En route to Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA!

Cool, my uncle gave me his golf travel bag. My clubs better don’t get damaged thru baggage claims. I’m flying to Chicago for a deaf golf charity tournament. Hope I’ll play well!

I hope I counted the week number right. Anyway, my parents came to visit me last weekend and had a wonderful time. My dad’s fallen in love with korean buffets but I worry about him ‘cuz his stomach is as big as it can be. Good thing my hometown doesn’t have a korean buffet. My mom’s wish got fullfilled. She got to see the pandas and the baby panda at the Washington National Zoo. My digital camera battery got dead so I rushed to get a disposable camera for my mom. My mom must have stared at the pandas for an hour, then turned around and gave me the look. “When are you gonna have a kid?” Then told my dad he shares the same roundness of a stomach with pandas. Haha. My parents.

The next highlight was the visit up the Washington Monument. Shit, it was blowing and raining hard out there and my dad had to buy a $10 dollars umbrella from a homeless black guy. The good thing about the rainy weather was that there weren’t many people lined up so we got into the monument fairly easy. It was our first time except for mom. The last time she visited, she used the stairs. Now it has an elevator. Guess what? there’s even a small store inside the top of the monument. Bet you didn’t know that. And it was an eerie feeling seeing my birthday etched all over the walls. “Feburary 22″ and I stood face to face with George Washington. “Hey, you and I share the same birthday. Think I can ever become the first Deaf president? Then he said, well sorry, you’re not qualified because you weren’t born in the land of United States.” Great, I can’t become the President.

Another big event was overlapping. It was the weekend of Rockfest where Gallaudet Univ. hosts competition between RIT students and Gally students. For more info on the Rockfest, I direct you to Denazzie’s xanga.. So, several friends were staying at our place and met my parents. I’m grateful to have deaf parents that can socialize with my deaf friends.

I got a new used car. Bought the car from my roommate, Andy. It’s a 1993 BMW 324i. Pretty nice ride. Needs some fixing—no power in the windows or sunroof. A/C belt is missing, which got worn out. Muffler needs to be replaced. I hope to get them fixed asap.

The visit of my parents went fast. If I listened to the statistics, that the average life expectancy is 77 years old, that means I’ve got only 20 years left with my parents. My mom’s over sixty years old now. My dad is at high risk of having heart attacks. He’s overweight and my grandfather had had two heart bypass surgeries and he wasn’t that overweight. Yet my dad is not doing anything about it; he’s a taurus—being stubborn. So that made me rethink about things and what’s important in life.

Our next trip: go on a cruise from Alaska to Hawaii in 2007. That’s gonna be fun. :-)

Wanna know which one is really the best search engine? Google, Yahoo, or MSN? Don’t sweat, there’s an easy way to find out.. Just take this test and you shall see. *matrix theme plays*

I would have posted pics when I got back except I was too tired and exhausted from snowboarding for about five hours straight. Bummer, I forgot to charge my camera so the battery ran out when we got to the top of mountains (hills). Nonetheless, here’s the pics. :-)

I started learn how to snowboard three years ago when RIT offered a PE class in snowboarding with a discount pass, so it was a good time for me to learn and use the deal. But I didn’t even snowboard once last year as I moved to DC, started my first real job and was basically in middle of everything that’s going on. Now I’m more settled this year and after living in DC for more than a year, you definitely want to get out of DC whenever you can. So, last sunday was a great time to be out of DC.

I was really rusty when I started the first run down the slope and I told Blake that I’d read in a mag that about 1 in 6 snowboarders get hurt and I sure hope I’m not gonna be that person. He said not to worry and just take your time as u build up confidence. As soon as he said that, he went off, zooming down the slope. I was like holy shit, he’s already gone! I gotta try and catch up. Down the slope, I fell or slipped a few times, not really used to riding the board in a long time and I felt like I was a beginner all over again. I told myself to be in control of my board and take my time without going too fast. Eventually, I was able to pick up and after a few runs, I became a lot better and able to stay with Blake but he’s way up on a different level than I am. I have a long way to go to become as good as he is. He can jump high while my jumps are a joke, barely lifting off the ground.

