1. read a book or listen to an audio book
2. maintain current weight
3. maintain 14-16 gym visits per month for 6 more months
4. 10 push ups
5. learn to ride a bike
6. learn to swim again
7. do 5 hikes
8. sieve thru existing recipes and cook 10 new dishes
9. get rid of the box of crap
10. write another android app
11. make another modular model
12. complete one non modular origami project
13. complete one sewing project
14. (set a realistic investment goal)
15. go on a family trip
16. go on a trip with jim
17. go back for carnival
18. go to japan
19. go to yosemite
20. go to tahoe (not sure for what yet)
21. get married
22. buy a house

Some random goals for the new year (not in any particular order), just want to keep a list so I can keep track and see my progress . Probably missing some, so will come back and add them when I think of them.

quick summary, saturday: trained for an hr at the gym in the morning; scs alumni bbq at half moon bay, saw mark stehlik there; got grocery and made a cheesecake before dinner; split the first cherry tomato from our garden with jim; watched transporter 3; finish kingdom heart 2. sunday: sort of trained for 45 min in the morning; bbq with friends in the park; big loads of laundry; and going to do some work now.

i'm trying out this gym near google, it's more expensive than others, but very nice atmosphere, friendly and helpful trainer, not very crowed and it's on the way home. haven't really exercised since high school, i can barely run a block now = =

we harvested 2 beans earlier this week, not many to begin with since it's in a small pot, but they kept getting eaten by something before they got more than 1cm long. the cherry tomatoes are starting to turn red now, ate one yesterday, will have a bunch more soon this week.

I took Jim to Jake's to celebrate Penguin's winning with some unauthentic Philly Cheesesteak. Jim ended up ordering something else, not sure why and didn't like it. I had the Cheesesteakand curly fries, the fries were good, Cheesesteak was so so.

After two tries, we have a pretty good meatball hoagie recipe now (just sause). The meatball I got form Costco was really good, though turn out it's made with Chicken, which is fine. Still need to find good bread, the one we used was too soft before toasting, crumbles too easily after toasting.

Jim made me ride the new google bike over the weekend. The new bike has lower seat and no horizontal beam, so easier for me to get on / off. I managed to go around a circular flower bed couple times with Jim holding on, but still end up crashing into the flower bed once, scratched up my left leg.

My garden is doing well. I see some pinky sized tomatoes on the store bought tomato plant. I have 15 other tomato plants that I grew from seeds, the largest one is also flowering now. The pole bean is also flowering. The store bought jalapeño pepper came back from the dead, with completely new set of leafs. The 3 jalapeño pepper plant I grew from seed are doing ok, but they are pretty small, probably too late for this season. Got 9 scallion growing among my small kalanchoe bed. After putting all the kalachoe into shades, they are finally growing greener leaves. Basil is doing ok, wonder when I should start harvesting.

When hiking in Russian Ridge on Sunday. Kind of forgot how winding page mill road is, Jim drove last time, but I had to drive this time. The 10 mile drive took more than half hour each way, whole time Jim complained how slow I was while going up hill, then too fast coming back down. We also ad a late start, by the time we got up the hill, it was already sometime after 1PM. It was quite chilly up there, we didn't bring an extra layer, so whole time I had to keep my hands in the pocket, pull my hoodie over the cap, sunglass to block the wind. Whole mountain was engulfed in fogs, even though friend recommended the trails for the supposedly great view, we couldn't see anything. But not all was lost, the Ancient Oak Trail was very interesting. Lots of old trees completely covered in moss, dripping water, making the ground all muddy, feels like we were in a rain forest. Some of the trees seems refuse to die, there was one giant tree that fell over, roots exposed, and new branches growing from the side. I also spotted a giant banana slog, it was like 6 inches long. We walked for about 4 hours, 5 miles total. [Map to come]

last weekend, i went shopping at costco alone on empty stomach... bad idea! tried bunch samples and bought bunch of them. i also went by the cooked food section and couldn't resist picking up a rotisserie chicken. actually the chicken was probably the cheapest thing i bought, only $6, everything else was like at least $10 each.

the chicken was pipping hot, we decided to eat it as soon as i got home. of course we couldn't finish it all. next two days we ended up eating out with friends, so the chicken was left untouched. tuesday, i used some of the chicken as pizza topping. wednesday, i made chicken alfredo. thursday, chicken masala. still some left, but we are eating out tomorrow. maybe this weekend we can have chicken salad or sandwich. if a tiny chicken last us a week, i wonder how long a turkey would last.

I have gone shopping a lot more since I moved to bay area, so decided to see just how much I have spent so far this year. I used to go shopping maybe 3 times a year, with one big shopping spree at the end of the year. I think I spent $400 last year.

2008 YTD
Total: $980.69
# Items: 44
Average per item: $22.29
Most expensive item: $140
Most expensive trip: $189.42
# Trips: 13 [5 planned, 5 online, 3 side trips]
Most freq stores: Macy's [4 trips, 9 items], NY&Co [2 trips, 6 items], Banana Republic [2 trips, 5 items]

It's only 3 quarter and I'm already approaching $1k >_<.

Patrick and I went up to SF yesterday, to meet up with 2 other friends at Academy of Science, hoping to take advantage of free admission on their opening day. Regular admission is $25. The museum opens at 9:30AM, the 2 friends had been waiting there since 9AM. By the time we got there around 11:30AM, there were already people waving signs a mile away saying admission is full for the day and there were a sea of people waiting and hanging out outside the museum. Luckily yesterday was also free admission day for Smithsonian and affiliated museums, Exploratorium was one of the participating museums and I just happen to have the coupon with me :) so we decided to go there instead. Our friends eventually made it in to Academy of Science at around 2PM.

