Category: Fun

P. F. Chang

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I went to P. F. Chang this evening with my coworkers. Before today I heard from one (American) coworker that it has great food; I also heard from my Chinese friends that it’s all American Chinese food. I got chance to see the real thing today. It was not as expensive as I thought. The setting was good. I saw two terra cotta 兵马俑(not from Xi’an though). There are varities of food, some are spicy. I ordered “Sea from Sichuan”, basically it’s braised fried calamari (a bit spicy). My coworkers seemed like their food (scallop, chicken) too. The entree cost about USD 12 to 18. It’s more expensive than most Chinese restraunants here, but still acceptable. The servers are fairly young and energetic.

China Fun

Culture shock

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A good friend of mine recently went back to China permanently after spending more than 4 years in the States. He told me some interesting (good or bad) experience in a bank. First, he was very impressed by the touch screen in the bank, which is good. As a side note, last summer when I visited the Bank of China in Pudong, I did not realize I need to get a ticket from the touch screen. In the States we have the red mechanical counter for the purpose. Initially I saw peopple who came later than me eventually jumped in front of me, so I complained. Then they told me the touch screen. I felt I came from a “3rd world” country or rural area. Back to the main story. My friend wanted to have his bank account renewed. And the cashier told him to wait. My friend waited almost 2 hours. As the bank is about to close, he went up to see the cashier again. The cashier told him she looked for him and called his name couple times. Dahn! Obvisouly my friend was “too nice” and waited “too patiently”.

I had similar experience in the motel check in counter. If I wait like in the States, no one will handle my question. The worst case I had is at Jiu Zhai Gou airport, the tour guides (who usually have dozens ID cards) cut in the line, and tried to get boarding pass for his/her clients.

Not surprisingly, wolfDancer, a Chinese American software developer, had similar culture shock. She wrote an article about this.

Fun

New year resolution

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Google drive way

and wearing seat belt.

Business Fun Software development

NBA and team work

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I got chance to watch some NBA games lately. I am not a big NBA fan because I don’t have cable at home and I felt it takes too much time (usually 2.5 hrs) to watch a game. I told my friends who are big NBA (Yao Ming) fans that I only need to watch the final 5 minutes because that’s when a game gets decided most of the time.

Anyway back to the games. Last week there are a few superstars made steller performance in some games. Kobe Bryan made 62 points in 3 quarters against Dallas. Vince Carter scored 51 points against Miami. Both Bryan and Carter’s teams won the games. Then there is this amazing story, Allen Iverson scored 53 points but his team Philadelphia lost to Atlanta. I don’t know what exactly happened in that game. But I started to watch Allen’s game since 2000 and I can guess what happened. Allen, who is only 6 feet tall and 165 pounds in weight, is the most agile player in the NBA. I remember somebody (maybe his former coach Larry Brown) said “pound for pound, he is the best player in the league”. But at the same time, Allen sometimes relies too much on himself without passing the balls to his teammates. Basket ball is a team sport. Star player or team leader is very important. They make shots in the crunch time (final 5 minutes). Allen, Kobe, Robert Horry, Tracy McGrady and many others are those kinds of the guy. But superstars are not supermans. They can have injuries, illness or just bad days. During those times, their teammates’ help is more critical. Even if they are on the top of the game, they need to get their teammate involved. Because if you don’t make your teammate look good, they won’t make you look good too.

This can be applied to the software development and other businesses. In “mythical man month” I read an exceptional software developer can be as productive as 300 average developers. I believed it. I think the founders of Netscape, Yahoo and Google are those kinds of guy. That’s cool. But what’s more amazing is those guys are not running the show themselves. They know their limit especially in the business side so they asked some senior people to join the team. The results are obvious — success of the companies.

This does not means average developer (like me) are totally hopeless. First I think “exceptional developer” is very rare. My brother and I went to Google campus recently and saw some Google people at the packing lot. My brother’s comment was “they are average people like we are except they are lucky enough to be hired by Google”. So here is the hint: join a winning team. I am not saying “jump to the Google now” because they raised the bar very much. There are many winning teams including your current employer (you may not realize it). Do your work and help your teammates. Make your boss look good. They will make you look good too.

Back to NBA. My favorite team is Detroit pistons. In 2004 when they won the NBA champion they don’t have a guy in the All Stars game. The 5 starters are good players but are not at the level of Shaq and Kobe. But they beated the LA Lakers by the teamwork. 2005 Champion San Antonio Spurs is also that kind of team. Tim Ducan is a superstar but he is probablly most unselfish superstar in the league.

