Tony Tam

Push up Thursday (1,500)

July 28th, 2005

Push up club starting again. There are 2 hidden members who are also doing it, but will be more public later (I hope)

Other members doing push ups on Thursdays
Kelly Shawn Brian JW Scott

+50 8:23am on train
+70 120 8:37am on train
+50 170 8:44am on train
+50 220 1:26pm (in cube now, damn kelly keeps on taunting me “start doing you push up, lazy bum”)
+50 270 1:37pm
+50 320 1:49pm
+50 370 3:21pm
+60 430 3:46pm
+50 480 4:12pm
+50 530 4:14pm
+50 580 5:13pm
+50 630 5:15pm
+50 680 5:42pm
+20 700 5:53pm
+30 730 5:54pm
+50 780 8:25pm (after drinks at the bar to send the news producers to LA, start doing them at the Sunnyvale Caltrain, with a newspaper on the ground to keep my hands clean)

wish I could get a free pass today. I took the train from sunnyvale at 8:20pm, got to bart in sf, took bart to castro valley, got to cv around 10:40, ran 1.7 miles to my home up hill because I’ve got a flat this morning, changed the flat tire in the dark, now I’m sitting here at 11:47pm with 720 push ups to go. Life iis still pretty good, I get to watch CSI

+50 830 12:06am
+50 880 12:15am
+50 930 12:20am
+50 980 12:27am
+50 1,030 12:38am
+50 1,080 12:53am
+50 1,130 1:10am
+50 1,180 1:20am
+30 1,210 1:28am (down to 30/set now)
+30 1,240 1:33am
+30 1,270 1:36am
+30 1,300 1:47am
+30 1,330 1:55am
+30 1,360 1:59am
+30 1,390 2:04am
+30 1,420 2:11am
+30 1,450 2:15am
+25 1,475 2:19am
+25 1,500 2:21am (DONE, fun)
Daily Life Of A Yahoo! Engineer (archive 2005)

July 27th, 2005
A Yahoo! Engineer (Y!E) is a very lucky person.
- Y!E gets into the office anywhere from 6:00am to 10:00am. If this was a bell curve, 80% fall under 9:30-10
- Y!E gets to eat freshly cooked omelettes, hot cereal for under $3.00
- Y!E gets free espresso drinks all day
- Y!E gets free pool tables, ping pong, foosball
- Y!E gets vending machines with both peanuts and regular M&M
- Y!E can bring a small fridge to his cube
- Y!E sometimes gets to ‘chat’ with David Filo when things break :-)
- Y!E gets to make a difference in today’s world and gets to work on things that affect the lives of 100+ millions users
- Y!E can drop off his dry cleaning, gets his car oil changed on campus
- Y!E can get a unix and a PC laptop
- Y!E gets to reuse all the incredibly stable infrastructure in Yahoo!’s platform group
- Y!E mostly works on things directly related to his job
- Y!E can choose to work on many things beyong his scope and show off to his peers
- Y!E can make a difference in the company anywhere he wants to
- Y!E gets things done in the company if he pushes hard enough
- Y!E attends very little meetings
- Y!E gets to meet very smart people everyday
- Y!E gets to attend a geek talk every Thursday
- Y!E gets to work out in an incredible gym
- Y!E gets to play on a basketball court
- Y!E gets to play on a sand volleyball court
- Y!E gets to choose from over 9 different freshly cook styles of food from the main cafeteria
- Y!E gets to hear feedback from live users if he chooses
- Y!E gets rewarded generously by Y! in every way possible
copied from my original 360.yahoo.com blog
Pushup Secret Weapon: Model K-2001-40lb

July 25th, 2005

My secret weapon that helps me build strength for my weekly Thursday pushups :-)
If you don’t have a Model K-2001-40lb, that’s too bad for you You need to get one on loan.
C and ice cream

July 23rd, 2005

This kid is hooked. She doesn’t get ice cream when she is with me.

But when my sister, Liana is with us, somehow cate usually works in ice cream
after a nice meal with veggies.

Here is us enjoying a nice break from the heat at the local Loard’s ice
cream parlor
Music In Subways: I Heart City

July 22nd, 2005

This reminds of why I love Paris. Coming out of the in personal depths of
the darkness of the tunnels and hearing the most beautiful sounds of live
string instruments echoing against the rumbling trains.

I sat down on the floor and listened for 10 minutes before coming down to earth.
Push Up Thursday (1,400)

July 21st, 2005

It’s that time of the week, the Y! Pushup Club is going very strong. I’m shooting for 1,400 in 24 hours. It’s going to be harder since I’m seeing Les Miz tonight so I decided to start later to give more time tomorrow

Other members doing push ups on Thursdays
Kelly Shawn Brian JW Scott

+50: 50 11:34 am (in my cube)
+50: 100 11:36 am “”
+50: 150 12:30 pm
+50: 200 1:44pm
+50: 250 3:40
+50: 300 3:42
+50: 350 3:45
+20: 370 3:49
+30: 400 3:51
+80: 480 5:56 (still lots of time, no need to panic)
+70: 530 1:17am (after les miz, falling behind)
+50: 580 1:24am (watching billards, enjoying pastries from Frog Hollow)
+50: 630 1:30am
+30: 660 1:34am
+30: 690 1:40am
+50: 740 1:47am
+50: 790 1:48am
+50: 840 2:10am
+50: 890 2:32am
+50: 940 2:39am
+50: 990 2:51am
+50: 1040 6:30am
+50: 1090 6:40am
+50: 1140 10:56am
+50: 1190 10:58am
+110: 1300 11:24am
+80: 1380 11:31am
+20: 1400 11:33am (done)
Pull Up Tuesdays

July 19th, 2005

We have pushup Thursdays. Now is the time to join in the fun and buy the $19.95
pull up bar. I’ve always dreamed of getting one. Head to SportsMart and
pick one up. It’s time to balance your biceps.

100 pull ups. 5 per set. Nice and easy.

5 (11:030m)
10 (11:35pm)
15 (11:40pm)
20 (11:45pm)
25 (11:50pm)
30 (11:57pm)
35 (12:01pm) hands shaking :-) ice cream time
40 (12:04am)
45 (12:07am)
50 (12:15am)
55 (12:17am)
60 (12:22am)
65 (12:25am)
70 (12:28am)
75 (12:32am) Having a hard time hanging on to the bar
80 (12:35am)
85 (12:40am)
89 (12:45am)
95 (12:57am)
100 (done!)
UCB and Yahoo!

July 15th, 2005
That photo is of Sproul Hall, the administration building in UCB

This announcement brings back floods of memory when I was in UC Berkeley in 1998-1992
Yahoo! Research Labs Establishes New Center of Excellence with UC Berkeley

Top Ten Memories Of Berkeley
1. Sitting in a huge auditorium for my first CS 60A class with probably 200 students listening to Common Lisp programming
2. Falling asleep on the keyboard in the WEB (WorkStations In Evans Basement) on a Sun Sparc station at 2:00am
3. Riding my bike down Bancroft street as fast as humanly possible at 2:00am without a helmet
4. Printing out the entire set of unix man pages on my dot matrix printer so I can read them in my spare time
5. Having the largest slice of pizza in the world at Blondies Pizza. Having 3 hotlinks from Top Dog after a 1:00am lab session in EECS
6. Traveling to different schools to play badminton tournaments
7. Sitting on the steps of Sproul Hall listening to ramblings of the polical left while getting a sun tan
8. Skipping class and playing pool and video games at the bottom of the bookstore
9. Paying $70 for a text book
10. Spending the most carefree 4 years of my life in the most laid back town in the west coast.
UC Berkeley and Yahoo!

July 15th, 2005
This announcement brings back floods of memory when I was in UC Berkeley in 1998-1992
Yahoo! Research Labs Establishes New Center of Excellence with UC Berkeley

Top Ten Memories Of Berkeley
1. Sitting in a huge auditorium for my first CS 60A class with probably 200 students listening to Common Lisp programming
2. Falling asleep on the keyboard in the WEB (WorkStations In Evans Basement) on a Sun Sparc station at 2:00am
3. Riding my bike down Bancroft street as fast as humanly possible at 2:00am without a helmet
4. Printing out the entire set of unix man pages on my dot matrix printer so I can read them in my spare time
5. Having the largest slice of pizza in the world at Blondies Pizza. Having 3 hotlinks from Top Dog after a 1:00am lab session in EECS
6. Traveling to different schools to play badminton tournaments
7. Sitting on the steps of Sproul Hall listening to ramblings of the polical left while getting a sun tan
8. Skipping class and playing pool and video games at the bottom of the bookstore
9. Paying $70 for a text book
10. Spending the most carefree 4 years of my life in the most laid back town in the west coast.
Push Up Thursday (1,300)

July 14th, 2005
Here goes my duty of the week for the Y! Push Up Club
I’m shooting for 1,300 today (yes I missed my 10pm curfew today, I have an excuse, I had class til 9:30)

Other members doing push ups on Thursdays
Kelly Shawn Brian JW Scott

Why do we do it?
1. The bigger arms
2. Nothing better to do
3. Male bonding, push ups instead of talking
4. When doing push ups while watching TV, it doesn’t feel like wasting time
5. Better than going to the gym
6. Make people laugh and entertain our Y! 360 friends
7. Guarantee one blog topic every week
8. On a personal note, I weight 146 lbs now, up from 140 a month ago. My goal was to get to 155 lbs at year end. Hopefully it’s mostly muscles
50 (50) 12:01am
100 (50) 12:03am
150 (60) 12:07am
210 (50) 12:09am (good night)
260 (60) 12:14am (ok, now good night)
320 (50) 12:25am (really, good night)
370 (50) 6:09am
420 (60) 8:20pm (got paged at home for urgent issue, found it and putting a fix, yeah!, reward with push ups)
480 (100) 9:34am (waiting for the train)
580 (50) 10:01am (still at the train station)
630 (50) 2:34pm
680 (50) 3:07pm
730 (50) 3:17pm
780 (50) 3:37pm
830 (80) 10:23pm ( back from SF Ferry Building)
910 (60) 10:47pm ( need some energy, cookies )
970 (60) 11:03pm
1,030 (60) 11:07pm
1,090 (60) 11:14pm
1,150 (60) 11:27pm
1,200 (50) 11:34pm
1,250 (50) 11:44pm
1,300 (50) 11:51pm (done, got 9 mins to spare)

Placed: #54 out of 267 runners, #5 in my age group
Total time: 47’16”
pace: 7’36”
Distance: (10K) 6.56 miles by my watch
BPM: 189 avg

On Friday I decided I need to see what shape I was in for the July 1/2 marathon. So I sign myself up for a 10K on Sunday in the Eden Medical Run To The Lake. This is my 2nd race ever, after my first race at the Bay to Breakers, which was 12K.

I was questioning my sanity about running long distance at the 2 miles and 4 miles mark. However as I was getting more into the actual racing and competition part of trying to out maneuver my fellow anonymous runners, I toss that self doubt out the window.
Somethings I did wrong:

I let me heart rate go up to 200 in order to beat 2 guys at the end of the
last mile. Also trying to keep people I passed from catching me, I heard
foot steps in the last mile.

I think I need to run at a slower pace for the 1/2 marathon.

I got stomach cramps at the 3 rd water stop. Too much water

I’m mentally questioning the 1/2 marathon, whether I should go thru with it.

Things I did right:

I plan to run more 10K races in the future, it’s an enjoyable distance.

I ate just a powerbar and drank some carrot juice, 1 hour before the race.

I finished strong again running at 6’14” for the last mile.

I slept well the night before.

I didn’t carry any gadgets with me, no MP3 player, no Treo.

Division: Male 30-34 In Division: 15

Place Name / City Bib Time O’All Pace Age Club
—– ———————————– —– ——– —– ——– — ——–

1 Jeff Tudor                            656     43:27    24     6:59 34
2 Edouard Boussaroque / San Leandro,    113     45:57    46     7:23 33
3 William Mitchell / Campbell, CA       482     46:34    52     7:29 31
4 Joe McKissack                         660     47:15    53     7:36 34
5 Tony Tam                              741     47:16    54     7:36 34
6 John Halstead                         862     51:45    94     8:19 31
7 Michael Hitto                        1451     53:12   103     8:33 30
8 Michael Appio / Alameda, CA           417     56:02   131     9:01 32
9 Tony Prestella / Castro Valley, CA    481     56:27   134     9:05 33
10 Daryl Liggins / Oakland, CA           168     59:09   162     9:31 32
11 Chris Dombrowski / Pittsburg, CA      165     59:27   164     9:34 31
12 Anthony Valluzzo / Menlo Park, CA     531   1:00:00   166     9:39 30
13 Michael Fong / Castro Valley, CA      369   1:02:50   194    10:06 33
14 Mark Andres / Castro Valley, CA       551   1:04:27   206    10:22 31
15 Aron Ching / Hayward, CA              233   1:06:50   219    10:45 32

 Run to the Lake 10K                                      Timing by: It's About Time
                                                                                    
