Sound Check

Hmm, during sound check this morning, the sound engineers told me to turn down my bass amp volume on stage. The dial ended up at less than 1/2 the gain even though I couldn't hear myself too well; I had it cranked all the way up during rehearsal on Thursday. It's still better than my old Peavey combo amp but not sure if it's worth the ~$600 I spent. I guess I'll hold off on a preamp until I get a rack case.

Also, the drummer asked during sound check if we can turn down the bass in our monitor mix since he can hear all my mistakes. Sigh... I think I played better for the actual worship service but it was a bit discouraging nevertheless. :(

Bass Rig

This is my current setup:

- Yamaha RBX250 4-string bass (from 1992)
- BBE DI-100x direct box
- Carvin DMC1000 amp
- Eden D210T cabinet

I'm a bit disappointed in the volume during rehearsal. The setup is not very loud but should be sufficient for monitoring purposes since I'm also sending signal to the main house system. I think it's because the impedance of the cabinet is 8 ohms which drop my amp to 225W per channel RMS. I plugged my amp into a 4x10 cab in the ministry center and it was much louder. Also, since my bass has passive pickups and BBE DI is not a real preamp, I'm probably not sending enough signal to the amp. I either need to get a better preamp or bridge the amp which should double the power output.

I'm going to leave it for now. The next purchase needs to be a rack case since I'm carting the amp around in the original Carvin cardboard box. :(

Another One Bites the Dust

I just found out that another one of our undergrad finance hires from USC last year is quitting. Out of 5 hires, that leaves only one left in Irvine: two quit and two were forced to leave due to work visa problems (although we transferred one of them to Singapore). I'm not sure if it's just new graduates trying to figure out what they want to do with their life or if I've been here so long that I don't see problems.

Paging Nicolaus Copernicus

Wow. One stupid guy I can understand, but 56% of the audience thought the Sun revolves around the Earth! It would have been even funnier if he used the 50/50 and it eliminated Mars and Venus.

Head Injury

I watched an episode of CSI:Miami several nights ago where one of the CSI guys got shot in the head. He was in the hospital and was asking for his sister who died in a previous episode. A doctor commented that in severe head trauma, the victim may sustain memory loss.

Is this true? I'd hate to sustain a head injury and wake up somewhere asking for Shirley. That would suck.

Used bass cabinet

I'm off to pick up a used bass cab I found on Craigslist. It's an Eden D210T which has dual 10" speakers. It's about 60 lbs. which is close to what my Peavey amp weighs. Now all I need to do is to find an amp for the cabinet. I'm still debating on getting a real bass amp head or a PA amp (Carvin DCM1000/$300) connected to my BBE DI-100x.

Pupils browse porn on donated laptops

Reuters

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian schoolchildren who received laptops from a U.S. aid organization have used them to explore pornographic sites on the Internet, the official News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported Thursday.

NAN said its reporter had seen pornographic images stored on several of the children's laptops.

"Efforts to promote learning with laptops in a primary school in Abuja have gone awry as the pupils freely browse adult sites with explicit sexual materials," NAN said.

A representative of the One Laptop Per Child aid group was quoted as saying that the computers, part of a pilot scheme, would now be fitted with filters.

Great... I'm sure my tax dollars are involved somehow. I thought there were a lot of computers available in Nigeria already, judging from the volume of email spam I get from there.

LA Galaxy

Boy they suck. I watched most of the soccer match between LA Galaxy and Chelsea on a Spanish channel (no ESPN). It was a pretty lopsided game although the final score was only 1-0 Chelsea. They were much more precise in their passing and plays; the Galaxy looked like a high school team compared to Chelsea.

David Beckham came in at about the 36 minute mark in the 2nd half. I think he touched the ball 5 or 6 times and they let him have the final corner kick. He has an ankle injury or something so he didn't play much.

==========

In the U.S., we have official sponsorship for cars, cameras, etc. I just checked out Chelsea FC's website and there is a betting section. They have official online betting partners: Power Paddy Casino, Coral Poker, and a sports book. I wonder if they have an official beer or pub sponsor too.

Also, the Galaxy website is available in English and Español while Chelsea has English, simplified Chinese, and Korean. I guess the Korean is there since Samsung is their sponsor but why Chinese?


