Goals in Brief

It's been awhile! Half because of all these goals.  I gotta learn how to pace myself.  I was tackling them down full speed the first week, and I got burnt out.  The other half is Call of Duty again, I starting using the sniper rifle and I got unhealthily hooked. 

Here's my first installment of Goals in Briefs:

1.  Cantonese/Mandarin Fluency:  My mom was so excited that I was doing this that she bought me this!  The 跑跑高 E-900.  Thanks mom! This gives me extra motivation to keep up with this goal.  The writing translator function is what I really need.  I've been reading, writing (typing), watching, and speaking Chinese almost everyday now.  My uncle helped me hook up the Direct TV and I now have TVB! Haha, I never had that stuff as a kid, so now I'm catching up.  I will 加油 and 努力进步。 

2.  Juggling:  I was thinking first that I'll be able to scratch this one off my list first, but the balls aren't falling my way.  So hard! So far the best I've done was 5 catches.  3 pairs of socks are no longer in my wearing circulation :P

3.  Violin:  Working on Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto all 3 movements.  I've been off and on playing this for yeaaars now and I'm going to buckle down and learn it!  Problem is, with all these goals, I'm finding less and less time to practice.  Or maybe it's the video games.  damn video games.

4.  Free Throws:  I'm seeing big improvements in this.  I'm actually expanding this to basketball in general.  My free throw drill right now is to make 5 in a row before I can leave.  Haha, the first time I tried it, I started at 8PM and didn't leave till it was 8:40PM and it was almost pitch black.  So many 4 in a rows!!!  and then I cracked under pressure.  I felt like one of those kids in those movies who has a dream of being in the NBA.  The only thing is I'm 23, not 12.  I shot again today,  and it only took me 5 minutes to get 5 in a row.  woohoo .

5.  Write Left-Handed:  This one's kind of fun!  I was talking to Angel and she said she wants to learn too, so we're now Left hand Pen Pals.  It's pretty ghetto how we do it.  It's a form of snailmail and E-mail.  or... E-Snail?   chicken scratch on paper, take a pic, and send through email.  Anyone else want to be left hand pen pals with me?

6.  Pullups:  meh, i'll get around to this soon.  Doing pushups with Kenneth for now.

7.  Swimming:  Last week I swam 1/2 mile.  I was so determined going in, and when I came out I almost passed out haha.  It was 18 laps and my leg cramped the last 3 laps.  I think I'll be able to do a mile soon, but my main problem is I'm helllla slow.  I shared a lane with this overweight dude thinking, meh no pressure, nice and easy.  The dude was passing me every other lap! man the guy was blazing and he didn't look like he was trying!  damn.  I found out from this cat that I was kicking all wrong.  I was bending my knees and now that I'm relearning how to swim with my legs completely straight, I get tired in one lap.  Bummer. 

8.  Reading:  I picked up some books at the local library!

• Catch-22: Read the 1st 2 chapters and it's ironic as hell.  Nice!  I'm liking it so far
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu:  Heard good things about it concerning strategy.  Recommended reading for managers and business peoples, something that I'm not very keen in.  Interesting, but kind of textbooky.
• Rich Dad Poor Dad: college roommate told me about it.  Read the intro, sounds pretty interesting.  I think I'll like it because it's about money but is also written so that I won't fall asleep.
• Freakonomics:  (on the cover) "a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything" and with chapters such as: What Do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers have in common? and Why do Drug Dealers Still Live with their Moms?  heh Haven't gotten to this one yet.  But looks promising!

Yea this post is pretty long, but I gotta do it so that I stick to my goals.

Toodle-oo!

