adamyntium

Category: personal

  • Advice on making New Years’ resolutions

    Advice on making New Years’ resolutions

    Use this three-step guide to making resolutions

    1. Decide on broad goals and include a WHY.
    2. Highlight a small thing to do to help you get to your goal and establish timing. Don’t worry about ‘completion’ or even results at this point, just focus on behaviors!
    3. Check in regularly to evaluate your progress, determine whether your actions are leading to positive results, and — if not — refine stuff 🙂

    More details

    Start with goals + why’s

    EXAMPLES

    • I want to learn to speak and read some Japanese so I can enjoy my trips to Japan more.
    • I want to sleep better so I feel more refreshed in the morning and at the top of my game during the day.
    • I want to learn more tricks & tools associated with music composition so I can enjoy the satisfaction of composing pieces without so much hassle and frustration.

    Pick the ‘small thing’ + timing

    EXAMPLES

    • … and I will spend an average of 15 minutes a night learning hiragana and katakana.
    • … and I will not eat anything or drink alcohol after 9pm and I will lay in bed, without my phone, by midnight each night.
    • … and I will spend an hour every week watching videos or reading material pertaining to music composition and spend another hour composing or arranging music.

    Notice I didn’t write stuff like “I will sleep 8 hours a night” or “I will write 4 songs.” Of course, if I end up still feeling tired, or fail to write any pieces in the first month or so, then I’ll retool my plans :). I know that conventional wisdom says to focus on the results, but I firmly believe that focusing on improving behaviors is more effective and sustainable.

    In the past, I’ve actually used a Google spreadsheet to track how well I’ve done each behavior, and I think I’ll try that again this year :). In part, it’s a reminder that good is better than perfect, and past failure is no excuse for subsequent failure; seeing lots of checkmarks is inspiring even if it’s not 100% in a set! (for some, “Don’t break the streak!” is motivating!)

    Lastly, consider NOT entirely avoiding something that you enjoy… but rather just bound it to a more positive behavior or by timing. “I can eat a serving of chocolate after I’ve already eaten a serving of fruit” rather than “No more chocolate!” Or “I can browse Reddit for 30 minutes a day on my desktop, but no mindless scrolling on my phone, so I’m removing the app!”

    Do you tend to make New Years’ resolutions? If so, do you follow a process like the geeky one I’ve outlined above? 🙂

    [Pictured: a totally-unrelated photo of my backyard. Yay, Meyer lemons, which should be ready in another month or so!]

  • I couldn’t do one pull-up. My dad’s hack fixed that brilliantly.

    I couldn’t do one pull-up. My dad’s hack fixed that brilliantly.

    One of my friends was lamenting that he can’t do one pull-up. Another friend playfully retorted:

    But I bet if you reeeeeeally wanted to you would. 🙂

    She’s right… sort of. But she didn’t say how.

    Back in the day, though, my dad knew how.

    In the 7th grade — when I was humiliated that I couldn’t do even one pull-up in gym class — my (very strong!) dad was low on sympathy but ready with a solution.

    Days later, he installed a pull-up bar on my bedroom door. And then the conversation went like this:

    Me: But I told you, I can’t do even one pull-up!!!

    Dad: I know. Just do as much of one pull-up as you can, every single time you enter or exit your room.

    Me: 🙁

    Dad: 💪

    In less than a week I could do a pull-up.

    And by the time the next pull-up test came ’round at school, I was able to do FOURTEEN (14) pull-ups (!), more than almost everyone else in class, including the bullies, the jocks, bullying jocks, and the jockeying bullies! (you can clearly tell how much fun in my early years as a young nerd)

    So what did I learn from this?
    What can you, humble reader, learn from this?

    Persistence pays off, sure, yeah, blah blah blah.
    But chopping something into smaller, easier, slower, lighter, less-scary blocks AND THEN DOING IT REPEATEDLY ON AN UNAVOIDABLE CUE… that is the useful answer!

    Or, more specifically…

    • It should be something you really want to do or achieve, not something your spouse tells you you ought to do :D.
    • It can be reasonably broken down into slower / simpler / easier / less-scary chunks.
    • You can tackle it multiple times a day.
    • And, ideally, the trigger is clear and — even better — physically associated with the task.

    In this case, a pull-up bar above my door fit all of the above! I wanted to show up my mocking classmates, it’s possible to do a quarter or half a pull-up, with the bar being above my bedroom door the practicing was accessible, the trigger was clear/unambiguous (anytime I entered or exited my bedroom), and the pull-up bar was staring me in the face!

    Have you tackled a challenge in a similar way? What did you achieve, and how did you achieve it?

    P.S. — Here’s one that’s similar to the one I have on my study door currently 🙂

  • Adam’s septoplasty / turbinate reduction surgery diary. Infotainment the doctor ordered!

    Three out of four leading doctors told me that I have a really messed up nose (my septum is shaped like a hockey stick rather than the more conveniently functional lower case ‘l’ style)… and if I ever want to breathe decently, I simply must get a septoplasty + turbinate reduction surgery.

    The fourth (admittedly imaginary)  doctor actually insisted the same thing, but also urged me to detail my experience in a blog post.  This is my story.

