In Memoriam

Seven years ago I was on the way to see her because we were told that it was getting bad... but half an hour away from her, we got another phone call that said it was okay... we didn't have to rush.

It was over... and she was gone.

**

THE BROKEN CHAIN
We never knew that morning that God was going to call your name,
In life we loved you dearly, in death we do the same.
It broke our hearts to lose you, you did not go alone,
For part of us went with you, the day God called you home.
You left us peaceful memories, your love is still our guide,
And though we cannot see you, you are always at our side.
Our family chain is broken, and nothing seems the same,
But as God calls us one by one, the chain will link again.
--Author Unknown

**

I used to light a candle on this day, as well as her birthday in April...

Just a couple of days ago, I came across this poem from this website from © A.Pell 24/08/2005

Light a Candle
Light a candle for those we mourn.
Into a new life they will be born.
Do not look for them at the gravesite.
They are somewhere else radiating their beautiful light.
They have gone to a new world where there is no darkness, no pain.
Their light and essence will always remain.
Light a candle for those who have left this mortal place.
They are free to travel through time and space.
When we think of them, they are near.
When we sit in a beautiful garden. Their voices we hear.
When we listen to a divine symphony,
We close our eyes, their faces we see.
Light a candle for they have not really gone.
With each flickering flame, in your hearts they will always belong.

**

Cancer is Limited

It cannot cripple love
It cannot erode faith
It cannot eat away peace
It cannot destroy confidence
It cannot kill friendships
It cannot shut out memories
It cannot silence courage
It cannot invade the soul
It cannot reduce eternal life
It cannot quench the spirit
It cannot lessen the power or resurrection.

Layout changes

I've been messing with this for about an hour and I think I'm happy with how it looks. The goal was to make it happier than the previous layout.

If its too radioactive to the eyes, let me know. The picture is from the Austin trip.

Another Diet Related Post

I think the reason I succeeded so well with the hourly 'snacking myself thin' thing was because of the internet.

I told total strangers that I was going to do something, and I was going to report back and follow through with results and findings. So it got to be exciting that first day to go experiment and be sure to run back up to my apartment to tell everyone how the snacking and gym went.

Because, as silly as it sounds, I wasn't just diving into yet another weight loss plan - I was showing other people how to do it.

Not that I'm trying to be motivational or anything. I'm moreso picturing myself as guinea pig. The mikey that's eating the strange new food for the first time that everyone wants to try, but wants to see someone else try first... Ya know, to make sure its for real.

Anyhow, I used to get up at 430am everyday and go for a 2 mile run. Sometimes, I'd even come back from the run and hop on a bike and go that same two miles.

Then I'd shower up, have some breakfast, and be on my merry way to work. Then I'd come home and do another two mile run.

What's the point?

The pressures of the internet!!

I dont think I can quite muster up 430am again, but I think 5am is doable.

Okay maybe not... 520. Yes, 520am is doable.

You see, if I tell you fellow people of the internet that I'm going to get up at 520am to go exercise, then that same guinea pig attitude I had with the snacking-myself-thin diet will force me out of bed when no one else is awake, and I'll *have* to get up and do it.

After all, there's one lone person somewhere out there reading who I can't let down, right?

Or at least that's what I'm going to tell myself tomorrow at 520am.

Goodnight everybody! See you at 520am from the twitter.

Fortune time!

NOW IS THE TIME TO TRY SOMETHING NEW.

no days off

I haven't worked 7 days a week in umm.. three years? It was strange.

They say you can find out a lot about someone by going through their trash.

Turns out, you can find out a lot about your fellow coworkers by doing their job for two days.

The internet is a great invention. It's essentially this massive speakers corner, and whenever you want, you get to take center stage and tell everyone that's listening [and in my case, not a whole lot, hahaha] what makes your buttons tick, why you're upset with the now, and do your dark poetry slam screaming until you feel better.

When it comes to my work, I'm all about organization, planning, efficiency, and having a map in place that shows me the path to getting the work done. If there wasn't a guidebook written when I got hired, I write one as I learn, and continually add on to it when I learn something new. I like having points of reference and a go-to checklist or manual so that way I don't need to waste my brainpower on something that a pen and paper can remember for me.

