my bud dan just got a ps2 in the mail, so i'm here with a bunch of guys playing ridge racer 5 and street fighter ex3. it's pretty cool. my left thumb is kinda sore now (as usual) after playing video games. we're staying at his place tonite to wake up in the morning for a fellowship "guys' grub."

wed turned out to be an eventful nite for me. after my last nite class (in which we saw west world), i drove my sister back home to berkeley. she was working late. afterwards i headed home. right about midnight i got into an accident which i guess totaled my car. i thank god that i'm ok.

i was going southbound on 101s going towards 280 to go home. i was in the right hand lane. it was raining steadily that nite. going around the curve toward the turn-off, i hit a huge puddle out of no where. there weren't any big puddles before that. i hydroplaned, lost control and skidded to the left. i rotated counter clockwise about 200 degrees. a pick-up truck in the fast lane hit me. he hit me (first impact) nearly head on (but to the right) since i had skidded and turned around. that pick up knocked me into my spin (i wonder if that's a good thing). so i skidded more and spun around 360 degress. this whole time i was wondering...when am i going to stop? about a second or so later, my rear hit the highway divider/shoulder where (second impact) i finally came to rest. i had moved from the right hand lane originally all the way to the left hand shoulder.

my front right side was bashed in up to my tire. i wasn't hurt. (but my neck is feeling slightly sore now, 24 hours later.) chp came, checked us out. there wasn't much damage on that other car, and that guy was ok. he had some minor bumper damage and his front grill was bashed a little in the center. he hit me straight on. i wonder how fast he was going and if he was able to break. guess i won't find out until i see the chp report.

i'm thankful that he didn't broadside me. thankful that there weren't any other cars around. it would have been a whole lot worse for me and other people then.

the chp asked me if i had seen cones around the puddle. that was news to me. because of the curve, the warning about the road hazard was too late. cal trans should have placed warning cones earlier on, if they considered it a road hazard. the whole nite i was aware of the tricky weather conditions and noticed cones and flashing lights on the bridge and other places.

i'm truly thankful to god that i'm ok and that he had his hand of protection on me that nite. thankful that the other guy is ok. i pray that everything gets resolved ok.

i only have one way insurance on my car, since it was old. it was a 1980 bmw 320i. called around and one place said that it would offer me $200 for it. i hope that i can find a better deal, since the engine and most of the parts are fine. it's not worth repairing b/c the body repairs would be at least $4000. more than the value of my car. guess it's time to get a new car. maybe it's time to earn money again. i'm trying not to worry too much about the money. i know that it's all minor compared to what's really important...my health.

maybe this will be a life-changing event for me. i dunno yet. we'll see.

i'm trying to finish up my concept ideas for my art center at night class - "concepting for interactivity." i'm supposed to have polished concepts to present tonite for an interactive website for audi, a desktop application for diesel, and a physical space for intel.

i think after that i'm going to be hard at work teaching myself flash and dreamweaver in two weeks. i just signed up for another class - designing a dynamic multimedia website. i'm going to really try to push myself now. i want to put together a dynamic site for my fellowship group - lumps. in fact, i just registered a domain - lumpsofclay.com. the registration was only $11 or so at gandi.

almost late to church yesterday because i got caught up creating this blog.

i wasted most of the day today scoping out different book sites. i ordered a few books about web design and one about screenwriting. all part of my quest to get into online creative.

i figure that i will at least have to have a nifty homepage, better than this template stuff, if i want to include my greg@gregwong.com email on my resume.

my dsl was working all day today. utterly amazing.

i'm finally starting to truly get online completely and attempt to be on the cutting edge of technology..

> a month ago i got dsl (which does NOT work half of the time). it sure frustrates me every time i see that dang data light blinking read. sometimes it crawls so slowly that it's only a fraction the speed of a modem! (sometimes 4kb/sec, in comparison to 56.6/kb/s!)

> three days ago i got a palm. i was about to order a visor the past week...but i got a fed-ex delivery mid week delivering a brand spnkin new palm vii x! (top of the line palm, net access modem for web clippings, and 8mb of memory. thank you money magazine!) now, i have my bible in my palm, vindigo, and avantgo downloaded. i created an address book (with probably 200 entries) and a date book. i'll eventually sign up for the basic palm.net service, which i s $10 a month. i wonder how useful the mobile access will be. my life shall finally be organized!

> i ordered a wacom graphire tablet a couple of weeks ago, to replace my mouse for digital drawings and to try to save my wrist from carpal tunnel syndrome. (i inflicted myself with a mild case after spending hours upon hours working on my thailand trip video for church. i have to pick that up again next week.)

> i still have yet to set-up my web cam. i don't think i really have many friends to video chat with, so i'm not highly motivated.

so i'm finally getting truly wired. i still have more to learn in my efforts to make the leap to be an interactive creative person. i'm not working right now, but am pursuing the skillset i need to have to work on the creative field in online advertising.