We're Back!

Ok, we didn't just get back, but I've finally had time to post. We had a great honeymoon in Hawaii on the island of Kauai and then the Big Island. If you want to see pics from our trip to Hawaii, click here.

When we got back, we went to Disneyland. Contrary to what you may have heard in our wedding ceremony, I am able to best my wife at some things...



This picture looks like such a pose, but this is actually how we look when we play. I get way into things and my mouth always hangs open. I can only sum up J's look as "granny shooter", haha. The ride broke down at one point while we were on it, so we were just sitting there racking up points. But for some reason, I only got about 10,000 more points than the previous time. So much for getting a million points.

I can't believe it's time already. It sure went by fast. I'll be quite busy the next couple days and after that I'll be quite incommunicado. Don't expect any updates here for a few weeks. Next time I post, I should have some pictures.

Celebrity "Look-Alike"

I've seen a few of these now and I can't help but be very critical of it. I think a more accurate description of this is that it finds similar expressions you have with celebrities. I figure this because every picture I had tried is of me, but I get different celebrities every time. So when it said I looked Sydney Poitier and Kareem Abdul Jabbar, that was the last straw. So I'll debut the one that vents my frustration.



Looking at all my results (the complete list is not shown here), I would say I have the closest resemblance to people who have been dead for a 100 years. I must have got like 5 or 6 of those. After that, the best I can do is a 64% resemblance to people I've never heard of. The term "celebrity" is used very loosely here, I think. Alot of people think I look like Jim Carrey, mainly cuz all us tall, lanky, white guys look alike. Well, he only came up as a match with me once, and I couldn't repeat it, even with the same picture.

I tried one more experiment and that was to use a celebrity's picture and see if it could match it to the same celebrity. The subject of my test was Harrison Ford. He got a 90% match to himself. I guess this thing isn't a total waste.

Some Random Thoughts

Here are 3 random thoughts for you to chew on. Your point of view on any of these topics is encouraged. I only put 3 cuz it was getting long and I currently can't remember the rest.

1. Is the handicap stall in the bathroom strictly for handicapped people? Or can anyone use it if that's the only one available? Most public bathrooms aren't that big, but every one must have a handicapped accessable stall. I don't have a problem with that. But many public bathrooms (like the ones at my work) have two regular stalls and one handicapped stall. But it's doubtful that 33% of the workforce at my company are handicapped. Yet it also seems unfair that a handicapped person has to wait for a specific stall while other people can easily choose any other. I also find that my conscience is less bothered with using the handicapped urinal. Hmm, maybe this is too much information...

2. I don't get personalized license plates. Many times I see them and I don't even know what they mean because they are related to some inside joke like "WE 54". What on earth does that mean? Other times they describe the owner as they feel they should be described but may not necessarily be true like "RASCAL" or "SLY ONE" or "HOT MAMA" or something. Yeah, you'd like to think that wouldn't you? One time I saw one that said "SEE YA" as if it were to convince me they were a fast driver or something. Yeah, so fast I'm stuck behind them for 10 minutes as I'm waiting for an opportunity to pass them. Maybe "SEE YA" means what is said as they are being passed. The fact that it costs like $50/yr to have this makes this even more absurd. A couple weeks ago, I saw quite possibly the first worthy personalized plate...YUBH8N4 (Why you be hatin' for?), haha! Perhaps that was targeted towards people like me who don't understand personalized plates. Admonishment from a license plate, haha.

3. Being engaged for the past 7 months or so, I've noticed a few things about being engaged, but today I just want to talk about the term "fiance/fiancee". I have a few beefs with this term. First, it's a French word. Why is there not an English word for this term? I feel all snobby when I say "Have you met my fiancee?" It's like saying "bon appetit" every time you eat. That's just silly. Another thing is this term often gives you more information about yourself to a stranger than you would care to give. For example, you waiting for your fiancee at a store let's say. Someone comes up to you and asks if you've been helped. You reply with, "no, I'm just waiting for my fiancee". So now you've just told this random person you're getting married soon. It's like too much information for such a simple question. But you can't say, "I'm waiting for someone/my girlfriend" because that would demean the position of a fiancee. Last of all, fiancee has an accent mark above one of the e's which is a real pain to put into type and I don't really have the patience to look for it, haha. One last thing is the spelling. I've seen it with one or two e's. I figured it meant one was for the male and the other for the female although I've seen both spellings for the female. An 8 month engagement was not long enough to get to the bottom of this. I'm looking forward to using the term "wife".

Whoa...

Yeah, I know that's what you said when you saw this. It looks really different and probably to most of you, it looks alot better (especially for my mom, haha). I finally switched to the new beta Blogger and I am happy with the changes to the admin side of this thing. It's alot easier to modify my blog now. Not sure I'm going to keep this look, but until I fix it, this is what it will be. For a beta with so many changes, I'm still disappointed in the lack of creativity in the template options.