Plus, I haven't figured out how to utilize the part of my brain that still remembers that 19, 65, 9, 17 and 4, 2, 1, 6, and 1, 9, 9, 2, 1, 1, 2, 4 are codes that go to a videogame that I played when I was 8. That part of my brain is awesome, and I wish I could harness that memorability and make use of it for things that I could REALLY use.

The weekend was okay, but it was extremely frustrating that my job was organization... and the people I was cleaning up after had no sense of it whatsoever.

Anyhow, I'm sitting here at the end of the day and thinking that when its all said and done... it was a colossal disappointment that no one else showed up to help with the extra duties that needed to get done. So I did the one thing that I thought was the best investment of my time.

I LABELED stuff.

Its amazing how much faster I got things done once there was a simple improvised organization system. Not everything got done, but at least I was able to leave some kind of stepping stool for the person who is to fill that job tomorrow.

Thankyou internet for helping me survive by myself at the office. Had I not had the endless blue ocean of www to vent my frustrations to, I think I may have gone crazy.

Well... I mean *more* crazy.

Fortune time:

DISAPPOINTMENT IS THE NURSE OF WISDOM

Weird Children's TV Shows!

Today's edition of weird children's tv shows comes from France.



Keep Weird Al far away from this one, he might stick 'em in a kettle!

Diet = FAIL!

So... it worked. Very well.

However....

I felt like I was in high school sleeping 4 hours a night and having energy to study for finals, participate in after school activities for 3 hours a day, then going to hang out with friends every waking hour on the weekends, and not even touch a sip of coffee or energy drinks.

No drugs or any kind of substance, actually. :)

Anyhow, back to reality - I thought that maybe the high energy/through the roof metabolism was the working out. So I cut back... but that didn't seem to do the trick, so for two days I didn't even work out.

So when that didn't work, I thought, maybe the 'healthy subway' is a little too healthy. So I cheated and ate bad food.

But the weight kept falling off. And the energy was still there.

Pretty soon, it was getting to be midnight, 1am, 2am, and I had only slept 4 hours the previous day but just *couldn't* sleep! I tried to go exhaust myself and work out at ridiculous paces but still couldn't sleep.

Here's the strange thing - I wasn't falling over at work or dozing off at the wheel. But I wasn't getting enough sleep, and I even felt too awake to want my cup of tea.

Last night when it was past midnight, I finally said enough is enough.

So the diet was a success, definitely. I reported on the twitter that I lost 4 and a half pounds. Weighing myself today, the actual total is 6.

But I'm going to quit the hourly eating. I felt like I jumped backwards into the time in my life when I suffered from severe insomnia. I like the energy, but I don't like not sleeping.

Call me old fashioned, but I like to pick and choose when I do and don't sleep.

I'm still going to do the gym.

The next dietary experiment is this cactus smoothie thing that the bodybuilder wants me to try. I'm apparently the guinea pig of diets for him. That's not exactly a compliment... but its not an insult either, right?

Fortune time:

UNUSUAL OFFER WILL ENHANCE YOUR FUTURE

Austin Pictures from MLK Day

If anyone was following the twitter, I took a random road trip to Austin on MLK Day, hunting for a giant chicken that I saw on Agility Nut.

I didn't find the chicken, but I did take some cool pictures never the less.

If they appear distorted or are cut off at the edges, give me a couple of minutes to modify the html, I'm working on it as I post this.

I took a billion pictures, but picked out just a couple to share.

------

First, for the democrats:
[I had to cross off only one bumper sticker]



Something from downtown:



On the capitol building lawn:



Playing with my 15X zoom



And the virtual post card:



------

I'll sift through 'em again probably later in the week and put some more.

[[end transmission]]

Weird Children's TV Shows!

I have no real comment for this....... but I'm assuming its a kids thing because of the odd costume.




Weird Al probably would have no comment either.

Cactus Smoothie!

This was going to be an instructional video via youtube, but 'the bodybuilder' decided to make some funny comments and strange faces that I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate being plastered all over the world of the internet.

So here's the basics:

Ingredients: Cactus, Celery, Pineapples, and a juice of choice [we used apple juice]

Substitutions: in place of pineapples, use other fruits like oranges, apples, bananas. Something fruity anyway

Substitutions: in place of apple juice, any kind of juice really. e.g. use apples in place of the pineapples, and then put orange juice in there.

