The reason why Jesus is real to me

Last night, I was lucky enough to be free and visit a worship/praise night at the SJSU chapel with some good buddies of mine.

It was a night of worship songs and it was nice to be around people that I went to fellowship with at SJSU. The thing that was nice was also for that little moment, I was free from a lot of worries.

During that time, I let go of all my problems and just allowed myself to be with Jesus. It was nice.

Now how does this make Jesus real? For me, Jesus is real because I see Him working others. When I first came to SJSU, I saw Jesus working in my friend and that was when I knew He was real.

Last night, I saw Jesus fill the hearts of my friends and that reminded me of how real He is. Just seeing people’s spirits lifted up and more importantly, just seeing a tremendous love spread can only be the work of Jesus.

I could go more into detail about it, but this is where I see Jesus. I see Him in others. I see the great things that He is doing that is as real as it can be. How do I know Jesus is real? This is how.

Throughout my whole entire time at SJSU, it was hard for me to see Jesus in many different forms as others. But through the people He works through, that’s where I just can see Him in action.

And seeing my friends uplifted by Him and feeling it myself, that’s a feeling you can’t describe. It’s hard to describe it to someone that has not experienced it, but that’s the only way I know. But that’s the love of Jesus. It’s not something that you can just understand. You have to feel it, you have to experience it.

And it felt real good to be able to feel it in full action last night.

That’s how the Moneyball bounces

The final score for win number 20.

This is a brief write up of my adventures on the set of ‘Moneyball’ the movie. The movie is based off the book of the same name in which the Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane constructs a baseball team with a limited payroll based off a statistic that was not used often and builds a winning team.

Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jonah Hill are in the movie. The book is great. I hope the movie is too.

They’re filming parts of the movie at the Coliseum and I signed up to be an extra. Even though I don’t get paid, reliving a moment that meant a lot to me was pretty cool.

We were scheduled to go in at 4:30PM but it got pushed to 6PM. Then due to some earlier filming, we didn’t get in until around 8:30PM. But it was nice because I was up near the third base line. I cannot tell you too much, but we were filming Scott Hatteberg’s homer that gave the A’s the 20th win in their win streak in 2002.

We cheered like crazy when he hit the homer. Prior to that, we were part of the scene after Koch blew the 11-0 lead and it was odd that they filmed that scene over 10 times while the Hatteberg homer was done once.

Also, none of the players and coaches look like the real players. Chavez is too short. Tejada is not dark enough. T-Long had no receding hair. Byrnes had no hair. Ron Washington was too short and too round.

What sucked was that the crew took a lunch break at around 11:30PM. And since it was getting late, I couldn’t stay out long. The sucky part is that we didn’t film that long because of delays. But the experience is something I will never forget. Sure I didn’t get to do too much and I did miss Brad and Angelina because they were too far away, but it was a pretty sweet experience.

Church politics is stupid

I might just end up rambling, but that’s OK.

What has always bothered me about my home church is that it’s old. It’s old in so many ways. The people there are old. Seniors, people nearing retirement and whatever. Then there are the kids. The youngest one probably isn’t even in high school yet. And then there’s me.

But that’s not even the part that bothers me. The part that bothers me is the church is full of not full of Jesus. Every time I go there, I don’t feel like people are growing. It becomes to the point where people go there just because they go there. It’s a tradition to be in those four walls on Sunday. There is no inspiration and no actions that are great.

Now, the part of this is because it’s a very old style Episcopal church. It’s one of those ye olde English, hymnals and choir robes kinds of places. And I’ve grown to accept that some people believe that that is the way to worship. But when it comes to being straight forward with Jesus as the center, I don’t see it.

There’s too much politics in my church. You have to sign contracts to be able to serve. You have to be paid a certain amount. Everyone has an assignment and people get angry when someone doesn’t do their assignment (with no forgiveness). And what sucks is that every time I go, I just see a business. I don’t see people being uplifted. I don’t see the Holy Spirit running wild. All I see is a bunch of people trying to keep a suffering engine on the road. It’s too much work. I thought Sunday was a day of rest.

I’m starting to miss not playing the XBox 360

*Or is it “I’m starting to miss playing the XBox 360”? I’ve always missed it, so I don’t know…

Back when living at Da Crib, the XBox was my source of fun. But since it broke nearly six months ago, I haven’t played video games on a normal basis on for a long time. In fact, I am having major withdrawals.

The sucky part is that the new Madden NFL game is coming out and that’s the game that I always play. I love it so much! But because I don’t have an XBox 360 anymore, what am I going to do?

