Class Scheduling is Such a Headache

Yes it is! I hope this one professor will let me add his class since I was there on the first day but didn't get the add card signed. He took some pictures of us though...in order to remember our names...so hopefully he will be cool and let me add the class!

Still so overwhelmed by school and the workloads...I'm so homesick of ULV and how much it has spoiled me! It is like a second home to me...so many cool people that I have met and gotten to know. Pete said that it will take a little while more to get used to the new environment...so hopefully it will! And David tells me that all things must pass! And this thing...hopefully will pass soon! hehehe...too bad that life has to get harder and harder as we get older.

Climbing Slowly...

Nowadays, life seems like climbing up a hill barefooted with everyday poses new backbreaking and arduous challenges.

Impatiently, waiting for the day that I will eventually reach the hill’s peak and eventually, I will get to stroll down this great big hill at an easier pace and enjoy the glorious view of what I have accomplished.

I hope I won't have to give up so quickly without a fight, or metaphorically speaking, I won't trip on some sharp rocks and painfully roll back down to the foothill and have to start over from the beginning.

I think I’m partially depressed and in part I’m very overwhelmed at everything that’s going on at the moment…Already, I think I need a vacation.

Today was such a busy day, I think I had enough exercise, for the year, walking around the campus all day long. I was going to attend the Shorinji Kempo class tonight at the ARC but it was canceled until next week when the instructor is back (he’s actually a doctorate professor in the Biomechanical field at UCI, talented guy).

Anyways, time for sleep, I have a hill to climb!

Man...school isn't that great

My first day of real school with a real class with real homework reminds me why I never really liked school in the first place...it's going to be a sad and busy two years to come. I know I have been crying about this for the last few days now...but it IS really going to be sad and to say the least, painful! Ahhhhhhhh!

I've thought of some plans to better this experience...hopefully...but I will post it up later when everything is set in stone or at least more solid than now...and I bet that you all will think I'm CRAZY! that if you haven't thought so already.

Oh yeah...Jay Leno announced today that Conan O'Brien will be taking over his time slot when he retires in the year 2009...that's going to be cool because I think Conan is the funniest guy on late night TV. Can't wait until the year 2009 comes around...I wonder what will happen by that year...wonder where I'll be...what I'll be doing...5 years away...well...anyhow, back to the present time...gotta do what I have got to do...and that is SLEEP! Almost fell over the desk today sitting in class...so sleeeeeepy.

Got an 11AM class tomorrow so I have to get up kinda early to start driving down to Irvine. Adios mi amigos y amigas.

First Day of Real Class

Monday...my first real class with homework starts today...how sad...I'm going to actually have homework from this point on. Hopefully it's not too much!

Going to be soooo broke after the book buying spree that I have to do for my grad classes.

Uploaded a few sets of pictures last night...but only one of the set is titled (by Darren again)...so here is the first set with titles...ENJOY...gotta sleep so I won't be writing much tonight.

Foam Party! Read about this set of pictures HERE
Thanks guys for making my shirt wet.

4AM

Ok I finally got home a bit earlier than normal, especially when Devin's down here. This time I checked the clock and guess what? I got home at exactly 3:59 AM...finally...it's before 4 AM.

Ok anyways...didn't do much today...

Dim Sum around noon...hanged around at Geoffrey's house playing games while I was setting up some networking stuff for Geoffrey's wireless network at his house...saw his pets, piranhas and a flying squirrel (pictures will be up soon), I think.

Went to Old Town Pasadena later in the night and ate at some damn expensive Italian restaurant for Kha's B-day...then went back to Geoffrey's house to play some Def Jam on PS2 'til the wee hours with Darren, Devin and Geoffrey.

Now I have to get some sleep for an engagment party at 8 AM today....that means I have about 2 hours of sleep! Now I'm really on the borderline of insanity!

Night!

BTW, thanks everyone from leaving me comments on my earlier posts, but I have to reply to those at a later time...need to get some sleep first!

Tired again

Just got home around 4 AM again...I need to stop doing this...pretty tired now...will write more later if I still remember what happened.

But basically here is the run down, went to school, first day, just a seminar in research so it's no biggie...no homework, just introduction to the graduate professors at UCI and their research interests....met some cool Master students, mostly Bio-Informatics...haven't met anyone that's in AI yet....I'm a bit worried about my concentration now...hopefully it's not too intense or difficult.

Then I drove back to La Verne in a 2-hour traffic drive again..."work" 'til 7 then off to Omar's BBQ...saw Kim and Josh over there...ate a yummy bugger with some delicious mini-macaronis. Then went back to meet Devin at my house (he just came down from Sacramento again...crazy). We then left for LA to drop some stuff at his uncle's house. Ate again over there...this time it's a huge bowl of vietnamese noodles.

Then off to Irvine to Darren's BBQ...ate more...this time...it's BBQ chicken and rice. Then we decided to check out the Foam Party inside UCI (end of orientation week). Later...we left to a party at an apartment complex nearby....cops came...so the party died down and then we left...got back to Darren's place and helped him move his furniture at 3 in the morning to his new apartment down the block...and now I'm just exhausted...time for sleep.

First day of the rest of my life!

Or so it feels like...wow it's going to be painful for the next two year at least!

I'm once again an ANTEATER! Wow I looked pissed in the recent ID! Maybe that's my game face for the next two years!

Here is my schedule for the Fall Quarter again for anyone that cares

I&C Sci 200 SEM IN RESEARCH IN ICS-----F 01:00-02:50
I&C Sci 205 HUMAN-CMPTR INTERACTN----M W 04:00-05:20
I&C Sci 260 FUND ALGORITHMS-------------T T 03:30-04:50
I&C Sci 270A INTRO ARTIFICIAL INTEL-----T T 11:00-12:20

Tomorrow my first class will be Seminar in Research...hopefully it's not as intense as all of the other graduate courses.

CLICK TO READ MORE BELOW...

I'm telling you...I haven't started school yet and yet there are so much drama already in my opinion. Today I woke up early and decided to buy the parking permit online so I can just pick it up at a kiosk without waiting in line...well guess what? When I got there...tried the kiosk and you know what? It did not print! So I had to drive all the way across the campus and that's far...to do what? GET IN LINE and finally picked up my permit!

Took 2 hours to drive back to La Verne to work for the rest of the day!

Anyhow...my car has reached 140,000 miles today! Dang...hopefully it will still work for a while more (driving at least 2 hours a day isn't helping it much at all)! I can't afford to get a new car right now and I don't want my parents' having to pay for it.

Questions and Answers of the day

Am I prepared? Nope!
Am I ready? Nope not even close!
Am I worry? Yes very much so.
Have I bought any books yet? Nope.
Do I care? Not as much as I should!
Do I know what I'm getting myself into? Not exactly!
What am I doing the night before my first day of class? Umm playing Def Jam game until my hand stop functioning!
Am I crazy? Umm no need for me to answer this one.

Wish me luck! =]

The first day of the Fall Season

Yes, the summer season is finally over officially...and so is my freedom and fun!

I have to go back to UCIrvine in a about 7 hours to pick up my parking permit, student ID and the orientation materials...going to try to come back to La Verne in time for work...got to try to work as much as possible before school officially starts.

I think I'm going to miss coming to work at the Univ of La Verne so often and especially all of the people there, I will miss the most! ;o)

I will definitely try to come by and visit everyone as much as I can though...so it's all good.

CLICK BELOW TO READ MORE....

I finally received the pictures that were taken at So's farewell party from Darren tonight from So (hopefully by now, he would probably have arrived safely in Japan). I finished uploading the set of pictures with the help of Darren's doing the titles once again. Thanks yo!

CLICK HERE TO GO STRAIGHT TO THE GALLERY OF THESE PICTURESWhat the hell were they doing? I have no clue... THE Yakuza...hahaha

Graduate Orientation?

Wow I can't believe that school hasn't started yet and YET I am already not doing so well...hehe. I received an email today notifying me that I have missed the mandatory ICS graduate students orientation! And this was held on the 20th of September at 10 AM.

For some reason I wasn't awared of this until today, all these time I have been looking on the wrong part of the UCI website.

What I should've been looking at was the schedule specifically in the ICS Department website instead of the one on the main UCI website.

Anyhow...Oops...sorry UCI Graduate counselors and directors that I didn't make it to the orientation. Now I have to drive down UCI sometime before Friday to get my UCI student ID, parking permit (300 dollars per year) and the essential materials that were given out at the orientation.

ICS graduate welcome & orientation 10 a.m. - noon Computer Science 174 (Building 302 on the campus map) A welcome reception for all new M.S. and Ph.D. students. ICS faculty and staff will explain policies, procedures and first steps for a successful start to a graduate career. Dean Debra J. Richardson will cap the event with a brief overview of the school's journey, past, present and future.

This is what I missed.... =[ Anyways, 2 more days until the first day of class.

Woohoo

Talk about coincidence...going through my messy desk tonight and cleaning whatever I can off of it...I came upon a few Super Lottery tickets that I have bought over the months. And like always, I have no hope for these random quickpick tickets.

Anyways, after checking a few tickets with the calottery.com website...I started to lose hope...well I didn't have any to begin with. Then I started using the nifty Winning Number Search on that website for my last few tickets that I haven't checked. And guess what, one of my very last tickets matched up 2 + Mega numbers!

Click on the picture to see the result...20, 34 and 18...Woohoo...I actually won 10 bucks for the very first time since like high school....and no...since I didn't win the jackpot (yesterday post)...I won't be drinking anytime soon! Jackpot...here I come...soon enough...ok....maybe not.

I was one out of 53,369 people who won 10 dollars on that day! Now I have about a month left to cash it.

*I felt a short earthquake last night while playing the piano/keyboard...maybe around 2AM...it was for like a brief second.

Cold...brrrrlll

Wow it's actually cold for the very first time in a great while tonight. Actually today was a very nice day. I wish the weather everyday of the year would be as nice as today. It's not too hot nor too cold but just right during the daytime. There was a nice cool breeze yet it was sunny and warm at the same time. There were huge puffs of cloud in all shades of grey strolling along the beautiful blue sky. Perfect weather...for me at least.

One more week...or 4 more days until my freedom ceases once again. Once school starts, I think I won't even have time to go the bathroom. My daily entries will be compressed down from many paragraphs to maybe at least a few words a day... =]

Click below to read more...

Stopped by Omar's house this afternoon. Kim brought some Pad Thai and BBQ pork and we had a huge dinner and later collapsed to our food coma...It was yummy and I think I ate a little too much today. The last time I had Pad Thai was at the Elephant Bar restaurant (fun time 'cause I had great company). Writing about it make me hungry for some more. Neighbor Josh came by and used my digital camera to take some pictures of his old Nintendo 64 games that he wants to sell on eBay. Here are a few shots taken today...CLICK ME

I also found some time after my nap earlier tonight to upload the set of pictures from Joe's BBQ down in Irvine a couple of weeks ago.

Oh, by the way, as always, thanks to my great short term memory...I can't remember anything that happened beyond an hour ago. So here is Darren's post on his Xanga about what went down last night (9.18.04) at his BBQ in greater details. Good reading!

Many friends have been trying to get me to drink lately...especially when I'm out with them...namely...Devin! Hahaha...I told him that once we win the super lottery jackpot (that means in the millions...and dude...stop giving that crap about drinking when we win 10 dollars)...that will be the day I will drink. Or when I'm rich in my mansion...he can come by and we will drink...other than that I think there isn't a point in drinking whatsoever, besides loosen you up to do stupid things you wouldn't otherwise sober.

And since noone leaves me comment anymore even if it's a one word comment...it's better than none. So I will be the first to leave comment to my own post!!!

Tomiyama

Tomiyama (Japanese-a typical Japanese last name) - Fu Shan (Chinese) - Phu Son (Vietnamese) - or Wealthy(Rich) Mountain.

I have always known about the Yama part but not the Tomi part.

Now everyone knows how to write my name in Japanese, and Chinese (Cantonese, Mandarin, Chieu Chow, Taiwanese, etc.)
I have always been writing the first character from bottom up...I guess I have always been doing it the "wrong" way.

