So to celebreate my birthday I decided to participate in a poker tournement in the lucky chances casino, you can click on that link and see all the tournements that were played and check on June 23rd. Before playing in that tournement I had played a few smal ($5, $2.5,…) tournements online so I wasn’t expecting to lose quickly but I also didn’t think I was going to come into the money. Unfortunatly for my my birthday didn’t bring any luck.
Bullshit
One of the most talked about features of the web is the wisdom of crowds, with wikipedia the poster child of masses of people creating a better encyclopedia than Britanica. While it’s true that wikipedia is great for all pop culture related references for any hard science research I’d go to Britanica or better yet the university library.
That probably makes me old fashioned which is fine, I am after all transmitting this post via smoke signals. Negotiating the start up packets via smoke signals is hell if you don’t get your carrier pigeons just right.
As a side effect of how wikipedia works tons of people now think of themselves as experts even when they have no expertise whatsoever in the field they are talking about.
To me an expert is someone like Paul Krugman. Even though he teaches in Princeton and that by default makes him 50% douchebag he is an expert economist. He has won a Nobel prize, published papers gotten a PhD from MIT and when he publishes something online he backs it up with credible data. He doesn’t hand wave you can actually look into his math and it makes sense.
On the other side you have people like Penelope Trunk (not real name) who make up stuff as they go along. Reading her wiki profile is interesting to say the least. She passes herself off as an expert in entrepreneurship and having career, yet if you look at the results the only success she has had is writing about a career. She is a good writer but most of her advice is simply bad. As recently as 4 months ago she was writing about how Gen-Y was immune from the current economic disaster, now she is writing about how to deal with losing a job. Her company which touts Deloitte and Touche very prominently is focused on Gen-Y getting jobs through their “special network”, the problem is D&T is one of the worst places you can start your career if you are a recent graduate.
Ramit Sethi follows in her tracks, you can check out his website iwillteachyoutoberich, you should note that Ramit is not rich. Especially by Silicon Valley standards, yet he feels no shame in giving people crap advice. Don’t buy a latte, invest in a 401k,… the useless drivel goes on and one. For someone who is an expert in finance he sure has a lot of ads on his blog as well. You’d think he could afford to pay for the blog without a ton of ads. He won’t actually recommend which funds you should choose for a 401k or how to balance the 401k, you know the important stuff that takes skill to figure out.
On the other side a real career coach looks like Marshall Goldsmith. Check out his bio then check out his website. Note that he has credentials, experience a track record… things that you don’t see with Ramit and Penelope. Oh and Marshall has a bunch of free stuff that you can read which will help you along a career a lot more than all the advice Trunk has written.
So last time I talked about all the good things that have happened to me. So this time let’s talk about some of the bad things. I had one of the worst moments of my life on the day Kian was born.
When Kian was born I was waiting to hear him cry, a few seconds passed and I didn’t hear a cry so I went over to where they were working on cleaning him and asked why he wasn’t crying, the doctors seemed really busy but they spared a few seconds to tell me everything was fine but he wasn’t crying because he had some fluid in his lungs and they would clear it out. The next time I looked over they seemed to be more agitated, they had a tube down Kian’s throat and a machine was making sucking sounds. It turned out the liquid in his lungs was thicker than they expected, they still told me not to worry and this happened all the time. They were going to take him to the newborn room and clear out his lungs there.
I checked on Tina and after making sure she was ok ran down two flights of stairs to the newborn room where other babies were happily crying. I resented all of them, the nurses had him on an oxygen mask but they still could not clear out his lungs. At this point he had an IV line in addition to three different monitors, one for his heart rate, one for how hard he was breathing and the other for how much oxygen he was actually getting. They assured me he would be ok and Tina would soon be transferred from the delivery room to a room next to the newborn room.
to be continued when I am not so sleepy 
—
ok not so sleepy now so let’s continue this story.
The hardest part came when the doctor on call came in to tell us they had to transfer him to another hospital because they did not have a Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in that hospital, they brought over a big machine with lots of blinking lights and said he would be transferred via a special ambulance. They claimed the other hospital didn’t have any room so the only way I could take Tina with me was to have her discharged.
So 5 hours after having given birth Tina was discharged and we started to drive back and forth between San Mateo and Santa Clara. The next 3 days were blurry and I really don’t remember much, sleep drive to see the baby, come back home a few hours later, sleep go back to see the baby.
The good news was that Kian was discharged 3 days later from NICU, according to the doctors he’s perfectly healthy (he cries whenever he wants now) and he won’t have any issues as a result of this incident. He’s about 12 pounds now and already outgrowing the first baby clothes he wore.
Here are some more pictures of Kian
June 14th, that’s the date of my last post on this blog, since then a lot of things have changed. Life really couldn’t have gone any better and anything I’d post on the blog would have sounded like simple bragging so I decided to not post anything, I was just having too much fun to spend any time in front of a computer.
