*Edit: It's Geoff Hill and Daniel Baratta in the picture below... good thing no one from NCSSM reads this thing

The five-year reunion for the NCSSM Class of 2000 was this weekend and I have to admit I was a little nervous about going.  There was always the possibility that no one would show up, or, perhaps worse, people would show up but these people would only consist of those that I was on the least friendly terms with, the people with whom spending time with would be just plain awkward.

Fortunately, though it did happen sometimes with people who I didn't remember, or people I seriously said no more than two words to for the two years I was there, there enough people I did know half-well, and more importantly just a generally amicable atmosphere philos, brotherly love.

And now, pictures:

New Bryan Center, along with a clock donated by our class

 Someone blingin'... must have been class of 1990 or 1995

Geoff Ess and Daniel Brezina, two cats I never talked to while I was in school, but I asked them to pose anyway

Lauren Carr's stuff in the SLI room on 1st Beall... because she's an SLI!  OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!one!!!uno

Group picture after the slideshow, it looks like I'm laughing at Doug's funny face except that I can't possibly actually see his face from where I am

People catchin' up

Due to technical difficulties our slideshow ran late so we only caught the last 10 seconds of the alumni soccer game, where "we" miraculously scored the winning goal on a corner kick.  And by "we" I mean nobody from the class of 2000 because none of us showed up to play.

Smokestacks standing tall

The graffiti'd 2000 at the TOP of one smokestack.  Not pictured: a copycat attempt by the class of 2005 on the opposite smokestack, except the perpetrator chickened out after only climbing 75% to write 2005

The stool whose seat I embellished for art class is still there!

Top view.  The time reads 3:30, school's out!  I'm freeeeeeeeeeeeee

At one point in time there were no bars behind these cubbyholes.  Legend has it that after someone from our class was caught wriggling through a cubbyhole to "steal" cereal during non-business hours the bars were installed.

Moral of the story: our class is cool for trying to steal cereal and stick it to the Man.  And we're stupid for getting caught.

Ellen and Paul dressed up and ready to party at the Croasdaile Country Club

 And now Raff goes to persuade Yockey to stop eating his clotheshanger

Being silly

At the country club with Daren Zou and USMC 2nd Lt. Mengliang "Lee" Dai

Slow dance

Slow dance part 2

Group picture before heading to Jason/Brandy/Ken's for the afterpartAy

Spooning in SLI Lauren's apartment... I ended up being tormented by Andy Lame's snoring to the point that I instead chose exile in fetus position on the loveseat

I don't even remember this, but the look on Lauren's face is priceless

There are times in a man's life when, from somewhere outside of himself, thin beams of light are just barely able to penetrate into his world, as radiant but diminuitive rays of sun through the faintest of spaces between rainclouds on an otherwise dull and gloomy afternoon, and the eye can only perceive black, white and gray.  His world is not darkness, and neither is it light; it is somewhere in between, not so dark that nothing of value can be found in him, and yet not so light that he could truly be a lamp unto others.  And, more importantly, the world is his, the sky, the earth, the sea, even the air, are his, molded in such a way as to suit his desires, and locked away from anything outside, whether or not it might wish to intrude upon what he considers to be his boundaries.

But then there are times, few and far between, when a little bit of light is able to shine through from the world without, the real world, the world where the decisions are not made by himself.  And he can see that the light from without shines with more brilliance than the light of his own, for it must be in order for it to be noticed.

There are times, short and transient as they may be, when a man actually sees the light from outside, and finally realizes, though for only a moment, that he is not God, and that his world is not the world; and he is touched, he is moved, he is inspired to do something, however small it may be, but something, not merely to keep his own world turning, but the world outside as well.

This is one of those times. 

- - - -

The following can be found at chidang315

"the greatest love in the world is the love that a parent has for his or her child."  --unknown

1)  it is AGAINST THE LAW to lay an infant (<12 months old) any way but on his back...unless it is medically necessary to lay him on his side or stomach.  (she broke the law...)

2)  NEVER use blankets or pillows to prop an unattended baby on his side.  (she didn't even check on him for hours and hours...she didn't even put him in a crib but on her queen size bed!)

