Transcending Ordinary

The big event this weekend was the Soapbox race sponsored by Red Bull in Dolores Park.  There were some 75k people there and 35 soapbox cars.  We got there after maybe the 3-4 car started and I stayed till the end.  There were tons of people there and maybe 4 big displays mirroring the event.  I was able to shoot decent video from a few of them, though the last one didn’t turn out well at all, but was my favorite skit/run put together by the Star War’s team.  Here are a few pictures of the event, along with a video I uploaded to YouTube.

Well I arrived on tuesday, to start my first day of work here at Bebo on wednesday

After taking the Bart from the airport and walking a few blocks, I arrived at Bayside Village.  As far as corporate appartments go, I must admit I was pretty dissapointed with the inside of my apartment.  I guess I’ve gotten used to things like corian countertops, walk in closets, hardwood floors, etc. from my house in DC, or my last corporate apartment in KC.  All that aside, the location is really all that matters, and that is superb.  On the short walk to work I pass the Giants stadium, a borders, whole foods, great resturants, a museum, caltrain station, zipcar lot…  Here are a few quick pictures upon my arrival:

Ok, I think most tech guys people have a handful of domains registered.  Ya never know when you might actually get the time to use one right?  Well I’ve registered quite a few over the years, unfortunately not all in the same place, and not all updated before their expiration
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I sat next to a virologist on my flight to Bejing and we began speaking of genetics, then viruses and it set me on an enlightening train of thought. I travel to Thailand to visit my father who is very sick. After viruses, we spoke of cancer and I conveyed my understanding of cancer as a cellular process by which one random cell, though some fluke, has a variation and though the normal process of mitosis, splits to new cells, also with this genetic anomoly. As this process repeats, soon these mutant cells become more then a localized variation of a few cells. Eventually this occurrence matures to cancer.
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Companies are entities founded for the purpose of making money for their stakeholders, including employees. They are often complex, beyond the typical revenue generating activities that they are associated with. They employ revenue enabling resources like accountants, lawyers, marketers, cleaning staff, security guards, etc.

For many, these activies are considered fluff, or “overhead.” Sure companies have them, but how effective are they? Are they simply added beurocracy to justify being a bonified “company”? Why should the money I make in my revenue generating work go to anyone else but me? How confident am I that the money is being spent efficiently? For most of us, their activies are unknown and therefore not fully justified in our minds.

This leads to the believe that the person could do x, y, and z better themselves, without the seemingly unnecessary overhead of the other business layers. Often they can generate revenue themselves on their own, though eventually they too will hire all those supplementary resources as their venture grows.
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Past experiences and habits really do have an influence on future accomplishments. I’m sure you are thinking, “That’s probably pretty obvious,” and I agree, though lately I’ve been thinking of this and see more and more concrete examples of this in real life.
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I’ve taken some heat for my last post, everyone seems to get caught up on me using numbers in my example. It was only to help get my point across as to just how rare it is for two people who are compatible with each other to actually meet at the right time in their lives.

So what’s next, well on the same thread as the earlier post, stages in life, I’ll talk about another realization I had recently in my own life.

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This morning, I reflected on a few things that I’ve come to realize over the last few days that took me time to learn. I thought to myself, man, if someone had told me ‘x’ I wouldn’t have made mistake ‘y.’

Granted, I realize that it takes the experience itself to fully grasp the concept/lesson, though even learning from others is better than not learning at all, and certainly less costly then learning by mistakes. So I’m hoping my reflections can help put things in perspective and benefit others.

I realized that there are many things I learn over the course of time that come from diverse areas so I’ve decided to dedicate a page to them. Nothing in particular, just general things I’ve come to realize. I welcome your contributions as well. Hopefully the things I write and you submit can be applied to the general person, though I realize this will not always be the case and will try to be diligent not focusing on my situation in particular.

Ok, I’m in the midst of redoing the layout of my site, so rather then create a separate page now, I’ll make a simple blog post to kick things off. Baby steps right?
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I had an epiphany yesterday.

My friends will tell you that I can be pretty serious about time management. I’m always trying to get a ton of things done with the short supply of time I have. Up until now, I always associated not getting everything done, with poor time management. Certainly multiple to-do lists and parallel goal lists with various time windows helped, but I still felt as though I couldn’t get everything done that I wanted.

