Kurt Weber

I opened an account on Facebook in 2005.  Facebook launched in 2004.  Facebook started as a rather clever way to date between college students.  In 2005, I wasn’t in college.  Far from it.  But, I had figured out a way to join Facebook with my alumni email account and join in this online college party.  I was no more creepy than Frank the Tank.

I loved the idea and experience of Facebook in the earlier days – and was fairly obsessed with social networking, while working on MSN Messenger.  Like being iced, I marveled at Facebook’s popularity as it just continued to spread across the globe.

Two and a half years ago, a few months before getting married, I closed my account on Facebook.  What??  Why would I quit Facebook?  Some reasons I chose to close my account:

1. I had been actively pursuing and talking with companies about new career opportunities.  Despite my friends’ best photographic intentions, I didn’t believe that my skills in doing shots of lazy mules would improve my persona to recruiters.
2. LinkedIn had simply become a more reliable way to track down old friends and colleagues.
3. I no longer played the casual Zynga games on Facebook.  Apparently, I’m not the only one.
4. I’m comfortable reading the news on Google, MSN, or the Onion.  I didn’t need a friend to tell me about the gentleman who won a banana.
5. My status as ‘single’ was about to change.  I now had an amazing wife who I could flirt with all day long in the real, offline world.

In late 2013, I no longer needed Facebook in my life.  And, so I closed my account.

Rebirth

This year, on February 2nd, Groundhog’s Day, the greatest national holiday of the year, I re-activated my account.  Fortunately, my 720 friends hadn’t given up on me!  It was like they were patiently waiting for my return from exile.

(Naturally, I turned my account back on because February 2nd is my birthday.)

I wanted to receive hundreds of Happy Birthday wishes.  As it turns out, most of my online friends didn’t know I had actually rejoined the comforting embrace of Facebook – and I only received a few well-meaning comments.

However, I refuse to despair.

In just over a month, I have received friend requests from over 75 people.  Today, I’m convinced that I can attain the 1000 friends milestone if I push hard.  Ever since elementary school, I’ve wanted to have 1000 really close and personal friends.  Naturally, of the 75 new friends, only 6 appear to actually know me.  The others are either lurking hackers named Boris, or folks looking to sell me something.

Regrets

In retrospective, here’s a short summary of what I missed while being away from Facebook for 2 1/2 years.

1. Lots of invitations to parties.  I mean, hundreds.  Ok, actually, I think I only missed 1 invitation that I knowingly regret: a Runt show.  I didn’t think my brother would forget to text me that his band was playing that Saturday night.
2. I missed some very interesting real-time news and life events from friends.  This includes dozens of marriages, divorces, and babies.  Not in that order.  But, I did receive most of that news, just not in the split second of a Facebook post.  I did join in time to see this important movie from a good friend: The Maker
3. Some great life events are captured in photos.  This includes nieces and nephews growing up.  Fortunately, my family has all moved to 23Snaps for sharing these pics.  But I came alarmingly close to missing a life event from a friend wearing a bacon swimsuit.
4. I miss updates from my friends living abroad.  My only recourse is to actually reach out to these folks from time to time and connect.  This takes a bit more effort than clicking a like button on my phone while standing in line at Safeway.
5. I missed thousands of vacation photos from friends humble bragging and making me jealous.  As a result, I will now try and out-do them, add noticeably more freckles, and humble brag back at them, both in person, and online.

Finally, I estimate that I missed over 1,830 birthdays while I was on hiatus from Facebook.  Now that I’m back on Facebook, I need to start participating if I expect anyone to wish me a happy birthday next year.   So to my 720 friends, including you Boris the hacker, Happy Birthday and sorry I missed your special day!

We recently had the opportunity to visit Kauai, Hawaii.  Sunshine, hiking, swimming, amazing landscapes.  Paradise found.  Again.

Interesting article about the politics of American Jobs.

http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/why-donald-trump-is-wrong-about-manufacturing-jobs-and-china

It’s been almost 2 years since I updated my blog with my travel exploits. My recent phone call to Rwanda, to plan for our upcoming trip, has lent me reason to start it up again.

We are planning a 3 week trip to Africa – specifically, Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania. How else would someone spend their honeymoon? Naturally, basking in the 5-star luxury of the jungles, dry plains, and hardships of other countries.

This morning, a driver, who I met online, referred me to a hotel in the mountains of Rwanda. I logged into Skype and made the call to reserve the room.

how’s your French?

mine is not as strong as it used to be. I just tried calling that hotel that was referred to us. Since my 3 phrases of French, “Bonjour”, “comme ci comme ca”, and “Chevrolet” didn’t help much – I didn’t make too much progress on reserving a room.

