Posts

Posted on

Evelyn: Paternal Review

It’s true that life changes when you become a parent… but one thing I did not expect is the perspective on life… including the media.  Shiiiite… why does every freakin’ movie you watch have to do with something about fatherhood?!! 

“Evelyn” is based on true story of yonder years when old and outdated law in Ireland prevents a father from regaining his children when his wife leaves him.  The sheer will of the father to fight the system to regain the only people that matter in his life, things climb up the ladder to the Supreme Court, facing for entire children in Ireland.

As a father, this movie was a heartbreaker.  I can’t imagine how crazy I would be if I were in his shoes.  As much as I could care less about Pierce Brosnan, he did awesome job in making me not hate him in this movie.  I can only imagine that I would go crazy if my kids were taken away from me and was forbidden from ever seeing my kids again.  It not only broke my heart seeing another father suffer, but made me furious at seeing how an entity that was created to watch over us, like a government, could become so heartless.

We have enough problem in this world where parents no longer want their children, and so we surely don’t need the world stop the parents that actually do want their kids from seeing them!    From the get go, I was biased towards the movie.  I will acknowledge that.  Yet this movie re-invigorated the true meaning of being a father, despite the odds, despite what others say.

A child’s life is hugely impacted, affected, and shaped by the parents.  I pray that I will be a one to match…  The movie is a must-see for anyone who is a parent or one who will be one.

Posted on

How I came to be where I am today – Professional Perspective

I am blessed in the sense that I’ve always known what I wanted to do when I grew up.

Back when I was 10 years old, watching all those sci-fi based cartoons (like “Futureboy Conan”, “Galaxy Express 999”, and “Mazinga Z”), I have always wanted to be a rocket scientist! Little did I know that I actually would be one!

Well, it wasn’t that simple. It was rather I knew what I didn’t want to major in college. I hated reading and writing so anything literature, history, poli sci… I couldn’t draw or paint for crap. Music? Ha… That eventually left only sciences and maths. Well within science, I hated biology (can’t stand blood) and chemistry (too conceptual and tiny scaled!). I loved physics but even within that, I didn’t enjoy electrics portion at all. I am a visual person so I was more keen & drawn towards mechanics. However, I still wanted to major in mathematics as I excelled in that having taken AP Calculus and the AP test in junior year. I loved maths and believe it or not, I started to “see” things in life in the manners of derivatives and integrals!

But my mom, being more “practical”, she strongly suggested I get into the engineering major instead. So mix the mechanics and maths together, and you get mechanical engineering! Within that, the specialty that I found myself into was aerospace engineering.

After the degree and more studying, I landed on my first job at United Space Alliance doing “proximity operations”. To clarify, it involved in astronautics and physics of a space vehicle (Space Shuttle) maneuvering in close proximity to the target vehicle (International Space Station). It was fun at first but quickly lost interest due to few factors, one being a manager who was out to get me, per se. But also, I just didn’t fit into the job, or so I felt.

So I left the job to be working at Boeing as “entry aerodynamics engineer” for the Space Shuttle. It involved lots of trajectory analysis and its performance during entry. It was just vanilla. But then huge excitement got added in. I was soon exposed to the world of CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) thanks to David. He was hired into our group as the sole CFD expert, and he was just that: an expert. Over the two years or so of his time with our group (he left to different job), I picked up a lot on pre- & post-processing CFD runs, and eventually delved into the world of CFD using DPLR and Overflow, NASA-developed CFD codes, all thanks to David. Lots of times, it felt overwhelming trying to learn from him mainly because he knew so much!

And when he left the company, I was worried at first if we would transition well. I guess I did learn some things from him after all as we seem to have transitioned well with new contract work and flight support. I think CFD is becoming more and more of what I want to do professionally. Analyzing the data, figuring out if the maths is making sense, and processing the data visually, it just feels like… me.

The big point was that CFD was never in my original job description. The opportunity came out of nowhere and was given to me via a true CFD expert, and I am blessed because of it. So just keep your mind and brains open, and learn whatever you can!

Posted on

Different kind of review: Manufacturer RMA Service

RMA stands for Return Merchandise Authorization and is usually used and applied when an item, usually electronics or computer parts or systems, is damaged and/or broken.

I have had to RMA a good share of computer parts as well as electronics for personal usages.  So over time, you begin to associate good RMA experiences with good brands.  Here’s the personal breakdown.

The Good:

Logitech –  I own a LOAD of their computer parts and accessories, mainly computer mice, webcam, and wireless headphone.  Logitech by far has been the best experience when it comes to requesting RMA for a replacement.  Case in point, my Logitech Freepulse bluetooth stereo headphones.  They are great but the power button began to fail.  I called them up, explained the situation, mailed in my item, and within a week, I had my brand new replacement!  They get 90+ score from me!  I have only had to RMA twice and both were very pleasant.

