Could it get any worse?

I came across this article today. At one point I thought that China's control over the internet could not get any tighter, but the day has 'officially' come.

China Strengthens Internet Restrictions

I am not sure to what extent this is going to be successful in regulating speech, but apparently the government thinks that it will work. I don't believe it will make any difference in the long run since the fact that the internet is being used so heavily as a medium to discuss issues is only a by product of how easy it is to use and disseminate ideas. It was not like the day the internet was available to China that it was a catalyst for people and their ideas. These people have always had something to say, now they just have a relatively safe and anonymous method of doing it. People will always find methods of exercising free speech no matter the medium or controls placed on that medium. Even Harvard's Cyber Law website will tell you how to hack MSN spaces, so that you can use words that are considered forbidden to use by the Chinese government.

I just hope that I haven't gotten myself banned by now.

Yay School!

So the main question on everyone's mind is probably what I think about school now after working in San Clemente for the last eight months. I like it a lot. There are a few things I had forgotten about when I was gone. For example, I forgot how much time I spend walking outside. I was harshly reminded today as the cold wind blew during the rain. I guess it beats the heat they are having in San Clemente right now.

As for my classes, I am really enjoying them so far. We haven't really had any homework, so I don't think it is a fair estimation at this point, but I am sure you guys will be able to tell from my future postings.

Right now I am taking four classes. I will drop one of them by the end of this weekend, but I am not so sure which class I will drop right now. Before I get into that I will talk about the two classes I am taking right now.

The first class is Chinese Literature. I have enjoyed the readings we have done in the first couple days even though the first night we had to read a 24 page bibliography. I didn't understand the point of it because we didn't talk about it in class. I have enjoyed the lectures even though my professor is ancient and nervously shuffles his foot while lecturing from his chair. We are starting to study pre-Qin literature and we will continue throughout history as the quarter progresses. To give you an idea of how old some of the translated texts are, I will tell you that the Qin dynasty started when the Qin state came to power and unified China in 221 B.C. It amazes me that any sort of literature or form of writing still exists from that period. I am a little worried about this course because I think my knowledge of Chinese history is severely lacking as compared to the other students in the class.

The second class is where I get to use my left brain. Machine Organization and Assembly Language is a class I should have taken the first year in the department, but what can I say. I put it off for just a little bit. Actually I am quite glad that I am taking it now because I can appreciate it more now than I ever would have back then.

I still have not decided what the third class I am taking will be. I have a choice between taking a linguistics course on syntax or a class on 20th Century Korean literature and society. We are supposed to explore what identity is through this course. The linguistics course sounds really interesting from a programming languages standpoint. I had previously covered a very little about grammars in my discrete math class and this class would be another analytical course for my left brain, but it doesn't seem so appealing after my Korean literature class this afternoon. Even though I don't know much about Korea I was able to relate a few of the discussion points back to Chinese culture and my experiences, so I think it will be a fun course. Plus we get to watch some Margaret Cho stand up comedy next week.

I will decided by the end of tomorrow. I guess it comes down to how much reading and writing I want to do this quarter. I think it might be a nice breath of fresh air. What do you guys think?

Oh yeah. School is kind of lonely since most of my friends graduated already. I don't find myself recognizing as many students anymore. I don't get to stop in the middle of red square and have nice long conversations anymore. I might just lock myself up in some room somewhere and just read. Or maybe I could make some new friends.

My Last Week at Omation

This isn't my last week at Omation. It was actually last week, but I have been busy doing nothing for the past few days (deservedly so, as some people tell me), so I will update you guys now as to what transpired.

So I told everyone that my last day was Tuesday, but it really wasn't until Friday. I was planning on going to Santa Barbara to see Zhan Laoshi from IUP, but that plan fell through, so my contract was extended a few more days and I worked until the end of the week. On Tuesday we went down to the beach to have a picnic. Since that seemed to be the growing tradition around Omation, I decided to follow suit and have my own. I was really happy that everyone showed and that I didn't get thrown in the water, even though that was a tradition as well. People played on swings, ate food and chatted. Check out the photos.

On Wednesday night Paramount and Nickelodeon were very nice and treated the Omation staff to a special screening of the movie at a local theatre. We were able to get anything we wanted to eat, so of course (as Adam put it) we were like kids in a candy store. The movie was even better than the last time I had seen it, but I think the cuts and additions were better. It was also nice to see more of the lit final shots that had been done since the previous time I had seen the movie. Seeing the progress and hearing all the kids laughter got me more excited to see the movie. It also made the mundane task of writing render farm software more enjoyable, at least for the last couple days I did it. The best part of the night was the kid who came up to me and said he thought the movie was great, but he was waiting for the sequel. If one kid can't wait for the sequel after seeing the unfinished movie, then I can't imagine what will happen when the finished movie is released.

