Fixing Foibles & Follies

where I'm at now

2010-09-06T22:34:00.000-07:00

I've started up something new (sporadically) here.

Most bloggers should tweet instead

2008-06-13T09:25:00.000-07:00

In the cacophonous jumble of thoughts that bounce through our heads every day, there are a few that stand out. We feel compelled to share these observations and ruminations -- the uncommon moment, for example, where you see a mailman who is walking quickly and smoking a cigar.

I've been using Twitter for about a month now and I've found it's a handy way to bookmark such observations and ruminations when they happen. And I've come to appreciate the beauty of Twitter's brevity constraint: your posts (or tweets) can be no longer than 140 characters.

What's so good about this extreme conciseness? This: it forces you to get to the point. Have you ever taken a random walk down blog street? Granted, there are great blogs out there, but the vast majority are one of two types:

Ramblefests: Stream-of-conscious rants that are ferociously uninteresting.
Copycats: Multi-paragraph quotations from news sites and other blogs, with maybe a sentence or two of original commentary.

All the bloggers that fit in the above two categories should discover the joy of Twitter -- where there's really only room for original content. And where it's difficult to repeat yourself (unless you accidentally hit the "update" button six times, like I did the other day).

You can stalk me on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/thefoible

Tags: Twitter

Remembering Grammy Shaw

2008-05-28T23:41:00.000-07:00

Over Memorial Day Weekend, Katy, my dad, and I headed out east to Palouse, WA. My parents both grew up there and that's where I lived, too, as a wee little fellow.

We joined my cousin and my aunt and uncle Deerkop (who live in this beautiful place just outside of Palouse) to remember Grammy Shaw. She passed away three months ago. Her death caught us all by surprise, and the fact that she's gone is really still sinking in. Grammy and I talked almost every night on the phone ... indeed, we talked the night before she died. I'll always remember that final phone call -- she was happy and in good spirits.

I remember thinking over the past few years how it was odd that Grammy didn't really seem to have any hobbies or things she was interested in. But now that she's gone I've realized that she valued what's really important in life: people. To call her a social hub would be an understatement. She had an absolutely amazing ability of bringing people together. She thrived on her family members connecting with each other. We all joked about Grammy's famous "phone pass" -- where you'd be talking on the phone with her and suddenly she'd pass the phone to, say, your aunt standing nearby.

After we visited Grammy's grave on Saturday, my dad and I took a walk down along the railroad tracks that wind along the outskirts of Palouse. He recounted his memories from 50 years ago, when he was a kid playing by those same railroad tracks (not much has changed in Palouse) and causing a considerable amount of mayhem.

It struck me that our father-son walk down memory lane was exactly the sort of thing that would make Grammy happy. It was the perfect way to honor her memory.

Healia Communities

2008-05-23T15:38:00.000-07:00

Healia, where I interned last summer, recently launched a health social networking site: Healia Communities. Just like the Healia search engine, which generates high-quality, high-relevance results, Healia Communities uses algorithms to guide users to other users who can best help them.

Healia Communities integrates with the Healia search engine via resources. Essentially, these allow users to "clip and save" results from the search engine to their communities profiles. This integration with health search is a key way that Healia Communities differs from other health social networking sites.

I was involved in several planning discussions on Healia Communities last summer, so it's exciting for me personally to see how far it's come. Also, I wrote the help section for this site. :)

You can give Healia Communities a try here.

Tags: health social networking health search Healia Communities

Almost done

2008-05-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

In less than a month, I'll graduate from the UW MBA program. My schedule this final quarter has been refreshingly open-ended and I've had a chance to catch up with old friends. Many of them have told me it seems like this has gone by really fast.

For them, perhaps. For me, the past 2 years have had so much packed into them that it really hasn't seemed like time's flown by. September 2006 seems like a long time ago indeed.

While my first year (and first quarter of this year) were unbelievably busy, these final two quarters have eased up. I joined classmates on a study tour through South Africa during spring break -- it was an incredible trip. This quarter I've been walking a lot (Gmaps Pedometer is a really handy tool -- it showed me that I walked 7 miles yesterday), reading the news, and just relaxing.

I'll be traveling to Thailand and Cambodia after graduation for 3 weeks and then in mid-July I'll start work with Vitalent.

Tags: MBA UW University of Washington South Africa

My sister's on the radio today

2008-02-06T10:14:00.000-08:00

While I've been undeniably lax as a blogger over the past several months, my sister has been on an incredible blogging spree. Her blog about the 70s has quickly built up an active community of readers. Indeed, she's gotten so popular that she was interviewed about her blog by local radio station KUOW. The interview will air today at 2 PM, and Katy will post a link to the interview after it airs.

Tags: Rollerblog interview

The top 10 social networking sites, 2006 - 2007

2008-01-21T14:03:00.000-08:00

Although there was explosive growth in social networking over the past year, a few sites actually lost a significant amount of users over the year: AOL Hometown is down 32%. Ouch. I hadn't ever heard of this site (have you?); when I checked it out just now it had a banner ad for another user-losing site: Classmates Online.

MySpace is still on top, but its user base grew only 9% from 2006 to 2007 -- compared with Facebook's 72% growth during the same period.

It's only a matter of time before Facebook seizes the #1 spot. I mean, my mom is on Facebook, as are two of my aunts. They never hopped on the MySpace bandwagon. Indeed, many people I know have deleted their MySpace profiles.

But MySpace remains popular with the young'uns. T-Mobile's Sidekick, which targets the 14 to 22-year-old set, boasts of one-touch MySpace access. I find that humorous. Then again, I programmed in one-touch Facebook access in my phone..

Tags: MySpace Facebook AOL Hometown Sidekick social networking

Even my mom is on Facebook

2008-01-13T22:48:00.000-08:00

Tags: Facebook mom

Habanero and lime delight

2008-01-12T09:47:00.000-08:00

Trader Joe's Habanero & Lime salsa is insanely good. I don't know why I never tried it before. I bought a jar on a whim the other day and spread it on Trader Joe's non-dairy veggie burritos (of which I've consumed a multitude over the years). Good lord! It's got this delicious, unique tanginess going on. I woke up today thinking about it. I'm going to have some on a burrito. For breakfast. Right now.

One thing: it's not spicy enough. (Nothing is every spicy enough for me.) But that's easily remedied by stirring in a little hot sauce.

Trader Joe's is like Apple -- it's one of those brands that inspires rabid customer loyalty. I've always been curious about why this is, and maybe I'll get some answers soon. One of the teams in my brand management class will be studying the Trader Joe's brand this quarter.

Tags: Habanero and lime salsa Trader Joe's brand

Snow! Or rain?

2008-01-06T12:58:00.000-08:00

It sounds like it's raining hard outside my window. There's a hypnotic sound of raindrops echoing up from my apartment building's mini-courtyard area.

But out my window, I see big, fluffy snowflakes drifting towards the ground.

Odd.

Tags: Seattle snow rain

Zeppercise

2007-12-17T12:02:00.000-08:00

My sister recently penned an award-winning post: Zeppercise. Please enjoy.

Bye bye, Comcast

2007-12-05T21:57:00.000-08:00

I've been curious about Clearwire for a while now, and finally I've decided to give it a shot. Comcast has always seemed to have issues in my building, and after my Internet connection was out for three days last week, I'd had enough. So I'm up and running on my new Clearwire modem tonight -- it was very easy to set up and I'm not finding that the download speed is slower than Comcast. Actually, I'm finding the opposite: I'm able to watch episodes of The Office on NBC.com without a hitch, whereas with Comcast, my connection constantly blinked out.

Tags: Comcast Clearwire

Here I am!

2007-12-05T21:48:00.000-08:00

Hello. It's been a while! The first quarter of my final year in the UW MBA program has been a busy one. I've taken classes that have been time-consuming and challenging (but in a good way), spent a lot of time doing MBAA (student government) work, and over the past month, I've focused considerable energy on the job search. I should -- fingers crossed -- have an offer for a post-graduation job in the near future. If so, I'll have more free time during the next two quarters.

Which would be nice, I must admit. :)

Healia's new Facebook application

2007-08-30T10:56:00.000-07:00

Healia, where I've been interning this summer, has just launched a Facebook application: the Healia Health Challenge.

The game tests your general health knowledge with questions that cover nutrition, anatomy, and STDs, among other things. It starts you off as a pre-med student, and if you rack up enough points, you get promoted all the way up to Chief of Medicine.

It's definitely been a lot of fun to work on this as a group over the past few months. If you have a Facebook account, please give it a shot and let me know what you think. And if you like it, please feel free to pass it on. :)

Tags: internship Healia Facebook application health

This is fun

2007-08-28T13:08:00.001-07:00

Warning: there is insta-audio in the above-linked website, which I hate. Still, though, its build-your-own avatar tool is quite fun.

I've jumped onto YouTube

2007-08-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

I was with my family visiting my cousin over the weekend; she lives near Port Angeles, WA. My sister Bethany I and availed ourselves of her trampoline.

This little video -- in all its jerky and grainy glory -- is actually the first I've ever uploaded to YouTube. It's a remarkably easy process. I thought there would be some difficulty with the 3g2 video format that my phone uses, but there wasn't any problem; everything gets converted.

Tags: YouTube trampoline 3g2 video format

Yellow house

2007-08-10T06:35:00.000-07:00

My appreciation of music has always been deeply egotistical. I don't pay any attention to lyrics because I frankly don't care about the meaning the artist is attempting to convey. I care only about the meaning that I create -- arbitrarily and subjectively, yes, I admit -- as I hear the music.

For me, Belle and Sebastian = my swirling sunny emotions in the summer of 1999. Camper Van Beethoven = driving back from my Dairy Queen job, night-time, humming merrily along to myself, high school 1990. I'm not so interested in the technical facts about these bands.

Unsurprisingly, then, I've long been a fan of music with lyrics difficult to decipher: R.E.M., The Cocteau Twins, and so on. I'm also quite partial to music without any lyrics at all. This is the sort of music I can easily tack my memories to and claim as my own.

Grizzly Bear's critically acclaimed 2006 release, Yellow House, is such an album. Since I first started listening to it a few weeks ago, it has become ever more entertwined with nostalgia nodes deep within my mind. You know that feeling when you hear a song or an album a few times and you realize: I will always associate this music with this particular time in my life? Yes.

A text message I sent a few weeks ago sums up my experience with Yellow House: "Floating down the sidewalk on a grizzlybear-spun cloud."