Exploratorium is not very big, it's an arc shape building in front of the Palace of fine art, lots of science exhibits targeted at middle school aged kids. To our surprise, it was pretty enjoyable, saw some very neat stuff. There was one exhibit, where you peep into couple holes to see images of someone's living space, like their medicine cabinet, bed, pictures hanging on the wall etc, then had to guess which one of the 3 people lived in there. There were 3 setups, and I got all of them right, yay for stereotypes. Another exhibit allows you to turn knobs to test your hearing at various frequency. Human range is between 20hz and 20,000hz, I have failed hearing test since middle school, so I decided to see just how bad I was. My range was pathetically 30hz to 10,000kz, Patrick was 20hz to 14,000hz. When I told Jim about this, he claims he can hear well above 15,000hz, maybe even 20,000hz. He also says his hearing for higher frequency is so good that the noise made by RCT monitors bothers him since he can hear it. The exhibits span many fields of science and let you experience various human senses, very cool. I suppose their sign is correct, good for all ages.

Sunday afternoon, we drove up page mill road to Monte Bello Open Space Preserve, only couple miles from where we live.

We brought a lot less energy bars with us, still 2 bottles of water, hiking boots, a cap for me, added 2 cans of guava juice, one small can of pineapple juice. After parking the car, we drank the guava juice immediately, then waited couple minutes until my head and stomach settles down from all the turning while driving up the mountain. We went down the canyon , through the forest and up the other mountain, got all the way up to black mountain. Walked around the camp, took a few pictures, admired the scenery, drank the small can of pineapple juice for another boost, then hurried back. Had to make sure we get back before unset, there are mountain lions, bobcats, and coyotes around the mountain after all.

About 5 hours of hiking, 7.4miles total distance, 1200feet total vertical ascent. The juices really helped, didn't get light headed at all, didn't have to rest as much, only drank one bottle of water between two of us.

up for 30 hours starting from Friday at 6am; spent 18 hours coding, spanning over 29 hour period and 3 days; drove 60 miles up north and spent 3 hours hiking in and around muir wood national monument.


the drive to and back from muir wood was an experience in and of itself. it was the most winding road ever been on, even worst than the one to half moon bay, very narrow, long and tons of hair pin turns. i got very nauseated, had we drove any i would have puked. oh and the drive back, we were on the out side of the narrow road, mountain road, no guard rail, jim was too afraid to look down the mountain, because you couldn't see the bottom...

on the way there, we missed a turn, but it was good, because you could see the line backed up all the way from highway going to muir wood. so we just drove to the next exit and turned back south, didn't lose anytime.

anyway, by the time we got to the muir wood, the main lot was full. so we went into the secondary lot, it was full too, but we happen to see someone pulling out right then, lucky! as we were walking back to the main entrance, we noticed people looking at the map board, and noticed there was an entrance to one of the trail right there, so we decided to take it , skipped paying for the entrance fee, heh. we spent over 45 min walking up hill, on the out side of the woods, part of the way wasn't shaded, got to see other mountains and the ocean, pretty good view. the only reason we knew it was the ocean we were looking at was that there was a big boat, unless it was another Hindenburg blimp in the sky. anyway, after the long climb up, we made it in to the woods, it was amazing! took lots of pictures, you could see many red wood that looks like been partially burned but still alive. thousand year old trees! took relaxing stroll down the woods trail and came out from the entrance. i would say big bottle of water, trail map, compass are must have, hiking boots good to have and jacket not necessary. the path we took were: dipsea trail, fire road, ben johnson trail, board walk, probably a little more than 3 miles.

EDIT: thank you ppc for fixing the map, the purple path makes more sense too, a lot more sharp turns.

busy busy busy, lazy lazy lazy

Went to JavaOne last Thursday, first job convention I suppose? It was just up in San Francisco, good thing I car pooled with my co-workers, otherwise who knows how early I would have to get up to get in town. The next day, there was notice of out break of some contagious virus from the area near convention =.= . So all the admin at work were panicky and telling anyone who might feel mildly ill to stay home for couple days. I don't think anyone at work caught it though. After the convention, they wanted all the attendees to give a small presentation about things they discovered there. I manage to dodge it yesterday, but there will be another round next week :3

Oh ya, related to that. In my annual performance review, I mentioned that I want to improve my presentation skill. And now both my manager and dev lead want to give me every chance I get to do presentations >.< Where is the chip they promised, where you can just stick it in your head and voila. I also picked up 3 books from the convention, still haven't figure out how to input that into my head yet.

So since April, I have had boat load of projects filling in all the sprints from now til August. Except the PM and my manager seem to have different set of things in mind, and neither one have really accounted for all the bug fixings required. Oh well, will see >.> <.<

Today is bike to work day, and save the air day... and I will be driving >.> Bay area getting hit with the first heat wave of the year, today's high is projected to be around 101 degrees. Fun fun fun.

took a short trip to Pittsburgh for spring carnival, it's our 5th year reunion, got to see a lot of the old friends, few people changed a little but most still look the same. met couple class mates and cmu people that i haven't met before. several of the new people were on the same flight as us on the way back.

mikey won mobot and broke the record at 50 seconds. booth was good, i liked the ASA jungle one. weather turned out surprisingly good, too good almost, good thing i came prepared with sun block and didn't get toasted. oh ya got to eat truck food, yum :)

had crepe for breakfast on Saturday, highly recommend that place, used to be a truck on campus many years ago. i would be willing to give up Pamela's chocolate banana crepe for it. had cup cakes from coco's for dessert on Friday and lunch on Saturday, they were really good, best cup cakes i ever had.

