Last weekend, we had a "Basketball Jones" 3 on 3 tourney with a few friends and friends of friends. It was a lot of fun, I'm starting to really enjoy playing basketball now. (I've told Alex that I had retired from the sport, maybe twice now haha) But that's because since swimming, my endurance has become much better, and I'm less worried about collapsing on the floor after my 1st game.
So we're running games the whole day, getting a good sweat on, having fun. When I hear CLANK. I look over and I see this huge black dude dunking on foos. I swear the average height of everyone was probably around 5'10". And this guy is standing 6'5", looking like a athletic beast in the midst of it all. I'm hearing guys around me, "damn who is this kid" "you see him? dudes a beast!" "he's built like a football player!".
Apparently he's Ryan Bailey, a professional runner for Nike. And he's training to be a potential runner for the US Team. It's pretty cool to have shared the same court as a future Olympian. I'm not saying he's definitely going to be in the Olympics, but he has a good chance of making it. And I'll be keeping my eye out.
He's got a hell of a story too. I'm a horrible story teller, so here's a snippet from NY Times
Skipping class one afternoon, Bailey and a friend looked at a board listing the school track records. Neither realized those were also state marks. “I can get those,” Bailey said. He did not know Parks was behind him. Parks told Bailey, “Why don’t you come out and prove it?” His mind squarely set on football, Bailey brushed off Parks. “I thought track was for a bunch of nerds,” he said Thursday, laughing. Bailey never went to see Parks at the track, but he showed up there one day to make up a physical education class. Wearing baggy jeans and basketball shoes, Bailey passed Parks, who had his stopwatch ready, as he peeled off a lap. Parks recalls clocking Bailey at around 51 seconds for 400 meters. Parks saw a future superstar.
The article then goes on to talk about unfortunate injuries he's had every year in high school like breaking his foot twice, getting stabbed 3 times on a bus? Man imagine how much faster he could be if he didn't have those setbacks.
Anyways, I'm glad the guy found a path for his talent, and I wish him much success.
Alex specifically asked me not to reveal the fate of my eyebrows to him, so please don't ruin the fun.
Sooo 4 more minutes until the August 1st deadline ends (by the time i post this, it will be long past). And I just finished testing myself an hour ago to see if I made my goal.
Dylan already made his weight by flying colors this past Monday at a very impressive 158.9 lbs! How did he do it? He ran 10 miles twice (TWICE, once in the morning, once in the evening) before he took a vid of him on the scale. The most I ran was 3 miles, i gotta give it up to him for his dedication and sheer willpower.
Me on the other hand..
click on the pic for to reveal my fate....are you nervous? ...cus im nervous
btw, the 'stache is for a Burt Reynolds Challenge on August 7. I am certainly not going to win, but I gotta tell ya, having a 'stache when everyone has a 'stache is straight up fun.
So I was just kickin' it with my cousin Dylan one day, you know driving around having the same old "let's get back into shape" conversation we've had many, many times before. The main problem with trying to get into shape is staying motivated. Last time we scheduled a fight against each other as motivation. This time, we're going another route. Instead of our pride on the line, it's humiliation.
Deadline: August 1, 2010
His goal: Lose weight How much? ~ 8 lbs. He has to weigh 160.7lbs or less during weigh-in, wearing nothing but boxers. What's on the line?: If he weighs 160.8lbs or more, he's going to have to shave one leg and leave the other leg unshaven for 1 month. Doesn't sound humiliating right? Well his reasoning is that, he plays basketball almost everyday, and he'll definitely get heckled on the courts looking like this:
yes he's that hairy.
My Goal: Perform 60 clean, steady paced pushups (not pounding them like a jackhammer). Perform 15 clean pullups with no jerking or swinging.
How Much?: 60 Pushups, 15 Pullups
What's on the line?: haha i feel like the sucker of this deal. If I can't reach my goal by August, *sigh*. I will have to shave half of each of my eyebrows. That's right. But what's motivation without extreme humiliation right?? K, readers: in case of my failure please choose my fate
So.... which one will get the ladies?
hahaha oh man. I feel like working out now. SO BAD
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:
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 thisguy:
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)
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
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%.
Write Left-Handed: Just in case I lose my right hand haha. :) Or so that I can be awesome like Demetri Martin
Do 20 pullups: I've had this goal for so long! I went up to 15! but now I'm at 10 again. -_-
Swim 1 Mile: For health and to work on my willpower (my biggest flaw).
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.
I sat around for most nights during my 1st week, and I got sick of it quick. The Portland area rains like crazy throughout the year so I couldn't go out and jog or shoot some hoops (there's a basketball hoop in the parking lot). So I was looking for something active to do at night (get your mind out of the gutter heh) and I kinda missed swimming when I was in Santa Rosa.
