hello moto.

A new survey conducted by the marketing agency, 11mark, polled 1,000 americans on their cellphone habits reveal a few disturbing statistics. Roughly 75% of americans use their cellphones in the bathroom, while for people between 28-35 that percentage jumps to 91%. For men it’s 74%, while 76% of women are texting/calling/surfing the web (clearly they’re the better multi-taskers). Droid users are also more likely to use their phones in the bathroom, with 87% responding that they use their phones on the toilet, while blackberry ranks at 84%, with iphone users lagging behind at 77%. Blackberry users however, are mostly likely to answer a call (75%), vs droid (67%) or iphone users (60%). Iphone users are more predisposed to make purchases while indisposed (22%), versus only 10% of cellphones users overall. I didn’t read through the whole study (I think you have to register), but the press release offered the juiciest stats (read into it what you must…). It’s worth pointing out that the list of cellphone activities polled does not include blogging…

“The writing is on the stall,” says Nicole Burdette, principal, 11mark. “This study confirms what we all know – that the last private place is no longer private. And, that the “mobile-everywhere” phenomenon is flushing out a host of new opportunities for savvy communicators.” (I’m sure there was absolutely no pun intended there)

I know smartphones are intended to make us more connected, but my goodness, the stats are a little disturbing. For people (nearly) in my generation, 91%!! That’s a little disturbing (I wonder if anyone is reading this from behind the stall door…I won’t judge). As a male droid and blackberry user in my 20’s, I can say the statistics definitely do not look good for me. It’s becoming increasingly self-evident that the new saving grace for cellphone users everywhere is going to be the awesomeness that is triple-ply.

please don't drink and drive.

This morning I learned that Brooklyn, one of the guys down at starbucks, passed away over the weekend. It's saddening to think that someone so young could just die because someone else decided to get behind the wheel drunk. I think he was either younger than me or at most my age. I'm definitely going to miss that guy, and I don't think going on coffee runs will be quite the same. He was one of the jolliest guys down there, and would always say something random or wear a hello kitty headband just to make people in line smile. Please keep his family in your prayers.

don't lie to your kids.

*disclaimer* the post below consists of 90% fiction, 5% truth, and 5% punctuation. Also, I am the last person on earth that should be giving advice about kids, but hey, it’s a slow day…

I will, of course, admit that there's much in this world that perplexes me (sometimes a little too much). Many things that, if I were to explain to my kids years from now, I would be at a loss. Of course, being me, I would likely make up something extremely convincing and completely wrong to tell them and then go look it up afterwards.

Of course, not wanting to look dumb in front of your kid weighs heavily on any dad, so the solution is simple. Normally, I would advocate truth and honesty in a child-rearing situation. But this is a pivotal event in a father/son relationship. The answer you supply and the manner you deliver it will determine whether your child will respect you or not going forward. If executed right, your child will think you’re awesome. Stammer and fumble your way through the explanation or tell them you don't know, and your child will wish Mister Rogers was their dad.

Simply put, lie and lie till your pants are on fire.

For example, one of the questions many kids will ask (apparently) when they don't want to go to sleep is "daddy, why is the sky blue?" Of course, this is one of the first things they teach you as an econ major at Davis. The sky is blue because the edge of the atmospheric bubble that we live in creates a giant mirror, and is reflecting the blue in the ocean. I would probably follow that up with "for example, the sky in oklahoma is brown". Since I'm asian and our people naturally gravitate towards the coasts, I could easily get away with that one.

A tougher one would likely be, “daddy, why are you making a funny face in your driver’s license picture?” Yes, this will inevitably come up, and when it does, I must have a super-duper convincing explanation for why the DMV requires this. Apparently it’s a sort of field sobriety test. Sad people drink to drown their sorrows. Since they’re sad, they can’t make happy faces. If you get pulled over with a happy face, you’re not driving drunk. Of course, when sober people get pulled over, they’re always smiling. Moral of the story, always smile at a cop.

