Category: Fun

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Fun Investing

Rough day and week, student loan forgiveness and math is brutal too

Reading Time: 2 minutes

First: I am happy to say the kids to back to school. In the last 2 weeks before school starts, some days Sophia really got bored, and she let me know that. She asked me to to buy the humming bird feeder, among other things.

I recall the days I shopped at Sears (hint, a while ago, not much since Sophia was born, aka from 2014).

https://twitter.com/JonErlichman/status/1563598300372254720

The stock marker of last Friday and the week can be better summarized in the two tweets below. I do understand the economy usually has cycles and the federal reserve has a tough job to balance the employment and inflation. But at the same time it seems sometimes things are so obvious and I just don’t understand how they could miss the most recent inflation cycle by dismiss it as “transitory”. They are paid to do that job. Or sometimes it’s the politics got in the way? Nobody wants to be the boy who cries wolf coming (and it turns out to be false).

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1563262458764046337

and this one on tech stocks in particular, as they are under assault from the fed raising the interest rate.

https://twitter.com/buccocapital/status/1563549513633386497

I noticed CNBC did another special Friday evening too. Personally I no longer pay attention like I did back in 2008/2009 the financial crisis days. Maybe a good sign as I no longer tune much into the “market turmoil” and I am more calm and doing my own research now.

https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/1165005039586500608

There are tons of tweets, and controversy on the federal student loan forgiveness. Legality, fairness etc. aside, personally I think it can potentially help out quite a few people, and many of them are hard working and earned this. One interesting and probably more meaningful policy is the capping of loan interest and payment tied to a person’s income. Also the WH “this you?” series of tweets.

https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1562916200866267138

And when I am searching through my tweets archive, I happened to find this one too.

https://twitter.com/stlplace/status/1528560337968152578

As I said in my previous post on compounding, the debt piled up via the snowball effect too. So anything we can do to minimize or reduce the debt, it could have impact on people’s real lives.

Separately, I had discussion with Serenity on student loan too: I said I will pay for her college.

Last but not least, I googled why there is no term limits to the legislators. It seems constitution related.

Categories
Fun Java Life

Coffee

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Personal opinion: the coffee from ALDI is pretty good; so was the regular half & half (creamer) from Costco. On the flip side: probably 1st world problem, the store brand coffee from the biggest grocery store in St. Louis 圣村 is not good.

Categories
401k and Personal Finance Fun Life

Probability and compounding

Reading Time: 4 minutes

I came across an interesting probability problem yesterday. It was in Chinese, but I will translate it into English below.

The defensive missile can shoot down the offensive missile successfully 70% of the time. If the defense shoot 3 missiles toward the offensive missile, what’s the probability that they are successful? Think about it for a minute. My approach is shown below:

There is another way. Note in math and many other fields, it’s good to have a second approach for verification purpose. So the second approach goes like this: 0.7 + (1-0.7) x 0.7 + (1-0.7) x (1-0.7) x 0.7 = 0.7+0.21+0.063 = 0.973 = 97.3% (it matches the number above, hurray). Courtesy of my classmate in college (who is likely a math genius in high school).

Let me explain: 0.7 is the probability of hitting target the first time, (1-0.7)x0.7 is for the scenario of first time missing and second time hitting, vice versa for the last one (both first and second times missing) and last time hitting.

So there’s that. 97.3% is pretty high in terms of an outcome actually happening. What if the probability of hitting the target is 50% (roughly the odds of coin flipping, get head or tail). The answer is 1 – 0.5×0.5×0.5 = 87.5%. That’s still pretty decent odds. Extrapolate this to basketball, let’s say a player’s free throw hitting rate is 50%, he or she can be fairly certain (with 87.5%) that 1 point will be scored in 3 attempts. But note everything has a cost, hidden or not. Missile has a cost, free throw has a cost of earning it. I recall 15 years ago, when the NBA player Shaquille O’Neal was at his prime, he has a weakness of free throw. In his career he hits 52.7 percent from the free-throw line in his career (I googled it). And the opponents sometimes would use the “hack Shaq” strategy when he got the ball in the front court. Let’s calculate the probable points he would have made from two free throw attempts, note free throw is 1 point, so 0.527 + 0.527 = 1.054 is the possible score he can get from 2 free throws. I also looked at his career field goal percentage: 2 x 0.582 (2 pointers percentage, I am ignoring his 3 pointers for now, because he was not known for that) = 1.164, so in other words, it seems “hacking Shaq” strategy has some stats to back it for the opponents.

Lottery

If anything, I would like to remind people lottery is a sure way to lose money if we know a bit probability. Use the popular Show Me Cash game as an example, the odds of winning are shown in the web page. Note the ticket cost 1 dollar. If any return below $1 means the player is losing. 1 x 9.6% + 10 x 1 / 102.6 + 250 x 1 / 3386.8 + 50,000* x 1 / 575,757 (the prize is at least 50,000 for this category, I would use 50,000 for simplicity) = 0.096 + 0.0975 + 0.0738 + 0.0868 = 0.3541 so let’s just say 35 cents for simplicity. Other games are similar, with possibility of even lower return (compared to 35% for Show Me Cash). Btw, every time I saw people use a stash of cash to buy lottery tickets at Schnucks or lottery machine, I am shaking my head internally. I understand sometimes people want to try luck, or believe their luck is better than the others, but in math this is not the way to get ahead in life. In my opinion the government should ban the lottery. Below is another tweet on the topic on probability and lottery n Chinese. Use google translate (with some editing from me): when we met with people last weekend and introduced each other, some people said that he had made software for casinos, and that no matter how good the gamblers were, you couldn’t play mathematics… When everyone did with eating, they started to talk about how to achieve financial freedom. My classmate who made casino software said that he is buying lottery tickets every day. I said, didn’t you say that a gambler couldn’t play math against casinos? He said he only buy a little… This tells me that no matter how educated and rational a person is, he can’t resist himself. The fluke mentality…(my comment: talk about psychology and discipline. One thing great about Warren Buffett is he would not bet on small things even if he knows it’s a good bet, again we are talking about discipline: He’s playing golf with a bunch of people and they all bet a dollar on a particular hole. Buffett won’t bet. “Why not, Warren?” they ask him, “you’re worth a gazillion.”He said, “I never break my discipline.”)

