I'm a phenomenon

Don't believe me? You can go to the news page HERE!

Mmm... Cake

Thanks to all of you for your well wishes yesterday. It was a good day. On the way home I only paid $4.23 for gas. My mom made some greasy sesame balls (gin dui). Chrissy made me a steak dinner. I played Nintendo DS for an hour with Wayland while our boys had piano lessons. Ate more cake. Then hung out with Ray for the rest of the evening. So indeed a very good day (for a Wednesday).

Being in the cake-eating mode, I just wanted to share with you a blog I found yesterday. It features some of the most creepy ghetto creative cakes. Enjoy.

Link: Cake Wrecks

OK, I take back all the bad things I ever said about my job.

I was speechless. They told me to don't start thinking they actually like me –
they just wanted an excuse to have cake.

My favorite, German Chocolate.... mmm

All that sugar at 11:00 a.m. will drive people batty.

40 no more

Put on your party dress, it's daddy's birthday.

Like last year, I woke up this morning feeling a bit older. Partly because I'm sore from playing tennis last night. It's a sad fact that even though I was the youngest guy in the group (Stephen, Samuel, Braski, Martin, Ronnie), I'm probably the only one sore today.

The trick to not feeling old is to live your life through your kids. You play with them, wrestle with them, call them poopy names... you know, stoop down to their level. So although I can never be their age again, I can at least act their age. Let's see how long I can keep this up.

Mommybloggers

I just read this article on SFgate:

'Mommybloggers' turn their hobby into profits

Most of these mothers started online journals for personal reasons. But a handful have taken blogging from a sanity-saving hobby to a career, and many others - more than 1,000 in BlogHer's ad network alone - are collecting at least a little extra income through their blogs.

...with the fact that mothers are more likely to blog than the general Internet population - 15 percent of mothers with kids under 18 blog, compared with 12 percent of all online adults...

This was an eye-opener for me. But after careful thought, I think it makes sense.

It's a known fact that women talk way more than men. And for the many stay-at-home moms, there's usually no one to talk to! As my fellow-blogger Al would witness, those moms that pick up their kids after school... they talk like crazy! I mean they're trapped at home all day with their thoughts and finally they can get out and unload! Why else do they come 15 minutes before the bell rings?

Women just love to share their life experiences, whether it be raising their children, trying new recipes, or finding that perfect mascara... they want to spread the word! Don't get me wrong, men like to share too, but they don't make an effort to congregate. They only share if they all just happen to be together (and during commercial breaks).

I just did a calculation of my known readers. 60% are women. And 90% of them are moms. I'll admit that although I may be smarter than them in some things, I'm sure they're smarter than me in many other things, like parenting, cooking and mascara. Truth be told, a lot of my "smarts" is from reading other people's blogs – and I read a LOT of blogs. All bloggers do it. It's called research. You think I just come up with all this stuff??

So to all of you out there, especially moms, I encourage you to start a blog. It could be real simple, like posting some pics of your family, or pics of that awesome birthday cake you just created, or sharing that Father's Day is the best day to go to Disneyland... You have a wealth of knowledge in you. Why not share it with your friends?

This is what I do. I don't know a lot. But even with what little I do know, I have enough material to fill 52 weeks! Give it a try. You'll be pleasantly surprised how many people are actually interested in what you have to say.

Oh yeah, and don't forget, if you're good, you can make some spending cash too!

Link: Article

Wii Be Fit!

Well not really... but it was definitely fun trying!






This past weekend we finally were able to test out the Wii Fit with the family and a few unsuspecting friends. It took me a while to figure it out, mainly because I was using it BACKWARDS!! But once my idiocy was corrected, the verdict was: Fun Fun Fun!!

The games/exercises were challenging and somewhat difficult, but the whimsical graphics and animation helped soften the blow when you realize that you're an uncoordinated, unbalanced, wimpy, overweight couch potato. Even when you think you did quite well, you only get one star (out of four) and labeled an amateur. I guess this allows room for improvement. Clearly a very frustrating and humbling device, but still loads of self-deprecating fun.

