T.A.P.

Back...

2010-05-07T16:05:00.003-05:00

Hello blogosphere...I've been gone so long, I don't even know if anyone's still visiting. Looks like the last thing I posted was two years ago! Unbelievable how time flies. The last two years has been a total rollercoaster to say the least. I left my first job out of college of seven years for another job in a new and big fancy city only to face one of the worst recession since the Great Depression and subsequently being laid off. In the time I was laid off, I travelled the world and managed to make one of the most traumatic experience into one of the best years of my life. I feel the need to continue to document my life here so after two years of not doing so, I think I shall now continue...

Congrats Kyle + Elaine

2008-06-05T09:29:00.002-05:00

Drove in to Kansas City on Thursday before Memorial Weekend as I had to get H2 from the airport early on Friday. Crashed at KK's and then next day after getting H2 went to watch Indiana Jones, it was pretty entertaining. I'd recommend it. After that headed down to Jeff & Kenneth's place which was very comfy. Saturday morning, picked Dave up from Megabus station and then went to Elaine's wedding at this cute little church. Then got to meet the Yeoh's latest addition then rushed back for the reception. It was fun seeing my old friends whom I've not seen in a while. After the reception, Dave and I checked out Missy B's and had a blast. Drove back Sunday, stayed in Columbia for a night and then headed out to St Louis the next day where I continued on to Chicago to look for apartments. I found one in the West Loop, super nice but rent's a little high...

Anyway here're the pictures of Elaine's wedding

Bon Qui Qui

2008-06-05T09:21:00.000-05:00

OMG this is the funniest video ever...check it out

M.I.A.

2008-05-28T21:46:00.003-05:00

I'm sorry everyone but I totally went Missing in Action in the last few months. A lot has happened since then, mostly due to my job and career. I'm happy to report that I have finally, FINALLY received my Greencard and I have received a job with Avon Products (AVP) in the city of Chicago! I'm very excited and will be starting work on June 9th. I'm currently in the process of relocating to Chicago.

Here are some of the things I did in the last few months. Rented out both sides of duplex, moved in with Beau, finished the Harry Potter books, interviewed with many, many companies which include Avon in Chicago and MECS in SF, went to Cape with Ryan, James, Carrie and Andy, attend Elaine's wedding and many many other things. I had a great time off but now it's back to work. I will hopefully try to fill up the gap of the last few months in the next few posts. I have lots of pictures. It's good to be back...

Pillars of the Earth

2008-02-29T10:52:00.005-06:00

Finally I'm done with my third book of the year, this one had approx a thousand pages, 973 to be exact. Took me about 20 days but it was a fun read, definitely a very entertaining book. So I have fifteen more books to read for the rest of the year. I started with Half Blood Prince last night. I can't wait to finish the Harry Potter series. After this, I have one more to go before the end.

Anyway Pillars of the Earth is by Ken Follett and it's his best selling book ever, which is ironic because he usually writes thrillers. POTE on the other hand's a spellbinding epic set in 12th-century England, and tells the story of the struggle to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known—a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother. The characters in this book; Tom Builder, Alfred, Martha, Jonathan, Prior Philip, Ellen, Jack, Aliena, Richard, William Hamleigh and Waleran Bigod will forever stay with me.

Oh I forgot Happy Leap Day!!

Since my last post, I went in to St Louis one more time for my second interview with Nordyne. I also went in to talk to FKI Logistex. The interview with Nordyne went pretty well, got there at 9:30am and I didn't get out till 3:45pm, the whole thing was very well put together. FKI on the other hand was totally disorganized, probably won't accept even if I was made an offer. I won't find out from Nordyne till next week, so keep your fingers crossed :) The night before the interview was Valentine's. I went out to dinner with Dwane at Little Saigon which was sweet. Then on Friday night we had drama at Mangia's and then between Patricio and Dwane and we ended up going to 1111 again. I stayed in all weekend, didn't go to any bars at all! The next day I had dim sum and then later that evening we went to Matt Reeg's dinner party which was fun. And the next day, had brunch with James and Nick at Mokabe's and then I drove home. Last weekend, I didn't do much, just stayed in and relaxed as it was my first weekend in town in four weeks. Went to watch Jumper with Don but I wasn't too impressed. Hayden looked great but that was about it :)

OK I think that's it for now...looking forward to this weekend, the weather's supposed to be real nice, 60's! I'll probably be out more. I'm really tired of Winter and Spring can't come any sooner. Later y'all and enjoy the weather this weekend!

Interesting Fact: Did you know that every fourth year's a leap year unless it's divisible by 100 and not 400? Like 2000 was a leap year because it was divisible by both 100 and 400 but 2100 will not be a leap year and neither is 2200 or 2300. I had no idea!

CNY & StL

2008-02-13T10:18:00.006-06:00

Oooh I forgot all about Chinese New Year, Keong Hee Fatt Cai you guys!! Well Feb 8th was officially the first day of the new Rat year according to the Chinese lunar calender. I didn't do much myself. Went to dinner with KK. His client (Great Wall) had invited him and he brought me along, the food was good but it was a little awkward as I had limited speech ability. That night and the next day, I called most of my family members. It was really nice talking to them and I'm really feeling homesick lately. It's been over 2 years since I've been home :(

Friday, work took us out to lunch at Sophia's and gave us the rest of the day off since January had produced such great numbers. I was going to take the afternoon off anyway but I guess I got to save on my vacation days :) I got home and packed in like 5 minutes and hopped into Justin's monster truck and off we went to St Louis along with Chadd, Beau and Justin. It was fun. It felt like we were going on a field trip. We got in early Friday and later went to dinner at 1111 Missisippi. Dinner was great, we were really lucky because this was a really nice restaurant and we just walked in and asked for a table for eight (Dave, Justin, me, Chadd, Beau, James+Nick and Dwane) and pretty much got it! After dinner, we went to Amp for a little while then proceeded to party the night away at Novak's. It was great, I had alot of fun with Dallas and Scottie McHottie.

The next day we had breakfast at First Watch in Clayton. After breakfast, we went to the Cathedral Basilica of St Louis in the Central West End. It was really gorgeous inside and out and has a really rich history. In 1912, the cathedral began installing mosaics in the interior and it was finally completed in 1988! It contains 41.5 million glass pieces, covering 83,000 sqft and it is the largest mosaic collection in the world! We left for Columbia pretty early that day. I spent the rest of the weekend just relaxing and watching TV and try to keep warm. I somehow had it in my mind that Winter's over and the weather was gradually warming up but little did I know this whole week's been terrible. It's snowed and iced and the temperatures are back down to single digit, brrrr. Anyway this Friday I'm taking a day vacation and I'll be back to St Louis for my 2nd interview with Nordyne and FKI Logistex. So keep your fingers crossed....

Mardi Gras 2008

2008-02-12T13:06:00.002-06:00

Mardi Gras in St Louis is total craziness! It's the 2nd largest celebrations in the US after New Orleans. The City of St Louis was definitely cashing in from all the out of town party goers. Anyway I drove in Friday after work with Carrie and headed first to Ryan's. We couldn't park down in Soulard so we had to leave my car at Ryan's and he then drove us all back to James'. We sat around watching ads of AB for superbowl and finally had dinner at Chuey's. Bunch of us (Ryan, James+Nick, Dave+Wes and Carrie) went to dinner but Dwane missed out on the entire weekend celebrations because he had to work and he was down with a cold. After dinner, we met up with Scott and went to McGurk's for a little bit and then went to bed semi-early in anticipation for a wild day the next day.

We woke up fairly early Mardi Gras morning and James was nice enough to make us breakfast. We made it out to watch the Parade in time since the parade's like 2 blocks from where we were staying. We all brought tumblers of Hurricane which made me drunk as hell. The parade was fun and I collected a ton of beads. The weather was surprisingly perfect. We didn't even need our jackets. The past couple of years has been frigid cold right around Mardi Gras time. After the parade, we came back to Dave's and partied at his house. All kinds of people came (young/old, straight/gay, drunk/drunk) and it was so much fun and everyone was wasted. We stood by the windows and screamed at random strangers to flash us which totally worked. I got to see so many boobies and pee-pees it's ridiculous. I guess those beads I collected came in handy. By the time 5pm came, I felt like it was 4am especially since I've been partying and drinking since 10am. James, Carrie and I finally called it quits at 7pm and went to have pizza at Talayna's. James and I also didn't want to be apart of the orgy that was developing at Dave's. We later heard all the details...very juicy indeed. At that point we had not eaten all day but for the breakfast that James fixed. Oh I had a slice of Pizza down at Soulard as well which I had a fight with the crazy pizza lady. She refused to give us change and gave me half a slice. I cussed her out, kicked her booth and flipped her off twice. I guess it probably didn't help since both parties were drunk LOL. After dinner, we pretty much chilled out and went to bed. Initial plans were to go to Novak's but we were all too tired. The next day we had branch at Mocha B's which is great and then hung out with Ryan at Hodak's (fried chicken!). We drove back and went directly to Beau's Superbowl party. So you can see the weekend was definitely full of activities. After the party, I pretty much got home and crashed...

Here are few other pics from Carrie's camera...

L: At Parade with James & Carrie; R: Craig and me

L: Parade w/ Dave, Scott and Jame; R: Dave and me

L: The beads I collected; R: Don't ask why i'm unbuckling

The Jungle

2008-02-05T09:39:00.000-06:00

This book by Upton Sinclair is quite interesting. Set in the early 1900 and talks about Chicago's meat packing industry and immigrants that worked it. Due to the popularity of this book coupled with the public outcry, it led to the passage of several acts, which established the FDA. This book's usually reading material for most high school and college kids in America but I decided to read when I noticed that James too was reading it. I wanted to gain a further understanding of America. So I'm still on target for my resolution, I finished this book in late January it's beginning of February and I'm starting on my 3rd book; Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett which looks like it's going to be good as well.

Anyway this past weekend was Mardi Gras which was full of fun, friends and drunkenness. I'll be posting about what happened over the weekend along with the pictures soon so hang on tight :)

The last few weeks prior to Mardi Gras was spent keeping warm. The weather was so cold and just this week it's starting to thaw and show little signs of Spring. Not much happened so therefore no postings, here are the few things that were worth mentioning; there was a weekend when we celebrated Doug's 30th birthday where I was out till 6:30am and on the way home my car's thermometer registered at 1 degree. I think there was another weekend that I just spent relaxing and watched Cloverfield which gave me motion sickness. I have also been going to the dentist to have a crown put into my chipped tooth. Everything's finally completed and it looks and feels pretty good. The crown cost about $370 which I had allocated funds into my FSA. I talked to my aunt and looks like crowns in Malaysia's WAY cheaper. Last week though was mainly focussed on interviews. I talked to 3 companies; FKI Logistex, Nordyne and Monsanto so we'll see which one works out. Anyway I'll be posting my Mardi Gras pictures next so I'll be back soon!

James and Dave w/end in CoMo

2008-01-14T20:29:00.000-06:00

The boys were in town this past weekend. We just hung out and had a good time. Unfortch, I came down with a cold and had to call in sick to work on Monday morning. We went out to a bunch of bars over the weekend; On The Rocks, Generic, Deuce and Heidelberg. The weather is cold again after a Spring teaser last weekend where it went up to 70 degrees. Now I just need to get through January and February and it'll start getting much better, weather wise that is. Monday morning, I also had a phone interview with BJC for a Performance Improvement Engr position but I don't think it'll be a good fit as it's a new department and they want someone with experience in healthcare to come in and implement changes. We'll see where it goes.

PS - I just got done reading The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. Not too bad of a book, I guess good enough for me to want to read the 2nd book, The Subtle Knife. I'm about half way through The Jungle by Upton Sinclair now. Looks like target of three books every 2 months is well on its way :)

NYC with Beau

2008-01-09T10:00:00.000-06:00

So I'm finally getting around to blogging about my third and final trip to New York City for 2007. Here's a chronological order of what happened. Work let out on Friday 12/21, I was so happy as it was going to be another eleven days before I had to return. I spent most of Saturday just getting ready and packing. We left for St Louis on Sunday evening as we had an early flight on Monday morning. We (Beau and I) got in at around 8pm and had dinner with Dwane at Bastilles. It was my first time eating there, totally didn't expect it but the food was great and it was an actual restaurant attached to the bar. After that, I went to Dwane's place and spent the night at Dave's and woke up for the flight early the next day. Flight to LaGuardia was pretty comfortable, we had to transit in Minneapolis. The burrito at that airport were worst I've ever had. After we got in, we took the bus to Linli's and pretty much hung out there for most of the evening. They drove us to Fang's. I had to stay at Fang's because Andro had some friends coming in from Cypress. The next day was X'mas day, met up with Hwee Ping and Sen Kiong (total coincidence! 2nd time!) and we had Dim Sum in the morning and then later had Nyonya for dinner while Beau left for upstate NY. The day after Xmas, we headed to Philly via buses that ran from Chinatown. It was quite an experience boarding the bus but in the end, it was a pretty decent and comfortable ride. Not bad for $20 roundtrip. We got into Philly, walked around for the rest of the day where we got to eat at the famous Geno's Phillycheesesteak, did a lil shopping and then to Liberty Bell etc. We walked around Philly alot and the weather wasn't exactly gorgeous, it drizzled for majority of the evening. So it was cold and wet. We had Afghani food for dinner that night, the food was good but service was quite bad. We later went out to the bar Woody's and Beau met a few guys whom he later went home with. I went back to Uncle's upstairs Inn, LOL. What?! It was a cheap hotel in the heart of Philly, eventhough it was upstairs of a bar. The next day, we walked around a little more and then took the bus back to NYC. I got in and went to meet up the gang at the Cuban Restaurant and we all had paella which was totally delicious. That night Beau and I went to Splash and I got totally drunk. It was fun and tons of gorgeous people there. Next few days were just spent walking around NYC and going out to clubs. The weather was quite nice but rained a few nights, washing away Beau's hair and facial products ;) We finally left NYC on Monday morning and made it back to St Louis. We went to dinner with Dave's friends and then later went to NYE party at Suredad's. Dwane got us the invitation to the party. The party had mainly older guys but the house was really beautiful and there were food and drinks served. It was pretty cool. Next day we drove back to CoMO and that wraps up my Xmas holidays. Here's to a new year!

Happy 2008!

2008-01-04T12:39:00.000-06:00

So how did everyone's holidays went? I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I finished the fifth Harry Potter book shortly before I left for my Christmas holidays in NYC which turned out to be a really fun trip (I'll have more in my next entry). I started reading up on The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman while on the trip. What is it with me and fantasy books? So far GC's going pretty good and it's a real quick and easy read anyway. The next book I have lined up after GC is The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and followed by The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (Oprah's book club). I am trying to read more books as you can see, that's one of my New Year's resolution. Here's the rest of my New Year resolutions:

1. Would like to seriously pursue a new job that will facilitate my move to St Louis, hopefully by end of Summer 2008.

2. Need to start saving more (ie Max out my Roth IRA for 2008 and have my 2nd home mortgage paid off). I have let 2007 slip in terms of savings...too many trips and buying the new car will definitely do just that!

3. Toning up and shedding some extra lbs. I'm currently at 145, would like to get down to 135lb range. (Beau & I are going to join Dave & Wes in attempting The Abs Diet which is not too different from what we're already doing)

4. Definitely need to start calling home more often, at least twice a month. I rarely call home anymore. I need to improve my relationships with my brothers, Dad, Aunty Bee, Uncle Soohee in NZ and other relatives among others.

5. Be more generous to my close friends and try to donate time/money to a good cause. Would definitely volunteer when I do move to St Louis.

6. I want to be a part of a Professional organization (ie IIE and others) and get more training and schooling for my profession.

7. I want to read at least three books every two months, totalling 18 for the year. So far The Golden Compass will be first for 2008.

This is just a preliminary list of my resolutions, so I'm sure I'll be back to add or make changes to the list further down the road. So far it seems pretty complete as it covers the four very important areas of my life; Family, Friends, Finance and Career. I never really have put any resolutions down in writing before but I was sold on doing one when Dave started reading one from his own list. I think it is quite important for it creates a visual goal for me to achieve for this year and by having it published it will hold me accountable to achieving it.

So back to Order of the Phoenix, totally good book. I can't wait to finish the other books I have lined up so I can start on Half Blood Prince. This book gets darker as you can see from the movie. Harry starts having very dark thoughts and his connection to Voldemort strenghtens. Harry also loses his godfather, Sirius and almost lost Mr Weasley as well. According to Chadd, JK Rowling had originally intended to kill off Mr Weasley but she thought that it might be too traumatic for Harry. I've heard that the next two books are going to be even worse, characters are going to start dropping like flies. As usual there were many many scenes that were different comparing the book to the movie. I understand why they have to do what they did in the movie for dramatic effects and time constraints but I sometimes wished it matched the book pretty closely.

Wicked the Musical

2007-12-17T15:56:00.000-06:00

Spent a lot of time driving last week. I took Wednesday off work and drove in to St Louis on Tuesday night to get fingerprinted yet again on Wed afternoon. I was applying for my EAD card and apparently every new document requires a new set of fingerprints. Went to dinner with bunch of people (Dave, Wes, James, Nick F, Clint, Jimmy, Ryan Applebees, Dwane and me) at McGurks. After dinner we just hung out at Daves. The next day I pretty much got fingerprinted and hung out with Dwane and drove back.

Worked Thurs and 1/2 day on Friday and then drove back again for Wicked on Friday night 8pm. We had bought tickets couple months back so we were all very excited. Carrie and I were supposed to go together but she wasn't feeling well so Nick F went in place of her. The show was at the St Louis Fox Theatre and I must admit, it was a gorgeous theatre. The theme of that building was Siamese Byzantine which I thought was interesting. There were very detail and ornate decorations all over and the inside was huge. Ryan, James, Dwane and I all got dressed up and went together. The show lasted for over two hours and I must say this is probably one of the best Musicals I've seen. It was witty, funny and had a great twist of story line adapted from the classic movie, The Wizard of Oz. I only wished I've seen the movie before the play as there were many references made because this musical was kind of a prequel to the movie with minor changes/adaptations. After the musical, we went to South City Diner and had a late, late dinner and pretty much went home and crashed.

The next day, we woke up to snow and more snow. We stayed in most of the day and tried to stay warm by drinking lots of tea and played a game of Scrabble with Wes and Dave over breakfast. Later Ryan, James and I went to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen and then watched I Am Legend, which turned out to be a really entertaining movie. After the movie, we found more snow (it snowed a total of 6-8" throughout the day in both StL and Col) and made a really slow ride home due to slick roads and stupid drivers. We got back and all of us started playing a game of Monopoly which turned out to be incredible fun. It was fun to see how everyone got to be sneaky, conniving, catty and mean. Initial alliances between Dave and me was a sure win against Wes, Ryan and James but later Dave decided to turn on me, so I recruited the other team and we proved to be victorious. We ended up playing till 5am which reminded me very much of the time when I was a young boy and stayed up late to play board games such as Monopoly and Risk with my brothers and childhood friends. It really brought back and added great memories for me. Sunday we all had lunch at Joanie's and I hung out for a little longer and headed home to Columbia.

This week is the final work week for the 2007! It's scary how fast this year has flown by. I have a feeling 2008 will be filled with many new challenges. I will be heading to New York City (for the 3rd time this year) a week from today on Xmas eve with Beau and then returning New Year's Eve to celebrate with the StL crew. I'm really looking forward to this trip, hopefully it won't be too cold. I'd like to maybe check out Atlantic City, Boston or DC. It's another total last minute trip, we bought the tickets on Friday! And it only cost us $109!!! ($160 after taxes and fees). The next time you hear from me will probably be after my NY trip and I promise to post lots and lots of pictures :)

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!

Xmas

2007-12-07T19:36:00.001-06:00

Merry Xmas! We're downtown lookin at window displays and enjoying free food, Yummy!!

Thanksgiving

2007-11-28T13:38:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry for not updating for almost a month now. I have just been busy and this whole cold weather thing is just so depressing. The few weekends before Thanksgiving were spent doing nothing too interesting but hanging around with Beau and Chadd in Columbia. The weekend before Thanksgiving, I drove in to StL for James & Nick's Thanksgiving party. I left right after work Friday. Soon upon arriving, a bunch of us went to a condo launch party hosted by Tony's boss' who does real estate development on the side at Compton Heights or Gates, I can't remember. The party was pretty cool, open bar with free food and performances by a string quartet and a belly dancer *Gasp*. After the party, we went to Novak's and had a ball, met Dallas who was fun. The next day, Dave and I pretty much did nothing and yet we were late to the Thanksgiving party. Nick cooked up a storm with the highlight (for me at least) being the pepper ice cream. The rest were standard Thanksgiving stuff (turkey, stuffing...etc). We stayed in that night and the next morning, we all went to DimSum. Everyone enjoyed the experience except for Dave who pouted pretty much the whole day. After that, I visited Michael (Nestle) and Ryan and drove home after that.

The following week was really nice as I only had to work 3 days. Thursday (Turkey Day); Justin, Chadd and I went to Mark (Justin's boss) and Kevin's house for dinner. Sam (Justin's coworker) was there too. After dinner, we played some board games and left. They were really nice people and had a pretty nice house. I guess the funeral business is lucrative :) Later that night, Beau, Chadd and I went to watch Beowolf at the theaters and I must say, I did not enjoy this movie at all except for a short scene when Beowolf strips naked to fight Grendel ;) Friday I went shopping with Chadd and later that night played Sequence (more board games!) with Chadd and Beau. The next day, I drove in to StL where I hung out briefly with Patricio then had dinner with James at 1111; which is a really good restaurant. I had rabbit :D and after dinner went to The Chocolate Bar which is kinda cool. After that, we went to Freddy's to meet up with Dave&Wes, Dwane, Michael etc. We partied at Novaks again and totally shut the place down. Sunday, we (James, Dave & me) hung out most of the day and I had dinner with James & Ryan at Macaroni Grill. After dinner, I did some research before my 2nd interview which went pretty well. Now I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens. Will keep you all posted if I hear anything. I hope everyone had a good Turkey celebration!

