last Friday

Friday 10/15/2010:

1. went to the dermatologist to get the results of my TB test read (no issues)
2. emailed a contact at a IP firm here in town about jobs and just to pass along info
3. vacuumed the inside of my car
4. went bowling but didn’t bowl – to save a little money (since I make $0)

Monday has been pretty slow so far.  Got a likely source for employment that I will be calling tomorrow.

Friday

When you’re unemployed it is hard to get up in the morning.  You don’t really have anywhere to go and have nobody to report to.  So, I need to start posting all the things I accomplish during a day.  Without something like this, I’ve noticed that I easily shrug things off.  Now that I have all this free time I should be accomplishing more tasks, not less.

Friday 10/15/2010 so far (2pm):

1. went to the dermatologist to get the results of my TB test read (no issues)
2. emailed a contact at a IP firm here in town about jobs and just to pass along info

I should probably do these updates at night, or the day after…  I’ll start doing updates the day after.  You might expect a list of what I did yesterday…but I didn’t do anything, which is why I’m starting this.

life as I know it

So the Texas Bar has long passed and life has moved on.  Before you ask, results for the Bar do not come until at least the first week of November.  After the exam I basically went on vacation…in the state.  My brother was on summer vacation too so I got to hang out with him in Port Lavaca.  We shot guns, ate El Patio, and played video games.  Then our family went up to Austin to hang with my sister for a few days.  We went to a safari like zoo where you sit in a trailer and all the animals just come and gather around (see the pics on Flickr).  From Austin we went straight to the worst Quakecon of all time.  Cary Lai and Sunny picked us up in Austin and we went straight to Dallas.  Quakecon disabled file sharing this year which restricted what we could do on the LAN.  No games could be played unless you owned it and the network even lagged, which is totally bizarre to me.  The only good news was that we met Ziel(Josh) in person and he actually won the Open Quake Live tournament.  Of course, since he was playing tourney games all the time and waiting for matches, we actually didn’t get to hang out with him all that much.  After Quakecon I returned to Houston and started the job search.  I took my suit to the cleaners and sent out 11 resumes and cover letters.  Half were to employers looking for people and half were to just random people I found doing intellectual property in Houston.  I then followed the advice of my sister and went looking on craigslist.  I found a place asking for a patent agent.  I sent and email and got a reply to come in the next day.  I went in to interview the next day and was offered a contract job on the spot.  Now I’ve been working for a month and I’ll write more about work later.

This weekend was pretty amazing.  Friday I got to eat dinner with my parents.  It was actually terrible food but at least I got to see them.  I actually get to see them all the time since I live in Houston, versus Austin where my sister is at or Seattle where my brother is at.  I then played a little StarCraft2 with Duffy, who showed me he was far superior to me.  I actually had a little trouble sleeping so I stayed up and watched Little Giants.  It isn’t as good of a movie as Sandlot, but it was football season and I felt like watching a feel good movie.

Saturday Vanhdy called and canceled Saturday morning bball, so I got to sleep in.  I went out and watch some flag football and took some good pictures.  I didn’t feel like my groin, which I pulled Monday night, was fully healed yet.  We went to watch the UT loss to UCLA, which sucked, but at least I got to watch it with good friends, including Nam who was visiting from out of town.  Post game Jamba Juice was a treat and volleyball was canceled because of the sudden down pour of rain.  So a quick trip to Chocolate Bar was made, where I again ordered nothing because ice cream prices are insane there.  We then went to watch The Town which was entertaining but not great.  I did order some nachos which was great.

