Back in China

The first thing I did was to go to bank and get some cash in RMB - lots of it - to 1) pay off the monthly rent that was slightly overdue due to the delay of my return; 2) pay for the airplane tickets that I booked for the upcoming trip to the orphanage; 3) prepare the expending and other needs for the same trip. Right away I am putting away the plastic card that's almost all you need in the U.S. and entering a different lifestyle.

Then I went for a haircut. During the 3 months in the Bay Area, I had just one haircut! I nearly had a second one, but I thought it was close enough to my return to China. Doing it in Shenzhen is much better; they give you the haircut, hair wash, and a partial massage - the whole set.

Lunch was at one of my most frequently visited noodles houses, and dinner was at a friend's home. I took bus there after an afternoon nap. Again, 3 months of driving fun was over, and I quite enjoyed to have someone else driving. Following the dinner - this was with a small group that I often fellowship with - we shared briefly and pr*yed. They saw that I was getting tired, and they urged me to go home.

I went to bed at a relatively healthy hour of 11:00 PM, hoping that I would get a good night of sleep on the first day back. I woke up once at 2:00 AM. Then I got up for good at 5:00 AM, partially also because I had a meeting with the U.S. customer at 6:30 AM.

In short, I am fully back in China, and I didn't seem to have missed one beat. :-)

"Exhibition Games"

This will be the last blog entry before I help my parents move to San Jose. In fact, the phone line at our Berkeley place has already been cut off (at 6 AM!), but luckily the high-speed Internet connection is still open, and I am taking advantage of it.

Anyway, this is related to work. Due to schedule shuffling at work, we finally decided to have two software features demo sessions on Thursday afternoon U.S. time, one after another. Ideally, both can be participated by my Chinese coworkers in Shenzhen; after all, they developed the software. But the schedule doesn't allow them to do the first one, so I will be showing the first batch of features to our U.S. customer. They, however, will be able to show the second batch of features on their own, with me helping the communication on the side.

Here is an actual quote from the email that I sent out to both China and U.S. to coordinate the two sessions:

Why don't we just call this a demo doubleheader? While I will be the "starting pitcher" for the first session, the Shenzhen engineers will "start" for the second session (I will come in "relief"). The rest of you are umpires, and I hope you will be generous with the strike zone. :-) (After all, these are exhibition games.)

I just couldn't pass on an opportunity to add a little fun to work.
:-)

How to Donate Books

Or, "How to get rid of materials not because they are not good anymore but because it's time to unclutter and make more space." As I am helping my parents to pack and move (from Berkeley to San Jose), it's not surprising to discover that majority of the books have been my contribution to the family collection. Thus it is my pleasure to go through the boxes of books and make decisions.


Step 1: Gather all the books. Some of the books were taken off the shelves the last few days, while some have been in boxes for ages.

Step 2: Browse through all the books. The ones that I want to keep are put in boxes on the right-hand side, and the ones that I decide to get rid of are put in boxes on the left-hand side. The count: 20 total boxes. 10 to keep, and 10 to go.


Step 3: For the books to go, sort them by categories. This is to prepare for donating to libraries (a bookstore with connection to local public libraries will take these books). I am just being thoughtful. :-)

Step 4: Box them up again by categories. Top three categories: Self-improvement/self-help books, technical/text books, and literature. The count: 8 boxes in English, and 2 boxes in Chinese. (Interestingly, the books that I keep are of quite different categories and closer to 50-50 ratio by language.)


Step 5: Load the 10 boxes to my 4-door automobile.


Step 6: Unload the 10 boxes to the bookstore.

Total estimation of the 10 boxes of books: 300 lb, and I spent maybe $3,000 on them? (The bookstore was thrilled, I could tell.) One may ask: Why don't you do a garage sale - you should get some money back? Yeah, I suppose - and so that I can buy more books? ;-) (Actually, I just don't have time to do it.)

07/07/07

Yup, that's today's date. And I picked a time that is 7/7/2007 both in China and in America to post this entry. :-) It would be neat if it were an hour earlier at 7:07 AM in California or three hours earlier at 20:07 in China (5:07 AM in California), but I wasn't going to get up that early on a Saturday morning!



P.S. (above) 11 hours later, a "historical moment" captured on my cell phone. :-)

BBQ on 4th of July

It was nice. :-) Strictly speaking, it was a BBQ that started late night on the 3rd of July. We barbecued and chatted all the way to early morning on the 4th and slept over at a friend's place in Sacramento.

Thanks to my dear friends, for once I am not quite like Dilbert.

:-))