Musings

First impressions - Tbilisi

2011-09-25T14:38:00.000-07:00

Just as with people, I often find my first 24 hours in a new city tends to set the tone and emotion for the rest of our time together. If that's the case, then I have to say I'm quite enamored with Tbilisi and Georgia thus far. The most impressive facet about Georgia so far is not the architecture, though it is surprisingly gorgeous; nor the food, though it is wonderfully rich - it's the people, how incredibly nice they are to total strangers like us. While "hospitality" is quite a cliched term in travel guidebooks, even I was surprised by just how spontaneous and genuine their affection have been for total strangers like ourselves. Though I no longer consider myself a road newbie at this point, I was still humbled and touched by just how generous they were; once again it proves the adage that there are truly nice people everywhere in the world.

Case in point, we've only been in the city for 24 hours, and already we've had more than our fair share of serendipitous encounters with strangers. Normally when I get one in a day, I'm counting my lucky stars. Getting a handful feels simply…overindulgent. Last night, when we were lost trying to find our hostel, a random guy off the street kindly escorted us all the way there, despite it being almost midnight. In the morning, a policeman very nicely helped us purchase our metro ticket to Rustaveli, and asked another stranger to take us through the station. Coming out of the sublime Obeliani baths, a very cute Georgian girl waved us into her shop for free (!) wine tasting. Sadly, her co-worker did most of the talking after we came in, I guess her mission was accomplished once we walked in. While buying water tonight, the women manning the register were only too happy to give us some travel advice around her homeland…just too many examples to count. In general, between Eric's fluent Russian and my non-existing Georgian, we probably only understood 2% of what anyone says to us. Nonetheless, almost everyone treats us with with seemingly infinite patience, and a wide wide smile at our feeble attempts of Georgian. If this first day is any indication, we're going to be spoilt rotten by the end of this trip.

The wonderful people aside, I have to say Tbilisi is definitely one of most charming cities I've ever been too. A total hidden gem, probably what Prague was like 30 years ago before it was crushed by tourists. The Mtkvari river runs through the heart of the city, and with the Narikala Fortress and Sameba Cathedral on the hilltops by the river overlooking the Old town, it reminded me a lot of Budapest or Vilnius. The country is by no means rich, and the capital reflects much of its hardship in recent years. Walking around, we would see scores of dilapidated buildings, torn-up streets, stray animals, and an occasional power outage or two. Nonetheless, the city has preserved much of its historical architecture, and has also invested in highlighting some key landmarks such as lighting up Narikala fortress and Baratashvili bridge at night. And most of this was quite tastefully done, so the dilapidation does indeed add a rustic charm to the streets, as clicheish as that may sound.

One of the highlights of today happened while we were wandering the streets near Freedom Square. While I was busy taking pictures, Eric wandered into a completely run-down building, which turned out to be the home of the Tbilisi Royal Theatre. While it looked like it was next to an apartment of crack addicts, when we stepped through the entrance, it really felt like we were just magically transported back to the 1920's (Midnight Paris, anyone?). Akvar the watchman very enthusiastically insisted on a tour, and started us at the foyer, which held a piano and an ancient movie recorder. On the other side was the cafe, which held some genuinely faded B&W photos of famous troupes & actors. Sadly it was all in Georgian, so we couldn't understand very much, but I can only guess it was a list of who's who who've come through the theatre. The extremely disorienting contrast of the exterior decay vs. the interior opulence, plus the wafting period opera music in the background, made me want to really step outside and check I'm still in the right century. Turned out Akvar was quite a student of history, and he very eagerly wanted to talk about Mao, Chiang, Stalin and their pals. Apparently he was drafted into the Soviet army at 17 and served for 3 years, is a pacifist at heart, and was no fan of the Russians. He was of course also very interested in the whole Taiwan vs. China issue - ("China? Taiwan?" hand gesture - clasping together). We scratched our heads and did our best to insist on the difference between the two, with copious amounts of hand gestures & word parroting. But I think we managed to conclude with handshakes and smiles all around - one for amateur diplomacy!

Another highlight was hitting the Obeliani baths, which is a Turkish bathhouse that Pushkin once called "the best bath he's ever had" (quoteth LP here - believe at your own peril). But there was definitely some truth to it. There's nothing that soothes the sore legs more than a nice bath at the end of the day. At 3 GEL a splash (<2 USD), it's was truly something everyone could enjoy. And indeed I think we saw variety of guys in there, the youngsters mixing w/ the senior citizens and everyone enjoyed chatting up in Georgian. After the bath we worked up quite a hunger, and stuffed ourselves with a feast of dish after dish of various meat products, and a serviceable bottle of wine with just 12GEL at this fabulous restaurant by the Mtkvar river. One can certainly get used to a life like this.

K, time to hit the sack.

Goodbye my lover

2009-03-31T10:16:00.000-07:00

I'd never thought this would be the first post in so much time, but all the more fitting I suppose. I never feel the urge to write unless I need to cry. Maybe it's good that at least I can still write. I remember first reading about this song from D, when she wrote about one of her heartbreaks. How she'd curl up into a ball on her bed, just listen to this song for hours on end, and just cry and cry. Thank you D, I so totally feel you now. I haven't been able to cry for a long time. Maybe I've lost the ability to cry, I'd give anything to cry again. But I can feel cold. I'm cold, so cold inside.

And I still hold your hand in mine.
In mine when I'm asleep.
And I will bear my soul in time,
When I'm kneeling at your feet.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.

I don't quite know what to feel; actually I haven't felt in a while. It's a hollow ache, not an acute pain that bowls you over, but this giant stone sitting on your chest and making it hard to breath. This cloud that hangs over you and it makes you so cold and shiver inside. I hated finding out this way; I wanted to run away tonight but I couldn't. I was laughing outside, but so cold inside. C probably didn't even notice when she told me, yet I could just feel myself drift afar, watching this circle of people chatting and drinking wine around me. God, I just want to be alone. Away from everyone and everything.

I wish her the best, really I do. This isn't the first time now, you'd think I'd be more used to it. Yet somehow it doesn't get any easier. Part of me wonders if it ever all happened. The memories seem so hazy now. Did we really lie on that big rock to watch the sunset that day on that distant island? Did I really brush her hair aside as the light fell on her face through the clouds? Did I really take her hand as the storm came crashing down around us, the lighting piercing the sky briefly before. If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one to hear it, is there a sound? If something happened but no one remembers, did it really happen?

I've kissed your lips and held your head.
Shared your dreams and shared your bed.
I know you well, I know your smell.
I've been addicted to you.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.

How true these words are. It's difficult to imagine that someone you shared the most intimate parts of your life with would someday be completely not a part of your world anymore, yet it happens oh so often. It's just difficult to comprehend sometimes, what is intimacy really without memories? It's hard to believe how much things have changed since I've come here. Sometimes I look in the mirror and think how different it could all have been if I had chosen differently. They keep coming and leaving for all different reasons. And they leave so suddenly with no trace of memory; seems I'm the only one who's ever looking back. And they always find happiness after me, for which I'm glad yet puzzled at the same time - am I just fatally flawed?

I've seen you cry, I've seen you smile.
I've watched you sleeping for a while.
I'd be the father of your child.
I'd spend a lifetime with you.
I know your fears and you know mine.
We've had our doubts but now we're fine,
And I love you, I swear that's true.
I cannot live without you.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.

Yet tomorrow I get up. And I put my mask on, and Life goes on. I sleep, I wake up, I go back to work, bury this all deep inside till the next time I need to write. A, I wish you the very best, and part of me will always be with you. Goodbye my lover.

Movies and Books

2007-12-30T02:17:00.000-08:00

Just finished watching Once. It's this indie movie about musicmaking, great, great music, and watches more like a documentary than a movie at times. I typically don't watch the commentary, but was compelled to watch this one afterwards. I guess despite all the jadedness about the movie industry, there is something magical about believing in your movie idea strongly enough to be willing to shoot it on a micro budget w/ some friends, which was kind of how this movie hapened. Very cool. I also got around to watching The Beat that My Heart Skipped, great movie as well. Darker than the other ones, but Dupri really gives a fantastic performance and I liked the whole nature vs. environment angle.

Also just read a book called A General Theory of Love. It's one of the more scientific book on love and relationships I've read in a while (though I do think some of the discourse on neural networks could be more rigorous). It's similar to some other books I've read before like Can Love Last and Necessary Losses, but I think more rigorous and scientific, which the engineer in me really appreciates. It basically tries to analyze why and how we love using multiple disciplines, such as neurology, evolutionary biology, as well as traditional psychoanalytic techniques. Their thesis is basically that human beings relate not only on an emotional level but also on a biological level (they refer to it as 'limbic'), and essentially what therapy does is the therapist tries to go into the patient's world without losing oneself, and synchronizes their rhythms not unlike how two people could synchronize breathing, but instead focusing on emotional patterns. By resonating on similar emotional frequencies and patterns as the patient, the therapist can help to gently guide the patient to break out of unhealthy patterns. If one accepts the book's premise of limbic connection, i.e., that by being together human beings do not only affect each other emotionally but also physiologically, then this is certainly one of the more scientifically sound explanations of psychotherapy I've come across. Interesting thoughts indeed.

Life and movies

2007-12-25T00:05:00.001-08:00

Just finished watching two great flicks - J'taime Paris and Russian Dolls. Both movies elicited such strong emotions that I feel like I have to let some of it outpour onto this page. First, I guess since Paris is the major location for both of these movies, it really brought back a lot of past memories and emotions for me. I suppose the older you get, the more place you've been to and relationships you've been in, the more likely this will be. Still, there is something magical about Paris. For J'taime Paris, I can't help playing back my memories of what the various locations are like and what I was doing, at the same time as the characters are going through their scenes in the movies. It's kind of weird, kind of like parallel universes, at the same time it almost blurs the line between fact and fiction, movie and reality. There are the stone steps outside the Louvre's glass pyramid, where she laid her head on my knees and napped. I remember the sky was grayish-blue, with a slight breeze, and sound of running water behind us. Some tourists were nearby, but for that moment it was just us. At the same time on the screen, I see the characters from J'taime going through all the places I went to in Paris. The Montmartre where we looked over all of Paris in her splendor, the jardin de luxembourg where children play among the statues and where we held hands and looked for postcards, the cobblestone streets of a street market where the housewives buy their cheese and jamon...too many memories. And the

Both movies reminded me strongly of the places I've been to and people I've been w/. I remember meeting Matt in Prague in the summer of '05, when Russian Dolls first came out. He was one of the few (literally two or three) Americans I met on that trip, and we both loved L' Auberge Espagnol, the prequel to Russian Dolls. Despite having never met before, I really felt like we were kindred spirits (and I would meet many more in my subsequent trips - it's hard to express how special that bond is among the community of solo travelers). He's a few years older, but we've had similar struggles when it came to work, love, and life in general. Hence our strong identification w/ l'auberge espagnol. He had the chance to watch Russian Dolls while in Prague, while I missed out, and so now two years I've finally caught up. I think Russian Dolls is quite a bit messier than l'auberge espagnol. I wouldn't say the character Xavier is particularly lovable, but he's realistic. He's a bit schmoozy, womanizing, and weak-willed; but so are all of us. I think there's a little bit of him in every guy - who doesn't occasionally fantasize about landing one (or more) gorgeous woman? When we meet a great girl, we are all torn by the internal dilemma of deciding to settle on this one or continuously pursue an even "better" woman out there? It's like opening a set of Russian dolls - when do you know this one is the last one? Just so happened that Matt and I both encountered this decision at different points, and our different decisions have led us down very different paths. Now a couple years later, and looking back, I guess the only takeaway is there's no clean answer for love is there? There will always be multiple people, intersecting at different times, and no one is ever so right that it begs the obvious. Instead most of us eventually make a decision - "this is it, this is where I draw the line and 'make' her the one." Not passively accepting her as the one, but actively choosing her to be the one. Because even though you damn well know there are or may be better ones out there, this is where you learn to stop opening up Russian dolls.

And I guess marriage scenes are always touching; no matter how jaded we become, I suppose there's a part of us that always wants to believe in "till death do us apart". And yet now knowing what we know, clearly it's not realistic to expect that. So what do we expect? Is it just the best-faith effort at the time? That we will sincerely give it our best effort, even though knowing too well that we humans are too imperfect and transient to promise anything everlasting?

At any rate, highly recommend these two movies. Onto a L'Enfant and Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter tomorrow.

totally random

2007-10-28T03:06:00.000-07:00

finally found something that was worth writing about on facebook, saw this on somebody's wall today -

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This is weird, but interesting! =)

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it

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At first I was like, "Ugh, I can't read that." Then I tried a little bit and found that wow, I actually could, and fairly easily too! Crazy huh?

You can run, but you can't hide

2007-09-09T01:22:00.000-07:00

Three years...three long years. Yet I'm still not as far along as I thought I would be. Running from my past, but not quite far enough to forget it. When will it stop? When will it stop haunting me?

2007-09-03T23:11:00.000-07:00

Wow, does anyone even still read this?

I think this is the first time I've been home in close to two months; the last time I was in the bay area was 7/12 I think, except for a brief night layover in Aug, though I don't exactly remember. Walking outside of SFO, aside from the 10-degree cooler wind, I'm not sure exactly what "home" is to me anymore. While I would like to say that "home" is wherever I am, and I'd like to think that I'm adaptable enough that I should just be able to shrug it off, it does nonetheless feel odd. I don't quite feel home - but then I'm not exactly sure what home is supposed to feel like. I'm back in my room, though the bed feels strangely alien. I look at my room, at the pile of accumulated mail, and it feels eerily familiar yet distant. I go downstairs to boil some ramen, since I really don't feel like eating out, despite being hungry from the crappy food. Maybe I'm just tired from being "out", though "out" would imply there is some "place" to be "out" of, no?

I'm sure there are plenty of people who fly around all the time like I do, who make strange, remote hotels their homes for months on end. The consultants, ibankers, PEers of the world, many of my friends actually. I'm sure many of us are strong, resilient, adaptable; we make friends where we are, learn the local scene, explore the new city, try strange food, and we can check off another city in our been-there, done-that list. I'd like to think I am too, yet the longer I spent away, each time I come back it feels a little stranger. When I decided to move back to the Bay last year, I was so excited because I thought I would be coming home; as close to a "home" as there would be for me anyways, since no where is really home. It hasn't quite felt like that. It's been great, I've reconnected w/ some friends, and the environment is definitely familiar, but it's not quite the homecoming I expected. Obviously everyone is older and we're all taking our different paths now, but it's nonetheless been more remote than expected. Of course Taipei doesn't feel like home either. It's great, I'm really getting to know it and like it better, but it doesn't feel like a place I see myself living in. I sometimes wonder how John does it, whether Beijing or Seattle feels like home to him. Perhaps having your own place helps.

And next year? I don't quite think I've mentally prepared myself to move to Beijing yet. Shanghai, yes. But BJ? That was not what I expected, though things are where they are now. I do think I'll look forward to exploring a new city, yet at the same time this wasn't what I planned. I had never envisioned going to BJ, and I guess maybe it won't be as comfortable or glamorous as Shanghai, but maybe it will be interesting. Regardless, I'm sure I'll learn a lot.

***********

And I feel like I've gone through a mini relationship (could I call it that?) within these few weeks, at least some of the similar type of drama. The excitement of ambiguity, the highs and lows, the arguing, the inevitable reality and acceptance of reality, and the aftermath. I sometimes am not quite even sure why I like her - it feels a bit irrational. She's not exactly the type I've liked before, though there are things that really endear her to me. That said, I can't quite bring myself to do what I need to do - road to a women's heart is littered w/ the bodies of many nice and sweet guys, and I'd like to avoid becoming yet another one. I would like to just flip a switch and be that cocky, funny, aloof guy that every men's rag tells you to be, yet it feels like going against nature to me. Funny and cocky, yeah, that's not too hard. Aloof is where I find real difficulty - it's hard to stay away when I genuinely want to know how her day was or what she's feeling, or seeing a trinket that reminded me of her. Yet this desire for open myself up and to be close will be the death of me, I'm sure. I think it's human nature to value what is difficult, and I've already made it too easy. Sigh. Well, I'm sure this month long break will end things very quickly as it should.

*********

Garry's recommended photography books came today - I'm excited. It's high time to get more serious about photography instead of posing around and shooting on probability. Time to get disciplined and stop dicking around. And to start another project too. I think the thing that's most disruptive about constant work travel is disrupting your personal time and rhythm. People always ask me whether the jetlag gets to me; actually, it doesn't bother me much anymore. I've gotten to the point where I can sleep almost anywhere, anytime. It's the social disruption that bothers me the most. The inevitable distancing from friends and lack of time to do my own thing that makes one tired of traveling. Well, I should be here for almost a month this time, hopefully I can do a thing or two on my own.

Organizational behavior 101?

2007-05-25T03:19:00.000-07:00

I used to think studying organizational behavior and management was all bullshit. A bunch of guys sitting in the ivory tower thinking they know how to run a multinational? What a crock. But the more I work the more I realize how important organization--loosely defined as in how you organize people, structure reporting, allocate time, reward & punish behavior, etc--is. I'm still not convinced of the value of sitting in an undergrad class with 200 other people to read a 800pg textbook on organizational behavior. It just doesn't strike me as something you can learn in a classroom. Without lots and lots of work experience, you just won't understand. And even if you do, each situation is highly unique and nuanced, and once you abstracted it into a case study it just seems to lose the subtleties that make org problems difficult.

At any rate, now I am quite convinced that how you organize a group of people, has a huge effect on how productive they will be. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out a way to quickly become good at it.

Exhibit #1 -

Suppose you are the country PM for country X. you have been charged, ultimately, to win this market (let's use search market share), where you're currently getting your butt kicked. You need to convince engineering with your the overall strategy and product roadmap, deliver the products, and hopefully win lots of users. Suppose now also that your engineering office in X also opened recently, so you've now scoured the country for a bunch of top-notch engineers, all eager and excited because they want a chance to work at G.

Great, since a technology company absolutely have to hire the best damn engineers, you're off to a good start. No argument about that. But brilliant engineers don't necessarily sign up to crush some competitor or win a market. Few smart people join IBM thinking, "Gee, I'd really like to help Big Blue crush Microsoft or Sun or Oracle today." Smart, talented engineers join a company usually because they want to solve really challenging problems, enjoy the environment, want freedom and resources to pursue what excites them, and in general try to build cool shit.

Now you have a dilemma. You know (or think you know) what you have to do to win. Build product X, partner with Y, syndicate Z, improve infrastructure W, on and on. But the engineers may not at all be interested in X, Y, Z or W. Maybe your most talented UI engineer happens to
really get off on tweaking the subtleties of image search. But you just know that working on image search is useless for winning traffic right now, doesn't move the needle. What do you do? You can't force great engineers to do what they don't want to do; it'll be a disaster. At the same time, having him work on low-priority projects is just waste of talent. And maybe he's not the only one. Maybe some other senior engineers all want to work on a different skunkworks project, because they've all vested, and now only want to work on some pet projects.

So out of an office of maybe 15 engineers, you might only be able to convince half to really put their hearts into what you need to do to win. That's 50% efficiency, a terrible waste of eng talent and time. At the same time, you can't throw rank and ask the eng director to just crack that whip and get everyone in line; it might work elsewhere, but not at G. And even if it works, it would ruin the team culture and camaderie, so that option is out.

So, how do you reconcile the two? The easy answer might be, "Oh well, just find what people are interested in, and define Y projects in such a way that each person finds what they're looking for. So you can have your cake and eat it too." I think that works up to a certain extent, but it's not so easy, since it's kind of like sanding a square hold to fit a round peg. You can kind of do it, but it's not optimal. I think engineers are most motivated and productive when they find something they are really passionate and inspired about, not when you retro-fit a project to match their needs. You don't have as much of this problem at startups, since they are usually self-selective; people who don't identify w/ a startup's mission usually don't join it, unless there's a good chance of a good exit. And you can screen people out based on their stated interests. But in the case of G, where we're just trying to hire the damn smartest people we can find, it's not like we screen people based on their passions, especially in a remote office. In fact, we're known for only interviewing for ability, rather than work history or interest.

