Yahoo voice chat

I hung out with Tommy for a few hours this afternoon, riding around town in his fun, new TRUCK, before returning home for our weekly conference call with the Management Team, with Eyee in Beijing, Jim in Shanghai, Nelson in San Francisco and myself over here on the East Coast.

What would we ever do without Yahoo Voice Chat?

Seriously...

In spite of everyone's CRAZY ASS travel schedules, we somehow manage to stick to our weekly chat meetings with the exception of last week due to the Chinese holiday. Today's meeting was pretty much focused on the pending launch of the new site modules -- events, jobs, and later coupons, classifieds, etc. -- along with an ad-hoc rollout schedule and promotional strategy.

We are forever winging it... kind of funny...

Anyway, it was good to catch up with everyone and just say hello. Nice bunch of folks.

I spent the rest of the evening trying VERY hard to get through these site modification reviews for Ben and Tao Liang (our awesome web developers) which I really HATE doing... ugh... so painful... especially from my parents' home office which for some reason isn't working out for me in particular... and yet I'm still not done. So tomorrow will be yet another day of work, work, work.

I am supposed to be on a mini-vacation, no?

All I can say is --> OUCH.

And... will someone please give me some TLC?!

On the other hand, I have been able to catch up on my exercise -- have been out running every morning, the trees are beautiful around here -- and I've also been jammin' on my good 'ole piano for a few hours each day.

I love my old Yamaha... had it for over twenty years and it still sounds really good. =)

Mah Suth'ern accent

Mah Suth'ern accent is comin' rat back!

Yall look out now, ya hear?!

Trailblazing (yeah okay)

Hey peeps...

Once again I'm spending yet another Saturday evening by myself, working like a dog, although this time it's from my parents home down South.

I've been on the road, TRAILBLAZING (such the drama queen that I am, lol...) through New York City and Washington, D.C. and have seen more people within this eight-day period than I have probably seen during the entire month of April.

And it's been interesting, to say the least.

One guy made me cry my eyeballs out feeling so sorry for myself and another had me wondering if I wasn't dreaming, all in the same 48 hours!

I'll go into the merry details when I get a chance, but for now, I just spent the last I don't know how many hours running tests through our new ORIENTED Jobs Database, with the Events Calendar on my agenda for tomorrow (it's 2:15 a.m. EST).

I cannot wait to get through this!

I keep seeing the light at the end of this very long tunnel and yet we can't seem to launch the darn thing, all because I haven't been in front of my laptop a whole lot in recent days to complete the reviews... my fault!

I've literally been running from one meeting to the next, trying to make the most of my trip to the East Coast.

Yesterday I was at the public library for a good four hours just trying to get back to all my emails, since I've been offline pretty much this whole time and have a backlog of work waiting for me (ouch).

I really hope tomorrow's review won't take too long to get through and that we can soft-launch in the next few days, so wish me/us luck. It's a critical time and an important milestone for ORIENTED.

Otherwise, I'm still kind of in a daze from last week...



From the ORIENTED Happy Hours in New York. =) I met many of the New York Organizers for the first time (above is Wei-min Tan) and I really enjoyed the opportunity to spend time with all of them. What a wonderful group of people.

My gut

While the rest of San Francisco is out partying this Friday evening, I'm home on a conference call with Mike from midnight until 2 a.m. (his time Saturday afternoon), going over legal materials for ORIENTED.

And yet, in spite of how tired I am, I endeavor to track the event.

Don't ask me why, but for some reason I just have this feeling that moments like these will some day... matter.

It also has to do with the fact that I am forever grateful to have this opportunity to build such a meaningful business, to get to do what I do on a day-to-day basis (love it), and to be able to work with so many of my close friends in the process.... it's a strange gut feeling that I have and have had for many years now, but I somehow believe that ORIENTED will matter one day at a level that has not yet presented itself, both in Asia and in the U.S., if not for different reasons.

Anyway... so here goes my little commentary of the screen shots I posted below...

Mike finally set up his webcam TODAY just for me -- took him long enough -- and as I am looking at these photos I am reminded once again what a *TECHNO NERD* I am, and that I am slowly turning all of my friends into Techno Nerds, as well, because of course, resistance is futile...

Here is our initial reaction when we first got online and got the cams going.

The expression on Mike's face is clearly one of, "You made me do this so here I am, are you happy now? This is so stupid!" (they all say that but then they totally get into it, lol...)



The next two shots are of us spending way too much time trying to figure out why he can't activate the audio portion on his side.





Here I have put Mike to work, as his desktop is in front of him and his laptop is to his right. We would come to a conclusion about a certain legal matter, and then he would pause to execute on his laptop while I am sittin' here just a' hangin'.

I'm like... MIKE.

Can you PLEASE do that AFTER we get off the phone?! This is an INTERNATIONAL phone call and *I* am the one paying the bill you DING DONG!



And here I continue to goof around with the PRINT SCREEN while Mike is being all serious (how typical):



The screen shot below was taken when I told him about this attorney I talked to at the last HapiHour.org mixer who evidently also graduated from McGeorge, Mike's law school.