On the job front I was pretty busy traveling all around the world and now being comfortable enough in my role that I could actually enjoy the travel made a big difference. We are going through some changes and according to a personality test I recently took I thrive on change so I can’t complain. Sure there are details here and there that could be a lot better but I get to work in a small group with very very smart people. Being able to depend on your co-workers makes work a lot easier.
I was also accepted by a pretty good school, this was a goal of mine for a while and I was pretty excited when I archived it. I am a pretty competitive person and competing against a lot of smart people is fun. You never know what they are going to come up with. The classes for the first year are already picked for you so that makes it a bit easier to concentrate on simply accomplishing the tasks we have in the class. BTW the program has a blog and they were looking for new contributors when I showed them this blog as an example of my blog worthiness they decided to pass, that alone should tell you how picky they are, after all this is an amazing blog
Finally on the family front, little Kian was born about 3 weeks ago. People say becoming a parent is a life changing event and I disagree. Any big change is a life changing event, a new job, moving to a new location, getting married… Becoming a parent is similar, right now the baby just eats, burps, farts and poops. If you are not careful he will also pee on you. He wakes up twice every night for a 3am and 6am feeding. So you take that into account and deal with it, not having a full night of sleep means you have this buzzing sound in the back of your skull all day long but coffee seems to fix it.
Work, school and life they all take time and so I have cut things off, I don’t read/post on the expat taiwan forum anymore, I don’t read as many blogs, I’ve given up finishing some books, I haven’t watched the first half of the last episode of Lost or the new episode of entourage. I did however finish my work project, my econ homework and made sure to hold the baby as much as I can. I’ve had a few classmates comment that my life must be hell with a ton of deadlines and maybe I am just not good at recognizing pressure until I can’t beare it anymore but honestly it’s not that bad. Anyone who has spent time outside of US/Europe knows how hard life can be in a third world country, having to get up at the crack of dawn and spending all day long on a farm for a few dollars, now that’s hard work.
The tempura has just been fried, they bring it to the table and I sprinkle the green salt on top of it. The taste is amazing, the crunchiness of the tempura perfectly accentuated by the salt.
The meal is amazing, every aspect of it a search for perfection, the grilled fish, the sushi, the crab cocktail, the almond cream topped with honeydew,… it’s the pinnacle of someone’s search for the absolute. This is in many ways the most perfect meal I have ever had. I have eaten at more expensive restaurants but never have this many people paid this much attention to my meal.
We are at a ryokan in Nikko, it is my honeymoon. I am wearing a yukata and was soaking in a hotspring an hour before this dinner. I remember watching Anthony Bourdain having a similar meal in Japan, I remember thinking that was a meal I would never have. I am glad I was wrong.
Japan is a bit strange for a honeymoon destination, but it is perfect for us. We considered a beach or a cruise and outside of a Greece where a good friend of mine lives beaches just weren’t that interesting for our honeymoon. Many of my recently married friends have gone on to beaches for their honeymoon, the more they are willing to spend the more exotic the beach becomes, the whiter and softer the sand, the more attentive to your every wish the staff. In Japan no on really cares that it’s our honeymoon, heck it’s a challenge to communicate what we want sometimes. But with that price comes a reward, the amazingly diverse food, the fun toys, the wacky clothes.
This might not be the most luxurious honeymoon we could have planned but it is the funnest one. Yesterday on our way to visit some ancient temples we got sidetracked by a 6 story building. To call it a toy store would give entirely wrong impression, it contained rack after rack, floor after floor of interesting and intricate little things. Small robots designed to run away from sound and try to hide away from you, tiny puzzled that you put together with tweezers, shiny bouncing balls that do weird things when you bounce them,…. And of course we did make it to the temples eventually, we donated a few hundred yen to some deity and enjoyed a cup of iced green tea.
Nikko is a gorgeous destination, most people spend only a day here visit the temples and then head on to other more popular places. We did the tourist thing today and visited the major temples, the next 3 days are unplanned and we probably will spend them walking around and trying the local restaurants and bakeries.
My cell phone doesn’t work in Japan, there is no internet in the hotel, I am really enjoying being cut off from work. I can see work and life gathering up like a wave that’s going to come crashing down on me in September. I am ignoring it much like a swimmer paddling in the surf. I can’t do much to change the wave’s path so I am going to relax now and take it easy and order another batch of fresh tempura.
Bob waited, he could hear his heart beat, each beat loud as a drum stroke in the sudden silence of the room. Finally the old penguin broke and spoke first.
“This is too much we can buy a cheaper model”
Bob didn’t blink an eye, this might have been the biggest deal of the quarter but you couldn’t have told anything by Bob’s demeanor. Crystal smooth Bob rolled with the flow.
“Of course you could, there are always cheaper alternatives, you could build your own traps”
The news story lay silent between them, a polar bear had broken through the defenses of a small town further north by the time they had gotten the place under control again they had lost 34 penguins. Bob didn’t need to say this, cheaper alternatives spelled it out easily enough at the same time implying that the old penguin’s town couldn’t afford the latest technology which they both knew wasn’t true.