I found this pretty sweet community center about 2-3 minutes away from my place with a swimming pool, so I decided to check it out. Turns out, it's equivalent to a YMCA so it also has a weights room, an indoor basketball gym, and even table tennis! So I have a membership there now, mostly for the swimming. The coolest part of the swimming pool is that they have a water slide indoors! They also have a pretty big whirlpool, and a separate lap pool. So far I could only swim 200m before I collapse and plummet to my doom :P
This day was probably what got me sick. Sleeping at 4AM and waking up at 10 to go Oyster eating. It was refreshing to wake up at a normal hour! The drive to the Oyster place was pretty twisty, I was so lucky they let me sit in the front. I had very little motion sickness this time (phew!). The Oysters were delicious and cheap! 50 bucks for 50 oysters nom. It was pretty fun learning how to shuck! It was even better eating the oysters that you shuck, so gratifying. My sauce of choice is lime with Tabasco sauce.
(left) The guys chillin; (right)Cherry's Butter Cheese Onion Oyster concoction
When we made the drive back, there were like 10 Miatas that suddenly showed up behind us! Made me want to take my car out on those roads one day.
Henry's Thanksgiving
On the drive back, Gary and I were talking about Henry's fried wontons. His parents make them every year and they are damned good! Henry's Turkey was amazingly moist and tender, I would have ate more! But unfortunately, towards the end, I was completely fatigued. I wanted to sleep so bad, and their deliciuos vietnamese Iced coffee had no effect on me. I should have went home to sleep, but everyone was down to hangout and I couldn't miss out on the fun!
We went back to Henry's place and played a bunch of Halo, and Buzz. Alex and Kevin also brought their MMA gloves and.. we all partook in an activity which, due to the 1st 2 rules, I can't talk about it :)
By the time I got to sleep, it was like 3 o clock. I woke up extremely groggy at 3 o clock the next afternoon! I thought it was just because I was so sleep deprived, so I went jogging with Gary to refresh myself and get rid of the Holiday Body haha. WRONG. Once I got home, I was so fatigued I plopped onto my bed and slept another 3 hours. I totally have some kinda flu now.
That was the song that I last heard from Andy's car (reminder: get Andy's CD), and we were karaoke-ing the hell out of it. It also wasn't the only song that we karaoke'd. We sang a crap load of songs throughout tonight. Man today was a regular day that turned out to be one of the funnest random days I've had. I wouldn't say it was the time of my life, but it was pretty damned awesome. And I'm sure Andy, Gary, Henry and Kevin can vouch for this haha.
Mundane Morning
Morning for me these days is pretty much after 12PM haha so bad. I was planning on going to this WIA orientation at one of the EDD One Stop Centers to find out more about government subsidized training, but... I arrived late. Poo. When I got to the area (that Market, Mission area that confused the hell out of me) I hella couldn't find the place. So even if I had skipped my "morning" shower, I probably wouldn't have made it. Oh well. Henry got off early, and Gary took the day off and it was a sunny day so I wasn't really kicking myself. We ended up playing Altered Beast and River City Ransom at my place, fun!
Four o' Clock Fro-yo
It was a pretty warm day for Autumn so we met up with Mel for fro-yo at Lakeshore Plaza. Something like Nuubi Fro-Yo? I think it was new. It was selfserve and I went way overboard on mine. There were like 12 flavors! So I just went crazy. I had 5 different flavors and 5 different toppings. Total cost? $4.49 oops. Next time I gotta control myself.
Spontaneous, Ambitious, Delicious
Hmm.. that spells SAD. Which is what we would have been if everything didn't fall into place like it did tonight! (heh maybe) So at Lakeshore, Henry get's the ambition to be spontaneous and buys a set of Boxing Gloves and Mitts too (relevance). Here's when the day started getting fun.
I was originally planning to eat at home, but Andy mention's Chinos and cleverly lures me to eat at Henry's house. We ate some, played some rockband, and we started boxing! I had brought my gloves too, so now we had two sets. Perfect for some light sparring. This is what lured Kevin to Henry's house haha. It was a lot of fun sparring with each other. We got to test our own fighting skills (since training mitts don't really do that) and just randomly fought each other. I felt so uncoordinated in a sparring match! And it's actually pretty hard to get a good hit on the other guy. I think I fought Gary and Henry, and man when you get hit in the gut you feel it. But the gloves give good enough protection to not do any lasting damage. I'm so glad that everyone was so into it! Good investment.
Gary decided to go to Safeway and buy some Wine haha. So random. I felt like it turned into a Ladies Night: Men Edition. Wine and Boxing? Great times! While we were sipping on the Reisling (quite tasty, sweet and sour, i like!) Gary bought, we watched Man Vs. Food on the Travel channel. I swear the host is going to die of some heart disease. A 4 patty hamburger thats got the diameter of your head? That can't be good.
