2007 Year In Review

Incredibly, another year has passed in our lives and in the blink of an eye, 2007 is nearly over. But before we welcome in the new beginnings of '08, I'd like to say a few words of reflection on this past year.

Though time seems to fly by faster and memories seem to start blurring together more and more as I get older, 2007 was definitely a year that I'll remember for the rest of my life. It was a year of a lot of growth in my life (obviously not in a physical sense) and on the whole, I definitely went through a lot of important experiences that have really impacted who I am as a person.

It would be far too crazy for me to list every single thing that's happened in the past 12 months (though knowing me, I might just try). But certainly the most important highlight that I'd have to mention when looking back at 2007 is my baptism. Not just the day itself, but I'm seeing that so much of my life centers around that decision - the years of thinking and praying that led up to it, and the short few months that have followed since then are all heavily influenced by what baptism means to me.

I don't intend to preach extensively about my religion in this blog, but speaking from my heart for a moment, I really do believe that baptism is the most important act of my life to date and I wish everyone could share it with me. As I shared in my testimony that day, God has been teaching me so much about what *faith* means, and with every passing day I'm continuing to learn more and more about why I need it so much in my heart. While I grew up in a Christian family and have been going to church my entire life, it hasn't been until the past year that so many of the Bible verses and praise songs have started to truly come alive for me. The words that I've been reading, singing, even sharing with others for so many years, really have taken on such deeper meaning to me in the past year, and I don't think I would have grown so much without first taking that step of faith. That's all I'll say about the subject here for now, but I hope that if anyone out there cares to talk about these things more, you would not hesitate to seek me out. I would be more that happy to share the rest of my thoughts and feelings.

One thing I certainly experienced a lot of in 2007, perhaps for the first time in my life, was failure. Not to say this in an arrogant way, but I do think that the first 26 years of my life were relatively "easy" for me. For as long as I can remember, I've been able to succeed at everything I've truly put my mind to - whether it be school, relationships, work, or whatever little or big thing it may be. But in the past year, I found myself falling short in almost every area that was important to me. It definitely hurt to struggle so much, especially when I've become accustomed to having everything go smoothly all the time. But as I look back and think about these experiences, I can see that they needed to happen in my life, and not a moment later. Not only this, but while many of these failures seemed to converge in 2007 specifically, I can also see that they've all resulted from many mistakes I've made in the years leading up to this one.

Failure is obviously not a good thing, but as people often say, you have to fail in order to succeed. When I talk about the personal growth I've been going through during the past year or so, so much of it is closely related to the missteps and stumbles I experienced. It seems that many times in life, we need to be bluntly faced with our own weaknesses before we can learn from them and do something about it. In a way, I'm seeing that failures and struggles are the "growing pains" that all of us must go through in order to move forward and mature in our lives, much like the physical awkwardness that accompanies those dreaded years of puberty we'd all like to forget. I do hope that these experiences will keep spurring me to grow throughout the rest of my life

Another thing I'll definitely remember 2007 for, is the people who have come and gone in my life. Again, for perhaps the first time in my life, I've had to say goodbye to some that were extremely close to me, which has not been easy at all. It simply sucks to part with someone you loved dearly, and although I'm sure there will be more difficult farewells I'll face in the future, I don't think I'll ever get used to the feeling. For that matter, I don't think I *want* to get used to that feeling.

At the same time, I'm so very thankful for the new people that have become a big (or bigger) part of my life in the past year. Some of you I've literally only met in this year for the first time, while others I have known for much longer, but have luckily gotten a chance to reconnect with in recent months. And of course, still another very important individual has entered my life by way of the local pet store (okay, so Sally isn't a person, but she still deserves mention here).

I've always felt that few things in life, if any, are more important than the relationships you build. You can earn all the money in the world, or spend your whole life trying to make yourself happy, but in the end, none of that means anything and you can't take any of those possessions or selfish pleasures with you. I would hope that some day as I look back on my life, it would not be defined by my personal achievements of glory, but by the way I impacted those around me in a (hopefully) positive way. While I often lose track of this and have wandered off in my selfish world many times in the past, I feel so encouraged by the people that have become a bigger part of my life in 2007 and hope that in return, I'll be more a blessing to them in the coming years as well.

All of my sappy thoughts aside, some other important notes from the past year include (in no particular order):

- An awesome vacation in San Diego and Vegas (see 9/18/07 entry for recap)

- The Bears making it to the SuperBowl (even though they lost, it was still an exciting time for all of us in Chicago)

- Illini football making a comeback and somehow getting picked for the Rose Bowl (results TBD until New Years Day - it could be a fantastic start to 2008, do we dare to get our hopes up?)

- Grace moving on from being our 3rd housemate, to bigger and better things (marriage)

- Taking on some new responsibilities at work, as a committee chair for an employee organization

- Quitting fantasy sports entirely (Of all the recent changes in my life that I've shared with people - breakup of a 5+ year relationship and working towards a career switch, this is somehow the one that seems to surprise people the most. Not quite sure what to think of that fact.)

- Finally entering the world of High-Definition TV and using a DVR (quickly becoming hooked on Food Network HD and Planet Earth)

- Starting a Facebook account (gotta keep up with the kids these days)

- Getting a Nintendo Wii, my first iPod (well, a hand-me-down from the sis, but whatever), and new sunglasses

- Eating lots of good food (way too much to list here!)

- Turned down a Victoria Secret model (sorry, I'm all about personality)

Quite a list there, but perhaps the best part of it all is, the year is not quite over yet. Still a few days left in 2007, and I have a feeling there will be more to add before we ring in the new year. But if I don't see you all before then, let me just wish everyone out there a Happy New Year and many great things to come in 2008!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Hope everyone had a long and delightful Thanksgiving weekend. Mine was quite busy, but it was a great weekend overall. Some highlights:

- As expected, we had the "traditional" hot-pot dinner with the family on Thanksgiving day. This year's dinner was a little more special with our honorary guest, Irene, joining us. It was also Sally's first Thanksgiving. She got to enjoy some tastier food (a real bone instead of dry dog food), and join in our family photos, so I think she had a good Thanksgiving too.

- Put up the Christmas tree. At first I wanted to wait until I got a skirt (for the tree, not myself you pervs!), but finally decided that I would just suck it up and try to squeeze it in later. The tree looks good, definitely adding a lot of holiday spirit to the townhouse, but I'm hoping to spice it up with at least a few more ornaments this year. We'll see how it goes.

- Did not participate in Black Friday shopping, but ended up getting crushed by the crowds at Woodfield anyways, having lunch at Texas de Brazil located in the mall. I highly recommend the place to anyone who likes meat (as I do). Their salad bar is actually really good too. It's a lot like Fogo, except I think the selection is better. The quality may be slightly lower, but it's still excellent overall.

- Saturday was the busiest day I've had in a long time. Played in our church's annual "Turkey Bowl" during the day, and even though it was only flag football and not tackle, I still ended up quite bruised and sore. Even Sally got a little bit of action that day, sporting her new Bears jersey:



I love that picture. Look at the perfect blocking technique. She should be an offensive lineman for the Bears!

At night, attended Josh and Jenny's wedding reception. It was really good to see a lot of old faces there, and of course to wish the happy couple well. Unfortunately, I think I ended up with a slight case of food poisoning, which lingered through the rest of the night and most of Sunday.

Nevertheless, I decided to suck it up and briefly stop by Moe's Cantina in honor of Bua's bday, before finally running out of gas for the night. Again, it was great to see everyone out, although I did end up taking one of the worst shots ever before I left - BAD IDEA. It's one thing to have 3 Wise Men when you're expecting it, but a whole new level of terribles to down that shot when you think it's something much weaker (i.e., SoCo & Lime). Stupid Ciszek...

- Congrats to Dennis and Lauren on their engagement! Another one bites the dust.

- On a personal note, it definitely felt like an extra special Thanksgiving this year for me. I know it is beyond cliche to say this, but I really am so very thankful for all of my family and friends who have been there over the years. I know I take you all for granted at times, but whenever I stop to think about things, I really do treasure the people who have lasted in my life for so long. It's not easy to stay consistently there throughout the many bumps and bruises, the twists and turns that we all go through, and we all fall short and let each other down from time to time. So it says a lot in my mind, when I think about all of the people who have always unconditionally supported me and unselfishly blessed my life, no matter what comes up in our lives.

Also, as I mentioned before, one of the best things about this time of year is to see the old faces, especially people who have moved to other parts of the country (or even other parts of the world). I know that life takes each and every one of us to different places, and that it's only human nature to be "out of sight, out of mind" when friends and loved ones leave Chicago. But I guess that just means we need to remember to cherish the time we do have with them that much more. I am definitely thankful that I got to revisit and see a lot of old friends this weekend that made the trip back home.

Most of all, I'm thankful to know that God is constantly watching over me and that He never gives up on my life - no matter how many mistakes I make, or how far I wander off in my own world at times. Though it really hurts when He lets me fail on my own, and I wish I didn't have to stumble through so many self-inflicted struggles before starting to learn what faith means, I know that everything happens for a reason. I've been seeing that doing things my own way can only take me so far, but that only by fully sacrificing my own control and giving up my selfish way of thinking, can I even begin to feel truly complete and right with my life.

Anyways, didn't mean to get too sappy or deep there, but I guess I do want to share why Thanksgiving means so much to me this year. I'm definitely thankful for being led to baptism during the past year, and for the many unexpected blessings in my life that have followed in the months since. I'm thankful even for the difficult moments, because I realize that unless we have faith, it is the only way we can grow and change for the better. Not only this, but as the famous Bible verse goes, "we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

Have a happy holiday season!

Goodbye to You



This morning, the reports came out that the White Sox had traded away Jon Garland to the Angels for Orlando Cabrera. With his contract up after next season, it's wasn't a complete surprise, although at first I thought it would be for Miguel Cabrera instead. So far, I'm undecided how I feel about the deal from a purely baseball perspective, but baseball aside, the news was still kind of bittersweet.

Although Garland had a very mediocre 2006 season, and has never fully lived up to his potential, it's still kind of sad to see him go. In some ways, it marks the end of an era and signals the beginning of a new direction.

In the end, every Sox fan will always (or at least should) feel thankful for his contributions throughout the 2005 World Series run. I will personally remember him for the complete game he pitched in the ALCS, taking a picture of him catching the "first pitch" from my friend at a game in 2006, and of course, his sluggish demeanor on defense.

Anyways, going to the ballpark won't be quite the same next year without him. We'll miss you, Jonny boy, and certainly wish you the best in Anaheim (except when you pitch against the White Sox, of course).

Nokia Talk

One of my personal weaknesses over the years, if you can call it that, is Nokia phones. Ever since the first days I started carrying a cell phone, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Nokia-made handsets, and this is still true for me up through the present day. This past week's press release of their new N82 model (which looks fantastic) has inspired me to share some of my thoughts on Nokia and their phones.

Back in the late 90's, when cell phones started becoming much more common in people's lives, I remember Nokia as being at the forefront of the industry. The company became known for its colorful interchangeable faceplates, the catchy little Nokia ringtone, and quickly gained the "cool-factor" in pop culture. Some of us may remember the modified 8110 model being featured in the first Matrix movie, or Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu carrying their colorful 8200 series handsets in the first Charlie Angels movie. Others (like myself) desired to have the sleek chrome silver 8800-series phone which, much like the BMW M5 or Nissan Skyline, were always tantalizingly out of the typical college kid's price range.

More importantly, I associated Nokia with simple designs that just plain worked and worked well. Personally, I appreciated the fact that Nokia phones were pretty basic in every way - easy-to-navigate menus, customizable shortcuts, a small but well-organized display, and sturdy hardware that could withstand its share of bumps and bruises. Putting all of the style factor and marketing aside, the bottom line is that Nokia phones always got the job done, and were reliable and pretty cool to boot.

As we've all seen, a lot has changed in the cell phone industry since those days. In the past several years, quite a few trends have emerged in the cell phone industry - and many of these developments have seemed to leave Nokia behind in the process, where it is no longer the dominant presence it used to be. Especially in the U.S., we no longer think of Nokia as the top dog it once was, but as just another phone manufacturer among dozens, but which happens to be one of the bigger ones.

One of the trends I noticed is that flip phones started to become much more popular in the early 2000's. While early versions of flip phones were flimsy and bulky at first, manufacturers steadily improved the hardware to be slimmer and more durable. As the technology improved, many people traded in their traditional "candybar" type phones in for the so-called "clamshell" designs that offered larger screens and more comfortable ergonomics. From the beginning, Motorola was the leader in this trend, scoring most notably a couple years ago with their wildly popular RAZR model.

Meanwhile, Nokia was quite slow to adopt this trend and continued to stick to the old candybar form factor for as long as it could. Eventually, they caved to market pressure and began to produce some flip-phone models, but by this time they were well behind the rest of the industry. And even now, I think the "bread-and-butter" of Nokia continues to rest in its candybar designs (which I personally like, but I'll talk plenty more on my opinions later). The fact is, I still don't see very many Nokia flip-phones on the market today, and the few models they do have are rather unimpressive.

Another area where Nokia arrived late to the party was in the camera-phone "revolution". I don't know what went on in the boardrooms at Nokia, but apparently they did not take the idea of camera phones very seriously at first. Whereas other manufacturers such as Samsung were quick to capitalize on the exploding popularity of camera phones, Nokia was one of the last cell phone makers to offer any of its phones with a camera of decent quality. As many business analysts have pointed out, this was also a significant factor contributing to Nokia's falling market share during the past few years.

Adding on top of these changes has been the emergence of Blackberry/smartphones among the "common" consumer segment. While business users had already been carrying these "all-in-one" phones for several years, we are now seeing a lot more of the general public adopting them as well. One reason is that the text-messaging boom has driven many of the younger crowd to demand phones with QWERTY-type keypads, which were once found only on RIM's aforementioned Blackberry devices. Additionally, the emergence of higher bandwidth networks has made internet browsing on phones more feasible, thus fueling the demand for larger displays and more advanced operating systems than before. And perhaps most importantly, the prices of these smartphones have been dropping enough so that non-business users can now afford them.

There is perhaps no better example of how the cell phone industry has evolved than in Apple's recent release of the iPhone. Unless you live in a cave, you've seen the commercials boasting about the iPhone's wide range of features. A large touchscreen for easy navigation, multimedia player (for both music and video), 2 megapixel camera, integration with YouTube and Google Maps, even built-in accelerometers to automatically adjust the display orientation.

The fact that the iPhone appeals to so many people, and not just technology geeks, says a lot about what consumers are looking for in a phone these days. Gone are the days in which a phone is merely a way to connect Person A to Person B. In the year 2007, your phone must also function as a camera, entertainment device, schedule planner, navigation system, internet browser, and yes, as a status symbol/fashion statement, all in one package.

I'm not saying that any of this is a bad thing, by the way. I guess my point is that as the cell phone industry has changed over the years, Nokia's place in the market (and its image) have changed a lot too, as a result.

In my opinion, it's not that the company has stopped making solid phones over the years, or vastly changed its culture of doing things for the worse. If anything, arguably the opposite is true. From what I can tell, Nokia's dedication to simplicity and its conservative style of doing things is what allowed competitors to step in with new ideas and claim market share. Sticking to the basics is what made their phones so great to begin with, but their refusal to divert their focus from the core aspects has been costly in terms of industry dominance, as I described above.

This is not to say that Nokia has become some sort of ancient relic in the face of competition from Motorola, Apple, or the whoever next big player in the industry to come along may be (Google, perhaps?). While they have historically been reluctant to stay with with the latest trends, I personally see that Nokia has maintained a solid identity at its core. Despite lagging many of its competitors in innovation and creativity in recent years, they still seem to do a good job of putting out a quality product, once they do catch up. To me, the interesting/admirable part of it all is that there seems to be a certain "Nokia way" of doing things where, even as they are following the innovations of other companies, they still are able to make their phones stand out in their own way.

Which brings me back to the topic that inspired this entry in the first place - that is, the recent release of the Nokia N82:





Although I work in the technology field and I like playing with gadgets as much as the next person, I don't typically obsess about getting the latest electronics as much as your typical nerd. For example, I didn't get my first HD TV or my first iPod until a few months ago (and the iPod was a hand-me-down from my sister after she got a Nano and 2 Shuffles).

But every once in a while, I see some new product that comes out and it almost immediately makes me say to myself, "I gotta get that thing!". Well, that's the reflex emotion that hit me when I first read about the N82 a few days ago. This model is actually quite similar to the N95, which was released not too long ago itself, but for a couple reasons I'll describe shortly, the N82 resonated with me a lot more right off the bat.

To quickly run through some of its features (copy pasting a lot of this from the Nokia website):

- 5 megapixel camera with Xenon flash, Carl Zeiss optics
- Built-in GPS integrated with Nokia Maps
- Digital music player, 3.5mm stereo headphone plug
- N-Gage capabilities
- Video capture and playback @ MPEG4 VGA, 30 fps, TV-out with composite cable
- USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth connectivity
- 2.4" QVGA display
- Orientation sensor (accelerometer)
- Candybar design

There's a lot to like there. The built in GPS and navigation software, for example, is something I would definitely get a lot of use out of. I also think the 3.5mm jack is a must if the music player is to be of any use. It has taken mp3-capable phone makers way too long to start incorporating this feature, if you ask me.

The last feature I mentioned may not show up in the marketing brochure, but I happen to really love the fact that they made this phone with the old-school candybar design. In the age of ultra-slim flip phones or fancy two-way sliders, I still prefer the compact style of the candybar. No hinges, minimal moving parts, it's plain and simple and I like it that way.

Out of everything listed above, the camera is what will jump out about this phone the most. 5 megapixel is certainly among the highest I've seen for a phone camera, although realistically, it's well beyond what I would ever use (for example, I usually set my "real" camera to capture at around 2 MP, even though it's capable of 4).

While I'm on the subject, I guess I should preface these thoughts by saying that personally, I've never been all that enamored by the thought of a camera on a phone. The way I see it, unless the quality is comparable to a real camera, it's just a novelty. There isn't a whole lot of practical usefulness to taking pictures that are grainy, blurry, and hard to transfer from your phone memory.

On my current phone (6230i), the camera quality is actually not bad at 1.3 MP. It's also relatively easy to copy the photos from my phone to my laptop (I've actually posted quite a few of them on my blog or Facebook in the past). But without a flash, any pictures taken indoors or at night still are pretty much worthless. So in "light" of that (har har), what I really like seeing on this N82 model is the xenon flash. Very few cell-phone cameras (if any) incorporate a "real" flash, so this is probably as close as you can get.

As far as the "Carl Zeiss optics" goes, I'm not a big photography expert, so it's well beyond what little bit I know about lenses and such. I guess as Jessica Simpson might say, "I don't even know what that is... but I want it!"

In any case, I think what Nokia is trying to say with their design of the N82 is this - if we're going to incorporate a camera with our phone, we want it done right. Though they initially seemed reluctant to follow other companies that were adding cameras to their phones, it seems that once the decision was made to start adding that feature, they fully committed to making sure the camera would actually be useful to whoever bought the phone.

And in the end, I think that really sums up what I like most about the "Nokia way". When they focus on making a product, they do so with the goal of putting out something that goes above and beyond its competitors, but is still simple enough to be practical for the end user.

A disclaimer - I'm not saying that I love everything Nokia - just that I happen to admire a lot of what they do with their cell phones in comparison to other makers. The N-Gage was a horrible idea (and extremely ugly), and I'll never understand why they decided to use the worst possible connector on their headsets. Seriously, the thing absolutely sucks. I also wish they would cater their high-end products more to the North American markets. I had to get my last 2 phones through UK and Australian vendors, and when I did get them, it was kind of a pain to get them to work fully with my T-Mobile service.

With regards to the N82, until I actually get my hands on one of these things and use it myself (and believe me, I fully intend to do that), I won't know for sure if it's as great as it sounds. So far I like pretty much everything I see, except for the keypad. Not a fan of the small buttons, and I was kind of hoping that my next phone would have a QWERTY layout. Also, the secondary camera in the front (for taking low-quality self-portraits) seems very unnecessary, and the enginerd in me wonders if they had to cut out other parts of the design in order to incorporate that feature. That would be unfortunate.

The one other major drawback I've been reading about is that this initial model can't support the higher speed data networks in the U.S. It's not a dealbreaker for me, because I'm not a heavy Internet browser, but I'd hope that they would fix that before bringing it to this side of the Atlantic (assuming that they eventually do). Especially for a device that costs as much as it does, you'd hate to see it limited by the available networks in this market.

Now if you'll all excuse me, I need to go digging for overseas vendors on the Internet, to get myself a Christmas present.

Pictures from:
http://www.nokia.com/press/photos

For more information visit:
http://www.nseries.com/n82
http://www.nokia.com/NOKIA_COM_1/Press/Materials/White_Papers/pdf_files/Nokia_N82_data_sheet.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N82

Early November Thoughts

I know I find myself saying this a lot lately, but time flies. I really can't believe we're already a week into November already. October flew by, and for that matter, so did September. Thankfully the weather has stayed reasonably warm lately, but it looks like that is about to end soon.

Life has been extremely busy all around. But, as I was telling a friend the other day, it's overall a good kind of busy.

Work is getting more challenging than ever. There has been a lot more responsibility on my part, both in terms of project assignments, but with my involvement in the leadership committee for our site's Asian employee network. Besides the normal engineering stuff, there's also more higher-level work to take on, which is giving me a new perspective on a lot of how this industry works.

I am even taking on the role of party planner right now, to coordinate this "Ice Cream Social" event coming up. It has given me a MUCH greater appreciation for anyone who plans events, like weddings and stuff. Lots of work and little things to stay on top of.

Speaking of weddings, apparently I need to start planning a bachelor party soon. Most likely it will be a cruise of some sort. Anyone with suggestions or advice from your own experience on cruises?

Outside of work, it seems like it has been one thing after another. Went on a couple mini-weekend trips, which were definitely interesting. Maybe I will write more about them later.

On Halloween, I had a family of trick-or-treaters come by my house, and as I was giving them candy, the mother pointed to her son and asked me, "do you know what he's dressed up as?". So I look at him, and all I see is some little kid in a jacket and a backpack. I have absolutely no freaking clue what his costume is supposed to be.

I smile and politely say no, what is he supposed to be? She laughs and excitedly goes, "he's Diego!!"

I give her the blankest stare in the history of blank stares. Never heard of this Diego feller.

"You know, Diego from Dora the Explorer?"

Actually, I have heard of Dora the Explorer, so that's a start. But believe it or not, I have not watched very many episodes of Dora the Explorer in my life (the number is somewhere between zero and zero). Thus, it is quite unlikely that I would know of, let alone recognize any secondary characters from the show.



Alright, so maybe there wasn't much point to that story. I guess I just felt like sharing.

In other news, I ended up getting Britney's new CD, "Blackout". As many of you know, I pretty much stopped being a big Britney fan around the time she hooked up with K-Fed. From there, it predictably went downhill and now she's a freakshow.

But I guess old habits die hard, and some things never change. All these news reports were coming out about how her album was getting good reviews (I like how it was such big news that her album didn't completely suck), and I liked her single on the radio, so I figured why not give it a whirl? Under $10 on sale at Target, to complete my collection of Britney albums.

It turns out, I do like this album, so I'll consider it money well spent. I wouldn't say it's great, and I'm kind of surprised that so-called "critics" would give it good reviews, but it's definitely better than her last album.

In reality, it's a CD with 12 of the same song, except with different titles and lyrics. Or at least they all have pretty much the same beat and synthesized instrumentals on each track. But at least the beat is a good one and the music is catchy. My favorite song is "Break the Ice". It's hot.

To end on another musical note (har har), I'm excited that the Lite has started playing their Christmas rotation again. Loves it. Reminds me that I'm gonna have to put up the good old Christmas tree soon.

Sally Dominating Ava

What a little bully...

Sally



So last month, my sister got a new puppy and we named her Sally. It's my sister's dog, but since she's usually out of town during weekdays, I end up taking care of her and spending the most time with Sally.

And I must say, Sally is quite an interesting girl. I could probably write pages upon pages of stories about her, but I don't wanna be one of those annoying people who bores everyone by talking about their dog all the time. I thought I would share some of my favorite bits here though:

- Sally is a ghetto girl. When I was driving Sally back from the vet, John Mayer was playing in my car and she kept whining and looking at me with an angry stare. After a few minutes, I decided to put on some Soulja Boy, and believe it or not, she stopped whining completely. The rest of the trip, she quietly sat there and listened to "Crank Dat". My next step will have to be to teach her that stupid dance.

- Overall, she's a very tough little puppy. Then again, I imagine when you grow up with the name "Sally", inevitably you build up a lot of angst and a certain attitude of "me against the world". I guess I'll put it this way - she definitely would not be one of the dogs that Michael Vick ends up electrocuting.

There's been times when I've accidentally stepped on her paw when she runs under me, and she'll yelp for a moment, but less than 2 seconds later, she just bounces back and resumes running around randomly like nothing happened. Or when I take her outside and she sees other dogs, some of them maybe 5-10 times bigger than her, she has no fear and just goes barking and chasing after them relentlessly. I end up having to pull her back on her leash and pick her up in my arms, before she goes and gets herself eaten.

- Maybe the one thing Sally hates is baths. I think all dogs do. But after the first time I gave her a bath, she gave me attitude for like 2 days, which is a very long time in "Sally-time" (see the next point). She refused to look at me and didn't follow me around like she normally does, she just watched TV and sulked around.



- Sally has ZERO attention span. Not until she came along, did I fully understand why people say "you have the attention span of a puppy". She seriously has complete ADD. She'll be happily playing with her chew toy or watching TV or something, but as soon as she hears a noise or senses movement somewhere else, she's off to investigate. Or, if there's noise in the background like a lawn mower or air conditioner, and it suddenly stops, Sally will immediately freeze what she's doing and look around.