Fun Life

Major’s list in 2005

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Best Chinese TV-series (soup opera): Dong Shi Mu Bei Dong Gan Qing 动什么别动感情 (Anything but your feeling)

Most Spectacular View: Grand Canyon (Arizona, US)

Most Scenic View: Jiu Zhai Gou 九寨沟 (Si Chuan, China)

Best Chinese Restaurant (tie): Asiana 东兴园(St. Louis); New Age Veggie 新素代 at Shanghai Super Brand Mall 正大广场

Best Bread: St. Louis (Panera) Bread Company 面包店

Best Espresso: Borders (not Star Bucks)

Best Fast Food: Fazoli’s (an Italian Fast Food retaurant)

Most proud thing: realized I can only be myself, not Bill Gates, or William Ding Lei (CEO of NetEase 网易)

Most stupid thing I did (tie): roller blading in Stacy park without checking out the road condition; bet on NetEase’s 2005 Q4 earning

Best place to study: Borders (a chained book store in the US)

Most visited web site: yahoo.com

Best user interface: Google web site and tools

Fun Life

Being blessed and loved

Reading Time: 2 minutes

It’s almost Christmas. Things started to calm down, especially in Post Office, the malls should be packed by last minute shoppers now. I received some emails and calls from old friends already. I have 4 days holiday for X’mas. Today (12/23) is the first day. When I was running some errands, I thought about the year 2005. First I used “being blessed and loved” title not purely for religious meaning.

I think everyone, religous or not, could spend some time reflecting the past year. Americans have this thing called New Year’s resolution. While I am not a believer on “resolution”, I think I tend to repeat same mistake again and again. I am not just talking about investing. I could use some time to think about my mistakes in the past year and hopefully don’t make the same ones next year.

One of my problem is “impatience” or “hope for quick money or success”. This can be applied to my stock trading and other things. So I bought this stock called “PetsMart”, after listening to my roomate who is pursuing MS in Finance. I waited 3 weeks patiently. Nothing happened. At the same time I talked to another friend who bought “Apple” and he made lots of money. I decided to sell the “PetsMart”. Shortly after I sold it at a loss, the stock went up. I made same mistake on “Yahoo”, I could make $9 but made only $1 on it (per share). I also thought about doing something more exciting than “programming everyday”, and doing another kind of programming. I was not successful. I decide to concentrate my work for now.

I am doing OK at my job. It seems my bosses are happy with my performance. I did write some useful code and solved some tough problems. I also tried to help my teammate in any way I can. I think I will have more opportunities as I “hang in there”.

In the summer I learned Golf. I continued to take Tae Kwon Do (Koren Martial Arts), both without much progress. Actually I did not take one promotion test on TKD so I am still red 2nd. I continued roller skating. Once I fell down, broke my chin and went to emergency room. Later on I realized I was lucky enough not killing myself by skating without checkin out the trail and wearing helmet. In winter I began to skate on the real ice in Creve Coeur Ice Arena.

I also took two accounting courses in the community college. Now I got a better grip on the business and financial statements.

I went to some old places and new places: Grand Canyon, New Jersey, Shanghai, Beijing, Congqing, Jiu Zhai Gou, Austin, Silicon Valley and Yosemite. They are all beautiful and unique, but I feel more at home at St. Louis right now. My condo (apartment) is messy but it’s very peaceful with good location. I can walk to the movie theater, St. Louis (Panera) bread company and the Nissan dealership.

The most important of all, I felt I am blessed and loved. While losing some “mad money” in the stock market, it did not hurt me too bad but made me wiser (hopefully). While I was thinking about things about my career, I received lots of advice and encouragment from my friends, old and new. While I do have frustrations at my work, things eventually worked out when I tried real hard and got help from my colleagues.

Wish all my friends a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Fun

Daddy?

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Little kids can be fun. If you don’t have to deal with the diapers and crying stuff. Recently I spent some time with my 7 months old niece. And she was very sweet.

Today I went to Fazoli for lunch. When I was leaving the retraunant, I saw a little girl probablly 2 years old. I said “hi”, and she smiled and and asked her mom “daddy?”. Obviously she is confused me with her real daddy. We all laughed although her mother is slightly embarassed by this. But to me, hey little girl, you made my day.