Is it just me, or has personal journaling died out? I used to run into interesting personal blogs all the time, but it seems that this is turning into a rare occurence. Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr seems to have reduced personal public ramblings to shorter status updates. 

I have run into much more high-quality blogs as of late around professional topics (thank goodness) - but I really miss reading about the daily lives of people - to see that interconnectedness and similarity of hopes and dreams from completely different people...

(Well, it's probably for the best. People are realizing the privacy implications of having such visible Internet presence)

(On a related note, I've lately been quite surprised by people who describe me as "open": I've always thought I've been anything but. I guess having a public journal has made me become more open - I can definitely see how I've opened up more in my personal life to people around me - and realizing (through this journal) that people aren't going to pass judgement as much has helped. Maybe my personal understanding of "openness" is quite different now - I am still quite protective of certain aspects of my life that I never write about publicly.)

josh radin is pretty rad (yes, i used that word):

We live in an amazing world - you can wake up one morning and smile at the Pacific Ocean; by nighttime you're walking amongst the verdant Carolina campus, lost amongst the memories of the past.

It was odd - when I tried to make a list of people I wanted to get in touch with, the list was remarkably short. Not because I didn't want to meet them, but because so many people have moved away. Everybody's scattered. Washington DC, Atlanta, New York, LA, Charlotte...

I always took NC being "home" for granted, but it's something I can't do for much longer. Once my parents sell their house and move to Kansas City, there will be nothing here for me. The friends I have are thinned out, and my sister will also be working in some other city. I'll have only the stories of my youth to connect me to this place. Will I ever even fly back here if nobody is here? I'll be here for the weddings of the few friends that are left, but after that... what?

Constant migration is such a quinessential American trait. On the train ride back from Lhasa, Tibet to Beijing, China, we got to meet a whole village of Chinese people (who were traveling as a group). There was something to be said about the level of intimacy amongst these neighbors, who knew so much about one another. America, as a whole, is still such a young country, with such an adaptive culture. One of the most moving things about being in Tibet was the notion that you were suddenly a part of a tradition that was thousands of years old. A rich culture and heritage that had stood the test of time (although now it is under heavy pressure).

I walked around the Carolina campus tonight. It was freezing cold and my feet were killing me, but I had an amazing time thinking back to all the stories from college.

Getting my ass beat in a bike race in the quad by a girl. Taking a slide on my bike late at night after they had watered the lawn, thus making the brick paths dangerously slippery. Walking from Franklin St. down to South Campus with Meredith, talking about nothing in particular. Making lame jokes with Judy about "dropping" conversations that got boring, only to pick them up whenever we walked past that point in later days. Musing about launching the "Run Sealie" project with Phillip (the name was derived from a crush I had at that time). My freshman roommate Spencer - I came back from Spanish class one day and all his stuff was gone. He had just vanished (college wasn't for him).

Showing how whispers could carry around the curved concrete benches in front of Davis library. Watching the "We Love Doh!" rallies in the pit (only to watch them turn so quickly later in the season). Boasting that I never set foot in Wilson Library my four years. Late nights at UGL. Late nights at Davis Library. Late nights at Cosmic Cantina. Meeting Nora for the first time at UGL. Dealing with my first instance of an emotional girl crying on my shoulder in the pit my freshman year (where did you go, AliceK?). Going biking with AliceK and then realizing years later that maybe I should have asked her out. Hanging with Jordan, Brittany, Zoe, and AliceK in HoJo (what an eclectic group of friends). The embarassment of having my freshman RA reveal to the floor I was 16 years old.

The shame I felt for writing somebody's term paper for $20, which I spent on flowers for Yunji. Random nights in Carmichael with people. Running into my "lunch buddy" Jeff at Lenoir (we had the same lunch schedule at Lenoir and always ate with each other, but we'd never hang out besides that - oddly enough, he ended up dating Yunji). The first feelings of powerlessness when Esther claimed I was using our friendship for other things (a patently false assertion). Having the coolest roommate in the world - Matt. Going home with him to see his farm. Dating Judy. Hanging with friends really late at night, singing Five for Fighting in acapella. Learning how to play the intro to "More Than Words."

