Now this was a cool bathroom! Took me awhile to figure out how to flush the toilet though, lol.
Sony VAIO
laelene Post in general blog，Tags: experiences, opinion, product, technology
14
April
2011
I got my new laptop yesterday! Receiving it wasn’t nearly as exciting as I had hoped, since I couldn’t open it immediately and start fiddling with setting it up just the way I like. It sat in the box for a couple hours by my desk until I took some time before lunch to open it up and start charging it. Setup was quick and soon I was configuring things to my liking. I kind of imagined having the packaging and manuals laid out all around me as I sat with it in the middle of the living room (don’t know why). Instead, it sat next to my work laptop and external monitor and made my desk look like some sort of computing hub.
When I was shopping for laptops, I had wanted one that wouldn’t get hot, but I should have looked for one that wouldn’t be noisy too. I’m going to have to check with Sony whether this noise level is normal, since it is much louder than I expected a brand new laptop to be. It certainly wasn’t like this at Best Buy. It’s not even like I’m making it do all that much work yet either. We’ll see what they say.
I do enjoy the keyboard more than I thought I would and the backlit feature is nice, though the light peeks through the cracks of the keys and I wish it didn’t do that. Still, it feels cool that it glows when lighting is low. The screen is also very nice and I’m glad I didn’t convince myself to get a smaller size. I have a lot more room to play around with, allowing me to have multiple windows up and in view much easier. After having an external monitor in addition to my computer monitor at work, I’ve been spoiled and started to get used to having a lot of space to throw up reports and webpages and the like. This is almost a similar experience.
I had hoped to be a bit more enthusiastic about my new computer, but I’ve been holding myself back from setting everything up until Sony can transfer some of my files and programs. Once that’s done, I can finally get on with having everything I want on this new device, ready to be tried out. I can’t wait to take it to the store this weekend (maybe even tomorrow) so I can fully embrace everything it has to offer. 🙂
Flamingo fight
laelene Post in general blog，Tags: birds, videos, zoo
13
April
2011
Aw man, I just about caught the two flamingos on the right having a fight.
fighting flamingos from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
George
laelene Post in general blog，Tags: animals, pictures, work
12
April
2011
We have a new puppy in the office and he is adorable! It’s super hard to get him to sit still for a picture though. I’d totally love to have a puppy like him.
This is what I call the "sphinx pose."
He's teething and will go for your fingers if you don't give him something gnaw-worthy.
Hahaha, he'll even tackle a gnaw toy twice his size!
Web presence
laelene Post in general blog，Tags: internet, observation, opinion
11
April
2011
Recently I’ve noticed how important it is to me to have a web presence. Actually, correction: how important is it to me for companies to have a web presence. I mean, it’s great that I have one and all, but it’s really really useful when a business I’m interested in has one (and a good one at that).
I guess this all came about because of my new obsession with Yelp. Most listings don’t have business hours, from what I’ve seen, which seems to be a crucial piece to the puzzle. After all, there’s nothing more disappointing and frustrating than looking forward to going somewhere only to show up and find it’s closed that day or during that time period that you arrive. It’s been a personal mission of mine to add in operating hours to as many Yelp listings as I can, but it has been slow going. Businesses either don’t have them on their website, or they don’t even have a website!
Sometimes I wish more of the world was as tech-savvy as our youth. Then perhaps business owners would take note of the importance of having some sort of web presence, even if it’s just a listing on another site and not even your own web page. The great thing about listings is that you can take control of or at least edit most of them, so you can add in the information about your business without ever having to put any effort into creating a site.
Seriously, people. Get with the program already.
Sky high
laelene Post in video blog，Tags: experiences, observation, travel, videos, weather
10
April
2011
up in the clouds from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
Shopping… container?
laelene Post in photo blog，Tags: interesting, observation, pictures, travel
09
April
2011
Shopping cart or shopping baskets? Well, some sort of hybrid actually.
Teamwork
laelene Post in general blog，Tags: experiences, future, work
08
April
2011
Much of my job entails independent work, with a bit of guidance from my supervisor. With a lot of changes coming to the company as of late, I’ve seen most of my coworkers hopping in and out of meetings and it makes me a bit nostalgic for an opportunity to have meetings as well. Additionally, Panda has found that he is often attending meetings for his job. Suddenly I find myself sitting there alone, wishing I had more meetings to participate in.
I don’t get much interaction with my coworkers in terms of sharing ideas for what I’m working on, so it seems I’ve been compensating by engaging them in conversation, period. That ranges from a random observation to just asking if they’ll be joining everyone for lunch today. I don’t mean to distract them from their work, but I figure it’s a brief enough encounter that it can be a quick break in the midst of all their work. Or so I hope. Perhaps I am just an unwelcome distraction that they can’t bear to ignore or wave away.
I hope that in the future there will be a chance for me to work more in a team environment, exchanging ideas throughout the day with a collaborator. My supervisor is great, but I feel like I should only go to him after I’ve thought through some things so he can make a final decision or help guide me. But while I’m in that thinking process, I’d like to have someone, a counterpart, who is a team member at my level. Then we can bounce ideas off each other before taking them to our supervisor (versus me having internal conversations with myself…). Plus, sometimes there are issues that I just don’t know who to ask, so maybe this person could be there to help me think through that as well.
Even though I am an independent learner and I love my space, I wish I had a more consistent teamwork component to my work. It’s a nice change of pace from the usual “sitting at my desk typing away” pattern of work. While we do have a weekly meeting now, I think it’d be nice to have more small meetings too, or even just informal ones.
Freshwater ray?
07
April
2011
I think freshwater ray exist… that is what’s swimming along the bottom of this pond, right?
freshwater ray from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
Oran-grapefruit
laelene Post in photo blog，Tags: food, interesting, observation, pictures
06
April
2011
That’s a grapefruit in the back, a normal orange on the right, and some sort of monster orange on the left.
It doesn’t look so bad on its own but believe me it was massive!
