Second Continent

my stress managment tool

2008-11-13T14:38:00.000-08:00

I wish my life was this sweet:

Video clips at Ustream

finally

2008-11-05T07:36:00.000-08:00

my day so far

2008-09-30T07:54:00.000-07:00

6:00AM - Run 3.5 miles
7:00AM - Apartment flooded
8:00AM - Blog

... can't wait for the rest of today!

chile

2008-09-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

In the middle of August, a good friend of mine asked me if I was free to go to Chile for some snowboarding .. in early September. Less than a month notice. I looked at the calendar and pretty much said yes immediately. I needed a vacation. So with a bit of finagling with work, I'm headed off to Chile today for a much needed vacay ... see you suckers in a week.

nike+human race

2008-09-01T09:55:00.000-07:00

I ran my first long distance race yesterday in LA. The Nike+ Human Race is a worldwide 10K (6.2 miles). Run in 25 different cities around the world from Amsterdam to Vancouver, It is supposedly the largest single day race event in history. Proceeds from the event were donated to either ninemillion.org, livestrong.org, or the wwf.org (that's World Wildlife Fund for those not in the know).

Originally I had never intended to sign up for an event like this, but I had been running in the mornings the last couple of months anywhere from 3-5 miles, twice a week. And then my friend Sophia told me about this 10K she was considering doing and I thought, what the hell, sure. Throw in the fact, at the end of the race we see Kanye West and Common perform, all the better.

The race begins at a central lawn at the LA Memorial Sports complex where people are supposed to organize themselves by how fast they are. Sub-7 minute milers are up front, 12+ milers are in the back. I positioned myself around the 9 minute mile mark but then noticed there were some very unfit looking people around me and so I decided to move myself further up. I wasn't sure if this was a good idea, but whatever, I'm not getting out-run by some fatties. This actually turned out to be a great thing as when the race started I had to dodge less people. I somehow ended up just near the sub-7 miler mark. Now, these guys/gals were fit. When the race started, everyone ahead of me just took off in a near sprint. Insane. The people around me were running at a pretty fast clip. Much faster than I usually do on my runs, but I kept up with the flow pretty well. It's a thrilling feeling running with this many people, it's easy to see why or how you can get caught up in the moment and just start running at some ridiculous pace. Clearly, I should not have been running at that pace as should a lot of people around me by the looks of them. I guess it evens out in the end, but afterwords, looking at my time I was doing a 7'40" mile for the first 1.5 miles or so. Way too fast as I petered out in the end. Around mile 5, or the 8K mark, you hit a mental block and your body definitely begins to start asking questions like, "when are you going to stop? because this is ridiculous ... seriously, you should stop ... stop" Towards the end I sprinted in and finished with a respectable time of 52'12". It equates to an average of an 8'24" mile. Not bad. I finished in 39,693rd place in the world and 1,452nd place in LA. I probably should have started out slower and then built up to a faster pace, but I guess that's for next time.

End of the race, Kanye performed and I have to say he was badass. High energy, very entertaining and sounded great. Overall one of the more productive nights in recent memory: donated money to a good cause, ran 10K, saw Kanye perform live, hung out with friends, saw fireworks .. great day.

Weekends

2008-08-23T03:14:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I headed down to San Onofre with some friends to camp and surf. I had never been to San Onofre before but had heard lots of great things about the location as a surf spot. It has a great reputation as a longboard spot with consistent waves and uncrowded breaks. Overall, I have to say, the place lived up to it's hype. I probably had the best surfing experience of my life ... to date.

I lost count of how many waves I caught. I was catching both small waves (waist high) and big waves (head high) and just overall completely enjoying the experience. I woke up Sunday with a completely sore back and arms tired from the 4 surf sessions I had the previous day. I really can't wait to go back. Best of all, I think on a good day at San Onofre, you can definitely surf a short board so hopefully next time I'll get a chance to improve my short board skills.

Next weekend, I've signed up for the Nike+ 10K Human Race. I've never actually signed up for a race or event like this before (unless you count Bay-to-Breakers) so I'm really looking forward to the experience. I've been running Tuesdays and Thursdays for the last month with some coworkers. At first, running every week was just to make sure I get enough exercise in for the week. But I figured since I was running about 4-5 miles every other day then I might as well sign up for this 10K ... and Kanye West is performing so the Chinese in me thought "Great deal!! $35 for a Nike dry-fit shirt and see Kanye perform!"

Anyhow, this weekend is my chill weekend to take a break between everything that's going on. Which basically means I have some work I want to get done ...

truckin' along

2008-08-15T06:42:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in like 10 years. For the most part, I didn't feel the need to share another bitchfest on work-life balance as the story's essentially the same: I work a lot, a part of this is my choice with industry/being a bit of a workaholic/ambition which would have lead me to a conclusion that I have no social life in a city where there are lots of attractive people of the opposite sex. That probably sums up about 85% of my life right now. Feel free to embellish around the above facts.

On a slightly different note, I've always felt like one of the keys to being successful is discipline. Not that I'm successful in any way, but I feel like maybe if I'm more disciplined about how I approach various everyday tasks or activities in my life maybe it will get me moving in that direction. So lately I've tried employing this approach to being healthy: working out more and eating better. It's still a work in progress, especially the eating healthier thing. But I've been able to work out fairly consistently (2-3 times/week) in the early mornings around 6AM before work. I remember trying to do this when I first started working and carried on for all of 1 day before deciding this wasn't for me. I'm onto my third month of pulling this feat off and I feel pretty good about it. The last few weeks I've even added in some running. A couple co-workers and I run anywhere from 4-5 miles twice a week before work. I can tell you, waking up can be challenging (especially if you're working till 12) but once you get going it sets the rest of the day in line and you feel great. Anyhow, hopefully I'm not posting again in a month telling everyone how working out in the mornings is overrated.

update:

2008-07-23T23:05:00.000-07:00

my life since last update:

- Checked my mail today; one envelope sitting in the box
- Violations 21453A; $381 bail to be paid to LA Superior Court

It's been kinda sh!tty

i need a raise

2008-05-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

I've just finished off one of the roughest work weeks to date. Actually, the more I think about it, this past week might be the most hours I've worked my whole life in a 2 week span.

A couple of weeks ago I flew up to SF for work. I had been working on this case for about 3 weeks and up to that point it was a nice lifestyle case with semi-reasonable hours and I could maintain a somewhat normal social life. The trip up to SF was just so that the entire 4 member team could be in one place to put together an interim presentation for the client. 3 days of hard work - max. About 6 hours after arriving in SF our team got a nice bomb dropped on us. After a brief conversation with the partner on the case, our nice 10-12 week lifestyle case somehow got turned into a 2 week grenade. That's basically the rest of our case crammed into a 2 week time frame. Can you say sh!tty?

I ended up working 126 hours that first week and 111 the second week. To put this in perspective, that's an average of ~119 hours over the two weeks. In a normal 5 day work week that's about a 24 hour work day. Of course, we were working 7 days a week which averaged to a much more bearable 17 hour work day. That's about 70% of the day spent at the office. Given that any normal person sleeps for about 6-7 hours, most of us are probably only awake 17-18 hours in a day. So, on average, during this 2 week stretch I was spending anywhere from 95%-100% of possible waking hours working at the office. Another way to look at it is within a 2 week span, we did equivalent to ~5 weeks of work, using a 40-50 hour work week.

At the end of the second week I was barely functioning. One of my co-workers fell asleep in the middle of a conversation he was having. We didn't let him touch an excel sheet till he had 2 cups of coffee. At one point I had to have 3 Redbulls over the course of an hour for me to be cognizant enough to finish a slide that should have taken 1 hour max to finish. It took me 3 hours to get it done. We were sitting in a dirty ass room for hours on end. I felt like a Berkeley EECS student in Cory Hall. WTF!?

Needless to say this was a long work week .. in return they gave me this week off to recover from the abuse. I only found out Friday that I get to have this time off, and so now I'm not sure what to do with myself. It's almost too short notice to find a good deal to fly anywhere, but then I have this entire week off to do something. Any suggestions?

sux

2008-05-11T06:23:00.000-07:00

I just pulled 22 hours of work ... on Saturday.

best time of year

2008-03-20T10:17:00.001-07:00

Seriously.

saturday night

2008-03-16T00:54:00.000-07:00

My mom came down to visit this weekend. In classic practical Chinese mom fashion, she didn't visit because it's her only son's birthday. No, we needed to go over some tax stuff. Nothing like mother and son bonding over 1040's and Schedule D's on a Saturday night. I couldn't think of a better way to spend the evening ...

dzzzzz!

2008-03-07T13:29:00.000-08:00

Let me tell you, you should go see your dentist regularly. I have not so now I must see the dentist regularly ... for a few weeks. And there is nothing pleasant about getting to work a bit late directly from the dentist chair. Boooo dentist! Who chooses this profession? All day you listen to shrill little tools inflicting damage to bone. How is this choice made? I get up from the dentist chair and I have a dazed look of, "Why the hell did I just sit there and let you do that to me for over an hour?" Overall, I think the worst part of the visit is the lingering sensation, or to be more accurate, the lack of sensation in my mouth because the novocain has not worn off and I don't actually know when I am drooling all over myself like an idiot until the pool of saliva starts forming on my shirt. Thank you dentist see next week.

random

2008-02-25T23:59:00.000-08:00

Oh, Improv Everywhere, back at it again:

Personally, running Windows 95 just made it that much better for me.

super (duper) tuesday

2008-02-05T09:11:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to tell you to remember to vote today. Chances are if you did not/are not going to vote today, it's not because you forgot. It's probably because you never registered. I don't think I've ever met anyone that registered AND forgot to vote. Instead, make this Super Tuesday the day you go register to vote for the real deal in November. Not too late for that ... if you're still not motivated, just imagine Mike Huckabee as your President for the next 4 years. Seriously though, go register.

On another note, usually the primaries don't matter in CA. They haven't for as long as I have been allowed to vote. This year it's different for a number of reasons primarily because some people realized that a woman, a black man, a Mormon, and a Vietnam vet were looking for a nomination. Independents can even vote in the Democratic primary. Except, you need to special request a Democratic primary ballot. And since I vote absentee and I didn't read carefully till late last week I don't get to vote in the primary. Booo ... our candidates for the upcoming November election will probably be decided by end of day today.

olpc

2007-12-27T01:31:00.000-08:00

This Christmas I couldn't find anything I wanted to give to my family. I'm also running low on liquid assets to actually buy anything for them because, well, shamefully I spent most of it on myself. I admit it, I'm a consumer and this winter I've been selfish. But really even if I had cash in hand, I was just not sure what to get my family this year. They pretty much have everything. So today (I know I'm late with the present), I ran across the One Laptop per Child program. I had heard of it before and the foundation has gotten quite a bit of press. Overall, I'm fairly impressed with the program and the idea, so I decided to give my family's Christmas money to this program instead. Executive decision, your Christmas gift is now a laptop to a kid in a developing country. Hopefully they will not be using it to hack into your computer or send you email scams.

cold

2007-12-10T08:09:00.000-08:00

LA should never be this cold. It defeats the purpose and reason everyone cites to live in this town.

neglect

2007-11-23T17:35:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry blog for neglecting you for so long. It's not that there was nothing going on in my life. It's probably the opposite. Too much was going on. Change seems to be the only constant force and it's been taking all of my time and attention. I suppose I could bore you with all the details of what these changes have been, but instead I'll leave you with an LA story. This happened about 2 months ago:

I just finished a surf session with my friend Jon and we were hungry for some tacos. Jon recommended this place in Santa Monica called Tacos Por Favor. Sounds good. We walk into the restaurant and it's a very basic setup, large and spacious with tables for 4 everywhere. I get in line to order at the counter and standing in front of me is a guy in a blue sweater with a baseball cap covering a mop of stringy blond hair. His back is to Jon and I, yet somehow Jon has super powers to recognize celebs from behind. He whispers to me, "I think that's Owen Wilson." I look at the back of this guy's head and think, sure. Or it could be any other surfer dude we were just out at the beach with. I didn't think anything of it, as I was pretty sure Jon was wrong, and when it's my turn at the counter I order a breakfast burrito. I pay and I turn around to look for a table. In the middle of the restaurant sitting down was Owen Wilson. In a blue sweater and a baseball hat with stringy blond hair. Ok so Jon was right. I was thinking, hey this is kind of cool. It's basically my first close encounter with a celeb since I moved down to LA. Little did I know, it was about to get a bit more close.

I find a seat a couple tables away. Owen is sitting to my right two tables away and my buddy Jon plops down at my table to my left and now facing Owen's table. I look over at Owen and he's fixated on his phone, texting, emailing, or calling. Who knows. When Jon sits down he is texting someone as well. He's sitting with his elbows on the table, his phone right in front of his face. After about a minute of just sitting down, waiting for our number to be called, I notice Owen Wilson get up from his table and begin walking very briskly over towards our table. That's weird, I don't think I even heard a number being called. Our table, isn't really on the way to the counter to pick up your order either. Strange. Well, Owen then stops at our table, standing directly in front of me he looks down at Jon, who is still texting, but at this point senses someone standing above him looking down.

Jon leans away and looking up at Owen Wilson says, "Uhh, what?"

Owen doesn't say anything. Just stares.

Jon looking at Owen says again, "What?!"

At this point Jon and I begin to realize, maybe with the way Jon was positioned, Owen thought that Jon was trying to take a camera picture of Mr. Celeb Owen Wilson.

Jon asks, "Do you think I was trying to take a picture of you or something? Because I'm not, there's nothing going on here."