Sometimes when I walk across the room, she'll frantically run after me, but then accidentally run into her food dish before she gets close enough to bite my ankles. This seems to suddenly remind her that she's hungry, so she'll give up the chase and start eating her food (until the next distraction comes along). Other times, I'll be playing with her and as she's rolling around on her back, she just suddenly decides to stay there and fall asleep.

- Despite the ADD, she does like to sit there and watch me when I'm cooking or washing the dishes. I think it's so hilarious how she looks so intrigued by what I'm doing. I also appreciate that she's staying within my line of vision, though, so I know that she's not off peeing in the corner somewhere.



- I think Sally's starting to get protective of me. One morning as she was eating her breakfast, I decided to brush my teeth next to her, sitting on the couch. Apparently, the sound of my Sonicare made her think that I was being attacked by some sort of machine, so she started to bark at my toothbrush and trying to jump up onto the couch. Compared to other dogs, Sally doesn't seem bark that much, so she must have been pretty agitated. I thought that was sweet of her though. Dumb, but sweet.

- People make fun of me for having a small bladder, and I've even written about how I need to get myself checked out BPH or whatever. But I've never seen anyone pee more than this little troublemaker. There's times when I'll take Sally out to pee, she'll pee TWICE outside in my backyard - and then 10 minutes after I bring her back inside, she's left another little puddle on my kitchen floor. Sometimes I really hate that little biatch.

- On the plus side, Sally is a true Bears fan. I got her a Bears leash and she likes to play with my Bears hat. Also, after they came back to beat Philly this week, she was extra hyper. High-Five!



- My personal favorite Sally story is about her "punishment box". At first, whenever she misbehaved (peeing/pooping inside, chewing at cables, barking for no reason), we used to just scold her and put her back in her cage. But actually, you're not supposed to make your pet feel like their cage is a punishment, because she has to sleep there every night.

So as an alternative, we decided to use an empty cardboard box instead. We had a Petland box already with "air holes" in it, which seemed convenient:



The first time I put Sally in the punishment box, she put up so much fuss about it. I tried to ignore the noise and go watch TV in the living room, but for about 10 minutes straight, all I could hear was her whining, barking, and clawing at the box. At this point, I seriously wondered whether this box method was more of a punishment for Sally or punishing myself.

But finally, after what seemed like an eternity, all of the commotion suddenly stopped. No more barking, no more squealing, no more frantic scratching sounds. I thought to myself, "Great! Maybe Sally actually learned her lesson and is accepting her punishment."

So I get up to go let her out and give her a treat, and what do I see? The little bastard's wandering around the kitchen, just sniffing about and looking at me as if nothing happened. Apparently, she didn't "learn her lesson" at all - she just figured out how to jump out of the box!



I was pretty pissed off, but what can you do? The next time, I made sure to close the lid when putting her the punishment box.

As an addendum to the story, Sally has now chewed a hole in the side of the punishment box, only big enough to fit her head through so far. What can I say, the little psycho is out of control. I don't think this box is going to last very much longer.

Same Ol' G



I just realized that as of this month, I will have had my car for 5 full years. It seems like just yesterday that I was giving up my beloved Maxima for a new love, the G35 in its first year of manufacture. Now, my baby is all grown up and has over 80,000 miles of history with me.

Infiniti has since put out several newer models of the G with more horsepower, all-wheel drive, and sleeker design, but would I consider "trading up" given the chance? Nah.

Some people see their car as merely a way to get from point A to point B. To me, a man's (or woman's) relationship with his/her car is so much more.



First of all, the car you drive should be an extension of your personality. If you are a very outgoing person, it wouldn't make sense to drive a boring gray compact sedan. If you are more of an artistic type, you probably wouldn't roll out in a pimped out Escalade.

As for me, I do feel like my car just fits who I am and what I'm about. It's not the most attention getting car, but quietly performs just as well as (or better than) many other luxury brands that receive more hype. Personally, I really respect that quality and I think it applies to people just the same as it does for a car. It's better to keep your mouth shut and just let your actions do the talking, than to constantly brag about things you don't always back up. Not only do I look for it in the friends I keep, I also try live that way myself (though I know I fall short sometimes too).



Another thing about this car is that it's typically very low maintenance, but occasionally demands some attention and extra care than others. Throughout these 5 years, I have yet to have anything break down unexpectedly with the G. But it does cost a lot to change the performance brake pads when they wear down, and the tires are expensive too when I get flats. I'm kind of the same way - pretty independent and dependable most of the time, but once in a while I need a little more help and support from those who are closest to me.



The other fact about the G that I can relate to, is that it doesn't really fit into any category or stereotype. It's a 4 door sedan, but I wouldn't really consider it economy, sport, or luxury - more of a blend of all 3. And it's a Japanese car, but Nissan/Infiniti has always been a little different than the other Japanese makers. Admittedly not always in a good way, but when I had my Maxima, I liked the fact that it didn't quite fit in with the Camry or Accord. Of course, if you really wanted to be unique, you could drive a Jeep or a Mini-cooper or something, but that's not quite what I go for either. The way I see it, you can be different without going out of your way to be different.

Admittedly, this is a stretch to compare myself to my car, but if you look at my life, you can see in a lot of ways that I'm a product of my surroundings and what I was born into. I fit into a lot of typical "Asian" stereotypes. Being raised in a church has also made me somewhat of a "typical" Christian.

But I think people who get to know me better, probably see that I don't really fit in with any particular group. Especially in college, I didn't really click with the church crowd at CFC, but I wasn't a major partier either. I was an enginerding major, but I never hung out with the hardcore geeks who were into reading electronics journals and coding Java applets in their spare time. I hang out with a lot of Asian friends, but never got into the AzN PrYdE thing. Though I wouldn't consider myself a loner, I still feel like an oddball in almost every group I associate with.

As I said, it hasn't always been a good thing. At times in my life, I have wished that I had more of a sense of belonging in this world, that I could fit in with people who look like me and talk like me and act like me in every way. It seems like there are so few people in this world, if any, that fully relate to me and who I am.

Still, you are who you are. Like I was saying with my car - I think it's only fitting that I drive a car that doesn't really fit into any category. I can appreciate what it means to be different, without being completely out there, if that makes any sense.



Another reason why I say the relationship between owner and vehicle is so valuable is, simply because you spend so much time in it. Doing some quick math and making some estimates - 80,000 miles in 5 years translates to more than an hour per day spent driving on average. That's a lot of time, and for some people who have longer commutes, it's even more than that.

Put another way, many of us potentially spend more time with our cars than we do with any of our closest friends, or even a significant other. Maybe the relationship doesn't run as deep (actually I hope it doesn't), but I'd still argue that it is deeper than we think.



There's a Cadillac commercial running lately that asks the question: "When you turn on your car, does it return the favor?". It's corny, and borderline creepy, but kind of goes along with what I'm trying to say. The driver-car relationship isn't a one-way, dead interaction. Sure, you step on the gas and the car accelerates. You hit the brakes and the car stops. But is that really all there is to it?

I remember the first time I modded my Maxima with a performance intake. A very simple mod, but when I took her on the highway for the first time and jammed on the throttle, it was one of the most memorable thrills of my life. Something about the way the engine roared, and the sudden jump in acceleration - it felt like she was literally coming alive. With my G, every time I hit a sharp turn or an on-ramp, I get excited to test the limits of the handling. And I've grown to love all the little features about the car, that I don't think I could live without any more.

It's hard to explain, but other people who love their cars know what I'm talking about. You share not only the good times but the down times too. Whenever I get pulled over for a speeding ticket, hit a flat tire, or simply get stuck in traffic for a couple hours, it sucks. But at least I never feel alone in those ordeals. My car is always there to share my pain, accompany me to my court date, patiently wait for me to get things taken care of.



People say that it's not financially wise to spend a lot of money on a car (as compared to real estate, etc.), which I'm sure is true. But I'm not looking at getting a car to make money on investment returns. The bottom line is, I have never regretted spending more on a car than is "financially wise". I don't know anyone who has spent some extra money on a car they know they'd love, and regretted it. Of course, this is talking within reason, but if you have to stretch your budget a little bit, I always believe it's worth it.

Anyways, this entry spiraled out of control pretty quickly (big surprise), but mainly I just wanted to note the very important milestone that my baby has reached. Happy 5 Year!

