Portland

It is a stark contrast in comparison to Seattle. In a state with no sales tax, I thought that this is a shopping haven.

Wrong. In fact it took us a few hours to find the only shop that sell TSA locks. There is nothing in the city, this is a place for people to live here, and not really for tourists.

Nevertheless, portland is almost a model city, free travel zone 24/7 and less people who ask you for money.

Checking out Chinatown is the highlight of the city, as usual Chinatown in any city is always in the dodgy part of the city and we found a block where homeless have set up a proper camp right next to the entrance, on the oherside there are the strip clubs. After all strip joints is one of the top 10 things to do in Portland...

I have been in the US for less than a week and I am sick of a few things already:

1. The cheese - its on everything, and its the maccers type... yuck
2. The fast food joints. Maccers, KFC, taco bell, chipole, Denny's, ihop, burger king etc etc etc etc... where is a decent resturant!
3. The lack of fresh anything. Its hard to get anything fresh.

I am looking forward to getting a place with a stove in it, I am cooking!

Some places are interesting, others not so. Cities are not necessarily great.

Soul Calibur 5!!!!!

I got it on release day.. by chance!  The Ivy bubble head was supposed for pre orders only and since they have one left they gave me one :)

Now I have to wait for weeks before I can lay my hands on it - no PS3!!!

Seattle

Hmm what can I say about this city?  Ok.  1st impressions only.  Initially my view of Seattle is from the movie "Sleepless in Seattle" but I guess the real city is less romantic than the movie portray the city to be.  (Der!)

I think this city has issues.  There is a sense of desperation to it, and I can really feel it.  Everywhere you go, there would be beggars that would ask for money.  Everyone is spitting on the streets.  Every corner you go there are homeless people.  It feels like that people are ready to fight.  I guess that would not be a city that I would choose to live in as a first choice.

It might also because it was the 1st US city that I spend time in - so see how it goes.  Right now I am on the Amtrak (insert Pic> going to Portland - the scenery is interesting.

The city of Seattle is HUGE.  600K people in the city metro and counting greater metro, it's around 1.5million people - like Canada, population is so spread out.  It has order to it, the streets are heading to 1 direction and avenues are heading in another direction.   The public transport is a bit confusing, as they have a free zone in the city and if you either pay when you get onto the bus or off the bus depending on whether you get onto the bus before or after the free zone.  I am confused just saying this.

They also have a jumbo sized Monorail.

Seattle Fish Markets

Seattle underground tours

The presenter is well and truly comical.  He gave us a brief overview of Seattle, and how it all started.  He mentioned a few interesting facts:

• Seattle was burnt down a few times, thanks to it's very flamable building structure (wood)
• The university of Washington had no student graduating for the first 15 years of it's history - and to now, still the highest federal funding for university in the US.  Currently it has 45000 students with 27000 staff (according to what I was told!) - approximately 2 students to 1 staff. Wow.  More on this later.
• There was also the obvious reason why a lot of cities were started, the gold rush.  It wasn't the gold rush that started Seattle, it was the lumber business.
• Pluming (or the lack of) - it was also famous for the exploding toliets or you get a couple of eruptions of "stuff" a day of 10 feet high thanks to the corrupt mayor at the time (forgot his name!)  Thanks to it being burnt down, they were able to eventually put proper pluming to get rid of this issue (exploding toliet)

There was a series of underground tunnels and it was a great tour - highly recommended!

Boeing Factory tour - and the Future of flight (North of Seattle)

The Boeing Factory - the largest building on earth as per the book of Guinness records.  It was HUGE.  We saw the current production of the 787s, and the moving production line of the 767s.  Of course, you get to see it, but no cameras allowed, so unfortunately no photos.  It is so worth it, if you are an aviation fan, and you get to see more Boeings than any other airport on earth.  If you are lucky, you might see the Dreamlifter landing or taking off for a delivery.

Fact:  the 737s are most popular product that Boeing sells with a bit over 100 million a pop.
Can't remember the rest, but I think 747s are 220 mil, 767s are 180 mil, 787s are 120 mil, and, you need and extra 15 million for each engine, depending which brand you choose.  Rolls Royces, GE, and another brand that I forgot. (geez I am getting old).

The museum of Aviation (South of Seattle)

On the south side of seattle you get the museum of Aviation - which houses collections from the Wright brothers to the space station.  There is also a Concorde there.  Unfortunately no one can ever fly a Concorde anymore, so what's left are pictures.

