i went out to eat lunch with the netops gang (erik, nguyen, crys, ronise, parrish, claire). they usually always go out when they can. i try to stay at my desk, but today, i felt like eating out so i didn't hesitate. i thought we were going to go to albertos, but we ended up going to flame broiler instead. i got into somewhat of an argument cause erik and crys was arguing about how buying more than one combination of numbers doesn't affect your odds at all. so i basically proved them wrong by simply stating that there are a finite number of combinations, and every ticket you buy, you are increasing your odds just in the slightest...whatever 100 millionth of a fraction it might be, still increasing your odds. another example is that it is sometimes possible to buy out the entire combination of numbers (in the 10's of millions the last time i checked) when the jackpot is greater than the net profit you would get after you have purchased the entire combination of numbers. so with erik and crys' theory, them buying the entire combination of numbers, their odds of winning with the entire combination of numbers doesn't differ with the odds you have with one combination of numbers. just doesn't compute. they were originally trying to argue that it doesn't affect your odds at all when you buy more than one ticket. then they changed their argument to it's "affectiveness" of buying more than one ticket. and it was true, what they were saying. but that's not what they were originally trying to argue.



after work, i went to go work out at rimac. hamstrings were kinda sore, so i skipped on the leg curls. but i chose to do the leg press....big mistake.....i ended up not gradually moving up to the weight i was going to do the 2 sets with, and i think i pulled an adductor muscle in my right leg. doh. only hurts if i move my leg at a certain position. on the brighter side, i didn't fail on any other exercises i had planned. the highlights were i was able to curl a set of 100 lbs on the seated preacher curl machine, 2 sets of skull crushes with 80 lbs, and do 2 sets of calf raises at 500lbs with relative ease. so i'm finally able to take a week break from lifting....its called strategic deconditioning. this is when i let all my muscles and CNS heal....along with all the injured and exhausted components of my body due to high intensity lifting i have been doing for the last 6 weeks. then its back to another 6 week routine of hypertrophy specific training. i'll be looking forward to making more progress.



after the gym, i met up with ray, he demo'd his new phone the motorola T720. it's a pretty sweet phone. nice screen. awesome sounds. good size and weight. and he only paid around $75 after rebate. if i were to get a cell phone now, that would probably be the one i would get. he downloaded prince of persia on it, and that was pretty cool. it lacks a little bit of functionality compared to my v60c, but the positives totally outweigh the negatives. then we went to el cotixan to eat. then we came back to my place to watch the 5 episodes of american idol i have downloaded through turok. we watched most of them, and it was great entertainment for the night. some people were just so bad, but you gotta give them some credit for chasing their dreams...no matter how impossible. and i stress that strongly. i also watched all the video clips from their webite. and there was this video clip of this asian guy who must have been one of those pranksters...who just wanted to be on the show and had no intention of taking it seriously. he just simply wanted to be on TV and do something totally ridiculous to impress his friends. you could totally tell. he said he was going to do michael jackson, and he comes in saying he's gonna do the new kids on the block "the right stuff" instead? that should be a giveaway right there. watching those clips on the american idol website, i decided to upgrade my windows media player to version 9. i have never been impressed with media player at all. but this one sure has potential. it runs real clean. actually has some neato features you can't seem to find anywhere. so i think i'll try to integrate this player into my daily multimedia usage.



i don't have enough time in the day to do everything i want. i haven't been listening to music much, but whenever i put on the headphones and go through my mp3 collection, i always wish i had more time to listen to music in its pure form. i wish could just isolate myself in a dark room and just listen to some mind enhancing music. the only 2 bands/performers i can do that with are select pieces by mozart and most of collective soul. if listening to those songs was an olympic sport, i'd be on the podium. who knew the act of listening to music could be done with so much passion?



this has been one slow moving week, but luckily, tomorrow is friday. i wonder if anyone will be interested in seeing catch me if you can. maybe i'll give jeff a call. i haven't seen him in ages.

today, diem and i both agreed it was a good idea to sit on the opposite end of the pilates class so that we would get less of you know...H2S. so i walk in class, and diem is sitting at her usual spot. and i'm like pointing, and gesturing, "weren't you gonna sit at that side of the room?". then she tells me that the infamous ms fartymcfartalot is already at the opposite side of the room. to everyone's surprise and relief, we did not have a encore preformance of the fartathon 2003 we got on monday. we have been saved. for now...



i hope that's enough fart humor for now......and forever on this blog. speaking of blogs, i ran into one church member's blog, and it turns out that a significant number, i would even go far as to say the majority, of my church congregation blog regularly. unfortunately, most of them are college members and i only know a handful. and i don't even know them that well, so i have no interest in reading any of their posts yet. maybe some day, i'll have something to read. most of them seems to use xanga, or maybe its because its much easier to link other xanga members to your "blog circle" type lists. i have to edit my own using html. i don't like xanga. its ugly. and everyone's blog looks the same. at least they can offer more attractive free site.



nothing else went on today. i went to bible study. i got a phone call i might have been expecting right in the middle of it but i couldn't pick up. and there was no message left. and i'm not a big fan of "did someone just call me" calls that come back to me when i get a missed call so i wasn't going to call back a number i didn't recognize. but now i'm starting to think maybe i should have? oh well. too late now.



i've been massively feigning some carne asada chips from el cotixan. impulses like that always remind me of the VW commercial where a VW beetle grows on this guy's forehead, and gets larger and larger. why do i crave them so much, especially late at night? i think i'm getting plenty of protein and fat during my meals. if i still want them by this weekend, i will have to satisfy my hunger. i have to get back on track on making an effort to not spend money on the weekdays on food.

a funny flash song/movie/dance.

http://www.videogamedc.com/Movies/MDM3/mdm3.html

play a very simplified shockwave version of mario party.

http://www.marioparty.com/



if i had some money, i would get a gamecube just for mario party. it would be so fun my guests when they come over. unfortunately, it's gonna cost me around $200....and there are more important things to buy.



so after hearing the state of the union speech last night, should we go to war? i say yes. the storage of weapons saddam has is enough for me to realize he's up to no good. we cannot give him the same credibility as we give the credibility to the leaders of the more sophisticated countries. countries like iraq are ruled by murderous dictators who have murdered in the 10's of thousands (or even in the 100,000's) to come in power. these are the lying mass murderers that we're trying to negotiate with? it will never work. the people in the country know that if they speak out against these dictators, the secret police will come by during the night, snatch them away and never be heard from again. it's not a story you have heard about or seen in the movies. this is still something that goes on everyday. the people in this country are just obeying in fear. once we take over iraq, i believe that the majority of the people in iraq will be thankful.

