More fun with Amazon ap

My sister posted on Facebook a picture of me, and I got the idea of maybe sending that through the Amazon ap and seeing what I got.

Here's the pic:



And here's what I got:



Hmm, it works pretty well...

Fun with the Amazon iPhone Ap

So the Amazon iPhone ap has a pretty cool feature... you take a picture of something that you want to remember, and it stores it for you. But then, they also have gnomes or elves or something in the background who look at your picture and try to find what it is so you can go buy it. I gave it a try, and snapped a picture of a book I got for my birthday:



After maybe 5 minutes, I got an email in my Inbox:


And when I clicked on the link, it gave me this:




So worked pretty well. Then I tried to have some fun. I was out for dinner with some friends, and tried taking pictures of friends and seeing what would happen.

Picture:



Item:



So it returned a turtleneck. So we decided to give it one more challenge. This is a co-worker who was visiting (it was his idea to do him):



And got:

Brett Favre dead weight loss

Article from the Freakonomics blog... I often find myself doing economic analysis of stuff, so this blog sometimes has some pretty relevant things...

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/29/the-deadweight-loss-of-brett-favre/

Wok This Way!

My friend Morris and I started another blog, called "Wok This Way!" We're basically blogging about life as an Asian American in the Midwest... Our fellow Asians should appreciate it, and our fellow non-Asians can see the little nuances of Asian American life. Martha I think you'd have an interesting perspective on it. :) Check it out when you get a chance, and feel free to suggest topics!

Christmas blog

Well, guess with all the holidays and stuff I never got around to blogging... Guess I'll do a little roundup.

- I joined the iPhone club! I've had the iPhone for about 2 weeks now, and so far it's wonderful. The email feature is really nice, and today I just discovered that the mapping feature lets you one-click onto Google's street view so you can see what your destination looks like. I'm still trying to figure out how best to type on there.

- I turned 31 this week... quite a boring number. The parents threw a small dinner party for me and a couple friends of mine, plus my sister, her husband, and my sister's in laws. In attendance were the twins of my good friends, with whom I share a birthday with. It was their first birthday!

- My sister asked me today if I wanted to have lunch with her tomorrow. I asked her if we should go close to where she works. She said "um, tomorrow's Saturday."

- We had Christmas dinner with my sister's in laws (yes, we do spend a ton of time with her in-laws... our families have a relationship that I think all married couples envy. I sure would hope my in laws someday got along so well with my family). We had steak and Alaskan King Crab, which brought back memories of the Alaskan cruise...


Looking forward to a reunion tour of my alma mater, Madison tomorrow...

Sigh... it was fun while it lasted

Thanks to Tom for breaking the bad news to me... I found out today that Brewers favorite CC Sabathia signed with the hated New York Yankees. It was awesome having him as part of the team... he showed a lot of passion for the Brewers to win, pitched on 3 days rest like 4 times in a row, and was a fan favorite. I can't blame him for taking $60 million MORE than the Brewers were offering. It's quite a thrill to see the Brewers first of all being able to get someone like CC, and second of all at least be able to make an offer to try to sign him.

Update

OK I thought of two more, so here's the updated stats. I talked about this with some friends, and Dave had the best insight... He said that I needed to eliminate work from my life because the number of hours worked divided by dates I got is way too high. In that case, I should live my life like the movie "Wedding Crashers." The wedding hours per date is at least one order of magnitude higher.

• Total number - 23
  
• Who ended it - Me: 5. Ambiguous: 3 Her: 15
• Who's fault it was that it ended - Her: 23 (just kidding)
• People with these number of dates - 0: 7 (6 rejections, 1 out of town) 1: 5 2: 5 3: 1 4: 1 5+: 4
• How we met- Friend of a friend: 7, Wedding: 5, Orchestra: 3, Work, Softball, Class (one of the classes was ballroom dance): 2 each, Online: 1, Science Fair (it was a teacher, not a student): 1
• Number taller than me: 2
  
• People with the same name: 2 each of Emilys, Amys, Erins, and Jennys
• Asians: 3 (out of the 3, I've gotten 1 date out of them) Non-Asians: 20. 3/23 is ~15%, which is higher than the US population of Asians of 4%, Wisconsin's population of 2%, and Ohio's population of 1%

Some dating statistics

So I was reading an article on dating, and it talked about the salesman approach. I.E. how many rejections do you hafta get before you land a client. It surmised that you should definitely be able to find someone before #100. So I thought, what number am I at? So I racked my brain and listed out all the women I've asked out that I can think of (blind dates not included, women that asked me out that I actually wanted to go out with are included). Here are some fast facts:

• Total number - 21 (I think Jim gets this in a month, before he met Karen of course)
• Who ended it - Me: 5. Ambiguous: 3 Her: 13
• Who's fault it was that it ended - Her: 21 (just kidding)
• People with these number of dates - 0: 6 (5 rejections, 1 out of town) 1: 4 2: 5 3: 1 4: 1 5+: 4
• How we met- Friend of a friend: 6, Wedding: 4, Orchestra: 3, Work, Softball, Class (one of the classes was ballroom dance): 2 each, Online: 1, Science Fair (it was a teacher, not a student): 1
• Number taller than me: 1
• People with the same name: 2 each of Emilys, Amys, Erins, and Jennys
• Asians: 3 (out of the 3, I've gotten 1 date out of them) Non-Asians: 18. If you think about it, 3/21 is ~15%, which is higher than the US population of Asians of 4%, Wisconsin's population of 2%, and Ohio's population of 1%

So there you go... might hafta update this list if I think of any others. It was kinda neat to analyze this data, wonder what conclusions you could draw from this...

Response from Google

My cousin came up with these responses as to top things Google can teach P&G:

1) Allow users to create their own formulas for products
2) Sell advertising on your packaging
3) Give away products initially, figure out how to sell them later

Can you imagine if we did #3?

The definition of a "douchbag"

First read the definition, then check out the link:

From Urbandictionary.com:

Douchebag - An individual who has an over-inflated sense of self worth, compounded by a low level of intellegence, behaving ridiculously in front of colleagues with no sense of how moronic he appears.

Link:

http://withleather.uproxx.com/?p=12319

Surprise! Drew Rosenhaus gets on national TV again! Remember him from the TO saga?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41rdU-3fiMA

So how come he always seems to get interviewed on national TV instead of his players? I never see any other sports agents get interviewed.

Top 10 List

Per an IM conversation with Dave, I figure I'd throw this out there...

Apparently P&G and Google are having a kind of a job swap to learn about each other's companies... Since my cousin works at Google, and I work at P&G, there's been some joking around in the family that we should swap places.

So for my P&G buddies out there, help me fill out the following top 10 list:

Top 10 Rejected Things we should teach Google

I might send my cousin an email and have him do the Google version of it...

Panera Bloginage

Hey, I made up a new word! Blog + badinage = bloginage. Just noticed it's been a while since I've blogged... the last couple weeks have been a bit busy.

We had our 4th semi-annual (bi-annual? What's the right word for twice a year?) Asian/Pacific Americans off-site last week. This time we had it at the Cincinnati plant, so I didn't hafta go far. The community has come so far in two years... It was music to my ears to hear one of them give the feedback that the one thing that was very different about our community and one in another department is how much we focused on leveraging our strengths and our diversity instead of changing to be more like a stereotypical P&Ger. That was my mantra and it's awesome to see it taking hold.

The CD thingy on my laptop broke off. The thing is designed so you accidentally hit the button all the time and the tray comes popping out. Well last week it just flat out snapped. That just adds to my ever growing list of things I hate about my laptop. Other than the CD thing, I had to get the screen repaired, there's a loud "pop" whenever a sound is about to play, and the function and control keys are swapped. I'm saving up for a Mac...

So I came across this article about Twitter. Twitter is like blogging except you only do 140 characters or less. It's getting big, but so far I haven't found any that I really follow. I think 140 is a little light... I would say you'd want to post maybe a couple sentences at a time. But it seems to really be taking off. I'm thinking people wouldn't want to read about my every move, but I can see how it could be useful... maybe when you're on vacation with a group of friends? Or doing a complex plant trial in say, Toronto?

Well time to head to orchestra... our concert is on Saturday Dec 6 at 7:30 PM. It's kinda like a reunion concert for me... We're playing the Barber of Seville overture, which I played a simplified version in middle school. Also the Franck Symphony, which is one of these epic symphonies, and I played that my senior year of HS (I can't imagine how we pulled that off). Then a song called "More" (which I snicker every time the conductor says it, because it just BEGS for a "who's on first" type conversation... ). Finally we have another song that slips my mind right now and a suite of music from Duke Ellington.

Panera and Starbucks blogging

OK, enough silly conversation about me fathering mixed race kids for my married friends. Although I must say I did enjoy every minute of it.

Since I do a lot of Panerablogging and Starbucksblogging, this blog post on the Freakonomics blog was very interesting to me:

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/cafes-dilemma-can-you-offer-free-wi-fi-and-still-sell-lattes/

I feel zero guilt going to Panera and Starbucks to hang out (Tom and I hung out at Panera from 10-4 on Saturday) because never has the place I was at been completely full. And, since I really don't like Panera's food nor do I drink coffee, both places are making incremental income from me taking advantage of their wi-fi because I do always buy something.

Voting Asian because I'm Asian?

So in Karen's blog (point #7), she mentions how it irritates her that people vote along racial or gender lines... i.e. African Americans voting for Obama because he's African American. I used to think that way too, but with experiences over the last couple years, I've completely changed my tune.

At work, they wanted to improve the numbers of Asian Americans to reflect the population of the P&G consumer. So they created "affinity groups" where people of similar backgrounds got together and tried to help each other and the company. Like most people, at first I was very skeptical. I was born and raised in the US, I fit in with Americans, but now you're taking me out and now pointing out how I'm different. Now, I realize just how great it is to be a part of an affinity group... some of us may have been born here, some of us may have been born in Asia and only lived in the US for a few years, but one thing I learned that we had in common: We all had Asian parents, and we learned that they did all the same quirky things as my parents did. I started to understand why I was who I was.

Now I realized I wasn't the only kid who felt guilty about watching Saturday morning cartoons because I should've been studying math. And why I play the violin. And why until recently why my dad was so stressed out about my sister not being a science major. And why at the age of 6 I wanted to be an engineer. And why I feel so conflicted when my parents want to buy me a car after I got my MBA. And why my mom was really surprised to find out that Xavier University was a real college after I toured them. I'm sure any of my Asian friends out there can add more.

So the answer to why voting for an African American president when you're African American is right? It's not that a black person is voting for Obama because he's black... it's because he's grown up with similar experiences as they have. There's no one better to understand race relations than someone who's gone through it. If an African American person votes for an African American president because he's African American, I would venture to guess that they agree on maybe 60-70% of their values. Now if you vote for a Republican because he's Republican, I would venture to guess that percentage is much lower. And for some reason it's OK to vote Republican if you're Republican.

I just read an article that immediately illustrates why having Obama as president changes things... suddenly racial diversity is no longer a taboo subject; instead it should be embraced. Although I wouldn't have been so quick in dropping the "a mutt like me" remark, I actually would call someone like him a "mix." I think of it as best of all worlds... Tiger Woods is a mix. My sister's kids will be a mix. When hitting on non-Asian women I try to use that as a pick up line. Hasn't quite worked yet, maybe a mixed-race person as president will help my cause?

Wedding Reception

My sister made her marriage official in the continental United States last weekend... and the family gathered together for the biggest party of the year. The best line of the evening was the speech given by my dad... "I'd like to welcome the Baehring family to the Ting Dynasty."

The wedding reception was held at Miller Park, and we got to have pictures taken in the visitor's clubhouse, the dugout, and the press room:


I also got a picture taken with someone who's bobblehead doll I own:

Accompanying two bridesmaids in the song "I Believe in Love" by the Dixie Chicks:

And a great picture of my dad and sister dancing, with a picture of both of them in the background:

Friday Night Badinage

Wow, it was really nice to have a quiet evening... I didn't come directly home after work at all this week until today. Actually I spent today working remotely and staying at home waiting for the cable guy (story to follow).

- I had some landscaping done on Wednesday to re-route my sump pump and gutter drains to prevent flooding in the basement. When I got home I didn't have internet... and cable. It's amazing how little you can do without internet AND cable. They apparently cut a wire. Good news is the cable company showed up on time and in a 2 hour window and fixed it for free.

- It was a frustrating week at work... the culture of my function, if you were to personify it, is the cheapskate that refuses to buy pens until all the ones at home are used up. Even if you need a 10 cent pen to endorse a $100 check. It leaves me in a bind with the other functions... I almost offered to spend my own money on this (that's how low the amount was).

- I was at a Starbucks last night because I didn't have an internet connection at home. They've got a nice deal now where if you buy a drink with their Starbucks card, I get 2 hours of internet a week for the next 30 days. It was the Starbucks downtown because I had finished taking an intern candidate out to dinner (gotta love free dinners on the company!) and it didn't have a bathroom. So it was a tradeoff between maximizing internet surfing time and minimizing discomfort.

- I just finished watching Numb3rs. For some reason I've come to love that show... the math in it is a bit of a stretch, but it's interesting to hear the math theories. Every once in a while I actually know the theory they're talking about! I think I also like it because of the family element (it's two brothers, the math nerd and the FBI guy working together) and they always hang out at their father's house.

Knight Rider - You've got to be kidding me

So I was really excited about one of my childhood favorite shows coming back... Knight Rider. I said back when they were showing the 2 hr movie version... it just has to be mediocre. Well I've watched my third episode, and I think that'll be all for me. It is absolutely horrible.

The show seems like something that Disney would make... a bunch of kids who are fighting bad guys and saving the world. Except it's on NBC and on prime time. And in every episode so far the co-star has taken off her clothes or appeared in a bikini and made sexual advances at "Michael Knight" (this week the Asian girl got to do a mission with him, and she got to appear in a bikini and take off her clothes too).

The acting is horrible. And the "missions" they go on... well they don't even attempt to put any scientific fact to it. In one episode, KITT is hit by a napalm type missile so the car catches on fire. The car keeps heating up (which conveniently gives the girl a chance to take off her clothes), and Michael asks KITT how long they have to live. KITT says:

"When the temperature hits 212 F, your body fluids will boil in your body and you will die." Guess what? Only water boils at 212 F. Your body fluids aren't water. They boil at a different temperature.

Later in that episode, they put out the fire by sealing them in a chamber and evacuating out all the oxygen. They hafta hurry bc the people in the car (Michael and the chick co-star in their underwear) don't have any oxygen to breathe. So KITT heriocally starts up and crashes through the door so they can breathe again. Guess what? If there's no oxygen, there's no internal combustion either. So the car would never be able to start.

I'll say it again... it only had to be mediocre. I'm not sure what demographic they're going to... they're not hitting people like me, who watched it growing up. So they're not leveraging the brand equity. It's not really a kids show, because of all the "adult situations." Who are they aiming for?

Another attempt to be in the same class as the Red Sox

Saw this on ESPN:

Best Record in Elimination Games in MLB Postseason History

Florida 4-0 1.000
Milwaukee 5-2 .714
Boston 22-11 .667

So we have a better record in elimination games than the Red Sox do! (Never mind that they have had 5 times more opportunities than we have had)

Words of wisdom from Da Man

So the stock market is all over the place, and the "R" word is being thrown around. (An aside... does anyone actually know what the definition of a recession is? Everyone's afraid of it but I bet no one really knows what one is). This is the 2nd or 3rd economic downturn in my life, and each time it happens I keep trying to figure out how to best benefit from it. I think the one thing I've figured out is to make this a buying opportunity. Well "Da Man" in the stock market world, Warren Buffet, wrote this article that was really good... basically his mantra is "Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful."

Home sweet home?

So my little sister and her husband were in town this weekend to attend a wedding... my sister got on me a lot for the lack of furniture/furnishings in my place. I really had to think a bit as to how I was feeling about living in my house the last few months. I spend very little time there, as after work I tend to find a place with wifi to log in before heading to my evening activity (kinda like tonight, where I'm at a Starbucks blogging). Unlike many others, I'm not really passionate about the place. I no longer feel like mowing the lawn or working on the landscape. A garden I tried to put in this spring has died before bearing any fruit. I keep it up enough to be an average lawn in the neighborhood.

My sister has a good point... she says that if I were to spruce it up a bit I'd enjoy the house more. But I think it's a chicken and egg thing... do I not enjoy it because I don't put any effort in it, or do I not put any effort in it because I don't appreciate it? Also, I'm conflicted by furniture... yea, some furniture would be nice, but it's mighty expensive and if I'm not that into it, should I really be spending money on it? I'm sure living as a bachelor has something to do with it... my psyche probably doesn't recognize this as a "settled" state, even though I've been there 7 years now.

The new school year and the construction on I-275 probably hasn't helped the cause. The traffic bothers the heck out of me now. I'm sitting in the Kenwood area now, and it seems like it's a good strategic location here... closer to work, downtown, stuff. So I guess I'm to the point of "desiring" but not to the point of "action" yet on a move. Maybe I should wait and see where my P&G career takes me before making another location based move (my current house is 10 minutes away from the P&G site I worked at when I bought it, and within a year I had moved to a location 20 minutes further).

Brewers baseball...

Just read an open letter from the Brewer's owner to the fans... Man I wish I was him! That would be my dream, own the Brewers and build them back up to a contending team.

One really interesting fact that he said in his letter:

"More fans came to see the Brewers than went to games in Boston, in San Francisco, or on the South Side of Chicago to see the White Sox."

What? Milwaukee had greater attendance than the beloved Red Sox fans that read this blog???

17th biggest drop in history!

Brownie points for Tom. According to that same article, the drop was the 17th biggest drop on a percentage basis. Imagine that headline: "17th biggest drop in history!!!!" Not as panic inducing eh? Back in the depression the Dow has dropped by more than 20% (and by the way we survived that as a country didn't we?).

This goes with the principle of making sure one understands what's relevant: absolute or relative. In this case, what's relevant is how much money an individual person gains or loses. OK the Dow drops 777 points. Do I lose 777 dollars? No. Dow drops 5%? Does that mean I lose 5% if I own the Dow? YES!

Here's another illustration, this time where absolute matters but relative should not. If you were hungry and wanted to buy a candy bar, which sells in the vending machine for $1. You go up there, and they've raised the prices to $10. Would you still buy the candy bar? Heck no, you'd go to another vending machine or you'd just go without it. But let's say you wanted to buy a 42 inch LCD TV. You go to Best Buy, and it's selling for $1,523. You're about to buy it, but then a customer there says "Wait, don't buy it... I know for a fact they're selling it for $1,513 at Circuit City." Would you be inclined to go to Circuit City? Probably not. But yet it's the same $10.

Biggest drop ever!!!!!

One of my pet peeves is the use of statistics for shock than for an actual measure of the real world. The sub-line on Yahoo today was "Dow fall 777; biggest drop ever."

Class, can someone tell me why that's deceptive?

BREWERS WIN BREWERS WIN BREWERS WIN

NOW I can talk about it! Brewers are in the playoffs for the first time in my memory! The Brewers ride CC Sabathia for a big win today, Ryan Braun hits the game winner in the 9th inning, the Mets lose, and the Brewers are playing in game 1 on Wednesday!

Williesblog

So I'm celebrating the new NFL season at Willie's Sports Bar in Mason... Pretty neat place to hang out to watch a game, with wireless access and everything. I always wondered what a place would look like if you designed it from the ground up to be for fantasy leaguers and sports fans. It's getting there here at Willie's, but the tables aren't set up at an angle where I can see the TV, so I've improvised.

Dave's been reading a book that I recommended, The Innovator's Solution. It talks about how we should design products for "jobs to be done" instead of "how many features can I add to this thing." So if we were to think of what the "job to be done" for someone like me is, how would you design Willie's different? My jobs to be done: I need a place to watch my football teams, who I can't see at home bc I don't live in Wisconsin (or Dallas).

One miscellaneous thing... on Yahoo fantasy baseball, they have profiles for each player. This is my favorite profile picture, it's a player named Adam Jones of Baltimore:

Trying to hang on to the dream...

I just read Karen's blog entry with pics from her vacation in Toronto, and it was really neat to see them! So that inspired me to post some from my trip to St. Thomas. It also is a neat way to relive the good times...

Here's my sister and I just after the wedding, which was done between rain showers on a terrace with a beautiful view of the ocean:

Here's me playing the violin during the last night we had dinner together as a large group (Mom wanted to make the most out of my violin lessons):


Here's the tuna I caught when we went deep sea fishing:

And here's the tuna plus another fish someone else caught, after it was prepared by the hotel chef. Man it looks so good right now, but that night it came out after we had already had dinner so I was stuffed.


Another wonderful trip...

Last night in St. Thomas

It's the last night in paradise... it's dark here, except for one streetlight. In front of me is sand and the darkness of the ocean, and the great sound of waves crashing into shore. It is this environment that I end the 2nd of my 2 beach vacations!

We've been really lucky... there are 3-4 hurricanes and storms swirling around this area, but the worst weather we've gotten was today, when it rained for 3 hours. It was a little different here than Hawaii, as there are like 25 people here (half belong to my family, including a grandma from LA and a cousin/aunt from Taiwan).

Other unique things I didn't mention:

Brady chose his dad as his best man. (Can you see how this wedding became a tear jerker really quick?)
Linda and Brady took pictures in their wedding attire in the ocean the next day. It sounded really off the wall, but as they were taking them, it made a ton of sense!

So this is it! Maybe I'll get to blog a bit more as I have a couple of decently long layovers. See you stateside.

The Wedding

Just returned from my sister's wedding, and it was the most unique wedding I've ever gone to. I can't begin to describe all the emotions and feelings that went into the wedding.

My sister, for those who don't know her, is about as outside-the-box and non-conformist as there is. The groomsmen and bridesmaids all wore all black, and she and her now husband wore all white. And you know what, it worked. And for those who want the answer, yes, I did end up tearing up at the wedding to the point where someone handed me a tissue.

But the day was full of wonderful surprises...

1. We dodged a bunch of scattered downpours and got the ceremony in (scattered downpours beats a hurricane, which was west of us, and tropical storm, which was north of us, anyday).
2. Per my sister's request, I played the Canon in D for her when she walked down the aisle with my dad.
3. They wrote and read their own vows to each other.
4. My cousin, who flew in from Taiwan, borrowed a guitar and sang a song he wrote for my sister and Brady
5. My aunt from Taiwan, who is a pastor, did another ceremony including stamping their Chinese names in an official book... so their marriage would be official according to Chinese custom as well.
6. We watched a 20 minute professionally done video of pictures from Linda and Brady's childhood... starring Steve "The Homer" True (local sports talk show host and former colleague of Linda's) as "cupid."
7. Linda made an absolutely wonderful speech, heartfelt and completely unrehearsed, that made us all tear up again.

I'm about emotionally drained... and I'm going to bed.

On my way again

Free wireless at the Cincinnati airport is awesome! We've got a service, or a movement, or something out here called "Lily Pad" which is trying to get the entire city to wi-fi'ed. Right now I think downtown and I guess the airport is covered. Someday it'll be like TV where it's just available everywhere.

So I'm off to St. Thomas! I had to deal with paper tickets this time, which is annoying because it's a big card with all this printed, unreadable characters on it. It looks like it came out of a dot matrix printer. The US Air person said it was because they didn't have an e-ticket agreement with Cape Air, which I am taking to St. Thomas. I'm not sure why e-ticketing is so hard to do? You'd think it'd be easier for them too!

Atlanta blogging

Well after a red eye flight where I got about 2 hours of sleep, I'm here in the Atlanta airport for a 5 hour layover. There are two earlier flights to Cinci, but I learned the hard way that if you check bags, you can't change your flight midstream. I was concerned that they might charge me a fee to change it, so I figured I'd wait until I got close.

It'll be interesting to see how long I can hold out today... and back to work tomorrow! Maybe I'll wake up really early tomorrow bc I'm going to go to sleep at like 8 PM tonight.

Beach blogging... one last time

Alas, the time to leave this beach blogging world has come. Tomorrow we check out and head to the airport for a late afternoon flight. The weather is beautiful tonight, probably about 75 degrees with a nice ocean breeze. A band is playing "Sweet Caroline" by Neal Diamond in the background. It really saddens me to think that tomorrow I will need to be heading home, but the one thing that keeps my spirits up is I head for St. Thomas in 2.5 weeks... hopefully I can enjoy the same beach life there!

This would be a wonderful place to spend a vacation with a significant other or a honeymoon. There's a whole top 10 list of why Hawaii is a great place to visit. One reason is it's a US state, so no passport is required. The driving laws are similar. You can rent cars for ~$50 a day. Your cell phones work (if you have Verizon). Good seafood. Good Asian food (white people are a minority here). No worries about drinking the water. The weather is very predictably good.

So the time has come... we'll see you back in the continental US. I sure hope you're all around to cheer me up.

Hawaii-blog

What a way to start a morning! I woke up this morning, turned to look out the window at our beautiful view, and saw this:

That rainbow looked like to was right in front of me! In fact, you can see the "end" of the rainbow in that little peninsula out there. Now I see why Hawaii is proud of their rainbows... it's all over their license plates and everything! It was an amazing thing to wake up to.

We spent today driving around the island of Oahu... we started going west, and kept driving until we got all the way around the island and came back to Waikiki from the east. It was quite a fun day as we saw all different kinds of beaches, turtles, and the Dole pineapple plantation! It was almost surreal to see a pineapple growing on a plant.



We meant to do half the island yesterday, but we ended up at Pearl Harbor and never got past it... it was neat to see a bit of American history up close and personal.

I still get a daily swim in the ocean... it really beats jogging. I also try to get to the beach to get on line, but I end up going every other day since by the time we get back I'm usually already tired. This trip has really allowed me to feel what my dream life would be. Going back will be very difficult, but at least the vision will be there!

Beach bloggin' at night

I really could get used to this... it's 10 PM and I'm blogging on the beach and just downloaded "Blue Hawaii" by Elvis and it's playing right now.

I think the tide is starting to catch up to where I'm sitting... that might be an indicator that it's time to go to bed!

Beach blogging - Literally!

Wireless + beach = utopia.

LAX Badinage

I'm entering hour 3 of my 4 hour layover here at the venerable LAX... I think they should make a drama TV series about this place. NOT. What a stupid premise.

I paid $10 for an internet connection, which I would say is well worth it bc of the 4 hour layover. I'm pretty much doing what I'd be doing at home right now... wasting time on in the internet and snacking on stuff. I found a cushy private corner at a McDonalds here with an outlet. Places like these are hard to find at an airport!

I spent the first leg of my trip (CVG to LAX) studying up on my fantasy football stuff. I've got my strategy all figured out... look out everyone!

Got to watch the Brewers win on Gamecast... in other words, got to read line by line what was happening. CC is now 5-0! And when the Brewers get close to first place again, just to prove there's no such thing as curses, I will post Brewer updates regularly!

I just got a text message from Orbitz that my gate had changed from 52A to 57. Not a bad way to differentiate yourself from Expedia and stuff... nice touch!

On the way to the airport I realized I didn't have any sunscreen. I actually barely use sunscreen, which is one nice thing about being Asian. I figure if I'm spending a lot of time on the beach I better get some. I got the highest SPF one, mainly so I don't get too dark.

Don Majkowski Demands to be Reinstated as Packers Quarterback

Thanks to Dean for this article

Just thought I'd share...

Weclome Rachel and Karen!

Just wanted to say hi to Rachel, who just got married (wedding #2 of 6 this year). Once you say "hi" I'll do what I typically do for new readers of the blog. ;)

And also hi to Karen, who will be wedding #5. Same goes to you too!

Both Karen and Rachel were high school friends of mine. This blog came up because I suggested that she put the pictures of the grass growing in front of her new house on a blog.

What's the Issue Here? Home improvements that "pay off"

I'm reading this article on Yahoo Finance about home improvements and how they can help in a down economy in helping you sell your house. The first paragraph:

"With homes lingering on the market for months — and those that sell going for well below the asking price — sellers need all the help they can get. One way to help improve the odds of unloading a home: renovations."

So it talks about a few of the renovations you can make to help unload your house. Here's the table at the end of the article:

Home Renovation Costs & How Much You'll Recoup
Project	Average Cost	Average Amount You'll Recoup
Replacing the roof	$18,042	67%
Replacing the siding	$9,910	83%
Turning the attic into a bedroom	$46,691	77%
Extra closet space	$1,250	50%
Remodeling the bathroom*	$59,435	75%
Minor kitchen upgrades	$21,185	83%
Installing an energy-efficient window	$325	50%
Minor landscaping	up to $1,000	100%

So let's play a game called "What's the issue here?" Can you tell me "what the issue is?"

