Category: Fun

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Fun Life

World cup 2010 thoughts

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The soccer World Cup 2010 is already well in the process. This is also the first time An african country hosting the cup, interesting and exciting for the continent and the host South Africa. I noticed soccer’s popularity grew in the US over the years, from the 1998 word cup to this year. ESPN/ABC broadcast most games alive, and the new media, from NPR to newspapers, showed interest too. For me personally, I also have some observations:

Maradona (Lu Gu Sun, bu xu lian xiang)
I know, I know, he is a controversial figure. But I still remember he is the best player in 1986 (when I was in middle school), basically my impression is the only way to stop him, is to put him down. Despite so many up and downs after 1986, I am glad to see him back. That being said, I found this Maradona comment from Lu Gu Sun (one of the best English professors in China) and another comment form Wang Xiao Feng to be interesting.

(source: The Sydney Morning Herald)

Other old timers
Less known than Maradona, I saw both Jurgen Klinsmann (the German guy, wiki) and Rudd Gullit (wiki, one of three Holland guys in 1980s to 1990s) on ESPN as commentator. I did not recognized Gullit initially because he has short hair nowadays 🙂

China presence
Did you see the China Yingli Solar (Chinese and English interchangeably) Ads bulletin at the stadium? According to marketplace, Yingli paid pretty money ($100 m) on this one, hope they can get their money worth. One thing I noticed, they could learn from and Budweiser/Harbin beer (English with Chinese ), so that people (assume they know English) could understand the company name better.

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finance Fun

Baby is 100 days old

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She started the following new tricks recently: eat her own hands; she can raise her head for 10 to 15 seconds during tummy training; she can either smile (with or without stimulation) or giggle (with stimulation).

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Fun

Baby is 2 months old

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Yesterday we took our baby to pediatrician for 2 month visit. She weighed 11 pounds 14.5 ounces (79%), and 23 inch long (50%). Interestingly, her weight percentage jumped from 50% when newly born, while her length percentage kept the same. It’s almost all my wife’s effort (breast feeding).

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advice and tips Fun

Baby becomes more active

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Youyang is more active nowadays, she is about 8 weeks old. She smiles more, esp. after waking up in the morning. She has more energy and from time to time I was surprised by her voice and kick (legs). When I tried to lift her up, she struggles as if I am lifting a big fish (so I have to be careful not to let her slip 🙂

Toy
Tiny Love Sweet Island Dreams Mobile
We bought this mobile (music with moving stuff animals) from Amazon (recommended by ToddlerRecipe). But she seems like the black and white pictures her mom printed off the web better. She seems don’t care too much about the music and the stuff animals. It’s interesting the free stuff works better than the $36 toy. I guess love is more important: her mom put a lot effort searching and print the black white pattern pictures. From scientific point of view, the baby of her age is more sensitive to black/white than the colorful stuff animals. The soothing music does calm her down.

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Fun

Baby starts smile more

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We are seeing more interaction with our baby, who is about 6 weeks old. Recently her mom talk more to her, and sometimes we can see her response, either smile or making noise. Her smile is very much like her mom’s smile when she was little.

Yesterday we took her to St. Louis Botanical Garden, understandably she slept much of the time. Because the weather is a bit chilly, we wrap her around big blankets, and don’t want to expose her to the cold wind. She got a ride on our newly bought Maclaren triumph stroller. We saw quite a few babies at botanical garden, due to nice weather and family friendliness of the place.

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Fun

Little face, big face

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These days because we paid much attention to our new born baby, both my wife and I did not have much time to look at each other carefully. This leads to an interesting point: both of us felt our faces are so big compared to our baby’s little face. 😀

Guess that’s all relative. When I first met my wife 3.5 years ago, I felt her face is small and lovely at the time. Now of course all the attention are reserved for our baby. But I think it’s would be good we reserve some time for us.

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Fun

Youyang starts to feed herself

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This evening, when I got back home, my wife was bottle feeding the baby, and the baby started to hold the bottle using both her hands. After a while, my wife let her hand loose, and Serenity (Youyang) continued to hold the bottle, and feeding herself. I will post a picture tomorrow. Her feeding self act made all of us laugh for a while.

IMG_7249

(hosted on Flickr)

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Fun

It’s baseball time

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Forget about the stupid IPOs, stocks, economy,…it’s baseball time in this baseball town.

St. Louis Cardinals is playing NLDS (National League Division Series) against LA Dodgers. Here is the local (St. Louis area) TV schedule.

Gm 1 STL @ LAD Wed 10/7 9:37 TBS Chris Carpenter v Randy Wolf
Gm 2 STL @ LAD Thu 10/8 6:07 TBS Adam Wainwright v Clayton Kershaw
Gm 3 LAD @ STL Sat 10/10 6:07 TBS Vicente Padilla v Joel Piniero
Gm 4 LAD @ STL Sun 10/11 TBD TBS TBD
Gm 5 STL @ LAD Tue 10/13 TBD TBS TBD

(Source: http://www.midwestsportsfans.com/2009/10/cardinals-dodgers-nlds-preview-pitching-matchups-tv-schedule/ )

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Fun

Stocks for kids

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I remember once my Accounting instructor told his father bought him a Kansas ulility stock when he was a kid (maybe 10 years old or so). The interesting part is everyday he would read the stock section of newspaper and check the price of his stock. One reason he chose accounting as his profession. I also believe everyone remembers his/her first stock purchase clearly, for me that’s also my first employer (a large state owned manufacturer decided to go public in early 1990s). For my kid, I am think of the follow stocks for “buy and hold”. Note this is mostly for fun, not trying to making money for kid’s college fund. That being said, those companies have excellent fundamentals and will be in the business for a long time, I think.

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Fun

NBA new rule on elbow

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From: David Stern
To: Referees in NBA playoff and finals
Subject: new rule on elbow

If Kobe elbows somebody, don’t call him foul. See YouTube video below. And a fan’s story here.

Else (if ordinary guy like Anthony inadvertently elbows somebody like Williams), call him foul.

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