Sunday we had Marg’s welcome to Texas lunch.  Thank you Mr and Mrs Chiu for lunch.  I then went over to Duffy’s to watch the Texans lose, which sucked, but at least I finally got almond milk tea from Dolce and fell asleep on the couch before playing flag football.  The turn out today was great and there were some amazing plays today.  The night ended with a light dinner at Cafe Express where Marg got to hear some CK stories.  Now I’m here typing this, not looking forward to work tomorrow, but hoping my groin has healed enough for us to win a championship tomorrow night.

life as it is

BarBri almost everyday (we get Sunday’s off) from 9am to about 1230pm.  I try to go to the gym afterward unless I have football the same night.  Then I force myself to study, which sometimes succeeds and sometimes (often) fails.  I do not feel like I’m learning anything doing this stuff.  The lectures are dry and the studying is overwhelming.  I’m already annoyed at the world.

look here son

We were standing in line at Wal-Mart and Annie looks over and says something like:  What is this drink called SON?!?  Like it was the worst name for a drink ever.  I laughed for about 5 minutes before informing here the drink is actually called NOS (nitrous oxide).  This is a good example of my saying…if I could film your every move every day and I could cut and paste things as I see fit, I too could make anybody look as dumb as Jessica Simpson.  I’m not saying she isn’t dumb or smart, I’m just saying the magic of film editing is amazing.

charlie horse

Funny thing about language is that it morphs and changes.  For example, the word gay went from happy to homosexuality.  Last weekend Annie got a cramp in her calf and said charlie horse.  I was like eh?  Charlie horse to me has always been when somebody knees you in your thigh…or purposely punches it with their knuckle.  Later Annie explained what happened to Angie and she said, like a charlie horse?  I was like what!  So, of course it works either way apparently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_horse

A charley horse is a popular North American colloquial term for a painful contusion of the quadriceps muscle of the anterior or lateral thigh that commonly results in a muscular hematoma and sometimes several weeks of pain and disability. Such an injury is known in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries (and also in the U.S.) as a dead leg, granddaddy, or chopper.^[1][2] In Australia it is also known as a corked thigh or “corky.”^[3] It often occurs in sports when an athlete is struck by an opponent’s knee, in a manner like the kick of a horse, perhaps the reason for its name.

The term “charley horse” is also used to describe simple painful muscle cramps in the leg or foot, especially those that follow strenuous exercise.^[4][5][6] These muscle cramps can have many possible causes including hormonal imbalances, dehydration, low levels of potassium or calcium in the blood, side effects of medication, or more seriously, diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and neuropathy.^[7] They are also a common complaint during pregnancy.^[8]

New year new OS

Happy ‘Lunar’ New Year.  I’ve grown up here in the US, so Chinese New Years hasn’t been that big of a deal to me.  I remember having those huge Formosa dinner parties and getting red envelopes of money, but now, nothing special happens.  I’ll be with my family next weekend so this weekend is no big deal.

In other news, I’ve installed Windows 7.  I actually had it installed on a netbook and I’ve been impressed enough to now put it to use on my desktop.  I hope all goes well, but having to re-download L4D2 is a pain.  I’m writing this and being distracted by TV.  I should stop.

posting more often

I don’t actually have much to post about, but I guess I never really did.  Let’s see…

Things at school are starting to inch closer to the finish line.  I applied to take the bar in July and of course I now have to pay for a bar review course and lay down almost $3k.  I’m looking forward to spending time with my family in a couple weeks.  My aunt from Taiwan will be visiting and we’re all meeting up in Austin.  Even my brother is flying in from Arizona.  The weather is still cold and warm and cold, but it is just February, so what do you expect.

I’ve been playing a lot of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 online.  My brother got it for me for my birthday and it is fun to play even w/o a group (unlike Left4Dead 1 or 2).  I’m not saying it is the better game but more people usually means it is bearable to play with annoying people.  However the greater number equals a greater number of people who hack.  I’m afraid computer gaming does fall behind console gaming because of this fact.  It really ruins the experience when people hack and it encourages more people to hack.

UT Basketball is a big letdown.  The Rockets, while not really a let down, aren’t doing that great.  I don’t mind the Rockets getting a lottery pick.

Was that random enough?   I wonder if I should just make a post about all my tweets and elaborate beyond 140 characters.

