So Mary and I are doing this thing where once a week we each get to get out of the house and have a guy's night or girl's night. With the addition of Christian and my mother in law to our house, I just need to get away once in awhile and so does Mary. I think it will be good for the both of us and our marriage.
Core Lounge anyone? Pyramids is really close to my house as well. I predict that I wiil be giving them a lot of business in the next couple of years. Speaking of brewery's, Marin Brewing Company is pretty close to my work and sometimes on Tuesdays, my co-worker and I will go there after our workout because they have $2 pints. In my opinion the beer is much better there and so is the food. Try their meatlof sandwich, you won't regret it. It's not as far as you think it would be, it's right off Francisco Drake Blvd.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Is Samson Not A Good Name?
I wonder why more people don't name their kid Samson. Okay he flew from the hip a lot and because of his anger a lot of people close to him suffered/died/got burned to death and he had a thing for Philistine prostitutes, but don't we all? God did raise him as a Judge and leader of the Israelites during a time of Godlessness and persecution by the Philistines. And apparently he was a good leader because he was worth mentioning in Judges during a time when there were no Godly people. At the conclusion of Judges 15 it is said that "Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines."
But like all of us Samson has a lot of flaws. He had serious issues with his anger, I mean when this guy got mad thousand would die at his hands. He had issues with lust, which eventually led to his demise. But at the end he repented and God once again restored his strength and he was able to vindicate himself by destroying the pagan temple and over 3000 of the Philistines that were gathered there.
But like all of us Samson has a lot of flaws. He had serious issues with his anger, I mean when this guy got mad thousand would die at his hands. He had issues with lust, which eventually led to his demise. But at the end he repented and God once again restored his strength and he was able to vindicate himself by destroying the pagan temple and over 3000 of the Philistines that were gathered there.
So once again, why not name your kid Samson. I actually thought about it as a potential name for my son Christian. Would it be folly to name my second son Samson? It’s a very strong sounding name and it kind of rolls off the tongue nicely, Samson Choi. Maybe I am getting ahead of myself because Mary thinks our second kid will be a daughter, but I feel God will bless with me with a second son.
On a side note there was a Korean drama called My Lovely Samsoon, and everyone made fun of this girl because she was named Samsoon. I guess it's an ugly name for a Korean girl.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Love to hate
So we are moved in and getting settled in our new house. The movers cost $600! One Korean guy and two Mexican dudes. I wonder how much the Mexican dudes got?
I love our house. The neighborhood is perfect. All of our neighbors are Asian~weird. The only thing is that it’s pretty close to Bart and you can hear it every time it goes by. Oh and the water pressure is pretty weak, but hopefully we can get that fixed? Anybody know anything about plumbing (Jonathan?)?
Back at work~much to do. But bright side I get the next two Fridays off. Cesar Chavez Day this Friday and Good Friday next Friday. Sweet!
QT today - I think I am an Eeyore Christian. I think I am just an Eeyore person. I tend to focus on the negative in situations and especially in people. But I’m worse than Eeyore because I focus on the negative and then I begin to hate.
I’m a hater. I have been trying to change this for awhile now, but it’s slow going. I know this is a major flaw and I consciously try to see the positive in situations and in people but it’s so much easier to be negative. I feel a lot like Luke Skywalker. I want to be nice and not get angry at my father Darth Vader and the ugly Emperor. But it would be so much easier to just start bashing Darth Vader over the head with the light saber, chop off his hand, and then throw the Emperor over the ledge.
Positive note – I have been improving in this area. I used to hate more intensely/violently and I would write people off, but I don’t do that anymore. I used to close myself off to relationships with people I just didn’t like, but where would that leave me? Probably alone. Going to a small church has really helped me tremendously in this area. I realized when you close yourself off to one or more people, you are essentially closing yourself off to 5-15% of the church congregation. In a bigger church it wouldn’t matter too much, but when your church only has like 20 core people, you can really feel the hate.
I know that I am a flawed/sinful person and so I give people the benefit of the doubt knowing that they too are flawed/sinful people. And hopefully people will give me the same grace.