Then this show Meet the Natives came on, and it was actually pretty entertaining and interesting! It's about 5 tribal natives from an Island in the South Pacific coming over to the US to see what life is like here. Those guys are so naturally funny, and they're really looking at our world with virgin eyes. They described a sleeping bag as a "tube" and have never seen a snake (which one of them was terrified of ). In a way, this show may be exploitive, but I think it's always interesting to see cultures mingle (why travelling is so fun!). They were exposed to cattle ranchers, New Yorkers, and even "the Orange County people". Man those people are so superficial it makes us look bad. The OC'ers explained to the natives that they had a lot of mirrors around the house, because "you always have to make sure you look good in Orange County". They even brought them to a Botox injection appointment, which was pretty cringe-worthy.
But the most interesting part were the questions that the tribe wanted to be answered during their 5 ambassador's vacation.
Why are we so obsessed with money and possessions?
Why do we allow pollution even though we know its bad?
Why do we treat our pets better than some of our fellow citizens?
Is the United States still a peace keeper? Do we look out for others?
Very interesting perspectives coming from a tribe that has never been exposed to our kind of society. It's pretty cool how people exist in a society that is entirely untouched by "modern" technology. It's also refreshing to see the happiness the guys had living a simpler life.
It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!! So another food program comes on showcasing different unique restaurants around the country, and by now all our mouths are watering. This one restaurant in LA I think serves only Peanut Butter Sandwiches. Once we see the Peanut Butter/Marshmallow Fluff sandwich, we start looking at each other. We're like fuck it, we gotta hit up Safeway again and make us some peanut butter sandwiches haha. It was SO worth it! and this was when we were all buzzing from the wine. We picked up bread, Peanut butter, Strawberry Jam, Marshmallow Fluff, Condensed Milk, Nutella, M&M's and Lactose-Free milk (to prevent Andy's lactose farts, which happened anyway). Haha yea, we went all out on creating many different combinations of PB sandwiches. I only had room for 1, so I made the PB and Marshmallow. It was sooo delicious! Really hit the spot. Some other combinations we made were: Jam and Marshmallow, Jam and Condensed milk, Jam, PB, and Marshmallow, and Andy's famous, PB, M&M's, condensed milk, and Jam. (need to grab pictures from Henry's camera)
It's Karaoke Time! Lol for some reason when we got back from Safeway with the sandwich ingredients, we were breaking into song left and right for the next of the night. It was hilarious and felt great to belt out our favorite ballads. I think we were buzzed and hyper from all the sugar. Lol we were so ridiculous. We also streamed Karaoke from Youtube on Henry's big screen TV. I swear we never have to hit up a Karaoke place again. We sang
Unchained Melody - Oh, My Love, My Darling, I Hunger for your touch
You've Lost that Lovin Feelin - You never close your eyes, anymore when I kiss your lips
I'll Make Love To You - Close your eyes, Make a wish, and blow out the candle lights.
Nice and Slow - It's seven o clock on the dot, I'm in my drop top cruisin the streeets
Top Gun - You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin
Man it was so awesome, we let it all out with no care in the world!
Gary said it best: "Should this be a Thanksgiving tradition?" aha maybe, maybe not. But I'm down for more nights like this. Good clean random ass fun.
Today is Thanksgiving, and I'm thankful for all my friends (you know who you are!)
Sorry for such a long post haha. I mostly write about events for myself to remember later down the road. And today was a memorable day. If you made it to the end, you are awesome!!
K, this one's going to be all about fighting, because I just came back from Gary's house and we were messing around on the Boxing gear that I got from a few posts back. I'm glad that everyone that I showed them to were really into it, and I'm sure they'll get a lot of use. Heck Andy, Henry and I were boxing buzzed after we left Supper Club haha, it was funny. The first thing that comes out of everyone's mouth (including me) was "wow this feels great!" Haha, I'm sure everyone has wanted to punch something sometime in their life, and it does feel great to let it all out without any consequences of injury. and the cardio is a nice side effect :)
Fight Quest
I just finished all the episodes (13) of Fight Quest, a show that was on the Discovery Channel. I don't know why it got canceled, but it's a great show. The season follows two guys: Doug (Iraq Veteran) and Jimmy (former math teacher and MMA fighter) across the whole world trying their hands in different martial arts. They pretty much get a 5 day crash course where Masters train the hell out of them, and they end each episode duking it out with a native fighter. It is really fascinating to learn about all the unique technical and cultural differences between each fighting style. What I like best is that these guys have such humble attitudes and aren't out to "show up" other styles in their native settings. They really put their hearts into learning each art, and have a never-give-up attitude. The fighting is so raw and educational at the same time! My favorite styles from the show are Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Wing Chun, Kajukenbo, and Hapkido. If you're into MMA, I would definitely recommend this series.
