Just Jack - The Day I Died

Drag myself from my bed Around 20 past 6
Get my kids up make breakfast 1 egg 2 toast 3 weetabix

And as I sit down I look up
And your standing in the doorway sun at your back
in my old brown dressing gown
Well no one can love you more than I love you now
but I

Gotta go running for the bus
Coat flying and i try not to miss it this time
But the drivers waiting and that's strange
Kids on the top deck quiet for a change
And theres no rain and no roadworks in the
Bus lane and all my hurts run away
And im smiling as I'm punching in

Chorus
The day I died was the best day of my life (2x)
Tell my friends and my kids and my wife
everything will be alright
The day I died was the best day of my life

Now the secretaries they got a smile for me
and the in tray on my desks almost empty
I get a memo from executive joe
saying Rob the gob is getting kicked out
for embezzling funds from the company account
and i'd be lying if i said i wasn't chuffed
cos i always hated rob
and now they'll probably offer me robs old job

And in the park at lunch
Theres no whinos on my favorite bench
none of that drunk chatter none of that pissy stench
and the 20 little pigeons with the gammy leg
decide to dine from someone elses sandwich instead
and there's something about the city today
like all the colours conspire to overwhelm the grey
and this close to the fire I can feel no cold
but a rainbow halo around my soul

Chorus
The day I died was the best day of my life (2x)
Tell my friends and my kids and my wife
everything will be alright
The day I died was the best day of my life

So I leave work get to the high street and i miss my bus
Should i wait for another no I can't be arsed
I begin to walk and rush hour crowd seem to part
Like the red sea, and im stopping at the offy
20 cigerettes and a 6 pack to relax me
And as I cross back over the street
I guess i never saw that taxi

I guess I never saw that taxi

Chorus
The day I died was the best day of my life (2x)
Tell my friends and my kids and my wife
everything will be alright anekatips.com
The day I died was the best day of my life

Now I got 99 red balloons floating in the summer sky
I got 99 red balloons drifting past my dreamy eyes
I got 99 red balloons floating in the summer sky
I got 99 red balloons drifting past my dying eyes

How to Win a Pitch and Impress Your Client

I have been reading a book called "Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life" by Eugene O'Kelly. The book has been very inspirational to me, not only because of the views on work, family, and life shared by Eugene, but also the way he handed crisis situation at work.

I have never worked in a company with a boss like him before. I think it would be great to learn from someone who values the client management and relationship building experience like he did. People just don't seem to understand that you need to INVEST to build a relationship and there is always RISK involved.

On p.21 "Back when I was the head of the firm's financial services division, its biggest arm, and we were competing to become the auditor for a major investment bank, I knew that if we were really serious about winning the account, I would need to get a face-to-face meeting with the president of the bank's Australian unit. The bank was expected to make its decision very soon. I did everything I could to schedule a meeting with him - made my calendar completely available, called his secretary repeatedly.

Sorry, I was told. His secretary said there wasn't single moment her boss was in the office that was unbooked. For weeks. If I waited until he had an opening, I knew, the business would be lost.

I called his secretary back. Given how often I'd called her, we'd developed a bit of a rapport. So I figured I'd try: Would she be so kind as to tell me her boss's upcoming travel plans? He was a man on the go, in transit much of the day - surely a pocket of that travel time was not taken up with meetings? She told me that in two days, he was flying from Sydney to Melbourne. Nothing was scheduled for the time he was in the air.

"Perfect," I said.

I asked her for his seat assignment. She told me. I called the airline and booked the shortest longest business trip of my life, reserving the first-class seat next to his. That night I packed, showered, and shaved, and the following day I flew the 22 hours from New York to Sydney, landed, boarded my 90-minute flight bound for Melbourne, sat down, and introduced myself to the banked I'd flown halfway around the world to meet, briefly. When I described what I'd done to get there, he was dumbstruck. I asked if I could explain why I believed we were the best firm to audit his bank's books. An hour and a half later, we touched down. I offered him our presentation, shook his hand, and headed to another fate for my 20-plus-hour trek home.

