For God so loved the World

Esther's (my beloved older younger sister) birthday is on July 12. The problem with having a birthday on July 12, however, is that it's during the summer time which means missions. In the case of this past year, Esther was indeed on a missions trip to Kyrgyzstan which meant I couldn't bestow upon her a birthday gift. So, I decided to embark on a quest to make something for her as a belated birthday gift. This is an account of the Adventure of Custom Water Container:

Stanford Dining has been giving out these all-steel SWIGG water bottles with terribly ugly designs (see pictures below). I decided to spruce up the decals a bit and make something that looked pretty cool and give it to Esther for her birthday gift. I figured some kind of God allusion would be neat-o, and it just so happened that the water bottle featured a picture of the Earth, which instantly reminded me of John 3:16. With the original inspiration from Taiei (one of my roomies), I originally decided to use tape and a sandblaster to try to fit all of John 3:16 on the bottle. However, that proved extremely difficult, so I modified my plan to just have the words "For God so loved the world" in a semicircle around the globe. Here is the process in 4 easy steps:

1) Design the logo in this program called SolidWorks.

2) Upload the design to a laser cutter in the Stanford Machine Shop. I used the laser cutter to cut a sheet of masking tape.

3) Layout the masking tape design of the OUTLINE on the bottle (since the laser cutter cut away the small letters). Then lay out the letters where they lined up on the design. THEN take off the outline and voila! the letters are all arranged on the bottle.

4) Use the sand blaster to blast away all the paint on the bottle except for the masking tape letters + globe covered by masking tape

And there it is folks! The process took 4+ hours, but it was definitely a labor of love. HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY MEI MEI! I LOVE YOU!!!

Original bottle:

Finished bottle:

309 College Ave.

So I'm living off campus now at 309 College Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94306 :). Come visit!

My roommates (7 total) are all amazing men of God and it's been such a blessing to live in community especially as I'm still serving Intervarsity Christian Fellowship alongside two of my roommates :) Oh the joys of cooking, cleaning, chores, etc.

One blessing that I've really appreciated is early morning prayer with the household. We've been praying on Tuesdays and Thursdays early in the morning (although this week we couldn't) and it's been a HUGE blessing to me. Just being able to wake up that early is a miracle in itself haha and starting the day with prayer has had a tremendous effect on my day.

I've attached pictures of my roomies / the place, so feast your eyes on 309 College (aka the Brotel, although I'm not too fond of the nickname haha).

My New Ride

is a Fuji Team road bike! I can't find much information on the bike's year, etc. but it is a super sweet ride :) All steel frame, carbon front fork, full Shimano 600 (~Ultegras), SPD pedals, what more could I ask for? The only short comings of the bike are the double crank (gonna get owned by hills) and the shifters (eek! I know...); the left shifter doesn't down shift too well, probably due to the grease/oil becoming sticky inside. I have to shift quite a few times in order to get it to shift, but it's usable :)

I acquired the bike through my accountabilibuddy Paul Wilson. His cousin was looking to sell his old Fuji Team, so naturally Paul asked if I wanted to take a look-see. I took it for a spin almost as soon as I got it and fell completely in love with it. It was a silky smooth ride, and it handled and felt just like the Fuji Roubaix I rode on my epic bike trip down to Socal (we'll save that for a sooner post). Anyways, I've attached eye candy pics of my white beauty (haha Jon you'll love it!). I'm thinking about getting some teal/purple/red tires for the flash-aspect of the bike, what do you guys think?

My 22nd Birthday // 1 Year Anniversary w/PTY

Hello all! This post was meant for yesterday, but (as you'll soon read about) I was pooped after the craziness of my 22nd birthday/1st year anniversary with PTY. Here is an account of what happened:

11:00pm - 1:00am

PTY came over under the guise of wanting to get boba/pho. Then she made me fetch a scarf which she then proceeded to blindfold me with, and then drove me around town while still blindfolded (Reminds me of my first Jesus Club retreat where Ajuh and I were partners for the blindfold walk). Eventually, we ended up at Connie Dang's apartment in Mountain View where I was pleasantly surprised by Amos, Mikey, Luna, Connie, Paul, and of course PTY. The theme was Green Party (not the political one) so people were wearing all sorts of weird green clothes and eating cake, banberry pie, horchata, wintermelon jello tea, and mochi with green plates/forks/cups. I'm so grateful that I got to see everyone again and I realized just how much I love all my old drawmates.

