Thursday, August 31, 2017

Writing Project - August 2017 Update

As expected, there wasn’t much writing this month due to everything going with my job and preparation for my expedition to Asia, but one significant thing was accomplished. There is a particular action I want a particular character of my story to take, however at first glance that action appears completely irrational. For the longest time the reasoning behind the character’s decision has eluded me, but this month I finally figured out how to make it work. Maybe in the future I’ll change the logic of the decision again, but I at least have a fallback reason in case nothing better comes to mind.

Seeing as how I’m going to be overseas for most of the next two months, I think it’s fair to say that I won’t have any more project updates for September or October. Come November, however, I’ll be back at it, and I should have more time to dedicate to this little quest of mine.

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Small Tasks

All the “big” things to do before leaving for Asia have been accomplished. My flights are purchased, my accommodations are booked, my car on Jeju Island is reserved, travel notices have been put on my credit cards, my Japan Rail Pass has been received, spending money is loaded into the bank account I use for travel, etc., etc. All that’s left are myriad small tasks. On my whiteboard I keep a running list of those minor things and erase them as they are accomplished (and sometimes I add things that I realize I need to get done). At this point, however, if I left for Asia tomorrow I could go there confident knowing that everything really important is taken care of.

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Fully Loaded

We’re less than two weeks from my departure, so I’ve been running some final tests. One of the most important of these tests I completed this past weekend when I fully loaded up my backpack to see how well it could hold what I intend to bring with me. Below is a photo of what my backpack looks like with everything in it.


Coming in at 17 pounds and just barely meeting the size requirements for carry-on luggage of every airline that I’ll be using in Asia, this backpack is what I’ll be living out of for six weeks. It’s been with me since my first trip to Europe back in 2012, and it’s comparatively small size (compared to what I see most other backpackers using) forces me to made hard decisions about what I bring with me and be as efficient as possible, but its lack of storage space means I never have to check it at the airport and can always keep it directly on me, which is an unbeatable feature when traveling overseas.

Monday, August 28, 2017

Saturday Overtime

This past Saturday I went into the office to put in a day of working overtime. It was miserable, but if there was one solace in the experience it was that I knew it was my last time doing it at my current job (and, ok, the fact that I was getting paid in overtime hours helped a bit too). When I finally left the office I said goodbye to working weekends. My employer won’t be stealing them from me any longer.

Friday, August 25, 2017

Jeju Island Car Rental

I’ve rented cars a couple of times here in America, but my upcoming trip to Asia will see my first time renting a car in a foreign country. While in Korea I’ll be visiting Jeju Island, and a friend of mine who has been there in the past strongly recommended getting a rental car since public transportation on the island isn’t extensive or frequent enough to get to reliably the various places worth visiting on the island. Last night I made a reservation for the three and a half days that I’ll be on Jeju, so I’ve scratched another thing off the list of items I want to accomplish before departure. No doubt my time driving on Jeju will make for at least one good side story to publish on this blog. Hopefully that story won’t involve any sort of bodily harm or damage to the car.

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Final Asia Accommodation Booked

I’ve booked my final accommodations for my trip to Asia. The last two times I traveled overseas I didn’t book every residence in advance, but this trip is much shorter than those so I felt I could get everything squared away before departure. There are still a few last big items to get done before I leave next month, but this feels like a big step forward.

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

The Great American Eclipse

On Monday the Great American Eclipse passed through my neck of the woods, and to be perfectly honest it was a bit of a letdown. Maybe I bought too much into the hype and had unrealistic expectations. Where I live in Colorado we got about 92% coverage of the sun, but the light didn’t dim much and the only really notable thing that I observed was how tree shadows got a little distorted. Perhaps more interesting than the eclipse itself were all the other people gawking at the sun with their eclipse sunglasses on. I was able to briefly borrow eclipse glasses from another person and look at the sun myself during the brief period of greatest coverage, but for whatever reason I felt nothing. Soon enough the whole thing was over and everyone went back to whatever they were doing prior to standing around outside. Maybe I need to experience a complete, 100% solar eclipse to understand why it’s such a big deal. If there’s one positive thing I took out of Monday’s eclipse, however, it’s that I think I now have a greater appreciation for the amount of light that our sun generates. Even with about 92% of it covered by the moon, there was still enough light coming to Earth that if you weren’t looking up you might think it was merely a cloudy day.