   Overall Post                              

   Place                                                  Place             Place Out Of          Club or
   O'All        Name                        Bib    Time    Sex    Div   Age  Div  In Div   Pace   Special
   ----- --------------------------------- ----- -------- ----- ------- --- ----- ------ -------- --------
       1 Beau Bettinger                      603    33:22     1  M18-24  21     1     12     5:22         
       2 John Litzenberg                     893    34:55     2  M35-39  35     1     24     5:37         
       3 Michael Atwood                      751    35:27     3  M18-24  23     2     12     5:42         
       4 Chris Ferren-Cirino / San Ramon,    401    35:34     4  M18-24  21     3     12     5:43         
       5 Steven Chavez                      1455    36:46     5  M45-49  48     1     31     5:55         
       6 Christopher Pecot                   852    37:53     6  M18-24  21     4     12     6:05         
       7 Richard Johnson                     610    37:58     7  M35-39  39     2     24     6:06         
       8 Will Helms / Ely, MN                373    38:22     8  M40-44  41     1     19     6:10         
       9 Derrick Peterman / San Jose, CA     342    38:39     9  M35-39  38     3     24     6:13         
      10 Matthew Riley / Castro Valley, CA   321    38:57    10  M13-17  16     1      7     6:16         
      11 Lawrence Witte                      662    39:59    11  M40-44  40     2     19     6:26         
      12 John Pettinichio                    702    40:03    12  M45-49  49     2     31     6:26         
      13 Andrei Pchenitchnikov               825    40:26    13  M45-49  46     3     31     6:30         
      14 Brian Collett                       801    41:35    14  M18-24  20     5     12     6:41         
      15 Lisa Gillis                         622    41:40     1 F 25-29  25     1     16     6:42         
      16 Dan Green / Belmont, CA              91    42:06    15  M35-39  35     4     24     6:46         
      17 Jose Portillo                       673    42:08    16  M35-39  37     5     24     6:46         
      18 James Stillman                      716    42:10    17  M25-29  25     1      6     6:47         
      19 Ronald Ellis                       1014    42:23    18  M50-54  50     1     23     6:49         
      20 Pastor Bejinez                      714    42:34    19  M25-29  25     2      6     6:51         
      21 Michael Pavao                      1007    43:00    20  M18-24  24     6     12     6:55         
      22 Bowen Wiest Rettig / Castro Valle   355    43:08    21  M13-17  15     2      7     6:56         
      23 Gordie Throne                       904    43:10    22  M18-24  18     7     12     6:56         
      24 Jeff Tudor                          656    43:27    23  M30-34  34     1     15     6:59         
      25 Peter Gibson                        672    43:27    24  M35-39  38     6     24     6:59         
      26 Arnold Ramos                        711    43:41    25  M50-54  54     2     23     7:01         
      27 Mark Smith / Napa, CA               423    43:45    26  M45-49  49     4     31     7:02         
      28 Patrick Sullivan / Belmont, CA      498    43:53    27  M13-17  15     3      7     7:03         
      29 Norbert Wong                       1004    43:54    28  M18-24  18     8     12     7:03         
      30 Bob Sanchez                         611    43:57    29  M45-49  47     5     31     7:04         
      31 Carrie Chavez                      1454    44:10     2 F 35-39  37     1     13     7:06         
      32 Thomas McManus / Castro Valley, C   143    44:15    30  M35-39  35     7     24     7:07         
      33 Tom Pavletic / Alameda, CA          293    44:19    31  M45-49  48     6     31     7:07         
      34 John Akstin / El Sobrante, CA       310    44:22    32  M50-54  50     3     23     7:08         
      35 Ramon Cazares                       669    44:24    33  M40-44  41     3     19     7:08         
      36 Margot Paulick / Castro Valley, C   518    44:29     3 F 25-29  27     2     16     7:09         
      37 Ralph Gowen                         612    44:32    34  M40-44  44     4     19     7:09         
      38 Walton Brown                        903    44:33    35  M40-44  44     5     19     7:10         
      39 Dina Anderson                       762    44:36     4 F 25-29  28     3     16     7:10         
      40 James Oterreau / El Cerrito, CA     214    44:41    36  M40-44  41     6     19     7:11         
      41 Tom Wolanski / Charlottesville, V   396    44:47    37  M40-44  43     7     19     7:12         
      42 Marc Frodyma                        769    45:29    38  M50-54  53     4     23     7:19         
      43 Tommy Evans                         816    45:41    39  M18-24  21     9     12     7:21         
      44 Greg Gillis                         623    45:46    40  M50-54  52     5     23     7:21         
      45 John Rymer                          909    45:54    41  M45-49  49     7     31     7:23         
      46 Edouard Boussaroque / San Leandro   113    45:57    42  M30-34  33     2     15     7:23         
      47 Rob Butner                          818    45:59    43  M25-29  25     3      6     7:23         
      48 Franziska Pieren / Hayward, CA       77    46:01     5 F 30-34  34     1     14     7:24         
      49 Justin Ko / Milpitas, CA            366    46:14    44  M13-17  16     4      7     7:26         
      50 Jennifer Macpherson                 826    46:16     6 F 25-29  28     4     16     7:26         
      51 Sterling Ledwick                    701    46:17    45  M13-17  14     5      7     7:26         
      52 William Mitchell / Campbell, CA     482    46:34    46  M30-34  31     3     15     7:29         
      53 Joe McKissack                       660    47:15    47  M30-34  34     4     15     7:36         
      54 Tony Tam                            741    47:16    48  M30-34  34     5     15     7:36         
      55 Michael Hagan / Oakland, CA         426    47:22    49  M40-44  41     8     19     7:37         
      56 David Scherer                       652    47:24    50  M40-44  40     9     19     7:37         
      57 Jeanine Wolanski / Charlottesvill   395    47:27     7 F 35-39  39     2     13     7:38         
      58 Francisco Nacu Jr.                  621    47:35    51  M35-39  36     8     24     7:39         
      59 Alisa Francis / Menlo Park, CA      110    47:37     8 F 30-34  33     2     14     7:39         
      60 Eduardo Cazares                    1010    47:40    52  M35-39  38     9     24     7:40         
      61 Sharley Simpson / Walnut Creek, C   212    48:00     9 F 30-34  32     3     14     7:43         
      62 Khuyen Dang / Castro Valley, CA     504    48:02    53  M40-44  43    10     19     7:43         
      63 Scott Kreider                       671    48:05    54  M35-39  39    10     24     7:44         
      64 Marilyn Gerara                      768    48:16    55  M50-54  54     6     23     7:46         
      65 Dana Farkas / Lafayette, CA          67    48:19    10 F 45-49  46     1     16     7:46         
      66 Valentin Iota                      1013    48:28    56  M35-39  37    11     24     7:47         
      67 Larry Howard / San Jose, CA         507    48:30    57  M45-49  46     8     31     7:48         
      68 Brian Mullin / Livermore, CA         95    48:31    58  M50-54  50     7     23     7:48         
      69 Victor Haro / San Jose, CA          190    48:34    59  M45-49  49     9     31     7:48         
      70 Tim Duggan / San Ramon, CA         1501    48:38    60  M55-59  56     1     11     7:49         
      71 Han Ko / Milpitas, CA               365    48:41    61  M45-49  47    10     31     7:50         
      72 Cedric Dotson / Petaluma, CA        192    48:47    62  M45-49  47    11     31     7:51         
      73 Steven Ponce                        823    49:12    63  M50-54  51     8     23     7:55         
      74 Mark Ulm / Stockton, CA             186    49:13    64  M45-49  48    12     31     7:55         
      75 Dino Cardiasmenos                   803    49:17    65  M50-54  53     9     23     7:55         
      76 Brad Niess                          902    49:19    66  M25-29  26     4      6     7:56         
      77 Gail Strzepa / Castro Valley, CA    128    49:21    11 F 45-49  45     2     16     7:56         
      78 Eric Johnson / Oakland, CA          290    49:32    67  M50-54  50    10     23     7:58         
      79 Chad Kempel                         876    49:37    68  M18-24  23    10     12     7:59         
      80 Tom Ford / Concord, CA              427    49:41    69  M50-54  52    11     23     7:59         
      81 Jamie Collins                       827    49:51    12 F 18-24  21     1      7     8:01         
      82 Jessica Dawney                      808    49:52    13 F 18-24  19     2      7     8:01         
      83 Janelle Nelson                      606    49:59    14 F 30-34  33     4     14     8:02         
      84 James Pane / Castro Valley, CA      521    50:24    70  M50-54  51    12     23     8:06         
      85 Jeff Richardson / Livermore, CA     495    50:31    71  M55-59  56     2     11     8:07         
      86 Manuel Goulart / Antioch, CA        220    50:49    72  M45-49  45    13     31     8:10         
      87 Jose Gomez / San Lorenzo, CA        251    51:07    73  M50-54  54    13     23     8:13         
      88 Joe Morales / San Jose, CA           20    51:08    74  M35-39  36    12     24     8:13         
      89 Frank Leyva / Oakland, CA           255    51:26    75  M40-44  43    11     19     8:16         
      90 Joseph Araujo / Fremont, CA         571    51:29    76  M55-59  55     3     11     8:17         
      91 Donna Chan                          828    51:31    15 F 45-49  47     3     16     8:17         
      92 Jaime Decarlo / Benicia, CA         152    51:39    16 F 25-29  29     5     16     8:18         
      93 Jesus Armas / Hayward, CA           163    51:41    77  M50-54  51    14     23     8:19         
      94 John Halstead                       862    51:45    78  M30-34  31     6     15     8:19         
      95 Robert Brandon                      910    52:06    79  M35-39  35    13     24     8:23         
      96 Clifford Baughn / Milpitas, CA      326    52:12    80  M55-59  55     4     11     8:24         
      97 Dalio Cady                          724    52:17    81  M40-44  43    12     19     8:24         
      98 Suresh Bhat / Castro Valley, CA     496    52:20    82  M35-39  36    14     24     8:25         
      99 Patricia Banks-Evans / Union City   137    52:26    17 F 50-54  53     1      6     8:26         
     100 Todd Peterson / Castro Valley, CA   106    52:27    83  M45-49  48    14     31     8:26         
     101 Jeff Lind                           616    52:45    84  M40-44  44    13     19     8:29         
     102 Gary Foster / San Ramon, CA         142    52:46    85  M65-69  66     1      6     8:29         
     103 Michael Hitto                      1451    53:12    86  M30-34  30     7     15     8:33         
     104 Ken Bowman                          869    53:14    87  M50-54  51    15     23     8:34         
     105 Sergio Correa                       896    53:16    88  M45-49  48    15     31     8:34         
     106 Rosanna Honahnie                    574    53:27    18 F 25-29  28     6     16     8:36         
     107 Felipe Castillo / Oakland, CA       446    53:37    89  M40-44  44    14     19     8:37         
     108 Christa Braun-Inglis / Berkeley,    402    53:44    19 F 35-39  35     3     13     8:38         
     109 Susan Wheeler / Oakland, CA         338    53:48    20 F 55-59  57     1      4     8:39         
     110 Ralph Page / Castro Valley, CA      478    53:52    90  M45-49  48    16     31     8:40         
     111 Steve Payne                        1431    54:06    91  M45-49  47    17     31     8:42         
     112 Robert Reyes / Hayward, CA          248    54:08    92  M45-49  49    18     31     8:42         
     113 Colleen Brown                       655    54:10    21 F 40-44  44     1     19     8:43         
     114 Doug Brown / Larkspur, CA           389    54:18    93  M50-54  54    16     23     8:44         
     115 Jean Suyenaga / San Jose, CA        120    54:23    22 F 35-39  38     4     13     8:45         
     116 Howard Canari                       891    54:30    94  M35-39  38    15     24     8:46         
     117 Fernando Armas / Hayward, CA        244    54:34    95  M40-44  40    15     19     8:46         
     118 Anthony Renda                       651    55:00    96  M13-17  13     6      7     8:51         
     119 Terrie Fontes                       667    55:06    23 F 40-44  43     2     19     8:52         
     120 Valerie Parker / Newman, CA         548    55:08    24 F 35-39  36     5     13     8:52         
     121 Paula Ferre / Concord, CA           363    55:08    25 F 50-54  51     2      6     8:52         
     122 Mitch Kim                           740    55:19    97  M45-49  49    19     31     8:54         
     123 Maribel Castillo-Glaze / Castro V   156    55:34    26 F 40-44  40     3     19     8:56         
     124 Stacey Young                       1018    55:38    27 F 25-29  25     7     16     8:57         
     125 Edward Johnston / San Ramon, CA     348    55:45    98  M35-39  37    16     24     8:58         
     126 Teri Gane                           727    55:49    28 F 45-49  45     4     16     8:58         
     127 Jim McBride                         776    55:50    99  M60-64  62     1      5     8:59         
     128 Jami Madson / San Francisco, CA     542    55:52    29 F 25-29  27     8     16     8:59         
     129 Michael Pollard                     640    55:53   100  M50-54  52    17     23     8:59         
     130 Lyle Sieg / Castro Valley, CA       350    56:00   101  M45-49  45    20     31     9:00         
     131 Michael Appio / Alameda, CA         417    56:02   102  M30-34  32     8     15     9:01         
     132 Scott Simmons / Castro Valley, CA   413    56:22   103  M50-54  50    18     23     9:04         
     133 Beverley Young / San Ramon, CA      511    56:26    30 F 40-44  40     4     19     9:04         
     134 Tony Prestella / Castro Valley, C   481    56:27   104  M30-34  33     9     15     9:05         
     135 Michael Barnard                     789    56:36   105  M35-39  35    17     24     9:06         
     136 Jennie Mollica                      817    56:42    31 F 30-34  34     5     14     9:07         
     137 Fernando Buchner                    668    56:45   106  M45-49  49    21     31     9:07         
     138 Michael Patton                      855    56:49   107  M35-39  37    18     24     9:08         
     139 Bill Terry                          784    56:50   108  M45-49  48    22     31     9:08         
     140 Joshua Smith / Berkeley, CA        1504    56:58   109  M18-24  24    11     12     9:10         
     141 Satoko Gibson / Pleasanton, CA      433    57:01    32 F 40-44  42     5     19     9:10         
     142 Nerissa Pavletic / Alameda, CA      292    57:09    33 F 35-39  38     6     13     9:11         
     143 Thd Fuller                          813    57:18   110  M45-49  46    23     31     9:13         
     144 Kimberley Bean / Oakland, CA        130    57:26    34 F 45-49  47     5     16     9:14         
     145 Alicia Gonzales                     691    57:32    35 F 40-44  42     6     19     9:15         
     146 Suzette Smith                       754    57:38    36 F 45-49  49     6     16     9:16         
     147 Kerry Moore-Perry / San Ramon, CA   131    57:38    37 F 45-49  48     7     16     9:16         
     148 James Shea / Castro Valley, CA       70    57:47   111  M65-69  69     2      6     9:17         
     149 Pamela Kelly / Hayward, CA           75    57:49    38 F 40-44  43     7     19     9:18         
     150 Pamela Staley                       736    57:50    39 F 45-49  45     8     16     9:18         
     151 Barbara Phillips Michel / Danvill   102    57:59    40 F 45-49  46     9     16     9:19         
     152 Dave Chadbourne / Danville, CA     1503    58:04   112  M55-59  55     5     11     9:20         
     153 Danica Radulovich                   630    58:05    41 F 13-17  17     1      4     9:20         
     154 William Radulovich                 1022    58:05   113  M55-59  56     6     11     9:20         
     155 Linda Wobbe                         770    58:23    42 F 45-49  49    10     16     9:23         
     156 Ken Decarlo / Benicia, CA           153    58:25   114  M40-44  41    16     19     9:24         
     157 Sean Wu / Castro Valley, CA         307    58:34   115  M35-39  36    19     24     9:25         
     158 Robin Anderson                      895    58:34    43 F 18-24  23     3      7     9:25         
     159 Kim Anglin / Piedmont, CA           529    58:59    44 F 25-29  28     9     16     9:29         
     160 Lupe Brandon                        912    59:04    45 F 30-34  34     6     14     9:30         
     161 Jamie Davis / Oakland, CA           169    59:08   116  M25-29  27     5      6     9:30         
     162 Daryl Liggins / Oakland, CA         168    59:09   117  M30-34  32    10     15     9:31         
     163 Mike Laramie / Union City, CA       138    59:21   118  M65-69  68     3      6     9:33         
     164 Chris Dombrowski / Pittsburg, CA    165    59:27   119  M30-34  31    11     15     9:34         
     165 Michael Hopfe / Pleasanton, CA      288    59:45   120  M45-49  49    24     31     9:36         
     166 Anthony Valluzzo / Menlo Park, CA   531  1:00:00   121  M30-34  30    12     15     9:39         
     167 Mary Piasta / Menlo Park, CA        530  1:00:01    46 F 25-29  27    10     16     9:39         
     168 Jeniffer Alcaide                    703  1:00:01    47 F 30-34  31     7     14     9:39         
     169 Laura Murray / San Leandro, CA      522  1:00:10    48 F 18-24  23     4      7     9:40         
     170 John Amos                           722  1:00:11   122  M60-64  60     2      5     9:41         
     171 Ron Neach / Pleasant Hill, CA       124  1:00:14   123  M45-49  45    25     31     9:41         
     172 Jessica Corcoran                   1449  1:00:15    49 F 18-24  21     5      7     9:41         
     173 Kristen Waring                      806  1:00:17    50 F 30-34  30     8     14     9:42         
     174 Sun Yung Kim                        620  1:00:42   124  M65-69  69     4      6     9:46         
     175 Richard Lucia / Castro Valley, CA   334  1:00:44   125  M55-59  56     7     11     9:46         
     176 Susan Hall                          710  1:00:55    51 F 45-49  47    11     16     9:48         
     177 Brian Maxwell / Castro Valley, CA   414  1:01:00   126  M60-64  61     3      5     9:48         
     178 Cindy Tate / Concord, CA            109  1:01:01    52 F 25-29  29    11     16     9:49         
     179 Teresa Perez / Hayward, CA          167  1:01:01    53 F 40-44  41     8     19     9:49         
     180 Terri Yarkin / Danville, CA         327  1:01:06    54 F 50-54  53     3      6     9:49         
     181 Janet Fazio / San Ramon, CA         489  1:01:06    55 F 35-39  37     7     13     9:49         
     182 Bonnie Yeung / Union City, CA       554  1:01:17    56 F 18-24  23     6      7     9:51         
     183 Summer Robertson / Castro Valley,    84  1:01:23    57 F 25-29  29    12     16     9:52         
     184 Edmund Gelacio / Richmond, CA        83  1:01:28   127  M45-49  47    26     31     9:53         
     185 Nathan Nebrija / San Francisco, C   145  1:01:47   128  M40-44  44    17     19     9:56         
     186 Lisa Kran / San Leandro, CA          78  1:01:55    58 F 45-49  47    12     16     9:57         
     187 Michael Ferre / Concord, CA         362  1:01:59   129  M50-54  53    19     23     9:58         
     188 Cynthia Short / Union City, CA      341  1:02:10    59 F 50-54  52     4      6    10:00         
     189 Nick Casares Jr / Oakland, CA       173  1:02:22   130  M55-59  55     8     11    10:02         
     190 Manuel Inacio / Castro Valley, CA   421  1:02:29   131  M65-69  66     5      6    10:03         
     191 Krista Juli / Walnut Creek, CA      107  1:02:32    60 F 40-44  40     9     19    10:03         
     192 Brooks Anderson                     894  1:02:34    61 F 40-44  44    10     19    10:04         
     193 Anaite Letona                       760  1:02:41    62 F 35-39  35     8     13    10:05         
     194 Michael Fong / Castro Valley, CA    369  1:02:50   132  M30-34  33    13     15    10:06         
     195 Nate Miley / Oakland, CA            126  1:03:18   133  M50-54  54    20     23    10:11         
     196 Dennis Hassler / San Rafael, CA     146  1:03:25   134  M70-74  71     1      2    10:12         
     197 Robert Maxwell / Castro Valley, C   527  1:03:26   135  M35-39  38    20     24    10:12         
     198 Monika Momiyama / Hayward, CA       282  1:03:29    63 F 35-39  37     9     13    10:12         
     199 Darius Aguilera                     638  1:03:34   136  M 6-12  12     1      1    10:13         
     200 Soomee Kim / Castro Valley, CA      474  1:03:35    64 F 35-39  36    10     13    10:13         
     201 Michael Kelsh                       824  1:03:40   137  M45-49  48    27     31    10:14         
     202 James Samson                        799  1:03:49   138  M50-54  51    21     23    10:16         
     203 Guy Baldwin / Castro Valley, CA     332  1:04:07   139  M35-39  38    21     24    10:19         
     204 Jeff Green / Oakland, CA            150  1:04:10   140  M55-59  58     9     11    10:19         
     205 Brian Dolan                         877  1:04:21   141  M45-49  45    28     31    10:21         
     206 Mark Andres / Castro Valley, CA     551  1:04:27   142  M30-34  31    14     15    10:22         
     207 Amandine Redington / Half Moon Ba   577  1:04:40    65 F 13-17  15     2      4    10:24         
     208 Sean Sobers / Pleasanton, CA        115  1:04:42   143  M35-39  35    22     24    10:24         
     209 Stephanie Barron / Pleasanton, CA   116  1:04:42    66 F 30-34  31     9     14    10:24         
     210 Leslie Brouillette / Castro Valle   104  1:05:34    67 F 45-49  47    13     16    10:33         
     211 Jason Lal                           794  1:05:41   144  M13-17  15     7      7    10:34         
     212 Monica Pech                         795  1:05:42    68 F 13-17  17     3      4    10:34         
     213 Stephanie Green / Oakland, CA       508  1:05:47    69 F 30-34  34    10     14    10:35         
     214 Anna Irwin / Castro Valley, CA      475  1:05:49    70 F 30-34  33    11     14    10:35         
     215 Bruce Christensen / Castro Valley   280  1:05:54   145  M55-59  56    10     11    10:36         
     216 Patrick Vanier                      761  1:06:05   146  M35-39  36    23     24    10:38         
     217 Barbara Robben / Berkeley, CA        64  1:06:24    71 F 70-74  71     1      1    10:41         
     218 Janet McMurray / El Cerrito, CA      96  1:06:33    72 F 55-59  55     2      4    10:42         
     219 Aron Ching / Hayward, CA            233  1:06:50   147  M30-34  32    15     15    10:45         
     220 Richard Nelson                     1015  1:06:51   148  M40-44  41    18     19    10:45         
     221 Howard Hornig / Castro Valley, CA   416  1:07:02   149  M80-95  80     1      1    10:47         
     222 Richard Tanaka                      859  1:07:05   150  M55-59  56    11     11    10:47         
     223 Janet Kukulica / Castro Valley, C   550  1:07:44    73 F 50-54  50     5      6    10:54         
     224 Mary Anne Reno / San Lorenzo, CA    268  1:07:46    74 F 40-44  40    11     19    10:54         
     225 Ann Wilson / Pleasanton, CA         267  1:07:48    75 F 40-44  40    12     19    10:54         
     226 Rosalyn Lemieux / Berkeley, CA      117  1:07:55    76 F 25-29  29    13     16    10:55         
     227 Juli Andres / Castro Valley, CA     552  1:08:09    77 F 25-29  29    14     16    10:58         
     228 Linus Ugonabo / Oakland, CA         328  1:08:10   151  M45-49  47    29     31    10:58         
     229 Vivian Lu / San Francisco, CA       541  1:08:17    78 F 18-24  23     7      7    10:59         
     230 Brian Friedlander / San Francisco   567  1:08:18   152  M18-24  24    12     12    10:59         
     231 Ivy Altman                          633  1:08:21    79 F 45-49  45    14     16    10:59         
     232 David Perez / Hayward, CA           455  1:09:05   153  M45-49  47    30     31    11:07         
     233 Julie Lucero / El Sobrante, CA       31  1:09:09    80 F 40-44  43    13     19    11:07         
     234 Molly Heekin / Castro Valley, CA    464  1:10:35    81 F 30-34  34    12     14    11:21         
     235 Marilyn Schneider / Castro Valley   557  1:10:39    82 F 50-54  53     6      6    11:22         
     236 Jessica Budgin                      920  1:11:09    83 F 25-29  29    15     16    11:26         
     237 Eric Budgin                         921  1:11:12   154  M25-29  29     6      6    11:27         
     238 Patricia Breslin                    728  1:11:23    84 F 40-44  43    14     19    11:29         
     239 Dianne Chan / San Leandro, CA       407  1:11:26    85 F 25-29  28    16     16    11:29         
     240 Tim Shelley                         689  1:12:00   155  M50-54  53    22     23    11:35         
     241 Dev Mahadevan / Castro Valley, CA   179  1:12:31   156  M60-64  61     4      5    11:40         
     242 Nancy Mitrick / Fremont, CA         311  1:12:42    86 F 60-64  62     1      2    11:41         
     243 Ivan Cornelius / Castro Valley, C   136  1:13:24   157  M65-69  65     6      6    11:48         
     244 Gwyn Kanekofuller                   812  1:13:58    87 F 40-44  42    15     19    11:54         
     245 Debbie McFarland / Sunnyvale, CA    388  1:14:35    88 F 45-49  46    15     16    12:00         
     246 Elizabeth Hamill / Walnut Creek,    386  1:14:35    89 F 40-44  41    16     19    12:00         
     247 Gabrielle Jamison / San Ramon, CA   347  1:14:36    90 F 30-34  34    13     14    12:00         
     248 Nicole Harra / San Francisco, CA    384  1:14:37    91 F 35-39  36    11     13    12:00         
     249 Debbie Edinger / Discovery Bay, C   276  1:15:46    92 F 40-44  41    17     19    12:11         
     250 Frank Nolte / Pleasant Hill, CA     114  1:16:06   158  M70-74  70     2      2    12:14         
     251 Diane Riddle / San Leandro, CA      313  1:17:12    93 F 55-59  55     3      4    12:25         
     252 Dan Riddle / San Leandro, CA        312  1:17:54   159  M50-54  52    23     23    12:32         
     253 Pat Larson                          873  1:17:54    94 F 65-69  66     1      2    12:32         
     254 Mike Harris                         619  1:17:55   160  M60-64  61     5      5    12:32         
     255 Judith Duncan / Castro Valley, CA   216  1:19:09    95 F 55-59  59     4      4    12:44         
     256 Cathy Lozano / Richmond, CA         295  1:20:12    96 F 45-49  49    16     16    12:54         
     257 Joyce Friedlander / San Mateo, CA   249  1:22:58    97 F 65-69  67     2      2    13:21         
     258 Susan Woodhouse / Hercules, CA      258  1:23:02    98 F 40-44  43    18     19    13:21         
     259 Donald Schauer / Byron, CA          170  1:23:59   161  M35-39  36    24     24    13:30         
     260 Jessica Bulos / Oakland, CA         129  1:24:48    99 F 40-44  40    19     19    13:38         
     261 Kristine Edinger / Discovery Bay,   277  1:26:40   100 F 13-17  17     4      4    13:56         
     262 Rachel Castillo / Stockton, CA      380  1:26:43   101 F 30-34  31    14     14    13:57         
     263 Othon Castillo / Stockton, CA       379  1:26:44   162  M40-44  42    19     19    13:57         
     264 Linda Mahadevan / Castro Valley,    180  1:27:04   102 F 60-64  63     2      2    14:00         
     265 Donna Fong                          659  1:28:08   103 F 35-39  38    12     13    14:10         
     266 Ken Ferris / Campbell, CA           524  1:40:15   163  M45-49  47    31     31    16:07         
     267 Darlene Gatts / Campbell, CA        525  1:40:19   104 F 35-39  38    13     13    16:08

