Category: about me

Pure Vanity.

Did you ever know that I’m your hero?

Can I ever say enough times how much I like to hear my name? Oh sure, Meagan one-upped my last article by getting her photo in Valleywag. But I refuse to be outdone.

Me! Me! Me!

So a big thank you to Bobs Matthis for making me his hero on Friday, with my own trading card, special powers, and everything. 🙂

Terry Chay

Bobs writes:

“I am a subscriber of [t]his blog and always look forward to [Terry’s] next post. His blog is always entertaining as he mixes in technical posts right along with everything else. He has a way with mixing in comical antics along with technical posts where he still comes across as an experienced developer, intelligent, and hilarious.”

Pshawww!!! I’m blushing! (In other news, my readership count has jumped to 11! That’s like as high as the dial goes, baby!)

[More about me after the jump]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 10

A fish(y) story

It is because of random flukes like this:

I make C|Net’s News.Com frontpage (sort of)

Baseball cap? Check? New York Giants? Check. Geek convention? Check. This reminds me, C|Net really needs to host a Lunch 2.0… Check?

that Blake and Meagan have started calling me “rockstar.” What is ironic is that I’m not a rockstar, but I am related to one: my Uncle Francis, whom you’ve read about before. 😀

Uncle Francis Gunbei!

Uncle Francis Gunbei!
Yoshi’s Jazz House and Japanese Restaurant, Oakland, California

Nikon D70, 50mm f/1.8D
1/20sec @ f/1.8, iso200, 50mm (75mm)

Here is the photographic proof my brother found that my Uncle Francis has a secret night job as Shin Joong-hyun, the Korean Godfather of Rock ’n Roll:

Korea’s Godfather of Rock Makes a Comeback

As my cousin, Chris, says, now we figured out what her father has been up to since “retiring.” We just got to get him to shave his head, wear and earpiece, and look pensive. 😀 (Knowing Uncle Francis, he’d do that too, if it meant a free lunch…Hmm, maybe the idea for Lunch 2.0 was genetic.)

Speaking of another Chris (and another lunch), Chris Jones mentioned that I need to include more essays from my Uncle. So, the same week last November my brother found Uncle’s hidden secret double life as the Godfather of Korean Rock, this essay was making the rounds in our family…

(Trust me, you’re going to love it.)

[“One day in life of a retiree: a fish(y) story” after the jump.]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 5

Long live the Revolution!

“The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.”
—Ernesto “Che” Guevara

I knew politically, I was getting left of center, but I didn’t realize I fell off the scale…

Che Chay

The irony here was my brother bought me a “People’s Republic of Berkeley” t-shirt when I was in grad school because I was such a conservative. 🙂

This Chay as Che eCard was sent to me by Michael Rowley.

Have a great Fri-Chay!

Posted on by tychay 1

Dreams of death

I’m horribly sick right now.

I’m sick

I’m sick (in more ways than one)
North Beach, San Francisco, California

Apple MacBook Pro iSight

I shouldn’t have gotten out of bed yesterday, but I eventually did which was probably not wise.

Being sick means waking up with strange or horrible dreams.

This time, it is years later and my instant best friend has died. I’m thinking how horrible it is that she died so young, so soon after we met, and how I can barely recall her name and face now. But I wake up, everything is fine, nobody’s dead, and its only me who is sick.

I want to call her and make sure she really isn’t dead, but I don’t want to be served with a temporary restraining order. So I think better of it and blog where this private insanity of mine comes from.

[Two dreams of death after the jump.]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 10

Making it rain (a story with three "Mark"ed bills)

Tagged has a Cherry Coke promotion which pretty much works with any website out there. In honor of this, I pimped out my profile with some raining cherries—I mean once you get over all the pr0n on my profile, that I’m too lazy(?) to delete. 🙂

Mark #1

Apparently there was a reward for getting Mark hired and I was the lucky recipient of it. In a move back to our gangsta roots, Greg gave me most of it in the form of a brick of 125 $20 bills. Time to really make it rain!

Making it rain

Making it rain
Tagged, Financial District, San Francisco, California

Nikon D200, Tokina AT-X PRO 16-50mm f/2.8 DX
1/200sec @ f/2.8, iso320, 16mm (24mm)

(Best viewed large on black)

[More raining and Tagged is hiring after the jump]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 9

LinkedIn Haikus reprise

Okay, the day Plaxo finally comes out with the access and sync API platform for contact management, the kids at LinkedIn announced that they’re going platform also. In honor of that and the fact that my SiteOps manager calls me a “LinkedIn contact whore,” I whittled down my stack of business cards and sent another blast of LinkedIn Haikus. Shortly afterward, this was my Inbox…

My e-mail box after spamming LinkedIn members in my Address Book

C’mon Mario, that’s worth blogging at LinkedIn. 😉

Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 3

Thanks, bro

There is a section of my high school called Rowe Common that is off limits to underclassmen. You can’t enter there on pain of death, or whatever. If you were cool and were a freshman or sophomore, you hung out playing four-square in “the Pit” which sits below Rowe Common.

