To end the year, I put together a collection of the best photos of the life of Chan in 2008. I thought this was a worthy way to salute the end of 2008. The music featured today is "Be With Me", by V.A.S.T.
Just finished uploading photos from the Yahoo! Year End Party, so I've attached a slideshow beneath. The slideshow is accompanied by music from Moby, "In My Heart." Please play the slideshow and music. Enjoy.
This year's controversy was, why would we throw a big Christmas party if people are getting laid off? Couldn't we save some money by canceling it, and save some jobs. The answer from the company brass is no, because the party had been booked and planned almost 6 months earlier. Canceling it would have only saved a marginal amount of money, and we would have lost a bunch of deposit money.
So, I'm officially on vacation mode, so that's why the blog updates have been slowing down. I flew into Victoria on Friday night. As expected, the Horizon Air connection flight from Seattle to Victoria was delayed by 40 minutes. Three out of four times, that flight is delayed due to maintenance problems.
In either case, as I stepped off the flight, it was -9C, and up to -14C with the wind. For some reason, there were a couple of people on my flight who stepped off the plane wearing short sleeve t-shirts, not such a good idea. I spent Saturday re-adjusting, and Sunday hiking through the snow.
First question I usually get is, how are you adjusting to the weather since you've been living in California? It actually hasn't been much of an adjustment because since November, I started preparing by refusing to turn on the heat at my apartment, and wearing only a t-shirt, and sometimes a windbreaker if outside. In Silicon Valley (which is literally a valley), at night it's around 1C, morning is around 6C, and afternoons are around 10C. The difference isn't all that great.
In the last three days, I have probably walked about 10km in the snow, and it has been enjoyable. The only bad thing with all this snow and walking are the giant puddles that are downtown located at the shoulders of streets. Some of the puddles are ankle deep!
One of the nice things about the snow is that all your plans and schedules just suddenly disappear, and there's nothing you can do about it. Strangely, it's kind of nice, probably because the whole year I am bound by schedules and deadlines. It's the perfect opportunity to just sit back and relax..... and the weather is perfect for napping.
As I walk around Victoria, the main thing that I notice is all of the construction that has been going on. Looks like there have been a lot of big residential and commercial projects being developed around here. I privately wonder how many of them are going to finish though due to the horrible recession.
In either case, I'll be working on uploading the last of my 2008 photos. Stay tuned. If anyone wants to hangout while I'm in town, leave me a comment.
So one of my final "projects" for Q4 at Yahoo was to organize a potluck. My initial reaction was to cringe because potlucks at my last job was usually a venue for petty bickering and politics. Myron also foretold of bad work potlucks because most people just ended up buying stuff instead of making stuff. Thankfully, my worst nightmares were never realized, and we managed to pull it off. Our team has a lot of good cooks, and the majority of people cooked. Here's the photos of it, you can try to guess what I cooked. Although, you can't assume I cooked asian food because the majority of the team is asian.
Note: This photo feed comes from ptr, the team's official photographer.
As an added bonus, we voted on what the best dishes were. First prize got a $50 Starbucks gift certificate. Second prize got $25 for Starbucks, and a hug from our chairman Nam. Third place got $25 for Starbucks.
The winners were
Dolly and her home-made spring rolls.
Yimin and his shanghai ribs.
Weilin and her chicken green curry.
Thanks to all the cooks who participated. You saved my job! Thankfully, none of these wonderful people in the photos were laid off either. I think we ended up with a total of 25 different dishes.
I was busy uploading the last of my summer photos when I came across a blog worthy picture. California represents a lot of firsts for me. In this case, I fired my gun this summer. My friend who's a federal agent, we'll refer to him as TS, took me to a firing range in Milpitas. He had just gotten a new Glock 23, and was itching to try out.
Some interesting things I noted at the gun range:
No headshots. We bought various paper targets to shoot at, and one of them was a human silhouette. However, it was against the rules to aim and shoot for the head. I guess they didn't want civilians getting good at head shots since they're usually fatal shots.