I mentioned nostalgia. Again, I don't know what Grizzly Bear is singing about in this album, nor do I care to know. The thing is, I grew up in a yellow house -- lived there from 1981 - 1991. So I declare that this album is all about me and my own memories. I'll sign off with a quotidian quote from my journal written exactly twenty years ago, on August 10, 1987:

Today we went to Ruiz's to get some games. Some of the games: Mule, Alley Cat, Pool 400. Katy and I played a game of Farming Game today down here in the basement. Katy won. When the game ended, she had 140 cows, I had 110.

P.S. Go here (warning: music starts playing when you load the page) and download On a Neck, On a Spit right away. It's a very good song.

Tags: nostalgia UW Grizzly Bear Yellow House memories meaning lyrics 1980s 80s The Farming Game

Fun with the Feedburner Headline Animator

2007-08-09T12:27:00.000-07:00

I don't post for a week and all of a sudden I post three times in a day. I know, I know, I'm rebelling against blogging best practices. So be it.

I just used the Feedburner headline animator to make a nifty little widget that displays the latest posts from the Healia Blog:

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Fun stuff!

Tags: Feedburner Headline Animator Healia widget

Daily one-minute webcast of Seattle business news

2007-08-09T09:27:00.000-07:00

The Puget Sound Business Journal now offers a daily one-minute online video summary of local business news.

I keep tabs on national and international business news by reading the Wall Street Journal every morning on the bus. But I haven't been covering local business news too closely lately, so I'm happy to see a quick and easy way to do this.

Tags: Seattle business news online video Puget Sound Business Journal

Linkalicious: 8/9/07

2007-08-09T08:40:00.000-07:00

Dear readers, here are some interesting tidbits, hastily proffered. More substantial posts coming your way soon.

In strict botanical parlance, bananas are berries -- but strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries are not.
Google's Chinese name is "Gu Ge," which translates to "harvest song." This is a bit more appealing than the translation of Google's English name: old hound.
A people-search engine called Spock is currently in beta. Among other things, it's an interesting new way to manage one's online identity. Let me know if you'd like an invite.
TV's really all about the ads -- particularly on a new site that NBC will be launching, called Didja.com. This site will offer visitors nothing but ads, both classic and contemporary.

Tags: Linkalicious Spock Didja.com banana berry berries Gu Ge

I'm not a woman

2007-08-02T10:34:00.000-07:00

But Gmail seems to think that I am. These are the ads currently popping up for me (the topmost ad is particularly disturbing, is it not?):

Why am I seeing these? I'm not sure. I guess there's not enough manly talk in my emails.

A year ago, I wondered here whether other people were as curious about Gmail ads as me. Interestingly, 88% of poll respondents said that they, too, discuss Gmail ads with their friends.

Tags: Gmail online advertising ads

Appaholic: facilitating obsession with Facebook statistics

2007-08-01T16:05:00.000-07:00

If you're curious about which Facebook applications are hot (or cold) at the moment, Appaholic is worth exploring. It displays statistics on Facebook applications, updated hourly.

The Viral Dashboard page is interesting, but I was confused by it at first. The site FAQ doesn't explain this, but the applications are ranked by "% change" -- percentage change in users from yesterday to today. So this list is not based on the total number of Facebook users who have installed that particular application.

Because the appaholic rank list is based on daily percentage growth, it changes frequently. At the bottom of the list are applications that are, for whatever reason, quickly shedding users. In the rapidly-growing universe of Facebook applications, these negative-growth applications might have been at the top of the list not too long ago.

Tags: Appaholic Facebook application statistics percentage growth users rank

Picnik

2007-07-31T08:50:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I read about Picnik in a recent Mossberg column (sub req'd). It's an uncharacteristically glowing review with nary a negative word:

Picnik has a beautiful and responsive user interface .... If you want to see how good a Web application can be, take Picnik for a spin.

Intrigued, I hastened to check it out for myself. It didn't take me long to acquiesce (always loved that word) to Mossberg's assessment. It is indeed a beaut. And there's a fetching sense of humor sprinkled throughout, like in the loading screen (pictured above) -- "floating kites .... laying a blanket... warming breeze..."

Oh, so what Picnik actually does? (Guess I haven't mentioned that yet.) It's a web-based photo-editing program. It does the simple stuff -- crops, resizings, etc -- quickly and painlessly. I definitely recommend giving it a spin.

Check out their blog, too -- in a fun touch, they ask folks to help them come up with a name for the premium version, which is coming soon.

Tags: Picnik Mossberg photo editing

Mysteries of the bus

2007-07-30T09:45:00.000-07:00

As I boarded the bus the other morning, I saw the scene at left: a woman seated with a "Congrats!" balloon so large that she had to turn her face to the side to make room for it.

I wondered: did someone give her this balloon -- was this burdensome prize hers? Or was she bringing it to work, to give to someone else?

Speaking of the bus, as the Seattle Weekly has recently pointed out, bus drivers have a tough job.

Tags: bus driver balloon mystery Seattle

Can The Simpsons improve your mental health?

2007-07-27T06:11:00.000-07:00

I was researching connections between The Simpsons and health for today's blog post on The Healia Blog, and I ran across this story:

Simply acknowledging mental health on such a popular television show might help 'normalise' the illnesses, say Australian trainee psychiatrist Dr Hannah Mendelson and director/cinematographer Gil Poznanski from Melbourne.

This idea is not without its detractors, however.

I'm not sure what to think about this question. On the one hand, if something is suppressed and kept under the carpet, there's an argument for bringing it out into the light. On the other hand, it's possible to go too far and make people feel belittled. Has The Simpsons done that? I don't think so.

After reading about the brilliant marketing campaign over the past few weeks (The Seattle Kwik-E-Mart is a sight to behold), I'm looking forward to watching the movie and seeing if it lives up to the hype.

Tags: The Simpsons movie mental health

Children of the 70s

2007-07-26T06:02:00.000-07:00

Born in '74 (me) and '76 (her), my sister Katy and I are children of the 70s. We wore the funny clothes. Everything was orange and brown and hazy and bellbottom-y.

In honor of the strange decade of our birth, Katy has started writing The RollerBlog. In her words:

This blog chronicles my journey into the decade of my birth, in which I will immerse myself in all things seventies. Movies, books, music, television, pop culture, and more await.

Definitely take a look; her blog is a lot of fun. She's posted reviews of the film Silent Running, the discography of Yes, and a very...interesting...book called Half Past Human.

Katy, I bid you a warm welcome to the world of blogging. :)

A few more photos of us from the 70s:

On the couch, when Katy was just a baby.
Christmas! No, we weren't exactly wealthy.
Halloween, With Grammy and Dad.
Wheelbarrow ride.

Tags: RollerBlog siblings sister 70s music movies culture seventies photos

Eavesdroppers

2007-07-25T09:17:00.000-07:00

I've been laughing (silently to myself) at overheard snippets of conversation for years, so I was immediately charmed by a blog I happened upon via BlogExplosion the other day: Eavesdroppers. Here, you can find a compendium of eavesdropped bits of conversation, compiled by three bloggers.

One example:

[Two middle-aged women are discussing their mothers.]

Woman 1: I'm really thankful that my mother's mind is still good like it is.
Woman 2: Yeah, that's great.
Woman 1: She's still sharp for 78, aren't you Mom? Aren't you 78?
"Mom": Umm... I don't know, I guess so.

Tags: Eavesdroppers eavesdropping blog

Happy Harry Potter weekend

2007-07-24T06:04:00.000-07:00

Requisite note: no spoilers here!

Prior to this past weekend -- Harry Potter Weekend, truly an international event -- I hadn't read any of the Harry Potter books.

Now that the weekend's over, I've read fifty or so pages from the latest Harry Potter book. I was reading over the shoulder of a friend of mine, and I began to get a sense of what all the fuss is about. It's definitely an enjoyable read.

My friend and I had been at the Harry Potter release party at University Bookstore on Friday night. I wasn't surprised by the throngs of kids in costume -- no, it was all the costumed adults, all quite earnest, who threw me for a loop. There was even a band there, playing Harry Potter-themed music and shouting out the countdown to midnight after every song. We'd had a few drinks beforehand, so it was all pretty amusing.

Is this the biggest book event ever? Perhaps. I heard on a recent WSJ podcast that this was the biggest single product distribution for Amazon.com. Certainly, a whole lot of trees went into this. Yesterday evening, it seemed like half the people in my bus were intently perusing their copies.

Tags: Harry Potter amazon.com product distribution release party costumes

Your password: not a secret to Sprint customer service

2007-07-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

If you want to change your password at the Sprint Wireless site, you're informed of the following password stipulations:

Must be 6 to 8 letters or numbers (A-Z and 0-9)
Cannot include more than 3 repetitive digits (e.g. 111)
Cannot be all or part of your social security number or Sprint PCS phone number
Should not be something easy to guess, such as your birthdate.

Such extensive precautions should be reassuring. But when you call Sprint to resolve a billing issue, as I did recently (they have not yet received the check I sent two weeks ago), you are asked to give your password for verification purposes.

And all those privacy precautions go out the window.

When I called earlier today and the representative asked for my password, I said I'm uncomfortable giving that information and asked if there is another way to confirm my identity. She responded: "I'm looking at it anyway, so you might as well just tell me."

Do you know of any other companies that routinely ask for your password? I don't. When I worked for Amazon.com customer service back in 1999-2000, we simply did not have access to customers' passwords. Sometimes customers would call and ask us to tell them their password, and the best we could do was reset their password -- because we didn't have access to this information. And that's the way it should be.

I'm beginning to understand why Sprint received the dubious honor of last place in call center satisfaction. Add to this the recent fallout from their mass dumping of customers, and it's clear that Sprint has a rather serious PR situation to attend to.

Tags: Sprint password customer service

Cranes aplenty

2007-07-18T18:41:00.000-07:00

I snapped the photo at right with my phone as I walked across the I-405 overpass this evening. I was on my daily walk from work to the Bellevue Transit Center.

As the profusion of cranes attest, construction is on a tear in Bellevue, WA, and has been for a while. There was even a tragic accident involving a crane last November.

I'm reminded of all the cranes poking out of downtown Seattle during the Internet boom, eight years ago. At the time, friends and I jokingly envisioned "crane wars" wherein the slumbering mechanical giants would suddenly come to life and battle each other, a la Transformers.

Although I confess the walk over the I-405 overpass is not in the least enjoyable -- motorists on the on-ramps actually seem to purposefully accelerate in an attempt to run over my fleeing pedestrian self -- I do sometimes see fun things nearby, like the geese on the sidewalk on Monday morning.