w00t! much like everyone at the party, i was too busy chowing down on food during the superbowl commercials, but here's a link to (i think) all the commercial and the trailers including Matrix 2 and Terminator 3.

http://superbowl.ifilm.com/superbowl/



okay, i managed to get the "MM & scribble" watermark down to 27 kbytes. and then i decided to add another 5 kbyte file to cover up a patch. i thikn i'll be happy with this for a while. blogger.com is a perfectionist's worst nightmare.

update from eric. he has pictures of what got broken on his site. it turns out that the crank pulley that broke was on its hind legs and on its way out anyway. i just happened to help it along. he already got it fixed and its running better than before. so whew. hearing that just made me feel about ten times better today. i was extremely tired most of the day. i just did not get enough sleep last night or from the night before. i tried taking a 10 minute nap away from my desk mid morning and that only had minimal effects.



after work, i went to my pilates class. and remember the farting going on in the class? well, it turns out it happens regularly. at least in my class. and it's all because of this nasty woman that sits in the corner. i don't think there was ever a class where she didn't rip a loud one. its like clock work. at certain positions, it is pretty much expected. she did not rip a loud one today. she ripped 4, extremly loud juicy farts today. count that. 4. as hilarious as it is (i try to keep from laughing uncontrollably), i think that's pretty damn rude. if she has gas, take some tablets, take a break outside, or the least she can do is spread a cheek or something. damn. i mean it's a natural thing, and i don't mind. but not making an effort in consideration of the 40 other people in class is another thing. like today, she just didn't seem to care.



after class, i made some fajitas with wendy, then passed out after she left for a good 3 hours. i hate running on fumes but i've been trying to prioritize being on time for work over the need of sleep. speaking of which, i better get cracking on my sleep.

the week of HDTV's, the Superbowl, and a bad downshift.



friday

met up with ray, got inn and out at pb. i got 1 double double, and another double double protein style.



then went to old town, parked about 1/3 of a mile away from the trolley station, then rode the trolly to gas lamp. gas lamp was packed to say the least. at one point i think we walked about 10 feet a minute. we stopped by the z90 booth (nothing going on in there), then we walked by this guy that throwing a football over our heads, and it turned out to be Dan Marino. then we went to the xbox thing they had. we went to to the exhibit, and played halo for about 45 minutes or so. then we started walking back, and we saw this SUV limo (maybe a Hummer H2). And about 15 totally dressed up women came out. it almost seemed like an endless supply of hot chicks coming out of this limo. 2/3 of them probably modeled. but all of them were extremely well fit and groomed. they weren't cheerleaders. then they disappeared like they were a figment of our imagination. on our way back, everyone seemed to be checking out the Hustler store, so we went to take a peek. there were 3 floors. just about anything you can put your mind to that a store like this would have, they had. this place would also be a good place for gag gifts.



since we didn't want to miss the last trolley, we decided to go back around 11pm. we went to get boba. then we came back to my place and watched a video clip that i downloaded called "making of smallville".





saturday

i went hiking with ray, his unkle mark, and mark's wife trish through the torrey pines trails. it was a lot of fun. i'm definitely planning to go there on at least a semi regular basis. i have been missing out. i didn't know that this place existed until a few weeks ago. we walked through most of the trails at torrey then went to go eat vietnamese. then we went to get boba again. i got the red bean icy. it tasted pretty similar to the red bean ice cream bars that you get at asian markets. then i came home and took a nap. and thought about going to gas lamp again (or maybe mission bay), but i thought i do something a little different. then eric calls me so we go to dave and busters with eric, elena, and elana's bf john to eat and play. i got a top sirloin steak. that was pretty good. i think its the third time that i have eaten there and the food there has always impressed me. gourmet food at an arcade? i thought for sure they were gonna turn friday-style after 6 months. D&B, keep up the good work. after dinner, i played ferrari f355 challenge. i didn't do too horrible, but i didn't do that great. then i played some skeetball, and the brainless games for tickets where you basically drop tokens into a machine, and tickets come out of the machines.



after we had spent all our tokens and we came back to john's place, played mario party on the gamecube on a ~50 inch plasma widescreen. the game was really fun. especially playing with 4 people. and we got to play it on one of the nicest TV's I've seen, and that was quite a treat. the crispness and the color of the TV was amazing.



after getting dead last in mario sunshine, we decided to head back but.....i asked eric if i can drive his eclipse. doh. it wasn't a great idea. getting the car rolling and stuff wasn't bad. i dont' have any problems stalling or up shifting. but i think i was trying the more advanced stuff way to soon and while trying to downshift, i downshifted too hard (let the clutch out too fast) and something popped. and it became inoperable. power steering was gone. first we thought the only problem was that the alternator belt came loose. so we called john, and he didn't have the right tools, so john drove us back to my place, and i took eric to his place, got the tools, and headed back to to his car (in sorrento valley). then after we put the belt back on, we discovered that one of the pulleys had failed and was now grinding against the inner body of the car. so when we realized we weren't going to be able to fix it, i drove eric back to his house. man, i felt pretty horrible. i don't think it was going to be costly, but i don't like wasting people's time. one of my pet peeves is people wasting other peoples time. and when i know i'm eating up someone else's time, i feel like scum. eric was planning to take it tonight to LA and have one of his friends work on it. hopefully everything went smoothly. i'll give eric a call tomorrow. so i got home by 3:30am. went to sleep at 4.





sunday

woke up at 7:45. made it to church by 8:50. had service. the message was about how fellowship (hanging out with church members) was one of the main important parts of christianity. and it went on to say, you can party like a rock star outside the church realm, but no matter how fun it is, you'll always end up feeling hallow. but with fellowship, you never feel empty afterwards. i wish i can explain it better, but all i can say is that its quite true. and because of the lack of sleep, my original intent was to just go to service, and come back home for a phat nap, and probably not make it to the superbowl party at church. but the sermon changed my mind. so after service, i got some digits, went to go eat at santong palace with my small group, then i went home for a small nap, then i drove out to jim's place by 4pm. about 30-40 people gathered at his house, ate a whole bunch of food, and watched the raiders get beat to a pulp on Jim's 60inch LCD projection HDTV. the TV was amazing too, especially with the HD broadcast.



if i had to comment on one thing about the superbowl, its about the half time show. what a load of crap that was. sure big names, but quite a few things that could have been better. but it could be that all half time shows are this bad. i just care more cause it happened in our city.



