althechipmunk's Xanga

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:46:12 GMT

I think it's time to reevaluate the purpose of this blog. As the number of interesting things happening in my life gradually decrease and each post gets progressively harder to write, I need to redefine the identity of this xanga so that my posts don't wind up being weekly updates about my basketball games or my latest pimple.

Is this supposed to be a diary where I can spill my guts unabashedly? HAH. Unlikely. I confess I need work in pretending I have emotions, but I don't think this publicly accessible site is the place for that. Is this my equivalent of twitter, where the audience is my friends, and the goal is to write something witty and entertaining? No. It would be, if I could find something funny to write about. Since I can't, I won't set myself up for failure by setting this as a goal. Is this something I can look back on in years to come and remind myself of the goings on of my present life? Yes! Whenever I look back at old posts, I can't help but think, "That's so corny." But then, the memories flood back, and I'm glad I wrote about it.

So, what would future me want to know about present me? I've begun to be concerned that I probably spend more time with my parents and sibling than anyone else not living with parents and whose name isn't Ray Romano. I go home every weekend and generally try to spend time with my brother. One of my gripes about work is that many of my coworkers are older than me, and they almost all have families, so we're not able to hang out in the evenings and get more closely acquainted with each other. I realized that I'm effectively in the same boat, since I tend to brush off friends in favor of having dinner with family or just being at home. Yesterday was a prime example. I attended a small potluck with my parents. The uncles and aunties were generally surprised to see me there, and I heard them lamenting how their kids (many years younger than I) are so independent now and refuse to attend these functions with the parents. Yeah. Meanwhile, I find that the only other kids are my brother and the 5 year olds whom I end up babysitting. Yup, it's time to leave the nest!

Saturday was a step in that direction, as I spent the entire day out and about. It was the first time in a long while. I went to have dim sum with some Impact people at noon and later drove all the way to Berkeley for karaoke with MSF people. I realized how rare it is for me to actually spend time with these people outside of church, and it's good that I can get to know them better outside the church setting.

Oracle Open World

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 06:00:57 GMT

Each year, Oracle holds a massive conference in downtown SF known as Oracle Open World. Not only are there numerous booths where Oracle showcases its latest technology, the customers also set up stands and advertise their products to other conference participants like it's a swap meet. This is the fun part. Like a career fair, all the booths are handing out some sort of freebie or offering a chance to win something. My loot today consisted of one bag, 3 t-shirts, golf tees, a poster autographed by the BMW/Oracle sailing team, and a few raffle entries. With an average winning percentage of 1/3000 and mean prize value of $9000, my expected + actual gain for the day is about $10!...barely enough to cover the caltrain fare and parking fees. I'm particularly excited about the t-shirts. It's about time I retire the threadbare t-shirts I currently wear to sleep.

The other highlight of the day was the keynote speech. Last year I came too with the intent of hearing the keynote, but due to my tardy arrival I was directed into an overflow room where I just watched a video screen. Today, I made sure I got there early enough to see it in person. I slept through the first half, but was alert as our billionaire CEO bashed IBM and some other competitors. Surprisingly, all those maligned companies were present at the exhibition hall as partners. Why they continue to come back year after year is beyond me. The most exciting part though was when Mr. Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger made a surprise appearance and preached the virtues of technology. I was surprised by how eloquent he was. The speech was fluid and funny, though the "I'll be back" conclusion was a bit hackneyed.

Unless Oracle brings back the HQ to SF shuttle or I'm assigned to demo a product, this will probably be my last time going in a while. It's fun but simultaneously draining to muster the courage to take free stuff from companies that I have absolutely no interest in, and who have no interest in Oracle employees. Most importantly, these 3 t-shirts should suffice as my sleepwear for the next few years.

