Turkey Dinners

Last week was a great time where friends came over to our house for dinner. An old colleague based in Canada was here for the week so we hosted three days of turkey based food. Some other friends came over as well and we cooked the turkey which we had in the freezer since Thanksgiving. In the first day, the food was traditional baked turkey de- boned with the usual gravy, corn and mash potatoes. The next day was gumbo with turkey and sausage mixed with the okra stew and the last day was turkey and noodle soup with spring rolls and rice. For dessert, our friends brought yogurt ice cream, chocolate and cookies cake and, on the last day, baked mandarin orange cake. It was a fun filled time where we exchanged notes on our recent Christmas vacation, shared gossip and talked about new things.

On the second day, the topic was tablet PCs and I demonstrated the Archos 70 – watching YouTube videos and surfing the Internet. The third and last day was karaoke day where we sang songs, looked at pictures of our friend’s vacation and talked about all sorts of topics like the plunging dollar currency and ways to preserve one’s income. Good food and conversation, new gadgets and sharing experiences are always the ingredients of a good get together. Often times we also reminiscence about our fun times in Singapore where we had the same ingredients but with our other dear friends who we have left behind in Singapore. Those days were such fun and one should have a song like I left my heart in Singapore because it was such a joyous time. Now we are left with the old memories in YouTube to remember them.

Continuing our dinners is a great way to connect to the new environment and cement relations with new friends as well as maintain our old connections. Good food and conversation is always the best mix. Unfortunately, none of the guest drinks liquor except me so I would start with wine or cocktails before they arrive. The dinners where held for three consecutive days because our dear friend from Canada may not be back for some time due to a new assignment. So we tried to linger and enjoy her presence in case we would not see here again after a long period. But it was a bit taxing for me because I slept late and still watched the videos borrowed from the library or read the books and magazines or surfed the Internet after dinner. I have not been sleeping well this week due to the pressures at the office and I had a short nap on the last night while my friends where singing karaoke songs.

The project is not going as expected with issues on the software and the contractors we were working with. Delays, technical problems, resource and scheduling constraints have been sapping my energy. Sometimes it feels like I am only the one working on the project. I guess it’s a different way of working here without the intensity and focus like in Asia. It is slower moving environment, gentle and respectful when working here which is good, too. One has to switch intensity and focus and adapt to the good old Southern culture. There are a lot of things on my mind I guess with the weather not cooperating as well. The heavy snow affected our schedule and my usual dose of borrowing a lot of books, magazines and DVDs are not helping. I guess the concern on my mom’s operation to remove abscess in her liver is not helping my mental state. Being a worrier has triggered all sorts of thoughts in my mind (i.e. money, health problems and so on).

But dinners with friends are always good, keeping one connected and down to earth; away from the churning mind and useless thoughts. It slows down the mind and opens one’s eyes to the present moment. It’s the secret to keeping sane. Unfortunately the mind revolts from the peace and tranquility and during the weekend one gets back into the mental treadmill. I finished Trevor Paglen’s ‘Blank Spots on the Map’, Heritage Sites in China (picture book), Hemingway’s Michigan (picture book), and couple of magazines (Wired, Consumer Report, Town and Country, Newsweek, Home and Garden) and watched DVDs (The Snow and the Tiger, The Rules of The Game, My Beautiful Washing Machine, My Favorite Season, Triange) as well as surfed the Internet using the tablet. The churning mind often results in dark thoughts and indulgences which one should avoid. The answer is to reduce the mind’s activity by doing less, being with friends and focusing on a single activity.

Technology as Religion

An article on innovation in the magazine Wired speaks about technology. In a secular world, technology is the new religion by giving meaning to people’s lives. New devices like the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Internet websites like Google or Facebook, WebTV and other such advances in technology drive people into a frenzy. Especially the Apple products and the recent hoopla on tablets are driving a lot of attention. The trend today is mobility, social networking, openness and access to information (i.e. Wikileaks). Its like people have found a new religion and it’s driving them to a sort of spiritual ardor. The new meaning of life for people is not discovering some new religion or mantra but the latest gadget.

Perhaps the recent technological advancement encompasses social interaction and connections. For instance, Facebook or Foursquare used in mobile devices like smart phones or tablets. It becomes a liberating experience to be able to achieve this sociability anywhere. The effect is like magic – to see faraway relatives and friends (even in different continents), communicate with them and see their pictures, videos and comments. Religion provided some sort of magic in the past – a sort of supernatural ability to transcend every day problems via faith. Nowadays the spiritual mystery is gone – replaced by scandals such as pedophile priests or worldly monks and so on. The magic no longer reside in the spiritual realm.

