Thursday night was FA’s Professional Meeting with BP, one of the largest energy company in the world!  Though they did talk about BP in general, they came to specifically highlight their Trade team.  They mentioned tons of stuff, but I only clear thing I remember are the chicken tenders that they served before hand and afterwards.  Yum!  =)  Haha, but yea, at the end of the meeting, we did a mock stock trading competition between 10 teams of 7.  My team played way too wussy-ish.  I told them to buy all the first round after analyzing the data given but they only went in 50 percent.  /sigh   Then second round, I told them to buy the rest.   They only bought 20 shares out of 100.  /major sigh/  In the end, I told them to just buy everything and even go short 100–they only went short 20…  /super major double sigh/  We ended up getting 5th place, not even anywhere close to the top 3.

Anyway, it was DODGEBALL time!  I really wanted to play since they were doing teams of 6ish (meaning 12 total on court) in the very small racquetball courts.  When I heard they were having it there, the image of everyone having either a bloody nose, black eye, or giant bump on their head flooded my mind.  And…it kinda did end up that way–except with no bloody nose or black eye, but tons of bruises and icepacks on everyone.  =)

Face off!

Pegged right in the face!

I’m surprised no one took a shot at him while he was posing…

Saturday night was *deep breath* Baylor University’s Vietnamese Student Association’s Tet Trung Thu Banquet!  We’ll just say Baylor VSA T3 for short!  =)  So, before I get to the actual event, let me give you the low down on what happened before.

So I’m driving down that stretch of road that pasts through that small empty town and the ghost town right?  I am like 10 minutes away from Waco and a damn (excuse my language) state trooper was hiding behind a giant bush.  That was the sneakiest cop ever.  Most of the times, you can easily tell where they’re at way before you reach them (even though it might be too late).  This guy, I didn’t even see his car since he parked it way behind the trees.  I just saw him standing besides a huge tree with a radar gun when I past him up.  Then he started running back to his car.  Dude, if I had just sped up right there, he would have never caught up to me.  I drove for another mile or three before he even caught up.  Gawd…

So he comes up and says he clocked me at 91MPH!  WTH?!  I was NOT doing 91!  I’m being serious by the way.  I was going 83-84, 85 MAX!  (Yes, it’s still over the speed limit of 70, but that’s not the point…)  So that dude goes on to explain these crap to me saying, “You know most accidents happen when you’re speeding?”  Dude, don’t try to school me!!!  I just took a defensive driving course (for other stupid reasons) and I KNOW that most accidents happen during speeding, BUT it’s at NIGHT and with ALCOHOL!  So that stupid punk tried a red-herring argument (is that the right term?) on me!!!  So anyway, I get the freaking ticket.  Now, fast forward 2 days to today where I just realized that speeding tickets are fined depending on speed.  For speeding 11-20MPH over the limit, it’s around $200.  Now, if you speed 21+MPH, add another $100.  HOLD ON PUNNNKKKKK!  If I do my math correctly, my alleged 91MPH – the speed limit of 70MPH is… 21!!!  WTF!!!  And I KNOW… I KNOWWW I was not doing 91!  To make things even MORE worse, traffic condition goes into play also!  It was around 3PM Saturday and there was NO traffic on the road.  I was the ONLY car on the road and during the time I was pulled over, only 1 or 2 other cars passed by.  He put down on the report that it was MEDIUM TRAFFIC!  MEDIUM TRAFFIC MY ASSETS!  DAMN ________ TRYING SQEEZE EVERY PENNY THEY CAN GET!  I mean, I’ll take the dang ticket, just ticket me my CORRECT violation!  If only we could fight it (my gps constantly records my speed).

Okay, *deep breath again* SOOO on to the VSA Banquet.  Well… let’s just say someone made me forget about all that and so I had a great time!  Pictures can tell the story itself so ENJOY!

ONE!  Heheh =)

Right now it is 11:00AM and I am sitting on 8th floor of the M.D. Anderson Library overlooking Melcher Hall.  University of Houston has resumed classes, having only one official off day yesterday on Monday.  However, many of the professors have decided to cancel classes anyway, so I am basically just sitting here using my laptop for the first time since the storm hit.

My neighborhood is still powerless as of today.  It went out around 3:00AM Saturday during the storm.  Saturday night and Sunday was pretty hot.  No A/C kinda really sucks.  Sunday night, we had a cold front so that was pretty nice.  Besides the A/C being off, the only other electrical need would probably be for my fish tanks which are currently running on one battery powered pump shared between the 4 tanks.