Football formation.... all 11 players eligible?

Came across this article from a high school coach who created an offense where all 11 players could potentially be eligible to catch a pass. I'm still trying to figure out if it's legal in the NFL.

http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=825031

Complaints

Funny how sometimes things come in bunches... I was out yesterday due to travel, so I missed my softball game. The de facto team captain had to scramble to find 10 players because we had so many players out. The team also played at an alternate field for whatever reason. Well I found out that last night, everyone got to the field, and the game wasn't played because the lights weren't working due to storms. I'm trying to figure out when they knew about this, because nothing was communicated to them and we had so many people show up at the field. This lack of communication has been a bit of a pattern unfortunately for Cincinnati Sports Leagues, with the latest being when we were in between seasons, we never were told what the new schedule was (or more importantly, we were skipping one week between leagues). I've written constructive emails and just called the person in charge, but I have yet to get an answer. I also asked to have a message passed on to the teams that played before our team last week so I could ask if any of them picked up an extra glove, but never got a response. I'm really close to pulling the plug, and I'm going to let them know why when I do.

And as I was finding out about this, I get a call on my cell phone from someone from the Cincinnati Pops. I think he wanted to try to sell me a season ticket package, but he just kept on rambling. I even asked, so you want me to do what? He would say "I see you went to this concert... I see there were two tickets, who did you go with?" Did you enjoy this concert that you went to? It was almost like he was trying to be creepy. I finally said no I wasn't interested in a season ticket package and I would just pick and choose concerts. He said OK, well, he wanted to tell me about something else. I think he was getting to a donation of some sort, but he kept on talking about random stuff. I looked at my cell phone, and saw that I had been on the phone for 4.5 minutes. At that point I hung up on him. Which probably wasn't a great idea since he has my address and everything, but I was getting a little perturbed. I probably will be writing the Cincinnati Pops a little complaint letter.

CC update

Thought all you guys would want to find out how the Brewers newest acquisition was doing... well CC Sabathia is 3-0 with 2 complete games since he joined the Brewers! And on top of that he's got a home run and a double. Here's a cool picture of his HR swing. Two things I noticed about it: 1. The pitches travel so fast that he's already halfway through his swing when the ball is still like 2 feet away... and this was a curve ball! 2. Notice how wide the ball is from home plate... just goes to show just how much a major league curveball curves, because he pulls this ball to right field for a HR.

Culversblog!

Hello from a new blogging location, Culver's Frozen Custard on Tylersville Road. Culver's is based in Wisconsin, where I believe it's the 3rd best frozen custard place behind Oscar's and Kopp's. But beggars can't be choosers when you're in Cinci!

So they have wireless here, which is nice, but it's a bit slow. I enjoy going out to these places because there aren't the distractions of home. Plus it's nice to have all the drinks you want at your disposal, along with any food or what not. I can't get the idea of out of head for a place like this... offer up all you eat ice cream and drinks for say $5 during the off hours (like maybe 1:30-4:30 everyday and 8-11 on weekdays?) and let people come in here and work while connected to the internet. Kinda like bringing back the internet cafe concept!

Only issue is someone just came by with a vacuum cleaner... I appreciate people trying to get things cleaned up and such, but it's really annoying to be eating here with a vacuum machine going.

Thanks to all for wishing me well after my pissed off night. :) And even getting a comment from Mustard! Can you believe that the cruise was two years ago? Wonder if that French teacher is back in the US...

Late Night Blog

So it's another late softball game, which may or may not have resulted in the fact I'm still up blogging at 1:30 AM. At least I still have the baseball all-star game that's still going on in the 15th inning. I actually have a vested interest in this game since the winner gets home field advantage in the world series, and the Brewers actually have a shot this year! It's getting to the point where the pitchers are starting to get thin. Looks like the AL has a rally going. Will it be another tie?

It's one of those days where I'm just mad at everything. Really no reason to be, nothing that bad has happened to me. I'd really like this to go away because it's not a good thing to feel. Maybe it was because my last at bat in softball I had taken a horrible swing and popped out. I spent a lot of time trying to learn to hit, and last year had a lot of success. And this year it's just not happening.

Someone also mistakenly took my glove tonight. The two teams were switching places for the next game, and in the shuffle I laid my glove down and then I couldn't find it anymore. That's frustrating because I've been trying to be extra careful this year, and lo and behold someone took it. Hopefully I can get it back.

And what isn't helping is the fact that the AL just won the game, which means they have home field advantage in the World Series. I thought that's such a stupid rule in the first place, the All-Star game should be an exhibition game.

I also have an early meeting tomorrow (early is 8:30 AM for me). It's now 1:42 AM.

Maybe blogging about it is therapeutic?

CC! CC! CC!

I haven't been blogging a lot about the Brewers this year because I jinxed them last year... but we just made a big trade for CC Sabathia, who was the Cy Young award winner last year. Now I know all of you Boston fans don't know what it's like to have a team that sucks all the time, but this is really exciting stuff!

OUCH!

Was watching the Brewers play the Diamondbacks last night. Saw the catcher go down after a foul ball hit him. Tonight, the announcers were like "I don't even want to talk about what happened to him." So I looked up what the injury was:

Jul 1 Matt Paulson, of the East Valley Tribune, reports the Arizona Diamondbacks have placed C Chris Snyder (testicle) on the 15-day disabled list with a left testicular fracture.

So how do you rehab that injury? Do you put on a (very little) cast?

Thursday Night Badinage

- In response to Dean's reply on Yahoo's canned email response:

That's the exact same response you're going to receive from Google, Microsoft, or any another website that has hundreds of millions of users per day. Reality is that they cannot reply to every feedback personally.

I don't have a problem with them not able to reply to every feedback personally. What offends me is they try to pass off a form letter response to me as from a real person, when it is very obvious that they didn't even read my response (or has very very poor listening or comprehension skills). I have had other sites tell me "even though we can't respond personally, we appreciate the feedback and it's been logged."

- Bye bye Yi! The Bucks today traded Yi Jianlian, the Chinese basketball player we drafted last year. I'm partly a bit disappointed because I was really liking the attention the Chinese community was getting from him. But I also realize the team really sucks and could use a shakeup.

- So with these gas prices, one of the solutions has been mass transit. But with mass transit comes issues, as in it takes so much longer because of all the stops. Well this was an interesting concept my parents sent me (it's in Chinese, but you get the drift from the video). What a great way to challenge assumptions and think outside the box!

Yahoo's horrible customer service response

So regarding this poorly laid out ad page, I wrote Yahoo to tell them:

Subject: Redesign

Additional Information: When your "Yahoo sports shop" ad comesup when at a player page, the formatting is all messed up (all the content is squeezed into the left column)

While Viewing: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/6406/news

And here's the brilliant response they sent me:

Hello,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Customer Care.We appreciate your comments and feedback regarding advertising on Yahoo!. Our services are made available in part by the ads that you viewwhile using Yahoo!. While we attempt to choose advertisements that will be pleasing, we understand that not all ads will appeal to all of our users.We welcome user feedback regarding advertising on Yahoo!. Your commentshelp us identify which types of advertisements are well received, and which are causing concern.Please be assured that your feedback has been received.Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.

