Offpoint - From Singapore To Seattle

Might be back...

2010-08-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

Not too sure what to blog about anymore.. But having bought an iPad and liking it so far, testing out an app to do blogging from the device....

Tons of changes since our last blog

2010-03-17T09:38:00.001-07:00

The last few weeks have been a constant flow of changes after changes.

Work wise, a bunch of changes appeared out of nowhere.

Our team’s service manager, Kim, left our group to join another group with just around two weeks of notice. Just as my team was prepping for her transfer, our director moved on as well. Both departures in such a short timeframe shook the foundations of the group.

One thing that did came out from these was that I was asked to take over as the interim service manager till the group replaces both headcounts. I’ve jokingly said that now i have two jobs’ work that i can delegate to my team 8).

On the personal note, both Sharon and I were shocked to hear our dearest grandniece, Tracy, having to undergo some urgent surgeries. We were constantly pinging our nieces for updated information on how Tracy’s recovery is going on.

Settling in…

2010-01-21T09:48:00.001-08:00

A few more days and nights in our new place and i think we’re slowly getting used to the additional space that this place has. Sharon and I joked about how much walking we have to do from the bedroom to the kitchen, and how it might become another diet “weapon” as it’ll discourage us from thinking of midnight snacks etc.

TV and cable internet are still pending, and as part of a promo, we'll be getting the full cable channels for the first time since 2005. Sharon gets to watch her Food Network and those home improvement programs yet again.

In the meanwhile, we are catching up on all the Stephen Chow movie DVDs that my buddy Ryan purchased for me in China. We even (re)discovered some of the inner-jokes that Stephen left in his movies that could only be possible in a marathon viewing like this. Just don’t ask me to view his CJ7 again!

Just before we settled in, i took a quick video, and it’s available for viewing here.

A move faster than ….

2010-01-19T15:57:00.000-08:00

Perhaps our experience in moving four places in the last 5+ years, on top of the biggest move in the relocation from Singapore, this move was frankly speaking the fastest and the smoothest ever.

Our regular purging of old stuffs to charity organizations (Goodwill, Children Hospital etc) resulted in only the essential stuffs around. The luxury stuffs such as soft toys, video games, and an unexplainable number of USB cables were also compressed and optimized to the absolute necessary ones.

We overestimated the work required and invited my whole team, and moodyone to assist in the move. Sharon also arranged for our ex-landlord to assist as he has a huge truck and is an experienced contractor dealing with houses etc. We also did a few initial rounds of moving some of the stuffs over, and by the time the invited help came, the old place was practically empty!

The new place also was a factor in it, being on the ground floor, and a huge living room door that allowed for the dinner table, sofa set, TV etc came in within 10 mins. The handimen in Andrew and Kim’s husband also helped in assembling the bed frame and my most hated object in our belongings, the Ikea computer table. Both took less than 15 mins to assemble something that would have cost me 2-3 days and hours of cursing and swearing!

Sharon and I are joking about the unique layout of the new apartment. I even used “workflow” as a term to describe how the layout is impacting our usual workflow in getting in and out of the house. Probably just need more time to get used to it i guess.

Packing up… and moving on… (again)

2010-01-14T22:05:00.001-08:00

We’re going to move to another place yet again. That’s the shortest we’ve ever stayed in a place since moving over to US.

Called up my team and the moodyone to help to move stuffs over, but we’re pretty experienced by now !

Via Reddit, i joined in the donation drive, and got a matching donation by the company for the Haiti earthquake. A grin after i read Mr Brown’s post on the significant donation by the government back home.

Once we’re settled down, we’ll share some photos of the lovely sight of the lake nearby (we wish we’re THAT near!).

Revisiting the island

2010-01-03T21:58:00.001-08:00

Sharon shared her thoughts after a 2.5 year period away from it, and here’s mine…

I feel that the combination of smaller portions,lower quality food, and a lower level of service personnel made the food experience a total loss across the board. Hawker centers,housing estate coffee-shops, air-conditioned food courts, restaurants all gave me the same kind of feeling: a sense of loss of what used to be good.

Two examples that reiterated how it is nowadays:

1) A well-known second-generation stir-fry prawn noodle stall has either a branch or a franchise (most likely) in the neighborhood mall, and Sharon wanted to get a taste of a dish she used to like.I went to the stall, and read a few of those typical newspapers/TV programmes’ photos on the display window. Those are getting quite common everywhere, but the signage about the 30+ years of family traditional way of cooking it surely wasn’t as common as the others.

I acknowledge the 30+ years, but looking at the hired folks that are obviously not in the “family” implied to me that it is no longer about the family anymore, but just another typical stall. Indeed, that was the case as i saw a hurriedly made dish amidst some cellphone usage to the workers’ contacts in a faraway land.

2) Every year that i’m back, i will visit the sinseh based in Chai Chee that helped my back to fully recover. Visiting Bedok central was part of the routine but hearing a Malay old lady screaming at a Muslim stall about buying nasi lemak was definitely not routine. I looked closer and saw that the worker at the stall didn’t understand what the Malay lady said in Malay. WTH? Indeed it was a foreign worker, probably a Chinese national, that was working there. Now that was a surprise to me, even though reciting the incident to my friend’s mother later indicated to me that this is also common even in Little India?

The saddest thing about this common experience between Sharon and myself is that the previously VERY IMPORTANT thing about local food is no longer a factor for us to yearn for a visit. That made us really sad and disappointed.

I’m guessing the immediate visit of Japan before Singapore and the focus of quality of food, service, and experience might have given me a tinted pair of glasses, but looking at how much changes in the last 12 months made me wonder about what have occurred?

Edit: Just after posting this, i saw a report on the Serangoon Road restaurants here..

PS: Happy new year to you all!

My Singapore Thoughts

2009-12-17T10:42:00.000-08:00

I was in Singapore for a short vacation in early Dec 2009. It was great to be back to meet my family and friends. And here's my observation.

Hawker Food
I have always been very proud of Singapore hawker food. But I am not so sure now. Before I left Washington, I created a huge food list and vow to eat all the local hawker food when I am back. After sampling two to three hawker dishes, I gave up. What happened to my comfort food? Why arent' they the same? I don't care whether the food is cooked by locals or foreigners, I want the hawker food to stay the same. Singapore hawker food is our national heritage. Tourists flock to this tiny island to EAT, not sure about the shopping and sight seeing.

Shopping Centres
Jon and I went to the two new shopping centres - ION and 313 @ Orchard. I think teenagers and young adults will love these places. A great hang out place to look trendy. I suppose the retail association is doing their best to re-capture the magic of shopping in Singapore. However, is it necessary to build two new shopping centres? What's wrong with the existing shopping centres and neighbourhood shopping centres? I try to avoid going to town as much as possible. There are so many people and I will be run over by them if I do not walk fast. I think shopping in USA is better for me. I prefer to shop in peace.

SMRT
I don't enjoy the morning commute as it is so crowded with people. Getting into the SMRT is a challenge for me.

Taxi Fare
VERY EXPENSIVE

Items Which Stay Consistent

Weather
Always HOT and HUMID.

Local TV Programmes
Boring. Too many re-runs or repeat programmes

Newspaper
Boring.

I am not sure whether I will be keen to go back to Singapore soon.

Another AVAR completed!

2009-11-11T11:58:00.001-08:00

Due to some regrettable issues in India last year, i didn’t attend the conference at the very last minute. In fact, i was already in Japan, on my way to India via Singapore, when i was told it’s not advisable to do so.

An aborted first attempt at going to Japan this year gave me some worries. On the way from Seattle, as the plane went near midway, it turned back due to, according to the pilot, hydraulics problem. That was the third conference trip in a row with travel issues. I scared the heck out of Sharon when i came home knocking on the door, and made Kim laughed so much as she cannot believe my luck!

The next day, same ground crew, same flight crew, same co-travelers and lots of humor on the flight as we all joked about the aborted trip.

Travelling separately on different airlines was always something that i recommend when my team travel, and Ian luckily went through on the first attempt, though me being missing-in-action at the Narita airport gave him some first-visit challenges that he addressed admirably.

After reaching Kyoto, Ian and i did some touring around the city and i thought that it was a beautiful city indeed. Some of the food we tried was so exquisite and tasty, and I'm sure my second trip there together with Sharon will be full of such visits to restaurants that make variations of tofu, one of Sharon’s favorite food.

The conference report by the last year’s hosts indicated that they did the best efforts and the board appreciated that.

For this year’s conference, i was honored to be assigned a few activities to assist the AVAR organization with. A session chair, a informal panel discussion with ISVs as one of the directors for AVAR, and a joint paper presentation about the service that I'm handling.

Papers-wise, there was an abundance of top quality papers and it was the first time ever we had two tracks in this conference. It resulted in some tight time management challenges, and made Randy missed Ian and my presentation on the service. We had to do a separate 10-minute version just for him, which Nick Fitzgerald came by and commented something like “you reminiscing a bit about this”.

The presentation on reverse engineering on paper (really!) was one of the most unique presentation on the subject, while the various cloud presentations gave me a lot of things to think about. The translation services were top-notch too and even the humor came through.

The gala dinner showcased Kyoto’s culture. Some geizhas sang and danced, while i think the highlight of the dinner was the traditional drumming performed by a guy with his back towards us. His back went from a healthy tan to a back flushed with redness! Later on, his second act highlighted his left biceps, and fellow gala attendees indicated that they were too focused on his muscles.

As part of the tradition, there was a series of award presentations for the sponsors and three individual awards. Another colleague won his second award and i was honored to get an award for best AVAR member for the year. Ian and Kim forced me to bring the awards into office. A photo of the trophy and award is on flickr too.

At the end of the conference, it was also decided that the 2010 conference will be hosted in Bali, Indonesia. Looks like it’s already going to be one of the most anticipated conferences for most of this year’s attendees already! I wonder if i’ll be attending that!

Edit: added some links to a fellow delegate’s photos.

it’s launched….

2009-10-22T21:31:00.001-07:00

Today was the release of the new version of our flagship product.

I remembered the last two flagship product launches in my tenure in the company. Started with a huge amount of manual work, and multiple OSes to handle the first launch, while automation work helped to reduce the manual work, though a first attempt at an end-to-end automated service proved to need lots of supervision than expected.

With lots of lessons learnt from the past, a lot of preemptive work was made by folks on my team, and i am happy that the team effort was recognized. There’s a twinge of regret that some of the team members no longer work with the company, though at no choice nor fault from them.

