Sunday, December 25, 2005

How true

"Relationship development is often understood as a process of mutual
self-disclosures," he [Wegner] writes. "Although it is probably more romantic to
cast this process as one of interpersonal revelation and acceptance, it can also
be appreciated as a necessary precursor to transactive memory." Transactive
memory is aprt of what intimacy means. In fact, Wegner argues, it is the loss of
this kind of joint memory that helsp to make divorce so painful. "Divorced
people who suffer drepression and complain of cognitive dysfunciton may be
expressing the loss of their external memery systems," he writes. "They once
were able to discuss their experiences to reach a shared understanding....They
once could count on access to a wide range of storage in their partner, and
this, too, is gone.... The loss of transactive memroy feels like losing a part
of one's own mind."
- From Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point

Indeed, how true.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Yay for another couple!

Another one of my friends just got engaged! Congratulations to A and J, I am so happy for you guys! I wish you the best as you start a new journey in life together. Wow, that is wonderful news.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

what do I know?

Hmm, you all don't seen very interested in my non-tech writings, no one ever seems to comment on them. Sadness, I really do think (hope) my musings as a person is much more interesting than my ramblings as a PM or armchair CEO. Well, so be it...I shall indulge you w/ some more technobabble then.

No, really. Believe it or not I spent a lot of time thinking and writing up that post on relationships - much more than whenever I spout off on tech!

********
I was complaining about my overflooding feed list to Huat again the other day, about how I never have enough time to catch up on all my blog reading. Plus I keep subscribing to new blogs as existing blogs keep linking outside and the network keeps expanding. On the other hand, I've been able to keep my inbox at zero for pretty much the last 4 months now, clearing things at the end of the day and it's worked very well. I wonder if there are analogies of email management that can be applied to feeds?

Could one setup some rules to manage how items are prioritized and read? Obviously the difficulties are there are no "to recipient" rules (obviously) and the "by sender" rule is less useful as authors can write about anything under the sun. And rather than grouping into a tree by author, what if you re-sorted items by topic or relevance? Can some kind of contextual analysis be applied to the content, where the machine attempts to parse the feed content and decipher what the feed is about, then sort it for you in terms of importance, or perahps group by topic? Can you apply PageRank to blogs (actually does google or technorati do this already? I may be woefully outdated) but internally, so rather than having to query an external index using some keywords, what if you flipped the index inside out so that the keywords or nexi (plural of nexus?) are exposed first - basically clustering applied to feed items. Again, what I find so valuable about blogging is its conversational and never-ending expansive nature, as blogs keep linking out ad infinitum. What if you not only clustered your subscribed feeds, but also crawled all their outgoing links, and links to those links, and so forth, and clustered that?

I guess what I'm really looking for, in my search for the next big idea, is a tool to visually organize and present this vast web of discussions out there, so that I can easily filter out the nuggets of gold among all the pebbles, and draw my own connections and conclusions. Actually, I bet there is probably already a reader out there like that, I just don't know about it yet...

Friday, December 02, 2005

Love, marriage, and relationships

Wow, that was a long, unintended hiatus from blogging. I've had a lot that I wanted to get off my chest, but never had the time to complete them all, so I postponed and postponed posting, and meanwhile my thoughts grew and grew. I guess it's finally time to open the floodgates.

Here is something I started on 10/27 and finally just finished -

****************************

I've been buried by work these last two weeks, working like a mad man. Been wanting to get this off my chest for a while, since it's been germinating in my mind for quite some time, and finally have some time to write since I got home before 2am for once.

Seeing some of my coworkers go through divorce recently has made me think quite a bit. I've been working w/ them every day for over a year now, and from what I can see they are, for the most part, decent people. Not perfect, for none of us are, but they are your typical intelligent professional/friendly coworker/adoring father. Not assholes, not bozos, not jerks. Good, decent people. And yet now I see them go through these dragged out, excruciating divorces, where they and their spouses fight over money, kids, property, friends, everything. Which makes me wonder - at one point in their lives, they must have truly loved each other, right? Enough so to have wanted to marry one another, start a family, buy a house, and plan to spend the rest of their lives together. Yet, times goes on, people change, and voila, here we are - you get the house, I get the furniture; you get Cathy on M/W/F, I get her on T/Th/Sa... I'm old enough to know that more than half of marriages end in divorces, so I should be more immune to it not. Yet I'm not. I watch them go through these absolutely excruciating, drawn-out sagas, and it still hits me. Hard. Right here in the middle.

