Updates

Well, I've spent most of the last 30 days working on a job site about 600 miles from home. Travel with this frequency is tough. The hotel staff already know me by face and there isn't much to do in small-town America. At least the weather is getting nicer and night shift doesn't really involve bundling up like a yeti anymore.

Trying to control my diet here is tough. Portion control is really really really hard. I'm not looking forward to weighing-in when I get back home. At least I have maintained the exercise regime. I find it getting easier now that there's some kind of consistency and motivation to not break the trend.

But in any case, I'm glad I'm going on vacation this week. Even though that brings the total 'time not spent at home' time to about 30 days in the last month and a half, I think this break will be very much welcomed indeed.

In other stuff, here's an interesting use of light textures on 3D surfaces. I think it's cool that they can simulate depth by running lights in different thicknesses along a surface.

ENVISION : Step into the sensory box from SUPERBIEN on Vimeo.

Yami to Hikari

Well, after that previous post, I decided to be a little more upbeat. I haven't had the chance to re-weight myself since the last weigh-in as I was traveling and the place I went to didn't have a commercial scale. The ones that they did have would probably treat my body weight as a rounding error.

Anyways, so there's good news and bad news this time round. The bad news is that I have succumbed back to Team Fortress 2, much to my eternal shame. However, this is day 2 and I have only played 45 mins since I reinstalled. That's a promising start.

The Good News is that I'm now 211. 3lbs in 2 weeks isn't much I guess, but it's better than nothing. Finally being able to have some consistent form of exercising seems to be paying off. I have roughly 15 more weeks till show time. Let's see how far I can do this shit.

フアン

なんか不安になった。なんでぼくかってもまける？くやしい。

ぼくはもう日本語あまりれんしゅうしないけど、時々日本語でふあんを表したらちょっとらくになった。

ま、こんどもっとがんばります。あとチャンスがある。きっと。

All things TF2-ish

So I know I said I've uninstalled it but there are still so many crazy things people can do with Team Fortress 2 instead of playing. Here are a couple examples.


The Lion King done TF2. There is great lip-syncing and the conversation matches the context, one of the best TF2 dubs I've seen.


TF2 Man - when Mega Man meets the crew, I wonder how he would fare against the different arsenals of the TF2 screw. More guns!

Musings

The weather up here can be beautiful at times. I like the vast expanse of sky, sun and clouds. It's one of the nice things to see whenever I travel to the less populated areas out here.

It's easy to see why people have the urge to eat ice cream in weather like this.

Another interesting thing to see when I travel is the 'exotic' names that some of these small towns have. I think this is the 'best' name I've yet to see in the 3 years of travel I've had.

I pity any child that has/had to grow up in this town.

Lastly, the weather here is ridiculously windy. Apparently, it gets up to 40 mph in the winter. I can't imagine trying to work in the open fields with that kind of elemental force battering you all the time. I'm glad that I'm here in late spring and not winter.

For metric users, that's about 40 to 50 km/h...

Weigh-ins and shootings

So I just weighed myself. No change. Still 214 lbs. I started walking my stairs though, so we'll see if that helps in the long run. But with the weather so nice outside nowadays, I feel an almost pathological urge to eat ice cream and laze in the sun... Well, at least I didn't gain any weight whilst traveling.

Anyways, if you have facebook, you've probably seen Farmville ads at least once if not more. If you're like me, you probably got sick of all that. So how does a chance to shoot (twisted and insane) farm animals sound for a change? You can try your hand at this game. It's not too hard. I got all but the two medals required for survival. Although I did have to reload twice to complete the game... I recommend turning off the sound.


Play Games at AddictingGames

So Round 2?

I finally bought a scale. It's one of those electronic scales that can measure to 0.2 pounds. It's also made from tempered glass and can track the weight of 2 users. There was another higher tech version that could measure body fat as well but it wasn't as nice looking, almost 50% more expensive and frankly, I think my body fat measurement will be depressing. The weight is depressing enough as it is.
So anyways, for the record it's 214 pounds. Which means that I am sub-100kg! That's a great first step. Haha. Now my target is 10 pounds from now till mid-May. The plan is to:

1. Reduce rice intake to 1/4 cup per meal
2. Only finish 1/4 of the potatoes in an outside meal
3. Eat more seafood
4. Oranges and Apples and Pears baby!
5. Wake up early to exercise. I've been trying but I have to wake up at around 6 to make this work. Means that I have to sleep by 11pm.

Incidentally, I have also suspended my TF2 for now. I need more time to organise my stuff and I want to learn VBA for realz now. Also, I will probably need time to prep for any advanced tests I want to take, be it the Pro. Eng. exam or something else.

Wish me luck. Round 2 int he quest to get fitter and better in life.

Day 4

Day 4.

In Minnesota now. Let's see how dieting works out when food is paid for.

Weight - DUNNOE.

Breakfast - leftover Spinach with portabellini, ham and onions + rice with brocoli & cauliflower x 1portion. 1 glass of veggie juice. 1 banana.

Morning Snack - n/a. On airplane.

Lunch - BK A1 Steakburger XT + Onion Rings + Diet Coke. ZOMG 940+450 calories. FUUUUUUUU. But it tasted so good.

PM Snack - n/a

Dinner - Grilled Salmon (dry and ugh) x 1. 1/2 baked potato. Unsweetened ice tea. Side salad with fat-free italian. Managed NOT to order the really delicious looking sirloin or ribs. Didn't eat the soft and fluffy dinner roll too. I'm impressed.

Exercise - no time. Have to wake up at 530 tomorrow to work out.

Need to lay off the BK. Zomg. But good work with dinner. Sirloin should be lean enough, I'll try that next time.

Day 3

Day 3.
Weight - Still unknown. Need to buy a scale. Going to MN tomorrow so that's off till when I get back.

Breakfast - 2 Egg (1 yolk) omelet with onions, ham, cheese and almonds (mmmm almonds). 1 glass of veggie juice.

Morning Snack - Dried Mango x 10 pieces

Lunch - Chicken Dumpling Soup + bag of crackers + 1/2 Jimmy Johns sub + Dried mango x 15 pieces. I think i over did the mango but I wanted to finish the bag before I left for MN.

PM Snack - Dried mango x 8 pieces

Dinner - Spinach with portabellini, ham and onions + rice with brocoli & cauliflower x 1portion. 1 orange, 1 banana.

Exercise -
2 x 15lb x 15 reps of bicep/tricep/delts(12lbs)/Side abs
2 x 25 leg raise (w/ 15lb), 2 x 30 ankle raises, 2 x 20 squats (w/ 15lb)
2 x 20 reps of situps, 'superman', push-ups and hamstring curl (using other leg as resistance)

Total time ~35 mins

Sleep earlier!

Day 2

Day 2.
Weight - Still unknown. Need to buy a scale.

Breakfast - Leftover Tequila Soaked Chicken Breast x 1 + rice with broccoli, cauliflower and almonds x 1 portion. 1 glass of veggie juice.

Morning Snack - World Market almond biscotti x 2

Lunch - Panera Bread Thai Chicken Salad + Chicken Noodle Soup + Apple.

PM Snack - Dried mango x 8 pieces

Slightly hungry by dinner but not hungry after working out.

Dinner - Almond crusted chicken breasts (pan-seared then roasted) x 2 + portabellini mushrooms x 3. Ate too much? Probably. Almonds taste good with mushrooms and caramelized onions though...

Exercise - 30 minutes on elliptical. 20 minutes of (2 mins 7mph + 1 min 5 mph) sets, 10 mins of warm up/cool down. 2.8 miles. Chin-ups 4/3/2.

Needs - try to stick to low carbs, high protein. Maybe more snacks in the day?

First Day of a (hopefully) New Age

Ok. So this lose weight thing needs some recording so this is it.

Day 1.
Weight - Unknown. Need to buy a scale.

Breakfast - Chinese Leftovers x 1 portion + rice x 1 portion. 1 glass of veggie juice.

Lunch - Chinese Leftovers x 1 portion + rice x 1 portion. 1 glass of veggie juice.

Dinner - Tequila Soaked Chicken Breast x 1 + rice with broccoli, cauliflower and almonds x 1 portion. 1 portion of melon medley and 1 orange.

Exercise - Weights 15 lbs, no extra weights. Standard 2 x 15 reps

Needs - try to stick to low carbs, high protein.

P.S. Totally random but whoever did this is genius.

Brazil Trip - Part 1

So some of you might know that I recently went to Brazil for some work. So here's the pictures and stories I have from that trip.

