almost there...
whew!!! I'm just waiting for the DVD to master but almost everything is ready for the wedding. Things have been LONG and HARD the last few months. I've never spent SO long planning a party.
Things have been busy all over the place. I have been awarded a patent at work. When I first introduced the idea, the internal patent office said it was TOO broad and just slammed me. I talked to them again with the same idea but explained it the way I first figured it out and they said: "do up the paper work. this looks good." my team leader was really stunned at the completely different response. Especially since some of my diagrams weren't that clear but the basic idea was the same. Who cares?! I'm getting a patent!
Wedding stuff is all ready and good to go. I ended up doing a few more things than Emi expected and she's quite surprised. The DVD is just a photo slideshow of us since we met until now. There were a few choices for music but Coldplay's The Scientist seem to fit best for a wedding. I also ended up doing some art with fractals on our message board and stuff. Man, getting fractals to do what you want is TOUGH... but so worth it. I can pass the image off as a hand-drawn one. ;-)
Once tagged by this entry, the assignment is to write a blog entry of some kind with six random facts about yourself. Then, pick six of your friends and tag them; no tag backs. This explanation should be included.
Tagged by:
isis_page
6 Things:
1. Emi and I met back in 1999! I was interning for Sony here... but she was dating another guy then and I was too busy figuring out myself and other girls. We didn't start dating until 2003... right before the first time I went to burning man.
2. The summer I went to burning man, I was on a concert kick and hitting almost every major festival in Japan that year. When I met
mayhem_chaos at a party by
jito in march, that gave me a chance to goto burning man with someone. I was SUPER exhausted that summer because of the partying and camping outdoors for all the music festivals. I somehow fit the Fuji Rock Festival in the last weekend in July with a straight from camping to a week long business trip to SIGGRAPH 2003 in San Diego coming back to the first weekend of August for SummerSonic THEN my first burning man at the end of the month all in a span of 5 weeks. I basically was out of the country every other weekend in August 2003 and jetlagged for 1/2 the month from partying, traveling, and stuff. I almost pulled out of burning man because I was sick but mayhem_chaos kept me going on IM. Thank you.
3. I met mayhem_chaos through jito. I met joi through an event he was at which matt romaine and I attended for the hell of it. We were both in a research lab with no real mandate and we just surfed around all day. Matt found out about joi and wanted to get to know him better. We both went to the event and just introduced ourselves plainly: "Hi Joi, we work at Sony." that automatically got his attention and we got invited to his party he was hosting with other friends and developers he flew in like mayhem_chaos. I totally remember going into the restaurant a bit late and Joi's girlfriend told us about food and stuff and I replied: "oh, I'm just here to use the restroom, but sure, I'll have some food after."
4. I became a researcher when my old department didn't have the "budget" for me but they bought $200,000 worth of professional video equipment after I transfered. Working in a Japanese company is weird. I did some pretty good work... stuff I never expected to do and it worked out well. My boss didn't have the money for me but didn't tell me right away. Instead, he got me to "edit some documents" his friends were working on, which was a huge task in itself (an IETF draft). Later, when he told me about his "budget problem", I was given 2 options, to leave OR to work with the people I justed edited the document for. That editing was part of the interview process and they liked me. I went over to talk about things a bit more and I went from a programmer to a researcher, only cuz my old boss wanted professional video gear.
5. My old department at Sony was one of the few places my heart was at after I graduated University (with
reddressgnome!) I thought about doing some international internships but that was when the dot-bust was starting to hit everything in 2001. I had a good friend at Apple and interviewed with them. Since I was highly regarded, I was flown out for an interview almost immediately. I loved Apple since I was a kid and being there was awesome for me. After the usual interview process, well, halfway through, I knew I wasn't what they wanted. I still remember the HR guy interviewing me at the end of the day and telling me to go back to Japan. I got back home and emailed my old boss at Sony and I was flown out for an interview. Since someone was busted for interviewing with someone else while they were interview for Sony, they have SUPER tight travel schedules for interview candidates. For my 1day interview, I flew in the day before, slept, interviewed the next day, met some friends for dinner, and flew out again. I was in Japan for less than 48hrs for an 8hr interview. For the 48hrs of travel, I was traveling for almost 28hrs. Ever since then, I've held the same job...basically.
6. My first year of University completely set the course of my current life. Well, the 2nd semester. In first year engineering, everyone is just studying the same thing and picks their specialty for their 2nd year onwards. Each engineering stream is decided on first year's grades and who picks what with what grade. In general, better the grade, the better chance of you getting your choice. My first semester was total average 6.5/9.0 (yes, we were on the 9.0 scale, 4 is a pass) which was very average. It was a bit of a shocker that I wasn't the "smartest" kid in class... that really showed me the difference between high school and university. The 2nd semester, I worked harder and somehow, pulled off an average of 8.2. My high school classmate, Scott, also studied with me in the same way the 2nd semester but he only ended up with a 6.5 average. I dunno how but I made my average 7.5, EXACTLY the cut off for my first pick: Electrical Engineering with Coop (i.e. internships during school year). That gave me a shot at Interning in Japan with Sony via Coop Japan.
who to tag back? only few on my mind:
reddressgnome.
firedolljamie.. and if you're reading this and you want to as well, go ahead and let me know!