Falling in love for the first time. Learning that grades weren't everything. Starting Tabulas. Accepting the future everybody else knew for me. Trying to start UNCExchange with friends. Failing. Rejecting a date to a semi-formal my freshman year because I was too much of a wimp. Winning the championship. Ordering late night Pokie Stix from Gumby's. The short walks from Lewis to Stacy to play in weekly poker games. The long walk back from Stacy to Lewis whenever I lost. Waking up at 7pm on Thursdays in Lewis to watch people roll in for poker. All the random professors and classes I can't remember anymore. W.B. Yeats (aka W.Y. Beats). All the random conversations whenever you ran into somebody you knew on campus.

Stream of consciousness, wow.

As I walked around campus, I saw these stories being played out again around me. The awkwardness between boy and girl, the camaraderie of guys, the girl who was clearly not interested in the guy who was pining after her... and I felt old.

I've joked about it before, but I really did feel old. I had already written these chapters of my life and closed them - and here they were, just starting to write their chapters. Did they even realize how close they were to the end?

I'm so grateful for the experiences I have, and the fact I can still cherish them. They've made me who I am today (for better or for worse). Unlike my college experience, I have the foresight to realize that the chapter of my life in NC is quickly coming to a close.

At least I'm aware enough to give it a conclusion.

I'm flying back to SD tomorrow morning. I can safely say that this trip was the perfect medicine for my ails. I know what I've been bothered by and how to deal with it. I have some personal stuff I need to work on that I'll need to expound out privately - having the path forward is important.

More to write about once I get home, but for now... I have found my happiness (again).

Really excited to get back to SD and get back into the groove of things!

When I raise a family, I want to do it in the Midwest or the South. I definitely have a few years of big-city living left in me, though. There's something so familiar and comforting about growing up in a small town.

. . .

This weekend summarized: photography, piano, food, friends, and family. I've uploaded a bunch of pictures to Flickr into three primary sets: Chapel Hill by day, Chapel Hill by night, and Cedar Park Trails. Don't worry though, I'll be re-posting my favorites on this site over the coming days.

. . .

The sun setting behind Wilson Library on the Carolina campus...

. . .

So in January, I hired a maid to do a deep cleaning of my place. Lo and behold, guess who Facebook suggests as a friend today to me?

Yes, Maid Green - the company I used. I don't know how they tracked that, and frankly, it's a bit terrifying. (We don't share any friends, I never published anything publicly about it... the only online mentions are a series of emails from Gmail and my credit card swiping).

I'm actually really curious how they connected me to her.

Jennifer L: do u have wall-e?
Jennifer L: you should rewatch and then sue pixar
Roy Kim: why?
Jennifer L: i feel like they lifted your life out
Jennifer L: and made it wall-e
Jennifer L: he's such a sad lonely character
Jennifer L: he just wants love
Jennifer L: he tries to hold girls hands
Jennifer L: and the girl robot tries to shoot him :(
Jennifer L: hes like always staring at the girls hands
Roy Kim: you're right
Jennifer L: its seriously so sad

Roy-E? (patiently awaits Photoshops)

A big chunk of my high school years were spent biking in the woods of NC. I would bike 5 miles (on my mountain bike) to get to the trails, where I'd spend another two hours or so tearing up the trails. All that sweat from those rides has permanently burned the smell and sights of the woodlands into my memory. I hadn't realized that moments were my most visceral connection to NC until I went back this time.

I had always known that I missed the woods, but it wasn't until this last time when I actually decided to take a walk on some old trails that an unaccountable sadness came over me.

By my old high school is a simple trail that wraps around maybe a half mile in a semi-circle. One of my close friends from high school, Potter, introduced me to the trails. Before he showed them to me, I didn't think much of them, but he showed me a beautiful part of the trails - a rockbed creek at the bottom of a thirty-foot rock wall face drop. While you get much more spectacular views when you hike in the Appalachians, for a suburban kid, this is the equivalent of discovering El Dorado.

This place quickly became a place of personal retreat.

During those years in high school when you muse about future plans, Potter and I would spend a lot of time down on the creekbed. Sometimes we'd bring cards to play, but most of the time we'd just chill out and talk. Talk about girls, talk about finishing high school, and talk about life.

