Old Journal Entries

• 05/31/00
  What a long weekend, it took til today to actually recover...some.

  Thursday night my plane was late by an hour which meant we didn't get to Daryl's (and asleep) until well after midnight. Friday was 1st round of pool play, we did ok, but not great, split with just about everyone and ended up 5-3 tied for 2nd. That night we kicked around town while waiting for Karen's plane to come in. Chis Martin (formerly of Seattle) was hanging out at a pool bar with her med school friends (last day of the quarter) so Daryl and I met a few of her classmates. Strange there was this one woman, Traci, who I mentioned to Daryl reminded me of our friend (and Daryl's former roommate) Heidi. Turns out that she actually knew Heidi (used to ski with her, and her brother Garth) small world, very strange.

  Sometime during the friday's pool I must have bumped my left elbow, cuz that night, it was swollen and wouldn't extend all of the way, I could see the fluid build up, but oddly it didn't hurt (unlike the tendinitis in my right elbow). We ran errands and just hung out till Karen's plane came in (late at 2am) so it wasn't till 3am that we got home, and I got some ice on my elbow. I think I made it to sleep just before 4am.

  Saturday we had to be at the gym at 7:30, which meant we had to be up by 6 to be on the road, didn't bode well for the day, but actually we played pretty well, went 6-2 for 2nd in the pool again, and then was seeded 10th. During the 5 hour break waiting for seedings, I had a massage by one of the sports medicine massage therapists. It was pretty good since he specialized in isolation stretching & massage, after he was done I actually didn't have any pain in my left shoulder (rotator cuff) I'm going to have to look for a sports massage/stretch specialist to supplement my normal massuse. While I felt pretty good, and even moved pretty well, it didn't stop us from stinking up the court and getting bombed out of the first round in 2 games. Finally got home around midnight again. After icing & chatting with Karen I got to bed around 2am for a 6:30 wake up to ref.

  Sunday was about the same, play wise, out of sync, and out of the tournement quickly. The only interesting play highlights of the weekend were my sailing jumpserves (rising at the back line I'm sure) and the 1 handed back 1 to Ross who was easily on time.

  There were over 100 teams at the tourny (40 in BB alone) but I did manage to see Reta again (met her in Dallas) which was fun since she was playing DS for the team that took 2nd in A. I even got some interesting pictures of her that will be up as soon as I get them developed.

  Sunday night (after the tourny) was a blast, although we hunted around for a club to go to (with Sam in tow) we were unable to get in cuz Karen only had a temporary (paper photo-copy) of her license and the doorman wouldn't believe she was 25, boy was she ticked. So then it was drinks and pool in the hotel bar. We were joined by Ralph (San Diego) and Daniel (New Jersey).

  It's kinda hard to describe the night, but I'll list a set of bits and pieces that should set the scene, believe me there was way more than this that was said and laughed at especially since most of them were pretty well buzzed at the time.

  • Daryl tried to shark us at pool
  • Karen & Sam drank heavily
  • You'd think Karen & Sam were married by the way they argued
  • Karen insisted (at various times often loudly) that:
    • Sam loved her (but he wouldn't say it)
    • Sam hated her (he wouldn't say that either)
    • Sam was her brother
    • Sam was a woman
    • Sam was a nice guy
    • Sam was a dog
  • Sam insisted that:
    • Karen would hurt her hand punching him
    • He was the man of steel (Ralph wanted to know what parts)
    • I should not write anything "suspicious" about him or his sexuality in my web page
    • That he was totally at ease with his sexual preference
    • He (and Brown) were going to take Daryl and I out in SF and "Hurt Us"
    • Karen was his sister
  • Daryl was happy that everyone picked on Sam instead of him (for once)
  • Ralph (and we) wanted to know:
    • If Sam using a Uni-sex bathroom was a "sign"
    • If that really was a cell phone in Daryl's pocket
    • If there was anything between Sam & Karen
    • If Will had converted Sam
    • And who *was* that AA NAGVA player that had a crush on Sam? (sorry can't say ;)
  • Daniel showed us the new hand sign for "Whatever" (3 fingers up, three to the side)
  • Karen tried to out Daryl, Sam & Daniel loudly in the bar at various times
  • Karen professed to be gay (or was that bi-curious???)

  After the bar we were hanging out in Sam & Will's room, where, a very loopy Karen was much entertainment, since Will was gone, she proceeded to "have sex" (her words) on his bed alone, practice jumping drills till she hit her head on the ceiling, followed by dive/roll lessons for Daryl, on, and off of the bed. Good thing she didn't throw up on the way home. I think we got home at 4am this time.