Me 2.0 beta

I've actually been thinking about this for a few days now.  I've noticed recently that I'm in a rut, I'm plateauing, starting to coast.  What do I mean by this?  I mean that I'm not really improving anymore since I've graduated from college.  You guys remember that huge "sigh" of relief, "Yay! no more school, no more books!"?  Now that I've been out of school for a while, I've become stagnant and I'm starting to hate it.  Here's what I noticed:

• My mind started feeling slow.  My little brother Wiltr0n kicks my ass in solving the Rubiks cube now.
• I started misspelling words.  I used to be great at spelling! (Nod to my spelling brutha Hen)
• I struggled with words when I was explaining things.  "uhh... what was that word again?... oh yea, potato"
• I forgot a LOT of important engineering things.  My co-worker used to ask me mechanical questions involving basic laws and theory and I would have to dig so long and deep just to be wrong.  Please tear my diploma in half, thank you.

At first glance, I'd say I was drinking and partying too much and killing brain cells.  But then I thought about it, and I knew it was because I wasn't challenging myself anymore.  I had the mindset of coasting after college, and it is totally not working.  I don't want to be the guy that USED to be good at certain things.  I want to keep being good at the things I'm good at and beyond! a Me 2.0.    I've been coming up with a few challenges/goals to keep me challenged and goaled. 

Me 2.0 Challenges:

1. Become fluent in Cantonese/Mandarin:  Now I know what you're thinking.. "Over-ambitious!" "won't last a month!" "buffoon!" (see, I just spelled it baffoon thx spell check).  I think I have a good foundation from high school, and there's plenty of non-Asian guys that become fluent in a few years like this man. or this guy:
   
   
   How?: Write a Chinese e-mail a few times a week to my parents and relatives (this is a double win!).  Watch a Chinese movie every week.  Start watching a TV series.  Spend some time every day reading news headlines (using FireFox's translater plugin)
   
2. Learn how to Juggle:  Why?  Always wanted to learn, and supposedly helps your brain
   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091016114055.htm
   
3. Grade 8 Violin: I love playing the violin, but I haven't pushed myself to progress after college.  I've neglected it for a while, but I've been playing again recently and it's like meditation for me.  Haha, I've taken the exam before for Grade 2 back when I was a kid.  I want to be good enough to pass the Grade 8 exam!  I want to do this so that I'll be more qualified to teach. 
   How?: I'm going to keep up with Wiltr0n's progress for a while, then start learning songs off of the Royal School of Music Syllabus
   
4. 75% Free Throws:  Why? same with Juggling.  My hand-eye coordination is pretty horrible and I want to work at it.  If some preacher can shoot 2,000 in a row.  I'm pretty sure I can get up to 75%.  
5. Write Left-Handed: Just in case I lose my right hand haha.  :)  Or so that I can be awesome like Demetri Martin
   
6. Do 20 pullups:  I've had this goal for so long! I went up to 15! but now I'm at 10 again. -_-
   
7. Swim 1 Mile:  For health and to work on my willpower (my biggest flaw). 
   
8. Ongoing Study:  Review Math, Engineering.  Read about Investments, Real Estate.  Keep up with current Events.  Internet makes this a cinch!
   

Wow that's long.  Sorry for the long post, this one's for myself.  I'm going to do this!  I'm serious.  I'm printing this list right now (minus the Iranian dude).  Me 2.0 here I come.

Oregomi

HAH, I just thought of the title like RIGHT now.  Ain't it clever?

...

Anyways.. I was checking up on Kenneth after dinner to see what he was up to.  This is the cousin that tried to get me sick.  Yep he's a interesting dude that spends all of his time in his room either playing Starcraft or playing guitar.  But today, I walk into his room and theres mangled up colored square papers all over the place.

"What are you up to Kenneth?"
"I'm folding Origami."
(wow that's different)
"Check out my ninja star!!" *chucks it fullforce at me and it bounces off my head*
"Ow! that hurt what the hell Kenneth!" 

I picked up his work of art, and it was actually pretty cool.  a star made up of 5 dollar bills.  He also offers me some "french fries", which to my dissapointment were also made from paper.  I don't even like french fries! but my fatass still wanted to eat some.  We then started looking at this Origami website with everything from Cookie Monster to Tyrannosaurus (thank you spellcheck) Rex.  I got excited when i saw the Pegasus which was classified C for complex.

