Memos from June 2005

The Future Is Bright

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The future is real­ly, real­ly bright! Today, I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sit down with my com­pa­ny for a meet­ing with Tick­le Founder/CEO James Cur­ri­er. Tick­le was for­mer­ly eMode.com (if you don�t know), which was bought by Mon­ster World­wide last May. eMode.com, or should I now say Tick­le, pret­ty much gave out tests for per­son­al­i­ty, IQ, favorite num­ber, your oppo­site-sex type, what kind of dog you are, etc. The list is pret­ty much end­less even back then.

Mean­while, even though the time allot­ted for the com­pa­ny sit-down went over, way over, I real­ly learned a lot. More than I was expect­ing. Rein­forc­ing what Mon­ster Founder Jeff Tay­lor quot­ed a few weeks back (in his own sit-down ses­sion with us), “Big ideas don’t cost no more than small ideas.” Bot­tom-line, GO BIG OR GO HOME.

But that�s were it�s some­what an argu­ment as well. Some great com­pa­nies now start­ed with small ideas as well; so it can go both ways too. But what I’m get­ting from it is, don’t be restrict­ed to think big in the beginning—or think and dream at all.

One thing that I found very inter­est­ing from James’ pre­sen­ta­tion was that the Inter­net is just bare­ly get­ting start­ed. New tech­nolo­gies are being thought of every­day. Some of these to note are: AJAX, CSS2, XML, RSS and Atom Feeds, etc. Yes, some­times we think that all great ideas (that can make us mil­lions) are thought of already. But that�s one thought process we should­n’t bar us from extend­ing our cre­ativ­i­ty and imag­i­na­tion.

For exam­ple, look at the suc­cess sto­ry of Google. Before it, there was Yahoo, Lycos, AltaVista, etc. But how did it become suc­cess­ful? You may ask. It was through peo­ple; and small talk. Seri­ous­ly, I did­n’t find out about Google through ads or any­thing like that. It was through one of you. “You should try Google out. It’s real­ly sim­ple to use.” Right? Right.

Virility—to say it in all in one word. It�s just fun­ny to how this is true with Google’s recent prod­uct, Gmail. How did peo­ple find out about this? Well, it all start­ed prob­a­bly when the Google peo­ple went to a par­ty and met some peo­ple from Blog­ger and said,

Hey, we’d like to push our new email sys­tem out. How about if we invite your (Blog­ger) mem­bers to try it out?

So the idea sparked. Blog­ger mem­bers got the Gmail invites. Then they were sold on eBay for $100–200 the first few days. I think it�s those damn geeks that want­ed to reserve their new email address. Pret­ty much get first pick from the creme of the crop.

Any­ways, I am learn­ing a lot from these com­pa­ny sit-downs. It shows: how peo­ple react to busi­ness; how peo­ple react in busi­ness; how ideas are made, and how those ideas make oth­er ideas; etc. The list of the things I’ve learned so far has exceed­ed my expec­ta­tions in the past three months I’ve been here; and the fact that there is more to come makes it even more excit­ing and a priv­i­lege to work for ’em. That, and to serve those peo­ple who pro­tects our freedom—the troops.

From my mind to yours, keep think­ing. Keep explor­ing. Use your imag­i­na­tion. Net­work your­selves and don�t be scared to fail or fall from those small and/or big ideas. After all, we fall “so we can learn to pick our­selves back up.”

Back Up North By Southwest

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Damn, that was one rough flight com­ing into OAK. Don’t do it again SW, or… NO SOUP FOR YOU! (I’ll update this entry lat­er today, sooo tired from the week­end… lots of stuff to write about. Good times.)

I flew down this past Thurs­day night by SW. Seems that they were delayed by 30. But oh well, I got to do online checkin and got sat with group A—yayer! First time I actu­al­ly got to sit with that group, as its usu­al­ly C and a cou­ple of times in B. I just dont like sit­ting in the back cause by the time you get your drink (for an hour flight) you’re already land­ing.

Fast-for­ward to Sat­ur­day
Woke up pret­ty late, as late as 11am. Yah I know, thats pret­ty ear­ly for a Sat­ur­day but I’ve been get­ting up pret­ty con­sis­tent­ly around 8am on the week­ends for some rea­son unknown. Got ready and went with my bro to his band’s prac­tice in the val­ley. Man oh man, it was freakin’ nice, warm weath­er. Its been a while since I have worn shorts and actu­al­ly felt com­fort­able to wear through­out the whole day and night. But yah, these suck­ers are crazy when they prac­tice. I took some doc­u­men­tary of it as well.

Mean­while, 5:30pm rolls around so fast that we were in a rush to get back because of Tinz’ hula recital (which was first-come first-serve seat­ing). I guess its real­ly true when you’re hav­ing fun, time flies. And as a char­ac­ter­is­tic of LA, good ol’ fash­ioned traf­fic (plus smog of course). Oh LA traf­fic, how I miss thee…

I final­ly got home to change a bit. Might as well, so I can just go straight to the club right after. But yah, I real­ly want­ed to take pics of Tinz’ show but could­n’t cause there was this huge ass doo­ds with sarongs(?). Kin­da like the ones that are on those “hawai­ian pow­er” shirts. Yah man, alo­ha to you too brotha. Fur­ther­more, the stage was real­ly damn close to us, thanks to the patience showed by BelLou.