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Youtube changes

People have been complaining for a few weeks about changes made to Youtube’s algorithms and suggested videos, and I can say that I’ve noticed some of these changes too. In order to keep myself from spending hours each day on Youtube, I intentionally limit my Youtube viewing to a small number of channels and in the past my Youtube experience had been very convenient because when I loaded Youtube on my web browser I would predominantly see videos from those channels. More recently, however, when I go to Youtube I’m seeing fewer videos from my preferred channels, to the point where sometimes I have search for those channels in order to find their content (a First World Problem, if there ever was one). In the place of some of the videos I’d like to see on my Youtube front page are things I’m not interested in, and also some stuff I really don’t want to watch. Seriously, why does Youtube think I’d be interested in watching wild animals decapitate each other? The majority of things I watch on Youtube are related to video games, so why is all this other stuff showing up? I’m hopeful that with time Youtube will relearn the sorts of things I watch and don’t watch, but for now I’m a bit annoyed.

Monday, August 21, 2017

Replaying the Classics (probably) finished, for now

I’ve been thinking it over and I’m sad to announce that last Friday’s writing piece on Vanquish was probably the last entry in Replaying the Classics for at least until I get back from Asia. There are a few more games that I’d like to replay, chief among them Mass Effect 3, but none of them are short games and I just don’t think I’ll have the time needed to play and write about them before departure. My job sucks up a massive chunk of my time, and preparing for Asia and other life activities are taking up most of the rest, so I can’t make the commitment needed to play those games and give them the writing pieces they deserve. Maybe when I get back from Asia I’ll get one or two more entries in the series done, but for now Replaying the Classics has seen the end of its first season.

Friday, August 18, 2017

Replaying the Classics - Vanquish

As a gaming enthusiast I’m always interested in new gaming experiences, but every once in awhile I feel compelled to go back and put in some serious time replaying some of my favorite games from the preceding years. In that spirit, I have created a new series of writing pieces titled Replaying the Classics, wherein I discuss the games that I have replayed recently. Unlike my Late to the Party series, my goal with these writing pieces is not so much to give a strong analysis of a particular game, but rather to give an informal recounting of a game and to try to convey to the reader why it’s one of my favorites. I do not come to you this time as a game reviewer, but merely as a friend wanting to have a casual chat about what he’s been playing. Today, let’s take a seat in our comfy chairs and talk about Vanquish.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Gangnam Style

In my preparations for Asia, it occurred to me that I still had not experienced the premier cultural export of Korea. Yes, I am talking about the absurdly popular music video Gangnam Style by Korea musical artist Psy. After a few clicks and about 4 minutes I added one more view to the nearly three billion that Gangnam Style already has. With my introduction to Korean pop culture complete, I felt I was officially ready for Korea.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

International Driving Permit

I’m planning on renting a car while I’m in Korea this year. To do this I’ll need an International Driving Permit, but luckily there’s a AAA office right near where I work, so recently I paid them a visit and got one. I am now officially ready to rent a car while overseas. A friend of mine cautioned me that Koreans tend to drive aggressively, but I grew up driving in Southern California amongst a large population of Asian drivers, so I say bring it.

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Regarding that Google memo

Last week there was another explosion on the Internet that resulted from an internal Google memo in which a Google employee named James Damore discussed some of what he believed were harmful biases going on within the company. Not long after the memo went viral, he was fired. I kept seeing headlines about the memo that all included some version of the phrases “Anti-Diversity Memo” or “Anti-Women Memo” in them, and like a good sheep I took those headlines at face value and didn’t bother diving into the matter. It wasn’t until a day later when I started seeing more and more people calling foul on these headlines that I stopped and took a closer look. Videos and articles were being published contesting the anti-diversity label, with some commenters going so far as to cry fake news. I knew the only way to figure this out was to read the memo myself, in its entirety. Doing so was not as easy as one would have hoped, since some websites were only showing edited versions of the memo, but soon enough I found an unedited version on the website Medium. Strapping myself in, I readied myself for a controversial read.

That mental preparation proved unnecessary. When I got to the end of the ten-page memo the thought in my head was “Wait, that’s it?” Looking over it again I struggled to find what exactly was so bad about this memo. James goes out of his way to be reasonable and takes jabs at both conservatives and liberals. Any claims that the memo is anti-diversity can be thrown out the window with its opening paragraph, with reads

“I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes. When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions. If we can't have an honest discussion about this, then we can never truly solve the problem.” (page 1)

The memo goes on to detail the biases that James sees at Google, how Google’s culture has become an ideological echo chamber that suppresses opposing viewpoints, gives some reasons why men and women tend to have different types of job, and concludes with suggestions to boost diversity at Google without resorting to discriminatory hiring practices. Nothing about what he wrote struck me as incorrect or hateful, and there are extensive citations throughout the memo to support his claims. That doesn’t mean that James is right on everything, but we can’t say he was sloppy in his research and presentation.

So, what am I to make of this? I can’t weigh in on whether or not James should have been fired, seeing as how he might have breached a Google protocol that I’m not aware of, but I am forced to admit that the people screaming fake news are right this time. This memo is not anti-diversity or anti-women, and I would recommend you read it for yourself if you can spare the 15 minutes needed to do so. A link to the article on Medium can be found here. To close things out, below is a quote from near the memo’s conclusion, which more or less sums up the memo’s entire point. If you don’t read the whole memo, at least read this.

“I hope it’s clear that I'm not saying that diversity is bad, that Google or society is 100% fair, that we shouldn't try to correct for existing biases, or that minorities have the same experience of those in the majority. My larger point is that we have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that don’t fit a certain ideology. I’m also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender roles; I’m advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group (tribalism).” (page 8)

Monday, August 14, 2017

Post #600 was on 8/4/17

I don’t know how it skipped my mind, but somehow I surpassed 600 published posts over a week ago and forgot to commemorate it. Post #600 was published on 8/4/17 and I should have at minimum given all of you a gif to celebrate. Well, today I’m rectifying that error. Enjoy this gif from The Blues Brothers.

Friday, August 11, 2017

Replaying the Classics - Journey

As a gaming enthusiast I’m always interested in new gaming experiences, but every once in awhile I feel compelled to go back and put in some serious time replaying some of my favorite games from the preceding years. In that spirit, I have created a new series of writing pieces titled Replaying the Classics, wherein I discuss the games that I have replayed recently. Unlike my Late to the Party series, my goal with these writing pieces is not so much to give a strong analysis of a particular game, but rather to give an informal recounting of a game and to try to convey to the reader why it’s one of my favorites. I do not come to you this time as a game reviewer, but merely as a friend wanting to have a casual chat about what he’s been playing. Today, let’s take a seat in our comfy chairs and talk about Journey.


Thursday, August 10, 2017

Flying easier

I remember reading some time back about how when a World War 2 bomber like the B-17 would drop its bombs there was a tendency for the aircraft to lurch higher into the air due to the sudden change in the plane’s mass. A pilot could compensate for this by angling the nose of the bomber slightly downwards, but after releasing the payload and closing the bomb bay doors there would soon be a noticeable difference in how the plane behaved as opposed to before the bombs were dropped. Now significantly lighter, the bomber required less power from the engines to stay aloft and was generally easier to handle. A similar thing has happened to me now that I’ve informed my employer of my intention to quit. I’m no longer walking around pretending like nothing is going on and I don’t have to hold on to the secret I’ve been carrying around for the past few months. My bomb bay is empty, and with my plane now lighter I can fly a lot easier than before.

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

The bomb has been dropped

Today I let my current employer know my intention to resign. I sent my boss a short and polite email, and now my intention to leave the company is no longer a secret. My last day of work at this company hasn’t been decided yet, but my guess is that it will be either September 5 or 6, or perhaps September 1 if the transition goes well. The countdown clock is now officially ticking.

