Year: 2006

Trader Joe’s

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Last Updated on March 30, 2006 by stlplace

Trader Joe’s is a small grocery store which provides “high quality foods and beverages at honest low prices”. The quoted word is taken from its paper shopping bag (unlike Aldi, its bag is free). Recently Trader Joe’s is growing very fast and I remember reading a magazine article talking about business model and growth.

Seeing is believing. A few days ago, after dinner, I stopped by its newly opened store in Creve Couer. The store is right across street from Dierbergs, one of the largest and oldest grocery stores in St. Louis area. Except I had minor problem locating its entrance, I was very pleased with my shopping experience. There are varities of food, from cheese, bread, fruits, vegetable, meats, to beverages, and beers. The price is close to Schnucks’ (another grocery store in the area, considered as middle range), i.e., it’s cheaper than Diebergs. But the quality is not discounted. Not to mention the service. I like the way they ring the bell (the real bell), the corner tasting table (free coffee, cookies, etc.), and the friendliess of cashier. It’ like a neighbourhood store, as oppose to the big chain store like Wal-mart or Sam’s club. I noticed there are a few neighbourhood drug stores on the Olive street, despite WalGreen’s store ubiquitous apprearnce. I guess the mom-pop stores still have customers and business, otherwise how can they keep open.

Life

Persistence

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on March 29, 2006 by stlplace

Saw the following words from a Doctor’s office today. I believe many people would agree it. But how many of us are actually following it? I think I should also put it on the wall so I won’t forget it.
=======================================

Nothing in the world can take the place of PERSISTENCE.

TALENT will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

GENIUS will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

EDUCATION will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “Press On,” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

Calvin Coolidge — 1932

Software development

C++ Training

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on May 28, 2009 by stlplace

I attended C++ training course at my work place last week. This is good for me because I did not feel well last week ( I got cold and headache): I can stay away from real coding during all these madness.

Seriously, I did not find the C++ course to be any easier than the work. The fun starts with “Pair programming” and “Test driven development (TDD)”. We had many excercises during the class. Basically we need to work in pairs and make sure our little program pass the test. I happened to work with my two coworkers doing the exercises, which I mentioned in my previous post here and here. Although they have been doing development using C (procedural language) most of their career, I was impressed by their helpful insights working on the exercises . Smart developers can learn things quickly and apply the existing knowledge to new things. I think that’s one reason our products are leading the industry and market most of the time.

Besides C++ language features, I found the testing driven development to be useful. Actually I had to fix two problems in my real code. I created those problems when I added new features to the code. The cause of problem one was that I did not run all the test cases. Problem two was not covered by the test cases at all: somebody outside my team found the problem and reported it, to my embarrassment. I did fix the problem (I think) shortly after.

But the most important of all, is I know how to prevent those kinds of incidents in the future.

Fun

March Madness

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on March 20, 2006 by stlplace

I watched quite a bit NCAA men’s basketball this weekend. Although I am not a big basket ball fan, I like to watch college basktet ball (more than NBA) because the college game is more fun. First, the game is shorter (40 minutes total). Second, I can see more team work in play because there are no super stars like Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant. Thirdly, the result is harder to predict, unknown school can upset the favorite in this one-game format. Yesterday Bradley beat Pittsburgh, this is the first time Bradley went to sweet 16 since 1955. Then George Mason came back from double digit deficit, and beat last year’s champion UNC. Also George Town knocked off big school Ohio State. It school named after “George” is rewarded this time.

While I enjoyed all these craziness, I really wished Missouri had a team in the first round (64 teams). I used to take MU (U. of Missouri at Columbia) as my home team because I went to UM – Rolla. But MU disappointed me and a lot fans last two years. Hope I can see them in next year’s NCAA conference.

Saint Louis

Ruth’s Chris Steak House

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on March 18, 2006 by stlplace

Ruth’s Chris Steak House is opening a store in St. Louis (Clayton) on March 20. I happened to see the store sign today when I drove by. While I am not a big fan of steak, I got to know the restaurant because I bought/sold its stock last year. It’s a premium steak house, and I like its business growth prospect. I think I will visit it and taste its famous steak too.