Saturday evening, we managed to gather 27 people at green forest. sab and i counted, there were 15 different kind of meat, i had at least 10 servings. garlic flank was my favorite, chicken was good too, as was fillet mignon wrap in bacon. they didn't have any fish this time, and they got rid of the grill pineapple dessert, some what disappointed.

wrapped up the trip with breakfast at Pamela's in the strip and scored some loots from the chocolate shop near by. ended with jim yelling at me on the phone and us flying down Forbes in sab's van trying to catch the 28x.

next i'm planning a short trip to Las Vegas, any suggestions or way to cut cost?

jim ran over a squirrel a week ago on the way to work. the squirrel popped out of the bushes as we drove by and dashed under our car. we heard a thump and splat... jim has refused to drive back that way since.

i have been very lazy about oil change since my last experience with midas, but it's been way more than 3months and 5k miles. this weekend i decided to try one that was advertising in a local ads booklet thing, it said privately owned, 9 minutes, plus i can sit and watch. figure if i can watch them, then they have to actually do the work. so i went and gave them a try, i liked it, nice people, really fast, they have monitors so you can watch them do it, i decided to sit in my car while they work. they did everything they were suppose to, oil change, filter, added munch of other fluids, pumped air, best thing they didn't try to sell me anything. 9 minute oil change, in palo alto on el camino real, try them if you are in the area.

i bought new wind shield wipers few weeks ago, they are still in the trunk... hoping it won't rain any more so i don't have to figure out how to put them in.

still need to find a replacement primary dentist... any recommendations? that participates in DMO = = should have gone with PPO. still need to do an annual physical, bleh.

had to do 4 taxes this year, federal, PA, PGH and CA. did PA and PGH by hand, easy enough. did federal and CA with turbotax, good thing too, CA print out looked as complicated as federal's. im getting some refunds, yay extra cash.

jim and i are back to watching lost, up to season 3 now, catching up. but i had to make a rule that we don't watch it pass 11, gives me nightmares, i don't like psychotic people you see, hurts my brain. we also reactivated our netflix account and marching thru our movie queue using our new tv. dvd still looks very nice even though they are not high def.

we added "jon & kate plus 8" into our pvr recording queue. its entertaining, lite watching, i guess we are enjoying it at their expense? i would have been satisfied with two, i don't think i want more than two. >.>

i will be in Pittsburgh later this week for spring carnival, getting to see many of my friends, eat srees :)

back to watching tv and lounging and ignoring the chores while jim is away.

We finally bought a large screen TV this weekend, from Fry's at San Jose, pictured above.

We been looking at TVs for several months, at first we were only looking at LCD but then it seems plasmas always have much better color, so we though maybe we should get plasma. Problem with plasma is that they consume more energy and have that burn out problem, so we though we will calculate how much energy difference it would be for our usuage pattern, and also how long it would last if we say watch 2 hours a day of TV per day. Yala yala... we never actually calculated it. Went to Fry's again this weekend, there were couple good models that were on sale, they looked pretty good, so we hauled one:

i recently went to a dentist that i had previously randomly picked as my PCD, for the first time, was not very satisfied with the experience. so i went back to the provider list to look for another one. i noticed that PA is supposedly covered by the insurance company, so i tried looking up my old dentist, Dr Bruce Parker, from Pittsburgh, and he was in network! i really liked him, so i thought since i was gonna be in town for carnival, maybe i could go to him. i tried calling today, unfortunately he will be out of office during then, bummer. Jim really like that dentist too, in fact, he recommended me to him. since there is a Google branch in Pittsburgh, which means he can go there couple times a year, he could actually still use the same dentist o.O!

every year around this time, my head would get really numb and sleepy from early noon til 3pm. i don't remember having this problem during high school, only since college. freshmen year, i had a part time job doing data entry at the library archive, and i would fall asleep at the keyboard while trying to type. it was impossible to concentrate on anything while trying to fight the drowsiness, so i switched to a late afternoon job. i tried to avoid classes around noon, but i didn't have that many choices. no idea what it is, can't find anything on google. i don't really have trouble sleeping, im not depressed, i don't think it's daylight savings time thing...
after this is madness passes, i have months of allergy waiting for me.

upgraded the ram on my 2 years old vaio from 512mb to 2gb, that's the maximum it can take. didn't really need that much, since ram is not gonna get any cheaper, might as well save the hassle and get it over with. the laptop is still running xp, even though the cpu is only single core 1.6ghz, its fast enough for everyday use =p
i thought my ram is too old to go on sale, most ram i seen on sale are 2gb at least. and guess what... it want on sale as soon as they were shipped. >.<

haven't bought any computer for awhile, desktop is from 2004, though don't really use it anymore, laptop is from 2005, pvr is from 2006, will need new hdmi card soon. accessories wise, i still have my camera from ... 2001? hah! i did buy DS 2006/7 and then garmin 2007. the garmin was a really good investment, definitely worth the money.

I have been getting calls from random recruiters on my work phone, but I don't remember giving that number to anyone except my family for emergency purpose. I answered one such call today, the lady claimed she got my number from my linkedin profile and she wanted my email for networking, so I told her to just contact me via linkedin. Afterwards, I logged in to check my profile and realized linkedin doesn't even provide space to enter phone number. I also checked monster.com, nope not there either. Hmm.. the mystery continuous.

My company went public on Thursday, valentine's day. Market isn't doing so well lately, so we opened low and went red =/ But we had an all day party at work, people brought in wii and rock band, there were lots of food, balloons and alcohol. I managed to get some work done, despite all the noise though :p

Oh ya someone spilled orange juice on my white pants, I had to go home and change. The juice had already started to dry by the time I got home. I put a lot of shout on it, rubbed it for awhile, didn't seem like it was enough so I soaked it in diluted bleach. Washed it the next day, seem to have saved it.

i love corelle dinning ware, i think i have mentioned this here before. i gave a set to my mom few years ago and she loved it too, it's light, durable and easy to clean. i only wish they would make them in asian style bowls. before xmas i bought few sets of pyrex containers, so i don't have to microwave my lunch in plastics. of course i have a set of pyrex bake ware as well. i brought some of the pyrex container back to nyc, so my mom can use them for her lunch too.