I’ve been using it on my two netbooks and i’ve been loving it. On my work laptop with a SSD, it is literally flying!

Restaurants shutdowns…

2009-10-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

And on the topic of food again, a recently discovered good place to have hot Szechuan food was shut down; two days after i’ve brought my team there for a team lunch!

We even joked about the fact that their food was all filled with enough heat and spices that all sources of contamination were totally killed!

To our horror, we found recently another Chinese restaurant was shut down for another issue, just as we were planning to visit there to get some dim sum.

Coupled with the fact that another long-timer closed due to tax reasons, at the rate that restaurants are closed, food sources stopped, we might have to start eating potatoes!

And on the topic of food…

2009-10-13T19:48:00.001-07:00

It’s been a trend that i’ve been noticing at the Asian supermarket chains. It’s troubling me somewhat that it is a repro-able process.

One discovers an Asian seasoning, mix, canned food, or whatever
One enjoys the authentic taste that it brings
One starts to buy it on a regular basis
One starts to buy MORE on a regular basis
One starts to notice the stock is getting lesser
One starts to buy the remaining stock
One finds that it is no longer being sold

Going through some of the archives on this blog, i can easily find at least four instances. The Thai dried cuttlefish was the first.

Then after the food scare from China went the black bean fish, which looks like this small little picture that i was able to find:

Then it was Brahim’s Beef rendang paste. Luckily, it came back… and i bought a full dozen of it!

Then it was an Indonesian Sambal Belachan chilly.

Most recently, and in the prior post, the Prima Taste range of mixes, from Singapore curry to Laksa… the only one that was usually left on the shelves is the Satay mix. Probably the “local” Singaporeans all know it’s impossible to do satay right with the meat we can find here.

Turns out that at the most recent attempt to get the curry paste, i found about 8 cans of the belachan chilly, and i swept all into our shopping cart. It’ll probably be gone and no longer replenished the next time we go there.

Interestingly, Sharon’s fave Nescafe 3-in-1 coffee mix, the one particular SKU she likes, isn’t available here. Guess what i have to fill in my luggage whenever i fly back to Singapore? 8)

At the rate it’s going, pretty soon we’ll run out of any close resemblance of the food we used to have in the island country. Then we’ll really start to live like a local!

A simple meal means so much..

2009-10-10T19:30:00.000-07:00

It had been a while since we gotten our hands on the Singapore curry chicken premixed paste, and repeated visits to two of the local Asian supermarket chains did not result in us getting them. It just seems like they are not longer available here!

So i went online and did some Binging, and some Googling, and so on… and found some California-based sites having some of the range of the Prima Taste products, but not the curry chicken paste.

After a few more days of longing and constant searching for it, i found their online site and made an order of a bunch of the curry paste, and some of the char kway teows. Turned out that after including shipping and handling, the price per box was only about 50 cents to a dollar more than what i paid for here.

A quick email from Prima notified us of the shipment and two days later, i already received a “missed delivery” from the courier service. Somehow or rather, they again decided not to leave the package at the door, even after my signature was placed on the first delivery slip.

Sharon and I decided to rush to the courier company to pick them up, and with the help of the GPS on my phone, away we did.

Rushed there right near their closing time, and we finally got our hands on the two boxes. Sharon was so anxious about it that we opened the boxes up to make sure we got the right items, and we did!

We went straight to the supermarket, and purchased the chicken drumsticks, the potatoes, the bean curd skins, and some nice French loaves and made a big bowl of curry the next evening.

Needless to say, we were happy.

I need to stop doing this…

2009-09-30T15:44:00.001-07:00

Cross-ocean flights twice in a month that is. I’m not a frequent flyer by any definition, but it just seems that in the last three years, i’ve been doing flights like SEA-NRT-SIN twice in a very short period of time.

At least this time, it’s somewhat of a minor variant, in that my first trip will be to Tokyo & Kyoto to attend and co-present in a conference. I am happy to be chosen to do some additional duties for the conference as well.

Somehow, this trip is going to become a beta testing ground for the second trip, with Sharon joining along to Tokyo, Kyoto & Osaka, and then back to Singapore for a short stay.

I’ve even bought a HK-made tourist book on Kyoto and its surround areas. I typically find the tour guidebooks made in Hong Kong or Taiwan to be much targeted towards pragmatic Asian travelers than the Lonely Planets or the Frommers.

It should be fun to be back again as well.Just heard the country now has almost 5 million people.. wow! Sharon has been away from Singapore for a long while, and should be quite a surprise for her. I know i did when i was last back there in December… walking along Orchard Road… @ @~ !!

I am sad to announce that…

2009-09-25T15:50:00.000-07:00

I must be one of the folks that have the “luxury” of owning a PS3 Slim for the shortest amount of time.

Without thinking too much about using my Amazon gift vouchers, i pre-ordered a PS3 Slim and acquired a HDTV and tried out a few games.

If folks were complaining that the Nintendo Wii has no games,…. god knows what they’d say about this console then?

The funniest thing about my short experience with it is the fact that it copies so much from the PC/desktop concept. Download files… install files… run files… patch files…

I guess it is too much like a PC for me. Back to the Wii + DS for me… selling the PS3 Slim on Craiglist after a few failed internal offers.

The Braven

2009-09-22T09:08:00.000-07:00

Where would you go if you want to buy high end designer clothes and be seen in a trendy place. Where else? The most talk about shopping experience at Braven located at downtown Belleveue Square.

Last Sunday, Jon and I paid USD6.00 parking fee to visit this 'unique' shopping mall. With less than 30 boutiques to shop, I was disappointed. I am definitely not one of their target customers. A good shopping experience means I see alot of boutiques/stores selling expensive or affordable items.

I may not visit Braven in the near future. If I do, I will not spend USD6.00 to park our car in the garage.

Did you watch the man that flew into the hall of fame?

2009-09-15T02:11:00.000-07:00

Number 23.

Air Jordan he was.

During a workout session at the pro club, i noticed a bunch of guys all stopped their workouts and started gawking at the big projected screen in the weights area. Who else but Jordan and his highlight reels can captivate the audience like that?

Thinking back, regardless which basketball team you support, fans all celebrate the awesomeness of Jordan. Little did they know that height is not going to be attained anymore in the near future.

I quickly finished up my weights workout, and rushed to the cardio area where they have FM channels of the TV audio, and i started to listen to his speech. A few points caught my attention, and i like to share them.

First and foremost though, as typical of any issues in this country, there’s three major groups of opinion of his speech.

a) He’s a bitter and petty old man

b) He’s open and transparent about what motivates him to reach that level

c) He’s still the best player ever, and i don’t care about the speech

My take of him is (b). He shares his insights to what drove him day to day to beat his perceived enemies, with a twinge of (a).

One of the quotes he made was “The organization didn’t play with the flu in Utah”, which the subject of the quote made a clarification the next day. I bet the folks that “ignited” his drive felt bad that night too. That sentiment reflects some of the challenges that i see, and is something that though no longer disturb me, is creating some churn with the newer members of the teams, where they see others getting awarded and rewarded for the sweat and tears they put in.

The other quote i remembered was that some coach of his told him that there’s no I in team, but he rebuked with a “there’s an I in WIN!”. Oftentimes, though not applicable in Jordan’s games, people have to lower down to the lowest common denominator level in order to prevent being perceived as not a “team player”.

Another subject that he targetted also made a response. I let my team tell me who the counterpart for this is. 8)

Regardless of what you think of the speech, or not, at the end, just enjoy his highlights… they sure don’t make them like this anymore…

Unusual.. (for me)

2009-08-30T23:58:00.001-07:00

As part of my effort to reduce clutter, i’ve been removing DVDs from their individual cases and putting them into a larger folder.

In an indirect link to one of my previous roles, it surprised me to see such a filmsy and light DVD case around:

The recycling logo i guess implies that this is a “green” dvd case. I don’t have a weighting scale to measure, but it’s at least 40% lighter than a standard case like this:

It probably also saves the film publisher a lot of money too in terms of reduced shipping costs around the world.

And we’re back from Vegas

2009-08-27T20:59:00.001-07:00

After a last minute aborted trip to Vegas a few years ago due to a system issue that my manager at that time decided to make me stay to handle, it has been a place that Sharon has been yearning to visit.

Finally this year, amidst the release of the new operating system, the system was stable enough to allow me to finally be gone for Vegas. And so we did…

We stayed at New York, New York, a pretty busy place that er… resembled New York… the room itself was fine, though the hotel did place us into a room that need a long and winding road before we reach it.

The weather was almost kind to us, except the Friday where it was over 110/43 degrees, and we felt that we were walking around in a open-air sauna.

We watched two Cirque du Soleil shows, namely O at the Bellagio, and The Beatles – Love at the Mirage. O was simply breathtaking and it was amazement after amazement from the beginning till the end, where the performers were greeted with a standing ovation. I don’t want to point to any spoilers, except to say that it’s worth a trip to Vegas just to watch it!

Having been so impressed with O, and with decades of admiration on The Beatles’ work, i was tempted to watch Love too. Sharon was kind enough to arrange for a summer promotional ticket price, and there we went!

The Love show was pretty entertaining, and tears of joy came down my cheek when i get to experience the Beatles’ music in such an arena. The show wasn’t as amazing as O, but i see it as a celebration of the love that fans all over the world have for this great band.

At the Mirage, prior to the show, we went to our first pub together in USA, the Revolution, based off the Beatles’ song. It was constantly playing songs from the band, and video clips of past media shows… a great little place.

There were some really nice touches, of audio clips of the band and some nice interpretation of their music. I totally enjoyed it, though i also feel that it could have been much better.

The son of George Martin remixed the music, but it wasn’t as good as DJ Dangermouse’s seminal work on The White Album+Jay Z’s Black Album (The Grey Album), nor a bootleg megamix that i’ve enjoyed in the past. Perhaps they already have plans for a sequel later..

I also bought a bag, and a notebook, both based on the Abbey Road album. They were the only ones that i can afford after these two shows!

Since Sharon has been away from Singapore for so long, it was actually a good way for me to explain the increase in people that i’ve experienced in Singapore along the Strip. It was that crowded at all times.

Other than the Strip’s craziness, we did a small detour to the Red Rock canyon. That was a good breather! Phew…

Now..it’s time to plan for Tokyo and Singapore near the end of the year!

