And just like that, my time at Dealersocket has come to an end. Tomorrow, I will be starting a new job. We will see how that turns out. In the meantime, I suppose it's worth noting my present sentiment. I joined the company almost 2.5 years ago. Hence, this company has, thus far, been the company where I've stayed at the longest. However, these two years have seen many events. Now is the time to chronicle them all. Let's begin with a prelude.
I had been looking for a new job for a...
Written on August 29, 2016
It's been more than a month and a half since my last update. While, historically, that has meant that I didn't have anything to say, this time it was because I was too busy to post.
During this time, I've been working hard on my personal project - a dashboard done using Spring Boot. This involved learning a whole host of new technologies, which I had up until then only heard of: Spring Boot, JPA, Hibernate, MQ (message queues - RabbitMQ, in particular), Stomp, SVG, and D3. In addition, I...
Written on July 18, 2016
I am not one for keeping track of significant dates, but today is a special day, because the day after Memorial Day, six years ago, was my first day working as a full-time employee. So, what has happened in these six years?
I went through two job changes, or three companies of varying sizes, experiencing the atmosphere of a startup, a corporate multi-national company, and one that was in between the two, in that order.
I learned web development, heard that corporate Java...
Written on May 31, 2016
Since my last post, I have been able to upload my grad school notes onto my website, which was something I'd been meaning to do, but had never gotten around to doing it. There were a few things which had made things inconvenient before. First, I took the notes using OneNote 2003, on a Thinkpad X60. I really pushed the limitations of how much this setup could keep track, and was unpleasantly surprised when editing my detailed notes was extremely laggy, and in some cases, actually lost some of my...
Written on May 15, 2016
The past month, I rolled over my 401k from my previous company into a Roth IRA that I created on E*Trade. This was my first foray into the stock market. Thus far, in the two days I've owned stocks, I made $20 the first day, and lost $24 the second. Guess it'll continue to go up and down. This is a major milestone for me, because up until now, I had intended on avoiding the stock market, seeing what happened in 2001 and 2007. And now, I am also putting a stake into this... fiction.
On...
Written on April 1, 2016
It's Sunday night, or more correctly, Monday morning. I have to work later this morning. But, some things have been on my mind, so I can't sleep.
Relationships are tough because they are a matter of the heart. Recently, my parents have been more aggressive in pushing for me to start a relationship. While I do want to get married if I search deep in my heart for what I really want, there are simply too many unknowns and potential problems for me to feel comfortable going down that road....
Written on February 29, 2016
It all started about 1.5 years ago. The SAS shoes I had been wearing for 5 years up until then had worn out, and looked pretty bad. Looking to replace them, I found a deal on Slickdeals for some Cole Haan dress shoes. For around $80, I ordered a pair. When they arrived, I was appalled at the quality of those shoes, as they looked vastly different from the pictures, and the leather felt like hard plastic. I wore them for about 2 days before taking them to the outlet store nearby, and getting...
Written on February 19, 2016
I wish I could say there was a theme to the past month of my life. Instead, there have only been a few notable landmarks decorating the landscape in no particular order or design. However, as last year drew to a close, I did have the opportunity to reflect on the past year, how things went, and how I've changed. I now commit these fleeting thoughts to the digital realm before I get bored and move onto other things.
In regards to the large things, my life remains more or less the same as...
Written on January 20, 2016
Just been taking it easy the last month. It started during Thanksgiving, when my brother drove up from Austin. We spent four days building puzzles/models I had gotten from Japan during the trip (a swan, a piano, a tower, and a castle), eating turkey, drinking the apple cider he brought, playing video games, playing mahjong with the family, and chatting. It was just great.
Today, we had fire pot at my home, with some friends. We spent the time eating and chatting around the dining table.
Next...
Written on December 13, 2015
This recent trip to Japan made quite a few impressions, some consistent with the information available online; others quite the opposite. As the previous post was long enough just describing what we did, I decided to make what I thought about the trip into a separate post.
The most significant observation I made was that, like other parts of the world, you can find all sorts of different kinds of people in Japan. Despite the stereotypical polite, quiet, and competent people, who were everywhere,...
Written on October 3, 2015
One of the highest priority items on my list of things to do in my life was to visit Japan. About two months ago, that was when things were set in motion to cross this item off the list.
Perhaps since the first time I heard Jpop music in 6th grade, or from the first time I watched an episode of anime in 7th grade, I have wanted to visit Japan. This desire reached a peak towards the end of high school, and went into a sort of "something I want to do eventually" area of my brain sometime in...
Written on September 27, 2015
This last month has been an ulcer-inducing and heart-wrenching episode in my life. The first thing that happened was that I saw cheap tickets to Japan online. Originally, we planned to visit Europe fourth quarter of this year. However, as my grandma was diagnosed with cancer, we decided that my mom should take care of her. So, she couldn't go. So, we thought that perhaps we should go somewhere else, and save this trip for when my mom could go with us. Thus, I would check periodically online...
Written on September 6, 2015
Last month has been quite the experience. The word to describe it would be Hedonism - a word that was recently brought to my attention. Contrary to historical behavior, I have been committing an unusual amount of money on transient satisfaction; namely on fancy food and drink. Yesterday was probably the most vivid example, with an intensity so tremendous, that it has also served as a wake up call cautioning me away from this unsustainable lifestyle.
The day began where the night before ended...
Written on August 3, 2015
I suppose this post marks the passing of a significant milestone in life. At least, 10 years ago, it was perceived as a significant milestone. As is the case with many things, where as one's perspective changes, the things that one value also change, so this apparently significant milestone does not seem all that great now. However, as the fulfillment of a promise with the me from 10 years ago, I will now match up my expectations at the time with the present reality. At the time, the most significant...
Written on June 10, 2015
The past two months had been one of quiet toil, consisting of mundane work, killing time eating with friends and socializing, and gaming at home. Then, my car was broken into two days ago. This was probably the first time someone ransacked my car (the second time, if I count the only other time someone took my cell phone from my car). They searched every part of the car for valuables, and ultimately left with a cell phone, a GPS device, and some change. My car was parked in the driveway, at home,...
Written on May 23, 2015
After I wrote the first part last time, I tried to think of another topic that was large enough for its own post, but I couldn't find any particular one. However, there were many smaller, but still notable things I experienced the last two months, which were... out of the ordinary.
Being a Parent
For two weeks, I was a part-time parent, looking after two teenagers. It was probably easier than being a parent; the hardest part was just making myself available to them whenever they needed...
Written on March 29, 2015
I've been busy for the last two months. In fact, I've been so busy that I've not had time to update my blog. However, I really want to, because there's lots of things that have been going on in the past two months worth remembering. Therefore, I've decided to partition things into topics which I'll tackle individually, as time allows.
About two months ago, my mom decided she was going to go back to Taiwan for about a month. Due to that, I decided to try to make real ramen. Very logical...
Written on March 22, 2015
Over Christmas break and New Years, I was getting my finances in order - going through my bank and credit card statements and figuring out what each transaction was about. Performing this activity allowed me to both see where I was spending my money, as well as see how my lifestyle was changing. In short, this year was significantly different. Upon reflection, what I realized was something that should've been totally obvious.
This past year saw a shift away from my spending money on computer...
Written on January 24, 2015
The last three weeks have been a constellation in the night sky of my mundane life. Sleep, work, eat, vegetate. Then, there was action. One of my friends and I have been planning a trip to Denton for a while. He sold it as visiting Austin 30 years ago. It was a bait that I bit, not so much because I liked Austin, 30 years ago, or now, but because I thought it would be an interesting experience. My brother was visiting at the time, so I asked him if he wanted to go. He said, "Yes", so we went...
Written on December 1, 2014
It's been a while since I had such a vivid dream.
Yesterday, the weather got cold. I like cold weather because that makes snuggling in a blanket so much better. After drinking a big warm bowl of fish soup my mom made, I took a nap. When I woke up, I was surprised with the extent to which I remembered the dream. While the earlier details have since faded, I remember the later parts.
My friend Joe and I were coming back from San Francisco. Interestingly, in real life, we are going...
Written on November 2, 2014