I wrote a super long post about my grandma and grandfather but I decided that whatever I write, it will not even begin to tell you how much they meant to me and the entire family. My grandfather passed away 15 years ago, now they're together again. She was admitted into the hospital last thurs., she had fluid in her lungs and a blood clot that caused it. They gave her a blood thinner and drained the fluid, she was fine and talking so she didn't stay too long in the hospital. I got a call from my aunt Monday night telling me that she was released from the hospital and will be at home. She told me to give her a call, it was late and my grandma needed rest so I decided that I'll call her tomorrow. I should've called that night.....she passed away that morning.

Six years ago she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, they told us that she only had six months to live....being the stubborn lady she is, she lived on for another six years. She denied that she had cancer and I guess that is one of the things that kept her going. The less you worry about, the less it will take over your life so fast. She was ready to move on, so she didn't want any chemo. Six years later the cancer spread throughout her body, we were all ready as much as she was. I guess that is what made it easier to handle after she had passed. I'm sure she could have lasted a little longer but she was ready, one of the reasons she wanted to leave the hospital early to go home. As much as it saddens me to see her pass, it's good to know she is with my grandfather again. But damn Grandma, couldn't you wait until all of us from Chicago headed back there to see you!!   I really did wish I was able to see her one last time or that I should've called her that night, I was already making plans to go back during x-mas after I heard that she was in the hospital. The last time I saw her was early this year in March, it should've been last month but she was unable to make my cousins wedding in Long Beach.   

Well, I'll be heading back to California again! Good thing I have miles because the tickets prices are ridiculous!

She is survived by all of us!
(1)Taken during her 70th bday party - 2001   (2)Taken 3 years ago, most of the cousins with grandma(missing one cousin). When the youngest cousin became part of the family.

(1) My Grandparents back in the days              (2) My mom, aunts and uncles when they were young (i'm thinking it's around 1964)

I think this is the last picture taken of my grandma. This is when my uncle, aunt and cousin headed back to norcal after my cousins wedding in Long Beach last month.

Taken when I was with her at San Fran Airport heading to Chicago

~12/20/1930 - 8/7/2007~

Youtubers

Some tunes I've been playing over and over....turn up the volume, set up the bass and feel it bumpin'. It's great when you can roll down the windows on your car and drive aimlessly on a cool and nice day or night and pump up the volume.

Can't stop jamming to this!! As much as I hate how conceited and arrogant he is, even if he is from Chicago! He has some great music...

Another song that I am jamming too, Timberlands collaborations with other artist has been great these past few years!

Sometimes the music got me going in my car that I just want to ghost ride my whip.....but my moves can't compare to these two.

This is freakin' amazing, actually it's more hilarious than amazing because they were able to make 1,500 prisoners dance to Thriller! A prison in the Philippines.

Everyone should come and visit Chicago! During your visit, you can do all of the tourist stuff. Head to Navy Pier and ride the ferris wheel, check out the city from atop of the Sears Tower or at the John Hancock while you have a drink on the 95th floor. You can visit the different ethnic areas, Chinatown, Koreatown, Greektown, etc.....but you really have to check out the Ghetto Tour!! What in the world?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070723/ap_on_re_us/ghetto_bus_tour_3

I remember back in the days when Cabrini Green and The Robert Taylor Homes were names that if it was mentioned, everyone knew what it was and what it meant. The names were synonymous with crime and gangs, the names were always mentioned in the news and it was always never good news. So much has changed since then, some of the buildings are still up but empty and boarded up, ready to be torn down. In its place, new town homes or mixed income housing are being built. As they look out from their nice and beautiful homes, they can see the remnants of how these large building use to house different gangs and was the main stage for gang wars. It looks like in another 5-10years, all these old public housing will be gone and I can't really say what many of the areas will be like but it is definitely going to be a lot different from what it use to be.    

East Coast

Had the chance to visit NY too!  

Lots of walking but that gave me a chance to see a lot of things on foot!

Moma

The Met: This place is huge! I would say a good four hours would be suffice to walk the entire place and that's just glancing at most of the exhibits. If a person takes their time, I'm sure the entire day can be spent here.

This guy can Draw!!!!

Museum of Natural History

Central Park

The Mall

As I walking through Central Park, wanting a picture of the "mall", I happened to notice this as I was passing by. Seeing a few people taking pictures, I decided to head over there and check it out. Couldn't really figure out who it was until I took a close-up picture.

My few days in NY and I encounter this! Austin Powers himself!