I took the late flight from Chicago to São Paulo and arrived at 10am on a Saturday morning. My first task was to go from the international airport (São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport) to the domestic airport (Congonhas Airport). To do that, I could either take a cab or take the 'Airport Bus Service'. I went with the bus service as it was more economical (31 reais vs ~100 reais) and I had time to kill on the first day anyways as my flight inland was on Sunday morning.
It's a trip from the east of São Paulo to the west and took me about 50 minutes. The bus basically takes you through some parts of the city and then on the outskirts for others.

It's a big city. Lots of sprawl and many tall building as well. Oh and the weather was great too. Blue skies, white clouds, 28 degrees C...
Either the Mystery Machine has gone into catering or this is a blatant copyright rip-off. But I guess everyone wants Scooby-branded baked goods and snacks.

There is some weird architecture here as well.

When I first saw the row of stuffed toys on the road divider, I was wondering what was going on, until I saw the lady hawking the stuff. Just like here, there are people who try to make a living from the road divider and at traffic junctions.

For a city of ~18 million people, Congonhas Airport doesn't look all that big or modern...

This is the hotel I stayed at the first night. It's like the Holiday Inn of Brazil. Unfortunately, their website isn't too informative in English.

Well, that's it for this first post. I'll continue later. I'm tired and it's bed time now.

I'm not dead yet!

Haha, at this rate, I'm gonna be considered the walking dead.

But things have been fairly ok with me so I don't really see the need to post too much. However, the recent financial incidents around the world and back home here deserve some airtime on my blog I think.

As we all know, the world is not in the best shape financially speaking. This has translated to high unemployment rates in the states and countries like Greece getting buffeted by people betting against any financial plans they can concoct to improve their finances.

I am currently waiting for the Q1 report from Greece and seeing what actions the EU will take to 'bail' them out. It's reprehensible when corporations get rewarded for greed and mis-judgment but it's a whole other level when COUNTRIES indulge in such unethical behaviour. It's also sad when in the end, those countries will also not suffer too much for their willful wrong-doings.

However, it is through the actions of others that we can reflect on our own. The States might not be in as dire straits as Greece or other PIGS nations but the national debt has soared over the course of the crisis (to 80+ % of GDP) and the Obama administration is still talking ABOUT ADDING MORE DEBT!! Like seriously, WTF dude. I don't consider myself Red State material by a long shot but this splurge by Congress and the Obama administration is ridiculous. A new bill just passed in Congress that adds $149 BILLION to the already ginormous $12.5 TRILLION national debt. They just increased the duration of unemployment benefits from 52 weeks (already extended from the original 26) to 99 weeks. NINETY NINE WEEKS. At this rate, the unemployed can grow roots at home before they will stop seeing $$ from the government. I understand people are having a tough time trying to find work and all in this economy but 2 years of cash for free?? Does Obama think he can do this?


The States has no Obama Wii. The only way it can meaningfully reduce debt is to do it like how everyone else does it. Spend less and save more. Please Donkeys, don't be bleeding hearts - You're gonna bleed everyone dry.

Already, I have the highest big city tax at 10.25%. My city's mayor made a joke of a deal to the devil (actually a Morgan Stanley subsidary) - allowing them to control the city's parking meters for 75 years, in return for a mere 1+ billion. My mind is blown by the incompetency shown in the city's leadership...

Sigh, it's late already and I should go to bed. But sometimes, I can see how they can say the States will not be the power in this 22nd century. I need to blow something up to relieve some steam...r

Superbowl Commercials

So some of you guys might have heard that Superbowl XLIV (44) was played yesterday. The result was the New Orleans Saints 31, Indianapolis Colts 17. Not the best of results for the team I supported but at least the Saints were led by a fellow alumni, Drew Brees. So GO PURUDE! WOO!

Anyways, since most people don't really know or care about American football, I'm just gonna display the Superbowl commercials that I found most interesting. The Superbowl is probably the most watched TV event in the US and each 30 second ad costs around 2-3 million. So you get some pretty interesting and refreshing ads.

Starting with some gratuitous skin shots, we have Megan Fox selling some Motorola cellphone. I don't know what it is but who cares, it's Megan Fox.


Next up, we have a violin playing gopher beaver. Who doesn't like musically inclined furry animals?