Shania Twain...was i the only one that noticed that she lip synced to a direct track off her CD? she didn't even bother to record a live version. and to top it off, she is horrible at lip syncing. no doubt....now she prerecorded hers, and wasn't as bad at lip syncing, but the prerecording she used sounded horrible. at the party, one of the people said, "who is she?" and we said, "gwen stefani from no dobut." and she replies back, "oh she's horrible. how did she ever get a record contract?" and then i had to correct her on how she has one of the most amazing voices. i couldn't blame her though. it did sound like crap. the other performances, i don't remember. i think sting used a recording directly off his albums too. the question is, did they have a choice to not lip sync? after the game, i came home for another small nap and headed out to rimac and had a really good workout.



today also marks a 1 year anniversary of a very important turning point in my life.

exactly a year ago, i had my last cigarette. started to play DDR. and this marked the change for a better life. even though, i'm nowhere near where i want to be with body building/sculpting, it's pretty amazing what a year can do to a person. i went from being ashamed from having no upper body muscle development at all, to getting complemented on my physique pretty regularly.



so anyways, sunday is always a good work out day for me. since i get 2 days of rest and plenty of good food during the week day, there are no failures on every rep that i plan out. after this week, next week is called "strategic deconditioning". which means, no gym for me except the pilates class. and there you have it.



off topic, but i've made one change to the blog. you can see some scribblings as a watermark. i like how it looks, but this watermark is 44kbytes compared to the older watermark "MM" which is 3 kbytes. i didn't want to go with a jpg cause i didn't want to fuzz out the "MM". i hope no one has to read this on a modem. i can use a background of a table, then put another background so that i would have both a jpg for the scribblings and the gif for the MM, but not all browsers support that. and it's more work for me since i didn't design this table structure, so i don't know where to put the tag in. oh well. i'll get to it eventually.

not enough blogs to read in a day



i wish that everyone blogged. every time i see a post, i feel like it's a treat of some sort. it could just be about anything. i always enjoy having something to read. but it has to be from someone i know. i don't think i have ever read an anonymous blog....i have tried readding a post here and there, but if i don't know the person, i couldn't care less. unfortunately, i only know 4 other people that blog on a semi weekly basis. and they post one post a week if i'm lucky. for those who don't blog at all, give it a shot. instead of having a personal web page that you update every couple of years, have a page you update regularly. with blogger, it's just, click, type, and click. and you're done. you get to share things like your new/old passions in life, neat information/link you discover, or just the little things that people all too often miss hearing about. it will help your friends understand you better. but most importantly, it'll help you understand yourself better. remember doogie howser? yep, he was on to something.



anyway, today at the gym, i realized how ugly my gym clothes are. everyone is basically wearing stuff to expose their biceps, etc.....if it is a tshirt, the sleeve (or half sleeve) is not much of a sleeve at all. and the shirts are usually pretty tight. i see some people with pretty big biceps, and i hope that one day my biceps will be that big. and then i look at my arms and roll up my sleeve and realize, wait, my biceps are bigger than that guy. haha. it's just my shirt hiding the goods! so anyway, in a few months after i stop bulking up and start cutting up, i'll get rid of the ugly farmer's tan. then, i'll get new gym clothes that will expose my biceps, triceps, shoulders, etc. since i spend a good amount of time hanging out there, i might as well dress up for the occasion.



you might have noticed that "Michael Live" is totally gone. good riddance. with my renewed interest in programming i have written my first program in a long time to bring you "random pics". it's a program that runs on my web server that is serving up the random pictures. unfortunately, with my current implementation, there is no way to get around your browser caching images. i doubt people will be refreshing the page every 5 seconds just for the pictures so it shouldn't be a problem. but every 5 seconds, the image should change. to see this happen, you need to do a force refresh by hitting ctrl+F5 or holding ctrl then clicking on refresh.



as for the normal stuff. i have been battling a meandering cold for the last week. i might have to given it to nguyen and possibly the wellness director, terry, at rimac. or that's what she jokingly told me today as she was walking by. i went hung out with diem and eric yesterday. we went to ono sushi in hillcrest. that place was one of the coolest places i have been for sushi. very lively atmosphere. unfortunately they gave us a bad table (too small for 3). the sushi was fresh, and unlike what i read on signonsandiego, the pieces weren't small. for desert, we all split a ice cream short bread cake that was deep fried with tempura batter. man, that made the endorphins or something in my brain just jolly with blissful chemicals circulating my brain. or it could have just been the big insulin spike that i haven't felt in a looong time. after sushi, we went to tapioca express for some boba. and there we solved eachother's riddles.



here were the riddles:

-the rat poison and the sandwich

-the spouse that ate the albatross.

-3 dead men in the cabin.

-the guy hanging an empty room with nothing but a wet floor underneath.

-and the murderous sister who has just come back from a relative's funeral



solving riddles was so fun. defnitely have to do that more often. i'll try to find some good riddles online.

too much emphasis on forensic evidence.



yes, forensic evidence is great. i love watching the shows. forensic files, autopsy, the new detectives, FBI files, etc.. it's done amazing things to solve crimes. the forensic evidence seems like it is irrefutable. and that's where the problem is. you got forensic evidence like your hair found on the towel at the crime scene, and it is pretty much set that you won't be able to argue out of your way with just about anything you throw at the jury. you try to imply that your hair was planted there, and the jury will all laugh their asses off. these forensic science shows sometimes make a point on how one piece of forensic evidence was enough to give someone the death penalty. that's pretty damn scary.



it is so much easier to argue how ludicrous it is for the defendant to even try to argue that someone must have planted the forensic evidence than the defendants trying to prove that this planting of forensic evidence can actually happen. with so much hype about forensic evidence these days, it makes it that much harder to prove that forensic evidence is not smoking gun that everyone treats like it is.



i'll give a fictitous example: the shower bandit

this guy, according to the investigators will break in while people are not home. loot their house of valueables. then take a shower and leave. say i know where a once convicted robber lived. all i need to do is break into this guy's house, pick up 20 or so hairs from his bathroom floor (easy), and plant these in every house i rob. and to also fool the detectives with thier "geographic profiling" technique, i'll only rob houses within a 5 mile radious of the guy i stole the hairs from. during the robbery i'll leave a hair behind and make it look like someone took a shower there.



