My unedited story

Sunday night me, yuko and ryan drove to visit min's kids at vancouver wa, drank and hung out with coreen and jon..a funny family. We might BBQ on friday over there also, ryan’s birthday coming up too. Yesterday did overtime, and got only one day to gather my thoughts and rejuvenate with yuko, so got to make it memorable. Every day off I wake up early, very unusual, maybe an instinct just to get the day started...it has been a few days now that the dishes been staring at me, wanting to be soaped, and last night couldn't sleep because that needed to be done. Also the trash was another issue. 8:00am came and it felt good to take care of business. In the process, I remembered the days of sisters and brothers doing these simple house chores of taking the trash out and washing dishes every day, simple enough it shouldn't be overlooked for more than a day, it says a lot about how we live. Moving on, due to less time chilling with my girl and ryan, I asked if they wanted to watch the new movie 'angels and demons' after work. We were 10 minutes late, but movie turned out to be worth watching, a lot of things could be explained or talked about this movie, but it’s just a movie. Also it makes you want to study more or read up on the whole history of the Vatican. Going back to my morning, I finally took the time to browse through my fridge. Those peaches are really starting to look sad. Can’t eat them all at once, so a man, a can, and a plan. I baked peaches with sugar and topped it off with cool whip. Hey what you know yuko ate them. Delish! No thanks yuko, I’m not hungry. After a fruity breakfast, watched another movie that yuko had itched to watch for a while now. Ever heard of it…. He’s just not that into to you. I would say it is a good movie that may hit the heart and wanted to know which part or story was the best or likeable. Besides seeing johansen’s boobs, maybe jen and ben’s part would hit home, the nice guy story. Because I’m a nice guy.

Fresh meat

Ryan's girlfriend's mom provided him with a big catch from the coast of Oregon, didn't know they had tuna available. From some reports made on over fishing in the Northwest, we are safe to say that there are still a bounty full of tuna out there and that there is no need to worry about tuna shortage. So lets proceed and enjoy this catch. First things first, do you remember how to fillet tuna, we asked. Yeaaa! Once a filley'er always a filley'er.

Fifteen minutes later, we got a month worth of fish meat. Fried tuna, sashimi, tuna bone soup, tuna salad?? the list goes on...

Took a 5ive hour drive to Walla Walla, Washington from Portland to visit my older sister Min, and on the way I always took the time to stop by the most famous waterfalls in Oregon, the Multnomah Falls. Whether if it is sunny or rainy, just the sound of listening to falling water

makes me feel like I've been cleansed and that all the stress in life has gone away, at least for a moment until I start driving again. The cold small mist of water hitting your face, do you feel it? That's the shit I'm talking about. I took a few pictures thinking to myself, as if I really need more Multnomah falls pictures. I already have a collection of old Multnomah pictures on file every time I drive by, but this one... this picture has a story to it. All the other photos was great and memorable. I was always with someone or traveling with family when taking a trip to the falls. In this trip, for the first time, I drove by myself and visited the falls by myself. It was like who would do this by themself, like I was a loner looking for excitement. And after taking a few pictures of the falls, I felt I needed to take my picture with the falls. So nobody was in site and I waited less than 5ive minutes until I saw a hiker hiking down the slopes to quietly pretend that I am a tourist and ask her to take my photo. It was embarrasing to ask and also embarrasing after she took my photo. She probably thought, that guy is weird... The photo turned out pretty nice, and when I showed the photo to my brother Ryan and gf Yuko, all they said about me doing this is, "What for? You weirdo." or "Nice picture, but yes it was weird." I laugh to myself when I did that, something out of my norm to act touristy and weird.

Zarconians? Never heard of it.

Diamonds caught my eye as I was passing by a jewelry gallery with my girlfriend Yuko at a shopping mall. The sparkling diamonds was pretty nice and unbelievably blinding, but what attracted me more was the selling price that had been labeled on each 1 and 2 carat diamonds. Ranging from a thousand to two thousand dollars, it made me think a bit more about diamonds. Seriously, with the economy to its knees, possibly striving, these vibrant expensive diamonds in the world is now somewhat almost affordable to an average customer?