What is true love? What should be our expectations of love, marriage, and relationships? I think my perspective has changed a lot, from my own experiences, my close friends' breakups/marital problems, and now my coworkers' divorces. I think, once upon a time, I believed that if you found someone right for you, and you both truly love each other, you can see yourself being w/ this other person for the rest of your life. That to expect to spend the rest of your life with one other person was not unreasonable. I'm inclined to think the opposite now - I don't think it's impossible, but I do think it's improbable. Am I becoming more jaded? I don't know. Maybe I'm more realistic. Perhaps in this way I am getting older.

I think it's a given that people are constantly changing as times goes on in every way, whether it's interests, personality, disposition…every possible way. Whatever attracted you about this person today, may not hold tomorrow because 1) the other person could change, so he/she's not like that any more, or 2) you could change, so you don't like him/her anymore, or 3) both of you could change. Then the foundation of love is ephemeral at best, since for two people to spend the rest of their lives together, not only do they have to change together, they have to change in a complementary, compatible way. If we take two free flowing lines as an analogy to represent two persons' states of beings, respectively, as these two persons change, these two lines will twist, turn, and weave in all different directions. So for two people to stay together, the two lines will always have to be parallel (within certain margin of error) as they traverse through time. What are the freaking odds of that?!

(forgive me for my inner geek speaking out above there. I got to maintain my engineering street cred somehow)

And what does it really mean when we tell a person, "I love you" or "I want to marry you"? When two people say that to each other, I suppose usually it implicitly carries the commitment to love the other person, and the expectation that love will be reciprocated indefinitely. It is supposed to mean "till death do us apart". Or perhaps that's what pop culture instills in us. Yet, can you hold human beings accountable for a commitment that we inherently cannot uphold? Perhaps whenever we "love" another person, it's because both of us "happen" to have what the other person desires at that moment. But when those conditions change, then love evaporates, naturally. Perhaps in her first few years, she wanted romance, passion, excitement. Maybe it's the spiky hair rockers who really strikes her fancy, or that sullen, inner artist that just brings out her motherly instincts. Then, maybe later on, she needed someone stable and predictable, a good father to raise herfamily, buy a house, etc. But again maybe after another ten years, this nice, stable guy just bores her now. He just doesn't do it anymore, and middle-aged her is angsty at her fleeing life, so once again, she starts to cast that longing, furtive eye at someone who really excites her. Perhaps because I was in grad school, and you were applying to med school, we "fell in love" because it was good timing during our transitional years. You hadn't seen any premeds you really liked, and I'd never met a girl like you. And so we're together. A couple years later, you're in med school, you're changing and looking for someone different, you meet some great doctors, and you're gone and we're apart. It's no one's fault, really. C'est la vie. Life goes on, as always. So what did our relationship really mean? Was it just a byproduct of circumstance, that we both happened to be at the "right" place, at the "right" time, so voila we "fell" in love? So what does commitment in love mean? Does it just mean "I will love you for the foreseeable future"; "till I don't like you, or you don't like me, or we don't like each other anymore"? Is that what it means?

Both NYT and Salon had articles on the trend of serial monogamy and how it reflects the rise of consumerism in modern times (damn I wish I had bookmarked them). The abundance of choice, the rise in our "purchasing power", increase in gender equality, and ubiquity of information - do they all contribute to a more cavalier, shopper's mentality toward love, relationships, and marriage? "If it doesn't fit, then find another one?" Since the traditional economic and social benefits of a committed relationship (including, but not exclusively marriage) are decreasing in importance today, why struggle through a marriage and try to make it work? Why not just separate and find someone else? Maybe you two were good for each other ten years ago. But now? Surely there is a better match for you, and him/her, out there today. Why, look at that young hunky coworker down the hall. Or that cute doubles partner at the tennis club. Or your girlfriend's newly single lawyer friend. Or all those guys on match.com...

We humans are such contradictory animals. On one hand, we crave the stability, the safety of knowing someone who will always love us, no matter what. Someone who's always there for us, who accepts us for who we are. Yet on the other hand, we are constantly changing, and so human relationships could never provide us this stability that we crave. Perhaps this is where some people turn to religion. If there is a God, then He will love me no matter what, right? He will never change and never abandon me, since He is by definition unchanging, right? That's not my answer though, unfortunately. So what is? The happiness of self? That strikes me as a bit narcissistic. So what else is left?

