I just have to say that I just had my first phone conversation with Naomi, now 2 going on 3. A conversation where she was actually answering my questions and asking me ones over the phone. Where she didn't want to give the phone back to Mommy and wanted to keep talking to me. I'm not sure what I'm feeling, but there's definitely a lot of joy mixed up in there. It's an incredible feeling.

But as free time got smaller and smaller . . .I found it harder to post, and then the backlog in my mind got so daunting, I was intimidated before I even tried to think about what to blog about.

I didn't realize how easy it was to use that 35 minute BART ride that came with the previous job to write down my thoughts and blog about them. It was either that or play TextTwist on my Treo, which gets old after a while. The new job is some place I have to drive to, and while they haven't outlawed blogging while driving, I'm not about to try it.

So that leaves me with making time at work, or making time at home. I'm bad enough about time management at work, and when I get home, I have my lovely wife and the two kids waiting for me.

That's right, I said -- lovely.

Oh yeah, and two kids.

Meet Nolan. He is now over 4 months old. This picture, however, was taken in the hospital shortly after birth with my (cheesy) posing.

So in summary, which I hope to expand into more detail soon, life is pretty much all about the new job and the new kid, and not necessarily in that order either.

I didn't start playing basketball seriously until this time after college. I would play in college, but never really practiced shooting on a regular basis or any other fundamentals. I was in relatively good shape then, so for me it was fun to be able to fly down the court on a fast break and be able to (usually) outrun the opposing team. There were quite a few times that people had to reach out to grab me to keep me from breaking out. On the flip side, I had no shot, and I had only that one speed, which was too fast for my ball handling skills. Sure I could get down the court, but getting the ball in the basket was an adventure (sometimes just getting down the court without losing the ball was hard as well). I didn't exactly play a thinking game of basketball back then.

Once I started playing after college, in this league, I decided to get more serious about improving. I'd keep a basketball and a spare set of clothes in the car, if I ever saw an court when driving somewhere. In addition to this weekday league, I would also play on the weekends. At some points, this got really crazy, when I would drive to the South Bay to play basketball on a weekday, and drive to San Francisco to play ball with a different set of friends on Sunday afternoons. I just loved to play basketball, whether it was in a team setting, or just shooting around by myself.

Physically, I have more or less been average among the Asian American people that I normally play with. I'm not the tallest guy on the court, but I am pretty strong for my size, since I know how to play with a good base and leverage. I'm generally one of the quicker guys on the court for my size as well (byproduct of all those years just running up and down the court not really knowing what else I could do) While I prefer playing point guard, I will also play inside as well.

Over the years, I started off being a more "dirty" player on defense, bumping, holding, fouling, but I've learned to be a better defensive player without doing all those underhanded things. I admit I used to be pretty bad - I took the cliche "doing the dirty work" a little too seriously. I'd stick out a knee when setting a pick. I'd come very close to undercutting guys going up for layups (before I realized how bad this was). I've learned to use my size and speed since then more productively without going over the line.

Offensively, I've never really had a consistent game. I've practiced my outside shot to where I can shoot a 15 footer pretty effectively, but I'm also very streaky. I can work my way in to get rebounds, but I've had an issue with layups and close in baskets as long as I can remember. I tend to rush my shot inside, afraid of getting blocked, and I'll either shoot it too strongly, or simply just miss. It is a confidence thing with me, and I will usually defer to other people more willing to shoot. That is also a product of my PG days, in just trying to distribute the ball to the right people. Unfortunately, I don't have very good court vision a lot of the time either. I love to run a 2 on 1 fastbreak, but in a halfcourt game, I get tunnel vision when I'm driving into the lane with my head down. I'll set picks gladly, but I'm also lousy at working a pick-and-roll. Because I play more outside than inside, I'll usually pick-and-slide so I stay on the perimeter. I've mentally tried to correct this, but when you play you're not always thinking.

3 years ago, I probably got to the best point I had ever been in basketball. My shot was more consistent, I was proud of my defense where I could generally guard anyone from the 1 spot to the 4 spot (of course, Asian standards apply) and I understood the game better than I had before. And then I went and took nearly a 2 year break once we found out we were pregnant with Naomi. I finally started playing ball again when I joined Palm 5 months ago, and its definitely been interesting seeing where I'm at, after such a long break and at my age.

Where am I going with all of this?