Intent, messaging, action

2009-08-17T21:58:00.001-07:00

The current POTUS was acknowledged to have won the election, among other factors, by his messaging. His speeches were at a different level from the rest of the candidates, and that captivated the audience. After his victory, and a series of good action that complied to his intents that he vocalized during the campaign, things are starting to falter a bit now.

His current push for health insurance reform has been one hurdle after another. Messaging, and even the phrasing of the reform has to be changed constantly. It was only till the point that he took to the roads again that the first “good news”, or '”local support”, was reported. It also appears that folks were pushing back on something that they do not really understand, or that the original messaging was so flawed that educated folks do not really understand it enough to explain to the non-educated folks.

That’s a (un)pleasant corollary to some of the confusion that’s arising about the intent messaging, and actions with the new change.

Prior to the change, there were some efforts by a non-biased panel to gather feedback about what worked, what didn’t worked in the prior regime. One very vocal point was raised, and was even agreed upon by one of the panelist. How ironic it is to find out that the first action by the panelist after the change was to perform the same exact action that was a known irritant to the org. I wonder if the intent or the action could have been messaged to the org?

With the change come some new channels of communication with the management. There’s always pros and cons to it. A major pro would be the fact that I get to provide direct feedback that used to be a skip-skip-skip level discussion, which in the past meant all “skipped” levels folks actually joined in the discussion. Kind of defeats the purpose of a skip-level then, but that’s in the past. With the new structure, and the initial confusion about who should be doing what in terms of the management team, i gave some frank feedback. Clearly (pun intended), i didn’t do a good job myself. My feedback was taken seriously and remediate action was taken pretty promptly to explain the new structure to us, but with the explanation came a few more points of confusion and dissatisfaction.

Today, my immediate org team met for an official team meeting. The new manager tends to speak too much, which he acknowledges as well. 8). Hopefully, he’ll know to tone that down, and let the team talk more. Otherwise, i wouldn’t be surprised if people start to tune him out.

The interesting discussions came when we met up for an informal lunch with most of the org team members. Issues, opinions, and thoughts were shared and i think it was generally a good exchange, and time well spent. The topics discussed ranged from the current confusion of the new org structure, to long ongoing cross-org issues, to career development etc. Wouldn’t the management team be willing to be a “fly in the wall” during the discussions to hear what we really think of.

Another common issue that i am observing is that due to the feedback on the prior regime, the current team is trying to do drastic changes. Some of the purported changes seems to be “designed” for certain teams. The lack of clarity around the messaging rooted some ideas that might be a distraction for some.

A recent meeting brought up the topic of soft-skill training, such as vendor account management skills. I can see the good intent behind it, though the broad brush to apply it to the immediate org team seems to ignore the different experience that each team member might have. That, reluctantly, puzzled me as well. Given the constant issues with the lack of clarity in terms of the messaging, the intent, or the action made, perhaps the management team also need to look at the possibility of doing some training themselves on messaging, or team communication?

Again, it’ll be interesting to see how the changes develop. Unlike some of the team members whom are very excited and boldly claiming a whole new world, I’ve seen enough through the years to be (very) mildly optimistic, but realistically cautious.

The only constant is…

2009-08-13T23:00:00.001-07:00

Change.

Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history. ~Joan Wallach Scott

Or in my worklife, reorgs. That’s the one thing that’s always constant through my years in the company.

Probably as a result of feedback given last year, we had what some might label as a major reorg. Managers were moved around; groups were switched, and amidst all that, my team got a new people manager.

With changes, there’s bound to be some form of acclimatization that needs to be done, or kinks that need to be ironed out. A few initial but surprising bumps have brought up some doubts and wonderment, but folks are being perceived as doing things with good intentions, and teams are probably giving them some burn-in time too.

I wonder how this new structure will work out…

A surprise last-glance at a big dog retail store..

2009-08-10T19:05:00.001-07:00

I know that i mentioned that the one at the seattle outlet mall has closed down a while ago. Last week, Sharon and i went down to Issaquah for lunch, and i thought.. why not just go visit North Bend outlet center which we haven’t visited in years.

Usually in such trips, i get to be the one with all the purchases. Wonder why…

Anyway.. there was a big banner of yet another closing down sale, and i got myself these:

Happy and sad at the same time… These 6 cost me about 40 dollars only. The “Talk Slower….” tee should generate a chuckle or two for my team 8).

Hot^3

2009-07-31T09:09:00.001-07:00

It’s been a really hot week! Temperatures were constantly around the 100s and it had been a really “fun” experience. I think it was Wednesday that as i was chatting with one of my buddies, that the temperature at that time at night here was actually warmer than Singapore!

The warm and humid air reminded me of Singapore; the sheltered walk-up towards the cafeteria in our block actually created a wrapped tunnel of hot air that was similar to having a hot exhaust air pipe blowing… what else but hot air! Folks actually ran through it in order to avoid being in it for too long (>5 secs).

On one of the nights, Sharon and I decided to take refuge in the nearby neighborhood mall. The mall had never been that busy for a long while! Families and teens were all hanging around, with bottles of soda or iced Starbucks coffee. It took us a while before we even found ourselves a table to have our dinner.

After dinner, we walked around within the mall, and discovered that all fans and portable air conditioners were sold out at the Bed Bath & Beyond shop! That was quite a ridiculous thing….

This morning’s weather is actually pretty comfortable… phew..

Feeling HOT HOT HOT!!!

2009-07-27T16:19:00.001-07:00

When Jon and I left Singapore, we thought we left the weather too.

Apparently, the hot weather misses us and follow us to Seattle.

This week will be a hot week for people living in Seattle. It is almost 32 to 33 degree celsius. The bad news is the dry air is giving me headache. But the good news is we have minimal humidity.

Screenshot taken from Seattle Times.com at 4.2opm PST.

Excuse Me, That is the Wrong Abs Exercise

2009-07-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

I have been going to the gym for more than 5 years and felt that I gain more muscles. From my parents' view point, I am simply F A T. I learn not to argue or contradict with them and simply acknowledge that I am F A T. Yes, I eat too much USDA meat, french fries, deep fried food and desserts. Who can resist the sinful food? I know - SUPER MODELS.

Anyway, last night I was at the gym working out my abs and this muscle man came over to talk to me. Don't get the wrong idea, he is not trying to get to know me - this ugly ah sao. He told me that I was doing the wrong abs exercise. He sensed that I was skeptical and quickly said "I am not trying to be a jerk but I can show you the proper way to do abs exercise using the exercise ball." Sure, I am open to new ideas to get rid of fats even though I thought I have been doing the right abs exercise.

Step 1
Lie down on the mat/floor and let your legs rest on the exercise ball.

Step 2
You can either put your hands behind your head or let them rest on your chest.

Step 3
Lift up your upper body to reach your legs slowly and hold it at a 15 degree angle for a few seconds. You will feel contractions in your abs and repeat this exercise 10 times.

Thank you muscle man for your tips.

New home and New role

2009-07-22T15:58:00.001-07:00

Jon mentioned earlier that we have moved to a new rental place and time passes really fast. That is so true. Whenever, I work from home (the new home) time passes so fast. Jon and I like the new landlord and family. They are friendly and respect your privacy.

On our first weekend living in this new place, I set off the smoke alarm system! What an achievement! I bet not everyone can do this. The landlord's father looked at me and smiled. Geeze, I am be the dumbest Chinese or Asian he has ever known. He patiently told me to turn on the air vent whenever I am using the oven and/or cooktop (we called it stove in Singapore) so as to lower the heat temperature in the kitchen. Got it! I will make sure this will not happen again.

When the alarm went off Jon was sleeping very soundly and could not care less what had happened! According to him, "I am too tired, let me sleep." I always imagine my husband to be the knight in shining armour coming to my rescue - the damsel in distress! But I was wrong. Sleep is more important than me.

Anyway, I am not really a damsel. Too B I G S I Z E to be associated with a damsel. The good news is we are SAFE.

In my new role I am assisting my manager in driving People Projects more effectively. People Projects aim to attract, retain, motivate and develop employees so that they can advance their careers. Another aspect of my new role is assisting the communications director in global curriculum communications. I am excited about the new role and cannot wait to start working on challenging projects. And yes, I am still a vendor in this company.

Ok that is my report for the new home and new role.

Some gaming observations

2009-07-21T15:58:00.001-07:00

The last few months of the work year have been a ride, on top of the typical end of year work that needs to be done to close out the year.

A few things that i’ve observed that i think would be interesting to share, and i, in a nod to my new people manager, will try to use video games as a way to describe my observations.

- history repeats itself

Just like a “game over” screen in any video games, it just seems like the same things will repeat across time

- there’s always a main guy that does most of the work…

Remember the game Halo? Master Chief does most of the work… the rest are just “NPCs”, or non-playing characters

- Talk to anyone/everyone. Ask questions

Other than obvious action games, most RPG games start off by making the gamer go ask questions with every NPC in the game to find out about questions. In some games, you’d even find the NPCs coming back to review your knowledge

- Work together & have a fallback

In Pro Evolution Soccer (ala Winning Eleven), you can work towards a goal (score goals and win matches), but always have an alternative co-player to pass the ball to

- Know each other’s strength & weaknesses

Linking to the above point, each person have their difference. Passing the ball to me and expect me to run 100 yards in 10 seconds is going to be unrealistic. Let me do a “Jan Molby” pass in the middle of the field and i’ll send the speedsters down the right way…

- No standard documentation

In my PC gaming days, Quake is my weapon of choice. Primary goal: survive and kill the other players’ characters.

Step 1: get weapon

Step 2: seek others

Step 3: kill others

Step 4: repeat until you win

How to actually go about doing it comes with experience, knowledge, speed, and any other shortcuts that you might think of.

gosh… we forgotten…

2009-07-20T17:06:00.001-07:00

Since a rushed decision to move out from our former rental location, we have been having a bit of a rush through several major events.

The first was obviously the actual move to our new place. In a quick two-block hop, we moved to a new “mother-in-law” apartment in a Bonsian household.

Sharon primarily drove the search and decision on the new place, though she needed a “it’s ok” from me before we moved on to get the new place.

Started our packing pretty quickly, and with the help of Ian and his dad, and Kim, we moved over within 4 hours! We also quickly cleaned up the old place, and unpacked at a ridiculous pace and we pretty much “settled” down by the second night at the new place.

The new place is slightly bigger, with two rooms instead of one in the old place. The second room is now used as the office for me primarily. Ian gave us a two-seater sofa and we’re pretty much furbished now.

