Late update to my last post and what's new...

The memory card problem didn't fix the phone. I ended up taking it to a Verizon store to exchange the defected one for a fresh new one. Good thing is, I no longer have problems with it. No more shutting off and resetting itself over and over again. Now I have a working cell phone....yay Just been busy the last week or so, learning new things about my Blackberry. Been having too much fun downloading Music to it and uploading pictures for the desktop.

I have gotten a new book this weekend called "The Mentalist's Handbook" by Clint Marsh. It's an explorer's guide to the Astral, Spirit and Psychic worlds, with exercises to learn how to Astral travel, Telekinesis, Telepathy and other neat tricks. I have always been interested in the Paranormal, History, and Anthropology. As well as Buddhist Art and Architecture. So far, I started to meditate again on my own..and furthering my Buddhist and Paranormal studies online each day by visiting new websites. Since it's been so hard finding a new job, I decided to spend my time wisely at home, instead of sitting around doing nothing and being depressed all day. Enough said for now..Until next time..Don't forget to breathe and be more Mindful in your everyday life...

(Below is one of my favorite pictures of His Holiness the Dalai Lama..)

Frustrating Last two weeks..

Hi Everyone, about a week and a half ago I got me a new cell phone. I had gotten myself a Blackberry Curve 8330. It worked fine for about 4 days then all hell broke loose. It started to have problems, the main problem was that it kept turning itself off and when it came on there was a white screen with a hourglass in the middle. It was taking too long to reboot itself. I finally figured out that it was the old memory card I transferred over from my old cell that was causing the problem. Too make things worse, I couldn't download the blackberry software to my computer because of a problem with the installer. Well late last night I searched the Windows XP solution center for a fix.

Around 2:00 AM I had found it and installed the fix, then I was able to install the software needed to fix my phone. I ended up staying up til 7:30 AM, finally went to sleep when Phuong went to work. All this trouble just for a cell phone I chose to upgrade my technology, to be able to send email and use the web away from my home computer. Well, I feel better now that I don't have to lose all the apps and pictures I downloaded to my cell, I did a handset wipe and accidentally deleted the wall papers and ring tones I bought. Oh well live and learn. Now I can backup all my apps and settings and reinstall the cell OS whenever it screws up again.

Now I am trying so hard to install my Zune software so I can add more music and podcasts to it. Well that's another story for later. Gassho JL

Sorry...Blogging for the whole month didnt work.

Hi everyone, I am sorry that I haven't been keeping up with my daily blogs. I had a bad month of February, due to my dental health. Been in so much pain since my birthday. From a Dental extraction the Saturday after my birthday til 2 root canals today. The pain was so bad, felt like I was going to die from it, either that or over dosing on pain meds. I am fine now.

For my day today, spent about a little over an hour at the Hollywood Forrest Lawn cemetery, trying to find my Great Grand parents graves, had the directions but couldn't find them. I guess I will go back another day with my wife and try searching again. I did find a family friend though, who was a oil painter and a friend to one of my great Aunts. Later today, My friend Jj and I went to the Alexandria II Bookstore in Pasadena and I found an old friend of mine who is a Buddhist Monk, there looking at the books. I haven't seen him since my Temple's O'bon festival years ago.
Well, this is it for now. Need to get my rest.

Little Tokyo Mall...R.I.P My old Friend

One of my favorite restaurants in Little Tokyo, I was told that they will not be closing down.

This past Sunday, the day after Valentine's Day. My wife, my mom and I made a depressing trip to Little Tokyo for Lunch. This Time I decided to go check out for myself about what happened at the Little Tokyo Mall. Once known to all as Yaohan Plaza. It was a sad site to see, all my favorite stores are now closed and empty with for Lease signs up. I was upset when I heard that some Korean Business men have bought the mall and that they are kicking all the Japanese Merchants out to be replaced with Korean shops instead. My favorite Japanese market was replaced by a Korean one. Normally I have no problem with Koreans, but I wished they would stay in there own neighborhood, Since they have their own Korea Town.

You noticed in one of my earlier posts about how Little Tokyo has changed, with all the new high cost condos going up, and stores like Office Depot, Johnny Rockets, Quiznos, and Starbucks . Plus I see more Korean Barbeque's and Boba places popping up too.

I am also pissed off about the lack of parking in the area too, this is mainly the fault of the new condos going up. I remember the days of old when they used to have the Nisei Week carnival in the lot across from JACCC, late into the night. I also miss the annual Spring Festival that JANM used to have before the new building was built. I know that things change and about impermanence...but our J-Towns are disappearing, we need to save what we have left for our future generations.

Below are some pictures of what used to be Yaohan Plaza in Little Tokyo.

Above was the Japanese Bookstore, where one can buy books in Japanese, as well as Manga and Magazines. Below are various pictures of the emptiness. The first picture shows the Clock tower gone. Pics of what used to be the bowling alley, and of empty store fronts.





This one I think is staying too.

Memories of Benjamin Franklin High School

Above, Dan Auiler : Franklin Press Advisor and Teacher circa 1989'

Today's blog is about High School memories, of Friends who are not forgotten. It's been 17 years since I graduated from Franklin. Class of 1991', The Illuminati. Ever since I joined facebook, I have been trying to gather all the friends I knew into one place. Found friends that I haven't heard from or seen in years, outside my little group of friends. I just posted a bunch of pictures, I took out of my yearbooks, too bad the ones i wanted to post came out too blurry from my small digital camera. At times like this I wished I still had a scanner.

