my gf got the job in nyc!
that's all i can say! me so proud of her!
uh oh... now it's my turn to find a job in nyc. but i'll hold on that thought till i get back from south america in february!
well, i think this is gonna be my last post of 2002, so wishing you a horrible, hopeless, zealous, greedy happy new year!
i don't even need to put up with a positive hope greeting for you because it's sooo FRICKIN' common! you know what i'm talking about, so why bother to take up with me anyway? see you in 2003!
what a nice wild weekend.
friday - ram brewery in a chicago suburb to see some ol' friends. didn't get home till 5 am.
saturday - woke up at 2 pm and then headed to a friend's birthday dinner at rosebud's and off to a super new barclub called superlounge. didn't sleep till 730 am in the morning which leads me to:
sunday - woke up at 3 pm. 3 hours later, sun's out already! went to a new friend's place to hang out with friends who flew in from nyc. watched a movie called _trapped_ starring kevin bacon and charlize theron. it was somewhat a bizzare kidnapping movie though a friend said that he thought that it was a creative plot. i do think that this fictious flick can happen in a real life someday.
well, it's almost 230 am here now. i hope i can try to shut down my eyelids and catch the rem sleep soon!
now i'm back home in chicago!
it's nice to be in such a frigid cold weather after a long delay in SFO airport. my flight got delayed for about 2 hours due to a mechanical failure. but in exchange for this delay, i got to sit in first class section even though i was assigned to sit in coach section. my seat has a nice adjustable bed so i was able to take a nice nap during the flight. while having lunch on the flight (a delicious roast beef gourmet burger), i noticed that all but the knife came in silver metal. the knife was in hard plastic. i couldn't imagine that in my lifetime i'll ever to see a plastic knife with these fancy silver utensils, but then of course with these recent terrorism being surfacing up, i can't imagine on how would these guys make useful out of these knifes. they're not like sharp as the box cutters.
anyway, once i got home, my friend, laura, happened to be in town checking out amanda's pad and hanging out at a nearby bar, star bar. so i just went out there to see laura. it was actually her birthday today so happy birthday laura! here's a picture that a cheerfully tipsy patron of star bar took:
elle, me, allisha (hope i remembered her name), amanda, laura, and grace
seems like there are lots of peepos that i know whose birthdays are just around the holiday times... i think i know like 5 or 6 peepos whose b-days are on new year's! and one's on nye's.
again, it's NICE to be BACK HOME. DSL, lively city, nearby restaurants, and of course, nagging parents out of my sight for a while ;-)
ugh... have to get up early in a few hours to take my jeep to the shop... my jeep's engine's been acting funny lately...
happy, jolly, merry christmas even though i don't celebrate it. but it's just an excuse for us to spend the loved ones together. (but my main loved one is in new york so if you're reading this, there's an om thing somewhere here now!) oh yeah... another excuse is to get lots of dayum gifts like my powerbook! that's what i'm sooo thankful when i'm here in america. i will have to donate my old macintosh to a third world country. they need it badly.
that leads to me wonder about south america. when i think of christmas, it's always 'white' christmas, but there are actually peepos who do celebrate 'balmy' christmas such as in south america or down under.
i have to go... i just woke up and i need to rip off the wrappings badly!
my alma mater, arizona, which is ranked #1 in the polls, just lost a tight game to unranked LSU earlier today. i don't give a sh*t about it. what matters to me is that they win ALL the way in the NCAA tournament, like they did back in 1997. polls are all about media stuff to see where the schools are ranked. i will only believe in the polls ONCE the NCAA tourney is DONE! whoppeeedoooo...
at least arizona lost a close game instead of being blown away.
Johnny Carson's Definition:
The smallest interval of time known to man is that which occurs
in Manhattan between the traffic signal turning green and the
taxi driver behind you blowing his horn.
tramadol
i'm going to the city soon today and see what this fiacso is all made of with my pb!
i visited the city yesterday.
i realize how much i missed being a san franciscian.
lots of international flavors being thrown around.
alessa boutique? (gotta love its kitchen wares!)
kar'ikter? (wow, they even had one of my fave old comic books, TIN TIN, everywhere in the shop!)
i didn't have time to check out all the small shops. i hope to go back there again soon maybe tomorrow. tiny boutiques rule!!!! even a friend of mine just set up hers. she will have her cute website up soon. i'll keep you updated on it.
i MUST move to san francisco soon! i'm soooo DAYUM proud to be a san franciscan that i must have one of my kids become a san francisco native!
must be the san francisco fever...
something just occured in my mind:
i wonder what will the world be like when the deafies rule?
would we view the hearing as a sin?
"thou shall not hear!"
i don't think that's SOMETHING that we would. we would welcome them as part of our lives because they are human beings. we just need to look beyond their ability to hear. they can do what we can do.
so, in the reverse order, we just hope that the hearies can see what we can do.
it's sad that we just have to fight through the 'usual' deaf stereotypes. i've noticed that many x-generation peepos are more educated about what we can do. i believe that education is the best thing for us to start from our first stage of our lives. recently, i talked with a random person online and she said that she went to vietnam as part of a school group in her high school. i thought that it was a wonderful experience for her to go through a different culture. look at europe with many different languages/cultures being stacked together and you get many cultured peepos compared to americans here. but americans are starting to get better as there are many foreign languages being mainstreamed here. (such as in media where you can watch a few latino channels or asian channels here) so i just hope to see a 'deaf' channel that is used NATIONWIDE! i know that there are a few deaf programming that are shown in a few cities. we still got a long way to go, but we're getting there and i just hope that we can mix well with america's mainstreamed culture. i know that i'm rambling here, but then isn't that what blogs are for???
i'll just cut off my random thoughts for now then!
i just got a wacky hat today from:
here's my season greeting picture for you readers:
now, how do you like my hat? or did my face catch your attention first?
happy holidays, peepos!! that ought to brighten up your day for a while!
(btw, if you wanted to know why i got the rabbit hat, i was born in the year of the rabbit!)
i went shopping with my mom to look for some christmas decorations. at a few stores, i noticed that there are three different colors of tree top fallen angels on the shelf: causacian, african, and latino. now, my question is where in the hell is asian one? i know that we the asians have the stereotype of being dayum passive. get this... the area, where the stores are, is infested with many asians. i wonder if these asians noticed or they were too busy looking for cheap-ass merchandises. i ought to bring this issue up to that angry man:
AAM rules!!!
anyway, it seems like i'm gonna have to drop my bishop plans. it's gonna be a LONG wet week for my buddies in bishop! i just hope that they have a back up plan of going to joshua tree and flash that _saturday night live_ dyno.
ok, finally, i got my pb loaded. last night, i was going on error and trail with imovie with my bouldering film. it was actually fun and easy to learn. now, i'll have to master my skills someday soon with final cut pro if i can get a hand on it soon! it seems like it's raining forever here as you can see here:
and my hopes of going to bishop are starting to diminish as the time goes by... at least that will encourage me to rest and nurse my busted finger instead of making it worser than before!
oh yeah, my folks and i just bought a nice noble fir christmas tree. now our house will be filled with natural fir aroma for a few weeks... ahhh.... smmmmmellls sooo good, what's left is of course the decoration. we're just too lazy to put up the decorations. i guess we will decorate it once we get sick of the tree's dark plain green.
oh yeah, if you wanna for swinging, just holler me. my dad has a set of golf clubs still in the box in the garage. he hasn't even opened it ever since he bought it like two years ago!!!! what a waste!!!
now i'm back to my original home in palo alto, ca. i've been following the weather in bishop closely and it seems like it's gonna rain for the whole weekend so i might postpone my trip to bishop till monday. so i'm probably gonna do something with my parents for a temporary time... fun fun fun!
just got my latest tech toy just now, though i'm not officially typing this from my new powerbook, i'm still eating and packing my stuff here before i can actually play my powerbook. i probably won't get to play with it until i get into plane tonight. hope the battery can last for the whole flight to san francisco from chicago.
you can betcha that this toy is going to make me a happy man for a while...
next mission: snowboarding and bouldering soon in bishop!
Online Tramadol, Tramadol, Tramadol HCL is one of the most prescribed treatments for pain in the world. More than 55 million people have taken cheap Tramadol to relieve their back pain, shoulder pain, and other chronic conditions. By acting on parts of the brain that trigger pain, and by reducing the size of pain signals that travel throughout the body, Ultram Tramadol provides powerful pain relief in just minutes! Buy Tramadol Now or visit this site: http://www.x-tramadol.com!
just checked the tracking status of my latest toy, powerbook.
it's now in a mail warehouse in hodgkins, illinois, like maybe 45 minutes drive from here. i feel like i just want to grab my keys and just zoom all the way to its warehouse and just pick it up instead of waiting for it tomorrow!