As for damages, my house was a bit lucky.  The backyard is destroyed but compared to others’, I think we actually received the better half of the wrath.  The back fence (which is a 12 footer, not the normal 8ft ones) collapsed due to the back neighbor’s tree coming down and hitting our patio.  The roof is missing a couple tiles (not sure what they’re called) and therefore caused some water leaks on one side of the house.

Well, enough talk since you guys probably have your own experiences with the storm, so here are some pictures that I managed to take.

Some crazy looking baby animal in dug out hole next the the garden bricks.  That thing looks nasssty!  It has no fur and was just wiggling around.  We left it there, but the next day, it disappeared.  I know theres a squirrel nest in the tree, and the squirrel was rebuilding it, so this golum looking thing might be a squirrel…

The past Labor Day weekend, I decided to drive up to Austin to hang out with a bunch of my friends who were smart enough to jump on the bandwagon and get out of Houston.  I, having different priorities back then, rejected the acceptance and decided to stay near home instead.  Man…what a mistake!  But anywho, that’s a different story…

I wanted to head out Friday but we had a family friend from Indiana come down to visit.  After spending some time with them, I decided to tell my parents just minutes (literally) before I left Houston.  I would have told them sooner, but they disappeared to Galveston without telling me anything and came back right before I left.  After picking up Kat, we headed off towards Austin, only getting lost one time because I was distracted by our very amusing conversation!  =)  Luckily I realized it before going past two-three miles.  We managed to find the entrance to Blue Bell Ice Cream factory because of this!  I am definitely going back there one day to take pictures of the infamous cows!

We arrived in Austin only to find a bunch of people wearing red running in a freaking square around the entire campus, blocking off any entrances into UT!  D@&% IT!  At first they looked cool but after driving for a freakin 30 minutes trying to get through them, (should have just GTA it and hope the cops don’t come), I parked in some back alley and we walked to the drag to meet up with KGin and Youn and went to Potbelly for dinner.

Man, Potbelly’s A’Wreak was pretty darn good.  The guy making my order dropped it on the floor and so he remade it but also said if I could sing the first part of “Fresh Prince of Bellaire” theme song, he would give it to me for free.  Errr…yea… if I knew the words, I would so do it, but unfortunately I didn’t and stumbled at too many parts.  I got a free drink for trying!  =)  Joel showed up after awhile!

After we finished, Youn was still hungry so we went to WhichWich.  The sandwiches there did not look good; Youn’s facial expression after eating it confirmed the taste quality compared to PotBelly.  Out of the blue, Hau and Ashish walked in.  So yea, rest of the night we went out and just walked here and there.  Kat’s friends showed up later in the night when we went to the Union to play some pool and bowling.  KGin is amazing!  She is god compared to the rest of us.  =)  Yea, so that day ended at 4am.

The next day started at 9am.  I had to do my business work… owned.  The rest of them woke up after 12:00PM.  Duy arrived and I took a shower with Kenny watching me… what a sick nasty boy.  We went to Madam Mam’s and ordered a couple of hella spicy entrees (though very delicious)!  I wanted to stay back to go eat at Kyoto’s and go see the bat’s on congress bridge but needed to take Kat back so we left and went to San Antonio!

I met her supposedly hot model roommate and her other friends, one of whom was at Austin with us the other night.  Not surprisingly, her roommate was pretty pretty.  I wouldn’t say hot though cause that’s more of a…Jessica Alba type of description, but yea.  And, she was hella tall.  Man I was like a dwarf and she Snow White.  -_-  LoL!  But yea, we went out to explore Downtown SA, but didn’t really go walking around anywhere.  It was basically a drive out there, drive around while Jackie talked korean (she’s viet) on the phone, and then drive back (i ran over an animal on the highway…).

So yea, 10PM and I was still in SA.  I called JT to see if school was canceled, knowing that it was only a 0.5% chance it would be.  The news of school being on normal schedule made me sad and so I decided to drop by downtown SA again just to go walking around and taking some night shots.  heheheh.  Then i left around 11PM driving an average 90MPH trying to keep up with the truck in front of me (though couldn’t) and made it home around 2AM.  Three hours of sleep and then cold shower, and back to school for a straight 12hours…

What a break, what a break!

