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wewong
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Name: Eugene
Country: United States
State: California
Gender: Male
Interests: automobiles, photography(candids/weddings/landscape/portraits), to be a transparent christian, airsoft, paintball, karting, all sports, pool, guitar playing, working out, poetry, sleeping, and traveling(this one i just got), counterstrike
Expertise: sarcasm, being a jerk, speaking without thinking first, ballbuster
Occupation: not student yet
Industry: Legal
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  gundamzaku
Yahoo:  gundam_zaku
Member Since:
2/3/2004
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| my turkey day this year sucked, because i ran into vicky at joy luck place dimsum-ing with my father. i rarely have any opportunity to eat with him and just with him because we don't live together since my parents were divorced and he's always busy supporting his family by repairing cars at home, a diehard auto mechanic.
i was late that morning, by a few minutes only, but my father is a punctual man, always and forever, so i ran from the parking lot into joy luck place. as i rush thru the right folding door, and at the same time taking off my oakleys magnesium m frames, which is discountinued and i'm pissed about that too because my lens was scratched and irreplaceable, i got a glance of vicky. i am a person that seemed......shockless, at least on the outside. as i continue on, one of the manager told me my dad's been seated in one of the guest rooms already. the reason why the manager knows my father and recognize me is because my father, the diehard mechanic, is also a joyluckplace diehard tea person. every monday, his day off, and sunday, christians' day off, he would go to joy luck place and enjoy a cup of warm siu mei tea. unfortunately, he's so well known that he knows all the waiters and waitresses by names and ALL OF THEM always come over and greet my father.....thus, our conversations are always short! :(
but because i'm sitting in the guest room with my father, we're sheltered from all the fuss.
unfortunately, as i was about to sip my tea, i felt a push, but i knew it was her. i turned my head slowly so that by the time my head was turned, i was already facing his brother, whom i greeted first, then his mother, then her. there was an unfamiliar face in the group of four, but i told myself to forget about it. not worth wasting my brain juice for anyways. but for the next two hours, which is how long it takes for my father to finish a meal at joy luck place, it was painful. sorta like how you get a big scab because fell off a mountain bike because you were going too fast for your own good. and you know the scab had just formed and it's hard enough to keep the blood from bleeding all over your work khakis. but somehow, somebody went and pull the skin next to the scab apart, so the scab started to tear until you can see blood gushing out and started to bleed all over you knee......then pour rubbing alcohol over the opened wound!!!!!!
the rest of the turkey weekend was alright because i got to work overtime on friday and saturday. unfortunately, i had no energy whatsoever, and thus my accountability level was so low at work that i was talked to this past monday...which was weird cos i'm usually energetic enough to cover my own butt and others butts at work!
i almost didn't feel like serving at church tho i had practiced on wednesday. everyone on the worship team was cheerful and thankful for turkey day, to give thanks to the Lord, but as for me, i felt no such emotion.
i remembered one of pastor Fu's sermon mentioned something along the lines of, "if you don't ask the Lord 'why me?' when you're having the time of your life, you shouldn't ask the Lord 'why me' when you're feeling pain" i understand that one of the many many many reasons for pain and suffering is to bring us back to the Lord, or to bring us down to be humble. but now that i'm calmed and thought it thru, the most important thing is that i know i deserved this breakup. i was never a good bf, and had done things i will regret for the rest of my life. most importantly, i wasn't behaving like a christian....let alone a transparent one!
the thing i struggle most with is the hardest thing to kick, lustful thoughts. porn is no longer part of my website surfing ritual when i get home from work, and i rarely look at a woman below the neck. but i find the hardest thoughts to kick are the intimate moments i've had with women, especially those with vicky, because they were in fact special to me.
so to occupy myself from being depressed over vicky, i started riding bicycles, and watching chinese drama. then i discovered one thing, while watching chinese drama, i see love portrayed as cheesy yucky stuff, yet there is a certain purity, which was something missing in my concept of love. i've been thinking about lust for so long i've actually missed the concept of love. yes it's cheesy in chinese drama because they actually act the concept of love out in front of you, but for me, that is the light at the end of the tunnel. i must turn around from lust and think of love....which again, leads me right back to the Lord. no one can give a greater love than the Lord, ever! if watching drama gives you this nice warm feeling, imagine how much greater it is to feel His love!
so i have thought it thru, and tho i am in pain, i can cope with it. plus, my partner and i kicked ass in badminton today beating the two players we've lost to for the past three weeks. i could only have played well because of my positive mood change...and that is a result of being able to figure out what to do next in my life.
it is true, i called and You've answered. if i deny Him now, then i am a liar!
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| when i do ride to work, i tend to get up a little earlier because it takes a bit more time to get dressed appropriately for riding, and what i do wear for riding is not appropriate for work so i will also need time to change. so woke up at 630am this morning, got ready and started riding to work around 720am. by then there was already light, but just enough where i caught then end of the sunrise going southbound 280. thanks to my shoei with a tinted windscreen, i'm able to look directly at the sunrise and not get blinded. and for some reason, there were very little cars on 280 this morning, so i was able to pay more attention to the sunrise than on the road.
i mentioned this because i love watching the sun rises and sets, it reminds me of how awesome the Lord is. afterall, He created it. it also reminds me how insignificant i am, and all glory belongs to the Lord. i was just amazed at how beautiful it was this morning and how i didn't want to go to work and just stop on the left shoulder of the freeway and watch.
if God is with us, who can be against us?!
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| i've been wanting to figure out what string would be best suited for me for a while but never got around to it. finally, after trying more than two dozen rackets, i have decided that i play best with a Yonex Carbonex 8600titanium. and the string i play best in is between a Yonex BG66 or the Gosen Bio Roots 66.
what i've learned in chemistry class at UCD was that when testing something, you must keep everything else a constant, or else you can't really compare results. that's what i did in chem class, watching auto racing, and testing out badminton rackets. so when i start off comparing rackets, i decided to pick the Yonex line because i've had a Yonex since 1st grade in Hong Kong, so i know it's reliable and i could also find a lot of support thru the company. with most of the rackets i purchased recently, i have strung all of them with Yonex Nanogy 95 string for two reasons. one, it was a new string and i am very curious to see how it performs. and two, i didn't really care which string because i would be paying my attention to the characteristics of the rackets themselves. so all the Nanogy 95 strung rackets were strung at 21lbs. what i realized was that what a certain model line of rackets Yonex is known for, that particular characteristic is more apparent as you move up the ladder to the top end rackets. one example, the Muscle Power 99 and the Muscle Power 45. the Muscle Power line by Yonex is known for giving players power they needed, therefore, this line of rackets are known ot be way more flexible than other lines...say Arcsaber, Nanospeed, or Carbonex. with MP45, a midgrade racket it is not quite flexible, but with the top of the line MP99, i could feel the racket flex as i swing thru a smash shot. so the flexibility of that racket is more apparent as you move up the on the price. you are paying more, but you're also getting more. the MP99 at around 175 dollars is still a great price but i do believe that for me, the MP45 is enough and it can't get any better at 99 dollars.
so with racket testing, i got a couple arcsabers, nanospeeds, muscle powers, and carbonexs. from what i got out of was that arcsabers are all round rackets leaning toward singles, it is more like an old Isometric 800 which i do have. nanospeeds are definitely doubles rackets because of their stiffness. muscle powers i do love because of its smashing abilities, especially for a weakling like me. and with carbonex i get the most control.
in the end i've decided to do my string testing with a Yonex Carbonex 8600titanium. my smash shots are decent and at the same time it's agile enough for me to play well in doubles games. it is currently on sale for 45 dollars, and for an intermediate racket, you can't beat that price. with the traditional oval head shape i do believe that it will help retain the tension better than the isometric head shape that most rackets have.
because i don't own a stringing machine, the next best thing would be to have a few of the same rackets strung with different strings, which was what i did. a total of 4 rackets and 4 different strings strung at the same 21lb tension. Yonex BG68ti, Ashaway MicrolegendXL, Yonex BG66, and Gosen Bio Roots 66. strung at 21lbs the XL seems to be the tightest because of the thickness and i think that's the reason it lacks power, by a lot!!! both the BG66 and BioRoots66 gave great feel and feedback thru the racket and i was able to play decent drop shots with the consistency i wanted. the trade off would be the decrease in power of my smash shots which just means i need to get stronger in that area. the BG68ti still gave decent feel, just not as much as the BG66 and BR66, but smashing power increase dramatically.
the way i tested the rackets was that i played the BG68ti as the string i compare the rest to, so i would play BG68ti one day, then another string another day, then go back to the BG68ti the day after that, and so on. that way i am constantly reminding my muscles what feels "normal".
in conclusion, i would always be willing to play with BG68ti because of its balance between power and control, at the same time, i would want to increase my strength in my smash shots so i can play with BG66/BR66 for an increase control in my touch shots. and the XL string is crap to me...sorry, i'm just not strong enough to use this string to it's max level.
questions?
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| we had a get-together this past wkend since two of my boys came back from LA and one from Japan. the only one missing is mike who's in Japan...i guess he's tied up at the moment and can't come back. it was great to catch up with all of them of their current events. more surprisingly, even john loo met up with us, which was weird since i haven't talked to the guy since high school. i just knew that he graduated UCBerkeley in three years and been working for ATI ever since. he is probably the smartest guy i know. while everyone is getting C average in ChemAP, he's getting a 96%...not curved either.
anyway, i had a lot of fun at Restaurant Lulu (props to chandawg for the recommendation) and at BJ's kickin it with the boys, talking about our old sorry high school days. it's even more funny when we look back at our old high school pictures and compare them to our pictures now it seemed that we haven't aged a bit, maybe because we're asian, or maybe because we haven't really gotten any stress.
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| as the missions trip in the philippines is winding down for me, there are many thoughts i need to organize in my head. the lessons i've learned, my feelings toward saying goodbye to a whole lot more people than i wanted to, the way that my body had finally adjusted to the weather! back in the states when i first told my mother that i'm going to philippines for missions for 22 days, she's been extremely supportive. she also mentioned that i will be blessed because of this trip. i never thought i would say this but i totally agree with her now, looking back. i thought that going on a missions trip would be to help others, and not focusing on how God will bless me in return. so since the beginning of this trip my mind was focused on what i can do to help others. little did i know that through this act of helping, or attempt to help, i myself also reaped abundantly, through the lessons i've learned whether via observations of my other two team members or from the local communities, or via the assessment all three of us got, which lasted from 8pm till almost 1am on the last night at Zamboanga! through all these lessons i know for sure is that there is much maturing needed in my life. i am determined to transform into a more transparent christian, to utilize what i have learned, the tools i need to further God's kingdom as well as start/continue to establish relationships at church back home, as well as abroad. can't wait to be home and continue serving the Lord. | | |
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