We won the account."

I'd love to meet a manager with such courage and vision to get the job done. If you are the one or if you know someone, let me know.

Rachel Ray and Me?

After returning from my computer shopping in Central, I decided to clean up the food I bought in my fridge by inviting my mother and my sister to come over for dinner. Since my dad and my other sister are still on vacation, only two of my family members left remained at my parents' apartment. I ended up taking the chance to cook for my sister and my mother for the 1st time since I returned to Hong Kong.

I used to cook a lot when I was in US and I still remember that days that a bunch of my friends got together to have a potluck dinner. I usually made the same dish, soy-sauced marinated chicken wings over and over again because it took little time to get it done. I just needed to buy some chicken wings from Safeway, wash them up, and put them in a pot with a bottle of Chinese soy-sauce. Let them sit in the pot for an hour and you will get some very delicious Chicken wings.

Together, I fried two slices of fish fillet that I got from Apita for dinner. I also opened a can of marinated pork with pickled vegetables and broiled some Chinese vegetables as dinner. Altogether, it took less than 1/2 hour to get it done. I guess I could possibly be the next Rachel Ray by giving up recipes to cook a dinner with 30 minutes.

Lately, I have been watching a TV show called "Take Home Chef with Curtis Stone" on Discovery Health and Living. He is another TV Chef personality like Jamie Oliver, who has starred in numerous TV cooking shows and written a number of cook books.

"Take Home Chef with Curtis Stone" was about Curtis Stone, a tall good looking Australia Chef, going around in supermarkets across the States and randomly picked up one lady who was doing shopping at that time. He would ask for the lady's permission to finish up the shopping and cook dinner for her and her company at the same night. It's pretty funny to see how some dude felt so shocked when he returned home to see his wife with a young hunk in the house. If I were the husband, I would be so furious.

I think if the show changes a bit and randomly pick up a guy instead of a lady doing grocery shopping, that will become an instantaneous blockbuster on Bravo network. It's like a reincarnation of the show "Queer Eyes for Straight Guys". I am sure that could only happen in America. People would do ANYTHING to get a good TV rating.

I want a MacBook Air!

I have to admit that I have been pretty obsessed with MacBook Air lately. I almost bought it at a local electronics store today. Many people questioned why I would waste money on something that's not that powerful, especially the current MacBook has a pretty decent line up on models with biggest hard disk, internal super drive, and faster CPU.

I guess not many people realize that I buy things not simply because of functionality (except for my IBM T60 computer) but design as well. MacBook Air is so elegantly designed that I can't image not showing up for a client's presentation with one of them in my hand. Instead of using the boring Windows PowerPoint (one of the most overrated programs that wastes most of people's time in both business and academic worlds). Keynote is a much better program for presenting and illustrating ideas. At least my ex-colleague Luke told me again and again.

Today my friend was trying to convince me to save money and get a MacBook instead. However, I decided not to get it at the last moment. I only want to get something that I really are in love with and am passion about. Otherwise, I will end up not using it that much.

I think I will probably end up getting the Sony Vaio VGN-CR35G/T because it has 200GB of hard disk, a super drive, and all the card reader slots. Also, if you can view it clearly from your screen, you will see that it actually has a crocodile-skin like texture and design for its cover. It's pretty slick!

My 1st Offically Journal Article

After years of research work at a Ph.D candidate at Stanford University, I was thrilled tonight to see the first ever article that I collaborated with my colleagues at the Stanford Medical School and the VA Center for Health Care Evaluation got published.

The article, titled "The impact of chronic hepatitis C and co-morbid illnesses on health-related quality of life", will appear on the upcoming version of the Quality of Life Research Journal.

You can, however, get a sneak preview of the online version here.

Think Twice Before Scheduling a Meeting

I just came across the above picture in Seth Godin's blog. The picture captures everything essential about the meeting.

It's a plague in many firms that they schedule so many unnecessary meetings and phone conferences without any agenda in hand. I think it's a complete waste of everyone time. To make any meeting effective, all participants should receive an agenda beforehand so that each can prepare prior to the meeting.

