stlplace

Category: Life

  • Year 2013 in review

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    Job
    I changed too much. Three W-2 in one year. I hope to stick with my current employer for a while.

    Family
    Our daughter grew up quickly. She brings us joy that words can not be easily described. And frustration sometimes, too. I think patience is very important being parent. Near the year end, we have some exciting news, as my writing (couple days ago Jan 14, 2014 we knew we will welcome a new baby girl in this July ๐Ÿ™‚

    iOS apps
    I did update the myNestEgg app, after 2 years, from iOS 3.1.2 to iOS 7. And I released a new app “To Market ~ farmers market around St. Louis”, this is a free iOS app. I am experimenting some new features there.

    Stocks
    I was looking at my stock trades in last few years. I realized year 2012 is not good, while 2013 is ok (has not beat market in my Scottrade IRA brokerage account because again I tried to do too much). Looking back a bit more, in year 2010 I made some mistakes on Palm and other stocks, in 2012 it was the Coal stocks (ACI and ANR). It seems I tend to lose money on high volatile cheap stocks (the former high flyer etc, hope it goes back).

    The more I think about it, as I was also reading “year 2012 in review“. Once again I am thinking if I can not beat the market, I should pick the index fund, or go with the fund manager I believe in (Steve Romick). His FPA Crescent has done very well for me in last 4 years.

    (01-23-2014) I gave it more thought after seeing Logitech (LOGI) jumped more than 20% this morning on beat estimates on earning, and on the news its transition from PC mouse to iPad keyboard worked out. I bought the stock a year ago at about 7.50, hold it only a day. Similar can be said for Logmein (LOGM), which also more than doubled in a year (I owned more LOGM at one time). Anyway, have faith on bad news, though near term when looking back, at the time it’s not easy.

    (02-06-14) This annual review is partially inspired by Kirby Turner (whitepeaksoftware.com), congrats to Kirby on his 10 years anniversary of his company. I met him once at an iOS conference in 2010 and was impressed by his iOS/Mac knowledge.

    I also recall Kyle Richter talk about doing iOS consulting at RayWenderlich.com to be interesting.

  • 2012 Year in Review

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    I took this cue from Kurby Turner, the independent Mac/iOS developer, as I think it might be helpful to reflect a year’s work, life, effort, etc. As the old Chinese saying goes “Ji Wang Kai Lai” (learn from past, and look forward to the future).

    New job: Software Development
    Today is my one year anniversary at my new employer. Looking back, from the initial ramp up to more comfortable work on my own pace, and then deliver the first iOS (iPad) app to the field, back end work, report work and support. I feel good about my effort and the support I got from my coworkers. Sometimes my wife will ask me “why it took so long for you to complete a project”? Because it’s not trivial to do it.

    I also wrote a few blog posts on iOS app development, and the back end (.Net) web service. I plan to do the same as times goes. Generally speaking, now I have more confidence doing customized app development, full life cycle, and from front to back end (all tiers).

    Family
    Our daughter goes to the Hope Montessori Infant Toddler Community at Creve Coeur (off Manson road, near Olive Blvd). We are truly blessed with the teachers and staffs at the Hope family (I consider them as family, both adults and children, because sometimes they are better than family ๐Ÿ™‚ . Serenity (Yoyo) learned English and all kinds of things there, which laid a good foundation for her future. For us, we learned parenting lessons there. Sometimes I wonder how much quality time I spent there, from afternoon pickup, to field trip, to social (work-day, Fettuccine, Montessori and Vino, the FMV movie). We watched the FMV movie with great fun, my wife and my friends (couple) did not attend the FMV event, and really enjoyed the movie after I showed them.

    Trips
    We did one family vacation, and I had 2 business trips in year 2012. We went to Orange Beach, Alabama in the Memorial Day weekend, with Chinese friends. We drove there. It’s funny Yoyo would not go to bathroom on the road, she wants to use bathroom in the hotel or condo (destination). For the business trip, I visited 2 mines in West Virginia, the 2 hours I spent in underground mine is both interesting and a bit unsettling. That’s the first time I visited mines (both surface and underground). In November I visited Las Vegas, stayed in Palazzo (Venetian), which I stayed 3 years ago when I attended AU (Autodesk University, the developer/user conference) in 2009.

    Personal Finance
    As I wrote this post, I found I made both good moves and bad moves on this topic. I did well in 401k accounts (because I did nothing). But not in the Scottrade brokerage and IRA accounts (because I tried to do too much). Overall I still did ok, because majority of my assets are in 401k (both existing accounts and new account).

    Today (01-03-2012) as I listened to Charlie Ellis on the Consuelo WealthTrack podcast, I can not agree more on one comment from Charlie: we all strive to be above average in school or at work. In investing being average is actually not too bad. I understand what meant: 80% of mutual funds perform below average (the index), hedge fund and individual investors are not doing better. So in other words, being average is actually in the top 20% ๐Ÿ™‚

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  • Baby is one year old

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    Serenity birthday cake
    Serenity birthday cake

    Quite a few changes lately. The most obvious one, is she likes to talk, which is opposite to her parents (we both don’t talk much). The most common words out of her mouth is “ma ma”, “ba ba” (Chinese words for dad), and more recently something like “done”.

    She started to pull up to stand a few months ago, more recently she can move around a table or sofa (where she can finds support). Still, when we put her in the middle of nowhere, she will drop to ground, almost immediately. Maybe we should teach her to work a bit harder ๐Ÿ™‚

    Learned quite a bit from the past year, some important ones include:
    1) Be patient: obviously baby sometimes could be unpredictable, for instance, they cry for no apparent reason sometimes. From my experience, baby cries for reason most of the time, if parents are patient enough, they can find out reason (hungry, want to sleep, baby did not get the thing he/she wants, last but not least got sick).

    2) Be happy, don’t worry too much. When I am saying this, I think sometimes I worried too much too. My wife is a typical worried-too-much mom. In recent days she was worried baby’s right eye looks smaller than the left eye, after her eye lid got hit by car door slightly. The doctor did not see any problem during annual exam, and luckily today everything looks normal now, and my wife is happy. BTW, I think my wife spent 10 times effort on baby in last year compared to my effort.

    3) Sleep and weight. Baby still prefers be with mommy in the night, she will cry if she cannot see mom and it’s harder for her to fall asleep. This changed a bit in last 2, 3 days as she can fall asleep on her own (not crying for mom all the time).

    Weight is a bigger headache, ever since the initial birth weight of 7 lbs (50%), she went as high as 79% in first 2 months, then starts to drop, 35% at 9 month exam, and 23% at one year exam. We probably need to pay more attention on her food and eating habits.

  • Fazoli’s

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    fazoli's pic

    Fazoli’s is fast Italian food restaurant chain. I used to work at a company where there is a nearby Fazoli’s. It’s became my preferred lunch place, after I went there a few times with co-worker (and order Chicken Caesar Sandwich only, because in the beginning I don’t eat pastas, being from China I eat noodles instead).

    Today I went there again for lunch, and was very surprised and happy to see a familiar face: a Thai lady who used to work there and I got to know over the years.

    Life becomes more interesting and rewarding, when we meet old friends unexpected ๐Ÿ™‚

    BTW, Fazoli’s menu and utensil got a face lift too, they got rid of the cheap plastic utensils, use the real plate and forks instead. The only thing missing, is I no longer see the old article (1990s) introducing the Fazoli’s as “Italian Food, Fast” concept, maybe they lost it during renovation.

  • Felt blessed: looking back at 2010

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    It’s Christmas eve 2010. Baby already fell asleep. Wife is tweaking her new Toshiba R705 laptop, and I was reading some Navigation controller stuff while watching TV (PBS Christmas program, KMOV news).

    This year is obviously one of the most significant years in my 13 years stay in this country. In early March, we got a baby girl. Before that I changed job after 15 months stint at a decent size software company. Things did not work out as good as I thought in Oct/Nov 2008 (the middle of financial crisis). The good thing is, after some hard work and luck, I got a new job at local software company, and got to do what like to do.

    In July I signed up the Apple iOS developer program, paid the $99 annual fee and became more seriously on iOS app development. I have thought about it and bought Macbook and iPhone 3G back in Jan 2009, but between my old job, our expectation of baby, and my shear inaction, I did not get to finish the Beginning iPhone Development book in 2009. I started fresh again in 2010 (got the new iPhone 3 dev book, for one). Since the birth of baby, I felt more and more the importance of spending time with family. I think iOS app dev gave me a decent shot at this desire. In middle Oct. I went to the city of brotherly love Philadelphia (again, I went there in May with my in-laws), for the Voice that Matter iPhone dev conference. I think I learned quite a few things there, besides technology, there is design and the business of going indie, which both are important to me (being from developer background).

    Looking forward, baby is growing much faster than I thought, especially since she started to crawl and stand. She likes my gadgets (iPhone, iPad, and macbook), much more than her own vtech laptop. I hope I can spend more time with her before she grows up.

  • 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 ๐Ÿ™‚

    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.

  • The missing iPhone

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    By now all the people who are into gadgets should have heard about this iPhone Gizmodo gate: this is apple’s next iPhone .

    I don’t know about the fate of this Apple engineer, as Gizmodo did not say a word about him/her (Why Apple Couldn’t Get the Lost iPhone Back). I hope he/she won’t get fired for this (assume this whole thing is not an Apple stunt). Because a while ago, if we recall, a young Chinese engineer died from iPhone leak(HuffingtonPost: Sun Danyong, Chinese Engineer, Kills Himself After Losing ‘4G’ iPhone Prototype).

    After all, life is much more important than stupid iPhone, if we can put things in perspective.

  • We got a baby girl

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    She was born in St. John’s Mercy Medical center St. Louis, labor room 5, at 6:55 AM CST, on May 5 2010 (Friday). She weighs 7 pounds (3.15 kg). Mom and baby were both doing fine. Obviously our lives changed forever since her arrival. For me personally, I need to worry about two people instead of one; and vice versa. The first 2 days at hospital after baby born is a bit overwhelming. Things calmed down quite a bit after the initial panic. And I think we both become more confident about taking care of baby as time goes: diaper change, swaddle, and feed the baby (for my wife).

    Babies are fun
    They are a million times fun than iPhone, or at least a thousand times fun than computer programming. Maybe my wife will disagree with me on this one. Nowadays because I work in office (instead of home), I see my baby only in early morning and evening, so I tried to spend some quality time with her (like changing diaper and burp). It seems to me our baby has some change everyday. The first 24 hours is obviously very sleepy. After that she is more active, besides the cries every baby does, I can see her smile a little from yesterday.

    Some trivia stuff
    A year ago this time (March 5, 6 and 9) is the 10 year low of US stock market (Dow Jones stock index).

    I found some iPhone apps for baby: like this one “baby brain” and “total baby” (available at iTune app store), both tracks baby diaper change and feeding, among other things. I thought about this when my wife started write those information on a notebook (although she has iPhone).

  • Happy Chinese New Year & start new job next week

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    First want to say “Happy Chinese New Year” to my readers. Chinese (lunar) New Year, the year of tiger, starts on Feb 14, 2010.

    Gong Xi Fa Cai

    Today is my last working day with my current employer. I switched to my current job about 15.5 months ago, in the middle of financial crisis (what an co-incident). I recall in last Chinese New Year’s day I was on road for business (the downside of consultant job). Obviously there is upside of working as consultant too (see different people and places; working from home, again Pros and Cons there).

    I will start my new job on Monday Feb 15. Another co-incidence is my next employer and my first employer starts with same syllabus.

    BTW, an excellent YouTube video on “how to quit with class” (saw it from Workopolis first).

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  • Does multitasking work (I)?

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    One big complaints on the new iPad is its lack of multitasking support. From technical perspective, I think that’s because iPad will be use iPhone OS, currently at 3.2 beta, and it does not support multitasking. It does support iPod (listening to music) and another task such as browsing web though. Some developers speculate Apple will support multitask in its iPhone OS 4.0.

    Oh well, my point here is not just about iPhone/iPad multitasking. My point is trying to discuss whether multitasking, work both for us human beings and for the computers (ultimately controlled by us and supposed to help us work more efficiently). To be honest I don’t have the answer. But I read one interesting article when I google “multitasking makes you stupid”. I did not intensionally typed in those words, it just stands out when I typed “multitasking” in my browser google toolbar (another one is multitasking myth). Anyway, here are an interesting article from the Atlantic (2007)

    The Autumn of the Multitaskers
    and here an review article on the Atlantic article.
    Multitasking Makes You Slow and Stupidโ€ฆ(I would read this one after the Long Atlantic article).

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