Change

I have just started the 4th decade of my life and it finally got me thinking what I really want to do in my life. Through the past three decades, I have been fortunate (or unfortunate depends on how you see it) enough that everything has lined up perfectly for me so that I really didn't have to make any hard decisions or maybe I should say I have been following what most people do and am luckily enough to get it. However, when I looked back, I felt like I didn't do anything that's extremely meaningful to me.

Granted I have a well paying job, have a shelter, and don't have to worry too much about my day-to-day expenses (well, I am pretty cheap :P). If I had a family, I am probably pretty happy about where I am at; however, since I am single and don't have any real responsibility, I start to question whether what I am doing is the best use of my time and "youth". I have some ideas of what I want to do but for some reasons, I am afraid of doing them. Something is holding me back. I am pretty sure it's the "change".

In general, people hate changes. It could be getting married, having a baby, buying a new house, or changing a job. We always try to avoid it as much as possible (yeah, some guys detest the idea of getting married and some couples think that babies would ruin their good lives :). Most people like a stable and predictable life as it's easy and comfortable. However, at the same time, this predictability and comfort would make one become complacent, which is what I hate to see myself getting into. I am not a competitive person but I hate to see myself living the same way throughout my life (yeah, I don't think I can ever give anyone a good life :).

Anyway, so I am trying to conquer my fear of change and decide what I want to do next. Sorry if I sound like I am complaining. I know that if I was back in 1960s, I wouldn't even think about it. I would probably just work, work, and work to make a living to take care of my family. Society has changed or maybe the Western world is just different. Regardless, I have this thing stuck in my head and I gotta figure this one out.

Links

I am going to share a few links with you today.

• Great games
• My friends are infomercial stars!
  

Most viewed pictures

I just looked at the metrics on my flickr account and the following pictures are the most viewed ones. Somewhat surprised about the 2nd place.

Third place (taken from Yosemite and posted this morning - 38 views):



Second place (my master bathroom - 44 views):



And the first place (taken from Gem Lake - 54 views):



I think people really like photos with reflection. I just posted another reflection pictures today and I'll see how it does. Of course, now that I "advertise" my photos on my blog, all the metrics will be off...

Can't believe...

[warn: this post might reveal too much details...]

I am going on a trip soon and one of my goals is to pack as little as possible. I have been buying technical/light-weight clothes for hiking so I got something for pretty much all layers except my underwear. To make sure that I have a light-weight trip, I took my time today to research on what options are out there.

After reading some reviews, I found these travel/hiking/light-weight underwear. It claims that it dries quickly, is very light, and is very breathable (which is good considering that i am going to the tropics). It has very good review so I thought it was great until I looked at the price tag... $25 per pair! I may be cheap but, seriously, $25 is a bit much for a pair of underwear (for guys, I vaguely remember someone told me that female's underwear could be pretty expensive).

Since I really want to pack as light as possible, I bit the bullet and ordered 3 pairs for the price of less than share. These are the most expensive underwear I have ever bought and they better be good.

Life is too short

I went to my friend's birthday party last Saturday and, man, there were A LOT of kids. Anyway, so one of the kids (about 10 yr olds) really wanted to have a piece of chocolate and she was debating if she should have it as it was pretty late. And then I said, "Life is too short so just do it". Right after I said it, I realized that it probably wasn't the best way to teach kids.

When I was a kid, my parents always taught me to be patient and tolerant. They taught me to have discipline and not to do things that will make me happy now as I could suffer in the future, for example, if I eat too much in a meal, I could have a bad stomachache. Another example is that I shouldn't use up all your money on the first day I get your paycheck as life would suck if I don't have money (I guess that's why we have credit cards to get around that problem). So, basically, the idea is that life is a long journey and I shouldn't optimize for instant gratification. I should, instead, plan for the future and delay the gratification to the "appropriate" time. That's what I learned as a kid and I have made a lot of decisions optimizing for delayed gratification subconsciously.

Let's fast forward many years to where I am today. It seems like there has been a lot of talks about "Life is short and you should do what you want today" or "Live the moment now and don't think about the past or future too much". I don't know if it's because of the books/articles/blogs I read or if it's a western thing but it seems like I have heard it everywhere and it does get me to think more as it's almost the complete opposite of what I was taught, which I find to be super interesting. Why did I get these two completely different messages? Is it because I have been exposed to all these marketing tricks to get me to spend the money? Is it because the world is getting to be less unpredictable? Is it because of the difference between the Western culture and the Eastern culture? Is it because of adults are more mature so we can tell them the "truth"? I don't know the answer and I am sure I will have to think more or do more to find out.

So what did the kid do after hearing what I said? Well, she said she was scared and she immediately ate the chocolate. Glad that I am not a dad or my kid will probably be super spoiled :).

Zen Habits

My friend introduced me to the Zen Habits blog a while ago. I thought it's a good blog in that it got me to think more about life. If you have free time, take a look at it and it may get you to think more.

A week off

My friend just told me that he will get a whole week off next week because of an office move. It's an extra paid time-off, i.e. it's FREE vacation time! Man, I am so jealous. Anyhow, so it got me to think what I would do if I get the same thing. Ever since I started working, I almost always travel somewhere when I have more than 4 days off so it's actually an "uncharted territory" for me. I know I have a lot of stuff I want to get done so maybe it's good but then I don't know if I would feel bored. You know, "staying" home for 9 consecutive days could be pretty boring. Seriously, 9 days is enough for a trip to somewhere. Actually, if I had the next week off, I would have had joined my friends to go to Zion National Park.

So, what would you do?

Planning for a 4-day trip to HK

My friends will visit me in HK for about 4 days this Christmas and I need to figure out where to bring them. Here is my first draft, what do you think?

Day 1:
Lantau Island:
- MTR to 東涌纜車站 and take 昂坪纜車 (http://www.np360.com.hk)
- Visit Big Buddha and Temple; have lunch in the temple
- Vist 大澳 (http://www.discoverhongkong.com/tc/attractions/outlying-taio-fishing-village.html)
- Visit 梅窩 (http://www.discoverhongkong.com/tc/attractions/outlying-mui-wo.html)
- Take ferry back to city

Day 2:
Hong Kong Island:
- Take a tram to 上灣 to check out some old shops
- Go to 金鐘 to take peak tram (during the day) to the Peak
- Go to 香港仔, 赤柱, 淺/深水灣, 石澳
- Go to 灣仔 to take a ferry to 尖沙咀 to catch this: http://www.tourism.gov.hk/symphony/
- Go up to the Peak again for the night view

Day 3:
Kowloon:
- Mongkok (女人街, etc)
- 黃大仙, etc (don't really know Kowloon, so need to figure out what to do there)
At night:
- Lan Gwa Fang (night life)

Day 4:
- Causeway Bay
- Shopping etc

Surgery

I had my third surgery of my life last Friday. Unlike the previous two, it was a minor one.

About a month ago, a little lump started to grow in the inside of my lower lip. I thought it was caused by "hot air" (for those who don't know Cantonese, take it as some body defense mechanisms) so I didn't pay too much attention to it. Turns out it never went away and it actually got bigger and bigger. It started to worry me a bit (especially after knowing that my aunt just got cancer and my food is usually super hot and I eat super fast too) so I went for a physical checkup last Tuesday to see what was going on.

