Technology is amazing. One day you’re blind and the next day you can have better than perfect vision (after shelling out thousands of dollars for someone to cut holes and burn your eyeballs with lasers, of course).

I never thought I would undergo eye surgery while wide-awake; the concept always freaked me out. Last week, however, I found myself in a hospital gown and cap with a Korean nurse wiping my face with brown disinfectant, asking me what type of music I wanted to hear in the operation room. It was actually happening- I was getting LASIK!

It all started with a free consultation at the Dream Eye Clinic in Myeong Dong (Seoul) that consisted of 1.5 hours of eye testing to make sure I was a good candidate for the surgery. Five days later I returned with Jason in tow. I knew what would happen to my eyes during the surgery, and to be honest I was pretty damn nervous. I get really queasy when it comes to medical poking and prodding of my body. The last time I donated blood I literally just laid on the table and cried while the red stuff was pumped out of my veins. Imagine my nerves when they used a can opener to open my eyeball (I actually have no idea what the tool looked like). Good thing they gave me a stuffed animal to hold on to during the surgery.

The entire surgery took approximately 10 minutes, and yes, I was wide awake the whole time. They do anesthetize your eyes so you feel absolutely no pain, and they put some sort of liquid in your eyes that doesn’t make them dry out. I could, though, distinctly feel the pressure they put on my eyeballs during each step. And, of course, I could see everything! Shout out to Jason who stood next to me and watched the entire process through a close-up video screen without making gasping sounds. I could not promise the same discretion if I were in his place, that’s for sure.

After 10 minutes of holding back the shakes, I was finished! My doctor was pretty awesome; he spoke to me very calmly during the procedure and reassured me after each eye was finished that it was successful and that I did a great job. The trip back home with Jason was a tad miserable, though. I could barely open my eyes, the dull pain was coming in strong, and everything was blurry. When we got home I slept for about 3 or 4 hours and felt completely fine when I woke up. The next day I went back in to the office for a post-surgery check up and had 20/13 vision ALREADY! What?! How?! Magic!

Granted, I do have to put eye drops in every 2 hours and I can’t wear eye make-up for 2 weeks. The upside: I get some super sweet eye shields to wear when I sleep. They’re kind of awesome. Jason has to shoo the crowds of men off that gather around me when I wear them, so who wants dibs when I’m done with them?

Random Thought of the Day: I heard (2 days after the surgery) that some women experience vision changes after having a baby, thus making pre-pregnancy LASIK basically worthless. Can anyone confirm or deny this vicious rumor? If it’s true, then I may have made an expensive mistake. Oooopsies! (NOT PREGNANT, just thinking about the future…)

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2. Interview with Joe Dudas — From Ankle Surgery to Ultra Marathon in 1 Year
3. TWiSt Seoul 2 – Live Tomorrow!

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Back in August I partnered with Seoul Space to bring the first “This Week in Startups” Seoul meetup episode. It was a lot of fun, so we’re doing it again. This time, hopefully even bigger and better than the first.

You can watch our episode live online today (December 16th) on the “This Week in Startups” website.   It starts at 7pm Pacific, 10pm Eastern and 12pm Seoul (17th). And if you miss it live, you can watch it anytime on the “This Week in Startups” website.

The second time around has been a lot easier to setup. I knew what to expect and I was able to reuse many of the pieces from the first time. Because of the success of the first event, getting out the word was also easier. Let’s hope everything comes together again. Right now over 125 people have registered to attend — and we’re hoping for 150!

If you’d like a preview of the companies pitching, you can check out the Twist Seoul blog post.

I’ll be hosting the live event in Seoul today as well as hosting during the live broadcast. I’ll be the one wearing the Unanchor shirt .

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2. What I Learned From Organizing & Hosting Twist Seoul
3. Sharing Some of My Recent Work

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A few months ago while listening to “This Week in Startups” the host, Jason Calacanis, said he wanted to do a meetup episode in Asia. He called out Seoul as one of the potential locations. I had been living in Seoul for a month and figured, why not? I’ll try to organize it!