Apparently he met Mike many years ago when Mike went back to McGeorge to give a speech and recruit for his firm (at the time). That guy spoke of Mike as if he was some SUPER HERO -- which just cracked me up -- so when I mentioned it to Mike, he beamed like the big ham that he is and said, "Yeah well, I was somewhat of a celebrity there... hee hee hee..."

Oh my GOD... lol...

Mike never ceases to amaze us all. =)



The screen shot below was taken after 1.5 hours of hashing out the nitty gritty, at which point I was like, NO MORE.

I do not want to deal with this legal sh*t any more!

I say that to him each and every time we meet because I really cannot STAND it any more! Dealing with legal matters is such a pain in the butt... can't stand it no mo, no mo!



And finally, here I am entertaining myself with much glee by making him participate in this pose and not know why until after the fact... lol!



Mike is LUCKY to have me as a client because I am so LOVABLE.

Right, Mike?

Right?

LOL...

It's Joan Jett!

Look who finally setup her webcam after I complained forever that our chat relationship has always been one sided.

It's... Joan Jett!







Poor Ginny... stuck with that look for a little while longer... lol...

Can't wait to catch up with her next week in New York.

We commented how nice it was that the both of us finally got our butts to the U.S., especially after that last session back in Taipei where we were so very angst about how we would actually make this happen. She was there for almost ten years... woah...

Most people do NOT realize just how hard it is to transition back UNLESS they are walking directly into a pre-arranged situation, like grad school or a relationship or a set job. The majority of those that make the move over on their own go through a rough time.

Point being that it was great that we could be our carefree selves once again (even though she has since then turned into Joan Jett).

May the Force be with us, always.

Who's crazy?

A couple of days ago, Eyee's Mike emailed me and said, "Dudette You are crazy. You know that? Crazy woman."

Then tonight, I had sushi with Martin and he said my middle name was "Crazy"... there's that word again...

Both were referring to my journal entries, supposedly, though I still don't understand why they would think this of me based on what I write in my journals.

Am I crazy... or are THEY crazy?!

Which is it?

The eagle has landed

I just checked my emails and found that THE EAGLE HAS LANDED!

The eagle has landed, folks!!

Our application was approved!!!!

WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good girl

Once again I'm posting a journal entry before 2 a.m.

GOOD GIRL.

Short entry but the main thing I want to note is that something totally amazing is about to happen with ORIENTED.COM.

It is so much more than the recent sponsorship developments happening at the Happy Hour level, as there are limitations to that revenue stream no matter how you slice it, although appreciated.

It has more to do with the ORIENTED Jobs Database and Events Calendar, both of which are coming onstream in the very near future. We have been in testing stage with the Jobs Database this past week and are just touching things up as we wait for our credit card processing company application to go through.

It is SO exciting and is going to help SO many people...

If I wasn't so tired right now I would be feeling the same thing I was feeling here (wow, that was over two years ago!), but alas, today's schedule effectively kicked my ***.

I'm beat.

The Events Calendar plays a pivotal role in that -- if we do this right -- it will enable us to tap into our relations with area non-profits to help us to epromote the Jobs Database. To most, they may seem completely unrelated, but to me at least, the success of the latter has everything to do with the activities of the former.

It is too lengthy of an initiative to go into details here, but suffice it to say that this is yet another BRILLIANT strategy on how we are going to a) save money, b) effectively promote the things we need to promote, and c) target exactly the people we want to target.

The proposal on how this is all going to work and how we will tap into the existing Happy Hour infrastracture to enable this effort is also on my list of things-to-do.

Man.

ORIENTED is about to take a flying leap into a whole different playing field.

I am looking forward to it, and evidently, so are many others...

Web developers

Friday was rather surreal...

My twelve o'clock was cool because it included a handshake and brief conversation with a cute guy named Dan... then Quynh and I grabbed a late lunch at Johnny Rocket's at Saratoga (? -- gods I don't even remember where we were...) where we had this intense conversation about LIFE as it were .... shopped for the next few hours and only got myself two items of clothing... dropped her off around 5 p.m. to go home and change.... drove to the city and readily got myself lost around South Van Ness while trying to get to Geary (which would be north).... met up with Wena and Bailey and Robert for a really nice dinner at J-town and then walked up and down Filmore trying to decide which coffee house to go to.... passed by a sports bar playing really loud and excellent hip hop which upset me terribly because there wasn't a single soul in the bar dancing to the music (I was like what is WRONG with those people?! How can they just stand there like zombies staring at the t.v. with all that great hip hop playing in the background?! These people should not be allowed in there!)... chatted for a bit at a gelato store about why women in America are so much cockier than women in Asia and why therefore men back from Asia don't like the dating scene here and then hopped over at around 11 p.m. to Hyphen Magazine's Robot Stories' Opening Night party at the Flow Bar on Post where I ran into TONS of people... met Min Jung Kim... a guy named Tat... Cindy's friend Gene, Richard's friend Jimmy, Jimmy's friend Henry, Mitch, Helen, and a ton of other people, including Walter Chao whom I must say was ON FIRE that evening.

Walter!
Walter!
Walter is on fire!
We don't need no water let the...

Oh oops sorry... old school hip hop got in the way... bad girl!

Back to what I was saying...

Tamlyn Tomita whom I have admired for many years was also there, my first time seeing her in person, though to my dismay... well... let's just say that she had a little too much to drink... so much so that I had to look away, as I just couldn't keep watching her in that state...

In any case, Walter was just completely out of control and was cracking me up left and right!

What a charmer!

Afterwards, he drove me to my car in his car, a glow-in-the-dark, bright yellow BMW with a babychair in the backseat, how FUN.

Even as I write this entry, I am wondering if yesterday was just
one long and outrageous dream........................

Here are some photos of Walter and his developers Barry and Jason of Teamlynx.com from way back in January at a meeting we had, that I never had a chance to post until now.

Tell me these boys are not CUTE!





It's a good thing that we didn't actually end up working together (timing issue) as that would have been way too distracting, as I'd be like "yeah sure.... okay no problem... you want to program it your way? That's fine... whatever you want to do is okay with me... no worries... I'll just stay out of your way..." because I'm such a SUCKER for cute developers and then all *bleep* would break loose and ORIENTED.COM would go out of business before we even
had a chance.

Web developers are wonderful people and I love each and every one of them (I am destined to marry one I'm sure, kiss kiss!) but you cannot set them loose else your website will go to *bleep* and when that happens you will never see your site again... lol... =)

Going to bed early

Let me just say how THRILLED I am to be looking at the clock on my computer and noting that it is not yet 3 a.m.

That is a major feat, as I have consistently been up until ~ 5 p.m. every day this week, scrambling to get so many time-sensitive deliverables out the door...

Accomplishments include:

• Settled WorldPay.com application process which I could not have done without Corrina's help (pain in the BUTT)
  
• Completed and submitted Sales Proposal for a hopeful corporate sales candidate in China (this took me forever, partly because I am extra careful with employee and consultant contracts.... don't ask me why...)
  
• Wrote lengthy Monthly Report to all those in the network (Organizers, Management Team, Advisors, Investors) which also took forever because, well, look who my audience is!
  
• Made NTD bill payments to our accountant with the help of my MOMMY who is currently in Taipei, and resolved other insurance paperwork that just required way too much effort
  
• Coordinated our first pilot sponsorship (U.S.) for April with Wena's incredible help, and have May pretty much set as well
  
• Confirmed my itinerary up and down the East Coast at the end of the month though am still arranging meetings
  
• Coordinated with Tao Liang and Ben at the last minute to redistribute IT deliverables in order to meet our targeted deadlines
  
• Developed draft OHH Sales Inventory Matrix (still a work-in-progress), which is just the beginning of our potential, and a whole host of other efforts that kept me crazy busy

What took the MOST time, if I can even remember the details of this week's activities, was the Sales Proposal and Sales Inventory matrix, which I was very happy to have finally completed, as it sets the stage for business activities that will move us in a very different but much anticipated direction.

And it's only Thursday!

I still have to get back to Kerry, Vivian in Chicago, and Helen (ugh), but at least I got the bulk of this week's deliverables done. Some-
times, I really cannot believe the number of people I communicate with in any given day...

It really gets crazy at times.

Tomorrow I plan to go running, take care of some smaller details, go to my 12:00 meeting, and then spend the afternoon shopping with Quynh, as I could really use the break.

I have plans to play in the city on Friday night and on Saturday night as well, but otherwise, this entire weekend will be devoted
to completing my web deliverables for Ben and Tao Liang (site content and auto-email templates) so that they can complete the ORIENTED Events and Jobs modules that they are working on, respectively.

These are two EXTREMELY critical components to everything we plan to do in the next few months, which I will explain later. Most people will say, eh Christine, it's just a jobs database or it's just another events calendar, what's the big deal?

But peeps...

Jimmy owns AsianEvents.com, and I have a very big dream that I have been thinking about for quite some time.

We'll see what happens.

So many things in the pipeline just hanging there...

It's kind of stressful.





Completely unrelated is the fact that my hair is getting longer but I figured, what the heck.

Who ever said that Life had to make sense?

Nite nite, folks.

Fifth month in America

This would be my fifth month since officially moving back to the good 'ole United States of America, and guess what.

The inevitable has happened.

I have been assimilated... to the Oprah Collective...



It is my dream to one day go to Chicago and attend her show so that I, too, may have a picture with Oprah.

Resistance is futile...

Don't be too smart

I have come to the conclusion that sometimes, the brightest and most talented people in the world are also the least reliable, and you know why?

Because they *** over-commit, time and time again.

They think they can do everything by TODAY when the truth is that they cannot realistically even get it done by TOMORROW.

I have seen the smartest people fall on their faces because of this and yet they never learn, which is why I often say that I ain't the brightest cookie on the block because *I* don't have this problem, EXCEPT for those times when I am dependent on THEM.

I swear, this is an illness specific to those most ambitious!

This girl is having one really lousy day, having spent the bulk of it yelling at a NUMBER of talented and ambitious people.

I'm allowed, right?