Compounding or compound effect

Sometimes called snowball effect. In investing there are a lot of talk on this. It’s applicable to other aspects of life as well, for example, exercise, eat / drink healthy, work, relationships and so on.

There is a reverse side of this effect too, for example, if a person does not eat healthy food, or have healthy life style, for example, drink a lot of sugar water, no exercise, he / she could gain weight pretty quickly too. And the detrimental effect to one’s body and mind will be growing fast as well. I will probably write a separate post on “compounding” in the near future.

PS: the story above on Buffett was a bit different from what I heard earlier. My version says someone offers Buffett a bet that Buffett will likely win. But his answer was similar: he said if I cannot resist the temptation of making $100 quick money, I cannot manage large sums of money.

Categories
Edu-and-Ladue-School Fun Technology

Gifted Program at Ladue Schools

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Some disclaimer: not district official doc. I believe each kid is unique, special and gifted in her / his own way. And for many parents / guardians they do sincerely believe their kids are the smartest. Years ago I think when my older daughter was probably 3 or 4 years old, at the preschool a few parents talked about the competitiveness of getting into gifted programs at public school (I was not the parent to initiated this topic :-). And one parent said that’s one reason they are sending their kids to private school. Although now I think about it, their kids were very smart and they can get into the gifted programs in many public schools.

Anyway, the official web page for gifted program is here. There is also a contact info at the bottom of the web page for the curriculum department.

Quick overview

The gifted program runs from grade 1 to grade 8. It’s called Idea Lab between grade 1 and 5; Apogee between grade 6 and 8. The main identification period is at the end of kindergarten, and at the end of grade 2. There are also exceptions, for example, there are opportunities, both for transfer (in) students, and occasionally at recommendation of classroom teacher (as he / she sees fit for the kid). Some may ask why they stopped at middle school: one explanation I heard is in high school they have the AP (which personally I think it’s different, but AP itself is a topic I don’t want to get into today). Note the program is not accelerated math or turbo charged STEM. The teacher has a lot of topics, but usually it covers topics such as science, creativity (think Lego etc) and some presentation. They usually meets twice a week in regular school time: which may or may not impact other regular subjects. Please check with the classroom teacher for the missing content and make sure the kid make up the work as need.

The work: I recall when Serenity our older daughter was at 2nd grade, she made a very nice hard cover book on a topic she was interested. I was impressed with the quality of the work: it seems Serenity carries this “attention to details / carry it through” to other subjects such as music. Serenity also benefited quite a bit from the presentation training, as she is an introvert and she usually gets nervous in front of people. I saw her progressing over the years. || This probably is applicable to everyone, and every job. Over the years I have seen myself improve on this front, and in one instance, we (a fellow mom to be precise) helped a shy student to speak up at the Creative Convention. Back to topic below.

Tests

There are two stages of test. One has to pass the first stage before entering the 2nd stage: which is an IQ test, it requires parents / guardians’ approval, as well as the kid has to be at least 6 year old. The first stage tests are described as below. I quote some content from the letter I received via email from the gifted program coordinator, for my younger daughter. I believe there is no proprietary information here: may be helpful to share it on district proper web page? I did take out the actual percentile or score threshold etc. See below in Italics:

“…During the initial steps of the process, we first evaluate two categories of learning and review students academic performance. Students need to pass at least two of the three screeners to move onto the phase (2) of testing.

Please note those scores or numbers are not absolute. The teachers and staff do have some flexibility interpreting the scores. We did not do anything special prep other than the daily math and reading work which the kid does at school or home (depends on the grade). My old daughter passed the tests at the kindergarten year, and my younger daughter at 2nd grade. Note the tests are usually done at the second semester. I recall there is usually an authorization form for parents to fill out at the beginning of school year as well.

For the second stage there is this IQ test, again note another form the parents need to fill. They emphasize there is nothing to prep for this IQ test. And we did not do anything 🙂 And it seems they rely on a specialist outside from district to perform the evaluation. I honestly don’t recall how my old daughter did (it was 6 years ago), but my younger daughter did the eval recently, and I felt the lady who does the eval has great patience with her. Both my girls scored similarly. Their scores are above 130. I think they maybe smarter than me 🙂

Personally I never took an IQ test, and I haven’t asked my kids about it either. It seems 130 is pretty high from the video above.

Experience

Note each school has one gifted teacher. My older daughter has gone through 4 teachers now (she had two teachers at elementary due to teacher change). Parent has option to do a parent / teacher conference, which is helped by Zoom for middle school nowadays. One thing I do remember is the Creative Convention, which is organized by the Gifted Resource Council. They do Equation competition too, also organized by GRC. I vaguely recall 2nd grader and up participate the Creative Convention; 3rd grader and up participate the Equation Competition. For the latter I am pretty certain it’s not limited to the gifted program kids. The team is usually organized by each school though.