Business China

Taxi driver

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on March 17, 2006 by stlplace

From mitbbs

================================================
出租司机给我上的MBA课

我要从徐家汇赶去机场，于是匆匆结束了一个会议，在美罗大厦前搜索出租车。一辆
大众发现了我，非常专业的、径直的停在我的面前。这一停，于是有了后面的这个让
我深感震撼的故事，象上了一堂生动的MBA案例课。为了忠实于这名出租车司机的原
意，我凭记忆尽量重复他原来的话。

“去哪里……好的，机场。我在徐家汇就喜欢做美罗大厦的生意。这里我只做两个地
方。美罗大厦，均瑶大厦。你知道吗？接到你之前，我在美罗大厦门口兜了两圈，终于
被
我看到你了！从写字楼里出来的，肯定去的不近~~~”

“哦？你很有方法嘛！”我附和了一下。

“做出租车司机，也要用科学的方法。”他说。我一愣，顿时很有些兴趣“什么科学的
方法？”

“要懂得统计。我做过精确的计算。我说给你听啊。我每天开17个小时的车，每小时成
本34.5元……”

“怎么算出来的？”我追问。

Saint Louis

Weather etc.

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on March 14, 2006 by stlplace

Missouri, the show me state where I live, had a pretty wild weather last weekend. We had Tornato (twister) both on Saturday and Sunday. I stayed whole day at home on Sunday, and I never saw so many Tornato warnings on the TV. On Sunday night the weather guy basically told the viewer to stay alert and turn on the TV once a while during sleep. Luckily St. Louis was not hit directly.

This web site also had some problems this afternoon. I believe this was just a technical glitch. Just like weather, computer sometimes is unpredictable. Fortunately this is not a mission critical web site and the glitch won’t cause major damages.

By the way, the weather is pretty nice now after those storms. I sawthe full moon very clearly on the sky tonight.

Business Stocks

Expectations

Reading Time: 1 minute

Last Updated on March 11, 2006 by stlplace

In the stock market there is a thing called “earning”, basically it’s how much money a company made for each share of the stock. The higher the earning, the better for share holders (company owners). But the stock price does not necessarily hold a linear relationship with the earning. Why? Because there is another thing called “street estimate” or “estimated earning”. It’s the Wall Street’s expectation of company’s earning. If the company’s actual earning meets (or beats) “street estimate”, the stock will go higher; otherwise the stock will be punished. The latest example is Google. It dropped sharply after the 2006 Q1 earning report.

I think same rule can applied to the work place. I got this idea partially from Jack Welch’s (former CEO of General Electric) book “Winning”. Recently I reinforced this idea from my own experience and observations. In the work place there are expectations from the boss, the coworkers and (sometimes) customers. If we just work hard enough to meet the expectation, we will keep the job. But if we work much harder or smarter, and make our bosses looking good, we will get reward or promotion. On the other hand, if we miss the expectation from our boss without a good explaination, we know what will happen.

Saint Louis

Home equilty loan and line of credit

Post author By stlplace
Post date March 9, 2006
No Comments on Home equilty loan and line of credit

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on March 9, 2006 by stlplace

It took me a year to figure out the difference between these two. Unfortunately one year ago when I bought my condo, I used the latter one, which means when Fed raises the rate, my rate goes up too.

Today I found the following definition at GMAC mortgage (click on Home Equity).

Home Equity Loan
For immediate cash, consider our fixed-rate home equity loan. You’ll have the security of knowing the interest rate and payment stays fixed throughout the loan term.

Home Equity Line
For a revolving line of credit you can access when you need it, consider our home equity line. There’s no obligation to use it, and you won’t pay interest until you do.

I am not sure if I would qualify the home equity loan one year ago. It appears to me the lenders and mortgage brokers try to blur the lines between those two things (to their own interest).

I know it’s a bit late, but it’s better “late to know” than “being ignorant all the time”, right?

China

Housing in Shanghai

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Last Updated on March 5, 2006 by stlplace

I saw this article in ShanghaiExpat, and I think it’s very informative.

================================================
Understanding Shanghai’s Rental Market
Shanghai’s downtown housing supply grows each year with more and more buildings popping up around town. For the newcomer it must seem overwhelming and many can’t work out why the differing asking prices for what seem to be similar properties. But understanding why is not so hard if you know a bit about the recent history of real estate in this city.

When I came to Shanghai in 1994 to work in real estate, there was limited expatiate housing and no local housing at all. In such a short period we have seen an under supply of expatriate housing to an over supply, then an under supply of local housing to an over supply. Mind you, good quality attractive local apartments are still hard to find and are snapped up quickly. When looking at the housing market in Shanghai it helps to keep in mind that in communist societies, the government and not the people own property so real estate is a recent concept in new China. Therefore, like most things in China, the market is still in growing and in transition.