Goblet of Fire

2007-10-31T10:58:00.000-05:00

Man this is definitely the longest HP book I've read so far. It feels like it's taken forever to finish -- 734 whomping ~~willow~~ pages! Lately I've been making many HP references, I hope my non-HP reader friends will forgive me :) Like the other day, I described some person I knew as having a Hermione hairday. So the big news couple weeks ago was JK Rowling revealing that Dumbledore's gay! Well of course he is, who else but a queen would use "lemon drop" as a password to his office, LOL!

Well I'm finally done with this book! Just like the last few, it was really good, I can't believe I didn't read HP series much earlier. Somewhere along the middle, this book got a little slow but the end was great and I liked how everything tied together and it all made sense. This book is definitely setting up the scene for the great Voldermort to go all out and declare war. I especially liked how in the end of the book, Dumbledore went into aggressive mode and started giving everyone instructions in preparation of what is about to happen. Now it's time for me to go get Goblet of Fire, the movie eventhough I just recently watched it with Chadd. I have also gone to the library and picked me up the next book Order of the Phoenix. Woo hoo...can't wait :)

Boo, Happy Halloween guys! I didn't do much this past weekend, just rested and stayed home mostly. Gym on Saturday morning and later that night watched 30 Days of Night, starring Josh Hartnett. It had been out for about a week, so the theater wasn't too busy. It was a pretty good movie, a little too gory for my taste but it's good compared to a lot of the scary movies lately. After the movie, we (Chadd, Beau and me) went to Houlihan's for dinner and it happened to be happy hour and it was half off drinks and $5 appetizers. We had a feast and the bill only came up to be about $10/person. It was awesome! Will definitely have to do it again. Sunday, I stayed in all day, did some cooking and cleaning. It was nice after the last few hectic weekends I've been having.

Homecoming 2007

2007-10-23T16:24:00.000-05:00

This past weekend turned out really well...really well indeed. Beau and I skipped gym and went to the mall instead to help Justin buy some new shoes. James and Scott came in on Friday night and together with Carrie, me, Beau, Justin, Colin and Cynthia we had a late dinner at Addison's. Ryan and Nick came in later that night. I haven't seen Justin all week long so he gave me my birthday present (a digital photoframe, awesome!) that he split with Dave. It was good catching up with Scott (last time I saw him was last year's Homecoming!). Speaking of Homecoming, I just found out that MU is where the tradition of Homecoming started, pretty cool fact. Anyway after dinner we walked to the Penguin bar and as soon as we got in, we were doing shots. The yaeger shots were ok but the one that really screwed me up was the Irish Car bomb. We all got so drunk that night as you can see from the slide show. Beau had to drive me home and take my car home with him that night!

The next morning we all got up early for the Parade. We were all amazingly perky, especially after a night of partying and getting drunk. After the parade, we had lunch at Shakespeares and followed by the football game (thanks to Beau for getting Justin, Chadd and me tickets!). The weather by the way on both Saturday and Sunday was a beautiful 70-80 degrees! The football got boring as we were kicking Texas Tech's butt and we decided to leave after half time. Later that night we went out to Deuce and then later Tellers. I got to meet up with Don and Jesse. The next morning we had brunch at Ernies as usual and then later went to watch Elizabeth: The Golden Age with Chadd and Beau. Movie was pretty good, Cate did a great job portraying the Queen. After that, I just pretty much relaxed and got my mind ready for work.

My dirty Thirty!

2007-10-16T15:26:00.000-05:00

What a weekend!

We (Beau, Chadd, KK and me) drove in right after work on Friday and directly to Zoe for dinner. The food was pretty good and they had a great atmosphere. Ten of my good friends (Dave, Wes, James, Carrie, Chadd, Beau, KK, Dwane, Patricio and Matt) came to dinner that night. Food was great and so was the dinner conversation. The guys got the usual DQ ice cream cake and that was great! After dinner, we went to Novaks and had a lot of fun.

The next day, we spent most of the day buying and preparing for the party. The party turned out to be a big success, about 50-60 people showed up and Dave's place was completely trashed but we helped clean up the next morning. I'm so glad Egwin and Rachel drove in from KC and my coworker Kelly drove in from Jeff City.

Sunday we just cleaned up, went out for brunch and pretty much drove home after that. Weather was great so Beau and me went out for a little 3 mile run and later that night, I just relaxed and watched DH and B&S.

Dwane's visit

2007-10-05T14:13:00.000-05:00

Dwane from St Louis decided to come visit Columbia for the first time. He took the train down Saturday, went to get him and then decided to give the Capital building a tour. The building was totally cool, unfortunately that's about the only cool thing about Jefferson City. After walking around enjoying the beautiful fountains and statues, we came back to Columbia for lunch where we had very yummy beef pho. After lunch we walked around downtown, the weather was just amazing the entire weekend. Later that evening Dwane, Beau and me had dinner at Murry's, the food was very good. After dinner, we checked out some of the bars including Arches, On the Rocks and Shattered. The next day, we had Shakespeare's for pizza and then went to the local Art Festival. Pretty much stayed in for most of the evening where I cooked dinner and watched Sunday night TV. Monday, I worked half day and came back and hung out for a little more and then drove him back to the train station. So that's pretty much it for the weekend. It was fun and Dwane got to see Columbia for the first time.

Prisoner of Azkaban

2007-09-26T13:09:00.000-05:00

I just got done reading and watching this title! I am now officially a HP fan! I have immediately started reading Year four: Goblet of Fire. The book was absolutely astonishing but I was a little let down by the movie. The book was full of details and did an excellent job at expanding on the three favourite characters; Hermione, Ron and Harry. The end, like the first two books, were also filled with twists and turns, revealing the good from the dark side. I thought the first two movies followed the book pretty closely but left out a few minor details but for Year three, the movie decided to leave out, sometimes even changing certain plots from the book. The movie was still entertaining but in my opinion absolutely cannot be compared to the book. Like how the movie completely left out why Black, Potter and Pettigrew became learned how to become an Animagus. It was because they were very compassionate of Lupin's condition and wanted to keep him company during his transformation. They were best of friends, just like Hermione, Ron and Harry. The movie also completely left out the second quidditch match, where Harry rode his Firebolt, that won Griffindor the cup. Another character development that was left out was how Snape was almost killed by a prank only to be rescued by Potter but suspected him of causing it all to begin with, therefore the huge hatred Snape has for Harry. Ok enough HP for now.

So the last two weekends, I didn't really do anything or go anywhere. The first of the two, Joe and James + Nick came in to town to visit. It was really good seeing Joe again after about a year. He seems to be doing well and liking his new life in Michigan. We spent quite a lot of quality time together and that was nice. James + Nick drove in to attend a wedding. Last weekend, was beautiful, weather wise. I just hung out downtown with my book and laptop for majority of the day. Tried going out on Fri and Sat nights but just getting tired of the scene here. I spent three whole hours washing and waxing my car on Sunday, so much for lazy Sunday afternoon!

Chicago

2007-09-11T13:08:00.000-05:00

I was really excited as I had been looking forward to labor day weekend for quite a while. I headed for St Louis pretty much right after work on Friday and got in at around 7pm, the traffic was bad. Interstate 70 came to a complete stop several times for no apparent reason whatsoever, just stupid drivers I guess. Driving in, I was sure the trip to Chicago would have been cancelled since we had not secured a hotel room but soon after I arrived, Patricio made a reservation at Hotel Cass (Holiday Inn Express) at the heart of Magnificent Mile. That night we (Dave, Patricio, Applebee's Ryan, Dwane and me) had dinner at Maggiano's and then later met Nestle guy at Freddy's and H2+Mas at Novak's. I had so much fun but the weekend had just started. Spent the night at Dwane's that night, Angel's loft is really nice!

The next day, got to Dave's bright and early but we didn't leave for Chicago till about noon because Patricio's tire blew out. On the way up, we had some really strange but serious conversations, topics ranged from religion to phylosophy to sexuality. It was interesting though and made the drive go by very quickly. Before we knew it, we were there. It's been 3 or 4 years since I've last visited Chicago, the tall buildings and large crowds immediately reminded me of my recent trip to NYC. We checked into our Hotel Cass and signed up for valet parking eventhough Dave was against the idea but it just made life easier. We walked around Mich Ave for a awhile and later met up with Elliot and Bill for dinner. After dinner, we took the cab down to boys' town and went to Sidetracks, Roscoes' and then later Hydrate.

The next day, I got up and left the two boys still sleeping and went to have brunch with Elliot and Bill. We all later met up again and walked around visiting tourist sites; Libraries, fountains and of course the bean. That night, we had dinner at the Grand Lux Cafe (apprently operated by the same people as Cheesecake Factory) and then skipped out on Bill's cousin's party. Dave and I took the train down to Boys' town while Patricio stayed back to study for the MCAT. We didn't party too hard, just checked out all of the bars and got home at a decent hour. Monday was check out day. We paid our bill and took the train down to Chinatown where we got to enjoy some Malaysian cuisine and walked around. Dave and Patricio seemed to like the chinese bakeries very much. We left Chicago around 5pm and got back to St Louis at around 11pm, where I immediately got back on the road heading back to Columbia. I finally made it home at around 1am, but on the way, around where HWY 40 meets I-70, I got my first ever speeding ticket in Missouri. Fortunately, I know an attorney so Dave's trying to get it fixed, I'm keeping my fingers crossed....

Books and more

2007-09-11T12:51:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading the book AND watching the movie. As always the book is much better but I must say the movie follows the book very closely. Certain scenes that I thought had been cut out were in the deleted scenes section instead. I read somewhere that JK Rowling refused to give up control of the films to some Hollywood executive, so she's still very much in control. I guess I'm still obsessed with Harry Potter :) Moving on to book number three, Prisoner of Azkaban. Derrick from work loaned me this book as it was taking forever to get them from the library.

This past weekend was spent recuperating from a cold. I'm actually still sniffling and coughing as I'm typing. Went to the Roots and Blues festival with Beau on Friday after gym. Saturday I had lunch with Justin and hung out with him and Chadd the majority of the day. Justin cooked dinner and then we watched couple of scary movies. They were dumb. That night I took two Benadryls and slept for almost 12 hours. I could have slept more if I hadn't made plans to meet Chadd and Justin at Ernie's for brunch. Watched Chamber of Secrets with Chadd and then later played some tennis with Justin. That's pretty much all I did for the weekend. Mainly resting from the labor day weekend before where I had gone to Chicago with Dave and Patricio. Anyway I'll have another entry for that soon with pictures :)

Happy 50th!

2007-08-31T09:36:00.000-05:00

I just want to congratulate the Country of my birth, Malaysia, for celebrating 50 years of peace, harmony and growth.

Justin & Chadd's Birthday

2007-08-23T15:19:00.000-05:00

On Friday, I felt like only having a one-day-work week since I was in St Louis on Wed evening and Thursday for my fingerprinting business, yay! (See 2 post down) Dave got into CoMO early so he went to get the ice cream cake and triple chocolate cake (Chadd had to be different) while I went to the mall (met Beau) to buy Justin a tie. We all met up at Pasta Factory and to our surprise, we had the same hot waiter during Steph's birthday dinner and again we gave him a plate of cake (whores, I know). Dinner was fun but I definitely ate way too much with two different desserts. After dinner we went to Forge and Vine where I bumped into Ryan & Eric (hotties from Gold's) while James ~~tried to avoid~~ saw his ex. We got bored with F&V and relocated to Heidelberg where Justin left early and I had my little tiff with Dave about him texting inappropriate messages to Elliot from my cell (Draaama!). We left shortly after Schuppan arrived (that's what happen when one arrives at 1am). The next day we had brunch at Shakespeare's and then toured Justin's work place (Memorial Funeral home, CREEPY!) then to Carrie's to hang out/play video games/watch Beauty and the Beast (What? I love that cartoon). After Carrie's, we went home, had leftover pizza and headed out to Yellowfever's party with Chadd. There were some straight-not-so-hot guys stripping and this dumb-but-cute jock named Ozone LOL but other than that, it was lame, so we left early and came home to watch Six Feet Under. Sunday morning we went to Ernie's as usual but we had a new braless waitress and she was terrible (No tip for her!). Dave left after breakfast and Chadd, Carrie and I went to watch Superbad. It was a really funny movie, just like American Pie but told from the dorks' point of view. After that, Chadd came over and we watched Harry Potter. And just like that, the weekend's over.

Wicked!

2007-08-21T13:56:00.000-05:00

Well thanks to Chadd, I've been obsessed with Harry Potter lately. It started when I went to watch the latest movie (HP and the order of the Phoenix) and got all caught up in this world of wands and wizardry. He passed me the first book, HP and the Sorcerer's Stone which I just finished and today I'm moving on to th the Chamber of Secrets which I got from the library! I can't help it, I'm obsessed. I even have the third book (HP and the prisoner of Azkaban) on hold at the local library! I've always kinda wanted to read the books but have just been putting it off, but I guess the recent chain of events was just a great catalyst. I was also recently at Blockbuster and bought Sorcerer's Stone the movie. Now that I've read the book, it all make alot more sense. I finally understand the characters and storyline better and I also know how Quidditch works! Now I can't wait to watch the first movie again with my new found knowledge. I also like how this book reminds me of my school days especially since the schools I went to was based on the British system where we had to wear uniforms and had prefects on patrol. When this book series first made huge news, I put it off as a children's book and never thought very much about it, but now I understand how this book became as popular as it has. I have also noticed how big a fan base this book reaches. I mean people of all ages, races, backgrounds are totally intrigued by it. I somehow feel like now that I've started reading, I belong to some kind of underground HP cult club. Well I guess you all know what's going to occupy my time for this coming winter.

Fingerprinted

2007-08-20T13:28:00.001-05:00

So I drove in to St Louis last Wednesday night since I got a letter from USCIS that I had to be at the Federal building at 11am on Thursday. I'm glad that this process is moving along, I just want it all to get wrapped up ASAP. Anyway I got to James' at around 7pm and later had dinner at Sydney St. Cafe with Dwane, James, Nick F and Ryan. The food was a little pricy but absolutely delicious. After dinner, Andy came to James' house and we all just sat around and talked till about 1am.

The next day, I got up and drove down to the Federal building which was like 5 minutes away from James' place. Unfortunately there were two conventions going on so parking was a real hassle. The whole process only took like 30 minutes and then I was done. They took every print imaginable; one for the thumb, all four index fingers together, each individual index finger and rolling my finger to fill up a square print. They also snapped a picture of me for my GC which I thought was odd because I had to send in like 6 copies of passport photos (which cost like $50) the last time my I-475 packet was sent in. After I got done, I called Andy which is currently in between jobs as he was moving back to Hannibal and we had lunch at Bar Louie and then went shopping. After shopping, went over to Nick F's and had a wonderful dinner. He's a darn good cook and the pasta noodles were made from scratch. I left StL at around 9pm and made it back to Columbia at around 11pm and finally went to bed at midnight. The next day was Justin and Chadd's birthday dinner which I'll save for the next posting...hopefully with lots of pictures ;)

Dave's 1st Party in STL

2007-07-24T14:02:00.000-05:00

The weekend really started when James and Owen drove down to Columbia on Thursday. We all had dinner at Addisons and then all went out to Soco later that night. It was ok, the whole Soco routine's getting old. The next day was a little foggy at work. Friday night, Beau and me had homemade pizza then went out to hang out with Don, Jesse and Sassy. I haven't seen them in forever! The next day we left for St Louis at around 3. We got to Dave's house and immediately went out to help him buy his Tiki torches and came back and got ready for the party. The party was held in conjunction with Chris C's birthday and Andy Briscoe's going away party. The intention was also to stock up Dave's liquor cabinet and boy was it a success ;) That night we stayed up till 5am! It was fun and got to meet a ton of new people. The next day we had Iphone-Nick's delicious omelette and then to Harry's for lunch. After that we somehow ventured over to Illinois and visited one of UN's World Heritage Sites, the Cahokia Mounds. It wasn't all that. In fact the whole area was quite ghetto actually. We did crack up reading about the Steam Rooms or Steam Lodges and the boy's role (Amazingly, the displays and signs had alot of sexual innuendos in them!) and later climbed up the biggest mound. After that we got back and Beau and I drove back where I passed out at home at 9:30pm that night. I was really tired, I barely slept the night before :) And that is another fun Summer weekend. Below you can see some pics from Carrie and James' cameras.

Pictures from Carrie's Camera

Pictures from James' Camera

So what do you think?

2007-07-18T16:44:00.000-05:00

Do you like my new layout? I hope you do, there are still little things to do here and there (like that stupid picture at the top that doesn't seem to fit **anyone knows how to help please let me know**) They let you add all these new stuff on the side of the blog now which is ultra cool. So go take the POLL and LET ME KNOW WHAT U THINK!

Good News

2007-07-18T11:26:00.000-05:00

My cousin, Keith, recently went on a diving trip to Lembeh Straits at North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Immediately after seeing this picture, I just fell in love with it. I like how serene this picture looks and the water almost looks black. It's amazing! I don't know much about photography but I definitely have alot of interest in it. Anyway if you want to check out more pictures check out his blog...

On a side note, I received my receipt letter from USCIS (formerly INS) stating that I'm officially in my FINAL stage!!! :) I was so happy. That still doesn't mean I have my GC yet BUT that means that six months from June 20th (which is Dec 20th, see I'm so smart) I will have something referred to as the Portability Act and that basically means that I'm home free after that date. If anything happens to me at work, I can find a different job and my process continues! How awesome is that?!? And if all goes well **as it has** that means I should have my GC by next Summer!!!!!

KC and Austin

2007-07-17T15:59:00.000-05:00

So as promised, I'm updating my blog :) I think I will do so more often now that I don't feel the pressure of posting pictures. It's just so much work when pictures are involved. I'll just link you guys to my Picasa and voila....finito! By the way, I think everyone should upload their pictures to Picasa, makes life so much easier. Where did I last left off, OK here we go, the last two weekends have been fun but also exhausting. I also felt sickly for the last two weeks, had some kinda stomach flu that left me feeling bloated, nauseated, constipated, indigested and diarrhead out; definitely no fun! It started shortly before the 4th of July and as of yesterday I can say I have finally rid myself of that bug. I'm finally feeling 100% again, yay!

Anyway, weekend of 7/7, I drove in to Kansas City to see the folks that I have not seen in almost a year. I got into MS's at around 2pm and almost immediately, they put me to work (slave labor, I'm telling you). She had all the ingredients layed out for our once-a-year tradition of making bak zhang! This year only Elaine, MS, Terri and me participated so it took extra long to complete the task. I think we made bak zhang till it got dark but we were rewarded with scrumptious bak zhang gorging all day long, yummy! I was too exhausted to go out with Kenneth and gang so I just stayed in and crashed and the next day we had Indian buffet at Korma Sutra. It was good but I ate way too much and it definitely made my stomach situation worse. It made me sick for the next few days. I was rewarded with a bundle of heavenly zhangs and it was nice seeing almost everyone. MS looks like she's ready to pop and Tze's teeth looks remarkable, those were definitely the highlights ;) Till my next KC trip...

After KC I had another 4 day week (prior week was 4th July) to help Steph move to Austin. Come Thursday 7/12, I was still feeling a little weird so I maxed out on some Pepto Bismol (I tell you, that shiz works but it does strange things to your tongue and poop, lol) Anyway TMI, right after work on Thursday, we all hit the road. The journey started with Steph+Beau driving her Mazda and Justin+me in the Uhaul (budget) truck. The first 3 hours was pretty fun as we were just chatting and snapping pics away but as night falls, the torture started. The TOLL roads thru OK was the worst stretch as it was reduced to single lanes. We took turns driving thru the night and that was tiring as crap. We had a scary encounter with a hearse while Justin was peeing, scared the bejezus out of us hehehe. We finally got into Austin at 8am and we all crashed at Aaron's. Finally woke up at 2pm and then had to unload all her junk. After all that was done, the weekend started to get better :D We went out to Chuy's on Friday night where Beau got hit on. Later that night we checked out Austin's nightspots. It was OK, I still prefer the clubs in STL. Next day we shopped during the day and later that night went to see Ester's Follies (a comedy, variety show kinda like SNL) which was great. Enjoyed the magic show very much. Crazy carl was also quite a hit. After that, we walked around sixth street which is party central and again we checked out the clubs. I think the best club in Austin is Rain, the rest were a little lame. The next day we flew out and Steph got teary eyed. I got sad too as she has been a good friend for the last 4 years but I'm sure we'll keep in touch. Flew back and John G gave us a ride back to Como. The first 24 hrs of this Austin trip was definitely a torture but it all ended very well and I can say that I actually had fun.

Lazy

2007-07-05T09:31:00.000-05:00

I know it's been forever since I last blogged but I've just been so lazy. I know it's a bad excuse but I've also been really busy. So to help my alzheimer-ish memory out, I'll start writing about the most recent activities and work my way back :D

I'd like to start by wishing all of you Happy 4th! Click for pics here.
Right after work on Wed, went to catch the 7pm showing of Transformers, OMG that movie is soooo good! Well I might also be bias since I did grow up watching the cartoon. The next day went to Beau's party where there was so much food! And then later went to the same spot on the same parking garage last year to see the pathetic Columbia fireworks.

This past weekend, nothing much happened. James, Ryan and Dave came in Friday night for Carrie's birthday. We went to dinner at Sophia's and then just chilled at the Berg. They all left the next day which was odd and Carrie drove in to the Lou. I went car shopping with Justin and later had a movie marathon at my house with Chadd, KK and Justin.

The weekend before that was absolutely DA BOMB! Left for NYC with James on Thursday and returned Monday. I had so much fun. Hot, hot boys everywhere and got hit on by quite a few too ;) Right after we got in, went to happy hour and then dinner at K (Jap fusion place) Then went to Splash and had a blast! The next day I went down to Soho while James went to the beach. I did a little shopping and hung out with Alex where he showed me his Soho loft which was absolutely fab! Had dinner with EVERYONE at the Bohemian Beer gardens and had so much fun. After dinner, went out to Mr Black. Was fun but extremely crowded. Saturday we had a big Malaysian lunch then walked around and shopped alittle. Later that night we went to G Lounge. Sunday was the parade, we spent majority of the day watching the parade and then later that night we checked out View and later Hiro which was also very cool. As you can see, we definitely partied a whole lot this trip. It was awesome!