Let's go inside and investigate a bit more about these special diamonds that are on display. I'm not sure if this is true to many, but I think by nature there is always a fear or tension in entering any jewelry store because you know first hand that the diamonds are too much to afford unless you are already confident about getting engaged. Secondly, not being prepared or having a bit knowledge about diamonds and rings. Anyway, I walked in and the saleswoman was from a mideastern decent and the look of her eyes, I knew I'm being sized up. No commission here woman just browsing! I say let me see those two diamond rings that are out on display. And surely enough they are beautiful. Hey Yuko, I called. Try these on. Do they fit and whats your size?

I asked a simple question to the saleswoman, does this diamond have a specific color. She replied, these rings are cubic zarconian. Cubic what? So you mean they are not diamonds! Wow to myself being a bit confused. Saleswoman told me nobody would know the difference, but Yuko knew, she is smart about diamonds. I was like what do you mean, these are fake? But they cost a thousand dollars.... My next question, whats the difference between a zarconian and a diamond? The saleswoman replied, whats the difference? And she went off laughing, AH huh huh huh!
Me trying to get the joke: huh huh.... but wanted to understand more of why zarconians are priced at what it was. Saleswoman replied while still laughing loudly, it's a zarconian and this is a diamond, diamonds cost a few more thousands and that you have to save up to tens of thousands if you need to buy one. So i got the joke, they are selling zarconians for a few thousands (way over priced) and that a diamond costs unanimously more.

She was still laughing and said I will never forget this day to her boss who walks right in. All I know is that I am happy that I made her laugh because she probably stood all day in a quiet atmosphere and finally, came along a unique customer that exposed her weakness.

Snowboarding

It was the first of a sunny Wednesday for Feburary and it happened to be my day off too. I felt like I didn't want to sit around again on this weekday staring at the rain or snow falling down from my window apartment. I thought to myself and with a lot of motivation from my accomplice here, why not drive somewhere where we can view the whole city. This drive only took 15 minutes to get downtown and after half an hour of trying to find a higher ground, there were too many trees in sight to enjoy the scenary of this city. On the drive we took a snapshot of Mt. Hood, which is about an hour and a half drive from wherever we are. It is cold anyway and there is really nothing to do except the usual, such as go out, drive around, eat at a restaurant, get sundaes, and window shop at malls. If only we could combine this whole routine and sum up how much we spend on doing the things we do, I could only imagine on how much that would cost to go somewhere crazy, fun, and thrilling....Hmmm that mountain looks pretty nice, I wish I was home again and could drive up to Mt. Tapotchao to view the whole island. *Light bulb* why not snowboarding, worth the cost that I did on spending for food and ice cream. With little research and planning, we dressed warm and drove off to a wonderful world of OZ, snow I mean.
From renting our gears to actually riding to the top of a small hill, now what. No instructors in sight, but what the hell, we only learn as we stumble down. At 15mph, falling down on snow isn't like laying on your bed, I happen to sprain my wrist and felt like the second or third try, I'm ready for the big hill. And away we did, the slowest of the snowboarders weaving through powder as all the excellente Shaun White snowboarders passed us by yelling gnarly doood. On my journey down, turned my head to see where is my partner in crime, and a second later, eat snow!

A must see documentary

Just sharing a documentary that came across from sharing with people on the web.

Click this link: http://current.com/items/89785807/battle_of_saipan.htm

Looking forward to a good drink

There is nothing better than knowing when Friday is over, its the weekend and you look forward to enjoying whatever you had missed on the weekdays, mostly venting and relaxing once again until Mondays roles around. One thing you might want to add to your list for the weekend that will probably make you feel like not caring about anything at the moment is grabbing a good cold beer and sitting in your favorite chair while listening to baby blue by Kapena on your cd player. Instead of drinking one of your favorite beers, I suggest trying rather something new out of the ordinary. Corona, Heineken, and Bud light is pretty common for beer drinkers. And who can't forget the king of all beers Budweiser, really? I like Budweiser and growing up it was like the only beer you drank because every one of your peers drank it and you didn't want to be the outcast of the group by drinking something different. Well its your weekend, try something like Asahi dry, or may I suggest Widmer Heffewiezen. It is a wheat beer that has a smooth lemon taste and you don't actually have to cut the lemon this time like you always do for your Corona. I don't mean to get drunk, just one beer would do the trick.

New year experience

Portland is one of the last places in the world to celebrate the New Years other than Hawaii. After watching everybody scream happy New Year, it was finally my turn to do so. Instead of celebrating a rainy New Year in Portland, I drove down to Seattle, Wa and watched the fireworks since Portland is lame, they didn't have any fireworks. Here is some pictures I want to share with all.