Well tonight was different. It started off the same as it has for these past few months. I haven't played in a few weeks, as I had other obligations. I shot a few baskets prior to starting, and wasn't really feeling my shooting stroke. We start the pickup games (games to 9, straight up) and I'm guarding a guy who's more of an inside player. (There's been a lot of new people since I left and came back, so I'm still hazy on names) Ok, no problem to start. However, he gets position on me for an offensive rebound and then puts it back to win the first game. Dammit. Then during the second game, I'm matched up against a guy who's more of an inside/outside type guy. he runs off 3 points against me in a row. Driving in off a post up, and a couple turnaround jumpers. This gets me pumped up because I hate it when people score on me. At game point, I see an opening and cut inside. The guy with the ball sees me and gets it to me, right when I'm at the basket. Me, with the layup problem. True to form, I'm fumbling the ball as I go up, but I somehow stay with it and toss a little hook shot in. Game over. I hear someone say with a laugh, "Hey we'll take it". I'm not offended, I know it looked pretty garbage.

But as the games went on, I was getting more and more baskets each game. I'll normally have 1, maybe 2 baskets in one of these games, if I'm lucky. 3rd game, I remember again to cut to the middle as Tony gets a rebound and is falling out of bounds. Quick pass, and I get another layup to go in. In another sequence, I'm at the top of the key and the middle of the lane opens up a bit. I take the opening, drive in, get hacked, and somehow still manage to get the layup to go (an "And 1!!!"). I add in a couple other baskets where even I don't believe the ball went in, where I'm driving into the lane directly into the defense and getting finger rolls to softly drop. Its actually helping that I'm playing inside for these games too. Kurt and Onwah are running the guard positions, and they both have good outside shots. I'm not as quick as I used to be, but I still have a quickness advantage inside, with the consequence that I'm outweighed by the guys I'm guarding, so I have to fight for any sort of inside position. I'm getting decent position and my fair share of rebounds.

I'm starting to realize that this is going to be a good night for me.

4th game starts off with me actually BLOCKING a SHOT. I'm guarding one of the best inside guys we run with. He gets position on me in the left post and gets the ball. I read that he's going to turn over his right shoulder and go up to the basket. I'm not really going for the block, I'm just trying to get a hand up there to bother his shot, so I'm just as surprised as he is when I get my hand directly on the ball and stalemate him. Now there are a few more chuckles which can translate to, "Omigosh, *Joel* blocked his shot?!?". It was clean, and he was charitable about it. I'm not one to talk trash so I didn't say anything. Then a few minutes later, another guy loses his defender and barrels into the lane where I'm at. I size him up. He's bigger than me, but doesn't have much hops. He goes up lefty, which I didn't expect, but this lines up with my upraised right arm. 2nd block of the game and an old-fashioned center-style rejection a la Bill Russell. I don't think I've EVER done that. It was also satisfying because this guy was getting on my nerves. He was friends with the guy guarding me and when I scored, he was good-naturedly teasing his friend about "letting me score". I know it was more directed towards his buddy, but I resented the implication that it was embarassing to let someone like me score on him. Later on in this game, I even manage to run a pick and roll properly and roll to the basket. My teammate reads it and gets me the ball in a good spot to go up. Its another bit of a wild shot, as I got hit on the arm going up, but the ball goes in. Guy needles my defender again, saying that his fouling me is what got the ball to go in.

Then this takes the cake. Its a close game, and people are really stepping up the defense. The ball is in our possession and we're looking to pass it in from half-court. Both Onwah and Kurt are up top running picks to try to free each other up, so I head towards the baseline. I'm not really paying attention at this point because usually the first pass goes to someone up top. Then something makes me look up. The ball is headed straight for me. I guess the defense had opened up in a way that created a clear passing lane from our guy at halfcourt to me at the baseline. I barely have time to catch the ball, but I do manage to catch it, and in one motion, I turn around, over my right shoulder and toss a baby hook in. My defender who is trailing me is right there, but can't get to it in time.

The weird part about this particular shot is that I don't know what made me look up to get the ball. If I had looked up any later, I would have been nailed in the face. And I didn't have any conscious thought that made me turn around and take the shot. I didn't even know where my defender was, but I just went for it.

This time, there was no murmuring or chuckling.

I didn't even want to say or think anything at this point. The lack of consciousness that I was in told me one thing: I was in the zone. I was playing confidently and on instinct. I wasn't thinking my way through the game, I was PLAYING and playing well. It felt good. I know it was just as much luck as anything, especially with some of the shots I tossed up there that somehow went in, but it had a cascading effect on my subsequent play. Its like a positive chain-reaction that gives you a boost of energy you aren't expecting. I wish I could put this in a bottle.

