this year in review



it started off like any other year. still smoked about 2-6 cigarettes a day.... i didn't agressively try to hide the fact that i smoked, but i still made an effort so that people that didn't know i smoked still thought that way. i had quit for a while, but i started up again sometime during november, and it just stuck. a friend visited from torrance, and all it took was that 1 to get me hooked on it again. that's the power of nicotine. all the things that they tell you how addictive nicotine is even compared to heroin is true.



year 2001 ended without a bang. all of my friends were away from san diego. my parents lived in a business stucture they owned...and wasn't a place i was willing to stay at. so i decided to just stay home alone for new years. i was reading harry potter, chamber of secrets at the time. as new years day drew near, i had tuned to the new years countdown coverage on various channels on TV. then i noticed that a party was going on behind my apartment at the Aventine in the HYATT hotel. this was being covered on one of the channels as well. then the fireworks started. and i could see little sparks from my balcony. but the buildings around it were covering most of it. i had a smoke and realized how depressing and lonely this new years celebration was for me. i felt empty as the new year started. i went back to reading. finished harry potter 2, about 8am on new years day.



january. i had been living with 3 other people, tommy, raymond, and casey. it was really fun living with them. the living environment felt like the sacred college life i had once had during 1st and 2nd year of college even though it had been six months since i had graduated.



then came the end of january. i'm not sure when or where my interest in DDR (dance dance revolution) came from, but it was just another monkey on my back at the time. it was something i wanted to try and get better at. so during one boring day, my roomates and i decided to buy the game. i'm not sure how much i attribute quitting smoking to DDR, but i haven't smoked since i started playing. my initial decision not to smoke, at least for a while, was so that i can build my endurance with DDR....even maybe lose some weight.



feb. the progress with DDR was slow. i couldn't play anything more than 1-2 foot songs for 1-2 weeks. then i started barely passing 3 foot songs. 4 foot songs still felt like something really impossible for me to even attempt. this month, i played DDR about 6 times a week, 1-2 hours at a time. i wanted to get really good at it. but it was going to be a long road ahead. prior to starting to play DDR, i had never developed lower body coordination. even being a 23 year old, legs and feet to me were only meant for going from one place to another at various speeds, and catching yourself so you don't trip and fall.



march. still played ddr just as much, and my endurance had noticeably increased. and i had lost some weight. definitely raised my metabolism. this was a very important month for me. with my raised metabolism, i actually wanted to do more physical activities. it was as much as a psychological change as it was a physical one. so i picked up rollerblading. i also liked the results with the weight loss from DDR, and knowing i had just barely scratched the surface, i decided to start working out. i had no clue on how the body responds to exercise. i thought, the harder you work, the more calories you burn. so i tried very hard biking every day at the gym in my apartment. little did i know i wasn't being very effective at all.



i also heard some bad news. the roommates that i had that i really liked living with all for various reasons were leaving san diego (except raymond who moved into his uncles place). tommy, upon hearing the news that he would have to move out of san diego, had decided he should get his most out of san diego, so we decided to eat out every day. nutritionally, this set me back quite a while. i'm not sure how much damage i did for the next 6 weeks, but it really impared progress on the weight i wanted to lose. had i known what i know about nutrition now, i would have never ate out like that. but in a way, it also fit perfect into how i do things in life. i like to do things in excess. so for me, because i had eaten out so excessively, it would help me be more dedicated to my new healthy diet. so along with the biking i was doing almost daily, i started lifting because travis informed me that i can burn more fat if i pack on muscle. asking travis 101 questions about health and nutrition a day, i started making gradual improvements to my activity and diet hoping to make a permanent change to my health and fitness.



april. i was still very motivated on physical improvement. i kept up with my work out routine. i tried to keep my goals realistic. i knew it was going to be a long road ahead so i just said to myself i would only do it for a few months, and then see from there. i did not focus on all the hard work it was going be to get to where i wanted to be. i just aimed on keeping up with the routine for as long as i could without breaking it once. it was an important for me not to give into missing out on working out on a work-out day, even days when i was sick. my motivation fueled this devotion, because i knew from myself that if i miss one day, it will quickly lead to failure. this is what i come to know about myself from my previous attempts at trying to dedicate myself to doing something. i also began a gradual change in eating much healthier. i tried to out less and eat more frequently. but i was still not very informed on how our bodies process the food. so i went on a no fat, diet consisting mostly of protein. did i follow some recommendations? not really. i just eliminated most of the fat from my foods, and just ate incredible amounts of protein. little did i know that cutting out the fat was a really dumb thing to do. at least it was a step up from eating greasy junk food on a daily basis.



another thing that happned during april was finding out that A&E cancelled the show, that became to be my most favorite show ever, NewsRadio. after realizing how important it was to me, i went searching hoping to find some episodes off the net....i really didn't know what to expect. then it became a journey in the next 3 months to find a whole complete collection of all the episodes. throughout the whole time, i always had doubts that the collection will ever be completed. main reason being it was not a widely recognized show. the episdoes didn't even exist when we, me and this guy on irc named CaseZero, started collecting them. we just hoped for that the episodes would reveal them selves, and concentrated on getting the episodes that existed. and by the end of it, we had the complete collection of episodes. NewsRadio to me is more than just a show. it was more than a great emsemble of characters brought together by a great casting crew. there needs to be a stroke of luck involved along with the genius that is needed to make chemistry like this happen in a show. i have seen every newsradio episode countless times. for a while i left it running when i went to sleep, and it was running when i woke up. like family they are always there when i slept, and always there when i wake up. i don't watch the episodes as much these days...but it is something that will have endless replay value for as long as i can see it.



may. i was continuing to work out in the small gym downstairs but i learned that working out with freeweights is the next step up. so i bought a work out bench, and moved from working out with machines at the small gym downstairs to working out with free weights at home. i played ddr to warm up for 12 minutes before i started working out. working out with a bench at home helped me eventually get familiar with working out with weights so i don't look like a total weakling benching just the bar when i eventually start working out with rimac. i was very motivated at the time. i couldn't wait till the next time i worked out because it meant that i'll be that much closer to achieving my goals.



as the end of may rolled around, i realized i had to get cracking on finding a new roommate so i don't have to move out of la jolla. i usually find that worrying about this stuff always proves to be useless. i don't feel that i am being irresponsible when i say this, but stuff like this always works out for me. it's always been like that for as long as i can remember. so i have learned not to worry. but i finally got around to trying to find a roommate. and even though i knew not to worry, as the deadline drew near, i became very stressed. if it weren't for wei, my current roommate, i don't know where i would be right now. i really like living in la jolla and i hope to live here as long as i can. but if i had to live alone, it meant i would have to move out of la jolla because i wouldn't be able to afford ~$1000 for rent a month. so approaching the dealine, i was at a stress level i had never experienced before. even moret han the stress i endured during my college days. i wasn't sleeping well. and when wei decided he was going to move in, that was one of the biggest boulders off my back.



june. i started finding cardio activites outside the gym. went running a few times around la jolla colony with raymond. beginning of this month also marked the beginning of trying out varios supplements to build mass, and lose fat. they are not all bad. the supplements i started out with (creatine and glutatmine), i still take today. i can't say the same for all the products i have tried as i will get into later. i also started some consulting work on the side to make some extra cash. unfortunately, my focus and time for consulting work was non existant. i quickly learned how much i hated consulting work. i also felt like i was cheating my official job at ucsd of my loss of attention to my regular duties. more importantly at the time, i didn't want to lose focus on fitness, so i pretty much gave up consulting after a few excruciating nights in a row. at the end of june, all the roommates had moved out and i gave up rollerblading.



july. i was finally ready for rimac. going to rimac for me was a bit of a task. it was important for many ways that i started working out first at home, then gradually moved to working out at rimac. when i saw the need for me to improve my workouts outweigh the convienience of working out, it was time to start working out at a real gym. diem and wendy joined me and we all helped eachother be just a little more dedicated than we would have been if we were there our selves. i also got a body fat scale. and this helped me to start understanding how my body responds to exercise by measuring my body fat. i wish i had gotten it sooner. if i had to make a guess, my body fat was at about 25% at the beginning of january. and the lowest i got it to read so far this year is 14.8%. the scale does read pretty high. with the calipers i got read 10.5%. whatever it may be, i have defintely made a significant improvement. as i am writing this, i am in the process of bulking up, and my body fat percentage has gone up some, but i know that i have a total control of my body now, so it's more of a question of much i want to lose, rather than the question of if i will be able to lose body fat or not. by now, i felt like i had total control of how i wanted my body to be rather than wishing my body would change.



august. i went backpacking for the first time, and started doing more activities that i always shunned away from because i never felt like i would enjoy. everything was going great. i felt like i was making some serious positive changes to my life. then the journey to totaly health and fitness took a major detour the end of this month. i had met a friend of a friend of a friend that was taking this supplement called hydroxycut. from what he was saying, it seemed too good to be true. blinded by the promise of quicker results, i ignored all the warnings and probably got close to doing some serious and permanent damage to my body.



september. this was a dark month for me. all the health gains i made went out the window as i was taking hydroxycut. ephedra works well for some people. and it can be fatal for some. blood pressure rose from the first day i started taking it. and i was foolish enough to increase my dosage as the bottle recommended without taking note the side affects i was having. i realize now how foolish i was taking hydroxycut. i'm glad i had chosen to come off of it before anything bad happened. i'm pretty sure people were a little bit concerned at the time because i had not been acting like myself. this month was also a test of my dedication to the gym. when the quarter started, trying to work out monday evenings after work proved to be damn near impossible. some days of the week, i would get to the gym. warm up, then go home because i couldn't find a bench. this meant i had to come back late in the evening stripping me away from any free time i had during the week days. still i was able to tough it out till it became acceptable to work out at reasonable hours.



october. during my trip on to vegas, my body was at its capacity with the abuse i was putting onto it with the supplements. wellness class started and that marked the end of my hydroxycut/ephedra experience. from my experience, i would not recommend it for anyone. the risks are not worth it. being so exhausted from supplements, i decided to ditch all supplements this month except the glutamine in my protein shake, which i knew to be safe. i learned a lot from the wellness class this month, but a lot of the information was all the information i had gained since march, so i was expecting just a little bit more from the class. but i still managed to learn a lot in the class. and got the ball rolling on getting me to try different exercises, cardio machines, and routines on a regular basis. because of this class, i have been successful in making changing up my routine every 6-8 weeks.



november. with the wellness class in progress, all my focus was on health this month and trying to get back on track with what i had lost the month before as a result of hydroxycut. i was at the gym 6 times a week. and really got a taste of what overtraining feels like. the more harder you try, the more it works against you. i also realized that working out 6 times a week and only eating ~2000 calories a day meant i was eating far too few calories day...probably burning 1000 more calories a day than i was consuming. this lead to a lot of my muscle being burned off for energy along with the fat. oops. i never really wanted to be skinny. but i got to experience it for a short while this month. i didn't like what i saw.



december. i had gone from a size 36 waist to 29 this year, and lost 25lbs. even though people say i changed over night, as you can see, it was a gradual process with a lot of dedication and endurance of everything physical and psychological.



if i had followed the basic principal, "everything in moderation" from the beginning, i would have not made so many mistakes along the way. that applies to eating for enjoyment and eating for health. and it also applies to finding time to rest and relax, to going to the gym on a regular basis.



the two things that i have to give most credit to in making such a big improvement this year is DDR and the information that travis patiently shared about health, fitness, and nutrition. take one of those two variables out, and it could have been just another year without much progress in life. i could still be smoking. and i could still be just wishing i was something different rather than knowing how and actually making it happen. i had accepted who i was a long time ago and found peace with that, but i had not realized that it doesn't mean you should not work hard to improve who you are. as you can see, a change in health and fitness for me has been a psychological change as much as it has been a physical one. so once again, endless thanks to travis emmel. and konami for making a game that has been a bridge to a better life.



i had an epiphanie writing the last blog engry for 2002. the way i have been living my life all this time.....do everything excessively....is what has gotten me into all the negative things that has happened this year. but it has lead me to a lot of things i thought i would never be capable of. this is a big part of who i am and how i function. i not saying everything should be done in moderation. it is trying to find balance in doing something excessive (if driven by passion, motivation, dedication, devotion, etc.) and having self control to do it in moderation. this way i think i can be as dedicated, but do it in moderation to where i can do something for a long term, and find more long term joy and rewards in every thing i want to do. i don't know how to balance the two, but this will be the starting theme going into 2003. the goal will be to find the formula that works for me.



i have a few new years resolutions. rather it being specific goals, it they are more realistic and general ones.

1. be open to trying new things or retry things i have given up on in the past as long as it is not bad for the mind or body, and in moderation.

2. put more focus into my job.

3. find a regular sleeping schedule. with this one change, i can benefit on just about everything that i'm trying to accomplish



along with that, i hope to continue what i'm doing and started to do right, and correct what i'm doing wrong. and in this process i hope to further knowledge of how i function, learn, and experience things the way i wish to see myself doing them.