Curse of the Blue Sapphire

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 05:52:09 GMT

Everytime I close me eyes, I see red rubies, blue sapph-arrrs, and white diamonds a-falling. Me thinks I've been playing too much Bejeweled. I shall henceforth belay such carousing. If anyone should spy me obtaining new scores, I give thee permission to report it to the authorities, for it must mean some scallywag hath hacked into my facebook account. Also, my facebook account's language setting has been set to "pirate" for some time now. I'm not quite fluent yet, but I'm getting there. Yo-ho!

Work is still kind of crazy. Previously, no matter how much I slacked, there was one guy who I could always point to and say, "At least I'm not the biggest slacker around." Today, I realized he is no longer an employee at Oracle. Eeps. Don't know if he left of his own accord, or if he was forced to walk the plank. Well, I've been working hard recently, enough to make up at least a week's worth of truancy.

I had another basketball game today. I only scored 2 points, and I probably only crossed the half court line to go on offense like 10 times. Again, my teammates just ran and ran while I just defended, rebounded, and passed the ball down the court. We won again :).

Frustrated at Work

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:34:32 GMT

STORY OF MY LIFE FOR THE PAST FEW WEEKS. Well, the first two frames at least. I've been assigned the task of creating prototypes for our web application's web pages, but I feel really inadequate for this assignment. Thus, even though I wish to help, I'm encountered with the same dilemma as Wally: produce useless designs or do nothing (meaning news.yahoo.com, sports.yahoo.com, dilbert comics, etc.)

On the bright side, the Oracle basketball league started. Our team dominated the other by constantly running and getting fast break layups. I just stood around and watched my teammates run. I did, however, score the first point of the season with a free throw one minute into this first scheduled game of the year. I also fouled out 5 minutes into the 2nd half. It's quite an impressive feat, considering how sparingly the refs use the whistles.

By the way, I choose (hopefully not completely) useless designs.

The Return of the Blog

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:53:29 GMT

Wow, it's been a long time. Let's skip the introduction and revisit the most momentous events of the past few months.

Attending the San Mateo County Fair: I went with Jason on 8/22 to the fun-filled farm festival in San Mateo. The highlight was probably the pig race and the fried artichokes. The low was blowing $4 on rigged, basketball-related carnival games and another $5 on a bucket of rings. However, considering we snagged some free parking and a stranger gave me his admission ticket randomly at the fair entrance, I was up $9 for the weekend. Not bad.

Playing soccer with high school friends: I recently discovered that some Saratoga alumni have been playing soccer at Jollyman Park every Thursday. Though it's a bit far from my apartment, I decided that seeing old friends was worth it. After work, Jed and I sped through the carpool lane to Cupertino. I had forgotten how fun soccer is. It was probably the first sport I ever played, but it's been years since I last touched a soccer ball. Unfortunately, Twenties has started back up on Thursday evenings, so I won't be able to attend soccer anymore.

Completing the next installment of my "Trash to Treasure" series: 10-sided stir stick star, bay-bee! If you are wondering how I was able to find the time at work to construct this masterpiece, it was after my weekly hot cocoa and before gchatting. Duh.

Marathon!

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 05:58:51 GMT

Weeks of anticipation finally culminated in the marathon this past weekend. In preparation for this feat of endurance, I woke up at 6:45am on Saturday and watched The Office for about 5 hours. A half Office marathon plus a half SF marathon = a grueling full marathon!

On Sunday morning, I woke to the sound of Jed entering my room at 4am. No, Jed doesn't normally creep into my room in the middle of the night; I had requested a wake up call if I happened to oversleep my 3:50 alarm. The marathon started at 5:30am, so we wanted to allot plenty of time for picking up my coworker Lihao, driving to and parking in SF, and navigating to the start line. The realization that I missed my alarm and would have forfeited my chance to run in the race scared me into immediate alertness. I owe Jed one.

We got to SF with plenty of time to spare, but still not enough time to wait for a turn at the portapotties. There must've been a 100+ person line waiting for about 10 stalls. I had to make do w/o my customary pre-racer and just ran with what felt like pounds of extra baggage. (I had a hearty meal at Fresh Choice the night before to stock up on carbs.)

