Surf Roots, Software Thoughts

I spoke previously about a few really awesome datasets.  I claimed my favorite was Enron emails from 150 employees.  Now that I’ve started playing with the Enron corpus, I’ve decided that the best thing to do is post the funniest emails I stumble across.  Here’s the first of hopefully many:

From:     Bass, Eric
Sent:    Friday, November 16, 2001 1:11 PM
To:    Love, Phillip M.; Blanchard, Timothy; Ryder, Patrick; Farmer, Daren J.; Smith, Jay; Olsen, Michael; Parks, Joe; Baumbach, David; Hull, Bryan; ‘val.generes@accenture.com’; Lenhart, Matthew; ‘kevin.a.boone@accenture.com’; Winfree, O’Neal D.; Rabon, Chance; Mills, Bruce
Subject:

I’m trying to get a feel for everyone’s desire to play PAINTBALL in the next few weeks.  This would obviously not be sponsored by Enron b/c Enron doesn’t have enough cash to buy anything right now.

So let me know if you would be interested and, if so, when you would be available to go.   The cost should be around $30-40 a person.

Please forward to anyone I have forgotten or might be interested.

-Eric

Note the date: November 16, 2001.  Enron went under at the end of 2001, according to Wikipedia.  I feel a little strange posting these with names attached to them, but I suppose since this is public data I might as well go for it.

California really needs to change their rules about what time bars can close.  2:00am is way, way too early.  I’m all for a 4:00am close time, though I would also be happy with 3:00am.

I suppose I’ve been spoiled being in Europe and Shanghai, because bars don’t really close in either of these two places.

My new found respect for Matt Damon first came with the “I’m Fucking Matt Damon” video:

Then came his opinion on Palin:

He has a sense of humor; he’s not affraid to make fun of himself; and he and I share similar political stances.  Plus his movies are unbelievable.

Bonus video:

My two favorite songs right now:

Van Halen - Dreams

Paul Simon - You Can Call Me Al

Damnit these songs are good. I don’t know what to do with myself they’re so good. I think I’ve listened to each of these songs at least 20 times each in the past week.

I had to share this story right away.  Every new Google employee at the Shanghai office has to do a performance.  I originally wanted to do something funny and embarrassing, but all of my ideas seemed infeasible given the circumstances: I don’t have access to a Value Village, whig shop, or any 80s retro haven for that matter.  I decided to just play a song on the community guitar.  I choose Phish - Punch You in the Eye.

I introduced myself to the entire office and sat down to play.  I turned on the amp and clicked on the overdrive.  Immediately the amp made that classic overdrive sound, and just as I gave the strings a single stroke, the crowd, all at once, said, “Woooooooow” as they marveled at that classic rock ‘n roll introduction.  It was awesome.  The performance went well after that :).

My claim to fame has been rock ‘n roll, and I never would have expected it.  Though I’m not too surprised I suppose; I am interested by many of the things the Chinese do day to day that probably seem like a walk in the park to them.  It’s fun noticing our differences and then enjoying them all together :).

All beer in the US is pasteurized.  I believe this is because the FDA requires beer to be boiled in hopes of making it safer to drink.  It turns out that unpasteurized beer, pretty much all the beer in Europe, tastes much better.  I’ve had Czechvar (Budvar in Czech), Paulaner, Piraat, and many others pasteurized and unpasteurized, and the difference is huge.  FDA, please allow at least imported beer to be unpasteurized.

The fellers over at AGoodReed were super generous and got me some travel gifts.  I got a sick surf backpack with the bare essentials — wetsuit bag, skate carrier, insulated cooler pack, laptop case, etc.  I also got a hip AGR (TM) shirt to rock at the hottest clubs in Europe.  Check it out:

That’s 5XL right there. Thanks, dudes :).

Savan inspired me with his post about himself to spend a quick bit to say more about myself.  I’ll give you the short version.

I’ve made a few recent changes to my blog, namely I changed the title to “Surf Roots, Software Thoughts.”  I did this because I’ve always considered myself as having a split personality.  When I’m home in Los Angeles I’m mostly outdoors either surfing, snowboarding, or doing something else active.  However, when I’m in Seattle I’m mostly indoors working on some sort of programming project.  Even my friends are considerably different in these two lives.  My friends from high school all share the same outdoor interests as me, and we always have a blast encouraging each other into big waves or down steep sloaps.  On the other hand, most of my friends in college are computer science classmates, and we tend to crack nerd jokes and talk about software.

I grew up in Los Angeles running between the snow, ocean, and soccer field.  I always wanted to spend my time with my family and friends doing the things that I loved doing.  School wasn’t really one of those things until I started pursuing computer science.  I was inspired to learn more about computers while playing Counter Strike in 9th grade.  From there I learned some programming languages and started making awful dynamic websites (I wish they still existed for comedic purposes).  I came to Seattle to study Computer Science at the University of Washington and became much more of an academic.  I had a new found appreciate for learning, and Seattle was a great place for me to get started with my academic discovery.  I found myself being limited a lot by the Seattle Weather, so I spent most of my time indoors behind a computer.  I think this was good for me, because I always thought I could do better academically than I did in high school.

I’ve made some great friends in Seattle, and I’ll be very sad to say goodbye to them eventually.  However, I’m looking forward to eventually being closer to my best friends and family and in a place where I can surf and snowboard regularly and also crank on some (hopefully) awesome software projects.

But before I head back south I have a minor to finish, some backpacking to do in Europe, and some work to do in Shanghai, China for Google.  I’m pretty excited about the next few months; all I need to do is stop buying things.

Bonus image: here’s a good comparison:

What’s a gaper, you ask? A gaper by definition is someone who dresses for looks. What that means in snowboard speak is someone who dresses strait ’70s, ’80s, and maybe even early ’90s. The colorful Husky Snowboard Team tore through Stevens yesterday, hooting and stretching. We BBQed in the parking lot and celebrated the last weekend of the snow season.

Here’s me (the hat says, “SR-71 Blackbird” with a picture of the jet - it’s my favorite jet; it’s also hard to tell that I have a mustache):

And here’s the team (minus a few people):

I can’t wait for gaper day next season. Just for reference, this was Dustin and I at New Years gaper day earlier this year:

I’ve altered my fauxhawk to a full-on mullet. I actually liked the fohawk better, but at least people will realize the joke easier with the mullet.

I’ll start blogging about real things soon.