Back to You

by the Riverdales from the Riverdales

Hello after a much extended blogging hiatus. I guess I can't call it break since it has been over a year and a half since I blogged last. I wonder if anyone is still paying attention to this blog. There a myriad of reasons why I stopped blogging including being busy, using Twitter/Facebook more, and overall just maturing or getting older and no longer needing to blast/rant out my thoughts like I used to do when I was younger. One thing is that is has not been for a lack of something to write. There are plenty of things I could have written about but never found the chance to collect my thoughts properly.

So 2012 is ending and the world is still here. Damn you John Cusack and that really bad disaster movie for trying to convince us differently. The cliche and plenty of people say the years start to fly by as you get older. I generally agree but 2012 was very different for me. It didn't seem like a short year at all to me. I think it is was same for me as 2006. Mainly so much changed for me this past year. Obviously the big thing was that a bought a townhouse in downtown Mountain View this year. So I am typing in my office in my house/home. Which is still pretty weird for me to type. I moved in 6 months ago but it seems like years since I was living in my old apartment (which I did live in for 6 years). Plus there has been other things too. I ran another half marathon but this time in Maui, so I got to visit Hawaii for the first time in my life. It was a great trip and I vow to go back again. I went other places too like Zurich, Austin, and Houston. Plus there is all the other stuff, hanging out with friends, weddings, birthdays, holidays, dates, work shit too. It all added up to make a full year. So full that I forgot what I did for last New Year's Eve when someone asked me the other day.

But I think the one thing I noticed this year (and it kind of relates to why I stopped blogging) is that I kind of realized that I am missing the chip(s) on my shoulder. Let me explain. Back in 2000, when I started blogging. I was still pissed off at high school, depressed that I couldn't get a date, stressed out about having to support myself while going to school full-time, bitter about my family life, and countless other things that contributed to a pretty big chip on my shoulder. And I would rant, rave, and be pissed off at the unfairness of it all. Even after college, I was pissed off that was making shitty money working as a contractor and being unable to get a full-time job with benefits. In grad school, I was having a ball but yeah I could still complain about living the cheap, no frills lifestyle of a grad student. After grad school, there were student loans to complain plus my non-existent love life to be "chipped off" about.

But as the years have gone by, those things that contributed to me being bitter or stressed have dissipated. I love visiting Jinah, Drew, and nephew Owen a few times a month. I paid off my student loans. I own (or more technically owe the bank) a townhouse in I have to admit in awesome location. I have been working at Google 6 going on 7 years. Even more amazing, they seem willing to promote me twice, give me raises and bonuses. On top of it all, I had an offer for really attractive opportunity at other company late last year and Google made an all out effort to convince me to say. Even more amazing, I went out on dates with like 12 different ladies this year (well..I could write an entire entry or two on that subject alone). But my point is that all the things that used to stress me out in my life, don't really anymore. So I feel less justified bitching about them than I did in the past. Sure, there is stupid shit like something at work that may get me riled up but it is nothing compared to say, not knowing how I am going to pay for school or pay my rent. So what do you do when lots of the stuff you were bitter about are no longer there. To me, it means complaining less. When the Occupy movement was making news, I definitely agreed with their viewpoints but part of me felt, I don't know, separated from their plight/movement.  I know what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck, have hard time in the job market, to feel hungry, to live without health insurance. However, that was many years ago for me. And contrary to what happened to too many people, I didn't lose my job, house, insurance etc. In fact, I gained economically while too many people lost far too much as the result of the financial crisis and resulting depression. So I can't act as if I have all these huge problems or stress to deal with because in realty I don't and I wouldn't be honest, especially with myself, if I acted like I did.

Which brings me to something I have noticed something steadily rising. I call it act-as-if-ism. It's taken from a speech Ben Affleck gives in a pretty forgettable movie called the Boiler Room. But basically it boils down to, "If you act like a success, you will be a success." Now I have nothing against confidence or taking the initiative, but I think "act-as-if-ism" has been taken to beyond absurdity to a point of corrosiveness. For example, Romney and Ryan ran on an economic platform they claimed reduced the deficit but when in fact, in reality, by the arithmetic, by the math, actually raised the deficit. And when critics pointed this out, their only defense was "we say it reduces the deficit so it does." They acted as if it did, along with plenty of their nonsensical positions, and the sad part about it, is that 47% of voters bought it. Act-as-if-ism was so strong that people attacked the polls saying Romney was behind because they just knew or they just had to act as if he was leading. So they "corrected" the polls because they need to act as if they were leading even when they were not.

It's not just politics either. In almost every facet of our society it is becoming increasingly clear that appearing to be a success takes precedence over actually being or doing the things to be a success. On Wall Street, all those firms manipulated shitty mortgages, bad investments, their own balance sheets to make it look like they were worth a lot of money. At some in time, like in a financial crisis, you are going to actually have to be worth the money you claim to be especially if invest and leverage based on that. In sports, we have an epidemic of steroid and performance enhancing drug using because hey it's better to look like you can run that fast, hit home runs that far, or bike that hard rather than actually putting in the work to do it. Or better yet just do what Paul Ryan did and just say flat out lie about it (for instance claiming a sub 3 hour time) and then laugh it off as an honest mistake when someone calls you out on your above 4 hour time.

I have had a long standing aversion to act-as-if-ism. In high school, I saw scores of over achieving kids loading up on classes that weren't interested in taking, clubs and activities they didn't care about just to act/appear as that "well rounded" dream candidates colleges salivate over. At least those kids went though the motions. Now a days you can do what Scott Thompson did and claim a degree you don't have and get away with it for years and years and only get caught in an extraordinary circumstance. My problem with act-as-if-ism is that, in the end, it is all bullshit unless you actually be-as-if or do-as-if. You can't act & spend like a millionaire if you don't have millions of dollars. You can't act like an expert if you don't know the area you are supposed to be an expert in. It just seems people are no longer willing to put in the work to actually be-as-if or do-as-if and are just skipping to act-as-if. And when they get called out for it or their act finally catches up with them, they get a slap on the wrist or in some big cases, nothing happens at all and they prosper more.

The reason why act-as-if-ism bothers me so much is that it skips the hard part. In my mind, you can't act like the president of your firm, a millionaire, a world class athlete, or whatever unless you put in the work to actually be the president, millionaire, athlete. And that work is usually far less fun that strutting around claiming to be whatever. It means toiling way doing really hard, shitty unglamorous grunt work. It means having to punch the clock day in an day out, making sacrifices, paying your dues, and yes, suffering through stress and bitterness.  For example, I trained for a year to a run the SF marathon 2 years ago. I woke up early on many mornings for my training runs, suffered through sore legs and muscles, winced in pain after every step during the last mile of 20 miles training run, all to get my above 4 hour time. And to hear some act-as-if douchebag claim to run it in under 3 hours, when obviously didn't put in any of the effort to actually run in under 3 hrs is an insult. Be it in sports, professionally, socially, or whatever, act-as-if-ism is lying, plain and simple.  And for people like myself and others who had to endure so much to achieve what those act-as-ifers lie to say they have is infuriating and pathetic.

So I have many hopes and goals for 2013. But one thing I won't do is to act-as-if I already achieved them when I didn't.  I hope you have a happy holiday season and new year.  Peace on earth.

When I Grow Up

by Garbage from Version 2.0

Hello all again after a long blogging break. Been wanting to add an entry for a while but other things (mainly laziness) has gotten in the way. So what has been going on? Well, I switched teams at work and am doing much better than my bitterly enraged last entry described. A little change in scenery can do wonders. I now work on Gmail which is an interesting challenge. I was also in NYC again a while back for a major field study. Which sort of relates to the theme of this blog entry, which is how the way you grow up affects who you are. Because I have been reminded about it lately.

While in New York (aside from seeing the American Idiot musical and doing research), I inevitably got sick. I say it was inevitable because one cannot do that many field studies and go to that many homes and apartments and not pick up something. So I hardly got any sleep, was congested, and just plain miserable in my hotel room. So I called in sick to work and was fruitlessly trying to get some sleep until about noon time. When it dawned on me then I could actually take some medicine and feel better sooner. Why that didn't dawn on me sooner is partly because the way I grew up. When I was a kid, my mom never gave me any medicine, not even aspirin, when I got sick. Well part of that was that I had trouble swallowing pills. But all from grade school to high school, unless I was puking my guts out, I had to tough it out being sick. Meaning I would still go to school, and do everything I was supposed to do no matter how crummy I felt. That probably led to much more snot ending up in the pool when I had to go to swim practice even when I had colds and was congested like hell. Going into college, it was pretty much the same since I could afford to miss class or work so I would tough it through. Although in college, I did discover the miraculous healing powers of Nyquill. So now many years later, when I am fully capable of buying pretty much any medicine I want, I just didn't dawn on me to do so because my natural instinct was to tough it out.

Another reminder of how I grew up shapes who I am today when I was watching the Fab Five documentary on ESPN. As some of you may have heard, this documentary made headlines because Jalen Rose called Grant Hill an "uncle tom." Now I don't condone calling people "Uncle Toms" unless they actually are an uncle and their name is actually Tom (I don't condone drunk driving either), but I actually sympathized with Rose when I watched the documentary. Because I watched the full context in which he gave those comments. He said:

"Schools like Duke didn't recruit players like me. I felt that they only recruited black players that were Uncle Toms. ... I was jealous of Grant Hill. He came from a great black family. Congratulations. Your mom went to college and was roommates with Hillary Clinton. Your dad played in the NFL as a very well-spoken and successful man. I was upset and bitter that my mom had to bust her hump for 20-plus years. I was bitter that I had a professional athlete that was my father that I didn't know. I resented that, moreso than I resented him. I looked at it as they are who the world accepts and we are who the world hates."

I sympathized with Rose because I felt almost exactly how he felt when I was growing up. I grew up with a single mom, with a dad who didn't show a shred of interest in me. For the first several years, it didn't bother me because I went to the lower income schools with kids who were noticeably worse off than me. But then we moved to the more upper middle class neighborhood, where I quite noticeably stood out on the lower end. I remember in junior high, both my math and english teacher were criticizing two of my take home projects for not being as well polished and made as my other classmates. I wanted to tell them, but was too ashamed to admit, that my mom couldn't afford all the nice materials that my classmates had to make theirs. When I got to high school it got even worse (plus the normal teenage angst didn't help either). I saw their cars, houses, nicer clothes, private SAT and tutoring lessons, and most importantly, two parent families and grew bitter, and yes jealous.

I would try to bust my ass and they would always beat me in what seemed like everything. I resented that they had both parents, both incomes, and all the resources. It seemed like it wasn't fair to expect me to compete against them. For example, I got a 1320 on my SAT without taking a prep class. I should have felt great but compared to more well off classmates, I felt like a failure because they were getting 1500's or even close to perfect 1600's. What I didn't realize at the time, that those 1500 and 1600 scores were probably the result of expensive classes and tutoring. So my Mom paid $800 so I could take the Princeton Review SAT class, which was a lot of money that I knew we really couldn't be spending. So after I took the class, I improved to 1400, which is an excellent score by most measures, but I felt like a failure because I didn't get the 1500. My mom had sacrificed and splurged on the same thing the "elites" got, and I felt I blew my golden opportunity to make the most of it. And when my more well to do classmates got their acceptances to Ivy League schools, Stanford, Berkeley and I did not, well it just made me more envious and jealous.

