California

Day 4 in California is going well. It's actually been a very productive week so far and the new project I am working on is nearly complete! Some interesting things so far:

1. I love the weather....
2. So far, I have had no encounter with the ghostly resident at my hotel.
3. I love the weather....
4. On my way up to Ventura, I was almost falling asleep at the wheel since the drive was so monotonous. All of a sudden, I see this little thing flying in the sky. It kinda looks like a helicopter and at first, I thought it was one of those regular ole traffic helicopters that the local news always employed. As it got closer, I noticed that it had rocket pods on the sides...(definitely not a feature of news choppers....maybe if there was really serious competition), then I saw the swivel ball chain gun mounted in the front. It turned out to be a Super Cobra. My first reaction was strangely, "Crap, I am dead" as it swooped down towards me. As it passed, I had a sudden urge to pop up through the sun roof of my Jetta onto the .50 cal...
5. I love the weather...
6. Right behind the Cobra, came what looked like a Blackhawk transport chopper.....did I accidentally drive too far and end up at Wake Island2007????
7. Did I mention that I love the weather here? Never hot, never cold, just right....

"Who You Gonna Call?"

Apparently, I am going on a business trip this sunday as decided... today. I should be in California for several days to experience the nice weather. The place I am staying at however, appears to be haunted by a ghost...

Workplace Expansion

Apparently, a new expansion is being released for my workplace, Office: Factions. It features 2 prominent factions within the same company, vying for dominance.

I got a nice lesson on office politics today as I found out that because I got help from a specific person on my previous project, I am now not in good standing with the other branch in California. In order to regain my standing with these folks, I have to "kiss up" and follow their own form of programming doctrine. Can't I just go kill some Xenos or something to up my standing with both?

What's in a Name?

I can totally relate to this hilarious comic, just like many others who have foreign names. When I was going through grade school, I used my chinese spelling as my name. While this was great and all, none of my elementary or middle school teachers could pronounce it. So every time they got to my name, they would say almost EXACTLY what the one in the comic said, and I would just say HERE before they could butcher it further.

The worst is when the teachers have absolutely no clue how to pronounce it, but they think they can sound it out because their cousin's neighbor once had a layover in Beijing, and by doing so, granted powers of pinyin to them. Over the years, I have had such great names as: Zang, Ecksziang, EcksZing, and my personal favorite: Song. How the hell do you get Song.....

I think the last straw was at the district science fair where I actually won first prize for my little sprout in magnetic field project. The announcement came almost exactly like this:

"Second place goes to Robert Somethingorother.."
"First place goes to ..... Ecks...Eckszinang....I cannot pronounce this, but you know who you are." So awesome, I shortly changed my name to a simiar sounding romanization and haven't had much problems since.