this day last year…

we went to South Coast many times
to buy many iPhones.

Happy Birthday iPhone.

sooner or later it all comes crashing down

These past two weeks sort of continue along with the theme of ‘self-improvement’ that I’ve been all over recently. Last weekend, I spent up North to hang out with the rest of the Trender Xhibitr team. We only met up for something like 20 hours, but we managed to get about 2-3 weeks worth of work done. If only we could meet up like that more often, but that’s the price we pay for all living far apart. And it’s a good thing too, because it’s all a part of the experience of trying to create something. I was just talking with my dad this morning, and he was schooling me about all the tough times he had to go through to create his company, Isolink. There were times when they were really looking at just dropping the business, and quitting. But it’s the decisions that they made at that time that really led them to success. It’s that mentality that really drives you to stay the course, and because of that, we will be successful too. The only way to fail is if we fail ourselves.

On Friday, I played the bi-monthly game of poker with Marvin and his buddies. It was my third time playing with the guys, and I’ve commanded and conquered two of those times. I was never really able to pick up the game before, but I’m starting to get a good sense of other players’ mentalities and play styles. Anyway, I don’t want to jinx my luck, so I’ll just keep on keeping on.

Then yesterday, we had a company BBQ to help launch and promote our new summer line. The turn out was pretty good, but we definitely could have done a better job preplanning the whole event. Next time, we’ll be sure to draw 2-3x more. But anyway, here’s me and Alain @ Costco, trying to scrounge up enough food for the event:

Overall we spent about $600-700 on everything for the whole event.
Toward the end of the night, there was a little incident in the restroom area, where a guest broke a glass cup, and basically just was a dick about it and left the mess there. One of our crew, Ricky, stepped in to take care of it, but the dude ended coming back to ‘deal with it’, and Ricky stopped him from going inside. All of a sudden the guy got all defensive about Ricky touching him. Totally a jerk move. I mean Ricky meant no harm, and was just doing his duty to watch out for the office. Also, Ricky is just like 17 years old. The other guy was like 23. Fuck. We’re seriously at a point in our lives where you gotta step up and represent yourself. I’ve been pushing it a lot recently, but we’re getting to that age where the only real thing that sets us apart from the ‘kids’ is our maturity. The way we handle situations and our priorities in life. Anyway, it really brought me back to high school. I remember when Calvin would occasionally step up to defend me or one of our other friends. It’s weird thinking back to it, cause he hasn’t really had to do it recently. But yeah, Calvin is a fuckin’ good friend. Without a second thought, he’d throw himself in front of those he’s defending, and his face would get all angry. Not the same dude you know huh? Getting back to the main point, I’ve been living my life very simply, and following 3 main rules:

1. Be someone that your friends can be proud of.
2. Be someone that your family can be proud of.
3. Be someone that you can be proud of.

It’s really that simple. I’m working my ass off in everything I do now. I think it’s important to earn everything you get, and there’s no easy ways around it. I’m going to have to fuck up hundreds of more times before I get to where I want to be in life, and that’s cool. I gotta thank everyone in my life for helping support me in everything I do. Without that, I’m nothing.

Lastly, Happy Fathers Day, Dad.

1분만 닥쳐줄래요

Seems like there’s always a life changing event going on. I think that’s a good thing though. For me, life is about constant change. Lately it’s become a need to continually ‘better’ myself. After recent events, I couldn’t stand the way I was living my life. Bumming around the house all day lacking any kind of productivity. Something I’ve come to realize about myself is that it’ll usually take a big downfall for me to make a change. And usually right after, I’ll turn things around and make a really good change. It’s something that I’ve been telling James a lot recently – The worse your bad times are, the better your good times become. It’s a little naive, but it really helps me take life a lot less seriously. Calvin and I always joke around about how we get owned every minute of every day. It’s just our way of laughing off the shitty parts of life. It’s rather helpful. I highly recommend it.

Anyway, the biggest change in the past two months has been my job status. I’m now working full-time at Orisue. It’s kind of a fun story how it came about. And since it’s pretty late at night, and I got nothing else to do, I’ma share it. So you know “America’s Best Dance Crew” that just finished a bit ago on MTV. Yuri Tag from Kabba Modern interned at Triumvir. I had one of those though provoking, “Hmmm, verrrry interrresting….” moments. It’s not that I didn’t know you could intern at a street wear brand, I just didn’t consider it. So from there, I kept telling friends that I’d try sending out my resume to local street wear brands. I put it off for a little bit, until one night, I just whipped up an updated resume, and sent it out to two brands: Orisue and Triumvir. Orisue got back to me, so I went in and the rest is history. Actually that was just like 3 weeks ago. The O-Team is great. Just a bunch of hard working guys that like to fuck around and have fun, while getting shit done. What’s great is that everyone there is around my age. It’s really an inspiration to be around motivated youngsters like myself. It’s really important to surround yourself with people that share common goals and interests. You can’t learn how to ride a bike from someone that doesn’t know how. Things are going really well so far. I’m working on the new website to launch with the Summer ’08 line. It should be out soon. Keep an eye out.

Going back to some more philosophical stuff, I’ve been trying to find the difference between a good friend, and a great friend. So far, I’ve only distinguished that a good friend is someone who will always be there for you, and will support you and your decisions 100%. In the meantime, a great friend is someone who will stab you in a back and leave you for dead, if it’ll help you attain a higher level of understanding and meaning in life. I’m sure that probably makes no sense, but hence the reason why I’m still looking…

And for a moment of zen: