Kevin Kwak’s Blog

The American Heart Association recently explained that hands-only CPR can be as effective as doing a mouth-to-mouth CPR. It is nice to know that you could rush in and become a hero instead of hesitating whether you want to give a mouth-to-mouth CPR to a total stranger. The least anyone could do if they witness a heart attack is to dial 911.

Teach your friends and family how to perform a CPR and even demonstrate the simple procedure. In a hands-only CPR, you would want to pump as fast as you can right above the heart, or the mid-center of the victim’s body with both of your hand. Put one palm over the other and pump repeatedly to reach 100 pumps per minute.

Hello everyone,

I hope you had a splendid Thanksgiving holiday this year. Although my family missed the traditional get-together this year, I did get to eat a full Thanksgiving meal at church.

To wrap up this year’s Thanksgiving weekend, I bought four season tickets to the Sunday’s Lakers versus the Nets game in the Los Angeles Staples Center. The ticket purchased on eBay was very worth it as you’ll find out soon.

I didn’t realize how fast the tickets get sold as I never been to a Lakers game before. Fortunately there were three listings for the four-seat tickets. The Buy-It-Now for the two listings were for the desperate Lakers fans who were willing to pay the last minute high price. Luckily I bought mine at the face value ($27 seats) and not a penny more. For those that haven’t bought a ticket from Ticketmaster.com, they charge a “convenience charge” in addition to the ticket’s face value which is not convenient for your wallet (more than 20% of the face value!).

Our assigned seats were at Section 308 upper level which is near the center facing the whole court horizontally. But thanks to special treatment, we ended up in the Suite Level A’s dining area letting us watch the entire game in style!

So the eBay seller was this cool sports fan that bought some sort of an exclusive package deal with the Staples Center. If I heard correctly, the package includes all the season tickets for the Lakers pre/post-season tickets, Sparks, Clippers, Kings, parking passes, and VIP entrance to the stadium and to the restaurant for the one year season. Mind you the package is in the five digit but those are mere numbers for the wealthy sports fan. He asked us if we want to dine in the restaurant which has a great. Good thing we did because the seats were much closer to the court because it is located at Suite Level A. But there is a catch…the dish are expensive. If only we knew we would get access to the arena club seats, we would probably skipped dinner and enjoyed the buffet stations.

Now let’s talk basketball. Just being part of the Lakers game along with the crowd can get you very excited. You clap until the sound is in unison with the crowd, you shout and boo the opponent until your voice starts to screech, and your sole concentration is in the game. You don’t get to experience that in your living room so getting down the center is well worth your time and money.

Here is the summary on the game: 1st quarter was all about the Lakers. They were outscoring the Nets by 16 points at one time. 2nd and 3rd quarter both teams were doing really cool assists for slam dunks and key players were doing aggressive dunks by driving down the court. The 4th quarter was mad exciting! The Nets were ahead by more than 10 points and Lakers were struggling to get their balls down the hoop. As time was running down to TWO minutes, the Lakers had finally caught up thanks to the Nets’ bricks. The two teams were really going at it now and the crowd going nuts every time Lakers scored or when Nets missed. Here is the cap of the final two minutes:

http://my.lakers.com/blogs/2007/11/25/lakers-vs-nets-in-game/
2:43 Bynum checks in for Radman with the Lakers down 92-87.
2:14 Kobe’s called for his fourth personal and isn’t happy about it. His huge three on the Lakers end brought the team back within two though on the play before.
1:28 SASHHHHA! Kobe decides he can’t do it all alone and dishes to Vujacic for a wide open three to give the Lakers the lead again 96-94 and sending the crowd into temporary insanity.
1:14 The Nets recapture the lead following two makes on a clear path foul.
41.8 New Jersey calls a 20 second timeout after Fisher makes two free throws for the Lakers.
07.2 Kobe’s misses a potential game-winner from about 20 feet and the Lakers waste at least five seconds waiting to foul Vince Carter. The Lakers will have last shot though.
6.1 Ill-advised foul by the Nets sends Kobe to the line for THREE free throws that could tie the game
03.8 Kobe makes the first two, but the final free throw spins out. Kobe was previously perfect from the line. Nachbar is going to the line for two for the Nets.
03.3 Timeout for the Lakers after Nachbar misses the second free throw. Amazingly, the Lakers still have a chance.
00.0 The Lakers never got a good look as Radmanovic air-balled a shot from around the three point line as time expired, adding to his horrific 0 for 10 shooting night.
FINAL SCORE: Nets 102, Lakers 100.

