Thanksgiving week…..end ish.

Thanksgiving was awesome, I think one of the best Thanksgiving I’ve ever had. Not just, talking bout the day of Thanksgiving but like the whole week sorta haha. From Wednesday till Sunday.

Also, sorry for not updating, I have lotsa new stuff going on and sometimes I am just too tired at the end of the day to update anything.

Anyways, so my Thanksgiving actually started on Wednesday. Since my parents left to Taiwan that day, it was just me and my bro. My brother’s friend Lawrence was nice enough to invite us over to his aunt’s place for Thanksgiving since he had the same situation as us also, it was just him and his brother haha. So we had Thanksgiving dinner at his aunt’s which was REALLY good, they had sooo much food, the stuffing was amazing, and they were Korean so there was “Chap-che” sry, I dunno how to spell it but the korean glass noodle thingy and really good tofu.

On Thursday, actual day of Thanksgiving, during the day, didn’t really do much. Just wallowed around at home, did some homework and etc. Ben came over later in the afternoon, chilled a bit, and then we went out and had dinner at Dennys. It was kinda funny because I think it was our third year in a row that we had dinner at Denny’s on Thanksgiving. After that, my friend Roy with the white Evo X came over since he wanted me to do an oil change on his car to get ready for his tune on Sunday. So, finished that at around 10-11 pm ish and then headed off to Riverside for some Black Friday action =).

On the drive to Riverside, Ben and I actually switched cars. I drove his 431 WHP red Evo IX, and he drove my stock scraping piece of shit HAHA. I got some rolling shots though, kinda crappy but whatever. I was sooo happy looking at my car driving hahaha, it’s just a different feeling. Like wow, I made that happen eheheh. I think everyone should switch cars with their friends one day and just watch their own car rolling down the street, its really a good and satisfying feeling.

Anyways, Ben’s car was INSANE. The boost response was I dunno.. like just nuts. He had his intake manifold ported, throttle body ported, exhaust manifold ported, turbo ported, EVERYTHING PORTED lol. So the response was freakin unbelievable. I would barely gas it and I would just hear everything sucking and spooling into boost. So crazy! He had me take off from 2nd gear up to 4th gear, I was fking scared, gawd that thing was sooo quick. It rips.

So we met up with some other Riverside people and around 1:30 am ish we headed out to Ontario Mills. The Mills was SOO packed, we were blown away. We didn’t know they opened their doors up at 12 AM. It was so hard walking around in there, you just had to push through people at times. The Coach line was insane, I think they had 50% off the whole store. Pac Sun was also ridiculous too. We stayed till bout 4 AM and then headed home.

The next day we all got together at night for dinner. Went to Sizzlers. Meal was really good. One of my friends, Ryo, that I haven’t seen for awhile showed up so it was cool.

Also, it just happened to be that it was Andy’s birthday the next day so… we all went back to Jerry’s to drink, etc.We played this game called Baseball, it was like a team version of beer pong. The game was really fun, got us all worked up and competitive hahaha. Also, we played with Taiwan Beer LMAO, Ping’s roomate had a case of it.

I didn’t get home till around 4:30 am, it was a really brutal drive.

I mainly stayed home the next day, woke up pretty late. My friend Alex was back from Berkeley for Thanksgiving so I picked up Calvin later in the afternoon and we went to visit him. He had to write his sister’s personal statement for her application to UC Berkeley. Frickin ridiculous. We asked him what his sister was doing and he said she was out drinking.. wow. That’s a great sister -_-. To be honest, if she’s like that, thats not even Berkeley material.. Berkeley people party, but they also get their shit done.

We left Alex to finish the essay and Calvin and I went back to my house to get dinner. My brother made curry earlier in the day so we finished off the leftovers. Then Johnny came over and we watched Ip Man.

The next day (Sunday), we went fishing at Balboa pier =). I picked up Calvin, Alex, and Wesley around 8 am ish and we set off. I think Sunday was the most fun I’ve had compared to all the other days. I grew up with Calvin, Alex, and Wesley so it was like old times. The feeling of just relaxing and chilling out right on the ocean with your best pals is a feeling I will never forget. After two hours, we had to take Alex back since he was going to have lunch with his family and he was also going back to Berkeley that day. On the drive back, we were blasting Leona Lewis – Bleeding Love and singing along to it HAHA. Great stuff.

After we dropped Alex off, we hung around at Calvin’s for most of the day. Around 5 pm ish, Calvin had to go have dinner with his family so me and Wesley went to Togo’s for food. We hung out and walked around, talked about drifting, life, etc. Around 7 ish, Calvin was back and we hung around his house for a lil bit longer LOL, then around 9 ish, took Wesley back home and that ended the fun filled weekend.