Nowadays technology is transforming people lives – from the outsourcing trend that are lifting millions of people from poverty in poor countries, to the connective ness and empowerment that technology brings to people (i.e. investing in the stock market, donating to the needy, self-publishing, Silicon Valley billionaires,etc.). Hence technology is an enabling mechanism similar to religion where blind faith can help people accomplish amazing things (ex. non-violence movements that topple governments or change the status quo for the good). Technology can be used to make radical changes; for example, recent riots in Tunisia where people use mobile phones to overthrow the president, fax machines in the communist Poland to aid the Solidarity movement, Internet usage in China, Facebook in the Obama campaign and so on.

At the individual level, the latest technology has reached a state where it’s considered magic. Everyone now has either a smart phone or a tablet or a game machine or a laptop or a network PC all connected to the Internet. The gadget becomes a liberating experience especially with all those applications in the Internet like dating sites, porn sites, blogging (for self-expression), self publishing, gaming sites and so on engage the attention of people. It is an interactive media unlike watching television which is a passive and a mind numbing experience. In fact, technology has the ability to return people into a child like state – full of wonder which is what religion tries to do – to be born again and see the world with the eyes of a child. Everything becomes possible with this mindset.

But isn’t this trend another externally driven, materialistic effort where one tries to buy happiness with the latest gadget? Perhaps the gadget is a metaphor for a religious device like a rosary or a koan or mantra or the Bible or some meditative practice. The effort to master and learn the technology is like a spiritual journey wherein one achieves nirvana when the trial is complete. Mastering the technology enables you to achieve your dreams or goals – be it as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, stock investor, writer, seek romance or porn, be entertained or educated and so on. In this analogy, the latest gadget is a means to an end – not an end into itself. So the satisfaction in buying the latest gadget is not to have the gadget itself but use it as a tool to achieve better ends such as staying in contact with your family with Facebook or sharing family videos in YouTube. Perhaps satisfying one’s desire will eventually kill that desire and thereby achieve bliss.

Know Your Worth

With the New Year, one gets in the habit of making resolutions. But resolutions more often than not don’t get fulfilled. Most resolutions fall under 4 general categories: health (i.e. losing weight), money (i.e. save more), mind (i.e. self development) and love (i.e. romance). One article suggests avoiding making resolutions based on a single task or goal. Instead, one should look into a broad theme where one could define certain tasks or goals under that theme to be more flexible. For example, one could think about improving financial literacy and a host of goals can be attached to that theme: invests more, save more and so on. I for one know that resolutions don’t get fulfilled as my resolutions for the past years has been to lose about 10 pounds. Maybe a broader theme is being healthier this year.

This topic was discussed during a recent Toastmaster meeting. There where only 4 participants but we went into a round of topics where New Year resolutions was one subject. I said that one must look for internal goals instead of external goals, i.e. inner peace as against buying the latest SUV. I have also been attached to the ‘increase one’s skills school’. I have created a spreadsheet where I list all the skills I have learned for the past 7 years as well as the trainings and activities I have attended. But I don’t feel any different now accept having bragging right to say ‘did that, done that.’  I guess the broad theme would be to keep one’s mind fresh, active and creative in order to be more competitive at work or perhaps to increase one’s cognition. This is a nobler goal than listing down one’s accumulation of skills or training certificates.

Sometimes the spreadsheet serves as a way to self-reflect; if one’s actions or activities where spent wisely. Sometimes it’s an attempt by the insecure to try to determine if one has arrived at an appropriate level of competency – to try to get a picture of oneself via the list and compare against one’s peers. From my list, it looks like I have too many trivial tasks as well as too much activity. Placing all these activities into a broader context like making the mind more agile or improve one’s cognition or delay the decline of mental acuity due to old age – is a more mature goal. I think I have succeeded considering the many changes I have undergone like moving to a different country twice in the last 10 years plus adjusting to new people, culture and ways of working. Perhaps one would have a difficult time if one did not undergo such self-improvement like I have in the recent decade of my life.