Of course here’s one that my father told me (I didn’t realize till much later). When my son asks me if he can get a dog (which I’m pretty sure he will), I must calmly explain to him that dogs are essentially specially trained domesticated wolves, and that they act like your friend and hold in their poop indoors to gain your confidence. Then when the time is right, they’ll eat you. Yes, your boy will believe that pretty much up until when they go off to college (±10 years).

Ok at this point I’m gonna stop, partly because I’m bored, and partly because my Pinocchio nose just went through the monitor. I guess I have to write something nice at the end to bring my blog karma back into the positive.

Don’t lie to your kids (it stunts your growth). Have a good weekend.

an outpouring of everything good in you...

Over the past few months, so much has been said in the area of relationships. It’s like that’s the main thing on many people’s minds. In Acacia we did a whole series on singleness and relationships (aptly named joyfully single), and a good chunk of it was focused on being in God-centered relationships. Elsewhere, I see viewpoints on relationships and love and being broadcast on the radio, on TV, on blog posts, and even during sermons. That’s not necessarily a good or bad thing, it’s just something that I seem to come across a lot lately. I’m sure with valentines day around the corner, we’ll be hearing about it some more.

The other day I was on Letters of Note and came across this letter from a father to a son. In it, he gives advice to his son Thomas after he learns that Thomas has fallen in love with someone at school. I’ve included it down below (courtesy of Letters of Note…I don’t think they know…my bad…):

New York
November 10, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First—if you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second—There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply—of course it isn’t puppy love.

But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it—and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

If you love someone—there is no possible harm in saying so—only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another—but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,
Fa

I’m still building on my definition of what love is, and yet, even though I don’t necessarily subscribe to his two kinds of love (i don’t believe true love can be selfish or egotistical), the way he portrays the “good” kind of love, the “outpouring of everything good in you”, the kind that releases strength, courage, goodness, and wisdom you didn’t know you had, well that sums up a lot of what I believe love in a relationship brings out. What surprises me more, is the father in this letter is John Steinbeck, the author of Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden. I fully expected this man to have a very bleak, sad, even slightly twisted view of love. It’s nice to see this aspect of the writer that doesn’t always come out in his works.

With all this talk lately about relationships, this letter brought a smile to my face so I thought I’d share.

going home

Over the last nine years in davis (geez I feel old saying it) there have been quite a few things I wish I'd done when I had the chance. Since coming to davis, I have always wanted to ride one of the original double-decker buses that drove around north davis. I see them at the MU all the time, but since I was always a south davis resident, I never had any good reason to hop on to one of them. Well, I guess now it looks like the window of opportunity is closing.

I was kind of saddened to see this article in the enterprise this morning, but apparently one of the two original unitrans buses, RTL 1014 (from waay back in the 1960's), will be going back to London after 44 years of carrying UCD students around Davis. Apparently it will be retired to the Ensignbus Transport Museum in London, which bought the bus from the university. I hear there are two more old-fashioned double-deckers, but they're not any of the original ones. Well in any case, I've resolved to go for a ride one of these days when I have a free saturday. I'm not waiting around anymore!

random question of the day.

If you were stranded on a deserted island and had a solar-powered ipod, but could only have one artist on it from the following three options, who would it be?

1. Lady Gaga
2. Charlotte Church
3. The Bieber

knowing when to let go

At church yesterday I sat in the back corner next to a compass guy. When the worship leader told everyone to greet the person on the right/left, I turned to him and introduced myself. As we were shaking hands, I gave the customary 1.2 second firm handshake (yes it gets very scientific…), and started to look toward the other person next to me as I proceeded to pull my hand away. Clearly, he goes by a different handshake standard (2-2.4 seconds...must've been on metric system), and did not let go. So at that point he was basically just holding my hand. As I looked back to check on my trapped hand, he let go, gave me an awkward look, and turned to the person behind him. Needless to say the rest of the service was a bit awkward.