*little gabe sprouting on my shoulder* "be patience, jedi."
i just watched _star wars: attack of the clones_ last night and i thought it was cool though i liked the part one better.
the tooth in red circle has been removed from my mouth! i asked the surgeon if i could keep the tooth as a souvenir. he regrettfully said that he couldn't give me my tooth under his office's policy, it was to prevent spreading the disease from the tooth (like HIV stained blood, etc...) but he gave me this x-ray as a souvenir. the processing for this surgery was quicker than i expected. my surgeon said that the huge crack on my tooth made the job easy for him to pull out. boy, when i saw that cracked tooth, it was already split in half! so, i'll be toothless for a while as i won't be getting an implant till 5 or 6 months later! also, he made me feel comfortable at his office and asked me if i went to gallaudet before (i didn't) and the irony thing about this conversation is that he told me that he knew a few patients who went to gallaudet yet none of them are DEAF!!!
anyway, my sterile gauze's still in my tooth cot soaking my blood and hoping that the clot will close soon and i'll be all happy to drink and eat soon. i'm friggin' hungry...
you could say that today's my 'tooth' day with two visits to different dentists' offices.
i just went to see my dentist to have my tooth examined 'cos it was bugging me for the last 4 weeks. it turns out that i have a huge crack on my tooth, and a surgery on my tooth will be required as an oral surgeon will probably remove my valuable tooth in the top left of my jaw. an implant will probably be inserted. i wish that i could have seen my old dentist while in CA during my road trip, but he wasn't in the office at that time and i thought i could withstand the pain for next two weeks once i get back to chicago. the dentist said that the crack grew and grew as the time went by which is why i got a swollen gum near my tooth for the last few days... well, i'm gonna see my oral surgeon soon in a few hours. wish me a good luck...
good thing that i still have my medical and dental insurance via COBRA. so, here's a piece of advice for you who get laid off: continue to PAY for these insurances via COBRA! they're great!!!
me just ordered apple's 1 ghz powerbook just recently. me excited. me anticipating to get it by this wednesday. once i get this, i'm terribly going to miss my beloved old macintosh 7500 (though there's a g3 chip inside). if any of you is interested in buying this lovely machine, please don't hestitate to email me.
counting the seconds now... just remind me to make a thank you card to my folks 'cos i'd be too excited to do anything but play on powerbook for a few weeks.
yesterday, my friend devon and i went out to pilsen district to hang around. if you happen to be in pilsen area, i'd SUGGEST you to check out cafe jumping beans and order any foccatia! this is definitely a hidden gem! we went to check out a gallery where many pilsen struggling artists showed their work that can be sold for less than $100. we didn't find anything interesting out there with exception of this artist who took some ikea cups and bowls and glazed them with advertisements. i thought they were cute and would definitely make a good topic for friends to talk about once they see them during dinner. you can view the artist's work at:
though the site isn't up running yet, but there's a temporary site listed there. i'm hoping that he will show all the cool dinnerware stuff on the site soon.
after that, we went to a camera shop to look for a monopole for my video camera. they didn't have it, but they gave me a catalog where i found a perfect monopole from gizmo. i'll have to order it soon if the price isn't hefty nuff for me.
devon asked me if i've driven lakeshore drive further north of evanston, i said no, so we just to check it out and hope to see some cool, vast holiday decorated lit house. we were pretty disappointed that not too many houses were decorated though some of the houses did open my eyes with their size, architecture style, and style of beauty. after an hour or couple of driving around, we finally started to chill out at nevin's pub in evanston.
so it was a nice saturday for me...
there's a short bouldering flick on a national website that i filmed mostly at southern illinois and my friend tim (who's in the flick too) editted it. _SOILL SMACK DOWN_ is being featured in www.climbxmedia.com's smackdown contest (click on december 5th). take your finger and point at least 8 on the voting scale for this flick!!!
VOTE for US in December 5th!!!
i'm still figuring out on this route at horse pens 40 in alabama, where this route's name originated from AND the moves to complete it.
but i do KNOW one thing about it ~~~ a superb route!
here's a picture of me on it:
i'd like to finish this route when i visit hp40 next time!
what are your plans for nye?
i have none at this moment.
it seems like my energy in celebrating this year's nye has vanished away. i'm at the point where i get revitalized my inner-self from bouldering. it's like mingling with people, but this time you're in solitude with rocks and you're struggling to find solutions with them. with friends, they may throw some encouragement at me for an enlightenment. but i just need to feel myself re-energized, so bouldering is a good way for me to enlighten my ass into serene state of mind. i do wish that i could go either winter bouldering spots, hueco tanks in texas, or bishop in california for nye's. i'm still trying to figure out why there aren't too many deaf people giving this bouldering a try. i find that bouldering is a pure sport compared to rock climbing with ropes (aka sport climbing or trad climbing).
however; i will take this an exception - if my folks or friends invite me to go OUT OF STATES, then i'd be more than happy to fly out of usa for nye's. i do not mind going to new zealand to celebrate its earliest nye's and then fly out to hawaii right after this to celebrate the latest nye's! of course, it's going to cost me a bundle of cash for this cool experience.