    Monday — night before:

    11:50pm:  I greedily cram in the last bits to eat and drink, ’cause I’m not allowed to swallow anything past midnight.  Rather a stupidly written rule, actually.  Despite the fact that I wasn’t notified of my surgery time (1:30pm) until the day before, I was given oral and written instructions well in advance with the clearly arbitrary, or at least very conservative no-eating/drinking-after-midnight rule.  I mean, I could have been assigned a 7:30am or 3:30pm surgery time.  Why not just say “no eating or drinking within 8 hours of your scheduled surgery”?

    The kind side of me presumes this is to account for a possible last-minute change in surgery times (“Mr. Lasnik?  We’re just calling to let you know we had a cancellation. Would you like to get this crap over with a few hours earlier?”)  The cynic in me figures the lawyers & doctors believe we’re too stupid to understand “8 hours prior.”

    2:30am:  No sense going to bed too early, right?  If I go to bed early and get up early, I’ll just have more time to be hungry and thirsty.  So a 2:30 bedtime sounds about right…

    Tuesday — day of:

    8:20am:  Lovely.  The groundskeepers are turning it all up full blast.  Trimming, mowing, huffing, puffing, the works.  So much for sleeping in.

    9:30am:  Against my better judgment I check my work e-mail and get sucked in.

    11:45am:  My AdamTaxi’ing friend comes and rescues me, drops me off at the hospital and bids me a warm goodbye and good luck wishes :).

    12:15pm:  I walk into the first building I find and announce with genuine enthusiastic anticipation that I’m there to be cut up. Receptionist exudes an almost comical level of both alarm and confusion.  Oops.  This isn’t the Surgecenter.

    12:20pm:  I find my way to the rather non-descript Palo Alto Surgecenter around the corner.  Receptionist checks ID, doesn’t ask for co-pay, does ask me to sign my life and finances away.  I shudder to think what the final bills (yes, all separate bills — anesthesiologist, surgeon, etc.) will amount to, even though I believe my insurance will cover most of this.  Pretty sick (no pun intended) that it’s primarily us folks in one of the world’s richest countries that have to worry about such basic life stuff… being potentially bankrupted by one hospital visit.  I’m resisting the temptation to turn this into a rant about how ridiculous it is that so many Americans have no problem with Medicare and such, but are freaked out about sensible ideas like Single Payer / Universal Health Care. Grrr.

    12:30pm:  Now I’m called into that special room, er, what do you call this?  With several other patients, each placed on a gurney behind a totally non-sound-proofed curtain.  I overhear talk of cancer and remission rates, making my nose-fixing seem oh so insignificant.

    12:35pm:  Wait a minute!  I ordered the typical sweet, reassuring filipina nurse named Jenny, not a somewhat-imposing big-tattooed nurse named Earl!  Oh well.  He takes my pulse, blood pressure, and measures my weight with reasonable unscariness, and quizzes me on the type of my surgery and name of my doctor (to see if I’m alert, I presume).  Also he goes over a form with a list of drugs they want to doubleheck that I am or am not taking (“Substance D?  No and no.”)  I’m told that the anesthesiologist and surgeon will stop by shortly.  Maybe their idea of “shortly” is the time equivalent of Yao Ming, but I’m getting ahead of ourselves here.

    12:40pm:  Okay, time to get into my gown, or at least try to.  I presume someone will eventually create a user-friendly hospital gown, and perhaps even get rich from this invention.  Heck, if a hospital can bill $42 for a small bandaid…

    Per instructions, I keep my socks and underwear on, then accessorize with the oh-so-stylish paper booties and hat.  I wonder if I get to keep these for mementos?

    [FYI:  further times listed below are estimates; I didn’t have a watch on, and had already shoved my phone and clothes into a bag under my gurney]

    1:00pm:  Grr.  This really does feel like a long wait.  Not sure exactly how long, but I have nothing to read, and yet it’s probably not worth grabbing my phone from the bag below, because I’m sure I’ll be attended to Any Minute Now.  One of the nurses suggests I make myself comfortable and strongly urges me to actually lay down on the gurney instead of continuing to sit on the edge and impatiently swinging my feet (clearly attempting to magically summon the parties responsible for my surgery via footular momentum and run-on sentences).  She returns with a warm blanket, and I figure resistance is futile and dumb.

    1:10pm:  A different helpful and perceptive nurse on duty notices my impatience and offers to check on my surgery time status.  Upon request, she calls my friend who is slated to meet me at the hospital to fill him in on parking & surgery timing details.  She also thoughtfully gets me a (current!) newsweekly (“Newsweek — Now mixed with / affiliated with / swallowed by the “Daily Beast”?  Oh “journalism,” what hast thou become?!)

    1:30pm:  I’m slightly uncomfortable, increasingly hungry and thirsty, and not particularly enjoying the magazine as much as I hoped I would.

    1:40pm:  My smiling doctor comes in, discusses the surgery details very briefly, checks to see if I have many questions.  I don’t.  Just eager to get on with this.

    1:50pm:  More waiting.

    2:00pm:  Anesthesiologist comes in.  Soft-spoken fella named, apparently, “Dr. Meow.”  I wisely abandon all thoughts of making a catatonic (or cat-and-tonic) pun.  He asks me to open my mouth wide, very briefly peers inside, and seems satisfied.  Always knew I had a nice mouth.  He also inquires whether I have any serious health issues, like heart or lung disorders, etc. Dude, you’re asking me this life and death stuff just 15 minutes before I get cut open? Anyway, I silently determine that heartbreak wouldn’t be a particularly relevant discussion topic at the moment.

