It's Over Now

by Neve from The Faculty Soundtrack

Hello again, it is yet again Christmas and it yet another patented (or soon to be patented) Dave end of the year wrap-up blog entries otherwise know as my holidaze entry. A word of warning, this will probably turn out to be a very long, rambling blog post as a result. So before all that year in review stuff, what has been going on lately? Well quite honestly not much. Unlike last year, I don't have a ton of backlog work to take care so I took the first part of this week off and will take the first part of next week off. Like all companies, Google is cutting back on expenses. Unlike previous years, there was no company wide holiday party. Instead each department had their own. So two weeks ago, I attended our group's holiday party at Thirsty Bear. It was quite good and exceeded my expectations. Other than that, nothing much of note to report. Xmas shopping wasn't too bad this year because I finished the bulk of it in one two afternoons. I did see two awesome movies in Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon. I highly recommend them.

One thing that has been bothering me as of late is Prop 8, the ballot proposition that passed here in CA that banned gay marriage. I of course voted against it. The more I think about it, the more and more unfair and unjust I find it. Now I consider marriage to have two definitions. One is spiritual (and/or religious) and the other is secular. Now for the sake of argument that consider the two separate because hey we do have something called separation of church and state in this country. And the government has usually treated marriage that way. Marriage is a deeply spiritual thing to many religions but the government has treated it almost as entirely secular. Meaning that marriage is open to all people of religious and even non religious creeds. Meaning that no matter what religion the couple being married are, the government will honor it be it Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, Wiccan, etc as the same. The government does not grant more marriage rights to Lutherans than it does to Mormons. In the government's eye, a marriage is a marriage is a marriage. That is a very important concept to me. The idea that government's role is to provide the legal mechanism for marriage but does not ever judge the quality of such union. Meaning regardless of the quality of a couple's relationship, the government will grant them a marriage (with the exceptions in the case of minors, certain relatives, and some other legal requirements such as citizenship and legal immigration status). So couples who are deeply committed to each other can get married but so can two idiots who know each other for 2 days, teenagers in a shotgun marriage, or those green card marriages. The government most of the time didn't care. Unfortunately, Prop 8 reverse that. Prop 8 directly says that same-sex relationships are inferior to straight relationships and therefore do not quality for marriage rights. That is a value judgment on a relationship that was never applied to marriage before but is now.

So what does this all mean? It means that gay people can't get married but guess who still can? Convicted felons, people convicted of spousal abuse. child molesters, murderers on Death Row, and pretty any horrible person as long as they are straight. That pisses me off. Because Prop 8 pretty much says that no matter how shitty a straight couple's relationship is, there are inherently better than any same-sex relationship because we will allow them to get married. What a fucking shame. I am pretty sure one day the US Supreme Court will rule on this and it will finally correct this wrong much like it did with interracial marriage. But that day ain't coming soon, especially with the Supreme Court we got now. This pisses me off because right now I know of straight relationships where:
1. One partner has admitted that they are only with the other person to get a green card
2. It was pretty much arranged / mail order bride situation with not healthy or respectful expectations of other
3. Couple got married only after knowing each other for a few months and are already in counseling after less than 2 months of being married.
According to Prop 8 proponents, all of the above are better than any same sex relationship simply because the parties are straight. Which is why Prop 8 is bullshit. But enough of my ranting, let's move on to the year in review stuff.

So 2008 is almost over. I have to say it was a pretty good year. Personally, I was much more active as in I did a sprint triathlon, a relay triathlon, and a splash and dash. I also biked 25 miles in Napa and then biked 32 miles half way around Lake Tahoe. I saw Flight of the Conchords and Oasis twice in concert. I didn't travel as much as I did in 2007. I went to London, New York (twice), Virginia, Chicago, Seattle, San Diego, and even dropped by Ann Arbor once again. Focused on my health by exercising more and also improving my diet. Yeah, I am still following my no fast food, only one caffieinated drink per week, only fruit for breakfast, lower carb diet. Professionally, it was an interesting year. I tried some new methodologies and and attempted to get a CHI paper accepted about it, with no success. So yeah, 2008 was a pretty packed and interesting year that went by super quick. So how did I do on my resolutions:

Volunteering Well this one I dropped the ball on. I volunteered twice in 2007. I only volunteered once in 2008. So my bad. In my defense many of my weekends were taken up with training for triathlons. I also did the self powered commuter program at work that donated money to charity every time I rode my bike to work. But yeah I really should have made more time for that.

Keeping in Touch I made a resolution to try to keep in touch more with old friends. I have to say that is rather mixed. I did meet up with some people I haven't seen in while (Jude/Serene, Maurice, etc) but then I really didn't call/email some other people like I should have. But at least I made an attempt at this and it was slightly better than 2007.

Biking More Done and done. Aside from the Napa and Lake Tahoe rides, I rode to work much more than I did in 2007.

Learning more about financial stuff Yeah, I really didn't do this one. Maybe to my unintended benefit seeing how the markets crashed. I moved a lot of my money into really conservative, simplistic stuff. So while it didn't earn much, it sure didn't lose a ton like lots of other stuff. But knowing more about finance and investment is still a good thing.

Dating In 2007, I went out on dates with four (4) ladies. In the 2008, I went out on dates with four ladies also. The big difference is that I am still seeing one of them and yes, I suppose one could reasonably say that she is "my special lady" as they would say in the Big Lebowski. So we have been seeing each other since August and yes, we are "together" in some sense of the word. So yeah I guess I made good on this resolution.

So what are my resolutions for next year? Well are my draft ones which are of course open to change.

1. Volunteering Yes, hold over again from last year.

2. Learning more about financial and investment stuff Yet again, another hold over from last year.

3. Finish my book backlog The past two years, I was traveling on a fairly regular basis which presents good opportunities to read since I was stuck on planes a lot. However, this plus buying many used books has now resulted in a fairly huge 15-20 book backlog that I haven't gotten through. So I am setting a resolution to get through that backlog this year. Ambitious but I think I can make the time.

4. Keep in touch/reestablish contact This is sort of a hold over with a new twist. So I should try to keep in touch with those I am already in contact with but I will also try to reestablish contact with some people I have lost contact with through neglect and/or laziness. I really value my friendships and am extremely proud that more than a few people count me as their oldest or one of their oldest friends.

5. Go to more concerts This may sound strange in the middle of a recession but I really should go to more concerts. I mean the bay area draws some really great bands, acts, and attractions. I should really take more advantage of it. I am thinking of getting tickets to SF Sketchfest in January as a good start.

6. Take a vacation somewhere far For 2007, my resolution was to take a vacation. Now it is to take a vacation somewhere far and somewhere that I have really wanted to go but never found the time to. In 2007, I went on vacation to Vancouver and also to Berlin (but that was tied with a work trip to London). In 2008, I went to Seattle for a vacation. I am thinking I should go somewhere further and a bit more exotic. Where I haven't figured out but I should make it a point to do this in the upcoming year.

So six resolutions sound good to me. I might also point out that in this upcoming year I will be turning the big 3-0. Which yeah means that this is apparently the age where you need to have your shit together. I have to admit, my shit is a lot more together than I thought it would be, career wise and even personal wise. I was looking at some old pictures of myself recently. Through out most of my 20's, I thought my appearance hadn't radically changed. I mean there wasn't much of a difference between me at 21 versus me at 25, or so I thought. But looking back now, I see man, I aged. Now with childhood pictures it is different because when you are an adult you look at at yourself as a kid. It's just a strange feeling looking at a picture of yourself as an adult and then realizing that you no longer that, in fact you look much older. Or maybe it is just me freaking out as I approach 30. Anyway, I have rambled enough for tonight and hell, even for this year. So happy holidays and best of luck to everyone in the upcoming year. Until next time, peace on earth,

I'm Outta Time

by Oasis from Dig Out Your Soul

Geez I can't believe its December. Where did this year go? So what has been going on with me recently? Well lots for a change. First thing is that my case study got rejected by CHI, the conference I wanted to go to. For some reason they had 9 reviewers review it. Some of the criticism was valid but I think a great deal was not. Essentially, they brought up points that would be covered in paper but not a case study. Essentially, they criticized for not being a paper. Well its a case study for a reason. Anyway, I could say some immature thing about those reviewers but I will take the higher road and not....actually what the hell. Like they are going to read this blog anyway. So:

Fuck you fuckers. Why are you guys so fucking anal about fucking nitpicking apart a case study like a fucking paper when it ain't a fucking paper you fucking retards. You're just fucking jealous that I fucking work at fucking Google while you are stuck in a fucking shit bird company or ass soul sucking university.

Yes, I would like to think of myself as a gracious person. But what else has been going on? Well this past week I saw Oasis again in concert at the Oakland Arena. I have to say this show was just a good as the Seattle show I saw back in August. If you hadn't noticed, I really like Oasis. So what if they don't come up with the most experimental sound like Radiohead. As much as Vishnu mocks it, they deliver a certain sound which I like and it may be predictable but it doesn't stop it from sounding good to me. They played an almost similar set as their show in Seattle so I didn't get to hear Live Forever again. But I still very much enjoyed it. I even got to witness a fight that took place right in front of me. There was this asshole and his girlfriend who were standing right in front of us. They were jerks because the girl stood up on her chair, thus blocking the view of everyone in back of her. So I told her to sit down and her asshole boyfriend gets mad at me. Like 3 minutes later so dude with a beard stands at the end of the row. The asshole lunges at him and they get into a fight that envelops 4 or 5 other people. The non-top notch security at the Arena finally breaks it up and then asshole and his girlfriend try to sneak away and pretend they were not part of it. But some girl rats them out and then the asshole couple's other friend totally rips into the tattler. Luckily security finally hauled all of them away. So it was an interesting concert plus I went to Top Dog afterward in Berkeley.

