Harold's Blog

"After 18 hours of traveling we have finally arrived in Beijing! China is the one place that makes me..."

Sun, 23 Jun 2013 05:59:01 -0700

“After 18 hours of traveling we have finally arrived in Beijing! China is the one place that makes me feel more like a tourist than any other place as all the locals speak Mandarin and look at me as though I understand what they are saying. We were able to navigate with limited Chinese to the hotel and also order dinner at a local restaurant. Gotta head to bed early and wake up for the plane ride to Chengdu!”

Goodbye Seattle!

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 02:10:00 -0700

I can’t believe that this is it! I’m leaving Seattle which has been home for more than 15 years. It feels odd to be leaving a place with familiar faces and places and venturing off to a new area with soo many unknowns.

I’m excited for this move both personally and professionally, I believe both will have their challenges but will be equally rewarding.

Thank you to all the friends and family that made it out for a meal, coffee, or party these last few weeks. I have truly enjoyed meeting up with everyone, and to those that I didn’t get a chance to meetup I hope to see you down in the Bay area or catch-up with you when I’m back in Seattle.

How to Become a Marrow Donor

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:49:00 -0800

I signed up to be a marrow donor after watching Janet Liang’s video asking people to become bone donors. There are 10,000 patients that need a transplant and only half of them receive one. This number goes up for minorities.

After signing up to be a transplant online you’ll get a kit in the mail a couple days later and the steps were very simple and painless:

Signup to become a marrow donor

lily320: Oh Team Photo day …

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 16:31:07 -0700

lily320:

Oh Team Photo day …

Awesome on soo many levels!

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 17:50:58 -0800

Awesome on soo many levels!

The Content Farm: How to Calculate Your Age

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:08:20 -0800

The Content Farm: How to Calculate Your Age:

thecontentfarm:

Your age is an important thing to know about yourself. You can’t go to school or drink alcohol or get into a good nursing home if you don’t know your age. But it’s hard to find out how old you are if you don’t know. Human beings aren’t horses; you can’t just cut us open and count the rings!

That’s why you’ve got to use this method to find out what your age is.

Wolverine? Or 2 Bat Men?

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:44:00 -0800

Wolverine? Or 2 Bat Men?

“A pic I took yesterday of Christians protecting Muslims...

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 11:59:00 -0800

“A pic I took yesterday of Christians protecting Muslims during their prayers#jan25 http://yfrog.com/h02gvclj” - @NevineZaki

Volkswagen Commercial: The Force

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 15:50:36 -0800

Volkswagen Commercial: The Force

The beginning of the year is a popular time for people to start...

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 15:08:00 -0800

The beginning of the year is a popular time for people to start making resolutions. Personally I’m not too big on resolutions, but as I get older I thought it would be wise to start living and eating more healthy.

Being an ADD Gen Y'er I wasn’t too interested in taking another fitness class or nutrition class but instead was looking for a smart quick way to get fit and healthy. I came across Tim Ferriss’s new The 4-Hour Body book. I havent read the book yet, but would be interested to hear from those that have. Here are some of the things the book claims:

How to lose those last 5-10 pounds (or 100+ pounds) with odd combinations of food and safe chemical cocktails.

How to prevent fat gain while bingeing (X-mas, holidays, weekends)

How to increase fat-loss 300% with a few bags of ice

How Tim gained 34 pounds of muscle in 28 days, without steroids, and in four hours of total gym time

How to sleep 2 hours per day and feel fully rested

How to produce 15-minute female orgasms

How to triple testosterone and double sperm count

How to go from running 5 kilometers to 50 kilometers in 12 weeks

How to reverse “permanent” injuries

How to add 150+ pounds to your lifts in 6 months

How to pay for a beach vacation with one hospital visit

What do you guys think? Is Tim Ferriss all smoke and mirrors? Or has he found a quick hack to healthier living?

Facebook Messages: Game Changer, More Like Game Snoozer

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 01:04:00 -0800

I like Facebook, I really do. I keep Facebook open all day, am a proud early adopter with an edu account, loved the news feed amidst the initial criticism, and was excited to upgrade my messages to the new messages last week. I soo want Facebook’s new messages to be the next game changer which will eliminate my need for email, but I’m afraid to say that the new messages is Facebook’s Wave and leaving alot of people asking, “So whats different from the old Facebook messages?”

