Showing posts with label events. Show all posts
Showing posts with label events. Show all posts

Saturday, June 17, 2006

The Big 3-2

I suppose an occasion like today (technically yesterday) would be a good excuse to resurrect the dead carcass that is my blog. Thirty-two good years and I'm still going strong.

Here are the highlights of the past few months.

I am going to UCLA in the fall for graduate school in computer science. As I was making my decision to go I was fluttery with anticipation and excitement, but since then the thought of missing San Diego, DivX, and the comforts of the home here (not to mention the pains of finding new housing, finding a new tenant for the house, moving, and the prospect of adjusting to new roommates) have found me more recently a bit subdued and not a little bit nostalgic. And while a lot of close friends have moved away, two friends have actually moved back, making my move all the more poignant.

I should also mention that I did manage to get rejected from quite a few other schools as well. Quite an exhilarating experience for the ego, the rejection thing. I heartily recommend it.

My grandfather was recently diagnosed with stomach cancer. My mother is in Taiwan right now, doing what she can to tend to him. From her reports at first he did not want to accept treatment, but it sounds like now he has changed his mind and will undergo chemotherapy. Although I have grown up separated by both an ocean and a language, I have always respected grandpa and admired his noble contribution for many years as a clinical doctor in the village where he lives. And of course the fiery character that is my mother certainly speaks volumes of his influence. I wrote him a letter recently but it seemed like such a feeble attempt. I have deep appreciation, nonetheless.

I have been working a lot on a project of Mark's invention called InfoZealot.com (please be patient if the site is down — it's under construction!). It's been a lot of crazy hours but it's already been very rewarding. And now with the prospect of bringing on some other people to do development, I think it will have a good chance of picking up some real momentum.

I am no longer attending a church regularly. Occasionally, usually at the suggestion of a friend, I visit a church now and then. I have had countless discussions with friends regarding that decision and, more specifically, my perspective on God and Jesus these days and it probably would do some good to try to express it here. At the very least my numerous attempts at explaining it have forced me to refine and revise my thoughts. And although I have probably talked to everyone I know about it, I certainly haven't tired of the discussion yet.

[...]

Well I've been trying for about two hours to express it but it is starting to go long and to lack coherency so I will have to finish it later as another post. Stay tuned, if you dare.

P.S. Joel if you read this, love the blog. I took a couple of days but now I'm all caught up.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Operation Safe Place Accomplished


The Dream Team (most of it anyway)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Here's a little blurb I wrote on my trip to Waveland, Mississippi.

There is no reminder of how much we are at the mercy of our surroundings quite as profound as the site of a disaster like Katrina. And there is no example of purity and innocence quite as vivid as a child. And that innocence served as a sign of hope — for recovery and renewal. During this trip I was able to stand right on the coast of the gulf, where the grace of God manifest in a rising sun over peaceful waters stood juxtaposed against the wake of destruction on shore — collapsed houses, clothing strewn about, boats floating in trees instead of water.


You want these people to watch your kids?

The children I was able to spend time with did not seem too affected by the disaster and were just happy to be kids. It would have been interesting to know how much each of them lost exactly but that was not our role there and I was glad to be able to bring them a sense of normalcy as their parents sought aid from FEMA. I know there were other groups that did hear from the kids about things like having to dig through rooftops to survive.


Hotel Morrell

Aside from the kids there was also the muggy heat of the day and frigid cold nights to deal with — the first two days were quite warm but then a cold snap hit and we ended off the trip with at-freezing temperatures at night. Waking up at 5:30am, working with the kids until 6pm, having to share the mens' bathroom with the women for a day or so, fighting off mosquitoes, was all part of the adventure. I wasn't really prepared for an entire week without laundry facilities either, which made for some creative wardrobe rotation.


So Spoiled!

The most rewarding part was spending time with people, both those on the trip and also others who had come to Waveland just to help out. Some were there just to give massages to the other volunteers. Many were there serving food — several from our group helped too. It stirred faith in mankind to see so many people sacrifice so much just to be a small part of the enormous task of healing a part of our country and nation.


Some of the devastation

Song devotionals, late night Sonic run, Pete being More than a Woman, never-ending pork and dance parties at the Wavy Gravy, terrible "Texas" accents, ultimate frisbee, sleeping bags full of Repel, Wild West, endless Matis Yahoo, the peanut gallery, Team Weenies! Thank you, everyone; this trip has been a wonderful adventure and full of great memories!


More devastation

Check out more pictures at Shutterfly. Unfortunately I only have photos from about the first third of the trip; my battery ran out as Crystal M. got a bit snap-happy. Thanks everyone: Erwin, Tracy, Charlene, Adam, Bryce, Sam, Jesse, Yolanda, Georgiana, Erika, Crystal M., Crystal Z., Natalie, Nereida, Lan, Janie, Pete, Faith, and Priscilla!


Time to Reflect at the Gulf

Watch this space for more photo links. Also stay tuned for a video, coming soon.

Thursday, November 3, 2005

HOPE Operation Safe Place

As all of you know Hurricane Katrina and subsequent similarly devastating events have brought the frailty of human existence to the forefront of our minds. I will be traveling to Houston, Texas, and eventually Mississippi, from the 11th to the 19th of this month volunteering with two joint programs called Operation Safe Place and Project Kid. There I will spending time with a team of 19 others from San Diego, meeting the needs of affected children.

A lot of the details are somewhat sketchy as things coming together within a very short amount of time, but from what I understand we will have a specific curriculum to teach to the kids. We will be staying at housing specific to the volunteers in Waveland, Mississippi and probably travel every day to where the kids are to spend time with them.

<DivX Specific>
Somewhat akin to our own Project Backpack, we also have received a number of backpacks from UCSD that we will be distributing appropriately.
</DivX Specific>

The web site detailing the original program is http://hopeww.org/sections/events/index.htm. The specifics with traveling to Mississippi are a very recent development.

If you are interested in contributing to this event please let me know; HOPE Worldwide is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Wish me luck!

Monday, August 29, 2005

Three-Day Tour


On July 9th Michelle, Cyndie and I went to see Wicked at the Pantages.

The biggest news I have since last writing is probably my mini-road trip with Ben and Nick last weekend. We had such a great time — my throat was sore from talking so much I think. That or the drier climate. This is just a straight run-through of what we all did so it might be quite banal but here goes.


On July 15th Jill visited San Diego for a job interview.

First, on Saturday night I went to George & Kim's wedding with Christena. That was a lot of fun. A lot of the old crowd was there from eAssist. Good memories. Apparently Gary, Jeremy, Alex and Sashi are heavy into the Goowy thing for now.


The classic Yosemite photo.

Nick and I were going to head out that Saturday night but I got home really late so we decided to wait until morning to leave. We dropped off his friend in LA and then headed to Fresno to pick up Ben, who had gone up there the day before for a big family event. We picked up Ben and headed to Yosemite.


Me, Ben

We only spent a few hours there but managed to spend some time wading in a cool stream and catching sight of El Capitan and Half Dome. We tried to figure out whether moss really grows on the north side of trees or if that was just an urban legend (it's true) and also spent time talking about ghosts, absolute morality, feral children, and deciding whether to attempt a real hike (we didn't). By the time we got our bearings it was time to head to Joel & Joanne's.


El Capitan (the mountain, not Ben)

We arrived at the Leongs' place around 11pm and spent the next four hours debating John's baptism and listening to Joel's crazy ministry stories. To clarify, that's "crazy ministry stories," not "crazy ministry stories." Fun stuff. The next morning we goofed off a bit and tried to keep Ben off Diablo II long enough to meet Adelaide for lunch in Oakland.


Joel, late-night stand-up

From there we dropped Joel back off at home and headed down to San Jose to the Winchester Mystery House. We endured the 65 minute tour as we tried to decipher exactly what our tour-guide was trying to express to us. She kept putting the em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LA-bles and it was really throwing us off. My favorite part was the stairs that led to nowhere. Super creepy. In fact when my mom reminded me that I had been there when I was young I seemed to remember getting creeped out by that. Or maybe I just manufactured that memory. Also Ben whooped me at Street Fighter. I guess I'm a bit rusty.


Adelaide at lunch

After that we ate at a nice italian restaurant and debated what the word "gambit" meant. I really like Santana Row, which is the mall where we ate. Later on the way to my folks' place Ben was trying to find out the exact constraints of Fischer 960 that create 960 possible starting positions, which I had mentioned earlier at dinner.


Ben

At home my folks have this screen setup with a projector and surround sound so you can enjoy the whole movie-going experience. I was quite impressed actually. We ended up watching "Spartan" and "Bringing Down the House," both of which Joel had lent to Ben, which probably explains their dubious entertainment value.


Nick

The next morning I had setup breakfast with Carrie in Los Gatos while the guys slept in. It was great catching up and of course I had some theological questions for her. Fun fun.


Carrie at the Iron Skillet

Back at home mom loaded us up as usual, we said our goodbyes and headed out to the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz. Along the way we managed to discuss information theory and the tracing back of a train of thought. During the tour we of course couldn't help but debunk everything that the tour-guide was spewing forth. Ben seemed the least willing to concede but I think everything was pretty well explained. It was very entertaining at any rate.


