Irene's Bakery

Irene's Bakery is a cool spot I found when exploring the area around our hotel. Granted, our hotel isn't there greatest (it's a three star) but the location, I think, makes it a good place to stay.

Irene's Bakery is about a ten minute walk from the hotel. Along the way, you'll pass a woman who sells coconut jello with fruit, a guy that makes home made ice cream, and a small laundromat. All posts for another day.

Irene makes desserts. She has cookies, cheesecake, carrot cake, and something called 'orange cake'. Her oatmeal and chocolate cookies are awesome. They are more crunchy than chewy but not dry. The flavor of the cookie is rich but not overly sweet. Her carrot cake is equally excellent. Moist and sweet but not excessively sweet with a rich cheesecake icing.

But even better than the baked goods are the drinks. The Thai iced tea is really good; unlike most Thai ice teas, it's not highlighter orange with an overbearing sweetness to it. But if I had to recommend one thing it would be the green iced tea. It's a sweetened tea like the Thai iced tea, but there is a layer of whipped milk on top followed by a sprinkle of macha.

I didn't get a chance to try everything; money wasn't the issue, everything there is priced really reasonably. The lack of time and the threat of diabetes were the obstacles in the way of tasting everything Irene had to offer.

Irene also has a really cool story. I don't know all of it, but her excellent English tipped me off that there was something different about her. You should ask her when you go by.

And when you do, let me know what you think.

Thailand

The Boss, who is just as consistent as I am about writing, and I have this ongoing discussion about vacation. For her, it's relaxing and enjoyable to sit on the beach every day for at least 9 days. I can survive maybe 5 days. After the fourth day I slowly start getting antsy before I start longing for the 0° (Fahrenheit) weather of home where I can be "productive".

Before moving away from the US, I read this wonderful book on rest and the Sabbath. Honestly, it takes a lot of work for me to rest. I have to be purposeful about what is restful and say no to a lot of fun things in order to find the rest I need. One big idea of true rest is that it is a break from what you normally do; the distance created by the break gives renewed energy for the work that needs to be done. Needless to say, I haven't been disciplined about creating those breaks, and thus, am seldom rested.

That's been one of the really great things about Thailand this time around: I'm really taking a break. I didn't bring the laptop. I'm spending a lot more time with the Boss, the Princess, and the Poop King. I have a greater appreciation for the hard work that goes into being a mom but an equal appreciation for the joy that one gets from being around your kids most of the day.

Other things I've gotten to do that I normally don't do:

• enjoy an after meal walk with my wife and kids
• blog
• eat (relatively) giant breakfasts
• go swimming
• nap with my daughter
• take baths
• meander around a mall
• watch a live American football game

It's not hiking through a redwood forest, snorkeling off a coral reef, or riding a winged wyrvern through the Palamecian skies, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Memories of Grandma

Taking trips to Vancouver during the summer to visit my grandparents still remains a vivid and cherished memory. The drive up would take two full days, punctuated with a salmon dinner in between. Upon arriving we'd stretch our tired, cramped legs and amble up the stairs to sleep.

When you're a young boy growing up in the 80's, the two things you think about are video games and Transformers. Since my grandma and grandpa loved to watch their Chinese soap operas, Ben and I would have to settle for going down to the corner store to play video games. It was a great deal back then since the Canadian quarter wasn't worth as much as an American one. Back then, my dad would say one of the funniest things I had ever heard: Grandma and Grandpa don't like doing anything except going out to eat. They also don't like to spend money on anything other than food. When you're 8 years old, this seems so weird since eating, for me, was low on the priority list, right there with practicing piano and sleeping.

Being 34 now, I have a greater appreciation for food, especially Cantonese-style Chinese food; it was a good thing 嬷嬷 and 爷爷 lived in Vancouver, home of quite possibly the world's best Cantonese food.

Grandma would always tell me to listen to my mom and dad. I was borderline bad; not bad enough to go to juvie, but not good enough to get good citizenship marks. I don't think she ever saw my report card but I think she knew.

She also told that I need to speak Chinese, because I was Chinese. Specifically, she said Cantonese. My Cantonese is pretty terrible, 可是我的国语还行。 她经常跟我说：你是中国人，你应该讲中文。我不知道她现在怎么想：连一句广东话也不能说好，但是还能讲普通话。

Ben and I used to run around a lot, wearing out our shoes really quick. She would always pull me aside and tell me that I need to walk carefully to preserve the soles of my shoes. She would tell me how old her shoes were and how she walked in order to do that.

I'm thankful that my grandma got to see Serenity; it's not very many people who get to see their great-grand children.

Goodbye Grandma. I'm sorry I couldn't make it to Vancouver. Your great-grandson is coming soon.

