Letter to Dad

I see your point, but at this juncture I don't think I could do any worse :D

There's another timeless saying that says be careful of the person who has nothing to lose. Well, I don't have much to lose to go for newer better things, or for a company/sports team/person who is at the bottom rung of the ladder, there is no where to go but upward.

But this is not to say I'm doing poorly or am at the least bit unhappy. I am in fact, very happy, I'm happy I moved out, I'm happy you and mom are happy, I'm happy my brother is doing well and having a great time with life, I'm happy your house looks beautiful with new windows and a spacious back yard, and most importantly, I'm happy you're retiring in the near future.

I've always believed in the things I can do and the things I can learn to do, but I think what outweighed my belief in myself lurked the fear of making both you and mom upset with my failures. As in basketball, tennis, baseball, math, school, anything my biggest motivation for doing something was seeking the approval of both you and mom, which is wrong, because I should've been doing those things for myself. Because ultimately it made me fear competing, and though it's backwards, I would rather shut down and do nothing than to try to do anything and fail at it. I've tried explaining this to you guys but I think you guys don't believe me, probably because it just doesn't make much sense. Haha.

Take for example that letter I wrote in elementary school and said I liked my friends more than my family and mom was disturbed by it even until I was 25 as if that letter had some great significance. And in my opinion, I think it's a little crazy for you guys to think all these years that I didn't love you and the root of it being based on that elementary school letter.

I know this all seems like a big tangent, but it's all related. It may seem crazy to you, but as I stated earlier, it was easier and better for me to just do nothing than to try and fail because I loved you guys so much and I think I just never got over or grew into the fact that I was supposed to be doing things to better myself as opposed to doing things to make you happy.

But back to the point, I can't give you empirical evidence to back up my claim when I say "I believe I'll achieve great things in the future." There is no crystal ball in the real world, and there is no degree from any university or any position in any workplace that guarantees success or stability. And to this, you will say, "son, you can increase your probability of achieving success and a good future" if I just calculate the inverse quotient of [(Job x credit score)^n / (projected lifetime in months)] - (2 years salary for emergency money) = X.

X is the answer, and X worked for you. X is allowing you to retire after close to 40 years of commuting to San Onofre from Fullerton every day. X is going to allow you to enjoy your days of retirement; But I know that you're even worried what you're going to be doing when there's nothing to do. After all the hard work you put in, I think the hardest thing you'll have to learn to do is a thing called nothing. What you've left to guide me is a most valuable asset this juncture you have to try your best to do nothing and relax (and it will be hard, spending all that time alone, teaching Mom *gasp* "the internet" and "the iPod."

I, on the other hand, will have to get up off my ass and do some work and actually not play so many video games, rather than just fake "not playing video games" by "alt + tabbing" the computer screen when you did your "fresh air deliveries" as you would knock rapidly at the door to my room, burst through it and make a B-line straight to the window to crack it open as if there was some sort of Chinese Dad record to break for "speed at which to ominously peer over supposedly studying child's shoulder." Don't worry, I will employ similar tactics when I have children, though I would probably just be logged into their computers via remote desktop and take control of their webcam, maybe I'll even interrupt their Facebook wall conversations by posting my own message like, "DIR (dinner is ready) <3 DAD," and things that would be even slightly more embarrassing.

It's a smorgasbord of irony between you and me, who have always looked at each other from across the battlefield standing at opposite ends of a civil war divided by a generation gap, or two. I'm 27 with youth on my side and a forecast of unknowns. You're Old, bald, and handsome with the experience of having conquered the world--quite literally with your hikes through raising two sons, a happy family, maintaining an epically stable job and treks that took you through The Grand Canyon and the top of Machu Picchu. I'm headed towards the road from which you came and will cherish the numerous resting areas you've left for me to stop and think while I let the haze dissipate and makes way for clearer skies. But like every young warrior, our paths can never be exact because the world we live in is very different. Even today we still use Sun Tzu's philosophies in war, but you will never see our modern military in "tortoise formation" waving their spears at a squadron of F-18 (unless those guys in "tortoise formation" are Vatican Assassin Warlocks).