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Thinking too little

Hey people,

I've decided to create a new blog dedicated to more publicly appropriate contents, like technology, politics, business, etc. So if you enjoy my tech ramblings, please mosey on over there. I'll try to keep this to my personal potpourri from now on. Enjoy!

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Random ramblings

I benched 165 tonight. Whoo! I guess Men's Health is not full of ish after all, the subscription is finally paying off. My stretch goal was to hit 180 this year...but damn I'm still not gaining any weight! I keep getting stronger, but just not putting on any mass; hell I'm getting leaner. Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of working out? I mean, when a girl checks you out, it's all about size right? It's not like she can tell visually, "Oh gosh, he's so strong". Instead, she'll be like, "Oh gosh, he's so big". Size, definitely matters.

*********

Did anyone catch the live West Wing debate this week? Wow that was pretty awesome. If only we could have candidates capable of carrying on debates w/ real content like that, instead of platitudes and soundbites. W probably needed Karl to pause the DVR and explain everything to him anyways. I have to say, Allan Alda was really convincing as a Republican. I thought he argued the free market philosophy really well, and the entrepreneur in me tend to agree. Even though I'm definitely liberal and won't vote Republican because of their social agenda, I have to say when spun well, their policies can certainly sound convincing to the laymen.

**********

Work fucking blew today. It's one of those days that makes you understand why competitors like Google and Yahoo can totally run around and kick our ass . There are more endemic problems than "they release faster" or "they are media darlings now". No, the way our management thinks confounds me sometimes. I suppose it's a lesson in corporate life; I hope to remember this if I become CEO someday.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

I accidentally stumbled upon this guy's writing recently online, and have been devouring it in the few hours of downtime I have. It's really, really moving. I suppose one of the marks of good fiction is the ability to resonate with our lives, our experiences. They are our dreams, our nightmares, our reflections, our projections.

I don't understand life sometimes. I wish I had more answers and fewer questions.

*****************

什麼是戀愛?就是相戀的兩人都有相同的美好回憶。回憶存在於兩人不必言傳的老地方,琅琅上口的電影對白,一首老歌,一份熟悉的菜單。

站在老地方,你會被發黃的空氣包圍,你的胸口沉悶,透不過氣。

聽到電影對白,你會回到那個初次約會的電影院,你不會記得電影好不好看,但你永遠記得身邊女孩的發香。

逛街時聽到曾經的老歌,你會在試衣間里,抹去不知道從哪里生出的眼淚。
***********

我有感而發,說:“一個人的一生,就像一張地圖,有人的地圖大些,有人的地圖小點,地圖上標示著這個人去過什麼地方,走過哪些路,呼吸過哪里的空氣,在哪里跟什麼樣的人,一起走過什麼樣的道路。” 子晴沒有說話,只是撥弄著臭豆腐上的泡菜。

“有些人的人生地圖很遼闊,他們的足跡遍佈世界各地,他們的地圖有巴黎鐵塔旁的落日、有萊茵河畔的日出,或許還有絲路上的燥風、一望無際的太平洋,這些人很幸福,他們與世界共同生活著。”我繼續說著,這些話都是我日日夜夜,想同子晴說的心里話。

“也有些人,像我奶奶,他們的人生地圖就在小小的廚房里、在家里小小的客廳里、在兒女上下學的路途里。他們的世界很小,但他們也有幸福的方式,他們跟家庭一起生活著。”我說,鼻子酸酸的。

“而我的人生地圖,很小很小,除了實驗室,我的人生地圖都是跟你在一起的記憶,好多好多的老地方,以前我們常常在新興路上的租屋煮火鍋、下棋、拼圖,那段時光真的很棒,還記得我們說總有一天要把它給買下來,沒想到隔年它就被拆掉了。”我勉強笑說:“但那張3000片的拼圖還沒拼完呢。”
我真摯地說:“我人生最美好的時間,都在你身上,謝謝你,陪我畫出這麼動人的地圖。”
***********
“永恆的愛情,只有在有限的生命里才能呼吸,永恆的生命卻培養不了永恆的愛情。”

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Interesting reading

Unfortunately, my to-read list of tech blogs and articles is growing much faster than I can consume. Now thanks to Findory I think it's finally going to completely overwhelm me. Here's my little experiment at building a repository of some thought-provoking, influential writings from the tech community that I've come across lately.

