Finding a Playground in Downtown

Living in the city makes it more challenging to find a playground or park. Los Angeles is not like New York where there is a Central Park in the middle of a major metropolitan area. Fortunately, there are little pockets here and there where you can find a playground. One of the safer and better playgrounds is on 8th and Hope on the FIDM campus. There is grass, a small path to follow, and small playground for kids to play on. This past Monday (2/25/08) I took the boys to this playground. One thing that this playground lacks is a swing, but other than that it's a decent playground. The best part is the playground is not ghetto, it's clean, and it feels safe. Here are the pictures from the day. Here is Justin trying to use the rings. He gets stuck on the first one. Justin was a pretty brave kid at one years old. Justin would generally go down most slides with no fear, but Dylan is on another level. He will go down any slide and go down head first. I love this shot because here is Justin and Dylan holding on to each other and sliding down together. It's really fun to watch these guys grown up. It's pretty obvious how much Dylan looks up to his brother and even though Justin doesn't like to admit it he really loves his younger brother. Here is Justin and Dylan going down another slide. One of the things Dylan likes to do is dance these days. If you sing "Ring Around The Roses" he gets really excited. Especially, when you get to the part "Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down". Here is Dylan showing his excitement. I try my best to capture brotherly moments of the boys together so that when Justin and Dylan look back in life they can see how close they are. I want them to understand from the beginning of time that they are tied together. So when they have their montage of flash backs of early childhood they see how intertwined their lives are. Here are some lucky shots I got of them. Here is Dylan giving me the goofy smile for me. Here are the boys playing around a water fountain. Don't worry...I had my eyes on them every second...well except when I was taking the pictures...hahaha. Just kidding...I was ready to throw the camera to the ground or into the water at a moments notice. There is a cafe by the campus that we made a pit stop at for drinks. Here are the boys sitting together and enjoying a moment. I normally feel like I might have had kids too soon because I have not achieved whatever goals I might have set in life. Having kids definitely create challenges in one's career...especially in a fledgling acting career...buy whatever happens in my life...it's okay because I have two amazing boys that I love so much. I would be lying if I said that giving up my acting career is okay because of Justin and Dylan, but the truth is they are the only reasons that I ever could give up my dream without regret. My dream would have to shift to making it possible to make their dreams come true. The great thing about having kids not too old is that I have the energy to keep up with them. Well...at least most days...hahaha.

Working With Drunken Tiger

This past Wednesday (2/13/08) I did a cameo in a Korean Music Video for a Korean Hip Hop artist named Drunken Tiger...the rapper's name is J.K. It was a last minute thing because my friend called me the night before to see if I could do it. My friend grew up with J.K. and is one of his closest friends. The original music video is already out and you can see it on YouTube...it's called Neh Gah Shil Tah("I Hate Myself"). This is a second installment to that song because he did not like the original video...so he was re-shooting the video in Los Angeles with the help of of his good friends that grew up with him. The re-shot video should hopefully start airing in a couple of month. JK is the 1st real Korean rapper. Others have rapped, but not in the true sense that rapping is supposed to be. 16 bars, a rhyming of words, and poetic play of word play. This newest album will be probably be of his greatest work up to date. Here is JK pretending to make a phone call in front of my friend's 360 Spider Ferrari. Believe it or not I was fortunate enough to drive this beautiful machine for the music video. Originally, I thought I was only going to drive it a few feet for the scene, but because the parking lot was so busy I had to move it a bunch of time and had the the pleasure of driving around the block a bunch of times. IT WAS AWSOME. I let loose a couple of times. Here is a shot of JK and myself at the end of the shot. I can honestly say that JK is one of the coolest cats I have met. He is a very down to earth guy who has a pretty deep soul. If you know his story he has earned every inch in his career. I wish him the best with the rest of his career and life. It was fun shooting the video and I am hoping that my relatives in Korea might get a kick out of seeing me in something...even if it is a cameo. The good thing is the music video should be pretty popular.

Happy New Year

So this past Saturday I loaded up the boys in the double stroller and walked over to China Town to check out the festivities for the Chinese New Year. We went as a family 2 years ago and it has definitely grown as an event. I would say it is more geared towards Caucasians, but the vendors at the festival have gotten better. The weather turned out to be really great, but the only problem was I had dressed my boys thinking that the weather was going to be on the colder side. Luckily I had layered them so they were able to adjust to the heat. The parade was a little disappointing, but I guess you can't expect the Rose Bowl Parade. Here is Justin enjoying some cotton candy and Dylan trying to cool himself down with a drink. The first thing to do was feed them, but after I fed them I tried to get as many free things at the booth. At first Justin was not feeling the long lines for these vendors that were offering free gifts, but once Justin won 1 prize he got the fever for free things. We took some pictures of the different courts for different ethnicities. Here are the boys with the Nissei Princesses. Here are the boys again with the Taiwan Princesses. I wanted to also get them the Korean Princesses, but the timing never worked out. The funny thing that I have to mention is that each court wears crowns...I found it funny that the Korean Princesses had the biggest crowns. I have to say they were the best looking also and I am not saying that because I am Korean. Here are some pictures of Justin sticking his head out through some cut outs that they had set up. At the end of the day Justin insisted that he go down the giant slide they had set up. Here is Justin enjoying himself sliding down a pretty big slide. All in all we had a pretty good time. Most importantly I was able to spend some quality time with my two sons.