Anyhow...click below to read more.

I went down to Irvine today to drop by at Darren's place for a BBQ going away party for So. So's going back to Japan for good this coming Tuesday. It was one crazy BBQ party. I actually had to do some real BBQing tonight to help out Darren while he left for a while to pick up an extra grill (which we ended up not even needing it after all).

I'm such a bad BBQ'er. I was BBQing some chickens and it took about 40 minutes for them to be cooked and even then, the insides were a bit bloody...hehe...until Kieto realized that the damn cooking grids weren't lowered down low enough for the burning charcoal to heat up the chickens good enough. But wow! when we did realized our mistake, and lowered the cooking grid, the chickens started to burn badly...hehe...we were so bad, it's not even funny.

Nonetheless, I let Si-Fu BBQ'er Darren take over when he did decide to come back with the extra grill after approximately 40 minutes. Anyhow, the party went on until midnight. Never have I seen so many Japanese people in one room! It was fun though. Yoichiro, Makoto, and So did got a little too drunk and started jumping around like some crazy monkeys...hahah.

We then went to Zipangu down in Costa Mesa for party #2. Well...most of us got there a bit late though and the restaurant closed at 2 AM. Anyway...I'm not going to bore you with more details...I'll upload some pictures up when So and the girls find some time to send me the pictures they took with their digital cameras (yeah...I forgot to bring my camera with me and was too lazy to pick it up from my car).

After one long afternoon and night, and many many interesting conversations, we all went home. Crazy Darren is going south to TJ in a few hours...have fun yo...don't have too much fun though...you know what I mean. I'm not THAT crazy YET to join you in TJ.

Have a safe flight back to Japan, So. I'll be visiting you and Makoto in a few years...hehe.

Anyhow...just want to let everyone know if you don't know it yet...that it's the last weekend of the the summer season...weeee it's going to get cooler from now on...hopefully.

Hero yo

After about 2 nights (that’s at least a few hours) of practicing on the piano the Super Mario Brothers Underwater Theme song. I think I am finally able to play it proficiently now. It's a short tune but oh boy...it is hand-stretchingly difficult. Especially, my left hand aches pretty bad from an hour of playing the tune over and over again.

Here is the music sheet of the tune if anyone wants it (PDF). I can't believe that a tune from a video game that I used to play all the time when I was little sounds so cool on the piano...it almost sounds like a piece of classical music.

Click on the link below to continue reading...

The next song I’m going to try to play will probably be Pachelbel’s Canon due to Darren's request and because he's actually trying to play that song on the guitar at the moment too. Canon has always been my favorite song/tune of all time. Right now, I actually have 4 different renditions of it. I’m going to choose one and stick with it until I master it. One of the renditions has 8 pages total so that’s going to be FUN TIME!

Well anyway, got out of work late tonight, was going to go to the fair for once but it was a bit late and I want to save up my fair going and enjoyment for maybe another day when I’ll get to go with my significant-other…I’m just weird like that yo. Anyhow, I got Angelic and Michelle to buy me some deep fried Oreos from the LA County Fair since they were there for the whole afternoon.

Never try this at home yo…I drank 3 glasses of milk with the deep fried Oreos that were bought from the fair! (Talk about overdosing on Calcium...I think I have enough Calcium intakes that will last me through old ages).

Wow…holy ****…major stomach problem for the whole night. It was growling the whole time at the movie theatre. Yeah movie theatre…I actually went and saw “Hero” with some friends tonight…I haven’t seen a movie in the theater for such a long time.

Here is my quick review on the movie, even though I could’ve borrowed a copy of the movie from one of my coworkers but I just wanted to see it in the theater nonetheless. It was pretty good I think. A little confusing at times with all of the entangled storylines and at times, the movie goes from cool and beautiful scenery into too artsy fartsy with all of the pastel colors. Nevertheless, the fight scenes are breathtaking except for a few parts!

I remember when I was little, these kinds of Chinese movies used to flabbergast me immensely, but nowadays, some of the same special effects would just make me chuckle quietly to myself (YES I like to chuckle). It’s funny how it works, the older I am, the more boring I get!

Massacre

Hey Ced, I just realized you have commented on a picture of one of my earlier entries about my pinky finger placement when I'm holding drinking utensils. My answer for your question is that it's just a habit. I have no idea why...it has always been like that since I was little.

Well...anyway...going on with my title, I haven't told too many people of this story but here it goes. Everyone is having ants problem lately that I know of, which reminds me of the time when the pesky little ants decided to bust a D-Day in my room.

Click on the link below to see the rest of my wonderful story....

About a year ago around this time I believe, I had crumbs of sweet cake laying around on my desk and one day I started seeing a few ants here and there scouting around on my computer desk. I would kill every single one of them whenever I see one. I didn't think too much about it since they were just scouting. I did clean up the crumbs though. What I didn’t foresee and anticipate was the fact that they were getting ready for the BIG attack.

Damn ants are so persistent, one day I arrived home from school to find out that there was a huge trail all around a corner of my room and onto my desk (I forgot what they were going after). If I remember correctly, I had a pretty bad day coming home that night and I was infuriated by the trail of ants and the scene of millions of them crawling around the edges of my windows (kinda creepy).

Anyhow, I was really upset! I went down stair and grabbed a bottle of RAID and basically walked back up stair and started spraying the crap out of them (probably used up at least half of the whole can). Thinking about this still incenses me to this day!

After that, I sat right down on my chair and continued surfing the Internet in the slowly dissipating cloud of RAID (Damn, I was crazy, I did open the windows though and turned on the fan). I hope I didn’t mess up my lung too bad breathing in the RAID after-mist.

Anyway, the funny part is that all of the remnants of dead ants and the RAID are still left as they were on the edges of my windows to this day. And you know what? I haven't seen single ant that has "wandered" back into my room since then. I now called the edges of my windows the Hiroshima of ants. The reason I left it there is to remind the ants not to ever come back and try to take over my room again or else they’ll have to face the consequences again…ok…maybe that’s not entirely true….maybe I’m just too lazy to actually clean it up….but for a while that was my justification for not cleaning it up!

