Good Ole Boring

So I finally took the plunge and purchase a Lenovo laptop. I think I'll enjoy using it. I have been thinking about it for several weeks, but when it comes down to it I just wanted something reliable to replace my Dell. I compared Apple, Dell, HP, and Lenovo. Dell and HP are okay. So it actually was a decision between Apple and Lenovo. After talking to several people at church my decision was made. I think I made the right choice. Apple is still such a luxury item I think and the limited softwares totally pushed me towards the Lenovo. My only concern now is Vista but oh well, let's give it a try.

I heard on the drive back from work yesterday of the story of the real Delilah. So apparently the song "Hey There Delilah" is written after the songwriter was introduced to a girl named Delilah. He thought she was really cute and wanted to get to know her. She, however, has a boyfriend. So he went home, threw some chords together, wrote a song for her--"Hey There Delilah."

The story continues. Delilah would go to the gym and the song would play on the loud speakers. Half of her wanted to admit that the song is about her and let the whole world know about it. The other part of her was so sick of hearing the song and regret ever meeting the guy.

Kinda romantic, though if only they actually end up together because he wrote a song for her. I really like the song and the story behind it. Haha.

Web 2.0 Expo Day 2

My second day at the Web 2.0 Expo and this time around, it is much better, I think. Some of the classes were very informative, one in particular offered a lot of practical ideas. I wished I had more time to hang out and just check out all the companies and their products now that I have an idea of what they do, but alas I have to meet up with a friend for a GS Warriors game vs. Dallas tonight.

Arrgh...wireless connection is so slow right now since everyone is out on their session break and these routers are probably being hit pretty serverely. FREE comes with a price, yes?

Not sure if I have time to come back tomorrow but then again...Weds. are "work at home" days.

I'm beat!

Anyone Web 2.0 Expo-ing?

Ajax, RSS, EC2, SaaS, AWS, RFP...If you know what that means, you belong here with me. Here meaning the Web 2.0 Expo in SF.

At times I'm wondering what am I doing here? I haven't done anything in Ajax yet although if you're developing for the web or interested in ui design, Web 2.0 terms like Ajax and those above are like the in language. To be truthful, I'm not quite sure what those lingos mean either, but I'm sure I'll be using in someday.

Anyways, the free t-shirts from the Expo are pretty nice, and of course all those darn neat-o "Beta" demos. It's so sexy these web 2.0 products!

In any case this has been a pretty exhausting day and I'm ready to just go home and sleep.

Web Nuevo...The Machine is Us/ing Us

The Machine is Us/ing Us - Mike Wesch

Mobile Web, Take Me Away

I got my first extensive Mobile web experience today, during what normally would be a very long and tedious weekly Monday status meeting.

Oh the power of the Mobile internet. I don't think I'll mind these Monday meetings anymore.

A Shameless Knot2Us Plug

There's a show on The Food Network called Throw Down with Bobby Flay. It's actually quite good. But the one that I enjoy the most has to be the effervescent Rachel Ray and her hilarious..."umm..." follow with her eye rolls.

Back to Throw Down. In the episode that I watched a well know hamburger maker was challenged by Bobby. Basically he showed up at this person's house un-announced and challenged her to a "throw down." Anyway I have no point and don't remember where I am going with this except to say that the Throw Down concept can be adapted to so many things.

Nothing Venture Nothing Gain-Knot2Us

My smallgroup Knot2Us will start up again this Thursday night. I invite anyone looking for a smallgroup (after Fall Launch) to come and throw down with us...whatever you have on your plates that night, leave it—come throw down with our Christian smallgroup community. We'll take the challenge to bring you to a relationship with Christ!

We made it back from Napa without any incident, having boozed up pretty hard. We hit up three wineries: V.Sattui, Sterling, and Mondalvi. Of the three Sterling was probably the most memorable since I have not yet been there. It was such a beautiful day, too.

Here are Dabruceski's photos on his smugmug site.

Lastly, our work website has undergone a total makeover. It is now mostly semantically marked up with CSS only. Gone are the HTML table markups. Yay! I'm excited about it!

Blood, Guts and Church Basketball

This past Sunday I was blessed with a "godly elbow".

It happened during a GRX basketball playoff game between my team—the Geckos—and Pastor Andy's Goats. This is what went down: someone shot the ball, Andy and I struggled for the rebound, Andy's flying elbow, I started bleeding. Nice. Next I was rushed to O'Connor Hospital for ER (see pic). Here I talked to two receptionists, two nurses, then was dumped into the triage area awaiting my doctor...about 1 hr. The doctor showed up and in less than ten minutes "stitched" me up.