Starcraft 2

I got Starcraft 2 this past Christmas. And by 'got' I mean that I ordered it off Amazon and the Boss paid for it (i.e. it was my Christmas gift.) Today I was able to beat the computer, for the first time, on 'Very Hard'. It seems a bit anti-climactic for a number of reasons:

1. I still suck at Starcraft. In case you don't play Starcraft 2 or aren't Korean, you can play against other people and level up. Bronze is the lowest level. I'm not even in the Bronze level. That's mostly because I insist on playing in the unranked novice levels. But when I play with people I know, I know I'm the weakest link. My team might as well be playing with one less person. My only saving grace, I suppose, is that I just try to churn out units as fast as I can for my teammates to use. I also try to annoy Justin by attacking his base while there's a huge battle going on elsewhere.
2. I'm totally into being a dad. Serenity isn't very serene. I guess her name is more of a hope of who she might be as opposed to a description of her character. She just started whining a lot. She loves to grab stuff and put it in her mouth (including dirty diapers). She knows when I'm playing Starcraft because that's when she chooses to ask to be picked up. She wakes me up at 6 in the morning. And I love it. Coming home to a wife used to be the best thing about being married. I'd have to say that coming home to a daughter who loves to wrestle tops that. (Sorry Boss!)
3. I'm wondering where all my books went. I used to be into reading. I would love to read so much that my mom would have to threaten me to make me take a shower; I would rather read than get clean. One time I spent the whole day reading library books at school, pretending to pay attention. After that, my mom made a rule about not being able to bring library books to school. So how come I'm not into reading now? The answer rhymes with 'Warcraft'. To be more accurate, the answer is that I'm less into things that require a relaxing of the body and the engaging of the mind and more interested in things that require a dulling of the mind and a racing of the heart. (I get super pumped when I play Starcraft. Something about destroying the computer or another person, figuratively, makes for an enjoyable evening.) Recently I've been reading 'Red Badge of Courage'. I might finish it. I finished 'Les Miserablés' so I could probably finish this. So I'm sort of into reading. But I'm not. 

At the end of the day, there's this deep tension between wanting to be good at Starcraft and not wanting to be good at Starcraft. Being good at Starcraft means that I can hold my own with my friends that play Starcraft. It means being able to crush the computer whenever I want to. But not being good at Starcraft means that I'm spending time on other, possibly more important, things.

Junk Drawer

We drove up to Vancouver from Seattle. After a 6 hour flight, we hopped into the car for another 2 hours. Our frantic trip finally ended at a hospital in downtown Vancouver, where my grandfather, heaving at the doorsteps of heaven, saw his great-granddaughter. He died the day after.

The day after he died, I went down to the nursing home. My dad and aunt were cleaning out his room, looking for a key he kept to his bank deposit box. I began going through his drawer, a mishmash of random trinkets: aged Tiger Balm, so old they were discolored, thirty seven safety pins, an assortment of combs, keys to locks that didn't exist anymore, an entire collection of old Cantonese opera tapes with the corresponding iPod of his day, a Sanyo radio/cassette tape player.

"What should we do with this stuff?"

"Throw it out."

"Even these keys?"

My aunt looks over and sees a pair of brass colored keys hanging off of a gnarled red necklace. I had found the deposit key.

As I combed through the last vestiges of my grandfather's physical possessions I wondered what it would be like for me. What would people see as they dug through the last of my possessions? Old USB cables, FireWire converters, books with pages never turned? Or would they be looking through one of those ancient solid state drives, seeing a whole bunch of old games that only ran on PowerPC chips, a bunch of utilities that came bundled in software bundles that I never used?

The things of my grandfather that I appreciated most were his pictures. He kept a ton of pictures, unsorted, randomly placed in piles, of his family. Old pictures of me as a kid, newer pictures of me married. Those pictures connected me to him in a way that those deposit keys never would.

It was surreal at the funeral to see living images looped of him on the screen juxtaposed against the still body laying in front of us. As we went out to lay the body into the ground, there was a strange finality to the closing of the casket, the lowering into the ground, and the finally tamping of the earth on top of him. 

I was reminded of the cost of bringing life into the world; not just the financial cost of having Serenity, but the stress, the worry. It was kind of a mirror of the death journey. Except now, for my grandfather, the worrying stops.

Homecoming: Week 1

It's been surreal coming home. On the one hand, it's been comforting to be able to interact with people in a language that I am 100% confident in, as opposed to listening intently and trying to build from context what the missing pieces might be. On the other hand, it was a bit jarring to remember how to interact with people: I needed some help at the post office and the cashier was helping another customer but I went up and just asked if they had any packing tape… without waiting in line. I got reprimanded with a fake: "I'm sorry sir, I'm helping another customer right now". Translation: "Get to the back of the line and wait your turn." I smiled.

The toughest thing has been to adjust to the new timezone while Serenity doesn't/can't. I think she's been adjusting slowly, but I think it's been pretty clear that she is still on Beijing time, which makes things hard for us because we're trying to do things during the daytime (while she's sort of asleep) but she's trying to do things during the nighttime (when we're sort of asleep).