  Monday we slept in, went to see Mission: Impossible 2, hung some pictures in Daryl's new condo (pictures to follow when developed) and then shopped a bit in Denver, before eating (Buffalo meat, yum) and taking Karen to the airport. Since we were there early, I tried to fly standby on a earlier flight too, and luckily I made it to the gate 5 minutes before the plane left, made it on, and even got an aisle seat since the woman in it wanted to sit in the middle next to her husband. Strange they looked familiar then I noticed that the husband was wearing a NetApp shirt, turns out that his wife worked there, and we had corresponded in email but never met before, you know our company is getting big when this kind of thing happens.

• 05/24/00
  Great day !!! Today our company rented out Great America for our all hands meeting (end of the fiscal year) and to celebrate our birthday (the company is 8 years old, public for 5). As is becoming the norm, the numbers were impressive, but even better is how upper management tried to get us to focus for the upcoming year, with out detracting from the great work that has been going on this past year.

  The only ride I wanted to try was the new Stealth, but it was down for maintenence, so I spent most of my time in the arcade and trying to win some stuffed animals (I got an alien and a gorilla !!) since all of the video games and skill games were free !!

  The food was good (buffet & cake) and there was plenty of ice cream to be had. The best was the instruction from the CEO, "Remember we have the park until 4, and after that you shouldn't be going back to work" So I went home and washed my car instead and then went to see Battlefield Earth. I kinda wished that they had made all 3 movies at once, the time compression of the novel into the first film didn't quite make sense. Funny the aliens really remind me of klingons wonder if that was intentional.

  Tomorrow I'm off to Denver, hopefully not to rusty since I haven't played in about 3 weeks, good thing is that usually I play better after a long layoff as long as my stamina holds out, since I'm still playing bball weekly I think it should be fine, but one never knows at altitude. At least I'll get to hang with the Daryl & the team, and since it's nationals, there should be plenty of Seattle folks there too.

• 05/22/00
  Fun weekend, after trying to watch Candice & Karen play at regionals (but they weren't there, and neglected to call me to let me know) I went shopping at IKEA to kill some time while waiting to have dinner with Karen who's in from NY for some job interviews. I manage to do some pretty good damage, another light-weight comforter set, and a new rolling tv stand that I'm going to use as a stereo/coffee table.

  Karen's staying with a friends (Tom & Jennifer) so I went to visit there before dinner. They live kinda over by my aunt's place, between Highway 13 and 580, on 35th. Jennifer has an interesting story, I guess she just packed up (3 weeks ago) and moved out her from Connecticut and started looking for work (anyone want to hire a MedEd person in the Bay area?). Its a good thing Tom is a nice guy (and tolerant too) cuz she's quite the "Miss Thang" as my vollyball teammates would put it. We just called her Princess for the rest of the night (more on that later)

  Dinner was at E&O Trading Company, we ended up there since The Cheesecake Factory was packed. The food was pretty good, as was the service, even though the Princess insisted that they move us to another table (and us, being a walk-in party of 6 on a Saturday night) That and a few other incidents, definitely put her in the "Ultra High Mantenence" class.

  Sunday Karen and I watched a sweltering Princess hit some tennis balls around with the Tomodachi group. But it being extremely hot (95+ !!) we left to go have a bit of lunch (Pho!) and check out the Mt View Arts & Crafts fair. Then we head out to a movie (Dinosaurs, air conditioned !!) before going back to Tom's for the dinner gathering.

  The potluck was pretty good, lots of food, excellent chicken by Tom and great pizza by Rick. Most of these folks race with the Bay Area Dragon Boat Team, so much of the time was spent recruiting, maybe if Karen moves out here we'll go paddle some.

  Most of the evening was spent trying not to make the Princess laugh, if you'd ever heard her, you'd know why, it's kinda like a horse whinny/neigh, (or is that nag?). She was a good sport, even if it was her world and we were just allowed to visit. Luckily she doesn't have very good hearing cuz "what she didn't hear, didn't happen".

  Site News: I reformatted and updated my bio pages now with pictures and easier to read status ;)

• 05/18/00
  Ok, I'm starting to lose it in my old age, I think I triple booked this weekend, and double booked my Hermosa weekend, argghh, well, we'll just have to see how it all works out.

  Nice thing is that Karen is coming in from NY for an interview with The Gap, so I might have another ski buddy for the coming season. We're going to try for a mini SkiASIA reunion while she's here.

• 05/16/00
  The content generation just keeps on going .. I've now added my kitty's pages back to my site, you can take a look at pictures of Cameo or Fila if you want.