(OK, I confess - it's also archiving for myself in case my laptop dies).

The Long Tail
Web 2.0
AJAX
Adam Bosworth on Web Services
August 2009: How Google beat Amazon and Ebay to the Semantic Web
In this world, the API is the URL


I hope to keep growing this list. If you have any suggestions please chime in!

Friday, September 30, 2005

I hate moving

I hate, hate, HATE moving. I am so sick of packing, moving, and unpacking my life every single year, sometimes multiple times a year since '98, and now I have to move again. I hate looking for a place to live - it's such a timesink, especially when you're working full-time. It's stressful, exhausting, expensive and not to mention a big waste of time. I'm throwing and giving stuff away left and right just so I don't have to pack and move them, it's that bad.

there's got to be a way to make this system more better. Can we create some sort of web service that acts as a clearinghouse for all landlords and tenants? Like housingmaps.com, but more sophisticated. Better filters, automatic synching so ads are never out of date. Maybe a bidding system to match highest bidder/seller like ebay. Link it to credit bureau backends to automatically run credit checks, so I don't have to fill out so much goddamn paperwork. Publicly visible calendars (like outlook s+ for easy appt scheduling, no more of this phone tag crap). Mine the phone/IM conversations for data and post it into an FAQ to avoid repeat conversations. Overlay prices, upcoming openings, and etc. all onto the same map. Hell SMS me when I drive by an open apt in areas I designate I like goddamnit...ok, I know you can't throw technology at every problem, but this seriously sucks. This system is so inefficient, so antiquated. there's gotta be a better way.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Is RSS the new TV?

So I've been thinking, is RSS the new TV? RSS seems to be rapidly emerging as the de facto technology used for distributing and retrieving content in today's web. While thus far much of it has been restricted to blogosphere, I think the implications can reach much further. I think a couple of characteristics makes RSS extremely compelling

1. It's similar to TV in that both are "push model" technologies. However, RSS is different that my desired content is "pushed out" in the background while I do other activities, and I'm free to consume this content on my own time. This is rather different than search or browsing's "pull model" where I have to actively seek and fetch the content I desire. It's not unlike TiVo where I can consume content "on-demand"

At the same time, I have much more discretion over the content source. I only subscribe to sources I want when I want, and I get much more non-establishment, grassroot information. Granted the signal-to-noise ratio is worse, but there's a lot of garbage on TV too.

I would not be surprised if the next generation aggregator built in intelligence (pattern matching, collaborative filtering) that automatically identified new content (feeds) based on what you are currently consuming. Think Amazon recommendations/MySpace + RSS, or maybe even Yahoo 360-like hey your friends are reading/listening/watching this feed, don't you want to watch this too? Now throw an Adsense contextual advertising model on top of that. Yes contextual ads are already being placed in RSS, no big deal. But if it's also combined w/ the context of your other activities, such as your search history, your peripheral devices & their capabilities, what you have on the sidebar, etc., the advertisement could be much more powerful. There is a compelling scenario of how Google and Tivo can combine to use your search context can deliver to super-pinpointed and compelling product ads/offers, which is very interesting. I don't see what you couldn't do the same w/ RSS.

Now text content by itself isn't all that, doesn't nearly compare to the entertainment value of TV. But w/ RSS 2.0 and enclosures, it could be much more interesting

2. Enclosures basically allow you to enclose ("attach") any sort of media w/ RSS, be it photos, video, music, etc. Winer describes how RSS enclosures can easily be used to deliver video content. So now you can get your favorite Pirillo podcasts, Daily Show from comedy central, and your best friends awesome pics from her last Europe trip, any time, any where you want, all via RSS. And you can respond via comments and publish your own content (again, using RSS), which makes the interaction two-way and much better than TV. If I can do all of this at my own control, would I still even want TV in its traditional timed, one-way model? Especially if advertisers get better returns based on the new model due to contextual history from other sources? I would think the studio, advertisers, and customers can all win out on this. Yes, certain content like sports will still be difficult to distribute, but for most other content I hardly even bother w/ TV anymore. Especially news. Maybe it'll be a powerful supplement to TV

3. Now imagine if you can take all of this RSS goodness on the go with a myriad of peripheral devices, hmm, would it get more interesting? Let's find out...

