Ire

Q: How do you get your Apple-loving friends to envy and despise you?

A: Change your email signature to "Sent from my iPhone".

The view at night

This view is from my friends' place on the sixth floor. They face the little village that we live in. It looks every bit as spectacular in person.

San Francisco (Part 2: Nostalgic)

WWDC always drizzles out to a close. The grand halls of Moscone, which teemed with energy and possibilities at the beginning of the week, now echo vacant. The deafening hum of the air conditioning. Metallic footfalls on the escalator. Someone coughs. Even the mighty Presidio suite, once overflowing for the keynote, is full of empty seats dotted like islands with only the most determined of developers. Sunlight hangs in the air while people recline on the big leather couches out in the common room. Walking around Moscone feels like being in a house with the children gone.

Tomorrow is the last day of the conference and we are getting ready to head back to our lives. Away from this fairy-tale land where market share is meaningless and viruses are nonexistent. A veritable fruitopia that lasts for just a week. After that, back. Back to reality.

This ending, which I dramatize quite a bit, reminds me of many aspects of life. Let me tell you what I mean. This year at the conference I didn't play the ostrich and decided to meet some people. Among the folks I met were some students from my own alma mater, the University of Waterloo in Ontario. They were here on student scholarships.

It was nice meeting people who had so much to look forward to in the field of software. They still had co-op terms to look forward to. Safe, compartmentalized looks into the real world where politics don't matter and you were gone in four months. Then the slate would be wiped clean. For them, it was only the beginning. There would be many more conferences to attend, many more companies who would fly them to all sorts of places. And around every corner lurked new faces, and rays of opportunity made silhouettes from behind every door.

Again with the drama. But this is perhaps the best way I can describe the contrast. The longer you stay in software, the more colleagues you see getting out of software. Which is natural, given the odds, but the thing is that these people don't just kind of switch out. They do a full 180 (or 540, depending on how long it takes them to decide). They move as far away from programming as they can and then salt the earth so that no trees can ever sprout again. The list of professions runs long. Author. Lawyer. Teacher. Artist. Sportscaster. Gambler. Even incomprehensible dead languages. Point is, whatever they end up doing, they make it a point stay the hell away from computers. And with good reason.

Sixty hours a week. Seventy. Ninety. Sitting in front of a screen, watching their backs hump and their wrists lock up before snapping like breadsticks. Their glasses getting thicker, tummies getting bigger and everything getting greasier. There comes a point when they just say enough! and this is not the life for me!

And so they switch. They take odd jobs. They go back to school, for years more. They become interns again. Long is the path, and hard, that out of hell leads up to the light. And every one of them? Happy as a San Franciscan clam. Not a single regret. They don't miss any of it. The tedious debugging. The silent horror of undefined symbols. The purgatory at the center of the Motif event loop. They don't even miss the good parts. Being assigned a bug that only repros on an 8-core Mac Pro (because you know what you'll need to fix one of those). The silent thrill of seeing your cubic spline intersection code work for the first time. Writing your own java.awt.LayoutManager and getting your font panel to look just perfect. Leaving your competitors wondering, how did they do that?

We all teem with life at the beginning. The beginning of the week, the beginning of the conference. People so excited that they get up before 5:30 AM to line up. They talk shop the entire time with anyone in line who will listen. The four-and-a-half hours pass with conversation and laughter and speculation on what lies behind the curtain. And the students? For some of them, it's their first conference. First time in San Fran. First time out of the country. And I can't help but think about how their adventure is only beginning.

Then I look at myself. Especially at the end of the week. By then, I wax philosophical and think things like, was I ever that young? Where has my passion gone? How am I going to change the world? And I feel like Moscone. Empty. The band has played. The stage hands are slowly taking things apart. Everyone is looking for their jacket and heading for the door. This party is over.

There have been times when I look back and think about how happy my friends who switched out of computers are. And sometimes I imagine their existence sitting on a tropical island, in the shade, with some kind of sweet drink full of ice cubes in a glass dotted on the outside with beads of water. We are, all of us, victims of our own petty jealousies. The grass is always greener. The other guy's job is so much easier. How I envy their career! They get to meet new people! Or read philosophy. Or travel to China.

That's when I remember that I have a lot to be thankful for. I love being with Google, and I intend to be here for a long time. But still, I'm that much older than when I graduated. I know that the world doesn't change so easily. We don't all end up millionaires, or VPs, or CEOs. And the world, my world of possibilities, is a little bit smaller. I meet the bright-eyed youth who could be my archived double from a Time Machine backup. He has so many years on me that I'll never catch up. He's going to change the world. He's going to be different. Just watch him.

Now come the jealousy and the thoughts of straying. So many others have found happiness elsewhere that I wonder if I should consider their footsteps. But then I remember that our hearts and minds can wander, but in the end these journeys can reaffirm our original resolve. The other pasture has led me far from home, and though it may be sweet, I still have work to do back where I came from. I lift my head up and think, it's not so bad. I'm not so old. The world isn't smaller, it's just clearer. The many paths have converged into fewer. And eventually, into one.

So thanks, WWDC. You've tested me, and made me more certain of my path. I still have a world to change.

San Francisco (Part 1: Quick)

So it's time once again for Apple's WWDC, held as always in beautiful San Francisco. This is my fourth time in the city, all four times for conferences, and my third WWDC. The city is starting to feel like home. There's even a Mel's Diner nearby that I frequent.

The city itself is very warm and sunny right now. The theme this year is "seafood." I've already been up to the wharf three times this week for some truly amazing seafood. The best lesson learned from all of this? Don't wear white shirts. The pictures are in my San Francisco album.

Since I'm actually at the conference right now, it's time to sign off. More later!

By the waterfront.

Steve, up to his old tricks.

You can kind of see him. It's difficult to photograph in a Reality Distortion Field.

Pics from Calgary

Last weekend Adrian and I climbed a mountain in Banff. I was a bit worried being out of breath after the first five minutes, but it seems that it's only natural for that to happen when you come to such a high altitude. The foot of the mountain was 5200 feet above sea level, and the peak was 7400. In comparison, I'm used to... 0. We made it in 1:29, much faster than expected. But maybe that's just because Adrian promised there would be hookers there. 

On top of that (pun!), we hung out with the Kalgary Krew and had some amazing beef. Compared to the beef in Kalgary, all other beef tastes like overcooked hamburger. You'd spit it out, you would! When Adrian first started going on about the beef, I thought he was kidding. Boy was I in for a pleasant surprise. Also, being Chinese as we were, we also opted for some late night Chinese cuisine.

Oh, and the airport workers all wore cowboy hats. Seriously.

We worked hard for this spectacular view.

On top of the mountain, an instant of sunshine, in a distant valley.

Proof that we made it up!

The gang at night.

A freakish Calgarian sunset, at 10 PM!

Visit my album for more for more photos.