So what exactly do I do then? I need to win the market. But I also need to build a high performing, happy, and inspired eng team. How do I make the two work? I don't have a good answer for this, and I'm thinking about it every day. Comparatively, writing specs weren't all that hard...

Now I understand why good managers certainly earn their pay.

Ladies, do you know what you're missing out on?

2007-04-29T03:31:00.000-07:00

Word! lol...

2007-03-09T05:08:00.000-08:00

Great, I'm going to completely fail my OKR this quarter, god I suck. Have had zero time to write. Lack of discipline. This is pathetic. So much to say, but so little energy to say it. John, I know how you feel now.

Have you ever been in it so deep that you don't even know which way is up anymore? There are nights when I've just completely worked so much, so much so that when I'll go into safeway at 2am to grab a bottle shampoo, but end up wandering up and down the aisles lost. I'll walk in circles not be able to find it because I can't shut my mind off and I continue to think about work. So I can't focus and am just wandering aimlessly in this gigantic empty Safeway, w/ a couple of graveyard shift boxing boys staring at me with the "WTF is this retarded guy walking around in circles at 2am in a Safeway?"

Since I just got home and I need to get up at 9am, I should probably head to bed but then again, since it's 5:15am already not sure it matters anymore. God, I hate it when the damn birds are chirping before I get to bed.

Am I learning a lot? I supposed so. I don't know. I alternate between feeling great knowing that I've done more in six months than I did in two years at MS to feeling like shit knowing I really still haven't done anything, and that the bar for distinction here is set nice and high. I pretty much feel like I can run anything after this, but then I don't know if that's my hubris speaking or actually some well-earned self-respect?

Holy shit, there are some big names in this thread...Jakob Nielsen? http://battellemedia.com/archives/003413.php. Great points raised - maybe video play isn't really about monetization at all...ok, must stop writing. Damn it, see even now I can't turn it off. I just damn well can't.

Almost famous...

2007-02-25T03:16:00.000-08:00

http://chalain.livejournal.com/43015.html

wow, I am speechless. I came _this_ close to working on the feature that made Digg frontpage. Just a hair away and it would've been me, I don't know how I would've felt...

Fireside chat with Hillary Clinton

2007-02-23T17:28:00.000-08:00

We have a program at work where they invite famous people to come speak, and Eric would interview them. Today we had the rare opportunity to hear Hillary Clinton and that was definitely a treat. It's hard to imagine having these kind of opportunities elsewhere, though I really hope they'll bring Obama in too at some point for a good compare & contrast :)

So I'm blogging this live a la wonkette or dkos style -

Interesting notes so far

- Her policy cornerstones really seem to focus on universal health care, education, alternative energy and climate change. I'm not convinced this will work nationally, i.e., to win the election, but then again she could be tailoring it very much to the G audience. Personally, I'd rather hear more about Iraq, the economy, and redefining our foreign policy in general.
- Key message - restore confidence at home and respect abroad
- No escalation of troops into Iraq. Wow, that's surprising.
- No continued unconditional funding of the reconstruction unless
- A few nicely placed snipes at W and Cheney, me likes :)
- Wants to start dialogue with states such as Iran, Syria whom we're not talking to now.
- Will extricate us from Iraq if W doesn't get us out.

Unfortunately, Eric lobbed her some softball questions in the beginning which ate up all the time, so the only serious question she took was on Iraq. Would have loved to hear some more.

Thoughts afterwards -

Hillary is a great, great public speaker. Probably way underestimated when compared to her husband. But her style is quite different, I feel she's much more formal. She's incredibly intelligent and eloquent, but lacks that little bit of warmth or informality to really connect with the audience. It was kind of like listening to a grad school lecture. Bill, on the other hand, was great at making you feel like he was speaking to you personally, even though he may be delivering the State of the Union. It's interesting - it's as if you don't want to be too perfect in your delivery, because then you lose that personal touch. A little bit of colloquialism actually goes a long ways in establishing trust and credibility, and invoking emotion. I've heard Obama is also a phenomenal speaker, though I haven't had the time to watch an entire speech. W, for all his faults, is also an underestimated public speaker. He has an uncanny ability to project sincerity while speaking, But unfortunately since there's nothing upstairs, and his language command is so pathetically poor, it's hard not to laugh at his fluff after a while.

To be or not to be?

2007-02-21T00:55:00.000-08:00

There are moments in one's career, inflection points, where people's opinion of you are formed, careers are made or broken, and decisions truly matter. Unfortunately, I just had one this morning, and I royally fucked it up. Rarely do I want to retract a past conversation as badly as I want to now. Unfortunately, I don't even know how I let it get to this point, it all happened so quickly. I think it's the first time that I've yearned for the simpler days at M, where I did not have to face situations as I do now. Things weren't easy then, but it was straightforward how to build one's career. Where as it's not clear to me now what to do next. Never do I feel as old as I do now - being all of twenty-seven I feel I am no longer a naive fresman when it comes to navigating the labrynth of the professional world and should know a hell of a lot better. But I don't. Damn my ignorance.

Before me lie two options - one to be the country PM for T/H, where I am in essence driving all the product strategies and decisions for these two markets, the other to be an international search PM, where I run and maintain the system that improves our core product for all intl markets. It's very much a depth vs. breadth tradeoff, and unfortunately while I committed to the intl one, I am very much having second thoughts now. Unfortunately now that I've committed to both my managers I don't see a good way of backing out of this w/o a major hit to my professional credibility. I don't want to appear fickle, indecisive, and frivolous, and yet by changing my mind within 24hrs I manage to achieve all three. I really wished I had thought through carefully before I made my decision and spoke up about it, unfortunately I did not get a chance to reflect and seek some senior advice until today. Which has really made me change my opinion a whole lot, albeit a bit too late.

Unfortunately, I am where I am now. No point in bitching about how stupidly I handled myself up to this point. What to do next? Should I continue on my current path? Should I speak up and announce a change of heart? Despite talking with some friends, ultimately it is my and only my decision to make, and now I understand the terrifying pressure and loneliness of choice and consequence. Only I am responsible for me and what happens to me, no one else. Wasn't that what aging was supposed to bring? The type of self assurance to handle oneself confidently and competently in such situations? Why do I still feel so clueless and inept?

My Q1 OKR

2007-01-22T01:41:00.000-08:00

Now that my blog readership has completely dwindled to zero, I guess it's a good time to do a reset and wipe the slate clean. Sadly, I haven't been able to write much here, due to work completely leeching away any illusion of my having free time. Working with three time zones - EU, Asia, and US does wonders for your sleep schedule. I've flown 6 times within the last three weeks (Taipei, London, SF) and haven't had any jetlag at all, I guess my body has slowly realized that resistance is futile, and it has given up complaining.

To be honest, I'm not happy with this. I haven't quite figured out what to do yet, since I've never been quite so overwhelmed. Nonetheless, here is one thing I do commit to do to regain my life back. I want to start writing seriously. After reading The Woman at the Washing Zoo (Big props to Huat - one of the most well-read literati I have ever encountered), I was tremendously inspired by how much she cared to write, even when she was on her deathbed. I also enjoyed the expository essay format very much, it showed me a glimpse of what could be done with non-fiction writing. I've always struggled to find a home for my writing "voice" - I don't quite have the wit or charm to do any sort of column writing (though if you ever want a great example, check out Domi's writing), and I lack the elegance and variety to do topical writing, like travel writing, justice. But writing essays to argue something? That, I think I can do.

I'm not a fan of New Year's resolutions; their time horizon is much too long to effectively hold oneself accountable, and most inevitably end up unfulfilled. However, there's something I'd like to borrow from work. At G, we do this exercise where every quarter we set something called OKRs - Objectives and Key Results. Basically, this is the report card that we get graded against every quarter, and it is public for all to see. G gives us long guidelines on how to properly write OKRs, but one basic point is have actionable, measurable key results that justify how the said objective was achieved. So here's an experiment - to truly hold myself accountable, I will start creating personal OKRs this quarter, starting with this one.

Objective: To improve my writing in a disciplined manner, and through writing, regain some balance in my life.
Key Results:

Write two essays that I feel are good enough to post publicly
Dedicate at least two hours/week to improving my writing

Let's see how this goes.

Commenting problems?

2006-12-07T21:45:00.000-08:00

Hey people,

I've heard that commenting might be a problem on my blog since I moved to blogger beta? While I'd like to think that you all aren't commenting because of some obscure blogger bug, as opposed to you know, the alternative ;). But hey at any rate if so, email me and let me know.

Moi

All your world are belong to us

2006-12-02T16:00:00.000-08:00

How awesome is this? And this? I first heard about Hospitality club from Mir from Barcelona whom I met in Vientiane. I happened to check them out today, while doing some research on Portugal. She's a super warm and friendly girl with a kick-ass consumer products design job back in Barcelona (sadly, not fashion. I was hoping for some Zara discounts, sigh), but decided to postpone going back to take a freelance job in Bangkok. I've heard of house swapping before, but I think these are more targeted for the backpacking community. Argh, I'd do this in a heartbeat if I had my own place, but I don't know how thrilled Walter & Co. will be if I start hosting random foreigners at our place. I'll try to give this a try for Portugal though. It'll be great just to get away for a while.

Man, I have some serious wanderlust going on. I don't know what's up w/ me. Obviously not a good sign 3 months in a new job, eh?

Recently I've been thinking a whole lot about my twenties coming to an end. Here I am,
27 going on 28, with the big 3-0 no longer in a deniable distance. I am no where close to where I envisioned myself to be, professionally, inter-personally, or spiritually. What am I doing? This cloud of existential angst is perpetually hanging over me. Will I look back on my twenties a mere few years from now and be satisfied with how I spent it? Have I had impacted the world in a positive way? Have I seen the world? Have I learned how to be a Man? I don't want the usual platitudes of "carpe diem" and all that shit.

I am reminded of the last scene of Garden State when the main character decides to throw off his shackles and live life. Fully. I somehow yearn to throw off the same shackles. But I don't know what shackles me. I am not centered. I just know I don't like IT right now...

