Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Road Trip: WPPI with my partners

I got up at 5AM this morning after working until 11PM last night. Why so early? I had to drive to Allen's house by 6AM for a one day road trip to WPPI with him and Brian. Needless to say, the traffic was still horrible at this awful hour. There was a fatality at the exit I'm supposed to get off to Allen's house. Anyway, I was 30 minutes late and Brian was wondering where the heck were we?

We promptly drove as fast as possible to Brian's house after getting coffee for Allen. We finally took off around 7AM from Brian's house which is only about 2 1/2 hours to Vegas. After breakfast at Barstow, Brian's Volvo blew out the front right tire tearing up the entire tire, wheelwell, and his signal light. It was pretty strange that we didn't hear a loud pop at all. The reason is that his tires were so worned out that it had no tread and it was ready to go at any time.

We finally arrived to Las Vegas with his baby spare tire going at 60mph. A very nice gentleman by the name of TC who works for the NV Sheriff's Dept. kindly offer us a ride to Bally's from the tire place because it would take 2 hours to fix 2 tires. On the way, we discussed about having children and how you can't own anything nice any more. He drove us in a once nice/new limited edition 4 Runner but his kids trashed his truck. We offered to pay him for troubling him to drive us to Bally's but he refused. He wins the Good Samaritan Award in my book. Thanks TC!

Monday, March 26, 2007

Bose QC3 Quiet Comfort 3 Noise-Cancellig Headphones

I went to the Apple store at the Grove and purchased a very pricey ($349.95) Bose QC3 headphones. It has active noise cancelling technology which cuts out most if not all ambient noise. I can listen to my ipod clearly. It's really strange, when I flip the switch on because I feel like I'm deaf and cannot hear anything at all.

The active noise cancelling features creates opposing sound waves to cancel out the ambient noise. This is better than the passive noise cancelling because it only provide you with plugs the stick so tight to your ears that nothing can go out or in of your ear canal. It's not very comfortable. The QC3 on the other hand is very comfortable to my ears. It comes with a charger and a rechargeable battery because in order to active noise cancelling to work it needs power. It's charging right now and I can't wait to try them on after it's fully charged. I'm going to use it for our road trip to WPPI tomorrow to drown out the road noise, and especially my partners' 3.5 hours of yakking. :-)

Sunday, March 25, 2007

USTA Mixed 8.0 Final Match

We played our final match today. As a team we won 2-1 against Claremont Tennis Club. Unfortunately, my parter Dianne and I lost in a close third set tie-breaker. The score was 6-7, 6-4, 1-0 (11-9). We actually had 2 match points but we couldn't convert it.

We had a great team and a great chance to win our section to compete at Sectionals. We were actually first place for about 4 weeks after we beat the #1 team which is now edging us out by a match. :-(

Darn it. I have to email the whole team with the bad news.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Eric Clapton Concert with Edna

Edna treated me to an Eric Clapton Concert at the Honda Center tonight. He's an awesome guitarist. He basically jammed for two and half hour straight.

It's the first activity that Edna and I did since her marriage/divorce from her husband. It was nice to have her company once again. Even though she's my cousin, she's more like my little sister. We used to share with each other everything. However, that came to a screeching halt when she got married. I was looking forward to spending time with her once again.

I had a great time Edna. Thanks.

Friday, March 02, 2007

I got a new lens today! Canon 50mm f1.2 L

I got a new lens today. My partner Allen picked it up for me. It's a Canon L lens, 50mm f1.2. This is such a sweet lens with L glass. At f1.2 the depth of field is phenomenal!! Can't wait to try it out. I'm so excited!

Silver Beaver Award: San Gabriel Valley Council Dinner

I was kinda anxious all day while at work thinking about tonight's Silver Beaver Award Dinner. I've been waiting for this moment for quite some time now... in fact 17 years! Since I didn't get a chance to earn my Eagle Scout Award as a child, I was determined to some day earn my ranks as an adult scouter. The Silver Beaver is the highest honor bestowed to a scouter in the Council level. I had the distinct honor of earning the District Award of Merit back in 1996... yes, 11 years ago! I was just a young pub learning the ropes of being a Scoutmaster. That was a pleasant surprise as I was not informed prior to attending the district dinner.

All week I've been running around trying to get my new uniform in order... with all the patches and knots all in place. Lan helped me get some of my ribbons from the LA Scout Shop which is temporarily relocated to the basement of her building at Squire Sanders and Dempsy.

I reserved 2 tables and prepaid it with my own money as I want to share this special moment with not only Lan, but my whole family. My mom and dad will attend my first scouting event and that is the biggest night of my scouting career. My business partners, Brian and Allen, were also there to support me and photograph the event. Chris also came but his girlfriend couldn't make it. Also, one of my scout from my Rose Parade Troop 2005 came as well. Incidentally, I included him in my montage photos.

Although, I wish they didn't dim the lights so much to show the PowerPoint slideshow, because it was difficult to photograph and videotape the actual ceremony of award presentation and wearing the ribbon. I was also mis-informed that I could only take one person on stage with me during the presentation. I of course chose my mom as she did more for me than anyone on this earth. Unfortunately, I had to do it without my father. Actually, he could've come up with us but he couldn't sit on stage.

Here are some of the photos of the even tonight. Thanks for sharing my special evening. It really means a lot to me to have all my family, business partners and friends there.