Lil' Bro's Wedding Weekend - Sunday

It's 11:59pm EST on Saturday, a minute until the after paRtAAyyyy...When you have a group of about 20+ Asians going to an after party, there really is only one logical choice - Karoke.  We love to effing sing, I don't know why, because most of us can't, but we love it.  We also love drinking which was why I was hauling around a magnum bottle of Goose until we got to the joint since it was only a $40 corking fee.

After unsuccessfully trying to figure out how it Twerk it like Miley, I began the night off dancing and stomping to tables to You Belong With Me.  Who doesn't like that song?  I dedicated it to my brother and my new sister-in-law.  The crowd sang along, it was awesome, I was awesome, it was as if I was being cheered on at the Superbowl and I was Eli Manning during those winning seasons.  Or, I was just drunk...

For the next 3+ hours or so, there were some amazing song choices that I remembered.  There were like way too many.  You can totally tell we grew up in the 90's...
1. Backstreet Boys - All I Have to Give
2. Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way
3. NSYNC - This I Promise You
4. NSYNC - Bye Bye Bye
5. Craig David - 7 Days
6. Mariah Carey - Thank God I Found You
7. Mariah Carey - Always Be My Baby
8. R. Kelly - Ignition
9. Bruno Mars - Just The Way You Are
10. Bruno Mars - Marry You
11. Bon Jovi - Living on a Prayer
12. Britney Spears - ...Baby One More Time

At some point, we also gave praise to New York and woke up in a new Buggati.  

I think I may have crawled back to the hotel around 4AM.  I woke up the next morning desperate for dim sum.  The funny thing is it took me about 30 years to realize why when I was younger, we would have to get up so early to be dragged to dim sum at 11am.  Turns out we learned the hard way.  We tried getting to a dim sum place in Flushing at half past noon.  Boy was that stupid.  The lines were long and there was no way we were sitting.  The card that I usually use in LA (aka, speak Cantonese to the hostess) would not have even worked this time around.  There just weren't enough white people waiting to eat.  Luckily, I was also craving Vietnamese food as well, so that made life a little easier.

Work was not done as we had to pack the car up and bring back all the stuff to my brother's apartment from the hotel.  By the time I got back at 5, I passed the eff out.  That was the longest 48 hours of my life.  Speaking of long wedding weekends.  HIMYM is on tonight!  

Lil' Bro's Wedding Weekend - Saturday

The Groom and his men dealing with all the Chinese Door Games to get the bride.  Oh yeah, we also kidnapped the dog and held him ransom to get a discount of $200.  We only had to spend $60!

It was way too early for a Saturday morning.  Mind you, I'm in PST, so for me to be up at 7:30am was pretty much the time that I would be arriving home after a night of boozing back in LA.  I woke up early because I wanted to stop by Dunkin' Donuts and the Duane Reade around the corner to buy a wedding card.  Yes, I'm aware that I just tried to buy a card on the morning of the wedding.  Needless to say, I failed and couldn't buy one until I got to the best man's apartment to catch the limo.  Apparently, the Duane Reade by my apartment doesn't open until 9:30, which was a problem since my dad was giving me a ride to Astoria at 9:15.

Upon arrival, I saw a Walgreens and I ran in there to buy a card and some black socks.  I only packed blue and red for some reason.  I found a blank card because apparently wedding cards do not exist and diabetes friendly socks which I ended up taking off after the pictures because I was losing all of my blood flow to my toes.  Either that or I just didn't break my new black shoes in.  The dogs were barking!

My brother had his last bachelor breakfast and we quickly worked on the dance routine before getting changed to be picked up.  Putting on a tux is such a production when it involved suspenders and a tie and making sure there are no wrinkles.  We got to the hotel to pick up the bride and we had to play Chinese Door Games and we got a good deal on the bride for $60.  I know, such a steal.  I'm not sure if it was really a steal or if it was the fact that we were in a rush to get to the Queens Botanical Garden to take pictures.  That was kind of an ordeal as we spent about two hours taking shots and candid shots of us walking and making idle conversation.  Oh, by the way, at this point, we're all really hungry and there's no sight of food around.  In fact, we were the food as we were all picked off one by one by mosquitoes. 

We thought we were in the clear when we got back to the hotel, but it turns out, we were in for more work as we had to bring stuff down to the ceremony and reception area to help set up before guests arrived.  Luckily, I was able to sneak in one quick drink to to ease the level of anxiety.  If I was feeling anxious, I can only imagine how the bride and groom felt.  We got everything set up and one by one guests arrived and we ushered them to their seats and I was introduced to family members I have not seen before, or at least haven't seen in 10 plus years.  One by one they made fun of me for letting my younger brother get married before me.  I just smiled and nodded.  I think the story my mom and dad are giving to everyone is that I just don't plan on getting married because it really isn't my thing.  Which, I guess is half true.

Russell, the ring bearer.

