Love Your Mater

"To thy happy children of the future, those of the past send greetings"



As I briefly mentioned before in the last blog entry, a company recruiting effort brought me down to U of I recently for a short visit. After graduating almost 6 years ago, I've been back down to Champaign more than a few times since, the last trip being for the '07 Homecoming weekend. And pretty much every one of those trips has had its share of adventures. Some stories I can share (and have), while others will have to stay classified to protect the not-so-innocent.

This time, however, my trip down to school actually felt much different than all of those previous experiences. A large part of it was probably because I was there on business (and not for wafflemaker hunting), but a lot of little things about this visit made me feel more like an older alum than someone who still kind of fits in with the college students. Definitely a new feeling for me.



One of the notable parts of this visit was staying at the Illini Union hotel for the first time. Like many students, I spent a big chunk of my college years in or around the Union. In between classes, there was no better place to go shoot some pool, grab a bite to eat at the food court, check your email in the computer lab, or find a spot to study/hang out. It was also a common place for job interviews, holding events in the ballroom, or for people to get cold-packs/contraceptives from the McKinley booth (not me of course).

At any rate, I must have walked through the Union at least thousands of times during my 4 years at school, that it was practically a second home. But one part of the Union that I never saw was the 3rd and 4th floor hotel rooms - that is, until now. Some of you may not have even known that there were hotel rooms at the Union, but I'd heard of them before and always wondered what they were like. Well, wonder no more:







As far as hotels go, the Illini Union hotel is pretty average, maybe even a bit below average. It's clean and has all the neccessary amenities, but the rooms are a bit on the small side and the AC/heater is noisy. Of course, it didn't matter to me because I was so fascinated by the novelty of staying overnight at the Illini Union (I'm easy to please like that).

One other thing about the Union that I should mention is that the basement McDonald's is no more! It has been replaced by a Chick-Fil-A.



Out of the 3 big restaurants in that food court, the last one I would've expected to go would be the McDonald's. Yet somehow Sbarro and Rice Garden both outlasted the golden arches. I was pretty shocked.

Whenever I visit Champaign, it seems like the place that changes the most is Green Street. I still remember the days when there was a "CO-ED" theater, dingy little stores that sold records and posters, and multiple Chinese buffets named Yen Ching. Now, the place has been transformed into a pedestrian friendly strip of chain restaurants that I'm guessing would barely be recognizable to an older alum than myself.

This time around, I don't think Green Street changed all that much (although it has only been a few months). The one thing I noticed was that the Legend's sign is orange and blue now (I think it used to be red and green).



My favorite part of the trip, as you might guess, was dinner. I convinced the folks I was with to come with me to Kamakura, one of the nicer places around town for Japanese food. The prices there were always a bit too steep for a college kid to go regularly, but that didn't really matter now that the company was covering the expense. It made me feel particularly special to dine at the Teppanyaki (hibachi) grill side of the restaurant for once, I don't think I ever ate in that section when I was a student.



One last thing about this trip that reminded me that I'm not in college anymore, was picking up a DI (that's Daily Illini, the student newspaper for non U of I grads). The format of the paper has changed to look a little more professional, but what amused me was reading the front page headlines:



I have to say, only on a college campus would you see the top stories be "US Recession May Benefit Environment", and "Bill Aims To Legalize Marijuana".

March Badness

March is always one of my favorite months of the year. It is a time when the winter cold starts to wind down, baseball spring training gets into full swing, and of course the NCAA tourney to spice things up.

Unfortunately, this year we're 0-for-3 so far on those things I just listed. It has been the worst Chicago winter that I can remember in a while, and even as I look at the weather forecast for this week, there's still more snow and single-digit temperatures ahead. As for spring training, I guess I'm cautiously optimistic about this coming season for the White Sox, even though they didn't appear to improve much in the offseason. I'm sure the excitement will hit me eventually, but for now, I'm only half-heartedly following the spring training results. And about the NCAA tournament, well, let's just say this hasn't exactly been a stellar season for Illini basketball.

On top of those things, this March I will most likely have to say goodbye to my favorite sister and my favorite pup. With both of them moving to Minnesota, I will be living in an empty house for the first time since the earliest days when I originally closed on this place. Though I kind of enjoy living alone, and people have already been flooding me with suggestions on turning my place into a bachelor pad, or about what kind of new puppy to get, I'll still definitely miss having both of them around.

Fortunately, it's not all doom and gloom lately - here are a few positive things of note lately:

- Helping my sis pick out a banquet hall for wedding reception is one of the most enjoyable responsibilities ever. Getting to "sample" meals at each place is like a dream come true for me. Now all I need is to get my own show on Food Network, where I do nothing but eat good food.

- Went out to the bars for the first time since the smoking ban went into effect (at least I think it was the first time). It felt kind of weird to leave a bar at the end of the night, and not feel like I was covered in smoke residue. Weird but definitely nice. I could get used to that feeling.

- Normally I don't do the "give up something for Lent" thing, but this year I decided to actually make a commitment, and I am actually very glad that I did. So far it has been a very good experience for me. Even though it was a very small thing to give up, sticking to this commitment has still helped me to see and understand more of the meaning behind the 40-day fast. I'm not sure yet on whether or not I'll continue my "fast" after Easter, but we'll see what happens.

- Heading down to Champaign later this month for a company recruiting thing. If you ask me, it's always fun for a alum to visit the alma mater, no matter the circumstances. This time around it will be on business, so most likely there will be none of the craziness of other recent trips (at least I hope not). By the way, if anyone wants me to pick them up some Pokey sticks or a PrimeTime calzone, let me know. I'll see what I can do.

- Have had my new Nokia N82 for over a month now, and I absolutely love the thing. It's so great to have a camera, mp3/video player, GPS, full internet browser, calendar, etc. with me every time I leave the house, all in one little candybar sized phone. The camera in particular is almost too convenient - I find myself taking pictures of almost everything around me, which I'm not sure is a good or bad thing.

One of the very underrated features I like is the "Nokia Lifeblog" software that came with the phone. Basically, it syncs up all the pictures and videos you take, along with text messages you send/receive, etc., and organizes it all in a timeline format. The first time I saw the results, it was actually kind of startling to see my daily life laid out and recorded like that. But I gotta say it's pretty darn cool to see how much a little phone can integrate itself into your life so seamlessly. I was definitely impressed.

- A few years ago, I wrote in this blog about how I loved the "Fall-Back" part of Daylight Savings Time so much, that instead of doing "Spring-Forward" to get back on track, they should just "Fall-Back" 23 more times throughout the year and give up a day in the process. Well, my thoughts on that have definitely changed. "Spring Forward" (which happens this Sunday, I think), is now a very exciting time for me. I'll gladly trade in that extra hour of sleep if it means more sunshine in the days ahead. Gotta have my sunshine.

A Farewell to Sally

After about 5 months of being a quasi-owner to Sally, the little rascal is soon to be moving on to a new home with her mommy in Minnesota. Even though from the beginning we always considered her to be my sister's dog, nobody spent more time with Sally than I did, or put more work into taking care of her during these few months. Through it all, I couldn't help but to grow attached, and of course I'll miss them both when they move away. So of course, I had to write an official farewell blog about Sallzz.

First off, it's probably hard for people who have never owned a pet to fully understand the relationship between an owner and dog. It's a very unique situation that I never experienced myself until we got Sally. I've had pet fish, hamsters, and a rabbit before - but this was (both literally and figuratively) a whole different animal. Not only were those other pets smaller and much less active than a puppy, but I was never really the "owner" of them, not in a true sense. I mean, occasionally I'd get to feed them or clean their cage/tank, but mostly it was my mom and dad who took care of them. To me and my sis, owning a pet was basically like having another toy to play with.

