Thanksgiving Weekend

Hope everyone had a long and delightful Thanksgiving weekend. Mine was quite busy, but it was a great weekend overall. Some highlights:

- As expected, we had the "traditional" hot-pot dinner with the family on Thanksgiving day. This year's dinner was a little more special with our honorary guest, Irene, joining us. It was also Sally's first Thanksgiving. She got to enjoy some tastier food (a real bone instead of dry dog food), and join in our family photos, so I think she had a good Thanksgiving too.

- Put up the Christmas tree. At first I wanted to wait until I got a skirt (for the tree, not myself you pervs!), but finally decided that I would just suck it up and try to squeeze it in later. The tree looks good, definitely adding a lot of holiday spirit to the townhouse, but I'm hoping to spice it up with at least a few more ornaments this year. We'll see how it goes.

- Did not participate in Black Friday shopping, but ended up getting crushed by the crowds at Woodfield anyways, having lunch at Texas de Brazil located in the mall. I highly recommend the place to anyone who likes meat (as I do). Their salad bar is actually really good too. It's a lot like Fogo, except I think the selection is better. The quality may be slightly lower, but it's still excellent overall.

- Saturday was the busiest day I've had in a long time. Played in our church's annual "Turkey Bowl" during the day, and even though it was only flag football and not tackle, I still ended up quite bruised and sore. Even Sally got a little bit of action that day, sporting her new Bears jersey:



I love that picture. Look at the perfect blocking technique. She should be an offensive lineman for the Bears!

At night, attended Josh and Jenny's wedding reception. It was really good to see a lot of old faces there, and of course to wish the happy couple well. Unfortunately, I think I ended up with a slight case of food poisoning, which lingered through the rest of the night and most of Sunday.

Nevertheless, I decided to suck it up and briefly stop by Moe's Cantina in honor of Bua's bday, before finally running out of gas for the night. Again, it was great to see everyone out, although I did end up taking one of the worst shots ever before I left - BAD IDEA. It's one thing to have 3 Wise Men when you're expecting it, but a whole new level of terribles to down that shot when you think it's something much weaker (i.e., SoCo & Lime). Stupid Ciszek...

- Congrats to Dennis and Lauren on their engagement! Another one bites the dust.

- On a personal note, it definitely felt like an extra special Thanksgiving this year for me. I know it is beyond cliche to say this, but I really am so very thankful for all of my family and friends who have been there over the years. I know I take you all for granted at times, but whenever I stop to think about things, I really do treasure the people who have lasted in my life for so long. It's not easy to stay consistently there throughout the many bumps and bruises, the twists and turns that we all go through, and we all fall short and let each other down from time to time. So it says a lot in my mind, when I think about all of the people who have always unconditionally supported me and unselfishly blessed my life, no matter what comes up in our lives.

Also, as I mentioned before, one of the best things about this time of year is to see the old faces, especially people who have moved to other parts of the country (or even other parts of the world). I know that life takes each and every one of us to different places, and that it's only human nature to be "out of sight, out of mind" when friends and loved ones leave Chicago. But I guess that just means we need to remember to cherish the time we do have with them that much more. I am definitely thankful that I got to revisit and see a lot of old friends this weekend that made the trip back home.

Most of all, I'm thankful to know that God is constantly watching over me and that He never gives up on my life - no matter how many mistakes I make, or how far I wander off in my own world at times. Though it really hurts when He lets me fail on my own, and I wish I didn't have to stumble through so many self-inflicted struggles before starting to learn what faith means, I know that everything happens for a reason. I've been seeing that doing things my own way can only take me so far, but that only by fully sacrificing my own control and giving up my selfish way of thinking, can I even begin to feel truly complete and right with my life.

Anyways, didn't mean to get too sappy or deep there, but I guess I do want to share why Thanksgiving means so much to me this year. I'm definitely thankful for being led to baptism during the past year, and for the many unexpected blessings in my life that have followed in the months since. I'm thankful even for the difficult moments, because I realize that unless we have faith, it is the only way we can grow and change for the better. Not only this, but as the famous Bible verse goes, "we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

Have a happy holiday season!

Goodbye to You



This morning, the reports came out that the White Sox had traded away Jon Garland to the Angels for Orlando Cabrera. With his contract up after next season, it's wasn't a complete surprise, although at first I thought it would be for Miguel Cabrera instead. So far, I'm undecided how I feel about the deal from a purely baseball perspective, but baseball aside, the news was still kind of bittersweet.

Although Garland had a very mediocre 2006 season, and has never fully lived up to his potential, it's still kind of sad to see him go. In some ways, it marks the end of an era and signals the beginning of a new direction.

