much awaited randomness

Wow- I really suck at blogging. So here I am sitting at a friend's house waiting to tutor, and I happen to have my computer also, so here we go! Perhaps I'll just post some random things that have happened the past few months:

1) Christmas was awesome! I got to spend part of it with said friend's house. Lunch on Christmas Day with my family was a lot of fun. Mom cooked an amazing meal as usual. I played some guitar, which has become a new tradition. Christian performed some comedy! He was great. He's been really influenced by Demetri Martin. He performed some of his jokes really well in addition to making up a couple of his own. My alternative Christmas gift worked out a lot better this year. Last year, I wanted my family to support a business owner or worker in a third world country by buying something from a World Vision gift catalog, or something to that effect. Well, turns out no one did it, and I was left leaving a lot of gifts at my parents' house. Well this year I just had everyone write about one of their favorite days of 2008 in a Christmas card. Obviously I was asking for a lot of repetition because Valentina was born in May, but I got a much better participation rate.

2) Working at Sony has lasted longer than I thought. Those first few months I was really feeling things out for awhile. Not sure if I would stay or not. Now, I just work hard and I love the people I work with. We all get along really well and clique with everyone, even if they are only working there temporarily. It has always been like that, from before I started working there.

3) I have made some great friends the past few months. Some are ones that I hope will build into strong friendships. Only time will tell at this point. You can see my recent flickr photos to see who I mean.

4) Although I haven't practiced in a few days, I am finally learning new songs again. This really hadn't happened for a couple years. But now I'm learning to play "Neon" by John Mayer, "This Love" by Maroon 5, "Whisper to Me" by Warren Barfield and a couple others. It's nice not playing the same stuff over and over again.

I guess that's enough randomness for now. Until later...


blessings

Give Me Your Eyes music video

I first heard this song at work.  One of my bosses, Jeff, had this song on a compilation CD he makes frequently.  I loved it almost right away and asked him who it was by.  He said it was Brandon Heath, after mistakenly telling me Carolina Liar (hehe, sorry Jeff)!  But anyways here's the video for the song, which is also really cool.  And apparently, I'm still supposed to check out the band Carolina Liar...

Brandon Heath - Give Me Your Eyes from Brandon Heath on Vimeo.

my friend Mary

So I was facebook stalking one day and saw that my college friend, Mary, was going to be in the Chicago area last week.  I contacted her to have lunch with her one day while she was in town.  Turns out she had this big wedding to plan for Mindy, who also went to Cornell.  Originally, Mary was going to come to the city to eat at El Cid, a nice Mexican place in my old neighborhood.  But since the actual work for the wedding got put off I had to go meet her in Wheaton.  First, I decided to help out by going there before lunch time.  That led to me being invited to the wedding.

I ended up attending the wedding and it was pretty awesome.  I only knew 4 people there but everyone was cool and talked to me.  That doesn't always happen when I'm in a group of strangers but it ended up working very well this time.  You can go to Mary's blog(s) on facebook to find out about the actual wedding.  Maybe I'll post a blog about it later.  Look up my flickr page for pics.

The next day, Mary came with me to Ben and Amber's to hang out with more Cornell people.  I just hoped to have lunch or dinner with her one day.  I love it when you take a chance (i.e. going to a wedding with a lot of people you don't know) and it ends up paying off beautifully.  I hadn't talked to Mary in person or on the phone for years before this past week.  And look how much better friends we are now because of what transpired.  Love it.

that's right, i do have a blog...

My bad for not posting anything in so long.  Things have been happening and not happening at the same time.  I know that doesn't make sense.  I like my job at Sony but I've been struggling with $$.  4th of July weekend was fun even though I had to work all of it.  But I did get the chance to hang out in Pilsen for the 4th of July extravaganza.  You seriously have to go to see how ridiculous the fireworks are.  Everyone on their block buys like a $1000 worth of fireworks and sets them off all night.  It's pretty insane.