Here are some pictures from the trip but definitely beware, there are some PG13 shots!!! :)
Enjoy...

Baby update

2007-05-22T13:21:00.000-05:00

Well this was how baby Kuan Yen looked when he was 1 month old

Look how big he's gotten now!!!

Aww....how cute is he ;)

Your uncle in the US loves you...

LAST STAGE!!!

2007-05-16T12:49:00.000-05:00

OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!

I just got off the phone with my immigration attorney...AND I'm moving into the last and final stage of my greencard process. Assuming everything goes smoothly, I should have it in a year's time!! And worst case scenario, I still can move to a different employer after 180 days! This is so weird and surreal. I'm celebrating for sure, YAY!!!

W/end pic

2007-05-08T10:54:00.001-05:00

I love these boys :)

Oprah's Book Club: The Road

2007-04-18T14:36:00.000-05:00

I just got done reading one of Oprah's Book club selection, The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I actually downloaded a free audio book from Netlibrary which I get a free account via the local library network. Pretty amazing how technology works. I got it because I had a 5 hr drive down to Fayetteville this past weekend to visit some old college buddies. The trip went well but that will be a separate post.

Now more about the book. It was a very weird yet interesting book. I cannot decide whether I like or dislike it. Very much the same feelings I had when I watched Stranger than Fiction, Running with Scissors and Children of Men.

Here's a synopsis I got from the Oprah book site:

"Set in the smoking ashes of a post-apocalyptic America, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road tells the story of a father-son journey toward the sea and an uncertain salvation. The world they pass through is a ghastly vision of scorched countryside and blasted cities “held by cores of blackened looters who tunneled among the ruins and crawled from the rubble white of tooth and eye carrying charred and anonymous tins of food in nylon nets like shoppers in the commissaries of hell” [p. 181]. It is a starved world, all plant and animal life dead or dying, some of the few human survivors even eating each other alive.The father and son move through the ruins searching for food and shelter, trying to keep safe from murderous, roving bands. They have only a pistol to defend themselves, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.Awesome in the totality of its vision, The Road is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation."

I think the author did a fantastic job and describing the catastrophic environment that surrounds the characters and also amazing at building up the two main characters, the man and the boy. What I didn't particularly like about this book was the abrupt beginning and ending of the book, taking a strange clip from post-apocalyptic world. As suggested on Oprah's site and wikipedia, this book definitely had a religious undertone to it making it feel like the boy is the messiah. Anyway it was entertaining enough to keep me listening to it to the very end. There are many Study Questions posted on Oprah's site which are quite interesting too.

Dave's Birthday in Columbia (Beware! Lotsa pics)

2007-04-06T09:54:00.000-05:00

L: Dave's bday dinner at Sophias (from left to right: Kim, Carrie, Beau, James, Dave, me, Chadd and Justin R: We're inseparable....

L: Dave's bday cake, very appropriate for 1st year lawyer R: After dinner at Soco

L: Gettin our freak on on the dance floor R: Gettin drunk ;)

Dave came back to Columbia to celebrate his birthday this past weekend. It turned out great and we all had a really good weekend. Dave rode in with James on Friday after work and we went to Sophia's for his birthday dinner. Dinner was fun and food was great, I ordered the special salmon dish with cous cous :P At the end of dinner, we did our traditional ice cream cake. We partied the rest of the night at Soco where it was a totally empty lesbian night but we had enough people to have a good time regardless. We all got drunk and danced like fools. After Soco we went to Beau's house and again act a fool :)

L: After lunch at Berg touring MU, strikin a gansta pose ;) R: Wes looking up as we're strikin a pose

L: Beautiful MU Columbs courtesy of Carrie R: We were very drawn to the statue of Willian Jefferson updating his looks with cap and sunglasses.

L: Group pic in front of columns R: I love this pic! Everyone looks like they're having a GREAT time

The next day, James and I had to be real sneaky to surprise Dave with Wes' surprise visit. It all worked out well and Wes showed up as we were eating lunch at the Berg. After that we just walked around MU campus. It rained and stuff but after lunch, the weather cleared and got nicer. That night we had dinner at Shakespeares and then went to Shattered and had a really good time. I feel that Shattered is someetimes a hit or a miss but that night, it was definitely a hit. After Shattered we went to Art and Doug's and didn't stay too long. I went to bed really late at around 3/4 am both Friday and Saturday nights.

L: Sat nite dinner at Shakespeares, Dave and his presesnts R: Group pic at Shakespeares from left; Brandon, James, Beau, me, Justin, Dave and Wes

After dinner it was time to party at Shattered, being crazy on the cage stage

Sunday we all went to Ernie's for brunch and sat outside. It was sunny and just the perfect morning to sit outside with a group of friends devouring sausage, eggs and hashbrowns. To top it off, we had Dan as our server, he was funny and entertaining. We sat around just enjoying each other's company, I had a really good weekend. I think we all had a great weekend. After brunch Dave and Wes left for StL and I went to the mall with Justin, Carrie and James. After the mall James left and later that evening Justin and Beau came over and we watched a new ep of Brothers and Sisters and Justin crashed on my couch that night :) And this wraps up another good, fun and crazy weekend. Hope more will come...

I love this pic that Beau photoshopped, I'll have to develop some!

Group pic at Soco on Fri nite. From left: James, Carrie, Art, Dave, me, Byron, Beau, Doug, John, Justin and Chadd

Crazy pic with Doug and Art

Eurotrip 2007 Part 2

2007-03-28T14:44:00.000-05:00

So Monday morning, the day after visiting Oxford, I got up bright and early to take the Picadilly line from my Aunt's place (Osterley Station) down to Victoria Station to catch the Gatwick Express. I didn't really have too much problems except it was the morning peak hour so I was squeezed in the train with a bunch Brits and I think someone let one rip and totally stunk up the entire train :( After several exchanges, I got on the Gatwick Express with no problems, sat by a really hawt New Zealander Geologist, Paul Stenhouse, and we chatted up a storm making the 30 min train ride go by in a wink. I exchanged for some Czech Crowns and boarded British Airways, flight BA 2684, and arrived perfectly on time.

Something that's never happened to me before occured; my bag was the first one to come out on the conveyer line, amazing! Anyway I walked out of the airport scrambling to find a familiar face and within a minute I spotted Adrian. He hasn't changed one bit! He has maybe put on a few pounds but I'm sure that's what happens when one gets older, married and settled. I was very happy to see him as the last time I saw him was when we were both students at the Univ of Arkansas. He left after his first year in the summer of 1998. We first met outside of Brough Commons (dining hall) and became immediate friends as I offered my umbrella in the rain while walking back to our residence hall, Holcomb Hall. Sarthak, Adrian, Sharjeel and me became very close and would hang out way too much. Thinking about all this brings back bitter sweet memories. Anyway after the initial excitement of seeing one another, I suddenly thought, "what if he's changed and we no longer get along etc etc". It HAS been almost 9 years since we last seen or spoke to one another. But my worries proved me wrong as soon as we stepped into the taxi and we talked just like the old times, kidding around and laughing.

We got back to their really nice Penthouse apartment and met his wife, Salome. We wasted no time and went back out to tour the one of the most well preserved city in Europe, sheltered from much of WW1 and WW2. The buildings around the entire city was just gorgeous, doesn't matter where you were it was pretty. I bought a 3-day transportation pass which would let me take unlimited rides on the tram, subway and buses which I did! First thing we did was take the tram down to the Wenceslas Square and Adrian bought me real yummy hot dog (Czech style) which was delicious! We walked around, I was taking in all of Prague. We walked pass the famous Charles Bridge and just enjoyed the scenery and caught up. For dinner, we met Salome and her two Georgian friends whom had just arrived from Berlin (for the Berlin Film Festival) on the same day, at Cafe Louvre. Cafe Louvre was a really good place to eat and has had quite an extensive guest list. Famous people who has dined there included Albert Einstein and Kafka! One thing I must say is Czech food is definitely very delicious and affordable. At Cafe Louvre, I ordered the Roast beef on cream, cranberry target, Carlsbad dumpling...totally scrumptious! The melted liquid hot chocolate was also amazing. After dinner, we just walked around town and ended up watching The Queen.

The next day, I did more sight-seeing. The first destination was the Prague Castle, the largest ancient castle in the world. In the middle of the Castle is the massive St. Vitus Cathedral with it's gothic design making it very intriguing. After the castle we strolled down to the town center and had lunch at a Hungarian place, we both had the beef goulash which was very delicious. After the castle we went to the other famous Prague attractions; Charles Bridge, Astronomical Clock, Wenceslas Square and the Jewish quarter. It was a little colder in Prague in the high 30s, low 40s, so I ended up buying a jacket from H&M. Later that evening, we met up with everyone else and attended a party at one of Salome's coworker's flat. He was the nicest guy ever, feeding us delicious Georgian food till we were stuffed.

I had to leave for London the next day...I know it was a short trip and I should've scheduled a longer stay as I enjoyed myself very much in Prague. I got back to London on time and took the Gatwick Express back to Irene's. Had dinner there and then went back out to meet Tet at some bar. The next day I met up with Irene and Joyi and toured all of London in one day! Unfortunately the weather was cloudy and it drizzled all day long. We met at Tower Bridge, had lunch at some pizza place and walked to Tate Modern. From there we went to the London Eye where we took a ride and then made our way to the Palace of Westminster. After that we walked to Westminster Abbey where Princess Di had her wedding and then on to Trafalgar Square and then to China town to meet Pek and her fiance for dinner at a Malaysian restaurant. The next day I had Dim Sum with Uncle Seang with his whole family and then later he gave me a tour of his business and home. I had a great time connecting with family that I barely knew. After that, I went out with Pek and met with Tet and the rest. Again we went to the clubs etc and spent the night at Tet's where the next day we had dim sum with Tet and his wife and Nick. After that i met up with irene, glenn and joyi and made our way to the portabello market. The next day I just chilled and it was time to fly back to America. I was sad my trip's over and I barely got to see London. I guess I'll just have to make another trip to London :)

Niece and Nephews

2007-03-28T13:39:00.000-05:00

L: Baby KuanYen and sis-in-law's Mom R: Grandma, baby KuanYen, 2nd bro (knowles) and Dad :)

I cannot believe that I'm now an uncle - to THREE kids! Sure sign of one getting older :) I am so happy for my brothers as they slowly but surely pop out these little bundles of joy but I do wish that I could be closer to all of them. I don't want to just be referred to as the Uncle in USA but would actually want Naomi, Tatsuya and KuanYen to actually know who I am. I guess these are some of the drawbacks of living so far away from my family. Anyway Ean sent me these pictures quite a while back but I just kept putting them off, I'm finally posting them today. Enjoy....baby pictures always make me smile anyway :)

L: Naomi, Oldest bro, Baby Tatsuya, Masako & Grandma R: My nephew SOOO cute (nicknamed potato jr.)

L: My sis-in-law & Potato Jr R: Oldest bro with baby Tatsuya

All these pictures really makes me feel homesick. I wish I could just hop on the plane and go home for a couple of weeks. Most people probably cannot see this but it's amazing to me how much of a resemblance these kids have of their fathers. KuanYen looks very much like Ean when he was a kid and so does Tatsuya. I'm sure they will grow up and be pretty close since they're both born on the same year -- 2006. Next time I go home they will loooove Uncle Nick as he'll be showering them with lots and lots of gifts.

Eurotrip 2007 Part 1

2007-03-22T13:37:00.000-05:00

So I'm back from my nine day trip to two European countries; United Kingdom and Czech Republic. It was definitely hectic but it's my first time in Europe so it's to be expected. Well let's see if I'm able to recapture my entire trip on this little blog entry, here goes the journey:

Day after arrival. Partying at Club Punk after surreal experience at Mag party and Marc Jacobs show. L: Tet, Ro and me & R: Lily, Chris, Tristan (Yum) and me ;)

My journey really started on Wednesday since I left for StL right after work. I got in, met up with Dave and later had dinner with Dwan. The next day, I had to get up by 3:45am to go get Dave by 4 and made it into Lambert at 4:30am! I thought the airport would be dead at that time but it was actually very busy. I barely had enough time to make it to my gate. I checked in my bag and I got charged $25 (damn AA, I got charged going but not coming back, doesn't make no sense!). Anyway my flight to Heathrow went very smoothly. I got in on time at 10:35pm and met up with my Aunt. It's been almost 8 years since I saw her and she looks very much the same! That night I stayed up just chatting with my cousin about everything under the sun. It was good bonding time but unfortunately he was involved in a play so we didn't get to spend much time together except for the late night chatting.

CNY dinner with my Aunt and Family! My first CNY "reunion" dinner in 10 years!!

The next day, Friday, I got up went out for lunch with my Aunt at the Malaysian place where I had some roti canai and chap fan and later took the tube down to South Kensington to meet up with Tet. He picked me up in his Mercedes SUV and had apparently just had lunch with a designer whose special guest so happen to be Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson. Right from that moment, things got a little surreal. We picked up this Swiss photographer, Frederick, and we all went to a magazine party at some swanky hotel. It was all very impressive; free flowing champagne, snacks, fancy water, designers and photographers were all at this party. It was all about fashion and being the only engineer, I felt a little out of place. After the party we headed for the Marc Jacobs show for the closing of London Fashion Week. Tet waltz right in, while Frederick and me tried to get in using photographer passes but we got denied so we just hung around outside checking out the line of journalists and paparazzi. It was like straight out of channel E! After about 15 mins, the show ended and people started coming out and I saw Naomi Campbell and Sofia Coppola, like I said, totally surreal. After the show, we went to this bar, Punk, where Tet's tesco disco had an event. Had a pretty good time and met Lily, Chris and this total hottie Tristan. Later had supper at HK diner and crashed at Tet's.

Day after CNY we went to Oxford. L: In front of Ashmolean Museum with Aunt&Uncle R: Atop the Church of St Mary the Virgin, see below for the view from atop the church

View from the top of the Church of St Mary the Virgin.

The next day, Saturday, we had dim sum on Baker St with Tet and his wife, Ro, and his photographer, Nick. Dim sum was very good and I later took the train back in time for the pre-CNY dinner with Aunt+family. Got back around 6pm and met my cousin's bf, Jake. He was a nice and polite guy. Dinner was fun, since I haven't done a CNY dinner like this in almost 10 years! Dinner conversations were the usual, politics and the economy. Doesn't matter which continent one's on but the dinner conversation's always the same ;) Dinner lasted till almost 11:30pm and later just chilled out with my cousin and Jake where we talked and played some Wii.

More pics at Oxford. L: Lunch at one of the oldest pubs R: Inside the courtyard of one of the many colleges in Oxford.

Sunday, Feb 18, was Chinese New Year! GONG XI FA CAI! I got an ang pau from my aunt, totally unexpected, again I have not celebrated CNY in almost 10 years! We didn't waste any time and headed out to Oxford, the oldest university in the english-speaking world. It was about a 40 minute drive from London. The strange thing I learned about Oxford was how it was made up of 39 separate colleges. Cambridge is apparently the same way, but most other Unis followed the traditional one campus style. We also toured the biggest book store, pitt rivers museum, ashmolean museum and we also climbed the spiralling stairs of the Church of St Mary the Virgin. We came home pretty late on Sunday after spending all day in Oxford. Uncle Glenn unfortunately got a ticket as we were illegally parked in Oxford (all day! so it made up for parking fees ;)

Prague here I come.......!!!!

Tomorrow I head out to Prague....I'll write about that in Part 2....to be cont'd :)

Brisku

2007-03-21T14:35:00.001-05:00

Photo taken at cafe slavia in Prague

Gold's Gym

2007-03-12T14:36:00.000-05:00

So I went back to my old gym and reactivated my account. For the past year, I have been working out at the University's brand new recreation center but that ran out at the end of February and without H2, I was unable to renew. Oh well I was getting a little tired of the University Rec Center anyway as it was always crowded and just too many people. I was paying $29/month before at Gold's and also at the University Rec Center but yesterday I got in for alittle less. I ended up paying a $29 sign up fee, 1st month free and $25/month. Not too bad...

Pics from my Cell

2007-02-28T16:35:00.000-06:00

Here are some teaser pics I've uploaded from my cell phone :) Enjoy. I'm almost done with a blog entry for my trip to London and Prague. I just have to upload pics from my camera :) Sorry it's taken me forever to publish anything new but I've just been so busy since I got back, not to mention having to deal with the jet lag. The lag is not too bad, nothing like Malaysia but I could still definitely feel it.

View of River Thames (House of Parliament and Big Ben on the left) from inside the London Eye

The Radcliffe Camery (center) in Oxford from the top of the Church of St Mary the Virgin.

Night time view of the city of Prague from across river Vltava

View of Prague from the top (behind me is where the Prague Castle is situated)

OK I hope you enjoyed these few pictures. There will be more to come, just be patient!

Superbowl/James' visit Weekend

2007-02-08T14:17:00.000-06:00

So this past weekend was a blast. James drove into town Thursday for his dentist's appointment Friday and we all went out to town. We started off having dinner at Trattoria, then drinks at Teller's and finally brought down the house at Soco. It's been a while since I partied and danced and I definitely felt my thighs burning a little while trying to boogy to the music ;) Friday night we just hung out at the Berg. Saturday, I had to go to work for a little bit and then later joined James and Carrie for a movie, we watched "Because I said so" with Dianne Keaton and Mandy Moore. It was a chick flick but it was entertaining. After the movie, we had dinner at Shakespeare and then went back to Carrie's and watched some DVDs and chilled.

Drinks at tellers after din din at Trattoria L: KK, me & Justin R: Steph, James and me

On Sunday, we had lunch at Moe's and then later went to Steph's for the Superbowl party. It was fun, we all brought food so we pigged out. I had a bet with James and I won!! :) Nothing too great with the commercials, non really caught our attention. Later that night we all played Taboo which was fun and it got heated as usual since we're all so competitive ;)

Clockwise: Me, james and Carrie at Tellers; James and me at Soco-I'm slowly gettin drunk; Justin, me and James w/ scary lookin faces; Japanese style pics with Byron me and James

As of now here are my plans for my Europe trip (I'll be leaving in exactly 1 week from today!):

Feb 14 - Drive to StL after work, dinner w/ Dwane, hang with Dave
Feb 15 - Early morning AA flight 6:10am out of Lambert, connect at Chicago, arrive Heathrow @ 10:35pm
Feb 16 - Maybe attend fashion week with Tet, go out clubbing that night???
Feb 17 - Day b4 CNY, dinner with Family, clubbing later that night???
Feb 18 - Happy CNY!!! Chill with family
Feb 19 - BA Flight out of Gatwick @ 11:40am, arrive Prague @ 2:20pm
Feb 20 - See Prague/hang out with Brisku
Feb 21 - BA flight out of Prague @ 3:15pm, arrive Gatwick @ 4:15pm
Feb 22 to 25 - Tour London; Courtesy from Kenny - St. Paul Cathedral (picturing Princess Di's Wedding here), Westminster Abbey (picturing Elton playing the piano for her funeral), Hyde Park, Piccadilly Circus (Time Square of UK), Trafalgar Square, Hampton Court, Greenwich (charming old town, great for Sunday flea market), Old Compton St (the gay ghetto block close to China Town), Heaven (by the Embankment), Tower Bridge (commonly mistaken as London Bridge), Tower of London (if you like to see the Crown Jewels) and finally Harrods.
Of course more clubbing and partying with Tet on Feb 23 & 24th. Try to meet up with Pek San too somewhere in there. Would like to see her parents and brother as well.
Feb 25 - AA flight out of Heathrow at 12:15pm, connect @ Chicago again and arrive Lambert 5:50pm. Vaca over, time to CRY!!!!

Last Minute Trip

2007-02-01T16:41:00.000-06:00

OK I have to admit, I'm not usually the type that just makes a spur of the moment decision, pack my bags and leave for vacation. My vacations usually start with months of researching and shopping for bargain prices on flights, hotels, rental cars etc, etc BUT all that went out the window with this coming trip. I knew I wanted to make a trip to Europe sometime in 2007 but the initial plan was to leave sometime in August. I even called the travel agent, looked online but the best price I could get on flights came in at around $1100! So I called my Aunt a few days ago and she suggested I go visit them for Chinese New Year. I thought about it and didn't think it was a bad idea myself especially since I have not been around family during CNY in almost 10 years (pretty much since I've been in the States). I just casually looked online for ticket prices and I was shocked to see they were between $500 to $600. I got super excited, called the travel agent to verify and looked a couple more websites before I decided within a A FEW DAYS to purchase through travelocity.com for $550! They aren't bad tickets, I leave StL at approx 6am Feb 15 and get into Heathrow, London at 10:30pm on the same day connecting in Chicago. Return also pretty good as I leave at around noon and get into StL at around 6pm. I know it's the off peak season but the tickets are half what I would have paid if I went in August!

London and Prague, here I come!!!

So anyway in the last few days, I have tried to contact quite a few people I know in Europe. I contacted a cousin from a side of family I have never met, they are related to my Dad's side. I emailed them so hopefully I'll get to see them as well for CNY. I also contacted my friend Tet and my old college buddy Adrian who lives in Prague, Czech Republic. I am planning a separate 3 day, 2 night trip to Prague as well. I made this decision so quickly mainly because of several reasons. Of course the cheap ticket price was a big one. Another is because my Aunt and my friend Tet will not be working the week I'll be there. My friend Tet will also be covering the London Fashion Week and will be able to take me in to see the event! How awesome! And last but not least the reason why it's off peak is because it's Winter but the coldest London ever gets is like 40 F which is NOTHING compared to Missouri winters :) So I have purchased my tickets and have started the hectic but fun process of planning for my first trip to Europe. I'm so excited. Wish me luck! I can't believe I'll be leaving in 2 WEEKS!!!

