The Best Dog In The World

Blogger, stop purging comments from old posts!

2010-03-11T00:50:00.000-08:00

Blogger has been purging comments from many of my old posts! It may be because this blog has been languishing without new entries recently.

This hurts because I deeply treasure thoughtful comments from my readers.

So here we have a new entry, hoping to keep this blog from the chopping block. Leave my readers' comments alone!

We all want what's His

2009-08-17T22:45:00.000-07:00

"Well, God is in His heaven
And we all want what's His
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is"

- Bob Dylan, Blind Willie McTell

John Steinbeck rolls over in his grave

2009-08-13T22:46:00.000-07:00

It was a picture perfect day at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California.

The walk through the John Steinbeck Exhibition Hall was awe inspiring. I was beating myself up over having read only The Grapes of Wrath, which left me unable to fully appreciate and enjoy the wonderful exhibits showcasing the richness of his writings and characters from his other masterpieces such as Cannery Row, East of Eden, Of Mice and Men and The Winter of Our Discontent, just to mention a few.

Then we walked over the Robobank Agriculture Museum which is also housed inside the Center. The pamphlet promises "the stories of the Salinas Valley 'from field to fork.'"

Couldn't hurt to learn more about the birthplace of one of the world's greatest literary giants, could it? Besides, he was one of our very own, California's native son. Take that, Charles Dickens!

Here is a blurb about the role of telegraph back in the day. It reads (emphasis mine), "there were more Western Union messagaes sent from Salinas."

You know, the man this museum is said to honor was only a Nobel Prize winner in Literature, not the national spelling bee contest winner.

A couple of more gems for you here.

It should read, "most produce," not product. And what is the deal with the incomplete sentence?

As I said, the man the Center is named after was only a Nobel Prize winner in Literature, not in Proofreading.

Here is a picture of an exhibit in Spanish. I am sure it is riddled with typos. Give me a few weeks to brush up on my Spanish. I'll find them for you.

A new word coined

2009-08-07T22:35:00.000-07:00

How does a blogger know if his "blogging friends" truly value him?

Invent a new word, submit it to urbandictionary.com, promote it on your blog, and beseech your so-called blogging friends to give it a thumbs up.

Back in March 2007, I did just that, and announced the births of two new words coined by yours truly. It has been almost a year and a half and the words "e-enemy" and "blogamy" have garnered a whopping 23 and 26 thumbs up votes respectively.

I will not confirm nor deny that all of the votes came from me.

Here is a new urbandictionary.com submittal which I hope drop everything to give a huge thumbs up. Vote early and vote often.

gomorrah

To treat guests with disrespect and inhospitality.

According to popular belief, rampant homosexuality in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah incurred God's wrath and the subsequent destruction of the cities. However, according to liberal scholars of the Bible, whether homosexuality was the primary reason remains debatable. Arguing from Ezekiel 16:49-50 and Matthew 10:14-15, they assert that inhospitality played a significant role.

They have a point. Nowhere in the Bible explicitly states that homosexuality prompted God to set off a divine nuclear explosion on the two cities. The Bible doesn't say it, and I don't adhere to the school of that-goes-without-saying any more. I will leave that to the upstanding citizens of the Westboro Baptist Church. Moreover, the aforementioned passages do explicitly mention the cities' failure to "help the needy and poor" as one of the main reasons.

But, I can see where people on the conservative side of the debate are coming from.

You may recall the ugly incident in Genesis in which a mob of men surrounded Lot's house and called out his guests, so they might "have relations with them."

Think about it. If a bunch of men attempted to force me into (how should I say this) a boinking fest, "inhospitality" wouldn't be my choice to describe the ordeal. That's just me.

Also how left out would you feel if you were a citizen of Gomorrah? How come only Sodom has played a prominent etymological role for words depicting homosexuality, leaving Gomorrah to play second fiddle?

Besides, even if newly uncovered evidence placed the blame squarely on inhospitality as the primary reason behind God's judgment on the cities, it would be too late to abolish the words derived from Sodom.

I cannot picture myself of accusing my buddies of "sodomizing" me just because they are too lazy to stock up the refrigerator with my favorite brands of beer.

(I cannot believe I just wrote that.)

Hence the proposal to use Gomorrah to describe inhospitality. This will hopefully placate the concerns raised by the liberal side of the debate while conservatives still have the city of Sodom to kick around and unleash their homophobic indignation on.

Throw Gomorrah under the bus! It is long overdue. The inhospitable scumbags of Gomorrah have been spared from our self-righteous condemnation for too long!

Usage Example:

You are cordially invited to a dinner party at David Cho's residence. You should come because David will NOT gomorrah you.

PS: Do you notice "hospitals" aren't all that "hospitable" especially if you have an HMO insurance? When was the last time your doctor brought you a coffee and a bagel before putting on those dreaded latex gloves on? Yikes.

When Google fails me

2009-02-14T10:01:00.001-08:00

My faithful readers and Facebook friends step up to the plate.

Who said this? This is my paraphrase, not the actual quote I read some years ago.

A virtue practiced to the exclusion of all other virtues is evil

Thanks

Must be a slow news day

2009-01-06T01:28:00.000-08:00

Picked up a box of popping corn while shopping at Costco tonight. This on the narrow side of the box caught my attention:

Sigh....

Has the cheesy net lingo invaded the real world outside the Internet and cell phones?

"OMG" Cholesterol?

What is there to OMG about when it comes to Cholesterol? My doctor just lectured to me again about watching my life style to lower the Cholesterol levels, and I had to lie to him about my diet. Now a box of popping corn taunts me with a silly Internet acronym?

What's next? Shampoo bottles screaming, "LOL baldness"? Sorry, can't come up with a better analogy. It was a long first day at work.

Upon further review, the box does not read OMG. It actually reads 0mg which stands for zero milligrams. In this country, you won't see metric units used much outside of nutritional data in fine print on food products, so what else was I supposed to think? I am not a nutrition geek.

But then, if they used the ounce which is abbreviated oz, the box would read "0oz Cholesterol." That is just gross.

I think I spend too much time hating on the cheesy net lingo.

♥ BFF ♥,
David

I forgot to tell you

2008-12-31T04:04:00.001-08:00

Two Fridays ago, I ended up in the emergency room passing kidney stones. No, this is not a joke.

There is no need to go into the gory details, but I have made a few life style changes which include drinking a lot of water and quitting soda.

What else should I do? Do you think I should donate one of my kidneys to reduce my risk by 50%?

Now that my credibility has taken a dive..

2008-12-29T15:29:00.001-08:00

This must be how Night Shyamalan feels about his once promising career. In the aftermath of his blockbuster success with the Sixth Sense, movie goers now walk into Night Shyamalan's films bracing for equally suspenseful and shocking endings. None of the movies he has directed since then have reached the level of success and hype enjoyed by the Sixth Sense.

Rest assured that I will not pull a prank like this again. Until your guard is down, that is.

It may shock you to learn that this was not the first time I pulled a similar prank. This is a true story. Trust me.

Back in 1999, when the dotcom boom was in full swing, I made a career switch to the software engineering field. You may remember the skyrocketing job market when lucrative 6 figure jobs with hefty stock options and bonuses were not uncommon. In my case, I took a modest pay cut and landed a mid-level job at age 33 because of my limited experience in the field. Getting my foot in the door at a growing technology company was my priority.

After a few months into my new job, I sent a group of my ex-coworkers an email with details of a lucrative job offer I had landed. Of course, the story had the exact same ending: The alarm clock rang and I woke up.

Within minutes, this girl I used to work with called. "Congratulations, David. I am so happy for you!"

It was apparent that she had not gotten to the punch line. She was at least 3 paragraphs away from the fateful moment.

"The job is in Seattle? I have really good college friends who moved up there. It rains a lot, but I think you will love it up there."

"Wow, a signing bonus of $150,000? That is awesome!"

Her voice got more and more feverish.

"And stock options. Wow! David, this is great."

"A company car? You should get yourself a Ferrari, David."

Let me tell you what it was like. It was like watching a state of the art locomotive lurching in slow motion headed for a train wreck. I could only brace myself with my teeth clenched knowing what was in store for this poor girl.

Then a deathly silence ensued. You could cut the air with a knife.

After about a good two minutes,

"You [EXPLETIVE] [EXPLETIVE]"

Her reaction set off a fit of uncontrollable laughter. After a few minutes of gasping for air, I finally managed to muster a few words:

"Maryanne, I'm dying here. HAHAHA"

"What a great idea, David Cho. Please die."

This should explain the long hiatus from blogging

2008-12-16T00:36:00.000-08:00

Shortly after my last birthday, I finally broke down and decided to give "Internet dating" another chance.

Eharmony.com was my logical choice. As you may know, the online service provides a unique system of matching potential partners based on the thorough and comprehensive "compatibility" data its participants provide through the personality test.

I was deeply skeptical and reluctant. The last go-around with Internet dating was an unmitigated disaster: For the women, that is. Suffice to say it is only by God's grace that I am still alive.

To make the long story short...

On April 23, Camilla from Sacramento, CA showed up as a match. What could I possibly have in common with this Latina bombshell, said to myself during a quick perusal of emails before heading out the door. Not only is her geographic location more than 400 miles away, but her cultural background and mine couldn't be further apart.

To my surprise, she initiated communication with me which I nervously accepted later on that evening. We instantly "clicked" both literally and figuratively. The day marked a magical beginning of 115 consecutive days of exchanging emails and phone calls, which culminated with my long drive to meet her in person back on August 5th.

With a bit of awkwardness in the air, we walked around the city for a couple of hours only to realize later that there was more than just "online romance." Since our distance did not afford us frequent interaction in person, the meeting allowed us to see how truthful we had been with each other.

I was absolutely smitten and captivated by her pervasive beauty. Little did I know that love could be this exhilarating and rewarding after decades in the wilderness of singleness.

After countless rounds of flying and driving back and forth to visit each other, I popped THE QUESTION during her visit down to Orange County last weekend.

To my dismay, she did not say YES right away. Of course, I had been on pins and needles unable to perform even the most basic functions.

Then the phone rang at 8 PM last night. Her first word: "Sí"

A joy incomprehensible. Words fail me.

About an hour later, the phone rang again. Well, this time it wasn't the phone. It was my alarm clock roaring like the Ringwraiths. So I woke up. The lamest dream. EVER.

You have yourselves a nice day now.

"Planned Parenthood never reported this predator"

2008-11-02T19:42:00.000-08:00

While pondering upon what I would do with the ballot before me in the voting booth this coming Tuesday, I made a mistake of tuning into KKLA which is one of the most listened to Evangelical radio stations here in Southern California.

A commercial in ominous words began to play. You can watch its Youtube version here.

"A 13 year old girl was raped by a 39 year old man over a 100 times."

"When she got pregnant, he took her to Planned Parenthood. Twice."

"Her mother didn't know."

"He took her from school for surgical abortion. Her mother didn't know."

"Planned Parenthood never reported this predator. He continued sexually abusing the girl for 6 more months."

A 39 year old guy impregnates a 13 year old girl and takes her to an abortion clinic to terminate her pregnancy and cover his tracks. Words fail me. Even the most hardened criminals incarcerated in prison would agree with me on that.

But then the story takes a bizarre twist. Planned Parenthood "never reported this predator," the ad claims.

Let's think through this here.

Are we to believe that the 39 year child rapist walked into a Planned Parenthood clinic, and introduced himself to the receptionist as the father of the 13 year old girl's baby, and the clinic staff just greeted him with a smile and served him coffee while he waited in the lobby?

I fall on the pro-life side of the debate with some major caveats. However horrific and immoral we believe abortion to be does not negate our responsibility to be fair to those whom we vehemently disagree with.

What value do such flagrant and inflammatory accusations of complicity in child rape add to the debate?

I suppose you can make a case that "the other side" plays dirty too by digging up ads put out by the pro-choice side to demonstrate its penchant to distort and lie.

Let's assume that to be true. Even so, are we not admonished not to be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21)? Such thoughtless accusations of aiding child rape (or rape of any kind for that matter) are truly despicable.

Evangelical political activism has landed the church deep in the mud of the political arena. We lie. We distort. We play dirty just like everybody else whose primary objective is winning and little else.

An axiom warns against mud-wrestling with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig enjoys it. After 30 years of political activism with very little to show for, it has become clear to me that we have become the pig who sees nothing wrong with getting dirty.

Perhaps that is a tell tale sign that we should seriously consider getting out of politics and finding new hobbies?

PS: Read my blogging friend Amber's Don't be a monster in order to defeat a monster.

John Steinbeck on the banking crisis

2008-10-12T22:20:00.001-07:00

The bank is something more than men, I tell you.
It's the monster.
Men made it, but they can't control it.

From The Grapes of Wrath

Quote of the Day

2008-09-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket

- Eric Hoffer

Insane tongues of war talk

2008-09-03T00:18:00.000-07:00

Back to blogging, and might as well set off a firestorm while doing it.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin addressing the congregation of her former church, Wasilla Assembly of God:

(Emphasis mine)

Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan.

What exactly is she praying for? That our leaders are sending U.S. soldiers out on "a task that is from God"? Does Sarah Palin get a pass because she invokes God as opposed to Allah?

To this life long Republican, this is a deal breaker. I will no longer gloss over insane tongues of war talk particularly when blathered in the name of God.

It has been 45 years since Bob Dylan composed With God on Our Side to discredit and mock the whole notion and naivete of believing that God picks sides in wars, and that He is always on our side.

The song's lyrics are truer than ever now, and sadly they will still be in another 45 years from now.

You insane tongues of war talk
Ain't a-gonna guide my road
Not now or no other time.

- Playboys and playgirls by Bob Dylan

I usually keep my language clean, but

2008-05-27T22:22:00.000-07:00

(source: unknown)
When/if gas prices reach quadruple digits, these three letter Internet acronyms won't work any more. So let's LOL away while we can at this.

Noah to the Rainbow Bridge

2008-04-21T18:21:00.000-07:00

NOAH

April 1997 (adopted) - April 21, 2008

Just came home from the vet's office with Noah's empty collar and leash.

The injection worked fast. Too fast. His eyes stayed open as the vet administered the lethal substance, so he didn't even look like he was falling asleep.

The speed at which it worked pretty much sums up this whole canine cancer saga. Just a few weeks ago was the jumpy and energetic Noah rocking the house. Now he is gone.

April is indeed the cruelest month.

I feel numb right now. Perhaps it is my Asian male stoicism in full swing to block out emotions. Perhaps this will hit me like a ton of bricks at the least expected moment. Right now, I don't know what to feel.

Thank you for all your support.

Update

2008-04-20T22:27:00.000-07:00

Noah's tummy has grown by almost two inches just from yesterday. The bloating is caused by an internal hemorrhage from the abdominal area under assault from the malignant tumor.

Although lethargy, not pain is the primary symptom, that he doesn't even want to go for a short walk tells me that he is no longer enjoying his life as a dog.

The line between letting him go, and giving him a fighting chance has not been easy to draw. But with the rapid deterioration of his health, I have come to terms with letting him go. I should not continue to let my love for him come at the expense of the quality of his life.

This will be our last night together, and I will stay with him during the day tomorrow until my friends arrive to join me. Let's hope that nothing catastrophic happens until then.

I have been running through in my head how I am going to load him into the car, take that dreaded drive, unload him, and walk him to the room at the vet where he will spend the last moments of his life. And hold him in my arms while he peacefully goes to sleep.

Don't feel sorry for me. I have been the luckiest dog owner ever. Thank you Noah for 11 wonderful years.

A quick update

2008-04-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

My dog Noah has been diagnosed with a cancer called Hemangiosarcoma, about which my research has found mostly ominous words like:

- rapidly growing
- aggressive
- highly invasive
- highly malignant
- readily metastasize
- "Silent Killer"

He underwent surgery to have his tumorous spleen removed a week ago, and he seems to be doing fine, but it is a short reprieve which is expected to last less than three months.

I am seeing an oncologist this week to learn what my options are.

Your thoughts and prayers would be much appreciated.

When do we get to stone Pat?

2008-01-01T08:01:00.000-08:00

Exactly a year ago, Reverend Pat Robertson supposedly heard a voice from God who foretold him of a catastrophic terrorist attack on US soil in 2007. In case you haven't noticed, 2007 has come and gone and most of us are still standing.

The Bible tells us to stone false prophets to death, so I will be off to shop for my commemorative bricks to pummel Pat with as soon as I am done with this post.

I made my own share of prognostications for 2007 and some of you chimed in with yours in the comments. Let's see how they stack up.

>John Edwards will emerge as the front runner
>for the Democratic nomination and John McCain
>for the Republican party.

WRONG. Neither Edwards nor McCain is leading. As a registered Republican, I cannot bring myself down to vote for the party's front runner because his name is Huckleberry. I will not vote for a guy named Huckleberry. Okay, his real name is Huckabee, but that's close enough.

If the November election pits Hillary against Huckleberry, I plan on writing in my own name, and you should too.

>NASDAQ will approach a whopping 2,600 while
>DOW struggles to harbor around 12,700 before
>dipping to 12,000

NASDAQ currently stands at 2,652! Can you say RIGHT ON THE MONEY? I was wrong about the DOW index for sure.

>We will see more of the same in Iraq
>(too depressing to elaborate on why)

It depended on who you talked to a year ago, and it is still the case today.

>Every single one of Nicole Kidman
>movies will be a blockbuster.

I haven't gone to see any of her three movies in 2007 because I'm mad at her. She and I are having some relationship issues right now.

Oh, I'm kidding of course. I rave about Nicole just to make Selma Hayek jealous.

>Pat Robertson's dire prediction of a
>massive terrorist attack on US soil will
>crash and burn (pardon the pun).

RIGHT. Why isn't the "liberal media" calling Pat out?

>If not, he will credit himself for having
>pleaded with God and changing His mind at
>the last minute to spare the country the
>trauma of another 9-11 style attack.

It hasn't happen, but it will.

Of course I am kidding about stoning Pat Robertson to death, but one must ask: Why do people still write him checks? Can we stone them instead?

Happy New Year everyone!

Somebody Ban me from the Internet

2007-12-07T17:23:00.000-08:00

This is how the Instant Messenger conversation went.

Really Nice Lady*: Thanks for chatting with me, Dave. Have a great weekend!!!!

me: You tool!

*Not her real screen name, but at this point, it doesn't matter.

Christian Love & Telling the Truth

2007-12-02T00:24:00.000-08:00

From my friend Laura's comment she left in response to this entry from two years ago:

I simply cannot understand someone invoking Jesus Christ while fostering intolerance and hate.

Upon adopting the ultra-conservative brand of Evangelical Christianity in my late teens, I put my moral compass through rigorous recalibration in my quest to fall in line with the tenets of my newfound faith.

Some may call it indoctrination. We called it "discipleship." As a new convert, I was taught to rid myself of my "old nature," which involved renouncing the depraved ideas planted into my head by the "world," and thus radically reorienting my worldview.

The concept of "love" was among the first to be redefined.

The most important aspect of love, I was told, is telling the truth. The world's definition of love is spineless, perverse and mushy, and it fosters an environment of sin and immorality, the thinking went.

If someone is living in sin and rebellion against God, which is the case with the outside world, the "most loving thing" to do is to tell the truth that he is on a collision course with God's wrath and eternal damnation, I was taught.

Don't take my word for it. Follow this link and watch the Youtube clip put together by a Christian radio talkshow host named Todd Friel. His five minute video presentation pretty much covers all the standard talking points and illustrations of what love is and isn't according to his belief.

If a patient's diagnose showed cancerous growth, he argues, what would be "the most loving thing" that a doctor should do? Sitting around and listening to the patient's hopes and dreams, and telling them how much he loved him would amount to malpractice in the face of the deadly disease. A good doctor would "tell the truth," and make plans for a painful, but necessary treatment regimen, and that is how the good doctor would show love.

**************

This redefined meaning of love served as the overarching theme of my faith through my formative years and well into my 30's. Deeply entrenched in the "truth" mindset, I was absolutely impervious to outside criticism. I would have dismissed Laura's observation as sour grapes from hell-bound people who did not want to hear the truth. They were rejecting the message and Jesus, we assured ourselves, not just us.

Accusations of intolerance and hate only emboldened us. We viewed them as a badge of honor. It was a sign that we were doing it right. We could not afford to water-down the message in the Rodney King can-we-get-along fashion to make people feel good about themselves.

We frowned upon "liberal" Christian charity organizations. What good is it bring food and shelter to people when we don't "tell the truth" about God's wrath and looming eternal damnation, we lamented. Mother Teresa often took the brunt of our vitriolic invective for her part in filling people's tummies with food instead of the badly needed truth.

The "truth" mindset also manifested itself in how I approached Scripture. Every verse and passage in the Bible hinged on the doctrine of "telling the truth."

For example, the Bible says love is kind. Sounds straightforward, doesn't it? Doesn't this mean when we show love by being nice? Not so fast.

Since telling the truth was the most loving thing one could do, telling the truth was also the kindest thing one could do. That the world did not see kindness in us did not necessarily mean we weren't being kind. In fact, we were exercising the the truest form of kindness even though you might perceive it as hate and intolerance.

Get it?

As convoluted and contrived my one trick pony Christianity looks in retrospect, the aforementioned methodology enabled me to explain away and work around virtually every Bible passage which appeared to repudiate my strident and belligerent rhetoric and attitude. The system I embraced, through hundreds of hours of listening to sermons and reading books, was a well-oiled machine with ready answers to every criticism leveled at us.

***************
But there was this one troublesome Bible passage which I could not come up with a workaround for. It haunted me. The more I tried to ignore it, the more it ate at me.

Just hours away from facing the gruesome death on the cross, Jesus huddled together with his disciples and delivered his final message. See it for yourself, and don't let me contaminate you with my interpretation of it.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
- John 13:34-35

By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another....

Here 's the bottom line: You are known for what you are known for.

Surely you may or may not be what you are known for. Don't worry about what others think of you, most of us have been told, because what others think of you is not necessarily a true portrayal of who you are.

But that is not what I am talking about.

You are known for what you are known for. Scream and complain all you want if you don't like what you are known for. Life isn't fair. Blame the liberal media which has become a favorite pastime for conservative Christians. But at the end of the day, you are still known for what you are known for. Perceptions suck, but good luck fighting them.

I have never met outside the Evangelical community, anyone who views conservative Christians as the champions of love. Have you?

By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another....

One may say the reputation of intolerance and hate stems from the world's distorted understanding of love.

If you believe that, you have a monumental task of reeducating six billion people out there with your true definition of love, and then convince them that you are full of love, so that "all men will know" you for your love as Jesus declared in the passage quoted above.

At 5'7", I would love to be known to be tall. I want "all men to know" that I am tall. Much like you, I too would need to reeducate a lot of people, but not nearly as many people you'd have to. Not even close. I can skip over Gary Coleman's house in my mission to redefine what tall is, so that "all men will know" that I am tall.

I really don't think you have that luxury.

By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another....

Comment Policy

It's very simple. Talk to me, not to other commenters. Talk about this post, not what other commenters have to say.

I wholeheartedly welcome dissenters as well as supporters, and hope to engage you in productive dialog, but I am not hosting a free for all debate forum.

Big Typos

2007-11-20T20:17:00.000-08:00

Typo I:

This email from a customer who uses one of the web applications I built and support. It has been edited to protect her identity and also proprietary information

To: David Cho
From: [Name withheld]
Subject: PLEASE HELP

The problem is all over. I cannot save anything. It won't save to the database. Please help.

My response

Nice try.

I mean to type, NOW try.

Typo II:

Writing emails before having a cup of coffee is a bad idea. Here is why.

I am running late because of a mental emergency. Should be in shortly after lunch.

It was a DENTAL emergency, not mental.

This typo does seem aptly timed to reflect the kind of month I've had. Freud would have been proud. Hopefully this weekend will allow for some breathing room to catch up with sleep and also update the blog.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Genuinely nice things said to you

2007-11-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

I was fired from my very first job out of college after just 6 months. That is a story in and of itself, which I may blog about.

As I made my way out the door, struggling to maintain balance with a box full of belongings, Linda who was the company's secretary came to hold the door for me.

She then gave me a warm hug, and after sharing a brief moment together, said, "I am not going to wish you good luck."

Huh?

"You are a good person, David. And good people do not need good luck."

What are some really nice things people have said to you? I am not talking about canned and tired cliches people like to spit out just to do their part to sound nice. What Linda said to the kid dispirited from having blown his first gig in the professional world was original and genuinely nice, and it still brings a smile to my face nearly two decades later.

*******

So a few months later, I decided to use the line with slight modifications tailored to a different situation.

It was this really hot girl's birthday.

"I am not going to wish you a happy birthday because happy people don't need happy birthdays."

Ummm.. it spectacularly bombed and a painful lesson was learned. The moral of the story? When people say nice things to you, just treasure and share them with others. Don't try to recycle them.

Sir

2007-10-10T20:27:00.001-07:00

The older I get older, the more often strangers call me Sir.

It is an unsettling reminder that my youth is behind me and looming is the sunset of my life. Makes me cringe.

But then when people don't call me Sir, I find it bothersome too. I sense disrespect.

Is this how one gets old and cranky?

You won't believe this

2007-10-01T09:48:00.000-07:00

I still have to get my taxes done.

Ah...I have to be the worst procrastinator in the world....

See you when I have my head out of wherever it is right now.

Observing Grief

2007-09-04T22:54:00.000-07:00

Having written about the aftermath of my mother's death in the previous post, I thought I'd say a thing or two about grief.

There is no handbook on how to grieve for your loss or grieve with those who grieve, but I think the following quote says it all. Joe Bayly in his book, The Last Thing We Talk About, penned these poignant words after one of his children died.

I was sitting, torn by grief. Someone came and talked to me of God's dealings, of why it happened, of hope beyond the grave. He talked contantly. He said things I knew were true.

I was unmoved, except to wish he's go away. He finally did.

Another came and sat beside me. He didn't talk. He didn't ask me leading questions. He just sat beside me for an hour and more, listened when I said something, answered briefly, prayed simply, left.

I was moved. I was comforted. I hated to see him go.

Brian echoes much of the same thought as he reflects on the funeral he presided over in this beautiful post.

Life goes on...

2007-08-28T23:27:00.000-07:00

The old Toyota Corolla parted ways with me last Saturday after logging over 185,000 miles in 12 years.

It was a great car by all accounts. Not once did it require a costly trip to the shop for a major problem placing me at the mercy of unscrupulous mechanics.

I must admit to feeling a pang of sadness mixed with nostalgia as the key and paperwork changed hands. Call it a mere inanimate object, but it still invokes many memories from the past 12 years which encompassed over several major stages of my life.

We've been through so much together.

The most memorable was the day I brought the brand new car home from the dealer's lot on that sultry August day in 1995.

My mother was living with me at the time. After being diagnosed with cancer just two months prior, she was undergoing a particularly difficult chemotherapy regimen at that time.

She wanted to go for a drive. Reluctantly I handed the key to her and hopped into to the passenger side. "Be careful Mom" I pleaded so nervously and prayerfully.

This was my biggest financial transaction to date and it made her very proud. Vanished from her face, albeit momentarily, were the signs of stress from the brutal cancer treatment regimen. Mom had a smile from ear to ear. Her face beamed with pride.

*********************************
Two months later, I found myself in my supervisor's office negotiating with her to wring out as many days away from the office as possible.

My mother's prognosis had taken a drastic downturn. The doctor had given her an estimate of two months left to go in her 54 years. My sister was in the process of transferring her to a hospice where she was to spend the remainder of her life which was rapidly nearing an end.

My supervisor jotted down on a piece of paper exactly how many more days I could take off. After returning to my desk, I ran through in my head various scenarios of how I could allocate the vacation and sick days left for the year so as to maximize my time at Mom's bedside for the next two months.

Then the phone rang. It was my brother-in-law. Mom had passed away shortly after she settled in the hospice.

I quietly picked up my car key, informed my co-workers of what I had just heard, and walked out to the parking lot to be greeted by the new car.

Soon after that, I found myself on the freeway on the way to the hospice where my sister and her husband waited for me. I looked around while sitting in a typical Southern California traffic jam.

In the midst of the onslaught of raw emotions ferociously assaulting my psyche, here was the one thing that truly dumbfounded and dazed me more than anything.

Here I was: My life had drastically changed. The unthinkable had happened. But yet, The world kept mercilessly moving on as if absolutely nothing had happened. Cars relentlessly poured onto the freeway. Kids from school briskly walked across the overpass. People ran in and out of shops and fast food joints.

My own world had turned upside down, but yet the world refused to stop and pause even for a second to give me time and space to grieve. With bewilderment mixed with shock, that was what I saw through the windshield of the Corolla on the day Mom died.

*************************************
Two days later, we were in the parking lot of the mortuary after finalizing funeral arrangements.

My sister invited me to spend the night at her place with her family. As I got into the car, my four year old nephew followed me in. He wanted to ride in "Uncle Dave's New Car."

Nobody was more excited about "Uncle Dave's New Car." He loved to ride in that car. And the car continued to enjoy the moniker "Uncle Dave's New Car" for several years until he finally mastered the concept of "new."

Jason just got his license, and he is now the proud owner of what he used to call "Uncle Dave's New Car" when he was four. I gave it to him for his 16th birthday.

Life goes on.

Looky here

2007-08-20T21:53:00.000-07:00

After 12 years and 185,000 miles, I have replaced this car with...

Behold the new Cho Mobile: The Honda Element 2007 EX.

As of two Sundays ago, my mind was pretty much set on the Toyota RAV4, but this guy from church murmured something about it being a "chick car," which pretty much did it for me. It was enough for one person in the whole world to think that for me to decide against it. So I chose the EleMENt.

Now before deluging my inbox with hate mail particularly in light of the previous posting about traditional gender roles, take a deep breath and hear me out. The RAV4's demographic target is young college girls, and this 41 year old man gracing it would be equivalent to hanging out at a Britney Spears concert. It's just wrong and creepy.

I absolutely love this car. It is not in me to "love" a car considering that the 1995 Corolla has been my mode of transportation for 12 years and given my general disdain for the car culture of Southern California. It can hold its ground against other big name SUV's on the road, has better gas mileage and is economical.

And it looks really cool. Call it whatever you want. A lego box on wheels. A toaster on wheels. Some guy asked me if I was delivering flowers. All the grief I've been getting inspires me to adore the car even more. Go ahead and fill the comments.

The Honda Element commands a rabid following. Element owners have their own online club and the local Southern California chapter hosts monthly meetups to get together and swap love stories. I am not sure about meeting these weirdos in person yet. Never imagined a whole subculture around a car model.

The Corolla's air conditioner died, which forced me to endure without one through two summers and several epic heat waves. Although it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, I was ready for a new car.

Not having mastered the controls on the dashboard of the Element, I have yet to learn how to tame the powerful new air conditioner. Its potency incites my nipples to stand up instantly even in the sweltering August heat of Southern California.

I am so sorry if the unfortunate description triggers an unpleasant imagery. I don't know how else to get you to empathize with me.

To jump on raw nerves

2007-08-12T21:37:00.001-07:00

which I think is a great way to resume blogging. Things like this push my buttons and instantly arouse me from slumber.

Check out this AP article titled: New Seminary Subject: Homemaking

(Emphasis mine)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary offers coursework in Greek and Hebrew, in archeology, in the philosophy of religion and starting this fall in how to cook and sew.

One of the nation's largest Southern Baptist seminaries, the school is introducing a new, women-only academic program in homemaking a 23-hour concentration that counts toward a bachelor of arts degree in humanities. The program is aimed at helping establish what Southwestern's president calls biblical family and gender roles.

Coursework will include seven hours of nutrition and meal preparation, seven hours of textile design and "clothing construction," three hours of general homemaking, three hours on "the value of a child," and three hours on the "biblical model for the home and family."

Seminary officials say the main focus of the courses is on hospitality in the home teaching women interior design as well as how to sew and cook. Women also study children's spiritual, physical and emotional development.

Yet the program is raising eyebrows among some Southern Baptists, who say a degree concentration in how to be a Christian housewife is not useful, and a waste of seminary resources.

Seminary President Paige Patterson, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, which has its executive committee headquarters in Nashville, said wives of seminary students asked for the homemaking courses. The program was approved by seminary trustees.

"We are moving against the tide in order to establish family and gender roles as described in God's word for the home and the family," Patterson said at the denomination's annual meeting in June. "If we do not do something to salvage the future of the home, both our denomination and our nation will be destroyed."

Terri Stovall, dean of women's programs at Southwestern, which has its main campus in Fort Worth, Texas, said the purpose of the program is to strengthen families.

"Whether a woman works outside or strictly in the home, her first priority is her family and home," she said. "We just really want to step up and provide some of these skills."

Stovall said the homemaking degree is one of 10 women's programs at the seminary and is "only targeted to women whose heart and calling is the home."

A description of the homemaking program on the seminary's Web site says it "endeavors to prepare women to model the characteristics of the godly woman as outlined in Scripture.

"This is accomplished through instruction in homemaking skills, developing insights into home and family while continuing to equip women to understand and engage the culture of today."

Click here to read the rest.

[My reaction edited out. It got to be too sarcastic and strident for my taste. I hope yours is a bit more measured and constructive.].

It's Always 'Over There'

2007-07-11T23:14:00.000-07:00

I was browsing through the US History section in the local Barnes and Noble bookstore in search of books on the American Civil War. Couldn't find any. A bit perplexed, I asked the store attendant who happened to be nearby. She told me to look up. Turns out that the American Civil War enjoys its own section with an extensive collection of books under its own sign.

According to Barnes and Noble, there are two facets of American history: the Civil War and everything else.

