I am very bad at sending out pictures of various gatherings/events to my friends afterward. Nancy had to yell at me many times before I finally posted the pictures for our 2005 Chinese New Year dinner pictures online. Here is another bunch of pictures I took with my Shanghai co-workers when they came to US for business last month. Better late than never, here you go!

Download the Originals (9.6 MB)

Moving is such a stressful event, the planning, organizing, cleaning, packing, then unpacking, putting things away, more cleaning... not fun! I did a quick count, for the past 10 years since I graduated from high school, I have moved more than 15 times! and everytime I move, I seem to have more junk, which means more headaches.

For the past two weeks Vivian and I have been very busy balancing work and closing the house; getting all the financial data, paperworks together for the loan and did a crap load of paper/contract signing. We finally finished all that today and sealed the deal, and getting ready to move in on March 2nd.

Next week won't be any easier for us neither. Wednesday 3/2 is a good day to move according to the traditional Chinese calendar. However, I have to go San Francisco 3/1 - 3/3 during the day to attend IDF, and then fly to Phoenix 3/6 - 3/9 for the JEDEC conference. So, somewhere between all those work related stuff, we have to coordinate the move, paint couple rooms, and get settled. Anyone wanna help??

镜头 #1:
电视里《大长今》电视剧里的角色正在讨论纳妾问题。。。

薇薇：哎！妻不如妾、妾不如偷、偷不如偷不到！
佳英：你是我什么人？
薇薇：偷不到！

镜头 #2:
佳英躺在沙发上边看电视边打电脑，猫猫跳到佳英的肚子上，原地转了几圈后一屁股躺在佳英的胸上。。。几分钟后，薇薇很high的、蹦蹦跳跳的跑过来，毫不客气的扑到佳英身上。。。

佳英：哎呀！我快要被你们两个压死了！
薇薇：(高音、唱腔)我们是你幸福的负担!!

Been a week since my last blog entry, it was a busy week, and I’ve learn that it is much easier to make a decision than actually following through the decision. Vivian and I have been busy closing the house, posting apartment-for-rent ads, and packing. MaoMao benefited from all the actions as he curiously sniffed around the newly vacated cabinets and closets.

On the weather front, the drizzling finally subdued, as the matter of fact, we were actually blessed with sunshine today, and it finally feels like California again! H-e-l-l-o-o Spring! It is probably going to be 8-9 more months of this gorgeous weather before we greet another wet winter season again.

Got two new pair of shoes over the weekend at DSW. I’ve never shopped at DSW before, Vivian and her girlfriends took me there. I think they just wanted to go and checkout shoes and it just happens that I was actually looking for a pair. DSW is pretty impressive! Huge inventory, good selection and very appealing prices. New shoes for the new year without killing my wallet, I am happy! However, I am now suffering sore feet from the rigid new shoes...

It has been raining for few days now and I hate this kind of drizzle-drizzle-drizzle. The on and off showering ruins my day and the gloomy sky dampens my mood. I prefer those dramatic downpours accompanied by room-shaking thunders, blinding lightings and merciless strong howling gusty wind sending rain drops left and right and sideways; the kind of rain that dumps inches of precipitation in the matter of minutes, and then, it stops just as quick as it started. Afterwards, the sun would creep out to light up a magnificent rainbow, and every thing will smell nice and refreshing… that’s the kind of rain I like! *sigh*

It's hard to believe that this is the third Valentine's Day (last year's Valentine's Day)I celebrated together with Vivian. It seems just like yesterday when I "nervously" asked her out on a date. Well, I was somewhat nervous, but she was definitely dubious. Fortunately, she accepted me, and our relationship is working out, and working out beautifully.

Some wise man or woman once said (most likely I am twisting the original quote, it is the idea that counts! :-) ) women are like books, and should keep the reader interested until the end. Well, I'd like to think it as a book of our stories, and I am definitely hooked, I don't believe we ever had a dull moment, and that last page is no where in sight. Sure, we have had difficult times, we've fought and I've made her cry; but I'd like to think those unpleasant moments as necessary reliefs of relationship tensions, and the building blocks to a healthier bond between us.

Vivian and I are now bonded even closer by our recent house purchase, although it doesn't seal our fates, it does serve as a bigger commitment we have for each other, and I am confident that our future is brighter than ever as we venture in to this new era of our relationship, hand-in-hand...

Related Blogs:
七七 – 真正的情人节！ (2005.08.10)
Our Melody (2005.02.14)

The Valentine's Day gift I got for Vivian... :-)


Related Blogs:
七七 – 真正的情人节！ (2005.08.10)
Be My Valentine (2005.02.14)

I got like Gazillion Gmail invitations left, if anyone wants one, let me know...

We have been putting life on the fast track these days… I got back to California from my month-long vacation in China on 1/13; started my new job on 1/24; test drove the TL two Fridays ago on 1/28; drove the TL home last Friday 2/4; went to an open house last Friday straight from the Acura dealership right after purchasing the TL, and now, today, Friday 2/11, a week later, that house is ours… well, almost ours, we still have to sign a stack of paperwork and cough out the down payment before we can move in. We are very excited and looking forward to move in on March 2nd, yup! That’s just about two weeks away! See Vivian's thoughts on our new home...

Let’s rewind a little… Vivian and I have been considering getting a house during the past year. We spoke to real estate agents off and on and even visited numerous open houses, but either didn’t like the properties, or the prices weren’t right, we never moved forward. We finally decided to pursue this brand-new-still-under-construction single family house in Santa Clara by getting ourselves on to the priority list, and were patiently waiting for the constructions to be completed. Then… the house I mentioned in the last paragraph “fell” out of the sky.