For Thanksgiving, I had dinner with my sister and her in-laws. We then went to the SF Auto Show again. This year was quite sad because of the bad economy. Many of the manufacturers cut back on their displays. I heard they even canceled the last day of the show due to poor turnout. I actually had a reason to go to the show this year because I am planning on getting a new car next year. The Maxima served me well for the past 7 years but it is getting pretty old. I am looking at the VW GTI but will be exploring my options.

I recently suffered a somewhat embarrassing injury at the gym last week. But first off, I want to rant about certain types of people who go to gyms. Most gym goers are nice but these three jerk types show up at every gym I have ever been to, including the Google gym where I work out.

1. The Screamer (aka the Roider): You most likely heard these guys. They are the ones who spend all their time at the free weights and bench press, screaming out their rep count for all to hear. They then throw their weights down on the ground after they finish their last rep and shout, grunt, or bellow to show they are really strong men. At Michigan, there was a quite well-known screamer who once got so angry he couldn't finish his last rep that he swatted his water bottle clear across to the other side of the gym.

2. The Sweater: When I do work out, I sweat like most people. But there are some people with really overactive sweat glands who end up being drenched in sweat after even 15 minutes of working out. Besides being not personally hygenic and not swelling too good, these people leave pools of sweat on all the equipment after they get done. I would ask them to clean it off with their towels but guess what, those are soaked through with sweat too! It's called deorderant! Use it, live it, be it.

3. The Squatter: The squatter is the guy who shows up to the gym everyday, all the time, but never seems to work hard and thus never seems to get more fit. They are the people who stay on the trend mill for an hour but set it at 1 mile per hour. They are the ones who do the weight machines but set it a 5 lbs for each rep. There is this really annoying squatter at the Google gym who is there all the time but still looks overweight and bloated even though I have seen almost every time I am there for the past year. He once grabbed an exercise ball to do yes, count'em, two sit-ups before putting it back. Whoa there pal, don't want to overexert yourself!

But getting back to my embarrassing injury. I take my boot camp exercise class after work three days a week. So last Thursday I was in class, doing jump-ups which are where you jump onto a bench and then back down as fast you can. You can adjust the height of the bench by adding risers to it. So the guy who did the jump-ups before me set it pretty high since he is in pretty great shape. So when it comes to my turn, I decided to see if I can jump-up to the same height. So on my first one, I jump-up but land on the bench awkwardly and then quite hilariously the bench collapses. I end up falling flat on my back and ass in full view of my fellow classmates. Now this would have all chuckle worthy had my arm not landed hard on one of the risers and ended up swelling up quite badly. I iced it for the rest of the night and then swelling went down considerably. But yeah it was not a fun time.

So what is in store for me? Well the holidays of course. This year is gonna be a subdued year it looks like because of the crappy economy. But I will going out, shopping and hopefully trying to wring some holiday cheer this year. And of course, I will adding my customary hollidaze, year in the review entry on Christmas eve. So be on the look out for that. So thanks for reading. It has been a while since I went on one of my famous rants. Happy holidays, seasons greetings, and peace on earth.

Weird Science

by Oingo Boingo from Dead Man's Party

Hello from downtown Mountain View on an usually warm November day. I am at Tapioca Express, enjoying a pearl tea, while I update my blog. First thing, yes I am cheating on my one caffeinated drink per week rule. I had a very good reason for that which I will get to. First off, I would like to say that this usually warm day is a result of an Indian summer but more than likely it is the result of global warming. The reason why I am drinking my second caffeinated drink this week is because I spent the first half in San Diego for Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) conference. Some of you Dave-blog readers know that I was originally going to write a note for this conference until some well more scholarly colleagues of mine told me I didn't stand a chance. It turns out they were write. After going to the conference, my paper definitely didn't fit.

As with most conferences, the papers and talks were a mixed bag. Some papers I really enjoyed such as an interesting paper by Jeffrey Hancock on using Facebook profile information to better ingratiate yourself to someone else. There was also an interesting talk on social tagging, where they invited two discussants to basically argue against the findings in the two previous papers presented. It was the first time I have ever seen that happen. It led to an interesting discussion. Of the part that I got, there was basically a big disagreement on whether people are influenced by other people's tags when they tag content. One paper said that, for the most part, people tagged following their own personal scheme for organization and retrieval later. Some other papers said otherwise. Personally, I fall into the personal tagging style. Of course there was some duds, including papers that all I could say was "Really? You managed to write more than 50 words about this?" Oh yeah, and in the tradition of countless conferences in the past, the closing keynote was an absolute dud. Note to speakers, using outdated slides with a very hard to read color scheme plus having absolutely no connecting narrative is a sure fire way to bomb.

As for the non-talk/paper aspects of the conferences, it was a blast. I got to see some current/former SIers and Google interns. It's nice that the HCI/UX field is still relatively small so you can recognize people and names. Also San Diego was great. Seeing that it has the best weather in CA, thus having some of the best weather in the world, it was a great place to have a conference. The last time I went to San Diego was 8 years ago and didn't really see that much. I skipped the morning session on Wednesday and decided to go running. It was awesome weather but alas, I underestimated the distance of my run and ended running farther than I probably should have. The one bad thing about San Diego is its airport. So I flew American so silly me, I went to the terminal 2 where American is at. I see the departure screen has me scheduled to leave from gate 2, which is actually in terminal 1. So I head over to terminal 1 to go to gate 2. Whoops, actually it means gate 2 in the commuter terminal. Silly me! What an idiot I am going to Gate 2 when the boarding pass and departure screen says gate 2 but makes no mention of the commuter terminal. Yeah that was annoying.

I decided to take Friday off from work, since I spent most of the week at the conference. Oh yeah there is some work news. As some of you know, I spent most of my time at Google working on Ads related stuff. Well after almost 2.5 years, I am switching product areas. So what will I be working on? I am going to be working on Chrome, the Google web browser. So yeah, feel free to gripe to me about your Chrome problems all 2.5% of you who are actively using Chrome.

Anyway that is all from me. Hope everyone has a good November. Until next time, peace.

The World I Know

by Collective Soul

Like almost everyone in the US and around the world, I am still in awe of what happened yesterday. But most of all, I am immensely proud. I am proud to be one the 63 million people who cast their votes to elect Barack Obama the 44th President of the United States of America. I remember saying about 5 to 6 years that I would not live to see the day that anybody who was not a white man be President. I happy to have been proven wrong. Needless to say, when people say that this is a game-changer it truly is. I remember being taught about the Presidents, Congress, and government in school. And I remember how teachers would say that anybody could be President but deep down, I knew that this country would never elect someone like me, a Korean American being raised by a single mother. But guess what, we just elected a half-Kenyan/half-white man who lived in Indonesia as a child, grew up in Hawaii, raised by his mother and grandmother, and has a name that school children would have a field day mocking. So yeah when this re-affirms the American dream, it really does. But as many people have said, this election was more than just about Barack Obama. This moment now belongs to all of those generations of people of color who were denied their basic human rights simply because of their skin color. And this moment shows that the we are moving beyond our regrettable past when it comes to race relations even if some people bitterly cling to it. I mean the Republicans dished out everything against Obama - Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Obama the Muslim, Socialist, Elitist, etc. All in a vain attempt to make Obama seem foreign, non-American, simply for the fact that he disagreed with their rigid ideology and he didn't look like or have a name like Bush or Palin.

Now I know one is supposed to be gracious in victory and defeat. Nobody likes a gloater but this has been a long time coming. So without further adieu, here is a bunch of "SUCK IT'S" from me personally.

- To my kindergarden through 1st grade classmates at Sunrise Elementary School in Spokane Washington who relentlessly mocked me because my eyes looked different. SUCK IT! Your President-elect doesn't look like you!

- To anyone who has ever mocked my last name "Choi" out of spite such as "Choi Body" "Bok Choy" or many other variants of it. SUCK IT!!!! My last name more reassembles the president-elect's last name than say good ole boy names like Anderson, Williams, or Smith.

- To those die hard fundamentalist Christians who I used spar with in person and online - SUCK IT!!! Wow, I guess in a few short months, things like science will be used to determine policy on say stem cells, sex education, climate change, and foreign policy rather than your fucked up ideology.

- To Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Glen Beck, Fox News, Bill Kristol and all those other conservative pundits - SUCK IT!!!! I guess 63 million (or 52%) americans are socialist, terrorist fist bumping sympathizers. Apparently, the only true Americans according to you guys live in the south (or wait I guess we now must subtract Virgina, Florida, and possibly North Carolina from that now).

So yeah it is a really gratifying election for me. The complete opposite of how I felt in 2004. The only downer is that California (correction the Central Valley and parts of Southern California) voted in ban gay marriage. Long-time Dave blog readers already know my opinion on marriage. Such a sacred institution in which 43% of people in the US choose not to honor and get a divorce from obviously needed protection. Oh yes and let's not forget the major non-existent threat gay marriage who have posed to children who would have to be taught about it school - oh wait! Children are not required to be taught about marriage in school but if they were, we would want them taught about the sanctity of straight marriage such as Britany and K-Fed, Anna Nicole Smith and that really old dude she married and then inherited all that money from, and of course Bristol Palin and that teenager that knocked her up. Obviously those straight marriages are by their very nature and not their quality better than any conceivable gay marriage. At least that is what the California constitution will say. A big fuck you to the Mormom Church from me for dumping millions into supporting that proposition.

