met up with wendy and her friend kitty and set out to pasadena at 8pm. wendy's mom's friend owned a shop on the street, and she reserved some seats for us. we didn't know what to expect when we got there. were we going to sleep inside the store, or outside? were we dressed too warm, or the opposite? well, we opted to sleep outside because there were too many things going on inside the store. the store owner was selling coffee, donuts, and admissions to the restroom. since we were not really prepared to sleep on the street, we made a sleeping platform with the fold up metal chairs around us and got in our sleeping bags. so we didn't get much sleep the whole night, mainly because we weren't too comfortable in our sleeping bags. just chilled, played cards, and tried to get some rest. took some night time photography.
one thing that i never had heard of before is one ritual that was happening to all cars that was passing by. of all the 1000s of vehicles that were driving by, about 1/2 of them were totally covered in shaving cream, silly string, toilet paper, and marshmallows. some cars eagerly encouraged this by honking their horns.
i almost met that fate but i luckily made a uturn to find a parking spot. but i didn't make a clean escape. coming back to the car after parade, someone had just freshly applied some shaving cream and silly string to one side of my car. another thing that happened was that they had a pot of boiling water....about 30 inches in diameter....and they wanted to pour the water from there into a coffee dispenser that was about 10 inches in diameter. well, that didn't go well. it was a stupid idea to begin with. the guy holding the other end of the pot, decided to drop it because his hand got burned from the water because it was pouring unevenly. and the few gallons of boiling water, came splashing down to my feet. it penetrated the 2 layers of socks on my left ankle, and at the time, i didn't think it was going to do anything than maybe some irritation. as i checked underneath the socks, it was pretty bad. when the shop owners heard what happened (there were about 5 alternative/eastern medicine doctors there coincidently), they decided to put this clear aloe vera gel on it. then after that, they put this brown stuff that smelled like rotten penut butter fungus. it smelled pretty bad. my dad and my brother both came into my room when i was taking my nap and said, "hmmm...what's rotting in here??" and opened the windows to spare me from the smell eminating from my ankle. i did not tell my dad about what happened because my dad has his own "technique" for these things. not from korean tradition. not from eastern medicine technique. just his method...whatever it was going to be, i just wanted to leave it be for now and let it heal. i should have left that rotting penut butter fungus smelling paste on my ankle because after i took it off, it swelled up almost immediately and began to hurt.
here are a few highlights from the parade.
the parade began with the 2 famous stealth jets and bomber flew over head. on the Subway float, the one and only Jarrod was on it. you know, the guy that lost 200 lbs eating subway sandwiches? it kinda irks me every time i see that. i think the veggie sub will do more harm than good. it's just all carbs if you lose the protein. i'm sure there is more to jarrod than subway sandwiches. but the real question is, would he get a free sandwich every time he steps into subway? i'm sure he's sick to death of them. another float had some american idol people and O-Town on there. the grand marshall was Bill Cosby. man, he got so much older. and chen ho park (baseball player) was on the korean float. wendy asked me if he was famous, and i had no idea. and my mom asks me if i saw chen ho park on the korean float. i thought it was just some random guy when he passed by.
the floats being made of flowers, its bound to fall off during the parade. and one huge clump of flowers fell. and they should have let the crowd rush in to pick up the flowers. but instead the security just did a half ass job. so that lead to one horse taking a piss on the flowers....maybe it has been pissing on flowers his whole life? something its trained to do...you never know with these show horses. and that "influenced" a lot of the horses that were in the parade to pick up the scent and "participate" as well.
this was the only float that could kill us.
i was running on fumes not getting any sleep the night before. i controlled my oxegen intake by controlling my breathing (kinda hyperventilated cause i over did it, fingers got kinda tingly) while i was driving so i didn't get drowsey. dropped wendy and her friend off, headed to my parents place, ate, and passed out for 5 hours. i don't remember being that tired since finals week.
went to work on thursday, and it started off just like any other day. and then nguyen tells me, guess what, and pulls out a set of keys with a bmw logo. i thought he was pulling a prank on me. and he told me he wasn't. and i was still in disbelief. he bought a new silver bmw 330i, with all the trimmings sans a navigation system. but he got every thing else. the back doesn't look as sporty as the old designs, but the front looks amazing.
after work, i hung out with nguyen and joe, and nguyen cooked up some bitter mellon.....it was quite bitter. more bitter than i ever imagined it to be. i guess i haven't grown to like it yet. then they got some boba (i passed on it), and then we came back to watch taxi driver.
the next day, i went to my consulting gig...which messed my whole schedule up. i was supposed to do laundry and work out in the morning and leave for the retreat at 1pm, but i couldn't do any of that, and i rushed home from the consulting gig, packed, and rushed to church and made it to church at 1:05pm for the 2003 winter retreat. i opted to be one of the drivers (it was either that or leave my car parked on mercury street over the weekend). on our way there, we got lost because one of the road signs was unclear. i went about 1.5 miles into a horribly conditioned road with pot holes the size of tires. and then we hit a all dirt road with big rocks and realized if it we had to travel in these conditions, they would have let us know before we started driving, so i had to drive backwards on a 1 lane road on the side of a mountain (i really suck at driving backwards btw). made a uturn and found my way back. i escaped with only one screw in my tire that didn't penetrate all the way through. so we got to Palomar Christian Conference Center at around 4pm. and began retreat type activities. it was a total blast. if i had my way, i would like to go to many retreats during the year. unfortunately the retreat at our church only seems to happen about twice a year. and it's true that i can go to other retreats, but i admit the time for that has passed. i met a lot of people and stregthened bond between the people i had met in the earlier weeks. it's like welcome week for the freshmen year of college. i didn't think i was going to experience that in my life again. but the church retreat made that possible. i also feel like i have improved spritually and just overall as a person as far as short term changes go, and i'll be continuing to improve from this experience......we had about 1.5 hours of free time during the retreat, and one of the activity center was a shooting range. i thought that was bizzare. there you can shoot 22's, or shot guns at clay discs. i didn't participate, but it was amusing to see some people try it. i guess for cults that do come to the conference center, it would probably be part of the group activity.
shotgun range video clip [5.5megs]
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