As I’ve usually done for the past year or so, I have all kinds of intentions of keeping up the blog entries. But as the busyness increases, my chances of getting something written go way down. I’ve taken on some extra projects and I’m trying to spend time with family; it has depleted any time and mental energy I might have to write.

For all you keeping track of the Premiership, Chelsea and Man United are running away with the league, while Arsenal continues to lose points at home as they get used to their new stadium. I haven’t given up hope but I’ve said from the beginning that next season is Arsenal’s. After another spell of seasoning all the new blood and working his fine-tuned machine, Arsene Wenger will have a truly great team next year. I’ve also predicted that this season wouldn’t be the same for Chelsea and that, by default, Man United would win it all. There’s a long road ahead, but it looks like my prediction is coming true.

More later.

Web sites that provide useful information and FAQs about products have become ubiquitous. If a software application or hand-held product is giving us difficulties or if there are features we’ve heard about but don’t know how to access, going to the manufacturer’s web site has become second nature. And, just as important, is that we check such sites before we buy a product to see if its going to do the things we want it to do.

Yet, sometimes, I think that manufacturers don’t really take time to think about questions that users will ask and instead rely upon empirical information from similar products. For example, if company X has decided to produce an MP3 player, instead of asking themselves “what might I want to know about this product in particular?”, the site designer looks at other support sites for competing products (from company Y or company Z) for producing an FAQ. I’ve never done the research nor designed such a site; its just my impression by looking around at various sites. Similar products don’t necessarily require similar support.

Read more  »

In a Washington Post article, After Lackluster World Cup, Donovan’s Focus Is Galaxy by Steven Goff, Landon Donovan acknowledges that he didn’t play well in the World Cup and explains how too much criticism has been given to him personally when the finger should be pointed to the whole team. While I agree that he didn’t play well, the criticism he’s received is not, in my mind, too much. He was the “play maker” of the team, the midfielder that sits right behind the forwards, and distributes the ball. If he plays bad, the whole team plays bad. That’s the reason for the criticism. In my estimation, the criticism has been mild. In any other country, there would be petitions to ensure that he never puts on the jersey again.

The article is telling because Landon himself diagnoses his own problem but doesn’t see it as the reason for not playing well. He says,

“I should’ve been more aggressive,” he said. “I just felt like half the time I was out there I was just going through the motions. What’s the point of being there? “That’s really disappointing for me because I thought I was smarter and I thought I would realize that more. I didn’t until it was over, and that’s frustrating because you can’t go back.”

Want to know why Landon wasn’t more aggressive? Because, in MLS, he’s not expected to be. When all you’re expected to do is “get into the playoffs”, the level of play is degraded and players aren’t held to a higher standard. Landon himself says that his aspiration, by staying in MLS, is to simply be a good player. Not a great player, just good. He continues,

“My world, I’m not on this Earth to go be in Europe and become the best soccer player in the world. My life is about being happy. I want to enjoy it, and I think I can balance all of that and still be a good soccer player.”

Thanks for the clarification Landon.

Want to see an example of someone who thinks they lived through the punk rock era but probably missed it completely. Go read The Punk Rock Brand. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Ok, now here we go …

The author, Darryl Ohrt, says

“Punk rock is more than music, it’s a life philosophy. Punks reject what society considers the norm; they question authority and they fight to be different and make a difference.”

Ok, that sounds good. Punk rockers in the early 80’s were hippies who did more than spread slogans about making love not war and they tried to make the world a better place. But then, he says,

“Within the punk rock credo of my youth were the seeds of a larger business philosophy. Ten years in a boutique design and branding firm has shown me how valuable the punk rock attitude is to a successful brand plan. The brands that consistently rise to the top have questioned everything that’s been done before. Adding “X” to a razor’s name? Just a lame attempt at buying an audience with weak, non-genuine branding. Inventing a razor for shaving heads? Totally punk rock.”

Um, no. Punk rock is not about marketing and it is definitely not the seeds of “a larger business philosophy.” Punk rock was not and is not about simply questioning what has come before; part of it was about questioning authority that dictated what was “normal” without any basis for saying so. Another part of the punk rock mentality was about holding onto what was right and true (for example, fighting injustice or protesting a life defined by material things). It was never about marketing. It was, in part, anti-capitalist.

If punks “question authority” and “fight to be different and make a difference”, then they also fight against those who would reduce a movement to a marketing strategy.