Owen responds, "Well, it looks like SOMETHING is going on here." In my head I think, well NOW there's something going on here!

Jon says to Owen, "Dude, I wasn't trying to take your picture or anything, here do you want to take a look at my phone?"

Jon holds his phone out towards Owen. Owen looks down at the phone, looks at me then looks at Jon and says, "You know, if you say you weren't taking a picture then I trust you. I don't need to see your phone."

Ok cool then. But instead of leaving, Owen still stands right at our table, looking at me to Jon, back to me, back to Jon. Awkward. He's just staring at us staring at him.

Jon finally says again half in exasperation half in annoyance, "What?!"

Owen doesn't say anything but continues to stand there looking at us. More awkward. It's been about a good 30 seconds of staring. Finally I try and break the tension and ask him, "So Owen, what did you order?"

Owen seems to snap out of it, thinks a bit, then looking at me responds, "Well, I ordered 2 asada tacos for my mom and I ordered 2 chicken tacos for me."

Nice, I tell him we ordered the breakfast burritos. Which sent him pondering about breakfast burritos. He hasn't ordered them here before. That's when his number was called and then he turned around to get his food. Afterwards, as he was walking out, he said good-bye and wished us a good day.

This is a weird story with no real point other than the interaction.

real world la

2007-09-09T21:51:00.000-07:00

I've been back for just about a month now and I've been really busy. There are lots of things changing in my life right now from physically moving apartments, to transitions in the career, and more personal life experiences that have made updating this blog a bit harder. Anyhow, tomorrow is another big day in all of this reordering going on in my life: I'm starting work at L.E.K. Wish me luck as I get back to the grind of cubicles, deadlines, bills and, something which I have missed dearly, paychecks.

hong kong and home

2007-08-08T00:21:00.000-07:00

The last week I've been relaxing in Hong Kong staying at a friends place. I didn't actually do much touristy stuff while in HK. I took a tram to the highest point of the island called the Peak and that's it. But I think my friend's apartment had as good a view as the Peak. A couple late nights drinking and sleeping in till late mornings felt great. Honestly, it was a relaxing break from the traveling I had been doing the previous 2 months. I did get to try one fun activity on the south side of the island: wakeboarding. This is like snowboarding but on water as you are towed by a boat. I think if you've ever snowboarded before, wakeboarding is relatively easy to pickup. The toughest part is getting out of the water. After that it's pretty much cake. There's only a slight difference in how to switch over to riding toe-side.

After 2 months abroad, I'm really looking forward to coming home. On a separate but related note, the folks at Habitat for Humanity-Nepal have really got going on posting to the blog. Feel free to check out some of their initiatives and work they do. Heck, go volunteer for them!

shanghaid!

2007-07-30T00:57:00.000-07:00

Before I got to Shanghai I thought I might be able to stay only three or four days then leave for Yangshuo. But I decided to stay and keep practicing my Chinese here as apparently Yangshuo is a huge backpacker haven for westerners. I'd probably speak more English there than here. Staying in Shanghai for over a week has let me practice my Chinese more. Anyhow, Shanghai is a modern and capitalistic wonder that is still growing and evolving it's own character. Tourists and business people from all over China and the world abound the city. Western influence in buildings, people, and thoughts can be seen everywhere and the Chinese here are proud of what has been built. Proud is the right word. I'm constantly asked by the Chinese I meet here how they are viewed by the outside world. "Do people view the Chinese as a threat economically?" "Are Chinese nice to travelers?" "Is it becoming more important to learn to speak Chinese in America?" They are seeking their place in the world and they know they are coming up quick. Very quick.

It's strange, westerners I meet here are surprised at the culture here. I think most people expect a repressed people where they aren't allowed to do anything. They expect people to be assigned jobs, unable to move around freely, etc. Visitors are surprised at how modern and westernized some of the people are here and how free in general people are allowed to act. I was told by some that they didn't expect to come to what's basically a normal western city in China. There are a huge number of expats working in the city. The bars and nightlife are filled with European travelers and people working in the area. There are lots of French and Germans. Lots of French. I was at bar listening to a French African Reggae band from Mauritius. I'm not sure where a band like this would even possibly found in LA or SF. But also, here in Shanghai, I've been told cash is king. More than anywhere else in China, one's standing in wealth is more important than anything else. The stereotype for girls here are that they are all gold-diggers. In that sense, it's more American here than anywhere else.

Which leads me to an interesting discussion I've had with many friends at home about China and communism and more specifically, will communism fall in China. My answer has always been "no" ever since they opened the economy up. But this leads to philosophical arguments about human rights, political freedoms, etc. And these are all obviously very good arguments. However, I just think, a few simple facts I know about Chinese culture that tell me, communism will not fall in China. Not in my lifetime, not in my children's lifetime, and probably not in my children's children's lifetime. The Chinese culture is innately capitalistic. The people need to earn a living by bartering, trading, bargaining, buying, and selling. People just want an opportunity to do this. That's the first priority in life. If you repress this, then everything will fall. But ever since the economy opened up, this repression has been lifted. The very foundation of Chinese culture can hum now. There's a Chinese saying that states something to the extent, "I don't care who I pay my taxes to, as long as they let me be a farmer I will be happy." It sounds more elegant in Chinese. Anyhow, the second factor that comes into play is the fact that the Chinese history is long. Very long. When we talk about ancient cultures or countries that have continued to exist today relatively intact, there really are only a handful. China is one of them. My point is, there have been Chinese Dynasties that have exacted more oppression on the Chinese people for longer periods of time than America as a country has existed. Chinese government, no matter what kind, has the proven historical track record of existing. American democracy has not. You have to recognize that as industrious as the Chinese people are, they can bear as much suffering and repression as any culture has throughout history. However, in my opinion, as long as China continues to give the Chinese people economic freedom, most Chinese people won't care what the government does.

monasteries

2007-07-24T09:52:00.000-07:00

There are an incredible number of monasteries in Tibet. Many of these monasteries at one point in time where their own mini-villages with thousands of monks inhabiting them. And like the castles and cathedrals of Europe, the monasteries typically occupy the locations with the best views of the land. Currently with Communist China's view on religion they limit the number of monks that can occupy different monasteries. Count these Tibetans as lucky as some monasteries have up to 350 monks. In the rest of China religious groups are not allowed to congregate with numbers greater than 25.

climbing everest .. base camp

2007-07-21T23:50:00.000-07:00

The vegetation is sparse at this altitude. Dirt, gravel, and rocks are the predominant features as you walk up towards the Tibetan Everest Base Camp. Cliffs on either side with strange rock formations surround the path and even though the path is an easy grade, nearly flat, I can still feel my breath quickening to take in more oxygen.

Earlier in the day, we started up the mountain in a Land Cruiser before sunrise. In pitch black we four wheeled over a dirt and rock path that was barely visible. It seemed like we were just heading in a general direction and if we happened to be traveling on a path that others traveled on before, then good. If not, well, we were going in the right direction. Sudden turns led us to steep drop offs on either side of the vehicle where I was hoping our driver was aware that it was a long way down and slowing down would make me feel a bit safer. Sitting in the car you just held onto anything to keep your head from hitting the door, roof, head rest, or each other. We forded streams where the water was lower driving across dry rock bed. A couple times we made some wrong turns and arrived at sections of the trail that were impassable. We just backed up and found a fork to keep going. At sunrise we arrived at a huge valley where goats, yaks, and sheep grazed below us, just as the sun's first light was beginning to come over the Himalayas.

It took us 3 hours to get to the hotel alley, which is as far as tourist vehicles could go. Tents were set up on either side of the road that offered over night accommodations for those that were spending the night up on the mountain. It was another 3K, up about 300 meters, to the actual base camp. I decided with my Dad to walk up to the camp. Our other option was to take horse pulled carts up to the camp. About half way up a string of horse carts rode by us and one offered my Dad a ride up for half the price he was asking for at the beginning of the walk. My Dad jumped on and said he'd see me at the top. I'm such a sucker.

At the actual base camp site there's not much to see and the weather wasn't cooperating. Clouds covered the actual view of the Everest peak and small tents were set up for the real climbers heading up to higher elevations. Still, it felt like one of those things that gets checked off on your life's to-do list.

jokhang and the potola palace

2007-07-16T21:22:00.000-07:00

The two main attractions in Lhasa is the Jokhang Monastery and the Potola Palace. The Jokhang is an important and central place of worship for the city of Lhasa. The Potola Palace is the primary residence and seat of power for the Dalai Lama .. if the Dalai Lama was still in Tibet.

The palace is huge and awe inspiring. It sits on a hill overlooking all of Lhasa and the contrasting White and Red Palaces make for an amazing sight. The Red Palace is holds most of the worshipping chapels while the White Palace is mostly living quarters. Inside the Palace where rooms and chapels and living quarters. Common palace stuff and actually nothing too amazing to speak of. It really felt almost dead as no one really lives at the palace. The only interesting thing I found were the burial tombs (large stupas) of previous Dalai Lama's. In some of the tomb rooms there were also little pigeon holes (maybe 5" x 5") holding little boxes that each contained Buddhist scriptures some of which were thousands of years old.

In contrast to the Potola Palace, the Jokhang temple was a crowded living place of worship. As you walk through Barkhor Square towards the temple, locals, tourists, and pilgrims come into view each actively interacting with the temple. Hundreds and hundreds of people circle the outside of the Jokhang in a clockwise direction. Some pilgrims even bow and then prostrate themselves on the ground every few steps as they circle the temple. In front of the Jokhang are maybe 100 or so people praying to Buddha by standing, bowing, prostrating, and back to a standing position over and over again. A huge line winds out of the main gates formed by locals looking to pass through the temple. Inside the temple is a square structure with almost 4-5 chapels at each side of the square. People move from chapel to chapel offering yak butter that is poured liberally into large butter lamps. There is so much butter that the some walls have become black from the butter lamp smoke. The floors are slick from years and years of yak butter accumulating. Walking to the second floor, if you don't use the hand railing it's easy to slip. Tourists, locals, and pilgrims move shoulder to shoulder though the temple in a crowded clockwise direction around the square. Monks sit in corners praying, cleaning parts of the temple, and repainting statues. Most Buddhist temples I have been to have been half empty with a few people worshiping. The Jokhang is literally pulsating with life throughout the temple.

the tibet issue

2007-07-16T21:05:00.000-07:00

Free Tibet. We've heard it plenty of times before from all directions in the Western world. Hollywood and the American media have a huge fascination with Tibet and the associated Chinese rule over the region. Personally I find it interesting reading the western literature regarding the issue versus the Chinese perspective on the issue. Personally I think I view both sides as simply propaganda to achieve differing political gains. But I think I do have a significant problem with how many Americans view the Tibet situation. Don't get me wrong though, I don't condone what the Chinese government is doing to this part of the world. However, I think there are always differing sides and perspectives.

Simply stated, from what I see in the media back home is that the Chinese are destroying Tibet and have no right to even occupy this part of the world. But I think the matter is more complicated than that. It is true, Tibet has a significantly different culture than the Chinese and much needs to be done to preserve this culture. However, I think it's similar to the Israel-Palestine issue. There is enough history and interaction between cultures that make the issue more grey than black and white. It just happens that Jewish and Arab influence in American history has been more significant than Chinese influence. So the Mideast issues seem a little more grey. It's easy to view Communist China as evil and using it's power for evil things.
Personally, I don't see how what China is doing is any different than what the US has done or is doing. China, like the US in the Americas, is simply throwing it's weight around it's hemisphere trying to increase it's sphere of influence. Funny, I don't think I've ever heard or read in a US History book a Free Hawaii movement. Instead we totally destroy the native culture on the island to grow pineapples and then make it a state so we can vacation on the island using US dollars. It's easy to sit on our democracy pedestal and denounce the Communist China for destroying Tibet. But like I said, I'm not condoning what China is doing, I just don't think the western perspective on issues like this is very impartial. Even tourist guides like the Lonely Planet sprinkle their texts about certain monasteries are " ... overrun with Chinese tourists ..." Is it really fair to even use language like that . Imagine a guide book saying, "Puerto Rico is overrun with American tourists." Instead guide books probably read that such and such area of the island speaks English well. Would it be better if Tibet was overrun with western tourists? I think these views and the use of certain language really change western visitors' perspective on Asia in general. It's kind of like when we were growing up and Americans viewed Japanese tourists as bad tourists and poked fun at them. Are western tourist better than Asian tourists? Each culture I think looks for different things in their travels. That just simply needs to be respected.

Anyhow, playing devil's advocate, a few facts about Tibet that I usually don't hear about back home:

- The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of one of many different sects of Buddhism practiced in Tibet. The one difference is he was bestowed his title, not from the Tibetan people strangely enough, but from the Mongols. Subsequently, with Mongol strength, the 5th Dalai Lama was able to unify Tibet in the 16th century and conquer the other sects.

- Prior to Chinese occupation, the original Tibetan culture was based on a caste system. This means there are groups of people essentially born into slavery. The Chinese commies abolished this.

- Historically Tibet has been rich in culture but poor in other things, namely money. The Chinese have brought significant modern improvements (like electricity and paved roads) to remote parts of Tibet. It's nice to think there are people who live in tents, churn butter by hand, and ride yaks thousands of miles. But believe me, given a choice, these same people want TV and an easier life. It's not our right to stand in the way of this just so we can visit a strange culture that doesn't have electricity on our summer vacation.