The last few weeks have been minor tweaks like getting a new mobile shelf to be placed in the kitchen (Ikea again!), internet connectivity (back to Comcast), and a few more rounds of decluttering and gifting such items to Salvation Army.

In the midst of the move, i had my former manager, and founder of AsiaSoft, visiting me! I enjoyed working with him in the past, and he specifically requested me to bring him to the campus for a visit and to do a lifestyle drive around the areas.

We also had a series of end-of-financial year activities ranging from bug fixes to reports to presentations to awards ceremonies. Along the way, Andrew, Ian and myself got some recognition, and some additional team celebrations as well. A reorg occurred too, and some colleagues moved on (some to a road trip across Europe).

Just a day ago, we had the pre-conference reception at Randy’s again. It was good to see the renown researchers and experts again, but a clear indication to the economic condition: attendance has gone down drastically.

One funny thing about staying in the new premise is that time seems to pass a lot quicker than the old place. With a quick glance, it’s almost end of the night and time to rest… and both Sharon and I gotten into a routine where we totally forgotten about the blog.

So much so that other than Facebook, i’ve been slacking off Twitter, this blog, and some of the usual forums i hang around in…

Woan reminded us in Facebook m(__O__)m. Another way of saying it was a kick in the butt. hehe.

A change or a make-do?

2009-06-04T23:58:00.001-07:00

Had a philosophical discussion with someone recently.

Somehow, this ties to an episode of South Park (Bloody Mary) that i watched recently. Randy, Stan’s father, attended AA after getting a DUI. Although he had the earlier realization that if he stop drinking, he would be fine, he got into the whole AA programme and got himself into a different problem altogether.

A few recent discussions and projects have been to find a way to do work in a more conducive and productive manner. Relationships and morale are two of the key areas, and some efforts have been driven to get us into a better platform.

My take on it is that if one wants to do it, one can just decide at that point in time, and switch. The bad thing about having some of these external trainings or courses is the what i termed as the post-post-training effect. Perhaps there’s a more scientific name, but it’ll do for now.

For example, if one attends a “productivity improvement” training, one will definitely be using the knowledge attained in the first weeks after the training, That’s the post-training effect.

Similar to a eventual sugar crash, if there’s no momentum or other courses to keep the momentum going, one goes into the post-post-training effect. The good outcome from here is just going back to square one. One of the bad ones is that one will generate a cynical view, what with the “hey… it no longer works!”.

It really doesn’t take that much to change, does it? My 2 cents is it doesn’t.

Processes are not the be-all and end-all

2009-05-25T00:56:00.001-07:00

This weekend was the Memorial Day holiday weekend and Sharon and I spent some time just hanging around and trying to stimulate the local economy in various ways.

At one of the places we went, a waiter was able to handle our off-the-cuff ordering and questioning really well. At another place later that day, someone else was following to an obvious process template in the way questions or comments were sent to the customers’ way.

I find it really funny. It’s also something that i’ve always disliked. Just because “everyone” do something a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the best way, EVEN (and especially) when it’s documented and approved by people that are not doing the day to day work.

A heck of a few weeks..

2009-05-19T00:36:00.001-07:00

As i was cooking a homebrewed version of Nasi Lemak, fried chicken wings, ikan bilis and sambal chilli for Sharon’s birthday,and doing a heck of a “pretty darn good” job on it, i thought about the last few weeks and events in the company.

The recent silence was due to a combination of work (saw a big RC recently anyone?) and the largely publicized impact to a large number of colleagues around the world.

My immediate group in Redmond wasn’t impacted, but i’ve heard of colleagues, including some highly respected folks, that were impacted across regions and groups.

Along with that, my group has a reorganization. That’s part and parcel of working in the company. Reorgs are common, and allow for opportunities to tweak and optimize our resources further. I will blog about my thoughts of it in an upcoming post as i spend more time to digest this change. Optimistic for it though.

Sharon and I also completed our really basic Japanese language training. Yeah ^_^! The training also indicated to us that we are getting overwhelmed with work and stuffs to be able to do a good job at this, and so i’m impressed at how moodyone is doing it with her MBA studies.

We were also planning on a holiday trip, but decided to postpone it till August. A few of the places that we originally selected suddenly because places that we shouldn’t be in unless necessary.

Talking about the big RC, i’ve been having so much fun with the product on my Aspire One netbook that i’m gathering some notes and stuffs on how i configure the product on the netbook to fully utilize its capabilities… 8). Maybe i’ll dump my notes onto another one-off blog. Too bad i’m not an “internet marketer” like so many Singaporean bloggers are apparently on Ping.sg!

Who Gain From AWARE Fiasco?

2009-05-03T21:41:00.000-07:00

The nominees who gained in AWARE Fiasco are:

Suntec Convention Centre - AWARE has to fork out a huge sum of money to rent the hall like $20,000
The Straits Times - Sensational news sell. AWARE has helped the national paper increase circulation and readership
Security Company - The folks who were employed to change security locks in AWARE office

And the award GOES to (drum roll please....) the Security Company!!! Hooray! Fantastic! Thank you AWARE for contributing to the bad economy. It was reported that AWARE's former exco team spent $80,000 within a month. I assume they spent $60,000 to install new security locks.

Moral lessons learnt in this fiasco include:

Please do not underestimate the wrath of women and women's purchasing power
We have a feminist mentor
This fiasco is a great tactic used to divert attention on the current bad economic situation

Relooking culture shock part 2

2009-04-20T17:36:00.001-07:00

Another major shock for me was the need to market oneself, or one’s organization.

Instead of focusing on making and ensuring things work, some folks are more concerned about how they, their organization, and their work appears to others.

I’m sure this is the Asian culture. Do your work, and let your work speaks for itself.

That sure doesn’t work the way here.

You can surely see it even in the pop culture, where every no-talenter gets his or her <15 mins of fame, and then spends eternity riding on the waves of that fame. Doesn’t have to be a good singer/actor/whatever. Just be known.

The last few years have been a ride. I get to see people that knew nothing, and did nothing, and yet claimed credit whenever opportunities arose. I really admired the gall of these folks.

I personally can’t do that.

I just do my job.

PS: I drafted this about two weeks ago, prior to my week of absence with flu+fever+cold+so on combo. Still slowly recovering from it as it is now. Sharon also got the flu. She’s blaming it on me though.

Wow

2009-04-16T15:37:00.001-07:00

Speechless

Apparently someone reads my blog…

2009-04-12T23:36:00.000-07:00

What’s the probability that the morning after my last post, a hallway discussion was about the exact topic?

From a very visible and “experienced” manager, he said “just because you don’t like to play the game doesn’t means the game isn’t played”, or words to that nature. What i guessed he was trying to say is, “get with the flow dude!”.

As Homey The Clown would say, “I don’t think so! Homey don’t play that!”.

It’s a sad reflection that some of the hard working folks are labeled as “worker bees” just because they want to focus on the work.

Perhaps we all need a personal marketing manager?!

A very experienced person in our org asked me about this. Should we adopt this approach too? To celebrate the fact that we are coming to office every day? To be able to send emails to one another?

On one hand, i don’t like the game, but on the other hand, i think it’ll be useful for the newer members of my team to get the benefits of more recognition and awards. In fact, i think I'll start to promote them myself!

Awards appointees, here i come!

Relooking culture shock part 1

2009-04-09T00:06:00.001-07:00

A relocation usually brings with it a lot of challenges, culture shock notwithstanding.

Luckily, being employed in the Singapore office for a number of years exposed myself to the ways of a huge worldwide organization, and reduced some of the shock.

One of the ones that remain though, and is still puzzling me at times, is a tendency of some groups to reward some folks with praise and visibility while ignoring those who did it right the first time. An example: the guy that demands for a usable and reliable system often get ignored and ridiculed while the persons that just wanted to say “the system is successfully deployed” even with lots of system-breaking issues gets rewarded and praised.

Let me think about another culture shock……….

Did Mr Seetoh antagonize someone?

2009-04-06T15:49:00.001-07:00

Just read this report about the food poisoning incident in Geylang Serai, and found the mention of Mr Seetoh’s publication in this report weird. There really wasn’t any need to do so. Funny thing is that no one in his website’s forum caught that yet.

Happy 5!!!

2009-04-05T19:11:00.000-07:00

Jon and I have been living in USA for five years.

Here's our five achievements.

We are DEBT FREE! whew!!!
Still using the same car we bought five years ago
Gain muscles and fats
Getting younger everyday according to our friends. Nice :)
Learning basic conversational Japanese

Five things I like about Seattle

Evergreen state. Everywhere you go, you see lots of trees
People are MORE FRIENDLY than ahem...you know Sxxxaxxxxans
Watched more than 100 black and white movies
Shopping paradise
I can work from home

Five things I dislike about Seattle

No Singapore Hawker Food. By the way, we DO NOT add curry powder in Singapore Chia Bee Hoon! Please consult my mother-in-law if you want to know how to cook Singapore Chia Bee Hoon!
Asian food does not taste like Asian food. What's up with that?
Food is expensive
Medical Insurance is expensive
Nine months of COLD weather

5th.. from my point of view..

2009-04-04T00:23:00.000-07:00

Like:

- The public library system here is amazing. Tons of movies and classics. That’s where Sharon’s cited >100 of B&W movies came from. We’ve found classics such as the “Thin Man” series, Abbott & Costello, Seven Samurai (and other Kurosawa’s movies), Fred & Ginger, and many many more. My friend that works in the media industry as a movie reviewer already said i watched more “high quality” movies than she does. Of course, i get to do this as a hobby, not a need or work.

- Getting things online here is fun. The deals and savings and sometimes rebates are such habit formers that i can no longer go back to Sim Lim Square in Singapore and use the word “cheap” there.

- Pro Club rules. I’m so used to the facilities in the Pro Club that i don’t think i can work out in any other gyms unless i have a total change of lifestyle and occupation

- Weather being cool and cold is good for me. I tend to have some issues with the weather in Singapore, and i like the feeling of “being always in a natural air-con” keeps me relaxed

- no TV feeds is a good thing too, though that wasn’t really by choice. My only treats is the South Park videos online and No Reservations DVDs from the library. Don’t ask me anything else about what’s going on in TV-land. I’m still catching up from the mid-60s TV series.

Dislike:

- Medical insurance is a joke and a mess here, and apparently Singapore is trending towards this model.