No double-tapping. Double tap is where you fire off two shots quickly. The theory is that the two shots will hit the same spot twice with fairly high accuracy compared with firing off two shots slowly. This technique is also useful in defeating certain types of body armour. Again, they frowned upon civilians from learning this technique.
These rules above however did not apply to law enforcement officers. Officers just had to prominently display their badges, and they could fire away without the staff yelling at them. I kind of find these rules a bit futile though, because there's really nothing stopping civilians from going out into the woods and practicing these various techniques.
Anyway, TS taught me proper shooting stances and grips, so that's a good basic skill to learn properly. After my first few shots, I was kind of surprised how far bullets drifted away from intended targets merely by small shifts in my grip. After firing off fifty rounds, I got my rhythm and breathing about right, and got my grouping much tighter and scored a few bulls-eyes.
There were three guys in the lane next to us who had rented out a magnum handgun. Even though we all had ear protection on, my goodness is that a loud gun. It also had some serious recoil. The guys looked like they had sore wrists after firing off the beast.
In either case, I'm pretty sure if I tried doing some Hollywood style running and shooting with two pistols, I'd hit nothing. Although, it'd be pretty awesome to watch.
Well, today the axe fell at Yahoo and approximately 1500 Yahoos were laid off. To alleviate everyone's worries, I have survived, and live to fight another day as a Yahoo. Most groups saw a 10-15% cut. I'm quite thankful that my group only had a 5% cut as we've been fairly disciplined in our hiring, so we're pretty lean as it is. Unfortunately some of the peer groups that I work with have lost some fairly awesome people. I don't pretend to understand why, but it was definitely met with some shock. I would have to describe today's office atmosphere as quiet, somber, and respectful.
I guess one of the lighter side of things happened over at Yahoo headquarters. Some start-up wanted to try to hire some of the newly laid off Yahoos, so they parked a taco truck at HQ. They were handing out free tacos and job descriptions. I'm glad I wasn't near there because I don't think I could resist the taco's siren-like song.
One of the other things that I have yet to get used to about Silicon Valley are the stalker recruiters. This week I had at least three different recruiters call me asking if I was looking for work. It's just weird because they cold call me or e-mail to my work phone/e-mail address, and I never hand out that information. The good recruiters even know my name and what I do. In Victoria, I think this was much more rare. Recruiters, if you're reading this, I'm not interested.
Speaking of which, I even had a financial person from Merrill Lynch cold call me asking to meet with me to talk about financial planning and wealth management services. First, I seriously doubt my networth can be described as wealth. Second, didn't Merrill Lynch almost go bankrupt because of bad financial planning?
In either case, I salute my fellow Yahoos-In-Arms and those who have fallen today. Thank you for your contributions. Also thanks to all the Yahoos who sent me notes telling what a huge loss it would be if I got laid off. +1 self-esteem.
This summer, I started playing badminton again. Silicon Valley is a pretty good place to enjoy the sport as there's a critical mass of demand for the game (ie lots of asians). I read one article that in the Bay Area, there are at least 9 badminton clubs. To illustrate the difference, I don't think there's a single badminton club in Victoria (at least one where you could drop-in any day of the week). It's kind of funny though, the badminton courts are usually crowded with plenty of asians, and occasionally there's white people. I think I feel at home j/k.
While growing up, badminton didn't really seem to be a serious sport in gym. I'm pretty sure some of the coaches actively dismissed it as a real sport. In either case, badminton players here seem pretty dang serious. Anyway, I'm getting pretty good at doubles these days, and starting to win more games. These last six months, I've learned to pickup birdies with my racket, starting to develop some notion of a backhand return, and my net defense is much improved.
In either case, please enjoy this video of an Olympic badminton player smashing a birdie into a watermelon. I would not like to be blocking a shot from this guy:
