Chat him up for over 3 hours of course! :)
He’s vegetarian, very polite, very well read particularly in management. Doesn’t come across as an engineer due to his excellent people skills. Has good understanding of the industry and great vision of where Asus is headed in spite of the competition and random variables. He’s cautious about his transition as Chairman/CEO to just Chairman. He’s very engaging (he struck the conversation with me and I gave him plenty of opportunities to end the conversation). Does not divulge much about his personal life unless asked.
Basically what happened was I got bumped to Business Class on my flight from TPE>LAX. When he saw that he was sitting next to me, I got the feeling he was slightly put off either because he was expecting to sit next to an empty seat or he would rather sit next to someone more of his calibur - either of which is understandable. As luck would have it there were no other seats available.
He sat down and asked me if I was going home and I said yes. I asked him where he was headed and he said he was going to CES. We talked about our line of work where upon he revealed he worked for a semiconductor company in Taiwan. I then asked him if he was from either ASUS or MSI and he told me he was from ASUS. It wasn’t however until a flight attendant called him “Chairman Shih” that I realized he was the head honcho. She gave him an exit/out to sit elsewhere (likely in first class) but he declined. Personally I think it was because of our conversation but who knows.
We talked about everything from his company to his kids. We talked a lot of the future and which companies would come to dominate the Internet, computers, technology. The Google vs. Microsoft vs. Apple world. The open-source vs. proprietary standards. I told him of my experiences with the Internet and how I felt if there were a Web 3.0 it would be entirely dominated by integration of cyber identity with physical life. I explained to him the lure of cyber identities such as Facebook/Myspace and Second Life/WoW. I think he was at least interested if not impressed at those ideas. There were definitely times when I felt like I didn’t know the answer and had obviously over-extended myself - those would be the times when I started to sweat hard… Then there were times when I felt very much in my element talking about the stuff that I knew and had experience with and those were the times when I felt his attention peaked.
Perhaps not the most optimized use of 3 hours with a CEO of a famous company but I think he’d remember me later on in life… What a treat for me though!
posted at 6:08amAs I close in on my 30th birthday at 35,000 feet in the air I realize something. I was looking in the mirror in the bathroom and well… realized that I had come a long way. Not so much in that I had come a long way but in seeing myself in the mirror, I saw a friend… someone who had stuck with me a long time, watching over me, guiding me. That friend was me.
More importantly however I realized that even though we’d been together for a long time, things were not the same as before. So much has happened in this life that as time went on, things from the past were starting to dim. As life gets harder, decisions are harder to make, we ‘forget’ ourselves. Looking in the mirror all I see is what I am today. In other words, I can not remember what I looked like a year ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. So much so that if you showed me pictures of myself from the past, I’d claim that we were different people… and I’d be right.
And in that respect, I really am short-sighted. I really only know what I am now and what I prefer now. I suppose that’s a godsend because if we were stuck with all the horrible mistakes we’d made in the past, life would never go on. But what about our ideals, our dreams, what we wanted to be, what we wanted to accomplish, and how we wanted to fulfill ourselves? At 30 I’m seeing wrinkles under my eyes and reminiscing how I’ve lived these past 30 years, which is to me an entire lifetime. I suppose it’s trite but when I’m 60 who will I see in the mirror looking back at me? What kind of decisions will I have made to put me where I will be 30 years later. Will tumblr be around 30 years from now? Will this post last long enough for me to remember the thoughts of today?
Going back to the thought… while the person in the reflection has traveled every step of every way with me, it’s remarkable how little of me is reflected back. Let’s give it some thought: My hairstyle, very late 2000’s, in fact I almost feel like I designed it. To put it into more perspective my hair-stylist completely botched it up yesterday and I spent the better part of yesterday and this morning repairing it myself with scissors and two mirrors. Minute detail? Oh absolutely! Those wrinkles under my eyes? A result of a Las Vegas weekend with co-workers and being sick for about 3 weeks. Yes, they (the wrinkles) will be back, even if we rest well over the next couple of weeks they are inevitable. The sunspots? A result of loving the sun, outdoor sports, and specifically surfing for hours on end. The trimmed eyebrows, definitely something of a recent event… ever since taking wedding/engagement photos I realized that my eyebrows were out of control and needed to be tamed. For the record, the make-up artist trimmed them for me. Oh and what about the suddenly more defined cheekbones? While never having truly well-defined cheekbones I suppose this is an improvement from 174lbs. or 32 pounds ago? 3 years 9 months ago I was 32 pounds my superior. Today I rock a 6-pack and sub 5-6% body fat. Quite an improvement if I do say so myself. Ironically if you asked me 3 years and 9 months ago what I thought about losing 32 pounds, I’d get upset and lose sleep about becoming “smaller”.