This continued through college, although it wasn't so bad at De Anza, because it was a community college. It really flared up at Santa Clara when I transferred. If you go back to my old diaryland blog, then you can quite easily see my simmering resentment towards them. In high school, the more well off kids were at least taking advantage of their resources with academic success. At SCU, there seemed to be a bunch of spoiled brats whose parents paid their way, and they weren't even that smart. I relished every time I beat them on a test, got a higher grade in a class, or when I got interviews and internships they didn't. I raged at the perceived injustice every time they beat me at something as just another example of how society rewards the privileged elite to the disadvantage of the truly worthy (namely me). I remember I was one of the seven finalists for this prestigious (and well paying) internship at PriceWaterhouseCoopers. So there was this big group interview, and since I was paying my own way through college, I couldn't afford a suit. So I wore literally my only dress shirt, with my one of three ties, and Old Navy slacks. Compared to everyone else at the interview, I was the most low-rent out of all of them. And of course, when they didn't pick me I seethed it must have been because those other candidates had so much more money than I did, it wasn't fair. I have to say that it took me a long while to grow out of this resentment, jealousy, and envy. Looking back, those kids I was jealous and resentful of, in almost all cases (there were a handful of very glaring counter-examples) didn't deserve my scorn. It wasn't their fault that they came from families and backgrounds that afforded them advantages that I didn't have. And more than likely their parents worked very hard to provide their children with them so they wouldn't have to bust and break their asses like I did. And you can't blame their kids for maybe not being as driven as someone who has less than them because they always had the comfortable safety net under them. Hell, I made a vow that I would try my best to make sure that any of my nephew and my (potential) kids won't ever have to worry about a paying a cent for their college tuition.

But as they say, you can never really shake off completely how you grew up. Which is why I got really mad when I read Grant Hill's op-ed in response to Rose's comments. He is of course defensive and lashes out at Rose for saying that he is not a true black because his family was able to provide him a strong and comfortable upbringing. And that Duke shouldn't be criticized for recruiting players like him, and not Rose. I think if he actually understood Rose's comments, he should have understood Rose's legitimate gripe that he had to overcome so much more than Hill, yet Duke wouldn't even touch him and they recruited Hill instead, who had all advantages in his corner. The reason why I got so angry is that the "Hill defense" was trotted out against me plenty of times when I was growing up. Those colleges, companies, professors, teachers, recruiters or whoever or whatever was judging me, most of the time they had no idea that I didn't have as much money, resources, or advantages as the next guy who did but had the same or slightly better qualifications, performance, grades or whatever than me. And of course without that knowledge, they very often picked the other guy, and not me. Which when it happens to you over and over again, it pisses you off to no end. And on the rare times where I would confront the more privileged and advantaged person who got the something that I didn't get, they would inevitably say that their background (with their more resources, advantages, and privileges than me) had nothing to do with it and that they earned their whatever solely on their own merits. Which made me madder because it is complete bullshit. I felt (and with some, but nowhere near complete justification) the reason why they got the better score on that test, got that job, got the girl, or got the whatever was because I had to work 30-40 hours a week in addition to going to class and studying in order pay for college while they did not have to do that because their parents paid their way.

But like i said before, it has taken a long time (probably too long) to get past all that jealously, bitterness, and resentment. And maybe I never will completely get past all that. But one thing I will never forget is that as no matter how hard I have worked and taken advantage of opportunities presented to me, I will never call myself a self-made man. There are thousands upon thousands of dollars of federal and state grants, student loans, and scholarships that can testify to that. And while I didn't have the richest upbringing, I still had many things that many (in fact way too many) other children aren't fortunate to even come close to having. So I guess one of the biggest impacts of how I grew up is humility. Especially now, since there is no way of denying it, that I fall into that privileged and elite class of people I raged against when I was growing up. While $800 is not chump change for me, it wouldn't present me with any hardship to fork over that much for a class. Hell, I think I have spent almost that much spoiling my nephew with gifts and he is not even 6 months old. So yeah now that I have access to resources to give myself and the people I care about the advantages, resources, and opportunities that I wasn't able to get earlier, it does change my previous opinion and attitude towards them. But I don't deny that they make a difference. That's one thing I will never forget from my upbringing.

That's all for me now. Until next time, peace.

Say It Ain't So

by Weezer from The Blue Album

Hello those who are still tuning into my blog. It's my first entry for 2011 and boy will it be a doozy. I've got a lot of things on my mind to unload plus I am fueled by this large bubble tea I am drinking and the tunes I am listening to. First things first, what have I been up to? While I didn't make it an explicit resolution, I have been cooking more. And when I mean cooking, I mean serious cooking - things that require butchering, reducing, and all fancy things you see the chefs on actual cooking shows do. Jinah got me How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman for Christmas. So I have decided to attempt a new dish a week. So far I have made:

Beef Stew
Chicken in Red Wine Sauce (Coq au vin)
Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya

Surprisingly, they have turned out overall pretty good. I think the Coq au vin turned out the best. The Jambalaya tasted great though the texture was a little off since I cooked the rice too fast. I will be attempting Chicken Adobo later tonight. Wish me luck!

In other news, I am going to Vegas in two weeks to enjoy a Cirque show and for some relaxation. And next week, I will be going to Tahoe for a work trip. I moved projects yet again. I know it seems I have been doing it often but really it has not been by choice. The reason why I switched to yet another project is just another example of what I will be discussing for the rest of this blog entry.

Do you remember the first time you realized that someone you admired or respected let you down? For most people, they probably remember the first time they experienced that their parents were not the perfect beings we or they led us to believe. So like many people, I have experienced my fair share of these experiences with the people I have met. As I have got older, I have gotten more cautious/cynical about initially believing in people but for the most part, I give people the benefit of the doubt. But there are some times where circumstances are so crazy and it seems they are making what is it seems like terrible after terrible decision, that I am racking my mind to think of possible mitigating circumstances or explanations to justify it. But then that old terrible realization comes: these people, not matter how seemingly accomplished, are incompetent and really don't know what they are doing.

I remember watching the news during the start of insurgency during the occupation of Iraq. Things were just going so badly and it seems the administration were making the dumbest choices to worsen the situation. They would announce decisions, have them blow up in their faces, reverse decisions, announce plans then drop them. It was literally like they were flying blind. I remember thinking, how can these people who invaded a country of millions do such a lousy job of trying to rebuild it. I mean it was like they didn't bother to plan ahead at all. I later read Imperial Life in the Emerald City, and it turns out that while circumstances were complex, the main reason for the mess in Iraq after the invasion was the people in charge were truly incompetent and didn't know what they were doing.

