Blue moon light
It used to be that I'd write blogs at some odd hour. In the starlit hours it was as if words would write themselves, bleeding onto the screen from my fingertips, bypassing my brain as they'd dance out of my head.

I've felt pretty drained lately. For the past two years I've been part of the intern program at my church. In the past few months, it's become somewhat of a struggle, living up to a responsibility of the past. On Friday morning I finished my last paper. On Friday night I got the PBC diploma over dinner with the other interns. It felt like a sigh of relief. For almost the past year, I've went to bed ever night with the sense that I still had something to do. It's a strange feeling, having it finished.

"Really?" you say, "studying God's Word is draining?". You bet. Is that an indication of my spiritual life? I don't know. I hope I can at least be honest about it. There are days when I am writing something so incredibily dry, just a bunch of words on the page. Scroll down some if you'd like an example. It is as if I can find a lot to write about God, but I'm not sure how much bears any relevence.

I just watched Mystic River. If you haven't seen or heard about it, it's depressing. It reminds me of Psalm 39. I don't have my head wrapped around it yet, but somehow it's so comforting.

The word cancer seems to be popping up at least once a week lately. My life is quite straightforward, but I don't know how to unravel some of the complications that I know of. Knots in lives that won't be undone. Aren't we called to minister to people where things are stuck? This is where we need to be relevent.

I will miss my breakfasts with Danny very much.

Today's Lowlights
- It's raining, in June, in California. This is not supposed to happen.
- The flowers are out. They should be dead by now. My allergies are killing me.
- I did not have my camera with me today.

Today's Highlights
- I poked fun at 4 pastors simultaneously.
- Generic Claritin costs $14.99 for 180 tablets at Costco.
- Free Haagen Dazs ice cream bar.
- Parked next to a black Ferrari 612 Scaglietti at work.

Righteousness for everyone

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines the word "righteous" as "acting in accord with divine or moral law". In the 1950s through 1970s, the word was slang for something that was exceedingly good. However, that usage has fallen by the wayside as the current American culture's postmodern worldview challenges the idea of a single divine or moral law. The idea that any single definitive moral law may apply to everyone is repulsive to many. It appears discriminatory and intolerant of differences between people. To claim that one has the final moral law sounds presumptions. To claim righteousness borders on arrogance. It is no wonder that churches full of righteous Christians are unpopular with the less righteous public at large.

In Romans Paul discusses righteousness in the light of the gospel. Jesus Christ changed the entire framework of relating to God. Righteousness, as the state of being acceptable before God, gained a new meaning in this shift. Early in Romans, Paul introduces this new sense of righteousness, saying "For in [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "But the righteous man shall live by faith." (Romans 1:17). Paul elaborates on this “righteousness by faith”, which in some ways were drastically different from the common idea of righteousness at the time. Much of Paul's address is to those accustomed to the Jewish paradigm. For the Jews, the symbols of their acceptance by God lay in God's covenant with Abraham and the Law bestowed upon Moses. The covenant is described in Genesis 17, where God says "I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you... And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you" (Genesis 17:7,11). The covenant of circumcision represented the acceptable relationship between the descendent of Abraham and God. Later in Exodus, God says to Moses shortly before giving him the Law, "Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:5-6). Hence the Law was the symbol of Israel's status as God's priestly nation.

In Romans 2 Paul criticizes the symbols of circumcision that was held dearly by the Jews. In Romans 2:25, Paul argues "For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision". Although a symbol of the covenant, righteousness was in fact attained by obedience to the Law. Having the symbol did not automatically include one in the righteous elite. Only someone who fulfilled the Law could be considered morally flawless and righteous.

Paul challenges these classic ideals for righteousness. He summarizes the gospel like this:
"But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested,
being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:21-24).
The latter half of this passage points out the problem with the Law. It defines the requirements for moral perfection, but in the process it effectively puts righteousness beyond the reach of mortal man. The old thinking considered Jews as the righteous chosen people of God. Paul quickly shot down that line of thinking, defining righteousness by moral perfection according to the Law. This leads to the conclusion that no man is righteous. Paul’s option is the "righteousness of God" which is "apart from the Law". This is the gospel message in a nutshell, that God has offered a new reconciliation to righteousness for all those who failed via the Law. This redemption is a gift by the grace of God to all who have failed to earn it. It is available to all those who believe; it is not only the Jews who are privy to God's grace. This is a gift made possible by the death of Jesus Christ. God had paid the price to reconcile mankind to Himself. The way to righteousness by the Law and circumcision are not able to reconcile people to God.

If anyone portrays themselves as the righteous elite, then it is certainly not this righteousness of God which is offered to all. Faith in Jesus Christ comes with the confession that one is woefully insufficient on ones own, and that one is no more righteous than his fellow man. God's intention was that mankind in general could be reconciled through his chosen priesthood. However, not only did they fail at proclaiming God's righteousness to the world, but they themselves routinely fell into following other gods. Throughout Israel's history, God routinely forgave the wandering Israelites and restored them after a period of punishment. God had set a precedent for grace through the books of the Law and the Prophets.

Now the church can learn much from Israel's history. At times Israel seemed to have taken their place as God's chosen people for granted, and fallen away into sin. In Romans 6:1-2, Paul says "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?". One cannot claim to accept God's righteousness yet turn around and mindfully act contrary to it. In Romans 6:17-18, Paul uses the analogy of being "slaves of righteousness", and likewise in Romans 8:12 he says "we are under obligation, not to the flesh". We are not to be obedient to God in order to achieve righteousness. Rather it is a response to God's love, obedience follows from having been made righteous.

In the end, the actions of the righteous speak for themselves. God had called the descendants of Abraham to be his chosen people, so that his glory on earth might be seen through them. Where the covenant and the Law did not succeed in redemption, God sent his Son. to make men righteous. He did not do this so that the righteous could stand above others, but rather that God's love might be expressed in the world through them. Jesus did not come to make disciples so that they could gloat above others, "so that all the nations might believe and obey him" (Romans 16:26). God's power is not expressed by the church's dominion over the world, but rather that his people act righteously, so that all men may share in his kingdom.

Heard it on the radio

love's such an old fashioned word
and love dares you to care for
the people on the edge of the night
and love dares you to change our ways
of caring about ourselves

3AM Eternal
It's a little like that feeling when you don't get enough sleep. There's a fog on everything. People seem to talk too fast. Or not loud enough.

But I'm getting enough sleep, and I'm still walking around in that haze. I'm walking in it all day long. It's enough sleep if you count the hours.

They are strange hours. A few hours here, a few hours there. I'm awake at strange hours. Some hours here, some hours there.

The worst is 3AM. No one is on at 3AM. Except that girl in Thailand.

My Fortune Cookie
The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

Awash

Awash

IMG_0456, originally uploaded by dragonx.

I must admit, I've been feeling rather swamped lately. Days and weeks crawl by at work, a never ending river of tasks. I'm trying to take a break here an there, going hiking at Mt. Tamalpais, or snowboarding in Tahoe.

There are days when I wish I am a professional snowboard bum.

I feel like I'm perpetually trying to catch up. Maybe, one day, when I'm caught up with all the things I'm supposed to do, I can do something I want to do.

Some days I want to regress, absolve myself from all responsibility.

It has occurred to me, what if I don't finish the to-do list before I die? I guess theologically, that won't happen eh? At least not if you believe in divine sovereignty and all that.

Maybe I've just got the wrong list.

Clarity

poofy
I should have brought my camera today. It has been raining lately. Today the rain stopped, but huge, pillowy white clouds hang low in the sky, teasing the peaks of the hills as the slide by, the shafts of the sun streaming through their billowing mounds.

Dr. Amazon.com
or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Impulse Shopping
This story starts a little ways back in history, or perhaps a long ways back, depending on your perception of time. It was the year 2000, the Internet was a different place than it is now. DVDs were still somewhat novel, as was online shopping. There were scores of online DVD retailers, all selling at losses in order to ramp up volume. Amazon.com had jumped into the DVD space, selling deeply discounted movies. Once in a while, they'd make a mistake, people would find out about them, and post about it on forums where collectors and bargain hunters would congregate. One day, the The Insider was released on Amazon for the bargain basement price of $0. Being a fan of all films Michael Mann, I picked it up, for US$7.95 shipping, which worked out to just about CDN$10.

Fast forward 5 years to 2005. It's probably been 6 or 8 months since I've bought something online. I get ads in my email from sites like e*trade, buy.com and amazon.com on a semi-regular basis like lingering STDs from a one-night-stand you've long forgotten about. I normally delete them without looking, as you should. But this one said something about a new 2-disc edition of HEAT, which happens to be one of my all-time favourite movies. How did Amazon know? Because, as their email said, they've noticed that customers who bought "The Insider" also bought "HEAT", and now, I can get it at 25% off if I pre-order. YAY! I already have the DVD (I did mention it's one of my all-time favourites), but I certainly don't have the 2-disc edition). I click on the link in the email. And what do you know, the $20 (post discount) set can be had with Free Super Saver Shipping on orders of $25 or more.