    He advises me that they’re going to put a tube down my throat to help me breathe, but that I won’t notice this while the tube is actually stuck down there.  I’ll just likely notice the ghost of it later.  Delayed sorification, I suppose.

    2:15pm:  Finally the surgical nurse comes in.  Again asks my name, what surgery I’m in for, etc.  Glad they’re being very careful about this.  Would hate to be sleepily subjected to something like a breast augmentation.  I was getting good-naturedly teased enough by my friends and colleagues about having a “nose job” so to speak, so I can only imagine what hilarity would ensue if I reintroduced myself to society with distressingly larger mammary glands.  Or worse yet, a singularly enlarged one.

    2:17pm:  Okay, I’m in the surgery room now.  I’m introduced to some guy who apparently is assisting the doctor with somethingorother.  I’ve not yet had even a drop of relaxation juice, but I’m already starting to feel a bit woozy and un-sharp, sort of like how I felt during my procrastinatorial evening textbook readathons in law school.

    2:18pm:  Baby it’s cold inside.  Not horribly so, but definitely chilly.  Doesn’t smell like an operating room, or much of anything really.  I suppose that’s okay because, well, wouldn’t it be a shame to have one of my “last” smells for a while be an tingly antiseptic hospitally one?

    2:19pm:  They have me slide into another gurney, and put something (a pillow?) under my shins.  Something else under each foot.  Gently bind my ankles down with… something?  They place my left arm out onto the side of my gurney, and place a small contour pillow under my head.  I feel a minorly constrained, but relatively comfortable now.  At least the waiting is over.  Well, this part of the waiting at least.

    2:20pm:  The anesthesiologist says he’s going to inject me with somethingsomething, which will feel like a bee sting and which will then facilitate somethingelse.  It is, to my pleasant surprise, a very weak bee.  And a fast one.  He (the anesthesiologist, not the bee) doesn’t ask me to count backwards or recite the digits of pi (oh, wait, that was yesterday), and before I know it…

    3:40pm:  I’m in a recovery room of sorts.  Seems pretty open spacewise, but I don’t notice anyone else other than the presence of my friend, a nurse, and behind her, a small bustling group of nurses.  I’m offered, and then happily drink apple juice from one of those rectangular boxes that make you think back to school and environmental waste and dang this isn’t big enough for American appetites!

    4:10pm:  I don’t even remember much in the way of walking, much less getting into my friend’s car.  I do recall being reasonably awake on the way home, and — for a rather unpleasant spell for the last 5 minutes home — pretty nauseous.  Laying down with the car seat back for a few minutes thankfully helps.  In between the leaving and the successful hurling-avoidance, my friend picks up my prescriptions from Safeway.  The nice drug dealer there provides a bottle of codeine+acetaminophen, complete with instructions for guzzling it 15mls at a time, but doesn’t quite get around to including one of those handy plastic mini-cups that lists the oh-so-communist metric-system measurements on it.  I guess that costs extra, but ah, what the heck, a couple of big swigs is probably fine.  Oh, wait, I have one of those mmcups from my mouthwash?  Handy!

    4:45pm:  Checking e-mail, of course!  I love Google Voice and Gmail!  I have nice text messages, e-mails, and heck, I’m happy to even receive a bunch of kind messages in that infernal Facebook message format in my gbox.

    5:05pm:  My friend changes gender.  Oh, wait, no, it’s AdamSitting shift-changing time, and another bloody wonderful friend has arrived to make sure I don’t do anything bad, presumably like watching Ricki Lake reruns, painting my toenails, or engaging in stuffy dialing.

    5:15pm:  Finally getting around to watching that DVD I got from Netflix, “Princess Mononoke.”  Oh wow.  The opening minutes are filled with… spurting, gooey blood and sticky worms.  How charming and apropos!  Oh, and I guess I hadn’t mentioned this:  I can’t breathe at all from my nose.  It’s completely and quite uncomfortably stuffed with, yes, gooey thick blood (though not certain about the worms part).  It’s created such an unpleasant sense of pressure that often when I swallow, I feel like I’m going to burst my nose, my ears, or both.  Gah.  And despite the thickness, the blood is still somehow runny enough to keep saturating the gauze pad under my nose.  This leads to a few too many movie intermissions for pad-changings.  Who was he fighting?  Who is good, who is evil?  Oh wait, this is one of those complex Miyazaki films — it’s not supposed to be cut-and-dry or even make complete sense.  Whew!

    6:00pm:  Speaking of intermissions, it’s time for another pee break.  I mention this not out of any sophomoric interests in providing immature infotainment (I’ve likely done enough of that!), but rather to highlight something fascinating.

    You see, I learned in Portal that “speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.”  Okay, so that invigorating bit of elementary physics my dear is not exactly germane to this current issue, but hear me out!  I’ve put only a minimal amount of fluids into me recently, yet I keep peeing a ton.  Either something strange is going on, or I’ve unwittingly made some sort of captivating scientific discovery.  If my pee were energy, I’d be sought after by the world’s leading scientists.  Oh, and all the baddies, too.  Darn.

    6:30pm:  My surgeon thoughtfully calls, asks how I’m doing.  Er, understandably crappy but not in pain, I tell him.  He verbally nods.  Reminds me of my appointment tomorrow at 8:30am to get the nose-splints out.  Hallelujah!  Oh wait, will I actually be able to breathe through my nose after that?  I forgot to ask that part.  Oops.

    7:00pm:  Roomie is home!  Other friend not-so-regrettably leaves before the end of the movie.  She likes me, but “Princess Mononoke”?  Seemingly not too much.

    7:30pm:  I’m minorly hungry, and know I should be eating and drinking stuff if I want to grow big and strong, er, heal up.  But eating at the moment is no fun.  When mouth is closed, no can breathe, and that’s truly a bummer.  Oh wait!  Now I have an excuse to chew with my mouth open!  Sorry, roomie.  Peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly time!

    8:00pm:  About The Movie DVD featurette!  More e-mail!  Web surfing!  Hmm… maybe I should blog about my septoplastic experience?  Nah, too self-indulgent and kinda gross.

    9:00pm:  Oh, lookie this!  My nose is becoming multitalented; it’s dripping blood out of one nostril and some as-of-yet-unidentified clear liquidy stuff out of the other nostril.  Bravo, bravo!  But no encore tomorrow, please.

    11:53pm:  Debating whether to try out that codeine+tylenol stuff.  I’m in significant discomfort, but not really in pain, and that stuff ain’t gonna help me breathe any better.  But maybe it’ll help knock me out.  ’cause once today just wasn’t enough… 🙂

    1:12am:  I’m still editing/writing this silly thing?  Really?!

    To be (possibly) continued tomorrow.  Pictures not included.  Hyperlinks included telepathically; you know what to Google!



    *  *  *



    Wednesday — day after:


    Oh!  Now it’s tomorrow.  Well, sort of.

    Didn’t sleep much last night at all.  Was afraid sleeping on my side would harm my NewImproved nose, and also figured of bloodying my pillows.  Laying on back wasn’t very comfortable, particularly with the not-being-able-to-breathe-at-all-through-my-nose thing.  The seemingly 42 pounds of pressure in my nose plus my increasingly sore throat also contributed to the unfun.

    But getting the splints taken out this morning by my doctor has made a world of difference!

    • I’m bleeding much less than yesterday.
    • I can actually breathe through both nostrils!  Granted, I’m still pretty stuffed up and am not allowed to blow my nose for the next week (ouch), but… no more awful pressure in my nose and ears!  And I got my appetite back :-).
    I have a followup appointment with my doctor next Thursday.  He’ll be checking to make sure everything’s healing up okay, will do another vacuum job, and soon after that hopefully I’ll have full breathability in my nose.

    Evening Update, featuring Adam’s Stubborn Nose:

    Ah, hopeful optimism, how shortly lived were thee!  My nose-blood has reconfigured itself, clearly with hardened resolve.  It is now reminding me of its presence with not only little random friendly droplets, but also extensive clotting, nearly perfectly blocking my breathing.

    Hmm, maybe this saline mist thingamabob from my doctor will help things.

    sprrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaayeritzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

    Oh.  Hello light-colored bathroom carpet, meet angrily displaced and splattering blood!  (as I once again wonder what that moron interior designer or former house occupant was thinking)

    I think I’ll just go to bed.

    *  *  *

    Thursday — day after yesterday:

    Clearly my brain has been adversely affected, because I quite stupidly set my alarm for 7am in an attempt to be awake for my 8am meeting.  Heck, I have a hard enough time making such meetings without being recently surgeried; what was I thinking?

    I re-woke up around 11:35, with my formerly-gauze-holding-nose patch having unpleasantly transmogrified into an eye patch and my spidey sense suggesting something unfortunate.

    Ah, yes, I missed a 11:30am meeting.  Hmm… groggily reading e-mail on phone… colleague is traveling across campus to meet me…

    I should have heeded my boss’ advice and just canceled all meetings this week.  Stubborn stubborn stubborn!

    *  *  *
    This blog post dedicated to my awesome AdamTaxis & AdamSitters, and all my friends and family who checked to make sure I still had a nose and all that 🙂

  • How employment at prominent tech firms stymies open communication

    Let me first get the disclaimers out of the way:

    • I have worked at Google since March, 2006.
    • I do not speak on behalf of Google in this blog, nor do my views necessarily dovetail with those of other Googlers; I’ve historically held more of a public-facing role than most Googlers, so I have heightened sensitivities.
    • I believe prominent technology firms — certainly including Google — contribute many things to the world that improve communications and societal openness.
    *  *  *

    Do people who work at Google / Yahoo / Microsoft / Facebook resent the fact that they can’t genuinely speak up on the Internet and have to do so anonymously, in most cases?