Y!, how I love thee

July 8th, 2005

My current yahoo id was registered on Mon Mar 24 17:41:20 1997.

I remember when I was working at SGI back then and our lunch conversations were alway about how we thought Yahoo does it’s magic. How it was always up, always fast. We were a bunch of geeks in awe of what we saw from the outside.

Then in May 1999 I decided to leave SGI and come to work for Yahoo. It was a very exciting environment where the term ‘control chaos’ was often mentioned when referring to our engineering code management. Often knowledge for an entire product would reside in the head of this one person. Things get done and knowledge get passed down when you go into the person’s cube and force yourself to sit down with the person for a few hours of ‘brain dump’.

An engineer’s reputation was everything back then. You don’t want to be known as the person who messes up, or your email and phone calls go unanswered. It’s a good way to weed out the weak link.

We have come a long long way, Y! engineering. It’s awesome, I’m still in awe.
Push up Thursday 1,200

July 7th, 2005

I’m impressed by Kelly and his dedication to push up Thursday even when he is in the UK.

Here goes my duty of the week for the Y! Push Up Club
Other Members Kelly Shawn Brian JW Scott
I’m shooting for 1,200 today.

100 6:30am (waiting for Amtrak)
150 8:30 (at work)
200 8:58
250 9:20
300 9:48
350 10:20
400 10:22
450 10:35 (In My Place, ColdPlay)
500 10:37 (God Put a Smile upon Your Face, ColdPlay)
570 11:49 (The Scientist, ColdPlay)
620 1:47 (Clock, “”)
670 1:50 (Daylight, “”)
620 1:54 (“”,””)
670 10:03 pm
720 10:08 pm (watching CSI: NY)
770 10:14pm
820 10:20pm
870 10:26pm
920 10:43pm
945 10:48pm (R. forcing me to sleep at 11 via IM, gotta hurry)
970 10:43pm
995 10:55pm
1,020 10:57pm
1,070 11:01pm
1,100 11:08pm
1,133 11:13pm
1,166 11:18pm
1,200 11:24pm (good night R.)
Places I love in the Bay Area

July 6th, 2005
The calligraphy means “Bridge of Dreams“, done by David Furukawa-Chen of Shifuku Tea Co. It has the same meaning in Chinese as well as Japanese
1. SF Ferry Building – farmer’s market, great food and pastries
2. Running to Coit Tower to get the best view of the SF Bay
3. North Beach for the espresso drinks
4. Milpitas Square for the tapioca drink in Fantasia Coffee & Tea and the feeling that I’m in Hong Kong and no longer in the US
5. iSushi for sake and chat my my old friend Stanley, owner and a new father
6. Mifune for nishin soba noodles, best shrimp tempura
7. Shopping at Whole Foods
8. Running to Fort Point
9. Taking CalTrains or Amtrack to work everyday
10. Eating 2 hotlinks and a large chilli from Top Dog in Berkeley
11. Buying a bag of $35 tea from Shifuku Tea Co. in Japan Town and enjoying it as much as an espresso drink
Fun Math Game To Play Anywhere

July 3rd, 2005

Neat game to teach addition and subtraction

We agree on difference of 2.

Kate: (hides a certain number of fingers)
Me: It’s less than how many fingers?
Kate: 6
Me: you’ve got 4 fingers!
Kate: yup

Me: ( I hide my fingers )
Kate: It’s more than how many fingers?
Me: 7
Kate: You’ve got 9 fingers!
Me: Yeah!

As they get better, increase the difference.
We can play this for 30 mintues. Good way to kill time on BART.
Neat game to teach addition and subtraction to 4 year olds

July 3rd, 2005

First, we agree on difference of 2.

Kate: (hides a certain number of fingers)
Me: It’s less than how many fingers?
Kate: 6
Me: you’ve got 4 fingers!
Kate: yup

Me: ( I hide my fingers )
Kate: It’s more than how many fingers?
Me: 7
Kate: You’ve got 9 fingers!
Me: Yeah!