Other Resources

The gifted program at Ladue Schools are usually not that easy to get into, because the program is limited (again only one teacher at each school; I think there are more in middle school) in terms of size. But for the parents, it’s not the end of the world if the kids did not get in, or did not get in at the kindergarten year testing. Remember it’s not Harvard admission either: both in terms of difficulty and its impact. Every kid is unique and as parents / guardians our main responsibility to provide an environment (along with the teachers) to help them learn / grow in their own ways, and hopefully to their full potential. In our case as you can see our younger daughter did not get in during her kindergarten year (her spring break was the time we got covid shutdown). We were obviously disappointed, but not disheartened. My wife was a bit anxious on her math and she made sure Sophia our daughter do some extra work when possible.

Last but not the least, I want to thank you all the Spoede/Ladue teachers who have taught our kids.

Gifted Resourced Council (GRC)

Also, there are many other resources such as GRC’s learning labs and summer academies (summer camps), and they are open to all the kids and parents. (Update 09-29-2022) Please note the fall 2022 learning labs, and parenting classes here. It looks all are in person now (no more Zooms).

There are other interesting STEM programs such as Maryville Science and Robotics program and Project MEGSSS for math enthusiasts as well. Again both are open to all the interested kids / families. They have some scholarship opportunities too. Last but not least there are tons of good materials on the Internet including YouTube nowadays. The internet definitely democratized the STEM learning.

Other Resources for Families

MO DESE

2022 Best schools with gifted and talented programs in the St. Louis Area (Niche) (While I believe Clayton school and some other public schools are great, I don’t think they top Ladue. I know I know 🙂

giftedsupportnetwork

Cuts in gifted education hurt kids’ potential (STLToday, AISHA SULTAN, Jul 5, 2011)

SLPS Magnet Schools: this is a voluntary reciprocal program between STL City and County (not all county school district participate though). I have seen couple kids (Clayton, Ladue) went to the city magnet school, stayed for couple years, before coming back to their regular public school.

St Louis Regions Program for Exceptionally Gifted Students (South – Lindbergh; North – Pattonville). I have seen something similar for a Ladue kid (went to the Lindbergh for a year, then come back to Ladue). Note my kids never went to the city magnet school or the PEGS program.

FB Private Group (Parents of Gifted & High Ability Children): they will ask a few questions before you can join. It has a range of questions and discussions. || Btw, I came across this advice from the FB group: “As the mom of an older gifted child (10 years old in the 99.99 percentile), I want to HIGHLY recommend getting your kids into sports while they are little. A majority of gifted kids have asynchronous development that you begin to really notice throughout elementary school. This means they are VERY advanced learners, observers, emotional beings.. but usually a year or two behind socially and physically which can seriously affect self esteem and physical health. Starting and keeping them on sports teams early can really really help this. Best of luck 🍀“

(04-25-2023) How To Parent And Build Confidence In Your Highly Sensitive Child. By: Author Pamela Li

(05-21-2023) YouTube – Chinese (about 40 mins long) – 老梁故事汇：1978天才少年班 神童现状如何 天才为何泯然众人 父母如何正确认知“神童教育”

(02-21-2024)

Why Being Gifted Actually Makes Life Harder (YouTube)

Why Smart Kids Are The Loneliest (YouTube)

The Unique Challenges of Studying as a Gifted Kid (YouTube)

I understand those at first look, doesn’t seem intuitive, but we as parents (especially for parents of gifted kids) probably will benefit a lot learning about all this.

(Update 09-17-2024) GRC is offering free webinars for parents (google form registration here)

Categories
401k and Personal Finance Business Fun Investing Master Series

Weekend thoughts 05-07-2022: Berkshire Hathaway 2022 shareholder meeting

Reading Time: 5 minutes

I went to Omaha last weekend, left STL on April 29 Friday, attended meeting on April 30 Saturday, and left Omaha back to STL on May 1st Sunday. The full comment and Q&A session (including the actual shareholder meeting) is broadcasted by CNBC and available at YouTube.

Note when I drove to Omaha on Friday 4/29, the market was in a tail spin, and so did the market perform poorly this week. But at the Berkshire church, we are value investors, and we don’t care about the daily (weekly, monthly) fluctuations. I think with the modern technology (don’t recall exactly at which year Berkshire starts to broadcast its annual shareholder meeting), the technical side of things can be learned at the comfort of home. On YouTube there are a lot of materials on Warren / Charlie spoke at past shareholder meetings, such as this YAPSS channel, note there are others too including Warren and Charlie’s other talks especially to college students. The whole #BRK2022 meeting video is about 6 hours long, with the last hour being the official shareholder meeting, with questions related to shareholder proposal (somewhat politics related). One thing surprised me a bit is the tone of some of the shareholder proposal, and Buffett’s patience on answering some of those, such as this one at 5 hour 18 minutes mark of the video. My sense is very few CEO would have that kind of patience. This is shown in the Q&A part of the meeting as well, I imagine some of the questions have been asked again and again because they have done this probably for 20 years. But Charlie and Warren answered those regardless.