and this forensic evidence could be a double edge sword that works to fool the investigators. say that somehow, a neighbor spotted me around some houses during the time of the crime scene. but my DNA doesn't match the foreign hairs (all identical) found in everyones house that got robbed. so it will be just as impossible to convict me as it is easy to convict the wrong guy. and since wrong man's house is the epicenter of all these crimes, do you need more evidence to put the wrong guy away for good?



it might not be for a while but i hope we one day will see someone get exonerated from being wrongly accused due to planted forensic evidence. because the possibility is much greater than anyone will want to admit. until that day, we are all vulnerable to get put away for life (or even death) for crimes we did not commit.



having said all this, do I think OJ is still guilty? i really don't know anymore.

today, i woke up with minor cold symptoms so i decided to call in sick for the morning. then i felt better went to work, only to find out that i felt pretty dizzy while i was there. so i decided to go home after only 2 hours at work after a stop at the gym. when i got home, my smallville download was finished and i got to watch tonight's episode about 5 hours early. that was a real treat.



i feel so bad for lex. i've always wondered how someone so generous got to be so evil. and we did get more than a glimpse tonight. it looks like it was just a bunch of circumstances (almost none his fault) lead him to become evil. along with lionel luthor, i also partially blame jonathan kent. lex admires the kent and wants to be somewhat part of the family. and to do this, he is just trying to do good in the way he knows how. but every time lex opens his heart, jonathan just spits in his face. it's true that lex might have his own agenda, but when you break it down, he's only looking for the obvious truth that is not being told. he's not like everyone else in smallville that looks the other way when something mysterious happens. he knows that clark and the kents are lying, and that just makes him more curious that i can't blame him for.



after the show, i met up with ray and got some pho. then i came home and watched some american idol auditions. i felt pretty bad for the dude in the yellow pimp jacket. it's not like i don't agree with the judges. it was just painful to see a guy give it all and see his dreams get crushed on TV. his tears were pretty raw reality stuff. he has my sympathy vote. then after that i saw some forensic science stuff on court tv, and discovery channel. then i got a massive urge for carne asada chips. so i headed down to el coti. i figured it couldn't hurt too much when i was bulking up. if i was cutting up, i would be really disappointed at myself right now.



i'm on my 5th week of hypertropy specific training (HST). it is not a supplement. it's just a training routine. basically, over the course of 1 week, you do 6 reps of each exercise. every time you work out, you increase in weight. and every week, you decrease in the number of reps. so if you work out 3x a week, you do 2 reps of each exercise with a little bit of variation. and the results for me are phenomenal.



before HST

bench press: 105 lbs

shoulder/military press (machine): 65 lbs

squats (dumbbells): 20 lbs x 2

dips: 96 lbs of assistance

wide grip chin ups: 112 lbs of assistance

calf raise: 270 lbs

shrugs: 75lbs

precher curls (machine): 55 lbs

skull crushes: 55 lbs

leg curls: 65 lbs



after 6 weeks of HST, i should be doing:

bench press: 135 lbs

shoulder/military press (machine): 100 lbs

squats (barbell): 155 lbs

dips: unassisted

wide grip chin ups: 32 lbs of assistance

calf raise: ~500lbs

shurgs: 115+ lbs

preacher curls (machine) 95 lbs

skull crushes: 75 lbs

leg curls: 100 lbs



after my 6th week, i rest for one week.

some night time photography of the moon, the stars, and a palm tree.





what i have been using to take care of the burn on my ankle.



you first start with a mesh of non-adhering lubricated silicon. add neosporin if needed. then you put on some gauze. then put on some breathable stretchable tape. it has really helped the healing process. this will prevent it from scabbing, and let the skin heal with minimal scarring. the wound is almost closed. i think in about a week, i can go without this stuff.



interesting patch of clouds.





eric told me about this museum the other day, so i went to go check it out.





this is a picture inside the museum. the walls are mostly all glass. i wish my dining room looked like that.





look at these two pics. i did not realize it when i was there, but the gingerbread/cingular shape looks like it is cut out of the wall.







look familiar? if not, you must have not seen how they repainted the sungod at UCSD a year ago. it's a pretty striking resemblance. looking at the quality of the work on the sungod at our school, it was probably done by the same guy that did this orignal work at the museum. now i wonder how much was spent making that meaningless sungod to make it look like this beast.





more clouds.



i thought clouds were supposed to move and scatter. this cloud hasn't moved all day.



after the museum i went to go check out the trail at torrey pines from the other end. here's a mountain next to torrey pines beach.







then i drove up into the middle of the trail and looked around for a bit.



how did these people get there?



i took a nap when i got home, and woke up to a burnt out light bulb. so i went to albertsons and saw this on the way in.



nice executed plan. now are they planning on selling from this pile?

i found this website that has totally changed how i watch TV. http://www.turok.info. after you install this small application (bittorrent), you just click on one of the links, and within a few seconds you should be downloading the show. and it's pretty efficient. you usually download 45-100+ kbytes/sec, and upload the partial file that you have downloaded to a bunch of other people until you complete the file. i have already downloaded a few shows, smallville, simpsons, csi, csi miami, naruto (japanese anime), and it has proven to be very quick and painless unlike some programs like winmx or any peer to peer program. downloading shows can take days with those napster or gnutella networks. since i primarily watch only one main show (smallville), and maybe some forensic science shows, i can do without cable with this new website.



oh yeah, one other thing, the smallville episode was put on the website a half day before it was even aired on TV. i'm not sure how it was done (maybe a intercepted satelite transmission), but i hope they keep coming early.

this weekend was pretty tame. i came home and watched Lakers play the Rockets. Then went to dinner with Ray, and 4 of his friends.....the names i do remember....is matt and steve.....we went to shanghi city. was pretty fun even though we didn't really do much other than eat for about an hour or so. saturday, i installed visual studio 6 that i downloaded from a friend and set out to make a win32 hello world app. the thing is, there was a wizard that made a hello world application for you, it ended up only taking a few minutes. looking at all the things that go into a win32 application was a little overwhelming. its gonna be a slow start cause i'm trying to learn from more of a top down approach. maybe i should take a class. i also brought home a perl book. i wanted to do some stuff with that but i need an account at one of the servers that i have no control over so that's been put on the back burner.



