dpark's weblog

After work today I went to do some shopping. Stopped by PetSmart first to pick up an air pump, some fish food, and 6 baby platys. Then stopped by Best Buy to look at a Minitek DVD player for only $150.

I saw the display model and noticed BIG flaws with it. The side margins of the movie were truncated. I asked the sales rep if it could be fixed, and he told me it couldn't. A portable DVD player for $150 is very tempting though. I'll have to think about it. After that I headed over to Home Depot. Was planning on buying some plants for around the apartment but there weren't really any there. Bought an electrical timer instead to turn on/off my aquarium lights at work.

Today was Paul's birthday and we took him out to Mikado's. It's a japanese restaurant and the food was GOOD. If you have a few bucks to spend...I highly recommend this place for good Japanese food.

Posted 11:57 PM by Donald Park

Yesterday after work I went grocery shopping. I like grocery shopping for some reason. It forces me to make conscious decisions about what I'm going to eat, and think about how to save money. I bought some pizza dough in a bag and tried to make my own pizza at home. I tried to cook it in my toaster oven, but the center was not cooking, so I had a great idea and placed it in a pan to cook the bottom. I came to realize, in order to cook pizza from scratch, you need heat from the bottom, otherwise the dough won't cook.

After dinner Laura and Allen picked me up and we drove up to Franklin Mills Mall to watch 50 First Dates. It was a surprisingly good movie and I highly recommend this movie if you want a good romantic comedy. I'm not a Drew Barrymore fan, but she did a great job in this movie. This movie is 2 thumbs up.

Posted 4:17 PM by Donald Park

Monday, March 29, 2004

This morning I went to work by 8 in the morning. Got to work and my project leader had some not so great things to say about me...which bummed me out. Basically I was told that I needed to take a more active role in training the sailors onboard...which is a bit beyond my ability since I myself need training on how the system works. How am I suppose to train others? I think I'm going to have a talk with my leader. There are some things I can do, and somethings I can't.

Anyway the DJ Encore CD that I bought last week is really good. It's one of the few CDs that I have bought and completely liked.

Posted 1:36 PM by Donald Park

Sunday, March 28, 2004

Yesterday I did a stupid thing. I took out my left turn signal lens, to dry up the condensation inside the lens. I decided to dry it over the warmth of a light bulb. I only found out a couple minutes later that it was a 150 watt bulb. The heat from the bulb had completely melted the unit.

Today, Pastor Paul actually commended me IN his sermon. It was about encouraging the church to be more of a family and taking ownership of the church. After church we went to Olive Garden for lunch...then headed back to church for a congregational meeting. On the way back home I stopped by Best Buy and bought some DVDs...then to KMart to pick up some other items.

Posted 9:34 PM by Donald Park

Saturday, March 27, 2004

So yesterday after work I went to Best Buy to do a little bit of browsing. I had already put in my hours at work for the week so I was just killing some time. Then I made it to church early only to find out there wasn't really going to be any praise practice. After Phileo I went to TPDS with Sujin and Heejin. We ended up seeing quite a lot of other people from Emmanuel there as well...although I didn't really know a whole lot of them so well. I did meet my Indian co-worker there who was really enjoying the scenery. Time flew by because before we knew it, the DJ was playing old Michael Jackson songs, and it was time to leave. Came home feeling hungry and ate some stuff.

This morning I woke up around noon. Yujin and I cooked up some brunch. Then I watched some Saved By The Bell on DVD that I had borrowed from DE Dave. Realized I needed to utilize the daylight hours so I worked on my car until sundown. Pulled out the dent in my front right fender. Now it doesn't look so bad.

Posted 11:34 PM by Donald Park

Thursday, March 25, 2004

Soul Food Sushi

Posted 2:11 PM by Donald Park

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

This morning I went to a doctors appointment in Cherry Hill. As usual it was pretty pointless, but at least I established him as my new PCP. There is this rental center near my work place that always has interesting quotes on the store's sign. This week it reads, "No political jokes here, they're all out campaigning". It kind of made me laugh.

Posted 10:34 AM by Donald Park

Monday, March 22, 2004

Man...updating this weblog has really gotten to be somewhat of a chore. I may need to take a break from this. I guess one reason is because I'm so busy at work, and when I get home I just want to relax in front of the TV or in bed :)

Friday after fellowship we checked out this new Korean place in North Philly. The ambience had a very modern Korean feel. On Saturday I basically slept all day. I woke up around noon. Watched TV for a little bit, took apart my computer only to find that I couldn't install a second hard disk. No place to mount it. I think I'm just going to let it dangle inside the case anyway. Ate lunch, then fell back asleep. Got up and worked on my computer more, watch more TV, then went out someone's b-day dinner. During the week I keep thinking to myself I'll use Saturday to catch up on things, but I completely waste it away. Sunday service went off without a hitch. Went to Pho Hau in North Philly with a bunch of folks for lunch. Went home after that were I fell asleep again for a couple of hours. Went out to dinner at Han-Chon in Cherry Hill. Came home after that and vegged. What a waste of a weekend. I hate myself. I need more motivation.

Posted 2:14 PM by Donald Park

Thursday, March 18, 2004

Wow...I just realized I'm not updating my blog anymore these days. I've kind of lost the urgency to update this everyday. Part of the reason is that this whole week I've been working at CSEDS pretty much all day. Yesterday and today, I struggled to keep awake at work. This morning my roommate got up earlier than me and I thought he was in the bathroom so I stayed in bed waiting for him to get out. As it turns out, the door was closed but he was not in the bathroom, so I basically fell back asleep and ended up being late for work again!!! Tonight I'm going to aim for midnight, but definitely not any later than 1am. When I get home I'm usually busy trying to figure out how to compress my TV shows into WMV format without getting audio/video sync problems. My 120GB hard drive is full of Korean shows now.