Where are the old good values of meeting I used to see a decade ago?

Now meetings are turning into ways for people not to do any actual work, for people to bullshit without having anything to back up.

Cut the crap. Be real and let's get to work.

Quote from Ashton Kutcher's Interview with Details

I just finished reading an interview that Ashton Kutcher did with Details Magazine (May 2008). Here is a quote from the interview that I found pretty interesting, especially to hear it from the mouth of a famous Hollywood actor.

"It wasn't until I was 25 that I plugged into the idea that we all come here to earn it," Ashton says, "become if we don't earn it, we don't really appreciate any of it. You know what I mean? Gravity is pushing us down. When a kid stands up for the first time we all fucking cheer, and the kids feels good about standing, and for the rest of his life he is going to be standing up. The reason he feels good about it is because he fought against gravity and he stood up."

It does sound pretty philosophical. It's something that I have not thought about all my life.

Chasing Daylight - How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My life

The Olympic Torch finally arrived in Hong Kong today. One of my best friends messaged me last night and asked me whether I wanted to witness the Torch Relay with her and her friends in Kowloon in the morning. Originally, I thought about joining them to witness one of the historical moments in the history. However, given the amount of work and stress that I have been enduring at my new job, I decided to call a rain check and spent the time catching up on work at home.

It doesn't quite make sense to take time off from work to do more work at home. However, if I stayed in the office, I would have ended up spending all the time replying to emails, attending meetings and conference calls. I decided to free myself up from all the managerial tasks to focus on getting some hands-on work done.

Despite having worked from home, I managed to take some time off to do a little bit of my own leisure reading. It's been almost 3 months since I got the luxury to spend time reading a book that I bought. What happened in the past few months was that I ended up buying more and more books, hoping that I would get a chance to read them. In reality, there are enough work-related materials for me to read each day. I barely can keep my eyes open when I hit the bed at night.

I am reading through this great book called Chasing Daylight It's sort of memoir about the former KPMG CEO Eugene O'Kelly, who wrote the book in three-and-a-half months between his terminal diagnosis with brain cancer and his death in September 2005. The book provides a vivid account of his reflections on life, death, and sucess. It's a very compelling reminder of the importance of living a balanced and meaningful life, which is the focus of my former employer and the current senior management of my company.

There is a quite quote from Socrates at the beginning of the book that I want to share with everyone:

"For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they know quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?" - Socrates

I will write more as I finish reading the book.

Happy BIG FAT RAT Year

After being away in the past 8 years, I am finally home for the 1st time to celebrate the Chinese New Year since the turn of the century. With some changes coming in a month, I hope things will go smooth in the year of RAT and I will become a BIG "FAT" RAT.

I vow to return to the blogging world and do more posts in the months to come.

Happy Lunar New Year and Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Let me EAT YOUR DIRT, DRINK YOUR SWEAT!

I am amazed by how far a marketing campaign could possibly go to attract new audience. Jones Soda Co., a Seattle-based bottled beverage company, is launching a limited edition Seattle Seahawks's collectors pack of five new football-inspired flavors:

1. Dirt Soda;

2. Sports Cream Soda;

3. Perspiration Soda;

4. Natural Field Turf Soda;

5. Sweet Victory Soda

I couldn't figure out the rationale behind the launch of such terribly named soda drinks. Well, obviously, I am not an industry-expert and know little about bottled beverages market. However, I do know from a fact that US consumers aren't looking for artificially flavored or colored drinks these days. They are all going after the natural or organic tea.

“Throughout their career, the average NFL player will spend 2 years of their life in the gym, eat 3 pounds of dirt and perspire 10,000 gallons of sweat. These players must withstand incredibly tough conditions to be ready for every game, which is why we thought we’d bring the fans the full experience in a bottle,” says Peter van Stolk, President & C.E.O. “Now, you can enjoy all the sweat and dirt an NFL player experiences, along with the ultimate taste of Sweet Victory.”

