I don’t usually do these but I’m in “one of those moods” so Sam gets a nice post today. At least that’s my plan as of this sentence, we’ll see how it goes. =)
I’ve known many of my friends for a very long time (some for over half my life), and I love all of them… some in different ways than others. ;) Sam will probably be the first to tell you we have a special relationship. I met Sam back in high school when he was the tall, goofy, asian ROTC guy in the halls. I think he actually knew Olivia before me, but I do remember him showing up to computer club once (maybe he voted for me for president? haha). Back then, he looked something like this:
Sam’s of the class of 2002, so when I graduated in 2001, I went off to UT with a bunch of the gang and never really expected to see this guy again. Well, a year of shenanigans happens, then I stumble upon Sam again on the church’s internet forums and I borrow My Sassy Girl from him cause it’s supposedly a good movie. Somewhere during this time, it’s also discovered that we’re both looking for roommates for the coming semester, so the adventures of JW152 begin.
It’s here where Sam meets Mark who triggers what we dub “the downfall of Sam” which all started with a game of mario kart (or was it super monkey ball?) and a big green button. You can ask one of them about this, but suffice it to say that Sam then realized we’re a bunch of asses, especially Mark, and he didn’t quite know how to handle that. The remainder of our Jester days entailed, but were not limited to:
- Getting in the Daily Texan for having an infamously dirty dorm room:
- A $1 blow-up doll from eBay with some… accessories
- Getting noise complaints from below, above, and around our dorm room and having the RA kick people out of our room
- Sam looking at me while I slept and wondering what it would be like if I were a girl and we were watching the sun rise (don’t ask me, man, I found out cause he wrote about it on his xanga!)
- Webcam hijinks
- Drunken Pauls
- Food “accidents” on Sam’s bedding
- Hot sauce filled donuts
- Spilt milk
- Sam founded TiSA and didn’t even tell me until a semester or so later
- Sam changed his legal name and became an American citizen
Well, after that, a bunch of us moved into some really ghetto apartments just north of the Target near campus on I35. It was here that the Tower of Che-Kang was built:
Throughout the years, my Xanga has gone through two iterations dedicated to Sam (I wish I had kept the first one… sorry. I do remember it being very pink). I even joined Facebook originally back in the day to get my Sam loving Xanga more exposure! ;)
Speaking of which, here are some old FB posts. Sam hadn’t quite perfected his come-back to “suck it” at this point…
More recently, I built Samitic.us and the Samboard.
We’ve been to Key West:
Taiwan/Singapore:
New York City:
Vegas:
… and even Arkansas:
I’ve known Sam for over ten years now and he’s been the butt of many jokes (I swear he asks for most of them), and though I don’t admit this often, one of my bestest friends. Happy birthday, Sam!