after that, i went to costco, and bought my health food. and then i thought since it was the weekend, i'd buy something ready to eat. so i bought a rotisserie chicken. i ate half of it and passed out. then i got a call from nguyen, and we went to barona with chris and his gf Sang. when we got there, it was quite a shocker. if you haven't been to barona in the last month or so, they have totally built a new casino and hotel. their dome like structure they were using (even though they put walls around it) were closed off. they totally abandoned that old dome, and it is obvious why they went with this new structure. you go into the garage, and take the elevator, and the elevator doors open from the other side, and they reveal the long 50-75 yard colorful carpet you are used to walking through when you go to vegas. on the side, there are moving sidewalks going in different connections. if you thought viejas was best in indian gaming, barona took it to a whole other level. it is worth a trip there to just check out what they have done even though you have no interest in gaming.



chris and sang went to go play blackjack. nguyen and i checked out the buffet. the price was $17, and you get what you pay for. it's not a fantastic deal, but the quality of the food was slightly better than most buffets i have been to. i don't know what nguyen was complaining about but the quality was definitely better than cafeteria food. if you want cafeteria quality food, go to the Rio buffet. everything is bland there even though they have a big selection of food. this buffet is still no comparison to the bellagio buffet. in my mind, still the only place you can get gourmet style food in buffet style servings. like i always do, i try to get more than my money's worth at the buffets. i think i cleaned up a whole 3 plates worth of food. mostly meat and vegetables.



after the buffet, chris and sang were out of money, so we decided to head back. on the way out, they met a friend that was driving home. and since they had not seen eachother in like 5 years. it turns out this guy is a pretty serious gambler. just tonight, he dropped $2400 on what was going to be his last hand in blackjack. so we went to the ATM, pulled $100, and made $2000 and decided to call it a night. but that's nothing. it turns out that just a few months ago, he lost somewhere around $12K to $18K one night and he haden't been back for a while until last night. and at his best night a few years ago, he had walked away with $28K, and bought a Civic Si cash. it's a whole different world with these guys.



sunday, i went to church in the morning. came home, ate the other half of the chicken, and passed out. i think it's gonna be the last time i eat that much chicken....i woke up to watch the raiders and the other team play. then met up wendy at the gym at 8pm.



tomorrow is a holiday for me. i don't have any plans and i don't think i'll be doing anything productive. at most, run a few errands. still, i should try to make the most out of it. i have no clue on how i'm gonna do that. the holidays are a double edged sword. you get that whole day off. and you also get a shorter week day. it is a pity that most people do work on this day. i mean c'mon. martin luthor king jr. he was the man with the dream. to accomplish goals is one thing. to set out and accomplish a dream is in a whole different class of achievement. and the fact that it was a dream for the better life of everyone in the US, we need to give this guy a national holiday and let everyone pay their respects. of course, staying home and throwing BBQ isn't the way either. but you sure can't do whatever you can do to pay respects stuck at work.

if you haven't noticed, i coughed up $15, to remove that banner. actually, i really like blogger. and now that i have done it, i'm glad to give them some money. i have been using their service for almost a year now. and i'd rather support them rather than see something i like go out of business. and it's only $15. there are other options (up to $100/year), but since i run my own domain, have limitless web space, and have grown accoustomed to posting with html tags, the facy features are really no use to me. so the cheapest option was just what i was looking for. i think i'll create an "about this blog" and write out what and why i post, and how they can start their own.

today wasn't the usual routine day. i went to work, and actually did some research that i had been putting off for a while(spam filtering software for exchange enviornments). i had realized i haven't been making good on my promise on taking daily pictures, and i have gotten bored of what the UCSD campus has been offering me. around 3pm, eric lai shows up. and says he's gonna drive down the coast. so i thought i would tag along, and get a change up on scenery. so asked for a late lunch, and took a break from 3:15 to 4:15 from drove down to symbolic motor company with eric.



this car needs no introduction. i wouldn't have gone with the optional challenge grill.



i think if i was able to afford one of these, i'd get a spider with the paddle shifter. from this angle it actually looks like the titanium silver, when it actually is the



lamborghini murcielago



i'm not a big fan of yellow paint on cars, but it's the most beautiful yellow paint i have seen. i just saw a bright orange one the other day driving to work. they should just put a regular color on these things. they already attract massive amount of attention as is. but i guess they are aiming for 100%. sure beats the yellow diablo i followed to work a year ago. i remember that the diablo was idling pretty damn loud.



mercedes sl55 amg



476 bhp

516 ft lbs of torque

the ultimate luxury sports super car



then i met up OG ResNet at cozymels. on the way, i saw a terrific display of colors on my drive there. i tried to get my camera out and take a descent picture, but it wasn't meant to be. this was the best i could do without holding up traffic, taking a picture while driving.





after dinner, i came home for a power nap, and headed out to the gym.

today is my second day at pilates. my workout schedule went from a conservative 3 days at the gym, to now 5 days with this 2 days a week class. i'm not sure if it is the lack of sleep i've been getting since i'm trying to come in earlier, or its because of those no rest days in between that is making me feel weaker at the gym. pilates is great stuff though. my abs and obliques were sore in places that i can't really target when i'm doing my own routine at the gym. i have been coming to work on fairly regular times in the mornings. and i have been very productive at work the last few days. feels like a good change up. i hope to continue at this pace.



today is also my second day at bible study. from the bible study i'm used to, it feels more like a class....actually more like a section for a class. it also feels different because i'm actually interested in the material rather than the brainless routine feeling i got when i used to do it in high school. going to church twice a week feels like it comes a little too soon, even though all throughout my jr high and high school i had been going to church twice a week.



i was watching this program on discovery about savants....like the movie Rain Man. They can do extrodinary things, but can't do simple tasks. well, there was this guy on there that was saying that everyone is capable of savant like abilities. and that savant like abilities come from a lack of inhibition from the brain. so if we can control this inability to inhibit, we can tempraily enable things like photographic memory, or simply free up the tremendous ability parts of the brain that mostly gets inhibited when too many things are going on. and he demonstrated 2 ways to control how we inhibit. fatigue the side of the brain. or try to consciously control the blood flow to different parts of the brain. i'll throw my own theory in this one. could this mean that our ability to learn and enhance our learning abilities on a tasks we accel at depend on how good we are able to remove inhibition. when we say we are "thinking", are we trying to concentrate more on the subject, or are we subconsciously controlling the blood flow in our brain (to remove inhibition) as we have learned to do when doing particular tasks? this idea works for how some people (me included) can express them selves more creatively when i'm half asleep. and the same theory applies to artists who can only become artistic when under the influence of a substance. i really love cognition. shows like this inspire me and make me want to go back to school. i really think i can do some amazing world changing things with my thoughts on cognition and neural networks (my specialization).



i also want to get back into computer programming again. i really loved programming in high school. when i came into college, they bored us to death with nonsense recurse programs using pointers to pointers to pointers that just drove me absolutely insane. that just made me really hate programming while i was doing it. but when it comes to writing something of interest, i think my love for programming and creating a working machine is still there. i have a good grasp in c, and planning aloghrithms, but what i want to do is write windows applications rather than command line scripts. and i have no clue on that. i'm sure its pretty simple with the right headers, compilers, and knowing what functions to use. maybe i can pick up a good book for that somewhere. i'll have to ask around on recommendations for one. maybe i'll invest some times at barnes and noble this weekend finding a good book. i hope it doesn't cost too much....

an enouragement to myself and others



i have found a good number of blogs that people have started, but they all have been pretty much abandoned. the common problem? one realizes that all the entries are pretty much the same. we all generally interact with the same people and engage in familiar activities and hobbies that we are comfortable doing. or it could be that we just talk about the same subject over and over. i am too guilty of that (health, nutrition, fitness, etc.). there is nothing wrong with that. if a person did things differently and interacted with different people every single time, that person would never estabilish identity and character. being human, part of our goal in life is to build and improve what we have (wheter it be relationships, skills, or material posessions.) another integral part of life is to learn and assimilate new relationships, skills, and material posessions. but as we grow older the need and time to make new gains in life to refine our character becomes less and less. but the desire within still burns. and the older you get, this desire will set in as regret.



when i say this, i'm speaking to my peers, the near and post graduates. you are young. and you are at the prime of your life. you have the time and the energy to just about accomplish anything you want to accomplish. instead of finding solace (to remove regret and desire) in accepting who you have become so far, you should prioritize more focus in becoming the person you wish to be. i'm not suggesting you make a big personality change. just be more active in refining your character so that your friends see same person you are when you close your eyes.



i bring this up because i sometimes don't physically portray the person i really wish to be. i want to be more confident. i want to be a better christian. i want to be more generous to the ones i love and even strangers. i want to be successful in my career. i want to be a better brother and a better son. i want to learn how to swim and surf. i want to travel the world. i want to play the guitar and piano at a professional level. i want to spend more time creating art (drawing, creative writing, writing comedy). i want to be better at approaching girls i want to meet. the list goes on and on. and i can't wait to share my walk to all these things in my future blog entries. stay tuned!

i grill with george.





what are they doing with a christmas tree on an audi s8 in the middle of january?





some public restroom grafitti humor.



translation:

if school equals unhappiness

proof: money does not equal happiness.

But diploma equals money. also your Lucky to be able to get an education.

Eat Shit!!

Get dRAFted.

hippie.



(courtesy of price center men's room)

it is funny in so many ways.



during my first pilates class, i had never heard a fart so loud in public until today. call me immature but i kept thinking about it and i had to bite my tongue the whole time so i wouldn't be the only one busting up. i guess in that position (on your back with the knees at your chest) rocking yourself forward does have its consequences. there were 2 total. this is my first of these kinds of these sit down and stretch for an hour classes. maybe it happens all the time. i hope no one is inconsiderate enough to eat chili fries before the class.

since i'm in the process of bulking up, i have adopted the new theme "anything goes" when it comes to food. but that's not entirely true. i still avoid deserts, sweets, etc. and trying not to spend money on the weekend limits me to still eat healthy during the week days. i do find myself snacking on the free stuff on claire's desk...(cheetos, goldfish, chips, nachos...) and it doesn't mean i can't make smart decisions....like eat filet mignon instead of prime rib. and eat couple of servings of salad and avoid the mashed potatoes along with the couple of portions of the meat. still, i'm a little bit afraid to step on the body fat scale. i know my body fat has gone up. but my muscle mass has gone up too. the hypertrophy specific training is really giving me some results...bulk and strength. but the fact that i didn't make much progress before i did this was also because i was eating far less calories than i was burning. there is a way to get all the bulk without the extra fat...unfortunately no one knows their bodies that well. but i think i can do better with my nutrition.



this weekend, i got some filet mignons with diem at costco, and cooked them on the george forman grill. and the grill marks were absolutely beautiful. criss crossed and all. other than the slight unevenness (cause it is such a thick cut of meat), which can be prevented i might add by rotating, you can't do too much better than grilling your filet mignons on your george forman grill. you can cook your filet at a gourmet restaurant in the george and no one will raise a brow. i got the george forman grill with a coupon and it actually cost less than each steak i put on it. but it sure can grill up some filets real nice. everyone should get one. after the meal we went to see gangs of new york. i really didn't know what to make of the movie, and i sure didn't know what to expect. sure it is based on history, but i had a hard time buying it. it felt like moulan rouge....except it was based on actual events (maybe??). it did have good acting and what not, but i can't give it more than a 6 out of 10...which is lower than the average on IMDB. maybe i missed something. and it felt like it was long for some reason. 2 hours would have been better.



saturday, woke up late. ate the last filet mignon (cause it was a pack of 3) for lunch. then took a nap.........lesson learned. if you don't eat too much carbs for breakfast, you'll probably crash and need a nap after a protein fest. then i ran some errands. washed my car, cut my hair. then met up with nguyen, and got some pho and boba. then we saw some nachos on TV and decided to get the carne asada chips at albertos on miramar.



sunday, i went to church, and there was a going away party for this one guy in the navy who was going to be deployed for 6 months. so we had a bbq. ate 2 small pices of steak.....tri tip maybe? and sausages. saw some football. and then got back home around 5. took a nap, and went to go gym by 9. and that was my weekend. so it felt like an all out meat fest this weekend. don't really feel too guilty about it. i could have avoided the grease dipped carne asada chips....and boba....well, i have been having far less of it. but i still enjoy it.



one thing someone mentioned at church today was that this guy used to volunteer at the urgent care, and about once a month, a group of people would come in that have been into an accident because they were speeding to their church (running late). i admit driving sunday early in the morning really makes it easy to speed...and i do speed to church, especially when i'm late. that's one other thing i need to work on.



tomorrow i begin my pilate's class. hopefully it will help me change up my routine and add some variety to my workouts. with hypertrophy specific training, stretching is not emphasized, so i haven't been doing it.....but i have been making sure i do warm up properly. i was all about stretching properly when i signged up for the class. now i don't feel enthusiastic about stretching, so let's see how it goes....cause my flexibility is gonna suck. maybe this class will make me want to stretch regularly again to make some good progress during the class.

