spontaneous am i ...

so it's the memorial day weekend ... ahh ... most people are back visiting their families or hanging out with friends .. turned out most of my buddies were busy tonight ... that's fine ...
i got off work a little early today because i went in earlier (had a meeting at 7.00 am) ...
i went to the fitness room and worked out a little then i decided to drive to the beach and back .. haha how spontaneous was that? so yeah .. hop on my car and drove to seaside and cannon beach ... and back , then i watched some Monster,INC .. funny movie.

anyways ...
i am gonna keep my weekend spontaneous ...
anyways ...
oh
England vs USA in soccer tomorrow .. i'll try to watch that ...


~daniel
so if you are reading this blog .. pls give me a holla ..
kinda wanna know who is reading this anyways ...

Step back to reality ..

the quick trip to seattle was great!
i had a great weekend hanging out with the Johnsons and all the cool people at Seattle Pacific University ..
i've always like seattle, this time i got to visit Pike's Market , and the Northwest Cheese festival. We tasted a few (say 25) kinds of cheese .. that was cool.
i went and saw the 'The Interpreter' by nicole kidman and sean penn, it wasn't a bad movie, it was just not what i had expected it to be ... i also got a chance to watch some HK movies .. 'Internal Affairs' by Andy Lau was a good one, too bad i didn't have time to finish Jeremy's DVD collections that included '2046','New Police Story' and 'Internal Affairs 1,2,3' ... someday i'll somehow watch those movies ..
i've given a future A LOT of thoughts this weekend,
i'll probably spin up a poem for those thoughts later ..
well ..
stressful day at work ... (i am giving myself streesss...)
g'day!

~daniel

Breakaway...

i'm all packed up and ready to go,
weekend trip to the sleepless city will be my goal,
to get away from here and to get there and relax,
oh seattle here i come,
i love that neatly designed downtown of yours,
it's a place i'll love to visit,
i guess it's a get away from all my worries and dreams,
just to enjoy this moment of fun , joy and friendships,
ah, what a deserving break !

i'm moving on,
i've been stuck in this cycle of life for a while now,
i've decided to move on with my life,
another cup of coffee,
another bad dream to forget,
i am breaking away ....

~daniel

Seattle

going up to the sleepless city of Seattle again ...
and this time i am taking AMTRAK .. whoop!

Passion or Addiction ? Beliefs or Tales ?

so i've been reading this book called Blue like Jazz by Don Miller,
i've read it once and now i am re-reading it for my community groups,
Miller is a funny guy, he wrote mostly about his life and his journey with Christ,
from a quite different perspectives though ...
he posed the question of what do we really believe in?
i mean really what do we really believe in?
are we just believing in something cool that everyone else is doing?
like going to church, especially in the south, it's like a "requirement" of being cool right?
no wonder i came across this term called "Christian Jocks" in a book called Christian Culture Survival Guide ... kinda funny book ... but are we just doing this church thing because it's cool, or as one of my friend puts it, some people goes to church to make themselves feel good ... really? Do we really do that? i hope it's more than that, i hope when we seek God we feel good because of the joy that is set before us, but i don't think going to church seeking to feel good will work all the time because when convictions hit i don't think that feels good ... anyways ...
so what do i believe in?
Generic answer is always , i believe in Christ the mediator between man and God, i believe in God who created everything and is in controlled ... what else ? do i believe in love ? since God is love i better believe in love. how about patience ? fun ? do you believe in fun ? what about compassion, do you believe in compassion ? what about sports? do you believe in sports? what does the Houston Rockets ever done to me that i love them so much ...
i just saw the movie "Fever Pitch" with Andrea in Portland ...
one line really hit me though ... when Drew Barrymore asked Jimmy Fallon what did Red Sox ever done to him that he was willing to be a fanatic for the Red Sox nation ..
i don't know ... what does Aggie football ever done to us .. maybe it's entertainment or "aggie-hood" ... that makes us hate the Longhorns that much? ... i don't know .. just some thoughts that i had ...
then i was listening to a sermon by John Piper (http://www.desiringgod.org) ...
he talked about the book of Romans and book of James and what they all said about saved ONLY by faith, faith that is measured by love ... and how faith w/o works is dead ...
then i caught myself pondering again whether i truly love other people regardless of what they think of me ... it's been hard to love the people when they are so different from you ...
then what is love anyways ... it's abstract ...
what constitute love?
you tell me ...

those are my thoughts for the night ..
and yes here's my play list ...
some people has a lot of passion for nothing ...
that's really sad
some people has a lot of passion for something futile ...
that's even worse

R. Kelly - You saved me ( a great gospel song ... )
Kanye West - Jesus Walks ( i don't think Kanye really really really gets it, but he portraited the struggles vividly)
Eminem - Mocking Bird ( again, a song from a broken heart caused by broken life and circumstacnes ...)
Mat Kearny - Bullet ( "i'll take a bullet for you" , an unconventional rap song ... speaks more truth and life than the rest on the list ...)
KJ-52 - Rise Up ("you can't be the light of the world and ain't shinning ..") interesting song, more of a provoking song about living for Christ than anything else ..
Switchfoot - Love is the movement (love is the resolution ...) plain and simple , love is the resolution ...
Keane - Somewhere only we know (i'm getting old and i need something to rely on ...) a sweet song .. i love the piano /vocal part of this song ...
Gavin DeGraw - I don't wanna be - self-explainatory ...

those are the songs i like ...


~daniel

blue fusion

she's been gone for a while now,
you seems to be doing fine,
remember the first time when she said it's time to move on,
you were crying yourself to sleep,
yet blessings you can only give,
to her who you think is beautiful,
to him who you think is wonderful,
now it's been two years,
looking back it's still not easy,
you been through other relationships,
yet came out empty handed,
i guess it's still time to move on,
gotta forget what lies behind and just focus on what lies ahead,
it's still a new day to learn how to love,
the love that no one might ever understand,
the love that encompass hurt,
the love that heals a broken heart,
the love that is un-conditional,
ahh,
give yourself another cup of blue fusion,
forget about the sugar and the fuzz,
it's blue yet not really blue ...
let's hope it turns red sometime soon.

Rushing touchdown - no good.

last few days in college station was great ...
but i've been rushing thru time to get most of the stuff accomplish ... add that with jet-lag
and tired-ness and time change ... i've try and try and try to get most of my stuff done.
With that and my absent-minded personality and some laziness and ... i've managed my time badly, managed my stuff badly ... i left a few important stuff in texas .. 1st of all my phone charger .. great! now i gotta wisely conserve my cell-phone power .. i also left the gift my sister gave me there .. ah (i felt SO BAD) since i like the shirt that she bought it for me .. then i left the gift i asked my sis to buy for andrea in dallas .. hmm .. well .. that .. so i was pretty frustrated today .. and homesick too at the same time .. anyways ..
that's why i was mad at myself.
go figure.

so, i've again trying to learn the lesson of PATIENCE , CARE and SENSITIVITY ... meaning
be patient at the stuff i am trying to accomplish with the given time, while carefully accomplishing those task and be sensitive with the people's feelings and relationships around me.
hm. NOT EASY..i guess i gotta fixed that absent-minded attitude of mine,
or like my buddies used to said ... one day i'll lost my kid in the grocery store and will not realize it until my wife inquired me ... LOL .. that is NOT going to happen ... well ... not soon obviously ..

anyways.
~ daniel

Deep in the heart of Texas

oh what a plane ride back to Texas ...
this trip back to Texas started with the storm in Denver,CO that delayed the landing of my plane
from Portland at DIA ... so i was stucked on the plane for about 10 hrs before touching down in DFW ...
now i am back to aggieland .. :o)
ah .. all the good memories !

~ daniel

20 pt. 11.9

21 years of life,
finally i've crossed from teenage to adulthood,
i know there's no clear defined line for that,
because i can be old and yet immature,
one thing i wish for,
it's to capture the essence of life,
and live life to the fullest.
my pastor preached a great sermon today,
about the reconciliation of men and God,
about the presentation of the bride of Christ,
somehow it hit me hard,
we are reconciled,
we are not enstranged anymore!
in the dawn of another new "year",
to live a reconciliated life,
is what i longed and wished for.
3 more hours.
there are more reflections to come.

~daniel

one more picture ! 

