Technology and more

I am not your fucking teacher

2008-05-20T05:04:00.000-07:00

I know a lot of you take Paul Graham seriously and he had said, for a startup every customer is valuable. No, I am not going to spend the next forty give minutes trying to find that advice. You can either take my word or fuck off.

Thirty minutes into John's house and I've got two thoughts in:

Jump off the second floor window, or
Look the old man in the eye and simply tell him to give me some fucking space.

It's been a little over six months since I went freelance and it has been a great fucking ride. I can talk about the woman who called 1am in the morning asking me to play tennis with her next day, the guy who called me 15 times cuz I refused to work on his computer, or the guy who's been inviting me to his house for dinner in exchange of my service. In these last six months or so, I've ditched four regular customers. That meant regular streams of cash for one phone call. I did make one exception to that, and I will come to that at the end.

For the sake of time, let us simply get on with John here. Ten minutes into his residence/business and he's telling me about the old tech, Shawn.

'Shawn was too BRILLIANT for them and he would just fix things & leave'.

I examine Shawn's work, and so far the guy has done a pretty good job. But John here, wants me to not only fix things, he wants to be in control while I show, tell & explain to him how things work.

Well, I am sorry mister. But I am a tech/geek/nerd, whatever pleases your appetite. You see, I don't work that way. In fact, I ask very detail questions even before taking on any assignment. Not because I am scared, but that way I know what to expect. I tell my clients to make a list. I go through the list, demonstrate my work at the end and ask for any changes. What's that? You didn't get it??!! Here it is in three simple steps:

Give me a list of the things that needs to be done,
At the end, I will demonstrate the solutions to each problems on the list,
If you want any change, for your convenient ass, I will make that change and demonstrate again.

I guess not good enough for John. He is INFURIATED ( in his own word) after I setup his photo printer on the network without showing him or better fucking yet, having him do it himself. I am really sorry, but if you are trying to learn how things work so that way you don't have to call on me next time. You can either google crap yourself or just take a freaking class at your local university. In this instance, it would be a class on networking,Windows 20000 would come in handy too. You get the picture here, I hope. If not, shit.

But instead of jumping off the window, I got out of there. I was suppose to be there for at least six hour, but after three hour, I just couldn't handle it anymore. Of course, I made sure to put things in order, organized, self-explanatory; not for John but for the next unfortunate tech. They kept insisting on me coming back, I simply don't fucking think so. I didn't even pay attention to if they got my name right on the check. I simply wanted out of that place.

Now let's talk about the exception I have made. The only exception I made is an art advisor. Why?

Because she will let me do my things while watching over my shoulder. She won't ask any question while I am fixing an issue on hand. She just wants me to show her what she needs to do to make things work properly and she will take extensive notes. Let me demonstrate with an example:

The art advisor, we will call her Sue, wants all her data backed up to her external drive. I can set up the program Sue bought to perform incremental backup every night automatically. Sue, on the other hand would rather backup data manually, herself. This is where Sue, will give me the time to setup the program while watching over my shoulder and not ask any questions or bother. Let me murmur/talk to myself. At the end, Sue just wants me to show how she can do the manual backup. In this instance, I take great pleasure in explaining how things work and walk her through each step giving her the time to take notes.

So, what is my philosophy here?! Well, life is too short my friend and not every customer/client is fucking worth it.

My usual browsing

2008-02-12T08:58:00.000-08:00

I usually start my day with a big cup of tea, browsing on my laptop. First, I will check all my emails. I have three different email accounts & go thru 'em all. From there, I will check my bank accounts for any unexpected charges. After that I will spend about 30 minutes on my Google reader. I have subscribed to bunch of RSS feds but I usually read only the following ones:

Lifehacker

Google News - Sci-Tech

Slashdot

From there I will usually spend the rest of the day on reddit & other sites reading on different topics. Amy winehouse checking into rehab or checking out doesn't interest me at all, I like reading about various science topics. With that said, I thought I would share some of the things I read/killed my times on this past weekend with either a brief description or my opinion.

1. Fish out of Water: Your Inner Fish: this is an interesting article. Basically it talks about the evolutionary transformation of mammal from fish & the limitation of our body. Then it presents five great examples to establish how we weren't designed but evolved.

2. The Repeater: the New York Times presents this opinion on how evolution repeats traits in different environment at the genetic level as well. It asks an awesome questions of multiple earths all beginning at the same time. Will we see different or similar organisms on each planet?

3. Venus & Jupiter in the morning

4. Top 10 Horror Movies of All Time: I remember watching Evil Dead 2 with my roommate. Funny, he couldn't sleep the next two nights. I loved it. An American Werewolf in London, remember vaguely since I saw it as a kid. Halloween, Jaws & The Exorcist are all awesome. After watching The Shining, every time I would feel light-headed. It's weired but always fun. I think it's fun to watch that movie when you are stuck home & office/school has been canceled due to heavy snow.

5. Evolution: Education and Outreach: this is actually a lot of articles put together by different authors. I am still going through 'em.

6. Do you understand evolutionary tree?: as the name says, this is part one. I came across this article on reddit. Great one & waiting for rest of the parts.

7. When the world's great scientific thinkers change their minds: My favorite of course is number 2, Steven Pinker. I remember reading the actual article he's referring to when he talked about we (human) have stopped evolving. Now to see him come out & say that ain't so, is fascinating. I also like number 3 & 8.

8. Tesla: The greatest hacker of all time: I am familiar with the name Teslar & his contribution. But I wasn't aware of his experiment in Col. Springs. It was simply great to read about it.

Well, there you have it. These are the things I have been wasting my time on this past weekend. Now, do not forget today is Darwin Day.

Happy Darwin Day to you all.

Well, if all these reading really got you bored here's something to cheer you up =)

Oh, Red Wine

2008-01-24T16:54:00.000-08:00

After a long day, I get home last Sunday, log on my laptop & start drinking my half bottle Merlot I bought over the weekend. The weekend was a trip itself. Went to Westwood after a long time. That Morning, I was at the library when JoEl called from LAX. He was in town & was checking to see if I am down to party.

Hell yeah. Saturday night I showed up at my old house with a Sam Adams 12 pack. I only had two & it took less than 2 minutes for the whole pack to disappear. Everyone was just having a great time after the guys won a game. Back to my bottle of Merlot, I finished the whole thing that night. I was simply tired, burned out.

I love tea & I drink a lot of it too. I also hate the stain tea leaves in the bottom of the glass. I can't even reach down there, how the hell I'm suppose to clean it. I hit the sack that night leaving some wine still in the glass. Next morning, I rush out of bed putting on some clothes, trying to brush my teeth at the same time while ignoring my glass with wine in it.

Two days passed & I still didn't touch the glass. That's dirty. A glass with red wine in the bottom.

On the third day, I got the chance to buy some salmon (love fish) & other vegetables. I marinate the salmon with some salt, pepper & butter and leave it out for 15 minutes while cleaning the dishes. And that's when I noticed my glass, my glass sparkling and there's no tea/wine stain in the bottom.

Nice. More reason to drink red wine now., eh?!!

My Curiosity

2008-01-08T07:45:00.000-08:00

Sunday night I spent about 20 minutes going through all the contacts on my cell & deleting the ones that I don't recall the name anymore, won't be talking to, will not need to or want to talk anymore. And then something happens. My curiosity takes over.

If I get my hand on another phone, I like to take it apart. See how it's assembled. I also like to take the SIM card from the other phone & plug it in my own phone. And vice versa. Also I will look for codes on the Internet & try it on my phone to see what I can do. Well, that night I got my hand on a ATT prepaid phone. Those one time phone you would buy to use for few days & then throw it away. It was a Motorola. First, I take the phone apart, then take out the SIM card & put it in my. Wow, 15 voice mail & a whole lot of txt messages. I always like to start from the end, it's easier that way to get a lot of info. I'm going through some of the txt when it hits me. These are all my txt messages. But what about the names? It's only showing the numbers & not the names. Having done this before I had a bad feeling. Immediately, I take the SIM out & put mine back in. I lost all my recent contacts. Fucking shit. Immediately, I tried to remember my brother's cell & couldn't. Funny I didn't panick, figured I can just ask everyone for their number again through facebook or myspace.

FYI: I am not a big fan of using either one. Never been a fan using bunch of lol....

But thanks to youmail, I didn't have to even do that. Youmail is a great service. It lets me customize the voicemail for each individual caller, a group & others not in my contact. I can listen to my voicemail online for free, respond to it with a click of a button & it doesn't cost me a dime. I love their service & recently I added all my contacts in my youmail account. So I spent the next about 2 hours going through all the names & adding them back on my cell. I still lost few business number that would've been nice to have on hand. But oh well. If I hadn't talked to 'em in 2 months I don't expect to talk to them anytime soon.

By the way, with youmail I can upload my own personal message to set it for someone specific. This way business caller hears a professional greeting while my friends get all the craps from me. Love you all guys....=)

UPDATE: I am really happy with youmail's service, but yesterday I stumbled upon Grand Central. From their FAQ section it appears Grand Central offers the same service as youmail (i.e. customized voicemail) with tons of other features as well. Some of the features include conference call, call recording & such. Recently Grand Central has been acquired by Google & their service is free as well.

Like I said, I like Youmail & I'm going to stick with them for now. But here's the link to Grand Central.

My New Year's Eve Celebration

2008-01-04T07:27:00.000-08:00

As the clock was ticking towards midnight, everyone is getting excited, thrilled to celebrate new year's eve. Around 11.00pm, I was home. The house was exceptionally quite. Jesse was in Hollywood, not sure where Eillen & Monica went out to. Everyone was out to welcome 2008. I put my phone on silent mode, sipped two spoons of Tylenol Multi-Symptoms Severe Cold, laid down wrapping myself in blanket & began to surf the Internet. I could hear the fireworks around 11.30ish. There was a nice rhythm to it. Listening to the fireworks I slowly began to drowse & before I knew I was fast asleep.

This was by far the lamest new year's eve I have ever had. I was suppose to be either in Westwood or in Delano to celebrate like everyone else, but didn't happen. Why?! Well, keep reading.

The next day, I don't have any energy left on me to even get up from bed. I lost my appetite completely, don't want to eat, can't get myself out of bed. By noon, I figured if I don't put something in my mouth, I'm gonna get worse. So, I went to McDonald's and ordered a large fries & two BBQ snack wraps. I couldn't finish the whole meal, but was enough to sip two more spoons of Tylenol.

Going back to the 31st, I went to see my doctor around 9.00am. Hoping to get in early & get checked out. Lo behold, his office is closed until the 4th on January. The next day someone told me about another doctor on Hollywood. I got her number that night. I dragged myself out of bed that morning around 9am, called the doctor's office & asked for the earliest appointment. Lucky me, I could see her that very morning at 10.30am. Great, even though she's not my doctor & it was going to cost me more but I needed, wanted to see someone fast.

10.30/45am I am at the doctor's office. I am sitting on the edge of the bed as she examines my eyes, tongues, ears & then my nose. She stops at my nose and says:

"Oh my god."

