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I knew Tibet’s lunar new year, Losar, would be something special, but nothing could prepare me for the spectacle that ensued. I can still feel the echo of adrenaline coursing through my veins.

Sarah and I had waited patiently in the Barkhor Square with some fellow travelers and Tibetan friends for evening to fall. There were squads of jing cha patroling the area, as well as a fire truck clearly on stand by, yet all was quiet. Then, according to some unspoken cue, Lhasa erupted.

Throughout the city’s maze of alleyways, small sparklers and hand shells were being fired. We ducked into a narrow street to get a closer look - just as things got interesting. One after another, the rat-tat-tat machine gun of chains of firecrackers rang virtually non-stop in our ears. Someone had set a small pile of rubbish ablaze in the middle of the street. Tibetans emerged from their homes to add fiery armfuls of cardboard and straw - attempting to burn away their troubles in the coming year. More lengths of firecrackers were tossed into the mix, violently exploding within the raging inferno.

The heavier ammunition was slowly brought out, and Lhasa lit up in a riot of colors. Fireworks as impressive as any I’ve seen in the US blanketed the sky in every direction. The smoldering remains of exhausted explosives were now steadily raining down, forcing observers to seek cover. Billowing smoke from both fire and fireworks were making it difficult to breath. So this is what a war zone is like.

Yet a war zone this was not. We could just make out beaming Tibetan faces through the haze, and every now and then a delighted scream would pierce the cacaphony when a child danced too close to the pyrotechnics. The atmosphere was simply electrifying and you couldn’t help but be swept up in this unbridled expression of joy.

Perhaps most amazing, is that this is only the first night of the festivities. I can’t fathom what other kinds of new experiences the remainder of Losar has in store.

More so than any place I’ve ever been to, Beijing is a study in contrast - it feels as though the city is continually at odds with itself. 

The most obvious manner in which this clashing culture manifests itself is in the city’s architecture.  Deep in the heart of the city, ultra-modern skyskrapers that prominently feature multinational corporate logos sit adjacent to narrow hutong alleys that spider between courtyard residences.  On the outskirts of Beijing, partially demolished slums are slowly being overtaken by industrial parks.

There’s a huge emphasis on individual health and well-being, yet environmental health is given little consideration.  People seem to focus on eating nutricious meals, and the television is inundated with commercials touting the latest medicinal beverage.  Early mornings find the local parks teeming with both old and young practicing Tai Chi.  Yet spitting in public is socially acceptable, and by spit I mean thick gobs of yellow phlegm.  Of course, there’s the constant haze of smog that blankets the city, to the point where locals go out of there way to comment how blue the sky is on windy days.

Family is an incredibly important social institution, and friends here treat each other with astounding courtesy.  Yet when in public and interacting with strangers, there’s total disregard.  Cars tend to ignore traffic signals and pedestrians, and the notion of a queue doesn’t really exist - at the train station, whoever can cut, push or shove their way to the front gets to purchase their ticket first.

Though my heritage is Chinese, I will readily admit these conflicting values confound me.

I’m renovating this blog in preparation for my year of travel, to make my entries more accessible for my friends. Here are a few pieces of functionality that I’d like to have in place by January, in order of priority:

• Exposing blog entries on my Facebook profile
• Exposing Flickr albums directly in this blog
• Adding Google maps functionality which will show my location for each blog post

There are already a few different plug-in options available for 1 and 2. I’m definitely going to be using WordBook, since I often edit my posts after I’ve published them for grammatical errors, and don’t want the incorrect version being pulled down by Facebook’s RSS reader. For photos, I’m torn between FAlbum and Flickr Photo Album. I’ll probably try out both and make a call after seeing the presentation differences for myself. 3 represents the greatest challenge, since (to my knowledge) there aren’t any existing plugins that offer comparable functionality, which will mean building directly on top of Google’s APIs.

We’ll see how many of my to-do’s I actually get through. But first things first - I need a much overdue upgrade to the latest version of Wordpress.

For those of you who know me well, I’ve been dreaming about long-term ’round-the-world travel since college. I’ve done a fair bit of traveling since then, taking side trips to Mexico and Japan, but nothing remotely approaching the epic scale that I had originally envisioned. Like many, I became caught up in the typical whirlwind of life - career, mortgage, pet. All elements absolutely enriched my life, but were equally threatening in that they created complacency.

Now, I’m pleased to announce that I’ve given 4 weeks notice, made arrangements to sell my home, purchased RTW airfare and will be traveling throughout Asia, the Middle East and Southern Africa for most of 2008!

I could have taken the plunge years ago, and I very nearly did on a couple of different occasions. So why now? How are my circumstances different?

• My girlfriend was getting frustrated at work, and was ready for a change of pace. Grad school was definitely on her horizon and we had always talked about traveling together.
• I purchased my home in 2006. I’m pretty fortunate in that the Seattle real estate is one of the few markets that has continued to experience gains. I’ve also lived in my place long enough now that I’ll be exempt from capital gains tax.
• I’ve been busy the past few months with a new role within Motorola, developing high end entertainment handsets. Its super exciting with plenty of visibility, but I finally realized that there is always a great opportunity just around the corner that entices you to maintain the status quo. If I wasn’t careful, I’d wake up one day in my mid-40’s being very accomplished professionally, but still not having checked off one of my lifetime to-do’s.

The current itinerary is pretty rough and takes into account my slower, more lethargic travel style. Sarah and I will start out in Beijing, working our way through Central China and end up in Lhasa in time for Losar. After spending a month or so in Tibet, we’ll head over to Yunnan to mix things up with some of China’s more interesting minority ethnic groups. From there, we’ll meander down the Mekong, passing through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

A long, long flight connecting in Frankfurt takes us to Cairo, where we’ll spend a couple of months in Egypt and Jordan (and perhaps Israel, if I can assuage Sarah’s safety concerns). Then its off to Johannesburg, which will be our window into Southern Africa. We’ll definitely visit Mozambique, possibly Zimbabwe or Botswana, and the plan is to spend some serious time volunteering in South Africa.

At the moment, my top choices in terms of non-profits include Kiva and OLPC. If you’ve got suggestions on organizations where my tech/business background would come in handy, feel free to send them to me.

Ever taken or given out your phone number to someone at a bar, only to seriously regret it the next day? If you have, then no doubt you’re familiar with the beer goggle effect.

I first encountered beer goggles my freshman year at Penn. However, I’ve never seen it quantified like this. In a nutshell, a group of researchers at the University of Manchester have actually developed a formula for calculating the beer goggle effect.

The equation is straightforward enough, so I went ahead and put together a simple spreadsheet to help you determine what your beer goggle effect is on a normal Friday night.

As for myself, I figure on an average night out, I get minimal beer goggles with a rating of 10.0.

I’ve mellowed out since college, and tend to hang out at dive bars, having maybe 4 beers total. Smokiness is not a factor, since smoking indoors has been banned in Seattle. Most dive bars are relatively dark, so I set that parameter at 35. My vision is pretty bad - even with contacts I’d rate myself at 0.9, and 3 meters seems like as good a distance as any to check someone out.

What rating did you end up with?