The other side

I will sing of Your mercy that brings me through valleys of sorrow to rivers of joy - Jars of Clay

Hm, my last post was pretty much a downer. So, this post will be dedicated to remembering some of the good things going on in my life at the moment:

Angel Island
Last Friday, to celebrate the alpha phase of our company's product, my coworkers and I (plus a few spouses and kids) made our way to Angel Island in SF Bay. We picked a good day - totally clear, not too hot/cold. After arriving on the island from the ferry, we set up and had lunch picnic-style on the beach, then went hiking, and played some frisbee/volleyball. One of my coworkers' daughter turned 1, so they brought a big cake and somehow got her to blow out the candle. Cute kid... she had a mannerism where she'd pick up something (empty bag, fork, etc.) and hand it to you, then hold out her hand and expect it back so that she could give it to someone else. Kinda bizarre, but cute.

Incidentally, you know you're getting old when there are a lot more babies around.

When packing for Angel Island, I forgot my camera. Grr... missed out on a beautiful shot of the SF skyline, the Bay Bridge, and Oakland. But this is supposed to be a happy post, so I shan't dwell on it.

We had to leave at 3:30 pm because on weekdays, that's when the last ferry leaves. After getting back to the mainland, we drove to Mt. Tamalpais, which is supposed to be one of the highest points in the mountains surrounding the inlet to the Bay. It was quite a drive, but it was worth it - as mentioned before, it was a totally clear day, and from the top you could see the entire Bay Area. Seriously, it was quite possibly one of the best views I've ever had. From there, you were essentially at the level of the clouds - you could see over the top of them. You could see the coastline, as well as 4 bridges (Golden Gate, Bay Bridge, Richmond Bridge, and... 92, I forget the name), as well as SF, Oakland, Fremont, Alcatraz, Angel Island, Tiburon... absolutely gorgeous.

From where we parked, there was a 300 ft vertical hike to the absolute peak of the mountain. Just for the heck of it, I attempted to run to the top, and got maybe 3/4 of the way there. I had forgotten that at that altitude, breathing wasn't gonna be easy, and in fact when trying to catch my breath, it felt like breathing in ice... but still, the view was great... we just sat there sheltered from the wind for about half an hour.

And I still forgot my camera. Grrrr. I'll have to rely on my coworker's digital shot.

We had dinner at a Szechuan restaurant in San Mateo. Funny, I don't think I've ever spent much time in San Mateo.

Canaan BBQ
Saturday, had a church bbq at Stevens Creek Canyon Park. While the park could stand to have some more grass (I was wearing Tevas and got constantly pricked by various bushes and hard grasses), it was a fun time hanging out with people, enjoying more sunshine, and gawking at the ice chests full of marinated meat. Tossed the frisbee around some more. I had almost forgotten how much fun it is... I've gotta go get me one of those official "Ultimate"-caliber ones.

That evening, to help balance the meat intake, had dinner w/ a few folks at Byron's place - mostly salad, then went out for Coldstone's in the evening.

Hoops
Played an inspired 4-on-4 on Sunday afternoon after church. Teams were: Hubert, James, David, and Ed vs. PDan, Vincent, Torence, and myself, so fairly evenly matched. We played "quarters" of 15 points, by ones, and played 4 quarters, so first team to 60 wins. It became very intense - it was a lot of fun, because typically we play games to 15 and then the score resets - this way, what you do in one quarter carries over to the next. As it turned it out, my team took a 3-point lead at the end of the first and ended up winning 60-57, despite falling behind by 4 in the 3rd. Great fun...

NBA draft was today. My Warriors picked up some European named Mikael Pietrus. They have too many swingmen; make a trade!

New CDs
Picked up Achtung Baby by U2 from the Used rack at Tower Records on Saturday night. Also recently received Furthermore by Jars of Clay (kind of like a best-of, but instead of throwing together their best on one CD, they re-recorded many of them with all acoustic instruments - sweet), and two classical CDs. With regards to the latter, I figured that since I don't know anything about classical music, I'd just get the ones labeled "#1 Collection". So now I'll be listening to "#1 Collection of Orchestra Hits" and "#1 Collection of Piano Hits".