Big Apple X'mas 2006

2007-01-12T15:17:00.000-06:00

So as most of you know, I spent my Christmas and New Years in New York City for a total of 10 days. I flew in on Midwest Airlines for the first time (very reasonable only $180 roundtrip!) and was quite impressed. Not much waiting at the airports and the seats were a little wider with a 2x2 formation instead of the usual 2x3 AND they served freshly baked cookies..Yum! Anyway Flew from KC to Laguardia on Sat 12/23 and return trip was on 1/1. The weather was absolutely amazing the whole time I was there, around mid to high 40's. I barely needed my heavy jacket.

At our fav asian dessert place enjoying a mango custard. The pics were used to taunt KK who LOOOOVES this stuff ;) Enjoy KK...

Main reason for the trip was to get my passport renewed at the M'sian Consulate. That almost didn't happen when the massive earthquake off the coast of Taiwan disrupted telecomunications/internet to most of Asia, therefore preventing my passport from being "activated". In the end, the very kind officer told me he'll just give it to me and try to do an offline update. I was definitely glad since that would save me a ton of headache. Other than that, Linli and I hung out a bunch, did some shopping and ate our hearts out. As usual, I skipped out on most of the touristy things.

L: The compulsory subway pic and R: Diesel jeans on SALE!! But this is not the pair I bought ;)

Took a little break from shopping and chilled at this GREAT new chocolate place; Max Brenner (Chocolate by the bald man) It was fantastic with 10 different kinds of hot chocolates and dishes with added cocoa. We both shared a Hazelnut praline crepe, totally delish!

I managed to hang out with YeeBien for a day. She took the train down from Conneticut for she also had renewed her passport and need to pick it up. It was good seeing her, and she looks great!

While in NYC, I hung out with alot of Andreas' friends which was very interesting. I got to eat some Greek food (At Xmas party and Yanni's Bday) and even got to go to a Greek night club! I felt a little out of place and the music was definitely unique ;) I met alot of Cypriots and I'm not usually good with names but the few I did remember were Yanni, Andreas, Tim the dentist who cheats at Taboo and his wife Isabella, George aka GG and Philip the dancer! Also met Andro's personal trainer friend, Marcos, from Czech who is absolutely dreamy whom we ended up going to watch Night at the Museum (which is not a very good movie) with and also played Taboo and spent a night of intoxicated karaoke.

L: Drunks at karaoke, Fang and me R: Faye, me and Marco

L: LMAO, Linli and I laughed so hard when Andro just randomly ripped off his tshirt in the middle of a poker game, LOL R: In the Wall Street district, beautiful day and not too many people

On the final weekend which was the New Year's weekend, we managed to squeeze in a Broadway performance. We ended up watching Spelling Bee which was funny and entertaining. Andro, Linli and me also went to a Family bar which was alot like Freddies except a little more sophisticated. The drinks were pretty pricey though. Linli and Andro also threw a NYE party at their house where we drank champagne and played Taboo and Catchphrase.

Pics of NYE party at Andro&Lin's. We were taking japanese style pics...retarded =)

It's almost 2007! Popped champagne and we made a toast...

All in all, my trip to nyc was amazing. I managed to renew my passport, shopped a little (new diesel jeans and tons of underwear from H&M), pigged out on all kinds of cuisine, met up with Alex (friend from Fridae) and hang out with my most awesomest friend Linli ;)
Here's the perfect picture to sum up my trip....the t-shirt says it all...

Happy Holidays

2006-12-27T22:50:00.000-06:00

Hey guys, blogging from NYC :)
Just wanted to throw in a quick note
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!! For those travelling, be safe.
I will post more photos when I get back to good ol COMO. So far my at my trip I've managed to:

Ate Czech, Thai, Malaysian, Chinese and Greek food
Attended Greek Xmas party
Watched movie "Night at the Museum"; blaaah....wait for the DVD
Shopped till I drop; Diesel jeans ON SALE! H&M underwear frenzy
Dropped passport off to be renewed. Terribly inefficient!

More to come soon!!! Oh no my vacation's half over, I don't it to end...

Projects I'm currently working on...

2006-12-06T14:29:00.000-06:00

Books:

Books I'm currently reading

Not sure how or why but I got into reading two different Biographies right now. I'm almost done with The Confession by James McGreevey and just started listening to My Life audiobook by Bill Clinton. I wanted to read about Governer McGreevey because so far he's the highest government official to be outed and I wanted to read about President Clinton because he is definitely the best Commander-In-Chief since I've lived in this country. There are many parallels in these two books, both men were incredibly driven and motivated. They knew exactly what they wanted and exactly how to achieve their goals. I also understand that they are both politicians, so I take most of the "politics" in these books with a grain of salt. It's just a great read to motivate oneself to wanting to achieve bigger and greater things.

The book I just completed before I started with the two biographies above was Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I learned about this book through Dave who read it because of Wes. It's an interesting book, quite philosophical and symbolic. There's a surprise ending to the end of the book. After the author is done telling you the story, he lists a bunch of questions (to be asked at a book club, I presume) but the questions are very interesting. It's a pretty light read, I would suggest it to anyone who just wants to curl up in a couch, drinking a cup of hot cocoa, and read during these winter months. I give this book 3.5/5 stars.

I have not been so good at documenting all the books I've read. I hope to mention, even if briefly, the books I've read on my blog to somehow remind me of the material I've come across. There have been countless books that I've read that I have very little recollection of. One example would be The Green Mile which I hope to re-read because from what I can remember, it was a great book.

***NEW MATERIAL ADDED 12/11/06***

So this is another book I read earlier this year, Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. This is another really good book that I definitely recommend. Here's the excerpt from the book's cover:

"By the time she turned thirty, Elizabeth Gilbert had everything a modern, educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want - a husband, a house in the country, a successful career. But instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was consumed with panic, grief and confusion. She went through a divorce, a crushing depression, another failed love and the complete eradication of everything she ever thought she was supposed to be." "To recover from all of this, Gilbert took a radical step. In order to give herself the time and space to find out who she really was and what she really wanted, she got rid of her belongings, quit her job, left her loved ones behind and undertook a year-long journey around the world, all alone. Eat, Pray, Love is the chronicle of that year. Gilbert's aim was to visit three places where she could examine one aspect of her own nature, set against the backdrop of a culture that has traditionally done that one thing very well. In Italy, she studied the art of pleasure, learning to speak Italian and gaining the twenty-three happiest pounds of her life. India was for the art of devotion, where, with the help of a native guru and a surprisingly wise Texan, she embarked on four months of austere spiritual exploration. Finally, in Indonesia, she sought her ultimate goal: balance - namely, how to somehow build a life of equilibrium between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence. Looking for these answers on the island of Bali, she became the pupil of an elderly, ninth-generation medicine man and also fell in love in the very best way - unexpectedly." "A memoir of self-discovery, Eat, Pray, Love is about what can happen when you claim responsibility for your own contentment. It is also about the adventures that can transpire when a woman stops trying to live in imitation of society's ideals. This is a story certain to touch anyone who has ever woken up to the unrelenting need for change."--BOOK JACKET

I think it was very appropriate that I read this book at this point of my life as I am too almost turning the frightful age of thirty and share very similar discontent for life in general with the Author. Sounds harsh when I say discontent, I guess the better word is I feel like there's more I can achieve but have yet to do so. Anyway this book in a way has motivated me to want to learn new skills (languages, musical instrument etc) and much, much more. I give it 4/5 stars. Go read it and let me know what you think.

***END OF NEW MATERIAL***

Music:

I also checked out a bunch of beginner music books from the library. I think that for me to be more "complete" as a person, I need to be able to read music. I would really like to be able to read some music and be able to play basic piano which I've also checked books out for. I'm thinking about investing in a little eletronic keyboard but we'll just have to see how long my current interest will last me. Deep down inside, I've always wanted to be able to play a musical instrument. It's one of those things that I keep putting away and say I'll do it someday. Well hopefully I am serious enough to follow through with it this time as it definitely will not be easy and takes a very long commitment. Would love to hear of any advise you have for me in comment section...

Language:

I have also always wanted to be able to communicate in more languages. The two that I've been trying to learn, half-heartedly, are Spanish and Mandarin. Today I found a very interesting site that provides lessons in these and many others. This website belongs to the Foreign Service Institute, FSI. I've tried out Unit 1 of Spanish and it looks promising so if time permits, I think I'll continue with the lessons. They are quite effective and best of all, this site is completely FREE!

Snowed In

2006-12-03T11:31:00.000-06:00

Woke up as usual on Friday morning and noticed I received a text from Justin.
"Are you going to work?"
I replied
"I dunno but I'm going to try"
He calls a second later and tells me to go look out my window. I crawled out of bed and looked out my window and I went "OH MY GOD!!!" There's no way anybody is going to work. I turned on the TV and looks like Columbia's been buried in 18" of snow!

Unbelievable!

Called my boss to confirm and work is indeed called off! Wooohoooo!!! I NEVER get snow days but I guess the snow was just too severe. Both I-70 (that's right Interstate 70!) and HWY 63 were shut down. Later heard that the Governor of Missouri declared state of emergency. This is the most snow Columbia has seen since 1995!

L: The front of my house completely buried R: My backyard again buried in 18", with the Sun just about to rise.

Spent most of the morning just watching the news and catching up on the TV shows I've missed. I was also amused to see my opposite neighbour, apparently very determined to go somewhere, try for almost an hour to move their little Camry. They pushed, they shoved, they accelerated back and forth and after an hour, they were still stuck on the same spot. At that moment, I realized I'm not going anywhere for the day.

L: Piled all the snow to one side measuring almost 3' R: I'm very proud of my shovelled driveway :)

After lunch, I went across the street and borrowed a shovel from my neighbour. Hooked up my MP3 player, made a hot cup of tea and spent the next 2 hours shovelling snow from my driveway. It was kind of fun but tiring as ~~hell~~ heck and my back was a little sore the next day. True enough I stayed home the entire day, I guess taking the advise of just about every newsperson on TV and radio who was going "If you do not absolutely need to be outside, do not go out!". Later that evening, Joe who was back from Michigan (he must have brought the weather with him) came over and we got to hang out.

L: Car handled pretty well in the snow & ice R: Walked around downtown and MU after lunch.

The next day, we attempted braving the roads. This is the first time I'm driving in the snow in my BMW, seems to handle the roads very well with the 4 wheel drive. Some of the roads were plowed but the city still seemed to be in disaster mode. We had lunch at Chinese Wok, very surprised businesses were open but the owner told me they were open on Friday too! Such dedication. After lunch we just walked around downtown and MU campus, it was very pretty to see everything covered in pure white snow. After the walk, we went to Walmart and there were so many people, one would think it's the last day of Walmart's operation of worst still, war time. Each of the check out counters had a line so long it stretched all the way back to the clothing department. I guess snow days=good business :)

Reminder: Notice my little chat tool to the right, do leave a short note ;)

P/S: What do you think of the pictures taken with my cell phone W810? Seem to produce pretty good pictures.

Turkey at The Lou

2006-11-25T14:48:00.000-06:00

So I drove in to St Louis on Wed after work and got in at around 9:30pm. Drove directly to James' because Dave was already downtown and wanted to meet up and go out that night. Hung out with James which was fun and later went to Culpeppers to grab something light to eat, we split a veggie burger :P After eating Dave was already at the Loading Zone so we walked over and met up with the rest of the crew. It was PACKED! Apparently the night before Thanksgiving is the most popular night to be out. Never knew that :) We went to Novaks after LZ and danced and had a really good time.

Family singing Xmas carols and playing musical instruments, hmm very very interesting...;)

The next day, barely getting much sleep I had to jump out of bed and into the shower. We had to be at church. Dave's Mom, Sherry, was the church organist and Dave was playing the trumpet. It was interesting and they played rather well. After church, we went over to Dave's Aunt Karen's house for Thanksgiving dinner. The food was good and the family was welcoming. We ate and drank so much we passed out in the guest room. It was a good time, it just got a little strange when everyone hung out in the family room playing musical instruments and singing christmas carols. We didn't do much after we left Aunt Karen's, we were supposed to go watch a movie but Dave was feeling cheap so we ended up at Emily's house watching a really stupid movie, Equilibrium starring Christian Bale and Taye Diggs.

We were planning this elaborate shopping schedule for Black Friday but decided to sleep in instead ;) We left the house at around 11 and got to Bestbuy and still managed to get most of what I was looking for. A 2GB memory stick for my cell phone for $40, MI:III $7.99 and My Bestfriend's Wedding for $2.99! Even at 11:30pm, Bestbuy was full of people and the lines were absolutely crazy. But it was kind of fun joining in with the all that craziness. John G came over to hang, we walked down to the Mississipi river and then went to have dinner at Maggiano's. That night we went out again to Freddie's, Novaks and JJ's. Met tall Chris, counselor Mark and Irish Barra for the first time, cool people.

Friday night having fun at Novaks and acting a fool

Saturday we didn't really do much in the morning. James dropped by on his way back from visitting his folks and we hung out a little. Dave went to hang with Em and I followed James and had dinner with Jerod, Ryan, Jason and James at Outback. After that we met up with the rest of the crew at LZ. Met Phd Craig. Was tired from the last two nights of partying but Jerod and James kept buying me shots and as I got more drunk the night got more fun :P After LZ, we went to Freddie's and then on to the Complex. It was one crazy crazy night and I had a lot of fun. Two people that were crazy flirting with me, Bill and Doug. We stayed at the Complex till closing and then went to Ryan's. We ate some trail mix and passed out for couple of hours. We then drove back to James and passed out there.

Completely passed out at Ryan's after partying at LZ, Freddie's and Complex.

The next morning, we went to Metropolitan Community Church. It was an interesting seeing so much family attending service. It's just good to see that there are services like this available in bigger cities. After church we had brunch at this really cool Mexican restaurant sitting outside in light sweaters! The weather all throughout Thanksgiving was absolutely marvelous. Went back to Dave's packed and left for Columbia. The traffic coming home was just horrible but made it back safely after a completely crazy, fun-filled Thanksgiving in StL.

Happy Turkey Day!

2006-11-22T16:19:00.000-06:00

I know, I know...I've been really bad this month with keeping up with new posts. What can I say? I've been busy. I had an old friend, Joel, from Arizona visit and he stayed with me for a full week. He had to defend his thesis while I had the honour to spend a whole week entertaining him, fun! He didn't have a car so guess who had to chauffer him around town? It's all good though, not sure when I'll ever get to see him again. Then this past weekend, H2 came back to visit. It was just a weekend trip so I didn't get to see much of her but it was still good to see that she's doing well.

Also I've installed a little chat/scribble box on the right column, be sure to go check it out and leave me a note!

So tomorrow will be Thanksgiving! And it will be 33 days away from Christmas and 39 days before the year ends. Amazing. I will be spending this year's Thanksgiving with Dave's family in St Louis. It'll be my first Thanksgiving with them. The past four years I've celebrated Thanksgiving in KC but since H2 is no longer around I thought I'd make a little change to my yearly routine. But I will definitely miss the homemade turkey with a Malaysian twist, eating so much we can't move and then going out for a late night movie only to fall asleep in the theater, putting up the Xmas tree the next day with Tze and last but not least enjoying the very good Turkey leftover curry noodles. Ahhh....the memories :)

Anyway Happy Thanksgiving y'all and definitely eat till you drop!

Mid-term Elections 2006

2006-11-09T16:02:00.000-06:00

Finally the elections are over! Hopefully we'll see less of those cheesy "...and I approve this message" ads. I have a feeling that we're not that lucky though, we'll probably be bombarded with the next Presidential ads soon.

Anyway I live in a "hot" state this election year, along with Montana and Virginia, that has gained attention from the national press. Missouri's Claire McCaskill (D) was going up against Jim Talent (R) and I must say this is definitely a good year for Democrats. I got a little worried before bed as Talent was leading but KC and StL's votes were not counted and those two cities pretty much carried McCaskill to her victory. Some of the bills that passed in Missouri were

The Stem Cell research and
Increase of minimum wage
Tobacco tax was unfortunately shot down. I personally think they should tax the heck out of those things as it a) doesn't affect me and b) would probably encourage people to smoke less

This has been a great week for politics. I am overall happy with the results as that would be what I would have voted if I was allowed to. I'm also glad that the Democrats have taken control of both the House and the Senate! Another great news is that the first woman, Nancy Pelosi, will be Speaker of the House. This position is 3rd in line of Presidency so you can see that it's no small feat. To top it off, Nancy is an extreme liberal from San Francisco! So hopefully she'll bring better cause for gay rights. And one final victory (I should not celebrate on other people's misfortunes but this is one exception) is Rumsfeld resigned as Defense Secretary! He'll be replaced with ex CIA chief, Bob Gates. What I think really happened is that Bush had to do something as it was obvious the American people were dissatisfied with what was happening so Rumsfeld was a pawn in this game of approval ratings.

Anyway, enough about politics. What's been going on with me? Hmmm let's see, Dave came in to Columbia last Thursday for an interview. We went out to Soco Thursday night, nothing too eventful there. Now Friday was a little bizarre. I guess the stars and moons were aligned to create the perfect bitchfest. All three of us were major bitches but we soon realized it and dropped the attitude. We just stayed in and chilled at Justin's. I had Papa Murphy's pizza for the first time and watched two old and bizarre movies; Shine and Mummy Dearest. They were quite strange! Justin insisted we watch Mummy Dearest, apparently that and Steel Magnolia are like a rite of passage for gay men. I had never seen either up until recently and didn't think they were that great. Anyway Mummy Dearest was about the life of Joan Crawford. We all loved it when she'd yell "I'M DAMN MAD!!!" so now that's a phrase we'll be using among us ;)

So the next day, Dave planned on driving back to StL. I made a last minute decision to ride back with him and ride back with Carrie since she was already there. That night I met Jen and Grant Alter for the first time and James, Carrie, Brad, Dave and I had dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. It was fun. We met up with Wes and we all went to Freddy's and I met up with Dwan. Later went to JJ's. Had a very interesting night overall*, I had dim sum with Dwan the next morning. I was so tired and sore* I pretty much slept all the way back while riding with Carrie. And that wraps up my weekend...

Side note: I finally got Halloween pictures from John G so I'll be posting that soon. They're GREAT!!

My Birthday Pics

2006-10-30T22:40:00.000-06:00

Well as promised here are the pictures from my 29th Birthday. Next assignment's to upload pictures from Halloween where Justin and me were cowboys from Brokeback ;)

Birthday dinner at Murry's. Total suprise from James!

Goofing around before our food arrived.

Ice Cream cake TIME!!! Mmmm YUMMY :P
I didn't want to cut into such a pretty cake. But it eating beats looking ;)

Mandatory group pic after dinner

After dinner, we rocked it out at Soco

End of the night. Finally got to bed at 3am!

If you want to put a story to these pictures, read my post for that night.

Homecoming 2006

2006-10-25T08:57:00.000-05:00

Dinner at Sophias. From Left: Dave, John, Carrie, Me, Scott, Jana and James

So this past weekend was totally a riot. James had his annual Homecoming ritual with his friends Scott, Carrie and Jana. Dave on the other hand, didn't really have any plans, so I managed to convince him to come along for the ride. They all got into Columbia on Friday right after I got off work and dropped Dave at my place. We later met up for dinner at Sophias. After din din, the group kinda split. Dave, John G and me went to Justin's and pretty much did nothing (well I consider pigging out on ice cream nothing) while the other group ended up at the Penguin bar having a jolly good time.

Up at the crack of dawn and freezing our behinds off, damn such team players

The next day we woke up bright and early for the Homecoming parade. We got downtown at around 8:30am and downtown was already packed with all kinds of people. I was really feeling the team spirit being all decked out in a Mizzou tshirt and sweatshirt eventhough I didn't go to school here, such mockery! ;) We saw majority of the floats go by and later had lunch at Shakespeares. Mother nature was definitely not kind, the weather was absolutely marvelous on Friday and Sunday but on Saturday (the day of the games) it was cold, cloudy and it rained all freaking day! Thank god I wasn't standing in the stadium getting drenched.

L: Before the game at Shakespeares pizza R: After the game keeping warm at Heidelberg

Justin, Dave and me just hung out at the Heidelberg while the rest stood in the rain watching the game where umbrellas and alcohol were NOT allowed, BOO! I guess it was all worth it since Mizzou won =) After the game they came and joined us the Berg and just hung out for a little more. Everyone was getting tired and cranky as it has been a long, long day; especially since we had to be up so early AND had to endure the cold, the rain and the wet clothes.

L: Before hitting Tonic R: The club was packed and we danced nonstop

So we went home took a nap, woke up all refreshed and was as good as new. We were ready to party all over again. Met up at Carrie's, started drinking, and continued on at Tonic where it was packed. All the businesses downtown were busy with people from the game, totally crazy. We had a good time at Tonic, Scott got us all a Yeagermeister shot and that really messed me up. I got quite buzzed and acted a fool all night long ;)

L: We were all drunk R: Rocking out to Carrie's little speakers, LOL

After the bar we went home to Carrie's and the party definitely continued. We had more to drink and totally rocked out to the tiny speakers. Some of us ended up in some compromising pictures and Jana got a good lap dance from James and me. LOL. People get silly when they drink...

L: Brad, James and Scott at Flat Branch R: One last group pic at Carrie's before James and gang left for the Lou

The next day we met up for lunch at the Flat Branch. The weekend was winding down and you could tell from our faces that we had a blast of a weekend but having to go back to work was going to suck big time. I had definitely not expected a weekend like this. It was fun but I was definitely hurting the next day.

My birthday

2006-10-16T14:46:00.000-05:00

Here are some pictures, some you've seen, some you've not. I will post my birthday pictures soon. Enjoy :)

So last week turned out great. I didn't have much expectations, all I really wanted was just a quiet dinner with a few close friends. On Thursday night we all met up at Murry's for dinner. The initial plan was for Dave, Justin, myself, Steph, KK, John G and Chadd to meet up but as I was sitting there waiting for everyone to show up, I got the biggest surprise EVER! James walked up to me and as I saw him, my mind didn't register. My first thoughts went like this:

Thought #1: "Who is this?!?"

