Email Henry

Last Updated:  June 27, 2007

June 27, 2007:  Yes, you're reading that right.  Its been two years since I've updated the page but I have an excuse.  Minelle and I got married!  But if you're reading this then I'm assuming you already know that.  =)  Anyways, I know its been awhile since last time I posted but Minelle and I put together a slideshow of our wedding pictures.  Yes I know, that was 6 months ago...but we had a lot of pictures to go through...  =)  Anyways, hope you guys like it!

June 26, 2005:  Well, in case you haven't heard, Minelle and I got into a car accident Friday night and the engine of my pimp ride is completely totalled (oh fare Civic, I knew thee well....).  Luckily we are both ok with only some minor bruises.  The car did exactly what it was supposed to.  All the damage was in the engine block and the passenger compartment didn't suffer anything.  Even though I've discovered some complaints about Honda brakes after the accident I'm still gonna thank Honda for designing all their impact zones properly.  Now, if you're reading this then I am assuming you have already seen the pictures of my car before the accident ("14 in., bling bling spinners with flames on it.....").  And if you are curious what caused the orange sigalert on Highway 91 West near the Studebaker exit Friday night, direct yourselves here....

Post Pimp Ride

On a completely unrelated note, people have been asking when I'm going to post my pictures from Europe.  Since I won't be driving anywhere for awhile I'll try to get something up by the end of this week.  I'm already done with Madrid and have pictures of only 15 more cities to go....=)

December 13, 2004:  So last night my roommates decided to steal my car and "pimp" my ride without me knowing.  Those pics are now up but here's what happened.  First from Lance's words:

So the story begins when we were watching this show on MTV one day and Henry made a comment that he like the spinners they put on the cars and wishes that he has some spinners.   Well be careful what you wish for 'cause at west coast customs we'll never disappoint.   So Jer and I started researching for spinner wheel covers.   They are all pretty expensive like 50-80 range but then when we try our luck at PepBoys we found these ugly ones that were on sale (probably 'cause they're so ugly that no one with the right mind would want to buy them)   it has flames on it and stuff.

So the original plan was to wait for Henry to go to sleep on Saturday night and we will somehow borrow his car and drive it to a friends place get all the work done and bring it back so Henry will be in for a big surprise Sunday morning when he goes to church.

Well, the plan started to go wrong when Henry slept for most of the day Sat.  Jer and I were worried that he's not going to sleep 'til really late that night.   Then it got worse, Henry decided to drive his car to go study at the library.   So plan A has failed and we needed to come up w/ a backup plan.   Little did we know that this is the best thing he could've done 'cause it made thing soo much more interesting.

After some panic phone calls to everyone, we decided to steal his car, do all the mods and put it back where we found it.

This plan is good, except for a few problems: we don't know where he parked, we don't know much time we will have (if he comes back and found out his car is gone he might call the cops), and we want to make sure he will leave the library when we're done so we don't wait for him forever.   So time to send in the spy.   Jer convinced one of his friends, Sophia, to go to the library and find him and pretend to run into him accidentally, while we drive around looking for his car on the streets.   We were worried a little at first so we ask Sophia to try to get it out of him where his car is but after about 1/2 a hr we found it and he couldn't have parked in a better spot.

Once we got the car, time to get to work.  I put my car into the spot to hold his space.   We drove it to a friend's place and started putting in all the mods, including a spoiler (cardboard box), LCD monitors (pic tape to the back of head rest), exhaust tip (tin can), Powered by Honda sticker (paper print out), MP3 player (a paper box w/ a pic or iPod mini), pimp dice (that's real), Princess Leia in golden bikini (cardboard poster), ice cooler w/ a bottle of champagne and last but not least, 14 inch spinner wheel covers.  

