I figured I’d advertise me and Andrew’s new interest in video making. Here are the links to four videos we made in order of completion.

The DNA Race
Lawrence Hall of Science
The race between Me and Stephanie

Andrew’s :    http://www.angelfire.com/ak5/tiberiussongs/DNA_Race.wmv

Raymond’s :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n19CP2aR7mk

Kites
Berkeley Marina
Flying Kites on a Windy Day 

Raymond’s :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByQr-wDNdZs

Andrew’s :    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqjJXOUyoPo

Well, I guess before I head off back to Cal, I’ll make one of those long ass narrative xanga entries… haha… where to start… well my first semester at Berkeley was pretty stressful and tough. Here are my final grades:

That gives me a 3.3 gpa . A pretty good gpa for transferring into the engineering department. Applications for transfers are due February 15 and I won’t officially know if I got in until the end of spring semester. I was surprised about getting an A in engineering. The curve must have dropped tremendously. I was close to a B- in Chem… Anyways… here are my next semester classes.

Yea, I know it’s 18 units… I’ll try to manage… Currently my schedule is pretty bad starting at 9am, 8am, 9am, 8am, 9am, on mon, tues, wed, thurs, fri, respectively . I’m trying to lift those 8am classes to 11am by changing Physics Lectures. Meaning I’m going to be attending like two physics classes until I get into the other one for the first two weeks. I’m waitlisted for Geography. Hope I get in. And I’m going to take R1A, the reading and comprehension requirement over the summer at Cal since I discovered I can’t take it elsewhere for engineering. Geez… I wonder when school will get easier…  haha… hopefully when I get all them hard General Education courses out of the way like math, chem, physics… Need 8 semester combined of those subjects . Two down, six to go. Anyways… enough about school…

Yea, my photo gallery was entirely decimated by the termination of my geocities account. Apparently redirecting the home page, geocities.com/smartray05, is a violation of their policies and they undisputedly terminated my account. For those who never noticed, geocities was the headquarters redirecting to every page. So my ENTIRE photo gallery is down except for the home page. But this has given me the opportunity to improve it, make it prettier, provide more features, and make it more accessible . So over this break, I updated my photo gallery… well kinda… as much as I had time for.

Year 2003 is now available in my Photo Gallery!

·Thumbnail images previewing each event next to each event link!

·New thumbnail image upon refresh!

·Scrolls through FIVE different pictures upon click!

·Thumbnail image enlarges upon click! (only in Internet Explorer)

·New month bar to help you find the month you want instantly!

·The event of the month clicked highlights! (only in Internet Explorer)

·New flash image collage!

·Click on the 2003 for an explosion!

·Hover mouse over banner for a surprise!

·Hover mouse over the each year for a list of significant events!

·New music upon refresh!

·Music selector and shuffler at the bottom of the page!

Ok, enough with the new features… There is only ONE NEW PAGE!! 2003 Miscellaneous… haha…  check it out, some old pictures… back in the day… in Pinole…Well, stay tuned for updates in the coming months*cough* summer months *cough*in my Photo Gallery at:

www.ray05.com

Ok… hmm.. wut else… oh yea… my annual Black Friday(Day after Thanksgiving sales) tradition. Yea… this year I decided, BUY ONLY WHAT YOU NEED! Haha… I have a million blank disc medias ranging from DVD+Rs, DVD-Rs, DVD+RWs, CD-Rs, CD-RWs. So I didn’t buy any of those… Here’s my annual tradition of posting my savings… which aren’t as significant this year because of my new restriction…

Probably the most useful things out of all of these are those hard drive enclosures. The 2.5” hard drive enclosure is totally cool. I have a 10 gigabyte laptop hard drive in it and doesn’t require external power supply. So it’s basically like a pocket sized 10 gig flash drive which can be upgraded to like 100 gigs! Pretty cool. And the monitor was just cool… didn’t really need it… haha... I didn’t get the cheapest 19” LCD monitor because I wanted a quality display and this one was the best for it’s value. Anyways… later on I got a Logitech LX300 Wireless Desktop $2.00 after a $40.00 rebate down from $42.00 . Shipping and tax boosted it to a $10.95. Yea… ok enough with my holiday spendings…

Here’s a chronology of events picking up from my last entry…

October 10, 2005 – Well, me, Justin, and another guy did a case study of good urban places at Octavia Blvd in our Architecture class. Octavia Blvd is the Central Freeway replacement. It’s the fastest route from the east bay to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, Ocean Beach, and Sunset/Richmond districts. It’s currently opened. I prefer the freeway… haha… I made a power point presentation about it. Kinda over did it… haha…

October 13, 2005 – The Great Spoonbill Migration! It was an architecture thing where you build a life size model bird with some meaning… fun project… I built mine out of particle wood, it weighed like 15 pounds… haha…

November 5, 2005 – Hannah’s Birthday! We went to PF Chang’s to celebrate! Yum…  hadn’t had good food in a while… haha… Then took a stroll around Bay Street Mall… and Apple Store of corse… Happy Brithday!