Thought #2: ""Wait a minute, this can't be James, he's in StLouis! And he's gotta work tomorrow!!"

Thought #3: "Oh wow, James so happened to be in Murry's in Columbia for whatever reason, I wonder why is he in town?! What coincidence!"
Thought #4: I finally realized he was there for my Birthday and jumped up and down in surprise!!! =D

So dinner went great; loved the company, loved the conversations and loved the food. I had a great time. I feel so loved with all the calls, text messages, emails, myspace comments etc etc! (THANKS everyone!) After dinner, the party continued at Soco. I had a great time there as well, people were buying me drinks and shots and I got really drunk and flirtatious. Quite different from my usual self. Danced all night long and finally went to bed at 3am! I had to wake up at 7am for work the next morning...ugh...it wasn't pleasant!

Friday, I HAD to take a nap after work. We (Dave, James, Carrie, Jerod, KK) all later went to dinner at the Olive Garden. After dinner we went to my birthday party that Dave's been planning all week to be hosted at Don's house (and ex Sorority house mind you, so it was really cool!). It had a really slow start but towards the end tons of people showed up, some I don't even know! Don gave me my present and let's just say I felt weird for the rest of the night ;) hehehehe!

I can honestly say that this is definitely one memorable birthday. I will remember this for a long, long time if not for the rest of my life. Not only is it my last year being in the twenties, I had a big blow out party! It was amazing. I truly appreciate how blessed I am in my current situation. Sure there are a few dips here and there but I'm generally very glad of what I have.

Birthdays galore...

2006-10-11T14:44:00.000-05:00

Boy, there are a lot of librans in my life and this includes ME! =D Well I've never really thought about this but if you really think about it, it does make some sense. If you take mid-october and go back nine months, that should bring you to around a time when couples get together and be romantic - that's right, Valentine's Day! So duhhh right? Well it's no wonder so many babies are born around this time of the year. With the new addition of newphew KuanYen who is also a libran, I've so far called Dad (Happy Birthday, Dad!! Enjoy the angpow I gave you), Aunty Irene, Sarthak, Soumaya, Reema and quite a few others whom I cannot remember right now.

I was actually in St Louis this past weekend celebrating Ritz-like-a-cracker's birthday. I rode in with Justin on Friday night after having a hectic dinner with Kenneth and Jeff at Shakespeares. There were also on their way to StL to celebrate their 9th Anniversary! Can you believe that?!? Nineth!! That's amazing. Anyway we went out on Friday hitting some clubs in Soulard and ending up at Novaks. It was fun but I was really tired. The next day we just hung out, ate at my new fav restaurant, Maggiano's, and later that night partied at the Complex which is always fun. Met up with Dwan at Freddy's and convinced him to go to Complex where we danced quite a bit, what can i say, fun fun fun! Drove back Sunday and as usual I had a hard time going to bed that night....I should get some sleeping pills for nights like this.

Anyway this coming weekend's going to be crazy all over again. I'm having dinner with a few close friends on Thursday and then Dave's throwing me a birthday party on Friday and then we're driving to St Louis to party somemore! I know...it's the last year I can say I'm in my twenties! Oh well...it's all good.

My new phone, totally loving it right now. A Sony Ericsson W810i Walkman phone

Oh I have also switched my phone carrier from T-Mobile to Cingular. I have been waiting forever for this phone (Sony Ericsson W810i) to be released, it finally did last week and I didn't waste any time. Shopped around and eventually got it through TMI wireless for FREE after rebates that is! I've been playing with this phone for about a week now. It's no wonder it was voted best cellphone of the year by one of the tech websites. So far been very happy with it, I totally feel like a kid in a candy store! It has very very good UI (user interface) and been playing with it at work uploading videos (go britney!), music, games, apps (world clock & Opera mini) and ringtones! The 2MP camera takes some really good pictures too with an autofocus lense with flash. I know I love Sony Ericssons as this will be my third. I started off with a T68i which I've given to Ean and then a T610 which got stolen out of my gym locker (damn that fool who stole my shit). I don't get too many minutes (went from 600 to 450 mins) but the mobile2mobile calling is definitely nice. I don't have to worry while chatting with people like Dave, Justin etc etc who is all on the Cingular network. I am now on a mission to get as many friends to switch to Cingular...

Various Matters

2006-10-02T14:25:00.000-05:00

Wow I just realized that today is the second day of October. I just cannot believe that this is the tenth month of the year, two more left before this year comes to an end. I know it's cliche but it really seems like time goes by a lot faster when one gets older.

Anyway on a separate note, the weather has been extremely WARM. Not like I'm complaining, I will take warm weather over cold anytime. But today's high is 91 degrees which is plenty strange and record breaking for the first week of October. I just saw on the news that the last record was set in the 1800s! This whole topic comes hand in hand with the movie (An Inconvenient Truth) I watched with Jerod on Saturday at the Ragtag theater. I know it's been out for a while but if you have yet to see it, definitely go check it out or better yet go buy the DVD which is going to be released soon. Al Gore gives a very compelling argument towards the effects of greenhouse gases. Somewhere through the movie, I felt like it was a doomsday movie and it freaked me out a little but that was the point. Definitely go see it!

Well the last two weekends have been a slow one for me. I am preparing myself for the next couple of weekends which, I think will be pretty wild. I had dinner with Justin and Steph (Justin made brisket yummm) Saturday night and we just sat around and chatted which was fun. After that, I went to some party and later hung out with Don till pretty late, just BS'ing. The next day was nice and warm so I went out to the farm with Justin and just hiked around and ate wild grapes and picked pears off the tree, it was really relaxing. The whole time we were walking around, this really cute stray aka Jackson (beagle mix) followed us around. I think Justin's adopting him.

My loaner for the day, pretty sweet little X3

Also not forgetting, I had to send my car into BMW for servicing last week. The driver's side window was making a scratchy noise and apparently the power window rotor was going out, thankfully my car was still under warranty so they replaced both the driver and passenger FOC. They also gave me a very sweet loaner car for the day, a brand new 2006 BMW X3 with only 1000 miles on the odometer! The service was pretty good, sending me a postcard post service and a customer satisfaction phone survey after, quite a step up from Honda's service. Anyway I hope all these petty problems will surface while I still have this warranty. Over the weekend, my xenon lights were acting strange so looks like I'll have to send it in again to be checked out. I wonder what I'll get this time?

Good Bye my little friend

2006-09-28T14:53:00.000-05:00

H2 & I: At the airport, all excited, right before our big trip!

I'm not very good at good byes. Don't like it very much, in fact I hate it. And this year has been one of the toughest. This year I've had to deal with more good byes than any other. Click here, see I'm not kidding. I'm usually the one that leaves; i.e. when I left for the US to further my education and leaving F'ville upon graduation. I've never had to deal with people leaving me. Now the shoe's on the other foot and it sucks. I should be happy to know that my friends are moving away to bigger and better things but I'm selfish for wanting them all to myself.

H2 & I: Summer free concert on 9th St 2005 which we did again in 2006 :)

One of my best, best friends in Columbia is leaving today (Thursday 9/28). She is the first person I got to know when I moved to Columbia over four years ago and we instantly connected. After six months of knowing one another she moved in with me. We lived together for a year and eventually she moved out. Not long after that, I too moved out of our cute little apartment on Sears Ct and I bought my first property. We've been through thick and thin. She's the one that would accompany me on my weekend trips to KC or StL, we even made a trip back to Malaysia together. We would have little Malaysian cook outs, go to movies together, explored little restaurants, visited our regulars (china wok & house of CCB) and made impromptu visits to the mall (she was my shopping buddy!). We had very similar taste and would crack each other up for no reason. Approx. two months ago she moved back in with me again to avoid signing a lease and today she's packed up everything and we're saying our goodbyesWe have kept very little secrets from one another; she was a sister, a pal and a confidant. I will definitely miss my little friend.

H2 & I: Up above the beautiful Pinnacles. Those were the days...

Year of the Babies

2006-09-26T14:42:00.000-05:00

Cute lil Baby KuanYen 1 day old

I guess this is indeed the year to have babies. I know so many people that have either given birth or are preggies right now! For me personally, I am blessed with two nephews in this red dog year of 2006. The first nephew this year is Tatsuya (my oldest brother's 2nd child) and the second is Kuan Yen (my 2nd brother's 1st child!). I would just like to congratulate my brothers for their amazing little ones. Kuan Yen came into this world on Sept 24, 2006 at 4:52pm weighing in at 2.48 kg or 5.47 lbs. Makes me feel like a cow since I weighed 8.5 lbs. I'm now an uncle three times over, scary! Here are some pictures of little baby Kuan Yen, enjoy...

So cute all dressed up & tiny baby w/ proud daddy

This is what Yahoo's astrology page says on the Dog year:

"...This kind of planetary environment is at first sight not so easy to live with. It is above all the one that provokes profound calls into question. It incites all natives of the sign to devote themselves to a very critical analysis, not only of themselves but also of their general situation and of their relationships with others. If you know how to profit well by such influxes, then you'll succeed in giving your existence a new and more exalting meaning. This will on the whole be a lucky year -- on condition that you do not undermine it with errors of judgment and vain gossip. You'll have plenty of good ideas and perfectly achievable original projects. Don't disclose your plans; remind yourself that 'the lion while hunting doesn't roar' (Nigritian proverb). Beware of the persons whom you might have let into your secrets, as some of them might profit by them at your expense and you become aware of this only too late..."

And not forgetting myself here is what it says about people from the year of the Snake

"...It would be a good time to recharge your batteries so as to recover your strength and energy. You might profit by a small financial success (aiyo only small?? why no big??); but if a too-enticing proposal (hmmm I wonder how enticing...) is made to you, gather all necessary documentation before giving your approval. In your life as a couple, (Couple?? yeah right!!) don't show too much independence and personal freedom. The moment will be favorable to highlighting your innovative ideas and to presenting your creative projects..." mmmmmk....

Goodbye my Honda

2006-09-21T14:59:00.000-05:00

Well after being on the market for approx a month, my Honda (just like Lynda's) finally sold. Did not get my asking price of $6500 but I overpriced it anyway. I ended up getting $5500, WAY more than what dealer~~sell your soul~~ships were offering me on trade-ins. It was really sad to see my Honda no longer be in my possession, the car had it's little problems but overall it was a great car that required very little maintenance. I bought this car in Dallas (Toyota of Irving) at 85K miles, drove it up to Missouri and made so many trips on it such as to Dallas, Fayetteville, Minnesota (pics), KC, StL and many other cities in it ending up at 145K miles.

My ad in craiglist, also advertised on the Tribune

I sold it to this kid name Blaise (cute! but young) and his Mom, Dory. The Mom was the nicest, nicest lady with the cutest little dog that went wherever she would go. She drives a similar BMW as mine but a wagon type instead. Her son had apparently bought a Subaru WRX w/out their permission and so they made him return it losing $10K along the way. So as punishment he gets my Honda...wow...that makes me feel great! :) Ahhh, who cares, it's theirs now, they can do whatever they want with it. I delivered the car to her on Monday after my KC trip (they live in a cute little neighbourhood south of Stewart Rd) and that was the last time I saw my Accord :( I will miss this little car...

Kansas City Weekend

2006-09-18T13:28:00.000-05:00

This past weekend has been both fun and hectic. Looks like everyone is trying to get their summer travels out of the way before the weather gets too cold. This weekend saw James visit Columbia, Justin to StL and me/H2 to KC. I got to spend some time with James on Friday night. We started at McNally's and worked our way to Heidelberg where we had such a blast. I got quite tipsy towards the end and just didn't hold much back. Our group got to be quite TVMA towards closing time. Thanks to Carrie for driving all of us drunkards home =)

Great time on the roof of the Heidelberg. You can see I'm getting progressively redder as I consume more alcohol.

The next day we drove to KC (first out of town trip in my beemer, ride was amazing!!) and had lunch at the very missed Lucky Wok. After that went back to Tze's for Terri's baby shower and birthday celebrations. It was good seeing familiar faces again. Seeing the kids run around (Andrew & Ian) reminded me of the times at home with family. I felt very grown up talking about life and career while the kids are running around with not one worry on their minds.

Now I'm really drunk (R) & Acting stupid w/ James and KK pouting bcoz he's hungry LOLz (L)

Sunday morning we drove up to the Plaza area and met up with Kenneth & Jeff for brunch. We got a tour of their cute, cute house and met their little dog, Jasper. KK later met up with us and we ate at Eggtc, a new restaurant, not too shabby. We then went to the basement of Hall's (G central) to do a little shopping. While there this hot, hot Ricky Martin look-a-like started staring at me. He was cute and totally ripped and was coming on to me BIG time but I failed to return the flirt and therefore did not end up with any number :(

Teaching godson necessary trade skills (L) & Adults conversing about life, career...i feel so grown up (R)

After that, we drove down to Tharu's bbq and met up with CP+Jim and Rachel+Egwin and a bunch of other people. Showed them my new ride and then drove back to Columbia. Received my first Blockbuster DVD (same concept as Netflix) and watched a few episodes of Nip/tuck season 1 and called it the night. The weekend absolutely flew by...unbelievable!

Off into the sunset w/ not a single worry

My new love affair

2006-09-10T17:10:00.000-05:00

I did a little impulse shopping (not really here's proof) recently =D

Anyway as many of you already know, I recently purchased a new car (a 2003 Steel Gray w/ tan leather BMW 330XI) to replace my Accord. Nothing was wrong with the Honda, I was just getting tired and wanted a new toy. Oh geez, I sound like some 50 yo chikopek going through a mid-life crisis. Anyway I guess in a way, I am going through my own little mid-life crisis. In my world, once one goes over 30, they are considered ancient **eeeek** how scary is that as mine is approaching fast!

Just got done washing/polishing my new baby. About ready to pull it into the garage.

I've never owned a European car before and boy have I been missing out. The driving experience is definitely quite different. I have always driven and owned Japanese which aren't bad, they definitely have their strenths as well but the handling, performance and overall drive of this car definitely blew me out of the water. To top it all off, this car is also equipped with tons of extra packages (eg Cold weather & performance package) which includes such luxuries as heated seats, xenon head lights, harmon kardon sound system and tiptronic(sp?) gear shift. I bought this car from a private seller (John S) in Quincy, IL. He is the owner of Castle Mfg and definitely took good care of it. The outside and inside are in such mint condition that it looks practically brand new. So far (knock on wood) I have yet to find any major faults with this car.

Turtle polish definitely gives an amazing shine!

So I guess this is a good time for me to reminisce on the cars I've owned so far. Well my Mazda 323 (BCA 1600) back in Malaysia is technically not mine since my parents' owned it but I remembered how proud I was that it was one for me to call my own. It was an old but reliable car and with it's bright orange color, it was one car that made an immediate statement wherever we went. It was a perfect student car, small and nimble and got great gas mileage. After me, my parents eventually sold it to Paul and he in turn sold it to some stranger. Till this day, my brothers say they see it zipping around KL traffic.

I love this angle of this car, very aggresive looking

The first car I ever bought was here in the US while I was going to school at the Univ of Arkansas. I shelled out $2400 for an '86 Accord coupe that was very well taken care of. This little car was amazing as it took me all around the country. I drove it to Nashville, North Carolina, Texas and many other places. It never broke down on me once. After graduation, the car started to show signs of wear and tear. It was time to replace the timing belt, clutch, air conditioning and brakes I decided to upgrade to another Honda, this time a '98 Honda Accord EX sedan. Ironically, I bought my Honda from a Toyota of Irving dealership ;)

My new car with my house with new (due to hail storm damage) roof, sidings and garage doors.

So with that said, this beemer will be car number 3 excluding my Mazda since my parents owned it. I have yet to own a brand new car. All my cars have been used. It's just a much better deal, to let someone else take the fall for all the depreciation ;) But I will definitely own a brand new car eventually. Till then I'll be enjoying my German ride.

Pictures from Portland/Seattle

2006-09-10T15:37:00.000-05:00

Welcome to downstown Portland.

I know...I know...you guys are probably saying it's about ~~damn~~ time I'm posting these pictures right? Anyway here they are, enjoy. So like I said in my previous post, we spent Saturday through Thursday at Portland, so majority of our vacation was spent here. It's a really pretty city with plenty of culture and character. The weather was amazing and they had the MAX that pretty much takes you everywhere. We did a really bad thing and never paid for our tickets the entire time we were there but no one ever checks so I guess it all worked out good.

Down by the waterfront.

Down by the Pearl District where all the really nice lofts are (L) In the Pioneer Square downtown with lots of alternative and homeless crowd (R)

So being in Portland for approx 6 days allowed us to really explore the entire downtown. Went to most of the shopping malls and different districts. We also went out to the clubs and bars just about every night. On Thursday morning, we picked up our rental car and headed to Seattle via the Oregon coastal roads stopping in Cannon Beach and a few other small tourist cities.

Love these very artistic pictures at Cannon Beach, thanks to Justin =)

Tower of Astoria (L) and Me, Dave and Justin at the famous Cannon Beach (R)

So we spent a couple of hours driving along the very beautiful coastal roads of Oregon. We finally arrived Seattle later that evening. Our hotel was quite ghetto as it was the cheapest one for the entire city. It was the "best value inn" so you can imagine how it was ;) We were also located at the SEATEC area which is really about 20 mins South of Seattle downtown. So we only had Thursday night, Friday and Saturday morning in Seattle. Not too much time to explore this wonderful city. I really have to make another trip up there. I managed to meet up with Bobby and Brandon while there. We all had dinner. The clubs in Seattle are definitely hoppin'!!

Facing the beautiful Pacific Ocean (L) Down by Pikes Place(birthplace of the world's 1st starbucks) with a view of downtown Seattle in background (R)

Chilling by the Capitol Hill area in Seattle right before we all went out to the clubs and bars. Love this City!!!

Summer's Ending :(

2006-08-22T14:59:00.000-05:00

Summer's almost over and in a way, I guess I'm glad that the weather will be a little cooler for a few months at least until the most hated freezing months of Winter but that won't be until Jan and Feb. The one thing I will miss is the long days of Summer where it can be bright up until almost 9pm. The days are starting to get shorter which is still ok for now but it gets quite bad during Winter where it's still dark when I leave for work at around 7:45am and the sun would have set by the time I leave at around 5pm. I guess that's why suicidal rates go way up during the Winter months.

So switching to a separate subject, I've always wondered why when a Westerner works in Asia/Africa/Middle East, he/she is often referred to as an "expatriate" but when a non-Westerner works in a Western country, they are often viewed as legal or illegal migrants or worst still aliens! Just food for thought...

Anyway moving on, this last weekend was spent mainly on the road. I made a road trip up to Quincy, IL to look at a car I had found on Autotrader. The drive was uneventful but the city of Quincy (pop. 50,000) was a pretty little city with a cute downtown and Victorian style homes along Maine St. I met John, owner of Castle Stove, test drove the car for over an hour and decided to get it. I'm really excited. I'll be posting pictures once I get it. After Quincy I drove down to St Louis and spent the weekend with my friend Dwan. It was fun, we went to dinner at Little Saigon at CWE and later watched Kung Fu Hustle. The next day we went for some yummy Dim Sum. Unfortunately I missed Justin (8/17) and Chadd's (8/20) birthday celebrations.

Bruxism a.k.a. teeth grinding

2006-08-16T14:46:00.000-05:00

So apart from getting a souvenir $350-summon from my vacation in the North West, I also discovered that I have a pretty severe case of Bruxism. I've always known about my teeth grinding problem but never thought much about it simply because the dentists (notice the plural) have all said that it wasn't a big deal and it wasn't wearing my teeth down too bad. But apparently the noise it makes is loud enough for Justin and Dave to tell me about it during our week of room/bed sharing. Dave was in a crabby mood one morning and decided to bitch, bitch, bitch. So I've decided to do something about it.

I did some research and decided to purchase a product by Splintek which is based out of Kansas City. I've owned a guard before and the darn thing was big and bulky and would never stay in my mouth (that's the first time something big would not stay in my mouth, I promise;). I'd wake up the next morning only to find myself going on a "treasure hunt" to locate the damn thing. I've read some pretty good reviews and since this is quite small and low profile, I'm hoping it'll work. My other alternative would be to have a dentist mold a custom fitted one for my mouth but that would cost me hundreds of dollars. So I'm hoping this will work. I just did a quick search on Yahoo and went directly to the website and was about to order one for $78 including S&H when I noticed other results popping up for the same product but through 3rd party vendors. I finally settled on purchasing it from drugstore.com and it ended up costing me $39 with no tax and free S&H. It's weird how there is such a huge difference in price between the original manufacturer and a 3rd party vendor. Something must not be right somewhere.

Anyway I'll keep my fingers crossed and hopefully I didn't get scammed by drugstore.com or Splintek for either not sending me the product or receiving something that doesn't work. I certainly hope this will stop the noise, but then again there really isn't anyone to tell me if I'm still making the noise!

*******************************

Small Talk : Today is Mom's birthday. She would have been 60 years young (as she'd put it) if she had not passed away back in 2001 from Chronic Myleoid Leukemia. I miss her greatly, still! I woke up this morning and said a little prayer for her. I still find myself talking to her occasionally. I wish she was around to see how well she's raised her children and to see her grandchildren but I'm sure she's looking over my shoulder making sure I'm alright. I hope she's proud of what I've decided to do with my life choices. Happy Birhtday, Mummy!! I love you...

Portland/Seattle

2006-08-07T14:58:00.000-05:00

The trip is over and waking up for work this morning was a bitch!

Other than that, my trip went well. Flew in to Portland (PDX) from Kansas City (7/29) and then flew from Seattle back to St Louis (8/5). It's a weird route but that was the cheapest. We drove to Seattle on Thursday and on the way made stops at Canon Beach and Astoria.

Met Justin's friends John, Bryan and Kevin while in Portland and in Seattle met up with John E and UA's alums Bobby, his bf Sam and Brandon.