As they get better, increase the difference.
We can play this for 30 mintues. Good way to kill time on BART.
Saturday at the SF Ferry with Kate

July 2nd, 2005

I love Saturdays at the SF Ferry Building, afterwards, we hit the farmer’s market in Castro Valley for some live electric guitar.

Food, coffee, flowers, live music, suntan, people :-) Life is good on Saturdays.

Kate enjoying a piece of bread from The Acme Bread Company while running circles around me

Kate and I take pics of each other

Chocolates from Recchiuti Confections

Fresh steam chicken bun from “Out The Door” of Slanted Door
Best morning pastries and coffee from Fog Hollow Farms We got one pastries right out of the oven, it was heavenly
Run: Castro Valley, am I in Japan?

June 27th, 2005

Finally after hurting my foot running along the canals of Paris, I’m healed and back on my training for the SF 1/2 marathon end of July. I decided to run over to the Japanese Garden in Hayward. It’s an amazing garden in the middle of nowhere in Hayward. Once you are inside, you feel like you are in Japan. Koi fish, lotus leaves, perfectly trimed trees.

Only about 2.8 miles from my house, I figure I need to squeeze in long runs on Mondays when I work at home. (Saturdays are days I take Kate to dance class and the farmer’s market).

The run towards the garden was all downhill, yeah!! love downhill
Distance: 2.91 miles
Pace: 7’01” mins / mile

2nd part was all uphill :-( oh dear, no!!!!
Distance: 2.04 miles
Pace: 7’23” mins / mile

When I get back, I’m greeted by my loving cat, Max. “Feed Me Now!”
Profile Of a Typical Yahoo! Engineer

June 27th, 2005

The Typical Yahoo! Engineer from this point known as Y!E. (this is all my personal ramblings, if it doesn’t fit you, sorry.. it fits me)

Y!E is someone who drools when his needs to design his software to work for 30 millions users. Potentially growing at 40% every year.
Y!E designs software with no upper limit. 200 millions users? no problem. 600 million, no problem.
Y!E is always connected to the net, via cell phone, laptop, Wi-Fi at Starbucks.
Y!E really likes unix and would rather have a Powerbook if he can get his hands on one.
Y!E likes to automate mundane jobs.
Y!E doesn’t ever like to buy big expensive machines, he likes to buy lots and lots of cheap machine and name them p1,p2,p3..p100. Every machine is disposable, because that is the only way to build scalable software.
Y!E loves CVS
Y!E loves Y! 360
Y!E loves gadgets
Y!E might not like Perl, but he is good at it.
Y!E usually likes PHP
Y!E usually like MYSQL
Y!E might like Apache, but he is good at it.
Y!E likes to read Jeremy’s blog Y!E usually doesn’t know style sheets, but he will learn it only if no webdevs wants to help him
Y!E is used to trying to squeeze every ounce of power from his machines
Y!E likes to get free stuff from forsale.
Y!E likes free stuff from the book exchange, media exchange
Y!E doesn’t like disk I/O bound problems, he is happy with CPU bound problems
I should be able to live until 92 years old

June 26th, 2005

The Life Expectancy calculator tells me I’m suppose to leave this earth when I’m 92, year 2052. Do I really want to live that long? It even tells me how to live even longer by drinking tea instead of coffee. Secret to longevity is more push-ups :-)

The Living to 100 Life Expectancy Calculator
www.livingto100.com Take this quiz to find out how long you will live. You’ll also get a full dose of health and nutrition advice based on your answers to the questions. Affiliated with the not-for-profit Alliance for Aging Research.

1. What is your gender:

As a guy, you have your work cut out for you. Women have about a ten-year advantage over men. To catch up, you need to be extra-diligent about healthy habits.

Facts: Women have a head start in the longevity marathon. Many scientists speculate that estrogen plays a role. After menopause (average age 51 years), this advantage seems to diminish. Another theory holds that chronic iron deficiency (due to menstruation) gives a woman her advantage. Iron is critical to our cells’ ability to produce age-accelerating free radicals that also predispose to heart disease, stroke and cancer
Spending The Night At Yahoo!

June 25th, 2005

Tonight I don’t feel like driving home. I’m here with my 2 pillows and the Yahoo! blanket we got for 2003 Christmas. I’ll be spending the night trying to catch up on some work. It feels strangely very comforting to be here. Yahoo! has been like my 2nd home for the last 5 years.

I bought some organic strawberries and made myself a smoothie. Now crunching on Spelt Flakes. Listening to ColdPlay and Aqualung.

8 Comments from Yahoo! 360 blog

*
Yahoo! User
commented
06/22/2005 09:08 am
GEEK!
*
Yahoo! User
commented
06/22/2005 07:11 am
heh, I’ve spent the night at my work, I wish it was half as luxorious at yahoo. wow you guys have lazy boys’ at yahoo?
*
Yahoo! User
commented
06/21/2005 10:18 am
sometimes i joke about doing that. can’t believe you actually did it.
*
commented
06/21/2005 06:18 am
woke up natually at 6:10am. It was the same as sleeping in my own bed :-) going for a run now.
*
Yahoo! User
commented
06/20/2005 11:34 pm
and then after i try that i can look for legal advice for the divorce proceedings i most certainly would find myself in.
*
commented
06/20/2005 11:34 pm
let me know how it goes and i may try
*
commented
06/20/2005 11:20 pm
Thanks for the offer. To tell you the truth, I actually enjoy bunking out here.
I’m going to crash in one of Yahoo!’s famous rest areas where they have nice big lazy boy.
*
Jeff B. commented
06/20/2005 10:52 pm
For the record, I’m no slavedriver. I had no idea Tony was going to work all night and sleep under his desk. But I hear it’s not all that bad.

Hey Tony, I live just down the street and we have a comfy pull-out sofa in a spare bedroom. You’re welcome to stay anytime.
I’m becoming a driving softy

June 25th, 2005

I’ve recently been using the public transportation a lot. I take the BART from the east bay to SF then take the CalTrains into work in Sunnyvale. On weekends, I would take the BART with Kate all over the Bay Area. We have time to actually talk, draw, read or just fool around. It’s been really relaxing for me to not drive and worry about parking.

Today I was driving home to Castro Valley and a truck driver behind me was waving and honking because I wasn’t tailgating the car in front of me. Imagine that, actually leaving some distance between me and the car in front! So I just waved to the guy in the back, smiled to myself, changed lanes and let him pass me.

I’m becoming a big softy.

What I would have done before would be slow down even more and let the guy get frustrated and pass me on the right. Then I would give him the finger, but keeping it below his field of vision. I don’t want to be shot at either. Then I would stew over it for an hour or so. Very unhealthy behavior on my part.
DVD Review: Final Cut – your entire life recorded on a microchip

June 24th, 2005

Would you live your life differently if you knew that your entire life was being recorded by a microchip in your brain? When you die, people might get access to watch your entire life thru your eyes?

This movie made me really think about whether I would do things differently if I would ultimately be judged by someone (like God) at the end. I don’t believe in God, but that’s not the point.
I love these movies that take a simple idea, bring you along for a ride and make you question your own beliefs.

I would recommend this movie if you like Memento, Run Lola Run, Minority Report, Dogma

Check out Final Cut
First-time filmmaker Omar Naim writes and directs the sci-fi drama The Final Cut. Set in the near future, the story concerns a microchip that is capable of recording a person’s entire life. Robin Williams plays Alan Hakman, an editor who cuts together the footage to make pleasant movies for funerals. Tormented by his job and his own memories, Alan also has a troubled romantic relationship with bookseller Delilah (Mira Sorvino). While looking through footage for his next project, Alan discovers a man whom he believes is from his own past. Meanwhile, former editor Fletcher (James Caviezel) wants the footage for his own purposes. The Final Cut was shown at the Berlin Film Festival in 2004. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
Never ending bug list

June 23rd, 2005

I currently have 280 bugs assigned to me with priority 1,2,3
I don’t think I’ll ever finish the list. A lot of them are just little annoying bugs.. But if they’ve been in the queue for 1-2 years, probably no one cares any more.

One day I’ll clean up this list, get rid of the ones that I’ll never fix. Or, just close them all.. and the person who filed it will re-open the ones he cares about.

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06/24/2005 04:44 pm
Slacker.
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commented
06/24/2005 02:18 am
“just little annoying bugs”?

I suggest, you take a look at
http://ricksegal.typepad.com/pmv/2005/06/msft_win_a_free.html
http://crueltobekind.org/archive/2005-06-21/programm_for_outlook_and_get_a
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commented
06/23/2005 09:52 pm
well…start by closing anything with my name on it. :-)
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commented
06/23/2005 06:23 pm
True dat.. Make ’em P5’s!
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commented
06/23/2005 03:05 pm
If a bug is not fixed in 365 days, that bug really shouldn’t need to exist.. close!
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commented
06/23/2005 02:44 pm
everytime i come close to finishing off my p2s something else happens to make it grow. =(
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commented
06/23/2005 02:24 pm
if no action can be taken on bugs reported due to lack of resources, then perhaps users shouldn’t even be given the opportunity to file them?
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commented
06/23/2005 02:15 pm
that was jeff birkeland’s (via guy kawasaki) take on the thousands of emails he’d received while on vacation: delete them all and let people re-send the emails they felt were important. ha.
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06/23/2005 02:00 pm
that’s funny. i heard someone actually downgrades them to a P4 or P5 after a certain amount of time has elapsed since the filing of the bug. HEy! maybe you can do the same… :)
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commented
06/23/2005 01:52 pm
I have a bunch as well and I feel bad about closing them.
I like your idea of pushing the responsiblity back to the filer. Someone did this to me once and I sent back some pissy response about how “I wish I could just punt on my responsiblities by closing bugs”. The bug got reopened and resolved, so maybe this approach works.
Kate and Tai Chi

June 21st, 2005

Why the squid face? Pissed off at Dad

Kate used to do Tai Chi with me, just the first 9 movements, when she was 2 years old. Recently I think I haven’t kept it up so she’s given up on me. Time for me to brush up on my 24 movements and get her interested again

< Images removed >

Image Ready Stance
Image Starting Posture
Image Strike with one hand

Image Hold the ball with left hand
Father’s day at Santa Cruz

June 19th, 2005

Father’s day turned out be to more than just Kate and Me at the Broadwalk. My entire family came along and I’m glad they did. My bro-in law rented a van and the 6 of us hopped in and off we went. We got there at 9:45 and Kate and headed immediately to the beach, especially when Kate saw the sand.

Kate: I want to do go the sand
(we are coming up to the broad walk)

My Mom: Should we head over to breakfast?

Kate: Now, I want sand now!

Me: Uhh, I’m not hungry, drop us off here and pick us up later. BTW, my Treo is out of batteries, please try to find us.

9:45 am, I get a pager message from Yahoo! News that we had 404’s on the site, my Treo runs out of batteries. ARGGG, my parents already drove off.

I digged 5 inches down into the dry sand and open up a 8 foot wet sand pit for Kate. She and I built sand castles for 3 hours. The sun was nice but the beach was actually quite cold. I did a 200 sand push ups to keep warm. I tried looking for Aurora playing sand volleyball, didn’t see her but she was out there today.

I get found by my parents at 12:30pm and I ran over to the car to get my Treo charged and dial into work via bluetooth. I figured out the problem was with the MYSQL database and suggested a fix to my trusted comrad Glen and told him that I trusted him and I loved him (I didn’t really say that).

Thank god we hired some bad asses for Y! News.

After Kate had 6 turns at the Merry-go-around and a nice big ice cream cone, we head back home and had ourselves a kick ass BBQ. I let my sister play with Kate for the entire day (what a nice father’s day present) and I watched some DVD’s (Hoosiers) on my 17″ powerbook, had tons of Korean short ribs.

On a more personal note:
I also connected with a family friend who suffered from depression for several years and was reluctant to take drugs. But when she finally started taking drugs, her whole outlook on life changed. I think I’ll start taking meds for me to relieve my depression for a period of time. I’m a little sick of my mood swings.
No pain no gain: it’s time for handstand pushups

June 11th, 2005
My foot has been hurting for the last 2 weeks and I have not been able to run. I’m getting really depressed lately but I couldn’t run to counteract it. I’m trying a new exercise: handstand pushups. Pretty funny that most of the people doing it are kung fu fanatics (which I’m not) I just like to train my body with only my body weight. Much easier to exercise wherever I want to.

See some Y! Images search for handstand pushups

Remember, if you try this at home
1. Make sure you have enough room around you just in case you fall to the side
2. Don’t push yourself too hard, make sure you don’t hurt your shoulders
3. If you can just do one per set, that is fine, do 20 sets and spread them over time
4. Ping me if you want some tips on getting into handstand position, if you are working out in the Yahoo! gym, go into the aerobics room and do your handstands there
5. Wear socks so you don’t make marks on the walls
6. Remember the number of handstand pushups per set doesn’t matter, what matters is how many total you do in a day
best hot dog anywhere: Top Dog

June 8th, 2005

If you are within 30 miles of Berkeley anytime of the night (b4 2am) and you have the cravings for hot dogs, drop by Top Dog in Berkeley (7 reviews Y! Local).

My favorite, Hot Link (beef with 4 kinds of peppers) grilled, in grilled crunchy sesame buns. Fresh onions.

(People rave about the fact that they serve RC cola, never tried it)

Other popular dogs:

Bockwurst (1/2 veal, 1/2 polk, milk, eggs )

Calabrese (all pork fennel, paprika, cayenne )

Bird Dog ( turkey, cilantro, lo fat )

The Wienie ( veggie dog, wheat gluten soy protein )

Pick up some chilli as well, and a large lemonade.
Love the rain, don’t like the heat

June 8th, 2005

I don’t like the heat. On a very hot day, I joked with Kate (my 4 year old) one day that I’m going melt under the heat. She got concerned that I’ll just disappeared one day. That is when Angie jumped in and taught Kate about metaphores.

I am working at home today, decided to step away from the computer for a few minutes and walk in the backyard. It just finished raining in the morning. It was an amazing tranquil feeling. Reminds me how much I love walking in the rain.

