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James in words.

5th May, 2008. 11:41 pm. im still alive

yeah.. still alive. a nice weekend.
everything else = bleh.

get your pollo asado recipe here.

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28th April, 2008. 11:25 pm. must see.



Current mood: giddy.

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24th April, 2008. 2:52 pm. james as driver.

so this week i've taken off from work as unpaid leave to focus on some other stuff.
I've been having lunch with Booboo for the past few days, going over to check on her and also getting her a Chinese newspaper from Ranch 99. tuesday we spent a while talking about different things - upcoming family events like my cousin's graduation, and what few chinese characters i can still recall and write (other than numbers, i'm down to less than 10 i think, bleh). today i made a big loop up to north county - taking Whitney to the dentist, and picking up Booboo after her speech pathologist's appointment and bringing her home (with a stop to pick up the paper, and then to buy gas).

i also finished captioning the photos from maui, so have a look if you haven't done so already.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jawajames/sets/72157604669169239/

and to tease you along.. here's some big wave surf action:


and in other news, our MS Walk team, the San Diego Star Wars Alliance took the prize for best costumes (for the second year in a row) -
http://www.kintera.org/faf/home/ccp.asp?ievent=256463&ccp=80690#carlsbad

now to go off to mail the last batch of thank you notes from the MS Walk. I really appreciate everyone who donated for the cause.

Current mood: mellow.

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21st April, 2008. 8:56 pm. look who just figured out how to use Flickr?

So I has a flickr account now, and uploaded all the photos from Maui. i've managed to organize them into a set, and even captioned perhaps the first 3 days worth.

check out the whole set here
Maui 2008

here's a few to share:
( click here to see )
i like the last one so much, i made it a new icon.. which means i had to toss one of the old ones... sorry Wash! (Wash's reply: Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal)

Current mood: pleased.

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21st April, 2008. 11:06 am. Gimme money! (for a good cause) - part V

part one - part two - part three - part four

The MS Walk went great! and the donations continue to roll in - at the day of the walk, the team, the the Southern California Star Wars Alliance, was just over over $3,000 putting us as the 158th team by funds raised - and now we are over $3,100. and now with some day-of-race and day-after-race donations, I'm at $820!

Here's a photo from [info]miana_dude:

See them all here

The morning of the walk, we assembled at 7 in the morning in the parking lot of Legoland. Thinking it would be warm, I wore shorts. Nope. not warm. we all got registered, getting our walk numbers and shirts. some of our star wars alliance were costumed up as different troopers, and [info]briekalan's kids were also in costume. and then the walk got started, and i took photos with Lesley's camera. and apparently Rachel kept taking photos of me.

The walk went from the parking lot up into the theme park, and around in one loop, which apparently wasn't long enough, so they continued the walk along Legoland drive all the way out to the roundabout. on the road out to the roundabout they had signs listing all the team names and how much they had raised.. we found our sign:
( photo behind cut )

and then we walked all the way back down legoland drive to the parking lot. on the way, one of Lesley's girls started to tire out, and our new member Jessica helped carry her all the way back.

after the walk, we hung out among all the booths of stuff, helping ourselves to donated Papa John's pizza and chicken nuggets. and then since the sun wouldn't come out, i got cold again.. actually i think everyone got tired of being in a festive but not warm parking lot.

And more thanks are due to donors like [info]hollywdliz (i didn't guilt you!), [info]eliz, the trying-to-be-anonymous [info]cyndisuesue, a friend from high school, and my wife's sister-in-law. Fighting MS is a team effort!

If you want to still chip in, you can visit my fundraising page at:
http://www.mswalk.com/jawajames

Current mood: bouncy.

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18th April, 2008. 10:46 pm. Gimme money! (for a good cause) - part IV

part one - part two - part three

And a few more donations slipped in today, bringing my fundraising total for the MS Walk up to $695 $745 (Whitney just came home and decided to chip in) - which is well over my goal, and helps our team, the the Southern California Star Wars Alliance, cross over $3,000 total.

And more thanks are due to donors like [info]jedidajuan and [info]yav_14 and many of my friends from YAG and CJ and a few of my former co-workers from Caltrans and my family members.
But really I should go to bed because we have to assemble our team at 7 am tomorrow at Legoland Carlsbad.

If you want to still chip in, you can visit my fundraising page at:
http://www.mswalk.com/jawajames

Current mood: calm.

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16th April, 2008. 9:54 pm. Gimme money! (for a good cause) - part III

part one - part two

So just as I was looking at my MS Walk fundraising page in order to give a little update, I get an email stating that I had received another donation! Woohoo!

As of this time, thanks to the help of everyone who has chipped in a donation for the MS Walk this Saturday, I've slid into a slight lead in fundraising for our team, the Southern California Star Wars Alliance. But can I hold it? only a few donations (or one big one) and [info]briekalan can retake the lead.