I'm still alive

2006-11-21T02:19:00.000-08:00

Hello folks, yes I'm still alive. Hard to believe, I know. Barely, but yeah, it's me. I haven't disappeared into the abyss, though it's been about the same. Work has absolutely consumed my life, I haven't worked this hard since grad school, and I never thought I'd relive those days again...

It's sad, I am re-reading my blog posts from SE asia just two months before, and it's as if I was reading someone else's posts. I can't believe it's only been two months, those memories are so vivid in my mind. I can still close my eyes and recall all those moments, the vibrant colors, the pungent smells, the sweltering heat, the side-splitting crazy stories...but most of all, the people. God, I love the people, I miss my friends from around the world. And I call them "friends", because I really feel like they are my friends, even though the longest I've known most of them is a few days, maybe even shorter. But there's something about traveling that brings people together. To say kindred spirit is to be so cliché, but it's so true. I feel like I've known them for years, that although I may not see them for years, I'll still be able to swing by at the drop of a hat, and say, "Hey, I'm in town in Barcelona/Vienna/Dublin/Oslo/Hamburg/Godknowswhere for a few days. Want to meet up?" And I know they will. And I know they'll put me up, show me around, help me out. It's the bond. The unspoken code of travelers. To a certain degree, being in a foreign land is a great equalizer, where the usual dividers like class, color, money, love, politics, and gender takes a backseat to getting to know yourself, and the world around you. There is something about traveling that forces you to live in the present, because there is no past and no future. So you focus on the person next to you. Because you never know what his/her story is, where they've been to, what they've seen, why they're here. And you also don't know how long you'll be w/ this person, and whether you'll ever see them again. So all you have is now. Now now now. Each "Hello" is precious; each smile an implicit nod, an acknowledgement of "Yeah, I feel you man. I can't believe I'm here too!" Each moment is a unique experience never to be repeated again in the same place at the same time. And so you learn to live in the present, because that's all you have. Sigh.

I miss them so much. I miss traveling. I miss being on the road. I miss the humanity and the human interaction. It's not like I don't interact w/ people now; I deal w/ people every day. Writing hundreds of emails, having dozens of conversations across multiple (3) continents. Yet when I get home at 3am in the morning, I feel like there's something terribly artificial about this. It feels unreal. Maybe because all these interactions are not human-driven by the need to have a relationship, but product-driven to accomplish a goal - to launch a product, resolve a dispute, or come to a decision. 99.9% of the world do not care whether it's better to use bigram or unigram statistics to calculate log likelihoods for a Bayesian learning system. Really. I know, because I've been to places where taking a shower means bringing a bar of soap to the river. They can give less of a flying wombat's shit. Yet this consumes my world, my entire world right now. It feels absurd! I feel like I'm caught in the Matrix, where slowly you forget what real life was like before the virtual life. And strapping on that backpack with that ticket in your hand is like periodically taking the red pill, flushing you out into the darkness, unknown but full of possibilities. Terrifying, but exhilirating and enlivening.

Well, enough of waxing philosophically. I do want to write a more lengthy exposition about my experience at The Company (sorry, I'm paranoid) so far, but I'm just too tired to do it justice. Suffice to say, there are things I really like about this job, that I wouldn't trade for the world. And there are things I'm not so thrilled about. It's very different than what I expected, but I guess that's part of the learning too. Well, till next time then...

Sabaidee!

2006-09-08T06:55:00.000-07:00

Laos is just absolutely fantasic! I cannot say enough good things about this place. I feel like I've finally found the SE asia that I was looking for. Laotians are unbelievably nice, even at major tourist destinations like Ventiane and Luang Prabang. While tourism is rapidly growing into a mainstream industry here, it has yet to affect Laos the way it has taken over Cambodia or Vietnam. Vietnam is perhaps not a fair comparison since it has a growing economy, especially as a manufacturing outsource destination. I think the closest comparison is Cambodia, and the contrast I see is that while both countries are equally destitute, Laotians are generally much happier and nicer, and if I may, optimistic about their future. Granted, I did not have time to venture off the well-beaten track of PP and Siem Reap, but in general the Cambodians struck me as weary and jaded from the tourism. Understandably, there is so much hardship that one cannot blame them from trying earn a buck or two off a falang like me. But there is no joy in their eyes when I step into a shop, museum, or street - only money. It's sad. I've heard that things are much better out in the provinces like Battambang, but it's quite difficult to get out there without actually knowing people, due to the lack of infrastrucutre.

Conversely, it was such a welcome relief to not be mobbed by drivers, kids, and vendors peddling everything from rides to marajuana the minute I step off the bus in Laos. People here are genuinely happy to see tourists, amazingly enough. The locals would smile and say hello ("Sabaidee") as I walk through the streets and shops, answer my questions genuinely, and no one has yet tried to hard sell me anything. It's been really wonderful. I can't help but be saddened by the inevitable loss of innocence, that in 3-5 yrs Laos will grow into a well-oiled tourism machine, rolling in tourists by the conveyor belt and presenting a polished but fabricated experience. Am I too pessimistic? "Responsible" and "sustainable" tourism is suddenly no longer a catch phrase but a very real problem faced by these countries and us, the traveler community. As we travel the world in pursuit of that last undiscovered beach, lost ruin, or hidden village, are we helping these people and places or expediting their extinction? Will people a hundred years from now lament our imprudence, much as how we shake our heads at the brute who clubbed the last Dodo bird to death? I don't know, I have no good answers. Thus far I've tried as much as possible to respect the local customs, support the local artisans, and in general avoid being an ugly tourist. I'd like to think that everytime I step out to a new country, I'm in a small part being an ambassador for Taiwan, for Chinese people. It brings me as much joy to point Taiwan out someone on the map as it does to see a magnificient temple, to tell them about our customs as it does to learn about theirs. But yet, I cannot avoid this nagging feeling that what I give is pitifully little compared to what I've received in their magnanimous generosity and hospitality. Sigh.

I just got back from a two day trek through the Laos jungles in Luang Prabang, which involved a 50km bike ride the first day, and 15km kayaking trip the 2nd. I am sore as all hell, but it was absolutely fantastic. We biked to a remote village to watch a provincial dragon boat race on the Mekong. We were extremely fortunate, as the boat race is an annual event that brings villages from all over the province together in celebration, so we really got to see a slice of the local life. Afterwards, we biked for another hour and stayed overnight w/ a local family, then kayaked back via the Nam Ou and Mekong river.

My Tour de Lao team, sponsored by Lonely Planet

Giving new meaning to the term "Garage Band"

Disco, anyone?

Row, row, row your boat

More pics from the road

2006-09-02T22:53:00.000-07:00

My crowning achievement in SE Asia thus far -

OK, j/k. Just couldn't resist :) But guys, really. It is _that_ good outside of Seattle (or should I say it is _that_bad in Seattle?)

Pics of other good friends from the road

Jeff from DC. A great, great guy all around. We traveled for almost a week in Vietnam. Totally reminds me of my freshman roommate Jonah. Carved out of the same mold, and even plays a mean axe just like Jonah. I got to relive some memories as we did a little dual jamming on our Ha Long bay trip, entertaining the boat w/ some sing-along. Though we did find out it's much tougher to find common music that everyone knows w/ an international crowd :)

Jen and Pete from Pittsburgh - the only few other Americans I've met so far. They fit the all-American archetype to a T and just great fun to hang out w/. Funny enough, Jen's obsessed w/ Google btw. I swear girl knows more about it than I do!

More mates from across the Isles, Deutschland, and Norway!

Man and Boy

Amazing views from Ha Long Bay

Random thoughts from the road

2006-08-30T18:36:00.000-07:00

I just can't say enough good things about other travelers in SE Asia so far. People have been so awesome, I've been making friends everywhere. On the plane, on the bus, on tours, in guesthouses...you name it, I've met people there. I also met one friend on my last trip through Europe, but I just have to say I really like the SE Asia crowd. There are a lot of kindred spirits out here, lots of people who are at a crossroads in life, so they've quit their jobs, stopped out, or postponed whatever it is they're doing to come out here to figure out where they're going in life. I really enjoy that.

I really love the traveler's credo. Not that there's an explicit one, but in general I've found that most travelers out here share a similar mindset - Leave things/people as you find them as much as possible; Help another traveler as you'd like to be helped, etc. I really like it.

Other random thoughts from the road

- Things worth its weight in gold in SE Asia: Toilet paper and mosquito repellent. Laugh, you say? You'll thank me someday. Trust me.
- Thai mosquitoes >> Cambodian mosquitoes >> Vietnamese mosquitoes (thus far)
- Kareoke videos are just as cheesy in Khmer as they are in English. Except they're a lot more violent! I saw one typical boy-girl breakup song video which proceeded as usual. Just when I was about to fall asleep, the dude pulled out a gun and shot the girl in the head at the end! Definitely woke me up.
- What is it w/ SE Asian's love of Kareoke videos on long bus rides? It's only amusing for maybe the first hour!
- Always, always ask about what services are included while looking for a massage. Always
- When standing in a river, should you ever notice Cambodian folks pointing at your feet in horror and moving back, RUN like all hell and don't look back. (Generally it means there's a snake moving toward you at high speed)
-
Ticket to SE Asia: $1160
Cab ride: $2
Apocalypse Now (one of Saigon's biggest clubs) admission: $5
Rocking to 'Ice Ice Baby' w/ fellow Vietnamese hipsters: priceless. Did you ever think Vanilla Ice will be back in vogue again?!

Technical difficulties

2006-08-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

I've been having technical difficulties trying to post, hence the lack of posting lately. I'm able to login and publish posts, but I can't access anything from *.blogspot.com domain, so I can't see my own or anyone else's posts. I don't know if it's a Vietnam-specific issue (seems unlikely), but it frustrates me to no end. Blogger really is a pretty crappy solution, maybe when I get to Google I can help make it better. Until then, sigh. But apparently the posts can be seen in the US, so I'll just post blind and hope it turns out ok :)

Me mates

2006-08-22T20:32:00.000-07:00

Interestingly, I've been traveling for almost two weeks now, and I have still yet to meet a single American. I've met people from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Israel, and just about everywhere else, but not the US. Sadly, it seems to confirm the stereotype that Americans don't get out of their backyard. I read a stat once that something like over 90% of Americans don't even have a passport?! How sad is that?