I hope all the players gave Radmanovic the angry look in the locker room after the game! j/k

Overall the game was entertaining and the whole Staples Center experience was outstanding and memorable. Staples Center’s neighbor the Nokia Center is alive and rocking with an okay lineup of events.

On a side note: Francis Dayle “Chick” Hearn (1916-2002) was the Los Angeles Lakers announcer and  has done a great job to win the fan’s heart. 20,000 lucky Lakers fan received a “TALKING MINI” keychain of Chick Hearn limited to the game’s ticket holders. I didn’t know it would sell for $20 a piece on eBay…my little cousin tossed his away.

One Hot Chick! The Los Angeles Lakers honored their late great announcer and the man who coined the phrase “Slam Dunk” with a special evening and a free Chick Hearn Talking Mini to all 20,000 who attended the SELLOUT. On November 25th, 2007…everyone went home with a Chick!!
http://www.talkingmini.com/news/lakers.htm

Muhammad Yunus, Ph.D. of Bangladesh earned the highly acclaimed Nobel Peace Prize for developing and founding the ‘microfinance’ concept and the Grameen Bank.As I was in the process of redesigning my personal site, I thought why just go through a redesign, why don’t I redevelop the site from the ground up. The new design planning is complete but I haven’t figured out how to redevelop the purpose, the goal of the site. Kwak.org is currently used as a personal homepage but instead, share the site with other people with the same surname as I. But there is more. While I was brainstorming with such an idea, I thought to myself, “why not take a step further and redevelop the site to use it for an organization!”

A brilliant idea doesn’t just pop in your head. During the senior year in college, I wanted to create a non-profit organization to benefit a certain group of unprivileged people. I wasn’t worried about where to obtain the source of capital for the start-up or where to get find members with the same vision, I simply don’t know what kind of an organization I desire to start. For instance, a nationwide organizations like the LiveStrong, a Lance Armstrong Foundation (cancer) or the Michael J. Fox Foundation (Parkinson’s disease), both individuals experienced or are experiencing life threatening disease and have devoted their all to help everyone that are going through the same. Now that is passion. There are smaller non-profit organizations that concentrates on the local neighborhoods or victims of such and such, the overall purpose and mission statement is to unite the people to help each other to live a better life.

God bless.

It is an honor, a blessing, a privilege to become a Christian, sons and daughters of Christ. I am blessed and thankful to this day that I was raised under a Christian household because the religion gave me a solid foundation on living my life. Thanks to my beloved grandmother whom I will never forget because of her loving care and prayer that raised my younger brother and I to become who we are now.

Elementary children have very keen memory and have the brain to hold unto every sayings that is taught to them. I am every so grateful to my Lord to provide a grandmother that truly feared the Lord. I remember to this day the daily bible studies, praise, and the number of times we cleaned the house. That was my childhood lifestyle and I am so blessed to live such a wonderful life. God took good care of us. To this day, I am so grateful.

To this day, I treasure the bible that my grandmother presented to me 12 years ago. Thank you very much.

We all love our father and Father’s Day is the day to appreciate everything that your father has done for you. I thank so much for everything my father had gone through when our family first arrived to the U.S. He was a leader, a supporter, a planner, an entrepreneur, a teacher, a friend and a true father. I thank God for providing me with a loving father and a true head in our family. I only wished that he had the thirst for God and the desire to know God at the next level.
I am more greatful and thankful everytime I reminisce of the past. My father is turning fifty years old in 2005. His personality is still young and lively. I love him.
The photo above is one of the shots I took during our lunch at Kabuki restaurant. Hahaha, dad and mom said that they will never return to this restaurant or any other Kabuki franchise because of the quality of the sashimi and sushi (our uncle in Las Vegas makes the best sushi!). It was nice having a family lunch in like, one year. Sigh~ Everyone is so busy these days.

Father, thank you.