24
To unwind before going to bed, I've been watching my brother's 24 DVD. Pretty darn good show. I'm now up to... 9 am to 10 am. I now find that periodically through the day, I ponder on what's going to happen to Jack Bauer tonight.

Reading
Current book: Divine and Human by Leo Tolstoy. This is a collection of short stories and anecdotes, expressing a particular aspect of human existence. Very good stuff, it's making me think... I'll try to post some about it.

Future posts: some thoughts from "Following Jesus Without Disobeying Your Parents" (a book I borrowed from Canaan's library like 2 months ago and haven't returned yet... whoops), ideas on the concept of tension, songwriting revisited?

Frail

If I was not so weak / If I was not so cold / If I was not so scared of being broken, growing old / I would be frail - Jars of Clay

One important lesson I've been trying to learn ever since starting this new job is the concept of frailty. Maybe it's a side effect of turning 25, maybe I'm not taking care of myself the way I should be, but whatever it is, in this past month or so, I've had the opportunity to ponder my own human weakness.

In my June 3 post, I wrote a bit about understanding my mental and spiritual weakness. I believe I'm still constantly being broken down and built up, little by little, in these areas. I think my overall attitude has improved to the point where I actually look forward to some of the challenges of the day at the office, and that's a blessing.

In the past 2 weeks, I think I've been experiencing more on the physical weakness side. I mentioned in an earlier post about my bout with vertigo... nothing like losing control of your sense of equilibrium to make you feel helpless. Recently, I've been experiencing pain in my forearms, primarily in my left one. While it doesn't appear to be carpal tunnel (probably more akin to tennis elbow - an inflammation of either the muscle or the tendon), it does cause me some discomfort and... well, fear. Fear that I'll have to spend my professional life "managing" a level of pain. Fear that it might affect my ability to play the guitar.

Early last week, I went home from work frustrated again, like I did my first week. This time, however, it wasn't from resentment at the necessary tradeoff of free time and opportunities for work... instead it was frustration from the fact that I needed to go home not because I was mentally exhausted, but because I was physically sore.

I don't really know what brought it about. Over this past half year I've tried to become much more conscious of my computing ergonomics... I haven't really traced it back to any one cause. It could be cumulative from lots of things.

It's definitely not fun being physically limited. On the one hand, I think I'm appreciating things more - the fact that my right arm is basically okay, that I still have all my limbs and that I'm basically healthy, the fact that Advil is an effective painkiller... but on the other... yeah, things could be better.

Quick update

Last Weekend (6/14-6/15)

Saturday, slept in, then made my Berkeley-famous egg quesadillas (I've come to the conclusion that my original moniker for them, "egg tacos", was erroneous) for my mom and dad when they got back from their morning hike. For those of you that are curious... take an egg, begin frying one side, add onions/bell peppers/whatever else you like into the cooking egg, cover with a tortilla. After allowing it to cook for a bit, flip the tortilla+egg over so the tortilla can crisp on the pan, turn off the heat, add cheddar cheese, fold in half. Serves 1. In college, a typical lunch for me would consist of one of these and a homemade smoothie.

That afternoon, went to the beach at Half Moon Bay with Canaan and MVCCC folks. Had a good time there with a sandcastle building contest (I was part of the team that created a barfing turtle... unfortunately, we lost out on the "creativity" award to a remarkably real-looking man-eating alligator), some worship, food, and just enjoying the scenery.

That night, watched Finding Nemo. Very clever flick. As always, great computer animation, and a witty script that pays attention to detail (for example, dolphins can only "talk" while above the water, while fish talk below it). With all that said... you'd think that trying to imitate a whale's sounds would get old really quick, but somehow it was funny.