So Wednesday night, Hau instant messages me that her and a couple friends are planning to go to the beach…the very next day!  That is such like Hau to surprise people last minute with plan.  =)  But anyhoo, I wouldn’t miss it for the world (since I’ve already ditched the karaoke due to a stomach virus even though I brought up the dang idea in the first place).

The next morning, I had to wake up at 6:00AM to head out to work (I quit the first job already, this one is just helping out my cousin) so that way I could leave early and go to the beach.  At around 10:30AM, we met up at IHOP to grab some breakfast/lunch since most of the group either just came from class or just woke up.  Kim and Kai were there along with Ashish and Hau of course.  Hau’s cousin also came with us that day.  I forgot her name…  She’s uber quiet!  Lastly, Youn and Min!  Grace had class until 2:30PM and we couldn’t persuade her to skip for just one day. =(

After IHOP, which Youn managed to eat 3-4 plates (he’s a BEAST), we started off to Galveston.  Youn, Min, and I stopped by a gas station to get some ice while the rest went ahead.  Throughout the whole trip, my goal was to catch up to them.  It was only when we reached Galveston when I called them while we were at 49th street and they said they were at 39th!  So, I raced ahead and coincidently, an old man was walking across the street slowly!  I thought he would pick up the pace, but NOOO, he just kept on crawling along with the walking stick to where I had to come to a complete stop!

So, I managed to catch up right behind them when they were approaching the Sea Wall.  YES!  I met my goal; we caught up to them BEFORE they reached the beach!  =)

The whole day was pretty cool.  We wasted minutes trying to figure out how to make our umbrella shade thing not tip over.  Then I sprayed sunblock right into my face.  It stung.  Probably not as much as the jellyfish sting that Hau’s cousin got within seconds upon going into the water.  Luckily, I had my awesome Scion first-aid kit in the car!  It had some insect sting rub and it supposedly helped.  I still think peeing on her would’ve helped even more…

Enjoy some pictures!  More to come once Hau stops being lazy and uploads her pictures!

So I came home one day, took a shower, walked into my room, looked at my laptop, and found this message left on AIM:

kindalost (11:26:50 AM): You know what?
kindalost (11:27:34 AM): I still tell people that story where that guy used to run across the hallway during our history class, and that day that you jumped out of your chair with no prior warning and hunted him down.

Haha! This was three years back in ERob’s APUSH class. Basically what happened was everyday there would be this kid who would go running down the hall right when the tardy bell rings to get to his class. It would sound like an elephant stampede but we would never actually see the guy since he would zoom by and be gone within a second. So after a the 2nd week or so, I decided to take action…secretly. One day, after the tardy bell rang, and everyone was counting down (it became a daily beginning of class thing) until that guy would come by. Then we heard him coming. Right when he passed our door, I jumped out of my seat and took off after him. By the time I caught up to him, he was entering his class, which was on the other side of the school. I walked in, looked at his teacher who just allowed him to go sit down, tell her the AP’s wanted to talk to that kid and when he came out of the class, handcuffed him and dragged him back to my classroom to have ERob and the rest of the class punish and torture him!

…Okay, so maybe I exaggerated on the handcuff part, but I did managed to get him to come back with me to the class to get a 5 minute yelling from a very angry ERob! =)

Wow! Simply amazing! Just simply Freaking Awesomely AMAZING!

Scion Exposed 2007 was held this past weekend in Dallas at Six Flags Over Texas. You can definitely tell there was a lot of work and time put into making this happen. Thanks Scion for spoiling us so much!

Well, on to the story and many pictures. Proceed on if you really dare!

Friday, I washed my 2008 Scion tC to a glossy shine. Bought some safe-release 3M blue tape and had some fun. The before picture can be seen in the earlier post.

I woke up 2:30AM from a 30min nap. Jumped in the shower naked (pics available if you want) and woke myself up with a nice hot then cold shower. Packed some last minute items including 4 cans of Monster to keep myself awake, a pack of Andes Mint Candy, 2 cans of Pringles in Pizza flavor and Sweet and Sour, and tons of String Cheese! My mom decided to be the first person to sign my car. After that, off to pick up my road trip crew!