3)  if it involves ur most prized possessions--the ppl dear to ur heart--NEVER blindly trust recommendations given by others.  do ur own RESEARCH!  (she wasn't even infant CPR certified when she claimed to be.  she didn't even make the 911 phonecall--she didn't even do CPR on him!  her teenage daughter had to.  she also claimed to have a blemish-free business record for 17 years...when in truth, she had been cited for over 10 violations in the past 9 years.)   

it has been so devastating for us.  i cannot even begin to explain how we feel right now.  only recently have my brother & sis in law been able to go upstairs.  the nursery is filled with so many things that my nephew never got the chance to play with, use, or wear.  we have over 750 pictures of him collectively, b/c aside from having such a large family who loved him sooo much, he was their 1st child, & they were so excited.  not to mention that he was the most adorable, vibrant, happy & smiling lil baby.  i spent several days a week with him and even spent all day sunday with him prior to his 1st day in daycare.  he died on his 2nd day there.

i have been trying to shield my brother & sis in law from the media, but reporters r relentless.  one news channel has monopolized the story after i made a statement, as the spokesperson for my family, on monday nite after the state finally shut that day care down.  since then, the media has called me nonstop.  the press is another matter.  i've read so many different articles & have lashed out at several reporters about the erroneous info that has been printed...which, i've learned, is pointless.  i've done my own investigation.  now, i have to sit & wait (impatiently) for the results of the autopsy.  how does a healthy baby get dropped off at a licensed day care and die from alleged suffocation?  something is quite suspicious.  he was found face-down & not checked on for way too long. 

my family hasn't taken any legal action until the investigation is complete.  we r trying to maintain a completely neutral stance, b/c we do not want to falsely accuse anyone of wrongdoing.  however, we want answers.   

i am just focused on helping my family heal as well as making sure that steps r done to prevent this from happening to anyone again.  the state legislators will be hearing from me shortly. 

many have asked me how they can help...get the word out.  public awareness will be a good deed that could come out of all this.  i will need so much support with the legislators soon...i don't want another helpless baby to die soooo undeservingly. 

thank u for ur prayers...again, pray for my brother & sis in law. 

So in the end Daniel was right, everything went just fine once I went to the place in person.  Every time I spoke on the phone I was able to obtain information, but in terms of action I always got the runaround.

Before my first visit, I discovered what had happened but absolutely nothing was done to remedy the situation.

Upon my first visit, the storage fee was waived completely and I got my car back after paying only the $85 towing fee, which the guy at the desk said I would be refunded as long as the apartment management told them to do so.

This morning I called the apartment management to have them tell the tow company to refund my money, and though the apartment management tried, they told me that the tow company refused, saying that they "just don't do that."

Upon visiting the tow office again, I only had to say which car I was referring to and the guy at the desk (a different guy from the first visit) immediately went to the back to tell his supervisor as if they had been expecting me, and the supervisor came out, told me he was going to call the apartment management, and then came back out, pulled a leather zip pouch from behind some stacks of paperwork, pulled out $85 cash and handed it to me after I signed a makeshift statement declaring I had been refunded my money.

So the Supra has been towed.

In the apartment complex I live in, parking policy is this: to park in an unmarked spot you must have a Cloisters Resident Parking sticker on the vehicle or else it will be towed.  Cars without a sticker must be parked in a spot marked Visitor.

I had parked the Supra in an unmarked spot without a sticker overnight and realized the next day that I could've been towed, and I immediately moved the car to a Visitor spot.

However, the apartment complex management had already called the car in (which I didn't know until I called the management after the fact), and the towing company would be on the way.

Here's the thing though: by the time the tow truck got here, my car was without a doubt parked in a Visitor spot.  And after speaking with the Cloisters' management, their policy is that a car in a Visitor spot cannot be towed.

Currently the situation is this:

     -The car was towed sometime on Wednesday, July 6th, and I did not find out until Thursday night, so I couldn't get in touch with anyone until Friday morning

     -Marshall Brother's Towing Co. currently has my car, along with a bill for $190 in towing and storage fees

     -I initially called Marshall Brothers, who, after I informed them that the car was in a Visitor spot and should not have been told, then told me that it was a apartment management call-in and I needed to take it up with them

     -I then called the apartment management who told me that they did call it in, but that the tow company was not supposed to tow a vehicle if it was moved to a Visitor-marked spot.

     -The apartment management told me that they would remind the tow company of this policy, but seemed reluctant to do anything else

     -I called the tow company again and told them what I had learned, and the guy answering the phone understood the situation well enough to at least put a stop on my storage fees (which increase by the day)

     -However, he said he could do nothing else about it, and got my name and number so that his "supervisor" could call me back

     -I continued calling back about every hour and the supervisor never
 showed up nor returned my calls

     -Today (Saturday) I called again, and this time spoke to a different phone receptionist.  This one basically said I have to pay to get my car out of there, and that I can take it up with management later.

This I will not do.  As far as I can tell my car was basically stolen from me.  I'm currently trying to find any documents on local towing law so I can find out what I can do (ex. threaten to report the vehicle as stolen and have the police take action, threaten to sue etc).  Unfortunately I haven't found anything yet.