You know that thing about alchoholism, where you can be clean and sober, but that one drink throws you back in the mess. Or maybe it's more like crack. You can't get away from that Free Super Saver Shipping. So you buy more. You search for that last $5 of useless stuff so you can save the $2.98 shipping. But like crack, Amazon doesn't let you off easy, they hook you with ads on the bottom of the page. So down there, striking its sexy little pose, is the 2-disc edition of "Collateral". My, isn't it easier to click on that than to hunt for some $5 item you don't want? C'mon, you know you want more Michael Mann, like you need a kick in the crotch from a talking bear.

So now, after about 5 minutes of seeing email, I've clicked into Amazon, past the shipping and credit card pages (they've remembered my address and my credit card #s, so I wouldn't have to stop to think before entering them again... they even have the now expired credit card I used when I lived in Waterloo and bought "The Insider"), and dropped $40 on 4 DVDs that I liked but had no intention of buying 6 minutes prior. I should just go back to e*trade and buy in to Amazon.com.

Oh, for the record, I haven't given the crack or one-night-stand things a shot yet, so I'm not actually speaking from experience. You'll have to forgive me for the artistic license, but given how boring my blogs have been lately, I figured I needed some sex, drugs and rock 'n roll to keep people coming back for more. Or maybe I should just put up links for you to places you can impulse shop.

Things that suck
Today I wasted a good four hours trying to figure out why my debug session died all of the sudden. The 1394 connection between my debugger machine and the debugee went all wonky, and all of the sudden, it took a minute or more to execute each instruction. It turned out I accidentally yanked the cable, which in turn pulled the 1394 PCI card partway out of its socket. It was in there far enough to somewhat work, but not properly.

Every once in a while, I come home from work at some nutty hour. I stop by the 24 hour Safeway and try to pick up some prepared food that's not too unhealthy sometimes. Sometimes I try the soy protein stuff, I don't know when I'll learn my lesson. I've tried chicken nuggets, buffalo wings, and breakfast links. None are any good, although at this point, I basically treat them as something chewy to eat bbq sauce with. Yum. Yuck. I'm not sure which. On the plus side, it's only $2 for dinner.

Random
Yesterday, I went to the dentist. Now I've been using Onsite Dental for the past few years that I've been here. They have a Winnebago that drives to our campus twice a month. I just go there for an hour during work. My last appointment was supposed to be in August, and I didn't bother with that one, meaning that the previous appointment must have been last February, so it's been about a year. When I got there, it was a different dentist than the guy I've had for the last few years. In fact, he had also swapped with another dentist who treated me on my first visit. The story I got was that they take rotations to work for the military. It's too bad, by my third appointment with him I had figured out his name was Christian.

So I lost another dentist. But in return I got a new one. I haven't figured her name out yet, but it was the most painless cleaning ever. It crossed my mind whether she was actually cleaning my teeth, or merely scratching the surface. But it was much preferable to dentists who leave my gums in a bloody mess.

I was actually intending to blog about books and movies, but for now you'll have to be satisfied with the, er, exciting story of the new dentist.

Now, if you think this post should have been longer, you can make up for the time not spent reading it by playing Kingdom of Loathing.

Steamed Bun

Steamed Bun

IMG_9833, originally uploaded by dragonx.

This is a test of the flickr blogging function.

The above shows the final moments of a steamed vegetable bun in Shanghai, moments before it was devoured ravenously by the photographer.

R.I.P.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Still Jet Lagged

I've been back for a week and I'm still jet lagged. Yay.
I missed church and slept in this morning. Until noon. I dragged myself out of bed, though I think I could have laid there a few hours more. Had lunch with two of the old crew. Went to work in the afternoon.

Now the reason I was working on Sunday afternoon, is that the past week has been totally unproductive, considering I've been getting into work in a daze, somewhat before noon if I was lucky. I think I landed with a flu, the first few days back sucked. Last Wednesday, the 5th, I woke up at 8am, pretty much incapacitated. I checked my email and decided to sleep in until 11. When I awoke, the sky was still dim. I checked my phone, which said 16:30. I needed to change the time zone back to PST. I checked my computer, it said 4:30 PM. I called in sick.

So the sick part is pretty much gone, except for the occasional sniffles and a lingering cough. I'm still awake at 4 AM though.

I finished Gabriel Garcia Marquez' 100 Years of Solitude on the flight to Hong Kong. I liked it a lot, I couldn't stop reading it to watch the Terminal or the Notebook, or the documentary on China that featured monkeys assaulting chinese people (at least, that's what it looked like, I didn't have the audio on). I liked it a lot last year. I like epic tragedies. This year however, I'm going to be positive, so I cannot like it so much anymore, though in the spirit of positivity, I highly recommend it.

I bought a copy of Garden State from this DVD store where the customers spoke German, French, Italian, English, and Shanghainese, hidden away at the back of a coffee shop in Shanghai. I was watching it last night, the video quality was excellent, until the third chapter from the end, where the disc was unreadable. I need to see the end of the movie before I can give it a review, but I'm pissed off at unscrupulous DVD pirates now.

I also finished Purpose Driven Life today. I'm not quite sure what all the hype was about, but I did think there were a few good chapters in there. I find most of these Christian living books rather uncompelling, in the "please, tell me something I didn't know" sense. If anything though, knowing and acting are two different things, and I often need the reminder to act what I know.

Vacation
So the vacation was great, so great that I'm having a hard time kicking myself back into work mode. Or it could be the jetlag and flu I picked up on the way home. My sleeping patterns have been all shot for the past week.

When I was younger, trips to Hong Kong were pretty repetitive. I'd basically follow my parents around all day, every day, except maybe for the days I stayed home and watched TV. We'd have breakfast at home, and then maybe drop my Grandma and mom off to wash her hair. My dad might go to the factory to handle some business with my uncle or Grandfather. We'd have lunch, go shopping, tea at the Kowloon Club, maybe go shop some more, have dinner, go home watch some TV, go to bed. Something like that.

The last few trips have been pretty cool though. My Grandma gave me the keys and enough "lai see" for me to get around. I got a cell phone so I could call whenever I got lost, which wasn't too often. The MTR's incredibly efficient and easy to use, and the taxi's are actually not very expensive compared to North American taxis. I got to wander around on my own and hang out with friends from Toronto.

Times like these I wish I had more time to spend with old friends.

As luxurious as it was to have a maid do the laundry, having breakfast ready in the morning, and awesome food for every meal, part of me is glad to have full control of my laundry, a warm room (man, hong kong winter nights are cold, they don't seem to believe in insulation there) and the option of not eating like a pig is rather comforting now.

I was in Shanghai when I saw the news on CNN about tsunamis hitting Indonesia. At the time they were still reporting casualties in the thousands, which already seemed like a disaster. A few days later I was having dinner with my aunt and uncle and their friends, all parents of east coast prep school and Ivy League kids, talking about their friends who precariously escaped the flooding at Phuket, saying how fortunate we were to be dining at a nice restaurant in Hong Kong and not having to deal with the aftermath.

It's sometimes disturbing to think how life can be so great for some people, yet so dismal for others. I felt guilty that entire dinner, although no one else seemed to disturbed (although some of them were concerned about the waterfront real estate in Hong Kong). But at the same time, emotional socialism seems cruel at best. Should everyone constantly be downcast and mourning? After all every day, I'm sure somebody, somewhere is having an awful day.

So I think at any time, a day of mourning for some may be a day of celebration for others. One shouldn't be jealous of the other, for God gives and takes away. My New Year's resolution is to be positive for a year. So I think it's great that the Canadian government is matching donations to the Canadian Red Cross, but only until January 11th, so hurry!

Quick summary: I left California on December 17 (arriving in HK on December 18). Stayed in Hong Kong most of the time, but took a short trip to Shanghai from December 26 through 29. Stayed in Hong Kong after that until New Year's. I left Hong Kong January 2, stayed in Tokyo for 1 day, hosted by a Canadian friend and her Japanese students, who acted as our tour guides. Left Tokyo and arrived back in San Jose on January 3rd. Here's the trip photos.

reachable at 6475-7844 on Dec 21-26, 29-Jan 1.

Deja Vu
How is it that I've been here before
This place that seems so familiar
I don't recognize your voice anymore
But your words are still the same

I'm still dying here for salvation
How did I slip and fall
Landing so far from perfection
In the silence of your name

To Remember
I just noticed it was November 11th.
Back in the day, old men wearing suits and berets would be selling poppies for a nickel in the subway station. That's how you knew it was time, because people need reminders.

