ChapterTwo

Today is a big day. It marks the beginning and the end for a couple things.

First of all, today is my last day working for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Online. It is a sad day. I am proud of myself for not breaking down and sob. I really will miss everybody at WDPRO. It’s been awsome working with everybody. During college, I was dreading the day I start working 40 hour weeks. Working at PRO was nothing I thought working life would be. I had fun working. Who woulda known I could have fun at work!?!?!

I am touched by all the people that showed up at my going away lunch today. Thanks guys for coming out. It really means a lot. I am also touched that people would actually spend so much money on me for a going away present. I confess. I was actually suspecting that I would get an iPod since that’s kinda the only thing I wanted that I have not actually gotten. However, I was expecting a 2GB Nano or something, not the TOP OF THE LINE, iPOD VIDEO w/ 60GB! (and a charger, and $20 cash) WOW! And sorry if I didn’t seem as ecstatic at the restaurant. I was mostly stunned. I’ve already put the iPod to good use. I backed up 15GB of stuff from my work computer (mostly car videos and MP3s), uploaded 400+ photos, and uploaded 14 episodes of Lost. Thanks again, everybody!

Ok, moving on. I can blab on how I am gonna miss everyone for a long time, but I need to move on so I can get some sleep. I need to get to ABC.com early tomorrow.

Hmmm, what else. Oh ya. Today is the official beginning of another triathlon season. I wanted to go to the kick off meeting, but I was tied up wrapping stuff up at work. GO TEAM DISNEY!

Also, 6 monthes ago from today, the WordPress blog was set up on elyliu.com and my first blog post was written. So happy 6 month birthday elyliu.com! As of today, there are…

• 144 posts (including this one)
• 77 comments

And in the last month, the hits to elyliu.com has EXPLODED. I got 1600+ hits last month (none from me)! Check out the growth of elyliu.com…

Yay for elyliu.com!

Here’s a random fact that is vaguely related, but my friend still wanted me to include it in this post for no apparent reason. 144 is also the year the Han dynasty ended. Since so many things are starting and ending today, I feel it is appropriate to bring ChapterTwo to an end. Farewell, friends. See ya in ChapterThree.

The first thing that I smelled when I got home today was the new car smell. It’s kind of odd because we didn’t get a new car. And even if we did, it wouldn’t make the house smell like it.

It turned out that the smell is coming from my new Bacco Bucci Parra…

I got a SWEET deal on it too (thanks, Christine). Zappos.com is selling them for $170 a pair. I got it for less than $65 out the door!

So I’ve been trying the early riser thing for about a week now. Every single day, it’s been PAINFUL to wake up early. Today, it’s different. I went to bed at 2am last night and I am up now at 7am, WITHOUT AN ALARM! WOOO! And I am gonna get some swimming in before work (after I am done with this post)…

We’ll see if I can permanently be an early riser…

UPDATE: I didn’t go swimming. Once I logged on, I couldn’t log off. Next obstacle, how to become a regular exerciser…

It’s been a pretty crappy day. Here’s why (in no particular order)…

• My going away party was bundled with the quarterly birthday party (BUNDLED WITH THE QUARTERLY BDAY PARTY?!?!?! UGH! WHERE’S THE LOVE?!?!)
• My Yahoo stocks are doing crappy
• My Z’s shocks feel like it is going bad
• I was at work til 9pm on my third to last day at work (doing work)
• People are yelling at me (via email)
• My dinner plans got canceled
• I am hungry
• Lakers are losing right now
• My Google AdSense account got disabled

Pretty crappy day, doncha think?

UPDATE: Lakers lost

FINALLY!

I am a short-timer (most people call me that. Others call me “asshole”, in a friendly way, of course) at WDPRO. I have 6 days (business days) left before I leave for ABC.com. As a WDPRO tradition, when good people leaves WDPRO, they go on the Wall of Fame in Ben’s cube. Last night, I was officially honored a spot on that wall. (Thanks, Ben!)

I will miss WDPRO (even if they only worked on websites for kiddie theme parks)…

For those of you that have not heard yet, I AM GOING TO ABC.COM!

I have not gotten the official paper yet, but everything have been verbally confirmed. And apparently, I don’t sign a thing since this is more of an internal transfer than a new job. The pay is set. The position is set. And the date is set. I start there on 4/4. That leaves me 2 weeks and a day left at WDPRO.

The remaining weeks at WDPRO will be busy. I’ll spend half my time wrapping up my current project. I don’t really want to ditch my tech PM in the middle of the project, but I don’t really want to stick around for 2 monthes. I think the project will do fine without me. The other half of the time will probably involve people sucking knowledge outta my brain.

Stay tuned for my review of ABC.com in two weeks…

I finally cleaned up my (mostly car) video page. Now it is nicely sorted by car brands. Here is the before and after.

What motivated me to do this tedious task? I didn’t want to study. I get a lot of chores done when I don’t want to study. Haha…

I think I’ve had it with the non-Apple online music services, namely Yahoo Music Engine. I like the subscription model of the non-Apple music stores, but the execution is just HORRIBLE. I am tired of dealing with buggy and slow UI and the quirkyness of DRM protected WMAs. The whole thing is just not very well executed (typical of Microsoft products, eh?). I don’t want to be their beta tester anymore. I want switch over to the time-tested Apple iTunes/iPod combo.

Also, I realized that I don’t really take advantage of the subscription model either. In the long run, it’s probably cheaper for my to BUY me music instead of RENTING my music.

ARG!

UPDATE: I think I’ll wait until April 1st. I have a feeling that Apple will introduce something big for their 30th birthday. Maybe a portable media center thing? There’s some rumors about a media player with “PSP sized” touch screen.

A lot has happened this week (the reason why I haven’t blogged much this week) and there are a lot of mixed emotions tied to the recent events…

tired…from all the work given to me recently
happy…from all the things I got done and feeling important around work
angry/frustrustrated…because I missed a very important meeting due to traffic
happy…because of a very successful interview with a great group of people
excited…about the upcoming London trip in April
sad…about the possibility of leaving the friends I have at my current job
excited…about car shopping for my parents (maybe a Hummer H3?)
disappointed…about the lack of studying and training I’ve done lately
stunned…that my friend, Nikki, hasn’t been to work for 2 and half monthes. (She’s taking time off to take care of her mom)
excited…about the possibility of working at ABC
happy…about Lakers beating the Spurs and are now in the 7th spot in the playoff standings (close to 6th as well)
unhappy…that my dad changed the channel while the Media Center was recording the game
bitter…about the lack of effort from management to try to get me to stay at my current job
curious…about the future of WDPRO (my current department)
sleepy…from staying up…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz