Panoramio

I found this website that lets you upload photos and attach a pointer to its location. Every so often, the photos get uploaded to Google Earth and people can click on the Panoramio marker and see your photo. I uploaded some pictures that I took on my trips to Asia.

Undelete!

Evidently OS X is not foolproof. I just managed to delete most of my Documents folder... I'm still not sure what happened. Anyway, all my song charts I made/found for worship are gone as well as my personal documents. I hope everything important has been printed out since I don't even know what I deleted. I'd better start burning backups to a CD-R.

Microsoft Vista

I bought a new Dell notebook last October that was Vista Ready. I just found out that I missed the free Vista upgrade by 11 days. Well, I guess I won't upgrade then... or until much later if I have to pay for it. I heard that Vista is a huge resouce hog but what else is new from Microsoft. I'm mostly using my Mac Mini anyway... the Dell is only for games.

A-mei

A-mei (張惠妹) is the first Asian popstar I heard of. When I first moved to Canada, I was only 8 and don't think I was much into music anyhow. Growing up in Canada, I also wanted to be assimulated into the Western culture so I didn't pay any attention to Chinese music -- it was something that old Chinese people listen to. It was after college when I first became interested in Chinese pop, after downloading a couple of A-mei songs from the Internet. Now more than half of the songs on my iTunes is either Chinese, Japanese, or Korean.

A-mei is still my favorite Asian popstar. Her voice is incredible and unlike some of the newer singers, she conveys a lot of emotion in her songs. I bought her latest album when I was in Taiwan last year but I still think her old stuff is the best. I kind of regret missing out on her concerts, many in the US. Hopefully she will still perform more concerts before she retires.

Update: Arg! I missed it. A-mei was at the Aladin in Las Vegas on Feb. 13th for the Fusion 2007 Concert. :(

A-mei sings a medley (14 minutes!) of movie songs at the 42nd Golden Horse Film Festival (2005) in Taiwan. Not sure what's up with the male MC though.

IVC Performing Arts Center

Irvine Valley College is building a new Performing Arts Center along Jefferys Road. I think the building costs ~$33M but there is no state funds to furnish and operate the building so there's a capital campaign to raise money. Here is the list of stuff you can name for a fee:

The Performing Arts Center: $2,000,000 (minimum)

Main Stage: $500,000

Block Box (Little Theater): $250,000

Music Hall: $200,000

Main Stage Lobby: $100,000

Other rooms (dressing room, green room, box office, etc.):
$25,000 to $50,000

Main Theater Seats
Box seats: $1,800
Balcony/orchestra: $1,500
Mezzanine: $1,000

Black Box (Little Theater) Seats: $500

Let me know if you have a couple of million dollars and want a large building named after you.

iPod Restore

I just restored my iPod for the 2nd time. Each time you restore, you lose all the data stored on the iPod. This time I wanted to reformat the iPod back to Windows format. The Mac can read Windows file systems but not the other way around. When I restored my iPod to Macintosh format, I could not use it on my Windows PCs. Now, all my computers with iTunes can play/modify songs on the iPod. I had ~27GB of stuff on my iPod, now I have to put it all back again. Oh well, today is a work holiday...

Stock Option Fun

The Wall Street Journal had an article on Friday about Broadcom and the stock option backdating scandal. I can't link to the article since it requires a subscription but Leon sent me the text. My sister saw this in the print edition (front page!) and clipped the article to send me via regular mail.

On Jan. 4, 2002, the chief financial officer of Broadcom Corp. tapped out an email about stock options to his chief executive and others.

"I VERY strongly recommend that these options be priced as of December 24," he wrote.

They were, and that was fortunate for recipients. Broadcom's share price rose 23% between the two dates. The pretense that the options had been granted on the earlier date made them extra valuable.

It also violated the rationale of stock options. They give recipients a right to buy stock in the future at the price when the options are granted, so that recipients can profit only if the price of their company's stock goes up. Setting a lower "exercise price" for the options gives recipients a head start on profiting.

The Broadcom correspondence, found in an internal investigation at the maker of communication chips, is just one of a number of internal documents that have drawn the attention of federal prosecutors and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in Orange County, Calif. Prosecutors are strongly considering filing criminal charges against the former Broadcom chief financial officer who wrote the email, William J. Ruehle, and at least one other former executive, according to people familiar with the situation.

It's all fun and games until someone goes to jail.


...a thousand words

Lost and Found

I was cleaning out the interior of my 4Runner and found my wedding band in one of the many compartments. I haven't seen it for over a year. I had thought I lost it during the move from the house to the apartment but I guess I just took it off and put it in the car. I put it on my ring finger and it felt really odd.

"New" Job

There is no official rotation program at work but people seem to switch jobs a lot in the finance department. Typically when someone leaves or a new position is created, an email is sent out to the entire department with the job description and requirements; it is then up to current employees to contact the hiring manager if they are interested. Last year around this time, we went through a huge round of "rotations" and I ended up losing both my staff to the Broadband group. This time, I'm the one taking a new job.

The senior manager of FP&A is leaving the company to take another job up in NoCal so I applied for her position. After talking to the hiring manager, who interviewed me seven years ago for my initial position, I had three interviews with people in the finance department. I heard there were only two of us that interviewed so I only had to beat out one guy for the job.

This will technically be my fifth position at the same company, many of which were held in parallel. Hopefully the transition won't take too long; last time it took five months! We've already promoted the senior analyst that worked for me to take over my responsibilities. I will also only have one staff now instead of two which is fine by me. I've been working for the same manager for the past 6+ years. He says it feels like a divorce... ha, this is trivial compared to a divorce.

Incidentally, I will move to a new office this Friday. This will complete my tour of buildings A through E. I probably will keep everything in boxes since the entire company is moving to a new campus in two months.