We took the first half of the half marathon at a leisurely pace of about 8:30 a mile. When we finished crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, I decided that it was time to make a push. I didn't plan on running this again, so I figured I should give it my all. Also, I saw some munchkin coming back across the Golden Gate Bridge while I was still crossing it the first time. That served as motivation as well. Thus began the weaving and winding through the hordes of human obstacles.

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge in heavy fog. Most of my pictures are fuzzy because if I ever stopped to snap a picture, somebody would run into me from behind.

My final time was 1:47:58, which placed me at 154 out of the 859 men aged 20-29.

Afterwards, Jed, Lihao, and I loitered around in the lobby of Hyatt Regency while waiting for my Saratoga High friends to finish so we could grab lunch together. We eventually met up at M's Cafe and had a big brunch. I had the 1-lb. burger. I earned it!

Aftermath: I feel surprisingly sore. After my one 9-mile practice run, I felt completely fine. During the run, I felt surprisingly spry as well. However, beginning immediately after the race until now, one day removed from the half marathon, my hips, quads, hamstrings are all still sore. Well, now that this item if off my bucket list, I can go back to jump training!

I Am A Professional Athlete

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:00:35 GMT

Wikipedia defines professional sports as those in which athletes receive payment for their performance, and play for pay I have. One week removed from last week's paid bowling outing, Oracle held another party in Menlo Park this past Friday consisting of food, music, and activities to continue celebrating our product release. My fellow group members and I signed up for the potato sack race, a friendly four-legged relay competition between eight teams. To be honest, I did not have high hopes for our team of programmers. Sure, we did well at bowling, but rolling a ball, albeit a heavy one, hardly requires physical prowess. Because there were only four lanes, we competed in two heats. We won our heat easily (with a torn sack that more closely resembled a skirt) to make the finals. Our adversary in the finals was stiffer competition. Trailing slightly entering the final leg, I leapt and bounded to recapture the lead and win the race. Hey, it's what I'm paid to do. Our prize was a rice cooker, a vacuum thermos, a 52-oz. keg, and 4 3-lb. dumbbells to split among the 4 of us. I ended up with the keg. Though the festivities weren't over, my coworkers and I triumphantly and excitedly made our way back to the Oracle-bound shuttle. I know I have a promising career ahead in potato sack racing, but success does get boring. Just ask MJ. If I break any more builds and this programming job doesn't work out, I can always go back to being a professional athlete.

52 weeks down, 1948 to go

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 05:30:22 GMT

July 14th marked my one year anniversary at Oracle. On Friday, the company took us out for lunch and bowling. As I looked down the long Hogwarts-like dining table, there was one Caucasian and three women among the 36 members present. About 70% were Indian, and the remaining looked Chinese. Equal opportunity employment at its best. Oh, and in case there was any ambiguity, the party was to celebrate a release, not me :(.

How I have grown in this one year:

I understand many more of the concepts at work. I get pulled into more meetings now, and sometimes I stay awake because I actually know what people are talking about.
I know where and when to find leftover conference food. M lunch, Tu breakfast and lunch, Fri lunch. Eventually I'll expand my horizons to other floors and building as well until every meal is covered.
I think I'm more caring now. I'm more willing to drive long distance or spend time and money for others' sakes. The past two times I went to Berkeley, I really enjoyed playing basketball at People's Park and bonding with the locals. I ran into 3 of the guys who I met a month ago, and they still remembered me as well.

How I have not grown this year:

I still get super sleepy in the afternoons.
Recently, I trapped two spiders in a jar and hoped to see them fight to the death. It was super boring though. The large spider just shriveled up eventually.
I'm keeping track of whether or not I'm doing something productive each time my boss walks by. So far the count is 4-3 in favor of unproductivity.