Here're the chonological list of dramatic events ;)
- Tiff with a roomate (pretrip)
- Almost missed KC-Portland flight
- Left Dave's cell and dinner in car
- Received info about uninvited guest in my house (i'll have an article about living w/ other ppl)
- Got a speeding ticket in Oregon (f#$%ing $350!!!!!)
- Huge fight with Dave
- Huge talk the next morning ;)
- Dave's car got towed

I think that's about it. Both Oregon and Seattle are such beautiful cities. Weather was amazing as it was in the 70s in the day and 60s at night. A light jacket during the day and windows open and cuddle under a blanket at night. It was just perfect. We went out to the clubs just about every night, that was interesting. I bought my first pair of Diesel jeans and visited my first West Elm store. Noticed a lot of crazies/homeless in Portland. We also ate at the New Seasons market just about every morning before our daily adventures. New Seasons is a really cool all natural/organic store that reminded me alot of James and Alex. On the way to Seattle, we visited Canon Beach along the coastline of Oregon. It was so pretty out there. We just strolled along the beach and took in the beautiful scenery. We didn't do much in Seattle as we only had two days there. Visited Pike's place, saw the space needle from afar and visited the first Starbucks. We also hung around Capitol Hill quite a bit. It is amazing how open and liberal these two cities are. It made me happy =)

Pictures will be coming...

Another one goes to St Louis

2006-07-19T13:07:00.000-05:00

Well this past weekend I helped another one of my friend, James, move to St Louis. I'm starting to get really sick of losing all my friends. I also found out that Joe will be leaving CoMO for good this coming Friday :( I am not happy.

I will post the pictures of the move. It was hot as hell, as this week pretty much the state of Missouri is under a heat wave warning and to top it off, he was moving into the 13th floor. But he didn't have much so the whole thing went by quickly.

The ~~traitors~~ friends who have left so far:

Dave (StL)
Dr Matt (StL)
Emily (Seattle)
Joe (Michigan)
Airforce John (Seattle)
James (StL)
Rocky (Dallas)
Zack (StL)
Danny (StL)
Moreno (SF)

And the list goes on and on and on...

Happy 4th

2006-07-05T13:24:00.000-05:00

So how was the holidays? I didn't really do much eventhough I had four days off. I would usually have travelled somewhere but I had to stick around to manage the exchange of tenants at my Duplex. I spent majority of Saturday just cleaning, filling up holes, painting and prepping the place for the new tenants. The previous tenants cleaned but there were a few things they missed, you know how that is. That place is now spotless, I just hope the new people will appreciate it. Speaking of new tenants, I sincerely hope they will be reliable. I didn't have a very good gut feeling but since I didn't have much of a choice, I signed a lease with them. I am really hoping it'll turn out well.

Moving on (talking about my duplex/tenant situation makes me nervous) I had a very relaxing time off in town just hanging out with friends, eating great meals and catching a couple of the Summer blockbusters; Superman and Devil Wears Prada. Superman was just mediocre. I mean I'll always be a fan but the movie lacked action and the acting skills were quite bad with the exception of Kevin Spacey who played Lex Luthor. Kate Bosworth didn't have the spunk and feisty-ness to play Lois Lane. There is a little surprise in the movie though. The one great thing about this movie is the hunk-a-licious Brandon Routh. He was definitely a looker, Mmm mm mmm :P Devil Wears Prada was definitely more entertaining. Much better acting and I really liked the funny and witty dialogue. Also loved the fabulous clothes that Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway got to wear. It was a pretty simple script but all in all, it was funny and entertaining. Definitely check it out if you haven't already.

I did a little shopping and got two pairs of Jeans from the Gap for $10/pair! Unbelievable.
We later checked out the Columbia fireworks yesterday. It wasn't a spectacle but it was fun just being around friends. We had dinner and hung out a little prior to the show. We ended up at the top of a parking garage to see the show. It was a good ending to four days of relaxing and doing absolutely nothing and best of all not having to come in to dreadful work.

Happy Independence Day!

Here little birdie...

2006-06-30T09:59:00.000-05:00

So for a few weeks now I've suspected something living in my exhaust vent pipes near the outside of the house. Matt (who is living with me temporarily) said that he hears noises in the ceiling. So yesterday, I got out of work early with no plans, I decided to investigate my little problem. The damn exhaust vent that blows air out of the downstairs bathroom is situation approx 7 ft from the ground at the back of the house and with no ladder, I had to stack 2 chairs to get to the vent (kids please don't try this at home). I know it's dangerous and I'm going to buy a ladder now!

I open up all the casing and to my surprise there were 2 birds staring at me. I guess they are almost grown now but they were probably hatched in there. So I get back into my house, call Animal Control and the beyotch was giving me shit for "disturbing" the nest. Finally he said he'll come remove the birds if I really wanted him to, I said "get yo ass here, NOW!". Apparently, there's no fee as our tax dollars pay for his services. The beyotch gets to my house, walks to the back and says "oh it's too high up and we're not allowed on ladders", proceeds to walk back to his truck and drives away! I was like wow thank so much, dumbass, I can see my tax dollars working double time here!!

I decide to take care of the problem myself. I put on my gardening gloves and shove my hand in the hole. The whole ordeal took about 1 1/2 hrs as I started out tugging on the feathers and that would just scare the bird and they'd go deeper into the hole. Finally I reached in there, nervous as hell, grabbed the bird in my palm and took it out. The first bird escaped as I was taking it out and flew right by my face. I almost fell off my damn double stacked chair. The bird got to the ground, looked at me and proceeded to fly away. Probably it's first flight, for it was still wobbly. The 2nd bird was a bigger challenge for it was deeper in the hole, and quite a feisty little thing too. As I was pulling it out, it starting chirping like MAD. Like it was having a seizure or something. I noticed the neighbourhood birds surrounding me, I was really freaked out. I was afraid he was sending some kinda distress signal asking all his "friends" to come attack me! I swear I saw that in a movie once. Anyway I yanked it out and it too flew away.

I cleaned out the vent as it was filled with hay, twigs, feathers and probably bird poop. It was all very gross. Finally I rigged up a little screen and glued it to the hole so nothing else can go into that damn vent pipe.

And that's it for my bird drama yesterday. I'm quite shaken by the whole experience =)

***********

Small talk:
We went out to Soco last night. I was originally not planning on it but Jerod had great persuasive powers. It was fun as usual.

Pride

2006-06-28T08:02:00.000-05:00

June is Pride month. It's always a great feeling; beginning of summer and parties going on in most major and not so major US cities. This year I've only had opportunity to attend the St Louis pride which took place this past weekend. In years past I've attended celebrations in Minneapolis, Kansas City and Columbia which were all great fun. I have to say Minneapolis has everyone beat hands down (I've heard it's the 2nd biggest pride celebrations in the Nation!). Amazing thing was I had no idea that weekend I was flying in was such a festive one. It was pretty much 3 days of pure fun and partying.

Anyway I've been feeling much better and no major meltdowns recently. Last week my boss was starting to get on my case again but yesterday I've come to a realization (enlightenment almost) that it's only a freakin job! I mean, yeah the consequences would be horrible if I were to quit or be terminated but really it's only an effing job! I used to literally shake in my pants when confronted by my boss, I would overload my work just to please him but I've started to realize that I can just take it easy and if he's not happy, he's not happy. He's just not a happy man (I wouldn't either if I was him; his life is in Kentucky, he doesn't know anyone here cos he works 10-12 hour days, drives 6 hrs home every weekend...I mean what else can i say?)There's nothing I can do. I have also realized that the other engineers here don't care too much either. They don't show that much progress in our weekly meeting and they come in late and leave early so really I am like a star employee compared to them ;) ***I guess I shouldn't go so far as calling myself a "star" employee, but I guess I'm no different from everyone else!***

So Pride this past weekend in St Louis was an absolute blast. KK decided to join us in the very last minute (Oh BTW, he works/lives in KC now). He came in Friday night and rode in to St Louis the next morning with Justin and me. We had lunch with James in the Central West End and later met up with Dave and went shopping. Dinner at O'Charlie's was fun (2 words: dinner rolls).

We started the evening at Freddy's which was absolutely packed. Met Actor Alex there and pretty much stood around and talked alot of trash. It was fun. After that over to Complex we went and just like Freddy's it was packed (Pride weekend I reckon ;). Saw a bunch of peeps from Columbia and also met Kenneth+Jeff and the rest of their asian posse (No longer am I the lone asian of the group, HOLLA!) We kinda mashed into one huge group and danced our ass off.

I guess the moon and stars were alligned or something but everyone ended up gettin some! James and Alex started making out on the dance floor. A third guy (who happens to be the same guy who tried to pick me up last Winter at Faces) joined the James/Alex makeout session. Dave was his in his usual slut mode, Justin got groped and KK (the straight one) was feelin everyone up, they all loved it! What about me, you ask? Well in the last 15 mins before closing, I met this gorgeous, ripped, musclehead guy. He was majorly flirting and not before long we started making out. I don't usually do this but this guy was just gorgeous. He wanted to take me home but I politely declined (I was with my friends). I did give him my number though. So that was how the night ended. We went home and slept like babies.

The next day we went to Pride. Dave had class and James had to apt hunt, so they both flaked out. We again merged with the KC asian posse for most of the day. We ended up having a pretty good time, despite the fact that we were hungover, sleep deprived and hungry. I don't know where we get our energy, but we yelled and cheered and got a bunch of beads (mardi gras style) ;D

I'm back...

2006-06-15T17:54:00.000-05:00

Well as promised, I'm back to the blogging world. Like I said in my previous posting I haven't been feeling the best last week. Thank god things started to change and I turned the corner. For those who still don't know, I am stuck in a job I despise, wanna get out yada, yada, yada.... (for those of you who want to read my *sob* *sob* sad stories, scroll all the way to the bottom)

Anyway enough of my sad stories ;) So what have I been up to since my MIA, you ask? Well not that much. There was a huge party that Dave threw the night before his graduation. It was great and a ton of people showed up. We partied all night (towards the end it was just Dave, Justin, James, John Webcam and LaLa) and finally left the house the next day, it was fun but what's more is the memories that I will hold on for the rest of my life. We laughed, we cried...it was great! Then Dave graduated and eventually left for St Louis. There goes one of my closest friends, moving away. One of many to come in the coming summer months.

Another one to leave soon is Dr Matt. I had dinner with him last week at Chevy's, food was good and we both shared our problems and encouraged each other to move on. He's always so much fun to just sit and chat with. He's a great listener and conversationalist. He is finally done with his residency and will be moving to St Louis with Matty. They just bought an extremely espensive home there, I definitely need to go visit ;)

Well just this past weekend, a bunch of us went in to St Louis to go to Six Flags for their annual gay days celebration. It was also James' birthday so we went all out and celebrated on Saturday night. I think this is the most trashed I've ever been (Damn those "hot damn" shots) and as if it's not bad enough, I puked. Big time. With only 4 hrs of sleep (thanks to John's snoring) we ventured to Six Flags. It was fun until we took the Excalibur ride and that made us all sick to our stomachs. It didn't feel right for the rest of the day. I actually called in sick the next day! *mental note, NEVER ride on Excalibur again*
I've been on most of the rides but they had the new Superman ride. It's pretty much a free fall of about 7 or 8 stories, very cool ride but the line for it was darn long and we witnessed a girl having an epilepsy seizure...major DRAMA!!

*****I am used to feeling like this but the cycles used to be several months apart but lately it seems like the frequency is increasing more and more. I don't really know what this means but it's not good. I hope I have enough energy and motivation in me to keep going until I eventually get my GC. I think what I found most worrisome was not knowing what plan B was and those who know me knows I ALWAYS have Plan B :) On the other hand, the thing that really made me feel better this time around was actually writing down my emotions and sorting it all out and also talking to friends about it. In the past, I would just stay home and try to ride out the storm.******

Sorry =(

2006-06-08T17:19:00.000-05:00

I have been totally slacking with new postings on my blog. I just haven't been feeling the best lately. It's the usual complains about my work/career/life but to add to my misery, my friends have slowly been leaving Columbia like this city is infested with two headed cochroaches. Ah well, I promise I'll post something real soon....!

I miss all your comments too :(

Ciao

Check it out...

2006-05-16T10:44:00.000-05:00

Hey guys, I will be writing about this past weekend soon. Dave had the wildest party ever and his graduation was so joyous yet melancholy.

But in the mean time you guys should go check it out this game, make sure you have your volume turned up...very cool...leave me a comment and tell me your results :)

GAME

Have fun!!!

Graduation

2006-05-09T16:42:00.000-05:00

Time flies! It really does. I have been secretly hoping that May '06 will not arrive since about Summer of last year but I cannot believe how fast it has passed me by. It has been great though, I have absolutely no complains. It's been a great ride.

I attended Joe's graduation this past weekend at Columbia College and I will be attending quite a few others this coming weekend for Mizzou's graduation i.e. Dave, H2, Matt M, Emily, Matt G and quite a few others. This is a big milestone and it means it's the end of one chapter and the start of another for these people.

A small fear in me is that the new chapter for these people will not include me. I don't mean it as to us not being friends anymore but majority of them will be moving away and friendships always change when people move away. We will talk for a while and as time goes by, we drift further and further apart. I know I will definitely not lose touch with some of the closer ones but still it just won't be the same. I know, I know...never say never...but if experience has taught me anything, most friendships almost always does drift apart. I am just as guilty of it myself.

I have had quite a few chapters myself and have made amazing friends along the way. Some of the really close ones, we still keep in touch but somehow it's not the same. Little things like being able to "read" each others mind or body language or finish each other's sentences or funny little sayings or made up words will no longer be shared or used. But that is just reality. Nonetheless, I am still so amazingly grateful that I had the chance to become apart of their lives. Hopefully, our paths will cross again, one just never knows!

I don't show much of these emotions because deep down I am truly happy for all of them for accomplishing this major milestone. I guess I am just selfish, but then again aren't we all just a little bit selfish sometimes.

Happy Birthday, H2!

2006-05-05T15:17:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was my one of my closest girl friend, H2's birthday. Happy Birthday, Girl!!!!! She's reach a milestone but she still looks like she's 21 so it's all good ;) Took her out to dinner at this new fancy schmancy restaurant in town called Sycamore. She got this special Gnocci pasta and I got a Veal dish. The food was good but it was definitely a little too rich for my taste. We then walked around downtown chatting and trying to decide where to go for dessert. We settled for Tellers and had their Chocolate Decadence Cake and Lime Cheesecake....very yummy (Muuuur!) :P James and Jerod joined us at Tellers and we had a few drinks prior to Soco.

It's been a while since I've been to Soco on a Thursday night but I had a good reason tonight, it's my friend's bday. I was still feeling a little under the weather but I didn't have a choice...I HAD to go, right? It was fun, it was packed as usual. I didn't plan on drinking but ended up having quite a bit to drink and got a little tipsier than I had anticipated. The night went well but some asshole stole my AE shirt which I left at the coat rack. It wasn't my favourite shirt but it still pissed me off to think that someone would just take something that didn't belong to them. I looked around but didn't see it anywhere or on anyone but I quietly cursed the person who took it, "May his crotch be infested with a thousand fleas!!" Hope that'll the SOB a lesson...:D

It's a Friday and I'm almost done with work. I'm happy. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

My first Nephew!

2006-05-01T15:57:00.000-05:00

So how was everyone's weekend? I hope it was good. How was mine, you ask? Well I didn't really have one since I had to work 12 freakin hours on Saturday doing physical inventory! Got off work and had dinner with Steph, Em and Dave at Chilli's then later went to Brook's surprise birthday party. After that we went to Shattered for Mark's (of Mark&Daniel) birthday party.

There is definitely no shortage of birthdays around this time. There is Steph, KK, H2, Tze and also my brother, all celebrating within days from one another. Steph's birthday (a big shout out to Steph "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!") was Sunday. We gathered up the group and had lunch at Flat Branch. After that I just got home and rested. I am still not 100% recovered as I have a bad sorethroat but my cough's gotten much better. I need to lay off late nights for a while until I start feeling better.

Today is KK's birthday (another shout out to KK, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"). I also received some good news from my oldest brother, Ewe. I am an UNCLE to my FIRST NEPHEW!! He sent me a text message saying that Masako gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Tatsuya, weighing 3.4 kg at 8:32pm May 1st. I have yet to find out all the details. Will definitely have to call and get as much info as possible. It's so hard being an uncle and living on the other side of the world, these are times when I really want to be back home with family. My niece, Naomi's starting to walk and talk and she barely knows who I am :(

My 2nd brother is also expecting a baby sometime this year. Sure seems like babies are popping out left and right this year. If you read an earlier post, my friend Reema + Chad just had little Arden. I also received an email from my old college buddy, Adam, telling me that his wife just delivered a baby boy, Wynn. I just feel so happy for all these people and truly wish they were all much closer so I can join them in celebrating their happiness.

I partied like it was 1999!

2006-04-25T16:14:00.000-05:00

The title says it all. This last weekend has officially beat out all my other weekends, well maybe except for when I was back in college, when I was young, naive and reckless. Guess I'm not young nor naive anymore but still a little reckless, HA! j/k y'all..

But anyway here goes the chain of events:

Thursday evening, I got off work as usual and decided to hang out with Joe downtown. The weather was amazing so we walked around and had dinner. Soon after that we met Dave at Noodles along with Zack, John G and James and they managed to convince me to go out that night. It turned out to be a good decision since Soco was totally packed and the music was good. Of course there were other friends there and we all danced after the show. The night ended and as usual everyone headed for IHOP. I had to work the next day so I politely excused myself and went home and crashed at 2am (which was no doubt, still very late).

Next day, I was not too productive at work obviously. Got off work, was planning on taking a nap but Dr Matt called and we ended up going to dinner. Brandon came along and we went to the new Bangkok Gardens; the restaurant was nicely decorated but the food was the same (no improvement), we had to wait for about 1 1/2 hrs for our food and they ran out of rice! So I probably won't be going back there anytime soon. Went to Coldstone after that (Muurrr) and then headed to Justin's party after that. It was really good seeing Matt again after so long but I did feel bad for not hanging with him more but he had to be up at 3:30 am to moonlight at some hospital so he was probably glad I had to leave early.

Justin's party turned out to be a real success. A ton of people showed up (Justin, Chadd, Dave, me, Joe, James, John G, Jerod, Danny, Airforce John, Matt, John Millionaire, Byron, John Filipino, Gary and a bunch others that I don't remember). Halfway through we left for Soco, danced and then came back and partied some more. I got pretty drunk and finally left Justin's at about 3am, the party was still very much alive. I later heard that the last guest left at around 6:30am, craziness :) Joe drove me home that night so no worries about drunk driving.

Saturday, I got up at around 11am and later Dave, Joe and myself hung out at the mall and had lunch at Chipotle. In the evening we (including Steph, Em and Amy from Dave's BLADE) were all invited to John Millionaire's for a cook out. He lived in Highlands which was a pretty upscale neighbourhood to begin with but his house definitely blew away all the others on that street. A private driveway and they had an 8 garage attached to the house with 3 more garages in a separate shed. They also had a separate guest house which was quite impressive but John's a very down-to-earth guy, which was good. I just cannot stand people who likes to talk big. The bbq went well and most of us from the bbq headed to Shattered after that. We danced away to the 80's music. We left for Jerod's after party after Shattered closed at 2am. Jerod/Danny lives in a pretty nice town house south of town. I thought it was funny when we all made champagne toast to everything from John coming out to his parents to Asians to friends forever to short people etc etc lol. We hung out there till about 3am and then took off. The party was so much fun and we all got quite drunk AGAIN!

The next day was Earth day so went downtown with H2/Mas and the same group of people from Thurs/Fri/Sat and hung out yet again! I'm glad that we are expanding our group of friends to include more and more really cool people. I am truly very happy with my social circle starting with the core of Dave and Justin. Anyway we walked around, enjoyed the weather and then had dinner at Addison's. After dinner, Dave, James and myself went to Coldstone yet again (double Muuuurrr) and pigged out on ice cream. I'm glad I dragged my ass to the gym yesterday and did about an hour of cardio workout.

So that was my totally crazy weekend. We took a ton of pictures so I'll be posting them soon. This Saturday will be inventory so I'll have to come in to work, booo :( But it'll be Steph's birthday Sunday so that'll be fun. I need to also relax a little more for I feel like I'm coming down with a cough. With all these partying, I bet my immune system is working double time!

Happy Easter

2006-04-17T10:13:00.000-05:00

"Sup bitches!?!" yells Little Arden Kairi (L) & Happy Family(R)

First and foremost I'd like to congratulate my friends Chad and Reema for their healthy baby boy Arden Kairi born on Apr 15, 2006 at 9:03am. Aww...look at that adorable little thing!

Secondly, have you filed your taxes yet?!? Today's the deadline, well for most of us at least. I just got mine done about 2 weeks ago, paid a ~~cut throat~~ accountant $150 to do my returns. I'll definitely have to buckle up and try filing it myself next year. It's ridiculous how much taxes we have to pay in this country! Sales tax, income tax, property tax, capital gains tax...what else... cibai tax got, ah? KNNCCB...

Did everyone have a good Easter weekend? Mine was so-so. Started out feeling great on Friday. Just couldn't wait to party. After work, went to have dinner with Steph's family which was rather fun (in a family setting kinda way) at Shakespeare's. Had to blow Dr Matt off for the 2nd time **I feel so bad** (I definitely have to go out with him this Fri). Then after dinner, met up with the gang at Harpo's where they had free drinks for grad students. By the time I got there around 9pm the party was almost over so we left and went to Soco but it kinda sucked there because the music was bad and not many people showed up. The rest of the weekend I spent entertaining my friend from St Louis which was just blaaah...:(

Here are some random pictures of recent "activities" at Soco Club :D

Airforce John & me (L) & Fabulous Dustin (R)

Chadd, Justin, Me & Steph (L); Matt & me shaking our booty(R)

Look at the two sampat-lou wearing the same shirt ;)

~~~~~N10~~~~~

Short talk:
Saw this site which I have linked to "blogs i find interesting". It's about a guy on a quest to eventually trade for a house starting with one red paperclip! He starts out with the paperclip, advertises it on craiglist and got a fish pen for the clip. From there he just goes on to bigger and better things. Now he's up to a year's free rent in an Phoenix apartment. It's pretty humorous and unique. Definitely check it out.

Went to the MU Rec center on thursday (Oh did I mention, I work out there now) with Matt to play racquetball and did some weights then later called Dave to come join in on some kind of celebration they were having with free food and raffles. It was fun and relaxing. We soaked in the hot tub, relaxed in the sauna and floated around on the outside pool, it was amazing, felt like I was at a resort for a night ;)

It's so late, it is...early!

2006-04-13T15:18:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was just like one of my usual weekends, too much partying, too much alcohol and staying up way too late. Before you say anything, I realize that this kind of behaviour is detrimental to my health but I have an excuse (and I'm not just making this one up). As you all know I am majorly stressed out and hate going to work but my social life on the other hand has been GREAT and I absolutely love it and it is pretty much the only motivation for me to keep toiling in to work day after day. So back to my excuse, my social life might come to a screeching halt! (I'm praying really hard that it doesn't) The way I see it, those that are very close in my cirlce for eg H2, Dave, Steph, and Dr Matt are leaving Columbia! Dave is graduating from Law School, H2 is getting done with her Phd, Dr Matt is done with residency...so pretty much 80% of my close friends are moving away. I definitely hope that I'll be able to branch out and rebuild my social circle but it's going to be hard. Soooo because of that, I'm taking every opportunity to spend time with my friends and party it up. I know it's bad to overdo it but all I can say is it's not going to last forever and before I know it, I'll be staying home on Saturday nights watching TV all by my lonely self :(

OK now back to my past weekend. I was supposed to hang out with Dr Matt since I blew him off the week before but I guess what goes around comes around because this time he blew me off because Matty was coming into town. I ended up going to Fulton with Justin for some "talent" show. It wasn't any good so we left, took a tour around Fulton (which is where Justin grew up) and came back to Columbia and had Sushi at Osaka. Dinner was very yummy and totally ran into Dr Matt and Matty. We were supposed to meet up with Dave after but he totally flaked out on us (He had a movie date with actor Alex) and we just called it quits around 11pm. I was a little pissed wasting my Friday evening because I was all dressed up and ready to go out.

Anyway the next day, I was supposed to do a biathlon with Steph but since I couldn't transport my bike in my car, I flaked out on her. I ended up hanging out with H2 majority of the day eating at this new tea house, Kayotea, going to Sams and then later to the mall. We rounded up most of our friends and went out to Soco later that evening and it turned out to be alot of fun. H2, Mas, Dave, Justin, Chad, Chad's sister, Joe, and myself showed up (later met Brandon, John Millionaire, Ben and Eric) and we totally danced the night away. After Soco, with me being a little tipsy, we headed to IHOP (which is totally the place to be after bars) and just hung out there till 3am. As usual there is always IHOP drama, but I won't get into that in this post. After IHOP, I was still feeling pretty awake (must have been the "special" tea I had earlier) so I went over to Don's to hang out with Matt and Don. We just sat around and talked and smoked some.....now now don't hate and don't judge...hehehe ;) It was all good...Don and myself got into talking about world civilizations and Chinese history/civilization (trust me, this kinda shit happens) and it turned out to be a great chat. Matt passed out around 4am but Don and I kept yakking away. When I finally left Don's, it was around 6:30am and the sun was rising! I think the last time I was out till the sun rised was when I was 18 or 19 in Inti College and being totally stupid. I just remember having this odd feeling and telling myself that it so mother effing late that it's actually...early!!!

I got up at 2pm the next day. I would usually feel like shit on days like these but amazingly I woke up and felt exceptionally good. I had some lunch and headed out to the gym and met up with Matt. We played some racquetball, did some weights and ran for about 2 miles. After all that, I was still feeling quite energetic like I can run another mile or two but I decided not to push it, so I went home eagerly expecting new episodes of DHW and GA but neither one of those were new! KNNCCB...

Happy Birthday, Dave!

2006-04-05T13:09:00.000-05:00

Dave's bad-ass birthday cake!

I was not feeling well most of last week (actually called in sick on Wed) but by Friday I started feeling better and totally partied all night and got drunk. I was definitely asking for trouble for I had barely recovered ;) But it's all good and it was Dave's birthday! He turned 25 on Fri, Mar 31st just one day before April fools. We reserved the Pasta Factory and of all 15 people that said were coming, about half showed up. Dinner was good, as usual Justin & I bought him dinner and an ice cream cake from DQ and I got him a leather bounded resume holder thingy. After dinner, we went to Tellers for a few drinks and then off to Soco we went. The night was fun and I had a little too much to drink. Started off with a Chamborg (sp?) at tellers and followed by a smirnoff, jello shots and red bull tattoo at Soco. I wouldn't usually drink so much but this new guy I met Jerord was really cool and kept buying me drinks. It was awesome! I guess I went pass my two smirnoff limit. I apparently passed out on someone's shoulder while dancing. LOL. After Soco, we went to Ben's where Dave got even more trashed by doing Yeagar shots. I finally went to bed at 4am!

Chattin and drinkin at Tellers bar (L-R: Justin, me, Zack, Mark, Daniel, Mike, Dave, Em and John)

Dave, me and Justin drinking somemore at Soco, I'm starting to get really red!

Danced our booty's off (Justin, me and Jerod)

The next day H2's friend Kenneth from KC was taking a trip to StLouis and originally it was just the two of them but after some persuasion I decided to tag along. It was rather fun we went out again on Sat night, first to Novaks then to the Complex. I didn't drink much but we danced and I just remember feeling really sore and tired by the end of the night. I remember thinking that I'm getting too old for this kinda non stop partying ;) The next day we had dim sum and then went to the Galleria to do some shopping. I got home around 6pm and passed out on my couch :P

Short Talk:

Went out to watched "Why We Fight" at the Rag Tag yesterday with Joe and I must say very good independent movie/documentary. It was definitely biased but still educational. Definitely go check it out if you have the chance. It pretty much analyzes just like the title says...why America goes to war. Starts off with Eisenhower's final speech as President warning America about the Military Industrial Complex which is fast becoming a self fulfilling prophecy. One of my favourite lines in the movie is "...the military spent 3/4 of trillian $$, when War is this profitable, we'll definitely see more if it..." indeed very sad but true. Also gives a funny yet true story about how the US totally screwed around in the Middle East starting with Iran and then to Saddam, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. It's amazing...

It's amazing to see how much money is wasted and how much corruption exist in this country. One of the things they said that I truly believe is there is definitely NO COINCIDENCE that a military contractor becomes the US VP. It's a good movie, go see it...

Good Movies

2006-03-27T13:47:00.000-06:00

I managed to check out two very good movies over the weekend. I enjoyed them very much eventhough the reviews were just mediocre. This weekend was the start of Spring break so most of my buddies were either out of town or going to be. Dave and Em were venturing out to Portland, OR/Seattle; Matt went to ~~gay mecca~~ San Francisco(I regret it now but I was originally invited to go but declined); Joe's on NG duty and Steph is heading south to Austin, TX.

Nothing major happened, just took it easy. Went to watch Transamerica with Justin, Dave, Lim & Marshall on Friday night, night before Dave's trip. The next day, Dan from St Louis visited over the weekend and we went to watch V for Vendetta on Saturday night.

Nick's Reviews:

Caution possible spoilers

This movie was definitely funny, charming and entertaining considering that this movie was an independent/low budget film shot in a very constrained time line. I know some of you were turned off at the idea that Felicity Huffman (a woman) played the role of a male to female transexual but she did it very well with her talented acting/voice along with the magic of Hollywood make up and clothing. She definitely deserved the Oscar that she won for this movie.

I noticed that the make up was often one shade too light or dark and the mismatched/outdated clothing definitely gave her an awkward look that somehow made her look less feminine.

The makers/actors of this movie managed to portray the emotions of the characters very well and yet the movie felt very care free with its constant humor. Everyone should give this movie a chance despite the genre and check it out

I give this movie 8/10

I went into this movie with not much of an expectation. I've heard such mixed reviews that I didn't know what to think. But this movie captured my attention the entire time. I know this is quite a controversial movie with possible anti-Bush agenda but we must remember that this is based on a comic book that was written ions before this administration. It's just a mere case of life imitating art.

One of my favourite lines in this movie is "...people should not be afraid of their Government, the Government should be afraid of their people..." how true, right? I also liked "...remember, remember, the 5th of November..." very catchy. This movie is from the same makers as the Matrix and interestingly just like the Matrix, this movie provokes its audience to think and question, very powerful in my opinion that a movie can achieve this feat.

The beginning of this movie confused me a little. There was a short clip of a person hung to death. Then right after that it moves on to the future. There were no explanations or follow ups. I later found out from Joe that the clip was of a man, Guy Fawkes, who tried to rebel by trying to blow up the parliment because the King/govt was opposed to Catholicism but he was caught before it happened. I guess the entire premise of this movie was based on that little clip. I feel that most of you will enjoy this movie more if you don't go in expecting tons of action and violence. The previews definitely did portray it as an action movie, in my opinion.

I give this movie 8.5/10

Career Fair

2006-03-24T12:57:00.000-06:00

The weekend really started on Thursday 3/16 when Justin said that Chadd really wants to go to Soco. After Justin successfully persuaded Dave and me to go out, we all went and guess who was the first to leave Soco? Surprise, surprise...it was Chadd...he just disappeared without letting anyone know. But that's Chadd's signature, he makes dramatic exits ;) The next day we didn't really do much, I had dinner with Steph at El Maguey's and then later Dave, Emily, Justin, Steph and me met at Steph's condo and played a very uneventful game of Cranium.

The next day, Dave and I got on the road and headed to St Louis and got in around dinner time and was invited to have dinner with Dave's family. It was a great seeing Dave interact with his family members(Father, Mother, Aunt, Grandmother, niece and nephew). I made small talk here and there but the most rewarding part was noticing the little details that reminded me of my own family meals back when Mom was alive. It made me feel good seeing Dave's Mom hurrying around the kitchen preparing food, his grandma playing with the grandkids and the little jokes between Dave and his Dad. This experience made me feel good inside and definitely brought back my own memories. We went out to Magnolias, Complex and JJ's later that night. Nothing too dramatic happened...

Sunday started out with me wondering around Delmar by myself eating the much craved beef stew noodle and mango custard bubble tea. It was so yummy...:P I then hung out at a Starbucks and finished Memoirs of a Geisha (which is a GREAT book by the way) waiting on Dave to get done with his lunch/interview with the St Louis public defender's chief (0r something like that). I didn't have to wait long when he soon showed up and we went on to the Galleria and spent a good deal of time shopping. Later that evening we went to dinner with Charles and later hung out at a lesbian martini bar and Bill's home.

I took a vacation day for Monday and went to the Marriot for the diversity career fair. Met up with Barry (coworker who was recently laid off) there and passed out some resumes and managed to rack up a bunch of free shit. The fair wasn't especially big but I did not have any expectations going in so I was not disappointed. We all had lunch and then drove back to Columbia.

Below are pictures from the Mardi Gras weekend in St Louis which you can read all about here.

At Denny's after we got kicked out of the Complex

Shane was really drunk and funny (L) & Mingling at the Complex, there were so many ppl from Columbia there that weekend (R)

Don, me, Matt and Bryan at the Comlex

Weekend Madness

2006-03-13T19:00:00.000-06:00

Before I begin with my usual posting, I just wanted to say that it has now become apparent that my boss is not very fond of me. It is 7pm and I am just walking out of my office. It has been a long 10 1/2 hr day. I've had a sneaking suspicion that he doesn't like me for a while (who the hell knows, could be because I'm the only asian engineer) but the latest sign of discrimination is when I was sick 3 weeks ago and I had to take 2 sick days and 1/2 vacation day and today in his office, he mentioned that I had to make up for these days "somehow"....WTF?!?! I am so defeated. There has been so many other stories in the past and I don't really want to get into it. So in order to please him, I told him I will wrap all my backlog by Wednesday which is almost impossible but I'll do it anyway...just like the fat balding fuck wants me to.

I have become very good at leaving my feelings of depression, imprisonment and hatred at work the very moment I step out. I have hated my work the last 3 out of 4 years I have worked here (for those of you who don't know me, you might be thinking "well just leave!" but I can't due to my immigration status). It takes a whole lot of mental control to handle this crap. That's the reason I am so happy when the weekend comes. Not just the standard happy but I actually give out a sigh of relieve when I leave and get into my car on Friday evenings. I get so happy to not have to see the faces that I've come to despise for another 2 days. I just can't wait for the day when I can finally tell them to go fuck themselves! Oh well, moving on...

Super fun Saturday (St. Patrick's 5K)

H2, Sue, Me and Joe before the race

So anyway, here's my story for Saturday. It was fun and very productive. I woke up early, around 7am and headed towards the court house. That was where the St Patrick's Day 5K started, there was so much energy (hundreds of ppl participated). Anyway met up with Joe, H2, Mas & Sue and we all ran the 5K except for Mas who was there for support :) The 5K was challenging, maybe because I haven't worked out in a while but thankfully I finished at a better time (around 26 mins) than the Cranberry Crawl 5K (28 mins) that took place last November. Here are the results.

After the race, we all went to have brunch at the the very yummilicious Cucina Solera. The weather was just perfect on Saturday around 70's (and winter's not even over yet!). Went home to take a shower and a short nap and sometime around 1 went downtown again just to walk around because the weather was so awesome. There were ppl everywhere walking around, eating icecream and just having a good time. H2, Joe and myself gobbled down a frozen concrete from Shake's (I know, defeats the purpose of running a 5K) and shortly after got caught in a hailing storm. Later that evening, went to Chili's with Dave and Em and then to Justin's for a little impromtu cocktail party. It was fun and later to Soco where the music was freakishly good. We danced all night long and headed to IHOP afterwards. By this point, I was so tired I could hardly feel my legs ;) There was some drama in IHOP, too long for this post. I finally went to bed at 4am, where I've been up for 22 hours! Craziness...

Scary Sunday Storms

All the white specks are golf ball sized hail! Remember this day was in the 70's

After a super crazy hectic Saturday, I had no more energy, totally spent. So I just took most of the day relaxing but little did I know a storm was approaching. I woke up around 11am, went to Gerbes for a little grocery shopping with Steph and came home and relaxed. Weather was still nice at around 70s. Soon after I got home from groceries, the clouds started to turn black. I was just sitting around watching "Tim Burton's: The Corpes Bride" when I heard the sirens go off. It freaked me out, so I turned on regular TV to see a Tornado Warning (for those not familiar, a tornado watch is when conditions are right and tornado warning is when there is an actual touch down sighted) and live coverage of the storm! Shortly after that, the storm came...it was probably one of the strongest I've experienced in the last 9 years living in the Mid-west. There were reports of hail sizing from pebble to even soft ball size! My area got hit pretty hard with golf ball sized hail, thankfully my car was in the garage so it survived some major damage. Other neighbours were not so lucky.

So immediate I went into my interior bathroom praying that nothing major is going to happen to my 1st time purchased real estate. Peeking out the window, the golf ball sized hail looked like they were little bombs coming down hard, punching a small crater in the ground each time one hits and there were hundreds if not thousands coming down. The water on the ground would splash each time a hail would hit, my entire backyard looked like a war zone. I could hear the hail hitting my front windows and at one point they were so rampant and were hitting with so much force that I actually thought my windows were going to be busted open. The entire ordeal lasted 15-20 mins if not less and then just as sudden as it approached, everything cleared. I stepped outside just like everybody else to inspect what had happened. The day was still warm but I could feel a strange coolness from all the hail/ice laying on the ground evaporating, creating a foggy environment. I noticed my first casualty: a wind chime I bought while living in Dallas, TX which I've owned for almost 5 years. I have yet to inspect my siding and grill/patio furniture in the back yard. I hope that they are all still in 1 piece.

Little did I know this was the first of many storms to pass through Missouri. According to AP News "more than 100 twisters touched down in a weekend wave that stretched across five states, from Oklahoma to Illinois. Nine of the ten dead were in Missouri." Later in the evening around 8pm, another storm passed through and several others through the night. Thankfully they missed Columbia. I heard that one county in west Missouri got pounded with 3 major storms. I later saw on the news that Missouri was the hardest hit state with the most damages and people killed. There were also homes that were not too far from my area that were quite badly damaged with holes in their siding and damaged roofs. Check it out on the Columbia Daily Tribune and Yahoo News. I'm glad that no tornadoes touched down in my area and nothing major around my house got damaged. It is times like this when I appreciate Malaysia's relative "safeness" from natural disasters. I guess this is just the introduction to Tornado season that is yet to come...

And so this wraps up another weekend....

Next weekend, I'm off to St Louis for a career fair, wish me luck!

M.I.A.

2006-03-06T15:34:00.000-06:00

I know I have been totally MIA (Missing In Action) lately but I have just been busy/sick/you name I've got it. Feels like it's been months..ok..couple of weeks (I have to be dramatic, what can I say) since I last wrote anything. In the last two weeks, I went to St Louis with Justin, Chadd and Dave to celebrate Mardi Gras along with the rest of Columbia, came down with cold/flu AND.....that's about it. So as you can see nothing major has really happened either. Sooo no big loss =D

Let's start with the weekend in St Louis which was the weekend of Feb 25/26, on that Friday I took 1/2 day off and hung out with Joe. Weather was just fabulous. Later that evening, Justin and I hitched a ride with Chadd in to St Louis. We got in around midnight and tried to meet up with Dave at Freddies but with much drama between Dave and Charles we ended up meeting at The Complex at around 1:30am. Staying true to our very dramatic theme for the night, Dave got us kicked out again for the 2nd time...well at least got me kicked out for the 2nd time...it was Justin and Chadd's first. So anyway here the story goes:

Dave got thrashed at the Mayor's Ball in St Louis, Charles wouldn't take him to Freddies, drove him all the way back to Oakville, Justin and me bitched Charles because Dave was our only lodging for the night and weekend, Charles brought him back to Complex, they were both in tuxs, Dave wanted to change, Dave drank water and choked in front of lesbian bouncer, lesbian bouncer got bitchy, lesbian bouncer concluded Dave was too drunk and barred him from The Complex, we all had to leave AND finally we all just ended up chillin at Denny's.

So what do you think? Enough drama for one night?

The next day was the big day. It was Mardi Gras, 2nd largest possibly largest celebration in the nation since New Orleans got hit by Katrina, we were all excited. So we drove downtown, parked our car at Novaks and took a shuttle there. All the excitement but nothing could prepare us for the disappointment. We missed the parade :( on top of that it was WAY too packed and the weather was really cold so we stayed for an hour and left. Well at least I can say I've experienced the St Louis Mardi Gras. By the time we left, it was around 3pm neither of us has had anything to eat all day, so we drive to the Galleria and headed straight for the Cheesecake Factory. Everybody was hungry and therefore bitchy so it was definitely not a pretty scene. We had to wait and finally got seated and got our food at around 4pm. Gobbled that up, and went back to Dave's to rest and later headed out to the Complex again (Hoping that the bitchy lesbian will let Dave back in). Now this night was the most fun all weekend. We saw a bunch of people from Columbia, we all danced and it was GREAT! There was minor drama with Chadd but overall it was great time in Complex as always on Saturday nights...

The following week, I was pretty much down with some weird form of cold/flu and had to take Monday off, half-heartedly went in to work Tue, Wed and Thurs but was still feeling bad so called in sick on Friday again. I mostly slept those 2 sick days. By Sat I was feeling a little better, I went on a Movie marathon with Joe at Hollywood Cinemas. We watched Capote (good), part of Date Movie (stupid but funny) and Ultraviolet (stupid and more stupid). Word of advice, DO NOT WATCH ULTRAVIOLET! Worst movie ever! The next day was spent doing chores; laundry and grocery shopping. Later that night, I wasn't planning any kind of party or anything but Steph, Em, Dave, Justin and Chadd ended up coming to my house to watch the Oscars. It was disappointing that Brokeback didn't win more awards. Especially best movie but at least it garnerred a lot of publicity and got a huge audience that would not usually go watch a movie in this genre...so I guess that's good enough.

In Memory of Grandpa

2006-02-21T13:44:00.000-06:00

Kong-kong during his younger days

Received a text message from Dad sometime last night while I was still asleep. I also got a voicemail left by Aunty Bee around the same time. Woke up to find a text message and voice message, I knew something had to have happened. I found out that Grandpa passed away in the afternoon of February 21, Tuesday Malaysian Time at 97 years old. Malaysian time is actually ahead of the US Central time, which is where I'm located, therefore them calling me in the middle of Tuesday morning....I know it's confusing but that's what I have to live with whenever I communicate with my family who are half the world away. They are constantly living 1/2 a day ahead of me, it's night here when it's day there, it's today here when it's tomorrow there; so this makes it all quite confusing sometimes.

I found out that Grandpa would like to be cremated and have his ashes scattered into the seas surrounding Penang Island. It will probably remain along the Straits of Malacca for a while and then eventually be carried to the Indian Ocean or the South China Sea depending on how the ocean current flows. I am surprised that this is what Grandpa, the free-sprited man I suppose, wanted because traditionally people from his generation are either buried in a family cemetery or cremated and then stored in a temple so that future generations can pay their respects. In a way, I can see how this can be quite serene andnot that bad of an idea.

I am just a little dissappointed that I will not be able to attend his funeral. It seems that ever since I've started living in the US, I have missed out on a lot of the major family functions. First was of my eldest brother's wedding. Then there was this big 90th birthday celebration for Grandpa where Aunties, Uncles and cousins from all over the globe attended.