I recently read the War for Late Night about the whole Jay Leno, Conan O'brien Tonight show mess that took place last year. Again, just watching and reading about the fiasco as it occurred, I was wondering how could the executives running NBC, a multi-billion TV network, let the situation get so out of control. I mean, there had to be something other than they were just really really stupid. Well after reading the book, it turns out that was the exact reason. They made a bunch of poor early decisions then when things started to predictably bad, they made even more shitty decisions to try to fix the situation that made things worse. There is no other explanation.

So how does this relate to me switching projects yet again? Well, it is basically illustrative of the project I was working on. At the beginning of the summer of last year, I joined the project, which was really huge in scope. When they told me the project's vision, I really didn't get it. It was more like a scattershot of different ideas that I didn't really understand how they would fit together. It's really bad when you ask a basic question like "What does this do?" and the answer takes more than 3 minutes to explain. But the project was really important and wanted to move really quickly. So I busted my ass on it, with the expectation that things would get clearer and that the leadership (who I was told really knew their stuff) would develop the plan to make it all work. Well as expected, decisions were made then reversed, then made again. Deadlines were set, things were dropped to make the deadlines, people gave up vacations and weekends to make those deadlines, and then, predictably, the deadlines were pushed back again....and again...and again. Obviously, when you are busting you ass on something that is seemingly spinning its wheels in no particular direction, you want an explanation. I got few explanations but many more assurances that things would get better - just you wait and see. Well, obviously they didn't. Right at the end of last year, it finally dawned on me: The people in charge had no fucking clue what they were doing. I think one of the clearest example of this is when one of the guys in charge came and spoke to our team. He just finished announcing like the sixth incarnation of the "plan," which basically, due mostly to the mismanagement by the leadership, effectively wiped out all the work we did during the summer. I asked essentially, "Lots of people busted their asses during the summer, what about all that work?" The answer I got was polite but basically he said if I didn't like it I could fuck off and go work on something else. He then drew a straight line and said, in other projects you could work in at a slower and more tradition pace but you would only get this far. He then drew a zigzag that was slightly longer than the straight one. He then said that's how our project is run and as you can see, the zigzag line gets you farther. I wanted to retort that the straight one is a much more efficient path while the zig zag line is a massively inefficient route but thought better of it. So that's why I moved on - I didn't want to work in a massively inefficient manner.

But one thing that pissed me off the most, and its not this project but its going on in society at an alarming rate, is that no one believes in their "word" anymore. What do I mean by that? I mean saying something and then standing by it. In my last project, the leadership would pronounce a decision/deadline and then people scrambled to make it. That would involve working extra hard, missing out on other things like vacations and say, their kids, and giving up on things that would be better in the long run but had to be sacrificed to meet the short term deadline. And then the same leaders would reverse themselves or decide to go off in a different direction. And then when called on all the work they wasted, their reply would be "Well, that's your problem. You shouldn't have taken our word seriously. We retain the right to changed our minds. If you have a problem with it, it's because you're inflexible." My reply to that would involve the words "fuck" and "you," I see the same things going on all over the place. I remember during the 1st presidential debate in 2004, then President Bush, in response to John Kerry who criticized him for not having enough troops to stabilize the country nor getting enough other nations to send troops to share the burden, said there would be 200,000 Iraqi troops by the next year to take over security. Well we all know how that turned out. 7 years, there are still nowhere near 200,000 Iraq troops ready to take over security. How come nobody held him at his word?

In the War for Late Night book, it turns out Conan turned down a $21 million a year contract from Fox to stay at NBC because NBC promised him the Tonight Show. After the mess occurred, there were still people (mostly Leno fans) who said Conan doesn't deserve any sympathy because he should have known better. That really pissed me off. How dare they criticize Conan for actually believing NBC's word. Since when it was acceptable to criticize people for actually believing people will stand by and be accountable for the things they say?

I remember when that in many of my high school and college English classes, that if you had to write an argumentative essay, you had to back it up with supporting evidence. My freshman year in college, I had more than one essay returned to me that said, "You need something more to back this up" or "You are really stretching here." So guess what, I had rewrite the essay to actually make a sound argument. Compare that to what is going on today. People who are seemingly in positions of power and influence make the stupidest arguments without anything resembling sound evidence. Death panels, blood libel, activist judges, anti-vaccinations, climate skeptics, intelligent design proponents, the list goes on and on. And yet whenever somebody calls them on it or shows they, quite conclusively, are full of bullshit - their standard response is how dare you hold them to their words, stop playing gotcha. Or if their words really do a cause a true shitstorm of a backlash, they say what I really meant to say was this. Sorry if you misinterpreted or got offended by them.

The whole mess over the Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior is a perfect example of this. The article lit up all the parenting and Asian American blogs over the author's seemingly unrepentant harsh, autocratic, and unforgiving Asian parenting style that she says produces better children. Well obviously the shit hit the fan, with many people calling bullshit on her words. One of the most compelling was this response in this Quora thread. Quite predictably, the author of the original author furiously backtracked on her position, said her views were misrepresented, the typical cover your ass arguments. My response is: Those are your words. Your words represent who you are. Instead of backtracking, claiming you were misrepresented, you shouldn't have said the words in the first place.

So what's my point from this whole rambling mess that I have just now written? My point is that I stand by my words. Now, there are more than a few situations were I have mealy mouthed and wiggled around something I have said. But plenty of people I have met have said I take my words and the words of others seriously, sometimes too seriously. I remember my childhood friend Duke was moving away. He told me not to come around where he used to live after he was gone. and I said I wouldn't. And I never did. Several years ago, a rift developed between two of my friends over a girl. I sided with my friend who I thought was justifiably hurt by the situation and that the other guy involved was not someone I would associate with. And you know what, I stayed true to my word to this day. I have not reached out in any way to that guy who hurt my friend. Some people have said I am being petty and stubborn about it especially it happened several years ago and the people involved in the situation don't even care about it anymore. You know what, that's my word and I stick by it.