The reflection is an accumulation, a sum of what I have endured throughout the years but in reality such a sliver of the actual action of what has transpired and what I truly stand for. In short, the reflection really considers very little and reveals only portions of what has happened. Actually the reflection reflects some inconsequential scars and other permanent changes (mostly in my face). Can you tell from the glimmer in my eyes that my self-confidence is 100x what it used to be when I was in 2nd grade and Ms. Davis wrote on my report card that I needed better self-esteem? Can you tell by the way that I speak that I have two graduate degrees? Can you tell by the way I hum that I play hours and hours on the piano in my spare time, hoping that one day I’ll have an actual audience watching me perform? No. Because the light has only so much throughput and not all of that information is passed from the reflection to your eyes.
I suppose that’s partially why I keep a blog. To keep a “paper-trail” of the sense and senseless stuff that happens to me throughout this life. Perhaps an autobiography that might make it into Encyclopedia Britannica one day? I doubt it. The older I get the less I think that others will want to read about me when I’m gone.
None of that matters. No matter what happens. It’s been a great adventure. And I’m happy to share it will you all. I hope the next 30 years are as exciting as the past 30. I hope that I’ll always remember the essence of what makes me… me.
posted at 5:04pm
I have a funny relationship with this game called Blackjack. When I first met Blackjack everything was fresh and new to me. There were no “rules” and I felt priveledged just to be able to play the game.
When I got a little older, I realized that Blackjack was a game I would never win at over the long haul so why not play for the social aspect of the game? So I played for the entertainment and social nature of gambling, talking to dealers and players and drinking to pass the time (and money).
Now that I’m even older, I’m embittered that I haven’t won playing Blackjack and the relationship has once again changed. No longer am I playing for the social nature of the game but rather for the potential monetary reward. Now it’s all about betting patterns, feeling out the shoe, and focusing on my cards. I don’t talk to anyone and I don’t particularly care for conversation. And I don’t want any drinks.
This will pass too. My relationship will eventually change again to one of simple emotional training. Putting lots of money on the line gets the heart going and the emotions/internal dialogue runs wild. I want to be able to tame those feelings as this is great training for controlling my emotions in other difficult situations.
What an interesting game.
posted at 10:58amSometimes I over extend myself and then have to slowly reel myself in over the following weeks. I’m constantly re-evaluating my state of being.
posted at 7:50pmMy goals and rationale for this week are the following. In no particular order:
Let’s limit the goals to 6 at a time otherwise the list gets long and convoluted.
posted at 10:19amThese were my goals as of December 1st, 2008. I posted it as a Private post so it wasn’t publicly available.
5 hours of music.
Eat less than 14,000 calories.
400+ minutes of exercise.
4 trips to the gym.
At least 1 surf session.
Sleep 9+ hours a night.
How did I do? Here are the goals I achieved:
Eat less than 14,000 calories. (12,810 calories)
4 trips to the gym. (5 trips)
Sleep 9+ hours a night. (9.17 hours average last week)
Here are the ones I partially achieved:
3+ hours or music
283 minutes of exercise
0 surf sessions
the missing surf session would have made up 120 minutes exercise.
This was fun! I’m going to try this again this week.
posted at 10:16amSo my buddy Larry ‘tagged’ me. Now I’m supposed to disclose 7 titillating facts about myself and then tag 7 new people. Problem is, I don’t know 7 people online and even less on tumblr so I dunno how this is supposd to work. At first I figured on just blowing this off, but what the hell this could be fun… Now I gotta come up with 7 things that Catherine and Larry may or may not know about me…
I’m going to tag a bunch of people who don’t have blogs but will still have the responsibility of providing 7 titillating facts about themselves:
Ryan, Catherine, Jasmine, Mel, Andrew, Yugi, Tony
posted at 11:09am
