In The Air Again.

I took this shot while on my flight out to Houston this weekend. My noona Amy is getting married and so I'm flying out to join in the festivities. The crazy thing about us is that her parents have been close with ours ever since we moved to LA in '84. In fact, her parents knew my aunt (my mom's older sister) before they knew us, and they helped my parents when we first moved out to Cali. The last time I saw them was when I was seven, during the summer before we moved to Moscow, Russia. We lost touch, but as with all random connections, she found me on xanga, since one of my profile pictures was from when I was like 4.
We've been in touch ever since, and so I'm really excited about this brief family reunion. I probably shouldn't be flying in my current headache/coughing condition, but hey, anything for family.

Family Time.

I spent today with two of my cousins from my mom's side of the family. The beautiful people you see next to me are Daniel and Esther, two of my closest cousins. They're both working in the city and took some time to just chill with me and wander around NY, since I haven't been able to do so in such a long time. It was so great and refreshing to see them, and just being around them helped me really take a break from the deep emotions I've been dealing with recently. So yeah, thanks, you two, for making things a bit easier to cope with and reminding me of the importance of family.

Later that night, I spent time with cousin's son (which I guess makes him my second cousin). His name is Zubin, he's two years old, and is as adorable in person as he is in the picture. Man, I love kids.

Family.

I flew down to Southern California this weekend to visit my parents and brother, who was in town for spring break. While I can't really get myself to call it home because I never lived there, it was great to be back together with them again, regardless of how short it was.

The Perfect Storm.

The gang checked out of our cabin at 11am this morning, thinking that we'd have enough time to make it back to the city in time for church. Unfortunately, we made the crucial mistake of not checking the weather and sticking to our own schedule. For some reason, missed the memo that about a foot and a half of snow had fallen overnight. If we had paid attention to what was going on around us, we would have definitely left earlier. Instead, our ignorance to the forces of nature surrounding us made for a very interesting ride back.

Some of the images I saw on the road were absolutely astonishing. When exiting off the highway to get to the nearest gas station, we noticed that the cars were moving at such a slow pace that even one of them had a snowman placed on top of its roof! Yeah, in my 22 years on this earth, including my experiences growing up in Russia, this was one of my most intense snowstorms to date.

It normally takes some four odd hours to drive up to Lake Tahoe from San Francisco, However, on our return trip, a massive snowstorm hit, causing the roads to become treacherous and backed up as far as the eye could see. It took our car a total of four hours to simply travel three miles to get on to thehighway leading out of Tahoe! Yet even with a total travel time of about nine and a half hours, our car was the fastest one in our fleet of three vehicles that made it back to the city. From what I've gathered, Jeff's car engine actually gave out, stranding him, Jason, Lisa, and Toadie (C.Park) up on the side of the road. After talking to them, I found out that they'll have to spend the night up there and find a different way back into the city tomorrow.

I hope they're alright.

Ecstatic.

I couldn't control my excitement of being able to snowboard on fresh powder. Miss Lisa shared the same excitement with me as we shared a tide up on the ski lift. With 18 inches of fresh snow this morning, the conditions were absolutely amazing. Today definitely made up for the lack of any trace of winter experienced two weeks prior at Snow Globe.

Meet Jane & Chung.

These cats represent two-fifths of Team Awesome, our car that headed out to Lake Tahoe. Jane is one of my homies out here in SF. She's a straight down-to-earth NorCal gangsta, no-nonsense hood chick with a fobby twist. And Chung? As a diplomat's kid, which means he's more superinternational than me. Although he's Korean, he grew up mainly in South America, which reminds me of someone else I know back in NC (*ahem ahem* dirrrty susy!! *ahem*). Oh, and he's a compulsive liar. haha.

No, seriously, don't believe a word he says.

.: Anticipation :.

I'm in the process of packing up my gear for the weekend. I'm waking up early tomorrow to get to work real early. The reason? 24/7 has planned a Tahoe trip this weekend and I want to beat traffic if possible. It's supposed to be the best snow all season, so I'm really excited about going up.

I can't wait.

Meet Faith

This weekend, more than other weekends, was way too short. And no matter how much time I do take to take off to spend with her, it's always too short. I find myself at the airport getting ready to leave even though it feels like I just got there.

