So I haven't blogged in over half a year.  My last blog post was on November 3rd, 2009.  I just really haven't felt inspired to write about anything since my last post.

But anyways, I was listening to the podcast of the Bobby Bones Show, a morning radio talk show hosted in Austin, Texas.  They did a segment where they talked about their interns.  Each intern wrote three interesting things about themselves for the show to read on the air.  After hearing this segment, I asked my cousin, who was also listening to the podcast with me, what he would write as his three facts.  He noted three interesting facts about himself, but also noted how he felt these facts might change in the coming years.

This final point is what interested and inspired me.  I began to wonder how my three most interesting facts about myself would change over time.  How would my facts read if I looked at them every five years?  Every ten years?  Would they change as I do more interesting things and make myself a more interesting person?  Or will they change because the perception of myself changes with time?  Will the events and qualities that define me now no longer define the future me?  If so, how long until each important quality fades to irrelevancy?

I'm interested to know the answers to these questions, so here is my grand plan:  I will write out my three most interesting facts about myself today.  I will then write myself two futureme emails.  The first will be sent to myself one year from today and will politely ask myself to write a new set of three most interesting facts about myself.  The second email will be delivered a week later and will detail the three facts I wrote today and will link to this post.  This will give myself time to think and write after the first email without being influenced by today's answers.  Hopefully it is interesting enough to follow up in the future =).

So anyways, might as well get this ball rolling.  The three most interesting facts about me today:

1) I work in the game industry as a Programmer, more specifically as a Player Programmer.  I have done some exciting work in gesture recognition using things such as the Wii-remote as well as the Wii Motion Plus, etc.  While I love making games, I do not see game development as my lifelong career.  I can see myself starting my own non-game industry business and/or teaching in my future.

2) I was a paintball junkie "back in the day" (which, by the way, was a Wednesday).  I don't really bring this up because it is/was a huge part of my life, but more because I think it is quite unusual.  Gamers are a dime a dozen these days, but paintballers, not so much.  I played both recreational paintball and competitive tournament paintball.  My tournament paintball marker (aka: Gun) cost me probably around $2000 in total. Using this marker, I played for the USC Paintball Club Team which took 2nd place at the National Collegiate Paintball Association tournament in Huntington Beach.

3) I played clarinet in the USC Trojan Marching Band for 5 years.  One of the greatest things that I brought out of that time was my love for USC football.  In great part because of band, I was able to attend 65 USC football games to date, 16 of those being away games and 7 bowl games (including 1 Emerald Bowl, 5 Rose Bowls, and 1 BCS National Championship Orange Bowl,).  USC holds a 59-6 record on games I attended.  I watched the Trojans score 2477 points and allowed 1070 points.  I have witnessed 6 shutouts in my 3830 minutes of football.  This love for football may greatly alter my future hopefully within the next 10 years (See fact #1. More details to come as money progress is made).

So that just about sums me up.  I am a game programmer who used to play paintball and clarinet in band (and loves football).  I wonder if that short description will change in the next year?  In the next five?

What are your three interesting facts?  How do you imagine they'll change (if at all) in the next five years?

I was on vacation in China for 13 days, from the 26th of June to the 8th of July.  Now, China is 15 hours ahead of California (Pacific time zone).  So basically: day is night, and night is day...complete reversal.  Jet lag nightmare.

I was able to combat jet lag on the way over by basically reading and playing my DS on the airplane until 4am Los Angeles time (7pm China time).  I woke up maybe 6 hours later, to about 3am China time.  This brought me about halfway thru the time change.  When I arrived in China, I stayed up as long as I could and ended up passing out at maybe 10 or 11pm China time the next day.  I woke up at 6am the next morning to start the day off with some touring and I was fully on China time by then.  I was sleeping between 10pm and 12am, depending on our tour schedule, and waking up between 6am and 8am.