Highlights so far:

1. Boutique sodas. I love drinks. So far I've had one case of Reed's Ginger Beer, one bottle of another kind of Ginger Beer (I don't remember the name) and one case of Lemon Lime Bitters soda.
2. Football. I watched the Cowboys and Patriots and the 49ers and Lions games. I missed football so much.
3. Working out. I ran 3.1 miles (5K) in 38:16 on the first day. I ran 3.25 miles in 34:16 on the second day. Don't really know if I can keep this up. :)
4. Driving. The in-laws rented a car for me. It was fun to drive, but I realize that I really do appreciate other people driving me (i.e. taking public transportation or taking a taxi).
5. Food. Lots of different kinds of food. I had a gyro. Ravioli. Trader Joe's. Yum.

Steve and the Crazy Man

Everyone is reminiscing on their Steve Jobs stories. I have one to share too, but unlike the others, it's more about what didn't happen.

One little known fact is that I used to work at Apple, back when it was Apple Computer. I was a software engineer working for the International Text Group (ITG). I had been an Apple fanboy since I was a wee lad and this was pretty much a dream come true. I learned a ton: font formats, typography and daylight savings time just scratched the surface. Working at Apple was awesome.

(Sidenote: The reason why I try to keep this on the down-low is that people assume that since I worked at Apple and was a computer programmer, that someone how I could fix their computer. Does anyone ask the worker dishing up fries at McDonald's how to plant potatoes? How about asking a plumber about doing a colonoscopy? Do you have a problem with your computer? I might be able to help, but your best bet is to ask the Chipmunkgeek .)

Anyways, onto my encounter with Steve. I was leaving the office late one night. In those days, the ITG was located right above a top-secret area where a lot of top-secret secrets were kept very top-secretly. I knew it was top-secret because you needed a special key card to open the door to the area and everyone that entered into the area would do the "is-a-crazy-man-following-me" look-around before entering. Steve was waiting in the lobby right outside of the door to the top-secret area that evening. As I came out the elevator, I saw him fiddling with the iMac that they had on a desk for people to sign-in.

You know that crazy man that they're always looking for before they go into the top-secret area? At this point, I became that man. I thought to myself: "Hey, there's Steve Jobs! What if I went up to him and just started punching him in his face!?" I was seriously insane. It got even better worse. The crazy man continued: "Man, I'd be famous! I'd get on Slashdot and MacWorld." Fortunately, the conversation in my slowly-becoming-sane mind took a turn for the better:"Then I'd get arrested. I'd get fired. I'd spend a lot of time in court. Man, I'm hungry. I just want to get something to eat." So I quickly walked by Steve. I left him with his face intact; he left me with my life unscathed.

So there's my brush with greatness. Thanks Steve! Because of you I have no memories of going to court or spending time in jail.

How to give birth

Giving birth is so easy. Millions of women do it every day. If you are a woman and trying to learn how to give birth, I recommend googling "How to give birth". For the rest of us, I am writing this for you.

The Wolf in her natural habitat. Eyes closed means she is thinking about how to wake me up at 3 am.

As a side note, I am a new dad. When people have children, sometimes everything becomes centered around their new child. They start taking pictures when they never took pictures before. They start wearing onesies and drinking breast-milk. The blogs that they started to write about their own lives magically transform into an unauthorized biography on someone learning to poop in a large porcelain bowl. This is understandable. But fear not, faithful reader, I will be faithful to you in the purposes of this blog. This blog is about me. Sometimes I will write something about the Wolf. But when I do it will be about mostly about me and not so much about her.

But onto how to give birth. The following are rules that I've learned about giving birth.

Place towels on the floor. When the Baby Factory is in labor, she is very juicy. So that you do not slip and fall, please place towels everywhere. Is this disgusting? Yes. Will it save your life? Maybe.

Welcome your new family member with open arms. What? You think I am talking about the new child? I am not. I am talking about the new relationship that you will have that will save your marriage and prevent your uterus from exploding. (Yes, men have uteruses too. They are spiritual uteruses and they're somewhere in between your stomach and your bladder.) I am talking about our friend Epidural, a friend so kind and gracious that we've made him an official family member! "But wait," you object, "isn't Epidural bad for the baby? It's an unnatural way to give birth!" Friend, do you know what is unnatural? The screams of pain that convulse in the bowels of the uterus that shatter your eardrums. If you have no nerves in your uterus, then I heartily congratulate you and encourage you not to have one. But for the rest of us (men included), I will openly welcome the needle in the spine. Coincidentally I try to have one everyday to dull the pain of the Wolf howling in my brain.