Time to get some sleep early for once. See ya all later.

One Week Left

Yes, only one week left until the end of my freedom as I know it, for at least the next 2 years.

Nothing much happened today, just the usual. Work, eat, sleep.

I've forgotten how strenuous it is on my arms and hands playing the piano, especially playing songs with many jumps between octaves. It's the only thing that keeps me occupied late at night when everyone in this time zone is asleep.

Well anyway, good night and morning.

Back again

Hello, I'm back now from my one day break from writing on this weblog. Didn't do much the past days or at least not anything post-worthy in my opinion.

UCI people: check out the new dorm complex, Vista del Campo, UCI just finished building (right next to Arroyo Vista), I think it's brand new, correct me if I'm wrong. Oh man...I wish I can afford to live there this coming year. Would be really nice and close to the campus!

Here is the link to the post on AnteaterForum.com...
CLICK ME!!!!!!!

Thanks to my amazingly short-term memory, I can only remember what happened in my life in the past 7.5 hours.

CLICK on link below to continue reading...

It was a busy night at work today, a lot of SmartCart setups, but luckily, we have hired a good amount of student workers in the last couple days to fortunately cover all of these pesky tasks! Hey I’ve just got an idea, maybe I need to take the digital camera to work and start snapping pictures of the people at work! That would be fun! (I can already foresee some of my coworkers getting ready to call in sick for the next couple of days, don't worry, I know where most of you live!)

Well, I met up with Francis tonight and we played some tennis matches until 9PM at one of the Claremont colleges’ courts. Man I haven't played tennis much lately, especially in the last 2 weeks, I'm getting so rusty! Either that or all of balls Francis brought are all flat! Where is the rich Parnoto with his millions of brand-spanking new tennis balls when we need him! Anyway, Parnoto, you better show up on Thursday and we'll play some "real" tennis, and don't bother giving me that "I'm moving this weekend, Son" excuse.

I just thought it was hilarious that we did manage to somehow "come upon" a brand new ball (just one) and for a whole match, we would only hit with that one single new ball. So whenever we accidentally hit this new ball across the fence or on to the adjacent courts, one of us would actually run it down rather than picking up one of the flat balls nearby.

For all those XBOX people or people with XBOX, Fable is finally out! If I had an XBOX, I would get the game but since I don't so it's a no-no. The screenshots seemed to be pretty cool looking. Francis and Brian (if you ever get you XBOX fixed), if you guys ever decide to get it, let me know...I'll be right over...hehe.

Good night world!

ShoutBox!!!

I spent most of the night today incorporating a new feature to my current website. It's the magnificent SHOUTBOX that you can see on the right column. Now instead of NOT leaving comments on my random posts, you as one of my very few visitors can leave me a shout! I would appreciate it a lot!

It will make me feel like I’m not writing all these random stuff for nothing! You can anonymously leave a shout too if you would like…but don’t leave anything nasty or negative because I will get you…or try to get you! So go write something to the right of this and press POST!

CLICK on the link below to continue reading...

I’m kind of bored tonight with everyone going to sleep so early these days! I feel like popping in my body some sleeping pills and let them knock me out until morning comes. It’s been a long time since I'm actually excited about a video game coming out besides World of Warcraft which Blizzard's slowly developing and is due to be released within this century, I hope!

Anyhow, the game that I’m actually looking forward on owning is Def Jam: Fight for NY that is coming out in about 7 days! This game will feature 40 or so rappers/hiphop artists street fighting in 22 interactive venues utilizing 5 different styles of fighting! You'll get to create your own fighter too! I think I'll create a fighter combining martial arts and submission fighting to kick some asses! The coolest rappers, Warren G (REGULATOR!!!), Slick Rick, and Snoop D O double G are going to be in the game too, they are awesome.

I think EA SPORTS BIG makes the greatest sport games for console. I love their NBA Street and NFL Street series. I can't wait until NBA Street vol. 3 comes out when next year rolls around!

Day Earlier today, I finally got around to uploading the last day of the Crazy Adventure Series labeled as 5 (Click on the link to go straight to the gallery of Day 5, Darren will title these pictures as soon as he finished with his schoolwork). Most of the pictures were taken over at Nick’s BBQ and in his backyard swimming pool. I couldn’t make it to the first half of it due to a family matter I had to attend (if you read the last week post, you would know what I’m talking about). I did make it to the BBQ later in the day though. It was fun anyhow.

I still have one more set I need to upload of Joe’s BBQ over at his house in Irvine that I attended last Friday night. I shall get on it as soon as I find some time out of my not-so-busy day!

Alright I’m out yo! Good night world. By the way, let me know how you like the shoutbox on the right…you better leave me a shout! Pleeeeezee!

ZZZZzzzZZZ

So tired...even though I woke up around noon today all sweaty because of the damn humid heat, I only got about 5.37 hours of sleep.

Spent the whole day with my high school friends. We were going to go get some fish tacos but they bailed out of me so we ended eating at some place called Everest. I ordered fishs and chips. It was alright only a bit greasy. I could've made my own fish tacos if I had some tortilla!

Click on the link below to continue reading...

Dropped by the mall for a bit and bought some random stuff again and a ring! Ok...maybe not...I can't afford that kind of stuff. We then went back to Omar's house and sat around in the heat until Matt came and then we decided to go to Chili's for dinner. Took a bunch of random pictures throughout the night.

We donated a couple of dollars to the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for fighting childhood cancer so the waitress gave us some coloring chili's papers. It was fun...Anyways Omar won the contest decided by our wonderful waitress, who was really nice!

After dinner, Angelic decided to drive us around for a while. We visited the tennis court in Claremont. I played a few rounds with Francis, Andrew and Kent who happened to be playing Tennis there at that time (actually they called me before dinner and I told them I would try to stop by).

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Left to Right: Omar's, Matt's, and Son's (my name in chinese). Don't you think my is the coolest, it's a bit "too" green. Hehe. Hey it has definition!!! I'm going back to Chili's next week, and they better have my super green chili hanging on one of their walls!