I am calm, waiting for the worst news. I knew something was up. It's been over a week since I came down with a nasty cold, fever & cough. I've never been this sick & I could tell I wasn't getting better at all. Next thing she hooks up a little tube in my mouth & asks me to breath through the tube and this machine is going on making whirling noise. After all done, she says I've got acute bronchitis & symptoms of asthma. Just fucking great. I had a feeling that I had bronchitis. Cuz 4 years ago when I picked up smoking I was diagnosed with this shit. But I haven't smoked since then so what gives?!

Well, according to her the traffic, the fucking polluted air is not liked by my lung. It's not the cold, cuz the cold here in LA does even stand a chance compared to Ks. More or less, I am used to extreme cold & it doesn't even fucking snow in LA, damn it! So, I got home that afternoon with 4 different medications. After taking the medicines, we head out to the Getty Center. We were suppose to go to the Long Beach Aquarium, but I was still feeling crappy & didn't want to be anywhere near water.

The Getty is an amazing place. It's an art museum. Initially, I was having a good time until my friend started nagging. He cares more about the women in tight clothes than an art preserved from 1738. That was really irritating me, soon I started to get a headache. Before I know, the headache was too painful. We decided to cut the whole thing short, grab something to eat & then go to my house. I needed some pain killer bad. I hit the bed early again that night.

I am getting better now, feeling somewhat better as well. And I better after paying $68.00 fucking dollars for 4 pills, only 4 pills. I still get a nasty headache from time to time. I can't wait to get well so I can go out & party. I asked the doctor if it was OK to go running, she said running is fine. It's been almost week & a half since I've run. Me & Jesse, we will be going out for a run this evening.

The Game of Life

2007-12-18T08:14:00.000-08:00

Recently, I came across this great article about "The Game of Life" by John Conway. I plan to watch the original BBC documentary this excerpt is taken from sometime this weekend, but here is a piece from it:

This is along the same line as Richard Dawkins' "The Blind Watchmaker." In his documentary Dawkins had done a similar experiment using a computer program.

“I have more confidence in the methods of science, based on the amazing record of science and its ability over the centuries to answer unanswerable questions, than I do in the methods of faith (what are they?).” -- David J. Gross, director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, Calif., and co-winner of the Nobel Prize in physics.

No Rooms for You, Period

2007-12-01T00:31:00.000-08:00

That is in my computer. Before running down all the details, let me say I'm absolutely anal about the programs, processes that can run in my computer. Of Course, I will download the next cool DVD Ripper. If I don't like it or it just doesn't do much of a good job, must go. Talking about not liking programs or processes,

I HATE ATT & YAHOO. OK, I do like Flickr and Yahoo Pipe. But I HATE ATT.

The horrible experience with ATT's unlimited long distance phone service 4 years ago did it for me. I did not want anything to do with them since then. Until Cingular (or SBC, the parent company of Cingular) decided to merge with the bastard. As fate would have it, right around that time I had also signed up for the family plan as my brother just started college & couldn't afford a cell phone. When I went to the find out about the family plan, the sales rep basically lied about the total monthly bill. Since then I have complained to Cingular/ATT several times. Their response acknowledging the reps misinformation:

You were issued a credit the month after you signed the 2 year contract with us.

Me: Yes, a $20.00 dollar credit. What about the extra $40 I'm paying every month now?

I'm sorry, but there's nothing else we can do about it.

Me: When is my contract over?

8/8/2008. Hmmm...that's kinda funny (lightly smiling)

Me: Mark my word, I will cancel my service with you that day & I will ask every one I meet to always choose something over you guys.

I used to be a big advocate of Cingular until the whole f#$%ing merge. After checking with all four companies (i.e. Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile & Cingular) I singed up with Cingular and I was happy, used to tell everyone about their great service & all. But that all has changed now.

Coming back to the issue of programs & processes, I spent about 4 hours helping my friend setup XP Pro in his new Acer Aspire M1610 that initially came with Vista and also helped him go online. And that's where my frustration begins. I will write my thought about the Acer on another post.

He signed up for the ATT Yahoo DSL service. As I'm setting up his machine, I also get on setting up the DSL. After setting up the modem, I can't simply go online without running their stupid installation CD first. It won't let me just configure the modem from a browser. I must run the CD first. Ughhh... I know what's coming already. After running the CD, Yahoo starts with changing my Homepage in IE with att.yahoo [dot] com. Why? Did you even ask my f#%#ing permission before doing that? Only if that was the end of it.

After rebooting the computer automatically, I got the DSL to work. Now I'm doing all this in my laptop since his machine is getting loaded with XP. After setting up the DSL, I go thru Add/Remove Programs & Program Files to delete all the ATT & Yahoo folders. After rebooting the computer, I get the screen that basically wants me to load the CD again as Yahoo will try to setup my connection.

What? I thought I got rid of you bastards. First, I check processes running in my machine. Hmmm...nothing. Then I check Startup Items & lo and behold there is one. It's called RecoverFromReboot.exe and that creep is in

C:\WINDOWS\Temp

So, I delete it from the Temp file, reboot the computer & picture perfect. So, why it made me so upset? Cuz

I should be able to setup the DSL without running the CD first
I don't need, want or care for Yahoo Installer
When I removed the program from my machine, it means I want it gone. So, all the programs associated with it should be gone too.
I wasted 10/15 minutes of my time trying to remove the craps from my computer
I also wasted 20 minutes with an ATT rep for a freaking password since for some mysterious reason that was never given but we are suppose to know it.

Well, enough ranting. Here's a great commentary

Ryan Seacrest's He..he or Ha...Ha

2007-11-18T15:40:00.000-08:00

Driving back from Delano early in the morning, I was getting bored listening to Radiohead's "In Rainbows" & Manny was passed out, asleep. Soon I started fiddling the stereo trying to find NPR. The closest I came was some station playing classical music. Hmmm...not bad. Early in the morning, kinda relaxing and I do enjoy listening to Mozart, Chopin every now & then. Soon Manny slightly raises his head,

"What the hell? Play something else"

Ughhh...I didn't say anything. I kept driving while looking for something else to listen to. That's when I came across Ryan Seacrest's 102.7 KIISFM. I think partly it was all the loud talking of 2 guys & a girl that caught my attention. Ryan Seacrest brought up something about when a guy send a SMS if he should write he...he.. or ha...ha? Which one is more manly & what not? Soon others started getting on the air voicing their opinion. I remember one girl mentioned something like if a guy ever send her a SMS with he...he, that's a big turn off & what not. I couldn't believe myself what I was listening to. With their long ass commercial breaks I could only handle it for 20 minutes or so until I simply turned the radio off.

Do we not have anything better to discuss than worry about if I should send a he...he or ha...ha txt? There's two problem here. One, I think most of us are becoming more & more opinionated. We want to express our opinions on everything, it doesn't matter if the person knows much about the subject or not. What matters, I express myself. Second, we would rather spend time on something mundane than focusing on real issues; address, discuss things that deserves some attention. I think we should have a National Silent Days (yes, I said days instead of day). It should be for at least two consecutive days where all the radio & TV stations will turn off. Similar to Nickeldeon's "Day of Play" with the exception that all of us will also keep quite, think and simply listen to others rather than expressing ourself.

So, why two days? Well, I figure day one probably won't affect us all or we won't realize the whole scope of it. But by day two, we should appreciate the benefit of keeping quite & just listening to others.

Few days later, along the same line I was thinking what can we do better than listen to Ryan Seacrest or worry about if a txt should contain he...he or ha...ha? I put together 10 suggestions in 5 categories & please feel free to make your own suggestions as well. I am listening =)

1. Own Physical Progress:
a. Take a walk around the neighborhood & at least go for a 4 miles or more walk
b. Instead of driving to Taco Bell, cook something at home. Emphasis lots of vegetables & fish

2. Own Emotional Progress:
a. Check out a book from the public library, something like "How the Mind Works" by Steven Pinker
b. Not so much into reading, worry not. Listen to podcast or audiobooks instead. My personal favorite LibriVox [dot] org. Here's the audiobook of "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin.

3. For your neighbor or friend:
a. Really good at making that Banana Cream Pie?! How about give one to your neighbor. Who knows maybe the old lady will keep an eye on your house next time you leave for a vacation
b. Going to watch "American Gangster" with your friend or just going out drinking. Pick up his/her tab

4. For the environment:
a. Watch either An Inconvenient Truth or The 11th Hour
b. Ride your bike or the bus to work instead of driving or simply carpool with other co-workers

5. For the poor:
a. Go through your closet, separate all the clothes you're never going to wear & drop them off at a Planet Aid box
b. Buy some can food & donate them to the Salvation Army. Do this one either with your child or your niece & nephew.

Enough telling everyone what to do. Here's something I thought was funny from Ed Kerbs Photography.

IT Freelancing

2007-10-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

Thanks to both Craigslist, myspace & Dice, I've been doing a lot of freelance work. I usually try to target small companies that can't afford a full-time IT staff, but needs someone to setup all their computers, shared drives, user accounts, do maintenance & troubleshooting from time to time, and such & such. It's a great experience as I get to meet with individuals, get to learn about their business & sometimes consult them on the kind of PC or software they should invest on. My first priority is to make sure the client has a reliable system that won't break all the time. It should be also affordable. It's better to spend few extra hundred dollars on a Dell Latitude over Inspiron. I'm also a big supporter of open source. I always advice people to try Open Office over Microsoft Office, Thunderbird over Outlook, Avira AntiVir over Symantec Norton, or Ubuntu over Xp, and definitely not Vista. Most people give me a blank look the first time I mention Open Source and that's when I take out my laptop & give a little demo of the things they would normally do on a proprietary software.

When working as a freelance I meet many different kinds of people with all kinds of unimaginable businesses. Like the time, I met a woman who called me around 12.30 in the morning to invite me to play tennis with her at UCLA next day. Excuse me, did I miss something here...??!! I never even talked about tennis with her before, ever.

I always try to get as much information possible from the clients before going over & working on something. This gives me the opportunity to prepare myself whether if I need to carry any extra hardwire or software with me. Alas, that doesn't happen all the time. No matter how much I ask about their particular problem, you can always expect something to creep up on you. For instance, the time someone asked me to help with her laptop. I showed up to not only her laptop, but her boyfriends desktop in the next office & the wireless internet as well. Now there's no wire running to his office but he wants to go online. I get on the phone with his boyfriend & tell him the alternative to running wire would be an USB Wireless adapter. Next question:

"Well, do you have it with you? How much is that gonna cost?"

"I don't have one on me, but you can get one at Office Depot..."

Well, isn't that a waste of my money. What's the point of you coming out & you can't fix the problem?..."

I respond angrily, "Most techs don't carry this kind of stuff with them unless you had mentioned beforehand. Beside, I was called to work on laptop with virus issues."

Right then his girlfriend takes the phone from me & talks to him.

Yet, at the end of the appointment just smile at them, give 'em a business card and ask for future appointments & referral to their friends. Chao.

Well, enough of freelance junk. Here's a cool video I came across recently. He's got few other nice videos on YouTube. Check 'em out.