In the end, every Sox fan will always (or at least should) feel thankful for his contributions throughout the 2005 World Series run. I will personally remember him for the complete game he pitched in the ALCS, taking a picture of him catching the "first pitch" from my friend at a game in 2006, and of course, his sluggish demeanor on defense.

Anyways, going to the ballpark won't be quite the same next year without him. We'll miss you, Jonny boy, and certainly wish you the best in Anaheim (except when you pitch against the White Sox, of course).

Nokia Talk

One of my personal weaknesses over the years, if you can call it that, is Nokia phones. Ever since the first days I started carrying a cell phone, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Nokia-made handsets, and this is still true for me up through the present day. This past week's press release of their new N82 model (which looks fantastic) has inspired me to share some of my thoughts on Nokia and their phones.

Back in the late 90's, when cell phones started becoming much more common in people's lives, I remember Nokia as being at the forefront of the industry. The company became known for its colorful interchangeable faceplates, the catchy little Nokia ringtone, and quickly gained the "cool-factor" in pop culture. Some of us may remember the modified 8110 model being featured in the first Matrix movie, or Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu carrying their colorful 8200 series handsets in the first Charlie Angels movie. Others (like myself) desired to have the sleek chrome silver 8800-series phone which, much like the BMW M5 or Nissan Skyline, were always tantalizingly out of the typical college kid's price range.

More importantly, I associated Nokia with simple designs that just plain worked and worked well. Personally, I appreciated the fact that Nokia phones were pretty basic in every way - easy-to-navigate menus, customizable shortcuts, a small but well-organized display, and sturdy hardware that could withstand its share of bumps and bruises. Putting all of the style factor and marketing aside, the bottom line is that Nokia phones always got the job done, and were reliable and pretty cool to boot.

As we've all seen, a lot has changed in the cell phone industry since those days. In the past several years, quite a few trends have emerged in the cell phone industry - and many of these developments have seemed to leave Nokia behind in the process, where it is no longer the dominant presence it used to be. Especially in the U.S., we no longer think of Nokia as the top dog it once was, but as just another phone manufacturer among dozens, but which happens to be one of the bigger ones.

One of the trends I noticed is that flip phones started to become much more popular in the early 2000's. While early versions of flip phones were flimsy and bulky at first, manufacturers steadily improved the hardware to be slimmer and more durable. As the technology improved, many people traded in their traditional "candybar" type phones in for the so-called "clamshell" designs that offered larger screens and more comfortable ergonomics. From the beginning, Motorola was the leader in this trend, scoring most notably a couple years ago with their wildly popular RAZR model.

Meanwhile, Nokia was quite slow to adopt this trend and continued to stick to the old candybar form factor for as long as it could. Eventually, they caved to market pressure and began to produce some flip-phone models, but by this time they were well behind the rest of the industry. And even now, I think the "bread-and-butter" of Nokia continues to rest in its candybar designs (which I personally like, but I'll talk plenty more on my opinions later). The fact is, I still don't see very many Nokia flip-phones on the market today, and the few models they do have are rather unimpressive.

Another area where Nokia arrived late to the party was in the camera-phone "revolution". I don't know what went on in the boardrooms at Nokia, but apparently they did not take the idea of camera phones very seriously at first. Whereas other manufacturers such as Samsung were quick to capitalize on the exploding popularity of camera phones, Nokia was one of the last cell phone makers to offer any of its phones with a camera of decent quality. As many business analysts have pointed out, this was also a significant factor contributing to Nokia's falling market share during the past few years.

Adding on top of these changes has been the emergence of Blackberry/smartphones among the "common" consumer segment. While business users had already been carrying these "all-in-one" phones for several years, we are now seeing a lot more of the general public adopting them as well. One reason is that the text-messaging boom has driven many of the younger crowd to demand phones with QWERTY-type keypads, which were once found only on RIM's aforementioned Blackberry devices. Additionally, the emergence of higher bandwidth networks has made internet browsing on phones more feasible, thus fueling the demand for larger displays and more advanced operating systems than before. And perhaps most importantly, the prices of these smartphones have been dropping enough so that non-business users can now afford them.

There is perhaps no better example of how the cell phone industry has evolved than in Apple's recent release of the iPhone. Unless you live in a cave, you've seen the commercials boasting about the iPhone's wide range of features. A large touchscreen for easy navigation, multimedia player (for both music and video), 2 megapixel camera, integration with YouTube and Google Maps, even built-in accelerometers to automatically adjust the display orientation.

The fact that the iPhone appeals to so many people, and not just technology geeks, says a lot about what consumers are looking for in a phone these days. Gone are the days in which a phone is merely a way to connect Person A to Person B. In the year 2007, your phone must also function as a camera, entertainment device, schedule planner, navigation system, internet browser, and yes, as a status symbol/fashion statement, all in one package.

