James in words.

Need your help in picking a photo...

Thu, 15 May 2008 05:12:20 GMT

So I would like to enter the San Diego CityBeat annual photo contest, and here are the rules:

Photographs must have been taken in 2007 or 2008. Subject matter and location are unlimited. Individuals are limited to three submissions each.

Deadline is May 19th.

So here's how you can help:
I've uploaded 15 different photos which I think are good photographs. Quite a few landscapes, some nature, some random artsy things, and such.

All the photos are located on my flickr.

or you can view them all here (in smaller form):

A) Los Cabos

B) Self-Portrait of Bride and Groom

C) Boardwalk in Puerto Vallarta

D) Sleepytime Possum

E) Wedding Pinatas

F) Facade in San Francisco

G) Bee in Cactus Flower

H) Zurich

I) Flowers and Rabbit Hutches

J) Sacre Couer, Paris

K) Vision of a Park

L) No Wading / No Meterse

M) La Perouse Bay, Maui

N) Haleakala Crater, Maui

O) Giraffes on Maui

Please post a comment naming the ones you think i should print and submit to the contest (pick up to 3).

random thing that excited me

Thu, 15 May 2008 03:28:42 GMT

I just found out that one of my favorite books, Blindness, by José Saramago (for which he earned the Nobel Prize for Literature), has now been made into a film, directed by Fernando Meirelles (City of God, The Constant Gardener), and it's the opening film at Cannes tonight. Unfortunately it won't come out until December in the US.

Watch the trailer here!

http://www.blindness-themovie.com/

up early.

Mon, 12 May 2008 14:36:24 GMT

so i woke up early to help get whitney on her way to the dentist, and now here i am.

we had a busy weekend with:
* Young Adult Group event: Rock Band party at Erin & Brian's. James sings again with disastrous results. James moves up from easy to medium on the guitar and bass with not-quite-disastrous results.
* Mysterious Galaxy's 15th birthday bash, where i ran into a friend from last year's short story writing class, as well as allaboutm_e and Jeff, and Tim Zahn. picked up some books, including "The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones"
* seeing Iron Man with Jennifer and Darren, as part of Darren's birthday. Great movie!
* having Mother's Day lunch with Mom and Booboo (and jennifer and darren) at Peking Palace, where Booboo discovers the joy of Crispy Hunan Beef.
* going back to play mah jong in the afternoon. booboo and i cleaned up, leaving whitney and jennifer winless.
* Pentecost mass.
* working on this week's race. doing the walkthrough tonight.

im still alive

Tue, 06 May 2008 06:43:14 GMT

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

get your pollo asado recipe here.

must see.

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:26:16 GMT

james as driver.

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 22:09:11 GMT

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.

look who just figured out how to use Flickr?

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:01:48 GMT

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:

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)

Gimme money! (for a good cause) - part V

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:44:47 GMT

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 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 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:

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 hollywdliz (i didn't guilt you!), eliz, the trying-to-be-anonymous 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

Gimme money! (for a good cause) - part IV

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 05:59:44 GMT

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 jedidajuan and 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

Gimme money! (for a good cause) - part III

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 05:11:19 GMT

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 briekalan can retake the lead.

But really, I'm in the lead because of people like rosiewook and 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.

Gimme money! (for a good cause) - part II

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:57:08 GMT

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...
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 blusurfer, rhynndavrie, kmkillian, karenlea, and 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.

Gimme money! (for a good cause)

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:19:18 GMT

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 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.

ok, you got a star wars link, and a bsg widget.. now for the james stuff.

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:56:12 GMT

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!

Battlestar Galactica Widget

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:14:04 GMT

If your name is Brian, ckillian, kmkillian or anyone else who is not caught up to season 4 of Battlestar Galactica:
Do not watch - thar be spoilers ahead.

something different.. and star wars-ish

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:12:46 GMT

link gakked from clubjade.net:

Star Wars figures, WWII style

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:18:56 GMT

tired. sore. had a busy weekend.
saturday i took my sister and two of her colleagues to the airport, then came home and started organizing my paperwork to do taxes (while making a few minor tweaks on the indy wiki). then worked on taxes and finished up around 3pm - just in time to head over to Arby's for the Star Trek tourney - this time playing First Edition - luckily Franklin and Dan had made a deck for me to use. and i used it, and tried to remember how to play first edition (1E). the trek committee has been tinkering a bit to make 1e more playable, and we used a "Highlander" format - you can only have one of any card in your deck (to shut down abusive strategies that rely on having lots of the same card in your deck). since i got there a little late, i got the bye in the first round, and went on to win 1 of the remaining 4 rounds - and came in real close in two of the other rounds. feels good to have our taxes nearly done.

sunday was an adventure in paintball to celebrate sirrogue's birthday (and also his friend Alex's birthday). we had a group of 16 of us going out to the paintball place by Viejas for the day. whitney came along for her first time at paintball, and jainamsolo and rhynndavrie were also there. i didn't start off too well.. in the first round, i was the first one hit. this time it seemed that i also had quite a few times where a paintball would hit me and hurt... but not break, and thus not count as a hit. but with the mask on, i couldn't quite see if it had broken or not. but by the end of the day, i won a round for our team in a capture-the-opposing-base game, with whitney providing the cover fire. good teamwork. after the long day, i talked with Dan on the way home about rocket race stuff.

whitney and i decided to skip the 5:30 mass since we were needing showers, and so we went to the 7:30 mass, and ran into Michelle C., who is in town for a conference and bridal shower. after mass, we went with her and Diana to get drinks and some late dinner at Rock Bottom.

meme on tv.