************************************************
Thanks to Amber, I have been following this blog kept by a soldier named Nate currently on a tour in Iraq.

You should really read it.

His tone and outlook have grown increasingly dark and somber with time, but he somehow has managed to philosophize the madness around him and expresses quite eloquently the pervasive sense of powerlessness.

This excerpt from his most recent entry caught my attention. Please do not skimp over it as we tend to do with extensive quotes.

When we return, we will attempt to fit back into a world nearly as fast paced as the one we currently inhabit, back into commercial America, the world of malls, fashions, parties and stock markets; back into the world of unlimited prosperity. We will attempt to go back to church, wondering if the preacher in the pulpit talking about poverty in some far country has ever smelled the stench of human feces in open trenches, or seen the look of hopelessness in the eyes of black-clad women walking war-rubbled streets;

The world Nate gives us a quick glimpse into has gotten me to think about what most of us as American civilians have never experienced.

Think about it.

America stands practically alone in the world as a nation whose living citizens have never seen a war ravage their own homeland. The last war on US soil took place 150 years ago. In contrast, the rest of the world saw two epic world wars, and countless bloody conflicts in the last century.

It's always over there.

Regardless of which side of the fence you stand on the Iraq war, don't you think that grossly distorts our thinking?

Our soldiers will return with harrowing stories of courage and survival in the coming years. We will thank them and listen to their stories. After all, they are our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, neighbors, friends and fellow Americans.

But how about the civilians caught in the war and their stories? What will come of the black-clad women Nate saw walking war-rubbled streets? What will come of their look of hopelessness? One day the war will end, and we will assume that they will pick up the pieces and move on.

And get over it.

Well, how well have we gotten over the last war to ravage American soil? The bitter legacy of the Civil War still lives on. The rancorous debate over the Confederate flag still touches raw nerves. The names of the Northern generals still invoke strong emotions in many parts of the South. And according to Barnes and Noble, the prominence of the Civil War in our history demands its own corner.

And that war ended nearly 150 years ago.

My Childhood Recollection of America

2007-07-02T01:30:00.001-07:00

On the TV screen in the living room of the house where my family rented a room, a major news story from America broke out. The adults around me went bonkers, reacting to the news with utter astonishment and shock. Until then, I knew very little of America other than from watching "I Love Lucy" dubbed in Korean.

My grandfather could not stop raving about America with the newspaper spread open and his jaw practically on the floor. There must be a God and he must really love those Americans, he murmured over and over. This was coming from a man who had long abandoned religion.

For days and weeks since the news broke, the buzz only grew louder. Only in our dreams would we see something like this happen in Korea, my uncle lamented. The Korean people's respect and admiration for America took a quantum leap that day.

Care to guess what the news story was? No, it was not the moon landing.

It was president Richard Nixon's resignation on August 9th, 1974.

A young boy just a couple of years into academia, I could not make much sense out of it, but the adults' reaction around me was what made this historic event pronounced and memorable.

They expressed utter shock and bewilderment, not because of what you may think. To Koreans at the time, the idea that the head of a state would step down for a misdeed which did not involve dead bodies, and that a transition of power without a single gunshot fired would follow, was simply outside of the realm of possibility.

To put this into perspective, at the time when Watergate consumed the nation here, Korea lived under a military junta who ruled with an iron fist. Two years prior to Nixon's resignation, the Korean president had revised the Constitution to completely rig the electoral system as well as the legislative body, and to outlaw free speech.

Although most Americans may see Nixon's resignation as a low point in the nation's history, to most Koreans, on the day when Nixon walked out of the White House of his own volition to the helicopter as a private citizen, America stood tall.

*****************************************
You may remember from your history class that even though the Constitution did not bar the sitting president from seeking a third term, George Washington declined to pursue reelection despite his enormous popularity after serving his two terms.

I am not sure if even Washington realized what a great precedent he was setting for the fledgling nation's future. The example he set became an unwritten law which endured for nearly 150 years, and nobody prior to Franklin Roosevelt sought to stay in office more than two full terms.

What Washington did, and the subsequent tradition of having every president relinquish power at the end of his last term are absolutely remarkable and unprecedented. In most parts of the world at the time of the birth of our nation, the peaceful transition of power only took place at the death of a king, but even that often faced bloody contention. You may point to England as an established democracy at the time, but the British have enjoyed the benefit of the constitutional monarchy which has stood as a symbol of continuity.

What I did not even imagine at the time was that just six years later, my family would arrive in America. Five years after that, I swore in as a new citizen of this great nation.

For that, I am deeply and eternally grateful.

The world stopped being interesting

2007-06-25T02:27:00.001-07:00

the day I was born. I am convinced of it.

This is Joan Baez in 1965 dazzling the world with her interpretation of Bob Dylan's "It ain't me, babe." This is what America's sweetheart used to be like before I was born.

Who do we have as America's sweetheart these days? Britney Spears? Paris Hilton? Bleh....

Can you think anyone who is as beautiful AND talented today as Joan Baez was (and is)? And can still mesmerize us without showing a lot of cleavage?

An important update on my Nightguard situation

Turned out that I was not using it properly (thanks JRA). Followed the instruction to mold it with boiling water and it now fits very nicely.

If my previous blog entry somehow consoled you into thinking that you are not alone with an oversized mouth, I'm sorry. You are alone and I will not commiserate with you. You have a big mouth and I don't.

Do you remember DOS?

2007-06-21T23:57:00.001-07:00

Have you taken a peek at the computers used, not sold at Fry's Electronics, CompUSA, or Micro Center?

Next time shop there, walk up to the customer service department and check out the inventory system that they use to look up something or process returned merchandise.

At the three retail electronics stores mentioned above in my neck of woods, I saw workers use antiquated DOS based inventory systems on black and white screens.

If you know what DOS is, you are better off keeping your mouth shut unless you don't mind showing your age. Let's just say that the last time I actively used DOS based software applications was back when George Bush Sr. was president and most Americans had not heard of Bill Clinton and before Microsoft became a household name.

The Internet? Are you kidding me? I was blown away by FAX.

Many who work at these stores are barely out of high school, and these kids who have to deal with these out dated programs were either being born or barely out of diapers back then.

And here is the delicious irony if you haven't picked up on it. These retailers' sole mission is to get you to spend your hard earned dollars on the latest and greatest of modern technology, but yet they seem to be doing fine with their Stone Age tools. Hmmm...

This reminds me of the guy who ran the weight loss clinic next to the health club I used to work out at. Here was a guy making a living out of advising people on how to lose weight and get into shape, but yet I bet you he never turned down a box of donuts in his life. Or the family therapist I heard about. His own marriage was on the rocks. He was on his third.

******************************
Speaking of weight loss, I just picked up a new client. No, I am not a weight loss coach. I will be doing contract programming for a company that runs weight loss clinics all over Southern California.

The client gave me a copy of their flagship book called Lean For Life for me to read and learn about the weigh loss programs which I need to be familiar with for the software project. The cover features the company's slogans along with a picture of the CEO who I must say is very attractive.

I've been carrying around the book almost everywhere. When I visit my other clients, I place the book prominently on the desk for maximum visibility. I may even take it along with my Bible to church.

'Oh, David. What are you doing with a book about weight loss? You don't need it. You are so fine.'

Nobody has ever said anything like that to me so far. I don't get it.

People, I AM NOT FAT. Seriously.

The Doctor's® NightGuard

2007-06-20T00:43:00.000-07:00

Congratulations on my purchase of The Doctor's® NightGuard.

I don't know whether I grind my teeth or not, and since nobody shares the bedroom with me, I don't have anyone to describe my sleep habits to me. But it is better to err on the side of caution. My mouth is home to three crowns and four fillings and even though they appear to be firmly in place, stress and pressure from grinding over time will inevitably compromise their integrity.

The aforementioned product is a moldable plastic guard designed to fit over the upper teeth. It comes in three sizes in accordance with the person's height.

Small: under 5'6"
Medium: 5'6" to 5'11"
Large: 6'0" and above

Since at 5'7", I fall into the medium category, I bought one of that size.

Brought it home, retrieved the guard from the package and tried it on. According to the manual, the arms of the protector should reach the last of my back teeth, but they are one short on on both sides. And also the U shape seems a bit too narrow to fit the arch of my teeth.

It's too small.

I don't know how to take that. This is quite unsettling.

What do YOU think of me now that you know that I have a big mouth not just in a figurative sense? Are we still friends?

I need a hug.

Cinnamon

2007-06-18T01:07:00.000-07:00

I abhor the smell of cinnamon.

Eating cinnamon flavored food is one thing, but smelling it when I am not eating it makes my stomach churn. I would rather choose the stench from rotten eggs over cinnamon flavored fragrance from incense sticks or air fresheners. There is nothing more repulsive than chewing cinnamon gum to mask bad breath, which my college roommate did more than two decades ago.

It still haunts me. It got so bad that I actually looked forward to his flatulence.

You may be perplexed enough to ask why I don't mind eating cinnamon while detesting its smell. Let me ask you this. You wouldn't mind the pungent garlic smell while dining at a Chinese restaurant, would you? But how would you like garlic flavored gum or air fresheners?

Today, people at the car wash deluged the interior of my car with a powerful aroma of cinnamon. I asked for lemon. LEMON, people, LEMON. Not cinnamon.

Stanford Impostor

2007-05-25T17:57:00.000-07:00

Yet another Korean American has made headlines.

A young woman from my neck of woods faked her way through Stanford masquerading as a student for eight months before her ruse eventually unraveled.

Not only did she manage to fool her parents and high school friends back home into thinking that she matriculated at one of the world's most elite universities, but she also tricked her way into a dorm and lived with a couple of roommates who believed her story and allowed her to squat in their room for months.

I was set out to write a long philosophical essay about overbearing Asian parental pressures which I am sure contributed to this woman's sad life of deception she felt she had to concoct to appease her parents.

Forget it. A three day weekend is upon us, and now is the time for the immature and shallow.

Here is the best part of the story:

Still, Kim had neither a Stanford ID nor a key, forcing her to sneak into meals and enter her room through its window..... Zhou (impostor's roommate) never noticed, as she spent nearly all her nights in her boyfriend’s room.

Speaking of strict Asian parents: Miss Amy Zhou, you are so busted.

Time Zones

2007-05-19T04:38:00.001-07:00

We live in a country whose landmass traverses over multiple time zones. There aren't very many others like ours if you stop to think about it. My native homeland is a tiny peninsula and the country is so small that it shares the same time zone with its neighbor Japan.

So while the lower 48 states alone cover a large swath of land stretched over four time zones, Korea and Japan are squeezed into just one.

I still have trouble with this whole concept which is a source of great annoyance. I've missed more than a few nationally televised events because of my failure to accurately translate the Eastern Standard Time to my local Pacific Standard Time.

It drives me crazy. Object oriented computer programming is so much easier.

Try to look at this from my point of view. The East Coast, which is to my east is three hours ahead. I get that. Kinda. And my relatives in Korea, which is to my west across the Pacific Ocean are also hours ahead of me. Both sides are ahead of me. Think about it.

Everybody in the whole world, regardless of whether they are to your east or west, is head of you if you live on the West Coast.

Got any funny stories to share related to time zones?

Going Aboveground in China

2007-05-15T00:23:00.000-07:00

This NPR story greatly heartened me. Please follow the link and be sure to listen to the audio which is more extensive than the text version.

The story is about an American Christian aid worker named Tim Baker and his wife who have dedicated their lives to the welfare of Chinese orphans whose numbers have reached epidemic proportions largely stemming from China's one-child policy.

Baker and his wife went to China initially as "underground missionaries" since it is technically illegal to proselytize in the Communist nation. As a workaround, many Christian organizations have sent missionaries to the country disguised as secular professionals who go there not just to work, but to engage people, befriend them, and to "share the gospel" in the process.

You may see the tactic as bait and switch, but given the country's restrictive entrance policy, many understandably see it as the only option to reach the world's most populous nation.

What sets apart Tim Baker is that he has gone aboveground. If you listen to the audio version of the NPR story, you will hear Tim Baker and his associates spontaneously bellow out Amazing Grace in Chinese. In most parts of China, Christians can only dream about singing out hymns out in the open.

The Chinese authorities obviously know about Baker's faith and his openness about it, but yet remain cooperative. When asked about how he has managed it, this soft spoken Wisconsin native quotes St. Francis of Assisi:

Preach the Gospel every day, and if necessary, use words.

He continues, "I want people to see my faith, not hear about it so much." Then he follows up with a Chinese proverb:

Seeing something once beats hearing about it a hundred times.

Seven things about me

2007-05-13T01:43:00.000-07:00

Tagged by "Sir" Nathan.

Emerging Grace has tagged me as well, but she only asked for five interesting things about me, which I have yet to respond to, but this time the count has increased to seven.

So I thought I'd respond before the count went up to 100.

1. Back in college, I was a member of a social fraternity named Alpha Gamma Omega. It billed itself as a "Christ-centered" organization whose membership was open only to born-again Christians. The house rules strictly prohibited drinking and dancing which is my excuse for my pathetic dance moves.

2. In 1992, I campaigned for Bruce Hershensen who was Barbara Boxer's rival for the US Senate. I doubt if anyone in Congress today can out-conservative him.

3. I have lived in three different countries - Korea (birth to 5, 7-14), Japan (6-7), and US (since age 14).

4. I aced all three Spanish classes in high school. Nobody came close even though many of my classmates were of Hispanic descent and I was only one year into studying English. But I think it actually worked to my advantage since my brain was already wired to pick up a new language.

5. Not having much to do when school was out, I watched soap operas as a language learning exercise. How in the world am I gonna assimilate into this country of mental cases? I lamented just after two episodes of 'Days of Our Lives.'

6. I have always harbored a deep seated resentment of authority. My grandfather of all people taught me to be that way, which wasn't very Asian of him, to say the least.

7. A root canal sounds much more appealing than having to come up with interesting things about me. My grandfather was a lot more interesting than me. Will blog about him one of these days.

I am still staying here. Not that desperate

2007-05-09T02:15:00.000-07:00

What is the deal with single women and bad weather?

(click to enlarge)

(HT: Creative Class)

Two-headed Politician?

2007-05-07T00:23:00.000-07:00

Watch this Youtube campaign clip from Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic presidential hopeful vying for his party's nomination.

You don't have to watch the whole thing; just the first few seconds will do.

What is the deal with the young woman standing behind him? She is just standing there with her presence taking up almost half the screen making him look two-headed, but yet Kucinich does nothing in the way of introducing the woman. Then the camera zooms out revealing the rest of the crowd flanking him adorned with campaign signs, and the clip ends.

Who exactly is taking centerstage here? If she is the candidate's daughter whom he is showcasing as most politicians do with their children in order to portray themselves as a family man, then the camera work leaves much to be desired. And also, the guy can certainly use John Edwards' $400 haircut.

What is up with the woman's prominence in the clip with no explanation whatsoever? I kept asking, is this guy an aspiring beauty pageant MC or a presidential candidate? When I pointed this to my political junkie friend, he told me that the young woman is his WIFE.

Dennis Kucinich is 60, and the woman 29. Yikes!

My goodness. At age 41, I have come to terms with the realization that women in their 20's are now way out of my age range, and here comes a guy who is old enough to be my father marrying a young woman I consider too young for me.

Maybe I shouldn't summarily write off Britney any more.

Thank you for reading the most pointless posting ever to grace the blogosphere

Murder on my street?!

2007-05-02T22:11:00.000-07:00

Came home to be greeted by about 10 police cars parked just down the street from my house.

And the home just a few houses away has been taped off and the cops are walking in and out of the house as we speak. One of the onlookers says there are bodies in the house.

Nothing ever happens around here!!!!

I have never talked to the people in that particular house. They seem to pretty much keep it to themselves. There is a couple of elementary school aged kids I see walk to the school bus stop.

More details will follow for sure, but this is just too surreal. You just don't expect things like that to happen so close to you.

This is my second brush with a murder victim. At a going away party for my friend thrown by his landlady a few years ago and I engaged in small talk with a woman who lived right across the street. A university professor, she came across as a very bright, but yet unassuming and modest woman who was delightful to talk with.

About 6 months later, I got word from my friend that her ex-boyfriend mutilated her body into pieces and scattered them all over the house. And then he drove his car to a nearby freeway, parked on the shoulder, took all of his clothes off, placed them in a neat stack, and walked in front of a truck to get himself killed. Here is a media account for the tragedy.

So I am a bit shaken up right now. Please say a quick prayer for the victim family.

Update: The police department wouldn't release any information other than that an elderly person's life was in danger requiring medical care. No violent crime took place, according to the woman I spoke with. 10 police cars descending on my quiet neighborhood for that?

About a year ago, I witnessed a huge police presence in the neighborhood. Apparently some dufus was running around setting off fire hydrants.

Just because you can

2007-04-29T01:19:00.000-07:00

I am an animal lover, and also a meat eater who occasionally feels guilty about the slaughtering of animals for consumption.