Turns out that it's a benign growth. It's most likely caused by some mucus buildups, which happened when the salivary gland was ruptured due to trauma (I eat fast and always bite myself). I think the medical term is called Mucocele. Anyhow, so I was referred to a specialist on Wednesday and then a minor surgery was done on Friday.

The surgery was very fast; it only took about 15 minutes. It was pretty nerve racking though since I was conscious the whole time. Basically, the doctor numbed my lip and then operated on it. I could totally hear the sound when he cut my skin open; I could smell the burnt when he used laser to cut up the lump; I could feel the stitch when he sealed the wound. I consider myself I relatively calm person and, man, during the operation, I know I was nervous and tried hard to calm myself down.

After the surgery, the doctor sent the lump to a lab for a biopsy (just in case). Other than some swelling and bruises, I am good (I actually went to work right after the operation). The only issue I have now is eating. I have to eat SUPER SLOW! I need at least 30-40 mins to finish a meal that usually took me 5-10 mins. That's very frustrating but I guess it's for the better.

Hunger

Came across this news article (in Chinese) just now. Basically, it's saying that a 31-year old man died from hunger in his apartment in Taiwan because he's a "宅男" (someone who is not very good at interacting with people). It's sad but at the same time, it's amazing to see a 31-year old man dying from hunger in a pretty developed country.

Tires

In my previous oil change, the technician told me that I will need to replace my tire soon. After almost half a year, I am finally learning about tire and have been reading a lot of it.

Out of all the materials I have looked at, I think this video is the most interesting and this site being the most informative.

Snow Lake / Gem Lake

I went hiking for the first time in 2 months to Snow Lake / Gem Lake. It was actually a rather last minute plan and I ended up dropping everything I planned to do today to go (I guess hiking has the highest priority on my list. lol...)

The trail (with 2 alpine lakes on the way) is about 50 mins from my home. It's 10.6 miles long roundtrip and a total 2900ft of elevation gain.

The trail to Snow Lake was fairly clear (except some streams from the melting snow up the top of the mountain). We started to see snow once we hit the top of the mountain (before heading down to the snow lake). The trail from Snow Lake to Gem Lake was pretty much covered in snow (and very muddy) so it was a little harder to get to the Gem Lake. The Gem Lake area was very quiet and the snow was pretty fresh so it was very peaceful. It took us a total of 6.5 hours and I really enjoyed it. I totally want to do more hiking in the winter time now.

It was the first time I hiked in non-summer so I was actually a little nervous before I started. I have to say, my baselayer (long poly undershirt and underpants) really helped me a lot - it kept me very warm throughout the hike. I think I will invest on a few more. Extremely tired right now and hope I can get to work tomorrow.

Co-founder

Paul Graham wrote an interesting article about startup the other day (thanks Ashwin for sending me the link) - the focus was on the surprises the startup founders experienced. The first on the list was "Be careful with Cofounders". A certain found said, 'One thing that surprised me is how the relationship of startup founders goes from a friendship to a marriage. My relationship with my cofounder went from just being friends to seeing each other all the time, fretting over the finances and cleaning up shit. And the startup was our baby. I summed it up once like this: "It's like we're married, but we're not fucking." '

I found it funny but at the same time, I think it's very true. I don't have much to add except that I do think building a company is like raising a baby (or is it the other way around?).

Enjoy.

Data

I have been updating my photo workflow for the past few days and man, I really couldn't believe I was so focus on it. Seriously, I was reading everything all these articles on it. Crazy. Anyway, so one of the steps in my workflow is to upload it to Flickr, which is my way to share my best shots and I plan to upload one picture there a day. FYI, Picasa is for sharing non-public pictures with friends and facebook is for sharing public pictures.

Flickr has a free plan or a paid plan (24.95/yr). The free plan has almost everything I want. So what's missing? Stats of my photos (how did people get to my pictures for example). I love to look at data (I am an engineer afterall) so I bit the bullet and paid for the plan. And then you know what, the data is some what crappy. It does tell me how people got to my photo outside; however, it doesn't tell me how people got to my photo inside Flickr. For example, is it based on a search term, is it from a certain group, etc. Feel somewhat tricked by Flickr in that sense. I think I am going to send them a feature request.

Update: Turns out I was just dumb. I didn't realize that you could click on one of those links (I swear I clicked on it before but nothing happened). Anyway, I am now a happy man and think that the $25 is worth it.

Stock market

Stock market is interesting. When I got up this morning, I was pretty shocked to see "115". That's a pretty huge number for a company I have "invested" in. If I had any shares, I would have sold them right now; unfortunately, I sold them earlier this year. Glad I don't work in the stock market or I think I will always have this losing feeling. You can argue that it's all about setting a target price, sell it at that time, and then forget about it. However, when the difference is so huge and it's a difference of a few months, it's kinda hard to stomach sometimes. Anyway, just complaining and get it out of my head :).

Asking questions

For those who have kids, do you find your kids asking a lot of questions? A lot of hard questions? Like why do we have eggs? Where did I come from? For those who asked a lot of questions when you were a kid, do you still ask a lot of questions at work, at home, or during a social events?

When I was a kid, I almost never asked any questions. I was one of those very obedient kid who took whatever people said (yeah, I was very gullible, well, I still am). It wasn't that I wasn't curious but it was more like I was afraid of asking questions. Why was I afraid? I dunno. I was probably worried what others would think of me. For example, "He's such a stupid person." I got through life fine without asking too many questions throughout elementary school, secondary school, and college (thanks to my parents and the crazy Hong Kong education system). Now that I think about, I really didn't know how to ask questions (not that I know now).

In the past few years, I find myself changing though. I think my previous job has something to do with it. Anyway, I find myself asking people more questions. It was like I became the curious kid I was supposed to be. I would "drill" people about a certain topic and try to get to the bottom of it. Come to think of it, I wonder how annoying I am. I don't know but oh well, it has already happened, I couldn't change it :). Actually, maybe I should go read some books on how to ask better questions. That's not a bad idea.

Sorry for cutting this post short, I ended up im'ing at the same time and it's getting very late now. Gotta sleep now. Next time...

Amazed...

As I mentioned before, I am taking a Spanish class online right now and I have a weekly 1-on-1 with a Spanish teacher. The teacher is from all over the world and you know what, the teacher I had today actually from the same city as I am and she's only like 15 blocks from me! How likely is that.

Speaking of Spanish, I think it is messing up my English. Lol... I find myself having a harder time when I speak English (mostly related to mouth/tongue movement control).

Winter sports

I am supposed to work on my slide deck for a presentation next week but I always procrastinate what I should do when I don't want to do them. sigh... anyway, so I have been learning a lot about gears for winter sports and it's pretty interesting. Why do I learn about it? Well, I want to play in more winter sports this year and want to make sure that I am prepared for the cold weather.

I took off work a little early yesterday and went to a sports store (Mountain Hardware in downtown) to ask a salesperson all about it. How should I dress for a winter activity? I should dress in layers for both upper and lower bodies. The first layer is the base layer. It should NEVER be cotton (I wore cotton last time I went snowboarding and I remember it being pretty a horrible experience). It should also be as close to your body as possible as it'll keep you warm. The next layer is the mid-layer. People usually have a fleece for this layer and the thickness depends on the activity you do. The last layer is the outer-layer or the shell. It's usually a waterproof (like Gore-tex) jacket/pants. Depending on what activity you do, you may need one that's durable (for example, if you are going on a backpacking trip).