Anyway, just a few minutes ago I almost got busted by security at my company. For some reason just my department (one of many in this building) has computers workstations that switch between a classified and unclassified network. Other departments have two physical computers. Obviously there is a huge cost benefit having one computer versus two. Anyway our computer need to be marked with the highest classification level that it's allowed to access. I'm almost always on the unclassified network though, and so when I arrived at work I logged into my machine, walked over to my manager for a signature, and when I got back 2 minutes later my cube was filled with security personnel conducting after-hour security checks. They thought I had logged into the classified network since my computer is tagged with red SECRET stickers. They were even going through my desktops to find out if I really was on the SECRET side. ha ha ha. One of my co-workers just a couple of cubes down had done the same thing and they left a "red" card on his desk (which means he has to call them back, so they can discuss the "security issue"). Then again you can't blame security. Lockheed Martin security is TRYING to find problems before the DoD comes though and does their inspection. Because if the DoD finds violations, then Lockheed Martin can get in BIG TROUBLE.

Check out the pictures and videos from the Link of the Week. I added links to another site. There's a LOT more pictures there. Some of them are pretty good.

Posted 6:12 PM by Donald Park

Monday, March 15, 2004

Check out this exerpt from an article I was reading.

Ferraro analyzed public records and surveys involving more than 3,600 people. Broken down by religious groups, Southern Baptists were heaviest, while Jews, Muslims and Buddhists were less likely to be overweight.

Interesting huh?

Posted 2:24 PM by Donald Park

Sunday, March 14, 2004

Here are pictures of my trip out to sea. Enjoy.

Saturday I met up with Nancy to be her guinea pig for the day. She conducted an eye exam on me, and I got free contacts out of it. Thanks Nancy. That was the first time ever wearing contacts. After that I stopped by work, but couldn't get anything done since my eyes were so dilated and I was seeing a halo around light sources. After that went to a webteam meeting at Delaware Dave's. After that came back home to work on sermon slides. Didn't get to bed until 3am.

Sunday I woke up early and went to church. After church we went to Manayunk for lunch at some Italian place. After that I stopped by Baskin Robbins before meeting Scott and Debbie at my apartment. We stayed in and watched TV, had dinner and played Monopoly. Debbie won.

Posted 11:15 PM by Donald Park

Friday, March 12, 2004

Just received some terrible news. As we were getting off the ship, the sailors were on their way to a memorial service for the widow of William Pinckney, for whom the ship is named after. Two of the buses were involved in an accident and 3 of the sailors were killed. A week is a short time to know anyone, but throughout that week, you could see that the ship was essentially a family of sailors. Here is more of the news.

Posted 11:54 AM by Donald Park

Thursday, March 11, 2004

Got back from my trip. Updates and pictures to come later. Just letting you know though I'm back :)

Posted 11:52 PM by Donald Park

Monday, March 1, 2004

It seems I've inadvertantly created some ripples, or waves rather with my opinion. I don't necessarily like confrontation, but I do like straddling the line between shades of gray. I posted a comment on a friends website that basically said the response from the Jewish community about the film The Passion of Christ is equivalent to the response we see from Omarosa in The Apprentice. In one of the episodes we hear her get hit by a piece of falling plaster from the ceiling. She basically uses that excuse to weasle her way out of cleaning up the apartment with the rest of the team...and plays basketball on the street with the neighborhood kids.

So anyway this person responded by only what I can perceive as a personal attack...and in a few words basically said I needed to educate myself, simply because I didn't agree with her point of view...even paraphrasing my thoughts with absolute qualifiers such as "only". My opinion might not have been particular understanding (a fault I acknowledge), but her knee-jerk response was met equally with a lack of understanding, as my comment lacked empathy. I think this is but a glimpse of all the heat Mel Gibson is facing.

Hmmm...I actually thought I had more to say about this, but I think I summed it up beautifully in the above analogy. Basically I think for a people group so concerned about quashing anti-semitism, they do a surprisingly pretty good job at encouraging it.

Posted 10:36 PM by Donald Park

While I was at work, I passed by a guy with the thick shagy beard, and a kippot atop his head. Sadly but true, the jewish backlash against the movie The Passion, I think, has caused more anti-semetic sentiment than the movie itself. It's commendable to stand up for what you believe in, but sometimes it's better to sit down & shut up.

Posted 3:09 PM by Donald Park

I wonder if my company is reading my weblog as well. It just makes no sense that they would block out Yahoo mail, but keep Geocities open. I think they blocked that penguin game too. It's interesting what the pick and choose to block.

Anyway, after church yesterday I went to lunch with 7 other girls. They were the only ones around. It was kind of weird to have dinner with so many girls...but it was nice. We had lunch at a new place called Abbraccio Restaurant. It was a neat, new place to eat. We went for Sunday Brunch Buffet, which was a little bit pricey for lunch, but definitely worth the try. I don't think I'd go there all the time, but definintely once in a while.

After lunch I stuck around church until 3rd service ended. After that, people decided to eat at a Korean restaurant in NJ to celebrate Tim's birthday. I was sooooo full after that. In fact after that I was having a hard time staying awake. After my second lunch, we went to a mom and pop's ice cream place, and then to BlockBuster to rent Super Troopers. I think it's a funny movie albeit, a bit crude. When I got home I konked out. Went up to my room and napped for a few hours. When I got up, everyone had left.

Posted 11:45 AM by Donald Park