A Very Warming Story for Modern Cold Times

NPR has a weekly spot called StoryCorps.  This week, they ran a story of self-recorded interview on this one person.  He is a janitor.  Nothing extraordinary there.  However, he and his wife of 25 years do not have kids.  So Willie Jefferson feels that the kids at the school that he has served as janitor for 23 years are his kids.  He has had impact enough on these kids over the years so much that they think of him and his wife as their parents.

These days, I feel that our society is getting more and more distant and colder as technology and crime seem to distance us away from each other.  So I take these warm stories like Haagen-Dazs coffee ice cream: savor every word of such awesome story.  Stories such as this gives me hope that people can be trust-worthy…

I hope we all have people that we are fond of and love… Like in the words of DC Talk, “We all wanna be loved”

Please donate time on your PS3 and PC to help find cure!

I have lost my uncles, aunts, and grandparents, not to mention friends, to cancer.  Liver cancer, lung cancer, stomach cancer, you name it.  I’ve even lost my cousin to Leukemia.  That’s why I searched for ways to help in whatever I can do.

Enter Stanford University.  A professor there started studying the ways proteins change and become new molecules, also known as “folding”.  By studying and knowing how proteins fold, a cure for cancer can be found.  I have my PS3 and my 2 PCs doing this whenver I am not using them.  So yes, you do pay a bit extra for electricity usage but for a 200W PC, that equates to about $20/month extra!  If you have the new PS3 Slim, it only uses about $10/month of electricity!

By helping and contributing, I feel like Morpheus from Matrix…

“Now consider the alternative. What if I am right? What if the prophecy is true? What if tomorrow the war could be over? Isn’t that worth fighting for? Isn’t that worth dying for?”

Don’t you want to feel like you’ve done all you can?  So as to not have regrets?!  I sure do.  I want to know that I’ve done all I can in help fighting cancer.  Let’s make cancer history…  If you need help setting this up and running it, please ask and I’d be ecstatic to help!

Adventures in Childhood

Article: Review of Wilderness of Childhood

I may not remember a whole lot about my childhood, but I remember lots of little adventures.  It’s in men’s nature to seek adventure.  We like going to new places, seek new challenges, and find out what is out there.  I realized that when we lived in England.  First few months in Harlow, once I had learned how to ride a bike, I used to ride around the little town trying to find out where each roads led to.  That sense of adventure never left me.  I think that’s why I loved driving.  Even in my four years of college in New England area, I drove to Vermont by myself before school began to take in the countryside.

Now, I am a parent and every area and people seem like dangers to my kids.  It’s true.  Fatherhood changes you.  The world is truly scary place.  Ok, it probably has always been that very same scary but we just never knew about it.   Now, thanks to the media and the Internet, we know bit too much.  No, way too much.  🙁  I want my kids to be able to play wherever and whenever they want.  However, part of me says it’s too dangerous.  The book review of The Adventures in Childhood points out the very same things I worry about and what the kids would miss out on…

I hope that I will do well in keeping the balance on kids’ safety and allowing them to develop sense of adventure and their imagination.  Sometimes, we just have to say “No, I won’t deprive them of what is due them as kids!”  Say it with me!!

My Secret Dream of the Past: Rally Racing

Yes, you read that right.  After reading about this Suzuki SX4 winning the famous Pike’s Peak rally racing, I was reminded of my secret dream of my past (and still present).  Ever since high school years, I developed serious interest in cars.  And racing.

No, I don’t have any racing experience.  I wish.  It’s an expensive career to get into.  You gotta start as an amateur and you need serious cash to get started.  So obviously, I never got into it.  If JJ wants to become one and has the means to do it, I’m very tempted to encrouage him!  😮  But it’s not just any racing that I’m interested in… it’s the rally racing.  Why?  It’s because I find track racing too… boring.  You drive around the same track over and over and scenery doesn’t change.  What’s the fun in that?!  Enter the rally racing and it’s a constant change of scenery and roads!  That’s why you need a co-driver in rally racing… one who navigates each turns and plans ahead!