Mom, Chuck

On the way back to Fresno we discussed a bit more about my current spiritual situation and also the idea of ubiquitous, unlimited energy. And after we dropped Ben off Nick and I talked more about biblical inerrancy and eschatology. Finally I arrived home around midnight and our trip was over. What a crazy three days, haha! Thanks again guys, I had a blast.

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Checkpoint


Roy & Tu's wedding

Well if this were a game this would be a good time to hit "save." A lot has happened in the past month or so, so here goes.

Roy and Tu got married! This is the same building in which Dave and Nancy got married last year, up in Orange County. Same crazy church lady too. I mean, just kidding; she was very nice.


Roy in the traditional Chinese wedding attire (I'm guessing)

Directly after the ceremony there was a short cake and punch reception in the courtyard outside. The invitational reception was later, actually about five hours later, so I killed some time hanging with Claire and Colin. Actually I napped; big surprise. No Halo this time...


Roderick, Kathy

Not sure exactly what Kathy's doing here. Roderick doesn't seem to mind.


Claire, Ben, Colin

Claire, Ben, Colin and I had fun passing the time away before the meal with some mind games and laser pointer pranks. When the food did come, it was incredible — ten courses! The fish eyeball was a little too much, though.

Between Ben stirring things up and Kathy's ear-piercing laughter and everybody's full stomachs, ours was certainly the loudest table at the reception. Good times.


Castles Made of Sand

The next weekend Zak and I went up to LA for a date with Nancy and Erica. We made a sand castle on a beach in Santa Monica. Zak had actually been on a blind date with Erica before, and it was just coincidence that they were setup again this time.

Later that night we ate at a restaurant called Moonshadows, where we happened to see Carl Lewis. Truth be told I never would have recognized him, were it not for Zak's keen eye. Zak asked our waiter quietly whether Carl Lewis was in the restaurant and he said, "Of course, of course" and then he went on to describe all the things that Mr. Lewis eats in order to get enough protein in his diet. The only one I remember was "sturgeon." Probably because I like the sound of that word.


Bai Yun? No, Gao Gao? I forget

On Wednesday the 20th Jill came to visit! There are more pictures here but you may not want to see them since Jill may deem them "unacceptable."

I took her to the world famous San Diego Zoo where we got to see, among other things, the (in)famous pandas Bai Yun and Gao Gao. We were lucky enough to see them at their most rambunctious. Here is the female — at the time she was tearing into this bamboo quite vigorously.


The other panda (male)

The male panda was smaller, interestingly enough. He didn't seem as active either, but probably he was just trying to stay mellow while the lady of the house was on the rampage. The lady panda, I mean.


Peacock

Did you know that peacocks can fly? That's just one thing I learned from a kind gentleman working there who sounded like he was from Australia. I guess every day around 5pm this one gets down from his perch in the tree to air out his feathers.

Peacocks are pretty freaky looking from the back, I noticed. The stalks that support their feathers kind of give me the creeps.


The Coronado bridge

The next day I took Jill to Coronado. Although we checked out the beach, we failed to notice this amazing hidden message. I guess I'll have to go back and check it out sometime.


World Famous San Diego Airport Bench

We managed to spend a few days together without killing each other! I'm quite impressed.

In other news — I finally got a new phone. I decided on a camera phone since its resolution almost matches my current dinosaur of digital camera, sheesh. Unfortunately it's not able to bend around enough to take a picture of itself. I'm not that impressed with the quality though.

Russ got a camera phone too, actually. This photo was taken by his phone at Rei do Gado, a Brazillian BBQ place downtown, where Carlos and I helped him celebrate his birthday. That place is a celebration of MEAT! Highly recommended.

This is a photo taken by my phone. Not spectacular. This quality seems especially poor in low-light conditions. In my amateur opinion.

I'm so excited; DivX is renting out a theater for Episode III, woohoo! I know, I know, Lucas has gone mad — I don't care. I have enough nostalgia stored up to make up for the 3D show, the live action television show, and another trilogy on top of that.

Okay, now to update my other blog...

Thursday, March 17, 2005

A(-)Typical Retreat

We went to San Juan Capistrano last weekend! It was a ton of fun and jam-packed with stuff to do. Here we are kicking off the day. Doesn't everyone look happy? Except maybe Eddy.

The first stop was the Ocean Institute. Well, here's the parking lot, anyway. I don't have any pictures of the inside but there were some pretty amazing jellyfish and sharks and giant lobsters. All that was caught on the video.