Learn to lie. Sometimes, when the Baby Factory is at work, she will say stuff like: "I'm never going to have this baby." or stuff like: "I can't go on." At this point it is best to say encouraging things like:

• "What? It's about to come out. Don't give up now!"
• "This is the last push you'll have to do" (and then mumble quickly, "For the next 20 seconds").
• "No, no. I know you have enough energy. Here, I'll push with you." This is actually really weird but if it works, then say it.

Honestly, at this point, your job is to make sure that she just keeps pushing. So this is one of those times in life where you can say anything as long as it accomplishes your means.

The baby is freakishly scary right after giving birth. The Wolf was all bloody and screaming and blue. Did I want to hold her? No. Is that mean? No. I did want to hold her after they had sterilized her, changed her color, and gave me earplugs, but the Baby Factory got to hold her first. I am not sorry that I did not hold her right after birth. Really gross. And yes, I accept the award for 'Worst Father Ever'.

I get really grumpy if I don't have enough sleep. The Boss has noted that I am supernaturally grumpy. This, I think, is my gift. But I get really grumpy when I don't get enough sleep. The Wolf enhances my superpower.

All in all, a very successful time at the hospital. I got to watch a lot of t.v. and eat some pretty decent food. If you've come to the end of this entry (which you have because you are reading this right now), you now know everything I know about what it is like to give birth. Congratulations.

Birther class

My future child will no doubt one day run for president. On that day, there will be millions that will claim that she is not a natural-born citizen of the United States. There will be some theories that will allege she was born in Kenya, not to US citizens living abroad, or that her birth certificate is a forgery. That may be the price my child will have to bear; I hope I can prepare her well for this.

I took an initial step into preparing myself for my child's grand entrance into the world. It is difficult, sometimes, to attend a class that is essentially about all the words I snicker to myself in private: pee pee, poo poo, vagina, penis, anus. But I was willing to bear this price for several reasons:

1. I know nothing about bearing children. I learned a lot today. I just needed some basic information on what to expect and how to know when to get the Boss to the hospital (and when to tell that she is just messing around).
2. I wanted to be able laugh, in an immature and junior-high like way, at the content.
3. I knew the three of you reading would find this amusing.

But I digress. We spent ten hours in class. It was good. My success is your success. Here's what I learned; now you don't have to go. (BTW, I recommend taking a birther class. It's way better than reading this blog entry.) If you want to know the fundamental, foundational basics about child birthing, though, here they are:

1. Go to the hospital when the contractions are around a minute long (or longer) and five minutes (or less) apart.
2. Decide what you'll do when you have an option for a cesarean and/or epidural.
3. Be nice to your wife.

The rest of the stuff is just icing on the cake.

I learned about how the baby is developing in it's own toilet. The teacher said: "The baby has it pretty good in there. It doesn't have to eat. It doesn't have to poo. The baby is actually peeing into a water balloon. Where does it go? No where." That doesn't sound good to me at all. If there are two things I like to do it's eating and pooing. Eating is one of the most awesome sports invented. This sport is so popular, it will be hard for you to find someone that doesn't know how to eat. Pooing is nice because it smells bad, which tells me what I ate was delicious (and made out of meat). It is also nice because it tells me that my body is ready to eat some more.

I learned that having a baby is basically like blowing your nose. "The cervix forms a booger that blocks stuff from getting to the baby.The cervix has cells that make mucus. Like your nose." A little bit later I was told that the booger comes out when your wife is ready to give birth: "The mucus plug looks like you've blown your nose." At this point I began considering 'Cervix' as a boy's name.

I also learned that having a baby is like going poop. We watched a movie where it was basically this woman going poop in a bathtub. Apparently, you can poop your pants while you are giving birth. This is because the baby, as it is making the journey to freedom, pushes on your small intestine. If you've got any leftover chocolate PowerBar hanging around, it gets squeezed out of your anus. I was laughing so hard inside I thought I was going to have a baby.

I learned about leukorrhea. It's like diarrhea but it's white instead of brown. And it comes from your vagina. (By your, I mean if you are a woman and pregnant, this will come out. If you are not a woman and/or not pregnant, I would rush to the hospital if I had leukorrhea).

I learned that my plan to welcome my daughter into the world might have to be put on hold. I previewed a "Welcome to the World" rock dance ensemble for the Boss. She was amused. I told her that I was planning to welcome my child into the world with some GNR: 'Sweet Child of Mine'. But today I learned that a soothing, calm environment facilitates in creating Oxytocin which helps in the labor process. It's basically Axl Rose vs Oxytocin. I think the Boss might have been disappointed that I'm thinking about cancelling the choreographed welcome.

I learned about different baby positions. Did you know that your baby could be born a transverstite?

I learned a lot about sphincters. This was a particularly difficult time in the class where I summoned all my willpower not to just die from laughing. I guess it helped that I drank 20 oz of hot chocolate that morning without taking enough milk pills. I was trying not to fart in class so that gave me something else to think about besides quotes like "…'horse lips' help the sphincters to open…" and laws that are titled: 'Sphincter's Law'. Seriously, what is the proper reaction to a talk that starts with: "We have sphincter muscles in the anus."

I learned about meconium. It's basically baby poop that gets on a baby because it poops into its own swimming pool.

I learned a lot today. And this is all before my daughter is born. I can't wait to see what I'll be able to learn when she's actually here.

The New Googs

I'm minding my own business on the Le Intérweb. Suddenly monsieur gets hit by Le Google+ (aka LG+). LG+ does this ninja thing and then, while I'm looking, dragon punches me into "Wow…this can weird but so cool" land. And then Blogger gets all fanshy-pants on me, looking all slick and clean. What's going on? I'm pretty impressed, but I don't know how long this will last (i.e. my infatuation with this new look).

I was am really confused by the Google+ thing, though. It sounds like it's supposed to be like the Book of Faces, but instead of you signing up to be someone's face friend, they get signed up by the author. Even if they don't have a Google+ thingy account thingy.

I vowed not to go onto Facebook because I didn't need another thing to sign-up for and check. LG+ solves that for me. I'm not sure about the whole, sign-up your 'friends' thing. As an experiment, I created a circle and called it the X-Circle. Then I added 9 people to it because I could only name 10 canonical X-Men off the top of my head. They are: Angel, Colossus, Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Ice Man, Rogue, Gambit, and of course, Professor X. I am Professor X, of course.

We'll see where this thing goes. I'm sort of interested in social networking but I fear that it is something that I sort of do but not really do.

Like this blog.

Information Black Hole vs Lent

"The tradition of Lent—a forty-day sacrifice—is one way of mourning the death that sin has caused in our lives. As we see Jesus perfectly withstand Satan's temptation in the wildernesss, we admit our own shortcomings, our own inadequate sacrifices. This period of 'giving up' has a profound way of recalling our desperate need for Jesus Christ."^[1]

The rhythm of my days revolve around a schedule that is, to be quite honest, centered on myself. It starts with figuring out what and when to eat: Granola or oatmeal? Light brunch and then lunch at the caf? It then moves to fitting in time with my first love (by first, I'm speaking in terms of chronology not value): the computer. The pattern is usually eating breakfast while I read Google News, The New York Times, Daring Fireball, MacNN, Hacker News and ESPN all simultaneously, switching from one tab to another on my browser, slowly but methodically downloading the entire internet into my brain. Not participating in this ritual often leaves feeling that I missed out on something happening in the world, like the latest Charlie Sheen rant. The irrational and chaotic^[2] liturgical calendar, then, is an important reminder to me, that God's time is never the same as my time.

I happen to love Easter because it, unlike Christmas or any other competing holiday, draws me through a path of memorial and takes me through the darkest lows and the brightest highs; from the hope of Palm Sunday to the somberness of Good Friday and finally to the joy of Resurrection Sunday, I feel like I'm taken through the gamut of the human experience. Easter is full of emotion and reflection; important things that are often forgotten for a guy that likes to sit in a room staring at luminiscent screen while his fingers jab away at the keyboard.

"The season of Lent is puzzling to many. Denying ourselves our favorite treats or habits—even for a short time—seems archaic in our I-want-it-now culture. Lent is a plodding, definitive crecendo that leads up to the cacophonous noise of Good Friday and the gorgeous aria of Easter. It's a season marked by deliberateness and intentionality."

One of the things that I have noticed over the years is that I am something of an Information Black Hole.^[3] When I was young, my parents bought a second-hand set of encyclopedias; these were most likely published in the late 60's.^[4] I read these from A to Z. And then my dad bought another set of encyclopedias: a set of Encyclopedia Brittanicas. I also read these from A-Z.^[5] I can spend hours on Wikipedia, just reading about farriers and Legionnaires' disease. And for someone with a bad memory, I can sure hold in a lot of useless information. I can easily spend two or three hours a day just reading news, looking at electronics reviews, posting on forums, browsing esoteric wikipedia articles. So this is the thing that I'm giving up for Lent: outside of my email and the New York Times, I am not going to be spending time suckling at the teat of the internet. Most of my time grazing the pastures of the cybernet is really because I'm looking for something else to do. During this time of Lent, I hope that my attention is turned toward remembering the great sorrow that has past, the greater joy that I have, and the greatest hope that is to come.

What are others doing for Lent? (When I say 'others' I really mean 'you'. And by 'you' I mean the 7 people that still read this blog, not including the Boss).

[1] All quotes are taken from a book I'm reading called "Devotions for Lent", a small book built on excerpts from the Mosaic Bible.
[2] Easter is never the same every year! It drives me crazy. If we can do Christmas on the 25th of December, why can't we find a similar date for Easter? :)
[3] Basically, I am the Information Superhighway's arch-enemy.
[4] One article talked about race and how there were three different races: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid. I kid you not. That's why I think they were published in the late 60's.
[5] In retrospect, it's not clear to me that this was such a good idea. I remember reading things that I had no understanding of. (I just remember the feeling of being confused; I don't remember the topic).