Perhaps the author has confused bands like Green Day with punk rock. Not the same thing.

I’ve already broken my promise about publishing an entry every day this week. My only excuse is laziness.

I’ve been getting a new video of Liam ready for the site but its not quite done yet. He is walking now and its quite funny. It should be ready for next week.

In the coming weeks, I will be working my way through varoius problems in combinatorics and writing about them here. Combinatorics is the field of mathematics concerned with problems of selection, arrangement, and operation within a finite or discrete system. It includes permutations, probabilities, and other such topics concerned with how one can arrange distinct and non-distinct items.

So, for starters, Pascal’s Triangle offers all kinds of fun problems and solutions.

I’ve been wanting to write more. Not just blog more often but write essays, how-tos, and just write out ideas that have come to mind. Problem is, as soon as an idea comes, it goes. Writing has become a major personal project and one that I’ve been procrastinating about for awhile.

I’ve been motivated by Jason Kottke’s How I Blog article. Its a commentary on Seth Godin’s What Makes An Idea Viral? where it’s explained how simple ideas can move so fast and complex ones take some time to digest and move from person to person. There’s a price to be paid for putting an idea into writing. One must (1) understand the idea, (2) must want it to spread, and (3) believe that spreading the idea is worth the time to write about it. (Actually, Seth has four points - I’ve condensed the last two into one because “enhancing one’s power or one’s peace of mind” is the benefit for taking the time to spread the idea.) Simple ideas are easy to write down and share. Hence, they proliferate on the web. Complex ideas take time to understand and their benefits don’t always outweigh what it takes to explain them.

One way that I’ve found to organize my ideas is through mind maps. I’ve been working through The Mind Map Book and getting acquainted with FreeMind. According to Wikipedia, “A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It is used to generate, visualize, structure and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, and decision making.” They’ve been tremendous at allowing me to follow an idea to a conclusion or alternative idea that wouldn’t have normally come to me and they’ve made it possible to retain a thought that was originally arrived at via some process that’s hard to record with just plain notes.

Another productivity rule that I’ve learned over the years is to decide - first thing in the morning - what is your most important action item of the day. If it can be done (you’re not waiting for anything else in order to do it), then DO IT. Don’t check email, don’t clear your desk (it should be cleared from the day before), don’t call your boss. Do that most-important-action-item right at the beginning. The rest of the day will flow much better.

So, I’ve decided that, for the rest of the week, my most important action item every day is to publish a written entry to the blog. I’ve got my ideas organized now. Instead of trying to figure out why I can’t put thought to written word, I’m going to just do it. Everyday. No matter what the cost. No matter how inconsequential the idea.

Liam is starting to learn words but we’re not really sure what they mean. “Ma-ma” seems to be baby-talk for “I want” and in order to make people laugh he says “Da … da”.

The 2006 World Cup is over for the United States team. And while we want to blame bad decisions on referees and bad luck injuries, our guys didn’t come with the same passion as underdogs that they did in 2002. We needed some help from the Italians and we needed to beat Ghana in the last game. The Italians beat the Czechs so it was in our hands; beat Ghana and we go through. We lost 2-1.

We were in, arguably, the hardest group of the whole tournament. Some will point to group C (Argentina, Netherlands, Serbia & Montenegro, and Ivory Coast) as the group of death but I would argue that Argentina and the Netherlands had a pretty easy time with the other two and, therefore, our group, group E, was the hardest.

It didn’t do us any good that the Czechs realized the importance of game 1 and came out firing against us. We expected to sit back and wait for our chances (which didn’t come) and we were easily beaten. So, just like going up 3 goals on Portugal in game 1 of the 2002 World Cup gave us the momentum to narrowly escape with a victory and get out of the group, going down 3-0 in game 1 against the Czechs took any hope away; it took the wind out of our sails for the remaining games. Yes, we did well against Italy and that’s something to take away from the tournament, yet, I just can’t help but think that we went into the whole thing with blinders on. We had too much swagger and not enough guts.

Much has been said of all the cheerleading that was done in the build-up to the World Cup. Because of our run in 2002 and the FIFA rankings (which everyone knows is lame), we came into the tournament with the following false expectations: the Czechs were old and slow - easily beatable, we could draw with the Italians, and we could easily win against Ghana because Michael Essien was the only player we’d ever heard of.