In the case of Sally, however, we basically took on full responsibility of her entire life from the moment we brought her home. And as we quickly found out, she wasn't just a cute little furball that we could just play with for a while, and then put away once we were tired or bored. This was a living, breathing puppy that needed constant attention, careful supervision, and yes, lots of parental love.

When I think back to the first week or so that Sally was here - all I can say is that it was one of the most hectic and stressful times of my life. Every waking moment at home was consumed by the need to keep a watchful eye on her, making sure she wasn't pooping or peeing in the house, chewing what she wasn't supposed to be chewing, or wandering too far off somewhere. During nighttime hours, it was impossible to get continuous sleep because she would whine and fuss for attention (even by puppy standards, Sally is definitely the needy type). I probably averaged 3 hours of rest a night that week, and even those hours were not very restful.

In the times that I did have to leave the house, my mind was always pre-occupied on what she was doing with no one around to supervise. Not out of curiosity, but more of hoping that she wasn't pooping in her cage or freaking out that nobody was there. I never left her alone for more than a few hours at a time, and constantly worried if we were being bad parents for letting her cry so much (especially as the tear stains where becoming noticeable). I worried whether we were traumatizing a baby for life by ignoring her whining, wondered whether she would ever learn to hold her bowels for more than a couple hours, and questioned whether I was training her the wrong way whenever things weren't going right (which was quite often).

Comparing then and now, it's so amazing to see how much Sally has grown in the time since. She's still clingy, and she still whines if you leave her alone in a room for too long, but it's not nearly as bad as before. Also, after a lot of early frustration, she eventually did become housebroken and we can actually leave her alone for up to 9-10 hours at a time now. We were even able to teach her a couple tricks, which would have been inconceivable if you asked me in the early days. And instead of biting and teething on everything and everyone, she's moved onto licking everything instead (not very healthy, but much less destructive, so I'll take what I can get).

As much as Sally has grown, though, it's kind of surprising for me to also think about all the ways I've grown and learned from taking care of her in only these short few months. Not just in the sense that I know a lot more about dogs and how to take care of them than I did before. But from a broader point of view, I think this whole experience also forced me to become a much more patient person, and taught me to be more willing to sacrifice myself for someone else. I'd even go as far as to say it taught me a little more about love, especially from the perspective of a parent. In some ways, I feel like I got a little glimpse of not just what my own mom and dad went through to raise me, but also some more understanding how God views us, as our creator and "heavenly father".

Like I described before, there were so many frustrating moments especially in the beginning, and it took quite a while for me to get used to giving up my own freedom for the sake of responsibility. Even today, there's some times when Sally's shenanigans can get so aggravating and I feel like dropping her off in a box on someone's doorstep. But at the same time, I've been realizing that all of that stuff in itself is the most rewarding and meaningful part of raising a puppy.

Everyone loves to see a cute and playful puppy, and we all love to play with and pet the furry little thing - but only the owner can truly appreciate everything about their dog in entirety. Being responsible for her daily necessities, saving her from the entanglements she gets into, and simply watching out for her well being at all times - all of this I learned on the fly in the past few months, and am a better person for it. Especially as I'm assuming that I'll go through a lot of the same experiences the day I have a real child of my own. It's most gratifying to see her grow up so much, but that much more meaningful to know that I was there and played a big part in helping her get there, every step of the way.

One thing I will never forget is the feeling I got the first time I held Sally in my hands; when she was still so tiny (barely weighing 2 lbs), and she was just trembling and looking up at me with eyes of wonder. It was an emotion I'd never experienced before - an indescribable combination of amazement, fear, love, and a million other feelings. To realize that the little thing I held in my hands was such a precious life, one that needed my care and attention more than anything else, it's hard to describe just how deeply that impacted me. I imagine that I'll experience an feeling similar to that (but many times more intense) when the day comes for me to hold my own baby.