After the Institute, we headed to a park for lunch, which, by the way, looked a lot smaller than on the map. After eating, a few of us relaxed with a hacky-sack or a frisbee or devil sticks.

Next, we trekked on over to the Mission San Juan Capistrano.

Jason heads on over.

The mission was quite amazing — very lush and serene. Here we are figuring out how many group shots we can take before everyone goes crazy.

This is where the bells used to be. Jason found this spot to be the most peaceful.

Carlos takes a little breather in the inner courtyard. If you get him going he'll tell you all about how this courtyard is a great example of how communities should be designed.

The fountain in the middle of the courtyard held some huge koi. This was a great place to relax after a long day of being on my feet.


From the mission we had a little coffee at the shop across the street, and some decided to tour a bit more of San Juan Capistrano. It seems like it was mostly antique shops and such.

Later on we headed to the hotel and unloaded.


Here we are getting ready for a nice dinner out.

Co and Eddy engage in an interesting discussion (as usual). I believe this conversation was about biology.


Ryan approves.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and played games into the wee hours. Thanks to Faith for being the great game maestro! Note to self: in games which require picking an arbitrary number of M&Ms, pick fewer M&Ms.

We arranged the rooms so that all the cold-blooded guys were in the same room for the sake of climate control. It was like a sauna in there! I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Hey, where did this picture come from??

The next morning we had a communion service at the beach. Church included clearing the air and such, which by this point was pretty important. It was nice having everyone there and the view was gorgeous (again, you'll have to wait until it comes out on video).

After church Carlos' car headed home but the rest of us checked out lunch at a little deli nearby. Ryan wanted to get some surfing in, so we split off from there.

On the way back our car decided to take a pit-stop at the flower fields in Carlsbad. Quite a bit of it was in bloom, probably because of the recent rains. We ended off at Baskin and Robbins for a bit of ice cream to top off our trip. What a weekend!

Thanks Michelle for being the grand coordinator! Tons more pictures here, thanks to Ryan! And thanks to everyone for making it a great first retreat!

Sunday, February 27, 2005

An End To The Hiatus


Federica's going-away party

Hopefully this is an oasis in the desert of my blog. Plenty of stuff to write about and so little time. And where to start? I suppose I can use my backlog of pictures as a guide.

Well WAY back in the middle of November Federica left to go back to Italy, and she was so sweet to throw herself a going-away party for all of her new friends. She took a lot of painstaking efforts to make special gifts for people -- she made me a really cute cardboard ping-pong table with a message on the bottom. Here she's giving the mom of the family with whom she stayed a Sponge-Bob she made herself. Very impressive.


Ryan, Sofia, Tasma, Faith, and Alden listen intently

Since returning home Fede has gone to Rome for some studies and we've kept in touch over email and chat and even Skype. The internet rocks.


Chuck's 70th!

Also in November we celebrated Chuck's 70th with a nice big get-together at Eric's home in Goodyear, Arizona. We had an all around great time -- Yong was an excellent host and the food was incredible. That is, except for getting chewed out for wanting to play PS/2 with Steven. Aw, c'mon, Mom!


Goodyear, good food

Steven is my step-nephew, Brenda is Curt's girlfriend, and Kimberly is my step-niece. Steven is huge; hard to believe we're related. Oh wait we're not.


Eric, our gracious host

Tried to take Eric by surprise here.


Kenny, Eric, Christine, Yenchi, Trang
At the end of November George got engaged! I was one of the gift-bearers at the Vietnamese-style ceremony. Luckily I was the one taking the pictures here -- I don't think I look very good in a dress. The hat was pretty cool though; I think it enhanced my kung fu.


The happy groom

George nails down some final details.


Christine, Eric, me, Yenchi, Kenny, Trang

After the engagement reception we dropped by Yenchi's new venture, a quaint authentic Vietnamese cafe/restaurant. She decorated the place herself -- it was very nice and seemed to be putting the other Vietnamese place in the area out of business after only a month.


The Leongs!

Joel and Joanne got married on December 11th, 2004! The whole week was a blast; I spent some time with the folks and Linda during the week and then it was a wedding-party extravaganza over the weekend. Even the footwork was exciting -- Joel managed to get into a tiff with the Men's Wearhouse guy; I don't know how he does it. With the wedding though, there was so much family and so much love, it was quite an amazing time. And of course Halo 2 at the bachelor party was quite fulfilling.

Are fortune cookies considered witchcraft? Even if the truth of its message is undeniable? ;-)

During the reception I had a conversation with a sister about how she was feeling in her congregation and it turned out to be a great opportunity to encourage her. I shared a lot of the struggles I had in trying to put together my group and how much it was worth it in the end. It was actually a very moving conversation for me; I do hope she finds hope in her circumstances.

