Go Warriors!

Man, I was worried for awhile. I have to admit I lost faith when Baron went out with the minor hamstring sprain, cause before that Warriors were up by a lot and playing well.

But I do feel bad for Dallas, especially Nowitzki. If they get past this round, they would have had a good chance winning the championship...matching up against San Antonio. Tough! That's just how these games are matched up.

13 years...making it into the 2nd round. Awesome!

Oh man it's been so fun watching these guys.

Warriors, back in the game, babyyyyy!

We Believe

It's playoff time, Golden State Warriors!!!!! 13 years in the making...

Read more on SF Gate

Go Warriors!

NBA Players: We Don't Love The New Ball

What's wrong with the new ball?

Having used the new NBA mircofiber ball two weeks ago on our Sat. pick up games, I love it. It's been great for me. My 10-15 footers were going in, the new ball feels lighter, I had better grip grip. This overall resulted in better shots. With the added bonus of the new ball complimenting well with my Yao Ming jersey, too.

Where it counts though, in the NBA, everybody didn't respond well to it at all. Come Jan. 1 next year, the league will switch back to the leather ball. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2694335

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Blood, Guts and Church Basketball

This past Sunday I was blessed with a "godly elbow".

It happened during a GRX basketball playoff game between my team—the Geckos—and Pastor Andy's Goats. This is what went down: someone shot the ball, Andy and I struggled for the rebound, Andy's flying elbow, I started bleeding. Nice. Next I was rushed to O'Connor Hospital for ER (see pic). Here I talked to two receptionists, two nurses, then was dumped into the triage area awaiting my doctor...about 1 hr. The doctor showed up and in less than ten minutes "stitched" me up.

With super glue for the skin.

Isn't technology wonderful?

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Second Quarter Review

Following some highlights of the weekend, I'll blog a bit about the second quarter. (Here's the writeup of the first quarter.)

The highlights of the weekend...

- after driving up and down the 152 East for more than eight years while living in LA, I finally visited Casa de Fruta. It's a conglomerate for Casa de anything. My favorite is sampling the food, although Sands would say it's gross.
- played bocce with Sandy, Jimmy, Lauren. We were ever the gentleman, letting the girls win of course. Altough you wouldn't know that from this version.
- saw fireworks in Cupertino. We brought with us (again with Jimmy and Lauren) blanket and lawn chair. We ended up sitting on the driveway of Citibank, a bright halogen light blasting our face. If I squinted hard enough I could make out the fireworks, which lasted about fifteen minutes.

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I Love GRX Hoops

Last night, while doing fellowship before our game, a captain on the other team shared his thoughts on the topic of patience. We go around the room saying, "Hi my name is so-and-so and I do so-and-so for a living." When we get to the captain, he told us he is helping his parent's plastic business. I started thinking of that funny scene about plastic from The Graduate.

Then we started talking about patience, one of the attributes of a Christian. This time I'm looking around hoping to find volunteers. I don't see many hands go up. I glanced back at the captain and saw that he wanted to share.

"Alvin?"

"Um...I'm looking for a new job. I'll be working at church, full time. It's not definite yet but I'm praying for it." The best part, he seemed so excited and full of hope.

Sometimes these kids at GRX Hoops say things that are pretty encouraging for an old worried-wart like me.

Can I Get A Witness Sandy?

The last few days Sandy has been out of town. Her three-days trip started in Cleveland where she had to recruit patients for the carotid stent clinical trial.

Her next visit after Cleveland was Pittsburg where Sandy played the good cop to her boss's bad cop "strong-arm" tactics. I am sure Sands presence calmed the doctors somewhat and helped them signed up for the study. This morning, at 9:30am PST, she called me from Pittsburg airport.

Sandy: I am coming home early tonight. We'll be flying into Midway Chicago and then back to San Jose.
Me [groggily]: That's great!
Me [remembering something]: Awww...I forgot to ask you to get me a LeBron "Witness" tee-shirt.
Sandy: Huh?
Me: LEBRON. He's a basketball player.
Sandy: Does he play for Pittsburg?

My Sandy. I miss her. She's coming home. Yay!

Click on image above to view larger video. SWF SOURCE: ©nike and is a property of nike.

2005 Tax Refund And First Three Months: Where I Am Today?

Finally after a little over a month I got my 2005 Federal tax refund in the mail yesterday. In our modern electronic filing day-and-age, to get a refund back after more than 30 days is...well...the whole process just seems so antiquated. I could have use TurboTax to e-file but Sandy will do her's tonight and will probably file it that way. We share the software and only one e-filer at a time.

Oddly enough today I had to go to my nearest BofA to make a deposit. I don't remember the last time I actually had to do that. Incredible!

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Weekend Recap

The hardest part is over. We won our first GRX Hoops game with a new team: Geckos. Much appreciation goes to the SLK girls (Sands Laurine and K-Dog) for coming out so late to cheer us on. You guys gave us that extra energy needed to get over the hump of the second half.

On a related note: Here is a flickr set of this year's draft night that I taken part in (one of the most exciting night) and a link of the Geckos roster. Some past articles of my scouting strategies and last year's draft night.

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Madness Part Deux

One madness down, one to go. Tip off starts at 7pm at the new gym.

Feel free to leave your post-mortem Bruins comment(s) here.

Time to go for some refreshment, design-wise.

Oh My!

Unbelievable!!!

March Madness, Made Easier

Speaking of the tourney, I went ahead yesterday to set up our company's official NCAA® Tourney pool.

I used Bracket Manager over at CBS Sportsline. Really the whole process was just too easy, enabling my product manager to say, "even a monkey can do it." It makes me wonder...

Now from March 16 to April 3 I will be extremely busy with "work." Please do NOT bother me or IM me, unless it is an emergency. (Oh and if your brain magically turns off like mine during those dates, you can go here to recharge your brain for FREE!) Also if anyone is interested I am "working from home" Thurs. this week to watch the opening rounds of the tourney.

Bring on the Madness!

Oh and Sandy just started her new job at Guidant. Wish her luck! =)

Back From Los Angeles

We made it back from LA. While we did visit many places I mentioned, there were many more we didn't get a chance to visit. Here is a quick run down of the places we visited: Koreatown, 3RD Street Promenade, Westwood-UCLA, Hollywood Walk of Fame-Kodak Theater, drove through Sunset Blvd., ate at Roscoe's and La Creperie in Long Beach, Tustin/Irvine. Overall we logged 1,101 miles on our rental Impala in our 2 days/3 nights stay there. Fun but lots of driving.

Yay! UCLA will be going to the NCAA Tourney ranked number 2. If all goes well the Bruins may even go onto the 2nd round and play in Oakland. I might be able to see them locally, although I read that tickets are sold out. A quick search on Craigslist for tickets show tickets as high as $400 for two.

Wuboy, mongolian_deathworm, and jeeyoungi—all you guys excited? Let's hangout and watch Sat's game. (Will end up Tivoing Thurs. game due to smallgroup.) Who is doing the offical pool this year?

[03.23 Update] Uploaded flickr photoset of the trip. You can view them here.

GRX Hoopsters Unite!

Finally the new GRX Hoops site is up. Take a look at it and play around with it, but more importantly sign up today to play in the league. They do get fill up kinda quickly.

Immersion-SNL Kirkwood Ski Trip: 9 guys, 7 girls, 5 cars, 3 days, 2 nights, 1 cabin, 1 bruised hand (Sands). Props to my Sandles for completing the three quarter of "Lift 9" and not doing the "walk of shame." =) Here is the ski trip pictures at flickr.

Another ski trip photo set from 99zeros.

Hi-lights: Pacifica sea food buffet at Harveys, billiards at the cabin, seeing one of our ski instructors telling Sandy, "I'm not abandoning you" as he skis 30 yards away. =)
Lo-lights: Lost one of my brother's Spyder glove. Peeing at the side of the road in a run down Deliverance-like place. Missing GRX's farewell buidling 899 service.