The location of the house is fabulous, in Santa Clara, heart of the Silicon Valley, three miles away from my office, and reduced Vivian’s daily commute by half; AMC Mercado, Milpitas Squares are all under ten minutes of drive! With four bedrooms, it allows us to rent one or two spare bedrooms to help with our mortgage. Anyone want to move in with us? Give us a call and we’ll cut you a good deal

New job, new car and new house, all in three weeks of work! :-)

Besides the regular January 1st New Year and perhaps some religious holiday such as Christmas, I don’t know if there are any holidays bigger than the Lunar New Year, also known as the Chinese New Year, which is celebrated not only by the Chinese, but majority of the Asian populations as well.

When the clock stuck 12am on the first day of the lunar New Year, I was surprised at the sounds of fire crackers going off outside in seemingly every direction. I could have easily mistaken to be in China! Those fireworks served as an evident to the impact and influence of the large Asian populations here in the Bay Area, just gotta love California!

Unfortunately I had to go to work on the New Year’s Day; I’d have taken the day off if it wasn’t for the pressing deadlines and new at the job. Majority of my co-workers are Asian descendants, and it gave me the at-home feeling with each exchange of New Year greetings.

Happy Chinese New Year!!

Got the Acura TL last Friday after work, it is nice and shinny and I just love that new car smell! The navigation system adds a lot of flares and Wow-factors to the vehicle. The directions are given both graphically and verbally, and I can choose between male or female voice for the vocal directions, interesting! The navigation package added an 8-inch LCD screen to the center console, very bright and colorful, and allows me to control navigation/audio/fan by touching the screen.

The interior looks very nice at night, a lot of colors emitted from the screen, controls and buttons. I am still learning the ~300 voice commands I can give to control all the accessories in the cabin. So far, my accent didn’t seem to be a problem for the car to comprehend my commands. Nice! Considering how much I play around with all the knobs and buttons while driving, I really need to get familiar with the voice control before killing myself on the road!

Aside from memorizing the voice commands, I am also trying to re-learn how to drive a stick shift. I’ve had a 5-speed manual Honda Accord back in 1998-2000, but it has been awhile. The TL I chose had a 6-speed transmission, you might not want to carpool with me yet since the ride is kinda jiggy...

I have been losing a lot of weight lately, 10 lbs to be exact. That flu/cold/diarrhea thing I had when I first got back from Shanghai last month did the trick. My weight had always been hovering around 175 lbs, +/- 3 lbs since my freshman year in college, but now it is at 165 lbs, lightest I have ever been since graduating high school!!

I don’t mind the weight reduction, however there is an undesired side-effect –- Nippling! Since I am skinnier now, when I wear fitted shirt or thin sweaters, the nippling effect is very evident! The embarrassing phenomenon accentuates even more in a cooler environment. Ayiii…!

The Baby-Bells are acting up these days. First, Baby-Bell SBC is trying to buy its former parent "Ma-Bell" AT&T for a cool $16 Billion, and now, just like little kids fighting for attention, Baby-Bell Qwest is in talk to buy the big bad MCI for $6.4 Billion. Phheeww~! These days, sub-Billion dollar mergers & acquisition won’t even raise any eyebrows.

Exciting time we live in huh? Let’s re-cap...

Lenovo/IBM-ThinkPad -- $1.25 Billion
P&G/Gillette -- $54 Billion
SBC/AT&T -- $16 Billion
Qwest/MCI -- $6.4 Billion (??)

I guess the Streets really value the old fashion businesses such as Gillette. It is just mind boggling for me trying to comprehend how some razor company can be worth $54 Billion! I am aware of the fact that Gillette has other products such as Oral-B and Duracell, but $54 Billion?!?! Perhaps my Engineering background bias-ed my valuation for technology companies such as IBM, but I guess IBM’s countless Intellectual Properties are not as dollar-worthy as grooming technologies after all.

Not having a car was convenient in Shanghai, the entire city is a huge parking lot anyways, you would burn more gas while stuck in traffic and waste more money than cab fares on parking fees anyways. However, in the good old US of A, in a suburban area such as Silicon Valley, not having a car is a big No-No.





Although Vivian owns two cars, one of them recently broke down (dead battery, burnt out ignition fuse), and so, we have been carpooling to and from work for the past two weeks. We took full advantage of the carpool lanes -- a gratifying experience to zoom pass those frustrated drivers behind the wheels of single occupant vehicles stuck on the freeway in the morning. Despite the carpool “perk”, I still miss having my own car.

I spent a month researching and monitoring online for new and used cars, and narrowed my field down to Audi A4, BMW X5, Infiniti FX35 and Acura TL. Each had its pros and cons... I was deeply allured by the sexy, cheeta-like Infiniti FX35! But with the optional features I wanted, it would cost as much as a BMW X5. After Vivian and I realistically forecasted my financial situation, I dropped the idea of owning the FX35 and X5. *sniff*

Known for its fine performance handling, Audi A4 was hard to dismiss, but the completely re-designed, luxuriously equipped and reasonably priced 2005 Acura TL eventually win me over. Perhaps it was the 270hp engine, or the voice recognition navigation system, or the 6-speed manual transmission, or the sleek bold look, or the fat 235mm tires... somewhere amongst the long line of desirable features on the TL, I’ve decided it is the right car for me.

Now all I need to decide on is the color!