Jesus Loves You - Part 2

2007-10-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've been listening to the Kean's "Under the Iron Sea." I love the album, especially Hamburg Song & Try Again are two of my favorites in it. I had a chance to see them last year at a festival in Lawrence. It was a great show. We got free tickets to the show & Keane did an amazing performance. Loved it.

Beside listening to Keane, I was a little surprised to find people here in LA are more religious & waving their bible than people in Kansas or even Oklahoma, Texas, Iowa or even Missouri. It's not unusual to see someone handing out church pamphlets at the bus stop, in front of a coffee shop, or someone signing some church song out loud in the bus. On one occasion I was reading Victor J. Stenger's "God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows that God Does Not Exists" at a park. When out of nowhere this older lady came up to me. She saw the big bold word God printed on the cover & exclaimed that I'm reading a book about God.

"Yeah, it's actually a different kind of book. It examines the existence of God." I told her as I tried to continue my reading.

"Oh, you don't believe in God? You know when you die, you will burn in hell forever unless you accept Jesus as your savior. " As she puts her hand on mine sitting next to me.

At this point I look at her angrily & tell her, I'm not interested. She doesn't care about that, she shuts her eyes as she starts telling me her memorized lines about accepting Jesus. By now, I began to get really upset. I move my hand from her grip. She stops & opens her eyes to see what's going on.

"Listen, I'm not interested at all. I don't care either. I just want to go back to my reading if you would excuse me now."

She gets up to leave. Before leaving she tries to hand me a pamphlet. I just ignore her going back to my reading.

Jesus Loves You

2007-10-10T08:27:00.000-07:00

As far as I recall, in Kansas there were only two times I came across someone trying to save me from hell. The first instance was, of course at the university. I started hanging out with few people I recently met. One day few guys asked if I would like to go to a drive-in movie in Kansas City. I was really excited about it since this was my first time at a drive-in theater. On our way, we stopped in Lawrence to pick up few more people, few great looking chicks too. I was getting more excited. So, we rolled in to the theater. Everyone got their lawn chairs out. Someone offered me one too since I didn't bring one. We all went to the little store inside the theater & grabbed something to munch on during the movie. I was feeling great. As the movie was about to start, everyone got up & got in a circle holding each others hand. I didn't know what was going on, asked someone & he said they were going to thank the lord Jesus before the movie. Huh?! Did I miss something?

So, I stayed out of the praying circle. Just watching. After the prayer, everyone claiming their sit back one guy came up to me. He wants to know why I didn't join them thanking the lord Jesus. I told him I am not very religious. He proceeded to tell me about the beautiful thing of accepting Jesus & so forth until he realized I wasn't paying any attention. Needless to say, I never hang out with them again.

The other instance was, I was hanging out with two of my friends & they asked me to take them to shopping. So, we went to Kohls. I left the girls to their shopping & I was minding my own business waiting for them outside. And then out comes this guy, we strike a good conversation about life, wife & what not. After a while, he starts telling me more about his family. How he's home schooling all his children & everything. I went to a private school myself, but the whole concept of home school really awed me. I was curious, I wanted to know how does it work, how do they go to college & all of that. After a while, he proceeded to give me few pamphlet & asked me to join their little school. Of course, I'm in college & I declined. He suggested I should at least check it out sometime.

Sony Vaio VGN-FE880E & XP

2007-09-12T21:45:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted anything. And I am truly sorry for that. Actually I've been going through a lot lately. Such as??!!

I just moved recently. It's really great to have a place, a room of my own & not share with anyone. It also sucks. Sometime I kinda wish if I had all the guys from the "Rugby House" around so I wouldn't feel so lonely. On the other hand, it gives me the time I need to focus on other things such as getting my certification out of the way.

Also, for the FIRST TIME in my life I got jumped recently. It was partially my fault because I was walking home at 11pm & txting my friend paying no attention to the my surroundings. All of a sudden this person jumped in front of me from a van, held a knife against my stomach & demanded money. We got in a little scuffle, I got out fine without paying him a dime. It's funny the way I reacted to the whole thing at that time. I could feel the knife against my stomach, but I wasn't thinking about that at all. First, I tried to ran from him, then I just stood there & talked to him. He did had an accomplice with him, a lady in a van that was blocking the whole thing from others by driving right next to us.

I was frustrated for next few days. I knew it was wrong, but I was mad, angry & I would look at everyone with extreme suspicion. But it wore off. Thanks to my hot neighbor who helped me get my mind of off it =). I did went out & got some self defense protection & pay a lot more attention while walking home.

On the other hand, I have been meaning to do some more detail posting here. Here are some of the things I have in mind:

1. I recently bought a Sony Vaio VGN-FE880E with Vista installed. I used Vista for less than a month & couldn't take it anymore. So, I rolled down to XP Pro. I thought I could just download all the drivers from Sony's website & good to go. Nope. Most of those drivers are only stupid Vista compatible so it won't work with XP Pro. So, I had to spend over 4 hours making each one work.

So, I plan to detail out the whole process for anyone wishing to rolled down to XP Pro.

2. I also plan to install Ubuntu 7.0 sometime & detail out that process as well. I haven't seen any reference for the VGN-FE880E on the web yet. If any of you've done it already or know of a site, please forward it to me. I would like to know as much as possible before doing this roll out.

3. This one is a little different. While running only a two mile today (it was getting dark & I'm still a little traumatized) I all of a sudden started thinking about the time I spent growing up praying to God asking for many many things. Anyway, I don't want to go on details now, but you may get the jest.

That is all for today. Have fun while you can.

How beautiful? very touching

2007-08-26T03:02:00.000-07:00

I first came across this great video on this blog. All I can say how beautiful? Very touching. Only if we were all like that.