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Trump and Twitter

If there’s anything we’ve learned from Trump’s time as president, it is that he desperately needs his Twitter access revoked, or at the bare minimum he needs a lawyer to review all his tweets prior to publishing and stop the most damaging ones from getting out. Trump has shown himself to be possibly the most thin-skinned president America has ever seen, and he shows no hesitation to lash out at anyone or anything drawing his ire.

The tweets coming out of Trump these days are nothing short of a national embarrassment. When it comes to Trump and tweeting, I think Republican Senator Ben Sasse put it best with his own tweet, which you can see below.

Monday, August 7, 2017

Reaffirming my choices

Over the past two or three months I’ve been slowly replaying Uncharted 4 with a friend of mine. Uncharted 4, as you might remember, I chose as my Game of the Year for 2017 and it currently sits at the top of the list of my Top 10 Games of the PS4/Xbox One console generation. Last Friday my friend and I finally finished Uncharted 4. As the credits began to roll, any second thoughts or doubts I’d been having about giving Uncharted 4 both of those distinctions were put to rest. It truly is a game on a level that few others can match. Uncharted 4 is nothing short of a 10/10 masterpiece.

Friday, August 4, 2017

Joining the mirrorless revolution


I am proud to announce the newest addition to my camera collection—the Sony Alpha 6000, or a6000 for short. Being a three year-old model, it’s not the latest and greatest camera around, but it’s what I could afford and it’s reviewed really well amongst camera critics. Among the things notable about this camera is that it’s mirrorless, and this will be my first time using a mirrorless camera. Part of the reason I bought a mirrorless camera instead of a traditional DSLR camera is that mirrorless cameras like the a6000 are more compact, and on my upcoming trip to Asia I want a nice camera but I need to conserve space in my backpack. In the coming days I’ll be doing some field tests to get some practice with my new machine, and hopefully by the time I leave for Asia I’ll be well-versed in how to maximize its potential.

A new era of cameras has begun. I intend to make this era as grand as those of its predecessors.

Thursday, August 3, 2017

Four eras of cameras


In the above photo are four cameras. Each signifies a different era in my photographic career from the past fifteen or so years, and there are a few stories that I could share about each camera, but I’ll save those for another day. For now, I’ll just tell you the time period each camera represents. The Olympus camera on the left comes from my high school days and possibly even earlier. The Sony and Nikon cameras in the center represent my time in college and the first few years afterwards. The Canon became mine in December 2011 when I got it for Christmas, and its era has continued since then, up until now.

In August, 2017, a new camera era began. Tomorrow I’ll reveal the camera that has ushered in the next generation of my photographic journey.

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Donald Trump and Russia: Do we have the smoking gun yet?

Certain media outlets, such as CNN, seem to have dedicated themselves to making sure that not an hour goes by without them talking about allegations of nefarious connections between the Trump administration and Russia, and if I didn’t know any better I’d swear that we had conclusive evidence of Trump committing acts worthy of impeachment. The problem is, we apparently don’t. There are plenty of possible Russian connections and potential misdeeds by people surrounding Trump, but as far as I can tell we still don’t have anything on Trump himself. With no actual indictments, (at least, not at the moment) all this screaming about shady dealings tied to the Russians makes me wonder if the Russia conspiracy is being somewhat overhyped by the mainstream media. As someone who doesn’t like Trump, I’m biased against him and thus more inclined to believe stories like the ones being peddled to us by the mainstream media, but I can’t come down hard on Trump about this matter without solid proof. I need a smoking gun, and at the moment we just don’t have it. Should that smoking gun ever be found, however, I’ll be sure to publish a follow-up writing piece to this post.

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

The man Hillary couldn’t beat

Back in January I made the decision to take some time off from writing about politics in order to see how the Trump presidency turned out. It’s been over six months since then, and I’m thinking now might be the right time to allow myself to write a few political posts. Currently I have no writing pieces in mind that are longer than one or two paragraphs, so don’t expect any longer political posts any time soon. Today, I commence my return to political writings with a simple reflection.

It seems that the Trump administration can’t go a single week without a new controversy arising. Trump appears to be bumbling his way through the presidency and no one knows which target this loose cannon is going to shoot next. As I watch events unfold at the Trump White House, a single thought keeps coming back to my mind: this is the man that Hillary Clinton couldn’t beat.