  Next up, either my personal bio page, or all of my friends bios and pictures hmmmm.

• 05/15/00
  Ugh, just noticed that there were alot of pieces that were on my old pages that didn't make it into the new format, so I'm starting to move them all, and maybe update them a bit. New on the menu isy My Dating Page that has links to some of the older stuff. Next up I'll probably have to redo my pet page, I was going to hold off until I got my web-cam running but I think I'll just do something with the pet picturs first. Then I still have to redo the bios page (with pictures ;) and create a personal biography page (or would that be my web based personal ad ? ;)

• 05/14/00
  Good, good weekend, most of Saturday was spent helping set-up for the Nisei Ski Club Mardi Gras party before heading out to Oakland to have dinner with everyone (and my parents) for Mothers Day. Unfortunately I got my times wrong, and was an hour late, good thing our family isn't typically prompt -- and there was food left (King Wah in Oakland's Chinatown *yum*). Later it was dessert (provided by cousin Evie, from some french place in Burlingame) with Mango & Lychee ice-cream.

  I guess my Aunty Connie has a new hobby, composting, there was lots of talk of worms and rot, and she's taken to wearing lots of, shall we say, environmentally based t-shirts. I think she wants to put worms in every house, good thing we were done eating before we started all of that. Then there was this nifty offer, come to a $100/seat dinner and meet some of her friends from Washington DC, not a bad offer, until the kicker -- turns out that these women, were originally from the Bay Area, and are looking for Silicon Valley men to can afford to have them move back to the area. I think those are called "gold-diggers" I'll pass, thank you very much ;)

  Later that night it was back to the party, which was in full swing, and with a very good turnout. Lots of nicely dressed folks. I tried to get Linda to wear doller bills in her "lady of the evening" outfit but no go. She and Steve, no, not me :( managed to win some pretty good prizes by the end of the night.

  The party was also kind of a mini-reunion thing -- got to see Barb, Ken & Ron again, but the most surprising one was seeing Kay at the end of the night during clean-up. I'd lost touch with her and Amy since Amy's email is defunct, and Kay (previously) didn't have email access at all. She didn't know I was down here at all, but we're all going to try and get together soon. In fact, was chatting with her friends about Dinner for Six (one of her friends is from Seattle too) and now they're all thinking it might be fun to do an informal asian version. (Yeah, if it works we'll invite those women from Washington DC that my Aunt knows ;)

  Sunday was mostly recovery from the late night (3:30 am after clean-up) and working on the web pages -- which reminds me, I finally got around to putting up Aunty Ruth's 91st Birthday Party pictures. Then I went out to see Gladiator, it was very well done, kinda violent but surprisingly well acted for a big picture action film. It wasn't even excessivly violent/bloody maybe because there were lots of quick mtv-like flash cuts in the action scenes.

• 05/10/00
  Long week, another presentation, but still had time to play some bball on Tuesday. And managed to get Yvonne out of work mode long enough to go see a movie (Erin Brockovich, good thing she's not a lawyer ;) and dinner.

• 05/08/00
  Ugh, the sore throat wasn't helped by trying to play rev-coed at the Marina with Caroline on Saturday, though we did beat Chris & Laura twice, it started raining (just like seattle ;) but we had to stay one more match to play some folks who challenged on (before we took down the net) we pasted them pretty good, and quickly since it was raining hard by that time, and we were the only ones left in the park.

  Later that night, it was Sony Metreon (and U-571 for the 2nd time ;) with Bar, and then to a little chinese hole in the wall named Sam Wo's (pronounced Wah) Kinda cool really, walk in the door and you're facing the kitchen and the prep area, in the back is a narrow, rickity staircase that lead to 2 more levels. These rooms are kinda tiny, very low ceiling (6.5' ???) and little stools to sit on. The windows to the street are those old glass slates (kinda like the old shower windows). The food was pretty good, and really cheap (like Sea Garden in the olden days) but the service, wasn't (would hate to think what happens to round-eyes in there ;).

  Sunday it continued to rain and was cool and since I was feeling pretty ill, I just napped all day on the couch and caught up on my tapes, the kittys didn't know what to make of it all ;)

  Today I was feeling better, and managed to get through my presentation before having to go home and sleep some more, good thing I only cat-napped cuz I almost forgot that I had a massage scheduled, and after that I was feeling pretty good. Then I caught a late dinner with Cheryl & Kent up at some Italian place in San Mateo, as always (with Cheryl) the food was pretty good (T-bone steak !!) but the desserts were excellent, I had berries & zambolina (or however its spelt) with sorbet, and Cheryl had the killer brownie with carmel sauce & ice cream, *yum*

• 05/05/00
  It's my brother's birthday today, I called him, but he wasn't home, hope he had a good one since there's only one more year till he's 40.