Pardon the tangent here, but I think that throughout the course of our lives, there come certain moments when you experience a feeling that just captivates you, one that will stand out in your mind for as long as you live. I can certainly think of a select few that I could point to in my own life: the first time I learned how to ride a bike on my own, the day I dedicated my life to God, the first time I held hands with my girlfriend, the first time I heard the words "I love you" said to me, the feeling I get from staring up at the stars and the moon on a clear night, the way my heart skips a beat when the phone rings from that special someone, the thrill of watching a big home run live at a game, or the first time I discovered White Castle burgers with Jalapeno cheese. You can't ever predict these things, and you can't recreate them no matter how hard you might try - but after it happens, you know how lucky you were to be a part of it and your life is never quite the same.

Obviously, some of these moments are more significant than others, and I don't mean to trivialize any single one in particular by lumping them all into a single category. All I'm trying to express here is, there's much more to adopting a puppy than counting the amount of joy or the amount of extra work it brings into your life. I know a lot of people will read this and say "it's just a dog", and a few friends have already suggested that I simply replace Sally by getting another puppy. While I might do that eventually, I have to say it's not nearly as easy as that. Relationships, whether with people or pets, don't just come and go like interchangeable Brita filters. It will definitely take time and thought before I would consider "moving on".

Yes, I admit that I'm way more sappy than your typical person (and if you're a regular reader of this blog, you already knew that). But I do think that those who have owned a pet and invested as much of themselves into taking care of it as I have, would be able to relate much more with everything I've been saying, even if it's not quite exactly the same for everybody. In my mind, Sally is much more than "just a dog" and she always will be. And even though she's leaving here soon, I'll always save a cherished home for her, at least in memory.

For now, I thought I'd make a little video dedicated to the little troublemaker, bringing back one of my favorite songs from back in the day:

Lupe Fiasco's The Cool

"I'm from the city in the Midwest, best city in the whole wide wide world..."

Just thought I'd throw out a CD recommendation for any hip-hop fans out there. Lupe Fiasco's "The Cool" is probably the best album I've listened to in a long time, hip-hop or otherwise.

I'll admit I may be biased because I always like the Chicago-area artists, but in my opinion Lupe is one of the most talented MC's out there today. Some people are born to sing, others born to dance - and then there are those who are simply born with the gift of rapping. As I listen to "The Cool" (as well as his last album, "Food & Liquor"), I definitely get the feeling that he was born with that special talent to be an MC. It's something that not everyone in the hip-hop world has - for example, I always felt like Kanye West lacked that natural flow in his delivery, and his music isn't as good as it could be. So when you hear someone who really has the skills, it stands out that much more.

The lyrics on "The Cool" are also very well done. Even though I don't necessarily agree with everything that he says, most of it is thought provoking at the very least. While I enjoy your typical mindless radio song about "Apple Bottom jeans and boots with the fur" as much as the next person, I can't help but to wish for a rapper that tackles some more meaningful topics, or goes a little deeper into the psyche of his community. Although I should also point out that at the same time, I think there have been other rappers (or groups) that try too hard to be intellectual or social revolutionaries, but in the process it seems as though the music suffers and they start to lose relevance to real life. I think Lupe does an exceptional job of integrating genuinely thoughtful lyrics with music that still resonates with the listener.

Of course, no rap album can be considered good without having good beats. Fortunately, "The Cool" does not fall short in this category either. The whole CD is packed with some really solid beats, mostly original as far as I can tell. One of the tracks is particularly unique, as "Gold Watch" loops a clip of some lady yelling some gibberish. As weird as that description sounds, it still somehow manages to work. It's actually my favorite song on the album, if I had to pick one.

Other songs that I liked the most were "Hip Hop Saved My Life" and "Intruder Alert". Overall, I wouldn't say this is a very "radio-friendly" album, and I doubt there will be too many singles that reach the top 40 charts. I will say that I think a lot of the songs need a few listens before they start to grow on you, which is a good thing. All of which is a big reason why I felt the need to spotlight the album it out here to begin with. I really believe it's too good of a CD to be lost in the shuffle because of not enough mainstream airplay.

This will sound like an unusual comparison, but in a lot of ways, the album that "The Cool" reminds me most of is Radiohead's "OK Computer", one of my favorite CDs of all time. Obviously each covers a very different genre of music, but the style and approach of both albums seems to generate a similar sort of feel in my mind. Neither disc has much of your typical 4-minute catchy radio single, and neither artist fullly "fits in" with the other artists in their category of music. But when you listen to each song on the CD, almost every single one of them holds up strongly in their own right. There's not much "filler" like what you often find on most other albums - I'd go as far to say that both "OK Computer" and "The Cool" are complete masterpieces that you can listen from beginning to end.

If there is one complaint I have with "The Cool", it would be that there are too many other artists featured throughout the album. I know that it's the trend these days in music to include as many collaborations as possible, but I'm not really a fan of that trend. Especially in this case, I don't think they add much value to the music. As much as I love old-school Snoop Dogg, he hasn't put out anything worthwhile in a long time, and his part in "Hi-Definition" (track 8) is more pointless than anything else. Most of the other featured artists are from lesser known singers or groups, and they did not seem to be all that talented, at least not enough to make the songs significantly better. I think Lupe would have been much better off trimming down the collaborations and keeping this album cleaner.

That one negative aside, I would still rate "The Cool" a solid 9 out of 10, and I strongly recommend to anyone looking for a good rap album to listen to.

More Than Anyone Cares To Read About Home Repair

For no apparent reason (other than a string of bad luck), a whole bunch of things have been breaking in my house lately. My garage door, thermostat/heater, toilet, fridge, and a sizable list of other little stuff have all been dying in the past couple months. Even my car has been acting up with the heater and CD changer going down, but that's another story.

Some of these things I've been able to fix or replace on my own, while others I had to hire someone to come and fix. But in any case, I have been learning a lot about home repair from the experience having all of these things break on me. And I must say, I am becoming quite the Bob Vila (or should I say Ty Pennington?) with my newfound understanding of household appliances and such. My future wife will be so lucky to have a handyman like me... hahaha.

In what should suprise no one who regularly reads my blog, seeing the process of fixing all of these things got me thinking about some deeper applications towards life in general. A lot of characteristics about home repair definitely remind me about working on your own problems and issues, especially since I feel like I've been going through a lot of that in the past year.

One thing I've noticed is that problems usually don't just pop up suddenly and without warning. Once in a while, you'll have an appliance randomly die on you for no reason, but more often than not, things break in stages rather than all at once. My garage door, for example, would still be able to open about half the time in the beginning, before getting steadily worse over time to the point of not opening at all. The fridge started out with just noises from the fan, then the noises got louder, and ice started forming on the walls, and finally it stopped working completely.

Point being, not every issue demands immediate attention. In our lives, we may sometimes notice weaknesses about ourselves - perhaps it's a bad temper, maybe it's a gambling/smoking/alcohol/drug addiction, or maybe it's just a feeling of general unhappiness, depression, whatever the case may be. But it's rare that any of us do anything about them right away, probably because there isn't an apparent need to.

The good news is that these problems aren't necessarily going to come up in your life every day - most people can still function normally and go about their daily lives without being dominated by these issues. But the bad news is that usually, these problems tend to get worse over time, not better. We can often find ways to get around them or minimize the impact, but without actually dealing with our problems, they rarely (if ever) go away on their own.

Going along with this, another common thread I've seen between most of these situations is that you can temporarily fix a lot of things, by changing some sort of "sensor" to ignore the warning signs. When my heater was acting up, the easy solution at first was to turn up the thermostat and force it to keep going. In the case of the fridge, those fan noises would go away if you raised the temperature by a little bit to ease the burden of the cooling system. And my garage door opener also had a "sensitivity setting" that you could tune by turning a knob on the control box.

Not many people know about this, but if you turn the control box's sensitivity knob all the way down, your garage will think it's funny to kick babies, while if you turn it to the other end, it will cry uncontrollably while watching the Notebook on the Lifetime Channel. (Okay, so I made that part up.)

