1997 Western Hemisphere

race report: Western Hemisphere Inline Marathon

Johnny does marathon

Do you want to brag that you can do marathon in under 3 hours but are too lazy to train? If so, rollerblade is the sport for you. There are numerous other reasons to rollerblade. I personally started because study shows that bimbos prefers 5'9" good looking geeks over 5'6" good looking geeks, 3 to 1.
I participated in Western Hemisphere In-Line Skate Marathon in December 1996. This is my second in-line skate marathon. I learned an important lesson in the 1995 marathon: sometimes it's necessary to refuse free drinks. There were many Gatorade stands along the course, and I found that getting drinks from people is spirit-lifting fun. The goal was to snatch the little paper cup from the volunteer's hand w/o spilling or slowing down. 15 miles into the race I was able to grab 2 cups per stand; I was rather pleased w/ myself. Toward the end I found out there's nothing like skating uphill while really having to go. The other problem I encountered was lack of training. I hadn't taken any 3+ miles skate trip since the end of day-light-saving time. I found out about the marathon 11 hours before the event.
I was wiser and more prepared in 1996. I even practiced 1 hour everyday the whole week before the event, except the 3 days that rained.
I got through the toughest part of the marathon w/ relative ease, you know, getting up in the morning. The race started 20 minutes before the published time in the Culver City newsletter, so I started the race 15 minutes late. It took me forever to catch the slowest of people who had enough sense to arrive more than 5 minutes before the race. The police directing the traffic seemed to have no respect for people who didn't start on time. I was directed off the course. Twice.
The skaters' speed was a function of their equipment. The leading pack consisted of men in tights, followed by shorts-wearing people whose skates made funny noises. Behind them were the wimps who wore more protective gears than jousting knights. The last group consisted of cheerful people who were busy swapping recipes and debating political issues such as boxer shorts vs. briefs. During the first hour I passed social people and armored people. I was also passed by several skaters who apparently had problem waking up. The social people seemed to have the most fun.
After 10 miles, I was mostly skating along, except for passing people who couldn't get up in the morning and didn't know how to pace themselves. The men in tights were so much faster than us mortals it was pointless trying to catch them. Part of the course was on Vista del Mar. The morning ocean was beautiful.
The skaters and runners' courses merged at our turn-around point. That's where I found out how fast I really was--I had problem keeping up w/ some runners. Somehow this led to my skating faster than my muscles were designed for. Pretty soon my legs went numb. I think I broke some kinda slow record during the last 5 miles. But I started to kick my boots hard and swing hands high when I saw the finish line. I tried to act like I knew what I was doing <= the TV camera. I'm so shallow.
In case you're curious, I finished the 26.n miles in approx. 2.5 hours. This means if you randomly pick a skinny Kenyan man and paint wheels on his feet, he could beat my time--unless he drinks too much free Gatorade.

bio from 1997

This was written for the company newsletter.

Johnny Chen

I'm a Programmer Analyst working in the Soar Group at the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute. I primarily work on the Soar IFOR project maintaining the Soar ModSAF Interface. I also help with maintenance of the Soar software on occasion.
I started at ISI on April 1, 1996. My last day at ISI will be December 3, 1997. I plan to move to Dallas, Texas in December 1997 and start working in Dallas in May 1998. Here is my resume in HTML , MS Word , ASCII .

