Yoo's World

Happy New Year!

Yoo — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 05:04:40 +0000

Happy New Year!

And this is the first start of the year for me as a married man! Woohoo!

Back from honeymoon

Yoo — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 03:40:04 +0000

I have just returned from my week and a half honeymoon with my wife in Hawaii and San Francisco, a week and a half of bliss and happiness. Not to mention fun.

Unfortunately, my wife Inae had to return to Seoul due to immigration issues, while I had to return to New York for work. It's going to be a lonely couple of weeks for me here in New York. Video calls help, but they're not enough ...

Wedding

Yoo — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:13:08 +0000

Inae and I are finally having our wedding ceremony this Saturday at the Verace Wedding Convention. We are already married, but that doesn't mean we don't have to go through the ritual ceremony. It was a lot of work to prepare for a ritual that lasts less than an hour, but I have a feeling that it's either going to be an extremely blissful time for me or a blurry one.

Of course, I need to be physically present at the wedding ceremony, which means I'm flying out to Korea today. And right after that, we're flying away for our honeymoon in Hawaii. Woohoo!

Starting with Google

Yoo — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 07:27:39 +0000

Yesterday was my first day of work at Google in New York. I reached the Google offices for my orientation about an hour earlier than I was supposed to, but I loitered around the area for a couple dozens of seconds because of nervousness. There wasn't any real reason to be nervous, but I still get anxious whenever I start at a new place. It helped calm my nerves that my wife was with me while I was loitering, though.

Orientation was mostly comprised of introductions and paperwork. I can't go into details for obvious reasons, but by mid-afternoon, I was exhausted. It did not help that I had just flew in from Korea a couple of days earlier, so I was and am still suffering from jet lag. I probably should have also eaten more during lunch: fearing a lack of control when gathering Google's famous free and great food for lunch, I may have not had as filling a lunch as I should have had to.

Today, after I get some more sleep subsequent to myself writing this post, having woke up in the middle of the night due to my still unadjusted sleep cycles, I'll be taking a few of the many classes that I'll be attending during my starting period and beyond. Hopefully, my energy levels will last a bit longer than they did yesterday.

Leaving Midokura

Yoo — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:11:04 +0000

It's been exactly a month since I've started working at Midokura, and I am already leaving the place. I'm not leaving because of a problem with me or Midokura; rather, it's because I got a job offer from Google, and after quite some thought, I've decided to change jobs. It feels pretty awkward because it's been such a short time since I just started a new job, but at least it was great while I was at Midokura.

I'll be heading back to Korea for about a week, after which I will be flying to Google's New York branch.

Starting work at Midokura

Yoo — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:41:04 +0000

I have just started work in my new job as a Senior Engineer at the startup Midokura, which focuses on providing software that can be used to build cloud computing infrastructure in data centers. While its headquarters are located in Tokyo, Japan, the office I will be working at is in San Francisco.

However, since I will be moving between countries, anyway, I am staying in Tokyo for a month to get to know the people there and to get used to what is being done. I just arrived in the country at Haneda Airport yesterday, and today was the first day of work at Midokura. They're providing a place to stay for me while I'm in Japan, and although I had a bit of trouble finding the apartment yesterday, I fortunately had no trouble finding the building where Midokura has its offices today.

It's still going to take some time for me to get used to things and get a sense of what is going on and what I can do, but I have a good feeling about everyone, and I have found something to do that might turn out to be useful. Whether it pans out or not, at least I'm not going to be twiddling my thumbs with no idea of what to do.

Last day at NIMS

Yoo — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 10:44:01 +0000

Today is my last day at the National Institute for Mathematical Sciences. It felt really weird when I was leaving. Anyway, soon I will be back in the United States for a new job.

Marriage registration

Yoo — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:06:57 +0000

I and my fiancee have just registered for marriage. Woohoo!

Back from West Point

Yoo — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:33:05 +0000

I've been back from my personally funded trip to West Point for a couple of weeks now. So if I'm going to write anything about it, I should probably write it now before I forget too much.

Instead of a direct flight from Incheon to New York, I had to catch a connecting flight at Narita. There was a really nice surprise for the flight from Incheon to Narita, however: my seat got upgraded to business class. And boy, it gave me a thorough appreciation of why people fly business class even with the much higher airfare. There were what seemed to be infinite legroom, seats which can lie horizontally for a comfortable sleep, and even real silverware and dishes for the meal! Too bad it was just for the two and a half hour flight from Incheon to Narita and not the twelve hour flight from Narita to New York.

With what was effectively a four-hour stopover at Narita, I could have either lounged about the airport, or I could take a short jaunt outside. I chose to go outside, especially since me and my bride-to-be will be stopping over at Narita for several hours on the way to our honeymoon, so it also served as reconnaissance. I took the Retro Bus to Naritasan Shinshoji Temple, which was much more impressive than I thought. However, the bus runs only seven times each day, and in the hurry to store my luggage before getting on the soon-to-arrive bus, I forgot to take out my camera, so I had to use my iPhone to take pictures. The photograph below shows the front yard to the rather large temple grounds:

Walking up the stairs, I also got to see the most turtles I have ever seen in one place:

Although I only managed a quick stroll before I had to head back to get on the Retro Bus to the airport, I think Naritasan Shinshoji Temple would easily be worth an hour or two worth of quality time. Not only is the temple itself surprisingly large, but the woods within the temple grounds would be great for a leisurely walk. (Funnily enough, I seem to have missed the Retro Bus back to the airport despite being a minute early at the bus stop, and considering the next bus would be rather late for my flight, I ended up walking twenty minutes to Narita subway station for a ride to the airport.)

Once at New York, I needed a way to get to West Point. A rental car may have afforded me freedom of movement, but weekday rates are just too outrageous for someone like me, so I decided to take the bus. However, due to a mistake in reading the maps to the bus terminal, I ended up getting off the subway station at the former World Trade Center site. At least I got to see the new construction activity on the site.

Fortunately, I did manage to find my way to the Port Authority Bus Terminal properly on my next try on the subway. Despite being much closer to the World Trade Center station than the former was from the airport, the subway fare was exactly the same, since the New York subway system used a flat fee.

After a couple of hours on the bus, I ended up at the West Point Visitors Center.

From there, it was a short walk to the Thayer Hotel, where the Network Science Workshop was held. The hotel is located inside the West Point Military Academy, and I knew one had to show identification to get in, but "disappointingly", it wasn't military police that guarded the entrance but private security. Or at least I think so.

Finally, during the workshop I got to present my research and participate in a panel. However, due to the almost complete upheaval of timezones, I found myself threatening to collapse into a slumber, so I had to take brief naps during some of the breaks lest I drop unconscious. The panel was also a lot less argumentative than I expected, since us panelists took too much time giving our position statements and not leaving enough time for discussion. Other than these quibbles, I was pretty happy with the workshop.

With the workshop over, we got our promised boat trip on the Hudson around West Point, which made for a nice couple of hours.

After that, I got to visit my cousins in New York, and then a flight to Los Angeles, where I got to meet a lot of relatives I haven't seen for quite some time, which was a side benefit to the other business I had in Los Angeles. After all that was finally the long flight from Los Angeles to Narita, and there to Incheon.

Couple rings

Yoo — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

My fiancee and I just got our couple rings, which we had ordered in the week before I flew off to West Point. They'll probably be our de facto wedding rings, since the official rings may be a bit too fancy to wear comfortably all the time. This is the reason we got them, after all. It's also a good excuse for me to have no compunction about wearing mine all the time already when the wedding is still months away. (Good thing I'm writing this and not making a video statement, otherwise my goofy grin would embarrass me.)