Wow, I’m totally digging this new “web 2.0” travel site, kayak.com. It even has a list of nude beaches.

I know most of you are still Yahoo diehards, so I’m not going to twist your arm behind your back to use gmail.

How to change your content preference:

* log in to Yahoo Mail
* click Options
* select Account information from the left panel
* go to Member Information, General Preferences, Preferred Content
* select, for example, Yahoo UK
* click Finished
* go to Yahoo Mail
* you’ll see a page that says “It’s the New Yahoo! Mail Beta… and you’re invited.”
* click on “Try Beta Now”.

I tested the program. Gmail is still better. The ajax is just too heavy.

After sleeping in late today—played two rounds of poker the following night, which I got 3rd and 4th place—and had a quite number of beers as you can see in the pics, I forced myself to lace up and step outside. Oh, it was so nice outside and I was enjoying the weather more than my run. I told myself I’ll pay another visit to my same birthday buddy, good ole George Washington. So, I ran to the capitol, then to the Washington Monument. It was really nice as there was a rich diversity of people enjoying the spring. Then, I saw Lincoln Memorial on the other end, where Martin Luther King gave his most famous speech, and was pretty surprised that it wasn’t really that far, maybe 1/2 mile away from the Washington monument, so I decided to run there, alongside the reflection pool.

I took my time and carried a leisure pace till I got home. Then, I decided to look up the Google pedometer mashup map that will tell me how many miles I’ve ran after entering the pinpoints. Check it out.

It said 8.76 miles. Wow! I’ve ran that far? and I entered my weight, 163 lbs, and said I’ve burned 1080 calories. I don’t know if that’s accurate but I was surprised at the numbers. Not too bad for a 25 years old guy who drank 6 beers and ran almost 9 miles the next day. :-)

Men have 30 seconds to impress women

“HALF of all women make their minds up within 30 seconds of meeting a man about whether he is potential boyfriend material, according to a study on speed-dating. The women were on average far quicker at making a decision than the men during some 500 speed dates at an event organised as part of Edinburgh Science Festival. The scientists behind the research said this showed just how important chat-up lines were in dating. They found that those who were “highly skilled in seduction” used chat-up lines that encouraged their dates to talk about themselves in “an unusual, quirky way”.

Geez, 30 seconds? Don’t you think you’re being a little harsh?

As I said in my previous post, I started a blog as an addition to my website. I’d like to think that it has evolved since I started doing this. First of all, I thought I was going to write a few things about what I think in this rather short life (believe me, when you reach 70 years old, you will feel like it’s flashed before your eyes.) and about myself.

After doing this for more than a year and trying my best to keep this website somewhat updated, I’ve learned a few things. The number one lesson I’ve learned the most is that content is king. You could have a badly designed website but if you keep coming up with a good content or information, it will somewhat become successful. Don’t believe me? Just type “content is king” in the google search and there’s dozen of articles that say content is king.

So, with that in mind, I fell upon this great post by Jason Kottke. He is one of the few, if not many, bloggers who are able to make a professional living on blogging. To me, I truly think it is tough to do that, so here I am, looking at his website and what makes it “tick”. Ah-ha, it’s not even the design, well, he does have a good working design but it’s all about the content. In doing that, his friend, Greg Knauss, classifies him as a referential blogger. What’s a referential blogger? According to Greg’s words, “the referential blogger uses the link as his fundamental unit of currency, building posts around ideas and experiences spawned elsewhere: Look at this. Referential bloggers are reporters, delivering pointers to and snippets of information, insight or entertainment happening out there, on the Intraweb. They can, and do, add their own information, insight and entertainment to the links they unearth — extrapolations, juxtapositions, even lengthy and personal anecdotes — but the outward direction of their focus remains their distinguishing feature.”

That’s it! That’s what I’ve been doing ever since. I love to surf the web, like a potato on the couch. That’s going to be my focus now, to be a referential blogger. It’s like being a little both of librarian and reporter for the web.

I’m gonna overhaul my website big-time. Really big-time. Hopefully soon. My topics are going to be on the issues relating to myself—someone who’s a Deaf Asian-American, was adopted, love sports, cars, computers, gadgets, works for Google, thinks education is the most important thing anybody can have and simply a person who’s trying to make the best out of life.

And remember, content is king.

Blogs ‘essential’ to a good career

2. Blogging can get you a job.

Dervala Hanley writes a quirky literary blog that got her a job is at Stone Yamashita Partners, a consulting firm that ”tries to bring humanity to business.” Hanley says the firm was attracted to her ability to put her business experience into personal terms on the blog.