“No Ticket Left Behind” campaign

http://www.sbnation.com/2010/1/11/1245197/nba-decade-of-change-10-ways-to-usher
No. 7: Institute a “No Ticket Left Behind” campaign

With the technology available to us, there should never be an empty seat at an NBA game.  Not one.  I recently asked a high-level NBA executive why unused seats aren’t sold at a substantial discount at the very last minute before games, and he told me that their franchise’s “research” had shown that season ticket holders don’t like it when someone sits next to them for half the price.  As a season ticket holder who never participated in this survey, I don’t buy this for a second and just think that NBA ticket sales offices/marketing people are lazy.  First, on the rare occasion when I can’t give away my seats and have to sell them, I never get face value and am lucky to get half my money back (because those rare occasions mean it’s a game against a bad team).  Second, as a fan I want to sit in a stadium filled-to-the-brim with fans.  It makes the experience better for everyone and improves the home team’s chances of winning, too.  And third, I buy season tickets because I want a guaranteed good seat for big games, games I’m available to attend and playoff games, and I’m willing to pay more for that guarantee.

Here’s how this campaign would work.  If a ticket holder knows he/she can’t attend and is unable to give the tickets to someone else, they should be able to contact the team through an online service and get at least half their money back in the form of applied funds for playoff tickets or next season tickets.  The unused tickets then go into a pool and are priced at a steep discount for fans to purchase at the last minute online or directly at the stadium.  Any upper level tickets not used/sold by the ticket holder should be sold for one dollar just to get asses in the seats.  A campaign like this would not only fill arenas (that NBA teams have to pay labor and utility costs regardless of attendance numbers anyway), but would encourage younger and middle-to-lower class Americans to come to games, fostering more fan enthusiasm for the NBA.  So to my aforementioned NBA executive if he’s reading this: how would this be a bad thing?

I think the NBA would have a real fear about selling less normal priced tickets.  Why would I buy a ticket to a game I wanted to go to if I could get cheap discount tickets later?  The only reason would be as a ‘reservation’.  Since I’m a fan that could attend multiple games, I’d just aim to only go to cheap games.  The system itself is fine and many places now use the FlashSeats concept.  It allows season ticket holders to sell their tickets, but w/o the large discount deflating the market.  I’m okay with this concept.  Just being allowed to purchase a season ticket holder’s tickets is good enough.

Winter Break

Why hello blog I never post on anymore because of twitter/facebook.

So break has been awesome.  Of course, being in law school, I have yet to receive 2 of my grades and its already January.  Congrats to Charlie/Karen and Vanhdy/Jenny on their marriage.  As usual we played basketball while we were in Port Lavaca and the popular blooper reel is now up on YouTube.  The weather has been crazy cold but no ice/snow here in Houston.  I will be heading to Utah to snowboard on Thursday-Monday.  I’ve never been to Salt Lake City or Park City so this will be neat.  We’re going to watch a Jazz game so it will be another notch in my ‘watch an NBA game in every city’.

So far…Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, New York, Washington DC, Denver, Phoenix (can’t believe I haven’t watched one in California yet).

I have a few books I’ve neglected to read.  I’ve spent a lot of time playing Left4Dead 2 with my brother.  It is nice to be able to play with him even though he lives in Phoenix now.  I got to play the New Super Mario Bros on the Wii too.  I played the Wu/Lai brothers, again during New Years Eve, and then just with Annie the other day.  It’s always more fun to play multiplayer games.

I got into the clinical trial for Psoriasis that I wanted.  I’m getting free medicine worth thousands of dollars and what I think is a placebo as well.  The harsh winter isn’t allowing the medicine to do wonders, but it is at least keeping me stable during this super dry/cold weather.

Nothing else random on my mind at the moment.

In response to Linda’s comment about living a full life, I really hope I do live one.  She lives a pretty amazing life herself with all the yum food and neato friends.

I’ve been pretty blessed to have the opportunity to life a full life and I try to take advantage of my opportunity.  I like to try new things, visit cities, see all the world can offer.  However, most of my days are pretty boring.  I watch ESPN, play video games, Saturday we play flag football and eat, Sunday is basketball and more eating.  I need to get back into taking pictures.  I feel that it helps me appreciate what I see, helps me see more, and helps me remember all the amazing things I’m allowed to see.

Anywho, I’m out.