Wrong Day For A Birthday

On February 5, 2008 (Tuesday)...we were supposed to go to go to a church friend's sons birthday. His name is Dylan also. Unfortunately, the Mom changed it to Friday the day before and Nancy had not informed me of the change. So that day I got the kids ready and headed out to Culver City to a park that the birthday was supposed to be at. It took me awhile with traffic and I ended up 30 minutes late. I arrived at the park around 11:30am and found NOBODY that I knew around anywhere. I was a bit concerned. First of all, my instincts told me that I came on the wrong day, but I was hoping maybe...just maybe that they might have moved the party to another site. I started looking around with the kids and saw many other parents or nannies with kids playing around for the day. I got that horrible feeling that I showed up to the party on the wrong day. I then called Nancy to confirm that the day was right. She was absolutely sure that the day was right. She opened the e-vite to make sure the day was right. After opening the e-vite she then then started saying that she would take us out to dinner wherever we wanted. It turns out that the night before...our friend Sora decided to change the birthday date due to fact of possible cold weather. The funny thing is the day was absolutely beautiful. The weather was sunny and was quite decently warm. After figuring out that the birthday date had changed I was about to take off back home, but decided to take advantage of the day at the park and let the boys play. It was good call. They enjoyed the time together and the time at the park.One of the things that I enjoy watching is the interaction between Dylan and Justin as they grow older. There is a pure joy between the two of of them interacting. I hope that as they get older that continue to enjoy playing with each other.

Justin is constantly getting better at taking care of his brother as he gets older. Here he is pushing his brother on the swings. The best part of it all that Dylan actually enjoys his brother's company. I can actually walk away as long as his brother is around Dylan. Dylan is okay to be away from me in general as long as Justin is around. They definitely do have some sort of bond between them. Just as much Justin is always watching out for Dylan's interest...Dylan really enjoys his Justin's presence. Here is Justin and Dylan enjoying the see-saw together. It is really cool how they communicate in their own language and their own wavelength. Here they are crossing a bridge together and spending time together. I only hope that they will continue to have a good relationship as time goes by. Three years does not seem like a lot of years apart, but in the early years it makes a huge difference. Just at 4 years old is all about building...Dylan at 1 years old is all about destroying. As the years go by the gap will become less and less significant. I really hope and pray that they have a solid relationship that will last them a last time.

Random

Well, if my memory serves me right I think I made some sort of resolution to blog better for the year 2008 and like many resolutions I have failed. I do have to say with my schedule that it has become increasingly more difficult to blog. During the day is nearly impossible unless I choose to completely ignore Dylan which is pretty impossible. There are the evenings...except on the nights I am home I cannot get on my computer because Nancy occupies my desk working on work and blogging doesn't seem like an important enough task to kick her out of my desk. By the time I put the kids to sleeps and she gets off (around after 12:30am)...blogging is one of the last things I want to do. On the nights I work...I get home around 12:30am-1:30am...after catching up with my emails, checking and submitting for auditions, reading a little news and sports, again blogging doesn't seem all that important. Especially, since I don't feel like I have anything important to say nor do I have any cute pictures of my kids. So for this blog I am combining some random photos I have taken over the month of January. Here is Justin doing a little water color painting at a church friends' (Naomi and Caitlyn) joint birthday party. Here is Dylan also participating in water color painting. Here is a rated X picture I took one night when I was bored. A mouse fornicating with another mouse. This next picture looks like a normal picture of a child's toy, but look carefully what is inside. On this particular night we were having hot pot and had boiled some corn for the kids. Normally, Dylan runs around with the whole cob in his mouth. He ran back asking for another corn on the cob, but had no prior cob with him. I was concerned maybe he left it under the bed or worse somewhere under the blankets. I couldn't find it so I just hoped that he had disposed of it properly in the garbage can. Well, later on in the evening Nancy found it. Dylan had dropped it down his toy. The whole family got a good laugh from it. If you wondering...I had to take apart the toy to get the corn out. These last three pictures are pretty monumental because this was probably the first time that Justin and Dylan really played something together. Normally, Justin plays with something and Dylan gets in his way. Or Dylan plays with something and Justin jacks his brother. Especially, since the Spin City Hot Wheels is Justin's favorite it is monumental that he is sharing with his brother. It was a real joy to watch them play in harmony and balance. Dylan even copied his brother and made car noises. It is times like this that I know my nagging Justin to take care of his dong seng (younger brother) is paying off.