I'm sad to start this post by saying that Frankie has passed on. I had her euthanized last Friday because her tumor ruptured. It was very sad holding her for the last hour in at the vet while she was so peppy, albeit bleeding. The weekend passed by so quickly, and work has been picking up the pace, so days and weeks are going to start flying by. Just found out that I'm going to GDC again, which is a great place to meet people and learn a ton about programming.

My first chocolate making class is coming up on the 31st, and I'm very excited about that. Chinese 102 is starting on Tuesday, so my busy weeks just got busier. I did spend the weekend watching a bunch of HD movies, and let me tell you. It looks so much better in HD! (HD-DVD over Blu-Ray)

I was doing so good until November hit last year. And then all my blogging went out the door. I saw myself writing entries in my head but never actually writing them down. So here's a brief synopsis. The thing's that have been consuming my life, in no particular order: my wonderful girlfriend, Karin, the horribly obsessive, World of Warcraft Trading Card Game, and always stressful, business school applications.

A couple of highlights... The Glory of Christmas show in Anaheim, my brother visiting from Indianapolis for Christmas. Thanksgiving with my dad. Christmas dinner with Geoff, New Year's at Karin's, and a couple of milestones at work.

All things considered, it was a great year. I'll be more diligent about posting this year, as I'm sure it will be just as great (check back in 3 months).

The past two weekends have been pretty good. Last Friday, I flew out to San Jose and spent the night at Jared's house. Playing a bunch of 360 games, catching up, and drinking POM Tea. It's surprising how easy it is to stay up until 3 AM when you're  with good friends having a great time. Jared is in dire need of an HDTV though. Saturday started off  with breakfast with Erik. It's always great talking with him. I picked up Jason and headed up to San Francisco. We walked around  Portal Ave. & Ulloa St. Picked up the new Killers album and then met up with Jason's friend Emily and Ed. We ate lunch at Submarine Center and then headed off to Mission Cliffs for some indoor climbing. We split between straight climbing and bouldering. And of course, our hands were tired after the event. The four of us then headed to the Metreon to watch The Departed, but ended up watching it at the new Westfield San Francisco Centre across the way. This is one huge mall. The evening was topped off with dinner in Japantown where I got the pork katsu I was itching for. We spent the night at Monelle's place in Santa Clara where they were carving pumpkins all night. Sunday was spent hanging out with my cousin and showing Jason around Berkeley. We walked up and down Telegraph as well as covering most of the University.We had dinner at McCarthy Ranch on the way down the 880. It was delicious and Jason could pick out some of the words that everyone was saying. His chinese is really coming along. Monday was spent breaking into Monelle's house after getting locked out, and then hobbling around San Jose because I injured myself on the run in the Morning. We ended taking a break at the Ben & Jerry's near SJSU and having a great chat with the manager. We ended up watching The Prestige and had dinner at La Victoria and getting a bottle of orange sauce for Nick. After he dropped us off, I gave him the bottle and he was as happy as an 8 year old on Christmas morning. It was great!

Last weekend was almost as eventful as the previous weekend. I met up with Emily on Friday night at my house. I also got to hang out with Dana, Jarrett and Sun, who I hadn't seen in a very long time. I got Em a World of Warcraft Trading Card Game starter deck for her birthday, so she was very excited. Still, being on East coast time and waking up early that morning, she faded pretty quickly. Saturday morning I ran in the Blue Sky Ecological Reserve with Karin and Jason. Afterwards, I had dim sum with Matt, Jason, Nick, Karin, and Chris at Pearl on Saturday morning, then ran around San Diego looking for a costume. I finally found one at Target, though I must say that it is a bit small for me. I'll put the pictures up on flickr soon so that you can all enjoy in the obsenity. Sunday was spent running errands, buying some clothes for Karin's first day at her new job. I made some dinner for Karin and Emily before she went home and had a great evening.

It's been so long since I've had a post, I thought it'd only be fitting to  do a quick post before I spend the weekend in San Jose. Last weekend I dropped off my dad at LAX, then proceeded to run the Long Beach  Half Marathon the next morning. I ran a 1:55, which was within my goal. Unfortunately, walking around the course waiting for Karin without a  blanket on caught me a little cold that kept me down for Tuesday and Wednesday. It sucked pretty bad. Before that, I took my GMAT's the weekend before. This weekend I'm spending some time with friends in the Bay Area, but will have to promptly return home to finish my Business School applications and hopefully meet up with Emily when she makes her west coast tour later this month. Me and Karin also celebrated our four month anniversary by staying in and watch CSI. I was also sick, and she brought me medicine. It was a good time.