Then I think, if God hated animal cruelty, why did he make some of these animals so darn edible and in some cases very very very tasty when properly marinated? He would not have created them that way if he wanted us to restrict our diet to the Plant Kingdom only.

But then.

Think about God created plants - tobacco, cocaine, marijuana, just to name a few. No, I have never done drugs, but apparently they are very smokable and snortable.

But we place that particular life style under the 'just because you can doesn't mean you should' category, do we not? Recreational drug use is just one of many tantalizing vices under that category and self control and moderation are important virtues which we should all strive for.

Then shouldn't that principle apply to meat eating as well? Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Why should we limit that principle to just smokable and snortable plants, but not to edible animals?

If you are familiar with the Genesis account, you know that when God created Adam, he allowed him to eat from any "tree of the garden," except for the forbidden fruit. As to animals, he told Adam to name them, not eat them. I don't know about you, but to me, when you name an animal, you are effectively personifying it as a companion. When was the last time you named the hamburger meat before gobbling it up?

You thought I was about to tell another stupid joke about dog meat, didn't you?

Let the countdown begin

2007-04-24T23:44:00.000-07:00

July 26th

El Maestro coming to town.

San Nakji can go pound sand....like a rolling stone.

Some thoughts on the VT killings

2007-04-22T22:42:00.000-07:00

Several people have asked me how I feel about the killings as a Korean.

I find the question quite irritating, because it seems to imply that the shooter's nationality had something to do with his diabolical rampage which claimed the lives of 32 innocent people, and I as a Korean have some insight into the mind of the murderer just because of the Korean ethnicity (not to mention the surname) the killer and I happen to share.

"How come nobody ever asks me about Jeffrey Dahmer and his appetite for human flesh even though he was white like me?" quipped my friend.

Dude, was that the best illustration you could come up with over dinner?

My Korean relatives are asking what it is about American culture that turned a normal looking Korean kid into a murderous killer? I find that question equally absurd as well, but somewhat understandable given America's culture of violence broadcast around the world. Columbine and Virgina Tech do not happen every day, I had to remind them. Besides, by all accounts the kid's troubles started long before he and his family moved to the United States.

But the killer's nationality could not escape my notice, I must admit. Oh no, another Columbine, I thought to myself upon learning of the killing spree while getting ready to go to work. But the initial reaction of mild sadness turned to utter disbelief and shock when the authorities disclosed his Korean nationality. Since then, I have obsessively read every news story I could get my hands on concerning the shooter which would not have been the case had he not been Korean.

So even though I find the questions arising from his ethnicity annoying, I myself cannot simply ignore that fact. It hit too close to home. And perhaps now is the time for Korean Americans to discuss and reflect on their insane drive for and obsession with academic achievement and materialistic success which I believe is just one of many serious cultural issues.

Although this comes as no consolation to the VT community, I was relieved that Cho's "manifesto," as incoherent and deplorable as it was, did not contain racial diatribes. That would have been the last thing the nation needed just a week after the Imus non-sense, and the killer's racial tirade would have added a whole new painful twist to the tragedy which we could do without.

According to my sister's acquaintance with close ties to the Korean Consulate, the Korean government mulled over a statement of apology to the American people, but the United States declined to accept it insisting that the killer's nationality had nothing to do with the tragic massacre. I thought that was a very nice gesture of goodwill from both sides.

Government leaders taking the high road - what a concept.

********************
Last Friday, a truck hit a light pole in front of the office building and ran. A cop came to us and quizzed those who saw the whole thing unfold right in front of their eyes. The driver apparently got off the truck, and even asked for directions before hopping back on the road, which allowed the witnesses a very good look at him.

After the cop left the building, I whispered to the receptionist, "If the officer comes back and looks for a guy named Cho, I'm not here, OK?"

The receptionist is a very polished and prim young woman. But her loud laugh and snort shook the building and stunned everyone in the office. Her face turned beet red as she struggled to compose herself before answering the next phone call.

Never did I imagine this was how my surname would become a household name in America.

God bless America. God bless Virgina Tech. Go Hokies!

American Christians and Leprosy

2007-04-17T22:18:00.000-07:00

By Rob Woodrum

Click to enlarge. You may have to click again after it enlarges if you have a low screen resolution.

Speechless

2007-04-17T00:30:00.000-07:00

My deep condolences to the Virginia Tech community.

Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace
and criticize all fears,
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now's the time for your tears.
- Bob Dylan

Homosexuality (Part 2)

2007-04-11T23:32:00.000-07:00

Part 1: Corpus Christi and Ted Haggard

I am Not a Homosexual

Homosexuality.

I don't get it. Why a male would find another male attractive sexually or otherwise is simply beyond me. As a matter of fact, the whole concept of homosexuality did not even enter my consciousness until I moved to this country at the age of 14. Perhaps that was reflective of my sheltered upbringing or the conservative bent in Korean culture, but the idea floored me when I first heard of it. True to form, division by zero in mathematics still makes far more logical sense to this nerd than homosexuality.

When one of my best friends from college came out of the closet, I tried to research into how one becomes homosexual after the initial shock and bewilderment wore off, only to run into more confusion and bewilderment. Suffice to say I have no idea how some become homosexual while others like me find the whole idea beyond the realm of possibility.

If you are looking for insightful takes on homosexuality from here, you are not going to find any because I don't know any better than you. If you are looking for great ideas on how society in general and churches in particular should live with the homosexuals amongst us, you are out of luck.

I find the whole thing repulsive and abhorrent, which probably qualifies me as a full fledged homophobe. As a matter of fact, I am so straight that for the life of me, I cannot see why you women find men attractive. Raise your hand if you see an irony in the previous sentence.

Most importantly, I believe as a Bible believing Christian, homosexuality is a sin. The Bible to me is clear about it, and I really can't find much to disagree in this sermon on the topic of homosexuality.

But here's the thing. Please follow me on this.

Unlike other moral sins that the Bible speaks against, homosexuality is unique in that only "they" indulge in it. I do not ever have to worry about committing this particular sin because it has never been an issue in my life. Only "they" commit the despicable and disgusting acts of homosexuality, which makes it very easy for me to call it a sin.

It is hypocrisy proof. Jesus said, "Judge not, lest you be judged." "Take the log out of your own eye before you see the speck in your brother's eye," he admonished so sternly. Lord, I do not have a log to take out of my eye because I am heterosexual today, heterosexual tomorrow, and heterosexual forever.

May I have a standing ovation?

Add to the mix a teaching from the Bible that God set off an ancient nuclear bomb and incinerated every one of the inhabitants of an entire region because of their rampant homosexuality.

All of the planets have perfectly lined up, ladies and gentlemen. Armed with the combustible combination of divine condemnation and the debilitating social stigma, here come the Christian soldiers marching as to war to judge, condemn, and dehumanize "them" with reckless abandon.

I don't have to look in the mirror when it comes to homosexuality. It does not require self-examination and sacrifice on my part. That is why PMS is next on my culture war agenda, but I have been told that unlike homosexuality, safety in numbers is not on my side. Is that true?

All of the aforementioned religious, sociological, and personal factors make homosexuality a very intriguing choice as the sin to occupy center stage on the Christian moral agenda. Since most people are heterosexuals like me, unable to relate to the sin of homosexuality at least in theory, it is by far, the easiest sin to belittle, denounce and caricature made infinitely easier by the long standing social stigma in almost every culture.

Rumor has it that Dr. James Dobson plans to rename his organization to Focus on the Homos.

*******************************
But David, just because you can't relate to a particular sin, that does not absolve your responsibility to speak out against it as a Christian. You have not murdered anyone, for example. So should murderers get a pass from you?

I am not talking about the merits of speaking out against homosexuality. I am talking about its prominent placement on the Christian moral agenda eclipsing all other evils. Homosexuality along with abortion (which I will write about) are certainly not the two most dominant topics in the Bible and America is plagued with a lot more moral problems than those two.

Speaking of the Bible, let me briefly touch on a few things which I hope to elaborate on in the future. Given conservative Christians' preoccupation with homosexuality, people unfamiliar with the Bible may think it is replete with homosexual bashing from cover to cover. The sermon which I linked above by my former pastor lists all of the six places in the Bible deemed anti-gay, four of which however are highly interpretive and debatable.

Of the 66 books in the Bible, 2-6 places depending on who you talk to are all we can muster about homosexuality. And enter the very inconvenient fact that Jesus never even mentioned homosexuality, let alone condemning it.

Contrast that with just a quick search through the Bible with the word "poor" which yields 178 results. And they are just the ones which contain the word "poor" exclusive of my favorite verse: "He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing," but I can count with just one hand the number of sermons I have heard on caring for the poor in my 20 years in Evangelical Christian churches.

Most conservative Christian pastors seem a bit too paranoid about sounding "liberal."

But once again, I am a Bible believing Christian and regardless of whether God spoke against homosexuality just 2 or 178 times, once is enough for me. God said it, and that settles it.

But still, why is it that nothing galvanizes and sets off conservative Christians like homosexuality does when the Bible does not come close to sharing their preoccupation and near obsession. Shouldn't what God says in the Bible dictate our agenda?

Social stigma reigns supreme, and long relegated to the backdrop is biblical truth.

Coming up - Part 3: Amazing Grace.

I am "back"

2007-04-03T00:49:00.000-07:00

Those of you who had to endure my April Fool's joke should understand my title.

If you are wondering how I wiped out all of my archives to make the joke more believable, read on. No, I did not go through each of my past postings and pull it offline. That would have been an all day project.

* Create another blog with its own URL. In my case, it's davidcho2.blogspot.com.

* Copy and paste your real blog's template onto the new fake blog, so as to make it look real.

* Insert the following javascript snippet in the <header> tag of your real blog. Note the URL of my fake blog in the code.

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">

</script>

Many thanks to those who fell for it. You are a good sport. It will happen again. I promise.

You know you need to get out more

2007-03-29T17:12:00.000-07:00

when spammers are the only ones to have wished you a Happy Birthday. Ah the 21st century...

Well, actually a couple of real people have as well, and the day isn't over.

Homosexuality (Part 1)

2007-03-25T01:00:00.000-07:00

Corpus Christi and Ted Haggard

This email arrived in my inbox from a friend whom I had not talked to in years.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

A pornographic movie is being shot and is intended to show up in America soon, which shows Jesus and his disciples as homosexuals. This is similar to a play that has been in the Theatre halls for a while. It's called "Corpus Christi" which means "The Body of Christ".

A petition follows this alarm raising message with dire warnings of a moral calamity should this film land in the United States.

A quick search through snopes.com exposes this Internet rumor as a completely baseless hoax which has refused to die since its inception in 1984.

Due diligence, anyone?

***********************************
You probably have heard of pastor Ted Haggard whose spectacular fall hit the national headlines a few months back. When the allegations of visiting a male prostitute and drug use surfaced, he flat out denied and denied and denied and denied until confronted and overwhelmed by the mountain of deniable evidence.

Two months passed, and as the scandal was about to fade from public consciousness, he emerged to tell the world that he was now "completely heterosexual."

***********************************
There is no need for me to present any more empirical data to demonstrate to you that no other issue with moral overtones sets off conservative Christians like homosexuality does.

I turned 18 when the gay Jesus movie rumor surfaced and was quickly debunked. Now I am a 40 year old dirty old man who still has a soft spot for Britney Spears despite her recent troubles. To think that she was only 3 years old that year. And a friend whom I rarely talk to comes out of the woodwork only to express his drive-by outrage about a non-existent gay Jesus movie just to disappear again.

Ted Haggard may still be unrepentant. He may still be a manipulative liar. He may still be an adulterer. He may even help himself to illegal drugs.

But my goodness, we can all go to bed tonight and sleep well because he is now "completely heterosexual." I was on the edge of my seat all that time since Haggard's spectacular fall sweating out his sexual orientation, but have slept very well since the revelation of his "complete heterosexuality."

Homosexuality. I am jumping on the bandwagon (or a minefield) to talk about it because obviously we Christians don't talk about it enough. So stay tuned. And please hold the fire. I get to strike first.

Important Addendum
Commenters are not to interact with each other especially when they disagree. That means you do not make references to comments made by others. If you like and agree with what other commenters say, you may do so, but not if you disagree.

You can express disagreement with me, but not with what my guests have to say. Is that cool?

A little worried here

2007-03-23T01:48:00.000-07:00

After sampling a few energy drinks, I've learned that this one works best for me.

Should I be worried?

I am telling you this as a preemptive measure to prevent you people from blackmailing me by blackmailing myself. No one can blackmail me now.

I really hope and pray this this guy isn't for real and he is doing this as a parody.

Shameless Plug: New Words

2007-03-15T02:00:00.000-07:00

Here is hoping that an absurd entry like this will help me shake off writer's block.

It has always been my dream to contribute at least one newly coined word to our collective lexicon before I die. Given the maturity of the English language, the prospect of accomplishing that feat looked grim until the advent and explosive popularity of the Internet which has given rise to a flurry of new words.

So here we go.

e-nemy
Pronounced: EE-nuh-mee

Definition: An enemy made through hostile online interaction. Internet users typically make e-nemies in flame wars on rancorous discussion forums and more recently in the blogging world.

Example of Usage:
The blogosphere was once a placid corner of the Internet and safe heaven where people from all walks of life could come together and revel in narcissism and self-indulgence.

It all changed when John whose life long motto is "I hate everyone who's not me" discovered the blogosphere. Not only does he slam everyone who isn't him in his own blog posts, he invades others' comments and savagely attacks anyone who isn't him in a tsunami of vitriolic rhetoric dripping with cutting invective.

Nobody knows why he is so angry, or when his relentless browbeating will taper off. Despite his unwavering dogma, his ideological leanings are impossible to discern. He seldom makes sense, but he sure has made a lot of e-nemies from all over the world.

blogamy
Definition: the custom or condition of having a marital relationship strictly confined to the blogosphere. People in a blogamous relationship may or may not be married to others in real life.

Example of Usage:
Sharon, a single woman in her 20's, fell in love with David after reading his blog and soon they began corresponding through email and also commenting on each others' blogs. What started off as an online mutual admiration society became increasingly flirtatious and later serious and even steamy unfit for public consumption. 'Can you two get a room?', their blogging buddies frequently pleaded.

In the end, they decided not to meet in person after all for fear of ruining the ideal images of each other which they had cultivated through blogging (I think the real reason is "Sharon" is a 50 year old bald guy masquerading as a young woman). Instead, David posted an e-proposal, and Sharon enthusiastically e-accepted.

Three months later, they held a blogamous (adjective of blogamy) wedding, and continued to live physically apart from each other, but yet happily together in the blogosphere ever after as blogamous husband and wife.

*************************************
I have submitted these words to urbandictionary.com. So please go there and give me some love by voting thumbs up for e-nemy and blogamy.

I must admit that I am trying to take advantage of the newly lowered standard set by the word metrosexual. Now all bets are off. Not only does that stupid word amount to etymological nonsense, but let's face it: Don't we already have enough words for men who spend a lot of time in front of the mirror? Like narcissists?

So you are unimpressed. That's fine. I told you from the outset that this was my attempt to shake off writer's block, so you knew what you were getting into. I'm sorry.

Here is my promise to write better posts in the future and up my standard. So up yours too.

Writer's block again?

2007-03-06T00:17:00.000-08:00

There are so many things I want to write about, but yet, once my fingers land on the keyboard, my mind seems to quickly fizzle.

To help snap out of whatever is deflating my drive to write, I have decided to borrow Barbara's blogging style and ask my readers a few questions and solicit audience participation. I am turning to you for inspiration.

The following quote from Bob Dylan's Masters of War caught my attention a few weeks back and it has been on my mind since. It will serve as a prelude to one of the posts that have been swirling around in my head, if I ever get to finish it, that is.

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you

Apart from the war debate which is what the song is about, how do the words above resonate with you, if at all? What do your generational clashes with those older and/or younger look like?

Speaking of Bob Dylan, I love this clip showing his interview with a Time magazine reporter. It never fails to crack me up.

"You got a lot of nerve asking me a question like that." Hahaha. Go get'em Bob!

Pan's Labyrinth

2007-02-19T02:14:00.000-08:00

How is it that this movie has been out in theaters since December and I had not heard anyone talk about it till last Sunday? My friend told me over lunch about it and she said to walk in and just soak it in without doing any research.

I did just that and it was good that curiosity did not get better of me. The film has two strikes against it: The main character is played by a child actress and the screenplay by Guillermo del Toro who did Hellboy which I thought was plain goofy. I would have passed had I known.

I am usually put off by child actors because they tend to go overboard on either cuteness or precociousness. But the little girl who played "Ofelia" was virtually flawless in this movie which I will only characterize as an "adult fairy tale" with depth and meaning told through the eyes of an innocent young girl.

The story has left me stunned, numb, and sad, but hopeful and renewed all at the same time. That is all I will say about it because any more from my big mouth (or keyboard) will only ruin what I promise to be a very enriching cinema experience for you. Two thumbs up.