Side note... on Sunday, after playing ball with PDan, Hubert, James, and Ed, they began talking about their kids... Hubert mentioned that he'd had the best Father's Day ever when he took his son Zach (I forget how old he is... 4?) to see Finding Nemo, complete with Coke, popcorn, talking about the whole father-son thing afterward, then going to get some ice cream... heartwarming.

For Father's Day, vacuumed the house and had dinner with the family, then sat down that night with Dad to watch the NBA season end as Tim Duncan (my favorite player) nearly put up a quadruple double (21, 20, 10, 8) and David Robinson (my favorite person who's an athlete) ended his career with "the highest of highs" (in his words). Here's a link to an article about the Admiral's legacy in San Antonio, and how most people will remember him more for his life off the court than his play on it. Something in particular that I admire: 12 years ago, he promised a fifth grade class at an inner-city school in San Antonio that if they graduated from high school, he'd provide each one with an $8000 scholarship to college. Several students benefited from this and when he showed up at their graduations, he got the idea to begin a school for underprivileged kids. Today, he's spent $9 million of his own money as well as energy raising money for the Carver Academy, which is in full swing. It's just so cool to see someone who has been given so much, using his gifts in such a responsible and God-honoring way. One kinda interesting factoid from the article is that Robinson's home church pastor is none other than Max Lucado.

Now that the NBA season is over, it'll take me some time to get into the swing of things with the baseball season. I know that my Giants are hanging on to a thin lead over the hated Dodgers as of this writing.

Random

Current CD: Much Afraid, Jars of Clay. Fits me quite well right now... I'll write a bit more about this in a following post.

Current TV: 24, Season 1. Finally began watching my bro's Season 1 DVD. Just seen the one episode so far. Pretty good.

Computer: So far, the Dell is working out pretty well. Right now, I'm keeping it at work during the work week so that I have another screen to reference stuff off the internet (like Perl documentation) while I do the bulk of my work on my primary machine. I'm still getting used to Windows XP. I think I prefer 2000...

Admiration for wordsmiths

I was listening to Jennifer Knapp's Kansas CD on the way into work today. In the last few days, I've been trying to write a song, only to end up somewhat frustrated at my rather trite and cliched ways of writing. Even though I typically consider myself as reasonably eloquent, songwriting/poetry is definitely something that doesn't come easily to me. In that vein, I think I've grown more appreciative of the talent that songwriters like Knapp and other artists have, using language, metaphors, similes to paint word-pictures and illustrations... to say nothing of being able to set that poetry to music. I mean, like, wow.

New toy

My new laptop (Dell Inspiron 5100) arrived yesterday. I get to play with it tonight. Woohoo!

Quick recap 2003/06/07 - 2003/06/09

Saturday
"On June 7, 2003, Alice Chen and Tomio Miyai were wedded in matrimonial bliss. The world knew them as the perfect couple: intelligent, and beautiful..."

Okay, so it's probably bad that I still remember many of my lines from the slideshow that Andrew, Karen, and I put together. Um, who am I kidding, Andrew did all the work. I just read lines from a script into a recording program on his PowerBook. Some lines needed to be repeated... over... and over... and over... just imagine repeating the phrase "The Mediterranean, baby!" 26 times just to get one take. I definitely don't have any vocal talent. I think that extends to my singing voice too. If I'm gonna continue leading worship, I think I'll definitely need to take some voice lessons.

'Twas a fun wedding. I got dubbed as an honorary Chen brother because I was a candlelighter, usher, gift-mover, narrator for the slideshow, and Tomio-stand-in during one of the games at the reception. Got seated with a bunch of old-school Canaan folks and slipped back into my role as primary cameraman. While you sometimes can't help but just shake your head at some of the girls' antics, it is cool to see how they've been able to sustain their friendships over time and distance.

Interestingly, for a good portion of the reception/hang-out time after the reception, I spent a fair amount of time out of my seat performing various tasks, ranging from locating people, to setting up stuff, to moving gifts, to cleaning up. I don't think I'm nearly as antisocial as I used to be in high school and previous, but something I've noticed about myself is that in large social events, I'm often more comfortable helping out in some way than I am hanging around and catching up with everyone I know. I'm not sure why this is.

