Who's hold the camera?

One of my favorite shows of all time on TV is The Wonder Years.  Yes, I admit it.  But still, the bottom line is that I like it and thought it was a great way to reminisce about childhood. 

I was watching an episode the other day with my girlfriend and we came to one of those scenes where they play hippie music and show what seems like old family footage from a 16 mm video camera running at faster than normal speed.  Anyway, I had never really noticed before, but my girlfriend asked me who the hell was holding the camera.  I told her it was obviously the never seen next door neighbor who comes with the Arnold family on all of their family vacations.   

Long Time, No Posts

It has been way too long since I have posted so this is my attempt to get things started again.  When I think of something interesting to write, which will undoubtly come to me over dinner in about a few minutes, I will be posting those thoughts.

Off to the Dominican Republic

I am leaving for vacation in the Dominican Republic. Check out the blog of that trip here.

Cybersquatting was taken

I was trying to register the domain name cybersquatting.com, and it just happened to be taken. Not only that, but it was on sale. They want something like $37,000 for the domain name. Darn... I should have squatted on it.

I see your 4 units and raise you 10

So I am taking a new class at Stanford called Global Entrepreneurial Marketing. I have been in the class for 2 weeks now and have had more homework than I had in my entire college career... well, not really. It's supposed to be a 4 unit class, but the prof dishes out assignments left and right until you can't do anything but go to work, do homework, and then sleep. But no, you can't get away from it in your sleep because you have to have dreams about getting your Powerpoint slides just right and getting cold called and having something meaningful to say lest you be marked down for being stupid. I guess I can view this class as a rite of passage, and struggling with my project group until the wee hours of the morning makes us great companions. These are the good things... hopefully I learn something too.

Multiple Handshakes

So, I was at a party and meeting lots of new people. You know how it goes. You introduce yourself and then shake hands. You might repeat the name several times because you didn't hear it because of the loud music or everyone was talking in the background. Then you promptly forget the name of the person you just met. Well, this happens to me sometimes, and sometimes I like to ask again, "What was your name again?" Usually, the person happily obliges, but what I don't get is that it is almost compulsory to redo the handshake. It's almost as if my hand pops out subconsciously for that second handshake as if it was going to make a difference in remembering the person's name this time. It didn't make one bit of difference the first time. Also, if I can manage to resist the temptation to do the handshake a second time, I often get the hand offering from the other person. He or she wants the reaffirmation as well, and you can't leave someone just hanging like that.

Photography

Do you ever see a picture someone took and think that it has such a unique and artistic perspective that you can't imagine how they saw it or how they figured out that this would look cool in a photograph?

I have found that I still have a lot of learning to do before I can have a good eye for artistic photography. I am sure that there are rules that people can learn and follow to make their pictures look interesting, but people just have to have talent, right? People who are great photographers are able to capture an ordinary scene in an extraordinary way. I am always fascinated by how they discover these unique points of view.

Whenever I am in the situation of taking pictures, I always find myself torn between capturing the moment as it really was, trying to get as much detail and memory packed into the picture, and, on the other hand, trying to make the photograph as visually appealing as possible. In viewing photos of people who choose the latter method, I find the scene much more memorable even though I wasn't there. It is almost like a dream that I can live or imagine. In viewing my own photos, I find it hard to feel the same way, and desire to relive the memory as it was. I bet that other people who view my memories are completely bored, as I would be with someone's uninteresting photos lacking unique perspective. I think that going forward, I would like to share my memories with others in a unique and artistic way so that they can imagine my memory for themselves.

Guitar Hero Addict

Lately, I have been interested in becoming far more musical than I am. I figured Guitar Hero was definitely the way to go. You can easily rock out to great songs by just pushing one or two buttons at a time and strumming on the old white switch where the strings are supposed to be. I could become an addict very quickly unfortunately. After a few hours of being a hero, my eyes were blood shot (since you can't really blink during a song lest you miss a dot) and my left pinky would never forgive me for straining him so hard. That night my dreams were filled with colorful dots coming right for me. It was fun and I was wired.

From GuitarHero2007

More on a musical note, I did want to learn how to play the guitar. My girlfriend loaned me hers for a while and I started learning some chords. My progress was a little rougher than Guitar Hero, but it was a lot of fun. I would love to become addicted to it. I wonder how I get there.