They don't celebrate Remembrance Day here. They've got Memorial Day, but that's earlier in the year, in May.

It's interesting how Rememberance Day is pegged in memory of the two world wars, in hopes that such a tragedy would not occur again. It's notable how significant Dieppe plays in Canada's military history. November 11 is a depressing day.

Memorial Day in contrast is a long weekend. Think Victoria Day in Canada. Now I think it's related to the timing, the onset of summer, but I wonder if the American losses are mostly glazed over by the history of victories.

Just a thought.

I wonder who will sell the poppies when we run out of old men.

26
I hate birthdays. They can end up being so incredibly depressing.
I had wanted to be a hermit this weekend. However friends had planned dinners (without my approval). I had wanted to just skip out, but I'm not one to take friends for granted.

On Thursday we had dinner at Julius' Castle, a little out of the way place near Coit Tower in San Francisco.
-tuna/salmon/seabass tartare
-duck liver pate with black truffles
-grilled lobster tail with black pepper
-crab ravioli with apple curry
-five spice grilled quail
-Molten chocolate cake with vanilla gelato
All the food was mediocre. Everything was either mediocre or below par despite some promising menu descriptions. Apparently the restaurant is quite nice. Our table was in a rather old room with a decent view, but I suspect there was a nicer part of the restaurant that hosted a wedding banquet that evening. We didn't end up checking out the rest of the restaurant. However, because of the wedding, the valet took forever. They did give us free dessert to make up for it.

On Friday we had dinner at ABC Seafood in Milpitas. More like a feast.
- house soup
- Peking duck
- Mongolian beef
- black bean and pepper beef
- cashew chicken
- spinach with thousand year old and salted duck egg
- squid deep fried with salt and pepper
- steamed rock cod
- crab deep fried with chili, black bean and garlic
- peach shaped steamed buns with white lotus paste
- red bean soup
ABC tends to have decent food. We don't go too often, since it's rather expensive, but they usually do a good job with dim sum and big meals.

I spent Saturday at church, collecting cheques for the mission conference. Had leftovers for dinner, which isn't half as bad as it might sound, given what I ate the last two days. Saturday night we went to a bar where my friends knew the bartender. We all got free drinks, then headed back to their place for poker.

We played for a few hours, ending the evening with a three-way all in hand. I had a flush to the ace, beating out the flush to the queen. However, in my excitement I failed to notice two jacks on the board. I lost to the third guy, who held the other two jacks in his pocket. Note to self, must be more cautious.

Got new sheets.

Also got a new snowboard on clearance. I probably won't ride it, I got it more for decoration. The design suits me.

I hate birthdays because it's always a reminder of what you have yet to achieve, and this seems to get worse as I'm getting older. Perhaps it is a worldly mindset to desire achievements to boast about. It is so much easier to say "see, look what I have done", than to allow God to work in our lives, especially when the latter may take time and patience. Regardless, I still feel like I'm getting on, towards that dreaded settled life.

In the meantime, I remind myself how greatly blessed I am with friends. I think I'm being taken out for lunch after church tomorrow. Thank you, sincerely, to all my friends.

Election Day
Given the choice between Bush, Kerry, and Nader, I'm glad I can't vote in this country.

Maintenance Sucks
Spent last Saturday taking apart my motorcycle (managed to change the oil, the air filter and tighten my chain). There's still a bunch of things I have to do, but I think I'll take it to a mechanic. Also took the Camry in for the 90k mile service. Ended up costing $600. I think in 6 months time, it's going to be another few hundred for new tires and brakes.

Also went to a coworker's annual Halloween bash on Saturday night. Missed it last year, I think I was in Toronto. Here's some pics.

Non-Health Fair
Having an Employee Benefits Fair today, where the companies that offer employee services, and some that just advertise, come and promote their products. Everything from health care provider (it's not government provided health care here) to the onsite oil change and hair cut people (they offer services on site, but you still pay for it).

Anyways, it's somewhat branded as a wellness fair, but all I got out of it was a mini Jamba Juice, a Haagen Dazs bar (strawberry cheesecake), a bag of kettle corn (sweetened popcorn), and a bag of halloween candy.

Healthy living, here I come.

Quote of the Day
"Most people don't come to church looking for God. Most people come to church running away from God, and looking for shelter"

Taken in the context of my intern class this week on Matthew 21:12-17.

It Starts... Again
I'm sure I must have mentioned it before, the whole September Syndrome. From the time I was 3 till I was 23, each passing year was marked by September, like the ominous click when all the digits change in your odometer.

There's plenty of other milestones. Birthdays, New Year's, Chinese New Year, all have their requisite celebrations, but it's back to work right after. September brings change. The leaves turn, as does the weather. The summer is over, it's back to school, those institutional walls that have defined progress and success for so many years.

The last two years, I kinda missed the September mark. Working at a tech company, August rolls into October pretty quietly. This year September kicked in with the start of the intern program at my church, PBC. It kicked off with a dessert night at home of one of the elders. I almost skipped out, being somewhat sore since I just got back from the YAF Yosemite trip.

This means starting to try to figure out what I'm going to do for this next year. That is aside from the rather everyday things, what's going to change? I want to start something new.

Fruit Flies
Way back in July I was hurtling westwards through the air. At the same moment, in precisely the same direction, a small mass of shriveled grapes were also hurtling through the air, just a foot away from me in a little plastic dish sitting on the fold-down airline table in front of me.

At that moment, I was drifting from Nick Hornby's How To Be Good, which I was trying to read. Somehow the relatively slow pace of the book made me wonder how old I was getting, how relatively unhealthy I had been eating as of late, how pathetically sad the airline food (especially the grapes) seemed, and how my ever diminishing memory would erase this moment as it apparently cannot seem to hold onto the myriad of more important things it should hold on to, but never does.

That memory thing is funny. It fails at the most inappropriate times, like mid sentence when the word 'ironic' flees from your lips when you're absolutely certain that you knew the word a minute ago, and all that comes to mind now is 'metallic', and so instead you say "the word that describes this situation", which leads only to confused looks all around, since you're the only one who saw the irony in the first place. Or at other times, the opposite happens. Some pseudo-random place, person, smell, sound, song, knicknack, piece of clothing, movie, tv show, whatever, brings back the wrong memory at the wrong time.

The day before I had left San Jose for Toronto for a week, I tossed an apple core into the kitchen trash and watched a puff of dust float up off the garbage. On closer inspection, it wasn't dust but dozens of tiny fruit flies flying from the garbage can. They had been breeding on the remains of what was a pretty sweet canteloupe sitting in the trash.

They were actually everywhere. By the time I had found the source and tossed the trash, it was already possible to find them buzzing around the fridge and the sink. Once in a while you'd even see one in a bedroom or the bathroom.

A week later, after returning from Toronto, most of them were gone. I didn't see any in the bathroom anymore. But on white floor of the fridge, there were a bunch of dead fruit flies. I cleaned them off with a wet towel.

I don't know when the cantaloupe went rotten. The fruit flies have come and gone. Time to clean up the remains.

I need to work from home more often
So my apartment complex has these public grills. Not the little crappy charcoal grills, (though we have those too). I'm talking massive brushed stainless steel gas grills that are built into the ground. There aren't many of them, and I'm having guys over for a bbq tonite, so I came home early to camp the grill.

Now I find myself here under the shade of an umbrella, and the sun peeking through behind the palm trees swaying in the breeze. The weather is perfect, and I'm using VPN and Windows Remote Desktop to code on my work machine.

I also have an open Heineken beside my notebook.

I need to work from home more often.

Camping in Point Reyes National Seashore

Having just finished Faith on the Edge (which, incidentally, I bought at Urbana '00, along with a whole bunch of other books I have yet to open), I started The Purpose Driven Life. The natural cynic in me shivers to think that they'd register the "Purpose Driven" trademark (yup, that R symbol is there on the cover), and the advertisements for the "Purpose-Driven Life Scripture Keeper Plus" and "The Purpose-Driven Life Journal" in the introduction doesn't help. Anyways, my Dad gave me this book since he picked up a few extra from Costco since they've been going through this at church (but they've finished it already), and I figured I'll still give it a chance.

The "Question to Consider" for Day 1 is:
"In spite of all the advertising around me, how can I remind myself that life is really about living for God, not myself".
It reminded me of a comment I wanted to make a while back, when I noticed that there's a Christian radio station Air 1 that had these little evangelical sound bites, either a pastor with some encouraging words, or a testimony. These would end with the blurb "You are not alone", since the sound bites targetted people who were struggling and looking for someone to turn to. I've always thought it was interested how this compared (and rhymed) with my church's theme from 1 Cor 6:19 "You are not your own, you are bought with a price", which has struck me as an excellent theme, since many Christians (including myself) rarely demonstrate this kind of attitude. And since the verse is permanently inscribed on the main wall of the sanctuary, it's somewhat of a reminder of the lessons I haven't learned, week after week.