I only have a fleece jacket so I need to get a few extra items. I started looking at these items at REI and, man, they are pretty expensive (as a side note, I rarely buy clothes and when I do buy, they are almost always on sale, so I really don't know what's normal pricing. How could I get it on sale all the time? Well, it's because of procrastination. I needed winter clothes but I was always too lazy to get it and then by the time I got myself to get it (usually a visit to the outlet with other people), it's already the end of the season and it's sales time. lol...). Anyway, I just got myself a set of base layer from REI ($50). I am now shopping for the jacket. There are WAY too many options. Why couldn't someone just tell me which one I should get.

By the way, I was just thinking about what store I buy non-grocery stuff from in the past eight months and it was pretty much only REI. Maybe I should replace my Amazon.com card with an REI card.

Time to get back to my slides. or maybe I'll sleep and get up early in the morning (it never works for me though...)

Salary & Spouse

Came across this news a few days ago. Basically, about 1/3 of couples in HK don't tell their spouse the exact income they are making. Thought it's interesting to share.

Farewell Red Sox 2009

Not sure if you follow baseball. In case you don't, Boston Red Sox got swept by Los Angeles Angels today and I was so upset. I consider myself a rather calm and emotionless person. But you know what, sports is the only thing (so far) that can get my emotions going up and down like a roller coaster - from super excited to super depressed within a 3-hr span. Seriously, I don't know how those very emotional people live their lives. It's so hard to deal with it. I basically didn't do much after the game for a few hours.

Anyway, so these games were broadcast live on TBS; however, I am too cheap to pay for cable so I couldn't watch the games at home. Fortunately, MLB is one of the most technologically advanced league and you can actually watch the games live online (when can I watch NBA live online?)! They have this service called postseason.tv. It's not exactly the same as what you see on TBS but it's good enough for me (with many angles and the live commentaries). So what's the catch? I needed to pay $9.99 for the whole postseason. It was a no brainer for me as I could watch my favorite baseball team live. Well, turned out this $9.99 subscription was only useful for 3 games (I was hoping I would watch Red Sox against Yankees). Regardless, I think this service is AWESOME and all the other sports should just do online streaming especially playoffs. I won't pay for cables as I don't watch enough to make it worth but I would pay to watch these post season games at home.

Now that Red Sox is done, my focus will be on NBA. Who am I rooting for? Heat, Suns, and Celtics (sorry, Yao-less Rockets isn't that interesting).

Peace

Most of you have probably read the news about President Obama getting the Nobel Price Peace award. As with a lot of people around the world, I am not sure why he got the award. Regardless, I think Obama is now forced into a somewhat difficult situation. For example, regarding Afghanistan, should he send in more troops to control the violence there? Sending more troops isn't exactly a peaceful thing but then if he doesn't send more troops, Afghan may get even messier. It'll be interesting to watch.

Constuctive / Negative feedback

I miss the days when someone would tell you honestly that, "You are not very good at it", "You are doing a crappy job", or "You are completely screwed up". Some of you may think that's just negative feedback and it's not constructive. Maybe it's true; however, these negative (and non-constructive) feedback can sometimes get you think and get yourself to ask questions. The thing about human beings is that we get complacent when we don't have to deal with adversities or challenges. These negative feedback can act as challenges or adversities to get yourself to validate your direction or get yourself motivated.

I had a lunch with someone who told me in my face that whatever I said wasn't very good. I wasn't mad and we ended up having a very good discussion. And you know what, I think that's probably the most motivating conversations I have had in the past year (maybe even the past 2 years). I thought that was a really good kick in my bottom conversation.

Hmm...

My closest aunt has been having some health issues in the past month (it was very strange; she rarely gets sick throughout her lift but went very sick in the past month) and has been to hospitals 3 times already. The first visit was to remove a brain tumor; second time was for some other issues; and the last visit was for some hormone issues. My aunt was fine after the third visit; unfortunately, the drama doesn't end there.

During her last visit, her doctor took a full scan of her body while trying to diagnosis the root cause of the hormone problem. In one of the photos of her lung, the doctor saw some "dark patches". What is it? I was told that some cells don't like right around those "dark patches". What's the next steps? Well, go through some more tests to find out what it is. So, the tests were done early this week and I just called home to check what happened. And, as expected, it is lung cancer. Good thing that it is still at its early stage so it should be curable. A surgery will be done next week and if the cancerous cells don't spread, my aunt will be good; otherwise, she'll have to go through chemotherapy. So one question I have is what caused the lung cancer given that my aunt doesn't smoke and none of her family members do.

I don't really know how I feel right now. I am not sad but then maybe I feel that my closest family members are starting the stage of their lives when they need more medical help. It'll certainly be strange if one day you can't see the people who are very close to you. I guess, it'll just be like breaking up with your bf/gf or going through a divorce :). Anyway, just some random thoughts.

Don't underestimate the homeless

Disclaimer: I am not discriminating any type of people but I thought it was an interesting observation and I learned from this observation.

There is this female homeless person (or I should say a beggar since she may have her own home or apartment) asking for money at the intersection right outside my office building. I see her every time I go out for lunch and I ignored every single time as she's too well-dressed to be homeless. So what's so funny about her? Well, so a few weeks, I actually saw her walking from around where I live to her "workplace" (the intersection where she begs for money). How did I see her? Well, I walk halfway to a bus stop and then take a bus to work. It was so happened that she was right in front of me while I was walking to the bus stop. And then I saw her again an hour later at that intersection! lol...

I thought that was already pretty interesting (or funny). Then when I went to a bank today, I actually saw her making a deposit (I could be wrong but it certainly seemed like that)! I was like... that's interesting. I guess "begging" is really her job and that's how she gets her income. Since she's self-employed, she needs to deposit the money to the bank herself.

Anyway, I find it pretty humorous and all my assumptions about beggar / homeless people are wrong! Lesson learned.

An interesting read

An interesting read here. I like this comment:

"... when you are ready to make your leap of faith, the temptations appear; the tremendous opportunities that for some reason only come out of the woodwork when you are ready to walk out the door."

I totally agree that it does happen. It's hard enough to get yourself ready to make that leap of faith and then all of a sudden there is this easier (and probably more comfortable) opportunity tries to tempt you away from what you were ready for. Now, you'll doubt about your faith and redo the whole thinking process. That's horrible. Some people said it's good to have options (even though none of the options is what you really want); however, I think it's worse than having no options. Why? If you don't have any option, you'll be creative in coming up with something you may actually want more. The process may be tougher but you could get to what you want. Anyway, just a random thought on a nice Sunday.

Should have gone hiking today instead of staying at home...

Airfoil is AWESOME!

As I mentioned before, I have recently moved my desk & computer from my bedroom to my office. In addition to creating too much space in my bedroom, this move also removed all the music sources from my bedroom. Basically, my room is roomy and quiet (I guess that's what a bedroom is supposed to be :). Well, I like to listen to Internet radio (can't play that on my iphone) on the bed before I sleep; however, the current set up doesn't allow me to do that. I've been trying to find a (cheap but very good) solution to this problem and I think I have found one.