If we were all like that without stressing over religion, political points of view and of other things.

Little Heaven in my backyard

2007-07-13T10:25:00.000-07:00

It's been 3 weeks since I've moved to LA. Different place, different flavor, different people, everything here is different. I realized now, I wasn't quite prepared for this sudden change. First week, I spent at my host family's house. Very nice people, I had a hard time eating & sleeping though.

I just got a place on Westwood near UCLA campus. I'm living at the Rugby house with bunch of Rugby players. It's a great time, we are always having a good time. I still miss my friends in Ks a lot. I've been thinking about visiting them sometime next month for few days, but then again I'm not so sure. Some of my favorite places in LA are: Point Dome, Malibu Beach, UCLA track, Chipotle in Beverly Hills, Nike Town, and few other places. I went to checkout the UCLA main library yesterday and it was OK. Westwood is not that different than Lawrence. Except there's only two bar in this college town & no pool table. Not a single one. That really sucks.

I am always used to running on dirt, like when I used to run on the levee by the Kansas River. I've been having a hard time running here on sidewalks. It has affected my training & my overall performance. Few days ago, I went out for a run as usual, but this time instead of going left I went right. Lo behold, there sidewalks are all dirt. It was an amazing feeling being able to run on dirt again, my feet was enjoying each strides. I was really happy. This is essentially a circle around campus, it's great except you can only go downhill or uphill. It's hardly ever flat & that really sucks.

Oh well, something is better than nothing, I guess.

Never...not on a Snickers bar

2007-06-13T19:53:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've been sleeping a lot. Just today I slept through the whole day. And that's not normal for me. Ever since as a kid usually I can't sleep more than 5 hours a night. So, sleeping all day took it's toll this evening when I went for a run. On my way, I was feeling really hungry. Quick stop at the Advance Auto for some engine oil (haven't changed my engine oil yet) and since there wasn't any energy drink, I bought a snickers bar. Bad Idea.

My plan was to eat only half of it, save the rest and eat it later. Once I started, it's as if I couldn't stop. I finished the whole bar. Went to the levee for a 4 mile run after eating the snickers. After the 1st half mile, I'm not feeling so well. Red flag. I was like, well maybe I will just run 3 miles instead of 4 miles. Which is what I did, I only ran 3 miles, but with many small breaks along the run.

I was feeling really fatigue, as if my body was still tired. My legs felt heavy. I think the reason is pretty clear as to why: 1) sleeping through out the whole day, and
2) eating a snickers just before the run.

Well, enough on that. My all time favorite runner is John Landy, but since there's hardly any thing on the internet of him here's something to enjoy, very inspiring:

Trip to chicago, PT Cruiser & PVD

2007-05-22T12:52:00.000-07:00

Friday morning I come in to work as usual. Around 10am check my gmail & I got an email about Paul Van Dyke playing at the Vision club in Chicago. By then I'm going nuts. This is my one chance to see him live. I call up Andrei & break the news. He's pretty excited & he's like lets do it.

So, we rent a car. I wish if we had gotten something better than a PT Cruiser. Me and Andrei, we both agreed, that car sucks. The gas mileage is bad, really bad. The seats are very uncomfortable, and the response is really bad. I would hit the gas expecting a quick pickup, but it would take ages for the car to pick up some speed.

Around 12.30am that night we leave Lawrence for Chicago. Andrei was so excited he throws my direction away & just starts driving. After driving for an hour, in MO we see a bunch of cops, firetrucks & ambulance in one exit. For no freaking reason, Andrei takes the exit. The firetruck are blocking the other way so now we can't even get back on the highway except to turn around. It turned out a FedEx truck was on fire on that exit. I had a feeling that Andrei doesn't have a clue on how to get to Chicago. So, I made him pull over at the Sheraton hotel, went inside & got directions from the desk clerk.

We arrive in Chicago around 9.30am on Saturday. Andrei suppose to have a hotel reserved, but he didn't do it & he didn't tell me about it either. I got really pissed this time. So, I suggested we check out the club, parking's in that area first. After checking those out, we had a huge launch. After the launch Andrei is tired. But remember I'm pissed?! So, we drove around from one place to another, went to the Public Library for next two hours trying to find a cheaper hotel & he's ass was getting more & more tired.

Anyway, we checked into Carlton Hotel. We both slept for 3 hours. Around 5pm, we went out to do some site seeing. We check out few areas around downtown. Come back to the hotel, take another quick nap & then get ready for the party. We went to the Vision club around 10pm. All I can say is it was simply awesome. That's all I can say. We got home around 6am in the morning.

We checked out around 1pm on Sunday, visit the Field Museum, then head back to Lawrence, Ks. The Field Museum is absolutely a great place. It's a 3 story building. We got there around 2pm & they closed at 5pm since it was Sunday. We only had the chance to see half of the 1st floor only. I definitely plan on going back to that museum again sometime.

This time, I had the hotel print out the direction back to Ks. I drove for the most part, except Andrei took over from KC to Lawrence. I would've drove that too, except remember what I said about the PT Cruiser sits. My back was hurting, going numb.

The gas price in Chicago was outrageous. The whole time we were there, we never filled up our tank all the way. Still we paid $3.65 per gallon. Nuts.

A Builder or a Solver?

2007-04-28T07:27:00.000-07:00

Last night over dinner, my brother made a comment. I didn't thought about then until much later in the night. This is how the conversation went:

"You know the difference between you and me?"

me: I just looked at him like what? What is the difference?

"You like Sci-fi and I like Thrillers."