SD Trip

Way back in February, me and the boys started planning for our 2nd annual Bears road trip (last year was to Minneapolis). Nearly 7 months and 200 planning emails later, our trip to San Diego finally materialized when we hopped on a plane and flew out west last Saturday. It was my first "real" vacation in a long time, and despite all the hype and buildup, the trip did not disappoint. Of course, a summary/recap of our vacation is mandatory:

*Manchester Grand Hyatt*



We stayed at a pretty nice hotel, located right on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Rooms were good, not super luxurious, but the views and facilities were great. They had a beautiful pool deck, and one of the better workout rooms I've seen.

Probably the best thing about the hotel was the location. Besides being basically right by the ocean, it was also across the street from a trolley stop, and walking distance to downtown and the "Gaslamp Quarter".

*Gaslamp Quarter*



This was a really nice area full of restaurants, bars, shops, etc. Very pedestrian friendly and a unique atmosphere (someone in our group said it felt a lot like South Beach). Bottom line is, I don't know if there's any place in Chicago I could compare it to.

So we spent a few of our nights going out in the Gaslamp district, and definitely had a good time there. Most of the restaurants had outdoor seating, and we took good advantage of this for dinner at a Mexican place called La Fiesta. Not only was it one of the best meals I've had in a while, but it was fun to people-watch as we ate, just taking in the San Diego lifestyle.

As far as the bars and clubs go, they weren't bad, although I don't think it's what SD is really known for. It was nice that all of them were non-smoking, though.

*Bears vs. Chargers*



Of course, the main focus of the trip was the actual game between the Bears and Chargers. We spent the morning tailgating with some of Chras's local buddies, which was a phenomenal time. I was really surprised by how full the parking lot was of fans, starting early in the morning. Even more impressive is that maybe almost a quarter of the fans were in Bears jerseys. Maybe it was because of NFL opening week, but still.

The pre-game atmosphere was awesome, with a lot of friendly trash-talking between the locals and the invading Chicagoans. Even though we were loud, the Chargers fans were all pretty cool and everyone was having a good time about it - regardless of whether you were wearing a navy #54, or a powder blue #21 (they do have sweet looking jerseys, I'll give them that). But I mean after all, when you have beer, grilled food, perfect weather, and a football game between 2 top teams, how can you not have a good time?

Probably the only downside to the day was the game itself, which the Bears ended up losing in a familiar way. Pretty disturbing that the offense still looks crappy. For all the talk of his offseason improvement, I still can't put much trust in Grossman to lead this team. The defense was great, although losing Mike Brown for the season yet again, is absolutely terrible.

As far as the stadium goes, Qualcomm was pretty average. Nothing too spectacular about it, except maybe that it's kind of built in a little valley, so when you look outside the stadium, you see mountain peaks surrounding the upper deck. Kind of cool. But this was negated by the fact that the vendors were charging $8 per beer, which I found to be ridiculous.

*Beaches*



We went to 2 of the main beaches during the week, Pacific Beach (PB) and Mission Beach. I think I liked Mission Beach better, but both were amazing and obviously a huge step above anything in Chicago. Besides being absolutely gorgeous, they were easy to get to, easy to park, and not that crowded either, even on a Saturday.

In the week we were there, I managed to get sunburnt not once, but twice. The second time, I even caved and put on some sunblock (which is very unlike me). I also developed quite a dependency on this bottle of Aloe Vera gel that we bought.

Still, I think the beaches were my favorite part of San Diego. Something about the view of the ocean, the sound of the waves, the coldness of the water, walking on the sand, just gets to me. To borrow a quote from one of my least favorite books, Moby Dick, "there is magic in it". Or to borrow another quote from one of my least favorite friends, Anuj, "there's frickin sand everywhere".

*Zoo*



Apparently, the San Diego Zoo is one of, if not the best zoo in the world. So we had to hit that up for a day.

As it turns out, there definitely was a lot to see there, and the zoo did not disappoint. Most memorable for me were the Pandas, the tropical birds being released, and the arctic wolf being walked right in front of us. Also the zebras too (quote - "I was watching it the whole time!").

*La Jolla*



If there was an "upscale" district to San Diego that we saw, it would be the La Jolla area. Smaller beaches, fancy restaurants, and some of the most beautiful scenic views I've seen, even by SD standards (quote - "bluffs"). Besides the awesome scenery, the highlight for me was dinner at a nice sushi place. Very satisfying.

*Vegas*



A 5 hour drive from San Diego, the 5 of us boys met up 2 more buddies for a few days at Vegas. This leg of our vacation could probably be its own separate entry, but to sum it up in a few words, it was a solid Vegas trip. Stayed off-Strip at the Palms, which was a pretty nice hotel. I still think the Vegas experience is much better if you stay on the Strip, but we had a car, so it wasn't as bad.

Anyways, there was the usual Vegas stuff - blackjack at a number of places, walk around the Strip, hit up the LAX club at Luxor, checked out the hotel pool at Mandalay Bay and the Palms. In addition, lunch at Lotus of Siam was one of the best meals of Thai food I've ever had (thanks P). And the Shark Reef Aquarium is pretty cool place too, I recommend it for those who need a break from gambling and drinking.

We also saw a couple shows this time. One was Cirque du Soleil "O" at Bellagio, which was really good. Some impressive acrobatic stuff, but I liked it more for the overall production. Just felt really unique and classy to me. I thought it was especially cool that all of the music was being performed live - the instrumentals, vocals, everything.

The other show was the Smashing Pumpkins concert at the Palms. I hadn't seen the Pumpkins perform live, since their supposed "2nd to last concert" at the United Center a few years ago, so I was pretty excited about this. The crowd at this show ended up being pretty bad, but I still enjoyed the concert a lot. In my opinion, you haven't truly experienced "1979" or "Cherub Rock" until you see and hear it performed live. As I was there that night, the realization started to hit me that it could be the last time I'd get to experience those songs live, ever. I guess it made me cherish the moment that much more.

One other highlight to note was that a couple of the guys in our group shared an elevator with OJ Simpson (and some of his hoes), the night he supposedly committed this armed robbery thing. Apparently, Anuj and Piya got to see his nipple, and it was not appetizing. Of course, none of us knew at the time that he was staying in the same hotel as us, or that he was about to get arrested, until we saw it on the news the next couple days.

The rest of the stories from Vegas will have to stay within the group (quote - "MISTAKE!!"). Sorry folks.

*Padres Game*



Our last night in San Diego, we checked out a Padres game at the relatively new Petco Park. I really liked this stadium, especially in comparison to Comiskey - which isn't a bad place itself, with the improvements they've made in the past few years.

Anyways, I've never been in a baseball stadium that was so fan friendly - a mini little-league field behind left field, a sandlot where kids were playing in right field, and lots of sprawling open areas for people to just walk around and enjoy the weather - before, during, and after the game. The location of the ballpark was really great too, being walking distance to all the Gaslamp stuff I talked about before. But what topped it all off was the fish tacos they serve there - very tasty.

It was also cool that they were playing against the Giants, so we got to see Barry Bonds for an at-bat (before he hurt himself in the outfield and got pulled for the game). Personally, I'm not as much of a Barry hater as most people, so as a baseball lover, I thought it was very exciting to see him play in person for the first (and maybe only) time in my life.

*Final thoughts*



As far as San Diego goes, I fell in love with the city pretty fast. Besides all the stuff I just described (weather, beaches, etc), there's a certain overall feel to the SD culture that is so appealing. Although I hate talking about "diversity" because it's become such a cliche topic, I have to say that the diversity I saw in San Diego was definitely something that set it apart in my mind.

I think some places in this country are diverse in a bad way - you can see clear divisions between different groups of people, as well as some inevitable tension that hangs over how everyone interacts.

In San Diego, I felt like it was truly diverse in a good way. Being near the border, there's obviously a lot of Mexican influence. There were a decent amount of Asians, though not nearly as much as the rest of California. And of course, the white people and black people are present too. The thing is, I never got the sense that there were social boundaries between any race. It's not like Asians only hang out with other Asians and do "Asian" things, i.e. run dry cleaners, Chinese restaurants, and soup up Hondas. Nor were there black or Latino dominated areas of the city, as far as I could tell.

Maybe it's just the places that we happened to hang out in, which admittedly are more "touristy". But it seemed like everywhere we went, there were people of every social group mixed together - not just in terms of race, but gender, age, wealth, everything. To me, that is the kind of diversity that is actually a good thing.

Ironically, the other part of our trip probably highlighted the polar opposite of everything I described about San Diego. While SD really shines during the daytime hours, Vegas doesn't come out to play until the sun goes down. SD is surrounded by beautiful beaches and scenic bluffs, Vegas is in the middle of the desert, and all the attractions are completely man-made.

And while you see every kind of person in Vegas, it's far from a "melting pot". Everyone pretty much knows where they stand on the hierarchy, and it all pretty much comes down to how much money you have (or are willing to spend). The low man stays at the cheaper hotels, plays small limit games at the casino, and waits in line for hours to get into the clubs. They can only watch as the high rollers strut around with their comped meals, VIP access to every hot spot, and beautiful girls escorting them everywhere.