So after two days of fun it was time for one more night. We had a choice to either go to the XSI user group in LA or go to Battle of the Bands. Battle of the Bands was an event organized by Omation's own Leslie to give the musicians and Omation a chance to rock out. I was amazed at how talented people actually were. The first group had somewhat of a country feel. Their songs were a little slower, but Katy sang very well, even though it was her first time singing. David Andrews and Alastair put together a nice band that played some rock music and even wrote an original song about Wild Mike, a hair furball character from the movie. That got everyone excited. The third band played some really good rock music and did a great cover of Mr Brightside by The Killers. I was at the bar getting a drink, so I wasn't able to really rock out. It was ok because the next band, of two guys really got things going. Guitar was played by a guy from post production and the drums were played by the IT supervisor. They got everyone excited and dancing, so the night ended on a very high note.

After the show a lot of us headed over to Ole's for a little foosball. Mike and I played a little bit at first, but we eventually lost the table. There were two good guys at the table who were beating all of coworkers, so Adam and I got together and beat them. It was nice to beat them since it was our last game together (GG Adam!). One of our friends ended up spewing all over the floor in the back, so we had to escort him out of the back door of the bar and take him home. I am glad that he enjoyed the evening as much as he did.

On Friday I left San Clemente. It is a great little town with a lot of great people (mostly from Omation). Just see for yourself, they are all in the photo.

Last Official Day at Work

Just about to get ready for work on my last day. I am a little sad and a little happy. Not too sure right now actually. I think the picnic by the pier will be fun, but it rained last night, so we probably won't go in the water. Gonna bring my stuff to work anyways.

The guys down here are great. I will definitely miss them.

More to come later about this weekend. Pictures will come soon, but there was plenty of tarantulas and getting stabbed by yucca plants.

A Downer Week

This week has not been going so well. My energy level has been way low. Eventhough work has been fun, I haven't felt like I usually do. Maybe I am subconsciously going through emotional and physical steps of relocation prematurely. Next week I will be heading back to Seattle to finish up my degree. This is going to be a good thing for me, however, I am going to miss who I am working with down here and what I am doing.

Last weekend was one of the greatested weekends I have had down here in a while. I was a little worried after going camping and and then climbing the previous two weekends that spending a weekend in San Clemente was going to be boring, but it turned out great.

On Friday night some of us went to the theatres to watch The Constant Gardner. I enjoyed the movie even though it was not at all what I had expected. By the end of it I was pretty depressed. It was not a 'my life sucks' depression, but more of a 'man, I should be doing other things with my life' type depression. I recommend watching the movie to others, but not because it makes you depressed.

Saturday was a pretty sweet day too. In the late morning Jentzen and I did some laundry that needed to be done for a while. I was pretty stoked about that because I like clean clothes. If I could wash my laundry every day, I might just do it. Adam just so happened to be washing his clothes too, so we chatted for a while and hung out. When our laundry was done he had the idea of going to the Salvation Army, Best Buy and Borders and since we didn't have anything else to do, we joined him. Salvation Army was just like any other thrift store you go to. We walked around and checked out the old clothes and vintage items, the whole time pointing out the most tacky things and laughing, because that is what you have to do at a thrift store. Jentzen won the prize with his woman's green sequin jacket.

We were all checking out shirts when I noticed a soccer jersey. Then I noticed another matching one. Then I noticed another matching one. We had found three matching soccer jerseys for the Fullerton Rangers. On Monday we all wore our cool new jerseys to work. Jentzen sent an email to the company telling them how we won our first match of the season. Since then we have gotten a couple emails congratulating us and even asking if they can join our team. Unfortunately it is a youth soccer league. I wouldn't mind beating some kids at soccer. That would be great.

So after the excitement of the Salvation Army we drove to Best Buy to spend some real money. We all got some new music and dvds. I picked up two albums from the x-ecutioners and one from zero7 and the latest killers cd. They are all pretty good.

Eventually we all ended up at Adam's place again where we got to spend some quality time together. It had been a while since I had actually hung out with people outside of work, so I had a great time watching some dvds that Jentzen bought. At some point we decided to drink some jaggermeister and before we knew it, it was 7:30 in the morning and more than a liter a of it was gone. I sure slept well though.