Tags: cranes Bellevue construction 405 pedestrian traffic geese

Why phone books will probably keep getting printed

2007-07-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

I recently mused about phone books and why they seem to stack up unnecessarily in my apartment building lobby.

Coincidentally enough, the Wall Street Journal printed an article about the businesses that publish phone books (sub req'd): R.H. Donnelley Corp. and Idearc Inc. These companies have an Internet presence, but that's not where they make their money:

Donnelley, which operates dexknows.com, receives less than 2% of its revenue from the Internet, while Idearc, which owns superpages.com, receives about 9%.

So despite the waste and the fact that so many people don't even crack them open, and despite the fact that Bill Gates recently said "yellow-page usage amongst people,...say, below 50, will drop to near zero over the next five years," physical phone books will probably continue to be printed for the forseeable future.

Tags: paper phone book

Phone books: does anyone actually use them anymore?

2007-07-16T11:21:00.000-07:00

How many phone books end up getting recycled (one hopes that's what's happening to them) immediately, without ever even getting cracked open?

In my apartment building lobby, there is a stack of new phone books. Each sits in its own plastic wrapper. So far, the stack appears to be untouched. I'm assuming the vast majority of my fellow apartment dwellers use the Internet to look up phone numbers...so most of the phone books are wholly unnecessary. It was a complete waste to print them and package them.

I wish there were an opt-out program for phone books. What do you think? Do you use physical phone books anymore? If so ... why?

Tags: waste paper phone book

The Healia Blog

2007-07-16T08:15:00.000-07:00

We just launched a company blog at Healia. It will discuss health news, emerging health technologies, and new Healia developments. Take a look here:

http://blog.healia.com/

Tags: Healia blog health

The 00's: the lost decade

2007-07-11T13:16:00.000-07:00

How do you refer to the current decade, if you refer to it at all? Recently I heard someone confidently say "zero zeroes," as if this term were in the general parlance. But I don't recall having heard that before.

Consider the term "the eighties." It's absolutely soaking with cultural significance. The decade 1980-1989, which I experienced from age 6 through 15, is, in my mind, firmly attached to the term "the eighties."

But what of this current decade? How will today's children refer to it? Will they say: "I grew up in the zero zeroes"? Looking back one hundred years, people called the period after 1900 "the turn of the century." So will this decade be known as "the turn of the millenium"?

I suppose I sometimes hear "the post-911 era," but that's a considerably bleak way to refer to this decade.

Is a decade more puzzling, more disturbing, somehow, if we don't have an easy label for it?

Tags: chronology time decade 00s zero zeroes eighties 80s turn of the millenium

Social Networking: all over the news

2007-07-10T08:47:00.000-07:00

Perhaps it's just the news I follow, but it seems that social networking developments are popping up everywhere in the last few days.

Pownce is the latest offering from Kevin Rose, founder of Digg. Pownce is described as a
hybrid site that seeks to combine social networking, instant messaging, and file sharing.

Google, having failed at its first attempt at social networking, is funding a more ambitious project: Socialstream. Socialstream aims to provide a "unified social network service" that will allow
many social networks to be linked together, letting them share both content and the nature of the relationships of the people who use them.
Of course, Facebook has really been stealing the social networking show lately. All of a sudden, it's a given that startup Internet companies need to at least consider if or how they will leverage Facebook's newly open platform.
Venture capitalists are now quizzing Web entrepreneurs on their "Facebook strategy."
Facebook includes a few terms -- poke, wall, etc. -- that new users sometimes find befuddling. See the bottom of this article for a handy guide to the Facebook lingo.

Tags: Google Pownce Socialstream Facebook social networking

The iPhone: a head-turner

2007-07-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

On the morning of June 30, the day after iPhones were released to the ravenous public, I was having some breakfast at The Globe Cafe and noticed, a few booths away, three guys gingerly passing a gleaming new iPhone back and forth. I couldn't help it: I had to walk up and get a closer look, and the owner was gracious enough to let me touch it.

The other day at work, one of my coworkers brought in his new iPhone and we all gathered round for a demo. Impressive? Yes, quite. I won't go on about its features, as they have been discussed in painstaking detail throughout the blogosphere.

People are impressed with other people's iPhones. So I predict that this summer, a sizeable number of people will successfully use their iPhones to successfully woo romantic partners. Just by flashing their iPhones as they walk down the street. It will happen. I'm sure.

Tags: iPhone woo head-turner

The next YouTube?

2007-07-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

Interesting statistics today on Dailymotion, leading to speculation:

"There's been a great deal of speculation in the marketplace about which site is the next YouTube, and each of these next-tier sites has a particular draw...Dailymotion.com is stating the strongest case at the moment, both domestically and internationally."

Tags: YouTube Dailymotion video-sharing

Giant red pushpins in Seattle

2007-07-06T09:48:00.000-07:00

I was walking by B&O Espresso recently -- a spot I've been going to for almost 15 years now (the foul is excellent). I couldn't help but notice the giant red thing protruding from the roof. I thought it was some sort of ominous symbol portending B&O's impending close (which may or may not be happening). Actually, it's part of a rather interesting marketing campaign by Microsoft to promote Live Search Maps. It's called The Pushpin Project. The giant pins can also be found sticking out of Mama's Mexican Kitchen and Garage Billiards.

Tags: pushpin project Microsoft Seattle marketing Live Search Maps

Linkalicious: 7/2/07

2007-07-02T22:21:00.000-07:00

A few stories have piqued my interest over the past few days...

LinkedIn is hiring new staff and preparing for its upcoming IPO. Should it be worried about Facebook encroaching on its territory? I think not. Sure, you can do your professional networking on Facebook, too, but there are all those random applications littering your profile, and the not-so-professional photos. LinkedIn, on the other hand, is the online equivalent of the events you wear your suit to.

Is there any connection between Neanderthals and modern humans? Perhaps we'll find out!
Chronic disease has quadrupled among children.
We will see much greater expenditures for people in their 20s than we ever saw before, and no one is thinking how we should prepare for that....We call it an epidemic.
You should drink coffee instead of soda in the morning.

Tags: LinkedIn Facebook neanderthal coffee soda chronic illness

Get your blog displayed in search results pages

2007-06-28T09:37:00.000-07:00

Healia, where I'm interning for the summer, has just rolled out an interesting program called Healia Links. The idea's pretty simple: bloggers display the Healia search widget on their blogs, and in return, Healia displays a rotating link to participating blogs in its search results pages.

I'm not aware of any other search engine -- or any other site, for that matter -- doing something quite like this.

If you're a blogger or site owner, you should give it a shot. Note that in order for Healia to display a link to your blog, your content must meet the editorial guidelines. You don't need to be a healthcare blogger per se, but your blog can't have offensive content, ad link directories, defamatory language, etc. More information available in the terms of agreement, accessible through the program description page.

The search widget looks like this:
As an experiment, use the widget above to try a comparative search between Healia and Google on a junk-results prone search term, like, say, "diet pills."

Tags: blogging healthcare health links popularity visibility search Healia widget

Drumming again, a decade later

2007-06-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

Over a decade ago, back in college, I drummed with a few bands. We played Nirvana and Pavement covers and it was lots of fun.

I didn't really do much drumming after that until just recently, after the end of this past school year. I've taken up drumming with a CCR cover band called Revival Revival. It's an absolute blast! We just had our first show,
at a house party, and we'll be doing more shows throughout the summer.

Drumming with a fun-focused cover band is markedly different from anything I was up to during my first year of grad school. It's a refreshing diversion, actually -- a nice way to take a vacation from school for the next few months.

Tags: drumming CCR Creedence cover band summer Revival Revival

Linkalicious: 6/26/07

2007-06-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

Last summer I was consuming so much new information about internet trends that I often just compiled it all in link-filled blog posts. Happily, I've resumed my news-consuming ways, so I'm going to kick off linkalicious posts again for the summer. I wonder what I missed over the past nine months...

Basically all teens who are online use social networks. 96% of those aged 9-17, apparently.
But there appears to be a growing class divide 'twixt MySpace and Facebook.
those using Facebook come from wealthier homes and are more likely to attend college. By contrast, MySpace users tend to get a job after finishing high school rather than continue their education.

Plaxo has released Plaxo Pulse, which essentially allows people to build their own private social networks from their address books.
The video search engine Blinkx is launching speech recognition video search.
Very much in its beta stage, the technology is designed to help advertisers target ads alongside or in Web videos based on speech-recognition technology. The program allows advertisers to buy specific words spoken in videos as well as categories created by analyzing its overall context.

Tags: social networking teens Facebook MySpace Blinkx Plaxo

And my internship starts off with a bang

2007-06-19T05:53:00.000-07:00

On my second morning with my internship at Healia, the press release came out: Healia has been acquired by the media and marketing firm Meredith.

Considering the fact that Meredith is 105 years old and Healia is younger by a century plus, it's an interesting convergence. (I'll refrain from MBA-speak.) The two companies are clearly very different, and yet the acquisition makes sense: each offers something that the other needs. A stalwart of the traditional media world, Meredith needs a way to keep its customer base from defecting to new online competitors. Healia offers an award-winning product, and needs a way to develop awareness in its target customers.

For my part, I'm already seeing why an internship is such a crucial part of the full-time MBA educational experience. Just two days in, and I've already learned a lot.

Moreover, being involved with a forward-looking search engine is, for me, very fun. Musing over the future of internet has been a pastime of mine for a while now, and now I get to keep geeking out on this subject - at work? Lucky me. :)

Tags: MBA internship Healia Meredith acquisition

Pondering product placement

2007-06-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

I was recently discussing Knocked Up with a friend. We both agreed that it paled in comparison with The 40 Year Old Virgin (a film that left me exhausted from two hours of continuous laughter). But what really bothered my friend about Knocked Up was all the product placement.

Product placement? I told him that I didn't recall any. He reminded me of the scene with Ravenswood wine, and about how the E! Network is featured prominently throughout. One blogger comments:

The overflow of product placement makes the head spin. Occasionally, the characters even turn their chests forward, the better for us to see the labels on their designer/thrift t-shirts.

None of this distracted me as I watched the film. So perhaps I have become completely inured to integrative advertising techniques (or my mind was mush a few days after finishing the academic quarter). Truth be told, if it's sufficiently subtle (which I'd argue is the case with Knocked Up), product placement doesn't really bother me. What do I mean by sufficiently subtle? Well, not this.