While I'm on the topic of hot chicks, I thought it was interesting how both San Diego and Vegas were packed with smoking hot girls. But in one place, they all still seem approachable, genuine, down to earth, non-materialistic. While in the other, you could never tell if the girl you were looking at was a stripper, an escort, a gold-digger, etc. No matter how attractive they were on the outside, I would never even bother trying to talk any girl in Vegas, period.

But with all things said, even though I just listed all these negatives about Vegas, it's still one of my favorite places to vacation. A few days there is just about right - any more, and you're pushing it. SD on the other hand, I could honestly see myself living there someday. Not that I have plans to move, so don't start worrying yet, but I'm just saying it's definitely my kind of place.

My thoughts on the trip overall - as I said in the beginning, it was a really memorable and awesome vacation all-around. I think all of the guys realize that as we get older, its gonna be harder and harder to plan these long excursions with "just the boys". Just looking at our current situation - one of us is getting married next year, another has already moved away from Chicago, and the rest of us are simply getting more and more involved with our careers and everything else. The sentimental side of me definitely treasured this opportunity a lot, and I'm hopeful for at least a few more of these annual Bears road trips with everyone involved.

Sappiness aside, though, it was simply a lot of fun. Even as long as this entry has gotten, I still didn't even cover a fraction of everything of the last week. The nice thing that stands out to me is that while the good times during the trip were obviously good, so were the not-so-good times, in their own way (quote - "that's Terrible's"). That's how you know it's a great trip.

Thankful

Just wanted to say a few words of thanks to anyone and everyone who came out to my baptism, and/or wished me well with words of encouragement. It was honestly an amazing day for me, and one that I will remember for the rest of my life. (Especially the part when I had to follow the girl who had the most dramatic and emotional testimony known to man.)

Anyways, I can't fully express how thankful I feel to know that I have the support of some really great people in my life. Thank you for all the love over the years, no matter if I was going through happy times, or if I was struggling to stay upbeat. Thank you for always trying to understand me, even when I don't understand myself sometimes. Thank you for not judging me or giving up on me when you see me fall short in my life, and thank you for keeping me in your thoughts, your prayers, and for every little thing you do for me.

In one way or another, you have all been a part of making me the person I am today. Though you may not even realize it, there have been so many times throughout my life that you have encouraged me, challenged me, and taught me things over the years. I want you to know that your actions have not been for nothing.

As I move forward with my life, my hope is that I can be not only a better friend, but to be a genuinely loving brother to every person in my life. I know that I will continue to fall short, make mistakes, and hit obstacles ahead. But regardless of what happens, I will try to always be learning what it means to "live by faith", and not be afraid of anything in my life.

More Thoughts

- HBO was showing Home Alone 2 in HD the other day, so of course I had to stop and watch it for a bit. Did you know that Donald Trump makes a cameo in that movie? Anyways, watching that movie got me in a Christmas-y mood. I know it's not even September yet, but I'm already itching to throw up that Christmas tree, put on some Mariah Carey, and go driving around the neighborhood admiring the lights.

- I can't believe R Kelly is still adding to his Trapped in the Closet song. I heard he's up to part 22 now. The last part I remember listening to was part 5, I think, and it was already getting pretty weird at that point. With midget strippers and stuff. I'm afraid to even wonder what he talks about in parts 6-22.

- Finally joined Facebook. I think it's pretty cool so far, but I can see how it could start eating up way too much time. Some names and faces I haven't seen in like 10 years, which is really weird. But as convenient as it is to connect with people online - through IM, email, Facebook/Myspace, etc. - it will never be a replacement for real life. I heard a quote the other day: "Friends are like balloons - once you let go of them, you can never get them back". It's sad, but true.

- My upcoming vacation to San Diego is still over a week away, but that doesn't mean I can't still look up the weather there and dream in advance. I've been checking the forecast for San Diego lately and it's pretty amazing - every single day is sunny, highs in the 80's and lows in the 60's. I think I've seen one day so far when it was listed as "partly cloudy".

I'm starting to wonder if once I get out there, I will fall in love with the place and never come back? Then you all will only be able to see me on Facebook. Suckas...

My Baptism

He's more than the laughter
or the stars in the heavens
As close a heartbeat
or a song on our lips

Someday we'll trust Him
and learn how to see Him
Someday He'll call us
and we will come running
and fall in His arms
the tears will fall down
and we'll pray,

"I want to fall in love with You,
I want to fall in love with You,
I want to fall in love with You,
I want to fall in love with You..."

- Jars of Clay

*****

I think I've already mentioned this to most friends that I regularly talk to, but thought I would post it here too, in case there's anyone I missed.

This coming Sunday (Sept. 2nd), I am getting baptized at my home church in Willowbrook. It is a day that means a lot to me, for a lot of reasons, and I really want to share it with everyone who can possibly make it there in person. It doesn't matter if you are not Christian, or if you don't fully understand why this baptism is so important to me.

Baptism is something that I have been thinking about for so many years - ever since I first became a "believer" in junior high - but I have held off from doing until now. Not because I didn't think it was important, but in fact the opposite - because it was such a big deal in my mind, I wanted to make sure I understood why I was doing it and not for the wrong reasons.

It has been a long road for me to get here, and as some of you know, I have gone through a lot of challenges and tough experiences during the past year or so especially. It hasn't been easy or fun, but I do feel like going through them, I've grown a lot as a person and finally reached a point where I really want and need to take this step, and have it be meaningful to me.

I will try to explain more about my feelings in my short testimony on Sunday, before getting myself soaked in the water. But one thing I will say here, is that I personally see this baptism as the most important moment of my life up to this point. It is one of those things that only takes place one time in your life, and I definitely care much more about having my friends and loved ones there for this, than I would for my graduation, any of my birthdays, etc., even for my wedding day. That is how much it means to me.

So, whether or not you fully understand why it's such a big deal in my mind, just please know and trust that it will honestly mean the world to me to have you there. I know I wouldn't be where I am, or be the person that I am today, without each and every one of the people who have touched my life in one way or another over the years - and it genuinely is my deepest wish to have you there to support me on that day, as well as to share in the precious moment.

If you can come, and haven't heard from me about this yet, please let me know (dudo509@yahoo.com) and I will forward you the details.

Little League

ESPN has been showing the Little League World Series lately, and with the Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) team having made it pretty deep, of course I got sucked in.

As I've mentioned many times before, I love baseball regardless. But there's definitely something more refreshing about watching these kids play the sport, compared to the major leagues. Obviously there's a gap in talent, but there's also no steroids either, at least I would hope. And something about watching those little rascals run around the field cracks me up, especially when they're chugging around wearing those huge helmets with 2 ear flaps.

More importantly, though, you can see how much the game means to the kids who are playing. Flashy plays are great and everything, but I think the excitement of sports comes more from the pure spirit of competition itself. It's a huge part of what's missing when I watch sports at the pro level, and even the college game these days.

What I appreciate most is that even though these kids care so much about winning and losing, they still show good sportsmanship (at least most of the time). When the Ohio team lost in a heartbreaker to the New England team, the tears came flowing and you could see how much it hurt. But they knew that win or lose, they did it all fair and square. Everyone shakes hands with the other team and means it when they say "good game".

In one game, I saw a kid almost get hit by a pitch, which actually bounced off the handle of the bat for a foul ball. At the pro or even high school/college level, the batter definitely would have pretended to be hit by that pitch and start running towards first. In this game, the coach came out to argue the call with the ump, but then they asked the kid whether it was a foul or hit, and he didn't even think to lie about it.

I mean, when we watch sports on TV, how often do you actually see something like that? It seems like there's a prevailing opinion in competition that "if you're not cheating, you're not trying". Even if it's not outright cheating like steroids or illegal payments in college recruiting, there's a lot of other garbage in sports that I wish we could rid ourselves of. Flopping in soccer or basketball to get fouls called. Taking questionable drops in golf. All of Peyton Manning's unnecessary theatrics before the snap in football, or his cheap little "hurry-up" play calls to force offsides.

Whatever happened to playing the game like a man? Win or lose, you hold your head up high, knowing that you played the right way. When I coach my own kids in Little League someday, I hope they compete exactly like these kids. Work hard and play to win, but always respect your opponent and respect the game. You may lose from time to time, and it's okay to cry when you do, but in the end you leave everything out on that field. Win like a champion but more importantly, lose like a champion too.

Oh well, enough of my corny spiel. Besides all of that, my favorite parts of the broadcasts is the profiles they show for each kid when they come up to bat. Some of the stuff I've seen so far is pretty amusing. The fat kid's favorite food is Chocolate. The little white kid's favorite song is "Bartender" by T-Pain. Every kid on Chinese Taipei lists his favorite subject as "Math" (credit that observation to Chras and Stork) and their favorite MLB player as Chien-Ming Wang.