The movie at the beginning of the meeting: I noticed Susan Buffett (Warren’s daughter) is the executive producer, and it was fun to watch overall. It has some ads, as well as some old video clips such as Warren’s testimony during Salomon Brother crisis. Other notable things are the exhibits, which has things from Brooks Running, to Clayton homes (manufactured home), DQ, Netjets, See’s candies. The movie also showed all Berkshire managers including Ted and Todd (investing managers). Warren’s skit with Bill Murray was a bit interesting too (confuse Warren Buffett with Jimmy Buffett, the singer). I noticed Bill Murray is a BRK shareholder and recently he got into hot water. I was not 100% sure that Susan Buffett (or Warren Buffett) was taking a side here. Also I am not positive the movie is available online: this seems like one benefit that’s only available for shareholders attending in person. Overall I liked the movie especially on the side of “don’t take oneself too seriously”, “poke fun at self” (again Warren vs Jimmy Buffett) and so on. It’s a strength of American culture, as poking fun at politicians are allowed, sometimes I felt bad for Bill Clinton as I saw comedians and talk show hosts pounced on him all the time, but hey, why would he looked at Aliana Grande (who could be his grand daughter’s age) in such a creepy way. Okay I will back to the topic.

International audience: there are many international audience in person, as some may have see from the questions being asked, also I noticed in the hotel I stayed, there are quite a few private jet pilots. Maybe next time I will fly the private jet, instead of driving back and forth. Talking about driving, I was a bit tired on the way home, both due to the 5k I ran in the morning (the invest in yourself 5k), and also because of I was a bit sick coming in, plus I had a small incident on Saturday.

The incident was I messed up my only long pant in the morning when I was waiting outside CHI health center. The line was long at about 7:30 am, so I decided to go to the nearby hotel to see if I can use the restroom. It was a bit too late… thus on the rest of the day I only had a swimming trunk as my bottom. The temperature was in 50s that day, and people may think I am a runner or something. Yes I do run, but I would probably wear a long pant in that kind of weather. The lesson here is always have some margin of safety (room for error or unexpected), so I will bring an extra pants next time when traveling. Another lesson is try to look out for restroom in a new area, just in case, in this scenario it seems the nearest one is Marriott hotel across the street.

Some other odds and ends: I noticed there are a few homeless people near the downtown hotel I stayed. I stayed at the Hyatt Inn near old market in downtown Omaha. I also found a bit authentic Chinese restaurant (Blue and Fly) eventually, after eating ramens at two Japanese restaurants near downtown. I found and walked near the Berkshire HQ office as well. CHI Health center: it’s a big place, noticed they did not charge sales tax for See’s candies etc, don’t know why. But they don’t allow outside snacks or food, drinks in (to protect their concession sales). I did not bring much, but they threw away a few small snacks I bring in the case I don’t know where to get lunch. Warren said “midwestern time” instead of “US central time”. I noticed Gerald Ford, the former US president, was born in Omaha (saw a sign on highway on Ford). I think “midwestern value” can be seen in both in Omaha, and in Berkshire (Warren and Charlie). In addition to international audience, there are lots of domestic audience including US, midwest and Omaha residents too.

PS: this is my dream 16 years in the making. Back in 2006 I thought about going, but didn’t due to various reasons (maybe mostly financial). I am glad I am in a better position now 🙂 All in all, I like what I saw in this trip, and hope to visit sometime in the future too. If my kids and my wife can join, that will be even better.

Photos and video

Slideshow for 04-30-2022

Berkshire Hathaway HQ outside view

Tweets thread (Mine, Thomas Chua, The Rational Walk)

Planning trip

Past BRK Shareholder meetings (full sessions)

2020

2012

2011 (before 48 mins mark, there are quite a bit coverage on David Sokol. Tom Murphy: you can always tell a man go to hell if this is such a good idea. -Charlie Munger summed it well)

2005 (TIMESAVER EDIT – FULL Q&A) (Fun momemnts: at 43 minutes mark, a kid asked about See’s Candies and Petro China) (One hour 30 minutes: public school systems in Omaha) (2 hours mark: the comments on AIG and Hank Greenberg are interesting, as we know AIG blew up about 3.5 years later, amid 2008 financial crisis)

2001 (3 hours 54 mins mark: don’t go short. At 4:12 mark, Warren talked about California utility does not have incentive to produce more electricity due to new regulation. This sounds like what the US oil industry is doing in recent years. Note I am not taking sides on politics / climate change)

1999 (At one hour 4 minutes mark, shareholder asked about a question on Chinese stocks, Charlie commented “I don’t know much about China”. This is interesting, as Charlie grew closer to Li Lu in last 20 years or so, and Berkshire bought $BYD shares too. Also at one hour 8 minutes mark, “rich vs wealthy” is interesting.) (Books Charlie and Warren recommended: The Warren Buffett Portfolio, Titan the biography of the original John D. Rockefeller, Guns, Germs, and Steel,” which was a physiologist’s view of the economic history of man, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations.” And the guy’s name is [David] Landes; “Common Sense on Mutual Funds,” by Jack Bogle)

1998 (TIMESAVER EDIT – FULL Q&A, I just noticed all the TIMESAVER EDIT video have all the notes)

1997 (At 3 hours 28 minutes mark, an audience asked a Disney question which is relatable to today’s political environment. Buffett’s answer: I’m delighted to have my grand children expose to full range of #Disney products, and I love to take them to #DisneyLand #DisneyWorld, Disney movie and videos…I don’t have problem gays being employed (clap). Ditto here for me taking my kids to Disney. At 4 hours 19 minutes mark, the comments about McDonald’s are interesting.) || I just noticed the video has all the notes too, such as the McDonald’s vs Coca-Cola… this is excellent.