How about you? Think back to the films you've seen over the past few years. Has the product placement seemed excessive to you?

Tags: advertising Knocked Up product placement

A futile quest for advice

2007-06-12T10:14:00.000-07:00

Reviewing my site traffic log this morning, I noticed that someone in Alabama chanced across a tiny post I wrote that links to the "ulimate rejection letter." Their search string? Rejection letter wording. Mysteriously, my post appears in the first page of Google results.

I can only guess as to the drama underlying this anonymous Alabaman's search for advice on penning a rejection letter. It's a shame my post wasn't of more assistance.

Tags: blogging search unhelpful

World without oil

2007-06-11T16:19:00.000-07:00

I've taken advantage of my recent wide-open schedule to catch up on my favorite podcasts, which was a frequent pastime of mine last summer. My curiosity was piqued by a recent Future Tense podcast that describes World Without Oil -- an alternate reality game (or ARG) in which participants collectively imagine how we'd all cope with a major spike in oil prices.

Participants describe how a significant oil shortage would prompt them to work closer to home, and how proximity would play an important role in relationships: you spend more time with friends in your immediate neighborhood.

It's true; that's what car-free living is like. I should know, as I haven't owned a car for a full decade. I've always worked at jobs that are easily accessible via walking or public transit. And I tend to spend most of my social time with friends who are within walking distance. Not owning a vehicle: the thought is anathema to so many Americans. But I can say from experience that it's really not that big of a deal, particularly in a city with a functional public transit system, like Seattle.

Tags: World Without Oil

June 9: A look back

2007-06-09T09:51:00.000-07:00

It's always interesting to look back through the journals I faithfully kept as a kid (I stopped in my mid-20s) and see what I was up to on this day in previous years. Often on this day, I was either just settling into (or about to start) a new chapter in my life.

In 1985, I was getting ready to go pick berries for the summer, as many kids used to do in rural Washington and Oregon:

Today was the last day of school. I wonder who will be my teacher in 6th grade? I am going to pick strawberries at Curt Maberry's this year.

In 1992, I was getting ready to travel to Washington D.C. for the summer, where I worked as a software tester with my uncle.

I packed, bought a road atlas, and our family played Scrabble.

In 1998, I had just moved into a house with roommates in Seattle's Central District, and I was selling flowers and berries down at Pike Place Market:

I like selling raspberries alright -- nothing to wrap, like the tulips. But if I'm not able to get at least four days a week from this job, I'm looking for another. I came home tonight and relaxed and had corn-on-the-cob. Kari inspired me; she always eats this. And it's only 30 cents per cob at the closest Vietnamese market (just blocks away). Decorated my room tonight with some framed Chinese pictures.

Tags: memories nostalgia summer Seattle

Blogging lapses and shifts in digital identity

2007-06-08T08:36:00.000-07:00

I've been done with the school year for a week now. My internship doesn't kick off until next Friday, so I've been luxuriating in what feels like a vast expanse of free time. Directed by my whims, I've been walking around my neighborhood, watching great films (I highly recommend The Lives of Others), and spending leisurely swaths of time in local coffeeshops. As for the Wall St Journal that appears in my building lobby every morning -- I'm actually reading it now, rather than just glancing at it.

I've also been spending plenty of time in bed. That's where I'm at right now!

With all this free time, why the almost-month-long lapse in this blog? I've been following blogs for six years now, and the blogging lapse is a common phenomenon. Bloggers go on hiatus for a spell, and then invariably return with an apologetic post: life's been busy.

But I don't think this is why blogging lapses occur. Trust me, one can always find time to blog. :) Rather, I think it's a matter of uncertainty about how to go about constructing one's digital identity. Blogging allows people to build an online representation -- a Googleable self that is traceable by anyone around the world, presumably for a very long time to come. It's a pretty exciting opportunity, particularly for narcissists such as myself.

I've stepped back from blogging recently simply because I've been processing the changes I've gone through over the past year. As this round of processing comes to a close (I feel this happening soon), my blogging will kick off again. It's like an internal tectonic shift is going on. In a good way. Ok, perhaps not the best metaphor.

Along these lines of thought, check out this interesting article. It explores the question: what motivates Second Life users to select avatars that bear no resemblance to their real-life selves? Perhaps a better question is: when you have no limits on how you can appear in a virtual world, why pick an avatar that exactly resembles yourself (which is basically what I did in SL)?

As a recent WSJ article describes (subscription required, but you can see the video here), this really may be a generational issue. Today's teenagers and early-twentysomethings are much more comfortable with their digital selves than us older folks. We oldsters cautiously try and put our best face forward, whereas the younguns accept the very public nature of the internet and just express themselves.

An overgeneralization, to be sure, but it's clear that things are changing.

Tags: MBA blogging digital identity blogging lapse processing

Summer internship: Healia

2007-05-16T22:30:00.000-07:00

I'm very happy to announce that I will be doing online marketing as an intern this summer with Healia. In its own words, Healia

is the premier consumer health search engine for finding high quality and personalized health information on the Web. It serves as an independent, unbiased gateway to the highest quality health information resources.

I'm very impressed with the folks I've met at Healia thus far, including Tom Eng, the CEO, and I'm looking forward to a fascinating and fast-paced summer!

Tags: MBA UW University of Washington Healia internship marketing

Internship interviews

2007-05-02T21:59:00.000-07:00

As I stepped out of my public speaking class, Finding Your Voice, this evening, I realized that the busiest of the busy times are behind me. The past three weeks have literally been a whirlwind -- each weekend I've been out of town, leaving the weekdays to pack in studying, MBAA meetings, and internship research.

Speaking of internships, last week I interviewed with Healia, WildTangent, and Alvarez & Marsal Business Consulting. There'll be a second round with Healia tomorrow morning and additional rounds with Alvarez and Marsal next week.

Classroom hours will die down significantly over the next few weeks, and I've been talking with MBAA officers about how we're looking forward to catching up on planning meetings during that time.

Alright, early bedtime for me tonight.

Tags: MBA UW internship University of Washington

Spring quarter is more relaxed...

2007-04-25T06:58:00.000-07:00

...or so they say. I'm not so sure. On Monday, I worked non-stop -- homework, internship research, class, meetings -- from 5am to 3am. Yes, a 22-hour day! Actually this is due to a lot of things converging at the same time. Things will be calming down in about a week's time and I'm looking forward to updating this blog more regularly. :)

Tags: MBA UW University of Washington

A tantalizing description

2007-04-19T00:20:00.000-07:00

While I was on layover at Narita airport in Tokyo, I chanced across this description of a certain packaged food: "It is so delicious, the hand expands inadvertantly."

Unfortunately I have plumb forgot what the food was, exactly.

I just love that description.

Bite-sized Singapore recap

2007-04-17T23:00:00.000-07:00

Got back from Singapore on Sunday and I've been quite busy since then catching up. Although Kien and I didn't get much of chance to sightsee, I got a lot out of the experience. We both left with a veritable plethora of ideas for how to improve our program, and the goal now is to distill those down to a few good ones. We also left feeling optimistic about our program relative to other top MBA programs from around the world. We've got some solid assets that many other programs simply do not -- such as our career center, which is generously staffed with folks that ambitiously go out of their way to scout out opportunities for us.

Back to studying for tomorrow's Operations midterm --

Tags: MBA UW University of Washington Singapore GBC2007

Heading to Singapore

2007-04-08T21:44:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday I will be heading to Singapore to attend the Graduate Business Conference, along with Bonnie (the outgoing MBAA prez) and Kien (Executive vice-president). This is a yearly conference for student leaders of MBA programs from around the world. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to exchange ideas with my counterparts from other programs. And to get out in the 80-degree weather a bit. :)

I had a scare a few days ago when I thought I wouldn't receive my renewed passport in time for the trip. I called the Passport Services Office -- actually I had to call 9 times to even get into a hold queue, in which I waited for 50 minutes until I spoke with someone. They're not kidding about the current increased demand for passports! The rep was very helpful and was able to get my passport bumped up to a next-day shipment, so all's well.

The class workload is certainly lighter in spring quarter, but I've been keeping myself busy getting accustomed to my new role as MBAA president. It's a fascinating experience and I've been enjoying it a lot, particularly discussions with classmates and staff on strategic directions for the program. I met with the Dean recently and he has an ambitiously optimistic viewpoint on where the program is headed -- and I must say, this sentiment is infectious.

Tags: MBA UW University of Washington passport

Spring break's over already?

2007-03-25T11:13:00.000-07:00

How sad. Time flies when you're on spring break, apparently. But I've had a lot of fun over the past few weeks. I've been very social, which is precisely what I wanted. I caught up with old friends that I haven't seen in a while, such as this fellow.

I've also spent a fair amount of time on campus, being planny and talking strategy with various folks. Lots of stuff to do over the upcoming quarter, and the question is what to focus on first. The MBAA website is in desperate need of updating; I'd like that to be taken care of soon.

Twice over the past week, I volunteered up at the Greenwood Boys & Girls Club. On Monday, a group of us got down and dirty and did maintenance work. And on Friday I played games with the kids. One of them drew my portrait, and I had fun helping another kid practice for an upcoming spelling bee. I told her and her friends that I was a spelling bee champion (it's true!) as a kid. They didn't seem that impressed.

Tags: MBA MBAA UW University of Washington spring break Boys and Girls Club

A necessary disclaimer?

2007-03-16T11:16:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, I noticed an ad in the Wall Street Journal, pictured at right. It's for the legal firm Nixon Peabody. Not pictured is the accompanying text, which includes a disclaimer:

The person in this ad is an actor depicting a fictional scene.

I can't imagine why this disclaimer is necessary. Who would look at the ad and think otherwise?

And for the 0.01% of the population that thinks this ad is "real life" ... so what? Is there a possibility that someone might sue over this? The odds must be infinitesimally small.

Perhaps Nixon Peabody is showing that it's a legal firm that covers all its bases -- even those freak possibilities -- and will do the same for you.

Or maybe I'm missing something here.

Tags: marketing Nixon Peabody disclaimer

The ides of March: a historical perspective

2007-03-15T22:45:00.000-07:00

What was I up to on the March 15ths of yesteryear?

Way back on 3/15/84, my sister Bethany was born. Happy 23rd birthday, Bethany! Yes, I feel old.

3/15/88:

Today was Bethany's 4th birthday. She got a stuffed giraffe which she named "Snuffy." She also got a huge stuffed rabbit which she named "Snuggles."