Let’s be honest. We’ve never come close to being the 5th best team in the world. Maybe, the 25th best team is more realistic. The only European teams in the Cup that we could possibly be better than are Poland and, although they didn’t live up to how well they qualified, Serbia & Montenegro. We are not better than any of the South American teams in the World Cup. And, several of the African teams are better than us, especially Ghana.

And while Landon Donovan is a huge part of my Los Angeles Galaxy, I don’t want to see him wearing the USA jersey for a while. He was a no-show in all three games and I think his play has deteriorated while playing in Major League Soccer. He came into this tournament talking, almost exclusively, about how much confidence the team had. Sorry, but confidence doesn’t win games. Over the past couple of years, he should have been challenging himself in Europe and bettering himself as a player, not “building his confidence” in MLS. Otherwise, go back to being the “best player in MLS” and stay away from the National team. Its not fair to the rest of the team and to all US Soccer fans to wear the captain’s armband (when Reyna doesn’t), living his cushy life in California, and playing like that.

US Soccer has a beautiful history and a bright future. We just need to realize that we’re not going to beat the world. There’s always the same sports writers that come out at World Cup time to write the “Has Soccer Arrived Yet in the USA?” or the “Soccer will never make it in the USA” articles. Football (its rightful name) has arrived, it arrived awhile ago, and its not going away. Right now, we need to concentrate on just playing the game and having our teams play against better competition. Brazil isn’t the best because they had a plan to beat the world. They did it by making it their own.

I’ve had no time to post anything this month. So I thought I’d do a roundup of things that happened in the month of April with a look ahead at things coming up in May. I’ve found that it helps keep some perspective on things when I take some time to reminisce at the end of a month.

To start, Joy and I got to take a week-long trip to Seattle. I’ve uploaded some pictures of our adventure to the Pacific Northwest, including a day-trip up to Victoria, British Columbia and the beautiful Butchard Gardens. I was there for a three-day work conference so we decided to make it a whole week and get a couple of days to ourselves. It was great to be there, just the two of us, but we missed the kids tremendously. Josh and Carie, uncle and aunt extraordinaire, were so kind in watching the kido-monkeys while were gone.

Easter has always been my favorite holiday. Even as a kid, for some reason, I was always drawn more to Easter egg hunts that I was to decorating a Christmas tree. Plus, even growing up in Southern California (where there are no seasons), the time of year, spring, just seemed better. In terms of theological significance (for Christians), Christmas is a celebration of the incarnation and Easter is when we look to the atonement and resurrection of Christ. The incarnation is important - don’t read me wrong - but the atonement is what really matters in the whole scheme of redemptive history. Anyways … here are some pictures of the kids all decked out in their Easter Sunday clothes.

Before we left for Seattle, Liam was starting to crawl. Yet, he wasn’t sure of himself and was crashing quite often. By the time we had gotten back, he was an old pro at it. Now’s he’s a speed crawler. I’ll put up some video soon.

The trip to Seattle also marked the release date for the project at work that’s kept me busy for so long. I don’t think I’ll be any less busy in the coming months, but it does feel good to get the thing out of development and in front of customers. If you’d like to know more about it, you can read about Market Manager at the i3 Innovus (my company’s new name) web site. We’ve re-engineered the product using Macromedia (now Adobe) Flex on the front-end and the Microstrategy platform for the data crunching back-end. Its been very cool to see it come together and we’ve got some glowing responses from current customers.

The Month of May is always a sprint for me. It includes mom’s birthday, Joy’s birthday, Mother’s day, our anniversary, and now Liam’s birthday. Not to mention that I’m starting up a new segment of online coursework and working on some certification stuff for work. Wew!

Liam is turning one on May 26th. Joy is sending out invitations to a big pool party on Memorial day weekend to celebrate. Here’s a blurb that Joy thought up for the invitation:

I love the water And I’m turning One, So won’t you join me For some pool party fun?

As I have time, I’m going to be making some incremental changes to this site. I’m getting bored with the picture of my book shelf up above and I’d like to make the site more accessible and extensible. I’d also like to make more frequent updates to the web site but, as I’ve already stated, things are hectic around here. Finally, I’ve wanted this site to contain some writing and work that I’ve done on the web so as to attract clients for some freelance work. I will start to do that and migrate pictures and more “personal” stuff to a sub-site of this one. Stay tuned.

These are two movies that I recently uploaded to Google Video. Hope you enjoy them.