One Year Old
Happy Birthday Eugenie

Maybe I'm a sap, but...

Cinema Paradiso
Wow. 5/5

Meditation
Give careful thought to your ways.
You have planted much, but have harvested little.
You eat, but never have enough.
You drink, but never have your fill.
You put on clothes, but are not warm.
You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.

Give careful thought to your ways.
Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house,
so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored.
You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little.
What you brought home, I blew away.

Why? Because of my house, which remains a ruin,
while each of you is busy with his own house.
Therefore, because of you the heavens
have withheld their dew and the earth its crops.
I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains,
on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces,
on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands.

In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth,
the sea and the dry land.
I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come,
and I will fill this house with glory.
The silver is mine and the gold is mine.
The glory of this present house will be greater
than the glory of the former house
And in this place I will grant peace.

Now give careful thought to this from this day on -
consider how things were
before one stone was laid on another in the LORD's temple.
When anyone came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten.
When anyone went to a wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were only twenty.
I struck all the work of your hands with blight, mildew and hail,
yet you did not turn to me.

From this day on, give careful thought
to the day when the foundation of the LORD's temple was laid.
Give careful thought: Is there yet any seed left in the barn?
Until now, the vine and the fig tree,
the pomegranate and the olive tree have not borne fruit.

From this day on I will bless you.

Piano For Sale
click here.

As seen on TV

It's not your fault
your child has
Cerebral Palsy

Not that cerebral palsy is laughable, but whoever wrote that (with the emphases) certainly is.

Napa Saturday
Meals:
breakfast at Chow in Lafayette (near Oakland): Banana Strawberry Yogurt Smoothie and a slice of Apple Pie with Warm Caramel Sauce and Sweet Whipped Cream
lunch at Mustard's Grill in Oakville (in Napa Valley): (shared) Crab Cakes, Deep Fried Morel Mushroom Salad, Seared Ahi Tuna, Fries, Smoked Quail, Strawberry Cobbler with Vanilla Ice Cream, Warm Chocolate Cake with Jack Daniels Ice Cream
dinner at Chez Simone's in Piedmont (near Oakland): Onion Soup Gratinee and Escargots

Wineries:
Napa Wine Company: $5 for 5 wine tastings plus a glass of sparkling rose. selection of cheese, deli meats and fruits.
V. Sattui: Free tastings
Franciscan: just looked around, didn't check out their tastings
Domaine Chandon: Free tour, $4 for a flute of sparkling wine

Other Restaurants:
Bistro Jeanty: Dropped by before we left Napa. Hoped to get an order of their fries for take-out, but we were rejected since the restaurant was busy. Boo.
The French Laundry: Drove by. Three times. Missed it the first time, since it was very unassuming. Saw it the second time. Billy insisted that we go back for a third pass.












To make up for it, Sunday consisted of:
Meals:
lunch at home: two peaches
dinner at the Bakery in Milpitas: minced pork on rice
dessert: the bottom of a bucket of Haagen-Dazs Rum Rasin Ice Cream

Where is Everybody?
It's Memorial Day on Monday. Got to work today, and the parking lot's empty. Did I make a mistake? No, it's just people taking the extra day off.

Postcards
I've been getting a few of these lately. Almost never got them before.

Just got one from J and her cuties. Made me smile. :)

Not a Long Weekend
Not in the States at least.

Dropped by the other uwcrew house on Friday evening. We had take out, and I worked on the message for Sunday while we watched DVDs, it turned out to be a marathon of father-son movies.

Audition
Japanese horror flick about a widower whose son encourages him to find love again. His TV producer friend offers to help by setting up an audition for an imaginary TV show, in order for him to meet girls. He falls for a girl who turns out to be a psycho. Some extremely disturbing imagery. Henceforth will be known as Johnny's S&M flick, since he picked it. Not worth the time by any means. 1.5/5

Together
A Kaige Chen film about a peasant father working for the success of his violin prodigy son. Interesting characters, touching moments, and a storyline that unfolds rather beautifully. Redeemed the evening from the previous film. I normally avoid cheezy films, but this one was heartwarming without being cliche. I actually felt a little like happy by the end of it, highly recommended. 4.5/5

Rebel Without a Cause
Watched this at home afterwards since I couldn't fall asleep. Not what I expected at all. I was expecting James Dean to play some kinda bad boy, but he plays the only decent character in the film. Interesting portrayal of youthful idealism against the ineffectual Dad played by the old guy from Gilligan's Island. 3.5/5

Spent the majority of Saturday working on the message for Sunday. It was on the same passage (Isaiah 43) I taught for the intern class about a month ago. It went much better the second time around, after having had some useful feedback, and a lot more time to mull over it.

Saturday evening was Sinyee's birthday. We went to Left Bank for dinner, a little early at 6pm. Left Bank's a small chain of brasserie style restaurants owned by the chef of the much fancier La Folie in San Francisco. Food is ok, but not spectacular. We ordered a bunch of appetizers, mussels florentine (with spinach), half a dozen oysters, quenelle (scallop/salmon mousse in lobster sauce), and fried calamari. I got the duck, a seared breast and a confit leg. Duck's always good, though this one was not too special. I tried the lamb which was pretty good, a little better than the duck.

The plan for the evening was to go to the Vbar at Hotel Valencia, but since we finished dinner pretty early, we just hung around for a while. I finally picked up the Yeah Yeah Yeahs album (the singer, Karen O, sounds so awesome). Anyways, we get to the Vbar sometime around 10, meaning it's not quite picked up yet. There's a good number of hotel guests milling around, but the average age looks to be 30+. Couches are all taken, so we went upstairs to check out the rooftop patio. Hung around there for a while, but since it was rather cool, we headed back down around 11. Looked like it had picked up in the bar when we headed out - the music was louder and the lineup was longer. Felt rather old leaving that early, but I needed to finish off the message anyways.

Which I didn't do. Well, I didn't finish writing up the entire thing. I wrote up about three quarters of it, and finished the last part in point form. If I finish writing it up, I'll post it.

Taught at YAF on Sunday morning, not a bad experience, since I was pretty satisfied with studying and preparation. On the other hand, I didn't think it was particularly great either. I just don't have any flair for speaking. I don't think standing up and teaching's my thing, but it was still a good experience in case an opportunity or need comes up again.

Sunday afternoon, drove up to Berkeley for a Dido concert. Popped my new CD in the car CD changer where it promptly jammed. Bummer. At least I ripped it via iTunes the night before. I'm not a huge Dido fan, but it was a welcome distraction. It was odd, being a live concert with a very electronic sound. Given the reverb occasionally added to her voice, I wasn't quite sure if it was real or not. I'm tempted to believe that it was digitally enhanced, because she sounded so perfect. The production was much deeper, more ambient, and with a much stronger rhythm than the CDs. There were a few sets where she tried to get the crowd up, but I was happier in my seat. The only sore point was the overtly PDA couple right in front of me. Hey, I'm usually all for it, but when they're between you and the stage, it gets to be a little too much after the first hour. Anyways, if she has a remix of Life for Rent with the concert sound, I'd be tempted to get it, it was the perfect chill-in-a-deep-couch-with-a-hard-drink music.

White Flag
I know you think that I shouldn't still love you
I'll tell you that
But if I didn't say it, well I'd still have felt it
Where's the sense in that?

I promise I'm not trying to make your life harder
Or return to where we were

But I will go down with this ship
I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be

I know I left too much mess and destruction
To come back again
And I caused nothing but trouble I understand if you
Can't talk to me again

And if you live by the rules of it's over
Then I'm sure that that makes sense

I will go down with this ship
I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be

And when we meet, I'm sure we will
All that was there will be there still
I'll let it pass and hold my tongue
And you will think that I've moved on

I will go down with this ship
I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be

Greetings from the Ditch

Been sleeping a lot, which is nice, but I'm never awake. Too much, I suppose. Prov 6:10.

