Cow’s Life - Thinking Outside Of The Barn

Yes, the original Yuna’s Village is suspended and got moved over here as my historical museum collection now. If 500 years later our future great great …great grand kids want to build an Ancient American Blog Museum, I know I can contribute quite a bit.

Anyway, I finished the design work last night to migrate this site into Free The Cow Project to have a new fresh start. Yes, it is a sequal of my beloved Yuna’s Village…. It’s also a new chapter of the next phase of my life.

• new job
• new city
• new side gigs
• new home (soon)
• new friends….

Gosh, I am starting from ground up again and live my life in a totally different way. Although everybody is seeking for stability, but this change might not be a bad idea… it could be a turning point…

So here I am , Yuna is turning into a cow and trying to fight a way out of the barn. After running the Free The Cow Project for 3 weeks, I truly believe that I can succeed one day. When you really put your foot down and do something, everything is possible. See! I have made about 40 bucks already from the side gigs!!

When I took the new teaching job back in Jan this year, I was fully expecting to work as a low key technical trainer and just do my teaching.

Just 2 weeks ago, my role and responsibility suddenly changed. Now, I am appointed as the new education manager of the new organization we are building as the result of the recent acquisition. So forget about staying at home and teach. I have been flying non stop in the last 2 weeks to attend summit meetings to lay out plans to build this new organization. Like a few years back when I worked on a high profile DC job that nearly destroyed my mental heath, here I am again, sitting with a full room of execs and VPs throwing big words at each other and demanding big dollars without the politeness.

I was much younger then, less mature and was very much afraid of these big boys. 4 years have passed and I noticed a huge difference between me now and the me then: I don’t give a fuck of what’s going on… Last week, I booked a 5pm flight to come home. The partner who owns the organization suddenly asked me to stay for one more day for a meeting that I was never invited to. I flat out said that I had to go home tonight. In front of all the VPs/Execs, he yelled at me, “Christine? Do you want to get fired?” Crap! What do I care?! I quit once remember? So I threw my hands in the air, “Great! FIRE ME!” Everybody busted in laughs and continued with whatever they were doing… I ended up delaying my 5pm flight to 7:25pm, attended the meeting for 2 more hours, gave my opinions and flew back home.

One thing I learned from these Big Boys in the last 2 weeks was that these guys all have big nasty attitude and have “I am the Boss. Don’t mess with me” written all over on their foreheads. As opposed to the file and rank employees like myself, we are used to the concept to “perform well” and to “please our boss and others”. The more we try to please others, the less respect we get. It’s week 2 into my new job and I have been putting on a big nasty “Don’t mess with me or no education for your people” banner on my forehead too. It’s been working quite well and I have networked with quite a lot Partners and Execs in the last a few days to talk about Value-Adds and importance of getting their people trained… I know.. I know.. It’s all corporate buillshit… Even though I am working in a cut throat environment right now, nothing is like working on a fucked up slavery client project. To be honest, I don’t think these big guys jobs are that hard. The consultants who are working on the fields truly have the hardest jobs. So my hat’s off to those of you who are still out there busting your asses everyday. It’s a great job to start your career with, but don’t stay out there for too long… I know I will never get back to the consulting career again…

12, 13 years ago at the dawn of the first Internet boom, we transformed the way we share and deliver information by moving them online, graphically. Now, we are moving human interactions, communities, and user contents into the Web space and the results have been phenomenal. There is even a name for it: Web 2.0

Newsweek has done an interesting article to talk about the new era of the Internet: The Living Web. . Check it out. A few of the biggest new kids on the block:
1. mySpace.com
2. Digg.com
3. Flickr

Along with the massively exploded numbers of blogs out there, we are really entering the era of the Living Web. If you have never played with any of these, you gotta ditch those reality shows and enter the 21st Century.

I signed up with digg.com a few months after the site was launched. I have never thought that in less than a year, Digg has joined other big boys and became part of the icon of the new Web 2.0.