1996

1994

Last but not least, below is a tweet thread of interviews of “becoming Warren Buffett”, total 11 videos. I noticed YouTube (HBO) has a condensed version too (a documentary movie).

Categories
Fun Life Life Tips Shanghai Composite

Weekend thoughts 04-24-2022

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The spring finally came, or one can argue the temperature yesterday in St. Louis is like summer (above 80 Fahrenheit). I already cut grass once, and this morning I did a bit more yard work. I like yard work, to some extent. It made me to move a bit, in addition to run / walk I did from time to time. I signed up a few more races in May, btw. Such as this Jim Schoemehl 10k run for ALS (May 7 Saturday), and St. Charles Half Marathon (May 15 Sunday). I have another 5K upcoming, but I will hold it as a secret for now.

More random thoughts: yesterday evening Serenity was talking to a friend about my job, and parents job in general. Her comment is interesting: my dad does twitter and stock trading in addition to his software engineer job. I guess I need to be more serious about my day job and cut down on both tweeting and stocks.

Another slightly interesting discussion, in the car (minivan) Serenity (my 6th grader) talked to my 2nd grader about sex / gender, I don’t recall how the discussion started. But it reminded me of the Florida law, and I commented perhaps we should hold on talking too much on this topic with Sophia. How about we talk more when she is 4th grader 🙂

In Peson Events

On past Friday evening, I went to an event, which is for LEF Ladue Education Foundation fund raising (online auction website here). From April the school and many other places seem much more open in terms of large gathering (like pre-pandemic), I was able to see people in person at more events, and it’s a bit thrill. It started with a work related conference “no fluff just stuff” java conference. I am not a big social person, but I think for many people me included, seeing colleagues or old friends after a long time (more than 2 years) was a bit unreal.

Stock Market

Last week the market didn’t do well.

YouTube videos I watched recently

加拿大 移民 | 985大学毕业，移民加拿大炸薯条，剁肉，送餐……

加拿大 移民 | 47岁DIY移民加拿大，从端盘子做起，如今笑的比蜜甜

Shanghai Lockdown Week 4: FREE AT LAST???

True stories under current Shanghai COVID-19 lockdown丨43/25,000,000

2022年中国真实做电商的中产家庭，也是难上加难，还要帮小舅子找工作

Categories
Edu-and-Ladue-School Fun Technology

Any interest in the Integirls program?

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Do you want to be an “involved parent”? I guess at least, we don’t want our kids watching ASMR on youtube all day… or for that matter, watching YouTube shorts, TikTok, Instagram and doing Snapchat? And may I add roblox, adopt me, Minecraft, and Fornite 🙁

Sorry this is the only games I know my girls do these days (except Fornite?) I am not against the social media and mobile games, for that matter, I think some exposure to those are okay. I just think both myself and my kids are wasting way too much time on iPhone (me) / iPads (them), this is not too surprising considering the pandemic and personally I spent way too much time on Twitter and WeChat (think WeChat is a combination of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and PayPal / Venmo, mainly in Chinese).

Anyway, enough Ted Talk from me. Integirls Math (math competition) is something I was working with my daughter Serenity (6th grader), math or other stem problems that’s a bit interesting. For example, since I mentioned Ted Talk here, I recall recently Serenity asked me this locker problem when I was driving. This is a bit intimidating problem at first look. But it was similar to some of the problems that I worked when I was learning computer programming, when I was in middle school (or high school? Sorry I forgot the exact timing), and it’s similar to some of the coding problem that I asked candidates during technical interview in recent years. Full disclosure: I am a software engineer with about 20 years of software development experience.

I understand Math sounds hard or may not be interesting to some

As parents I encourage my daughter to learn more math, more STEM, and more coding if possible. But at the same time, I do understand in our Ladue school, there are many talented kids and sometimes it could be a bit intimidating to participating the math club, the science club etc. This is probably applicable to my daughter (her introvert personality), as well as being a girl. I recall at the beginning of this school year, she was invited to join a team for math competition, and she does not want to do it. The reason: “I don’t like math“. Personally I think she probably does not like competition. I am okay with that. But I don’t want to leave her an impression that “my math is not that good”, or something along those lines. I think looking purely from the grade level, her math is very good.

What I like to see

No, I don’t expect her to solve the locker riddle in the TedEdu. Or some of the “math / algorithm” problems I collected in this file (some day I will organize it better 🙂 But I want to work with her, and show her some of problems in the InteGirls is doable at her level. “Empowering girls in STEM” is my goal, to be more specific, my selfish goal is empower my daughter in STEM.

How I plan to do it

Again I will work with Serenity, and potentially some of her friends. Here is the pdf file location for one set of sample problems (how I get here: I click on “Winter 2021 Math Contest” from the home page, from there, I scroll down, click on the Solutions – MS folder, it leads me to the google drive folder that has the PDF problem (and solution). I will try to work on a few problems (say 5) in 30 mins to 45 mins session. And ideally I want to make sure the kids know how to approach a problem. Teaching is not my strength, but I feel comfortable with English and middle school math (numbers, algebra, geometry etc.).

Are you going to form a team and compete?