And you, I know it will be hard to break the habit that 40 years of tireless diligence, discipline and mental fortitude and immerse yourself in your looming new retired lifestyle. But you'll get used to it, and you'll revert back to your days as a childhood prankster who was a carefree stunt-riding Chinese cowboy who protected his sisters with slingshots and toy guns from the dudes trying to get them, and I know that you'll begin to remember the exhilaration of the unknown, when you could take risks without fear or calculating the possible consequences. I know, because I too am guilty of being too calculating sometimes, but I know that cherishing every day that passes by should be held with the same regard and importance as the years that lie ahead of us, it's all about balance, we can't always live for the thrill of now, but we also can't live as though we're fearful of the future. I agree when you say, "be prepared for the unexpected," but we also cannot spend all our time preparing for something that may not ever happen, because otherwise we would've spent too much time preparing, and not enough time living.

Back to the original question of what makes me feel as though I will accomplish great things within the next 5 or 6 years, I have no tangible answer. The only guarantee I can make is that I believe in myself, and I do have to attribute much of this to being moved out of the realm of the "Tiger Mom" and the "Engineer Dad." Because now, unlike any time during my adolescence or my recent foray into adulthood, I'm armed with the confidence that both you and Mom trust and believe in me, and with that being said--I feel invincible.

Thanks for everything Dad.

<3

A letter to dad.

Preface:

Allow me to start with the fact that I love my parents a whole stinking lot, but from my perspective their sensibilities are comically on the conservative side.

Take for instance a story my dad received in an e-mail by one of his equally paranoid co-workers my of a person who burned to death in an electrical fire because something happened to an electrical outlet where charging his phone. My dads response was to immediately forward the e-mail to me. So when I didn't respond to his e-mail (I don't respond to many of his e-mails that are like this, because I consider it to be borderline spam mail), he calls and leaves a voicemail, and then a text message that urges me to listen to his voicemail that tells me to read the e-mail.

Thank you technology for giving my dad the powers of instant communication. I can't wait until a holographic version of my dad pops into my room uninhibited to tell me that I need to change my oil.

I have never quite seen eye to eye with my pop, I don't really think sons are supposed to and if they do, their parents probably perform back-flips when they get up in the morning... because they're life is that much easier. I haven't been a parent, but I've heard that it's every bit as much a learning experience as growing up through adolescence. And I realize that he was right about many of the things he's said in the past, like "having a better job in life and a savings will make your life easier," "you'll regret not learning Chinese" and "Not brushing your teeth in the morning is nasty."

But still there are things we differ on, like I'm telling him that I want to buy a car, and he's telling me that I should be somewhat economical. So after reviewing sonatas, accords, camry's, prius's I eventually set my eyes on the Kia Optima, a great choice that will last me a long time and make me happy. I submit my proposal to my dad and he shows me a picture of what looks like four seats on a moped and says "I think this is what you should be going for...when I was your age..." yadda yadda yadda.

I can laugh about it, because he's my dad, and I realize that the more mature I get, the more our perspectives align. Maybe we don't always see eye to eye on every matter, but we respect each other's choices no matter how foolish or nonsensical they may seem.

So the following letter was a response to my dad during an e-mail correspondence in which I'm trying to tell him that though the car payments may be a bit of a burden for me, I'm mature enough to handle them and expect great things from myself in the future.

The letter I wrote will be in the not I post after this. Yes, this post is in two parts, not for any particiular reason other than things that are in two parts have a certain je ne sais quois about them.

Broken concentration

I bask in my deja vu
A concentration breaking phenomena
I bask in my deja vu

Black Friday Madness

I worked at the AG store in Cabazon during their black friday midnight madness super discounted extravaganza. The Gucci store had a line wrapped around the complex just to check out the goods. I suppose if you're patient enough, the extra 20% you'd get off of already low prices can be worth it...Me, I could do without stress.

But then I see videos like the following vid which records the front entrance of a Circuit City on Black Friday. I'm reminded of that game "lemmings," only because there are hundreds of people who have the same stupid grin on their face and are all moving in one direction as they push the elderly and disabled out of the way. Only on black friday will people make exceptions in their ehtical code when it comes to tripping a grandma or deflating tires in someone's wheelchair in order to save some $$$.