Saw "Troy" this past friday. For a film that's supposed to be an epic, it ends up being one long whimper. Critics of the modern Hollywood portrayal of love and sex would have a field day. There's a good amount of skin, but no believable passion, either in the battle scenes or the love scenes. In fact, the whole film is bereft of any emotional involvement except perhaps the scene where Peter O'Toole's Priam begs for his son's corpse. The decade long seige of Troy was wrapped up in less than a month in the film, any sense of grandeur was equally abreviated. Eric Bana's Hector did come across as both troubled and heroic, probably the best role. Orlando Bloom's pansy Paris was a departure from his Legolas role (although apparently he kept his elvish archery), and Brad Pitt's Achilles came off as more of an asshole than a hero, I'm not sure he could have done much more given the extraordinarily cliche'd script. He was still much better in Fight Club/12 Monkeys. Diane Kruger's Helen wasn't bad looking, but I got the impression that incredible eye make up is what it takes to launch a thousand ships. Interestingly, the gods which coloured Homer's tale were absent and clearly powerless in this film. Perhaps it was an attempt to bring added realism for a secular audience, but at the same time it lost much of the drama that fate brought Homer's tales. In fact without any trace of divine influence the entire war was pretty pointless except for the ambition of a few petty men in powerful places. Oh wait, maybe that was the point. 2.5/5

Watched "Man on Fire" a week ago. All the critics have been talking about the recent spate of revenge flicks, the kind of morals we're teaching to the impressionable audiences, the type of society that demands these kinds of films. On the other hand I found this a rather thought provoking religiously themed film. Having been raised with Sunday school stories of the heroes of the Old Testament, I've recently began to realize that a lot of the moral stories are much more complex than they're often portrayed. Scott's (our pastor) recent series on the narrative of Jacob paints Israel as a rather pathetic asshole, but a blessed and fortunate one. Most of the Old Testament characters are neither good nor bad, but often flawed and redeemed. So then Tony Scott (the director) also has an interesting picture of a troubled bodyguard, Creasy on a quest for justice and his own redemption. Can't really describe why I liked it, it might have been Creasy's solitary character portrayed by Denzel's solid acting, or the gorgeous but gritty cinematography, or maybe the lack of a clean good-guys-win ending. True, there were a few cliched, but well delivered lines, and the artificial jumpy video effects got a little annoying, but despite the length of the film, I was not bored for a moment. In the end, unlike Troy, it made me feel, and it made me think, and that's what a good movie is for me. 4/5

Out of town
Rendez-vous with this rag-tag bunch. Should be back late Sunday evening.

Weekend Catch-up
Figured I'd better catch up with last weekend before I head into this weekend.

Hung out down at Santana Row with a couple people from church last Friday. It's an overly flashy development, but it's got a lot of patios, and the evening weather was perfect last week.

Three of us had dinner at Pizza Antica, which has good thin crust gourmet pizzas. Food there is simply done, reminiscent of the Italy. Fairly crowded and noisy though. A little pricey, as with everything else in Santana Row, but this is probably one of the more reasonably priced joints in the neighbourhood. 3.5/5.

Sometimes I wonder what makes people 'click'. Is it just a matter of time? Sometimes my time here is reminiscent of the days in Loo. I'd gotten along with CCF people fine, but I guess I just didn't quite click with them as well as my high school friends. I did get to know people a lot better starting in 3B. Scary thought is, it's the middle of my third year down here in Silicon Valley. Time has flown.

We moved over to Left Bank for dessert. A bit of a change of scenery. The place is a french bistro style chain restaurant. We got brisk service from a flustered waitress, but the food quality here is relatively bland, nothing to rave about. 3/5.

Conversation over dinner had spun haphazardly around work and life in general. Conversation over dessert was geared more towards the hospitality ministry at YAF. One thing we've realized is that we've gotten rather lazy at welcoming new people over the past few months. The catch is, of course, being welcoming isn't simply a task, a matter of throwing a switch and pretending to be nice and cheery. People notice if they're greeted with open arms when they step in the door, but promptly ignored the next week because they're no longer the-new-person-you-have-to-be-nice-to. One of the things you learn in college fellowship that can be applied pretty much anywhere.

Came home, went to Safeway, bought 4 lbs of baby back ribs, an onion, a bottle of bbq sauce, two 6-packs of Molson Canadian, and one of those disposable aluminum lasagna trays. They're in the import section here. That's weird. Went back home, cut up the two slabs of ribs into a few more manageable pieces and sliced the onion. Rubbed them down with salt and pepper. Mixed the bbq sauce with a bottle of beer, washed the tray, popped the ribs in the tray and onions and beer-sauce on the ribs. Wrapped it up in foil and stuck it in the fridge.

On Saturday, five of us from the usual suspects finally went hiking at Pinnacles National Monument. It took about two hours to drive down. When got there around 11am in the morning, and the day was warming up. However, there was either breeze or shade through the majority of the trail, it was a comfortable hike.

The first half was mostly flat, with small lizards occasionally scurrying across the path before us. It included a short spelunking expedition down through some caves, which was kinda neat. We covered it pretty quickly, being driven by the picnic area on the east side of the park. However, when we arrived, we discovered that the picnic area had been converted to the residence area for park rangers. A stern looking ranger informed us promptly that we were not to eat on their picnic tables. Obviously not happy campers.

We ended up having lunch under the shade of a tree on the side of the trail. The return trip was a bit longer than the first part of the trail, and much more difficult since it actually had an elevation gain to the top of the hills where the lava rock formations jutted out into the sky. The natural scenery was much more striking than the first half. I was rather tired by the end, and it didn't help that I had left one of my two water bottles in the car. We made it back down to the car by 4:30pm, rested for a little and started the two hour drive back home.

Rested up a bit, headed out for dinner at Straits Cafe in Palo Alto. It's an upscale Singaporean/fusion style restaurant. Arislan has a high school friend doing his PhD in Berkeley, this guy had come to to visit his girlfriend at Stanford, which was why we headed out to Straits. Most of us were too wasted from hiking to chat about anything significant. Food was on par for Straits, which generally pretty good. Their more "normal" dishes with chicken or beef tend to be a bit boring, but since Arislan's friend and his girlfriend were vegetarian, we were limited to vegetable and seafood dishes. Straits seafood dishes are generally pretty well done. From past experience, both their crab dishes are very good, but we passed since those are the most expensive dishes on the menu. The standout dish was the seafood green curry, which definitely had a kick compared to some of their other toned down curries. Waitress was very, very cute. Unfortunately, she was way too pushy, which got annoying fast. Would you like some drinks? Thai Iced Tea, that's great. How about a martini? No? You sure? We have a special martini today blah blah blah... The same for appetizers, main course, and dessert. Would you guys like to any desserts? No? Too full? How about I leave the dessert menu for you to look at, just in case you see something you'd like? The worst was when she came back with the bill, after we had given her 15% tip, because we had a party of 7, and she forgot to put on the 18% gratuity for parties of 6 or more. Pity. 3.5/5 but it could have been a 4 if the waitress wasn't so damn annoying.

Sunday morning, woke up, showered. Grabbed the tray of ribs from the fridge and stuck it in the oven. Put the oven to 225 degrees, and headed off to church. Stayed for lunch at YAF and hospitality team meeting. Got home at 2pm looked at ribs. Still a lot of fluid in the tray, and the ribs were a pale colour, not dark. Hm, I was afraid it would burn since I was gone for 4 hours, so I had set the heat low. Apparently that was too low. Set the oven up to 350 degrees, gave it another hour before I turned it off.

Headed over to FunnyGuy aka shaven_yak_with_down_syndrome's bachelor pad around 5:30pm for the first bbq of the year in California (already had a pseudo bbq in Toronto, where it was really too cold for a real bbq). Unfortunately, spilled some bbq sauce in the car, so my car smells now. Yuck. Totally sucks. Luckily most of it was on the removable floormat. Got there, the grill wasn't even constructed yet, but the place was clean. We had flank steak, tri-tip, ribs, a variety of hot dogs, sausages, homemade guacamole, and a chocolate strawbery cake to finish it off. Also watched Hero afterwards. Very laid back, good times. 4/5.

On rotation: Warning Sign - Coldplay
A warning sign
I missed the good part then I realized
I started looking and the bubble burst
I started looking for excuses

Come on in
I've got to tell you what a state I'm in
I've got to tell you in my loudest tones
That I started looking for a warning sign

When the truth is
I miss you
Yeah the truth is
That I miss you so

A warning sign
You came back to haunt me and I realized
That you were an island and I passed you by
And You were an island to discover

Come on in
I've got to tell you what a state I'm in
I've got to tell you in my loudest tones
That I started looking for a warning sign

When the truth is
I miss you
Yeah the truth is
That I miss you so

And I'm tired
I should not have let you go

So I crawl back into your open arms
Yes I crawl back into your open arms
And I crawl back into your open arms
Yes I crawl back into your open arms

Weekend Review
Haven't done this review thing in a while. That's not to say I haven't been out much. A while back, I finally got to go to Chez Panisse, which was great. Charlie Palmer's Dry Creek Kitchen was pretty good too.

It's funny how good food is a form of escapism in itself. For a little while, a period of a meal, you can forget about your stress. Or if not, it seems a little bit more manageable. The world seems a little more structured. Things actually go your way, you ask for food, and you get it. For a little while at least. I guess that's why it's escapism, because it's temporary.

This past Saturday, our whole crew went up to Raffles Cafe in Fremont. There were 12 of us. The food was decent, a little more homestyle than Banana Leaf, the other Malaysian/Singaporean restaurant we frequent. However, the service was abysmal. This restaurant seriously needs to rethink its service. It prepares a meal at a time, meaning that after we ordered, we had to wait an hour and a half, watching the food trickle out for our neighbouring table (which also happened to be a large group). Furthermore, the satay appetizers we ordered never appeared, we had to ask thrice before we were finally told that they were out. In the end, we cancelled about a quarter of the dishes because we were tired of waiting, and not having your food come out two and a half hours after ordering seemed rather ridiculous. Food wasn't bad, some dishes were pretty good. But the service gives this place a 2/5.

On Sunday, I had to swing by San Francisco on an errand, which seemed to be excuse enough to try out Cesar's tapas bar in Berkeley. I should have figured it'd be rather upscale since it was next door to Chez Panisse. Most patrons were well dressed, although it was casual enough for a few sweatshirt and jeans types, but most definitely not a college crowd as I was expecting. Food was quite good, but overpriced for the very small plates. I guess you're paying for ambience here.
morcilla & mushrooms: morcilla being a spanish blood sausage. real black and ugly looking, but good tasting.
batter-fried asparagus with lemon allioli: perfect texture, but rather bland, and way overpriced at $6.75 for 4 spears.
orange & avocado salad with orange-red wine vinaigrette: ugly looking green blob, but very good. recommended.
a plate of jamon serrano with almond stuffed olives: sliced dried ham, flavour reminiscent of the chinese ham they put in soups. quite good, but salty.
gambas a la plancha: salted and fried shrimp, like chinese pepper/salt shrimp. good, but way overpriced at $9.75 for six shrimp. Overall quite good, but only 3/5 given the price.

Here is an interesting synchronicity. Maybe there is something about July... (cue in Travolta and Newton-John's conclusion of "Summer Nights")

Addendum: someone's blog template doesn't allow linking to individual entries because they're not named. You'll have to manually scroll down to the April 10th entry on the second link.

The Beautiful Letdown

I love these lyrics

We are a beautiful letdown
Painfully uncool
The church of the dropouts
The losers, the sinners, the failures, and the fools
What a beautiful letdown

- Switchfoot

Back to Reality

Main Entry: pro?found
Pronunciation: pr&-'faund, prO-
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French profond deep, from Latin profundus, from pro- before + fundus bottom -- more at PRO-, BOTTOM
1 a : having intellectual depth and insight b : difficult to fathom or understand
2 a : extending far below the surface b : coming from, reaching to, or situated at a depth : DEEP-SEATED (a profound sigh)
3 a : characterized by intensity of feeling or quality b : all encompassing : COMPLETE (profound sleep)
- pro?found?ly /-'faun(d)-lE/ adverb
- pro?found?ness /-'faun(d)-n&s/ noun

I think everyone desires depth in their lives. Well, I can only speak for myself really. Somewhere deep inside I'm looking for a level of profundity in my relationships with people, the things I do, the experiences I find myself in. I prefer a few close friends than many shallow friendships. A part of me chides myself about meaningless work while the other side of me thoroughly enjoys it. It's the same part that disapproves of cheap thrills while the other half is looking for the next adrenaline rush. Generally, the other half tries to dismiss him as raising a ruckus. Who needs all the drama of internal conflict anyways? Isn't it just easier to have things clean and simple and open to all, rather than buried in one deep mess? One of my friends describes life as being inherently trivial, but even that indicates that there's a desire for something more. Each person wants to be individual and special, but in reality everyone's the same. I think everyone desires depth in their lives.

Toronto was fun this past weekend. The idea of friendship popped up a lot.

Had lunch on Friday with a bunch of old high school friends. It's been a long time since I've seen many of them. We were all pretty similar back then. We each had our own slant, but we really weren't that different from each other. Now it seems like we're worlds apart.

Babysat on Saturday for the first time. Our relationship started off pretty rough, she didn't want anything to do with me. She warmed up eventually. I'd like to think that it's something about me, but I suspect it's really because I was the only guy around. I was the one with the bottle. In the end, when she fell asleep on me, I couldn't help wondering how she'd grow up. I pray that she'd be wise and kind and compassionate and beautiful. Like her mom, but even better. I wonder what it's like to be a parent. It must be tough seeing all the shit in the world and just praying that you can teach this one right.

Besides that there was a lot of time just hanging out with friends over the easter weekend. Time at church together, eating, drinking. I felt just at home, with my family. This is what I'm used to, this is where I fit in, just like everyone else.

On the flight home, for the first time in a while, I drew up a list. People and things to pray for. It was longer than I expected. It had quite a few things I had forgotten about, but I guess I was reminded of this weekend. People and things that I have ignored for a long time, just because I haven't seen them, they might as well have stopped existing. But they were still there. I think that's the point of Easter. It's been 2000 years. To be frank, I don't see God every day. I know he's there. But sometimes He might as well not be until I'm reminded by the bread and the wine, eating, drinking. It's like the open tomb. It's there and empty unless we are reminded what it stood for.

When I got back I found something else to add to the list. Please pray for Renee's dad, his health is poor. And pray her family too.

I had a good weekend. Thanks.
It seemed like I was on the edge of something profound. But something was missing.

Anime on the Web

Some entertaining stuff from Studio Tanuki. First there's the flash based Pin-pin Le Lapin movie, then there's the Catfish hotel Quicktime movie.

Cried Wolf
I don't really know who reads this blog out there. I've purposely not put up any sort of commenting system because I like the mystery of not really knowing. Just one of my quirks.

However, I have had a number of comments about the last entry, and I do owe an apology to everyone who was genuinely worried about me. Something that was intended to be sort of tongue-in-cheek if you know what's going on can come across pretty differently if you don't know what it's referring to. Being annoyingly vague doesn't help.

Great start of the day came from hanging out with a friend I haven't seen for quite a while. We had lunch in San Francisco and walked around aimlessly downtown for a couple of hours before I dropped him off at the airport. I've missed his company without even realizing it.

However, I ruined my own evening with my lack of "mad skillz" (actually, any skills at all). I was, in fact, genuinely angry at myself. Sufficiently angry so that the intended melodrama of my blog came out more dramatic than intended. Unfortunately, I made it sound like my world was ending. Ladies and gentlemen, Exhibit A also known as "Why do we always hurt the ones we love?":

Emotional Trauma
It's funny how a day can start out so great and end with so much hurt.

Happy Birthday Vida
You're pretty much an adult for everything except renting cars now.
But you're still my mui.
Love ya, hope it's a good one.

Writer's Block
I think for most of my life, Bible reading (apart from group Bible studies, and prepartion for Bible studies) usually amounts to either reading through a few verses for daily inspiration, or reading through an entire book as one would read a novel.

Sitting down and really studying as part of the intern program has been tough but rewarding in many ways. On one hand, having a mandatory study schedule can easily make study a chore. Study can also turn the Word of God into an academic text, the way an academic study of Shakespeare can take the joy away from reading the literature. Finally, it is a constant challenge not to interpret scripture in manner that is suitable for myself.

On the flip side, in recent weeks, I've been finding moments of joy in staring blankly at a Psalm, not knowing what to write, praying in frustration, and eventually over hours or days, seeing a beautiful relationship with God among the lines of poetry.

So as I myself have nothing to write now, here's Psalm 32:

How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,

        Whose sin is covered! 

    How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity,

            And in whose spirit there is no deceit!





When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away

        Through my groaning all day long. 

    For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;

            My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah.



I acknowledged my sin to You,

        And my iniquity I did not hide;

    I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD";

            And You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah.



Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to You in a time when You may be found;

        Surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him. 

    You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble;

            You surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah. 



I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go;

        I will counsel you with My eye upon you. 

    Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding,

            Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check,

            Otherwise they will not come near to you.



Many are the sorrows of the wicked,

        But he who trusts in the LORD, lovingkindness shall surround him. 

    Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous ones;

            And shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart.

Canadian Traditions
Here's to a man who had a worthy invention. Imagine that, being known as "The Man Who Invented Poutine"!

Forever the optimist
Working in the States made me actually proud to be Canadian, and I'm not one for nationalism. Reading the Star lately has been a depressing pasttime, with everything that's been going on in Toronto. Random shootings and murders definitely tops the list, especially since San Jose's been running with the title of the safest large city in the US for the past few years. Sometimes I wonder whether it'll still be a place I'll want to move back to.

