Another Brown Eyed Girls Song

Hmm, they just finished promoting Abracadabra and now they have a new song out. Incidentally, I wonder what Google was thinking when they bought YouTube. The only good content was illegal (copyright) content. Who wants to watch a bunch of poorly produced amateur videos anyway. Now that Korean media companies are actively patrolling YouTube, a lot of K-pop music performance videos are disappearing daily. I've been trying to download as much stuff as possible but the video uploading feature in Blogger sucks so I still need to link to YouTube. Oh well, I shouldn't complain too much since it's all free (for now).

Back to Brown Eyed Girls, the song is called Sign. I like the costumes and choreography better than Abracadabra. What I really miss is their old style performances where the focus was mainly on singing... they have great voices.

Dang it... just as I was typing this post, one of the accounts I subscribe to got suspended. She (don't know anything about the person except that it's a she) usually uploads HD stuff the same day as the broadcasts in Korea. I'll have to search for another source until she creates a new account... :(


Sign by Brown Eyed Girls. Let see how long this video lasts on YouTube.

Alternate Universe

I guess this could have been me... my family immigrated from China Taiwan when I was eight years old.

Yale Daily News

Tony Chi places his cup of green tea on the aluminum grill and sprawls on a stool in the back of the restaurant. Adjusting his chef’s hat, he ties on his hachimaki, a traditional Japanese headband worn as a symbol of perseverance and hard work. He cranes his neck to scope out the two groups that just sat down at other hibachi grills. An elderly husband and wife sit at the first. Surrounding the second is a group of 30-something couples, the women flaunting blond highlights and low-cut dresses, the men gelled hair and starched sport shirts. Each of them orders a shot of whiskey or vodka.

Tony grins. “They’re going to get wild,” he whispers. “This table, it should be exciting.”

It is a rainy Saturday night in November 2008, and Tony is teaching me the art of scouting a hibachi party. Hibachi chefs like Tony don’t put on the same act for everybody. Rather, they size up the customers who sit before them and adjust their routines accordingly: families with doe-eyed children get balloon animals, older couples are treated to “sir” and “ma’am” flattery, and college kids drown in quarts of sake. Tony, who is 30 years old and has been cooking hibachi since before his voice dropped, prefers the third category. Long after those customers leave the restaurant, Tony remembers them. More importantly, they remember Tony.

At least people remember him. I don't think there's anything memorable about my work.

JeepSpeed – Transfer Case Upgrade

It’s been over a year since we stripped down our JeepSpeed Cherokee. We got someone to build our roll cage since then so now it’s time to start building the truck. Randy purchased a whole lot of stuff for us to install and yesterday was the first build day.

We started at 8:30am at Randy’s parents’ house. I was a bit disappointed that no one else showed up. We had a lot of enthusiasm when we decided to start this project but mostly it’s been Randy and I so far, both money and labor. The first task was to get the truck off the trailer and into the work area (under a canopy in the driveway). Since the driveway was on a slope and the truck is not running, we ended up towing the trailer down the street to a flat section, unload the truck, then tow it using a rope back up to the driveway. It was weird “driving” the truck without a seat and trying to steer without power steering.


The truck sitting on the trailer. The rear end is up so high becuase the racing leafsprings have already been installed and there is no weight in the back w/o the fuel tank.

Our original goal was to do a couple of things today, including work on both the front and rear suspension. However, since the truck had so much rust (originally from Illinois), it took forever to remove the nut and bolts holding everything together. The first item on the agenda was to upgrade the 4WD transfer case with a shorter and stronger main shaft. We also ended up removing the exhaust pipe/catalytic converter/muffler to get better access to the transfer case.


Extra 4WD transfer case that Randy bought along with an upgrade kit. We ended up pulling apart the one under the truck so he will probably reselling this one.


Back of the truck after we pushed it into the workspace. The big hole is where the fuel tank used to be. We have to replace it with a fuel cell for safety reasons.

The transfer case upgrade looked simple on paper: remove from car, open it, take out old main shaft, replace with new main shaft and tail housing, reassemble the case, and reinstall. After 8 hours of work (with a lot of help from Randy’s dad), we managed to replace the shaft and reassemble the transfer case but didn’t get to reinstall it back under the truck.


Rear driveshaft. One of the retention clamps was missing where the axle joins to the rear differential. From the amount of dirt and rust, I think it's been missing for awhile. Good thing the drive shaft didn't fall off while driving on the freeway. I also noticed that all 4 tires were from different brands... I've never seen that before. We're going to replace all the wheels and tires (probably with BF Goodrich tires so we can get pit support from them).


The current transfer case under the truck. It would take forever to disconnect both driveshafts and the transmission.


We sawed through the exhaust pipe to get rid of this section. We'll probably build a new exhaust to the side... just like Jesse James on Monster Garage!


The JeepSpeed truck sitting on jackstands. It was easier to work underneath with the truck up on stands but it was also a bit nervewracking. Randy brought out a wheeled "creeper" for me so it was easier for me to move around on my back under the truck.


Open transfer case with both shafts removed.


Randy holding on to the new main shaft while his dad tried to figure out how to remove some needle bearings without a hydraulic press. We ended up just pounding them out of the drive gear with a hammer. :)


Nightfall (1 second exposure at f/3.5). After all this work, we only managed to replace the main transfer case shaft. This truck build will probably take a lot longer than we planned.

I was so tired at the end of the day even though I didn’t do much since I don’t have much experience working on cars. I can’t imagine doing this everyday as an auto mechanic.

=========

BTW, the original post was created in Windows Live Writer. Typical of Microsoft, the preview only works with Internet Explorer. I tweaked with the formatting until it looked right under preview but after posting, I viewed the page with Safari (Mac OS X) and it was all messed up. I had to use the basic HTML editor in Blogger to fix everything. The photo uploading tool was pretty good though so I may use Writer to upload (not sure where the photos are stored though) then edit the text online.

Back to School

I've always liked school... or rather, I enjoy learning new stuff and writing papers/taking tests never bothered me. If graduating from high school = 12 years of education, then I've spent ~21 yeas in school (4 years for BS, 1.5 years for MS, 2 years for MBA, and 1.5 years of JC classes). Dang it, I could have been a medical doctor.

I'm been really bored at work for the past 18 months. This is the 4th or 5th job rotation and there's nothing else I'm interested in, except maybe for business development. The problem is that there are lots of people interested in the same job and the current guy in the position doesn't appear to be leaving anytime soon. Additionally, all the analysts from ~10 years ago have either left the company or been promoted to a director title, except me... so maybe the company is sending me a message to move on.

One thing I've looked into is teaching. My first experience teaching (other than tutoring) were several seminars at Yenching University in Beijing. I went with PESI way back in 1998 and gave a few lectures on corporate finance. Trying to get more hands-on experience, I signed up to teach at the University of Phoenix afterwards and ended up teaching intro accounting and finance for about a year. My 10 year work anniversary next January is about the same time as the next round of promotions/raises. I guess I should wait at least that long to see what happens.

After my trips to China, I've been thinking about the future. Since I have no family, I can probably dump all my stock/options, live on savings for the next 20 years, and wait for Social Security (ha ha). Anyway, I found out that UCI Extension offers a certificate program for TEFL and they're holding an information session later this month. If I'm not feeding a mortgage or wife/kids, I can take a few years off and teach English/business somewhere. Once I get a TESL certificate, I think I could easily find a teaching position in China (with a 95% pay cut) though I'm still not sure if I can live there for more then 2 weeks at a time. Maybe Korea... then I can spend my spare time stalking K-pop stars. :)

Transpacific Cruises (sort of)

Heh, I didn't know you can travel around the world on container ships. Some of them offer passenger service and the rooms look pretty nice though three weeks at sea sounds boring.


CMA CGM Hugo
21 days from Long Beach terminal to Hong Kong


Single cabin for 85 Euros (~$125) per day. That means a trip from LAX to HKG will cost $2,625 one-way and $4,375 round-trip (35 days).

Global Warming = Religion

The end of the world is coming!

Telegraph

In a landmark ruling, Mr Justice Michael Burton said that "a belief in man-made climate change ... is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations".

The ruling could open the door for employees to sue their companies for failing to account for their green lifestyles, such as providing recycling facilities or offering low-carbon travel.

So the guy refuses to travel by air. Maybe that works in small countries like the UK. I can't take a train to NY (69 hours) or a ship to Asia (3 weeks) every time I need to travel for work.

$20 Telescope

For as long as I could remember, I wanted to be an astronomer (or a spaceship pilot). While working at the Mississauga Public Library, I read every book available on astronomy. When I got to UCLA, somehow I ended up studying engineering and now I'm stuck behind a desk making financial slides.

Since I've always lived in urban areas (Taipei, Toronto, Los Angeles), I've never owned a telescope. There's usually so much light pollution that only the brightest objects can be seen. The only time I've seen the Milky Way was on a mission trip to a Navajo Indian Reservation on the border between New Mexico and Arizona. I'm actually not that good at spotting planets and stars; I was more interested in astrophysics. So far, I've only taken one astronomy class in college.


Mt. Palomar Observatory in San Diego County

Like all hobbies, you can spend a little bit of money or a lot of money. I've been checking out telescopes on and off for several years and it seems like you need to spend ~$500 for a decent beginner's scope. Some of the nicer refractors costing almost $10,000! Checking out a telescope review site, there was a review for a $20 telescope from Galileoscope. Surprisingly, it got a recommended rating. It's a project to make good quality telescopes available for everyone, kinda like the $100 laptop project. It's made of plastic and does not come with a tripod but for $20, it's supposedly pretty good.


I want to get one (or three) for Christmas but I think they're heavily backordered. :(

Testing Windows Live Writer

Windows live installed this program on my computer that allow you to edit blog posts. It has a better interface than the online Blogger editor. I’m going to do a few test posts to see if I should switch to my Sony notebook (Vista) for blog posts.

BTW, I bought another Dell computer for my mom. Her Inspiron 600m was getting pretty old and messed up. I got her an Inspiron 15 (1545) with an Intel T4300 CPU, 3GB or RAM, and 250GB HDD. It came with Windows 7 and the Windows Experience Index was 3.4. The total with tax & shipping came out to ~$600. My Sony is about a year old and only 3.1 on the index but cost me ~$1200. It’s cover is a cooler shade of blue though.

Important Changes to your California Tax Withholding

Timely. Just got this email from our payroll manager at work.

As a result of recent California legislation (CA Assembly Bill x4 17), California’s Employment Development Department has released new tax withholding tables, which are effective from November 1st through December 31st, 2009, and require employers to increase the amount of state income tax withheld from employee paychecks by 10%. For example, if you currently have CA taxes withheld at $100 per paycheck, it will be increased to $110.

The legislation also increases withholding rates for supplemental wages paid from November 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009 as follows:

- Increase from 9.3% to 10.23% for compensation related to bonuses, restricted stock units and stock options.

- Increase from 6.0% to 6.6% for other supplemental wages (such as overtime pay, commissions, sales awards, and vacation payout).

California has not yet released new tax withholding schedules for 2010.

CA vs. TX

Looks like I should pack up and find a house/job in Texas instead.

City Journal

One out of every five Americans is either a Californian or a Texan. California became the nation’s most populous state in 1962; Texas climbed into second place in 1994. They are broadly similar: populous Sunbelt states with large metropolitan areas, diverse economies, and borders with Mexico producing comparable demographic mixes. Both are “majority-minority” states, where non-Hispanic whites make up just under half of the population and Latinos just over a third.

According to the most recent data available from the Census Bureau, for the fiscal year ending in 2006, Americans paid an average of $4,001 per person in state and local taxes. But Californians paid $4,517 per person, well above that national average, while Texans paid $3,235. It’s worth noting, by the way, that while state and local governments in both California and Texas get most of their revenue from taxes, the revenue is augmented by subsidies from the federal government and by fees charged for governmental services and facilities, such as trash collection, airports, public university tuition, and mass transit. California had total revenues of $11,160 per capita, more than every state but Alaska, Wyoming, and New York, while Texas placed a distant 44th on this scale, with revenues of all governmental entities totaling $7,558 per person.

What might interest Tiebout is that while California and Texas are comparable in terms of sheer numbers, their demographic paths are diverging. Before 1990, both states grew much faster than the rest of the country. Since then, only Texas has continued to do so. While its share of the nation’s population has steadily increased, from 6.8 percent in 1990 to 7.9 percent in 2007, California’s has barely budged, from 12 percent to 12.1 percent.

There's just no incentive for California politicians to be fiscally responsible. Due to the large number of Democratic voters in the state, there's no accountability when the legislature cannot balance the budget. Seriously, I would be out of a job if our spending budget is twice as high as our revenue/margin forecast.

If California doesn’t want to be Texas, it must find a way to be a better California. The easy thing about being Texas is that the government has a great deal of control over the part of its package deal that attracts consumer-voters—it must merely keep taxes low. California, on the other hand, must deliver on the high benefits promised in its sales pitch. It won’t be enough for its state and local governments to spend a lot of money; they have to spend it efficiently and effectively.

The optimistic assessment is that things are going to get worse in California before they get better. The pessimistic assessment is that they’re going to get worse before they get much worse. As is often the case, hanging around with the pessimists is less fun but more instructive. The current recession has driven California’s state government into what amounts to a five-month budget cycle, according to Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee. He estimates that the budget deal tortuously wrought in July should start falling apart in October, because it was predicated on pie-in-the-sky revenue estimates and because so many of its spending cuts are being challenged, often successfully, in the courts.

It has already started falling apart. California is out of cash and they're increasing our state tax withholding unilaterally starting now. It's like a family that cannot pay it's bills. Instead of controlling spending, we keep charging more on credit cards that we cannot possibly pay when the bill is due.

Interest Free Loans

Not for us but for the California state government. Starting tomorrow, all state income tax withholding will increase by 10%. The overall state tax rate hasn't changed (after the increase a few months ago) since voters shot down the tax increase propositions. Think of it as an interest free loan that we're forced to make to the state government. There's also a good chance that come April, there won't be any cash for state tax refunds (including "loan" repayments) so we'll end up with more IOU's.

What a bunch of incompetent and crooked politicians. When there's no money, cut spending! I hope all you who voted for these tax and spend, wealth redistribution, Democrat a$$holes are happy now.

Los Angeles Times

Starting Sunday, cash-strapped California will dig deeper into the pocketbooks of wage earners -- holding back 10% more than it already does in state income taxes just as the biggest shopping season of the year kicks into gear.

Technically, it's not a tax increase, even though it may feel like one when your next paycheck arrives. As part of a bundle of budget patches adopted in the summer, the state is taking more money now in withholding, even though workers' annual tax bills won't change.

Think of it as a forced, interest-free loan: You'll be repaid any extra withholding in April. Those who would receive a refund anyway will receive a larger one, and those who owe taxes will owe less.

Doubting Reasonable Doubt

During my 3 days as a juror, we were told by the judge not to do any independent research on the case since we were supposed to decide on a verdict just by the evidence presented during trial. I think all the jurors followed the rules and we came up with not guilty verdicts on all counts. I also felt most of us thought he was probably guilty but there was ample room for reasonable doubt.

After the trial, I did some research on the Internet. The Orange County court website has a database of prior cases so I searched for the defendant's name and found the case: 09CF1973. If you pull up the record, you can see that he was Found Not Guilty by Jury on all counts on 10/28/2009. So far so good, right?

However, the name search also returned a whole page of cases related to the defendant, ranging from "Riding a bike at night without headlight" to multiple felony convictions. The jury knew from count 5 of the current case that he was a convicted felon (therefore not allowed to own a firearm) but we were not told the nature of the felony and also could not use that fact to determine guilt. Looking through the list of cases, the prior felonies include: unlawful taking of vehicle (66 days in prison), 2nd degree robbery with gang and dangerous weapon enhancement + street terrorism (3 years in prison), and possession of a firearm by a felon (32 months in prison). By my count, the current case is probably his fourth or fifth strike. Wonder what happened to three strikes and you're out?

From all this additional information, I'm now very certain that he committed the crimes in the current case. I think past history is a very good predictor of future behavior and the defendant seems well on his way to being a career criminal. It also appears that he is in one of the many Latino street gangs in Santa Ana. The part that I'm uncomfortable with is that even if we had this additional info, the jury probably would have found him not guilty since the evidence in the current case was weak. If we followed the instructions, then all his priors do not matter. We probably saved him 25 years of prison time but it also looks like he'll be back in court soon. Hopefully he doesn't kill someone next time. :(



Dang it. Now I feel really bad about my first jury duty experience. Most likely we let a guilty felon back on the street. Even worse, if you put us back in the jury room again with this additional info but the same trial evidence, the result would be the same.

Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.
-William Blackstone

China Thoughts, Part III

Part I
Part II

I saw this post on chinaSMACK which talked about how houses are more dependable than men. chinaSMACK is a site that translates posts from other Chinese websites so non-Chinese readers can get an idea what is being discusses online in China. The original post was on Sina.


I am more dependable than a man.

I experienced this firsthand in China. I've been dating a girl in Chengdu for about two years and we just broke up a few weeks ago. It came as a complete surprise to me since I had just brought my entire family to China to meet her. It was quite serious as we were talking about getting a K visa (fiancee visa) for her and her son, and emigrating them to the United States. Looking back, I think she was more focused on security rather than relationship. Over the National Day holiday, her extended family convinced her that moving to the US was harmful to her son and they lent her some money to help buy a bigger apartment in Zigong. In the end, I guess she chose the house instead of me.



Backing up a bit, we had met during one of my early trips to Chengdu back in 2007. She is ~10 years younger than me and divorced with one young son. I found her quite different from your "typical" girl from China. She was very independent and direct in conversation. We had a lot to talk about except when it came to politics (she was not interested) and her future plans in life. She married young and moved to Taiwan (ex-husband was aboriginal Taiwanese) where she lived with his family. After giving birth to her son, she was treated poorly by her husband and in-laws so she came back to China. After I met her, she ended up enrolling in college and she just graduated over the summer with a two-year degree in Logistics.

During our conversations, she would mention often that she felt insecure. There are very few safety nets in China and life is difficult for a single mom. Even with the huge male-female imbalance, there is a stigma about divorce and not many men want to marry a divorced woman, especially one that already has children. She asked me about this a lot and I said I didn't mind supporting her and raising her (our) son. She was quite envious of her friends that managed to buy an apartment, either by starting businesses or being someone's mistress (very common). I think she felt that if she had a house in her name, she would always have somewhere to live... she was scared of being poor and homeless in China.



Long story short, I had met her parents and her son last year during a trip to Chengdu (right after the earthquake) and she just my parents. I was just about to start the process of filing for an immigrant visa for her when she told me that she was buying a house. That in itself was no big deal since we also talked about helping her parents move to a better apartment once I bought a house here for us. Then she told me that she has been too selfish, always thinking about herself, ditching her son with her parents, etc. She was now going to move home (into the new house/apartment), get a job, and be there for her son. Hmm... I thought that sounded kinda odd so I prodded some more and she finally said that she didn't want to move to the US anymore and we can just be friends (我们可以做朋友). That phrase means "let's break up" in Mandarin too.

Sigh... I'm really disappointed that she didn't tell me this before our Aug/Sept trip to China. My family spent an entire week with her thinking that we were going to get engaged/married soon. They also brought gifts for her and I also gave her a new Dell netbook. We had planned to visit Hong Kong during my next trip in November (now cancelled) so I left a wad of RMB for her for travel costs (not sure now if I'll get that US$1500 back). I guess she's been having some doubts about our relationship but she never said anything to me about it until she decided to buy the new apartment in Zigong. We use to chat (Skype/MSN) almost every night but I haven't spoken to her since early October. She said to call her when I go to Chengdu next time (if nothing else she would try to return my money). I haven't decided whether I want to go back there anymore.



I think there were still a lot of cultural differences between us even though we're both Chinese. Both her parents were Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution while my dad was an army officer in Taiwan, and my grandfather was a KMT officer. To some degree, I took for granted that she would want to come to the US and it would be better for her son. Maybe I relied too much on my own experience growing up in the West, or I brushed aside her concerns about adapting to a new culture and learning a new language too quickly since it was easy for me when I moved from Taiwan to Canada. I guess one positive point is that this all came out before we got married. I don't think I could handle a 2nd divorce.

China Thoughts, Part II

Part I

I took a lot of history classes during undergrad at UCLA. Someone, probably a non-engineer, decided that engineering students can't read or write well so they required us to take several non-technical classes. For Electrical Engineering majors, the requirement was more strict; we had to take either history 1A/1B/1C or humanities. I chose the history series (Western Civilization) since there were still some facts involved. I did pretty well in those classes even though most of my papers consisted of pulling quotes from the reading material.

Anyway, after taking the 3 required history classes, I decided to continue with several upper level Chinese history classes. All together, I think I took a total of 8 history classes at UCLA and probably could have minored in history if I stayed another quarter.

The last history class I took focused on modern Chinese history from the late 1800's. I don't remember the exact topics or lecture contents but I remember I felt a great sadness for my people. The Han people were beaten by the Mongols, Manchus, a bunch of Western countries, Japanese, and finally ourselves in one tragedy after another (including communism).

With all this "history" or "baggage" depending on your POV, I really didn't like the most recent National Day celebration in China. It was pitched as the 60th anniversary of the motherland and gave the impression that China = Communism. I feel that my definition of "China" and "Chinese" is no less valid than the official CCP version on display. However, it's hard to communicate this to the people I know in China. How do you tell people living inside a box that there is a bigger world out there if they can't see out of the box?

California Politics

California is in the middle of a huge budget crisis and our legislators are acting like idiots.

First, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano yelled out "kiss my gay ass" to Arnold Schwarzenegger at a Democratic event (he was invited by Willie Brown). To return the favor, Schwarzenegger vetoed a routine bill (AB 1176) sponsored by Ammiano. I'm sure some of you have seen the letter he wrote to explain the veto. Here are the first few words of each line:

To the Members of the...

I am returning Assembly Bill 1176 without my signature.

For some time now I have lamented the fact...
unnecessary bills come to me for consideration...
care are major issues my Administration...
kicks the can down the alley.

Yet another legislative year has come and gone...
overwhelmingly deserve. In the light of this,...
unnecessary to sign this measure at this time.

Sincerely,

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Awesome. He is the Terminator, you know. Some math professor calculated the odds of this happening randomly at ~1:2,000,000,000. Hmm, it could have happen by chance.

Reasonable Doubt

I'm done with jury duty. Since we turned in a verdict, I can talk/post about the case. The only restriction is that I can't sell any information about the case for 90 days. Since no one pays to read my random thoughts...

It was criminal case with 5 counts: two 2nd degree robbery, two assault with deadly weapon, and one illegal possession of a firearm (defendant is a convicted felon). Jury selection took until ~10:30am on Tuesday and the prosecution called three witnesses (victim plus two Santa Ana police officers). We thought there would be more witnesses but the lawyers gave their closing arguments this morning and we started deliberations at ~11am. The first poll was 10 for not guilty and 2 undecided. Yup, the prosecution's case was that weak.

Anyway, the facts of the case was pretty simple. Two guys were riding their bikes at 1am on Main Street in Santa Ana when they were approached by two other guys with guns. There was some conversation about Lopers (Santa Ana street gang) and the two guys on bikes were hit over the head with guns. One victim said he passed out for a few seconds and when he woke up, their bikes were gone. They flagged down a Santa Ana police officer and while they were telling the story, the defendant was seen riding down the same street on a bike. The police gave chase, cordoned off the neighborhood (more like one small block), and found him hiding under a SUV after 45 minutes. The case basically hinged on whether the victim's ID was credible. I thought that there was a good possibility that the defendant was the assailant but there was some doubt. I think most of the jurors felt the same so we reluctantly voted not guilty on all counts.

It was an interesting experience. As I mentioned before, both lawyers were not that great. I found out today that the defense attorney was from the Public Defender's office and she seemed very young and inexperienced. I was surprised that some stuff I see on TV shows was actually true. Both police officers came across as arrogant and it was very obvious that the 2nd officer didn't like the public defender at all. All the jurors (me included) took our task very seriously. It was mostly a white crowd (include the judge and both attorneys) with three Asians in the jury. Since both the witness/victim and defendant were Latino, as well as both officers, you would expect some racial prejudice/commentary during deliberations. In fact, there was very little discuss about that other than admitting that we didn't know much about the Latino gang culture; the focus was pretty much on the facts and the law as instructed by the judge.

We were done deliberating at around 3:30pm. After the verdict was read, both lawyers met the jury in the hallway for a quick Q&A both ways. We felt that there was a lot of evidence lacking and didn't enjoy having to make a decision based on so few facts. The prosecutor told us that one of the victim/witness was an illegal so he took off to Mexico right after the incident and could not return for trial. We then turned in our badges and I was back at work by 4:30pm. Other than the fact that I have to burn 3 vacation days (maybe I can negotiate it down to two), it was a pretty good experience...

Oh yeah, hopefully we didn't let a criminal back on the street.

Jury Duty, Day 2

8:55am

Back for more. I think they will direct some more questions to the new batch of jurors this morning including me. I think if we get rejected by either the judge or the two attorneys today, we get to go home.

==========

12:30pm

No such luck. I got selected to be on the jury for this case. I did meet an ex-coworker; she was selected as an alternate juror for the same case. Right now we're on lunch break. I drove to Mos in Santa Ana to get lunch and it took longer than I thought. Good thing we have almost two hours for lunch. Anyway, I'm stuck here for the week.

==========

3:15pm

Afternoon break. This is pretty tedious stuff. The lawyers are not as good as they're portrayed on TV.

==========

9:43pm

Like yesterday, we stopped promptly at 4:30pm today. I drove straight to work and got there at around 5:05pm and took care of some emails and report requests.

I think I'm going to stop blogging about jury duty until after the trial since I can't say anything about the case... and there's really nothing interesting about it anyway.


Superior Court of California - County of Orange


Part of the Jury Assembly Room on the 3rd floor of the court building

Ze plane! Ze plane!

I love airplanes. Not so much the 15 hour Transpacific flights but the machines themselves. During my DC/NYC trip last weekend, I visited the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum twice. Since I got to DC so early on Friday, I walked around The Mall and went to the Air & Space Museum by myself; I also went again the next day with James and Elim. They had lots of stuff on display but nothing really huge since the building was not that big. Actually, I didn't know about Udvar-Hazy Center where they keep the large planes on display, including a SR-71 Blackbird. It's right next to Dulles Airport so I could have gone there right after I arrived in DC/IAD.

I think I should have studied Aeronautical or Mechanical Engineering instead of Electrical Engineering. I probably still would be working as an engineer now instead of finance. Anyway, here are some photos, in no particuar order:


WW2 German V-2 Missile


Apollo Lunar Module


F-1 Engine (Saturn 5 Rocket)


Lockheed U-2 Spy Plane


Apollo and Soyuz


WW2 German V-1 Cruise Missile


North American X-15


Pioneer 10 Space Probe


Lockheed F-104A Starfighter


Supermarine Spitfire (with Rolls Royce Merlin V12 engine in front)


Predator UAV with 2 Hellfire missiles
(it was much bigger than I imagined)


Douglas DC-3


Sputnik 1


Bell X-1 (first plane to break the sound barrier)


Charles Lindberg's Spirit of St. Louis

Liveblogging Jury Duty

Today is my first time at jury duty. Not knowing what to expect, I came earlier so I wouldn't be late. After parking and going through security, I was directed to a huge waiting room with probably thousands of other potential jurors. We went through orientation already and now are waiting to be called for jury selection.

The first pre-screened jury duty call was for a 15-day trial. They're only qualifying those people with paid jury duty days from work. Since I get a grand total of zero days, I'm disqualified. The next case was called too and it's for 10 days. I'm surprised by the number of people standing in like to be pre-screened. They either get a lot of paid jury duty days (public employee) or are retired/unemployed. If all the cases are long, then I'm probably going to spend the entire day sitting in the jury assembly room. Maybe I can find a more comfy chair and take a nap.

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9:15am

Third case called was for 7 days and they're still pre-screening for financial hardship/paid jury duty days. Maybe our zero paid jury duty days policy at work was designed to keep us out of long cases.

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9:34am

Aaahhh! First random request and I got called.

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12:05pm

Lunch break. I'm stuck in jury selection hell. Looks it will take a longer than one day so I have to come back tomorrow. I can't blog on anything about the case but it is a criminal case and may take the entire week. There goes all my accrued vacation... hope I don't have to start taking unpaid leave for this. :(

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1:15pm

Lunch break almost over. I ended up grabbing a sandwich from the court cafe. Sigh... back to the courtroom. It's kind of surreal sitting there watching the judge talk to each potential juror and joking about stuff while the defendant is sitting right there. I wonder what he's thinking while listening to the light banter from people that will decide his fate for the next few/many years.

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3:35pm

Afternoon break. Jury selection is way slow. We only went through one set of lawyer dismissals so far. Maybe they can get their 14 this round and we can all go home (except the selected jurors, of course).

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11:30pm

I'm so tired. I got home at around 5:30pm, crashed, and just woke up. I got called up to the jury box at around 4pm and just got through introducing myself before the day ended at 4:30pm. This means I have to be back in the courtroom at 9am tomorrow for more questions from the judge and both lawyers. During my 15 second intro, the judge did ask me whether I knew Bill Ruehle, whose trial just started across the street in Federal Court.

The most frustrating thing for me is the fact that they have to end right at 4:30pm due to budget constraints on overtime. This is California state court so the cost comes out of my state taxes anyway (just raised this year). Instead of having state employees work a bit longer each day (like the rest of us in the private sector), they shift the burden to the taxpayers again by making us go back the next day.

DC/NYC Trip, Home Finally

Arg, I just got home after being on the road for 24 hours. Here's my "itinerary" since 3am (Pacific Time) this morning:

Get up, drive from DC to NYC (5 hours)
Drive/walk around NYC (3 hours)
Waiting for non-existent subway train (1 hour)
Subway/taxi ride to JFK (1.5 hours)
JFK to DFW (4 hours)
DFW layover (2 hours)
DFW delay (3 hours)
DFW to SNA LAX (3 hours)
LAX to SNA by bus then home (1.5 hours)

I'm going to take a shower and sleep... need to get up in ~3 hours to go to jury duty at Santa Ana.

BTW, I did meet someone "famous" on the plane. I thought the tattoo lady had too many tattoos for a "regular" person. It turned out she is Kat Von D, the tattoo artist on LA Ink. On a hunch, I googled LA Ink and recognized one of the tattoos on her arm that I saw on the flight from LAX to IAD. Cool... maybe she will remember me and give me a discount when I go to her shop for a tattoo!


Katherine Von Drachenberg, aka Kat Von D


I recognized the tattoo on her upper right arm plus some stuff on her hands. She looked like this in real life (makeup and all) but a bit skinnier.

DC/NYC Trip, DFW Layover

I like DFW airport. It's one of two places that American Airlines connects all their flights through and it's much better than Chicago O'Hare. They even have free Internet access thought it's not wireless. Right now I have about 15 minutes before my flight boards.

Long story short, I walked a lot this weekend. My legs are still crazy sore from walking around DC and NYC. Let's see... after arriving my myself at Dulles on Friday, I took the Washington Flyer bus to the metro and found my way to The Mall. I walked around for a bit, got tickets for the Washington Monument, and took some pictures at the Air & Space Museum. Afterward, I checked in to our hotel and waited for James & Elim. The rest of the day we walked and took pictures around The Mall and Jefferson Memorial and took a night tour of all the major monuments. We were worried about rain but it ended up raining only at the end of our tour.

The next day we went back to The Mall and hit some of the museums. Most of the time was spent at the Air & Space Museum where we watched two IMAX shows. Since James & Elim spent a lot of time at the Met in NYC, we skipped the art museums and went to the National Archives, like Nicholas Cage. We also took a look inside the Museum of Natural History but it was really crowded and chaotic. Finally, this morning we left DC at ~7am since we had to return the rental car in Manhattan. It was about a 4 hour ride so I got a 45 car tour of mid-town NYC and we walked around for about 2 hours. I took a lot of photos.

The last part of the trip was pretty lame though. We decided to take the subway to Jamaica Station and catch the AirTrain to JFK. However, the E train switched tracks (it was running on the F track) and there was no notice. After four consecutive C trains went by, I found out about the switch. By then, 45 minutes had passed and we were running like crazy to catch the N train to get to the E train running on the F track.

Arg! They just announced that my flight is going to be delayed until 10pm (35 minutes late) since the flight crew arriving on another flight are delayed. I hope they don't delay any further; I have jury duty very early tomorrow.

Anyway, back to NYC. So we finally found the E train but it was running the "local" schedule which meant it stopped at all 23 stations between 34th Street and Jamaica Station. We entered the subway system at 2:15pm and didn't get to Jamaica Station until 2 hours later. Running out of the station (AirTrain was too slow), we found an unmarked cab who agreed to take us to JFK (10-15 minutes) for $20. We ended up arriving at JFK Terminal 3 (Delta) at 4:30pm for a 4:50pm flight; I still don't know if they caught their flight. For another $5, the driver dropped me off at Terminal 8 and I was one of the last people to board my flight (they boarded early for once). So after all that running around, I'm just sitting here at gate D21 waiting for my next flight.

In hindsight, I probably should have just ditched James & Elim in DC and flew back home from IAD or DCA instead of JFK. Well, at least I got some photos:


Lincoln Tunnel. The toll was $8!


Chrysler Building


UN Building next to the East River


Guggenheim Museum


NASDAQ display at Time Square. Since it was Sunday, there weren't any stock quotes.


Random people at Time Square


Rockefeller Center (GE Tower?), home of NBC


Skating rink in the Rockefeller Center

DC/NYC Trip, Overnight Flight

Yawn. It’s about 3am Pacific time and I’m 1.5 hours from Washington DC. I managed to get a bit of sleep but since I’ll probably be really tired when I get to DC. I’m only spending a few days since I have to rush back home for jury duty on Monday morning. In addition, I couldn’t leave work until today since we have our quarterly earnings call today. To fit all this into my schedule, I had to fly out of LAX since there are no redeye flights out of SNA. There were a lot of people flying out tonight on American. It took me about 30 minutes to get through security even though I was in the special line. I decided to splurge and spent 25,000 miles to fly first class so I can get some sleep; coming back, I’m slumming it in coach. The waiting area was really crowded too with late night flights leaving from almost every gate.

When I reserved my tickets, I chose seat 6A since it was the last row of first class and a window seat. On short flights, I don’t really care if it’s a window or aisle seat. I was in my seat for about 2 minutes when someone asked me if I can switch seats with 5E so she can sit with her brother. Actually, it’s probably easier to sleep on a window seat because you can lean against the bulkhead but I agreed. Afterward, I noticed that her shoulders, arms, and even hands were covered with tattoos. It wasn’t one big tattoo but literally hundreds of small/medium ones. I tried to take a stealth picture but was unsuccessful. It was too dark for my Sony DSLR to focus and the auto-focus light on my Panasonic would have given me away (yes, I brought two cameras on this trip). Her brother has some on his arms too but it wasn’t crazy like hers. Maybe she’s on that "Inked" TV show or something.

Only one more hour to DC. My flight is landing at Dulles, which is way outside of town. I tried to get a flight to Reagan International but AA did not have any overnight flights and tickets on other airlines was >$300. Hopefully our flight will land on time since I need to catch a bus from the airport to L’Enfant Plaza. I should be able to make the 8:00am bus; the one after that leaves at 8:40am. This is a public bus and the fare is only $3.10. Plan B is a private bus that goes to a closer metro station but costs $10. Unlike the redeye flight from LAX to JFK on a 757, I’m on a small 737 and there’s no Wi-Fi so I’ll have to upload this when I get to the hotel in DC. I just noticed that they didn’t even play the in-flight movie since everyone is sleeping (except for me).

DC/NYC Trip

I'm flying out to DC tomorrow night on a redeye flight from LAX to IAD (Dulles) to meet up with James and Elim. They've been out on the East Coast since Monday. It's a bit inconvenient since there are no overnight flights out of SNA or into DCA (Reagan). Dulles Airport is way outside of Washington DC so I have to take a bus (route 5A) into town. James and Elim are driving in from Pennsylvania so we'll probably meet up around noon at our hotel. Since I'm using my AA miles for tickets and it looks like I won't travel to Canada anymore, I splurged and got first class seats on the redeye flight to DC for 25k miles. On the way back, we're leaving from JFK and I have to stop in Dallas before flying in to SNA.

We planned this awhile back but it looks like it will rain both days (Fri/Sat) in DC. I guess we'll hang out inside the galleries and museums instead of outdoors. I was telling them that even though I've never been to DC, a lot of the metro stations and buildings sound familiar. I played a lot of hours of Fallout 3 (PS3) and it's set in post-nuclear war DC; a lot of the travel between destinations are through subway tunnels. :)

Downloading from YouTube

There seems to be a constant battle between YouTube and developers that write programs to download vides from YouTube. I guess last night's YouTube update disabled downloading again. I've been using YouTube Downloader 2.51 and it stopped working today. I updated the version to 2.52 but I think it only addresses the previous YouTube update on Oct 4.

Sometimes I wish I studied programming so I can write apps too. I took Pascal(!), C/C++, and LISP but that's ancient history.

I was trying to download these two videos of Brown Eyed Girls before they got deleted.


Uptown Girl. The bass player does a pretty good job singing backup vocals. I could never sing and play bass at the same time.


You Raise Me Up. Miryo can sing!


They were in New York earlier this month and did a outdoor concert for Chuseok. COME TO LA!

Sweet Girl - Chuseok Special

My friend just got back from Korea after a six week trip to see her family. She was sick for about a week over there so she stayed at home and watched TV. She was trying to explain one of the shows to me this morning.

Sunny: I saw this show with a lot of girl bands doing dance/sports competitions...

Me: Uh-huh, there are a lot of K-pop girl bands lately.

Sunny: They were doing other group's dances. I think I saw Wonder Girls...

Me: No, they're in the US right now. It was So Nyuh Shi Dae, Brown Eyed Girls, Kara...

Sunny: Yeah, Kara! How did you see this already?!

Me: YouTube. Somebody already translated and uploaded it.

I don't know where I would get my K-pop fix if it wasn't for YouTube. :)


Part 1 of 9 on YouTube. Sunny thought No Hongchul (MC) was irritating too.

Singing in the Rain

This is crazy... and dangerous. There is a lot of expensive sound equipment just waiting to short out, not to mention shock and/or electrocute performers and technicians. I used to run sound for a small/medium church and our 3 power amps require 28A at 110VAC. The KBS setup must use hundreds of amps of current. I dunno... maybe they managed to waterproof everything.

A sprinkling of rain is okay; this looks like a thunderstorm with mini-waterfalls coming off the stage. And who are those crazy fans? I would have gone home a long time ago. Hmm, I think my dream job is no longer being a sound guy in Korea. :(


Somebody call a rain delay! Isn't it cold mid-October in Korea? At least they're not wearing white hot pants and high heels like SNSD.


BabyVOX from 2004. Seems like they hold a lot of concerts in the rain in Korea.

China Thoughts, Part I

Leon asked me last month (while we were driving to "meet" the major of Guangzhou here in Los Angeles) what I liked about China. I had written that sentiment in a post that wasn't even about China; it was about crazy K-pop antis in Korea. He said this because I am usually critical of China (mostly the CCP) in my posts. I really dislike the communist government but it frustrates me even more that the local people I meet in China don't care about politics. Anyway, I've been thinking about that question quite often and I'm saddened that I don't have an answer.

Even though I wasn't born in China, that is really my home since that is where my family comes from. My dad was born in Chengdu due to the Sino-Japanese War while both my paternal grandparents are from Zhejiang province (like a lot of the KMT). I'm less clear on my mom's side of the family since they've been in Sarawak (Malaysia) for so long, but they're Teochew from northern Guangdong province. I bring this up because often I feel very un-Chinese, especially when I'm in China surrounded by millions of people that look like me, yet I don't feel American/Canadian though I've lived in North American for 32 years. Sometimes I boast that I have passports from three countries (USA, Canada, Taiwan), but that also means I have no home, no roots.

I've been thinking about this more since I read Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang. She's an ABC (American born Chinese) journalist working for WSJ based out of Beijing, and the book is about migrant factory workers she met and befriended in Dongguan over the course of several years. Part of the story however, is the author's own journey in discovering her family history. It resonates with me because it's so similar to mine (or what I think is mine). My family's history of migration is both unique and common. It is true that most people in the world never leave their ancestral home for generations, but almost every Chinese family that "emigrated" from China => Taiwan => USA/Canada has the same basic story.

I guess a part of me blames the Chinese Communist Party for making me a homeless person. My family, and millions of others, were on the losing side of the Chinese Civil War and as a result, lost everything we couldn't carry with us and were exiled from our homeland. Even now, I only know the name of the city/village where my grandfather is from and nothing else. When a Chinese person asks me where I'm from originally, I'm supposed to say 象山浙江 (Elephant Mountain, Zhejiang) though I've never been there (neither has my dad) nor even find it on a map.

Here's an excerp from Factory Girls:

The Chinese today have a troubled relationship with their past. On the surface, they take pride in it--China has five thousand years of history, one is constantly reminded as an American--but there is an aversion to going much deeper than the level of a Qing Dynasty television soap opera. Why did a great civilization collapse so rapidly when confronted by the West? What made people turn so readily on each other--in workplaces, in villages, in families--during the political movements of the 1950s and 1960s? And how could they pick up their lives afterwards as if nothing had happened?

The last question is easiest: through forgetting. <...>

The past seemed to consist of only painful stories. <...> So much suffering suggest that there will be a historical accounting one day--but the instinct against introspection runs deep in this culture. Perhaps for a long time to come, China will feel the way it does now: a country that is at once tethered to history and unmoored from it, floating, free.

Unmoored... that's how I feel. Sigh... one time I asked Leon if the KMT had won in 1949, would we be living in mainland China today? Would our lives be different? Better?

House Hunting

My parents have been busy looking for a house since they got back from Asia. Originally their budget is ~$500k but the selection is not that great. Most are either really old (from the 1960's) or located next to freeway/railroad. When a decent property is listed, there are lots of offers right away. I'm back to considering living with them again so we can get a bigger and nicer house for now. Most 4 bedroom houses are $650k-$700k around this area (Irvine/Tustin) with lots going for >$1M still.

For comparison, I saw this on the web. Here's what $675k will get you in Georgia.


The 8,000 square-foot home on 3.5 acres is for sale for $675,000. It has newly refinished hardwood floors, a gourmet kitchen, breakfast room and a sitting room. Other features include a library, two-room office suite and a large front porch.

Sexual Harassment

I had to stay a bit later at work on Wednesday to complete an online sexual harassment training course. The bill requiring this in California (AB 1825) was passed in 2007 but we've had these courses for quite awhile now. It helps the company with CYA in case there's a complaint and lawsuit.

Coincidentally, there's recent news that David Letterman admitted on-air that he had sex with his staffer(s) in response to an alleged blackmail threat. If he had taken the training class, he would know this is a huge no-no and potentially a big problem for the CBS legal department. I guess New York is not really Hollywood but hopefully no one was using Letterman as a "moral compass". Let's see if he continues to makes statutory rape jokes anymore.

I used to watch his show back in college. During my freshman year, we would wait up each night to catch the Top 10 List. This was when he was still at NBC and his show aired after Johnny Carson at 12:30am. As I grew older and (hopefully) wiser, I found him to be boring and really not funny. Even though his show is on at 11:30pm now, I haven't watch it in many many years.

And yes, I know Paul Schaffer is Canadian. He's not that funny either... he's actually quite irritating.

Propaganda March

This is probably the only picture I'll post about the 60th PRC anniversary.


From Danwei

Questions:

1. Are these real soldiers? I read that they had to find "models" and others to march in the parade.

2. Are those real guns? They don't look like regular combat rifles.

3. Most importantly, is that really their uniform? Skirts? Boots with heels?!

Moral Midgets

There has been a lot of news about Roman Polanski, the child rapist film director, since his arrest in Switzerland last week. Regardless of what you think of his movies (I've only seen The Pianist), he admitted to rape & sodomy with a 13-year old, and skipped bail to hide in Europe during the past 30+ years.

The response to his arrest has been sharply divided. His supporter include Hollywood elites and European "cultural" types, while just about everyone else (including me), thinks he should be extradited back to the US for sentencing on the original conviction and skipping bail.

I saw this in the LA Times today.

From Michael Moore's politics to on-screen sex and violence, the movie business is constantly being assailed for not sharing the country's values. Rarely has the morality argument been as rancorous as with the Roman Polanski case.

Hollywood is rallying behind the fugitive filmmaker. Top filmmakers are signing a pro-Polanski petition, Whoopi Goldberg says the director didn't really commit rape, and Debra Winger complains "the whole art world suffers" in such arrests.

The rest of the nation seems to hold a dramatically different perspective on Polanski's weekend capture. Even if decades have passed since he fled Los Angeles before his 1978 sentencing, Polanski must be extradited and serve his time, the thinking goes. There's no excuse for forcing sex on a 13-year-old girl. People who defend him have no principles.

Here's the best part:

In an opinion piece in London's the Independent, Weinstein Co. co-founder Harvey Weinstein, who is circulating the pro-Polanski petition, wrote: "Whatever you think about the so-called crime, Polanski has served his time. A deal was made with the judge, and the deal is not being honored.... This is the government of the United States not giving its word and recanting on a deal, and it is the government acting irresponsibly and criminally."

In an interview, Weinstein said that people generally misunderstand what happened to Polanski at sentencing. He's not convinced public opinion is running against the filmmaker and dismisses the categorization of Hollywood as amoral. "Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion," Weinstein said. "We were the people who did the fundraising telethon for the victims of 9/11. We were there for the victims of Katrina and any world catastrophe."

OMG! I think Mr. Weinstein is either full of himself, retarded, or both. Hollywood is the last place to look for morality... it's all about money and fame. These cowards won't speak up against Polanski because they're worried about loosing their next gig/movie/project. Moral compass indeed... *spit*

When he mentions Katrina, does he mean this?

Sean Penn's Boat Sinks In Failed Katrina Rescue Attempt

New Orleans, Louisiana (AHN) - Political Activist and Actor Sean Penn made his way down to the city of New Orleans with a personal photographer and an entourage in an attempt to help victims stranded by floods caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Penn had planned to rescue children and adults in the flood waters, but apparently forgot to plug a hole in the bottom of the vessel, which began taking water within seconds of its launch.

Penn who is known for his political activism, was seen wearing what appeared to be a white flak jacket and frantically bailing water out of the sinking vessel with a red plastic cup that eventually was not enough for the Academy Award winner.

When asked what he had hoped to achieve in the waterlogged city, the actor tells the Herald Sun: "Whatever I can do to help."

The paper reports that one bystander taunted the actor saying, "How are you going to get any people in that thing?"

Isn't he a millionaire? Why didn't he just donate money so people trained in search and rescue can better do their jobs? Spicoli and his entourage(!) just causes more problems for the real rescuers in NOLA.

Miero

I'm actually not sure what this is about but it's SNSD and it's cute. It's some kind of advertising for a brand named Miero. The parent company is Hyundai Pharm ... I think it's supposed to be some kind of health/beauty drink. I need to have my Korean ex-coworker check out the website and tell me what's going on. She happens to be in Korea right now... maybe I should email her to bring some back.

There's one for each of the nine girls. Soshified subtitled a couple of them:


Yuri! She reminds me of a co-worker (not the Korean one mentioned above).


Jessica! She doesn't remind me of anyone. :)

What's chamchamcham (참참참)? From the videos it appears to be some kind of game and these are the pre-recorded responses that's shown depending on whether you win/lose the game. I went on the website but couldn't find any games but it's all in Korean so I may have missed it.

Credit Card Fraud

Some scumbag managed to steal my credit card number and charged $200 at a Walmart in Missouri today. I got a call from my credit card company, checking on a few transactions. Actually there was another $200+ transaction at another Walmart that didn't go through yet. The bank assured me that I wouldn't be responsible for the two charges but I still feel violated nevertheless. I'm not sure where they got my number from since most of my transactions are local and pretty regular (PeiWei!). The only one-off transaction recently is to refill my laundry card; I think the company is somewhere in the Midwest. Otherwise someone managed to hack into an online retailer's transaction database... I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon. Anyway, they canceled my credit card and I will get a replacement in a few days. Until then, I'm back to using cash.

No divorce during China holiday

BBC News

Marriage officials will work hard to process wedings, but not divorces

Couples in China's biggest provincial municipality will not be allowed to divorce during celebrations of 60 years of communist rule.

But weddings will go ahead in Chongqing during the eight-day holiday beginning on Thursday, according to China Daily.

Officers at marriage registration centres said they could not cope with the high demand for weddings and also issue divorces.

Seven out of 10 districts told the newspaper they would not process them.

"We will be working voluntarily during the holiday to issue marriage certificates but we will not be making any divorce appointments," officer Wang, who is in charge of the Marriage and Adoption Registration Centre in Yuzhong district in central Chongqing city, told the China Daily.

The communist government also said in order to promote a harmonious celebration, family disputes are not allowed during the week-long holiday. Any couples arguing or children misbehaving will be punished with 4 years of hard labor (劳动教养), just like the good old days during the Cultural Revolution.

Ducks 5 - Kings 4

I got some free pre-season Ducks tickets from work for tonight's game versus the LA Kings. Since it's pre-season, the tickets are together; usually free Ducks tickets from work are singles. Leon was supposed to bring two kids along but the 6-year old decided not to come at the last minute so it was only the three of us.

We got there pretty early at around 4pm, an hour before the game. Parking was an expensive $15 but I was too lazy to park off-site... more money for Henry I guess. It turned out that there was a kids thing at the back so we went there for about 30 minutes. The turnout was pretty good for a pre-season game... I'd estimate that the arena was about 2/3 full. Since it was dinner time, we got some food at the concession stands. It wasn't cheap but not as bad as I thought after the expensive parking.

There were a couple of huge inflatable balloon things, a bounce house, and some other events. It was pretty hot out and bottled water was selling for $4, though the guy selling it was kind of apologetic about the price.


Ducks girls up close. I sneaked in a picture while they were posing for someone else. :)


Darci getting a Ducks temporary tattoo from a nice lady.


They also let kids wear some pads and shoot hockey pucks at them. For Darci, they slowed down the puck but for some of the older kids, the pucks were flying in pretty fast. I think they should have also provided cups for boys.


I think this was the final pre-season game. There were 3 goals (Ducks 2 - Kings 1) scored withing the first 5 minutes of the first period.


Testing out the 10x zoom on my Panasonic DMC-TZ3. These weren't the same girls outside earlier. Our seats were in row R of section 404, pretty close to the back wall. I've sat here for all the "free" games so far.


At one point, Ducks were down two skaters but they managed to kill off this 5-on-3 penalty.


There were some pretty good hits... one of the panels was knocked crooked so they had to fix it.


During the first intermission(?), the had two people inside plastic balls race around the center circle. I think the winner (and their section) got free ticket to the OC Auto Show. I didn't even know there was an auto show in Orange County.

Since Darci had a short attention span, we left the game after the first period. There was nobody in the parking lot and I got out immediately. Very different from the Angels game (across the 55 freeway) on Wednesday. I saw someone from my building (at work) inside the Honda Center. She also brought her toddler and I saw them leaving after the first period as well. I had to check the score when I got home since it was still 2-1 when we left.

Sichuan Dining

They brought this dish out during one of the business dinners I attended in Chengdu earlier this month. There were red peppers, green peppers, ginger, and green onion. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to eat for this dish... so I didn't. The green stuff at the back was kind of like mochi and it was pretty good.


Array of drinks at the same dinner. Left to right: red wine, some juice like drink, and baijiu (白酒). The baijiu they poured was about 52% alcohol... it tasted horrible.


Ladies making wontons at the shop downstairs from my friend's apartment. I ordered a medium this time and still it was >20 wontons for ¥5. The cheap homey food was much better than the expensive restaurant food for me.

Sparco Garage Sale

I went with Randy this morning to Sparco's Garage Sale in Irvine. Sparco makes racing accessories and we were looking for seats for our JeepSpeed truck (yeah, we're still building it). Not knowing how many people would be there, we ageed to go stand in line at 7:30am; the sale was from 9am to 3pm. We were about #15 in line and the turnout was pretty good. We met an old guy who does road racing now but used to race off-road. He told us Baja stories for about an hour... definitely cool.


The line outside. This was when we left after about an hour of browsing around inside.


Most of the floorspace was taken up by racing seats. We were looking for their Evo 2 model which are more suitable for off-road racing and a bit wider to fit our large butts. Unfortunately, they didn't have anything we wanted. Sparco also makes racing suits and helmets but we left empty handed. I already have a fireproof racing suit and they didn't have helmets with forced-air ventilation ports.


Since Sparco made racing stuff, there were lots of fancy rides parked outside. This is probably the most exotic. It's an Ariel Atom made by a British company. Stock engine is a 2.0L Honda VTEC with 245hp and it's supposed to do 0-60mph in about 2.7 seconds... that's faster than Steve's Tesla Roadster I rode in last month. I think it can beat motorcycles. However, it's an expensive toy though: base price is $65k (specs).


There were some more cars parked on the lawn. This was a Lexus IS with lots of carbon fiber but not sure what's under the hood.


There were also a couple of WRX's and Evo's. This one looked the most race-ready with lots of buttons behind the "paddle shifter" looking things.


WRX. The front lip/fin was really low to the ground. They were pushing it up the driveway on to the lawn and we heard a loud scraping sound. I do this to my Z sometimes if I'm not careful parking.

Yankees 3, Angels 2

Instead of working, our group within finance went to a baseball game at Angels Stadium. I still call them the Anaheim Angels but they're officially The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim... I think. Our seats were in section 404 and cost $24. It turned out to be a pretty good game with some exciting moments, though the Angels lost. The biggest downside was the weather: it was something like 97°F. Good thing it's not humid here like in Asia. We ended up hiding in section 505 since it was in the shade. Almost everyone from our group (FP&A, G&A, and Financial Systems) showed up and we all got official company caps (in black, which would have made our heads hotter).

I brought along my Sony DSLR and the zoom lens.


I went home to change into shorts before going to the game. I arrived during the top of the 2nd inning. The stadium was only 1/2 full. This was taken with the smaller lens at 18mm.


Close up with the zoom lens at 300mm.


It's lonely in the outfield, and probably quite a few degrees hotter than in the stands/shade. This was the widest view with the zoom lens at 70mm.


One of my co-workers was watching the game and knitting at the same time. Good thing we were sitting too far out and up for foul balls.


Somebody moving a trailer home on the 57 freeway.


It was crazy hot today and people were avoiding seats in the sun.


I can't imaging eating sticky cotton candy while hot and sticky from the heat.


A-rod came up in the top of the 9th to pinch hit. He hit a chopper to the 1st baseman for a double play that ended the top of the inning. The Yankees still won though.


By the end of the game, our seats were in the shadows but we were too lazy to move. Too bad they shot a t-shirt to our section during the 7th inning stretch. I didn't think the puny air canon would reach that high.


Traffic on the way out of the parking lot. It took me over 45 minutes to get out of the lot and on to Orangewood. In China, the "lane" on the left would be full of cars. I only heard one person use their horn during the entire time. In China, I would be deafened by the cacophony of horns. I'm still debating whether it would have taken more time or less time to get out of the lot if everyone drove Chinese-taxi-style.

Use the Force, Luke!

I saw this news article today and sent it to a few friends.

guardian.co.uk

Tesco has been accused of religious discrimination after the company ordered the founder of a Jedi religion to remove his hood or leave a branch of the supermarket in north Wales.

Daniel Jones, founder of the religion inspired by the Star Wars films, says he was humiliated and victimised for his beliefs following the incident at a Tesco store in Bangor.

The 23-year-old, who founded the International Church of Jediism, which has 500,000 followers worldwide, was told the hood flouted store rules.

But the grocery empire struck back, claiming that the three best known Jedi Knights in the Star Wars movies – Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker – all appeared in public without their hoods. Jones, from Holyhead, who is known by the Jedi name Morda Hehol, said his religion dictated that he should wear the hood in public places and is considering legal action against the chain.

"It states in our Jedi doctrination that I can wear headwear. It just covers the back of my head," he said.

"You have a choice of wearing headwear in your home or at work but you have to wear a cover for your head when you are in public."

Sam wrote back and said it reminded him of a skit with Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog. It was actually done by the Late Night with Conan O'Brien during the premier of The Attack of the Clones (the worst out of the three prequel movies).


@9:00 into the video:
Triumph: What substance was Han Solo frozen in?
All: Carbonite!
Triumph: No, no, I'm sorry, I'm very sorry. The correct answer is, "Who gives a @#$%!"

Oba Mao

A shop assistant folds a shirt bearing an image of U.S. President Barack Obama's face imprinted over that of China's late leader Mao Zedong, at a shop in the popular tourist area of Houhai in central Beijing September 21, 2009. The shop has sold thousands of products bearing the "Oba Mao" design since stocks arrived just over a month ago, the shop owner said.
Reuters Pictures

Dang it. I was in Houhai a few weeks ago. I would have bought one if I saw it, though I would also paint a big circle with a slash through it in red.

Google Satellite Images

Google Maps/Earth finally has updated hi-res images of the West High-Tech Zone in Chengdu. I cut a view out of Google Earth and you can see PMI's new building (bottom right). We're surrounded by huge buildings. Up the street, you can see Intel's assembly plant in Chengdu along with a SMIC fab.


Zoomed in view. The new building is the little white one. I'm not sure what they're building on the lot to the west. Last I heard it was some kind of conference center but construction has been halted for over a year. The huge gray building south of us makes cables and wires (I think) and the building to the NE (across the creek) is a Motorola software development office.

Laundromat Parking Lot

I went to the local laundromat again today to wash my bedding. Since I was also washing my regular clothes in the apartment laundry room, it was 2 hours of loading/unloading cloths and driving back and forth.

Anyway, in the parking lot this afternoon was a brand new Ferrari. I don't know if he (I say the guy) was there to do laundry or if he owned the laundry. Maybe he was there to visit some of the other businesses in the strip mall. There was also a new Mercedes-Benz (E class?) and they (family of 3) were in the laundromat. It looked like they were doing all their laundry, not just special items like me. Maybe they spent all their money on the car.