Poker: A Narrative of Mainstream Living

I. The brat has a point!
“No, he didn’t!” he screams incredulously, “He called me with a five-seven…idiot from Northern Europe…God, they play so bad.” Phil Hellmuth, “The Poker Brat,” as he is referred to as on TV, goes on one of his infamous tirades as arguably the best Hold ‘Em player in the world gets beat by a hand that no real or established player would have played.
I couldn’t stand the guy when I first started watching poker, he’s brash, rude, and when he gets beat at the poker table, he begins to yell at everyone. It’s comparable to watching the school bully get beat up and left crying on the playground by a girl who proves that she isn’t scared of him by unmercifully kicking him in the nuts.
It’s kind of funny to watch him slumped over in agony, in that “he deserved it,” sort of way, until you’re old enough to look back on things and realize that the bully was the way he was because he was getting abused at home…The bully was just trying to vent in a room with no doors and no windows. Phil Hellmuth is the bully and the poker table is his playground, and he’s admirably fighting the fact that he and his posse of pro’s aren’t big enough to keep all of the other kids from playing.

II. Fanny pack having, bad-hand playing tourists…
I’m by no means an expert on poker. I mean, I’ve won a couple home games with people who actually play regularly…but we played for burritos. I once lost 40 dollars the only time I’ve sat at a real casino table smoking cigarettes while waiting for “legitimate cards” and losing my mandatory antis (minimum amount required to play every 5 turns) until I had nothing left.
I’m no expert, but I’ve paid enough attention to know that the 2008 World Series of Poker’s (WSOP) Main Event is the biggest ever, and where I used to be able to recognize a lot of faces at the last couple tables, 8 of the final 9 players at this year’s final table have “real” jobs. If things don’t pan out for them, they have another life to go, a safe cushion to go home to after spending their vacation days in Las Vegas living their once-in-a-lifetime dream.
For the poker pro’s, they’ve committed themselves to a game that requires a special kind of mental fortitude, a type of mental fortitude that rivals Ghandi or Nelson Mandela's. The game requires a wealth of knowledge about percentages and the subtle nuances of learning other player’s habits. But the game isn’t only played professionally at the table, a big $50,000 win for a pro doesn’t allow them to go buy a new car and new clothes, because they have to account for past losses and predict future losses as well. Consistency and accountability in their everyday life are a big factor in their ability to “play” poker for a living.
This is important to know because in this game that still requires an intangible element called luck, the need for luck is amplified as the tournament fields become increasingly saturated with players. The reason, bad players don’t know the percentages and will bet—and win on big dollars on hands that won’t typically yield favorable results. The pros who play with routine and consistency, their chances of leaving a big tournament at the hands of a “bad-beat” are about 100%.
For Hellmuth, a player who has dedicated his life so much to poker that he has made it an art form, watching the big tournament year after year be won by someone who has been playing mostly at home with his buddies over a football game and some brews has to be like the eternally starving ghost of Vincent Van Gogh watching how much money is being made off of “Starry Night” postcards.

III. Rheem: The great hope, Neo in the poker Matrix, Bastion of Truth.
This is what I realized as I watched David (Chino) Rheem’s run at the final table. The pros band together because in these big tournaments, it’s about proving to the world that poker is a game of skill, like basketball, like baseball, like chess, like engineering, like accounting, and like being a doctor or a lawyer.
If Rheem won, the pros could chalk one up for the guys who risked everything and were brave enough to do what they love, that the game they love can be won with skill. While the story of the amateur beating a pro used to be one of David vs. Goliath proportions, Matt Damon’s character in the movie, “Rounders,” depended on the fact that he took money from poker icon Johnny Chan, the tables have indeed turned on the pros.
“God! THEY play so bad.” The Brat exclaims. He won’t even call the amateurs by their names, he probably just doesn’t care because they are deconstructing the nuances of the game on poker's largest stage. They are insulting his life, and his job. He’s not mad at the northern European “idiot” as he so exclaimed, he is mad at the concept of the amateur, the conquistador who travels to the unknown and brings his bad-hand playing buddies to rape and pillage the sanctity of his game. Now, in the days where about 7,000 players enter the main event, the poker pro has become a perennial underdog as ratio of pro to idiot can only be described as heinous.
I’m proud of Phil Hellmuth speaking his mind in defending poker as a genuine sport not to be tainted by luck, but it’s also nice to see the complete anti-thesis, the Chino Rheem’s who will say “nice-hand” and quietly make a 7th place exit from the final table. Because he knows that consistency in this game is key, and that when he’s not surrounded in a sea of proverbial noobs, he can be taking all their money at the tables on normal days, in regular casinos. I was genuinely rooting for Chino as I saw his short-stacked Ace-King lose to an Ace-Queen, it was a little gut-wrenching because he played his hand correctly, but as irony would have it, the last pro of the tournament would leave on a bad-beat.