But all well, enough about politics. This is still a great moment in American history and I am glad to have experienced it. I am optimistic (which is rare for me) about the direction our country is heading. But most of all, I am happy to see that for once, enough people saw reason, logic, and judgment to make the right call. Until next time, peace.

London Rain

by Heather Nova from Siren

Right now I am typing this entry on a British Airways flight from 34000 feet over Baffin Island somewhere in the Arctic according to the in flight map. I will be actually posting this entry later when I get on the ground. As you can guess I have been traveling lately. I spent the past week in London because of work. I was running a study. The study was somewhat of a last minute affair but it, for the most part, went off fairly well. This was my second time in London, the first time being May 2007. The weather was better this time and it only rained one day. I spent most of the time, guess what, working. But I did manage to do some fun stuff. I saw Avenue Q in the West End. Now some of you (namely the one or two of you who still tune into this blog) may remember that I have fairly low opinion of musicals. Given how cheesy, melodramatic, over wrought many musicals are. As a former teacher of mine said many years ago, “Musicals are just songs with plot stuck in between.” But anyway, I got invited and hey, when else would I get to see a musical in the West end of London. I have to say that I quite enjoyed it. It definitely had a snarky and clever bite to it. Definitely one of the best, if not the best, musical I have seen. Surely better than the Zorro musical that was playing down the street. One quibble is that they have a character named Christmas Eve who is Japanese who earned two masters degree in social work yet still talks and sings with a massive stereotypical accent. That’s Broadway for yah.

In addition to seeing Avenue Q, I did stay an extra day to soak in some sights of London that I missed my first time. I went to the National Gallery, where I saw originals from Monet, Gaugin, Degas, Picasso, Van Gogh, Rembrant, and many other famous painters that I vaguely remember from my humanities class 10 years ago but have now pretty much forgotten. I ended up walking through London Chinatown which was a trip. I did go to the British Museum, which I have to say was a bit underwhelming. I saw the Rosetta Stone but other than that there was nothing special. Even the famous Egyptian wing was well ordinary. I have to say though to be able to be inches away from artifacts that are almost or over 1000 years old is pretty cool though. I ended the day by walking around Hyde Park, which is quite pleasant in the fall at sunset. I used to snicker when ex-East coasters who are now living in California say they miss seasons. But I now think they are onto to something. October in London is a really beautiful time. It was cool but not cold.. Leaves falling and all that jazz. I could definitely see myself living in London if it were not for the insane cost of living there. Another good thing about London is that there are Oasis fans. I was at a pub (or what they call “bars” there if you didn’t know), I ended up striking up a conversation with a couple of really drunken Brits. Turns out one of them was a huge Oasis fan who was convinced that more people associated Oasis with “Don’t Look Back in Anger” rather than “Wonderwall.” For the record, I am a “Live Forever” fan myself.

Oh yes and one more tiny thing I did in London. The Queen of England visited the Google office when I was there. And yes, I did see her. She walked past my desk and did her royal wave. I bowed my head slightly seeing that I tend not to know what to do when meeting royalty seeing that I have never encountered any other royal, unless you count the times I have been to Burger or Smoothie King. However, I did speak to the Queen’s husband, Prince Phillip, for about 10 seconds. I had a significant amount of food at my desk (it was breakfast food and that tends to be the better English meal food if you know what I mean) and the Prince pointed that out and asked if I was having lunch at my desk. I said no, that I was still having breakfast because I was from the US and hadn’t adjusted to the time difference. Needless to say it was an unforgettable conversation that I am sure neither myself or the Prince will ever forget.

Anyway that was my past week. Other notable events I have been to lately is that I finally checked out the De Young Museum in SF. So I guess I have become Erika like with my recent museum going. I also went to a Renaissance Fair a few weeks back with CWP$, DJC, Doris, and Carl. It was more like a Renaissance/medieval/pirate fair in Hollister of all places. We did see some cool stuff like a gigantic game of Jenga, and some pseudo jousting (real jousting was out of the question since it was raining). I haven’t really been to many events with what I call “dedicated enthusiasts.” You know things like Star Trek or Cosplay conventions where people really get into it with all the costumes. So the Ren Fair was a bit of a new experience for me. Lots of costumes, not al of them flattering. My main impression was that if the fair I went to was really reflective of the Renaissance, then the Renaissance must have been the golden age of cleavage. I mean some women were literally spilling out of their maiden dresses.

Of final note, two more of my friends have gotten engaged and/or got married. For a while there was a little lull in that whole marriage business but I guess it is re-starting. Which yet again, makes me feel old. But that’s a story for another time and when I am not 34000 feet off the ground. Until next time, peace.

Run to the Water

by Live from The Distance to Here

Hello again after yet another long break from blogging. It seems amazing to me that I used to blog once a week a few years ago. Ah well. So what's been shaking this past month. Well the big news is that I did the Pacific Grove relay triathlon a few weeks ago. I was on Team Baconator along with Percy and Matt. We ended up placing third out of all the relays. As for the swim, it was as difficult and as cold as I expected. Thank goodness I practiced the week beforehand. Good idea Doris. I don't know what my time actually was because the timing system didn't catch my second split. But the first lap I swam off course a bit and then second lap I was stuck in that position where you want to pass people but you're just not quite fast enough to do it so you end up in a pack. Other than being tired, I was alright except for really bad strip of chaffed skin on the back of my neck. Unfortunately, I didn't put lotion or body glide on my neck so my wetsuit ended up clinging to it. Therefore for the next day, I ended up squealing like a little girl when I put aloe or lotion on it to treat it. Now that the triathlon is over, I decided to lighten up on the exercise routine but I am still doing my more healthy diet.

As for work, I decided to submit a case study for CHI. I was originally going to submit it for CSCW but the feedback I got was that it was not a good fit. So I thought I was going to submit it as a note, which meant its due date was two Fridays ago. So I diligently spent revising it based off feedback and was ready to submit it. But then I found out it actually is more of a case study so I didn't need to submit it until this Friday. Yeah, CHI could have been clearer about the difference between a case study versus a note. Yeah when I left SI , I was pretty content with leaving academia behind. But I guess if I want to a well-rounded practitioner, I should contribute back to the field. Plus it doesn't hurt the ole resume to have a publication on there. So yeah it will be my first ever conference submission. Best of luck to me!

More recently, I had I think some of the most productive weekends in recent memory. I did laundry, cleaned the kitchen/bathroom, vaccumed, went to the farmer's market, and worked out. Plus I went to Shannon's house warming party and the SF Library annual book sale. That was a pretty awesome book sale. I made a promise not to buy any more books until I finished the stack of unread ones I currently have. But paperbacks priced at 2 bucks and hard covers priced at 3 bucks were too much attractive to pass up. I ended up getting 7 books for 16 bucks! Talk about a deal. Needless to say, the selection wasn't the most up to date. But if you wanted best sellers from yester years (or two dozen copies of the Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood), this was your place.

I also went over to CWP$ and DJC's place to watch the presidential debate. As probably everyone who reads this blog knows, I am supporting Obama, because well he is the far better candidate than Mccain, who I have lost almost all respect for. He is not the same guy that ran in 2000. But one of the major reasons I want to see Obama win (of course of the history making prospect of seeing the first black president) is to make sure Sarah Palin never leaves Alaska. For the record, I cannot stand Sarah Palin. I cannot stand her so much I actually blocked a "friend" on Facebook who kept on posting Foxnews and other conservative flattering profiles of her to his feed. I hate it how reporters and political pundits (who pretty worthless to begin with), say she relates more to the average person than Obama does. Excuse me? For some reason, when Republicans or anyone involved in politics say "average American" for some reason that doesn't include people like me. Apparently only "average Americans" live in small towns, are dumber than shit, have families, drive pick up trucks, work as farmers, go to church, and have prize winning pigs in county fairs. Yeah, because if that is "average American" that Palin appeals to, leave me out. I am really tired that for all the effort that both parties put in to reaching soccer moms, security dads, or whatever hot demographic they make up, they never include the millions of single young adults who in live in urban areas. Apparently we don't count as average americans. Oh I am sorry that I work in a knowledge based high paying job at a high-tech company. I am also sorry that I bothered to get a masters degree. Oh yeah, I am sorry that I didn't get married way too young just because I knocked up some equally moronic girl in the process. Yeah, I guess doing that stuff makes you more average Americanish. Oh yeah and for the record, more people live in urban areas than small towns and more Americans are single than married.

Just another wonderful example of how our news media completely fails us. I found it really sad when the news media reacted to Obama picking Biden. They said that picking someone like Biden would undercut his message of change and admit that he is lacking in experience. On the flip side, these same people said that if Obama picked someone like Tim Kaine, he would be vulnerable since Kaine didn't have experience. I mean shit, what's it going to be? I have been thinking about this for a little bit. Remember those kids in school, you know the ones that would always participate in class discussions but had really uniformed opinions and really crappy logic? You remember at least a few. Every school had them. They usually were stars of the Speech and Debate team. I think a large number of them ended up in the news media, where being opinionated apparently is the only qualification.

