Your vote counts...

About five months ago I was cleaning out the fridge when I stumbled across two grape fruits:


Miles: Are you going to eat the grape fruits or should I throw them away?
Aya: No, don't throw them away. They are still good.
Miles: Yes, but are you going to eat them?
Aya: Yes, I am going to eat them.
Miles: Are you sure? You promise?
Aya: Yes, I will eat them next week.
Miles: Okay, if you don't do NOT throw them away, you are going to eat them and I am going to watch you eat them.
Aya: Don't worry I will eat them.
Miles: Even if they get old and moldy, you will HAVE to eat them.
Aya: Yes, I said I will eat them.
Miles: No matter what?
Aya: Yes. I will eat them NEXT week.

I haven't said a word in 5 months and last week when Aya and I were laying in bed I asked, "So when you going to eat those grapefruit?"

I just hear Aya start laughing and replied, "What? We still have them??"

I said, "You said you would eat them no matter what, so I want to see you eat them. I don't care if you get the worse case of food posioning ever. You are going to eat them and take care of Jack because I am not doing any extra work if you get sick."

Aya answered, "I am not going to eat them."

Miles: "You said you would...no matter what."

Aya: "I know...but now I changed my mind."


So this is where your votes count. In the upper left hand there is a voting poll so you can vote if Aya eats the grapefruit. It doesn't mean I will let her off the hook but I might consider it depending on the voting.

Washing your face....

In addition to Chiropractics,y my sister became a reseller for Arbonne. Arbonne has various skin care products. I was over at my parents house when my sister asked me:

Dawn: "Do you want to buy some products?"
Miles: "What for?"
Dawn: "For your face. What do you use now?"
Miles: "Umm...hmmm.....water."
Dawn: "What?"
Miles: "You know I don't think I wash my face. I just let the shampoo from my hair run down my face and then the water from the shower rinses it all off.
Dad: "Yuck. If you don't wash your face do you wash your feet?"
Miles: "Hmm, actually no. The same shampoo that comes off my hair and my face lands in the tub and then my feet are soapy."
Dad: "Gross"
Dawn: "What?!"
Miles: "Yeah, I am old and sometimes I just can't bend over to wash my feet."
Dawn: "I will give you some free samples...try it."

So I tried the men's line which consists of shaving gel, toner, lotion, sunscreen, facial wash and body wash. LMB Jen has been trying to get me to use sunscreen for the last 2 years. It kind of walls in the line of me getting fat...I don't care if I get wrinkles or fat because I am already married.

In any case, I came home and tried all the products. Man, I was in the bathroom a long time. I had to read all the instructions on how to apply everything....no wonder women take so long in the bathroom. However, my face felt GREAT after shaving. Normally my face is rough or cut up...but this time it was as soft as JT's butt.

I ended up buying $100 bucks worth of stuff to shave my face. Partly because my sister sells it and partly because it works very well. I am just torn at the cost and additional time it takes me in the bathroom to use everything.

So now I am happy to report that I wash my face ONCE a day...sometimes even twice. A little tip for the fella's out there. I read that if you DRY your razor blade when you are done shaving that it can last 30x as long as usual. Thus, to recoup some of the costs of all the "product" that I am using I am trying not to use razor blades as much. I have been testing it out and I haven't changed my razor blade in over 3 months. I have used only TWO this entire year.

I know...G-E-N-I-U-S.

The Aya that I know...

This is the "smart" Aya that goes to work and handles millions and millions of dollars. This is a snapshot of some of her recent stock picks. The far left number is what it is currently trading. The far right (notes) is when Aya bought the stock.

For the most part Aya has done quite well (knock on wood). Now, it amazes me that someone can make such educated decisions and yet our weekend conversations are like this:

Example #1 - The alarm clock.

It is no secret that once JT was born, I some how got the paternal instinct which now makes me a light sleeper. I actually got like this once I got married but my light-sleeper-nees spiked to 'spidey-like' abilities once JT came home from the hospital. Aya does not have a light sleeper issue and sleeps thru anything.

Aya also wakes up at 4:45 am. How does she wake up? Via her alarm clock. Miles is a light sleeper so that means I now wake up at 4:45 am. Last week, Aya's alarm didn't go off all week but I am in the habit of waking up at 4:45 am so I have to bump Aya to wake up. Since I do not have to wake up that early I am not gracious about waking her up...so usually I just gently kick her leg to get a move on it. Why? Because if Aya sleeps in too much then JT wakes up and then I have him from 5:00 am to 6:30 am when I take him to Grandpa's.

So on Friday, Aya is totally snoozing and suddenly wakes up...LATE. Does she keep it to herself? No. She is like, "Oh My God...I'm late!" Great. Thanks for waking me up.

Aya, "My stupid alarm has been on MUTE all week."
Miles, "Mute? It is an alarm...just turn the volume up it probably moved."
Miles, "Why couldn't you have checked that any other day during the week???"

Aya then just got up and left to go to work. That night I came home and saw her alarm clock and it got me thinking...MUTE....I don't think so.

I turn it on...it works. In fact the volume is super loud. So I check the alarm time. 7:45 am. Uh-huh...MUTE. Last weekend Aya changed the time of her alarm and never set it back. I don't say a word.

A few minutes later I hear Aya fumbling around in our bedroom and I go to check it out and she is near the alarm clock. She doesn't say anything.

I simply ask, "Wrong alarm time, huh?"
Aya, "Oops."

What happened to the smart girl that makes great stock picks?

Example #2

JT loves to play basketball at home now. He has an 4ft indoor hoop that we play on. Sometimes Aya, JT and I all play together. Our games have actually involved tackling as well.

Sometimes Aya and JT team up to play 2 on 1 against me. Now I so expect comments from Ron and Jeff and any other basketball player out there because I am sooo winning this one.

Aya claims I "make up" rules as we play. Can you guess rule #1? I shot the ball about 5-6 from the basket and missed. Aya got the ball near the basket like 6 inches away and dunked it.

Miles, "Um that does not count."
Aya, "Why? You missed"
Miles, "You did NOT clear the ball."
Aya, "What's clearance?"
Miles, "If you miss you have to clear the ball unless it is an airball but since we play in such a small area all shots need to be cleared."
Aya, "No way."

Fine. So after that I dunked the ball like 10 times in a row and Aya could never get the ball back from me. Thus, after I dominated I said this is why you have clearance. Aya also doesn't believe in "winners" and "losers" for taking the ball out. It is whoever has the ball.


Rule #2. Aya and both grabbed the ball at the same time and no one would let go.

Aya: "Jump ball."
Miles: "First"
Aya: "Jump ball."
Miles: "First"
Aya: "What is first?"
Miles: "That is what you say when there is a jump ball in pickup. First one to say "first" gets the ball."
Aya: "Stupid. Why not just say charge instead."
Miles: "Its my ball...I said FIRST"
Aya: "No".

Hence this is partly where the tackling takes place....I ended up squashing Aya to take the ball from her. Hence Aya claims, "You just make up stupid rules."

Miles, "No, these are standard out door basketball rules...EVERYONE knows them."

And that is how I spent my weekend.

Refrigerator material...

JT is no Michelangelo and this isn't the Sistine Chapel but JT did manage to draw some nice circles. Nice enough to make this his first piece of 'artwork' to hang on our refrigerator.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!!

Memorial Weekend - Part II

Happy belated birthday to Melanie and Jenny. Happy early birthday to Jeff. My parents watched JT Friday night which gave Aya and I a chance to go out to dinner with Jeff, Melanie and Jenny. Sadly, I thought it would be easy to get reservations on a holiday weekend but it seemed like no one went out of town this weekend. I was shut out of 5 different westside restaurants so we ended up going to Flemings.

Can you believe I have known Jenny for 22 years now?? I deserve a medal for my pain and suffering.

Happy early birthday to Jeff whom I have known for 17-18 years.


Naturally since I was at dinner our dinner conversation was not 'ideal' dinner conversation. We got to talking about the comfort of "old" underwear and how it is okay if guys wear underwear with holes in it. Aya thinks that I should buy new underwear...but I think they are broken in just fine...here is my air conditioned "fart" green underwear:


This is my favorite summer "greek" style underwear:


Jeff, Jenny, Mel and Aya didn't believe I had a purple pair of underwear with flowers on it...this is my "lucky" basketball underwear. I wear this when we need a win. Room in the front for easy pre-game access for Aya:

Bigger hole in the back for fart propulsion:

* All underwear pictures were modelled by Aya!

