This is my exciting world at work:

Fact-checking has me doing some pretty ridiculous things. I have to check that our charts are formatted correctly, so I literally have to hold up multiple charts up toward light and see if the borders and company logos match up.

Once that's done, I check the numbers by bringing my computer monitor right up to my face. Then I take the chart and put it up to the screen and compare the hard copy to what's on the computer. I do this for one column of numbers and then do it again... And again... And again... 1000 times. (I kid you not.)

All in all, it took me about 8 hours to do this.

Highlights from EM retreat:

1) Listening to Pastor Rich Craven speak about the Joseph narrative. It's amazing how well he spoke despite being sick (and not using any notes, which he never does.)

2) Seeing everyone all in one place. I feel so out of touch with FiCB, so it was good to talk to some people that I hadn't talked to in awhile.

3) Playing games and being the last person to get wet in the "Drip, Drip, Drop" game. At least I got Sumin back...

4) Laughing at Isabel when she applauded Chin-San for wanting a girl who was patient with guys. (This makes more sense if you were at Pastor Craven's Q&A.)

5) Conversation with Jason Cheung.

6) Seeing Dennis, Andy, and Joanna come up together during Open Mic time. Dennis, did you really come up with that rotting potato juice analogy on your own?

7) Staying up until 4 AM playing "Gang of Four" with Billy Ku, Georgia Dave, Kathleen, and Vickie. And of course, seeing Kathleen and Vickie scream at the top of their lungs when they won... even though we were in a room with 10 people trying to sleep.

Thanks to the deacons and officers for putting the retreat together.

I could wear a t-shirt and jeans to work everyday if I wanted. I guess that's one of the perks of being an engineer.

I met up with my misssions teammate today at Mosaic church in LA. The service was pretty interesting; it felt like I was walking into a club (well, I actually was, since their services are held in the LA Entertainment Center).

During service we watched clips of ET and a couple people spoke about how some of the themes relate to the Christian life. Next week the service will be based on the movie "Contact".

I'm in soCal for the weekend for a friend's wedding. It was a nice ceremony that was held in Bel Air Presbyterian Church, which has an amazing view of the valley.

The wedding was short and sweet (less than an hour long), but at the end of the ceremony, the pastor said, "I present to you Mr. and Mrs., uh,..."

At first everyone thought he was joking, but he seriously blanked out and forgot the groom's last name. It took about 20 seconds for him to complete that sentence.

And then at the reception we were enjoying our meal and realized that almost all of the back section of the room was gone. Friends of the couple's parents were sitting there, and they just bailed after eating their lunch. It was amazing how fast they got out of there.

For them, they just wanted to see the ceremony, eat a meal, drop off some money, and jet. They couldn't care less about traditional American ceremonies, slideshows, and toasts. Makes sense, since they're Korean...

This year's baseball playoffs have been nuts.

And there's an amazing parallel between the Red Sox and Cubs, the 2 most cursed franchises in baseball.

-Both were 5 outs away from the World Series, with a 3 run lead and no one on base.
-Both teams had the best pitcher on the team pitching at the time. You could easily argue that Pedro & Prior are the best pitchers in their respective league.
-Both pitchers were controlling the game going into the eighth inning, but then collapsed and stayed in the game while their opponent came back.
-And for the 85th consecutive year, neither team will celebrate a World Series championship.

The solutions to Simpsons trivia are included in the comment below.

Simpsons trivia:

1) What was the name of Homer's hair chemical solution?
2) What does Bart send Ms. Krabapple a picture of?
3) Who is the godfather of the Springfield mafia?
4) What was Homer's birthweight?
5) List the 3 other cities that Lyle Lanley sold monorails to.
6) Who has a leg for an arm and an arm for a leg?
7) Whose middle name is Jo-Jo?
8) How did Bart get kicked out of heaven?
9) What door does Bart pick when he's trapped in the tiger cage in Shelbyville?
10) Mike Scioscia is diagnosed with which disease?

I think I've become lactose-intolerant. I've been eating cereal everyday before work, and the results haven't been pretty. Fortunately, my co-workers haven't noticed. (I hope.)

I was so bored at work today that I made a graph of the likelihood of winning a head-to-head fantasy football matchup based on points scored that week.

My brother-in-law's league uses the following scoring system: 6 pts for TDs, 1 pt for 20 pass yards, 1 pt for 10 rush/rec yards, and the other settings are standard.

Here are some stats (yes, I know 5 weeks is a small sample):
Mean: 85.6
Median: 87
SD: 23.9

A team that scored 70 points had a 30% chance of winning the matchup.
80 points, 45%
90 points, 60%
100 points, 72%

One of the problems I'm facing with having the internet and cable is that I can go to so many different websites and cable channels to follow sports. I can easily waste hours reading about and watching sports. That's not good for someone like me.

This isn't very insightful; I'm just mentioning this to remind myself to stop wasting time.

People who live in the Emery Bay apartments:

-Albert Kim
-Allen Han
-Amy Jun
-Chris Yoo
-Eui Hwang
-Gee-Won Kim (OK, only on weekends)
-"Georgia" Dave Park
-Isabel Chung
-John Chong
-Mike Lim
-Mike Wee (David Wee's brother)
-Stephen Lee
-me!

I went to a get-together that my supervisor at work helped coordinate. We played volleyball and it was pretty fun. At the beginning of the barbecue we were watching this really weird movie that had some inappropriate scenes. People were making comments about how it didn't seem right that we were watching that kind of movie at 4 PM on a Sunday afternoon, but of course we kept watching...

I wasn't too surprised by how the get-together went. It was kinda awkward at times, but playing volleyball really helped loosen everyone up. I don't think I'm going to make every effort to make it out to these things in the future, but I won't mind going again if I have nothing better to do.

I went to Game 1 of the A's-Red Sox series with AHan, Georgia Dave, Eric Chen, G1, and Sammy Sohn (new guy in YAG). What a great game... I'm an Angels fan, so I noticed that there were some similarities between last year's Angels and how the A's won game 1.

The A's came back in the late innings.
The A's played stellar defense throughout the game.
The A's worked the count (or at least Durazo did.)
The A's had a great performance from the bullpen (after Rincon left.)
The A's had a hard-throwing rookie pitcher come out of the bullpen and get the win.

And of course, the walk-off suicide squeeze is something you'd expect from the Angels.

That's where the similarities end though. The Angels and A's have completely different approaches to the game. And the A's have a stronger rotation and a weaker lineup than the Angels had last year.