- Asian food always taste, at best, 90% of what we can get in Asia

- Some of my fave restaurants have closed up due to the economic crisis.

- Cell phone technologies are so far behind here.

- Some of the work experiences aren’t really something that i would want my enemies to go through

Almost five years here….

2009-03-24T23:30:00.001-07:00

How quick times flies? In less than two weeks, we’ll be here for five years.

At a high level, here’s what we’ve done:

- a job change for me (and a couple failed attempts at others)

- five managers (goes to show how often reorgs are)

- a couple of job changes for Sharon

- got our driving licenses

- bought our own car (no COE! In Singapore's context.. colleagues)

- stayed in two rental locations

- a trip once a year at least for me back to Singapore

- Sharon will probably say that another big item would be my increasingly larger video game collection

Wow.. that’s it? I’ll take the next two weeks as an opportunity to do a recap. Should be fun for my newly joined colleagues to have a glimpse of the life in the space that I'm in.

Unpacking fun

2009-03-23T23:01:00.000-07:00

Got myself the special edition of UNKLE’s War Stories album, and was forewarned by the cashier at Silver Platters.. “it’s a good buy… and great songs and artwork.. but good luck opening it!”

Took me about 2 hours on and off to open the ^#@!!#@) thing.

Just before i put it back into the packaging again, here’s how the package looks like:

The songs are great. The book has amazingly artwork. Just don’t make me open it again!!

Found a rather good book…

2009-03-23T15:23:00.001-07:00

After writing a post recommending two books on the company, i found a book that really drills into things that are often not discussed.

The scope is really wide and provides insights into areas like SKU planning, partnership engagement etc. When i was flipping through the book, the first reaction was “wow.. this guy knows his stuffs!”. Indeed, the author was a former employee in the company.

I would definitely recommend the book to anyone that wants to really understand the operational side of things in th3e company.

Read-ups for the dream job..

2009-03-19T22:12:00.000-07:00

I mentioned that it was a dream for me to join the company.

First.. the lack of knowledge of what goes on inside the company. To be clear, one cannot but know something about the company, but unless it’s public information, one won’t really necessarily know the inner details of the company.

In fact, prior to doing the interviews for my original Singapore-based job in the company, i was advised by the hiring manager to read up on some books on the company, with specific mentions of these two books. I was glad that i did, as the books helped me to set expectations on myself for the job that i was trying for.

I would say that these books are now nice-to-read, but with the passage of time, they might no longer represent the culture of the company. Is that a good or a bad thing? Depends on your view.

I think this book now captures the essence of the company. I went through the book in 2-3 hours flat without stopping, other than to ponder …

At least i’m happy i didn’t write it..

2009-03-18T21:40:00.001-07:00

Found this post off Secret Geek. Loved it.

Took the lingering thought off me to do a similar post like this.

Thanks!

I don’t know about you, but i think..

2009-03-16T22:43:00.000-07:00

i’m seeing a huge similarity between the outrage of the AIG bonuses and the Singapore CDC bonuses issues.

One thing for sure though: there’s no way we’ll be seeing some of the developments in the AIG issue becoming reality in the CDC one.

Thanks to socio-political blogs like WayangParty, The Online Citizen etc, i’ve been getting some interesting insights on this issue.

Thoughts on Blogging here…

2009-03-15T22:26:00.000-07:00

It’s almost five years since we were here. It’s also almost five years since the blog started. How times fly!

Originally, my motivation for blogging was to simply have a single place where family and friends can get updates on us over here. It started to become somewhat of a soundboard for some of my thoughts as i went through some interesting projects.

I was sure that at some point, i had more colleagues reading here than our Singapore friends. I even had my organization’s director here too 8). That was when i decided to have two instances of blogs (sounds familiar colleagues?).

With some unknown assistance from my mentor, one of my posts on another blog became a huge topic of discussion, and i even got bravos and kudos from some internet security experts! Gosh.. i am embarrassed to say the least.

The frequency of updates have slowed down in the last twelve months. A combination of trips, back pains, being distracted with new software from the company to play with and the eventual hitting of the proverbial wall made it hard for me to share my thoughts. Playing with Facebook and Twitter also reduced some portion of whatever free time that i had.

Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking internally. However, shutting down the blog wasn’t one of the things i’ve thought about, so i’m sorry for disappointing some folks…. I still need a venting mechanism, though these days, i’m the Yes Man.

I think the common theme these days is “a reset”. I’m resetting it now.

Let’s see how the reset goes…

Now this is a story all about…..

2009-03-12T23:35:00.001-07:00

Looking back, i don’t think that i’ve never really mentioned how i came to be where i am.

Upon a request from Agagooga, .. let me see if i can remember how it went…

“Now this is the story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
And Id like to take a minute just sit right there
Ill tell you how I became a relocated employee in WA

In Singapore, born and raised
On the sports field where I spent most of my days
Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool
And all shooting some football outside of the school

Got into a job which was really funny
The hiring manager left on the day i joined
Did pretty well, if i might say so myself
And was contacted by that ex-hiring
Manager again.. after a dinner
Came back to the company and say…
“Home to Redmond!”"

(not really.. but was asked to go for an interview in the Singapore operations office)

Enough of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air!

In my company, reorgs are a way of life. In one such reorg almost 5 years ago now (wow.. that’s a quick 5 years gone), the ex-hiring manager who became my second-time hiring manager in the current company relocated over. Somehow, i was asked again if i want to relocate as well, as regular 1:1 sessions with my 4-5 different managers have allowed me to tell them that i always find it a lifelong goal to work here,, and i guess these managers liked me enough to push me to do it.

Prior to the relocation, i had a number of training trips here, and i found myself a great mentor and friend. He still gives me advice and jokes and nowadays even self-composed music too. I know he also contributed a lot to my dream becoming a reality, though a few years later (we joked that it became a nightmare).

Of course, Sharon also played a huge part in supporting what i want to do. And so we’re here. It was as simple as that.

“Looked at my rental house, I was finally there
To settle my throne as the dude of AM!”

(many apologizes to DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, one of my all time favorite duo)

Looking back, i guess it’s a combination of fate (the same manager helping me get a job in three different locations, my mentor, the various managers i had in the Singapore office), some amount of hard work, and luck?!

My thoughts

2009-03-07T08:39:00.000-08:00

The economy is getting from bad to worse. Washington unemployment rate has increased to 8.1%. More people are losing jobs and will not be able to find another job within two to three months' time. There are more bad news than good news. What is happening to the world? Am I living in hell already?

I am not sure whether I will lose my job and thus work with an attitude that I may lose my job tomorrow and do the best that I can. I don't want to think about it but I cannot as I know one of my co-workers will be losing her job. A good hardworking co-worker losing her job due to the economic situation. Argh...

Something that i’m worried about..

2009-02-28T16:13:00.000-08:00

Looking at how the healthcare system is slowly being USA-like in Singapore, and with someone asking us to export our elderly to another country (a world’s first i believe), i am worried that eventually my friends and family will get to experience things like this.

Sad that even Oscar speeches are censored..

2009-02-26T00:20:00.001-08:00

Saw a post on TOC, and as i was chatting with my friend who works in Mediacorp, made me joked about it.

It’s sad to see that with access to such information easily available (YouTube anyone?) with a quick search that myopic people actually wasted their efforts in doing such censorships.

It’s the best actor’s speech… how can you expect anyone to not notice that??

My Valentine's Day Presents

2009-02-15T10:55:00.000-08:00

Ahh...it is the time of the year again. Presents. Yes, I know in this bad economy, we should save money. However, we should also allow ourselves to splurge on small indulgence.
My presents include:

Pink camera
Pink camera case/pouch
Pink mini camera printer
Black camera stand
Red and pink roses
Kukui Moisturizing Lotion - found this in Haiwaii

Rashomon effect is here ….

2009-02-13T19:01:00.000-08:00

Rashomon has been one of my favorite Kurosawa movies and though the story surround the rape of a woman and the murder of her husband, it’s the mutually contradictory recollections from four major players in that movie that drove an theme throughout it, and the cinematography that blew me away.

There’s even a term called the “Rashomon effect”, which basically means different observers or players within an event could easily produce substantially different accounts of the same event, viewed from each of their respective point of view.

Due to some events that occurred in a project last year, we had different players providing feedback on the incident. A brief recap today mentioned about differences in objectives and the corporate-speak “roles and responsibilities”, but i filter that down to the Rashomon effect. 8)

I sure hope some of the folks will borrow it from the library, rent it from Netflix, or just buy the amazingly high-valued Criterion Collection set, watch it, and think how closely it applies.

I probably should get it too, after watching it twice, to supplement my Seven Samurai set and the Yojimbo/Sanjuro set.

Spoke too soon…

2009-02-09T00:05:00.000-08:00

I think i jinxed myself by saying that i was recovering in the previous post.

Something weird happened and my back got into a muscle-spasm situation, where the lower back muscles are pulling down the rest of the body, and made me into the hunchbunck of notre dame’s copycat.

Had to stay home for a few days as sitting or standing was too painful.

Went to see my chiropractor (no chinese sinseh here!), and also started getting massaging treatments, and a combination of these and some good old oilments seems to have made it almost bearable to go to office to work.

I’m not going to jinx myself again.. so let’s see how it goes..

Bad Back’s back…

2009-02-04T23:25:00.001-08:00

Accidentally slipped in the steam room in the pro club, and bruised my back somewhat.

Luckily, it’s not the same old problem, though it still took a few days to recover.

Funny thing is, when i told Andrew about it, he said.. “sue the pro club!”…

Smiles on my face..

2009-02-04T22:57:00.001-08:00

As i suddenly found my high school graduation class photo on Facebook, whose presence provoked a lot of reminiscing of the good old and funny days.

In fact.. i finally got the title “Days of being wild”. Ah… i’m happy to say i still have just one more classmate that i hope to find. He used to be a good buddy, and an infamous incident where chairs were involved (and this wasn’t in my company!).

Of all the things we laughed about now as we look back, the one that i think was the most memorable was the “passing paper exercise” which, at one risky point in time, ended up with Ryan' not having a single paper!

That was fun..

A really weird CNY dinner..

2009-01-30T23:11:00.000-08:00

Sharon and I joined up with some of the other relocated families from Singapore and Moodyone was nice enough to fetch us to the restaurant in Renton.

It was quite an unique experience to say the least. As we’re prepping ourselves into the private dining area, we walked past a stage, with a band that was tuning their instruments. Little did we know!