Yesterday I realized that I’ll never get ‘everything’ that I want done. Before I thought it was fine because for the most part, I spent my time doing meaningful tasks rather then excessive time on things like tv, games, etc. However I used to do whatever ‘meaningful’ task was on my mind at the time. It wasn’t very systematic, but that seemed ok for me, at least I wasn’t wasting time.

I now realize a second dimension to my tasks. As I said, I’ll never have enough time to get ‘everything’ done. So, the question is one of priorities. All the tasks are productive, but which are more important then the others? I should be working on those tasks in order from top to bottom. It isn’t enough to just work on productive tasks; at the end of the day I’d rather the most important fall above the accomplished line rather than the random order they were in before.

I hope my insight can benefit others who “think” they have issues with time management

Ok, so I’m taking a few classes at the local community college and my first class ended today, it was a short 4 week class. Yes, it was fun, but don’t let the title fool ya, it was alotta work. Golf My instructor was great, infact he was so hard on us that I actually dropped the class, mid semester, only I did it so late, that the system immediately gave me an ‘F.’

Luckily I talked to admissions and they said, with the professors permission, they could take back the drop attempt. I’m by no means a bad student, I had attended all classes but one, because of work, and I missed the first two classes, because i wasn’t yet registered (a class like that fills up fast: ). I had also practiced lots and wrote up my practice sessions. Turns out that I did well on the final exam and Chip, the instructor, quickly mailed out grades today. Somehow my work paid off and I got an ‘A’. You might think, but it’s golf. Well apparently his grading distribution matches all the other classes at the college.

Last semester I also took a bunch of classes.  It wasn’t until I noticed on a google search that I got A’s in all of them as well (apparently the college publishes students who get 4.0’s).  I took Federal Tax Accounting, Psychology, Spanish and a GMAT prep class. To be honest, it’s not really fair since i’ve already gotten 172 credit’s from Univ of MD, so to get b’s or c’s would be a disgrace.  One more class this semester, hopefully i didn’t jinx myself:)

I just had the fortune of watching a documentary about Nelson Mandela called Goodbye Bafana.  It reminds me of the extraordinary will power of special individuals who with to make change through their perseverence to what they believe, at total risk to their own well being.  These great men, people like Ghandi, Nelson Mandla are a true instiration to others.

I can only hope to find such a cause I’m passionate about in the same way and could only aspire to reach their level of change through sacrifice.and determination.

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My brother took me and some friends out for a trip to New York over the weekend. I had a great time! It was one heck of a trip. Friday night I met with my brother at a dinner close to his work. It was a place called… hop? hops? something like that. Anyway, we ate dinner there before heading over to the movie theatre to see transformers. There we met up with a few of his friends. The movie was good. I must admit my expectations were quite high.
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Ok, I had my psyc class today and alotta stuff really made sense.  We were talking about motivation and problem solving.

first from motivation:

ultimate goal in life to reach self actualization ->  actualizing your full potential.  “Yes I have done as much as I could, I have realized my full potential.”

All truely sucessful men at one time have written out their goals.  The first key to great success begins with you, a piece of paper, a pen, and a plan.

start with small, easily achievable goals.

Give rewards based on goal achievement

second from problem solving:

high intelligence is related to survival, implies higher then avg survivorability

importance of emotional intelligence, ability to connect with people, empathy

in the flow, hyper concentration.  in the zone, maximum production.  easier when enjoy what u’re doing

I’m ISTJ: “Everything has room for improvement” theory based, skeptical, “my way”, high need for competency, see’s life as a chestboard, most independent

or ENTJ: “Lifes natural leaders” visionary, gregarious, argumentative, systems planners, takes charger, low tolerance for incompenency, most commanding

Today I chance you ran into an aol veteran of 13 yrs. We were standing in line at the Wendys in Tysons Corner. He had just recently left AOL. He stressed the importance of doing more then simply being a good developer, you’ve got to look at things that are important to those above you and work on them, like developing projects and thinking about things like market penetration, revenue, growth, etc. be an entrepreneur (think business not just tech). also work on connections and look out for yourself, put yourself in positions to move, rather then just be conformable.