April 14, 2022

Why Sam Tan's digital home is SamTan.IO

Why did I start this endeavor? Well why not? Actually, for my sanity I wanted a single place or a single stream of digital consciousness to put down my ideas of what I find cool and important. I've done a lot of different work for a lot of different organizations and individuals over the years and it would be nice to have one spot to talk about it all. Will it all be good? Probably not. But within this mind dump there will be nuggets of gold and hopefully some thoughtfulness and cool stuff. But all of it will be mine and mine only.

Does my opinion matter? To me it does, and that is all that matters.

What you need to know about SamTan.IO

Where to start? I live in Chicago. I'm vehemently car free. This stemming from an accident when I was hit by a Chrysler Sebring while walking in a crosswalk back in 2007 in St. Paul, MN. That day was a big fork in my life. Prior to that I wanted the fast cars, the big house, the all American dream. However something changed.

A few years later I fell in love with the city of Chicago. Here was a metropolis, close to where I grew up where I could basically live car-free. It took years for me to finally rid myself of the car-brain I was raised with. What if I needed to drive back to see my family/friends/parents/grandma? What if I needed a car for work? What if this? What if that? Fast forward a few more years I was doing the math I had put 1,200 miles on my car in 6 years. All of those miles came from 3 road trips visiting family in Ohio and Minnesota. I had spent more money on batteries and jumpstarts for my Camry than on actual gas. I gave my car to family member that needed it and went fully car free.

And my goodness is it freeing. Now I do want to acknowledge that living car free especially here in the US is hard outside of a major US city. But it is possible. When I talk to old friends that I don't drive at all; I get all the questions. How do you transport your son? How do you get him to the doctor? How do you go to the grocery store? How do you get to work? And I tell them all the same answer. I walk thru the door.

But in all seriousness everything I need is within a 5 block radius. And if it's not within a 5 block radius, I'm lucky enough that it's within a 1 mile radius. You name it, schools, ERs, restaurants, parks, grocers, farmers markets, bars, Lake Michigan, work. Hell I can get downtown faster on my bike than most people driving.

I'm a big sports fan

That is probably why Chicago and I get along so well. I grew up a big Bulls fan. My first jersey was Jordan. When the Timberwolves started in Minnesota I became a fan of theirs as well. But winning wasn't really their forte. I'm a big NBA fan that used to collect all the Upper Deck originals. I had a 1994 Stacey King T-Wolves card that I used to carry in my NKOTB wallet. We had so many playground arguments about who would bring the Wolves to relevance and I swore to the playground grounds and double rims that Stacey the King would bring all that MJ bench experience to Minny and be the rim shaker I knew he was capable of. We all know how that turned out, but I do thank him for that single season that ended up getting us KG.

My collegiate fealty belongs to the Golden Gophers. The Maroon and Gold have educated not only myself but several generations of my family and those ties run deep. My family started the Cambodian Student Association of Minnesota back in the late 70s, and we've had a member in that organization every decade since.

Tech is in my DNA

Growing up in a multi-generational household as the youngest member of the family sucked at the time. But looking back it had its advantages. I was exposed to my one of aunt's creative pursuits in art and calligraphy, another aunt's social politics and attended her master level classes as she babysat me. All my uncles were in bands and could play several instruments. My great uncle was a savant. He even had a record deal where he covered Beatles' songs using traditional Khmer instruments.

But the thing that really stuck with me was tech. Especially growing up in the 80's tech was big. I mean physically big. Sound mixing boards the size of dining tables. Mobile phones that were mobile yes, but were the size of brief cases. Walkie talkies that had antennae that were 8 feet long. And computers, oh computers were magic. The sounds of the keyboard and setting up different IRC rooms was so cool. I felt like Matthew Broderick.

After one of my uncle's best friends got a job at RadioShack, it was over. We were there everyday. This was back when you could build anything with the parts from RadioShack. We went for the RC Cars, then turned them into airplanes, then put megaphones on them. It seemed that the possibilities were endless.

Hardware is where I got my start as a child. And at that time the hardware was still physically large enough to look in and see that it made sense.

Well that's it for now. This blog is where I hope you can read about my experiences as a tech-enthusiast and as a sales professional in the Chicago area, as well as follow my musings on sports, technology, and life in general. Be sure to check out the blog regularly for updates!