Other amusing moments: Eric's "whip" sound - "wha-pssss"... Jerry eating [gasp] fish - voluntarily!... Joyce going off on rants (blast from the past)... O and Eva making up movements to "Eternal Flame" during the slideshow (bet they thought no one would notice)... John P giving me a few Star Wars books as a belated b-day gift. Thanks John!

Sunday
Sunday after church, had lunch at Pho with a few folks, played some ball w/ Reni's husband Maurice (dude's long... it takes a lot of concentration to try to stay in front of him and make him shoot over you rather than around you), then went home and watched my Spurs pull out a wretchedly ugly win over the Nets that evening. A win is a win.

Monday - skip if you're queasy
Got to go home early from work yesterday because I got hit by a case of Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) after lunch. As I read through my email, I noticed that although I was still thinking clearly, my sense of balance was way off. Standing up, sitting down, even tilting my head would cause a wave of vertigo to sweep through me. Lying down, going outside for some fresh air, gulping down water didn't seem to help. I involuntarily stumbled from cube wall to cube wall, then went into the restroom and threw up the contents of my lunch as well as a lot of the water I had just drunk. Afterwards, I felt better, but still allowed a coworker to drive me to see my doctor, then crashed at home the rest of the day. Apparently BPPV randomly hits people, and it's characterized by the crystals in your inner ear that help give you a sense of balance going out of sync (did you know we have crystals in our ears? I didn't). There's no real cause, and usually just takes a day or two to get over. I've gotten through today okay. It was quite bewildering however, to be in full control of my mental faculties and yet still not be able to stand up straight.

Phew. Think it was just a temporary hiccup while they were transferring me over to the new UI. Got them back.

What in the world... blogger just got redesigned, and I can no longer find my archives.

This is distressing.

Quarter-century musings

Wednesday evening, I was back in the server room (for the technically-challenged, companies will tend to have a single room where they store the bulk of their important company-wide computers), plugging away at an annoyingly stubborn software install that was refusing to set up cleanly. I was already quite tired, and while rebooting the box several times during the procedure I'd just lie back in the chair and listen to the whirring of dozens of computer fans.

Right around 7:30 pm, a coworker poked his head into the room and asked if I could help with something. Going out the door, I noticed lit candles in the breakroom, and thought that my coworkers had made the nice gesture of getting a cake for my birthday. However, walking into the breakroom, I noticed that the Chinese people standing around the table were younger than my coworkers, sang "Happy Birthday" in unaccented English, and were all holding cameras.

Apparently, a few folks from Canaan planned last week to surprise me at the office since I tend to stay fairly late on weekdays, and even brought my coworkers in on the plot - one of them opened the door for people to come in, one of them kept me in the server room... while I apparently didn't show much surprise on my face (I was quite tired by then), I was indeed pleasantly surprised to see everyone. Had some cake and ice cream (right before going to Todai!), took a few pics, chatted with a few people, introduced friends to coworkers and vice versa, showed people around my cube, and watched Oski (whom Tomio and Alice had brought along) romp around in the parking lot.

I'm not the most expressive guy, and I don't think I take attention very well... but it was heartwarming to know that friends would go to these lengths to make me feel special on a day that traditionally makes me feel pretty sober, comprehending the magnitude of a year. So if any of y'all are reading this... thanks much. It was a greatly appreciated gesture - definitely one of my more pleasant days in a while. Just another great example of the blessing that comes from being a part of the community that is the Church.

Oh, and I got to eat a lot of sashimi at Todai too :-).

Random notes

- After hitting 25, there's often some mention of a "quarter-life crisis". Now, conveniently ignoring the fact that if 25 is quarter-life, then you're gonna live a LONG life, I was thinking about this phenomenon. I assume that the timing of this for the average American is due to the fact that when you turn 25, you've been out of college for a few years, probably spent some time working and becoming a part of the "Real World". Usually, it takes at least 2 years of working to really get an understanding for what it's like to live life outside the worldview of schooling, and many young adults will take the time to reevaluate where they are and where they want to go, when they turn 25.