I'm not saying that any of this is a bad thing, by the way. I guess my point is that as the cell phone industry has changed over the years, Nokia's place in the market (and its image) have changed a lot too, as a result.

In my opinion, it's not that the company has stopped making solid phones over the years, or vastly changed its culture of doing things for the worse. If anything, arguably the opposite is true. From what I can tell, Nokia's dedication to simplicity and its conservative style of doing things is what allowed competitors to step in with new ideas and claim market share. Sticking to the basics is what made their phones so great to begin with, but their refusal to divert their focus from the core aspects has been costly in terms of industry dominance, as I described above.

This is not to say that Nokia has become some sort of ancient relic in the face of competition from Motorola, Apple, or the whoever next big player in the industry to come along may be (Google, perhaps?). While they have historically been reluctant to stay with with the latest trends, I personally see that Nokia has maintained a solid identity at its core. Despite lagging many of its competitors in innovation and creativity in recent years, they still seem to do a good job of putting out a quality product, once they do catch up. To me, the interesting/admirable part of it all is that there seems to be a certain "Nokia way" of doing things where, even as they are following the innovations of other companies, they still are able to make their phones stand out in their own way.

Which brings me back to the topic that inspired this entry in the first place - that is, the recent release of the Nokia N82:





Although I work in the technology field and I like playing with gadgets as much as the next person, I don't typically obsess about getting the latest electronics as much as your typical nerd. For example, I didn't get my first HD TV or my first iPod until a few months ago (and the iPod was a hand-me-down from my sister after she got a Nano and 2 Shuffles).

But every once in a while, I see some new product that comes out and it almost immediately makes me say to myself, "I gotta get that thing!". Well, that's the reflex emotion that hit me when I first read about the N82 a few days ago. This model is actually quite similar to the N95, which was released not too long ago itself, but for a couple reasons I'll describe shortly, the N82 resonated with me a lot more right off the bat.

To quickly run through some of its features (copy pasting a lot of this from the Nokia website):

- 5 megapixel camera with Xenon flash, Carl Zeiss optics
- Built-in GPS integrated with Nokia Maps
- Digital music player, 3.5mm stereo headphone plug
- N-Gage capabilities
- Video capture and playback @ MPEG4 VGA, 30 fps, TV-out with composite cable
- USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth connectivity
- 2.4" QVGA display
- Orientation sensor (accelerometer)
- Candybar design

There's a lot to like there. The built in GPS and navigation software, for example, is something I would definitely get a lot of use out of. I also think the 3.5mm jack is a must if the music player is to be of any use. It has taken mp3-capable phone makers way too long to start incorporating this feature, if you ask me.

The last feature I mentioned may not show up in the marketing brochure, but I happen to really love the fact that they made this phone with the old-school candybar design. In the age of ultra-slim flip phones or fancy two-way sliders, I still prefer the compact style of the candybar. No hinges, minimal moving parts, it's plain and simple and I like it that way.

Out of everything listed above, the camera is what will jump out about this phone the most. 5 megapixel is certainly among the highest I've seen for a phone camera, although realistically, it's well beyond what I would ever use (for example, I usually set my "real" camera to capture at around 2 MP, even though it's capable of 4).

While I'm on the subject, I guess I should preface these thoughts by saying that personally, I've never been all that enamored by the thought of a camera on a phone. The way I see it, unless the quality is comparable to a real camera, it's just a novelty. There isn't a whole lot of practical usefulness to taking pictures that are grainy, blurry, and hard to transfer from your phone memory.

On my current phone (6230i), the camera quality is actually not bad at 1.3 MP. It's also relatively easy to copy the photos from my phone to my laptop (I've actually posted quite a few of them on my blog or Facebook in the past). But without a flash, any pictures taken indoors or at night still are pretty much worthless. So in "light" of that (har har), what I really like seeing on this N82 model is the xenon flash. Very few cell-phone cameras (if any) incorporate a "real" flash, so this is probably as close as you can get.

As far as the "Carl Zeiss optics" goes, I'm not a big photography expert, so it's well beyond what little bit I know about lenses and such. I guess as Jessica Simpson might say, "I don't even know what that is... but I want it!"

In any case, I think what Nokia is trying to say with their design of the N82 is this - if we're going to incorporate a camera with our phone, we want it done right. Though they initially seemed reluctant to follow other companies that were adding cameras to their phones, it seems that once the decision was made to start adding that feature, they fully committed to making sure the camera would actually be useful to whoever bought the phone.

And in the end, I think that really sums up what I like most about the "Nokia way". When they focus on making a product, they do so with the goal of putting out something that goes above and beyond its competitors, but is still simple enough to be practical for the end user.

A disclaimer - I'm not saying that I love everything Nokia - just that I happen to admire a lot of what they do with their cell phones in comparison to other makers. The N-Gage was a horrible idea (and extremely ugly), and I'll never understand why they decided to use the worst possible connector on their headsets. Seriously, the thing absolutely sucks. I also wish they would cater their high-end products more to the North American markets. I had to get my last 2 phones through UK and Australian vendors, and when I did get them, it was kind of a pain to get them to work fully with my T-Mobile service.

With regards to the N82, until I actually get my hands on one of these things and use it myself (and believe me, I fully intend to do that), I won't know for sure if it's as great as it sounds. So far I like pretty much everything I see, except for the keypad. Not a fan of the small buttons, and I was kind of hoping that my next phone would have a QWERTY layout. Also, the secondary camera in the front (for taking low-quality self-portraits) seems very unnecessary, and the enginerd in me wonders if they had to cut out other parts of the design in order to incorporate that feature. That would be unfortunate.

The one other major drawback I've been reading about is that this initial model can't support the higher speed data networks in the U.S. It's not a dealbreaker for me, because I'm not a heavy Internet browser, but I'd hope that they would fix that before bringing it to this side of the Atlantic (assuming that they eventually do). Especially for a device that costs as much as it does, you'd hate to see it limited by the available networks in this market.

Now if you'll all excuse me, I need to go digging for overseas vendors on the Internet, to get myself a Christmas present.

Pictures from:
http://www.nokia.com/press/photos

For more information visit:
http://www.nseries.com/n82
http://www.nokia.com/NOKIA_COM_1/Press/Materials/White_Papers/pdf_files/Nokia_N82_data_sheet.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N82

Early November Thoughts

I know I find myself saying this a lot lately, but time flies. I really can't believe we're already a week into November already. October flew by, and for that matter, so did September. Thankfully the weather has stayed reasonably warm lately, but it looks like that is about to end soon.

Life has been extremely busy all around. But, as I was telling a friend the other day, it's overall a good kind of busy.

Work is getting more challenging than ever. There has been a lot more responsibility on my part, both in terms of project assignments, but with my involvement in the leadership committee for our site's Asian employee network. Besides the normal engineering stuff, there's also more higher-level work to take on, which is giving me a new perspective on a lot of how this industry works.

I am even taking on the role of party planner right now, to coordinate this "Ice Cream Social" event coming up. It has given me a MUCH greater appreciation for anyone who plans events, like weddings and stuff. Lots of work and little things to stay on top of.

Speaking of weddings, apparently I need to start planning a bachelor party soon. Most likely it will be a cruise of some sort. Anyone with suggestions or advice from your own experience on cruises?

Outside of work, it seems like it has been one thing after another. Went on a couple mini-weekend trips, which were definitely interesting. Maybe I will write more about them later.

On Halloween, I had a family of trick-or-treaters come by my house, and as I was giving them candy, the mother pointed to her son and asked me, "do you know what he's dressed up as?". So I look at him, and all I see is some little kid in a jacket and a backpack. I have absolutely no freaking clue what his costume is supposed to be.

I smile and politely say no, what is he supposed to be? She laughs and excitedly goes, "he's Diego!!"

I give her the blankest stare in the history of blank stares. Never heard of this Diego feller.

"You know, Diego from Dora the Explorer?"

Actually, I have heard of Dora the Explorer, so that's a start. But believe it or not, I have not watched very many episodes of Dora the Explorer in my life (the number is somewhere between zero and zero). Thus, it is quite unlikely that I would know of, let alone recognize any secondary characters from the show.



Alright, so maybe there wasn't much point to that story. I guess I just felt like sharing.

In other news, I ended up getting Britney's new CD, "Blackout". As many of you know, I pretty much stopped being a big Britney fan around the time she hooked up with K-Fed. From there, it predictably went downhill and now she's a freakshow.

But I guess old habits die hard, and some things never change. All these news reports were coming out about how her album was getting good reviews (I like how it was such big news that her album didn't completely suck), and I liked her single on the radio, so I figured why not give it a whirl? Under $10 on sale at Target, to complete my collection of Britney albums.

It turns out, I do like this album, so I'll consider it money well spent. I wouldn't say it's great, and I'm kind of surprised that so-called "critics" would give it good reviews, but it's definitely better than her last album.

In reality, it's a CD with 12 of the same song, except with different titles and lyrics. Or at least they all have pretty much the same beat and synthesized instrumentals on each track. But at least the beat is a good one and the music is catchy. My favorite song is "Break the Ice". It's hot.

To end on another musical note (har har), I'm excited that the Lite has started playing their Christmas rotation again. Loves it. Reminds me that I'm gonna have to put up the good old Christmas tree soon.