Took all of 5 minutes to make. probably would have been quicker if I hadn't insisted that I get good video of each step for what I thought was going to be a youtube upload.

So here you are! How to make a cactus smoothie in pictures:

Remember my weight-loss plan?

Yeah neither do I, since was out the window so fast.

Anyhow, here's to picking up the pieces and continuing where I left off.

An experiment, if you will.

I heard this guy on the radio this week trying to sell this book, and his stuff made sense... I know someone who was a former bodybuilder and was under several eating/dieting regimens that swears by this method of 'dieting', and if you watch The Biggest Loser, Bob and Jillian are constantly telling the contestants the same thing.

So anyhow, here's the basics:

Bob & Jillian on The Biggest Loser, right from the very start, tell the contestants they're going to eat 5 meals a day. The three basic meals, and then snacks in between. Don't be afraid to eat a snack - eating all day boosts your metabolism, and it helps you lose weight.

Which is what the bodybuilder swears by.

And then, I think it was Thursday on the radio, Dr. Warburg says that the problem with losing weight and going on a diet is that once you lose the weight, diet is over, you go back to normal, and then you gain it all back. You eat a diet meal, then you're just staring at the clock counting the time until you can eat again because you're still hungry.

And then you cheat.

So diets don't work.

He says dieting and starving yourself is bad because your body stores on more fat because it goes into 'starvation mode' and tells your brain you're not eating. The answer?

Eat all day.

The 'healthy' calorie intake a day is 1500 calories, he says. So eat that all day. Break down 1500 calories into snacks you can eat all day every hour. Eat snacks every single hour of the day from when you get up all the way til an hour before you go to bed. This eliminates your big meals because you're snacking every hour, and it will take a day or two for your body to adjust, but you'll find that when this is combined with a workout, the weight will drop faster because your metabolism is running high since you're eating a lot more.

But that's the trick - you're not really eating more, you're just eating the same amount of food you used to eat with your three meals a day, only you're just eating it one hour at a time. And it doesn't have to be completely balanced. One hour you can eat 200 or 300 calories, while another hour you eat 100.

As far as junkfood/cheating goes, he says he fits in a piece of chocolate here and there [I think he said 2-3 times a week but I don't know for sure], and a couple of seasons ago on Biggest Loser, Bob & Jillian said all the contestants are given a 'cheat day', so I'm all for the cheating once in a while, hahaha.

Anyway... the experiment is that I'm going to attempt this in combination with working out, and I shall report it all here!

This time its going to stick.

Also, this weekend I'm going to attempt to log my hourly snacking over on my twitter. Figured I should use it for something cool, right?

So today I'm packing a sandwich and almonds as I venture out to go get an oil change. I think that will take maybe an hour so I'm going to go prepared just in case.

But first, I'm off to go eat the first 'snack' of the day.

And now its taipei fortune time!

MEET A CHALLENGE WITH CALM ASSURANCE

Who was this police officer?

He was my friend.

Someone whom I confided in a lot...

A role model, and a person who offered guidance when I needed it.

He was even taller than the person who's currently labeled as 'the tallest person I know'.

He was inspiration for excelling at what I did best.

He was always there when I came home...

He taught me what it truly meant to laugh, and he showed me what it felt like to fly.

And on the day he left this earth... he was the first person the break my heart.

I miss him a lot, and often wonder where my life would have gone had he not died. But things happen sometimes that you have no control over, and you will never get an explanation for. Its maddening and frustrating and definitely unfair. And its not something you get over or just shurg and say, there's a reason for it.

But I realized that I'm not unhappy where I am now.

Not to say that I'm here because he's not. The road that I've traveled to get here was in the beginning harder to continue walking on when he left. He was supposed to be there. He already planned out the directions we were going to take when we got X amount of footsteps down the road.

But it was hard once he passed away. There was even a point where I stopped walking on it altogether.

Then one day I realized that this road that I'm on shouldn't be so difficult to continue travelling on without him... it should be easier. I had such a small yet so very very valuable and precious amount of time with him walking beside me on that road called Life, and that alone was reason to be thankful. There weren't many others that could say the same thing, or tell the funny stories about him that I could. I realized that it shouldn't have been so hard to continue taking the same steps I was taking the day before he died. For he showed me how to not just walk on the road, but to skip across it, to dance on it, to sing about it, and to enjoy the road so much more.