Have You Seen My Phone?

I lost my phone today. It was only a couple years ago that I wondered why people even needed cell phones. Now I feel so lost without it. How will people get in contact with me at any random time anywhere? So this is how I lost it. I was driving up to my future new place since the future in-laws were all coming over to check out the new place. It was raining cats and dogs which was kind of unusual. Since our guests were using my parking space, I had to find one on the street. I made a quick call to J to let her know that I'm there, but I'm waiting for a lull in the downpour since I didn't bring my umbrella. (Who would have thought, right?) So as I was on the phone, the rain lulled a bit and abruptly ended my call and bolted for the apartment (which was 2 blocks away). There I discovered that all the streets were flooded so I had to take these bounding leaps from the sidewalk to the middle of the street to avoid the rushing river that used to be called a street.

My future brother-in-law met me near the end with an umbrella. We went inside briefly and then left for dinner. That's when I noticed that I didn't have my phone. I figured it was in the car. Later after the guests left, I went to go move my car to the garage and it wasn't in the car. Too bad I leave my phone on vibrate all the time (I'm really annoyed by cell phone ring tones. If it's in your pocket, why you need to hear it ring anyway? Ok that's just me maybe.) The vibrate is pretty loud so I should have heard it by calling it in the apartment or the car. Not in either place. That means I lost it on the run in between. So we looked in the dark for a bit and called and listened for a vibration sound but no luck. When I call it, my phone rings 5 times before the voice mail picks up which means that my phone is still on and working wherever it is. I'll take one more look in the daylight tomorrow, but I think it's gone for good. I must have lost it on one of those bounding leaps. I had 150 contacts in my phone. I had to do some housekeeping there anyway, but I didn't really want to start from scratch.

I didn't like my phone that much anyway. It was a Samsung and I've pretty much determined that the developers at Samsung are retarded for many reasons. The main one being they took the LCD display off the outside of the flip phone so you have to flip it open to see who is calling. It's especially dumb since the previous Samsung phone I had did have this feature. Also silent mode is not silent. Sure if it rings it is silent, but it still plays an annoying beep if someone leaves a voice mail. Hello! Silent means no noise!

3 Weeks To Go

It's hard to believe I only have 3 weeks of the single life left. It doesn't feel like it was that long ago I proposed to J. I wrote "November come quickly" at the top of this blog back then and it sure did. It's also hard to believe that we have two more weddings to go to before ours. Both of these couples got engaged after us and will be married before us. Crazy. I think 8 months is a good pace though. It hasn't been that stressful and even if the next couple weeks are really stressful, it's still worth it to do the 8 months. It also helps to have a fiancee that has it all together when it comes to planning.

18 Years Ago Today...

My brother, Micah, was born. I'll never forget that day cuz it was the first day of school. I was in 8th grade. It was 3rd period Photography class and I got called to the office. My teacher looked confused. I looked confused. I thought it was pretty early in the school year for getting in trouble. I think my teacher thought so too. So I went there and I see my best friend's mom there. She tells me my mom is in labor and she's taking me to the hospital. Duh, I should have realized it since my mom was like 3 weeks late at that point or something. So I had to go back to class and get my books. I tell my teacher that I have to go cuz my mom is in labor. After that day, everybody at school thought I was Mormon. Micah was the largest baby I had ever seen at 11 pounds. He looked like a sumo compared to all the other babies in the nursery.

He's still the funniest kid I know, but I guess technically he's an adult now. Happy Birthday, bud!

The Black Pearl

I heard a hot tip that they were filming some of the third Pirates of the Carribean in Redondo Beach. Rumor had it that the Black Pearl was there. So I went to go check it out. The rumors were true...

Gaze upon its pearly blackness! (I wish the sails were out.)



It was also a good chance to test my camera's ability to take night shots. Here it is at the original lighting.



Behold!



BEHOLD!!!



Yeah, I know that last one isn't that great, but I wanted to see how bright I could get it. The first pic is probably the best for keeping the mystery alive except for that big open door on the side. The brighter pics show more detail but then it definitely looks like a prop. I'll stick by my original claim that the best part about the movie making process is watching them.

Update on the Apartment Hunting

Ok, this is long overdue because we found one like a day or two after the last post. It's definitely one of the better ones we saw. We get our two parking spaces and alot more space than I ever expected. J loves it and that's all that matters to me. You're probably wondering if it's luxurious and my answer to that is of course it is!