My long-term girlfriend

2007-02-15T10:55:00.000-08:00

Now I am talking really really really long term here.

Why did they have to slam her on Valentines Day when all women, the crown jewel of God's creation, are to be looked upon as sublime beauties?

I hope you all had a good one. My blog friend Mad Ethel has posted a very poignant love poem which had me weep through the entire box of Kleenex.

No, I am Sparticus

2007-02-10T18:49:00.000-08:00

and the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby girl.

Since I don't have the kind of pull to call a press conference, this is the only way I know how to make this very important announcement. Hope you don't mind.

You know that the media frenzy surrounding this tragic event has reached critical mass when the very same people - the media - responsible for the feeding frenzy are asking why we are so obsessed with this tragedy. The media is covering the media now that they appear to have run out of developments in order to keep the story alive and on the front page.

The only way for me to make sense out of this bizarre phenomena is through the computer science concept of recursion.

Recursion is exemplified in a function below. Please stay with me.

....................................

function factorial(n) 
{
   if (n <= 1)
      return 1;
   else
      return n * factorial(n-1);
}

....................................

What makes the function called "factorial" illustrated above unique and "recursive" is that it calls itself which is something most functions don't do.

Likewise, the media usually cover stories unrelated to the media themselves. The story started out as the death of Nicole Anna Smith who was not a member of the media, but now without another hot off the press revelation in the last five minutes, they have resorted to talking about themselves.

If it does not make sense to you, that is fine. I don't blame you. To understand recursion, you must understand recursion, and therefore, if you don't understand recursion, you won't understand recursion.

Sorry, that was a computer science joke.

I suppose one can etymologically decompose the word recursion to mean to curse again - re(again) + curse, which seems more appropriate at this point.

Do I know you?

2007-02-05T23:00:00.000-08:00

What looked to be an ordinary shopping trip to a Costco store turned out anything but.

While I was flipping through the DVD bargain bin, there walked through the entrance this beautiful Asian woman whose appearance could only be described in heavenly language. What made her triumphant emergence even more celestial and enchanting was the thick fog bank in the parking lot from which she descended from like an angel.

Okay, angels usually don't show up with a shopping cart, but please for the sake of discussion, let's not over-analyze.

But there was more to her captivating beauty, the true emblem of the crown jewel of God's creation. She looked really familiar. I had seen her before in person. And more over, we made eye contact and when we did, she briefly paused, and threw another quick glance at me which had me reeling.

I could die a happy man now.

You know the sensation you feel in your stomach that stubbornly gnaws at you when you see someone you recognize, but can't put your finger on who that person is? How could I possibly have met this beauty of this magnitude and had forgotten who she was? And she appeared to recognize me as well.

Though painfully shy at times, I saw this as a defining moment to rise above myself. There comes a time in everyone's life to test the limits of one's courage and determination, and this was it for me.

"Hi, I think I know you. Do I know you?"

"Yes. Pecking Wok"

Said so tersely, and she walked away to the deli section.

********** Flash back to Last Summer *************
It was a sultry day here in Southern California, and I and a couple of colleagues decided to try out this Chinese takeout place near the office. It was a typical Chinese fast food joint where you tell the people behind the counter what items you want, and they scoop the stuff out of the trays on display into a plate which they hand to you at the cashier.

After paying for the two item combination, I proceeded to pick up some napkins and utensils then my mind drifted to heaven knows what. It was lunch time. Give me a break. It happens to everybody.

"Sir, you did not pay for the soda."

Huh? The next thing I saw was a dispenser of the soda fountain from which a stream of Coke was pouring into the cup in my hand.

"Huh?"

"Sir, the cup I gave you is for water, not for a soft drink, " continued the Ice Queen. "That will be $1.25."

So there I was, in front of all these people, fumbling around in my pockets in search of $1.25 while apologizing profusely. She made me pay after catching me allegedly stealing when in fact my mind had blanked out and found me operating a wrong dispenser.

How embarrassing was that? The food wasn't all that great. In fact it was horrible; hence I nicknamed that place "Michelin Tires R Us."

And I've decided against marrying her.

Meh-ri

2007-01-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

My sister called to inform me that one of our cousins from Korea had just landed in Los Angeles for an overnight stay with her travel group touring across North America. She asked if I could come over and meet for dinner.

It was around 5 o'clock in the afternoon when she called, but I hopped into my car right away with no hesitation despite the daunting prospect of driving nearly two hours through rush hour traffic which included downtown LA. I had not seen Mi since my visit to Korea in 1989, and I was not about to pass this one up.

Mi is the second oldest of my aunt's five children all of whom are older than me and my sister. The seven of us grew up together practically as siblings under the same roof at least over three different periods in my childhood years.

There is something you should know about my family.

When I was about four, my father left the family, leaving Mom to fend for herself and the two young children. It was at a time when single motherhood was unheard of and career opportunities for women scarce in this third world country ravaged by war and political and social turmoil. We had nowhere to go when my aunt took us in even though she had her hands full with five rambunctious school aged children and her husband's meager teacher's salary.

Mi greeted me with a warm hug and tears. It was great to see her.

You young people out there may want to note that when we old people get together, we scrutinize each other for signs of aging. I did what I could so as not to highlight my wrinkles and angled myself to conceal the gray around the temples. Sometimes my smile looks more like a scowl because of that.

We reminisced about the past as old friends and family do. Although it was a very difficult period for all of us, there was no shortage of hilarious stories which had us gasp for air. What a time warp that was.

Mi was my favorite cousin. Although some of my cousins loved to terrorize and pick on the baby of the family as you could see below, Mi always loved me and took good care of me.

Then the subject turned to the family dog that we had. She reminded us that his name was Meh-ri. Meh-ri? Doesn't sound like a Korean name, does it? Where did that name come from? I asked.

Following America's military involvement during the Korean war and also generous aid after the cease fire, Koreans got to befriend American soldiers and relief workers who brought them food, medicine, and shelter and helped rebuild the war-torn nation.

They came to owe Americans a debt of gratitude and apparently one way to express it was by naming their dogs after their American friends. Thus two of the most popular dog names to this day in Korea are "Meh-ri" and "Chon" which are the Korean variations of Mary and John respectively.

Since it was against tradition to give their children non-Korean names, this was how Koreans honored their generous American friends who touched their lives in the postwar era. They named their beloved family pets after Americans.

And they ate them.

That was stupid. My joke was, not how Koreans including my aunt's family honored their American friends. So let me make a commitment not to burden you with another stupid dog meat joke again.

BTW, Noah has been doing this a lot lately for some reason. Do you think he's praying? Hey Noah, it's just a joke.

Back to Meh-ri.

I remember the dog very well. He was a Korean Jindo. All of my aunt's five children and my sister were school aged, so they were at school during the day and my mother worked two jobs to save up money to get a place of our own.

My aunt was home with me, but having five children left her very little time to look after me as you can imagine. So Meh-ri was my babysitter and we became inseparable companions.

One cold winter day, Mi recalled, Meh-ri and I were nowhere to be found. They frantically searched all over for us. The gate was locked and I was too small to reach the latch, but my cousins combed the neighborhood and the woods nearby to no avail for hours.

Then it occurred to someone to shine the flashlight into the dog house just in case.

And there we were in the dog house: Meh-ri and I cuddling up together and keeping each other warm and shielded from the cold and harsh world outside. Apparently we had been there huddled up for hours.

Even though it was a period when I first became cognizant of the harsh realities of life and my carefree childhood was nearing an end, Meh-ri showered me with unconditional and pure love. He loved me and took good care of me when no one else could.

That is how I came to love dogs. That is how I became a big dog person.

**********************************

So what happened to Meh-ri, I asked. Did you guys Wok him?

Mi didn't get the "joke." Understandably so because I said the above in Korean except for the word "Wok.".

Note to self: When you play on words, you should not mix three different languages (Wok is Chinese), one of which originated from vastly different linguistic roots. I knew that, but I still couldn't help myself. Sometimes a man's gotta do what he's gotta do.

When my aunt's family packed up and moved to Seoul, they couldn't take him with them. So they gave him up for adoption after crying buckets. By then we had moved out to another place, so thankfully I was not there when this happened.

After they settled in Seoul, my uncle took a five hour train ride to visit Meh-ri's new family and to check on him. He could barely afford the trip, but he missed the dog that badly.

By then, Meh-ri had gone to dog heaven. He never ate, my uncle was told. My best childhood friend never recovered from a broken heart when his loved ones left him.

My life flashing before my eyes

2007-01-16T17:17:00.000-08:00

Well, not quite that bad, but close.

After pulling out of my driveway, I flipped the switch to set in motion the windshield wipers and leisurely watched the blades and wiper fluid work in harmony to expunge the dirt and leaves accumulated overnight.

Instead of a sound of the blades and fluid rubbing against the windshield, emanating from the front of my car was more like a chiseling sound. Then I knew something had gone awry: the windshield quickly and completely turned opaque within seconds.

I froze and stopped the car. Thankfully, I was still in the residential area, not on the freeway or a major surface street. I pulled over very slowly, and grabbed the squeegee to scrub off whatever was covering the windshield.

It was not dirt, and the blades were in good shape. The windshield was caked in ice, and the blades were grinding away at it, not fluid and dirt!

Uh..hello, this is Southern California. This isn't supposed to happen here.

We do not allow ice to exist outside freezers around here.

Got back into my car and turned on the heater hoping the internal heat would melt away the ice. It took about 5 minutes.

My readers from the Midwest and the East Coast will probably get a chuckle out of this, but a chill went down my spine at the thought of this happening on the freeway with my car moving at 65 miles an hour.

Never in my 25 years in Southern California had I seen anything like this. I think I'm still in denial. Is there therapy for something like this?

Prediction Contest

2007-01-02T22:16:00.000-08:00

Since every talking head is into making prognostications for the new year, we might as well jump on the bandwagon. Reverend Pat Robertson has chimed in with his prediction of a catastrophic terrorist attack on US soil in the latter part of the year. God has told him so.

I would like to invite you to post your predictions for the year 2007.

These are mine. No, God hasn't told me any of these.

John Edwards will emerge as the front runner for the Democratic nomination and John McCain for the Republican party. Yawn...
NASDAQ will approach a whopping 2,600 while DOW struggles to harbor around 12,700 before dipping to 12,000 (Note to investors: This means you should dump all of your NASDAQ stocks and load up on DOW. My market predictions are always wrong, and if you do the exact opposite, you are guaranteed to double your portfolio in no time).
So I predict that my market predictions will be wrong again.
We will see more of the same in Iraq (too depressing to elaborate on why)
Every single one of Nicole Kidman movies will be a blockbuster. God has told me so. In the offing are (pay attention now)
- The Invasion: Kidman is a psychiatrist who through her brilliance uncovers the origin of an alien epidemic. This jaw dropping release will leave you stunned and begging for more of Nicole.
- His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass: This is an adaptation of the first volume in , you guested it, the His Dark Materials trilogy. I have no idea what role Nicole Kidman will be playing, but I am sure it will be yet another breathtaking epic performance from this epic actress.
Pat Robertson's dire prediction of a massive terrorist attack on US soil will crash and burn (pardon the pun).
If, heaven forbid, a terrorist attack materializes, Pat will of course pat himself on the back for making that call (excuse the lame pun).
If not, he will credit himself for having pleaded with God and changing His mind at the last minute to spare the country the trauma of another 9-11 style attack.
Either way, we will hear from him again.

Happy New Year

2007-01-01T20:26:00.000-08:00

and there is a rat in my house.

I am soliciting your advice.

I really don't want to use the snap mouse trap because of obvious reasons. I have a dog whose clumsy owner will probably step on that thing before he sniffs the bait. Besides, it isn't very humane.

I will probably eat the poison before Noah does too.

It is not the most pleasant project to kick off a new year, but, what can I say? So what pet/human safe ways are there to get rid of house mice/rats?

The Year of the Rat isn't until 2008, in case you are wondering.

Deaths come in threes

2006-12-28T21:52:00.000-08:00

25th: James Brown
26th: Gerald Ford
27th: UCLA football

as someone on a fanboard optly pointed out.

After bringing down the Goliath of college football just four weeks ago, the Bruins rolled over and played dead as the Florida State Sooners went on a rampage in the 4th quarter to rack up 21 points to a come-from-behind-win.

Reasons were many, the biggest of which was Florida State's secret weapon which nobody from our team anticipated.

How can you expect our players to stay focused and concentrate on the tasks at hand when one of the star players on the opponent team has a name like this?

By the time I was able to breath again after seeing his name scrawled across the big giant TV screen at the Newport Beach sports bar, Florida State had scored 17 unanswered points over a short span of 6 minutes never to look back.

Do you see this as a sign of immaturity on my part? I once met a minister of Korean decent named Reverend Sin, but this Florida State player takes the cake. God bless him.

That's all I have to say about that.

Have a Happy New Year.

Family Discussion

2006-12-26T20:51:00.000-08:00

This clip had me on the floor.

I think there is a lot in this clip that everyone, Filipino or not, can relate to. I hope you all had a good time with your family this Christmas.

Handel's Messiah

2006-12-17T02:42:00.000-08:00

Along with the typical Christmas music we find ourselves constantly bombarded with this time of the year is Handel's Messiah.

Familiar to your ears may be the glorious Hallelujah chorus and the rendition of For unto us a child is born performed by choirs and orchestras around the world.

We typically hear Handel's Messiah only around this time of the year, but pigeonholing it as Christmas music is nothing short of doing this breathtaking work of art grave injustice. In fact, the portion of the oratorio deemed relevant to the birth of Christ consists of less than ten movements out of 53 all together.

As Paul Harvey likes to say, here's the rest of the story.

The first section primarily draws from the Old Testament which prophesies the coming Messiah who was to come and deliver the world from darkness. After a succession of the prophesies, this part concludes with Christ's birth.

The second part concerns the Passion which extensively covers the sacrifice, the scourging and agony on the cross and Christ's ultimate triumphant resurrection. This part makes Handel's Messiah celebratory of, and relevant to Good Friday and Easter as much as Christmas if not more.

The last part speaks of the future. It is about God's final victory over death and sin.

I think our selective hearing of Handel's Messiah reflects what we choose to hear when it comes to the story of Christ. Shelved and ignored are his suffering and agony followed by the empty tomb.

No 23. Air (Alto)
He was despised,
and rejected of men:
a man of sorrows,
and acquainted with grief

No 24. Chorus:
Surely He hath borne our griefs,
and carried our sorrows;
He was wounded for our trangressions;
He was bruised for our iniquities;
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him

The majestic Christ sung in the Hallelujah chorus is but a small fraction of the story. The majestic Christ is not complete without the story of his suffering and death.

To echo my favorite author Philip Yancey:

We worship a risen Christ. We worship a crucified Christ. Anything less is not enough.

Excellent movie review

2006-12-11T21:20:00.000-08:00

While I spent the weekend dragging my roommate to the local theatre for a second viewing of Borat, a thinker has written on her blog a beautiful movie review of The Nativity Story.

That crystalizes the vast divide between myself and you people with decency and honor.

Go read the review. Now I want to go see it myself

Blog Symposium - What is Hope?

2006-12-08T16:32:00.000-08:00

"And now these three remain, faith, hope and love."
1 Corinthians 13:13

If you are a Christian, you should know that faith, hope and love are three of the most important traits believers are called to strive for. But I find it interesting that while there is no shortage of sermons and books on how to strengthen one's faith in God and to love Him and other human beings, I cannot recall a single sermon on the topic of hope. In this prominent Evangelical pastor's collection of sermons, for example, you won't even find a category for hope, while there are five for faith, and three for love.

Why is that? Does anyone else find it intriguing? Why does a concept of that much prominence and importance garner so little attention and study?

What is hope to you*?

Every definition I have heard sounds very much like that of faith, and I am sure faith and hope go hand in hand and must co-exist, but what gives hope its own distinctive identity, if you will?

The clock is ticking down to 5 minutes, and your football team is down by 21 points. Now granted that there have been miraculous finishes, but 99.99% of the time, your team loses under that scenario.

Can hope do anything? Is it a matter of forcing yourself to feel optimistic about certain things in your life despite the insurmountable odds? At what point does a hope become a pipe dream and wishful thinking?

How often do you hear people say, "One can only hope" as if hope is the last resort in desperation? Don't you think there has to be more to hope than the perverbial "carrot in front of the donkey's nose"?

There is in my life a certain goal which has eluded and mystified me.

When I feel "hopeful" and optimistic, the final outcome consistently turns out below my hopeful expectations leading me to ask why I bother with "hope" in the first place.

Then when I resign myself so as not to get my hopes up, the outcome often turns out worse than my worst fears, leading me to regret not having been realistic and hopeless enough. I realize at least conceptually that pessimism and realism aren't one and the same and either are hope and wishful thinking.

So what is hope to you? And how do you "exercise" it?

You can either leave comments or better yet write a blog entry about it, and I will link it here.

Hope to hear from you.