    This really hit home for me, and I decided that I’d outline the many ways in which I (and presumably many others) are forbidden from communicating in some ways and — more commonly — feel uncomfortable expressing ourselves in specific ways or on a variety of topics.
    Stuff I am not allowed to discuss…
    This is perhaps the most obvious category, the list of what employees like me are typically forbidden from communicating. 
    • Confidential information on products and services my company is working on.
      And this isn’t just due to obvious competitive-market issues, but also for reasons of strategic public communications.  Due to events in the news, something we’re working on (and have been working on for well before these events transpired) might be seen as insensitive or inappropriate… and we know that after things die down a bit, the public will embrace rather than resent this new product or service.  Other considerations:  we might want to release with a bigger splash, we’re required to be silent due to third-party agreements (hardware partners, etc.), we don’t want a ton of public pontificating based upon a very rough alpha, and so on.
    • Issues my company is currently involved with in a legal context or is likely to become involved with in the future
      For Googlers, this means no comments about “search neutrality,” or intellectual property issues with regards to YouTube, and so on.
    • Private user information we’re entrusted with
      Such information is quite stringently controlled at my company (and I’d presume at other companies as well), but aside from the technical and legal (not to mention ethical!) safeguards, I think all of us know that it’d be long-term career suicide to even be perceived as engaging in untoward behavior in this area.  
    Topics that I’m allowed to discuss, but could result (or have resulted) in unpleasant situations
    • Competitors’ products and services
      If I suggest a limitation of iPhones, for instance, I may be accused of being brainwashed by my company (which works on the Android operating system)… or, at minimum, I may simply worry that I’ll be perceived in negative ways (catty, manipulative, etc.).  On the flip side, if I profess love for a competitor’s product, it’s a pretty sure bet someone will retort, “See?  Even Googlers avoid [Google’s product in this space]!” which can then, I kidd you not, snowball into headlines like, “Googlers snub [Google productname] in favor of [non-Google productname].”  Aside from the ridiculous assumption that because I am not using and enjoying both products, there’s the equally-stupid one outspoken Googler = all Googlers.
    • Hot button societal issues that my company is associated with.
      Like Privacy. Net neutrality.  Not only are there often legal circumstances surrounding these issues which make talking about them verboten anyway, it’d be just a minefield to jump into online or offline conversations on such heated topics.  I could be mistaken for someone speaking on behalf of the company (especially since I’ve appeared in Google-official videos about Privacy in the past), or simply harangued as a Google shill.
    • Frustration over my own company’s products
      As much as I love a lot of the stuff that comes out of my company, there are also products and services we provide that, well, I don’t really like or I like but am dying to see improved.  But what could I possibly gain by criticizing them in public?
      • If I feel that the only way to see changes I’m hoping for internally is to apply external pressure, then it’s probably time for me to consider changing employers.
      • If I don’t think many people will even notice my criticisms, why am I even bothering to express them?  Even if just one person sees it — someone who works on that product — I’ve at minimum made someone really sad, and probably just burned a bridge.  Who knows?  That person might be a future teammate, and — depending on the fierceness of my criticisms — that relationship could be mighty uncomfortable!
    And, as someone who may again in the future speak on behalf of my company to the press or at conferences:
    • Controversial views (e.g., anything on religion, politics, sexuality…)
      By articulating such views, especially if forcefully, I could negatively affect the comfort of interactions with or even treatment from journalists, conference attendees, bloggers, etc.
    • Specific blogs, media outlets, bloggers, journalists, etc.
      Whether it’s highlighting certain outlets’ lack of ethics or professionalism, or schaudenfreudically giggling over sophomoric online slugfests, it’d be all fun and games until I was asked to interview with one of these news networks / blogs / newspapers.
    *  *  *
    So what’s the loss here for you and society?
    • You get a less nuanced, less comprehensive view of how and what specific people think.
    • You get less information and fewer (potential useful) opinions from specific people than you otherwise would.  On a related note, more misinformation on the internet remains uncorrected.  In some cases (e.g., minor misconception of a product’s specs), the damage is pretty insignificant.  In other cases, the misinformation is pretty harmful, causing users to do unnecessary work or politicians to make unnecessary or even harmful laws.
    • Causes (political, societal) which could use the open support will often not receive it.
    But we can’t blame Corporate Communications policies
    At least at Google there’s no required pre-screening of our external communications.  We have a pleasantly enlightened group of Corporate Communications folks; they get social media, and they have never to my knowledge discouraged us from blogging, tweeting, etc.  The vast majority of the speech-limits I’ve described above are self-imposed, and certainly cannot be blamed on company policies.
    Anonymity?
    Sure, I and others could write under nom de plumes, though of course we’d still be forbidden from disclosing company secrets and the like.  But in addition to running the risk of being uncovered, I feel that this’d be a slippery slope emotionally; if I started criticizing or defending Google products as someone other than myself, I’d probably feel sucked in to the ensuing debates, and I’d become more and more uncomfortable “living a lie” so to speak.  So, at least for me, writing under something that’s not my real name or dominant internet nickname (“ThatAdamGuy”) isn’t a good choice.
    And on the whole, these big companies are still a net gain for societal communication and openness
    Look at the information shared around the world with Twitter, or YouTube or spread through large networks of friends (and often then ultimately the world) via Facebook.  I may feel occasionally muzzled and frustratingly so, but in the grand scheme of things, I remain convinced it’s for the greater good.

  • Some new AdamMusic (and some highlights from music past)

    I’ve been quite-rightly bugged by some of my friends to play more piano. So yesterday, I stayed at work late (actually ’til nearly 2am!) and banged out some stuff on the now slightly-out-of-tune-but-still-serviceable grand piano in one of the lobbies, filmed with my slightly-old-and-suboptimal-video-recording camera, and documented in this run-on-but-still-comprehensible sentence.

    The first bit is from a mini-medley I improv’d based upon songs from the musical “In The Heights,” which I had the great pleasure of seeing in San Francisco a few weeks ago. 

    [ If you’re curious and/or bored you are welcome to check out my slightly-alternate take ]

    Note that — as with all my medleys — this doesn’t contain an exact replica of the melodies, which I could make… but it’s more fun to stretch them a bit :).  And you’ll probably catch that I was particularly taken with the song Alabanza from the musical, so — unlike in one of my typical medleys — my riffing on this one tune takes up about 80% of the medley.