Sharing some photos with all you virtual friends
push ups: 2,000 in 24 hours reached

June 7th, 2005

I’ve hurt my foot recently and have not been able to run for a while. So I’ve started shooting for the 2,000 mark in push ups. 1,500 was reached on May 10th, 1,000 was reached April 22nd, 500 was reached March 02
Push up Log for June 6th
100 7:37 am
200 8:00 am
300 8:30 am
400 9:00 am
500 9:30 am
600 9:55 am
700 10:23 am
800 11:25 am
900 11:34 am
950 12:17 pm
— gum cleaning, work, dinner
1,000 9:28pm
1,050 10:20pm
1,100 10:49pm
1,150 11:45pm
1,200 11:50pm
1,250 12:29pm
1,300 12:49pm
1,350 12:58pm
— banging my head try to troubleshoot work related issues, need to clear my head
1,400 1:14am
1,450 1:29am
1,500 1:38am
1,550 2:08am
1,600 2:15am
1,650 2:22am
1,700 2:31am
— sleep
1,750 5:42am
2,000 7:30am
push ups: 2,000 in 24 hours reached (archive from 2005)

June 7th, 2005

Archived from the Wayback machine of my Yahoo! 360 blog

I’ve hurt my foot recently and have not been able to run for a while. So I’ve started shooting for the 2,000 mark in push ups. 1,500 was reached on May 10th, 1,000 was reached April 22nd, 500 was reached March 02
Push up Log for June 6th
100 7:37 am
200 8:00 am
300 8:30 am
400 9:00 am
500 9:30 am
600 9:55 am
700 10:23 am
800 11:25 am
900 11:34 am
950 12:17 pm
— gum cleaning, work, dinner
1,000 9:28pm
1,050 10:20pm
1,100 10:49pm
1,150 11:45pm
1,200 11:50pm
1,250 12:29pm
1,300 12:49pm
1,350 12:58pm
— banging my head try to troubleshoot work related issues, need to clear my head
1,400 1:14am
1,450 1:29am
1,500 1:38am
1,550 2:08am
1,600 2:15am
1,650 2:22am
1,700 2:31am
— sleep
1,750 5:42am
2,000 7:30am
Kate: the 2nd year: Languages

June 6th, 2005

First I would like to thank craigslist for helping us find all of our French and Japanese babysitters.

Kate is blessed with the gift of language early in her life. Angie and I both speak Mandarin at home, and so Kate’s mother tongue is Mandarin.

When she was 1 years old, we hired a babysitter from craigslist. Hind was from Morroco and one day she asked if she can speak to Kate in French, we were ok with it. Kate showed a lot of interest in French, even though she was resistent to speak it, she understood everything. Ever since that time, all of our babysitters have been foreign language speakers we found on criagslist.

When Kate was 2 1/2, Angie decided to start teaching Kate Japanese, why not right? Kate loved the simple Japanese sounds, the children’s books and children’s songs. Japanese people make the cutest things for kids.

So now Kate is blessed with English, Mandarin, French and Japanese. She understand my ramblings in Cantonese, but I didn’t commit enough time into teaching her to speak.

When we look for babysitters, we ask that they speak exclusively in their mother tongue, we ask for a commitment of at least 1 year in spirit (we don’t hold them to it, but we want a long term relationship), we ask that they read to Kate in their mother tongue when she is eating and we ask that they never test Kate on what she knows.

Looking back at the last 4 years in parenting, I’ll say again that it was damn hard. This language thing is one that I won’t regret.

Updated :2018 I suggest use http://care.com/ instead of craigslist.org

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commented
06/07/2005 08:06 am
Regarding rejection ratio, it’s like 50%

Also, all of our sitters have to bart in and we pick them up, so the un motivated sitters usually leave after 2 tries
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06/07/2005 08:03 am
The criteria was pretty simple: all three of us had to feel comfortable. Kate is a pretty good gauge. We would have the person try out for 4 hours, and usually it’s obvious whether the person would work out. It’s a pretty intense 4 hours of teaching and playing and talking in their mother tongue.

Regarding trust, we never left them alone. So that was easy. It took us at least a year before we even left them alone for 30 mins. Now we have 2 sitters who have been with us for over 2 years and we completely trust them.
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06/07/2005 07:23 am
I’m curious about how you chose a sitter from a pool of complete strangers. What was your criteria for determining if you could trust the person? And what was your reject/accept ratio?
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06/06/2005 10:03 pm
English, Chinese and French she will retain forever because we are sending her to a French school until middle school or even high school.

http://www.ebfas.org/

I’m planning to live in Paris every summer, so French will definitely be in her life without a doubt.

Japanese, it really depends on whether we’ll continue to keep having sitters once a week. This will be the hardest to keep in her life, but we’ll just to have roll with it. Before she turns 6, I hope to immerse her in Japan for a few months. Maybe I can convince Y! Japan to sponsor me to work in Tokyo

The global thing is really not a big thing for us, it’s really just opening up her brain for learning, it doesn’t matter to me how long she keeps that.
Kate: the first year: diet

June 3rd, 2005

Angie took the red pill:

She started reading the Super Baby Food book and she decided that we will be making all of Kate’s food ourselves.

I was lazy and didn’t read the book but the basic principle was that you want lots of colors in the food you give your baby. There are about 20 super foods like blueberries, leafy greens.

In the beginning we would buy batches of apples, yams, spinach, ( I don’t remember all the details now). She would cut them up into little pieces mostly with the skin on and steam them in a large pan until they are very soft. Then Angie would take a chinois/strainer with a grinding handle and grind the apples into apple sauce, the spinach into spinach mush. We might need to strain it twice to get rid of any hard to digest fiber. Then she would put these little baby food into ice cube holders and freeze them.

The next time we need to feed Kate, Angie would take out ice cubes and defrost them. One day’s color palette would be orange carrots, green spinach and yellow apple.. (something like that, I never learned the system) Kate would actually have spinach cereal for breakfast. I know, hold your horses… To this day, I’m still unsure about that diet.. But it works. Kate’s favorite meals now is vegetables with whole wheat pasta, fruity olive oil . She chows down on berries, yogurt. She did discover chocolates and ice cream recently, but as long as she gets her daily vegetables, we are ok with her having some sweets.

The decisions in Angie’s food choices for Kate did come at a price, but we have no regrets. Angie is a bit burned out with parenting and she misses adult interaction. Luckily she will be teaching this coming fall semester . There were many frowns about how extreme it was. Kate didn’t get any seasoning in her food, no candy, no sweeten yogurt until she was 4. Spinach for breakfast got the grandparents up in arms in protests. Not having simple carbs like white rice didn’t go well with our traditional Chinese parents. Kate didn’t get processed foods until she went to school at 3 1/2 when she held on to a fish cracker and didn’t think it was real food. Now she does like her crackers and cookies but still very under control

Angie and I made some very extreme choices in our parenting journey. We were first time parents and we learned along the way. The one principle that we learned which has helped us is that it’s better to do the hard work early on and we can also ease up later. Rather than asking the child to do the hard work later in life. An example would be not introducing vegetables to a baby and asking the child at 4 or 5 to start eating leafy greens. It’s so much harder at that point.

I wish new parents are given more education in raising children. Maybe a mandatory class in college or right before you have a child, you are require to take a Parenting 101 class. We’ve made many mistakes in our parenting, but also stumbled across many good ideas. I wish 5,000 years of parenting wisdom could have been passed down a little easier and made easier to find.
My heroes

June 3rd, 2005

Sam – for his positive attitude towards life. Always looking at the funny side of things. For his love of bicycling and exercise. For his dedication to his family

Dennis Yu – For his obvious love and passion of running. His love of the science behind running

Dean Karnazes – his book inspired me to run and found my hidden passion for running. The solitude of running. The lack of competition with anyone else but myself.

Carlos – limo driver in Paris for his dedication to his family. Worked 7 days a week for the last 12 years. He is feeling just a bit tired now and will take a little break.

My Dad – he never worked overtime during the weekdays and provided the sense of family. For his dedication to his children and family. For giving me someone to look up to in terms of physical fitness, a good honest heart and hard work. For having the courage to leave China and come to the US with only $700 in his pockets. For creating a wonderful live for his children and himself in the United States. Learned to survived in a country where he didn’t speak a word of English. For introducing math into my life by making it fun. For forcing me into computer science instead of carpentry during college which eventually led me to find the career that I love.
Juliette Binoche: you can’t go wrong with her movies

June 2nd, 2005

I saw the 1992 movie Damage by Juliette Binoche and Jeremy Irons, about a man who becomes romantically and obsessively involved with his son’s fiancee. The ending was not good for both of them of course.
I guess movies have to teach moral lessons. In real life does infidelty really end up so tragically and hurt the lives of those around them?

Anyways, you can’t go wrong with Juliette Binoche. I need to see more of her movies, I’ve only seen these 3

Chocolat (2000) Blue (Three Colors Trilogy) (1993)
The English Patient (1996)
Kate: the first year: Night time potty training and reading

June 2nd, 2005

I’ve gotten a few questions about how we handled the night time potty training. It’s going to get crazier.

Kate has always been a good sleeper, she goes to bed at around 6:00pm and doesn’t wake up until the next morning at 6 or 7am. Every evening at around 10:00pm, I would go into her room, and in the dark, I un-snap her onesy (sp?) take off her little poquito pants and carry her in my arms over to the toilet. I would hold her over the toilet and start the whistling. It’ll take me about 10-15 minutes, that kid would stay alseep and go pee or poo. Sometimes she arches her back and doesn’t go.. I just come back in an hour and she usually goes. I would do this every 3 hours or so and in the morning, she is completly dry.

She has never had an accident at night, right now she is 4 years old. I’m not saying this was easy, it’s was pretty crazy I have to admit. I trained myself not to sleep more than 3-4 hours. There were nights where I wished I didn’t have to get up.. or Angie would get up.. But she says she doesn’ know how to hold Kate over the toilet . Kate has had accidents when she has constipation, when she is very sick or when she was very tired and we put her down without peeing her first. I want to tell everyone the truth.. nothing is 100% rosy..

For those parents, constipation is the going to be your worst nightmare. You can’t force her to go, once she is afraid to go, she’ll hold it which will make things worst.. Best way is to just comfort her, bride her and make sure understand that it’s best if she doesn’t wait too long. Lots of vegetables, fiber cereal.

Continuing on the subject of raising Kate:

Every parent I’m sure has felt the pressure of having a normal child. There are milestones listed in books and doctors always measure your child’s developmental milestones. Kate was very slow physically in the beginning, she didn’t walk until she was 1 1/2 years old. People always feel to urge to ask the same questions of your child. They always ask things that the child can’t do yet. Can she walk yet, can she talk yet? can she jump yet? why is she so shy?

Well, it turned out that because Kate couldn’t walk yet, we read to Kate constantly. She has an incredible attention span. Angie would read to her for 4 hours a day. I would read about 1-1 1/2 hours. Kate grew up loving books and stories. If you wanted to be her friend, just pick up any book, newspaper, cartoon, comics, receipe and offer to read to her.

Another example of what kids are able to learn.

One day, I bought a blow up globe and wanted to show her where Taiwan was on the globe. Kate looked at the little dot and I pointed it to her. Then she asked me what the other dots were.. hmmm… weird.. I started tell her and she was interested. Angie started this routine every morning where she should point to each country and read about the country from an Atlas. All the food, all the people and history of the country.. Guess what.. Kate was able to point and say 50+ countries when she was 1 1/2 years old. It’s a visual and memorization skill.. it’s amazing. The kids knew and was able say all the countries in S. America, Africa, Europe, N. America. I always like to say that Kate’s brain was opened up to learning and her brain is receptive to information. Kids can soak up as much information as you can pump thru their brains. There is a Chinese concept from the Kung Fu movies, where if you open up 2 specific pressure points, your Qi (your internal energy) can be tenfold. This what I mean about childrens brain.

Always expect more of your child. Their brains can learn a lot more than our brains. The brain is a muscle, it needs to be exercised. Also never test them, testing them is like trying to find out what they don’t know
Kate: the first year: Elimination/potty training

June 1st, 2005

Kate is 4 years old now, I’m ready to finally share with the world about how Angie and I decided to raise her. Our choices and methods are extreme and it caused us a lot of isolation with other parents, but it was all worth it.

When Kate was 3 month old, Angie and I felt that something was not right about keeping a baby in diapers where she sits in pee and poo even for just a few minutes. Maybe it’s because we were Chinese or maybe it’s because we like to question the accepted norm in this society.

So, Angie did what she did best, she researched and found this book called Infrant Potty Training by Laurie Boucke Angie also found a large online community of non-asian mothers who were doing the same thing.

For an overview: http://www.timl.com/ipt/
“Babies are smarter than we think! The big mistake that people make is to presume that a newborn baby is unaware of going to the toilet. We assume an infant is incapable of toilet learning since infants are small and uncoordinated and also because they cannot walk or talk. An infant is helpless in so many ways that it is hard for Westerners to imagine such a tiny being could be aware of peeing and pooping. It is even harder for us to believe that an infant has some control over elimination. With these preconceived and narrow views, we encourage and teach our babies to be unconcerned about wetting and soiling diapers. In short, we teach our infants to use diapers as a toilet.”

First steps: Angie put Kate without diapers on top of a large waterproof sheet and observed Kate’s peeing cycles and noticed Kate’s signals right before she went to pee. Kate would do little grunts for pee, a little bit longer grunt for poo. The first signs of communication!

Then the hard work began, every time Kate grunted, we would hold her over a sink or toilet and whistle and wait for the pee / poo to come. There were a lot of misses but also a lot of successes. It was very very difficult especially when we were outside driving, restaurants, I would have to leave or get off to hold her over a little potable toilet or just a bag with newspapers and whistle and pee her.

The payoff: at 6 months, Kate was completely off diapers and she hasn’t had a soiled diaper and she looks so cute in her Poquito Pants

Cute Poquito Pants

She was essentially potty trained. Her communication with us is also very heightened both in the elimination part as well as all other aspects such as eating, comfort.

This may seem very extreme to most people but think about this: We expect dogs and cats to be potty trained very early. Most Asian countries have babies potty trained when they are 1 years old because they can’t afford diapers. Also why leave a baby sitting in their own pee and poo? Why try to potty train your child at 2 or 3 years old when it’s going to be so much harder and there are so much more issues to deal with? The work needs to be done, it’s your choice whether you want to do it early on or later.

Next blog: “Kate: the first year: night time potty training”
Kate: having fun traveling

May 31st, 2005

It was not an easy trip for her. Jet lag, grumpy parents, long walks during metro transfer, parents who want to walk thru Amsterdam without a stroller.. but I think she had a blast eating her way thru both Paris and Amsterdam.
Last night in Paris

May 31st, 2005

Hobbled on a bad foot over to the Eifel Tower, had a crepe, stood in the
rain and soaked up Paris. Then walked along the Seine to Place de Concord,
and watched Star Wars. hee, wonderful end to the vacation

Hobble Log: 3 miles
Travel: Why I belong in Amsterdam

May 28th, 2005
My new favorite city to live is now Amsterdam
1. Everyone rides their bicycles here, the ratio is close to 1-to-1
2. I can almost run as fast as bikes so I can be in the bike lanes most of the time running. I scared this dad riding his daughter today when I chased him
3. The city is small enough that I can run anywhere
4. The people here are super fit looking
5. Everyone speaks English
6. The people are super friendly
7. Food is very diverse and ethnic
8. Great classical music and opera
9. Lots of water everywhere, better than Venice (no snobbishness)
10. Chocolates and ice cream
11. Best espresso drinks outside of Italy
12. Legalized drugs
13. A lot of night life, music
14. Very high tech and modern public transportation system
15. Pleasant sounding language
Travel: Amsterdam city for the young at heart

May 27th, 2005

Guys and gals, for a sinful week of fun and food, you must come to Amsterdam.
This city is lively, everyone speaks English, it’s a very relaxed and opened environment (open prostitution, open gay marriages, legalized drugs).

