My old friend and co-worker Nathan has been back in town this past week and it’s been great! It’s been nearly three years since he left Taiwan and he wanted a chance to come by before starting law school this fall. His friend Joel, who hadn’t ever been to Asia is here, too.
We’ve [...]

I’d been swimming in the ocean several times since coming to Taiwan, but yesterday was the first time I ever went to a swimming pool in Taiwan. I went to the Nángǎng public sports center.
Price
It was pretty reasonable, probably about 80% of the price it used to cost me to go to public sports [...]

I spent most of the winter break at home with a cold. It was almost as if my body suddenly realized it had time to get sick! It wasn’t a waste in any sense, though.
My interest in Japanese somehow became renewed. I think somehow, getting into Anki was the reason. [...]

I went to several local video game shops right before Chinese New Year. It had been long time since I’d bought or really played any console games, but the Wii was different enough and interesting enough that I decided to get one to play over my two week vacation. For new systems, [...]

Tonight I met up with Angelica, Eli, Tetsuo, Brian and many others at The Brass Monkey to share Obama’s inauguration speech and some Hoegarden on-tap.
As usual, his speech was excellent. It was uplifting, inspirational and unifying. It was only a speech, but seeing him sworn in was a great feeling. Especially as [...]

This is a few links. Last week, Seth Godin put to words something I’ve felt for a few years:
Here’s a trick that’s as old as the web: Run a popularity contest with public voting. It could be anything from a listing of the top blogs to a creative contest for best tagline or ad.
The [...]

As I’ve written before, getting a debit card can be a serious dilemma for long-term foreign residents in Taiwan. Today, I’m happy to write that I’ve found a work-around for one of my previous debit card needs.
Recharging a Skype account is doable, even if you initially funded the account with an international [...]

Once again, I find myself looking back on a year past, remembering what I’ve done and evaluating the changes in my life. A year really is an arbitrary measurement, but it’s a familiar one and one that’s easy to use as a metric.
Last New Year’s
I don’t think I really did any sort of systematic [...]

Ever since taking a stake in my school, I’ve been very strict about failing students. Experience has taught me how necessary it is to fail the students who should fail.
A long time ago, when I was at a large chain school, I wasn’t allowed to fail students. Due to business reasons that were [...]

I’ve decided to move my investing writing off of this blog. I’m still investing, despite the pat few rough months and I’m still beating the market over the long haul. I may also share some of my ideas about investing, but the personal portfolio may have to come down. It’s just too [...]