Shucks… At this point in time of my life, I’d be happy to just drive through one course one time.  🙁

Things that make me MAD: Children taken away from illegal immigrants

NY Times Article

Warning!  You may become way too mad after reading the article!  I know I am!!    Illegal immigration is a hot issue.  Yes, I understand that.  And deporting back home is one thing but to take their children away from them while they are in jail?!  Who the hell gave these stupid judges the right?!

As a parent myself, I can NOT imagine anything worse than my kids being taken away from my against my will!  Yet, that’s what some of these judges (you know who you are, Judge David C. Dally and others) doing exactly!  Ok.. so they are put in jail for being here illegally but it does NOT give us the right to take their kids away and place them elsewhere!

The kids are happiest when they are with their parents.  And so are the parents ourselves!  I am really flabbergasted right now!  That judge is sooo lucky that I don’t live in North Carolina ’cause I’d be petitioning for his impeachment!  If we are going to deport them, do it completely and send the kids back with them!  Unless the parents are harming the kids, the right to the caring for the kids lies with the parents!!  I feel soo bad for the parents… My prayers go with them…  Someone with the power PLEASE make this right!!

Father to Son Bonding Time Ritual

As some of you know, my wife is a leader at Bible Study Fellowship and once a month, they have a fellowship time.  This means I have to pick up our son and spend the time with him.  Well, somehow, we have made it into a bonding ritual of sorts.

You see, he knows AND expects me to take him to THE best pho place in town (quite possibly in the US!), Pho Binh.  We drive there and I get the large pho tai with extra noodles and meat and JJ gets a large with noodles only!  Let me tell you, we both enjoy it!  Immensely!  I now realize that he really looks forward to just the two of us (yeah, go ahead and sing that song from the Austin Powers) spending the time together.  When you have more than one child, I think it becomes very important to have one-on-one time with each child.

Sure it’s become a repetitive ritual but it’s a good kind of ritual.  He knows that I will be with him and we both get to enjoy our favorite meal!  Together!  Now, that means I need to make time to go to Anna’s lunch hour at her school and spend the time with her.

Here’s to more great rituals in the family!

Soojin’s Accident Yesterday

So as many of you know by now, Soojin was in an accident on the way to BSF leaders’ meeting. Usually, JJ would be riding with her but since it was a holiday week for Anna, Soojin asked her co-worker to watch them in the morning. Thus we are so thankful that neither of the kids were in the car.

Though I do not know the entire details, here are what is known about the accident. Soojin was on Pineloch left lane and a landscaping truck was on the right and there was a contact that made her veer off the road into the median and hit the big lamp post. The car was totaled in my opinion. The entire front was gone along with radiator, the wheels, and both of the airbags that went off. The other vehicle and 3 people were fine. I only saw a dent on the side of the drivers door. They didn’t seem to speak English or worse, didn’t have insurance and thus didn’t say anything. I felt bad for them but at the same time mad.

Soojin was bleeding badly in the eye but turned out to be due to a small gash between the eyes. My current hero(ine) is a woman named Ginger. She is the good Samaritan who saw Soojin crash and pulled over to help her get out of the car and stayed with her until I got there. Ginger is now my current favorite name of the decade!

Soojin complained of large pain in the right abdominal side and was rushed to ER. I had asked Pastor Shawn to pray for Soojin but he ended up coming out to the hospital (after I gave him the wrong hospital name! – Southwest Memorial Hermann when it should’ve been Southeast). Her CAT scan came back negative for internal damages, so we are thankful for that as well.

And Younhe with her two kids came by to see Soojin at home. This does not include all the family and friends that prayed for Soojin and gave all the kind words. So I wanted to thank everyone who took part in caring for Soojin in this difficult times.

Please pray for the car that the insurance would file it as totaled and not try to have it fixed, and that the amount for the car would be favorable. After that, we will have to shop for a replacement car. That Lincoln Continental was named as “admiral” since it felt like a boat. It served faithfully to the end protecting the driver to its end. 🙁 Now that I have to say goodbye to it, it’s a bit saddening having developed “?” (jung that means emotional bond) for it.

I don’t know why the accident happened nor will I likely find out, but since God was with her, we are trying not to question it, and just being thankful for all that came out of it… 1) no kids were involved and 2) Soojin didn’t incur any serious damage. “God is good all the time. All the time, God is good.”