I went to the bank, filled my car with gas, lined up patiently at the DMV, got the license plate for my car and finally grabbed a bite at Taco Bells... yup! I did all that within an hour during lunch today! Go me! Only wish I can be as productive at work! :-)

I finally got a license plate for my car. Since I brought the car around the same time I moved into the new home, the post office returned the new license plate to DMV (license plate can not be forwarded by the USPS). I had to physically go to the much dreaded DMV office twice and finally got it settled. It only took nearly five months to get the plate, not bad! :-) One downside to this is, fearing the photo-cops, I can no longer run anymore red lights... j/k :-P

Felt like I've eaten a fly...

(((Thump Radio))) is promoting at 1015 Folsom tonight with Infected Mushroom as the main feature! No doubt Thump Radio puts on my favorite clubbing events in the Bay Area, and Infected Mushroom will make tonight an exceptional one!

Thump! Thump!!

Adobe .pdf files are popular as ever these days in the office environment. It is such a productivity-enhancing-tree-hugging piece of software. Not only it saves a lot of time printing and carrying paper documents, it saves a ton of trees!!

Allow me to go on tangent here a bit... As a member of the JEDEC standardization committee, I go to JEDEC conferences four times a year, and some of the most memorable moments attending those conferences were to listen to the veteran JEDEC members telling the stories of the old JEDEC days. They have told me that in the pre-Adobe era, they would each haul large suit case filled with various paper ballots to the conference to participate in the voting; companies would on average spend $100K each year just to mail the JEDEC proposals/ballots around; and the location of the quarterly JEDEC meeting MUST be close to a local Kinko’s or print shop... All those “horror stories” were due to the dependency on paper, and with the invention of Adobe Acrobat, life was much much easier. JEDEC board of directors now can freely choose exotic meeting locations, free from the Kinko’s bonding restrictions! So... partially thanks to Adobe, I will be going to Maui this Dec.! :-)

Ok, back to PDF. Although it is powerful and useful, its full version is also expensive! $300-400 depending on the version. Well, fear no more! You now can enjoy the convenience of PDF and spend... $0.00!!

There is an open-source program called PDFCreator, that allows you to generate PDF docs just as you would with the full licensed Acrobat! Download a free Adobe Acrobat Reader and install this free PDFCreator, and you are all good to go!!

I have a nice window view of the hills outside of our office building. However, it wasn't the view, but rather, it was the strong burning smell oozing into the office that alerted me on this very day.

I took off my earphones, stood up and noticed a big puffy white column of smoke rising from the distance. I went outside; the smell was eminent; helicopters circling above the burn site; the fire engine sirens approaching from all directions... Yup! Something is definitely burning! Although I wasn't able to see any flame from where I was standing, the smoke column indicated that the ground zero was less than a quarter mile away.

Exciting day!

Today is the longest day of the year. From today on, for those of us on the northern hemisphere will have less and less day light... what a depressing thought!

Stupid me, left the garage door open all night last night, again! Previously we were lucky, no harm done, but our lucks ran out today. The left side doors of Vivian's car were wide open this morning when she was leaving for work. We figured the thief must have been a girl, since she stole few pairs of Vivian's shoes on the shoe rack next to the car, the thief also took a flat-bed scanner by the wall and grabbed all the CDs, jewelries and even maps (I guess the thief was lost and needed a map?!??!) out of Vivian's car.

On the other hand, me, the trouble maker, were ok. I had my checkbook and spare wallet filled with my seldom used credit cards in my car. I guess the thief was in a hurry and didn't bother to exam my car. I even had a nice new Burberry scarf (nice warm cozy gift from Vivian) in my back seat the thief overlooked. Pheww...

I'll have to change the garage door remote code and remember to always close the garage. This could have been a lot worse. The thief could have easily walked in and grabbed our car key and have a nice field day with our TLs, not to mention the potential personal danger of inviting unwanted guests in to our house... Anyways, another lesson learnt.

While I was in Seoul for the JEDEC conference last week, our office moved from Santa Clara to a new facility in South San Jose. The company purchased a new headquarter, bigger, slicker and further. I found my way to the new office yesterday morning, it is very nice, everything so new, nice landscaping and modernistic decors. Liking it so far.



For all the years I have worked, I have always lived no more than five miles away from the office; this is by far the furthest I had to commute. Previously it was only 2.5 miles from home to office, now 16 miles! Despite the mileages, the drive is actually not bad, since my commute is against the general traffic, it is smooth cruising all the way.

The very first phone call I received after I got back to USA was from my boss, informing me the month long rumor came true -- IDT (the company I work for) and its biggest competitor ICS signed definitive agreement to merge! This should be interesting since there are a lot of overlapping groups and functions between the two companies...

I have experienced other mergers & acquisitions, mostly when I was working for Intel; but due to the size of Intel, those M&A had almost no effects to the groups I was in. This time, IDT/ICS deal is hitting it home, with direct impact to my daily activities on all fronts: products, customers, JEDEC, etc... interested to find out how the whole thing will shake down.

Ten days and five flights later, I am in LA, California. A bit dazed from the flying and jet lagging, but otherwise feeling pretty good. Only one more flight left before I can jump in my familiar bed and squeeze the living day light out of Vivian and Maomao. :-)

The people in US are huge, fat and big boned! Like always, that was my first thought as I arrive in US from a long trip to the Far East. As much as I wanted to be back, back to the familiar surroundings, back to the comfortable life, back to Vivian, I did, however felt slightly depressed. I guess the life in Asia just allures me so much more... I need to find a way back...

I've made it to the Incheon airport with very little time to spare this morning. I am flying to Shanghai with a stop over in Osaka. I am taking a personal trip visiting friends and colleagues in Shanghai and will return to the Bay Area next Wednesday through connections in Seoul and LA.

Seoul has impressed me in many ways. Prior to the trip, I was told that as a city, Seoul is not very glamorous; it is more functional and practical than extravagant. Well, after spending five days in Seoul, I somewhat agree with that previous statement. Seoul might not have the mile-high skyscrapers like NYC or Shanghai, and might not have nearly as many flashing neon lights as Tokyo, but Seoul has a lot of its own charms. As a foreigner, here are few things that caught my eyes:

• Korean cars are nice!! Sure, KIA and Hyundai cars have entered the American market for years, but the Korean cars have been tainted with a discount-car image, usually aesthetically challenged and/or sub par performance. I have never considered owning one or even know any of my friends who has one... The cars on the streets of Seoul are mostly Korea made, Hyundai, Daewoo, KIA and even Samsung (with very very few Japanese cars, and plenty of German automobiles), and let me tell you, they kept the best looking models to themselves. It was pretty obvious that the Koreans have replicated other brands such as Honda, Mercedes-Benz; some models were indistinguishable when parked side-by-side with a foreign made popular model such as the Benz S600. They really should export some to the US, such as the Equus model by Hyundai, it is one fine car!
  
• Red lights served no purpose after sunset. Everyone was running the red lights. A taxi driver we once had even swirled and passed a police car, sped up and run a red light, and the police didn’t even care!!
  
• Drink and driving is a big NO NO in Seoul, zero tolerance enforced. We have seen many traffic barricades where the cops force breath alcohol tests to all the cars on the road. I guess the Seoul police enforce regulations after all. :-)
  
• Socializing in Seoul is expensive! A regular bottle of beer would normally cost 10,000 wok (or equivalent of $10 USD), and a dish is commonly upward $20+! Granted, the service is excellent, so you feel somewhat justified for breaking the bank.
  
• Impeccable service! At Shilla hotel (one of the top hotels in Seoul, if not the best), great service is expected since we paid beaucoup dollars for the room. However, even street vendors were very helpful and polite. It appears to me that no matter what the occupation was, the person at the job took great pride in it, great attitude!!
  

My love for Kimchi and pickled vegetables has its root back from my childhood days, in NE China, in a city where a large population of Korean descendents lives. I just adore the taste of Kimchi, but usually refrain from eating during weekdays fearing the garlicky breath might cause a disturbance in the office environment.

That’s all changed now! I have been proudly chewing on dish after dish of Kimchi, from breakfast to dinner. That’s because – yes, you guessed right, I am in Korea! Despite the all day meetings and constant interactions with business contacts, the Kimchi breath is no longer taboo, after all, everyone’s doing it! I am enjoying every single bite of it.

The impact of Samsung on the Korean economy is very evident in Seoul. The “Samsung” logo can been seen on the side of countless number of buildings, aside from a subway station named after Samsung, the hotel I am staying in -- Shilla Hotel is also owned and operated by Samsung! I was told that Samsung has its tentacles not only in the customer electronics, semiconductors industries, they are also a major contributor in industries such as heavy equipments!

When a company gets large in US, people panic, and the government steps in with their lawyers and regulations. It might be the same case here in Korea, but I doubt it, seems like people are proud of have a such huge and influential company in their backyard.

It took 12 knee aching, back torturing hours of trans-Pacific flight to arrive in Seoul Incheon airport from San Francisco. The flight itself was smoother than normal; perhaps it was because I was flying in a Boeing 777. The wings of 777 are huge, even compared to those of a 747 jumbo jet. The gigantic wing area helped buffer the air pockets, it was smooth cruising all the way to Seoul.

Normally I would have slept before take off and wake up as we land. However, since the flight left SFO at noon and arrived at 5pm local Korea time. I tried not to sleep on the flight to be in sync with Seoul times. Incheon is a huge airport, I have stopped here numerous of times previously, but never set foot outside of the airport. To my delight, the weather in Seoul was gorgeous, 77F degree, with relatively low humidity. It took an hour to get thru the custom and fetch my luggage, and another hour and half of bus ride to the hotel we were staying – Shilla Hotel, owned and operated by Samsung!!

I was impressed with Seoul, although it appears very similar to those major cities in China, Seoul is cleaner in comparison. And I have to admit, the Korean cuisines and especially the Kimchi have contributed to my scorings.

In the middle of my daily routine this morning, that is, get ready for work, open the garage, throw the laptop on the backseat of my car, fetch the paper on the drive way, glimpse the headlines... that's when my peripheral vision caught a big insect flying across my path to the car, I was just starting to squint my eyes to get a better look of this bugger to make sure it is not a wasp or something harmful, then out of no where, in completely silence, a bird flew in, dangerously low to the pavement, drastically changed its course mid-air, pull up and yank the insect right out of the air with commanding accuracy!!! I sooo wish I can describe the aerial acrobat I witnessed better, it was beautiful!! It was like an episode on the Discovery Channel!

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Maomao is a vegetarian cat, well, he still loves meat, but his appetite for fresh veggies is alarming! He had successfully chewed off all the leaves of a potted tree we had, killing the tree in the process and whenever Vivian and I chop up vegetables in the kitchen, that cat would just linger around and won't stop meowing until we throw a piece of lettuce or something to him. So far, I've figure that Maomao loves lettuce, cabbage and corn, I tried to feed him union, but he didn't like it. I will serve him some broccoli next time. :-) I wish my future kids will share the same passion for veggies as Maomao.