smallchou.com/blog

this is one of those strange nights, when i feel just a tad overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. and by ‘it’ i don’t mean the meaning of life or the universe. by ‘it’ i mean all of the things that i want to do and be. it is one of those nights when i question myself and wonder whether this life has enough time to do absolutely everything.

maybe it has to do with being 25.

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i really love this time of year and it’s not just because i’m going to be hitting the big 2-5 in a few days. i think it has to do with the holiday ambiance. for those of you outside of the bay area right now, don’t laugh at me when i say weather, because it has honestly been very cold for california this week. i’m talking like down into the 30’s at night. bizarre, huh?

anyhow, 25 seems like such a round number. as a former math wizard (read: marginally good at math), i automatically think of 5×5 when the number hits my brain. so i thought i would do something fun and think back on my last 25 years in groups of five. namely, what was i like at 5, 10, 15, 20, and now 25 years old?

5 years old
when i was five, i was growing up in san jose spending a lot of time watching sesame street and transformers. my main concerns were figuring out how to tie my shoelaces (i wore a lot of velcro shoes up to that point) and deciding how to split up my stuffed animals into teams to play baseball. in fact, that was probably my favorite pasttime: putting my hordes of toys into teams so they could play made-up baseball games against each other. i had one superstar (a stuffed bear in a red-and-white t-shirt with my dad’s company’s name on it) who ended up winning every game, usually in a walk-off home run. my most terrifying moment to that point was getting my right middle finger run over by a skateboard, resulting in my fingernail coming off (you laugh, but think about that happening when you’re FIVE). my favorite color was green, favorite food was apple sauce and favorite drink was milk. my life dream was to be an architect. yes. no joke.

10 years old
when i was 10, i had moved to los altos and was going to school at santa rita. by then i had met some of the same jackasses that i hang out with now. i rode around a lot on my bike, though i was forbidden from going downtown or even down to new foodland (which is about, uh, 100 yards from santa rita). i remember my crowning achievement was one day defying my parents and sneaking down to the am/pm on my bike to buy an 89 cent slurpee. i was so excited that when i started back towards home on my bike, the slurpee slipped out of my hand, splattering onto the street. for a moment i contemplated crawling on the ground and sipping it up. i had a shitload of baseball cards (i wonder where those went…) and i dreamt of someday selling them for a small fortune so that i could purchase more baseball cards. at 10 my biggest concern was trying to be not fat. as mrs. chen would say, somehow i grew horizontally in that time, and even then i knew that the world looked down on fat people (kidding).

15 years old
now 15 was a strange time. i had gone to junior high, started to realize that i was pretty good at schoolwork, and spent (literally) 100% of my time thinking about sports. every morning i would get up at about 6:30 am and read the sj mercury news sports pages from front-to-back. and when i say front-to-back, i really mean it. i would even read the high school sports box scores on the back page that are written in 8pt font. somehow this didn’t seem strange to me. i also listened to a lot of rap music, which didn’t seem strange to me either. i wasn’t worried about being fat anymore (cuz i wasn’t by that point), but i spent most of my time thinking about how to make the basketball team. in retrospect how could the coach NOT pick me? i mean, i was 5′9″ with the quickness of eric montross and the toughness of mike dunleavy jr. i did well in all my classes and school was pretty easy. the activity of choice back then was watching movies at shoreline (the same place i work 300 yards from today) and figuring out how to convince my parents to let me drive. good times, high school. oh, and strangely, i hated stanford.

20 years old
by 20 i had graduated high school and moved a whole… 5 miles away to go to school at stanford. my largest concerns by that point were three-fold: what was i going to major in (undecided at that point), what i was going to do with my life, and where could i find alcoholic beverages. all were equally troubling and some were easier to answer than others. actually, in the year after turning 20, i probably had the craziest fluctuation in weight ever, as i finished up a sophomore year of having a fully-stocked bar in my room, noticed that i was friggin beefy, and spent all summer and fall running my ASS off. i went from an enormous 220 down to a slightly disturbing 170. frankly, i will never be able to hit that weight again. 20 was a great year. full of hopes, dreams, good friends, and copious drinking… all the while being secretly scared shitless of the real world. 20 was also the year when i took cs106b, the class that made me decide to go with a technical degree. i think 20 might also be the year i started writing in an online forum. i think they’re all still here: http://www.xanga.com/smallchou

25 years old
and that brings me to 25. technically i’m still four days away, but unless something crazy happens in the next few days, i’m pretty aware of how i am. i’ve spent a few years working and i’ve even switched jobs. i’ve traveled to new continents and found a new favorite pasttime. i think i’m more mature. i’m more confident than i was at 20, but not nearly as confident as i was at 15 (and CERTAINLY not 18). i’m more aware of my strengths and much more aware of my weaknesses (and there are many). i spend a lot more time thinking about how to be a better person and a lot less time thinking about how to be impressive. i’m a lot more traveled, a lot more calm, and a lot less cocky. i think i’m a man, when i’m pretty sure that i wasn’t one at 20 (though i thought i was then). i’ve also found that concerns get bigger as you get older. finding alcohol is no longer a problem. in fact, i’ll go grab a paulaner out of the fridge right now… (fun fact: i’m drinking it out of the same glass that’s in the little collage at the top of the site). instead, all my concerns now are related to the next 50+ years of my life, when at 20 (and 15, 10, and 5) they were all about the next two or three years. they’re larger in scope and hazier in clarity. that’s the funny thing about poker (or life in general): the better you are at it, the more you realize how far you have to go.

30 years old
i could’ve told you (with some level of accuracy) when i was 5, 10, 15, and 20 where i’d be five years later. some of the facts would be different, but it’d be pretty spot on. 30? no clue. i was having dinner with an old college friend in the cafeteria tonight and i realized that as i get older, i get less and less sure about everything. luckily i also get less and less concerned about my uncertainty. funny how that works out. who knows, maybe i’ll still be writing here at 30 and i can revisit this. wouldn’t that be fun…

see you at 30 (and 35)…

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rockefeller_tree

Originally uploaded by smallchou.

i don’t really remember where i found this photo anymore, and so it’s hard to actually give it credit (i know, i’m terrible). but i always post it up on my blog around this time of year, so here we go…

i just want to note that I posted a comment up on cuban’s blog post basically reiterating the statements i put below, but he (or some well-paid henchman) took it down.

in fact, the comment was #23. and i know this because the new comment 23 specifically makes reference to me writing that it’s the ‘pot calling the kettle black’. strange how that just randomly disappeared.

Blogged with Flock

so the nuggets and the knicks got in a fight a few nights ago and there’s been tons of coverage on it. if you haven’t seen the video, start with this link:youtube video

and then feel free to read more about it, um EVERYWHERE: like espn

so today, mark cuban, owner of the dallas mavericks, writes a very insightful post on his blog. i think he makes some really great points about how the entire organization should be held accountable, instead of just the players involved. a small excerpt:

Its [management's] responsibility to determine where their problem areas are and address them before bad things happen. To know which players can possibly create problems and either get them the help they need, or get rid of them.When something goes wrong, the responsibility is not just that of the players involved. Its the responsibility of the entire organization to recognize what caused it and if it can happen again. Isnt it interesting how so many people are there for the press conference when a player is signed, but most of those same people are no where to be found when something goes wrong ?

The perspective of many in management positions in the NBA is that they are immune and seperate from the actions of players. If the league were to assign public responsibility , along with fines to coaches, GMs and owners that would change very, very quickly and you would see management become more proactive , aware and involved with all elements of the cutlture of their organizations. That would be a great thing for the NBA and its fans.

i think cuban’s right: the front office should be held accountable too. however, is cuban really the guy to be saying this? after all, didn’t jason terry, from HIS mavericks, punch an opposing player in the balls last year? exactly where does a punch to the male genitalia rank up there with the events that occurred the other night? and where exactly was cuban’s indignation last year at the front office of the offending team not being held responsible?

interesting how last year (during the playoffs), it was ok for avery johnson to mouth off and insinuate how the suspensions were unfair, but today it’s ok for cuban to take the high road against other front offices in the league.

c’mon, mark: i think isiah’s as slimy as anyone, but you might not be the right person to talk about it…

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NBA fans LOVE Allen Iverson…

Blogged with Flock

My Allen Iverson Experience

in december of 1997, i went on a long weekend trip with the varsity basketball team to lake oswego, oregon. as a frosh-soph player, i was excited to join the upperclassmen on a tournament trip. it was a cool experience because, among other things, i got to attend my first nba game.

now for anyone that doesn’t know, nba players are big. ENORMOUS. and you think you understand that, but you really can’t until you see them up close. their scale is on another level.

we got to the rose garden in portland early, to watch a mid-season tilt between the trailblazers (i believe rod strickland was the point guard at the time) and the philadelphia 76ers. since we were there well before tip-off, a bunch of us sat down in the lower level seats, watching the pre-game shootaround of the players. i remember marveling at three things:

1. the size. these guys were absurd
   
2. jim jackson’s arms. he was the only player shooting around with his jersey on, so his guns were on full display. they looked like they belonged in a friggin comic book.
   
3. allen iverson’s small size amongst the trees. looked among the other players. listed at 6′0″, the second-year player looked more like 4′1″ stick figure next to guys like jackson

once the game started, we moved up to our upper level seats, where the players started looking less like giants and more like ants. it was up there that a fourth item struck me:

allen iverson was FAST. absurdly fast. you know in super mario brothers when you would pick up the star and suddenly zoom around, too fast for everything else? that was allen iverson. in a league full of freakish physical specimen, AI made them all look slow. that was my one and only first-hand AI experience.

The Phenomenon

the thing is that back then, in the time since, and even today, so many sportswriters misunderstand the allen iverson phenomenon. and yes, it isn’t crazy to call him a phenomenon. bill simmons touched on it a bit today, but the gist is this: allen iverson is one of the most loved nba players ever, as well he should be. for almost any nba fan in my generation, allen iverson is usually high on the list of favorite players.

yes, he has some attitude, but he’s tiny, unique in his athleticism, resilient, and he plays HARD. perhaps most of all, he is perceived as being real, where so many other players are looked at as being corporate (see: bryant, kobe) or fake.

sportswriters and the media will often try to push fans to fuse with their perspectives. but AI was the rare player who rubbed the media wrong and was revered even more for doing so. i don’t think the majority of sportswriters have ever understood his appeal. he has street credibility in urban areas that most players do not, and that translates into reverence in the suburbs. since he stepped into the nba he has always been one of the league’s premier stars, despite rarely getting the face time of other top players. he has the love that the nba wishes kobe could get.

The Trade

so today, AI is sitting on the trade block. on monday after basketball, i remarked to tim that i wouldn’t be surprised if AI sat out two months while they tried to move him. the sixers almost certainly won’t get fair value for him (on the court and in the ticket office) because they have no leverage at this point of the season, but their hand has been forced.

what was most remarkable was the surprise by media in how many teams have interest in AI. i saw an espn personality openly remark that he didn’t think there were too many teams that would be interested, at which point an nba analyst (a former player) stopped him cold and told him that was nonsense. such is the phenomenon of allen iverson. everyone can see his value except for the old media types, who just see off-the-court incidents and press conferences about “practice”. it’s a strange phenomenon.

wherever he lands, i hope that it’s with a contender, because watching him in the playoffs is always an experience. then i hope he retires in a few years, disappearing from history except for in the minds of people who actually appreciated him…

Blogged with Flock

So I’ve moved my blog one last time. I think it should be sort of understandable why (read: actually using smallchou.com now).

As a Google employee, is it weird that I’ve decided to move off of Blogger? No, I don’t think so. It’s good to try out some of the other available products (Wordpress is nice) and it’s nice to host stuff on my actual real domain now.

So anyhow, come here from now on:

http://smallchou.com/blog

It won’t be moving again.

If you’re subscribing to the old Atom feed, I’ll post one more note on smallchou.blogspot.com telling you to subscribe to the feedburner feed. If you’re subscribing to the Feedburner feed, it should automatically update for you. If you don’t know what these notes mean, don’t worry about it.