    *  *  *

    I also recorded last night another one-take quick improv, which I’ve entitled “Western Clouds“; and this one’s without even really a central melody line. One of these days, I’ll actually discipline myself to compose another real, honest-to-goodness non-improv’d piece.  But that takes a lot more than the 5 minutes it takes to flip on my video recorder and play whatever comes to mind!  Perhaps I’ll build upon one of my improvs.

    *  *  *

    Lastly, I thought this might be a nice opportunity for me to highlight a few of my older playings (they’re not really performances, so what should I actually call them?).  I’ll try to make this list a reasonably interesting/diverse cross-section of my work.

    • A medley I composed and performed last summer at the Beantown 2009 Dance Camp.  I have made dozens of these medleys, ranging from somewhat distinct to massively different.  It’s a source of fun and pride for me to be working on these at camp, often incorporating songs I hear just minutes earlier in the camp talent show 🙂
      • NOTE:  You can turn on annotations for this medley when viewing it by clicking on the bottom left icon and selecting the “turn on annotations” link.  Then you can see the names of the songs I’ve drawn from.
    • A longer improv, entitled “Nine out of Line.” [An AdamOriginal, not based on specific songs]

    And the ones below were written/recorded over a decade ago (eeep!)

    • “After Dinner,” one of the more popular ballads I’ve composed.  This, along with other songs below, was recorded on my very aged Ensoniq TS-12 keyboard or formerly-owned (and even more aged) Roland W30 music workstation.
    • Two very short and more upbeat / silly songs:  “Coffee for Silke” and “Heike in the Park,” both recorded for friends who were visiting me (actually over a few minutes while they were visiting :-).
    • Saxy Me!  Short and catchy.
    • Move it!  I used to have this as my answering machine message back when people used answering machines and had fun messages.
    • 5-4-J.  A piece in 5/4.  Written for someone whose first initial is “J.”  What a sappy sap! :p

    Interested in hearing more?  Visit one or more of these pages on my excitingly-named adamlasnik site:

    *  *  *

    Sadly, the vast, vast majority of my hundreds of performances are seemingly lost forever (classical piano recitals, choral performances, jazz band concerts in high school and college, etc.).  Bummer.

    But… I recently bought a dual cassette deck (linked for you kids who may not have seen one in the wild!) because I have the (perhaps overly optimistic) feeling that there may be some ancient AdamMusic on old tapes sitting in my closet.  We’ll see!

    In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this bit of Adam-music’ing!

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  • Photos and the physical, nostalgia, and the why

    I’m getting ready to move.

    Hmm, that sounded more philosophical / metaphysical than I may have intended.

    I’m getting ready to move bodies to a new apartment.  Not exactly sure when or where, but already I’m inventory’ing my things, realizing just how little I own (no furniture aside from a bed, dresser, desk, and some bookshelves) and yet how much crap I’ve accumulated, including both boxes of amorphous stuff and things that, well, should be valuable to me.

    A plethora of photo albums.  Yearbooks.  And yet more boxes filled with an assemblage of handwritten letters, high school newspapers and term papers, and the like.

    These take up space, the physical, to be frank, more than the mental or emotional.  I don’t really think about the distant past all that much, for better or worse.  Don’t really have close friends from high school (my fault more than theirs), and — as a card-carrying geek then as now– let me just bluntly admit that school days were not necessarily my best of days.

    I’ve already scanned thousands of my old photos, probably close to 100% of them in fact, with the very awesome ScanCafe service.  But these new digital files supplement, rather than replace the physical incarnations.

    Or do they?  I was just realizing that — except for doublechecking that all my pics got appropriately scanned — I haven’t spent more than a handful of minutes over the last years perusing my hardcopy photos.  Have you?  And how about those high school yearbooks?  Ten years after high school, have you given them more than a passing glance?

    And whether you answer yes or no… I think a more interesting question is why.  If you still lasciviously / lovingly / longingly linger over your old photos and yearbooks, why?  If not, why not?… and would you actually consider junking them? (or perhaps you already have?)

    Very curious to hear your thoughts… 🙂

  • If you’re going to contact me…

    I love you (you, you, NOT you!), but I don’t always love how you try to contact me.

    I have a few respectful requests:

    • Use my contact page, please.  It’s super-easy to find (top page in Google for “Contact Adam Lasnik”), and I even list my e-mail address on there.  Every time you instead try to get my attention via Twitter or Facebook message or LinkedIn or Flickr, Goddess kills a doggy [hint: that’s bad.]
    • Please use a descriptive subject line.  This precludes “HELP!” or “Hi!” or “Great Pharmacy!!1”
    • Don’t unsolicitedly send me a detailed business plan.  Seriously, this one really pains me to write, but when I receive a heartfelt and amazingly-detailed-with-multiple-attachment business idea for an existing Google product, my cover-my-posterior-reaction is to delete the note without reading it.  Google already gets sued a ridiculous number of times a week, and I don’t want Google (or me!) to be sued for “stealing someone’s idea without credit.” 🙁  On the other hand, bug reports, a clever feature request or observation… if you can’t find a way to share this info with the appropriate Google team (e.g., via an official forum or form), feel free to fill me in and I’ll do the best I can to get it seen by the right people :-D.

      and, on a related note…

    • Please forgive me.  I’m still behind on my personal e-mail (about 380 messages in my inbox, down from last year’s high of nearly 5,000), so it can take me a while to reply.