November 19, 2005 – San Francisco Scavenger Hunt. Me, Steph, and Ari went on a Unit Two scavenger hunt in San Francisco. We paid $0.00 for transportation!First we took the free (for us) AC transit F line to the SF transbay terminal. Then walked 2.1 miles to the Pier 39 Sea Lions where the hunt called for a picture. Then we walked 1 mile to Ghiradelli Square to get a picture of somebody eating the earthquake sundae which we did not get. Then we walked 0.5 miles to the cookedest street in the world at Lombard Street to take a picture of us doing a cartwheel on the road. Then walked 0.8 miles back to Fishermen’s Wharf to get a picture of us drinking clam chowder out of a straw. Then walked 1.1 miles back to south to take picture of the TransAmerica Tower. Then walked 0.7 miles to Union Squareto a take a picture of the view from the Cheesecake Factory at the top of Macy’s. Then walked 0.4 miles to the Metrion to watch Harry Potter The Goblet of Fire in the Lowe’s IMAX Theatre… for nearly 20 bucks. Then 0.7 miles back to the transbay terminal where we took the F back to Berkeley. What a day! We walked a total of7.3 miles ! All walking and free transportation. Avoided BART and Muni… haha…

November 24, 2005 – The day before thanksgiving me, Ari, and Steph met up with UCSD people, Yash, John, Josiah, and along with Brian, Stan, Christian, and Wesley and got drunk at Brian’s House…  yea… That was after eating pho at Pho Saigon at Pacific East Mall.

December 8, 2005 – My Engineering semester project. My engineering project was to launch a hersey’s kiss with specific specifications and catch it with one trigger and mostly limited paper products. It was tough, but my group was ranked 4^th out of 31 groups for style and creativity . Ours shot the highest by far! We had 5 minutes to shoot it 3 times successfully. And with two bounce outs, we had to use all of our time.

December 13, 2005 – 8am was my Math1A final. I think I did well on that. Then 5am was my Chem1A final. I got 50% on it, I did bad. Still passed the class…

December 14, 2005 – 8am was my Engineering 28 final. My last final. I think I did really well on that. Probably helped me get my A. Then Christina came over right after me and Andrew were done with all our finals. Played some mulitplayer SWAT.

December 15, 2005 – I moved back home.

December 20, 2005 – We watched King Kong at Century Theatres. Good movie, but very long. Then we went to hang out at Angela’s House. Watched another movie, played some games, met up with people. Later that night me, ari, and yash went to Christina's house where we stayed the whole night and me and yash played texas holdem one on one with hershey's kisses.

December 24, 2005 – I went to Reno with my parents and brother. Won more stuffed animals at Circus Circus and saw some shows.

December 25, 2005 – Christmas! Made a snow man at Boreal… haha… Ate and Chevy’s…

December 31, 2005 – I had a New Years Party. I originally intended a small get together with just group B, me, Christina, Andrew, Ari, and Yash, (Steph at Irvine) but that kinda escalated… haha… Yash brought along John and Josiah. And Katherine, who btw co-planned this, brought along Esther and Elaine who brought along John, her bro. And while everybody was at it, I brought along Aaron and Ogy… haha… So my parents made eggrolls. And we had a lot of food courtesy of Katherine. We played a lot of Marvin Spectrum, hahaha. We played Taboo, our favorite party game. And Scatagories brought upon by Ari. At new years, we had confetti poppers and blower thingies and six bottles of apple cider. 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

January 1, 2006 – HAPPY NEW YEARS! 2006! Woo hoo!  Yay! We then had a eight person Mario Kart Double Dash Tournament with even a consolation bracket. Haha… some how I beat everybody and won… YAY!! Hey… hey… hey… where’s my prize?  Haha… Well, it was getting late by 3 and my parents were trying to sleep, so yea… Ogy and Yash stayed the whole night playing Marvin Spectrum and Jippii Pool. Hahaha… fun!

January 3, 2006 – Yash, Ari, and Christina came over to my house and we played online games on my computers. I got 145 on the high score mode in Marvin Spectrum  and concluded it is unbeatable and retired the game . Haha… sorry yash… hehe… We played scatagories, but I don’t remember what else we did , I kno we ate somewhere… but Steph and Christian came over from Davis right as Ari and Yash left.

January 4, 2006 – Christina, Steph, and Christian stayed over till 3am. We just talked the whole time. In the morning at 9:15am, I had my Wisdom Teeth taken out. They were all already out of the gum fully so the extraction was really fast and painless. No stitches, no vicodin, just two walgreens brand pain killers… haha… I had it easy… I was eating solids immediately the next day.

January 6, 2006 – Well, Andrew had the van, so me, Andrew, Christina, and Steph took a stroll around Tilden Park. Walked around the Botanical Gardens, Lawrence Hall of Science, Berkeley Pier, and picked up some Gelatto. We ate at California Pizza Kitchen at Bay Street Mall. Yum… Fettucine with Shrimp and sautéed mushrooms. mmMMmmm  Then we went to Katherine’s house where she planned a scavenger hunt. It was hard, and it was like a bunch of riddles , to solve a number, where we traversed a half square mile area. We beat orderly five… hehe…

January 7, 2006 - Me and Ari stayed at Katherine’s house till 3am playing with candles and toothpicks and left so the girls can have there lil slumber party. Later that day at 2:00pm, Andrew had the van again. So we went to San Francisco, with Yash this time, to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum. Everything there was soo fake looking . It was cool though. Yash needed to be back by dinner so we came back after we left the museum. We ate at Home Town Buffet. Yum yum…  steak! Then we picked up Ari, and played Monopoly and Scatagories at Steph’s House.

January 9, 2005 – Andrew took me and Steph down to Berkeley to get a head start on buying our books. It was a lot easier than last year. A lot more used books available. I spent $278.67 on books. Ugh… cheaper than last semester. Last semester Chem1A by itself was like $250 . I tried to sell back my engineering book, but they got a new edition so it’s worthless. After buying books, we ate at Top Dog after finding that Crossroads has not opened yet. To work off those fatty dogs, we took a hike up to the Big C. Nice view… And took an alternative way down. We headed back to Pinole, played on the swings at Fernandez Park a lil and took a night stroll on the coast of Pinole at the Bayshore Park. We crushed some coins on the Railroad tracks. Haha…  while I was running towards the railroad tracks to set the coins before the train passed, a dog chased me and was like tackling me . It was small… but viscous… haha… yea, but I crushed some coins… cool… hehe…

January 12, 2005 – I drove Andrew, Steph, and Ari to Berkeley to ice skate at Iceland, but it was only 2 hours for ten dollars… so we didn’t. Instead, we headed over to Pacific East Mall to eat at the relatively new Macau Café, the same company, Culinary Wonderland Inc., as Asian Pearl. Yummy. Afterwards, we went to Cesar Chavez State Park to find some kite flyers, which we didn’t. Tried to set adrift a big telephone pole, but failed. Took Andrew back by a lil passed 4 and we hung out at Cheese Park and Valley View as we waited for him to complete his errands. After picking him up, we ate at In n’ Out and went to Fernandez Park. Played on the swings yet again, apparently I swong horizontal to the top support pole. Haha… cool… And we went back to the Bayshore Park to crush more coins on the tracks… lol… at night once again. We stayed out looking at the night sky for some time. Afterwards, we went back to Steph’s House, ate some spring rolls, and watched some Google Video videos.

Phew… that was looooong… anyways, enough fun, I’m moving back to Cal tomorrow, gotta start crackin’ those books . I’m hoping for an eventful semester . Well, I’ll update in a few months… haha as usual…

          Well, I haven’t updated my Xanga in ages… so I guess I oughta… well… it’s the end of the 9^th week here at UC Berkeley… more or less half way through the semester. In these 9 weeks, I’ve actually only went home twice with the latest one just last week. mmm… yea… it’s tough at Cal… the playing field is leveled. Still trying to transfer to Civil Engineering so I have to take both Architecture classes and Engineering classes concurrently… taking 17 units this semester… started off in Physics 7A and Math 1B but dropped those and entered Chem 1A and Math 1A. Chem 1A is really really hard, especially since I joined two weeks late. Already had two midterms. Every Thursday, the day before Friday’s hw is due, me, Andrew, and occasionally Hannah, have a chem night. We work together… well… more Andrew teaches me… thanks a bunch! And we reward ourselves later with a boba run to Quickly in the middle of the night. Math 1A, well, gotta take Calc AB again. I passed the AP exam but Holmes didn’t teach me enough for me to feel confident in the next level calc. Engineering 28 [E28], learned AutoCAD, starting Solid Works. It’s cool… a lot of time consuming homework… hard curved midterms… 94% A and 85% B with only 11 getting A’s. I gotta B-. Environmental Design 1 [ED1], my architecture class, it’s a lot of fun, but takes a lot of time. Built several model houses, gardens, a scale black faced spoonbill (bird) lawn ornament, a detailed abstract room, and case study on Octavia Blvd. Spent a number of sleepless nights working on these projects. Earth and Planetary Science 39A [EPS39A] was a seminar me and Ari took. We went on a four day camping trip in northern California to study the rock formations along the San Andreas Fault. And Civil Engineering 92 [CE92] is another seminar like class… intro to civil engineering concentrations… interesting for the most part… yea… tha’s the gist of my classes…

Despite the stressful nights and overwhelming homework, Cal is really a nice place though, very diverse... for the most part… hehe... The football games are fun... few weeks ago, Andrew drove me, Ari, Wesley, and Christina's mom down to UCLA to watch the UCLA game and see Christina. Unfortunately, UCLA beat Cal in the last few minutes breaking our undefeated record for the season... boo… we’ve lost once more immediately after that… but UCLA seems to be doing exceptionally well with a 8-0 record… well all I care about now is the Stanford game… have to win! Failure is not an option! Living in the urban environment of Berkeley is cool too. Always something going on and food joints are open late. A lot of homeless people here tho… It’s a major change from suburbia where I’ve lived all my life.

          I still see a lot of Pinoleans on campus… I see Poojitha the most of my classes in Math Lecture, Math Discussion, and Chem Lecture. I see Wesley and Andrew in Engineering, who lives in Unit 2 btw. I see Justin in my Architecture classes who lives two stories above me. And I see Puneet in my Chem 1A laboratory who commutes. And I also see Andrew in my CE92 class and Ari in my EPS 39A class. Let’s see, Poojitha, Livier, Priscilla, and Puneet commutes. Wes, Steph, Hannah, Andrew, Ari lives in Unit Two, Me, Justin, and Esther lives in Unit One and Kristin lives in Unit Three. Yea… a lot of us here… Also see George and Kim in the architecture building often (03). And I’ve seen Claire, Jessica Chow, the Adlers, and some more previous Pinoleans graduates. Also saw old friends like Steven Hung of PMS, and MichaelJ. of Seaview Elementary in Engineering… And a hand full of Herculeans… small world… hehe…

Haven’t updated my xanga since I got my new laptop… It’s a Centrino Pentium M 1.6Ghz(equivalent to like p4 2.6Ghz) @ 400 MHz FSB. It has a DVD burner CD Burner, 60 Gigabyte Hard drive, One Gig of PC2700 333Mhz SODIMM RAM, and an economy Radeon 9000 which runs games fine. It was $1500. But I got it $750 off on a Dell deal. So I only paid $750, 50% less. I bring it everywhere I go. Take notes, play games, and recently present a powerpoint presentation. It actually came with 512 MB of RAM but found this really good deal for another stick of 512 SODIMM for $35 which is normally $100. Like the only piece of hardware you can really upgrade in a laptop… But I really want a tablet laptop… too expensive and weak processing power… maybe in a few years…

Well, here’s a chronology of events since the last Xanga entry…

August 13, 2005 – Dario’s Party – pictures are up in my photo gallery at www.ray05.com

August 16, 2005 – Ocean Beach Bonfire – Group B + Orderly 5 gathers for rituals around a fire before we embark upon different paths. Photopage coming eventually…

August 17, 2005 – Andrew’s Birthday – Went down to Half Moon Bay for Horseback Riding. Photopage coming eventually…

August 19, 2005 – Group B San Francisco Trip – The third day trip to The City. Always fun and exciting… Photopage coming eventually…

August 21, 2005 - August 28, 2005 – CAL Welcome Week – The start of college… meet tons of new people, attends lots of events, familiarize with the large campus. Photopage coming eventually…

September 3, 2005 – First Football Game – Exciting huge stadium. 65,000 attendance, sac state versus Cal, we won… Photopage coming eventually…

September 5, 2005 – Sacramento State Fair – Fun… Photopage coming eventually…

September 10, 2005 – Christina’s Birthday Party – yum… good food… happy birthday Photopage coming eventually…

September 22, 2005 - September 25, 2005 – EPS39A Camping Trip – The trip that me and Ari went on. Photopage coming eventually…

October 8, 2005 - October 9, 2005 – UCLA away game – Visited Christina down at UCLA in addition to watching a very disappointing defeat of Cal by UCLA. No Pictures Available

          Since then, I haven’t taken too many pictures… just rigorous work… haven’t hung out much beyond eating dinner together with our new busy lives. I just called Ogy. Apparently, Nikki had another one of her annual Halloween Parties. Nikki, Angela, Spencer, who comes back every weekend from Davis btw, were there, in addition to Ogy and Jonathan. I woulda liked to met up with them… But since I’ve been so off the radar for soo long to them… yea… but it was nice talking to them again. Talk about good timing on calling. I was mentally sending assaulting vibes towards Jonathan. Hehe… But they all seem to be doing well.

