J E E – R H A L

Has it already been a year?  Wow.  2010 was an absolute BLUR.  As I sit here and think back, I don’t even know where to start.

Resolved! – I had a good year for new year’s resolutions!  I squarely accomplished 5 out of 6 resolutions this past year and it feels great.  Visiting Atlanta was a high priority and I was really happy to get this one done.  My blog continued to be neglected however.  I still need to work on that.  As always, I’ll be making a New Year’s resolution post, so I’ll save the new list for that post.

In the begining, E – I don’t think I’ll ever forget this past year, ever.   I’d say the first part of the year, I focused on really getting settled into living in California.  It always takes me a good ammount of time to really feel at home in a new city.  I also feel like I took care of some things the first part of this year that needed some attention.  Sometimes, you can’t go to the next chapter unless you finish one.

Change – I think every year I try to strive forward in some way, but 2010 was an amazing year of change.  If I had to pick one word to describe this past year, “change” would definitely be it.  I think I learned to be a little more spontaneous, and learned to have a little more fun.

Retrospective – For some odd reason, I was really retrospective all year.  Maybe I’m just getting old.  I couldn’t help but think back to the past, smirk to myself, and bring back fond memories in my mind.  I also thought a lot about how my life has been, and the experiences I’ve had so far.  In the past, I’ve sometimes felt like an aimless vagabond, but I now see how that exposed me to so many great things.

Ping-Pong – I did a TON of traveling this year.  Both for business and pleasure.  I’m grateful that I made it through this craziness unscathed, and in one piece!

I’m surrounded - After this year, I can confidently say I have the best group of friends a man could ever ask for.  I sometimes tell people that I’m the luckiest person in the world.  I don’t think anyone understands that I say that because I think I am surrounded by such great people. 

In summary – What a ride, what a year.  Like all good things, this too must come to an end.  We’re making our final approach to 2011, people put your seat backs in the upright position and stow away your tray tables.  I’ll have nothing but fond memories and as I look back at this year, I sleep with a grin tonight.

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There are times in my life where I look back at something that happened recently and think to myself “I could’ve done that”, or “I would’ve done that” or “I should’ve done that”, but ultimately, I didn’t.  I’m not trying to talk about regret here.  Regret to me is more like “I WISH I would’ve done that”.  It’s like those TV shows where you see a guy, and he’s about to make a decision, and right before he makes up his mind, it shows you the outcome of one of those decisions. 

A really bad example of this is in the movie Unfaithful.  In the movie Diane Lane’s character is walking around on a windy day with a bunch of stuff in her hands.  The wind is so strong that she’s dropping stuff and it’s going everywhere.  A guy comes by and helps her, and then asks her to come up to his place.  This choice, this decision ultimately leads to all the stuff that happens throughout the movie.  At the very end of the movie, it goes back to that same scene, and she decides not to go up to the strange guys place.

Sometimes it’s just better to walk away.  Of course, you know deep down inside what could’ve, would’ve, or should’ve happened.

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 some birds aren’t meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are just too bright… and when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice… but still, the place you live is that much more drab and empty that they’re gone. |  Red

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Yes the site is still ugly.  I haven’t been able to work on it at all.  Functionality works so I’m pretty happy about that.  I feel a pretty significant post coming on pretty soon.

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Whoa! Does this work??? Sweet!!!!!

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Well, I’ve neglected my blog for so long I thought it was time to spruce it up a little bit.  I’ve installed some new software and just migrated all of my data over from my old blog.  Looks like it all came through.  Gotta start working on making this place look a little bit nicer.  Baby steps!