- The task of finding reincarnations has been heavily influenced by the Chinese throughout Tibetan history. Some historical Chinese texts have claimed that it was the Chinese that required a spiritual leader to write clues to his next reincarnation. Prior to this, the reincarnation process was ... let's just say more haphazard.

into tibet

2007-07-15T00:56:00.000-07:00

I dropped into Lhasa from Kathmandu by plane. That's about a 2200 meter gain in altitude or just one and a quarter miles for potential altitude sickness. When my plane landed I had a dull headache at the base of my head near the neck. The altitude in Lhasa is 3600 meters and I figured I climbed above 3200 meters during my trek so my body should operate perfectly at an additional 400 meters. AND ... for the most part I've been right. Slight headaches went away after half a day and I feel fine now. I have not even experienced any shortness of breath. Lets hope it stays this way for the rest of the trip as I'm going to higher elevations later.

I met my Dad at the airport with only a slight hiccup in my papers. Apparently my Tibet permit said that I was flying in from Shanghai via Chengdu. Obviously, as I was standing in the international terminal, this was not the case. Also, when receiving visitors from the international terminal, the original Tibet permit needs to be presented to the guards by the travel agency. Our travel agency didn't bring the originals with them. My Dad and I had to wait at the airport for a couple of extra hours to get everything cleared it up. I think it helps when you can speak the language though as the guards were very friendly with me.

Later in the evening, after some damn good Chinese food (I just really miss good Chinese food sometimes .. like a good burger too, but that will have to wait till I get home), my Dad and I stopped into an internet cafe. I wanted to update the blog real quick when, after typing in 'bigcontinent.blogspot.com,' I see that the explorer browser is simply showing an error page. My blogger site is blocked in China. Fuck. I can't even access the main blogger site from the cafe. Censorship's a bitch ... but the food was good.

EDIT:
I plugged in an ethernet cord at the baller hotel I'm staying at (it's great traveling with a parent .. is it ok that I still feel that way at 28?) and I can access the main blogger site. Whew.

sunsets

2007-07-12T13:41:00.000-07:00

I experienced one of the best sunsets at Chitwan. A cold beer, no worries, and nothing but the beauty of a simple sunset. Earlier in the day an elephant ride put a slight damper on the Chitwan experience. In a few days I am supposed to be leaving Nepal and my Tibet papers hadn't come through yet. In two months I will be back to the grind of working life in an office cube. But for those short few minutes, sitting under the shade of a straw thatch roof, there was nothing to be more concerned about than enjoying a sunset. I'm leaving for Tibet tomorrow and I'm going to miss Nepal.

bus rides

2007-07-12T13:28:00.000-07:00

The easiest and cheapest way to get around Nepal is by bus. Your choice of buses however, can really determine your experience and comfort. There are tourist buses and local buses. But even then there are different degrees of tourist and local buses.

Only the nicest tourist buses (most expensive) actually carry only tourists. Many tourist buses also double as local buses. This is especially true during the low season when seats don't fill up. I think the bus operators recognize that there are many Nepali people who won't even brave the local buses and would rather sit with a bunch of foreigners. So they sell them seats at cheaper than tourist rates but more expensive than the local bus rates. Most of the locals I've seen on these tourist buses are local business people or even vacationing Nepali's. Also, most of these tourist buses are in poor conditions as the seats have been well-sat in. I don't think I've sat in a bus less than 10 years old. Still, everyone has a seat and no one is standing in the middle of an aisle holding a goat or chicken. That's reserved for the local buses.

Depending on the route, the local buses can be completely packed or half empty. However, figuring out the routes of each bus is near impossible. No bus maps exist and the routes change depending on the day of the week. Most locals know where each bus is going but I would say many have no clue where the buses are going either. People just shout out where they want to go, and the bus operator either tells them to jump on or wait. Bus stops are simply wherever you stand on the road within eyesight of the bus driver. Waving your hand will bring the bus to a screeching halt and if it's going where you want to go, jump on. A packed local bus is filled to the brim with people, animals, food, supplies, kids, etc. If there is any empty space on the bus, it will be filled or used . People stand 2-3 across in the middle of the aisles and sometimes sit in each other's laps. Obviously this makes for an uncomfortable traveling experience on the crowded routes, especially on a hot day. Deodorant is not a prevalent thing here in Nepal.

When it gets too packed, or sometimes even when it's not packed, people jump on to the roofs of the bus and ride it this way. There's typically a roof rack of some sort for large pieces of baggage, but can double as a hard seat cushion. Somehow this just makes sense in Nepal. No space inside? Well, we put baggage on the roof so why not people? Riding on the roof of a bus as it is hurtling down a 2 lane mountain road is stupid and exhilarating. Inside the bus, other vehicles and trucks heading in the other direction feel incredibly close as they swerve by one another. On top of the bus, you think your head might come off if you're not careful. Personally, after a 4 hour river rafting session, I decided that I didn't have enough excitement and climbed on top of a local bus headed to Chitwan National Park, southwest of Kathmandu. A few fellow rafters followed me up and we all fell asleep on top. Best bus experience in Nepal so far.

trekking

2007-07-09T17:13:00.000-07:00

This is the main reason people come to Nepal. To scale, see, and experience the Himalayas. I had signed up for a short 5 day trek with some friends I had met here in Kathmandu.We planned to trek around the foothills of the Anapurna mountain range to hopefully catch a glimpse of these impressive peaks. During this time of year, the hills and mountains are wrapped in fog and clouds as the peaks are so high they sometimes prevent clouds from passing through. This makes it impossible to see the tops of the range for much of the rainy season.

We were unlucky when we reached our first possible lookout point (Poon Hill, 3210 meters). Nothing but clouds and fog. We even stayed an extra day to see if the weather would clear but received monsoon showers instead. Still, a warm fire, a good book, hot food, and fine friends makes for passing the time more than bearable.

The following day we headed to the next possible peak. I will never forget slowly walking up the mountain and then suddenly hearing screaming behind me. Looking back, I see my friend Melika doing a ridiculous dance. Half bent over and half jogging in place, she had lifted one of her pant legs and was brushing her skin like mad while screaming, "AHhhhh, LEECHES! Yes, leeches. I looked down and saw 6 to 7 black worm like creatures moving like the fastest slinky's you've ever seen, streaming toward my shoes. Three of them were already on my shoes making their way up towards my legs. It was frightening and it would be a common sight for the rest of our 7 hour hike that day. In retrospect, the leeches weren't so bad, just a really bad nuisance. If you pulled them off, while they had already latched on, you would probably bleed profusely for at least a few hours. Salt or a small flame usually makes them let go without making you bleed too bad. Still, it's not something I would recommend and if possible avoided altogether.

In the afternoon, we trekked for 3 hours in the pouring rain. My shoes, socks, pants, underwear, half my shirt (my rain jacket worked wonderfully, except my shirt started soaking up water from where it made contact with my pants), backpack, and hat were all wet by the time we were finished. I have never been more wet for a longer period of time than those last 3 hours of the day. The trails turned to small streams and there was no point in trying to avoid puddles. You just trudged on through the mud. It was actually pretty fun, and made walking easier in some places. When it's dry, there usually is plenty of fresh and old animal crap to dodge (mostly huge buffalo and cow pie's). With the rain pouring, most of this waste was washed away or simply mixed into the muddy stew you were slogging through. But it was all worth it, because the next day at sunrise, we had a chance to see this:

american tourists

2007-07-09T17:03:00.000-07:00

I hate them too.

I met a young couple (EARLY 20's which may have added fuel to my fire) on the bus ride from Pokhara to Kathmandu. Normally this is a 5 hour trip but there was a traffic jam and it turned into 10 hours of that SNL sketch with the yuppie couple talking about their lives no matter how you try to steer the conversation. I'm going to sound like an asshole. But most people that know me well already know I am one. So this is my asshole perception to snippets of the conversation on the bus ride back.

The couple was upset that men stare at western women here blatantly and creepily. Legitimate complaint. I would hate to be a western woman traveling here. Except she was wearing a tank top that her breasts were falling out of.

At some point it was revealed that the female half of the couple was interested in medicine and science in general. (She loves stories about space when she sees them on her Yahoo homepage). She's 21 and still in city college because she had "took some time off," whatever that means. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, she could be a fucking genius in disguise as a cheerleader. But she then proceeds to tell one of the 2 medical students I am traveling with what it's like to apply and go to medical school in the states. She doesn't ask one question to the two people already in med school what it takes to get there. Stupid.

The male half of the two headed talking monster had a sweet digital SLR camera. Easily a $600-700 Nikon. I ask him what he's going to do when he gets back to the states, he says maybe make some money and sell some pictures. I ask if he's a professional photographer. He says he does some graphic design for the Washington State U newspaper. Some graphic design. He then tells me he sometimes takes 300-400 shots in a day. I hope some of them are good. My guess is, he has no idea what he's really doing with that camera.

There were so many more pieces to this horrible conversation I wish I could write, but just thinking of it makes me want to give up my citizenship. Every comment was steered back to their amazing life and what they have done in Nepal or back home. It was fascinating to the point where I was considering a lobotomy because clearly my existence wasn't necessary, these two amazing individuals had life figured out.

EDIT:
I did meet 2 very nice Americans on my way back from Chitwan National Park. Father and daughter were traveling by themselves. The father has taken each of his 3 children on a 1 month trip to a 3rd world country after they have graduated from HS. This could be the best idea ever and they were enjoyable to talk to about their experiences. So I guess it goes both ways. Americans are great or stupid. There is no in between.

nothing fancy

2007-07-06T11:17:00.000-07:00

It's really a simple thing to do, setting up a blog. I think most of you reading this have one already and some of you would even laugh at the simplicity of what I have set up for Habitat, Nepal. But the thing is, no one here had a clue how to do something like this. No one could even fathom that creating an online newsletter could be as simple as signing into blogger using their existing gmail accounts. Hopefully, when I leave here sometime next week they'll be comfortable enough to be able to use the blog consistently. Take a look and share with others.

hfhi-nepal.blogspot.com

nepal's annie and oliver twist

2007-06-28T09:56:00.000-07:00

Running down the hill was a young Nepalese girl with a short buzzed haircut and a huge gap toothed smile. She takes my hand and asks me, almost yelling with joy, "What's your name?" As I made my way to the top of the hill we had already exchanged names, ages, and where we lived. I had come to spend time at an orphanage with some other volunteers I had met. Saturday was a day off, no school or work, and we were there mostly to play and have fun. If you've ever spent an afternoon with a neighbor's two children, imagine doing so with 58 children of various ages between 13 days to 12 years. It's fun and it's exhausting.

I took my camera out to take a couple pictures of the kids and then about 58 amateur photographers volunteered their services to take the pictures for me. They took my camera posing in front of each and every shot. The living conditions at this orphanage was poor to say the least. Their kitchen would not have even come close to a C rating in LA; if they gave F's, this kitchen would be below those standards as well. The kids sleep about 20 to a room on old steel bunks with foam mattresses. There is a nicer living area with a small open space for the kids to crowd into and watch DVD's on an 15"-18" TV. The Incredibles was apparently a favorite as they wore out the disc while I was there. (No more Incredibles until someone goes out to get another pirated disc.) But the kids seem happy, even happier than some kids I see back home. The place feels less like an institution and more like a home occupied by brothers and sisters.

Still, as I mentioned earlier, corruption with organizations, both government and NGO's, seem fairly common here in Nepal. But I think I see it more in shades of gray now. In a third world country, common things back home are luxuries like diapers, toilet paper, shoes, clean water, or showers. Even worrying about things like greenhouse gasses or recycling seem like a luxury when about half the country lives below the poverty line. It's a cutthroat world and people need to live.

So orphanages like this open and take in children off the street without families. Volunteers from around the world come to Nepal, offering both money and their hands to help with the kids for short periods of time. I don't doubt that physically coming to Nepal helps, but what about the money? I'm pretty sure there's some skimming off the top. Well, no, the skimming probably starts from the middle. My guess is the money reaches the kids, but very little of it after it has been filtered through everyone else's hands. This would be an outrage in developed nations and it's heartbreaking to know these kids can probably be living in much better conditions. But maybe government oversight, support, and standard business practices employed in the developed world are also luxuries in a third world country. Corruption is the cost of doing business in these countries.

But, the kids are happy, they go to school, they have beds, a roof over their heads, and meals everyday. They have no comprehension to what's happening behind the scenes. The people that own and run the orphanage are well off by Nepalese standards. Compared to the rest of the world however, they are probably just another low-income family. Still, in the end it's always the kids that suffer the most, and sadly, most of the time they have no idea.

canyoning

2007-06-26T14:03:00.000-07:00

Holding the rope next to me, I take up the slack with my right hand and hold it behind my back. Standing in a pool of water, I lean backwards over the ledge to crane my neck over my shoulder. The rope is taught and I feel more confident about looking down at where I will be going. It's a long ways down. Sweet. I take two steps backwards to go over the ledge and I'm rappelling down the face of a waterfall. Water's splashing in my face, I'm concentrating on where to put my feet next, my right hand holds the rope tightly behind my back, my left hand is held against a boulder to prevent my head from crashing into it, and I'm enjoying every second of this. Canyoning is awesome.

volunteering

2007-06-22T14:01:00.001-07:00

I've met about 10 people here from western countries and ALL of them are volunteering somewhere. All of them. I'm 10 for 10. When was the last time you visited a country and the first 10 people you met are volunteers in the country? It's pretty cool to see like-minded people wanting to affect the world positively, but it's scary at the same time. Questions start popping up. Are all the organizations people are volunteering at legitimate? Is everyone here really making a positive, sustainable impact? Not sure. Sometimes the desire to do good just ends up harming the people you're trying to help. It's happened over and over again in history. Hopefully not here but you have to wonder, does there really need to be, what seems like, 50 different health volunteer organizations in Kathmandu. Probably not is my guess. Resources could probably be spread out and utilized better if these organizations worked with one another but it seems like each one has it's own plan and method of using these volunteers.

