Records

Looking back this past year, I thank God for He's been too good to me:

1. My faith.

2. My family: mom, dad and my younger brother.

3. Glad to be now in my 6th year with Nortel.

4. No traffic accident though I came close a few times, a crazy and fast driver that I am.

5. Elected chapter president of VPS Dallas.

6. Totally debt free.

7. Get to know so many new people and make many new friends.

Apparently a year has gone by and my new year resolution is still the same, sad huh:

1. Save up to have the 20% for my first house so that I don't have to worry about PMI.

2. Move up my time of coming to work earlier, like 08:00 or maybe even 07:30. That way, I can have time to work out everyday and then go to a lot of functions in the evening.

3. Play a few songs with my guitar, maybe even some classical pieces.

Long term things I want to do here before going home to my Lord, Savior and Creator:

1. Get my private pilot license, first single engine VFR, and eventually multi-engine IFR.

2. Learn how to play the piano.

3. Speak Spanish fluently.

4. Read and write at least another language: German, Chinese or Russian.

Had our first VPS Dallas staff meeting on Tuesday night. We tentatively planned for 2006.

Did some home improvement on Wednesday before going to the credit union and also stopped by the bookstore. Borders had a really limitted selection of merchandize in their stores, at least the one on Arapaho and Coit. Don't know how they can compete with Barnes and Noble. I guess that's why Borders "merged" with Amazon.

Today, I picked up a set of photo albums, some picture frames from Costco and filled my tank before spending the rest of the afternoon doing some more home improvement.

I got around to going to the range and put about 200 rounds through my SigArms P229 .40 S&W today.

Christmas greetings with Psalm 32:11 from lieutenant governor David Dewhurst and greetings with Psalm 50:1 (King James) from Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs came in the mail yesterday.

Christmas greetings from senator Richard Burr of North Carolina and senator David Vitter of Louisiana came in the mail yesterday. Neither had a biblical verse.

Texas State senator Kenneth Armbrister has announced that he will not seek re-election. It would be great if we Republican can take that seat. Otherwise, it would be trouble if one of those amoral Democrat pick up the seat.

The Dallas GOP had their annual Christmas party at the Prestonwood Country Club last night, hosted by Geraldine "Tincy" Miller and her husband Vance. Everyone was signing the petition for judge Becky Miller, who was appointed to the 283rd district bench by governor Rick Perry on December 20th, after judge Vic Cunningham resigned that bench to run for the Dallas County District Attorney office.

Afterward I headed to Razoo for Amy's birthday celebration.

Saw Dan and Gretchen Jaworski last night and their one-month old little boy Reagan at the campaign kick-off reception of Ricky Grunden, who is running for State Representative District 63 at the home of Chad and Tammy Hennings. The seat is currently held by Mary Denny but she has decided not to run for re-election to spend more time with her family.

Christmas greetings from Florida senator Mel Martinez, Mrs. Kitty and the Martinez family came in the mail yesterday, quoting Psalm 145:3-4 (New Living Translation).

Also came in the mail was the politically correct holidays greetings from the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science of my alma mater, the University of Texas at Dallas.

Our Vietnamese Evangelical Church of the Chistian and Missionary Alliance of Dallas/Fort Worth had our annual meeting this morning, or afternoon as it was after the worship service. Two of the board members were re-elected along with a new member.

Later, our church singles group went to the DSO "Angels Sing" 7-Elevent Christmas celebration tonight. Just as I was getting my valet parking ticket at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center downtown, I saw Donna Marchant and went to say hello. Later we ran into Matthew inside. Lindsay and little Kendall as well as Matthew's younger brother Kenny Jr. were also there for the concert. Apparently Matthew's dad, Kenny Marchant, was still up in Washington casting votes as the US House of Representatives was still in session. It was a great performance, including the reading of the Christmas story. It's so comforting to know in the midst of the culture war that the Christ is still celebrated during Christmas.

I went to my Krav Maga class this morning and then spent the afternoon posting the posters advertising the January 13th opening of the movie First Morning. Then got my haircut before heading downtown to the Dallas Arts Center for our annual VPS Dallas Christmas party. Shari, Dianne, Alisha and Justin of the Special Day Events Inc. did a terrific job decorating the room, providing us with everything we need for a great party.

After the Krav Maga class last night, one guy couldn't even hold a pen to write his name on the sign in sheet. We did a bunch of 2-minute drill of punching and kicking.

My set of Bocce balls arrived yesterday.

Former Republican state representative Talmadge Heflin of Houston has filed to run to regain the district 149 seat that he lost by 16 votes to Hubert Vo last cycle in 2004. It would be a very interesting re-match.

The Dallas County Young Republicans had their Christmas party tonight at the Nero's Italian restaurant. I can only stopped by for a little bit before I had to take off to get to Paul and Sharon's house in Frisco.

Posted my question in our Richardson Nortel General newsgroup and found my answer to the problem I have with Nortel VPN client. It's the Norton Antivirus Internet Worm protection that is the culprit, blocking incoming VPN connection, and not my Linksys WRT54G wireless router. I disabled that and everything worked like a charm.

The Christmas potluck party at the home of County Criminal Court No. 11 judge Dianne Jones turned out real well. Got to say hello and chatted a little bit with ChiChi, mayor Joe Chow's fiancee, a real estate investment manager. Also learned a few things from Josie Orosco, southwest executive director of the US-Mexico Chamber of Commerce - Camara de Comercio Mexico-E.U. (that's Estados Unidos, not European Union).

I also met a few new candidates: Chrissi W. Gumbert is running for County Criminal Court No. 6, Misty Neal running against incumbent judge Manny Alvarez of the Criminal District Court No. 5, Toby Shook running for District Attorney.