Updated:
*I am not necessarily interested in what hope is from a collective perspective be it Christian or not. I want to know what it means to you and how it works in your own life.

Carpooling

2006-12-07T22:20:00.000-08:00

As life goes, I get occasionally pushed into something with reluctance and trepidation and end up really liking it later. Carpooling is one such case.

Just about a month ago, my car's ingnition keybox jammed at work rendering inoperable my only means of transporation. Towed it to the repair shop nearby, and because I had brought in the car so late in the day, the mechanic could not get the necessary parts in time, so I found myself stranded nearly 30 miles from my house here in Southern California, a region with the dubious honor of trailing most of the Third World in the availability of public transporation.

Then it dawned on me that one of the guys in the office lived just a few blocks from my house. Asked him if I could get a ride, and off we went up the 405 taking advantage of the carpool lane through one of the most traffic congested stretches in the country. It took us 35 minutes, reducing our commute by a whopping 20 minutes at least.

Since then, he and I have taken turns in driving to and from work on a regular basis, allowing me to leave my car on the driveway half the time. Per month, I believe I spend about 15 hours less on the road, and save roughly $80-100 in fuel, tolls, and wear and tear on the car.

But all of the said benefits are eclipsed by one thing.

Do you know what traffic is like around here? The delight of zipping right by the poor motorists sitting in bumper to bumper traffic brings about tears of joyous and perverted gratification. And seated on the passenger side, I wrestle with the urge to taunt them with my head protruding out the car window like a dog. Probably not a good idea if I want to continue to carpool.

Okay, this is getting to be TMI, so I shall not go into any more sordid details. Yes, I am a horrible person. Decades of traffic and smog have clearly destroyed my moral certitude.

Just a few weeks ago, I found another carpool partner who has driven with me to work when the other one can't make it. These two guys can't carpool together because of their conflicting schedules, but my flexible work hours as a consultant allow me to carpool with whoever happens to be available on a given day.

In fact, there have been times when one of the guys has taken me to work, and the other back home. They just can't pass up the opportunity to use the carpool lane, so they put up with me.

Just don't call me a carpool whore, okay?

Could it happen again?

2006-12-04T01:38:00.000-08:00

I blogged about a USC Song Girl caught cheering for the wrong team.

Was it an abberation? Could it happen again? Folks, I was right there in person to witness this, which was caught on national TV. The clip is only 44 seconds long.

My voice is still hoarse.

I reluctantly accepted an invitation from a friend to the game between UCLA and USC at the Rose Bowl. If you follow college football, you should know that USC was the prohibitive favorite going into the game, and its bitter cross-town rival UCLA was the last team to stand in the way of the Trojans' trip to the BCS Championship game in Glendale Arizona.

USC was supposed to steamroll over UCLA on the way to the second consecutive Championship appearance, but my Bruins refused to roll over and they fought valiently to bring down the Goliath of college football.

UCLA: 13 - SUC: 9

Couldn't ask for a better weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving from the IRS

2006-11-21T01:05:00.000-08:00

First of all, Borat for President! More on this later after my third viewing.

So the mailbox greeted me with a friendly notice from the IRS informing me that I owe them $8,000.*

Please stay with me even if numbers bore you to tears. You know, I was seriously tempted to get your attention by inflating these numbers by one or two 0's, leaving you with the impression of my wealth and prosperity in case you know somebody who's looking for an e-Sugar Daddy, but then I recalled at least one posting sharing with you intimate details of my reputation as Korean trash in the neighborhood. Sometimes I talk too much. Sigh sigh sigh.

After meticulously digging through my records, I discovered two mistakes on their part.

1) For the 2004 tax year, I overpaid the IRS by $4,000. Instead of asking for a refund check, I opted to apply it to the year 2005. The IRS is claiming, according to their tabulation, that this amount is only $3,000.

2) To close out the 2005 tax return, I sent the IRS a check for $7,000. The IRS claims not to have received the payment even though I have the cancelled check right here with me.

The friendly letter concludes with the following friendly statement (emphasis mine).

If you think we made a mistake, please call us at the number listed above.

Excuse me? "A" mistake? Oh how presumptuous of you.

So can anyone help me out with IRS etiquette and talking points for each of the aforementioned mistakes?

1) How in the world will I get them to look at my 2004 return and admit that they are off by $1,000?

2) I remember reading an LA Times story a few years back about a taxpayer in a similar situation.

He produced the cancelled check and the bank statement to the IRS, but that didn't help. The IRS insisted that their bank never got the money. Apparently your check to the government goes to a third party financial institution, which in turn pays the IRS. If that bank fails to transfer your money to the final destination which is the IRS, the onus is on the taxpayer to find the money and deliver it to the IRS coffers.

In this particular case, the taxpayer's money vanished into a black hole without a trace, and he ended up filing for bankruptcy after several fruitless years of fighting the IRS and the third party bank.

I will let you know how it pans out. I hope you will get the hint when you see on the sidebar the Paypal icon with a sign that reads: Will Blog for Food.

* numbers rounded up for simplification

BORAT 2008

Just another day

2006-11-02T14:41:00.000-08:00

Even though this particular Japanese takeout place isn't known for great food, I love seeing this old lady who always greets me with a radiant smile. Despite her limited command of the English language, her warmth and kindness have attracted a lot of customers to this small joint located in this very Anglo area of Orange County.

The price tag for my lunch order came out to be $7.32. Since I only had a twenty dollar bill, I asked her to hold it while I excused myself out to my car in the parking lot to get some change.

There was plenty of pennies and nickles inside the cupholder. But they were caked in spilled Coke and dog hairs. It was disgusting.

Being a nice guy, I thought I'd wash them before handing them over to this very classy Japanese lady. Returned to the joint, and headed straight to the restroom. Dropped the coins in the sink and soaked them in water for a few minutes to dissolve the fossilized dog hairs and Coke and heaven knows what else.

Finally I made my way back to the counter and placed the coins in her hand. She winced a bit: Turned out that some were still glistening with moisture. Apparently I did not do a very good job of drying them with the paper towel.

"Oh, I had to wash them."

Her face turned ghost white. Gone was her smile.

She had just seen me emerge from the restroom.

Just another dorky day in my little corner of the world. Nice going, Cho.

What just happened

2006-10-31T18:54:00.000-08:00

I seldom use foul language.

People who have known me for years would report having never heard me swear.

This is not to judge those whose vocabulary does include bad words, and I don't want to start a debate on the merits of expletives. I just keep my speech relatively sanitized as a matter of preference.

On the way home just now, it dawned on me that I had forgotten to stock up on Halloween treats. So I quickly drew up a plan to sneak into my house, turn the lights out, and stay holed up in my office just with the desk lamp and the computer on for the rest of the night.

But the part where I was to sneak into the house undetected by the bands of children roaming around the neighborhood was not going to be easy. This is a family neighborhood, and there were lots of them.

So approaching my house, I slowed down my car waiting for the coast to clear. When it seemed to be, I quickly pulled up to the driveway, flew out of the car, and opened up the trunk to retrieve the bag. Time is of the essense. Every second counts. Run David run.

"Trick or Treat"
Startled, I turned around to be greeted by a little boy dressed as Winnie the Pooh and a woman.

Then came out of my mouth: "Oh s***."

Is there a Halloween version of Scrooge?

There is now.

10 days later

2006-10-25T23:52:00.000-07:00

Two Saturdays ago, I walked into the barbershop to lighten up my load. Please, no jokes about my receding hairline. Believe it or not, even small patches of grown hair can feel cumbersome and getting a nice haircut can be a therapeutic exercise.

I was in the throes of a stressful time, trying to catch up with the things that I had been putting off, and I thought getting a haircut would release some stress. I still have a few more things to knock out before I can declare victory.

"How would you like your hair cut done, sir?" asked the friendly barber.

"Nice and short," I murmured. Soon my mind wandered away thinking about the stacks of paperwork awaiting me back in my home office.

Then everything there after took place in slow motion. Instead of feeling his fingers and a pair of scissors, I felt something metallic and cold.

I think forgot to say businessman short.

Is that a buzzer? I looked in the mirror. YES, IT WAS A BUZZER.

Sensing a look of panic and terror, the barber abruptly stopped. A quick assessment of damage revealed a 1" by 2" swath of hair vanished with the wind.

With a grave look of concern, said the barber, "Does this look okay?"

*****************************

Does anyone know where I can find this outfit? Halloween is just a few days away. Gotta do something that goes well with my new hairstyle.

Do or die week coming up

2006-10-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

I have to be the world's worst procrastinator, and that is not a good thing when you are self-employed.

Now the chickens have come home to roost. Please think good thoughts about me, even though you will end up regretting it when you read my next entry.

Hope you are having a good weekend.

Addendum: According to this test (HT: Miss Cellania).

My blog is worth $11,855.34.
How much is your blog worth?

How do I look?

2006-10-03T22:10:00.000-07:00

I have switched to the beta version of blogger.

Thanks to Mad Ethel and Gary for going before us and sacrificing themselves on the bleading edge as guinea pigs.

Is there a politically correct term for "guinea pig"? I really don't feel right about calling people pigs even though a guines pig is not really a pig according to this page. At least not in public.

*************************************
Congratulate me on the purchase of the 10th anniversary special edition of Shawshank Redemption.

My next blog post will be about this movie, but it won't be so much a movie review but rather an essay about why this film deeply resonates with me and how the story has made its way to my heart even though I have never been to prison (despite my suspicious looks).

I hope you have seen this movie, and if not, please do it. As of now, the voting public of the Internet Movie Database ranks Shawshank as the second most highly regarded film ever, so please don't tell me you have not seen it or I will not party with you. Might as well tell the world of your state of shock and dismay ensuing the learning of the Lindbergh kidnapping.

Check out this clip I found on Youtube. It contains two deleted scenes which the DVD does not feature for some reason. I really like the second one. Found myself gasping for air along with Red.

Noah Dethroned

2006-09-22T23:40:00.000-07:00

Noah has been dethroned according to the upcoming issue of Time. Meet the newly crowned Best Dog in the World.

And now www.TheBestDogInTheWorld.com reflects the changing of the guard. Please go ahead and follow the link. As far as I know, the "dog" part in theBestDogInTheWorld refers to the pictured canine on the cover of the Time magazine, not to anyone else gracing that particular web site.

(Amber, I cannot believe you just let this happen).

That's alright. Noah and I will live. Please take time to send congratulatory notes to the owner of theBestDogInTheWorld.com's new dog by following the link below:

JealousOfNoah@theBestDogInTheWorld.com

Have yourselves a nice weekend. I will be spending my Saturday trying very hard not to fit in at the annual gathering of Southern California's most notorious social neaderthals.

I am really hoping for a Tyra look-alike to walk up to me and say, "Talk nerdy to me, big boy."

Tyra and Racism

2006-09-21T16:47:00.000-07:00

Feeling sleepless a couple of nights ago, I happened to catch a rerun of the Tyra Banks Show. No, her beauty tips do not tickle my fancies.

The topic for this episode was racism. Tyra sat with five women of different ethnicities in her quest to determine which group "has it worse."

Each woman had a story to tell.

The Muslim woman spoke of being called a terrorist by random strangers every day and recounted her nightmares with airport security.

The African American woman's teacher whom she looked up to discouraged her from seeking a career as a medical doctor and encouraged the her to opt for nursing instead despite her strong academic record.

The Hispanic woman demonstrated with a hidden camera the humiliation of being watched and followed around the store.

The white woman's black neighbors in her college student apartment complex made her life miserable purely on the account of her race.

These are heart wrenching stories which go to show the strong undercurrents of racism which we have yet to move beyond. I can't really relate to their particular woes, but I do admit to sharing some of the prejudices which contribute to them.

Now it was the Asian woman's turn to speak. My ears perked up. Perhaps she would share something which I could relate to, I thought. And besides, she was kinda cute.

When she used to waitress at a Mongolian restaurant, a white customer and her kid asked her to share with them something about the Mongolian culture. She felt insulted and humiliated because she is Korean, not Mongolian.

Uh..is there more? No, that was it.

As I said before, back when I was growing up, there were only two Asian nationalities known to Americans: Japanese and Chinese. "Are you Japanese or Chinese?" was how people phrased the typical inquiry into my national origin since most of them had not heard of Korea.

But I saw a silver lining in this. When I acted like a dork, the Chinese or Japanese reputation took a hit, but not my people's. So I considered it my patriotic duty to transgress with reckless abandon in front of white people.

I still do: ESPECIALLY BEHIND THE WHEEL.

Back to this brain donor featured in the Tyra Banks Show.

Girlfriend, after finding Canada on the map, you might want to look up Mongolia. It is only two countries away from Korea, and most of our ancestors were Mongolian nomads who migrated south in search of warmer climate.

Besides, you were working at a Mongolian restaurant, and as an employee of an establishment whose mission is to sell the culinary aspects of Mongolian culture, shouldn't you know a thing or two?

And you had to inform the national audience of your Korean ancestry. Was that necessary? And this anecdote of yours was in response to the question, "who has it worse"?

I am boycotting all things Tyra Banks including her show and Internet photos. For the next two ~~days~~ hours.

My Midlife Crisis is Finally here

2006-09-13T00:41:00.000-07:00

Updated Sep 13th, 10:40 PM. See post script below

Meet my new toy: Trikke.

I had never bought anything in response to a TV imformercial, but this time, I caved.

As you can see, it looks like a scooter with 3 small wheels, but there is no built-in motor or pedaling mechanism.

Watch this guy work it.

I was so intrigued by the physics of its forward movement with seeming ease from the rider. It reminded me of the Segway without a built-in motor and the $5,000 price tag.

So the very next day I drove over to a local Sports Chalet store to pick one up. Couldn't wait four weeks for the shipment to arrive. Brought it home, and stood on it with my hands on the handle bars and feet on the foot pads.

Nothing happened. After watching the forementioned video clip, I attempted to mimic his dance moves only to roll backward. That was last Friday.

It took a great deal of humility to sit down and watch the instructional DVD, and today, I finally got into a rhythm and hit the "sweet spot". You should have seen me rock and roll up and down the parking lot and around the block several times for almost two hours.

Was about 11 PM when I finally got in, and I am itching to go back out again. Two thumbs up!

Update
After Two hours yesterday and another hour today of reveling in the novelty of this contraption, I am finding about the muscles that I didn't know I had before. If you happen to get one, just don't over do it.

September 10th, 2001

2006-09-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

We talk about what they were doing and where they were on September 11th, 2001. But how about September 10th, 2001?

We often look upon September 10th as the last day of our innocence. So what were you doing five years ago today?

I had been in the market for a house as a first time home buyer. After about a month of searching and driving around, my realtor and I finally picked the very house I am writing this in and wrote up an offer.

I initiated the biggest financial transaction of my life, and went to bed thinking about my dream house.

*********************
Please take some time to read the sobering and powerful essay called My September 10th by L-Girl.

A Chauffeur's story.

2006-09-09T00:02:00.000-07:00

My first job at the major petroleum company was to oversee maintenance of service stations throughout Southern California and Nevada. No, I did not drive around a service truck in a uniform with my name tag embroiled although some of the women that I attempted to ask out thought that. Others thought I worked as a cashier at a gas station.

My job involved contracting out maintenance services to vendors who did the actual work on site. Don't yawn yet. I'm still talking.

One day, we got word that the CEO was taking a "field trip" to a service station as part of his executive objective to assess how our retail division was doing. This instantly kicked my department into overdrive. My manager ordered me to round up vendors to refurbish the station within the next 48 hours.

ABC must have gotten the idea for the popular reality show Extreme Home Makeover from us. Painters, pavers, roofers, electricians and others converged on this service station and worked around the clock, and the outcome was astonishing.

Given the dilapidated state of the surrounding area, the only analogy I could think of was a freshly picked rose in the toilet. Don't spend too much time trying to visualize that. The price tag for the rose was about $100,000.

The CEO's visit lasted about 15 minutes and a collective sigh of relief followed. I got to keep my job.

******************************
One of my grandfather's friends was a chauffeur for the first President of South Korea back in the 50's. The President would venture out from his mansion and make field trips to see how the people were living.

One such trip was to a department store in Seoul. After inspecting an assortment of merchandise, he marveled at how "affordable" everything was. The country was getting stronger and his policy was doing wonders, he effused in front of the throng of cameras.

Unbeknownst to him, his handlers converged on the store in force the night before and changed out the price tags, slashing prices by 99% or more. This was just one example of how insulated he was from the harsh reality of life in postwar Korea, and his presidency inevitably ended in disgrace after leaving a trail of corruption and incompetence.

One day, my grandfather's chauffeur friend informed his boss that he was getting married. The President congratulated him and whipped out a wad of cash, and said, "This ought to get you a house in the most elite neighborhood of Seoul. And while you are at it, buy yourself and your bride a car too."

What he gave him was not enough to buy a used bicycle, let alone a house in the Beverly Hills of Seoul and a car. Too bad he couldn't just magically cut the price of an expensive mansion as the President's handlers could do at the department store.