Kenneth was all like, thats hard man, what have you folded before?  I was like PSHH I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering bitch! I can do it! ..... I couldn't get past the 1st page before my square paper turned into a ball.  So we kept looking, couldn't even fold the Swan, so we kept looking.  Then we came across the "1-fold Stegosaurus" and busted up laughing:

 Do you see the Stegosaurus? haha

That was the first thing I was able to fold -_- ... baby steps.  baby steps.  By the end of it all though, I made something I was proud of!

Can you guess what it is? First correct answer in the comments um... gets to have it! hahaha


French Fries:


5 Dollar Ninja Star!


5 Dollar Origami Star - The most popular videos are here

Settling In

So many things have been going on recently and I finally have some time to sit down and write.

It’s pretty damned surreal sitting here in my “office” (which is actually a dining/kitchen room) 500 miles away from SF. Overall, I’m coping well living here so far. It’s really helpful to be living so close to family because familiar faces are always comforting. They even cook me dinner everyday! So it’s a sweet deal. I was asking about the stove at my place, and they were like you’re not eating dinner by yourself stupid haha.

I love having my own place! I can’t believe this unit was just sitting here unused for so long. It was actually in pretty decent shape, but I wanted to thoroughly clean it anyways. So the past 2-3 days, I’ve been spending a lot of time vacuuming, scrubbing, re-arranging. Bathroom cleaning, and fridge cleaning sucks. But with cleaning, once I clean one corner, something clicks in my head and I MUST finish the rest. It’s so much work because this place is huge! It’s really meant for 2-3 people to live in so it’s a shame I can’t share it with friends.

Coolest part of this place so far? The Mini Pool/Ping Pong/Air Hockey Table in the living room. It’s been pretty fun playing with my cousins, but it would be damned sweet if I had a set up like this in SF.

The rest of the house is pretty empty. It has so much potential! Once I make some scratch:

Living Room
- 47” LCD 1080P 120Hz tv
- PS3
- Couch/Futon?
- Plants. You gotta have plants

Spare Bedroom
- Makeshift audio recording studio for fun?!

Basement
- Darts
- Punching Bag
- Weight Room
- Wine Cellar

Tech: Nerd Disaster Averted

Phewf!

What a sweat I had yesterday.  I was supposed to help fix Angel's slow laptop so she dropped it off in the morning.  I assumed that she had backed up everything already because she said she had an external at home.  So I proceeded to re-install her Windows.

1. Insert CD
2. Enter Boot Menu to select CD
3. Quick Format
4. Install!

Easy as 1,2, 3, 4.

I was happy because everything went smoothly.  The key from her Dell sticker worked, no activation problems and most importantly her laptop was quick now! That is.. until she came to pick it up.

A: "Hey it looks different"
C: "yep! I just reformatted it, its quick now!"
A: "oh...cool... you backed up all my stuff right?"
C: "..........uh......"
A: "NO WAY You're Kidding Right!?"
C: "nope, i thought you backed it up"
A: "OMG my life is flashing before my eyes"
C: "OH SHIT" (facepalm)
A: "my pictures! my music! my documents! good thing I didn't start on my essay yet!"

(A runs away distraught and lamenting)

Good thing for technology, I didn't panic.  I had my trusty usb-SATA/IDE adapter kit and an awesome 6mb program that I found earlier: EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro 4.3.6

Within a couple hours, we were able to recover most of her pictures, music, and documents even though the drive was quick-formatted and a new OS was installed.  YAY!  I remember hearing that it usually costs hundreds of dollars to recover lost data.  Being able to do it myself was sweeeeet.  I even found files that I deleted earlier in the recycle bin! (Oh the power) Technology is beautiful

Double Dressup Party Weekend

Just had a really fun weekend.  It's so much fun dressing up for parties, because everyone's in a silly mood having a grand ole' time. 