This new years eve looks like it's gonna be a good one compared to the one i had last year. i'll be sleeping over to watch the rose parade on new years day.



I wish everyone including myself a Happy New Year! Let's make it another great one.

on christmas day, when i was at the gas station at irvine, this woman asks me if i had any extra change for gas..... i thought it was a weird request. because obviously, just giving her change out of my pocket would not do much to help her. so instead, she must have been asking for a few bucks? she didn't even ask nicely. had i remembered it was christmas day, maybe i would have been more generous. but i wasn't in the mood to give a random woman who looked like she was hyped up on drugs a few bucks whose car was still running if i remember correctly. something was a little too fishy.



nothing much has gone on the last day or two. i do want to find a nice peaceful location where i can just close my eyes for a good while without having to worry about what's going on around me and just focus on what i've been trying to focus on and just learn to deal with some things that has been plauging my thoughts and putting a lot of ware on my CNS.



agenda for this weekend

check out hotel del coronado

browse the mall for after christmas 50-75% sales, stop by gap

do the laundry

work out

phils bbq

el cotixan

maybe do the hiking trail from the golf course to del mar....if not this week, some time soon.

it really surprises me to realize how much psychological growth i still need to become a person i wish to be.

has anyone woken up one day and realized that they have matured and improved all they can possibily be capable of, or is that person just being naive? is psychological growth something everyone is capable of until the last moment of life, or is it like physical growth, where even if you wanted to change, after a certain age, you simply cannot.



it excites me to think that now that i have recognized where i fall short, that i can take steps forward to improve on my weaknesses. before it is too late, i would like to improve on everything that i have been struggling with all my life. be the person i wish to be.

another christmas is officially over.



i left for torrance on the 23rd 5pm. i got to tommy's place around 7:20. met up with tommy and diana and went to el rocotto for some lomo saltado. instead of lomo saltado, i got saltado de mariscos (basically lomo saltado with seafood). the food was awesome as usual. it is still a mystery to me on what their secret ingredient is. after dinner we met up with wendy and got boba at gogo juice on pch. after boba, we went to tommy's place and watched the bond dvd. then we decided to call it a day.



saturday, woke up and felt like doing a tour of torrance. went to officemax, then best buy. then visited my favorite hang out spot, coffee cartel.


then we drove through palos verdes.


then we went to the redondo beach pier


and went to the arcade at the pier to play some DDR, but surprisingly, they didn't have it. but they had some classics.

then we went to our old high school, walked around for a bit.

then went to borders (another high school hang out spot) to meet up with my brother's friend. then while in line for a bowl of chili, i ran into carol lee. she was my sister's friend in high school, and had worked in netops for a few quarters. she was at taiwan for the last 2 years. and now she's back in school studying eastern medicine.



after that, we decided to go back home and eat dinner with the family. after dinner, we took some pictures, and watched lord of the rings extended edition. then still not feeling tired, i decided to watch 8 episodes of one of john's anime's he had on his computer called Naruto.



my sister got me a digital camera kit that included a extra battery, case, and a travel bag. she didn't disappoint.



christmas day, we went to my sister's new place in Fontana. had a nice christmas lunch/dinner there. then we came back to gardena. then headed back to san diego with my brother. he's staying over for the next few days. one thing he wants to get while he's here is phil's bbq. even though i just had it last week, i can't deny him some phil's.

so many little things....could i clump them together and form one big thing? anyways, where did i leave off? thursday night, i went to go shopping for xmas presents with nguyen. for some reason or another, he decides to go to best buy first without me, and shows up at my place at 7:30 instead of 5. then the one place i wanted to shop at (a bookstore), that we thought should close by 11, we get there at 10, and they close at ten. so the night...or whatever little time we had was a total waste for me. i also ate some fast food (chinese) at the mall........only reason i decided to eat there was so that i even though i am pretty dedicated to the limits i put on myself, it doesn't rank as high as where i would come down to inconvieniencing (if that's a word) my friends. regret eating fast chinese food though. woke up and felt like i had gained about 10lbs because of the msg that bloats the skin. after the mall, we chilled at my place for a little bit and watched a few simpsons episodes.



friday, got to work a little late. and since the night before was a total failure, i went shopping for gifts during lunch. i knew what i was going to buy. but getting to a bookstore was another challenge. i thought there was a bookstore at UTC....there wasn't one when i got there. then i went to the indoor mall where AMC 12 and Ralphs is at.....and the bookstore had been replaced by a make-up store. then i called up eddie, and he told redirected me to bookstar about an hour into my lunch. so i get to the bookstore...the book i had picked out for diem was sold out. so i had a brilliant light bulb go off, and got her a book that she can use when she travels to europe. and for erik, i got him a thai cooking book. i met up raymond and 5 of his friends after the gym and went to sushi deli. ate a whole bunch, and went to dave and busters. played some ferrari f355 challenge (man i suck so bad now), shot some hoops, played some DDR (i suck at this now too), and played this light bulb game. basically if you tap the button right when the light bulb is in front of you, you get 500+ tickets. so came out of D&B with 1600+ tickets...didn't really want anything for what they were offering, so i just stored it on my card. and that was the end of my friday.



saturday, tommy came over, we both got haircuts at different places then met up to go get lunch at CPK...we both got salads cause we were eating lunch at 3pm. then we came back home and watched the bond live dvd. it's not james bond. it's these 4 musicians...kinda like pop violin, viola, cello thing. it was awesome. i know a bunch of people that would get a kick out of that dvd. then for dinner, we went to phil's bbq. then it was a few hours before our movie started so we went to D&B to use up the points on my 3 cards. and tommy was able to get the light bulb game...so i now have 2900 tickets on my card. you can get something descent with that, but nothing that would be worth the money. i think i'll hold out for some electronics. after that we went to get boba then saw lord of the rings, twin towers. it was late, and at the slow part, i tried to sqeeze in a 1 minute power nap...but was unsuccessful after many attempts during the movie. frodo wasn't as annoying as he was in the fellowship of the rings. maybe cause i understand that the ring leads him astray emotionally and physically. smiegle (probably spelled wrong)...for being another cgi sidekick was the least annoying of its kind (comparing it to dobby and jar jar). what's the deal with that anyway? all fiction stories now come with annoying miniature sidekicks?



sunday, woke up too late for chuch. went to go eat brunch at brigantine with tommy. then we came back and i took my usual sunday nap while tommy copied a bunch of new divxes i had gotten from my brother. i went to rimac at 5:30, and came home, cooked, and watched TV for rest of sunday. oh yeah, saw a very weird thing at rimac today. this woman....either was an american gladiator, or sooo wanted to be one. she was working out in a american gladiator outfit. right down to the red shoes. and she was overly tan. more red than brown.....maybe she was one? or totally obsessed with it. tomorrow i'm going to torrance....meet up with tommy, spend xmas eve and xmas with my family. i'll be back by xmas evening.



if you want to see more of bond, here is a clip you can look at.

shine

fuego

growing up and watching movies, i always thought butterfly knives were so cool looking. then i had found out they were illegal in california. that was really sad news to me. my friend told me that he could get me some in high school but never came through. so a few years ago when i went to tj, i made sure to bring one back. it was something i had been waiting for years to get one in my hand. after i bought it, it looked a little too simple. how are you supposed to all those cool tricks with this simple device? i started thinking that the butterfly knife i got was something other than what i had seen in the movie. but hoping that all the tricks could be done with what i had, i did some research and found a good site that showed you some cool tricks.



michael's buttefly knife demonstration [10 megs] demonstrating 4 open ways to open, and 1 way to close.

my form is a pretty messy because the knife is really worn and wobbly because of the cheap materials used to make it. if you see the red spot on my thumb, yes, that is blood. i have cut myself only twice....both minor cuts. but once a few years ago, and tonight. i had cut myself earlier trying to catch the throwing trick on video. what do you expect? i'm playing with knives here. and i'm holding my camera with my other hand trying to do record a video, a good chunk of my attention is going to me trying to not lose sight of my hand while i'm recording. you might have also noticed that i didn't completely catch the knife correctly on the last trick. but considering i haven't touched the knife for about 2 years, that's not bad.



unfortunately i got in a little late today and didn't have time to go anywhere for lunch, so i just took some pictures around where i had an appointment this afternoon around the Robinson building.

Why is it that when I am at work, I have an urge to watch some DVD's out of my collection, but when I get home, I never get around to it? And bigger the urge, the less time I have in the evenings to watch it. Like today, I want to watch a few Simpsons Second Season set, watch the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition, and watch Collective Soul - Music in High Places. Today I'm busy shopping for xmas presents with nguyen. I'm gonna try to squeeze in LOTR since I'm watching Twin Towers probably this saturday.

if i had to point out the thing i most love about living in san diego, without a doubt the first thing that always come to mind is the frequent blue skies. some times i wake up, and just look out my balcony and am amazed how beautiful the day is outside. and after 6+ years at san diego, i still don't think like i will ever take it for granted.


before i came to UCSD, i lived in torrace for 4 years. the weather in torrance is pretty similar to san diego. except that the sky is usually covered in clouds, and if i had to describe it, it is more white than anything. there will be some sunny days, but even the best sunny days don't have anything on a good day in san diego. if you don't recognize the cross, i took a trip up to mt soledad for lunch.



i have drastically changed my photo gallery layout. though it seems like i have stepped back in functionality, i have gained a lot of convieniece in updating. basically, i can just dump the pictures in the folder and not worry about having a program like photoshop remake all the thumbnail pages. the pages dynamically generate as you put more pictures in there. and i have removed a lot of redundancy on where the picture gets stored. to give you an idea, if i had an existing album of 200 pictures, and wanted to add in 30 more, it would take me about 15-20 minutes of work/waiting, compared to the new process which takes me about 1 minute (couple of clicks, and drags).



i have been lacking on the daily activity updates for the week. mainly because not much goes on but here goes.

monday at work, i spilled about a cup of chocolate protein shake all over my desk. and it managed to splatter on the monitor and the wall, get on and under the mouse pad, mouse, keyboard, phone. some on the floor. it wasn't pleasant. at the evening, i did my laundry (was too sore from ultimate frisbee on sun to go to the gym) then went to dinner at the cheesecake factory with eddie as a farewell dinner type of thing. i had the meatloaf. eddie got his usual burger (one of the best burgers you can get btw). i hope life cuts him some slack. i wish him well in madison.



tuesday, still feeling sore from rimac, i didn't go to the gym. decided to cook dinner korean bbq style........which was a bad idea. i wasn't cooking the ribs. i was cooking the little pieces of meat they give you to grill at the restaurants. it is common knowledge when you go to one of those places, you come out smelling like korean bbq. well, it being very cold in the apartment, all the windows were closed. so i cook the korean bbq in very high heat. eat it. then realize that the whole apartment smells like korean bbq. and that's not the end of it. thinking that the smell would probably go away by the morning, i didn't really do anything about it. i wake up this morning, open my doors, and bam. smells just like it did yesterday. not that it smells bad. but there is something wrong with a lingering smell of food that isn't there anymore. so i opened all the windows, and got a good breeze going this morning before i headed out to work.



today, i went to the gym, came home, cooked and ate. then worked on the gallery...mainly tweaking the asp file that i found so that it would let me link to the raw files elsewhere on my webserver. tomorrow i'm going to go shop for the remainder of the christmas presents with nguyen...maybe even eat at bully's (the way we exchange xmas gifts) then on friday, i'm going to go eat either sushi or thai with ray. and tommy's gonna be down here this weekend so we'll probably make it out to phil's bbq. i haven't really broken my "no spending money on food during weekends" thing. it's just that the cheesecake factory on monday, and bully's possibly tomorrow are the exceptions i am allowed to make. that's why it seems like at least for this week, my weekly activities revolve around the restaurants that i go to. which is untrue.

today, i had the choice of going to circuit city or del mar shores for lunch. and i didn't go to either. so making a little bit of an effort to make it out, i asked for a 30 min break at 3:30 and headed out to del mar shores. and i'm glad that i did. i went there to check out the waves thrash onto the beach because of the massive storm we have in california.


and as i was pretty much getting ready to leave, i look at my rear view mirror and see this amazing rainbow....so vibrant in color that it looked fake. i just couldn't believe my eyes.


until today, i didn't know that a rainbow could be so rich in color. i have seen some nice rainbows in the past....but nowhere near colorful as this one. most of the rainbows i have seen were just faint arcs showing off the spectrum of color. but today i saw the whole thing. from one end of the rainbow to another spanning over a few miles.


unfortunately these video's don't do it justice because it didn't really capture the depth of the color, and the rain clouds behind them appear a lot darker than they were. but it's good at showing you the whole rainbow from one end of the arc, to the other end.



just occured to me today that the word "rainbow" comes from the "rain". i knew that rainbows and rain go hand in hand, but always thought of rainbows and rain as entirely different words.