Flash­doms
It was Jevon, Jua­na­ton, Tom­my, Ryan, Jovan­horne, Cice­ly, Jay, Bel­Lou, and I attend­ing. I swear, we were like the press—a cam­era per indi­vid­ual. Even though they were strict about the cam­era, Lou man­aged to get some cool pics since he got the great seat—right up the mid­dle and away from the “mus­cles” to see. Besides that, I learned that you can use nylon (from under­wear) to make the harsh­ness of the built-in flash of dSLRs soft­er. I am label­ing that thing as a “flashdom”—kinda like a con­dom but for flash, keepin’ it safe from over­ex­po­sure-titis. And who bet­ter to teach me this? Yes, its him, Con­fu­cious rein­car­nat­ed… Jua­na­ton. I tell you, those “flash­doms” are gonna be a great hit.

Feel the Aura
The hula thing went well, kin­da remind­ed me of PCN but no “Cel­e­bra­tion” song. I was glad some­what that it was done as it took a long time to fin­ish. The head guru (I guess) planned giv­ing out the raf­fle stuff at the end; which dragged for more than 30+ min­utes or so. I was step­ping on it to go back home cause I left a bat­tery for my cam­era.

But alas, I got to the Rhythm Natives’ album release par­ty and show @ Aura Night­club in Stu­dio City. I was stress­ing out cause it was daaamn packed. The line was extend­ed pro­l­ly a good 100 feet; and that aint sin­gle-file. I freakin’ just paid $11 for VIP park­ing since I know I ain’t drink­ing cause of meds. Got out quick­ly with all my gear and pro­ceed to call T (my bro’s gf), which did­n’t pick­up… thanks. So I rushed through the back and made my way inside. First time I’ve ever done that; got lucky cause there weren’t any bounc­ers when I went through.

I took quite a lot of pics, or tried too. It was way packed inside, more than I was expect­ing for a gig like their usu­al ones. I tried tak­ing clear pics but that was a prayer since I had no clear sight to take a good expo­sure on. But any­ways, I got a hand­ful show­ing how great of a show it was. If you haven’t heard any of their stuff, you can go to www.rhythmnatives.com. Go and sup­port, they’re real­ly good—surprisingly.

Besides hear­ing that Lil’ Wayne was there, we saw JC Chasez with a cou­ple of hot ladies. Did­n’t real­ly get to take a pic of him, I shoul­da cause I just remem­bered that Gwen like that dood (if I can recall). But yah, he had some weird haircut—I think it was a mul­let.

Great Week­end
Got to see the doods/doodettes from Irvine, the fam and catch anoth­er RN gig—a band on the come up, I swear! And oh yah, got to eat one of my favorite late night spots—Sanam­lu­ang! Man oh man, can you say “mmm mmm good” in Thai?!

From my mind to yours, sup­port my bro and his band—the Rhythm Natives.

South By Southwest

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Fly­ing down on a Thurs­day evening with noth­ing else in my head but the cool sum­mer breeze of LA. That and smog… mmm mmm good. But what else can we expect on a week­day trip back­down to SoCal? Well, I have appoint­ments Fri­day, all day. Not the kind of appoint­ments that are for busi­ness but the ones that can help YOU—medical and den­tal… yes’m.

It starts w/ my quar­ter­ly thing that I get myself to do, a blood test. Yes, a blood test and quar­ter­ly tak­en. Why quar­ter­ly? You may ask… Because I might as well use my med­ical insur­ance for some­thing oth­er than injuries or emer­gen­cies. Think about it, if you’re pay­ing $20–30+ per pay­check, thats about at least $480 per year (with a biweek­ly pay). Besides pay­ing that much, a reg­u­lar blood test (and med­ical check­up) is great for you. You get to know how you are doing with your diet; diet as in eat­ing food, not the kind of diet you lose a grip of weight with.

Besides, I also was cough­ing (more like dry-cough­ing) for a cou­ple of weeks after being sick with a cold and flu. Its just been weird because every­time after I catch a cold/flu, I would have the same thing. So any­ways, after being checked up by our fam­i­ly doc­tor, he said that it might be some kind of aller­gy. Which sur­prised me a lot because I nev­er real­ly had any aller­gic reac­tions, ever—well now theres at least one, after being sick. I think it all start­ed because of the fires in south OC and north­ern SD last sum­mer. All that ash and debree just aint goood for you, espe­cial­ly when their freak­ing small par­ti­cles that you cant even see. Bot­tom­line, BAD.

Well, after chill­in’ with the doc­tor, I went straight to my den­tist were they start­ed the pro­ce­dures to get my crown replaced. They took off the old crown. Cleaned and main­tained the space where it came from, and then put back the old crown as a tem­po­rary till I get the new one in two weeks. Man o’ man, it was just messy.