I stayed in midtown, in Korea town. My walks consisted of walking up 6th ave. from 32nd to 53rd st. then back down 5th ave.. Another day I walked from the upper west side through Central Park to The Met and then back through the park to the Museum of Natural History and then back into the Central Park to check out the mall. I don't remember the last time walked that much. Staying in Korea town was nice since the weather was hot and humid when I visited, I was able to walk over to Pinkberry to cool me down....except that the place didn't have A/C and it was crowded, so I ate it back at my hotel. I also had the chance to grub at Joe Shanghai's, good stuff! Thanks to a certain someone for taking the time to show me around

Riding on the subway in NY is not only convenient but they also have free pets! Anyone want a mouse?

Well, they can!! Here is the Wu's first dance.

Weddings

My trip to LA during the week of July fourth was great!! I was so ecstatic about the trip because it's been five years since I've been back to LA. Weather was so nice that I dreaded coming back to hot as hell weather in Chicago. I didn't have to drive and food was being treated by my family, how great is that! I was also able to help my cousin out with some of her wedding stuff. Which made many days with not much sleep at all but it was all worth it so my cousin would be less stressed and not so worried before her big day.

My cousins wedding was beautiful, the ceremony was held in the Japanese Garden at Cal State Univ. Long Beach and the reception was at the Long Beach Museum. It was a casual dressed wedding, so being outdoors all day and right by the ocean, made it all that much better. The food was good but not enough to fill me of course, so I was able to grab a few extra slices of steak from my mom and dad. Then I roamed to each family table to see if there were more! The best part of the wedding was my family getting down on the dance floor!! Mostly all the female cousins, my aunts, all my little cousins and my other male cousin and I. Like all wedding dances, the usual songs would come on. So does anyone else know how to do the Charlie Brown during the Cha Cha Slide? Because I feel like the only dork who knows it at these weddings I have attended.  

During my visit, I caught a movie out there, we saw Transformers on July 3 at 1am! My cousins husband and I wanted to see it really bad, so a a few of us went to watch it at the Metro in Costa Mesa. It was a very good movie but what caught my attention the most was the trailer for J.J Abrams new movie (http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/11808/). I'm sure everyone who watched Transformers knows what I'm talking about. Could it be Voltron? Godzilla again?

After running a few errands with my cousin and cousin in law (is that the proper name for my cousins husband?) we hit the pool that was located in their complex!
 
I was out there for two days for about a few hours. I don't think I tan easily because I'm still not that dark.

LA/OC is great but the traffic just sucks! I didn't even go anywhere close to the city because of it, just stayed out in the OC around Huntington Beach, Long Beach and Anaheim areas.   

Pictures!

In Downtown Long Beach, trying to catch the fireworks on July 4th from one of the hotels. Didn't get to see it very well since those banks in front was blocking most of it. That's the traffic after the firework show

Some final preparations before the wedding the following day.

The Japanese Garden where the Ceremony was held

The Long Beach Museum where the Reception was held

The little cousins who were part of the wedding. They were all over the place!

My cousin walking with her dad/You may kiss the bride

Mr and Mrs Wong

On the day of the wedding, I decided to charge my digital camera battery so it could last the entire day. But since everyone was rushing out the door to go for some dim sum, I rushed to grab everythnig but forgot to load the battery back into the camera. The hotel was in Anaheim, we had dim sum in Irvine and the wedding was in Long Beach. I didn't have time to head back to the hotel to pick it up because I had to help set up some stuff for the reception at the Museum. During the ceremony, I handed my brother my digital camera and told him to take pictures while I was taking the video. He came back to me and just showed me the empty place where the battery goes, that was disappointing.  I did have my video camera which was able to also take pictures but the mega pixels was not as high as my digital camera, so some of the pictures didn't turn out to great. Most of family had cameras but like a lot of people, it would probably stay in their cameras for a while and not seen until a few months later.

My cousin didn't hire a videographer because her friend said he'll be able to video tape (is it still "video tape" when most of the cameras don't use it anymore?) But since he was one of the groomsmen and was too busy, good thing I was another person with a video camera. She called me up and asked for the videos, so this past week I was able to create a video montage to send to my cousin. I wanted to upload it on to the web but the file was too big and even if I compressed it, it was still to long (being that the ceremony and reception montage is about 12 minutes long) I'll probably edited again and make it shorter so I can post it. Not unless someone has a suggestion to a host where I can upload a large 200+ MB file that is approximately 11-12 minutes long.