However, I am glad I decided to join with Habitat for Humanity. The director of the program here is a Sri Lankan man named Aruna Paul. He is extremely knowledgeable and seems to have laid out a great plan to grow the program and achieve it's goals effectively. Habitat has actually been in Nepal for 9 years but has been fairly ineffective for most of that time. In the first 7 years, the program was only able to build about 800 houses for families. It then went through a huge re-organization and within the last year and a half they've built about 900 houses with about 7 times less staff. In addition, their methods of building seem to be the right approach. They don't want to import anything into Nepal that cannot be simply put together here. Otherwise, costs, sustainability, and long term growth just aren't possible. In addition, their methods of financing and building the houses are using the latest theories of micro-financing and community loan management. Houses are built in stages so that they remain affordable for groups of families and over the course of a few years they can upgrade certain aspects of the houses as the community saves.

What they've asked me to do is to help with some of their marketing and publicity both internationally and locally with potential volunteers. I'll be helping them communicate some of their activities, accomplishments, and goals through the internet. If you know me, this is something I've been interested in for awhile so I'm fairly excited about this opportunity. It's not the manual labor that people typically think of when volunteering for Habitat, but it is directing my skills to help the organization most effectively.

horns

2007-06-20T20:51:00.000-07:00

The horn is used rather liberally in Nepal. On any given street you can't go more than 3 seconds without hearing a horn which can mean any of the following:

I'm behind you
I'm in front of you
Get out of my way
You're blocking traffic
Move to the left
Move to the right
I'm coming around you
Move faster
Move past me
Watch out you're really close
Don't hit me
Stop
Go

I'm sure I'm missing some things but, that covers most of it. I think I like it better the way we do it the US. Less horn is better. On a side note, I was walking home from the Habitat office the other day and I heard this horrible sound of metal on pavement. It sounded like someone was trying to sand down a big chunk of metal. I looked over and this car was moving at about 30 mph and slowing down as a tire was rolling out in front of it. Apparently this guys, front left wheel rolled RIGHT off the car as it was moving. Anyways, he got out, ran over to his wheel, and nonchalantly put it back onto his car. Did I mention it is insane here?

foreigners and locals

2007-06-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

There is definitely a weird hippie vibe floating around brought in by some of the Westerners from years and years ago. I've always thought it was weird how Westerners viewed eastern culture. Especially the way they viewed the Hindu and Buddhist religions or philosophies. Ever since I was fairly young I've always felt that Westerners (especially hippies) somehow bastardized the Eastern cultural beliefs because they are approaching it from the Western perspective they have grown up with. Their perspective always turns the Eastern cultures into this peace love thing that gets clearer only if you get to smoke a doob to get high.

But overall, I would describe that there are three main types of visitors here: volunteers, trekkers, and backpackers. Sometimes they are all rolled into one, like me. There are also a fair number of foreigners who have just decided that Kathmandu is a great place to live. Although, I think most of these people are hippies, ex-hippies, or crazy. In any respect, the number of foreigners in and around Kathmandu simply adds to the ethnic mix here in Nepal. Nepal as a country has a huge number of different local ethnic groups. People here represent every part of the world with typical Asian, South Asian, and European features. Still, when asked, everyone simply says they are Nepali. No one says, I am Newali, Gurung, or Chhetris and the ethnicity rarely comes up unless I'm asking. Sometimes it's even hard to get a Nepali to say what they are ethnically because they are not sure what you are asking them. I can't even imagine that type of response occurring in the States. I don't know how many times when people back home have asked me where I'm from, they are disappointed with my "I'm from California" response.

"No but, where are you really from."

"Seriously, I'm from California."

"Where are your parents from."

"Well, they live in the Bay Area right now, but they went to grad school in Texas."

I guess it's possible that no one in the US will care about your ethnic origins thousands and thousands of years from now, like the Nepali ... I doubt it though.

kathmandu

2007-06-17T18:05:00.000-07:00

When you roll out of the international airport terminal, there are a few hundred people waiting to "welcome" you to Nepal. The chaos hits you from all angles. Signs are waving for various hotels, trekking agencies, and transport services. People are yelling at you, "Sir! Sir! What are you looking for?" or "Sir, can I help you with your bag?!" It's just a little bit insane.

Driving from the airport, the city is a sprawling urban jungle of 3 to 4 story concrete buildings. Roads are narrow, barely paved, not straight, and cross each other at weird angles. It's an intense scene to be exposed to coming from just about anywhere else in the world. We made a left at what seemed like a random alley our vehicle could barely fit down, and then you hit the Thamel (pronounced Ta-MEL) district of town. The tourist area. The signs, people, shops, tourists, trekking guides, mini-buses, beggars, children, cars, bicycles, drug dealers, motorbikes, dogs, and tuk-tuks are all baring down on you at once. I thought the airport was insane and then I got here.

lost passport

2007-06-16T22:06:00.000-07:00

I lost my passport the day I was supposed to head out to Kathmandu meaning I was stuck in Bangkok for the time being. On the way to the airport, my passport fell out of my back pocket in the taxi. By the time I realized it was gone, the taxi had left. I contacted the tourist police who did their best to contact the taxi, but he was basically incompetent (he got lost on the way to the airport). Anyhow, I had to go to the embassy to get an emergency passport which could be processed within 24 hours and valid for one year. I headed back to the hostel late in the afternoon and as I arrived they said the taxi driver just dropped off my old passport. Great! I called the embassy to cancel my request for a new passport. No dice, this passport is already invalid as they are processing my new one now. I then had to go to the Thai embassy to get my visa transferred to my new passport. It was just a really long process getting this taken care of. Along the way I had met some Buddhist monks that had lost a laptop that contained the transcription of some 800 year old manuscripts. If I had lost that laptop I would have thrown up everywhere. They seemed ok, but maybe that's just because they knew the taxi driver was bringing it back as we spoke. I guess there are worse places to be stranded.

EDIT: Everything got taken care of and I'm safely in Kathmandu now. This is a completely different scene from Bangkok.

angkor wat

2007-06-15T14:54:00.000-07:00

There is really not much you can put into words about Angkor Wat and it's surrounding temples. You just have to see it and be in it's presence to understand. Even the best pictures probably don't do justice to the site, so my poor pictures definitely don't make the cut for translating what it's like to be here.

However, touring the site, it's clear that I know nothing of this region's history or most of Asia for that matter. World history in the US means lots of European-centric stories from Greece, Rome, and the rest of Europe. I think I had about a 2 week crash course on Chinese and Japanese history in HS. 4000 years and two countries in two weeks. Sounds about right. How does a civilization that could build structures like this in the middle of the rain forest not get talked about?

kampuchea

2007-06-14T11:05:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This turned into a really long post and it could be very boring. They're pretty much my random thoughts on Kampuchea (Cambodia).

A full day's journey there and a full day back. That's two days of just traveling so Ravi and I weren't so sure about going to see the Angkor Wat ruins, but flying just wasn't an option. It's about $300-$400 dollars roundtrip to fly directly from Bangkok to Siem Reap in Cambodia which is ridiculous for what's basically a flight from LA to SF. Apparently Bangkok Airways has a monopoly on this route - lame. So instead we opted for a $56 bus ride out to Cambodia. The trip on the Thai side was fine. It was at the border crossing and drive through Cambodia that was eye opening. Cambodia is a very poor country. In fact it has only recently had peace in the country for about a decade. That's it. 10 years without war, about 20-30 with civil war or political instability of some sort. Maybe more. The drive from the border to Siem Reap is about 70 km, but takes 5-6 hours because the road is unpaved. I definitely wouldn't recommend taking an unpaved road for even 15 minutes let alone 5-6 hours. On the inside the bus rattled like a roller coaster climbing the first ramp, except without the rhythm, and at the same time someone grabbing your shoulders and shaking you for 5 hours straight. Sleep in the wrong position and your bound to get a neck cramp or at least a good head bump.

At least I got to see the Cambodian countryside. Houses were raised on stilts and there was water everywhere. Most places had pools of muddy water in front of their houses and rice paddies next to them. However, these are not the normal rice paddies you see in pictures. They looked less well maintained. At least from my untrained eye, they looked less efficient at growing the rice. From what I had read, most of the farmers are subsistence farmers and so they only grow what they need. I had seen the paddies in China and those ones looked like they could produce massive amounts of rice. Neat rows, entire paddies of green, and water everywhere. Here, some paddies were only half filled with water and half grown with rice. Plastic has probably been the worst invention for poor countries and it's no different for Cambodia. Villages and houses are littered with bottles and bags. However, when meeting and talking with the people, you get a sense of pride from them that is rarely seen state-side. The Khmer people, as they identify themselves as, recognize the importance and the history of Cambodia. Their people were at one point in time the dominant force in southeast asia. The people push for you to change dollars to riels to help their economy. They help fellow Cambodians with legitimate businesses to earn a living. Thailand by Cambodian standards is a wealthy country.

In Siem Reap the development is amazing. For just under a million people, the entire city revolves around the tourism Angkor Wat generates. Over 65 hotels of some sort fill the city. From 4 star room service type hotels to guest houses are all available. Taxis, motorbikes, and tuk-tuks are everywhere to serve tourists from Japan, Korea, Singapre, Malaysia, Taiwan, and some western countries. There's even a street so well developed, it could easily have been moved from a small college town's main avenue. Backpackers, ex-pats, and tourists can eat traditional Khmer food as well as pizza, italian, indian, chinese, and korean. The pizza is what killed me. In my hotel lobby I heard a couple from the US ask the front desk where the pizza restaurant is. You are in FREAKING Cambodia! Why the hell would you even THINK of getting pizza! Anyhow, it's easy to see this place developing quickly and therefore, without some foresight lose itself. The country is obviously struggling with how fast to grow the tourism opportunity and balance that with the infrastructure and a more sustainable economy. In the end I think I'm glad I took the 5 hour bus ride. Pictures and thoughts on Angkor Wat to come.

royal blue elephant

2007-06-12T15:25:00.000-07:00

NOTE: In honor of my last day in Bangkok I'm giving everyone a deal. Two for one special today. I'm posting twice.

One of the benefits of coming to Thailand is to taste real Thai cuisine. I have always loved the Thai spices and curries and now, by way of the Royal Blue Elephant Cooking School, I have become a master Thai chef. Ravi and I enrolled in a half day cooking course to learn how to make four special thai dishes. We arrived at the school in the morning and were taken to the Thai market by our instructor, Breeze. She apparently went to high school in Virginia before she moved back to Thailand for university, so her english was excellent. Anyhow, she showed us some pretty cool stuff at the market that I'm sure most people don't get a chance to see. Like a shark. You need to special order the shark, but now you know you can get one at the Thai market. We also saw parrot fish for sale. I always thought those were endangered or something, but now I know I can eat them here if I want. Giant waterbugs apparently can impart a sweet aroma and flavor if it's wings and legs are pulled off and crushed into a smoothy-like drink. Didn't try it, but I took her word for it. We also saw a serial catfish killer that just snapped catfish neck like she was folding oragami.

The course itself was really awesome. Usually there can be up to 10 people in the class, but today we found ourselves in a class of two, just Ravi and me. Pretty sweet. Basically Breeze and another chef cooked the dish and explained how or why certain ingredients are used as we watched on. Then we went into another room and did it ourselves. It will probably one of the best experiences I'll have in Thailand and I can take it home with me. They gave us a spice box and apron when we left and I offered my master chef skills for a day in their kitchen. They turned it down - whatever, their loss.

wats and a palace

2007-06-12T14:56:00.000-07:00

My friend from grad school, Ravi flew in and the following day we went off to explore the touristy sights of Bangkok. The Grand Palace of the Thai royal family which contained within the same area the Wat Phra Kaew, or royal temple. The wat, or temple, is an amazing sight to see. The grounds are kept in such amazing condition. Gold leaf is one of those things you see that really make a place pop. I think when I build my dream home, I'm going to gold leaf a few things, like my toilet or something.

National Thai culture and religion is basically a sect of Buddhism. But the Buddhism has really incorporated a strong Hindu influence from India. The walls in the Wat Phra Kaew are painted with large murals depicting Thai epics originated from Hindu mythology (the story of Rama). It's so interesting to contrast different religions and see how, in many ways, the Eastern religions really seem to emphasize personal enlightenment and growth as an individual endeavor. Whereas, the basic religions stemming from the sons of Abraham seem rigid and dogmatic about their approach to reaching heaven. The result seems to be a destructive force on humans throughout history. Muslims and Christians all seem to do their fair share of defacing, looting, or destroying what was the beautiful representation of the culture in these areas. I think my favorite Wat in the city however was across the river from the Royal grounds. Wat Arun offered a great view of Bangkok and an experience climbing the steep steps.

first impressions

2007-06-09T16:01:00.000-07:00

NOTE: I'm writing these posts a few days after they have happened and have had time to process what I see or do. Hopefully it can give some good insight into my experiences and most importantly, provide me with a way to remember what I actually did on this trip. Also, for a more up to date version of where I'm at, I'll probably keep a good log on MyMaps.

