The Longboard Project.
A large majority of the time I see students around campus riding their longboards. Each longboard has their different shape, sizes, and colors. Many college students cruise around campus with their longboards enjoying the nice ride before arriving to their next class. So about a month ago or so, I hear Isabelle talking about longboards and wanting one everytime someone with a longboard passes by. I remember Jeff telling me that riding a longboard is a great experince, so I’ve decided to save up some cash to buy Isabelle one. Originally, I was going to jsut buy a premade one, but I thought it would mean more if it was custom made. Also imagining the type of board Isabelle wanted seem pretty sweet. What kind of board was Isabelle thinking about? Well, since she’s Filipino, she wanted the Filipino flag for her board to show her pride for her country. So during that month, I would ask Jeff some questions about the longboard and some recommendations. He showed me different sites and all the parts required to make the longboard. I probably would’ve gotten nowhere without his help. Thanks Jeff.
Also, with Namphuong’s help, I was able to find out what kind of board to get Isabelle since the two talked about it alot. Heres the board type:
MINI Rounded PinTail
So thanks Namphuong for the info. You are a ninja fo sho!
So then after reviewing all the parts needed for the longboard, it was time for me to buy everything, but then there was a problem. At the time, my debit card wasn’t working, so I needed someone with a debit or credit card. Thanks to Khiem, I was able to give him money to buy the necessary parts to make the longboard. So if it weren’t for Khiem, I probably would have ended up delaying this board even longer. Thanks Khiem for the help.
So once I’ve recieved all the materials, I was ready to begin, but sadly I got sick and ended up in the hospital, which delayed even more. Something always delayed me from working on the board, so I figured I as well tell Isabelle about it. Haha she seem very happy about it even if it was unfinished.
Once I got out of the hospital and was feeling better, I started to paint the board. This was my first time painting the board, so I kept messing up. Took awhile till I actually got the colors to look right. Each wait was long since I had to let one color dry before putting on the other colors. The most difficult was putting on the sun. The first time I put on the sun, it turned out quite ugly since the poster board cutting of the sun was really flimsy around the rays. After I was done with the flag, I made two white stripes on the other side. Heres how the flag looked so far:
So next, I had to add the coating. This process probably took the longest since I had to do three coatings for each side. I also had to sand it after the third coating, but I may of sanded it too hard since the day I used the grip spray, it caused the stripes to crinkle up and it ended up looking ugly. So I had to sand off as much of the crinkled stripes as I can and redo the stripes again. After finishing the coating and grip spray the second time, I attached the truck to the board. Luckily Jeff helped me earlier in the week to attach the wheels to the truck. Screwing on the bolts probably took a chunk of time, but not as much as the painting process. Here are the results:
So in the end, I realized its really hard to make a longboard (or at least the first time). It takes a lot of time and effort to make it perfect, but I did find it fun. Perhaps in the future, I can make one for myself and learn from my mistakes from the first attempt. Anyways, hope you love your new board Isabelle! <3
You Don’t See This Everyday.
This was taken at a friend’s potluck during the summer time of senior year. Our performance ended up horrible since my bass guitar was so out of tune, the drummer couldn’t focus, and we weren’t prepared as much as we thought we were. At least Andrew had fun being the tamburine boy.
Two Guys, One Bed
Okay they’re not some kinky porn video or anything, but this is just a clip from Andrew’s house. Those chicken bakes were sure tasty….
Hopefully you guys can hear since the pocket camcorder’s speakers aren’t that great.
So I found out where that jacket he never wears is.
Use To Be Taller….
This was the last day of school for freshman year (July 2003?). Yes, I use to be taller than Andrew till college. Wonder what it’d be like if Andrew never grew taller than me. I sure wouldn’t hear “I use to be shorter than James in high school….look at me now!”
Christmas Gifts
So I didn’t expect to get any gifts, but so happens some of my friends and family got me gifts anyways. So I wanted to show some of the gifts I received this Christmas.
First off from my parents, I’ve received this:
Originally it was suppose to be a surprise, but my mom wasn’t that good at keeping secrets. Well actually originally I didn’t know my parents got me a Wii until Lydia said that my mom was bad at keeping surprises when she kept saying Santa was going to get me a Wii. But yeah, thanks Mom and Dad for the Wii!
So next gift I received was this:
This little nifty gadget is a pocket camcorder I’ve received from Andrew, Jeff, Np, and Lydia. Although it can only record one hour, the quality is great and its pretty easy to use and upload. It can record for two hours if its set on low quality. Now wherever I go, I can bring this little gadget to record instead of holding my bulky camera which can barely fit in my pocket. Thanks again Andrew, Jeff, Np, and Lydia!
So next on the list would be this:
I’ve received this jacket from Jessica. Its a reversible jacket so I don’t always have to keep with the same style and still wear it continuously. Thanks Jessica for the awesome jacket.
Lastly from the gifts I’ve received:
This is a lovely shirt given to me by Isabelle. Its nothing I’ve ever worn before. I’m still a noob at mixing and matching, so I would probably not be able to wear this at it’s fullest. Its definitely something new for my wardrobe from fitted shirts (band shirts, etc.) and jackets. Now I have something different to wear other than my usual clothes. Thanks Isabelle for the shirt!
Just an add-on, this was a white elephant gift Kevin put in that I’ve gotten (or traded my gift to get from my sister since I help her get the monkey hat):
Its a journal handcrafted from India (or so it says). For some reason I love having journals probably because I can write whatever I want in there keeping all my secrets and thoughts in there. It has a high risk of being exposed, so I probably would have to keep it with me at all times or hide it. Perhaps I should have a safe for it.I don’t plan to use it till I finish up my current journal which Karen and Eliza made for me for last Christmas.
Last year I’ve received a journal from Karen and Eliza:
Some of you may have seen this around, maybe in my room or maybe in my backpack at school. I try to keep it as close to me as I can making sure no one reason it, or not yet at least. As soon as all the pages are filled in here, I shall start on my new journal.
So this concludes the Christmas Gifts I’ve received. Oh also I got money from relatives, so I would like to thank them for the Christmas money. Thank you all for these great gifts and I hope you all a happy holidays. Also thanks for all the people who participated in White Elephant and who came to the Christmas party. I hope you all had a fun time and filled up from the potluck food.
The Smash Crew
I was pretty bored and wanted to try out the new way of cutting images that Jeff told me out so decided to make this.
The Brawl Tournament
Super Smash Bro first start off being a fighting game using popular or old school Nintendo characters. The selection of characters was small, but still quite enjoyable. Back when i first saw this game, it looked quite interesting, but I never had an N64, so only time I was able to play was whenever i went over to my friends house, which was rare seeing I was in elementary school.
This was the commercial where I first found out about Super Smash Bro.
So during the time gamecube existed as one of the latest systems, a new Super Smash Bro game was released. I was pretty hyped up of the game, but was quite sad that I didn’t own a gamecube, so the only time I got to play was at a friends house. I pretty much sucked at it, but still loved everyone moment of it. The game seem to have faster movement for the characters than the N64 smash. They also have alot more playable characters and stages and some added side games. There was a time when my friend let me borrow his gamecube in exchange of me letting him borrow my ps2. Having the gamecube and playing melee was quite enjoyable, but eventually got boring seeing i played it alone alot.
I remember I was so hyped about Super Smash that during my high school years, a tournament was being held in one of the classrooms at the science building. My friend and I decided to join it even if we were still noobs. In the end, we got raped badly by pro sauce players. Its quite sad I didn’t get past the first round. IT however, got us to train more hoping theres another tournament, but haven’t seen one and eventually stopped playing.
I didn’t know this commercial existed, but decided to post it here just to show it.
So right about when Super Smash Brother Melee was getting to the point people would stop playing it, Nintendo announces a new Super Smash Bro. game for the Wii. It was post-poned on the release date, but finally when it reached March, it was released. Jeff was the first in the group to buy the game (with the wii) and play it. Of course me, Andrew, and Np would meet up at his house duking it out with one another not knowing what to expect from the new game. As the four of us met new friends, they would also join up on our brawl fun.
One day (summertime), Khiem’s friends decided to hold a small tournament. Me, Andrew, and Np decided to join in to see how well we fare against them. Also joining us was Kevin, Alfie, and Khiem. So where was Jeff during this tournament? From all the people, you would think Jeff wouldn’t miss out. Well, wasn’t quite sure, but he may of gone somewhere with his family.
So during the time,since Jeff wasn’t there, Np was considered our top player. She did get alot farther than the rest of us against Khiem’s friends, Trung, Austin, and Charlie. I never got to fight them during the tournament, but I was able to play them one on one for fun after. It turns out fighting them was a whole different level compared to the others. They practically read me like a book knowing what I would do next. I don’t have any pictures for it probably cause the event didn’t turn out to be as big.
So more recently, the groups been playing brawl alot more than usual increasing our skill. We’ve all gotten to the point that everyone seem pretty equal to against one another, so we decided to hold a tournament. We also had Khiem’s friends to participate as well to see if our skill level has differ from before till now.
Date: 10/24/08
Date: 10/24/08
Date: 10/24/08
The difference with this tournament was that each person was able to enter two characters. The tournament lasted pretty long and everyone was glued to the fights wondering who will win. This time, alot more people joined like Martin, Vincent, Khang, and Jeff. Charlie didn’t participate this time, but Don (Trung’s brother) did. Judging by the fights, I’ve noticed Austin has gotten alot better. Before I would think Trung was the best out of Khiem’s friends because of the tournament before, but seems like things change over time.
So in the end, Austin won the tournament ending it with his final match against Trung.
Date: 10/24/08
Date: 10/24/08
After the tournament, we had some free gameplay and a random partner team tournaments. Its funny though that after all this, you would think everyone would be sick of brawl, but its gotten everyone to crave to play more. Perhaps in the future, I will hold another tournament and see how well we fare.
Khiem and the Super-Friends
Date Created: 9/17/08
Date Created: 9/17/08
So happens my friend’s birthday was coming up and I had no idea what to get him since he kind of expect something meaningful instead of just bought gifts. At first I was thinking of merely getting him a picture of the group with this picture frame I bought, but an idea struck me. Why not try something in photoshop? So looking through the pictures, I’ve notice alot of the group have neat poses and faces and remembering the time Khiem rescued me, Alfie, and Kevin at San Francisco, I decided to use a Superman theme. With Khiem’s head on the body of Superman and the girls drooling all over him, I really didn’t know how I was going to fit all the guys. So happens Jeff gave me an idea of using a superhero group for the guys. This was a very good idea and decided to take advantage of it, so I searched the internet for some good group pictures of superheros with the right amount of heroes and so happen to run into the “New Avengers”. Seeing there weren’t enough guys in the picture, Jeff suggested I place Kevin as Spiderwoman. So with pictures taken with each guy to pose for the camera, I’ve created the superfriends with guys. The girls were all mostly old pictures from facebook or my camera, except for Isabelle’s picture seeing its she didn’t really have any funny poses, so I had to take a funny pose at school. This sure took a lot of time to create, but had to admit, it was pretty fun.
