08.01.08
My passport’s back!
Quick update:
I just got my Chinese visa! I dropped the application off at A. Briggs Passport Expetitors near Downtown Crossing last Friday, then just had to wait. I’ve heard some horror stories from people whose visas got stuck in the consulates for weeks or months, but I was optimistic (and perhaps foolhardy). Today, it showed up at work at 10:00! My passport is back with the actually-quite-attractive Chinese visa on page 12.
The only strange thing is that it was issued in 华盛顿 (Washington D.C.), even though I thought I’d have to get it from New York…
Regardless, it’s here, and this trip is really happening!
07.30.08
Off again!
Well, I know, I know. I’m a terrible blogger (thanks, Gemma!). However, I’m leaving for another long trip soon, so I’m planning on updating from internet cafes, etc. like I did last summer. That was actually a lot of fun and I enjoy looking back on the stuff I did even now.
This time, however, I’m headed to East Asia. Specifically, Korea and China. My flight leaves Boston the morning of August 9th, heads to Chicago, where I’ll pick up my sister, Laura, then goes direct to Seoul. From there, we’ll head to Busan/Gimhae, back to Suwon, and Seoul again for one day. Then, I’ll leave Laura in Korea with her friend Diana, and I’ll fly to Beijing. I’m not going to stay long, however, because I’m going straight to Shanghai for a few nights, before returning to Beijing to watch a few Olympics events and visit my friend Mike from high school.
Right now, I’m trying to work out how to travel between Beijing and Shanghai. I’m thinking about the Z5/Z6 sleeper trains, but am unsure of how to book them online. I’ll make it work, though.
Finally, if anyone wants a postcard, just email me your address and I’ll put you on my list. Wish me luck!
02.24.08
Free Speeches Online
I just learned about this cool website: www.ted.com. TED is an organization that asks famous/interesting people to give 20-minute speeches and records them. Now, on their website, you can watch speeches that they’ve collected over the last 24 years. A lot of this content is probably available on YouTube, but the signal-to-noise ratio is much higher on TED because of the limited format and the high barrier to entry.
This morning, I watched a talk by J.J. Abrams, and yesterday I watched a theramin concert and a speech on aging by Aubrey de Grey (whom I’ve read about, but had never seen before). If you have twenty minutes to spare, you should check it out.
01.29.08
Work updates
I don’t talk about work much on here (well, less than I talk about anything else), but I figure there’s something other people might finally be interested in – a rapping review of VistaPrint:
http://www.45n5.com/permalink/business-card-rapper-vistaprint-review.html
He’s really bad, but I’m still impressed that we inspired this…
In other news, I signed my first patent application today! It was actually submitted yesterday, but they said it would be ok if everyone signed it today. My co-inventors are my manager Jay, and coworker Terence, but the patent is listed as Daugherty et al. There will be another one in a few weeks, on the second half of the work I did (even though we ended up not using it for our own site). Patent applications aren’t publicly available for two years, though, so I think I shouldn’t go into too much detail here, in case it’s covered in my NDA.
01.13.08
小吃
Mmm, dim sum is so good. Yesterday, I tried to get a bunch of friends to agree to go to dim sum this morning. It sort of worked. None of the people from work came (maybe it was the company party yesterday? But seriously, I was up at 8:30 and had to wait so long before going out…), but I still got to see Sally, Jaime, and 영희. We went to China Pearl again, and as usual, I tried to order for us in Chinese. It was tough, because I haven’t been practicing much lately – Chinese class doesn’t start again until February. So, I think I was out of practice listening to people speak.
Actually, the hardest part of going to dim sum with this particular group of friends is that the servers always speak to Sally first, and when she’s on the other side of the table, I probably couldn’t hear what they were saying, even if it was English.
Erin likes eating dim sum with me for two reasons: 1. Apparently hearing me speak Chinese is funny. 2. MIT people have interesting conversations. Today we couldn’t help spilling the tea quite a few times, so we talked about how to improve the conventional teapot. I was initially in favor of a mechanical redesign, but by the end of the meal, Sally had convinced me that new, hydrophobic materials were the answer to our dilemma…
01.07.08
Global Warming Board Game
So this IAP, there’s a session about creating an educational board game about global warming. I don’t really know what that means, and I probably won’t be able to find out, because the sessions are 2-5 during the day; right when I work. Nevertheless, I love board games and couldn’t help but start to think about how to turn the game-theory aspects of the global warming problem into a fun board game (because if I’m not in the class, why worry about educational when it could be just fun?). Read the rest of this entry »
01.06.08
Dancing for Engineers
Now here’s a topic I’ve been thinking about for a while. I started going to salsa dancing lessons fairly regularly this fall, but am having a hard time remembering the long sequences of complex moves that I learn in the MIT lessons (which are great, by the way). Even when I can remember them, it’s hard to do them on the dance floor with a girl who doesn’t also know what is coming, while staying on the beat, etc. etc. So, at some point this fall, I thought to myself that there must be a better way to learn enough sequences of moves not to bore a good follower to tears. Read the rest of this entry »
Wow, another post!
So, I’ve been thinking about this blog since New Year’s – Nicola told me that I need to write down my travel horror stories for everyone to read… However, the story is so long that I’ve been putting it off (and I’m going to continue to put it off for a while more; right now it’s way too late).
Now that I’m here, though, I noticed that I really haven’t written in an incredibly long time; I thought I wrote more than that. Anyway, I guess history proves that I can’t promise anything on here – so, no promises of posts, etc. You get what you get.
I have had a few thoughts of things I could write about, though, so I think I’ll write another short post tonight before I go to sleep (I hate mixing topics, so I’m not going to put it in this one).
11.04.07
中国菜！
星期四，我跟一个 女的朋友去了一家中国饭馆(Chef Chang’s House)吃了一只北京烤鸭。非常好吃。这是我的第一次吃。跟服务员我说疑点中文，可是他直说英我觉得文跟我。疑点奇怪，所以我也常常说英文。现在我觉得我应该说多中文。
星期六我下中文棵以后我有疑点时间所以我去了中国城里 。我想吃叉烧包可是我找不到所以我买了一个猪肉pie.我再说中文！厨师还好。我旁边的白人看来我很诧。说中文很好玩儿。我应该常常自己在中国饭店吃反说中文。
08.23.07
The Results Are In – makeyourownjeans.com
A while ago, I wrote about makeyourownjeans.com, a website that sells custom-made clothing, that I thought might be the answer to the tall (or short) person’s dilemma. It’s been a long time, but on August 6, I finally went ahead and placed an order with them for two items – a pair of jeans, and a formal shirt.
