Milestones and rewards

Here are the milestones I've set for my company/goal dates (purely speculated):

Completion of product(1/2/07)
1st sale (2/15/07)
Company out of debt (3/15/07)
Sales totaling $100k (4/30/07)
Sales totaling $1m (6/30/07)
Sales totaling $10m (12/31/07)
Set new goals after last goal is reached.

Ways to rewards myself (in order, but not correpsonding to any milestones):
Move into my own apartment/condo
Buy car #1 e46m3
Travel when I feel bored to Japan, Europe, Australia, New Zeland, Taiwan, Peru, Egypt, Korea (in order of preference, but in no other particular order).
Watch all the TV shows in the queue, House, Nip Tuck, CSI, Smallville.
Buy nice house + furniture
Throw a phat house party
Buy car #2 amdb9

The Demand

Yesterday was such a rush. Just like I imagined, the demand for my product was absolutely incredible. Its not a hard sell when you show them something they've been wanting for a very long time. I'll have to admit, I started having small bursts of doubt now and then, which were based out of nothing. But as you pump money into a company, no matter how good your product is, if you haven't sold anything yet, you start to wonder if you're going to get some of that money back.

Where does it go from here? I can't even begin to imagine. I'll have to play it by ear.

What was Mozart thinking when he wrote Symphony #40?

Maybe he was thinking, "holy s--t!, this is gonna be so f--king cool!" as he heard it before even it was on paper. That's how I feel how some of my future customers will react to my product that finally does what they've always wished a product would do because of the simplicity of the demand for what always turns out to be an impossible task. Because not only is my product capable, it does it extremely well, and with style. Its just so exciting to think about what this products means to me, the impact it'll have on the users and the whole field. Its gonna be great! That's all I can say. But until then there's a lot of work to be done. And there seems to be so little time left. Gotta get back to work.

The Joys of Starting Your Own Business

Being a vendor at a vendor expo where finding even just one right customer can make all the difference in the world on how successful my business will be, I felt I needed an edge over the other vendors when it came to schwag (raffle giveaways). Having attended one of these vendor fairs, it seemed like people were giving away ipods, and not much else. Owning a video ipod already, it didn't arouse my interest at all in trying to win anything from a shuffle to a ipod video. They don't scan my name, then fine, the other 5 tables will. And if I don't win one, no big deal, what am I gonna do with a second ipod anyway? I already feel that the ipod that I have is already the perfect ipod for me (the large video), and the other ones really don't fit well into my lifestyle. And I'm sure other people can make the same remark about the ipod they own. A second ipod wouldn't add too much to their life that their current ipod is already doing. The bottom line. Everyone owns one, and plus they are relatively expensive. Giving an ipod has become a cliche. I started to think, what is something everyone wants right now? And the time for this question was to my advantage because it is Christmas season. What costs just as much as an ipod, but will make the potential customer walk to my table and want to get their name badge scanned for the raffle? And what product will they want that badly that they'll come to me already having surrendered to the fact that they'll have to be pitched to?

The answer: The Nintendo Wii (MSRP $249.99)

The beautiful thing is, they can't just drop a dozen cards in the bowl for the raffle, the vendor has to opt to scan their name badge. If someone were to just come to my table, and ask if I can scan their names for the raffle and don't hide the fact that they have no interest in giving us any of their time, then I don't need to scan their names. On the other hand, if they have any interest in at least giving us 30 seconds of their time, this is an excellent opportunity to get the word out about our product. Even if they don't need the product themselves, they could very well know people that are looking for a product exactly like ours because of the type of conference I'll be attending.