Vacation Thaim

I am 33 years old. Well, I will be, barring some unforeseen circumstance. Vacation in Thailand has been interesting. Today is our ninth day here, and I realize that I'm not really a 'vacation-forever'
guy. Vacation is supposed to be (I think) for recharging, for taking a break. It's not supposed to be forever. At least I hope not. I'm ready to get back home and work, but before I do that, let me review some important firsts that have occurred.

• I have ridden a motorcycle with my pregnant wife on the back, for  the first time, driving on the left-side of the road. (In Thailand,  cars are set up with the steering on the right side of the car so that
your right hand is closest to the center of the road). It is both like  riding a bike and not like riding a bike. First, the motorcycle has  two wheels, like a bike. Second, it has hand-brakes, like a bike.
Third, it can go really fast and you could smash your body into a  brick wall easily, not like a bike. It was pretty fun, but I didn't do  anything too dangerous. Except for go up this steep hill against the  flow of traffic on a motorcycle.
• I learned about Phi Phi island (pronounced 'pee-pee'). I proceeded  to make all the obvious jokes there are (example: 'Oh, Phi phi island?  I go there every morning!'. And: 'I made my own Phi phi island in the
ocean.'). I will probably make these lame jokes in front of you. Lucky!
• I learned that there is a lot of 'using' in relationships between  old foreign men and young Thai women. This was sad. I also learned,  through talking to a couple of Thai women, that it is very common for  Thai women to be divorced. This was sad too.
• I learned that I look like a Thai person and that even though I  learned how to say 'I don't speak Thai' in Thai, this doesn't convince someone that you don't speak Thai. In fact, it encourages them to
continue speaking to you in Thai. I also learned that this phrase makes me a lot of friends.
• I saw my child for the first time. I learned that they look like a  frog/alien. I am very excited to be a dad. I am sure that it will be  different from computer programming.
• I learned that different cultures feel differently about going  topless at the beach. I also learned that this isn't a big deal  especially if most of the people on the beach are over 45.
• I learned that I know how to say 'good-bye' in Russian. I had seen a Russian phrase in a movie once. I used it on some Russian guests at the hotel we were staying. I am still alive. I am assuming it meant
goodbye.

Food poisoning: the sport

I received some feedback asking me what food poisoning as an Olympic sport would be like. We completely leave the world of judging to the lame events; this is going to be one of the central events of the Olympics so it needs to have a proper amount of objectivity in determining the winner.

For food poisoning, then, what determines the winner? Is it amount of material ejected? From which end? Do we combine both ends? Do we use the same kind of food? (Or, should I say: 'food'?) Is this a test of endurance or a test of speed?

The small-minded will spend hours poring over these different dimensions. But the visionaries among us will look at the current Olympics and realize that we can split this into multiple events! Here is a partial list of events in my mind:

1) 100 m dash. After eating a standard meal (it would be the same thing for everyone) you have to diarrhea a line that is 100 m long as fast as you can. There cannot be a space between spurts more than a meter long. This tests foot speed, pass-through-the-colon speed, and determination.

2) Hurling. Like the name suggests, after eating as much of a poisoned food product, you would see how far you could throw up.

3) Spurting. Like the above except the other end.

There's actually a lot more in my brain. I wrote out a number of them, but deleted them all because some things should actually stay in my brain and not on the internet.

A real sport

I hate all competitions that are judged. I use the word 'competition' instead of 'sport' because I don't consider such affronts to sportdom as sport. That's not to say that I don't think things like gymnastics, ice skating, and 'Dancing with the Stars' demand a high-level of athleticism, but there's something wrong when the winner of a competition is selected because the Russian judge got paid off.

In the past 24 hours, I've had the privilege of taking part in an event that I consider a true sport. It tests one's courage and determination, and has been the most physically painful thing that I've done in recent memory: battling with food poisoning.

Our journey begins at about 7 pm, New Year's Eve. I have a heaping bowl of spaghetti, with some suspect ground beef. Beef and I have been friends for a long time so I suspect nothing. The fool says in his heart that beef won't hurt him.