That's a lot of characters for "Chelsea"

Efficient Market Theorem

Press Release

IRVINE, Calif. and NEW YORK, July 19, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM) and Verizon Wireless, an affiliate of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), today announced a licensing agreement that permits the continued importation and sale by Verizon Wireless of mobile devices that are the subject of the current litigation between Broadcom and Qualcomm Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM) before the U.S. International Trade Commission.

The agreement allows Verizon Wireless, the largest wireless provider in the country by revenue, to sell new handsets and other wireless devices, ensuring the availability of the latest cell phone technology in handsets and personal digital assistants (PDAs) to consumers and businesses. Under the agreement, Verizon Wireless will make payments to Broadcom at a rate of $6.00 for each 1xEV-DO handset, PDA or data card sold after the effective date, subject to a maximum payment of $40 million per calendar quarter and a lifetime maximum payment of $200 million. The agreement provides Verizon a license to the six Broadcom patents currently being litigated between Broadcom and Qualcomm. Other terms and conditions of the agreement are confidential.

We learned in b-school that the market is efficient and news gets factored into the stock price in matter of minutes. The press release went out at 2:32pm. Here are the stock charts for BRCM and QCOM at 3:10pm with a 20 min delay.


BRCM


QCOM

Chinese, English Speakers Vary at Math

Live Science

WASHINGTON (AP)-Things add up differently for native English speakers compared with people who learned Chinese as a first language.

Simple arithmetic was easily done by both groups, but they used different parts of the brain, a new study shows.

Researchers used brain imaging to see which parts of the brain were active while people did simple addition problems, such as 3 plus 4 equals 7. All participants were working with Arabic numerals which are used in both cultures.

Both groups engaged a portion of the brain called the inferior parietal cortex, which is involved in quantity representation and reading.

But native English speakers also showed activity in a language processing area of the brain, while native Chinese speakers used a brain region involved in the processing of visual information, according to the report in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The article doesn't explain whether they believe this is cultural or genetic. I think they should test Chinese-Americans that were born in Asia but learn to speak/read English at a young age. They should also test Vietnamese, Malay, or Indonesian people since they use romanized writing vs. Chinese pictographic characters.

Lord Stanley's Cup

... is downstairs right now!

I think Henry brought it for Family Day at Broadcom today. Each group was alloted some time to take pictures and finance was at 8am. Of course, I wasn't on the invite list but since it was in my building and I got here early, I crashed the party and took some pictures (which I will post as soon as I find my camera's USB cable).

Pope declares Protestants cannot have churches

The Guardian

Protestant churches yesterday reacted with dismay to a new declaration approved by Pope Benedict XVI insisting they were mere "ecclesial communities" and their ministers effectively phonies with no right to give communion.

Coming just four days after the reinstatement of the Latin mass, yesterday's document left no doubt about the Pope's eagerness to back traditional Roman Catholic practices and attitudes, even at the expense of causing offence.

The view that Protestants cannot have churches was first set out by Pope Benedict seven years ago when, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he headed the Vatican "ministry" for doctrine. A commentary attached to the latest text acknowledged that his 2000 document, Dominus Iesus, had caused "no little distress".

But it added: "It is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to [Protestant communities], given that they do not accept the theological notion of the Church in the Catholic sense and that they lack elements considered essential to the Catholic Church."

Duh! That's why Protestants are not Catholic; we don't have to listen to this guy. Is he's claiming the word "church" can only mean the Catholic church? I guess we need to rename NewSong Church to NewSong Ecclesial Community.

Way to make yourself even more irrelevant to the Protestant community.

Candidates lost in Chinese translation

USA Today article

Boston's 2008 presidential primary ballot could read like a bad Chinese menu.

There might be "Sticky Rice" in column A, "Virtue Soup" in column B and, in column C, "Upset Stomach."

Those could be choices facing some voters if the names of Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and Hillary Rodham Clinton were converted into Chinese characters, according to Massachusetts' top election official. And that gives Secretary of State William Galvin heartburn.

On Tuesday, Galvin filed a challenge in federal court to a Justice Department agreement requiring that ballots be fully translated to protect the rights of Chinese-speaking voters.

Galvin says Chinese — which uses characters, not letters; has sounds with several meanings; and is spoken in several dialects — will create ballot chaos.

This is stupid. I can live with translating voting instructions, even though citizens are supposed to have some English proficiency, but transliterating candidate names into Chinese characters is retarded. Most Chinese names are chosen specifically for their meaning (and number of strokes) and are pronounced differently depending on the dialect. On a voting ballot, all you need is to distinguish one from candidate from another. If a voter can't even tell the difference visually between "Hillary Clinton" and "Fred Thompson", I'm not sure that person should be voting. Also, unless candidates are running ads with their new "Chinese" names, how will the voter know who they are on the ballot on election day?

What I want to know is whether they will print the Chinese ballots with traditional or simplified characters. Taiwanese people will probably protest for a "Taiwanese" ballot since they claim they're not Chinese.

Live Earth

Seriously, who are they trying to reach with Live Earth? Are there people at the concerts or watching online that haven't heard about global warming? Eight concerts! I wonder how much electricity it took to power all the sound equipment and lighting at each concert. Not to mention how much oil was burned by cars and buses to get everyone to the concerts.

Whatever...

1 vs 100

I'm watching this game show on NBC where one contestant goes up against 100 people (the Mob) and answer multiple choice (3 choices) questions. At each stage, the contestant gets more money per wrong answer by the Mob. Anyway, a new contestant comes up (from Tustin!) and the first questions was:

Which one has the least number of cells?
A. Eastern Gray Squirrel
B. Calista Flockhart
C. Amoeba

The contestant had no idea what an amoeba was so she had to use a "help" which meant that she would go with the most popular answer. Of course the answer was amoeba but 11 out of the 100 got it wrong. I thought we learned this stuff in junior high school biology.

Subpoena

"No good deed goes unpunished."

I got a subpoena tonight. I witnessed an accident near the 5 freeway and Alton Parkway awhile back. Doing the "right" thing, I stopped to help and the CHP took down my name as a witness. Last year, I was deposed by a couple of lawyers representing an insurance company. It took 45 minutes and I had to review a transcript of everything I said. I guess the case is now in arbitration and they want me to show up again. I don't even remember when the accident occurred anymore and not sure why they need me at all after the deposition.

"Free" Cable TV

I split my incoming cable for my cable modem and plugged it into my new TV just to see what I could get. With the old analog TV, all I could get was CBS and G4. To my surprise, the new TV picked up some analog channels but also a whole bunch of digital channels, including some 1080i HD ones and 45 "music" channels. Weeding out duplicates and shopping/Spanish stations, I think I have about 25 channels I can watch.

I don't know if this is actually good news since I'll probably end up spending too much time watching TV again.

New TV

OK, I finally bought a new TV today. I went to Costco and got a Vizio 42" 1080p LCD TV. The price was $1199 but I had a $200 off coupon so it came out to around $1100 with tax. A coworker helped me get the TV and also move my old tube TV off my TV stand so I can setup the new one. It didn't look that big in the warehouse but it's huge inside my tiny living room. I was surprised that it was able to pick up several digital TV stations with my $15 antenna. It also has a VGA port that I'm using right now with my laptop.

I'm pretty happy with it right now. Next I need to decide whether I should get cable or just watch DVD's or stream stuff off the Internet with my computer. Now all I need to do is get rid of this huge box in my living room.

Gospel Brunch

Instead of service yesterday morning, NewSong NOC had a volunteer appreciation event at the House of Blues. Each Sunday, there is a Gospel Brunch at the House of Blues in Downtown Disney and we reserved almost the entire venue with 170 people.

We were told to arrive at 9am at Downtown Disney even though the doors didn't open until 10am. They decided to have a couple of icebreakers on the 2nd floor patio before the event. The first icebreaker was to swap cell phones with someone you didn't know and look through their contact list for interesting names. My cell phone is the Treo 650 from work which has all ~6000 employees in the contact list. Next, they asked for 2 volunteers from each ministry (worship/sound is part of CAM - Creative Arts Ministry). All the other ministries quickly got volunteers except CAM. We stood around pointing at each other until I got called out by the pastor. Anyway, it turned out to be a eating contest of eating applesauce with a pair of pantyhose over your head. Since April was the other "volunteer", I got to eat while she spoon fed me. Long story short, our team won with the "stuff it as fast as you can in my mouth" strategy, and our prize was a 6 1/2 pound can of applesauce.

Since I was lugging around a huge can of applesauce, I ended up at the back of the line and got in last. By then, there was a long line at the omelet bar so I just got some stuff at the buffet line. The food was decent but I wasn't expecting too much for $30 at a Disney attraction. At around 11am, the band (two vocalists, electric guitar, bass, keys, and drums) came on stage and sang for about 45 minutes. Some pictures from the Treo:


There were quite a few monitors at the front of the stage causing feedback if you're not careful.


