Beethoven In Trance

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 61

2011-07-06T13:46:00.000-07:00

2010 was a good year.

First, the year started out with Jessica transferring to another department. She first interviewed for a job @ eMarketing, but didn't get it because she was overqualified. Right after she got turned down, another job opened up (and actually a better one), she applied and got it. She even got a small raise for the same level job transfer.

Second, Alice Ai Liang was born on 09/08/2010 at 10:36am. She is healthy, loud and cute.

Third, we both got the green card.

To welcome Alice, I did couple home projects. I rent a carpet cleaner and cleaned the basement and upstairs. Completely cleaned my study room and moved my computer down to the basement. Reorganized the basement so that it's not longer a storage room. I rewired the speakers with the 16 gauge wire and mounted the speakers on the wall. It's my new entertainment room. The old study room is Alice's room now. She has her own wardrobe, and a bed, and a sofa. Jessica spends a lot of time in there.

We also changed the layout in the dining room. We went to Ikea and bought a dinner table, it's narrower than the previous one, which saves us more space. It can be extended out to fit more people though. We moved the old table to the basement. We also moved the dinner plate cabinet to another corner of the dining room. It opens up more space in the dining room which is a high traffic area. With the baby around, space is becoming an issue.

The living room is also reorganized. I bought a set of used speakers from Craiglist (after bought and returned a set from Amazon.com). It was my first purchase from craiglist and the visit to the seller was pleasant. The test CD performed very well, so I didn't get any chance to negotiate the price. Come to think of it now, I might overpaid the center speaker a bit, but oh well. I bought the receiver and subwoofer from amazon.com and a blue ray player from bestbuy. All in all, it costed me about $600, plus speaker wires. It's certainly a learning experience to build the system from the pieces and connect all of them together, calibrate them to maximize its performance. The placement of the speaker is not ideal due to the shape of our living room (and I don't have any space and budget for a rear set either), I will have to live with it. I got a storage rack from Costco to put the TV, receiver, blu-ray and center speaker. It worked well, and it costed only $34.

My first Hi-Fi system performs well to my taste, very bright, suitable for the materials I listen to. Jazz and Classical and vocal come to live with the speakers. The speakers are about 10 years old, but still kicking. The new system also broadened my collection in Jazz and Classical. Pop music doesn't sound impressive in these speakers, but then again, what are you looking for in pop song? There is a huge different between vocal performance and pop song.

To back up all the CDs, I found a new software called EAC, Exact Audio Copy. It works like charm. I went through 100 CD spindle quickly. With the new system, my taste to the music also changed. Classical had a big come back when Alice was born, and I started to explore jazz vocal. So far I came across some favorite artists: Eva Casidy, Melody Gardot, Marelyn Payroux, Stacy Kent, and Shelby Lynne.

For Alice, I also bought a used camera, Canon XT, with a 50mm f1.8 lens. It's a fast lens. After my research of getting better pictures in low light condition, I picked up this one because it's more cost effective for the time. It performs well to the purpose. I brought it to the delivery room, and it took sharp pictures of the baby. With the growing need for space to store pictures and audio, I bought two 1TB harddrive, and gave away the 500G external to my neighbor. I also got a 320G external from my dad.

In 2010, I volunteered to be a board member for the Asian Employee Resource Group in our company. It's been an interesting experience working with other Asians (mainly indians from IT group) in the company. Like any new machine, we didn't start working smoothly, but we are getting better. Also, I went back to Steiner House to be on the board member, and got involved with the house issues again. It's fun to listen to all the old storied again.

We didn't do a good job tracking our finance in 2010. Jessica basically dropped the task because she is busy with the baby. I didn't want to pick up the task, so we left with nothing in the accounting book. I only know that we did all right in the stock market and in our retirement account for the year.

As of this writing, it's July 6th already. I am really late for publishing the annual report.

Last but not least, a list of memorable visuals and sounds:
Top 3 Album: Shelby Lynne: Just a little lovin', Melody Gardot: My one and only thrill, Stacy Kent: Raconte Moi
Top Movie: Up

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 60

2010-02-25T11:38:00.001-08:00

Last week when I first started to write this annual report, I found myself out of topics very shortly. There was not much going on, I thought. I only remembered the vacation in CA with my parents, and the family vision statement that we made a few weeks ago. So I decided to check my blog in 2009 to see if anything I can add and soon I realized I have a lot to talk about in 2009.
2009 is the year of living, as I mentioned in the last annual letter. I think it's an accurate statement.
We have undergone some great changes in 2009, as you will soon witness. We are moving away from the 'settle in' phase, and into a time of 'better living'. We start to know better of this country and governing system through a list of documentaries, and change our mind set and modify our life style accordingly.
We challenge ourselves to find a better place than Cleveland for living. We paid off our mortgage to save on interest this year. We try to liquidate our asset and limit our purchase for the house to make future transition easier. We wrote our family vision statement as a guide to our future planning and career development. Meanwhile, we felt compelled to preserve our tradition and culture after 9 years staying here in US.
So, 2009 is in a sense building a sustainable model for the future.

Healthy Living
Food
We continued our request for a better dietary plan since the last writing (2008 annual report). We eliminated unhealthy food snacks, and discarded industrialized sauces at home. We have developed the new habit to read food product labels. The long list of corn based preservatives and additives always bring me laugh.
We also made a series changes to our daily food choices. We are moving away from heavy animal protein to increasing variety of substitutes. We cut meat in smaller size and stocking up different vegetables and grains. We have fish every week, and recently have started to have one 'vegetable dinner night' every week. We are trading in quantity for quality.
Our food vendor mix in 2009 has changed to accommodate our shifting needs for healthy food. We have increased our visits to Wholefoods, and opened to sources that we previously ignored due to the higher price point. I researched our local grocery stores and compared their offerings base on quality then price. We have stopped purchasing chicken from Costco because they were fat and industrialized (meaning big breast, soft bone, and loose joint - which indicates they don't move much, and are raised to increase the meat output). We found a good replacement in Giant Eagle, a regional grocery store which offers 'frying chicken' (from Delaware) at a comparable price that is less commercial. Plus we can just buy one instead of two in a pack at Costco. There is also Amish county chicken in the local stores with doubled price, we will try it next to see if the quality lives up to its price.

For pork, we have more choices. The pork in Giant Eagle is from Kansas farms, and the quality seems to meet the standard. We have bought pork rib ends from Heinens (from North Carolina) and have had good experience with them. D.W.Whitaker at the Westside market offers Ohio raised pork. I always get the rib tips from them as it's the best bargain. We used the pork rib end bones in a stock from Miles Market (from Ohio) last week, and we were happy with the result. We recently started to talk to a local farmer regarding buying a pasture-raised pig for 2010. It will be twice expensive but we are willing to give it a try to see if it's worth it. We will buy less pork from Costco that's for sure.
We don’t consume much beef, therefore, I don't plan to spend too much time to compare offerings like what we did with pork. Heinens offers beef shank at a good price. Wholefoods sometimes have sales on beef steak. Miles market has various cuts of black angus beef. I think we have enough to choose from for our needs.
We harvested some vegetables from our garden last year and we will continue work on our garden this year. We are planning to join a CSA program this year to accommodate our increasing need for farm fresh vegetables.
While eating healthier, we strive to move our food expenses to local markets. As suggested in the documentaries that we have watched this year "Food.Inc", "The future of food", we are exercising choices every time we walk into the store. We are moving to a new food standard while helping the local agriculture.

Mindset
When research on healthy diet, we have become more and more aware of the environment impact of what we do on the planet. This is a direct result of a list of documentaries that we have watched: 'Addicted to plastic", "Who killed the electric car', "The end of surburbia", and "Collapse". We were introduced to the new concepts such as 'peak oil', 'the clash between infinite growth and finite resource', and ‘local agriculture’. We were watching in awe how the plastic got recycled in the wasteland in India so we stopped using plastic spoon and fork in the office for lunch and bring in our own stainless steel ones. Our thermostat is kept at 50F this winter although it's mainly due to the high cost. We will buy a hybrid car instead of a regular 'fueled' car in the future. We still need to digest the concept of 'peak oil' and see how we can prepare for the collapse and become less dependent on oil.
After 8 years staying in US, I found my feelings for and attitude towards home shifting gradually. Few years ago, I won't even bother knowing the happenings in Shanghai, but now I am more open to them. We watch Shanghai local news every night. This Christmas, we have both noticed an emergent need to preserve our culture and our language. We wrote our first weekly menu in Chinese last week with the help of dictionary and we will continue to refresh our Chinese writing skills. It will be sad to lose our own language because it's one of the most important part of the culture. We agreed to have days off in our Chinese new year to celebrate the tradition.

Home Projects
We have accomplished two major projects this year, the garden and the bathroom remodeling.
We started our garden project in early spring. We roller tilted the garden we put down last year, and the flower garden that we hadn't been taking care of. We added another flower bed next to the maple tree at front. My wife had developed a strong interest in gardening so she wanted another garden for the additional vegetables. We took a day off and put down another garden in the backyard. We spent a few hundred dollars on soil, seeds, flower and herbs for the projects. All tools are borrowed from our neighbor. Happily, the flowers came out well later on. We also had more vegetables this year. We planted some heirloom tomatoes and they came out well, they were the best tasting tomato. The roman tomato is tasteless, but very productive. I bet it's an industrial specie. We had squash, green beans, tomato, fava bean, long string bean, bochoy, and different herbs. We still have rosemary and tarragon indoor now.
At the meantime, my wife has been working on the garden compose and we had so far almost 3 whole big boxes of decomposed 'stuff' for our garden next year. We have moved them into garage in the winter afraid plastic cracking in the cold weather.
We didn't do anything for the lawn in 2009, except our parents have been pulling out dandelions since they arrived here. We aero gated the lawn before the winter, and didn't seed. We will see what happens next year.
Around June, we started to work on our bathroom. Our initial budget was $700, and soon it span into $2000. We took down and reinstalled 4 wall panels, painted the whole room, retiled the bathtub, have someone refinished the bathtub, and changed fixture. Our neighbor has been the project leader and I was there helping out. The cost is half of the quoted price if I decide to hire someone to complete it, and that makes me feel better. Our bathroom was reopened in mid August when we expected our parents coming for visit.
One side project our neighbor did for us when we were vacationing in CA in October is the electric switch for the heating cables outside of the house. We left him the key just in case when we were gone, but he went in and re-wired the switch. Now we have a dedicated switch for the heating cables outside.
As of this writing, we just added another project for 2010. Our roof has been leaking water during snowy days since we moved in. This winter seemed to be particularly harsh on the roof and we had a lot of water leaking in. The ceiling under the roof has taken some water damage and leaking down to the room. We noticed the water drop last night, and traced it to the attic, then found a pool of water there. 10pm at night we were crouching in the attic and trying to soak up the water with newspaper. The next thing I knew was that my right foot was through the ceiling. It's just like in the comedy movie we saw before, only this time it's not that funny because I need to fix it. We will have to fix the hole on the ceiling, and fix the leaking roof in 2010. Plus, we need to better position our heating cable to let it drop down to the down spout so that the water won't back into the house dripping all over from the top frame of the windows in the living room like a water fall. Can't wait to see the winter end.

Entertainment
Since my last injury back in Shanghai running the half marathon in 2008, I haven't been able to get back to running. I joined the gym early in 2009 so that I can have some alternative exercise. One class has become my weekly routine - Yoga. It helps with stretching my body which I hope will speed up my recovery. At one point I was so tired of being injured and I went to have my leg check up, I went to a recommended sports doctor, and I didn't get much back from the visit. It was a very expensive visit as well, even with the insurance. It's one of the financial mistakes that I made in the year.
Other than running, I got the chance to play basketball a few times with colleagues this summer. Games took place at an outdoor half court and I had a good time. My leg injury was there, and I wasn't able to do my best. But it's great to get back to the game.
We did watch some good movies this year, below is a list of my picks.
Best drama: The curious case of Benjamin Button
Best Animation: Up
Best TV series: Dexter
Best Chinese movie: A night at the supermarket
Best Sci-Fi: District 9
Best Action: Terminator 4
Importantly, We watched a series of documentaries including: "The future of food", "Food.Inc", "The end of surburbia", "Who killed electric car", "Addicted to plastic", "Collapse", 'I.O.USA', 'The business of being born', "Sicko", "Guns in America", "World's most dangerous gang", "Bowling for Columbine" that cover a wide range of subjects. The future depicted from them was not bright. Most of them are trying to reach out and raise awareness for social responsibility. We have been acting on the ideas that are promoted ever since such as stopped using plastic spoons in the office, change our diet plan, and choose local food over national chain. We consider those viewings good learning. There is still much to do and we are still trying to chew them and digest piece by piece.
We are glad to watch a few good Chinese movies this year. "A night at the supermarket" is an entertaining movie. Yes, one can argue that the movie copied many ideas from other movies, but I say it serves the purpose and has enough originality to stand on its own. On the other hand, "Crazy Stone" wasn't that impressive for me. "Red Cliff" was a well directed movie, and I found it enjoyable to watch. The most disappointing TV series this year is "Heroes", it's been dragging since the last season and I think the show has lost its way. The best TV series is "Dexter" due to its gripping story development in the consecutive 4 seasons.

I continued my music journey in Progressive House this year. Trance has been commercialized too much that I have lost taste to it.
As for video game, Call of Duty Modern Warfare2 is the best of the year.

Finance
Our IRA investment in 2009 has delivered good result. I made the decision to divert our portfolio at the beginning of 2009 to take on some high growth and riskier stocks. The decision has paid off. My IRA has grown 27%, while hers has gone up 30% since inception.
Our after-tax investment account on the other hand only went up 4% because we set up the account at the peak of the market and soon the market went under. Even after I tried to infuse new growth oriented stocks into the mix, the account hasn't been able to fully recover from the market downturn. In 2010, we will continue to invest this account with new stock selections, and possibly a monthly or quarterly contribution instead of a lump sum deposit.
Another much smaller after-tax account that we had was still in the negative growth area. I bite the bullet and sold some underperformance funds before the year end in exchange for some promising stocks. I look forward to see its result in 2010. For the losses that I had, I will use it in the tax return this year.
Both of our 401K account started to climb out of valley in 2009, but we are still not able to shake off the losses incurred in 2008. We can only hope we can go back to the positive growth in this year.
We opened a few new bank accounts this year in pursuit of higher interest rate and opening account bonus. One bank account is actually a good choice because it has the ATM onsite in the company. That makes money withdraw safe and convenient.
We had a car accident in 2009, which put a dent on our insurance premium. We haven't changed our insurer due to its low cost, but we will be reviewing our policy this year and looking for alternatives and better home insurance coverage.
On the expense side, I bought six pairs of shoes this year. Patagoia (my current favorite brand) Balsam, Drifter, Vasque Blurr, Vasque waters shoes and Salomon Xt Wings from Sierra Trading Post at good prices. I also bought Rockport travel shoes (which is a mistake) from amazon.com. and finally a pair of Salomon XA Comps at Marshalls for $15. I am happy to report that my hunting for a fitting shoe has finally concluded. They are all great shoes. I am also happy that my parents can bring back home some of my shoes (wrongfully bought because they were cheap at the time) and give them away to relatives.
We purchased a few pieces cookware in 2009. Some of them are for resell over amazon.com and two pieces ($29) are for my cooking pleasure. I was able to sold two pieces (Kitchenaid 12qt. stock pot and Marco Pierre White oval fry pan) at very good prices. I lost money and product over a 14” fry pan transaction because the customer didn’t return the pan and amazon.com refunded the product due to the damage during the shipping. Another good financial lesson learned.
The current concept in managing our asset is 'liquidity'. We know the current house is not our home for long and we want to keep everything 'liquid' so we can have an easier transition in the future. We will limit our purchase and sell or donate anything that we won't carry over to the next home.
Due to the market downturn and Fed's rate cut, mortgage rate has been dropping through the year. We analyzed our situation at the time, and decided to refinance the mortgage. However, after we paid our application fee, we did another round of calculation and found a better option - pay off the mortgage totally. We cancelled the refinancing and lost the application fee during this process. It was very expensive lesson.
To keep a record of mistakes we made so that we can remember, here are the top financial mistakes in 2009:
1. Application fee for refinancing the house
2. Buying airline tickets for my parents from David Wang, higher price than in China, and can't use Credit Card to accumulate points.
3. Go to sports doctor for leg injury, high x-ray fees which is not necessary.
4. Didn't completely stop at the red light on E71. and Chester when turning right.
5. Bought a salad without thinking how to avoid heavy weight items.
6. Lost money and product over amazon.com during a transaction.
Other fun facts, we both saved on hair cut in 2009. I started to cut my hair since early spring and stopped going to saloon. My wife stopped going to saloon and let her hair grow.

Career
Not till later in the year I started to make moves to prepare for the next step in my career. The business my group manages did well in 2009 and we are on our way to meet the target for the first time. It will be unwise to miss this accomplishment. Therefore, I will stay put and see it through. On the other hand, I have talked to other department to see if there is any fun project to work on, and there is. My manager will make some arrangement this year to fill my time with work from both sides.
While I am writing this, my wife is preparing for an interview for a position in eMarketing in our company. It's a new field for her and she is interested. She is good at her job and she has good chance, and I can't wait to celebrating her getting the job.
We are still working on our long term career plan. Recently we had a meeting to talk about our life goals and city preference. We wrote a family vision statement in the meeting to guide our future planning. We will continue our research on our career and city preference in the new year focusing on what industry and type of job we like.

Travel
Earlier of the year, I traveled to L.A for the first time on a business trip with my manager and another colleague. CA was still like what it was when I left there 4 years ago, sunshine, hippies, girls showing skin, and the whole 'California' attitude. After our meeting with the client, we went to a local museum which is very nice. It was my Nikon D60's first field trip. I was able to snap a few good shots there.
We had two long vacations a short one after that. One with my in laws in DC, NY, MD, and one in CA with my parents.
We went to NY because my wife needed to renew her passport in NY. So we decided to take her parents along and did a tour in DC as well. It was about 7.5 hour's drive to DC. The train system in DC is well built and we had not much difficulty to get around. The Holiday Inn hotel we stayed in Greenbelt VA is decent and inexpensive. We walked around the town taking pictures at different sites and museums. The next day we left the DC and dropped by MD, then went on to NY. We stayed at Newark as the hotel was less expensive. We sent her parents on a city one day tour in the morning and we then waited in the chilling wind in front of the Chinese embassy. We got in and soon we found we were missing some documents (which were not required according to its website). The copy machine wasn't working, which wasted me four or five coins. Eventually, we got it renewed and we needed to pick it up a few days later. Fortunately, we bumped into a couple who worked in the same company and they were doing the same thing. They had a cousin lived in NY and their cousin can pick the passport up for us. We left the embassy and walked around the city and window shopped some food stores of our interest. There was one very expensive store (something ducas) I remember. We bought a bread in a store where my wife said Wholefoods sources its bread from, the bread is expensive, and the store cashier is nice and friendly.
We then shopped at Fairways. The array of olive oil in that store is impressive. There was a young guy with a back pack looking like a college student stormed into the aisle and started to sample each olive oil with the bread. The watching old Chinese lady next to him was laughing. The young man turned around and said 'trying different oils'. Well, he looks more like 'stuffing myself up before walking into the classroom'. Poor kid. My wife also got a comment from another old guy who was trying to walk pass her 'get outta here' in the store. She was not happy about it and before I found out that guy disappeared already. When we were done with the shopping and walked to the register, we didn't notice we cut off people accidently and we were 'reminded' by the people behind us right away. Finally we left the store and we saw the old guy who was previously rude to my wife, and I wanted to confront him, my wife stopped me and that guy sneaked back into the store again. Overall, Fairway is a nice store with great product, but I just can't stand the people there.
Then we went to a 'legendary' local restaurant to check out their corn beef sandwich, we found it was way too expensive and left there. We walked into a Wholefoods and were not that impressed by its cashier (in terms of friendliness).

Before I concluded that NY city is not a friendly city, I would have to point out that I have a few friendly encounters when I was asking directions in the morning. All the people I asked responded kindly and they all tried to help. I guess I have got used to the customer service standard here in Cleveland Ohio.
As soon as my parents arrived in early September, We drove them to the Niagra Falls where they had a great time appreciating the grand view of the falls. One bummer is that the picture card somehow stopped function and we lost some family pictures.
CA vacation in October was a nice, but short one. We travelled to Montery Bay Aquarium, Big Sur State Parks, Yosemite, Las Vegas and Grand Canyon. The sites are wonderful, but we found we need more time to rest between place to place as our parents can't handle tiring commute. We did plan our food well, and cost was controlled and in line with our budget. We took thousands pictures and I found shooting Grand Canyon and Yosemite were very challenging because it was easy to get overwhelmed and carried away by the beauty and missed focus in the picture. At about the middle of the trip, my mom got sick and we had to slow down our pace and luckily still were able to finish the trip as planned. I will go back to Yosemite again, and when I do, I will spend a whole week there in a better hotel.

Events
We had a tragic event this year. We were expecting in August and when my wife went back for the second check in September, we heard the bad news. We lost a twin due to chromosome defect. It was a sad day. We soon found out both of our family have a history of miscarriage. Our doctor said there was nothing we could have done to prevent that, though parents from both families have different theories.
Jill and her children came to visit us in October. Sadie and Doug are big kids now, we enjoy the time they staying with us.
Other news
Nikil married with Joan in India
Santosh left US due to his visa problem
Anita and Mukesh got married in India
Ankur and Swat got married in India
Veronica got married here in US.

One guy in the office has been bothering me for a while. He chews ice nonstop from 8am to 5pm. The noise is annoying and distractive.

I expect to see great improvements in our career, and refined life style in 2010. We feel we are ready to move on to another level. So I would like to call 2010 the year of ‘龙腾虎跃’ .

Beethoven in Trance - Episode 59

2009-10-26T12:36:00.000-07:00

2009 California Trip Report
Day 1 - Arrive SFO, took the BART from the airport to our base in Oakland, rest for the night.
Day 2 - Monterey Bay Aquarium, Big Sur
We started around 8am, traffic in San Jose wasn't too good. Fortunately, we could use the car pool lane, which was much better. We reached the Aquarium around 10:00am. Parking is $5 (we later found parking on the street between lover's point and aquarium is free). We spent about 3 hours in the aquarium (which is not enough in my opinion, I was busy taking pictures and forgot exploring the amazing world underwater). We drove to the Julia Pfeiffer Burns state park on the highway 1. , then come back in the evening, dropped by Carmel River State Beach and the Safeway close to Roi road, got some food, checked in hotel Best Western Crest Park, and rested for the night (it was a nice and clean hotel).
Day 3 - Point Lobos State Reserve, San Juan Bautista, Yosemite
Drove to Point Lobos State Reserve in the morning around 8am. It was a great place to hike, taking pictures and picnic. We left there around noon, and drove to Yosemite afterward. We stopped at San Juan Bautista for some pictures (nice little town and buildings), then continued to Yosemite. By the time we arrived Oakhurst, it was almost evening. We stopped by the Vons in town, had some food. Drove up to the mountains. Driving at night into Yosemite was an experience. We arrived Curry Village after 2 hours driving, parked the car (worrying about bears gonna attack our car because we just had fried chicken in the car for dinner). Went into the tent and slept. Woke in the early morning because it was really damn cold even with two blankets.
Day 4 - Yosemite Falls
We didn't realize it was gonna take us one day to hike Yosemite Falls and upper Yosemite Falls but it did. Bumped into a bear drinking water, took some pictures. We came back down and went for pizza in the curry village. Worst experience ever in there, 40 minutes of waiting and i asked the guy over the counter twice, first time he said I needed to wait, second time he said it wasn't ready and walked away. I went to another guy over the counter and complained about it, then finally, he came out with the pizza and apologized. Very bad experience with them, never go back again. Pizza is ok, nothing special.
Day 5 - Tunnel View, Glacier Point, Miror Lake
Since we missed the tunnel view when we came in, we went back in the morning, taking pictures, then went up to glacier piont, bumped into another bear, took more pictures, then came back to curry village. We stopped by some other areas for picnic as well, I don't remember the names though. We refreshed up, went out to mirror lake. We took the bus, hiked the trial. It was a great place to see, the water is low though, couldn't really take any pictures of the reflection. We went to the food court in the Yosemite Lodge for dinner. The beef stew soup was superb. Fast service and low price, thumbs up.
Day 6 - Giant Sequoia, back to base in Oakland
Drive out of the park, took some more pictures in tunnel view, then headed to the 'Groove with giant trees'. Amazing. By noon, we left the park, drove back to Oakland.
Day 7 - Las Vegas, Grand Canyon
Took the plane to Vegas in the morning, got the rental, and drove to Grand Canyon. It was about 5 hours drive, with stop for food. Checked into the hotel, Yavapai lodge. There was a general store next to the lodge which is essentially a supermarket, with everything you need. Nice. We didn't go anything that day, just went to bed and sleep.
Day 8 - Grand Canyon Hike
We hiked the South Kabib trail in the morning. We made it to the half of distance, then came back. Took us about 3 and half hours. Took the bus back. Drove to Desert view next, then dropped by the ruin. It was about sunset time, and we didn't make it to the red line bus, so we have to watch the sunset in Matte point. It was not impressive.
Day 9 - Left the Grand Canyon and drove back to Vegas
Went to M resort and casino for dinner buffet. It was a Thursday, so nothing really special, but for the price, it was ok.
Day 10 - Vegas
Vegas is still Vegas, I have been there 3 times, and it didn't change much. We went to the buffet at Bellagio for dinner, but we weren't impressive (maybe that's because we just had one the night before)...
Day 11 - Red eye fly back to home

Overall, it was a wonderful trip but it was an exhausting trip. If I could do it again, I would skip Grand Canyon, it was great, but I was more impressed by Yosemite, and I felt I wanted to see more of it. One week in Yosemite is called 'vacation', two days is called 'travel to'. Big sur is also nice, but I was rushed, and didn't have time to let the moment sink in. Point Lobos is geat, don't miss it. Aquarium is also fun, I wish have 5 hours to spend in there. I was busy taking pictures.
We travelled with two seniors this time, and it was a mistake to pack everything into the schedule. One of them got sick on day 7 when we drove to Grand Canyon. The tent cabin in Curry Village in Yosemite is a little too cold for them as well (in mid October).

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 58

2009-08-20T08:55:00.000-07:00

Long time no blog, can't remember where was I in the last blog.

Anyway, deep into the summer of 2009 and we have been busy.

We kicked off our garden project this spring with a bang. We shopped around the nurseries in town, spent over hundred for all kinds of flowers, vegetables, and herb. After completing the routine of preparing the garden soil, we planted some tomatos, pepper, eggplant, cabage, and some peas in the garden we put down last year. We also re-did our flower bed in the front, and put down another flower bed to the right of the entrance steps next to the maple tree. My wife is obssessed with gardening this year, she wanted another garden soon after. We then spend another weekend putting down another garden with some bochoy, and squash. But that's still not enough, she lined up an army of vegetables in pots on the drive way, which makes driving in and out of garage a fun experience. Fortunately, cabage came out great, as well as tomatoes. We had heirloom, roman, and beefsteak this year. Roman sucks, no flavor, no juice. Heirloom is the best, beefsteak is in the middle. We also had some jalopeno, but very small yield. Hebanaro is coming out too, but very small. Eggplants come out much slower. Suggar snaps, peas and green beans are all growing fine. We have been enjoying our vegetable in dinners.

Other than garden, we started our bathroom remodel project this June. It's been a long and messy project. Our initial plan is to retile the bathroom walls around the tub, then change the fixture, paint the whole room, then refinish the bathtub. The budget was around $700. As soon as my neighbor and I started to taking off the tiles, we realized that we needed to replace the dry wall behind the tile as some of them are rotten with mold. We then found the walls are covered with wall papers, and we needed to peel them off before we paint. One thing led to another, before I knew it the poroject became something involves extra help from a dry wall guy, and a plumber. We had a quote from one of the plumber friends of my neighbor and it was $800. My neighbor said no, and called up his cousin, who happens to be a plumber. He did the job for $300. The dry wall guy (another friend of my neighbor) showed up and started to install the dry walls, it was $400 at first, then after patching all the walls and fix up an air duct below the vanity. It became $650. Then, we bought the paint, the tile, the caulk, the grout, adhesive, sealant, and fixture. The total cost tripled to $2000. Luckily, my neighbor has the tile saw, we cut the tile and installed ourselves. I painted the room with four coats over weeks. Then, we called in bathtub refinisher who is charging $300 for scraping the paint then recoating it. The guy came out in the middle of July and did the job. He left a small pool of paint at the bottom of the bathtub making it an uneven surface. My neighbor didn't mind and wanted to let it go. I called the refinisher again, and they came out to check and decided to redo it (sounds familiar? it happened when we refinished our hardwood floor). Anyway, he came out again after 2 weeks, sanded the extra paint down, then recoat the whole thing. While he is inside doing the job. I was outside watching my neighbor standing in a lift trimming the tree in my backyard. The tree has grown much and leaves were hanging over the roof. We were concerned that one day the thunderstorm will hit the tree hard enough and the branch might hit the roof. Now the tree is trimmed, we lost some shades though.

So, we had our bathroom out for use for two months. I have been taking shower with a garden hose in the back at night, and also in the basement next to the sink where there is a drain on the floor. We just had our bathtub back this Tuesday when the coating was supposed to be dry, as well as all the caulk and sealant on the tile. The new shower head is cool, we used the new curtain, which is pretty. We have a much brighter bathroom (certainly the four light bulb working full throttle has something to do with it). We got the fixture on clearance in the home center, there was a piece broken and I was planning to buy a replacement or return the whole thing and buy a different one. But the plumber (who quoted us $800 for the job) he suggested us call the manufacture and ask for a replacement. Well, he was right. Thanks to his advice, my neighbor called the company and we got a new replacement part for free. Basically, we got a complete working unit at a clearance price. Nice.

All in all, at $2000 price tag, this project still looks like bargagin. We did a lot of work ourselves, my neighbor certainlly did the most of the heavy lifing. We took his family to chinese buffet and dim sum places in the last couple months and they loved it. I also made them some beef noodle stir fry and they loved it too. They even asked for the recipe, which I don't have as it's my own creation. So, we saved on painting, tiling, taking the walls down. We got our plumber cheap, while drywall is not so much. The bathtub refinishing cost is ok, and we got two coats out of the price of one. We had a bargain with the fixture as well.

Since I was painting the bathroom walls, I had all the tools out. So I decided to paint the hand rail on the entrance door step outside. We got the paint from clearance in the homecenter, $2 or $3 per quart. Color is very acceptable. We picked some purple, pink, and bright yellow. We painted the handrail purple (it's a exterior paint). Then we painted a park bench pink. I also got some polyurathym from clearance, and I plan to stain the pinic table after I power wash it. I also need to paint the garage door as well (after power washing it).

Now we did our garden, remodeled our bathroom, trimmed the tree in the backyard and bush fense. We still need to power wash the drive way, the picnic table, garage door, then paint the door and stain the table. We then might be able to call it a day in the yard this year.

Inside the house, I shop-vac the cool air return duct because there is a place inside of the duct collecting dust. I painted the door trim (which was painted with the wrong color last year) of the entrance door. There are still some details to do, and another coat of paint needs to go on the silt. I also touched some of the baseboard around the floor in the major traffic area because they were stained when floor was refinished.

We have been having water leakage in the basement since we moved in. My neighbor mentioned that he used to have the same problem and it was caused my tree leaves and roots blocking the drain pipe. He solved the problem with couple bottles of Draino. That was what we did couple weeks ago. We first ran hot water into the drain around the house through the down spot at the bottom cornor of the house, then dumped the Draino and waited couple hours. Then we ran hot water through again. And this trick seemed to be working. We had a few thunderstorm since then and we had no pool of water coming in the basement. The edge of the floor is wet, but no pool of water came in. That is a great news. We will do that trick again this year before the winter after we clean out all the leaves in the gutter.

Last weekend, we were outside in the yard stripping the leaves from the branch that my neighbor trimmed from the tree. It was an 8 hours project in a 90F summer day. My wife needs those leaves for the compost. We now have to save all the vegetabls and left over fruits for her compost. Fun!

We left our skylight on the second floor bathroom open last year for some time and the cold wet weather has done some damage to the dry wall around the window. I had to take one piece of the wall down and I now have to install a new piece, patch cracks, and paint it. But first, I need to clean the room with all the debris and shop vac the leaves collect on the window frame. This is another project.

My parents are coming September 2nd. I would hope to finish the project by then. I have two weeks to go. One weekend for this, another for the power washing. Will see how it goes.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 57

2009-06-22T11:51:00.000-07:00

can't remember when is the last time I blogged.

it's been a busy summer so far. We kicked off our garden project this spring and added a small flower bed in the front of the house and planted some more flowers in the old flower bed. We planted all the vegatables on the side of the garage, and just digged another garden on the other side of the backyard. We haven't finished fencing yet, and will have to do that as soon as possible.

We finally started our bathroom remodel project last week. It was estimed as a $700 project including retile, and refinish bathtub, then paint. As for now, the project cost is hitting $2000. My neighbor was helping me with the project, and right after we started to take off the tile, we found it would be better to tear down the wall instead. One side of the wall behind the tile has been molded, and had to be replaced. So, one thing lead to another, before I knew it, we had taken down three walls surrounding the bathtub, and another wall next to the door. We also took down the wall paper that was painted. The wall paper only covered half of the wall so there would be some sanding to do. I have been scraping the cracking paint off the wall for days and there is still more to go.

We bought the fixture from Lowes and it was on clearance. The fixture had a broken piece though. I was thinking buying a replacement at that time. Interestingly we were looking for a plumber at that time, and my neighbor found a plumber, and he brought them in for quoting. The plumber suggested we call the manufacture (Delta) to ask for a replacement. My neighbor called and the company said they would send me a new one. Great. fixture is done then. By the way, we never realized how expensive bathroom fixture is untill we started to look for one... After the plumber quoted us $850 for the job, my neighbor decided to say goodbye to them, and brought in his cousin who I also know and went fishing with before. He quoted me $300 for everything (well, my neighbor needed to work a bit for the low price). The pipe work was done last Friday and I took my neighbor's family and his cousin to a Chinese buffet for dinner. Everyone was happy about the food because we were all starving.

We have put up some 'Fiberock' board around the bathtub on which we will put up the tile. Will need to buy tiles, adhesive, and grout today, it's gonna be another $200 or so.

We bought the paint from Sherwin Williams, total $200 including primer, paint, brushes and rollers. I will still need some painters tool and white paint for door and windors trim.

The dry wall guy showed up last Friday and helped putting up the Fiberock and he will put up dry wall today. After that, my neighbor and I can start painting and tiling. He has a tile cutter that I can borrow.

We would need to remove the vanity and toilet before we paint.

After these jobs are done, I will call in the bathtub refinisher to refinish the bathtub. It's gonna be another $300.

I am so looking forward to getting this project done. It seem a second bathroom is really neccessary in a situation like this. I have been taking cold water shower outside with garden hose for the last three days. Getting a shower in the basement seem to be a great project for next year.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 56

2009-03-04T12:37:00.000-08:00

For people who are interested in food:

My review of Michael Pollan's two books
In defense of food
Omnivore's Dilemma

Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
In his book "In defense of food", Michael Pollan advocates people eating whole foods, and not too much. For example, corn syrup is a man-made food, therefore can not by recognized by your body while sugar can. This lends to the suggestion to use sugar rather than corn syrup for consumption (which is not practiced in the food industry because corn syrup is cheaper). Ever heard of people saying 'Coke Original' taste better? Well, that's because they hadn't replaced the sugar with corn syrup. Eat whole foods, foods that is recognized by your grandma as he put it in the book. Eat as French does, no second serving, eat in a crowd, spend more time around the dining table, to make eating an enjoyable event. By eating slowly, we also learn to appreciate the quality of the food more. He also recommends plants over animal protein as main course. "Use meat as a condiment" as he suggested.

Omnivore's Dilemma
In this book, Michael followed the journey of the industry corn along the industry food chain from the field in Iowa to the American's dinner table. A typical industry corn, (Type 3 corn, recognized across continents) was grown in Iowa in this example, spread with growth enhancer made by nitrate leftover from World War II, Corn is the No. 1 agriculture product in terms of the ability and speed to transform raw petroleum and natural energy into man-made energy. After harvest, they are shipped to wholesale trader in trucks, then transported in bulk to the processing facility owned by Cargil (who is the vertical integrator in the food industry and the largest private owned company in US or the world). In the processing plant, corn turns into Corn Starch, Corn Plastic, Corn Syrup, and numerous corn products that don't have the word 'corn' in their names (ex. ethanol). Corn dominates the farming industry and created a vicious cycle, the more the farmers grow, the lower the market price, the lower the market price, the more government subsidize, the more government subsidize, the more tax payers have to pay for.

Corn gets into American's diet through corn syrup, corn starch, and animal protein. Animal protein? How did that happen? Through animal feeds. Chicken, cow, pig, salmon, you name it. Cow is like a huge fermentation tank that process the corn and transform it into protein. By eating steak, we are eating 'processed corn'. The champion of transforming corn into protein is ... chicken. That's why chicken is cheaper than beef. That also explains why those animals are given antibiotics, because animal can't just live on corn feed, they are born (or used to be born) to eat grass.

The next stop in the food chain is the retail store. Michael mentioned WholeFoods and criticized its diminishing effort to support local growers. In his point of view, local farming is more important than 'industrial organic (such as Earthbound) agriculture', hence should be nurtured.
(as a side note, WholeFoods CEO wrote back to him in a public letter to clarify WholeFoods' sourcing practices and efforts to support local farmers, and Michael replied with another public letter not fully convinced. Both letters are available on WholeFoods' website).

At the end of the book, Michael took us to a journey to created the 'perfect meal' - everything in the dinner will be gathered, hunted and prepared by him. There will be nothing bought from the store. He hunted down a Californian wild boar, gathered bunch wiled mushroom (morel), mined the salt, cultivated wild yeast and harvested some fava beans from his garden. The perfect meal was perfectly natural.

Both books introduced the readers to the 'industry food' to various degrees. Michael's experiences on the Iowa corn field, Kansas cow ranch, and some local chicken farm in VA convinced him that the industry food is cheap for a reason and good quality local food is worth every penny charged. "We are what we eat". Michael suggest us eat selectively, and eat better, enjoy foods more for our own good.

So what do I learn from the books? It sucks to learn that we have been eating corns in various forms (and we are still eating leftovers from WW II), but the reality is, I don't see myself hunting down some wild animal in the Forrest to put dinner on the table any time soon. There are a few inspirations after the reading though.

One thing I have started doing, and I've never realized how much fun doing, is reading the food label, Xantham Gum, Benozate, Citrus Acid ( I don't even know I am spelling them correctly). The label is a shopping list for a chemistry lab (and might be true for the food company research lab). I avoid these products as much as I can. When I pick up a pack of WholeFoods chicken and read on the label "given corn and soybean vegetarian feed', I will laugh and put it down (and wonder: what is a non-vegetarian feed for chicken? chicken?) because the description just tells me that this chicken is no better than any 'regular' industrial chicken therefore doesn't warrant the higher price.

Happy grocery shopping and happy eating.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 55

2009-02-17T12:41:00.000-08:00

The long overdue 2008 annual letter.

Time flies. I feel like I just wrote the 2007 year end report not so long ago.

Looking back the year, though I found less 'ground breaking' concepts or projects than we had in 2007, 2008 had its own twists and turns. These events happened to line up nicely in a time line.

Career development became a top priority at the beginning of 2008 when the relationship with my manager went south. I was given an 'action plan' to work on due to some error I caused at work. I was under pressure to dance his tune and look for something else. Remembering my early success in sales and marketing, I concluded that I wanted to move to a similar position. There was one job over the sales and distribution department at the time, initially I decided to wait because my intuition told me that I wasn't ready. Later my manager suggested I look for something else, and I made a mistake to apply for the opening against my gut and my application was failed. Not surprised (as I knew it was coming), I stayed put and did what I have to do at work. The manager left the company shortly after. Then the turning point came. It was an article called 'No Excuse', and it was about being responsible and getting the job done. It helped me. I got better at work and felt less stressed. It was a road map that I could just simply follow it through. Soon, another opportunity in the sales and distribution (actually a better one) became available. I applied, and by July, I got the offer. It was an interesting interview experience. I was interviewed by a manager on the interviewing panel, and I was told that he was also hiring. He seemed interested in my background and indicated that I could apply for his opening as well. So I ended up having one offer that I originally applied at hand, and the one I applied later in the air. After many considerations, I decided to accept the offer in hand (which somehow feels right intuitively). And that, was August already. As a side note, my taste of music started to change along the way as well. the transition is subtle on the surface - from trance to progressive, but the fundamentals are different - from a upbeat mainstreaming pop theme to a personal dedication focus.

So what is the learning? Translating from Dr. Phill 'if you don't manage your inlaws, your inlaws will manage you.' If you don't manage your job, your job will manage you. Also quoting from the article "no excuse" - " if you hate the job, the job will hate you as well, and if you happen to have a job you hate, you just have to be responsible."

Settling down in the new job in the rest of the year, we made a few trips back to back. First stop, Portland, Oregon for our very first marathon in October.

Portland is a fun place. It showed us what we are missing staying in Cleveland. I wasn't able to finish the marathon due to the leg injury which was disappointing. We rested at home for one day and went on a trip to India for our friend's wedding. The trip to India certainly refreshed our view of India. The city we stayed was like a small rural town in China. It was dirty and under developed. Shanghai is in much better shape comparatively. My previous blog has recorded the experience. It was a good trip, short, intense and good. We had good experience with Air India, and the aircraft was better than the one we took the next month to China.

Yes, we went back home for the very first time after 7 years in US. Before we went, we found there was a marathon in Shanghai at the end of November. We signed up, and I started some massage therapy session (because I still had injury on my left leg and couldn't run for 5 minutes). The first 1.5 hour session cost me $120. I then went through the health service in the company and got two more session for $15 / session. After I arrived Shanghai, I went through another massage session with a local therapist (a blind person) for $3 / hour. On Dec. 31th 2008, we were running our first half marathon in Shanghai after 7 years. Our race result was not recorded because we didn't step on the mat at the beginning (because we were late, and we blamed the poor organization). Anyway, we didn't really care about the result that much. We went to an Indian restaurant after the race and had lunch with both our families.

Other than preparing for the marathon and relax at home, I am very happy to visit my grandmother's resting place. I was her favorite, and I haven't had a chance to visit her since she passed away while I was in US. I am also happy to meet with all the family relatives, particularly my mother's elder sister, who was very happy to see me after 7 years. We met my dad's mother as well, she is 92 now and still look healthy. I met most of my friends, played basketball with them, and had dinner with them. And of course, I took many pictures, food, people and city. I cooked some at home, had a chance to cook a free range chicken particularly.

On the financial side, not exciting. Stock market has been tanking since the beginning of the year. Our 401K has dropped 40+%, as well as our Roth IRA accounts. Zecco has announced to pull back free trading service, and I decided to transfer out of this company. I will transfer it to Scottrade, which offers $100 reimbursement for account transfer.

The housing market correlates with the stock market. Our house value has dropped about 11% (20K/170K) since we moved in. Mortgage rate for refinancing was at 4.85% one time, and we decided to refinance our house. We calculated couple options and went to bank to start the application. After another round of calculation after we came back from the bank, we actually found out refinancing was not as good option as paying down another 40K principle to the loan. We wasted $325 because the application fee was not refundable. It was an expensive lesson.

My income in 2008 increased 7.3% from changing the job in August, and I got another 2% ($1000 ) recently as annual salary increase (my wife got a 3%). As for side income, I didn't have much country specialist opportunity in 2008. I can only remember one or two in the whole year. However, I did discover another revenue, which is selling cookware through amazon. The result so far is encouraging. The whole exercises is not just about money, but the mind set - no need to hold on to something I don't use often. If I can sell it for better price, sell it. As of this writing, I have sold total four pans. first, an All-Clad 4 qt. saute pan (the pan that triggered my thought of selling it due to the large price difference online, and the fact that the price was still too much for me @ $70). I sold pan for $120 and pocketed $30 profit. I then sold a used Sitram saute pan and a new Sitram sauce pan, both were selling at higher prices online. I made anther $30 profit on each transaction. The most recent pan sold is a CalphalonOne chef pan, MRSP $200 online and I sold for $95. I bought it @ $20. I have two more listings on amazon now, a Kitchenaid 12qt. stock pot ($24 purchased), and a Beka copper oval fry pan ($15 purchased). They will be tough sell due to the high price I listed them under, but since I am in no rush to clear the inventory. I just wait and see what happens.

We also made a few purchases in 2008 including: clothe and cosmetics from TjMaxx and Marshalls after Valentine's day. food items in a Japanses grocery store in Portland. food items, clothe, accessories and an Indian wok in India. Throughout the year, I bought 5 pieces of new cookware (totalling $110) and three new Japanese knives (totalling $53). During the Christmas month, I bought 3 pairs of shoes, two pairs of trial shoes, and one running shoe for total about $60. We also bought a new TV due to the fact that no more analog signal will be available in Feb. 2009, a DSLR camera Nikon D60 that I am still learning how to use. I also upgraded my PC because I hate not being able to play the latest titles. I was asked why I liked playing games so much. Well, as most gamers (if you play tennis on Wii, you are not included in my definition of gamer) will answer, "because gaming gives you experience that I won't get from real life". With the new PC, I have completed Crysis, Prince of Persia, Bioshock, and Tombraider Legend. I am currently on Tombraider Anniversary and I can see Tombraider Underworld along the way soon. Call of Duty 4 and 5 are also on the top3 list.

2008 Movie of the year award goes to "Journey of the man" from National Geographic. It leads us through life from the beginning to the end, and that, brings me to the next topics - Health.

We are getting more and more conscious about what we eat and how we eat, and we will continue to explore various dietary choice. We started to consume more fish and visit Whole Foods Market more often. We eat slower, and enjoy more variety in our diet. We replaced our costco non fat milk with a whole milk from a local farm, and purchased brown rice to complement our daily white rice. Our recent wheat flour dumpling was a success thanks to a new recipe. I just finished a book called "In defense of food" which talks about what people should eat nowadays (eat whole foods, not much, most plants). I am on the second book "Omnivore's Dilemma". We are excited about what we will discover in 2009. In additional to updating dietary plan, I also joined the company gym, and attending yoga class, which I found helpful. The stretch helped me recover from my injury.

Overall, I will call 2008 a year of awakening. I am happy to see we weren't off the track from 2007 when we layered some good foundation. I am excited about 2009 as we will be starting our own family. I will call 2009 'year of living' as we continue focus on health, career and finance as they form the golden triangle of our happiness.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 54

2008-11-03T13:49:00.004-08:00

Day 7 we woke up early becuase we had a tour scheduled. We had some breakfast, a fried pancake with potato filling, and we loved it. Our friend's father even gave us some local healthy specialty to try. It was some form of paste in a bottle that looks like calcuim supplement here in US, and it's enhanced with gold. Yes, gold. The local swear by its health benefit. The paste tastes fruity, and I don't mind the taste at all.

After the breakfast, we set off to our tour. It was a bus tour around the city Delhi, and the bus was half full. There are total 3 pair, 6 international travellers on the bus. Two French ladies, another pair of one Irish guy and English girl. The rest was all Indian. The tour started with some temple, we had to deposit our shoes before we can walk in (a common practice in our trip). The temple was nice and clean (comparing to outside of the temple). When we left to get the shoes, the guard officer showed me a brochure about the Indian temple and its history and symbols showing inside. It looks as a promotional material, and I was gladly to accept it. He then asked me for money, well, well, well, there was always a catch. I asked him how much and he told me to give him any amount I wanted. Well, I laughed and gave the brochure back to him. I think the brochure is helpful to promote Hindu religion but the charge from the guard made me turn away from getting to know more, too bad. We then went to another site where there was a very tall tower, I forgot the name. The tickets were 500 rupee for both, plus 25 rupee for video taping. It was expensive for 30 minutes of visit.

We then went to a lotus temple, a temple that built like a lotus. Before we could go to lunch, we 'conveniently' stopped in the middle of nowhere by a 'government authorized or operated' shop for some indian specialty. We walked around and saw a Taj Mahal miniature displaying on the counter, I tried to pick it up and the poles around the Taj Mahal immediately broke off as soon as I touched it. The person over the counter said it was ok. Well, great, I ain't gonna buy that. My wife wanted to get one for her coworkers and asked the guy over the counter how much it was. She asked couple times and no one answered her, and they were not like busy or anything either. My wife eventually gave up and walked out the door. Got back to the bus, we were the first group coming back from the shopping. Next arrived the Irish guy and British girl. After about 30 minutes, everybody came back except the guide and two French ladies. After one hour, French ladies came back with their purchases and said to the bus 'sorry, we swear we won't do that again'. Well, that was perfectly ok for the guide because he just got a good kick back.

We arrived another 'government operation' for lunch. It was a busy place, not fancy, a lot of locals. Menu was simple as well. I was told the place has 'vegie chow mein' when I booked the tour, so I was looking for the dish. We were also happy to see some familiar names on the menu as we just had them the day before with our friend. We order one noodle, one dosa and one bottle of water. The noodles has 'wok hei', and the dosa was ok.

We were taken to Delhi Fort, Gandhi's Museum and his tomb, and Humayum's Tomb in the afternoon. We skipped the Delhi Fort, because we thought it was similar to Agra Fort, and we didn't consider 50 minutes visit time worth 500 rupee tickets. We sat in the bus taking naps, and I took some pictures of the traffic.
I found the Gandhi's museum was very informative and a good place to visit. I hope the locals feel the same. We spent the rest of the afternoon rushing into tourist sites and rushing back to the bus. I feel we spent almost the same time on the bus and off the bus. There just wasn't enough time for us to really appreciate the places we visited.

We finished the tour around 6pm, and our friend was calling us to go to a relative's birthday party. Since her father and brother woudn't go, we had to say goodbye to them before we took off (because we would go directly to the airport after the party). We loaded the car with our luggage and said good bye. Come to think of it, we will miss them.

The birthday party was for the daughter of one of our friend's sister. Her sister's house was well decorated and spacious, like a nice apartment in Manhattan. We sat and did a little chit chat with the hosts before we started the dinner. Since the hosts were not vegetarian, we had lamb and chicken on the table. I was thrilled, I was very happy with the food, the our friend's hospitality. We took some pictures together after the dinner and I had a beer with the host before we set off to the airport. I was the the beer is a 'local beer', but the lable doesn't read like Hindu at all. It looks like an imported beer from Europe. Anyway, who cares.

We finally arrived at the airport with our friend and her mom. We said goodbye to them, and thanked them again for their generocity. We went through a series of check points in the airport and finally we got our boarding pass. The officer at the security check point requested every carry-on case to be tagged. Well, where could we find the tags then? I followed a Indian guy and he eventually opened one of the check-in counter draw searching for the tags, and he found it. We grabbed bunch, and went through the security check. We were asked if there was any nuts in our carry-on, oh yeah, cashew and almonds. The security let us pass, but I got the feeling that there might be some rules they didn't follow. But Thanks!

The waiting area was small, although the airport was modern looking. A large area was used for duty free shopping where we bought some sweets for coworkers back home. At the final boarding station, two guards really did their job asking us where we were from, where did we work, for how long, and why we visit India. Finally they let us pass.

The plane was not even half full. Everybody was comfortable. The lade sitting next to my wife noticed her henna, and started to chat and showed her own henna to my wife. She later went to the row in front of us to sleep becuase it was empty.

The dinner served on the plane is lamb curry. It was good, very meaty. After 16 hour or so's flight, we finally arrived. It was a good flight. And that was our final day of the trip.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 53

2008-11-03T13:49:00.003-08:00

Day 6. By the time we got up and got ready, our friend was already up and we were introduced to her family. We met her parents and had a little chit chat. I got the chance to work in the kitchen and I had a good time. I video taped the whole thing of course. My friend made a sandwich with homemade cheese (similar to ricotta), and put it on the flat iron as we do with a pannini. We were stuffed before we could walk out the door. Day 6 agenda is shopping and schedule a tour around the city for the next day. We first went spice shopping. We went to the a local health institute which promotes good health by eating healthy food. First stop is the spice shop. All the spices are handgrounded at the back of the shop, and no photo was allowed. I was asked what to buy, and I basically told my friend I want all of the items on the list. So they gave me a pack of everything (later I found out I don't have enough tumeric and garam masala, but too late). After the spice shop we dropped by a juice mix booth. I asked my friend to told the guy working in the booth not to add any sugar in the juice, and I was told that sugar is not allowed by law in this institution. Wow, that's a first. While we were waiting for the juice to be mixed, we dropped by another store that sells heathly pills and oils. There were almond oil, local honey, etc. We had no luck with either of them because they were out of stock. Well, we went back to the juice stand and finish our juice. The juice was great, and I finished it quickly. I then was dared to try another juice, a cucumber and some other vegetable or fruit juice mix. Not even the locals had tried it. Well, bring it on. The juice came out green, like cucumber, and as a matter of fact, it tastes like cucumber as well. I finished it in no time as well (I did gave my wife a sip to taste). I like the juice, it was little tart, but not too strong, it was refreshing. I would order it again next time.

Next stop is a local market called Delhi Haat, we went to a travel agency (it was a 'government undertaking'), and booked the travel tour for the next day. We then bought the tickets (15 rupee) to go into the Delhi Haat. The place is a gathering of all the local specialty in one place. There are many textile from all over the country. Carpet, clothe, shawl, bags, sofa covers, you name it. The tout inside wasn't too bad. We bought a few shawls there without too much bargining and left the place.

Second stop is an open shopping bazzar. We did our bangels shopping there. This time, we bargained even less. We are pretty sure that we got ripped off badly there. By the time we finished circle around the place, it was lunch hour. We were all hungry, so our friend took us a reputable local restaurant for Southern Indian food. The restaurant was packe, and apperantly popular. There were both local and foreign visitors coming in and out and there was a line outside of restaurant waiting. There were a few seats outside of the restaurant and one seat was opened up and I was just ready to take it, but there was another foreign visitor jumped into it before I did. That old guy even said 'the age beats the bueaty' or something like that. The only time people fighted me for a seat happened in Shanghai when I was a little kid. I've never experienced it in US since I came here and I felt a little 'back home' at that moment. I couldn't say that it was a good experience though. While we were waiting, there were a few kids begging for money and food. I ignored them, but my friend gave him some money, but the kid didn't want it because he wanted food, so my friend bought some snack from a store next door and gave it to him. He then started to fancy my water, and asked my friend for my water. My friend forwarded the message and I replied with a no. I reminded her that my middle name is 'mean'. After about half hour or so waiting, we went into the restaurant, and our friend started to introduced us to the food. We ordered a bunch of them, and most of them are pretty spicy. I finished all of them and I was happy.

Left the restaurant, we went back to shopping. We went to another underground shopping mall (we had one in Shanghai as well). The underground shopping plaza is more stocked towards hippie youngsters, we didn't find much that was attractive. We only bought some shirts that was quoted 650 rupee, but we bargained down to 200 rupee. At that moment we realized how much we could bargain, but that was too late.

Next stop we went to another open bazzar, where I found the best thing of the trip - an Indian wok, we also bought a stainless steel milk jar. We then bought a set of children's clothe for our neighbor's daughter, and few packs of cashew and almonds. By the time we were done, it was dark already, we called it a day and went back home. And I coudn't remember if we had dinner that day or not..... But that was our day 6. We went back, take shower, and had some water, and then met our friend's brother, then go to sleep I guess...

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 52

2008-11-03T13:48:00.000-08:00

We got up early as usual on Day 5. Today is the wedding day for our friend. We packed our bag and headed to our friend's home after waking her up by phone. After sitting around for a while at her home, we had our breakfast served. The food was wonderful and I was very happy about it. The wedding ceremony started at her home in the afternoon and we video taped the whole thing. I even helped with cooking something for the bride's father. The bride's father needed to fast on the wedding day as a tradition, and he could only eat milk and some nuts. I helped toasted the peanuts. Then one of the aunt mixed it into some milk mixture. The wedding ceremony wouldn't start till evening so we had some time to kill. We contacted the sister of our coworker and she came over to give us another package for us to bring back to US and she took us to a place for shopping. She dropped us off to a local clothing shop because I needed something appropriate for the wedding that evening. She couldn't accompany us that day because she was busy. After saying good bye to her, we went into the shop. I bought a set of India clothing, and went to the check out. Fortunately they accepted credit card. I asked the guy over the counter where I could get money exchange. He pointed me to a group of guys working in the store. I was then 'suggested' by them that I could just sit and they would bring me the person for exchanging money (or at least that was my understanding). I smelled something fishy (or just being paranoid), I insisted they give me direction for Thomas Cook. Then one guy jumped out and gave me some direction, and another guy came out and smashed him on the head. Hummmmmm.

We left the store and since we still have plenty of time till the wedding, we started to walk around and tried to find Thomas Cook. The area consists a few blocks of stores cramped together. We followed the direction that we got previously and were able to find any branch. My wife kept reminding me not to walk in the middle of the road (a habit that I developed in Agra). I then decided to go into a known bank branch (HSBC? forgot the name) to ask for help. The guard won't let me in because of the bag I carry. So I left my bag with my wife and walk inside by myself. I found a young lady in there and asked her for direction. She suggested 'Western Union' which was what our friend suggested and gave me some direction. We then followed the direction to some extent and found the most modern shopping mall in town. The officers at the door checked our bag before letting us in, we have started to get used to it. It's a shopping mall much like the western ones, pretty boring. We eventually found the Western Union, and it was a tiny little office with one guy sitting behind the counter. I called my friend again to confirm this IS the place, then walked in to exchange the money. We walked around the shopping mall a bit then finally decided to sit down in the McDonald's (yeah, it's everywhere). We had a Chicken Maharaj and Vegie Burger. The flavor of chicken maharaj is confusing and I didn't like it at all, actually I hated it. Vegie burger on the other hand has distinct indian flavor, and I liked it. Stuffed with junk food, we headed out of the store.

We wrote down our address on a piece of paper and started to look for a manual rickshaw to take us back. The first driver quote us 50 rupee, then 40. He must be drinking and we went for another one. Most of the drivers don't know the address in English which makes the 'hiring process' a bit difficult. Eventually one driver took the bid, and asked a street vendor to translate it. At that time my offer was 10 rupee, I showed him the address in one hand, and 10 rupee in another hand, and he said yes. We got on the 'bike', and he started to riding back. He didn't know any English and he didn't really know the address. He delivered us to a place close to the address, but not the address. We decided to walk back ourselves so we got off his 'bike', and gave him 10 rupee. He all of sudden started to ask for 15 rupee (which was an offer I made earlier before I hired him). I told him firmly that this was not the address, and I only agreed for 10 rupee. He didn't understand me, and I didn't understand him. I showed him again with the address in one hand and 10 rupee in another (like what I did before he said yes to our offer), and told him the he took us to the wrong address. We gave him the 10 rupee, and we started to walk. He followed us and shouting at us loud and angry. We ignored him and kept walking. I bet the whole block could hear him. We came across a group of young people on the way, and we asked him for direction, they could only tell us the general direction. We kept on walking and the driver kept on following. Very soon we saw a sign that we remembered seeing before and we were heading the right direction. The driver was very persistent, and kept on following us. We didn't think bringning him back to our friend's house was a great idea at that moment, so we went into the club that we went to for the engagement party three days ago. We stopped at the gate, and told the officer that the driver was bothering us. The driver followed us in and started to talk to the guard. I told the guard that I didn't understand what the driver was saying and appearantly the guard had no interest in involving in this matter. He let us in the club, and the driver was disappointed. He left finally. After we walked in the club, the guard stopped us again and told us that the gym opens from 5pm. Ok, we will keep that in mind!

We sat on the lawn under the evening sun for a while, relaxed. We headed back to our friend home to get ready for the party (to be honest I was afraid the driver would waited there, but fortunately he wasn't). Our friend's sister loaned Jessica a set of traditional clothe, and I put on my newly bought as well. We were ready and walked to the club again at night. We met four friends of groom waiting for the party to begin. They were from Germany. We chatted a little bit. The groom was busy with some ceremony very much like the one we just saw at bride's home. After waiting and waiting, the groom finally got on a horse and started to rode back to the dinner party site. There were a group of relatives and friends dancing around the horse and moving slowly to the party site. There were drummers trying to stop them moving and two groups would 'fight' on the road. Drum vs. Dance. There was a line of people on both sides of the groom carrying lights and some guys in front of the everybody setting off fireworks. It was rowdy. I was amazed how traffic was still open and cars were able to pass by the whole army of people.

The groom finally reached the gate, where a group of bride's sisters stopped him for getting in. The groom had to 'bribe' them to get in. Jessica was among them and shouting 'US dollar, US dollar'. Well, the groom surely would be broke if he paid US Dollar. Finally, the monther in law came out for help, grabbed him into the door.

By that time, most of the guests have arrived and started eating already. The party was on the lawn of the club, and it was open. Around lined up an army of cooks ready to serve you whatever you like. We met another friend of us from Delhi at the party and we started to catch up. We then went to see the bride together (who was hiding in the backstage), while the groom was busy with his ritual. We took pictures of the bride then came out for dinner. My friend showed me around and intoduced to me all the dishes and I video taped the whole thing. I even went behind the counter to be a chef for a minute, which was really fun. The only thing that bothered me a little that night is that there was one guy grabbed me in my arm and asked me to give him the video camera. I first thought he was kidding but he was dead serious. I said no, and tried to get away from him, but he was persistent and kept asking me. My friend from Delhi came to rescue and I was able to escape. But soon my friend was 'trapped' again by him and his father. They were asking my friend to send the son US Visa. What the heck??? I went to rescue her and we finally could start eating.

After the dinner, I was sitting on the table and my wife and friend went for desert, the son came back again and asked me for my phone no. I told him that I was from China so he said me for my Chinese phone no. He said he was going to call me and he told me his name is 'honey'. What kind of man call himself 'honey', and NO WAY I am going to call him that! Sure, I gave him a fake chinese no. and he said something that I didn't understand and left.

We didn't stay too long at the party, the wedding was going to last till next day, and we needed to go back to Delhi to stay with her for the night. We took the picture with the bride and groom and we went back to the bride's home with the bride as she needed to change the dress. We pulled out our luggage and said goodbye to them in rush. Her monther was kind enough to give Jessica a necklace as a gift. We said good bye to everyone and got into the car with our friend heading back to Delhi.

By the time we got to our friend's house, it was almost mid night. Her parents went to sleep already. We took a shower and got into bed soon as well. The masquito had a 'Chinese buffet' that night. And that, was our Day 5 in India.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 51

2008-11-03T13:47:00.002-08:00

Day 4. We woke up early as usual. We heard from the hotel staff that Taj Mahal opens @ 5:30am, and we got ready and left the hotel around that time. 2 minutes walk and we were at the ticket office. The good thing about being early was that no tout came bothering us. The ticket is 750 rupees for foreigners and 50 rupees for locals. With tickets, we can claim a bottle of water and one shoe cover (because no shoe is allowed on Taj Mahal). I went to the water stand asking for water and the guy gave me only one, and showed me on the ticket that one bottle per ticket, even I showed him two tickets. I STRONGLY insisted to have two bottles, and finally he gave me another one. Male and Female need to go through security check seperately in two lines. The security office found a USB cable in my camera case and told me it was not allowed. I had to put it into storage, and it was free.

Finally we were inside of the Taj Mahal building and everything started to calm down. The sun was barely coming out, and there were not much visitors inside. It was a good moment. We went through the main gate, where I had to deposit my video camera (because it's not allowed, only camera is allowed). We went in and started to enjoy the one of the wonders of the world. We spent about 4 hours inside appreciating the beauty of this tomb. We walked on the marble floor and it was very nice (untill noon when it's getting hot). We even saw a Indian boy in a shirt saying 'Shanghai'. What's the odd? We took a picture of him. The only thing that ruined my moment a bit was when two guys showed up in front of us when we were sitting on the floor relaxing and asked us 'are you chinese?' I looked at them and I knew these two guys are crocks. They didn't look like usual touts who were trying to make a living, they were people who were dangerous with deal with. So we ignored them but one guy still stared at us and asked us the same question. I started to talk Shanghainess to him, and he picked it up really quickly. Eventually they left, and they could repeat what I said by then. ( I guess they will use it on someone to see what does it mean).

Before we left, we went to the toilet. The toilet was free for foreigners and 2 or 5 rupees for locals (YEAH, the only advantage of being a foreigner in India!). When I got out, the boy at the door tried to stop me for something, I pointed at the sign which says "free for foreigner" and kept walking away. He the said something like 'no money', but I coudn't care what he wanted at that time. Maybe he had a good reason to stop me for something, but at that time, I just couldn't trust anyone.
Went out Taj, we stopped by a street vendor for some snacks, I picked some deep fried pancake like stuff and some pancake that was burned on the open flame. I figured the open flame and hot oil should have killed all the germs. We went back to hotel and freshed up. Checked out the room, and went on our afternoon journey.

Left the hotel and we headed to the Taj complex gate, at the gate I asked one of the guards (did I mention they were all armed with heavy weapon?) there where the 'baby Taj' was. It was a tomb built by the treasurer, and it was a small version of the Taj Mahal. We were approached by several rickshaw drivers and the price one of them quoted us was 100 rupee. There were several of them so I asked another driver for the price, and I got 80 rupee. Well, we had a winner then. The two drivers had a 'discussion' in Hindu before we left. I bet they were arguing that the driver broke their 'pricing guideline'.

When we got to the Baby Taj (Itmad du Daula), the driver said he could wait for us and took us back. We could pay him later for both trips later. Well, works for me. We went into the baby Taj, and paid the video ticket and started our sightseeing. Baby Taj was nice as well, a small version of Taj Mahal and much less crowded. We spent almost 2 hours there and when we came back, the rickshaw driver was almost ready to jump off bridge. We asked him to take us to Agra Fort, and he quoted 50, we said 40, and we settled at 45 rupee (still a rip off). We arrived Agra Fort and the driver decided not to wait for us. He figured that we were not easy business. We paid him and went into Agra Fort. A guard there at the gate was being friendly to me and said he could buy tickets for us. I still didn't trust him with my money, and turned it down.

Agra Fort was a big complex to look around, we spent about another 2 hours looking around. From the fort, we could see Taj Mahal from a distance. The tout was much less there, and we weren't bothered by many people. We looked around, rested a little bit, then left the fort to go to a local bazzar close to the train station. I asked the person at the storage room how much would it cost for a rickshaw to get there, and I was told it was about 20, 25 rupee. We went out and found a rickshaw, we were quoted 50 rupee, and I countered 25 rupee. He accepted, and we stepped on. We toured the bazzar, had some street food again. It was a potato pancake deep fried in oil and dressed with spice, ginger, cashew and some sauce. We liked it. Jessica also tried something that I didn't know the name. It was some 'fortune cookie' like thing that the server will poke a hole in the middle then scope it in a bucket of 'soup'. It was not a hygiene choice because they usually handle food and money with the same hand. But we were adventurous enough to try it. The good thing is that we got for free. They decided not to charge us for that thing. It might be that they wanted us to sample it only.

We took another rickshaw from bazzar to train station, and waited the train at the station. The train station was not in good shape. I even think the old train station in Shanghai when I was young is better than the one in Agra. Finally, the train arrived after being 15 mintues late. We concluded our trip to Agra. During this trip, Jessica was mistaken as Tibetan when we were in Taj Mahal, and I was mistaken as Mongual at the train station. And we were being asked 'Japanese?' numerous times.

Around 11pm, we arrived Delhi train station. Our taxi driver was there already waiting for us, but we went to the wrong exit and we called the driver, and he asked us to wait at where we were, and he came and found us.

We got back to the guest house midnight. We would need to go to a different guest house for the night (which was owned by the same person and was really close to where we stay 2 days before). We went there and found the light in the toilet didn't work. The servant tried to get away from it, but I insisted him fixing the light. He changed light bulb and did something and WaLa, there came the light. The toilet still in bad shap but the room has a much quiter air condition. I had a better rest that night, and that was our day 4.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 50

2008-11-03T13:47:00.001-08:00

Day 3 in Noida, India. Morning 6am, we took a taxi to the Delhi train station. It's an old train station (not the one in new Delhi). It's in pretty bad shape. The guard there were all armed with rifle or machine guns. We went on the train, and found our seats after looking carefully at our tickets. The train ride itself was ok, but the sight along the way wasn't that pleasant. There was almost a village under each bridge we went by. By 10:30am, we arrived in Agra where we would see Taj Mahal. The moment we stepped off the train, we got followed by taxi drivers touting for service. We were convinced that a pre-paid taxi was the way to go, and we were looking for pre-paid taxi stand as soon as we left the platform. We saw a small pre-paid taxi stand across the exit, but it didn't look right to me. 'Where is the policy who is manning the booth?' I was thinking. 'It must not be the one'. We started to walk around and we were followed by a team of taxi drivers. We tried to ask the policeman at the gate where the pre-paid taxi was, and he wasn't really helpful (well, he wasn't helpful at all). Finally we circled back to the pre-paid taxi stand, and the policeman inside gave us a ticket, and we paid the taxi fee base on the price written on the board. I could feel the the people around me staring at my wallet intensively when I pulled the money out of the wallet. At that moment, we realized that police there and taxi drivers were working together. Police there didn't control the taxi drivers, it was the other way around. We took the reciept and followed the driver to the car. There were two of them in the car. One is the driver (who doesn't speak English), the other one is the talker. I was concerned with this fact and I made a phone call to our friend to let her know that we arrived and we were riding in taxi to our hotel. I talked loud enough so that the 'talker' can hear me. The talker started talking, introduced himself and asked our names. He said he was an economics major in the school and this was his side job. I asked him what did he think about the current stock market. He said, 'oh, there are a lot of markets here in India'. Yeah, right! He continued to try to sell us his guided tour in Agra, but I told him that we had a friend in the city and we were on our way to meet her. Then he finally shut up.

The taxi stopped around 500 meters away from Taj Mahal complex (that's what they call it, a complex) because taxi was not allowed to get closer. After confirming the fact with the hotel (thank god for unlocked cell phone), we got off the taxi and started to wonder where should we go now. The talker asked us for the reciept (with the reciept, they will go back to the train station to get the money we paid earlier). Then he grabbed a manual rickshaw and told us the rickshaw can take us there for 20 rupees. Well, he underestimated us. We asked him which direction the hotel was, and we started walking. We got in this local market street and it was in poor condition (to say the least). It's narrow, dirty, and full of traffic and touts. All kind of rickshaw, animal and people were walking in both directions. We walked for a while and reached a conjunction which we didn't know which branch to follow. The rickshaw driver at that time showed up and said 'wrong way, wrong way', and he 'insisted' to take us to the hotel. We asked him how much and he still said 20 rupees. "No way, we just walked that long way", I thought, I countered 10, and he accepted it. We hop on the rickshaw and he took us to the hotel (I found that we WERE heading the right direction). Anyway, we arrived and I paid him 10 rupees. He was mummering something (might be cursing us that time) but I didn't really care that much. It's not that I couldn't afford this 5 rupees ($1 = 45 rupees), it's a matter of principle. We just don't like to be ripped off when we know we can avoid, even for a penny.

After navigate through more touts we finally arrive the hotel. It was really close to Taj Mahal and it was quite and clean (comparing to outside). We settled down and we asked the hotel to arrange a taxi service for us to go to Fatephur Sikri, an abandoned kingdom for sightseeing. We asked for a non-AC car, because we were not huge fan of air condition in cars. The taxi driver showed up after 30 minutes and we set off our journey. The ride to the destination wasn't really peasant either, but by that time we have got used to it. Still the same image, dusty, dirty, animals, crazy drivers, and more of the same things.

The taxi driver dropped us off in front of a group of 'guides'. We are surrounded by them when we were still in the car. The moment we got off the car, we were attacked by all kinds of offers for guide services for various reasons. One guy tried to act authority-like and told us a guide was good for us because we won't be bothered there by other guides and beggars, and I fired him first (having problem with authority). We asked them how long was it to the gate, and they said it was gonna be 1 km. Well, we just ran a marathon, we can handle 1km. So we started to walk, then they followed us and said it was 2 km, the and told us the guys earlier tried to understate the distance so that we won't feel bored on the way. Well, 2km still didn't cut it. We went on walking. In the middle of way to the site, we met a single female (I think she is from US, but didn't ask her) on her way back from the opposite direction. I asked her how were things up there, and she said we just had to be persistent saying no. We compliment that she was so brave going there along (especially with a camera in front of her and small bag on her shoulder, she didn't look 'armed and dangerous' at all to me). Anyway, she looked not scared at all, and we were glad that we talked to her and felt much better about ourselves too. We kept on going and reached another fork branch road. We remember the girl told us to 'stay on the road', and we did. We went into a local market very much like the one we just went through one hour ago next to Taj Mahal. After 15 minutes of walking and we reached the end of the market and we realized that we went the wrong way. We then headed back to the branch road, and went onto another branch and finally we arrived the gate of the Fatepur Sikri complex.

Yes, there was an army of guides and touts, we ignored them and started our sightseeing. At this moment, anyone who wanted to start a conversation with us will be ignored and hold hostile against. Some guy in the complex asked us for video ticket when he saw me video taping, and I totally ignored him. He got louder and louder and eventually I told him if he wan't a policyman, don't bother talking to me. He continued to follow us and shouting for video tickets, and I decided to find a policy man for help. We eventually saw a policy man at the gate and we started to walk towards him. The other guy stopped following us and yelled at the policy man something and left. The policy asked me if I was video taping and I said yes. He told me that I needed a video ticket, and I could get it at the ticket office. Ok, I went back to the ticket office and got my ticket. Everything finally settled down. But I was at the edge by that time.

3 hours went by fast, I coudn't wait to leave because I was stressed out and was sick of the touts. Although the site itself worth the time to continue exploring, we have to get back to our taxi before it started to charge us 100 rupee / hour. We got back to the taxi and left the place. I was somewhat relaxed in the car. On our way back, we witnessed a street fight between two richshaw drivers. One of them pick up a brick on the ground and chased the other one. I didn't see the brick, my wife did. But it amazed me how one can just pick a brick from the ground in the middle of the road.

Back to hotel, we had our dinner at the hotel restaurant. It was a total rip off. The dinner was half of the price of our one night stay at the hotel, and we just had some vegatables, rice and egg. Fortunately, we brought some fish can with us, and we ate it with rice. That concluded our day 3 in Agra, India.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 49

2008-11-03T13:45:00.000-08:00

After we got back from Portland, OR for our first marathon, We rested on day at home (packed our luggage, cleaned the gutter). We sat on the plane to Delhi the next day.

We first arrived JFK airport @ NY around noon. We checked in, went through custom. And waited @ the gate for our plane from Air India. The plane itself wasn't bad. There weren't any seats in front of us so we have plenty leg space. Only the guy sitting next to us was a big guy and he took a lot of space. The food was great on the plane. Jessica had chicken curry and I ordered fish expecting something indian. Well, it was not, it's a western style poached fish and I didn't like it at all. The next day, breakfast was egg and sausage, nothing exciting. After 16 hours of sitting, we finally arrived Delhi at 4:45pm local time. The airport policy was armed with rifle or semi-auto machine guy. We had a pick up at the airport arranged by a friend of ours here in US. We were glad we had a pick up because the traffic is horrible and there wasn't much order or directions in clean display (and we soon found out the pre-paid taxi was not as we expected).

Arrived at the bride's home in Noida in the evening, I was tired already. We chated with bride's parents and we went to the guest house close by. The room seemed to be ok but the toilet is dirty (and soon we found it was normal). We didn't know how to use the water heater (or maybe it wasn't working anyway). I had to have a cold water shower. I wasn't feeling that well that night, and we decided not to go back to bride's home for dinner. We had some simple airplane food we saved, and I went to bed with air condition on. The air condition sounded like a jet plane and I coudn't stand it. I had to shut it down, but sleeping in a room with no windows at 90F wasn't pleasant either. The tiger essential balm came into rescue (thank god my wife packed it). I put it on my temple, under nose and back above my neck, and I felt much better. I had some rest the next morning before I woke up around 5am.

It was still early in the morning and our friend (the bride) surely wasn't wake. We walked around the block and watched the street getting busy. The streets are really in bad shape, dusty, dirty, and full of construction and human trashes. It wasn't a pleasant sight. We came back to hotel and waited for a while, then went to the bride's home. She was barely waking up so we sat outside of the house in the patio for a while. I had three cups of hot water and that helped bringing my fever down a bit more. We had breakfast almost noon (I was starving by that time), and the food was good. A bit later, we met the sister of one of our coworker friends here. She was nice enough to take us around for some shopping and she gave us a package to take back to US for her sister. We told her to bring more package because our luggage can fit more. So we agreed to meet again two days later when we were back from Agra. After that, we just sat around in bride's house and in the afternoon, we went to a nearby 'club' (almost like a building built for community event) for the engagement party. The club seemed to be half done, there were still constructions going on next to it. Anyway, we started the party a while later and the guests started to arrive. The cousins of the bride danced at the party, and we enjoyed the show. The groom eventually showed up and the dance show stopped. The official engagement ceremony started.

While the couple was sitting in front of everybody going through the ceremony. Guests started to eat. We liked the food there even there wasn't any animal protein. The engagement party went on, and we finally left for guest house and went to bed early because we had a early train to catch the next day. That was our day 2 in Noida, India.

Beethoven in Trance - Episode 48

2008-10-21T11:50:00.000-07:00

Our first marathon was quite an experience.

We arried Portland OR on Oct. 3rd. and we went to a local Japenses supermarket right after. We had a great time shopping there and had its dinner box in its food court as well. We arrived our download hotel in the evening and called a night.

Woke up the next morning, we went to pick up our car and drove to some local ethnic stores. One Japense store, where we had our history lesson by the store owner. One Chinese-Vitnamese supermarket where I had great time touring its meat department. We shopped and bought its vietnamese lunch box at noon. The lunch was great, pork, tiger skin egg, fish, a pig feet soup and jasmine rice. We were very happy when we left the store.

Returned our rental, we took a light rail train from the airport back to downtown Portland. We won't need the rental on the race day, so we pay for it and its parking? We walked around downtown a bit and bought our dinner in Safeway. We had a mix salad, and some bread. We toasted the bread in the oven in the hotel, and it was goooooood.

Next morning we woke up early. We toasted some bagel we got the night before (they were so good), and ready for the race.

7am we started the race, it was cloudy and a bit chilli. I started the first mile all right, and when I got into mile 2, I started to feel my IT band near my knee getting crampy. At mile 3 I knew I will have to do another marathon because I was not at my best. After mile 5, well, I started to walk a bit more at the water station and stretch. Mile 7 and 8, I pretty much walked more than I ran. And it started to pull, we were wet and I was cold because I wasn't running. My wife was doing ok and she walked with me. I was managed to pass 13 mile mark and at that point, I wasn't able to run any more, and even walking was a challenge to me. From mile 13 and forward, I was limping and shaking in the raining. Eventually, I made it to a waterstation at mile 16.5 and I decided to quit the race. It was 1pm all ready and my firend Abi was waiting for us at the finishline. She will have to go back to Seattle around 6pm and I didn't believe I could finish the race before then. Considering that and the fact India trip is 3 days away, I said goodbye to my wife and waited at the station for a pickup to the med-aid station at the finish line. My wife went to finish the race.

At the finish line I got my IT band checked up and I met our friend Abi there. We waited till my wife crossing the finish line. She finished the last 10 miles in one hour and 45 mintues. We went back to hotel and Abi got me some painkiller for the leg. We went to Todai (the Japense seafood buffet) but it wasn't open till 5pm. So we went to Macroni grill across the street instead and had some snacks. The food was good there, and we had a good time together.

After saying goodbye to Abi at the train station, we went back to Todai (it's one of the reason we came to Portland for the race). I was thrilled to see all the Sashimi and jumbo shrimp. We started our raw fish eating spree, and by the end of the dinner, I was stuffed with raw fish.

The next day, we took the train back to airport and said good bye to Portland. I love that city, especially the food. The city is clean, and very culture oriented. It has a large asian populations and mexicans as well. When I was in Todai, all the food there is handled by mexicans (only one Japense, Chiense looking guy working there). I looked at them and said 'mexicans built this country'.

Back to Cleveland, there is some regret that I wasn't able to finish the race, but it wasn't a huge. I guess all great food made up the dissapointment, besides, my wife finished it, at least one of us did it.

Will have to have a physician to look at the problem.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 47

2008-08-05T10:59:00.000-07:00

Hi Mark,

Congratulations on the new job.

I guess you have found the answer to your question; sometimes one just needs to 'work' the problem out. I think you have found your confidence back and got back on track through good work in the last few months. Certainly, I think good managers and the article 'no excuse' also helped in the process as well.

congratulations once again and wish you a good run in your new position.

Mark

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 46

2008-08-05T10:46:00.000-07:00

Finally, I am getting to an end of the job transition saga...

I accepted an job offer yesterday afternoon. It's a data analyst position in national acquisition team in the company. To some extent, I feel like going back to sales again, which I like. Comparing to the previous job that I got turned down, this position is actually better.

Applying for this position and interviewing process is interestingly not that difficult. The hiring manager seemed to like my background when I first talked to him about the position. I was encouraged to apply, and I did. It took a while for HR to coordinate the interview but finaly I was scheduled to talk to four people in one day. The first interview with hiring manager went well, and the second and third interviews were ok, but not stellar. The last interview was, for the lack of the word, interesting. The interviewer, another manager in eMarketing, is also posting a new position. Therefore, he is also interviewing candidates. So, I was somehow double interviewed, and I was told during the interview that I could also apply for the newly posted position in eMarketing. And I did the next day.

By the end of the week, I was already offered by the hiring manager in national acquisition, and I was also scheduled to have three interviews with eMarketing the next week. The two hiring managers had reached an agreement that I could go through the interviews in eMarketing and I could potentially pick one offer from the two (given that I get the second offer from eMarketing as well). Everything sounded good at that point, and I went through three more rounds of interviews with eMarketing the next week and waited for a final answer.

Then things started to turn. eMarketing was bringing more candidates for interviewing. The national acquisition team is eager to bring me onboard as soon as possible, while the eMarketing seems to be taking time. I was asked by HR for preference, and I picked eMarketing (I had been seeking advice from people around and I was told eMarketing is a better choice). However, it seems that the choice wasn't mine eventually. This message wasn't forwarded to either of the managers according to HR. I was told by HR that I need to make a final decision yesterday to accept or turn down the first offer from national acquisition team, and at the same time, eMarketing team won't give me an answer till two days later. I went to talk to eMarketing team and I was told I don't need to make a final decision right away, and I can wait till Thursday when eMarketing made up their mind, then I can make a final decision then. Well, the conflicting messages were running in circle between me, HR, and two managers. And eventually, it turned out that I need to make a final decision yesterday. And by the way, it was already 3 weeks after I interviewed with the job in national acqusition team.

So, I have one bird in hand, and one bird in the woods. I like the one in the woods, but the one in hand is nice too, and more importantly, it's in my hand now. And I don't have any garantee that I can get the bird in the woods either. So I made the final decision yesterday afternoon to accpet the first offer I got from national acquisition team. By the end of yesterday, the job hunting saga is finally coming to an end.

It was an interesting adventure, and certainlly much politics involved as well. The two hiring managers were good friends, according to them, but I don't know how good the friendship is now. HR plays the role as well in this saga, as the contact person was conveniently out of office yesterday.

All in all, I am happy with the decision. I got what I applied for initially. The hiring manager seems to be a nice person and I look forward to working with him. I will be the only analyst in his group, and there are two account managers under his management as well.

All sound good so far. This is a promotion and I get a higher salary and better gain share. I will be transfering to the new job by the end of this month. Will see what happens next.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 45

2008-05-02T18:18:00.000-07:00

I got the phone call from the hiring manager last Friday.

And it was bad news, which I somehow expected.

The reason is simple: 'quality issue'.

After talking to my currently manager, the hiring manager decided that I am not ready for the new position because of this 'quality issue'.

I somehow didn't feel as bad as I expected... maybe deep down I knew I wasn't ready...

Come to think of it, I might be rushed into applying for this position. After hearing the current manager talking about 'there are other opportunities', 'pricing is hard', I got the feeling that he wanted me to move on. So I did, but I failed.

Well, I didn't do well during the interview, I knew that. The confidence just wasn't there. If I don't believe in the product, I can't sell it. That's why I didn't get the job.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 44

2008-04-28T18:20:00.000-07:00

Interviews are over.

Finally.

Just finished the last interview this afternoon with one of the hiring managers in the group, and how do I feel? Not good.

As a matter of fact. It was not good at all.

First two rounds of interviews were done on last Thursday. It was a brutal experience because all three of them asked me the same question: what will your manager say about me? Well, is that a good question...

I wasn't fully prepared for that question, and guess what I did when I was asked by this straight forward manner. I told the truth. It's not a bad thing to tell the truth, but sometimes, truth is hard to swallow. I could the sense the intensity in the air when I told them that I made mistakes before, and my manager is aware of that. I was so eager to turn around this 'Kodak moment' and I ended up saying more than I should. You can guess the rest...

So, I came back on Thursday and thought I could save the day today with the last hiring manager. Well, I was wrong. They changed the questions and I could tell, he already heard about my 'situation'. What I prepared for the interview was not used, and I ended up not saying what I should be saying...

All because of the voice in my head 'you have quality issue, you have quality issue'. ..

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 43

2008-04-23T18:25:00.000-07:00

Time to panic.

Interview tomorrow afternoon, with sales and distribution group. I have had an informational interview with the hiring managers and still didn't have a clear picture of what they do.

The interview is in part, a result of my recent 'performance action plan' with my direct manager, who recently mentioned that there were other opportunities in the company in our recent meeting. The conversation changed my decision on whether to apply for this position.

So what are the other reasons I want to change my job? Hum... let me think... Well, I came from a sales and marketing background and I might fit in better in the new group. There are more data analysis projects in the new group than my current group where I spent most of the time on filing. The new job is a step closer to sales and marketing job.

But still, is any of the above reason strong enough for me to leave the current post? I don't have the answer. I have to evaluate the pros and cons here. The pros of staying in the current job are: learning special lines business, pricing? and working with good team. The cons include: one more mistake and I will be out, really feel like a hostile environment. I can't see my future in pricing. Can't see any project in the near future that will leverage my strength-technical skills.
The pro of the new position: new beginning, new learning, and a 'less hostile environment' to work in. It's a one step closer to sales and marketing which is a field I am interested in getting into in the future ideally for a cookware company. And I have more interest in sales than filing. The cons include: it might turn into a reporting type of position that I eventually grow bored with. The challenges involved in the position is unknown, and I don't know if I can handle them or not.

If I break the pros and cons down even further, I will have to ask 'what do I want to learn in pricing?' How to price insurance? Well, I got the basics covered, the question should be how to more accurately price insurance? Well, that will involved much more technical research on the statistics and actuarial science. Do I want to do that? Hum.. maybe not. So, there is not much learning in how to price then. How about learning special line business? Well, what aspect of special line business I want to learn? Sales, marketing, IT, or ... pricing? As a pricer, I have limited resource and time to learn and research these area. How about filing? Yes, there are still things to learn in filing, how we state our rule in the filing, and how we charge people with the coverage and rating factors. I have some general ideas of them and I think those are useful information for me to understand the insurance business fundamental. But after learning all these, there doesn't seem to be much left for me to stay. Therefore, it's just matter of time I leave pricing.

So if eventually will leave pricing, the question become 'is it the time for me to leave pricing?'. Considering the current hostile working environment and no project that requires my strength, it sounds like a good idea to leave now.

But wait, what about the learning from pricing? Do I just gave it up? Have I learned everything I need to learn in pricing? Well, I am sure there are plenty to learn in pricing, but does the learning contribute to my career goal? And compare to the learning in the new group, what will the answer be?

Now, what I need to find out is how to get into the new position and whether or not the new position is a good fit for me.

And the night before the interview is really not a good time to try to figure out the answers to those questions...

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 42

2008-04-07T17:08:00.000-07:00

Dear Mark,

Sorry to get back to you this late.

Unfortunately I don't have any good advice for you at this moment. However, I would like to get back to you later when I do.

Hang in there.

Mark

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 41

2008-03-10T14:02:00.000-07:00

Dear Mark,

I am writing to seek advice on my career development. I have been working in an insurance company as a pricing analyst for about 2 years now and I have not been successful. The reason I end up in the company is because I need the company sponsorship. There are not many companies out there these days are willing to sponsor international students, not to mention in this job market. The job requires a detail oriented person and appearantly I am not. This is not the first job that I have in this company. I previously worked in the corporate finance department and wasn't successful either for the same reason. I did make some improvements along the way, but still it just doesn't measure up.

Last week I made a mistake in my job, which was caught pretty late in the game. Fortunately I was able to fix the problem eventually but the business impact could have been substantial. My manager told me that he would talk to me today. And in the meeting this morning, he gave me a performance plan. It is a 60 days performance plan that requires me to resolve my 'quality issue', or I will be pretty much gone. It seems to be the last step before discontinuing employment.

Since last week, I have been reflecting on how I have been doing in my career since my bachelor degree, and here is my story.

I worked as a warehouse person in charge of promotional give-aways for Budweiser company when I was a freshman in college back in China. I was doing all right, because I was doing the heavy labor work with no complains. That job doesn't require many special skills, only the willingness to get the job done. It was good experience for a college student though, to get to know what was going on outside the campus and how difficult money can be made.

After I graduate, I joined the Gillette company as a management trainee. I was first assigned to Sales team as a door-to-door sales person for 3 months. I was the first college graduate doing this job, and I was doing quite well. Again, the job requires a thick skin, and interpersonal skills and the willingness to close the sale. I remember I didn't like the commute of the job, but I didn't really mind meeting the people once I started talking, even the nasty people.

After my 3 month sales training, I was transferred back to HQ, and was working with a newly assigned 'trade marketing manager' to set up the new 'trading marketing department' which is a bridge between sales and marketing. I had the best time working there. I was busy, but had fun. I was a good candidate at that time because I had great attitude and some computer skills that my manager (who comes from a sales background) didn't have. I did make mistakes at that time and I was sometimes frustrated because sales director sometimes caught those mistakes and he wasn't happy about it. I talked to my manager once and asked him whether the sales director didn't like me for whatever reason? I was told the opposite, my manager said the sales director told him that I was a 'good material', and he should develop me well. I was happy to hear that. My manager and I talked about job, frustrations and life together all the time, and I felt supported and motivated to do a good job.

But the good time didn't last long. Gillette sold the products that we worked on to Rubbermaid, and the company re-organized afterwards. The marketing director asked me if I was interested in working in Gillette Marketing department. I first said no, because I understood how difficult it was to find a good manager like mine. But after talking with my manager, he suggested I move on to the Gillette marketing because it was a bigger role in a bigger department. He told me it was a good career move. I then talked to the marketing director again that day and I got the job the week after.

All things seemed to move along well till that point. I was working under a female manager from HK. Her managering style is different from my previous one. I didn't enjoy the work much and as a matter of fact I didn't know much about what I was doing. The only achievement I made in that department is that I suggested a marketing message to the advertising company for an upcoming new product in front of marketing director, and they took the advice. Come to think of it, the marketing director must see something in me so that he helped me along my career.

However, my career stopped at that point. I decided to quit my job and purpuse my master degree in US. I was preparing the tests at home for about 5 months, and then took the test afterwards. I then went back to work force. First I joined a small trade organization who promotes US produce and fruits. It was a temperate job that I took before I could move on to something else or leaving for my master degree in US. I also was interviewing other jobs at that time, and essentially I got a job in adidas. Come to think of it, the job in the trade organization was a good opportunity for a enterprising type of person, but at that time, career wasn't something in my mind.

The job in adidas is about product training. I could do that well. But I still didn't have the motive or guidance to do a good job. Half of the time I didn't know what I should know,and I was bored. If I have the chance now, I believe I would have done a much better job. But at that time, I did realize my career in adidas would be short, I was planning on moving on to Nike after two years in adidas. But it never happened.

Because I came to US for my MBA program.

I wasn't a good student in the program and haven't been. Look back the years I was a student, I did manage to get through various exams and test to get me to the next level, but most of them utilized a bust of energy with some persistence instead of consistent improvement on a solid base. The only thing I was good at is English. I could speak this language well, only because I watched many movies and played many pc games. I wasn't good at grammar though.

The only good project I did in the MBA program is about a technical topic and I was somewhat familiar with. I was the only one on the team who is interested in the subject. I was able to do the research and present the case in a clear and interesting way. It was a job well done.

After the program, I moved to CA looking for IT job. I wasn't lucky. IT industry was at its lowest point and I couldn't get an interview. I did get a telemarketing job during that year (after being a Chinese cashier in a Korean restaurant serving Mexican burito), because we (my wife and I) needed the money. I was doing all right, though I hated the job. I was making over hundred phone calls a day and the job drained my energy every day.

Before another year ended, I went back to school again in Chicago. This time, I was in the marketing communication program. Life in Chicago was all right at the begining but rapidly turned bad. I did like the program, but it was very expensive, and I couldn't afford the whole school year without financial aid. I wasn't able to find an on campus job and I didn't have a scholarship (not like the previous MBA program). I had a good project in the program which was for a non-profit organization to redesign its website. I was the project leader and I had some 'non-cooperative' member on my team. I pushed my communications hard on them, and eventually the project was done and well recieved by the client. I felt the reason of the success is that I was interested in marketing and I had techincal background knowledge of the website.

Then I was transferred to Case western in Cleveland for its operation management program. It was the right move for me as my money was running out and my life in Chicago was getting miserable. I stayed in a graduate student co-op, and was elected as the house president. I was fortunate to handle some tough issues during my stay there and became a person who was trusted among the house members. Meanwhile, I got the opportunity to further develop my interest in cooking in the house too. I think I was viewed as a righteous, and hardworking person who was willing to help others in the house.

After graduate again from the program, I was able to find the job in my current employer. That is where all my questions started. I am thinking the only reason I am still here is that I did a good job in automating a data updating process. However, since it's not the core function of the department, the contribution is less important.

I do think it's time to re-launch my career. I do think the performance plan will help me staying alert and prevent me from sliding again. But the question is what next? I can't see myself working in my current position in the next 5 years, and I don't really know what I can be in this company. And what I like to be is so remote and constrained by other factors. I really need to be successful at work again.

Sincerely,

Mark

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 40

2008-03-04T20:29:00.001-08:00

Boredom has been defined by Fisher in terms of its central psychological processes: “an unpleasant, transient affective state in which the individual feels a pervasive lack of interest in and difficulty concentrating on the current activity. M. R. Leary and others define boredom similarly, and somewhat more succinctly, as “an affective experience associated with cognitive attentional processes.”^[4] These definitions make it clear that boredom arises not for a lack of things to do but the inability to latch onto any specific activity. Nothing engages us, despite an often profound desire for engagement.

Boredom is a condition characterized by perception of one's environment as dull, tedious, and lacking in stimulation.

Boredom is my job.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 39

2008-02-18T20:38:00.000-08:00

One colleagues of mine brought in some Hungarian dish she made this morning. She herself is polish, but I think she did a good job making this dish. I enjoyed so much that I wrote a review of her dish as my appreciation.

Sandra's Chicken Popercosh
- Home made food at its best

Critics' Rating: 9
Eater's Rating: 10

Review:
A good dish is a marriage between fine ingredients and the accurate execution of a recipe, and Sandra's chicken popercosh is a great example of this culinary truth. It's so easy to pick on a chicken dish. It's an easy ingredient, and yet, because it's so easy, few people actually get it
right. Typical restaurants serve chicken breast that are sliced then grilled and topped on the salad, or whole piece of chicken breast smudged in the mushy roux. Dinners often end up with chicken either too dry or too bland.

Fortunately Sandra's chicken popercosh stayed away from the above course. The selected cut of this dish is chicken thigh (probably the only piece of muscle a bird will use nowadays). This is also a much tolerable cut of a bird, meaning there is less chance of overcooking. The skin is left on to
preserve flavor, and the rich sauce is seasoned just right. A biscuit is on the side while it's not a traditional approach, but for a non-polgarian, this is a fine replacement of the dumpling.

The dish has a non-apologizing and concentrated flavor throughout. The sauce is not as smooth as a typical roux, but the texture matches beautifully with the biscuit on the side. The chicken thigh is cooked perfectly, juicy, tender and full of flavor. The sourness in background of the sauce helps cutting down the grease and enticing the appetite. The sauce is blended with the chicken perfectly. One can tell it's not one of those dishes that the sauce is poured on a precooked chicken at the end.

As an eater, I rate this dish a 10. It's a straight forward dish with great flavor, great cut of the meat and a full body sauce. Unfortunately, it's not an easy dish for restaurant to adopt because of the bone. If replace with skin-on chicken breast, this dish will lose its texture and flavor. If de-bone the thigh, this dish will incur high labor cost and a flat piece of meat with irregular shape which poses challenge to the presentation. Unless one replace the bone with roasted red bell pepper slices, but the labor cost will be unbearable.

As a food critics, I took total one point off from presentation and flavor. This dish calls for more color for garnish. A few slender stems of chive or few tiny sprigs of parsley will certainly brighten up this dish. The sauce of this dish is great on its own, but I would like to push you for more creativity. How to set the flavor apart from any other popercosh? Where is the 'Sandra's touch' in this dish? These are the questions for all of us, and therefore, there will be very few, if any, dishes that I will give a 10 for.

Finally, I am grateful as an eater and delighted as a critics. I would very much like to have the recipe please.

Mark Liang
Eater and Food Snob

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 38

2008-01-30T08:52:00.000-08:00

It's still winter, and still boring...

A pulled hamstring has put me out for a month now. Did a recovery running two days ago when weather was nice. Felt pretty good that day, and then it hit me the next afternoon. Today I am feeling all right, but clearly understand all the leg muscle are under stress. Not more running for at least two days. Will take a walk in the office though.

Just received PE, and this time it was better that last year. But salary is only bumped 2.81%. 2.81%? Where the heck is that number from? It was not motivative at all. The manager told me that was not the whole picture, I was at a high compensation ratio, so that I will need to be promoted in order to receive a higher raise. So what stopped you promoting me? Oh, it's done in July every year. Oh, I see. I got back to my seat and later receive an email announcing two colleagues got promoted. Hum....

Stock market is in roller coast mode right now. Retirement accounts all dropped around 9 - 10%, which mimics the total market. We are 'front loading' our 401K accounts this year - meaning higher contribution % to the accounts at the beginning of the year. We are 'buying low' at the current market condition, and hopefully, when the market gets back on track, we can 'sell high'.

It's getting difficult to buy running shoes on cheap these days. The more run I do, the pickier I am about the running shoes. Ascis so far is the best fit for me. But my GT2110 is half gone now, and I started to looking online for replacement. There were some deep discount on amazon.com last year end. I bought some shoes with free shipping and free return shipping to try on. I kept one Columbia to replace my dying Ascis Eagle Trail, which didn't turn out to be the best idea as it was a little to big for my feet. I have to put in another cushion to wear it. But lesson learned, I returned all the other shops even they were dirt cheap because I wasn't completely happy with their feel on my feet.

Instead, I bought two pairs from SportsAuthority. One is Mizuno Wave Alchmey 6 for me, and one is Saucony Grid Sinister for my wife. It's a buy one and get the second one half off, plus 20% off clearance item deal. Each costs about $38, which is a pretty good deal considering both shoes are not cheap originally. Later on, I found a pair of NB trail running shoes and Ascis Gel Kayano 8 on sale. One is $39, and the other is $59. I took both because they were more than 50% off. I have received none of them yet, but look forward to testing them on the road.

With all the purchase, it wrote off $140 in my shoe budget (which I don't have). The original budget of the year was $50, which come to think of it, was too low. Considering our current running milage over the year. I think I will have to adjust it to $100. For this year, $50 of the $140 will go to my shoe budget, and $90 will go to my birthday gift account. And I still have $10 left from the birthday gift account to spend. I think I might pick up a chinese cleaver from China town, but I haven't decided yet.

Other than shoe shopping, I also did some clothe shopping. It started as our regular cookware shopping and I didn't find any good deals on pots and pans. I then started to look at clothe in hope to find some running shirts. I didn't find any running shirts, but I did find some sports jacket. I found one Columbia 'softshell' windstopper, and a Lafuma (an european brand) 'Techwarm' fleece jacket. They seemed to fit my body frame, and @ reasonable price, $20 in clearance section. I took both. Then I found another long sleeve 'Tech shirt', well, more like a long sleeve golf techshirt, I took it @ $10 too.

Now that just got my clothe shopping nerve all iched up, we will go shopping for clothe again after Valentine's day.

It was 12F outside this morning, sun shine though. Our home is running @ 48F. To most of the Americans, it is a 'freezing' temperature, but we seem to survive just fine.

Beethoven In Trance - Special Episode 2007 Annual Letter

2007-12-28T14:08:00.000-08:00

2007 is a year of on track.

At the beginning of 2007, we thought 2007 would be a year of improvement as it seemed to be a natural continuum to the new things that we had got in 2006 (a new car, a new house, a new job and a new married life). Now looking back what we have accomplished in the passing year, we find the main theme is more accurately described as 'on track'.

Our personal finance management project is the star of the year. I looked over my notes (notes system is the result of a training program called 'Get things done') and was able to trace it back to March when there was no project, only thoughts and researches . Gradually, thoughts are combined with research results and translated into tasks. During the process, the personal finance project was born.

The project consists three parts, retirement planning, budgeting and expense management. Retirement planning focuses on investment and I am taking the lead. Jessica has been doing accounting since 2006, therefore, she is naturally the expense manager. We work together on budgeting as it includes cash reserve for both investment and various expenses. We like this arrangement as we can focus on our individual responsibility while still work as a team.

In retirement planning, we have revised our 401K portfolio, and opened a new RothIRA account and another after-tax investment account. There are few benefits to have these accounts. They bring diversified selections to our retirement money (our 401K account has a small pool of choices). The money saved in RothIRA can be withdrawn tax free after retirement. It is also tax efficient to have RothIRA to hedge the 401K account after retirement (instead of being hit by a lump sum from 401K). We are still fine tuning the magic number to allocate fund among the three accounts.

We selected ETF and index fund in our investment accounts. I didn't include individual stock because it's too big a chunk for me to chew. ETF and index funds are cheaper and stable, therefore, ideal for retirement investment. We selected the brokerages based on commission, fees, service and convenience. So far we haven't had any issues. The performance of our selected funds is not stellar due to the overall sluggish market condition. We are in the valley now. We expect to get back next year after we rebalance our portfolio. In 2007 our goal of investment was "to get into the game", while in 2008 we hope to "play the game".

Another vehicle of preserve wealth is banking, which we haven't worked on very hard in 2007. Bank interest rate has been falling during the last couple months when federal reserve cut the rates. There are better rates out there comparing to what we have now, and we are in the process to move our money. The rate cut brings down the mortgage rate too, which is to our benefit if we refinance. This of course, is on our 2008 task list.

We also opened two credit cards in 2007. One is for store Tjmaxx which we spend most of our shopping money. The other one is American Express, which is for our shopping in Costco. Both cards give rewards. We dig out our previously opened Amazon credit card for the same reason as well.

In 2007, I acquired some cookware, 17 pieces totaling $347. There are some good buys and some wastes. The 4qt. stainless steel pressure cooker from LNT @ $15 is the pan of year. (price is after mail in rebate which I just received). The worst buy is the Spain-made Paella Pan @ 7 because I rarely use it. I also bought a few French-made cooper pan lined with tin, but due to the high maintenance, I returned to the shop. Another piece worth mentioning is the thin cast iron wok I got from "The Wok Shop" through amazon.com. The wok didn't come as I expected and the shipping cost prohibited me from returning it. I had to use it and now I start to have a better opinion of it.

Other than cookware, I acquired some knifes and chopping board. I also bought a knife sharpener to bring some of my old knifes back to life. It was a long journey to find the perfect chopping board and I finally settled with a deep-discounted butcher block from Tjmaxx @ $36 (original price is $100). During the search, I have bought and returned 3 cutting boards from Costco and two from Lowes. I was also managed to glue a splitted bamboo chopping block that I previously bought for $5.

We didn't spend much on clothing in 2007 due to the limited need. I did buy a pair of running shoes from amazon (as it's the fitting model on sale), and a pair of trail shoes for daily walking (to replace my Asics Gel Eagle Trail), and a pair of adidas G-Tex mountain shoe for the snow in winter Cleveland (to replace my old adidas mountain shoe that I brought from China 6 years ago).

On the other end of expense, I am happily to report an earning of $900 for the trainings I did during the year. I have gathered some useful information about the current situation in China and expect to get to read more in the coming year.

Overall, our best money move in 2007 might be opening the RothIRA and the worst money move might arguably be paying a big lump sum of our mortgage at the beginning of the year on our principle (rather than investment). We expect to have a better picture on the expense side next year.

Setting money aside, our first year married life is doing all right. Nothing major, as we have lived together for 5 years. My in-laws (visited from Canada) stayed with us for almost a year, during when they were managed to move their son from Canada to US, who eventually got a job here and had a baby girl in 2007. It has been suggested in multiple occasions by multiple people that we should have a baby. We are glad to report that this will be one of our 2008 objectives.

During my in-laws stay, we visited Niagara Falls, New Mexico for the International Ballon Festival and Colorado. The trips are well organized, and I was happy with the food that I made in the hotel in a small sauce pan over an electric burner.

Speaking of cooking, I read a Chinese cook book that my mum brought to me in 2006. I enjoyed the book and learned a few tricks that clarified my misunderstanding of certain cooking techniques. I have tested a few recipes and applied some techniques in my cooking and the result is very promising.

2007 is also the first year we went fishing here in Cleveland. We didn't have much luck in most of the lakes around the town till our neighbor brought us to a creek close by. We closed 2007 with a triumph catch of a heavy weight carp. I butchered it afterwards (which was made into a home video), cooked it, and shared with our neighbor that night.

We hosted a party in late summer joined with our friends from India. We got to know them from the school. We had a wonderful time and wonderful food that night. Months later, one of the guests returned the favor by inviting us to her party to celebrate ‘Dawali’ (Festival of Light, a major Indian festival holiday). Again, we were accompanied by some great friends and enjoyed this foreign festival very much.

Our neighbor helped us installing a ventilation fan in our kitchen in the summer. This helps mitigating our constant smoke alarm situations though doesn’t completely eliminated the instance. I finally decided to remove the smoke alarm and sit them inside the bedroom next to the windows. We had Lowes installed our two entry doors (after an unpleasant encounter with Homedepot) and painted them in bright colors. Though the color is great, the paint brush stroke is still visible when looking closely. We are still very amateur in painting. I put in some drain caps on the gutter and bathtub. They seem to be effective preventing basement leak this year. I also moved the dehumidifier up to the bathroom from the basement this winter. It dries up the bathroom fairy well (in absence of a ventilation fan) after the shower. We still have a leaking roof, which we plan to fix in the coming year (I remember I said that in 2006).

We have been recovering from the injuries we got from the 2006 half marathon. Unfortunately, I just injury the hamstring and calf again lately due to a longer-than-usual run. Hope we fully recover soon and will be able to run a full marathon in 2008.

We continue to watch movies around the world last year. We got our movies from the local library for free. We watched most of works from Hayao Miyazaki in the last two months. His work is not a stranger to me, as I’ve heard of him before I came to US. I didn’t appreciate much his work at that time because I was very much into ‘Ghost in the Shell’ type of animation. Now I consider him a very important animator and director in the world cinema as he always portraits the purist virtues through his amazing characters and unbounded imagination.

The last month of the year we got into a ‘Bollywood Mood’ after we watched the movie ‘Veer Zaara’ (I heard this name from a Indian movie award show DVD). I liked it very much and started to look for Indian movies. I found the movie ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham’ through the song ‘You are my Sonia’ from Youtube (I watched the MTV years ago and still remembered). Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham means Sometimes Happiness, Sometimes Sadness. This is a pretty accurate description of life in general I will say. And one thing leads to another, I now have over 20 movies on my list in the library thanks to Wikipedia. Both of us have been singing the tune ‘Bole Chudiyan’ (a song from the movie Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham) for almost a week now. We watch the movie two nights ago and we just can’t get enough of it.

With a happy Hindi song and a finance structure that is coming into shape, I am glad to conclude the year 2007 as a year of ‘on track’, and report the answer “Yes” to my father's question 'is it a better year than the previous year?'.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 37

2007-11-12T16:30:00.000-08:00

Winter.

Last weekend we cleaned up most of the leaves in the yard, and some in the front yard. Our Japanese maple is growing strong, we anticipate another weekend spent on cleaning up the front yard.

Can't install the heating cable though, we don't have the switch to turn on and off the cable inside the room. Someone changed the switch to a wall outlet and now we end up not be able to use the outlet outside to plug in the cable to defrost snow, and believe me, there will be snow winter in Cleveland.

Our retirement investment account just dropped $200 today. Not a good thing.

Winter, it's getting boring...

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 36

2007-10-25T10:17:00.000-07:00

My grandmother is from Wuxi. Her family relatives usually brings in Wuxi pork rib from there to Shanghai where we live. I still remember the taste, color, and texture of the pork rib vividly. It comes in a cardboard box with wax paper lined inside. The pork rib is very tender (more than fork tender). The color of the meat is red (yes it's blody red), with no trace of soy sauce in color or taste. The taste is on the sweat side without noticable cinamon flavor. It smells wonderful, and nothing like 'five spice'. That was 20 years ago.

Every few years, we will have family visitors from Wuxi coming to Shanghai. They usually bring us Wuxi pork rib. I started to notice the change of the pork rib as the time went by. The color is not red any more (noticable soy sauce color). The flavor has changed too, with noticable five spice aroma. It did not taste like, looked like, and smelled like the Wuxi pork rib years ago any more.

I have given up the Wuxi pork rib years ago, as our family visitors from Wuxi told us in the last visit that there were many 'Wuxi' pork rib shop in the city now, and even the local couldn't tell which one is the best or the most authentic. I was disapointed, somewhat sad, and even angry.
I recently saw a food post online about a Wuxi pork rib recipe from the Gourmet magazine. The poster called the recipe 'authentic to the bone!'. I resisted the urgy to say 'you don't know what you are talking about', and red through the recipe. I was truely dissapointed. There is nothing in the recipe to give the meat the true 'red' color first of all, and the recipe is pretty much a 'five spice' soy sauce pork rib. One can easily re-package this recipe into a 'Red cook' pork rib (note that the color of Chinese Red Cook pork is not Red, it's dark brown).

Is this Wuxi pork rib recipe lost forever? I don't know, but I will certainly go look for it when I get back to China. There is a scene at the end of the movie Ratatouille when the food critics Anton Ego tastes the ratatouille and the dish brings him back his childhood. Yes, that's the Wuxi pork rib I am looking for, and I hope I can find it very soon.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 35

2007-10-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

2007 Colorado and New Mexico trip.

Open road, big mountains, sunny sky without a shredd of cloud, and a v6 engine car.
We started from Denver. Flight a red-eye there and started the day right after we got the rental. I didn't sleep well the night before as usual when I have to sleep early than usual in order to get up early next morning. I ended up taking the naps at the airport and plane. The seats there were so uncomfortable, and my butt still hurts.

Sat in the rental and finished the breakfast, we went for our first stop - Pikes Peak in Colorado spring. After 1.5 hr. drive, we saw some amazing rocks and reached the foot of the mountain. It took $35/car and 2hr. just to get up and down the mountain. The ride up the mountain is quite nice, blue sky, fall color leaves, low speed limit so that we can enjoy the view, zig zag paved road (for a while), and very often some overlook area for us to park the car and take picture of the nature's beauty. 19 miles total and 14000 meters to the top. I started to feel difficulty in breathing when we hitting the top, and when we actually reached the top, we went into a shop (the only shop), I grabed a Gatorade (@ $3.41) and we each got a free donuts (with coupon that we printed out before the trip). It was cold on the top, air is thin, some elder is carring a oxygen can with him. Mother-in-law started to feel dizzy and we quickly went back into the car and headed back. We stoped by in the middle of the road as there is a pretty amazing lake rested in the mountain. The tire took the some beat as the road is not paved half the way, rocks were grinded under the tire, setting off a strange, burning smell of rubber.

Finally, we got back down, and we headed to the next point of attraction. It was about 4pm already. The next attraction is not far away. Within half hour we reached Garden of God. We saw some interesting rocks, big rocks sitting on top of small ones without falling off. We took some pictures of the light brown rock with blue sky in the background. The dirt is also brown and red. Soon we found out the whole state is in this color as all the houses dress in this redish brown with a blue door.

We finished day 1 and got back to hotel afterwards. I didn't sleep well that night either.
Day 2 we headed to New Mexico. We drove by Trinity Welcome Center to get our free T-shirt (yes, they have free T-shirt available for order online), then we reached Santa Fe around noon. We walked around downtown Santa Fe (the Plaza), took pictures, got some "Canitas" from the food cart there for lunch ($5). There is another food cart on the other side of the town center square called "Fajitas", unfortunately when I finished my Canitas and wanted to have another beef fajitas ($4), they sold out beef already. They still had chicken, but chichen is for chicken. I left there with some regret.

Next stop Tent Rock in Albuquerque. It's an interesting place with rocks looking like tents. The road to get into the park was not paved at all, and it was a very bumpy ride to get into the park. Finally we reached the parking lot. We packed some water and Gaterade (that we got from a supermarket the day before @ $1 each). It's about 1.5 mile to get on the top, we saw some beautiful rock and scenery along the way. The hike wasn't difficult, but not wheelchair friendly either. We finished the day with me and father in law climbing into a rock cave 20 feet above the ground. We went to hotel afterwards and that was day 2. I didn't sleep well that night.

We got up early (3am) in the morning the next day. Day 3 was supposed to be the highlight of our trip, 2007 International Balloon Festival. We bought "Park N' Ride" tickets and got on the bus fairly soon after we arrived the bus stops. Still there was a line about 50 people already in front of us when we got there. The ride to the balloon park is about 30 minutes. The bus took the short cut by passing through a General Mills factory (where I smell cinamon buns). We finally arrived the park when it was still dark. But the park was packed already, we stoped at the food court at the gate for the 'Award Winning' breakfast burito ($5) and cinamon bun (that I heard about from Fudor.com when I was doing my research on the trip). I was content. The breakfast burito is essentially egg, cheese, sausage, and frys wrapped in the tortilla. We went into the park only found out the park is surrounded by food tents selling breakfast burito. I felt hungry very soon and bought another burito ($4, location does matter here). Soon trucks started to stop in the park and people started to pull out giant balloons. Before we realized it, balloons started to be blown up one after another. Then, it comes the light, the sun showed her face, sky turned blue, and balloons had a golden coat of color. I started to run around the park with the camera in hand capturing the lauching and flying balloons in the sky. By 9:30 am in the morning, most of the balloons are in the sky. It was pretty.

There was not much to see after 10am, we wondered around the park and got some freebies - Spam in a pack, and potato chips with apple or cheese flavor (which turned into a major food source for our trip later on). We walked out of the park, and ran into the traffic of people waiting to get out of there at the same time. We were roasted in the sun for almost 1 hr. before we got on the bus. It was a chaos. Finally we got back to the hotel and we took some rest. There was still evening session in the park that night, so we went again around 4pm. When we got there, it was still early, I took some black and white pictures of the people in the park (as I think it captures the character and feature of the locals). Around 7pm, we saw the the fireworks for about 20 minutes. No balloon though, as it was windy that night. We left the park afterwards. That night, I got some red bell pepper, ground beef and cheese from the local Safeway, and cooked in the hotel room (yes, we brought a electric burner and tow pots for cooking instant noodle). I sauted the beef with cheese (as oil alternative), and added pepper, and some potato chips (as we didn't have salt). I toped it with avocado, and it turned out great, and I instantly felt I became a travel chef. That was Day 3. I had a good sleep that night (I think leaving air condition on in the afternoon helped).

Day 4. I felt well after a good night's sleep. We were leaving New Mexico for Colorado again. We passed an overlook where we saw a zig zag of canon from a distant (the locals call it horseshoe). We dropped by Tao, and visited a local church, where we took some pictures. We arrived downtown Tao around noon, and again, pictures. I bought a T-shirt there for $4.99 and only found out it was too small for me. My wife took it gladly.

Next stop Sand Dune park. It's an interesting park with sand dune as its attraction. We didn't have time to explore the park, only hit the sand dune as soon as we arrived the park. It was late afternoon. My wife and I started to climb up the sand dune. It took us about 1 hr. 15 minutes to get to the top of the highest dune. It was windy up there. We couldn't wait getting down there, and we didn't even remember to take a picture. Anyway, we got down with 4 shoes of sand. I still have sands in my shoes today. we drove to the hotel afterwards. It started to turn dark, and we drove through the mountains and arrived Salida (which we noticed is writting next to 'Exit' in an airplane). We stayed in a Days Inn and that hotel was the best in our trip. clean towel with light scent, clean beds with 2 pillows for each, a square table for us to sit down together to have dinner, and a view of the forrest through the window. The only reason we got this room is because I talked to the manager (who is from Russia interestingly, consider all the other hotel managers seem to come from India) and he said he remembered me as I stayed with them before. "Well, ok, if I stayed here before, would you give me a discount?" I asked him, he said "no, but I will put you in a nice room". Works for me. I didn't have a good sleep that night though.

Day 5. We headed to Royal Gorge, the world's highest suspenion bridge that across the two sides of the cayon. It suprised me to see cars are allowed on the bridge. I felt pretty comfortable and safe walking on the bridge though. we also took the air tram to cross the cayon. It was a smooth ride. Down under the cayon was the Kansas River. We also took another tram to get down to the cayon so that we can feel the river better. I found the mini old western town very interesting, and took many pictures of them. In the afternoon, we left the park, and headed to Seven Spring. When we arrived 7 springs, it was almost 5pm. The gate keeper told us that we were late, and we were paying a full day's price for only 30 minutes. We turned around and found we were in another state park (as a matter of fact, 7 springs is only an attraction in the state park). So, we drove into the mountains again, and took more pictures, and saw the creek drifting down along the mountain. It was nice. We got back to hotel, and my wife and I went out afterwards to find some food for dinner. We shopped in Safeway, and I found some scallops. One guy in the shop was nice enough to tell us that we could ask the cashier to give us a shop card with the application so that we could get the discount today. We tried and worked. Money saved, and we were happy. We got back to hotel and made seafood noodle with scallop. Very yummy.
Day 6, say good bye to Colorado. We drove from Colorado spring back to Denver for the flight. We put in too much gas in the tank though. We purchased a full tank from the rental and planed to return it as empty as possible. Well, we didn't plan well, we still have more than a quarter of a tank left. So, I turned on the air condition, with windows open, I break, accelerate, drove around downtown, just tried to use the gas, and it was not successful. The 2008 Hyndai Sonata is a keeper.

We got back to cleveland late that night as there was some delay at the airport. It was a great time, and there was some good food made in hotel. I will bring the burner for sure in my next trip and a bigger pot too. The Days Inn manager in Salida recommend us to visit Aspen and Glenwood for the hot spring and amazing mountains. Well, we will, along with Rocky mountains.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 34

2007-10-02T14:06:00.000-07:00

So we had our very first car accident in the US yesterday evening.

We were driving on the main road, and we switched the lane to the left after signal. Right after that I noticed another silver car just ran out from another side of the street. I honked and it didn't help. Before my next move, it hit my car on the left side of my car's rear bumper. I came out, and he came out. He said 'you changed lane on me'. 'What?' All I could think of at that time is what happened to my car. I looked at my car, left side of the rear bumper was scratched and jacked out of place. I said 'let me call the insurance company and we will see what next.' I went back into my car, paused, pulled out my wallet, and found my insurance card. I didn't know if I was shaking or not, but I suddenly know I was when the policeman came around. I sat back into the car, dialed 911, and told them my phone number and give them the location (which was not the correct as it turned out). Then I dialed the insurance claims number only was told I might want to call agent first. Well, ok, it was 5:40pm, and I didn't believe any insurance agent worked that late. The guy said 'let's get out of the road'. Ok, let's do that (ding, ding, ding, ding ding!!!, big mistake). We drove to a small parking place on the side of the road, and waited the policeman. He asked what police department I called, and I said I might called the wrong city. He got the number for the correct one, well, we called again, and I let him do the talking, he gave the location and he said 'it's a fender bender'.

We waited, and it started to rain. I called my best friend Mark, and was told the other guy would get a ticket because he didn't yield to the traffic on the main road. I was somehow relieved to hear that. Policeman finally arrived (two eventually). I talked to the policeman, described what happened, and I was asked to fill up a police report. I did. I wrote down what happened the best I could (quite tough for a Chinese to write down a car accident in foreign language for the first time when I was still in shock and shaking, and it was raining). The best thing I did though in the report is to draw a picture of what happened. Then, the second policeman came and I asked him some questions like what the green dividing section in the middle of the road is called, and what the left lane called in this accident (it's called left through lane, and right through lane). He also corrected a street name for me. When I was talking to him, the first policeman went to talk to the other guy in the car. Both parties filled out the forms.

Then he left first, the first policeman gave us his card with report number on it, and told us to call insurance agent tomorrow and give them this number so that the agent can get the report. He also told us that he pretty much decided who was at fault and gave the ticket to the other party. We were relieved and drove away.

Though it was 'small accident' but I can't believe how stressful and intense it was. The car just didn't feel right afterwards.

So this morning I called the insurance agent. The agent asked for the other party's insurance company information and I didn't have it. Well, we didn't exchange insurance information at the accident. So we have to wait for the police report come out before we can do anything. I called the police department noon to check on the status and I was told it needs to be approved, and it might be done by the end of this week. This week? It's only Wednesday, how many rubber stamps need to be put on there? Then I asked the lady over the phone nicely about the other party's insurance company information and she was glad to give them to me. Thank you!.
I called the agent again and gave her the insurance company information. She called the other insurance company and filed the claim, then she called me and gave me the claims number, adjuster's name and phone number, she also told me that the adjuster would call me today or tomorrow.

The adjuster did call. I picked up the phone and was asked what happened. I told him what happened the best I could over the phone. He told me a different story he got from his insured. I was shocked and enraged. I was in the office, and I couldn't talk loud, and I kept my temper as much as possible. I asked him again about the story and I picked out something I thought wrong. The adjuster said he needed to look at the police report before he can decide what to do next. And we hang up.

I was still in fury when I got off the phone and I had to walk outside for a while to calm me down. I talked to Mark again and told him about the story I heard from the adjuster. I told him how disappointed I was. At that point, I probably misunderstood some details about the story, and thought the guy lied to the adjuster. Come to think of it now, he did what he could to make the best case scenario.

So what are the lesson learned:

Take Picture!!!!!!!!!Take picture before move away from the scene of the accident!!!! That's the single most important evidence I can have!!!! Got a Camera Phone? Time to use it! No camera phone? Get a disposable one from CVS, Walgreen or Walmart and put it in the glove compartment at ALL TIME!

Exchange insurance information!

In police report, write down if anyone turns left or right, switches lane, drive straight on mainstreet or speeding. In my case, I should emphasize he was turning from a small road into a main traffic without yielding.

Write down not only what happened, but also what was said and told through out the accident.

Write down the name of the road and travel direction, and draw the picture!

Ask policeman to prove read your report, make sure he understands you completely. Ask him to repeat if have to.

Before the adjuster called you, prepare your story, and prepare for hearing a different story.

Keep a bottle of water in the car. I was dehydrated throughout the accident(I guess due to stress).

Ask for a copy of police report as soon as it's available.

Drive defensively!

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 33

2007-09-20T17:48:00.000-07:00

Went to a funeral today.

We met this person at a friend's party. He and his wife both worked in the company we worked in, only we worked in a different department and building. They seem to be nice people and last time they tried to help my brother in law to find a job in our company. It didn't work out, but at least they tried.

He got cancer and passed away early this week.

We decided to attend viewing session of his funeral. I put on a navy T-shirt to work this morning and thought it might be ok for the event. I asked a colleague and was told I need long sleeve shirt. So I left early from work and got home to change shirt. I put on a dark navy long sleeve shirt and off I went.

As I entered the room I realized how I was underdressed. Everyone is in suit and tie. Boy, was I embarrassed. We waited a while and went up to the family, all I could say is 'my condolences'. The family said 'thank you for coming' and I just didn't know how to reply. I acted like a dummy there. After my wifed chatted a little with the family, we went to the coffin. He was lying there. He lost much weight, and I could hardly recognize him. I paused over there, didn't know what to do. I nodded slightly to him, then froze with no motion. I was trying to come up with some words, but I lost them. I eventually murmured 'see you in heaven'. 'See you in heaven'? what does that mean? Where did that come from. I guess what I really wanted to say is 'George, I wish you find peace and love in God's kingdom.'

We left the event right after that. That was almost inappropriate, as many Chinese who worked in the same company were sitting in the room. We were like 'dropping by' for the event, and I think the family won't appreciate that. But I just don't know what to do or say if I stay in that room. I don't know whether I was trying to run away from something or I just can't stand viewing the sight.

I wish the family well, I did tell them if there is anything we can do, please let us know, but I suspect they think we were just talking the talk. But we were not.

God, please bless his family who has been suffering tremendously from the illness and the lost of the family member. Please show us what we can do to help them. Please include our friend's sister who has been also battling with illness in Kentucky in your blessing too.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 32

2007-09-18T07:59:00.000-07:00

A beautiful September morning in Cleveland. Sunshine, no cloud in the sky, everything sigaling the end of the summer and the beginning the fall.

A gloomy morning too. One of our dear friend's sister has been sick for a while and her family is in desperate need of good news. It must be painful for everyone in the family. Haven't got the email from my friend this morning yet. He usually sends out email to update all the friends every day. Hope no news is good news.

Another email hit the inbox early this morning. A Chinese colleague here lost her husband this morning. He has been battling with cancer for a while. We met before in some get-together party hosted by a mutual friend. He seemed very much healthy at that time. It's really shocking to see someone left us just like that. I can't imagine how difficult life will be to the wife. They don't have any children. She will be lonely.

Health is the number one priority. No health, no nothing.

God bless all the friends and families who are battling with illness, please help them.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 31

2007-09-13T10:15:00.000-07:00

The company just launched a re-org. Everyone is getting anxious. Got a call from another chinese guy working here asking about how the situation here is. Well, it seems all right so far. The big boss left for another group to lead, and mid-managers seem to be save and sound. Still heard them laughing all loud around 5:45pm when most of the low ranks are left... I had to stay in the last two days because some work needs to be done.

Re-org is nothing new to me, back in China I experienced one, and as I was young at that time, I didn't really care much about it. I still don't care that much about it even the fact that I have much more to loose at the age of 31. Well, I am working as a analyst at the lowest rank. Chop me loose won't save the company a penny as it pays me dirt.

There are people in the company who are worrying though... higher ranks or employees who lost the position just because the department no longer is needed in the company. They lost their life dependings over night, and desperatly search for another nest to move on to with their lives. Some of the high ranks are not that worried, as they can find jobs with their extensive background. Those middle ones will have some tough time. But eventually, if you suck it up, you should always find something to put food on the table.

The Tech team in the group is funny. They are 'I will talk to you when I talk to you' kind of people. They won't greet you when they see you in the isle only look away. But they will talk to you when they need to talk to you or they have to talk to you.

A dear friend's sister is sick, she has been in treatment for a while and so far no conclusive decision is made. Her husband is drawning too. Life is not easy, challenges people every time when they are not prepared. Healthy is number one priority, there is no point to make tons of money when you can't enjoy them.

Finally mailed out the check to TradeKing for my RothIRA this morning. Will make the contribution as soon as it's received and progress on retirement planning.

It's getting cold now. 3/4 of the year is gone, and looking back, there are a lot of things not moving forward. Glad to see the doors are installed and painted though. But the garage roof is still leaking like a waterfall. The basement seems to leak lesser this year, as we didn't have much rain storm as we did last year. I put it a drain mesh into the bathtub to catch hair and it worked well, not sure if that has anything to do with the basement leaking...

The theme of 2006 was 'A year of new', and the 2007 theme was supposed to be 'A step further' as many things need to be build on the new ground laid in 2006. Financial planning is still the major project left on the list. At this year end, we need to a formal year end review to see where we are at and where we are heading.

We will go to New Mexico for ballon festival this October. Before that, I will need to crank up some work here...

A freind sent me an email asking four places I rather be now, my answer is Shanghai, Hongkong, Japan, Europe. Speaking of Shanghai, I got the group picture they took in the recent middle school reunion. I can't recognize 2/3 of them. I either lost their names, or lost their faces.
Since we don't have the travel document, we will have to stay put for now. I do want to go back home soon as so much has changed. I am really anxious to see the place where I once dreamed about leaving, and now coming back. My friends were there, and I miss them.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 30

2007-09-09T19:32:00.000-07:00

Sunday night.
Iron chef just finished with Mario Batalli victory over the challenger (who is supposed to be the best chef in New York) in the battle Parmasan Regiano. It wasn't a much exciting battle. Speaking of Mario Battali, saw a 4qt. enameled cast iron saucier in TjMaxx today for $25. It's good deal, but I just can't think of a dish calling for this pot, so I skipped it.

Didn't get much good deals on pots and pans lately. Saw some All Clad 12" fry pans in Tj Maxx couple times, but the construction didn't impress me with the price tag of $99. More and more Le Cruest are now available there too, but all are seconds and expensive.

Got a chopping board though from there the other day, $19, made in Thailand, edge grain, and thick construction. Got a Sabatier knife for $5 too, made in China. Used it on the chopping board, feeling board is tough even with my sharpened knife.

Finally, the 4 qt. pressure cooker I got from LNT for $25, and there is a $10 MIR I need to send out tomorrow, so final price will me $15. Good deal. It's a stainless steel cooker with aluminum sandwich bottom. I have used it for red wine beef short rib, pork neck bone soup and red cook pork shoulder country style rib. All dishes are done with one hour. The pot does the job, but still a little too small for me. Still looking for a 8qt. model...

Planning one the trip to to New Mexico for the ballon festival. We will travel with in-laws this time. It needs some planning, plane, car, hotel, and parking. We will drop by Colorado Spring and visit Santa Fe along the way.

Opened RothIRA account but haven't funded it yet. Will need to do that next week. Another account needs to be opened for the after tax investment.

My knee injurery seems to get better, I will do some running tomorrow. Hope to be able to run a marathon in Hawaii next year...

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 29

2007-07-30T19:53:00.000-07:00

Summer night, stuff, humid and boring.

Fired up my grill last weekend for the beef back rib. BBQ style, marinaded with dry rub for an hour, then wrap it in the foil, and finally go into the grill. After 2 hours, unpack and baste with BBQ sauce (Bullseye). It turned out good, not great, but good.

Our two tomato plants are doing well, about a dozen tomato coming out. There are also two eggplants growing strong.

Called the bank today and found out ACH is possible, and free. Great news. Will deposit a check then ACH to open my investment account. A pretty big step, and delayed one too.

Just talked to a friend on MSN and heard they just had a middle-school reunion. What a fantastic idea! I wish I were there. Pretty much all the girls are married and having babies now, most of the boys are not married yet.

Yes, I do miss my friends at home.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 28

2007-07-10T19:25:00.000-07:00

July

At last, summer is here.

Weekends in summer don't seem to exist. Yard work takes at least half the day, and cleaning up takes another. Last weekend we went to Ikea in PA. It wasn't the nicest drive, 5 people in the car on the road at 86F. Not much new stuff in Ikea. Saw the French-made enamel cast iron oven roast there and could only sigh (did I tell you it was smashed by ...?). It hurt.

Slowly, we started to strike through projects from our list. Our neighbor put in a wall-mounted fan in the kitchen for us, and he will also install two new garage lights soon. He gave us his one-year-old grill the other day as he just got himself a new one. The old grill is in good shape. I seasoned it last weekend with chicken fat, and it came back to live again.

We planned to replace our two entry doors since last summer. We finally went to Homedepot and picked the doors and scheduled the installation. Everything went all right till the day of the installation. I worked at home that afternoon and nobody showed up. After calling Homedepot and installation company couple times, I finally found out they were not going to show up that day. Pissed, frustrated, I called the installation company the next morning asking for same day installation. Nope, no can do. Well, they scheduled the installation two days, and I need to apply for another half day working at home(which fortunately is not such a big deal, but still...). Told my neighbor about this and he wasn't happy about the answer I was getting (well, me neither). We went back to Homedepot the next evening asking for discount (at least some compensation for the time I wasted waiting at home for nothing). No luck. The guy over there through our contract right back to us and said "you can return it". Well, no sales for you then. Off we went, return the whole thing the night before the installation.

Since Homedepot is out of question, Lowes seems to be the only choice left. We went there again that week and picked the doors. Later in the next week, my neighbor and I went back to the Lowes with Homedepot's quote and told them to match the price. Lowes did. Lowes got my business, and Homedepot will not.

Really getting close with our neighbor. That day he sold his brother's PC to me. I checked the setup, and it was a good deal. I was considering upgrading my PC that time, and his offer came in the perfect time.

Three colleagues left the team last month, one went to a online start-up, one went to a software company (which happens to be the one brother-in-law works in), and the last one went o law school. I ran with the guy who went back to law school before you left the company, he was nice guy, we share the same interests in running and investment. He reminds me so much of the character in "Boston Legal" - Allen Shore.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 27

2007-04-27T07:53:00.000-07:00

Long time

Friday morning at the office. Cloudy sky and wet air. Not a typical happy Friday.
Brother in law just got a job offer the second day after the interview. The company really wants him bad.

Our neighbor helped us getting our lawn mower started last night, he also wanted to give us his old weed wacker, though I told him that I already had one. Well, he likes Chinese roasted duck. I know what he is getting for dinner this weekend.

Need to go to Homedepot with neighbor this afternoon, he will put in a track light in the kitchen for us. Our kitchen is too dark to me. I want my stainless steep appliances and pots and pans dazzling under the light. Grim.

Need to get some stove cleaner too. I haven't taken care of my stove for a while.
Will go finishing next weekend. It's free fishing day. Then we will go to a Chinese buffet afterwards.

Still a glooming day outside. People at the office just sent out an email asking for Chipotle. They are huge on that burito. I am not. Will have to pass on that again. They understand. They will be surprised if I accept.

Made fry onions and green bean last night. Coated fresh cut onion will flour and seasoned it with salt and pepper. Deep-fried it till golden brown. Tossed it over "green" bean. "Green" bean means that it has been boiled in the water in extensively long time till it's no longer green by my inlaw. What's the point of buying fresh green bean if you will boil it in water till it's not longer green? A canned green bean will save you money, boil time, and water. Duh??? Well, it's believed that there is some harmful element in the fresh green bean that will be broken down in the boiling process. Therefore.... But, it's only arguably true....

Working on a project involving ACCESS and EXCEL with two other colleagues. It's quite an experience. The zen of 'climbing corporate ladder' is to present yourself as the person who does everything in front of your boss even when you don't know the subject. It's said among the Christians that you need to give in order to receive. Well, I don't see I received anything yet while I have been assisting in running the project behind the scene. Is it fair? Hum... Does it mean I should keep my mouth shut and let the project go south? Well, if I don't step in, project fails, everybody looks bad - including me. So, no choice huh? But what did I learn from this, or is there anything I can learn from it? Well, I would like to say what's learned is that give complements generously to the people around me when I am leading the team. But with no one giving me credits for accomplishments, how can I get to leadership position? The self-defensive mechanism kicks off and sends signal to the brain and says - "anger is a waste of energy, gold will shine someday"...

For those who are blessed to work in jobs they like, lucky you. For those who have no such lucky, find out what you like to do and go do it. For those who are not lucky, and can't switch the jobs because you are on working visa. I really don't know what to tell you, cause I haven't found out the answer yet. (first step might be writing it in blog)

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 26

2007-03-29T14:12:00.000-07:00

Spring is in the air.

Sunshine, green lawn, and birds singing. It's about time to have something fresh and enjoyable after 3 month of cold wet snowy days.

Plans and projects started to line up immediately. Spring cleaning is one that pops up in my mind. Yeah, we need that, with more people joining in the house and 3 months of laziness, we need it badly.

Spring to Summer is the highlight of the year. A lot of actions and projects are scheduled. It's just the matter of getting them done. Speaking of 'getting things done', I just finished a training program at work called 'Getting Things Done'. The trainer is a showman. He was dancing, smiling, charming in front of the audience the whole day. It was a fun session, almost like a group therapy session. People were saying they were inspired after the training. Emotion was high. It reminds me the scene in the movie 'Chicago', Richard Gare was dancing at the court and defending the guilty. He was successful, so was he.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 25

2007-02-28T18:42:00.000-08:00

The joy and pain of cooking...

I don't have to explain to you the joy of cooking as it's a book by itself. But why the pain? The struggle of creating the new cuisine, the unbearable sight of colleagues biting into Chipottle every noon, the uncontrollable desire to clean up each every corner of the kitchen and polish all the stainless steel cookware before sleep, or the ever-lasting pursuit of a 'better' piece of cookware.

Wondering if those people working in AllClad or Calphalon share the same pain... guess not.

An article on eGullet about stovetop cookware is indeed an eye opener to me. It's a much deeper thesis on cookware. Felt like graduating from the class after reading the whole thing. No wonder it's called 'eGullet Cuilinary Institute'.

The satisfaction of knowing worn out quickly, turned into a rush of adrenaline into the head calling out for owning. Then the concious kicked in and supressed impulse and cooled down the mind. $150 for a piece of stainless steel and aluminum, ARE YOU NUTS?!

I keep a list for tracking all the cookware I bought over the years. It's a long one, and the total amount spent broke a record that I could not imagine. How in the world I spent that much money?

After the guilt slowly washed out, the self-remedy mechanism started the operation. Have I been enjoying what I owned? Well, yes, I have some good time with them. But I don't feel like I have used the best out of them yet as I have so many pieces to choose from, each one is enjoyed a few times but none is used extensively not to mention abused. Involuntarily, I have been protecting those metals...

Tracing the sadness, it's not difficult to find that my income can no way fulfill my wish list in the kitchen in any time soon. So how to quench the thirst, other than staring at the pictures online and posting blogs?

The kitchen syndrome...

Stop.

I can hardly recognize my friends in Shanghai now as they are changed much. Shiny and glamorous, almost a 'wow' as I open their pictures. Are they changed or am I?

Cowboy beebop. Suddenly this name appreared in my mind. It is'my favorate Japanese Manga TV series. The reason it came up is because I was viewed as a 'countryboy' now by a friend of mine back home. Country boy, cowboy, cowboy beebop. Speaking of Cowboy Beebop, I don't know how is one of my friend in Australia doing. We lost contact a while ago since he arrived in Australia.

I guess I just miss my friends.

Really need to install a range hood soon as the burge sets off smoke alarm again tonight... Smokin'..

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 24

2007-02-13T17:29:00.000-08:00

Long time...

Glad to see a note left from a friend of mine on my blog. The blog comes to life with the touch of other people...

It's been snowy lately in Cleveland. Cold, wet, and snowy. Went to the high school gym for swimming this noon only found out it was close. School is shut down because of the poor weather. Went out running the other at a temperature of -16C, co-workers called me crazy. YES, I AM. It was a good run, sunny, too sunny too, snow reflected too much sun shine and it hurt my eyes. A scarf is mendatory.

Got a poor PE last year because of my carelessness. Too much fun on the job is not gonna do me any good. Now, I have to buckle up and play catch up. It reminds me my senior year in the high school, battled a whole year to catch up the two years wasted before then.

Therefore, the new year resolution seems to have an update. It will be a year I do my job differently, it's about accuracy and attention to details. The two major weakness of mine. So far the progress is evident but slow. Well, run before I fly.

Started a new show last week - Heroes. Hooked right away. Finishing up Gray's Anatomy Season II at the same time. TV is big now, I remember seeing it somewhere in the news. Many TV stars are entering the big screen in 2007 though. Guess big screen pays better...

Speaking of Heroes, has this idea 'I am a special person with special ability and I will do something extraordinary in my life' ever came into your mind, maybe just for a second, before your rationale knocks on your brain telling you that you are normal and perhaps a dull human being?

Don't know what DJ Tiesto is doing these days. Listening his early album "In my memory", and wonder how his latest installment of the famous "In search of Sunrise" series fall short that much.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 23

2006-12-31T13:57:00.000-08:00

Night before 2007.

Just sent off her brother and sister-in-law back to Canada early this morning (talking about 5am here). Came back and slept couple more hours. Got up, had a bowl of noodle (bad idea, but couldn't turn down the offer from inlaws - another long story). Spent the rest of the morning and noon cleaning up the kitchen. The countertop, the stove, the kitchen floor. My kitchen must be clean!

Went out for a run in the afternoon despite the rain. It was a good run. Not much people in the park. Air was humid and cool. Finished it just before another downpull.

Called my friend, and asked him about new year resolution. 'Stay healthy' he replied. What is my new year resolution? That's a good question. I haven't asked myself yet.

Looking into 2007, what is in it?

Well, we have a garage roof to fix, a wet basement to deal with, a garden to put down, a lawn of weed to kill, and an arguement of whether or not to move the tree in front of house to win, a busy schedule at work, and, to make things more interesting, in laws are going to be with us for 5 month.

It sounds like a busy year. Well, speaking of busy, last week was an example too.

In the last week, we rent a SUV, drove to PA for shopping, bought two gigantic lobster, deep fried three packs of frozen blue crab, opened three bottle of wines and finished two bottles of them (one of them was opened only to show in laws that I was not trying to save it for myself instead of sharing with everyone), finished another bottle of champaign, boned a pack of chicken thigh, bought 10 pounds of ground pork (are you nuts?), seasoned wok over and over again (and in laws kept cleaning it again and again), cleaned the kitchen like maniac almost every night. Slept on the sofa bed and didn't went into sleep a single day.

Forgot where did I heard it from, it was talking about people get involved into more relationships over time. The relationship with neighbor when you move into a new house, relationship with in laws when get married, in my case. These are the new experiences that I haven't really spent time thinking about it.

But, we are talking about 2007, right. Before we say good bye to 2006, let's see what happened in this good year.

In 2006,
I was transferred to a better department at work,
we bought a new car,
we bought a house, which has problems
we got married,
we finished our first half marathon in Vegas,
we went to Disney World with my mom,
I got smashed by cake on the face again on birthday,
we finished our 5k 'run for the cure' again in Cleveland with a better record,
my wife got a new and better position,
we got billed $500+ for not cleaning up the carpet in the apartment,
we still don't have the paycheck from our friend who bought our car,
my wife lost her cell phone, and we are still looking for a new one,
we didn't spend a dime on slot machine in Vegas
mortgage rate is going down,
and things that I forgot already

So, in 2007 my resolution might look like,
get a better pay,
fixed the problems in the house,
not get smashed my cake again at birthday,
finished 'run for the cure' with a better record again,
get the check from our friend who owes us money,
found a new cell phone for my wife,
run a marathon,
and not to forget so many things,

2007 ...

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 22

2006-12-14T07:00:00.000-08:00

so we went to the 2nd Las Vegas Marathon (also the first half marathon).

It was our first half marathon. We came up with this idea about last month when we were thinking about how to celebrate our wedding. Half marathon sounded like a very daunting quest to us at that time as we didn't have any training for that long distance. Neither of us has ever run longer than 7 miles at that time. We were not in the best shape either.

First thing came to her mind is that it's a great idea, second though follows along is 'it's crazy, we can't make it'. Third thought is 'if we don't do it now, we won't do it forever'. So we booked the hotel, flight, and registered ourselves to the marathon. That was 4 weeks ago.

I trained myself the week we booked the tickets, and I hurt my knee. 'Runner's knee', that's what they call it. Rested for couple days, and reduce the distance. Bought the running shoes. Tested them on the road. Didn't do any long distance, wondering how to complete this race?
Checked some website and got some tips about warm up, strech, and how to run strong by run slow at the begining. Key strategy it turned out to be.

Meanwhile, she had blister on the toe and have to wear my shoe (because it's a large size).

We went to Las Vegas with only one mission - to finish the race.

Checked in Luxor late at night, the hotel is totally smoked. The room has good view, but it doesn't have an individual air condition. It's dry in Vegas. Drunk lots of water, and went to bed right away. Got up 6am next morning and tried to get accustomed to the local weather. Toured around the strip and visited some casinos, took some pictures, and got to the Expo for the race bib and goodie bag. Got back to hotel later and went to sleep around 6pm local time.

Waked up around 11pm, when the night just started in Vegas. We could heard the noise from the lobby, as people started to pull into the casino. Kept sleeping till 3am, woke up.

Got breakfast, esspresso, energy bar and gatorade. Stretched, unloaded the system. Went down to lobby at 5am. It was a crowd there already. Went off the road to the start line and it was chilly. Got into crowd way back from the start line around 5:30am. There was fireworks, and bluemen's group. Waiting... waiting in cold, and with an urge to go to bathroom...

The people in front of us started to move, and it moved faster than we expected. Running slow and steady, warmed up the boddy bit by bit, eyes on every mile mark to see if there is a long line for the bathroom. Miles 3, water break. Had a cup of Gatorade, and waited in line for the bathroom. 10 minutes lost.

Got back on the road, and still running slow. Felt better and better as body started to warm up and sun started to come out. It was very windy though(supposed to be 50 mpg).

Mile 5, the 'run through wedding chapel'. A group of people is going to get married in this chapel and it attracted some crowd. There are 'I dos' shout out. We stopped by for some pictures, then went back on road.

Mile 7.5, the full and half marathon split, and a group of 'Elvis' joined us in the race.

Mile 9.5, enjoying the songs from Elvis

Mile 11.5, stomach started to complain, nothing huge, but getting uncomfortable, knee started to complain too.

Mile 12, crowed on both sides of the road, people were cheering, realized it's time to put on some speed for the final rush.

Mile 13, saw the finish line, and speeded up a little bit

Finish line, kissed just before step on the finish line. We did it.

Our bib says 'JustMarried'

Took off the chip on the shoe (the timer), and took some pictures, got the medal and got in line for the finisher photo. Took two photos and went to get some water and banannas.

Legs and knee were complaining.

Went back to hotel and took a shower, rest, then go out for food. Had vietnamese noodle (price is suprisingly reasonable). Went back to hotel, rest again. Then went to the Spice Market buffet at Aladdins. Had some great food. Stuffed. Came back out, watched fontain shows in front of Bellagio.

Went to La Village buffet at Paris the next day for lunch. Food was good.

Sick of the casino buildings, went to Tj Max, found a Lenox plate for $2, good deal.

Returned the car, then went to airport.

Loaded the pictures to computer, then to the website. Talked to people on MSN, waiting for the boarding.

Finally, leaving Las Vegas.

Got back to Cleveland around 6am. Drove back home, took a shower, and sleep. 3pm, got up, went out grocery shopping. Had dinner, went to bed again.

We are back to Cleveland lives now.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 21

2006-12-14T06:57:00.000-08:00

Couple days ago I was sitting in my cube and thinking about the conversation I had with one of my friends back home in China the night before.

It wasn't a smooth conversation, we disagree on the 'meaning of life' type of topic as usual. I sense Shanghai has became so competitive that people there are getting squeezed enough to twist. I bet I will be looked as a 'country boy' now in Shanghai (or maybe not). I can somehow imagine myself in Shanghai, living with parents, thinking about finding the next job for a bigger pay everyday if I am not here. I don't think I will develop the interest in cooking or travelling, because I will be too busy with thinking about money. Reality there doesn't allow me to think about anything else.

Or maybe I am wrong. I become less and less competitive due to lazyness. This 'country style' living has dulled my edge (if I have had any). I have indeed become a 'country boy' with no ambition bigger than putting down a vegetable garden before next spring...

What's wrong with me or him? This is a live example of how the environment can change a person. I am suprised to see how differ we are on this subject of life.

It all comes down to money, a measure of success around the world. Though most of us understand money is not the only thing that makes a person happy. But without money will be a pain (unless you are homeless person who don't work for money. The song 'Mr. Wandel' by Arrested Development described that).

Am I getting better or worse? I think this is the essential question that I want to and I am afraid to ask myself. I can say for certain that I become a different person since I came to US. But am I becoming a better person? In which areas? Are those improvements substantial enough to lift me to another level?

Hum... lots of questions...

I used to miss the days in high school when I 'work hard and play hard'. But not lately. Maybe I was too busy playing 'Titan Quest'. Job has become less painful.

When I was in Shanghai, I always felt that 'something' is missing. I thought 'it' was that I wasn't here in US. Now if I was asked this question, I will have a different answer. What's missing in my life now? I can't really tell. I have lovely wife, a house, a new car, a job that I can actually handel, people at work are nice enough to work with. Friends, are less here as we don't social that often. Our friends are still those who we met at school.

to be continued...

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 20

2006-12-14T06:54:00.000-08:00

Haven't blogged for a while, opened it today and found this:

Hi, i was looking over your blog and didn'tquite find what I was looking for. I'm looking fordifferent ways to earn money... I did find this though...a place where you can make some nice extra cash secret shopping. I made over $900 last month having fun!make extra money

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Deleted the comment right away.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 19

2006-11-09T11:49:00.000-08:00

Very nice outside.

Long time no blog. Been busy with work, 'Titan Quest', and planning for marriage.

Just got the marriage license from the state probate court. $40 and driver's license. Called the department before and was asked how old. '30 years old'. 'were you divorced?' 'No', 'were you married before?' 'No'. Might sound a bit of surprise for them to really bump into a '30 years old virgin' over the phone.

Cleaned up the house last weekend, swept the leaves, mowed the lawn.. the usual stuff. Went to Ikea and got some furnitures, rugs. Our living room now looks like a living room. Need to go to Ikea again tomorrow to get a bed and possiblly a sofa.

Booked a flight to Las Vegas for the 2006 Las Vegas Marathon. We will attend the half maraton. it's gonna be tough as none of us have been actively training for it. Our goal is to finish, even it takes three or four hours to complete.

Within 60 days, we need to find a minister to marry us. Our old friend Mark comes into mind. Will give him a call and tell him we will drop by this Thanksgiving (we have been invited already).

Her parents will come over for 6 months in December. Her brother and sister in law will come for the Christmas. Will be a busy Christmas.

Half marathon is a good idea...

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 18

2006-10-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

Just ran about 6 miles, feeling calm, warm, and relaxed.

It's a cloudy day here, and it will probably continue to be so for another couple of days. Last Sunday was nice though. Didn't get the chance to do anything outdoor except sweeping the leaves in the backyard. The street is getting quiter every weekend. It's fall now. The house fixing or remodling projects have been completed in most cases, and the lawn doesn't need to be mowed that often either any more. People are getting lazy or cozy in the house... May it's just me...

Cleared up some CDs and games on Sunday (a lot of throw-aways). Left the tools downstairs untouched as I have no clue where to put them. Cookingware and spice are still in the bag laying on the basement floor. Need to get a rack from somewhere. The candidate is the one from Ikea that we saw last time where we were there. Another trip is going to cost 4 hours in the car, and some gas money. For one rack, it's really not worth it. We will go there next time when we have a better idea what else we need from there.

Kitchen is still the center of the home. Some many plates (and we keep buying), if only we know where to put store them. Not enough storage. The pantry and the wall next to the stove is under utilized, and I need to put my thinking cap on and come up with some solution.

Ordered the Stand Mixer from Amazon this morning. It's something we have been talking about for a while, and finally we decide to buy it as a gift (or whatever) for our wedding in the near future. We opt out the option of letting someone else to buy it for us as we think it costs too much for a gift. Besides, Amazon is offering this model cheap as 'remanufactured', so we just get one for ourselves. Well, I just get one for her.

As for my gift, I don't really know any, I got a 22' LCD monitor weeks ago (that's why I didn't write blog as I was busying playing games on the new monitor). It's really a nice monitor, sharp, rich-color, great contrast. Got it from Costco, and it was the best deal. With that monitor and my Logitech z5500 5.1 speakers, I don't really think we will invest another set of home theather system any time soon. But we need a nice chair though, or futon (which is something I have been talking about for a long time). We saw one in Ikea last time when we were there, but didn't buy it. Well, we will get one next time.

Went to shopping on Sunday. I got a 3-ply stainless steel braiser (3 qt.). The size is on the small side, but the quality seems to be decent. And it's on sales, so I bought it. My girl bought All-Clad baking sheet, and a cake pan from Analon. Both good quality. That baking sheet will be our first experience with All-Clad. We can't wait for the next batch of cookie.

Made lasagnas last night. Undeseasoned. Not pungent enought. Not enough acid in the meat sauce. Texture of the noodle is ok, but taste of sauce is too bland. Need to mix tomato puree and diced tomato together for the sauce (base on the recipe), not improvising by dump whatever is available in the refrig (in this case, half bottle of Classico four cheese marina sauce, and some peeled tomator in juice).

Made breaded pork chop (deep fry version) on Saturday night (my girl's favorate). Pork chop too thick and oil too hot. First one was under-cooked, and the rest of them are too greasy resulting from low oil temperature. Consistency, consistency, consistency, that's what differs a professional chef from a amateur home cook.

Started this book called 'Heat' by Bill Buford couple days ago. Quite interesting. An amateur cook went to Mario Batali's kichen for three years working as a 'kitchen slave'. Almost went through 1/3 of it, quite interesting. Got couple more at home from Anothony Bouldin, and some books about CIA and a text book called 'Professional Chef'. If only I don't play PC games that often, I can do some readings.

So far created four characters in Titan Quest. Champion, Bonecharmer, one defense gay, one magician named 'Super Nanny'. It's all about finding the blue items now. My Bonecharmer can't get through the first world at the second difficult level, so I use Champion to find some blue items for her now. The championi slash through the first difficulty with ease (thanks to the blue axe found by Bonecharmer at the first place). Now champion needs to returns the favor. Considering starting the defense guy so that more blue stuff for everybody coming along.
Talked to my parents, and found out they wanted to buy a big screen TV. Sounds like a lot of money to buy one in China, and not sure if they need it that big or not. Does Shanghai offers HDTV broadcasting now? No clue. Don't even know what kind of TV is available there now. Need to find out and give them a call again. A hi-fi system is more suitable in my opinion. Well, if they like to buy one, just go buy one.

I am really a biased person. Starbucks just came in the company's caffetaria, and I am quite happy about it as the rest of the group is. Not sure if it's because I just don't like sucessful company/person, or I am anti-name brand in the coffe catergory (I am not anti-namebrand in most of the other categories). Maybe it's because Starbucks is selling atmosphere, not coffee in its shop, and coffee itself is not what makes the company successful or famous. Therefore, I don't like Starbucks. Why pay premium for a coffee that is not worth the money? Well, you pay the money for the experience in the shop, the smell, the music, the cool chicks sitting around browsing Internet. That is what a guy is there for - watching girls and playing cool. Sorry, too old/poor for that.

Got some rose for my girl last week. It was supposed to be suprise, but was exposed by the reciept. Next time, buy the rose, discard the reciept.

Got a pasta machine too. Noodle time.

A collegue asked me if we went clothe shopping after I told her we went shopping over the weekend. I told her, we buy pots and pans, plates and bowls, cookware and bakeware. That's it.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 17

2006-09-18T11:19:00.000-07:00

the week of firsts.

Last week was a week of first. First time in US I raised my middle finger to someone. First time in US I got a parking ticket (they are not related).

We were driving home after work that day. It was a cloudy day I remember. We stopped in line of a red light and there was a car running on the opposite lane suddenly pulled in between our car and the car in front of us. The car wanted to pass through the gap between our cars and go into a shopping mall on my right. The car was pulled in too close so that it blocked my way of going forward and the gap between my car and the car in front was too narrow for the car to go through, so it got stuck there blocking my way. I took a look behind me and the car behind was far away. I had to back up my car so that the car could get out of my way. While the car was passing me, the driver (who was a lady according to my girl friend) didn't even show any gesture of appreciation. I was pissed and raised the middle finger towards them. There was a girl sitting at the guest seat who saw this and I guess she was not happy with it, especially she didn't make the move at the first place. I felt sorry for her. It's very possible she was innocent, coz she was not the driver. I remember my heart was pounding, blood is rushing through the whole body right after I did that... "not the right thing to do' I said to myself. So what should I do next time?

Went to the attorney last week in lunch hour too. Parking in downtown is not easy. Put in $1 for one hour (as the appointment was for one hour), and got a ticket after coming out of the appointment. The appointment ran unexpectedly longer. The attorney told many stories to show us subtly that we don't really have a case to go against the previous seller about the leaky basement. We will just have to deal with it. It was a good conversation (free). But we still pay $25 (parking fine) for it. Lesson learned (sometimes 25 cents can save 25 dollars). The only question is why we didn't realize it at the first place? How to remember this lesson? I'm afraid I will forget it soon...

Last weekend was not very productive. Was playing Titan Quest the whole time. It's really an addictive game...

Went to West side market on Saturday, got some ground pork that my girl friend has been craving about for a long long time. Dropped by the Chinese grocery store in downtown on the way back, got some Thai sauce. Got back home, made a Thai noodle soup with Bochoy and pork meat ball. Yum, yum... The sauce was not strong enough to my taste, so I added some more fish sauce, basil (Thai basil will be better but I only have italian basil) and Sambal. It turned out well. But I bet other people will call the soup 'stinky'. Fish sauce does have its 'unique' smell. If you are used to it, you will like it, if you don't, then you will hate it...

Our friend from India also came visit last Saturday night. We met him at Case. He works hard. A deligent person. He is doing well in his career. He just got a project in China, and he is going to Shanghai very soon. We will ask him to take something back home for us...

The faucet in the kitchen was leaking, and we didn't know why. I tightened the three screws that secured the base of faucet, and let's hope it won't leak too much too soon (coz I know it's going to leak again).

Took some time clean the yard. The tree there is losing leaves (as I am losing my hair). Not really a good sign, according to the article about the tree I found on the website. If the tree loses leaves too soon, it indicates an unhealthy tree... and it takes years and years to save a tree...
Got a loveseat cover cheap from a discount store. Covered it over the loveseat previous owner left in the house on Sunday and it looked all right. It was a comfortable loveseat... Now, we need to cover the sofa in the basement, well, after clean it first.

The basement still needs to be cleaned. A list of things can be done there, cleaning the carpet, paint the floor and wall. Unpack and organize. Add another storage rack... etc.

Bought a set of flatware in Bed Bath and Beyond on clearance. Guess it was a return set. The set was beautiful and we both liked it, so we bought it. It was still expensive, and the most expensive set we ever had. But we both liked it. So..

Run for the Cure is on October 8th. (I think) this year. We will register this week. My girl sent out an email in Chinese employee mailing list advertising for participation. No response. I don't remember seeing many Chinese participating this event in the last two years. I feel pretty pround that we did it for the last two years. Hope showing two Chinese faces in an event like that means something.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 16

2006-09-12T11:03:00.000-07:00

Approaching the very last quarter of 2006.

and many things are undone.

It's getting chilly. Fall is here. Trees are turning color, and less people sitting outside watering lawn in the evening or BBQ in the yard. Our patio project is frozen, with a 80% chance that it will never happen. We would like to see what the winter will do to the house then decide if it makes sense to install the patio door. Still waiting on the ventilation project and entrance door replacement project. Not sure if it's still time to do that. Weather is getting cold and the door is shrinked. We don't want to see a expanded door next Summer.

Talked to the contractor that's referred by the church (with Mark's help). He sounds all right, not sure if he is willing to do these small jobs though. Will see.

The 'will see' attitude is not getting things done. Decision are tough to make to move things forward though. Pros and cons are almost equally weighted. Or maybe I just didn't spend enough time to think about it.

So, what was I doing except thinking about fixing around the house? Titan Quest certainly takes a big chunck of my time lately. It's really a addictive game. I agree this is the best 'Diablo' type game since 'Diablo 2'.

Garage roof is still leaking, and the garage smells mildew. It's bad, but can't do anything with it. According to neighbor (the electrician contractor), April is the best time to install new roof so that the summer heat will seal the roofing materials. I can't wait to April.

Having been checking websites about termite. Got scared by those horro stories about termite eating up the house. Saw some small cotton like stuff in the basement next to the basement window last weekend when shop-vac the basement. Suspected it was the 'dirt tunnel' that is created by termite, but didn't find any evidence online so far. Considering having a pest control guy to inspect the house so that I can have a peace of mind. Note: we did have a house inspection and pest inspection before we bought the house, and the resutl was no pests found. But we missed the 'leaky basement' situation at that time - the inspector mentioned the basement is high moisture and future water proofing is possible, and we missed this statement in the report as he didn't emphasize it. The agent was with us that day and he told the inspector before the inspection that he needs to go for another appointment that day, giving or trying to give the inspector pressure completing the inspection sooner. Well, maybe he didn't intend to do that. We were also the guilty ones as we were a little over our heads seeing the purchasing going through and we didn't really put much thinking of what exactely we want to get out of the inspection. Then again, we didn't have any experience with the house, we didn't know what would be the things that require scrutiny.

Experience of learning the house so far is not really a pleasant experience...

one of the collegues's husband went to building trade class when he was young and the program has bee helpful to his family since then. Another friend in the company wants to join the program like this as he had some success with his patio project. Emotion is high when you get something done at home. I can understand that. I was at the point once (for a second or minute). But considering how much time and money I need to invest into this, plus all the tools? Hum... I don't know. I simply don't know. Or maybe I know, but just too lazy to think about it. Let's see, in order to make a decision like this, I need to find out the cost of this program, then I need to see how many additional cost associated with it (tools, transportation, etc.). Do I need to or want to buy a truck? Do I want to build a house in the future? Is self-study possible? Will I have time to the finish the program? Do I have facility at home to practice those learnings? I don't have the answers to all that, so what are the questions that are driving the decision? Cost and timeline of course, and projected savings for future house project. Well, let me find about the cost first then, well just did, but no much luck...

As for wedding plan, nothing solid yet. Not even a date, but surely will be this year.

So happy to throw away that stinky gabage out last Sunday...

The visit to Winnipeg Canada over the labor day weekend was nice. Had a horrible experience with United airline at the chicago airport though. Those guys weren't even try to help customers.

Need to plan out for the 4th. quarter of the year. Decisions need to be made, action needs to be taken...

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 15

2006-08-28T08:50:00.000-07:00

Shop Vac.

It was a lazy weekend. Didn't get much done, except shop-vaced the attic. Had some interesting findings... TV antena, one baby shoe, dirts, wood chips, an army-looking hat, two soda cans, some pencils and pen, more dirts, sugar ants buddies, nails... Now the attic is clean enough to store some stuff. We actually have some extra space there can be used. But it's gonna be a projust on the bottom of the list. Shop-vaced some part of basement too. Didn't complete though. Will continue later. Still need to vacuum that so called 'wine cell' - more like a painting left over equipment cell to me... it needs to be painted ... an extra light in there will be nice too...

Basement starts to get cleared out. Mountains of boxes were dumped in the last couple weekends - the best part of Sunday is dumping trashes... Bumped into neighbor across the street too. An old couple who gave us some flower when we first moved in. Ver nice guesture. We told them that we would invite them over for Chinese food, but we just haven't got time to do it. They asked me if we were hiding. Well, yes, to most of friends of ours when don't have a house, we are hiding, from all the social events, parties or usual chi-chat. For those who own a house, we actually talk to each other more, because we have more to talk about... Just saw a voice mail left on my cell phone from an old alumni from Case. Guess it's another party. Well, we will see... Anyway, we will need to start to schedule a time to invite our neighbors over...

Dinner invitation is not the only thing that needs to be scheduled. Wedding is too, and a more immediate one is "the interview" in Canada this weekend. Meet the parents. Can't imagine what it is gonna be like, but better just keep my temper, smile, lay low for a while... sounds like a gangster just gets out of prison.

Speaking of prison. Some friends from China are crazy about the show 'Prison Break'. Not impressive, after three episodes of the first season. It's still a show for youngsters, too cool to be true. Far less intensive than 24. Happy to see 24 won the Emmy award last night.

My girl has been asking me about the wedding plan. Well, better have something to tell when her parents ask me the same question. I don't know (scratch that). We might go to CA, visit Montery Aquarium and drive the No.1 highway. Then perhaps visit my cusin in San Fransisco. Well, who knows, this is so far the plan. The house has occupied the most of my thought now.
The floor guy will come again to look at the finish this Thursday, I bet they will say the current finish is semi-gloss. Either way, I can't see there is anything more we can do about it. Will see how it goes.

Did some research on trees last week. We might have birch, or ash trees in our backyard. Plus two maple trees at the front. we have a lot of watering to do! According to the tree care article, I need to water the big tree in the backyard for about 1 hour three times a month, and soak hose is the best option for watering. So, lowes here I go. Got the hose from there (homedepot is out of it). Haven't put them down cause it rains last Sunday. Great timing coz my trees are suffering from drought (withering). It seems I don't need to water them any time soon. Rain is good for the tree, but not for the garage roof. It's still leaking after I patched it twice. Can't understand why it leaks again at the same spot as I thought I have patched it again. Did I say I never gonna climb up there to patch it again? Scratch that.

The vole is still at large, it sets off the two mouse trap that I put down and took the apple chunk... well, just have to reset the mouse trap and see what my luck is again.

As for replacing the entrance doors. It's a project that is lost in direction. Still not sure who should go with. Homedepot guys have a unsatisfactory record on BBB. The Angielist guy is expensive. Fall has already started, not sure if it's still a good time to replace doors... The patio door project will sure be postponed to next year.

It seems the most needed project is installing the ventilation fan in kitchen and bathroom. The smoke detector has gone off couple times when we were cooking. Need to talk to our neighbor to see if he is interested in working on that...

Still no furniture in the living room. No big screen TV in the basement either. It's gonna take a while. Might need to keep an eye on this year's black friday.

Friend of mine who is a minister just found a job in a church. Good news for the job, but bad news the job is far from home. He will not be able to commute back home everyday. I hope he can sell his house to the shopping mall company, so that he will have the money for a new one close to work.

Used circular saw last week for the shelfing boards. Didn't wear dust mask or goggle. Wood dust was saturated in the air, and I inhaled quite a bit. Big mistake. I could feel the heat as soon as the blade hits the wood. And it is a loud machine. Quite intimedating, the most intimedating power tool so far... The cuts were fine, I put them on the shelfing rails screwed on the wall last time, and it fits well. One more kitchen project is done. Next will be the towel hanger and hopefully a small bench next to the kitchen stove.

Played 'Titan Quest' on Sunday, a good filler when no Diablo available.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 14

2006-08-22T11:36:00.000-07:00

Power tools.

Don't get caught without it in any house project. Another working weekend passed. Putting together a dresser was the highlight. Army of screws need to be drilled into the wood, and one's hand will fall off if trying to accomplish that without power drill. The 18V cordless power drill came in handy, but holding it for a long time is still not fun. The final product looks all right, but no way near perfect. Well, now I realize why assembled furniture cost that much, because everything needs to be perfectly fit into each other in order to be presentable in the show room.

Went to Ikea in PA last Saturday. 5 hours of driving total. Hauled back a bookcase (for our dinner plates), two bar stools, and some other stuff. Putting together the book case right after we sat foot at home. Again, not perfect. One of the boards is too long, making joint seam too wide. A sanding job is needed to correct that, but my girl is saying it's fine as she can't wait to putting in the plates.

The shelfing boards got from Lowes are a total disaster. None of them fit in the places as I hoped. Although I measured couple times, but the unpredicatble happened. Those boards are sitting on the desk waiting for me to deploy somewhere else. Need to go back to Homedepot tonight to get some more boards.

Drilling a screw into stud is not fun either. Got the stud finder at Lowes, costed me a fortune. Found the stud on the wall, then started to drill in the screw. Man, that's not an easy job. Finally, one rail was screwed on the wall, then found out the shelfing board doesn't fit, and I need screws to secure the board to the supporting rack... well, Homedepot again.

The floor by the way was re-refinished. The semi-gloss finishing on the floor is gone forever (sad). The difference in gloss is gone too. It seems they fixed the problem of finishing variance by covering everything in lower gloss finishing. According to the installer, he put semi-gloss everywhere, well, I believe him, and it's good to see they made an effort to resolve the problem, but the end result is just not satisfactory. Will need to reply their call as they called me to follow up the result of the redo.

No lawn mowing this weekend. Our lawn has been taken over by weeds, and it's not pretty. Need to do it today or tomorrow though. The vole in the backyard is still at large. It took the apple chunk next to the mouse trap twice without triggering the trap (smart). Need to set up the mouse trap better next time.

Basement finally smells better after couple nights of dehumidifying. And we finally have some space for plates (with our new bookcase from Ikea). Got a couple S-hook from Ikea too, great for hanging my fry pans.

It makes sense to make a shopping list for home store now.

The garage roof is still leaking. Well, we paid a hundred bucks for the ladder, better use it.
And finally, need to meet the parents in September. Not sure what's waiting there for me...

The cusin in San Fransisco called on Sunday. Sounds like he has came up a plan for his life. Ok, go ahead and good luck.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 13

2006-08-14T11:41:00.000-07:00

Edger.

Another weekend spent on working around the house. Saturday morning playing with edger to trim the lawn, and cleaning the drive way with water and new outdoor broom from Rubbermaid in the afternoon. Washed the car, water the lawn. Pretty much the whole day spent outside of the house.

Sunday continue to water the lawn, took out the trash and piles of carton boards. Went to our favorite homegoods shop but didn't find anything (highlight of the day). My girl spent the whole Saturday vacuum the house from floor to walls. Cleaned and rehang the blinds... A productive weekend I will say. But then again, since we bought the house, every weekend is pretty productive.

Also organized the basement a little bit. Not complete clearing out the basement yet. Still mountains of stuff there waiting to be unpacked.

Can't believe we still haven't finished unpacking kitchen - the most important place in our house. Was talking with my girl over the weekend, we called our day as 'an unfinished dinner' (vs. a unfinished chest game, an old movie name). It seems we just keep cooking, eating, cleaning the whole day.

Watched the 24 season 5 at night. A great season. It's the best season since season 1, and 24 is the best TV series I have seen so far. I tried Alias, but sense it more gear towards younger audience. 24 strikes me as more realistic. When I was watching the world news this morning, I kept thinking about 24 as the news sounds too much like the plot in 24. Cant' wait for the season 6.

Put down couple mouse trap during the weekend. Hopefully catch the vole, we will see.

Called the flooring guy this morning (after leaving him a voice mail and email on Sunday). The floor finishing doesn't look the same in the two bedrooms as in the living room. It seems that they forgot to apply the Semi-Gloss finishing in the two bedrooms. According to the owner, the installer told him that he applied it in all area. Well, why don't you come over to look at it yourself. Tomorrow he will come over and we will see what happens. This is the first project in our first home, and it didn't go that well. Lesson learned. We have been cooperative, give them the key so that they can work on their own schedule, pay them promptly, and what we got is an uncompleted job. Is dealing with private contractor always bad or just to Chinese?

A dear friend of mine is applying a minister job. He has been out of that role for quite a while since last church he put together decided to dissemble. Life is not easy for him, working part time, talking care of two kids, and working aroud the house too. His wife works hard but has little pay. He tried couple churches for the minister position but the experience has been frustrating. I think myself a lucky person comparing to him. Hope he can reach the turning point very soon.

As for the new job, so far so good. It feels different here, much more alive. People are talking, laughing, chatting... completely the opposite to my previous department.

My young brother called me last Saturday. He came to US almost half year ago. He stays in San Fransisco now. It's a long story how he got here. According to my mum, he is moving out of his mother's house. How can he afford the rent is still a mystery to me. He didn't have a college degree in China, and I guess he didn't speak much English. Don't know what he is doing or planning now. Life in US is not easy for a young immigrant like him (although he is ahead of me in terms of green card. He has it because of his mum). He has no previous work experience (he has been a salesman for a while in China, but he wasn't working very hard I heard). Guess the only start place is the Chinatown. Well, I was in CA before, and I don't like the Chinatown that much. Working in Chinatown is not a way of life. He needs to get out of there, and the only way to do it is through getting some education, and that, has been a challenge for him. He is not a bad person, and he can work hard too, but he needs proper guidance, which is something I did a little when I was in China, but not any more since I left there. Well, guess I need to pick up from where I left...

Smashed a vanity base when I was moving it in the basement. Good job.

Need to find the rack I need for the kitchen. We just have too much stuff there...

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 12

2006-08-07T07:51:00.000-07:00

Water.

is good to us most of the time. Only when I start to own a 1953 house. Water becomes a problem.

Too much water in the air for example, is nothing we usually care about until it condenses itself in the basement and creates a ‘wet basement’ (house maintenance 101). The water in the air is measured by percentage and labeled as ‘moisture level’. The comfortable level is around 40% - 60%. My basement has a moisture level of over 80%. That’s when a dehumidifier comes into play.

Got one from Bestbuy for $200 (ouch) last Friday night and put it into use right away. It sounds louder than I expected, but it works. Couple hours later, I pulled out the bucket, and found the water half full. All right, keep up the good work. Emptied the bucket and put it back in. Keep pumping! (let’s wait and see this month’s electricity bill!).

Dehumidifier is not the only unit in the basement working hard in the last couple days. A small desk fan has been blowing down there all day long – to increase air circulation and ventilation so that dehumidifier and dry out air efficiently (my theory). The smell in the basement has been improved (good job). Can’t wait to clear out the basement (we dumped everything there when we moved in), so that I can rent a carpet cleaner to clean the carpet floor.

And the sofa in the basement. Dirty. My girl washed the cushion cover last Saturday. The sofa cover itself is not detachable so we need to vacuum it then buy another cover to layer on the top of it.

Speaking of vacuum, another expensive item ($300). We got one from Sears last Sunday. The unit is supposed to be quite when it runs (called whispering bell). Well, it should be called ‘thunder bell’ by my standard. I can’t imaging how much louder a vacuum machine can get. Anyway, the unit is supposed to be able to used for floor, carpet, walls, and inside of a car (with an attachment). We will find out soon how well does it work. By the way, it’s a canister vacuum, supposed to be the best option for bare floor.

So, we spent $500 on tools to clean up the house and dry the air (electricity bill not included), does it sound like a good deal to you?

Got ripped off by Sears guy on the lawn mower starter-plug though. Next time, go to Homedepot! No impulse buying! Always research before go into the store! The lawn mower still doesn’t start right away (after plug change). Might be the filter (Sears again).
About the lawn. Oh, thanks for asking. It’s taken over by weed. The neighbor across the street told me to get some chemical to spray on the lawn. ‘You can bring the lawn back’ he said, ‘look I have a beautiful lawn…’, yeah, thank you for the advice. Let me see how to squeeze this project into my future weekends.

Weekend? What weekend? Weekend is work day in the house. The highlight of this weekend is patching the garage roof. Before I get to the details, I need to talk about our neighbor first.

Our neighbor is a licensed electrician, and a handyman in general. He is remodeling his basement, and fixing all around the house. He and his wife and daughter all seem very nice, they have been offering help to us since we closed the house. They are happy that we become the neighbor because previous owner has a gang of biker friends. You can imagine the noise level. Last Saturday, we had the cable guy over to install the internet, and I had the chance to drop by their house (as the cable guy needs to go over to their backyard to activate the service). They were nice enough to show me the house and work-in-process basement project. Later, the guy came over looking at our leaking spigot in the back yard, and decided to pull that spigot out. He showed me how to pull out the siding (now I know how vinyl siding works), disconnected down sprout, then pulled the spigot out. He ran back to house and came back with a new spigot like mine. Before he could put it back in, he found the fitting inside the wall is rotten and leaky too, so it needs to be replaced first. After trying difference wrenches and tools, he decided to give up. That fitting is just rotten and we didn’t have a good grip on it to pull it out. The only way out seems to be cut the pipe from inside then, replace the whole thing. The job calls for a plumber, his brother is a plumber. How convenient! I am now just waiting on plumber come over to fix it….

He also gave me some three prone to two prone adapter so that I can plug my computer in. My home network is up and running. TV is on too. Nice…

While he and I were working in the backyard. My girl made some strawberry smoothie for his wife and daughter. They were polite enough to empty the smoothie (not to say the smoothie taste awful).

So, the night we went to Chinese grocery store, we bought some noodle and soy sauce for them (they mentioned the soy sauce before). They gladly accepted it (and wondering what are they going to do with it in their mind I bet). The guy brought out Jonny Walker Blue Label Scotch, and we had a shot together. The wife came back with anther cup of drink from her home country. My girl had a shot. Well, it was fun. Next morning I woke up, no headache.

After the Sunday lawn mower racing, I started to work on the garage roof. Neighbor saw me up there and right away pointed out what I needed to do the job right. He threw me a tube of roof patch cement. Put it into my caulk gun, I was ready to rumble. Put down the shingle, nailed it, caulked around the shingle and nails (as neighbor suggested). Took me about one and half hour to get it done, and hope it won’t rain any time soon. Well, woke up this morning and notice it has been raining. Went into garage, water again… not sure where is it from though, the water leak is not as bad as before, but still a small paddle on the floor. Where is it from??? Hopefully it’s not because of the caulk not completely dry as I really don’t want to climb up there again! (But do I have a choice?)

Other than the roof caulking. Also did the bathtub caulking last night. It needs 24 hours to cure, so can’t use it till around mid night tonight.

Well, so much for the caulking!

So this weekend, I patched the garage roof (and the improvement is not clear as I still see water in the garage). I caulked the bathtub ( we will see how does it go tonight). We bought a vacuum and a dehumidifier. Our neighbor pulled the leaking spigot out from the back of the house (come to think of it, I might need to seal the hole temporary with duck tape so that the rain won’t get into the wall… see, now I think like water). Our basement moisture has been reduced because of the dehumidifier. My girl washed the sofa cushion. I set up all three PCs in the house, speakers and home network. We didn’t get chance to vacuum the house as we planned though. And I still need to find some storage cabinet and rack for my kitchen (when do I have time to shop?)

Friday night we went to a friend’s house. We met them when we were studying towards our first MBA degree. Another classmate just graduated from Ph.D and got a teaching job in NJ. He dropped by Cleveland before NJ and stay in their house for the night. So, we got together in their new house. Yes, it’s a 1994 new house, and a big one too. My girl still likes ourselves (who doesn’t like their own house) as our house is closer to work and smaller (not necessarily easier to maintain though). As for me, I don’t know. Both houses have pros and cons. It’s good to work in the house a bit so that I start to learn the house - the electricity, the plumbing and various kinds of job. But those learning takes time. One can use the time to make money, ex. stock market, investment etc. But am I a finance person or handyman? That’s a question I don’t have an answer to now. So, let me just fix the house emergencies first then I sit down to reevaluate how I shall spend my weekends.

What are the projects for next weekend?

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 11

2006-08-01T13:46:00.000-07:00

I was dumb enough to put my digital camera in the freezer from morning till noon. Luckily it's still working, well, at least for now. What was I thinking? Oh, couple guys came over for carpeting our stairs this morning, I didn't think it a good idea to leave the camera around so I put it in my lunch bag. Then I came in office, put the lunch bag into freezer as usual...

Dropped by the house during lunch, and found carpeting is done. Nice color. Matches the wall and floor. Didn't realize the color go that well with the wall and the refinished floor. Seems like we have made good choice on color of the floor at least. The second floor carpet looks ugly comparatively, but I don't have the extra $1K to replace that.

The journey of a handman.

Nothing pisses me off more than a lousy job done in the house. Found out our kitchen sink drain leaking last night organizing stuff. Took apart the pipes and joints, and started to suspect the pipe is not correctly jointed, or the P-trap is not the right one for the job. Went over to Homedepot and found the exacte P-trap, then realized the pipe in the house was not connected correctly. The P-trap was connected reversely. The water is supposed to run through the P-trap and go into main drain pipe, but now the water runs to P-trap then slow down (because of the slope of the P-trap is reversed), then the water press reduce, and the water comes back down and stay at the low end connection of the P-trap, the the water starts to leak from that joint.

Homedept guy recommended a water seal tape, $5.84. The very next moment I checked out that tape, I have decided to return it, as this $5.84 is not the solution to my problem. Went back home and used the white plumbing tape to seal the connecter and it stopped the leaking for now. Again, it's a patch, not a solution. Pissed and tired, I left a bucket under the P-trap and went on cleaning up other stuff.

The kitchen floor is still dirty, the P-trap thing postponed my original plan. It looks like a never-ending job which doesn't pay salary.

Need to find a plumber now to correct lousy pipe work. $?

Garage roof shows no sign of leaking so far after I duck taped the seam. Not sure how long will it hold, but need to find someone to fix it soon.

Basement is still sweating. The last one row of the brick wall is wet. Not sure if it's moisture accumulation or water seepage. But if it's moisture accumulation, should it be wet all over the wall instead of one side of the wall, and last row of the wall? Think, think, think...

and where I am supposed to put the ventilation fan in the kitchen?

and when I caulk the bathtub? and skip the shower?

Getting to know the house is not a pleasant experience so far. The more I know, the more uncomfortable I get. The house is like a money vaccum, it sucks your salary in a split of a second.

But does it make sense to spend extra $50K or more to buy a new house in an area far from work? The house will be nicer, and easier to maintain, but we are still talking about extra $50K here, plus it's far and gas price is not helping either, and what about the furniture?

Or maybe I had wrong preception to begin with. Old house needs to be maintained, and I just have to put down some money before we can truely enjoy it. Just like buying a used car.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 10

2006-07-31T10:02:00.000-07:00

Moving is not fun.

Finally, we moved into the new house last Saturday. The weather was good, sunshine all the way, only too hot though. I got sick after couple hours moving stuff around and decided to sit in the shade and take a break. Thanks to my old friend from Columbus and her husband, also my young fellow friend from India, I was able to enjoy the break while they were jumping up and down moving mountains of our stuff.

Exhausted afterwards of course, took 10 hours of sleep and woke up (well got waken up by the lawn mower) on Sunday morning in the new house. Decided to join this 'sunday morning club' and started with weekwacker to trim the yard. It worked out all right (at least I thought it was). Then pulled the lawn mower couple times only didn't get an response from it. Couple more pulls, only found out the pulling cord got ripped on the outside, and inside strings exposed. The outside layer was jammed in the machine, and I couldn't even pull it any more. Pause, look, then think. Took out my power tool, undrill some screws, then took the jammed part of the layer out. Tied the cord so that it won't jam the machine again. Couple more pulls, the machine went back to work. Need to replace the filter and add some gas though...

Next, roof climbing.

Got on the garage roof, duck taped the seam where rain is coming in. The ladder we bought came in very handy. Cut some tree branches while I was on the ladder, then moved the ladder to the front of the house, clean the gutter again. And patched a piece of roof chingle at the drop of one roof end. Cut more branches with a jag saw.

Got back on ground finally, and decided to clean the garage.

Man, that garage is dirty. I doubted anyone clean it in the last 3 years.

Well, took out my gaugle, and mask. Started to clean the inside of the garage with the broom and fixed the garage censor while I was cleaning. Then, use water spray gun wash the floor, and brush the water into the drain. Still, the floor is not clean, but I doubt if I will clean it again any time soon.

Finish working in the garage, then go back to the apartment to clear out some left over stuff, and clean it before turning in the keys. Replaced the kitchen light bulb, bathroom light bulb, windows screen, patio door screen. Cleaned the bathroom. Vaccum the floor. Moved some more boxes of stuff into our car then drove back room to unload...

Back to the new house again.

And started to tape the bathroom tub wall, as it's damaged by water, and we needed to take a shower. So, used up the left over duck tape (used previously for the garage roof), plus some masking tape and plastic wrap, I taped the wall, and had a shower.
1:00 in the morning, we finally went to bed.

7:30am, alarm sounded. Realized right away my body took the toll of yesterday's work as I Felt like my whole body is breaking apart. Drag myself up, go to work.

Noon, went back to apartment to pick up the last couple stuff left in the apartment and dropped off the key. Said good bye to the apartment, and hope that they will return my deposite.

And did I mention it's hot outside today?

Basement is still wet. The agent dropped by on Saturday (when we were moving in), and looked at the wet basement. He wears me out. He said he would pursue this, and said he would check the city record for this house to see if the previous owner did something to the basement before to prove that the previous owner was lying when saying 'no water problem in the basement'. Also he suggested talking to legal professional for advice. He is a sales person I understand that, when the sales went throgh, his job was done. I don't see any more reason he needed to follow up this sales only we haven't filled out a customer satisfaction form sent to us by his company. Don't really know what to say on the form, and as a matter of fact, didn't have the time to even look at it. I have better things to do. I will recommend him with reservation.

The other friend of ours who also bought a house recently came to help Saturday too (remember the guy called out of blue and said they bought a house). Well, I still don't know how they came up with the money, and as a matter of fact, I don't know how they came up with that MUCH money when they told us that their house is $70K more than ours. Well, I don't know what to say.

So, we moved in on Saturday. We cleaned the garage, fixed the garage door sensor, patched the bathroom wall, duck taped the garage roof, mowed the lawn, fixed the lawn mower after breaking it, clean the gutter, cut the tree branches, clean the apartment room, moved more boxes on Sunday. Monday noon I am sitting in my cube now with my whole body aching writing the blog.

Will have a meeting this afternoon. Can't wait to go back home to sleep. But wait, need to clean the range first, and the cupboard, the kitchen floor... I don't need to do laudry though, my girl's duty.

Looking at the whole basement of our stuff, I said, it's gonna take some time.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 9

2006-07-25T18:33:00.000-07:00

Ouch.

Was trying to lay down the storage rack and it fell down on my lips. Bloody lips, internal bleeding, and a chip on the left front teeth.

Not sure how much is it gonna cost to fix the teeth, but surely it's not covered in my insurance. Ouch again.

Not to mention I have a list of things to take care of in house (how many times I have said this?)

Will I sound funny? SSSSSSound funny?

Got a enamel on cast iron 7qt. pot last weekend. Keylime color. Cool stuff. Made in China. Not perfect, but for the price, it's the best option so far. Got another plate - Jamie Oliver Monster Retro. It is a monter in terms of size. Perfect entertainment piece.

Moving to the new house this weekend. Packing and cleaning. Takes at least another month to settle in the new place.

Then the paint.

The furniture? What furniture?

We will be staring at the empty living room and some time, which is not really a bad ideal, considering we just spent $3000 refinishing the floor...

TV, stereo comes later, maybe Thanksgiving... guess need to join the army of people waiting outside of Bestbuy 4 am for the plasma... or not.

Area rug for the floor. That's a good one. Spent $3000 to refinish the floor then going to spend more $ to cover it. hrrr?

When you hurt yourself like that, you really feel pretty awful. The first kitchen incident of mine occurred when I was still in Steiner House (yeah, whereelse). I turned on the gas grill and tried to light it up with the liter. Well, you guessed it, it didn't light up at first so I looked inside of it then suddenly the grill decided to put on some flame, then boom. My eye brows is gone, some hair too.

Second incident still happened in Steiner. Chop off a tip of my finger when cutting leeks. Forgot what I was thinking at that time, but I am pretty sure my mind was preoccupied with something...

Well, they all suck. My teeth... can't help myself licking it over and over again...

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 8

2006-07-24T10:21:00.000-07:00

Life and death.

Monday has always been a special day for most of the working people. You come to the office, browse your email while sipping your coffee. Try to remember where you left last week and start to schedule what you need to do this week.

Then you see this email. One lady in my current department just delievered a baby over the last weekend. Great news. Life is wonderful especially when you look at the baby's picture. Nice close the email and move on to the next one - subjected 'Taking Time Off' from the manager of my previous manager. Hum... he is taking time off again, where is he going this time?

Open the email and realized this email is forwarded. It's from my previous manager. His father just pasted away. Sad news.

Pause. Think. Then sent an email to the two girs left in that department telling them to call me if they have any question. Not sure if I sounded appropriate. Hope they realized that I was offering my help (which they might think is not much). But, did what I have to do.

One life's end is another one's beginning...

Two ladies just pasted by the isle, and one said 'well, I am not much a coupon person'. Well, that depends on how do you want to spend your money lady!

Anyway, this is quite a Monday morning.

Some friend called and told me that they wanted to smash a cake on someone's face on his birthday this weekend after we move in the new house. Errrrr, not sure if it's the right time (or place) to do that when I just refinish the floor, and stack bunch of boxes all around. How about doing that on the patio? Hum.. that sounds ok, but eventually they need to go to bathroom to clean up right? Then they will have to pass the new floor... not sure I want them to do that either... Plus, where I can get strength to put a cake on someone's face after I move in? Kids!

Need to trim the trees, mow the lawn, call the roof guy for repairing, call the door guy to replace doors. call the cable company to cancel service. Call the apartment to update address. Call, call, call.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 7

2006-07-20T17:16:00.000-07:00

Another hot, stuff summer night.

Listening to A State of Trance new episode, so far so good.

When did I start to listen to Trance? Well, I started it when I was still in China. Got a CD that is a compilation of latest trance tracks. I remember Angel from Paul Van Dyk is on the CD. Till I Come is on there too. At that time, I had no idea what trance is or who Paul Van Dyk or ATB is. I also couldn't tell the difference between techno and trance. But later, I started to download mp3 from mp3.com and realized the difference between the two music.

Trance is like a musical andrenaline. You give yourself a shot to jack yourself up, and you might get addictive, just like coffee. Is it because the rythme resembles the pace life is moving? Is it another way to express the repetitiveness of the life? Or is it to echo the pounding moment of the life to remind you that you are actually existing?

I would like to see Trance as a music expression of modern life. A state of tranquility in the hetic world that many people are seeking. Not like Classical, Trance puts the tranquility in a context of repetitive pounding beats. If you really put yourself into the music, you might feel the world around you is moving while you are standing still. Guess that's why Paul Van Dyk has a track called 'travel without moving'.

I am dissappointed to see how DJ Tiesto's work deteriorates, but glad to see ATB put out 'DJ in the Mix 3'. I think it's the best one so far in the market.

Ok, change topic

Boss brought his family to the office today. I had no clue what to say. Awkward moment... why it suddenly gets difficult to get along with people? I am getting old? Maybe I am too preoccupied with something? What is this 'something' then? Is blogging an indication of running away from normal, direct human communication? hum... scary. Why suddenly starting a conversation becomes a challenge? But what is the topic that spurs the conversation? Listening to the group members and I don't seem to be able to catch their jokes... I am getting old.

Need to get back in touch with the business world too. Might help start the conversation. But is office chi-chat supposed to be non-work related?

Group meeting tomorrow. Show time.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 6

2006-07-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

gunstock.

When it comes to refinishing floor, the most difficutl part is picking the color, espeically when one of your family members has strong opinion about it.

It seems we were able to come to an agreement on the color 'Gunstock' due to it's warm reddish tone. Therefore, gunstock it is. Hopefully, after three coats of polyurthene, the color won't change.

Well, at least one project is moving forward.

My seat is next to an main isle. I can hear people talking loud and clear. Quite a distraction from time to time, but I guess I will get use to it. When I have more responsiblities, I won't even care to listen to it.

Two more weeks to move to the new house. That's exciting. Need to start packing this weekend, hopefull the floor will be done by the end of the week.

Other exciting news including potential 'meet the parents' this September. We will see how the visa application goes. We will see...

A friend just called last night. They bought a house too. Wow, that's why American's think Chinese are unbelievable creatures. Chinese buy houses just like that. No warning, no indication, one day you pick up the phone, and the chinese on the other line tells you that they bought a house. Suprise. How did they come up with that much money, I wonder. Listen who is talking, I guess some American friends of mine are also wondering how I came up with that much money to buy our house...

Good question though, where is the money from? No movie date, restaurant, fancy clothe, V6 car, or buying only stuff on sale? Maybe. Savings should not be able to get you very far in short time to afford a house though. Well, anyway, everyone has its own way to make through life, just wish them best luck.

Haven't been running for quite a while. Not like last year, when I just started the job, and moved into an apartment. Life was simple at that time for a while (excluding the challenges at work). Well, let me correct myself, life is never simple, there is always something... it just depends on how you look at it.

Almost August, summer is slowly going away. We didn't go anywhere this summer, come to think of it. Well, we are busy. New house, new job, everything needs to be done.

Still don't know what to do about the bathroom wall where the water damage is. Cement board is too large to fit in my car, might just hire a guy to do it professonally. The referral information never came through from our neighbor. Guess, I have to knock on the door to ask for it.
And also the garage roof. Please don't rain for a while, I need to get someone to fix it. Then it comes to the decision of replacing the whole six beams or only one beam. I need to ask someone... well, all the friends who I can seek advice from might have already been sick of hearing my voice over the phone... not sure if I want to push the envolope much more, but do I have a choice?

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 5

2006-07-17T10:18:00.000-07:00

Caulk, recaulk and everything else.

Noon. Sitting in my new cube at the new department. Everybody else is in a baby-shower celebration. Boss dropped by like 2 minutes before the event and told me and I had my lunch already. Walked in the room where all the food and people sitting there. Hum... wonder how many people will actually enjoy that moment of being staring at. After the 'suprise', I congratulated the 'mother-to-be' and left the room with a bottle of water. Wait, was it a great opportunity to network with the group? Good point, too late though. But, did I show everyone that I had the drive to spend extra hour to get things done? Well, did I say 'I had lunch already' as the excuse for leaving? err, stop talking to myself!

Don't know what was I thinking... anyway. The floor guy came in today to sand the floor. Can't wait to see what will it look like after the sanding. Need to pick the color of stain later tonight and let them know tomorrow. At least we are getting things moving forward, that's good.
A friend just sent an email in response to my home repair emergencies. Many good pionts, I have to talk to him tonight. Wish he is still in town so that I can ask his help more, but I guess I just have to learn quickly how to deal with house issues myself.

Didn't get the change to sleep last night, my brain was widely awake, and don't know why. Not a good thing for someone who is starting a new job the next day. The coffee this morning helped, we will see how the rest of the afternoon goes.

Scheduled a meeting with new boss this afternoon and had very little preparation of the subject. Thought I stuff something in my brain this morning, but another guy called for some help with my previous duties (he didn't know I was transferred. But why he knew my new phone no.?) Anyway, helped him out but didn't help myself out much.

Sleep is important, I conclude, I make bad choices when not enough sleep...

zzZZZzzzz

Caulked and recaulked, still doesn't look too well (the backsplash). Well, it's our first project and we didn't do it right. Lesson learned, hopefully it won't fall down anytime soon.

New team seems nice, people here are young, most of them are younger than me I believe. I bet they are wondering why this old chinese guy doing here...

Got my laptop for work today, brand new, Cool stuff. Fast and furious.

All right, better clear my mind before I walk in the meeting with boss in 15 minutes.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 4

2006-07-13T17:54:00.000-07:00

Don't burn the bridge.
When the boss tell you not to burn the bridge in the performance evaluation, you really don't know how to respond... at least I don't...

well, guess I just have to leave the bridge along then. Duh...

...

hallarious...

Ok, forget about the bridge...

It seems regrouting worked this time, only too much grout... well, did my best and I am not gonna make any more change. Color of the tile looks pretty good in the kitchen.

Got couple books from library about tiling, found some good ideas, now have some confidence to tackle the bathroom wall... still don't have a detailed plan in place though. One thing to help me thinking - let contract do the job = $425. Guess we have a winner here.

My girl is watching 'You think you can dance'. Now what's the deal about the English accent these days? It's on every show, every movie or TV series, what the heck? Let's pop in some Chinese or India accent, that will be awesome... well as a matter of fact, they have already started to do that, even in 'Superman returns', they put in a Indian boy among the Russian gang. hrr?

Well, it's a global community now. Listen to what I am saying, a Chinese guy in US is complaining about accent? Ha.

Next week the floor guy will come sand the floor. It's gonna be the first project in our first home, Don't screw up dude, or I will ... look for the warranty or 1-800 number? well, did they say they don't have a warranty? What am I thinking?

Can't stand that English accent...

By the way, saved $35 today by pulling out grippers nailed on the floor myself. Labor intensive stuff. I am really getting old...

Not much going on tomorrow, no appointment with contractor, no immediate job to finish in the house. Will go grocery shopping after work. Shopping for food and any food related items (such as plates, dishes, pots and pans) is much more relaxing.

Gonna to watch movie now 'Underworld Evolution'. Vampires and Werefolves... hum...

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 3

2006-07-12T09:35:00.000-07:00

Regrout.

Just finished the forecast commentary and ready to send over to the boss for review. Take some time here to think about regrout that I am going to finish tonight.

Lunch was good, beef is not tender though. I always have trouble stir frying beef strips tender, like ones in restraurant. Not sure how they marinade the beef... maybe I better not knowing it...
other than the texture, the flavor is all right, a straightforward onion soy sauce stir fry dish.

If owning a house is as easy as cooking, I will be much happier. Haven't got much time cooking lately, many cook books just sit there after being taken from library.

Speak of library, it's a wonderful place. You can check out almost everything you need, DVD, CD, books, magazine. And you can reserve the book and DVD online, and pick up later. Smells like Bestbuy... only it's free.

Call the floor guy, and heard that they don't have a warranty for the service, hum... that sounds interesting, what am I going to do if anything goes wrong after the job is done? Suddenly warranty becomes very important, a concept that a typical chinese doesn't develop back in home. Now, everything here is backed with warranty (of course, it might no get you very far either), but still a piece of paper saying 'we garantee blah, blah, blah, might give you a peace of mind after you spend that much $.

Got my moving boxes here, I don't need that many though, I am just a entry level staff here and I really don't have much to move over to the new department. Why not take those boxes home for my house moving? Hey that's a great idea! Wait, will the guard stops me at the door??? Why they didn't just drop off that many boxes of money ???

Need to figure out what color to use to paint the house, and need to get it done before floor guys come over to sand the floor, and need to give the paint enough time to dry, so the dust from sanding floor will not dirty the wall again. Hum... how am I going to do that? Why I pulled out the carpet at the first place? it was fairly new, but I just don't like the color. It's a dark, brownish color best for people aged 50+. I am not that old.. yet. But, have to suck it up leaving the carpet upstairs because of $ shortage.

Sometimes I wonder when I can start to enjoy the house instead of worrying about it. Hope soon.

Will have the mid year performance evaluation this afternoon. Don't know (or don't care) what my boss says as I am moving to another department. I didn't even know there is gonna be a mid year performance evaluation... maybe I just forogt... anyway, will let you know what happens.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 2

2006-07-11T18:59:00.000-07:00

Grout, sanded.

I can't believe the grout is cracking already. We just put it in yesterday, and it's cracking today... what the heck? Not enough grout I guess, gotta redo it, only if I know how...

Got a bucket of grout from Homedepot and it says 'Sanded' on the bucket, but it turned out to be 'Unsanded' (we went back for a second one and after open it we immediately found out the difference...). The HD guy said it's manufacturer's fault, called the manufacture with the 1-800 number on the back of the bucket, and if can't get an answer, then call him and he will call them for me... blah, blah, blah... yeah, very helpful.

The roofing guy came the other day to look at the leaking garage roof in the pulling rain (best time ever to look at leaking). Not good. Whole roof needs to be replaced, and possible rebuild the garage. $2500 minimum. Do I look like rich people?

Another contractor called and gave me a list of price, patio door $3370, move a window $930, install a spigot and joint $220, roof mounted exhaution fan in bathroom $685, replace one section of the wall over bathtub with cement board and tile it $425, repeat the job for three walls $1150, replace front door $835, side door $585. You think I grow money at my backyard?

Flooring, refinishing the living room, and two bedroom, plus carpet the stairs, $2700.

and let me see what else... like make some money?

oh sure, a guy just called and ask me if I am interested in some franchizing business, and there is a presentation tomorrow in Holiday Inn, good ideal, I am gonna go grab some money... yeah right.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 1

2006-06-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine told me that he was searching, and I told him he was not alone. I have heard that before.

It's truely a bless if you don't think much everyday, just enjoy the evey minute of it. For some of us, that's not true. We think, and try to find the answer.

You might say, this guy has too much free time...

I can understand that statement, we are in a time of great breakthrough here. We are all 30 years old. We have built certain level of experience and our network, we are make stride into new challenges and opprtunities. We are shaping our future life, and we glance our tomorrow with more realism than ever.

Simply put it, we don't have the luxury of time to think through those questions. We have our lives to take care of, the real life, involving buying the car, the house, the milk for the baby, the job, the promotion and raise. etc. Everyday we need to do what we have to do to maintain our family, our work, and life, and we just don't have time left to think for a moment some of the life's fundamental questions, for example, what on earth we are here for?

This questions happens to be a title of a best selling book here in US. The book tells how Christian thinks about the purpose of life, which I found very intriguing and interesting. But that's another story, or is it?

I think the question I posted earlier 'how did you spend the first 30 years of your life' is an attempt to learn from the history so that I can do better in the future. Hopefully, in the journey of finding the answer, I have grown into a better person.

To all the friends who are searching in your life, I want to let you know that you are not alone, and I am happy for you. I wish you find what you look for very soon.

First Blog

2006-06-29T21:07:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine recommend me here, and this is my first blog...