10:12 pm: I am playing Settlers of Catan, feeling a little gassy, but that's normal for me. No worries.
11:10 pm: I am playing this dancing game on the Wii. Feeling a little more uncomfortable, but whatever.
12:01 am: We're going around sharing highlights/lowlights from 2010. I feel like I'm experiencing my lowlight of 2011; I want to throw up and diarrhea at the same time. The boss and I go home.
12:43 am: I try to throw up for 4 minutes. I throw up on the fifth minute. Lots of tomato and parmesan cheese. This completely exhausts me. In high school I'd run track. Mondays were the worst because we'd do these 200 meter sprints. Eight of them. At the end of the eighth one I'd be so tired that every thing I looked at was tinged blue and I just wanted to take a nap. One time I took a nap for an hour after the workout. This was worse than that. I had no energy left after throwing up.
1:00 am: I have this intense fever. My legs ache uncontrollably. I'm really tired though so I want to go to sleep but I can't because of all the pain. I can't decide which is worse: the aching from the fever or the fact that there's something in my stomach that wants to get out. I try to throw up but can't. I don't sleep for the rest of the night. I just toss and turn. Sometimes my legs cramp up from the aching.
8:00 am: I finally fall asleep.
1:36 pm: I wake up and have diarrhea every 10 minutes for the next half hour. I have no energy left; it takes all of my concentration to walk over to the toilet and do the deed.

So I didn't die (at least not yet), even though I considered going to the hospital at different points. I don't ever remember having food poisoning like this before. It's awesome that I survived. I think this should be an Olympic sport.

25-year friends

I'll be the first to admit that my friend making skills waver from mediocre to atrocious. I can easily tell you the names of 10 people who are better at being a friend than I am.

It's not that I don't like having friends or making friends, it's just that I am a combination of:

1) not very sympathetic/sensitive to people
2) not a bend-over backwards nice guy (in fact… if you said I was a jerk, I wouldn't blame you)
3) somewhat introverted

In fact, when it comes to friends, the fewer the better, I (selfishly) think because then I can spend time with the few that I have and still have time leftover for, well, me.

If you've read this far, you're probably disgusted that you know me or, if you don't know me, disgusted that I exist. Or, perhaps, you realize that 159 words don't really give a full picture of anyone because it's the internet.

In any case, I read this:

http://diveintomark.org/archives/2010/05/28/of-course

and loved it. For all my connectedness (or disconnectedness) with the internet, nothing can replace those friends that I have who I don't need Twitter, Facebook, email, Skype, telephone, post, pigeons, or ESP to know and love. Not that these things are bad; in fact, they are helpful in keeping me connected. But there's something reassuring and rare about friends that I've made that don't need these things to stay in touch, and that makes me thankful for old friends.

Hot Chocolate

I love hot chocolate. I love it so much that I had briefly considered marrying it. I'm glad I didn't but I still love it: I am lactose intolerant, yet I will gladly drink a high-quality hot chocolate without my milk pills just to enjoy that smooth, slightly bitter chocolaty goodness. The weird thing is that chocolate's not even my favorite flavor. I think my favorite flavor is burrito. Hrm. I should think about that.

I remember trying to create a chocolate soda by mixing some cocoa powder in a Coke. I got a really bad stomachache after that. This reminds me that I need to write about a chocolate soda I found here (short version: it sucked).

What I'm really trying to say is that this article:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/23/DDQF1GQK90.DTL

makes me want to go to San Francisco right now. Except it's 2:09 am and I should be sleeping instead of blogging and writing emails about relationships.

Writing

I started blogging a long time ago. Not like four years ago. I mean like 1999. It started with making a web page. In those days, web pages consisted of <html> and <strong> and <p>. If you got fancy you tried to use <img>  with an image of an envelope orbiting the earth. If you were cool you had some sort of black background and you used a lot of green text. We started web page for Saddam Hussein, who wanted to be a professional wrestler. I remember laughing so hard. Those were the days.

Before blogging was called blogging, I began updating a website about how frustrated I was in lab. I'd complain about how I shorted my board. I lamented my lameness in wrapping wires on a breadboard. It sounds lame, but it was pretty fun. And by 'fun' I mean cathartic.

I do like to write, but I rarely update. Part of it can be attributed to my busyness: I've got school, some leadership responsibilities, hanging out with new friends, work. But if I'm honest, a big piece of not writing comes from being vain. I'll write and write, re-read, edit, rewrite… The end of that  process usually yields a paragraph or so. I'll read it once more and decide that it is insufficient in showing the world how awesome I am. 

But maybe that's the lesson: I'm not that awesome. I am a missed comma, a misspelling, a clichéd phrase. I am confused about capitalizing Chinese (or is it 'chinese'? I mean it's the name of language right?) I am superficial and unwitty. I lack deep significance and am unable to improve the lives of people who read this. I repeat myself over and over and sometimes I say the same things more than once.

So those two things, busyness and vanity, are what contribute to the dearth of posts. This isn't a piece about wanting to write more, though I do want to write more. I write a ton: I write agendas, party plans, minutes, newsletters, customer service replies.  It's different to write in this space, because I'm not responding to some obligation. Instead of wanting to write more, though, I'm finding that I'm desiring to write freely.