I am really excited about this new stage of the Web development. I really think that we are at the early stage of this exciting new era and there are plenty of opportunities out there if we can come up with some great ideas. So where to look for these opportunities? It falls back to the good old golden rule: Supply and Demand. As a web user, what do I want? What do the people around us want from their Web experiences? Now we have ways to allow users to present their own contents and share with others, but how should we organize this massive amount of information? How can we utilize the new information that has never been available before? Seriously, if you think about the output from 30 million+ blogs, 60 million user profiles from mySpace, gazillions of pictures from Flick, great things can be done with these user generated contents which used to be only in the individual’s head. I have been thinking about these questions lately and got quite a few ideas. A simple example: the marketing research groups can filter mySpace and have a tons of information as what products are in demand, how to reach the potential customers and what are the most effective ways to market them. Because? These information are spelled out on these webpages. It’s matter of who is going to turn that information into useful data. GREAT! I just shared my million dollar idea with the public!

Some Silion Valley frontiers are already putting their ideas into actions. Check these guys out: (Who is Building The Next Web)

To those stock-pick lovers, keep your eyes open too because one of these new players could be tomorrow’s eBay and Google.

This is no laughing matter. It happened in the 30’s when America suffered from the Great Depression. As the result, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans got deported, 60% of them were US Citizens and many of them were children born in the US.

Now, if the Congress passes this bill to align the illegal aliens with the murders and rapists as criminals, then the horrifying history is going to repeat itself. Those American kids would either be forced to live in a foreign land where they have no ideas about, or check into orphanages.

Keeping our border safe is one thing, but kicking these people out who have already had roots here is just totally wrong! Forget about the American Value, the congress better start funding social services ‘cause they are going to need a lot of orphanages to house those kids without parents.

Essential vocabulary additions for the workplace (and elsewhere)!!!

1. BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.
2. SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.
3. ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.
4. SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.
5. CUBE FARM : An office filled with cubicles
6. PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on.
7. MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation’s answer to the couch potato.
8. SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What Yuppies get into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.
9. STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.
10. SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.
11. XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one’s workplace.
12. IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are Annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The J-Lo and Ben wedding (or not) was a prime example - Michael Jackson, another…
13. PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.
14. ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.
15. 404: Someone who’s clueless. From the World Wide Web error Message “404 Not Found,” meaning that the requested site could not be located.
16. GENERICA: Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and subdivisions.
17. OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a BIG mistake. (Like after hitting send on an email by mistake)
18. WOOFS: Well-Off Older Folks.
19. CROP DUSTING: Surreptitiously passing gas while passing through a Cube Farm

It’s sad to see the snow go, but Spring is finally here! For the first time in 2006, I packed up my climbing gear and headed over to Turkey Rock area to climb with my team this past Sunday.

I always thought rock climbing is a sport for human and survival skill for squirrels. But wait until you see this:
Eiger, a black Lab named after a climbing site and owned by one of the climbers came with us this time. One of our climbers made a joke with Eiger by putting his favorite stick in a small cave about 7, 8 feet above the ground. Eiger, an absolute stick lover was determined to get this stick. He first analyzed the situation by stretching his body. “Ok, I am not tall enough.. “.

He then tried to jump a few times. Check out this video. That didn’t do him any good either.

His owner Mike and our climbing team lead Doug started to show him how to use the extra piece of rock to get him higher.

Then, they showed Eiger the basic climbing techniques: Get your legs up first! Boy, this smart dog is really learning.

Check out this video too.

After 20 – 25 minutes of struggling with the climbing techniques, he finally got his body up on the rock and reached to his favorite stick.

WOW! I don’t know if Eiger realized it or not, he just climbed the hardest part of a 5.8 route! High 5 for Eiger!!

I am sure a lot of us know a few things about the true happiness. It ain’t money, it ain’t big house.. and it certainly won’t be the 15 min fame on a Reality Show. So what is it? What are these magic ingredients that truly make people happy?

I saw an article on this month’s Redbook and I am going to turn that article around and run a 12 day series to make a Happy List.

So here they are:

Happy List Day 1: It’s a Choice
Happy List Day 2: Optimism
Happy List Day 3: New Experience
Happy List Day 4: Finding Humor
Happy List Day 4: Finding Hobbies

I still believe that being happy is a personal choice: whether you choose to stay in a bad mood or let it go; whether you choose to step out the bad situation or sink in; whether you choose to do something that is meaningful and productive or be lazy and worship TV all night long; whether you choose to get out of the house and meet other people, or sit at home and feel lonely and sorry for yourself.

Research shows that people who describe themselves as autonomous and self-governing are up to three times more likely to be satisfied with their lives. These individuals know they have the power to opt out when a situation no longer suits them. So when they are not happy with their current situations, they make the active choices to change matters.

It was a while ago that I had to teach myself a simple exercise to feel happier:
Whenever the bad mood strikes, I consciously make the decision to let it go and look at the brighter side. I know it sounds dumb. But after all, everything is related to what we decide to do. When my brain decides not to feel grumpy about whatever I am feeling grumpy about, my attention shifts to something else and before I know it, I am happily doing something else.

I was taking a flight back home from Austin last week and got to the gate kind of late. I had to stuff my bag in the overhead compartment and might squash somebody’s duffle bag a bit. Since the duffle bag was pretty loosely packed, I didn’t think it was a big deal. But when the plane landed, the duffle bag owner started to yell at my face, “You are the stupidest bitch I have ever seen. See what you did to my BAG!” Of course, I wasn’t happy to hear the B word. But trying to be polite, I asked him if there was any damage so I could pay him some money. He kept on screaming, “Just stop being an idiot!” and stormed out of the aircraft. I wanted to cry. Actually, I did cry on the way home and even at home. I couldn’t understand why people would say such mean things to me when there was apparently no damage done to that person. I even offered to pay the damage if there was any. To be honest, it was hard to let it go. But finally I convinced myself, “Well at least I am not an angry miserable unhappy person like that guy.”

We hit bad luck here and there. We all had to go through some terrible experiences somewhere in life. Even the worst experiences have their bright sides. Take that airplane story as an example: at least I know I am not a crazy angry bitch.

Embracing all of your life experiences - even the really painful ones - with the knowledge that something good inevitably will come out of them is what optimism is all about.” It helps minimize fears about the future and could otherwise become debilitating, allowing you to move past them more quickly and ultimately lead a more carefree life, ” says Baker.

A classic study from University of Massachusetts found that accident victims who had become suddenly paralyzed were more hopeful about the future than lottery winners. A possible reason: The tragedy allowed them to see that most of the stuff that gets us down isn’t really worth fretting over.

So how to be a “Glass Half Full” thinker? There are many ways, but what worked for me was trying to approach a bad situation with an open mind and try to find the upside of it. So far, I have found the “bright side” in everything, good or bad.

There is much debate going on whether our cellphone’s radio frequency (RF) energy will damage our health or not. Nobody can really draw a definite scientific conclusion (or maybe we just don’t know about it so they can keep selling these phones to us). But there is one fact that might get your attention: For a phone to pass FCC certification, the phone’s max SAR level (specific absorbed RF level by the body) is 1.6W/kg in US and 2W/kg in Europe.

Ok, that at least tells you something about the danger of RF energy. Otherwise, why do they go through such an extend to cap a limit and test every single phone?

Anyway, here are the 10 models that carry the highest SAR:

And here are the 10 lowest.

I have a Sanyo PM-8200 with 1.01 SAR. I guess I am more than half way to be brain dead if 1.6 is the max.

To find out whether your model does any harm to you, click on the following manufacturer:

Audiovox/UTStarcom

Other Manufacturers

Thanks to RJ for the Links