As a guy trying to build muscle, reduce fat, and be healthy, you eat to accomplish three things. Get all your daily nutrients (vitamins, minerals, fiber, fats, carbs, proteins), raise metabolism, boost testosterone.



All meals I try to do a the 40-30-30 ratio from carbs-protein-fat.

I eat for breakfast

1/2 a penut butter & strawberry jam sandwich on whole wheat bread(high carbs is okay in the morning) with a protein shake.

Rest of the day

1 bowl of Protein Plus Cereal (sold at albertsons, and sometimes Vons) with Lactaid Fat Free Milk

1 apple (for complex carbohydrates, lots of fiber)

1 banana (for the potassium)

1 serving of baby carrots raw (for complex carbohydrates, and fiber)

various slices of whole wheat bread (to balance out the carbs, and for complex carbos and fiber)

various servings of raw almonds (to balance out the fat, fiber)

various numbers of Premier Protein Bar (to balance out the protein)

Power Bar or Yoplait Yogurt (post workout meal should consist of more carbs to protein)

Balance Bar Gold. I eat these bars for convienience. So I just grab the bar and go. I don't really crave bars.



So I don't go absolutely crazy eating so plain, I try to eat a sensible dinner. A lesson taken from Slim Fast. Not.

Usually consists of beef, chicken or fish, with various assortment of vegetables. I try to minimize the carbs since you are eating this at night.



For the supplements and others:

4 scoops of Glutapro (Protein Shake with Glutamine, also helps me balance out the protein)

5-10g of Creatine

1 Centrum (Multivitamin)

1000mg of Vitamin C

1000mg of Fish Oil (for the Omega-3 fatty acids)

1000mg of Calcium (if I had to choose one supplement, I'd choose calcium)

1000mg of Glucosamine with Chondrotin

1 cup of Green Tea (for antioxidents, and boost metabolism)

1 cup of Coffee (to temporarily boost metabolism)

Looking for a notebook to take to bible study today, I found some old journal entries. And I am quite disturbed on what I have just read. It was written sometime during the last week of June of 1996. Before June 27, 1996. This was, right after I graduated from my high school. And before my orientation to UCSD.

'What is the date today? My calendar is missing, and the date on my watch is wrong. Went to play pocket Korean (billiards) pool today with Richard and Austin. He's a pretty cool guy. Richard almost got into an accident today. He will get into an accident if he doesn't drive more safely. He can't drive at all I think. I hope God gives him a ticket or a small accident so he'll drive safely and not kill himself and all his passengers.



Jessica. I think she's so fine. I was really flattered when she paged and called me to ask me to the movies. And she said that she needed to know the name of some senator??? What's the probability of that being true? It can't be a school project. It might be summer schoool, but what class would this be? And what class started Monday. And she did sound like she made an excuse. Well, I hope I don't make a fool of myself when we go out (Richard, I, and Jessica). I wonder if she's bringing any friends. And I wonder if she likes me a little. She didn't call Richard with one of these senator questions. And she is the one who likes bulky (not fat) and sweet hearted guys. If she gets to know me better, maybe she'll see how sweet hearted I can be. And I think she's the one who look sfor emotional love and things like that. I would love to provide that to her. But I think we'll have communication problems even with our friendship with my inability to speak a lot of Korean. It's like 2:40 in the morning. Thursday. I have to mail in that housing thing that's due July 2.



Church people. Whenever I look at Christina, I know that she has something more to say to me than "Hi". Whenever I look into her eyes. And it was obvious how Jenny had a crush on Jung. She gets kinda quiet when she's around him. Well, certain that Christina was coming onto me that night in the van. But as dumb as I was, I let it run away from me.



Emily. She has something for me that I would almost work endless hours to get. She seems so perfect and getting to know her a little made her so beautiful in my eyes. I would probably choose her if I had such a wish. Our eyes met in class and school so many times. And it seems like her heart is trying to communicate through her eyes or something. I wish that was true. She is also the reason when getting rejected from UCLA was so painful. In my eyes, she's like an angel. Beautiful. Innocent. Loving everything. So nice. Etc. Etc. etc. How can someone be so beautiful and nice And smart. at the same time? Please excuse my run on sentence. I hope we get to meet in the future. Just meeting in the supermarket would be a dreamy expereince.



Please excuse my perversion, but I enjoyed the van ride home from Warner Springs after the 96 VBS. She sat on my hand and arm and I knew why priests and people get so tempted sometimes. I have to meet Sang's pastor tomorrow again. I'm looking forward to the experience of teaching, making money, and learing guitar with him. I hope Hana Academy goes well.



I want a used Prelude preferrably, or atleast an accord. And if not, it would have to be an almost new civic. I don't think I would want to buy and drive anything else.



I saw Night of the Scarecrow today. I wish there were more nudity and stuff. It wasn't a bad movie. Eraser wasn't bad. I don't really remember the movie Executive Decision. I guess I should go see the Rock sometime since everybody is tellihng me I should go see it. What i really wanted to see is Independence Day (No relation to Groundhogs Day) ID4 had airplanes. It's previews give me goosebumps.



I hope the orientation is cool. And maybe I should read that wilderness camp brochure. If I go, I wish I meet someone like Emily. Or someone that looks like Allison from Melrose Place or Lea Thompson. I think I should go sleep now. I'll respond to the bible verses later. It's probably like 3:30 know. Talk to you later journal."

Jessica asked me to the movies????? How come I can't seem to remember her asking me to the movies? I don't think we ever got to hang out.......WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING? I think at the time, I didn't have an ouce of interest in dating Korean girls. Jessica still is the most beautiful Korean girl I have ever met to this day. What a pity. No, it's more than that. At the time, my family was dirt poor. And her family was rich (she drove a brand new silver 95 prelude). And I had quite a bit of insecurities. The movies, if we ever went, would have never been anything more than that. Maybe that's why I had decided to erase it from memory? I'm still in disbelief. How can I just let something like this slip by me? Damn! It's too late now. Last I heard from her, she got married about 2 years back.



