Grand Theft: Affection?

Posted by bert at 06:58 AM on July 2, 2007 in ME.

i can't believe my RSS reader picked this up..

but..

check this out 

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A lesson in motivation.

Posted by bert at 11:59 AM on July 2, 2007.

well done mr. jobs

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politics time. again

Posted by bert at 11:34 AM on July 3, 2007.

My friend mike came into town this weekend, and we proceeded to have a great go of the town, and on sat night, we had 5 people back at the apartment at 3 a.m. where the conversation turned to a political nature.   .... and lasted way till about 6 a.m.  As ridiculous as that sounds..  i decided that this was a good thing and I've wanted to get my thoughts all laid down in one place in regards to my stance on Iraq/Afghanistan/ Dubya/Hillary, and the *surprise* media.

(Read More)

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Congrats Boeing

Posted by bert at 05:49 AM on July 9, 2007.

so on 7/8/07, boeing was able to debut the dreamliner, aka the 787.

Pretty momentous day considering their last couple of plane debuts since the 777.

anyway, congrats to hardadi, sean (Xun), may, gloria, whitney, nawid, jamie, steve, and david on their participation on this effort.

 

and thanks for the nice 3% bump in stock price! 

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and to Sprint's Customer Service...

Posted by bert at 06:05 PM on July 10, 2007.

i'm so glad i bid you assclowns adieu...

 seriously.. you guys suck.   Always screwing up the plans.. and that one time signing me up for 5 (FIVE!!!) lines despite having 2 phones..  WTF?  oh well..  Enjoy spending tens of millions of dollars in PR to fix this publicity problem.  Despite Verizon sucking too, I'm much happier here...

 

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How the good market players roll...

Posted by bert at 07:49 PM on July 10, 2007.

[22:44] Roy Kim: josh duhammel, i must model my look after him
[22:45] Roy Kim: oh it's duhamel
[22:45] bktong@gmail.com/Meebo: i wil ignore that
[22:46] bktong@gmail.com/Meebo: oooh
[22:46] Roy Kim: dude you've gotta be comfortable with your straightness to admit a truth when you stare at it with your face
[22:46] bktong@gmail.com/Meebo: ebay is reporting next week
[22:46] bktong@gmail.com/Meebo: i think i'll have to buy some shares to get a nice 5-10% run up
[22:46] Roy Kim: haha
[22:46] bktong@gmail.com/Meebo: i'm serious
[22:46] bktong@gmail.com/Meebo: i think i buy some tomorrow
[22:46] Roy Kim: me too
[22:47] Roy Kim: ebay is the pcu of tech companies
[22:47] Roy Kim: all they do is milk cash
[22:47] bktong@gmail.com/Meebo: yup
[22:47] bktong@gmail.com/Meebo: ok
[22:47] bktong@gmail.com/Meebo: we both buying tomorrow?
[22:47] Roy Kim: alright
[22:47] Roy Kim: yes
[22:47] bktong@gmail.com/Meebo: how many?
[22:47] bktong@gmail.com/Meebo: and at what price
[22:47] Roy Kim: i should get money into my scottrade tonight
[22:47] Roy Kim: dude i'm not rich like you
[22:47] Roy Kim: $33 should be nice

 

done and done. 

 

update:  bought in at $32.78 

roy? 

btw.. thanks for talking me out of HOKU..  thanks... 

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will it blend?

Posted by bert at 06:34 AM on July 11, 2007.

i ran into this today in my morning surfing...  (i love techcrunch)

 

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American reactions and responses explained

Posted by bert at 07:44 AM on July 12, 2007.

this is a great article explaining our responses to events.   I'm pretty much in line with the article especially on the heaviest of influences...(TV)

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Grats Wei and Sam

Posted by bert at 04:13 AM on July 13, 2007.

I  had a couple of friends finally do what I have been wanting (but not brave enough) to do.   They bought into the WSOP Main Event and played.   Wei Yan and Sam both cleared the money yesterday (top 600 or so make the money).   Unfortunately, Wei was running the short stack all day, and ran into a very aggressive table.   He busted out as #504, to bring home $25k or so.   Sam though is still alive with about 460k chips and a 320 person field.   He's in a pretty good position with the table lead (1.2M in chips) to his right, and can use his stack to somewhat control the table should he decide to get involved.

Btw... you can follow updates better if you go to Robin's blog, where Sam is guest editor with his Apple iPhone. =) 

*Note* since roy's control panel is busted and not loading today...  it's rcmariko.blogspot.com 

Best of luck Sam! 

Next year... I'm coming with. 

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Awful images...

Posted by bert at 05:43 AM on July 16, 2007.

I woke up to the following image on CNN.com today.   That's just flat out insanity...   poor japanese.. 

 

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Women's Shoes

Posted by bert at 12:11 PM on July 16, 2007.

Ladies, do you want one of these? =) 

 

 

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Happiness is...

