Alvin Cho the Blog

Huzzah!

nospam@example.com (Alvin Cho) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 02:20:46 -0400

Huzzah!

I've upgraded the blog because...well I can. Trying to revitalize certain parts of the site which include the Gallery site & our new tech site. So keep an eye out for new stuff!

However, even after importing the blog entires, because Gallery is dead all the pic links are broken. That will take a while to fix since I need to reupload everything first & then relink them.

Bullocks

nospam@example.com (Alvin Cho) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 19:27:00 -0500

Edit: Screw it...looks like I've missed a couple of months and didn't get this post out soon enough so it will be a mega post for the last couple of months then. Enjoy the long read.

Well, looks like I missed my min quota for blog entries. Didn't blog anything for September even though I did quite a bit mostly on labor day weekend...at least from what I can remember. Guess I'll just do a double post for October a lot will be happening too. Oh, and of course the gallery is down...bullocks...so this post will be edited later to add in the pictures...that's so annoying.

September: Labor Day Weekened

Out with friends for most of the weekend. Met with an old friend who I hadn't talked to or seen in a LONG time, like 3 ~ 4 years I think. We basically spent the day eating & chatting which was nice. She didn't feel like going anywhere or doing anything except for running her errarnds. Dropped by a nice Korean BBQ place for lunch. The food was good, but still had too much even though we ordered just the two dishes.

We later went to Santana Row & Valley Fair to do some shopping. Didn't do much just wandered around looking for a nice wedding gift. While @ Santana Row's Crate & Barrel I fixed their jammed printer. =)

Later headed to Cupertino Village to get some pearl drinks. I'm not a fan or pearl drinks. I had the non-pearl drink, Passion Fruit..quite nice. We chatted for quite a bit...got lectured on my singleness...haha... Then headed off to BJ's Brew house for a light dinner...well it was light for her, I finished off the rest of the pizza.

Useless Fact: BJ in BJ's Brew house stands for nothing. The owner liked a restaurant called DJ, so he made BJ.

Afterwards it was time to head home, it was already 11pm. But then I noticed I forgot my sun glasses @ BJ's...so we had to drive back to get them & by then they were gone...blast it all. I liked those sun glasses...

The next day it was finally time to launch all my toys: rocket, helicopter, airplane, & kite. A three man team assembled, car loaded, & we headed out to a giant field. Bloody hell it was windy aside from that it was nice. We all took turns being the camera-man, video-man, & pilot.

As you can see it was so damn windy we didn't need to launch the kite at all. We let the kite go as high as possible & then we just watched to hover around. Can't really do much with a kite, especially since mine wasn't a controllable kind, also we aren't like 10 years old so the magic of flying a kite doesn't really do much for us.

Next up was relaxing by the car & eating while we built the rocket & setup the helicopter & airplane.

Unfortunately, the airplane controller required a screw driver to open the panel...which we didn't have. Luckily, thanks to my profound greatness I made use of the tools I had on hand, which was a name tag pin that was still in my bag from Startup Camp. I used the pin & forced the screw to turn. Just call me MacGuyver.

We headed out to try & fly the plane which was absolutely idoitic since it was so windy. Figured we could ride the currents...no we could not. The plane basically smacked into the ground more times than a WWF wrestler.

Next up was the helicopter....now this part of the adventure truly takes one back towards their childhood. One of us, who will remain nameless, but I'll describe him the tall skinny one, got the helicopter stuck up in a tree. Fortunately, the tall panzy didn't want to go up & get it so I had to climb the tree so he was able to get some nice pictures. I don't think I've ever climbed a tree before. Damn branches cut me up pretty good too.

After that fiasco we launched the rockets which were fun. Might do it again or just decide to blow stuff up instead. We'll need to find a less windy day for this again since we didn't really get to fly the helicopter or plane much.

Next it was time to clean up & we headed into the setting sun to take pictures. Like cowboys riding off...reminds me of Red Dwarf VI: Gunmen of the Apocalypse ending. Enjoy it took me 20mins to find it.

October:

Went out with friends to a haunted house. It was interesting since I've never been to one before. The first one we went to was the Pirates of Emerson in Fermont. They had 2 haunted houses & a chain link fence maze, which some people who were trying to blot through it smacked into the fences since the strob light was messing with our vision. Couple of funny bits as the guy in the gorilla suit was pretty funny and the guy who kept yelling "gotcha!" & "gotcha again!".

After that we did another one out in Hollister and got lost in a giant corn maze. Their haunt house was more on the scary country hick type of horror with chainsaws & what not.

Then I was off to Las Vegas for IOD 2008. My feet were killing me...having to work the booth for 2 whole days. Then needed to prep for my session too. It was still fun though as always. It's always nice to be able to head out to talk to customers & other peers directly to see what's going on.