I've been a supporter of Focus on the Family for a while but this year is the first time I am getting a Christmas card from Dr. James and Mrs. Shirley Dobson. Not that I am complaining but apparantly it's a non-profit organization and there's no way it could be compared with political campaign.

I finished listening to the audio book Ten Minutes from Normal by Karen Hughes on the way to Austin yesterday and on the way back today. Great book with what's going on behind the scene and also the insight into the decision she made to move her family back to Austin 18 months into president Bush's first term. I and my brother were going to stop by Jeffrey's for dinner but it was too late when we got there. The restaurant was already close. I knew Bennigan's opens late but didn't see any along the way back to the hotel so we ended up getting something at IHOP instead.

We woke up, checked out of the hotel, and went to church. Had lunch at church after the worship, hanging out and chatting with the young adults before heading over to the governor's mansion for the Christmas holiday open house. We got there early and had no trouble finding a parking spot on 10th street right at the corner of Colorado street. Inside, I was so clumsy that while taking the picture with the governor and Mrs. Perry, I brushed against the Christmas tree and caused one of the ornaments to drop to the floor. It was a Santa Claus figure made of clay but thank God it didn't break. It was embarrassing but Mrs. Perry was so kind and gracious, told me not to worry about it at all. Got to meet Jane Burch's mom, sister and brother-in-law. We went outside, took some pictures around the water fountain in the back and some more pictures at the small wooden model of the mansion on the lawn. We then took off and went back to Hillsborough and shopped at the Prime Outlet Mall there for some dress shirts, pants and belts before finally made it home.

Came by the For the Love of the Lake office and then followed Mr. Joe Sims out to congressman Pete Sessions' section of the lakeshore and spruced it up. The majority of trash are plastic and glass bottles, that's nothing unusual. However, guess what is the second most frequently found pieces, tennis balls. In addition, I found one basketball, and lots of bottle caps. There's no way we can spend time to pick up all the foam pieces, otherwise we will need to spend 2 days instead of 2 hours for that section of the lakeshore.

This UnitedMicro custom build 15.4inch notebook, with Intel Graphics Media 128MB, DDR2-533MHz MEMORY, DUAL DVD-RW costs $592. When adding the components below it totals to $1655. I predict that after Christmas, this will drop at least $100, specifically the CPU. By then, I'll pay the same amount and get better stuff, preferably a hard drive that is bigger than 80Gb. Let's see if I will be correct.

CPU $721	Intel Mobile M 780 2.26GHz 533MHz 2MB
Memory $152	1GB DDR400 PC3200 200 pin SO-DIMM
Hard Drives $154	TOSHIBA 80GB 16MB 9.5MM 5400RPM Notebook Drive
Wireless Networking $36	INTEL 802.11abg Wireless MiniPCI Card

Last night, I decided against going to the Dallas County North Republican club Christmas party at Mickey Kennedy's house, and the reception for judge Jerry Lewis, judge of the Collin County Court at Law No. 2, in downtown Dallas.

I could have worked from home today and not having to drive through icy roads and bridges had I taken care of replacing the old Linksys BEFSR41 EtherFast® Cable/DSL router that went dead a month ago with another Nortel VPN compatible router. No, I threw in one of the old incompatible routers I had and thus had no access to Nortel internal network and so I came in today.

The road only got worse this morning and so I didn't make it to the Park Cities Republican Women luncheon today with South Dakota senator John Thune at the Dallas Country Club either.

The US Chamber of Commerce hosted the first annual Thank You reception for the congressional and senatorial district staffers last night at the Blue Mesa Grill in Dallas. Peter Havel, the executive director for the southwest and south central regions did a great job organizing the event.

Had an opportunity to chat with Kathy and Harlan Crow, who graciously hosted Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs, who is running for Comptroller, last night in their library. Both Kathy and Harlan were such nice and down to earth people. Kathy saw the Carter Bloodcare 2-gallon pin on my lapel so she asked me about it and we started the conversation talking about blood donation. I talked with Harlan about history. He's such a history buff, has in his collection everything from the original copy of the executive order with which president Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, declaring martial law to the cup of the last Russian tsar Nicholas II.

Headed over to the Adam's Mark for the Christmas holiday mixer by the Greater Dallas Asian Chamber. The turnout weren't anywhere near the previous years and we found out later the cause was a major closing of the highways.

The Christmas card from the governor's campaign came in the mail yesterday, with the last phrase of Nehemiah 8:10 as the Bible verse: ... the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Christmas greetings from senator John Thune of South Dakota also came in the mail yesterday, Bible verse taken from Micah 6:8.

We had a really heated exchange during the board's meeting yesterday, after Sunday service and before we went over to the Mar Thoma church to negotiate and finally agreed to acquire the property at 1715 SW 3rd Street, Grand Prairie, TX 75051.

We went out to Bangkok City, down by Yale and Greenville, to celebrate Teresa's birthday last night.

Caroline emailed our youth group about this End of the Spear movie, a good one to go see.

I had fun at the Richardson Christmas parade this morning even though it started late out of the Richardson Square Mall parking lot and I had to take off at 10:00 to make it to my Krav Maga class at 11:00.

Had a chance to chat with District 66 State Representative Brian McCall about his Ph.D. research last night at the Golden Corridor Republican Women Christmas party at the home of Republican National Committeewoman Denise and her husband Tim McNamara. I first met representative McCall during the legislative session earlier this year in his office down in Austin. He's a great listener, and a very sharp guy, who asked intelligent questions and mastered the subject very quickly, whatever the topic of the conversation or discussion maybe.

The White House Christmas card with greetings from president George W. and Mrs. Laura Bush came in the mail yesterday, mailed from the western White House in Crawford, Texas. This year scripture is Psalm 28:7 (RSV).