Just Getting Older

Hi again. Just updating the few of you of what has been happening. So what has been going on with me? Well I am happy to report that I fulfilled yet another one of my New Year's resolutions and volunteered for the first time this year (technically my second by the first volunteer event was part of a work offsite). I volunteered as part of One Brick . I volunteered with about a dozen other people at Art in Action . Art in Action is a non-profit that provides art education to schools that can no longer offer art education on their own. So I spent a few hours assembling art kits, including have to roll super thick construction paper into tight bundles. It actually was quite a bit of fun.

So what else is going on? Work has been uber-busy. The more and more I work with product managers, the more and more I believe that have little understanding of the basics of time. Primarily because they have been laying down absurding tight deadlines so no other reason other than apparently moving uber fast is always better than moving just regular fast. Which reminds me of the past BayCHI meeting that I actually showed up for. It was Jeff Johnson of GUI Bloopers fame came and talked. One of his major points was that management is often the major cause of bad UI. A major reason why is that managers are rewarded for faster time to market. Johnson says that time to market is important but even more important is faster time to adoption/profitability/customer satisfaction. A rush to get to market that results in poor UI will most likely lead to longer time to adoption/customer satisfaction/profitability and therefore less overall success. Johnson's agreement (and I agree) that a little longer time to market will pay off in less time for adoption and profitability. And this argument was actually backed up by some Harvard studies.

For the past Thanksgiving, I did my normal thing. I had dinner with Jinah, Drew, and Drew's family. And then I went to the SF Auto Show. The auto show is always good but this year was a bit more relevant for me since I am considering getting a new car in the next year or two. All though I am philosophically against SUVs, sitting in some (especially the BMW) made me think twice. I did also enjoy the Volkswagen GTI. But the big thing that happened this past week was that I attended my 10 year reunion.

It was held at the Sonoma Chicken Coop in Campbell. Ironically it was only a few blocks away from where i used to live in Campbell from 2001 - 2004. Phill , Nick, and I attended because basically we are the only ones from our high school class we keep in touch with. The experience was very surreal. You realized that you are getting old when you realize it has been 10 years. Plus I didn't recognize a lot of people. And some people didn't recognize me. But that may be because (and I don't like to brag) I was looking pretty fly that night. Had my cool new jacket, jeans, and oasis t-shirt on. Some there are some of my major thoughts on the event:

1. Women generally age better than men. Overall, the guys didn't fare as well aging wise than the women. A major theme of the evening for the guys was neck fat. It was probably a good thing I was way underweight and skinny in high school since now that I have gotten fatter, I am looking normal rather than puffy.

2. I, along with Nick and a few others, hit the open bar a little hard. Hopefully there is not too much video footage taken by me by Phill during that time.

3. It was much more pleasant than I thought it would be. There didn't seem to be any old cliques. Plus none of my old circle of "Friends" showed up which didn't bother me at all because well...they weren't very nice people back then. I probably wasn't that nice either but at least I admit it.

Like I said a surreal experience. There were a few doctors, a few lawyers, a few real estate agents, lots of people working at start-ups. But no real huge superstars and also no real huge failures. I guess if you got super successful you have better things to do than attend your 10 year reunion and you probably would skip the reunion if you became a major failure. I had fun and as a result of the reunion, I got a few more people adding me on facebook these days. Don't know if I will go to any more reunions in the future. But for a 10 year reunion, this past one beat my expectations.

Finally, I am heading off to Korea for about a week to care of some not-so fun family business. It will be the first time in a LONG time that I have been back. I would be more looking forward to it if didn't come right at the start of the holidays. So be on the look out for a blog entry about my Korea trip. i have to run to pick up my laundry. So unitl next time, peace on earth and happy holidays.