Of course the effective price is much different. I can easily ebay it off today for $600 + $30 to ship no problem as it seems to be the case at the moment while I'm writing this blog. Who knows what the price might be at December 12. There's a slight chance anyone that wants one, with some research and planning might be able to go to the right store and pick one up as they get them in stock. Or it might be worth a thousand dollars or more. Really, I can sell this thing, and probably give away 2 video ipods and get some money back on my purchase. What would be better? Giving away the hottest Christmas toy that everyone is talking about that people have to hunt for, or give away 2 very nice ipods that will most likely arouse 10% of the interest and jabber among the crowd at the fair that the Wii can? It makes me think of my first trip to Barona with my roommates when I first came to UCSD. Someone at the blackjack table asks the female dealer if its ever advisable to split to 10's. And her reply. "Well, if you had a 10" dick, would you split that for two 5's?" Probably a quote very often heard at the scrub tables, but still a very good analogy none the less.

So I realized that there is no choice other than to get the Wii. I just couldn't see myself at the conference without one. This meant that I'll probably have to get in line at some ungodly hour, and at the very least leave the warm safe comfort of my home for the guarangee that i'll have the Wii in my hands for the conference.

While getting lunch on saturday, I stop by best buy around 2PM. Already 33 people in line. Not looking good because the soonest I told myself I'd be willing to go there is 10:30PM for the 8AM opening (which later turned out to be a 9AM opening). I said what the hell, and came back at 10:30 PM. The line has only doubled in size, and the figures that people are throwing around is that they have 100 Wii's, so with the cutting in line and all that business, I judged that my chances of getting the Wii is about 95%.

Overall the experience wasn't that bad. I was very well prepared on how to kill 10 hours in line, but very poorly prepared for the cold weather. I thought I just throw a sweat shirt on top of what I'm wearing would be fine, but I had judged poorly how cold it gets at 4AM inland when you've been standing there for 6 hours. And I also made the mistake of bringing hot coffee on a thermous. First, the coffee sitting in a thermous loses its freshness within a few hours, second, what you want more than anything is the heat inside of it. It probably would have been best if I had just brought some hot water, or a soup. Tea is questionable because you would rather not use the portapotties if you didn't have to. I could have brought extra clothing, maybe a blanket, or a sleeping bag. Any of those would have added to a lot to my experience. But I'm thinking maybe next time, I'll go all out and bring some camping gear. A lot of people did. Tents, large couch cushions, padding for their sleeping bags. On top of that, they had portable electricity by battery or by car + adapter + extension cable. I was working hard to not suffer from the cold as much as possible when Stan showed up at 5:30. I thought he went home to take a nap and was going to get in line with me. But it turned out he had come from the birthday party that I had left 7 hours ago and just wanted to help me defrost before he drove home. It was a blessing in the skies because I really don't know what would have happened if he hadn't shown up. I probably would have been fine, but he made my next 3 hours significantly less miserable.

As for killing time, I was ready. Maybe having learned from my Rose Bowl experience where I didn't have any device with me (except a cell phone w/o games and camera which you can't really play with too much while sitting on the curb for 8 hours), this time was a totally different story. I had high speed internet via BlackBerry tethering to my laptop on Verizon Wireless on the EVDO networks. On top of my blackberry and laptop, I had my PSP, DS Lite, ipod, and a sudoku book. And I had to use all of them because you can't really use one device without feeling like you're forcing yourself to do it. What is one thing I could have used more of? Probably laptop power. I wouldn't have minded watching a tv show or a movie if my battery life wasn't an issue. I surfed the web for a good 3 hours, then my battery life fell to 20% and I just had to suspend and wake it every 30 minutes trying to order the Wii on amazon (this one would be for my personal use).

At 9AM, they let us in slowly, and surprisingly they had all the games in stock. About 45 people behind me got Nintendo Wii's. Probably could have come and stood in line at 7AM and been #90 out of #100, but I wanted better odds. Anyone that showed up after 7:40 as too late. As I said, I wasn't going to go to the conference empty handed. That just wasn't going to happen.

If I had to do it all over again, I'll probably get a inflatable mattress or at the very least some thick padding for my sleeping bag, wool socks, extra battery for my laptop, and some hot soup in a thermous. Does tom yum come in a can?

On the brink of greatness.

I started a company not too long ago on a software product I've been steadily developing since mid July. All I can say right now is that the potential is beyond anything else I've come across. The sucess of the company should be mostly based on how well I can run the company because the product is good enough to sell itself. The company is launching in exactly a month from now. We'll be using the SANS Institute Cyber Defense Initiative 2006 in Washington D.C. (December 12, 2006) as our launch vehicle.

A blog. Take four.

Once again, the thoughts of previous postings no longer reflect the person who I am today. The last few months has been nothing short of an incredible journey. Exciting times are ahead.

Maturity

I've had a rethought of my "I'm in the know" post. Sure it is all true, you might believe in it, and change your ways because you believe it. But I see the bigger picture now. Its all about being mature and really understanding what it means to be a man. In today's society, after you're 18 or 21 or whatever, you are a man in a physical sense, but the way our culture is set up, there's no formal initiation where you psychologically leave the boy behind, and fully take on what we are innately programmed to do. If you're a guy, and when you got to 21, or 25, did you ever wonder "I know I am a man but when can I start referencing myself as 'a man of...' or 'a man who...' and not feel funny saying it?" Mature women can determine at the drop of a hat the level of a guy's maturity. And without shame I will admit I hadn't matured at all a year ago. And in the last year, I deeply wanted to be mature, and understood the characteristics of a man, but I was approaching it from a top down approach by trying to act like a man (and feeling conflicted), rather than working from the bottom up by letting the boy die, understanding what it really means to be a man, and let my new psychology guide my actions from then on.

Not 100% there yet because I have goals for myself but I'm getting this taken care of. And it'll be done soon.

Fashion

After I've made "the realization" everything in between makes sense to me at a whole different level. I've never really understood fashion before. I would try different things and could tell you what looks good on me or not, but that's only a part of it. I've always made the mistake of dressing according to "the style that has become popular" when people that really understand fashion know that the style that is fading in an exponential level. In short, you want to stand out to get noticed. The trick is the futher you're willing to play this attraction game, there's a fine line between "weirdo" and "interesting". And its all about balancing how to make yourself stand out while finding something that fits your self image.

Case in point, imagine 10 guys approaching the same girl. 9 of the guys were wearing similar styles. Then there's this one guy that just gets it that wears something totally different, boarderline ridiculous. That one guy is so ahead of the game because its most likely that she's already seen him and have triggered a message in her brain that goes something like "whoa...what's up with that guy?" And you can bet when he goes up and says hi, she'll have more to say to you than just hi back and be interested to find out the person behind the clothing, compared to the other 9 guys that were blending in that when they walked up to her, they might as well have stepped in from the shadows and more likely triggered a response back from her like "hi...and what do you want?" because it'll be the first time she's even seen you. This is a good way to prove how not smooth you are.

I'm in the know

Sometime in the last month or so, it finally clicked. It was like taking the red pill and entering the Matrix and never seeing the same things the same way. Floods of interconnected information started making sense at such a deep level and it felt like I had finally solved one of biggest puzzles we all have to solve one day for ourselves. It makes so much sense now on why so many nice guys are single (and will likely stay that way), why so many jerks are not, and that the girls/women are looking for neither of those guys, but end up settling for one or the other.

Then there is the minority that the girls who have figured it out are holding off to meet one day. I'm talking about the guys in the know that are still single. They understand the concept of relationships, everything in between, know what people are really looking for from relationships, and how to deliver that to both parties. And I would like to welcome myself to this exclusive club. Let me say this. I am still a nice person, but I am no longer the nice guy in the context of "nice guys finish last."

Being a perfectionist its hard to look back at just about everything I did in the last 10 years of my dating life, and realizing just about everything I thought I was doing right was just the absolutely the wrong thing to do. Never again will I ever find myself in the same position.

We're always trying to do the right thing at all times. Unfortunately, until you realize it for yourself, any attempt of someone trying to explain "it" to you would sound like a far fetched theory at best and would not be convincing enough for you to see that what you once thought was right may be completely wrong. And you cannot, or have any reason to, do something you don't believe in. You always need to be yourself. That is the most important thing.

This is my third blog

I don't know who still comes by to read it but I feel the changes to my life and who I am no longer directly reflect the previous postings. Check back for some interesting posts.

What is this crap?

Man, ever since I started brewing my own coffee, I can't stand coffee at the cart. Its just terrible. Its like going from a really good beer to Budweiser.

Damn

Its hot and humid in NY.

The perfect burrito

El Cotixan should make a burrito 150% of its original size, and make it half shredded beef, and half carne asada.

The same post once again

Whenever I catch a pretty bad cold these days, the same thought comes to mind every time. I think about how much life would suck if your illness never went away, and how much we take our health for granted. I think we all have the tendency to make the smallest problems in our lives the biggest problems at the moment if nothing is going wrong in our lives. The $4 more we pay to fill up our gas tanks. The quality of the meat they had the nerve to serve me at a particular restaurant we frequent. How some jackass parked a few inches too close which almost prevented you from getting into your car on the driver's side. Then you catch a cold/flu that knocks you on your ass and all your priorities take a back seat when you are sick. If I could give or do anything to not be sick, I'm willing to do. Unfortunately, this is a bargain I cannot make. I can only wait it out.

Whenever I get sick I also have the tendency to give in to anything my body desires at the moment. Pancakes at 1am? Sure. A dozen or two nuggets of Hershey's chocolate? Why not. Heck, I almost went out to buy a bucket of KFC for dinner tonight. Almost..

What the...

When the orthodontist told me that I'll get used to my braces, I didn't believe him. And I was right. Exactly a year ago I got braces, and it always surprises me that I have braces on to this day. It just feels so out of place.

The good news is that he says I can maybe even get them off in 2 months! I'll be crossing my fingers!

jury duty, the second time around

I’m online from the court house. Well, I guess the SD court house still hasn’t implemented free wireless service. I’m connected through my blackberry's IPModem. Pretty painful to use (5kbytes/sec with 500+ sec ping), but at its still a 100 times better than being here without it.

First time I was here for jury duty, I gotta admit I was pretty mad that I was here while they wasted my time (not to mention the $16 for parking and finding out the $15 a day only kicks in starting the second day of jury duty. The only thing I could focus on was what can I say to get dismissed.

I’m here the second time. And, there’s a new surprise. Government workers don’t even get $15 a day. Thank you Arnold! other than that, i have a totally different perspective on why i'm here the second time around. I think what changed my mind was the whole talk that the judge gave before the jury selection began. he pretty much covered all the bases on why it is my duty to be here, and how any circular argument i can come up with why i should be excuses were addressed (meaning i didn't have an argument at all). Its kinda like going through acupuncture. First time, you kinda pay attention to every needle going into your body, but after a few times, you just kinda relax and let the process take its course.

Oh, they are calling names. C’mon...no whammies, no whammies, no whammies…

Dang! brb...being called..

haha! dismissed. i think the key to getting dismissed is to stay out of the spot light. don't present them with any information that might interest them. so talk the least amount possible (having no spouse, kids, friends/relatives in law enforcement or legal profession helps). also, don't be smart and say something like how you don't think you can offer a fair unbiased opionion for the case, or how you think the US law system doesn't work. you're just opening yourself to arguments from judges and lawyers. your half assed circular logic won't stand up to these professionals whose sole purpose in their profession is to change your mind about something. with cleverly phrased questions they'll just destroy your argument and quickly set you in your place. and that might be exactly what they are looking for. someone who is quickly convinced. and also, keep personal details and especially personal experience to yourself. Like the first guy that was introducing himself. He was listing his past jobs and credentials like he was applying for a job. did he wanted to get chosen? well, maybe he did.

and the case had something to do with driving with a suspened license. bunch of people wanted to share a story on how they might or might not be personally affected after knowing a friend who was hit by a unlicensed driver. Not surprisingly, at least half of those people weren't getting dismissed.

another thing that seemed to make a difference was if you had served in a prior jury before. it doesn't work the way you think it should. like you might think if you had served in a jury before, they should give you a break, and let the ones that never served have their turn. it doesn't work like that. if you get on a jury once and reached a verdict, watch out. you just put a stamp of approval on yourself. how illegal is it to lie about details like these during the jury selection process? its not like you're on the witness stand and sworn in are you?

till next year!

Jury Duty, here I come! (Insert Rushmore poster here)

Jury duty always seemed like a big waste of time. The last time I was at jury duty, I didn't have a single device on hand. Except for my cell phone. Which had no games, or even a calculator (v60c). So it was a very boring experience. All I did was wait. Finally got called, then waited outside the door of the courtroom. Waited inside the court room. Went to lunch, waited outside the courtroom once again. Then was finally dismissed.

This time, I've never been so equipped to deal with the situation. I have my laptop to watch DVDs that I haven't had the chance to enjoy (NewsRadio Season 3, and Tales from the Crypt Season 3), BlackBerry for emails, games, limited Internet browsing, chatting on AIM and MSN, and of course phone calls. If I wanted full Internet capabilities on my laptop, I know they at least have phone jacks to attach my laptop (which came with a modem built in). I can use my free dialup access I get by working at my department at UCSD. Or I can use my BlackBerry as a modem which gets about the same speed as dialup service. But a lot of waiting rooms have wireless internet anyway, so that will probably be the best way to connect. On top of all that, I have my video ipod which I mainly use for music, storing psp video, and psp games. And if I wanted to watch video, I have my PSP on hand for hours and hours of video.

I also have 2 books that I'm reading, and projects to work on (using the laptop). I can also take my camera to do some photography of downtown San Diego during lunch.

The only bad thing that can happen is that I get called in first thing in the morning, and get selected as a juror immediately. Now that can still suck.

So different, yet still the same.

I've been back in the US since Sunday evening, and after having spent more time in Taiwan, it still strikes me on how different life is in San Diego. Couldn't be any more different. Yet, around the world, we all have the same basic needs. We just have different ways in getting these needs fullfilled.

The trip was a lot of fun. And in a lot of ways, I enjoyed this trip more than the first one. It could have been that I felt comfortable in my familiar surroundings, or it could have been that this trip was less about Cherie showing me around Taiwan, and more about just enjoying our time together. I'm looking forward to seeing her again, most likely at the end of June unless there is a chance we do make it to Japan. 3.5 months is a long time, but still managable.

On a side note, on the way there and back, I was able to sleep normally on the plane. Something I didn't even expect from myself. First one didn't really count because the plane was only 1/3 full so everyone, including myself, got to sleep on their sides. On the way back, because I had averaged 3-4 hours of sleep while I was in Taiwan, I ate my meal, then passed out seconds after. The must have took my tray while I was sleeping. The takeoff leaving LAX was definitely an interesting experience. We were taxing down the runway when the wheel sounded like it was buckling. So we had to pull into a hanger to get that inspected. They gave us the thumbs up an hour later, and while the wheel still buckled during takeoff, we made it to Taipei, even a little ahead of schedule.

Riding on the scooter was an interesting experience. It pretty much was what I expected it to be. Total chaos. Everyone cuts off everybody. One thing I found comforting was that people drive really slow in Taiwan...well slow enough to where it doesn't mean instant death when you fall off. If all the scooters drove like that around here, they'd all be roadkill. I gotta hand it to Cherie though. I was surprised how much she was willing to maneuver around traffic without having much experience on the scooter. I was impressed.

It feels like I never left

It could be that I got to sleep comfortably on the plane ride over here. But Taiwan this time around feels like I never left this place. Everything seems familiar.

Its been raining non stop since I got here (finally stopped today). But I've still been having lots of fun getting around in the bus, their subway system (MRT), and just hanging out at home.