Am I in a quarter-life crisis? Probably. But I don't think it's something that's just popped in now... if you (the reader) go back through the archives of my blog, or if I read back through my own personal journals, I can see a constant cycle of these reevaluations about purpose and perspective. I suppose I wouldn't really consider it a "crisis", because that word implies something bad or stressful. Rather, I think a certain level of healthy tension in living life is good for you. Hm, I think I'll eventually write up another post about my ideas on the concept of tension.

- As a gift to myself, two days ago (w/ Karen's help - apparently many people go through her), I purchased a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop. 2.4 Ghz, 256 MB RAM, 30 GB HD, DVD/CD-RW, 15-inch screen, came with an extra battery, a 64 MB memory key, and free shipping thrown in. Came out to just under $1200. I can't remember the last time I spent that much money. First laptop I'll ever own.

- On another note, I just remembered that I still have a $100 gift card from Borders that my uncle gave me for Christmas last year. Any suggestions on how to spend it? I was thinking of holding off until Alias Season 1 came out onto DVD... was also considering purchasing books (still haven't gotten the 3-in-1 Lord of the Rings) and maybe the old Robotech series on DVD, for nostalgia's sake.

25.

"How's work?" and other musings about life and purpose

Some facts about my new job:

- I work for Protego Networks, a startup company in the network security space. Our product is essentially a highly intelligent network monitor that allows you to keep track of events and attacks on firewalls and other security devices, with logic and analysis used to detect whether something is a potentially harmful attack or not, and the capability to notify system administrators about severe issues via email, pager, or other methods.

- I'm one of the test engineers, and employee #13. There are 8 Chinese, 3 Indians, 1 European, and 1 tall white guy from Missouri. The latter is the only guy younger than me (first job out of college), everyone else looks to be in their 30s and 40s. Since it's a small company environment, everyone does a little bit of everything. I'll most likely be using my skills in testing/test methodology, test automation, release engineering, and basically injecting some form of process into the way we do things, since up to this point almost all the development of the products has been hacked together - which works well for getting products out on time, but not for sustaining them.

- A typical workday looks like this, right now:
8:30-8:45 am - wake up, wash up, prayer and meditation on Scripture
9:25-9:30 am - leave home, take 280S to 680N (21 miles)
9:50-10:00 am - get into office
1:00 pm - lunch... this is on our own. One of my first orders of business here was to find out where the nearest Subway and Quizno's are
7:00 pm - dinner... provided by company, typically lunch boxes from a nearby eatery. Because of the ethnic makeup of my company, each day is either Chinese or Indian, with Korean on Wednesdays. So, if I meet up with any friends in the upcoming weeks for a meal, I'm going to insist on non-Chinese/Indian
7:30-8:00 pm - go for a walk around the neighborhood
10-10:30 pm - leave office, take 237W to 85S (18 miles)
11:00 pm - 1:00 am - talk to parents, read, practice guitar (since I typically don't feel like getting in front of a TV or computer screen after 12 hrs at work in front of one)
1:00 am - sleep

So how am I doing with regard to everything that's been going on in my life?

In the past two weeks, I've learned a lot about myself that I don't like, and some things that truly disgust me. I am mentally weak. I take good things for granted. I am not as strong or as stable as I thought I was. I am selfish.

During the late nights in my cube, particularly during the first week of work, I'd find myself mentally whining about things like "wanting to be passionate about my work"... "it's so hard to care"... "why am I doing this?" There were times where I felt a deep-seated resentment at being trapped at the office while Men's Group was meeting, or remembering the topic of a Youth Group Friday night, even of missing an NBA playoff game on TV while my Spurs were making their way to the final round of the playoffs. Bitterness at having nascent vacation plans from earlier this year jettisoned even before they could reach the dream stage. Annoyance that at the halfway point of my twenties, I still hadn't made any concrete steps to establishing a career path in a field that I truly believed in.