When we got to Amsterdam from Paris, it was only an hour’s flight. We got some fresh juice, shots of espresso at the very modern and ultra-design savvy fruit stand and Kate had a blast watching ultra-designed 30 secs ads at the Airport.

We followed the StyleGuide to Amsterdam book and found a very cool clown shop named the Juggle Storewhere I bought 4 swede juggling balls and kate found her favorite bubble solution and large wand. We then jumped 4 houses over to Puccini Bomboni for the best chocolate I’ve ever had. Everything pales in comparison to the delicate flavors of these exquisite nuggets. Then we walked over and bumped into the a very hip ice cream parlor from Austria and found very ultra-design candy containers and chic chocolates there were average, but who cares, they looked cool.

A few more steps away, a cafe serving the tastiest bitterlemon drinks and ice tea with tonic water. I had a focaccia bread sandwich, kate had a small little cheese, advocado sandwich. That kid of mine had 3 servings of ice cream, play with bubbles in front of the hotel in 85 degree weather. What a life.

After 9:00pm we took the tram to the red light district and saw the spectical of the women prostitutes in the little door ways. I have to say, after seeing them I had these feelings

1) They are not as pretty as I thought they would be
2) If you want to go in, there is a small bed right behind the girl, the room is probably 4 feet by 8 feet. The woman just pulls the curtains, you do your thing for 15 mins and she tells you to leave
3) I’m actually very intimidated by the women
4) very funny when they are eating popsicles and laughing, they seem to be enjoying their work.. whatever that means
5) funny paraphrase from a guide book, “if you ever get violent with these girls, they have a panic button and you better hope the police gets there soon. Or else you will meet the acquaintance of the biggest man you’ve ever met in your life”
6) except that it’s legalized, and the women are safer, it’s really no different than streetwalkers (which is actually illegal in Amsterdam)

After the redlight district, went to Cafe de Jaren had a late dinner and beer and taxi back.. Awesome city to live when you are young at heart or just plain young and want to smoke weed and relax.
Travel: “Only in Amsterdam”

May 26th, 2005
I’m getting ready to leave for Amsterdam and the Let’s go Amsterdam guide book has a section named Only in Amsterdam
1. Commercial Sex
  “Window prostituion, which grew out of the practice of prostitutes showing off their goods from the front windows of private houses, was officially legalized in 1911 and in 2000, the law outlawing brothels was taken off the books, making informal streetwalking the only prohibited form of prostituion”
2. Coffee Shops
  “Places calling themselves coffeeshops sell pot or hash or will let you buy a drink and smoke your own stuff” “
3. Smart Shops
  “Smart shops are also legal and peddle a variety of herbal enhancers as well as hallucinogens that walk the fine line between soft and hard drugs”
Now a few thoughts
1. Prostitution:
  Because it’s legalized, prostitutes have to pay taxes, but there is still stigma, health insurance is still a problem and borrowing money is also a problem when the bank finds out what they do for a living. If women choose to sell their body for money, what’s wrong with it? If they are not being exploited by pimps, they set their own prices and earn a living like anyone else.
  Could this model work here in the US? Legalize prostituton: control the spread of STD, crimes associated with pimping, drug use, give women who want this profession a way to make money. I’m sure I’m being naive, but if we accept the fact that you can’t stop it, why not contain it?
2. Marijuana: I don’t get it, why smoke something that is just bad for you.. I really don’t get the big deal. It’s almost like saying, we have free cigarrettes for a year, come and smoke it
3. Hallucinogens: I don’t get this either, big deal if it’s legalized, why put drugs into your body
3 Comments

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Yahoo! User Yahoo! User
commented
05/29/2005 09:09 am
It would actually be a good idea to legalize everything – from prostitution to ciggarettes, to alcohol to heroin. That way all the ‘induh’viduals in this planet would have a way out, and the rest of mankind would be able to continue with evolution…
Does this make sense? Or am I just feeling too sleepy?
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commented
05/26/2005 02:10 pm
I think it should all be legal and controlled. Hey, if the two worst drugs, cigarettes and alcohol, are legal, why not make the rest legal? I would give you a better argument with more supporting evidence but I’m too lazy.
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05/26/2005 01:49 pm
“Could this model work here in the US? Legalize prostituton: control the spread of STD, crimes associated with pimping, drug use, give women who want this profession a way to make money.”

We have this just a few short hours to the east. Nevada.
Paris Running: St. Martin Canals

May 26th, 2005

I’m so tired today. It’s glorious weather in Paris at 82 degrees. This is my last full day Paris, I’ll be heading to Amsterdam tomorrow. So I decided to squeeze in a run to see the lower part of the canals (St. Martin, see Y! Image)

I ran 3.6 km then the heat really got to me and I stopped. I’m actually not enjoying running in this heat. Oh well rest up for another morning or night run instead.

Never seen a canal lock before. Very cool, raise the water level, boat goes ‘up’ a river, close the gate and let the water go.
How to discipline a 4 year old

May 25th, 2005

We are traveling in Paris with kate, my 4 year old daughter, I need some advice.

1) She likes to ask ‘why’ endlessly I can’t get a moment of peace. And she would either ask the same ‘why’ question to something I’ve already answer or she would follow an answer with another ‘why’
2) She always craves attention. When the adults are talking she always interrupts
3) When she is walking on the street and she is walking too close, if we yank her in, she yanks back
and creates a dangerous situation
4) She asks a question and doesn’t listen for the answer
5) When I ask her to do something, she ignores the question until I threaten to take away a toy or
when I actually take away something.

I find myself being one of those dads that I don’t want to be.. Constantly telling her no or constantly
threatening or taking away toys.

Help. I think I’m going crazy.. Other people look at her and think she is an angel. I think she is an angel when I’m putting her down for bedtime :-)

11 Comments

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commented
05/27/2005 02:02 pm
I found this book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0836228111
(“Making the Terrible Twos Terrific” by John Rosemond) to be absoutely *fantastic*. Perhaps he also has
a book covering your area?

From reading the one book, I’d guess he’d suggest setting hard and fast limits (e.g. about trying to get attention) and sticking to your guns on them. At first, it’s quite difficult because until now, she knows that if she pushes enough you’ll cave in. She has to learn that when you set limits, you mean them. She’ll learn this only by testing them over and over. The key, as he says, is to be consistant so that they won’t keep testing *the same* limit over and over.

And, of course, as Craig points out, showing unconditional love (even when not giving them what they want) is important. Sometimes you have to remind yourself that they’re not doing this with the specific intent to drive you crazy. But as the old saying goes, insanity is hereditary…. you get it from your kids!

Some have responded to your post along the lines of “you should be embracing this”. Of course, you can embrace it at the same time as teaching/encouraging her age-appropriate self-restraint and respect for others’ attention. That’s the key.

In any case, you can rest self-assured that her urges are 100% normal. It’s work to teach/train her proper behavior — work that many parents don’t do (and hence raise brats). But if you can potty train her at 3 months, you can do this. But a Rosemond book can help….
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commented
05/27/2005 12:17 pm
4 year old needs a sibling not another toy.. So start thinking about it!
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commented
05/26/2005 11:32 pm
You guys have lots of good advice!
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commented
05/26/2005 02:36 pm
Tony, my only thoughts are patience. And unconditional love. This is both easier and harder than the points system. By the time Kate is a well-traveled teenager, you may be wishing she were asking you “why?” more often…
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commented
05/26/2005 05:10 am
So she just told you what she is going for. She wants zero points? She gets 25 points per day.

If she wants anything answered, this will take time and therefore cost her a point. When she gets to zero, nothing is answered anymore for that day.

Will make her more clever in asking, seperating questions she already got answered. For her to get used to it, she could start of at 50 points the first two days. Positiv things you want from here increase her points.

If she is what I would suspect from her answer, she will soon find a sneaky way to cheat the system. Do you know about the obfuscated c contest? I think it has a ‘best bending of the rule not allowed next contest’.

Make sure your system is clever enought to increase her awareness and her curiousity. :)

(Oh and if she tears apart the puzzles and solving them by putting them back together, she is like me. I can give you a deeper inside on what is working and what not then ;)))
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commented
05/26/2005 03:21 am
Thanks for the suggestion with the points. That’s rings true and I like the positive message. I tried it this morning with Kate, she says she wants zero points !! hee, I’ll figure out something she really wants .. Funny girl
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commented
05/25/2005 10:53 pm
Duhh!
I used to be worse as a kid! I was a real pain!
So whenever I was being an especially big pain, my parents would give me a jigsaw, or a rubix cube, or a puzzle or whatever … And I used to sit and break my head on them till I cracked it.(My head usually, not the problem :() During which my parents got a lot of peace and quiet.

Of course this may not work on other kids. The only reason it worked on me, was cause I was Dyslexic/ Autistic and also suffer from OCD and ADD.
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05/25/2005 08:12 pm
Disclaimer: I’m not a dad yet. To the first question, all I can say is embrace it! My Aunt told me that ‘why’ was the only word I said from age 3-4. I give her all the credit for my booksmarts and curiosity today, because she took time to answer, or to encourage me to figure things out on my own. I would consume books like they were going out of style. Coffee table photography, atlases(?), encyclopedias, instruction manuals, whatever. When the patience runs low, break out the books or art supplies. Also, if your child takes apart all of her toys to see how they work, celebrate; young hacker in the making.
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05/25/2005 05:42 pm
ha. my parents used that “points” thing with me and my brother. he was good. he got lots of points. i had trouble accumulating them. so when we’d goto toys’r’us for him to claim his 4-6 gifts and i had none, i’d usually convince him his toy wouldn’t be as much fun if i didn’t have one too – cause then we couldn’t play together.

so he learned both how to behave and how to share.

i suppose with only one kid, the sharing aspect might be lost with this approach, but the behaving has a good chance.
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05/25/2005 05:19 pm
Michelle and I have started something new our 4-year son and 6-year daughter. We let them earn points! If the kids are nice to each other, if they eat their dinner, if they clean their rooms, etc — they accumulate points that can be traded in for watching movies, playing video games, etc.

Put a point price on something that you know she wants and let her earn it by behaving. I like this approach because it’s positive (versus taking away toys, sending them to their room, spanking their bottoms) and once a child (or an adult) has to work hard to earn things — they start to respect the things they have.
Paris Running: Pain au Chocolat, Canals, Sacre Couer

May 25th, 2005

Running and eating my way through Paris.

This morning I started running at 5:30am cause I knew I wanted a long run. Picked up the best pain au chocolat in Paris, saw the best view of Paris at Sacre Coeur, then the best running route along the canals. The St. Martin canal is a must see for anyone visiting Paris (think Ameli and stone skipping) My favorite running routes are either along the Seine or along the St Martin canals.

2.5 km From 166 Suffren to Invalides
4.0 km Then over to pick up best pain au chocolat in paris in Rue Lepic area
1.2 km Up to top of Sacre Coeur
4.0 km Belly full now, pick up 2 peaches at the early market, run to the canals
2.5 km Run along the canal to Parc de la Villette
6.5 km Run back to Sacre Coeur to pick up Kate.

While waiting for Kate, finish up 600 push ups add to yesteday’s 400 push ups while watching Kate on the slides to wrap up 1,000 push ups in 24 hours

Log: 20.7 km / 1.6 = 12.9 miles

Best pain au chocolat in Paris
Why do I run and do the crazy things I do?

May 19th, 2005
Recently some people have been asking me why the hell did I start running and dress in running shorts all the time? Why did I do the crazy push-ups?

I don’t know why I felt ashamed to admit it before. This is no shame, nothing wrong with what I have.

I’ve been diagnosed with depression in Febuary. Apparently I’ve been depressed ever since I was in middleschool. I’ve seldom been happy, even though there isn’t much going wrong with my life. Moving to America when I was 10 probably didn’t help things. Even though I’ve flourished in this country, it’s still not my home country, I’m still sort of an outsider.

In early March, I read the book Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner and something about the author’s love of running, that it’s a sport you do for yourself, you compete with only yourself and your race time, pushing your body to your limits, really jolted something in me.

I started running one early Saturday morning from downtown to Fort Point and after I got to the end, I was not tired at all, it’s all about pacing myself and not run too fast. Later on I found out it was close to 6 miles. And I felt extremely happy. My body was filled with happy chemicals!! Wow, running == happy chemicals.

Scienticfically I think they are called endorphins. I think my brain lacks enough serotonin like normal happy people.

I run in order to squash the depression, I don’t want drugs to supress the depression
I run because I want to see how far I can push my body
I run because when I’m 60 years old, I want to be healthier than when I was 40. (thanks to sam)
I run because I want a strong heart
I run because it makes me happy
I run because I don’t have to drive my car
I run because I’m 3 times faster than all the people walking
I run because San Francisco is 7 miles x 7 miles and I can run to anywhere in the city.
I run because I can run and I don’t get tired
I run because I love to travel and I want to run thru every city I visit

There, I’m done. Depression sucks and I will squash it and run thru it and run over it.

Update:

Just read at 11:12pm: “The ‘runners high’ is said to be experienced by 60-70% of well conditioned runners”
“As you exercise more, you require a higher intensity of exercise in order to produce the same endorphin release” Hmm, that means in order to feel happy, I’ll need to run more and more.

Tag.TonyTam.Running

3 Comments

Latest commentsOldest comments
- Yahoo! User
  
  commented
  
  05/23/2005 02:18 am
  
  I’ve started running too!
  It feels really great. However with my fat butt, I cant manage more than 4 kilometres at a stretch! :(
  BTW how do you get those counter thingies?
- Yahoo! User
  
  commented
  
  05/20/2005 11:36 am
  
  Thanks for the explanation.
- Yahoo! User
  
  commented
  
  05/19/2005 09:31 pm
  
  My comment has several unrelated segments:
  1. It’s brave to admit you’re depressed. I hope you’re able to manage/cure it!
  2. So that’s why people run? I always wondered what people got out of it besides burst aveoli
  3. So you’re one of the people who actually ran the Bay to Breakers! Congrats to you, unlike those beer-drinking cross-dressing freaks I know who walked it. ;)
Run: From Yahoo To (evil) Fry’s

May 18th, 2005

Fry’s is evil, they tempt you with candy when you check out. But sometimes you need to go inside, there’s no way around it.

I needed to buy a SD PCMCIA card reader today before I leave for vacation on Saturday.
So I decided to run over to Fry’s. I wasn’t sure I could make it back so I got cash for
a cab :-)

I really didn’t want to run and was getting tired after the first mile. I was wishing I had a car :-)
After the 2nd mile, my heart settled down and things went a lot better.