Other Stuff

We went to like our 6th wedding for 2006 to see my friends from Lighthouse, Stevanus and Shinyi, tie the knot. We have 3 more weddings to go to (that I know of for sure) before J and I tie the knot. I think we're the final cap-off for 2006. Since we got engaged, we know 4 couples that got engaged after us and will be married before us. I think the 8 month engagement was a pretty good pace for us. The planning hasn't been that stressful at all (not counting the first couple weeks).

Anyways, back to the wedding...here are some pics we took while at the reception in downtown L.A.

This pic is me and my buddy, Brian. There are two things you may find unusual about this picture: 1) I am the short one in this picture and 2) the other guy is Asian. For those of you reading who don't know how tall I am and may need a frame of reference, I am 6'2" (but the shoes I wore that day make me 6'3"). Brian is 6'11". Now I know how all those people in college felt who told me their neck gets sore when they talk to me for too long. Brian is easily the only guy I look up to at Lighthouse, haha. Thanks for indulging me for this picture, Brian.




















We saw this walking around the block near the reception. It just begged for a photo op. Chinatownland??? It's a good thing that sign was protected by a fence. Otherwise, someone could steal such a valuable piece of Chinatown tourism.















This was after we came back from the gas station for a quick snack in their convenience store. The cashier called out my tie and gave me props. That was a surreal moment. I don't think I ever got a compliment from a gas station attendant especially on how I was dressed. I said thanks, but I really must give all the credit to J, my fashion consultant. Pretty much every time I look good is due to J and every time I look bad is cuz of me. ;p Well, except for that one time J gave me that haircut, haha. Sorry J.



Of course I'd still let her try again.

Apartment Hunting

So once again I'm looking for an apartment or I should really say, my fiancee and I are looking for an apartment for when we are married. Due to the fact that our jobs reside on opposite ends of this massive city, we're forced to look somewhere in between, which is about the Culver City/Palms area. I've noticed a few things after our tiring search through this area this weekend.

1. The term "luxurious" is very broad. What defines luxury anyway?
a. You could park your car on the street OR you can have a luxurious parking spot (sometimes with a gate!)
b. You could have a building surrounded by concrete OR you can have a luxurious dead tree in your front yard!
c. You could have an apartment with dirty carpet OR you can have a luxurious one with steam cleaned (yet still looks dirty) carpet.

2. There must be a law in Palms that says you must have a fat man with no shirt hosing off his sidewalk on every block.

One of these "gentleman" had a conversation with us:
Shirtless Guy: Hey, you looking for an apartment?
Me: Yes.
SG: For like a million dollars, right?
Me: Yeah, something like that.
SG: Welcome to California! (laughs all sinister)
Me: Thanks.

Haha, so weird.

3. There are pretty much 3 categories for apartments in Palms: Crappy, not as crappy as the crappy, and ridiculously expensive. All 3 categories use the word "luxurious".

4. I wonder which word the truly luxurious apartments use? I think if I owned one I'd use the word "radical".

5. The inventor of the carport is probably a jillionaire.

For the most part, the people we encountered were friendly. This one lady saw that we wanted to get into a building to look at a place but we couldn't get in. This lady saw that we were trying to get in and told us the code and let us in and showed us around. Turned out she wasn't the manager, but she just lived there and wanted a good neighbor, haha. The manager still hasn't called us back.

At this other place, there was an open house to see the apartment. When we got there at the appointed time, there were about 5 other people waiting to look at the place. I was thinking "great, competition". Then the owner shows up and it's this little Chinese man. He takes one look at J and says "Are you Chinese?"
J: Yes.
Owner guy: Where are you from?
J: Well, I'm from here, my parents are from China?
Owner guy: What part?
J: Canton
Owner guy: Ah, I'm from Taiwan.

I thought we were a shoe-in for that place since no one else there was Chinese, but J was skeptical because he was from Taiwan, haha. But then when he found out we were both professionals, he ignored everyone else in the room, haha. It fell through though cuz we needed two parking spaces. He only had one available, but he was willing to let me park on the grass, haha! I declined. I guess he hasn't had many professionals for tenants.

Well, after a long weekend of searching, we have high hopes for an apartment we haven't even seen. Sure we could afford a much better area and a much nicer apartment, but we're trying to save for a home of our own. How much longer can I put up with this real estate joke called California? This is truly the area of my life where God is testing me. Pray for us.

Retraction

None of you probably remember or it was out of mind until I bring it up now, but last year in my post, 20 Random Facts, I claimed that I had given a gay pornstar a ride to the gas station when his car ran out of gas.

Sad to say, as funny as this story was, it is now less funny as I have found more evidence that proved me wrong. In my defense, I did claim that I was 99% certain, but sad to say (or happy depending on how you look at it), the 1% prevailed.