Christina was one of my other crushes I had while growing up. I was a dumbass because there was a point where she liked me too, and did just about everything for me to make a move, but I really didn't know how....and my defense mechanism made me just play stupid....and made me do things that would hint that I didn't really like her for some reason. And she took that as rejection. Who wouldn't eh? I'm not sure where she's at now. I think she went to Boston for College. She was a year older than me I think. I always think that I should apologize to Christina if I ever meet up with her for being such a dumbass. I did run into her brother about 6 months ago. Unfortunately I had only remembered who her brother was 10 minutes after I told him I couldn't remember who he was and said bye to him.



Emily on the other hand.......I was never sure if she liked me or not. She definitely could have but I was just lost in my own dreams about her. She was in my video project group and I thought I was getting some serious vibes from her by the end of the project. But it all goes back to my insecurities. They make me blind to these things until it is too late. I always thought she'd do something high and mighty...maybe become one of those beautiful women doctors on TV because she always amazed me with her academic achievements as well as her beauty. But I heard from a grapevine that she was taking time off of school to try an acting career? I really don't know much about her. But I was very infatuated at the time.



As you know, when I was dreaming about Honda Accords, I did eventually get an Accord about 3 years later. Pretty cool how that worked out huh? I think Sang's pastor resigned or something. It was a Lutheran church. And he was blessed to have such a great chapel. Unforutnately, what he didn't have was members. Compared to my old pastor from Korean Vision Church. Started out in his apartment, became a pastor from a JDSN, and moved onto bigger and bigger buildings after the congregation grew. And what is Night of the Scarecrow. I don't even have a vague recollection of that movie.



3 girls in my life. Sorry to say none really made any significance. Maybe it's a sign that I have found this journal entry. I wasn't going to read it because I'm fearful on finding out how immature I was when I wrote this. But maybe it's good that I did. So that I can learn from my mistakes and actually do something before it is too late. Was I the only one this slow in growing up? It awfully seems so. And I still suck at this stuff now. But always trying to improve. It has helped me see that I will not benefit from the greatest things that life had offered me so far if I don't have the guts to do anything about it.

pho



to think, i lived in SD for 4 years and never had pho. i finally got to try it, and my first reaction was, "it is good, but really rich in flavor. i'm not sure how much of this i can take on a regular basis. but i had it again, and i started craving it. i'm not sure why, but i did. i think in one week, i had pho 3 times. i don't have it as much now. even though it is a fantastic deal for what you get (~$4), i end up eating too much carbohydrates. still love it though. and luckily for me, SD is one of the best places for Pho.



blackberry



While I was sitting at Thorton Urgent Care yesterday, I typed this on the BlackBerry:

"I bought this thing called liquid bandaid. Basically it is krazy glue. Just doesn't smell bad. I bought it because I have been nursing my ankel. It is pretty amazing for little injuries, but not for injuries like mine. Well, its been a week since I burned my anke, then erik tells me that an infection is easily possible for the foot. And ironically he knew of his dad's friend who burned his foot with boiling water, got a bad foot infection so he got his foot amputated. So there wasn't any need for more convincing. I headed out to the ER. So I'm sitting here in thorton typing this on a blackberry. It's a very cool gadget. It lacks a lot of things...like games, I'm, and a web browser. But it works with my exchange account (calender, contact list, etc.)."



an orgy of protein/power bars



The Balance Bar Golds, Power Bar, and Protein bar I buy at Costco. Ralphs had a sale for the other Balance bars I never get to try cause Costco doesn't carry them so I bought each one of them. Ralphs also has a buy 1 get one free deal for the Met-Rx bars.



nothing much has gone on for the last couple of days, except my trip to Urgent care. they told me i've been taking good care of it and i shouldn't need any antibiotics. the worst thing about this ankle is it huts when i do squats at the gym. i really like the exercise. but is almost not worth the pain.



not much going on tonight except i'll be starting my weekly wednesday night bible study sessions.



i saw this thing on court tv, on this show called "The System." The show was called, "JonBenet Ramsey: a second look". It was about the little girl that was dressed up like barbie who was killed. And the media made it believe it was the parents that did it. I had believed this too. They were just another set of OJ Simpsons. Well after watching this show, it has totally made me believe that it wasn't the parents at all. And what's worse is that it was a rouge police department that was at fault. Not just because they handled the case wrong. But they went over and beyond to basically framed the parents. Why? Because the police department wanted some recognition over the nationally covered news story. And once they realized they were wrong, they did not admit it. They just stuck to pointing the finger at the parents, and went as far as to put a court approved gag order on their own department investigators that had compelling evidence on the real killer. this lead to about a dozen department heads/investigators resigning because of this injustice. the sad fact is that they've had enough forensic DNA on the real killer to begin a search, but nothing has done because everyone still believes that it was the parents that did it. you would not think that these things happen. but after seeing this show, i guess it does. the good news is the case has been reopened just last month based on these facts. what a world we live in.

here's are list of events from 12/31/2002 to 1/5/2003



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]

sorry no time to blog. i'll expand it with details later.

went to sleep over for the rose parade new years eve

we were not all that prepared. i could have used gloves, thermal socks, and a heating apparatus (bbq with coals would have been sufficient).

we decided to sleep outside on chairs in our sleeping bags. didn't get much sleep. wendy described it as the most uncomfortable night in her life.

while helping pour a big pot of water into a water dispenser, i got a pretty bad burn on my ankle when the guy carrying the other side of the pot dropped it without giving me a warning...size of two half dollars.

saw the rose parade on new years day.

got to work on thursday. then nguyen tells me he bought a new silver bmw 330i. i didn't believe him even when he showed me the keys. but he did. 18" rims. sport package. premium leather and sound. moon room. xenon. we took it for a spin. wow. he totally deserves it. he'll be working at best buy for quite a while. tonight, went to nguyen's house, ate some bitter mellon (much bitter than i expected), and watched taxi driver with joe.)



tomorrow, i leave for the church retreat at 1pm....i need to do some consulting work (not looking forward to it), and then leave by 1. if i don't spend too much time doing consulting work, i'm gonna rush back home, work out before i leave for the church retreat. i should be back by sunday evening.