Category: Fun

I came across a good discussion on the topic here at Baidu. Interesting discussions.

Btw, I thought about it before reading that, and decided to give most of my earnings to OCEF. Today I saw my name on the report. Good: really I don’t care too much about my name there, and I know my contribution is small, but I want the money to be in good hands. And I know they are doing good work for kids in disadvantaged economy condition.

I have covered sleep, walk (exercise), today I am going to talk about the good we eat. As I came to the US about 18 years ago, I recall a friend and a fellow Chinese graduate student once said: food, sleep and exercise are 3 key elements of being healthy. This was very relevant as we were both new to this country, and trying to adjust to everything in the US. For most Chinese students and coworkers in my era, I understand our main food is still Chinese food (rice, stir fry, etc.). Many Chinese coworkers bring lunch to work. I do that sometime too. Also, as I was aging, I started to pay more attention to breakfast. This is different from when I was in graduate school or new to work. I think in about 2005 since I moved to my current condo, there is one Panera Bread (St. Louis Bread Co.) in walking distance, and I started to enjoy the bagel and coffee in the morning. Two reasons I got coffee there instead of brewing my own, or get it at work: 1) The coffee there is good or better; 2) I just get one cup and that’s done, trying to control the caffeine intake.

That bagel habit stuck to me for almost 10 years now. I passed that habit to my old daughter Serenity. She started eat bagel as a toddler. I tried bagels and bread from other places too, e.g, bagels from Einstein bagels and bagel factory (New York Style water bagel). They are different from Panera’s (Panera are more sweet or sugary).

For lunch, I bring my own lunch more often these days. But I usually go out to eat if I join a new place new. From Fazoli’s (fast Italians), Panera Bread, Chick-fil-a, to Culvers (midwest hamburgers), to most recently Picklman’s (sandwich). I usually stick to one thing for a long time before exploring. For example, I recall eat their grilled sandwich until one day I found there is a bug in the lettuce. Then I switched to Pastas, etc. For Panera, I started with Frontega Chicken panini. Later on I expanded to their soup and salad. Chick-fil-a is always good, I usually got their calendar each year ($7), which pays itself quickly with monthly free food/drink. I visited Culver’s the first time when I visited a client at Rockford, IL, which is close to Wisconsin (Culver’s home state). I liked the buttery flavor of burgers. Picklman’s is a sandwich shop started in Show-me state (Columbia, MO, where Mizzou is), I liked their Italian beef sandwich. Since that I have not gone back to Subway. 🙂 I was never big on lunch at work place. I recall at one time I did eat a few times at Unigroup cafeteria, their food is fair and cheap. Probably because they don’t pay people as well as other places 🙂 They only take cash. At current place, I only been there a few times, and all I got was pizza.

I think it’s important to get some breaks during the work. There are a lot of studies and real world examples that people sit before computer or desk all the day, and damage being done to their backs, necks, shoulders, elbows and hands. Thus the popularity of adjustable height desk so that people can choose to stand or sit during the work day. Both Marco Arment and Joel Spolsky did posts on the adjustable desk and ideal sit stance. Also noted Jeff larmarche did a post on a desk with walking treadmill. I think I will do another post on the desk topic some time, when I have more hands on experience on this topic. For me, I don’t have a luxury of setting up my desk most of the time, being it work at company office, or work from home (or Panera Bread, or Starbucks with laptop, which is a big no no according to Marco and David Smith’s “Ergonomics” podcast).

One thing I know I can do is to stand up and walk around. I walk all the time, all the places. In the good old days when I was working at earth city, I walked both after lunch and at around 3PM. I recall I walked with an older coworker a few times, and I could not catch his steps. So I stayed on my own pace. Not too slow though. According to many research, walking too slow is useless. I carried this habit when I worked from home in 2008~2010. At that time I had Blackberry, so I just need to carry it when I walk or occasionally joggling in the neighborhood. I carried this habit to a new company (a small one), and the project manager was not happy with it, I mean walk at 3PM habit. He made a hay out of this, so I only walked during lunch break (at Chesterfield mall, esp. in winter and summer). I like walking in the mall. Usually I walked two loops. Parked outside Macy’s. At Unigroup in Fenton I also walked during lunch break, at parking lot.