Anyway, enough ranting for tonight. Have a good week everyone. Peace.

The Shock of Lighting

by Oasis from Dig Out Your Soul

Hello yet again. Just blogging during one of the few remaining days of summer. I am again blogging from Books, Inc here in downtown Mountain View using the Google WiFi, listening to music on my iPhone, and drinking a lemonade. A very yuppish situation indeed. So what has been going on? First off, I did a Splash and Dash in Livermore last week. It was supposedly a 1500 meter swim in a lake (CWP$ and I suspect it was shorter) and a 5K trail run. I don't like to brag but I was the #1 finisher...from Mountain View....as in I was the only person from Mountain View in the race. But it turned out better than I expected. In the previous triathlon, I totally freaked out during the swim and did crappy. This time I was much more relaxed (even though we arrived literally 5 minutes before the race began) and paced myself in the water. It also helped the water was much warmer and much less choppy than it was during the previous triathlon. The run was alright despite so really bad uphills at the end. The event wasn't the best organized but it served as a good warm-up for the Pacific Grove where I am doing the swim part (this time in the ocean).

Also of note is that I went to Seattle this past week for vacation. I have to say that sometimes you have to spoil yourself on vacation and that's what I did. I flew out last Sunday and had dinner with Maurice and Caroline, from back in my SI days. They live in this ultra cool condo a little outside of downtown Seattle. We would have been joined by a certain someone else who will be unnamed, but she didn't want to drive in the rain. Because you know, driving in the rain is tough especially given how infrequently it rains in Seattle. The next day, I did the Seattle touristy thing. As some people may know, I lived in Spokane Washington for 2 years when I was a kid. Although I have been to Seattle since then, I hadn't done the touristy thing since I was 6. I first went to the Seattle Aquarium, which I have to say was a bit disappointing. Well any aquarium compared to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is super cool, wouldn't stack up well. The biggest criticism I had was that it was 100% geared towards kids. Now everyone knows I don't like kids, but this aquarium pandered so much to really young kids, almost to the point that anyone over 12 would have felt it was a drag. For example, there was this display about a fish that apparently glows i the dark so they had a caption that read something like, "The blah-blah fish prefers to sleep during the day and then eat during the night, which makes him a nite owl...or nite fish!" Cheese me to death please. Now probably in their defense parents +kids are their prime audience so they need to pander to appeal to them. But yeah, not so great in my opinion.

I then went to Olympic Sculpture Park, which was pretty damn cool. Of course, I made it out to the Space Needle, which was alright. It was kinda of a rip-off (similar to how I felt when I went up the Empire State Building). The by far coolest place I went to was the Experience Music Project. Now that is a place geared towards adults who actually want to appreciate and enjoy rather than be dragged along by their kids. I like how the EMP was geared towards adults especially those with an actual interest in music. Another plus was that the "kids section", basically a bunch of sound booths were kids could strum away on guitars and other instruments, was segregated upstairs. Therefore there were no exhibits like "This is a guitar, can you say guitar?" I especially liked their exhibits on Jimmy Hendrix, the Pacific Northwest Music Scene (which had a great display on the grunge movement), and their oral histories section. The one I enjoyed the most was Harry Gregson Williams, a film composer who describes how he tries to show directors and producers how a score might sound before he actually has an orchestra play it. He described how Hans Zimmer, a famous film composer, recorded every instrument in the London orchestra playing every conceivable music note in almost every conceivable way. All the sounds are stored in a series of servers and he can literally compose a rough score using this digital orchestra. This gives the director and producers a good idea of what the actual score will sound like. He also talks about how music is often treated as an afterthought by directors and producers. But he makes a good point how if the music really good or really bad, audiences will care. I sorta feel the same way in my line of work in user experience. Often UI is treated as an afterthought by engineers and product managers and only gets attention when it really kicks ass or when it completely flops. I also dropped by the Science Fiction Museum. Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, must be a huge sci-fi fan because literally almost everything in the museum is donated by him.

The day after that, I went to Discovery Park to do some hiking. I decided to live by the seat of my pants for this trip so I didn't do much activity planning. Like I didn't plan on going to Discovery Park until Caroline recommended it the day beforehand. I thought I would just find a trail and then hike around for a few hours. So I had no trail map. So I started walking down what I thought was trail but then turned into more and more wilderness to the point that I don't there was trail anymore. Anyway, I thought I manage my way out but I nearly become very lost. Luckily I backtracked and found this cool loop trail that took me to the beach, near a lighthouse and back to my car. That night, I went to the Oasis concert at the Wamu theater, which was the real reason I went to Seattle. The concert kicked complete ass. It was better than when I saw Oasis three years ago. First off, they played more songs this time (including some I didn't get to hear last time like Slide Away and Supersonic). Liam's voice was noticeably better, given that this was their 1st show to kick-off their world tour. It was well worth the trip to see them. Ryan Adams opened for them, who was pretty good. I thought Oasis would sing Wonderwall in the Ryan Adams style since he was there but nope, they played it the same way they always do. There are only three things I would change. 1. The obese Indian dude in the row in front of me who kept yelling "I want to have sex with you Noel!" 2. Oasis didn't sing Live Forever, which would have been cool but at least I got to hear some other songs live instead and 3. It fucking poured on me after the concert completed. I checked weather.com earlier that day and they were predicting clear skies for the evening. Yeah, don't trust weatherman nor weather websites. I got totally drenched.

I remember that Seattle was named the most literate city in the US (although I have now learned Minneapolis now is - given that Vishnu is there I seriously doubt their calculations) partly based on the number of bookstores it has. I have to admit, they have a fucking huge number of bookstores. I went to the Elliot Bay Book Company, and I have to say it is a really great bookstore. But I must have walked past at least a dozen different bookstores in the small 3-4 square mile area around my hotel.

Anyway, that is all for now. For the next two weeks, I will be focusing on training for my mile ocean swim in Pacific Grove. Until next time, peace.

Summertime

by the Sundays from Static and Silence

Hello again after a long break. Yeah, this blog entry will serve as my "What did I for my summer" update. I really wanted to update sooner but things got in the way, and by "things" I mean laziness. So what has been up? First things is that I have gotten some recognition (of sorts) this past summer. Who has two thumbs and started the 10th best career services blog according to Willie Franzen, career services blogger? This guy! Yeah, as almost none of you may have remembered, I thought up the idea and pushed for my grad program's career services department back at the University of Michigan School of Information to start a careers blog. I even wrote the first entry. Even though that was two years ago and the blog is being maintained by someone much more dedicated than I was/am, I still maintain that since it was my idea, I deserve at least some of the credit.

But I can let that slide because I officially have arrived since I appeared on blogoscoped. It is because of the Street View photo of the Google campus. I'm the guy holding the giant candy heart that says "True Love." Now maybe one or two of you may be wondering why I happen to be holding a giant candy heart that says "True Love." That's a long story. Needless to say it involves flying to and back from Minnesota from SFO, a field study that involved stealing van keys, 20 degree weather, and theft from the airport all within in literally 24 hours. We used to prank other Googlers by hanging the heart in front of their workstations but currently the giant candy heart is sitting right outside my cube.

Other than blog recognition, what else has been going on. I went to NYC (for the fifth or sixth time) last month for work. It was a short trip (only 3 days) but the highlights were that I got to eat at Grimaldi's in Brooklyn again and see the Brooklyn Bridge Waterfalls. Other than being way too hot, the trip of NYC was notable because I lost my cell-phone. It fell out of my pocket in the car ride from JFK. But its loss allowed me to get the iPhone 3G, aka the Jesus phone. More than one person says that I lost my old RAZR on purpose so I could get the iPhone. Nevertheless, I must say that the iPhone rocks. It has really saved my ass about half a dozen times already and I have only had it 3 weeks. Directions are super convenient plus being able to check my mail and access the web are super easy. I have long been a yuppie (well not so young anymore) but the iPhone cements my status.

What else has been going on? Well I am still continuing my active lifestyle. I have an open water swim + run coming up Thursday night that I am bit worried about. In addition, it appears that I am doing the swim portion of a full triathlon in September. As part of my training, I have been hitting the San Jose State pool on the weekends. Training has rekindled my fondness for swimming, which I swore off for many years. Needless to say 1 hour a week in the pool seems like quite enough for me at this point. Plus with the Olympics going on, it did bring back a few memories of when I actually knew and cared about swimming.

Weekend before last, I again took part in the Lake Tahoe biking trip, which is in its third year, that was organized by CWP$. This time, we (CWP$, Percy, Doris, Joe, Amy, and me) did some road biking by biking around Lake Tahoe. I did half of it (~32 miles) to South Lake Tahoe before my legs gave out. Needless to say there are many many uphills which I found out, I suck pretty badly at. The downhills were awesome as was the view of the lake. The next day, was the traditional downhill mountain biking or more accurately called "Careening down a mountain at breakneck speeds while holding on for dear life over rocky terrain." No major wipeouts for me but I can't say the same thing for others who will remain unnamed. As new for this trip is that we took a trip to the beach near the lake which I actually stepped into Lake Tahoe for a change.