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Then Omar, Kim, Angelic and I left for a drive around the La Verne/Claremont area up near Mt. Baldy. We hit some dead ends every now and then. We had a pretty nice view of the city too! And that's it for my night.

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Hey Devin, I found a perfect job for you man. It's better than being a gigalo I think...Send in your resume to this place! =] Forget about being a counselor when you can become a waitstaff! for this place!

AHHHH!!!! I LOST IT!

AHHHH!!! So frustrated and mad! I just realized I overwrote like around 40 something pictures that was taken around 2:00-4:00 AM on last Sunday Night!

Moreover, I lost completely all of the pictures at the Gaslamp Quarter, the most happening place in San Diego! I guess it's not meant to be...now nobody will ever know what happened down there...I did manage to salvage some of the later pictures when we snuck into the Hyatt hotel.

Click on link below to continue reading...

I did lose a few really cool night sky view pictures of San Diego when we were up on the 35th floor of the Hyatt Hotel...oh man oh man....sooooo sad.

Sorry Mika, I now only have 1 picture of your front and 2 of your back and I was responsible for taking random pictures too. =[ DOH!

I lost all of the pictures of Devin's friends up north too...I don't think they would care too much for it but it's like a lost memory to me! So everything after Dave and Buster's in SD is lost now! Damn, a hard lesson learned about backing up pictures I have taken.

Anyway, I went to Joe's BBQ tonight...it was pretty laid back. Just the four of us with a few huge racks of rib! So yummy...I ate so much too. Joe's wife, Tiffany got home a bit later and some of us tried karaoke'ing for a while before we all split. I later visited Darren near UCI and had some of his midnight spaghetti with his roommate, Yoichiro. We had some interesting conversations about mail-order-brides...hehe. Then I got home and started screaming after realizing that I lost some good pictures in San Diego!!!! Then I started writing this entry and screamed more afterward!

Anyhow, Day 4 of the Crazy Adventure Series is now uploaded, but don't expect to see any pictures from the Gaslamp Quarter =*[

I'm out yo!

**The reason why I'm so sad, is because we worked so hard to get to the top of the Hyatt Hotel in the middle of the night not knowing when we might get kicked out. It was like a maze trying to switch elevators to get to the very top!!! Soooo sad.

By the way, thanks Darren for helping me with making up titles for the Day 4 Series since I'm so sad to even try to make up funny titles for now. Also, I still have to resize and upload the Day 5 Series and some more pictures I took tonight.

This is how sad I am! Proceed to kick self in head! Let me draw some tears on my eyes and a biggo bruise on my forehead! PHOTOSHOP TIME!

Updates for you

Just me drinking water at Century Club, I was and always will be a DD and no Devin, DD is not designated drinker...

Click on the below link to continue reading this....

Anyhow, update: Darren finally got the spare key from San Diego, this time it's the correct key. With the help of Melanie, he also got his car back from the storage in LA for almost a whole week. Have fun driving around with your new old car! Now you don't have any excuses to get a ride from miss Jennifer any more. ;o]

As for my friend in Sacramento, Devin, good luck finding a job up there. You should really move down here back to Irvine where there are more companies popping up everyday than the number of rabbits in my backyard!! ...ok...it's not that great of an analogy. Anyway, he's going to be trying out for his new job soon...to become a male gigolo...so everyone wish him good luck.

My plan today was to go down to UCI to turn in some paper work before school starts (insurance and loans stuff). And probably I will end up driving back to La Verne to work a bit. Later on the day, I will be heading down to Irvine again for a BBQ at Joe's place with Omar, Angelic, Kim and possibly Matt. It's going to be a long driving day I can forsee.

Last night, I uploaded the 3rd set of the Crazy Adventure Series, check it out...GALLERY. Good night world!

Mixing it yo!
Another picture out of the back of the car of LAX!

Another Chapter has been Recorded in my Book of Life

Yup…another chapter in my life has officially ended. Today, for the past 4 years, was a special day but unfortunately, no more it shall be from here on. And yes I will leave it at that. Say no more I will...

Last night, I was catching up on some errands that needed to be done before grad school starts in about 15 days. I had to take an online entrance interview quiz about loans and the master promissory note. The session made me read 3-4 pages full of information about loans and paybacks information. In the very end, they gave me a 12 questions quiz based on the reading and I inferred that I have to pass this quiz in order to have my loans dispersed to my account. Anyhow, these people need to protect their files better. I’m not going to go into detail about what happened or what I did, but all you have to know is that I didn’t miss a single question. Same goes for that sexual harassment quiz I had to take at work! *shake head* ;o]

Anyway, grad school at UCI will slaughter and do some 'total dominations' on me for the next 2 years, I just know it!

I like to travel!

I just found out from overhearing my parents talking about one of my close cousins in Vietnam and apparently he’s big gang leader in Saigon or if you are a commi-rat, it’s Ho Chi Minh City.

I thought that was pretty cool. I have known him well for the early part of my life while I was growing up in Vietnam. Never have I thought that he’s a gang leader due to his innocent look. I remember the last time I visited Vietnam (about 7-9 years ago), he used to rent us movies late at night when my brother and I were bored. And I remember he used to get yelled by my dad/his uncle all the time for doing stupid stuff. So I guess whenever I want to visit Vietnam again, I’m sure he will take me out and show me the “crazy side” of Saigon…or not… =]

And Parnoto, I’ll be contacting you in the next 5 years whenever you are back in Indonesia or Malaysia or wherever the heck you are from…yes...i know where you are from....hahaha....Just remember that you promised to take me out and show me around your rich ass cribs whenever I visit!

I had some more free time tonight, in between filling out the master promissory note for UCI, to upload the second set of pictures of my crazy adventure last weekend. So if you have some free time, feel free to browse through my gallery at http://gallery.phuson.com.

Drunk Darren right before he fell to his DEATH skateboarding!!!...Not really…but he ran away in tear though!
The last two of the Chieu Chow kind (one of the many Chinese dialects) in the world!!!...ok maybe not the whole world, but maybe just at UCI.
Damn Devin, wipe off that smile man. It seems like you had a little bit too much fun ‘relieving’ yourself in the women bathroom.
Experiment #1: sour cream, beans, a spinach leaf, lemon, salsa, guacamole, nonfat milk, punch, orange soda, rice, cookie and cream ice cream, and vodka. Woohoo, crazy Melvin actually ate that…whatever it’s called…and then he left for the bathroom right afterward.
Party on!

