Sitting in a library, I get a text to update this thang. This'll be a good change from writing cover letters all day. To my readers: "Thank you for your time and consideration, I hope to speak with you soon."
It's been sick living in Portland being only 1.5 hours away from the slopes. I feel like going every weekend, and this $99 season night pass is letting me do it. If only I had the money for snow tires. And if only gas prices hadn't hit 4 bucks.
I'm working on my speed now and going down steeper slopes, but it's hard when you got the fear! The last time I went, I caught an edge going so fast I swear I flipped over twice. But good thing I haven't been doing the "split the sphincter" fall lately. That is an ungodly hell of pain that can't be explained. Anyways, to psyche myself up for my snow trips, I've been watching Terje Haakonsen ChuckJesusNorris abusing (sexually) the steepest snow slopes I've seen a human ever attempt.
The dude is a legend, I don't know of anybody with bigger, brasser, bronzer, balls than he does. The first part is nearly freefall! and on the rest of the face of the mountain, he's just chillin, doin jumps like it's nothing. Just watch the video.
Last week, I was talking about where to go fishing in Portland with my Uncle and he was listing off all these lakes that I have now forgotten. Anyways, we started talking about scenic points and he mentions Farch Mountain having a great view of the sunrise. He jokes, "Wanna wake up at 4AM and drive up there? wahaha" Calling his bluff, I look at him deadpanned and go, "sure, lets do it!"... "ooh ok.. we'll go then, sure you can wake up?"
Haha when 4AM rolls by, I feel like crap and just snooze until 4:30AM. Then Wilton runs up the stairs bursting with energy, "Chad! Are we going? It's 4:30! I just ate two burritos!" The kid stayed up all night for this haha and I didn't have the heart to say no. I check out the sunrise time and it's 5:36. It takes about an hour to get there. So I'm like if we're gonna go we gotta go now!
About 30 minutes of driving, I start hitting the twisties to go up Farch Mountain. The sky is already brightening up, yet it was kinda foggy. Crap. I shrugged it off because we already drove so far. Twisties always bring a smile to my face, so I step on it. Wilton's been kinda quiet, so I look over and ask him if he's alright. He mutters that he's a bit carsick, so I dial it down a bit. I wasn't going fast just for the fun of it, I wanted to get there on time too! Apparently I didn't slow down enough. I totally forgot that he had eaten two burritos right before the trip. He ended up not going to see the sunrise at all. He threw up in the back of my car into a bag (thank god I had that bag)
I was probably about 5-10 minutes too late. When I left the parking lot, I had about a 1/4 mile trail to walk up to the viewpoint. From the parking lot the sun was poking out already...nooooooooooooo. But it made an awesome picture:
ooOOOoo, if I only had a better camera
Once I saw that starburst of a sun, I booked it. Running like mad up the trails and I encounter the steps. DUN DUN DUN
How far up? HOW FAR??
Luckily it wasn't that far up (but on my way down there was this heavy-set dude that was struggling so hard to get up there. he had to rest every 3 steps. ah man, poor guy). When I made it to the top, I was gasping for air......
.....because the view was so breathtaking! (couldn't resist. i know, it's an illness and i believe its contagious)
Wish I was here before it rose.
I like this rock formation
Mt. Hood: Where snowboarding happens.
Above the clouds
What I saw when I first got up there, made me go Wow out loud.
Staring at this kinda trips me out
The trees directly across from the sun provided a cool backdrop. Yeah, I was alone, my uncle didn't wake up and my brother was passed out in the car. But it was so awesome up there, even if it was by myself. The sun was slowly rising, a sea of clouds below you, and five mountains in the distance all around you. It was peaceful and quiet, I just let my mind go blank for a few minutes. So relaxing... until the mosquitos found me. RUN!!!!
Have you ever heard a song on the radio and have a mental construction of what the singer looks like, only to find out later that the singer looks completely different than what you had in mind?
Wrong Ethnicity
For example, one of the first ones for me was back in highschool when I heard Paperboy - Ditty. I totally thought it was an Asian rapper for some reason. Probably because Viet Rap was all the rave back then. Does anyone agree with me though? I swear it was Paperboy's sort of higher-pitched, softer rapping style plus the minimally produced backtrack. Reminded me of the poor quality self-produced azn rap songs. no? maybe this was a bad example. In any case.
Wrong Gender
How about Nick Pitera?
Yeah, it's a little bit different with video, but if you had your eyes closed you wouldn't doubt it was a girl singing. Pretty damned impressive. Props.
Just Plain Wrong
This post came about because of a song by Tracy Chapman - Fast Car that I heard on 96.5 (Lite Rock Less Talk). I've been listening to this song for years now thinking that it was some white dude in the country singing about wanting a new life, right?