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First Fight

Last night I've officially became a GRX Hoops Ministry committee member. What's there not to love combining both basketball and God. So I'm excited about this as well as looking forward to serve God through this ministry. Let me be one among many who give a shout out to Euge for believing in me and bringing me onboard in the first place. Dude you know you lead through your quiet examples...as testified by wuboy and drew. Definitely looking forward to this.

Aside from being welcomed into the committee and having a wonderful meal at Mark's place it was refreshing to have all the guys shared both struggles and praises, all for the glory of God. So taking this initiative I would also like to share my struggle with my new relationship with my girlfriend and specifically time management.

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Congrats Jerusalem Lions

Congrats to the Jerusalem Lions for winning the Fall 2005 Championships!

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Jerusalem Lions Walk

You know that scene with Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx where they are playing Kayne West's "Jesus Walk" song in the trailer of Jarhead—well that is the sort of song I have in mind for this post. Why? Haha Jerusalem Lions are going to the Championship of GRX Hoops ministry!

Finally after having all of the captains predicted us to go last (10-1 odds) it is even more sweeter to go play this weekend. Well to be fair two of my best players were "Dark Horse"—Darryll Burgess and Kenneth Lee. Please come out to Lynbrook High to watch what will be a good game if not a great game between us Lions and Nick Fan's Jordan Gazelles. Here is the direction if you want to come watch. Game time at 7:50pm Sunday night.

The only downside that night is that Sandy won't be able to witness a great game. Have fun in Hawaii Sands. Will miss you on the court.

Bom bom bom bom BUM bom...

Fall Launch Fiesta

I have to admit that there were times where our vision statement tried to capture way too many ideas for our small group. On top of that it was suggested that our vision statement sounded—well—too fobby. So we went back to work.

And a lot of work we did. Laughters, crazy conversations, crawling on all fours, taking naps, hot gun glueing, more crazy conversations...we all became designers, copy editors, and resourceful arts & crafts artists. The project took on a life of its own after the initial drawing, which evolved into something more elaborate and grand.

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7:45 AM Walk With My Dad

I took a morning walk with my dad today. It's been what more than a month since we took our regular morning walks. And when I got in the rental cars (dad's car is in the shop) to drive to the local park K-LOVE 91.9 FM was playing on the radio. Two thoughts came to mind: did I drove this car and set the radio station to 91.9 FM? Did my dad knowing that I like this station purposely set it to 91.9 FM before our drive to the park?

Sitting here this quiet morning in my office and thinking about this morning I thank God for that. I also for the few times that I remembered thinking about heaven and how nice it would be that my dad is in heaven with me. Perhaps this morning is my dad's way of letting me know that he's been thinking about my faith. Perhaps God is hearing my prayers and planting seeds in my dad.

In any case the songs that are played on K-LOVE are much nicer and easier also for my dad to understand say compared to K-101 or KOIT. And if he runs errands or goes to visit my sister just imagine the opportunities that one of those songs will touch my dad's heart and allow him the chance to ask me about Christ. That would be something.

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World's Shortest Personality Test

GrX Hoops Draft Night

Tomorrow night is GRX Comp League Draft Night. Now where is my stat sheet of all the players I scouted. Oh how I compare thee: the last time I did something like this, we had about 12 people in a room drafting...for Fantasy Football. We ordered pizza and by the end of the night I was exhausted.

This time there will be five of us (Mark, Euge, Nick, Wils, and myself) while Chris will teleconference (via his cellphone loudspeaker..haha) during the draft. The draft order is as follows: Wilson, myself, Chris, Mark, Eugene, Nick. The first two rounds are to draft in order 1-6 and will serpentine in rounds 3-9. Bare in mind Nick's team won the Spring league and Eugene's team came in third place. I hope my draft will be somewhat successful GOSH!!! I am pretty excited though. Are you NOT excited?!?

Coldplay

My great weekend actually started Thurs.