as you can see i finally turned my web cam around so that the "michael live" actually means michael live. so i'll try to keep it there for at least this week.

today, my legs were pretty sore, so i didn't think i would make it outside for lunch and pretty much decided to save a walk around campus for another day. then one of the servers crashed, and i had to walk to our different server rooms spread out around campus. and after i got everything back up, i decided to walk around for 30 minutes more and set focus on some stuart art.


even tough it's not part of stuart art (even though it is odd enough to be), these columns are inspired me to walk to the stuart art locations around campus. there are quite a few sites, and i only covered a fraction of them today. these columns appeared about 1.5 years back. i thought they just were remains of a building that used to be there and wondered when they were going to get rid of the ugly ugly columns. and when i found them again today, i realized that they were here to stay. quite tragic because it is at a very modern part of campus and then there are these things that look like they are just temporarily there until someone comes by to pick them up to throw them away. a friend has informed me that they are columns that were part of a ground breaking research that had to do with improving earth quake damage.



yup...concrete balls of different sizes. or UCSDeezNUTS. I think out of all the stuart art out there, this one gets vandalized the most. don't understand why...:) i wonder if anyone has thought of putting a giant fur wig on that thing. that would be funny. so many winning captions passing through my head.....don't have time to chuckle...


supposed to be like the stone henge. but instead of the boulders being round, they are perfect rectangular concrete. it makes me wonder if any of the decision was because of the cost to build it with real rocks. it was supposed to rain heavy all week. i walked around campus with blue skies all around me with no rain in sight.


i don't really think this is stuart art. more like a vis art final project..........pretty trashy, but it made me realize that i had tried just about every soda he managed to get up there. and i can visually recognize them pretty easily. scary isn't it? was the message the artist was trying to say something like, these are the modern fruits of our culture. like fruits, they are covered in a layer with bright colors that would be easily recognizable out of all the different colors of the enviornment like a delicious red apple picked from a tree with green leaves. the outside is an advertisement to bring out the urge to eat/drink the goods that are inside the fruit. or a more simple explanation for this could be a procrastonating vis art student at the last minute walking by the subway dumpster got an idea to just hang some cans on a wire. still think it's a better idea than dihydrogen monoxide. to me, the h2o thing was more of something inspred by a spam that was talked about in snopes rather than something that could be interpreted as art.



well, i shouldn't have laughed too hard at the weather forecasters. about 4pm, things got pretty damn windy.

and then, the rain came, and the drive home was pretty intense.


i've been thinking of turning that web cam around so that the "michael live" has meaning. maybe i'll do it for a week. but my camera is pretty damn crappy. makes my skin appear reddish. i'll consider it turning it tomorrow.

it's odd, but did everyone get a canon digital camera this season?

raymond's uncle bought a canon s30

chuck got a canon s40 cor christmas

eric got a canon s45

and of course, i got the s230. if i had money in my stock account, i'd buy some canon...digicams seems like the hot item for christmas, and canon does have a lot of attractive cameras out. unfortunately i don't, and with my horrible luck in stocks, it might be a bad idea investing. more and more i realize what an amazing gadget the s230 is. and i found one exclusive feature today! the s230 is the only camera that will take a 30 second video clip at 640 x 480 at 15fps. not even the s45 seems to do that, even though the s45 is the s230 with a lot more features and bigger everything (lens/zoom, battery, megapixels, flash, size). so i would gladly hold on to a exclusive feature as long as i have it. even though it has nothing on the sony digicams which can take video up to the capacity of the card, but the size of the proprietary memory cards they use are pretty low it's not the perfect gadget either.



here's my weekend play by play.

i had my digicam with me the whole time this weekend, but i ran out of batteries on friday...and took pics at low res when i had some juice left. saturday it wasn't really a picture taking day because i spent most of it in the theater, and sunday, i had forgotten my compact flash card. oh well.



so friday, after work, we had a christmas party at work. it was my 5th time there. and yep, the same food. they start with ham, cheese, crackers, and vegetables. then they bring out fried shrimp and egg rolls. then comes the tostadas. then comes the roast beef. this happened the last 5 years in a row.....man i hope it was different 20 years ago. am i the only one that see's the need for change? anyways, i went to the gym afterwards, then i get a call from eric saying let's meet up with OG resnet at forever fondue in 10 minutes. so i blast out of the shower, and run out the door. the wait was about an hour long. had desert there, then we disbanded at around 10pm. so i came home and slept. saturday, woke up way too early, blogged the entry before this one, then i met up with wendy to do some movie hopping. last time that i had movie hopped was in my junior year of high school. me and richard kim...and maybe sang? decided to movie hop.....one of the movies we saw was three musketeers. can't remember the other ones. the theater was on the lookout for loomers, but how we managed to pull it off was tag along this asian family and basically walk behind them like we were with them. haha. it still amuses me to this day. yesterday, we were walking all over the place...the clean up crew all over the place but they pretty much didn't care. and a lot of people were movie hopping. we saw 3 movies. star trek nemesis, 007 die another day, and maid in manhattan. nemesis was okay at best. i thought the only clever thing in the plot was when Data did the switcheroo. but that only lasted a few minutes. other than that, i expect more out of a movie from a TV series. 95% of the movie happens on board the ships......which is fine if it were a TV episode. but for the movie, i thought they should go all out and bring the cast out of their element...take them somewhere new. isn't their thing, "to boldly go as no one has gone before?" well, being a big The Next Generation fan, it was an okay movie, but i don't think wendy would say the same. the next movie we watched was 007. it was my second time seeing that movie. i thought it was okay the second time around. the fact that it was free made the repeat viewing more enjoyable. the third movie we saw was made in manhattan with j.lo and ralph finnes. we were going to see the special screening of 2 Weeks Notice, but the theater was being clever. they weren't reflecting that in the signs of the doors and basically you had to find out what theater they were playing it at when you bought the tickets. so we came out of Maid in Manhattan, walked to all the entrances, and couldn't see the movie playing anywhere, so we went back to Maid in Manhattan and finished the film. went to go eat at sam woo's afterwards. then went home and i passed out early around 11 because my brain was seriously fried after 3 movies back to back. on a side note, i did manage to eat ever 2 hours. i took in 4 balance bars with me and ate those in between the movies.