Bass player


Female vocalist... the other singer called her his "daughter" but he didn't look very old. Yup, that's a Shure SM58UA wireless microphone.


Audience waving on stage. Notice the singer wiping himself off.

The music was pretty good but a bit loud. There was a lot of sound equipment for the small room. All the band members were wearing a suit but each had a towel for wiping sweat. At my old church, we had to wear a shirt and tie to lead/play on the worship and I would always end up sweating like crazy if I was playing guitar. At the end of the show, they started a dance line and got some audience members on stage.

Does anyone want a large quantity of applesauce?

Chinese Car Crash Test

Sam sent me an article on a crash test in Germany of a Chinese built sedan. As someone commented, "Is the entire car a crumple zone?" I'll bet the Chinese car manufacturer never crash tested the car. Why waste a perfectly good car?!


Amazing... the entire car almost folds in half in a 40mph collision.


For comparison, here is a Renault hitting the barrier at 40mph.

CTIA asks for presidential veto of ITC Qualcomm ban

NEW YORK, June 20 (Reuters) - CTIA, the U.S. trade group representing the wireless industry, on Wednesday asked U.S. President George W. Bush to veto a government agency ban on the importation of some phones with Qualcomm Inc. chips.

The Bush administration has 60 days to review the International Trade Commission's ban on U.S. imports of new high-speed wireless phones with Qualcomm chips the trade agency said infringe on a Broadcom Corp patent. The ban exempted phone models that had already been imported by June 7.

CTIA said in a letter to Bush that the ban would freeze innovation, cause economic disruption including job losses, and adversely affect public safety and the competitiveness of the country's telecom industry.

The letter, signed by CTIA President Steve Largent, cited expert predictions that high-speed wireless services would account for half of wireless growth in the next five years and generate two to three million jobs over the next decade.

Qualcomm and Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc have also said they would push for a veto of the decision.

Some thoughts...

1. Why does the president get a veto? This is all about money. Qualcomm can settle with Broadcom tomorrow if they wanted but they're afraid that they'll need to renegotiate or be sued by all their other licensees. The CTIA letter is full of crap. The only thing in jeopardy is Qualcomm's profits.

2. Hmm... Broadcom is not a member of CTIA. Why not?

3. Steve Largent? Ex-wide receiver for the Seattle Seahawks?

康熙来了

Since the two Korean variety shows I used to watch on YouTube are cancelled, I've been watching 康熙来了. There are two hosts and they invite celebrities on the show and talk about a particular topic. I'm pretty sure it's from Taiwan; I can understand most of what they say so no need for English subtitles!

This show has four female guests and they are going to see what is in each person's purse. Supposedly the producers went out and "hijacked" their purses before the show so the guests can't remove embarrassing stuff. The two on the right (nearest the male host) are models and I think the other two are hosts on other shows.


Part 1 of 5
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

They all seem to carry a lot of stuff around with them. The tall, dark model (2nd from the right) is 王麗雅. The female host, all the way on the left, is 徐熙娣 or 小S (little-S; her older sister is big-S). I saw her picture in Chengdu on billboards and buses, advertising some cosmetics products.

Cucumber Soda?

Bottles of Pepsi Ice Cucumber are on display at a convenience store in Tokyo Wednesday, June 13, 2007.

Worship

I'm playing bass on the worship team for NewSong NOC this weekend. We're short on worship leaders so Irene is leading again. She picked two songs from Hillsong United with similar bass parts with lots of 1/16th notes. My right forearm was about to cramp during rehearsal Friday so I'm bring a heavy guitar pick (gasp!) with me.

Stanley Cup

I heard at work that Scott Neidermeyer brought the Stanley Cup to his kid's graduation ceremony Thursday night. I guess they each get to spend a few days with the Cup and he's first. I also heard rumors that Henry may get the Cup today or tomorrow (that seems pretty early for the owner) and he may bring it to work. Hmm, I need to bring my camera and walk by his office more often.

June 4th

18 years ago today

愛相隨 Chords & Lyrics

Someone requested this in a comment. I had to work out some of the chords myself so I'm not sure it 100% correct. The final chorus modulates up a half-step to C#. Blogspot didn't let me put the chords over the right lyrics so you'll have to figure out the chord changes yourself.

Not sure if this is something you want to sing to your girlfriend though...


KTV (C#)

C Em Am F G C C7
別想你 忍不住我提醒自己 傷了心 有些事也要過去
F G C Am F G C G
心很痛 痛得不想再做我自己 別回頭 情已去 緣已盡

C Em Am F G C C7
很想你 也不是因為失去你 愛了你 用盡我全心全力
F G E Am F Dm7 G
一生情 只為這一次與你相遇 情難了 難再續 難再醒

C Am F G
人分飛 愛相隨 那怕用一生去追
Em Am F G
我又怎麼能追得回 與你相慰
C Am F G
我為你癡 為你累 風雨我都不後悔
Em Am
我又怎麼有路可退
F G C
曾經深情 你給了誰

很想你 也不是因為失去你 愛了你 用盡我全心全力
一生情 只為這一次與你相遇 情難了 難再續 難再醒

人分飛 愛相隨 那怕用一生去追
我又怎麼能追得回 與你相慰
我為你癡 為你累 風雨我都不後悔 我又怎麼有路可退
我如何面對

人分飛 愛相隨 那怕用一生去追
我又怎麼能追得回 與你相慰
我為你癡 為你累 風雨我都不後悔 我又怎麼有路可退
曾經深情 你給了誰

Hillary Speech

It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few and for the few, time to reject the idea of an "on your own" society and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity. I prefer a "we're all in it together" society.
-Hillary Clinton

Ahem, no thanks. This "we're all in it together" society sounds very socialist to me. Why do Democrats always want to raise taxes to fund their priorities? If it's so important, why don't they give their personal wealth to those programs? I donate to several charities yet I don't expect the government (i.e., other people) to do the same. Perhaps it's because there's no political gain on personal donations: tax the "rich" few, give to the "poor" masses, get elected from this wealth redistribution scheme. Sigh...

Also, "government of the few"? You mean our current government is not big enough?!

Ducks Win Game 1

NHL.com

I wonder if Henry will bring the Stanley Cup to work if the Ducks win the playoffs.

BBQ

Mmm, meat...

Addison

Cheer Chen (陳綺貞)

While wandering around in Hong Kong, I came across Cheer Chen's concert CD/DVD. Since I have some of her songs on my iPod already, I bought the DVD (HK$128). I ripped some of the tracks and put them up on YouTube.


還是會寂寞 (check out the bald female bass player!)


旅行的意義

Home

I'm finally home after the week-long trip to Chengdu. Our flight was delayed so we didn't leave Hong Kong until midnight. The flight is shorter on the way home; it was only about 12+ hours. This time, Leon and I sat in the 2nd to last row in Cathay Pacific's 747-400. Arriving in LAX, they parked the plane at the remote terminals away from the main Bradley terminal. Out of the last four international flights I've been on, three times I've disembarked at the remote terminals. You get off the plane, walk down a long ramp, then get on a shuttle bus for immigrations. However, it was the first time Leon has "experienced" this, even though he's flown >20x in the past several years. It's really embarrassing comparing LAX to some of the airports in Asia.

I think I made the right decision not to transfer to Singapore with Broadcom. It's a great opportunity but after this week, I'm reminded how hot and humid the weather is over there and how much I dislike long flights, especially flying economy class. :)

Some more random pictures:


Hennessey Road in Hong Kong


Lots of 747's at Hong Kong Airport


Lighted sign at the baggage carousal in Chengdu Airport (panda!)


Jardine House in Hong Kong

Chengdu - Day 6

Today is pretty much a travel day. It took me forever to pack my luggage; I should have brought something bigger. We arrived in Hong Kong at around 5pm and took the airport express into town to meet Leon's cousin for dinner. The train was fast and inexpensive; it took exactly 24 minutes to get from the airport to Hong Kong/Central station. We had dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant (Isola) and made it back to the airport by 9:30pm. The final leg of the trip is a 12+ hour flight back to LAX... :(


View of Hong Kong skyline from IFC

More Chengdu Pics

I'm back in Hong Kong. Let see if I can upload some pictures:


The nice unpaved road leading to PMI


Stream at the back of PMI's tract of land


View of Chengdu from my uncle's balcony


A dish we had for dinner; all the green stuff is chopped peppers


Pandas seem to be big in Chengdu... not sure what this one is doing

Chengdu - Day 4/5

The last two days were mostly spent at PMI's office. In order to help with their business plan, I needed to understand the business better so we spent some time with the accountant. From what I saw, the accounting rules are not that different since China follows International GAAP; the only difference is that the government is much more intrusive. It was difficult to communicate since I don't know any accounting/finance terms in Mandarin (I don't even know how to say finance) and English competency is pretty low in Chendgu.

One interesting thing I found out is that companies cannot issue their own invoices. In order to combat corruption, the government prints numbered invoices that companies must use. This way, you can't falsify expenses since all reported expenses requires a corresponding official invoice. This makes it difficult to account for all the "red envelopes" that's part of Chinese business culture. It also requires an army of people to track all this paper but there are a lot of people in China. :)

I also got a tour of the land PMI is buying to build their new factory. It's a little piece of land in the middle of a high tech industrial park. There's even got a nice stream at the back of the property. The area behind the stream is taken up by a Motorola software design center and there is a large Intel packaging plant down the street.

Wednesday evening I met up with my 3rd uncle on my mom's side and his niece. He moved to Chengdu earlier this month from Canada and is planning to stay until November. My parents are coming to Chengdu in October so they will get to meet him. I haven't seen him since I left Canada in 1985 so it's funny that I finally meet him 22 years later in China. We went to dinner at a local restaurant. The food was really good and cheap.

Hmm, I'm having problems uploading photos to Blogspot. Maybe I'm blocked by the Great Firewall of China.

Thursday was pretty uneventful. We met with a local VC where Leon pitched PMI again. I didn't say anything during the meeting but learned how company valuation works in China. Evidently, the Registered Capital (similar to Paid-in Capital) amount is used where we use discount future cash flow to value a company in the US. They found it hard to believe that a company's value is not tied to the current balance sheet.

For lunch we had some noodles at a restaurant across the street from the VC. Each bowl of noodle was only RMB$4-5 but the portion size here is a lot smaller though. For dinner, we met up with a finance manager from one of PMI's vendors. He is from Taiwan but has a MBA from a small school in New Jersey. We wanted to pick his brain about investment and company structure issues in China. The restaurant specialized in local Szechuan cuisine. For RMB$88 per person, we got to sample 20+ dishes. It's also the 4th time I've had watermelon juice with a meal; it seems to be quite popular in Chengdu.

Chengdu - Day 3

Bret (my former manager) just called me to discuss some staffing issues on where to put new incoming MBA hires. He didn't know I was out here in Chengdu so he woke me up at 5:00am local time. I think I'm not adjusting to the time change so it's hard to stay asleep through the night anyhow. Meanwhile, I was having problems staying awake during all the meetings yesterday.

My first full day in Chengdu was pretty much following Leon around on his business meetings. It's interesting watching Leon speak Chinese, especially discussing chemical compounds and technical stuff. Even though Mandarin was my first language, I found it difficult to understand what people were saying. It was even worse when they switched to the local dialect.


Some random intersection in Chengdu

The traffic is crazy, even more than Taipei or Bangkok. People on scooters don't follow traffic lights so you may get run over even crossing on a green light. The taxi drivers are very aggressive and weave in and out of traffic all the time. There were not as many bicycles as I saw in Beijing 10 years ago but definitely a lot more scooters. Cars are still a luxury item but I guess more people are able to afford scooters now.

The perpetual haze never burned off so it was overcast the entire day. Nevertheless, it was still too hot for me. I was also wearing work clothes so it was even worse. It got to about 30 degrees Celsius but it was also pretty humid. All the local people thought it was a nice cool day though.


ZnS-SiO2 targets

In the afternoon, we went to Leon's office/factory. It was a pretty long ride and the road leading the the building was unpaved but our driver was tearing through the potholes in a crappy little minivan.


PMI's high tech manufacturing facilities

We had dinner at a pretty nice Chinese restaurant inside the Holiday Inn. I had to order the kung-pao chicken to taste the "original" version. Dishes started at only $3 and the service was really good; there were 3-4 servers at our table.


Outside the hotel there was some kind of cosmetics brand launch. There was music, drinks, snacks, and three girls playing violin, Vanessa Mae style.

Chengdu - Day 2

The rain continued in Hong Kong the next morning so I gave up on going to the peak. Twice I've been in Hong Kong and both times it was raining. Since they were not able to give me late checkout, I left my bags at the hotel and wandered around Hong Kong for a couple of hours. I ended up spending most of my time in a shopping "mall" called Time Square, right outside the Causeway Bay MTR station. I'm not sure why people come to Hong Kong to shop; everything seems to cost the same or more than stuff in the US, especially electronics (although there's a lot more selection). I did buy a CD and a concert DVD; I don't know where to get new C-pop stuff in LA.


I wonder if the roast duck pizza tastes better in Hong Kong


Kylie Minogue on a trolley

The flight to Chengdu was about 2.5 hours. We got in late last night and the whole city smelled like it was on fire. The air was even smoggy inside the airport terminal. Leon thought it was more than just the regular poor air quality; there was probably something special going on. It was a long taxi ride to the hotel but the fare was only RMB$50 or a little over $6. We walked around a bit even though it was already 11pm and the streets were pretty deserted. There were some street vendors selling food (no way!) and pedicabs offering to take us to see pretty girls for $3. It kind of reminds me of Bangkok where they assume every male foreigner out at night is looking for sex.


As usual, my non-smoking room smells like smoke. I'm resigned to the fact that this is the case all over Asia. There's a large window separating the bathroom from the rest of the room. Weird.


The view outside my window is pretty dreary this morning. We're >1,000 miles from the ocean so that's probably the perpetual smog.

Chengdu - Day 1

OK, I'm not really in China yet. I have a one day layover in Hong Kong before we head off to Chengdu. I'm staying at a hotel on Hong Kong Island for about $120; they upgraded me to a suite, too bad it's only one day. The flight sucked since it was so long (14.5 hours) and my ecomony seat (Boeing 747) seems more cramped vs. Singapore Airlines (Boeing 777). It's also the longest direct flight I've been on. I can't imagine being on the plane 4 more hours to fly directly from LAX to Singapore.


They're renovating the business class lounges at LAX so we were shuttled to a temp facility. No, I didn't fly business class; Leon has lots of miles so he got me in.


Inside the temp lounge. Not too bad but nothing compared to Singapore Airline's lounge at Changi or Cathay Pacific's at Hong Kong (Noodle Bar!).

The new Hong Kong airport is huge. They let us off at gate 67 which is a 20 minute walk to the main terminal. We actually took a subway to get from one end of the airport to the other.


Arrival hall at Hong Kong airport. There are 13 luggage carousels and our luggage was waiting for us when we cleared customs. I usually have to wait forever for luggage at LAX or even short-flights at SNA.

The shuttle bus from the airport to my hotel was HK$140 and took about 45 minutes since I was the first stop. It was a huge tourist bus but only had about 10 passengers. Metropark Hotel is right next to a MTR station (Tin Hau) but I was too lazy to navigate the subway with my luggage.


Even though I requested a non-smoking room, the room smells anyway. You can't get away from cigarette smoke in Hong Kong.


View of Hong Kong from hotel room

How many notebook computers do you see?

At a recent work meeting:



I count 10 in the picture. There was another 2 across from me and 3 more to my left. That's 15 computers in one conference room; I don't think there were that many people in the room. I'm guilty though... I brought 2 notebook computers to the meeting: one to show the PPT files and the other to check email/surf the web/etc.

Porsche Cayenne Turbo S

I saw one today on Irvine Center Drive. As if the Cayenne Turbo wasn't crazy enough, the "S" gives another 50(?) horsepowers. He wasn't going very fast though.


Does the S look "aftermarket"? :)

Most Dangerous Vehicles

IIHS report shows the best and worst vehicles in real-world driver safety.

Lowest rates of driver death
(per million registered vehicles)
Chevrolet Astro 7
Infiniti G35 11
BMW 7 Series 11
*Toyota 4Runner* 13
Audi A4/S4 quattro 14
Mercedes Benz E-Class 14
Toyota Highlander 14
Mercedes-Benz M-Class 14
Toyota Sienna 17
Honda Odyssey 17
Lexus ES330 18
Lexus RX330 18
Toyota Sequoia 18
Honda Pilot 19
BMW X5 19

Highest rates of driver death
(per million registered vehicles)
Chevrolet Blazer (2 door, 2WD) 232
Acura RSX 202
*Nissan 350Z* 193
Kia Spectra (hatchback) 191
Pontiac Sunfire 179
Kia Rio 175
Chevrolet Cavalier (2 door) 171
Mitsubishi Eclipse 169
Dodge Neon 161
Pontiac Grand Am (2 door) 160
Chevrolet Cavalier (4 door) 150
Ford Mustang 150

This says that I should drive the 4Runner more often and leave the Z at home (or sell it). :(