With super glue for the skin.

Isn't technology wonderful?

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Second Quarter Review

Following some highlights of the weekend, I'll blog a bit about the second quarter. (Here's the writeup of the first quarter.)

The highlights of the weekend...

- after driving up and down the 152 East for more than eight years while living in LA, I finally visited Casa de Fruta. It's a conglomerate for Casa de anything. My favorite is sampling the food, although Sands would say it's gross.
- played bocce with Sandy, Jimmy, Lauren. We were ever the gentleman, letting the girls win of course. Altough you wouldn't know that from this version.
- saw fireworks in Cupertino. We brought with us (again with Jimmy and Lauren) blanket and lawn chair. We ended up sitting on the driveway of Citibank, a bright halogen light blasting our face. If I squinted hard enough I could make out the fireworks, which lasted about fifteen minutes.

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Hot

We're having a company picnic at 12:30pm tomorrow at some park nearby. I went over to the nifty weather.com to check out...umm tomorrow's weather. Let's just say I'm not exactly looking forward to it (see pic).

Here's the email I got about the picnic...
(it's not as funny as it sounds)

We'll be playing Kickball and S-P-U-D...in sticky mucky heat. Now that is FUN you can't get anywhere else.

Butterfly From Beijing

So the guy who I share my cube with just returned from his three weeks vacation in China. Truth be told he was there for a wedding reception, although the couple have been married here in the states for quite some time. He brought back these assorted souvenirs from Beijing to pass out to us. I happened to pick the largest of these—a chinese knot double fish. In Chinese culture fish symbolizes fortune and prosperity.

Moments later, another co-worker next door drops by with a proposal. He thinks I got the wrong knot and I really should have gotten a "more appropriate knot." As far as he is concerned he wants to make a deal with me, knowing full well my courtship history. I made a quick glance at his gift and thought the double fish were more decorative.

He goes on to tell me the backstory, upon which I recognized it was a famous Tsui Hark film. Oh yeah! Oh yeah! Of course in the end that's what I did, I traded "up" for a butterfly-double-swan knot, signifying a happy loving relationship. Woo Hoo! Thanks Lei!

Related to this topic, I recently tasted Sands pastry takeouts on Castro in Mountain View—Hong Kong Bakery. Their egg tart is pretty good this side of SF Chinatown (read Golden Gate Bakery). Yummy! Thanks Sands!

Putting Out Fire

Fire is bad.

It's been awhile since I had to "put out the fire", or been involved in a team effort of putting out fire. Before my current work at this place doing enterprise software GUI, putting out fires were common lingo in my other work environments.

This morning at 10:20 I had to rush into work on my normal WFHW (Work From Home Wednesdays). It turned out our web server was down and the worst of it...the CEO found THAT out. Bad...bad...bad. And on top of that the one IT person who configured the web server and knew it's complicated folder structure left last week to work for another start-up. Essentially the three of us who had to put out the fire were madly scrambling trying to figure out what happened.

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Enterprise Chinese Food

The Panda Express officially opened at the office. Well sort of. This entire week my company is training customers who use our enterprise software. This happens at least once a quarter. For someone like me who is budget conscious this is a blessing. Nevermind that the office is much quieter and security around here has beefen up, the thing I most enjoy is the FREE lunch (read leftovers).

Today it was chinese food á la Panda Express. Nice and cold.

Yesterday it was sandwiches from "the Bay Area's best"—Le Boulanger.

Coincidentally I know of someone who resides in a condo *ahem*castle*ahem* above Le Boulanger in Cupertino. In fact there is a petition to make residents there be more aware of "the danger of Condo-tino". You can read about the hilarious entry here, here, and here. The condo-tino effect goes well with the white flight effect and if the trend continues condo-tino will be inhabited by mostly well-to-do asians. Sandy can probably relate to the reverse of the "let my people go" line.

Back to FREE lunch, who knows what tomorrow's lunch will be? But IF the people at work catches on to this I may have to hurry to the "lunch" line to avoid the stampede. Although I did get the last pot sticker today.

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Cube Rethink

I have just recently moved to another cube and everything seems different. I feel disoriented physically and have to try to get a new feel for the space. The funny thing is all my usual routine of IM-ing coworkers, emailing, debugging, designing, etc...are all tied to the physical space even though most of what I do is through bits and bytes. In other words my virtual space is tied to my physical space. However it's safe to say that adapting to this new space will be easier as my cube-mate is in the same team and won't go through bouts of anger management issues.