Well, I know that already so, what's new about it? Well, he loves loud rock music, choice of movie: action & thriller. He also takes things at its face value without putting too much thought into it.

Whereas, I love trance, classical music also, and choice of movie: Sci-fi. Also, I question things, everything. I will also analyze things in my mind over & over before accepting it. This of course, brings us back to what I had mentioned on a previous post.

State of Trance & restaurant Menus

I think, usually people who's more into sci-fi movies can be categorized as builders. Meaning, from a Video Game perspective, they like to create the actual game. Create puzzle by asking more questions, through their imagination pushing the limit.

Whereas, people who likes Thrillers can be categorized as solvers. Meaning, again from a video game perspective, they are more concern with the aftermath. They like to play the game, trying on different paths.

So, which one are you? A Builder or a Solver?

Up late, FedEx Kinko's sucks, & Porsche

2007-03-27T12:27:00.000-07:00

It's 4am on Saturday & I'm up trying to figure out what to do after I'm done writing this post. Probably study Managerial Accounting a little. The plan was to sleep for few hours, get up, run 4/5 miles, then study. But I guess change of plan. Well, enough on that.

Last Thursday I needed to scan about 43 pages of document into pdf format so, I can email someone all the documents. First trip to FedEx Kinko's. My options?!

Option 1. Pay .40 cents a minute to use one of their computer and scan each (remind you again 43 pages of documents) page and then save it.

Option 2. Pay the clerk $6.00 dollar per page to have all the pages scanned & he will save it as a pdf. WOW

I asked him about the Scan option in one of their copier, but he said that can't be done. Since the copies isn't hooked up to any computer to store the files. And all this time I'm thinking this is FedEx. With this kinds of inefficiency how on earth are they still in business?! Of course, I opted for the 3rd option.

And that is, visit Copy Co, the local shop in town. Since I needed so many pages scanned, the clerk was nice enough to charge me only $20.00 dollars. Again I paid $20.00 dollars to get 43 pages scanned that he saved himself on my jump drive twice as a pdf and once more as a jpeg file. Just in case.So, what was the $20.00 dollars for?!

It would have cost about the same to get all those documents copied. So he was nice enough to just scan it for me but charge me less.

And that's why FedEx Kinko's sucks for being inefficient, wasting my time in their store.

Porsche: Between Ferrari & Porsche, I am not a very big fan of Porsche. But one of their recent commercial deserves some applaud. I love the commercial. For two reasons: First, the song in that commercial, and I think you can guess the second one =)

If you loved the song as I did, it's by "2raumwohnung" & the song title is "weil es liebe ist." I've looked all over the Internet trying to find the whole song, so far no luck. I love the song a lot, I might just get the whole album from Amazon.

State of Trance & restaurant Menus

2007-03-01T11:25:00.000-08:00

Most of my friends know very well, I'm a trance addict. Mostly that's really all I listen to everyday, of course every now & then I will listen to some classical music. But mostly trance.

For me trance is more than music, it takes me to another state of mind. When I am listening to trance, I can just wander off into a different world, interpret the music in my way, associate it with something pleasant. Rather than someone screaming about how love, life and just about everything else sucks in life.

I am more relaxed when I am listening to Trance. Of Course, I am crazy about DJ Tiesto, but there's also Kyau vs. Albert, Armin Van Burren and the list just goes on and on...When I go out for run, I listen to trance. I let the music dictate my pace. I know most of you are like what's so special about this one? Trust me, there's something different listening to trance while running. The music gives a different meaning to the whole run, sometimes I am running slow, sometimes I feel the air around me as I run fast. It's almost as if I can see myself running. If you are a runner, you want that kind of relaxation. You want to be in sync with your run. Anyway, so the question I've been asking myself, Why do I love trance so much? What does trance means to me?

Before I answering the questions, I would like to mention Dyske Suematsu did a really great job on his site DYSKE.COM talking about something along the same line. Dyske talks about why Americans don't like Jazz, I thought the article did a great job laying out his ideas on it. I don't want to spoil the fun so if you are interested here's the article link: "Why Americans Don't Like Jazz."

As I said before, to me trance is more than music, It's an innovation. Innovation?!!! How?!!! Well, trance is where a DJ comes in, takes a great piece of music and makes it even better. Evanescene's "Hello" is a great song, but The Trafictor vs. Gabriel and Dresden mix is even better, the mix took the whole song to a completely different level. And that's what trance is about, it's about taking something that already exist and make it better, more appealing to the mass. That's why within the trance community you find the same beat or piece of music played by many different DJs, but incorporating it with other musics or songs. The difference is, very good DJs also produces their own music along the line. I am surprise more people don't look at it that way or doesn't realize it. Well, maybe some day they will, again Dyske did a great job elaborating on this issue.

Now on the restaurant menus section. Last weekend, we were in Overland Park, Ks. It was past midnight and we were really hungry. Option 1: drive another 13 miles & go to Westport for some late night fun & food. Option 2: go to the Denny's restaurant few blocks from my Friend's apartment. Since I was the driver, I didn't wanted to drive another 13 miles, we went to Denny's. The food on the menu (i.e. the pictures of the foods) looked so good, we ordered some food. Since everyone was really hungry, I also ordered the mini burger & fries appetizer for everyone. The fries were OK, the burger's were rather dry. After finishing our appetizer we kinda lost our appetite to eat. The disgusts of the whole place & the food started to kind of sink in. One of my friend ended up boxing his food, it just wasn't that good.