BFG Tech – I purchased their video card two years ago… it was Geforce 6800.  Well, it died within 3 months.  🙁  However, thanks to its lifetime warranty, I was able to get replacement within couple of weeks and since they no longer produced that model, they freely upgraded mine to 6800GT!  😀  Now, that’s freakin’ service!

The Bad:

Dell – Even if it’s because they are such a big company now, it’s no excuse for having such narrow-minded and inflexible service!  My brother’s laptop died just a bit after its 1-year warranty and that was that.  It was cheaper for him to get a new laptop!  Blah…

The Ugly:

Sapphire / Althon Micro –  Then there are truly ugly ones.  Althon Micro handles the tech service for Sapphire Technologies as a sub-contractor.  My video card died on me.  It was X1900XT 512 MB monster… so after some talking, I mailed mine in.  First they tell me it works fine but being a computer nerd myself, I didn’t buy it and told them to find me a replacement.  After six long weeks of waiting, they can’t find a replacement so they offer me a downgrade!  The nerve!  😡  See above about BFG Tech!  They wanted to give me X1950Pro, which, though it may sound like an upgrade, in performance, it surely isn’t!  After two months (total time), I tell them to ship my original X1900XT back with confirmed letter stating that it’s in working condition, yet they tell me that they sent it to Hong Kong for “repairs”!  WTF?!!  If it was in “working condition”, why did they send it to HQ?!!  They eventually “give in” and ship me an X1950XT!  By far, the worst RMA experience thus far!  I won’t buy their cards anymore.

The Rundown:

You treat your customers well, we will come back.  Again and again.  You treat us like crap, we boycott you.  For good!  Learn the freakin’ lesson!!

Posted on

Anna’s Two Teeth

Anna’s all growing up… these past two days, she lost her first two teeth!

It was a painful (and loud) ordeal… but we are proud of her for dealing with it. She lost the 2nd one while eating strawberries. And then we went to local Ben & Jerry’s to celebrate!! It was good times…

Posted on

Allergy Cure of the Day: Rooibos Tea

Well, if you have allergies as badly as I do, you try just about anything (except for needles!!).  I have tried the neti pot without much success.  I may try again before the allergy season ’cause I started using neti pot in the peak of it and it was too late to help… so is the theory of my “resident mother” at my work place.

Well, my other “mother” read on this thing called rooibos tea that supposedly cured this one article writer.  So I got mine from Amazone.com and it smells… interesting.  Here’s to ridding of allergies…

Posted on

The Pursuit of Happyness: Personal Review

I’ve been afraid of many things before… and weirdly enough, watching this movie is in that same place.  Wondering why?  It’s because I can see myself in that same place.  Losing everything, having nothing going right, and having to sacrifice just about anything so that he could provide.  For his son.

I cried practically from the get go of the movie.  I felt and saw every bit of this man’s struggles and heart tearing life… The last 5 minutes of the movie… was the best tear jerker in my life.  Fatherhood is something no man should ever think lowly of… he sure didn’t.

I can only pray that I can be that committed to my family and our well being.  I don’t own a home.  Life may be hard but I have a family to be thankful for… roof over our heads, food to eat.  Watch this movie … to understand the heart of a father.

Posted on

Ask not what your God can do for you…

… but what you can do for your God!

That’s what I’d say now. I used to say, borrowing from the words of JFK, “Ask not what your church can do for you, but what you can do for your church!” But I am realizing lately that even that is a selfish statement and request. In fact, in light of discussion with PS after tonight’s Bible study, I am realizing how selfish I have been and am… and how selfish we all are.

We grew up with everything expecting to be certain way… be it same or different from what/how others perceive that as. And because of that, we, more than another person, are more prone to resisting change. That’s not necessarily bad… but it is when that change is mandated by God! I feel that more than often, that I myself am that factor that resists the change that God wants to bring.. for the good of His kingdom! John Ortberg spoke of many things in the following video from this year’s PGF (Presbyterian Global Fellowship) but one thing that stuck to me was when he used the word “conduits” to imply our role to bring God’s Kingdom to hear on earth.

The way double pane windows and thermos work is by using vacuum inbetween two materials. Vacuum is what prevents the heat from being transferred between two places. If you wanted the heat to be transferred faster, you’d either use better conducting fluid (like water) or just use metal inbetween. Sometimes, we Christians act more like vacuum than water and keep from God’s kingdom from coming down to here on earth. And we must stop that by being less and less selfish. More of Christ, less of me. Less of you.