This has been a pretty active summer for me. I went to Santa Cruz for a birthday beach party earlier in July. I also went to some clubs in SF twice this summer. Which is two times more than I should have. I have never been a fan of clubs (I am much more at home in bars and lounges were the primary objective is to get as drunk as possible and attempt to have conversation). But now that I am 29, I realize that I really don't like going to clubs. For one, most clubbers are now younger than me which makes me feel old. Plus I don't like spending 9 bucks for a vodka tonic that is 80% tonic, 5 percent vodka, and 15% ice. Also I found out who are the adult equivalents to the "popular high school varsity quarterback who isn't smart, not very good looking, but popular simply for the fact he is the quarterback on a shitty high school team." The adult equivalents are doormen and bouncers at clubs. Sure, they get sucked up to if girls in skimpy clothes and act like big shots because they can grant access to clubs, but in the whole grand scheme of things they are pretty much failures. Just like that quarterback who is the overload of the high school hallway, club doormen and bouncers act like assholes who throw their weight around their tiny velvet covered kingdoms every Friday or Saturday night. But guess what...the rest of the week they are just dumbass losers who never amounted to anything special which is why they apparently take issue with me holding my plastic drink glass full of tonic, ice, and too little vodka "too close" (roughly 3 feet away) to the balcony edge. I take heart that in fact, I make much more money than they do. Btw, the once-popular captain of the water polo and swimming teams at my high school now works at Costco. Go figure. I don't think they will be putting him or any of those doormen/bouncers on StreetView.

Other than that, I have been doing typical summer activities. I saw the Dark Knight, which kicked ass. I also saw the The X-Files movie, which tanked at the box office. It was a good movie but lacked punch. I mean it really could have been done on TV. Maybe because it had a small budget but I was expecting a bit more of a climax but didn't get it. This past weekend, I went to the city to see the debut of CatLady, my co-worker Alex's new band. Granted it was a house party but the performance rocked. I say it was on the level of the opening ceremony of the Olympics, granted if you were drunk on Stella and whiskey. That won't be the only performance I will be seeing this summer. Next week, I am going to see Oasis in Seattle. I am super psyched about it. Plus I decided that I should go see more concerts so I am on the look-out for more.

Anyway, that is all from me for now. Hope everyone is having/had a great summer. Until next time, peace.

Never Enough

by the Cure from Galore


It is yet another California summer entry from me. Right now I am sitting on the second floor of Books Inc in downtown Mountain View, drinking a lemonade and typing this using Google Wifi (yes, remember that - its still around). Just a fair warning to people. This is one of my entries that will be long and will involve me ranting about stuff. Like I said, be warned and you might want to grab a drink while you still can or go to somewhere else if you want something more cheerful.

First things first, I decided to renew my lease for yet another year. So I will be staying in the View for yet another year. I looked around at places in Palo Alto and Menlo Park and didn't see anything that was worth moving to and paying the extra rent. I had no shortage of people saying I should move to the city. But like I said, I'm not the type that will be 2000+ for a 500 sq ft one bedroom/studio with no dishwasher, parking, laundry, AC just to be in one of the "cool" areas of the city inhabited by many other Google people. Plus with the gas prices where they are, maybe it is smarter financially to be closer to save gas, time, and be able to ride to work easily. FYI, it cost 70+ bucks to fill up my tank the other day. Plus I am just lazy and don't want to pack up all my crap. This is still not the longest I have stayed in one place. I stayed in Campbell for 3 years 4 months before I left for Michigan. My rent went up again but it is still pretty decent given that rents are up everywhere now. My apartment is not perfect but it is a decent place to relax.

One thing that I would change about my apartment is the thievery. I don't just mean how my car got broken into earlier this year. Last year somebody stole my laundry basket out of the laundry room that only residents have a key to. Big deal, the basket cost me 5 bucks but still it was annoying. So now I always take my laundry baskets back with me from the laundry room even if I will be gone for 5 minutes. Yesterday, I noticed some leaves that were building up on my patio. So I decided to sweep them off with a broom I kept on my patio when I do actually sweep my patio, which is not often. So I go out to the patio and guess what, somebody stole my broom. Yes, a broom. How frickin' petty is that. It was the cheapest broom they had at Target. I must live in a complex full of really petty thieves who apparently like stealing laundry baskets and brooms. What's next? My toilet bowl brush? So now I need to buy a new broom and bring it inside every time I sweep my patio to prevent broom thieves from taking it. This is makes me wonder if people were less greedy or more considerate in the past where people could leave their doors unlocked. Or perhaps they were smart enough that stealing a laundry basket or broom was not worth it.

So what else is going on? Work has been alright other than some stupid legal BS I know have to put up with in order to do research. I now realize what many PhDs felt when dealing with IRB committees because this new rule we have to follow is so utterly utterly retarded based on some idiotic law that probably is not even helping the problem is was meant to address. I am also still doing my more "active" lifestyle and I am getting some results. I am down about 4-5 pounds from when I started and about 10 lbs under my all time high from December. As I mentioned before it is a combination of exercise (bootcamp, biking to/from work, weight training, and swimming) plus I slightly modified diet (much more fruit/vegtables, fewer processed carbs). Yeah plus still no fast food or soda. Yeah, I never realized how sweet soda was until I tried it after not drinking it for almost a month.

Oh yeah, it is worth mentioning that I went out on two "dates" this past week or so. It was somebody I met off the Internet(s). First date actually went really well. We had a lot in common (love of bay area sport teams, generally skeptical towards religion, and both worked at one of the Big-4 accounting firms). The second date didn't go nearly as well (it wasn't helped that was suffering from allergies). So yeah, prospects for a third date don't look hopeful. I guess one could be optimistic and say that I made it to the second date, which is twice as many dates than the person I went out with a few months back. Yeah, that is not such a stirring achievement (much like the time I got a third place ribbon in swimming for placing third in a race that only had three swimmers). So yeah let's cut to the chase:

I suck at dating/relationships

Yeah, this should not be surprising to me but it is still depressing. It's hard sucking at stuff, especially something as important as this. Yeah, I am like the Barry Zito of dating. I suck at it, I know I suck at it, but I attempt to do it anyway in hopes of not giving up 8 runs by the 4th inning. I have attempted to understand why but haven't come up with any solid reasons why. Here are few things I have considered

1. I maybe go after the wrong type.

I have thought about this at length. I remember back in 2002 when I was graduating from undergrad (in the dot-com bust), I literally applied to over 100 jobs and I got interviews for like 4, and then finally landed the contract job at Cisco after graduation. Looking back, yeah I probably applied to jobs I had no chance of getting, not qualified for and probably wouldn't even like if I did get them. However in 2006, I sent out like 12 really targeted resumes for positions I knew I wanted and was qualified for. I got 5 interviews and a few offers from it. So if I take this strategy, perhaps I am just going after the wrong type of person and should focus on whatever my right type is. For example, the last few women I have gone out with share a few common traits - all Asian, professionals and/or grad students (in particular four of them were law students). They all seemed like nice interesting people to me. Perhaps they are all wrong for me though. Something to think about.

2. People don't date resumes

Yeah, this is something that has taken me longer to understand. I just naturally assumed that if you have a decent job, personality, keep up your appearance, and treat people right - well somebody out there must take a liking to you. Apparently, that is not the case. I have mentioned before - I apparently have all the characteristics (I make a decent amount of money, I'm taller than average, I don't dress like a slob, yeah I put my foot in my mouth more times than I should but I have a group of friends that tolerate me) but not in the package that people want. So on paper, yeah not to toot my own horn, I look somewhat decent. I guess in the flesh that doesn't translate well.

Yeah, Ida keeps telling me I should be swimming in dates because I work at Google. For anyone that doesn't know, that doesn't mean as much as it used to (if it meant anything all). While Google has done a better than average job recruiting female employees, it is still significantly more men than women. Plus dating people at work can lead to messy situations. Also for the record, I know more than a few Google people who have dated complete losers and/or assholes.

3. I don't meet that many new people anymore

Most of the people I know are like me, out of school and working steady jobs. Which means I spend most of my time working and then hanging out with a steady circle of friends. So quite naturally, a network effect takes place and since I am meeting less new people and all my friends are not meeting as many new people, hence the pool of potential new people to meet and go out with shrinks. One could argue that I should get more and meet new people, which is a fair criticism. Much of the stuff I end up doing (working out, flea/farmer's markets, etc) is either solo or with the same set of people I do know. Not to make excuses (okay maybe to make one here), it is tough to find time to go out and do more social activities while packing in time to handle rest of stuff (exercising, shopping, cleaning/choreish stuff, bills, finances, plus just veg time) in the hours not spent at work.

4. I am just clueless

Which I guess is a pretty good reason why I am in my predicament. My parents decided to get divorced when I was 7 so I don't have the best experience of what a healthy committed relationship should be. Plus being unpopular pretty much all through well pretty much now if there is such a scale of popularity that runs into adulthood doesn't help either. Yeah there is plenty of stuff I should probably do better or hell even do at all. I pretty much let people do their own thing (sometimes to my detriment) so I don't want to intrude or interject myself if I am not wanted. If a person wants to talk to me or get my attention, I assume they just will. Apparently that is not the case. Apparently, women want to be chased or at least feel that someone is desiring them. I guess that is not me. My philosophy is that I will be of course friendly and if anything develops beyond that, well even better. More outgoing and assertive.