Few days later, I am thinking about it & that's when it hit me. My hypothesis is, usually restaurants that has good, flashy menus will have lower quality foods served, whereas restaurants with a simple menu will have something more delicious to enjoy. The question is why? Well, I would say because since

1) Restaurant A has good, flashy menus, that cost x amount. The restaurant must allocate cost for that x amount. While allocation cost for menus, the food quality is low. Here restaurant A must constantly allocate money on making their menu look good since they have to keep up that image

2) Restaurant B has a simple menu and serves great quality, tasty dishes. Well since restaurant B doesn't have to allocate much on menu printing & so forth, thus giving them the flexibility to prepare something more appealing to the consumers in terms of taste.

Now, the quest for answer begins. From now, for the next six months, I will begin to document every restaurant I visit, and let's see where this hypothesis ends.

Any ideas or thoughts?!

credits:

1st Photo: ayu trance

2nd Photo: Overland Park, Ks

Science vs. Faith

2007-02-16T13:52:00.000-08:00

Thanks to wellingtongrey.net for this cool flowchart. It relates to one of my older post. In case you missed it, here's the link to my old post:

Difference between Science & Religion

Managerial Accounting, Science & Sleepless nights

2007-02-15T19:02:00.000-08:00

Last night after work, I had dinner and then just hit the bed right away. I was very tired. Got up around 2am to study for my the managerial accounting exam. I had to make sure I go over all the quizzes and in-class assisgnments. Went back to bed at 5am. I wanted to go to the gym before the exam, but got up around 6.40am. My exam was at 8am.

Enough about managerial accounting. This week on February 12th, the world celebrated Darwin Day. Although, the Darwin Day Celebration is only for a day, we can still do more to spread the knowledge, especially the proper knoweldge. If you want more info, check out Darwin.org. It has some very good & interesting contents.

On other notes, this week I also partitioned my HD, setup Ubuntu 6.06 LTS. Its like an addiction, doing this and that. I love spending time working on it. So far, I have done the basic stuffs like download firefox 2.0, MS fonts, MP3 player codec and stuff. Tomorrow I will probably spend time on setting up VMWare to access XP, so I can work on programs for work.

Simply Speechles

2007-02-06T21:33:00.001-08:00

Moving in bad weather

2007-01-16T10:30:00.000-08:00

This Saturday, I moved back to Lawrence from Topeka. The weather was horrible. It's been snowing the day before and very cold. I still took the chance and moved before school starts. The day I moved, I didn't go over 50 mph on the highway. I didn't care if people were getting pissed, I was not going to take any chance and wrecked the U-Haul truck. By the end of the day, I was completely exhausted. I had lost my appetite and could sleep either. I hate moving and carrying stuff.

And that's when it hit me. Maybe we should have move around instead of move in. I think especially college kids like us will love this one. As a student or in general, someone needs a bed to sleep, study table, dinner table, stereo to listen music, and TV to watch movies and stuff. So, the way it would work is like this:

I am moving to Lawrence. I need a two bedroom apartment. I check a website where I find Emily. She's got a two bedroom apartment and she's moving out of it. So, I will just take over her apartment while Emily takes over someone Else's. That way, we don't have to worry about moving any furniture with us and pay for a truck or carry stuff around. All we do is, transfer the utilities. That simple.

Anyway, while I doubt if this will ever happen, nothings impossible. I am glad to be back in Lawrence. Even though, I couldn't wait to get out of Topeka, here's a list of things I will miss about Topeka:

1. The Shunga Trail,

2. Governor's Mansion, and

3. the convenience of driving. I really liked being able to jump on the highway.

Apple Juice & Smirnoff??!!

2007-01-02T14:48:00.000-08:00

Yes, thats right. Apple and Smirnoff. Friday, had a party at my place. Me and Aya, we were going thru my fridge trying to find a mixer for the Smirnoff. She saw all these red apples. So, the mix is:

2 apples peeled,
2 shots of Smirnoff,
and ice.

All in the blender and it was good, very good. Peple loved it a lot. When we made it the 2nd time, the whole thing was gone in a minute. So, we had a to make once more for those who didn't get it in the first round. Its better to cut the apple in small pieces, helps to blend faster. And dont forget to take the seeds out.

New years eve was awesome. Me, Aya and Andrei went to Stuart's house. I had a tequila shots. Boy, it was nasty. I HATE tequila. I took Svedka, a swedish vodka. I really liked it. It's very smooth, I thought. Ended the night with Gin & Tonic.

Data Execution Prevention - Freaking Windows Explorer

2006-12-24T16:28:00.000-08:00

Friday night my laptop goes nuts on me. All I want to do is transfer some mp3s from my laptop to the Creative Zen Nano Plus for my evening run. Yes, I don't own an iPod and I love my Creative Zen. For $80.00 dollars it's simply awesome. Just drag & drop your mp3s or any file. Its that simple. No importing. Anyway, instead of copying my mp3s I get hit my this stupid Windows Error...ughhh...

At this point, all I wanna do is go run. So, instead of clicking on the "Close Message" button I just transfer the files first. I noticed if you don't click the "Close Message" which kills explorer, just open any folder from your desktop. Then you can brows to other areas within the folder. That's what I did, for the time being.

Later that night I fixed the problem, and here's what I did:

1. Shut down my laptop,

2. Restart in Safe Mode. For Dell its "F8" before the splash screen,

3. Go to Start --> Control Panel --> System,

4. In System Properties click on Advanced --> in Performance click Settings,

5. In Performance Options click the Data Execution Prevention tab , click "Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select:" and select Windows Explorer,

6. Click "OK" and restart your computer in normal mode.

And it should be working fine. Once its all up and running you can enjoy reading this article by Sam Harris on the latimes.com. I think it's a well written article. Enjoy!

10 myths -- and 10 truths -- about atheism