last night, if somebody called me after midnight, they’d probably have thought i was crazy. why? i’d have said, “i’m waiting to see elephants walk down 34th street in manhattan! and it’s freezing cold!!”

yes, actually and truly, last night me, wifey and Qme went to see the “elephant walk” in nyc.
we were there from 11:40pm to 1:20am.
it was windy and cold.

at www.elephantday.com, it says:
“Every year the Ringling Brother’s Barnum and Baily Circus rolls into New York City.
In anticipation of the event, the circus walks their elephants
through Manhattan and on to Madison Square Garden. The sight of
elephants walking down 34th Street is pretty awesome, and it deserves
its own holiday. Thus the celebration of Elephant Day is born!”

we parked the car around MSG. the empire state building was still lightened.

 
there were many big and fun advertisement as usual. btw, i love will ferrell!!

while we were waiting for the elephants coming we looked around macy’s which was having its annual flower show with splendid window displays.

there were not many people since not a lot of new yorkers know about this. well, honestly i don’t think you wanna go out to see elephants 1 o’clock in the morning in freezing cold weather, especially if you gotta go work 6 hours later.

still nypd put the barricades  on the street.
 
helicopters came out to see the elephants.

find Qme!! 

“some is coming!!”

here are their pictures. it was not so dark but since they were moving pretty fast i didn’t get good pictures.   man, i didn’t know elephants could walk that fast.

funny thing is that this street cleaning vehicle was at the end of the row.
yes, it was taking care of all “stuff” from the elephants’ and horses’ XXX.       

it was very unique experience which is an advantage of living near nyc.
crazy things happen here.
walking elephants at 1:00am in new york city?
yeah, it does sound crazy.
thanks, eugy hon for showing me cool stuff which i’ll never see again.

man, i was getting hungry and accidentally saw these pictures from last year, James’ b-day.

yes, these are from “peter luger’s steak house,” the living legend of new york steak!!
when i went there first time it was just amazingly impressive.
i’d never imagined that there was a melting thick steak in the mouth.
i might have some chances to have even better steaks in the rest of my life but so far this is the best. ^^b

i haven’t eaten good steaks for a while.
i should gather people and visit the restaurant again asap.
i’m on fire. nah.. i’m on water in my mouth.

and the dessert will be “junior’s cheese cake!”
 

(last time we went to peter luger’s they said they also have great cheese cakes so i might have one-stop course meal there.)

today, i figured out what i really want for myself.

1. verizon fios or any fast fast internet service.
   i can’t stand using this slow internet service any more.
   i don’t want to work slow because my tool is slow. (i work with internet)
  


2. i want a powerful desktop computer.
   my laptop is too old and too slow to be a work station.
   every time it gets stuck i can’t do anything and it wastes my time about 1 hour a day!

  

3. i want a big monitor, at least 23-inch one.
   with a small monitor, doing multi tasking is not easy.
   and also small monitor kills my eyes which are looking at it all day long.
  

4. i know you want this too. =)
  

5. nice german knife set! like heinckels! (for my wife)
   people call it “wisdom.”
   however, i love to use a sharp knife when i “cook.”
  
6. i really need a small handy vacuum.
   i’m sick of cleaning house every saturday.
   i’m just gonna get rid of all the dust as soon as i find it.
  

7. i think i’m becoming like a vampire.
   when i go out under the direct sunlight i can’t open my eyes.
   i guess my eyes got weaker.
    
by the way, i found this song, wishlist sung by pearl jam. i really like this song.
it’s fun to find this kinda random good music.

it’s actually not my cellphone, but it’s my wifey’s cellphone.
however we are using same cellphone, verizon’s razr so it’s technically same as my cellphone.

i’m totally disappointed at verizon now.
i’ve been annoyed by its poor interface but it hasn’t bothered me this much.

fact:
1. daylight saving has started yesterday.
2. we use our cellphones as alarm clocks just like a lot of people do.
3. we knew that verizon’s network automatically updates cellphones’ clock so didn’t worry about the time change but expected a little bit of physical fatigue in the next morning.

result:
1. when we woke up with the cellphone alarm we felt pretty energetic, which was good.
2. the time on cellphone clock changed right when we turn off the alarm.
3. what da….
4. so late at church!!
5. very confused and embarrassed.

i thought verizon was america’s most reliable network…

Point:
- got one more reason to go with at&t. (iphoneiphoneiphoneiphoneiphone)

ps: don’t say you woke up late because of your at&t cellphone’s alarm, please!

i worked from home today.
at 2 o’clock, i realized the steam heater was off!
i was wondering how the weather outside was so i opened the window.
and then i got amazed by the breeze coming into the room from outside.
spring has already come!! while i didn’t even notice the change of months..

i’ve been waiting this spring a lot.
last spring i didn’t have much fun because of gmat study.
i had to say no to a lot of fun offers from my friends.
i’m so gonna say yes to every offer this time.
on top of that, there are so many things i wanna do in this spring.

probably i’ll update my xanga with a lot of pictures.

i want to see this soon.

dear friends,

i have good news to tell you guys.
from today, finally, i’m a full-time employee again after several months of part-time work, which at one point I was up to 4 p/t jobs. basically, one of those 4 p/t jobs gave me a promotion! so I stopped the rest of them. (man, accounting work was good money though….)

i’m truly happy and thankful to God and all the people who prayed for me and helped me to get here, including people who gave me this opportunity. many many people spent their time and effort for me. i don’t even think i can pay the favor back to them. so, i better pay it forward to people who need my help. (special thanks to Bo, Dan, John, and Ian)

my work is awesome. it’s with an internet venture company which is not that big yet but has great potential. people in the company are passionate about changing this world through music!! and, surely, to be rich!! it’ll be the google/wikipedia of music. we just need to let people know about it.
the biggest reason i decided to go with this company is that i can do what i want to do there. i can use all my knowledge and ability joyfully and passionately. so far, doing their work as a p/t employee, i was always so excited and happy. now i can do it full time with even better compensation. (my wife already yelled at me a couple of times to stop working after 2:00am!)

the work environment is kinda unusual. there’s no dress code, no formal work hour because there’s no office! we don’t physically work together. my coworkers are literally scattered everywhere in the world. some are in korea, some are in cali, some are in new york, and some are in england. we work together and separately at the same time, which means we work individually with our common tasks. i’ve never seen their faces except for one person, however, i feel like they are working in the next cubicle since i talk to them all the time by emails, messenger or skype. i usually work from home but basically wherever i can use the internet can be my office. sounds cool, huh?

wanna celebrate my promotion?
go <here> and download the music player. then, enjoy free music from the internet.
if you have xanga, go <here> and follow what i wrote there.
if you have facebook, go <here> and simply add it.

i sent an email which introduces the service to most of my friends already.
if i see the music player on your xanga, or if you give me any feedback from using the service, that’s the best way you can congratulate or celebrate with me.
why?
one of my main task is to promote this service to this world asap.

thank you so much.
.

out of curiosity i made a spreadsheet which shows how many guests eugy and i have had since we started living in jersey. we moved in our apartment on august 8th of 2006 so it’s been 1 and half years. many many friends and family members visited us and stayed in our apartment. some came to see us. some came to save money during their nyc tour. some came for job interviews or school interviews. they stayed in our house from 1 day to 22 days! since we love friends and love to help our friends it is always our pleasure to have them.

how many guests do you think we’ve had including eugy’s cousin who’s currently staying in our house. not including just visitors but including those who slept in my house, it’s been 27 people!!

then..
how many nights do you guess they’ve slept in my house? i calculated we’ve had 27 different visitors stay a total of 175 nights at our apt in the past year and a half!!

wow, i think my apt in jersey deserves to be called “hotel!!”
hotel jersey…. no, i don’t like jersey so i don’t like that name.
hm..
“hotel e&e!!”
yes, i like it. =)

guys, sorry to tell you that the hotel e&e is completely booked now until july.

me and eugy, we are not big fans of valentine’s day.

however, i guess, at least, i used to be though. unlike the states, in korea and in japan v-day is for guys. girls give chocolate to guys. and then guys give candy to girls on 3/14 which is called white day. i grew up in korea so i think i just loved v-day because i could expect “something.”

when me and eugy had our first v-day as a couple it was in korea where girls never expect candy from guys. yes, of course, i didn’t prepare anything for her and i was the one who expected a bucket of chocolate from her. just like you can imagine the day didn’t end happily. according to her i was a jerk. and my opinion? she ignored korean culture in korea!!

after that? i’ve always been preparing something for her because i know i have to do that as long as i’m in love with an american born girl.
several days before v-day i “secretly” bought her a huge cup cake pan but didn’t expect anything from her.

this v-day, i unexpectedly received some candy from her.on v-day morning before she left home for work she gave me a mission to find candy hidden in the house. it took a while but i loved her cute idea even though i had to spend some time away from my work finding the lil bundles.

thank you, hon. i love you!

i remember last winter was sooooo cold and long. the second day of 2007 i quit my old job and started studying for grad school. aka, being unemployed   the temperature fell down a lot and it snowed a lot in January/February. even though i was staying home all the time i felt the air around me was awfully cold because of the uncertainty of my future and the pressure of my financial situation. i didn’t even have a close friend near me. that winter was freakin cold and long!!

1 year has passed. during the year so many things happened to my life and, somehow, i survived. i met so many people. i made many great friends. i figured out what my dream job was. i became confident with who i am. i started a couple of part time jobs to work and study. and now i’m truly enjoying my work.

definitely this winter is not cold at all. i’m not scared but even quite excited of the uncertainty of life. i don’t worry about my financial situation anymore even though i don’t have a full-time job yet. through the last 1 year i learned that God provides everything i need, as long as i trust Him and try to do my best.

(i guess…) due to global warming actually the weather in the NYC/NJ area is not so cold. and also my apartment has a super hot steam system which is free. most importantly, i work a lot from home!

i’m so sure that i’m having such a warm winter now.
Thank you, God.

since i moved
to the states somehow i’d lost all the interest and passion about music for a
long time except Christian music. one day i realized that i didn’t know
anything about recent music and didn’t even know what to listen.

i used to love
Jazz but now i don’t know who’s good or whose album i should buy. i tried many
internet radio stations to figure it out but they are always with random songs
which i am never satisfied with. i wanted to keep the titles of songs i liked,
and wanted hear them whenever I wanted. Well, yeah, it’s only possible with
ipod which i didn’t have. So.. i just kinda gave up for a while, sharing Eugy‘s unsatisfying(?) songs from her
iTunes.

lately i
started listen to music, even with a lot of fun and joy. i found this service, Qbox.com! hmmm.. actually they found me.(I’ll tell you this story later..) even
though i’ve used last.fm or pandora this qbox
thing is totally different. It’s like google of music! plus, i can finally have
my own list or album with unlimited # of songs I love.

a good thing
about this service is that i don’t have to think about the legal issues about
mp3 files. because it’s using music from myspace, youtube, bebo, hi5 and
something like that. basically it plays and saves the links of all the music
which artists or bloggers want us to enjoy for free.

and the best of
qbox (to me) is this crazy feature called Emotional Link. i don’t know
about the technical stuff but one thing i know is that it provides me all kinds
of music i’d love. it analyzes my favorite music and recommends random songs
from all kinds of genres. and of course, i can save them and make my own music lists
to enjoy later.

it also provides music player which you can see on my xanga so i can
have free background music.
oh one more exciting and different thing, when you find good music on YouTube, you can save(or add) it on your qbox page and the qbox player instantly so that you can listen to that music later whenever you feel like to. you can even use those music you saved as your backgound music on your xanga, like i do.

man, it’s like
advertisement of qbox.

just try it
out.
you can learn
how to use it easily and intuitively from this link. <click here>

i hope you also
enjoy this totally cool music life!