Here are the flickr photos from my run to Fry’s. Sunnyvale is not a pretty city, I long for
anything but Sunnyvale.

Running Route
Yahoo! to Mathilda & Maude 1.9 mi
Mathilda & Maude to Maude & Fair Oaks .8 mi
Maude & Fair Oaks to Arques .3 mi
Arques to Fry’s 0.9 mi

Log: 3.9 miles then run back the same way for 7.8 miles
The name of the widest pasta: pappardelle

May 18th, 2005

I’ve always liked wide, flat pasta. I haven’t cooked in 3 years, and pasta with fresh herbs is my favorite. Today I had a craving for it but I didn’t know where to go for fresh pasta. So, when I passed by 4th and Harrison, I dropped by Whole Foods (1/2 block from my loft) and picked up a pack of Egg Pasta Sheets.

Ah, now how wide to cut these suckers? I cut them into 1″ wide strands. I think that is wide enough for my tastes. I think this wide cut is called Pappardelle

It was a wonderful meal at home, cooked by me, for myself. I’ve been eating out alot lately (the last 4 years)

* Mâche with mango salsa vinaigrette topped with chopped honey roasted walnuts. (if you never had Mâche, try it, you’ll love it)
* 3 glasses of S. Pellegrino
* A huge plateful of pappardelle (cut from fresh sheet pasta) with fresh basil, McEvoy olive oil, fresh tomatoes, finely diced fresh garlic

OK, now what could be better than this?
Finished first ever Bay To Breakers (0:58:54, place #752!!)

May 15th, 2005

Update: Official finish time is 0:58:54, place #752!! (I’m in the Fun Runners division). Some photo proofs they took while I was running

Out of 31,246 people, 751 came in faster than I did in the entire race. I’m very proud that after only 3 months of semi-intense running and having never done any running before, I did so well in my first race. Next race is the SF 1/2 Marathon on July 31st. I welcome Saturday long run partners

If you want to see the entire list go here and put ‘%’ in the first name hit search, then click on the Time column to sort by time. It’s weird how there are people with the same Place finsh and they don’t tell you the division. (Fun Runners, Seeded Division [$$$], Pledge Runners, Centipeds, Team Placement, Costume Contest)

Right after the race:

Just finished the Bay to Breakers in under 59mins flat. I had my Treo 650 with me, I’m glad I took pictures. I think I saw at least 10 nude people, but the sight was not pretty… Why can’t the good looking men and women be nude. Tag the naked people on my flickr photos. Use the word naked. I counted 8 photos.

Here is the running route

Mile 1, followed this group of girls in Cat suits, got a boost of energy base off of cheers from the crowd

Mile 2, being passed by everyone, I had a speedometer, I kept my pace at 8’30” / mile

Mile 3, the Hayes street hill, I passed people left and right, I hit the hill at 8’45” / mile

Mile 4, my pace slowed to 8’50” / mile, people passing me quite a bit. Threw away the huge bottle of water (stupid idea) Was getting stomach pains from too much water

Mile 5, pistachio nut and walnuts gave me a huge boost. Ran at 7’05” / mile. Passing a lot of the same people who passed me

Mile 6, still going strong here at 7’30 / mile, getting passed by a bunch of people I saw earlier

Mile 7, fastest time yet at 6’0″ / mile, passing everyone who passed me, finished strong!!!

In my mind I was competing with these dudes and gals, I know that’s not good, but hey it was a race right?

News Coverage:

Everyone’s a winner in city’s freaky race (SF Chronicle)

Moroccan outruns deep women’s field (SF Chronicle, on the women racers, 5 mentions of the Hayes street hill)

7 Comments

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Yahoo! User Yahoo! User
commented
05/17/2005 10:21 pm
There are lots of Yahoo’s who would’ve finished faster and didn’t enter. Lawrence, Brad Clawsie.. lots of other really dedicated runners.
Run Yahoo!’s Run!!!!
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05/17/2005 07:56 pm
Fastest Yahoo!? Good question. I don’t know the answer, but I know that Lawrence Chin didn’t enter, so you still have a chance. That dude ran 3:09 for the Boston Marathon. that is like 7min/mile. That guy is a freaking stud.

Did anyone else see the “Google is hiring” chick or the Google Centipede?
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05/16/2005 09:43 pm
congrats. nice job. now please have those naked shots removed from all flickr serrvers.
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05/16/2005 08:27 am
no idea whether I’m the fastest Yahoo. I’m just happy that I ran strong at the end. Given I was so nervous before the race and I drank too much water during the race, I still was able to finish ahead of the pack, I’m ecstatic.
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05/16/2005 08:17 am
So, were you the fastest Yahoo in the race?
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05/15/2005 09:17 pm
You’re crazy. I don’t think I’ve ever run a 6 minute mile.

I’ve never been so thankful that the camera in the Treo 650 sucks.
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05/15/2005 04:36 pm
Nice run. You kicked my ass. 84 min… ouch!
Food fit for a king

May 14th, 2005

Just came back from the SF Ferry Building Farmer’s Market. Now this is what you call a meal for a king. Strawberries, mint leaves, cherries, apricot, asparagus, honey yogurt, pistachio nut, honey glazed walnuts, apple turnover, costata, cherry krisp (from Fog Hollow Farms)

For breakfast I had some very yummie honey yorgurt from Saint Benoît Yogurt If you are into yorgurt, you have to try these.

For lunch, I had neiman ranch beef beef short ribs over rice with a glass of Vietnamese ice coffe from Slanted Door.
Kate: a happy child

May 10th, 2005

When someone asks me how Kate (my 4 year old) is doing, the first word that always come out of my mouth is ‘she is very happy’. It’s pretty amazing that this kid is always happy. Very little gets her down. When she and I get into our disagreements, it takes me half a day to get back into a happy mood, it takes her 10 minutes and she is back running and happy.
Menlo Park: a different world

May 10th, 2005

Tonight I took the train to Menlo Park to pick up a used jogger stroller for Kate. First time in the city, didn’t know what to expect. I was surprised at how huge the houses were!! They were like mansions, all with gates and walls. This is unreal. I was running thru the city and scared some housewife as I passed her, note to self: announce myself when I pass people.

Anyways I picked up the stroller for $50, not bad. Ran back to the station and missed the train by 30 seconds. Then they wouldn’t let me bring the stroller on one of the trains because it was full of bikes, had to wait another 15 mins for the next train.. where I started doing 300 push-ups (i’m crazy)

1st Log: 3 miles, twice around hill in Yahoo
2nd Log: 2.2 miles w stroller and backpack
It’s official, I’m crazy: 1,500 push ups in 12 hours

May 10th, 2005

Ok, you knew it would happen one day. I’ve lost my mind. Ever since I started this fitness craze and started doing 500 push ups, 1,000 push ups, you knew the day would come when I would try 1,500.

Well today was it. I just finished 1,500 push ups tonight! When I’ve tried for it on other days, the timing and rhythm just wasn’t right. Today everything went perfectly.

The hardest part was making time to do it and keeping count of how many I did. At work I knocked down 2 set of 150, making it 300. Luckily I was stuck waiting for Caltrain today and was able to knock down 300. I had lots of TV shows recorded so when I got home, I watched TV and finish the remaining 900. (The L Word, Desperate Housewives, CSI NY)
Geeks talking about money

May 9th, 2005
Our lunchtime conversation often revolves around money because money is important part of life and one of the reasons why we work so hard. It’s one of the factors that society uses to judge men and how successful they are.

In today’s stocks market and realestate market in the bay area, where would you invest your money?

Yahoo! is investing it it’s own stock by buying back $3 billion worth of stock in the next 5 years.

I’m heavily invested in Yahoo! via options as well as the overall US stock market via my 401K. I’m also
invested in the Bay Area realestate market. I believe this stock market has legs for another 2-5 years. The realestate market in the bay area has a few years to go
1. there are lots of rich people here who would prop up the bay area realestate market
2. there are people who didn’t buy when they should have and have the money to get into the market when it sinks 20%
3. The interest rate is still very very low
4. the economy should get better
5. there are very few places in the world that has better weather than the Bay Area
6. california survivored the 2000 crash and we are stronger than before without the stupid Dot Coms
So, the question for you is that if you have equity in your currect house, would you take a loan out and buy a 2nd property as an investment or would you just sit on the equity because you think the housing market would collapse? If you sit on the equity, the question is.. why? Let’s say your house was bought for $400,000 and your house is worth $800,000 now, that $400,000 equity is sitting there doing absolutely nothing.. isn’t it a waste?

With the current interest rate of around 6.5%, after tax deductions the real rate is around 4%. Minus inflation (2-3 %), money seem very very cheap. You don’t want to gamble, but with some bond investment plus some stocks, it shouldn’t be hard to get more than 4% for your money.

If you don’t own a house, where are you putting all your cash? Stocks? Money Market?

Tag.Money.Investing
I hope Firefox != IE in 3 years

May 9th, 2005

Given the large number of extensions available for firefox I’m surprised it has not been hacked more often.
If you read the following story and replace Firefix with IE and replace Foundation with Microsoft, it’s kinda funny.

Y! News Story: Crtical Flaw Found in Firefox
There isn’t anymore loyalty towards browsers any more. I’ll use whatever browser that gets the job done. Firefox, Safari, IE, who really cares. I’m using Firefox on OS X but if there are security flaws that affects me, I’ll switch to Safari in a heartbeat.

I’m more concerned with where I store my critical data like photos, notes, passwords, blogs.
run: Hayes Ashbury

May 7th, 2005

I had no plans for this Saturday’s run so I just let it flow. Here was the route and it turned out to be really enjoyable.

Folsom & 4th to Market & Larkin Log: 1.5 mile
Run thru the Civic Center Plaza under the row of trees. Log .4 mile
along Fell to Ashbury Log: 1.8 miles make a right and there is the Hayes Ashbury, run down Hayes to Van Ness Log 1.9 miles
I didn’t even realize that the ‘postcard row’ of 6 the victorians were right on Steiner and Hayes Run full speed down Market & 8th and stop at 5th & Market Starbucks Log: .7 miles
Order a triple shot, grande, blended latte and walk home

Log for Saturday 2005.05.07: 6.3 miles, 2 hills of san francisco

Tag.Running
Prev: Freedom of running
Nightmare on Caltrain Street

May 5th, 2005

It’s one of those nights that I want to forget.

I took the 7pm Caltrains to SF last night. The machine validator for the 10-ride ticket at Mountain View station was broken so I thought I’ll just get it validated on the train. At the San Carlos station, the people checking the tickets were in a foul mood or something.. they saw that I didn’t let them know about the ticket earlier and wanted me to choose between $250 ticket or get out at San Carlos.

Well, I got off at San Carlos, 1 hour to the next train. I ran around town and found a nice looking pizza place San Remos, and ordered a fried calamari, fizzy water, small pizza with garlic+clams+mushroom

I sat outside (it was raining) with a heat lamp, called up my sister and we chatted about life. The train came at 8:51pm and I took it to SF. Hey, life gives you lemons and you eat pizza :-) It was an awesome pizza, one of the best I’ve had.

That’s not the end of it.. as you might know, I’m always in running gear. So after the train, I started running back to my house. I was running up to this bum and he turned around and yelled “dont you ever, ever run up to me again! mother f*cker” This guy was pretty scary and he looked like he was going to slug me. I had to back away unless I wanted to fight, but I’ll probably loose and get my head pounded in. It was a easy decision, say I’m sorry and leave. Ok, the city is pretty scary at night. Note to self, don’t run up to people at night.

Note to self, maybe I shouldn’t run at night in the city

Log: 1.7 miles
Tag.Running
Tag.Caltrain
Freedom Of Running

May 2nd, 2005

Google Map: My parents’ house to Dublin Bart I’ve been busy with the Y! News launch last week, have not updated my run log.

Running really gives me a lot of freedom to go anywhere I want without having to drive or carry around a bike and helmet.

I have very traditional chinese parents who still treat me as if I’m 10 years old, I’m 35 years old now. On Friday, I took the Bart to my parents in Dublin and I told my mom that on Saturday I’ll run to the bart since I wanted to take off about 5:30am. So that’s what I did, I ran from my parents house to Dublin bart. I checked my phone 20 mins later and had 9 messages. My parents were driving all over the running route looking for me to drive me to Bart. What’s the worst that can happen? I end up just walking to bart? sigh. I love my parents, our relationship has never been better, but sometimes I want to scream..
Log: 2.9 miles w/12 lb backpack

Thursday ran from caltrains to the Ferry building, then back home. Log: 2.6 miles w/12 lb backpack
Sunday morning, took Kate at 7:30 to pick up fresh bread from Acme bread at 8:00 and ran back. Log 2.4 miles pushing/36 lb stroller.

Kate (4 years old) has a very good memory. She is holding me to my promise about running with her over the golden gate bridge. So on Sunday, I drove her to Point Fort and I put her in her stroller with her Martha Stewart Kids magazine, it was daughter and father time! I had a great time.
Log: 2.6 miles

Monday morning at 5:30 I set a goal to run 8 miles but ended up only running 5.2 miles on this route to Divisadero My Monday legs just were not up for it. Log 5.2 miles

Tag.Running
A Good Engineer == A Lazy Engineer

April 28th, 2005
Software engineers are usually called upon to solve problems that involve large numbers.
1. large number of machines
2. large number of text to search
3. large number of page views
4. large number of users
In order to be an efficient software engineer, you must always keep in mind to be lazy. Ask yourself, what is the easiest way to design the system so that there will be minimal changes later on, how to design the system so that when the large number grows larger you and your team don’t have to grow as well. Always think what would happen when the large number is multiply by 10, multiply by 100, 1,000! If you can answer these question in your design process, then you know you’ve are on the right track.

Always think how I can be more lazy, how do I design the system so that others can help me scale the system 10x, 100x, 1000x.
Race: Cable Car Chase 2005

April 28th, 2005
Finished the ANA Cable Car Chase this Sunday morning.

Highlights:
- We didn’t get to really chase the cable cars, just chase a looked alike on rubber wheels.
- The biggest 10-12 block hill I’ve ever experienced on California from Drumm to Larkin, almost everyone near my pace level were walking the hills, it was a sad sight.
- I attacked the big hill all the way, it felt good to not admit defeat.
- Unreal finish time winner was this guy finishing at 5.04 min/mile. He won 2 air tickets to Japan
Official Results 5.67 miles
Pace: 7:26 min/mile
Place: 101 out of 543
Age Placement: 34 out of 109

Things I did wrong
- Didn’t get to bed until 3:00am the night before, a friend made me stay up real late
- Didn’t prepare drinks and food before the race
- Didn’t get my knee check out before going for this run, it really hurt at mile 5
Things I did right
- Considering the killer hill on California, my pace is faster than usual, my speed training on the treadmill helped here I had a power gel with me, helped a lot.
- I left my heart monitor in the car and just ran the fastest pace I could, forgetting the heart monitoring
See Photos at https://www.flickr.com/photos/tonytam/albums/72157664595163017
A Retrospective On 6 Years Of Yahoo! News

April 27th, 2005
I joined Yahoo! in May of 1999. I had my pick of either Y! News or Y! Sweepstakes. Lucky for me, I picked Y! News

Very soon, we are about to launch biggest redesign of Yahoo! News ever and I wanted to look back at what I remember of the history.

