ramblings of a madman

today i woke up at 3:30am for a day trip down to dc to witness the inauguration of our 44th president. the bus left at 5:00am from meetup, which sponsored the trip for employees and organizers. we arrived swiftly at 8:45am, just a stone's throw away from the capitol, and we could see the massive crowds slowly descending on the mall. the next hour was spent looking for parking, but the moment we jumped off the bus, we were tasked to hand out nametag stickers that said: "hello my fellow american, my name is..." with a fill-in-the-blank space at the bottom for people to fill out where they were from.

to tell you the truth, i had no idea what reactions i'd get from handing out these nametags. when we reached a corner where a street team had already handed out a bunch of these nametags, i could see handfuls of nametags just littered on the sidewalk. this was a bit disheartening.

our group walked toward the mall, and i was hoping to simply hand them out to nearby people when we reached our final standing spots. but as we were going up a street where hundreds of other americans were pouring toward the mall, we randomly ran into scott, our ceo at meetup! he told us, just turn around, face upstream and just start handing them out. people will take them (and eager they were too)! we handed them out to people of all ages and everyone was excited to put something on themselves just to celebrate the occasion. some of my favorite moments were:

• randomly running into scott, his nose red from the brutal cold, just handing out nametags, shouting "hello!" and getting a big "hello!" back from strangers.
• trying to hand out a nametag to little kids, but having them reject them, and then seeing them turn around and then asking for one. also, having people say "hi rich!" because i had a nametag.
  
• emeline (another meetup employee) filling out a nametag for a group of women, and finding out they were from tennesee too, and the immediate bond they had when they found out they went to the same school.
• suzzy (a friend of mine who joined me on the trip) walking around the lincoln memorial and noticing someone with a nametag, said hello to him and he enthusiastically saying hello back!

i'd have to say the whole nametag experiment went well. maybe it helped meetup or maybe it didn't, but it definitely showed how excited people were just to wear something with their name and where they're from. besides all this, despite the cold, despite being squished amongst what seemed like millions of other americans, besides barely being able to see obama take the oath, it was a great day for america. being in such a historic place, with so many people filled with hope and joy, was plenty for me to have a positive outlook on our future.

so a friend of mine asked that i blog about my adventures through europe. i'm currently at an internet cafe in milano on the third floor of this massive electronics/bookstore called fnac. it kind of reminds me of sogo back in taipei.

some highlights have been climbing up to the duomo, checking out the beer place birrescio lamberte mentioned in the nytimes, and just walking through the streets and eating a ton of proscuitto and pansecotti. on a scary note, i passed out while walking to the bathroom on the plane. first time that's ever happened to me. hopefully its the last.

only have 30 minutes of internet time so i'll report more later.

i had written an e-mail to my friends exactly 4 years ago, about how distraught i was with how the elections in 2004 had ended up. how strangely different it feels 4 years later. back then i was fearful about america's future, about how much shittier it would only become under bush. and now tonight instead, i am hopeful. obama's win has given me so much faith in us, the american people, and really given face to what the american dream can be. i look forward to seeing how the next 4 years will pan out. also, i can full heartedly say that i had i known back then that obama would win 2008, i would have preferred a kerry loss back in 2004.

back in 2003, i remember watching game 7 of the alcs. i was in nyc on a weekday night watching the game at tg whitney's as one of two boston fans in the bar. pedro was pitching on the mound. red sox were up in the eighth. it looked like we were going to win it, but alas it was not to be. i had to walk through crowds of yankees fans on the streets to finally make it home and wallow on my own.

fast forward 2008. it's the superbowl and its the patriots and giants. patriots are up 14-10 in the fourth quarter with 30 seconds left. it looked like we were going to win it, but no -- the perfect season was upset. again, i had to walk through the streets amongst celebrating new yorkers with not a single patriots fan to be seen.

why after being in this city for more than 4 years does living here still feel so on my own?

talk about total mood reversal. one week ago i was down in the dumps since the sox were 3-1 in the alcs. but they came back one week later, albeit no full moon, and made it into world series again!

this is a great article in time about facebook. it reminded me of all the things i love and hate about facebook -- especially the paragraph about it being a self-branding tool for people to don their best, rather than true, flawed selves. it also made me realize how vastly different other certain social networking sites are, and how these sites will emerge as great forces that, unlike facebook which reduces daily contact to pokes and posts on a wall, will build upon our inherent needs and emotions to meet people and build true friendships offline and face-to-face.

at my last job, i took a seminar called "managing personal growth." in one of the activities, we had to choose our top five values. they were based on personal observations and loosely on peer ones made by a good friend. it was no surprise that i came up with the following as my top five values:

1. inner harmony
2. wisdom
3. adventure
4. personal development
5. creativity

the goal of this seminar was to try to align my values with my personal life as well as my work goals. after finding that my last job satisfied very little of these, i tried to find a job that does -- indeed, my current one does.

but it's strange, after working two months, i'm finding that my personal life, with regard to hobbies, travelling, and relationships is lacking in almost every single one of these areas. looking back on the last year of my life, at the age of 25, i've grown a lot. but there's a lot more i can do to really make sure that i'm leading a fulfilling life, and i'm not just coming home after each day, each weekday and weekend, feeling that the day was wasted.

it's scary to think that today marks the 4 year anniversary of when i came to nyc.

and now i'm onto my third job.

via akshay's blog, i wanted to try my hand at creating myself as a simpsons character. i'm about as good at doing this as creating a mii.

i ran with my company today in a media challenge race, pitting against media companies such as sony, abc, nytimes, etc. it was my first timed race in a while. with the extra incentive to beat the other companies, i definitely pushed myself harder than my usual 8:30-9:00 pace.

we did the lower loop in central park twice. one lower loop is 1.7mi so two is 3.4mi. i pulled off a 26:59 finish time, which brings me to a 7:56 pace. not too shabby! next race i'm going to try to shave 30 seconds off my finish time.