A Thousand Suns

I'm not a music connoisseur. I like my Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, and even a little Justin Bieber once in a while (one million screaming teenagers couldn't be wrong, could they?). I'm pretty bourgeois and if you were looking for something that was musically "edgy" or "hip" I'd have to point you to a couple other friends who are much more discerning (i.e. picky) than I. But that's not to say that I'm with out taste. :) I recently picked up the new LP album. Awesome. The new Linkin Park album is beautiful, stirring, passionate. I don't share the same political views as LP but there latest offering is compelling, courageous, hopeful, imaginative, passionate… Things that I embrace as fundamental to what it means to be human. Most folks aren't into the rap/rock, nu-metal genre which LP is known for so the initial reaction might be that they would never listen to A Thousand Suns. But part of the courage of this album is that LP moves away from the sound that they are known for: the music is still LP but most tracks are unlike Meteroa and Hybrid Theory. A Thousand Suns is a concept album, meaning that the album is to be taken in as a whole; the separate tracks, unlike most albums, are closely related to one another. ATS is about to war. It moves from the frightening to the sorrowful to the wrathful and, finally, to the hopeful. The album is a little less than 48 minutes long. If you want to listen to it, I recommend listening to it when you have time to just sit and listen. Some highlights:

• ATS has some memorable and historical sound bites from Mario Savio, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert Oppenheimer mixed in. Oppenheimer's quote in The Radiance is particularly eerie.
• I love the piano mixed in with the choral background in Robot Boy.
• Iridescent has this soaring chorus at the end that reminds me of ColdPlay.
• Wretches and Kings: It's Rage 2.0. Awesome.

I've been reading several reviews: people either love it or hate it. Part of the criticism is that LP seems to have eschewed it's roots by pursuing a more pop-friendly sound. That's debatable, though LP is more accessible, there's enough screamo, rap, and drums to keep many people away. Part of genius is surfacing this dichotomy of love and hate. I've been listening to it over and over for the past half week and I am consistently reminded how meaningful this album is. It reminded me of why I love Rage Against the Machine. These people care about their music and they think their music can change, not just individuals, but humanity.

Being in College

This semester I'm taking two "non-language" classes. The hope is that I'll be able to practice my listening and speaking in contexts that aren't exclusively language focused. This is, obviously, a little harder than my usual language class but it's more fun since I get to see language in action.

My first class was my computer science class. The first thing I noticed was the relationship between the teacher and the students. First, she lectured them about coming in on time (they still come in late). It's interesting how most of these students are 18 or 19 (or 20) but they still get treated like seniors or juniors in high school. There was this one point where she basically said: "I know you guys are all lazy..." and I totally snorted in class and these girls stared at me. Haha.

Second, a lot of the interaction reflects a rote learning style. The teacher asks a question, and if the answer is obvious, everyone answers in semi-unison. Or if the teacher is repeating a point, she'll ask a question and then proceed to answer it herself with everyone joining in unison.

There is a complete emphasis on practicality. This is fine, but when I was in college the emphasis was completely different. There was an attempt to make the concepts taught language agnostic and we used an "unpractical" language (Scheme) to get us to focus on the concepts instead of the implementation. The emphasis on practicality means that they talk a lot about C language constructs, how to use Borland's C compiler and the importance of programming in Windows. The computer lab totally reflects this emphasis on practicality: there's no internet access in it and the machines are all running these old (probably pirated) copies of XP with old copies of Visual FoxPro, Visual * programming tools, Borland, etc.

It made really thankful for UNIX and how I got started on UNIX; I felt a lot of the concepts and tools learned were useful in a way that transcended the specific idiosyncrasies of each tool. I certainly don't feel that way here.

As we think about developing relationships and possibly hiring here, it makes me a little apprehensive; there was a huge learning curve for me in going from the university to working. I appreciated the work ethic (e.g. staying up all night, being committed to deadlines, etc) that being at Cal gave me (I was a lazy bum in high school). With all the culturally acceptable plagiarism here as well as varying degrees of work ethic, I hope we can find the right folks to network with here.

Basketball class... that's for another post!

Happy Birthday

Hey Party people, it's been a long time. And when I say 'Party people', I mean 'Communist Party' people. Why? Well because it's their birthday! What!? You didn't know that October 1 is 国庆节？ Well now you know. Onto another topic: dads. Do you remember when you were young, you'd compare your dad to your friend's dad. "My dad drives a truck!" "Oh yeah!? My dad can fart silently and make it really smell!" So here's one that brings this post altogether: My dad is as old as China. I know, I know. You might be skeptical but check this (and wikipedia it). I wrote Dad to wish him a happy birthday. Here's a transcript: Hi Avery, Thank you We just got back from dinner for my BD. I was born on the same date the Communist China established a state. Oct 1, 1949. I am 62 now Dad Yeah, when I was around five or six, when I would mess up something or not take care of something my dad would try to emphasize that I should take care of it because it was older than me. I was really impressed. But as I got to about 10 I realized that the whole world was pretty much older than me. Happy Birthday Dad!