After all the mods we washed and waxed the car and time for a photo-shoot.   I got one of my students to dress up and pose as an import model [Note from me:  I have absolutely no idea what Lance did to get her to do those pictures].   But it wasn't lighted enough so we have to drive the pimp out ride to a parking lot in school and lucky me was volunteered for the task.   After seeing many people point and laugh with us here is the video we made...

http://robotics.caltech.edu/~lancecai/Pimp_ride/compressed.avi

So after the photo-shoot, it's time to put his car back in the spot.   Again I was volunteered to drive it and this time we have to drive through the dorms (boy was that an interesting experience).   Jer called Sophia to get Henry to leave the library.   On the way back the surprise is almost ruined 'cause we saw Henry walking with Sophia and we drove right passed him (how does he not notice such a pimped out ride is beyond me).   So we put his ride back exactly in the same spot, and I put my car right across the street so I can shine my headlights at his car once he gets there.   It turned out there was a perfect hiding spot right next to his car so everyone went in hiding.  Now the transformation is complete and Henry is about a block a way.   I will let Henry tell you want happened next...

So here's where I finally come into the story.  Sophia asked if she could get a ride home after studying in the library.   I was like "sure, no problem"...of course this was all part of the ruse as Sophia lives half a block away from where my car was parked.  Up till this point I had no idea something was going on, even though Sophia started saying things like: "Your friends are so chill.  They don't act like grad students at all!"  and "I can't wait to see your car!"  of which my response was "Its just a normal Civic".   Anyways, we got to the car and I started getting confused cuz I didn't see my car but I did see this ugly Civic with a cardboard spoiler and shiny rims.   I literally was thinking "what kind of idiot would put a cardboard spoiler on their car?".   I kept getting more confused when I pressed the alarm button and I saw the car's taillights flash indicating the alarm was off.   this was when people jumped out of their hiding places and yelled SURPRISE!   YOU"VE BEEN PIMPED!   or something to that affect...anyways, I got the grand tour of my new car, complete with spoiler, chrome exhaust, tennis racket holder in the trunk, iPod, LCD screens, chick in the front seat, import model for my import model, and, of course, the spinners.  

Laughs all around....good job guys.   I had absolutely no idea what was going on.   Best Christmas gift ever!

December 8, 2004:  In our 25+ years worth of Christmas', my roommates and I have never had a real Christmas tree before.  So one of them thought it'd be cool to try to fit a 6' tree in our tiny apartment.  Brilliant!  A quick trip to Home Depot for a $20 tree and stand, a run to the 99¢ Store for a cheap tablecloth to cover the floor, some snazzy $2.00 LED lights from SavOn Drugstore, random hanging things from my room, and pictures of us and our friends and voila....Christmas Tree! 

December 1, 2004:  Last week I was doing homework for my Orbital Mechanics class (man I'm a geek).  Anyways, it was 5 in the morning and I had 5 hours left to finish 5 problems...you can't make this stuff up.  I was getting bored by the homework and it was the day before Thanksgiving and the last thing I wanted to do was homework.  To top it all off, there was a midterm for the class the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and I knew I wasn't going to study any during my turkey dinners.  So my solution to this predicament was to drop the class.  I felt kind of guilty at first...but that soon quickly passed when I went back to bed.

November 29, 2004:  First things first, new pics are up from my trip to Vegas and Barstow.  The last picture from Barstow is especially...interesting. 

Me and my brother was hanging out with my cousins Thanksgiving night.  They were quite excited over their newly purchased Simpsons Life and Simpsons Clue games.  Now, me and my bro are both proud graduates of Cal and so we thought we'd open a can of whoop ass on a sophomore in high school in Clue.  Well, this kid has apparently played Clue like every single freakin' week this school year and has the whole Clue system down.  Our vast knowledge of ordinary differential equations and feedback control of dynamic systems couldn't help us decide if it was Mr. Smithers in the Kwik-E-Mart with the Poisoned Doughnut or Homer in the Power Plant with the Plutonium Rod.  Me and my bro ended up on the wrong end of a bloodbath...