Today is a Good Day

We all have bad days and I think those tend to leave an impression or a mark on us. But some days are just good days and today is hand down one of them. Good days are days when the stars just align and everything I’ve been working on for some time just gets done and delivered.

Badminton Again

Last night Frank and I played some of the best badminton ever played since we teamed up. We have been struggling for quite some time but by watching how others play, we have began to improve the way we play and at the least know what we need to work on. Who says two guys around the 30 mark couldn’t improve their game?

Our first adjustment was to make other people move around more similar to what they do to us. Push them far in the corners and force them to make a defensive play. Our second adjustment was to be more offensive rather than defensive. By dropping or smashing we are on offense. If we can force the opponent to clear then we are back on offense again. We also stole a better front back rotation strategy from a couple of Smash City students. What we need to do is to trust each other to go where we are supposed to go. Rotation is everything. I personally need to work on my back court smashing, it is just lacking. All around we have improved enormously.

Wednesday was extremely fun as we played non stop 3.5 hours of badminton. We were thirsty, starving, hungry and on the way out until we had a reporter want to take photos of our badminton play. We played a friendly game with two folks and posed hard for the camera.

The final game was pinnacle as it was the workers at Smash City, the folks who won the 3rd place prize we were going after in the tournament. We battled hard and had some of the longest rallies ever and with a rare point on our side for the majority of it. We won game won and game two was extremely close. We kept battling back no matter what the odds and played extremely well. They pulled it out just barely in game 3 but we looked good for the camara.

We will be in the San Jose City College times which we will get a hardcopy of next week. I checked the website but pictures don’t look promising on this site. http://www.citycollegetimes.com/.

Couldn’t sleep last night till 3AM, wondering if it was the Gatorade. Checked with Frank and he also couldn’t sleep either. The lesson here is don’t drink pearl tea at 11PM at night.

Today was a good day!

Random Thoughts

I've been swamped at work, well both of them! So here are a few random thoughts for folks.

- Micro Managers suck and being one sucks even worse. Being a micro manager and not knowing it, sad.

- I am officially sick of American Idol. All good things must come to an end and sad to say reality TV is getting extremely old.

- Randy, not everything is pitchy come on now.

- Paula, we all love you but what are you on because we all want some of the positive juice!

- Scooters rock until they run out of juice.

- When a person signals to switch lanes, it isn't a sign for you to accelerate.

- Getting married is a great thing, it brings ones focus on the right things instead of straying.

- Outdoor Basketball is hard on the knees.

- Badminton is not a girl sport, the next person that says let's settle it on the court.

- Random is as random does!

Friday Tiki Party

We all have tough jobs a ton to do, but it's wonderful to find a place where you can truly work hard and play hard. We had our first Tiki party hosted in our office for the building this Friday. I bartended while the cafe made some excellent food! Absolutely a great time!

Sundance Film: Never Forever

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0817544/

This was the first movie that we saw at Sundance and I wanted to see this because of the Asian aspect of this movie. Korean director Gina Kim made sure that she casted Hollywood actress Vera Farmiga as Sophie, the wife to a successful Korean executive. You may remember Vera from movies such as Running Scared or the most recent Hong Kong Infernal Affairs remake The Departed as Matt's and Leonardo's girlfriend.

The couple seemingly had it all; money, a beautiful home, nice cars and a successful career. As we know no one ever has it all in this world. This was a story of an impotent husband and the self sacrificing wife that has typically did all that she could for him and others on her path to self discovery. Ironically this was a Caucasian woman trying to fit into the role of a Korean family as the loving wife.

The movie becomes all about her initial deed to save her husband becomes a renewal of life for her to live for herself and nobody else. This movie drew a-lot of parallels to Unfaithful with a more reasonable reason for going down the sinful path than just lusting for a younger French man with books in his room. The movie becomes about Sophie and enjoying all that life has to offer to her and her alone. The ending left you hanging and guessing as well. This movie was about a woman and her sexuality in contrast with her duty as a loving wife in a tough situation.

I noticed that females loved this movie and the men found the movie just average. We felt that they were a bit over the top with “the scenes” as I believe that the audience understood without repeating similar scenes over and over again. Sophie was absolutely beautiful and an excellent actress in her role in this movie.

Summary, I would suggest watching this movie as it was a different twist in a traditional plot. The Korean culture aspect was different and makes this movie worth watching.

Sundance Festival January 2007

This January Katie and I attended our first Sundance festival thanks to her awesome company! Utah is a very cold place in the winter and I was surprised that this year it was considered to be decent weather! For my Californian wimpy, non skiing, whining when its 50 degrees, this would be a tough place to live but a great place to visit! Sundance rocked because there was everything that makes me tick! Movies, partying, food and snowmobiling!

I have to say that snowmobiling was the highlight of the trip. We climbed 4000 ft to the peak of a mountain with splendid views of the valley. In addition we had 3 meadows of open space that we were able to tear up! The fastest speed I got with two people on was 55 miles per hour and alone I was able to hit the same max as the instructor, 65 miles per hour. Man to be with the open cold at that speed and mad acceleration was just pure raw fun.

In the middle of it all, Fox through a mad party with a ton of food, drink and dessert. The music was jumping and the party was live!

Watching movies at Sundance was insane. There were always at least 6 movies going on at different places at the same time so you’d really have to plan your day accordingly. Most folks can’t get tickets beforehand for every movie so a-lot of waitlisting and being spontaneous was required as well. The most movies we saw in one day was 4 and that was simply amazing. Look for my reviews on the movies that we saw!