I don’t know. But again my goal is first to practice then we can mutually decide if it’s something we can do. Again from the web page, score card, I saw some familiar names. I am not keen on winning a certain place, but if the girls are getting more confident, even if they only solve one problem (on their own), I will be happy 🙂

PS: yesterday I came across a video which is about basic finance and investing, and (at about 45 minutes mark) it has two interesting math (and psychological) problems too. Now I think about it, when I was in China, attending Zhenhai Middle School (its equivalent to both middle school and high school here in the US), and from time to time, I met some really good teachers and had some inspiring or interesting discussions or problems. Just think math teacher like Po Shen Loh here in the USA (CMU). If you know Chinese, I think 李永乐老师 is the best on math, science, life and literature (yes I said it he is good on everything 🙂 And Po Shen Loh (CMU math professor) is pretty close on that too.

(Update 03-24-2022) I just noticed the Spring 2022 contest is on: April 16 Saturday. Here is the link. Noticed this too: We will also be hosting a game and math review session on Wednesday, April 13th at 8 PM CT. You will have the opportunity to play fun games with your team, review math concepts for the contest, and meet others all over the country! Sign up for the session by registering for the contest.

Appendix: I collected some interesting math problems at this GitHub repo. I started collecting during the pandemic shutdown and that’s the reason it’s in that repo.

Categories
401k and Personal Finance Fun Investing Life Tips Stocks

Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting 2022

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PDFs

Genenal info; Omaha visitor guide

Hotel (below is copied from the general info PDF above)

TRAVEL & HOTEL ASSISTANCE
If you need assistance in arranging lodging, we recommend contacting Travelink, American Express:
Travelink, American Express
Hotline: (866) 301-3011
(615) 277-5179 (Outside the U.S.)
Email: to teampearl@travelink.com


Hotels fill up fast, especially in the downtown area. There are many options outside of the downtown area that offer more competitive rates and conditions. Berkshire provides shuttles to many of these
locations and they might serve as a nice option to the higher priced downtown hotels.


VISIT OMAHA – Find hotels and view rates

Health info; note the Clear app and website (for health / vaccination pass)

Please note proxy material varies by broker: e.g., TD Ameritrade website, it’s under “My Account” => “History and Statements” => “Shareholder Library”, this is the direct link just in case. If you have multiple accounts with TD Ameritrade, please make sure you select the account that has $BRK.A or $BRK.B . Vanguard sends an email, and I have’t tried, but I believe if click on it. It will lead me to the proxy materials after I log into Vanguard website. This leads to the meeting credentials.

Meeting credentials: one shareholder can request at least 4 meeting credentials. And it can only be obtained by following the instructions laid out in the ami.pdf file (again it’s bundled in the proxy material above), and get it in mail.

Last but not the least, investinyourself5k

PS: I made the trip and wrote this blog post.

Categories
Edu-and-Ladue-School Featured Fun Life Life Tips Saint Louis

Summer Camps in Saint Louis metro area

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(Update 01-17-2025) Sanborn Western Camps: this is “An OUTSTANDING summer camp in Colorado”. The price is not cheap, but personally I think it’s probably worth to consider if the kid is ready, and the family can afford. There are some other cheaper options such as Boy Scouts per a mom I know.

(Update 06-13-2024) I gave summer camps more thoughts. I think for different families: the need for summer camps are also different. For example, doctors, nurses, restaurant workers, and some other jobs that parents or guardians need to be in office and usually have a 8 or 9 hours working day. If we add commute time, it means those families who need probably 9 to 10 hours of child care (younger or little kids). In those cases, the families likely need before and after care. Not all summer camps do that. If I can categorize camps, I think there are two types: one with the need I just mentioned above, another one is more like “give parents a few hours break, also give kids a few hours of camp / play time”.

Also, for me personally, I am at a stage of my career that I can work from home, and also I can be quite flexible. In that case, I will choose the later camps or camps without before/after care.

(Update 04-18-2024) Ms Donna Matthews, Ladue School District Gifted Specialist, shared this list (google spreadsheet) for summer camps that are suitable for middle school and high school kids.

(Update 12-05-2023) from LCC FB group I came across this Camp ThunderBird at Minnesota. It seems lots of outdoor fun. Seems like a good option for sleep away camps, for the families/kids who want to do sleep away camps (also see Sleep Away Camps (added 05-08-2023) below). I also vaguely recall there is a thunderbird camp in Arizona. I could mixed it up with the Thunder bird school in AZ though.

I know I know, when my older daughter was doing the sleep away camp at Cub Creek in summer 2021, I was refreshing their photos and emails website every 5 minutes in the 1st few days 🙂

(Update 07-01-2023) Came across this one at Webster U. But I could not find it at their website. It seems Webster U has quite a few camps for middle school and above age kids.

(Update May 2023) Added more sleep away outdoor summer camps. Scroll down or search for “sleep away” on this blog post. Also Creve Coeur Racquet Club.

(Update Spring 2023) Some minor edits including adding the FB link for the D & A basketball camp. Added Master Qi Martial Arts school (at the end of this post, good thing takes time and needs patience 🙂

Spring break camps: the J (or JCC), Olivette, and McCormack basketball camp.

Two horse riding camps: Kennedy Farms and The Stables at Lake St Louis. And one cheerleading camp.

(Original Spring 2022) I wrote a piece on summer camp choices a while ago, to be precise, 5 years ago. My kids are growing older and they have attended more summer camps in the past 5 years. Below are some of the camps they attended and are planning to attend this summer, in alphabetical order. Also since a few years ago the Missouri legislature passed a law that pushed back the fall public school opening by about 10 to 14 days, and that makes the summer camp a bit more important for the kids and working parents. Private school were not impacted. I think a general rule of thumb for summer is: take some family vacation if the work schedule allows, spend a few days or weeks at home (if parents work from home); for younger kids, it’s important to put them in a routine, provide some fun activities as well as get off the screen and games when possible.