Apple has a product called Airport Express, which allows music sharing via AirTunes. So what does it mean? It basically allows your to stream any audio from your iTunes library to any speakers connected to the Airport Express. What it means is that I only need to buy a set of speakers and an Airport Express unit and then I will be able to play my iTunes music in my bedroom. That's cool except it doesn't completely solve my problem... I need to play audio outside of iTunes (e.g. Real player or Quicktime) and I would like a cheaper solution ($99 for a device for audio streaming isn't exactly cheap in my book).

After some digging around, I found this awesome software called Airfoil from Rogue Amoeba. It does exactly what I wanted and it only costs me $25! The setup is super easy; it took me less than 5 minutes. After installing the software on my desktop, I installed their iPhone app, and voila, my Internet radio was playing on my iPhone! I can now listen to my favorite radio/music wherever I go inside my home. Very nice. Now, I just need to find a nice speaker for my iPhone and then I'll be all set in my bedroom.

I highly recommend it if you have been looking for a solution for streaming music all over your house. It works on Windows and Linux too!

Feel so satisfied...

Why? Because I just ate the food I made.

The radio station I listened to was talking about how to make 虾仁炒蛋 today. My mouth watered after listening to that discussion so I went to buy the ingredients to make the dish after work. Well, I remembered I still have tofu I bought a while ago (you know, one of those rare situations when I really wanted to have some home-made food and bought a lot of ingredients but never cooked them) so I ended up making a dish that has shrimp, scallop, and tofu in it (pretty different from what I wanted orginally. haha... I supposed that's what happened to a lot of things in life). In addition to this dish, I made another dish using some leftover ingredients from last time and some new ones (celery, carrot, mushroom, fish, and scallop). It took me a little over an hour to cook these two dishes but it felt so good when I ate them (seriously though, it only took me 5 mins to finish the meal; i couldn't even finish two pages of a book... I need to find a better ROI dish). As a bonus, I have lots of leftover and I don't have to worry about what to eat for a few days.

By the way, I so wanted to eat more. So to help me from eating the food, I am writing this post. lol...

How good are you?

Have you ever experience the following situation: For some reasons, others think that you are super awesome and got a lot of praise from them but then, in your head, you are asking yourself, "Seriously, am I that good? Or did I do a good job in hiding my weakness?" And then now, do you have the pressure of trying not show your dumb side when you talk to those people because you don't want to ruin your good image? Just a random thought to share before I head to bed...

Proper Grammar

My ADHD is in play again... Anyway, I was trying to figure out what I did on my previous trip to Japan (basically trying to re-live that experience and figuring out the name of all the places I visited) and then an incoming email from someone I don't know interrupted me. There were quite a few grammatical mistakes and I immediately had a lesser impression of that person. You know what, it wasn't the first time I had this reaction. Whenever I see a lot of grammatical mistakes in someone's email, I felt lesser about that person (note, it only applies to those whom I don't know, so if you are my friends, don't worry, I don't mind your quick/short email with grammatical mistakes since I already know who you are. Plus, I have quite a few grammatical mistakes when I send you guys quick emails too :P).

Think about it, when you first "meet" someone through email, your writing is basically a reflection of who you are and that's the first impression the recipient has about you. If you have a lot of grammatical mistakes in your first email, you could be seen as someone who's careless or who doesn't pay attention to details. If you are looking for a job, these mistakes will hurt you a great deal. Even if you aren't looking for a job, the recipients may think that you don't respect them as you can't even spend a minute to proofread the mail. So, please remember to proofread your mail when you email someone you don't know or barely know.

Anyway, just a random thought I want to capture. I better proofread my blog post or I'll just be hypocrite :).

Home office is set up!

I was helping a friend move today and yesterday. We got done early today and when I got home, I thought why not go head and move my desk to the other room to and make it my office. After spending 1.5 hours, my home office is officially set! There is much more room for my chair to move around and my books are right next to me. I want more desk space though; maybe I should get a new L-shape desk. For those who are planning to visit me, my guest room is gone and you'll need to stay in my office :). I still have a mattress so you can still comfortably. Next up is to get a new chair.

You know, it's the first time I don't have my desk/computer in my bedroom! It'll take me a while to get used to it and I'll probably need to get some stuff to fill my bedroom. It has too much space.

Focus

I have a serious time management problem as it seems like I don't have any time anymore for some reasons. I also think that I might have ADHD. It's like I want to do A, so I do A but then I would think about B so I went ahead to do B and then after a while, I would remember I was doing A. It could happen up to 5-6 activities at the same time. It's very annoying. I think it's a focusing problem but at the same time, it's so weird that I remember I was doing some previous activities and I would go back to finish them. I can get all these things done eventually but these "context switching" are hurting my head! In nerdy computer terms, I feel like my head can keep track of these activities in a queue but then the way it prioritizes them is wrong. It assigns random priority at random time.

Enough geeky talk. I also wonder if there are way too many things I want to do so I really should prioritize them. So what do I want to do? Well, other than office work, I have been trying to write this blog, read some photography books, read about business magazines, process my photos, attend networking events, learn Spanish, install the latest Snow Leopard :), and set up my home office. There are a few more that I won't even bother mentioning. Hmm... I really need to cut down on what I want to do. Seriously, I don't know what people do when they have kids. They have to give up on everything and put all the attentions on the kid.

An interesting read

Someone recommended this article by John Gardner. I thought it was an interesting read. I like the following:

"Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account."

Enjoy.

A story...

It's been a while since I posted cuz I have been traveling. I flew down to SF for a mini-vacation and then flew over to NY for a business trip. It was very tiring but it's over and will have a few weekends to get a few things done before another vacation. So, anything interesting happened during my trips? Well, my vacation was awesome and I'll write about it later. As for my trip to NY, I overheard an interesting and I thought I would share it with you guys :).

When I left NY, I took a hotel shuttle from the hotel to the airport. There was a man and a woman sitting behind me and they had a very interesting conversation. Actually, it was more like the guy was telling an interesting story. The guy talked like he didn't care if anyone overheard it... By the way, the guy sounded like a professor of some sort.

So this professor has a friend who was the CEO of a company that sells some tanning products. He was accusing this CEO of doing some "false" advertisement on his product, a tan lotion. Specifically, the ad was saying that it would be great to use the tan lotion as you would get the vitamin D you need and, in turns, you could avoid vitamin D deficiency. According to the prof, this deficiency problem only exists in those who are over 65 and reside in US Northeast (I thought Northeast has more sun than Northwest). The product, however, is targeted towards female from 18-35 living in Cali and Florida, so the ad is totally false (or useless). I thought it was pretty funny.

This prof went on talking about this CEO's wife. She's an artsy person and she actually made a movie that called something like "Woman Loves Woman". She basically had a warehouse in LA and NYC and then invited a lot of her female porn friends to the warehouse to make out and have sex in front of an audience whom she invited also. The movie, however, wasn't about the porn stars; they were just the backgrounds. The movie was really about the audience. I thought that was pretty interesting and am actually curious what the movie is like. Anyway, about a year after this movie, the CEO's wife divorced the CEO becuase she decided that she's a lesbian. What a twist...

This CEO then got really depressed or something and decided to quit his job to go rediscover himself. So what did he do? According to the prof, the CEO did a lot of road trips and went to various gentlemen club around the world. In addition, he also did some drugs along the way. His last stop was Amsterdam and, apparently, he was killed by durg overdose when he was there. That's not the end of the story though.