Anyways, from that time I recall that the guy was on his way to the airport to fly to Costa Rica to be in a movie called Death to the Supermodels. He really didn't want to talk about it. Apparently, it's just a really bad film and maybe he was just doing it for a free trip to Costa Rica. Strangely I saw that movie on the shelf in the video store last week (no, I didn't rent it). So I checked out the IMDB entry for the movie and found the correct guy named Storm on the credits. You can see the link to his profile here. This is definitely the guy. Man, if I had known he was in Mortal Kombat, I would have totally gotten his autograph. Anyways, judging by his picture, you're probably wondering how I would dare give this guy a ride. He did look like that, but I suppose if he did that suave glare at me, I would have kept driving. His car was better than mine so I figured I didn't have much to fear, uh, I mean...he was scary and I was very brave. Haha. And I guess I can take some small credit for contributing to the making of this film. Storm, you wouldn't have made it there without me.

Anyways, my apologies to Storm for insulting his manhood.

A Bible Lesson at Work???

It's not such a strange thing to hear a Bible lesson at work, if you work in a church related job that is. However, I do not. I work for a large engineering company. Imagine my surprise today when the first slide of today's all hands meeting had a Bible verse. The slide quoted:

"You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit."

This passage is from Matthew 7:16-18 in the New King James Version. The verse was used to highlight negativity within our company towards our customer and our operations. It highlighted that if this is our attitude how can we ever expect to do anything good. So if you're negative, you're bad fruit, and if you're positive, you're good fruit. So that seems like good wisdom to take home. In itself, I'd probably say that's generally true, however this passage was taken grossly out of context and brought out a message that the reader wanted to find in Scripture rather than let the Scriptures speak for themselves. Sadly this happens alot in the church as well. It's called bad hermeneutics.

The true meaning of the passage can be seen if we zoom out a little more and add the surrounding verses to the quoted passage:

15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

Suddenly this becomes a much different message than urging to act positive. It's talking about false teachers and how to recognize them. You will know them by their fruits, or how they act, or what they are motivated by. If we zoom out a little more and see the surrounding passages, we get a little more insight. Before the passage:

13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

And after the passage:

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

Now it is apparent that it's not just about identifying false teachers but also true believers. I can't help but marvel at the irony that this passage was used out of context in a secular setting. This is a passage that says that good works have no merit with God. He doesn't know us by our works. He knows us by our relationship with the Lord Jesus. Yet from the same text we were given instruction on being more positive or taking the moral high ground. It was just a small harmless piece taken out of one of the more frightening passages of Scripture.

I didn't write this to criticize one of my superiors. I don't even know if he's a Christian and you can't expect good interpretation from an unbeliever. Instead, I wrote this to show the importance of good hermeneutics. It's a big word, but it's something every Christian should know how to do. Practice good hermeneutics people! Know the context. Let the Scriptures speak for themselves. Avoid taking what you believe and finding verses that match what you think. Let the Scriptures bring out what you should believe and share that.

150 Days to Go

I put a countdown on my computer to count the days until my wedding, haha. 150 days means I can read the Psalms backwards (one each day) and when I finish the Psalms, I'll be getting married!

I had this discussion with J recently. It went something like this:

Skitguru: I put a countdown on my computer so I know how many days we have left.
J: Why did you do that? It would be so agonizing.

(at the same time we said)
Skitguru: I know. It's so long from now!
J: See how little time we have left!

Ha ha, I guess we come from different perspectives on the planning.

Trapeze Guru

It's been a long time since I last blogged (a whole month!). Oh, but the wait was well worth it. Thanks to an invite from J's cousin, I got my chance at a private trapeze lesson. Check out the videos here:

The first clip shows the knee hang. This was actually the 3rd thing we learned, but included in it is the 2nd thing we learned which is the dismount. Pretty cool...(if the video doesn't work on this page, click here)



The next clip is me doing my first attempt at being caught by the trapeze trainer. I never thought we'd get this far in one lesson, but almost everyone there was able to do it. Check it out to see if I made it...(or click here)



Ok, so maybe this one will be better...or will it???(or click here)



So there you have it. I connected! How sweet is that?! I never thought I would be able to do that in one lesson. Anyways, trapeze is really hard. It looks easier than it is. I didn't realize all the science and timing that is behind trapezing. The hardest part is making your body do what your mind thinks at the right time.

Anyways, it was pretty fun. And wouldn't you know it, this was the one week I wasn't asked what I did over the weekend. So instead I just had to blurt out "I had a trapeze lesson!" which left my coworkers a bit perplexed as you can imagine.

31 Today

Today I am 31 years old. 31 isn't as much of a milestone as 30. The shock of the 30s wears off a bit and it's kinda like being a sophomore all over again. I tried to find some tidbits of birthday trivia on the web, but that's the sucky thing about history, it never changes. So you'll have to read previous birthday posts to be reminded of that.

Other famous 31's are 31 Flavors and the months of January, March, May, July, August, September, October, and December. Ok, kind of a stretch there.

Probably the most shocking thing about this day is that this time last year, I wasn't dating anyone, and now one year later, I'm engaged to be married to the most wonderful woman. While I knew J this time last year, I had only spoken to her a couple times. Though on that first day I ever laid eyes on her, I wanted to get to know her better, but I never expected that she would be "The One".

J's Ring



We just got back from the jeweler. It was slightly too big so we had to get it resized, but when we got it back, it was shinier and brighter than ever before! So I got a quick picture of it for you guys.

How I Got Engaged

For the guys, I put the parts of the story that were necessary in italics. The rest is for the girls, haha.

32I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. 33But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, 34and his interests are divided. -- 1 Cor 7:32-34

I must admit I was thinking about this passage in the Bible as I was preparing the plans for my engagement. J and I had been talking about marriage for the past couple months although we kept it a secret from most of you, haha. But the real challenge was that J still wanted to be surprised when the time came. So that involved ALOT of cunning and lying. My apologies to all the people I had to lie to in covering up my plans, haha. Thus the reason I thought of the verse above. Lord, forgive me.

So J is a pretty smart girl, the smartest I've ever met in fact. So the plan to surprise her would only work through deception and misdirection just like a magician (way to start off the marriage, I know, haha). Anyways, getting engaged can be quite an arduous task. You have to do alot of things that you've never done before like figure out how to find a good jeweler and know the difference between a good diamond and a bad one. The tough part about this is you can't really ask anyone without drawing attention to your plans. Then you got to figure out what her ring size is without her suspecting and hopefully guess what kind of ring she will like. The operation was set up into 3 phases.

Phase 1: Get the ring

Since I really didn't want to draw attention to myself, I went where I normally go when I don't know what to do...Google. And the first hit was FindMyJeweler.com. That's a pretty cool site because they do all the research for you in finding a good jeweler. It made it even easier that it only recommended one in the entire greater L.A. area...this one. Since I see J quite often, I had to do this without her suspecting where I was since I couldn't be with her when I was shopping for it. I was able to do it on my lunch hour since they had an office by appointment in downtown. I thought this part was going to take a while, but it actually happened very quickly. It was one visit to pick it out and one to pick it up a few days later. The jeweler, Troy, was really good. He not only got me what I was looking for, but also for the price I wanted. And although at this point I was knowledgable in the 4 C's (color, clarity, cut, and...cost(?)), he actually found me a lower grade diamond that looked brighter than a higher grade one and saved me a $1000! Finding the ring size and the style J wanted was not so difficult for me since she already told me what those were (makes it even harder to surprise her, doesn't it?) Anyways, before I knew it the ring was mine and I was ready for Phase 2.

Phase 2: Talking to the Parents

This was just a surreal moment entirely. I've met J's parents a few times and I even helped them move a couple times, but I sure didn't know them so well too feel comfortable asking for their daughter's hand. I would have to say that was quite nervous experience. Since they pretty much live down the street from me, I knew I had to go see them in person. So I made a phone call to set up a visit. It went something like this:

K: I would like to come over for a visit sometime.
J's Mom: Ok, that would be fine. Is it just you and not J, right?
K: Yes, just me...oh, and don't tell J.

Hmm, do you think they knew what I was up to? Anyways, J actually had lunch with her mom between my call and when I actually came over. I hear she's not very good at keeping secrets, but she was able to hold in and she succeeded by just circumventing the topic of me entirely, haha. J thought it was strange that her mom didn't even want to bring me up in conversation, but she didn't think too much of it.

So the next day, I dropped in at her parents and cut to the chase pretty quick. "Can I marry J?" So then her dad says to me, "It's been a while since I talked to J about this, but last time we talked she wasn't so sure about you." I think he was having fun with me, but then I seriously got grilled like any good Christian father would do.

What do you believe about marriage?
What are your passions in life?
Do you read the Bible daily?
Have you read the Bible cover to cover?
You should have children.

Ok, that last one wasn't a question, but more of an expectation since I did get the approval, haha, but man, I was sweating. But I got through it and they liked my answers, woohoo! So J's mom asked when I was going to propose since she didn't know how much longer she could keep the secret. "This weekend I hope." It was time for Phase 3.