One website summarized towing laws in Austin, TX, which stated that the party that ordered the towing (in this case the Cloisters) would be responsible for fees and damages in an illegal towing.  Of course the Cloisters would then say that the tow company was not actually authorized by them to tow the car since their policy is that cars in Visitor spots are not to be towed (assuming this is written in a contract somewhere).

But either way, at least as far as I can tell,  the party at fault is not me.

Any helpful ideas would be appreciated... I'm definitely lucky to have two cars, otherwise I'd have been car-less since Wednesday and until either I buckle and decide to give the tow company their filthy money or until this whole thing is resolved... I hope I don't actually have to take this to court because it would be such a hassle, but I'm standing up for my rights on this one...

Welcome to the exhaust vent of my mind.

 Here you will find the unrefined garbage that has been boiling and festering inside of me, waiting for a chance to shine before being thrown into the abyss.

Please make yourself comfortable, and enjoy the ride.

* * *

 Lately I have been conjecturing about the relationship between God, truth, meaning.

Jesus taught that everything was for the glory of the Father.  What was translated into "glory" in the English language came from the word kabod in Hebrew, which basically means something of weight, or substance.  This substance can have many sides to it, whether in terms of honor, morality, kindness etc.  But of most interest to me lately has been meaning.

In Chinese there is a phrase you yi si, which literally translatse to "has meaning," but the meaning I feel is more, for lack of a better word, meaningful in Mandarin.

For many, many reasons I feel that my life, and more specifically what I choose to do in order to sustain my life, i.e. career, must have meaning.  I think that this does not necessitate legacy or a singular life purpose, but that there is more than simply the fact that we exist and can choose what we want to do with it.

A co-worker remarked to me that generally people, having been told many stories whne they were young, perceive reality in the same fashion, as a story with setting, central characters, theme, and most of all plot - no story ever told of a person who counted beans every day to make ends meet, lived an ordinarily life and then passed away.  Stories must have plot, there must be an adventure, a journey, and a goal.  We find no meaning in the story otherwise.

My co-worker actually related this to me intending to conclude then it may only be because we derive our perception so strongly from stories that we desire equally strongly for meaning in our own lives.  However, another way to look at this is to question why is it that only stories with meaning can entertain us, and more importantly, capture our imaginations and inspire us to change our lives and ourselves?  Perhaps the stories with central characters, goals, and themes captivate us so, whether as children or as adults, because that is exactly how our lives were intended to be.

Tell me the story of your life... 

I guess the major difference behind the thoughts of my co-worker and myself is that he is an atheist while I am a Christian.  To him, existence precedes thought; to me, thought precedes existence, though that thought is not my own.  To him, only atoms, molecules, compounds, cells, tissue, and organs form a human being, and somehow, through a series of highly intricate and complex mechanisms, we are endowed with the ability to think and feel - existence first.  Therefore, just because we find meaning in stories doesn't imply anything more than just that - that we like stories, or the color red, or girls with long eyebrows.

To me, before anything that we know of came to exist, there was an entity greater than ourselves or our world through which we were created and brought into existence, and therefore what we think and feel and even our ability to think and feel is a direct result of that entity.  And as a Christian, believing in an infinite and limitless God, it then follows that this entity created us with and for some purpose.  Therefore, there is a reason that we find meaning in stories, because we were designed and created to do so.  And part of that design is for something to drive us to do something more with our lies than to eat, drink, urinate, defecate, and procreate.

As a child, my answers to the question "what do you want to be you when you grow up?" are all related to identity.  Even the question itself requests a statement of identity, be it a fireman or a singer or a carpenter or a doctor.

As I got older the question became "what do you want to do?" as I discovered the joy of gong fu - working to accomplish a goal.  Being a fireman or doctor is no longer about identity - being able to go to a party and say "I'm a fireman!" is less important than that you help people and even save lives.  And this is practical; ultimately, job descriptions outweigh job titles.  I don't spend 40+ hours a week working on analyses so that I can go to a bar on the weekend and say "I'm an analyst!" and get girls because of it (one would have to question just what kind of girls would go for that line).  I do it because I can - I have the basic skills necessary and it doesn't drive me completely nuts (unlike the steering wheel attached to the pirate's pants - arrrrr, it's drivin' me nuts).

For the question of identity, I had no real answer.  If I did, what I actually did would naturally follow; I am a carpenter.  I make things out of wood; making things out of wood is who I am.

For the question of purpose, I had no real answer.  If I did, who I am would naturally follow; I make things out of wood, so I am a carpenter.  I am a carpenter; making things out of wood is what I do.

So finally the question becomes "what am I supposed to do?"

* * *

Will Phillip answer this question in his next entry?

Or will he argue himself in circles for yet another 23 years?

Will the lame excuses for only writing half-assed unfinished entries ever stop?

Find out the answers to these and more next time...