I don't know how it's happened, but I managed to go an entire month without putting up a blog post. I guess it could be in part to me being busy with studying for the GMAT along with the various activities that are required in being a boyfriend. Looking through my Outlook, I see Dim Sum, Viejas, lots of soccer, signing up for a Chinese class at Mira Costa and a vigorous GMAT test prep schedule. I think I'll have some time to post this weekend. Wait, my brother's coming in from Indianapolis. I guess it'll be next weekend.

July 6th was a long time ago. And even looking over that post, it looks like I didn't have that much to talk about. I guess I should talk about what's been happening, or what's been on my mind. I've been wanting to do an online dating commentary, but that'll have to get put off until later... again.

The first couple of weeks of July were spent watching a lot of World Cup games. It was the first time that I was really into watching all the games. This is a reflection of the amount of soccer I've been playing at work. It really puts into perspective the skill that these players have and the amount of drama there is in a game. When we're used to watching things like baseball where homeruns are commonplace, to see the nuances of a soccer games (I'm still no pro) makes the game something even more exciting than baseball, in my opinion.

I've been doing a fair amount of online dating. And I think for many people like me (engineer), it's one of the better ways to meet people. I think people had more active jobs in the past and that lead to more social environments. Working as an engineer, I spend a lot fo time with my computer, and my computer has many friends of the female persuasion. Going to bars is always fun, and I'm not a shy guy. But the problem with bars is that 99% of the women you meet there, you don't want to talk to for more than 10 min. Though they're beautiful to look at. I'll definitely give them that.

Last week was probably my most eventful week for me. Here's a rehash of the things I did. On Tuesday night I went with Karin and watched Othello at the Old Globe Theatre as part of Summer Shakespeare Festival. It was a great performance, and Karin was completely surprised and had a great time. Wednesday and Thursday were not as good because a surprised popped up at work that required me to work some long hours. Friday through Sunday was spent at Comic-Con. I think I can break it down a little more...

Friday had the Family Guy/American Dad panel which was great. Then I went to the Richard Kelly panel. He's the guy who wrote and directed Donnie Darko. A great film, though a bit of a mind melter. His current project seems along the same vein. I dropped into the Halo Graphic Novel panel to get an autograph but didn't stay for the entire panel. This was because we wanted to get in line for the Snakes on a Plane panel. Samuel L. Jackson was there and was a great guest. He entertained the crowd's silly questions and quoted some of his most memorable lines with a Snakes on a Plane twist. "Yes those snakes deserve to die! And I hope they burn in Hell!"

Saturday was easily my busiest day. I missed the 300 panel, which was supposed to be great, but did manage to make the Grind House panel. There were a ton of actors there along with both directors. You'll see them in the pictures. After that we ran the floor for a while. Karin was overwhelmed by the number of nerds on the floor. We got some lunch with Dan and came back to wait in line for the Disney panel. The line was so long, and the demand for the following Sony panel was so high that we missed the entire Disney panel. We made it in halfway through the Ghost Rider panel and were able to see the entire Spider-Man 3 panel. The spidey 3 panel was great. They had almost the entire main cast, and were all very friendly with the attendees. After the spidey panel, I met up with my aunt, uncle, and cousin for the Summer Pops featuring the Peking Acrobats. The temperature was near perfect.
I spent a lot of Sunday wandering the flor with AJ and her cosplay friends. It was great to see kids who love Teen Titans see her dressed up as Starfire and take pictures with her. She did a great job on the costume and it would make the kid's day to get a picture with her. It reminded me of kids at Christmas who are estatic to be taking a picture with Santa. It's a bummer that cosplayers get a bad rap sometime. Though there are plenty of idiot's that shouldn't be cosplaying.

I'm happy to say that my lack of posting is due to my increased social activities on the weekend. I wish I could go into all the details, but some things need to stay quite until they're resolved. Here are some brief highlights. I've been spending one day on the weekend mornings playing soccer with my cousin Joanne, her husband Laurhens, and a bunch of her co-workers. It's a great time. Last week I went to a Guster concert that was hosted by KPRI. That was fun. I also watched Superman Returns twice, because I couldn't watch it with all my friends the first time. Pool parties, potlucks, and many other things went on. I've been so busy that I've even had to look through my outlook calender to see what I've been doing. And as an aside, I love my new T-Mobile SDA. It's great for keeping track of everything I need to do. The only problem is that it doesn't get my attention well enough so I miss a couple calls and txt messages.
The 4th was spent in Mission Bay hanging out with co-workers and the crew from Henry's. It was a drunk mess taht I thoroughly enjoyed. I somehow keep forgetting my camera so I only have a sparse amount of photos. They'll be online soon.

It was a far busier weekend than I expected. It started Friday night with coffee at The Living Room in La Jolla. It was a good evening, but kept me up all night with the caffeine rushing through my veins. Got up early on Saturday morning to catch Nacho Libre with Nick. I would have to say that the reviews match the movie, with most of the funny scenes shown in the commercials. Nonetheless, there were still some great scenes. After the movie, we went my local elementary school and practiced our skating for roller hockey. Skating backwards is hard work! After having my feet on fire being in new skates, I was glad to go for a swim in my backyard. Played some Big Brain Academy multiplayer with Nick. We were pretty even in the games. I had dinner Saturday night with Geoff, Cheryl and Kevin at the Old Town Mexican Cafe and picked up a Father's Day present. The chicken chimichanga is delicious, but it's definitely for carnavores. There's only meat on the inside. Geoff spent a couple of hours playing new Super Mario Brothers on my DS Lite while Cheryl tried to find me a wife on match.com
Sunday morning I played indoor soccer with my cousin Joanne and her co-workers. It was a lot of fun, and the sports park in Poway is really nice. I've never been there, but I'd definitely want to go back and play there some more. I had lunch at Sammy's Wood Fired Pizza. The angel hair pasta was delicious. But I didn't want to eat that much because I knew I'd be going to a sushi making class later that night. The class was great fun, and now I can make sushi rolls and hand rolls. More importantly, I know about a lot of the prep that is necessary for making sushi. So hopefully I'll be doing a sushi party sometime soon.
Then last night I played basketball for two hours with Nick's new buddy who used to play Div III ball in college. She seriously kicked our asses. I am one sore programmer.

I didn't think I did this much this weekend, but looking back, I did get a fair amount done. Friday night was spent at 1st St Bar in Encinitas with Chris and Jenny. That was a pretty good evening and sent me to bed pretty late. I got most of Saturday to recover, but then went out again on Saturday night with my cousin. It was my responsibility as the older cousin to watch over him as he drank himself to a stupor and hit on girls. It was his 23rd birthday after all, and he enjoyed it at Silk at Pechanga.
My co-worker, and friend Jason finished his film for the FX comedy contest. And I must say that I'm really impressed by it. Please check it out and pass it on to your friends. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkbeCnPXfLU It's only 5 min. I would have acted in it, except that the filming occured the weekend of my marathon. So I'll be in the next episode, hopefully.

Though my week was good, I had an even more exciting weekend. My brother and dad both flew in on Friday, so the family got to spend the weekend together. On Saturday, we went to my Aunt's ICU bbq where there was a lot of good food along with fun games that we played. After that, me, my brother, and Frankie all went swimming in the backyard. We had my birthday dinner that night at Pearl, and then went to bed early. Woke up Sunday at 4 AM to go to downtown for the Rock n' Roll Marathon. There is a plethora of good looking girls there! Then again, half of them were there with there boyfriends. But a lot of those girls have the lifestyle that I'm interested in. Now if only I could talk to check their personalitites. I met up with Matt near the start of the race and as we passed go, my brother took off, leaving me and Matt running together. We hung out for about 10 miles, when Matt pulled away. I finished the first 13.1 around 2:04 so I thought I was set to make a 4:15 marathon. Then came the cramping of my calfs arond the 13th mile and every 3 miles subsequently. Around the 20th mile, they had a wall set up to encourage the runners to push through the wall. Though once it got in my head, it quickly made me realize how tired I was. My pace slacked for a couple of miles, but another runner motivatedme to push hard through the last couple of miles. I ended with a time of 4:19 and my brother ended with a time of 3:26. You can find pictures here. My body is going to absolutely hate me tomorrow. Even more than it did after running 26.2 miles today.