recently, i was just typing my name, "gabe leung" in google's image search engine to see what it'd come up with.
here's what i found one of the results:
http://www.ccchronicle.com/back/2001-05-07/sports3.html
i completely forgot that a student photographer took a picture of me while i was climbing at LPAC and asked me for my name. This is the third time that I've been featured in the media. the first one was a picture of me playing piano with a well known maestro from st. louis symphony when i was like 12 years old. the second one... uh... came with my name surfacing up in "police beat" where my college's newspaper take the campus police reports daily. i was once caught toking with two friends. i still have a few old copies stashed somewhere at my parents' garage. heck, i even changed my name in web edition while i was an employee (assistant webmaster) for my college's newspaper. to this day, my alias name, gary liang, still exists at:
http://wildcat.arizona.edu/papers/old-wildcats/spring95/March/March2,1995/03_1_m.html
todd is happily married and recently became a father last month. last time i heard of jose is he's still living in mexico. (he was a foreign exchange student at u of arizona at that time). sometimes i kinda regret that i changed my name in the web edition because the report doesn't look too authentic for me.
third one of course is this recent climbing photo.
i think it's just cool to be a mini celebrity once in a while though i wouldn't want to appear on the FRONT PAGE like those tabloids or so.
now, i know what's like to be ELVIS.
today is nothing day.
i do nothing today.
nothing is such an unique task to do.
daily, we take our busy days for granted.
a blank mind with no tasks
oh such a joyful world i live in.
no job to work, no $$$ to spend on, no worries to think about, a killer long vacation to enjoy.
but once 2003 starts to creep in
i'll be going back to a corporate world like a madman searching for $$$ position.
------
why is that many of you are asking me this annoying, common question, _where have you been?_, and i tell them to check my blogs on the site, and they just are too lazy to follow or don't bother to read the whole thing... they do have lots of free time and it takes only a few mere minutes to read my blogs for once! i can't just respond the same answer to each individual on every IM i get from each one of you! i think reading is starting to be extinct as many people are just addicted to having IM dialogues back and forth. i know that i could have sent a mass email to everyone, but i decided not to because i want to see how peepos react to the disappearance of my screenname from their IM list.
for those of you who im-ed me for my whereabouts, i appreciate your thoughtfulness of me, and of course just for once, just catch up with my blogs, would you?
sweet home sweet is it,
or not, no it isn't,
washing smelly clothes,
mopping rabbitballs out,
scrubbing nasty tub,
sucking carpet dust,
dwelling through pain bills,
deleting e-mails,
now me ready for
another vacation!
just one more thing. here's the URL that a friend of mine took pictures at horse pens 40 over thanksgiving weekend.
http://greed.blackcore.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album06
just got back home in chicago about 10 minutes ago (12:11 am!!!)
i've come up with an idea where you get those common 'questions about yourself' forwards from friends. i've decided to create my own interesting, fun list like the forward, so here's the list that i've observed so far from my one-month trip:
starting point: 0 mile in new york city on halloween
finish point: 8423 miles here in chicago today. (dec. 1)
average speed i've driven: about 80 mph
top speed: 104 mph somewhere in new mexico
lowest speed: actually 0 mph when i got stuck on the highway just immediately after ford escort rammed itself into a cement barrier just 10 cars away from my jeep near dallas. good thing that my jeep just had a fresh set of brake pads before the trip. i was stuck for about 15 minutes.
average number of highway patrol cars seen on highway: probably about 6
get pulled over? absolutely no!
average number of road kills on highway: at least 4
largest road kill: a medium sized deer (no antlers so i guess it's a fem one)
smallest road kill: either paper-like bird or mouse
number of MY road kill: none (though i did almost hit a yellow lab as she just came out of nowhere and chased my jeep's muffler)
oddest object you see on highway: nothing too odd i see around, but there's this small car, i think it was ford escort again, but it had a HUGE load of stuff on the top of the escort. it's EVEN bigger size than escort. i'm surprised that the HPs even let this driver get away with this dangerous hazard to other cars.
coolest stuff you've seen: earth graffiti along utah's dry lake bed on i-80. graffiti mostly came from either the sand/salt or rocks. i did see some bottles being used there, but they are inserted upside down into the bed. i've thought of stopping at some places to take snapshots of this earthy, temporary graffiti.
annoying stuff on highway: slow cars on the 'speeding' left lane. what are these idiots trying to do? make an abrupt traffic jam?
well, it's time for me to hit the sack. i just hope i get used to sleeping on the soft cushion of my bed!