While some people may think I was crazy to fly back for two days, I don't regret one bit of it. I got to spend time with her. I got to step inside the Dean Dome once again with her. I got to see my church family. So even though I did only spend about 50 hours in Chapel Hill, it was well worth it in my book.

It's the smallest and simplest things during reunions that I enjoy the most. Watching movies together. Talking about nothing. Being goofy. And it's those things that I miss while I'm out here.

Until next time...

The Champs are Here!

My return to North Carolina this time around was sweetened by watching a UNC-Wake Forest game with Faith in the Dean Dome. The game was a blowout, as we steamrolled WFU 104-67. But the highlight of the game came at halftime. when we honored the 1957 and 1982 NCAA Championship teams by celebrating their 50th and 25th anniversaries. The members of both squads were greeted with a roaring standing ovation, and rightfully so.

If you look at the right of this picture, the last four people you see are Sam Perkins. "Big Game" James Worthy, Michael Jordan, and the legendary Dean Smith. Yes, you heard me correctly, the champs were back in the building.

Grounded.

My excitement in seeing my girlfriend this weekend was dampened pretty badly with my flight being cancelled as I was driving to the airport. I was informed by way of a voicemail recording about the cancellation and how they decided to rebook me on a route that would begin five hours later and get me into RDU at around 2:30AM, After frantically calling the 800 Delta number and a 40 minute hold, I discovered that I was rebooked to an American Airlines route that would go by way of Dallas-Fort Worth and get me into RDU by 12:50am-- two hours past my original arrival. I also discovered that there was an already-delayed flight that was departing for DFW promptly and if we arrived early or the flight out of DFW was delayed, I still had a chance to board an earlier flight that would get me in at 10PM. Although I was very disappointed about the intial cancellation, I knew that I had no other choice, so I decided to take my chances, knowing that it was a long shot to begin with.However, it was never meant to be. The earlier DFW-bound flight actually left later than projected, getting us in about half an hour after the first RDU flight departed.

So I was expecting to get to RDU at 12:50AM. But then, I was screwed over once again.

The captain of our RDU flight emerged from the jetway to inform us that there was a maintenance light that turned on, forcing me into another delay. After all was said and done, I wound up getting into RDU at 2AM, a good three hours past my original arrival time.

This is why I hate flying domestic. Regardless of the airline, the domestic fleet is always outdated, old, and one flight away from breaking down. There are ridiculous airport taxes that get attached to my ticket, which pay the TSA to "randomly" search me every time I fly anywhere. The crapshoot that they call a flight itinerary, which always seems to change. Need I go on?

Snowglobe 2007: Just Another Day at Work.

My company has an annual ski trip up to Lake Tahoe, which I was looking forward to since I started work. Although I heard people raving about past trips, I had absolutely no idea what to expect and was anxious to experience this event firsthand. I wound up signing up on a day when most of my small group friends/co-workers were going, which made the trip that much more memorable.

I spent most of the day snowboarding with Caroline, Jesse, and Abe, and in the evening, we met up with the rest of the gang. While the schedule of events stated that there was a after-ski party later that evening, I wasn't expecting it to be a big deal. However, in hindsight, I can honestly say that it was far better than the holiday party (which also blew my mind). I spent most of the night with the crowd I went boarding with, along with Christina, Gina, and Jeff, although we would also do our own thing and mingle with other friends. All in all, I like work days like these! Needless to say, this was an amazing day, and I'm already looking forward to next year!

Erin and Caroline: co-workers, yet Dookies.

[props to Jesse for the first picture]

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing...

This evening, after work, I headed to the airport to catch my flight out to North Carolina. I took tomorrow off so that I could make it to NC by Friday morning instead of Friday late night, because I did not want to miss a moment of the coming weekend.

My home church, Grace Mission Ministry (GMM), is holding its annual spring retreat this weekend: Response 2007. I had not seen most of my church family since September and some other special person since November, and so I've been looking forward to this trip for a while now. However, that anticipation was followed by disappointment when I realized at the airport that
the flight crew from the previous route was late, delaying the first leg of my flight, and ultimately forcing me to re-route and lose several precious hours. So what should have been a departure at 8 resulted in a departure at closer to 11.

However, I wasn't gonna let anything ruin my mood for the upcoming weekend. And as I waited for my flight, I snapped away...