yftoad's Xanga

Visiting the coolest people ever...and more photos of the coolest pooch ever

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:20:32 GMT

This past weekend we flew down to visit my brother and sister-in-law in the Bay Area. Though I can't stand being landlocked in the Bay Area and having to find a high-paying job there to survive, I CAN stand the ridiculously good food and hangin' with some of the coolest Fengs ever. My brother and sister-in-law live less than a minute from one of their best friends. Literally...he lives 4 houses away and we WALKED over for milk and cookies on Saturday night.

Makes me want to call up all of my friends and convince at least one of them to move in to the vacant house around the corner from us. For all you Californians, there is no state income tax up here in Washington state (instant 10% raise!!!), the area is significantly greener than San Diego, the air is fresher, and you can hang w/the Fengs any time you want. Seriously. You don't even have to call. Just show up and we'll hang like a Philip Rivers bomb to Vincent Jackson.

We'll even cook for you! Caveat: Or not...actually, not is probably better for your long-term health. Caveat to my caveat - my beautiful wife has been knocking it out of the park lately with her entrees, as evidenced by my belly putting up a good challenge to hers, and I think I'm going to have to revise my long-held observation on Beacon Hill cuisine pretty soon.

Got a new Canon 50D in preparation for Haribo's arrival, too...and of course, Miso is our favorite test subject prior to Haribo's grand entrance!

World, meet Miso...Miso, meet world!!!

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:59:20 GMT

God finally blessed us with a new dog! After months of dropping by shelters and pursuing Craigslist ads in vain, we figured perhaps it was God telling us it was time to give up the search. Car responded to one final Craigslist ad, we drove up to Marysville (40 minutes away) later that day, and we've now had Miso for a couple of weeks! She's quite a looker, eh? She's 6 months old - 3/4 beagle, 1/4 dachsund, and 4/4 fun!

Chargers Fever in Seattle???

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:16:02 GMT

You betcha!!! Since I'm cheapo and we have limited basic cable, I found a website streaming ESPN and hooked my laptop up to our TV so I could watch my beloved Bolts beat the stuffing out of the Jets! Car is the best wife ever...talked her into wearing a Merriman jersey during the game! Oh...and I was singing the "San Deeeyago, Soooper Chargers!" song to Haribo to make sure he knew where our allegiances fall (and yes, we're having a BOY!!!!)

If you're interested, more fun and frivolity here. GO BOLTS!!!!!

Let's play a game

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 05:06:40 GMT

Carolyn and I will be going to our second ultrasound this Friday morning, where we'll be finding out Haribo's gender. (Don't worry...Haribo's just a nickname for the baby until we find out whether we've got a boy or a girl! Our friend first introduced us to this game and we figured it'd be a cool way to invite you to join us in this amazing adventure! So, if you dare to venture a guess, you'll need to follow these simple instructions:

1) Go to http://expectnet.com/game.php

2) Enter the name of the game in order to participate: TheHariboChallenge. (no spaces).

We haven't yet figured out the prize for the winner, but we promise it'll be something COOL!!!! Good luck, and thanks for playing...feel free to pass this on to whomever you think might be interested in playing as well!!!

Rules are below:
Once the baby is born, your guesses are compared to the birth stats to determine an overall winner and a winner in each category. Penalty points are assigned depending on how far the guess is from the actual value. To calculate a player's overall rank, the points from each category are totalled. Points are assigned as follows, however they can be changed by the game host:

incorrect gender: 400 points
birth date & time: 5 points/hour
weight: 5 points/ounce or 0.2 points/gram
length: 10 points/inch or 4 points/centimeter
The winner is the person with the fewest points!!!

Are we havin' fun yet???

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 05:21:25 GMT

Bah and Mom are up visiting here in Seattle for about two weeks. I showed them the wonders of the webcam and Skype before they left for a mini-vacation w/my in-laws. They headed down to Oregon with them and hung out @ a time share for a week, and it appears they had a blast! How do I know?

THIS happened once they got back.

The One Where I Outplayed Tiger Woods...