All American Gymnastics and Super Ninja: this is a popular place for some of the Spoede, Creve Coeur and Olivette kids. They do gymnastics, games (hide and seek), arts and craft (tie dye shirt etc.), and water (field) day. The kids need to bring own lunch. 9 am to 3 pm. Pick up along the car pool line. (Update 01-08-2024: they usually do promotions on early Jan) 🌞Summer Camp Registration Is Open to ALL! | Save $100 until 1/14!🌞

Andrews Academy: our go to camp before pandemic, especially for our old kid who is 6th grader now. She used to go to the neighboring Hope Montessori when she was pre-schooler. They have fantastic activities, food, and field trips. They also do one gathering / open house, with food for parents (picnic, food from Kenricks) for parents and siblings (before pandemic). There are activities after dinner too. Last but not least, before pandemic we had friends come from China did summer camp at Andrew’s academy too. They had good experience there (I recall the kids were about Serenity’s age now about 11 years old).

Cub Creek Science Camp: this is a sleep away animal science camp in Rolla, Missouri. (from FB Ladue community or Ladue parents community group: this camp is popular among Ladue kids. Note the cost is about $1100 for a week 🙂 We signed up our old daughter for one week this summer. Update: she was very happy with the camp. She is going there for a week this summer too.

JCC: they have different tracks too. They usually do swim daily. My older daughter went there the summer before her kindergarten year. They drop off and pick up at the back of JCC, by the pavilion next to soccer field. (Update summer 2023) My younger daughter did 2 weekly sessions there: she made a friend in the 1st week, and later she came back for another week so that they two can be together.

Kids Camp Ladue (KCL)*: lots of kids in the ladue school district and neighboring area. Mr. Long, Ladue Middle School science teacher has been doing this (mostly as a community service for working parents) for many years. Btw, I saw a familiar face on the website 🙂

Ladue Camp Legacy: for the older kids who are entering grades 6 through 9 in the fall.

Maryville U robotics program: signed up my two girls for summer 2022 (one week each). The camp is two weeks long, btw. My girls like to do one week, which is okay. Btw, the school campus map here. It looks like the checkin is at Auditorium. I am hoping to write a post on Arduino soon. Personally I think it’s interesting. Note: parents for the girls, you may notice there are usually more boys than girls as this is STEM arena. Please don’t get discouraged. Send your daughter over to explore, and they usually love the activities there, and those enhanced their confidence on STEM as well. So win-win 🙂 I am speaking from my own younger daughter’s experience, she felt more comfortable with the MIT Scratch game at school after doing this at Maryville last summer.

MICDs Summer Camp*: it’s not cheaper compared to Andrews Academy (the after hour care cost extra money). But MICDs has good facilities including the fairly new indoor swimming pool. They usually have a play (a show) for parents come to watch.

Olivette: usually held at Olivette Community Center. It’s popular among the kids in Olivette and Creve Coeur (did you know some people pronounced it like Creamed Corn 🙂 || Btw, heard Webster Groves has some camps such as fire safety, soccer etc. Sounds similar to Olivette summer camp. Our younger daughter attended one week of Camp O this year (year 2022).

Also, some specialized camps. Bobby McCormack basketball camp.

SPICE Chess Camp at Webster U: my older daughter Serenity did a week in summer 2018. I believe she participated the “girls only” session.

St. Louis Chinese Language School: 圣路易中文学校 2023 Summer Camp During pandemic Serenity attended a few classes (math came to mind, Zoom only). They have in person culture and martial arts camp this summer (maybe more are coming).

Some Ladue school specific camps or camps led by Ladue School Teachers

there are also D&A basketball camp (Dockery & Anderson, they are Ladue PE teachers and basketball coaches) , as well as Jessica Mitchell’s Spanish camp (Ms Mitchell is Spanish teacher at Spoede elementary).

Spoede teachers / coaches Dolan and Williams have a PE and STEM Math camp too. My old daughter did Dolan / Williams camp before pandemic (once), and my younger one did Spanish camp (twice). (Update 04-06-2023 new for summer 2023), Dolan and Williams’ camp is back, here is the peachjar flyer.

(04-19-2023 added Hadfield Enrichment Camp, as a friend asked about the writing enrichment.) This is the flyer.

Cross Country: saw 2 familiar faces right there, Coach Strayhorn is Ladue Middle School math teacher and Ladue High School girls cross country coach. He has been doing the camp for a while too. I signed up Serenity for session 2 this summer (2022). Interesting question on the google form: on scale 1 to 5, 1 means “my parents make me do it”, 5 means “I love running”. I thought in America, we don’t force kids do things they don’t like. LOL. Our old daughter did this camp in summer 2022.

Ladue School District Summer Enrichment Programs (July 6-30, 2021) An invitation and details will be shared with eligible families.(copied from Ladue Schools e-Connect Newsletter — April 30, 2021). Note some of the program are invitations only.

Ladue Camp Legacy (new in Summer 2022, and it’s there for 2023 as well, note this is a fee based program, and open to all.

(04-12-2023) Today I learned there are also ESL (English as Second Language) and Ladue LEAP program (this one is for selected incoming kindergarten kids).

(We have not done the below camps) There are other Ladue teachers led specialized camps: reading, baseball etc. Those are usually communicated via peach jar (email). Contact me if you like to get some more information.

Below are some of the camps in the area that I am aware of, or we think we may attend.

Community school summer camp: I learned they have a summer camp when our Spoede teachers (coaches) used their campus (facilities) once for summer PE / Math (STEAM) camp. Of course some of people may know CS (community school) is a feeder school for MICDs and John Burrough school (JBS)

Creve Coeur Tennis-Camps-and-Lessons: please check with the city of Creve Coeur, the Parks and Recreation dept.

Creve Coeur Racquet Club: “We are going to start offering Day time (tennis) clinics on Tuesday and Thursdays starting May 30th from 1:30-2:30 for orange and green ball kids. You register by the day. A minimum of 3 kids must register for the clinic to go for that day. Registration is open online. If you have difficulties registering online, please email the proshop at proshop@ccrctennis.com. Please let me know if you have any questions. -Toni”

Forest Lake Tennis Club: Summer Junior Camp

GRC: gifted resources council summer academies. This is open to everyone. Unlike the gift programs in many schools that require a test. They have activities (learning labs) during regular school year too, it’s being held at Wydown Middle School (clayton), on Saturdays. Before pandemic, I have been to their “Creative Convention” and my older daughter also attended the “equation competition”.

Camp Invention: saw it from school communication, I don’t have any knowledge about. If you have any feedback or comments, please email to minjie.xu@gmail.com. Thank you.

Highland Golf & Tennis Youth Camps: at forest park. This seems to be a popular place for many families. Note on some summer afternoons, St. Louis could be really hot and I assume they will put kids in indoor facility with AC (as playing outside could be dangerous).

John Burroughs summer program

Laumeier Sculpture Park art camp:

Missouri Fine Arts Academy: this is actually in Springfield, MO, the Missouri State U campus. Note invitation only: it’s a selected program. The kids can apply and the camp will decide who are chosen. || I came across it from FB: “A total of six Rockwood School District students – 5 kids’ names (Eureka High) and 1 kid name (Rockwood Summit High) – were chosen to participate in the Missouri Fine Arts Academy this summer! The Academy, which runs June 4-17 on the campus of Missouri State University in Springfield, is a two-week summer residential program for highly motivated student artists in visual arts, theatre, dance, creative writing and music. The Academy offers an intensive schedule of classes in interdisciplinary and discipline-specific arts and a wide range of co-curricular activities. Congratulations to these outstanding student artists!”

St Louis Academy of Dance (SLAD) summer program: our daughters go there during regular school year. Typically they have quite a few Spoede/OB/Ladue kids.

SIUE (Edwardsville, IL): my old daughter’s percussion teacher at LMS send us the information on percussion institute.

More Sleep Away or Outdoor Camps (added 05-08-2023)

I am aware of a few, and I saw friends sent kids there. My kid so far only went to the Cub Creek Animal Science camp I mentioned above.

Camp Manitowa: 12770 North Benton Rd., Benton, IL 62812

JCC Camp Sabra: this is in the lake of Ozarks.

YMCA Camp Lakewood: 13528 State Hwy AA, Potosi, MO, 63664

Those looks quite fun both in terms of outdoor actives, as well as let the kids have some independence (a necessary training, so that we know when we send them away for college, they would have some experience on their own). Also I did notice the price is more steep than a normal summer camp: consider the room and board. It’s a good experience for the kids though (both being away from parents, bonding with new friends, at a cabin, outdoor environment, doing new activities).

St Louis Modern Chinese school: check back for more info.

SLU Summer Camp: I just heard about it. One friend recommend the swim camp, another the cooking camp. It sound like something I can send my 2 girls next summer.

UMSL bridge program: saw a parent sending kids there (FB friend)

Webster U middle school challenge (assume a bit similar to wash u program below): saw another parent sending kids there (from Twitter)

wustl summer camp for middle school kids: link here. We were thinking about it, the cost is $780 for a week (wustl employee / family has 10% discount). Noticed the 6th grade is full now. We won’t go this year due to a conflict. Personally I feel 9 am to 5 pm is too much for the kids. For that matter, I feel 9 to 5 is overrated for grownups too (which is off topic, I know). Also noticed they have need based scholarship, too.

St Louis Master Qi Kungfu School : 麒师傅 (Master Qi) has opened the martial arts school in the Olivette/Ladue area for a while. He has after school program for the kids, and summer program as well.

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*: means the older kids (incoming 7th graders and above for KCL, and high school for MICDs camp) will have opportunity to be a counselor, think that as an leadership training opportunity.

No longer actively maintained posts on summer camps

03-10-2017 : Summer Camp Recommendations

04-14-2014 : Kids Summer Camp In St. Louis Area

Categories
Fun Software development Technology

Teach kids programming

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I am thinking about this, also there was an ask from two parents. Some of the things I think I can start at first class, also some of the things I am thinking about teaching (more systematic).

Starter: raspberry pi (and micro bit), coder master (Sophia’s game), the lego technic motor sets (not coding but interesting STEM toy)

More formal:

JavaScript via khan academy: course; playground

Python :

The old turtle thing, need to make it work on my macbook first, or ask GeLiang for something else)

Just came across this python playground from Justin’s email newsletter: this looks good too.

Below is probably more relevant for online coding interview: codePen (my activity). Now I recall I wrote about it a while ago: Job search advice amid COVID-19 pandemic (Update 05-19-2020)