Lumberjack Party
So Gary got us these suspenders to go with our costumes, and when we first put them on they were WAY too tight.  We had to "pick a side" to get comfortable, if you don't understand its cool don't worry about it :)  It was funny because Andy was just wearing his regular everyday clothes, so it was pretty much a Dress Like Andy's party.  I love walking around in public in costume though, we went to Delano's to get some whiskey and beer and got some funny looks haha.  The house party was great! There were so many costumes that I didn't expect.  Like Tiana's bear costume! That was hilarious, she actually gutted a stuffed teddy (Albert?) and wore it like Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder. 

LumberJacks

With Forrest Gump, Babe, the Log, and Bear! Sweet costumes

90's Party
For Mel's bday we all dressed up 90's style and headed over to Club 1994.  The music was pretty friggin' awesome man, it was a really fun night.  It was fun singing along to all these middle school hits  "everymornin there's a halo hangin from the corner of my girlfriends four post bed"  "I...like.... big butts and i cannot lie you other brothers can't denyyy"  major karaoke fest, it was a blast!    There was also a bunch of friends and friends of friends out, which was awesome.

Highlights:
- Seeing Gary the Hoff's doppleganger (blondie wearing a red top)
- the boy band screams, it was like I was at a real concert
- Leslie rapping to Gangsta's Paradise, she's a G

Duct tape Wayne's World hat yayeerr..

DSL drama and Bizarre Happy-Ending!

OIAHF:OEIFAEF:OAJFI!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry about that. But it's 4AM, an ungodly hour to scream in real life.  I just can't contain my excitement right now so I'm having trouble sleeping.  So....Here's what happened (Warning: lengthy nerd talk ensues):

DSL Drama
So the past few days, I've been having a shitty unstable DSL connection that would crap out ONLY at night.  My DSL has had random periods of solid connection, but spurts of disconnecting for many years now and I have never been able to resolve it completely.  The only thing I've noticed is that it always happens at night. 

So I call the Sonic.net support rep a few times, and every time they keep telling me: "Sir your line seems fine"  "please check your filters blah blah"  "reset modem, reset router, reset computer" (reset this <^>(-_-)<^>!!!) and we could never figure the damned problem.  On Monday, support guru "John" tells me I should probably switch out the modem and see what happens.

By now, my patience has worn thin, so I head to Best Buy the next day and buy a complete set of Modem and Router.  I never buy electronics from retail stores, but I was fed up and needed a solution QUICK.  Luckily Angel's cousin was working there and I got a discount to lessen the pain :)  It was a nice router though, because it had NAS support (Network Attached Storage) so that I could access a USB harddrive from anywhere in my house (and maybe outside my house too!)  I was so happy.   I plug everything in that night, and man everything was so snappy, solid connection, cool features = BLISS.  I've never had a network up and running by just plugging things in.  This was a great sign, and money does buy happiness haha.

The Belkin N+ router, the answer to all my prayers?

wtf.
So this setup is running great until Wednesday, when the guys were over after we went to the Exploratorium.  We exhausted our burritos, boxing, and Mario Kart and got bored as hell, so...let's just look at stuff online! (SCREEEECH!) Internet is dead again.  wtf.  I just dropped 100+ on a new network and it conks out on me.  I'm just floored.  Morgan tells me about his similar DSL problems, and said it was due to worn out rubber around the phone lines outside his house.  Hey! maybe that's it!  I call Sonic again, so that I could have them send a guy over, but they are assuring me that there's nothing wrong with the line.  At that time, the DSL is working again so I just hangup and give up for the day. 

Then God said, "Let there be Light" and there was light, but my DSL got the died.

Today, I finally found the problem to all my white hairs and pimple outbreaks.  I turn on the ultra-bright Halogens in my room downstairs before I went to sleep, cus they're right next to my bed.  That way I can turn them off with my foot once my head hits the pillow.  Internet Dies. (oh here we go again).

Then a crazy idea pops into my head: "what if the lights are causing the DSL blackout?"
I turn off the halogens. YouTube Loads.
Turn on the halogens. YouTube freezes.
Halogens Off....  Hilarious cat video.

...oh my god.