Also several people have pointed out that I should tone down more of the prickly aspects of my personality. For example, I don't like children as many people know. Just a few minutes ago, some kid was screaming their guts out in Books, Inc and all I wanted to do was for the frickin Mom to push the kid's stroller outside to give the rest of us piece and quiet. I was watching fireworks on the 4th of July in somewhat seclusion in a parking lot when a huge family interrupts my peace and these kids decide to give a running commentary of the fireworks of "Do they put paint in the fireworks to make the colors" and "How do they make the smiley face?" Yeah, my feeling was not "how cute!", my inclination was to say "Shut the f$%k up! What should I pretend that I can tolerate children? Yeah, I am also fairly anti-things and other things that many people are typically "pro" towards such as religion, marriage, Disney movies and urrr musicals.

So what I am going to do about all of this? Well, at this point pretty much nothing. At least I cannot think of something better to do. So I will attempt to go on more dates, finish reading Emotion Intelligence since it is a fairly interesting book and maybe it will give me some insight I am missing now, and errr I don't know, be more outgoing in some way or another. But I am planning a noticable lifestyle change? Probably not. I am planning on going to more concerts this summer (regardless of what CWP$ thinks of the band after watching over 90 secs of them), still go to the farmer/flea markets, and exercising. Oh yeah I should try to fit in another volunteering activity to work towards to another one of my resolutions.

I think I have ranted and rambled enough already. Until next time, peace.

PS: That whole "You should stop looking because that's when you may meet the right person without even being on the look-out" has not panned out for me. I don't meet the right people even when I am looking or not looking. Solution: squint instead.

Cold Blooded Old Times

by Smog from the High Fidelity soundtrack

Hello from Chicago! Yup, I am traveling yet again from work. This time it is a short trip to the Windy city for some meetings, working sessions, and a presentation. With the trip to Ann Arbor I did last month, I guess I am doing the "Places Dave went to in 2006 Reunion Tour." This visit to Chicago differs significantly than my previous trip. First off, it is warm (although rainy) rather than windy and freezing like the last time I was here in Feb 2006. A minor trivia note is that I nearly ended up working in Chicago after graduation because I was offered a job by Cap Gemini here. But I ended up going to Google instead, which I have to admit turned out much much better for me. The flight out here was alright. After traveling so much, they seem to become routine. I got my security check-in routine down to an art.

Step 1: Take out laptop
Step 2: Untie shoes
Step 3: Get two bins
Step 4: Laptop in Bin #1
Step 5: shoes, watch, phone, keys, jacket, and belt in bin #2

The only problem with this is that it takes me 5 minutes to put all my crap into my bags and pockets.

In other news, I am still keeping up with my new healthy active lifestyle. So this past week:

Sunday: Weights in the morning, Swimming in the afternoon
Monday: Bootcamp
Tuesday: Bike to/from work
Wednesday: Bootcamp
Thursday: Bootcamp
Friday: Bike to/from work
Saturday: Swimming
Sunday: Weights

So yeah I think I may take tomorrow off but then again, the hotel I am staying in has a exercise room. And it appears that all this exercise and eating right is somewhat paying off. I dropped a pound or two and I swam a 1:13 100 yd last Sunday. I was mighty impressed with myself. I am already starting to look like Daniel Craig...if he was fat and out of shape.

I was thinking of moving when my lease is up at the end of July. However, I have been looking around at Palo Alto and Menlo Park and not finding significantly better places. So I am leaning towards staying in Mt. View another year. Plus with these gas prices, being able to easily bike to work does seem like a pretty good advantage. Oh yeah, I now have a stronger impression of how bad drivers are because of the several misses I have had on my bike. The most common one is the car making the right turn and not checking if they are bikes or pedestrians going across. I know stick out my hand to signal to cars that yes, I am crossing and no, please don't run me over.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that George Carlin died this past week. I have embarrassed to admit that I first got introduced to Carlin through his role as Rufus in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. But eventually I saw more of his stand-up. The one thing that I really found hysterical were Carlin's attitudes towards God and particularly, fundamentalist religious people. I would also be remiss if I didn't admit that I cribbed more than one of his lines to explain my spirituality or lack thereof. I remember seeing and hearing about supposedly devout Christians who were nothing but cruel, superficial, and dishonest. And then I watched Carlin and he crystalized my experience so perfectly. So rest in the cold hard ground George Carlin, since you didn't believe in Heaven or hell.

And on that note, see yah all later and peace.

Business Time

by Flight of the Conchords from Flight of the Conchords

Hi all, just adding yet another quick entry, because well I actually have stuff to update on. First and foremost, I saw the best concert ever (well in the whole wide room), as in I saw Flight of the Conchords live in concert at the Nob HIll Masonic in SF a few weeks ago. Seeing them live definitely makes you appreciate how funny and how clever they are. Almost as funny as the songs, was the random and often times ad-libbed banter between them throughout the show. Most choice quotes....

"Jesus is our drummer"

"My rhymes are so potent, that in this small segment, I made all the ladies in the first three rows pregnant...congratulations bitches!"

"We care about issues...anything Bono is into, actually"

"Actually, Jesus is the boom king"

Plus many many more. The only downside was that they did not play one of my favorites.

The week after that, I attended the Union Street Festival in the city. It's a huge fair where a a lot of local retailers get to hawk their goods. Most of it was non-guy friendly but there was a ton of food booths. Which gave me an excuse to gorge on expensive fair food like corn on the cob, chicken terriyaki sticks, and really expensive beer from the beer garden.

Speaking of food, I have decided to start living a more healthy and active lifestyle. You see, I went swimming at Stanford two weekends ago. There was a water polo tournament happening and I happened to walk past about a dozen water polo players. If you ever want to feel bad about yourself physically just stand next to a water polo players. They were taller, skinnier, and more muscular than me. Plus as I have mentioned before, my weight is now at 183 which for my height puts my BMI right at the edge of being overweight. So yeah I decided I could stand to lose a few pounds. So here is the plan I laid out.

Diet:
- No more fast food
- No more soda
- Only fruit for breakfast
- Reduced portion sizes for lunch and dinner
- Fruit for desert instead of sweets

As for exercise, I resolved to do something active (even if it is not hard core exercising) each day. This past week

Sunday: Swimming
Monday: Bootcamp
Tuesday: Bike to/from work
Wednesday: Bootcamp
Thursday: Bootcamp
Friday: Bike to/from work
Saturday: Clean up apartment/vacuum/clean bathroom/clean porch/laundry
Sunday: Weights + Swimming

And after all this during the past week, how many pounds did I end up losing? The answer is.... 0.0! Yup I didn't lose a single pound which leads me to believe that losing these 5 lbs is going to be an ordeal. But it is not all about losing weight. I am planning on doing another sprint triathlon so it is good training. In addition, it will make me more productive so that I am not sitting on the couch as much.

There is some good news though. This past Sunday I was swimming at the San Jose State pool and decided to time myself for a 100 yards. Much to my surprise, I was able to clock in at 1m 17secs. That surprised me since I didn't think I was nearly that fast and I wasn't going all out. If I was going all out, I suppose I could get near 1:10, which is about 10 seconds off my all-time personal best of a minute flat for 100 yds. 10 seconds may seem like a lot but seeing that I have not been regularly swimming for over 10 years, I thought I it was pretty good.

There is one issue that is bothering me at work. There is a common feeling out there among us in the user experience world that our jobs shouldn't be trying to put lipstick on pigs. Meaning it is not really worth the time of a talent UX designer or UX researcher to work on a product and feature is crap but for some reason or another, is trying to be saved by improving the UX, when it really needs to be totally rethought. This is where I find myself recently. A few months ago, the designer I usually work with and I got pulled into doing some work on this lipstick pig feature. I performed a usability study on it and predictably, it didn't perform too well. It then went into a white list. Well the results of the white list came in and well, the feature bombed...badly. Namely, adoption rates and other metrics were far far far below any targets. So one would assume this feature would die a well-deserved death. Nope the plan is to launch it anyway. Now the motto of Google is launch early and often and in some cases we probably launched far too early (Google Talk is a good example). And while one can argue that even though the V1 maybe is not up to snuff, if you continually improve upon it the users will come. That's nice in theory but is usually proved wrong in practice. If something launched with far fewer features than its competitor or a substantially inferior experience, users who use that version will most likely not come back for the new and improved version later on. Just ask anyone who bought the 1st version of the Zune. Given this, I am puzzled why anyone would insist on releasing something they knew was not up to snuff. But the explanation I hear time and time again is "We have to get something out there..." My response is that what is missing from that sentence is "with quality." Apparently, some people don't understand that "something" is not better than nothing when it is crap. It's a frustrating job having to convince people of this. Needless to say, if this feature does indeed launch and bomb badly as all indicators say that it will, I will no doubt do my "told yah so" dance on this blog.

Anyway, it's late and I need to get to bed if I am going to ride to work as part of my new active lifestyle. Until next time everyone. Peace.

Old to Begin

by Pavement from Brighten the Corners

Hello all, just another update for my ever dwindling blog reading audience. So what has been up? Well actually quite a lot actually. Two weeks ago, I saw the movie that I most wanted to see this summer. You guessed it: Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay. I have to say it delivered exactly what it promised, meaning plenty of gross out and juvenile comedy. Essentially it is a series of comedy bits and gags strung together to form a movie. While I do like the first movie better, I have to say it was money well spent. Unlike certain people, I wasn't looking for any underlying social message or context.

Yet another momentous occasion is that I actually went on a "date" two weekends ago. We went for dumplings and then watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I have to admit that it wasn't the best date movie. Funny though, just not the best date movie. Anyway, nothing really came of said date for well...I don't know. So I am 1/5 on my why to beating my dating resolution for this year. It only took me errr almost 5 months to go on one. So yeah, I probably need to get cracking on that.