Fast forward to the end of our trip.  I tried to do the same thing on the way back...not quite as successfully.  The timing was pretty tough to figure out.  Our flight left from Shanghai, China at 4pm local (1am Los Angeles time), so I should have went to bed immediately.  But it was a short flight (2 hours) to Korea.  Dinner was served on the way, so I didn't want to sleep and get super hungry on the trip home.  We then left fairly soon from Korea to Los Angeles...maybe around 7pm China time (4am Los Angeles time).  Another small meal served which I stayed up for.  I finally went to sleep maybe around 6 or 7am Los Angeles time.  I slept for maybe 5 or 6 hours, bringing it to around 12 noon Los Angeles time.  Not horribly off.  Treat it like a weekend where I sleep in =P.  Again, maybe it brought me halfway to Los Angeles time.

Christine and I land into LAX and feel pretty good.  I think I was pretty tired, but we toughed it out until maybe 10pm when we went to bed on Wednesday night.  Thursday I headed to work like normal.  I was a bit tired, but nothing to stop me from kicking some butt at work and completing many tasks on my first day back.  Friday was the same.  A bit early to bed...like around 10pm...and a bit early to rise...like 4am rather than 6am.  But nothing to be too alarmed about.  2 hours off wasn't bad considering the 15 hour time difference and the 24 hours it practically takes to get from one airport to the other.

Then Saturday came along.  We went to bed around the "normal" time on Friday...around 10pm.  Saturday, we woke at 4am. By 6am we were ridiculously hungry, so we headed off to Bagel Me. Good thing they open at 6am...because we got there at 6:02.  We sat there and had some yummy yummy breakfast and brought some bagels back with us.  We were back home at around 7am with nothing really to do.  I was a bit tired again, for whatever reason and so I laid my head down.  Next thing I know, I'm waking up and it's already 11am.  We were supposed to leave to meet family for brunch/lunch at around 10 or 10:30!  The day became an endless battle of being sleepy and being unable to sleep.  Saturday night we fell asleep again relatively early...woke up at 4am again.  We then drifted in and out of consciousness until noon.  Too much sleep left us more tired than not.  We were pretty groggy thru the day, which left us a bit grumpy.  Then night came and we were awake again, since it was daytime in China.  *sigh*...

Now, we're midway into the week after, and things are shaping up.  Sleep schedule is pretty much right back on track...whew.  I was getting tired of being jet lagged.

What's the worst you've been jet lagged?

So there is this show called "Rimetime: What Would You Do?" where they stage some sort of situation which causes unknowing bystanders to be put in a moral dilemma to see what people will do.  For instance, once scenario would be a customer of minority descent attempting to order something at a deli all while the store clerk is yelling racist remarks at the person and refusing service to him (both actors).  Hidden cameras capture the responses and actions of other customers...seeing if any of them act to protect/back up the customer or if they just sit idly by.

I found myself in a similar situation this past weekend.  I was in a Wal-mart in a very bad neighborhood (For those who know the LA area, Martin Luther King and Crenshaw).  Not a place you want to be too late at night.  Anyways, my girlfriend and I were there after sunset to find some supplies for our new fish tank as well as a few other things.  We happened to spot a lot of USC clothing in the corner so we went to look.  While there, a man approached and somewhat forcefully moved to the corner area, bumping into my girlfriend when moving past her and a shopping cart.  In the corner he grabbed an ice cream out of the ice cream bin thing then forcefully left the corner area again.

Maybe 30 seconds later, he was back...again bumping into my girlfriend as he went into that same corner.  That's when the spider senses started to tingle.  I watched him as he reached around the short wall behind the ice cream bin and into the shelving that held the cigarettes behind the counter.  I watched him grab 4 or 5 cartons of cigarettes and place them into an unmarked black bag.  He then put on his headphones and walked away.

I thought about telling an employee that there was someone shoplifting in their store.  But as I looked around, I felt so out of place.  I was on MLK and Crenshaw, after all.  I had a mental debate with my conscience for probably 10 minutes.  In the end, I did nothing.  I didn't tell anyone.  Something felt way too off.  Maybe if I was in a more normal Wal-mart...a little less ghetto...then maybe I woulda done something.  But something felt wrong there.  I still don't know what I should have done.

I keep thinking...maybe I shoulda helped.

What would you have done? Have you ever been in a situation like this where you had a moral dillema?