3/15/92:

Bethany had her 8th bday party today. I found a highly enjoyable Seattle station, 107.7, the "End." I listened to a 3-hr program on U2 today. I am getting really into U2.

3/15/94. I was working as a security guard in college, and all the officers (me too) spent much of our time mucking around in old-school online community:

It was Matt's last night at work. Most all the staff officers down there play LambdaMOO.

On 3/15/99, I wrote about how things were much better than they had been over the previous two years (1997 being a nadir), I wrote simply "Ich habe genug" -- I have enough.

Tags: memories LambdaMOO birthday sister

Open your snack hole

2007-03-14T17:14:00.000-07:00

A few blocks from where I live, the McDonald's "Open Your Snack Hole" billboard graces my neighborhood.

What can I say? It's just a dag-nasty ad, no matter which way you slice it. Local blogs that have noticed it tend to agree. I've blogged criticisms of McDonald's marketing efforts in the past, and I must add this to the list.

Readers outside of Seattle: have you seen this ad in your community? I ask because this appears to be a Seattle-only pilot campaign.

I was so curious about this that I asked my marketing professor. His response (excerpts thereof):

all I can say is 'Wow.' Or, more precisely (and please excuse the profane referernce) 'WTF?' The execution seems unlikely to work for most sets of customers. Too icky, too gross, too obscenely disgusting... Of course, I may not be the target audience.

My guess is that McDonald's is thinking: hey, bloggers will eat this up and it will turn into an awesome viral marketing campaign! And yes, that's happening, and I'm helping out with that. But as I learned over the last quarter in marketing class, merely raising awareness about your product is just part of what successful marketing accomplishes. You also need to cultivate a positive brand association--people should, you know, feel good about your product. So they'll go out and buy it.

Does this campaign do that? What do you think?

Tags: marketing McDonald's

Did I just ... ?

2007-03-14T08:59:00.000-07:00

Lately in the mornings I find myself unsure if I just took my multivitamin. It's my custom during breakfast to become intensely fixated on whatever I'm reading. So I've got the little bottle of multivitamins next to me, and I remember that I had the thought "I will take my vitamin" I few moments ago. But did I actually take one just now? I cannot recall.

Isn't this what happens to old people? Uh-oh. I suppose I need one of these.

Tags: forgetfulness vitamin

Coffee: two sides to the debate

2007-03-10T14:25:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking I should really cut back on my coffee consumption lately. I've entered two+ cup-a-day territory, and that just can't be good. Can it?

Apparently there are two schools of thought on this issue, as this recent BBC story points out. On the one hand,

caffeine eases withdrawal symptoms which build up overnight, but does not make people more alert than normal....all the drink does is counteract the mild caffeine withdrawal symptoms people are experiencing because they have gone without the stimulant overnight.

The possible adverse health effects of coffee aren't really a secret, but aren't well substantiated either:

not long ago, in the 1970s and '80s, coffee's name was mud. It was connected — tenuously or incorrectly, experts now say — to pancreatic cancer, heart attacks, birth defects, miscarriage, osteoporosis, and other ill effects.

On the other hand, maybe it's good for you...

a wealth of scientific evidence suggests that moderate coffee consumption of four to five cups per day is perfectly safe for the general population and does have a beneficial effect on alertness and performance even in regular coffee drinkers.

Pictured above: me, feverishly imbibing coffee during last summer's family road trip.

Tags: coffee health debate

The weight of PowerPoint

2007-03-10T10:54:00.000-08:00

One surefire way to rapidly eat up your Gmail memory allotment: constantly email iterations of PowerPoint presentations with classmates. I find it remarkable that I'm up to 17% of my 2826 MB ... up from 7% or so, just a few months ago.

Tags: MBA UW University of Washington PowerPoint Gmail

Laptops in class

2007-03-09T23:52:00.000-08:00

I took the Strategy final this afternoon -- all four hours of it. Two finals down, two to go.

A few weeks back, our Strategy professor (he also teaches at INSEAD) tried an experiment: he asked us not to use our laptops during class. Although I prefer to take notes with One Note on my laptop, I must admit that sans laptops, class discussion improved considerably.

I'm curious to hear from students (or recent students, as this wasn't an issue back when I was an undergrad) ... what's the situation with laptops in your classroom? Do people use them and if so, does this detract from class discussion?

Tags: MBA UW University of Washington finals laptop strategy

Thinking through video games

2007-03-08T21:52:00.000-08:00

I was reading the Wall Street Journal in bed last night and came across a fascinating article: Mind Control for Videogames. You won't be able to see much there without a subscription, so here's the story from another source.

This is an interesting step forward in the world of brain-computer interfaces, over an almost-decade since the breakthrough news of the fellow who used only his brain to move a mouse cursor.

I'll be curious to see what happens with BCI in video games, and how quickly popular commercial adoption catches on. I mean, the novelty of it...I'm very curious to try something like this. Aren't you?

From the WSJ article:

Emotiv Systems...envisions players strapping on helmets with electrodes that read brain signals, allowing them to issue simple commands to enhance game play....Emotiv says its technology can distinguish between patterns of brain activity that can be designated to correspond to specific commands.

In a demonstration, Emotiv researcher Marco Della Torre donned a prototype headset and was able to move objects on a computer screen by visualizing pushing or lifting them....The technology also projected Mr. Della Torre's smiles, winks, or other facial expressions onto the face of an animated character, while software registered changes in his level of excitement.

Sony's Home service--which looks to be a souped-up version of Second Life--was also officially announced yesterday. I can't help but imagine how BCI technology might work in conjunction with virtual worlds. Seems like such a sci-fi notion, yes, but it's really not that hard to imagine that people will be able to use their minds to control their Second Life / Sony Home / whatever's next avatars.

Tags: Emotiv thought game controller Sony Home avatar

Finals week. Disjointed scribblings.

2007-03-07T18:13:00.000-08:00

Finals week is upon us, and much is happening all at once!

My "presidential gestation period" is over as of last night -- we had an official handoff ceremony and the outgoing president, Bonnie, handed me a wooden gavel and a copy of Merriam Webster's Rules of Order. Inside the front cover, there are inscriptions from each outgoing MBAA president, dating back to 2000. I like the historical connection..

What else ... my apartment is a mess! Yes, I seem to have had this problem last quarter as well. Looking forward to doing a substantial spring cleaning next week. And I need to clean out my inbox, too ... inbox bloat has struck once again, this time with a vengeance..

I got my jury duty hardship letter from the MBA program office today; hopefully that will work. It would be very, very bad if I had to miss a substantial chunk of classes next quarter.

Many more things going on, but I need to work on a group strategy presentation, a group macroeconomics paper, and a few other things tonight. Finished the macroeconomics takehome final (no, I don't expect that I did spectacularly well). Strategy final is coming up on Friday, Finance final (which I need to do mountains of study for) is on Monday morning, and the Marketing take-home final is due next Tuesday.

Tags: MBA UW University of Washington finals

Jury Duty

2007-03-06T20:51:00.000-08:00

I have been "randomly selected to serve as a trial juror in the municipal court of Seattle, County of King." I've asked if the MBA program office can send a letter on my behalf indicating it would be difficult for me to complete my degree on time if I serve as a juror. We'll see how that goes.

My juror's instructions indicate the following:

Waiting is an unavoidable part of jury service....We have desks equipped with Internet access and Wi-fi (wireless fidelity) for jurors wishing to bring laptop computers with them. There is an extensive and current magazine collection but we do encourage you to bring reading materials, crafts, or other projects to pass the time.

Sounds like I'd be able to get lots of homework (or popsicle-stick houses? That's all I can think of when I hear the word "crafts.") done down there. But I'd be missing out on lectures and class discussion, and that would really set me back.

Tags: MBA UW University of Washington jury duty

March the first: a historical perspective

2007-03-01T22:51:00.000-08:00

There's a mountain of strategy case reading to do tonight, and a meeting agenda to plan out, but first, I shall creak open the musty memory-books.

Fifteen years ago, on 3/1/92, I was working at Dairy Queen, and I used to bring home extra food. And I crowed about my fast-food fortune in my journal:

Tonight I got from DQ: 4 chicken patties, 7 chicken nuggets, a large and small frozen shake, and a medium sundae. All this would have been thrown away.

Sixteen years ago, 3/1/91, I had a crush on a girl, my neighbor Lyndi. And I was a band geek (trombone).

I talked to Lyndi briefly. These past few weeks, I have not been talking to her very much. But after I talked to her today, I started liking her again mass.

That afternoon everyone in the band went to see "The Slience of the Lambs." We went to the mall and I bought the first "They Might be Giants" tape, self-titled, made in 1986.

Back on 3/1/89, I was rolling in the dough:

Dad was in a good mood, and he gave me $10.00! He also gave me $2.25 for lunch, which I used today to buy hot lunch and two pops (one for me, one for Dorj). Today we took the test in Geometry on chapter 9, "Right triangles and the Pythogorean Theorem."

22 years ago, on 2/26/84 (not too far from 3/1), I hope I didn't have a temperature that high:

I had my pajamas on all day today. I have a bad fever. I might sleep on the couch tonight! (I'm writing in the couch). We didn't go swimming last night because I had such a high tempature. Today my temp. was about 202 degrees. The time is: 8:42 PM 45 seconds.

Tags: memories

Photo from last week's Silicon Valley trip

2007-02-28T07:30:00.000-08:00

Scurrying out into the Yahoo! parking lot:

More about the trip here.

Tags: MBA UW University of Washington Yahoo!

Do messy problems beget messy sentences?

2007-02-27T20:12:00.000-08:00

Nasty day in the stock market today.

Is there a correlation, I wonder, between the severity of an imbroglio and the length of the sentence that describes it?

"Around 2:00 pm today the market's extraordinarily heavy trading volume caused a delay in the Dow Jones data systems and as a result, the calculation of the Dow Jones Industrial Average temporarily lagged behind the market decline and as we identified the problem we decided to switch over to a back-up system and the result was a rapid catch-up in the published value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average," explained a Dow Jones spokeswoman.

I can't help it, folks. It's the editor in me.

Tags: run-on sentence stock market imbroglio Dow Jones editing required

Speaking of Yahoo! coolness...

2007-02-25T23:14:00.000-08:00

My friends in Metaverse Technology directed my attention to something Yahoo! has been up to lately: Pipes. If only I had some time to play around with that right now! I'll make a note to check it out in detail during Spring break.

