Parents who close their doors for all the wrong reasons. Disowning is douchebaggery.

Browsing on my Twitter feed again, I came across a segment on Huffington Post about a Caucasian woman who was disowned by her father because she was in a serious relationship with an African American man. To make this even worse, this pathetic "dad" shunned his daughter BY PROXY (a phone call via the stepmom) that although he was no longer in speaking terms with her, he still "loved" her.

LOVED HER? Unconditional love does not come with an asterisk or any fine print. And with the archaic world viewpoints that this father harbored for so many years and tried to drill into his daughter's head, it is a pity that he grapples to those beliefs even more strongly than that "love" for his daughter. Believe me, ma'am, you're better off without that poison in your life. If you'd like to watch the entire segment, click the video below.



We as humans all fear rejection. Some are lucky to get small doses of it, and some people like me get a cheap vodka-bottle sized serving all at once. Those parallels between this woman's relations with an interracial boyfriend are very similar in my life. Based on a simple choice of not practicing a religion that I had shoved forcibly into my mouth since my youth and chose to not continue to follow in my adult years, I was completely rejected from the gene pool that raised me.

Avoid the mistakes my "parents" made: Go to your kid's wedding. It's more than worth it.

I found this video after following a link off a Twitter feed and quite inspired it, one reason being that I'm a videographer who has done several weddings. But aside from that, I was intrigued by the backstory of this moment captured on film. The bride's father was obviously missing from this moment as he had passed away just weeks before the wedding of pancreatic cancer. In response to this, her brother recorded a rendition of their father's favorite song, "Butterfly Kisses" by Eric Carlisle, while she danced with several of the important male family members in her life, including her new father-in-law. I have to admit, it did bring a tear to my eye watching this beautiful moment unfold in gorgeous, cinematic videography (awesome camera and editing job by Michael LaFrance).

I myself have a bit of a common tie with bride in this video; we both have parents who did not attend the wedding.

Accepting the way the cookie crumbles...

Last week, I had the chance to participate in a Christmas activity for the first time in my life: festive cookie baking.

Now, I've baked mad stashes of cookies in the past, during various times of the year, but there's a charm to the special Christmas-only cookies that come with the season. Also, since I was staying in NE Ohio this weekend instead of making my weekly migration down to Columbus to see my husband, it gave me something to do that Saturday before he showed up.

M&M Candy Cookies and Butterballs! The powdered sugar on the Butterballs was all me.

What made this special was that I was creating treats from recipes that were several generations old, passed down from a grandmother who worked at a historical bakery in Cleveland and could whip up a dish regardless of what was in the pantry. Some additions have been made through the years, and as a guest I had the chance to indulge in a tradition with legendary concoctions that were many years in the making.

My first go at using a cookie press. I can say they came out quite well.

Preparing the Pinwheels for a trip through the oven.

The finished products! After posting this picture on Facebook, I was getting requests to send a number of these to California. Maybe I should quit my day job in December and just do this.

On why I chose to ride a motorcycle.

A few nights ago, I had a strange conversation with my brother (who doesn't ride a motorcycle) about transportation and getting around in Ohio. When I had mentioned that I only had one car and two motorcycles between me and Matt and that we were in the process of acquiring a second car for winter driving purposes, he responded with this:

"I don't even know why you have a motorcycle out in the Midwest anyway. You don't have to deal with the kind of traffic [like we have in California]."

I was slightly taken aback by the comment, and I had to step back a little and consider that his point of view is valid to some degree. Yes, I don't have to deal with the same level of vehicular congestion in Ohio that I faced in the Los Angeles/Orange County region of California. However, horrible traffic is not, and has never been, the primary reason of why I ride a motorcycle. In fact it had everything with to do with not being allowed to drive a car...

Gotta give props to my fellow USC Trojan.

Being gainfully underemployed as of late, I found myself looming around YouTube in between online job searches and coming across a professional moviemaker named "freddiew" who has his own exclusive channel on the site. I later came to find out that not only is he a former world Guitar Hero tournament champion, he's also a fellow alumnus of the University of Southern California and a graduate of the USC School of Cinema-Television (now known as the School of Cinematic Arts).

Being the aspiring filmmaker and a professional videographer during my time in California, I was very entertained and inspired by his short skits that demonstrated his excellent storyboarding and editing skills with Final Cut Pro and Adobe AfterEffects among other things. I originally applied to USC's film school back in 2003 but ended up receiving an English degree and a minor in Education. But, I still have that dream of doing something greater with my freelance videotaping and technology talents than just teaching a random high school digital media class.

Watching these videos just made me smile, laugh a bit, think about home (many of his short films were shot on campus at USC, nearby Downtown LA, and even a short jaunt to the Mulligan's in Torrance) and help me hope that perhaps someday, my mixed bag of skills may be of use to someone at a larger scale. It also reminded me of how much could have been possible for me if I didn't have to keep swimming upstream in unnecessary condescension with the words "you can't do this" ringing through my head for over 25 years. I can still remember when my father said to me that going to film school was not what Asian females do, a "complete waste of time," and that I was going to be nothing more than a "jack of all trades, master of none" if I followed my passions rather than finding a job that made money. I ignored him (I still do, with authority, as a matter of fact) and went on to run a successful DVD production company for over ten years. I guess I can consider that a personal victory.

Here's to someone that not only enjoys what he does, but does it extremely well and makes a wonderful career of it. Fight On (and enjoy the guns)!