The Epilogue of a Chapter in My Life

Life works its mysterious ways everyday…Another chapter in my life has slowly but surely come to an end. It was good while it lasted. For the past few days, I feel as though I’m writing the last couple of sentences of the epilogue in this chapter.

What a chapter it has been. I won't ever forget this remarkable chapter, it has its ups and downs, its exciting days, happy days, sad days, worry days, anxious days, hilarious days, romantic days, idealistic days, and some unmistakably crappy days. The pages in this chapter have taught me many lessons in life and have given me many great experiences to build upon.

My view on life has been broadened widely in the past month in ways that I would never have imagined. In my humble opinion, in life, there are always someone that are better than you and there will always be someone that are worst than you. So when you think life is treating you like crap, just remember that it could be worse……or better (but I wouldn’t recommend the latter, because it will only make you feel worse….hehe).

On a funny note, this weekend, I have finally found someone that freaking drives more than I can ever drive and that’s Devin. I have told him that he has received my driver of the year award for the amount of driving he has done in the past 5 days while he’s down here in Southern California. When I think I’m crazy, all I have to do is talk to Darren, he’s just plainly insane…this guy goes swimming at 2 in the morning just to loosen up his muscles. And when I think that I have spent too much money on random stuff, Omar will beat me with his 700+ dollars that he lost in Las Vegas this past weekend!

Ummm…or all of this could just mean that I have crazy friends… =]

I finally got home tonight early for the very first time since 5 days ago. I had plenty of time, after a round of UT2004 with Pete, to upload some pictures onto my gallery. I spent about 3 hours organizing, resizing, uploading, and labeling the 100+ pictures that were taken on the first day of my crazy adventure (9.2.2004). You can get to it by clicking on the link on the top menu to my GALLERY. As for the rest of the pictures (300+), I will upload it in the days to come whenever I get some free time. So Enjoy!

Left to Right: Darren, me, Lisa, and Devin

P.S. – Darren, remember to ask Chendal to send us the pictures that she took with her digital camera at the Dim Sum place, because I have no pictures of that part of the day.

Funny sign! I wonder what the sign is implying…hehe

A far far away village is calling for its idiot! And Darren is trying to answer the call using TWO cell-phones.

I’m starting to write the prologue to the next chapter in my life as we speak…so stay tuned. Good night world. Have a good day!

Note to self: Write it down the next time I have a great idea on what to write on my journal, because sitting here at 5 in the morning trying to remember what to write is difficult when I’m half asleep.

Pheww...Life is so Unpredictable and Crazy

Oh man...I just got home again for the 5th night in a row after 4 AM. Actually to be exact, I barely arrived at my house around 4:50 AM. I'll tell you something, I can write a damn book about what happened the past 5 days. So many twists and turns...

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO CONTINUE READING...

Well today or yesterday the 6th of September marked the 100th day after my grandma in Vietnam passed away. My parents held a small anniversary remembrance at my house, my uncles and aunt (yes only one) came by for a while and ate. My cousins and my brother, who is in Berkeley, couldn’t make it. Afterward, I stayed at home for a while today and took a nap until 4 PM.

Devin and Darren, who stayed over for the night again after our long trip to San Diego the night before, left for Northridge to Nick’s BBQ earlier in the morning after their short sleep (I have no clue how they can do it, so extreme for even me!)

After my nap this afternoon, I took off for Northridge to Nick’s BBQ also. I have never been to Northridge before even though after today, I have realized how close it is to where I live. I have always thought that Northridge was far away or at least 2 hours away. Anyhow, I arrived a bit late to the BBQ and didn’t get a chance to swim. After the swim, everyone gathered in the living room playing, “What’s in my world?” and “Black Magic” and a few other random games.

Furthermore, after staying there for a while, I took Darren Chen down to Los Angeles to pick up his car with his spare key that we picked up the night before in San Diego. This was around 9 PM, and I thought at that moment my night was over already so early for once, and I can go home and play some UT2004!

BOY, SO WRONG I WAS! After waiting for Darren outside of this towing storage place for at least 15 minutes. He walked out and told me how sorry he was. Before I could tell him not to worry about it….he proceeded to tell me that his parents gave him the wrong key to the car! We then sat there and cried for half an hour! Ok…maybe not...but Darren was pretty pissed about it because now we have to figure out how to get the “right” key up to Irvine and taking another trip down to San Diego for the third time in the past 4 days is just crazy!

We all went back to Darren’s apartment in Irvine to discuss more about what we were going to do, right after eating the rest of the left-over from the Dim Sum restaurant 2 days ago…or is it 3 days? Who knows anymore….I think I have lost track of time altogether.

What we figured out while we were eating was that it will probably take us at least 5 hours give and take of driving to get everything done by tonight.

Irvine->SD (1 hour)
SD->Irvine (1 hour)
Irvine->Los Angeles (40 minutes)
Los Angeles->Irvine (40 minutes)
Irvine->Chino Hills (1 hour)

After much thought, I figured that that 5 hours could be spent doing something else better! I decided to help Darren out by pitching in some money to either get a locksmith, replacement key or to pay for the storage for his car in LA. So I gave him 50 bucks and told him that I rather give him 50 bucks and work 5 hours at work to earn it back than to be driving or be in the car for the next 5 hours! Hehe

Then I also suggested him to have his key be sent by snail mail up to Irvine and it should arrive in Irvine in a day at most and in the meantime, the extra days at the storage are only 28 dollars each, so it wasn’t too bad of a deal.

After further discussion and agreement, Devin, Darren and I headed out to the swimming pool/Jacuzzi area in the middle of the apartments complex just to chill and also to let Darren’s roommate, Yoichiro, do his homework quietly inside of the apartment. We started the Jacuzzi but only soaked our feet while we examined and discussed about life in general and the twisted paths it throws at us.