Tags: Yahoo Pipes

Silicon Valley road show: quick observations

2007-02-24T15:28:00.000-08:00

Thursday night, I flew down to Silicon Valley for a whirlwind company tour with a group of classmates. Bryan Tomlinson, who coordinates employer relations at our career center, did a great job organizing the whole event.

The fun company
Our day started off with a quick tour of the Yahoo! campus, followed by a presentation and Q&A session. I was struck by how friendly the campus felt: bright yellow colors are everywhere, both inside and out. I found the employees who spoke with us incredibly funny. At one point the recruiter thanked me for constantly laughing during her presentation. Always the jovial one, that's me.

One way they conveyed the Yahoo! culture to us was through a "sucks list": stuff that they're not about:

Decaf coffee
Bad grammar
"Too big for your britches" attitude
Early meetings
Formality (did I mention that we felt self-conscious in our suits and ties?

I left Yahoo! feeling quite excited about the company; I definitely plan on applying for an internship there. Out of the three companies we visited that day, I personally felt the closest fit with Yahoo!. I like the focus on unique user experiences, the refreshingly humor-friendly culture, and the nurturing environment.

Serious secrets
I never thought of Apple as a serious company, but compared with Yahoo! and Google, Apple is serious indeed. From the people to the architecture, there's much less wackiness at Apple. But still, I got the impression that it's an amazing place to work for. Jo Lawson, UW MBA '00, gave us an informative presentation on her experience there in small business marketing.

Both Jo and Gary Wipfler (Apple treasurer, also a UW alum), mentioned more than once that secrecy plays a key role in Apple company culture. As the recent stories about the iPhone attest, Apple's competitive advantage depends on certain employees keeping secrets: from their family, friends, and other employees. While these communication restrictions can be taxing on everyone, the payoff is huge: jaw-droppingly innovative products.

The center of the universe (for now)
Simply put, Google exceeded my expectations. It's like Disneyland for grownups -- very, very smart grownups. The architecture and landscaping really present a feast for the eyes. Micro-kitchens are spaced throughout the campus, none too far from the next, and they pipe out the most amazing odors of delicious food. Our tour guide, Vicky Wang, (also a UW alum) enthusiastically explained that Google hires top-notch chefs from the region, and, as is widely known, the ingredients are largely organic and locally-sourced.

The feeling I got at Google is that everyone there is always "on" -- everything is in a state of flux, and to fit in there, you should be ok with that. Nay, you should thrive on chaos. It seems like a truly fun, challenging place to be, but it's not for everyone. I talked with three employees there, and I got a similar feeling from them that I got from employees at Amazon.com back in 1999 (when Amazon stock was sky-high): we are at the center of the universe right now. It's an intoxicating feeling, but it never lasts forever.

Could I see myself at Google? Certainly, I'd love to intern there. I confess, though, that it's competitive to the point of being a bit intimidating. Our hosts described how many of their employees are former CEOs, and how, upon arriving at Google, they gladly accept mid-level management positions.

The reception
After the Google visit, we headed to Nola for a reception with UW MBA alumni. I had a great chat with Beth Gorell, UW MBA '86, who shared the story of her career. Later, my old college friend Doug swung by with his wife. Doug works in the area at eHealthInsurance and I crashed at his place that night.

Visa? Visa?
Alright, so we didn't visit Alaska Airlines, but most of us flew down on an Alaska flight. I must say, I found it very odd when a flight attendant gave an announcement that was essentially an ad for the Alaska Airlines Visa card. Clearly the flight attendant hated doing this; I could hear the annoyance in her voice.

Another flight attendant walked down the aisle with Visa cards in her hand, waving them and saying "Visa? Visa?" as if she were offering us peanuts. How strange! She was walking really quickly and of course no one was interested.

I can understand the cost-based argument that motivates Alaska to ask its flight attendants to do this sort of marketing work. There's a problem, however, with using your firm's employees to advertise for you on the cheap (or for free) -- they might not, um, want to. And if they're unenthused about the whole thing (who can blame them?), those feelings show through. The real risk to Alaska here is of its employees reducing the brand equity of its Visa card by creating negative associations in customers' minds. For me, certainly, this is now the case.

Final thoughts

Walk around in a Silicon Valley company in full formal attire, and you'll receive plenty of inquisitive stares.
While you can learn a lot about a company by reading about it, you need to physically visit the company to get a real taste of its culture.

Tags: MBA UW University of Washington Apple Google Yahoo Alaska Airlines culture intern

MBA field trip

2007-02-22T17:50:00.000-08:00

I'm about to head down to the airport to join a group of my classmates -- we're travelling south to San Jose tonight. Tomorrow, we'll be doing a whirlwind tour of three very interesting companies: Yahoo in the morning, Apple during lunch, and Google in the afternoon.

Off I go! I'll post more about this on my return.

Tags: MBA UW University of Washington

Case interviews: practice is key

2007-02-18T00:15:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I interviewed with Microsoft for a marketing internship position. A week or so later, they sent me a rejection email. I've been thinking about this and talking it over with folks, and I think part of what sunk me were my responses to case questions. I encountered questions such as the following:

What's your least favorite class right now? [I said econ.] Ok, how do you market that class to incoming students?
Suppose you're the dean of the UW MBA program. How do you elevate your school's rank to #1?
Assume you are the product manager for the Zune. You have $1 million, and 30 days to spend it. What do you do?

I realize in retrospect that I went about answering these questions all wrong: I immediately gave answers. No. This is not how you respond to case questions. As I have learned (after the fact, unfortunately) case questions are meant to invoke a discussion between interviewer and interviewee, a back-and-forth in which the case is constructed. As interviewee, you are to ask intelligent questions that demonstrate your knowledge of marketing frameworks. You should jot down the information that the interviewer reveals to you and then offer a recommendation -- preferably one that you can defend with strategic logic.

I know these things now, and I'll be better prepared the next time case questions arise in an interview. I really wish I would have done some mock interviews that specifically focused on case questions, prior to the Microsoft interview. If you're a prospective or first-year MBA student, let this be a cautionary tale to you -- don't let an actual interview be the first time you practice responding to a case question.

Tags: case interview MBA marketing internship

Inbox bloat

2007-02-08T00:51:00.000-08:00

Oy -- I just noticed that there are now over 100 emails in my Gmail inbox, so it extends to a second page. I'd been trying to keep it under 30, but things got too busy today. I had an excellent informational interview with a Hitachi consultant in the morning, but that was out in Factoria, so I had to do some bus-juggling to get back to campus in time to meet with my team. We spent over two hours discussing our group paper for Strategy, and from there I zipped directly to another meeting...

...After that was through, it was about 2:30 and I realized I was rather hungry! Had an afternoon sushi meal, came home and took a nap (which was essential), got up at 5pm and basically worked from then until now on our group paper.

And now: sleep. Tomorrow starts off early at 7:30 with a breakfast with the Dean ... and tomorrow ends late at 9pm or so, when I finish meeting with my business plan team.

Hello, midterms!

2007-02-05T21:47:00.000-08:00

Time seems to be whipping right along this quarter. And lo and behold, midterms are here! I like finance a lot, but I suspect this morning's midterm did not reciprocate my affections. We shall see. I'm currently studying at Victrola for tomorrow's macroeconomics midterm. I'm hopped up on coffee and getting crazy with the IS/LM Model.

I remember, back last quarter, when I aspired to a stellar GPA. Those days are over, and it's a relief to "embrace the curve" as I hear many of my classmates saying right now. Slaving away for top grades is all well and good, but if you're in an MBA program, you do this at the expense of everything else: student leadership opportunities, projects in the business community, volunteering, interviewing for internships, etc. Those are the things I've been spending much more time with, and I'm feeling good about that.

Still, though, it's a balancing act, and I'm drilling back down into the academics tonight.

Just for fun (to procrastinate from my econ studying for just a few moments), I proffer you this look into my upcoming schedule:

Tomorrow: Marketing class / Macroeconomics midterm / Mock internship interview / MBAA (student government association) meeting
Wednesday: Informational interview with a UW MBA alum to learn about her job / meeting to discuss group paper for Strategy class / tentative BCN project meeting / work on paper throughout remainder of evening
Thurs: Finance class / Info session on Spring quarter electives / Lunch presentation on marketing opportunities at RealNetworks / Macroeconomics class / tentative group meeting / Business plan resources meeting / Meet with fellow business plan project collaborators

Tags: MBA University of Washington midterms schedule

Six idiosyncrasies

2007-01-27T13:57:00.000-08:00

My friend Cybele recently tagged me with a request that I write a post about six of my idiosynrasies. Here we go:

1. I can juggle.

2. Just a few years ago, if I drank the slightest sip of coffee I would "go into orbit," to borrow one of my dad's expressions. Something changed (MBA program) over the past year, and now I drink two (large) cups of (strong) coffee per day.

3. I am completely allergic to dairy products -- not lactose intolerance, but the full-on allergy. I can't eat anything with any dairy in the ingredients -- whey, etc. This means I check a lot of labels. And I tend to eat a lot of Asian food.

4. I was a spelling bee champion in junior high, winning 3rd place in the Western Washington regional spelling bee finals.

5. This isn't all that idiosyncratic, but it seems to surprise many of my current MBA classmates: my appearance has changed a bit over the years. In the mid-90s, I had long hair and a beard. (The photo shows my sister and me at a costume party; the beard is real.) At other points, I've had skater hair, no hair, 70s hair, and a short-lived moustache.

6. I am fourth-generation Washingtonian.

Tags: idiosyncrasy idiosyncrasies dairy allergy juggle hair

Election results

2007-01-27T08:21:00.000-08:00

I won the election for MBAA President! From what I heard last night, it was a close race. Bonnie, the current President, will start discussing the transition with me next week.

Tags: MBA University of Washington UW election

Me for president!

2007-01-24T19:36:00.000-08:00

It's been a whirlwind of a week. Addressing one of the questions I was wondering about a few weeks ago, I decided to run for MBAA President. Conversations with the current MBAA executive team have inspired me to take this step. I don't have a traditional business background, by any means, but I'm increasingly realizing that this is an asset, not a liability. (I can talk business!) I do think I've got a lot to offer in this position.

So I gave a candidacy speech last night. It went well, because I (miraculously) had two free hours before the speech, and I used this time to find a secluded spot on campus and practice. There were still people walking by, a little ways away, so I held my cellphone to my ear to make it look like I was talking to someone. I ran through the speech about ten times, until I felt comfortable with it. Afterwards, as I walked away, I noticed a fellow camped out with a sleeping bag in the bushes, right by where I had been speechifying. The poor guy probably got very tired of hearing me talk about my qualifications and what an exciting time this is in the UW MBA program.