The ceremony started with me walking out first.  I'm sure everyone recognized me as the loser older brother that allowed my younger brother to get married before him.  I just smiled gracefully as I walked down the aisle.  I really wanted to get fierce and drag race that shit, but I decided it was my brother's day and not mine.  I can look fierce when I walk from my office to the metro.  I was trying to fight back tears during the ceremony and it really wasn't that hard considering the officiant was the apprentice of the original officiant who called out four hours before the wedding due to a family death.  It's crazy how they have apprentices.  In hind sight, I guess it's a good thing someone showed up to married them even though he wasn't the most amazing.  Let's put it this way, the man did not know how to use a microphone, so I couldn't hear a single word.  Well, I guess the only people that needed to hear words that day were the bride and groom.

There was no rest during cocktail hour either as I had to take family pictures and then quick help set up for the reception.  I eyeballed the cater waiters and all their finger foods they were passing around as my mouth was just salivating at the sight of food.  I went to do a little set up with the candy bar, and well, candy became kind of a meal for me.  Don't judge me...

Finally, the party begins.  I won't bore you with the details of the reception, but there were a couple highlights:
1. Our surprise groomsmen dance to "My Girl."  We all did so well during dress rehearsals and then all of a sudden, when the actual dance came about, all the alcohol consumption was not taken into account during dress rehearsal, but we still rocked it.  I wish I had a link to share.
2. Seeing my mom dance on the dance floor like a school girl gave me mixed emotions.  They involved being really happy and embarrassed at the same time.  More happy than embarrassing only because I haven't seen her smile in a long time.
3. Photobooths are fun.
4. When it comes time to play games for prizes, I don't even care if you're a little kid.  I'm not at a mindset where I let a kid win.  That doesn't teach them any lesson in life.  Sometimes you need to push a couple kids down to win.  I had no clue what I won as I left the gift at the reception.

At midnight, the reception ended and we head over to the after PARTY!!!

Speaking of long wedding weekends, yesterday was the premiere of "How I Met Your Mother", where the whole season is the wedding weekend of Robin and Barney!

First Condo Viewing

I saw my first apartment today.  It felt like NYE.  There were so many expectations and then when I finally did it, it just kind of felt like my first time all over again.  You have all this excitement and when you're done, you realized it only lasted about 5 minutes and you're left wondering what happened.  I think I've looked at apartments where I'm renting longer than the amount of time I looked at this one that I was considering purchasing.  I have to admit though, the apartment was very clean, I need to find out who they used as a cleaning service. 

After viewing the place for about 7 minutes, I decided on just telling my agents the good points rather than all the shitty points, and boy were there many.  I figured positive reinforcement is always a good thing so they know what to look for in the future.  I also had an appointment schedule for tomorrow at 2pm with another condo in the same neighborhood, so I drove by to check it out.  Boy and I glad I did.  It was a nice condo, but it was surrounded by crack houses and shattered American dreams.  Just because it's the nicest house on the block, does not make it okay...Needless to say, I e-mailed my agents after and asked that we cancel the appointment tomorrow to not waste anyone's time.  I need to get a feel of what my agents are like because I was definitely a little more PC about how I really felt about the place. 

This is gonna be one long ass ride to home owning...

Lil' Bro's Wedding Weekend - Friday

The Groomsmen gift that never happened :-/

 Weddings really are an outer-body experience.  I'm sure it's even more so for the bride and groom if I felt this way as just a groomsman.  I woke up Monday morning wondering what the hell happened as I tried to recover from what seems like a 50 hour day.  I also woke up with the dizzy spells, which was odd to be because even on my worse morning after drinking like alcohol is going out of style days, I have never been dehydrated to the point where I would have dizzy spells.

For those of you who have never been a part of a wedding party, be prepared to Work Bitch!  Sorry, I had to use that...Oh and one more thing, you also don't get to eat much either.  The moment I landed Thursday night, it was all about my brother's wedding.

I woke up extra early on Friday so I can squeeze in a haircut before I went about running my errands.  I had to buy a pair of pants for my mom because she's crazy superstitious.  Long story short, my younger brother is not supposed to get married before me and since he did, I have to give him my blessing by him walking under a new pair of pants of mine.  I was worried at first because I wasn't sure how much I would need to invest in these pairs of pants, sometimes my mom had a tendency to just burn things.  I wasn't sure if I needed to make a trip to Old Navy.  Here's the tradition explained.  Apparently, I'm supposed to get tea too during the tea ceremony, but that did not happen!

At 4pm, I had to drive over to my brother to lug boxes upon boxes of stuff to bring over to the Sheraton LaGuardia East hotel in Flushing.  It turns out, I really do like Chinese themed hotels.  They are typically really cute and I love staying in them.  Flushing, however, I can do without.  The best way to describe Flushing is that it's like Canal Street in Chinatown in Manhattan, except every street is Canal Street in Flushing.  The pedestrian traffic is awful, Chinese people really don't care if you hit them with your cars or not.  It's all Asian drivers, this may even include the bus drivers, which is even scarier.  It's just a pretty stressful driving experience and that's saying a lot being that I drive in LA in a daily basis. 