Background

I left my family in Taiwan and came to the United States at the age of 13. I learned to enjoy sports in public junior high in Texas. I spent most of my time learning English and doing different sports: football, basketball, martial art, etc. I got my first computer in the 8th grade: an Apple II clone. I spent ungodly amount of time doing what personal computers were really good for--playing games. I also spent few geek hours here and there memorizing 6502 commands (couldn't afford an assembler) and the 0th page content in the Apple.
I focused my high school years on books. I would've focused on girls except I was too short to play varsity football. Inspired by "Color of $," I went to Baltimore to become a hustler after high school. I practically lived in the smoke-filled 24-hr pool hall, where I surprisingly found out that real life was not at all like the movies. I waited and waited and waited but Paul Newman never showed up, and I wasn't making enough $ on the pool tables. My first clue was that Balabushika in the movie wasn't even a hand-made cue. Fortunately my parents helped me out because I told them I was in college. I later tried a real Balabushika. I think it's so hyped mostly because the artist is dead.
I played and studied hard in Johns Hopkins (*there are S's after both "John" and "Hopkin") where I founded the pool club, led a collegiate team (ACU-I), participated in over 10+ other extracurricular organizations, stayed up all night to get on the CM2s, and tried to figure out if P==NP. Too lazy to read the descriptions in the course catalog, I always signed up for many courses and dropped the ones I didn't enjoy. Due to lack of forethought and planning, I "almost" finished the requirements for bachelor degrees in CS, EE, and math and for master degree in CS by the end of my junior year. I ended up staying for the 4th year to finish the requirements for the 4 degrees.
I was in Baltimore when the Cowboys had their 1-15 season; ain't my fault.
I started doing serious research in Syracuse University in 1991 because a girl was in Toronto, and I couldn't find summer jobs that didn't involve saying "do you want fries with that?" in Buffalo or Rochester. The research led to my first publication. In 1992 I left my pool cue in Texas and entered UCLA grad school to do AI. I also worked part-time in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center doing nuclear medicine. My job in the hospital was to teach the computers to find the heart on SPECT and MRI images. The PhD thing didn't work out. I started working in Westside Billiards Cafe (next to Hard Rock) as the equipment man and pool instructor. I was, again, unable to make a living shooting pool and had to work full-time in the basement of Cedars where they made patients glow under the gamma cameras. In addition to developing algorithms in computer vision, I also did system administration and wrote medical software using Motif. My last job title in Cedars was "research biostatistician." I still don't understand the deep reasoning behind my becoming a biostatistician; I once heard something about the job involves washing test tubes.
I left the radioactive and pool jobs and started working at ISI on April 1, 1996.

Goals

Ever since I came to this country, my goals have been
1> being able to dunk, preferably 2-handed, and possibly backward or even upside down while doing a spit
2> not to go bald
I've been working on reaching the rim for past 20+ years; I mostly just wave at the thing. I considered buying a pair of them shoes that cost as much as Apache helicopters, but are more technologically advanced. But I heard that the shoes are responsible for Shaq's free-throw ability. Come to think of it, I could change my goal to something more practical, such as getting a $120000000.00 contract for a job that requires wearing shorts and running shorter people over. A second thought, I better stick to goals that are more achievable.
I guess one out of two ain't bad. At least I hope it's one out of two.

Hobbies

In my spare time--as well as rest of the time--I enjoy basketball, volleyball, bowling, tennis, racquetball, pool, snooker, ski, water ski, jet ski, swimming, football, and rollerblading . I've pretty much given up martial art as a competitive sport because I happen to believe size matters. I still swing my nunchucks once a while when watching TV and amazingly haven't broken the tube as my mom has predicted. I'm currently looking for pool and tennis partners. My high-run in pool was 39 (As of 1992. I haven't played much straight pool since, and my shot-making ability has gone down the toilet). I suck in tennis, but I like to hit hard and am always willing to run.
I'm in the process of becoming a movie geek, which is another way of saying I'm a pathetic nerd w/ no life. I went so far as trying to make a living as an international action star w/ acting skill of your average Idaho potato (official motto: I can't act worse than Mr. Van Damme). I believe the only reason I'm not already a 5'6" action hero who looks tall on the screen is "Muscle from Taipei" doesn't sound as good.
If I had more sense, I'd pay more attention to my Fidelity retirement account investment performance. Maybe one day I'll actually need a Taco Bell or Fry's employment application.

1996 career change didn't take place

This was written for the company newsletter.