I can't imagine this replacing a gym membership, but for the many of us whose only exercise is pushing a stroller, or walking from the parking lot to the BART train, or (ahem) playing golf, this is a good start.

On the technical side...
Thanks to your taxpayer dollars, we recently purchased a new 50mm lens as well as a new SB800 flash. As you can see, the flash is blasting them in the front while I'm remotely shooting off on the side. It's something new I'm trying to get greater depth and interesting shadows. I'm still learning...

Friday Fun - Jenga Anyone?

It's 7-Eleven

Today is July 11. I look forward to this day every year – I really do! The only bummer is that the heatwave is over :(

Mitch Mullany, RIP

Last week a high school friend alerted me that Mitch Mullany died on May 25. According to the papers, he died of a diabetic-related stroke. He was 39.

I grew up with Mitch starting from 1st grade. He lived across the street from Goff. I lived six houses up. There was also a 4th kid, Orlando that lived on the next street. The four of us were inseparable.

Back in those days, there was no such thing as play dates. You just play with your friends everyday after school and all weekend. As neighborhood kids, we biked, skateboarded, played baseball, football, whatever... all in the middle of the street. When it's dinner time, our parents would just scream from the porch.

Mitch lived in the biggest house on our street. They had a huge rumpus room with a pool table. It was so big and spacious, we skateboarded inside. Their garage was huge also, complete with an indoor basketball court. And his bedroom was the size of our family room. It was an awesome house and I still remember it as vividly as yesterday.

Hard to believe, that as 10 year-old boys we used to take bus to the Coliseum (Malibu Grand Prix), walk to Montclair, and sneak into Grand Lake Theater late at night where Mitch's brother used to work. Now imagine your kids doing this today in your town. We did this in Oakland! Not only did we deliver papers, but also went through the neighborhood offering to wash cars for $5. We definitely experienced a lot during our unsupervised childhood.

As you can see in this photo taken in 1980, Mitch even attended Crusaders and YTF for about three years (Hmm, where was I or Goff?). I'm sure many of the long-time CIBCers remember him because, well, he wasn't Chinese!

Mitch was one-of-a-kind. He was very funny at an early age. We would insult one another and I could never match up to his wits. Whatever I said about his mother, he would come back harder about my mom, my daddy and my greasy granny! I was humbled in more occasions than I would admit.

In junior high, we walked to school together every day until the 9th grade when he moved away. But even before that, our choices in friends were already pulling us apart, not to mention he is a year younger so we didn't share any classes. By the time we attended high school, we still greeted one another in passing, but we weren't really friends anymore.

A decade later, I heard Mitch was making the comedy circuit and was on Jay Leno. He was on the Wayan Brother's show and then he starred in his own sitcom, Nick Freno. Chrissy and I watched the first season and thought it was pretty good. I really had high hopes for Mitch. But the show got canceled after the second season.

Funny (or creepy) thing is, about maybe a week before he died, I tried to Google him just to see what he was up to. I found his website and viewed some of his photos. I was curious to see what he was doing now. I had not heard about him since All American Girl in 2003. And then the news came...

It's always shocking and sad when your friends past. It makes you realize that you're probably closer to your grave than you'd like to think. Even though we haven't spoken since 1985, I still felt connected to him in a remote way. I was his fan. And I wanted him to succeed where so many others have failed. Remember, I worked in Hollywood for 5 years and knew many "aspiring" actors that never got past commercials or music videos. So for him to get his own show, that's quite an achievement.

Even if he were still alive today, I doubt if we would reconnect. But it's still sad knowing he's really gone. Fortunately for me, my best memories of him were during our adolescence, when it was just our little group of four friends. Those were the best times. No video games, no internet, no worldly influences, just in-your-face, genuine rude and crude fun.

That was Mitch at his purest. And that's how I'll remember him. Hopefully we'll meet again in heaven.

Links:
Obituary
YouTube Videos