One goal that I have had since my youth was to be a writer. A goal I have not achieved yet - although I feel that I am close. It has taken me roughly a decade to realize and assess where I am in this journey. I think I have diagnosed my skills and where I need to improve and how to move forward. The next step is to have the will and motivation now that circumstances are right. Having a lot of free time, the accumulation of relevant experience, book reading and creative writing courses have finally inched me forward. I guess it’s more a voyage of self-discovery than anything else. There is a saying that one makes a long journey but finds himself in the end. I read an interesting book this weekend about the White House doctor – one of the longest serving doctors in that arena. She also happens to be a fellow countryman having been born in the Philippines.

It’s a great book to learn about the inner working of the US Presidency, the military and the Filipino American connection in the White House. The writer is the first Filipino American Rear Admiral who served with 3 presidents. The writer never lost her humble and down to earth tone. She writes about the Filipino American master chef, valets and stewards who work in the White House. There seems to a recent slew of achievements by Filipinos from different fields like Manny Pacquiao (i.e. seven world boxing titles), champion pool players, White House doctor, film makers and writers. I think understanding one’s heritage is the first step towards self-discovery and improvement. Being a writer pulls all these strands together as one has to find one’s voice. It’s not a matter of writing skill, experience or expertise but an inner understanding of oneself.

Among all the recent trainings, workshops and activities that I have attended to improve myself, I think the most useful has been Toastmaster. The experience has allowed me to find my voice and stand up and proclaim to an audience who I am. In most of my speeches I have to talk about myself or explain myself because that is what the audience wants to hear – one’s story and voyage in life. The effect has been a subtle change since I have been a member for nearly 5 years. It feels like an incremental and often unfelt change as one gets more confidence and self-esteem. I think it has opened doors to all sorts of experiences and improved the quality of my thinking. One tries to measure the past like looking into a report card to determine one’s progress. But one does not grow hair suddenly or be a famous person one day except achieve a feeling of inner contentment and, yes, peace.

Snow Fall

For the past 2 days we had about 5 to 9 inches of snow. So we stayed home and I worked remotely. I had no trouble connecting to the network but had some initial problems logging in. I tried to focus on working but had problems keeping my attention. I did attend some phone meetings, wrote emails, created a change ticket and called the help desk to follow-up an existing issue. Admittedly it was work at the minimum but I had difficulty focusing and working at the same time. The living room was cold although I wore layers of clothes to keep me warm. I went out and swept the cars of snow and started the engine to warm the car in anticipation of going to work the next day. I could not find the snow scrapper so I swept the snow away from the car with my gloved hands. It no longer snowed so it was okay to start clearing the snowfall.

The next day, I drove to office at about 9:30 am and some roads still had ice on the surface. So I traveled at about 5 to 15 miles per hour and all the cars kept a slow pace and the tires sometimes slipped and I could feel the car sway sideways because the tires could not grip the road. I was a bit nervous being the first time for me to drive under such conditions. But it was no longer snowing and the sun was up and I could feel the heat through the windshield. But it was not warm enough to melt all the ice so it was a convoy of extremely slow moving vehicles as we made our way cautiously towards our destinations. I realized later that it was foolish of me to go to work if I felt that I was not confident enough to drive. But I made it in the end and there were a lot of cars in the parking lot of people who made the same perilous journey.

It been a long time since the local county experienced such snowy conditions. A friend of mine remarked that these conditions existed in Northern places like Ohio but not in the South. But it was a good snow fall and the surrounding landscapes were beautiful in the snow. Yesterday after clearing the cars of snow I walked out of the subdivision, into the main road to see how it was going. There were a few cars on the road and some families where out in their thick clothes with their sleds. One family passed by me who were heading to the nearby park where they said there were good places to sled in the football field. Everywhere was brilliantly white like a blanket of cotton descended from the skies. I like winter landscapes and I hope to learn to ski someday if I have the chance.

This morning, a recruiting agent from Singapore called. She was asking questions about my friend and we spoke for an hour before our line was cut. My phone had exhausted its top-up value although I think I gave all that I could to her. I think it was a good interview. The lull in my normal activities due to the snow storm made me make You Tube videos with our vacation photos. I changed a few soundtracks of old videos and relived again the memories those images evoked. It seemed like a long time ago like it was another lifetime. The call from Singapore seemed to validate those wonderful memories. I spent the time at home looking at videos and enjoying my network television – watching Bloomberg’s Game Changers program with features on Steve Jobs, Google and Facebook. It was a good time to keep abreast of the industry to learn and try to forecast the future.

Yesterday, I worked beside the window where I could see the snowy landscape. It evoked a lonely and hollow beauty where together with the cold increased one’s feeling of loneliness. My mother is ill and in need of an operation and the weather contributed to a kind of helpless melancholy feeling that one is at the mercy of nature. I had trouble trying to speak to my family on the phone - at a different time zone and continent - a world away. I spoke to several people and I finally got to my mother lying in her hospital bed and she asked me if I was fine. She could not hear very well and she told me about herself in that way of hers and I could not do anything but listen to her voice and follow the flow of her conversation. I felt helpless without any power to do anything; just praying to God that nature should not have its way this time.

Southern California

Back from Los Angeles last night and arrived near midnight. It was 17 days of rain, cold and some brilliant sunshine. It was relaxing although I spent some early mornings working; checking my email, attending virtual meetings and phone conferences, doing tests, and raising tickets. Despite the work, my vacation was very relaxing. I had to work on Eastern Standard Time which was early morning in California. At least it preserved my vacation day as I would finish by 9 or 10 am California time. The last few days were not good though because I had a cold with some irritating coughing fits. Eventually, we flew back home in brilliant sunshine from John Wayne airport in Orange County.

I spent a lot of time watching old DVD movies that I missed as well as recent movies like ‘True Grit’ (Coen brother’s excellent western remake), ‘The Special Relationship’ (Clinton and Blair) and ‘The Blind Side’ (football feel good movie). I also watched the Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena and Orange Bowl football game in a new 60” plasma television. I also watched a lot of business shows (CNBC, Bloomberg), surfed the internet and read a lot of interior design magazines. We also went to the Barnes and Nobles book store, went window shopping, walked the malls and went to the Best Buy electronic shop and outlet shops near Palm Springs.

During the days when the sun was out, we were able to visit interesting places in Los Angeles like the new modern Catholic Cathedral, Frank Gehry designed Disney Music Center, LACMA, Tokyo town, China town and Olvera streets or Mexico town, the new west end (Staples center, Nokia theater, LA Convention Center). We also visited Solvang – a nice little Dutch town near Santa Barbara. This probably was the highlight of the trip for me – driving along the California coast passing quaint little towns like Montecito and Santa Barbara. We also went to the Richard Nixon library in Yorba Linda and the Newport pier at night. We had a nice Christmas party with games and gifts with friends and visited some relatives in nearby Moreno Valley for a New Year’s Eve dinner.  

It was a good time for my kids because they bonded well with their cousins. I finally learned how to play mahjong which I had wanted to do for a long time. I read or watched or thought a lot about the coming year 2011. It’s the Year of the Rabbit which is my birth year based on Chinese Horoscope. The stars seem to foretell good tidings for me on 2011. From my readings, it seems that mortgage rates will remain low, real estate values will still decline (except for some areas like California) with a possible up tick in the last quarter, technology seems to be moving to mobile devices like tablets and mobile phones and USA stocks may recover though some investors may still be hesitant.

The political front may provide some respite with the recent extension of the Bush tax cuts. This provides a second ‘stimulus’ for the economy and some people may hopefully invest in stocks. From my point of view, this will give me some extra cash which will provide an opportunity to de-leverage from debts. My plan is to pay off my second car loan and re-finance my housing loan into a 15-year fixed rate mortgage. I plan to learn more about web television and try to set up a video phone conference utility at home. I also plan to explore the web more (with an Archos 7 inch tablet device) especially in learning about new websites on finance and creative writing. I bought an illustrated companion guide about Stephen King which has some samples of his early writing.

I also bought a few books from Amazon about writing exercises and have a vague plan to complete my first book with the help of writing workshops, writing exercises and dictation. I plan to use my new gadgets and cloud computing to get me through this project. I also discovered a new writer - Trevor Paglen who writes about secret military or intelligence projects. It’s an interesting supplement to the recent books of William Gibson. All in all, my California vacation allowed me to relax, reflect, and discover new things and plan for the future.

My most important New Year resolution is to lose weight, finish my book, be focused and stop procrastinating, be tech savvy with the latest trends and devices and continue improving my financial literacy. I hope to be more organized and de-clutter my life and surroundings. I am inspired by the recent Man of the Year awardee – the Facebook creator who has achieved so much at any early age. I guess it means having the proper focus and drive to achieve one’s goals that is important.