Regards, Katie Anderson

Yahoo! Customer Care

Your feedback has been received? Bull sh*t! I wonder if Katie Andreson is really even a person. This seems like a computer generated response based on some keywords I put in my email. Does the company have no pride in itself? Do they think I'm an idiot?

Something Tom would appreciate

You'd think a reputable site like Yahoo would have something like this figured out. This is something you might find on a site that I programmed. And this has happened a lot, this isn't a one time shot:

Why graduate schools are outdated

Wow, lotsa blogging tonight... Good article from Penelope Trunk's blog.

Another contrarian view and pet peeve

So I recently attended what we call a "Lunch and Learn" where we had a speaker come in and talk about his career. He was interesting because he's had a very diverse career path. He started at the plant, went to R&D, into marketing, and now back into package development, where he loves it. He's now a Section Head. One of the older audience members asked him if he knew then what he knows now, would he still take the marketing assignment... He said yes, but earlier. The person pushed some more, but he wouldn't budge on still taking the marketing assignment.

This is one of my pet peeves... this idea of you don't want to move around, stay where you are, gain deep mastery. People point to the fact that people who stayed in one place are more successful. There's a flaw to that logic. I would argue that people are more successful when their talents and their passions are aligned with the job they're in. Right out of school, you're placed in a job almost by random chance. If that job is a place that fits your passions and talents, then you'll be successful, and be one of those people who stayed in one place and got successful.

But what if you're a square peg, and placed in a forest of round holes? You hammer away and never fit. So you move to the next round hole. Never fit. Should you stick around until you're all hammered out? Or should you keep moving until you find your square hole?

The problem is first, when you're new, you don't know you're in a forest of round holes. And you don't know what that forest looks like. Plus you get all this advice about staying in one place until you gain deep mastery. Then you get hammered and hammered and never fit. Then you get rated "below expectations" and then you get even more scrutinized (and hammered even harder).

I think people need to be constantly discovering themselves, and as they do it, move around. If the rest of the people in the company would embrace that discovery process, it would help these people who lost the dice roll find their square holes faster, and improve the productivity of the company.

And yes, my career at P&G is a perfect example of this.

Value of college education, Part 2

I wanted to respond to Kathy's comments:

So what are the stats that show that not having a degree is going to put you on par with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

I'm not arguing that not having a degree causes greatness. I'm arguing that having a degree correlates with success but isn't the cause of success.

I'm fairly certain that they are the extreme exception rather than the norm of non-degreed employment/success stories (which makes them outliers in the study...)

I would disagree here. An outlier is a data point that's far away from what is expected with no apparent reason. I would argue that there's a bimodal curve, with a subset of people are not savvy, intelligent, nor driven and they don't make a lot of money.

They probably also have a different level of dedication to their own success and sought education on their own in other non formal institution ways.

YES! Then there's another curve of people who were too smart for school, didn't need school, or didn't have the opportunity. Exacerbating the issue, IMO, is a self-fulfilling prophecy where people who don't do well in school are shunned by society, lose confidence in themselves, and end up in the lower range.

That is a safer risk to assume when someone has a degree than when they don't...

Agree there. A degree does CORRELATE to higher intelligence. I just there's a lot of missed opportunities for people who don't have the learning style or ability to go to college who aren't given the proper encouragement or training. I also think there are a lot of people who pay a lot of money for very little payout. Instead of spending $50,000 in school, why not lose that money starting your own business and learning from it? I refer to Steve Jobs again... in his speech to the Stanford graduates, he talks about why he dropped out of school... he felt really guilty about his parents spending all of their income so he could go to school.

By the way, I'm sure there are thousands of examples of people who never went to college and are doing very well.

More ripping on our education system

I read this article on the Freakonomics blog... The author apparently did a study and tried to correlate which majors resulted in the highest income. The article follows (warning... do not try to read his actual paper, it's way over our heads). One of the lines in the article fits very well with my previous speech to the Organization of Chinese Americans:

"Many of my students, and often unfortunately too their parents, believe that unless they major in business or engineering they are doomed to lives of poverty."

My take: I remember hearing on the radio once for an ad for a local college that people who have college degrees made 42% more than people without. That's such a dubious stat. My theory is there are two reasons why this stat is so:

1. There's a self fulfilling prophecy. Companies only higher people with college degrees, so then people with college degrees make more money. Companies don't hire people without college degrees, so then people who want to make more money get college degrees. Ask Bill Gates and Steve Jobs if they needed college degrees.

2. There's a subset of people who don't have college degrees: Ones that are your stereotypical dropout who does nothing all day but collect unemployement, and ones who learned their skills outside of college. See Gates, Bill and Jobs, Steve above. The non college degree stat is all lumped into one grand average.

So the following article talks about theory #1: Certain college majors are a correlated to more money, but does not cause more money. It's really smarts and intelligence.



June 11, 2008, 10:35 am

Which Majors Make the Most?

By Daniel Hamermesh

When we choose a major in college we are to some extent choosing a series of future wage rates. The amount of human capital in which we invest is to some extent linked to our college major — different college majors generate different wages.

Many of my students, and often unfortunately too their parents, believe that unless they major in business or engineering they are doomed to lives of poverty.

I just published some research I’ve done on University of Texas graduates. While differences in earnings by college major are huge, once you account for longer hours worked by business and engineering majors, by the fact that they often have higher SAT scores, and other factors, the differences are much smaller; indeed, over half of the variation in earnings by major disappears.

In other words, the amounts of human capital generated in college by different choices of major are not so different from one another as most people believe. Liberal arts majors don’t do that much worse than business majors; and economics majors do as well as business majors do.

Violins

On Saturday I went over to the Baroque Violin Shop (get it? Baroque?) to fix up a few things on my violin, since we're in the off-season for the orchestra. Just for the heck of it, I asked what an upgrade would look like for my violin. They owner, who's a former member of the orchestra I played in, basically said anything would be an upgrade over what I was playing... said it was a "student violin." Which made sense, since I got it back in HS.

Well before I know it he's pulled out 6-7 new violins, and it felt like when I went to pick out Bucky the beagle... All of a sudden there were all these Beagle puppies running around creating chaos in the room and I had to choose one. Playing them was like going car shopping, where you got to test drive nice new cars. These violins were fully polished and shiny and barely used.

Next thing I knew I was walking out with 4 violins to test out. He sent me home with a special case that holds 4 violins, and with nothing but filling out a form I put $15,000 worth of violins in my car. I was actually heading down to Newport to see Indiana Jones with some friends, so I was a little nervous to have these in the trunk. I left them in my friend's house and had him lock the door, but they all made it back to my place safe and sound. Plus it made be feel better that if his house had been robbed, the thieves probably would not have known to take the violins.


So today I spent a good hour testing out the violins. And of course, I couldn't tell the difference between them. They all sounded great. I only wish I had my violin with me (I had left it at the shop because they had a couple of follow up things they needed to do on it) to compare to. Needless to say, I probably will be putting an investment down and trading up. After all, I am still playing and it's probably long overdue.

As an aside, this reminds me of a funny line... My dad took me to an American Chemical Society meeting once when I was in HS, and the topic was the chemistry behind violins (people have started to learn that the polish of the violin plays a significant role in the sound). They randomly found a professional player to play a few of the sample violins they had there, and asked him what he thought of them. He said, "It's a little hard... it's like comparing your wife to a one night stand."