So far I've had no trouble meeting people at all. It seems that SE asia circuit is much more social, even compared to Europe. I haven't had a single night by myself when I didn't want to. Some nights I've basically had to decline going out or else I just wouldn't be able to get up the next day. It's certainly been a welcome change compared to certain days when I was traveling through the Baltics last year and I'd go a couple days without speaking to anyone, literally. That was character building, but also a bit challening at times. Still, SE asia circuit is definitely a great place to chill and party, and I think you also get further away from the obnoxious American frat boys on the European circuit.

I was talking w/ a woman from the UK and she just raved about the S. America circuit - Chile, Argentina,

Shout outs to some of the people I've been hanging out w/ so far - surprisingly, a whole lot of British people. I just got on a tour bus today again w/ a bunch of Brits, they were all totally awesome. Completely shatters the stereotype that Brits are cold and reserved.

Me mates - Matt (Australia), and Lina and Sarah from UK

More mates - Sara, Binit, Becky, and Ashley (all UK)

Yun Jeong from Korea - her English wasn't great, and obviously my Korean was non-existent, but we had a blast anyways. Hand gestures gets you a long ways

Hey HC, I met a couple of cute Malaysian girls at the airport, btw. Sorry I didn't get their contact info, otherwise I'd totally hook you up ;)

Other pics

Sunrise, Ankor Wat - unfortunately, it was very cloudy that day, so the picture could've been much better

Carving, Ankor Wat

Monk, Ankor Wat

Old woman, Ankor Wat

Mixed feelings

2006-08-20T04:41:00.000-07:00

Being in SE Asia evokes mixed feelings in me, and Cambodia only reinforces and intensifies them ever more so. To co-opt Dicken's words, "it is the best of places, and it was the worst of places". There are things I love about this place, like the amazing food, beaches and jungles, simple country people (when one can find them), and the rich history and cultural heritage. On the other hand, there are also things that just make me angry or sad: the blatant commericialism and consequent exploitation and callousness, the income disparity and utter depravity, and the sheer corruption and apathy at times. I now understand how HC feels about India; our love-hate feelings must be pretty similar in this regard.

Somehow I always seem to have transportation issues when travelling. I managed to score a super cheap flight from BKK to Phnom Penh (PP) for $50 total, including taxes. Before I could congratulate myself however, I didn't realize that Thai immigration takes forever to process, with multiple stages before and after security screening. As such, I went through the first stage thinking I had plenty of time, so I did what I naturally do when I have time - eat. After a leisurely breakfast at KFC, I went in again, then realized I needed to go through immigration again, then two security checkpoints, and take a bus out to the plane! Needless to say, I missed my flight and was kicking myself all morning. Then I had to go buy another flight out, which fortunately did not cost an arm and a leg, but did make me wait for almost 6hrs at the airport. Lesson - no more KFC at the airport from now on.

After that fiasco, I finally landed in PP and I felt like I was transported to another world. Despite my "acclimatization" period in Thailand, I was still not fully prepared for Cambodia. While perhaps not as bad as parts of Africa where there're no running water or electricity, this is definitely a 3rd world country. The abject poverty in parts of Phnom Penh asserts itself in your face, and it's difficult to ignore. Coming into town on the back of a moto, the road is equally shared by motos, bikers, cows, naked kids, hand carts, and a million other moving things. Backpackers inevitably stick out like a sore thumb with our signature tevas/flip flops and backpacks, and so as soon we step out onto the road we are mobbed by drivers throwing themselves at us yelling, "taxi/tuk-tuk/moto, sir?" or "hey you, where you go?" (the singularly most annoying expression in all of SE asia). And we'd be assaulted by beggars and street children, some of whom make your heart ache, but others who just blatantly guilt you into giving them money. And though I know they're guilt-tripping me, I still can't help feeling guilty, and I hate that. Things are old, broken, dirty everywhere, and the streets are littered with trash. When you turn the corner beyond the tourist areas, I feel like I'm walking into the slums that I've only seen on TV; children running naked without clothes, rolling and playing in the dirt. Shacks assembled from driftwood and metal pieces, burning trash in the streets, animal feces splattered on the ground It's certainly an unglamorous side of travelling, but I'm very glad I get to see this side of SE asia. Without this I would simply be another naive tourist who roll in for the sun and beaches, and head out without a look behind the scenes.

If I had to describe PP in one word, I'd say "hard". I feel like PP is a hard city; its people are hard, its environment is hard, and its fortune is hard. I don't think I mind the poverty so much as how it's changed people. For example, my tuk-tuk driver kept pushing me to go to a shooting range, which is a popular tourist stop, after I came out of the Tuol Sleng museum, where Pol Pot interrogated and tortured his prisoners before sending them off to the Killing Fields. After the museum, the last thing I wanted to do was touch a gun, and here was this guy getting in my face, pestering me non-stop to go to the range, so he can earn his commission! I wanted to yell at him so badly for his insensitivity, then restrained myself, since I figured he's just trying to survive and make money however he can. It's also sad to see how the street urchins have honed their craft so well, they know exactly who to target (female Westerners in pairs or groups), how to close ("you not give me, you make me sad") and what to ask for ("food for my brother/sister/mother/family"). I really can't blame them, but at the same time, it's disheartening. I'm pretty sure if I was in their place, I would probably be doing the same thing. Civility is often a luxury only practiced by those who can afford it. Yet I wonder, and this applies to all nations striving to catch the great capitalism train, like China, if a little something is not lost during this mad rush to modernize and capitalize?

Well, on a lighter note, I think the market is a wonderful place for photography. The vibrant mix of colors and lighting just creates all sorts of opportunities that can make even an amateur photographer like me look good :)

Mmmm...breakfast

Shopping heaven for ladies

A simple, wonderful woman who sold me some scallion pancakes. I bought one from her for breakfast, and after making an entire round at the market, I decided it was so good I just had to go back and get another one. When I went back, she recognized me immediately, and her face just totally lit up. Despite us not being able understand a word from each other, I feel like she was one of the few locals with whom I really connected. She was genuinely delighted to see me because I liked her food, not because she saw flashing dollar signs screaming "easy tourist money". These are the little moments that keep me from becoming totally jaded while on the road.

Mother and child - the kid was bewildered by my camera, but she soon took to it quite eagerly :)

And more sombering photos from Tuol Sleng

Prisoner's cell

Photos of the deceased

Prison hallway

Pics!

2006-08-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

More pictures!

Quick post before I get eaten alive by the mosquitoes...

Wat Pho temple

Temple of the Jade Buddha

Men playing some form of checkers using...bottle caps?

Oh beautiful, glorious, CHEAP food! (340 baht, about $9)

A wonderful street vendor who provided me lunch

I had a blast trying to speak to her using my pidgin Thai picked up from the back of my LP guide. It's pretty amazing how far you can get by on facial expressions, a map, and lots of smiles. We managed to chat about my photos, what to see and what to what to avoid (Q: what does gun gesture + south of Thailand equal? A: mafia country!), and she taught me how to count to 10 :) Thai is damn hard, I tell ya. Their writing alphabet seem so complicated. Now I understand why people complain Chinese characters are so hard; to the untrained eye it must look like the friggin' Egyptian hieroglyphs!

Now boarding: flight to Hell!

At the Ancient City

I finally decided to get a travel photography book to actually teach myself how to shoot better photos. Prior to this I had always been a trial-and-error photographer, basically getting by just by shooting a large volume of shots and picking the best ones. While digital photography affords one the ability to do so, it obviously doesn't get one very far, and I bit the bullet and splurged on an actual guide. It was 850 baht (~$21), but I think it's totally worth it. Now I can really consciously work on getting better on this trip. I just picked it up yesterday, but I think (hope) my composition is already getting a little better!

Touchdown

2006-08-13T11:34:00.000-07:00

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for this update --

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

I just touched down in Bangkok after a brutal, 24hr flight (thanks to a 2 hr layover in SFO and 6hr layover in Narita). I'm completely beat, since I haven't slept much the previous couple of nights either, thanks to moving craziness. In total it's been about 8hrs in bed out of 3 days...ouch). I'm staying at the Shanti Lodge, which looks to be really awesome so far.

The craziest thing happened in narita though - I ran into Tim Choi, good friend whom I haven't seen in a long time at the airport!! He was on a flight back to sfo and I was waiting to transit to bangkok. I walked into this japanese food court to get some food, and i heard someone call my name. I was like, "wtf? there must be a mistake." I turn around and lo and behold, there's Tim! Crazy huh? We hung out for an hr while I ate some food and caught up, that was really cool. Talk about a small world.

Thus far, I'd have to say I think Thailand's rumored heat is overrated. Nyc was hotter and more humid. The mosquitoes, however, are not. I've only been here a couple hours and the assault has already begun in earnest. I count half a dozen so far. This must be the new guy welcome...

We're not in Kansas (or Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania...) anymore

2006-08-11T22:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's true. For those of you who worried, we haven't been perpetually stuck in the twilight zone between Chicago and the cornfields of Ohio, despite what this blog may have you believe. I just haven't had time to write anything halfway decent, and I hate to just ramble all over my blog. So I'll have to give you a brief, whirlwind picture tour of the rest of our trip before I dash off to Thailand tomorrow.

Corn! We are children of the corn!

This is the closest this city boy has ever been to a real corn, outside of Safeway. Naturally, it was quite exciting for me.

Somewhere along the way in Erie, Penn, we found this Nascar-themed Buffalo wings haven, and we just had to go. I mean, that's why people do on road trips right? Apparently people come from all over, including neighboring states, to this place to eat. Besides the over-the-top decor, they also offer about 30 different levels of hot wings, from the mere tangy, to truly atomic. Apparently the atomic version has something like 25,000 units of spice-ness (I don't remember the exact scientific name) per unit of food, which requires you to sign a consent form and liability waiver before they'll let you try it. I kid you not.

Sneak preview at Oct's cover of Hot Rod magazine!