Phase 3: Execute the Plan

This was tough. Really tough. It's actually quite easy to surprise someone. All you have to do is ask in the worst most unexpected way possible. Well, that won't do. Can you imagine telling her friends that story? "I was walking down the street and Kev jumped out of the bushes and yelled 'Surprise! Will you marry me?'" Yeah, that's not going to work. On the flip side, you can do it super special and then she'll see it coming a mile away, and so basically ignoring her one requirement which was to be surprised. That won't do either. So I had to find some kind of equilibrium between surprise and special, thus the reason for cunning, deception, and misdirection, moohaha! This was a true challenge for me. If I am truly a Skitguru, I should be able to play the part convincingly enough to fool her. It has to be real enough to be me and yet sneaky enough so that she won't suspect. So I pretty much spent the last month acting like a somewhat aloof bonehead. I kept telling her things like "I don't know where to buy a ring. I've been really busy. It's really confusing. This is so hard. You're right, I need to do that soon." Often times, I would change the subject after giving one of these responses.

It worked pretty well. I even had her giving me tips on who to ask for help. We also went to some nice spots that could have been engagement spots in an impromptu setting, but I didn't do anything like that. We just took pictures or talked about how I wish I had a camera so I could take a picture so she wouldn't expect on that day when I was really using those excuses. The Wednesday before the plan, I drove around Palos Verdes to look for a prime spot where we hadn't been before. Funny thing was it was totally dark when I was looking around the area. That must have looked so suspicious. I found a nice little bench overlooking the cliffs and the ocean with Catalina Island in the background. So I had my spot. Now the only challenge was convincing her to go there with me without getting wise.

So March 19 had come. I was actually in Big Bear for my church retreat and was hoping to get down the mountain quickly enough to do this. I sure didn't want J's mom to wait another week. The tricky thing was the weather was pretty bad that weekend and there was traffic in L.A. to deal with for sure. Also I had to coordinate J getting down there through traffic from West L.A. to meet me all before sunset. I knew I didn't have enough time to get home first and then call her to come down. She had to leave before I got home, but I still had to get there before she did to get the stuff I needed together. The plan was I was going to call her at 2pm and tell her when I'd be home, but I forgot, so J was a bit annoyed to call me at 4pm wondering why I didn't call. Oops, my mind was on other things, but I just gave the "I'm a flake!" excuse. So I told her to leave in 30 minutes. I was in the car with J's brother and his wife while we raced through traffic and she had told me that was cutting it pretty close for getting there by sunset and I should call her back and tell her to leave now. The traffic was moving faster at that point so we were pretty sure I'd still get there before her. So I called her back and told her to just leave now. J thought it was weird that I would seek to save only 15 minutes, but she obliged.

We stopped for flowers on the way home. Then we got to my place. I put the flowers in the trunk of my car and was home for about 5 minutes before she arrived. That's when I realized I forgot to shave. Oh well, more smoke for the mirrors, haha.

K: Ready to go?
J: Go where?
K: I thought we planned on going driving in PV so you could practice stick some more.
J: We did? I guess we talked about it, but that was never the plan.
K: Yeah, you wanted to do it so we better do it.
J: Ok, but let me rest for a bit, I was just driving for an hour.
K: What's the big deal? I'm going to do the driving. (I totally slipped here. Good thing was in aloof mode.)
J: No you're not, I'm going to drive if I'm learning stick.
K: Oh yeah, haha. (Here comes the save.) I also want to get up there by sunset cuz I wanted to take some pictures since we didn't have a camera last week. It just rained so the sky should be really clear.
J: Ok fine.

Ok, so that's the gist of what was said. Just imagine more "huhs?" and "whats?" from J.

And we're off. So we drove up Hawthorne Blvd. all the way to the end. I pretended like I was roaming. On our way there we were talking. She was telling me how her cousin was already planning our wedding. And I was saying stuff like "Whoa, hang on, we got to do a couple things before we even start that. I haven't got the ring and I haven't even talked to your parents yet." So since she brought up the topic, I was going to use it to my advantage. I started asking for help in talking to her parents. I wanted to sound weak. I asked if she could tell them that I was going to ask them so they knew why I was calling. I didn't want it to be awkward, haha. J thought it would be awkward if I did approach them without warning so she said she would mention it to them the following weekend, hehe.

When I drove by the spot, I said "Whoa? This area looks cool. Let's take a picture here, ok?" J obliged. One thing drastically different about the location from checking it out at night was there were people there. They were just walking up and down the path every couple of minutes. So I stalled by not being satisfied with my pictures, haha. The people cleared off and so sitting on that bench I told her I wrote her something and I wanted to read it to her. I wrote her a poem. I never made a serious attempt at a poem before, but I figured I'm a somewhat accomplished writer, so I should give it my best effort. It was quite silly in the beginning and it got serious near the end where the last line of the poem said "...Will you marry me?" as I got on one knee and brought out the ring. J did not say yes nor did she say no, but instead she was just stunned and said, "What? How did you do this?" Ha ha! Success! It was special and a surprise. She did say yes quickly after that. So then I got to tell her all the times I lied to her and how when I told her I was doing one thing I was really doing something else. She was quite surprised at how cunning I could be and frankly so was I, haha. We went back to the car and I gave her the flowers (another surprise! success!). Then we went to dinner with her family.