It has always been in the talk that we will either take a trip to Japan or Europe maybe in the next year or two. Then Darren and Devin brought up the JET program that Devin applied for in the past year but didn’t get accepted. The JET program is basically a national program for college students who want to travel to Japan to teach English to young children for a year with salary and fees paid. Well, I think that meeting Mika (who was Yoichiro's coworker in Japan, came over here for her vacation) was part of inspiration to visit Japan.

Another reason is that I love the idea of traveling to Japan for free and learn more about the Japanese’s culture and language while teaching their children English. It sounds like a great idea! But too bad I’m going to have to stick it through the next two years at least, until I’m done with my Master graduate program, before I can do anything else. I’m thinking maybe I will start applying at the end of next year for it and will get the result back after my graduate program. It will be an extremely cool thing to do right after my Master program and maybe it will help me pay for my loans, or at least just a bit of it.

We had some pretty damn interesting and funny conversations at the Jacuzzi area, wished I had a voice recorder at the time. We then headed back to the apartment around 2 AM; Devin took a nap, while Darren and I watched some downloaded Chappelle's Show and laughed our butts off.

Well anyways, that’s it for my long 5 days party (with some naps in between) or so it felt like! As I’m typing this right now at 7 AM in the morning, Devin, who only had about 2 hours of sleep, is currently driving back up north to Sacramento (insane mofo).

Thanks for coming down here dude, hahaha, if you weren’t down here, I think I would have spent the past 5 nights sitting on my butt doing just about nothing after playing UT2004 (of course). And Darren or “The Last of the ChowJo,” thanks for taking some time off your schoolwork and the pursuit of your coworker, Jennifer, to come along and hang out with us….hahahah…this is probably the second time I distracted you from school and ruined your GPA. Have fun in your taxi ride to work this morning.

Pete, if you are reading this, let Cedric know that I won’t be in to work for a while after a much needed sleep. Good night or morning world. Ok I’m going literally going to lie down on my bed and pass out right now.

Oh Man...

It's 6 AM and I just barely got back from Irvine after being in San Diego for 3 hours.

Here we go again, short version of what happened for now because I should really go to sleep soon.

Went to Dave and Buster's around 8 at the Irvine Spectrum and had dinner there. Then we took off to San Diego and drop by Darren's house to pick up the spare key for his car (which is currently in the triple A's storage in LA). Then we met with some friends (most came down from Sacramento) at another Dave and Buster's down in San Diego. Played some video games until the place closed at 2 AM.

We then headed out to the "Gas Lamp" area near downtown San Diego where all the clubs and parties were happening. It was nice to see that there was still a lot of people on the street and at the local clubs at this time of day. We then walked around the area sightseeing since the clubs were all closing by the time we got there.

Later on as the other group of people left to go to gamble at some casinos, Darren, Devin, Yoishiro, Mika and I ventured (or sneaked) into the Hyatt hotel in the middle of the night and tried to go up to the very top of the hotel at its 40th level to take some pictures, but too bad the very top level was closed so we had to settle for the 35th level pictures. Also for the first time, I noticed that there wasn't a 13th floor! Never knew that before.

Then we went to Ralphs to get some soda and water before we headed back to Irvine. Driving while the sun rises is kinda cool and mysterious in a way.

It was a cool night, and like it has been for the past 4 days, once I have more time, I will write more about what happened in greater details (the goods and bads and the funnies).

I just counted the number of pictures on the digital camera and so far, we have taken about 460 pictures total (including some bad ones). So that's going to take me a while to resize and upload. So hang on!

By the way, the quote of the day of which I heard randomly on the street of the most happening place in San Diego is "If she can dance then she can't f*** "....I guess I got to find out how true this is.... ;)

As always, good night world.

So BLURRY!!!

Wow, this whole weekend so far has been a blur! And yet I didn't even drink or did anything that has been distorting my mind (well...besides not sleeping enough according to my standard if you want to count that).

Well…I just got back around 5 AM. Woah...what a day! Well in short (because I’m really tired and need to get some sleep), woke up after about 5 hours of sleep and went to Dim Sum (mental note to self, pictures needed to be acquired from one of the girls because I forgot to bring the camera). Got home, took a nap and then headed out to toward Los Angeles.

Went to LAX with Devin to take Lisa to Air Canada so she fly back home after the whole bomb scared earlier today at LAX of some battery explosion in a Japanese tourist’s luggage. LAX was back up and running pretty smoothly even after what happened earlier.

We then headed up to Century City to meet up with Darren and David (UCI friends) at the Century Club. We, well at least, I, got in free because we were on the guest list (well it was more complicated than that but that will be saved for later when I have more time). Anyway, to be brief, I sat there for the first hour and danced most of the night until 2 AM, drank 3 glasses of FREE water!

Here was when the craziness started to escalate (not that it hasn't before this) Darren (who had probably the worse night possible, poor guy) realized that he has dropped the key to his car somewhere on the dance floor. We searched and searched more for it for the ending 30 minutes and couldn’t find it anywhere nor at the lost and found neither. Then…we figured it might be ok to just go home and wait until he gets his spare key and come back for the car.

The story wouldn’t be interesting if there isn’t any twist to it…right?

Here are the bad and good news….The bad news (again) was that Darren parked his car in some random private valet parking nearby and we only had until 4 AM to get his car out of the vicinity or else it would be impounded and that would be very costly.

The good news was, Melanie, who had a triple-A’s plus membership, called in to get the car towed away for the time being into a storage area until Darren can come back with a spare key. Everyone had a drink, so I was the designated driver being that I drank only water for the whole night! So I ended up driving around the Century City, sightseeing (if you want to call it that) the area for about 2 hours while Melanie was inquiring about the towing.

Anyhow, after the car was towed away safely, I had to drive Melanie back to her house and went back home with Devin and Darren. They are spending the night over at my house and tomorrow, we might have to go down to San Diego again to get the spare key!

Wow…what a weekend and I damn sure know that it hasn’t ended yet! It has all been a blur like Darren said. However, all this are just the very gist of what happened. I will go into further interesting details when I have the time which is probably going to be at least after this weekend. And upload the pictures like I promised. =(

By the way, at the Century Club, I bumped into Jerry and John, (my brother’s high school friends) with their friends, while I was on the cell phone near the entrance, and they now think that I’m a party animal because I was there and was on the guest list! Crazy!