I love our house. The neighborhood is perfect. All of our neighbors are Asian~weird. The only thing is that it’s pretty close to Bart and you can hear it every time it goes by. Oh and the water pressure is pretty weak, but hopefully we can get that fixed? Anybody know anything about plumbing (Jonathan?)?
Back at work~much to do. But bright side I get the next two Fridays off. Cesar Chavez Day this Friday and Good Friday next Friday. Sweet!
QT today - I think I am an Eeyore Christian. I think I am just an Eeyore person. I tend to focus on the negative in situations and especially in people. But I’m worse than Eeyore because I focus on the negative and then I begin to hate.
I’m a hater. I have been trying to change this for awhile now, but it’s slow going. I know this is a major flaw and I consciously try to see the positive in situations and in people but it’s so much easier to be negative. I feel a lot like Luke Skywalker. I want to be nice and not get angry at my father Darth Vader and the ugly Emperor. But it would be so much easier to just start bashing Darth Vader over the head with the light saber, chop off his hand, and then throw the Emperor over the ledge.
Positive note – I have been improving in this area. I used to hate more intensely/violently and I would write people off, but I don’t do that anymore. I used to close myself off to relationships with people I just didn’t like, but where would that leave me? Probably alone. Going to a small church has really helped me tremendously in this area. I realized when you close yourself off to one or more people, you are essentially closing yourself off to 5-15% of the church congregation. In a bigger church it wouldn’t matter too much, but when your church only has like 20 core people, you can really feel the hate.
I know that I am a flawed/sinful person and so I give people the benefit of the doubt knowing that they too are flawed/sinful people. And hopefully people will give me the same grace.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Feeling Good
Man I am feeling good. I sent out 174 award letters the last 2 days thanks to our new system PowerFAIDS and for those of you not in Financial Aid, (which is all of you) all this means is that I'm AWESOME!
Give Me Liberty St.
Mary and I recorded yesterday, so now we are officially in the books as the proud new owners of a modest house in El Cerrito. We got the keys yesterday and after I got home from work we went to our new home. Mary was gracious to oblige even though she went twice that day already.
There’s probably something wrong with me…but I haven’t been that excited about becoming a homeowner. But when I walked through the doors of our house yesterday and imagined coming home to it every night, I finally got excited. No more looking for parking at night when I come home and having to walk 5 minutes just to get to my apt. No more having to hear the creaks when the stupid guy upstairs walks around. No more having to wait to laundry and then having to move some person’s wet clothes because they don’t put it in the dryer right away. And finally no more of having to deal with our stupid landlord Marie, who is just the most awful person. Because of her incompetence Mary, her Mom , and I had to live in her studio for the first month of our marriage. They slept on the bed and I slept on the floor a couple feet away. Talk about a honeymoon.
There’s probably something wrong with me…but I haven’t been that excited about becoming a homeowner. But when I walked through the doors of our house yesterday and imagined coming home to it every night, I finally got excited. No more looking for parking at night when I come home and having to walk 5 minutes just to get to my apt. No more having to hear the creaks when the stupid guy upstairs walks around. No more having to wait to laundry and then having to move some person’s wet clothes because they don’t put it in the dryer right away. And finally no more of having to deal with our stupid landlord Marie, who is just the most awful person. Because of her incompetence Mary, her Mom , and I had to live in her studio for the first month of our marriage. They slept on the bed and I slept on the floor a couple feet away. Talk about a honeymoon.
Monday, March 19, 2007
All the times I moved
3 yrs old – Ulsan to Seoul, Korea
4 yrs – Seoul to Lafayette, California
5 yrs– Lafayette to Fairfield
6 yrs – Fairfield to Vallejo
10 yrs – Vallejo to Concord
12 yrs – Concord back to Vallejo
13 yrs – Vallejo to San Jose
14 yrs – San Jose to Sacramento
15 yrs – Sacramento back to Vallejo
16 yrs – Vallejo to San Jose
16 yrs – San Jose to Fremont (moved 3 times in Fremont)
18 yrs – Fremont to Berkeley (to start school)
22 yrs – Berkeley to Alameda (moved 3 times in Alameda)
30 yrs – Alameda to Oakland
So now I’m getting prepared for my final move…well we might have to move into a bigger house later, so second to last move. This Thursday we are moving into our first house in El Ceritto. It’s perfect because it is so central to everything that we do socially.