Voting happens tomorrow and the election results will be announced at a mixer (known in UW MBA parlance as a TG) on Friday evening. Whether I win or not, it will be a fun evening; my Korean classmates will be serving up Korean food. Like me, my sister and brother-in-law are huge fans of Korean food, so I've invited them to come and share in the yumminess. And, if win, well...they'll be there to congratulate me!

In other news, it has really been an intense week. I had three hours of sleep the other night, which took its toll the next afternoon during macroeconomics. But I didn't feel so bad after talking with one of my classmates today who didn't sleep at all last night. I was astonished that she was able to stand there and lucidly converse with me.

What else was I wondering about a few weeks ago?

The internship search. So far I've applied to IBM and Microsoft; I'll be interviewing with Microsoft next week.
Business consulting project. Things have changed a bit, but our project fortunately didn't get nixed. Our task -- an online marketing campaign for a small local software firm -- is interesting, but our client is incredibly busy and we're basically doing a lot of it on our own. I'm leading this team and it's been presenting some interesting challenges.
Business plan competition. Plugging right along. Second Life presents an unending number of fascinating business questions right now, and it's fascinating to explore them.

And now ... I've got some reading to do for strategy class. It's my favorite class thus far; a lot of my classmates feel the same way. And it's very challenging, replete with frequent cold-calls, as my classmate Sarah describes.

Tags: MBA University of Washington UW speechifying election internship

My mother the cowgirl

2007-01-16T21:58:00.000-08:00

Because I'm too busy at moment to write a post, I present this photo of my mother, circa 1959, southeast Washington state:

Tags: mom

Winter quarter vs autumn quarter

2007-01-14T19:44:00.000-08:00

Winter quarter is busy thus far, but I find that I'm having more fun than Autumn quarter. Autumn was...honestly, it was a trial by fire. I feel like it pummelled me. It must have; I've never slept as much as I did during Winter break.

But now I feel like I've developed a better sense of sifting through the plethora of competing tasks on my ne'er-ending to-do list. There is much more self-directed work this quarter. For example, this weekend I've spent a fair amount of time working on applications for summer internships, researching Second Life for my business plan project, and figuring out my schedule for the remainder of the month (a daunting task in and of itself).

When it comes to the coursework, I feel like I've become a lot better at studying quickly. This is a necessity, because there's not a lot of free time left over. Also I think the studying is easier because of the classes themselves: I'm finding marketing and strategy incredibly fun and interesting. Finance is great, too, although not quite as much fun. Macroeconomics...well, it's on the other end of the fun spectrum. But it's more up my alley than microeconomics, that's for sure.

I think this may come down to pedagogical technique. Our macro prof organizes everything into tidy powerpoints, and is very clear about the content we should read for upcoming class sessions. Last quarter's micro prof was less organized; he had a non-linear way of teaching that I frankly never really figured out.

And it has been cold in Seattle over the past week, in the 20s. The other day, one of my international classmates was joking about how Seattleites always hasten to explain that this winter's weather is out of the ordinary. "This is very unusual weather," he said, in a faux-Seattleite voice.

Tags: MBA business school b-school UW

I'm an old man

2007-01-12T07:45:00.000-08:00

Today is my youngest sister's 16th birthday. She is now half my age. Another sister will be turning 23 soon (an unfortunate year for me, hopefully better for her). And the kicker: my oldest younger sister just turned 30.

All this adds up to me feeling old. It doesn't seem like that long ago when we all looked like this:

January the sixth: a historical perspective

2007-01-06T18:31:00.000-08:00

Today I tromped through Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood with classmates. We visited several businesses and asked if they would like to donate to this year's Challenge for Charity auction. I stopped by Queen Anne Office Supply, where I was a delivery driver ten years ago, and this prompted me to look back through my musty memory-books.

Ten years ago in early 97, I was looking for a job (didn't start at the office supply store until a month later). On 1/6/97, one of the many places I applied was the Starbucks roasting plant, and I wrote down my random observations:

I am in the Starbucks roasting plant lobby. Everything's nice and new here. It's quite a walk down Airport Way S. to get here. The receptionists are talking quietly. But I can still hear what they're saying. The words "vagina ... yeast..." have floated into my ears.

Before I walked down here a paid a visit to a bustling little mart. It has a Vietnamese name, underneath which reads "The Asian Connection." The small store is crowded with noise and people. When I stood in line to buy my noodles and curry, a small old woman cut in front of me. She asked me something in a language I do not know. I just smiled at her. In reply, she let out and a hearty laugh and kept her place in front of me in line.

Fifteen years ago, on 1/7/92, I was a social intermediary 'twixt my sister and a fellow at our high school:

Katy asked a guy named Adam to the tolo. At the game tonight he told me he would say no, and afterwards, she called him, and they both agreed that they were relieved. But Katy told me later that she is actually a little disappointed.

And I recall being stressed about where I would go to college:

I got a letter in the mail today that says I have been accepted to Western. I hope I don't end up going there.

Tags: memories 1997 1992

And winter quarter begins with a bang

2007-01-03T19:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, winter quarter launched with introductory sessions in Marketing and Finance. The professors for both of these classes have actually won awards for their pedagogical acumen and I'm excited to learn from them.

I admit that I was expecting yesterday's sessions to consist of syllabi review and administrative details. I didn't realize we'd be diving immediately into the subject matter. Let's just say I'm still in Winter break mode and was caught a bit off-guard when our marketing prof cold-called me with a question about something we learned in stats last quarter...

And there is plenty else to consider and plan for right away:

Internship search (need to decide on companies to apply for my summer internship and start submitting applications right away)
Elected officer positions (what do I want to run for?)
Business consulting project (our client contact just left the company my team will be working with, and we're waiting to see how the project will change from here)
Business plan competition (I'll be attending a once-weekly evening class on this, as well as doing independent and group work on the business plan)

That scheduling thing that I did for finals last quarter seemed to have worked for me pretty well. I'm going to draw out a map for this quarter but on a larger scale. Basically I want to decide how many hours a week I want to spend on each class and each project, and then treat this as a work schedule that I make sure and adhere to (tweaking as necessary). Perhaps I'll post it here as well; that seems to help keep me accountable. :)

Tags: MBA University of Washington UW classes schedule winter quarter

Trends to watch in 2007

2006-12-31T08:48:00.000-08:00

The title of this blog post makes me sound important, doesn't it? Clearly, I know not what lies ahead in the coming year -- nor does anyone else (except, perhaps, the folks at Popular Mechanics.)

Still, it's fun to ask questions. In 2007, I'm wondering:

Will any of these drugs have a substantially positive impact?
Or how about humble old psilocybin?
Will the continuing population shift from rural to urban areas curb population growth?
Will any of Jon Swift's predictions come to pass? (Note that 3.5 out of his 8 predictions for 2006 were correct!)
Will employers start paying less attention to the resumes of job candidates ... and more attention to their blogs?
Will the atmospheric levels of certain pollutants continue to decline? (Answer: Yes, if coal plants go clean.)
Will people recycle more? (Yes, if cities emulate the simple steps that Seattle has taken).
Will a growing number of theists and atheists partake in rational, civil discourse with one another? (One can only hope. Here's an atheist and Christian whose blogs are cross-linked, and another very interesting blog co-written by an atheist and Christian.)
Will Second Life continue to see an exponential increase in new users? Or will another metaverse (aka a 3D-enabled web of social spaces, economies, and technologies) rise to prominence?

Tags: future 2007 predictions trends drugs Jon Swift sustainability

Building a business plan in Second Life

2006-12-21T09:30:00.000-08:00

A few evenings ago a classmate and I met with a couple of programmers to discuss applications (the details of which I'll keep mum) that they are building in Second Life. I took a screenshot as our avatars sat around a floating table on the roof of tall building. That's me with my back to the camera, and my classmate is seated to my right. The programmers are the two other guys.

I've roamed around Second Life on my own over the past few months, but this was the first time I've participated in a structured meeting "in-world," as they say. Communicating via Skype conference call and some in-world IM, we kicked around ideas for building a business plan. My classmate and I are going to work with a few other classmates on doing the market research and drafting the business plan, and we'll enter it in a competition in a few months.

To say the least, I'm finding this thoroughly fascinating. With the time-intensive first quarter in the MBA program complete, we're encouraged to start exploring directions in business that catch our fancy. The business plan competition is one avenue for this, as is the Business Consulting Network, which I am also participating in.

Tags: Second Life business plan UW MBA

X, Y, Z

2006-12-19T17:40:00.000-08:00

Why do so many drug names contain the letters x, y, and z? I am curious about this.

Tags: drug names x y z

Like Treebeard, but not in a good way

2006-12-16T20:20:00.000-08:00

My sister, brother-in-law, and his son spent the better part of today here in my apartment, as there was no power in their southwest Seattle home until this evening. Like many Seattleites, they had an unsettling evening this past Wednesday. But they had the added bonus of listening to a tree hammer against their gutter (pictured). They said it sounded like Treebeard was out there, making a ruckus.

Tags: Seattle wind storm power tree gutter

Wind-strewn wasteland

2006-12-15T17:27:00.000-08:00

So, the wind was pretty intense in Seattle last night.

I walked around my neighborhood today and took some blurry pictures with my phone. Here's a couple of plastic chairs. The white chair is merely upside-down; the green chair suffered a much more grisly fate!

A lot of parked vehicles got damaged last night. There was a group of folks around this wind-felled tree, all snapping pix with their phones. I wondered to myself how many of these people work at Microsoft. The Microsoft campus was essentially closed today.

Chainsawing a tree in the yard:

Power stayed on in my building, but it went out in some houses in my neighborhood (the Internet cafe in my neighborhood was packed to the gills. More Microsofties, no doubt). Down in Southwest Seattle, where my sister and brother-in-law live, power is out everywhere. They're actually on their way up to my place right now, to fill up on gas and take showers.

Tags: Seattle Capitol Hill wind storm tree

My building just shook

2006-12-15T00:07:00.000-08:00

Seriously. It's really that windy outside.

Since finishing up my first quarter as an MBA student on Tuesday, I've spent the past few days earnestly relaxing, absolutely revelling in the lack of a schedule. I've been catching up on blog-reading. I also watched 49 Up. This film gave me the same feeling I get when I look at old photos of my parents (and me): an awestruck awareness of the quick flicker of mortality.