On the road

2006-07-31T08:54:00.000-07:00

After an almost too short 3 days in Chicago, we hit the road for small town America, burgers, corn fields, and UFOs. On our way out from Chicago, we hit some massive rain. Now I know why Midwesterners snicker at Seattle rain. Seriously, I thought when people said it rained so hard that it was like pouring water on your windshield, I always thought they were full of ish. But check this out.

Before

After

It was no exaggeration when I say it was like someone was throwing buckets and buckets of water on our windshield. Later we found out that we encountered one of the biggest downpours of the year thus far, causing flooding in Cleveland and a bunch of other cities in the Midwest.

I'm also proud to announce my new favorite chain diner - best catfish fillets and candied carrots ever!

Look, giant Smarties! Only in the midwest!

Pick up lines, 50's-style

Chicago, part deux

2006-07-29T06:42:00.000-07:00

A trip to Chicago would not be complete without a visit to one of its ethnic neighborhoods, so we went to check out Pilsen, a well-known Hispanic neighborhood despite its not-so-Spanish name (interestingly, Pilsen is the Czech town where Pilsner Urquell was born, where I went for a brewery tour). The subway stop had lots of artistic murals, providing an interesting backdrop to an otherwise weathered subway stop.

And then we had lunch at this wonderful hole in the wall Mexian place called Gloria's. Gloria, the owner herself, really welcomed us and made us felt at home. Barrie chatted up the super friendly owner with ease in Spanish (sigh, I'm so jealous. She speaks Italian and Spanish), while I got to embarrass myself with my crap-tastic gringo (or would that be amarillo?) espanol.

Me: uh, um, para mi, uno taco asada por favor? (por? para? damn I can never
remember)
Gloria: un taco asada? y una coca cola?
Me: [nods head vigorously]

Despite my mighty linguistic struggles, the food was awesome. Simple but hearty and refreshing.

After an unsuccessful attempt to Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise since it wasn't really worth it, we made it out to the Navy Pier for a nice night walk.

What does this remind you of?

While officially called "Cloud Nine", it is known as "The Bean" to everyone else. Anish Kapoor's gigantic metallic sculpture in Millennium Park is an endless source of amusement to people, especially kids (and yours truly). Its curved and reflective surface creates all sorts of cool photo opportunities. On a sunny day, as when we were there, you can see an endless stream of people underneath the giant bean looking at their own reflections. It's also just a great public space for people to gather and spend time outdoors with friends and families. A Chicago paper I read proudly proclaimed that Chicagoans are the people who best know how to enjoy summer. During the fleeting month or two of comfortable, warm weather, everyone just comes out en masse to enjoy the weather, not unlik Seattlelites. Though we don't really have much to complain about when comparing weather with our Midwestern neighbors.

There's also Crown Fountain, two opposing 50 ft structures composed of glass cubes, forming mosaics of various citizens. They smile, they frown, and every once in a while, they blow!

And the adventure begins

2006-07-25T22:06:00.000-07:00

My (hopefully epic) travels for this year has officially begun yesterday, after I quit my job, packed my things, and hit the road for good. It still feels kind of surreal that my life in Seattle is over and I'm now moving into unknown territory, but it also feels good too. Sometimes you need a little catalyst to jolt you out of the mundane and remind yourself what living life, not just merely coasting along, is like. I just can't describe how electrifyingly alive it is to be on the road again.

So, I set out for the Windy City with Portos and Athos...ahem, I mean Alex and Barrie.

And first impressions so far? Wow, what a majestic city. Everything about it is grand, spacious, and open. It is probably the most architecturally aesthetic American city I have ever been to, truly living up to its heritage of Frank Lloyd Wright and other amazing architects. Downtown is filled with well-preserved Beaux Arts and Art Deco buildings, and walking around often feels like traversing a man-made Grand Canyon of steel and glass. We're staying at a fabulous location, in the middle of downtown CHI, where everything is within walking or L distance.

Knowing me and food, one of the first things we did was to go to Pizzeria Uno, the purported birthplace of the deep-dish pizza. The pizza was damn good I have to say. Not quite as good as I had hoped it to be, the crust was a little flaky for my liking, but the toppings were flavorful and servings generous.

Secretly, I think Zachary's in Berkeley is a bit better, but it's probably difficult to live up to everyone's expectations as well. Funny thing is, there's a Pizzeria Due down the street if the line ever became too long, though fortunately we didn't need to go there.

Next we walked down the Magnificent Mile, which is this stretch along Michigan Ave. with tons of luxury shops and buildings, kind of like Chicago's version of 5th Ave. We dutifully played our part of wide-eyed tourists by going up the John Hancock building to get a panoramic view of the city. I'm glad to say it didn't disappoint; to see Lake Michigan stretch to horizon with no land in sight is truly magnificent, and makes you wonder if the early explorers ever mistook the Great Lakes for an actual sea.

After coming down, I have to admit I succumbed to my impulses and bought some stuff at H&M ;) But they were good bargains (when is H&M ever not cheap?), or at least that's what I keep telling myself. For dinner, we ventured out of the touristy downtown into Lincoln Park, one of Chicago's old neighborhoods. It was gorgeous, to walk along in the warm summer night breeze, sunset in the background, and rows upon rows of old, charming apartments and houses lining the streets. There were little boutiques on the 1st floor and beautifully restored housing on top, reminding me a lot of parts of Boston and SF.

And for dinner (yes, you know it was going to come back to food, don't you?), we went to this awesome place called Cafe Ba Ba Reeba, which served up some finger-licking-good Spanish tapas with some good-looking clientele :) Umm yeah, doubly delicious. I guess there must be some sort of reason among the karma gods, as Seattle's imbalanced ratio is obviously balanced out elsewhere in the universe - like here.

I'd love to write more but sadly my internet connection is running out and I must go...to be continued!

The (sports) gods must be angry

2006-07-06T00:40:00.000-07:00

god, what the hell happened to the sports world? I go camping for a few days and all hell breaks loose. First Brazil loses to France, which totally sucks. Then Portugal beats England, which is bullshit, those diving bastards don't deserve to advance, and now Germany loses to Italy, another stage-acting, overdramatic, flopping team? This is friggin terrible. And the Lakers are picking up Radmanovic (read: yet another one-dimensional, soft shooter with no inside game. Like we need another one of them?) What kind of retard ass move is that? Jesus christ, my beloved lakers is totally going to the shitters...please just shoot me now. We don't need Jerry West to see thatwe need an athletic, two-way defensive doberman at the 1 - hell even I can see that!

Update: well at least France beat those Portuguese floppers today. Good god. I'm rooting for les bleus to take it all now, now that my favorites are all knocked out. Sadness.

On Gilmore Girls, the big G, and Southeast Asia

2006-06-30T18:12:00.000-07:00

'Gilmore Girls' is a hit with guys, too'

Yes!!! Now I can finally come out of the closet - I, too, am a Gilmore Girls fan! Wow, what a witty, charming show. I initially started watching only by accident because I was watching w/ someone, but then quickly got hooked. I just love the snarky, clever diaogue and embedded cultural and literary trivia all throughout the show. It's almost impossible to find TV with such wonderful writing these days. Just a very intelligent show with lots of warmth and endearing characters over all.

Yeah, and I love pink shirts too. There. :)

*************
In other news, I formally accepted my offer from the big G today. Yup, I will be quitting my first full-time, professional job. What a surreal moment. I never planned to stay in Seattle for more than a couple years, but still it seems like just yesterday when I first moved up and For those of you (gosh, for my limited blog readership - that's like what, all of five people?) who've been with me through out this drawn out process, thank you so much for your support, encouragement, advice, and well wishes. I couldn't have done it w/o my wonderful friends. Thank you all.

So now that I have some time off between jobs, I'm super excited to get back on the road again. It's been almost a year since I last strapped on my backpack, and I'm itching for some adventure. First, I will take two weeks to do a roadtrip across the US with some friends. Well, halfway across, rather than the whole way. I wanted to go the whole way but the other guys couldn't quit their jobs :) . We'll fly into Chicago and take the Oregon Trail, going through the Great Lakes, Niagra Falls, out to Boston, then down to NYC. You can even take a look at our trip plan here (btw, Live Local has got some awesome features. I think GMaps has kind of been sitting on its laurels the last couple of years. They really need to get off their asses, heh, maybe I'll be the one doing it).

Then, I'm planning on going to SE Asia for 5-6 wks, just backpacking through the mainland. So far on my itinerary is Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and possibly Myanmar. Any travel suggestions/advice people?

Hear, hear!

2006-06-21T22:38:00.000-07:00

Soccer has become a favorite pastime of the American intellectual. "Many people would say that soccer is the latte or the Subaru of the sporting spectrum"

The other shoe

2006-06-21T00:42:00.000-07:00

has finally dropped. It's been, what, almost five months now, since I wrote this entry? I can't believe it's been so long. And now the point has finally tipped, it feels so surreal. I've crossed, and now I just have to make a decision. What will it be? I supposed I should feel elated; instead, I just feel relieved. It's been such an agonizingly long process that during this past month I just wanted it to end - I didn't really care how. And now that things have, I feel surprisingly calm about it. Things aren't completely what I'd like them to be, there are a couple details that really irk me, though I don't think they will be deal breakers at the end.

Moreoever, I guess the decision will come down to what I'm looking for. There's been so much hype, part of me want to say yes just to find out for myself what's real vs. what's hype. That aside, everything I've learned and heard about the people have just been really great. People seem to be really, really sharp, and passionate about what they do. Which really excites me. I really want to re-capture my mojo again, to get so excited about something to want to work on it 24-7. Am I just really want to work with top-notch people. A+ people I can learn from, and be inspired by. That really excites me. They are growing really fast, too fast for my comfort, but then that's to be expected I suppose.

And I guess I do have some stories to tell, though I'm pretty wary of the power of search engines - I don't really want this to getting /.ed or digged or anything like that. Maybe it will suffice to say that I was asked questions of all shapes and sizes (in four different languages - first three went pretty well, pero mi espanol era muy malo though), from water bottle packaging, to egg dropping, to coding, to lots of infinite numbers, lists, sorts and optimal this and optimal that, to growing apple's market share, to winning in china, and a few more things here and there. Yeah, they do beat you up until you think you can't go anymore, and then some.