Last week, I was again traveling for work in order to do some field studies. My first destination was Washington DC (or more exactly McLean, VA). Seeing that I spent around 30 hours total there I didn't leave with much impression. Other than that Virgina has many trees. Fortunately, this traveling also afforded me a chance to go to Ann Arbor because I had a field study there. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed out of Dulles to Detroit. So I ended up getting there way late. So I picked up my rental car and gunned it from the airport to Ann Arbor in record time. It was nice visiting again. I got to see the downtown Google office (which is coincidentally in the same building as my old bank from my grad schools day). I also met up with Jude and Serene to catch up, talk about SI gossip, trade our thoughts on Lost, talk about HCIish things, among other things. We had dinner at this pretty good Cuban place, Cafe Habana. After which Jude and I went to Leopold's for one last time. Apparently, it is moving away after many years which is a sad thing. I remember (well mostly remember) many a SI/SOCHI happy hour there plus I lived only a few blocks away when I was in grad school. As I mentioned in earlier posts, Ann Arbor seems like a foreign place to me now. I would like to say that I can't believe its been two years since I graduated, but yeah, it does seems like that long. I suppose I didn't have too much connection to the place since I knew going in that was only a stopping station to somewhere else. I did walk by my old place and yup, it still looks the same (aka rickety with a desperate need of a paint job).

This past weekend was quite fun. First off, it was my birthday. In my previous entry I already harped and fretted about what it meant to turn 29 so I won't repeat all that stuff here. I will probably completely wig out when I turn 30 next year. So yeah I am officially beginning to get "old." However, that didn't stop me from celebrating my birthday. Doris was nice enough to coordinate renting a house for all of us for the Tour De Cure bike ride in Napa. So the ride was on Sunday, so we had a few days to chill out in Napa beforehand. On Friday, we drove up along with Cari, Matt, CWP$, DJC, and Doris. On Saturday, we all went to wine tasting + Jen. Needless to say, I probably tasted a little too much wine because I ended up with a massive wine headache. However a whole bunch of other people came up that evening who are too numerous to attempt to name.

As for the ride itself, it went better than expected. I only rode 25 miles since well I sorta suck at biking. Everyone else biked 50 miles. So it turns out there are slower bikers than me, including really elderly couples and 13 year olds on dirt bikes. But to be quite honest, the ride was not as taxing as I thought it would be. There was only one really tough stretch where I was in severe pain and thankfully they had a rest stop set up there, where I drank really crappy energy drinks and ate peanut butter, banana bagels (which are quite delicious). Needless to say I had quite a bit of fun and I'll probably try doing 50 miles again. A big shout to Jinah, Camille, Amanda, and Walter who donated money for my ride to benefit the American Diabetes Association. Thankfully there were many pictures taken during the trip.

Anyway that is all from me for now. Hope everyone has a great May. Until next time, peace.

Right Here Right Now

by Jesus Jones from Doubt

Hello again. Yes, it is my second post of the month. Wow, with this much frequency, one would think this blogging could become a habit :-P Anyway, just wanted to get a few things off my chest. So be prepared that this will be one of my patented ultra long posts. First off, an update from my last entry. I did finish up my draft of my note last week. I showed it around to some of my co-workers who have published before and the answer I got was that it is a publishable idea/paper but just not for the conference I wanted to submit it to. So yeah, I am going to hold off and submit it to a few other conferences later on. Granted I did finish my draft about 5 months early. This past weekend, I went to the city to have dinner at Pacific Catch, which is the only few appearances I ever make in the Marina, especially since I am not into Marina chicks. I also helped some people move.

The major gist of this entry is that I have been reflecting on the past lately. It has come up with in some recent conversations with various people. In addition, I read the cover story of last week's Newsweek, called the Divorce Generation. I also read an interesting article about Generation X in Time last week. But what most brought this on is that I am going to turn 29 in 2 weeks.

I am realizing that I will am gonna be 29, which is just one year away from the big 3-0, and it is turning into a big deal for me. For once, its the age where it is pretty much expected that you have your shit together. It is now accepted your college years are for goofing off and having fun. And that the first few years out of college are for exploring and figuring out what you want to do (what college originally was supposed to be about). The Mid-20's are about now that you have figured out what you want or don't want, now start actually making some progress to that. And by your late 20's, that's when you have your act together and are settled into permanent adulthood. Now that is all good and all but it is still disquieting to me for several reasons. One is that I am still in the mindset that while I am older I hadn't reached the permanent maturity level. Where it is expected that people call you "Mr." and you don't find it weird. But yeah now I realize that getting to the age that I am getting to, perhaps it is time to start acting like well someone more my age and not secretly wanting to say "That's what she said!" when someone says, "I'm in a rush." Another reason is that I thought I was making up for lost time. For those you have followed ma blog for a long time, my undergrad college years were definitely not easiest nor the funniest. I took an overloaded course load, worked 2 sometimes 3 jobs, and pretty much ended up in the financial aid office the beginning of every quarter begging, in some form or another, for more financial aid. Even the first few years post college were not easy street because I making crap wages contracting at Cisco. But at least those years were more fun. Then I went away for grad school, where I made up for lost time by once going to 4 consecutive nights of happy hours, throwing up in somebody's front lawn, stumbling home drunk one night because I was too drunk to ask for a ride, and somehow getting a masters degree in the process. After grad school, I was in the mindset of "let's keep this crazy train going" and openly derided people who decided to "become lame" by getting married, buying houses, and having babies. That was two years ago, and yeah I guess my views have changed. I guess I should "become lame" also because quite honestly, getting completely hammered and having raging hangovers has sorta lost its appeal over the years.

In some ways, I am sorta already there. I now have my masters, a "career" in a field that I am actually interested in (in contrast to the 17 jobs - I kid you not, I had in various capacities from 98 to 06), 401K, stock, and yeah, a money market account and an accountant to help figured it all out. But in other ways, I am sorta still stuck in the early/mid 20's mode. Obviously, in the dating and relationship area, where other people are now married, I am still looking for first, not even second dates. Culture-wise I still listen to pretty much the same kind of music I listened to in high school. I pretty much like the same kind of books and movies also. I do watch more PBS but that's not out of the ordinary for me since I watched an above average amount of PBS when I was 21. And while people have bought houses, I am still completely obvious to the idea of actually "owning" property. So yeah it is bit scary that "thirty-something" is right around the corner and I got X-Files posters from back when I was 16 still on my walls (granted thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifey are in frames now).

After reading the Generation X article in Time, it dawned on me that I am now the same age of the characters in the book Generation X by Douglas Coupland, one of my favorite books that gave the mid to late 20 year old slacker generation of the 90's its name. By some of the more generous classifications of Generation X (1965 - 1980), I fall into the very tail end of it. The next generation Y or the Millennials starts somewhere around 80 to 84 into the 90's. I definitely feel much more connection to Generation X. Primarily because my childhood reflected much more of X. I was a child of divorce with a working single parent in a time where it was expected that most kids had two parents. I remember in elementary school I was one of the handful of kids who had divorced parents. Plus growing up (and being aware of things in the 80's and even into the early 90's), you could tell that some things were coming apart. The end of the cold war, recession, the first offshoring of manufactoring jobs, AIDs, it all added up. I think Generation X recognized the script being fed to us was a myth. In the 80's, it was Reagan's America where every family had 2 parents, 2 kids, a Ford, a well-paying job that could send your kids to college to prepare them even more well-paying jobs. In the 80's this got taken to extremes with the decade of greed, Wall Street, junk-bonds etc. But by the time Generation X came around into this world, the plot unraveled. All that materialism of the 80's proved empty when it could all be taken away in an instance. The Soviet Union, despite what many conservatives credit Ronald Reagan 100% with, was brought by down guess what, its own people in the end. All those good jobs for college graduates dried up in the recession and then all those manufacturing jobs went to Mexico, and int turn later went to China. I definitely felt more connection with Generation X who saw all this and decide to rewrite the script. I think Generation X realized that companies have no loyalty to employees therefore we should have no loyalty to them so working at one job for a year or less is no big deal. Grunge, HipHop, alternative music were all welcomed departures to the glam, pop tastes of the 80's. Globalization, environmentalism, gay rights, ethnic studies were being talked about much more after taking a second seat in the 80's. To me the willingness to rewrite the script handed over by the boomers really attracted me to Generation X.

That's not to say all the stuff the baby boomers did was bad nor everything Generation X did was good. Yes, the boomers did fuck up the Middle East (ie. giving Saddam weapon's back in the 80's against Iran and arming what would become the Taliban against the Soviets were not good ideas), which X, Y, and generation z will have to clean up. But hey the "Greatest Generation" did a pretty shitty job with Vietnam which the boomers had to suffer through. But the boomers also did bring up environmentalism, civil rights, and many other good things. I think the biggest thing I fault Generation X is our cynicism. Since we saw that the script was wrong, we became cynical and skeptical of everything. This led to the all black wearing, philosophy reading, coffeehouse slacker stereotype. But there is more cynicism now and I don't think it is a good thing. We start thinking everything is crap, you start looking for any imperfection or blemish to confirm your suspicions and to reassure yourself you were right all along. We know have an entire entertainment industry (reality TV) devoted to showing us how narcissitic, absorbed, and ignorant real people can be. In addition, people who recognized we were cynical and developed new and more elaborate ways of exploiting our cynicism to divide, sell, and advertise to us. Which breeds even more cynicism which leads to even more programmed, scripted, spin-controlled ways to trying to fool us. It is a vicious circle. I also find it ironic that Generation X turned into the dot-com, gold-rush generation of the late 90's that exemplified get-rich-quick. But then again, the company I worked for is definitely a X creation. Plus I think it was unheard of that people would join a start-up over a big company straight out of school if given the choice 15 or 20 years ago.