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 03:23:23 GMT

because ummm jeditrilobite and jedidajuan did it before me (and if two jedi meme it, a jawa needs to meme it just to bring the force back into balance.. not like jawas are the opposite of jedi or anything. actually drewshi snarked about this list a few days back.. mostly because it seems to have forgotten anything prior to 1990.

Empire Magazine in the UK has revealed its list of the "50 Greatest TV Shows" ever. Below is the list and here be the rules.

1. Bold the shows you've watched every episode of (i'm gonna round this to 95% of episodes and above)
2. Italic the shows you've seen at least one episode of
3. Post your answers

50. Quantum Leap (probably exactly one episode of)
49. Prison Break
48. Veronica Mars
47. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
46. Sex & The City

45. Farscape
44. Cracker
43. Star Trek
42. Only Fools and Horses
41. Band of Brothers

40. Life on Mars
39. Monty Python's Flying Circus
38. Curb Your Enthusiasm
37. Star Trek: The Next Generation
36. Father Ted

35. Alias
34. Frasier
33. CSI: Las Vegas
32. Babylon 5
31. Deadwood

30. Dexter
29. ER
28. Fawlty Towers
27. Six Feet Under
26. Red Dwarf

25. Futurama
24. Twin Peaks
23. The Office UK
22. The Shield
21. Angel

20. Blackadder
19. Scrubs
18. Arrested Development
17. South Park
16. Doctor Who [new one] (only missing one or two from the whole set so far)

15. Heroes
14. Firefly
13. Battlestar Galactica [new one]
12. Family Guy
11. Seinfeld

10. Spaced
09. The X-Files
08. The Wire
07. Friends
06. 24

05. Lost
04. The West Wing
03. The Sopranos
02. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
01. The Simpsons

(and yes, i have never seen most of an episode of 24 or West Wing)

i got april fooled by a container of rice.

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:58:25 GMT

so last night i was cooking some dinner, and was planning on using some leftover Spanish rice that i had in the fridge. i set the rubbermaid container of rice out on the counter and went about preparing the other food... and then when i walked back over to the counter and was talking about the rice... the lid on the rice blew right off the container with a nice pop!

needless to say, whitney decided that probably the rice shouldn't be eaten (it was a bit old for leftovers) as it somehow managed to flip its own lid - while i figure it was just the cool air inside expanding to room temperature, it might be an excess of CO2 being made by something living in the container - though it looked safe. anyway, rice go byebye.

and that pretty much sums up my first day of april.

update on BooBoo

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:30:59 GMT

thanks for all the prayers and heart-felt thoughts for my grandmother and my family.

here's how things are, as of yesterday...
Booboo is still in the hospital, but is out of the immediate danger zone (the first few days after a stroke). all her autonomic functions seem to be working ok, which is good, but she has suffered a little paralysis on her right side but she can still walk with help - and adjust her hearing aid on her own. her speaking skills fluctuate - her english (which was never great to begin with) goes from difficult to non-existent, and her mandarin and cantonese go from clear to difficult. she can still write chinese characters, which is somewhat helpful, though my mom's and aunt's reading vocabulary is pretty small, luckily there is a hospital translator who can read chinese well and was delighted to have a patient who was so literate in chinese. booboo's been pretty frustrated with herself unable to communicate - finding the right word, etc.

they made up a signboard for her so that she can communicate by pointing to characters on the board and the regular staff can know what she wants in english. my dad came back late thursday night, and my mom is staying up there until tomorrow.

much relief.

it seems likely that given enough time and some therapy, she could probably regain most of the brain functions that were hit, so long as her health stays good (she's been pretty active in her 80s). but this means that she will probably have to move from her house in LA to a place where they can keep a closer eye on her.. which means that we will most likely need to pack up and sell the old house. when my grandfather died several years ago, he left behind a lifetime's worth of packratted materials (he was someone who kept anything he thought he could re-use, and frequented garage sales for deals) and going through that was a big family chore. luckily, Booboo is not the hoarder that GongGong was, but still, there's a house full of stuff. since we are already in the process of packing up and moving my other grandma from her house in Long Beach to an assisted living facility, it seems like we are going to have our hands full.

random thought - i read the latest Star Wars novel, Legacy of the Force: Revelation by Karen Traviss this past week.
the Mandalorian word for grandma is Ba'buir. my family's name for grandma is Booboo. chances that my grandma is a mando? she's tough, and cares for her family - but no armor, no weapons. her strength is her gentleness. and her sharp mind - we're lucky when she wins only half of the 4-player games of mahjong when she comes down.

please pray for my Booboo

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:19:58 GMT

Yesterday I found out that Booboo (my grandmother) had a stroke and was taken to the hospital, up in northern California (she has been in the process of moving from her place in LA to a senior apartment up in Sunnyvale / Palo Alto area, close to my aunt, and not far from my brother). the stroke knocked out her speech but she seemed able to walk with help. mom and dad flew up today to check on her and confer with doctors and my aunt - not much change. so they are considering some medical options to try to get more blood flow into her brain.

i feel so helpless.. seriously all i can do is go over to my parents to bring in the mail and the paper while they are gone for a day or two.

Indiana Jones Widget

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:55:56 GMT

Looky!

Happy Easter!

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 03:39:58 GMT

Happy Easter - or Purim - or Eid - or Narouz - or Holi - or Magha Puja
All of these different religious holidays all seemed to happen around this time, a calendrical rarity, so sayeth Time magazine.

Take some time. make it sacred.

and in my case, read to the church in the dark. (i'm one of the lectors at our church's Easter Vigil mass tonight, where Jennifer's boyfriend Darren is getting confirmed.)

randomly weird...

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 07:40:00 GMT

ok fellow LJ'ers.
23 hours ago, i got an anonymous comment to a post i made over a year ago (regarding getting ready for the wedding). it's not actually spammish - just a hello, but why would someone start way back there to start reading my LJ?

is it spam-lite? a new anon reader thinking that that would be the best place to comment? thoughts? opinions? what should i do?

little known facts about Waru.

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 07:15:06 GMT

because snarkel thinks my life's adventures aren't all that.. instead you get
a few little known facts about Waru:

1. In Waru's home dimension, rainbows have the violet on top, and red on the bottom.
2. Eight cans of Waru energy drink can cause amputees to spontaneously regrow their missing limb.
3. Emperor Nero of Rome considered blaming the burning of Rome on Waru, but then he realized that this was not a good idea.
4. British explorers named an Australian hopping ground marsupial after an unknown sailor who had drunk one can of Waru energy drink. Unfortunately, due to biologist's typo, the "can-waru" became more commonly known as the "kan-garoo"
5. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force. The power of the Force is really really insignificant next to the power of Waru.

brought to you by the Church of Waru.

happily maui'ed! (part 3)

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 08:17:47 GMT

continuing the story of our trip to Maui (Part One - Part Two)

Tuesday - February 12
This day was to be our day for going to Lahaina and other points on the northwest chunk of the island. While driving out of Kihei, we stopped by the site of David Malo's Kilolani Church. David Malo was one of the first native Hawaiians to become a minister and a key figure in Hawaiian history, and the ruined site of his church is now an open air Episcopal church (Trinity by the Sea.

Our next stop was at Papawai Point at the south end of the NW bulge, where we saw whales fairly close to land in Auau Channel. it was quite the panoramic view of water, with humpback whales popping up everywhere.

We continued on to Lahaina, and found a free space to park in a lot across the street from an elementary school that is right on the ocean's edge. lucky kids. we walked around the touristy areas of Lahaina, checking out the giant Banyan tree (supposedly the largest in the US), some of the old historic buildings and local galleries, a shipwreck in the harbor and the Lahaina public library, again.. just a stone's throw from the water. we walked up Front Street, saw the historic Wo Hing Society Hall, poked around in a used book store and had lunch at Kimo's and watched the crabs scuttle on the rocks below as we ate cheeseburgers. we sauntered back to the car, and drove north to the Mala Wharf area, to check out the Jodo mission and its large Buddha. just outside the mission, and near the beach was a large Japanese cemetery in the sand dunes.

continuing north, we mostly skipped through Ka'anapali and Napili and Kapalua. after the resorts stopped and the road turned back into a two-laner, we stopped at Mokuleia Bay and went down the stairs to Slaughterhouse Beach, which a nice little cove where we got our feet wet and saw an interesting bird.. and a feral cat. continuing around the north shore of west maui, we came to Honolua Bay and drove out along the cliffs, where we watched the surfers catch some sets. nice big wave action, and i got some photos.

continuing eastward around west maui's wild north side, we stopped a few more scenic vistas, and the road changed to a less maintained single lane road. more potholes and blind cliff turns made for some slower driving. the weather turned from sunny to cloudy and the scenery reminded me more of Ireland or Scotland than tropical, with lots of steep rocky grassy hills. outside the village of Kahakuloa, we came across a car going towards us... and we both had to stop, and figure out which of us would back up to the last available turnout. luckily, it was the other car and only a little bit back... where we came across Smoothie Bus (which was unfortunately closed). no shave ice for us!

The Kahekili Highway was quite pretty, and we had to take it slow on the one lane roads, and we stopped for the scenery a few more times, but the day grew late and the sunlight started to fade. then civilization started to appear again - houses with art galleries and some rich homes, and then the town of Wailuku, connecting us back to Kahului, and out of the cloudy area.

back in Kihei, we wandered down the driveway from our condo and ate dinner at Enrique's, a hole in the wall Mexican place.