So why all the moving when I was a kid? Well I guess you can just say that I had a pretty tough childhood living in a foster home and group home. I got shuffled back and forth from my real father to my foster parents so many times I lost count.
I’m so sick of moving. One of the things that I promised if I had kids is that I would let them grow up in one neighborhood. That means one elementary school, one Jr. High and one High school. It is so tough for kids when they have to move. It always sucked being the new kid in school and having to make a new group of friends. It did teach me how to make friends fast though. Shout out to all the best Friends I had growing up; Darren, Mark, Yancey, Adam, Greg, and a special shout out to Richard (who was my roommate for 7 yrs, 7 yrs!)
I thank God for this tremendous blessing. He has given me so much these past few years that I don’t really have the words to thank him. All I can do is serve Him with what little talent I have. We will also make our house a place of ministry. People are welcome over anytime. You are not imposing.
"And Joshua said unto all the people [of Israel], . . . choose you this day whom ye will serve; . . . but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Josh. 24:2, 15).
4 yrs – Seoul to Lafayette, California
5 yrs– Lafayette to Fairfield
6 yrs – Fairfield to Vallejo
10 yrs – Vallejo to Concord
12 yrs – Concord back to Vallejo
13 yrs – Vallejo to San Jose
14 yrs – San Jose to Sacramento
15 yrs – Sacramento back to Vallejo
16 yrs – Vallejo to San Jose
16 yrs – San Jose to Fremont (moved 3 times in Fremont)
18 yrs – Fremont to Berkeley (to start school)
22 yrs – Berkeley to Alameda (moved 3 times in Alameda)
30 yrs – Alameda to Oakland
So now I’m getting prepared for my final move…well we might have to move into a bigger house later, so second to last move. This Thursday we are moving into our first house in El Ceritto. It’s perfect because it is so central to everything that we do socially.
So why all the moving when I was a kid? Well I guess you can just say that I had a pretty tough childhood living in a foster home and group home. I got shuffled back and forth from my real father to my foster parents so many times I lost count.
I’m so sick of moving. One of the things that I promised if I had kids is that I would let them grow up in one neighborhood. That means one elementary school, one Jr. High and one High school. It is so tough for kids when they have to move. It always sucked being the new kid in school and having to make a new group of friends. It did teach me how to make friends fast though. Shout out to all the best Friends I had growing up; Darren, Mark, Yancey, Adam, Greg, and a special shout out to Richard (who was my roommate for 7 yrs, 7 yrs!)
I thank God for this tremendous blessing. He has given me so much these past few years that I don’t really have the words to thank him. All I can do is serve Him with what little talent I have. We will also make our house a place of ministry. People are welcome over anytime. You are not imposing.
"And Joshua said unto all the people [of Israel], . . . choose you this day whom ye will serve; . . . but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Josh. 24:2, 15).
Thursday, March 15, 2007
30something
My friend sent me this and I thought it was pretty funny.
IF you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!
When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... uphill BOTH ways . yadda, yadda, yadda And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today! You've got it so easy I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a %$# Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!
I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!
There was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!
There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and messed it all up!
We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!
And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "asteroids" and the graphics sucked! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! ... Just like LIFE!
IF you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!
When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... uphill BOTH ways . yadda, yadda, yadda And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today! You've got it so easy I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a %$# Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!
I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!
There was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!
There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and messed it all up!
We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!
And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "asteroids" and the graphics sucked! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! ... Just like LIFE! 
When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!
Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little brats!
And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up.we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire ... imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid JiffyPop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot. That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!
Regards,
-The 30 Something crowd!
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