tonychung.ca ~ online, upfront, and personal

When I saw The Other Coast (image) comic strip in the paper this morning, I had to laugh. So much of today’s communications media: phone, text/SMS/MMS, email, TV, online publishing—are only available as long as there is enough storage to keep them. The Way-Back Machine on the Internet Archive helped me recover my Tablet PC Blogs posts in a jam, but if all the hard drives in the universe were full, what would have happened then?

In contrast to my post about what happens on the Internet living forever, I present the alternative view. My friend Wayne Radford, the self-proclaimed “King of Poco”, put this bug in my ear over lunch one rainy afternoon. The short version is that our online publishing efforts, though wide reaching, are only temporal.

Continue reading: Internet—forever but not permanent

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The Tony Macchiato ~ AKA the Triple Venti Peppermint Soy Caramel Drizzle Macchiato Style Latte

As the new year rolled around I thought I would stop drinking coffee, or rather, espresso—more specifically, my Triple Venti Peppermint Soy Caramel Drizzle Macchiato-style Latte, which I want to officially label as the Tony Macchiato. I first stumbled onto this drink the morning after my wife and I celebrated Christmas 2007 with the staff from a previous employer at a hotel in downtown Vancouver.

Starting from its humble beginnings as merely a Caramel Macchiato with peppermint syrup instead of vanilla, the drink evolved over the last year and a bit into its current incarnation. I have my barista friends, and even Starbucks itself, to thank for that.

Continue reading: Tony Macchiato from Starbucks FTW!

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Between new years day and Chinese new year my grandmother, and great-grandmother to my children, passed away at the age of 92. We admitted her into the hospital on new years day because she had stopped eating. She died peacefully in her sleep only one day before we would have celebrated Chinese New Year. We’re going to miss her.

At the “Celebration of Life” service we held in her memory, Rev. Terry Shea opened with a poem by Linda Ellis, to remind us that while our date of birth and date of death appear on our gravestones, it is more important to consider how we spend the years in “the dash” between those dates. I first heard “the dash” several years ago when Wayne Myers, an elderly missionary to Mexico, spoke as a guest at Coastal Church in Vancouver. The message within those 36 lines was appropriate for the occasion; I later spoke about my memories of life with Grandma Rose, packaged as “some things death teaches us about life”.

This is a recap of those thoughts, but not exactly as I presented them.

Continue reading: Some things death teaches us about life

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I love Joel Stein. In his article that concludes peanut allergies are an issue only in rich, lefty communities, he compares a recent medical report to a short story he wrote years ago about a severe allergy epidemic that crippled the future until it was discovered the symptoms were psychosomatic. Funny that he didn’t show it to anyone, because he usually says the very thing on everyone’s mind that they wouldn’t dare say in public. I myself have often wondered why in recent years it appears that everyone and their dog can be allergic to peanuts.

Continue reading: Don’t make your allergies my problem

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My younger son doesn’t have as many Transformer toys as his older brother. Because of this, he felt inclined to create his own Transformer model. This toy is so colourful, so powerful, uses every weapon and can transform into any vehicle mode.

Note to Hasbro: I am negotiating contract offers for this five-year-old toy designer, and his seven-year-old technical communicator brother. My contact information is below. Child labour is legal where I come from. LOL!

Continue reading: Toy designer for hire

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Our home played host to these shape-shifting robots from Cybertron all through 2008. This morning, as my boys battled over whose drawing of the Autobot symbol was most correct, I cooled their overheating servos by sketching my version of an Autobot symbol with a Santa hat. Naturally, I had to quickly fashion a picture to post on the web.

Continue reading: Merry Christmas… and roll out!

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One of my sons’ favourite shows right now is a Land Before Time episode, “The Great Long Neck Migration”. In the movie, the dinosaurs embark on a journey to find a new feeding ground, based on a sleep story (dream), or vision. Along the way, they meet other long neck dinosaurs, one of these being Little Foot’s long-lost father.

My youngest son is especially touched because Little Foot sings a song about how daddies are so great. He always wants me to watch this film with him, cuddled under a blanket. Oh for these days to last forever!

Continue reading: Walking with daddy dinosaurs

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