The Concorde

We also got a guide who was an ex fighter pilot turned commercial - and flew for United Airlines for 23 years.  He talked about the various aircraft that was historically significant, from the Wright Brothers to the Blackbird.  The one in the museum was the only surviving SR-71 (CIA version) with a Drone on it.  That plane only had 160 man hours on it's clock - and don't know how much it cost to make it.  It was also the 1st plane with RAM jet + conventional jet in it.

The Wright brothers replica

The CIA version of the now SR-71 with the drone

There is also the 1st 737 prototype that NASA used and various other planes such as the F-14, F3 etc, we didn't have enough time to get them all.

The 737 prototype that was sold to NASA

Seattle, is interesting.  On one hand it was famous for it's Glass blowing art, on another hand, you feel like that it's Boeing city.  Boeing have freeways named after him.  North and South of the city have production facilities, if you drive out of town you will not miss the Boeing buildings.   Inside the factory you certainly can live in it with all facilities catered for.  They have a steady supply from the Uni of Washington, and if you are a fan, Uni of Washington is the place to do aerospace engineering for sure.

PS:  I wish I can see the Lockheed Martin Skunk works.

My new Lens

Edmonton:



It's good to see my friend and her husband again, Edmonton was warm compared to the week before, it was only -10 degrees.  My nose was running less and less, and I am slowly getting acclimatised to the cold.

We stayed a couple of nights and of course, not missing the West Edmonton Mall.  I also picked up my brand spanking new Lens:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/590390-REG/Olympus_261060_14_54mm_f_2_8_3_5_II_Zuiko.html#costumerReview

It was a great purchase - when you are using DSLR, you really are not doing it much justice with stock lens, although it is a lot better than other brand's stock lens.  I also bought a flash, as the built in flash is causing a shadow with the lens.

Officially I am now committed to 4/3 mount for lenses - it's probably more accurate to say that .  With the body, it doesn't worth much second hand, so if my E410 dies, I'll just Ebay a secondhand one, hopefully it could be the E-5!  It is not as popular as Nikon or Canon, so over time, their value really drops.  Pity as it is such a great camera.  Like Printers, there is more money in the cartridges than the printer itself.  It's almost the same with lenses.

Banff and Lake Louise

Banff - initially it was our skiing and snowboarding destination - I got scared just looking at the mountains, it was a cliff face with 50 degrees incline!  It would be a waste for me to try and ski that anyway, being ahem, not knowing how to ski!

Banff is a small skiing town, and there is not much there besides skiing.  We did do the check out Banff tour where it was explained to us that Banff is part of a national park and how everything in there is protected, including Trees and Wolves/Bears/Cougars/Elks/Moose.  Outside of that, the predators do not enjoy that protection - and ended up with an uncontrollable Pest - the bunny.

Discover Lake Louise was interesting, although it was a snowing day and the photo doesn't show the mountains.  It looks a lot better during summer with aqua blue glacier water.

There was a ice festival there with ice scluptures, check this out:

Would you work harder if you pay for your own education?

The answer is.... YES!

1st subject of my Masters of Business Technology, Principles of Marketing.   While I think some of the concepts are full of shit, others are the "ideal" concepts.  As they say in the books, it's one thing saying, it's another doing.

Working with Marketing and Products a fair bit since I moved into the new role, I just can't help but laugh at the difference between what is supposed to happen vs what happens in the real world.  It seemed that product managers also have to be marketing managers, and product development as well as knowing the product in side out.  It's three roles squashed into one!

Maybe it's my company that does things like this, other companies are willing to dedicate much more resources - pay more, separate the roles.  Sometimes it gets so multi disciplined that you won't get any focus done.

Whitehorse

Stop 2: Whitehorse!

As if Whistler was not cold enough at -17C, we flew into -40.  Welcome to Whitehorse!

PS: Electronics DOES NOT LIKE the cold.  My phone started going all weird and my touch screen would not register touches once it has been exposed to the cold, both in Whistler and Whitehorse.   It's fine when it's in warmer weather, but not when it's -10 and below. 

Met a lady on the plane which was a Whitehorse local, and she was telling me what to watch out.

1. If the smoke rises FAST from the chimmys, it's COLD (-30+)
2. Why they have fur at the jacket hoods.  It's real fur, and if there are winds, it would warm up the air a bit before it goes to your face.  Doesn't work with fake fur. (Wow... I wouldn't know that!)

I was wondering what was making people come here to Whitehorse, and it was either working for the government or they are working for the mining companies.  Now I know the ice truckies show on discovery - it was from this region!

We were greeted by the cook from the operator of the place we were staying, and gosh she was a good cook!

There seemed to be a lot of young Europeans that were travelling and decided to love this place, and want to come here permanently.  Wouldn't thought that it was a place where people want to settle in, but everyone we met seemed to love it so far!