On a related note, since Google's rolling out national WiFi, there's been much speculation of their strategy. If I were Google I would offer free access to consumer in exchange for their activity context while online (search history, browsing, the whole shebang), then combine that w/ Local search and Adsense to deliver some real-time, location specific ads/product offers. That'd be pretty cool. Privacy is an issue, but I think a good number of users will feel most of the time privacy is a small price to pay for free access, myself included. There should of course be an option to opt out while I'm doing personal acitivies like online banking or whatever, but that's a minority of the time to me. Advertising based access has been tried before, w/ Netzero and all, but it's possible Google will be more successful at it thanks to their search expertise.

*********

So I have to admit, I did go to the fountain and drink some Kool-Aid at the company meeting. Forget the speeches, all the VPs sound the same after a while. But actually seeing the product demos? That was pretty fucking cool. Outlook + RSS + Sharepoint? Sweet. Xbox 360? Makes me drool. Start.com + Sidebar + Sidehow? That's got hella potential (plus it's my team!). IPTV? new Hotmail? Sure there were plenty other things that blew, but not everything was a me-too product. There were some cool stuff. Our management may suck, but down in the trenches some of us peons are still making interesting stuff. That instills some hope. Though the miniscule dividend was disappointing; that means the stock price isn't going anywhere for a while, oh well...

*********

Wow, has anyone noticed RedHerring's back? I sure didn't know. When they shut down that was like the end of an era. I'm glad to see them back.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Aargggh

WTF? blogger, xanga, and MSN spaces all don't allow users to view the raw RSS feed generated by their respective blogs, what the hell is up w/ that? I need to look at some raw RSS feeds for my project and this is stupid and frustrating. I can't even tell whether blogger is using atom, RSS 2.0, or what. There must be a way to grab the raw xml, I'm just not seeing it right now. AARRGGHHH!

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

At least they're not complete bozos

After the big re-org and watching the company meeting webcast, I guess my first impression is that I'm glad our top management isn't quite as out of touch as they sound to the outside world, though that's not saying much. I thought Ballmer came across horribly in last week's Business week interview, completely in denial, dodging tough questions without giving any substantial answers, and simply being a rah-rah cheerleader. And internally both Gates and Ballmer have came across as completely being out of touch, not truly seeing Google (and Apple and Yahoo) as worthy competitors, and ignoring valid employee complaints about overladen process, bureaucracy, lack of innovation, etc.

At least they are now seeing Google as a worthy competitor, because they absolutely are. I'm glad they finally acknowledged Google's "web as a platform" strategy (not that it's hard, everyone and their grandmothers can probably see it by now), w/ their maps API, gmail, storage, personalized search & content, etc. I have my doubts as to whether this MSN and Windows marriage is going to counter that strategy effectively, given their drastically different cultures, but at least they are finally addressing this threat. Furthermore, they keep speaking of this amazing "innovation pipeline", but I'll believe it when I start to see real products that make me go, "man that's (bleep)ing cool (bleep)."

I still think Google has the edge though, they are what msft used to be 15-20 years ago: young, smart, arrogant, and hard-working as all hell. It's no wonder the msft offer acceptance rate at Stanford is ~50%, hell I'm surprised it's even that high. I do think it's an interesting case study whether msft can avoid the fate of IBM, HP, Merck, and other successful tech companies who became victims of their own success as they grew big and old. But I'm not sure I personally want to be part of this experiment. There are still execs whom I respect tremendously here, particularly Chris Jones in Windows, Steve Sinofsky in Office, and J Allard in Xbox, but whether/when this 2nd generation leadership will really get to call the shots at msft still remains to be seen. btw, Steve's got an excellent post on becoming a general manager that I just have to point out.

So in summary, it's "I'm glad they (Bill and Steve) are not complete morons." But they'll have to show me a lot more to convince me they are worthy of the god-status bestowed upon them around here.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Turning, turning, turning through the years

Accidentally found two ticket stubs to Les Mis in one of my coat pockets today, as I was cleaning out and getting ready to move. It was dated May 25, 2002. Memory has a way of sneaking up on you when least expected. 2002, that was an entire lifetime ago. Nothing remains from that life now.