DTR (Or when is it appropriate to Define The Relationship)

Thursday: Our wonderful Knot2Us small group facilitators unveiled a strategy to tip the unbalanced "singles" scale at GrX by having an all important orange color-coded bonfire night at Pacifica State beach. The location was chosen in order to minimize flirting as it's very difficult to figure out who's who in complete darkness...except for the randomn flickering fire...which in a way could be romantic — but I digress.

We discussed among many important topics such as: Do girls prefer an expensive diamond ring or a down payment for a condo/townhouse/house. The girls offered their insights: Why not an AND. Why does it have to be OR? They were joking, of course. Other important topics were: "How should women say 'No' when they're not interested." That is "How does a guy know his chance with a girl is one in a hundred or one in a million?" Progress was slow but we'll have an update on the "singles" scale with perhaps another round of discussion, where we'll try to answer more than three of the twenty prepared questions...in two hours.

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Scouting Season Open

So GrX Falls Hoop season is quickly approaching. As a newly minted captain I've got to start "scouting" for players during these open gym nights. Problem is I don't know 80% of the guys playing and the guys I do know are heavily being headhunted, sort of.

Take Andy Fitz for example. He's a monster. After last season he's like honey and we [captains] are a bunch of bees...buzzing about him. I'm sure he'll go pretty high up on the draft list, if not the #1 pick for most captains. He's 6'5" with grand handling skills. To top it off he's a pastor so naturally during fellowship he's a great asset to have as he'll close us in prayers.

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Welcome Back: GrX Open Gym & Jen

Weekend Recap: Played Grx Hoops with Eugene, Dai, and Will. A bit overcrowded or a great turnout depending on how one views it.

Overheard On The Court

Will: "This is a high school court?"
Eugene: "That guy reminded me of me when I was tall and lanky." (Mumbling to myself: "He even looks like Eugene.")

Walking Towards Our Cars Afterward

Will: "What are those..?"
Eugene, Dai, Me: "Locker rooms mayynnnnn."
Eugene: "They go in the locker."

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Quatre Fantastique

Saw Fantastic Four Sat night and some comments:

Since MIT is a private school, does that mean whenever MIT is mentioned in the script that they will get a royalty? (If I was the dean at CalTech, I would revitalize the CalTech brand to compete with MIT and push for screenwriters to use CalTech as the top engineering school.)

Jessica Alba's Sue Storm is younger looking than Chris Evan's Johnny Storm. Also why can't they find someone at least resembling each other to play siblings.

Jessica Alba went to MIT and became the top researcher for Victor Von Doom. Believable? LET'S not!

Stan Lee must be loving it, appearing as a mailman in one scene. Does anyone know if every Marvel films so far has Stan Lee as a cameo? Now that's paying respect to the Godfather of comic books.

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What's Goin' On Chris Mullin?

The big players that were expected to draft highly on Draft Day NBA did go in that order. If you have been following the NCAA Tournament and Utah's Andrew Bogut and UNC's Marvin Williams it made sense for these great players to go so high in the draft.

When the Warriors 9th lottery pick approached, they picked Ike Diogu. Ike-who? Is this something that the Warriors management have been planning on for a long time? Who saw this coming?

Not me!

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One-upmanship

We live in a culture that is one-up all the time. One-upmanship leads to corporations like Enron, Worldcom and ImClone. On a smaller scale one-upmanship leads to unhealthy interest in material goods (keeping up with the Joneses), backstabbing at the office, and the level of competitiveness in sports.

Take our GrX Hoops league. We Christians can be "oh so civilized" off the court, but get us on the court and it's a different story. Basic Christians concept such as mercy doesn't really apply when the final score tallied 85 to 28. On our team, one of the most competitive guy is our home church's Pastor Andy.

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Prison ball

Ever since Pastor Dave talked about GrX and its place in the community, I have been thinking about what it means to be in a community. I have also been praying to God about what I can do to serve the GrX community. About a month ago I signed up to play "Prison Ball." However I wasn't very convicted having learned later on that we were to play at San Quentin maximum security prison.

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