I think the major reason why I take this whole "word" situation seriously is that people make choices, something very difficult ones, based off the word you give. I have been in too many situations (including very recently) where somebody said something, I believed it, followed through on it, only to have the person change their mind, disavow what they said, or claim not to have said it without a single apology. That's something I never want to put another person through. So that's why I make my words count. And it's my simple request to everyone to do the same thing too. It shouldn't be that hard.

That's all for now folks. Good to everyone in 2011. Peace.

Very Busy People

by the Limousines from Get Sharp

Hello once more. It is the end of the year and it is time again for my annual "Holidaze" blog entry, which recaps the past year. I am writing this right now from Orchard Valley Coffee in Campbell, which is becoming my go-to blog writing destination. I have taken this time off from work (I won't be in until the New Year) and I definitely needed it. Work for the past few weeks has been sucking ass. I won't go into details (and I shouldn't if I want to keep my job) but I will say that it really sucks working on something that well really sucks. I remember reading a quote from Will Smith about that really terrible movie Wild Wild West. He essentially said that he knew the movie was really bad when he made it and felt awful when it made a ton of money at the box office even though he knew it was terrible. That is sort of how I am feeling working on my current project. It is pretty terrible and I know it is terrible even if by some stroke of luck it is successful. And there is really nothing left for me to do to change that. So a good two weeks away will do me some good.

So per tradition, let's review my last year's resolutions:

1. Run a marathon: Done and done. I ran the SF marathon back in July and I have to say, it's something I am proud of but would never do again. The sheer amount of time and training plus the amount of pain endurance required is just too much. I am considering running a half marathon next year.

2. Buy a new car: Well, I didn't buy a new car but got a new old car by taking the Highlander off Jinah's hands. So yeah I sorta half way fulfilled this resolution. If anyone is interested in what happened to the Maxima, I donated it to charity on behalf of Habitat for Humanity. I did manage to transfer the Netscape sticker to the Highlander though.

3. Look into buying a place: Nope, other things (aka laziness) got in the way of this. But rest assured it is will be on my list for next year (coming next year).

4. Get promoted: Didn't happen. Kind of tough when you switch projects twice in one year and one of them seriously blows.

5. Bike to work at least 50 times: When I made this resolution, I didn't realize how much training for a marathon would conflict. In order to train for a marathon, it requires maintenance runs, which usually made biking difficult. The last thing you want to do after running is to hop on a bike and ride. So I only managed to ride 15 times this past year.

6. Take a vacation somewhere: I tried, I really tried. I signed up for the Kilimanjaro trip but then backed off because I wanted to be around when my nephew Owen was born. Was going to go climb Half Dome but then weather caused our permit to get canceled. Was planning on joining some friends in Hawaii during the Honolulu Marathon, until they pulled out of the marathon. I did manage to go to Vegas and a trip to DC to see the Rally for Sanity and to hang with Vishnu. But I think if I want to take a vacation, I will have to plan it myself and go by myself. It is kind of depressing to be on vacation by yourself but I think if I find a place nice enough, I will be plenty occupied.

So what does the past year teach me? Nothing beyond the fact that life is complicated and unpredictable. Things happen in fits and starts and there are a lot of dead ends. And contrary to many TV shows and movies have taught me, you just can't your life overnight. It is going to be a slow progression and eventually you get to somewhere you are happy with.

So with that, on to next year's resolutions:

1. Buy a place: No, seriously I am going to be looking into this. The conclusion may be that I shouldn't buy a place but I need to put some actual effort towards this.

2. Learn Korean: My lack of Korean fluency at all has never really bothered me. But I know realize it is something I want to get better at. So I have been looking into classes and stuff. So I am going to actually dedicate time to doing this.

3. Start swimming again: It's funny, I swore off swimming for many years (that's what happens when you train 14 hours a week year round) but now I think I want to get back into it. When I mean back into it, I mean maybe swim a couple times a month. Nothing crazy. Plus it will help my ever expanding waist line.

4. Start dating again: Yeah, I think it is time to throw my complete lack of game back into the dating arena. And one can probably expect more than a few bad dates blog entries and/or tweets from me.

5. Take a real vacation somewhere: Yes, I will do it this year! I am thinking Australia at the moment.

So that's all for me. I hope everyone's 2010 was grand. Best of luck to you in 2011. Seasons greetings and have a happy new year. Peace on earth.

We're All in the Dance

by Feist from the Paris, Je t'aime soundtrack

Hello again from yet another break. I am write now while sipping on an Oregon Chai at Coffee Society back in my old stomping grounds in Campbell. And that can only mean, it is time for a super duper long entry. So I suggest grabbing a cup of coffee like the one I have and be prepared to indulge in some heavy reading.

First and foremost, I'm an uncle! Yup, my nephew, Owen, was born three weeks ago. Child, mother and father are doing fine - although a bit sleep deprived. As much as I have said about how much I dislike children, I do have to say having a nephew is really awesome. I got to hold him the day he was born and then I saw him yesterday. He was so comfortable in my arms that he decided it was the perfect time to poop. I am like 20 times his size but boy that kid can unleash a stink like you wouldn't believe. Anyway it is a rather momentous occasion for many reasons. One of them being is that while I was holding Owen, I came to one of those stunning mortality realizations. Meaning that Owen will undoubtedly out-live me. Now I have met plenty of kids but it never dawned on me that someone will long outlive me by decades. It's kind of scary. And in way kind of puts life in perspective. And in another way kind of motivating.

In less great news, my lady and I broke up. We were going on 6 months and while I thought we were good together, the lady had other ideas. Essentially, she felt I wasn't a very long term person in her mind and she didn't want to spend any more time on anything she didn't think was going to last. In one way I understand. Don't want to waste time putzing around with a stop-gap. But it sucks when you are the one that is the stop-gap. So yeah I am single again. So I am taking a time out with the dating thing until the new year. It frees up time for me to do....ummmm whatever I am supposed to be doing.