Four months later…

The event is finally happening! It was a HUGE process. Far more involved than I initially imagined. In a future post I’ll be going more in-depth about what I learned and what I got out of the process.

Watch the Twist Seoul Episode Live!

Today (August 26th) at 8pm Pacific, 11pm Eastern, 12pm Korean (27th), our “This Week in Startups” Seoul Meetup episode is live! If you miss it live, you can catch it anytime on the “This Week in Startups” site.

I’ll be hosting the show locally here as well as during the live episode, make sure to check it out.

Other Links

• The top 6 companies that will be pitching
• Korea Times article covering the event

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1. TWiSt Seoul 2 – Live Tomorrow!
2. What I Learned From Organizing & Hosting Twist Seoul
3. Sharing Some of My Recent Work

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Book Background

David Cohen & Brad Feld are the founders of the startup incubator Techstars. “Do More Faster” is a collection of lessons and stories from the authors, the mentors of Techstars, and the companies that have participated in the program. Each chapter is essentially a long blog post written by one person.

The book primarily focuses on lessons, examples and tips for entrepreneurs in the web space. A lot of the lessons are applicable for general business, but you will get the most out of this book by being interested in the web space.

The book is divided into 7 primary themes. Within each theme there are several chapters written by different authors.

Theme 1: Idea and Vision

The first set of chapters are about the idea you base your company around. It includes tips and stories around finding an idea, getting started, testing your idea and changing the idea (pivoting).

The big lesson I took out of these chapters was not to get too attached to your initial idea. It’s very common for companies to do something completely different than their initial idea.

Theme 2: People

The second set of chapters focused on the people that you build your company with (they recommend you don’t do it alone). Finding a co-founder, hiring, firing and the culture of the company are all topics discussed in this section.

One of my favorite chapters, “Engage Great Mentors” was found in this section. It was the story of the company Foodzie, who went through the Techstars program, and their fantastic approach to leveraging mentors.

My favorite nugget was the idea of “closing the feedback loop”. I love asking for advice, but something I need to improve on is circling back with those people to let them know what I did with their advice. Even if I end up not taking someone’s advice, I’m now trying to “close the feedback loop” with the advice giver and let them know why I chose not to use it.

Theme 3: Execution

The third set was my favorite set of chapters. These chapters focus on making it happen, advice on dealing with all of the data you’ll have, and many other topics.

A great chapter in this section was “Don’t Suck at E-mail”. It’s short but is loaded with great advice that made me realize the importance of email. A few of the recommendations:

• Use Email as a branding opportunity – send emails from @Unanchor.com rather than @Gmail.com.
• Touch Email only once – either reply or setup an action to take care of it later.
• Be persistent – if you don’t get a response at first, follow-up.
• Keep your Emails concise and direct.

Theme 4: Product

The 4^th section is a hodgepodge of advice focusing on various tactics around your product.  The chapters range from when to first roll out your product, to focusing a whole chapter on pivoting.

Theme 5: Fundraising

Often a big part of starting a company is raising money. This set of chapters focuses on that process. The first two chapters in this section begin by trying to convince you that you don’t actually have to raise money. They are the stories of two companies that did just that and chose to bootstrap their companies instead.

The rest of the chapters focused on various aspects and advice around angel investing.

The last chapter of the section is written by Brad Feld, where he recommends to focus on the first 1/3 of the money you’re trying to raise. Because of the social nature of angel investing, once you have that first 1/3 locked in, often, the rest of the money just falls into place.

Theme 6: Legal & Structure

If you’re not planning on incorporating a company, you will most likely not find this set of chapters very interesting. However, if you’re like me, and are now going through the process of incorporating a company, these set of chapters are a great resource.

This section offers advice on when to form the company (early), what kind of company to form (S corp vs C corp), why vesting is a good idea and others.