sunday, went to resnet party at Erik's and checked out his awesome house at scripps ranch. the main bedroom was damn cool. but there was nothing in there. just a bed. oh and maybe a clock. after the feast, we went to play some ultimate frisbee. it was my first time playing, but damn, it is such an intensive game. basically you just keep running back and fourth from one end of the field to another. when you decide to sprint down to the one side of the field, the turnovers are high, so you have to sprint from the other end....and so on. won the first game. lost our last one. it was very fun though. my hamstrings are quite exhasted. i'm not sure if i'll be able to work out tomorrow. i did lightly sprain my ankle....but hopefully if just keep myself doing low impact stuff it should be alright. i think the glucosamine/chondrotin that i've been taking religiously for the last few months is really helping keeping the swelling down. after that, i came home, and eddie was feeling stressed so i invited him over to chill and play some GTA vice city. and after he left, ray called me up and wanted to do something. so being in the mood to eat, i had suggested we get a rotisserie chicken at ralphs, and get some salsa, and etc. we got to ralphs and they had sold out of their rotisserie chickens.....thinking of el pollo loco....we just opted to go to el cotixan instead. so we brought the food back to my place and matt came over. and we couldn't find a dvd to watch so we hit my divx stash and picked out "Dude, where's my car". we started watching it and was sooo bad. we decided to watch another movie. but as i was copying Enemy of the Gates into my computer from CD, it got interesting enough to where we let it roll till the end. it had its funny moments. baiscally brainless gag humor. but that is sometimes just what you need to get your mind off just anything and everything for a few hours.



nguyen is out of work all week. hopefully the week won't be too boring and full of holiday jollies.

hmmm...last time i drink coffee at 10pm. i've been up since 5am watching crap on TV after 4 hours of sleep. haven't been up this early for a while. what do people do at this early in the morning? i've been trying to get back to sleep for atleast a good 2 more hours but have been unsuccessful. looking outside, (6:30 right now), it reminds me of the mornings that i used to remember. a little dark. a little too quiet. but a guarentee that the day will only look and feel better with each passing minute. also a crispness of the air that is unparallel to the rest of the day. and i have been missing this every morning for the last few years.



here are my options

do my laundry this morning....eh...maybe not this early.

take a scenic drive and see mother nature when it wakes.

or try to go back to sleep one more time



unfortunately i'm becoming drowsy so the morning activites will have to wait....i'm gonna try to get some more sleep cause i'd like to feel 100% the rest of today.

you guessed it. more pictures of UCSD! you can go to this school for 4 years and never really get to see the whole campus. fortunately, i've been around a lot more than the average student having worked at resnet for 4 years, and there are going to be a lot more pictures i would like to take of the campus. of course i would like to take more pictures of things away from campus but the day is short during this season. and you can't go too far for lunch.



oh yeah, today, i found this sign on the water cooler at work.


as you know dihydrogen monoxide is long for H2O. this flyer got posted all around our part of campus. i think it was found to be a visual art's final project. and people were not amused. especially dumb people were actually calling in concerned about the substance they've been drinking all the time. it even said it was from the environmental health and safety department...which was not true. someone stole one of the flyers before it got taken off and taped it to our water cooler at work for safe keeping. to preserve the moment i thought it deserve a snapshot.

i have to say that even though my all time favorite show is NewsRadio, simspons is second. the reason i have liked simspons all this time was simple. it had really clever writing. and i would go as far as to say that a lot of the jokes were ground breaking. i also admire that the cartoon breaks the traditional mold of all the cartoons we have seen in the past. a cartoon sitcom meant for non-kids to be aired during prime time? i would have never bought the idea, but kudos to people at FOX to have to guts to go ahead with it and bring one of the most admired shows all over the world. the characters are bizzare looking. they don't have traditional eyes, nose, or mouth, yet we can relate to them as human beings.



i'm not sure exactly when my fascination with simpsons started. when i was young, i loved watching the simpsons because it was just another cartoon. just different. and on when every other channel were playing non-cartoon programs. which was a real treat. even coming into my freshman year at UCSD, i never really thought about why i liked the simpsons. i just knew it was one of the shows i really enjoyed. i even bought a mouse pad at the UCSD bookstore that year with the picture of homer lying back in his chair sleeping at work. now i own a season 1&2 DVDs (anxiously awaiting season 3-14), this cool poster that i have at work, couple of volumes of simpsons comic books (they are pretty bland unfortunately. comic books are more fun when there is action and super powers involved.), and a coaster set for my coffee table. i have owned little figures and tshirts, but those have been worn or lost. i don't think i would ever get into those action figures. there are simply far too many. and an obsession trying to collect rare simpsons figures to collect the complete set can really turn ugly. only thing i would really want to collect are the DVDs. luckily there won't be any rare dvd prints since the makers of simpsons are not shy about putting the simpsons name onto just about anything.

i took a short break at today and took the elevator to the 7th floor of the AP&M building that I work in. There, I found a encapsulated indoor patio with sky lighting in the middle of the hallway. complete with chairs, and what even looked like an ash tray. and i don't think you needed a special key to get in either. i would have loved to have known about that place when i was smoking. oh btw, Jan 26 2003 will mark 1 year of being completely smoke free. from about april or may of 1995 to jan 2002 i was a light smoker smoked 2-10 cigarrettes on a daily basis. i think in between those times, i had quit about 4 times in between from times ranging from 3 weeks to 4 months. but i always would start again because i relied on it as a time gap filler and a destresser. completely quitting meant that i had to disassociate smoking and its uses for destressing. and when i was able to do that, i was able to say i'll never need it again and mean it. back then when i had tried quitting, i had quit because of health reasons, but still saw it as a temporary remedy for stress. so whenever stress got the upper hand, i was in line at the market asking for marboro or winston lights. also, another reason i would never smoke is that i am a total health nut now. like unhealthy food, it has no place inside my body. end of story.



anyways, back to being at AP&M 7th floor. i got to the end of the hallway and it looked as though the doors to the balcony was protected with an alarm. so i took the stairs back down to the 6th floor, walked to the end of the hallway, went ouside the balcony, and took the outside stairs to the 7th floor balcony. and this is what i saw.


i'll go back on an absolutely clear day and try to take some pictures without the haze.