In my past few years taking BART to the city for work, I came upon my share of musicians playing as I took the escalator up to the street from the Embarcadero station. A few violinists, a couple saxaphone players, and a Guzheng, or Chinese zither. I tended to give money to the sax players (I have a soft spot for jazz) but I wonder if I were in a similar situation described in the story, would I notice the quality of the music?

Pearls before Breakfast: Too Busy to Stop and Hear the Music (Washington Post, reg. may be required)

If anything I've been waiting for that kickstart to get me back into the groove, both with blogging (thanks grace), and at work. So far, work has been interesting, but I feel like sometimes I'm still stuck in the brain-dead mode that characterized my last days working on that previous project where I stopped thinking and was just going through the motions. I'm beginning to understand that I can't really wait for a kick in the pants to start doing. I need to start doing a little at a time, if just to get things done, rather than waiting for something that will jolt me into overdrive. For blogging, I was waiting for the motivation to write some mega posts about everything that has been going on since I went dark. For work, I was waiting for I-have-no-idea-what in order to start going after my deliverables with gusto and fulfilling all of the commitments I made (which I of course have no problem doing that).

With that, I'll end with something which amused me today. I'm a big fan of Bill Simmons, who is also known as the Sports Guy, formerly known as the Boston Sports Guy, and is a columnist who writes on ESPN.com. Very funny writer who writes about a mixture of Sports and Popular Culture but has a dedicated following who also chimes in in the same vein. The following was actually an e-mail sent in by one of his readers in today's column:

I was watching 'The Princess Bride' on TV the other day and thought, what if Oden has been fooling all of us these past few months? Can't you imagine the following exchange in the NCAA Tournament?

"Greg Oden: You are wonderful.
"Kevin Durant: Thank you; I've worked hard to become so.
"Greg Oden: I admit it, you are better than I am.
"Kevin Durant: Then why are you smiling?
"Greg Oden: Because I know something you don't know.
"Kevin Durant: And what is that?
"Greg Oden: I ... am not left-handed.

(Tears the wrist guard off his right hand and immediately takes over the game.)

Of course you have to be one of those people who is a fan of both College Basketball and the Princess Bride to understand this, but if you are, we'll have to hang out sometime.

all i can say is that I left 17 minutes earlier for work today and got there 10 minutes earlier. i am so not used to the commute mentality anymore.

===========================================

After Pat’s Birthday

Posted on Oct 19, 2006

By Kevin Tillman

Editor’s note: Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, who was discharged in 2005, has written a powerful, must-read document.

courtesy of the Tillman family

It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice… until we got out.

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.

Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.

Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.

Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.

Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

Somehow torture is tolerated.

Somehow lying is tolerated.

Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.

Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.

Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,

Kevin Tillman

The hired gun part is the one that probably affects us the most. Mainly because client companies treat us like sh*t. Most of the time, they look at us and see the dollar signs that we cost them. On the extreme level, you get some managers who work for the client who stroll around and complain to our bosses if there is anything that doesn't look like work on our monitors. Why? Because they feel they are entitled to, since we are charged to them by our consulting firm.

Then there is the gulf between that type of treatment vs how employees are treated. However small, there is always a difference. In some well-run companies, the difference is negligible and people work tirelessly to overcome it. At the extreme level, you get virtual "class" divisions.

Recently, our client has undergone a bit of a panic attack in regards to their future prospects due to one of their major clients throwing in the towel. They made some cuts, and now the onus is on our firm to do the same for our group here at the company. Everyone, employee or consultant, is wary and looking around for that ax.

Its funny, once the ax has fallen in any layoff, you have two types of people. One type of person believes the company spin that it was a temporary setback/necessary measure, and soldiers on. The second type of person immediately ascribes the layoff to the fact that the ship is sinking and looks to jump immediately. Sadly, I was once naive enough to be the first person, but I've been through enough layoffs to become the second type. Companies will *always* tell you that its temporary and that the sky is blue right around the corner.

You'd think that at this point politics aren't in play anymore, with people too worried about what their future holds, but its still around. We've got people still angling for positions of responsibility at this point. I suppose when there's a vacuum, people step in to fill. And even when there isn't, ambition still drives some people. And the game is still going on, in between and during meetings on the forward direction of the company.