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:30:29 GMT

After all, he is still rehabbing his knee, isn't he? So technically, since he's not playing...I outdrove him today. :) Tiga Tiga Tiga Woods y'all!!!

Fun Times in the Beacon Hizzle!!!

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:55:01 GMT

Been off xanga for a while for a host of reasons, but summer is here in Seattle and we're having tons of fun! Car and I are now entertaining two new guests for the next several months. Here's the interesting part...one is visible...and one is not. :) Both, however, are UBER cool!!!!

Here's the visible friend. She's staying with us until December while she works @ an internship with Youth In Focus. Her office is within walking distance of the Beacon Hill house. It's so close, she could roll to work. Literally. She'd have quite the adventure rolling across a busy Rainier Avenue, but it'd be doable! Here she is having a hard time getting out of something she got herself in to!

And here's our invisible guest. He or she is going to be hangin' around until...say, February 10th, before we get a good look at him/her.

My Parents are NINJAS

Wed, 14 May 2008 04:54:37 GMT

Ever since I was a little kid, I thought it would be the super cool to be a ninja. It was never an obsession – I don’t collect ninja weapons, ninja clothing, or even ninja movies – but I always thought it’d be pretty cool. Their speed, their ability to conquer difficult challenges, their wisdom, and their stealth was always extremely appealing to me. The first ninja I had ever seen was “Snake Eyes” from GI Joe, and I was drawn to how he always went about his work in a quiet, unassuming way while simultaneously wreaking utter havoc on Cobra Commander and his minions.

Now I realize why I like ninjas so much.

My parents are ninjas.

Ninjas are masters of stealth and secrecy, and it is said that the best ninjas are able to hide in plain sight. Since it took me 30 years to figure out that my parents are ninjas, I suspect that they are ninjas of the highest order. Allow me to explain.

I decided to purchase my first laptop when I moved to Seattle in 2003. Thinkpads were renowned for their solid construction and reliability, but having just moved 2000 miles from home, a Thinkpad simply wasn’t in my budget. So, I purchased a Dell 600m complete with the first Intel Centrino chip in September of ’03 and satisfied my basic computing needs. The only time laptop envy would arise would be when I visited my brother or my father and used their Thinkpads…the superior construction was perceptible through the solid feel of the Thinkpad keyboards versus my flimsier, lighter 600m.

My 600m finally decided to go to laptop heaven in March of 2008. I thought about getting another laptop since I had access to discounts for Thinkpads, but my wife and I are trying to save for a house and we have an adequate desktop at home, so I decided to forgo the purchase and make do with what we had.

While this was occurring, my father was getting a new Thinkpad of his own through work, though he would have to return it once he retired in a few years. I told him that I could potentially get him better pricing than his work, but his employers decided to get a lower-tiered Thinkpad through their connections instead. Bah asked me why I hadn’t gotten a new laptop yet, so I explained to him that at that point a laptop was a “want” and not a “need” and we were trying to save money for more important things.

My manager at work, however, was in the market for a new laptop, so I helped him to get a Thinkpad at discount and had it delivered to the office. I had heard that build quality had declined since IBM sold their laptop division to Lenovo, but I was quite impressed with the computer that arrived at the office. He had never owned a laptop before, so I helped him get his laptop and wireless network set up at home.

After a few short weeks had passed, Bah started asking me about what kind of Thinkpad he should get. I was a bit confused as to why he was asking since he had just gotten one from work, but I assumed he was asking because he wanted to order a better laptop for himself that he could keep once he retired. I told him I could look more into it when he was closer to retirement since the current technology would be outdated by the time he was ready to buy.

To my surprise, I got an e-mail a few days later from him with information on a laptop he had built off of the Lenovo website, asking me if the specs and components he had selected were good. I told him that I didn’t realize that he was ready to buy something that quickly and told him to ask my brother about it since he’s more tech savvy than I. I told him that I could send the info to some friends of mine if he wanted to get a more qualified opinion and he told me to do so. My friends were slow in replying to my e-mail, and my dad asked me almost daily if I had heard from them. After several days, I told him again that I didn’t realize that he was that ready to buy something since he had just gotten a new laptop from work. He eventually got all the feedback he needed from my friends and brother and I didn’t hear anything more of it.

One night I was chatting online with my dad and the conversation touched briefly on politics. My dad has never been heavily into politics and neither have I, but we bantered back and forth about the importance of the primaries in Pennsylvania for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. We chatted until about 11:30, when my dad said he was headed off to bed. He told me I should pay attention tomorrow to what happened and that it would be a “big day”. After we signed off, I thought to myself, “Wow…I guess this competition between Obama & Clinton really is drawing people in – even Bah is into it!”

The next morning, our administrative assistant brought a box from Lenovo back to my office. I was on the phone with a client and was rather confused as to why it had come. The thought ran through my head that Lenovo had made some sort of mistake and sent another laptop for my manager and I mentioned this to the admin, but he replied, “No…it’s addressed to you.” I looked at the shipping label and confirmed it was addressed to me…and then the truth hit me like a ton of bricks.

“BAH!!!!!!!!”

I had been had. The entire time my dad had been asking me about laptop configuration and having me e-mail my friends, he had not been asking for himself - he was having me build my dream laptop. It was then that I realized that I had been raised by ninjas. Not only had I been duped by my parents, but they had used me to dupe myself!!! If that isn’t evidence of high-level ninjanicity, I don’t know what is.

When I talked to Bah later that day, he professed with childlike glee that he had been following the UPS tracking information to know when the gift would be delivered.

My fascination with ninjas now makes perfect sense. Being the progeny of ninjas made me biologically predisposed to be fascinated with them. It has now become patently clear, however, that my parents are ninjas of the highest order, capable of unleashing unpredictable, overwhelming sneak attacks of affection for which one has no possible defense. So, if you happen to see Bah & Mom roaming around your neighborhood, be forewarned…you could find yourself overwhelmed as well.

Thanks Bah & Mom…words cannot hope to express how grateful I am that God has blessed me with parents…er, ninjas, like you…but I figured I’d give it my best shot. ;)

An Introduction to Inverse Mochi

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 03:39:16 GMT

After we lost Mochi, the house was incredibly quiet. The air was thick with grief, and Carolyn and I would be awash in tears intermittently throughout the day. After tidying up the house, we decided to donate Mochi's leftover food and treats to the local animal shelter in Seattle. While we were there, we decided to go inside and look at the dogs. Though there were quite a few cute ones, we weren't ready to bring any of them home with us. Over the course of the week, however, Carolyn and I began looking at dogs from the local shelters online, but nothing caught our eye. Though we weren't sure we were ready to get another dog, we figured it wouldn't hurt to look.

I had the day off on Good Friday, and Carolyn doesn't work on Fridays, so we went to check out the local shelters again. After running some errands in the morning, we headed down to the shelter in Kent, where the Sakodas found Mochi some 13 years prior. Carolyn and I went to the back of the shelter where all of the dog kennels were and walked slowly down the aisle. Two particular black dogs caught Carolyn's eye, so we decided to take them out one by one to play in the yard outside.

The first, named Ray, was a jet black year-old lab/chow mix. He was in a kennel with a far more aggressive dog and was extremely quiet and docile. While Carolyn was filling out the paperwork to allow us to play with him, I went back to the kennel to see him again. He was lying down in the middle of the kennel while the aggressive dog was sitting right at the entrance near the fence, so I beckoned for him to come forward to take a closer look at him. As he made his way forward, the other dog pounced on him and bit him hard enough to induce several yelps of pain. After a few yelps, the more aggressive dog let go and Ray stopped trying to make his way to the entrance. The aggressive dog stood over him, drool from his jaws dripping on Ray's back. I felt horrible.

Once we got Ray out of the kennel, he was very friendly and mild-mannered, and Carolyn immediately took to him. He wandered around the yard adjacent to the shelter, sniffing around, his curious eyes taking everything in like a child seeing the world for the first time. We had a ball and tried a game of fetch, but Ray would only chase after the ball until something else captured his attention.