I have to say, this country is so pristine and untouched.  Even in Vancouver, there was great initiatives and drive to protect the environment.  We don't seem to have that in Australian cities, where people are so out of touch and have no respect to the environment.  I think after spending a week here, the climate is so harsh that people have learnt to respect mother nature.

Dog Mushing (or Dog sledding)

The weather was hitting -30 degrees.  That was the cut off point for dog sledding.  Dogs don't have a problem with running at -30, but we as humans do.  When you do a bit of running on top of it, wow.  You will be amazed at how fast the cold gets you.  I think I did well by having my hands out in the open for.... 30 seconds. After that it would seriously freeze.

It was odd that it was still snowing at -30 degrees (Celsius) - usually it doesn't snow when it is this cold.  It was ok for dog sledding so we went.  We arrived at a field with the dogs chained to their posts - outside.  Obviously these huskies are good for the cold.  Boy they are an enthusiastic bunch.  Everytime the owners want to put a collar on the dogs, they were all howling and barking, and giving it a real good tug on the chain  for attention.   They all want to run.   The ones left didn't know it yet but they are going to the Yukon Quest - yearly competition from Fairmont (Alaska) to Whitehorse with about 2 weeks time frame.  The goal is really simple.  Finish it,  Over half would pull out half way through the race - if the weather is too cold.

Anyway, the photos says for themselves.   Check it out!

Ice Fishing and Ski-Dooing (Snow mobileing)

The Ski-Doo is a brand of snow mobile.  It would be a lot more fun if my visor did not fog up - I can seriously see my own breath, at -30.   A few of those and you got yourself a foggy visor.  Sighs.  Anyway, we arrived at our destination - another lake and started drilling - and setting a fire.  The ice was over a foot thick, and maybe I didn't put enough  force on it, and I ended up drilling to nowhere - and because the sun came out later, we also did not catch any fish.

Northern Lights

We did see a bit of Northern Lights, and captured some photos - it's not the best, but I did see the light "curtain" that it was so famous for.  When we arrived, the whole lodge was full of Japanese people - it seemed like that it was quite famous in Japan - and they are persistent, going out ever half an hour to see it.

Hello from Whistler!

Hello Hello!

My first stop was in Vancouver, and we spent the 1st day stocking up on warm clothes.  Layering up really helps!

This photo was taken from Whistler Peak, and what an awesome view.  Unfortunately I am not a good skier, and I slammed my head into the hard snow on the 1st day.  If the instructor was as patient as the guy we got on the 2nd day, I would probably have skied down the mountain, even once!  Instead I spent 2 days seeing the doctors to make sure that I was ok.  My neck was stiff but after one session of physio I have my range of motion back.

Anyway, the view was breath taking. the peak to peak was even more impressive. it was awesome.

On the 1st day we arrived we saw the girls in mini skirts, at -7 degrees Celsius... brave girls haha.  In some ways Whistler is a crazy place.  And there are Australians EVERYWHERE!  It might be because they want to get away from the heat we currently have back home.

I hope that next time I can enjoy it more, the snow was amazing!  I have to get my friend to teach me how to ski.  We also joined Club Intrawest so there are plenty more opportunities for skiing so need to get used to the cold!

My nose was running non stop so it's very annoying - and you don't know whether you are sick or hayfever?  I ended up getting my nose covered and it looks ok.  Should have realised that more sooner.

Overall, I am very conservative, so didn't do too much!  PS: was thinking about all these physical activities that we are doing would make me lose some fat, haha

Dead... DEAD!

Dead pot plant, sure... but dead tree?

The google world

In the past, I have always been frustrated with Google products.  It always felt like that it was 60% complete.  Look at Gmail for example, which I live by, was in beta for how many years?  Being in beta is one thing, if you want to control demand, and scale your backend infrastructure, but during the beta phase there was almost zero feature additions.  Look at Blogger.  No change for 4-5 years (although I kept blogging, although less than before).

Fastforward to now.  Eric S has finished his baby sitting duty and the founders are now running the show.  From an outsider it is also the time that I see there are actual improvements other than the backend - features.  While there are decisions to discontinue products like google labs, I don't see that move is holding back google.  Obviously any development requires money, and if you look at Google wave, it just was not sucessful in it's time.  Timing is so important any products to be sucessful.  Imagine computers 100 years ago.  I can't see how that would be sucessful at all.  I think the development of wave actually gave google docs some pretty nice collobration features. 

As a consumer, I finally see that there are developments in the things that I use every day.  Gmail, google calendar, google news (although i still don't really like it too much), google reader. 

In the tech world, 1 year is such a long time.  I just hope that google products keep developing.

Spider with a perfect web. Its round!