Recently I ran into a deaf/mute woman on the way home from work on the bus.  She was trying to get to a bar she works at.  At first it was kind of hard to communicate but then we got the hang of talking to each other.  Lots of hand motions and writing down on paper.  So anyways, it turns out she wouldn't be able to get to her work the way she was going so I offered to drive her there.  It was interesting and it's been awhile since I've had a random interaction with a stranger like that.

Life goes on and hopefully, so will this blog...

blessings

Some of the funniest things you just can't plan

On Saturday night I'm hanging out with Jenn eating Korean BBQ. Just in case you haven't read her facebook note yet, here's the basic plot:

She brings up ex-boyfriends. First, she brings up #6 to be specific, and the story of how she broke up with #5 a little later on. Shortly after that she thinks she recognizes the people sitting at the other end of the long table we are eating at. One guy there gets up to go, and the rest of the 4-person group follow. We are done a few minutes after them and leave.

Then in the car (while still in the parking lot)...
"F---! That was ex #5 sitting at the same table!!!"
(a lot of laughing ensues)
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Hmmmm.....I'm sure he didn't hear you retell the story of how you broke up with him."
"Just drive, Chris..."

"How did you not recognize him?"
"It's been 4 years. Am I supposed to remember who everyone I meet looks like?"
"How about the ones you've had a relationship with."

And then we go on to talk about various relationships one should remember physical appearances, and banter back and forth about the same crap. Man, when Jenn separates herself from people, she severs that connection! Note to self: If you want Jenn to remember who you are, be sure to talk to her and see her every now and then. Too funny...

leadership conference in St. Louis

I just got back this past Sunday night from a conference and it was pretty exciting to be there. There were several highlights from the weekend, but one of the biggest ones for me was the opportunity to hear Dr. Robert Rohm speak, which was a first time for me. Dr. Rohm is an expert on personality styles and speaks all over the world. His book Positive Personality Profiles is incredibly helpful in learning how to relate to others better at work, in your home, etc.

If you don't know about these personality profiles, you basically start with two questions. Most of the time (you can change your mind later on), are you:
1) more outgoing or more reserved?
2) more task-oriented or people-oriented?
You then have 4 different personality profiles D-I-S-C, based on how you answered those two questions. Keep in mind that people are a combination of all 4 of these, but most people are predominantly one or two of these.
D= outgoing and task-oriented
I= outgoing and people-oriented
S= reserved and people-oriented
C= reserved and task-oriented

Dr. Robert Rohm is also a world-class speaker. One of the best speakers that I have seen in terms of delivery, amount that I learned, and examples used to illustrate points. It's pretty neat and interesting that Rohm's 4 daughters are dominantly each of the 4 different personality profiles.

All in all, it was a great weekend, with over 20,000 attendants hunger to learn. More on the conference later.

blessings

an idea whose time has come

I recently purchased Glory Road on DVD. It's in the middle of a line of inspirational, based-on-a-real-story movies put out by Disney, that seems to be a trend now. That's fine because I like them quite a bit. This particular one is about how a coach named Don Haskins took a little known school called Texas Western (now UTEP) to win the NCAA championship and legitimized black basketball players in the NCAA, who up until that point had been discriminated against in this area.

Because of this discrimination, Coach Haskins plays only his black players in the championship game against Coach Rupp's University of Kentucky. This game was one of the greatest upsets in NCAA history and one of the most important games in the history of basketball. An interview with Pat Riley (one of the Kentucky players) showed how the true importance of that game wasn't seen until later on when history started talking about it. Of course blacks were/are competent enough physically and mentally to play in the NCAA.

All of this to introduce the topic. You cannot stop an idea whose time has come. "God chose an interesting venue to take care of this problem," said Pat Riley in the same interview. It wasn't until later that they realized the game was about more than just a college championship. You can say the same thing about several things in America's history. One is the automobile roughly 100 years ago. And now there is the internet, and how much that has become and will be a part of our lives.

Are you a visionary? Can you see the trends? Can you see what is right (as in the case of blacks playing in the NCAA)? Or are you like one of those people 100 years ago who said, "An automobile?! Nobody is going to want that!" Let's all learn and grow together.