當我看到這兩張票根時, 我心頭好像被一把大鐵錘重重的敲了一下, 痛得幾乎無法喘過氣來。

今夜孤立橋頭
望殘月稀朦
記憶懷中
佳人倩影依舊
恍惚,恍惚,
心碎無奈回首
往昔纏綿隨風流,
月下小路仍有, 故人不再.

「佳人倩影依舊...故人不再」。 寫得真好! 把我現在的心情形容得再也不能更貼切了。 有時我真是不得不嘆服於中文的博大精深。 在這種情況下, 我覺得只有中文才能表達真正的我。如果我不能和我的另一半分享這種意境那真是一種無法彌補的遺憾...

只可惜, 對我生命中重要的女人來說, 這些似乎都並不重要。是否有一個能真正瞭解,分享中華文化的枕邊人, 是一件可有可無的小事。這些傻事好像都只有我會在乎。我真是一個傻子。我不瞭解, 我真的不瞭解。只可惜, 我不瞭解的事情太多了...

Friday, September 16, 2005

Words on a page

I have been swallowing books whole on this trip, it's been great. Traveling alone gives me much time to read, whether it's waiting for trains, eating a meal, sitting at a cafe, or enjoying a beer under the sun. And plenty of time to think - sometimes too much. It's both a blessing and a curse.

I managed to finish Penguin's History of Europe, The Alchemist, Life of Pi, and I'm half way through Love in the Time of Cholera. I have much to say about each of them, but right now as I am reading Love in the Time of Cholera, I cannot help but be deeply moved. What hauntingly beautiful, melancholic writing! His expositions on loss and love, whether it's capturing the acute pangs of spurned, unrequited love or the fickle nuances of a woman's love and spite, are simply exquisite. And his quotes! This man is a poet with prose; his delectable quotes are sprinkled throughout pages of lolling, beautiful writing, like gems scattered along a beach of fine, ivory sand. Some of my favorites so far

"For curiosity is but one of the many masks that love wears..."

"...human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves."

"...that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks for this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past."
and many, many more.

And Florentino Ariza! How I identify with how he feels, down to every last emotion, thought, and utterance. Its uncanny parallel of reality is eerie, almost surreal. Does art imitate life, or life imitate art? Or are they all really one and the same, as "all the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players", and so I am merely playing a part as well, in this grand farce of life...

Monday, September 05, 2005

Ever been in jail?

(in case you're wondering why I have time to blog, it's because I'm searching for a last-minute flight from Prague to Budapest, and since I'm online anyways, might as well vent to you all)

So at 4am last night on my night train from prague to budapest, I got woken up by the border guards to check our passports - this is routine for international night trains. What followed afterwards, was anything but, unfortunately.

After two burly men inspected my passport for a while and conversed rapidly in Slovakian, the younger one beckons me outside the cabin with a very stern look.

guard: There is problem. You no have Slovak republic visa
me (still groggy after being woken up): Yes, I understand. I'm just passing through the Slovak republic on route to Budapest from Prague. See, here's my Czech visa, and here's my Hungarian visa
guard: Not possible. We send you back Czech republic
me (now starting to wake up): Whoa wait, please I'm not stopping in Slovak republic at all, I'm just passing through, I'll be in Hungary in one or two hours, I'm a US permanent resident...
guard: Not possible. Get luggage now. Get out.

Shit, I thought. At this point it was very clear the discussion was over. He was also looking at me very menacingly. What followed after was quite bewildering: I quickly gathered my bags and got off the train. Then more armed guards joined us and escorted me to a police station by the train station. I ask the guy where they're taking me but the only reply I got was, "we send you back czech republic." Then they proceeded to lock me in a room inside their jail with barred doors and windows, and only exit was to a nearby toilet. I had to wait inside the room without any explanation or how long I'll be held. So I had plenty of time to kick myself for choosing train instead of air travel, whether I could have argued more effectively, and mulled over my life in general ad infinitum. I was able to transit through Denmark w/o a denmark visa, so I thought it should be ok transiting on the way to Hungary; apparently not. I've never been behind bars, I guess now I know what that feels like...not fun at all.