The halogen lights were like death rays to my DSL connection.  Like an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) just like in The Matrix! or Starcraft!

haha reminds me of the light switch Friends episode:

Fast forward to 3:20 for relevancy

Retrospective Reflection and Research

• Felt like I wasted my 100+ on the new network, but hey, this new router is pretty cool so I'm gonna keep it.  Still happy! Plus, my old modem was borrowed 10 years ago from a friend.
  
• Parents tell me this DSL problem started happening again only a few days ago.  The room that I'm sleeping in now used to be used as storage.  I used to sleep in the top bunk of my brother's room until I got fed up with his 5:30AM alarm clock that he doesn't hear until 7AM!!?  So I cleared out this storage room, set up my bed, and unknowingly turned on the Death Rays. 
• DSL gets flaky not just b4 I sleep, but also around 7:30PM (dinner time).  We also use Halogens with dimmer switches in our kitchen. 
• But how do these Halogen dimmer lights affect the DSL?  It took me so many years to find out because the lights were never in the same room as the modem or router!
  

The Answer: Science
Here's what I found researching online:


Some DSL modems are overly sensitive to RFI (radio frequency interference). Lighting dimmer switches and/or electronic (non-magnetic) power supplies for halogen lighting are a common source of such interference. The result can be a degradation of DSL performance or even a complete loss of DSL sync, even when the source of the interference is not in close proximity to the DSL modem (because the interference can be not only radiated, but also conducted through building wiring).



Old phone lines? nope.  Moisture at night affecting the external phone lines? nope.

Who woulda thunk it?

As Bill Nye the science guy says it: Science Rules.

So... if you guys have erratic behavior with your DSL, it could be your lights!

Michael Jackson Video Game?!?!

I wasn't gonna blog this until I wake up, but what the hell.  I got trashed today playing Tower and Kings Cup and I just don't want to sleep yet.  I don't wanna fall asleep with a throbbing headache, and I want to talk about my video games!

So the day I got to Eugene David's roommate Simon shows me his modded X-BOX loaded up with pretty much ALL THE GAMES in the world ever made! (NES, SNES, GENESIS, ATARI, MAME (arcade), XBOX, N64) Ok, maybe not all the games, but it's pretty sweet.  I was planning to just KO once I got there, but this was just too awesome.  I need something like this soon, imagine playing the following games, without getting up to change the cartridge or powering up another console.

1. Sunset Riders
2. Tetris Attack  (my favorite game of all time)
3. Mario Kart 64
4a. Goldeneye
4b. Perfect Dark
5. Halo 2
6. Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (?????)

Wow that last game was the most ridiculous yet fun game I've played.  Haha so you play as Michael Jackson, killing bad guys.  And Michael Jackson has "The Force" (the lightning thing that comes out of your hands in Star Wars).  Powerups? A monkey shows up, and when you go up to it, you transform into a robot Michael that shoots lasers?!!?   And the most hilarious and mind-boggling part is the end when you win.  Michael morphs into a jet airplane and flies away?! WHAT!?  Oh yea, his special move is him pulling off moves from Billie Jean, Thriller, or Smooth Criminal, and everythign on the screen just dies lol.  The best part of the game in my opinion is the music.  Beat it, Smooth Criminal, Billie Jean, BAD, Thriller.  awesome. 

Enjoy, and crave this game :)


The Ending, Skip to 2:50

Pirate Partay

So in a little more than a week, we're going to Bootie all dressed up as pirates!! Today I hung out with my buddy Angel and we started thinking of how to ghetto-rig a pirate costume without spending much money.  I already bought an eye-patch and hoop earring set from Spirit Halloween store for about 3 bucks, so the rest of the costume was up to us.

We kinda used this image as a guide:

and... Voila!

Ingredients:

1. Large Red Old Navy Shirt - cut up for waist sash and headband (good enough for 3 headbands and 2 sashes!)
   
2. Large white cotton dress shirt
3. Black shortsleeved button shirt (with sleeves rolled up)
4. Black Pants
5. Dad's Boots

Total Cost: 2.99 + Tax for the eyepatch and earring :)


Now.. whats missing... mustache?