But really, I'm in the lead because of people like [info]rosiewook and [info]lazypadawan, along with many other friends and family members, who have chipped in to help me toward my fundraising goal - which goes towards helping to find the cause of MS, and to help people with MS.


want to play a wacky fun game that will test your movie knowledge...
the M&M's website has this game to identify various "dark" movies to help promote their dark chocolate M&Ms.
play it at http://www.mms.com/us/dark/dark_game.jsp. So far I've identified 27 of the 50 movies.

Current mood: grateful.

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15th April, 2008. 10:42 pm. Gimme money! (for a good cause) - part II

Previously in James-land...

It has been only one day since I started my fundraising for the MS Walk this Saturday and I really appreciate all the donations received thus far...
[info]briekalan is now worried that I will indeed catch up to her, since in just one day, my friends and family have chipped in $480 so far in online donations, which is within striking distance of Lesley's $516 raised so far.

so i want to say thanks to all of you who have supported my efforts to raise funds to fight Multiple Sclerosis. i'm just the walker - it is people like [info]blusurfer, [info]rhynndavrie, [info]kmkillian, [info]karenlea, and [info]rejectcookie who are stepping up and chipping in their dough (and some also cross-posting on my behalf: thanks blu!)

and if you want to help push me into the lead - hop on over to:
http://www.mswalk.com/jawajames


and tonight we went over to hang out with Booboo with my sister, while my parents took a night out. no mahjong tonight - Booboo wanted to watch "Dancing with the Stars" - and she correctly picked who would get the boot. meanwhile i recognized all of 3 or 4 Chinese characters in her newspaper. but then again, I got to have Dumpling Inn for lunch. mmm.

Current mood: chipper.

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14th April, 2008. 11:09 pm. Gimme money! (for a good cause)

So San Diego Fan Force is teaming up with other southern california Star Wars clubs to form an uberteam to raise money and awareness in the National MS Walk this weekend, being held at Legoland in Carlsbad. I've decided to be a good leader and join the team way late.

Which means that I've got a lot of fundraising to do, and only a few days to do it in...

and since I can't do anything the hard way, I challenged the club that I could raise more online funds than the current fundraising leader, Lesley aka [info]briekalan, who is also the coordinator of the whole SoCal Star Wars Alliance team effort.

and this is where you come in:

If you want James to succeed in his crazy fundraising crusade, go here and donate:
http://www.mswalk.com/jawajames

and if you want James to be a loser, you can donate online to Lesley:
Really long link title (but put in the comment box: "Must stop James" or something to that effect)

I do actually know someone who has Multiple Sclerosis - a friend and former co-worker of mine from my government days. And i'm sure he'd think that I'm crazy for this last minute stunt.

Current mood: bouncy.

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14th April, 2008. 10:26 pm. ok, you got a star wars link, and a bsg widget.. now for the james stuff.

stressed.
but had a mostly good week last week.
last Tuesday, my high school friend Kate was in town for a conference, and she came over and made us dinner! it really is great to catch up with good friends - even though we last saw Kate at our wedding, we didn't really get a chance to just hang out and catch up on everything.

Friday we went out to Thai food to celebrate Justin's birthday. so old we get. ;P
but Thai food is good.

Saturday was a busy day - we picked out a dish to make for my friend matt's cooking club - the theme was Middle Eastern, so we did a little internet searching and came up with Tafta Kofta (or as Whitney puts it, in a greedo-ish voice: "Tafta Kofta, Solo?"). and so we set out to buy some of the ingredients and started making it... heating up our kitchen with the skillet.

then took a mid-afternoon break to go up to Del Mar for the monthly club meeting of the San Diego Fan Force. we had a small turnout at the recently re-vamped Mini Golf Center near the fairgrounds, but one new person. then we played a round of mini golf on Pelly's Oceanic Adventure course. i beat Whitney by one and won in our group of four.

then went back home and quickly cooked the remaining tafta kofta, which is more or less beef meatballs with some nice seasonings (including some grape juice) - i might even make some hamburgers some day in this style. quite good. and went off to Matt's apartment for cooking club. quite a few middle eastern dishes.. and margaritas. and wine.

Sunday we slept in and cleaned house - got loads of laundry done, and vacuumed the bedroom and finished dishes from the cooking spree. went to church, where Fr. JP was on crutches. after church we joined up with Tom & Nancy & Anne & Margo & Andrea for dinner at Cozymel's and had a good time. then went over to visit my parents, and see Booboo, who has come to san diego for the meantime as she recovers from her stroke. she was napping in front of the tv, but mom woke her up and she was glad to see us, though she couldn't quite get the english out. i feel bad because my parents' house is not that exciting for Booboo - they don't get any Chinese channels, and all her friends are up in LA. but we are going over tomorrow night to play mah jong.

dad got out the Beatles' album "Rubber Soul" for me, so that i could listen to "Norwegian Wood" as i am learning that on the guitar. i was bad and didn't practice much last week, but spent an hour of sunday afternoon with the guitar.

and then i came home and took out the trash, and got a call from Kristina - i was to pick her up at the airport, but her flight got in way early - like 40 minutes!

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