Well…time to sleep…good night world.

Cold Night in the Far Far Away Land

Got back from Irvine just a bit ago. I went to a BBQ at a friend’s place in Arroya Vista, a nice dormitory complex that was built a year or two ago. I’m pretty dang tired in the past few days from being on the road and my 4.324295234234e-21 hours of sleep each night.

So the above picture is just a preview of a throng of random pictures that I will upload once I get some free time this weekend (and of course, after I went through them and discard the crappy ones—haha that means that I will only have about 5 decent pictures to upload).

For some reason, today is a pretty depressing day for me, even though I had fun going out to see old friends again. I feel as if I am once again lost in the dark forest of life and am in need of that one guiding light that will lead me out of this mess. I didn’t think that this dark forest of life is that thick! I guess I just have to keep walking and hope that I will find the way out soon enough.

I think this sadness is due to my half-sick (I feel sick but am not totally sick) nose’s sensory. I don’t know if it’s just only me or not but whenever I get sick (or close to being sick), everything starts to smell in a particular way. And this particular scent of things reminds me of just about every sad thing in my life! I really doubt anyone can understand what I wrote in this paragraph but anyways, I’m half awake right now. I think this is caused due to the reason that I usually get sick when it’s cold outside and whenever it’s cold outside means it’s the winter time and whenever it’s the winter time, I usually get sad….make sense?

While at the BBQ tonight, we were sitting around just relaxing and watched a pretty interesting movie called “City of God.” The movie basically described about life in the “hood” in a particular “ghetto” part of Brazil. I didn’t know life was that crazy and scary according to the movie down south. Anyway, the movie was really complicated at times, one would be lost if he/she hasn’t been following the many intertwined stories within the movie closely. Even though I followed movie as close as I could, I don’t think I have grasped every detail of the movie entirely.

Ok, that’s it for the night; I’m going to head to bed. It’s kind of hard to think this late to write more. I hope I made sense. I promise to write more about the past two days when I get a chance. So good night and good day to the 3 people out there that actually visit my journal daily, appreciate it!

Craziness! Only 20 days left until grad school! I'm looking forward to it! But then I'm not really looking forward to the work and readings and the tough classes!

Pretty Clouds

I just got back from UCI about an hour ago at around 4:30 AM. Man, I am worn out!

I had a great time today with some of my old UCI friends. We went and visit one of my friends' neices and family down in San Diego today. The drive was pretty long but it's all good. Took a bunch of random pictures with the borrowed camera from work and my super duper 512 MB Compact Flash card.

At first, taking pictures at a mediocre resolution, I had over 800 slots of picture. I then realized that it's not humanly possible to take that many "random" pictures in one night, so I raised the resolution to high and still had about 400 something slots of picture to take. Anyhow, I did my very best to take as many random pictures of places as possible.

Later on today, Friday, I will try to borrow a card reader from work to download all these pictures onto my computer so I can upload it to my gallery, then everyone can see where I was!

I ate so much chinese food today, I think I have gained back all the weight I've lost in the past few weeks. So much seafood and greasy peking ducks!

The clouds were pretty in a mysterious way tonight. They moved so quickly throughout the sky making the moon look like as if it was playing peeky boo with those who were looking at it. I had a few pictures of the clouds to show you once I get a chance to upload it.

That's it for me tonight or early morning, I'm out! So tired and sleepy and worn out.

By the way, I have newly established a "target" in UCIrvine that I have to achieved! Those who know me might know what it is.

Good day and good night/morning/noon/afternoon.

UCIrvine then onto San Diego

I'm going to be down in Irvine today right next to UCI to visit some old friends from UCI. We are probably going to head down south to San Diego hopefully if we get the chance. The last time I was down in San Diego was to go to Sea World when I was about 13 or 14 years old with my aunts and cousins.

At the moment, we don't really know what we are going to do once we are there, but I guess we will see. I'm going to take a digital camera with me, so expect a ton of random pictures when I come back.

I took my Sniper Rifle over to Omar's house last night and was shooting some paper target across the hallway. We also had a blast shooting action figures off of the target bag that Omar has. For plastic pellets, they hit pretty hard, leaving dimple marks off of a piece of wood we were targeting. It took quite a while for me to adjust my scope and hopup nicely for the distance we were shooting.

Alright, that's going to be it for tonight, expect a big gallery update in the next day or two. That reminded me, I got to go charge the camera up! Good night! And good day!

By the way, if you haven't noticed my upgraded header on the top of this page by now, then maybe it's time for you to notice it...? or not...well leave me a comment on how you like or dislike it...thanks!

First of September, the Month of Memories

Today is one of those slow nights...I had some free time to work on my website a bit more after a few rounds of DM in UT2004 with my coworkers and bosses.

If you can't see the differences on this website you are viewing right now, then you must not have Macromedia Flash Player installed on your computer…OR this is your first time here.

Anyhow, here’s an update on yesterday rifle battery trial. Fortunately, the battery is still rechargeable and the rifle seems to be shooting the plastic pellets as well as it did 2 years ago. I’m going to try shooting some paper targets later.

Moreover, I borrowed a camera (Canon PowerShot G2) from work today so I can take some pictures when I go out this weekend. Using my newly bought 512 MB Compact Flash card, I have about 860 empty slots of picture to take, and that’s a lot!!!

Yesterday (8/31) is my friend, Omar’s birthday, so happy birthday man (if you ever come across this website). A biggo 23, damn we are getting too old now! Time flies by too fast some time and too slow in others.

By the way, my friend Devin, who hosted me when I was up in Northern California three weeks ago, is driving down here tomorrow to visit his extended family. So I’ll probably be down at UCI with Devin in the next couple days to visit some old buddies and roommates that are still living in Irvine. It’s been quite a long time since I saw both Devin and Darren (my old roommate) at the same time.

*Yawn…I’m going to try to get some sleep a bit earlier tonight than usual, so no vocab words tonight. In the next few days, I’m going to try to add more cool cosmetic features to this site, so check back later!