My grandfather passed away today. My earliest childhood memories are from his house in HsinChu, Taiwan. He was a great doctor and loved to play golf. His medical practice was actually connected to the house. I remember all the nurses around. He had six kids, the youngest being my mother. I remember when he was younger he would travel from place to place, visiting all his kids. Some stayed in Taiwan, some were in California, one was in Michigan, and one was in Texas. As he got older he traveled less and less. Eventually I got to see him less and less often.
He had a sharp mind long into his old age. Since my mind is not as sharp, I can only speculate from what I remember that we share the same love for vanilla flavored ice cream. Forget all those other fancy flavors. I know I carry the Chow family nose and I take his special walking style to an extreme.
I know Grandpa’s legacy will go on. His children became a surgeon, head nurse at the largest hospital in Taiwan, pediatrician, computer scientist, great mothers. His grandchildren have covered an even wider array, with multiple attorneys, computer scientist, business gurus, marketing magicians, musical artists, engineers, psych majors, and hopefully a doctor to carry on your legacy of medical service to others. All of us respect him and hold him in high honor.
If I had to describe my grandfather in a single word: Kind.
He was non-confrontational, giving, careful, smart, but above all, he was kind.
These pictures are from the last time I visited Taiwan. I need to go back and scan some of the older pictures next time I am down in Port Lavaca.
I had the opportunity to go the the NCAA South Regionals for the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 Game. Friday was a two game fun fest. Sunday was a Memphis beat down of Texas. I have pictures up on Flickr from Friday. They also appear in this article:
While TrueHoop is great, even before it became part of ESPN, The Dream Shake speaks to me directly. As a Rockets fan, it is great to see a Rockets Blog with two great writers. They honor Hakeem and still question Rafer. These guys are true Houston Rockets fans and you can tell. It also doesn’t hurt that one of the writers is Lee (UofTOrange). Hook’em!
This doesn’t really count as being RickRolled since I didn’t post a link to something to have you click on it, only to find Rick Astley. I guess coming to this site and not expecting to see this is good enough.
Saturday we got up at 5am to go fishing in Freeport. Sunny, Cary, Jenny, Vanhdy, and I got some live shrimp and some frozen mullet and hit the jetties. We had a little fishing competition going. We measured every fish you caught and whoever had the most inches at the end of the day would be crowned the winner. After no hits at the jetties we went to the boat docks. V took the early lead by hooking a small redfish. It was too small to keep but it was enough to get a big lead in the competition.
The competition ended with V catching 27 inches worth of fish. I won by catching 38.2 inches of fish. I used the small and steady way. All my fish were tiny tiny. None of them were over 8 inches. I caught more though. So in the end they added up to my victory.
So Cary, Sunny, and Jenny went the whole day without catching a single fish. Vanhdy and I caught fish but lost other things.
At one point, I got up out of my chair to grab a drink and a gust of wind came and my chair flew into the water. It was sad to see the chair sink like the titanic, but I wasn’t going to jump in to save it.
To top off the day, V was sitting on the edge…then he screams…then he’s IN the water. It was just weird.
Anyway, we caught fish, but I lost my chair and V lost his dignity.