So at the end of today, on the anniversary of the day he passed away, the pain is still there...

....but underneath it, a smile, because once upon a time I was blessed to know this terrific person, if only for a little while...

In Memoriam

THE POLICEMAN STOOD AND FACED HIS GOD,
WHICH MUST ALWAYS COME TO PASS.
HE HOPED HIS SHOES WERE SHINING
JUST AS BRIGHTLY AS HIS BRASS.

"STEP FORWARD NOW, POLICEMAN.
HOW SHALL I DEAL WITH YOU?
HAVE YOU ALWAYS TURNED THE OTHER CHEEK?
TO MY CHURCH HAVE YOU BEEN TRUE?"

THE POLICEMAN SQUARED HIS SHOULDERS
AND SAID, "NO LORD, I GUESS I AIN'T,
BECAUSE THOSE OF US THAT CARRY BADGES
CAN'T ALWAYS BE A SAINT.

I'VE HAD TO WORK MOST SUNDAYS,
AND AT TIMES MY TALK WAS ROUGH,
AND SOMETIMES I'VE BEEN VIOLENT
BECAUSE THE STREETS ARE AWFULLY TOUGH.

BUT I NEVER TOOK A PENNY,
THAT WASN'T MINE TO KEEP.
THOUGH I WORKED A LOT OF OVERTIME
WHEN THE BILLS JUST GOT TOO STEEP.

AND I NEVER PASSED A CRY FOR HELP,
THOUGH AT TIMES I SHOOK WITH FEAR.
AND SOMETIMES GOD, FORGIVE ME,
I'VE WEPT UNMANLY TEARS.

I KNOW I DON'T DESERVE A PLACE
AMONG THE PEOPLE HERE
THEY NEVER WANTED ME AROUND
EXCEPT TO CALM THEIR FEAR.

IF YOU'VE A PLACE FOR ME HERE, LORD
IT NEEDN'T BE SO GRAND
I NEVER EXPECTED OR HAD TOO MUCH
BUT IF YOU DON'T I'LL UNDERSTAND."

THERE WAS SILENCE ALL AROUND THE THRONE
WHERE THE SAINTS HAD OFTEN TROD,
AS THE POLICEMAN WAITED QUIETLY
FOR THE JUDGMENT OF HIS GOD.

"STEP FORWARD NOW, POLICEMAN.
YOU'VE BORNE YOUR BURDENS WELL.
COME WALK A BEAT ON HEAVENS STREETS
YOU'VE DONE YOUR TIME IN HELL."

twitter stuff

I have too many feeds I try to keep up with on twitter, and I'm slowly forgetting all of the different URLs.

So ta-dah! I have a twitter now!

I just need to figure out how to actually *use* it.....

Think I need to take Epic Fu's crash course on it again...



Chances are I won't really use it to post stuff, I'll most likely just go use it as my central 'twitters that I check up on website', hahaha

Woooo....... gotta be up in like 5 hours. Goodnight!!

Weird Children's TV Shows!

Inspired by the strangeness of Yo Gabba Gabba, I have decided that it is my new blog mission to find weird children's tv shows and share them with you!

Today's tv show is some bizarre Japanese Mr. Rogers on weed.




Weird Al would have nothing cool to say about this... He might actually get scared of it.

Where was this when I was little?

A youtube search on a peculiar birthday present item I got to see this weekend came up with this.......



Somebody smokin' crack? I think so!!!

As Weird Al would say,
That's Your Horoscope For Today!

Your photgrapher wants us to take a picture.....

Definitely the phrase of the weekend.

Its funny how because I've taken pictures of these people before, I recognize them... but they didn't remember me because I always have a camera in my face.

The life of a photographer. :)

Also, Google maps - you suck. You told me to make a left turn when I should have made a right turn. Why didn't you tell me there was construction and detours and a brand new road in my path?

You suck.

Anyway, I'd like to address one more thing:

Dear Lee Majors

Where the heck have you been the past 30 years?

Must you stoop down to a 3am infomercial that is falsely making people believe that they're getting some futuristic piece of technology, when it's actually the *same old hearing aid* that anyone can get from any other 3am infomercial.