A less predictable tidbit is that more than one of the Taipei kids liked Black-eyed Peas as their favorite band. Ugh. Also, some kid on the Massachusetts team listed Godfather as his favorite movie. Somehow that doesn't seem right.

Too bad I'm way too old for Little League now, but that doesn't mean I can't have my own profile...


Favorite food: Steak
Favorite TV show: Planet Earth
Favorite subject: Math
Favorite movie: Home Alone
Favorite song: "You Drive Me Crazy"
Favorite player: Ichiro Suzuki
Would Like to Meet: Jessica Alba

Packrat

One of my weird quirks is that I save almost everything, and rarely throw anything away. Not talking about perishables and stuff, of course. But anything that I might even remotely want to come back to someday, gets saved. Especially things of sentimental value, but really, it doesn't even have to be that meaningful to get kept by me.

For example, I still carry my X-Sport membership thing on my keychain, even though I hate that company. Not to mention I'm like 3 years or two different gym memberships removed from the last time I went to that place. My file cabinet is full of old bank statements, phone bills, cable bills, things that I can all look up online by now - but I just can't throw them away for some reason. I've got bookcases filled with old magazines - Sports Illustrated, PC World, EGM, ESPN the Magazine. I even save the monthly issues of "Experience Life" from my membership to Lifetime, and old copies of the Cracker Barrel from Schaumburg Township. They're just cluttering up my coffee table right now.

In my desk drawer, I've got a whole bunch of envelopes with old ticket stubs and receipts that have faded over time. They're barely even readable at this point. I've got all these expired credit cards, library cards, Britney Spears magnets sitting on my shelf.

I've got gizmos and gadgets a plenty. I've got who's-it's and what's-it's galore. You want thingamabobs? I've got 20. But who cares? No big deal, I want more... (Ok, maybe I crossed the line there, quoting Little Mermaid).

Anyways, I could go on and on. The point is, I definitely go overboard sometimes with keeping everything I have. Most of that stuff is just sitting there, collecting dust and taking up space in my house. I don't know why I can't ever just throw stuff out, or make use of the shredder I bought 2 years ago, just for that purpose.

But you know what? Lately I have been finding that every once in a while, saving everything does come back to pay unexpected dividends.

- In the corner of my closet, I rediscovered some old clothes that I forgot I still had but never wear. When I say old, I mean OLD, like from high school days (almost 10 years ago). Anyone remember Structure, the men's store that every guy my age shopped at during HS, before it got merged with Express later on?

Well some of those shirts still fit me, and I started busting out some of the old-school polos from back in the day. The 6-button ones may look stupid now (maybe they did back then too), but there's still a few that look okay. I guess it's true what I always say - it's not the shirt that matters, but the man behind the shirt that makes the difference. Haha.

Now if I can just find my old Chicago Bulls championship t-shirts... from the first 3-peat, not the second.

- Back in college, even though I wasn't that involved with the church at CFC, I still joined small groups every year and tried to participate somewhat. Since I wasn't that active, I don't have a ton of memories and remnants to show for being in those small groups. Maybe a few t-shirts, pictures, and that's about it. But one thing I found a few weeks ago was an old CD marked "ISR 6". It was a collection of praise songs that my small group (the 6th at the ISR dorm, see how that works?) put together for each other.

I barely remember even getting that CD in the first place, and at most I maybe listened to it once or twice in my Sony Discman (another throwback), before replacing it with the Bone Thugs N Harmony's E1999 album. Yeah, I was into the ghetto stuff back then. So anyways, I loaded up the ISR 6 songs onto my IPod and started listening to it in my car on the way to/from work the past couple weeks. And I have to say, hearing those songs has been one of the most blessing things I have experienced in a long time.

Everyone knows how much I love the cheesy pop/R&B, or the 90's alternative bands, or the 2Pac and Biggie era of rap. But I've been realizing that none of that music truly feeds my soul, the way these praise songs have impacted me and stayed in my heart over the years. As much as I still love Britney, Boyz II Men, and Bone Thugs, I couldn't say that any of their music carries nearly as much meaning to me in my life when I stop to think about it. Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with simple thoughtless music (see my essay on Britney Spears for more thoughts, 3/23/03 entry), but I do feel like our souls hunger for more than "junk food" sometimes. And listening to that ISR 6 CD really filled me up at a time when I needed it a lot.

- For those of you who went to college at U of I around the same time as I did, you'll probably remember a place called R&R's. Since the time I graduated, it has been replaced by a new bar, the Firehouse, but during my college years, R&R's was one of my favorite places to hang out. It was a pretty dumpy place, but the one thing it was known for was the Shark Bowl - a big bowl of mixed hard alcohol, fruity drinks, and ice. (Meant to be shared by a group of people at a table, but in practice, not always the case).

Anyways, each Shark Bowl had a little rubber toy shark in it (hence the name), and in those days, I collected quite a few of those sharks. A couple of them have actually been sitting in my bedroom next to the TV for years, I just never noticed them. But for no particular reason, those stupid toy sharks caught my eye the other day and got me thinking about all the fine (and not-so-fine) memories I've had at R&R's over the years. Scary to think that those days are long gone, but the one thing I have left to remind me, other than grainy pictures, are those sharks.

I wonder how long I'll be able to keep those sharks around, and how many more years will pass before I notice them again and reminiesce about the good times associated with them.

- Digging through some of my old emails, I was really amazed to find so much good stuff that people shared with me over the years. Friends who took the effort to send me notes of encouragement, when they knew I was going through struggles in my life. A lot of it was simple things like E-cards, forwards, links to articles or just simple soccer videos - I always loved those. But I also found some emails with really deep and heartfelt advice, that I didn't fully understand or appreciate until later on, as I was reading them in hindsight. I couldn't help but feel moved by the thought that people have been caring for me and praying for me and simply showing love to me, all along when I didn't even realize it. I'm not worthy.

*****

There's other examples I wanted to share, but I'm tired and need to go to bed. Nevertheless, writing this blog made me think - a lot of things pass us by in our everyday lives, without us giving a second thought to it. I can only wonder how many precious experiences I've overlooked throughout my life, that I didn't happen to save a remnant of. Are those lost forever?

I think sometimes, all it takes is for us to give ourselves a few moments to slow down. We need to more fully appreciate some parts of life that are unfortunately, too easy to just skate right by.

Shallow Thoughts

- I am the greatest spreadsheet creator of all time. All other spreadsheet makers must bow before me.

- Last week, I bowled over 200, and still lost. To someone who throws like a granny, sitting down. Ok, so it was Wii bowling, but still.

- I'm always a sucker for every new Real World season. I even wrote an application to MTV for them to cast me once (see here, 12/12/05 entry). There are many lessons I've learned from watching RW from over the years, but maybe the one that stands out the most is, there are a lot of people who are beautiful on the outside but quite ugly on the inside. So sad.

- Dish Network is pretty good, I recommend it. They have a really good HD channel lineup and they've been adding more, without jacking up the price.

- I could probably spend all day watching Food Network in HD. The people on there are so weird, but the food is so mesmerizing. Yesterday, I was watching some special on Vegas buffets. It almost made me cry.

- It seems like everyone and their mother and my sister has a Myspace or Facebook. All I have is a Friendster account somewhere, that I haven't touched in years. People have been telling me I should join Facebook, and it does sound kind of cool actually. But everyone on there has like 200 friends linked to them. If I create a page, I don't want to be the only one with a Facebook that only links to 3 friends.

Carrie

I never watched any season of American Idol, never was much of a fan of country music, and it hurts me to see a car getting keyed and smashed up in a video. But against all odds, I'm finding myself becoming a big fan of this Carrie Underwood woman:



I don't think she even won that season of A.I. that she was in. I only knew of her because I used her name to rip on Cubs pitcher Kerry (under)-Wood. That, and supposedly she was dating Cowboys QB Tony Romo last year. Either way, hopefully her next single/video will be good also.

In other news, I got my first IPod recently. Actually, it's a used IPod, a really old generation from like 3 years ago, with the battery almost dead, which I originally gave my sister for Christmas or her bday or something. Now that she has a Nano and 2 Shuffles, I get the leftovers. She used to be the one to inherit my old stuff, but I guess now I get the hand-me-downs. But that's ok, I'm not complaining. Having my own IPod does make me appreciate the ITunes software a lot more, with how you can organize playlists and then sync up and everything.

I also took the plunge into HDTV (finally). Maybe I will write more on the subject later, if I'm not too busy watching all the random stuff I've been recording on my DVR.

