Mother's Day, Poker, and the Oldies

First off, as I have done in past years, I should once again wish all the many mothers who read my blog a Happy Mother's Day.

For my own mom, my family had planned to celebrate Saturday by each of us (dad, sister, myself) cooking one dish for dinner. Unfortunately a headache started bothering me Friday night and then continued through Saturday. Having to go into work Saturday morning did not help either, but that is another story. So it ended up being just my dad who cooked, which was a good meal so it was all good.

The interesting part of the weekend started that night when my dad was watching me play poker online and I was teaching him the tricks of the trade. Kind of funny how he was getting so nervous about these little hands worth dollars and cents, considering he is a guy who has traded commodities for a living for over 20 years, and experiences ticks in the market worth thousands of dollars on a daily basis.

Of course, after watching me play, he wanted to play too, so the rest of us busted out some chips and the Chen family played some poker for the rest of the night. Entertaining moments ensued.

At one point my sister was humming the tune to that Gwen Stefani song "Rich Girls", and out of nowhere, my mom started humming along with her. This shocked both me and my sister, because if you know my mom, you would definitely not expect her to know who Gwen Stefani is (let alone know one of her latest songs). She thinks Backstreet Boys is rock music and their beats are too heavy, to give you some idea of her musical tastes.

Turns out "Rich Girls" is a remake of an old song from the movie/musical "Fiddler on the Roof", which some of you may already know, but I and my sister did not. The original version was titled "If I Were A Rich Man" by the way.

While we were playing, I had my laptop next to me so I could check on my fantasy baseball teams, and I decided to dig out some of my oldies mp3s that I knew my mom and dad used to listen to. Stuff like Frank Sinatra, Carpenters, Andy Williams, John Denver, etc.

When I played the Bee Gees' song "How Deep Is Your Love", my dad started telling us about how the song reminded him of his college days and his first girlfriend and breakup experience. It was a little weird for me to hear him talking about that stuff, but at the same time I was glad to hear him share and show us some a side that we normally never see. One of the first times I can remeber being able to look at my dad as a "human being", rather than exclusively as a "father". Not just the guy who put a roof over my head, food on the table, and taught me discipline and almost everything I know today, but a living breathing person that I can really relate to.

So as we played poker Saturday night, I felt like it was a really great time of bonding for my family. With my sister travelling most weekdays, and me having moved out 2 years ago, it's been especially rare these days for all four of us to spend much meaningful time together. I mean, we're still under the same roof most weekends, but it's mostly just a matter of having lunch together after church, or just me watching baseball as my mom plays piano and my dad studies the market for the upcoming week and my sister watches Apprentice on her computer.

Also funny and worth mentioning is that the big winner of our poker game that night was my mom. Fitting on Mother's Day weekend I guess, good for her. Normally she is the first one knocked out because she is too busy snacking on her Chinese treats to pay much attention to the game. That, or maybe she had something like pocket 2's but didn't notice that there were 4 diamonds on the board, and think that with the 3 other people in the pot, chances are good that someone might have a flush, calling an all-in for all her chips with her one small pair.

Anyways, I have to say here that even though it was a simple night of the four of us playing a game of poker for a few hours, it was a really great memory for me that will probably stick with me for a long time. I realized later that night in bed, that the opportunities for us to do things together like that will only get scarcer as we all get older. And obviously I should really cherish these moments as much I can while I still have the chance.

So the news is that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are dating. I heard they have a nickname already - "Tomkat". Spicy.

Work has been very busy. Since I am surrounded by other engineers I try to be constantly vigilant in preventing myself from becoming too nerdy. For example, no matter how convenient it might be, I refuse to use my front shirt pocket to store pens, pencils, highlighters, etc. I'll either just hold them in my hand or put them in my pant pocket. When there is a wall full of Dilbert cartoons at someone's cubicle, I limit myself to reading only one, instead of spending 10 minutes reading all of them. I also tell myself not to laugh too hard at them even if they are very funny and true.

Last week I went to look at townhouses. It was cool to walk into a place and envision where I would put the furniture, where I would watch TV, eat, play poker, etc. However, I was disappointed with the selection and surprised to see how much these places cost. There were a few that I liked, but every one had at least one or two significant drawbacks to it. It was like "this one's perfect, but it only has a one-car garage". Or "this has everything, but the property tax and assessment is way too high". "This one is cheaper, but it's too far from work and I don't like the area". "This one has great location, but it's too old." And so on.

I'm thinking about getting a new phone soon. The T-Mobile Sidekick looks kinda cool. Also a PDA phone or Blackberry might be nice too, but I'm not sure how charges would work for those. Kinda sucks cause if I get a camera phone, I wouldn't be allowed to bring it into the building where I work. But most of the newer nicer ones have cameras. What shall I do...

A couple weeks ago I was watching some NBA highlights on Sportscenter and one of them was a vicious block by Josh Smith on an Allen Iverson breakaway layup. I was like wow, that's gotta be a horrible feeling for AI, the veteran getting embarrassed by a rookie like that. Actually it reminded me of when Iverson was a rookie and in a game he faked Jordan out of his jockstrap with a wicked crossover move. A similar "changing of the guard" feeling about the moment. Not that AI (or MJ back then) is done yet, just a sign that the next generation is close to taking over.