Things were unloaded to storage and there was no rest.  We had to quickly go to rehearsal where we met a rather ghetto officiant.  He definitely had some swagger and was apparently a good find on Yelp!  I would really know how good he is since he was a no show on the wedding day (but that's a different story).  We did our walk through and I'm pretty sure I almost cried during it.  I'm a real sap for weddings. After a walk through that seemed pretty hard to mess up, we rolled over to the rehearsal dinner.  It was a great pick in the Korean section of Flushing.  I love Korean food.  I can take it down like no other.

The most exciting part of the dinner is the bridal shower gift.  You and I both know it.  For some reason, all the groomsmen were anticipating watches of the Rolex sort.  We waited patiently as we watched the bridesmaids unwrap their Tiffany boxes.  When it was our turn, we opened up a bunch of valets.  In my brother's defense, he did buy my tux, so I guess I'll need to buy my own Rolex to put in the valet.  Whomp Whomp...

The night didn't end though, oh no it didn't.  We had to run back to one of the other groomsman's apartment to reherse our surprise dance to for the bride.  All my goals have meaning and now you will understand why there was a goal last month to learn an entire dance routine.  It's not because I wanted to twerk it like Miley, although I did practice that as well in case I wanted to go rouge.  After two hours and a noise complaint later, we finally got the entire routine down as a group.  Let's remember that I've been practicing myself in LA while the other four had weeks to get it together.  Turns out it doesn't matter how much you practice because even though we were perfect during dress rehearsals, alcohol came into play during the real thing.

It was no midnight and I had to be up at 8AM...

Giants Lose - Shocker...

I don't know man...I just don't know...

I didn't get frustrated this weekend when the G-men lost to the Cowboys 36-31.  I kind of expected it since I seem to think Eli has to kind of just get adjusted as the season goes on.  Plus when you lower your expectations, things will always be awesome when the opposite occurs. 

Just because I didn't get frustrated, doesn't mean I thought the performance was okay.  First of all, six turnovers?  The only thing that kept me going was seeing Tony Romo get banged up left and right.  I still question how he's the starting quarterback and can Dallas really not do a better job at finding a franchise player?
    
I used to get really angry at Eli Manning because when he got that big contract, it was like he reverted backwards and forgot home to play football.  However, can I really complain?  He's given us 2 Superbowls in the past couple years, both of which came by the hands of the Patriots (hahahahahahaa) and both of which were subpar seasons.  See why I can't really be too worried?  We can go 9-7 and still win a Superbowl.

He's also the better looking of the Manning brothers...

AWESOME! 

The 9th Month Goals

Recapping August

Clockwise from L to R: Stephen and I driving endless miles, me shooting a gun in Vegas (I just like the way my arms looked, I do not support gun violence), seeing some former teammates in Scottsdale, AZ, my brother's bachelor party at XS, and then my exercise log for the month of August.

I cannot believe it's already September.  When I was a kid, I would always think a year took forever to end.  As I'm getting older, the days are moving along so much faster.  I felt like it was just yesterday that I was on a flight back to LA on NYE's so I can end up bringing in the new year at Rage.  #classy

The fall is one of my favorite times of the year.  Football starts, college football starts, and volleyball begins, except this time, I will not be coaching and I'll just be a mere fan or spectator.  The summer heat dies out and the new school year begins.  I've been in academia all my life, so I don't know what it's like to really live outside of an academic calender.  If anything, my new years is actually Labor Day.

August has been a busy month.  I've been really going hard at these goals and after 8 months of goal setting, I'm happy to say that I've accomplished 100% of these.

Goal #1: Exercise 14 times this month.  I killed it and did 16.  That's like working out every other day...CRAZY.  I can't believe I'm that dedicated or at least had that much time in my hands considering all the traveling I had to do for August.

Goal #2: I actually don't really miss soda at all now that I've gone two months without soda unless I'm having a vodka soda or a vodka red bull.  That still beats drinking a diet coke a day during lunch.

Goals #3 and #4: This was the Three Part Mini-Series: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Goal #5: That was four crazy days that I lived to not talk about.  What happens in Vegas...

Goal #6: There's a routine I've been working on but I need to keep it a secret.  For all you know, I can be making my own version of Miley's "We Can't Stop."

Goal #7: The home buying process is scary, especially when you don't know of good real estate agents.  I have a friend who is one and I didn't want to go that route because who really wants to have their friends working for them.  It just gets awkward and uncomfortable.  I would much rather keeps my friends around to do fun things like drink with them.  However, my awesome friend Sabrina just recently bought something and gave me her real estate agent who she says was FAB.

Goal #8: I booked a fall vacation for October.  I was going to go to Portugal and stalk Renaldo, but plans changed when I got an agent and will potentially be looking at places to throw all my money at before the year ends.  So I'll be going to...DRUMROLL....Canada!

Goal #9: Two tickets to Justin's 20/20 Experience World Tour: Check!

Goal #10: Here's the thing, one of my favorite scenes from CrazySexyLove was this.  I have this tendency to sometimes just buy clothes from the GAP or "Gap like" because it's easy and low maintenance.  This happens every month since I live by one.  So sometimes I'll buy a $2 t-shirt here and there and then I'll have a bunch of stuff that I can't really wear to work or on a fancy night out.  This entire month, I stayed away from that kind of shopping.  That's not to say I also went about buying 'Gamos.