Tulips (yellowish ...) 

WoodBurn's Tulip Festival  

Down to Salem

well,
another amazing saturday ...
i actually do love my weekends ... it's great to be out to check out other places around Portland.
Today, i went down to Salem with Krystal, a friend from texas who had just moved up to Portland too. Salem, the capital of Oregon, gave the feel of historical town with some trendy stores, so that was great. i had some HOT Bubble Tea, that was good especially it was cold outside (around 50s degrees ..) we also visited the river-front with one of those hand-made mary-go-round horses, very unique. Obviously we visited the capital building, it was closed today, but we get to see the outside of it , it's made outta marble, interesting huh. we ended up going to Woodburn to visit the Tulip festival, i love tulips! especially when there's a sea of them .. i shall post some pictures up
:o)

take care y'all.
going to a baseball game tomorrow .. that would be fun !

~ daniel

Rock Step , Step , Step , Five , Six ...

Rock step, step, step , Five, six ...
Rock step, step five , step six ...
those are the sequence of the steps of swing dancing,
i love dancing, honestly,
it kinda brings me outta my bubble,
helps me to interact with people,
and takes away the introverted side of us ...
of course i am not the greatest dancer of all,
5 moves are pretty much what i knew,
spin to the right, spin to the left, tummy pass, shoulder pass and the parfait ...
oh, i've finally learned how to tuck turn a partner .. that was fun ...
dance required a guy to lead and a lady to follow,
hard as it seems, it is pretty fun ...
so there goes something for swing dancing ... :-)

~daniel

Public Market in Seattle ... i found it ! 

coffee shop

i walked into that 24 hr coffee shop down by the street,
where people are chatting away,
drinking it away.
i walked into the bookstore looking for something good,
digging into the books like treasure,
yet never finding the one i want.
There's that one on politics,
another about the Presidents,
some about the faith and different walks of life.
i walked thru the busy hallways full of people,
talking about life or praying away,
i wanna a cup of coffee,
yet don't wanna sacrafice the night of sleep,
i walked away from the coffee shop,
gaining nothing except another experience,
another experience with people in different walks,
still they are drinking it away at the coffee shop.

Aint it Funny

Well,
welcome again to my saturday...
i stayed up late last nite watching movie (i watched "HERO") til late,
then i went to bed .. my cell phone alarm and alarm woke me up early around 8 am,
i signed up to go visit Silver Falls with the chinese bible study last week,
but then i didn't feel like going anymore .. well MLS season kicks off today, DC will play Chivas USA, good match right .. i was thinking... let's stay home and watch soccer ..or something like that .. unless my buddy Jack wanna to .. as soon as i thought about that .. Jack called and said he wanna go ... so .. .. .. i woke up and get outta the house and went to the church and met up with the group. I am so glad i went today, so glad that he called, because the soccer broadcast will get cancel because of the reporting of the passing of the Pope .. and i will be bored the rest of the day ..
i had a great time in Silver Falls and the Tulip festival, aint it funny that i thought it might be boring ... it was actually quite interesting .. i took a lot of pics, i'll post them up later ... then i got to meet the chinese director of my church and found out that she actually knew people from college station what a small world (she used to go to the GCM church in Columbus ..)..
and at night .. i was going to hang out with Robert and the gang , ended up the chinese director knew a kid who needs friends .. so i ended up bringing him to the party with me :o) .. that was really need hanging out with him .. and he fit in well with my friends in portland .. praise God ..
so .. now i am here typing this ...
aint it funny that i thought of getting out of the Silver Falls trip this morning,
and all my other plans might have fell thru ...
it would've been such a BORING and UN-PRODUCTIVE day ..
ahhh ..
when can we stop planning the day according to our own selfish desires ?
well ..
back to the MLS
Chivas USA lost to DC .. i watched the highlights on www.mlsnet.com
FC Dallas won .. which was good ...
ah.
spring forward tonite.
g'nite y'all.

Daniel

Chipotle in Seattle (outside of University of Washington) ... doesn't it look just like the one in College Station ? ---- and this concluded the trip ! 

Esther ! (she my sister by the way ...) 

Daniel and Chris ... ahh FINALLY we went to SEATTLE .... and that promise from Chris was REAL !