Most of the Superbowl ads are funny, but this Google one was quite poignant and touching.


I am quite excited for the upcoming Avatar:The Last Airbender movie. Even though it's based on a Nickelodeon cartoon, it is still damn cool.


Lastly, this is my favourite commercial. Don't mess with his Doritos nor his Momma!

So it's been awhile

It's been 2 months since my last post and I think it's time I restarted this thing again. I had a rather busy Dec/Jan with work and vacation. So I think I'll just write about a couple of things on my mind this 2010.

First of, Happy New Years to everyone out there. Yes, I know it's really belated but better late than never eh?

Anyways, the other day, some idiot in my complex damaged the apartment garage door and it could not close properly. Management had someone stand guard outside and cross reference everyone who entered with a residents list. How the guard checked my identity was quite interesting to me - He asked me to confirm my unit, which I did, and then he said "Thanks so much Mr Lee". I totally did not get that it was a test and was kinda irritated at him when I responded " No. Tan". Only when he said "Thanks again sir" did I realize I just got juked by the guard. Now I'll look out for instances where people try to trip me up and perhaps I'll use this method to check for consistency from other people in the future as well.

I've been trying to wake up early to exercise so as to try to adhere to previous resolutions but it's proving to be really tough. If I wake up at 6am to workout, I'm a dead man walking by 2pm. I have to adjust my sleeping pattern to accommodate this new plan... But with a new year, there is a new hope. So I'll just keep plugging along.

Well that's enough ramblings from me for now. I have to get ready to sleep to try to follow my workout plan. Wish me luck.

The Best Laid Plans

I just realized that my last post was my 500th. 500 posts covering about 6 years. Wow, I've been doing this thing for quite awhiles already. I feel like patting myself on the back.

Anyways, to the post proper. It seems like a great number of buttons have been pressed and a significant number of phone calls were made to ensure that all the vendors for this particular job that I'm working on will go down onsite tomorrow to troubleshoot the equipment. Apparently the jobsite still has intermittent issues with the equipment which I feel is not really related to things under our control. Admittedly we can fine tune it some more and we need to fix some bad parts, but most of the problems seem to be issues that involve the electronics and communications of the equipment. Which is not my company's area of expertise nor scope of supply. But when your stuff doesn't work, regardless of reasons, you have to fight for your own reputation and have to show you are willing to go the extra mile for the client.

But it's also something akin to extortion I guess, since we are working WAY beyond our contracted hours for this job. And we will not get compensated for it. We might be able to offset it with the backcharges for changes to our equipment done onsite but who knows. All I know is the global headquarters called our company to say 'Git 'er Done'. Perhaps it's pandering to power but when the bigshots call, you listen. I find it a bit distasteful, but we are a small business so we need to make them happy. I want to explore this idea in a future blog. But I'll leave it like this for now.

It's just that it seems that the next couple of months will be a busy busy period for us. There are an estimated 5 startups from now till next Mar/Apr. Which makes me really really glad that I'm going on a long vacation this X'mas. Cos I don't know when I will get a chance next year. Feast or famine I guess, that's the rhythm of the business. 就是因为这一点我想尽快拿到绿卡，过后箬想走就能走。

Also, just so I can boost my ego, I'm posting here for posterity some of the comments people have made about my guitar playing. I did a collaboration with my friend for Extreme's More Than Words, with her singing and me playing the guitar. For the record, I don't think the praise is warranted, but I'll accept it anyways. Haha.

(10:20:09 PM) J: my sister thought i'm using a background song because the guitar was so good
(10:20:11 PM) J: OMG......

Observations from a Job Site

So I'm currently in the Mid-west doing a start-up. I have spent 30 of the last 36 days here onsite at the Holiday Inn Express. And these are just a couple of things I have observed in that time.

1. When you spend 30 days in the same hotel, the staff knows your name. I asked to extend my stay twice this week and both times, the staff just set things up in the computer without asking for my name or room #. I guess they know my name and face very well now.