Tonight I was walking down 15th Ave, my scarf blowing this way and that in the (then calmer) wind, when I ran into my old friend Brian. He invited me over to watch The Office and have some beer. Walking back from his place (my scarf flapping more, as the wind picked up), I thought how great it was to do something spontaneous like that, something unscheduled.

My winter break is going to be all about that.

Tags: Seattle wind rain storm unscheduled spontaneity 49 Up mortality

Oh, my aching thumb-joint

2006-12-12T11:26:00.000-08:00

Just finished my accounting final a few minutes ago. My thumb-joint (is that what it's called?) is hurting from all the writing. Just one more final to go - Stats at 1:30. More writing there, including an essay ... egads I'm going to have to write gently. I think I probably press down on the page too hard. I'm not used to writing so much. I (greatly) wish that all exams could be done via computer. Maybe someday.

The accounting final ... it had its good parts and its not-so-good parts. I feel good about studying up on the bonds so much; they definitely made an appearance in the exam, and I feel like I nailed those questions. I don't feel so good, however, about spending so much time on employee stock option plans, which did not show up. As for inventory, I studied LIFO and FIFO, but the exam focused on the weighted-average method - d'oh! For the most part, though, I think I did ok. Studying the practice exams was definitely helpful.

As was the triple grande americano I consumed before the exam.

Ok. Time to do some stats review.

Tags: MBA finals accounting ouch thumb-joint exam

Finals Eve

2006-12-10T13:23:00.000-08:00

Yes, it is Finals Eve, and not a creature is stirring in my home...certainly not me. I am an inert, stationary lump at my desk. But rest assured that my mind is aflame with the passion of learning!

Pictured is a tantalizing glimpse into my world of finals preparations.

I think posting that schedule the other night was a good idea; something about a public proclamation of "here's what I'm going to do" has helped keep me productive. We learned something along those lines in our Management class. It's a technique of influence: commitment and consistency. A declaration of public commitment to a (perhaps undesirable) task makes it more likely that you'll want to remain consistent with that declaration and follow through. That's straight from my study notes! I think I jotted that one down around 2 AM last night.

I'll get back to the Management later this afternoon. Now it's time for Accounting prep, which I am finding surprisingly enjoyable ... much more so than econ.

Tags: MBA management accounting productivity finals desk study

The pathos is palpable

2006-12-09T23:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I know I said you wouldn't see me til Tuesday. But we all need study breaks, right? I've done well; I've stayed on schedule. Over the last few hours I've been working my way through stats, listening to one of the finest albums released in the last ten years, and if you haven't heard it, I urge you do do so soon.

So anyways, I was just checking my site traffic, as bloggers are wont to do (often). In the past hour, someone in California found my blog via the Google search string cheat sheet for marketing mba (although I offer no such study aid on my blog, as I don't take marketing til next quarter, I nevertheless unhelpfully appear at #20 in the Google search results.)

Ahh, but the pathos of such a search. One can sense the late-night desperation.

Tags: MBA studying Boards of Canada

The ferocity of finals

2006-12-08T17:57:00.000-08:00

Behold my schedule for this weekend, filled to the brim with jollities and amusements:

I've pondered it for a bit and I think this will be the best way to allocate my studying time over the weekend. It gives me 10 more hrs for accounting, 11 more hrs for econ, 10 more hrs for stats, and 4 more hrs for management. That seems about right. It leaves time for nothing else other than eating and sleeping...

See you all sometime after Tuesday.

Tags: MBA finals business school schedule to-do list

Post-rock productivity burst

2006-12-06T18:22:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling mysteriously energetic this evening. Perhaps it's because I got a fairly decent night's sleep (I arrived at Victrola at a reasonable 7:15 this morning), and some good exercise from walking a fair amount of the way to school this morning.

As I plough through my final edit of our group econ paper this evening, I'm listening to Godspeed You Black Emperor!'s viscerally vibrant Yanqui UXO, the merits of which Pitchfork underestimated (they gave it a 5.6 out of 10). I was inspired to listen to some post-rock this evening after a brief chat with a barista about the Sigur Ros that was playing (in the Tully's in the cafe area of the UW business school building). We'll see how much post-rock I can cycle through tonight.

Readers may notice that I've taken to talking about music lately. Had some great chats about music with a friend of my youngest sister over Thanksgiving break, and I was reminded how much I like music--in the general genres of "indie" and electronic--and how much musical knowledge I've collected over the past five years. I didn't originally intend this blog to include any writing about music. But my music appreciation has sharply risen lately; I'm noticing the refreshing right-brain stimulation that counterbalances the pummeling my left brain's been taking. :)

Tags: MBA Sigur Ros Godspeed You Black Emperor! productivity post-rock

The ultimate rejection letter

2006-12-06T18:01:00.000-08:00

This was making the rounds amongst my classmates today.

Victrola in the morning

2006-12-04T06:45:00.000-08:00

I'm in Victrola, local coffeeshop, sipping on an americano as I finish the edit on our team paper for microeconomics. I noticed that Victrola has their own blog - nice! I also noticed that they open every day at 5:30 AM. I arrived at 6:30 this morning and was feeling proud of myself. But 5:30? I'll see if I can make it in here at that time at some point this week.

Tags: Victrola coffee early morning Capitol Hill Seattle

5,000 visitors

2006-12-03T16:37:00.000-08:00

My humble blog has just received its 5000th visitor: someone googling ibm secondlife. Incidentally, the most common googlish pathway to my blog is the string "imagining the tenth dimension" review, where visitors find this page.

And as the day darkens into dusk, I am down at Online Coffee, working on our group econ paper. It's a group endeavor; I'm editing and assembling everything.

The next week and a half will be busy. This econ paper needs to get finished, as does my stats project. There's a take-home IT & Innovation final, and an evening meeting with a client that I'll be working with in a type of mini-marketing internship with a group of classmates. (This is known as a BCN project in the UW MBA program. More on this next quarter).

Then there will be the in-class finals to prepare for: management, microeconomics, statistics, and the dreaded 3-hour accounting final. A lot to keep me busy. Finals will be finished 3:30 PM on 12/12, at which point they'll roll out some free congratulatory beer for us (according to rumor).

I'm listening to Galerie Stratique's Nothing Down-to-Earth, an album full of vaguely sinister sounds wrapped in shadowy gray rhythms. It reminds me of Aphex Twin. I think it's been a while since I've listened to it in its entirety, maybe a couple years ago when I worked at Washington State Ferries.

Speaking of which, I'll be joining those ex-coworkers for an xmas dinner in a few weeks; I'm looking forward to catching up with them.

Tags: blogging MBA business school finals Galerie Stratique

The remote control for life

2006-12-03T08:04:00.000-08:00

A classmate forwarded me this interesting article from the Economist.

The cellphone is not a telephone. It is a—I don't know what it is. A communications device? A tool I carry in my pocket?

Bruce Sterling, a science-fiction writer whose future caught up with him, and who now writes books about contemporary design and technology, believes phones will be “remote controls, house keys, Game Boys, flashlights, maps, compasses, flash drives, health monitors, microphones, recorders, laser pointers, passports, make-up kits, burglar alarms, handguns, handcuffs and slave bracelets.” In short, he believes that the phone will be “the remote-control for life”.

From my own experience, I've seen my phone come to play an increasingly important role as an extension of my memory.

December the 2nd: a historical perspective

2006-12-02T23:57:00.000-08:00

In the Scientific American monthly section "50, 100, and 150 Years Ago," the editors rifle through the musty archives and reprint short articles from yesteryear.

I'm inspired to do something similar with my own life archives (I'm not quite able to go back 150 years yet ... someday). Starting in 1981(!) I began keeping a journal off and on. From 1986 through the mid-90s, I estimate that I wrote an entry every two days, on average.

Out of curiosity (to be truthful: I was seeking distractions from the ongoing Stats project), I looked through the old journals to see what I'd written on Dec. 2 in previous years.

Ten years ago, in 1996, I was a few days away from starting a temp grave shift position as a USPS mail sorter. On 12/2/96, I wrote:

This morning I got a call from the Post Office personnel department. They want me to start early, on Wednesday night. For some strange reason I am very excited.

Fifteen years ago, on 12/2/91, I was apparently in a melancholy mood:

I started to enjoy classical music immensely. I think for the past month I have become more introspective and reading a lot more. I have not had a desire to have a relationship for a couple months.

And 20 years ago, on 12/2/86:

Jonathan Bradley came back to school. I just started teaching him logo.

I started music. That means I just stay in the band room.

Today we had play practice (for church). My part is Paul Evans. I have 13 lines. (By the way, Paul Evans is supposed to be rich.)

Last night my ears were plugged. I slept upstairs.

It is 10:00 PM exactly.

I stuck to the facts back in the day.

Tags: memories journal 1996 1991 1986

Precipitatio pulchritudinous

2006-11-29T21:54:00.000-08:00

There is ambiguity no further -- that's snow out there. Big, beautiful snowflakes. Mesmerizing. Pulchritudinous, if I do say so.

And lest you're worrying about me 'n' my accounting, fret not. I'm ploughing through it. It's a case that examines consolidated vs. equity-basis ownership of affiliates. Coke and Pepsi are the two example firms. Interesting stuff, but pretty complex.

I recommend The Cocteau Twins, currently gracing my ears, as lovely study-accompaniment music.

Tags: snow Seattle Capitol Hill accounting homework Cocteau Twins

Precipitatio Ambiguoso

2006-11-29T20:26:00.000-08:00

For the past several minutes, I haven't been able to determine whether it's been raining or snowing here in Capitol Hill. It honestly appeared to be doing both at once. Now it looks like straight-up snow. I could go outside to examine this matter further...but no. I like the view from my cozy warm desk.

Ah, but this accursed weather keeps my attention fixed out the window, when it should be fixed upon my accounting homework!

My musical soundtrack tonight is Mi Media Naranja, the exquisitely barren and contemplative 1997 release from Labradford.

Tags: Seattle Capitol Hill snow distraction Labradford

What do you think?
	She gave the balloon to someone else, after the bus ride.
	Someone (husband?) gave it to her that morning.
	A stranger randomly gave her the balloon as she boarded the bus.
	It's hers; she just carries it around as an accessory.

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Is there too much product placement in current films?
	Yes - much too much.
	Well...there's a little too much.
	It's ok as is. I wouldn't want to see any more, though.
	Nah. There could be a bit more and it wouldn't bother me.
	No!! Spanish TV doesn't even sound excessive to me.

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