I could go buy one, but I don’t have a nice TV. My dad is super cheap and when we bought a TV a long time ago, he bought this super cheap one that can’t even handle video games.

So if I do want to buy myself a new XBox, I have to buy a TV along with it just to make it work. I have a small TV, but that’s not the same. I have a PS2, but I have outgrown that old little thing.

I want to play the new Madden. I want to play with the new XBox Slim. I kinda miss it.

Got my new Jon Fitch autographed UFC glove

My new autographed UFC glove.

Hey, remember this entry? Well, the gloves came in yesterday. It’s pretty cool. You can barely make out his signature since it was signed with a silver Sharpie, but the love is there.

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On Thursday, I’m out to the Coliseum to be an extra in the new “Moneyball” film. They started filming on Monday and the Coliseum now looks like it did back in 2002. But you know what I really want? I want to get the black/blue caps that the Royals wore during that season.

Then on Friday, back down to Santa Clara as the 49ers start reporting to training camp. I am not excited to do it, but it’s fun. Just not really looking forward to do all that hard work. It’s the summer laziness.

The number one reason why Jeremy Lin rocks

Newest Warrior Jeremy Lin finally got a Twitter. I’m going to follow him. Sure, he’s Asian-American and shares the same name as me which makes him extra cool, but his first tweet on Twitter is the perfect example as to why he’s cool.

JLin7: Thank you to Jesus Christ for all the blessings! Real excited to be with the Warriors. Hopefully I learn how to use twitter soon haha

He’s made it clear since the media started following him at Harvard that being an Asian-American in the NBA is something nice, but being a Christian is way more important.

Also, he tries to be funny, which is a good thing. Most athletes on Twitter are just hard to follow with egos and other things.

JLin7: probably the least technologically savvy asian in the bay haha. still learning twitter…at least i got a profile picture up

I guess they can’t teach you everything at Harvard.

And if you haven’t seen it, some guy whose name is also Lin, had his name customized on a Warriors jersey five years ago. He then decided to sell it on eBay as a Jeremy Lin jersey hoping to find some fool who would believe it was a real Lin jersey.

I messaged him about the authenticity of the jersey and he ended the auction because the fool got busted! I’m not letting this guy fool Jeremy Lin fans. Shame on him!

My new summer TV show addiction (and it’s not ‘Mad Men’)

Yeah, the show is not like super good, but it has captured my attention. It’s only going to be 13 episodes long and the show’s already into its seventh episode.

And I don’t watch “Mad Men” at all. Even though they talk about mass media, I don’t care for it. That is all.

Got my hands on a ghetto bootleg DVD version of ‘Toy Story 3’

Somehow, someway, I found a download to this.

Audio: bad.

Quality: bad.

Random Chinese subtitles: bad.

Movie: Good.

I could watch this movie over and over and over again. Who’s down to watch it with me?

The greatest deal in the history of shopping (at least for me)

The awesome polo shirts that cost me a total of $5.70.

You wanna talk a good deal? This is a good deal.

But let me start off with my day. I went to the Oakland Coliseum with Eric and Newt to catch the awesome A’s. Two homers by Jack Cust led the A’s to a 10-2 win over the White Sox.

Highlight of my day there? I found a quarter on the ground and someone left their souvenir cup behind. I took both. Oh man, what a day!

Later, we went to the Bayfair Mall as Eric had printed out the Friends and Family deal for Foot Locker. That deal takes 25% any regular-priced item. And guess who joined us? Delbert! YES!!!

I didn’t see anything in Foot Locker that I liked until I saw a sign that said polo shirts were $2.99. Oh yes!

Trusting God is what keeps me sane

When I was in Sunday School as a kid, I thought I was Bible-smart. I would know all the stories there were in the Bible. From David & Goliath to all of Jesus’ miracles, I knew it all. This one week, I had forgotten my assignment. Yes, there was an assignment.

The previous Sunday I was asked to find a verse in the Bible — a verse that means something to me. I forgot and when it was time for me to show the class my verse, I opened up to a random page in the Bible and pointed to this verse.

“But I will bless those who trust me.” – Jeremiah 17:7 (Contemporary English Version)

Yeah, I felt bad that I didn’t do my assignment. But that verse wasn’t just some lucky guess. It was a message from God Himself.

I don’t have verses memorized. I don’t have all the theories or any of that embedded in my brain. It’s not that I don’t care. I just don’t feel that it’s a HUGE necessary must for me.