Out of all my friends I have found, I am glad that I am still friends with my Highschool Journalism teacher/mentor and friend, Dan Auiler. If it wasn't for his incouragement during those years at Franklin, I would have never started writing. I have been trying to get my poetry published ever since, but with all my rejection notices in the past, I pretty much left them on the back burner until the time is right.

I wished I had more pictures of myself from those years and the years I worked as a Volunteer at JANM....I have more pictures that I have taken then I do of myself. If anyone has any pics of me, from Highschool on, please post them to facebook or send me copies...

Some of my favorite things...Photo Blog

Some of my favorite things in Life...This will be a photo blog.

My Love, my wife Phuong...

My Buddhist Temple Higashi Honganji..Photo taken from online.

My best friends from High school. John, Diane, Alex and Cynthia...

My Temple Family..in pic Ted Hamachi...

My East West Players Volunteer friends...Community Activist Years

Long time friends in pic, Mark Jue and Billy Wing.

My Brother Joe...

My Native American Heritage, Photo is from the Gathering of Nations Pow Wow, 2007.

My best friend, Ching Chikara Wong...

Ghost Hunting with my friend Jeff Lam: Co-Founder of the JL & Associates Paranormal Investigations group..

Another pic of Jeff Lam

Temple hopping with my wife...

Well, I just wanted to show some of my pics from my life so far..things I like to do, and who I like to spend time with...Can't beat good friends...

My Birthday

This will be short tonight, since I am not feeling too good. I got a free 2fer yesterday at Disneyland. It rained most of the day and went on a few rides. Didn't get what I wanted for a Birthday present, I wanted a new Hooded Disney jacket but they didn't have any good ones like my old one that broke. Here are 2 pics from yesterday. I had emailed myself a pic from the Buzz light year ride, but unfortunately I erased it by mistake this morning.

Notice the hat Phuong had me wear all day, it says Happy Birthday, with my name on the back.

Phuong

Feb 7th...and Today

Sorry for not writing yesterday, I had a really bad toothache and went to bed early...Today I spent all day at Disneyland for my 37th Birthday, so I will be back to writing my blogs regulery tomorrow.

Rain Rain Go Away...Come back after my Birthday..

Tonight's blog is going to be short. It's been raining the past 2 days. Been pouring down, making me sick again. I normally love the rain, because we need it. I love walking in the rain and singing in the rain...well not really since I cant sing..lol I miss all the rain we used to get when I was little. This year I can get into Disneyland free on my birthday. I know that I am turning 37 but I am still a kid at heart. Was planning on riding the haunted mansion ride over and over again, but cant now since its closed for major refurbishment, Just hope they don't screw it up too badly. So rain today, rain tomorrow, dry Sunday they say, and rain all next week. Lets hope the Gods are in my favor and let me have a dry Birthday at the Happiest place on earth. I will leave you with a pic from a few years ago from at Disneyland.





Me at Disneyland 2 years ago...

The past 20 Years...Where am I now?

Looking back at the last twenty years, I came a long way. But where am I now? Back in 1988, I was in the 9 th grade and 17 years old. My mom and I started going to the Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple and around that time we some how signed up to be volunteers with the Japanese American National Museum, when they had a small exhibit upstairs in the Japanese village plaza, upstairs up above where the frozen yogurt place is now. When that happened, it was a start to my community activist years. I had made dozens of new friends along the way. It really cemented my interests into the Japanese culture. Some of my Japanese American friends tell me that I am more Japanese then they are. Even though I grew up around Asians, and Native Americans, I became pretty much what I am today.

With JANM in the beginning, I still remember working on the Spark Matsunaga exhibit, Since I had written an article for the museum newsletter. I had alot of memories volunteering at the museum, all the life long friends I still know today, and recently found again on facebook. Then in 1992 the year after I graduated from Franklin High, my Temple YABA group sent me to Japan for the Dobo Convention. One of the older members from West Covina Buddhist Temple, became my father figure since then, because my father died when I was 7. His name is Ted Hamachi, we became really close. We used to go out to eat lunch alot after that but lately since he is up there in his years, we only see each other during our Annual O'bon festival. I was 20 when I went to Japan, Now this coming Sunday I will be 37. So that's a full 20 years since all this started.

So where am I now? I will get to this a little bit later on in this blog. From that time I went to Japan, I was also apart of a few other non profit organizations in Little Tokyo, through the years this is what I have done: Volunteered with A3m, AISAREMA/Disorient, JACCC, JACL-APAN, Higashi Honganji YABA, Zenshuji Zazenkai, and JANM. Outside of Little Tokyo, I worked with the Los Angeles Friends of Tibet, and the Pasadena Friends of Tibet. To my clubs at Pasadena City College, Started out in the Chinese Student Association, was on the staff of the Asian Student Coalition, then to me founding the PCC Buddhist Association.

So 20 years later, now married, I am still active at Higashi Honganji. My wife and I helped out at East West Players a few times. I would like to start to be active again in Little Tokyo, before the town I grew up in disappears. Parts of Little Tokyo are changing, and I don't think its for the better. Yaohan plaza, became the Little Tokyo mall and now is turning into a Korean Mall, My favorite stores and restaurants are closing down. The old look of Little Tokyo, in my opinion changed when new stores like Office Depot, 2 Starbucks, Quiznos and new condos popping up. The small J-town feel is almost gone. I am going to be 37, and hope what we have left will still be there when I turn 80. Ending here on a sad note....I miss it

So where am I now? I am back to where I have started, back in J-Town...Little Tokyo, the place I have always called Home.

Me and Ted

Higashi Honganji O'bon 2007