But to be honest, even if I was in Toronto, I don't know what I'd do. Would I simply dismiss the problem because it's out in Scarborough and not at my doorstep? Do I tell myself it's just a problem with the projects? Would I actually get off my ass and do something about it? Maybe it's time to write a letter to a politician (or am I too cynical to believe that does anything?)

Even Ellie's tip of the day today was depressing (although I must admit it makes it more interesting than the everyday cheery fluff).

Tip of the Day: Waiting for someone to love you is rarely worth the reward.

Just some thoughts
If one considers 40 hours as a normal work week, I normally work a lot. This week somehow, has been brutal in comparison. It's been a slowly slipping release schedule with last minute bugs showing up due to last minute features that were crammed in. Three week ago it was "we're almost done, we just need these final features added". You try to get the job done and juggle life on the side. Two weeks ago it was "we're almost done, but we need these bugs fixed by Monday". So you put down everything else, and crank away till it's done. This past week it's been "we just found a new bug, we need it fixed in two hours... oh we found another one please fix it by tonite... oh one last one, we need it fixed first thing tomorrow morning", then when you wake up "ok, can you just add this tweak, we need it before lunch". Drag that on for a week where it's every waking moment and it gets tiring pretty quick.

Anyways, enough bitching about that, I tied it all up on Friday, left after dinner, and didn't check email again. I didn't write a paper today. I didn't write about what David felt as he fled pursuers who were trying to kill him. I don't have people trying to kill me. I don't have a kingship to fulfill. I'm just incredibly tired.

I woke up at 5:30am today and left the apartment shortly after six with my snowboard. It took us 3.5 hours to drive up to Kirkwood in South Lake Tahoe. I fulfilled my sense of tradition by having a bacon and egg bagel meal with orange juice at McDonald's for breakfast. I marvelled at the beauty and grandeur of the snow covered Sierras. We cursed at the 45 min long drive into the parking lot. I marvelled at the beauty and grandeur of the snow covered Sierras. For five hours I was focused on sound of the carve through the groomed packed snow as I leaned into it, the silence when gliding swiftly through the fresh powder among the trees, or the satisfying pfwop as I practiced landing jumps, and the peace and solitude riding the chairlift.

Unlike the drive up, we were all awake on the drive home. We talked about pee and poop and farting. We talked about society and greed and capitalism and altruism and socialism and sex. We talked about relationships and racism and evolution and aliens and family and why America is a f!@#ed up place.

In the end I'm thinking a few things. I'm glad I don't have to be at home writing a paper on a psalm to see God. I'm glad I've been reminded why the world needs Him. I'm glad I've been reminded why my friends need him. I'm glad He's given me my friends. I'm glad some of them actually want to go see this movie, The Passion of Christ. I'm glad that Mel Gibson made this movie as much as I'm glad I didn't have to fulfill my supposedly evangelical duty to market a movie to my friends. I'm glad that the essence of the psalms, worshipping God in art, has not ceased in this century. I'm glad I've been taught faith. I'm glad I've been given grace. I'm glad I've been shown rest.

Addendum: I checked my email. Boss said thanks. That made me glad too.

Whistler pics

Was it something I ate?
Massive insomnia. Was working on my paper for this week (I am SO far behind), but I didn't get far. It's one of those passages where I'm looking at it and I don't actually have much to add that doesn't seem obvious already. Anyways, switched away from that to working on the project I'm working on for work. Before you know it, it's 4am, and I still don't feel particularly tired.

On the other hand, I do have a 10am meeting, and I don't think I'll be particularly awake by that time, so I probably should try to sleep. We'll see how well that goes.

Dinner
I cooked for myself today, a rather extraordinary since I never cook. Actually, I had a bunch of leftover vegetables from last week that were starting to wilt, and if I didn't do something with them today, they'd be destined to compost in my fridge until I remembered they were there. Oh, and as an appetizer, I noticed that the roots on onions and leeks closely resemble a bunch of maggots peering out of the end of the vegetables. Yum.

Cooking time 3hrs

1 onion
1 large sorrento pepper
1 tomato
1 package enoki mushrooms
2 leeks
3 cloves of garlic
3 sprigs fresh thyme
2 dried bay leaves
1 lb of stewing beef
1/4 bottle of white wine
1/4 bottle of pomegranate juice
soy sauce
small bunch of fresh cilantro
black pepper
white pepper
salt
water

1. Chop up onion, garlic, leeks and sautee in a pot with olive oil until tender
2. Marinate the beef in soy sauce and black pepper.
3. Chop up tomato, and cilantro, and make a lengthwise cut along the pepper. Add all three to pot, along with thyme, cilantro, bay leaves, a sprinkling of white pepper, 1/4 bottle of white wine and fill the pot halfway with water. Bring to a boil and let cook for an hour, or until water level has dropped to about the same level as the vegetables.
4. Stir in the beef and marinade, pomegranate juice, and mushrooms. Add a bit of water to ensure that the contents don't dry out. Cook for an additional 2 hours on low heat. Stir occasionally and add water if it appears to be too dry for a stew.
5. Add salt to taste a few minutes before serving.

It was actually pretty good. You might not want to add the pepper if you don't like spicy foods, but it adds a wonderful kick.

Soreness
Woke up at 8am feeling particularly crappy today, as if I had slept on the couch. Went back to sleep and eventually dragged myself out of bed at 10am. I think I'm getting old. I was still feeling kinda groggy as I showered, and it wasn't until I was limping to my car that I remembered I was blocking this huge 240lb white guy when I was playing football at the retreat yesterday. That explains a lot. Ow.

On rotation: The Scientist - Coldplay
Come up to meet you
Tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you
Tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart

Tell me your secrets
And ask me your questions
Oh let's go back to the start
Running in circles
Coming in tails
Heads on a science apart

Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh take me back to the start

I was just guessing
At numbers and figures
Pulling the puzzles apart
Questions of science
Science and progress
Did not speak as loud as my heart

Tell me you love me
Come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start
Running in circles
Chasing tails
Coming back as we are

Nobody said it was easy
Oh its such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the start

Finally done
So I've had this assignment at work that probably would've taken about 3 long days of straight work for two weeks. The problem is I'd be working on a lot of other stuff that comes up on a day to day basis, and the main project might get a few hours ever few days. Been working on the last two afternoons and evenings, even though it's been clear and sunny outside.

Finally done at 11:40pm on Sunday. Makes for a short weekend .

This sucks
It's really sunny outside today.
I have work I said I'd finish by Monday, but I didn't finish because I was working on other people's projects.
I'm reading news, blogs, or Slashdot, which means I'm not focused today.
It's really sunny outside today.

I stopped writing on after Whistler Day 6, and really, since I've gotten back, I either haven't had the time, or haven't been in the mood to get the rest down. It's kinda amazing how it was 3 weeks ago, but it's felt like 3 months. Here's what's remaining in my memory, before it melts away:

January 8, 2004: Whistler Day 7
So a Arislan, Asmodean and I suited up for our fifth day on the hill. Relgar and Marilyn headed out that morning too. They made it out the door before us; we ran into them at McDonald's. I was hopelessly scanning the booth that we occupied every morning for some sign of my Banff gaiter, which I had lost somewhere the previous day, but there was no sign of it. Asmodean got his regular sausage mcmuffin. I got my bacon and egg bagel, since as we all know, bacon is good. I don't remember anyone else' breakfast.

We parted ways with Relgar and Marilyn after breakfast. We stopped briefly at the ski shop to pick up Sinyee's board. It was quick since she had rented the previous day; her bindings were all set up, she only had to grab the board. By the time we got to the base, we'd pretty much decided on doing Blackcomb again, since Sinyee hadn't done it before. Just walking to the mountain, it was much warmer than the previous days, and while the first day was clear and frigid, the last day was warm and cloudy.

The four of us got into the Blackcomb gondola, which, being newer than the Whistler one, was much more comfortable, and you could actually seat 8 comfortably. They stuck another couple in with us, making it a spacious 6. While Sinyee marvelled at the grandeur of the mist-shrouded mountain, Xun and I cast glances at each other as we were eavesdropping on the couples' argument.