I did gather that there was a room available on our destination date. I asked if i could email her, thinking that way i could use google translate or similar – and she gave me the email address in French. Normally, that would be ok, except, i don’t speak french – and she didn’t use ‘Chevrolet’ in the email address.

Stay tuned…

February 2012, Shanghai China:

The hour is getting late.  It’s quite cold outside, as the Velvet Lounge empties patrons onto the streets of Shanghai’s French Concession.  I double-check the 2 plastic tokens in my pocket which contain the magic numbers of our coats at the coatcheck near the entrance.  Long Long tells me we’re ready to leave.  I head out to the coatcheck to pick up my long black p-coat  and her Chinese-tailored cashmere coat. 

The girl behind the counter sits, playing a game on her no-name android phone.  She looks up, slightly annoyed.  I hand her the plastic tokens for coat number ’62’ and ’63’.  There are a total of 4 coats hanging lonely on the racks behind her.  She hands my long black p-coat then goes to retrieve Long Long’s coat.  She comes back and hands me a men’s ski jacket. 

In Chinese, I politely tell the girl that the jacket isn’t mine.  I tell her that the jacket I’m looking for is a woman’s jacket.  She replies with strength and conviction, that , no – this jacket is number ’63’.  And ’63’ is mine.  I crack a smile at her insistence.  She doesn’t flinch.  I explain to her again that the jacket is a man’s jacket – and I’m looking for a petite woman’s jacket. 

The coat check girl digs her feet in a bit.  She has a job to do: in the beginning of the night, take the coat, give a number.  At the end of the night, take the number, hand back the matching coat.  The coat matches the number. Therefore, by transitive property, the coat is mine.  I wonder if she isn’t understanding my Chinese – my pronunciation is poor and sounds like the equivalent of my dancing at a wedding – a bit awkward. 

I use my hands to gesture that my Long Long is only 5 feet 3″.  She’s a little person.  This jacket, number 63, is for a big person.  I explain to her again, the mistake.  But, I’m also peaking behind her back.  Long Long’s jacket isn’t on the rack.  Is the girl trying to cover up her mistake?  I look back at her again and explain that I have the wrong jacket.  The girl is now turning red with anger at me.  She isn’t covering up anything.  She clearly believes that number 63 is number 63.  She cannot waiver or fathom a possibility that the men’s ski jacket in my hand isn’t my Long Long’s.  She crosses her arms, sits down on her chair, her profile facing away from me, and pulls her phone out of her pocket.  She has finished her task.   And Long Long has lost her coat.

The gentleman next to me grunts with effort.  He’s doing some curls with light dumbbells.  His face turns red.  He’s about 25 years old, wears thick, black-framed glasses, wears his dark hair forward.  I’m jogging.  I hear him grunt again.  He’s really starting to push himself.  Must be getting ready for a big event or goal: a wedding, a beach vacation, or maybe he’s trying to meet girls.  My jog continues.  The gentleman moves on to do some leg squats, fumbling a bit with the machine.  Probably missed the appointment with his personal trainer.

His loafers match his new khaki pants.  His button-down shirt starts to show sweat marks under his armpits and around  his collar.  The gentleman rolls up his dress shirt and moves from the leg squats to the benchpress.  He grunts more, the weights precarously sliding on the bar.  The gentleman is definitely pushing himself.  His khakis now start to show sweat around his belt, his face is flush with sweat, his shirt starting to soak in the humid and hot gym.  I feel almost bad for him that his trainer recommended that he dress business casual for his workout.  But he looks snappy, as the back of his oxford shirt grows dark with sweat.

I finish my own workout, shower, and head back to my office.  After finishing a few emails I head down to the company shuttle to start my 1 hour commute home.  I open my laptop and send a few emails, the shuttle closes its door.  The scent of undershowered lockeroom fills the trapped air on the bus.  A distinct and sour smell of body odor permeates.  I look around.  The gentleman with the khakis sits across from me, hoping to stop sweating after his strong workout – before he arrives home.

It typically takes about 55 minutes to Shanghai Pudong.  The difference?  My taxi decided to prep for the upcoming Formula 1 races.  We were topping out his VW Fox – and crushing the competition doing 100 MPH.  Yes, MPH, not Kilometers per hour.

Tis a shame that Eric doesn’t see Microsoft in the new gang of four: http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/31/schmidt-gang-four-google-apple-amazon-facebook/

Our CEO talks about the struggles of doing business in China… http://on.wsj.com/m7awwn

eek.

http://voices.allthingsd.com/20110506/you-are-not-allowed-to-commit-suicide-workers-in-chinese-ipad-factories-forced-to-sign-pledges/?mod=ATD_rss