One of my bosses was telling me about how he and his wife have golden retrievers and train them for those dog shows and stuff. Immediately I thought of the old original Triumph episode: "pekingnese, you suck!!". Classic. I asked him if they breed too, and he was like "well, we just got a bitch and we'll find out if she's ready in a few months." Does it make me a crass individual that I almost LOL-ed in his face when he said "bitch" and didn't even flinch? I guess that is really what dog people call females. Who woulda thunk it?

As a "gesture of goodwill", China gave Taiwan some pandas. Sweet, it's nice to know that we can all be BFF again...

Aches and Pains

Due to the physical nature of my job as an electrical engineer, the bumps and bruises are starting to pile up for me. Well actually, it's more from playing ball and lifting, but anyways, my body has been feeling beat up lately.

I've had this twinge in my elbow that I feel every once in a while when I shoot a basketball. A nagging pain in my collarbone that acts up whenever I lift something heavy, so I haven't been able to work out in weeks. Rolled my ankle playing ball this weekend, which had me limping around like a cripple for a couple days. And whenever I sleep funny, I wake up with a stiff neck and/or a sore back for a day or two.

In a lot of ways I feel like my car. A few years ago I was brand new, at the top of my game. Once in a while I'd get a minor scratch, or a bird would crap on me, but nothing that a little washing and Z5 polish couldn't take care of. But eventually, the scratches started getting deeper. Dents and dings started appearing out of nowhere. Overall, I'm still capable of high performance, but signs of age are becoming apparent. And you know these things aren't going away anytime soon.

The only difference between me and my car is, I use more expensive towels to wash and dry my car.

*****

If any of you use the internet to get driving directions and look up maps, might I recommend you check out Google Maps at least once. Specifically, type in your destination and origin, and click on the "Satellite" view. It's pretty cool, they use the pictures taken from space and zoom in on your route from above.

At the same time, it's a little scary to think that the government (or whoever it is that runs these satellites) has a pretty clear view of anything people do outdoors. Google doesn't let you zoom in all the way, but I heard that these satellite photos are capable of seeing license plate numbers at their highest resolution. Beware of Big Brother!

It's Time

I've put it off for too long. It's been 3 years since I graduated college, 2 and a half since I started working. And now, finally, I have decided to start looking for a house. A place to call my own.

Haven't worked out all the details yet, but basically my goal is to close on a place within 2-3 months from now. I think I'm shooting for a townhouse that's within 10 minutes of where I work.

I guess I've been feeling the push to become a homeowner for a while now, only I always procrastinated and tried to avoid the responsibility. When I first moved in with Brian at the townhouse in P-tine, my plan was to live here for 6 months to a year before looking for my own place. Obviously, that didn't happen.

All along though, I knew it was the next major step for me to take in my life. It's dumb, but for the past few years I avoided putting my savings in any long term investments, because I figured I would need as much cash on hand for a down payment as possible. Before I knew it, I'd piled up a pretty significant chunk of money in my checking account that was just sitting there, unused and earning no interest.

It wasn't until I did my taxes last week that I forced myself to think more seriously about where I am in life, financially, career wise, and perhaps more importantly, maturity wise. I'm one of those people who takes forever when it comes to making big decisions. It's not that I fear responsibility, but sometimes I want to know exactly what I'm getting myself into, and what's going to happen, whether that's reasonable to expect or not.

In this case, I've waited long enough and it's become pretty clear to me that now is the time. I'm 25, my job seems pretty stable, and I think I've saved enough money for a decent down payment. So no more excuses.... time to find me a house.

*****

Unrelated note: After going through all the pictures I saved on my computer throughout this past season, and a few I took of my own, I decided to make a little slideshow of them to remember this team by. I've already emailed it out to some of you out there, a privileged few who I thought might like it, but it is a big file (10 MB) and some of your email addresses have bounced back with errors. Also I tried to avoid sending to anybody's work email address. So if any of you guys didn't receive my original message, but are still interested to see my little project, let me know and I'll figure out another way to get it to you (Illini fans only). It's nothing spectacular, but I thought people who followed this team might enjoy watching it as I enjoyed making it.

For the second time in less than 2 weeks, Illinois and North Carolina both made it to the Final Four, and North Carolina came in 1st. Except this time, instead of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, it was the Miss USA competition. Same difference I guess. We all thought the Illini were the "team of destiny" this year, but looks like North Carolina was the "state of destiny" all along. Those a-holes.

Speaking of pageants, I read this story in the news last week about some lady who won a pageant for the disabled, but was later disqualified because she wasn't "disabled enough". Apparently she was seen walking without a wheelchair and someone decided to strip her of her title. Even though she had muscular dystrophy, could only walk for short distances occasionally, and had a heavy limp when she did walk. The runner up refused to accept the title out of protest on behalf of that lady. What a messed up story.

Thanks to recommendations from Rich and also da Goods, I bitTorrenttified myself some episodes of South Park and The Office. I didn't know how fast those guys who make South Park can pump out an episode, they already had one making fun of the Terri Schiavo stuff that was going on in the news the past few weeks. As for The Office, some people told me it was hilarious so I decided to watch a couple episodes. It was pretty funny, everytime I see the boss, I think of when he played the retarded guy in Anchorman.

(By the way Anuj if you need help setting up bitTorrent call me or email me. I *might* be able to help.)

Monday was the first time I have seen the show "Stump the Schwab" on ESPN. Couldn't believe how much that guy knows about sports trivia. I don't think I could ever do what he does, even if I spent all day every day watching games, catching every showing of Sportscenter, and studying sports almanacs. Either way, it's fun watching him dominate all the contestants and make them look silly.

Britney Spears is pregnant.