I left Bangkok airport on a white shuttle bus taking me to the bus terminals that head into the city. From what I read online, I figured out I needed to take the 551 line to reach the Bangkok SkyTran at Victory Monument. Walking to the ticket counter, I asked for the bus. The man behind the window pointed and waved to a large bus behind me just beginning to pull out of it's parking space. Crap. I waved as well trying to stop it from pulling out. I hadn't even bought a ticket yet! I turn around and look at the man behind the window asking how much is the ticket in English. He just waves again. Wait what? I turn around and the bus is still pulling out, I look back and realize, he's not waving for the bus to stop, he's telling me to run. Freaking dumb foreigners.

The city is like most large, crowded, and congested cities in Asia:

The fumes from all the vehicles are killer. I think I felt three tumors form in my lungs on the way to the hostel.

It's ridiculously hot and humid here. There literally is no comparison to anything that people experience in the states. The smog, the density of the people, the fact that this should be a rainforest.

There are motorbikes of every kind everywhere. And they apparently don't have to obey any traffic laws. Not that cars do either, but even the direction of traffic can go out the window if you're on a motorbike.

This makes crossing the street a complete adventure. To top it off, everyone drives on the other side of the road here. I'm always looking left thinking it's clear. I even had a nice prostitute yell a warning to me as I began to cross the when a car was about to run my ass over. She then gave me a handjob, just kidding. Seriously, i'm kidding, I wouldn't ask for just a handjob. HA! Ok seriously, that's gross, I would only ask for a massage and if they happen to give me a handjob, well, it was an accident.

Still, unlike many Asian cities, Bangkok's international history truly creates a real melting pot culture. The way the city has accepted or incorporated such different groups of people is obvious everywhere. It's just really amazing to see the East Asian, European, South Asian, American, and Southeast Asian cultures melding into the city. I finally reached my hostel around 8PM and then went out to wander around for a bit before finally crashing from exhaustion and excitement.

layover

2007-06-04T07:57:00.000-07:00

I have a ridiculous 10 hour layover in Hong Kong. So taking JenLee's advice I decided to head into HK instead of sit at the airport. The express train from the airport was super fast and got me into central HK in about 20 minutes. Nice, 6AM in HK. It's freaking hot here already as well. Anyhow, I walk to about 3 different large hotels I see on a random tourist map I got from the airport and finally find free internet here at the JW Marriott lobby. And now I'm just chilling here to meet up with Marshall for some breakfast.

Earlier at the airport, I thought I was screwed within the first half hour of my trip. I arrived in Hong Kong early in the morning. Way early. 5AM early. Anyhow, no money exchange counter was open but I did find an electronic exchanger. You stick your bills in and they pump out HK Dollars for you in return. Nice feature. So I stick in a $50 bill and the machine tells me it's processing the exchange. Then blam! to paraphrase the screen: "Machine temporarily out of order, please take your bill back." Except, there's not freaking $50 bill for me take back. WTH. I lose $50 bucks within 30 minutes of arriving in Asia. I waited for the real exchange booth with people to open and told them what happened. At first I thought I might be met with skepticism, but the people seemed like they had dealt with this before. A manager went and got my $50 and changed the money for me in person. Lesson learned. Deal with people not machines - but I guess that's true anywhere.

last post from this continent

2007-06-01T15:31:00.000-07:00

I'll be leaving on my trip tomorrow and I'm incredibly excited. I'm pretty much winging most of this trip as I've only booked certain portions of my travels. I really only know for sure that I'll be arriving in Bangkok, and that I'll be in Tibet for 10 days beginning July 14th. Other than that the rest of my itinerary is based on whether or not I can find the right flights for the right price.

Also, I'm hoping to document my travels online as much as possible so feel free to check back into the blog every so often. I've added a map to the sidebar on my blog that I hope to post pictures to as I move around. It's kind of a neat feature Google just added to their maps called "MyMaps." Basically I can add locations of interest to a map that I create. So even if I can't write much, hopefully I should be able to post a few pictures to the map every so often from the other side of the globe. Wish me luck guys and see you in August!

bhangra party

2007-05-29T11:32:00.000-07:00

WC and I had never been to a Hindi wedding before this weekend. The entire experience was an event to remember. I met Raj my freshman year at Cal when he moved in next door to D and me at the dorms. The following year all 3 of us and some other friends moved into a house on the north side of Berkeley until graduation. My other house-mate in college, Elson whom I had not seen in 6 years, was also coming to this wedding. I had lived with both of these guys through all 4 years of college. Needless to say a bond through the shared experiences of our first taste of independence brings back a certain nostalgia for that life again. Although, reflecting on this weekend, I'm not sure there was anything that makes me feel older now than four guys reminiscing about drunken nights, stupid pranks, and hilarious conversations that took place over 6 years ago.

The day's events started around 11AM and ended promptly around 12AM. A good 12 plus hours of ceremony, formalities, informal formalities, singing, dancing, chanting, eating and more dancing. I won't bore you with the length of the ceremony (it was long - much longer than a Catholic wedding) or my lack of understanding of the Hindu culture (there was a lot of culture I did not understand - including sanskrit, which I think even most Hindi people do not understand), but let me just say that Indian people get down at weddings. And by people I mean everyone. Grandfathers, sisters, mothers, uncles, grandmothers, EVERYONE gets down on the dance floor at Hindi weddings. Sometimes, they even get down when there isn't even a dance floor. It's craziness. And there's no convention with who you should dance with. Personally, I danced with WC, D, Raj, Ang, Raj's dad, random cousins, and random guests sometimes individually, sometimes all at once. Just an all around good time.

On that note, I'd like to share this story I have of Raj back when we were still living in the dorms (4th floor Griffiths, Unit 2 baby!). I think it's a most fitting story because it really captures what our friendship is like and what kind of person he is (or maybe what kind of person I am). Raj fell asleep late one night and, as it was late, everyone else was still awake. Who falls asleep when everyone else is awake? Even if it's 1AM?! Such an outrage. As all good friends would do, I decided to have some fun. Raj, sleeping on his side, had the palms of his hand on his outer arm open and near his face. I used a piece of string to tickle his nose. He scratched it. I then tickled his ear a bit. Scratch scratch. Still asleep. I think there must have been a good 4 to 5 people in the room trying to check their laughter. At this point I figured it would be a good time to employ some shaving cream into the picture. I squirted a nice handful into Raj's palms and then added some more on top of that. Using the same string, I brushed his ear. WHAP! Raj slapped himself on the side of his face with a handful of shaving cream. Slapped. Bits of shaving cream flew into the air. But then, he didn't remove his hand from his face. He just left his hand in one position trapping the shaving cream between his hand and face. Raj let out a soft, but obviously pissed, "fuuuuuuck". He got up, hand still attached to his face, and walked down the hall to the bathroom. The rest of us were just laughing hysterically. We're all still friends .. good times and congratulations Raj.

transition

2007-05-17T09:58:00.000-07:00

The next few months are going to be hectic but fun. I officially graduated last weekend and so I started my extended vacation by packing up my apartment. I got back to the Bay the past Friday and will be here till Thursday. I then take off to Baltimore and Philladelphia to visit WC and attend a friend's wedding. After I get back I take off immediately for my trip to Asia. So far the international leg of my vacation looks like this:

I spend a week in Thailand with a friend from school. We are hoping to do a quick side trip to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat before we head in separate directions. I then move onto Nepal for about a month. I recently reached someone in Nepal from the Habitat for Humanity organization. It looks like they may need some help with construction as well as some basic English language marketing materials. Hopefully I will get to do some good work with them before I leave Nepal to meet my Dad in Tibet. I think I'm looking forward to this part of the trip more than anything. I get to hang out with my Dad for 10 days while touring the roof of the world. After Tibet, I basically head back to civilization spending a week in Shanghai and then a week in Hong Kong. In total it will be a nice 2 months of traveling.

I am anticipating an amazing trip and experience as I transition back into the working world. It has been kind of a strange 2 years not working. It felt completely natural being back in school, but at the same time it was somewhat uncomfortable feeling like I'm not actually advancing my career goals in any way. School was almost like a pause from reality in the process of dominating the world. Anyhow, these next 3 months is when I'll be slowly transitioning back to work-life. First step, an excursion of no responsibility, fun, adventure, and just enjoying an already charmed life.

finished ..

2007-05-11T10:00:00.001-07:00

I'm graduating this weekend. finally. w00tw00t!

ugggghhhhhhherjinnjryunvmnzhufhdmmfa

2007-05-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

That's what I sound like right now. Allergies - it has finally hit. I knew this was coming at some point, and now the turn in really warm weather has finally hit hard. The plants are now trying to make passionate love with one another and as with bystanders to any orgy we'd rather turn away from this big mess. Plants should all just go and die.

w's

2007-05-03T09:02:00.000-07:00

For good luck tonight, and to try and keep the team nice and loose, I'm showing this great clip of Baron. Big game tonight. I believe!

volunteer nepal

2007-04-09T20:11:00.000-07:00

With my post-graduation trip rapidly approaching I have been trying to finalize some details I wanted set before I left. One of which, was finding a volunteer program while I was in Nepal. I have been planning to spend at least a month in the country and so for the past 4 months, I've been looking for a reputable program. The whole process has been kind of strange. Volunteering in another country is not as easy as it seems. You would think, that someone willing to pay for their own flight, lodging, and food would just need to find a place willing to take your time. But there seems to be a whole host of organizations that require a huge fee for these volunteer experiences. Many times four weeks could run +$2000! I guess it's even a whole new industry, voluntourism. I suppose that's what I'm looking for. A voluntourism experience. Anyhow, I had been looking into an organization in Nepal called the Volunteer Society Nepal (VSN). They had a reasonable fee (~$500 for 4 weeks) and what seemed like a good infrastructure and program helping needy areas of Nepal. I was nearly all set on the organization when I did one last search to see if I could find any reviews of the organization from previous volunteers. By chance I ran across someone who mentioned they worked with VSN. I got in contact with the individual and was somewhat disturbed by this person's account of their experience:

There was some more to the message but I'm not going to paste it all. I've left out names on purpose, but the organization is real. I can imagine that maybe there could be some legitimate reasons why the little girl may be working for the family. From what I understand, Nepal is mostly Hindu and so it has a strong history of the caste system. It takes time for cultures to change. However, I'm not sure this is an org I want to join. But anyone else looking to do this in Nepal or any other country, I would look carefully at each organization to evaluate it's cause, legitimacy, and of course what you want to get from the experience.

inconvenient live!

2007-03-28T22:32:00.000-07:00

This past week I had an opportunity to go to NYC on the school's dime. A conference related to my master's project was taking place in the city and it made the perfect excuse to take a trip to the Big Apple. Besides the normal NYC stuff (shopping, eating, drinking, lots of walking, and visiting friends) the conference added a new experience.

The coolest part of the conference was the keynote speaker. Former VP Al Gore was speaking and as attendees of the conference we had a chance to see him live. Al's speech was basically a live version of the Inconvenient Truth. I've never seen the movie, so seeing the talk live was really interesting. At certain points, it seemed more over the top than I would have liked, but the content and presentation of the information was really well done. Overall, besides the global warming info, what I learned from the talk was that Keynote kicks Powerpoint's ass.

the dc

2007-03-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

I remember moving into the dorms at Cal (years ago now) and checking out the dinning commons at Unit 2. Better known as the DC. It was extremely unimpressive. My friends and I would move from unit to unit checking out the menus and cafeterias, discovering it was pretty much the same across the entire campus. Berkeley DC was basically just a buffet of crap. Needless to say the Berkeley Meal Plan was not a popular item once you moved out of the dorms. Well, I recently came across this article describing the NEW Cal DC experience. My response is simply, "Wow, I want to be an undergrad again." Apparently people are buying the meal plan even after moving out of the dorms, which I can barely fathom. Especially considering the good local food in the area. The Cal Dining website also includes menus for the week. I posted an example menu below where you can see students now have a wide variety of options including a sushi bar, a pho station, and a vegan station. A freaking VEGAN station! Not that I like vegan food, but to even provide that option is ridiculous.

