I’m sure i’ve used that title before. i just remember what for. anyway:
my aunt from LA is in town. it’s the first time i’ve seen her since i moved back to cali. interesting times. so, today we talked about careers. I got a ton of advise on how to navigate the waters of corporate america.
“make sure you get proper credit for the things you do.”

“be careful about making friends at work. they could stab you in the back.”

“make sure your boss knows who you are.”

it was kinda odd hearing them talk about the do’s and don’ts. at one point I wanted to say that engineers tend not to be as coniving as “business folk”. Not that i couldn’t be stabbed in the back by a teammate, but I think by and large, engineers aren’t profit oriented people. then again, I may be too much of a Veblen fan boy.

anyway, i quickly realized there was no way i could refute said sage advise without being told “ah, jason, don’t be niave!”

that being said:

I work in sports. most recent accomplishments include NFL Playoffs and those nice title tags you see on our pages. also working on olympics feed processing.

Dear Team, if you don’t stab me in the back, i’ll be your friend.

Kelly, Brian: I’m the guy who works at the end of the aisle.

In more exciting news, i upgraded to wordpress 2.0 today.

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Part 1
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—– Original Message —-
From: xxx@xxx.com
To: xxxxx@columbia.edu
Sent: Fri 06 Jan 2006 08:37:32 AM PST
Subject: Greetings from XXXXXXXX

Greetings Jason,

My name is Xxxx Xxxx, a recruiter with XXXXXXXX XXXXX and a fellow Columbia
alumnus (CC ’96). We are a boutique recruiting firm based in NYC that focuses
on searches in finance and technology.

We are currently working on some searches that may fit well with your profile.
Would you please forward me the latest version of your resume in MS Word format?

Cheers,

Xxxxx

#############################################
Part 2
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—– Original Message —-
From: Jeffrey Eng
To: Jason Wong
Sent: Fri 06 Jan 2006 08:46:42 AM PST
Subject: RE: Keyboard Magazine

Hey, a recruiter named Xxxxx Xxxx just called your line. Chucky told him you were now at yahoo, and he responded with, “yeah, I knew he was good.”

Just passing it on.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Jeffrey Eng
Columbia College Info Technology
xxxxx@columbia.edu | xY-YYYY

new squat rack at gym,
excited,
ass is sore,
=>,
=>

i was going to write up something about the new squat rack at the gym. i got my ideas together, starting forming my narrative, and then realized that I’ve been on this reader interaction kick lately. so, above, i give you pieces. make your own equation.

my aunt (to me): Do you want to join us for brunch?
me: no, i need to get some work done
my aunt (to my uncle): Jason’s not coming. he wants to sleep.

So, suddenly i find myself wanting to play video games again. unfortunately, as with many things i want to do in the comforts of my own home, i find myself without the means. The old ps2 is still sitting in a box in sacto.

anyway, having given thought, many years ago, as to why i gave up video games, i came to the conclusion that in my leisure time there are moments where i want to participate, and moments i want to spectate. ’nuff said. now, as i contemplate dusting off the controller, i’m wondering why i want to play again, and i think it’s because i have a perceived loss of control in my life right now. there are things that i want and want to do, but can’t (you like that foreshadowing in the first paragraph? that was a nice touch, huh?). and, so, i feel this need to take control of things again. and by “take control”, i mean “kill”, and by “things”, i mean “shit.” because, taking control of shit is fun.

which reminds me, during finals back in my college days, my girlfriend at the time and I would go to the campus arcade and kill shit as a study break. back then, it was fun and cool that i had a girlfriend that would go with me to the arcade to kill shit. now . . . now, ‘m thinking about how close i came to becoming a fogcreek intern. shit, do i really want to play video games, again?

i wonder how this post will boost my page rank for the terms “kill” and “shit.”

giddyup.

So, took the car to the shop on friday and decided to use the downtime to answer the age old question of rent vs. buy. Interestingly, this marked the first time i’ve found a spreadsheet to be useful and hence, the first time i’ve created an actual spreadsheet.

It’s kinda staggering the amount of money you put into this thing. my first time running the calculations everything actually looked,well, good. and I was like, “wow, it really is better to own than buy.” I was kinda in shock, so i checked the numbers again and low and behold, i forgot to add the downpayment and renovation costs in. doh.

So, anyway, the final calculations took into account the down payment, the monthly mortgage payment, renovation costs, insurance costs, property tax, and tax savings on interest. I used a n amortization table to calculate interest paid per year to account for the shrinking tax benefit and did some five and ten year projections. I didn’t factor in living costs such as water, gas, electric, and cable since those are more lifestyle oriented and aren’t appraisal based. It turns out that if we sell in five years, we need the property to appreciate by 23% in order to break even, and if we sell in ten years, the break even point is 41% which means 3.67% and 3.24% annual appreciation, respectively.

so, is it doable? well, i guess i’m about to find out.