Black Monday

I felt a loss today. My friend, mentor, and colleague fell off over the weekend and died. Fred was a great architect, had been one for forty years. He was somebody who looked at and designed architecture with passion. His hotel downtown is of the most beautiful architecture I’ve ever known. His presence and spirit will always be with me and continue to inspire me through that. I am proud and honored to be the one of the last youngest designers to work with him for the last two years. Another character of him that will deeply influence me was his frankness to everyone around him. No words can ever describes the depth and value of the experiences together with him, so I just want to say, thank you.

Ned Flanders' Vegas

Hey, I am in Branson, Missouri right now for this year’s retreat. Quite an interesting place, feels like the Midwest version of Las Vegas. Here is some text from WIKIPEDIA about Branson: A quote from The Simpsons goes as far as Bart saying "My dad says it’s like Vegas — if it were run by Ned Flanders".

So, it’s the end of the first day and I am quite excited to be here although a little tired, haven’t gotten any real sleep since yesterday. Will keep posting soon.

The Amazing Ray

Finally today I got to see a doctor for my knee injury, a small step for mankind but a giant step for me. I have postponed it for almost a year since I buckled my knee and injured it for the first time. Since then, I abused it several times again because I just couldn't resist the temptation to play sports, especially soccer, the game of my life. Through it I learned so much about life and human experiences, first how one can thrife in it and now, since the knee incident, learn the limit of it. So by going to the doctor today I officially admit to myself that I am older now and in a new phase of life.

But what really brought that notion of being older to home was actually by looking at the x-ray images of my own knee. This is my first time looking at x-ray and the inside of my own body parts. Suddenly, a small and tender voice from Mr. Knee spoke to me "See, that is you and that is also me, can't you see how small and fragile I am, just a little thing in there that has to endure all your 'exciting' activities. See, yourself and myself are one, we are one, whatever you do to me will happen to you..." Seriously, that's a revelation to me. Sometime we forget that our body is fragile and made up of many little parts... there is a limit for how much it can endure. My friend, be nice to your own body, please.

Wish Me Luck

I will gone for a while, will be doing lots of stuffs, really exciting stuffs though: learning how to write a script, in the very early process of working my first indi film (ala Nuri Bilge Ceylan), rebuilding church website, actively recording, editing, and documenting events, helping my pastor strategize plans for next year, designing a 2 ha luxury apartments and hotel, doing a church retreat soon, and then a leadership conference in chicago, mom in la, east coast road trip… all before the end of 2007. Wish me luck.