In much better news, the Giants won the World Series!!!! As a long suffering fan, I was overjoyed. I watched every single minute of that World Series. The only downside was that I was in New York when it happened. I would have liked to be in the bay area and been able to attend the victory parade. In many years as a Giants fan, I watched probably thousands of hours of games on TV. Every new prospect, free-agent signing, or player improvement was some glimmer of hope. But this year (tops-turvy as it was for the team) they finally did it. Some of my friends don't know how I can stand watching baseball games because they find them super boring. Well, winning the World Series is the reason why. To say you were there, cheering even when they were sucking makes the winning so much better. I have been a Giants fan for 24 years. In contrast, my father decided after 13 years that I wasn't worth keeping up on. This World Series is a reward for commitment. Something that few people have much appreciation for anymore.

I recently got back from a trip to DC/New York. I went to DC to attend the Rally for Sanity and to hang out with Vishnu. The rally was fun, although very crowded and hard to hear. Hanging out with Vishnu was fun and like similar times, we started talking about life (this occurred mostly while drinking). One thing we talked about (and I have talked about before on this blog), is life's journey. Mainly, how the bad times can inform and sometimes set-up the good. Like when I first graduated from college, making 31 grand, living in a room in a garage, and hoping to get a full-time job so I could get benefits. Looking back it was tough time and I was resentful at life for giving me a harder time than, what I incorrectly thought, was everyone else I knew. But living like that made me seriously going to grad school. Which led me to Michigan, which then led to Google, and then led me to where I am today. Thinking back, I am glad I didn't get that full-time job at that point because I wouldn't have been pushed to go to grad school when I did. If I had waited even 1 or 2 years to go, I don't think I would have landed where I am today. So it did work out for the better, although at the time I didn't realize it.

In addition, to catching up with Vishnu, I also had a "Before Sunset" moment. Through LinkedIn, I met up with long lost friend that I met at a FBLA conference in 1996. We hadn't seen each other since 1996 and I hadn't really talked to each for almost 10 years. One thing she did mention that I seemed less sarcastic. While it may sound ridiculous to readers of this blog, a few people have mentioned that I have mellowed over the years. Or in their own terms, I have gotten less "sarcastic/bitter/angry/asshole-ish" than I was before. And there is probably good reason for it. For many years, there was always some drama or stress in my life that I had to deal with. Be it my troubles with family, trying to go college while paying for it with 3 part-time jobs, graduating into the dot.com bust and working at my crappy contracting job, being in grad school with loads of debt etc, not being able to get a single date. But now, I no longer have that same drama/stress in my life anymore. While it is great (especially for my blood pressure), it does leave me stumped on what to do next at times. All during those previous years, I a lot of resentment grew from the things that I perceived I couldn't do because of my circumstances. Things like I couldn't do because I couldn't afford it, I can't be that way because my family situation was so fucked up, etc. After a while, you stop thinking about possibilities because it just pisses you off that you won't be able to do them. But once the drama/stress/circumstances that prevented me from doing things goes away, I am left with what I am going to do now that I can. It is a nice problem to have but yeah, it is still a problem.

For example, I have had a bunch of trouble identifying a place to a vacation to. Mainly because I stopped thinking about where I really wanted to go for a long time since I couldn't afford to travel on my own. But thanks to work, I have gotten to travel to some great places (London, Tokyo, Berlin, New York, and others). But now what? I have been asking that question a lot lately. I have mentioned this to many of my friends lately. At some point in time, new stuff just stops happening to you. And more and more of life becomes routine. Maybe that is why we love reality television so much. Our lives have become so routine and well-adjusted that is fun to see other people who are train wrecks so we have something to talk about. But why does life become routine. Obviously changes like marriage, children, buying a home affect that. But there is something else. I have noticed as that I am getting older, there is less drama in my life. I am able to handle things better because well experience is a good teacher. I like all my friends and have learned the type of people I enjoy spending time with versus those I don't. And most of all, I have grown comfortable with who I am. For example, I know that I will never be the popular guy hanging out in the club because it is just not my personality and its something I don't really want to be. As much as movies, TV shows, and self-help books that have tried to fool us, we can't transform ourselves overnight. If any change does come, it comes in fits and starts with many false starts and gradually over much time. I think for the first time in my life, I have come to accept that. Because during all those drama/stress years I was wishing things (including myself) would change for the better overnight. But 5 years later, things did change for the better. They just did one small step at a time.

So where does it all leave me? Well, it has left me with the sometimes depressing realization that any goal worth attaining comes with a journey that it is in no way linear. My life from this point is going to be filled with false starts, abandoned trails, half-steps, and miscues that hopefully, with lots of hard work and perseverance, will take me where I want to go. So I don't know what I am going to do next but I have some ideas. I want a buy my own place next year. I would like to get married some day. Some I am just going to live life, do the best I can, and see how things end up. More than likely, they won't be as neat or as quick as I want. But I guess that is what makes life interesting and also makes good fodder for future blog entries. So until next time. Happy Thanksgiving and peace.

Return to Innocence

by Enigma from The Cross of Changes

Hello again. Just taking to this opportunity to point out an important milestone for me....I has been over 10 years since I started blogging! Crazy isn't it. I wrote my very first blog entry August 7, 2000. To see how it all started off, you have to go to my Diaryland hosted blog. I wrote that back when I was 21 years old. Looking back my blog, one thing becomes crystal clear. 10 years is a fucking long time. In that time period, I moved out on my own, graduated from both undergrad and masters, had too many jobs that I don't care to remember, gained about 40 lbs, won, lost, and had all sorts of people come, go, and stay in my life. All the while I have managed to type about 300 blog entries about my thoughts, experiences, dreams, aspirations, and mostly my gripes about life.

I just finished reading Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain. I enjoyed it immensely. He writes about how when he wrote his first and most famous book, Kitchen Confidential, he was writing from a lot of anger. I have to admit that much of my blogging, especially when I first started, was written out of anger also. I had a great deal of residual anger lingering over from high school. I was still resentful that many of my high school classmates, who I thought were shallow, mean, conceited, and most of all lying phonies were at their big name universities probably having their time of their lives while me, the crusader for righteousness and hard work was not. Also lot of my anger grew out of what was happening in my life.

In order to understand that, maybe I should tell you how my life was back 10 years ago, when I was 21. 2000 was a very difficult year for me. Right around when I wrote that 1st blog entry, I spent the first part of it living in a rapidly deteriorating family situation, my 1st girlfriend dumped me, and I was about to enter Santa Clara University, a pricey private university that I had no clue about how I would end up paying for. Later on, I moved out to a rented room in a house in Santa Clara with the worst passive aggressive Filipino landlady imaginable. My usual routine would be to wake up, get ready, walk 15 minutes to the bus stop. Hop the bus to SCU. Go to class from 9 until around 1 or 2. Maybe eat lunch. Then hop another bus go to my part-time job at Navin.com, which was struggling to stay afloat, work for 3 to 4 hours. Depending on which day it was, I would then take another bus back to SCU, where I would work/study another 3 hours at the law library until 10:30 at night or take the bus back to my room, eat something resembling dinner (usually pasta or 99 cent jumbo jacks), and then spend the rest of the night studying at the Stevens Creek Barnes and Nobles. I think I heard the same Sarah Brightman CD played at least a dozen times when I was there. I would work 6 hours on the weekends, and then spend most of the day studying at the library before heading back. I have been trying to remember what exactly I did for fun back then and I am drawing a blank. Other than maybe going to see a movie or shoot pool if Vishnu, CWP$, Phill or Nick was back in town, I can't really remember anything that I did for fun. By the way, I didn't have the car so I took the bus everywhere or had to walk. Oh yeah did i mention I was supporting myself on around $1000 a month,, which rent ate up 60% of my monthly income all while overloading on 5 classes.

When you're working that much and barely making ends meet, anger comes easily. For example, it didn't help that I was at SCU, which had more than its fair share of not-so smart rich kids who were going to college to "have fun" and living off their parents. I was very resentful of them. I was super dedicated to studying and learning, mainly because I was paying for it out of my own pocket. While many of them were coasting along, not learning shit and not caring since their parents were providing everything for them. I suppose, in retrospect, it's not their fault that they came from a family that could provide for them. But when you're stuck at the beginning of every quarter going to the financial aid office trying to get some more aid to attend class, the contrast really eats away at you. Much of my earlier blogging revolved around finding a job/internship. Yes I was concerned about my career but mostly I needed a job/internship to fucking pay the bills and eat. Again, I got angry everytime I didn't get that job or someone who I thought was a spoiled SCU brat got the internship instead. Didn't employers know how much more I needed that job than who they hired? Didn't they know I would be a super dedicated and motivated new hire since I needed the job to basically live?!? That came out a lot in my blogging back then.

So if someone were to ask me if I missed being 21, then I would obviously say no I don't. I live a much more comfortable, balanced, and enjoyable life. I don't have to worry about eating or making my rent. I have more than enough disposable income to say buy an original Bruticus Transformer in Tokyo or have the Omakase at Morimoto in NYC. And yes I do have problems but many of those come with moving up in the world. Work problems are more complex and yeah, I never realized how complicated taxes were until I actually made enough that using the 1040EZ was no longer an option. So yeah, the stress is way way less than it was 10 years ago and as a result, I feel that I am a far less angry person - although I make no claims to be anger-free. But that as much as self help books and gurus would like you to believe otherwise, some anger never leaves you. Instead of getting emotional about it, it sometimes manifests itself in different ways. In retrospect, one thing I really wanted to do when I was 21, was do a study-aboard somewhere. My ideal location would have been London. To be in a new, bustling and active foreign city at that time with others who were my age would have been a once in a lifetime opportunity. But as you probably guessed, there would have been no way I could have afforded to go. And yeah it ate at me that others go to. For example, one of my friends go to spend the summer going to class in Venice - all paid for by his parents. It was no doubt an awesome experience for him but inside I was resentful. I was mad because isn't life suppose to reward those who work hard and make sacrifices. How come I had to work so much harder than him to even put a roof over my head, let alone get the chance to go to Italy for a summer for free. But you know that time has passed. But I recently noticed something. I was in NYC last week. On Monday after my taxi ride from the airport, I spent two hours in my hotel room pretty much answering email and working. It was late, I was tired and I wanted to get dinner. So I spent a good amount of time debating with myself on if I should go out or order room service. I ordered room service but I felt a little guilty about it. I was in the arguably the restaurant/food capital of the country, if not the world, and I was ordering room service. Then I realized that in almost every cool city that I have gotten to go to as part of my work (London, New York, Tokyo, Boston, etc), I always feel like I should be seeing and experiencing more of the city than I get to. Maybe it is the residual anger of not being able to go aboard all those years ago manifesting itself as guilt.

Even though I don't miss being 21, I wouldn't change what I went through. That year and the years after it, in retrospect, did contribute to setting up where I am today. For example, applying and getting rejected for all those jobs back then did help me later in graduate school when I was again applying for part-time, summer internships and full- time jobs. I already knew the tricks of the trade so my resumes were better, interviews were stronger, and yeah, I ended up getting the offer I wanted. Most of all I look back in with some amount of pride, that I was able to do what I did. Because I don't think I could do the same thing today. Even though I was working very hard, I was very fortunate in some ways - I had generous financial aid, worked at jobs that were flexible with my schedule, and took advantage of opportunities that came way (such as going to company presentations and loading up on their catering to avoid having to spend money for lunch/dinner). I don't think someone else could do what I did today simply because the circumstances aren't the same. I remember thinking back to workouts I did when I was training year round in swimming in high school. I remember workouts where we did a 40 X 100 yard sets on 1:20 or 1:30 paces or the time I did 1000 yard breaststroke. There's no way I could that now but I somehow was able to do it and no small amount of people could ever do that. I have the same feeling about my situation 10 years ago. I am proud that I made it through all that, and to top if all off, I still ended up graduating with honors from SCU (although they did have to round my GPA up).