After what seem like an infinite length of time, they finally unlocked the door. Then 5 armed guards "escorted" me onto a train into a special back compartment (ever wonder what goes on in the last locked compartment of the train? now you know), where I noticed someone else being "escorted" as well. So we rode the train back into Czech republic, where they finally released me and I fondly bid them adieu. Then I had to catch another train back to Prague at 7:20am

So here I am, back in Prague now, 13 hrs after I had left. Exhausted, hungry, and bewildered. It was pretty stupid for me not to check w/ the Hungarian consulate, but then I had pissed them off and they barely gave me my visa into Hungary in the first place, so not sure how helpful they would've been. Plus I was running so short on time before I left, hardly had time to plan at all...argh, anyways. Now I'm about to spend $$$$ buying a last minute ticket to fly from Prague to Budapest tonight, I don't even want to think about it...sigh.

Lesson learned: Must. Get. American. Passport. Next. Time.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Magnificient Prague

A sign that you´ll been traveling for a while - this morning someone said, ¨Hey, what happened with the hurricane?¨, and I said, ¨What hurricane?¨ It wasn´t until we turned on BBC that I saw there was a massive hurricane hitting the US. Ah yes, that hurricane. On the other hand, I can tell you that it´s 24.1 CZK to 1 US$ and our dollar is terrible when it comes to traveling.

*******
I only have one word to describe Prague - magnificient. Absolutely magnificient. The sheer scale and number of sights are just incredible. The Charles bridge, Prague Palace, Town center, etc., are all an order magnitude grander than anything in the Baltics. The city reminds me of a hybrid of Barcelona and Vienna actually. All the energy and craziness of Barcelona combined with the culture and arts of Vienna. Unfortunately, it is also a city absolutely mobbed by tourists. There are hordes of them, worst than anything I´ve seen in London, Paris, or Rome all combined. Everything is so touristy here it is obviously not an authentic Czech experience any more. I wish I had seen Prague 15 years ago before it was trampeded by tourists, it would have been quite an amazing experience.

If I had to pick between Prague and Vienna, I'd have to go with Vienna - my first time to Europe, its musical scene, and I was in love - but only by a hair. Prague is definitely a special, special place though. Someday, I'll be back. Charles bridge at night
Charles bridge at sunset
St. Nicholas church
Tyn church


Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Tere from Estonia!




Old town during the day

The very Russian Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

Old town at night

My Baltic journey began in Estonia, the most modern country of the Baltic states. The first two days we were in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. I can see why they call it the beautiful capital, because not only is it charming and beautiful, but it is also where all the beautiful people gather. I have never seen such a large number of 6" blonds, they must grow on trees here. It has an interesting mix of Scandinavian, Russian, and Finnish influence, due to its previous Swedish and Russian rule. Thus there is a very Scandinavian Old town, a la Gamla Stan, Stockholm, but there's also an Orthodox cathedral, and lots of Finnish signs everywhere.

As a country that was just liberated from Soviet rule 10 yrs ago and just joined the EU, the heart of Tallinn is surprisingly modern. It has all the same luxury shops and infrastructure of a first-tier city, and most everyone I met spoke English embarrassingly well. No wonder Skype is basing its operations out of Estonia. Estonian's Finn-Uric linguistic origins does make it extremely difficult to learn, as it has no Latin or Greek roots and I couldn't even attempt to guess at what the words meant. My attempt at Estonian was pretty pathetic on the other hand, I only managed to pick up "Hello" and "Thank you" by the end of my stay, where as I was able to pick up a lot more French and German last time. I am always impressed by how multilingual Europeans are, especially those from small countries like Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and now Estonia. And of course it always makes me feel pathetic at how linguistically challenged I am, living in the US. It always reminds me of how ethnocentric it can be to live in the US at times, where the majority American just has a warped (at least a very self-centered) world view, where they see no need to learn about others' languages, cultures, or history. It is quite refreshing to get out and be in an environment when a country sees itself as one of many in this world, in multiple contexts and relationships that it has to delicately navigate, rather than enforcing its will as the reference country that everyone else has to live by. Granted, small countries need to be more circumspect in establishing their presence, but it's refreshing nonetheless.
We stumbled upon an unknown cafe during the day that was totally off the beaten path. Its entrance is hidden in this cavern from a side street. It's a pretty chill cafe during the day, serving some light food. But at night it turns into really cool bar where the locals gather. The night we were there happened to be a jam night for a bunch of jazz students from the Estonian Music Academy, so they gathered from all over Scandinavia and it was totally awesome. The drummer was from Sweden, bassist from Norway, and pretty much these kids gathered from all over to take this one class and study in Tallinn for the summer, so this is their regular jam session where the local students all come and hang out. I guess this has been an inspiring trip so far, first I saw Tick tick boom, then now watching these kids totally got me amped up, I've accomplished so little and squandered so much time, there is so much left to be done.

I am slogging through J.M. Roberts' History of Europe right now. I started it after last year's trip, and am hoping to finish it before this trip is over. It is a great read; analytical, systematic, and insightful, though it makes for extremely slow reading (Someone who uses more subordinate clauses in their writing than I do!) I think the distinguishing feature of a great historian is the ability to sift through and rise above all the facts and chronology to identify key themes, trends, ideologies, and paradigms which have driven world events. I think Roberts does a great job at this, as he is able to clearly articulate the key ideas around which one can construct a framework to analyze history, to understand why A, B, C, happened because of L, M, N, and how it led to X, Y, Z of today. It really helps one to understand why the world is the way it is today.

Hey, mommy he looks like me!


Statue of the Kissing Students in Tartu, one of the most romantic statues I've ever seen

One, two, three...

Argh, the cafe is kicking us out, I'll have to write more later.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

First impressions

There's nothing like stepping into a foreign airport to remind one of what it feels like to be on the road again. There's always that moment of panic when I realize that I'm 6,000 miles from home without the safety of my cellphone, car, computer; tethered to no one and nothing but what I've strapped to my back. Yet, it's funny how quickly the instincts kick in again, as I quickly get my subway map, cash, guide, and set off about a new city. Perhaps it awakens our ancient hunter-gatherer instincts from its slumber in civilization; I can't describe what it feels like except it makes me feel so alive again. God it's good to be on the road again.

I love how a metropolis like London provides so much stimuli - visually, auditory, asthetically, intellectually, everything. Just walking into a subway station, I am bombarded by all that's going on: walls lined with posters of the latest musicals and plays; the chatter of various languages - Spanish, French, German - and others indistinguishable to my ears; the colorful and quirky fashion of the Londonites (not that I qualify as a fashionista, but I guess I do pay more attention to these things now thanks to Gman). It makes the city bustle with electricity similar to NYC, but with a stiffer upper lip. In comparison, Seattle just feels like a wasteland, with none of the same throbbing vibrancy. London certainly feels more modern than a Paris or Rome, but it's also got its share of hauteur and tradition, as I was reminded yesterday while dining at The Connaught, when the restroom staff "assisted" me in washing my hands. Now I've never had someone wait on me, turn on the faucet, squeeze me the soap, and hand me the towel while I wash my hands, even at say Le Bernardin. At that moment I was reminded, oh yeah, it is a bit different here huh?

It was also interesting to note while London is an incredibly diverse city, "diverse" here means "anyone but East Asians". I've seen tons of non-Brit Europeans, Africans, Middle Easterners, Indians, and just about everyone else, but very few East Asians, wonder why? I've always thought that there would be a lot of Asians, maybe not as many as SF or NY, but given the '97 handover and the number of Asian university students, that there would be a lot more. That is quite a shame. Still, I love the diversity here. It just makes life so much more interesting

Trafalgar Square on a sunny afternoon

Wondering what those black bottle tops are?















Apparently they like to lock their alchohol up!



Musicals, musicals, musicals - I love it!

A nice casual afternoon stroll in the park...

******

Just watched an off-West end musical here called Tick tick boom. Apparently Jonathan Larson actually wrote this before he wrote Rent, but put it aside to finish Rent. All I've gotta say is - If you love Rent, you'll love this. In fact, I'd say I like this even more than Rent, and I watched Rent in theaters 3 times. Even though the music isn't quite as good as Rent (it's still damn good, btw), I think this musical speaks to me so much more. It's heftier, talking about life, death, passion, disillusionment, and growing up. Too bad it's not on off-Broadway anymore, so I guess the only place to see it live is in London. I'm definitely getting the soundtrack though.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Life, continued


To celebrate my trip to Europe this summer, I've decided to start blogging again after a long hiatus. The show must go on, as they say, and so I'll learn too. I will be traveling through the UK, Estonia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, and Hungary from 8/16 - 9/12. I hope to blog frequently and post lots of pictures, so stay tuned!