They inject­ed me twice; one inside and the oth­er out­side, gum-wise adja­cent to the tooth. I was just like Beethoven. Not the musi­cian, but the freak­ing St. Bernard—slobbering all over the place. Slob­bered so much that the den­tal asst. was laugh­ing.

Good times. I miss the Gold­en Girls (my mom, my aunt and my grand­ma) as well as the knuck­le-heads (my bro and his GF, T). Its very nice to see ’em, and makes pay­ing the plane ride well worth it with the extra time you get to spend with fam. Any­ways, I’ma go chill and watch some TFC, maybe get luck and catch Tony’s game.

Fock­er Ouu­u­u­ut!

PS. I for­got its the age-old Free­way Series this week­end. Should be a good a great matchup. Won­der if they’re using this series as a wager for the name “Los Ange­les.” Check here for more info (ESPN arti­cle).

Thanks For The Link?

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I was check­ing out my stats for the blog so I can get a bet­ter under­stand­ing of what I can improve on, or what I can add; its also good for work since it shows a dif­fer­ent sub­set of users (of the inet). Any­ways, I was brows­ing the refer­rers when I noticed a new one. It was com­ing from del.icio.us…

del.icio.us is a social book­marks man­ag­er. It allows you to eas­i­ly add sites you like to your per­son­al col­lec­tion of links, to cat­e­go­rize those sites with key­words, and to share your col­lec­tion not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with oth­ers.

Mean­while, as I checked it, I was linked to some­one’s book­marks page. I was like “mah bad!” Among fur­ther exam­i­na­tion of what him/her put as a com­ment for my blog, I was like “what the hell?!” … or some­thing like that. I hope he/she is only think­ing about “refer­ring” and/or get­ting inspired and not lit­er­al­ly COPYing this ‘ish… or else, its down for some paper­work w/ the anti-pirates!

Oh yah, here’s some num­bers for those who care about what the major­i­ty of peo­ple are using to surf (at least over here, from the begin­ning of this year):

Note that Mozil­la is up and com­ing. Which is good. I rec­om­mend using it to everyone—make it your pri­ma­ry brows­er; and keep IE as a back­up. So, if you are view­ing this site (at least as of 6/21/05), you are miss­ing out =) GO GET FIREFOX!

Here’s My Business Card

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Busi­ness cards, they’re like your toes—you feel good you have them but you don’t real­ly use them; at least for me and a few oth­ers. I got my first offi­cial busi­ness cards a week or so ago. I say that because they are, for reals. Even though I’ve been work­ing for years for dif­fer­ent, great companies—they’re gen­uine­ly my first. Any­ways, my first expres­sion was: “HOLD UP! Is this a joke?!?!” I guess when you got IT… you got IT haha j/p.

Days lat­er, the two box­es of a thou­sand just sat there with no life or a sin­gle peep. Yah, I did hand out a cou­ple to some friends but that’s it. But hey, hav­ing ’em is a bless­ing.

What I mean is that you can pret­ty much use em like McGuyver can use a Coke can as a bong. You can use a busi­ness card for the fol­low­ing (besides for busi­ness-use):

  • writ­ing direc­tions when you need to go some­where*
  • writ­ing down num­bers*
  • as a book­mark
  • to pick up pen­nies (as a lever)
  • to win meals from a restau­rant, or a prize from a store
  • to start a fire or a BBQ
  • to remind your­self that you have a job

As you notice, the first two with the aster­isks* pret­ty much applies to busi­ness cards that are blank on the oth­er side; or those that you can write clear­ly on the back­side. Mean­while, while hav­ing busi­ness cards are cool it teach­es yet a les­son or a moral that we keep hear­ing about:

… its the small things in life that makes it all worth it

… or was it, its the thought that counts and the small things aint shit? TANGENT. Back on point, its the small things like these that makes us feel deserv­ing (as well as thank­ful) to real­ize that we are lucky. I mean that in a more glob­al way. For instance, if you are read­ing this—you are lucky.

Why? you may ask. Well, you’re lucky that you have access to the inter­net; you are lucky that you can read; you are lucky that you have time to do so; etc. Any­ways, its turn­ing into one of those “I can see clear­ly now” writ­ings (which I did­n’t intend to write in the first place). I real­ly was just writ­ing because I read that jovan­horne got some. Oh well, my mind has been going off late­ly. A good thing though (some­times), makes me con­ceive ideas and design new cre­ative works both for work and my own.

From my mind to yours, get your OWN BUSINESS CARDS FOR FREE! Here’s a pre­view of mine…

PS. I’ll try to write nor­mal­ly now in terms of “prop­er writ­ing syn­tax.” I’ve been writ­ing like I’m chat­ting; that is, all small­caps and stuff. But yah, I’ll do my best… it’ll start with this entry. You know why, cause YOU (YOU) are spe­cial… YOU! (thats for joe­ma­ma)