Then come to Arch Coal (note the company just filed bankruptcy today). The best benefits I got from Arch was the discount of JCC membership and company pays for 75% of the discounted membership fees. So I got the JCC membership the first time, I am still a member although I am paying the full price out of my own pocket. While I do swimming at JCC pool (mostly indoor, both Creve Coeur and Chesterfield), I also walk on treadmill. Those are two activities I do at JCC. I kept this habit even after I leave Arch Coal, when I worked at Weldon Spring or Mercy Health (Chesterfield and Sunset Hills). For Mercy I found a really nice trail at Laumeier’s Sculpture park. Also in summer 2013 I got a UP Jawbone band, since then I started to track my steps using pedometer. I am aware of 10,000 steps per day as doctor’s recommendation. But only when I get the Fitbit Charge my tracking and charting became more consistent.

These days I usually walk during coffee break, lunch break to get most of the steps during the day. If for some reason I did not get much opportunity to walk during walk (which means I sit too long), I will try to catch up at JCC or at home (late evening, weather permits). St. Louis’ winter temperature sometimes is not very forgiving. That’s when JCC comes to play. I will do swim, as swim usually consumes more energy and it exercise the whole body including arms.

I was able to figure out how to put my work Dell laptop into sleep recently. The problem was that if I just unplug it from the docking station without put it into sleep, it will be on and usually runs out of battery in the morning, in other words it will needs reboot in the morning when I come to work. I figured out this one without googling: thought it may help if I push the power button on dock station before unplug, and it worked.

This and a minor thing about the good old UP jawbone band (have to push the sleep button to start record sleep), reminds me of the sleep issue for me from time to time. How I wish I could have a button when being pushed, and I could fall right into sleep 🙂

I recall the first time I wanted fall asleep but could not was at the time I would take high school exam the second day. I was at a good middle school and needed to score good enough to get into the same high school. Although I knew if I just do as I do usually, I should be good. But I was still nervous, deep in my heart, I knew getting into this high school means I am halfway into college (which is a big deal for me, because that means I will move from rural area to big city, and eventually work in office instead of work on farm). Similar thing happened to me before Gao Kao, the famous college exam (it was 3 days then), and I did not get much sleep in those 3 nights. I recall I did the same before GRE exam. So as the night before I board the airplane to the US, obviously I was not so certain how it will play out when I came here for study: a country seen only from movie before.

Fast forward, from time to time (not very often) I will get this sleep issue again, due to silly things at work. I recall in 2006, when I was in Shanghai work remote, I need to come up with a software bug fix. I worked really hard, thought about the problem hard, and could not fall asleep one night. Good thing I solved the problem the second day, and everybody was very happy. And I was too excited the second night to fall asleep 🙂

Another time (working for another company), the situation was not as nice. One afternoon, my boss called me (he rarely does, we all work from home), saying the project I delivered to customer was not good, they were not happy and they complained to my boss’ boss. Had to come up fix quickly, with unfamiliar code and so so economy. I lost sleep that night 🙂 I recall I also lost some sleep in the financial crisis, when the market turmoil made my 401k into 201k. I also had a small trading account, and I lost about $1200 on WAMU (Washington Mutual). That’s also the time I got most my grey hair (2008 to 2011). I still lost sleep due to work related issue in 2014/2015, sometimes I would check email from iPhone in the middle of the night as I was expecting something; sometimes check it just because it’s within the reach, then start thinking about work related things. One way to avoid this is to put iPhone somewhere not easy to reach (e.g., living room, this is a tip I learned from my former coworker).

Interestingly the stock market in Jan 2016 brings back the memories of dark days of 2008 (financial crisis), I saw the declining of 401k as well. But long term I am not that worried as I believe we will recover from this in a few years, similar to last time. So no need to lose sleep. Even for people who already retired, I think they should stay calm too. I believe some retired people lost faith last time around, and bailed out at the bottom, and did not get back in quickly, in doing this they lost a substantial amount of their retirement savings in 401k/IRA. It’s understandable because the depth of the financial crisis is almost unprecedented, but we should learn from the history and be rational about the market.

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