Johnny goes to Hollywood

Many people read my bio in "InSiDer" last year and told me "Johnny, you're so full of crap. If you're so inspired by 'Color of $,' why didn't you pursue your dream but decided to sit in front of computers all day?" That's a very good question. I admit that Tom Cruise and I have a lot in common: we're both slightly under 6'; both of our 9-ball games involve certain # of weaknesses (in the sense that a Pentium Pro involves certain # of transistors), and both of us think Nicole is a babe. The truth is I had thought about a career in acting and actually did something about it.
It was during OJ's criminal trial when I worked in Cedars-Sinai (the hospital where Michael Jackson's wife's son was born) as a research biostatistician. A co-worker handed me a little ad when he came back from lunch. You can often find such ad on many telephone poles in LA:

MOVIE EXTRAS AND TEMPORARY ACTORS NEEDED
no experience needed, good money...,
call 555-4088 9am - 5pm

Out of curiosity, I dial the #, and before I can say anything other than "I'm responding to your posting near Beverly Center," the operator cut me off and set me up for an appointment for the next day, and before I could ask any question (I wanted to make sure this had nothing to do w/ 1-900 # telephone services), she hung up. She was a pro!
I went to the company on Sunset next day. They made me fill out an application in the waiting room. According to my answers on the application I was an athletic, tall, young and tremendously good-looking kong-fu master who spoke 5 languages and could joggle chain saws. I was tempted to also check the box in front of unicycle, but I didn't want to sound immodest. I actually enjoyed the waiting in the room; that day they were looking for a Gloria Estephan look-alike and a 6' transvestite. I found the conversation interesting, even though I didn't think I had much chance of getting either part (I didn't speak Spanish and was only "almost" 6'). The big debate was about the most qualified transvestite: he didn't want to wear garter belts.
I never got to find out if they went for Mr. No-Garter-Belt or the 2nd choice who was more hairy but sounded willing to do anything (what a disturbing thought). I was invited into the interview room by Ms. La Joy (Am I the only one who hasn't seen the name "La Joy" before?). She was being extremely nice; she seemed genuinely concerned about my acting career and well-being in general. She didn't even get turned off when I told her the reason I was there: "Just for the heck of it; a friend passed that telephone pole one too many time." I started getting suspicious when she told me "Oh, good! We never have enough Asian guys; there are always parts for Asian guys" (keep in mind this is LA). I decided to test how far she would go in kissing up to me--I told her every bad OJ jokes I could think of (yes, including knock knock and the OJ's internet address), and--sure enough--she laughed at them all. I had stupendous respect for this woman by now. I finally realized what it takes to make it in the real world; at that moment I thought maybe I deserved to work in the smelly basement cubical after all. She seemed so interested in signing me as a client that she even offered a free (another fishy word) one-day acting lesson.
After patiently listening to my opinion re. Microsoft products and new discovery associated w/ the Hubble pictures (I ran out of OJ jokes. I was also gonna tell her how disappointed I was w/ the latest Douglas Adams book, but I didn't put enough quarters in the parking meter), she carefully explained how great her company was and how many parts they had gotten their clients. She made me promise I would try very very hard to be a good actor 'cause "you would represent our company." Then she told me they never asked for commissions; they charge a flat fee: $139/yr! Out front!!! For some reason she didn't seem pleased when I suddenly fell off the chair and started laughing uncontrollably while banging the floor. Sigh, some people just don't have sense of humor.
I finally got hold of myself and put my butt back in the chair. Being a reasonable person, I proved to her mathematically that I would be a member of SPESB (Society of People w/ Extremely Small Brain) to pay such a fee. In order to show my sincerity, I offered her a 51% commission. That was the time I got kicked out of the office to make room for a Darrell Strawberry look-alike in oil stained Firestone uniform. It was good timing because I made it back to my car just as the little red flag in the meter popped back up.
I'm not making this up. If you don't believe me, just call 213/657-8457 and tell them you look exactly like Tom Cruise in "Color of $" and you want to marry Nicole. Ask for La Joy. And if you're a 6' non-hairy male, just show up at 8833 Sunset Blvd., Suite 308. Dress appropriately.

---