Got sunburned pretty bad last week. The worst thing about sunburns is that it happens so innocently, and then the effects don't kick in right away. You gotta go through each stage slowly - the redness, the itching, the blistering, the peeling. I'd seriously rather just get branded by an iron or something, straight up. At least then you'd know exactly when and how you're getting burned, and you don't have to wait in anticipation for your skin to self destruct. I think I talked about this before in this blog, but anticipating something bad is just as bad (and sometimes even worse) than the bad thing itself.

When I have kids someday, hopefully I'll have a daughter that's as cute as this girl (except she'll probably be more Asian):

Youtubes

Had another busy week, but thought I would share some videos that entertained me:

- Some guy on the French American Idol (Nouvelle Star) with his reeeeeeeemix of Baby One More Time:



- A lovely Rasheed Wallace's sweaty jersey in the face, just for me (my favorite part is how the guy's clipboard goes flying):



- Chinese guys like to be kicked in the balls:



- Why don't our local news teams have investigative reports like this? Ron Magers and Linda Yu suck.



- Silly Canadian lady trying to sing the National Anthem:

Needing A Break

It's been pretty busy lately for me, both at work and outside of work. I feel like I haven't really had a chance to sit down and unwind for about the last week or so, which is not a good thing. I'll try to recap a little bit here, with some help from my phone camera wherever possible.

- Mother's Day, had the parents over at the townhouse for some dinner. My sister cooked a great meal, and I tried to chip in my part by grilling some kalbi on the deck. The food turned out pretty delicious, maybe a little too delicious. I was watching some of the videos we took from that day and realized that I look like kind of a slob when I eat. I know I've been eating a LOT lately (maybe this will have be its own blog entry), but seeing myself eat reminded me of pigs feeding from a trough, to be honest. So if I have offended any of you in the past who have had to watch me eat with no manners, I apologize. I will try to not be as rude in the future.

- Went to a Sox game last week, the one that ended up being postponed due to rain. It wasn't a complete waste, because we got to watch the Bulls game on the big screen (Game 5, where they were hitting all their shots and won) during the delay. Also got to eat some Polish sausages and churros, which are excellent at US Smellular Field. And the White Sox were nice enough to offer an extra make up game and refund the money for parking. I've heard that the White Sox are one of the more professional organizations, corporate wise, around Major League Baseball (certainly better than the greedy, money gouging Tribune company), and from personal experience, I wouldn't dispute that.



- Did some shopping for my sister's b-day gift and card. I noticed that the employees at Dick's Sporting Goods are not very helpful or knowledgeable. It's also much harder to find a green iPod nano than I would have expected.

Another thing was when I was looking for a birthday card, there was a section specifically with b-day cards "For Sister". Browsing through some of those was kind of disturbing actually. I don't know what kind of relationship other people have with their sisters, but I do not see myself getting her a card with a picture of some guy in a speedo, or a joke about buying her breast implants. But hey, that's just me. Different strokes for different folks.

- A few weeks ago, when the first round of the playoffs was just starting, Andy bought tickets for Bulls "Home Game #3" for the second round (since it was hard to get tickets to the other games). When the Bulls fell behind 0-3 to the Pistons, the chances of there being a 3rd home game didn't look too promising. But then they actually won the next two to force a game 6, so his little investment paid off and I got to watch a Bulls playoff game in person for the first time.



Too bad traffic was so horrible that it took over 2 hours to get to the city. Food at the UC is definitely not as good as at Sox games either, so that didn't help. And then the game was almost as miserable to sit through, with missed open shots and stupid turnovers all night long. It was definitely sad and frustrating to watch them get eliminated, but I think there's reason to hope for a better run next year. Especially if they get a little lucky in the draft lottery tonight...

- Weekend was pretty much tied up with activities relating to Brian and Grace's wedding. I wasn't in the wedding, but helped out as an usher. Rehearsal dinner was at one of my favorite Chinese restaurants in the burbs, House of Emperor of Naperville (I call it "HOE" for short). I love their Peking duck.

The wedding itself was really nice. The church was beautiful, ceremony was really emotional, and I think everyone had a lot of fun at the reception. I'm really happy for them and just want to wish the newly married couple the best, in case they're reading this on their honeymoon (Grace, you will definitely be missed as a housemate, of course).



- Sunday, ate a LOT (big surprise, note that food is a running theme in my life these days). My mom and dad are all about Royal Buffet around Darien, so with my sister's boyfriend in town, they took us there for lunch. Royal gets a lot of hype among the Asian community, and I agree it's a great deal for the price - but I can't say I'm personally a huge fan of that place. It's still a big step below the Vegas buffets if you ask me. I'd rather pay more for a little higher quality food, and a lot classier atmosphere (where I'm the only one eating like a pig).

For dinner, more feasting was had in downtown Naperville at Tango as the CCMC people got together for my sister's bday. It was good food, but I didn't do much to dispel my reputation as a sloppy eater. I have a shirt speckled with pasta sauce stains to prove it. Thanks to Jeni, though, I do have a newfound respect for that Tide to Go marker thing.



- Watched Spiderman 3 on IMAX. I thought it was a pretty good movie, cheesy at parts but that was expected. I wasn't that huge of a fan of the first 2 anyways, I'm a bigger fan of the X-Men series personally.

I think this was the first movie I've watched in IMAX. It was cool, but I kind of thought it would be more spectacular. Maybe I was picturing something more like the OMNIMAX theater at the MSI, which I remember being in awe of when I was a kid going there on field trips. I wonder if they've improved that technology at all since then. Considering it was at least 10-15 years ago when I last went, maybe I should check out OMNIMAX again sometime soon to see if they made it even awesomer. Then again, they probably only use it to show educational crap. What a waste.

- Took my sis to the Sox vs. Oakland game on her real birthday. It was half-price night, and I do think the crowd is noticeably more rowdy and less classy on these discount nights. If I'm not mistaken, it was also a half-price night when those guys ran on the field and attacked the ump a few years ago.



One thing from the game that made me mad is, I heard someone making fun of Oakland fans by changing "Oakland A's" to "Oakland Gays". Not because I care for the well being of opposing fans at our stadium (I don't). I was upset because usually I'm pretty good at thinking of obscene/derogatory nicknames for things, and I completely missed the boat on that one. I can't believe I didn't think of the obvious one (I was personally going with "Jokeland" for most of the night, which is still clever in its own right, but comparatively wack).

My sister, bless her heart, tried to reassure me by suggesting that "Oakland Gays" was too easy for my level of expertise. I'd really like to believe that, because I should really be in the prime of my derogatory nickname career at this point in my life. It's way too early for my skills to be declining already.

I'm Dumb

One of the problems I have is with mistaking the words to a lot of songs. I'm guessing everyone has had done that at one point or another, but I doubt yours are as dumb as mine. Not sure if it's because I'm getting too old to relate to the "hippity hop" that kids listen to these days, or if I need to clean out my ears. Maybe my brain just lacks a "common sense" filter.

Here are a few examples I can think of:

1. "Half a million for the scones" (stones -> stones) - Ludacris, From Fergie's song, "Glamorous"



First of all, I really doubt that Ludacris eats scones on a regular basis. Call me crazy, I just don't see him as a big fan of British pastries for some reason. Secondly, even if he did like scones, who pays half a million dollars for them?

Yet for a long time, I still actually thought that was what he said, until I stopped to think about how little sense it made. Amazing.

2. "Reminiscing on days when I had a mustache" (mustache -> Mustang) - Fergie, from the same song




Ok, so technically, I know she doesn't say she has a mustache in this song. But every time I hear that part, I half expect her to say "mustache". Honestly, out of all the examples I'm listing, this one might be the most realistic. I'm sorry to all the people out there who think Fergie is hot, but I must vehemently disagree. In the words of Austin Powers, "she is rather mannish". I could definitely see her having a mustache at some point in her life.

3. "I got a Ford Focus, man" (I'm full of focus, man) - 50 Cent, In Da Club



Most rappers brag about owning Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bentleys, Mercedes, Lexuses, etc. I actually thought 50 Cent was just trying to be unique by bragging about having a Ford Focus. Who knows, maybe it was really souped up version, or a rare hybrid edition or something. Haha, I'm an idiot.

4. "Addicted to Hello Kitty" (Addicted to how we kick it) - Bow Wow, Shorty Like Mine



Not sure how I rationalized this one. Maybe his girlfriend was a really big Hello Kitty fan, and he really liked that about her.

5. "Ya'll can't deny it, I'm a pumpkin rider" (I'm a f___in', rider) - Nate Dogg, from Fabolous's song, Can't Deny It



This one wasn't my mistake, I think it was actually my sister or one of her friends. But I thought it was hilarious and had to share it here. Plus, I can't believe I actually found a picture of a pumpkin rider.