here's is how my dvd collection came to be. my first dvd like half the population was the Matrix DVD. I didn't really get a good deal ($11.99). And it was my only DVD for a few months. I didn't have a DVD player and watched all the DVDs with great pain on my computer. The software was really buggy and you were lucky if you can go through the whole movie without it crashing on you once. Only place that rented DVDs out at the time was Hollywood video. It was a descent drive from my place considering i lived about a block away from 2 Blockbusters. Then came January 2000. Some newspaper article has accidentally published rumors about how you can sign up for a $400 discount at BestBuy and then cancel it without any penalties. It sounded too good to be true. And without much thought, I decided to jump on it. It was quite an experience trying to get rid of $400. I got a glimpse of what the contestants feel in those TV shows where they can basically can have anything you want, as long as it fits in your cart. Money wise, walking out with about 400lbs of prime/choice aged filet mignon would be a good decision but not a good decision. first off, they might not have it in the quantity they are looking for. 2, where are you going to store all that extra meat? It's a unique feeling that only a very lucky few get to experience. What I walked out with was a $250 DVD player, $100 of CDRs (100 CDRs), a $20 optical audio cable, 2 DVDs (~$15 each), and a pack of gum to push me right at $400 and some change. i realized what a horrible decision that was. even at the time you could have gotten 100 CDRs for about $40 if you shopped around. But while i was shopping that day, it was all free to me, so it did not occur to me that $100 for 100 CDs was a bad deal. What I should have gotten was a performance guarentee for the DVD player. The DVD player broke within 6 months, and they told me that without a performance guarentee, it would cost me $120 for a diagnosis, and the parts were even out of warrenty after 6 months...then additional money to fix the damn thing. so i said screw it and chucked the "free" dvd player. the 3 years of internet service was easy to cancel. i never even logged in. and you can cancel over touch-tone. it couldn't have been easier to pull off. the promotion was cancelled next morning (some earlier) as lines of people were dismissed at best buy. i had convinced nguyen, dan, my sister, erik to take advantage of it the same day so they got in on it too. it was later revealed that the paper that had published the article was wrong. but microsoft decided to honor the madness anyway.



it was also during this time that i had found 2 websites. bensbargains.net and dvdtalk.com. not much goes on these websites any more. but exactly 2 years ago, there were some awesome coupons going around. so many media retail stores couldn't wait to give you free stuff. buy.com had a bunch of $20 off $20 coupons. 800.com had some fantastic deals. so did reel.com, cdnow.com, bolt.com, dvduniverse.com, myfamily.com, amazon.com to name a few. it is obvious why to see that most of these sites have gone under. one deal that i wish i could have gotten in on was the 800.com's 3 DVDs for 1cent promotion. other than that, I did pretty good. i had kept stats on my dvd collection and how much money i had through my dvdtracker account. I was averaging about $7 per DVD. many for free. 1-8 DVDs were showing up daily in different sized boxes at my door step. it was great. one other promotion worth mentioning was the microcenter promotion. basically if you sign up for a etrade account at microcenter, you get $400 cash back. so i bought $400 of DVDs at Tustin, CA one weekend. it was a bit of a hassle getting that $400 cash back, but I did get it eventually. And I put it back in etrade they got the last laugh. so in theory, the free DVDs actually costed me $1400 ($1000 was required to start the etrade account). i stopped using dvdtracker when they started charging for their services. and as the dot coms imploded, the deals ran dry...also explains how you can turn $1400 to into $0.07 when you invest in a .com. the end result was about 140 DVDs averaging $7-$8 each within 6 months of buying online.



i have bought about 50 DVDs since then (1.5 years ago till now). now, i get all my dvd's in retail stores. with the big releases (starwars2, beauty&beast, monster's inc, spiderman), you can't beat the mega franchises like bestbuy, kmart, walmart, circuit city, compusa when they decide to offer the DVDs for 33%-50% of the retail price for a promotion. i have 193 DVDs now. I regret buying a handful of them. And some I only have because they were giving them away. I still consider it my hobby but I'm a lot more picky about what I put into my collection.

gonna start using initials for people's names......except for the names of the people that i don't know the last names of.


before leaving work i found myself without any plans on friday. and i felt like i needed to go do something. and then EL asks me if i was planning on going to kristine's bday dinner. it was the first time i had heard of it (he had been emailing michael@ucsd.edu not mike@ucsd.edu), but it felt like it was just what i needed. so i met them at Cafe Athena.

my shimp and rice dish was exquisite. then we had a blueberry birthday cheesecake for desert.

after dinner we couldn't decide where to go, so we just went to starbucks. and since we were so near my place, i just invited everyone to my apartment. roommate was gone so i thought it was a perfect opportunity for some house guests. at the last minute i realized that i didn't have any lighting in the living room so we wouldn't be able to utilize the ping pong table. so we all hung out in the bed room. my bedroom is pretty big. but not made for 10 people. but we managed to fit everyone in there, and i tried to minimize the discomfort while we decided to watch shaolin soccer. everyone was for the idea except EL....since he had seen clips from it. but i think everyone including EL had a blast watching it since he mentioned it was a lot better the second time.



saturday, i met up with AK, and stopped a christian book store to pick up a bible since my old one was so raggedy......i couldn't bare to take it any more. then we got lunch at olive garden. then we went to the viejas outlets.

i went there to use the gift card my sister got me. unfortunately i only spent 40% of what was on the card because they had a poor selection. after shopping, we stopped by coldstones. then to viejas. played some slots......but wasn't in the mood to sit down for blackjack. then we decided to head back. for dinner we went to the Convoy Tofu House.


and then went to Pacific Theaters to watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding. i expected more drama, but to my delight it was a hilarious comedy. even though i'm not Greek, my dad is almost like the girl's dad in the movie. remember the thing with windex? it's exactly what my dad would do but with vinegar. i don't think i need to explain any further. and the whole thing with all the words in the dictionary originating from the Greek language? he would tell us those stories all the time. and that thing where he thinks his country is best? that's my dad for ya. so even though i wasn't greek, i related very much so with the movie. except everything that was sappy and plush about the dad in the movie, substitue it for mean/angry and abrasive. haha. but he always means well. so after the movie, we decided to call it a night. i did my laundry, but i was pretty much cutting it close because the laundry facility closed at 11. and to my luck, one of the loads came out all soapy. and i ended up drying a lot of my laundry on my furniture overnight.


woke up 8 in the morning to get to church by 9. got there. relatively pretty awake to my surprise. then for bible study after service, it was one of the guy's birthdays, so we went to go get dim sum at Emerald. had some normal stuff (no tripe, or chicken feet).


on the way home i stopped for a quick car wash at costa verde. and then RT from LA came by to visit for half a day. he was having some girl problems and just wanted to get away and such. so we chilled for a bit at the apartment.


then went to Brigantine for a light lunch (yes I had dim sum 2 hours ago). they only had the oyster bar open and had a limited menu. my chicken sandwich was very good but wasn't characteristic (quality and selection) of brigantine's dishes. before we left we got a quick peek at the back patio of the restaurant.


then RT wanted to do some sight seeing so we went to black beach.


