Something's Missing

Out of every major transition in my life (starting high school, starting college, and starting work) I realize now why this most recent transition has been the most difficult out of the three. And it's not because I joined the grown-up world nor is it due to the additional responsibilities I've gained. Rather, it's because this is the first time in my life when I am no longer a member of a true team.

In college I was a part of several teams, but only one true team. In high school it was the same story, but a little more dynamic and fluid.

So what constitutes a true team. Basically, I'm alluding to the teams that are formed out of choice and common goals rather than obligations. The teams where people organize for the journey rather than for the end result (even though there is always an end result or goal!).

I miss being a part of something where an idea at 2AM and the ensuing phone call is received with enthusiasm and feedback rather than the dismissive "Why are you working right now?". At its core, I miss the commitment. Anybody can be a team player and everybody can work together, but only a select few can commit to each other. The choice in commitment brings a team to a whole new level. Further, I don't use the term "commitment" lightly. It's easy to opt in to something or sign up for a project, but that isn't commitment. Real commitment is when your individual utility is directly tied with the success of the team; when your individual success is minor and the team's success is monumental.

Over the next few months, something needs to fill that gap. It's vacant.

Funnily?

Over the past month I have used funnily 4 or 5 times within a conversation. After each instance I paused in bewilderment because neither I nor the person I was chatting with thought funnily was a real word. Today I reached a breaking point when I used it again during a conversation with a few of my work colleagues and started crafting a post for this blog marveling in my stupidity.

After I started writing, I figured it would be good practice to have some fact or justification of how funnily is not really a word yet I have moronically used it over and over again knowing full well! So I headed to my trusty "define:_____" search string to reveal that funnily was not really a word, but received a surprising result instead:


WTF? Since when has funnily been a word? It doesn't sound like a real word, it sure looks goofy, how can this possibly be correct? To add more insult to injury, I found this in another dicitonary (if Princeton doesn't carry a high enough level of English):


It turns out that funnily is a word and specifically an adverb of "funny" and that I and the last 5 people that I have been chatting with when I used this word are all idiots. Not only did each of us scoff at my use of the word, but a 2 minute conversation ensued each time about how funnily is not a real word.

Am I missing something?

My "Too-Hipster" Bike

Shortly before my move out to San Francisco, I had delusions of grandeur where I'd bike 38 miles to work once a week to keep in shape. Well, after moving out here and settling into an impressively lazy lifestyle I didn't really follow that route. I moved away from the have a bike for sport mentality and into the have a bike to cruise around on mind frame.

So last weekend I went out and purchased a single-speed road bike (more specifically, a fixed gear with a flip-flop hub - so it can quickly become a freewheel-single-speed) off of Craigslist. Even though the price tag was $400 (a little steep in my book, but relatively cheap for a road bike in SF), I think it was worth it. I stuck with the single-speed largely because I wanted to avoid the complications and maintenance that come with your typical road bike.

Now I'll be able to zip across the Golden Gate Bridge for breakfast or dart over to Ocean Beach to do a little reading. However, before I can move away from the fixed-gear (read: ultra-liberal) lifestyle, I have to buy a brake... eek!

The Poker Face of Wall Street - Aaron Brown

A long overdue book review...

Since July 30th (!) I have been reading this mildly entertaining and frequently over-detailed account of Aaron Brown's comparison and opinion of Wall Street with the bread and butter of Vegas. Initially I was intrigued by the deceptively objective comparisons he made between different styles of back-room gambling and various financial instruments (futures, commodities, etc.).

But to be honest, after 50 pages and 12 examples, I had had enough. Comprehending his arguments started to stretch past the simple conscious thought that I was willing to sacrifice and into the '30 minutes of undisturbed focus' realm. For a book that I picked up with very mild interest, it was tough for me to set aside the time to work through his arguments (hence why it took me several months to finally set it down once and for all!).

The good:
There are several Flashbacks throughout the book where Brown reflects on a few hands, games, or overall experiences that he went though during his early years as a gambler. I found all of these to be very entertaining and worthwhile. One passage to note concerned Billy G. himself:

"You had a few choices for serious poker games at Harvard. Bill Gates - this was before he dropped out - ran one in Currier House. I played there once in my freshman year, but didn't like it. It was tight, tense, and unfriendly - boring for most of the night and when a big hand came up you always felt that someone had lost more than he could afford."

Bad ass Bill. Bad ass.

The bad:
Almost 80% of the book is game theory written in passages. Frankly, when it comes to game theory, I'm more a visual learner. Trying to keep track of all these different pathways and choices and then trying to relate it back to information that was presented 40 pages prior was just not my cup of tea. Too much. Too long. Too boring.

Not recommended.

Keeping In Touch

My mother recently accused me of being absolutely terrible at keeping in touch with old friends. I initially put up a fight and explained to her that if anybody was genuinely interested in what I was doing, they would contact me (and in doing so, I'd keep up with them). I told her that I haven't changed my cell phone number (ever!), I still forward all of my old email addresses to my current one, and I have this blog that I've made publicly available. Want to find me? Just search. If anybody really cared, there is no 'connectivity issue'.