They had lots of food in the expo & beer too. The shrimp display was pretty cool.

November:

Went to the Craw Daddy. Trying something entirely different. Eating crawfish southern style. It was good & kind of fun. I'm thinking we should have ordered more food though.

December:

Attended a nice Christmas party @ a friend's house. Meet a lot of fun new people. You'll need to get onto Facebook for the pics.

Went to dinner with old friends. Headed out for Korean BBQ. We grilled up lots of meat. Unfortunately one of the guys couldn't make it for this year, but we'll probably meet again in Janurary.

Hadn't gone to the driving range in a while. So after lunch that's where we headed off. It was good. I was doing pretty well out there that day. Only problem was that it was god damn cold! But it's all about Vicks Vapor Rub...hahahahahaha For more pictures you'll need to head to FaceBook.

Looks like that's all I want to type. Seems like another simple year has gone by... I probably won't be updating the blog anymore either unless I feel like it or there's something worth saying. Only reason I had it was to keep track of my MS work, but I didn't even really use it for that. Otherwise, it became a handy way to let other slightly out of touch friends know what's going on, but I don't think much people read this & I'm getting bored of writing it.

Until we meet again.

http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/Outings/2008-12-19-KoreanGrilling/

http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/Outings/2008-11-30-CrawDaddy/

http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/Outings/2008-12-27-ScrewYelp/

http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/Outings/20081010-Creepers_/

http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/Outings/2008104-Jeepers_/

http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/Outings/20080831-LostSunglasses/

http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/Flights/20080901-NoTrespassing/

Take Off!

nospam@example.com (Alvin Cho) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 01:59:32 -0400

Got incredibly restless today...was suppose to work...but it seemed like such a nice day. My youth must not be squandered! Ironically I squander quite a bit of it through sleep...

Anyways, so I finally decided to try out that Dragon Kite & RC airplane I bought YEARS ago. There is a rocket too that goes 1500FT into the air. I wanted to find a place to try out all 3 at once, but never did.

So while I waited from some files to download I decided to put the kite together & charge the RC plane.

The flight wasn't so successful but at least it was fun.

Spent quite some time getting the plane out of a tree.

Youth well spent!!

http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/Flights/8172008-Takeoff_/

Canada Day

nospam@example.com (Alvin Cho) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:34:57 -0400

Might as well do a post for July to full fill my "at least 1 post a month" quota.

Canada Day in Ottawa was a great event. Insanely packed! So many people everywhere. It got worse as night fall came. Everyone was gathering to see to the fireworks.

I simply wandered around endlessly taking pictures here & there. I returned back to the center @ night for the show. I met some nice ladies while watching the fireworks. Teachers from Ottawa & Montreal. The 3 of us got stuck behind a building so didn't get very many great shots. They should have set the fireworks much higher & over the clock tower rather than over the side.

A lot more stuff happened but too lazy to write all of that down. If you want to know then ask or look @ the pics...

Canada Day pics: http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/Ottawa_Summer2008/7-1/

All pics: http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/Ottawa_Summer2008/

What email?

nospam@example.com (Alvin Cho) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 20:01:37 -0400

Just watch it...

http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com/

Liquified Segregation

nospam@example.com (Alvin Cho) — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:27:00 -0400

Had a gathering with people Saturday morning to watch a movie & go out for lunch.

Here's T-Bone @ lunch saying: "I pity the fool."

We continue on to Mitsuwa to checkout the sale & demostration they were holding. I needed to get a drink so went by the drink isle. At my amazement I discover this:

What the hell is this!?!? ASIAN WATER? ASIAN WATER! Even the water is segregated. This was just too funny. Reminds me of all the asian cemetaries I go to. Even in death we are segregated. Yet we do it all to ourselves.

Oh and we had to get gas. Good thing it wasn't my car.

http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/Outings/52408-Indy__/

Human Equations...

nospam@example.com (Alvin Cho) — Fri, 23 May 2008 18:20:00 -0400

Well, I was out tonight for a friend's birthday and we went to a Mongolian BBQ place for dinner. In the end we got our obligatory fortune cookie. But before I say what the cookie says. During the last couple of weeks people have been mentioning my singlness at length. Now even the cookie is against me.

"You shall enjoy the companion of another." Or something like that. Stupid cookie. I should have taken a picture of it, oh well.

I suppose in the end most people follow this human equation:

Human + Human = Happiness

Why can't it just be:

Human x 1 = Happiness

Hell, at the party everybody there was basically attached @ the hip with someone else except a few. But no matter I shall continue on my path.

http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/Outings/52308-DoogiesAlive_/?g2_page=1

At Camp for a day...

nospam@example.com (Alvin Cho) — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:43:20 -0400

This post took forever to occur, basically due to lazyiness. I've got another post in the works as well...which I hope will soon wrap up.

Anyways, spent Sunday @ Sun's Startup Camp. It was an interesting event. They had this unconference thing which is quirky. Makes it hard to determine if it's worth going to the conference since there is no agenda, it's all created on the fly based on the audience. But we went anyways.

As normal I woke up late. A friend tried to ring me up twice, but didn't work. I woke up @ 9am for an 11am conference. Mind you it is in SF. My friend doubted we could make it ,but some inventive driving got us there, even though there was spastically horrible congestion as we went up. What actually made us late was finding parking...but we found a spot in the garage for a flat rate until 6pm.

The morning sessions were pretty good, consisted of mostly just panel discussions & QA from the audience. I didn't really pull that much away from it, but that could be due to lack of sleep. My friend's friends however wrote a freaking tome. I just took a few notes on my MS notepad I got from TechNet, which I grabbed from my desk before heading out. Maybe I'm just more interested in the tech side and not the marketing & PR side, unless it's the tech stuff I can use to propel & spread my viral marketing. Not that it's not important, it's damn important for a startup to help get out there, I'd just hire others to handle the details.

There was a break before the real unconferencing got started. SF is pretty nice if you go to all the right spots I guess. My other friend refused to go since he hates SF. Hates the weather. Hates the traffic. Hates the weirdos. Damn I want a dSLR...

Like all conferences there were to many interesting sessions & not enough time slots. We just went to the 2 more technical ones, which were good. Mostly sat there and listened to the discussions that were helded. Then it was another chance to mingle with people over booze & the conference was over.

It was pretty good for being free. Just wished I could have stayed for day 2, Community One, and Java One as well.

Walked around SF in search for a place to eat. Took some shots here and there. Guess who we ran into??

I've never been to the Meteron...not as cool as I thought it would be.

We trekked for miles. Just didn't find a place I wanted to eat at. I wanted something different, something San Francisco. In the end we went to Cafe Mason, a California Bistro.

We did get to try this: a mushroom gnocchi. Pretty good. Of course, after we leave & walk about a block we come across a Mediterranean restaurant. The day was still ok, maybe better with more people or someone who knew the area more...or if we weren't tired. Perhaps better planning...but I'm not doing that...hell if I had enough drive to be prudent & plan my life would be a lot better.

http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/SF_StartupCamp2008/

WANTED

nospam@example.com (Alvin Cho) — Mon, 05 May 2008 03:03:00 -0400

I just thought of a new career profession. The most important people in the company will no longer be the IT staff, developers, testers, security advisors, CIO, CTO, CEO, CFO, consultants, or other executives...it shall be...

the SCAPEGOAT.

This person shall be blamed for all the company & project woes. From why the Project Plan hasn't been finished planning, why are the project plan deadlines slipping, and who the fu*k keeps licking the sugar off the sugared dounut. What will the Scapegoat do? Nothing, the Scapegoat will just take it.

Every department will need their own Scapegoat, that way every department gets to let off steam. If there are political issues flying about, just blame it on the Scapegoat. Why is the server down? Because the Scapegoat didn't setup failover correctly.

Of course, this job will have the highest turnover due the incessant firing of the scapegoat. But with a shitty job like this the Scapegoat is paid as well as a CEO, hell the Scapegoat will even get a firing bonus. The high salary is also due to the hazards that come with the job. There will even be a warning in the job description, a disclaimer stating that this position will involve bodily harm...lots of it.

As for accountability, there will still be accountability. If you can go off on someone that's a lot better than dancing around. Once everyone is done letting off steam at the scapegoat then people can come together again clamly and dish out consequence to the real culprit.

But what about career advancement? Even bullshiters have career advancement.

Bullshiter => Junior Bullshiter => Senior Bullshiter

So you'll have

Scapegoat => Junior Scapegoat => Senior Scapegoat

Well I think that's my rant now. At least I thought it was funny. Next up: The Injustices of the Corporate World.

Who will Save the World?

nospam@example.com (Alvin Cho) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:35:48 -0400

Here's a fun video I got from a friend.

I just recently had a situation where I discovered I've gone stale. It's hard to find personal development time nowadays. If I'm not bleeding my eyes out working then I'm shopping , getting a haircut, binge sleeping (lots of binge sleeping in my case), reading gobs of personal email, reading daily tech news sites, going to lunch and/or dinner with friends, work outings and of course trying to save to the world. I could stop trying to save the world, but if I don't save the world who will?

Now that's a lot of F*ing Kimchee

nospam@example.com (Alvin Cho) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 23:13:09 -0400

After waiting in line for probably an 1 1/2hrs at the post office I was imensely bored & damn hungry. Spending another hour @ DJ wasn't useful either. Couldn't find anything to buy! Oh well...