after new year, jim's dad shipped us his old collection of revere pro-line cookware. at first i didn't care too much about them, they were stainless steel, i am used to non-stick. one point i tried to use cast-iron but that was a huge failure, so i am pretty set to using just non-stick. my current set of pots only cost me $40 and have last me couple years now, most of it are still in very good condition, except the frying pans. anyway, so the set of pro-line cost over $50 to ship, compare to my el cheapo non-stick, i didn't think it was worth the shipping cost, but a gift is gift.

i have been kind of low on pots though, due to laziness cause by having a dishwasher, so i started to use the new stainless steel pots, for simple things. and i have noticed the difference, because of the copper bottom, it heats evenly and cooks fast even if i only set it to medium heat. also it has all metal handle, yet doesn't get hot. i have not try stove-top straight to oven thing, but with these i should be able to.

jim had told me these are very nice set that are no longer in production. so tonite i decided to google it, not whole lot of information, just some good reviews on epinions. i did find some on ebay, a 12" wok for almost $80 wow, i don't have that piece though. even 2 old frying pans (pic above) are going for at least $40 with 2 days left. i guess i should treat them better than my el cheapo pots.

did some simple calculations, assuming i put in 15k per year into traditional 401k ira account starting now until earliest retirement age of 60:

APY total_at_60 1st_distribution reach_1m
@6% 1.5m 40k at 54
@10% 3m 75k at 48
@20% 30m 760k at 41

there is no minimum distribution amount until age 70, but according to the data at bankrate, it looks like they kind of expect you to live til 100. anyway i estimated the distribution amount by dividing total by 40.

seems traditional ira still better than roth for me even at 10% compound interest. and definitely sufficient for retirement even at 6%, since only need about 10-20k per year on average, so even if i factor in inflation 40k is still plenty.

Went to a small autoshow in san jose this past weekend, got to sit in a lot of the cars heh. The main goal was to find out which cars jim can actually fit in. The results were pretty surprising, large car does not necessarily mean more vertical room. Prius, even though has that hunched back, was not a good fit. Hummer was not big enough, and has really bad visibility. Most SUV were just ok, about same amount of vertical room as sedan. Unfortunately there were too many with electrical sit adjusters, so we couldn't adjust them. The Bug actually was the tallest. But the best news was jim does fit in a WRX, which is his favorite car.

there was a small rain storm yesterday, still raining on and off today. it wasn't big at all, maybe 25mph wind, a little annoying to drive, but not big deal. but today, when you look on the street it looks like we been hit by a hurricane or something, debris everywhere, fallen trees on the sidewalks, puddles and small floods on the street, after work yesterday, a lot of the highways was backed up. maybe the trees and people in cali are especially weak?

parking area got flooded

several large branches broke off the tree

recap of xmas break. i flew on xmas eve and new years eve, lines wasnt too bad at the airport, of course i didnt check anything in, so that helped.
spent xmas day in chinatown, didnt even bother going up town, doubt anything outside would be open. get a haircut and new pair of glasses. i was having trouble focusing when i tried to wear contacts recently, esp when looking at computer monitor, so thought i was due for new prescription. turns out my eye sight didnt change that much, so ended up getting new pairs with same prescription as before, old pair was pretty scratched up, so its now a backup. didnt get new contacts though, dont like wearing them anymore, and doctor said better wearing glasses if i were to look at computer all day long.
spent rest of the week shopping and meting up with old middle school friends. one of my friends had a baby girl recently, another one is due for her second baby in few months. kids are only cute when they are not yours >.> no way im ready for them myself.
my family don't actually celebrate xmas, we don't even bother to celebrate chinese new year sometimes. so we never do the gift thing, but my brother and i do buy things for each other and for our parents sometimes. around thanksgiving i ordered a garmin nuvi for my brother，he travels lot; for xmas he got me a coach watch, havent wear watches for years now. also got some cosmetic stuff from my mom and helen and mei. my brother and i ordered DSL for my parents, we also got a digital frame with wifi, but decided to return it since it was kind of small. will have to do more research and find a better one, but have to give up on wifi requirement.


ps new public website luisalu.com

jim and i ended up staying in CA for thanksgiving, i made my usual honey ham dinner. joo and his mom came by, so we got to pull out our dinning table for the first time. the ham turned out great, though the side dishes could use some improvements. recipes are on flog.

i got a bluetooth headset for my cellphone on black friday, motorola h700. i like the headset so far, very small, good voice, good noise reduction, i keep it in the car, wear it when i'm driving, very convenient, much nicer than having to fish for my phone from the bag. it did start getting a little uncomfortable after wearing it for 3 hrs straight, but that was just a test. it feels like it will fall off, i wear it with my eye glasses, but it's actually pretty secure, at least while driving.

oh ya, i got this from a local fry's, their computer system went down while i was waiting in line, the check out line had wrapped around 4 times. they started doing checkouts by paper, it was really long wait, fortunately system came back up by the time it got to me.

i slept thru most of saturday, literally, jim dragged me out around 4pm to get ready for dinner.

sunday, we went to half moon bay. it was kind of cold but relaxing and got to see the sunset. there was a baby seal on the beach, everyone tried to walk as far around it as they could, it was pretty scared of people.

tuesday evening, there was a 5.6m earth quake in north cal, but we were 20miles away so only felt a little bit of shaking. when i was a kid, i remember having to go outside one time for earth quake, but i don't remember feeling anything, i guess it was small. so this is my first shake. we were eating dinner, and i thought maybe there were lots of kids running back and forth up stairs. anyway, jim made me stood under door frame for awhile, then we went to check on earthquake.usgi.gov. we been planning on making emergency kit actually, so going to gather up the stuff this weekend.

jim and i carved some nfl themed pumpkins a week or 2 ago, unfortunately they don't last as long in 80 deg weather. so last nite we only had candles left to attract trick or treaters. we had bought a big bags of reeses 2 weeks ago, but jim already ate most of it, so we ran out last nite after about a dozen kids came by, we had to dip into our good chocolate stash.

i have been unemployed for over 2 months now, with the credit card bills rolling in, i was getting a little worried as my bank account and my wallet starts to deplete. relocation was expensive, california is expensive. luckily my job search has been pretty successful, my phones been ringing off the hook, i been driving up and down the bay area almost everyday. even though it's only been 3 weeks since i updated my resume on monster, i have found a job :) many thanks to the recruiters and friends, but i think the biggest factor was the fast pace job market of silicon valley.

i am glad now that i finally left pittsburgh. well there is nothing wrong with pittsburgh, i like it actually, but after being there for 7 years, it was time to move on. but at first i was unsure, because leaving meant i needed to find a new job, which means interviews, and i don't like interviews. i really don't like interviews, to the point of almost a phobia. to me, interview is like taking a test, hours long face to face test with some stranger, and i don't like tests or strangers. feel like i'm on my toe, being interrogated in a tiny room, not sure what the interviewers is expecting, some are so intimidating that makes me very uncomfortable and makes my mind go blank. for the last 2 weeks, i have gone thru about 15 interviews of various type. to my surprise, most of the interviewers were very friendly to talk to, though some kind of just stood at the white board and i didn't even figure out what their name was. at first I weren't very good with the technical questions, esp since i haven't been programming for a while, but after a couple, i got the hang of it. i think another thing that helped a lot was eventually i narrowed down my search to jobs i was good at, interest at, not any jobs i can do. it is so much easier when i'm talking about things i'm familiar with, duh...

anyway, the dreadful job search is over for now, and i will be starting my new job in a week. one more week of freedom, going to have to spend it wisely :)

finally started looking for job last week, was a little rusty at first with interviews and jobs that came in the inbox weren't great fit, but its starting to look a little brighter now. i have got couple local recruiter/agencies helping me, and jobs they find are much better fit, also makes my life a lot easier, since i dont have to look thru listings heh. i'm surprised how many company there are here and how many uses java, even have had couple looking specifically for java swing developer. this past week, i have driven more than ever before, getting baked in my car driving up and down town. i'm glad i transfered my cell to verizon, would suck if i dropped interview calls. i have never been on the phone so much, hopefully i wont go over the minutes.

got a phone interview in half hr, including this one, i have done 7 so far, mix of on site and phone. first second round of on site this friday, hope it will go well and hopefully more to come. my credit card bills are starting to come in, relocation was quite expensive, need to pay the bill soon =p

got my car back from DAS on monday, not too dirty, nothing missing, doesnt look like there is any more dent or scratches than before. wish it had left the pgh terminal a little sooner, but it did make it here by the estimated date they gave me originally.

drove jim to stanford mall today hoping to acquire a bed, unfortunately the macy there was too small to sell mattress. we got to test the gps a little on the way there and back, over all i'm pretty happy with it. took a while for jim to make it select the right macy, it insisted picking a different one and asking me to do a u turn, but it eventually obeyed. afterwards we went to office depot, turns out it's really close to where we live, after making a left turn, immediately go to right most lane and make a right, then to go thru a really weird intersection with split road and a blinking yellow light. we manage to score a decent shredder that was on sale, our cashier totally sounded like she was ready to go home for the day.

we tried to assemble my bed yesterday, but realized we are missing a piece. i guess there was a reason they had 2 self checkout area marked for it. so now i get to sleep in a full size crib. called the store, they said we can come back to pick up the missing piece. we did manage to assemble our dinning table, looks nice, might prop it up a little though.

ps jim finally has a real blog now, you can ask him for the url.

joowah, sayo and i went to see formula d on saturday, it's a drifting competition. sayo didn't drive his car this time, they both rode their bikes, so only way i could tag along was to ride behind joowah on his bike. he never had anyone ride behind him, i never rode on a bike. we went on a practice run around town on thursday, not very fast, no tight turns, after maybe half hr, my neck and thigh were sore, but that was nothing compare to saturday. the competition is on a driving course an hr and half away. i don't know how fast we went, don't really want to know, we were passing other cars left and right, going between them. when we were going against the wind, it felt like my head will get blown away if i didn't hold it down enough. i could feel every little bump on the road, every time we hit something, i would go airborne. couple times we had to get on and off the freeway via circular ramp, leaning thru that was the scariest part, leaning so much, it felt like i was gonna fall out any second and go flying into the ground. it's like a roller coaster ride, except it's an hr long and you are not secured down at all.

the show was good, with a lot of carnage, just wish it was more like mountain racing with drifting. at first few cars hit cones and got points deducted, then i think 2 cars hit the wall, thankfully no one got injured and they put tires on the edge. there was some race car practicing near by, one of them bumped in to another one, then bounced right into a wall, and half side of it got squished completely. one of my favorite, tanner foust, got a perfect 100 in a qualifing run, but he messed up a little at the beginning of second round. right before that had happened, the announcer joked that driver should wave their hand, and so he did, made a big donut to pick up speed and continued with his drift, so it looked almost planned. my other favorite, chris forsberg, won the even. they both drove nisson, which isn't a popular drift car it seems, chris' was a convertible, which is even more unusual. oh they also had trick bike demo, it was very good as well.

it's been almost 2 weeks since jim and i came to mountain view, time flies when you are just lounging around. we got new furniture from ikea on monday, as well as our 28" truck and trailer. we been busy unpacking and assembling furnitures, almost done, 2 pieces left to do and few boxes of books to unpack. it will look really nice, ikea showroom nice, lol. we spent about $1.5k at ikea, i think 9 pieces of new furniture, pic coming when its all done.

oh ya we got cable and internet hooked up on tuesday, so no more sitting out at the bus stop bench and getting weird looks from people driving by. still annoyed that we can't get direct tv, plus comcast pulled nfl networks off their standard cable package.

my garmin nuvi 350 came in few days ago, i like it, but havent gotten a chance to test it yet, my car should come sometime next week. it's somewhere in WY now.

we went grocery shopping at safeway last nite, it's very convenient that they also sell liquor there, so we restarted our collection, maybe too convenient. the total bill was $208, longest receipt ever.

oh, turns out there is only one cell tower in mtv view, at downtown. since we are a little away, i only get about 3 bars outside and get almost nothing inside. so i been dropping calls left and right while walking around inside. i tested few other tmobile phones from friends, same problem so it's not my phone. i looked at their online coverage map and confirmed it, at&t seemed to have similar coverage. sooo i'm getting a new white motorola krzr from verizon. along with that, also ordered the web browser for my DS, yay more toys.

jim and i are sitting at the bus top just outside our apt, with our laptops out, heh. got a couple stares from pass by cars. comcast not coming til monday, so we are mooching off google's free wifi. there is a wireless router on the light pole at the corner of the street. unfortunately we can't get it inside the apt.

we were gonna get direct tv, so we can watch steelers games, however our apt's patio doesn't have a clear view of the southern sky, bummer. other than that, the apt seems pretty good so far, we got a 2 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom for $1700. it's right between downtown mountain view and san antonio mall, about 1 miles each way. walkable, but there is other options too, like bus, which we are sitting at right now; bike, with bike lane the whole way; or we could always drive, if i had my car. currently doing alot of measuring and furniture planning, i want a darker color / brown wood theme for my bedroom this time, but this means i need to completely replace all my existing pieces, good thing jim is willing to take them. our living room will be black, silver and birch. doing all this with out car is very difficult, thankfully patrick been very helpful :)

the truck with our furniture and stuff will be dropped off on monday, my car however has just left pittsburgh, its currently in frankfort, IL. i ordered a gps, garmin nuvi 350, which is currently somewhere in NJ.

jim and i will be flying to san jose on friday 7/27, all the packing, moving, shipping and selling will be done earlier that week. someone is coming to take my bed today, first thing to go. if anyone is interested in any piece of furniture i have or anything else, books, cooking supplies etc, let me know asap, before it gets sold or boxed up, i have way too much crap. also if you have any boxes, blanket, tarp or any sort of packing material that you need to get rid of, let me know too :)

August :

• Moved into my own apt. It feels kinda creepy to be alone at night, so I had bathroom light on for awhile, now I have 2 night lights.
• Redid flog website and posted few new recipes. But I lent my camera to my dad and haven't gotten it back yet, so won't be posting for awhile probabbly.
  

September:

• Started making cocktail drinks, spent about $250 so far on alcohol and ingredients. Its not as bad as it sounds =p
  
• Started listening to podcast instead of internet radio. I hate reading news on the web, so for awhile I tried reading Chinese news paper, but they just kept piling up higher and higher. Podcast is nice replacement, news and background noise, also won't get yelled at by net admin for using too much bandwidth.
• Got my wisdom teeth pulled, I really didn't like the idea and felt it was unnatural and unnecessary. But it is true that they been causing some minor problems once in a while. So finally got it done while I had dental coverage. Turns out it was a really easy and quick procedure.
  

October :

• Made a PVR and started watching cable TV, I haven't watched any TV since I came to CMU.
• Bought a DS lite with the money I got from selling old crap in craigslist.
  
• Went to Shanghai for 2 weeks, it was very nice and enjoyable.
• Company merged back to CMU and started working with 2 other RI groups.
• Started drinking tea, bought some from China and bought a new hot water thermal pot thingie. I like pearl jasmine, chrysanthemum but not dragon well.
  

November:

• Started watching anime again, for awhile I was kind of addicted to it again while playing catch up. But have cut down significantly since then, only watching 2 new series now: Ghost Hunt and Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge
  

January:

• Joined WOW and quickly got addicted, but then got bored very fast too. So decided to just let free trial run out for now. Maybe I will try it again when I sell my FFXI account, then at least I can justify the cost =p
• Made a public website at luisalu.com
  

February:

• Started playing inselkampf and few other web games.
• There was a protest at NREC for gladiator, we were told to work at home that day.
  

not sure if i mentioned it here before, but few months ago my company/group merged back into CMU and now its under RI (used to be under CFA, ya really). so now im working with few other RI projects, one of them is gladiators at NREC. its very different than what i used to do, and things goes by alot faster (esp since i'm working on several projects), so everyday is a new experience. i have learned and relearned alot of new random things, like programming c/c++ and unix network, interfacing with serial devices, wireless devices, finding out about ethereal, valgrind and having to use VPN. most recently learned about CRC and mmap. i dont really have alot of time to spend on each task, so its great when the code i punch out just works without much debugging. but making the code robust, efficient and bullet prove is another matter, when can you really call it done?

happy new year! my new year resolution, i think is to quit my current job... atleast half of it (not sure if thats possible o.Oa). since eventscope merged back into cmu as part of RI, i have been basically on loan to other random groups. currently working on 3 separate projects. different group every other day, new project about every 2 weeks, feels like i'm back in college with endless homework. last month i had 3 or 4 consecutive nights of bad dreams, until i finally finished the code, which was immidiately follow by the accident on the way to work... been having headaches past day or so just thinking about work.

i might move this back into blogspot, webserver seem to have storage problem lately.

Been in nyc for almost a week now, not very productive at all (as usual), havent even taken my laptop out of the bag. Spent most of the time shopping and hanging out with old friends, time flies, more news of people getting married, having kids. middle school is no more, now its called pace high school (huh?). Didnt buy too much, 3 pair of shoes, some accessories, bought and ate alot of chocolate, its ok i can't get fat ¬.¬
Got a hair cut last nite at 明髮廊, my usual place, mom's friend, pretty good, i think its their 3rd location now. also found my i <3 my geek shirt that i thought i lost, still missing the women @ scs shirt though.

got into another accident on the way to work yesterday morning. i was so happy that my code finally worked after working on it for 3 weeks, even on weekends. perhaps too happy... while changing lane, got hit by an suv. while it was perfectly fine, maybe tiny paint scratch. for me, my left passenger door is pretty dent, still working, but dent. and the left side mirror fell off, still gotta see if i can reattach it. you know maybe i should have taken my dad's advise and gotten a suv instead of sedan, or maybe i should go back to nyc after all, so i dont have to drive at all (even if you want to).

i dont really consider my self a new yorker, never super excited by nyc as other people. i have places i always go to do my shopping, maybe museum and movies with friends, but thats pretty much my usual nyc ritual. jim recently mentioned that he got another financial firm from nyc trying to recruit him, so he ask if i was really against moving back. the main reason i guess is just that i don't want to move back with my parents, for those who seen the lace, knows how small it is. and nyc just doesnt attract me the same way it does for everyone else, so it feels like kinda a waste for me to be there and not enjoy it as much as other people would. i do like the convenience though. on the topic, unlike me, willy, someone who actually do enjoy being in nyc, posted some very nice pic of nyc of holiday season in his recent blog.

anyway, i was listening to net@nite, and they mentioned hello.eboy.com, they happen to have this poster representation of nyc. kinda sad, i don't recognize anything else other than the few famous icons, like statue of liberty, chrysler building, big apple, ny yankee, i <3 href="http://hello.eboy.com/eboy/wp-content/uploads/shop/EBY_FooBar_35t.png">web 2.0 poster from eboy

Jim and I got to spend one week in Shanghai after Robocup China Open, here some pictures of the trip, mostly taken by Jim:

At Huangpu River bank on the Bund side, the Oriental Pearl Tower in the background is one of the icon of Shanghai. Expensive one hour boat tour of the river at night was worth while.
In front of Shanghai museum, replica lion statue from Tang dynasty. This 4 stories museum turn out to be one of the highlights of the trip.
Side trip to Hangzhou (2 hr train ride). At west lake, on one of the smaller islands, written by emperor QianLong. [虫二-風月無邊]
Jim at west lake, looking in to the distance. Train ride was long and expensive, lunch was the most expensive meal on this whole trip, but was well worth it, another highlight of this trip.On the main island in west lake, the twist and turn of the pathway supposely drives away evil spirits.
Dragons along the roof in Yu Garden in Shanghai, old town that has become one of the main tourist attractions.Me waving my hand trying to fool the fishies (koi, carp). At first the garden was boring, but turns out to be quit large and interesting.
Fishies got fooled, thinking that I got fish food.
Jim enjoying the caves and paths created by fake rock mountains in the garden.

Another highlight of the trip was Shanghai acrobatic show, unforunately no picture or recording was allowed. We saw plenty foreigner in Shanghai, atleast 1 or 2 per block on main roads. But Jim became a tourist sight once we were out of the main city. We didn't visit too many places actually, it was a more relaxing trip, maybe 1 or 2 places a day. Although I said some of the stuff were expensive, they are really not once you convert to US currency. But if you do that, at the current conversion rate of RMB 7.9 :Dollar 1 everything is cheap =p Dinner ranges from RMB 8 to RMB 100 per person, Shanghai is very tourist oriented city, tons of good restaurantt, just pick a clean looking one. Don't expect cold water to be served though, maybe ask for one tea cup of hot water to clean your utensil with. Expect to squat when going to restroom, seated toilet is rare, as well as toilet tissues. We stayed at a 3 stars hotel, bed was alittle hard for Jim, no tub, only shower. Free internet after we upgraded to business room, at about $50/night.

Finally decided to pull my wisdom teeth. I have 3, 2 fully errupted, 1 mostly errupted, only slightly cocked. Might also been pushing other teeth inwards. Normally I'm very much against stuff like this, very unnatural and not 100% necessary. But the doctor is right, they are hard to clean, and I get minor infection once in awhile. It was hurting alittle recently again, so finally decided to get rid of them. Had the procedure today, not counting waiting for the numness to set in, actual pulling only took about 10min. No idea what they actually used, felt some pressure, and for the one that wasn't fully errupted, felt some twisting. Also had to sew that one alittle. But I don't think they used anything electrical or drill. No idea, had my eyes closed the whole time. Now I have huge holes in my mouth, still waiting for the bleeding to fully stop. Will be eating baby food for now :3

My family came up this weekend, i had picked whole bunch places to visit with yahoo trip planner. http://travel.yahoo.com/trip;_ylt=AimR9nm3yeY0O9H8kG7R9gmfItAF?pid=803872&action=view it was useful to share the list with my brother before hand, though we only ended up going to tiny portion of it.
Alot of stuff was closed on saturday by the time we left my apt, so ended up going bowling and dinner at melting pot. Bowling turns out well, I usually suck really badly at it, but we all enjoyed it, my bro even had his bowling glove with him ^^; We ordered 2 entree combo for 5 of us at melting pot, and it was still way too much food, didnt make it to the dessert part :3
We went to frick's art and history center on sunday, henry clayton's house didnt look very impressive from the outside, but the inside was amazing. Couldnt take any pic though, highly reocmmend a tour of it, rest of the place is free btw. Then we went to pamela for brunch, my dad tried to sandwich his omlet between the toasts XD oh btw they now let you substitute sweet crepes (strawberry or chocolate crepes) for pancakes in the morning after combo. Later that evening, I made some drinks for us, I also made everyone take a shot of fireball, my mom didnt want any, so my dad took 2 ^^;

stumbled up on a yard sale last weekend at a house near by, i walked by and spoted a full set of corelle plates and bows! made two trips, spent $22 on 20 piece corelle set, 2 set of 6 nice glasses, a dozen cute color shot glasses (probabbly gonna use them for decoration), bunch free baskets. appearantly the old lady selling them have been living in that same house since when she was 2, and she is probabbly in her 70's now. she kept on telling me how she used to play in the house i lived in, and there was a lady singing in there so they made fun of her.

i keep forgetting that i still dont have a cutting board... bought huge piece of flank the other day, had to cut it in to chunks before putting them in freezer. last nite ended up cutting up the meat on a plastic plate. but i managed, and cook some beef stir fry last nite.

i signed up for myspace earlier this week. some kid from ffxi invited, so i used my gamer tag as profile name. looked around, found maybe half dozen people i know from cmu, nothing compare to orkut, and of course non of them were linked. system is pretty dumb, anyone i clicked on is in my "extended network" even when i have no friends....

been a pretty boring week at work and at home without internet or tv, not feeling too well in this extreme heat, but it finally got alittle cooler, plus looking forward to more shopping this weekend ^^/

After one week of packing, 3 days of moving, 4 car loads, 4 truck loads, I have finally moved out of the old house, into my new apt. Most things are arranged into place now, still need to have the building mgr fix few things, and I still have one closet of stuff to unpack, one dinning table to fix... But will have pic soon when its all done and ready. I love it already ^__^

Its kinda scarry how much crap I have accumulated over the years. When I first came to cmu, I had 3 large boxes, no computer, no appliances, not many books, just the basic necessities. Everything fit in my dad's mini van with plenty room left. When I moved into nicholson house, I managed to fit almost everything in my 10x10 room, full size bed, computer desk, tv, ddr pad! Then I moved over to the big bedroom, and .... things kinda exploded o.O When I was looking at apartments, I realized I had so much crap, there was no way I can fit in a studio, maybe efficiency. Glad I managed to find an 1bedroom place in the end.

my extra long winter break is almost over, but i still dont have a car yet. crossing my fingers, hopfully will have it later this week. i drove my brother's car around for few hours on sunday, had to relearn almost everything. still cant paraelle park, and definitly stil need more pratice before i can drive by myself.

雨過天晴
me, my dad and my brother, all been having really bad luck since we came back from our trip in china 2 months ago. ironically, we spent so much money on good luck charms there = =" anyway, good news is they are all pretty much resolved now, alittle bit hurt financially, but at least none of us had to actually had to deal with the legal system, so all is good.

my work schedule is so whacky nowadays with zoe in the desert. get up sometime around noon, go in to work sometime before late afternoon. code alittle while wait for data to come in, process the data, scientists goes googoo gaagaa over images and movies of rocks and dirts. wait for science team while they talk about rocks and dirts, then fire up eventscope, help them triangulate and make a new plan. after few hours of arguing, finally finish putting pins into the ground and send a plan to the rover team. this is all suppose to end around midnite, but more than often 2 or 3AM. so this goes on for 7 days straight, starting last saturday. funny, how zoe decided to "break" on labor day, so we actually got to relax for most of that day. (/whispers good girl ^.~)

im back, sick and jet lagged, but it was a great trip

by chance, mei, my best friend from junior high was on the same plane going to hongkong ^^

spent 5 days in beijing with a tourist group, 2 days in fuzhou (shop, eat, visit relatives) and 2 days in hongkong (more shopping and eatting). whole trip was packed of events, had to get up at 6am every day.

2 things suck about china: traffic sucks, no pedestrian crosswalk, J-walking is required skill. on top of that, cars drives like nuts there, cross the yellow line, drives on to the side walk etc. another thing, theres alot of public restroom in china, but no toilet paper. so remember to bring your own, sometimes they sell them up front, rather you pay to go to bathroom. sitting toilet is rare, most are still squading ones, some still doesnt flush = =

shopping in china is cheap, as long as you dont try to buy them in expensive up scale mall or try to buy western brand name stuff in china. i got few shirts for $2 US each, should have brought more ^^; eatting is cheap there too of course, i had sooo much seafood in my home town, even i couldnt dare to eat some of the things my aunt ordered. twice we had all seafood dinner, ie all shell, clam, shrimp, crab type, etc, weird stuff, not even fish. one time the only vege dish she got was fresh green olive.

thats all for now, some pic here and here

home home home [abbr home^3] here i come ^^

me, my bro, my parents and one of my cousin is going back to china this weekend, for 2 weeks. this will be first time going back home for everyone except my dad. we gonna make couple stops, including hongkong and beijing. anyone want me to bring them anything back?

did you all miss me? ^.~
time sure past by fast, didnt realise that i havent posted for over a month heh...

not much happened really, i was in nyc for about 3 weeks. i managed to install ffxi on my brother's computer, so that's pretty much what i did most of the break. other than being sick most of that time, did do some shopping. unfortunatly i had to go straight to a workship from nyc to sfo, and already bring laptop and some extra clothing, i couldnt really buy too much, as i would have no room to bring stuff back. i did get to meet up with some old friend though, few from junior high, most i have not seen for about 10 years now. one of them has a 2 year old daughter, scary thought >.<



o ya before break, i went to see kinsey with lab people, which was .... interesting... i think we were the only young people in the theatre for it, rest are all 50+ >.>

need to get back in to ddr soon. new semester, new program, need to figure out what to do. any idea for game nite?

trip to boston was good, slept alot, shopped alittle, ate alot of good food. we end up not visiting any of the museums or famous historial places. had thanksgiving dinner with dom's family, his mom is a great cook, i approve of polish food! after having spent some time with tyson and princess, i think i like dogs, but they still smell... oh, best part of the trip was hanging out with cathy and candy ^^
i did walk around mit and harvard campus. shops around harvard sq are cool, esp a little gift shop called black ink. also the market place at gov't center is cool. only annoying thing is boston close down so early at nite, and the green line is kinda stupid and pointless. otherwise it's like a mini nyc to me ^^;;

a little ice cream shop, kinda like dave and andys


jim and i at quincy market