Theme 7: Work-Life Balance

It’s easy to be a workaholic. There‘s always something else you can do.  With a startup, it’s even easier, because if you’re not making progress on the company, most likely no one is. In this chapter they remind you of the importance to have a work-life balance.

To steal a quote from the current book I’m reading (4 Hour Body), the author Tim Ferriss asked Richard Branson (founder of Virgin) how to become more productive. His answer? Working out. He believed daily work-outs gave him 4 hours of extra productivity a day.

Conclusion

The reason I fell in love with this book and will read it again and again was that I felt it was written for me. Almost every chapter had some piece of information I could immediately apply to Unanchor.

If you’re currently a web entrepreneur or an aspiring one, the book is a must read. It’s the type of book you don’t read just once, but come back to over and over again picking up new grains of wisdom each time.

Book Excepts

Over on the Techstars blog they’ve been posting full chapters from the book. Here are a few that have been posted:

• Be Tiny Until You Shouldn’t Be
• Have a Bias Towards Action
• Do More Faster

As always, by purchasing the book through the links above you’ll be financially supporting Sharon and I. We hope to buy a king size Kit-Kat with the money, thanks!

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2. 2010 Year In Review
3. Sharing Some of My Favorite Links From Around The Web III

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Each year I try to choose one activity that I’ve never done before. A few years ago it was skydiving, another year was hiking half-dome, the next was traveling through Asia for a year, and last year it was outdoor mountain climbing. Unfortunately, last year’s New Year’s resolution went the way of most resolutions, and I failed to follow through. To be fair, I did give it a few modest tries, but none were able to get me closer to my goal.

With that, I now feel I need to have 2 adventure resolutions this year. The first is of course completing last year’s. I should be able to do this in Korea. There is a popular site called “Korea On the Rocks” that is dedicated to rock climbing. I plan on using the site to find indoor gyms to practice and hopefully find a group of people to join on an outdoor excursion.

My second adventure resolution is to go white water rafting. Not too crazy I know, but it’s something I’ve never done. All I’ve done is the “bring a bunch of beer and float down the water in a raft”, but I don’t count that as white water rafting. Again, I plan on rafting in Korea. There are plenty of options.

Sharon’s Adventure Resolution

Jason has managed to convince me to to create a New Year’s adventure resolution as well. This one is not really what you would call an ‘adventure’, but it’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for many years- learn to play the guitar.

There is this guitar that my dad has owned since before I was born.  There were a handful of times when I actually took some initiative and taught myself a few chords and simple songs, but that was about the extent of it.  He actually gave the guitar to me a couple of years ago.  While I won’t be bringing it with us to Korea, I definitely plan on making this my NY resolution.  It might be tough to find the time and motivation to do this on my own in Korea, but with Jason’s constant reminders about fulfilling it and not looking like losers on our own blog, I’m sure I’ll be a natural Jimi Hendrix by the time we come back home.  (This sentence will probably be edited out when we come back)

What about you?

Can we convince you to adopt the adventure resolution? What activity have you always wanted to do but never got around to doing? Why not make this year the year you accomplish it? Leave a comment and let us know.

Photo Credit: Jonas Achermann

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This is a week of simultaneous reflection and looking ahead. Not wanting to be left out of the process, today’s post takes a quick look back at 2010.  Sharon and I will highlight a few of our favorite posts from this past year. Next week, I’ll be looking forward.

Jason’s 3 Favorite Posts

7 Life Lessons From A 27-Year Old – I was genuinely nervous in posting this since it felt ridiculous to give life lessons. In fact, I wrote the post about 2 months before I actually published it. It was Sharon who pushed me to post it. I’m glad I did. It turned out to be the most popular post we’ve ever written and I got a lot of great comments on it. If you haven’t done so, I recommend checking out the comments to see other life lessons people added to my list.

A Year of Travel in Numbers – This post was a lot of fun to put together. I thought of the idea long before our trip was over and was always trying to think of different categories that I could show numerically.

Your Taxi Options – East Asia Style – I was amazed at how different each of the countries that we visited were. Despite being right next to each other, each east Asian country was highly unique. This picture post showed one small example of it.

Sharon’s 3 Favorite Posts

Dating in Korea – If you’ve been reading our blog for a while, you already know what interests me more than anything else; people watching.  Observing the dating culture in South Korea was absolutely fascinating and hilarious (mainly the matching clothes part).  Korea was the country that we spent the most time in, so I was lucky enough to closely observe its culture of physical aesthetics and dating.

Observations of a Privileged American – Let’s face it, on some level we all judge things that are different than what we’re used to.  I realize this about myself, therefore this post is one of my attempts at deciphering my thoughts and new observations about other people from other cultures.  Yes, sometimes it was scary taking in the new sights, sounds and smells (unfortunately) of places on our trip, but in this post I explain what it revealed to me about myself and the way I view other cultures in relation to the one I’ve built for myself.

April Fool’s – On April 1, 2010 I posted an article regarding an “Exciting New Update” in which Jason and I were chosen to be sent to North Korea to become its two newest journalists.  To be quite honest, I was nervous about posting it for fear of people taking it too seriously.  Luckily, only a couple people thought it was serious (which was hilarious) and to this day people have brought up this particular post in conversation.

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1. Going Big in Beijing: Chinese New Year 2010
2. “Do More Faster” Book Review
3. How To Work On A Cruise Ship eBook Review

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Entrepreneurial/Business Links

How To Hire an Amazing Customer Support Person off Craigslist – I’m a sucker for tactical posts and this is a great one on hiring.

Peter Thiel’s Thoughts on Tech Entrepreneurship – Notes from a talk Peter Thiel gave a few weeks ago. There are some very interesting points  – comparing the consolidation of the car industry to the Internet, how the CEO’s salary is a good predictor of the company’s success, and why he says not to start a web company.

14 Reasons Why You Need To Start a Startup – A great post about the nicer side of starting a company.

“Do More Faster” by David Cohen & Brad Feld – This is actually a book. I’m only half-way through, but this book is already changing the way I work. For anyone interested in starting a company (particularly a web company), it’s a must read. (Affiliate link)

Travel Links

Nomad Courier – This is a relatively new site that I’m a member of that was started by Jenneil from HelloMeetWorld. The concept is simple – there are 7 nomads and each day a new “postcard” from their travels is posted. She was kind enough to include me as one of the seven nomads. It’s a fun idea and you get to see some awesome photography.

Translating Camera App (Video embedded below) – I could have used this app one year ago for every Asian language! Check out the video to see what I’m talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2OfQdYrHRs

Random thought – when technology solves the language barrier problem (which it will), will traveling lose some of its lure?

Crash! Boom! Bang! How to Fall Off Your Motorbike Ungracefully – A fun and funny article that reminded me of Sharon and my adventures renting motorbikes.

Other

10 Things that are banned in San Francisco – San Francisco remains one of my favorite cities in the world.  This top 10 list is a good indication of the culture that I love so much.

Kim Jong-Il Looking At Things – I think the title says it all. The novelty will quickly wear off on this one, but it’s a hilarious concept for a site. A new picture is posted every day.

If you enjoy these posts, consider following me on Twitter, I’m @LifeAfterCubes. My favorite links always get posted there first.

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2. Sharing Some of My Favorite Links From Around The Web II
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Quick Cruise Background

When I was younger, I was fortunate enough to go on three cruises with my family. If I had to describe cruises in one word, it would be “awesome”. Being waited on hand and foot, eating six times a day, and visiting exotic locations was an amazing experience. Working in that environment, while traveling the world always seemed like a dream. Needless to say, when I saw that Earl was coming out with an eBook on how to land a cruise ship job, I immediately began figuring out if Sharon and I could incorporate working on a cruise ship into our future plans. And, I of course purchased Earl’s eBook.