First stop was Crystal’s. Gave her a wake up call and in no time, she was up, packed, and ready to roll. Cruised over to Jonathan’s and waited a pretty long time for him to START packing! Haha…he of course brought along his D40x to take some amazing photos throughout the day. Headed over to Angela’s next. Had to make a pit stop at Walmart since my first can of monster had already made it through my system. Also had to pick up some more Sharpies for the “Scign the Scion” project. WooT! Filled up the gas and picked up my last crew, Linh! Couldn’t have asked for more better friends to enjoy this trip with. With me driving, and Jonathan, Linh, Crystal, and Angela all packed and ready to go, we made some last minute drawings on the tC, then headed off to Dallas at 4:45AM.

The ride there was not that bad. Took I-45 from Houston straight there with no traffic or construction to lag us down. Followed a Mazda 3 all the way from Houston to Dallas. Hopefully my HIDs didn’t blind him too much. Saw an amazing sunrise at around 6:15AM near Dallas. Woke Linh up by the bumps in the rode once there. We stopped into IHOP to get some rest and of course, the most important meal of the day, BREAKFAST! I ordered Migas! Jonathan didn’t order anything, but after we were done, that dude chugged down everyone’s pancakes in like 10secs. People changed out of their pajamas and we were off again!

Angela and Crystal, my two sexy models!

Got to Six Flags and saw the Scion Exposed 2007 posters everywhere! It made me all giddy inside! We followed the road as it winded through the front of the park, past a huge lake and reach a line of xB’s! Mannn! KIYAAAAA! There were some tC’s waiting there too! We got there pretty early (probably like the first 30 cars) so we waited for awhile and walked around.

My tC with my watchdog sitting on top to deter robbers

Once the line started rolling again, we got our free tickets into Six Flags Over Texas along with free vouchers for meals during the day! I pulled up and the told me to park right in the center! AWESOME! We all got out and first thing to do was go to the Ride & Drive area!

Ride & Drive was basically a little course where we can ride in a tC or the new xB and xD with a professional driver while they race around. It was pretty awesome. After 3 laps, we stepped out and got a red JADA tC! That’s cool! Free ride and free tC car!

Then we headed back to the 18-Wheeler and went to sign up to “Win a Scion”! They gave out free glow sticks, and other goodies. I took the key chain! Awesome! They had a Scavenger Hunt too where winners could get free racing pedals, wheels, accessories, etc… Man Scion is really going all out! I knew almost all of the answers too! Just got stuck on like 5 out of 25 and just decided to quit. Now that I think about it, I should have just went around asking people or calling people up to ask for the answers. Grrr!

We decided to go into Six Flags Over Texas, so before we headed out, I wrote on my car, “Sign Me!” and left a Sharpie on the hood. Off to Six Flags we GO!

There were sooo many people there! First ride was a sled cart-like ride. Jonathan decided to skip out on all the rides though. We went to Judge Roy Scream afterwards. It had a nice view over the lake. I gotta admit though, the slow rise up to the top was pretty scary. Building up potential energy in order to create massive kinetic energy on the way down… Physics! =) While waiting in line for that ride, one of the workers yelled out, “Who you guys rooting for?!” Everyone responded with, “COWBOYS!” I, totally forgetting that I was in Dallas, gave a loud sarcastic laugh. He asked again. Everyone yelled out “COWBOYSSS” again. Once more, I laugh. Only on the way home did I realize what I had done… -.- LOL!

Mr. Freeze was the next ride. It was just Angela, Linh, and I. I didn’t know exactly what the ride was so I decided to go on it. If I had known, I would have chickened out. Yes, I’m scared of heights… I saw Elizabeth Browning there. That ride was pretty scary. It basically launched you out of a tube straight up back down and 90degrees back into the air. Once to the top, it went exactly backwards into the tube again. My eyes were tearing afterwards. But MAN! It was pretty cool! I would never go on it again though…

Angela, Crystal, Linh, and I

Jonathan and Crystal

We went around to the different shops and saw a shop called the Glass Blower. heheh…blower…heheh That shop was nice though! They made glass animals and things. We saw the guy working on a rose and a dragon! The dragon was $100! Whoa…but man, if I had $100, I would’ve bought it!

Went to the arcade afterwards and beat Linh in some game that we have to push the other person… Yea… Afterwards, we came by the entrance again where there was a merry-go-round! Who could resist that?!

I’m in the back, Angela’s in forground, and Linh’s trying so hard to get on her horse…

Later, Crystal, Jonathan, and I went back out to the parking lot. WOW! A LOT of people signed my car! AWESOME!