*sigh* There should be a unified standard for handshakes so that such church-time crises can be averted.

a life worth nothing

As I prep for Wednesday’s small group study through Acts 20, I came across something that puzzled me. In the passage, Paul meets with some Ephesian elders for the last time, before heading across the Mediterranean Sea to Jerusalem. As he speaks with them, he remarks that he doesn’t know what’s in store for him in Jerusalem, only that wherever he goes, the holy spirit has assured him that prison and hardships await. But that’s ok, because he considers his life worth nothing.

Paul was fully aware that any day could be his last and, to him, that didn’t matter at all. In Philippians 1, Paul is torn between dying and being with Christ, and living and working for Him. He realized the opportunity to stay here and serve God was good as well. I suppose this is the best way to live. He fully understood his mortality, and the value of both living and dying for Christ. When our purpose is to glorify God, we can do it both on earth, and in a more perfect way in Heaven.

Paul states pretty plainly that he values his life at nothing except for what God has tasked him to do. He is completely focused on the task at hand and nothing more. How come I can’t be as focused as that? Sadly, at this point in my life I’m most certainly not of that mindset. Regardless of how I describe my walk with God, I’m still of the mindset that I have my plans for my life, even though God has plans for my life as well. Having the stubborn personality that I do, I need to learn that God’s plan is much greater than mine.

I guess what puzzled me was that the concept I’ve always had of how to discern what God's will for me is, essentially to be faithful in prayer and wait for God to open doors and reveal His will. I’ve had this notion that if something is God’s will, that he will open doors and things will go smoothly, and yet, here Paul says that he doesn’t know the details of what lies ahead, but the only thing he knows is that things will be hard and painful every step of the way. Hard and painful. There’s no smooth sailing, there’s no “if it’s God’s will things will just work out”. He says that he doesn’t know what will happen to him, but that the only thing the Holy Spirit has assured him, is that wherever he goes he will face prison and hardships.

In my flawed mindset of what I want vs what God wants, I think my interpretation of God’s will is tainted by my own sinful desires. Paul’s mindset in Acts 20 is very clear. I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace. (vs. 24) And that’s why he is perfectly fine with facing the prison and hardships that the Holy Spirit assures him he will face.


**shameless plug: if you're interested, please join us tomorrow night for small group (7pm) where we will meet for dinner and go through Acts 20**

missed the bandwagon...

It doesn't matter if you avoid the TV, turn the radio to classical on the morning drive, or completely ignore the internet this morning, it's unavoidable that you'll hear someone, somewhere, talking about tebow-mania. You got elementary students tebowing next to school busses, radio commentators on sports and christian radio stations gushing about this hairy-faced kid, even pastors mentioning him in sermons.

I'm not sold yet.

Don't get me wrong, the guy's got talent (I don't think he would've gotten drafted otherwise), and he's a good role model for kids and grownups alike. I just don't see how one game, one game changes all of that. I'm still not sold on the "tebow magic" or what everyone characterizes as a game-changer. I think that's not giving others on the team the credit they deserve for the victory. Denver's defense got five sacks on the steeler's QB and the offense was playing better than usual. I still don't see how it's tebow magic (at least I'm not convinced yet).

I don't mean to be a downer or anything. I mean he's a good player and if I had kids, he'd make a great rolemodel (although Brian Dawkins on the Broncos is also a good rolemodel). I dunno, maybe after a few more weeks of winning I'll be convinced, but for now, you will not see me tebowing, or gushing/fawning, or tatooing I *heart* tebow anywhere yet. We'll see how he does against the buzzsaw next week.

the supermechanical twine

My friend sent me this kickstarter link to this gadget this afternoon called the Twine. It’s a pretty cool idea, one that basically takes little things you wish you could do, and gives you the ability to do it. For instance, have you ever wondered if the FedEx guy really knocked on your door before just deciding to leave your package on the front porch? Well you simply attached the Twine to your door, and a sensor in the little device will sense knocking at the door, and send you an email saying that someone just knocked at the door. This way, you basically know when the FedEx guy actually came to your house instead of stalking your package online.