    Thanks!

  • A heartwarming story about bridging the culture gap

    A heartwarming story about bridging the culture gap

    A gaggle of giggling young teens — pre-Facebook — pesters this cranky, lonely guy, and asks him… everything.

    Luxembourg, 1998. On a whim and with zero preparation, I’d decided to spend a weekend there, only to face crappy weather and a lack of available nearby hostels. After much schlepping, I wearily ended up in Echternacht at a hostel teeming with a gaggle of giggling teenage kids.

    They ate dinner at their reserved table, and I ate — alone and lonely — in the opposite corner. We largely ignored each other, but they’d occasionally glance over as if to ask:

    “What is that weird, tired looking guy doing at OUR hostel?”

    Restless, I wandered the cobblestone streets to find something to do or see. Before long, I heard a familiar set of young voices behind me. Great :\. I continued walking, but somehow still wasn’t escaping their nattering.

    Almost as if in a cartoon, the young’uns instantly piped down when I peered back at them. Imagine my surprise then, when one of the girls broke from her group and shyly approached me.

    “Hallo!”

    …she said, not quite sure of herself, but with quiet yet visible support from the others.

    Still shocked, I blurted out an un-matching American “Hi there.”

    She smiled broadly, and told me she was from Germany, which I’d already guessed, but then…

    “Are you… by yourself?” she asked? I nodded, even more unsure about where this was headed.

    “Do you want to be our friend?”

    Ah! Such sweetness and innocence and courage! I could have hugged that kid right there.

    Instead, though, I delved into one of the most honest and memorable conversations I had during my time Europe.

    The friends of this girl, Christina, immediately sensed that I did welcome a chat with them. And so, as they approached, they fired off a sometimes cacophonous bunch of questions in German for Christina to translate to me, and then waited eagerly for my response and acting-spokeswoman Christina’s translation.

    A few of the initial questions were admittedly ignorant but nonetheless amusing in their simplicity:

    “Do you [Americans] really eat at McDonald’s every day?”

    and

    “Are all the streets in the States very big?”

    and

    “Do you always go to the beach?”

    It was quickly clear that most of what these kids knew of America they had gleaned from imported American entertainment. D’oh! Baywatch was super-big in Germany, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised at the perception that America is just one big beach flanked with fast food outlets.

    Before long, the kids got braver with their English and started addressing me directly. I figured this was a good time to shift gears a bit.

    “So what do you think of Americans?”

    …I asked.

    They responded eagerly: “Creative!” “FAT!” “Sportive!” “Lazy!” “Funny!” and “Friendly!” But then, one of the boys had a different take.

    “Americans don’t like Germans. They’re friendly to themselves but not to us. From the War.”

    I should have been prepared for this. I’d been living in Germany for a bit and the issue of the Holocaust often came up. People — especially college kids — often wanted to know… What did Americans think of Germany? Of Germans? Of the War? And why? Was it fair to perpetuate the Guilt? Those that brought up this subject with me often did so almost randomly, over beers and fries, with intensity but respect.

    This same curiosity, combined with innocence, was so clearly present in these young kids. On one hand, they saw America as everything “cool”… but still so distant geographically and emotionally. There was a marked admiration for, yet confusion about and partially even disdain for Americans, perhaps no different than that reflected by our own general ignorance of other cultures.

    But here there was such a heartwarming yearning from them to connect to me, to connect with the America I was an impromptu representative for. They continued asking me questions for nearly an hour, and drew closer to me all the while.

    “You are nice!” gushed one of the girls out of the blue, prompting some bantering in German that I understood more than they realized. Not long after this, Christina — by now pretty emboldened and unshy — asked, “Can I have your address?”

    “Sure,” I replied, amused and flattered, though I couldn’t help but ask, “Why?”

    “Because Julia likes you!” Christina replied with a huge grin, followed by a horrified look on a quickly clued-in Julia, “And she won’t ask you!”


    Silly kids. Playful, wondering, movie-watching, tall, short, blonde, brunette, crush-having, sneaker-wearing kids.

    At that moment I was reminded… that deep down we’re pretty much all the same, everywhere. There’s a child-like curiosity and goodness in everyone that never really dies. Sometimes it gets hardened a bit or repressed or shouted over, but it’s still there.


    I had been tired and lonely and frustrated before I met these kids. And of course I’ve had quite a few rough days since then. But when life accentuates separation and distance, I look back on my encounter in Luxembourg and similar experiences and am reassured that friendship and understanding are still inherently valued. And though I never did hear from Julia, thinking of her and her friends still makes me smile.