Before we left Six Flags, I bought Linh a red rose from the Glass Blower shop. Had a pretty nice talk with her too. Brenda and Eddie came to pick up Crystal, and we left at around 7:00PM to head to Baylor University at Waco!

There was major construction on I-35 to where there was only 1 lane open! GAHHH! My sister cooked us dinner! We had salad and then rice with chicken! Stayed there for about 20 minutes and then headed home. We had a crazy run in with an SUV on the way back. That SUV was driving in front of me for a long time. Then, out of no where, he started flashing his brake lights. I thought he had a radar detector or something and was telling me a cop was coming up, so I slowed down to 5 above speed limit. That SUV slowed way down though to where he was all the way behind me. After 3-5 minutes though, he caught back up and was right behind me. He started flashing his high beams. Then he got REALLY close and was tailgating me, still flashing his high beams. Then, he just turn his high beams full on and kept at me. Man I got freaking scared. I sped up to 120MPH and he still was following RIGHT behind me. After 10secs (which is a pretty long time for going at 120MPH), I reached a group of cars. There were cars in front of an 18-wheeler. The space in front of that 18-wheeler was big enough for me to cut in and slow down enough to not hit the cars in front of him. I thought that if I did that, and since he was really close behind me, he wouldn’t react in time and wouldn’t have enough space to fit in. HE ACTUALLY TRIED TO GO IN WITH ME! Holy CRAP! Right when I saw his headlights point in my direction for the quick cut in, I down shifted to 4th (I had slowed down to around 80MPH), and went back to the left lane and sped all the way up to 130MPH. The SUV was braking harder as to not hit me so he didn’t accelerate back up in time to catch up with me. I looked in the mirror and saw him flashing his high beams from far away still trying to follow. I reached another 18-wheeler, went in front of him, and took the next exit. Right when I got on the ramp , I turned off all my lights and braked to a complete stop. Had to make sure no cars were coming behind me though or else I would be screwed. The SUV sped right by not seeing me exit. Whoa… Crazy…

When I got on 290, I saw another weird thing: a refrigerator in the middle of the road! It was actually half on the lane and the median. o.O?

Anyway, trip was awesome! This was my first car meet and it was well worth it. Scion, YOU GUYS ROCK! Can’t wait until next year! PICTURES WILL BE UP LATER TONIGHT! BE PREPARED FOR A CRAP LOAD OF STUFF THOUGH!

**Pictures can be found on the link to the right that leads to my Zooomr photo site**

DUDE! TOMORROW IS SCION EXPOSED 2007! HECK YEA BABY! It’s gonna be one freaking fun road trip! Linh, Angela, Crystal, and Jonathan are my crew! =) Everything is set and ready to go! I can’t wait! WOOOOO!

Plan is to leave at 3AM. By the time make my round to everyone’s houses, it should be about 4AM. Perfect time to beat the traffic and should get to Dallas around 8AM. That way, we can see the sun rise in the middle of the no where… which should look pretty pretty!

Once there, get some breakfast and head off the Six Flags Over Texas…for FREE! We’ll meet up with over 1000+ Scions from all over Texas. They’ll have the cool Scion 18-Wheeler and Ride & Drive which is basically a chance for you to sit in a supercharged tC with a professional racer and zoom around a crazy race track! WooT!

Once we have a fun there, it’s time to head into Six Flags! Supposedly they have some of the best (or craziest) roller coasters in the nation! Yea…I’m scared of heights… Anyway, it’s Fright Fest time at Six Flags so that should be cool!

By the time we’re done, it should be getting late. The free private Timbaland concert starts at 9PM at the Palladium…but that’s really late so maybe next time. We’ll either grab some dinner there or go to Waco to eat with my sister.

Man I’m excited!

In preparation for the trip, I decided to buy some blue tape. What did I do with it?

So I ran out of tape… I was gonna finish up the whole front (the bottom bumper is missing tape…) and the side fenders.

AHHHHH

SIX FLAGS!

DALLAS!

ROADTRIP!

Well today, I was at Barnes and Noble looking at the magazine section. Out of no where, I spotted something on the bottom of the shelf. It was the October issue of Seventeen Magazine. Take a look at the cover!

Happy Seventeenth Birthday Linh! Hope you had a great year and wish this year will be just as awesome…maybe even better! =) Click on the thumbnail to see full size!

By the way…that’s seventeen punches! You better watch out!

If I remember correctly… which I’m pretty sure I do… today is Lynh’s birthday!  Sooo Happy Birthday Yo!