Category: General

When Karen and I flew down to San Diego during Mark’s wedding, I was recovering from a cold and was coughing incessantly.  My mom, with her concerned demeanor, unveiled the following…

What is it?  Apparently it’s an ancient Chinese family secret herb passed down through the generations for fighting coughs, and my grandpa is the sole possessor of this profound knowledge.  Being a scientifically enlightened individual, I refused the intake of this dirt-like crap.

My dad’s friend, who flew in from Taiwan to attend my brother’s wedding, also had a cough and took some.  After a few days, my dad’s friend’s cough went away while mine lingered at my throat.  Curiously, I inquired about the source of its powers.  According to her, western medicine addresses symptoms while eastern medicine cures the source.  Inside us there is “Chi” at work, and this powder dispels the evil “Chi” and rectifies the root of what’s causing the cough.   o-kay…

Still, I couldn’t deny the empirical evidence of my dad’s friend’s miraculous recovery, so I took a teaspoon of this dirt and drank some water, a cruicial element of this formula. The powder tasted like mint mixed with ginger, and guess what, the cough went away!

Until an hour later, anyway.  Then I started coughing again.  I immediately went to my mom and my dad’s friend with the “aha! it doesn’t work!” but they explained that I needed to keep taking it for it to be effective.  So here we were.  I could keep taking the placebo and when my throat eventually heals, all the glory and honor goes to the powder, or I could stop taking it and be scolded by my mom for being stubborn every time I cough.  I was in a no-win situation.

So does the miracle powder really work?  I don’t know, because I decided to stop taking it.  I did bring a bottle of it with me to Seattle, but it being an ancient Chinese secret, I just couldn’t bring myself to use any of this precious… dirt.  🙂

I apologize for those of you awaiting the next chapter of my epic, but I must insert a breather. I came across these floor murals and thought it was amusing.

What’s a floor mural? Before you google on it, a slight disclaimer: I actually made the term up, as the original spam was sent in Mandarin. Let me first describe how it’s created, and then I’ll show you some samples.

First, some guy vandalizes the pavement…

Then he takes a picture and comes up with a plan…

Then the execution…

And behold, the three-dimensional illusion!

Actually, I thought it was pretty good until I saw this coke bottle…

This next one’s okay…

For this next one, I like the powdery blend into the ice.

Wow, impressive reflection…

This one’s a little more cartoonish, but still decent…

The shadows in this one are amazing… It almost seems like there are two guys crawling on the floor.

This one looks more like a cutout…

Spidey looks distorted in this one…

The guys are distorted, but the well texturing is very well done…

Looks like people are walking around this one…

Nice depth on the dirt…

Box of markers…

And this one takes the cake for the details of the crowd and the sense of height…

As impressive as this was, the experimentation with 3D art goes as far back as Michaelangelo and Raphael, but you’ll have to read about that in one of my future blogs on Europe, of course.

(warning: spoilers below)

Up to this point, Randal had been a class-act.  In all episodes, it seemed like Randal spoke highly of his peers, was full of integrity, and was full of heart.  He also seemed genuinely founded in his faith, making references to his church.  So tonight, when Trump asked him which project he would like to head, Karen and I fully anticipated him shying away from the Casino.  Wrong.  He fully embraced grandeur of Atlantic City, taking us by surprise.

However, it wasn’t until the final 5 minutes of the 2-hour finale that he had gone from one of my most respected candidate to the least respected.  Half way into the episode, Karen already suspected that Trump will hire both, especially when he foreshadowed it when they chose different projects.  So when Trump seeked Randal’s opinion on Rebecca’s hiring, I thought “here we go”.  Based on his past relationship with Rebecca, I fully expected the response to be, “You know, Mr. Trump, I’ve worked with Rebecca and she’s smart and capable. She will be a great asset to your organization.  I highly recommend her.”  As you know, the episode unfolded with Randal denying Rebecca’s employment by requesting to be the sole Apprentice, and Trump respected his wishes.  Unbelievable.  I understand that Randal wants tonight to be his night, but he has already been declared the winner!  It’s as if Randal grew horns and fangs and transformed into an evil grinch overnight!  I had no choice but to roll my eyes and sigh in disgust.

Who are you?  Where’s Randal and what did you do with him?!?

Last Saturday, we undertook an expedition on the corn maze in Snohomish, and we returned with an Oscar-nominee.

I found this picture on MSNBC…

All I can say is… ouch!

Karen and I dined at Jeem last night, and when it came time to pay, I pulled out the wallet and realized that my credit card was missing from its usual slot!  A slight flashback brought me to Red Robin, the last place I touched my wallet for lunch after church, so that must have been where it was…

We hurriedly paid with Karen’s credit card and drove over to Red Robin across the street.  The manager performed the security check by glacing at my ID and disappeared through the backdoor.  When he returned, his hands were empty and declared the bad news–card not found!  How could it be?!

“Who was your server?” he asked.

“I don’t remember.  I may have to report this card stolen, so can you check one last time?” I answered.

The manager strolled down the aisle and disappeared again.  Suddenly a revelation hit me–I may indeed have the receipt in my wallet.  I promptly opened it up and sitting in the bit fat slot was the receipt with the server name!  Then I checked in the other compartment, and there it was, the credit card!  To spare the manager the agony of realizing that the last 15 minutes was an exercise in futility, I thanked him and mentioned I’d look for it and left.  When we got back to my car, Karen asked, “Where’s your jacket?”

So back to Jeem we went…

My manager asked me give a demo of what I work on today to about a hundred people.  I thought I had everything taken care of, so I waited until 11pm last night to prepare.  When I tried connecting the device, it failed!  Took me until 3am to sort it out!  Note to self: procrastination=bad.

In the end, the demo went smoothly.  Couldn’t say the same about the other demos, though.  One had problems getting the laptop connected, and the other continually crashed…  It helps to lift up even the small things to God.  🙂

Karen recently dragged me into watching a Korean drama called “Full House”, which we finished yesterday.  It’s actually a cute Romantic drama about a Movie Star and a girl who got into a contractual marriage due to circumstances.  While there were 16 episodes, at least it’s not like some of the Taiwanese or Hong Kong series that drag on to 40+ episodes.  Once we started watching, it was hard to stop because of all the cliff hangers connecting the episodes.

The actress in this drama is Song Hye Gyo.  As you may have remembered from the Miss Universe pagent blog, I like pointing out people who look like others.  In this case, it’s Yuki, a singer from Taiwan who sang “Monster”.  Karen and I had a heated discussion about whether they really look alike, but let us take a look…

Song Hye Gyo

Yuki Hsu

Check out the eyebrows, the eyes, the mouth…  The resemblance is staggering!

Thought this was pretty funny…

Here to prove to you once and for all that I’m…  only slightly nerdy.

Hey, at least I didn’t score 86%!!!  😛  I think maybe Karen may have something to do with lowering that score, particularly the questions like dirty laundry in the bedroom…