Lord Don't Slow Me Down

Hello again, it is yet time again for my traditional "holidaze" entry. So yeah it is Christmas Eve (or to be technical Christmas Day) so I might as well talk about the latest happenings and ruminations on the year. So to start off, it has a been a pretty eventful past month for so. First things first, I went to Korea for a week at the beginning of the month. It was the first time I had been there is a long long time. So I don't really have strong memories of the last time I was there (other than I played the Air Wolf arcade game in my hotel lobby at my last visit). This time, it was actually more pleasant than my expectations. I was there for not-so fun family business involving wills and inheritance issues. Not to all who plan on being rich: Leave a will, spend it all. or donate it all to charity. Do not let the kids figure it out for themselves. It was rather cold (it snowed). Also I gained five pounds because I ate Korean food all the time. Not the same country that I remembered definitely. However, the completely insane driving was still crystal clear. The plane ride there was about 12 hours. Luckily there were in-seat movies, which meant I watched like 5 movies on the way there including Die Hard 4, Harry Potter 5, and Ratatouille, all of which I never found the time to watch them this past summer.

After I got back from Korea, I then went to leadership training for work. Yes I know, me and leadership. A scary thought. However, the morning on the training, I found that my driver's side window had been smashed and my car relived of my Oakley sunglasses and iPod. Yup, my car got broken into right outside my apartment in my car port. The sunglasses and iPod were out of sight but I left the iPod adapter in the cigarette lighter. Therefore, the thief must have been put two and two together. This year has not been kind to my car. Thanks to uncaught thiefs and hit and run bumper ruiners, my car has suffered almost 1400 dollars worth of damage. The funny thing is that I eitehr (a) slept through my car alarm or (b) my alarm didn't go off. Either outcome is not encouraging. I didn't think that I was that deep of a sleeper. Nor is a car alarm very helpful if it doesn't go off if someone smashes the window. In fact, I found it highly ironic that as I was cleaning up the many many pieces of glass from inside my car, I found the piece that had my "Car Alarm" sticker intact that is suppose to deter thieves.

In other news, it is the holidays again. This year has been particularly non-holiday ish because of the Korea trip, work, getting my car fixed, etc... Yeah, I just didn't feel any of the holiday spirit. As many people have pointed out before, the holidays just keep losing its festive feel as you get older. I don't what I can do to rekindle that spirit. It also didn't help there was a lack of holiday party invites for me this year :-( I did do my holiday shopping relatively hassle free as compared to some other years. One cool thing I did for the holidays was see Cirque Du Soleil. I saw Kooza in SF. I have to say that it was well worth it and definitely matches up to the hype. They had some really draw-dropping acts.

So I suppose I should speak a few thoughts on 2007. Supposedly this was the year I transitioned to normal work life and in many ways I did. I got promoted by the way so I must be doing something right. I traveled to a whole slew of places. Hung out with my friends, got a bike, went to boot camp, almost got into a serious car accident, but overall I have to say 2007 was far less eventful than 2006, as I suppose years should be. As some of you may remember (actually none of you), I made some resolutions last year. Let's see how I did.

1. Exercise: I did this - bootcamp for a year straight. Plus I started biking.

2. Eat Right/Cook More: Okay so this didn't happen with all the free food I get at work. It happened more than 2006 but not by much at all.

3. Volunteer: Well I volunteered once because of a work offsite but then I did do one volunteer activity on my own. I really should have done more but I fulfilled the basic requirements of this resolution.

4. Read More: Yes, I did read more thanks to my extensive traveling and having to kill times on planes and in airports. Unfortunately, that means I have been buying more books that I still have not found time to read.

5. Vacation: Yup, took a few days off to go to Vancouver this summer.

6: Dating: I went on dates with four (4), yes count'em four women. The outcomes, well that's a different story. But ah well, at least I went out.

So what are my resolutions for next year.... here is a few I have been thinking about.

I am holding over the dating and the volunteer resolutions from 2007 to 2008. Hopefully to improve upon them. The volunteer one should not be too hard but the dating one, well yeah that could prove to be tougher. But here a few new ones:

1. Keeping in touch: I have been noticing that I haven't been keeping in touch my old grad school classmates, old college friends, and other acquaintances as I should be. So I making it a resolution to send more emails, make more calls, go out more with some of my friends/classmates/aquaintances that I don't see as often.

2. Biking: My biking as dropped off because of winter but I could afford to be riding more often. So I am making a resolution to get on my bike more often and ride.

3. Financial Stuff: For the vast majority of all the jobs I have had in my life, I earned enough basically to pay the bills and rent. But now that I making enough to think about investing and saving, I should really spend more time understanding financial investment stuff. I am pretty sure I am missing out on earning something right now.

There are probably some more but I can't think of them of right now. So I might be adding some later. But I should finish up this entry. On a final note, some of you may notice that I name all my blog entries after Oasis songs. But I have pretty much exhausted all their songs for now so I will be reverting to some other naming scheme going forward. So be on the look out for actual description blog entry titles from now on. I hope everyone had an interesting 2007 and best wishes in 2008. Happy holidays, seasons greetings, and yes, even Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Until next time, peace on earth.