So what's it going to be? I don't really know yet. I guess I'll sleep on it for a few days, and then think about it some more. And I guess at least now I can watch all the world cup I want without worrying about this anymore. Ha!

Goooooooooooooooooool!!!!!!!!!!

2006-06-20T00:16:00.000-07:00

I've been watching a lot of World Cup this past week, averaging about 1 match/day. It's been awesome. I've never been a big football fan previously, because I always felt it was too low-scoring compared to games like bball and tennis, but now I can truly appreciate the game. The game can turn in seconds and every shot counts, unlike other sports. And I love how how the fans get so into it. The roar of the fans after a big play is simply electrifying.

Anyways, I found this as the official World Cup theme. Pretty cool, not quite as good as Ricky Martin's "La Copa de la Vida" but still really good.

And check out this goal - how incredible is that?!

Interestingly, the traditional powerhouses aren't doing terribly well. Brazil has underwhelmed in its two games so far, and so has Holland. France is on the verge of elimination, and Englad barely scraped through its last two matches. Argentina is the only one performing to form so far, their 6:0 crushing of S&M was awe-inspiring. Too bad they may meet the Germans in the quarterfinals.

As a side benefit, it's certainly helping me get up earlier these days, to watch these 9am matches. Maybe I'll be conditioned into an early riser after the Cup, ha!

你心中的這個特別的朋友

2006-06-12T22:24:00.000-07:00

你心中有這樣的一個人嗎？
你們可能相愛過，你們也可能喜歡著彼此，
但是，為了什麼原因你們沒能在一起？
也許他為了朋友之間的義氣，不能追你。
也許為了顧及家人的意見，你們沒有在一起。

也許為了出國深造，他沒有要你等他。
也許你們相遇太早，還不懂得珍惜對方。
也許你們相遇太晚，你們身邊已經有了另一個人。
也許你回頭太遲，對方已不再等待。
也許你們彼此在捉摸對方的心，而遲遲無法跨出界線。

不過即使你們沒在一起，你們還是保持了朋友的關系。
但是你們心底清楚，對這個人，你比朋友還多了一份關心。
即使不能跟他名正言順的牽著手逛街，你們還是可以做無所不談的朋友。
他有喜歡的人，你口頭上會幫他追，心里卻不是很清楚，你是不是真的希望他追到。

他遇到困難時，你會盡你所能的幫他，不會計較誰又欠了誰。
男女朋友吃醋了，你會安撫他們說你和他只是朋友，但你心中會有那麼一絲的不確定。
每個人這輩子，心中都有過這麼一個特別的朋友，很矛盾的行為。
一開始你不甘心只做朋友的，但久了，突然發現這樣最好。
希望我們來世還有線能相逢
你寧願這樣關心他，總好過你們在一起而有天會分手。
你寧願做他的朋友，彼此不會吃醋，才可以真的無所不談。
特別是這樣，你還是知道，他永遠會關心你的。
做不成男女朋友，當他那個特別的朋友，有什麼不好呢？
你心中的這個特別的朋友……？是誰呢？
*************

你好嗎? 雖然我已再也不陪伴在你身旁可是我還是一直想念著你, 牽掛著你過得好不好。我會永遠在遠方祝福你,為你祈禱。也希望我們來世有緣再相逢。

I'm getting old...

2006-05-25T01:07:00.000-07:00

God, I must really be getting old. I played a bunch of bball today, 2 league games at the pro club, then another hour of pickup afterwards. Now my legs feel like they are going to fall apart. My right ankle hurts still from turning it last week, my calves were cramping, my left quad is tight as a steel cable, and let's not even start on my knees. It's sad to know that you've hit the age when your body is slowing down and you're just not able to recover the way you used to. I used to play bball all day long out on the blacktop courts of wilbur, man every day after class freshman year I'd be balling it up for hours until sundown. Never a pain or an ache, except the occasional turned ankle. Sigh, those were the days...

I'm sure everyone deals w/ aging differently, but it's funny to note it happening to myself. It basically started sometime last year, when I started to have knee problems. That was when it really hit me, "oh shit, so this aging thing that people always talk about...it's actually happening!" It's not that I didn't believe I could get old; it was simply that thought never crossed my mind, because there was never any sign of it. I could run all day, stay up all night, work all the time, drink all I want (well, maybe not all I want, but a pretty respectable amount). Until now I guess. Anyways, so now I pop vitamins, b-complex, and fish oil every night, watch what I eat, workout 3-4 times a week, don't binge anymore, etc etc etc. All the stuff that my mom nagged me for years to do to no avail, suddenly I'm doing it all religiously by myself. With no one watching over my shoulders. Ironic, isn't it?

Another thing I find kind of funny is how I tend to overdo things when I start. Like when I first started watching what I eat, I think it must been from reading one too many Men's Health mags that Garry had lying around or something. But suddenly one day I just decided, I'm going to start eating better. So I cut out all this stuff cold turkey. Literally, like I just woke up one morning, and stopped eating all of this -

pizza
fries
potato chips (or pretzels, mixes, any sort of stuff you'd find in that aisle)
fast food (except grilled chicken sandwiches)
soda
ice cream
chocolate (a lot of it, at least)
cookies
and some other things I don't recall right now

And I actually did this for months! What made me eventually cave on pizza and soda was not so much the craving, but the fact that our cafeteria is such crap and the food is so shitty, if you don't eat pizza you'll basically starve to death many days. And if I don't eat something high calorie, I just can't get through an afternoon. But still, there was stuff I completely cut out that I don't miss that much. Like potato chips, fast food, ice cream, cookies. It's weird. It's like after you don't eat it for a while, you don't want it anymore. weird.

I tried quitting ramen, but that was just too damn hard. It's a constant struggle for a continuous eater like me (my boss says I'm like a cow. I don't eat, I just continously graze). I'd have periods where I go "dry", but then I would totally relapse and start binging on ramen. Sigh, bad habit from college. Oh well, I guess you gotta have one or two things to indulge in.

Haha, too funny

2006-04-26T00:36:00.000-07:00

Recently a recruiter for a major firm visited several prominent business schools to interview the best candidates. As is common in interviewing today, she asked a number of behavioral questions to asses the candidates potential. “You are driving in a rental car to a client’ s job site in the Arizona desert. The car hits a nail and one of your tires blows out. The rental car company has forgotten to put the spare tire in the car’s trunk and your cell phone is out of range. You are several miles from the nearest public phone and there isn’t a lot of traffic on the highway. What do you do?”

Here’s how the candidates responded at various schools:

HARVARD: “I’m so important to my client; he’ll come looking for me.”
CHICAGO: “The present value of a tire and wheel is less than the future value of a client contract. Therefore, drive as many miles as necessary on the flat.”
STANFORD: “I’d drive on the flat tire; however I’d let the air out of the other three tires first so that the car rides better.”
MIT: “I’d remove the tires and install rocket pods.”
MICHIGAN: “This would never happen to me. I only rent Japanese cars that don’t get flat tires.”
COLUMBIA: “The desert and the middle of nowhere without any people? You must be thinking about New Jersey.”
WHARTON: “There are so many Wharton people; it will only be a couple minutes before an alum drives by.”
CORNELL: “You must be mistaken; Arizona is not the middle of nowhere. Ithaca is the middle of nowhere.”
UNC-CHAPEL HILL: “I’d do whatever the NASCAR guys do in a flat tire situation.”
WISCONSIN: “Start drinking. Repeat as often as necessary.”
USC: “The first thing you need to do in this situation is to call a lawyer.”
UT-AUSTIN: “Burn the tires for a smoke signal.”
PENN STATE: “Pop the hood and see if the spare tire is in there.”

She hired the Penn State grad.

Oh hey look, I found the question (Yarr Maties) that I bombed years ago when I was interviewing for an equity trader internship at GS...ah, those were the days.

Brilliant. The best commercial I've seen in a long time...

2006-04-20T14:38:00.000-07:00

Those of you who understand Chinese will absolutely appreciate the brilliance of this commericial.

Background:
Tongbohu is a famous dead poet who's also known as quite a playboy. There's a famous old Chinese poem, loosely translated as "It's raining now, should I keep my guest or not?", which I actually don't remember if it was written by him or someone else. But, it plays on the importance of punctuation in the Chinese language, and how merely moving a period or comma from one character to another can completely change the meaning of entire sentences or even paragraphs. It's a well-known story studied by kids all over in elementary schools, and even I still remember it till this day. It also illustrates an unique nuance of the Chinese language very well.

Enter video:

Brilliant. Simply absolutely brilliant

I love the none-too-subtle exophobic jab and underlying nationalistic implications here. Plays extremely well to the Chinese youth market and popular sentiments. I am quite impressed.

Personally, I have compared both searches, and I do think Baidu does a better job of parsing Chinese than Google does. Google has got a real competitor on its hands, and things are gonna get interesting...

English translation as follows -

Foreigner: I know! Heh heh.
Tangbohu (a famous Chinese clever guy): Hahahaha~~ You may not know!
Tangbohu: I know you don’t know. I know you don’t know I know. YOU DON’T KNOW.
Foreigner: I know!
All: Ei? [audience is surprised at Foreigner's seeming agreement with Tangbohu that the foreigner does NOT know (as in does not "get it"]
Foreigner: Ei!I know!
Tangbohu: Not necessarily. I know you don’t know me, I know you don’t know me, haha~ I know you don’t know!
Foreigner: I know!
Tangbohu: I know that you don’t know I know. You don’t know that I know you don’t know!

Look Ma, I'm on TIME magazine!

2006-03-14T23:03:00.000-08:00

Well, almost. My team and our product made it into 3/20 issue of TIME magazine. Check us out.

I think this one is going on the refrigerator...

Information overload

2006-03-13T01:06:00.000-08:00

I just spent most of the day studying more marketing, and reading up on Google, their analyst day slides, the various aliases, and blogs. Talk about overwhelming information, whew. But it is exciting and stimulating. This certainly makes my day job look boring as all hell when I have to get in tomorrow to write about...ugh, video drivers. F*ck, It's getting harder and harder to get up these days for work.