Food-wise, it wasn’t great, but good enough. A few different interpretations of standard CNY dishes challenged us a bit, while the biggest headache-inducing factor was the loud and bad music that was playing on the stage by the band.

Halfway through the dinner, the kids that came along noticed that there were senior citizens dancing to the music. Indeed it was quite a sight to see them doing the cha-cha, rock and roll etc.

Pretty sure the next day we all had a big headache… some of the songs were really bad..

Change

2009-01-20T20:21:00.001-08:00

As i was watching the inauguration ceremony (check out the satellite image) with Ian, friends from all over the world were texting me with messages of hope.

Though there was a bit of a mistake during the actual inauguration by the chief justice, the 44th president of USA was calm enough to recover.

Subscribed the Whitehouse.gov blog. Gosh.. god knows when was the last i visited that site!

I like the speech a lot. So did my friends. The way that he was clearly rebuting the last 8 years and its excesses without naming names (that dude that caused most of it was nearby, but it would have been hard to keep a straight face on). A rewatch of the ceremony at home just reconfirmed that.

The one statement of note personally in his speech was:

“To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

‘nuff said.

Take it however you like, but it’s a new day. Enjoy the song. Now let’s enjoy the ride!

Turns out my last few posts weren’t posted

2009-01-13T23:18:00.000-08:00

Sharon told me earlier tonite that i hasn’t been posting to the blog, and i said huh? Checked in my blogger dashboard and found my last few posts not there. Turned out they were in one of my machines and i just “dumped” them all in one go, at the original designated date/time, so don’t be surprised to see so many posts at the same time.

New Vicks VapoRub knowledge

2009-01-13T22:48:00.001-08:00

Just goes to show that one keeps learning about things that would have been taken for granted.

From young, i have been using the VapoRub in all incidents of coughs, colds, chest pains, breathlessness etc, and i remembered my mum putting it into hot water and letting me breathe in the steam of the VapoRub mixture.

This recent issue discovered was something new, and made me wonder whether if i have been absolutely misusing the product and made things worse for myself.

My fave t-shirt shop… bye…

2009-01-10T22:48:00.000-08:00

Happy that i get to meet up with a few colleagues from Singapore. Was glad to bring Sharon along with them to the outlets to do some shopping.

Sad to find out that my fave t-shirt shop there (Big Dogs) is indeed closing down. This means i have one less shop to look at in the outlet mall. Will have to go online to get my “Attitude” tees.

I think they were doing their final closing sales, and i bought 4 tees at 6 dollars each. The guy at the cashier recognized me (i think i’ve bought about 40+ tees through the last 4 years) and the whole conversation was almost like a death march procession. Sad. Guess my purchases didn’t helped their financials.

A really funny experience in Sim Lim Square

2009-01-06T23:03:00.000-08:00

When i was back in Singapore (an extended visit due to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai), i went to Sim Lim Square to get a feel of how the local IT retail has progressed (and comparing it against Akihibara that i visited a week prior).

Saw a digital media player that plays Realvideo files and decided to get the device. As i used to know some of the owners of the shops there, i went to one of the ones that i knew and asked the guy operating the small booth in front of the shop about it.

He gave a “cash-payment” discount of 10%, and i decided to get it. He used his walkie-talkie and mumbled some orders, and a teenage girl appeared and he said “Mister.. follow the girl to get the item”. ?? Wasn’t the item in the store i wonder?

Slightly amused, i followed the girl, and went down two stories, walked to the back alley of the mall, and into a storeroom full of boxes.

After a few minutes of Chinese chatter among the staff, i was shown the device. Interestingly, the storeroom was full of iPod-like players, iPhone-like phones, and even facsimiles of the iRiver Disney MP3 players that i’ve gotten in the past in South Korea.

Maybe that’s why they have such a convoluted way of supply-chain logistics. Almost reminded me of the old software pirates that used to occupy most of Sim Lim Square.

Now that’s what i called good service!

2009-01-02T00:02:00.000-08:00

One would rarely associate Sim Lim Square with good service, but amazingly i encountered it!

I brought my Acer Aspire One for the trip back home, and saw someone with a really nice skin in a Starbucks (where else? *grin*). Though not as nice as the one shown here, but it caught my eye, and i enquired where it was purchased from.

Was told that it was Lappy Skins, and went there for a makeover. Nah… i didn’t find a graphic that i liked, so i went for the exterior protector skin and a nice keyboard/wristpad protector.

The shop is really just a little corner off a backalley (again), and looks like a one-man operation. The guy, i think his name is Nicholas, is amazingly quick with the way he applies the skins onto the netbook. He was so fast that he saw some air bubbles on a smaller area that i didn’t notice and he told me “i gotta do it again because it’s not good enough”, and ripped his initial work out.

Within a little while, it was done! Maybe i’ll send in an advance order for a custom skin and get it redone again on my next trip.

His quality of work and service was top class and i really recommends anyone with any kind of laptop to go check it out.

HELP! I am under HOUSE ARREST

2008-12-22T08:48:00.000-08:00

I like snow but not too much of it. For the past four days, I had more than nine inches of snow. I could have built snowmen and enjoyed lots of winter sports activities but I was not in the mood.

I could not get out of the house and I am very bored at home. Thank god, last week's snow storm did not cut off the power lines. If it did, I probably will have to stay in homeless shelter. There is nothing wrong staying in a homeless shelter, it just does not have the usual comfort of my home.

After this ordeal, I am not sure I can work from home on a long term basis. I think I will go berserk with no one to talk to. Yeah, I can talk to my co-workers online but there is no face-to-face interaction. I don't like it. I like to work from home and office.

For now, all I want for Christmas is to get out of the house!

Kiasu & Kiasi makes us safe & tasty?

2008-12-17T18:24:00.001-08:00

Kiasu & Kiasi makes us safe & tasty
Originally uploaded by jonpoon

Found another funny ad in the Bugis area as i was accompanying my mother to the various temples to do her praying and offerings to the gods.

Being "kiasu & kiasi" makes us safe & tasty huh? I guess that means most Singaporeans are tasty too then??

An ad that will never make any sense in any other parts of the world!

In which case, go to the Coxford Singlish Dictionary, and scroll down to these two words for the meanings!

What's a semi buffet lunch?

2008-12-16T08:10:00.001-08:00

Semi Buffet
Originally uploaded by jonpoon

Was on a bus along Geylang Road and saw this sign outside Lion City Hotel. What's a semi buffet lunch?

Isn't a buffet lunch an all-you-can-eat deal? Is this a half(all-you-can-eat) deal? When do you stop when the (all) is unknown to the restaurant?

CDI - Can't Do It

2008-12-09T17:54:00.000-08:00

I love to hang out with my co-workers telling me the pub scene and what's happening in their world. It is so interesting. They shared with me a new acronym - CDI = Can't Do It. They use it in live messenger or phone text messaging. It was hilarious when they explained the term to me. I thought it was a acronym for a bad word.

I am sad that one of my co-workers is leaving for her 100 day break. It is a thingy for contract staff. It feels like she is going on a maternity leave. I am going to miss her during these three months. Who will listen to my constant nagging at work. Jon is listening to my constant nagging at home :). As this is a eternal job for him, he cannot quit - CDI.

You sure there's a recession here?

2008-12-07T17:49:00.001-08:00

Finally touched down into Singapore, and went to meet up with two good friends of mine for a coffee-chat. We chose to meet in Orchard Road unfortunately, and i had a huge shock as i was walking out of the Orchard MRT station on Saturday. Just exiting the station took more than 10 minutes, as the huge crowd was almost toe-to-toe with one another every step of the way.

Queues were everywhere from the LV, Gucci, and other branded shops, although amusingly, some of the folks that were queuing to go in were wearing shorts and slippers. I guess that if they have the dough, these shops can't stop them from going in haha.

Last night, i went to meet up with two long-lost poly friends that i found through good old Facebook, and even though it was in Lot 1, a remote neighbourhood mall, the crowd was again overwhelming.

This coming from one that was just in Shinjuku for the whole of the weekdays last week was quite a surprise. I don't think i recall seeing that volume of people even in the peak hours of human traffic there.

To Asia here i come..

2008-11-30T02:04:00.001-08:00

Doing a short hop in Japan before going to Singapore, and New Delhi, India as well.

Was planning to do a quick hop to Bangkok too, but as a colleague recently said, I got some bad travel luck (from my prior trip, and now my upcoming trip).

Let’s hope that i can have a good trip to all the various countries, and be back here with Sharon..

Finally... It's here...

2008-11-23T17:32:00.001-08:00

After waiting nearly half my life for it, I finally got my hands on the Guns N' Roses' new CD, Chinese Democracy!

Been listening to the web streams for days, and now I can really enjoy it!

And something completely different…and right!

2008-11-19T17:58:00.000-08:00

It takes a bunch of old comedians to figure out how to use the net correctly to engage their target audience!

I wonder if the profiles that were “captured” in Monty Python’s intro trailer would be trembling or laughing their heads off right now..

Too bad i already have all their audio CDs and the 16 DVD megaton set… and a few books.. but hey.. Monty Python still reeks of fish-slapping dead-parrot-whacking awesomeness!

A 25 year celebration...

2008-11-17T13:27:00.000-08:00

It was Kim's 25th anniversary in the company. Imagine that... working in the same company longer than most of its new hires these days.

She got to do a short speech in our recent all-hands and she went through some interesting incidents between Bill, Steve and herself in one of the most eventful incidents in the company's history.

Makes it quite an interesting thing to work with a "living relic" of the company. It's just too bad that she gets to see the kind of challenges my group gets to enjoy.

Happy birthday?

2008-11-10T10:34:00.000-08:00

As i was clearing my digital archives, i found this e-card that was sent probably a year ago.

The main message was that the system i was handling was having issues on my birthday.

I found that funny, and actually i forgot to tell my friend that the service was already broken on the day it was launched, on Sharon's birthday!

I wonder what next year's birthday surprise will be? A totally working system?

What the world is waiting for...

2008-11-06T10:28:00.000-08:00

With the incoming new president-elect,it appears that there's an understandably euphoria and hope that things will become better.

Linking this back to when we had a change in one of our managers, and hope and excitement came as a result of it. Within the first few months, major changes occurred, and then things started to slow down as he reached some bumps along the way. I even gave him a nickname of "Mr. Can't Do Much"!

I'm hoping that the presidential change will not have such problems.

Change is good... so when's ours?

2008-11-05T23:45:00.001-08:00

Saw a good result at the end of a long campaign. First thought that came to mind was "when's ours?".

1) My country:

As i was chatting with my good friend, we both realized that it will take a really long time, and someone really special to bring change. Going through some of the island's political blogs, that sentiment seems to be common across Singaporeans.

But first... just getting a chance to vote is a big chance. Will that happen soon?

I wonder. I hope.

Finally recovered....... really

2008-10-31T12:35:00.001-07:00

Having felt like a totally flat pillow after the trials (oh yes... It was more like a witchhunt) and tribulations, I will be out of the self imposed blogging-rest.

Workwise since the last post was the usual controlled (mostly) chaos, and a few wtfs, but it's nothing that I haven't seen before.

Jotted a few posts on my Aspire One (such a lovely toy), and will be stirring out some fun again.

A letter too late...

2008-10-14T19:39:00.001-07:00

Letter
Originally uploaded by jonpoon

To finally close up my good old trip, i received a letter that announced the travel insurance coverage plan from one of my credit card providers.

Ain't that funny?

I'm back... safe... (barely)

2008-10-13T11:47:00.001-07:00

After the first few legs of trouble, i gave up posting updates as the streak of bad luck continued wherever i went.

My twice-lost luggage eventually came in 36 hours after i've touched down in Puerto Rico, in my second hotel of this leg of my trip.

The business side of things were pretty horrendous (as expected), and though the food was pretty good, the very limited views of the island reminded me of Malaysia for some reason, instead of Singapore as a fellow-island-on-the-equator should be.

On the very last night here, i booked into another hotel, and this was the first time my luggage and myself was in the same hotel on the same day! Tired to the core, i slept through an apparent earthquake, which was the strongest it had in the last 20 years. Didn't feel a single thing.

On the way back from Seattle in Washington DC, just as we have fully boarded the plane, the pilot announced a short delay, for some traffic reasons.. My head went.. 'Oh NO! NOT AGAIN!"

Thankfully, the plane did fly off after that announced delay. Phew!

And you've thought that would be the end right?

Of course NOT!

On the way back from Sea-Tac, on a cab, with only about 100 feet to go, the cab started spewing smoke in the front! I took off from the cab and dragged my luggage home, and the poor cab driver had to call his friends to pick him up that night, and came back to repair what appeared to be a burst water pipe of some sorts in the front.

I think throughout the trip, i had an unplanned expenditure of 250 dollars.. hmm.. i wonder if i can expense them off. Can't blame me !!

How about an encore?

2008-10-04T11:44:00.001-07:00

And my luggage stayed in chicago yet again while i'm at puerto Rico rico now.

I almost didn't even bother to look for my luggage and went straight to the luggage office to verify it.

At least this time I expected it due to the rather impossible itinerary, I packed some clothes and ac power adaptors. Time to go to the hotel and sleep...

how i love united... (not the football club)

2008-10-01T11:02:00.001-07:00

I don't know if i've jinxed myself with my last post, but after posting that from my phone on the plane, and thinking that I would be on my way, I dozed off....

Till abut 45 minutes later and finding out that the plane was still on the floor in Seatac.

Some mechanical problems which eventually took two hours to resolve, which also meant that I missed my connecting flight in chicago to Ottawa.

Nice. At least United was kind enough to house me in an airport hotel and the next available flight at 6am. Nice x 2.

Half slept till 4 am and back to the airport. Specifically requested the ground staff to verify that my checked luggage will be on the same flight, and of course they said yes.

Guess what... Finally in Ottawa and no luggage. It must have been the worst 90 mins flight ever.

So with no luggage, I checked into the hotel, and rushed to get some clothings and personal hygenie merchandise. I also bought an emergency phone charger that uses standard AA batteries to charge phones. I wonder how i'm going to get reimbursed on these expenses.

It's near midnight now and it's still on its way. Apparently, some of the other delegates for this conference are having the same issues too. Sigh..

Guess what too.... I was given yet another impossible itinerary out of Ottawa via Chicago t Puerto Rico. I'm already sure i'll miss the flight into PR. Just hope my luggage will be with me at the same time.

They reminds me of a group I work with, don't you think?

Delays and excess baggage

2008-09-29T12:19:00.001-07:00

On my way toward Ottawa for the Virus Bulletin conference after being away for two years.

As I was checking in, I was nicely informed that my only checked-in baggage is considered an excess baggage, and I have to pay 15 bucks for it. Since you have no other choices, credit card...here you go.

And then I get a notification that my transit flight in Chicago has already been delayed (huh?). Nice.

At the very least, i'm back at the conference. I am glad.

All night markets are the same

2008-09-28T16:08:00.001-07:00

We went to richmond's night market in british columbia recently and we saw what was basically our standard street night market in Singapore.

A few stalls of cooked food, with varying standard, provided the visitors with a "protein" source.

A number of cell phone accessories stalls, which offers phone unlocking services, started the row of technology products of dubious origins and purposes.

Let's see.... We saw the usual vcd vendors (3-5 movies for 20 CAD), a few vendors that are peddling flash cards for the Nintendo DS handhelds, and two stalls that sells its services to convert your PSPs to runing custom firmware. They also see (presumably) fake memory cards at dirt cheap prices.

What was realy funny about this was that there was a poster near the exit to the restrooms and its main message was that counterfeiting/pirating hurts the Canadian economy.

It's like trying to sell a freezer to eskimos. Wrong target market.

At the end of it, I was almost able to put myself in our neighborhood night market in Singapore if I close my eyes for a minute or two.

And this is the way to do ads on Youtube

2008-09-23T11:06:00.000-07:00

Wii - check

Wario - check

A great ad on youtube that you should see... check check check!

It's definitely a very unique but yet obvious way of promoting a product on the video sharing site. Tty refreshing the page again as it seems to have a few variations to.

This looks like a great game. I'm happy after a tedious morning meeting.

No no no… say it isn’t so…

2008-09-18T23:00:00.001-07:00

You got to be be kidding. Why doesn’t Yoko Ono just get someone else to write songs in John Lennon’s style and labeled it as his music? No.

The movie already sucked. Now this.

No.

There was (parts) of a sixth book released already.

No.

Should've been happy..

2008-09-15T23:59:00.001-07:00

A bunch of happy events eventually got screwed by a WTF event, and some clowns.

Probably as a combination of of the above and some hot weather recently, (i am really embarrassed to say that 24+ degrees Celsius is now considered too hot for me) tires me somewhat.

Luckily, my gym workouts resumed its high intensity after 2 weeks of lethargic workouts.

I'm guessing somehow, the physical and the mental space have exchanged the lethargic energy and i'm physically energized for workouts and mentally tired.

-_-;

New Family - Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates (Long Version)

2008-09-11T20:05:00.001-07:00

The second Bill/Jerry ad is actually quite funny. Again, there's a lot of subtle messaging in it, and another of Bill's robo-moves. What's next?

Two interesting news snippets on my company..

2008-09-06T19:58:00.001-07:00

The first was the launch of the new ad campaign, with one of my favorite comedian, Jerry Seinfeld, and Bill. The ad is interpreted by a lot of folks as being a collection of "huh??".

I have to watch it a few times and do my own over-interpretation of it in order to find hints or subtle messaging in the ad, and i think i quite like it, and i look forward to the next few ads from Jerry and Bill.

Another news was a 6 page article on the gaming console's infamous RROD issue. I do not have this console so i really do not have any inputs or comments on it, but it's quite a good (and long!) read from an author of a book on the launch of the first console.

My day at the PAX

2008-08-31T22:51:00.001-07:00

Took a day off on Friday to attend PAX, a video gaming exhibition/conference/festival/collection-of-fun.

The last time i did such a thing was when i was in E3 in ... probably 1997/1998, and in my previous life *grin* i was the logistics guy for exhibition booth setups, hiring, assignment of duties, procurement of supplies etc for Singapore based shows like PC Show, Comex etc, so it was something that i was interested to see how things have changed since then.

Went there really early to grab my ticket, and noticed the cool setup of queuing that the organizers have made. Though there was a queue of probably 30-40 minutes before you can actually get into the meat of the show, people were good humored and did ad hoc multi-player gaming with their DSes. In fact, i only saw a handful of PSPs around, while DSes were seen everywhere i went.

Right at the start, i bought this CD from MC Frontalot. Did a quick listen to it when i went home and it's a really nice album. He was there to sign the purchases too.

There were plush bean bags all around the conference center, and people just laid back and started doing multiplayer gaming. EBA/Ouendan multiplayer gaming sessions were the bomb!

Was disappointed in the number of cosplayers, but these two groups were really funny, especially the Phoenix Wright/Apollo Justice team, and especially Godot! Since this series is my second fave series on the DS, i was exceptionally happy to see them, but where's the Ouendans!!!!

NIntendo had a big booth and showcased their Wii games and DS games. Wii games were meh for me.. except for Wario Land Shake. DS demos of Chrono Trigger (must buy), Dragon Quest IV (must buy), Rhythm Heaven (must buy..er.. wait..), Pokemon Platinum (must... not buy), Dragon Ball Origins (highly buy-able) meant that Sharon will probably be staring at my ever increasing collection ever more often!

Talked to the developers of this game (and an unique game in Drawn To Life where you draw your own characters).

Even the demos for this game looked like a joke. Duh!

Super retro gaming gadgets... i think i used to own one of the Pac-man and Donkey Kong (the two in the back row).

It's not only a video gaming event, but lots of tabletop RPG players, Magic/other themes card games as well.

Get a free haircut AND a free Xbox 360 game for Call of Duty (i think... i wasn't interested because i do not have a 360).

The original and Japanese version of Rhythm Heaven, known as Rhythm Tengoku Gold, the sequel to one of my favorite games on the gameboy advance, Rhythm Tengoku. KAAAAAAAAAAAMO NE~

At the end, i left totally exhausted, and started thinking.. "i'm too old for this! haha"

So this place isn't good huh...

2008-08-28T23:55:00.000-07:00

When i went back to Singapore in Jan this year, and met up with some of my colleagues in the Singapore office for lunch in Vivo City, i saw this interesting restaurant being set up.

A detailed review from a blogger here indicated to me that it's all flash and nothing good huh... striking it off my upcoming list of places to try..

35 years old == reboot time?

2008-08-28T23:47:00.001-07:00

A few buddies of mine have been going through the same sequence recently. We've been buddies for the last twenty years (gosh.. aren't we old?), and it just feel like an expected phase for us as we broke the 35 years old barrier.