I then explained that I have the capability of being an emotional brick (although that's not a preference) and I am not the type of person who disturbs other people for my personal needs.

But, after putting a little more thought into it (and having her recede from the discussion since she didn't want to argue), I realized that she is absolutely right. I am quite horrible at keeping in touch with old friends. Of the top 5 people that I was close with in high school, I might talk to one of them every 2 months or so (and that includes text messages, Facebook, whatever). A vast majority of the value in networking is letting people know that you are genuinely interested in their lives and are always curious to know how they are doing.

This should be no surprise, but I am interested! So today I put together a list of 30 friends that I'd like to keep in touch with and threw their names into a perpetually repeating bi-montly calendar. There is not a defined 'order' in which I am contacting people, but I did try to filter it a little bit so that I'm not disturbing anyone who might not give a damn. I also tried to balance it; a little high school, a little college...

Want to catch up? Call me. Email me. Whatever.

Family Visit

My sister has been in town for the past couple of days (the first family member to visit me in California) and I've been doing my best to show her a good time.

I picked her up from the airport on Thursday in my bad-ass Prius PHEV and took her back to Google to enjoy some of the food and absorb the environment. She was exhausted from traveling, so we headed back to my place and crashed.

I worked from home on Friday to be available for her while she snooped around the city. That night, we grabbed a few drinks with my roommate and his girlfriend at the disappointing Matrix Fillmore (disappointing because it was a lot less exclusive than we thought it would be). While there, some French girl walked up to us and, through a thick accent, tried convincing one of us to stand in front of a camera and answer some questions about the opposite sex. As the asshole of the group, I was volunteered.

After giving my 3 minute deposition, I intentionally filled out my consent form incorrectly with hopes that my video will not make it onto the homepage of sayheyhey.com. We'll see how that works out.

On Saturday my sister got us tickets to visit Alcatraz Island with a few quasi-friends she knew through a mutual friend. It was a 2-3 hour gig featuring a somewhat entertaining self-guided audio tour of the cell block. With good weather, it was definitely worth the $25 ticket.

That night we grabbed dinner with my roommate and his girlfriend at a charming place in Little Italy and caught the 8:10 showing of Michael Clayton. The food was obviously great, but I was a little disappointed in the movie. Based on how much action was in the trailer, I expected it to be relatively upbeat. Instead, the trailer managed to contain nearly all of the movie's action leaving the rest a little dry and slow. My sister and I both fell asleep in the middle. Boo.

The weekend is over now and it's back to normalcy, for a little while...

Lacrosse Days

I just stumbled upon a few videos that Mike O'Leary made for the MCLA.
[View original post for embedded videos]

I had never seen the first one before. Nice job Mike!

JFK Grrr!!!

Air travel sucks. Today I had a 3:30pm flight out of JFK to San Francisco arriving at 7:30pm. Due to an oil leak on our plane, we are now departing at 9pm out of JFK with an expected arrival of 12:30am in San Francisco. That puts me in my bed by ~2am. Needless to say, I am grumpy.

During the undesired waiting period, I grabbed a few drinks with a few ladies who were also waiting for a flight out of JFK (but they waited about 1/8 of the time I had to) and I wrote a no-bull-shit-letter to United.

At the end of my 700 word rant, I explained that my complaint held two points:

1. I needed to let off some steam.
2. I expect to receive additional compensation (after the extravagant $10 meal voucher they provided) within a few weeks.

It looks like we are about to start boarding...hopefully. If not, I expect nothing less than a large bag of cash from United by the end of next week.

New York, New York

On Sunday I jumped on a mid-morning flight and traveled to New York. I'll be here until Friday afternoon working out of the Google New York office and catching up with a few friends in the area. My first few impressions of the city:

• Obviously, it's really big. The buildings aren't taller or anything, there are a just a lot more them compared to Chicago or San Francisco (especially the latter).
• There is way too much noise pollution for my taste. I can barely hear my iPhone at the same volume level that I regularly use in SF.
• Pedestrian traffic patterns remind me of Ann Arbor; everybody just crosses the street whenever they want.

As a funny first night story, I didn't arrive at my hotel until just before midnight. Being the careless independent that I am, I didn't set up any post-flight travel arrangements to get to my hotel and decided to wing it. It's a pretty nice place compared to some of the alternatives that I could have been stuck with, so I was pretty happy with it. There was a delicious pizza place two blocks away and a CVS right next door. My basic needs were set.

I brought some pizza back to my room along with some necessities that I didn't have from SF. I flipped on sports center and started plowing through my pizza (and yes, plowing is an accurate verb to describe my eating style). However, 15 minutes into my fiesta of caloric bliss, I was interrupted by my neighbor's cries of a different kind of bliss.

Welcome to New York Matt.