One big drawback about this ski resort is that they don’t serve alcoholic beverage! Instead, we got some coffee. And overall, the entire resort is pretty small but is the nearest resort to DC. There’s a bigger resort in Wisp, abt 3 hrs from here. I’m gonna snowboard as much as I can and get ready for Colorado later this year! :-)

States I’ve been to…

create your own personalized map of the USA

1) Alabama - went to the space camp in Huntsville during middle school and high school.
2) Illinois - my home state
3) Iowa - boring state - bunch of Amish families there - from what I remember during early family trip
4) Missouri - most of my dad’s relatives live there.
5) Wisconsin - my good friend has a cabin there near Dells, many lakes there. Good for outdoors.
6) California - SF Bay, Santa Cruz, Brubank,
7) Las Vegas, Nevada - flight stop, got delayed, had to stay at a hotel, temperature was 120 degrees, damn.
8) Oregon - YLC 1997
9) Minnesota - flight stops there many times but never even went out of airport.
10 Hawaii - flew there four times. Rich diversity there.
11) Kansas - Gallaudet Academic bowl - 1998 - should have won the regional there but got jeopardized BIG-TIME. Our lead was almost doubled, 120 to 65. Missouri team had to bet all their points and they got it right, we wrong. The score became 105 to 130. That was one of the sickest moments in my entire life. We also found out that we answered the most questions compared with other regionals. That next year, they changed the game format, no more “gambling” on the final question. Also, we did beat the Missouri team in the first round and then they fought to advance to the finals and beat us and they got to go to the Deaf Nationals in Washington DC. Damn. I was pissed off.
12) Indiana - their deaf school is our biggest rival
13) Detriot, Michigan
14) New York - NYC, Buffalo, and Rochester.
15) Florida - my parents’ good friends live there, interned in Miami, Walt Disney in Orlando, Tampa Bay, Clearwater, Daytona Beach. Probably my most vacationed state.
16) Atlanta, Georgia. Had my IBM interview there.
17) Denver, Colorado - my freshman roommate lives there and recently got married.
18) Ohio - went to the Cedar Park amusement park, which is one of top 5 parks in the US. Is a middle point between Illinois and Washington DC, so I usually stay over a friend’s place there.
19) Pennsylvania - Had to drive through PA to get into NY; just tons of forests there. Sylvan means wood or forest in Latin. (I took Latin class in college). Also went over a friend’s who lives in Philadelphia.
20) Virginia - my uncle lives there; can’t miss it if u drive to DC.
21) Maryland - same as above, the latter one.
22) Delaware - had to drive thru to get to Ocean City.
23) New Jersey - drove through it.
24) Kentucky - drove through it
25) Tennessee - dropped my friend off at his brother’s home, who was in the army.
26) West Virginia - drove through it.

So, 24 more states to go! Dang, still a lot of states to visit. Wanna go to Vermont for snowboarding this winter season.

create your own visited country map

South Korea - 2002. Cities: Incheon, Kwangu, Seoul, HamYong. Would like to go back and travel more.

China - 2001. Cities: Beijing - visited the Great Wall; incredible sighting! Highly recommended. Also went down to Tian Jin to visit their Deaf college technical program. Would like to visit Hong Kong next time I go to China. FYI, the distance between Beijing and Hong Kong is farther than NYC and LA, so the people and cultures are vastly different even they’re Chinese.

Mexico - 2001 - Cancun - Spring break, what else? That place is entirely americanized. Full of bars and clubs. Did go to Chichen Itza. It was fun climbing up the pyramid there. Highly recommended too. Heh, we were able to get a rental car under 25 years or older policy (I was the one doing all the negotations) and cost only $50 dollars for an entire day. Definitely beat staying in Cancun all week. You get to see the real side of Mexican life and saw homes that were just a shack with a bed sheet as a front entrance and you could see the entire family inside.

Canada - went to Toronto many times, close to Rochester, about 3 hours drive. Been to Niagara Falls; gorgeous sight, highly recommended.

Still haven’t gone to Europe yet. I really love to travel but work keeps getting in the way. Hope I’ll have more opportunities later.