So I thought that Saturday could not be beat, but then Sunday came. My old roommate Aaron was throwing a bbq, so Jentzen and I rolled out of the recliners at Adam's place and got showered up before we headed down to his place. I had heard stories about Aaron's place, but I didn't know how great it was. He had found a place attached to a huge house right near the beach. His porch had a path through the yard and down the ravine, which heads right to the beach. After we ate some food we all headed down to the beach. Everyone was jumping in the water, so despite my pants, I jumped in too. Not too long after body surfing did some dolphins show up. Ok, there weren't some, but there were many and they were in a very playful mood. They were jumping out of the water. Not just breaching, but jumping fully out of the water. They were jumping out like they do at Seaworld, you know, where they jump straight up, turn, and enter the water head first again. It was amazing. The best moment was where one dolphin jumped out of the water and another dolphin jumped over the first as it was in the air. That was the most amazing natural display of dolphins I had ever seen.

So that was pretty much my whole weekend. This week has been kind of a bummer comparatively, but I guess work usually seems worse than the weekend.

This weekend I am going to be camping at Joshua Tree again. I am sure I will have some more pictures when I get back. Well I better get to bed so I have time in the morning to style my sweet new mohawk.

Ultimate Climbing Adventure

On Labor Day weekend I had one of the best times of my life. I missed out on Tammy's wedding, which was a bummer, but I was able to go rock climbing instead.

Kagan, Eric and I went to Yosemite and Bishop to do some sweet rock climbing. You can see the climbing photos in my gallery.

The trip started out on Friday night at the Oakland airport. After getting my bike from baggage claim we quickly headed to the parking lot where we disassembled my bike and packed away my stuff. Then we hit the road. We headed east for Yosemite. Along the way we found a Starbucks. Seeing as it was 11:30 at night I thought it would be good to only get a grande. I thought two shots would be fine, but Eric, on the other hand, thought three shots were due. After coffee we got something to eat. Before we even had our food Eric went back to Starbucks for another 3 shots of espresso! So in the span of about 20 minutes Eric drank six shots of espresso. Surprisingly he did not go into shock or just crash after all the caffeine.

Later that night we made it to the Groveland Motel, which by the way, is pretty bad assuming you were not early enough to get a real cabin. After we paid for our $60 / night "cabin" I knew something was wrong when the lady said our cabin was next to the other silver cabin. Our cabins weren't cabins at all, they were trailers. We were tired and did not have much other choice, so we laughed about it.

The next morning we drove into Yosemite Valley. Once there, we rode our bicycles around the floor until we came back around to Camp IV, where we could boulder. After a few hours of bouldering we left the valley and drove to Bishop. We didn't need to spend too much time in Yosemite because the nation's best bouldering is in Bishop, so we wanted to be able to spend the most time possible there as we could.

The first night in Bishop we needed to find place to stay. We didn't want to stay at the Best Western for $170 per night, so we politely told the lady no, stole some candy from the dish and then proceeded to another motel. The candy tasted great also.

The next morning we climbed Happy Boulders in the valley floor. The climbing was super cool and most of it was pretty mellow. The routes were taller than anything I had climed in the gym. We also got to do some pretty nice overhanging routes.

After a couple hours in the afternoon we hiked back to the car and headed for the Buttermilks where we set up our super cool campsite and climbed some more. The Buttermilks has some pretty challenging routes, which we didn't do, but it was still neat to see some famous routes like the Ironman Traverse.

Our final day of vacation was pretty relaxing. We broke down camp in the morning, headed over to the rocks for some bouldering and then headed into town. After getting some famous Buffalo Burritos from Las Palmas restaurant, we headed back west. In the late evening we made it to San Francisco, so we headed into China town for some Chinese food. After a little walking around we found a place where we could fill up on some nice food. Once we were done with dinner we looked for a Starbucks to get some coffee. Everything was shut down pretty early, so this mission took us on a trip from Chinatown, down to the Metreon and back. Along the way we got some cds at the Virgin Music Store, so it wasn't all bad.

That was pretty much the whole trip. It was pretty exciting, but there was a lot of driving. The most memorable parts will be the climbing (which, I will say is reallty great) and just being a dumbass with my brother and Kagan.

Thanks for a great trip guys!

New Apartment!

Well, it isn't really an apartment, more like a new space to put my stuff and sleep. This evening I moved from my old apartment into Steven and Jentzen's apartment. The move was very painless. I picked up the uhaul van this afternoon and after work, Steven, Adam, Aaron and Mike all helped me move what little belongings I had. I am really thankful they helped me out.

So between now and the end of September I need to figure out how to sell some of my stuff or ship it back to Seattle. I would prefer to sell it, so I don't need to worry about shipping it and I will get money.

I guess from here on out I will spending a lot more time at work playing video games and geeking out. Since I live so much closer to work it will be easy to stay later. Also, living here gives me a chance to geek out with some of the guys from work. I think I should have made this move earlier.

Now it's time for bed. I need to be rested for yoga practice tomorrow.