Essentially Facebook messages brings all your messaging together through text messages, emails, and Facebook chat conversations. The idea is that once you start a conversation you can use any means of communication to continue the conversation. Facebook even gives you a facebook.com email address.

Call me old school, but I believe different means of communication are used for different scenarios and serve different purposes. Email is typically reserved for more formal, thoughtful, lengthy exchanges. For example if I’m typing an email to my sister asking her how the kids are doing, I wouldn’t want or expect to get a 160 character response via text message or a short chat response. Conversely if I’m sending a text message or chat I’m expecting a short immediate answer to a pressing question that does not require the length or delay of email.

Sometimes I may have multiple conversations using different mediums with the same person. In this scenario Facebook messages would make things more complicated. For example if I’m sending out an email to a couple people through Facebook messages, while at the same time texting one of those friends asking where we are having lunch, but also engaging in an IM conversation with them throughout the day; Facebook would conveniently yet confusingly mash all these conversations together in one long, out of context thread.

Like Google Wave, Facebook is trying to fulfill a need that sounds better in theory than practice. Emailing, texting, and chatting work very well independently and help us keep things in order and within context. If anyone is going to revolutionize the way we communicate I believe Facebook stands the best chance, but the new Facebook messages unfortunately misses the mark.

What I'm Making for Thanksgiving

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 14:16:00 -0800

Since my folks are out of the country and only returning on Thanksgiving, I have been promoted (by default) to head chef. For Thanksgiving I’ll be preparing Boudin-Stuffed Turkey Breast.

If you need some help with cooking this Thanksgiving check out Saveur’s Turkey Cooking Guide or consider taking some cooking classes.

Apple, Google, Roku, Boxee have it all wrong

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 23:36:00 -0800

Talk to any tech person and you’ll hear that cable tv is dead and the content on the internet is the way of the future. While I agree with this statement I think the current options are more smoke and mirrors than meat and potatoes.

Google TV appears to be more of a web browser on the flat screen and watching Youtube on my tv doesn’t seem very revolutionary or exciting. Roku, Apple, and Boxee tout the ability to stream Netflix, listen to Pandora, rent movies, and watch Hulu; yet these things are not anything I couldn’t do on my computer.

So if these companies want to know how to make a killer TV app that I would happily pay for here is what I would like to see:

Ability to watch my favorite shows on ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, Comedy Central, TBS (Conan). Currently Hulu does a good job of this but they do not cover CBS, Comedy Central, or TBS. I would happily pay $10 a month for a subscription that has all these stations, extra points if you they have past seasons and no commercials.
Live channels. Currently if I want to get any live channels I would have to buy a bundled package from Comcast when I really only care for a handful of channels. I would happily pay for an a la carte tv station subscription and have the ability to pick out the several channels that I would like to watch.
The biggest draw back right now is none of these products offer a good sports solution. If the a la carte option were available I would purchase a subscription to ESPN and FSN, but a better alternative would be the ability to subscribe to all the sports teams that I care about - Huskies, Seahawks, Sounders, and Mariners.

I’m sure the big networks and cable companies have a vested interest in sticking to their money gouging ways. But hopefully with enough people turning to alternative means of consuming content they will pay attention and start listening to what the little guys want.

Do you currently own one of these systems? What do you feel is lacking? What would you like to see in a killer TV app?

Taking your time at a food eating competition. Photo via flickr

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 21:50:03 -0700

Taking your time at a food eating competition. Photo via flickr

The guy’s expression is priceless at a Justin Beiber...

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:59:00 -0700

The guy’s expression is priceless at a Justin Beiber concert. Maybe he needs a new hobby, like sewing classes?

- Source (BuzzFeed)

Explendables Infographic

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:51:53 -0700

Its an infographic kind of day. Still need to see this movie!

Cool SAT Infographic!

