Chan's Personal Blog

After lazing around for most of August, it's time to gear up for the Fall offensive as things are starting to gear up once more.

On the academic front, it's time to put this to an end. The last piece of work will be writing up my Master's technical project report, and preparing for the Master's defence. It's both exciting and scary at the same time. I started gathering my research notes together and began writing the report. I'm filled with cautious optimism because I've been reading other people's project reports, and some of them were really simple applications. I guess it's because professors expect students to work on their project for 8 months. My project is quite a bit bigger since it took about 16 months to write (although not full-time). To put that in perspective, a Master's student can finish their degree in 20 months if they go at a break-neck speed, so a big part of my time has been spent on this project. It's just a matter of documenting it all now.

On the church front, things are getting better. The church recently hired a new youth pastor, and a new children's ministry director. Traditionally, the youth pastor took care of kids, teens, and young adults, and that was a lot of work because that would mean being at the church maybe 5 nights out of 7. A lot of people burn out because of the heavy workload. You end up getting several mediocre ministries that are hanging by a few threads. Anyway, kudos for the board recognizing that there needed to be someone devoted to children's ministries. By having someone to take care of the kids, it lets the youth pastor focus on his ministries.

On the economic front, I cleaned up my portfolio and got rid of some of my worst stocks of the year, and I'm hoping for a big Fall comeback. This is the first year that I have a negative gain in my portfolio, so it has been an interesting learning experience. Previously I had been using the buy and hold strategy which worked out, but in an awful market like this year, I got burned. So, I've become more flexible and nimble. The worst investment I made this year was in JDS Uniphase, where I made -40% on it. It's a momentum stock where there was a lot of hype. The main lesson learned is, when a momentum stock misses its earnings, the thing will come crashing down and it'll never recover. Anyway, I picked up some stock in General Motors (GM) last week as the company is making an incredible turn around. Next on my buy list is more shares in Advanced Micro Systems (AMD). I'm also abandoning all of my natural resource stocks because those prices have come crashing down as well. I'm sticking with technology, financials, and retailers right now. If I had more cash, I'd be looking at Costco (COST), Apple Computers (AAPL), Starbucks (SBUX), Royal Bank (RY), and Google (GOOG).

Finally on the work front, things have been going well. I've been given a project where I have complete freedom in the design which is great. This is because this sort of project has never been attempted at my work before, so a lot of the stuff is experimental, so the design is up to me. Writing new software is always more enjoyable than maintaining old software. The code name for the project is Operation PortalCake™.

All in all, things are going well. Anyway, back to writing that technical report...

As you may or may not know, I work in high-tech industry. Computers and technology are second nature to me. Heck, I'm even a grad student in Computer Science. So, this serves as a backdrop to the story.

A few weeks ago, some girl asked for my cellphone number, and I said, I don't have a cellphone. She goes, "What?!?! You don't have a cellphone number??? That's so wierd!" I quickly reply with, "What? You think I have a cellphone just because I'm Asian?" Playing the race card ends most debates rather quickly in my favour . There have been other situations where people have exclaimed, "What??? You don't have a [insert high-tech gadget here]?"

Then it dawned on me that I'm a bit of a technological hermit. Here is a quick rundown of stuff that I don't have which has shocked many people given my obvious geekish vibe: cellphones, DVD players, handheld gaming devices, portable CD players, CD burners, MP3 players, iPods, digital cameras, a high power computer, Playstation, XBox, laptops, USB keychains, anything remotely wireless, etc.

The thing that always shocks people is my computer. Everyone assumes that I have a pimped out computer with those glowing blue LEDs that Asians love so much, but I don't. Infact, any game made after 2002 will probably NOT run on my computer. For those who understand computer jargon, here are my computer's stats: Intel Celeron Processor 667Mhz, 10GB hard-drive, 64MB ATI Radeon 7000 PCI video card, 256MB ram, 52X CD-ROM, 1.44MB floppy disk drive. To illustrate, an average computer these have the following stats: Intel Pentium 4 Process 3200MHz, 250GB hard-drive, 2000MB ram, 52X CD-ROM/DVD-ROM/CD-Burner, etc. Things have progressed quite a bit.

Why the lack of stuff in general? Well, there's a fine line between what one needs, and what one wants. If you're paying for 6 years' worth of university tuition, and you want to minimize the amount of debt you exit with, you have to live fairly minimally. Furthermore, tech gadgets tend to become obsolete very quickly, so a lot of it becomes junk, so that's a big turnoff.

People who upgrade their computers once a year drive me absolutely insane. One guy that I know has a whole family of computers that he has running, and it's because he upgrades every year. Unless you're running a server farm, 5 computers per person is a bit excessive. It's also a lot of money down the drain.

I remember there was a survey on Slashdot that asked, what's the total value of all the tech gadgets that you carry around with you? If I were to answer, it'd probably say $80, as I carry a scientific calculator in backpack, but that's about it. However, there was a guy in my graduate seminar class that seemed to carry a crapload of gadgets with him everywhere. He brought along two laptops, a big one for doing his work, and a tablet laptop which he used for presentations. Accompanying his laptops was a gyroscopic wireless mouse and a laser pointer. He had an iPod in one pocket, and a cellphone in the other. On his belt, he carried a palm pilot, and on his keychain, he had several USB flashdrives. Actual retail value that he carried with him: $7500.00+.

In either case, I suppose I'm a bit of an oxymoron. I'm heavily involved in tech, but I don't own much tech at all. There is hope for me yet though, I am saving up for a new computer. My computer upgrade cycle is once every 6 years. It's absolutely amazing how cheap and powerful desktop computers are these days. It's shocking for me to know that grandparents are buying 3.2GHz computers and all they're using them for is surfing the Internet, and writing e-mails. These computers are faster than our servers at work which run the entire UVIC Co-op website and it serves over 6,000 users for crying out loud!