ANNKKK wrong! check the music video:
Little did I know, Tracy Chapman is a black woman! That just blew my mind. Whaaaaaaaaaat. I couldn't believe it, I got both the gender and ethnicity wrong on this one. Nonetheless, it's a great song and great artist.
Wrong.. Species?
haha just for fun, i'll throw this one in. Ever heard of Vitas? Skip to about 1 minute.
Doesn't it remind you of the Diva from The 5th Element?!
So yea it's pretty interesting how dynamic or different people's vocal tone and range can be. How do people, especially impersonators manipulate their vocal chords to sound like someone else? Crazy.
Terry Fator doing a puppet doing a woman's voice
Skills... so much skills!!
haha man i'm digressing, but here's the extent on vocal chord research we are currently at. LOL HAHAHA i can't get enough of this:
I was looking at other resorts besides Mt. Hood Meadows. And I found out there's a resort near it called Timberline Lodge. (linky1linky2) Apparently it's got some history/legacy and lot's of pro's come to train there. Why?
It's open 51 weeks a year. Yep, thats right. The only lift-accessible summer ski resort in the country just 60 miles away.
I'm writing this to keep record of the pain you caused me today. I was sleeping my last recovery sleep to rid myself from this sickness and I get a call at 7AM from Mom that you didn't wear shoes to school. I had to drag my Nyquil groggy butt out of bed and drive all the way to SOTA. How does someone not wear shoes to school!? You should be punished by wearing Crocs to school the next time you do this.
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!!
Just came back from trying to see a Meteor Shower tonight with Andy. The last time we tried to see one, it was foggy as hell and we couldn't see anything. Tonight was a lot clearer, we went up to Land's End and could actually see a bunch of stars. We were out there for almost an hour and I didn't see shit! Andy saw two trails; the sky must hate me. As I was laying there I heard a "seagull" noise, but.. seagulls don't come out at night right? Must have been something (or someone?) else haha. Anyways, we were about to leave... and suddenly! I see a burst of light flying across the sky! ...It was Andy flicking his cigarette.
Next time, sky.. next time.
Science Time: So we were wondering if there was a difference between meteor showers and a falling star. Turns out, they're the same. Falling stars aren't stars. They're caused by cosmic debris or rocks (meteoroid) entering the earth's atmosphere and burning up. Cool.
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!
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 was tracking my MINI, and looking at the wind directions on the map. Then it struck me, I don't know where wind comes from! So I look it up:
Wind comes from
1)Earth's Rotation: as earth rotates, air does not move exactly at the same speed the earth because of fluid properties like viscosity. Its kind of like feeling the wind when you're going in a car, but the air isn't blowing that hard; its the car moving into the air.
2)Thermal properties: we all know hot air flows to cold air. The sun heats the earth unevenly. Most of it hits the equator. So the air from the equator naturally circulates towards the poles, where it is colder.
Then I thought.. why does the Earth Rotate? I thought it was because of gravity of the sun so that Gravity+Heat= Wind! but I was wrong.
Apparently Earth spins because there is nothing stopping it from slowing down. There is no friction in space, and I guess the air drag is so miniscule compared to the mass of the earth that it is insignificant. I also read something about the moon's tidal wave drag, which is also insignificant.
The Earth and all other planets started spinning because that is how they were formed. Dust clouds swirled into itself due to its own gravity and began to form planets. As the cloud condensed, the matter spun faster and faster. It's kind of the technique that ice skaters or breakdancers use when they spin. Arm's out, spin slow. Arm's in, spin fast. So the Earth was spinning initially, and it just can't stop! maybe in a bajillion years.
I know a lot of people that like to coast in neutral to save gas, but is it really the case? So I've looked around online and it depends.
If you are driving an older carburetted car, then sticking it in neutral would save more gas.
If you are driving a newer fuel injected car, then sticking it in neutral would actually use slightly more gas than if your foot was off the throttle but in driving gear. When the car is in neutral, the engine is still idling and using gas to keep running. Newer fuel injected cars have a fuel cutoff when coasting in gear.
However, it seems that the fuel savings for each case is miniscule.
Now in the case of stopping at an intersection and putting it in neutral. There should be hardly any difference between neutral and putting in in gear. This is because the engine is idling in both cases. But it seems that the consensus is that it does slightly save fuel at the stop to be in neutral, because there is less load on the engine.
It seems that people are saying that putting manual cars in neutral is okay; no wear on the clutch or transmission. However, for automatics, it can cause more wear on the transmission when you shift from neutral back to drive. So it might be a better idea to leave it in drive in automatics
Well, it seems that a lot of the internet is based on more opinion than fact. I have not come across any scientific tests with data, but what I wrote here is based on a general consensus.
