Life
Oct 20 2008
A few weeks ago Dr. Ted, the former Chief Scientist at my previous work, Veoh, contacted me and asked whether I would be interested in working for a new company he just joined at their Shanghai office. The company concerned was Infovell. They were one of the 77 companies at this year’s DEMO. I was interested but didn’t really expected the opportunity to go anywhere. However, after a dozen emails and a few conference calls later, I found myself on a flight to Shanghai for 4 days to check out the office and meet the guys I’ll be working with in a near future. I was there since Thursday and came back just last night. Ted was there as well for a couple of weeks. Qianjin, the company founder, was really hospitable; treating us to nice dinner every night and providing great accommodations. It was my first time going to Shanghai and it was a pretty impressive city, certainly catching up quick to Hong Kong.
I accepted the offer mainly for the opportunity to see more of the world while I’m still young and for the work experience I will get working with a group of smart people. I will be leaving my current position at aNobii and joining Infovell sometime near the end of next month. I always say, life is so unpredictable. Sometimes you just need to go with the flow and see where it takes you.
Aug 6 2008
Chris, a friend from UCLA, came visit this week and stayed with me for 4 days. He was doing a summer study-abroad program in Shanghai, so he decided to stop by Hong Kong and check out the city before heading back to the states. I took the last three days off work so I could show him around town. I picked him up from the airport on Sunday morning. We did a bit of shopping at the Ladies’ Street in Mongkok in the afternoon and checked out the Avenue of Stars in TST and watched the harbor view laser show. We went to the Island side on Monday and took the tram up to The Peak that night. The next day we went to ACGHK and checked out a few bars in LKF at night. Since it was typhoon signal 8 on Wednesday, we just went to a mall and took it easy during the day. We were cutting it tight though so Chris almost missed his flight that night, but we got him through the gate eventually.
I think I have been to more places in Hong Kong in that 4 days than I had in the past 10 months since I came back, which is good I guess. I haven’t taken any time off for so long, and it’s good to have a few days off after a long, stressful month. But I don’t think I have gotten much rest though. In fact, it was actually a lot more tiring than working. We basically woke up relatively early and stayed out way past mid-night for 4 days straight. Who would have guessed doing tourist stuff could be so exhausting. I still had a great time though, and I sure hope Chris did too.
Jun 28 2008
I really wish I could be blogging more than I have been, but work has been hectic. I’m often pulling 10-11 hour days on a regular basis, and that’s not counting freelance projects that are keeping me up at night and taking over my weekends. I’m also trying to go home more often over weekends to see my family. My dad was telling me the other day that I have many more years of work ahead of me, and there is no need to take on so much now. He said I should really strive for a balanced life and enjoy it while I’m still young, which I took to heart dearly.
Anyway, after months of developing and fine-tuning, we have finally launched the updated shelf pages on aNobii. I’m really proud of the new look and interactions. Personally I think they are far more user-friendly and intuitive than the previous version. However, the increase use of AJAX in various spots has me worried about its impact on page-views and Alexa ranking. I guess we’ll let things play out and see how it goes.
I finally got my MacBook Pro fixed. That poor thing’s built-in keyboard and trackpad have been broken since the beginning of this year, but the geek in me couldn’t go for a day without a computer so I waited until after I bought my iMac before bringing it in to get it fixed. The service I got from the Apple authorized service center in Hong Kong was not as bad as I thought it would be. I got the baby back spotting a brand new keyboard and top panel a little under 2 weeks. I sure hope nothing else is ever going to happen to it as its Apple Care will be up in a month’s time or so.
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