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Jade, Annie, and I went to Ray’s karate meet today. He’s a second degree black belt, and one of the judges on the panel. He’s depicted here testing his student Willie for competency. The youngest competitor was a twelve-year old girl, a first degree junior black belt at that. Definitely someone I wouldn’t want to encounter in a dark alley!

My two favorite Starbucks drinks are the cafe mocha and the chai latte. Today, I got the idea to ask for a 50/50 mix of mocha and chai. Not a good idea. Please learn from my mistakes and do not mix these two drinks!

One particular anecdote from my high school years stands out: I was heading to the student lounge to eat lunch one afternoon. For some reason, I didn’t see a metallic folding chair lying on the floor. I walked over it; the chair shot out from under my feet and I was soon horizontal to the floor. I fell straight on my back, and luckily my backpack softened my fall. A friend and I laughed so hard, we had tears. What made it funny was the fact that it closely resembled what you’d see in an old cartoon when someone tripped over a banana peel.

I proposed to Annie this evening and she said “Yes”! I caught her totally off-guard too. She knew I was planning on popping the question, but she thought it would occur sometime in the spring. I got down on one knee, and at first, couldn’t get the words out. I didn’t really have to because I was already in her arms and she was jubulant. I managed to eke out a whispered “Will you marry me?” She loves her new “sparklie” and, upon receipt of the ring, couldn’t stop squealing and going “eeeeeeee!”

I looked out the window this morning to see a flock of pigs fly by. That’s how I knew it was time to get my first cell phone. It’s a Valentine’s Day present from Annie.

Know what deeply saddens me? When I go to peoples’ houses and they have a huge, fancy widescreen HDTV, and they’ve got a 4×3 picture stretched to fit their 16:9 display, and they’re using a standard $5 yellow RCA cable instead of component video or HDMI. *Sigh* Granted, I watched the Super Bowl at a friend’s house, and he had everything right — HD, correct aspect ratio, correct cables, sound, et cetera. But it’s no use telling some people when their audio/video components aren’t optimized. When I leave, they would say, “Oh, Matt told me to do something with my TV cables, but I forget now. Oh well.”

MSN.com actually warns you not to use Microsoft Internet Explorer. Check the 14th paragraph, where it gives an external link to download Mozilla Firefox:

Stop using Internet Explorer. Microsoft’s Web browser is a hog. Switching to the Mozilla Firefox or Opera browser can yield swifter program launches, faster page loads, and an all-around smoother ride. In my personal experience, Firefox has proven the fleetest browser…

For some strange reason, I keep coming back to Matthew 3, where Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist. It was such a pivotal moment for Jesus; it signified that He had “arrived” and that He was ready to fulfill the will of God. Additionally, it marks the fulfillment of John’s prophesy in his own presence. It must have made him infinitely happy to see the fruition of his service unfold before his eyes.

I’ve now converted all the pages on this domain from HTML 4.01 strict to valid XHTML 1.0 strict (save for my relatives and records pages).

As a part of today’s pre-Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations, I have the opportunity to share some more pictures of my niece, Kayla Morgan (known affectionately as “Kayla-baa”). I, along with my parents and Annie, drove four hours on Friday to see her, and literally spent every available moment fawning over this five-week old bundle of joy.