr. C a copy of the receipt, basically begging him for reimbursement. He is not legally obligated to reimburse me but I think it's only fair, seeing as though he wanted the cars no matter what. I'll also be updating you on that.

Oh well. I'm off to bed soon. Talk to you all soon!

Tag 5, Series 6.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tom and I went for a mid-winter trip to Rehoboth on Thursday 1/15 and we ran into tag number 5 on Rehoboth Ave. UGH! What a milestone for us! Here's another picture...


We also saw a few others, such as 178, PC25, D12, and PC411. We also saw FT89 in Smyrna but we all know I don't use farm truck tags...

So I got home, Tom left, and I got a text from a friend at Hope, who sent me a picture of PC68! Ugh! But that's not the best part. I logged onto Facebook and posted the picture of 5 on my group and my friend Ryan replied back and told me he had a picture of C3 hahahaha UGH!

Tom said it best - quality, not quantity! Our tag number average for the day is 105.67. The typical average is usually above 250. Ugh. I love. My life. :D

In other news, I failed my insurance retake heh. I talked with my manager at MetLife and he told me to focus on the Series 6 exam and to worry about the insurance portion later. That's fine with me.

I also got new tires. Cole's Auto installed them but they didn't fix the noise problem. Moreover, my rear right tire went flat as soon as I left their lot. I took my car to Sports Car Tire in Wilmington yesterday and they fixed the rear right wheel (dirty port?) but they gave me a run-around about the noise issue. I spoke to a Les on the phone but someone else ended up helping me and I did NOT care for him. The new guy told me they were going to go a speed force test and that it "should" fix the noise problem. I am going to call on Monday and get a guarantee that this will fix my problem. I don't mind spending the money - I just want a good diagnosis, ya know?

Well it's my dad's birthday today so I think I'm going to put this tool set together for him, even though I know it will get unorganized as soon as he touches it heh. Later!

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays to everyone! My Christmas and New Year's was good...

Christmas was pretty standard - went to my Aunt Tammy's house and mingled with family. We had a carol sing-along - pretty bad haha. When we got to The Twelve Days of Christmas no one knew/remembered which gifts went with which days and they were [drunkly] arguing with each other as to which ones went where. Good old family...

I took the Delaware Insurance exam on Tuesday 12/30 and I passed every section but one :[ I have to retake it on Monday or Tuesday. Oh well. Then I take the Series 6...

New Year's was great! I headed up to Mike's immediately after the insurance exam and I spent a few days with him. We mostly just shopped and on Thursday we went to Philly yo hang out with Tom for his birthday. We went to the Plymouth Meeting Dave & Buster's - good stuff. I got a REALLY nice Burberry scarf and gloves at the Burberry store in Neptune, NJ. I got a really good deal too so that made it even better :D

Well it's Saturday morning here and I work at 4pm today. Today I have a few errands to run and I have to study for my insurance exam retake. I'll talk to you all soon.