So yeah I definitely fall into Generation X more than Y. Especially based on what I see of teenagers, college kids, and even new grads today. I now somewhat understand, although most definitely don't agree with, with how previous generations judge what happens after them. Everytime a new generation comes in and rewrites the script, things from previous generations get tossed. And some of things are bad (I think everyone is glad for the civil rights generation finally tossing segregation behind) but not all those things are bad, some are even good. For example, I think people in my age range are the last to able to ride bicycles without helmets, play with realistic toy guns, listen to records, type on a type writer, look something up in a non-digital encyclopedia, partake in unorganized afternoon activities (I was amazed to actually see kids playing in the street without any adult supervision a while back even though I did all throughout elementary school), and watch saturday morning cartoons. Now these things may seem trivial, but compared to how sheltered the Millennials seem to be, I am sorta glad I got the chance. I think this Millenial generation got off easy on many things thanks to advanced technology and many people realizing screw-ups made with previous generations (I find it ironic that baby boomers who got to go to college for pretty much free are now whining about having to pay for their kids when they consistently voted against tax raises for education). But then again, Generation Y has had to grow up with 9/11 in its shadow. Even growing up during the 80's, I never felt that I ever stood a chance of getting killed in attack on US soil. It was just never a possibility. Unfortunately there are small reminders and sometimes annoying reminders (like airport security) that it is a possibility today.

So yeah I don't know where I was heading with all this. Just trying to get this all out of my head. But one thing I do know is that yeah, the times are a changing and I should probably change along with them. Until next time, peace.

Circles

by Soul Coughing from El Oso

Hi all. No I am not dead nor is this blog. I am suffering from one of my typical bouts of laziness and haven't been updating as much as I would like. Quite frankly, there has been little to report. As I have said many times before, post-college/grad school life seems to consist of mostly routine and occasional new things. Quite honestly, the only reason why I am blogging right now is to avoid working on this paper for CSCW that doesn't seem to want to write itself. I guess I am in this hovering pattern in life when I am supposedly making progress but nothing really dramatic happens. So yeah, I will do my best to update on what I can. Oh yeah my last entry got cut off accidentally since I made an edit but then lost the rest of the post. I tried to retrieve but alas, it is gone from Internet memory forever.

What's going on at work? Two projects that I have worked on have finally launched. One is called Google Ad Manager and the other is called Demographic Bidding. The former project is what I was traveling extensively (MN, NYC, London, Philadelphia, N. Carolina, and others) for last year doing field work. It is a strange feeling actually having something you worked on be released out to the world. And it is always nice to hear lovely comments from the public.

Besides work, what has been going on? Well, for the first time, I have decided to go on a "diet" with the purpose of watching my health. This has never been a problem in the past because I was underweight for most of the past 10 years. So I decided to limit myself to one caffenaited drink per week and I gave up fast food. So yeah it is not like I am doing Atkins or the Zone but I thought after the triathlon I should try live more healthy. I suppose I could give up drinking but yeah that would prevent me from drinking half a pitcher of sangeria like I did when Srah came into town. In addition, I have been riding my bike more often. I also signed up to ride 25 miles in the Tour De Cure in Napa coming up in May. In addition, I am thinking about doing another sprint triathlon in the summer.

Some not-so-future news is that I bought tickets to see Flight of the Conchords in SF in May. So yeah I super stoked to see them. Apparently, none of my friends seem to like them because they either can't stand them or as a CWP$ did, declared them "terrible" after watching less than two minutes of them. In contrast, I suffered through all of Kill Bill Vol. 1 and fell asleep through almost all of Kill Vol. 2 before declaring both movies a "immature, mindless, insult to my intelligence." Yeah apparently, some people only like high-brow affair. In in even more future news, I bought tickets to see Oasis play up in Seattle in August. So I will take a trip there to go see my favorite band yet again!

Yeah I better get back to attempting to write this paper. Quite honestly, the more I read it, the less I like it. I thought I had an interesting topic but academicizing it into a paper seems to have killed the interest I had it. Oh well, we'll see what happens. Anyway, until next time - peace.

Give Me Novacaine

by Green Day from American Idiot

Hello all, just wanted to provide an quick update on what's been going on. Today, I did the Stanford Treeathlon along with CWP$, Doris , and Shannon. I as mentioned previously, I had been off and on training for it the past couple weeks. Needless to say, I could have trained more. Overall, it was a fun yet tiring experience. It started at 7:30 AM so we arrived at 6 to stake out some transition pace. Pre-race stuff went really quick, we had to change and hussle quickly out of the transition quickly because of our timing chips wouldn't work otherwise. Yes, note to self, walking barefoot in a wetsuit on wet grass on a cold day = not good. Rather than describe the rest of event, I will just transcribe my mental commentary during the day.

New York

by U2 from All That You Can't Leave Behind

Hi all again. Decided to add an entry to update all of you (all 2 of you) I suppose of some recent going-ons in my life. First off, is that I signed-up for a sprint triathlon, the Stanford Treeathlon. It is a 500 meter swim, 20K bike, and 5K run. So for the past three to four weeks, I have been what one could consider, under generous terms, "training." So I have been biking more often, although with all the rain has made that difficult at times. I have also been going to bootcamp as usual. As also, I have made it out to the pool the past three weekends. Way back in a past life, I was a competitive swimmer who trained year round. Eventually, all that training (14 hours in the pool plus weight training) burned me out right when I started to be "good." So not surprisingly I stayed out of swimming for many years after. So when I jumped back into the pool, let's just say "how the mighty have fallen..." I used to do 100 yard sets on 1:20 intervals (meaning I averaged 1:10 per 100). I timed myself and I am at 1:50 now. So yeah, I am nowhere near where I used to be which is kinda depressing. But then again I should remember I am dragging 40 more pounds through the water now than I did back then. The triathon is next weekend so wish me luck. Hopefully I won't be a walking corpse by the time I finish.

Work-wise has been uber busy. I am assigned to two major projects, which means dealing with two product teams. One team I really enjoy working with since they are super engaged and place a very high priority on valuing and incorporating user experience. The second product team, well.... There is a scene towards the end of one my favorite movies, Before Sunset, where Julie Deply's character explains that one of the major reasons she loves her cat is because everyday she takes it into her yard and everytime the cat thinks it is the first time he has ever been there. So the cat sniffs and explores everything like it is brand new, even though he has been there hundreds of times before. While this characteristic maybe cute in cats, it is terribly frustrating when working with a product team. This particular team, even though I have been working with them for over a year, still operates like they have never heard of user experience before. Here are a two examples. As one of my collegues would say, "Design by its very nature is iterative." Even with the most clear and throughly thought out requirements backed by quality research, it is almost always the case that a design will have to be iterated on. I mean it is just a basic principle in all engineering. Usually a software engineer does not get the code just right the first time he types it. I mean there is a reason why develpers do code reviews, testing, and QA. Yet, for some reason, this team (mainly the product management and engineering management) believe that a UI design can be pumped out perfectly the first time. Therefore they don't build in any time for iteration, let alone any design evaluation during iterations.

Which brings me to example number #2. As in the case with usability testing, often times entire workflows can't be fully tested until they are almost developed because they are too complicated or time-consuming to effectively prototype. So the time comes when a very critical flow is just about developed and ready to be QAed. So the team management decide to do an evaluation. Do they think to perhaps talk to the user experience researcher who they have been working with over a year who has organized and performed all their UX research and evaluation? Nope, they hand it over to someone with zero background in UX to send out a link in a email and get feedback that way. For the UX uninitiated, that is like looking for feedback on a novel on if certain characters develop, act realisticly, and in particular employ the proper grammar and vernacular for the time period by sending out a entire 500 page book with a note that says "Good?" You'll get back feedback but most likely not the feedback you want. And overall it would be a colossal waste of time for everyone involved. So yeah I vented this feedback to a colleague of mine and he said, "Well that is the reason why teams have UX people.." Yeah that is the reason why teams have UX team at the very start. It is not the reason why teams have UX people after a year and a half. Like the cat in Before Sunset, this team seems to forget everything they experience working with user experience professionals anytime they want to develop more UI. It is terribly frustrating and probably one of the main contributing factors on why I am choosing to roll-off their project.

So yeah that above project was one of the reasons I was in New York this past week. I was also assisting on another study. Aside from the work aspect of the trip (which unfortunately took up much of my time), it was a great time. I went out every night (which unfortunately probably negated a significant amount of my triathlon training). I didn't do any touristy stuff. Mainly because it was my 4th trip to New York in the past year. Just hung out, drank, and ate during the time I was not in the office. I did happen to see Jon Oliver from the Daily Show walking on 15th avenue in Chelsea. It was snowing and pretty miserable outside so I didn't stop to get an autograph. I also to stay in the really nice corporate apartment, in the penthouse of all places.

Anyway I should hit the hay. Thanks everyone for listening to my rants. Peace and good night.