A little bit over a year has passed..

So last year on November 14, 2008 I totaled my S14 at the Formula D Pro AM Finals held at the Redbull World Drift Championship in Long Beach. That event didn’t go right even in the very beginning. I remember I drove my car straight from G-Dimensions right into tech. My kill switch still wasn’t wired up right so Matt, Jeff, and I were frantically trying to pull a wire off the alternator before my car was to be teched so the car wouldve been running purely off the battery and whenever we flipped the switch, it would shut the car off. But we couldn’t do that in time and had to BS the tech guy ahhah. Whenever they turned the kill switch, I would use my turbo timer to kill the car hahah. But ya, that was hectic, if tech didnt go through and all that money was spent just to get there, that wouldve been a huge bummer. But now, looking back I sorta wish they didn’t let me through tech, maybe I would still have my S14 haha.

The roll cage in my car was only 3 days old, freshly welded up by Alex Pfeiffer. After the crash he came up and said, “Well thanks for crash testing my cages for me!” Haha.$1600 down the drain, Matt and I split the cage money 50/50. Without Matt, I couldn’t have made it to the event, he helped me out so much along the way.

Anyways, I wanted this post to be more about the reflection of the past year after the crash.. if you want to read about the actual crash and how it happened, I blogged about it a week after the crash, you can find it here:

http://jordanthemango.blogspot.com/2008/11/so-shnappyyyyyy.html

Sooooo a year after… hmm. I was expecting to be in another drift car maybe 3 months after the crash and be drifting again. But, obviously that didn’t happen. After the crash, I became very unmotivated in school, I ditched school at least one day a week, sometimes skipping whole weeks and etc. Needless to say I only passed two classes out of the whole year, math and Criminal Justice. Because I flunked so many classes and etc at IVC, I was put on academic probation.

I started working full time at my parent’s company American Greenpower in Ontario. Working was enjoyable at first, but then it got worse and worse. Mainly because I started out doing simple things like lets say, editing documents, data entry and whatnot. But then it progressed into financial shit like using Quickbooks in which I have no fucking idea wtf I’m doing. So my mom started giving me lotsa grief and expectations with accounting stuff but I didn’t have ANY kind of accounting background at all and I also suck with numbers. Also since I worked full time I barely spent any time with friends. I lost touch with a couple of my OC friends and Riverside friends alike.

During this time, I also started living with Matt in his place in Rancho Cucamonga. His house was only 10 minutes and like 3 miles away from the office as opposed to 35 miles and 40 minutes if I drove from my house. This saved lots of money and mileage on my car and I also felt a little bit independent for a change. I had to go buy my own food and etc but it still didn’t feel like actually moving out..

I left American Greenpower at the end of August since I don’t think I was actually helping the company at all at this point and my brother was back from Hong Kong and ready to help the company. I decided to shift my focus to school and school only. I switched from IVC to SCC due to it being closer to my house (5 min drive) and also because of the academic probation thing. I didn’t have to deal with that at SCC. I got all the classes I wanted, had to petition for them but I got em, and all my teachers are pretty good. My grades are the highest they have ever been since like fking elementary school. So currently, I am very happy at where I stand academically, I just gotta keep up this momentum.

Unfortunately my focus on school has created a loss of touch between me and Outside Family (Matt and Thai). I meet with Matt maybe like once every two weeks, I haven’t seen Thai forever but we talk occasionally on AIM. The last time we all went drifting was probably over 6 months ago (I can’t even remember). I miss the good ol’ days of heading out to Willow Springs in the early morning, drifting all day, grabbing Pho on the way back. I miss drifting at the lot every Sunday and seeing smiles and just having a good time. I feel that Outside Family has really died this year. Matt has built a new car but is now seeking to sell it. Thai has like two cars and has built a new 350Z but still, we just aren’t motivated to drive anymore I guess.

So.. this brings me to the future.. I plan to have the S13 ready to go drifting in February. Theres not much left to do, I just need to get proper control arms, retune, alignment, and just check over the car for any missing or worn hoses and etc. I really want to do the Top Drift Battle series next year. I don’t plan on going to Formula D or anything like that, I just want to drift to drift. Drift for fun, not for recognition. I want to bring back the spirit of Outside Family again. We really felt like a family I think. Thai and Matt have helped me soooo much, I seriously can’t drift without them.

To achieve this goal of getting back into drifting in 2010, I need to have income of some sort. My brother and I are working on a new business venture and I also went down to Kohl’s and picked up a job application. Ian said they are hiring all the time. I think I should be able to balance school, work, and a little bit of drifting. The beauty of the Top Drift Battle series is that they only have events like every 2 months or so, so it gives adequate time in between each to prepare so it won’t be as hectic.