::EDIT:: Here is one of the two videos I made, I edited a bit so I was able to upload it. It's my first time creating a video, so it's not all that great yet. Also I didn't havea tripod so I was a bit shaky.

My cousin started singing this when we were craving it but didn't have the time to go there:

After my cousins wedding, I had to fly back to Chicago the next morning for a friends wedding. I didn't et much sleep since after my cousins wedding, I was up with my other cousins chatting it up and grubbing on some late night In N' Out at the hotel. With only a few hours of sleep, I had wake up at 5am to catch my flight at 6:30am. As I boarded the plane and sat there for a good 15 minutes. A voice booms over the intercom and it wasn't good news at all. My flight was delayed due to the maintenance people finding a nail in the tire?! It was an hour and a half wait for us so they can change the tire. By the time I got back home, it was already 3pm. I was thinking of a nap but I might end up over sleeping so I just unpacked and just got ready for my friends wedding.

It was quite a big wedding!! With thirteen bridesmaids and thirteen groomsmen, it's a whole wedding by itself! Being that it's another friends wedding, it also meant another lion dance for them. This time I was under the tail again, not the best role for a 6'1" Chinese guy to do. Not sure how long the show went for but near the end of the show, the lion became a camel because I couldn't bend over anymore. After it was all over, I couldn't stop sweating and the performance just added to my tiring day. The food came out and I was able to get a good share of extra food from my table, good thing for women eating very little! But to make the best out of the day, I joined everyone on the dance floor! Another fun wedding!

Pictures!

My bro, Mr and Mrs Wu and me.

Introductions! The Grand Ballroom at the Hilton in Chicago.

Father and Daughter dance

With my old group of friends

I didn't take too many pictures at the wedding, although I don't think I've really taken a lot of pictures in all the previous weddings either.

They had some nice favors! It included a $5 gift card to starbucks and a pick three lotto ticket with the numbers 7-7-7.

After we were done in the ballroom. There was an after party up in the suite.....it was a really sweet suite! I didn't check out the whole place but I'm assuming that it is double the size of my condo and then some!! By the time the night was over and my head hit the bed it was 3am. Which didn't leave much time for me to sleep again because I had to wake up at early for my softball games and then work in the evening. It may sound like a tiring few days but it was definitely fun! 

After getting fixed and unable to pick it up, it's been sitting at the dealership for a two weeks. But finally I was able to pick up my car that following Monday. Nice and new without even having to shell out any $$ for it. Although gas is still expensive....  

My good friends (the bald headed tall guy in the "old group of friends picture" above) and his wife are proud parents to their new child Chase this past Sunday! 7lbs 13oz. 19inches., he's going to be a tall kid!

It's been a while

I haven't posted in a while! A looong while...miss me?

Well, it's going to be another long while before I really put something meaningful on here. I'll be heading to LA for a week on Monday, I'll post after my trip...

as for right now......

-Sometimes there is not enough hours in day. Wish I was able to steal a few more hours during that rainy night.

-Back to back wedding! My cousins wedding is on Friday in LA and the next day will be my friends wedding in Chicago. It's going to be a hectic weekend but a fun one!!    

-Last Saturday, my golf game sucked and then my radiator got busted on my car as I was driving back. I guess some sort of debris hit it pretty hard as I travelled at superspeed (made it from Barrington to LaGrange in less than 20 mins) to make that kind of a hole on the radiator. Good thing I was near a friends restaurant when it started overheating. I added more coolant and tried to start the car, that's when I found out that the radiator was busted because it was spitting it all out! How it just so happens to hit that spot on the my car (yellow dot), it's like making a basket from the opposite end of the court!

That's not my car pictured, mine is black. I will not see my car until the second week of July...not because it's going to take that long to fix, it's because that is the only chance I'll get to pick it up! I miss it

-With my car troubles last Saturday, I missed out on the housewarming my friend had....I wanted to go really bad (reason for my wannbe race car driving last week) because I haven't seen a lot of my friends in a long time!!   

-I went on a cleaning spree, now my bathroom is immaculate, just how I like it....I tried to tackle my brother's bathroom...umm yeah..time to go to Target and get some heavy duty cleaning equipment!!

-Happy Fourth of July! Have a safe and eventful one!

-Don't know if it's a good or bad thing but after the basketball draft yesterday....he is going to be one character that might give the Bulls a different kind of personality. Making more news with his personality and style instead of just his ball playing, just like how Dennis Rodman was back in the days. 

this is his best picture!!

Where can I get a suit like that!!

Father/Mother/Sister: Guess Joakim's sister got all the looks and he got all the athleticism.