“What about the smaller model, couldn’t one of the smaller models do as good a job ? “
A smile twitched behind Bob’s face yearning to break into his face, Bob locked it down. The deal was done they were simply arguing about price now.
Bob nodded towards his engineer who started to speak a bit too rapidly for Bob’s taste but that was engineers for you. All tech and no polish.
“Well based on the population and ice composition here we could go with the JR423 but that will leave you open to air assault and heat seekers. With those vectors open you can expect a loss of 23% per year, we could tweak the command module but even that’s not going to get you more than 1-2%, the last upgrade optimized the circuits pretty well, to get 99.995% coverage you the XW2000, it has the flack counter strike built in…”
Bob cut in smoothly, it was Joes first week on the job and he still had a lot to learn, the deal was done and Bob was going to cut him some slack but there was no need to spend more time than they had to.
“That’s 4 winters for 4500 bars of compressed shrimp, plus whatever amo and tranining you’ll need”
“You’ll include the training for free ?”
Bob nodded reluctantly, let the old penguin think he had gotten something for free, the training didn’t matter that much most of the system was automated, the profit on the amo would more than cover the cost of sending Joe out for a few days to shoot at decoy polar bears.
The belt buckle clipped in with a solid metal click and Bob relaxed into the plush first class seat on the hypersled, it would be another 8 hours before they got back home. The warm kiss of high quality whisky bit through his throat. He didn’t realize how stressed he had been throughout the call, sales conditioning had locked the stress and worry away during the call and now that they were done it was time to pay the price.
“Do you think it was fair to charge them that much ?”
Bob looked back towards Joe uncomprehendingly. Then his brain replayed the words back.
“Do I Think It’s Fair ?” Bob repeated the question softly but Joe flinched back from the look in Bob’s eyes.
“Do you want to be right or rich Joe ?” Bob stared straight into Joe’s eyes until the other looked away.
“It’s a simple question Joe, which one do you want more ?”
“sorry man, just making conversation” Joe looked at his feet and stayed silent.
Bob finished his whisky in one gulp and looked back at Joe.
“ You can give him 200 rounds free, when you are up there training them if it makes you feel better. But lock it down, you are in sales now.”
The rest of the flight was devoid of conversation.
I am probably too old and that’s why I remember Conan the Barbarian, now there is a new movie coming out about Genghis Khan and it’s exactly the same as Conan. A young boy loses his family, trains hard and goes on to conquer the world as was proclaimed by the high priests. How does a movie like this get made ? Are you doomed to see repetitive movies once you are past 30 ?
Everyone is going nuts about twitter which I still think is absolutely useless unless you are in college or have a ton of time on your hands to play with the facebook apps and read multiple peoples twitter feeds.
I getup an hour later, shower and head out to town. Besides a few lone runners and a large group of people decked out in expensive biking gear there is no one around. I find a coffee shop with 2 penguins as their logo and order a hot chocolate. There is nothing better than drinking or eating something while exploring a new town. The sky is overcast and there is a chill wind, Auckland looks nothing like the Shire. I wonder if people would get offended if I ask for directions to the Shire but not wanting to be a jackass tourist I don’t ask anyone. All the gift shops are run by mainlanders from China. I speak to a few and they are surprised at my Mandarin, they don’t give any discount for our shared language.
Auckland is a nice city, nice is a word that you can apply to a lot of things in New Zealand. They have nice sheep, nice views, nice people, nice food…. It’s just all very nice. Can’t complain.
It’s lunch time and I look for the dirtiest kebab shop I can find. Whenever I am on the road I look for the dirtiest, grimiest food vendor I can find. That’s how I keep it real with my homies.
The kebab sucks, I try to wash it down with an equally dirty pearl drink and the pearl drink sucks as well. It’s probably the worst pearl drink I have ever had, I make a mental note not to buy a pearl drink from someone who speaks Cantonese ever again. Or rather I should avoid places that don’t mind cockroaches freely walking around.
I walk by Starbucks, Wendy’s, Dunkin Doughnuts and Burger King. If there is a Shire anywhere around here I am sure it has a McDonalds in it.
Gambling is legal here and there’s a large casino next to my hotel. I walk in and I could be anywhere in the world. Vegas, Atlantic City, … The sounds are the same and the people have the same blank looks as they drop quarter after quarter into the machines. There’s a poker room, I know I’ll be back.
I walk around town and don’t take any pictures. I’ve stopped taking pictures on my trips. There is no point, if you want to see any of the locations just do a Google image search or go on Flicker. Earlier this year I was looking at a friends picture, he had recently been to Japan, he had also gone to Kyoto, he had incidentally also gone to the same temple in Kyoto that I had been to. His picture of the fountain in the temple could have been a copy of the picture I had taken at the same location 3 years earlier.
So I am on strike from picture taking until I figure out a way to make the pictures unique or interesting.