Posted by bert at 07:51 PM on July 16, 2007.

definitely not what I am doing at work.   Especially when I am doing it at 10:50 in the P.M.

but.. I do what I need to do to stay happy, and right now...  THIS makes me happy. =)

 enjoy =-)

 

2 spoke it

DOH! homer as a pagan god

Posted by bert at 09:49 AM on July 17, 2007.

gotta love the drudge report =)

they'll make news out of ANYTHING 

 

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Happiness is... (pt 2)

Posted by bert at 06:31 PM on July 18, 2007.

since someone asked for me to show someone else...

here's another happy thought.

 

she's more than meets the eye? 

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Back to B-School type thoughts

Posted by bert at 06:00 AM on July 19, 2007.

As an engineer for 7+ years, and a nerdy-geek type for even longer, I learned that to attack a problem was always head on.  (for me).

If I had no idea what was going on, it didn't really matter, because I'd sit down, go to the internet or text book, figure out what I didn't know and try to apply easy pieces of the puzzle until I understood.  

Like lasers.  These things are semi-brilliant, and then you learn that it's all about the gain medium that builds up the charge, and you make the relation that lasers are actually a lot like batteries in terms of stored energy potential and how it discharges.  (ok, yeah i oversimplified, but that's the point).  Anyway, this his how I've always done things, and it works for the most part.

B-school, I feel has taught me something else.  and that is mostly that my previous approach is seriously and critically flawed.

yeah.. what?!

I didn't get this until just recently.   But in business, you can't just say, i'm going to run iterations until it works.  apparently there is an art to the field of planning.    Don't get me wrong here, I disagree with the extent of how to plan, but I'm definitely seeing the benefits of a somewhat well thought out slide deck.  We are taught these seemingly ridiculous strategy frameworks (SWOT, 5 Forces, the 7 P's and C's, and the BCG 2x2, et. al, but it's not the goal for business school students to know the frameworks.  What I've realized (now..) the goal is to think in the frameworks on a permanent basis, and learn how to adapt them accordingly.   Sure, there are always problems or strategies that I think are obviously designed, and I do use my frameworks to bias my answer a little (major problem), but with these frameworks, I've also gotten statistically significant answers to problems that my straight-laced logic would never had concluded to.  

so...  ok.. the reason for this post?  A single nugget of truth that I have found this summer.

When running a company or organization or group or whatever.  The single most important impact a leader can make is not his capabilities, and not his organization skills, nor it people skills, but rather the CULTURE he/she can bring into the group.   Most people (obviously some have issues) will adapt to a culture, with a little volatility depending on their personality, ideas will always thrive,  leadership adapts to fit, but Culture starts from the top.  While it is a part of "leadership," it is not inherent.  It has to be a distinct, purposeful attempt to make "things" a certain way.  

So, as I look into companies with a venture capitalist mind, CULTURE rules supreme, and leadership experience with adversity is a close 2nd.  

 

and yes.. i know this means nothing to all but like... 2 of you. 

 

 

 

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wanna be green? Keep driving to Chik-fil-a instead of eating steak

Posted by bert at 12:33 PM on July 19, 2007.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/19/nbeef119.xml

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Am I missing something mr. Kerr?

Posted by bert at 11:38 AM on July 20, 2007.

Kurt Thomas AND two first round draft picks for a 2nd round pick?  WTF?!??!

 

pls tell me i'm reading something wrong. 

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harry potter...

Posted by bert at 09:30 AM on July 22, 2007.

well..  i think i'm in the vast minority on this one...  but i was rather disappointed.  without spoiling anything, lets just say I wished JKR killed  off the wrong characters, and while there was a certain sense of closure, I think that there are too many of the similar ploys pulled when Harry is concerned. I also think that while she was writing this book with young people in mind and wanted to pull in a few aspects of current day politics, and certainly addressing the slippery slope of how policy can just get more and more extreme, I think the one major disservice she pulled was in regards to Harry's character flaws.  

Harry never has put in hard work and effort, and got by on sheer luck and talent.   Hermione should be the role model for youngsters these days, with dedication to studies, yada yada, but instead Harry teaches them to always "follow their instincts."  Look, I'm all for listening to your gut, but in a culture dictated by MTV's sweet 16 virtues of "I want it now," should we really be teaching kids to follow their instincts? 

ok.  don't get me wrong.  I still burned through the book within the 24 hours of getting it.  But just wanted to address some disappointment.

 

 

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Planning to travel the world?

Posted by bert at 05:36 AM on July 23, 2007.

try doing it in 444 days like this couple...

 suffice to say, i've been reading this blog for a bit, to give myself ideas when we graduate next year.

so far the plan basically boils down to 1 month of Euro/Mediterranean, 1 month of Asia,  3-4 weeks of NZ and Australia,  with me trying to find time for South America a little later down the road.

 

 

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the price is very wrong.

Posted by bert at 10:38 AM on July 24, 2007.

well...  we know it's not going to be bob..

 drew's drunks?

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TGIF!

Posted by bert at 10:33 AM on July 27, 2007.

is it 5 yet?

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