We then took out the second dog, Suzy, a black lab/retriever mix with a white spot on her chest. As soon as she got out of her kennel, Carolyn found her tough to handle. She refused to sit, strained against her leash, and tired Carolyn out before we were even able to get outside. So, our decision was quickly made - either take Ray home with us, or go check out other kennels.

I'm not partial to black dogs for some reason, so I wasn't particularly fond of Ray. He did have a great personality, but my hand smelled after petting him, and I figured since he was part chow (and chows are typically fragrant dogs due to more oil on their skin) he'd leave an odor around the house and on anything he rubbed up against. Nevertheless, Carolyn was insistent that this was the dog we should get, so I figured I should probably pray for some wisdom. Now I know this is not the most theologically proper way to go about doing this, but I told God that if Car said she wanted Ray at an "8" or better on a scale of 1-10 then we would bring him home with us.

After my brief prayer, I asked Car how badly she wanted Ray, and she paused, then said, "...well, I guess a 7 1/2..." (relief flooded my heart and I mentally prepared to leave the shelter)..."...or 8." At this point I thought to myself, "well, she DID say 7 1/2 first..." and "...she doesn't know about what I had prayed about anyway!" Nevertheless, she did say 8, and we decided that we would take Ray home with us.

Once we got Ray home, our next step was to give him a proper name. After all, the only reason he was named Ray was because he didn't actually have a name on his paperwork at the shelter. Since he was a stray, the animal control officers named him by crossing out the letters "s" and "t" on his information page. After referring to him as "Inverse Mochi" for a little while due him having the opposite coloring from Mochi, Carolyn chose "Kuma" as a perfect name for him. He has HUGE paws from his chow roots, and his mouth droops in the corners just like a bear, so Kuma fits him perfectly since it means "bear" in Japanese.

It's now been a few weeks since we adopted him from the shelter, and he has been a huge blessing to us. We got him not to replace Mochi, but to help us through the grieving process, and God has used him to do so much more than that. It is remarkable how many similarities he shares with Mochi - both were from the same shelter in Kent, both were adopted as 1 year old pups, both were strays, both were 35 lbs, and both are the friendliest dogs you could ever meet. Kuma seems to share many of Mochi's idiosyncracies, and Mochi remains alive in our memories because Kuma reminds us of some of the things that he used to do. However, since he's a much younger and far more agile, I need to take him for runs every day...and he's also able to jump up on Car when she's asleep on the couch! Not only does he bring joy to our home, but he's also helping to keep me in shape!

Carolyn and I consider ourselves incredibly blessed. Not only does Kuma have a terrific personality, but he's already housebroken as well! He rings a bell on the door any time he needs to go out, and aside from an accident the first morning after we brought him home, he hasn't gone to the bathroom indoors since. And as far as him having oily skin and smelling up the house, it turns out it was just the drool from the other dog on his back that made him smell - I actually like the way he smells! You could chalk it up to "luck" that we would find such a terrific dog after losing Mochi, but we believe it is yet another example of God showing us how deeply involved He is in our lives, providing us just what would help us most in our time of need, on Good Friday no less. Hopefully you'll get to meet Kuma sometime soon!

Not just man's best friend...

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:56:40 GMT

We had to put Mochi down on Sunday night. He was 14, and had fought a good fight. He was my first dog, and it will be virtually impossible for another dog to live up to the standard he set.

We first found out Mochi was sick nine months ago when we took him to the vet after he was acting lethargic at home. The first vet at Petsmart took an x-ray and told us that he had two tumors in his stomach, and the outlook was grave. So, we gathered the Sakodas and Fengs at the Beacon Hill house and prayed for a miracle. We figured the recovery from surgery would be far too hard on him since he was 13 years old, so we prayed the tumors would go away...for something...anything...to happen.

We took him to a 24 hour vet for an ultrasound, and they told us they didn't find any tumors, but Mochi was suffering from immune mediated hemolytic anemia. Basically his body was attacking its own red blood cells, so the vet prescribed a couple different medications, gave Mochi a transfusion, and sent him home with us. Mochi was almost immediately his old self again, running around the house, greeting us at the door, eating everything in sight. And so it was for the next nine months...blissful times with Mochi reigned in the Beacon Hill house.

