For Class: Coin 63

in honor of Friday Cat Blogging

In Berlin

So this blog definitely did end up dying last quarter, but I'm going to attempt to resurrect it now, for a couple months at least. I'm in Berlin, Germany! I'm working for Deutsche Telekom doing research in security risk management (mostly for IT networks). I'll be here for 2.5 months, and hopefully I'll have some interesting stories to tell. I realized earlier today that I can see the Brandenburg Gate from my office, which, by the way, has got to be one of the sweetest office locations ever - on the 20th (top) floor of the tallest building around for miles (or should I say kilometers). It's a really awesome place to work. Actually, the picture above is from out my window...

As Companies Get Bigger...

An interesting article: http://venturebeat.com/2009/04/16/as-sales-execs-defect-is-this-the-end-of-an-era-for-google/.

Part of a problem that I think is very interesting - as companies grow, how do you scale in such a way as to keep a small company's flexibility, maneuverability, and feel?

10k

This blog is not dead yet!

Lisa-Anne and I ran a 10k today in Golden Gate Park. That's actually the longest distance I've ever attempted to run all at once (Lisa's run further)...but we both made it! And in a respectable 52 minutes. However, I'd like to give a shout-out to all the old guys and gals that totally kicked out butts. I sincerely hope that when I'm their age, I'll be able to show up 23-year-old kids who consider themselves reasonably athletic. Oh, and I have a feeling that those older folks probably aren't feeling sharp pains in their knees and walking around with serious limps after completing the race - I guess my body isn't as young as it used to be...

Andy Murray Sucks to Watch

It's spring break! I'm a couple days late on this post, but better late than never. We got to go see the finals (men's and women's) of the tennis tournament at Indian Wells on Sunday, which was a really cool experience - at least, hypothetically. Okay, okay, it was really neat to get to go, but the matches we saw weren't exactly instant classics...

So here's the recap. First of all, I should mention that it was REALLY windy. Like, huge dust cloud advancing toward the tennis stadium all day long windy. The stadium itself was like a mini tornado (Nataly, my cousin who was with us, was explaining the concept of turbulence in fluids and how it applied to the phenomena we were observing...). Every few minutes, a piece of paper or a napkin or something would fly from the upper decks and swoop across the court, interrupting the point in progress (at one point, the crowd gave a collective "ooooooooh" when a piece of plastic circled its way down into the middle of the court, then proceeded to be launched hundreds of feet into the air straight up, and then carried away out of the stadium). And the players could NOT find their tosses in the wind - each serve took about 2 "false start" tosses. As a spectator way up in the stands, the wind gusts made it feel like we were being punched in the face every few minutes...

Moving along: we started out watching Ivanovic take on Zvonereva for the women's title. I chose to side with Ivanovic (bad choice). She lost in straight sets. Although I should mention that the first set took an hour and 20 minutes - I think that's one of the longest sets I've ever seen! But it wasn't exactly quality tennis - it was more of who the wind made screw up first. I've included a couple pics of Ivanovic, one showing great serving form (notice the straight arm extending through the serve) and the other showing a rare "catch the ball while it's still on the strings" photo (rare for me at least, I've never managed to get a photo of that). Also, one of the cool parts of going to a final is getting to see the trophy presentation, so there's a picture of that too.

Then it was on to the men's final - Nadal vs. Murray. Stupid Murray (more disgust to come) had beaten the Fed the day before to rob us of a classic Nadal-Fed matchup. The match started out somewhat promising, a couple decent rallies and it was on serve...for two games. Then Nadal started punking Murray all over the place, and bam the match was over in a 6-1, 6-2 beat-down. It was over in less time than the first set took for the women's final. So screw you, Andy Murray! That's the second time I've had to watch you play a boring, one-sided, barely watchable match that robbed me of seeing something way better (for example, any other matchup involving any other players possible). At the US Open last fall, I got to watch Murray vs. Wawrinka in a pathetically boring match - under the lights at Arthur Ashe, believe it or not, as the feature match. Anyways, so that's my opinion of Andy Murray - never watch him play, he sucks to watch. Fittingly, the one good picture I got of him was the one I included here. I'm frustrated too, Andy.

(btw, sorry for the awful formatting - I'll get better, I promise)

Happy Early Birthday!

A few weeks ago, I went to a new dentist up here in Palo Alto (Dr. Boyarsky - endorsement to come). Along with the ordinary stuff, I also had to get a new night guard - I'm a teeth-grinder, and I'd pretty much worn out the one I had. So Dr. Boyarsky's admin called up my insurance to get an estimate of how much it would cost (since these things cost in the hundreds of dollars, and if the insurance didn't cover it, I wasn't getting it). The answer was about $80, so I said let's do it, and that was that. A couple weeks later, I get the bill for $370, pass it on to the insurance, and they come back and say...it's not covered?! WHAT?! Apparently I can only get a new night guard every 3 years - but they hadn't mentioned that when I was deciding whether or not to get one in the first place. Yikes.

So today, after trying to swallow the fact that I was about to pay over 300 bucks for a piece of hard plastic, I decided to call the dentist's office to see what they could do. I didn't have any expectations that this would achieve anything - insurance companies protect themselves again liability for misquoting, and it certainly wasn't the dentist's fault. A few hours later, they call back and say, "Since we told you you'd only have to pay 20%, that's all we're going to charge you." How sweet is that?! This is a legitimately cool guy.

And to top it all off, in the mail this afternoon I received my first birthday card. The cover: "Happy Birthday." The inside:

Dear Jeffrey,

Best wishes on your birthday and throughout the coming year.

Harvey P. Boyarsky, D.M.D and Staff

Going Under

It's that time of the quarter - the time where I "go under" in a panicky sprint to the finish line. That, by the way, was an awkward combination of two cliches - a forte of mine. Going under is clearly a water reference, and has nothing to do with running toward a finish line...

Moving on: another forte of mine is clearly bad timing, which manifested itself again when I decided to start a blog the week before finals. Kinda tough to build momentum when you don't have time to write anything. However, I fully intend to keep this going, so even if I don't post for the next week (which I probably won't), that doesn't mean it's dead. Okay? Don't look at me like you don't believe me!