Wednesday, July 27, 2011

appreciating the view

I tend to take things for granted over time, like all humans. As a trivial example: my view. I still logically recognize that it's awesome, but I no longer have the same visceral awe. Recently I've been inviting over guests to live vicariously through their reaction.


Today I was talking to Jill about how I respect serial entrepreneurs with a track record of repeated successes. She said, "Such as whom?" I said, "Well, Mariam [Minted's founder/CEO], for starters." Then we were talking about other aspects of Minted and I digressed into how it's nice to work in a company with a balanced gender ratio (after a decade of Microsoft and Google), especially gender diversity in the leadership. There are women in the industry, but the number of women who are powerful leaders that can build a succcessful company and who I deeply respect as peers/role models is still small, and now I get to work with several on a daily basis!

I paused to think about it, and it struck me how awesome it is. I had a strong sense of feeling fortunate, like I used to feel in 2003 around Googlers who were amazing and fun, like Mike Burrows, Rob Pike, Jeff Dean, Steve Lawrence. Now I've lucked out again with Minted.

How do you make sure that you still maintain appreciation for the awesome things in your life? Maybe the important key was that today Jill asked me questions and I paused to really think about it.

Friday, July 22, 2011

five 9's

Having dinner with a female friend at Caffe BaoNecci.

Her: Because we work in this industry, I have a lot of guy friends. 99.999% of my friends are guys.

Me: But I'm your friend. So that means you have at least 100,000 friends. Wow.

Her: Whatever.

Monday, July 11, 2011

progress

June 9:
First jog for Utah survival school. Goal: 9.5min pace 1.5miles. Actual:10.9min pace for .65miles.

A lot of people laughed at me for not running an entire mile. They greeted me with "Hey, how's the training going? Did you run 0.6 miles this morning?"

July 10:
10.04-min mile pace for 2.18 miles


Survival school starts in exactly 4 more weeks!

Sunday, July 10, 2011

new bucket list

I've checked off two items (eat at Gary Danko, read a bunch of books). Revised bucket list:

1. Take my dad on a trip to Russia.
2. Have a family.
3. Have a live Christmas tree, with ornaments.
4. Go on a trek to Everest Base Camp.

Wednesday, July 06, 2011

"whatever you're good at, there's an asian kid who can do it better"



J: he's not just playing guitar
J: he's playing the guitar parts and the vocal parts
me: oh!
J: i can't even do that
me: how does he do that?
J: he has parallel brain tracks
J: that let him think about the melody and the rhythm at the same time
J: it's like singing and playing guitar at the same time -- some people can't do that, but lots (like me) can.
J: that's probably because i have a cpu and a gpu
J: g=guitar
me: lol lol!!
J: he has 2 gpus!


me: he's so cute!
me: i want to pat his head
J: yeah he's cute but not kid cute anymore
J: those videos are 2008 -- in 3 years he's become a teenager
J: still cute but not teddy bear cute
me: yeah too bad
me: i liked the teddy bear cute
J: your loss is south korean teenage girls' gain
me: ha!!!


Later, with my brother Tom:

me: he is sooo cute
me: he looks a little like you as a kid!
Tom: makes you want to trade your little brother in, eh? =P
Tom: its ok i wouldn't blame you
me: no, my brother was that good, but at playing video games
Tom: hahaha
me: and at being a brother!!
Tom: =D