Hmmm....I love watching the game but I certainly don't have a fetish on some football player's dirt and sweat. I enjoy an action-packed game while drinking beer and eating peanuts, but certainly not smelling someone's dirt or drinking someone's sweat.

I guess it's a great marketing gimmick because it does generate a lot of buzz and attention in the public. I am sure a die-hard Seahawks fan would pre-order a pack at https://ssl.jonessodastore.com/seahawkspack/code/?#buynow. I won't be surprised if it becomes a collector's item on eBay in the near future.

But again, who would love to eat someone's dirt or drink someone's sweat? Leave a comment if you know or if you are such a person.

Business is Human: Relationships Power Your Growth

I have just listened to another webcast by American Management Association. This time, Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets of Success, One Relationship at a Time, is the featured speaker of the webcast. Keith has been called one of the “world’s most connected individuals” by both Forbes and Inc. magazines.

In this Webcast, Ferrazzi shares powerful advice and tips to amplify your personal and professional relationships. The key secrets show you how to enable everyone in your personal and professional life to win.

The bottom line is that Ferrazzi knows what distinguishes highly successful people from everyone else—a powerful world of connections. Attend this Webcast to discover:

* Simple steps you can take today to start building the relationships of tomorrow
* Key mindsets needed to successfully form and manage deep relationships, inside and outside of your organization
* Powerful ideas for planning and executing savvy relationship-building strategies
* And many other secrets for success!

You can listen to the webcast by visiting the site at
http://www.amanet.org/editorial/webcast/2007/business-is-human.htm

Enjoy!

Angel Funding Websites

If you have the next break-through idea and would like to get some seed or angel funding for your start-up, you may want to check out the following links.

1) Band of Angels, Menlo Park, CA
Silicon Valley's Oldest Angel Group
http://www.bandangels.com/

2) New York Angels, NYC
Focuses on tech companies - and in one case, space tourism
http://www.newyorkangels.com/

3) Ohio TechAngel Fund, Columbus, OH
Concentrates on life-science and tech investments
http://www.ohiotechangels.com/

4) Atlanta Technology Angels, Atlanta
Invests solely in tech firms and web companies based in Georgia
http://www.angelatlanta.com/

The Seven Deadly Sins of Negotiating

This morning I was listing to one of the web-seminar hosted by the American Management Association. The topic is called "The Seven Deadly Sins of Negotiating"

You can access the slides and listen to the seminar by clicking http://www.amanet.org/editorial/webcast/2007/seven-deadly-sin.htm

Enjoy!

From AMA Website:

“Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.” — Oscar Wilde

Yes, experience may be the best teacher, but when it comes to negotiating you can't afford on-the-job training.

From the simplest to the most complex negotiations, there are pitfalls and traps that are easy to fall into if you're not aware of them. Commit one of these "deadly sins" and you are virtually guaranteed to lose the deal.

As a negotiator, you may be a buyer or seller, a customer or supplier, a boss or an employee, a business partner, a diplomat or a civil servant. On a more personal level, you may be a spouse, friend, parent or child. In all these cases your negotiating skills strongly influence your ability to get ahead in both your career and your other interpersonal relationships.

Regardless of your negotiating situation, you won't want to miss this Webcast. This will not be just more "tips and tricks" or "ploys and tactics" that you've already heard. We will be drilling down into the core issues essential to every successful negotiation.

Executives, managers, salespeople and top-level deal makers who are responsible for negotiating the best possible terms of an agreement for their company.

About the Presenter:
Frank Acuff is an adjunct professor of organizational behavior at Northwestern University. He is the author of Shake Hands with the Devil: How to Master Life's Negotiations from Hell and How to Negotiate Anything with Anyone Anywhere Around the World.

Mr. Acuff was formerly corporate vice president for employee relations for First Commerce Corporation, a $3.8 billion bank holding company. While working for McDermott International, he held key management positions in the United States, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. His diverse clientele includes Accenture, Caterpillar, Centers for Disease Control, Coca Cola, Delta Air Lines, Exxon International, Home Depot, MasterCard International, Microsoft, Ogilvy & Mather, Pfizer, Pillsbury, Rockwell International, Royal Bank of Canada, Sears, Unilever, the U.S. Army, Walgreens, Wilson Sporting Goods and the Wrigley Company.