The CEO's wife then held a celebration (instead of a funeral because that's what the CEO wanted she said) in their Beveley Hill home in LA. When the prof got to the house, he was greeted by a drunk CEO's wife. In additional, she gave him a gift since the prof and the CEO were pretty good friend. To his surprise, the gift contained some of the ashes of the CEO! Very strange and that's the end of the story as we got to the airport...

I really didn't want to eavesdrop his story telling but man, he was talking like he didn't care. You know, the driver actually giggled when the guy was talking about the artsy movie (with lesbians and such).

Hiking at Burroughs Mountain

There are two national parks that are close to Seattle (Olympic National Park and Mountain Rainier Nation Park) and I tried to go there once a year. I have already been to the Olympic National Park for a camping trip back in July 4th. As for Raininer, I had been planning a trip there since May and after many setbacks, the trip finally happened last weekend.

You can enter Rainier National Park through three entrances:

• from the southwest side through the Nisqually entrance to the Paradise visitor center
• from the east side through the White River entrance to the Sunrise visitor center
• from the south east side through the Stevens Canyon entrance (have never been there so don't exactly know where it goes)

Sunrise is the highest visitor center you can get to (~64ooft) and you can get the closet view of Mount Rainier via the Burroughs Mountain trail and that's the trail we chose to hike last weekend. The trail is a part loop trail and part out-and-back trail; the total distance round trip is about 9 miles, the elevation you need to climb is about 2500ft (the trail goes up and down at a few places), and the highest point you'll get to is about 7800ft. This trail has three peaks (Burroughs Mountain 1, 2, and 3) and each peak gets you closer to the Rainier and the view gets more and more spectacular but, of course, the difficulty level increases as you go along.

We were lucky enough to get a really awesome day and we were able to see Mount Rainier very close up. The hike is tough towards the end (on the way to peak 3) but the view was totally worth it. I highly recommend to anyone who want to visit Mount Rainier National Park. Where is the details about the trail? Well, I am going to skip them as as you can find it from the link above. How about pictures? Well, it'll be available some time in the future :).

Egg Hatchery

A radio show talked about this clip (viewer discretion is advised) yesterday. Apparently, that's industry standard. I wonder if I should stop eating eggs. Well, I like to eat too much so I doubt I could do that. Now imagine, once we can use Artificial insemination for reproduction purposes, males will be completely useless and we could be treated the same way. Hmm...

Bag

I am going to bay area for a few days and am trying to figure out how to pack my DSLR camera and my laptop such that I don't need to check in any luggage. It's a challenge. I need one bag that can hold my laptop and my camera plus accessories (I don't even plan to take any extra lenses); I need another bag that can hold my hiking boots, clothes, and other stuff. The second bag is easy; it's the first bag that makes me think. I have a backpack that could use as the first but it's HUGE (I use if I don't have other carry-on). I'll see what I can do. I still have a day to see if I can buy a bag from some local stores. It's gonna be expensive...

I saw this line from a male photograph, "we're worse than women when it comes to bags". It's so true. I already have TWO bags for my camera and I want to buy another one. Actually, I want to buy another TWO (that's a total of four; that's ridiculous) and the fourth one is for when I go hiking. By the way, these bags aren't that much cheaper than your wife's/gf's/mum's coach bags (or whatever brand you want). I guess guys do spend a lot of bags but our reason is more justifiable - we are buying a hundred-dollar bag to protect thousands of dollars of investment. As for girls, I have a hard time to comprehend...

Visiting Bay Area

I'll be visiting Bay Area this coming weekends; specifically, I'll be in SF city on Friday (9/4) and in Mountain View area on Tuesday (9/8). If you are free and up for coffee, let me know and we can figure something out.

Your files...

Someone asked for my resume a while ago and I thought it would be good to keep it up to date in case I need it for whatever reason. Well, turns out that I couldn't find my copy (after spending hours on it)! I know I have it but I just don't remember where I have put it. I guess I really should organize my data better so that it'll be easier for me to search for them in the future. This task has been on my to-do list for like years! Oh well, guess I won't update my resume until I really need it.

One year anniversary

I've lived in my current place for exactly a year now. Time flies...

Ahh...

I just had one of the worst online purchase experience ever (probably not the worst worst but close to). There is a sale going on for the Malaysia Airlines and since my friends and I are planning to go there, we just decided to buy the ticket when it's cheap (HKG -> KUL: $200 isn't bad at all considering that going from SEA to SFO would cost me at least $200 in most cases). While the price was good, the purchase experience was HORRIBLE:

• I don't know if they passed the PCI DSS security audit at all (or if there is such a thing in Asia). The site just doesn't feel very secure and I need to keep a very close eyes on my credit card transactions.
• I find it annoying that they need my passport info before letting me making a purchase. I suppose it's an international flight.

I think most websites in Asia are still in the so-called "1.0" era and they seriously need to get them fixed if they want to sell stuff online. Do you know of any good/usable websites in Asia? By the way, I am probably spoiled by the good/clean websites in US and that's why I have all these frustrations.

Anyway, I got my ticket and I am happy but I am seriously worried about my credit card so I may need to cancel it...

Hospital and Customer Service

A friend of mine had a surgery today and I was the one giving his ride back home. The surgery wouldn't start until 4pm and would take about 1-1.5 hours. The plan was to have my friend staying in the hospital until 5:30pm and then I would drive to pick him up (after work).

While I was very focus at work, I got a call from a nurse and that was about 4:25pm. She needed me to get to the hospital before 5pm. Why? Because, otherwise, I wouldn't be able to get into the building as the elevator will be locked. If that was the case, couldn't she call me up earlier? Otherwise, why didn't she just let me in when I get there at around 6pm since I wouldn't be able to make it at 5pm? Maybe the nurse would be too busy to let me in. Anyway, I thought the surgery must have been done early so I just went.

After about 30 minutes of commute time, I got to the hospital at 5:15pm and I thought I would need to call her to let me in. Well, to my surprise, the elevators worked just fine. So I got to the reception and asked for my friend and it turned out that he's still in the operation room and still needed at least 30 mins! I was like WTF. You asked me to get to the hospital early to wait so that you don't have to get down to let me in. I understand that the nurse is just doing her job and she's probably very busy. However, from a customer's perspective (a friend reminded me that I am not really a customer and most users of the hospital are patients and patients' family members, so they don't really have a choice), that's a very bad experience. You know what, if the hospital allows operations to happen past 5pm, they have to figure out a way to let people into it after then. That's just simple customer service.

Anyway, hope I don't have to go there anytime soon.

Trip to HK - confirmed!

My friend and I were talking about making a trip to HK earlier this year since I go back to HK once every two years and this year is "the" year. As with any thought, it was just an idea and we hadn't actually done anything about it until last week. My friend initiated the conversation last Wednesday and we spent about 20 mins discussing about the trip over the weekends. I then confirmed it with various folks (family, boss etc) yesterday, and then we got our tickets today! All this happened within a week for a trip that isn't going to happen until 4 months later. I thought it was pretty amazing especially for someone like me who has a commitment problem - I don't like to commit to any trip until the very last minute.

Anyhow, so I'll be back in HK this December if you would like to meet up, shoot me an email. I think I'll actually be in HK for only a few days and I'll be in Malaysia, Japan, and mainland China for the rest. I am very excited about it. Now that the HK trip is booked, we need to look into the Malaysia trip.