On to another matter. I have been thinking about personal finance recently. I would like to do a simple survey and it would be great if you could answer some of these questions by commenting here.

Do you use personal finance softwares such as Quicken or MS Money?
Would you be interested in learning more about retirement planning, saving for your kids college tuiton, life insurance, budgeting, tax, investments, etc?
Would you like to have a personal certified financial advisor analyse your retirement goals and provide a personalized reports/statements for you?
Would you use this service online if the tradeoff between doing it yourself and having a web-based software and CFA do it for you is very close?
Lastly what would you pay for such a service?

Thanks and have a good day!

2005 Tax Refund And First Three Months: Where I Am Today?

Finally after a little over a month I got my 2005 Federal tax refund in the mail yesterday. In our modern electronic filing day-and-age, to get a refund back after more than 30 days is...well...the whole process just seems so antiquated. I could have use TurboTax to e-file but Sandy will do her's tonight and will probably file it that way. We share the software and only one e-filer at a time.

Oddly enough today I had to go to my nearest BofA to make a deposit. I don't remember the last time I actually had to do that. Incredible!

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March Madness, Made Easier

Speaking of the tourney, I went ahead yesterday to set up our company's official NCAA® Tourney pool.

I used Bracket Manager over at CBS Sportsline. Really the whole process was just too easy, enabling my product manager to say, "even a monkey can do it." It makes me wonder...

Now from March 16 to April 3 I will be extremely busy with "work." Please do NOT bother me or IM me, unless it is an emergency. (Oh and if your brain magically turns off like mine during those dates, you can go here to recharge your brain for FREE!) Also if anyone is interested I am "working from home" Thurs. this week to watch the opening rounds of the tourney.

Bring on the Madness!

Oh and Sandy just started her new job at Guidant. Wish her luck! =)

Too Many Ministries

There is so much going on right now I feel in terms of church activities. Relationally I'm so blessed with Sandy for her support in these ministries as well as meeting new folks and kids. But my only complaint is that I'm spreading myself too thin and I feel like I don't know if I am as effective with more rather than less ministry.

Busyness is self glorification masquerading as service rendered to God. (Pastor Dave)

For those considering where they would fit into what ministry that is appropriate for them any advice would be good. That is how do you know which ministry to serve? One where you enjoy or one where you feel you can be effective? Here are the list of my ministries and my thoughts of them. Okay some of these are more volunteer than ministries but...

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The Uninformed Single

Sandy and myself went over to downtown Palo Alto last night for my company's Insight 2006 dinner at Il Fornaio. I had the sea bass while she had the chicken. According to their outdated 2001 menu both of us would have to hunker down $52.95 per person for our meals. Luckily my company footed the bill. The chicken was tasty but the fish were, according to Sands, "fishy". I like their hors d'oeuvre as well as their ambience. I'd like to think a certain someone would benefit by taking his future date there. =P

During dinner I sat next to a CEO from Manhanttan whose former careers as a chemical engineer, a director of an investment bank, and now running his own venture capital firm has earned him his rights to tell me these advice:

Don't be afraid to change career. Kids in your generation can have five careers. What matters is not how smart you are, that helps. It's how you work with people and if you get along with them. (—David J. P. Meachin)

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Everybody Loves Raymond

My second time volunteering for Kids Club. This time the kids were much less rowdy, specifically two boys Gregor and Mikey (from my groups are ages 9-10 or classes 4/5). You know things go pretty smoothly where we calm the kids down with sweet snack, patiently ask them to be seated, follow the teachers in body worship. Then we have them repeat Genesis 1-22 on the slides. At this point a few of them are just in complete distractions. They are all volunteered by their parents to be here for two hours but to some of them, "it's like prison!"

Mikey and Gregor are best friends. How do I know? Gregor told me after I asked them what were their favorite Christmas gifts were.

Gregor: I got a new Nintendo game from Mikey. It's my favorite cuz his my best friend.

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Medical Maze Madness

The health plan madness has taken over my work place. Around my cube the engineers are pushing aside their coding-debugging-interviewing related work in order to fill out health benefit plan forms...all due tomorrow. Super!

I once injured my foot training for a marathon and to compensate for it, I rested a little bit before deciding to push through the pain and to keep running. It would have benefitted me tremendously had I visited a doctor of some sort. The only problem is that the doctors that I have had are mostly in a hurried to get me out of their offices. "How's your knee/foot/back? Can you walk? Good why don't you walk for another month or two." (But to be fair my annual exam has always been stress-free, so I shouldn't complain.)