Anyways, that's the story. Sorry it took me awhile, but I rarely have time to write this extensively anymore. Hope you enjoyed it! J's version is a little different than mine. It's funny to hear her thoughts as I was doing all these strange things.

Sorry, No Story Yet

Time just got away from me this week. I hope to get it on here by the weekend. In the meantime, I'll show you an interesting tidbit. Based on the statistics traffic below, guess which day I announced my engagement. The number of hits increased by 1000%! Ha ha! I guess I finally wrote something truly interesting. Sorry for the delay on the story. It'll be worth the wait.

It's My Turn Now!

When I first started this blog, I talked alot about my dream which was to live in a foreign country for a time. Well, in the last few months, I found a new dream that was far more interesting and that is to marry JH. Today I took a major step in achieving that dream. We will be married on Nov. 4!



I'll tell the story later this week.

Was I Dreaming?

I was in Westwood tonight and while I was walking on the sidewalk, I see this old man driving his big wide car at about 5 miles an hour. He was coming the other way and heading opposite the way I was going. As he passed by, I noticed he had all the windows down and had his music cranked really loud which sounded like ragtime or something you'd hear around WWII. So I'm wondering if he was cruising or something? I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I did a double take for sure. He was going so slow I did multiple double takes. It was so surreal. I can't believe I saw that.

Interesting article.

Two Weddings in One Day

I heard of people doing this, but I never had the experience myself. This Saturday, I went to two weddings. If that wasn't stressful enough, I was a groomsman in one of them (the first one). Luckily, one was a morning wedding and the other was a late afternoon wedding. It all started in Simi Valley for my old high school friend, John. Had to be there two hours early for pictures. Then for the reception, I got introduced as part of the wedding party, sat down at the table I was designated for, took a picture with Joyce with the camera at the table, promptly stood up and excused my self, "Sorry we have to leave now, we have another wedding to attend." Man, not even enough time to eat the food. Then we drove to Alhambra for wedding #2, but I had to stop in West L.A. so that Joyce and I could take one car and also so I could change out of my tux into different dress up clothes. We got there just in time to see the bride, my good friend, Doms, finish walking down the aisle. After the ceremony was my first chance to eat since the beginning of the day. Then we went to the banquet afterwards. All in all, it was a 15+ hour day. A joyous day indeed, but I hope to never do that again.

Double Feature

I got two photo albums to show you this time! Two weekends ago, Joyce and I made for the heights of Los Angeles to see what the city looked like on a clear day. We originally went to the Getty, but the cars were way backed up so we decided to explore on Mulholland instead. Man, that was way better! Not only did we get a more phenomenal view of the L.A. basin and the Valley all at once, we also accidentally came upon an old Nike missile control site which had been preserved and is now open to the public. It gave me some flashbacks of my days in North Dakota. It was a pretty cool day. Check it out here.

And this past weekend, we went to Mammoth with some old friends. I can't believe it was my first time for this late in the season. It's been so hot. It was forecasted that a storm was coming in on Sunday evening. So the plan was to leave in the afternoon since I don't have chains. It looked like the storm was coming early though cuz there these black clouds on the horizon and the wind was getting pretty fierce on the slopes. I figured we could go down the slopes one more time before the storm hit. It started to snow by the time we got to the car, but we were out of there before the storm hit. Beat the system again, no chains, hah! One of my coworkers asked why I didn't just buy chains. That's a good question. One day I'll buy them when I actually need them I guess. Check out some sweet Mammoth views here.

Stickin' It to the Man

This past month I've received two separate notices that I'm a plaintiff in a lawsuit against some company I owned stock in like more than 6 years ago. One is specifically against AOL/Time Warner and the other was against about 100 companies of which I owned stock in only one. I don't own stock in either anymore, but being a stockholder back in 2000, basically I lost like everyone else. The AOL/Time Warner didn't give details on a settlement yet if I win, but the other one, if I win, will award me 4.4 cents per share I owned during that time. Sweet! This will bring my settlement (if I win) to the grand total of...88 cents! Stickin' it to the man one cent at a time! Aw yeah!

African Painting

Two blog posts today! (Well, two blog posts in one hour over two days.) Don't forget to read the one after this one.