******************************
The South Korean president was a clueless dictator of a third world country 50 years ago. At least he had an excuse. He lacked the necessary logistics to just barge into a department store unannounced with security details in place.

The CEO? If he really wanted to know how his stores were doing (there were 300 of them within 20 miles of the corporate headquarters alone), why couldn't he have jumped into the car and driven over to one down the street? What a noble concept.

In this case, the CEO's chauffeur was the one who always gave us a heads up and made my life miserable. He had me constantly on my toes bracing myself for the next $100,000 rose in the toilet.

My former corporate life

2006-09-07T01:15:00.000-07:00

See if you can detect a pattern from my work history. Should be pretty obvious if you pay close attention.

Major petroleum company - most of the 90's
* 30,000 Employees
* Acquired by British Petroleum around the end of my tenure
* BP is currently under criminal investigation.

Software company - height of the dotcom boom
* 500 Employees
* Acquired by Choicepoint around the end of my tenure
* Choicepoint is under investigation for compromising consumer data.

Hardware/software company - around the dotcom crash
* 150 Employees
* Acquired by some East Coast company.
* The parent company shut the place down shortly after the acquisition.

Noah Data Solutions - present
* 1 Employee
* The company named after a dog.

While everything you touch may turn into gold, in my case, well...

I hope to share some humorous as well as sobering stories from my former corporate life. Let me start off with a short and sweet one.

Here I was a young engineer straight out of school. Eager to impress my superiors as well as co-workers, I often worked through lunch and slaved away in the office burning the midnight oil. Well, you get the picture.

One of my colleagues was an older gentleman near retirement. The moment the clock hit 5, he flew out the door like a bat out of hell.

One day, we ran into each other in the men's room. He complimented my work ethic and asked me how I liked working for the company. Then he said the following which I will never forget:

Working hard here is like peeing in black pants. It gives you a warm feeling, but nobody notices.

Pretend this is a video blog

2006-09-04T18:27:00.000-07:00

Since I don't have a webcam, you will have to bear with me as I walk you through a series of still photos.

So who doesn't like Tabasco? If you are an aficionado of all things spicy, then Tabasco should be near the top of your must-haves.

Have you looked at the label on the other side of the Tabasco logo on the bottle? I bet you have not.

Drop everything you are doing and grab the bottle you have and come back here. This is important.

Okay, so let's zoom in here to have a closer look.

Okay, we can all read this: "Distinctive Flavor," it reads, "Aged to Perfection." The label goes on to claim that, "It takes 3 years to make the unique favor of TABASCO brand Pepper Sauce."

Just some harmless marketing propaganda we have grown used to. Now let's move the camera down the label to read the rest of the label.

It says to "Try it on: Soups, salads, pizza, pasta, .... BBQ." Let's continue down the list.

ARE YOU SEEING WHAT I'M SEEING?!?!?!?!? It tells you to "try it on" Asian!?!?!?

Now you may say not to be silly and tell me that it really means Asian foods. Then why is Sushi listed separately?

You know, the last time I checked, Sushi isn't Norwegian.

Memo to self: Be aware of big bad men walking around with a Tabasco bottle.

On a more serious note, a lot of crazy little things are going on in my life, leaving me no mental capacity to blog. I suppose this is how writer's block comes about. Hope your Labor Day weekend went well.

Looky here

2006-09-04T09:49:00.000-07:00

Found in my inbox. I'm gonna be rich!

Beloved In Christ,

Dearest one.

Calvary greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I am MotherTheresa Smith.I am 65years old, am suffering from long time liver problem.From all indications, my condition is serious and according to mydoctor it is quite obvious that I may not survive the sickness,although as a christain,I beleive God, and I know that I will not die,I will leave to declare the glory of God. My late Husband and my only son was killed during the Ogoni Crisis and I am presently Leaving alone.Our Lord Jesus Christ is my comforter.My late Husband was very wealthy we have a lot of properties including shares and houses.After the death of my Husband,I made up my mind to travel abroad to leave the rest of my life and continue to do the work of God as a missionary.I called our lawyer and I instructed him to sell all my Husband properties and shares to enable me raise some money to conitue my mission.

The lawyer sold the Shares and some of the properties and I was able to raise the sum of ($10.3,000,000.00(Ten Million Three Hundred Thousand US Dollars)The fund is in cash,for the safety of the fund till am able to travel out,I packaged the fund in consignments deposited it with a Security Company.Presently,all the documents concerning the consignments are with my lawyer.

Now that my sickness has gone to this stage,I am scared and I want the fund to be used for the work of God all over the world. I have prayed and I told God to direct me to an honest person who will receive this fund and utilise it for things that will glorify the name of God After my prayers,I searched the internet,I found your email address and I decided to contact you.Please if you are interested in using this fund for the work ofGod,please send to me your private phone and fax number full names and address to enable me give it to my lawyer for immediate arrangement with the Security company on how the consignments that contained the fund will be delivered to you.I await your urgent reply.

Thanks and God bless you.

Regards,
Mother Theresa Smith

This is actually a new one. Most of the "Nigeria scam" emails I have received involve a frozen bank account belonging to a government official in a foreign country which has undergone some kind of political turmoil. This is the first I have received with a Christian theme. I am quite impressed with the author's proficiency in our lingo.

Looks like the scammers are now harvesting email addresses from blogs.

T-1000

2006-08-24T00:22:00.000-07:00

Much to my relief, and yours as well, looks like the creepy JonBonet guy isn't the T-1000 after all.

John Connor gets a reprieve at least for the time being, but wait.

ARE YOU SEEING WHAT I'M SEEING?!?!

Or is it just me?

Judgment Day

2006-08-18T12:21:00.000-07:00

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Sunday, Aug 20 11:45 AM PST. See postscript below.

Somebody, please pick up the phone and call Arnold Schwarzenegger. There is a much more pressing matter than balancing the California state budget.

Just look at this.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen. I am breaking the shocking news right here and right now. The Judgment Day is finally here. The T-1000 has arrived.

Here is my theory about this John Karr guy who really is the T-1000. There was a glitch in Skynet and it landed in Thailand instead of Los Angeles.

As you may know, he is in custody on sex related charges in Thailand, but Thai prison isn't where he is likely to find John Connor. So he fabricated a confession to manipulate the Thai and US authorities into extraditing him to the United States and get a free ride here.

I really hope to make it through this phase of the apocalypse, and have a chance to meet and spend some quality time with the T-X.

Yes, this is the best I could come up with after an extended break from the blogging world.

News Alert (Aug 20 11:45 AM PST): CNN reports that the T-1000 (John Karr) is on flight to arrive in LOS ANGELES tonight at 8:40 PM. He is headed to Los Angeles, where John Connor lives, not Boulder Colorado where JonBonet died or Northern California where an arrest warrant is out. His masterful deception continues to fool the Keystone Cops.

We are all going to die.

Some Misc. Stuff

2006-07-26T18:06:00.000-07:00

Feel free to leave lots and lots of sympathy notes in comments. I will read them to him.

Thanks to my most awesome sprinkler, my Korean trash reputation may finally be behind me.

But you should see the car I drive. In car crazed Southern California, driving a 95 Toyota Corolla tends to raise eyebrows.

One of my clients put me up at a luxurious hotel during my last business trip. The valet parking attendant upon seeing me said,

"Motel 6 is right down the street, sir."

No, he didn't do that. In fact, I self-parked so as not to put him on a tough spot.

Anyone else can't get enough of the Dixie Hummingbirds?

Discovered them on rhapsody.com just a few weeks ago, and now I am completely hooked. Where have they been? Or where have I been? They have been doing this together for over 75 years. Imagine that. If you are into the folk/traditional gospel genre, be sure to check them out. They are out of this world.

Well folks, I will be offline to catch up with work for a few weeks. Hope you are all doing well.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem

2006-07-18T21:54:00.000-07:00

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand forget her cunning.
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,
If I remember thee not;
If I set not Jerusalem Above my chiefest joy.

PRAY FOR THE PEACE OF JERUSALEM
PSALM 122:6

It has not been pretty wading through the inflammatory rhetoric and vitriolic tirades coming from both sides, particularly from my fellow conservative Evangelical Christians. They never met a war they didn't like, it seems.

I can certainly understand and even agree with some of the arguments against Pacifism, but where do we get off with this when-in-doubt-go-to-war mentality? Will we ever honor Jesus Christ as the Prince of Peace? Has that ever happened?

May cooler heads prevail. I hope to come up with a more coherent entry on this topic in the coming days, but in the mean time, I cannot get this old spiritual out of my head. Do you guys know it? Peter, Paul and Mary do a great rendition of this.

I’m going to lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Going to lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside
Ain't going to study war no more

I Ain't going to study war no more
Ain't going to study war no more
Ain't going to study war no more
Ain't going to study war no more
Ain't going to study war no more
Ain't going to study war no more

I'm going to walk with the Prince of Peace
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
....

I'm going to lay down that atom bomb
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
....

I'm going to put on my long white robe
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
....

The grass is greener on the other side

2006-07-11T21:30:00.000-07:00

Check out that luscious, well manicured lawn. Makes me want to do my Julie Andrews Sound of Music routine on it. How about you?

It's not mine. It's my immediate neighbor's. Now behold front lawn of the Cho Casa.

Honestly, I couldn't give a rip about what my neighbors would say and do about my lawn. That is, until one night, this thought crossed my mind out of the blue: 'What if they say behind my back....'

Warning: If you are a strong adherent of political correctness, you should stop reading right now and visit another blog.
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Okay, so you are still with me. I feel sorry for you. So going back to that thought, I was thinking, what if they start gracing me with this cute little nickname?

Korean trash

Let's back up here for a moment. Back when I was growing up, there were only two Asian nationalities known to Americans: Japanese and Chinese. "Are you Japanese or Chinese?" was how people phrased the typical inquiry into my national origin since most of them had not heard of Korea. At times I wonder if they can find Canada on the map.

Well, let's see, the United States lost [sarcasm] only 35,000 lives [/sarcasm] during the Korean war, so don't you think the country is kinda important to our history?

But I saw a silver lining in this. When I acted like a dork, the Chinese or Japanese reputation took a hit, but not my people's. So I considered it my patriotic duty to transgress with reckless abandon in front of white people as a payback for all the grief that Korea was at the receiving end of throughout history.

Now things have changed, thanks to this dude.

Has he fired his hair stylist yet? Helen Keller would have done a better job than that.

Despair not, ladies and gentlemen. Meet the Traveling Sprinkler.

As you can see, as the spinning arms spit out water, the rotating shaft gradually turns the back wheels pushing the whole unit forward. The front wheel rides the hose using it as a train track, which means the path of water follows the layout of the hose across the lawn. I love this thing.

Isn't that the neatest thing or what? Now you may ask, how does it stop? Or does it stop? Ah, now you are thinking.

Now only does this little guy stop the sprinkler from moving further, but it also pushes the button located on the belly of the unit which shuts the water off. Watch this.

Gets closer, closer, closer...

Now, not only has it come to a full stop, but the water has been completely shut off as well.

Korean trash maybe, but I own and operate the coolest sprinker in the world.

At least he doesn't seem to mind the trashy grass.

Reclaiming our Christian Roots

2006-07-02T00:20:00.000-07:00

William Willimon, a professor of religion at Duke University, speaks of a momentous event which quietly took place on a sultry Sunday evening in 1963 in Greenville, South Carolina.*

That Sunday evening in the heart of the Bible Belt in this great nation of ours, the Fox Theater opened on the Lord's day for the first time. Seven teenage attendees of the Youth Fellowship at Buncombe Street Church made a pact to enter the front door of the church, be seen, and then quietly slip out the back door and go to see the show at the Fox.

That, Dr. Willimon says, was a watershed in the history of Christianity in the United States. The Fox theater served notice that it would no longer bow to the church, and went head to head in the battle for the hearts and souls of young people, and that evening, the Fox decisively won the first skirmish.

Greenville South Carolina succumbed to the wave of secularity sweeping across America in the turbulent decade of the 60's and the long running era in which Christianity dominated the American worldview unceremoniously came to an end.

I was born three years after the Fox theater heralded a new era, and my family's roots in America go back only to the early 80's, just a few years removed from the tumultuous era of the 60's and much of the 70's during which America found herself ambushed by an onslaught of social and cultural upheaval. As a new arrival to the country, I only got to witness the aftermath and learned about the decades through the lens of history and discussion with those who braved through the period as adults.

They had their own Greenville stories and fondly recalled with a touch of nostalgia the decades prior the 60's when America was a "God fearing Christian nation" where Judeo-Christian values were the norm and opening theaters on Sunday was unthinkable.

In the years following that Sunday evening, the secular culture grew increasingly brazen in its defiance of the church. Three years after the Fox theater opened for business on Sunday for the first time, John Lennon declared that the Beatles were now "more popular than Jesus," stepping on the already frayed nerves of American Christians reeling from the rapidly changing culture.

Throughout the formative years of my life, I stood side by side with others who, finding themselves increasingly under siege and alarmed by what they saw as the nation's continuous slide into moral deprivation, went onto fight back and even lash out at the culture. They were still fuming over what they viewed as a blasphemous statement from Lennon.

As a new American from a "pagan" nation where the marginalization of Christianity was rampant, I was determined to see to it that my adopted country reclaim its rich Christian heritage. Fondly recalling the story of an American missionary who befriended my great grandfather nearly a century ago, I felt a strong sense of kinship with this country I came to love as my spiritual homeland. To me and others, events like the one in Greenville heralded a dark godless era and John Lennon's statement put an exclamation mark on it.

*************************************
Dr. Willimon, however, has an entirely different take on what took place in Greenville. You see, he was one of the seven teenagers who skipped church and sneaked into the Fox theatre that evening. When the culture sidestepped to allow the church to be the only show in town, it was assumed that people grew up Christian, simply by growing up American. But that assumption came to an end when the theater delivered the message that evening that it would no longer offer free rides to the church.

That, Dr. Willimon asserts, was one of the best things ever happened to the church of Jesus Christ in America. No longer is it assumed that the church and the culture see eye to eye and now Christians must realize that they are a peculiar people with their own peculiar identity, and learn to live as aliens in a strange land.

After extensive soul searching and the studying of Scripture, I have come to agree with Dr. Willimon. I have come to conclude the assumption that people grow up Christian, simply by growing up American is downright heretical in violation of every principle taught by Jesus and practiced by the first century Christians.

The notion of the Christian faith being an extension of a particular nationality was absolutely unheard of in the fledgling first century Christian Church. In fact, Christians, faced with intense persecution from the surrounding culture called themselves "aliens" and "strangers" simply passing through the present world as "sojourners." They spoke of living in peace with their neighbors, and conducting themselves as examplary law-abiding citizens.

Waging so-called "culture wars" against their pagan society was literally two thousand years and two continents away from their minds. Today the "war" has become a de facto tenet of the faith in the American Christian church. Sadly the tone of belligerence has drawn lines and fostered the us-against-them mindset while sidelining the true message of Jesus Christ.

We bitterly complain about the supposed disrespect and mis-characterization of our faith. Doing away with references to God in school curriculum, coins, and public monuments has galvanized Christians, but what do those things really have to do with our faith? Besides, as the saying goes, respect is to be earned, not to be demanded or worse yet, legislated.

We do not and should not bow down to some generic deity concocted by government officials on dollar bills and coins. Whether public monuments carry references to God, or lack thereof, does absolutely nothing to affirm or discredit my faith. My faith comes God Himself. My faith comes from my own relationship with God. My faith comes from what I read in the Bible, not the Constitution of the United States or the pledge of allegiance.

In retrospect, I believe the Fox theater did the church of Jesus Christ a monumental favor by spurting us to reclaim our true identity as Christians. As intoxicated as he was in a stupor of self-absorption, Lennon inadvertently uttered what deserves to go down as one of the most profound theological statements of the 20th century.

Jesus himself on trial before the disdainful eyes of Pontius Pilate declared, "My Kingdom is not of this world."

As saturated with "Christian values" the foundation and fabric of this nation may appear, America is ultimately of this world while Jesus' Kingdom is not.

The words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn are haunting. Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970 for his writings which exposed the atrocities of the Soviet Gulag.

The goal of the Gulag was not just the eradication of religiosity, but complete and thorough dehumanization. Reflecting on his harrowing years in prison, he penned the following words:

It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually, it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes, not through states, not between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. So, bless you, prison, for having been in my life.

American Christians today behave as though the line between good and evil passes between the Republican and Democratic parties, between America and the rest of the world, and between the middle class and the underclass.

Solzhenitsyn's words remind us that what ultimately matters are human hearts, not states, classes, or political parties.

Instead of longing for the good old days when America was Christian, how about the days of the early church when Christians were Christian? Instead of bickering over the popularity of Jesus in America, how about striving for the supremacy of Jesus in our own lives?

We must wage "war" not against our neighbors, but against ourselves in our own hearts and souls. That is where the war must be fought with all of our might and with all our fervency.