  • 25 Things About Me

    [ I resisted for a while, but after spending more than an hour reading friends’ “25 things” on Facebook, I’m sold, and feel obligated to contribute to the meme 🙂 – Adam ]

    1. I had never seen snow coming from the sky ‘til college (grew up in S. California, went to school in the midwest).
    2. I have not eaten fast food in a decade, except for In’N’Out and (rarely) Subway.
    3. I started studying music at age four, wrote my first song around age six, and have always had perfect pitch (which is both a blessing and a curse).
    4. I began e-mailing in 1987, before there was a public internet (on Prodigy Online Services) and was (I’m embarrassed to admit this) a forum leader on AOL in the early 90’s so I could avoid the high per-hour charges.
    5. Except for a friend’s wedding in Canada, I had never ventured out of the U.S. before age 27.
    6. I’ve now been to more than two dozen countries.  Found the friendliest people in Brazil and Denmark, best food in France, best ocean in Australia…
    7. I got a D in “Arranging [music] for Wind Ensembles” from a professor who was angry that I ditched a review session to do a 30 hour Dance Marathon.
    8. I conducted a (small) orchestra for dozens of performances of the quirky, awesome musical “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.”
    9. I ran my own singing telegram business in high school.
    10. I ran a web server (O’Reilly’s “Website”) in my grad school dorm.  I think I spent more time with that and other geek playthings than with my (often very very boring) law school books.
    11. I love a cappella music… both the serene and the hard-hitting kinds and everything in between.
    12. I am Google’s only Search Evangelist, named such largely because my boss (who recruited me) couldn’t think of another title for me to put on my job application. I actually focus on webmaster outreach and I still love my work.
    13. I was apparently viewed as somewhat of a slacker/loser by my law school colleagues and an amiable and savvy networker by my business school colleagues.
    14. Even though I love chatting with, learning from, hanging out with people, I am far more introverted than most people realize.
    15. I have always really really wanted to be taller. Only recently have I more or less made peace with the fact that we shorter guys suffer real discrimination. Can’t do anything about it, have to move on.
    16. I LOVE food. I’m trying to tone up a bit, and believe me, I’m far more delighted to rachet up the exercising and dancing vs. forgoing “sinful” foods like dark chocolate and gelato.
    17. I have composed dozens of songs, but not much of anything in the last decade. I recently bought (expensive!) music notation software to encourage me to get back into the composing world.
    18. Yes, I’m a geek, but I’m mostly interested in how technology makes us more productive and (genuinely) brings us together socially. The latest-and-greatest-shiny-thing doesn’t move me.
    19. I used to have horribly awful posture, and now I just have mildly bad posture. Still trying to work on it.
    20. I learned most of what I know and love about lindy hop from two teachers who moved far away and now openly have divorced themselves from the dance world. This still makes me very sad.
    21. I was voted “Most Studious” in my HS senior year (despite rarely studying), sharing the award with a girl I had a massive crush on (who, last I heard, dropped out of college).
    22. I have traveled internationally a ton for work and am grateful for the professional and other opportunities this has given me, but few believe me when I emphasize the stressfulness and un-glamorness of it.
    23. I only keep up with one TV show (“LOST”) and don’t even own a TV.
    24. I’m probably one of the few straight guys who loves musical theatre, enjoys step aerobics, doesn’t drink beer, and yawns at the thought of car shows and football games.
    25. I recently discovered yoga and now love it. My lower back initially protested, but has now seen the light, too :-).

  • A cappella birthday silliness — much of it composed by me

    Back in high school, I was not only a band geek, but a choir geek as well!  But I did far more than just sing your standard choral music :-D.  I loved composing, arranging and teaching, and often performing short songs in vocal quartets, and I founded my very own singing telegram business (“The Birthday Brigade”) to support this habit.

    For $3, students could hire us to sing a special birthday song to one of the friends—in class, no less!  We even had teachers and administrators hiring us to sing for other non-students.  And by the end of our two year run, we earned enough money to purchase a sizable first-ever music CD collection for our school library (and back in the 80s, this was a big deal!).  Oh, and we also sang the national anthem at various school sporting events; one of the trios even got to sing at Dodger Stadium!

    Anyway, in the middle of our second year, we decided to sit down at my place and record a bunch of our songs.  We didn’t do many takes, we didn’t use a fancy studio (just my dad’s old tape recorder!), and the results were certainly not perfect, but I think we did manage to capture a lot of the fun and also show off our love-of-singing :-D.

    And alas, the “album” below (from 1989!) is missing some of my favorites, including “Mr. Roger’s [Neighborhood] Birthday” and “A Muppet Birthday” and no doubt others I’ve forgotten about.  But I hope you enjoy the songs nonetheless. [and feel free to see more detailed notes below the player widget]

    (I’m singing on all of these except “Love Me Tender”; I think tenor on all tracks)

    1) “And Why Not!” – music and lyrics composed by me.
    2) “Ole!” – lyrics (as they are) composed by me, and music arranged by me (original melody from “Mexican Hat Dance”)
    3) “Love Me Tender” – not sure who composed/arranged this one; the girls might have arranged this one themselves
    4) “Star Spangled Banner” – composed by Francis Scott Key, not sure who did this arrangement
    5) “Beethoven Birthday” – all composed by me, with deep apologies to Mr. Beethoven
    6) “Celebrate!” – music by me, and I think (but am not sure) that I wrote the lyrics, too
    7) “Merry Christmas” – sung to the tune of “We Wish you a Merry Christmas” with a tiny bit of lyrical substitution. I think I did the arrangement for this one.
    8) “See ya!” – composed, um, on the spot 😉

    *  *  *

    Edited on December 20, 2008 to add:
    I’ve gotten in touch with most of the people in this recording, which I previously didn’t list because I wanted to make sure my memory wasn’t failing me!  My fine co-singers were Robin (bass), Jen aka “Moose” (alto), Stacey (soprano) and Cathy (soprano).  Oh, and Robin insists that it was *his* tape recorder.  I’m still not convinced of that 😀 [and, yeah, I should ask ‘em if they’re comfortable having their last names here, and if so, I’ll add ‘em so they really get their fair notoriety :-P)