Sorry for the super long post, it was kinda overdue. I planned to post this up on Nov. 14 but I was at HellaFlush that day and wanted to post when I got back but I had to catch up with some school work, it was a pretty hectic week.

But ya, today I think I am gunna go to the Formula D Pro AM Finals in Irwindale =), I hope nobody kills their car like I did. I wanna see Forrest Wang rape the living shit out of everyone there. wah00!

I can’t think of a clever title…. maybe cuz im not clever..

Wow another month ahah. I really need to work on updating this. Well my life isn’t that interesting in the first place lol.

Well school is obviously underway and I’m doing pretty well. I haven’t had these grades / test scores since pretty much elementary school lol, well before 4th grade anyway.. After 4th grade I was introduced to something called Counter-Strike and Starcraft.

I have been in anti-social mode for the past month mainly because I just want to focus on school. I haven’t seen my drift buddies (Outside Family)Thai in over a month, almost 2 months I think, haven’t seen Matt for almost a month also..

There was an Econ test today… I felt that I didnt decent, at least a B, but it came back as a C. FAWK….. I can’t have C’s =\.. its crazy how much I stress about school now. Thankfully its still pretty much the beginning so I need to pwn the shit out of the next tests. I think Econ will give me the most trouble this semester. I need to go into extreme hermit / anti-social mode now to make up for this C =D.

Regarding this new blog I wanted to launch, called stree-status, I am going to put that on hold… If I can’t even work on my own blog and know it inside and out, how am I going to manage that one?

Recently, I decided to paint my MB Battles on my Evo, white, but its giving me some issues. I messed up pretty bad on 2 wheels.. on one wheel, the freakin clearcoat started spider cracking like nuts, so I think I am going to have to sand it down and re do it. I may just sand it and spray another coat of white. On the other wheel, I used the wrong paint, so I think I will have to sand that wheel down entirely and re do it. Its either I redo them or take em to get powdercoated. I am sort of short on money so I think I may just fix it.

Today, I watched a number of videos from the “We Are Drift” documentary series (wearedrift.com). It was a series of teasers of well shot drift sequences in Japan. Watching this made me miss drifting very much and makes me want to finish my S13. I want to finish it no doubt, but I really don’t have the funds to. It’s almost there, I just need a couple more things, tie up the loose / janky ends and itll be done. I need to figure out how to finish it.

Theres just something about driving a seriously raw street car that is exciting. The Evo is an awesome car, don’t get me wrong but its not “RAW.” I want to feel every single fking bump in the road, I want to hear my motor drown out all other noises. I want to be able to just floor my car and have the rear wheels spin and LOSE grip. The Evo grips so hard that its boring to drive. The ability to break traction easily and predictably while controlling the car through a corner is the best feeling in the world. I truly miss drifting, and I want to desperately get back into it.

I have been noticing that there is a pretty decent amount of 240s around school, I’ve seen about 6-7 of em already. Today, I saw a clean silverish / champagneish zenki S14 on Z33 wheels as I was pulling into the parking lot. Theres also a super clean Hachi but that guy acts like a hardass and just keeps looking forward when I try to wave to him -_-

Just because im in an AWD car doesn’t mean im an AWD dude wuhaha, RWD at heart =).

I swear if I am fortunate to be able to pay off this Evo, its going RWD.

this is day #1, on the road to.. a better life

I need to better my life, and the way I am going to do this is through discipline. I will set tasks / goals that I need to complete everyday. In doing so, I hope I can get my life back on track and dig myself out of my lazy slump. My good friend Ted suggested this method to me and he will keep me accountable. My bro also talked about setting small goals everyday but I never followed through to it.

Today’s goals:

1. Arrive at work on time, 9 AM sharp.
2. Call Mojave airport to ask about tour of “Airplane Graveyard” for dad.
3. Wash my car, its been over a month, and the paint has been hit by sprinklers like 4 times.

my room

Lately I have been noticing a relationship between my happiness and my room. The more unhappy I am, the more of a mess my room becomes..

Whenever I am doing well, my room is pretty spotless.

Hmm, my room is pretty messy right now.

Gotta fix something, doh.

I don’t know how to be happy.

I need to learn how to appreciate things. I have so many awesome things that anyone else would be proud to have and happy to own. But, in the end, I’m not happy. Something is missing, and unless that void is filled, I’ll never be happy. Thats what I say to myself, but I have to get past that. I should be able to be happy regardless but I don’t know how to reach up and achieve that level of life condition.