(In my entire time at Shady Side Academy, I think I hung out at the Pit one time.)

One day, some seniors were sitting around bored in need of some light entertainment, one of them got the idea that they’d trick a frosh into entering Rowe Common so they could duct tape them to the wall. They sent an envoy downstairs to the locker rooms.

[How this story and I collide…after the jump]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 5

The iPhone

I was talking to Dru about that today. He said he’s not worried. “Apple says it’ll be fine as long as you go to a Cingular store and not Apple Store on the day of launch.”

Web 2.0 lunch

Web 2.0 Lunch
Chinatown, San Francisco, California

Nikon D200, Tokina AT-X PRO 16-50mm f/2.8 DX
1/640sec @ f/2.8, iso100, 16mm (24mm)

“Maybe in podunkville. This is San Francisco, the geeky New York City. I don’t think is enough space in the stores to house all the phones people are going to want to buy. I love it when pundits say that the iPhone is going to bomb. More! More of that! I wish more would say that so I’d actually have a chance at getting one.”

*laughter* “I have an engineer who said it was too expensive and all that. And then this morning, he downloaded the guided tour. I haven’t seen it yet, but he has—it’s like twenty minutes. After he watched it he said, ‘Blackberry is going to get crushed.’”

:-O

When I got back from lunch, I so had to check out the video. When we were watching, Gerry kept saying, “That’s sick!” The demo of the new earbuds are especially impressive in its cleverness.

When the video got to this fictitious SMS conversation between the speaker and Johnny Appleseed about having a drink before going to Sushi Ran. The place?

Let’s meet at Kell’s

“Let‘s meet at Kell’s.”

Coincidentally, my last SMS message reads… 6/21/07 09:51PM. A: “Kels, jackson and montgomery.”

Yes, I just got drunk there yesterday after the RockYou! party.

Morgan and Jia

Morgan and Jia
Thristy Bear, SOMA, San Francisco, California

Nikon D200, Tokina AT-X PRO 16-50mm f/2.8 DX, SB-800
1/25sec @ f/3.2, iso2000*, 16mm (24mm)

Maybe God is trying to tell me something…

I read you loud and clear, Steve. 😀

(Speaking about New York and San Francisco, I went to my first baseball game in 18 years and it was between the New York Yankees and the San Francisco Giants. Last time I went, I saw Barry Bonds play also, as my friends heckled him from the corporate boxes. This time, I noticed I had no reception on my cell phone and I thought to myself…hmm, I’m switching to AT&T soon. Bonds hit his 749th home run.)

Posted on by tychay 9

Random stuff that comes out of my mouth when I’m drunk

[I don’t realize how over-the-top I am until I sober up. Here is a random snippet of conversation.]

Me: “You know how I am. I went to that g—d—n school. I think they’re all idiots who are divorced from reality. I said that to you when they bought out Overture.”

K—: “They’re eggheads. That’s true anywhere, not just Caltech. It’s not Burbank anymore, the new people in Sunnyvale are like that too. You talk to them and think they’re smart, but all the do is draw boxes.”

Me: “Boxes? You mean like UML?”

K—: “No, that would imply code being written. I mean boxes.”

[More random stuff after the jump]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 8

Brains!!!!

When Jeremiah twittered that he was going to check out he Zombie flash mob, I had to jet off work and check it out.

“terry chay (right)” by jeremiah_owyang

It was a lot of fun running out of the office: “Where are you going?”

“BRAINS!!!”

???

I’ve been bitten

I managed to escape that day with only a little zombie blood on my pants and a memory card full of images I should post to flickr. But today, I got f&@$ing bit on Facebook by Blake.

I’m an Ensign Zombie Newbie

I’m just a Ensign Zombie Newbie

There is a 20 bites/day maximum right now so what I want to do to reach Leftenant Zombie status is have you add the zombie application and then say that I was the one who bit you. (If you aren’t my friend. Just friend me and send me a message saying “BRAINS!!!!”)

Now I know what Blake’s been doing with all that spare time since BuildForge got bought out by IBM.

Why is this man smiling?

Why is this man smiling?
Ning, Palo Alto, California

Nikon D200, Tokina AT-X PRO 16-50mm f/2.8 DX
1/40sec @ f/2.8, iso800, 26mm (39mm)

(Hey Slide or Bitnik, Wouldn’t it be cool if an app like CrazyFunPix had a zombify editor? You know so I can celebrate my new found need for BRAINS???)

[I’ll post the zombie flashmob photos sometime later.]

Posted on by tychay 6