on the way back, while walking through the million dollar mansions, it looked like someone had knocked over all the trash cans. what was odd was that within the hour of our trip down to the beach, all the people had put their trash cans out, and within that small window, someone had knocked over all the trash cans. maybe it is a chronic problem for this neighborhood? it makes me mad to see that these people are picked on just because they live in a rich neighborhood with million dollar houses. it was a sad sight to see. one of the house owners were outside looking quite pissed. the sad thing is that there is always a security guard there to watch over the small 3 block community. and this happened right under his nose. i just don't get people who get mad about what other people own. they need to seriously grow up.



then we chilled for a little bit at home and RT went back. took a quick nap, met up with WL at rimac, spent a descent amount of time doing some good stretches, and did 40 minutes of cardio. and that wraps up my weekend.

at lunch i walked down to blacks beach with nguyen. the whole trip only took 40 minutes from work.

hmmm....could this have been an inspiration for the snake path next to the library?


one of the better shots i took today. something with that lonely bench with no one sitting on it.


if you have enough money, you can set your foot in this building one day.

this is what happens when you let something get out of hand. basically i kept buying water by the gallon because it is cheaper than buying those 2.5 rectangular bottles, and cheaper than having it delivered. i kept telling myself i was going to refill the bottles, but never really got around to. so i decided to crush 2/3 of my bottles i have gathered within the last 2 months. still got 12 left...

wendy came over for dinner bearing gifts. an early christmas present. these are mini RC cars. we were gonna race them, but it turned out that the red one wasn't working all that well (she's gonna go return it). They go backwards and forward. left and right. takes AA batteries, and takes a minute to charge. the ultimate desk toy! i'll be showing it off at work tomorrow. hopefully i won't distract too many people.

as you can see i finally got my camera. still need to figure out the advanced options so i can shoot in manual mode without the graininess. until then, the auto mode works really well.

sorry folks. no pics today. the camera isn't here yet. it got held up at UPS, and hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on it before the week ends.

i finally got a new sheet set & duvet (is that a word that a guy is not supposed to use along with eating quiche?). i got some light earth tone colors....yes i liked my dark blue set but the down feathers really made it look like a mess i could never clean up. it is luxury flannel. i have realized the importance of having comfort while you sleep and this why i don't mind splurging when it comes to a good nights sleep. flannel is known for keeping you not too hot during the summer, and not too cold during the winter. the dark blue sheets i had were flannel too. and i had always liked what i had before because of the all weather feature, but never knew it was attributed to flannel (i thought it was the comforter doing its magic). so this is why i got flannel again. when i can afford 600-1000 thread count sheet set (which may be never), i'll be happy with flannel.i have broken them in by taking an evening nap. and they are very comfortable. now if i only had a tempur pedic matress to go along with it. i would be the envy of sleep connoisseurs! i expect this sheet set should last me a long time.

raymond has been looking into getting a new guitar. and he told me that he wanted to get the best one possible. so i been trying to get him to try a Taylor guitar. from my experience with it, there is something magical with that guitar. maybe something in the wood? like magic moon dust or something. when i had tried the guitar, it was almost spiritual experience. i started playing something and lost myself in it, and then my friend asked me, "oh were you playing that? i thought that was the radio." and my response was, "i guess i was...." i was creating beautiful professional sounding music without any effort at all. the taylor guitars are inspiring. yes there are some good guitars out there (ovation, takamine, martin, gibson), but it is my opinion Taylor guitars are in a league of their own. unfortunately they start at about $1200. worth every penny though. i won't be getting one any time soon....mainly because i have no time to dedicate myself to taking up guitars again. but raymond will be happy with his purchase. he checked one out today and basically confirmed all of my claims. i wasn't exaggerating.

got the Road & Track today. jeff's GTR only got about 1/2-1/3 a page at best. did he mention anything about the car? he said it was fast in the article, but according to jeff, he didn't even drive it hard. now i'm beginning to wonder if all articles are just made up like that....hmmm...

i think it's time to change up my workout routine. i'm only gonna work out 3x a week at a medium intensity for longer duration. i'm also gonna keep my heart rate elevated so that i'll be doing my cardio while i'm lifting. what i have been neglecting is my CNS recovery time......i think i am showing major signs of overtraining. i'm going to try this thing called hypertropy-specific training. basically you do a high number of reps and sets at medium intensity (6 sets, 10 reps) per musle group spread throughout the week. i'll be back on creatine starting next week. this week i'll be at the gym to test my limitations so i can design a workout that will begin next week.this will also free up my tuesdays and thursdays to do more things that i didn't have time to do during the week. this change up should be beneficial in many ways. from what i've been reading i should be able to increase my muscle mass significantly.



the mirror plays funny tricks. when i look in the mirror, i don't see myself as any different than what i saw a year ago before i started working out. it is bizzarre. but when i look at a picture of me (my bro took pics of me during thanksgiving), i would not even recognize myself. no exaggeration. yesterday, i think i saw one of my suitemates from freshman year. but i was only about 75% sure that it was him and if it was him it would be harder for him to recognize me, so i just kept walking.



i was surprised to find out that i had actually lost weight during the thanksgiving break. a shocker for me because i wasn't able to stay away from the snacks at all. i ate a few servings of chips, cookies, boba, potatoes, etc. an all out carb fest. i think my 2100 calorie diet was way too little for my activity level for the last 2 months. and i was going to boost it to 2800 calories a day....bu maybe that's not a great idea since i am going to spend less time at the gym.......its something i'll have to think about.



i should be getting my s230 tomorrow, and starting tomorrow, i will try to post a picture daily. raymond does that in the web tool/site he's developed called jusspress. if you can merge a blog in there, it would be perfect. i'll try to post an interesting pic daily or whenever possible.



True Urban Legend:

Sign up for a free ice cream cone, and you might get drafted. Wrong? Yes. Very wrong.

is the weekend over already? today, i made it to ikea, got a very low coffee table. luckily they had a bunch in stock unlike the one i went to the day before. it's low because i realized trying to eat on my current coffee table is pretty difficult because it is too high when you are sitting on the floor. then went to costco, then bed bath and beyond (they didn't have the stuff i wanted, white flannel bed set and duvet, in stock), then went to nutri-sport.



i'm back on glutapro (protein shake). and oh damn, it tastes about a billion times better than that Nitro-Tech stuff. after church i took a 3 hour nap, woke up and cooked up dinner (more carne asada burritos), and headed out to rimac. today was pretty tame. i wish i could have taken care of everything i wanted to but that rarely ever happens.