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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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| 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. | | |
| i have to say that despite the fact that the weather here is kicking my butt, i'm loving it. i think it's been a long time since i've been away from my comfort zone that i want to be uncomfortable. well, hot and humid weather is as uncomfortable as i can get. there isn't anything worst to me than summer weather in asia, especially a location so close to the equator. but i manage. one thing i realized is that my mother bought me more useful stuff for this trip than i did. while i was thinking of the novelty stuff, my mother was thinking about practical stuff. the one thing that i bought which i thought would be very useful was a screen protector for the Canon G10. i bought a pack of 10 screen protectors a while ago, and never really used it up since i didn't have that many electronic gadgets. so 8 of the 10 protectors were sitting on my desk for a very long time. finally when i bought the Canon G10, i decided to put one on but still thought it was a stupid idea since i would never let it out of its case too long. but i did it anyways just in case. well tonight our team went to visit the homeless children again and it is our second time going. the first time we visited them i didn't bring a camera cos i didn't want my baby to be dirty since i was warned that kids would want to play with it and take pictures with it and we can't really say no. but it turned out that there were a lot of good foto opportunities that i thought i should have taken a foto of, so i brought my camera along for tonight's visit. as expected, kids wanted to play with my baby, and let them. i wrap the camera strap which is heavy duty enough for a dslr around their necks and allow them to walk around the park and take pictures with it. i sorta taught them how to operate my baby as well. at the end of the night i realized that there were many fingerprints and watermarks on the screen. so as soon as i'm home, i took the camera out and wiped it down with a sanitary wipe. i had the wipes in my backpack but i would never want to wipe my camera in front of them, tho that was what i was thinking, because it would be an insult to them. i wouldn't want someone to do that to me, so i waited till i got back to the house we were living in before the process of sanitizing my baby. that's when i thought that the effort i spent cutting the protector to the right size and the money i spent for the purchase was well spent. moreover, i realized that i didn't care if they scratch my baby. i didn't care if my baby doesn't smell like a new camera anymore. i was more concerned about the happiness of the kids than my baby's condition. weird, of all people! i probably won't upload too many pictures since we'll have to talk about our trip to each of the cell groups when we get back, but i'll upload a few when i get home home in awesome cali weather...lol! | | |
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