That is how we can reclaim our Christian roots dating back not to the founding of our nation two centuries ago, but to two thousand years ago when Jesus built his Church with his blood.

And that is how we Christians can be Christian again.

* Dr. Willimon's story is taken from James Van Tholen's Where all Hope Lies (pages 59-64). It is an outstanding collection of sermons

Canine Patriots

2006-07-01T15:46:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th!

Not to be outdone by L-Girl's Cody. Happy Canada Day to our Canadian friends.

Memorable Quotes

2006-06-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

Each decade has its own unique characteristic, which slowly but maturely unfolds as the particular events and people fall into place to complete the picture as years pass.

There are many ways to characterize each past decade, one of which is a collection of famous quotes which both reflected and influenced the significant historic events and culture of each period. These quotes, both inspirational and not so inspirational, have forever seared into our collective memory, serving as reference points for fond as well as sobering reminiscences.

I came of age in the 1980's. The most defining moment came when Ronald Reagan stood before the Berlin Wall and declared, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

Even though President Reagan's role in the death of Communism remains subject to debate, to this boy who had lost several of his relatives to a Communist regime, his unthinkable, but bold proclamation was deeply gripping and inspiring. And lo and behold, the Berlin Wall crumbled down right before our eyes a few years later along with other holdouts of Communism around the world.

Then came the 1990's. I have yet to make a selection between Johnny Cochran's "If it doesn't fit and you must acquit," and President Clinton's "I did not have sexual relations with that woman Monica Lewinsky." I promise to finalize my choice before the current decade is up. It has been agonizing.

But I will say this. With Al Queda breathing down on our neck, and the quagmire in Iraq, I now long for that decade in which we briefly enjoyed a reprieve with neither Communism nor international terrorism weighing heavily on our nation's psyche.

Since this decade isn't over yet, we will not know what the defining quote will be until 3.5 years from now, but at this point, I cannot even think of a good candidate.

What if no meaningful quote emerges from public figures by December 31, 2009? And who says only public figures are entitled to creating historic quotes? How about ordinary Americans just like you and me?

***************************************
About four months ago, I paid a dreaded visit to the dental office. Despite my diligence with dental hygiene, the hygienist did her usual ritual of nipping at my heels about certain parts of my gums which I supposedly had neglected.

It became tiresome and repetitive. I floss more than anyone that I know. I brush more laboriously than anyone. So yeah, whatever.

Sensing my attitude, she whipped out a hand mirror and placed it right in front my face, and said, "Look at yours," then flashed her own gums, "And look at mine. See how mine are nice and pink."

Look at yours and look at mine.

My back hairs stood up: Both of them.

It has been four months since that incidence, so why am I blogging about it now you ask?

Here's the deal. I'm on edge tonight because tomorrow at 8:30 AM, I will be walking into the local Kaiser hospital for my annual physical exam.

Nobody...says...that...to...me...tomorrow.

Not the doctor. Not the nurses. Not the receptionist. And certainly not the 250 pound parking lot security guard who always greets me with that creepy smile.

Nobody.

AND THAT GOES FOR YOU TOO.

Writer's block

2006-06-26T01:12:00.000-07:00

According to wikipedia.

Writer's block is the phenomenon in which a writer temporarily loses the capability to continue writing. It is characterised by the loss of inspiration or confidence in creativity.

Why does the definition include the passive voice?

Perhaps I should cease viewing myself as a writer, so as to put an end to this thing called "writer's block."

It is not for the lack of what to write about: I have over 20 drafts which I started just to be ambushed by writer's, I mean, dork's block.

Oh, no. Now I have blogged about blogging, which according to this guy* is a sign that the blog is on a deathbed.

* www.rockyjay.com/rocky_jay/2006/05/three_stages_of.html. Be warned: The guy likes semi-nude photos, which is why I am not giving you a hyperlink. Thanks to Miss Cellania for the URL.

Open Thread

2006-06-13T19:04:00.000-07:00

I am soliciting your astute observations based on the video clip above.

My fundamentalism series is at a standstill right now with drafts for about eight entries floating around, but none near completion.

Just one rule: Please refrain from debating or discussing with other commenters. I am solely interested in your take on the clip, not what you think of others'.

May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits if you violate this rule. No amount of singing Take My Wife's Fleas* will do you any good.

* the Far Side

Sit-In

2006-06-04T18:19:00.000-07:00

My roommate George moved out to greener pastures in Texas over the weekend after his two year stint at the Cho Casa here in Orange County, California.

We formed a life-long friendship and I will miss him greatly.

My dog Noah will miss him even more. This story and the photo below should speak volumes about their love affair.

In the past week or so as George waded through and packed his belongings, we wondered if Noah would pick up on the permanence of George's departure, and how he would react to parting ways with his beloved.

Well, here is what happened.

After loading up and exchanging long good-byes with us, George finally got behind the wheel of his car, bracing himself for a long 1,500 mile drive from here to Decatur, Texas. Just before he reached out to shut the door, Noah took a plunge below George's legs, burrowed his way to the floor beneath the driver's side of the dashboard, staked out his place as seen below.

No amount of cajoling could coax him to budge for the next 15 minutes. It was cute, funny, and sad at the same time. George fought back tears.

But to think that my dog was actually considering leaving me for somebody else. Yo, buddy, I pay the bills. How can I get it through your head? You know, the bills? Oh I don't know. Stuff like...the roof over your head. The food in the bowl. The water. The leash for the walk. The vet expenses.

Pray

2006-06-02T03:12:00.000-07:00

This image was cropped from the Los Angeles Times website.

You may not think it's funny, but I do, so consider yourself warned. Stupid little things make me laugh as you may have noticed.

Note the caption below the photo (emphasis mine): "New Orleans residents pray against a rebuilt floodwall."

I don't know about you, but I usually pray for, not against things and people. Next time I visit your blog, I will lean my hand against it and pray against you. Hehehe.

(Is this the dumbest thing you've ever read or what? You were sufficiently warned, so don't be leaving angry comments about a minute of your life you just wasted.)

Whatever....

2006-05-28T06:15:00.000-07:00

I am really upset with myself.

Yesterday was your picture perfect Southern California day, which screamed for outdoor activities even to this computer geek.

So my new roommate and I took a bike ride to the beach, which turned out to be quite arduous because of the strong winds from the ocean. But the hardwork paid off, and we eventually found ourselves at the beach.

After parking my bike, I wondered off to the men's room which was adjacent to the parking lot. Out of the blue, I heard someone yell out, "Hey, come here."

I looked, and it came from a teenager behind the wheel of an SUV. "Yeah, you" as he motioned to get closer with a hand gesture. Though a bit puzzled, I approached them.

"We are lost. Where's the PCH?" Uttered the teenage boy as his friends in the backseats as well as the passenger's giggled.

"It's right up there. You just came from there." The PCH, which stands for Pacific Coast Highway flanks the beaches of Southern California as the name suggests. Since they were in the beach parking lot, they had to have come from there. What an odd question.

"Thanks." said the boy and he reached out to shake hands with me which I responded to.

"Good luck. Where are you from?" I asked as if to make small talk to diffuse the awkwardness from the whole encounter.

"Texas. And... China." he said to the roaring laughter from his friends in the car as they drove away (Yes, they were white kids).

************************************
There you have it, folks. One can go off making grand statements about racism, rudeness, what passes for humor these days, or whatever makes you tick, but I am really upset about my own gullibility. Here is a long list of the "clues" missed by yours truly.

- The rude hand gesture coming from a teenage boy ordering around a 40 year old man: "Hey come here."

- "Yeah, you"

- His buddies in the car gasping for air while laughing their heads off

- "We are lost." One typically does not pay $3 to get into a beach parking lot to ask for directions.

- "Where's the PCH?" See explanation above.

- Then I asked where they were from for no good reason other than to make "small talk" which ended up serving as a prelude to our future Jay Leno's "punch line."

You could look at it as assuming the best in people, but that is not in my nature. My guard was down, and gullibility kicked in, leaving me vulnerable to a bunch of idiot teenagers looking for cheap thrills completely devoid of creativity and flair.

Whatever.

Not my video blog

2006-05-22T13:49:00.000-07:00

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. This dude's life reminds me WAY TOO MUCH of my own. Hits way too close to home.

But still can't get enough of him.

Here is one for your enjoyment (warning: language).

Well-Known

2006-05-18T14:46:00.000-07:00

If I were "well-known," would I really have to announce to the whole world that I was well-known? Donno, but that's just me.

Well-known Bible teacher Reverend* David Cho's sermon series this month will be on humility and the futility of fame.

[Addedenum]
Look at the sign.
MAY 15-17 6:30 OR 9 AM & 7 PM
Does it make any sense?

May 15-17 are Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Churches typically meet on Sunday. And what is with 6:30 or 9 AM? 9 AM is understandable, but 6:30 AM?

Revered David Cho is usually still in a coma at 6:30 AM.

* I don't abbreviate such an important title and neither should you especially when you use it in conjunction with my name. Rest assured that my secretary will be talked to.

The Da Vinci Code - movie

2006-05-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

The movie will be released this Friday.

No, I am not boycotting it, but at the same time, I do not want to give a dime to Dan Brown. So what should I do?

Here is what I did when Mike Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 came out. Even though I strongly opposed the war in Iraq, my dislike for Mike Moore's shrillness of preaching to the choir was too much to overcome. The film did nothing but a disservice to the anti-war side, but a lot to inflate his own already oversized ego. He was not going to get a dime from me.

So I stepped up to the box office, and purchased a ticket for Shrek 2, not for Fahrenheit 9/11. Then after handing the ticket to the attendant and purchasing popcorn and a drink, I sneaked into the room which was showing F-911, not Shrek 2.

Then I wrote an email to Mike Moore explaining what I had done so as to leave him with an option to come after me.

Who did I "rip off"? Not the theatres and employees, but for the most part Mike Moore and the production company responsible for the making of the film. And I was still out $10 after patronizing the movie house.

I do not endorse any form of piracy such as bootlegging, because it hurts a lot of innocent people besides the filmmaker and the production company while enriching questionable characters in the underground economy.

But still, was that a naughty thing to do?

The Passive Voice Should not be Used

2006-05-10T00:03:00.000-07:00

Never fully understood why the use of the passive voice set off so much wrath and agitation. My English instructors frowned upon it, to put it mildly, but nobody ever explained to me in concrete terms why.

Some of my instructors were more passionate about it than others. One instructor banned the use of it all together, and my papers always came back bleeding with corrections.

The passive voice is said to compromise clarity. Okay, I just used it, so hit me.

I used it because at issue here is the passive voice, not necessarily the identity of its detractors. People in general state that as an argument against using the passive voice, and who says it is of secondary importance. So in this case, converting the sentence to the active voice above will lead to confusion, not specificity.

More than two decades have passed since my high school years, and now I have garnered enough courage to ask why. It was not my place to ask questions at the time as a new arrival to the country with less than two years of English under his belt.

One instructor had me revisit every sentence with the passive voice and replace am, is, are, was, or were with get or got. So the title of the blog would be "The Passive voice should not get used."

Any attorneys out there accepting clients interested in suing for educational malpractice?

On a similar note, speaking with clarity posed a even greater challenge. Besides the usual l's and r's that Asians are prone to butchering, one of the most difficult words to pronounce was the word beach, and enunciating that word was a _____. Well, you will see.

"I am going to the b*tch"
"Watch your language, David."

"No, the beeeaaaaaach. Spelled B.E.A.C.H"
"Oh. Sorry. Which one? Redondo?"

"No"
"Santa Monica?"

"Yes. That b*tch"

Coming to Terms with Fundamentalism II

2006-05-04T22:50:00.000-07:00

Coming to Terms with Fundamentalism
* Part I: Introduction

Biblical Inerrancy

Meet Dr. John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California.

Throughout this series will be numerous references to Dr. MacArthur and his brand of Christian fundamentalism which will be the focus of my critical analysis. The reasons are threefold.

First, Dr. MacArthur's brand of fundamentalism is what I am most familiar with. During my years in college, most of the people that I rubbed shoulders with in campus Christian circles had close ties to his church in Sun Valley, California and inevitably albeit indirectly, Dr. MacArthur heavily influenced my world view during my formative years. For three years after graduating from college, I attended his church before relocating to Orange County.

Second, he is widely respected and is considered a "hero of the faith" in mainstream fundamentalist circles. His radio ministry called Grace to You is among the most listened to Christian radio programs and his books regularly top the best selling lists of Christian publications. Churches with strong fundamentalist leanings from across the nation and around the world look upon his church as a model to mimic. All these factors make him fairly representative of the practices and beliefs of Christian fundamentalism.

Finally, this may sound a bit blunt, but I don't know how else to put it. Dr. MacArthur and his church expend a lot of time and energy in unleashing harsh criticisms of non-fundamentalist churches and sects which they believe have watered down the "truth." Billy Graham is just one of several names you may recognize on the long list of his targets. It is only fair and reasonable that anyone who makes a career out of dishing out be subject to scrutiny and criticism himself.

My observations will be based mostly on documents available on the Internet and his published books, and some on my own anecdotal accounts. I do not claim to be privy to anything about Dr. MacArthur's life and his church other than what is available in the public domain, and my own experiences.

Also, I will attempt to avoid run of the mill charges of hypocrisy. Run of the mill charges of hypocrisy will always degenerate into a war of rhetorical retorts, which are not only counterproductive, but unbecoming of how Christians should live out their lives. I am an ex-fundamentalist, but certainly not an ex-Christian.

What is fundamentalism?

As I alluded to in my first posting in this series, it is nearly impossible to discuss matters of faith without stepping onto a field of semantic land mines in which any given word means different things to different people and the term "fundamentalism" is no exception.

Christian fundamentalism, like much of Christendom, is fragmented with no one defining leader or institution, and thus one dimensional depictions fall far short of doing justice. To some, it conjures up the virulent images of racism in the South back in the 60's and of the Religious Right which has become a powerful political force in American national politics today.

To Dr. John MacArthur's credit, his brand of fundamentalism is neither of those two. In fact, he has argued against promoting moralism through political activism, although it must be duly noted that you are much more likely to win the lottery before meeting a liberal Democrat in his church, and that he matriculated at Bob Jones University which made headlines recently for its long standing campus rules against interracial dating. But unlike Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, you will never see Dr. MacArthur mobilize his congregation to promote his political agenda using his capacity as a Christian pastor, and I cannot say I experienced overt racism during my three years in his church.

The single most important doctrine and identity which unite fundamentalists of all stripes including Dr. MacArthur's is "Biblical Inerrancy." or "Sola Scriptura." The fundamentalists believe that the Bible is the Word of God and the ultimate source of truth. Every single word, they believe, from Genesis which speaks of the creation of the world to Revelation which details how this present world will end is directly from God Himself, not man.

As you probably know, Christians of all stripes embrace the Bible in some fashion, but Christian fundamentalism takes the concept "pretty far", which will be the focus of this series.

One manifestation of how far they take it can be found in what they say they believe. Take a look at the statement of faith published by Independent Fundamental Churches of America, which John MacArthur's church is a member of.

Notice that the first statement before the mentioning of God or Jesus concerns The Holy Scriptures.

How about God and Jesus, you may wonder. The line of thinking is that once you read, study, and correctly interpret the Bible, sound beliefs about God and Jesus naturally and automatically follow. But if you don't have the right view of the Bible, then the rest crumbles like a house of cards.

Fundamentalists vehemently deny that the Bible is the end all and be all and God takes the backseat in their system. My upcoming entries will attempt to show how their patterns of behavior and practices betray their denial. Needless to say, that is why I have left fundamentalism after nearly two decades.

That they take the Bible very seriously and passionately manifests itself in some unexpected ways, to put it mildly. Recently, one fundamentalist pastor called certain people "vipers," and the "enemies of the cross" for promoting "false doctrine."

When I chimed in to take the pastor to task for debasing the tone of discourse with name calling, his justification came from the Bible. Since Jesus called his detractors "vipers" and the Apostle Paul called certain people the "enemies of the cross," he insisted that he was "biblically" justified in lashing out with such colorful metaphors.

Expletives aren't acceptable because they are not in the Bible. But I can tell you that there is one word that you do not want to associate yourself with even though it is nowhere to be found in the Bible.

The word is .... (drum roll please) ...

l i b e r a l
I am not a liberal.*

Vipers, the enemies of the cross, fornicators and etc. may cover different groups of people. For example, it's not easy to be a fornicator and a viper at the same time. Most fornicators want to snuggle with you, not bite you.

But if you are a liberal, you are all of the aforementioned and more. A lot more.

May God have mercy on you, because the fundamentalists won't. And if you happen to agree with me, please curb your enthusiasm in your comments. I have a reputation to maintain around here.

* notice how quickly I deny being one.

Addendum (added May 10)
Nathan has written a post called The Death of Fundamentalism in which he argues that the label is outdated and no longer applies. It's a good read, even though I disagree with most of it. My response is in comments.