This device, created and peddled by two guys from MIT, has the ability to effectively link ordinary things to the internet. It’s pretty much the size of a post-it note pad, and syncs wirelessly to allow objects in your life to communicate with you. You can attach the Twine to your laundry machine so that when the accelerometer detects the vibration has stopped, it’ll send you an email saying your laundry is done. If you have a mouse at home, you can mount the Twine to the bottom of the mousetrap, so that the vibration of the spring trap will trigger an email message so you know exactly when something happened. The device syncs wireless to a web app that lets you set the parameters and the alerts that this generates. This thing can output anything from emails, twitter, and text to even more complicated http applications.



I suppose the possibilities are endless, and the Twine features an internal temperature sensor, an accelerometer, a magnetic switch, a moisture sensor, and a breakout board for plugging in any additional sensor you feel you may want. The practical applications for this could be anything! I have a funny feeling that eventually, production scales will help drive the price of these gadgets down so that people will be able to mount them on various things in our ever increasing desire for information. This gives you access to info you couldn’t really access before, things like knowing if someone knocked on your door when you were out at work or knowing if your kid opened the door to the pantry (magnetic switch sensor) after you told him no more cookies.

Right now the kickstarter no longer needs backers, but they have the twine on preorder, with an estimate ship date of March 2012. I know that early adopters always have to deal with the glitches and stuff, but this is actually one gadget that I’m definitely curious about checking out. I guess $99 is a bit steep for a gadget, but I have a feeling this is the start of something big.

I'm totally sold. lets go.

It didn't take much convincing, when I saw it on my friend Gajan's FB, I was pretty much on board. Disney's building a Cars Land at California Adventure in SoCal!! Ok...so I suppose it's not just the cars land that's getting me excited, but also the fact that I've never been to california adventure before and this is the perfect excuse to go visit! Ok, ok, it's going to be packed next summer when cars land opens, but maybe in the fall when it's no so hot and stuff. Ok...enough sittin around! Lets make this trip happen!!

the beauty of a snooze button

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases an annual survey on American time use. This is basically a collection of data on how the average American spends his/her day. One of the statistics stuck out to me:

Sleeping:
Men – 8.56 hrs/day
Women – 8.76 hrs/day

I don’t get nearly that much sleep! I’m closer to the 6 hour mark on a regular basis, although sometimes I get close to 7 hours, usually on weekends. I’ve worked to fill my time with stuff to do. When I have down time, I find books to read, tv shows to watch, games to play. I barely have time to sit and unwind. I’ve basically cluttered my day with things to do so I won’t be bored. This eventually leads to less sleep. You see, I suppose my thought process is, why spend time sleeping when you can be doing something? I know, definitely not the healthiest approach, and something I’m resolving to change in the coming year.

I find I’ve filled my life with mundane things, things that I do day in and day out. I’ve come to realized that I have this tendency to ignore God’s glory in the mundane things, things like sleep, eating, or even going to the bathroom (yes there’s glory in that). You see, it’s easy for me to give God glory when I’m at church on a Sunday, singing my lungs out, but it’s hard for me to remember to give Him glory when I’m checking my email, or waiting in line at starbucks. I appreciate the fact that in 1 Corinthians 10:31, Paul uses the everyday activities to describe how we can glorify God: Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
While it’s easy to say I should do it all for God’s glory, what exactly does that look like in real life? How do I nap and glorify God at the same time? How do give God glory when I’m chugging a cup of coffee? These aren’t exactly questions I can answer, as I’m not really sure how I’d be able to glorify God in those moments. The only think I can think of is acknowledging that God is great and doesn’t need sleep or caffeine, but in his graciousness, has given us the privilege of doing the commonplace things to sustain ourselves like napping and drinking coffee.

Of course, this is much easier said than done. It means I’d have to change my behavior, as it has sort of been my tendency to ignore God’s glory in the commonplace things. Ohh boy, I have quite the task ahead of me…