I Took the Long Way

Ep 10: The Face That Didn't Compute - Growing Up Korean American Without the Korean

I've been asked my whole life why I can't speak Korean. And for a long time, I didn't have a good answer -- not one I was willing to say out loud anyway. I'm Korean American. Born in San Francisco. Raised in a mostly white neighborhood. I looked Korean. I just didn't sound it. And depending on which room I was standing in, that meant I was either too Korean or not Korean enough. Never just -- enough. This episode starts with a story from my Army days near the DMZ that still makes me laugh and cringe at the same time. It moves through the version of me that dreaded going back to Korea as an adult, and ends somewhere I genuinely didn't expect when I started telling it. I also watched a movie recently that cracked something open. I'm not going to review it. But it brought up a feeling I've been carrying since elementary school -- one I recognized immediately and wasn't totally comfortable recognizing. If you grew up between two cultures, you probably know this feeling. If you're raising kids in that same in-between, this will sound familiar. I Took the Long Way is a personal storytelling podcast about faith, family, identity, and figuring it out the hard way. New episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

Ep 9: Wednesday Night Riders - How Fixed Gear Bikes and a Koreatown Corner Changed My Life

I didn't get into cycling because I loved it. I got into it because I had to. In Los Angeles, that's not a minor inconvenience, that's a full restructuring of your life. But somewhere between riding 20 miles through Koreatown at night and building my first fixed gear bike on my apartment floor, something shifted. It stopped being a punishment and started being something else entirely. This episode is about three cities: Los Angeles, Oakland, and back to LA again. Three different bikes. Three groups of strangers I found through an internet forum and a Wednesday night meetup. And what it took me a long time to admit those Wednesday nights were actually giving me. I talk about fixed gear cycling, group riding, the Bay Area bike scene, what it felt like to be in a community that looked like me, and the chapter of my life when I was still figuring out what showing up for people actually meant, including myself. Sometimes a consequence turns into the longest relationship of your life. Sometimes you don't know what you're building while you're building it. You just have to show up on Wednesday.

Ep 8: Fine. I'm Getting Old - Signs of Aging Nobody Warns You About

I had to size up my jeans last week. One inch. Thirty-plus years at the same size -- through the Army, through my 30s, through everything -- and then one day the number changed. That's when I started paying attention to everything else I'd been quietly ignoring. The iPhone text size bumped up. Spotify new releases full of names I don't recognize -- so I closed it and went back to Jurassic 5, ATCQ, and Rage Against the Machine. Pro athletes who look like they should still be doing homework. Eyebrows and nose hairs doing their own thing. Crow's feet showing up when I laugh -- years of smiling, showing wear and tear like a used keyboard. An all-black wardrobe because matching colors stopped feeling worth the energy. Then the body started keeping score. Belly fat that moved in and ignored eviction notices. A metabolism on a long flight still adjusting to the time zone. A hard goodbye to steakhouses -- Mastros, Lawry's, all of it. Gone. Replaced by a big salad at the work catered lunch that, honestly, kinda tastes good now. But somewhere in the middle of all that, something else shifted too. Career status, news cycles, pop culture -- all of it just quietly fell away. What moved in instead: my wife, my daughter, faith and community, the long game. The things that actually matter. I also heard something recently I haven't been able to shake -- that as kids, we watch our parents grow up without knowing it. I'm the parent now. And I think a lot about what my daughter is going to remember about this chapter of her dad. The body is slowing down. The focus sharpened. I don't think that's a coincidence. I Took the Long Way is a personal storytelling podcast about faith, family, identity, and figuring it out the long way. New episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

Ep 7: 26.2 - The LA Marathon, a Bum Knee, and Why I'm Running It Again at 50+

I am not built like a runner. Skinny doesn't mean fit -- ask the Army PT test I failed at nineteen in front of everyone at boot camp. That failure filed itself somewhere in the back of my brain and did not let go. What followed was years of proving something to myself -- running twice a day in the Arizona heat during interrogation training, still smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day, somehow getting faster anyway. I broke twelve minutes on that two-mile run and immediately threw up at the finish line. It felt incredible. But marathons didn't happen until my 40s. My 20s and 30s were a different chapter entirely -- one that involved losing my license twice and riding a bike everywhere in LA because that was the consequence. I didn't understand marathoners back then. I thought they were running from something. I was wrong. In March 2018, I stood at Dodger Stadium with twenty thousand other people and ran 26.2 miles to Santa Monica. I saw an older man with thirty LA Marathon finish dates printed on the back of his t-shirt and thought -- that's the most boss thing I've ever seen in a parking lot. I trained alone, at night, through the streets of West LA. I almost got hit by cars more times than I can count. And then mile 20 happened. I'd been holding onto it for miles -- knowing they'd be there. My wife and daughter, on the sidewalk near our old street, holding a sign they made together. Cheering for their husband. Their dad. A middle-aged guy running 26.2 miles for no practical reason. I was wearing sunglasses. I am so glad I was wearing sunglasses. I ran five marathons total -- four LA, one San Francisco on a knee that was already talking to me. The knee eventually won. Four years passed. A lot happened in those four years: faith, sobriety, a new life slowly coming into focus. Now I'm lacing back up. March 2027. LA Marathon. I'll be 52 by race day. And when I cross that finish line -- they'll be there on the sidewalk. I already know it.

Ep 6: The Night I Almost Didn't Hear It — On Drinking, Fatherhood, and Finally Deciding

A Wednesday night Korean BBQ dinner with old friends. Drinks that kept coming. A server who quietly mentioned she'd been sober for a year — and a table that kept going anyway. By Thursday morning, I was hungover, calling in sick, and my daughter walked in and said — matter-of-factly, like she was checking the weather — "you drank too much." She's twelve. And she's said it before. That's what finally moved me. Not a dramatic bottom. Not a crisis. Just a kid who's been quietly filing things away — and a dad who finally looked at what she'd been keeping. This episode is about the week that followed: the text I sent my wife on Good Friday, the afternoon alone with a decision I wasn't sure I'd keep, and the Easter Sunday sermon that landed like a dagger in a packed room where nobody around me had any idea why. I didn't go looking for a turning point. It found me at a BBQ joint on a Tuesday night. I Took the Long Way is a personal storytelling podcast about faith, fatherhood, identity, and the long road to figuring it out.