Decided to finally go eat & the power of the coin compelled us to go in search for Korean food. In which during our search we got lost in Korea...Town. Did find a Korean supermarket which was loaded with Kimchee.

Called a friend to help me get unlost, but that pointless. Not the getting unlost part, but the fact that she wasn't there.

In the end we headed towards a Tofu House

Doing the cold noodles thing again. Not so much a fan of the cold noodles thing. I had the Arrowroot noodles which were fine, just the cold bit wasn't so much appealing. Damn spicy though.

http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/Outings/41208-Arrowroot/?g2_highlightId=25292

Death by Goat?!

nospam@example.com (Alvin Cho) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 01:20:54 -0400

Had a near death experience today. Don't ask me the details about how or why there is a goat involved there just is, so follow along.

Anyways, we meet with this goat & then securely tied it down so as to not let it escape. As we turn around to leave the goat dashes through the side & lands in front of me, barring my passage. I was like WTF?!?! Then as I step foward hoping it will backup, but instead it started to come foward. Mind you I don't need anything else broken, one broken finger is enough. In the end I escaped unscathed.

Hello Mr. Goat.

https://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/Lunches/31708-GoatCapades/

No Green Rice

nospam@example.com (Alvin Cho) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 01:07:00 -0400

Went out to dinner with an old friend & her boyfriend. Since she dislikes rice I made it a point to bring a bag.

After dinner we wandered an empty desolate shopping mall. It was kind of nice walking through. I took some pictures here & there.

God damn mannequins are freaky. I don't think of the 1980's movie Mannequin where it's fun times. I imagine death at the hands of an emotionless mannequin who will then rip my face off & pose as me.

I think this action shot came out well.

We then stopped by another to visit another old friend who was hosting a St. Patrick's Day party. She tattoed on herself a creature of her own creation.

http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/Outings/31408-NoGreenRice/

Awkward Goodness...?

nospam@example.com (Alvin Cho) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 03:59:48 -0400

Well been pretty busy as of late and will be next week as well. Stepped out today to pickup a new monitor & to buy some supplies @ DJ Hobby. It should seem like a normal day but that soon changed after getting something to eat.

Headed out for ramen and saw the strangest thing on the menu which I've never noticed before. Take a look.

Still hungry? A quick flash about how the soba might be prepared scared the crap out of me. I wanted Kuro ramen anyways, but this didn't make me feel better. It was funny though. Management needs to change the name of the dish. Reminds me of that Ice Horlick...bwahahaha. (By the way, not that great of a drink my friend says.)

After that delightful name smashing we headed back and tried out the USB Missle Launcher (UML).

The UML is pretty cool. You simply control it from your desktop, rotate, tilt, & fire. Has cool sound effects as well. We then thought of interesting hacks to try with it. Of course, then we searched online and found out a lot of people already did it. But maybe we'll give it a try later on.

http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/alvin_1/Outings/3808-DesktopWarfare/

I'm Singing in the Rain...

nospam@example.com (Alvin Cho) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 20:22:51 -0500

Well kind of...I was taking pictures in the rain. But I did sing a bit in the car. Which reminds me of this great commerical I saw on Firebrand.com.

Anyways, we headed out to take some nature pictures before the major storm hits. We got quite soaked but it was a fun experience. I had always wanted to take some shots of these trees that I had passed by before. But they only look good during the fall & if the skies were darkened due to a cloudy day. Something about these dead twisted looking trees simply appeal to me. Back when I was going to college there was a strip that was lined with wonderful trees that looked lush & green during spring and abominably grotesque during the fall. I prefered the later, not because I'm some emo goth, but they just looked good. The trees had very few branches spawing out & about. Just a few very major branches, like 4 ~ 6, they looked like the dead hands of Gaia strecthing & convulising out of the ground up towards the heavens & Sol. (Ok, my one emo goth sentence.) Wish I had taken some pictures of it then. Perhaps I should return just for that...

Besides taking lots of pictures of trees we also chased down birds in the car. But they were crazy fast & by the time we zoom & focus they were out of our viewfinders. We managed to get a few.

Of course, it's not that we didn't have umbrellas we had plenty. We just used them interestingly. Ever wonder what happens when you drive 20+mph in a parking lot with a giant umberlla covering your moon roof? FUN. That's what.

Next of course, is why do it. Well we did it because we were first trying to get better shots by going up higher. So only one way. Climb up through the moon roof! I was going to stand up on the car itself with the tripod, but the guys didn't feel like dragging my dead broken body into the car after I slip off.

Anyways, you can checkout the photos in the Gallery. We swapped cameras alot so I don't know who specifically took what but you'll see pictures taken by Piyachai, Dmitriy, Amy Wang, and Me. I'll probably photoshop a few of them later & post them. Good night.

http://dementiawarez.com/gallery/v/PhotoSessions/