Things have been busy all over the place. I have been awarded a patent at work. When I first introduced the idea, the internal patent office said it was TOO broad and just slammed me. I talked to them again with the same idea but explained it the way I first figured it out and they said: "do up the paper work. this looks good." my team leader was really stunned at the completely different response. Especially since some of my diagrams weren't that clear but the basic idea was the same. Who cares?! I'm getting a patent!
Wedding stuff is all ready and good to go. I ended up doing a few more things than Emi expected and she's quite surprised. The DVD is just a photo slideshow of us since we met until now. There were a few choices for music but Coldplay's The Scientist seem to fit best for a wedding. I also ended up doing some art with fractals on our message board and stuff. Man, getting fractals to do what you want is TOUGH... but so worth it. I can pass the image off as a hand-drawn one. ;-)
Once tagged by this entry, the assignment is to write a blog entry of some kind with six random facts about yourself. Then, pick six of your friends and tag them; no tag backs. This explanation should be included.
Tagged by:
isis_page
6 Things:
1. Emi and I met back in 1999! I was interning for Sony here... but she was dating another guy then and I was too busy figuring out myself and other girls. We didn't start dating until 2003... right before the first time I went to burning man.
2. The summer I went to burning man, I was on a concert kick and hitting almost every major festival in Japan that year. When I met
mayhem_chaos at a party by
jito in march, that gave me a chance to goto burning man with someone. I was SUPER exhausted that summer because of the partying and camping outdoors for all the music festivals. I somehow fit the Fuji Rock Festival in the last weekend in July with a straight from camping to a week long business trip to SIGGRAPH 2003 in San Diego coming back to the first weekend of August for SummerSonic THEN my first burning man at the end of the month all in a span of 5 weeks. I basically was out of the country every other weekend in August 2003 and jetlagged for 1/2 the month from partying, traveling, and stuff. I almost pulled out of burning man because I was sick but mayhem_chaos kept me going on IM. Thank you.
3. I met mayhem_chaos through jito. I met joi through an event he was at which matt romaine and I attended for the hell of it. We were both in a research lab with no real mandate and we just surfed around all day. Matt found out about joi and wanted to get to know him better. We both went to the event and just introduced ourselves plainly: "Hi Joi, we work at Sony." that automatically got his attention and we got invited to his party he was hosting with other friends and developers he flew in like mayhem_chaos. I totally remember going into the restaurant a bit late and Joi's girlfriend told us about food and stuff and I replied: "oh, I'm just here to use the restroom, but sure, I'll have some food after."
4. I became a researcher when my old department didn't have the "budget" for me but they bought $200,000 worth of professional video equipment after I transfered. Working in a Japanese company is weird. I did some pretty good work... stuff I never expected to do and it worked out well. My boss didn't have the money for me but didn't tell me right away. Instead, he got me to "edit some documents" his friends were working on, which was a huge task in itself (an IETF draft). Later, when he told me about his "budget problem", I was given 2 options, to leave OR to work with the people I justed edited the document for. That editing was part of the interview process and they liked me. I went over to talk about things a bit more and I went from a programmer to a researcher, only cuz my old boss wanted professional video gear.
5. My old department at Sony was one of the few places my heart was at after I graduated University (with
reddressgnome!) I thought about doing some international internships but that was when the dot-bust was starting to hit everything in 2001. I had a good friend at Apple and interviewed with them. Since I was highly regarded, I was flown out for an interview almost immediately. I loved Apple since I was a kid and being there was awesome for me. After the usual interview process, well, halfway through, I knew I wasn't what they wanted. I still remember the HR guy interviewing me at the end of the day and telling me to go back to Japan. I got back home and emailed my old boss at Sony and I was flown out for an interview. Since someone was busted for interviewing with someone else while they were interview for Sony, they have SUPER tight travel schedules for interview candidates. For my 1day interview, I flew in the day before, slept, interviewed the next day, met some friends for dinner, and flew out again. I was in Japan for less than 48hrs for an 8hr interview. For the 48hrs of travel, I was traveling for almost 28hrs. Ever since then, I've held the same job...basically.
6. My first year of University completely set the course of my current life. Well, the 2nd semester. In first year engineering, everyone is just studying the same thing and picks their specialty for their 2nd year onwards. Each engineering stream is decided on first year's grades and who picks what with what grade. In general, better the grade, the better chance of you getting your choice. My first semester was total average 6.5/9.0 (yes, we were on the 9.0 scale, 4 is a pass) which was very average. It was a bit of a shocker that I wasn't the "smartest" kid in class... that really showed me the difference between high school and university. The 2nd semester, I worked harder and somehow, pulled off an average of 8.2. My high school classmate, Scott, also studied with me in the same way the 2nd semester but he only ended up with a 6.5 average. I dunno how but I made my average 7.5, EXACTLY the cut off for my first pick: Electrical Engineering with Coop (i.e. internships during school year). That gave me a shot at Interning in Japan with Sony via Coop Japan.
who to tag back? only few on my mind:
reddressgnome.
firedolljamie.. and if you're reading this and you want to as well, go ahead and let me know!