The same thing applies to my dad. He has recurring problems with swellings in his foot. His doctor thinks it's a seasonal thing and that he should try to keep it warm. Thanks a bunch for that advice Doc! I get more peace asking my small group for prayers on this, hmph!

In my prayers I'm reminded to thank God for His blessings of my good health (among many other blessings). But I can't imagine my run of good health will continue on as I'm getting older. So it doesn't hurt to have my employer foot (some of) the bill if I do need health care in the foreseeable future.

Questions To Ask You Guys

What are the benefits of PPO versus an HMO?
Does anyone have Kaiser-Permanante? Do you like them?
What are your medical plans?

OH hey before I forget, what do you think of my site's Christmas redesign. Pretty minty-fresh? Yes I know I have too much time on my hands...

Welcome Danny

After six months of work my team finally took me out to lunch. Well actually it was more like they took my new co-worker Danny (who is my ex coworker whom I helped got the job by recruiting him away from my old company.) So I am not bitter at all!

For lunch we went to Banana Leaf and afterward I didn't feel so bad after all. Haha. In the end it doesn't matter if they took me out a little later than normal, but that I got to eat good (and fairly expensive) food.

During lunch it dawned on me that all my co-workers were mostly Chinese except for one Indian engineer. When I joined there were three and they switched to another department. Hmm...I would predict that last Indian engineer would not be in our group within 6 mos. Hehe. My manager even mentioned about this during lunch. In any case I would like to officially welcome my good buddie Danny on board. Good times and good talks about spirituality ahead. Good times good times!

Work is starting to get busy and hectic/stressful. Normally I would de-stress by getting out of the office for a swim but I missed it today for lunch. Other way I de-stress is to go for a run but somehow a run in the dark isn't so fun. Unless it is for a run that was specifically in the dark with other runners. Ahhh motivation for running is at an all time low But I do go a little stir crazy if I don't go for a run...just have to get out before sunset.

Nice Day For A Run

Winding winding heart is beating
He thinks, "The sky is great why not a run?"
Exhilarating slowly don't push too hard
Hold the pace greet the nice man
He says, "Hi!"
Curving beating melodic footsteps
God I can hear you
This is true running imploding into
His thoughts...HIS thoughts are higher THAN your thoughts.
Mind wandering black hawk gliding
The easy green of freshly cut grass
Competing thoughts competing visages overly wrought
Jangling keys jumbled thoughts
Overlapping steps
Melodic like the beating of my heart

I went for a lunch run from a friend's place to Shoreline parking lot and back. Never before have I run at this pace (13 min mile). Weird how at a much slower pace how people share a gentle smile and enthusiastic wave, urging you on...only much slower than what I'm used to running at before. However a humbling experience. What a beautiful day for a run. Thank you God.

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Family Origin

I just had a meeting with my project manager to go over the next "lite" version of our software and its redesign. The meetings lasted about 2 hours. For the first hour we talked about his vacation in Greece...so beautiful with islands like Tinos, Santorini, Napflo (I happen to know cause I jotted them down on my notepads during our meeting). He also went through like four folders worth of pitures taken on each of those islands. It was a really great meeting.

He also started telling stories of these islands and where his great great grandmother is from, and how his great great grandfather came to the island of Tinos from Venetia. There was a church on the island that traced his family back to 350 years or so...and there's a tree this ancestral grandfather planted that now sits in the "main" streets of Tinos.

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Baby Triathlon

Anyone interested in doing a triathlon with me? It doesn't have to be something that hard but just to do a baby one.

Swim + Bike + Run

Swim: got it covered
Bike: got it covered
Run: needs improvement...

http://www.trifind.com/ca.html

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Motivation @ work

I wonder what is the honeymoon period for beginning employees? I'm currently finding it very difficult to be motivated at work. When I first started here there seemed to be so many things to learn and the application looks pretty deep. However now it seems hard to be motivated to focus on releasing our next upgraded version.

Part of it too is that my role here isn't too clearly defined. I designed icons and graphical user interface (GUI) related artwork. I work on creating product brochures, Powerpoint presentations, and the corporate website.

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SG fun night

Last night was my first fun night with my s.g. We gathered and hand made our dinner (which in most cases is provided by one person). Dinner in this case is a concoction of sushi and "spam musubi".

Afterward for entertainment we watched "National Treasure" and made cards for Mothers Day.

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