I probably will not update my Photo Gallery until Christmas Vacation. I also bought a domain name for it. It was only 3 bucks a year for 5 years. You can now find my Photo Gallery at:

www.ray05.com

          Yea… check it out if yah want. It has a new home page and I’m planning to make equally flashy web pages for the respective years, 2003, 2004, and 2005 over winter break. Until then, I’m up for suggestions, inspirations, and motivations… Web design… just a hobby… dunno how much longer I will be pursuing in this dead end direction. Maybe I should get web design certification so I can have a document to prove my capabilities. Better yet, I want an A+ certification to get deemed an official computer geek. I’m pretty sure I can the hardware section, but the operating system part gonna require some studying. Well… computers is not the industry to get into right now. I just hope to get in to Civil Engineering. It’s going to be tough, but I’m prepared for possible extreme disappointment. I would like to work for Caltrans one day as a structural and transportation engineer. That is my goal.

          Well, I’ve already wasted enough time on this entry… actually… since it’s day lights savings just now, the last hour was erased… So this was a quick entry… haha… anyways… I write in here for personal reference in the distant future… not with the intention of anybody actually reading the entire thing. Just for yall to know… imma probably look back at these entries one day and laugh immensely. Well… so long…

Ahhh!  Move-In Day for Berkeleyans is in just two weeks and two days! Man, summer is moving by fast!! Well, to start off conventionally like the other entries, here’s an update on my photo gallery. My Photo Gallery currently boosts over 2200 pictures in over 100 pages! Since my last entry I have added 9 new photo pages! Here is a chart of the 9 latest updates:

The entire information list can be found at the Photo Gallery System Map. A new shorter easier to remember web address (URL) for my photo gallery is “geocities.com/smartray05”I’ve also added a new page query box on the bottom of each page for added convenience. Haha... it looks like a bingo chart. In addition, I’ve added a comment box in the home page so you can report anything wrong, provide feedback, or just comment. Yea, check it out… And while your add it, check out my Music Center if you’re interested. Been adding a bunch of new songs…Well, let’s see…

July 15^th 2005 – Well, we went to Century Theatres to watch “Wedding Crashers”. Tha was a hilarious movie!  And followed by “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. Another very good movie!  And afterwards, we ate at Me n’ Ed’s before we headed to Barnes and Nobleto attend the midnight release of JK Rowling’s 6^th installment in the Harry Potter series. Oh joy!  Like I read books anyways… haha… and I must thank Ari’s dad for jump starting my car because I left the headlights on in my car… hehe…  oops… Photopg98.html

July 17^th 2005 –Happy Birthday Ari! We went over to his house at like 10:00pm to say happy birthday and stayed over a lil…

July 23^rd 2005 – Well, back to Century Theatres to watch “Batman Begins”. An excellent movie and depiction of Bruise Wayne’s journey in becoming Batman! Then we ate at Applebee’s afterwards…

July 24^th 2005 – The Orderly Five (Kat, Hannah, Elaine, Esther, Elaine) held a Garage Sale at Elaine’s House. It wasn’t two successful, with no newspaper advertisement nor many directional signs, the sale was a flop. It became more of a picnic on Elaine’s driveway…  hehe… We watched Drumline on Hannah’s laptop. Speaking of laptops, both me and Elaine took advantage of the $750 off deal on dell laptops this day.  I purchased a Dell Inspiron 600m with an Intel Centrino Pentium M Processor 1.6 gigahertz with 400MHz FSB, 1 Dimm of 512 MB DDR memory at 266MHz expandable to 1 GB, 60 GB Hard Drive, 8x CD and DVD burner combo, and wireless internet capabilities for $1511 minus $750 with the coupon, coming out to $761!  Yay! I love a good deal!  Photopg99.html

July 25^th 2005 –The last Badmintonday of the season at CCC!  *Sobs*  This maybe the last time I ever go, or even pick up a badminton racquet… times change… off to college… I had a lot of fun and made the most of it the entire summer!

