100,000

Occasion: Toyota Camry hits 100,000 miles

Date: Sunday, November 30, 2008

Time: Just about 3:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time

Location: Highway I-880, going south (S.F. Bay Area)

City: At border of Fremont & Milpitas, CA

On Radio: FM 102.1 KDFC, Solomon: Overture (Handel)

The Story: I bought the car more than 9 years ago (1999), as it was brand new. When I left California for China 4 years ago, it was already over 90,000 miles (averaging 18,000 miles a year). During the 4 years since, I put on maybe 3,000 miles a year for the home visits (twice a year).

Live photos taken when the car hit the milestone, or "100-thousand-mile stone"?

(I guess I wasn't speeding. :-)

Some before-and-after shots:

Finally, a video showing the exact moment:

Mid-autum Updates

Being sick at home gives me an opportunity to post some long over-due updates. (Which means, I am not that sick.) Interestingly, I can easily pick up from where I left off in my previous updates - more than 2 months ago - on exactly the same topics.

Olympics: Other than watching the spectacular opening ceremony, I didn't follow the Games a whole lot. When the two weeks were over, I thought, that's it, no more Olympics. Not so fast. A couple of weeks later, I was visiting Beijing for the Mid-autumn Festival long weekend, and guess what, a friend got me a ticket to the Paralympics! I ended up inside the Bird's Nest. A memorable experience.

Traveling: After missing that Dalian trip in June (see previous post), my traveling hit full stride in the summer. I am averaging 2 weekend trips a month, and that average is bound to raise after this month. Will I ever get tired of traveling? I don't know. But for now, comparing to how much I work in the office, these weekend trips can be considered leisurely. :-)

Province: I did add another province to my list! In August, I went to Hubei for the first time (another weekend trip), thanks to a friend's invitation. It was a very good trip to the "countryside." It was a short-term trip and quite productive, making friends and enjoying the fresh air.

Movie: Yes, the Three Kingdoms movie came out in July. (Official name: Chibi, or Red Cliff) It was quite entertaining. Since the Three Kingdoms is such a cultural phenomenon in China, naturally the movie drew lots of criticism, and it showed that sometimes people are just too serious. It's a movie, and it's mainly based on a fiction (granted, a fiction based on history). Get a life, people. Anyway, it drew lots of audience too, breaking all kind of Chinese box office records. What we saw was Part 1. Part 2 will come out early next year around the Chinese New Year.

Balance: At least, all the 4 items above are evidence that I am making an effort. Meanwhile, work pressure continues to mount. Did I mention that I was sick today? Can you guess how I got sick? If you thinking along the line that I worked a lot and lack of rest made me prone to sickness, you are very unfortunately correct.

Time to indeed get some more rest. Until next time.

Mid-year Review

Before you know it, it's already July, and half of the year 2008 has gone. Or should I say, good-bye, 1004? :-) It's time to review the few goals that I set for this year if you recall a blog entry from six months ago. (Gosh, I was serious, wasn't I?)

Olympics: I already shared with you that I missed the Olympic torch when it went through my city. Up to this point, I haven't heard anything or from anyone about my volunteer application. May I safely say that I won't get it? Now the question is, will I want to have anything to do with the Olympics - say, going to Beijing to watch a few competitions? Honestly I don't feel passionate about it. As much as I used to enjoy watching it on TV or reading Olympic stories in the books, I don't feel like to be just a spectator this time around.

Traveling: I indeed have lived up my own expectation, traveling extensively the first half of the year, including a home visit to the U.S. (during which I had a few trips within the U.S. to Chicago, Salt Lake City, and L.A.). But I hit a major stumbling block when I returned to Shenzhen: I planned a trip to Dalian a month earlier but I had to skip it due to work pressure!! That was a first time for me. But looking back, I made the right move because we did need some extra effort to turn things around at work. I have two more trips coming up very soon, including one to the NW. I feel good about them because work pressure is not as acute now.

Province: Well, due to the skipped trip to Dalian, I failed to add to the list of provinces that I've travelled to in China. (Dalian is a beautiful city in Liaoning province, which I have not been to.) I look forward to making it up. Dalian is on my list of destinations for the second half of the year.

Movie: The new Three Kingdoms movie is going to be released very, very soon! (In less than two weeks, in fact.) I cannot wait. So much anticipation. The best part of it? There will be two parts of the movie. The first part in July, and the second part in December. This is the Asian edition of the movie. The non-Asian edition that will be released next year will have just one part. I am glad to be in Asia, being able to see the "extended" version.

Balance: I hate to say that I have failed in this area - balancing work and life - but indeed I haven't succeeded. There are plenty signs of improvement, however, and the best part is that I am bringing a positive impact to the project team that I am managing in this area. We are a bunch of engineers, okay? We are a bunch of hard-working engineers. It is probably refreshing for some of them to hear and see a manager who advocates that sufficient rest is key to the success of work. If only I could do what I preach!

I look forward to a better 1004 coming up. :-)

More Updates, Finally

I am now back in the Bay Area, and I realize - actually, I have been fully aware - that I haven't blogged for nearly two months. Time to share some stories, and I don't even know where to begin!

Olympic Torch (Shenzhen)

Okay, let me start by telling the story of the Olympic Torch going through Shenzhen. It occurred on May 8. Originally, it was to start at 8:00 AM, and the route would go through my apartment! I could directly watch the main boulevard where the torch was supposed to go through from my 10th-floor balcony. In addition, our company figured that with the 8 o'clock start, all traffic to work was going to be bad, thus everyone got half a day off. I was getting ready from early morning on, taking photo shots of the main boulevard, hopefully to capture the changes throughout the day.

But then, the torch never came.

What happened? On the same morning, a team decided to climb to the top of the Mount Everest with another torch. CCTV live broadcast the climb and pushed the Shenzhen start to noon. The shortened schedule resulted in a shorten route, and the torch never came to my apartment.

At least I was waiting in the comfort of my own place. Thousands of people were waiting downstairs, under bright sunshine, for hours in vain.

Hospital Visit (Beijing)

My friend Albert's situation didn't improve, and doctors, after several reviews, had all agreed that amputation was the way to go. Albert was to make a decision soon.

Since I'd be going back to the U.S. in about a week (on May 14), I decided to see Albert one more time. I was able to get half-price on round-trip tickets to Beijing for the weekend at the last minute, and I was on my way.

He was in a much better spirit than I last saw him (Easter Sunday), and people around him, including his wife, all appeared to be calmer. It was a time of mutual encouragement. For most of us, it was hard to move our eyes away from a difficult situation - we tend to focus on suffering or misery - while losing perspectives of the whole picture.

Little did we know, something big was about to happen in China. It would force all of us to look at things differently.

The Earthquake (Sichuan)

Monday (May 12) afternoon, news broke out that an earthquake had occurred in Sichuan. Having heard such news quite frequently lately, most of us were a bit numb. Other than asking around if anyone had family or friends in Sichuan, we simply moved along with our daily work.

But the death toll continued to climb and reports were getting more and more serious. By end of the day, everyone was stunned.

A week later (May 19), the whole nation started a 3-day mourning period, and on the minute exactly a week from the earthquake, the whole nation observed 3 minutes of silence. (I was already back in the U.S., but I happened to be still up working at that moment. I was in sync with everything my Chinese coworkers were doing.)

By the time of this blog entry (May 23 China Time), the total number of dead and missing has reached over 80,000.

People in China have responded tremedously. I've never seen so many people coming together with such a unified thought: Save the victims and rebuild their homes. The year 2008 will be remembered for many big events in China, but I wonder, between the Olympics and the earthquake, which event truly pulled the great nation together.

Touring the City (1) (San Francisco)

On a lighter note, after returning to the U.S., I promptly became the tour guide for my Chinese coworkers who had been in the U.S. for a business trip. They were on their way back to China - and indeed much of our conversations was about the earthquake - and I hosted them in the Bay Area. Two interesting notes:

1) On Friday afternoon we visited Google. Previously I had took some Chinese coworkers (also on business trips) to this famous company, but each time it was on a Saturday, and almost nobody was around for the weekend.

Friday afternoon was a different scene, but I didn't quite realize this fact. I led them into the campus as if we were working there. We took up a few bicycles and began to ride around. It was nice. Then I asked someone - in uniform - to take a picture for us.

"No, I cannot do that," he replied in a serious tone. Oh my, that was when I realized that something was wrong. "Are you employees here?" "No." "Are you visiting Google employees here?" "No." "Then you are not supposed to be here."

For the rest of our "visit," security guards' eyes were all on us. There was even a security vehicle that followed us all the way to where I parked!

2) There appeared to be some doubts in their minds about the Golden Gate Bridge. "What's so special about it?" They heard a lot about it and had seen photos. "Wait until you actually see it" was my reply.

We got there on a Saturday morning, and while we were still on the freeway, the bridge appeared, with the main body surrounded by a belt of fog. Yet it was a very bright day, and the top of the bridge completely bathed in the sunshine. It was a perfect combination. My coworkers were simply stunned, almost speechless.

The Bridge never disappoints.

Touring the City (2) (Chicago)

Then I was on my way to Chicago! Two of my coworkers returned to China on Sunday, and one stayed for his prolonged vacation. We were invited to visit a couple in Illinois, who once worked in Shenzhen and became good friends of ours. Two interesting notes for this trip:

1) Chicago left quite an impression to my coworker. First of all, it surprised him. He was expecting a totally modern city, but at the end, he appreciated more the parts that showcased the history of the city, including the seemingly old train system.

We took "L" to downtown, went up the Sears Tower, hopped on a bus to go through the Magnificent Mile on Michigan Ave, had Chicago-style pizza for dinner, and got on "L" again back to Midway Airport, before renting a car for the rest of the trip.

The ride from Chicago to Champaign, where our friends live, was also marvelous. The flat and wide farmland was an eye-opener for my coworker.

2) Seeing old friends was the most precious! Seeing them with their new-born babies - twins! - was even more special. The twins were a boy and a girl, and our immediate assignment was to come up with Chinese names for the babies before we would leave.

(Being Caucasians, they learned limited Mandarin while living in China, and one of the pleasant surprises from our visit was that they found that they didn't lose that much.)

We had light meals (including a BBQ at their backyard), and we chatted a lot. The rest of the time we just watched the babies cry and smile. The whole thing wasn't at all some all-out party, but our visit was filled with peace and joy.

At the end we came up with Chinese names for the twins. We inserted the words "love" and "holy" into their names, and they sounded like their English names. Their parents liked the names. I hope that they will too when they grow up.

April 1st

This morning we had our team daily meeting at 9:15 as usual. I first apologized to everyone for the lack of energy I displayed yesterday due to lack of sleep. I then told them that I was able to get a hold of our U.S. customer last night to follow up on some issues that we needed feedback. "There are major changes to the current release scope," I then announced. "Since the Abu Dhabi features are so crucial, we are going to defer the two biggest features that we are working on to the next release."

The whole team just exploded. "Not again!" "How can they do this?!" "All the effort we've put in!"

I turned around and wrote on the white board: APRIL FOOL'S DAY

They didn't stop shouting, but now it was like, "I cannot believe that we fell for it." "Just this morning I was thinking today is April Fool's Day, but I still thought you were for real."

I was having a good time - I am sure they were too - until someone said, "Jim, we are not going to believe anything that you say from now on."

Just today, please? Just today.