Sell something that is bionically believable.. Like a bionic camera or a bionic computer flash drive. OH I KNOW!! Sell a bionic electric guitar, I'd sooo buy that.

Bionic Hearing Aid?? Really?? Is that the best you can do? 'It won't cost you six million dollars.'

Don't you have at least 6 million dollars?

Sincerely,
Fan of yours

Anyway, hope the weekend went well for everyone.

Fortune time:

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED GETS YOU HELPLESSLY LOST.

Cool thing to check out...

There's this awesome blog that I love to read - you can check it out over in my links to the right. Its called The One Minute Writer. Its really fun to read the prompts, and just as interesting to read the replies.

Today's word of advice is to go check it out, and try to go write a reply at least once a week this year. :)

I'm experimenting with the background so bear with me... it should change a few times in the next couple of days until I can photoshop something cool together that's not so 'radioactive' to the eyes, haha

But hey, no more christmas background right? So sad, I know... but never fear, time flies and it shall soon be around the corner.

Anyway, fortune time:

YOU WILL HAVE THE DISQUIETING FEELING THAT YOU LEFT THE STOVE ON.


as a reminder, these fortunes come from the various mahjongg/taipei computer games that I've played. Mostly Moraff's Jongg.

PSA

Less than a year has passed since Randy Pausch's brave battle with pancreatic cancer ended, and unfortunately pancreatic cancer is once again a household term because of the latest advocate and soldier fighting the disease - Patrick Swayze. He has finally spoken out about his diagnosis. Read the story here.

I actually had the pleasure of meeting him once. Very tall, extremely kind, and one of the most friendly person you can ever meet. He has the most incredibly beautiful blue eyes - the tv/movie cameras definitely cannot capture their amazing essence fully.

I wish him the best, and shall pray for his continued good health.

For information about pancreatic cancer, go over to Randy Pausch's website, as there are links to the Lustgarten Foundation and the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. Watch his public service ads. Read his blog. Watch his testimony before congress. Buy his book.

See that there are real people behind the disease - real people who are just like you and me.

Fortune for you today:

MANY RECEIVE ADVICE, BUT ONLY THE WISE PROFIT BY IT.

Blame the rain on me....

Yup, that's right, I was the only person washing my car when the sky was overcast and cloudy yesterday.

Couldn't help it, my car is white and it needed a quick hosing off, and I only had time to do it in the evening when the clouds were passing by. I didn't even do a thorough cleaning, just a dollar soap spray and fifty cent rinse. But the clouds saw me rinsing my car off and decided to stop over us instead of continue passing through.

Sorry.

I'll warn everyone next time I wash the car, hahahahaha!

New Year Stuff

The New Year was brought in over omelets and coffee at a 24 hour diner hidden in a remote yet semi-accessible corner of the world. The staff was counting down the seconds, and I actually was in mid-sentence talking about economics while still trying to swallow my mushroom stuffed egg when the actual 'bell dropped'.

Gotta say.... it didn't feel much different than when I was chewing it 5 seconds before.

Then I got a phone call.... and I went as fast as I could to get home and grab my camera equipment, and then I drove 5 hours to go see a dear friend off to California. Had to grab the equipment to take a family portrait of her family, and so I can get the once-a-year picture with her that I've been lucky to get sometimes more than once a year, since I hardly see her, what with her joining the marines and all.

Then I drove 5 hours back home to be "two of five" people that had to work Friday. ;)

We're only on day three of the new year, but in these three days I feel like I've just been going 100 miles an hour.

That's a good thing, I think....

So to start the weekend off.... last night I ran into someone that gave me a key to a door that goes to a certain time frame in my past. It got locked long ago, and I've always wondered what happened to those who exist behind it.

Today I'm going to use the key.

How's the new year going for everyone else?

Sorry about the Christmas background still being up. I'm actually looking at it this way: My Christmas tree is still up. I'm sure most of the world's trees are still up. So I'm going to try and motivate myself and leave the christmas background here. Now maybe when I log in and say, "oh no! i still have this christmas background when christmas is over and done with," then perhaps I'll also say, Hey the Christmas tree is still up too.... I should take it down.

Fortune time:

GOOD NEWS WILL COME TO YOU BY E-MAIL.