July 27^th 2005 –In celebration of Ari’s belated birthday, he took us out to an A’s game. It was the A’s versus the Indians and the A’s narrowly won in the tenth inning… Better yet, it was Root Bear Float Day at McAfee Stadium!  Minor celebrities and renown people were serving root bear floats! Channel 2 and 4 news casters were there. After the game, we headed back to Ari’s house to eat dinner and do cake and stuff…Photopg100.html

July 28^th 2005 –ROAD TRIP 2005 DAY ONE! Woot woot! Yeaaa! Off we go. Group B minus Andrew (Me, Steph, Christina, Yash, and Ari) headed down south in Christina’s car to visit Magic Mountain and Disneyland!  It was for Ari because he wasn’t able to go to the Show Choir Trip due to illness… Well, we left around 12:00 noon, took two stops, and arrived at Castaic, a city a few miles north of Magic Mountain, at around 7:00 pm. We checked into our Days Inn, ate at Burger King, and took a dip in the pool. It was extremely hot down there with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees!  We slept at like 3:00am after watching American Wedding on TV. Photopg101.html

July 29^th 2005 –ROAD TRIP 2005 DAY TWO! Off to Magic Mountain! Yay! We first rode, Viper, the world’s largest looping roller coaster! Then we headed to ride the most popular ride in the park, X, the world’s first 4^th dimensional thrill! What a ride!  After waiting two hours in line, half hour more due to a breakdown, we finally got on it. It was amazing! Since the seats were mobile, it can basically do anything including a fall head first on your back! Great ride! Totally worth the wait! Next we cooled down on Arrowhead Splashdown, with a 57 foot plunge! It was extremely hot, and the water ride did little to help… Next we rode Ninja, the west coast’s fastest suspended roller coaster! The short line was a relief from long lines we’ve been experiencing so far… Then contrary to our belief that it was closed, we rode Superman, the tallest, fastest thrill ride on the planet! It wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it would be… but it’s like soo loud! Can be heard from many parts of the park! Seeking air conditioning, we watched Hot Ice, an ice skating show in an air conditioned theatre. After eating at a food court, we saw Batman Begins Stunt Show, a show summarizing the movie. It was cheesy if you saw the movie but incomprehensible if you didn’t see the movie…  haha… but the explosions were cool…  Then we rode Riddler’s Revenge, the world’s tallest and fastest stand-up roller coaster! That was like an hour and a half wait with a minor technical difficulty in the middle. Third breakdown this day on X, Superman, and Riddler’s Revenge ! Gah… so much wasted time ! Then we stood in an hour line for Goliath, the tallest roller coaster in Magic Mountain! What a drop going at 85 mph into a tunnel! Having only rode half the roller coasters, it closing time… At 10:30, Christina drove us down to Irvine to lodge at Steph’s Brother’s (Keith) House. Got there around 12 midnight. Photopg102.html

July 30^th 2005 –ROAD TRIP 2005 DAY THREE! Off to Disneyland! After Keith and his girlfriend, Linda, took us out to eat at Denny’s we headed off to Disneyland for the 50^th celebration! We got there at 12 noon but still had time to ride almost everything we wanted to. Space Mountain is back! Yay! Tha was the first ride we rode! It was a lengthy line but it was a great ride! Not gonna go into much detail because we rode the same thing as we did at Show Choir with the exception of kiddie Fantasyland rides and Splash Mountain. The 50^th Anniversary Fireworks display, “Dreams Come True” was spectacular!  It was like 20 minutes long fully complimented with music summarizing the major rides with fireworks! It’s a must see! Then we saw fantasmic again, it had a minor change in it… We left at 12:30am and headed to my Uncle’s house to spend the night.Photopg103.html

July 31^st 2005 –ROAD TRIP 2005 DAY FOUR! Last day of our adventures. After two exhausting days in two major amusement parks, we slept in and went to Santa Monica to relax. We met up with Ari’s Brother and his girlfriend for lunch. Afterwards, we headed a mile south to Venice beach to relax in the sand and play in the large waves. Tha was fun!  A change of pace in comparison to the hectic amusement parks. We left at around 5:30pm, took a number of stops, and got home around midnight. What an Unforgettable Trip! Some of the funnest times of my life… Photopg104.html