The Fight
So the fight is coming up soon during Christmas between me and Dillon. I don't really care right now what the outcome is, but I'm really happy about the lead up to the fight. This is because I have never worked out so consistently in my life. It's always been 2-4 weeks on, 1-2 months off (repeat). I want to have a fight to look forward to maybe like twice a year haha. I talked about hundredpushups, twentypullupsbefore, and I'm actually sticking to the 6 week program! Sure it's taken me like 10 weeks to get to week 6, but I'm there now! I haven't tried maxing out my pushups, but I made my personal best in pullups a couple days ago.. 17! I was stuck at 12 for the longest time, and I really wanted to get up to 20 (so I can get a free Marine's T-shirt at one of their booths haha... maybe when that happens there will be another blog contest for the t-shirt?) But yea, I feel really good right now and I think by Christmas I should be in the best shape of my life!
3on3 Basketball
So on Saturday I played 3v3 basketball with my cousins and their friends. I'm not very athletic and I'm terrible at basketball, so I always get a little of nervous when I play a game. Luckily I was on Dillon and David's team, and they are damned good. Dillon was doing these crazy layups with a bum ankle, and David was draining 3's all day. Haha, the guy that had to guard him one game got frustrated after David busted 3 straight shots in his face and yelled: "THATS IMPOSSIBLE!! I COULDN'T HAVE BEEN ANY CLOSER!!" I did pretty decent, only took open shots, and drove it in couple of times so I had a pretty good time.
But I did do my trademark airball shenanigans once. Everytime I play with my cousins, I swear this happens. I cut to the hoop, and someone dishes me a beautiful pass. I catch it with my back turned toward the hoop a foot away from the basket, do a seemingly easy turnaround short shot, and completely airball it. Oh man, and the worst part is when I do this, I instinctively yell out a loud aiyah! (kinda like oh shit, but my chinese-ness takes over) and everyone just busts up laughing because it looks like I pulled something mid-shot. hahaha fail "(holding in laughter) are you okay chad?"
The Twilight Zone
(press play if you want to get in the mood heh)
So I just thought of this when I was driving back to Portland from Corvallis, and thought about it more when I was showering today (I always think of the best things when I'm driving or showering). So Dillon and I are pretty much the best of pals since he was born (he was born during my red egg party and we all rushed to the hospital). So here's the eerie parallel universe part:
1. We both went to agricultural schools (Oregon State and UC Davis) for college to study Mechanical Engineering, about 1.5 hours from home. (interesting.. but not too strange yet).
1a. An hour away from both our agricultural schools, is a more prestigious school (University of Oregon, and UC Berkeley) which are both known as "Hippie Towns" and smell of it too!
2. We both had roommates named Frank (zomg)
3. Both Franks majored in the biological sciences
4. Both Franks have a proven reputation for high tolerance of alcohol. (we thought this was pretty cool and laughed about it a lot)
5. This is Dillon's last year, and he took in a new roommate cus he needed a place to stay for a short period of time. So I met his new roommate Vince, the guy who introduced us to the boxing pad drills. Pretty cool dude.
6. Then while I was driving, I realized in my last year, when Anthony moved out, we took in a 3rd roommate to help cover costs. What was his name? yea you guessed it.. VINCE. (WHATTT?! cue twilight zone music!)
My 10 Year Old Cousin PWNZ (I don't use the word PWNZ much, its reserved for special occasions)
Hey Celina! watcha doin? facebooking? maplestory?... is that a gun? O_O
sorry for the long blog post, but I just couldn't ignore this one. I was hanging out with the younger cousins today and decided to check on little 10 year old Celina. What do 10 year old girls do on their spare time? I have no idea, because when I was 10 all my pals were guys. Here Celina is, happily killing strangers on the internet playing her favorite First Person Shooter called Combat Arms using a touchpad.
So whenever you're playing Halo or Call of Duty, be careful. You might get yourself embarrassed by a 10 year old girl haha
I had a WTB post last week about buying gloves and mitts to play around with, and I bought them! I got them online because Big 5 had no selection and they were overpriced. So I hunted online for a while..
Everlast Pro Style Training Gloves 14oz Black from Amazon.com
Haha I always spend way too much time researching stuff online b4 I buy it. I'd go up and down different price ranges, I almost bought 60+ dollar mitts! But I snapped back to rationality and got the 30 dollar ones. It's so hard to choose what equipment you want, but Boxing Depot had the widest selection and a very reasonable shipping rate (2.95 vs 10+ at other places). I can't wait to get these and start pummeling!
(Also, I got an email from BoxingDepot saying that if I posted about them on my blog, I'd get a free Everlast desktop punching bag. I already have one at home, but.. its free! Whoever wants it can have it, first comment wins!)
Crap I had more fitness stuff to talk about, but my battery is complaining... ill continue tomorrow