Cherie has acquired a scooter. And we might take that to go somewhere new. Should be interesting and exciting in more ways than one.

Japan: A no go.

Well, the original plan was to surprise Cherie with 2 plane tickets to Japan for 4 days. Invested a good amount of time and effort to plan it. Booked the flight, and made all the reservations. Unfortunately, I just found out today that her passport is tied up in Taipei because she's applying for a resident visa to extend her stay there till the end of June. What a great trip it would have been. But it'll just have to wait until next time. This just means that we'll just have more time in Taipei and there is plenty to do there.

Unkink in your spine in less than a day

I've become an expert in getting the kinks out of my own spine in less than a day (at least for my body, and probably yours, whoever still reads this thing, too). After giving some anonymous tips over the Internet on how to do so, I decided to publish it on my blog.

First things first, you must take care of it as soon as you can semi comfortably get out of the house. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to remove the kink.

The magic formula for all my kinks in my back and neck is simple. Reduce your inflammation as much as possible using known proven methods, then get your spine in a neutral position.

1: Schedule an appointment with your acupuncturist. If you don't have one, find a certified acupuncturist who focuses on a western medicine approach to acupuncture. They are more focused on removing the inflammation around the inflammed area by sticking needles and massaging those areas (not painful, and very very effective for short term), and less concerned about opening up blocked passage of your chakra gates so your chi can flow out (the eastern medicine way of thinking). After you schedule that, schedule an appointment with your chriropractor so you can can go there immediately after your acupuncture appointment.

2: 4 hours before the acupunture appointment, take 800mg of advil. This is a safe dose (unless you have an ulcer). Call your doctor first if you wanna be cautious.

3: Go to your acupuncture appointment.

4: Immediately after the acupuncture appointment, go directly to the chiropractor.

What you did from steps 2-4 was that, you've significantly reduced the inflammation at least for the short time being, then went to an expert that can adjust your spine to a neutral position. Because you've reduced the inflammation, the adjustment should be easy for the chiropractor. But you can't do one without the other. For example, you can't just remove the inflammation and not do anything about it. Your spine is still not in a neutral position, and the inflammation will start coming back rather quickly. If your kink was light enough, it might just unravel itself on the way to the chiropractor. Its happened to me a few times. Getting back to the point to you can't do one and not the other, you can't just skip the reducing the inflammation part before going to the chiropractor because if its moderately inflammed, the adjustment won't happen or it might be so inflammed that when you try to adjust it, it'll just get more inflammed because you're aggravating it.

And the last step (5) : Take it easy for the rest of the day.

Keep in mind that you did something that made your spine get twisted up. And even though you've dealt with it, what you should be thinking of is figuring out why or how your spine got kinked. Is it your posture? Is it the bed you're sleeping on? Is your pillow giving you enough support? Figure that out and you don't even need steps 1 through 5.

haha

If you are a simpsons fan, you must call 1-800-223-2369 to hear a recording of homer's voice. its worth the minute to brighten up your day. its the number you call when you originally bought the season 6 with a box shaped like homer's head. its the number found here on this piece of paper.

yawn

i don't blame janet jackson. i blame the misguided FCC. you made the superbowl boring. congratulations.

Back on the Abs Diet

So I'm back on the wagon. Or was it off the wagon?

"On the wagon. Don't you think they broke into a couple of those bottles along the way?" - JS

Started on Monday. And actually worked out this morning. Hopefully I can continue to work out every morning at the least while I'm officially on the abs diet. I think the last time I did it, although I lost about 8 lbs, and 2% body fat, I did eat a lot more than I should have. Like I wouldn't measure out the shakes. And I would drink like 50% more than I should have. So doing that twice a day, I'm consuming extra ~300 calories. Its good food but still, its 300 * 7 * 6 extra calories I consumed. And it could have made a difference of 3 lbs in weight lost. That coupled with working out in the mornings, I can only do better.