Point Reyes (Repost)

(Originally posted on Xanga on Tuesday, May 22, 2007)

This past weekend I enjoyed a hike with a couple of friends at Point Reyes. Beautiful day, beautiful sights!

Yosemite (Repost)

(Originally posted on Xanga on Wednesday, May 09, 2007)


First, the rocks. I don't know if I should say "Yosemite rocks!" or "Yosemite's rocks rock!" You get the pun. The first picture on the left is the Wawona Dome.


Next, the trees. The last picture is a giant sequoia known as the Fallen Monarch. A tablet next to it reads, "Almost Immortal: Individual giant sequoias have been know to live 3,200 years. They are resistant to disease, fire, and insects; it seems the Big Trees could live forever. However, the giant sequoia does have a weakness. Though its roots spread out 150 feet from the tree, they are only three to six feet deep. Eventually the combination of weather facters and the shallow root system will cause the tree to fall. Even after death the tree decays slowly, often taking hundreds or even a thousand years to deteriorate. The Fallen Monarch fell about 300 years ago."

Ah, the waterfalls. Spring is the best time to watch these spectacular waterfalls, as by summertime, the water will not be as much. From left to right: Chilnualna Falls, Bridalveil Fall, Bridalveil Fall (closer), and Yosemite Falls.


A few other famous scenes. From left to right: From parking lot at Glacier Point, Half Dome, North Dome & Royal Arches, and El Capitan (with Half Dome in the distance).


Finally, some random shots. From left to right: Morning dew, "Shhhhh, our friend is sleeping!", "Shhhhh, our little friend is sleeping!", and a family by the water.

Working From Home (Repost)

(Originally posted on Xanga on Thursday, May 03, 2007)

It was raining in the early morning when I got up at about 6:00 AM. I needed to prepare for a software demo with our U.S. client in Utah in 3 hours, while I planned to go to the office in San Ramon to conduct the video conference. By 7:30 I was done with the preparation and I was having breakfast. It continued to rain, and the radio kept giving out news about accidents everywhere in the Bay Area. Hmmm, I was a bit worried. The traffic was going to be bad, not to mention the portion of Easy Bay highway that collapsed due to a serious accident early Sunday morning and was shut down since. My drive to the San Ramon office would happen to be affected directly. Remember I was late the last time? I wouldn't want to be late again!

Why don't I just work from home? That's the deal anyway, right? I wanted to go to the office to do it because this demo was important, but I did have virtually everything set up at home - and the weather and traffic were just not promising. Finally, I decided to stay home. I still had my pajamas on, and they stayed on. :-)

The demo started at 9:00 AM California time, and it went quite all right. My equipments at home didn't fail me, although I seriously am thinking to add more RAM to the laptop. The phone and the video conference through the high-speed DSL worked fine. After two uninterrupted hours, the demo on 3 software features ended smoothly. I was quite pleased. In addition, I video recorded the whole session for future reference.

Speaking of video recording, initially I wouldn't be able to carry out certain portion of the demo since it required a particular printer hooked to the server. I could not have it here. Instead, my Shenzhen teammates had pre-recorded this portion for me in Chinese. So, in this demo session with the U.S. client, I replayed the video recording through the video conference; I muted the sound while I explained the steps in English. It worked out just fine.

All the while I was in my pajamas, although I didn't let others know because they were all in the office. :-) I spent another hour after the demo session to follow up with various parties, and I was done by noon. I was very pleased with the whole experience.

That was when a jolt suddenly hit the house. For about a second. Soon the news came that it was an earthquake of 3.0 magnitude, centered not far from here. Oh well, I guess working from home doesn't make it entirely safe!

I Hop, but I Don't Skip (Repost)

(Originally posted on Xanga on Saturday, April 28, 2007)

I am going back to the Bay Area this morning. After 3 days of hard working in Utah (into late night every night since that is daytime China time, best hours for me to communicate with the team back in Shenzhen), I surprisingly didn't need much sleep last night. I woke up rather early, thinking sweet thoughts. :-)

There was an IHOP about one minute walk from where I stayed. I took a stroll and went in at 7:00 AM, and found a quiet and nice table. A waiter brought me a big glass of orange juice, and he left me alone to ponder over the menu. That was when things had a rather anticlimactic turn.

Suddenly the waiter seemed to never return!

I knew rather quickly what I would like to have, and I began to wait, and wait, and wait. What was going on? I heard him chatting and giggling with another waitress. Don't you realize that I am waiting, I thought. It was not busy at all! Maybe he is redefining the meaning of "waiter." Or maybe I should invent a word "waitee." A couple of times I almost stood up and went to him. I looked at my watch, and I was ready to answer "5 minutes ago" should he come and ask "Are you ready to order?"

That was when it hit me - 5 minutes! You cannot wait for 5 minutes? Or from another angle: How could you allow yourself to be occupied by anxiety for 5 minutes when in fact you could, say, go on with your quiet and sweet thoughts from earlier in the morning? You wouldn't let a waiter's innocent lapse to ruin your morning, would you?

Ah, life's busyness got the better of me for 5 minutes. Luckily it didn't last. When the waiter finally came, I had calmed down. The rest of the breakfast and morning was just wonderful. Great food and drink, a nice stroll back to the hotel, a few camera shots of the scenary around - the blossomy peach flower and the mountains with snow caps - and back to the hotel for this blog entry. :-) In 15 minutes I will check out and head to the airport with much peace and joy. I am glad that I recovered in time, instead of skipping some of the better things in life.

*** Moving ***

Currently I am helping my parents to move from Berkeley to San Jose. This will involve getting a new place in San Jose (done), moving my parents to the new place (in process), and selling the house in Berkeley (started). Moving includes to sort out all the stuff we have, get rid of some of them, pack up the rest, and finally move. Selling the house includes to empty the house (which is to move out), minor renovation to make the house more attractive, put it on market, and to sell a good price. As you can see, lots of stuff and effort are involved in moving.

As if that's not enough hassle, I am about to add one more item to the list: Moving my blog!

In October last year I resumed blogging on Xanga after 2.5 years of inactivity in the blog world. But a few months ago Xanga began to be blocked in China, and I had to pay (a special VPN) to get around it. Then, today, during this home visit in California, I couldn't get on Xanga even from America! I don't know what is going on, and it will probably get fixed soon. But all things considered, I wonder maybe I should prepare to move my blogging to Blogger.com (or Blogspot.com). It is connected to my Gmail account too. This blog site doesn't seem to be restricted in China (yet), perhaps thanks to its connection with Google.

I will do it in two steps. First I will repost some of my recent blog entries from Xanga to here - so that you can keep track of some recent stories - while continuing to post on Xanga (when it recovers). Then, after returning to China, I will "officially" move to here, perhaps in July or August.

In fact, this blog was the first blog that I ever created. I moved to Xanga thanks to friends' invitation, but the situation is prompting me to move back.

At least it's not as big a hassle as moving a home!