Apparently, she didn't like the way he let girls hit on him in the bar, or something like that. She was also going on about how she didn't like it when other guys hit on her, I suppose the subtext was that he was to behave the same, although she seemed rather convinced that all men were pigs. The conversation ended with an uncomfortable silence after she declared something like "I don't think I want to be your girlfriend anymore", upon which Sinyee snapped out of her beholdenment of nature to declare "I don't think I should've had that sausage McMuffin", or something to that extent. Angry potential-ex-girlfriend picked up on the cue to exclaim in a mix of bewilderment or disgust, that one would have McDonald's for breakfast. Accused philanderer chimed in on how McDonald's kills a lot of pigs (which we had actually discussed earlier in the week), and how he didn't eat pigs because they're filthy animals since they didn't sweat and rolled in the mud and thus had flesh full of toxins. Apparently, he didn't eat pork, and had managed to convince his companion to quit the meat since they started dating. I guess it never occured to him that pigs, like all other mammals, would piss and shit. Or perhaps he forgot that, in which case I could excuse him for being constipated. Actually, I did, so I didn't give him the whole "bacon is good, pork chops are good" speil. It's a pity Lancer wasn't there, cuz I'm sure he coulda convinced our abstaining gentleman on the merits of personality. In any case, we had reached the end of the gondola ride, so we never really figured out what happened. The girl was reasonably cute though, I bet if she tried she could find a guy who'd bring home the bacon.

The conditions were pretty crappy all around. The powder on the previous two days melted into heavy sludge. It would have been fine for snowballs, but not too good for riding. It was especially crappy for click-ins, since it'd pack into the bottom of my boots like crazy. I pretty much needed my swiss army to clear em out on a few occasions. I haven't figured out why my bindings were coming loose, but over the course of the day, I had to tighten the screws a few times. The conditions were bearable on the top third of the mountain. Riding up the chair, as the rain plopped against my jacket and soaked my gloves, there's an almost imperceptible change as the splatter eventually turned into a rattle, and before you know it, flakes instead of drops are running over my gloves. As we rode down through the snow, we'd run into big clouds of fog as the snow turned to rain.

Highlight of the day was after our lunch break in a stuffy lodge on the top of Blackcomb. It's a small shack, and given the weather, it's packed and humid. We rest for a while, and since we'd been doing the same chair for most of the morning, we tried taking a different route. We're going around the mountain along a catwalk, and in the fog we see a roped off area with a warning sign, and a gate. "Couloir Extreme" it says, with two black diamonds on orange. When Sinyee gets close enough to see us sitting by the gate, she yells at us, "are we going there!?". I sense fear in her voice. Asmodean is with her, so I yell back "You're NOT going down here, you go THAT way!", after which, Arislan and I make the trip complete off that plunge.

That evening we had dinner at the High Mountain Brewing Company. They didn't really have the pub grub we were looking for, the nachos and burgers. Instead they had fancy stuff, I ended up getting a seafood paella (at a bar? go figure), but their beers were not bad. Afterwards we stopped by at Cows for ice cream. I don't really remember what we did that night, other than the fact that I was really tired.

January 9, 2004:Whistler Day 8
We got up and packed, rather more efficiently than I expected. While we had arrived without snowboards, Arislan and I now needed to fit them into the back of our massive SUV. On top of that, we needed to fit Asmodean's luggage in on top of the four original occupants, since he was on a later flight, and would be hanging around with us for most of the day. At first it was doubtful that everything would fit. It seemed like Asmodean might end up sitting the day away at the airport. But as with most problems, when you just yank it all out and give it another shot, we eventually found a way to pack everything in just right.

Each car grabbed a Talkabout, and the game of twenty questions carried us pretty much all the way back to Vancouver. Our car picked the hippiesque peace symbol, they couldn't guess it. They countered with a palindrome, and we got that. We found our way to chinatown after two hours, and after some wandering (and hobbling on Lancer's part) we found a dim sum restaurant (Park Lok) which had reasonable prices and mediocre food.

After lunch, we parted ways. The Ontarians were in one car, most of their flights left early in the afternoon, so they headed to the airport. Asmodean moved over to our car. I dropped the guys off at the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park. I remember it being pretty cool when I went there as a kid. I drove over to Coquitlam to visit my grandmother, my aunt Jeannie, and my cousin Luke. It took about an hour, but I eventually found the place. I hung around for an hour and a half while my grandmother offered me fruit, and then I headed back to pick up the guys, who discovered that the Aquarium really wasn't as big as we had thought. Ah well.

On the way to the airport, we made a few calls. Did I mention that I had left my phone in the car at San Francisco Airport? Luckily these other guys had phones and were able to arrange rides for us back in SFO. Asmodean was on a different flight from us, so we parted ways. We checked in easily, although Arislan faced some I-94 difficulties going through customs. Eventually he made it through, we grabbed dinner at Burger King, and got on the plane just in time as the last passengers. Almost. The last passenger, who we saw running towards the gate as we entered, was Asmodean. Somehow he had missed his flight and got put onto ours, which was fine, since the plane was empty. We got a row to ourselves, made it back to San Francisco without a hitch, got picked up by 3 cars, and ended up back home in San Jose.

Some of these things don't go together...
If you're an Italian company making battery chargers, you better be careful about your domain name.

Cloudy
Darn I miss snow.

January 8, 2004: Whistler Day 6
Although we had decided to start out early and hit the slopes when the lifts opened at 08:00, we didn't actually wake up until 08:30, and then only with much anguish and groaning, dragging our sore limbs and stiff joints from our beds or sleeping bags, whichever applied. As had become custom, the mornings involved some showering and suiting up, mostly in silence, as soldiers to war. Our foe was no mere mortal, it was a mountain. And the silence was not from fear or dread, nor reverence of the mountain. It stemmed from an innate wisdom of the human spirit: that rising before 10:00 on a vacation was no mere task.

I suited up with pretty much the same gear I had for the past few days, a pair of old liner socks, the pair of new wool socks, an old tattered pair of jeans, old Gore-tex pants, a polyester North Face long sleeve T, a thin North Face fleece, gloves, fleece toque, coat, and goggles. In my backpack I packed an extra thick fleece (I actually never really needed to use it, it was really just there as extra padding), sunscreen, my camera, extra batteries, extra compactflash card, old Motorola Talkabouts, and some snacks.

A slight aside regarding the Talkabouts. I got them from my aunt a good 6 or 7 years ago I think, and she got them from Hong Kong or Japan. This was a couple of years before they were available in North America. Now I had assumed that they were the same as the FRS radios that Motorola sold under the Talkabout name in North America, which are compatible with a number of other FRS radios by companies like Garmin, Midland or Cobra. Apparently, this isn't true. Lancer had recently purchased a pair of Midland FRS radios, which worked fine with a North American Motrola Talkabout we had. However, it didn't work with my older radios.

It turned out however, that there's a lot of FRS users on the slopes, making it hard to find empty channels using Lancer's radios. On most channels you'd hear other users, which often got annoying pretty quick. After we switched to using the Asian radios, we didn't have any more interference from other users.

Unlike the previous day, this morning we had five heading out. Sinyee and Averal were joining us after their extended break. We stopped by for our customary McDonald's breakfast and headed for the lifts. Sinyee and Averal had to pick up rental equipment, and Asmodean was planning to join them on the easy runs. Arislan and I headed up the gondola first for a quick run, hoping to meet the others when we got down, since they were planning to do some easy runs for most of the day. We changed our plans when we saw that the Peak Express chair was open, since we had never been up that chair, and didn't want to miss our chance for what powder might be left at 10:00.

There was plenty of fresh snow on the ground at the peak, and even more blowing around. The winds were insane, and pretty much prevented us from going down the really shallow slopes as it blew upwards. We ended up just jumping off the edge since it took so long trying to get down the relatively flat paths. The two of us did a few runs, which were pretty awesome since the clouds and wind cleared up on the back side of the mountain, and the snow was still fresh since it seemed like most people didn't want to deal with the winds at the peak. It only took about an hour but pretty much tired me out, since we were going through the trees. It didn't help that I had went to the edge of a cliff I couldn't see the bottom of, so I had to dig myself out (since I had sunk in when I stopped) and climb back out in the thigh deep snow. As we rode back down to the base and waited, the other guys never showed up. We had expected them to ride down to the bottom, but they must have changed their plans as well. The sad thing was that the Talkabouts didn't help, since they both remained in my backpack.

We did a few more runs on the easier areas looking for Sinyee, Averal, and Asmodean, but never found them. We went back up to the peak in the late afternoon, but the snow had been chopped up while we were gone. As usual, we rode until 15:00, when the lifts closed, and called it a day. I was utterly exhausted and walk back to the condo didn't help much. The outdoor hottub however, was great. For the first time since we arrived it was empty when we got back, so Sinyee, Arislan and I took it over for a short while. We soaked for about 20 minutes, until it got too hot. The guys watched some inane episode of Star Trek: Voyager (yes, pretty much every episode of this series is inane), while Sinyee made dinner (shake n'bake chicken with mushrooms, peas, garlic bread and Chunky soup). Afterwards we spent another exciting evening playing poker, this time with 8 hands. Eventually, as each of us lost all our chips, we packed it in for the night. Being totally exhausted, I wasn't even awake long enough to figure out who won.