Snow Leopard is coming this Friday

I have been a Mac user since 2005 and have been paying attention to all-things Mac since. I guess I am somewhat of a fan boy since I have a Mac Mini, a Macbook, and an iPhone. Anyway, in the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference (held in SF in Jun 2009), Apple announced that the new version of Mac OS X (10.6 codename Snow Leopard) would be shipped in September 2009 for $29 [1]. I was very excited about it. By the way, there is only ONE version of OS in Mac as opposed to many in the Windows world (like Home Basic, Premium, Ultimate, and a lot more). Everyone in the Mac community always makes fun of Windows because of all these version.

Today, Apple announced that the new OS will be shipped this Friday (August 28, 2009) [2]. That's at least a few days earlier than the promised delivery day (they could have planned to release it at the end of September and that means it's a whole month earlier than expected). As a customer, I am happy and impressed with their ability to deliver software (as compared to the other OS company). Of course, I haven't tried out the new OS and don't know if it would be just a piece of sh!t but given Apple's track record, I am rather confident that it would be a fine piece of software.

Lesson learned: Set a lower expectation for your customers (under promise) and as long as you beat that expectation even just by a little bit (over delivery), people will think that you are awesome. It applies to your work too. However, you shouldn't do that when you set goals for yourself. You should always set a far-fetch goal and even if you don't get it, you would have achieved more than you could.

Depth or Breadth

Do you consider yourself as a Jack of all trades (aka master of none) or a specialist? If you are a specialist and if you are best in that field, you can command big bucks but then if that field is going downhill, you could be the same too. If you are a jack of all trades, it may be easier for you to adapt but then it may be harder for you to compete against all the specialists. Is it possible to be a jack of all trades and at the same time the very good in all these areas?

Homeless Running a Business

If you visit Seattle downtown, you would see quite a few homeless folks trolling through the streets. Some would just ask "Sir, do you have 50c? Could you help me out?". Some would actually do something to earn the money, like selling a newspaper called "Real Change" for $1. I came across one such person yesterday.

She told me that they actually have to pay 35c to get a copy of the newspaper. I am not sure if it's true as I can't verify it. Let's assume it's true for the sake of this post. Basically, the Real Change organization is trying to help the homeless people become self-sustained by encouraging them buying and selling products. That's good intention but I think the product, newspaper, is a bad one. Think about it, how many people read physical newspapers today? How many newspapers have closed down due to the competition on the web? News stands are having hard time selling newspapers and I think the homeless people will have a even harder time.

I don't think people would spend money on a crappy product (even with the intention to help the homeless); I think they would rather donate the money to charity (at least I would). So if charities want to help these homeless people become more self-sustained, they seriously need to offer a product that people actually want and would buy. What could that product be? I don't know but I don't think it's newspaper. I actually wonder if they have metrics to track how they are done.

Population Control

The population is increasing rapidly and the world would be out of resources sooner or later. What can people do to solve or at least slow down the problem? It's either making people die faster or making people born slower (or somehow find another planet in the galaxy). Given that we are getting more and more advanced in medicine, it's unlikely that we can make people die faster (unless there is a huge natural disaster or a massive war among many nations). The only solution is really to make people born slower.

According to Wikipedia[1], the two most populous countries are China (1.33 billion) and India(1.15 billion); they account for almost 40% of the world population. In order to slow down the rapid population growth, China introduced the one-child policy in 1979[2]. Under this policy, each family can only have one child or they will have to pay a heft fine. Since a majority of families in China are poor, this policy really forced them to have only one kid, which really helps in slowing down the population growth in China. Of course, this policy caused a bunch of other problems, e.g. family would kill their newborns if they don't get the gender they want (mostly boys), but I am not going to talk about them today.

As for India, they don't really have any drastic policy like the one China has (please correct me if I am wrong) and analysts are saying that India will become the most populous country within 50 years (overtaking China) if the Indian government doesn't do anything. Well, the Indian government listens and they are actually doing something. So what is it? "Bring electricity to every Indian village so that people would watch television until late at night and therefore be too tired to make babies." [3]. Not sure if it'll really work but it's an interesting idea. If you look at some very busy countries/cities, the birth rate is so much lower. So I suppose if you can get people busy enough, they will really slow down in producing babies.

Source:
[1]: Wikipedia: World Population
[2]: Wikipedia: One-child policy
[3]: CNN International

Do you really want it?

Have you ever wanted something really badly but have never been able to get it? How does it feel? Isn't it a great feeling? I mean, most of the time, you really want that something because you have exceptional expectation about it and it serves great when you need something for day-dreaming. For example, you may have always wanted to go out with that girl you met in college, you may have always wanted to work for this awesome manager, or you may have always wanted to move to this exotic country to live for a few years.

Now, think about the times when you have got something you really wanted. How did you feel? Was there any disappointment? I would say, you have mostly like experienced some and the reason is that you had such a high expectation about that something to begin with so any minor glitches will make it a disappointment for you. Isn't it interesting how human brains work? It's all about expectations.

So next time, when you are about to be able to get what you have always wanted, think twice. It may be better to keep that ideal dream than to face reality.

Vancouver, Canada

No blog post for the past few days because I was up in Vancouver, BC, Canada (fyi, there is also a Vancouver city in Washington state). Why did I go there? It was for my cousin's wedding (on Friday) and decided to spend a few extra days over there to enjoy the place since I haven't been there for a while now.

Vancouver is pretty close to Seattle - it's only about 2.5hr drive (excluding border wait time). So if anyone of you decide to come to Seattle (and visit me), we can totally visit Vancouver (of course, you need your passport). When people talk about Vancouver, they usually refer to the Greater Vancouver area, which includes Vancouver, Richmond, Burnaby, and maybe a few other cities that I have never been to. Some of you may have heard that there are a lot of Cantonese-speaking folks in Vancouver. Well, that can't be more true; according to my cousin, 40% of the BC population is Chinese and they are mostly concentrated in a few spots. Seriously, you only need Cantonese to get around, especially in Richmond.

One of my favorite activities in Vancouver is to EAT (what else. haha...) as the food is pretty awesome. You can pretty much get all kind of cuisines (actually, other than Denny's, I don't remember seeing any other American restaurants...) and most of them are of pretty high quality. On this trip, I only had a catering meal, a formal Chinese dinner (for the wedding), dim sum, and Japanese all-you-can-eat. By the way, the Japanese all-you-can-eat place is of pretty good quality. A lot of sashimi & sushi selections and the fish was very fresh. I think my cousin and I had our fair share of food. haha...

Other than food, you can also find hiking spots in Vancouver, much like in Seattle. This site will give you a lot of information about trails around Vancouver. I have actually never hiked in Vancouver until this trip. Where did we go? Since my aunt and uncle want to join us, we picked a rather easy one at Capilano Regional Park in North Vancouver. It was a very good and easy hike and I recommend it for those who can't really hike.

Overall, I like the trip and really wish I could spend a week over there to visit the outdoor more up there. If you are coming here and want to visit Vancouver, let me know. I may join you :). By the way, when you plan your trip, you should allocate time for border crossing as it could take forever! On my way back to Seattle on Sunday morning, I thought I was early and got to border at 9:50am. Well, I was wrong; It took me 80mins to get passed the border! I think the best is to pass the border at night on a non-weekend day. You can check this site for traffic status.

Enjoy.

8/12/2009 or 12/8/2009?

I had a discussion with a colleague today about how numerical dates are written in America (US and Canada) versus Europe (or even the rest of the world). In America, the numerical dates are written as Month / Day / Year, so today's date (August 12th, 2009) is written as 8/12/2009. In Europe, the numerical dates are written as Day / Month / Year, so today's date is written as 12/8/2009. As you can see, there could be a lot of confusion between Americans and Europeans when talking about dates. Does 8/12/2009 mean August 12th, 2009 or December 8th, 2009? Bad for communication...

I tried looking up the origins of these two representations but couldn't find any reliable sources. On the unreliable sources front, some people think that these numerical representations were simply shortened forms of dates written in English and the difference is simply the result of differences between American English and British English. In American English, dates are written as Monthname Day, Year, so today's date is written as August 12th, 2009 and the numerical (shorten) representation is 8/12/2009. In British English, dates are written as Day Monthname Year, so today's date is written as 12th August 2009 and the numerical representation is 12/8/2009. This explanation makes totaly sense but I couldn't find a reliable reference...

In my opinion, it's much better to use "2009-8-12" instead of the above-mentioned representations. Why? It helps your brain narrow down on the dates more logically as you read through it. Let's look at the European format (12/8/2009). As you read through it, your brain will learn that it's the 12th day of a certain month in a certain year (not very specific at all); then your brain will figure out it's the 12th day of August in a certain year (a little better but there are at least 2000 possible dyas). Now, let's look at "2009-8-12". As you read through it, your brain will learn that it must be some time in Year 2009 (only 365/366 days to consider), then your brain will find out it's some time in August of 2009 (31 days), and lastly, your brain will identify it as the 12th day of August in 2009. It's very logical and helps your brain narrow down on the specific day much quicker. Anyway, if you are interested, "2009-8-12" is referred to as the ISO 8601 standard. Come to think of it, Chinese actually uses this standard, 2009年8月12日.

You can check out Wikipedia - Calendar date for more information.

Bad haircut...

Oops, I did it again. Having too short of a haircut. haha... So I'll go to a wedding in a few days and I thought I would get my hair cut before going (it's been like 2 months since my last haircut). Well, I fell asleep while having the haircut and the end result is super short haircut (like almost none). I like short hair but then I think it may not be the best hair styles to see all my relatives. haha... Lesson learned: don't fall asleep when you have you haircut. or even better, make sure you give clear instructions to your hairdresser (but then i dunno what to say exactly... I want my hair to be 8.5" long on 50% of my head and then 5" long on the other 50%. I also want to have a normal distribution. lol... getting kinda geeky now). By the way, I go to the same hair dresser all the time.

Practice made perfect?

While I was walking to work today, I am asking myself if I remember what I read a week ago. How about a month ago? I had a hard time remembering it. I blame it on information overload and there are just so much you can read nowadays. In addition to books & magazine, you have all the blogs (like mine :), you can read and after a while, everything is the same...

How can I make whatever I have read stick in my head? Back in the days when I was still in school, I used to read a text book multiple times (I know it's boring but it's part of study) and that process really made the "stuff" stick in my head. Seriously, up till today, I still remember some content of some books I read back in school. It's strange but it's true (at least for me). However, ever since I graduated from college, I have never read an article, let alone a book, twice. Maybe that's the learning process that I have been missing since after school?

If you think about the homework we did in school, I would argue that it has a similar effect. Homework forced us to repeat applying the same knowledge again and again. Eventually, those knowledge will just get stuck in our head without knowing about it and we just get smarter that way. Now, if you look at your life after school, how many times have you done the same thing more than once? It's a rare event for me. Maybe the phrase, "Practice made perfect" is true. I think the book, Outliers: The Story of Success mentioned one of the reasons someone is an expert is a field is that he just keeps doing the same thing again and again... It's on my to-read list. Will see when I read it...

What are you passionate about?

I just had a dinner with a friend and we discussed a very abstract concept called, passion. I am kind of going through a period of time when I question about my passion for something I do day-to-day so I am particularly interested in this topic.

What is passion? What does it mean when you said someone is passionate about something (let's say an activity for the ease of discussion)? Does it mean that he cares about that activity very much? Does it mean that he thinks about that activity all the time? Does it also mean that he would think about ways to be better at that activity? Does it mean that you can see sparks in his eyes when someone talks about that activity?

Let's say that activity is your job. What behaviors would you see from a person who is very passionate about his job? Would you see him finding his job more important than their family, for example? Would you see him having a grand vision about the product that he is working on and he is ready to execute on it? Would you see his leading his team to the direction he is envisioning?

How's about motivation? Is motivation the same as passion? Could a person who's motivated doing as good of a job as a person who's passionate? Could a passionate person give you more than a motivated person (like more ideas)? Do you need to have passion in order to do a phenomenal job? Does passion get someone a step further than the rest of the crowds? Does passion make someone a superstar?

Finally, is passion just a term to be used as an excuse when you did a poor job? What's your thought?

Visiting Hong Kong

If you plan to visit HK and if you are not local, you may want to read this blog. I thought it's interesting.

Food...

I'll be visiting Vancouver, BC, Canada soon and have been coordinating with my relatives over there. Why am I going there? Of course, it's someone else wedding, what else could I be doing. hahaha... In addition, I'll do some hiking and eating. So I am checking out all the all-you-can-eat sushi places over there and man, there are A LOT of them and they seem to be pretty good too. Take a look at these pictures, don't they look delicious?

Car Keyless Entry

I have been trying to replace my car keyless entries as one of them is dead and the other one is dying. I talked to a dealership yesterday and they were going to charge me $250 for a remote. I didn't like to pay that much but then I didn't have a choice. So I went there and hoping to get two new remotes. Well, it turns out that my remotes are after market remotes and they can't do anything about it! I have always thought that my remotes look weird but never dig deep into it to find out the details. This visit proved me right. Anyway, so I went this place call "Car Toy" to see if they could help me out and it turned out that, they couldn't neither. Bummer. And you know what, the salesman tried to sell me their shining remote system that would cost $300. I gently declined. What the heck. I am willing to pay but they can't help me out? Fine, I have decided to do all the research about car security/keyless entry system and will see if I can fix it myself.

Anyway, it's more like a rant. Pretty tired today...

中學會考

特然想用中文寫這個日誌，但請大家包容我的中文因為我很久已没有寫作中文了。真的有點兒不慣。哈哈．．．

昨天是一年一度香港中學會考放榜的日子。在報紙上讀了很多令人鼓舞的新聞，例如有身體缺陷的學生克服困難考獲佳績（分別有六優，八優和九優），亦有迷逃學生改過自生而課獲得不錯的成績。他們的堅持都是值得我們學習的。

這個放榜也令我回想起我當年拿自己成績單的情況而那一次的成績也給我機會來美國進修。時間飛逝得，轉眼間我已在美國十數年了。有時真的在想：如果我没有來美國，我的生活會時怎樣呢？

（我真的很久没有寫中文和打中文，十分生疏．．．）

When did you cry?

I was talking to a friend today and she told me that she recently watched a movie, The Notebook and cried quite a bit but her husband was like, "oh okay. am I supposed to cry?" (I kinda put words in his mouth :) Lol... I just find the conversation funny but anyway, it kind of got me thinking when I cried last and I have no freaking idea when it was.

I have gone through times when I felt down, I have heard some really sad stories, I have also watched some really touching movies but I haven't cried in all those situations. In fact, tear was never in my mind. It's actually kind of strange now that I think about it. I wonder if most guys just unconsciously want to be tough so they don't cry (even if they try)? Or maybe guys just don't have emotions?

Now that questions to all the females, do you like a guy more if he cries? Do you feel like he is more romantic?

Caribbean Cruise

I just talked with a friend about my cruise vacation today and I thought why not sharing with my readers? Here you go and hope you can make good use of it.

Back in May of this year, I went on a 7-day Caribbean cruise with my friends and the cruise boat was Carnival Valor. This link shows the exact cruise we joined. We got Ocean view cabin and each of us paid $625 for the cruise. Before I went on the cruise, I thought it would be one of the most boring vacation I would have ever had. Well, I was totally wrong. I have to say it was one of the best vacations I have ever had. Why was it good? First of all, it was super relaxing since we really didn't have to plan for anything other than getting airfare down to Miami, booking the cruise, and booking some tours at port of calls.

To make it even better, the food was pretty much bottomless! I love eating so much and the bottomless food just made me super happy. Mind you, they are not those crappy buffets that you get from college or some Chinese restaurants; they are definitely above (or even way above) average restaurants in most cities. Sit-in dining is a given every night and they serve a 3-course meal - appetizer, entree, and dessert. They have quite a lot of options for non-vegetarians and the best thing is that you can order as many as you want. Any example of food we ordered? Well, to name a few, we had lobsters, tiger shrimps, halibut, steaks, prime ribs, sushi, and all kind of fancy desserts (which I don't care much about since they were too sweet for me). Man, I feel very hungry now after thinking about them. I have pictures of some of the dishes and will post links here eventually.

Where exactly did we go and what excursions did we do? We had four ports of call, Grand Cayman, Roatan (Honduras), Belize, and Key West (it was a replacement for Cozumel because of swine flu). At Grand Cayman, we joined a sailing tour to see the sting rays and to snorkel; sting rays were amazing and the experience was awesome. At Roatan, we joined a private tour to see the islands; we got to see the local people and try out some local fruits. We originally planned to snorkel over there but then it was too wavy so it got canceled. We went hiking in a jungle and chilling out around a beach instead. At Belize, we visited a Mayan ruin and did a river touring (kinda boring though). As for Key West, well, it's in the US so it wasn't that exciting and we just went to a beach to hang out. A piece of advice, it's much better to join a local tour than to join the excursions through the cruise as local tour is usually cheaper and better. Of course, you need to do some research to make sure that the tour has good review (see end of post on how to do that).

A lot of people asked me if it was boring to be on the boat. Let me tell you, not at all. You know, you can always eat when you are bored :). Eating aside, you have a lot of other activities you can choose from. There is a main show every night; it could be a musical/dance show, a magic show, or a stand-up comedy. Other than the main shows, there are some smaller game shows (indoor or outdoor) that you can participate or be a spectator of. For days when you don't have any port of calls, you'll have formal nights - it's a night when you have to dress up for dinner. It was actually pretty fun and it was great for photos. If you want to be more active, there is a gym, a basketball court, and a running track (which is pretty awesome as you are jogging and looking over the ocean). By the way, the cruise boat has 13 levels and it is always fun to explore what's there on each level. To top it off, there are also parties, casinos, and clubs.

Considering how much cheaper it is now, if you haven't cruised before and have the time and money, you should consider taking a cruise. It's totally worth it. Carnival is awesome. If you do decide to plan for a cruise, I highly recommend the Cruise Critics froum. I learned everything from them. Of course, you could always ask me.

Reading

How many books did you read in the past 3 months? Do you have a list of books you want to read? How frequently do you check a book off that list (that's you have read it)? How many of them have been on the list for over a year? Let me share with you my answers to these questions. I've read ZERO books in the past 3 months. I have a list of books I want to read but I almost never check any book off the list. In fact, the list just keeps growing and I wonder why I bother keeping such a list. Come to think of it, at least 90% have been on the list for more than a year (I kinda stopped adding to it until recently).

I don't know if you face a similar issue - there are so many books you want to read but you almost never ever read any of them. I know it's just laziness but it's very frustrating. It's not like I don't want to read but then every time I pick up a book, I would fall asleep (granted I only read before I go to bed). I tried going to the audiobook route but it didn't work neither. I feel like I just can't focus or haven't tried setting time aside for reading. If you have figured a way to "solve" this problem, let me know. Actually, I wonder if there is a better way to read. Maybe I should just get a Kindle?

Outside Seating

I have been living in my new home for about 7 months now. On my way to work every day, I walk pass many restaurants (about 15 restaurants). I notice one common theme among them - they all have outside seating. These outside seats weren't being used during rainy winter season in Seattle but they are being used extensively during the nice summer season, which is what we have been having in the past few months.

Outside seating is nice but I think it's only nice if you oversee a lake or some nice view. Who would want to sit outside and look at a parking lot, a road with lots of traffic, and a street with lots of bums or drug dealers? Even worst, who would want to eat food that is covered with dust, which I don't think is a good thing? I seriously can't make sense of outside seating in the city. Maybe I just don't know how to enjoy life. Lol...

Site Designed & Learning a new language

It's been almost a year since I last updated this blog. Actually, there are only 20 posts in this blog (compared to 180 posts in my previous one) and I really haven't been blogging actively since 2007! That's almost 2 years. I stopped blogging much because I really didn't have much thoughts to share and even if I had, I had been lazy about writing them down. Well, for some unknown reasons, I have been having a lot of thoughts that I want to share so I have decided to resurrect this blog. In order to show my commitment, I have redesign this blog. It took me about 15 hours from finding a template that I can base my design on to learning the blogspot-way of doing stuff to getting the final design out of the door. (By the way, I've also signed up for Amazon affiliate program and Google AdSense and decided Google AdSense looks too ugly so I didn't even show it.) My thought is that if I had spend so much time to do the work, I would really want people to see it which will give me motivation to produce more content. We'll see how it goes. By the way, if you ever want to update customize blogspot template, let me know, I could help you out.

So what's new? Well, I recently won a year-long subscription to the new service from Rosetta Stone called TOTALe. I think it's the first time I have ever won anything (shoot, does it mean that I will never win anything again?). Anyway, I need to pick one language to learn and that's the hard part. I want to learn so many languages but not one of them is a clear favorite. I was thinking about these five languages, Mandarin (I am not fluent at all), French (learned in college but could never speak), Hindi (just for fun since I know a lot of Indians who speak it), Japanese (I am planning to visit Japan at the end of the year), and Spanish (I wanna visit Mexico and some countries in South America). I eventually narrowed down my choices to Japanese and Spanish.

I asked a couple of friends for their advice and then I did some research on these two languages but I still couldn't make up my mind. I then asked myself, "What do I want to get out of learning a new language?" Well, I, of course, want a language that will help with my travel so I want one that is used by many countries and then the choice is obvious... I have chosen to learn Spanish! I'll see if the program is good and maybe one day I can speak fluent Spanish!