More Hi-Res pictures and videos of the Unit 3 DC under construction can be found at the Cal Dining website. The new DC at Unit 3 also includes some ridiculous "Aurora Borealis Lighting":

ncaa basketball

2007-03-15T11:53:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite times of the year. The NCAA tournament started today and the first two days are filled with some of the most entertaining games. I love how the networks openly acknowledge that some games are just boring and will simply switch to the more exciting game. It's just non-stop basketball action. My bracket's below, however, my best placement ever was only second place a couple of tournaments ago. So if your bracket looks like mine, it could mean trouble.

heroes

2007-03-05T16:27:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite TV night of the week. It used to be Thursdays for Scrubs and the Office. But now, I have class on Thursday nights and so I look forward to Mondays (and I just watch Office episodes online). Heroes at 9PM is by far the best show on television right now. I can't wait for tonight's episode. I keep thinking, "There's no way they can keep stringing us along and still keep it interesting." Yet every week I'm totally psyched when the episode begins and at the end of every episode I think, "Holy crap! that was so awesome!" Also, there's a sweet graphic novel updated weekly that adds to the story in a way that just makes watching the show so much better. If you're a little late getting into the game, no worries. You should just catch up by watching each episode at Heroes.com on your own time. Below is a character map from a fanblog that kind of helps clarify the picture. Well, kind of helps .. and H.R.G. stands for Horned Rimmed Glasses. How cool is that.

gradtrip

2007-02-27T10:33:00.000-08:00

My new job will begin in September. I graduate in May. Last I checked there was June, July, and August between my start date and graduation and so my free time has now been spent planning a trip during this time. After some research I think I've decided on a place to visit. Nepal. The country lies between India and Tibet and will hopefully be a nice meld of two of the places on my list of places to travel to: Tibet and India. Now I just need to figure out how to get there and back.

pirates and oscars

2007-02-13T09:38:00.000-08:00

Every year the Oscars roll around and about half of the movies I have never seen. It gets worse every year too as I go to the theaters less. Movies just are not worth 8 buck now. So when I found this site I got excited. Read the front page, it does a great job of explaining what a pioneer you'll be or as in business school speak, an "early adopter". And of course, your chances of getting sued.

first snow

2007-02-09T00:16:00.000-08:00

A couple weekends ago Darren, Robin, and I headed up to Tahoe from Southern California. We were driving up to a cabin in South Tahoe for Dietrich and Jessica's birthdays. I've never done the drive to Tahoe from SoCal and it was not AS bad as I thought. Still it was significantly longer than the drive from the Bay. Ski/snowboarding trips are so much fun. And as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So here's my 18,000+ word blog post.

deathly hallows

2007-02-07T14:32:00.000-08:00

The final chapter in the money making machine that is the Harry Potter series has been written. You can preorder the book now at Amazon. J.K. Rowling herself has posted on her site that the book "... is my favourite, and that is the most wonderful way to finish the series." The capitalist pigs that have exploited the series to its fullest extent will once again take my money. I remember, holding out from the hype for the original books for quite some time. I think 3 of the series had been published when I found them in my sister's room. Like an evil temptress the first book called out to me to be read. I swear I fought off the hype machine for another few months and then I caved reading all 3 books in like 2 days. Since then, J.K. Rowling has been taking my money and it has probably been worth every penny. I can't wait to find out what happens.

senioritis

2007-02-05T23:41:00.000-08:00

I've got a bad case of senioritis. It's not easy to understand why either. I've got two classes this semester. My first class of the week starts at 7PM on Thursday and last class of the week ends at 5PM on Friday. Also, I've got my job sealed up for after graduation so what more is there to do? DOMINATE GEARS OF WAR!!

Over the holidays I got a good deal on an XBox 360. Since I've brought it down to Pasadena, and with the extra time on my hands, I've been dedicating myself to dominating the game 'Gears of War'. This is actually a horrible thing that I'm playing the game so much. I still have plenty of work to do, but now I'm just not doing it. Anyhow, I'm going to ignore the fact that I do have a Masters project to complete, some contract work I've been lagging on, and some further research on an independent study. Gears of War is too much fun AND I'm improving my vision.

getting older

2007-01-31T16:34:00.000-08:00

There are a few things that you begin to notice as you get older. For me the first sign was the recovery time from injuries. I'm fairly active and I've recognized that stretching before any activity is a necessity if I want to get out of bed the next day. You also start noticing your metabolism changing quite a bit. Those 2AM food binges after late nights start wearing on you. At first you never felt gross after those meals. At some point, you start feeling gross the next morning. Now I'm guaranteed to feel gross after a 2AM meal IMMEDIATELY afterwards. Anyhow, so I recently came upon another aspect of life that forces you to recognize your age. Your parents' health.

My Mom had to go to the hospital last week in an ambulance because of horrendous pain in her stomach. After 6 hours in the ER, she was diagnosed with an infected appendix. In the OR, it was discovered that her appendix had actually ruptured. She ended up needing to stay in the hospital for almost a week. It's just an anxious experience knowing your Mom's in the hospital for some strange stomach pain. There's nothing you can do when you're this far away. People always talk about how, when you are young, you think you are invincible. Getting older is recognizing you are not. Along those lines, I think we often forget that our parents are not invincible either. As we get older, it is easier to see the vulnerability in them and how much they need us. Anyhow, my Mom is doing fine now. Getting older just sucks.

guilty pleasures

2007-01-21T21:12:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I had to chaperone some high school kids to the movies. Of course since the event was not for me, I didn't have a choice in the movie selection and got stuck watching Stomp the Yard. As expected, the movie was complete crap ... Ok, so by high school kids I meant Robin and our friends. And by complete crap I meant I somehow actually enjoyed the movie. I know, I know - it only got 25% on Rotten Tomatoes. Call it a guilty pleasure. Every once in awhile there are just these absolutely horrible movies that I actually end up liking. Complete guilty pleasure. I've actually compiled a list of movies that, yes, I am admitting, I somehow enjoyed. It's probably not complete but this is just what came up with. Please tell me I'm not the only one that liked these movies.

Varsity Blues
Bedazzled
Bring It On
Fast and the Furious

book report

2007-01-18T09:07:00.000-08:00

I usually don't do book reviews and no, it is not because I do not read. I actually do plenty of that. I'm in school remember. But, over the winter beak I had a chance to read a great book about an extraordinary person. I think we can generally put books focused on a single person into two categories: person is dead or person is alive. When people are dead and books are still written about you, it probably means you are interesting and did something of significance in your life. Probably. If you're alive and you have a book about your life, which hasn't even ended yet, it's typically completely useless. The focus of these books are politicians, celebrities, and, once in awhile, a successful businessman. For the most part the books are useless little stories detailing personal struggles and how they were overcome. The personal stories hope to inspire and change people's approach to life, etc. etc. etc. Seriously though, these books are just schemes to make money and sustain publicity. Like ocean kayak excursions, it's a scam.

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder however, is completely different. It details the story of the still very much alive Paul Farmer. Never heard of him? Well, he is in the mold of people like Mother Teresa whose life story by itself is interesting. Similarly, it is what Paul Farmer does with his life and for whom he lives for that makes the story unique. Unlike typical books about people who are still alive, the life work of Paul Farmer provides an important perspective on our world dealing with modern politics, healthcare, medicine, poverty, and social justice. There is more to this book than just the story about one person's life. Personally I just found it interesting to consider, what one person is capable of to change the world. It seriously puts into question what someone's best effort really is. If you have some time, I highly recommend the book if only to get a better grasp the world we live in. It is a relatively quick read and well worth the time. If you want an excerpt, just click here or on the linked cover of the book above.

mob mentality

2007-01-11T12:16:00.000-08:00

Japanese are so funny.

npr

2007-01-06T13:57:00.000-08:00

I was in a meeting in Newport earlier this week on a side project I've been working on outside of school. Towards the end of the meeting, I mentioned that I heard a story on NPR related to the project we were working on. After a few words related to the topic, one of the older gentlemen on the team, says to me, "You listen to NPR? So you must be a Democrat." And he said it in such a judgemental tone. Democrat. I looked at him dumbfounded. Democrat? Because I listen to NPR? I understand NPR probably expresses many left leaning perspectives, but it's NPR. Public radio. It's more apolitical than any other program out there. It's the freaking news. And more often than any other program I know of, allows multiple sides to be expressed when directly addressing political topics. It's fucking public radio for crying out loud. In the heart of California's Elephant party, I simply responded truthfully, "I'm not a Democrat, I'm for whatever makes sense." I hate being judged so definitively on so little information.

Anyhow, I'm still going to listen to NPR. Hopefully, there aren't more idiots who will jump to idiotic conclusions. Thursday's Fresh Air program had a great interview with Sacha Baron Cohen. Yes, he even did the interview as himself. It's great to hear the insight into how his characters were created, what he's thinking as he prepares to get into character, and other funny bits.

christmas

2006-12-25T15:36:00.000-08:00

There are so many good things about this time of year. The typical things people talk about are family, friends, presents, no work, good food, etc. Personally, I like the music. There's something about familiar tunes played everywhere to get you in the mood. The king of Christmas music in my opinion is Perry Como. A strong case can be made for Bing Crosby, but Perry in my book just does it. So with that, I'll leave you to Mr. Perry Como and Ann Blyth with their rendition of Winter Wonderland. Merry Christmas everyone!

gloat

2006-12-20T14:09:00.000-08:00

I'm on a roll in fantasy basketball and I have to gloat. I'm currently in 3 basketball leagues: one with classmates at school (KGI Leauge), one with some old Berkeley friends (Berkeley League), and one with some friends in the southbay post-Berkeley (Cupertino League). With about a third of the season over, I'm killing everyone in the latter two leagues. Especially the Cupertino league. Everytime I look at my team in the Cupertino League, I just laugh at how stacked my squad is. I've never been this high in the standings this late into the season. It's sad, yes I know, but I need to gloat now as this may never happen again.

Standings from the Berkeley League:

Second place this late in the season in this league is great. I would say most of these guys really know their basketball and have played in this league for the last 5-6 seasons. Tough competition, 12 teams, only 6 roster spots a night, so second place is pretty damn good.

Standings from the Cupertino League:

This league has only been running for about 3 seasons. As you can see, I'm in first place in this league. I'm in first place by a lot. Ahead by almost 10 games to be exact. Barring any serious injuries, there's a good chance this is going to turn into a laughing stock of a season if I keep winning at this pace. I would say most of these guys really know their basketball as well. But they just sucked it up in the draft this year and let me pick up a ridiculous squad.

Still, it's early in the basketball season and as a reminder for myself, my fantasy football season started off similarly. I was at or near the top of the league in the first part of the season. I then proceeded to drop my last 7 games in a row to finish, well, I'll show you:

The only difference is, I didn't gloat at all in the football season. And now I regret not making fun of people more because, clearly, making fun of people from last place isn't quite as fun as it is from first place.

reflection on risk

2006-12-19T21:21:00.000-08:00

The graduate school I'm currently attending is fairly new. What this means is the curriculum, the professors, the students, the administrators, the educational community, and the industry that it serves are all still developing a feel for what the school brings to the table. It's a startup school with no existing educational model to base itself on. There's plenty of room to screw up. But I knew all of this before I came here and I came anyways. I know firsthand what a big name school can do for your career. Graduating from Berkeley opened doors for me just because it was Berkeley. Along the same lines, I know how much educational material actually matters in the real world - not much. Still, I ignored what I knew and came to the Keck Graduate Institute (KGI for short) because of what I perceived would be a superior experience in preparing me to do better things in my career.

It was a fairly decent sized risk on my part. I was making good money. I probably could have advanced my career at J&J much further. I could have gone to a bigger, more recognizable school. But I took a chance and now I feel like the experience has set me up to do some pretty good things. Most people just don't know it yet. I think my offer at L.E.K. could have been improved if they had a better understanding of my experiences at KGI. This feeling has only been reinforced with the current contract work I have been doing. I found this gig through a connection I had made with an angel investor visiting my school. I joined a small team of industry folks to help a researcher develop a business plan to spin out some technology he's been working on. I can say with confidence that I have the best grasp of the technology, market, and opportunity on a team where average experience is 20+ years. I can directly attribute this to the two years I have spent at this program. So far, I can say that my risky decision 1.5 years ago has set me up well.

I honestly can't think of many other large, life altering risks I have taken. I can think of plenty of things where I had two opportunities, and chose one over the other. But really, not much bad could have come out of any of those choices. On the other hand, I could have been really screwed if KGI was just a complete POS. I still have one semester left, so there's still a chance I'll get screwed. But so far, I haven't regretted the experience a bit. I sometimes wonder how other people's risky choices have turned out.

jobby

2006-12-17T21:17:00.000-08:00

As I had previously alluded to in earlier posts, I got a job fulfilling one of my goals for my post-gradution plans. I signed my offer letter to work at L.E.K. Consulting last week and overall I'm fairly excited about the career change. But, what this really means is that I'll be staying down in LA for longer than planned. I would have liked to be back in the bay, but the west coast offices run out of LA so I'll get better exposure down here.

The semester ended for me this past Friday and I have a week by myself before my sister and WC fly out here for Christmas. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy my first week of winter break. Barring seriously horrendous weather I'm probably going to do a bit of climbing, surfing, golfing, and who knows, maybe even get out to the mountains to do a bit of snowboarding.

awol

2006-12-09T22:18:00.000-08:00

I have not been posting as much lately. The lag in content and updates probably occurred sometime after Thanksgiving. It's the end of the year crunch that's been taking up most of my time. With final exams, reports, and presentations crammed into these last few weeks, I'm just looking forward to Friday; AKA "end of the semester." With a job all but sealed up (more on that later) next semester's focus will be intramural basketball and surfing. I'm aiming for classes on Thursdays and Fridays only, but there's one class on Mondays that is standing in the way of that plan. Anyhow, a more thorough update to come after next week.

free sh!t

2006-12-01T12:18:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, apparently AOL Video is letting people download movies for free. I'm not sure if it's all of them, some of them, or one of them, but it will be free .... I know, lame post. But I've been busy with the school year ending and the job search / negotiations intensifying. So far, it looks like I will be staying in LA for a couple more years - bleh.

adventurers of the year

2006-11-27T09:50:00.000-08:00

National Geographic Adventure magazine recently named Julie Wafaei and Colin Angus as adventurers of the year. What exactly did they do to earn this title? They just took a little trip around the world ... using only their own power. This includes ROWING across the Atlantic ocean. Just think of proposing this idea to a friend or telling your family what you plan on doing. To top it off, when they reached the Atlantic, it just happened to be during the worst storm season of this last century. A detailed account of their travel can be found here with accompanying video. Just a very cool story.

missed an episode?

2006-11-21T23:23:00.000-08:00

I've been catching up on the Office through the powers of the internet. A couple of sites have been pointed out to me as great way to catch up on missed episodes of almost anything. So if torrent isn't your thing, these two sites are great to stream old tv shows onto your computer. Who needs tivo or cable?

The Office is such a great show on so many levels. At this point Steve Carell, of 40-Year Old Virgin fame, is probably the most well-known of the entire cast. But Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight Schrute, is probably the funniest character on the show. With that said, I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving and keep in mind this PSA from Dwight Schrute if you're in the wild.

back on track?

2006-11-08T06:57:00.000-08:00

After an interesting political night, does it finally feel like the country is getting back on track? It probably remains to be seen how the Democrats will handle themselves in office. They are still politicians after all. And, as far as I know, Dems are not immune to corruption and scandal. But a few interesting outcomes on a law, amendment, and measure may be interesting to note. Directly from the AP:

South Dakotans rejected a law that would have banned virtually all abortions.
Arizona became the first state to defeat an amendment to ban gay marriage.
Missouri approved a measure backing stem cell research.

Obviously the evangelical right has a limit to their powers. Looking ahead to 2008, this guy has been making waves. If you've never heard him speak, you are in for a treat. He's probably one of the most gifted speakers I have seen. Articulate, concise, and intelligent in interviews and at the podium. I would also like to note in this space that I definitely do not consider myself as a Democrat. Being a California native, I don't consider myself too far from the average: socially liberal, fiscally conservative. Also, I have a thing against idiocy and incompetence. Bush is both.

Edit: Rumsfeld is resigning!

clean and neat

2006-11-06T08:13:00.000-08:00

As I got dressed this morning, I found myself sifting through a pile of clean clothes on the floor of my room, trying to figure out what to wear. Does this make sense? I have clean clothes strewn about the floor of my room. Jeans and cords in a corner. Some sweaters and jackets lying next to/on top of/near the desk. And a few t-shirts, polos, and shorts sprinkled around.

I've never considered myself a messy person. But I've never considered myself clean, organized, and neat either. Especially after living in college with a some real freaks. Both in the clean and messy categories. I guess I've always been in between. My typical cycle is to start leaving things out of their "normal" places a couple of items at a time. This just builds up slowly until some critical mass is reached. Then some light bulb goes off in my head and I decide everything needs to go into their proper place. I spend a significant amount of time cleaning things up. Once everything is in place, I repeat from the top and the cycle continues. I guess it would be easier if I actually just put things back once I take them out. Anyhow, I need to clean the apartment soon. It's a mess.

almost out

2006-11-01T08:39:00.000-08:00

I seriously can't wait till I finish with school. It already almost feels like I'm out in the real world already. Almost. I'm flying to Baltimore today for a conference related to my masters project. The cool thing about my program is that our masters project is directly related to a real problem coming from industry. The projects are essentially corporate sponsored. What this means is that certain things related to the project are paid for. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how to use this to your advantage in a long distance relationship.

Next week I'll have two more interviews and hopefully no rejections. This entire recruiting process is somewhat ridiculous. Especially with consulting companies. The basic process is a first round case interview. This is followed by a second round of both more cases and basic "fit" questions. The case question is usually some type of question or problem coming from industry in a real consulting experience. For example, some company is in phase III clinical trials, should they license the drug or sell it themselves. Or a sausage company needs to release a new sausage into the market, how do they do that and assess the market size. Then they proceed to give you as little information as possible and you have to proceed to tease out the answer. And yes, these are real questions I got asked. What I've been told the interviewer looks for is ability to handle quantitative information and have a structured method of solving the problem. How do I know this? Because there are a million books, articles, presentations, etc. out there that tell you this. There's an entire mini-industry of consulting case interview preparation materials. It's like the SAT, does this really assess our abilities? or how much access we have to supplemental material?

azn

2006-10-29T22:45:00.000-08:00

I went to a Halloween party this past Saturday at some club in Hollywood. It was an Asian party where 99.9% of the party goers were Asian: aka AZN. As some friends and I waited to get checked in through the guest list line, I wanted to hurl at the thought of going into a party like this. Fortunately, it was Halloween so there were plenty of interesting costumes to gawk at. A welcome change from seeing 400 people that look and dress exactly the same. Still, I can't believe that there was a point in my life where I actually went to these Asian parties every weekend. At this point, I think I could only handle going to 2-3 of these types of events a year. I think my yearly quota has been met.

monday television

2006-10-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks I've been into NBC's Monday night lineup. Specifically the shows Heroes and Studio 60. If you haven't caught them it's worth a look. Although, with Heroes, I guess it could be hard to follow now that a few weeks have passed and it's primarily plot driven. But, that's why there's the internet - NBC has two-minute catch up videos on what happened the previous weeks. With Studio 60 a viewer can just jump in and understand what's going on for the most part. As far as network television is concerned, the dialogue is great, witty, and fast-paced making the show really entertaining to watch.

With Studio 60, Chandler Bing is back in TV as a writer for a sketch comedy show. And yes, I know his real name is Matthew Perry, but every time I've seen him outside of Friends I just think Chandler. Except in this show. He's surprisingly good with Brad Whitford where they have great chemistry. Amanda Peet I feel is somewhat disappointing on the show, but I guess, when has she ever NOT disappointed. She's still easy on the eyes, so all is not lost with her.

With Heroes, the premise of the show is that certain humans have the unexpressed genes to do extraordinary things such as flying, time traveling, see the future, etc. Somehow, these gifts have been revealing themselves to people little by little. Since I'm attending a biotechnology oriented school, I can tell you for a fact that this premise is ludicrous, but it doesn't mean I can't buy into it. It is just TV after all. The plot so far has placed the characters all over the globe as they discover their powers, cross paths, and try to save/change the world/New York City. One nagging question I have about this show is what exactly are the powers of the hot Las Vegas chick. She has some sort of alter ego that she can see in reflections that likes to do it's own things? And it comes to life randomly? And can stop time? Or be at two places at once? What kind of powers are these exactly?

google me

2006-10-12T22:58:00.000-07:00

I've gone and done it. Somehow googling my name brings up this blog now. Nowhere explicitly is my name referenced in any posts (at least that I can remember). But this very blog now pops up when you type in my name. Before, the list simply consisted of anything mentioning the mother continent and anyone or place using the name Chang. Basically lots of junk. Now, the very first spot is dedicated to this blog. I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, it's a little cool that searching for my name now brings up a relevant hit. On the other, as tech savvy companies google all of their potential employees, I'm not sure I want this to be the first hit. I don't think I've ever posted anything that's inappropriate or that I have anything to hide. This blog pretty much is a decent reflection of my personality and thoughts. Still, I suppose this was bound to happen. The internet is public domain after all and writing things on the internet is bound to be found.

On a similar but different note, does anyone remember what they thought of my name when they first heard it. More specifically, did you think girl or guy? I'm fairly sure I've explained my theory to most people I know, which is most of you readers. However, to sum up, I basically think I have a girls name. Traditional feminine names in English tend to end with a vowel sound - which just happens to be typically an 'A'. Jessica, Christina, Joanna, Anna, Sarah, etc. Traditionally masculine names end in consonants. Michael, Johnathan, David, Thomas, etc. Of course there are exceptions to this general rule, but for the most part, I believe this "rule" to be true. So when strangers come across my name, there's a strong tendency to think of it's owner as a female. The name isn't foreign enough to convey the chance that it could be male or female. Instead, it's just familiar enough that people assume I'm a female. Anyhow, I just got an email response from someone whom I had emailed but never met. His response (I'm doing the same thing he is, assuming, but his name is Tim) addresses me as Ms. Chang. I'm never sure how to respond in a situation like this. It's not embarrassing for me as much as it is for him. I've dealt with this my whole life. On the other hand his ASSumption made an ASS out of him.

youtube + google =

2006-10-09T13:43:00.000-07:00

GooTube just became a reality. All I have to say is wow. $1.65 BILLION dollars!!

nobel

2006-10-04T09:34:00.000-07:00

This year's Nobel Prize battle between Cal & Stanford: Cal - 1 / Stanford - 2. Boo, Cal better step it up. One of the winners for this year's prize in medicine (Andrew Fire) did his undergrad in Math at Berkeley, graduating in 3 years when he was 19. But I'm considering him a traitor as he's at Stanford School of Medicine and therefore has contributed to their Nobel count. According to the Nobel website, the overall battle stands at Cal - 16 / Stanford - 18, although I'm sure the tally is somewhat convoluted as alumni from each school and affiliations with faculty is mixed. Especially when Cal is often supporting Stanford by contributing some of our best talents to their faculty.

transcontinental

2006-09-28T08:32:00.000-07:00

On Friday I'm flying out to Baltimore to visit WC. This will be my first visit since school has started for the both of us and so it's been much too long since we last met. Right now we're trying to see each other at least once a month, but this is already difficult with our busy schedules and lack of funds. But I'll take what I can get. I'm just really excited to get a chance to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with her again. However, what I'm not excited about is the flight. Cross-country flights have got to get better. It's just a completely shitty experience on so many levels. I'll be flying Southwest this time so there will be about 8 more crappy things that will be lying in wait for me:

Rioting to get in line just to sit on a stinking plane for 6 hours. This is completely exacerbated by Southwest because they don't assign seats. People just forget their manners and become completely obnoxious in these situations.

Cramped seating that is always made worse by the person in front of you needing to lean all the way back. I litereally got hit in the head one time by someone leaning their chair back JUST as I was reaching down to get something out of my bag. Personally I like putting my bare feet up on the back side of the armrest with my toes poking forward in those situations. Hey I'm trying to get comfortable too.

Getting to the bathroom is an ordeal for everyone. Even if you're not going. Due to the new 9/11 rules no one is allowed to wait by the bathrooms if you need to go. This makes for great situations where people in the window seats need to make mad dashes to the bathroom over their fellow passengers. You think this really affects only the two people sitting next to him/her, but no. They need to grab the seat back of every seat in front of them on their way out of their row. Thanks for waking me up asshole.

Peanuts or pretzels. That's all they give you for 1 hour flights from SF to LA. It's also all they give you for 6 hour flights across country. How does this make any sense? The sad thing is, I still remember when Southwest actually had good peanuts and I was actually happy with those. They were the honey-roasted kind that tasted SOOOOo good.

There really needs to be a new technology or business model for long distance air-travel. The current system just sucks. At least, with me being sick already, the recycled air won't be a problem for me. For my fellow passengers though, enjoy the flight!

breakwatcher

2006-09-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

I think I've had a number of conversations with various people about Google's business potential. Personally I'm a big fan of the company. I feel that it's been able to lead the internet world in terms of turning innovation into cash. That's saying a lot for an industry that essentially developed business models "outside of the box." But many people I've spoken with seem to be stuck on the idea that Google can only make money from advertising. Questions like, "What have they really done to make money besides advertising?", always seem to come up. For some reason in people's minds, Google's just a big advertising company. Yea, then I guess TV/media conglomerates like Viacom are just advertising companies too - no way to make money there. From my perspective, creative content keeps customer coming back to your page. The money will follow. It's not too far off from the TV network business model.

Anyhow, doing creative stuff like letting anyone on the internet adapt your mapping code is the type of innovative thinking that makes Google great. I know my runner/biker friends use a mashup allowing them to track the mileage of exact routes taken during their outings. More great (and ridiculous) Google Maps mashups are being blogged about here. Personally I've been using the mashup breakwatcher to get my surfing info. I wish I could say that I can rip it up on the waves, but in reality, the waves mostly rip me up. Still, I think what's holding me back is my shitty used $100 surfboard. I think people fail to realize how freaking hard doing something like this is.

It's nothing like snowboarding or even skateboarding. Yes it's standing on a board. But the surface your board is balancing on is rolling, moving, and changing the entire time. It's like trying to ride a wild beast. You have no control of how or where the wave is going - but you're trying to jump onto the wave and hang on for the ride. Anyhow, my surfing goal is to get barrelled like the badass above, but, one step at a time. I need to be able to get up consistently on my shortboard first.

tied

2006-09-21T23:23:00.000-07:00

Besides Wednesday, when all I got was a bad t-shirt tan, I've been in a suit and tie all freakin week. As I don't work in New York, I live on the west coast, and I'm currently still in school, this is not normal. In addition, I've had the same Buca di Beppo dinner three times this week, which is about three more times than I would normally like to have Buca. I've also finished zero homework and it's piling up fast. All of this probably doesn't make much sense without much context but whatever. I'm tired.

team building

2006-09-19T22:48:00.000-07:00

For some reason our school is making our entire class go through a team building excercise at the beach tomorrow (Wednesday). I'm expecting some basic stuff. Essentially the team is stronger than the individual BS. Maybe we'll go through some excercises to teach us to trust each other more as well. Who knows. The only problem I have with this is that I know everyone in my class already. I know who I trust and who I don't trust. And most importantly, in what situations do I trust certain people. All of this was learned from experience in working with people. I almost feel like people get more out of these things if they don't know everyone else. Like, if our class went through this process on our first week at school. Instead, I already know which people I would want as a teammate and why. This whole excercise will probably only reinforce those opinions. The one difficulty working in teams in an academic environment is that teammates and members have no method of motivating teammates who are simply apathetic. In the real world I can fire these people. At school I still have to hand them work. On the flip side, some friends and I are going to go surfing before this team-building crap kicks off. Go Team.

new obsession

2006-09-14T23:06:00.000-07:00

I had previously climbed indoors with an old co-worker of mine back when I was at J&J and it was a really fun experience. I wanted to climb on a more consistent basis but didn't have anyone to go with. I ended up turning my interests to other things like surfing. This summer I got a chance to climb on a semi-consistent basis with some friends and now I'm hooked. Hooked enough to join a climbing gym down here and go at some bouldering problems alone for a couple hours. Bouldering is incredibly difficult. I'm not sure what is with me now, but the more challenging the experience, the more it makes me want to come back for more. I definitely can't say I was always like this. I can't remember seriously pushing myself to do much in HS or probably even through most of college. If anything was pushing me, it was just competition. Trying not to be the worst in things I didn't care about and trying to be the best at things I did. But it really wasn't until after school that I think I began pushing myself just for the sake of pushing myself, especially with things that kicked my ass. Anyhow, climbing / bouldering is my new obsession. A quick lesson on the differences between wall climbing and bouldering: wall climbing you need a harness and a person to belay. But this means you can go higher. With bouldering, all you need is a pair of shoes and yourself. The walls are shorter but the moves more technical and powerful. Yesterday I bouldered until I got blisters. Maybe one day I could do some crazy stuff like this:

pets

2006-09-10T22:12:00.000-07:00

Living with your significant other is an adjustment. It's a clash of living styles. Simple things like which towel rack to use, who washes the dishes, or how dinner is prepared all of a sudden become big deals. And then you adjust. Adapting and becoming comfortable with sharing your space. I have to say, readjusting to living without WC hasn't been easy either. I miss our routine. I'm used to being able to turn around and have conversations. Doing laundry together was always a team thing, now I'm going solo. There's a certain space that seems to be missing from what was my everyday life down here. I suppose one consolation has been Kima.

Like everyone else, there was a point in my childhood when I begged, reasoned, bargained, and whined to my parents to get a dog. And like many parents, they shot me down, killing my dreams and fantasies as good parents should. So I've never actually owned a pet before until now. Although, technically I'm not Kima's owner. And it did not fulfill my childhood desire to have a dog, as Kima's a cat. But either way, Kima's living with me now. For those of you that don't know, Kima is WC's cat brought back from Kiribati when she was in the Peace Corps. And since WC moved to Baltimore I've been taking care of Kima myself. I must say it would be much more lonely without him whining, playing, licking, pooping, sleeping, and lounging around with me.

I can't say that I've always been fond of cats but I guess now I can say that I was simply ignorant. Kima's probably the most perfect pet I can have right now. Low maintenance, just the way I like it. I can leave town on weekends and not worry about him. When I am home he can amuse me. He only seeks some attention/affection in the mornings. Although I think that has more to do with him wanting to go outside.

re-focus

2006-09-08T09:37:00.000-07:00

This past week was my first full week of school. In reality my first week should have been the last one, but since I decided Hawaii was more important I missed the first few days of school last week. So this past week has essentially been catching up with work that had already piled up. It already feels like I have a million things to do. But I guess that's the way I like things. I'm not sure if anyone else feels this way, but I think I perform better when there are at least three major things on my plate to be working on. This semester I've broken it down to four major things to concentrate on - in order of priority:

Recruiting for a job - I'm going to seriously consider a consulting job for this coming year. Basically I want to find a firm with an awesome Life Sciences arm and kiss their asses until that 7 figure offer is on the table. Ok, so I'll probably take less than 7 but ... details. If that doesn't work out .. well, I'll deal with it when I get there.

Masters Project - So our program doesn't require a thesis of any sort. Instead, we are involved with a capstone project from industry. Believe it or not, companies have actually paid our school to have us work on problems for them. If that's not a sign that industry is filled with stupid people I don't know what is. In any respect, it's always good to solidfy your industry network. I'll definitely need to impress on this project.

Part-time job - Right now my schedule allows me to have Fridays off for about another 2 months. So I'm trying to find some significant part-time experience one-day a week. Kind of hard to do at a real job, so that's why I've approached angel investors and VC's to fill this void. They only work couple days a week anyways right?

Classwork - Oh yea, and there are classes. With lecture. And homework.

So that's the coming semester. I'm not sure how surfing (and my new-found interest of climbing) will fit into the picture, but I'll keep an eye out for the waves. I think I just become more effecient when more things are on my plate. I waste less time. I'm more focussed on specific tasks. Overall I just feel like I perform better when I have 10 different things to be thinking about.

Hawaiian Wedding Song

2006-09-01T07:42:00.000-07:00

Weddings are really fun. And this wedding was no exception. It's really how I imagined a Hawaiian wedding to be like. The ceremony occured right at the edge of the beach as the sun was setting. And the dinner. Wow. The dinner at the reception was absolutely delicious. Coming from the "mainland" we just don't get food like this. Kalua pig, sweet potatoes, loki, poki, and everything else nearly killed me. I'm pretty sure I will need bypass surgery soon just from the food at the wedding. Anyhow, check out the slideshow below, or click on the show to view the pictures from my flickr page.

Mel & Darin's Wedding

red-eye thoughts

2006-08-30T08:33:00.000-07:00

A few thoughts coming back from Hawaii sitting in the middle seat of a 5 hour red-eye flight:

Weddings are fun.
Being in Hawaii always feels like being in a dream world.
Surfing is thrilling.
Hawaiian food is the closest thing there is to Asian soul food.
A slower pace of life can be nice.
Weddings are really fun.

I’m not completely sure what it is. Half of me always feels compelled to take over the world. It’s the ultra competitive side that says nothing short of taking over the world is acceptable. My other side, fiercely independent and semi-rebellious, wants to shrug everything off to move to the beach and live simply but contently. I think both paths would lead me to happiness. I’m far past the point where my parents push me to do anything. And even in the past my parents have never fit the pushy Asian parent stereotype. I even remember when I was 13 or 14 and I asked my dad if I could take the car out around the block with my sister, and all he did was give me the keys. They always had a more laid back approach to parenting. Anyhow, a change of pace in lifestyle – if only for a week, always makes me reconsider the current path I’m on to taking over the world. I think if I’m not dominating my industry by the time I’m 35 I’ll have to begin moving to the alternate beach life. Maybe in New Zealand. Pictures from the wedding to come.

game time

2006-08-22T23:25:00.000-07:00

Since I'm out of work and have plenty of free time (at least for the next week) I thought I'd leave some additional distractions for all the working folks. This time the distractions are in the form of games as oppoosed to reading material. Keep in mind, games are much more obvious that you are not doing any work. These sites are visited and played at your own risk and therefore I am in no way responsible for how your work ethic is perceived. Enjoy and feel free to share anything other sites out there!

Teagames - A great site with games that aren't completely mindless. My favorite is Blueprint which actually does make you think and problem solve.

Web Sudoku - If you don't know what sudoku is at this point, you've probably been living under a rock. The addictive puzzle game is best played on the web at this site where you can see how slow, or fast, you are compared to everyone else in the world.

PlayPacman.net - This is just an awesome site incorporating flash to play old skool games like Pacman, Simon, Asteroids, or even Sonic. Yes, that's right, as in Sonic the Hedgehog.

Google Games - Ok, so these aren't really games in the traditional sense. But I promise they will amuse and occupy you. Just random things Google has put out into the internet for really no reason at all other than to amuse ourselves.

cobra starship

2006-08-19T00:54:00.000-07:00

Snakes on a Plane. Believe the hype.

mass exodus

2006-08-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

It was not too long ago that everyone I knew was blogging on Xanga, including me. Come last April I left the Xanga community to find a better blogging experience. Seeing the exodus of former Xanga buddies to other blogging sites, I think many can now see what my gripes with the site were about. But I have to give Xanga some credit. The one excellent feature was the "subscription" page. An easy page to read all the latest entries. This was a great feature - primarily for its convenience.

With that said, I'd like to introduce everyone to Google Reader. The large number of blogs that we visit can all be read on one page with this webtool - similar to Xanga's subscription page. Google Reader uses the power of RSS. Still not sure what RSS is? Real Simple Syndication is essentially code that tells you when your favorite blogs or websites have updated content. Normally when rendered in the browser nothing but gibberish appears. But Google Reader uses this code to let you read the latest blog entries of all your blogs. With easy to use labels (like gmail, or tags in flickr) to sort between friends, humor, or career related blogs, Google Reader is a great tool to stay on top of things. Just find the RSS button on any blog and add the RSS address to your Reader. Typical RSS buttons look like radio signals in a box. If you're using Firefox, the RSS button can be found in the right side of the web address bar. If you're still using IE, you should switch to Firefox. It's just better, trust me. Copy and paste the RSS address into your reader and let Google Reader do the rest. And now, Xanga even supports RSS, so it's possible to read your Xanga blogs with everything else.

As a side note, if you like getting emails of people's blogs, my Feedburner can be found in the sidebar. Just sign in with your address (No spam from feedburner, just my blog) and all you need to do is verify your address with feedburner to activate emails from me.

moving. again.

2006-08-13T23:49:00.000-07:00

I have to start packing my crap up again. I'm not sure how all the stuff in my room will fit into my wagon along with a surfboard, golf clubs, and a cat. Especially when, at the beginning of summer, there was a minivan filled with stuff in addition to my wagon coming up. I might need to reorganize some of my belongings into necessary and unnecessary groups. The thing I really want to avoid is the I5 drive twice in a one or two week time span. Moving's just a pain. Sometimes I wish I had super powers like teleportation. That must be one of the best super powers. Just think, if any time you needed to be at a location, you could just teleport there immediately. Think of how much time that would save!

Afternoon commute before teleportation powers: 45 minutes.
Afternoon commute after teleportation powers: 1 second.

I've gone ahead and listed some common super powers below and my ranking I would give to each super power in terms of actual usefulness in the real world. For example, super strength really isn't that useful in the real world when you think about it. How often do you really need to lift heavy objects? Whereas super speed would be great b/c we're always trying to get around faster. Anyhow, here's my list:

Mind-Reading/Psychic Powers
Self-Healing
Teleportation
Super Speed
Ability to control elements (ex. control weather, freeze water, etc.)
Shape Shifting (ex. change physical appearance, stretchy body, etc.)
Invisibility
Super Strength
Super 5-Senses (ex. x-ray vision, super hearing, etc.)
Flying

shop till you drop ... at home

2006-08-10T00:12:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, I like buying new clothes. However, seeing as I'm making no money, I haven't bought anything in a long time. But that doesn't stop me from looking. The sales racks are always a good place to start - and probably finish. But they're such a hassle to sift and sort through. Especially any mall or outlet stores. They seem to purposefully make the sale areas a complete mess and impossible to find things in. I think online stores offer the best solution to this. It's half the effort of an actual sales rack while still offering great deals.

A few of my fav online stores to dress like a professional rockstar:

Karmaloop
80's Purple
Standard Style

Or to wear what the pro-surfers wear:

Swell
Nixon

And if you want to dress like a professional professional, there are the usual suspects:

BR
J.Crew
Club Monaco

Anyone else have any online hotspots?

wedded

2006-08-07T22:36:00.000-07:00

Nate & Teresa's Wedding

coffee attack

2006-08-05T00:55:00.000-07:00

This past Thursday I had a huge lunch and felt a little sleepy/groggy around 2PM. Still feeling tired at 3PM, I decided that a cup of coffee would be a great idea to wake me up a bit. Big mistake. After work, I had dinner with a glass of beer followed by a glass of wine. After dinner I had 2 Vodka Greyhounds. By the time I got home I was exhausted and tired. Took a quick shower and headed for bed. At this point, you may be wondering why coffee at 3PM was a big mistake. 4 glasses of potent alchohol should be plenty to knock me to sleep. This is exactly what I thought too. But no, at 4AM my mind decided it would be the perfect time to race through what I needed to do at work the next day. Except I wasn't going into work. So then my mind proceeded to race through what I needed to do to prepare for my friend's wedding. I then began thinking whether I should go golf or surf the next day after the wedding rearsal. After that I followed up that thought thread with why am I awake right now? Coffee affecting me like this is not normal, as was my sleep pattern Thursday night.

On a completely separate note, some cool art: courtesy of Inhabitat.

racing fuel

2006-08-01T19:30:00.000-07:00

I was running low on fuel this morning and stopped off at a 76 station on Woodside Road between 280 and 101. When I got out to fill my car up, to my surprise, I saw an unusual offering at the pump.

Yes, what you're seeing in the middle pump is racing fuel. 100 octane racing fuel. It cost $4.85/gallon. Compared to the 91 octane at $3.25 right next to it, this was some really expensive gas. Nonetheless, I was somewhat tempted to put a gallon of the stuff into my car and see if I could feel a diference. But seeing as I'm trying to save money this summer and gas prices are riculously high already, it just didn't make sense.

internet archives

2006-07-27T13:09:00.000-07:00

Have you ever gone to your friends parent’s houses and they have pictures of the family everywhere? If you have not grown up with the friend since childhood, it can be a little disconcerting to see these pictures of a younger buddy in bowl haircuts and short soccer shorts. As the friend, it can be embarrassing letting people see candid shots of you wearing Mickey Mouse ears or sunglasses in the shapes of stars. Anyhow, if you’ve never been to the internet equivalent to this experience you’re completely missing out. This website periodically archives webpages throughout the internet. The Wayback Machine is a great resource for research on the evolution of companies, websites, and even news (check out cnn.com).

Two of the more interesting finds are shown below:

Google’s website from 1998 reveals that apparently Google should be yelled, the logo is poorly rendered, and in general it is amazingly busy compared to what it is now.

Yahoo’s website from December of 1996 shows the search bar still findable on the front page and, interestingly enough, Yahoo was adding cartoonish characters to their logo before another search company became well known for doing the same.

blog redesign

2006-07-24T23:10:00.000-07:00

After much searching I finally found a template that I thought worth the effort to switch to. Looks pretty clean. I think this is the type of blog design Cliff could only dream of doing. I kid, I kid. Let me know what you readers think of it.

On a separate note, I stumbled upon an interesting blog about the latest green designs. No, not the color, the mindset. Check it out and take notes. Then when you get ready to build your dream home it can be an eco-friendly building.