While I don't miss what my life 10 years ago, I have to say I do miss some things from that time. Mainly things I won't be able to do again. I remember Phill, Vishnu, CWP$, Nick, Carl, me and the rest of PCC would get together on a warm summer night like this, have a BBQ, and then play ultimate frisbee at the Sunken Gardens in Cupertino or Serra Park in Sunnyvale. We would just hang out, shoot the shit, watch movies, and just have fun. Well now, Vishnu is on the east coast, Phill is married in Sacramento, Nick and CWP$ are going to be fathers soon. Yeah, I won't get to experience those care-free summer nights again. And yeah I miss that.

That's enough from me for tonight. Thanks for tuning into this belated 10 year blogging anniversary. I don't know if I will make it to 20 years but its good to know that I lasted 10. Until next time, peace.

Boys of Summer

by Don Henley from Building the Perfect Beast

Hello again from yet another extended blogging break, which is not coincidentally the topic of this very blog entry. If you scan back through my blog archive, you will see that I used to blog a lot more often. For a long time, it was weekly, occasionally more than twice a week. Now, it's monthly at the best, and I haven't even been keeping that up. I also was an active forum member on a few sites too but have since given that up also. I do use Twitter, but I don't really tweet too much. I have given some thought on whether I should continue with this blog. For the moment, I am keeping it in case I need an outlet to vent or drop some knowledge, much like I am doing right now. But I have been thinking why I don't blog as often I used to. It's not because nothing has been happening. There has been plenty to stuff to write about, just little motivation. I think I have found out why.

When I saw Jon Stewart do stand up in Vegas, he made a very illuminating joke. He lamented that although 80% of Americans are somewhere in the middle (more liberal on somethings, more conservative on others), our entire political process is driven by the extreme 20% of Americans. And he said the reason why is that normal people have "shit to do" while the 20% extremists don't have any shit to do so hence have all the time in the world to show up to protests, bombard their congressmen with letters and messages, and generally fuck shit up for the rest of us. And I have to say, I think that is the reason I don't blog as much as I used to. It's because i have shit to do now. When I mean by "shit" is not so much stupid, moronic stuff I have to do, it's just I have other things in my life going right now that quite honestly, I enjoy more doing than writing lots of blog entries or getting into flame wars in forums. For example, I have been seeing a new lady for the past few months so more of my time has been devoted to that. I have also been training for a marathon (coming up this Sunday!) which takes more than a few hours out of my spare time. Plus there is work, exercising, taking of bills, errands, shopping, plus you know fun stuff like hanging out with my friends, watching movies and baseball games etc. Alll this stuff or "shit" I am doing now really doesn't lend itself well to blogging or contributing to online forums on a frequent basis. I used to think I was super busy back in grad school and college and yeah I did take classes, work part time, study etc. But yeah while it was a busier life, it was not as "full" as my life is now. Hence, it made more sense to blog more often back then (especially about stupid shit like getting a bad grade, stupid encounters with people, and other trivial stuff like that).

I used to think that people who blogged a lot or contributed to online forums were actually living fuller lives than those who didn't. I mean somehow these people found time to do all this blogging/contributing and take care of their regular shit. But now I realize that yeah, all the blogging/contributing does involve extra effort and time, but yeah that extra effort and time could have been spent doing something else like volunteering, spending more time with the people you care about, going for a hike, etc. Take for example, Andrew Sullivan, he blogs all day long and its interesting. But where the fuck is the time for anything else? Not just time actually typing on the computer or phone, but the mental space it takes up. I went back to a forum I used to regularly contribute to 4 or 5 years back. There are still some of the same people who there back then, still debating and getting mad about the same old shit. It used to be that people who took the time to get involved with causes, movements, and other community organizations were to be commended. I have no doubt that some of them are actually civic minded and sincere in their efforts. But it just seems like a fuck load of them are that 20% Jon Stewart was talking about. People who don't have any shit to do so they get all riled up and use their time to shove their cause, views, etc down other people's throats. For example, go to any major news site like the New York Times or Washington Post and look at the comments on the articles. One would think people who read the news would be thoughtful people who like to be informed. But looking at the comments, they are filled with the most ignorant, moronic opinions from mostly people who make that 20% that don't have any shit to do. So they spend their time adding their lame completely illogical, ill-informed two cents so they can feel like they have just contributed to whatever cause, party, movement they prefer.

Here is a more personal example. The New Lady and I attended Lilith (but no longer called Fair) at the Shoreline Amphitheater a few weeks ago. As you may suspect, it was the New Lady's idea. I did go because I am a Sarah McLachlan fan. The performance were on the most part very good and aside from the lack of funnel cake, a great time. And like the Lilith fair stereotype, there were plenty of lesbians around. Which brings me to my example. While we were entering Shoreline, 3 protesters were outside in the parking lot, screaming over a loud speaker about the sinfulness of being gay and how all these lesbians were going to hell. They even trotted out their "God Hates Fags" signs too. Going through my mind at that moment were two things:

(1) Why the hell are you protesting and bashing gay people in Bay Area for crying out loud? I mean this was/is the cradle of gay rights movement. What were you expecting? Some lesbian with her GF from Haight standing in line to see The Bangles is suddenly going to realize she doesn't want to go to hell and then convert to being straight?

and most importantly (2) Channeling Jon Stewart, I wanted say, "Don't you have any shit to do besides this!" I mean it was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. Did these anti-gay bigots wake up in the morning and think "Hey, instead of say going to a park, the beach, a museum, church, the mall, a coffee shop, library, water park, amusement park, bowling alley, baseball game, farmer's market, or just spending some quality time with the people I care about, I am going to spend this lovely Sunday afternoon in the middle of summer - screaming my guts out at some lesbians instead. I mean they didn't have any more meaningful shit to do in their lives besides this??!?!?!?!

So yeah, I for one don't care to be in that 20% of people who don't have any meaningful shit to do in their lives so they fill it up with say, constant blogging. So don't expect a return to my previous years of regular and frequent blogging and get used to (if you haven't already) my less constant check-ins. Until next time (whenever that will be)...Peace.