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I have no idea why, but my parents are on a fantastic voyage. They live in Virginia, and started their trip there. So far, they’ve covered 7,000 miles, through the Midwest, Canada, Northwest and down to Southern California. After a brief couple days in the LA area, they are planning on continuing their trip back to Virginia through the South of the country.
When they first told me about this idea, I was honestly pretty hesitant. Some of you may not know, but my parents aren’t in the best health. My dad looks a lot better now, but he’s suffered a lot of health issues. My mom is a different story, although she’s never really had a major scare, she’s always a little sickly. Either way, I always joke that both of them have been long “out of warranty”. My dad is pretty much blind in one eye and deaf in one ear, and my mom’s nearsightedness is worse than I thought it was. They can legaly drive, but barely.
I don’t get to see them too often these days. The distance is difficult. Almost three thousand miles and three time zones separate us, so it was a treat for both of us that they spent some time here in California. I really could do better and visit them more often.
I’ve always thought the world of my parents. My mom and I don’t always get along, but I still respect her, and realize the sacrifices she made for me. My dad’s always been the good cop of the two. The old man has always been my friend, role model, and personal hero. As first generation immigrants, they really had it rough. I remember as a child we used to use a huge carboard box as a dinner table. Our family has come a long way since then, but it’s always been the three of us.
Sometimes, I feel like I can never live up to their expectations. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s normal. Maybe, we aren’t supposed to live up to our parents expectations, and that’s just how things work.
I’m really glad they had a chance to stop by and spend time here. It’s time very well spent. I hope they have a safe trip back, may God watch over them in the rest of their……fantastic voyage.

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What a race weekend. The 24 Hours of LeMans was run this weekend, as well as the Canadian Grand Prix. Congrats to the Audi R15 TDI team and the McLaren Mercedes team for winning thier respective races.
The more I watch racing, the more I think many elements of it mimic life. Take LeMans for example. It’s one of the most challenging races on earth. Teams bring thier highly tuned, high performance machines to a circuit and run it for 24 GRUELING hours. It’s a relentless affair. To put this into perspective, most races are less than 2hours long. LeMans is so taxing that teams not only change tires and refuel, but rotate three different drivers and other things that teams usually don’t need to worry about such as brake pads and rotors. This year, 56 cars entered the race and only 28 finished.
The part I want to focus on is the LMP1 race at LeMans today. Two major teams battled it out for the class win. Peugeot with it’s 908 HDi, and Audi with the newly revised R15 TDI. The Peugeot was the favorite, and just as people expected, it had a very strong showing in the begining hours of the race. Dominating early on, they ran in first through fourth. The race seemed grim for Audi, most of the R15 TDI’s were several laps down… but they came to race, and while the Peugeots set blistering lap times one after the other, the Audi’s held thier pace. If things continued, there was no way for Audi to win. Before long however, things went very wrong for Peugeot. One after another, all of the 908 HDi’s retired from the race, and eventually, none of them finished. The Audi’s however, not only made it to the finish line, but eventually took the top three spots. What I really liked was however, when a reporter interviewed the team captain of Audi after the lead Peugeot caught on fire, he said something to the effect of “we are racing ourselves, we are running our own race, and will continue to do so”.

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Ok so I’m a couple days late on this, but I figure, better late than never. 2009 is officially closed out and we’ve cracked open 2010. As I’ve done every year, here are some resolutions for 2010, in no particular order.
- Visit Atlanta. I’m wayyyyyyyy overdue and I’ve made this #1 on my list of things to do in 2010.
- Volunteer. Think this is something we could all do a little more of. I’m keeping it on my list.
- Don’t complain about things UNLESS I have a good solution. I don’t think I complain a lot anyway.
- Be more assertive. I’ve always been pretty introverted so it’s always something that I’m trying to work on. Not assertive in a bad way, but really be one of those people that stand up and is willing to put themselves out there.
- Live in the moment. I think sometimes I’m too wrapped up in the consequences of my actions that I forget to enjoy myself. Without sounding too irresponsible, I think I need to live in the moment more and just learn to have fun.
- Write/Blog more. 2009 was the worst year for my blog. I feel bad. If it was a ficas, it would be withered and dead.
Hopefully I’ll knock a couple of these out. Looking back, I did ok for 2009, although there were a LOT of unexpected events that happened last year. The economy is in shambles and unemployment is above 10% but I see what happened in 2008-2009 as a cleansing. Kinda like how sometimes you need a forest fire to spur the growth of new trees. As far as I know, I’m still healty, still have both of my parents, and still have a group of friends I wouldn’t trade for anyone else’s.
Recently, one of my best friends came to visit me in California and I couldn’t help but think about how we had known each other through the last decade. What my brain really started to chew on is the decade ahead. In the next 10 years I’ll face some of the biggest challenges and make some of the most important choices of my life. I’ve never been the kind of person to look back at my life and regret the decisions that I’ve made. I hope at the end of 2019 I can say the same thing. I’ve used this opportunity to lay out some medium to long term goals for myself. For now, I’ll keep these to myself but hopefully, with a little bit of hard work and a touch of luck, I’ll hit a few of those too.
Happy new year and the best of luck to everyone for 2010.