IV. So why do I care about poker, and why does it even matter?
Because much like hip-hop music, poker is now subject to the effects of entering mainstream culture. As it continually gets more popular, the true poker players who study the game and know its ins and outs will fade into obscurity as amateur after amateur will win the big tournaments. This will effectively dumb down the quality of play, because as tournaments get bigger, luck will increasingly be a factor for the winner. When only poker pros played the tournaments, the WSOP bracelet meant that you were the best player in that tournament. Now, for some it means you were the best and luckiest, and for some—the idiots that Hellmuth speaks of—it just means that they were the luckiest over the span of a tournament.
Same with hip-hop music, it becomes formulaic, a recipe for financial success is found so it is quickly duplicated and mass-produced to maximize profits. But this is a whole other topic of debate that everyone who reads this site is aware of.

So this is the conclusion to this exposition about poker as related to life. Appreciate what you see, because if you like it, chances are you’ll never see it in its original beauty again.

Pop'n Lockin' droppin' spinning'

I've always been a big fan of hip hop dance.

One of the funniest sketch comedy shows on TV "In Livin' Color" always had a team of hottie "fly girls" who would bring us into and out of commercials with a little dance routine.

I saw "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo," I way I looked at Turbo (Shabba-Doo) and Ozone (Boogaloo Shrimp) could almost challenge my idolization of Bruce Lee as a kid. But then somewhere during this little trek through life, I traded in roundhouse kicks and up-rocking for awkward highschool freshmen style bumping and grinding.

But college came, and I got to see crew's like UCLA's ACA hip-hop, and UCI's CADC consistently pump out solid routines that were nothing short of inspirational. These were my brothers and sisters that were not only performing hip-hop routines, they excelled and had fun in it.

Fast forward until last year, it has been a relatively lackluster season of lame TV show's and television is just now recovering from the writer's strike. America's Best Dance Crew takes the nation by storm, Jabbawockeez are shot into the spotlight and Kaba Modern helps to make up for UCI's lack of a football team.

It's amazing to see how much hip-hop culture has evolved over the years. Kevin Brewer of the Jabbawockeez, the guy who did about 20 pelvic thrusts in 3 seconds during their "Michael Jackson" routine might be the most talented freestyle dancer I've ever seen. See the way he hits almost every beat in the following video, he's like a conductor for the hip-hop orchestra. This took place at the famous battle between Supreme Soul (Soul Sector) and Jabbawockeez (So Cal All-Stars).


There are a lot of talented crews out there, and I would like to encourage anyone interested to go out and actively look for a local production, or get into a good college because a lot of colleges now have very strong hip-hop teams.

EKETC out in San Diego has a strong stable of crews, is surrounded by a good community filled with extremely dedicated people. Check them out at www.eketc.com. Here's a shout out to that production for putting on a show that absolutely blew me away at "Fullout 2008." Energy was abundant throughout the night, to say the least. Among many great performances from the local high school kids, to the 70 person "Joyful Joyful" finale, the Frou Frou "Let Go" piece which looked like "The Matrix" summed up in a 4 minute dance routine, and Freestyle Bass't routine which was a random mix of hilarity and fun times still stick out in my mind. So yea, thank you Christine for inviting us out to see you do what you do. Nahmeanyaurd?

Slow News Day.

Taken from a teaser during the KCAL 9 broadcast of tonights Hornets vs. Lakers game.

"So you think you're getting a full beer at your local bar, you may be losing out on a couple sips. The surprising find right after the Laker game."

Yea, that'll make me stay tuned.

On a side note, Jim Hill freaks me out. He's like Apollo Creed, except he doesn't give people that special feeling nor does he make me want to sing, "Living in America" and get down like James Brown.