  The Sonics lost tonight, but it was a good game, afterwards I went down to see the Toasters play (our work ice hockey team) but their (playoff !!??) match was cancelled -- guess I'll have to see Darren play some other time.

  I finally get a weekend in town just to hang out, may try and play with Candice & Caroline at the Marina Green. First, though I need to sleep for more than 10 hours, I think I'm coming down with something since I've had a scratchy throat for the past few days.

• 05/03/00
  Sonics WIN !! one more game and maybe a second round weekend game in Seattle.

  Wouldn't you know, the minute I write about a blind date (even though it had been in planning for weeks) and it all gets cancelled. I guess Candice's co-worker neglected to actually reserve the date with "my cousin the lawyer" ;) so now she's busy, but I guess that just means I have 2 free days to play outdoor volleyball.

• 05/02/00
  What a weekend, it took me all day yesterday just to rest and recover (after a massage of course ;). It didn't help that I had a whole bunch of work due at 11am Monday (after an early morning flight back), and my machine was out of commission Fri afternoon.

  I'll have to say it was definitely old home week, but first, and most importantly, THE SONICS WON !! now if they could just win the series I might get back to Seattle for another playoff game.

  Friday I finally got together with Patty, seems like it's been years, and I even managed to miss her birthday (which she loved reminding me about). We had dinner at Sea Garden in Chinatown. It's really nice now that they've remodelled, unfortunately they raised their prices to match the east side resturant too. We were up late just chatting and it was really nice, just like old times.

  Saturday was a visit with Angel, who was in pretty good spirits considering she could barely move after having hip surgery on Friday. We were just kicking back watching tv when my cell phone rang about 2:25pm -- good thing that Kristy lives around the Arena, she had noticed that there was a crowd around there early, and when we checked we found out that the Sonics playoff game started at 2:30, not 5:30 as I had thought (don't know why the Seattle Times web site had eastern times listed). So after racing down there from the eastside we managed to get in and only missed the 1st 8 minutes of the game. Good game though, and since we won it didn't matter too much.

  Later that night was dinner & movie with Ken & Miyo, we saw Keeping The Faith, it was pretty funny, and not overbearingly religous. Stayed up late chatting and eating ice-cream. Miyo had made these mochi-cupcakes that were pretty good.

  Sunday was the USAV regionals, so I went to watch Kat in the morning, and actually saw them win a match ;) The biggest surprise was seeing Lamar & Leslie (and their 8 month old baby, who's name I forget). Then it was off to Greenlake for a bit of outdoor vball. Ken & Miyo had arranged for a net, and boy did everyone come out of the woodwork on a sunny day, many of them hadn't played in a year. The group was quite large, but I still managed to get 4 games in with Diane, but never got to play against Ken or Miyo. These are who I remember: Ken, Miyo, Ernie & Betty, Helen, Julie (soon to be married), Caroline & Andy (and 2 month old baby, another who's name I forget), Tina, Marc, Tony, Erin (after getting knocked out at regionals), Judy & Mike, Gina, Dave & Di (and baby, yet another nameless one ;),

  Just 4 games (winners all) and I was totally exhausted, the pain lasted through monday until I got my massage in. Slept late today just to make sure.

  The next big thing this weekend is some (double) blind date that Candice is setting up for me. Turns out a friend of her co-worker is looking for a "Chinese male" -- (sounds just like what mom ordered *sheesh*) Little does she know that most foreign raised, don't consider the American born to be "really Chinese" Anyway I guess she's a 28 year old patent attorney, and Candice wants to get together on Sat for dinner, Me, Candice, co-worker, co-worker's girl friend, co-worker's home stay, and the lawyer -- sounds like either a really fun party or maybe just a bunch of legalese talk (with 3 lawyers at a table). Oh well, dinner in the city is never a bad thing. And the strangest thing? she has the same last name as I do, we're probably cousins ;)

  Oh and I just noticed that sistapino signed my guestbook, she's the newest receptionist (Felicia) and she goes by sistapino cuz she's part black and part filipino -- kinda a cool name. Strange though, now I'm noticing that I'm meeting a lot of pinoys now -- Felicia, Tina, Tony, Caroline, Rod -- used to be that Joy was the only one I knew, and now there are bunches, maybe I should get them all together some time for a filipino potluck I'm sure Joy would just love that ;)

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Old Journal Entries

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