Memorial Weekend - Part I

Aya and I started off the weekend by seeing Indian Jones. The movie sucked. I didn't watch many trailers and I tried not to hear anything about the story so nothing would sway me in terms of liking or not liking the movie. Sadly, the movie did not live up to the past Indiana Jones movies. I don't want to ruin it for those that didn't see the movie, but on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being best I give it a generous 2 stars.

We also headed out to Fullerton this weekend to see my Mother inlaw and Uncle Susu. My mother inlaw is doing well. She can stand on her own and walk using a walker. She can also speak a lot more now but at times it doesn't make sense but still a H-U-G-E improvement in the past month.

There were also new toys for us to play with as JT loved being pushed in the wheel chair:


Then JT loved banging away on the piano:

I was hanging out playing gameboy in the wheel chair while JT sat in the new walker:

Yes, we are wrong like that....we all had to try out rolling around the house in the wheel chair and playing with all the medical supplies.

Pay it Forward...

So I got suckered into gathering Stewart's baby shower gift....a Target gift certificate. I asked everyone to donate $20 bucks. I was even nice enough to ask Sascha to pitch in even though he doesn't live around here for me to collect his share. Being the pain in @$$ that he is, he wanted to donate $20.10 cents because he wanted to be more generous than the rest of us. (Just so you know, Target will do any gift certificate amount if it is over $20 bucks).

I forgot about the $20.10 that Sascha owed to me and then I got an email from http://www.kiva.org/ followed by an email from Sascha saying that this was real and not to delete it.

Basically, Kiva does micro loans for people living in 3rd world countries. Instead of going to a bank, Kiva 'lends' people the money via our generosity. Here is how it work, for example, "Third World Poor Person" needs $100 bucks. Well, Kiva then allows me to "lend" the entire $100 bucks or it gets 5 people to donate $25 bucks each. Once the loan is filled then the person repays the loan....AND then I can get my money back. Of course they could NOT pay it back and then I am out my loan amount.

Confusing right? Yeah, that is what I thought because it seems awfully difficult for me to get my $20.10 back. I am definitely not getting my money back in a timely manner. This coming from the guy that makes millions and millions of dollars who also married an attorney!

In any case, I was forced to sign up in order to grant a loan to get my money back. Naturally, I had to be creative when creating my Kiva login:


In addition, the Kiva site defaulted to some poor African families but I decided to forgo that and stick with my Asian people. I searched by female and then looked at all the pictures for the prettiest 3rd world Asian person requesting a loan....and viola here is my person:

She needs $1000 to buy a motorcycle...I assume to get to her job as a hair dresser. Of course, she still needs another $175.00 donated to her to fulfill the loan...who knows how long that will take.

I am often accused of being "mean"....well this is where I get it from. It all started with me being nice to get a gift certificate and now it ends with me loaning money to a third world nation in order to get my $20.10 back.

30 month checkup...

JT went to the doctor's office for his 2 1/2 year checkup. Everything checked out a-ok.

Weight: 30 lb 8 oz
Height: 35.75 inches


His appointment seemed so much different now. The doctor asks JT questions now instead of asking us those questions.

JT has been such a sponge lately. Whatever we say he repeats so we have to start watching our language. Not just me, but Aunty Dawn included. Aunty was driving JT last week when she got cut off and then yelled out, "Freaking jerk!" Next thing you know, JT was yelling, "Freaking jerk" from the back seat! Nice.

Wild Ones..

Last week I met 1/2 the Wild Ones for dinner at Chez Mimi. It was hard to coordinate a date where everyone could make it, plus 4 of the girls no longer live in So. Cal, but it was nice to visit and see the girls that could make it.

This was our second reunion. It seemed like our first reunion was just a year ago but it was almost 3 years ago...time sure does fly.

In any case, it was great to catch up and it was great to hear that everyone was doing well and they were happy. I can't believe I met them when they were 6 years old. Now they are 24-25 years old. They still look like the same to me.

My dad converted some old VHS recordings to DVD. Here they are in 1992:



Here they are 15 years ago:

Here they are now:
Traci with an "I"....this is just for you since you think taking a picture by yourself is ackward.

...it isn't so bad. JT always has pictures of just himself!

Jack has jokes...

I know this is going to seem like I taught JT this but he thought of it on his own and I had to ask him about it to get it on video:

I have been telling Aya she has a big head for years and out of the blue JT woke up one morning, looked at Aya and said, "BIG HEAD". Now he cracks up every time he tells Aya she has a big head!!

Male Bonding...

JT has been peeing standing up lately and every night while we wait for the tub to fill up JT takes a leak. Well, I suppose waiting for him to pee and hearing the water in the tub it made me want to pee….so one night while JT was taking a leak and I peed with him.

JT thought it was funny that we peed ‘together’ and now he always wants me to pee when he pees before taking a bath.

So a few days ago JT made Aya watch “Daddy and JT” go pee. After we were done peeing, I gave JT some toilet paper to wipe….which he did. Then I reached over to get more toilet paper for myself when I felt JT reach up and wipe for me too!!

DUDE! You can’t be touching another guys weenie. Nasty. JT didn’t use new toilet paper or use a dry spot on the toilet paper he used the exact same spot he used to wipe his wet weenie.

YUCKO! Doubled dipped toilet paper on my weenie!

Chocolate...

Last week I was eating a piece of chocolate when I noticed JT was laying on my side of the bed. I ran over towards him, leap in the air, yelled, and pretended to squash him. As I yelled, I noticed some chocolate flew out of my mouth. After I rolled off JT, I started looking for the chocolate.

Where did it go?

I looked at JT and the chocolate landed on his face. It looked something like this:

So I scooped the chocolate off his face and put it back in my mouth.

Mother inlaw...

Last week Aya received a call from the nursing home advising Aya that her mom's insurance company was no longer going to pay for 24 hour care and that they will be forced to discharge her in 48 hours.

When Aya called the insurance company back they had already gone home for the day since they are on the east coast. The following day we tried to file an appeal so Yoko could stay longer at the nursing home, but the appeal was denied.

Thus, on Saturday Aya and her brother had to pick their mom up from the nursing home and bring her home. I suppose it is good news and bad news. The good news is Yoko can go home. The bad news is that she still can not walk or go to the bathroom or function on her own. Someone needs to be with her moreorless 24 hours a day.

Now we knew this day would come but we always thought Yoko would be farther along in her rehabilitation. In addition, we weren't quite prepared for who would watch her. Aya's brother moved from Seattle a week ago to watch Yoko but is currently on a 2 week business trip.

Aya's brother's girlfriend quit her job in Chicago and is going to move to LA and live in Yoko's house to help care for her as well. Unfortunately, her new job is based from Japan but she can work from home in LA. However she is currently in Japan getting training and won't be back for another 2 weeks.

So to make a long story short Aya and her brother are scrambling around to see who will watch Yoko and when. Aya's brother is taking a leave of absence after his business trip. Aya will work from the Fullerton house this upcoming week.

In addition, Aya and her brother has to take Yoko's blood pressure and administer her medication. We also have to fill the presription as the hospital only gave 1-2 weeks worth. We also have to call the insurance company to see what they will cover in terms of outpatient therapy and/or medication.

Basically the insurance company has dumped Yoko on Aya and her brother without giving us any warning or preparation for her discharge. I suppose I agree with the insurance company in terms of Yoko not needing 24 hour care and they are trying to save some money but why not tell us in 2 weeks that they will discharge her...not 2 days.

Iron Man...

I went to check out Iron Man tonight and it was surprisingly good. I think what made the movie better was that I did not read Iron Man comics when I grew up so I didn't know what to expect. In fact, I had pretty low expectation for the movie but I enjoyed it. FYI: there is a short clip after all the credits are done.

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At dinner the other day we had crayons and were able to draw on the table. I drew a house and person....in fact, I am such a good artist that JT knew it was Grandpa's house with "pa-pa" outside.

Best Behavior...

About two weeks ago JT has seemed to really start to understand what is going around him. He has been extremely well behaved, listening and doing what he is being told. He has started counting and recognizing numbers. He recognozies and can say his alphabet. He has started peeing standing up and not peeing like a girl. He still wears diapers but when he remembers to pee he goes standing up.

He has gotten better going out. If this keeps up we might be able to go to better places. This weekend we went to C&O. JT picked it because he wanted noodles.

Of course when we go out we let him drink milk from a straw and not his sippy.

All done!