Playlist on iCloud – shared across devices
Lyrics
Sing-along feature (Karaok)
Also being able to import mp3 files and shared across devices – related to the first point.
Auto play feature – from the Apple Music library – trying to guess the listener’s taste from the 1st song being played, and so on.
It seems to me worth th $11.99 a month.
My thoughts and observations so far.
The other day, when I was driving with my 16 year old, and she commented “dad, you smells”. 她的意思是我的身上有汗味。后来我的 better half 解释/猜测说也可能是我的衣服上有汗味。我想起来了，我小时候闻到我爸的衣服好像也有味道。还好我不抽烟。Anyway I don’t want to bore you with my 汗味。
Today I am really going to talk about something more serious, that is as we get older, how to avoid this 登味 (浙江宣传 – “登味”是什么味)。
登味是2025年中文互联网高频出现的负面标签，特指脱离现实、居高临下的决策思维或言行风格，尤其体现中老年群体的傲慢与代际冲突。该词与网络流行语“老登”相关，“老登”原为山东方言“老登徒子”的简写，后演变为嘲讽具有权势却顽固傲慢群体的代称。其内涵包含训话式沟通、油腻言行等特征，并衍生出“登味营销”、“小登”、“中登”等相关表达 [2] [4]。导演冯小刚曾在公开场合提及“要去登味儿”以回应这一现象…… (来源：baike）
如何减少”登味”；或者”爹味”；两者有类似之处，登味的含义可能更广一些。
Avoid
”我吃过的盐比你吃过的饭还多”
Avoid
”我年轻的时候，什么都没有。。。blah blah blah”. Sometimes I felt “life before iPhone” is much better and I think some of the Gen X* may agree with me, maybe some Gen Y* people too 🙂
Avoid
Alcohol, cigaret, vaping, cannabis, marijuanas, any other substances.
Do the below instead
Healthy hobbies, examples: sports, music (instruments), reading, creation and arts (all kinds, from writing, to drawing, to stitching, knitting, to crochet), and volunteering… You get my points, something productive, helping people when you can, and so on. I recall there is a saying in Chinese 度人也是度己 (helping others also helps oneself).
Cooking is good too, but don’t eat too much.
不建议对号入座：有则改之，无则加勉。我个人的建议是三连：点赞，收藏，favorite 或订阅 LOL
*Gen X (as used in the USA, wikipedia): Generation X (Gen X) is the demographic cohort following the Baby Boomers and preceding Millennials, generally defined as people born between 1965 and 1980.
Gen Y (also called millennials): are the demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years, with the generation typically being defined as people born from 1981 to 1996.
We have the scoop on the ‘Scandinavian Sleep Method’ — and how it could help you rest easier (Yahoo and Amazon selling bedding products?)
Why Your Phone Is Quietly Turning You Into a Loser Doom scrolling in bed is bad !!!
Have trouble falling or staying asleep? Try cognitive shuffling.
If you often find yourself lying awake in the middle of the night worrying, sleep experts say that cognitive shuffling might be worth a try.
Start by thinking of a word — something neutral or positive, like the word “house.” Then, think of as many words as you can that start with the first letter: horse, harmonica, honey. Try to picture each object or idea for 5 to 15 seconds, maybe even imagining a scene with yourself in it. (You’re riding a horse. … You’re playing the harmonica. … You’re harvesting honey!)
Sleep Less than 7 Hours? This Exercise Can Save You || The Sleep Trick That Actually Quiets a Racing Mind
我初中的英语老师。”其实我喜欢石蕴玉老师，她也走了，戴着一圏圈的近视镜，一个个过我们的英式英标” (我的王同学说的）。石老师有可能是解放前在上海的租界教会学校学的英式英语：这本身并不重要。她是我的英语启蒙老师：她是非常好的启蒙老师。万事开头难 – “The first step is always the hardest“。这也让我想到另外一句“千里之行始于足下”（记得当时周老师常说这句，他会把它刻在讲义里）。对我来说，美式英语大概是高中时在镇中的新的语音实验室里听托福或类似节目才开始的。
我估计我们上初中时，石老师大概有五十岁左右。如果说周国夫老师，我们的班主任/数学老师，是严父，那么我觉得石老师就是慈母。我估计石老师大概比周老师大几岁。周老师对石老师也比较尊重。石老师眼睛高度近视，在我们那个年代80年代初，我的初中是 83 到 86年，她的眼镜也就非常厚。她好像身体不是特别好，印象中有一次好像她有视网膜脱落。我估计在我们那个年代，这种手术可能要去上海或者杭州这样的大城市。
我记得两件小事。有一次，她让我上讲台去背书，我不知道为什么反正那次我背不出来：可能是我没有好好准备，也有可能是我比较紧张。我那时可能是初中二年级，我小时候比较喜欢哭。那次不知道为什么，我背不出来，忍不住，就开始哭。石老师没有批评我，她只是鼓励我好好学习。
还有一次，我不小心把英语作业本的封面给撕开了一道缝，我也没有胶带，或浆糊，直接吧作业本。后来，有点在我意料之中的，石老师把我的作业本给补好了。
我大学毕业四年以后就出国。我记得大概是二十年（具体哪一年我现在记不清了）之前，我的一个老家在镇海的初中同学告诉我，石老师去世了。
I wrote this one too fast – Some kids not that interested in learning to drive nowadays 🙂 This seems to be confirmed by this Yahoo article – Gen Z is slamming the brakes on getting a driver’s license.
话音未落，I started to teach my old kid to drive. We are already on the road, btw 🙂
We practiced on the parking lot 1st, but she got a bit bored of the parking lot, so last 2 days (I started writing this post in late Dec, FYI) I have taken her to quiet neighborhood, and she was practicing on the road. Note she is new on the road. And understandably sometimes she would get nervous if another car come by both in the front (opposing traffic), or behind. Today she almost panicked at a four way stop sign 🙂 But we survived.
12-31-2025 Today we got honked by people the 1st time, at the Hilltop neighborhood.
1-1-2025 We finally hit the real road, I mean the road with traffic lights (not just Stop sign). We drove at the Lackland near Westport, also from the Walgreens St. Ann (St. Charles rock road and Ashby) to home. Many years ago (confirmed by my wife) I taught her driving, at the industrial compound at Westport.
02-07-2026 We continued practicing on the real road, mostly on weekends.
02-10-2026 S8 drove from the St. Louis Premium Outlet Mall to home, via local obviously. She was fairly proud that she made smooth left turn from Chesterfield parkway to Olive. And re: Olive Road, she said she may miss it when she goes off to college. Other interesting facts she told me is an old story between her mom and her as her mom drove the similar route quite a few years ago – they were going to the mall as well.
Amother longer road (route) we drove recently: Olive west (from Warson), Clarkson, Manchester, and West Country Mall. She got honked when near the west county mall. There were quite a few cars because it was weekend.
Side note – Road Rage
Road rage (lu nu) is prevalent in the USA. Here in STL it’s not extremely bad, but from time to time you will see those impatient drivers or impatient people in general. Recently as I started teaching my older kid to drive, and also as I reflect on my own driving and so on, I felt I have a bit burden or worry when she eventually goes out and drives on her own.
In China people honk, here in STL people may not honk as much, but the road rage is definitely there. And in extreme or rare cases, it could turn out to be deadly (because of firearms aka the guns).
Nowadays I rarely honked at people, and I rarely honked back. I did some of that when I was younger and also when I am lacking sleep.
New habits re: health and fitness
Swim:
Run: I didn’t run a lot. I did run a few races (for run): the Ladue Dogwood run, the ‘Due Run for Education (LEF) and Frostbite Run at Forest Park organized by the St. Louis track club (short distance).
I started using Apple Watch to track sleep.
Other new adventure I decided to take on
Learn music, guitar and piano
Stocks
Need some more patience there. A good example may be $MDB at 04/04/2025: it was under $155 then. Today it closed at about $399.65.
Family and China Trip
Started teaching my older kid to drive
Realized that “Good habit is important – easier to correct in the beginning than to correct later on – similar for the music learning too”. Today 01-01-2026 she even drove from the Walgreens in St. Ann (St. Charles rock road and Ashby road) to our home – via Ashby road. I was the passenger. (Update 01-02-2026) Today’s practice route here.
Btw, I paused the Uber driving for now. It was fun ride to say the least.
YouTuber or creator instead of blogger?
Thinking I may archive this blog site and focus more on the video content creation instead. Haven’t made final decision yet but leaning towards this – it was a good 20-year journey but couple things made me to re-think about my blogging journey – very few people are reading my blogs these days, that’s probably true for other newspaper, magazine website too – people are mostly switching to video or short videos over the years due to many reasons. Video is more engaging, or much easier to absorb. Also, video especially short video is quite addictive. Other reasons are the cost of hosting this website, as well as the recent AI bots scanning my website continuously (they appear are from CHN).
At about 5:30 pm, I got a call from neighbor R: it’s about help them to put together the electric scooter. It was not too bad – mainly I need to put in the handle, and put in the screw. I mentioned the neighbor once here (I didn’t elaborate for the privacy reason).
In general I am willing to help as long as I can. I think the work I did above is mostly just 举手之劳 a small effort. (Update 12-25-2025) This afternoon as I walked by, one of the kids said “thank you”. That made me happy. A few months ago, it was one of the little girls’ b-day. I bought b-day gift for her as my younger daughter used to go to the same elementary school with them, and they took the same school bus. One day the two little girls probably took the advice from their grandma Ms. R, came bye and said “thank you for the gift”. That made my day too.
Some random thoughts: it was probably in Christmas night of 2002 I slided into a ditch when I was driving on highway 270 near 370. Quite a few drivers stopped and tried to help. But they cannot get me (my car) out of snow ditch. I called AAA eventually and I gave the tow truck driver $5 tip.
My two kids wanted to watch the classic Christmas movie Grinch on Peacock but the big TV (LG TV) seems doen’t have the Peacock app. So they are watching on the computer (MacBook Air). Meanwhile, I need to practice both Guitar and Piano.
Last few days I was teaching my older daughter to drive. We were practicing at the parking lot I taught my wife about 16 years ago. And so far so good.
Reading Time: 7 minutes
I have many thanksgiving holidays in the USA. Let me count from 1997 to 2025, with the exception of 2019 I spent all the Thanksgiving holidays here in those years.
In 2019 I took a trip to China to see my parents, and my big brother and his family back home: United Airlines STL/PVG roundtrip via ORD, leave on Wed, Nov 27, 2019 and return on Sat, Dec 07, 2019. Back then there were 2 nonstops flights between ORD and PVG daily, those flights were suspended since 2020 pandemic, and hasn’t resumed so far. 2020 pandemic quickly happened (January 2020) and impacted travel, shortly after I returned to the US.
I spent total 28 Thanksgiving holidays here – calculation goes like this:
2025 – 1997 = 28; 28 + 1 (this will make sure we include 1997) – 1 (2019) = 28
Early years 1997 to 1999
In the early years, when I was a graduate student in Rolla (Missouri S&T, 1997 to 1999/2000), I had a host family, the Stoltz family in Rolla, and they had a tradition going to Jefferson City, because their friend and relative Mel Carnahan was the governor of Missouri. And they brought us along 🙂 It was quite eye opening for me, as I was new to the states. I went to there twice, at least, with the Stoltz family. Yes we went to the Governor’s Mansion. A few summers ago, we went to the Jefferson city for a tour, and I can barely remember some of the places there, including the Governor’s Mansion as well as the state capitol.
After Rolla
Black Friday was a thing then, I also attended quite a few friends gathering here in STL, or friendsGiving (Wikipedia) in today’s term.
Re: black Friday, I saw people (friends) bought the newspaper, and looked at the deals in the inlets (ads), some will literrally camped outside the Best Buy or Walmart stores overnight. And in extreme cases, people stamped into each other when the store door opened, and there were casualties. I know it’s crazy but I am trying to just tell it like a journalist would do.
Another year (2005) I actually spent Thanksgiving on the road, I took a flight from STL to the St. Francisco bay area, to spend holiday with my brother and his family. There were only 3 passengers on the plane that has capacity of more than 100. It was probably a McDonell Douglas MD-95 plane rebranded as a Boeing 717 later on. And the airplane was quite cold – both because of lack of passengers inside, as well as the cabin temperature was not set high.
Work
One year I actually worked on Thanksgiving day, I believe it was 2006, when I was single. I don’t have any complaints, because I didn’t have anything better to do then. But let me emphasize, try to do the work only if absolutely necessary, or if you are bored if like I was in Thanksgiving 2006.
Because one year (2017 or 2018 when I was working for MC) I fought with my wife, again you may realized it’s mostly my fault, and for trivial stuff. But one factor I was upset was because I worked for 2 out of 4 days break in that thanksgiving holiday (it was expected at my job then at MC, refer to “非养老公司” section).
Recent years
Turkey trot: I run quite a few Turkey Trot at Olivette, since year 2018 (need to look up my races history and my blog post).
Kids will make dinner today
Just like last year. This year our 11 year old our younger daughter is taking the charge, I believe last year it was our old daughter who was leading. They both cooked American traditional style Thanksgiving dinner 🙂
One thing I liked about the holiday here is they sell See’s candies in stores. At normal time we can only buy them online or at Kansas City (more below). Macy’s at West County mall has them: the West County mall also has a popup store in the hallway of 1st floor – at the best spot in terms of foot traffic. I remember a few years ago we visited Kansas City during thanksgiving holiday and we stopped by the Nebraska Furniture Mart which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway (so is See’s Candies). I bought a few boxes of See’s candies there including the peanut brittle. We all liked it a lot. Personally I don’t buy much else on holidays – so does my wife. Kids like to buy a bit more than us – which I fully understand and support. The Christmas 🎅 here is equivalent to the lunar new year 🧧 when my wife and I grew up – we always get new clothes and 压岁钱🧧. It seems yesterday when our older daughter was crying (scared by the Santa) at a place like 图三。It was probably only 2 years ago when she asked me: dad, can we stop pretending all these Santa Clauses and elf all these nonsense for our younger daughter S6 (her little sis), because it’s getting harder and harder to make the 4th grader to believe? I said sure 👍. Just on the record, our older daughter S8 figured out herself that we are the real Santa when she was a 2nd grader [捂脸]. I guess my wife and I didn’t try harder enough and S8 is also very smart。
光阴似箭，我查了一下：陈慧娴原唱的港乐经典千千阕歌是我高中毕业去上大学那一年首发的；江珊原唱的梦里水乡是我大学毕业🎓的第二年发行的。今年陈慧娴60岁了- 可以退休了，陈姐，把机会尽量留给年轻人吧 – 当然如果你来北美巡演，说不定我就来给你捧场。江珊到年底就58岁了。我自己有时也在考虑我啥时候退休呢：我现在估计到60岁左右肯定是要退的[捂脸][呲牙]