Although it'd had been nearly ten years since I last walked these trails, I still could recognize the forks and the fastest way to the creekbed. Like a beacon, the old comfort zone drew me back.

Once I got down there, I sat right by the tricking creek as I had ten years ago, and reflected at how much things had changed. How much I had grown since the last time I had sat here and wondered where I'd be. And then I wondered where I'd be years from now. Undoubtedly life will be much different ten years from now.

I still have much of the arrogance, pride, and naivete of youth. The "conquer the world" candle hasn't been extinguished yet, although the wistful realities of life are causing it to flicker. I think that's part of growing up, so it won't be a bad thing to move on from those illusions of grandeur.

. . .

But springtime awaits. Everything that remained dormant during the bleak winter now comes alive with life.

I look forward to the future ten years with the joys and sorrows it brings.

I've been listening to this song pretty much on non-stop since yesterday:

Now, aside from the fact that the club/dance genre generally has less-than-par quality music, I am continually astouneded at how well Cascada does. I feel like every month they're coming out with a new track that generally is too catchy for my own good. 

They're not pushing any artistic boundaries, and their songs do sound remarkably similar ... but within this genre, they absolutely kick ass. Part of it has to do with the producer, but a lot of it has to do with the singer - her voice is perfect for this genre.

While Tupac was incredibly talented, I'm also convinced his success had to do with the fact that is voice was perfect for the genre he was in - it could be hard and spiteful ("Hit 'Em Up") but it could also be soft and wistful ("Dear Mama").

Akon's another example of this: he'll never be taken seriously as anything other than the West Indies-infused hip-hop artist. But within those boundaries, he does incredibly.

So I celebrate these artists, and their embrace of the limitations of their groups, and I applaud their excellence within their defined genres.

A few days ago, in a conference call, I referred to Emily and Damien as "Amy and Damlenton." I didn't even realize this until I hung up on the call and the two of them gave me crap for it.

Looks like the jokers are continuing with their fun today:

(My coworkers at MT are awesome)

Productive day in the office: Focused work. Progress on all projects. Big logjams breaking up.

Happy hour: Jalapenos hot dogs. Flautitas. Pacifico beers. Mojitos. Great conversation. Free drinks from the bar. Band playing Otis Redding. Shared optimistism for the future. Fantastic.

Now at home: Feet hurting, still feeling abuzz from the bonding and conversation. In my pajamas, listening to some Tom Petty. The latest edition of the Economist and a new book from Amazon await me. Outside I can hear the party going on.

The weekend ahead: canceled plans to Vegas to spend a quiet weekend in. Only plans? Sailing in 70-degree weather on Sunday with Damlenton. Alice in Wonderland in 3D Sunday afternoon.

The next few months: Two bachelor parties. Two weddings. Two trips to NC on consecutive weekends. Two friends growing up and making the ultimate commitment. Washington DC. Las Vegas. Watching my sister graduate. Watching my parents sell their house and move to Kansas City. Scuba certification. Watching MT put out an amazing product release.

I love this life.

No idea where this is from, but it cracked me up. Reminded me a bit of Kim Jong Il's (fake) Livejournal account:

"i have an angel on my shoulder but a devil in my head." don't like the video, but love the song (i'm in a big electronica phase right now)

I'm not sure how this band flew under my radar for so long, as their Motown/soul/rock vibe is quite possibly my favorite type of music. This band is talented.

I felt that Sunday afternoon nap temptation creeping up on me, but the Noisettes have successfully awoken me. I wanna go dancing now.

How nonsensical of a person am I because I literally laughed out loud when I saw this?

Went with Damien and Tim (who are posing like the cover for a boy band album):

Saw a sea lion:

Full set at Flickr.

First off, I want to link up to Spike's Tabulas. He's 50% of the ever-so-talented tulyfoto, which does wonderful photography out of NC.

As I've found myself with a muse once more, the creative side of my brain's kicked into overdrive. This has ranged from picking up piano again, to writing (crappy) short stories, and to taking a *lot* of pictures.

Spike, if you ever find yourself in SoCal, we gotta go out and do some photo shooting, cause I could use your expertise. There are three projects that I want to work on.

First is the ever-so-popular Polaroid in pictures meme. In my defense, I came up with this idea independently without outside influence back in college. The notion is to generally take a Polaroid of an object, then take a photo with that Polaroid in the shot. Here's an example I pulled off of Flickr (although my interest is less in human objects and more in inanimate objects):

I would love to do a set of these. With the iPad hype in full swing, it would also be interesting to see if you could pull off the old "transparent" PC trick like the one I did a few years back:

Project #2 would involve a light pen and some patience. Han helped me out with the initial run when I was back in NC:

(Seriously wish I had done this in RAW). The concept is "angels among us" and it uses long exposure times to allow you to do some light painting (yes, there are tons of better examples). I wanted to try this in black-and-white with people helping each other in common tasks (maybe holding out a hand to a fallen kid), and use a light pen to quickly draw wings.

Third was something I was playing around with briefly in NC this last time. I'm actually quite interested in overexposure portraits. There's something very stark about photos which are purposely overexposed (but still have some semblance of details):

The idea photo shoot would be either mid-day to sunset in the desert - gotta imagine the contrast in an environment like that would be amazing. Photo subjects? Not sure. Definitely human subjects, but not sure what would work there.

As I was writing this post, I remembered where I (probably) picked up the inspiration for the overexposed project (besides Holga photography): Kanye West's "Can't Tell Me Nothing" video. 

This video probably tops my favorite list in terms of cinematography; what Hype Williams pulled off in the desert with the stark minimalism would be my inspiration:

While I have a hard time identifying my favorite movie of all-time, I can definitely say that in terms of view count, "Spy Game" tops the list. For some reason, this movie was always on TV back in school. And every time, without fail, we'd end up watching the whole thing.

giddy up and gold mine
different place, different time
all the stars are in their prime
pastel trailer park, stars so bright to hide the dark
all is quiet in the yard

giddy up and gold dust, all the cars turn to rust
you've got no means for wanderlust
pastel trailer park, stars so bright to hide the dark
all is quiet in the yard

At poker night a few weeks ago, somebody came up with the brilliant idea of getting my polaroids up on the wall (like all conversations in the evening involving beers, we stumbled upon this conclusion after meandering around in different ideas).

I picked up some wall-safe sticky pads from Target last week, and started working on it:

Makes me want to shoot more with the Polaroid now, especially portraits. Unfortunately, I just discovered that the going price for a 10-pack of Polaroid film is now $40. Ridiculous! I used to think $20 per pack was insane...

I'm down to my last 3 packs. I'm going to cherish each shot by only taking portraits.

Was in Vegas this weekend for a bachelor party. My body held up surprisingly well (and still is). Pretty surprised about that.

. . .

One of the things I love about Vegas is that there's always music everywhere you go. In the casinos - while you're waiting for cabs - while you're in cabs - while you get out and enter the next casino. I can't live my life without music, and it's probably one of the subliminal reasons why I enjoy Vegas so much - awesome music, all the time!

. . .

I got carded at nearly every table at the Hard Rock Casino - I thought the dealers were messing with me. Whoever runs the Hard Rock Casino are geniuses - they put their high limit blackjack tables right around a series of pole dancers - that has to be incredibly distracting.

. . .

Saturday night (at 4am, of course), I "got" craps. Just as they were about to close a table, we took it over and brought life to it. And BOY, did we bring life. Three of us got on a consecutive hot streak - I believe we all nearly tripled our money (most of us were playing with our last hundies). I can't wait to go back some day and play craps (while I always kind of knew the rules, I never knew the side props - I know most of them - dolla YO!).

I still prefer blackjack for meeting new people - get a talkative table and a great dealer and you'll have a lot of fun.

. . .

I lucked out and got to catch one of my favorite bands (All-American Rejects) in concert at the Hard Rock. They were taping a segment for tomorrow's Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which was pretty cool (cause they made it a free show). 

The guitarist kept throwing AAR picks into the crowd - I managed to snag one. Amusingly enough, the pick had a picture of Hello, Kitty! on the back. I'll put up a picture of it tomorrow.

. . .

Interesting conversations with cabbies. One was telling me how much of a monopoly the cab companies are in Vegas - the number of medallions are controlled by a state governing authority, which has very close ties to the cab companies (the major one's been a huge family in Vegas for a loooong time). This makes starting up an independent company nearly impossible (and also impossible for freelancers). Companies are even blocked from working outside of their "district" - one new company can only pick people up in west Vegas - I had no idea it was so heavily regulated.

The reason I was asking was because I was always curious why cab companies didn't adopt more hybrids. For the stop-and-go traffic of Vegas, it seemed the efficiency of hybrids would do wonders to increase the bottom line. As it turns out, the gas costs aren't subsidized by the cab companies - that comes out of the driver's fees. And since the cars are purchased and owned by the companies, it makes no sense for them to take the overhead cost of hybrids since they won't be the ones reaping those benefits. (Seems something like a nice tax break would help with)

One other thing I didn't know - the cabs in Vegas which are the Crown Vics are actually fueled by propane. My driver used to drive one of them and said it was ridiculous, because the tank would never report accurately how much fuel was left. Not only that, but he said (and I'm assuming this is secondhand) that there were reports of tanks erupting. A little something to be concerned about.

And why did taxi cabs convert to propane?

Because a propane company bought the cab company - of course!

So you've finally pulled away from the tables at Vegas.

You've spent way too much time gambling. Your clothes reek of alcohol (from earlier in the evening) and cigarettes (from your fellow gamblers). The underside of your arm is marked with the club tramp stamp - a not-so-gentle reminder that you dropped $15 for each Red Bull vodka. You stagger outside of the casino that you're not even staying at and realize it's early morning.

You reach into your pockets and realize you lost more money than you wanted. No cab ride for you. Hey, you're on the Strip.. how far could your hotel be?

You ask the valet which way your hotel is.

He points.

You peek - and you see the hotel. 

You mutter, "Oh, I see it! It doesn't look too far."

The valet replies, "Oh, dude. It's like a mile away."

You don't believe him. You start walking in your nice "going out" shoes which aren't really good for walking.

It's 7am. The Midwestern tourists are out with their fannypacks, taking early pictures of the hotel casinos.

You see a kindred spirit walking back to the hotel you just exited - his luck was just as bad as yours. But he's far more trashed than you, so you avoid eye contact.

10 minutes later, you realize that the walk is really long. Every person who walks past you gives you a look.

You eventually stumble back to your hotel and pass out, only to start things up again four hours later.

That, my friends, is the Vegas walk of shame.

This is the best article I've read on the cloud, as it breaks down the technical realities of the hype behind "cloud." Most of these points have been bouncing around in my head for some time now, and I'm glad a more talented writer manage to get it all down. Internally, we've gone down the plan-for-a-huge-scale-out "cloud" strategy (Wik.is on RightScale with autoscaling) as well as the approach of limiting costs by just using beefy servers. Using technologies like EC2, (which are *incredibly* useful for short-lived projects on professional service deals) sometimes isn't very cost effective (I think we pay about 1/4 of the cost for cloud.mt than if we had matched on EC2).

The best quote?

The operations team is the one place with access to data and traffic that is "real-time enough" to detect business issues before they manifest in significant monetary loss. Traffic anomalies, chargeback rates, visitor retention… all these translate into money. This is what ops does; they make things work; they make the business work. And they spend a lot more time trending, investigating and analyzing than they do replacing hard drives and network cards.

If MT is to become a metrics-driven powerhouse, it will begin and end with that team. Once the team is structured to listen to the heartbeat, it'll become necessary to have a nice dashboarding interface to expose this data to other areas of the company...

Rarity: a hip-hop song that is just as good live as in the studio: (assuming you thought the studio version was good)

ree recently pointed me to the RSD spec, and she put up instructions in the Tabulas wiki on enabling this functionality. I took her instructions and made it part of the core Tabulas product.

With these new changes, you can use posterous to email blog posts and photos to your posterous site (a lightweight blogging service), which will then automatically crosspost to your Tabulas.

