The Proposal

On November 19th I proposed to my girlfriend...

Ana Eileen Aiono

Earlier in the week, Ana's Sister-in-law sent us a text asking us to come see her son (Ana's nephew) perform at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica at 8:00 pm on Saturday night. Naturally, Ana and I agreed to go!

When we arrived at the Promenade, Ana had no idea what was about to happen. Our families had arrived there about an hour earlier and practiced what was about to happen. Ana's niece, Morgan, had made signs that corresponded with the lyrics of Me and Ana's song, "Stereo Hearts" by Gym Class Heroes. My best-friend, Josh, brought the Boom Box and Music. We walked up the Promenade to the right spot. Ana's brother, Martin greeted us and distracted us until the time was just right. 

Then as we walked closer to the spot, Josh and Morgan came up behind us and started playing the song. As we kept walking all of a sudden the entire family appeared and Ana heard and saw....

"If I could only find a note to make you understand...

I'd sing it softly in your ear and and grab you by the hand...

Just keep it stuck inside your head like your favorite tune...

And know my heart's a stereo that only plays for you...

My heart's a stereo...

It beats for you so listen close...

Hear my thoughts in every No-o-ote...

Make me your radio...

And turn me up when you feel low...

This melody was meant for you...

Just sing-a-long to my stereo..."

ANA

WILL

YOU

MARRY

ME?

It was pretty awesome! But to find out what she said, I guess you'll have to watch the video...

"I spy, with my little eye...."

So it's been forever since I've blogged, and I thought it was time to share with the world some of the adventures I've had and you might have missed over the past couple months. Pay attention because this is gonna move kind of fast! Here goes, 

"I spy with my little eye..."

A family vacation to Lake Powell....

A "DTR"...

A roadtrip to Utah...

A Common King's concert...

A "relationship status update" on Facebook...

A Cousin's missionary homecoming AND finding waldo...

A Halloween Hickey...

A Haircut (in an Anjelah Johnson voice "just one")...

A High School Volleyball Game...

An unexpected visit from friends...

A playdate with a future nephew & niece...

A smaller closet...

AND...

Someone to share all of my adventures with!

My Three Seconds With Kobe!

You've heard the saying, "Five minutes of fame," well today I discovered that I have three seconds! In all reality they probably aren't even three full seconds, but that doesn't matter because they are three seconds in the same commercial as KOBE BRYANT!

Watch closely, or you'll miss it! In seconds 03-05 of the commercial, just to the right of the chef in the background, and behind the words "Los Angeles" are parts made by my company, PACO Plastics & Engineering, Inc.



Now the story-  Probably about a month ago I answered the phone at work.  The guy on the other end wasn't quite sure what he was looking for because he wasn't from our industry.  He said that he was filming a comercial of an airplane galley and had found us online and wondered if we would be able to sell him some parts for it. I quickly responded that he indeed had called the right place and that we had done some work similar for the movie Flight Plan.

I transffered the call to my Dad who handles sales and pricing and over the next few days gathered the parts together that the man needed. The nice thing about selling to Hollywood is that you don't have to follow the same criteria outlined by the FAA as you do when selling in the aerospace industry.  The parts don't have to function, just fit a particular look, and they don't have to be certified.  We knew that the commercial they were making was for Turkish Airlines, and I guess I just assumed that it would be played out of the country and that I'd never see it.  So you can imagine my surprise when my Dad called me into his office to show me a video he just happened to stumble upon because of an article he had been reading about Kobe.

MY PARTS ARE IN KOBE'S COMMERCIAL!!!!! haha.  I know that probably sounds lame to some, but for my Laker loving family, it's awesome! And even though no one else would've noticed them on their own, I'm proud of those three seconds!

(Also, for a closer look behind the scenes...our parts are showcased in 1:47 on this video)

It's Just A Bunch of Noise!

Earlier this evening I had fallen asleep on my couch--probably due to the fact that I had worked myself to exhaustion attempting to get three stars on every level of Angry Birds--when I was abruptly awakened by this deafening screech! The fire alarm was going off at my apartment complex. I immediately got up and looked around my apartment to see what could have possibly ignited such an awful racket! Some thoughts that went through my head were:

"Are the batteries in the smoke detector bad?"

"I hope I didn't set it off in the whole building"

"Which detector is it?"

"Geez! Make it Stop!"

I believe I even tried to rip one of smoke detectors off the ceiling before the second wave of thoughts went through my head:

"Are we having a fire drill?"

"Am I supposed to evacuate?"

"Are you freaking kidding me! It's freezing outside- ugh, where's my coat?"

"Is anyone else evacuating?"

"Do I HAVE to?"

I peeked my head out my front door to find that my neighbors seemed to have the same thoughts gaging from the confused looks on their faces. Most people started to congregate in the hallways where the elevators are.  From my side of the building we have a clear view of the street and could see the fire engine pull up. Funny thing is--no one really left the complex! Why? Because we all have been conditioned to automatically ignore alarms and warning signals! 

Think about it! What's the first thing you do when you hear this:

I'm guessing it's hit the snooze button! It sure isn't thinking, "Oh goodie- it's time to wake up!"

Or what about this:

You don't jump up and run to the rescue of some poor neighbor's demise.  You automatically assume a cat jumped on the hood of the car or something and grow increasingly irritated the longer the noise prevails!

It's like the story my dad used to tell me about the boy who cried wolf. With so many false alarms in our lives, we've been conditioned to ignore and become irritated, but definitely not respond to action. Throughout this whole little ordeal the thought never occurred to me that the building might actually be on fire.  And at the end of inconvenient symphony of irritation there in deed was no fire- which completely reinforces and strengthens our already incorrect conditioning! Hopefully in the event of a real emergency, our other senses will be alerted, because when it's only something we hear...

IT'S JUST A BUNCH OF NOISE!

Cupid's Chokehold

Sometimes Cupid's shots are an EPIC fail, sometimes he COMPLETELY misses, and I guess sometimes he shoots and you SCORE! haha. But this year Valentine's Day is just another day of the week for me. So here's a little Valentine humor for everyone else wronged by the little-winged d-bag!

Better luck next year lonely hearts- haha!

Happy Valentine's Day!