Asian Americans

So I'm back in town, in the middle of the second session of the APA Ladder training that started at Hueston Woods back in February. We took a couple of other "personality tests" and I'm pretty well calibrated now. Someone asked me if my lack of "green" (which was planning, following procedures, etc) made it hard for me to be in my engineering role. I said heck yeah! I hate all the processes we think we do. So it got me thinking... I assume I'm an engineer because I was conditioned to be one from my parents. What would I be doing if I started over? I came to some conclusion that I might have some economics in me. But who knows, I could still be an engineer.

Speaking of Asian American type stuff... The speech went over very well on Sunday night. They left me to the end as the "featured speaker." I brought people back to 1996 with the stuff I blogged about last time, and all the requisite stuff about following your passions. The good thing is the speakers before me, who had graduated maybe 1-2 years ago, talked about the same. So I got to reinforce it, and bring up the point that I think 10% of the stuff I used at work was learned in school. I even got in the line about not necessarily needing a PhD or being a doctor to be successful. Then I asked each one of them why it was awesome to be Chinese American and made them answer on the spot.

Couple of funny tidbits... They were recognizing past OCA presidents at the dinner, and they had left off my dad. So in my speech, I took a second to recognize him by asking him to stand up. He was talking to someone at the table and didn't hear me, so it was one of those "Bueller... Bueller..." type moments. I mentioned how he wasn't even listening to his own son speak!

There was a running joke that all 5 of the graduates played the violin. It only made it worse when speaker #1 also played the violin. So I got up there and said "Hi, I'm Dale, I also play the violin." I wonder if it's because Chinese people are genetically predisposed to play the violin because of our physical structure, or if it's the "monkey see monkey do" syndrome.

All 5 graduates not only all played the violin, but were all girls too. I chatted it up with them afterwards, and got some pictures taken. One of them said something about me taking pictures with all these girls... and I said "Too bad you guys are all 12 years younger than me." So how many years would I need to wait for them to be in my age range? Thanks to Winston for providing the algebra. Recall the right age is my age divided by 2 plus 7.

x = their age
y = my age

x + years to go = (y + years to go)/2 + 7

18 + ytg = (30 + ytg)/2 + 7
11 + ytg = (30 + ytg)/2
22 + 2 ytg = 30 + ytg
ytg = 30 - 22 = 8

So, in 8 years, they will be in my wheelhouse. I will be 38, they will be 26. Hmm, sounds about right.

Back in 1996...

So I'm up here, contemplating what I want to say tomorrow at our OCA banquet. I figured I'd have some fun and pull out some of the stuff that happened back when I graduated in 1996, and here's what I found:

Average gasoline price was $1.22 per gallon
Popular movies: Jerry Maguire, Independence Day, Twister, English Patient, and the venerable Beavis and Butthead Do America
Top song: The Macarena (yes, I guess 1996 was the one year it was hot... thinking back, I remember my sister teaching me the dance in time for Prom that year so I would look cool).

And of course, that was the season the Packers eventually won the Superbowl, defeating the New England Patriots 35-21. They were led by this long forgotten QB named Brett Favre.

Houston, we have a problem

OK, no real problem, but I wanted to blog about my trip to Houston! It was freakin' hot, it's only May and it's in the 90's. I was there to attend my friend Amit's wedding... He and his wife had met at an Asian/Pacific American meeting out in Sacramento (I blogged about Amit and the Sacramento trip in this anecdote) and a little more than a year later, they're married! It was funny because they barely talked to each other in Sacramento... Amit, another co-worker, and I were comparing notes on the women-folk there, and we all agreed that he should go after her. Apparently it all worked out!

So fast forward another year... It was quite interesting to attend an Indian wedding. There were three ceremonies (I attended two). I even got invited to dance. Luckily there was another white guy who was there too, so it made me feel better about my dancing skills (and lack of Indian-ness). If I get courageous enough, I might post it.

Amit had a little sister... their relationship reminded me a lot of me and my little sister! She gave a wonderful speech about her big brother, and it reminded me that I will be giving one in a few months for my little sister's wedding!

Funny quote:

Q: Which one is Amit's sister?
A: The one that looks like Amit, except hot.

In Houston, I was able to make one stop at Tapioca Express and got my cup of honey milk bubble tea. Mmmm, those tapioca pearls tasted really good! Plus they had really good appetizery spicy chicken. Gosh I was there were enough Chinese people (or at least other people who would like it) to warrant one opening here.

Numb3rs

Wow, I realized that I had already blogged today... it feels like days ago!

I went to the batting cages today to keep working on my stroke... Recently I've turned into one of those ineffective power hitters. You know, the ones who go 1 for 4 with a HR and 3 warning track fly outs. Not exactly what I want to be, considering that it doesn't help the team that much and I've got more speed than a power hitter so I don't get a chance to run the bases.

I discovered, for the 23251th time, I left my bat at the last game. Well it was time to get a new bat anyway, since the one I used was dented at the sweet spot (I guess if there's anywhere it should be dented, the sweet spot is the right place). I don't know much about bats, but I thought I'd take a shot and try to buy one at Dick's. I couldn't remember what the specs were that I had used, but after browsing some bats, I saw one that was DeMarini (the same brand I had) and it was 34/30 (length 34, ounces 30). Those numbers seemed right, so I went ahead and bought it knowing I could return it if I didn't use it.

I called up Jim to help me figure out if I got the right bat. He told me that I swung a 28 ounce bat. That sounded right too, and then it dawned on me why those other numbers clicked for me... 34/30 is my pants size! It's one of those things I committed to memory because I started getting a bit embarrassed that I always had to call my mom when I went pants shopping.

What your car's color says about you

Came across this article on Yahoo... So the story of the new TSX is I picked out the color I wanted, Royal Blue Pearl, which is a very dark blue almost black color. My second choice was carbon gray pearl, but my sister wanted me to get black. So what does that say about me? Check out these charts:

People whose car is:	Have confidence that is:
Emerald green	5.5% above average
Dark blue	3.2% above average
Silver	1.2% above average
White	Average
Sunny yellow	3.7% below average
Orange	4.1% below average
Bright blue	5.5% below average
Bright yellow	8.3% below average
Red	8.8 % below average
Black	14.6% below average

People whose car is:	Experience:
Black, dark blue, or silver	Consistent moods
White, sunny yellow, or bright blue	Modest mood swings
Orange, red, bright yellow, or emerald green	The most pronounced mood swings

So I guess I eschewed the "14.6% below average" confidence color to the 3.2% above average confidence level. I remember Tom 's new BMW was black because that's the color Meghan liked, but he liked the blue too. What does that say about him?

Blog of consciousness

So I realized that I haven't been doing much blogging recently... I used to use blogging as a place to reflect, to share interesting insights, or to talk about whatever. When I get on a blog roll, it seems like I go from inspiration to blog really quick. Recently it seems like I've been going with inspiration, then "eh, why bother" to not doing it. I find myself coming home and feeling sleepy a lot, which has killed a lot of inspiration to be productive in time I have at home.

So what's going on? Recently I've tried to find ways to inspire myself... I've made a trip to Panera, hit the batting cages with Dave, I even downloaded a new audiobook called "Getting Things Done." The one thing that I am doing is to go ahead and turn in early when I'm sleepy (kinda like what I plan on doing tonight). You know it's bad when you try to find something to do so you don't go to bed too early and screw up your sleep schedule.

