the perfect church guitar

i'm posting this blog to brag about the guitar that we bought for our church. actually i wanted to tell my friend paul about it. we recently got the "godin a6 ultra semi-acoustic". we got it for just under $700. if we were going to spend more we would have gotten the godin acousticaster. & if we were going to spend even more we would have gotten the gibson chet atkins sst.

the reason this is "the perfect church guitar" is because the price is reasonable. & unlike an acoustic guitar, this guitar is not fragile & does not require much maintenance. it is an electric guitar that has an acoustic pickup system. & it really does sound like an acoustic guitar. it reminds me of the takamine sound & the taylor sound (mix between acoustic & electric). & it looks awesome & it is really light.

mt. diablo

on memorial day a few of us from church went to mount diablo. mount diablo means "mountain of the devil". anyways it was beautiful. we were all surprised at how nice it was up there. even my 9-months-pregnant wife did some hiking.

good eats

Our friends (Abe & Judy) visited San Francisco & treated us to dinner. They wanted to eat Dungeness Crab, so we ordered the “Crab Feast” which feeds four people (at Bobo’s in SF). It was truly impressive.

Hotaru (San Mateo) is one of the few Japanese restaurants that is actually owned & operated by Japanese people. They have awesome curry, but here is a picture of some of their salmon (sake).

thank you for the baby shower!

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who threw the baby shower for Suhee yesterday. Especially to Mary who hosted & Michelle who prepared everything so well. All the gifts we received were really nice & really generous; & they will all be put to good use.

I also wanted to say thanks to all the guys who took me out for dinner yesterday. I had a good time & my steak was awesome. I'm hoping we can play Risk again, maybe this Saturday after the UFC? Go Chuck!

grilling obsession

Grilling has become a new obsession of mine. The good thing is that it's causing me to do more of the cooking at home.

it's a small world after all

Part of my job as the resident manager of my apartment is to show people our empty units which are for rent. This morning I showed an empty unit to a woman from Chicago. Her husband is going to be a doctor at the Kaiser hospital in Richmond. It turns out that she went to grad school at Northwestern & she goes to Parkwood Church. A few of my old Chicago friends go to Parkwood & she totally knows them well. And I found out that my church youth leader back from my high school days is serving as the interim pastor at Parkwood. Small world.

gas grill

I finally got a gas bbq grill. I always wanted a nice, big & shiny grill; but I settled on a tiny one that I got for $30. I plan to use it to cook more on the balcony of our apartment. One of the reasons I got it was because we found out that Foodmaxx has pretty good steak for really cheap. Jonathan came over last night. He said that every time he comes over, we keep talking about Foodmaxx. It’s true that Suhee & I keep telling people how great Foodmaxx is. I cooked up these New York Strip Steaks yesterday; they were from Foodmaxx.

childbirth class

last weekend, suhee & i attended a birthing class. it was amazing to learn more about it. every birth truly is a miracle. in the past i've heard the "argument from design" used to prove the existence of God. for example, the human eye is so complex that someone must have designed it. it would take even more faith to believe that the human eye is a product of evolution. learning about childbirth made me think about the "argument from design". the way that a woman gives birth is so complex & so amazing, i have to believe that only the almighty God could have designed it that way.

apparently one in three babies in the U.S. is delivered by cesarean section. in great britain 55% of babies are delivered by c-section. obviously a natural birth is generally safer for the mom & the baby. it's confusing to know when to argue against having a c-section, & when to give in to the doctor's advice.

philip yancey

last week i went to see philip yancey give a message on his lastest book which is about prayer. he was introduced as, "the white guy w/an afro". he had a good sense of humor & he was a master storyteller.

about five years ago i read his book, "what's so amazing about grace?". i've never heard anyone explain God's grace as well as him. that book was really amazing, especially the chapter about the lovesick father. he talked about how God loves us so much that it makes him sick.

anyways, i think i've "typecasted" yancey as the guy who is good at talking about grace. even though he was talking about prayer last week, all i heard was the message of grace.

he showed pictures of the mountains in colorado springs. he explained how the mountain-top snow melts to form fresh lakes. then those lakes overflow & form rivers that flow down into the city. he compared that to God's grace that always flows down to the lowest depths.

go warriors!

Last night the Golden State Warriors won their first-round playoff series against the #1 seed, Dallas Mavericks. This is being called the “biggest upset” in NBA playoff history. It’s funny because the Warriors have always been known as a lame team that didn’t get any love from the fans. But now everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. Last night the local news showed how many celebrities came out to watch the game, including Snoop Dog.

The Warriors are based in Oakland, & I’m disappointed that they are not called the “Oakland Warriors”. I don’t know the reason behind that, but it makes you think that they are ashamed to be an Oakland team.

I have theory that wherever I am living, the local teams tend to do well. The summer that I moved to Chicago was the year that Michael Jordan & the Chicago Bulls won their first championship. I lived in Chicago for 9 years in the 1990s; & that was the decade of the Bulls. When I lived in Queens, both the Yankees & the Mets made it to the World Series in the famous “Subway Series”. When I lived in Seoul, Korea did really well in the World Cup Soccer Tournament and placed fourth.

I haven’t kept up w/basketball in years, but I’m excited to watch the Warriors go all the way.

funny story about beer & sahnmaru

Sahnmaru is a korean restaurant that I go to pretty often w/church members. Recently one of our church guys went there w/his parents, & they ordered three beers w/their dinner. The waitress served his parents, but didn’t serve him beer. His parents insisted that he was old enough to drink legally. The waitress said that she has seen him at the restaurant w/ “joseph chu moksanim” (moksanim means pastor). That’s why she didn’t feel comfortable serving him beer.

I want to find out which waitress it was. She sounds like a cool lady.