So now through the posterous bridge, you can email to your Tabulas! (And if you use the iPhone, you can download one of the Posterous picture apps to share pictures, too).

Cool beans.

Thanks, ree!

I just realized my 5-year anniversary at MindTouch came and passed. What a ride it's been. 5 years! That's about 1/5 of my life.

Insane.

I was chatting with an old friend yesterday about cars, and we got on the subject of Japanese "luxury" cars. I made the assertion that there were plenty of cars by Nissan (350Z) and Lexus (IS) that I liked, but I just hated the drivers of those cars.

Case in point: yesterday we're in Coronado, walking along the beach. All of a sudden, we hear some honking and a bunch of 'roids-ripped dudes hollering from their car (the equivalent of "whooooo" girls). What were they driving? A 350Z. I've never ever met somebody I liked that has driven a 350Z. There's something about that car that has a high correlation to douchery.

Second case in point: I was dropping my friend off at their hotel yesterday. I followed a Lexus into the drop-off lane. Suddenly, the Lexus decides to start going in reverse without checking who's behind. I had to quickly switch it into reverse to prevent a fender bender. The traffic guy at the circle hastily waves her car forward (she apparently thought she had to park in another lane, which she had passed) and she stops her reverse. (Clearly she wasn't even paying attention behind, cause she caught the traffic guy nearly immediately). She gets out of her car in her "my daddy spoils me" attire, sheepishly waves an apology wave, and goes on her way.

Third case in point: I'm driving back home today after picking up some bowls from West Elm (had some design dollars that were going to expire next week). I'm in the far left-lane of a one-way street when I notice a black Lexus IS in the middle lane. Suddenly, as I'm about to pass the Lexus (dude was driving like 10mph), he suddenly cuts in front when he notices an open parking spot. I slam the brakes and slide left (this is exactly how I got into my first car accident in SD - exact same scenario). The guy (Asian, go figure) looks up, realizes there may be other cars on the road, and sheepishly waves his hand at me. His girlfriend pops up from behind him and kind of has an :o look on her face.

I'm not sure why driving on a one-way street is such a foreign concept to people. If you're looking for parking spots, don't go exploring from the middle lane. And if you are, LOOK BEHIND YOU BEFORE YOU TURN.

It's kind of like that statement: "I'd love Paris if it weren't the Parisians." I'd love certain brands if certain people didn't drive them. That's why I can't stand BMWs (rich snotty high school kids get hand-me-downs from their parents), Nissans (reasons above), and Lexus (reasons above). I haven't formed an opinion on Audi or Mercedes-Benz yet (which is why the A5 remains on the top of my list of "realistic dream cars"). 

Interestingly enough, the people I've known who drive Mazdas are all awesome people (I'm not saying that because I drive one).

As told by Lucy Kellaway: (emphasis mine)

The first and most important is luck – yet it never gets a look-in in books on the subject. You need to be as wildly successful as Warren Buffett to admit that the biggest thing he did right was being born white and male in the US at that particular time. Most successful people have had big lucky breaks at birth and a succession of smaller ones thereafter.

The second law is ambition. Everyone who I have met who has been successful in business has really, really wanted that success. From this wild desire almost everything else that you need flows – hard work, thick skin and ruthlessness. Otherwise I can only think of one other thing that is vital to success, at least in some lines of business: good looks. If you are an Anglo-Saxon businessman it is fine to be (fairly) ugly. But if, like Money Honey, you are female and want to make it on television, beauty is essential.

Ain't it the truth.

And on a related note (I read a lot of random crap), I ran into this article which tied your name to your attractiveness. The most attractive names? Ryan and Sophie. Don't think I've met a Sophie yet...

This rule is far broader than just design - breakthroughs in science research follow these same rules - I can't even count the number of times I've read the biographies of smarter people and how they cross-pollinated theories across completely disparate fields.

There is art in everything.

The insomnia's back in full force - so far 2/2 this week. On the upside, I get to do a lot of that idle reading and run into awesome cartoons like these:

The reaction of this baby as she watches Miley Cyrus is priceless:

There's that split second when she's trying to figure out what's going on, her eyes blink twice, and she turns away in disgust. I can't stop watching that part.