10:00am - 1:00pm

PTY took me to Muguboka (this SUPER nice Korean BBQ restaurant in SF..I'm thinking about writing a Yelp review because I was that impressed) for some brunch. On the way to SF, since it was raining so much, the freeways were flooded and it was pretty scary hydroplaning and getting splashed like crazy haha. PTL that we made it to the restaurant alive! I'll write a more in depth review of the food on Yelp later, but in short, $13 for Soon Doo Boo + Kalbi + ridiculously good Panchan = heavenly food :)

1:30pm - 2:30pm

Originally we were going to check out the SFMOMA, but since it was too expensive and we didn't have much time, we just checked out this free art gallery neighboring the MOMA. The gallery focused on a work known as the American Qu'ran, displaying the Qu'ran against backdrops of American scenes (wars in the Middle East, 9/11 towers to name a few). We then went to Ghirardelli Square and sipped on delicious hot chocolate while eating our free samples of Ghirardelli chocolate squares :)

3:00pm - 6:00pm

Class @ Stanford. Special note: they gave us free donuts today! Nice birthday surprise haha.

7:30pm - 8:30pm

Dinner @ Sushi Zone. The sushi was pretty good and super filling and although they got my order wrong, my taste buds were still happy and my stomach full too (I'm always skeptical about feeling full after eating a few pieces of sushi, but those little grains of rice go a long way I guess)

9:00pm - 11:30pm

For the latter part of the night we checked out this Jazz Club called Coda which featured live music 6 nights of the week. We got there around 9:00pm since their website said the music starts around 9:00pm, but the show didn't go down until 10:00pm :( We ended up analyzing the decor of the club and commenting on improvements we'd make haha (I secretly want to open up a jazz club someday). The musicians that played ended up NOT really being jazz musicians but rather these electronic funky types that would loop like 2-3 "jazz" chords over and over while a drummer played a hip hop/pop beat on the set. Haha I'm too critical of other musicians so I guess their music wasn't THAT bad, but you can check them out at their myspace here heh.

And that's it! More to come soon!

I'm Alive!

Isaac reporting back from the dead! I'm back and bringing revival to this lazarus of a blog heh. Since I've been MIA for too long and there's been a lot of ridiculousness going in this adventure I call my life, I decided I'm going to post EVERYDAY this week :)

Today's topic will be on my grad program here at Stanford: MST (Music, Science, Technology) Currently, I'm enrolled in three classes, details below:

MUS 192A: Recording Studio

In this class we're studying the anatomy of microphones, the circuit systems of the recording studio itself (wires, mics, mixers, etc.), and the general use of the recording studio (mic placement, mixing software, etc.) The class culminates in a final project where we have to make a high quality recording of something. I'm thinking of finishing my all-acoustic album or/and recording a hybrid album (think Mute Math meets Daft Punk meets Phil Wickham)

MUS 250A: Human Computer Interactions Design for Music

I'm in love with this class fsho! We talk about how to design interactive, intuitive instruments so there's a lot of sketching involved. I've always liked drawing designs (took ME 101 for those Stanfordians reading this) and I love different instruments so put two and two together, you get a happy Isaac :). This class' final project involves designing your own instrument that can be playable! I'm thinking an advanced keytar, but any other thoughts?

MUS 320: Introduction to Digital Audio Signal Processing

This class deals with the mathematical aspect of audio/music and how to represent an audio signal as a bunch of sine waves/complex exponentials. What's amazing about this class is it has sorta kinda maybe made me fall in love with Math (again). Math @ Stanford has always been overly complex and entirely impossible to understand for me, but for the first time I actually get what the heck we're talking about in a Math class. This is probably due to the fact that I'm studying Math (something that's hard for me to completely grasp) of Music (something I'm pretty confident in). Who knows, I might switch to a Math major after I finish this series of Math/Music classes (there are 2 more classes besides this one so...*crosses fingers*)

...and now for a completely random subject change, check out this music video here! Esther brought it back from her VSET missions trip to Kyrgyzstan. According to her, it's the most popular song in all of Kyrgyzstan haha. What do you guys think?

....and not for ANOTHER completely random subject change, here's a teaser picture of an upcoming post for this week heh heh.