The past couple of weeks have been a bit on the rainy side... our Wed night softbal team has in essence been rained out twice (although the first week we were officially on, but the other team didn't show up because it was raining, so we actually got a win). I'm actually going to be gone quite a bit on the weekends for the next month or so for 2 weddings, and one banquet.

The one banquet is for the Organization of Chinese Americans in Milwaukee, which my family is a member of. One of the things they do is to hand out a scholarship to graduating seniors, and I received one back in 1996. They're celebrating the 20th anniversary of giving out those scholarships, so I figure it's a good time to go back and to show some appreciation for the scholarship. They plan on having me speak... so somehow I hafta figure out a way to say "You don't hafta be a doctor or an engineer or have a PhD to be successful" in front of a hundred Chinese parents without getting forcibly removed off the stage. So I'll need to be tactful!

Well, that's that! Hope you're proud of me, I'm hoping this entry gets me going again to inspire me to be productive.

Panerablog - paying off

Hello from Panera in Mason... So all this "Panerablogging" has paid off for my stock portfolio:


Was up ~15% couple weeks ago due to higher than expected earnings.

And I still don't really like their food that much... Why can't other places be laptop friendly? I just had a chicken dijon panini type thing. It was a little heavy on the cheese and the sauce.

Too bad this guy didn't play for Arkansas

The Packers signed this local guy for a tryout. Too bad he didn't play for Arkansas.

No go on Beaver

By Greg A. Bedard

Monday, May 5 2008, 06:51 PM

Green Bay - The Packers have informed the representatives of former Wisconsin-Whitewater running back Justin Beaver that they will not be signing him to a contract.

The rest of the story

Well one thing that struck me as weird was when they said the final score was 4-2... If she had been the winning run, the score differential would only be one run. I did a little more digging, and it turns out it was actually a 3-run homer, I assume to put the team up from 2-1 to 4-2. So if she had not scored, the score would be 3-2 and she would not have been credited with a HR and another runner inserted at 1B. So when they said the other team carried her across the plate and it lead to them losing the game, it's a bit exaggerated.

Now before you think I'm heartless, the real story is very inspirational and a great testament to sportsmanship. I just wish the media wouldn't try to exaggerate and sensationalize this story that would've been awesome just by itself. The real story was this girl hit her first ever home run, a 3-run homer which put her team on top by 2 runs. She got hurt rounding first base, and the other team came in and helped her around the bases to make her run count. They did this despite the fact that it would have given the team an extra run in a game with playoff implications. We should celebrate that team's wonderful sportsmanship.

There was one story a while back where they did something that I completely didn't agree with. One woman college basketball player was 1 point away from breaking the all time scoring record when she got injured. So them and their opponents set up this elaborate scheme to have her stand on the court, start the game, and have the other team not guard her. Then the other team would be allowed to score a basket. I completely didn't agree with this because it was done purely for statistical reasons. And statistics should measure what happens in a game, not doing something in a game to make certain statistics happen. It's not fair to the person who previously held the record. Who knows if she got injured in her career too and lost an opportunity to score 2 more points?

In this case, the ball was hit over the fence for a HR, so it was right for her to score anyway.

The whole story?

Check out this story... it's a great story, but there's something they don't quite tell you.

Sigh

There's this Facebook app that surveys your friends for the purpose of comparing them... Here's my latest results.

STRENGTHS:

most loyal
kindest
person with the best taste in music

Aww, how nice!

WEAKNESSES:

coolest

Sigh...

Panerablog and Bubble Tea

Just hanging out and becoming quite a regular at Paneras. And to think, I don't really prefer their food! I oftentimes get dinner somewhere else and then head out here for the wireless. So I've tried a bunch of their stuff just to make myself "legit." Right now I'm sipping on an Iced Chai Tea Latte, which has brewed black tea with honey, vanilla, cardimom, cinnamon, ginger, and milk, over ice. I don't even know what cardimom is. It actually tastes like what Juicy Fruit gum juice would taste like. I order it because it most closely represents my all time favorite drink, Bubble Tea (or Pearl Ice Tea). It's basically tea, milk, and tapioca pearls all sipped through an oversized straw. This ICTL is missing the pearls (and has a touch too much ginger, and maybe cardimom if I knew what that was).

This reminds me of a story... Bubble Tea is VERY Asian, so Asian that the good stuff is only available in California or college campuses with good science programs. The chewy tapioca pearls are my absolute favorite, but if you take a survey it's almost always split along ethnic lines... Asian = love it, non-Asian = hate it. So one day at work, I run into future-scrubman Eric, and he's sipping on an oversized straw and chewing on tapioca pearls. Eric isn't exactly the first person who pops in your mind when you think "Asian" so I was throughly shocked on many levels:

1. I didn't know Cincinnati had a place that sold Bubble Tea! Where did he get it?
2. Why the heck is Eric drinking it?

I pointed to what he was drinking and said "what the?" He said, "Oh, it's bubble tea..." I was like yes, I know what it is... why are YOU drinking it and where did you get it? Apparently there was a British tea place that opened that had it. Too bad it closed down after a few months.

The Sixth Strength: AKA, a planner's nightmare

So the sixth strength of mine is Arranger. According to the book, Arranger is:

You are a conductor. When faced with a complex situation involving many factors, you enjoy managing all the variables, aligning them and realigning them until you are sure you have arranged them in the most productive configuration possible... But others, lacking this theme, will be in awe of your ability. "How can you keep so many things in your head at once?" they will ask. "How can you stay so flexible, so willing to shelve well-laid plans in favor of some brand-new configuration that has just occurred to you?" You are at your best in dynamic situations. Confronted with the unexpected, some complain that plans devised with such care cannot be changed, while others take refuge in the existing rules or procedures... Instead, you jump into the confusion, devising new options, hunting for new paths of least resistance, and figuring out new partnerships - because, after all, there might just be a better way.

This one also hits home! The one insight this shows is that people who like to plan get stressed out by my tendency to want to keep flexible. At work I've been told I stress out our planners. We had this light hearted exchange once:

Planner: You know, when you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Me: Well, there's also the saying "Plan early, plan twice."

I think the thing is, I'm very balanced in terms of right and left brains. I just Googled a right vs left brain test, and it came out like this:

I basically responded as a right brained person to 9 questions, and left brained to 9 questions. For me, planning too early, or planning in more detail than the information you have, is painful to me. I think it's because my right brain is much better at solving problems when it's early or ambiguous and using the left brain in this case feels very wasteful. Unfortunately, P&G is an extremely left brained company.

The exercising of Discovering my Strengths is really cool for me... I have the dreamer type strengths, i.e. Ideation and Futuristic, but I also have the practical, get things done type strengths, i.e. Strategic, Arranger. I think that's a neat combination! In a few words, I'm a bridge to a lot of things. I actually would say I'm a surfactant, but I would hafta do too much explaining to non-chemical nerds (among other things, a surfactant allows oil and water to mix because it has both characteristics in its structure). Is this my knack for weird analogies kicking in? I tend to jump back and forth between left and right brain, being a Gen Yer or a GenXer, being American and being Chinese, being able to appreciate a beautiful sunset, and knowing that it's beautiful because of all the light refracting in the atmosphere and creating all that color.