Last Friday, Carolyn noticed that Mochi wasn't himself again. An electrician came to the house to do some work, and Mochi didn't move at all. Normally he would greet everyone at the door and bark endlessly until he had been thoroughly greeted himself. He would always feign an initial gruff assertiveness, but it didn't take long for him to show his true colors - he was a lover, not a fighter. In fact, one time when Carolyn was growing up, the Sakodas had locked Mochi in her room when they left for a little while. While they were gone, a thief broke into the house though Carolyn's window and ended up taking quite a bit of stuff. I'm sure Mochi gave that thief quite a start, but his loving nature must've come shining through pretty quickly. Not the greatest of guard dogs, but definitely the best of companions.

As the weekend wore on, we noticed that Mochi wasn't eating again, nor was he moving all that much. We had guests over, though, so I assumed it was because the regular "rhythm" of the house had changed and that he'd be back to normal once our routine was back in good order. On Sunday, however, Mochi still hadn't eaten, and I noticed his paws were quite cold. Carolyn checked his gums and they were pale and white, so we knew something was terribly wrong.

Carolyn ended up taking Mochi to the vet while the rest of us played in a rec-league volleyball game. I returned to the house shortly after to set things up for a birthday party for a good friend of ours when the phone rang. Carolyn had called earlier saying that they were still running some tests on Mochi so it'd be a while before they heard anything, but as soon as I answered the phone, Carolyn's sniffle told me otherwise. I asked another of our friends to take care of the party for me while I was gone and raced off to the vet.

Numbness set in on the drive over. Carolyn had said that the vet ran an ultrasound and found a tumor on Mochi's spleen, another on his stomach, some internal bleeding, and fluid collecting in a sac around his heart that would eventually have led to cardiac arrest. She said they had some options, but things didn't look good. I tried to hope beyond hope...

When I stepped into the office, Mochi greeted me with his ever-expressive eyes and the familiar, rhythmic thumpety-thump of his tail. He wasn't whining, so I figured he wasn't in pain, but I could see he wasn't feeling himself either. The vet came in and said that there were things that could be done...but we realized it wouldn't be fair to Mochi. They could've drained the fluid from his heart, performed surgery to remove the tumors...but the vet said we'd just be racing the clock until everything came back again. Putting Mochi through the rigors of surgery and the difficulties of recovery would have been hard on him, and it would have been selfish of us to choose to make him go through all of that for our benefit. The vet said that he probably wasn't in very much pain right now, so we regretfully decided to let him go while he was still comfortable. Carolyn's parents arrived before the vet came to administer the injection, and we had a little "goodbye" ceremony for our beloved friend.

The vet warned us that following the injection, sometimes a dog will become disoriented and stand up or twitch a little, but the dog will have passed away after 15 seconds. Mochi lay on the table the way I had seen him many times at the house - heads between his paws, expressive eyes taking it all in. The vet said, "It's done"...I saw Mochi's eyes slowly close...and he was gone. It still seemed like he was still there, though, just taking a nap, ready to wake up whenever something roused his interest, but not before.

It's been two days now since Mochi left, and I swear I hear him snoring when I lie awake at night. I still expect to hear him shuffle to his feet when I come to do the door or get out of bed in the morning. I still turn the corner from our bedroom, expecting to see him laying on his back next to the couch, legs in the air and belly exposed. Sometimes I miss him so much I can barely breathe, nor do I want to take in another painful breath.

Mochi was more than just a best friend. Aside from my family and my wife, he was one of the most tangible expressions of God's unconditional love that I've experienced in my lifetime. He always came running, was always happy, and always wanted to be where we were, whether it be taking a nap or going for a walk. The world would certainly be a better place if I could love like he did, and I will be eternally grateful for the time that God gave me to hang out with him.

Grief is a strange thing. Some people try to avoid it at all costs, some people seem to bathe in it. I think it's healthy to grieve since it's a natural part of the ebb and flow of life. Feeling the ache down to my very core is at times unbearable, but it reminds me just how deep Mochi's love was, and in turn, how much deeper God's love is for us.

I miss you, Mochi-san. Thanks for taking such good care of us.