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As some of you may know, I recently took a little trip to Vegas. So while I’m there I find myself at the BlackJack tables at about 3am. Here’s the story about how I manage to almost get my ass kicked.
So I’m sitting at this BlackJack table and things are going pretty good. I was severely down at one point and I’ve managed to claw some of my money back. We’re all drunk and were having a pretty good time at this particular table. To set the scene, the players at the table are as follows. In the first position, just to the right of me, there’s this girl, I even remember her name, Angie. She’s a decent looking girl, curly, dirty blonde hair, black dress, not skinny but definitely not overweight. I’m sitting next in the second position. My buddy Kyle from Chicago is sitting in the third spot. Now, to those of you who don’t know Kyle, Kyle is a very large dude. Just imagine a large samoan dude, he even looks like one, although he’s Mexican. Next is a random guy, medium build, pretty young, late 20′s maybe early 30′s. After him is a nother guy, a bit younger, pretty tall, maybe early to mid 20′s. There’s an older lady at the last spot at the table, she’s smoking and she knows the young guy sitting next to her, they are here together. heh. So anyway, we’re all playing and we’re all drunk. Everyone’s having a good time.
We play a couple hands and at some point, the guy sitting next to my buddy Kyle, gets up and moves all the way over and sits next to this girl Angie. Keep in mind that she’s sitting in the first position so there’s no extra spot there for him to play. Now, I personally didn’t find this so odd because Angie was only playing a couple hands and then sitting out a lot. So this guy goes over there and plays the hands that Angie dosen’t play. Predictably, he also uses the opportunity to hit on her. He puts his arm around her, keeps asking for drinks and is generally all over this girl. At one point, she looks up at me with this face “please help me!”. Try as I might, this guy is all over her. So whatever, I keep playing, and everyone at the table is having fun…… well, everyone except Angie. After a while she gets fed up with it all and decides to leave.
So now this guy is sitting there, looking all sad. He continues to play for about 20 more minutes and then decides he’s done as well. After he leaves, my curiosity gets the better of me so I start asking the table about the two. I ask “so were they together or what?”. The lady at the far end of the table, who’s been pretty quiet but seems to laugh at my jokes pipes up and proceeds to tell me that not only are they not together, that the guy is actually married and his wife was at the table earlier! Of course this leads me to my follow-up question: “was his wife ugly??”. The woman tells me that the guys wife was really hot, and not only that but the dealer confirms. (Now, keep in mind, that I’m drunk, it’s about 5am in a casino, and I’m being LOUD and generally obnoxious.) So I hear the woman’s reply and I go “WELL IN THAT CASE I’LL KEEP HIS WIFE BUSY WHILE HE HITS ON ANGIE”. Yeah, I basically yell it. So as this is coming out of my mouth, I look at the dealer and the other players and they have this terrified look on thier faces. I think the dealer was actually shaking his head a little trying to say no. I realize what’s going on and quiet down instantly and say “uhhhh….. he’s right behind me isn’t he?”. The lady at the table cracks a huge grin and goes “yup”. I BLATANTLY look over my shoulder and sure enough, there he is, looking down at his cell phone. There is NO WAY he didn’t hear what I said. HAHA, luckily, he decides just to walk away, didn’t even say a word to me. As soon as he was gone the whole table, including the dealer, almost died laughing.

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