A General Thought About eBooks

Rather than spending money on an eBook, I could have easily used Google to find most of the information I needed. However, I like the idea of buying an ebook for two main reasons:

1. Paying money for an eBook mentally commits me to the idea a lot more than simply doing research and looking into the idea. It’s far more likely that I follow through on the idea because I don’t want to feel like I “wasted” the money.
2. Having all of the information brought together in one place from an expert is worth a few bucks.

How to Work on A Cruise Ship eBook Review

• 173-pages
• Current price (November 2010) – $37
• Link to download

Part 1 – Introduction to Ship Life

The first section discusses the pros and the cons of “ship life”. In my opinion, the pros of low expenses while traveling the world far outweigh cons such as an intense work schedule with small living quarters. However, you can be the judge. The introduction also includes a great guide to the various cruise lines – what type of passengers they typically serve, where their boats go, etc. They also give a general introduction to the different types of jobs on a cruise ship. In the back they include a much more detailed description of each job on the ship, as well as a general idea of each positions salary.

Part 2 – Pre-application Preparation

In this section they go through the basic requirements of working on a cruise line (clean police record, good health, flexible schedule, etc.). Then they help you build your resume and cover letter. The resume and cover letter are pretty standard compared with applying to other jobs with a couple small tweaks. The most helpful part of this section is the incorporation of a real resume and cover letter example used to apply for a cruise ship job.

Part 3 – It’s Time To Apply

This is the bread and butter section. Applying for jobs is as easy as sending out your resume and cover letter. What’s time consuming, though, is researching all of the different cruise lines that exist and how exactly they want to receive your resume and cover letter. This section provides those application details for nearly every cruise line out there. Additionally, some types of cruise line jobs are outsourced to other companies. All of the contact information on those companies are provided as well.

Part  4 – The Interview

In this section they walk you through what to expect during the interview process. Additionally they give some basic tips on what to say and what not to say during the interview. Most of it is common sense: be positive, be confident, show that you’ve done the research about the position. If it’s been a while since your last interview, these serve as a nice reminder.

Part 5 – The Job Offer

If all goes well with the first four steps you’ll hopefully receive a job offer. The last part of the eBook wraps up by walking you through the required documents in order to get employed. Unfortunately it’s not as simple as signing a piece of paper. You have to get a background check, medical check and Maritime Visa (if you’re not a US citizen).

Bonus Section- Welcome Aboard

This section has recommendations on what to pack and what to expect once on board the ship.

Overall Summary

If working on a cruise ship is something that interests you, I fully recommend the eBook.  It prepares you in almost every possible manner. It stops just short of writing the resume and cover letter for you and submitting it to the cruise lines. It’s odd to say, but it’s hard to think of something that they should have included.

To read more information about the eBook or purchase check out: http://www.howtoworkonacruise.com/.

Our Cruise Job Plans

My first priority for work has always been UnAnchor. The promise I made to myself was that if things did not continue to progress, then I would consider putting UnAnchor aside and going for a cruise ship job. Fortunately, things are progressing nicely with UnAnchor and I continue to be optimistic about its future. For now, I’ll be filing the eBook away and my dream cruise ship job will have to wait.

Full Disclosure – I was not paid in any way to write this review. However, all links to Earl’s Cruise Ship Job eBook are affiliate links. By using these links you financially support Sharon and my travel habit. You’re awesome!

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2. 2010 Year In Review
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I’ll start this link-sharing extravaganza by tooting my own horn and sharing some of my personal links.

Personal Links

Freelance-Zone Inaugral Post – After doing an interview on Freelance-Zone, they asked me to become a writer for the site. I agreed and now every other Monday I’ll be discussing travel-writing over at their blog.

Interview with….Jason Demant – The aforementioned interview over at the Freelance-Zone blog.

Experiencing a Global Adventure with Jason and Sharon – Funsherpa did a fun interview with us. They asked some really great questions.

Hiking the Great Wall from Beijing – Jinshanling to Simatai — A guest post I wrote over at Sharing Travel Experiences. Thanks to Andy for the opportunity.