But seriously, I think we usually know when something's not right with ourselves. As I described earlier, you should be able see signs of your own weaknesses early on. You might find yourself struggling at work/school, maybe you're hurting the people around you, and you simply don't feel entirely at peace in your heart. And deep down you realize that eventually, you will have to deal with those issues.

In the meantime, though, the easy thing to do is find ways to avoid the root of the problem. There's many ways I could list, but many times the first thing we try is to run from the problem, and hope that it doesn't come back to bite you later on. Sometimes we might plead ignorance or resort to denial, and pretend that those issues don't exist. Finally, we might convince ourselves that we don't care (going back to the "sensitivity setting" analogy), that it's not really a big deal and we can just live with the warning signs.

Whatever our "method" of choice, I think again, you can only rely on these superficial solutions for so long before they get worse. Turning down the "sensitivity setting" might buy you an extra week, an extra month, or maybe even years will go by before things really break down. If you're really stubborn, you might be able to go your whole life pretending like nothing's wrong. But for most of us, it's really just a matter of time before you'll have to do something about it. And unfortunately, the longer you wait, the more likely that the problem will get harder to fix as you go along, or even spill over and affect other areas of your life.

Anyways, I've already taken this metaphor further than I should have, but I just wanted to make one last connection between home repair and self-help (also the most important). The positive thing I've taken out of it all is that based on what I've been seeing, coming up with the right solution - in either case - is almost never as complicated as you might think.

Not that every problem is easy to fix, that's not what I'm saying at all. But I think a lot of times, we're afraid to deal with a certain obstacle because we assume that it's going to be too hard. We're afraid to open up the black box and look inside, because we don't know what we'll find. As people often say, we fear things we don't know or understand - and this is certainly the case when it comes to trying to "fix" yourself. You start off by wondering what's broken inside, then questions start mounting about how much it might cost you or how much work it will be to fix, and before you know it, you're assuming worst case scenario. Then you start finding ways to avoid thinking about the problem, and convincing yourself that you don't need help.

I always pictured the garage door opener box to be filled with all sorts of nasty stuff - a mess of cables, grease, and gears inside, kind of like the evil machines in the Matrix movies. But when you actually take the time to pull up a ladder and toolbox to open it up, you'll find that it's not nearly as complex or intimidating as you thought. It's actually just 1 chain and a couple of gears (though actually I learned that the correct term is "sprocket" in this situation).

The same goes for a thermostat, refrigerator, toilet, or whatever it might be. None of these things are as complicated as you think they are, if you are willing to actually face up to it and take one step at a time. Even in the appliances that you have to hire professionals to repair, the situation is never as hopeless as it might seem. You just have to be willing to ask for help from the right people.

I think when we have shortcomings, flaws, weaknesses about ourselves, it's easy to give up and just accept them for what they are. But maybe that's only because we think it's too hard to change and we're afraid of seeing the ugliness and mess of gears inside ourselves. The problem with that line of thinking is that not doing anything about it only makes it worse, in the end we are only hurting ourselves and people around us by avoiding it. Everyone has issues that need to be fixed, but what I'm saying is that most of the time, the solution is not as impossibly convoluted as you think - again, if you are willing to take it one step at a time and give yourself a fair chance to work on it.

Finally, I guess to end with a word of encouragement to those who have managed to read this far, as the cliche goes, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". When you finally make an honest effort to address your problems at their roots, and you start to make some real progress in addressing your issues, I do believe that it's more than worth every ounce of energy and sacrifice it takes to get there. The worst thing you can do is give up on yourself and lose hope, because there's ALWAYS hope.

No matter how bad you might feel about yourself at a given point in your life, or how difficult it might be to grow yourself, I really believe that it's that much more rewarding when you are able to find your way back "home" - to get to the point where you can feel right again with who you are. As the words to one of my favorite songs goes, "You can't love, if you you don't love yourself". Maybe it seems like you'll be happier to forget about your problems, but there is a better way and a better place in life - and I really do believe that we owe it to ourselves (and the people who love us) to get there.