As if all that wasn't enough, after the reception I went with Ming to her company holiday party. Company parties are always such awkward social situations. We had a good time though.


North Carolina

I visited the McCaa's after Christmas and spent the New Year there. Nice and cold there. It was great to see Tom and Jenny and Trey doing great. I found out I really like hush puppies too. Here Tom and I were walking by the river in Wilmington.


This is for you, Campbell

To anyone with sensitivity, please disregard this photo. This is intended for Alan, Dan, and Scott. Cool eh, Campbell?

Last week there was a singles church conference in Vegas. Some 1400 singles were there, about 35 of which were from San Diego. Eddy, Dave, Rey and I rode up together on the Friday and stayed in the Alexis where the conference was being held, along with Kris. I hope Eddy's chi didn't mess me up.

There was a message on Friday night, a message, two classes, and social events on Saturday, and a church service on Sunday. Personally I got the most out of the discussion part after the message on Saturday morning. We were handed some discussion questions and encouraged to group up with 4-6 other people and discuss for a bit. Finally! I actually missed the two classes -- Rey, Tasma, Faith and I got back pretty late from lunch, missing the first class, and by that time I was wiped out so I crashed through the second class. From what I heard it doesn't sound like I missed much. Speed dating is quite a trip though. I had a good time but I don't think it's for everybody. It's pretty much like it was portrayed in the movie Hitch. It really suited me well because I had a chance to talk to a lot of people that I wouldn't ordinarily have the guts to talk to. Another nice consequence of the format is that I don't get sucked into talking one person for the whole night, which I am realizing I am prone to do. I don't think that the women typically had a very good time though. I think that is mostly related to the fact the ratio is always so bad for the women at these events. Even though the ratio within the event was 50/50, there were a lot of women who wanted to be involved but couldn't find a "buddy" to make things even. I also wish there was a time of mingling afterwards. As it was, once the final bell was rung everyone cleared out of there pretty quickly. I think everyone was probably overwhelmed after meeting some 50 people within an hour-and-a-half. I know I was pretty drained mentally.

I ran into Jill at the conference and it was so good to catch up. I also met a cool sister named Nancy and we went to breakfast on Sunday morning before church. So overall I had a really enjoyable time. The weekend ended in somewhat of a bust though; Eddy had supposedly invited about 30 people to lunch, but for whatever reason no one showed up and it ended up being just Eddy, Rey, Dave and me at -- of all places -- Hamburger Mary's. Wonderful.


Nervous, Michelle?

Fast-forward to the present. Today Michelle had her singing recital! It was lots of fun, and Michelle did great singing Sarah McLachlan's "Angel." Kids are hilarious. One girl, poor thing, made a mistake in the middle of her piano piece, stopped, and couldn't figure out where to start again. After about a minute of staring blankly at the keys, she abruptly got up and did a quick bow and left the stage. Ah, the good old days.

Last night we had our first San Diego singles devo, which the west hosted and organized. It was really impressive how many people were involved in it, actually. We had about 20 people from the west just in organizing and serving. I was really happy the way things turned out, although I thought my personal contribution to my group's skit was pretty pathetic. Plus our scripture was ridiculously hard to act out, much less guess. But anyway, at least the umpteen meetings we had putting it together really paid off. We had an "after-party" at Rock Bottom where I had a great time getting whipped on the pool table by a sister from Vancouver, Canada named Kathleen. Man, I haven't been that humbled in a long time.

Today I also had a fun phone conversation with Jill. Wake up, sluggard! ;-) Also got in a game of ultimate after two weeks off. Oh, the aches ... and I didn't even win. But it's not just about winning, it's about ... um ... wait, what else is there?


Last week was my last week with Silicon Space, Inc. It actually turned out to be more emotional than I thought it would be. Everyone there has been so appreciative of the work I've done. Now that I think about it, this is probably the job where I've felt the most appreciated so far in my career. Actually they even pleaded with me to work on Monday too, which I, being the sucker I am, couldn't refuse.

Unfortunately it was also Mike the QA guy's last week this past week too, but he wasn't planning on it. I actually didn't even get to say goodbye because he was let go Friday morning before I got in. I feel bad; he has two young kids but is himself no spring chicken. Hopefully he'll make the Personnel Logistics release party.


Me and our star performer

This Tuesday I start my new job at DivX! I'm really excited and nervous. I'm so afraid that I'll be so wiped out from ultimate Frisbee and my weekend schedule in general that I'll be nodding off through some orientation thing. Guess I shouldn't be staying up late to finish my blog, eh? Stay tuned, more deep thoughts to come. Shih out.