In honour of all people closest to me who have passed on, I have created an account at Genebase to somehow link all my relatives together in a one big family tree. I will try to recruit as many of them as possible. Hopefully the response will be good. Wish me luck...

Kong-kong shortly before his passing

No Longer together...

2006-02-20T15:15:00.000-06:00

This last weekend was a somber one. On Friday Feb 17, I decided to dissolve my 10-month oldrelationship. It was very difficult but I felt it had to be done. It was for the best for the both of us. I thought about it long and hard and had 3 main reasons for breaking up:

JRM's schedule changed recently (since Dec) which resulted in extreme reduction of the time we spent together. We barely see each other on weekdays and some on weekends. I feel this is quite a significant reason.
JRM will be graduating soon. There are all kinds of plans, talks about joining the Peace Corp, travelling out West etc etc. I feel it's best I get myself out of the way to make the decisions easier.
And finally, I know this is tied to #2 but we are both at very different stages of our lives and probably looking for different things as well. I think it could have worked if the both of us became more stable in our lives/career.

I still question it today if I've made the right decision, it was a lot harder than I thought. I definitely feel like getting on the phone and say, "Ha ha, April's fools, this was all just a joke" but the reality is we both probably need time apart to get used to the feeling. The rest of the weekend was mediocre. The weather sucked, the clouds were gloomy and temperatures were down to single digits. I think I spent most of Sunday just laying on the couch watching TV. I don't think I even got out of my pjs. I definitely hope to remain good friends. There has been text messages and emails exchanged and I think both sides are progressing well.

Happy Valentines...

2006-02-15T10:32:00.000-06:00

So how was everyone's Valentines? The day where couples get ~~brainwashed into buying overpriced roses and eating at overbooked restaurants~~ all cozy with one another, isn't that just sweet, ~~NOT~~. Anywho, mine was quite low key. I cooked a meal for us, a full 3 course dinner complete with salad, pasta and dessert, and gave that special someone a cute lil teddy bear and candy of course. It was definitely not a big deal as I had said we wouldn't be doing much, it turned out just the way I wanted it to.

Later in the evening Dave and Em popped by my place to update me on his ~~very dramatic~~ love life. He broke up his relationship on Valentine's Day! How crazy is that :) What a drama queen! Anyway it was definitely interesting hearing about all the little details of the breakup. Apparently my other friends agreed ~~all wrong~~ and said that Valentine's always puts couples in such pressure and that will eventually lead to a high break up rate on this specific day. Anyone else has experienced a Valentine's break up? Do share in comment section...

Photos with Fang from NYC

2006-02-14T20:58:00.000-06:00

Fang and me posing in front of my duplex with her rental car parked up front.

Joe, Fang and myself fooling around in my living room. Just got back from Osage beach shopping. We were resting before heading out for dinner.

Again fooling around in living room.

Awwww.....isn't that sweet.

Cheers to you too! Having a very yummilicious dinner at Trattoria Strada Nova....I think that means Restaurant on Ninth Street ;)

Another pic of us before heading home with a full tummy.

Smart Ass

2006-02-08T14:36:00.000-06:00

R.L. Loeffelbein A physics teacher at Washington University in St. Louis was about to give a student a zero for the student's answer to an examination problem. The student claimed he should receive a perfect score, if the system were not so set up against the student. Instructor and student agreed to submit to an impartial arbiter, Dr. Alexander Calandra, who tells the story.
The examination problem was: "Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer."
The student's answer was, "Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, and lower the barometer to the ground. Then, bring it back up, measuring the length of the rope and barometer. The lengths of the two together is the height of the building."
I, as arbiter, pointed out that the student really had a strong case for full credit since he had answered the problem completely and correctly. On the other hand, of course, full credit would contribute to a high grade for the student in his physics course, and a high grade is supposed to certify that the student knows some physics, a fact that his answer had not confirmed. So it was suggested that the student have another try at answering the problem.
He was given six minutes to answer it, with the warning this time that the answer should indicate some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. Asked if he wished to give up, he said no, that he had several answers and he was just trying to think which would be the best. In the next minute he dashed off this answer. "Take the barometer to the top of the building. Lean over the edge of the roof, drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula S=½at2, calculate the height of the building. At this point, I asked my colleague if he gave up and he conceded. The student got nearly full credit.
Recalling that the student had said he had other answers, I asked him what they were. "Well," he said, "you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and length of the building's shadow, then use simple proportion to determine the height of the building. And there is a very basic measurement method you might like. You take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb, you mark off lengths of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks to get the height of the building in barometer units.
"Of course, if you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of 'g.' The height of the building can, in principle, be calculated from this.
"And," he concluded, "if you don't limit me to physics solutions, you can take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When he answers, you say, 'Mr. Superintendent, I have here a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of this building, I will give you this barometer.'"
Finally, he admitted that he even knew the correct textbook answer -- measuring the air pressure at the bottom and top of the building and applying the appropriate formula illustrating that pressure reduces as height increases -- but that he was so fed up with college instructors trying to teach him how to think instead of showing the structure of the subject matter, that he had decided to rebel.
For my part, I seriously considered changing my grade to unequivocal full credit.
R.L. Loeffelbein has been a teacher and writer for 20 years. He was an assistant professor aboard the first voyage of the University of the Seven Seas.

Superbowl Weekend

2006-02-07T10:19:00.000-06:00

Steph decided to have a superbowl party on Sunday and it turned out to be quite alot of fun. Everyone brought a little something and I made my famous cheesecake. I experimented with one by adding peanut butter and it came out really good! I'll definitely have to try that one again. No one except for Steph and Chad was paying any attention to the game, I guess they were the only two that were into football. The rest of us were paying more attention to the ads than the game. One of the cutest ads has got to be the one for Budweiser where the little pony's trying to pull this huge carriage and as he's coming out of the barn, you see two other little ponies at the back pushing the carriage, helping their friend along. That was just soooo sweet =) After the game, we all watched the very dramatic Grey's Anatomy. It was a pretty good episode except that we didn't like how it left us hanging in the end.

We didn't really do much on Friday evening. Went to the mall and shopped a little and later just chilled out at Steph's house playing cards. Saturday was Emily's birthday. After playing cards all night, I went to MU's Rec center with Dave and worked out the next morning. I did weights and ran for about 4 miles and later just chilled at the sauna, very relaxing. I'm proud of myself for keeping up with my schedule so far. I hope I'll see some results soon. After that we just hung out with Justin and Chad at Cherry St and later met at Pasta House for Em's birthday dinner. After dinner, we all went to Shattered and danced to 80's music.

All in all, it was a fun weekend but I definitely feel that I'm partying it up a little too much. There are many chores at home that is ignored but the way I see it is I should take full advantage of the situation while everyone's still in Columbia. After the summer, everyone will be done with school and only God will know what will happen then. I have a suspicion that my social life will come to a screeching halt. I'm really not looking forward to that but there's nothing much I can do.

TGIF

2006-02-03T14:25:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I saw on the news that Muslims across the world are outraged by some political cartoon making fun of Prophet Mohammed. I know this is a very sensitive subject but when there is freedom of expression how far can it go? Is it black and white or is there a big grey area? There are times when I question this freedom. Recently I learnt that a local KKK/white supremacy group has been handing out flyers on car windshields at a local strip mall. This was especially scary for a person of my racial background to know that there are groups of people like this out there. It was quite disturbing and it's situations like this that makes me question this freedom. Personally I feel that this whole Prophet caricature situation is just blown out of proportion and I kinda like the very PC reply of the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen where he goes "Neither the Danish government nor the Danish nation as such can be held responsible for drawings published in a Danish newspaper; A Danish government can never apologise on behalf of a free and independent newspaper and This is basically a dispute between some Muslims and a newspaper." You go gurl....fingers snapping...

Today is just one of those days. I have plenty of work to do but I'm just sitting here surfing one website after another, just asking to be fired I guess. These days I just don't have the motivation to work anymore. I guess my theory is I'm just coasting till I finally receive my Greencard then I'll be outta here but till then I'll just have stay under the radar and pretty much just...coast. It's so hard to plan my life when literally every aspect of my life depends on me being a citizen or greencard holder, sometimes I just don't feel that this is very fair but then again nobody forced me into wanting to live & work here. I could've easily gone home and gotten a pretty good job (like my brothers who also came here for school) and be around friends and family but I guess deep down I wanted more. The funny thing is the past 5 years of my life has been so focussed on obtaining a greencard that I'm afraid I might just lose that focus or direction when I actually get that darn piece of plastic but that's of no concernn for another 1-3 years.

Hari Raya celebration at Elleen's with yummy food. Elleen, Joe, Me an H2.

On a separate and more encouraging note, I have started a new workout/diet routine this week. I just got done reading "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscles" by Tom Venuto and I must say, this book has taught me a lot on how the human body works. I am applying some of his advise to my lifestyle, i.e. eating 5 small meals/day, doing cardio everyday for at least 30 mins and doing weights for 3 days (Mon, Wed & Fri). It's too soon to see any results but I hope it won't be counterproductive for I did not follow everything down to every detail. I am incorporating protein (chicken breast, egg whites, tuna, salmon) into every meal just like he advised and drinking lots of water. I'm running for 30-40 minutes everyday and doing weights every other day. But I did not set a clear goal, nor did I calculate my daily calories and body fat. Hopefully these will be too trivial and I'll still be able to see some results.

Can you read this?

2006-02-02T17:04:00.000-06:00

Olny srmat ppoeloe can.
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The pahonmanel pweor of the hmuan mnid, aodcrcnig to a rscheearch at Cbmarigde Uinesrvtiy, it dseont mtater in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a perbolm. Tihs is busecae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aimzang huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuhot slpeling was itpnoramt! if you can raed tihs psas it on!!

Very interesting....a co worker of mine passed this to me.

Hokkien Song

2006-01-31T20:15:00.000-06:00

Wahhhh Lauuu!!! Damn funny, all you hokkien song enthusiast you have to listen to this :) Click on the link below and then click on the "zap" button!

http://blog.galvintan.com/index.php/2005/08/03/ji-pa-ban/

Enjoy!

Chinese New Year Weekend Recap:
Drove in to Kansas City on Saturday with H2. Dave rode along to visit James. Got in around lunch time and hung out at the Plaza, met H2's friend Kenneth and had lunch at Cuppenni's. Later met up with Tze + YS, Elaine + Kyle and we all had lunch at Pine Bamboo. Later that night H2 and I went to the Grand Emporium! It was quite slow at first but slowly picked up and we all started dancing. Met Ken's other half Jeff, they're both very cool.
Next day we didn't do much except for going to Salsa's for the CNY party. The atmosphere reminded me of CNY as there were kids running around in new clothes and adults just talking and having fun. The food was good but not too many options.

Gong Xi Fa Cai

2006-01-27T09:33:00.000-06:00

Here's wishing all of you a Happy and Prosperous New Year! May the Dog year bring you lots of good fortune and wealth...

OMG! OMG! OMG!

I just found out from my attorney that my Labor Certification has finally, FINALLY been approved! I know I have yet to receive my Greencard but this is a HUGE step towards it. After 3 long years and it is finally APPROVED! From here on out, I might have another 1 year to 3 1/2 years left depending on how Congress votes on Retrogression so let's keep our fingers crossed.

Visitor from the Big Apple

2006-01-27T08:49:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since I've posted. Lately (last couple weeks) I have this feeling of completely zero motivation. I'm really not sure what's the cause, it could be my personal life, diet, work or a bunch of other things that I just don't know about. Anyway this week has improved slightly as I keep trying to psych myself up.

Anyway here's what happened weekend of Jan 21 & 22.

I found out that Fang, a friend of Linli's in NYC, was in Jefferson City for a week on business. I just discovered that she works at Deloitte (just like our blur queen friend Elaine) and was in town to work with scholastic. Anyway we talked on the phone and finally met up on Friday for dinner at House of Chow ~~Chee Bai,~~ where H2 and Dr Matt came along. The dinner was alot of fun; food was good, conversation flowing and our fav dish mei chai khou rou YUM! Later that evening bunch of us (Joe, Dave, Em, Steph, H2, Mas, Eric, Justin, Fang and myself) went out to Generic and partied the night away. Too bad clubs in Columbia close at 1:30am, so we had an after party at my place ;)

The next day, we (Joe, Fang & I) had brunch at Ernie's and then drove down to Lake of the Ozarks for some Outlet Mall shopping. It was fun, I finally used the gift card I received from KC gang to buy myself that nice Coach wallet. Fang went crazy at the Ralph Lauren store, I bet the employees just loooove her there. We got back pretty late but still managed to check out the really yummy Italian/French restaurant Trattoria. After dinner, Fang was wore out so she went back to Jeff City and I went to Soco with Joe, Dave, Justin and Eric. It was not too fun...the music sucked and not too many people there. After that we went to another after party at Ben's (Justin's friend) house and finally left at around 3am.

On Sunday (Joe, Dave, Em and I) drove down to Jeff City to go Ice Skating with Clint. It was fun, I have not ice skated in AGES and I think the last time I did it was in some mall in Malaysia. Didn't really do much after that I just chilled out, watched DHW, GA and prepare myself for another week of torture at the office.

As usual I have yet to upload my pictures....

This upcoming weekend (Jan 28 & 29) will be Chinese New Year! I'll be spending it in Kansas City with H2 and the KC gang...

Weekend Update

2006-01-16T13:32:00.000-06:00

OMG what a busy weekend this has been.

We (Joe & I) didn't really do much on Friday except have dinner with Dave & Em at Fazoli's. We were both pretty tired so we just went home and crashed.

Saturday on the other hand was totally hectic. Woke up, had brunch at Panera Bread and then went to meet Dave at the Law school as I was his star witness, Dr. Nicholas Chase M.D., for a mock trial in one of his law class. It was definitely quite an experience, it was in a real court room and a real lawyer presided over as judge. I totally had to ~~make shit up~~ be an actor when I was cross examined by the defendant's attorney. After that, Joe and I went to watch Munich which turned out to be a pretty good movie. This is not the type of movie that I'd usually watch but as it turns out, I enjoyed it. For the moment (because of the movie) I want to know all there is to know about Israel and Palestine. After the movie the Group (Dave, Em, Steph, Joe and I) met up at Rio Grande for dinner and went to Kelly Ridge Apts (Chad's place) for a party that Chad & Justin organized. It started out pretty ~~boring~~ but as the alcohol flowed and the night went on we started getting more drunk and had more fun. Then half way, we went to Soco and danced a little and got more people to come join the party! It was a total riot! I also got wasted and later heard of a few scandals ;)

Next day, I took it easy. Just chilled out, went for a run, enjoyed brand new episodes of DHW & Grey's Anatomy, and took advantage of the excellent weather. The weather was AWESOME, high 50's, especially for mid-January. Usually we'd be buried to our ~~ass~~ face in snow but somehow this year it's nice. I know Global Warming has had a bad rep but right now, I'm loving it...

On a separate note, I've seen these guys quite a few times, they're totally hilarious! My friend Linli was the first to tell me about it, directing me to Google video. But today, I found out they've started an ~~engrish~~ english website: The Dormitory Boys. You have to SOOO check them out. I have also filed them under Blogs I find interesting section. I was laughing so hard at work, my co workers were looking at me all strange. LMAO....

Short talk:

Wednesday: Hung out with Dave, Justin and Chad. Later went to Nothing but Noodles. They are so much fun, need to toally hang out with them again. Came home for Lost which was an excellent episode! Mainly about Ecko + monster.
Thursday: Went to Matt's place for a BBQ because of the excellent weather. It was his roomate's (Kyle) bday. Hung out with Dave, Don and Matt.
H2 flew off to Vegas this week, leaving me behind :( So sad but I wouldn't want to go with the group anyway. Not my cup of tea if you get my drift ;) heheheh
80% completion on my living room redesign. It's coming together well, will post some pics when it's done.

Pictures from MN Ski Trip

2006-01-09T11:11:00.000-06:00

Well I finally got the pictures from Dave (he was the official photographer for the trip)
We didn't take a whole lot but here are some of the better ones.

On our drive up to Minneapolis we decided to stop somehwere in Iowa to have dinner at a Denny's where we confused the heck out of the server.

We got into the twin cities late that night. Next day bright and early we went skiing.

Next day was New Year's Eve we had dinner with Steph and her friends and then later off to clubbing we went ;)

After that was New Years day, the last day of our trip :( We spent the afternoon eating at House of Wu and Mall of America.

Pictures from Xmas in St Louis

2006-01-09T10:08:00.000-06:00

Again all these pictures were in Dave's camera, so sorry for the delay ;)

H2 and I drove in to St Louis and had a great time. We watched Brokeback Mountain on Friday 12/23 with Dave, Em and Matt and later went out to the clubs in St Louis. For those of you who has not seen the movie, I highly recommend it but remember to bring a box of kleenex.

Joe and Don joined us later at the Complex which was not as fun as the previous times we've been (maybe it's because it was a Xmas eve eve and a Friday night)

At the basement of Loading Zone playing pool

St Louis is so much fun

Drunk Matt being crazy in the car.

New year, new cars we wish we had

2006-01-05T15:21:00.000-06:00

This two definitely caught my eye when I saw it on Autoblog. I've really been wanting a convertible anyway so when I saw this VW, I was totally salivating ;P The first one is the VW Eos (convertible) and the second, Mazda CX-7, I just love for it's forward design.

The VW Eos is a convertible hardtop ~~exactly what I need.~~ AND it even incorporates a sunroof into the hard top, apparently the first of it's kind which goes up in a breeze 25 s, how amazing is that! The U.S. market Eos will get VW’s 2.0L turbo four-cylinder rated at 200-hp or a 250-hp, 3.2L V6.

I was totally in love with the Nissan Murano when that came out but now, I think i like this Mazda CX-7 more! This baby rides on a 244-hp, 2.3L turbo four-cylinder with direct-injection. The motor is shared with the new MazdaSpeed6, though specially tuned for the CX-7 to deliver 258 lb-ft of torque. A six-speed sport automatic will help the new ute deliver a combined estimated 23 mpg which is not bad at all!

Well every year, I have a few cars that I'm just so in love with. Last year it was the Pontiac Solstice and Scion TC. Well maybe one of these years, I might just be able to own one!

You can send your donations to.....(j/k y'all)

New Years MN Ski Trip!

2006-01-03T15:35:00.000-06:00

Man oh man...what a trip!!! (more pictures will be posted when i get them from Dave)

I must say it was an absolute blast eventhough it was hair pulling frustrations at times.

We started the drive up on Thursday 12/29 around 1 pm as I managed to snake out of work early. It was pointless for me being there, all our other locations were closed anyway. Em and Matt met at my house and we drove my car to Blue Springs where we met up with Dave. The drive up to MN was good, roads were not too bad until we got into the twin cities where it started to snow, just a little, no crazy ass snow like they usually get (thank god). We stayed the 1st night with KK in Shoreview, MN. I ended up staying up pretty late that night just catching up with KK.

Next morning we got up bright and early as Matt the snowboarder wanted to hit the snow "fresh" (whatever that means). We grabbed a quick breakfast at BK and away to Afton Alps we went. We got there at around 10am and by the time we parked, paid ($34 entrance fee & $19 for equipment) and got our equipment, it was around 10:30 when we hit the slopes. It was a completely new experience for me (ski virgin here) and Matt was showing me the ropes. Amazingly, I picked it all up pretty fast and quickly progressed from the bunny hill to the blue hills within a couple of hours. As the day progressed, I got more comfortable and we raced and even tried the black diamonds. It was great and I can't believe I've been missing out on skiing in the last 8 years I've been in this country. I think this is definitely something I want to do again! The downhill skiing was great fun, I can do that all day but tiring and time consuming part was walking between slopes and trying to find one another. We finally called it quits at around 6pm and headed to Steph's place in Hudson, WI. Her parents had a very nice hot tub which we all made good use of. We were too tired to do anything else.

The next day was NYE! We slept in and hung out at Ikea and later that evening had dinner with Steph's friends Chris and Todd. Dave, Matt and me broke off from the group as they wanted to party in the St Paul area. We left after dinner, got KK and off to downtown Minneapolis we went. We ended up in this club called the Gay 90s and celebrated New Years there. It was a pretty cool club, very big with very "interesting" rooms =) The GOOD thing is no smoking in the bars but the BAD thing is they close at 2am. We got a pizza went to KK's and totally crashed.

New Years day was the last day we were to be in MN. We introduced Dave and Matt to the Twin Cities' best chinese duck restaurant (House of Wu) and later shopped at Mall of America eventhough Matt was vehemently against the entire idea. He ended up finding a comfortable spot with an interesting book. We left MN at approx 5pm and made our way back to Columbia. We got back in town at around 2am.

All in all the trip went really well. The two highlights were definitely skiing and NYE's celebration. There were minor spats with everyone having their own agenda but everyone ended up compromising. I will definitely do it all over again!

Happy 2006!

Happy Christmas and Merry New Year!

2005-12-28T16:02:00.000-06:00

Well guys just wanted to wish you all a very good Christmas and memorable New Years!
See you all next year!

I'll be off to Minneapolis tomorrow Dec 29 and returning Jan 2. I hope we'll have a blast up there eventhough it's going to be cold as f#*k!!

Happy 2006!!!!

5 Days before Xmas...

2005-12-19T13:23:00.000-06:00

and I have yet to buy any ~~useless gifts~~ presents. Good thing I don't have that many people to buy presents for so that definitely helps. The mall is packed with last minute crazed shoppers.

I will be getting quite a bit of time off and was supposed to be jetting off to Vegas but looks like that plan is not going to work out...bummed out...but I think I've finally gotten something together. I'll drive in to St Louis this weekend with H2, stay with Dave, party a bit & go watch Brokeback Mountain then maybe drive to Chicago on Sunday or Monday. Get a cheap motel and just hang out there; go shop and eat some yummy M'sian food. Nothing grand but sure beats staying home for the holidays.

Short talk:

- Went bar hopping on Fri; going from Tellers to VIP Lounge to A&C and later to Dave's place. Bumped into Jimmy (hottie) at Tellers again and had quite a conversation going. VIP was a cool hole in the wall place and A&C was alright.
- Watched Kong on Saturday, not too bad of a movie, just too long! I think it was 3hrs 25 mins. Took about 1 1/2 hours before Kong even appeared. After movie, went to Soco and had a really good time.
- Sunday my roomate Joel left for Arizona. It was sad to see him leave, he was a good roomate.

Currently reading:

Marley & Me by John Grogan

Rosco the Puppy Genius

(compliments from Joe)