I can vouch for that. That’s how I got a job with Google, through blogs or blogosphere, thanks to www.kertong.com. :-)

More than a year ago, when blogs were taking off, I decided to incorporate a blog onto my website so that I can learn more about web development and I’ve always wanted to write but never was on the yearbook or some mags. So I thought it would be a good addition to my website and I remember I was agonizing over which blog engine I should use. Well, actually, I remember I signed up in blogger.com, before it was bought by Google. Was using it for a while, then stopped. It was good for users who’s not into web development or doesn’t have a web server so I looked elsewhere. I started using Movable Type and while it has a very good content management, the installation was a bit complicated and that it’s static, not dynamic (although now they can be updated dynamically.) Then WordPress came along. I liked it because it’s dynamic, open-source and plug-ins were easy to use, but it was a little raw since it was new, then it got better and better. Now it’s one of the most popular blog tools and since it’s completely open source, I can look at the PHP and see how they do it, with the loops and functions.

Anyway, back to the topic, so I started a blog and decided to look for people who’s like me and saw Kertong’s website listed in the korean-american directory. Sent him an email, he replied back, we became friends, and eventually informed me that there was a job opening at Google. I went for it, applied, and got the job. Heh, I still owe him a keg of beer. ;-)

So, having a blog do pay dividends. And I wouldn’t really recommend you to use Xanga, myspace or those similar websites for that.

“Be yourself.” my mom’s best advice to me.

“Everyone’s got a fear of rejection. The difference is how you handle it.” thanks, Taki.

“Just do it.” quote made famous by Nike. I know it’s simplistic and cliche but effective. As I start to think of million other excuses or procrastination, I just tell myself to shut up and just do it. Like I’ve ran 3 miles on the treadmill last Thurs night and another 3 miles this evening. Trying to get on a roll here to get in shape for 10k race on April 30.

“Courage is being scared to death–and saddling up anyway.” – John Wayne

“You wouldn’t be impressed with my skill if you knew how hard I had to work to achieve my mastery.” – Michaelangelo

“Don’t tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done.” –anonymous

Obviously inspired by the movie, Joint Security Area, which they created a fake set of the border between North and South Korea.

Looks like North Korea won. The clapping of Kim Jong-Il was funny as hell.

I hope I counted the week number right. Anyway, my parents came to visit me last weekend and had a wonderful time. My dad’s fallen in love with korean buffets but I worry about him ‘cuz his stomach is as big as it can be. Good thing my hometown doesn’t have a korean buffet. My mom’s wish got fullfilled. She got to see the pandas and the baby panda at the Washington National Zoo. My digital camera battery got dead so I rushed to get a disposable camera for my mom. My mom must have stared at the pandas for an hour, then turned around and gave me the look. “When are you gonna have a kid?” Then told my dad he shares the same roundness of a stomach with pandas. Haha. My parents.

The next highlight was the visit up the Washington Monument. Shit, it was blowing and raining hard out there and my dad had to buy a $10 dollars umbrella from a homeless black guy. The good thing about the rainy weather was that there weren’t many people lined up so we got into the monument fairly easy. It was our first time except for mom. The last time she visited, she used the stairs. Now it has an elevator. Guess what? there’s even a small store inside the top of the monument. Bet you didn’t know that. And it was an eerie feeling seeing my birthday etched all over the walls. “Feburary 22” and I stood face to face with George Washington. “Hey, you and I share the same birthday. Think I can ever become the first Deaf president? Then he said, well sorry, you’re not qualified because you weren’t born in the land of United States.” Great, I can’t become the President.

Another big event was overlapping. It was the weekend of Rockfest where Gallaudet Univ. hosts competition between RIT students and Gally students. For more info on the Rockfest, I direct you to Denazzie’s xanga.. So, several friends were staying at our place and met my parents. I’m grateful to have deaf parents that can socialize with my deaf friends.

I got a new used car. Bought the car from my roommate, Andy. It’s a 1993 BMW 324i. Pretty nice ride. Needs some fixing—no power in the windows or sunroof. A/C belt is missing, which got worn out. Muffler needs to be replaced. I hope to get them fixed asap.

The visit of my parents went fast. If I listened to the statistics, that the average life expectancy is 77 years old, that means I’ve got only 20 years left with my parents. My mom’s over sixty years old now. My dad is at high risk of having heart attacks. He’s overweight and my grandfather had had two heart bypass surgeries and he wasn’t that overweight. Yet my dad is not doing anything about it; he’s a taurus—being stubborn. So that made me rethink about things and what’s important in life.

Our next trip: go on a cruise from Alaska to Hawaii in 2007. That’s gonna be fun. :-)

Why? because they don’t offer unlimited data plan as the stand-alone plan like T-Mobile does. I was so gonna buy this phone from Cingular.

I realize there is a similar phone by T-mobile but it looks like a shit and I read one of the reviews that its keypad is not that great. I guess I’ll wait till they’re shipping smartphones with a 2.0 megapixels and a decent keyboard.