We miss you shigeru!

It’s been one full year, and I still miss you terribly every day. are you making lots of friends?

sharing is caring.

I added jen to my discover credit card account today. they let me choose a customized card for her; so that she can enjoy looking at it while shopping!

Marriage Bliss —

Jen and I love each other…so I don’t mind sharing.

all your money are belong to me.

right after this picture was taken…they all fell flat on their faces when their Segways ran out of battery.

FREE MONEY

The federal government has almost passed its Housing Assistance Act of 2008, which among other things, will give first time homebuyers $7,500. This money amounts to an interest free loan, since over the next 15 years, it must be paid back. That’s a pretty fantastic deal. Since Jen and I are still filing seperate returns for another year, we will hopefully each get to claim our $7,500 on our tax returns. This will in essence wipe out ALL our federal tax liability and will amount to a $15,000 interest free 15 year loan to us. coolio. yay for being poor!

Welcome Home, Chang family…

San Ramon

Jen and I recently closed escrow on our house…and this is the way the story goes.

Once upon a time, in a land called San Ramon,

there lived an old lady who couldn’t pay her loan.

so in swooped a gentleman, a hero really he should be called

he said, “i’ll pay your debt, now get out of town!”

just kidding.

What actually happened was we bought a really run down townhouse, that was used by it’s occupants as a meth lab. We then rented a fake baby, and took videos of our “baby” unconscious from the meth fumes and sent the video off to ABC’s Home Makeover division – they came out one week and made the house look like the picture above — THANKS ABC for saving our fake baby from the meth fumes! — note: abc will not be airing our episode because we are asian. period.

in all seriousness, it was a complete pain the “you know what” to get a home loan. I can’t tell you how many times we were ready so simply walk away and give up. The mortgage industry is extremely overprotective of their money right now.  There were about 45 days of sleepless nights and stress ridden days. If you’re thinking of buying a home soon — my advice? — take a hammer and hit yourself over the head a couple times to get used to the feeling…then go buy a dog instead.

RUN DMC – My Guru

It has come to my attention that I watch too much TV. The reason I know this, is because when I change the channel to watch something, there’s nothing new to watch — I’ve seen all the episodes before. Heck, I’ve even watched the re-run already. Well, Jen thinks my addiction to the ridiculously unintelligent people on MTV is itself ridicoulously hilarious. I too never thought I’d learn anything from watching MTV except maybe how to stab people in the back and drink myself into rehab; BUT watching Run DMC’s show, Run’s House, taught me this annoying jingle (which jen told me never to repeat — so as a compromise, I will never actually say it, I will type it) :

Rev Run told his son who was asking God for things like an Xbox and a mini fridge:

“God is not a Jimmy — where you can simply say Gimmee Gimmee!”

I will use that on my kids. Except, I will be Jimmy (and don’t ever call me jimmy — unless you want your face to meet my foot!)

“Daddy is not named Jimmy — you can’t always just say Gimme Gimmeee”

end spiritual lesson of the day.

Engagement Shoot Teaser

Jen and I had the priviledge of having an old friend of ours take our engagement pictures. We went down to San Diego and had a really grande ‘ol time. wait till you see the rest!

ENGAGED

…as of 3/31/08, Jen and I are engaged!

i miss you so bad.

Dear Chip,

Our hearts ache for you every night. We got you the christmas tree we promised we’d get for you, I hope you can still enjoy it from where you are. You are always in our thoughts, but we know that you are on the other side, patiently waiting for us to come home. we would give up everything to have one more day with you chip — we’ll be home soon, we promise. merry christmas, my little shigemonster.

james and jennifer.