Brelig.com

Whatever people are going to call this year… here’s to my list of 2010 resolutions. Yes, I’ve given in…

Revive my blog
Thus why not publish my first blog post in over a year with my list of 2010 resolutions? It takes a ton of time but I I’m kind of envious of everyone who actually blogs.

Update: Ok this item is a huge stretch. I had written this post on 1/1 but then took me 4 weeks just to get around reviving my blog and posting this. So we’ll see how this goes.

Wildflower 2010
Hitting the sad realization that the peak of my athletic life may be on the downturn. Warren convinced me he’ll teach me how to swim (at least decently) if I sign up for Team and Training and do the Wildflower Triathlon this May. 40km bike and 10k run sound doable… 1.5k swim?? Let’s hope the wetsuit makes me buoyant. Time commitment is rough, 6 mornings a week… but rides along the Marin coast at 8am on a Saturday is starting to sound better than tequila shots at Eastside West the night before.

A lil patience
So ya… a year ago I was 24 and nearly engaged. Now 25, single again, and most of my good friends are well into serious relationships. It’s no good to get anxious and often nets in the wrong decision… so ya, patience. Heck, by SF standards I’m still barely even fresh meat at Balboa’s cougar den.

It’s not what you do, it’s who you do it with
Past few years definitely put more time and effort in work, business stuff… then building out friendships and relationships. Heard the quote the the other day… true story.

Read… books
Going to set the bar pretty low on this one… read 3 books from cover to cover this year. That’s not too bad, right? Here’s what my list currently includes

Blindside - Michael Lewis (currently reading)
Atlas Shrugged - Ann Rand (stopped halfway through last time)
Prayer for Owen Meanie - John Irving (got a good recommendation on this one)
Any other recommendations?

While I have a handful of others, I’ll cut them off for now. Looking back a year ago, it’s crazy how much can happen over one year. Heck, looking back past week it’s crazy to see how much can happen. Here’s to twenty-ten

Crazy week… so quick post.

So the cover of this week’s Business Week is: ‘Managing by the numbers: How IBM improves productivity by tracking employees’ every move.‘ I couldn’t even hold in my laughter and no one was around to here it.

Isn’t that sentence contradicting itself. I had to laugh because A) I used to work at IBM and lets just say they are not known for their productivity as a whole, and B) It’s this kind of crap (tracking every move) which makes it so friggen ineffecient.

Anyway, all I have for now. I’ll post more later.

So my friend ‘larry’ (for anonymity) never ceases to amaze me with his spelling ability. Just to preface, his education includes high school, college, masters, and an MBA. Yes, this is really how ‘larry’ attempts to spell:

• I was thinking we can kick random stuff, like a chicken or mickel vicks head
• Sounds great! I’ll bring the stakes over (in reference to steaks, like t-bone steaks)
• Are you guys weighting on me?
• pensil (icon publish on an application)
• I’m sick of the bar seene

ps… this is a running post, there are more to come

So this is a off-topic, non-tech post… but basically here’s the story:

• Received a $55 ticket for parking my car in a ’street cleaning’ area
• Attempted to pay online, citation would not pull up
• Finally remitted ticket via snail mail with check
• Today: Receive a notice I know owe $139 since the ticket was overdue
• I call in a politely talk to the ‘City of Daly City’. My envelope was postmarked on the 18th, however it had to be postmarked by the 17th
• Manager refuses to be polite nor offer an alternative for paying the ticket. States there are no possible recourse actions or appeals.

First of all, this is BS. Its very evident throughout the process you are dealing with a municipal entity and not a business. Prices are up to their discretion, they have no competition, and they have no incentive to offer appropriate service… they are effectively a monopoly. What if you were one day late on your Verizon bill and they added a late fee of 3x your bill?

I’ve never had good experiences with municipalities, however I’ve noticed it’s increasingly bad in California. I love it here, but the state and the cities are out to nickel and dime you. State tax is 8.25%, photo red light tickets are $400, yearly business renewals are $850, etc.

Although very pissed off and frustrated, I also feel fortunate to live in a capitalist country where these monopolistic entities are rather rare. What if there was only one cell phone provider, one airline… God knows what service we’d receive.

Moral to the story… Cities are not a business, they will gauge you every way possible so simply avoid them and pay your parking tickets on time… and The City of Daly City sucks.

So a month back I attended a Interplay, a niche conference covering the new Social Network Gaming market. It was a decent conference and a $100 and 8 hours later - I felt it was well worth the investment.

Three weeks after Interplay, I missed attending Social Gaming Summit 2008. #$#$*@! For just $399 and a whole day off of work I could have listened to the exact same panelists talk about the exact same stuff (seriously, compare the panelists). I really let my company down by not going. Plus I missed all the awesome male flirting and those forced awkward/BS conversations. You really just want to fill up your damn coffee but have to act entertained from some dude in blue shirt and khakis talk about his next ‘YouTube.’

^^ Conference flirting

Back to reality…
One of my biggest pet peeves is the over saturation of ‘[Fill in Blank] 2.0’ conferences. When is it too much? What is the real ROI of a whole lost day of hearing the same stuff? Seriously look at this partial list of all ‘technology’ conferences coming up (http://upcoming.yahoo.com/tag/technology/).

I very rarely attend a conference. A) It has to be cheap (under $150), and B) it has to be practical (i.e positive ROI). Finally, attending too many conferences can start to lead to ‘group-think’ and hinders your ability to think creatively.

I recently met the founder of Chesspark at a typical valley conference. After the usual BS/male flirting, he informed of his new venture: WuChess. Online chess while watching Wu-Tang videos – pure genius! There are thousands itching to play some online chess with a lil Wu bumping in the background. The best part, this incredible combo only sets you back $49.95 per year. If you think that may be a little steep, check out the sweat ninja chess pieces that you play with and you’ll see the fee is justifiable.

Clearly this company has success written all over it. My focus would be contemplating the next inevitable investment round while keeping scalability in mind. Their network infrastructure better be sound; streaming Wu Tang videos and running a chess social network for like millions of users is no easy task. Poor scalability handling could cause this billion dollar idea to potentially fall second place to NellyChess. The last thing WuChess wants to be known for is ‘the Friendster’ in the blossoming online rap/chess world.

Reality view:
While I’m a big fan of crazy out-of-the-box ideas, you kind of got to sit back and ask yourself the size of your audience and the demand. A) It’s pretty expensive and B) Blasting ‘Method Man’ interferes with contemplating chess moves.

So a year ago I moved from the life of sixth street, tailgating, and tex-mex known as Austin, TX to University Ave, Sand Hill Road and Palo Alto, CA. I’ve lived in the bay area for 12 months now and learned to love, hate, and laugh at the roller coaster known as ‘Silicon Valley’. Basically this blog will be series of satirical Silicon Valley rants and the craziness that is web 2.0… luckily I’m just a young pup and missed the real craziness of bubble 1.0.