As I understood it here is the technical timeline of Y! News
- Someone named Lo?o (ask me for his name) was one of the first 5 engineers in Yahoo! and he was not a good programmer (from what I hear) but works hard and created the first version of Y! News using files, directories and lots of find and grep commands
  Eng. Diagram: Wire -> files -> find+grep+scp -> static html files
- Brad C. join Y! shortly and filo gave him a small desk and told him to learn perl. Brad C. was very eager and learned well. He created version #2 of Y! News using key/value db files keyed off of timestamp and pushed out static html files to dailynews.yahoo.com every 2-3 minutes or so. Back then the data came from AP, Reuteres and email providers. AP and Reuters came in from satellite feeds into modem banks which connected machines via 9600 baud serial cables. Brad C. was good,
  and he created system from scratch and things worked well.
- Then things got complicated around 1999 or so, another producer Brad R. came on board and he was one bad ass producer. He actually wanted videos and photos to be attached to news stories. Brad C. was very brave and built a pretty good system that parses html and inserts html comments and inserts photos after a story is published
- In 1999 I joined Brad and I learned the system quickly and we hacked away at his db file system happily, it was working. I moved our news servers to our very own p*.news.sc5 machines. There was another engineer Paul B. and a Henry and they worked on the email system and some edit tools. But they found better things and moved on. Then Ron P. joined and he was a big pain in the ass :-) he actually cared about quality of HTML and stopped us from launching code because it didn’t work! WTF :-) Ron would go on to be the best technical producer on this product.
- Year 2001, I was getting sick of the current system and heard about this thing call Jake and wanted to use it for photo slideshows, I got the thing installed and running on MYSQL + 2 feed machines and moved all our photos into this system and voila we had photo slideshows, Ron and I would create whatever slideshows we wanted and had fun doing it. Then…… Sept 11, 2001. At this point we had about 16 machines and filo called and john r and I beg and borrowed machines from finance and other retired machines and we had the sept 11 slideshows up and running and had akamai helped us offload the limitless demand. We survived that day and proved that the slideshow was invaluable for Yahoo! News
- Year 2001, Brad C. decided to leave for Y! Shopping. I installed Jake and moved all of our News into Jake and for the first time we can actually combine news from different sources into one page.. We had 16 machines. Jake was good for News, for the first time I didn’t have to touch HTML code anymore, it was all up to the producers
- Lots of things were launched. Most Popular, User Ratings, Videos, Elections, AP Premium content, Message Board, Conversations, Email To Friend, lots and lots of edit filtering tools to give Yahoo! a human touch while still being very fast to publish. Things were very dynamic. Brad R. left us around this time and Ron and I were the primary worker bees. Year 2002 Raghu joined and he was young but able to take directions and learned very quickly. I was on pager 24×7 when problems happened, life was hard but very fun and rewarding. I had to be 30 minutes away from a computer 24×7.
- Year 2002, Jeff Bi. joined and he was the calm producer that brought a sense of calmness to the team.
- 2002, Jeff Bo joined and he was one bad ass as well. Coming from Y! Music (Launch). He was technical superior to me and was very diciplined. By this time we had about 30 web servers and he and I were doing operations and development and we had to make Y! News scalable and robust and able to handle nuclear disasters in the west or east coast (not both coasts) . Year 2003 we created a Y! News system that can completely switch over in < 15 minutes to any coast end-to-end.
- Year 2004 Marc S. joined and he was a bad ass operations guy. stablized our system and scaled us to 100 machines. Year 2004 Jay J. joined in operations and he was a bad ass and stablized our system even more. I finally get some sleep after 4 years
- End of 2004 and beginning 2005, Glenc, Umesh joined Y! News as engineers and were the workhorses that brought us the current v10 (10th anniversary of Y!) http://beta.news.yahoo.com/
- Beginning of year 2005, news operations got a few more people. Eric and Paul were the latest.
- I finally got off 24×7 pager and able to sleep without a pager. I could say that I didn’t contribute more than 50% to a news project, I am able to lean on my co workers, I am able to not work after hours, I am able to travel more than 30 minutes aways from a computer because someone else can handle problems for Y! News. I am able to take a vacation without being on call in a foreign country.
Thank you Glen, Umesh, Jeff, Jay, Marc for joining and you guys are bad bad asses.

I’m very very excited about the v10 of Y! News

http://beta.news.yahoo.com/
http://news.yahoo.com

People ask me why I come to work
1. It’s a once in a lifetime chance to be able to touch the lifes of 30 millions users each month
2. The $$
3. Working for a company that even my grandmom knows the name of.
4. When my 4 year old (Kate) grows up and Yahoo! is still around and I can tell her that I was there. I was there in the beginning.
Tag.Work.Yahoo.News
–> Prev. I’m working where???
Plans Don’t Always Work Out As Planned….

April 26th, 2005

(I was running with the silver Axio backpack)

I’m commuting from SF by cal trains nowadays whenever I don’t need to drive Kate. Yahoo has a shuttle that picks up from Mountain View and gets to the campus 24 minutes after the train arrives. That’s not a bad deal until one day they never showed up and I had to take the light rail to work.

Don’t piss off a want-to-be runner! I’m just going to run to work from now on.

This is the first day of the plan. I have a somewhat heavy backpack with the 6.9 lbs powerbook, hair gel, power cord, vitamin water, a magazine and the Chronicle. My backpack weights in around 12 lbs

I’m writing this down on Y! 360 so that I will actually do it at least once even if it kills me.
Today I will run from the Sunnyvale Station to Yahoo!. It’s only 3 miles.

Update at 8:28am: plans never work out like you want it to. The route was for cars, not for people running! Mathilda was like a freeway in certain areas, not safe for humans to walk. I ended up going around Sunnyvale Ave, then to N. Borregas Ave. Then turn to Mathilda and run to Yahoo! Sunnyvale

Worst route ever, I felt like the Sunnyvale city is not meant for humans to walk or run. Lots of dead ends, hard to cross the 101 freeway. Lucky I had my GPS with me. But since the GPS didn’t have a compass, I needed to run in order for it find the right orientation. Sunnyvale is not a pretty city Image

Running Log: 3.5+ miles plus 12 lb backpack.
Sneaking In A Run Anywhere I Can

April 25th, 2005

On Mondays I drive Kate to her French school at French for Fun in Lafayette and then I work in Starbucks until she is done. This morning I’m in my running shorts and running top and I sneaked in a run to the Lafayette Reservoir. I ran up the reservoir, lots of housewifes in walking gear parked and walking along the water. I don’t get the attraction to a stale pool of dark water. I ran back as fast as I could :-) I miss the city already.

I’m always in my running gear nowadays. when you see me, don’t laugh

Log: 3.5 miles
New Favorite Running Route In SF

April 23rd, 2005

I’m sorry to say, Google Maps satellite view is really cool

Today’s long run is my favorite route yet. California Street has 2 huge hills that made me really fall in love with SF as a running city. Just as my legs were burning from running uphill, the switch comes and I get a nice smooth downhill. The old victorians is a nice distraction, then all the little stores along the entire route really provided an incentive to keep on running.

Here is route:
1. Folsom & 4th to Ellis and Van Ness 0.1
2. to Arguello Blvd & Geary 2.2
3. to Arguello Blvd. & California 0.3
4. to California & Arguello 3.2
5. to 4th & Mission 0.8 miles

Log: 6.6 miles

Stores to check out later: Arch Rival (running store), 24 hours Cala foods, Whole Foods on California, the victorians along California, Crepe and Coffe

Prev. Running Tag.San Francisco
Who Wakes Up The Earliest In Downtown SF?

April 19th, 2005

I started running today at 5:20am down Ellis and Polk and to my surprise the prostitutes were already awake and working. I saw a total of eight along my run. When I ran back from Union and Polk one of the girls already got into a Taxi yelling her destination to the other girls. I guess it’s a safety thing. Then 30 seconds later I saw a police car drive by, pretty much ignoring the situation.

At around 6:00am the drug dealers ( or I thought they were ) were waking up.

Then 6:15am, the conventions goers were waking up, probably because they couldn’t sleep or for their free continental breakfast at 7:00am

The homeless were still asleep.

In summary, the hardest working bunch were the girls. It’s really kinda sad. I thought prostitution was illegal except in Las Vegas?

Log: 4.4 Miles
Running: Trails Of Castro

April 17th, 2005

One guy at Best Buy asked me what I did for fun on the weekend, I said I ran for fun. I run because I can run and the longer I run the happier I am.

Saturday I did my 6 mile training route to russian hills, along battery street and back to yerba brena gardens. It was a very early run at 5:00 am and I got kinda lost and hungry. Thank goodness for Starbucks.

On Sunday I was just going to do an easy 4 mile run to mission dolores but I ended up running to portola (near twin peaks) for a 8 mile run. The view from twin peaks is the best view in the city.. I ended up doing 200 of my 1000 pushups on the overpass on portola. I’m kinda crazy, I know. Castro street has some very cool shops. The gay community has good tastes in clothes and furniture.

Log: 2005/04/16 North Beach 4 miles
Log: 2005/04/17 Twin Peaks 8.2 miles
Log: 2005/04/18 1.2 miles Lafayette
Log: 2005/04/19 Russian Hils 4.2 miles
Log: 2005/04/21 4.0 miles on treadmill
Chest muscles have healed, pushups, pushups come to me

April 12th, 2005

It’s back, the pushup craze. My muscles have healed like I thought it would after the last fiasco when I torned my muscles. Here is a more sane version of 1,000 pushup in 24 hours, d0ing 50 reps and spread it over time. This time I didn’t tear the muscles. Next milestone : 1,500
Running routes over the weekend

April 11th, 2005

Over the weekend I was feeling down. Ran to Coit Tower twice following the north beach route.

On Saturday morning I ran there once, the hill was a challenge. Then on Sunday morning I ran around downtown. on Sunday night I was insomniac and I started running around 4:00am, very creepy along the trail going up to the tower.

I think I’ll die one day while running, but god it feels good to not be tired.
What I Want For Yahoo! News

March 24th, 2005
Yahoo! News is among the top 3 news web sites in the world competing
with CNN and MSNBC for the #1 spot. It’s a pretty simple and
barebones web site operating with a small team of engineers and
editors. The goal is to partner with the major news wire service
as well as some big name news publishers to build a news web site that host news content and provide an integrate experience for end users.

It’s been a while since Yahoo! New has changed, here is what I want it to do.
1. Never have a dead end, when a user finishes reading a story or photo give them something to do, something else to consume. Think couch potatoe, think Tivo, passive consumption of stories and photos
2. Make navigation easier and more intuitive, don’t make users hit
  the back button if they want to read thru a list of headlines in a
  certain category
3. Don’t force the users to see what they don’t want to see, allow
  options for users to get rid of content to make the page to their
  liking
4. Different version of the news site for different devices. Here are my priorities
5. Palm Treo 650 version (cause I have one)
6. Maybe do lots of javascript to allow for client side optimization and navigation
7. Palm Treo 600 version
8. Get a Treo 650
9. WML version (cause people tell me it’s the largest instal base of internet phones)
10. Very fast loading with just headlines? How to navigate better so there is not delay ongoing back and forth? Maybe show more data in one burst and less back and forth.. Decrease the number of headlines as you read..
11. Mac version. Skinnable version in iTunes look?
12. SBC DSL version
13. 2-3 images, larger size. Offer super size photo? How about flash version ofthe slideshow. Prev and Next are actual thumbs
14. User categorization and bookmarking
15. bookmark urls, add tags, see other tagged articles, show my ratings & tags as RSS feeds, see other people feeds as rss
16. PDF version of the site for people to print and share. Maybe even skinnable PDF versions for $0.10 a pop?
Paris Running: St Germain

March 23rd, 2005

Paris is the perfect city to run. Lots of walkways, interesting buildings, lots of street lights for night running.

First day in Paris, trying to beat the jet lag and Angie was running out of coffee beans and need some to go with pain au chocolat and her fruit pies. At 9:30pm on a Sunday I was telling her not to expect much cause stores usually close at 8:00pm

3.5 km From our apartment at 166 Suffren, ran to Eiffel Tower, then to Trocadero for some
late night tourist crepes.
2.5 km Then along the Seine to Place de la Concorde
2.5 km Turn right on a small yellow and red lit bridge over to the left bank and run along Blvd. St. Germain
Right turn to Jardin Du Luxembourg There we go, a small store that is opened at
10:30pm, bought some ground coffee (St.Placide metro station)
0.7km Turn right again on Rue Vaugirard
2.0km My heart finally felt in groove, up the pace and run back to 166 Suffren

Log: 11.2 km / 1.6 == 7 miles

Loving these shoes
Can You Think Like A Computer?

February 18th, 2005

I’ve been working in the computer industry for 12 years now. I get a lot of requests throughout the day with people asking me to troubleshoot technical issues they they are stumbling with. Most of these are troubleshooting issues such as why can’t I login from one place to another.. Why doesn’t this work? 99% of the time I can help them with it.

This got me thinking why it’s comes so easy to me when I troubleshoot problems. I realize that it’s because I think like a machine. I actually imagine myself in the machine doing what the machine is doing.. Why I might be failing.. I follow step by step what the machine is trying to do, and I arrive at the obvious reasons why certain things are not working.

Machines are stupid creatures, very very stupid. It’s easy to follow their simple brains.
Chez Karine: Software Engineer Turned Chef : lend your support

December 4th, 2004
First there was Cynthia At Furenzu and now George has a friend at Chez Karine. A tiny trend: Women software engineers turn chefs!

I dropped by with Kate to say hi and spend some holiday cash. Wow! I was knocked off my feet!

My first taste was the Sablés Chocolat which was bittersweet chocolates with hint of fleur de sel, yeah salt with your chocolates! I couldn’t stop eating it and wanting to taste the salt again.

To validate that this is indee a new trend in chocolates: check out the NPR interview : Savoring Salt and Chocolate with the Award Winner 2005 NASFT Outstanding Confection, Milk Smoked Salt Caramels with Welsh smoked sea salt

I picked up a few pastries yesterday and every one of these gems were amazing. If you have a holiday party, contact Karen and place an order from her Fall 2005 Menu Don’t buy your dessert from the standard bakeries.
1. Support your software engineer and independent chef
2. your guests will be impressed by the presentation and flavors of these desserts
3. You will have a connection to an amazing chef and get to sample her creations for years to come