The analyst day slides were interesting, but still not as interesting as Batelle's forecasting of possible Google moves. Still, I came away impressed by the company's focus on growing a sound business. The media often paints an image of Google being a bazaar run by engineers where no one knows what's going on, but there is financial discipline. I like the various operational and financial metrics used for measuring performance as well. I think that's a good sign that a company is maturing.

Some of the mentions were interesting, I wonder what Lighthouse is? Hmm...

It is still not clear to me how Google has a competitive advantage when it comes to offline advertising, however. I'm not sure how well Adsense applies to print and radio advertising, you'd have to digitize all the content first. The only advantage Google offers is leveling the playing field by introducing the auction model to advertising, essentially cutting out the middle man (advertising agencies). But in print/radio media where traditional advertising is deeply entrenched, I'm not sure how well that'll play. It's also biting the hands that feeds them, as advertising firms have the traditioanl relationships w/ all the big named accounts. But then again, I'm still a novice about this space so I can be way off.

Too tired to write more, need to go home and sleep.

Oh lastly, I benched 175 today! And that's at an end of an inverted routine as well (8x 125lb, 6x 135lb, 4x 145lb, 3x 155lb). Quite proud of myself. I wonder if I could possibly break 200lb this year?

On marketing and diamonds

2006-03-11T16:41:00.000-08:00

OK, usually I think marketing training and books are a waste of time; most of the time the material just seem like common sense to me. While I still don't think it's rocket science, I am gaining have a little more respect for the discipline now.

Consider this:

In 1932, the global market for diamonds was $100,000. De Beers changed that forever by altering the perception of the purpose of diamonds. They launched a deliberate campaign to create an association in the minds of young men that diamonds are a gift of love, and an association in the minds of young women that diamonds are an essential part of romance and marriage. Their strategy included seminars on diamonds to high school students, news stories about celebrity romances and their diamonds, and strategic product placements in Hollywood movies such as “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “Diamonds are Forever.” So how did the strategy work?

More than 100 million women now wear diamonds.

Over 75% percent of brides receive a diamond ring.

The market has grown to 50 billion dollars.

De Beers controls two thirds of the market.

Frightening, isn't it? Now millions of men everywhere like myself will have De Beers to thank when we plunk down that 3-6mo salary savings on a rock. (OK, OK, it's really for that sparkle in your eyes when we get down on one knee, but still).

And now what are they working on now that they've convinced the women of the world that diamonds are a symbol of love?

The new De Beers campaign targets women's right hands. The left hand says "we", the right hand says "me." The message is that even if you are married you can still make a statement with your other hand. And, if you are not married, you will still want to make a statement--and you can make a statement of independence with your right hand. This new campaign is targeting emotions, changing perceptions, and redefining the category once again.

"Women of the world. Raise your right hand."

Genius, I tell you. Pure genius. You gotta hand it to these guys. I have a newfound respect for marketers now.

Pace of change

2006-03-10T01:29:00.000-08:00

Talk about accelerating pace of change...geez. I was feeling OK today, still doing all my work and everything, but then started reading some blogs, doing some puzzles to prepare tonight and now I'm feeling it a little bit. I hate to use the word "stressed" cuz it makes me feel like a wimp, but let's just say it'll be a little harder to fall asleep tonight. It's like being back in school all over again, that frantic period when you're about to graduate, trying to keep all the balls in the air, lest one of them fall. After working for a while I guess you just turn on autopilot and aren't exercising your brains anymore, and now suddenly I have to get it cranking again. It's gonna be intense.

Leaks...and then some

2006-03-09T18:42:00.000-08:00

Wow, has everyone seen this? I feel robbed. :(

******
holy crappola, i didn't realize my link showed up on mini's trackback. good god, i yanked the link asap. don't want that mass of people over here.

Musings on "The Search" and other ramblings

2006-03-02T00:12:00.000-08:00

I'm reading John Batelle's "The Search" right now, about 1/3 way through it. I don't think there is any self-respecting techie who can read the story of Sergey and Page and not get completely fired up. It's basically every wannabe entrepreneur's wet dream come true. Reading through history of all the incredible innovation that came out of Stanford, from Excite, to Yahoo, to Google, to god knows what's next, it reminded me what it was like being there at that time. The electricity in the air, when there was a startup job fair every other week, competiting ads in the Daily with ridiculous offers, business plan competitions getting more hype than March Madness (well, almost. we sucked after I got in), free t-shirts everywhere, and everyone trying to score that coveted internship. It reminded me that at one point, I had that same passion, that same fire of wanting to change the world. To be a part of something from the beginning and believe in it so much, that I was willing to eat, breath, and sleep it. I suppose I am trying to recapture that kind of passion in my life. Do I still have it? Do I still have what it takes?

This also made me think about how things turn out in Life in ironic ways. I remember when I was applying to college, I actually really really wanted to go to MIT, and I was bitterly disappointed when I was waitlisted. Stanford was my top choice too, it probably would've been a toss-up between the two had I gotten into both. But now in retrospect, I would not give up going to Stanford for the world. That was absolutely the best place for me, to be there from '98 to '02, witnessing the bubble grow and then burst and to take in that atmosphere. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that had a tremendous impact on my development as a person. But I would never have experienced this had I gone to MIT. Sigh, why can't foresight be as clear as hindsight?

So that was a long winded way of convincing myself, maybe something that I'm bitterly regretting now may turn out to hold something else for me in turn? Or maybe not :) But I guess that's all part of life.

As I've said previously, things are now in motion and accelerating at a breakneck pace. For the first time, I have zero cycles left at work, which is rare for me since my upperbound is literally every waking minute. While it's not all work, I'm still exhausted. I went home at 5am last night and had to pull myself up for work at 9am...almost reminds me of college again :) Maybe I should be careful what I wish for.

It is nice to be firing on all cycles again. I have to say, I was refreshing my knowledge of basic bayesian statistics last night. I swear, I could hear the gears grinding and groaning as I was slowly firing up that dormant machine upstairs again. It definitely took a while, at first I couldn't even remember the theorems. But man did it feel good when it all came back. It's nice to know I've still got it, at least some of it.

It's also been frustrating trying to prove myself to skeptics who doubt my business acumen or management ability. I understand their concerns, but at the same time, it really is not rocket science. Especially at the product level. Sorry if I sound full of myself, but if I've more than proven myself to be smart enough to completely pick up being a PM in a field I did not study, I find it difficult to imagine I could not do something similar. Yet another challenge of professional working life I supposed. I find that often the hardest part is not doing the job, but rather "showing" that you can do the job. They sound the same but are actually quite different, and this perception management part probably frustrates me much more than actual execution itself.

Sorry, I wish I could be less vague, but there is no access control on this blog. I really wish blogger had that feature. :(

Tipping points

2006-02-07T23:47:00.000-08:00

In Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point", there is a concept of "tipping point" - a point where critical mass or momentum propels tremendous change into reality. Sometimes called "strategic inflection", "chasm", or "singularity" from other business and science literature. I wonder, if there are tipping points in our personal life too. Every so often, my life comes to a tipping point, where I can feel it accelerate into change. Perhaps I am at that point again now, except this time, instead of coming to a fork where I can somewhat see where the various paths lead, I've come to a cliff beyond which is the vast unknown. I can feel myself accelerating faster and faster toward this point of no return. It came earlier than I expected, and I'm not sure if I feel ready for it. But then again, are we ever ready for these things? All I know is, six months from now, my life will be very, very different than what it is today. This is quite new to me. For much of my life, I have taken comfort in mapping out what I want my future to be and following it. Whether it was where I wanted to go to school, the people I wanted to meet, the places I wanted to go or the career I wanted to have. Through my efforts (small factor) and good fortune (large factor), for the most part, things have not strayed that far off my expectations. I suppose last year was the first time when I have really felt Life taking a dramatic, unexpected turn off "course", beyond my control and against all my wishes. That changed my life forever. But perhaps it was a lesson I needed to learn. To accept the limitations of our feeble attempts to create a master plan, to chart a known course, to impose our will upon Life. And not only accept it, but learn to embrace it. Perhaps to be free is not to be omniscient and omnipotent, for they instead burden us with the desire and responsibility to forever design, calculate, and execute our futures. Then there's really no "freedom" left, since everything is known, and everything can be done. Perhaps true freedom only comes from embracing the unknown, liberating myself from the anxiety and neurosis of deciphering and planning the future, since despite my best efforts, Life never ceases to surprise me.

I think I am already quite different than I was six months ago; the transformation began then, but it was largely inward. And now it's about to manifest itself outwardly. Let's do it baby. You only live once right?

How true

2005-12-25T01:28:00.000-08:00

"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.

Mmm...del.icio.us

2005-12-17T01:27:00.000-08:00

Mmm...del.icio.us

Yay for another couple!

2005-12-16T01:24:00.000-08:00

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.

what do I know?

2005-12-06T01:19:00.000-08:00

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...

Love, marriage, and relationships

2005-12-02T01:08:00.000-08:00

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?

Thinking too little

2005-11-15T17:55:00.000-08:00

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!

Random ramblings

2005-11-09T01:06:00.000-08:00

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.

2005-10-13T01:36:00.000-07:00

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。”

Interesting reading

2005-10-02T22:54:00.000-07:00

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!

I hate moving

2005-09-30T20:11:00.000-07:00

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.

Is RSS the new TV?

2005-09-25T01:05:00.000-07:00

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.

Aargggh

2005-09-22T23:53:00.000-07:00

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!

At least they're not complete bozos

2005-09-20T21:41:00.000-07:00

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.

Turning, turning, turning through the years

2005-09-18T22:16:00.000-07:00

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...

Words on a page

2005-09-16T00:52:00.000-07:00

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...

Ever been in jail?

2005-09-05T02:50:00.000-07:00

(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.

Magnificient Prague

2005-08-30T02:01:00.000-07:00

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

Tere from Estonia!

2005-08-24T12:20:00.000-07:00

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.

First impressions

2005-08-17T23:23:00.000-07:00

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.

Life, continued

2005-08-16T00:15:00.000-07:00

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!