I don't care anymore. And I no longer feel constrained by what I'm supposed to say and what I'm not supposed to say. I've never liked that mentality of management, where its bad to know too much. If you trust peope with putting out your product, you should trust them with other knowledge as well. I admit that giving someone too much advance notice of their job's demise is bad (a la corporate sabotage and all that), but it also puts a bad taste in my mouth to deceive someone about the ultimate health and future of a company in the name of morale and productivity.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. . .the test. Aside from using a pencil, it was strange to even be taking a test. Not to mention studying for one. I made flash cards. . .flash cards!. My current lifestyle is so *not* conducive to studying. Cramming, sure, but regular study is hard. So here I am, cramming aboard BART, during work, flipping through flash cards in an effort to memorize the rote knowledge that I need to pass this test. The irony is that I've been doing project management as a job thing for a few years now, but I never learned it formally. So now I'm finding out what the official definitions are for things that I explain and diagram out on a regular basis. Its almost harder than learning it for the first time, because I have to force myself to forget what I currently know and relearn it the instructor's way. Its such a pain in the ass (hereafter to be shortened to my phrase of the moment: PITA)

So come class time, stroll into class to be greeted by eerie silence. I had forgotten what that's like. Pick up the test from the front. Walk to the available seats in the back of the room. 3 hours to complete the test. Shouldn't be a problem. About 15 short answer type questions and the doozy, a Work Breakdown Structure. Basically, what a WBS is (the non-instructor approved answer) is the task list which is the underlying structure of a project plan, only without dates. This one was worth approximately 40% of the midterm. Teacher recommends doing that first so you don't run out of time. Screw that, I've doing the short answer questions first so I regurgitate what I memorized short-term and clear my head to work on the WBS afterwards. Is it wrong to contemplate how easy it is to cheat? I'm sitting in the back row. Teacher only lifts up his head occasionally. I could break out the flash cards. Or I could take advantage of modern technology and turn on my Treo. What if I had the flash cards typed into the Notes section of the phone? Is this what high school kids are doing these days? (At least, that's what I read). Now I'm wondering how kids will try and cheat once Naomi gets to that age.

Talk about being distracted, I guess I'm not used to taking 3 hours for a test. Last time I did that was the SATs. Although this time I put in my personal twist, only because I think I've gotten even more anal-retentive in my old age. Because the Work Breakdown Structure is worth so much of the grade, I actually write up a *draft* version of it to make sure I have all my ducks lined up in a row. Then I rewrite it for teacher consumption. By the time I'm done, my hand is completely cramped, there is no time left (I took nearly all 3 hours) and there is a huge dent in my finger from where the pencil was. I haven't written this much since writing letters to girls in high school. Ouch.

update: got the test back. didn't do too badly. i guess i still have some of the old mojo.

At our 15 month appointment, our pediatrician asked if Naomi was talking yet. At that time, she really wasn't. She said "Mama" and "Dada" but it didn't necessarily mean us. She would say those sounds when she was sad or distressed or for any variety of actions. She knows a few signs ("Please", "Open") but wasn't completely consistent in using them. Based on that, our doctor felt that this merited some testing to be done. She felt that by 15 months, babies should be saying at least 3 words consistently. Its a fairly low benchmark and not set in stone, but its probably a good idea to track at that level, in case there is any sort of issue.

So now we've got the appointments, but they're not for a couple of months. But its definitely served as a wake-up call for us to try and teach Naomi how to communicate, and eventually, how to speak. We've gotten a lot of support from people we've talked to and from what we've researched. Many people have told us that their kids didn't really start talking until age 2, and others have pointed out that teaching a child multiple languages (in our case, English, Cantonese, and Mandarin) may take longer to absorb. Another point that has been raised which is comforting is that the firstborn child may take longer to talk because everyone in the family is so geared to responding to that child's needs, that they may not feel a need to talk. I guess there are a lot of theories and thought out there.

I can't help but feel guilty about it though. Are we not spending enough time trying to reinforce talking with her? Is the time I spend at home not being used wisely? In the few months after her 1st year, we fell into a bit of a cycle at home. We'd come home from work, tired, and vege out by flipping on the tv and/or surfing from our laptops. Naomi would play around us, but we let her do her own thing largely. We didn't have a structured reading time or even really a structured schedule for her. Sometimes what we were doing was, "Let's keep her distracted and entertained with whatever is at hand until she goes to sleep." That all changed when we went to the doctor and got back this news. So now, we keep trying to reinforce what everything's name is, what this is called, what that is, etc. It will still worry me until the day she says her first word consistently, and its clear to us that she knows what it means too.