My parents gave me this painting for my 30th birthday a while back. My dad bought the painting in Africa from an art student on the side of a dirt road. He painted pictures of people in his village doing various things. It's a pretty cool painting to sit and look at for a bit. I notice new things every time I look at it. The frame is from Aaron Brothers and cost about 10 times what the painting cost. Since my parents haven't seen it in the frame, they've been asking me to send them a picture of it. So today I finally remembered. The thing is it's tough to take a picture in my apartment without SOMEONE taking the opportunity to be silly.



Then Harrison gave me a great idea when I took this picture...



Since I don't have much to blog about lately, I'm going to post once a week (or once every other week...or once a month) an imitation of every person in this painting. Harrison helped me this week, so you get an extra treat with two imitations!

Here's Harrison...




And here's me...




It'll be my mission to get Chane to pose for one of these. If you see him, encourage him to do so. Thanks!

iPod

For Christmas, I got a Video iPod. It's pretty awesome. So I put all of these...



into this...



So it took days to put all my music on there and after going through all that effort, I don't really like about half my music anymore. So iTunes categorizes all your music. I was interested to find the breakdown of my music went like this...

Alternative & Punk: 18.2%
Country: 1%
Folk: 1.6%
Gospel & Religious: 10.9%
Hip-Hop/Rap: 0.4%
Metal: 17.1%
New Age: 0.9%
Pop: 0.4%
Rock: 43.7%
Soundtrack: 7.2%

What the heck? New Age? Country? Folk?! Ha ha! Well, the 50% isn't all in one genre, but some genres I dislike more now than others. Who knows how much folk, country, and new age I'll amass in the coming years. So I have 1289 songs and it would take 3.9 days to listen to it all straight through. It's nice to know if I'm ever totally bored, I will have something to do for 3.9 days nonstop. Now I'll end up selling half those CDs and deleting them off my iPod after spending all that time putting them on. Oh BTW, if you added all those percentages to see if it added up to 100%, you are a true engineer.

Can you guess what video I am watching in that picture? I'll give you a hint, it has something to do with rap and Narnia. Still don't know? Check the comments for the link.

France and Belgium 2005

Here are the pictures of my recent trip. Here's a quick rundown of what we did.

12/22 - Left L.A.
12/23 - Arrived in Paris and then slept
12/24 - Went to the Cluny Museum
12/25 - Christmas; went to church with my family and saw all the people I went snowboarding with last year
12/26 - My mom's birthday; saw Chronicles of Narnia again with my family (w/ French subtitles)
12/27 - Joyce arrived; really cold that day; went to the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame
12/28 - d'Orsay Museum; catacombs of Paris; Montmarte and Sacre Coure
12/29 - went to Brugge, Belgium; stopped for lunch in Lille
12/30 - ate a Belgian waffle; saw lots of chocolate and lace; climbed the Brugge clock tower
12/31 - went to a 200 year old zoo and natural history museum; celebrated 5 months with Joyce (that's going to be a tough one to top); rang in the new year at the Eiffel Tower
1/1 - tired; went to church with my family; went to the Pompideu
1/2 - went shopping with my parents; saw a restaurant that Benjamin Franklin ate at; saw a chocolate store that was 200 years old; saw King Kong (w/ French subtitles)
1/3 - went to the Rodin and Monet museums
1/4 - endured the long trip home

A cool random fact I learned this trip was that the term "gargoyle" actually means gurgle in French. Gargoyles not only were used to scare away evil spirits, but were also the means of which the water drained from the roof, thus the name.

I also learned how to say "watch the candle" in French which isn't very useful, but really fun to say especially in a menacing tone.

Back from France

Ok, so I said was going to post from the other side of the world. Well, think of it as a post from the other other side of the world which is here, haha. Here's a little known fact. It takes the same time to fly to Paris from Dallas as it does from L.A. Too bad my connection was in Dallas. And boo on American Airlines or rather, the Greyhound Bus of the skies. What will become of the airline industry? I never had such a ghetto experience on a plane. First, the plane was dirty when we got on it. Second, all the TV's are flickering the entire time and the audio was terrible so I couldn't see or hear anything. It was like watching TV on a ghetto antenna. So I just tried to sleep. Except sleeping is hard when you crammed in a 767 for an international flight instead of a 747. What's the difference? A 747 has a tad bit more leg room in coach while a 767 is like a sardine can. I would have to say Air France was far better and worth the extra money in comparison. But now I'm home again so I'm just glad that's over.

But you probably don't care about any of that. You want to know about my awesome trip to France and Belgium. But those experiences are mine, all mine, moo ha ha! I will never post them here ever, moo ha ha! Ha ha, I crack myself up. Anyways, pictures are soon to follow. I had a great time with my family and my favorite girl. I was either too tired or having too much fun to post as it was happening. Happy New Year!