August 3^rd 2005 –Since the Exploritorium offers free admission on the first Wednesday of every month, I decided to plan another trip, a day in the city. I drove Hannah, Steph, Kat, and Christina to San Francisco on a day trip. Me, Christina, and Steph went to see “The Universe Within” Exhibit first. I dropped off the others at Union Square because they didn’t want to see cadavers… hehe… It was creepy. Through the process of plastication, scientists preserved human bodies and open them up for display. The AP bio kids went on a field trip here. It’s here only till September 4^th, so you better catch it quick if you wanna see this unusual display of dead bodies… hehe… They had cadaverssplit length-wise in half, cut cross sections through out the body, muscles pealed off… yea… all tha good stuff… hehe… After picking up Hannah and Kat, we headed off to the Exploritorium. Free admission!  Yay! I missed a turn on the way there, so I ended up taking a four mile loop… ack… Afterwards, we headed up one of the SF hills and drove down the infamous crookedest street in the world! I was scared my car wasn’t gonna make it up with full capacity… Then we ate at the Rainforest Café! Very fancy, nicely themed, expensive… haha… After a yummy dinner, we headed over to Ocean Beach for a night stroll on the beach. A bunch of bonfires… hehe… Then our final stop was at the Golden Gate Bridge. Took a few pictures and off we went… I took the Golden Gate to San Rafael bridge home… haha… I felt like a tourist in my own backyard…  It was a lot of fun! fun times indeed…  A day out with the girls in SF…  hehe… Photopg105.html

August 5^th 2005 –We went to Hannah’s Barbeque! Yum yum! Yummy polish dogs… yummy hamburgers…  yummy crab dip that I kinda help Christina make… hehe… failed tempura encrusted zucchinis… continuous snacking for two hours… mmMMmmm… After the food, we played Cranium, Group B (Steph, Ari, Me) versus Group Band (Caroline, Hannah, Esther). We lost miserably because we got some hard ass challenges and they got away with elementary ones…  Well anyways… then we found out housing assignments were out, I got some white guy, I think, from the peninsula south of San Francisco. Yea… me and Ari stayed till 3:00am until the girls kicked us out… haha… Might post pictures later…

Geez, summer is rapidly coming to an end... The Road Trip and San Francisco Day Trip are some of the highlights of my summer!  Don’t forget to check out my Photo Gallery! Well, stay tuned for more exciting adventures up ahead! Hehe… (my new ending slogan )

To avoid having to make a long ass entry at the end of summer, I’ll make a mid-summer (for Berkeleyans, who starts school on August 22) entry. Well lets see… I updated my photo gallery… a lot! I mean 24 new photo pages since my last entry or 37 NEW pages since school ended a month ago. Currently on my 97^th photopage, or 112^th if you include the 15 pages from my Australia subsection. It has 1949 pictures dating back to May 2003! Here is a chart of the latest 24 pages…

Let’s see where I dropped off… oh yes, at the beginning of summer vacation…

June 18, 2005 – Evan threw us a 05 graduation party… haha… I kno, I kno, an underclassmen high schooler threw us high school alumnus a party… Well, it was a fun!  played foos ball, played DDR, ate good barbeque by Evan , and got massages on the wonderful massage chair… haha… Some of us played Monopoly, Taboo, and even Truth or Dare… haha… Thanks Evan! Photopg90.html

June 22, 2005 – Elaine’s Surprise Birthday Party at Kat’s house. Surprise Elaine ! We threw her a surprise birthday party on here actual birthday! Happy 18^th Birthday! We played hide and go seek in the dark… hehe… tha was a lotta fun! Also lots of food! Yum yum…  Got up on her house roof and messed around too… hehe… Fun fun… Photopg91.html

June 24, 2005 – My CalSO (University of California Berkeley Student Orientation)! Fun! Met lots of cool new people from out of the bay area! We took an extensive tour of campus with our CalSO advisor. There were a bunch of informative sessions to attended! Oh yumm… the food at the new crossroads dining hall for Unit 1 and 2 was sooo good…  so much variety too! My roommates were really cool too!  We had bunches in common and we talked about our backgrounds and high school… We also picked our first phase classes the next day… Wonderful experience!  Met new people! Learned a lot about Berkeley! Photopg92.html

June 25, 2005 – Elaine’s official birthday party! At her house… Came late because I had come from CalSO earlier in the noon. Played games… graffiti her driveway with chalk… eat… yea… Photopg93.html

June 26, 2005 – Another routine visit to Angela’s House. Inspired to be tunnel engineers from a previous experience in Pinole Park, we embarked to dig sand tunnels in the sand of Angela’s park. But the sand was too dry…  boooo… So instead, they buried almost entirely in sand… lol… *pants*  as I struggle to breathe with pounds of sand on my back… We also rode Angela’s new bike and stuff and played with cool fiber optic light thingies… hehe… Photopg94.html

June 28, 2005 – hmmm, we went to Spencer’s Store so I can buy some lasers and other nifty things…  hehe… followed by shopping with Christina for Andrew’s Promise ring at the mall… ate some noodles at Tokyo Grill… mmMmmm…

June 30, 2005 – Went to see War of the Worlds at Century Theatres… Odd story, but good action and a different perspective on a world threatening event… After eating at Denny’s, we headed to Pinole Park. Continuing our pursuit of tunnel engineering, we dug tunnels in the sand at night with flash lights…  More of a dark tunnel working condition…  haha… then back to my house where we talked in my room… Photopg95.html

July 1, 2005 - They stayed over night, slept for a fraction of a minute, and got up for a morning sunrise hike at 4:45 am. We were there too early, and the sun was rising over a tall hill, so we ditched it… haha… After going home, sleeping, refreshing up, we went to Evan’s Second Party later that night, one with your choice of alcoholic beverages…  hahaha… a lot of people got drunk… and I must say, having taken 7 shots of 80 proof vodka, I was a lil drunk… oops… I meant flat out drunk…  But so was Steph… hahaha….