Ryan, one that i knew since 12, started the ball rolling when he moved from one company to another in China. He's been based there (mostly in Shanghai) at just about the time i came over here, so we have practically no chance of meeting up, save another buddy's wedding last May.

The buddy that married last May was James. As fast as a delivery from DHL, he joined another company that ends with L too.

Teow, who was on a government bond, also sent us an update. He's free, and is in time to start working (for) or in the casinos in Singapore hehe... he's been practicing a lot in the casinos around Asia.

My "sister", who's a day older than me, also changed her job.. to what i still do not know.

And so on and so forth..... ironically, i was the first to contemplate about this, and shared my thoughts with my buddies via good old email, and yet i'm still working in the same company here, and staring at 9 years in a few week's time. 8)

My summary of The Games

2008-08-24T19:38:00.001-07:00

I think i would prefer my country to go to the Games and do something like this, than what they've done. Last isn't a disgrace, though that's not what we've been drilled since early childhood.

I barely read other news about what my other fellow Singaporeans did in the Games. Makes one wonder if they are being pushed to the side in a similar fashion as we've seen in many other areas already?

Or they might already have plans to import some pretty women to start winning the Ms. Universe, Ms. World etc.

*yawn*.....

This Games to me: Usain Bolt. Matthias Steiner. Samia Yusuf Omar.

My Manager

2008-08-23T06:47:00.000-07:00

When I told Jon that I have an objective manager who critiques my work and provide guidance, he seems to think that this is the normal behavior of a manager. But I have not experience this in my past jobs. I have been thrown in the deep blue sea, learn to swim or sink on many occasions, seen work being publicly rejected and former bosses taking credit for my work. I view such behavior as 'norm'.

Now, having a manager, who not only provide guidance, stand by me, ensure that her peers sit up and listen to my presentation, emails her managers to showcase my work and wants to increase visibility for my work. I need to sit down, take a deep breath and take in all this information. I am not used to this treatment and told my manager sincerely "I don't want it or I don't want to do it". I appreciate the recognition but do not want the attention showered upon me. Most importantly, I do not know how to react in front of my peers when most of them yearn recognition for their work. Don't get me wrong, I think my co-workers produce quality work and deserve due recognition. I don't think my manager is bias as she makes it a point to acknowledge, praise and single out the great work my co-workers have done.

For now, I am still sitting down and taking in all the new information and formulating a plan on how to do better in my work. After watching Anthony Bourdain - No Reservations Japan, I realised that no one knows what is perfection, there is always room for improvement.

USA's Live Search tribute to Singapore

2008-08-22T08:39:00.001-07:00

SG_Live_Search
Originally uploaded by jonpoon

Thanks to a fellow Singaporean colleague here, i was told about today's default home page in www.live.com having someone wearing a Singapore flag.

However, it seems like it's only shown from USA internet users, and so i decided to just do a quick screen capture and put it here.

Meeting up with a survivor, and reminiscing

2008-08-21T21:49:00.000-07:00

Yeow Meng was in town to do a series of meetings with his Redmond colleagues, and bumped into me in my building and we just decided to go out for dinner to just update each other on things.

Hajime, a colleague from Japan, came along (and eventually paid) for the meal (thanks Miho!). Went home to pick up Sharon and we went to a nearby Chinese restaurant to take some good food.

The world is just so small. One person that Yeow Meng has to meet to discuss things on was my former manager. He asked about him and we joked about some of the issues that occurred. Something with is even more amazing was that this former manager was interviewed by my hiring manager (who is also in Redmond now) in the Singapore office for my initial Singapore job, and my prior job before joining this company!

He also mentioned that my hair is whitening.. or greying. Sharon recently commented about that too, especially on certain pockets where they are whitening at a quick pace. Hopefully, not as bad as her!

Talking about Yeow Meng, i still remembered when he first joined the company in the Singapore office. Due to a quick turnover of staff, he was literally thrown into this "deep sea" of processes, quality, and issues, without too much of a safety net. In reality, i think he didn't get too much formal training from his predecessors, but just a brief focus on the main deliverables that his role need to do.

Though he was a bit naggy at times, and he initially did step on a toe or two, he showed how good he was by actually being able not to survive in that deep sea, but strived in that situation! I admire his work from that point onwards, and for a while we worked really well together on a number of product launches.

It's nice to be able to meet up with people that you admire... and chat. Nice times indeed, especially on a day when the teleport to the dark ages was reopening right in front of you.....

A Madman, and then a prophet

2008-08-20T21:41:00.000-07:00

The NYT article quoted in Steinski's blog sound quite familiar.

However, Professor Roubini's vindication came pretty quickly as the world proved his thinking correct.

I'm still waiting for mine.

via [Steinski]

Communications breakdown?

2008-08-19T21:26:00.001-07:00

Avi blogged about the power of small teams here, and stated his reasons. After reading it, i think i agree with most of his points.

"The closer a team size moves to one, the more efficient its productivity."

I think generally speaking it is a very accurate statement. It's also a very valid goal to achieve. Is it the only goal? I wonder.

The aim to achieve full efficiency could overwhelms the effectiveness of a team. To lose efficiency however could also result in losing effectiveness too, so it's quite a conundrum to solve, and I don't think there's a one standard answer for all situations here. A lone wolf cannot take over the world, or at least, not the constantly changing world that we are in.

From my point of view, i think anything more than three members will create communication breakdown.

"Explaining to one person every detail of the plan is tedious enough. Imagine having to do the same for multiple people."

From the last few years of working on the service, and communicating and working its various supplementary teams. i totally agree with this point.

Interestingly, the current solution whenever there's a communication breakdown is to add another team into the picture (it's true!). From being able to contact the devs at one point (the best) to having to talk to a non-technical PM to talk to another non-technical PM to talk to yet another non-technical PM to tell the dev something technical (the worst). At least now, there's been opportunities to take one or two such PMs out of the way, but the tendency is go to back to this worst scenario. Yucks.

"When there is one person both running and operating the entire show, you have 0% communication efficiency loss."

I actually kept wondering about this point for quite some time. I believe that from the time Randy started the service, to the first 8 months that i took over, running the show single-handedly really was the best period for the service.

Indeed, as Avi pointed out further, as more members get into the picture, situations will occur as a result of communications breakdown. His limit is around 8, and if i count all the team's PMs and folks, we have just exceed 8!

As part of a post-mortem discussion on an issue today, it just dawn on me that we have to improve the communications, and thus, finding Avi's post via Reddit was timely. A wiki indeed works well, but it also depends on the implementation of the wiki by the various platforms.

Another recent change was that most of my team in Redmond now has our own offices, which is really good for me because now i can really concentrate on my work with "noise" of my own selection, and not Andrew's constant news reporting from every possible broadcasting news channel imaginable *grin*.

Ironically, even though this change is something that we asked for, it does look like, as a senior colleague Hollis mentioned, changed the balance of communications along my hallway, and I agree with her observations. Let's see how my team and I can improve that....

I rather watch this Olympics

2008-08-18T18:21:00.001-07:00

I'm not too interested usually with the Olympics games, and especially the more recent ones where broadcasting rights supercede fair usage/viewing of clips.

I rather watch this version instead. Much better, and cuter too.

Aloha! We're back!

2008-08-17T21:37:00.001-07:00

Sharon and I went to the "Singapore in America", Hawaii. We enjoyed the sun, the sand and the sea.

In case you're wondering, i gave Hawaii this label haha. I think there are a number of reasons why I gave this label.

FIrstly, we found some "hawker" stalls that sell Singapore food. You should have seen Sharon's expressions when she got her hands on a bowl of spicy hot prawn noodles! +1

And then she ordered a packet of Char Kway Teow. +1! Both dishes weren't 100%, but at least 80-90% authentic enough for the two of us!

The weather was pretty warm, in the low 30s i think. It's obviously not as humid as Singapore but hot enough. +1.

We did a day tour, and our tour guide, Pedro, told us about the high property prices and the different ownership rights. The cheapest flats for about 400,000 USD, with typical flats over 500,000 and most over millions, hmm.. that sounds a bit like Singapore too. +1

The high standard of living and the fact that most families will take 2-3 generations to totally own their house... +1

One of my friends just said that these are common across most developed nations, and that we just plainly missed Singapore. Maybe so huh?

Will be uploading a bunch of photos and resume our blogging this week.

Wow... thousands just for a psp?

2008-08-06T08:18:00.001-07:00

It's amazing that people still dare to buy electronic gadgets in Lucky Plaza, Singapore. That place, among others, is notorious to have a lot of nasty shops that will intimidate folks to buy their items at a much higher price than others.

Before i read the article, i thought it was a tourist that was conned. Surprised to see that it was a middle-age Singaporean woman.

In the news report, the vague phrase "original software" could mean so many different things. I wonder what they are...

Best/Worst system ever?

2008-08-06T00:07:00.001-07:00

After Arnold mandated a state-wide pay-cut, it was reported that this cannot be done as a result of its antiquated system not being able to reconfigure the payroll system in anything less than six months.

Even Terminator cannot whack a system that is "an example of a one-time large investment and sustained with duct tapes".

The funniest part of this is that even though it looks like just a data change on a single data point (minimum wage), somehow it's taking 6 months to lower the wage, while 9 months to raise it back!

Wonder why there's an additional 3 months?

Sad to say, but this sounds too close to my work...

All projects are doomed to fail?

2008-07-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

An informational yet simple presentation deck that i found indicated that the traditional software projects will fail, or at least.. fail in the real sense but yet officially a success because the goalposts have been shifted to accommodate the failures.

With software development methodologies like this, It's either that, or the project members are are the boy on this bike.

Shopping for a Swimwear

2008-07-27T18:44:00.001-07:00

I do not have a perfect figure and I am definitely not petite. I am huge and tall. An amazon by Asian standard. Blessed with such an enormous shape/size/figure, it is very difficult for me to shop for a swimsuit.

I tried on more than 20 swimsuits in Bellevue Shopping Mall but I could not find one that suit me. I searched for the swimwear in the Plus Size Stores but could not find one that fits me. Feeling depressed, I told Jon that I need to go on a diet and he laughed. He was pretty sure that if plus size American women can find swimsuits so can I.

I was determined to find a swimsuit and I did. After shopping for more than six hours, I finally found one that suits me. Poor Jon nearly felt asleep while waiting for me. Yay!!! No diet for me :)