Entrepreneurial/Business Links

Why Working at home is both awesome and horrible — A very funny comic from the oatmeal. While I technically haven’t been working from home, I was still able to relate with this comic.

Three Alternatives to creating yet another online travel inspiration startup – Good article if you’re interested in travel and entrepreneurship (me).

Inside the Secret World of Trader Joe’s — If I were to create a list of things I’ve missed from home, Trader Joe’s would be near the top. This was an interesting article looking at their business model and current expansion issues.

Competition — From the man, Seth Godin. If you have any interest in business you should be reading his blog. This particular post are his thoughts on how you think should think about competition. The summary: having competition (even Google) is not a good reason to abandon a project.

Travel Links

20 Things I’ve Learned From Traveling Around the World For Three Years — Long title says it all. Excellent article from the very popular travel blogger Gary Arndt.

Six Tips For Taking Better Travel Photos with Your Point-and-Shoot Digital Camera – I wish I was better at picture-taking, these were awesome tips I was able to put into immediate use.

Numbeo – A very common travel question is how much do things cost in the destination I’m going to? It’s important to know for planning purposes as well as not to get ripped off. This site does a pretty good job answering that question.

For the latest links and personal updates, make sure to follow us on Twitter, we’re @LifeAfterCubes.

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One of our favorite travel bloggers recently took the 7 link challenge and after reading further about it, it sounded like a fun idea. So, both Jason and I have compiled and completed the 7 link challenge. Please join us on a trip down memory lane…

Our First Posts

Jason’s First Post – Random Thoughts From My Cube With 14 Weeks To Go

Sharon’s First Post – Cutting the Keyboard Cord

Posts We Enjoyed Writing

Jason - The Great Adventure of Lunch in Haikou – This experience was so ridiculous that as soon as I came back from lunch I started writing. I had so much fun writing this post that the initial draft was waaay too long!

Sharon - The Top 9 Things about China that Shocked Us – This was one of my first posts and also the first time I truly felt that what I was writing about needed to be written!  Mainland China was our first stop into culture shock, so I will forever read this post and remember that feeling.

A Post Which Had A Great Discussion

Sharon - Dating in Korea – This was one of my more recent posts and developed a nice discussion panel in the comments section.  I asserted many of my own opinions on dating in Korea, and although they were just observations, many people agreed/disagreed with me on them.  It’s great knowing that people take what I write seriously, even if some of my writing does drip with sarcasm.

A Post on Someone Else’s Blog I Wish I’d Written

Jason – Nomadic Matt – “Why Americans Still Don’t Travel Overseas” – There were actually two parts to this post, here’s part 1. This is a topic I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. Matt’s post summarized the arguments well.

Sharon - YouOffendMeYouOffendMyFamily – I recently discovered this blog while searching for information on Koreans and their insane drinking habits, only to find an entire website’s worth of fun stuff.  One of them being a link to the “6 Most Terrifying Foods in the World”.

Your Most Helpful Post

Jason – “Visa Requirements for Asian Countries” – This list took a long time to compile and I’m proud of how helpful it is. Visa requirements are an annoying aspect of travel and I hope this helped (and will help) people planning on traveling to Asia.

A Post With A Title You Are Proud Of

Sharon – “Rock the Cat Ba (Island), Vietnam” – It’s obvious that this title parodies the song “Rock the Casbah” (and is also extremely corny) but it just makes me smile each time I think about it.

Jason – “Geoarbritage – Holy &#!% that’s cheap” – It took me a long time to choose the symbols that looked right. I think it’s the exclamation mark that really makes it look right.

A Post That I Wish More People Had Read

Sharon – What is this, a trick question?  I guess if I were obligated to answer this, I would have to say “14 Engrish Signs to Make You Laugh” just because I think everyone in the world deserves to know how awesome these horrible translations are.

Now I ask you: what’s your favorite blog of ours?  Do you even read our blog?  If your name is Holly, you probably do.

Random Thought of the Day: How awesomely random is this?

Possibly Related posts:

1. Guest Post Round-Up

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