Pity its right in my face. Otherwise I would have left it!

On the Career Fast Track: Why Some People Learn Faster - Knowledge@Australian School of Business

http://knowledge.asb.unsw.edu.au/article.cfm?articleId=1497#.TqjocBtH6PE.blogger

Interesting article, but not sure whether I completely agree.

Yay! New phone!

Blogging from my new phone :-)

6 Months on

I wrote the title "6 months on" last month, so I guess it should be 7 months on in my now not so new job.  Feels a bit indifferent, probably because it's the same company.

People ask me "are you happy" in my new role?  For some reason I never said yes.  I reckon that it's just that pessimistic side of me that's the problem rather than the role.  It's actually a good role.  Good supporting boss, and I get to learn more than my previously narrow product knowledge.

I love the technical stuff, love the fact that I get to play with stuff, and now not so much - more involved in political games.  I miss the tech actually. 

The higher you progress in any company, the higher level you have to deal with and some times it's bullshit on an epic level.  The worst thing about BS on an epic level is, that the people who got sucked into it were super intelligent in their own right. They just did not seem to agree on anything because they are so intelligent. 

But heh, with all things in life, you will have to move on somehow, sometimes it's by choice, and sometimes it's not by choice.  One thing that I think I do ok is that I'll survive somehow.

To summarise this all, is I think I said it before:  "same shit, other side of the fence".  I have to say, having operational experience in my old department helped me understand almost everything: design, R&D, IP, RF, DBA, system analysis.  Coming over to sales helped me understand the commercial aspect, contracts, product management and development.  As a whole, it's not so bad being a "jack of all trade" person - which many people would not have the opportunity to do so.

I was talking to my badminton coach who works in engineering, and he described my career to be "quite smooth".  Yes, I have been lucky.  I would like to think that my attitude towards work contribute to it, as otherwise the luck would always run out.

FITT Event - Journey of a CIO

Today, I went to the FITT Event - Females in IT and Technology event. I met up with a woman that I met in the last event and we had a great time catching up what we have been up to in the last few months.

The interesting thing about today's event was there were two speakers, 1 male, and 1 female. Both CIOs. I have to say, I was more attracted to the female's speaker as her journey was much more challenging and interesting. She's also much more real and down to earth - which she took the time to emphasise support, and balance. Her reason to move on was because she was bored. That's it. She's looking towards her next challenge was the motivation - it was not the ambition that drives her, but her "boredom" once she overcomes the challenge. That took her to where she is today.

Her male counterpart, was all about him, him and himself. From his speech I gathered that he is a very ambitious man, and are willing to make "sacrifices" at other's expense. It's a feeling that I got, not necessarily accusing him of doing that. He is also quite charismatic. After his speech, I did ask him the question of "At your level, how do you find and retain talent, as I see time and time again where very talented people were abused and overworked with no support, only to crack and leave the company." his answer was a political one.

Now listening to both speakers, both although interesting, I have to say that I am much more drawn to the female speaker. If you ask who I want to work for, I would say the female CIO rather than the male, partly because I know that she will drive me. I am not sure about the male one, although I would probably think that I will be a lot more crusier working for him.

The female CIO left us with this:

"You need 3 things to stay within a job.
1. You love the job that you did.
2. Pay is reasonably well. (ahem: be realistic, don't over/underestimate yourself)
3. You have a great supporting boss.

If you have all 3, you have your dream job. if you have 2, it's ok. If you have one, start to look for a job. If you have none, why are you in your job?

True statement, as I see so many unhappy people who are stuck in their job wondering why they are going to work everyday. I rarely see people who has the love and passion to do their job.

Looking at the 3 statements, in my current job I actually have 2. Point 2 and 3. Number 1, I would love it more if I am more busy. I don't like twiddling my thumbs - while my colleague is flat out. But it's a funny thing, with contacts. They like dealing with one person, since I am still relatively new in the job, workload is not building up at the moment. Whenever I offered to help he doesn't know where to start, as some leads have one hell of a history, so I understand that as well.

Maybe I need more patience.

New Bed - TEMPUR

Tonight would be my 1st night on the Tempur.  My old bed was breaking my back - it was too soft (although when I bought it it wasn't soft!)  Everytime I walked into a showroom with Tempur, everyone says that it's the best bed that they've ever come across.  Weird at first, but after spending sometime in the show room, it's not that bad! 

At the price of 2500 with 2 free Tempur pillows, I bought it.  Delivered today - so see how it goes.  If I don't wake up 4-5 times a night, I am happy.

New Vocabulary of the Day - Deduplication

“DeDuplication” – the Process of eliminate the transfer of duplicate data.