Work is a constant cycle between periods of soporific slowness and stressful stints. Compared to the people who hate their jobs and only do it for the pay, I feel like I have it really good. I definitely don't dislike it, and the amenities such as the gym are great. I can see myself staying with Oracle for a while. Through this past year, we had our ups and downs, but we emerged from every trough with a strengthened relationship.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:48:30 GMT

While sitting bored in the privy the other day, I picked up my brother's copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and began to flip through it. It's surprisingly entertaining!

Here's some quotes I enjoyed:

1. Today at school we got assigned to reading groups. They don't come right out and tell you if you're in the Gifted group or the Easy group, but you can figure it out right away by looking at the covers of the books they hand out.

2. Like I said, Bryce is the most popular kid in our grade, so that leaves all the rest of us guys scrambling for the other spots. The best I can figure is that I'm somewhere around 52nd or 53rd most popular this year. The good news is that I'm about to move up one spot because Charlie Davies is above me, and he's getting his braces next week.

Yes, the book comes complete with humorous pictures. No wonder it was a New York Times bestseller. I had originally aspired to model my xanga posts after those of ESPN columnist Bill Simmons, but that requires way too much sports knowledge, movie trivia, and creativity. I think I'll settle with likening my xanga to Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Err...

I've had so many physical afflictions recently. In addition to my contorted pinky, single eye lid, crooked nose, and rash, I now have these bumps on the back of my head. Okay, I lied about one of the above. I went to the doctor, and the diagnosis was that it's either swollen lymph nodes or lipoma. Swollen lymph nodes could be a symptom of an infection somewhere, but at least it'll go away. Lipoma is just a naturally occurring, never-abating collection of fat. I suppose it's that pasty, nasty stuff you find under chicken skin sometimes.

I guess it could be worse. I was fearing cancer going in, but the doctor didn't even mention that as a possibility. Call me paranoid, but hey, who knows? I've been eating terribly unhealthily, resorting to frozen or canned foods 80% of the time I cook. With a full time job, I'm also undergoing a huge lifestyle change, exercising much less than before. This reminds me of the time I went to a doctor worried sick about a bump on my body; turns out it was just a symptom of puberty :).

4th of July Weekend

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:51:47 GMT

The festivities jumped to an early start with my trip to the Academy of Sciences Thursday night. I've been longing to visit every since they reopened and launched their campaign to portray the museum as a hip, revolutionary place. I went with CPC people to attend the weekly Nightlife event, where the musuem opens from 6-10pm on Thursday, brings in a DJ, clears out a dance floor, serves drinks, and reserves admission to those 21 or older. I didn't find any of the exhibits particularly special, but the whole atmosphere was fun. I saw quite a few familiar faces, including a bunch of people from Saratoga High. The most unique feature of the museum was probably the "living roof", a landscape of rolling green hills that bears an eerie resemblance to Teletubby Land.

I had the day off on Friday, so I decided to finally commence my half-marathon training. After running only 2.5 miles, I was exhausted (and was sore for the ensuing 2 days). In my defense though, I sprinted two 100m segments in an attempt to preserve my fast twitch muscles. If I hope to finish the 13 miles, I'm really going to have to start running more.

Saturday, July 4th, I spent the entire day at home playing board games. First, we played a few games of Scrabble, then Pictionary, then Nerts, and we capped off the evening by watching one of my favorite movies, Hero. I hope my brother's interest in Chinese martial arts stories was piqued after watching this movie; I further encouraged it by reenacting scenes from the movie with him. Ideally, after he gains interest, he may then start picking up those Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon type books and in so doing improve his Chinese. This was the first time in years that we didn't go out to watch fireworks, but it was worth it.

Sunday, after church, the "cycling club" folks dropped by my house and kidnapped me. We then proceeded to drop by various friends' homes. On our bikes, the neighborhood seemed to shrink to a college-era size, where everyone was readily reachable. That was a great feeling.