2. I have finished 2 tubes of travel sized toothpaste. So 1 travel sized toothpaste will last on average 2 weeks.

3. When things go bad, they might go bad in a hilariously tragic way. My equipment was running the last couple of days without incident but yesterday was a looong day. First of all, there are 2 sets of equipment here on-site. We had to shut one (called set 2) down due to a lack of feed yesterday morning. In the process of shutting set 2 down, there was a crash due to a mis-timing of the sequence. This inadvertently caused set 1 to crash as there was a programming error that caused set 1 to monitor the status of set 2. Since we only needed 1 set of equipment, we restarted set 1. We were trying to clean up the mess that crashing set 2 caused and so we went to lock out the equipment to be safe. The operator who was helping me then turned off the wrong set of equipment. So set 1 went down again. We then restarted set 1 and resumed cleaning up set 2's mess after we locked out the correct set. Then when we wanted to restart set 2 to check if we had cleaned everything up, we discovered the cross-referenced programming as set 2's equipment crashed again and led to another crash on set 1. Again, we restarted set 1 and then it was running fine for another hour when the discharge equipment that collects product from my equipment crashed. This led to yet another crash on set 1. All these crashes occured in a 6 hour period. I was sooo ready for a beer by the end of the day.

4. The Colts rock.

5. There are really some unpleasant people in the world who think that they can bully everyone else who is more 'junior' than them. I am not looking forward to working with that person again. 真是个自以为是的王八.

6. Bringing a guitar on-site was a good idea. At least I get to practice a couple of songs on the good days.

7. I cannot wait for vacation next month! Looking forward to happy times and Success!

当你的公司要被卖的时候应该怎么做？

今天我的上司确定了公司要被卖的谣言。最近几个月我们总公司决定要卖我们北美部门。

听说我们的竞争者想买我们的公司。如果真的被他们买了的话，我觉得公司会有超大的改变。我们公司文化，风俗一定会换。我对这个件事有点不安。不知道我绿卡的申请程序会不会受影响。加上会不会被逼搬到新的城市。Sianz.

Oh well, only time will tell how it goes. I should just aim to get out of this start-up as soon as possible. It's already been 4+ weeks and counting. Ugh. Hopefully I will get out soon.

Fiscal Madness

So the US is now 1.4 trillion dollars in debt. That's a whole lot of money. It's almost 6 times Singapore's estimated 2008 GDP. Most of it is the result of the economic crisis, the Bush era tax cuts and stimulus plan and the Obama stimulus plan. If someone owed that much money, I would imagine they would want to "tighten up" their belts but not the Obama administration

In light of the fact that there will be no Cost of Living Expenses Adjustment this year (since everything is cheaper this year than last), Social Security is not increasing it's monthly payment to the elderly. The monthly payment is tied to inflation to ensure a certain standard of living for the seniors. So if prices actually fell this year, there shouldn't be any increase in payments. Sounds fair right?

However, since the elderly are a disproportionately influential voting bloc (i guess being retired means that they have the time to go out and vote and nothing else to do but pay attention to politics), the Obama administration is talking about giving them another bonus $250 this year. Their basis for this payment? To compensate them for the lack of an increase in their monthly Social Security payouts. Think about this. For no rhyme and reason, the Obama administration wants to pull 13 billion dollars out of their asses to pay for an unjustifiable cause. And to top it off, they do not have any plans to come up with this sum other than borrow. This is untenable position. My father taught me not to spend more than I can earn but it appears that politicians are willing to sell the future to buy votes in the present.

I am no fan of the G.O.P. but I wonder how different is this administration different from the past? Instead ofTerri Schiavo, you have COLA for seniors. It makes one wonder if politicians are all painted with the same brush but just show different colours... It's disappointing.

The Winds of Change

So it's been a really cool year. Summer was more like a warm Spring, with the number of >30°C dagys countable on both hands. It was kinda nice to be able to escape the heat and humidity. But now, it's Fall and I think the weather has no intention of ever becoming warmer than normal this year. It's early Oct and it's already 10°C... Ugh.

It's my 6th year in the Midwest and ever winter never gets easy to handle. But I guess that makes the nice, sunny days all that more precious. Perhaps the changing of the seasons is also analogous to my changing life. I just did my first solo project, which means I have an increasing responsibility. I like that. It keeps the mind engaged and busy. Idle minds just turn to things that I cannot write on this (relatively) SFW blog.

Also, I like to think that I have started a new chapter in my social life. Moving up the real estate ladder and trying to meet more people (or at least, meet people more). This can only bode well for me. So let's see how it goes.