Category: Saint Louis

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Saint Louis

Back to St. Louis

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I came back to St. Louis today. The weekend San Jose trip was great; both the weather and everything else. I got to see the Montery Bay, which includes 17 miles drive and world famous Pebble beach (golf course). Not to mention the Chinese food etc. As a guy in the tech industry, I always have great respect for Sillicon Valley and its entrepreneurships. There are just too many familar names: from big players such as Yahoo, Sun Micro, Cisco, Adobe to smaller ones such as Tivo, Redback Networks, Foundry Networks, Hyperion…Today’s San Jose Mercury News featured a little known startup called PanDigital which makes the LCD picture frame: it has only about 10 people in San Jose, and it oursourced manufacturing and support to China and India respectively; it is expected to sell 50,000 units with $50 million revenue. The key component is a chip which stores and shows the digital photos. I started to appreciate the innovation of chip: software combined with hardware really make the difference in our digital lives.

St. Louis is cold, and still covered with snow. Tomorrow is going to be warmer.  

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Saint Louis

Snow Storm

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We had worst snow storm in my 6+ years stay in St. Louis. The thing makes life harder is the “sleeze”, or ice rain (instead of the snow). It freeze the car windows and doors quickly. I spent about one hour for normal 15 to 20 communte from work to home. This morning I spent another hour to scrap the ice on my car.

I also lost electrcity last night. This morning when I walked to Schnucks (the grocery store) for ice scraper, I noticed it is on its own generator.

====================================== 
Outage start date/time:   Thursday Nov 30, 2006 11:37 PM
Outage status:   Order is being investigated
Cause of outage:   Cause not yet determined
Estimated restoration time:   Not Available
Number of customers out:   112
=====================

On positive side, I tried to help pushing two cars last night. One van was successful, another car Ford Taurus not successful. I felt as good as I solved a hard problem when I saw the van made it out of icey driveway. So far I still see my plane to San Jose on schedule. I believe there are many cancellations from Chicago ORD and St. Louis Lambert airport these two days.

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Saint Louis

80 20 Rule

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I heard about this 80-20 rule from a friend a while ago. It says “we spend 20% of our effort to accomplish 80% of the things; and then we spend remaining 80% of the time & effort to complete the remaining 20%…” I think that pretty well summerize what I was doing at my work lately. I think I want to add more here: the second half is more tough sometimes. Because it seems just never ending.

OK, enough about whining. I am going to do something meaningful: read some SEC filings for the companies I am interested. I have not forget writing about Chinese software companies, will resume soon…

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Saint Louis

Happy Thanksgiving !!!

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I am watching the annual Thanksgiving parade in downtown St. Louis (from TV). The weather here is great. I went to Panera Bread and the newspaper is already gone (hint: people are gettting the newspaper ad. and do research about tomorrow’s shopping deals now). Of course you can get the electronic version from dealsea.com nowadays.

Seriously, I want to thank my family, friends and coworkers for the past year. Life is not easy from time to time, but with your support, I enjoyed a lot memorable moments and got more strength…    

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Saint Louis

What’s this

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Normally I had it in a “to-go” cup. This is the first time they put it in the glass cup.

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Fun Saint Louis

Some pictures from Wash U. Diwali

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Diwali is the most important festival in India. I went to the Indian students Diwali party here at Washington Univ, Olin school of business. This is the second time I went to the Diwali: the first one was 7 years ago (1999) when I was in graduate school at Rolla. I like the enthusiasm Indian students showing their cultures to people from other background. Although I still can not take their curry. By the way, the dean of Wash. U. b-school is originally from India.

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Saint Louis

Talent Election Party

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As promised I put some of the photos I took last night at Jim Talent election party. It’s interesting to see some young people (high school, college) to show up. The McLaskill photo was taken at my home TV.

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Business Saint Louis

Election

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By now I think most people are happy with the election being over. At least we don’t have to bear with the silly ads on the TV any more. While I am not a political junkie, I went to the Jim Talent’s US senate re-election party in Frontenac last night. I figured rather than watching the TV at home, why not join the party as I used to saw people (mostly supporters) gathering for their canidates. I just want to get a feel of election party, that’all. The reason I picked Talent’s party because it’s only 10 minutes drive for me (hint, I lived near republican strong hold, Ladue). Later on I learned that Mclaskill’s party offered free bear. There are many interesting people there; I will post pictures later on and let them do tht talk.

Wall Streets obviously did not like the Democrats taking over house (expected) and likely control of the senate (unexpected). But in my mind, other than those stocks heavily influenced by the goverment policies, i.e., drug, oil/gas, defense, health care, stem cell, alternative energy, most stocks are unaffected by this. Also, (little noticed), Wall Street’s biggest headache, Mr. Elliot Spitzer won the Governor race in New York. That means he will leave the Attorney General post. I bet many people in the Street will be very happy 🙂

On the immigration issue, it could be positive because Democrats are pro immigrants in general. This could means the revival of immigration reform bill currently deadlocked in congress. Note President Bush is for the bill. Can we expect getting Green Card faster? I would not speculate on it because it’s way too early to tell — note there are some conservative democrats got elected, and they could make things uncertain.

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Saint Louis

St. Louis International Film Festival

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I heard about the annual St. Louis International Film Festival every year, made a resolution to go there every year, but never made it. This year’s festival is coming, Nov 9 to 19. Here is the list of movies. There will be three Chinese movies, they are:

Stolen Life starring Zhou Xun (Saint Louis Art Museum Thursday, November 16, 2006 12:00 PM);

Summer Place (Plaza Frontenac #1 Tuesday, November 14, 2006 9:15 PM); 

Three Times (Plaza Frontenac #1 Tuesday, November 14, 2006 6:30 PM).

stolen life

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Saint Louis Travel

Cheap air ticket to Shanghai

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AA is doing a promotion of flight from US to Shanghai (PVG). A ticket from St. Louis to Shanghai is just $688 (before tax); the full ticket will be about $850 including tax. There are some restriction such as (from AA.com):

  • Reservations are required. Tickets must be purchased at least 7 days prior to departure or within 3 days of making reservations, whichever comes first, but no later than 11:59 p.m. November 2, 2006 (CST).
  • Fares are valid for outbound travel through February 10, 2007. Return travel must be completed by March 27, 2007.

    • But I think it’s still a good deal. This offer is good for most Midwest and Eastern US cities (transfer at Chicago).

    I remember when I took the China Eastern from Shanghai to St. Louis, the one-way ticket was about $700. Note at that time gas price was about 80 cents per gallon. Now with gas price at $2.00 (after the recent pull back), the air ticket to China is going at the other direction. No wonder the airline companies are not making money. One reason is the competition. Nine years ago there is no direct flight from Chicago to Shanghai. Now we have two daily flights. Anyway as a consumer I won’t complain. I just can not understand the airline stocks went up so much lately. I guess they are still making money 🙂