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:09:00 -0700

Via: SAT Prep Courses

Introducing the Creative Income Stream Challenge

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:20:15 -0700

Lots of people have big dreams of being financially independent and not having to work for the “man”. Inspired by Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad about creating passive forms of income I thought it would be fun to start my own Creative Income Stream (CIS) Challenge. The challenge is simple, earn $100 in a month through a creative/alternative means. The rules are:

Must be legal
Don’t harass family or friends
Must provide real value

The possibilities are endless, think about some of the skills you can provide or “things” you can put to work to help you generate an alternative form of income. Let me know if you are interested in joining this challenge and what your ideas are to achieving $100 in a month. Be sure to check back often or subscribe as I’ll be updating my journey to $100!

weheartmma: Please help recommend WeHeartMMA for the Sports...

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 23:34:12 -0700

weheartmma:

Please help recommend WeHeartMMA for the Sports Category on the Tumblr Directory. We’d love to be a great source for MMA fans on Tumblr. :)

Thanks for all of the support!

—-

QUESTION: Have you recommended WeHeartMMA today?

"The last several weeks I have been in China with a team of 8 other individuals teaching elementary..."

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 11:08:08 -0700

“

The last several weeks I have been in China with a team of 8 other individuals teaching elementary and middle school teachers computer skills. This has been an awesome experience and I enjoyed every moment of it. While I was there I noticed several things that American’s could learn from the Chinese.

1. The Desire to learn

The weeks leading up to the computer training camp we were expecting 20 teachers, but on the first day we had an overwhelming 57 teachers registered in a 45 person classroom! Some of these teachers came from remote villages hours away just to attend our computer camp. With a pen and paper in hand many teachers were doubling up on computers and excited to learn. All of our lessons were translated from English to Chinese, yet the teachers were still eager to listen and participate. Also keep in mind that this was their summer vacation and class started at 8:30am.

For some, this was their first time using a computer and tackling basic drag and drop mouse functionality was a stretch. Yet though our very limited Chinese and an awesome translator many of the teachers were able to manipulate images in Photoshop and produce animations using Flash at the end of the camp.

The desire to lean and continue to better oneself is strong in China. Learning doesn’t stop when we leave school. Learning is a life long journey. We are fortunate to live in a society where we can download books in 60 seconds, instantly Google answers to pressing questions, or attended world class universities. Continue to learn something new.

2. Don’t need to live in excess

Witnessing the daily lives of many Chinese I was able to see people living within their means and hardly ever wasting. Even though food is relatively cheap, we found many people usually eating in, meat is considered a treat, and portions are considerably smaller yet I found myself feeling full and satisfied. Even something as simple as napkins are not freely given out.

Coming back to hardwood floors, granite counter-tops, flat screen TV’s, and Big Gulps I feel somewhat guilty. We live in a society were we pride ourselves on bigger, faster, louder, brighter. Yet how many of these things do we really “need”?

3. Importance of Community

In China there is a great sense of community. Every night the city comes alive and there are community events for all ages. Kids are free to run around and gather across the river to play carnival games, teenagers catchup with one another while window shopping around town, old men sit and play music by the river, while in the town squares women gather in uniform lines for dance aerobics. These are not one-off occurances, people are gathering together daily to meetup and be part of a community.

We live in a hyper connected society with the ability to tweet, keep up with news feeds, share our plans, and check-into locations. Supposedly we are more “connected”. Yet strangely the several weeks without these mediums and an iPhone holstered to my hip I felt as though I was forming deeper more genuine relationships with the locals. We should take the time to evaluate and see if the tools we are using are a catalyst or an excuse from forming genuine community.

4. Hospitality

As we got to know our class better, we were receiving invites to visit their hometown villages. Due to our time constraint we were unable to visit their homes, so some of the teachers took us around the local village and paid for our meals and made sure we had a good time. Even though we had known some of them for a couple days they already felt like life-long friends.

The organization that we worked with also provides scholarship services to the local orphans. I had the opportunity to see the living conditions and visit the foster families looking after these kids. Most of these families are living in conditions that we would deem unlivable by US standards but they are doing everything they can to make ends meet. Simply put they do not have much, yet when we came to visit they lavished us with their very best foods and drinks. Nothing was held back.

5. Three Hour Long Lunch Breaks

This one requires no explanation :)

”

- Blog post that I wrote on TeachStreet about my recent China trip. You can read more about the trip at the China Teaching Technology Blog.