Larry Ray has a private practice specializing in mediation, negotiation, arbitration and facilitation. Mr. Ray mediates for The World Bank Groups, U.S. Postal Service and National Archives; directs the Mediation Center of Greater Washington, D.C. Metro Area; and arbitrates for the National Arbitration Forum, National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) and the United States Arbitration and Mediation (USAM).

After serving for five years as a prosecutor in Columbus, Ohio, he was executive director of the American Bar Association Dispute Resolution Section and the National Association for Community Mediation. He is senior lecturer on mediation and negotiation at the George Washington University Law School and an online instructor for Keller Graduate School/DeVry University. He is coauthor of The Conflict Resolution Training Manual.

James Blunt and Sesame Street

How come I didn't learn the geometry this way? Should I count it as a blessing or a curse?

Watch James Blunt teaches you.......what a triangle is.

Pete Sampras vs. Roger Federer in Venetian Macao

I really can't wait to watch the tennis showdown match between Roger Federer and Pete Sampras. Needless to say, I can't wait to check out the new Venetian Hotel in Macao. I went to Macao three months ago and it was absolutely an eye-opening experience. It's too bad that a room at Wynn Macao costs over $300 per night.

If you are still looking for tickets, click on the title to go to the booking website.

Bubble Bar in Hong Kong

Trust me, this could possibly work in Hong Kong for 3 months before the fad is gone. You can sip water like gold there.

Address: Marco Polo Prince Hotel, G/F, Harbor City, Kowloon

Psycho Patrol

I saw this car while I was driving down Central Expressway in Mountain View the other day. At first, I thought that it was a real cop car. My friend quickly pointed it out that it's not a real official car. Someone just decorated his/her car to look like a cop car. Look at it! It got "Psycho Patrol" on the side with a cartoon human-like figure running on the side.

Well, if it was for real, I can guarantee you that they didn't do a good job to let me this psycho run loose on the street!

The Simpsons Movie

The Simpsons Movie was finally out last weekend. I ended up watching it on Saturday morning. It was so funny and hilarious and I love it so much. I actually didn't take this picture on the day of opening but I saw this yesterday at the Century Theatres in San Francisco Westfield Shopping Center. I was tempted to sit upside down like Bart in the picture but there were a few people at the theatre entrance.

Anyway, Victoria snapped this picture with me sitting next to Homer Simpson! I wonder what it would actually be like to live in such a family!

Projekt Revolution Tour with Linkin Park

Projekt Revolution Tour 2007

Last weekend, I went to see the Projekt Revolution concert with some of my friends from Google. The concert started at noon and didn't end till 11:00 at night. It's a tour that featured 10 different bands playing all day long. The main attractions to the crowd is Linkin Park and the Chemical Romance.

If you have been reading my blog, you should know that I am a big Linkin Park fan. That's why I was so excited to see them perform live! I ended up getting to the concert at around 3:30p.m. after stopping by Google to get some snacks with my friends. Linkin Park came on stage at 8:40p.m. and the atmosphere of the concert was surreal. Everyone was so hyped up to see them! You can click on the link above to see the pictures and two videos I took during the concert.

The funniest thing was that I happened to run into an ex-colleague of mine. She visited me in Hong Kong in June and I didn't tell her that I was back in the States to sell my car. When I was on my way to get a beer, I heard someone with a familiar voice yelling out my name. She was pretty drunk when she spotted me. I felt really bad, like being caught cheating on my wife or something, so I ended up buying a round of drinks for everyone. It was actually very comforting to run into her and see that she's been doing very well at her new job.

Overall, it was a great day. I got to hang out with some of my buddies at Google. It's too bad that we couldn't stay for the encore because my driver wanted to get out of the parking lot earlier than the rest of the crowd! But it didn't really matter because I had a great night!

Rooney's Concert

Rooney Concert

Pictures Taken from the Rooney's Concert at the Slim's in San Francisco, CA.