July 2, 2005 – We couldn’t go home drunk, let alone drive… so we stayed over. That was a crazy night… I was really drunk… so anything I’ve said is not the real me! Ok!?!?  Haha… I fell into a deep sleep at 3:00 am and woke up with a minor hangover… ugh… Later that day, we went swimming at Ogy’s Apartments. Yay… frigid waters... brrrr..., but nice hot tub…  hehe, as I left to go eat out with my mom at some thai restaurant, Yash and Ogy plotted another alcoholic bash for me after my birthday party…

July 3, 2005 – My Birthday Party! Yay!  Had several friends come over, had three TV’s going with Mario Double Dash, DDR, and Tyco, a PS2 drumming game… much fun! My mom made fried wontons for appetizers… mmMMmmm…  Also had Hong Kong Style Chow Mein and Chow Fun from China House and my mom made some chicken thighs and shrimp.  Yum yum… After dinner, once again, we went diggin’ in the sand to make tunnels at Pinole Park…  hahaha… soo fun! hehe… Afterwards, we came back to do the traditional cake thing… My mom didn’t cheap out on candles, so this is one of the rare years where I actually had the correct number of candles on my cake…  hahaha… Thanks you guys for coming and all the wonderful gifts! Photopg96.html

July 4, 2005 - After a few people left and my parents in bed, we busted out with the alcohol Ogy brought.  Some 80 proof rum, Malibu, and Pina Colata. Obviously, after getting a little drunk and carried away, we made enough noise to wake up my parents… My mom came out and was like, “I smell Alcohol”… and saw yash barfing on the floor as I spoke to her with slurred speech…  hahaha… but she didn’t care we were drinking, fortunately!... *phew* Yash and Steph drunk over the limit…  bad! I controlled myself and remained lightly drunk as Ogy was just buzzed… Thanks to the soberly three, Ari, Christina, and Elaine for cleaning up the mess and watching over us…  They slept over again… and left in the morning… Since it was Independence Day, we went to see Fireworks at Pinole later that night. Nice little fireworks display put on by the city of Pinole off in the shores of San Pablo Bay.

July 6, 2005 – My Official 18^th Birthday! I’m finally an adult! Steph and Christina surprised me in the morning with silly string… aww… you guys…  hehe… then treated me to the Cheese Steak Company for a Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich. Thanks!  We went for a long walk at the Bayshore Park at the end of Tennent Ave. Walked along the beach and take in the sea breeze… hehe… since it was Christina’s dad’s birthday too, she had to leave. Tha’s cool, her dad is 30 years older than me to the day! Afterwards, I took Jocelyn to PVHS to get transcripts and ran an errand to the post office for Mrs. Vale. Gee… great way to celebrate my birthday… haha…  That night, my parents took me out to eat at Old Saigon next to Vanity Nails… yum…

July 9, 2005 – Christina’s Pool Party put on by Nancy, an old friend of Christina. It was at Concord. It was a lot of fun!  Lots of food!  The pool was nice and big! And they had a diving board! Hehe… but like every half hour we had to get out for 15 minutes for the life guards to take a break…  grrr… It was a lot of fun tho! In celebration of Andrew’s and Christina’s graduation. Afterwards, we headed to Ari’s house to play poker, pool, eat, yea… Pictures will be up as soon as I can get more from Katherine.

July 13, 2005 – Well, I hung out with the girls as they took Steph’s and Kat’s dogs to Petsmart then Pinole Park . Hung around, talked, ate at McDonalds for lunch and Jack in the Box for Dinner… ick… too much fast food… haha…

Well, tha’s my summer so far… still a long entry… hahaha… gotta update more periodically. Don’t forget to check out my Photo Gallery! Up to come is the Group B (minus Andrew because he can’t go) Road Trip to So Cal!  Woot woot! In a full car of five, we’re gonna take Ari down to Disneyland since he was sick during the Show Choir trip… Well, stay tuned for more exciting adventures up ahead!