Berkeley Kite Festival

Went to the Berkeley Kite Festival.  Kid and I were less than enthused.  Long wait in traffic, $10 parking, and a long walk from the car just to see a bunch of kites.  These big ones were cool though. 

Christian watched them for like 10 minutes and then said, "I wanna go home."  We walked around a little bit and went out for some sliced pizza afterwards.  I think the pizza was his favorite part.  Ahhh just like daddy.  

Evil is a Hella of a Drug

I've been told by many people that I am honest in my sharing.  There are people who you meet and they are like an open book, that's me.  Other people you can know for a lifetime and to get any vulnerability from them is like pulling teeth.  Those types of people drive me crazy! 

My prior post was a very honest and quite negative.  I am doing much better now.  Sometimes when you speak from the heart and your heart is not feeling that great you get some grumbling. 

My wife says that the longer she gets to know me she feels more and more that I am really introverted.  I take everything personally and to heart.  I see things not from a holistic worldly perspective, but from my own egocentric POV.  

Another big reason why she thinks I'm introverted is because I feel most at peace and rested when I am by myself rather that with other people.  Some people like to constantly surround themselves with people and that's how they recharge.  Others need some alone time to reenergize and are perfectly happy by themselves.  My perfect vacation is actually staying at home with my family.  It's funny.  Every time I get back from a trip I need a separate vacation from that vacation.  A little unwinding time by myself in comfortable surroundings.    

Anyways Like I said I am doing better, I need to start cutting people a little slack, some might call it grace.  "Where's your grace?" my wife always says.  I don't know, I need to find it.  God help me know the grace that you have given freely to me.  Life is a constant spiritual battle and the devil always tries to take me out with my negativity and love for hatred.  Evil is a hella of a drug.  Like any other drug if you entertain it even a little bit, take a few hits here and there, it will eventually consume you.    

I leave with you with the opposite of evil, my son trying on his little brother's Kaiser beanie.

Maybe I'm the Problem

A long time ago my old pastor gave a sermon inspired by the John Ortberg book Everyone's Normal Until You Get to Know Them.  His basic message was that if you are always blaming others for things, maybe it's not them, maybe it's you.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, well because I tend to externalize negative attributes on others and internalize positive attributes on myself.  Basically I think everyone is weird and I'm "normal".  Which is really ludicrous because I know that I am pretty messed up.  But time and time again I find myself being angry at people because they don't think the way I do, which I have internalized as being "normal".  

There is this societal phenomenon called etiquette or conventional norms and I have formed in my mind what is proper etiquette and what is not.  When someone does not follow what I deem to be proper etiquette I externalize negative attributes towards that person.  You see how this could go on and on and eventually everyone will eventually fail to meet one of my expectations and end up disappointing me.  

Lately I've been feeling like I hate everyone.  Everyone either really annoys me, acts stupid (in my eyes), or fails to meet one or more of the Jin Choi social etiquette rules.  Then I take a step back and go "Whoa!" they're not the problem, I'm the problem, the problem lies inside me.  Can all these people truly be crazy and I be the only sane one?  Can all these people truly be annoying assholes, can all these people truly have no self awareness or social grace in the slightest?  I think the odds are that I'm the one with the problem.  

I don't know what to do with these feelings.  I seem to shy away from all social contact these days.  I am happiest when I am with my family or by myself.  At work I contend with people, well because I get paid for it, but apart from that I just want to be left alone.  Sometimes I go to church and I don't want to talk to a single person and that is a major problem.  When I am driving I want to kill all bad drivers and give them mean stares when I pass by.  Sometimes during major traffic I wish a natural disaster would wipe out a majority of our population saving all the people I care about of course.

I wish I had an older brother or mentor.  I guess what I've always missed in my life was a father figure.  But apart from that  I really wish I had an older Hyung who I can talk to, someone who was a lot more spiritual than me, someone who has been through a lot, someone who really knows me and loves me.  But again I would probably make a crappy younger brother, because I don't like being told what to do and I like being the boss.  I would probably want to show my older brother that I am only subservient towards him out of choice by beating the crap out of him one time, just to show him who was really in control.  I don't know I'm really messed up in the head. 

Christian Meets Aiden

Mary

You know what, I have an awesome wife. I don’t gush about her enough but I really should. Besides all the normal wife, mother duties she does, she is really an amazing human being.

She has taken on the role of our church’s Compassion International spokesperson and through her a lot of kids got sponsored at our church and at her work. She even won a prize through Compassion Int. for getting sponsors and won our family a free trip to visit our Compassion child in the Philippines! Well it’s actually her sponsor child that she has been sponsoring since college. I shouldn’t actually take any credit at all. But Mary corresponds with her child frequently and earlier this year we took on another sponsor child.

She makes beautiful jewelry http://www.perfect.etsy.com which she sells and donates 50% of the proceeds to charities like Compassion and Kiva. She is constantly making beautiful works of art for her friends, people’s weddings, etc. I even sold one of her necklaces to a co-worker (who loves it!). I just think it is so cool when people have a useful trade, and she is really good at it. I don’t tell her enough though. Mary your jewelry rocks!

Recently she was on TV on a show called Check Please Bay Area. She was so good! She had all the food jargon and talk down and she looked beautiful with her pregnant glow. I was really proud of her.
(See here for the episode: http://blogs.kqed.org/food/2009/05/10/check-please-bay-area-season-4-episode-8-408/ )

The restaurant she reviewed Sahn Maru is a Korean restaurant we frequent in Oakland. The owner of that restaurant was so grateful to her. When Mary went there for lunch with her friend, he came over and said he had been waiting for her to come in. He even told his sons to look out for her and call him immediately if they saw anyone that looked like her. I guess his business boomed after the show. Restaurants that get featured on Check Please Bay Area increase their business dramatically. He comped their meal and gave them all types of extra stuff. He was genuinely grateful, and that was the best part, that she could help out a local Korean business during this tough economic time.

We went to dinner their last night and the owner came over again and talked to us, gave us free Korean pancake, and as we were leaving he handed Mary an envelope! Inside was a check, of course Mary refused and tried to give it back like a hundred times. They actually made a scene in the restaurant. Christian thought they were fighting and he kept yelling, “Stop it!” He told her about his family’s immigration over to America and how he was so grateful that Mary thought of them. He told her to think of him as an older brother. It was really touching, the sincerity in his eyes as he was talking to her.

But it’s just things like that makes Mary such an interesting and awesome person. I remember when I first started dating her I took her to get this free wind up radio that she got for donating money to KQED. I was like why are you giving money to them!? But at the same time I thought it was very endearing. And she does stuff like that all the time. She is constantly finding free stuff on the internet and getting great deals for our kids through the Berkeley Parent Network. I am very lucky to married to her and our kids will one day know what a great mother they have.

Girly Pose

This is a pic that D Koo took that is just too funny I had to post. He looks so girly. Hahaha!

White Water Bachelor Party

We went white water rafting for Pastor DeWayne's (or Pastor Doyn as Chrsitian likes to call him) bachelor party. The rapids were class 2 and I guess class 2 means really slow, because we had to paddle the whole time.

It was really fun though, we kept pushing each other into the river. There was one point where I jumped into the river backwards because a huge branch was going to impale me. The rapid was slow enough that I was able to walk back to the boat. It was a little scary though. There was a point where I thought the boat was going to leave me behind. Even class 2 rapids have a lot of power.


Afterwards we went to Claimjumpers and had an AWESOME dinner. Can you say porterhouse?