There are many places that I would never volunteer as my destination, any countries with political instability, any countries without consistent supply hot water on demand, and any countries without reliable internet connections. On the other hand, there are places that are unavoidable, despite the harsh conditions. For example, the public bathroom.
The perils of the public bathroom is often absent in the recess of our minds, which I suspect is a form of primitive self preservation technique. Denial is obviously the most effective tool for curbing one’s natural instinct to avoid dangerous situations. Despite my brain’s better effort to mask the dangers, thus disallowing any confrontations of the public bathroom, I will put my own life on risk to address this series of life-threatening issues today.
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Writing about passing of someone who’s close to you is never easy, especially when it’s your parent. I was looking for the perfect thing to say, to create the perfect moment akin to some Hollywood cliché. After spending months writing and deleting several drafts, I’ve finally accepted that there is no perfect way to say goodbye, and there is no way to encompass everything my dad meant to me with words. Structure, flow, logic, presentation, none of that is important anymore, at least not here.
Our lives as a family, has been a series of comedic, if not tragic timing. My father had, at several different points in his life, prominent career that seemed to point towards the ideal of success. He was once a manager of human resources at RCA of Taiwan, subsequently owned a very successful company with a few partners. I don’t think my father was ever a business genius of any sort, rather his rapid ascension at almost any given opportunity had more to do with his genial personality. Family might be his priority, but friends were a close second to the extent of seemingly eclipsing the first. However, that forgiving personality would prove to be his flaw as well.
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My father passed away on August 12th, 2008.
I just got back from Taiwan from all of the funeral proceedings. There are way too many thoughts and memories to process at the moment.
It’s a little bit late compared to Typepad, but the WordPress iPhone app is out today. Now I can blog from anywhere! Anytime!
The question is… Will I be motivated enough? Typing on this virtual keyboard is serious business!!
Within any office environment, there are always some very interesting social dynamics. Every department has corresponding personalities that one would expect knowing the stereotype. The people working in accounting department tend to be cautious and conservative, straight to the point with numbers and figures; but often seem to have a hidden wild streak to offset the hassles of rather restrained daily personality (These are most likely, the craziest and drunkest people at company parties). Engineers are often filled with plethora of trivial knowledge from all walks of life, and have a tendency to always drive meetings into levels of detail that it was not intended for. Designers are always somewhat aloof and odd in their ways, seemingly to harmonize on a different frequency than everyone else. In a politcally correct climate, we regard stereotypes as taboo, when in reality stereotypes are often established from years of factual observations.
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Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve just moved to a new place, thus has been very busy trying to rearrange my life as a result.
Should I post pictures of the new place?.. Hrm…
Posted in Tidbits of Life
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Tagged life
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I’m sure a million other blogs will be talking about this today. I’ll keep it short and sweet:
LA Times article
San Francisco Chronicles article
It’s about time. Here is an excerpts from the SF Chronicles article:
In a 4-3 decision, the justices said the state’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the “fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship.” The ruling is likely to flood county courthouses with applications from couples newly eligible to marry when the decision takes effect in 30 days.
“The California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples,” Chief Justice Ronald George wrote in the majority opinion.
Allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry “will not deprive opposite-sex couples of any rights and will not alter the legal framework of the institution of marriage,” George said.
I’ve always hated the Christian fundamentalist argument against gay marriage, especially in regards to how it threatens the traditional definition that a marriage is “between a man and a woman.” I’m sure there will be Federal implications of this ruling afterwards, we’re long from seeing the day where gay marriage is accepted across all states; but this is a great step forward.
Posted in Tidbits of Life
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Tagged news
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I’ve been using Firefox 3 beta for a while now, and it’s a definite improvement in memory usage and speed over Firefox 2. As expected, it’s taking some of the addon developers quite a while to write new versions of their addon that’s compatible with Firefox 3.
Granted, I don’t use a whole lot of Firefox addons, but there is one addon I couldn’t live without: The bookmarking addon from del.icio.us. Since I work on multiple computers at work and home, del.ici.ous has became a valuable tool to keep all of my bookmark in one place. It’s also much more flexible than Google Bookmarks.
Now there is a beta version of the del.icio.us addon for Firefox 3, available here:
delicious blog – Firefox 3, del.icio.us, and you
Just follow the link and install the new version of the addon, so far it’s been working great. With the availability of this addon, my switch over to Firefox 3 is complete.
In my younger days, I used to mock my father about how far he is behind the time, the fact that he can’t touch-type (he’s a classic two-finger, and on occassions where he’s striving for productivity, three-finger, typist) or really grasp any idea of what this whole internet deal really is. Occassionally, he still asked me whether sending me email across the ocean, from Taiwan, would cost me any extra fees (naturally, he’s more worried about me having to pay for receiving the email, than the fact that he might have to pay to send email… I love my dad).
It’s an old, used, beat-up cliché, but I never thought I would one day consider myself closer to my dad’s category rather than being one of the hip kids that’s ingrained with all of the happenings in the tech world. The fact remains that I’m moving towards being one of the old geezer of the internet. Even though I’m still a notch below thirty, I have been in this tech bubble for nearly a decade.
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In regards to my low energy & lack of sleep:
(10:31:49 AM) nano: you need more sleep
(10:31:51 AM) nano: lunesta maybe
(10:34:39 AM) Steve: or maybe just watch the commercial for it like, 1,000 times
(10:34:40 AM) Steve: that’ll put me to bed
(10:36:10 AM) nano: its so peaceful
(10:37:14 AM) Steve: so very peaceful
(10:37:17 AM) Steve: or viagra commercials
(10:37:42 AM) Steve: ironically, for a commercial about a product that cures erectile dysfunction
(10:37:46 AM) Steve: it’s also very good at inducing it
(10:37:57 AM) Steve: watching a middle age guy tossing a football through tires repeatedly…
(10:38:02 AM) Steve: is just… too.. depressing
(10:40:08 AM) nano: hahha
(10:40:12 AM) nano: so true.
Posted in Tidbits of Life
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Tagged funny, life
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