It's been a pretty long time since I've had to wrestle with myself so fiercely, and between being alone in the car to and from work, taking walks, and getting home late, I've had plenty of time to struggle. I distinctly remember coming home one night during the first week of work at about 11:15 pm, so frustrated that I just fell to the floor of the living room and did push-ups until I dropped.

It was this night, after letting emotions bleed away, where I realized that wow, there is yet still so much in my character and in my attitude that I need to turn over to the God of my life in order to be refined. While I'm wallowing in resentment over working long hours, there are thousands of people in this economy who are desperate for a job. While I'm getting annoyed with being in the office at 10:15 pm on a Friday night, there are millions of people struggling just to live through that night. While I had perceived the ability to choose my career as a right, I soon understood that it is an unspeakably awesome privilege that I had taken for granted. When I thought that I was a basically stable, even-keeled person, I discovered that this facade was likely primarily due to the cushy-soft life that I've lived up to this point.

It's almost as if there were these walls inside myself that came crashing down that first week, revealing a side of me that I didn't know very well, and that I didn't like very much.

Ironically, I took some encouragement from - get this - my own words that I posted on a friend's blog a while back, and she wrote them back to me in response to the first mass personal update email I sent out regarding my layoff: "It is comforting to know that God, being outside of time, sees who I am both at this moment in time and also what He's making me to be. Both the end result and the work that needs to be done to get there are pleasing to Him. He takes pleasure in the journey."

If nothing else, I've learned that God still has a lot of work to do on me. It's been a blessing in the last week to get up in the morning and come, completely empty, before God in Scripture and in prayer, knowing that trying to go it on my own would be futile. It's also been great to hang out with people when I can on the weekends... those 48 hours seem a lot more precious to me now, in particular the time to worship and study God's Word together with other believers on Sunday morning.

Last week, as I got more comfortable with the product and some of my duties at work, I found my attitude slowly improving, as well as my productivity. With the company at its particular stage in the corporate lifecycle, I can see that I have a lot to offer with my skills and experience, and that I can make a difference. I think being motivated by some kind of purpose makes a huge difference in attitude - whether that be working in a field that you're gifted in and have a God-given affinity for, or working in order to support a separate ministry (sometimes known as "tentmaking", based on the Apostle Paul's profession). I don't know yet which route I'm supposed to take, but while I'm trying to discern God's leading, I'm just going to try to do what I can, with what I have, where I am. I pray that somehow, I can exemplify Jesus to the coworkers I'm spending the bulk of my week with. I hope that God will continue to shape my character.

One final thought on this topic... the week before I started at Protego, I spent one afternoon in a "mini-retreat" of sorts where I spent extended time in worship, in Bible study, in meditation, in prayer, and in journaling. One practice that I've undertaken (and that I recommend heartily) in my journaling time is to jot down any possible future I could see God leading me to - ideas that can come from almost anywhere. One that I jotted down a long time ago was a desire to be a part of a church plant - to work with a small group of believers to establish a church community in an area where there was none before. For some reason, this came to mind as I prayed and meditated about God's purpose in the events of the last month of my life. Could this startup experience in the tech world be a personal training ground for a future "startup experience" in a different realm? I don't know yet... but I have a feeling that I'll find out eventually.

Random
- This past weekend, had dinner at Alice's place on Saturday with the other wedding helpers, then hung out for a while playing ping-pong and hanging out with Oski the dog. Sunday, after a stimulating discussion in Sunday School about Daniel's attitude and choices in serving the occupying Babylonian Empire, played basketball for a few hours, had youth counselors' meeting, and went out to dinner with some Canaan friends to celebrate Jen's and my birthdays. After eating, a few of us watched one of my fave movies of all time, "Star Wars IV: A New Hope". I suppose it's kind of disturbing how much of it I can quote. Karen has an amusing account of the movie on her blog. I'm a geek, am I?

- GO SPURS!

- GO GIANTS!