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advice and tips car

Our car seats

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Now we have 2 kids (one 7 month old baby, one almost 5), we also got quite a few car seats. First the infant car seats, we got a Graco snug and ride car seat for Serenity our old daughter. Something like this one, the seat has travelled to China and is still at her grandpa’s home. We are reusing the base with similar Graco car seat we got for younger daughter Sophia.

Graco_broad_street

Looking back not buying the travel system like we got for sophia is a mistake. Because travel system is quite handy.

graco_travel_system

For toddler car seats, we got 2: the cheaper evenflo and the more expensive britax.

everflo

britax-2010-boulevard-cs-convertible-car-seat-in-moonstone-9

We like both: the former is smaller and easy to move around, the latter is sturdy. All these seats are easy to fit in my cars: 2001 nissan altima, 2006 subaru forester, 2012 camry and sienna.

I will talk about boost seat in the future 🙂

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Software development

Is pair programming worth the hassle?

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I have been doing programming for over 14+ years, and from time to time I did pair programming (mostly debugging problem). Since early last year I have been doing more pairing, mostly due to the hints from above. I have mixed feeling on this, mostly along the lines of advantages of disadvantages talked about here by Mark Weldon.

Quote Mark here, “When you pair program, you’re effectively joined at the hip with your pair. You can’t pair if only one of you is there. This means that you both come into work at the same time, you both take lunch at the same time, you both take breaks at the same time, and you both leave at the same time. The work is so concentrated that you work 8-hour days (which is good). But you can’t take time off without affecting your pair. Working from home is possible, but it’s obviously not as pairy as sitting beside one another…” I have very similar feeling here. Mark is probably an experienced developer. I also did a google search, saw other people with different background shared their thoughts on pair programming (manningdigital, a CS student). Mark also talked about the personality clash, essentially one developer with strong will (or more stubborn gets her/his way), which is also echoed by other 2.

Curious about this topic, and don’t want to limit by the google, I came to quora, and searched this topic. I came up with Is pair programming worth the trade off in engineering resources and Does Pair Programming really work.

And I saw this from the legendary coder Kent Beck, he suggested it works when

“The problem space is big and unknown. You don’t know what exact problem you are solving and the probability is high that any solution you find will change your understanding of the problem.
The solution space is big and unknown. You are working with technology you don’t fully understand and the chances are that any solution you find will change your understanding of what constitutes an effective solution.
You need to build relationships on a team…”

I think that’s where I agree with on pair programming at this time.

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car

The rodents are back to my Sienna Minivan

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I talked about this last year, in this post and that post. The bad news is, they are back. Couple weeks ago, when I went to dealership and install the new battery on Sienna, the service advisor mentioned there are some biting on the cables, and I said “yeah I know, last year I have been here 3 times to fix the squirrel biting cable problem”. Looking back they already visited this year (2015).

My wife noticed the problem on Thursday afternoon when she saw the check engine and “Trac Off” light are on. So I brought the minivan to dealership on Friday, and they were able to fix it on Saturday. Needless to say, I am annoyed again. Service advisor’s advice is to put moth ball in the hood. This was essentially what I did last year. Not fail-safe and there is this moth ball smell which could be harmful to human. I did a little more research and reading (1, 2, 3), but I have not seen a perfect solution. Another possibility is the laundry dryer sheet, or spicy sauce. I may try the dryer sheet tomorrow. Here I wanted to summarize some of the possible approaches to prevent the rodents coming back. I hope this might be helpful for people in similar situation like me, last year once I recall the service advisor told me a customer came back multiple times due to this problem, in other words I am not alone.

1) Use repellent such as spicy sauce, moth ball (this is unproven and has side effect according to some);

2) Power wash the engine compartment, to get rid of the smell from rodents’ previous visits. Note there is different opinions on this topic (see one discussion here). I also noticed Waterway Car Cash offers this service. I never did that before and don’t know how they do this.

3) Don’t park in the same spot when parking outside. Keep in mind do this both in winter and spring: the rodents get in in winter because it’s warmer inside, and they chew the cable for fun, in spring it’s mating season for squirrel, the make nest there.

4) Last but not least, trade in the problem car or minivan. I did give it some thought, and I think if the problem persists, and since I could not buy a townhouse/single family house with car garage, that’s one option I may pursue.

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advice and tips

Yoyo got sick : some thoughts on seeing doctors in the US

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(2-6-15) So I guess this is common phenomena in 2 kids family. My older daughter recovered, and my younger daughter got sick.

(2-2-15) Yoyo got sick today. She has been coughing for a while, mostly dry cough, but it got worse last few days, and last night (this morning) she just could not fell back to sleep due to cough. Took her to see the pediatrician early morning as they now have walk-in option between 7:30 ~ 8:30 am for urgent (acute) condition. Personally I feel this is a bit like Urgent care centers. The cost is also the same ($50 per visit, this varies by insurance I think).

From Yoyo and my own experience, I felt seeing doctors in the US is really a hassle. In recent years I felt sometimes it’s more convenient to visit urgent care if it’s a really acute condition. Because to see regular doctor, we need to make appointment, and by the time we go to appointment, sometimes we already got better. But I think there is still benefits with regular doctors, in terms of medical records, and knowledge of medical conditions. More recently with my never ending cough, I feel a need for us to have more knowledge on medicine and health, as this is really our own body, and we have the most stake.

Also, not to pick on any one, just like to talk about the efficiency of this healthcare system. So the doctor prescribed something and since the nurse verified the pharmacy in the beginning, I did not ask for the paper prescription when we left: assume there will be an electronic message from the doctor to the pharmacy. Apparently it got lost. So when I went to Schnucks, and ask for it, they told me they did not receive anything. So I had to call the doctor office again, talk to receptionist. She told me nurse will call me back. I waited for a while, got the call. Verified with the pharmacist again, he said he got it. But appears he still need to dial a number to verify. About 15 to 20 minutes later, I finally got the medicine for Yoyo. The medicine (anti-biotic) is free, courtesy of Schnucks.

Last but not least, I recall when Yoyo was little (probably a year and half old), she got fever, and I could literally hear she breeze hard when she laid on the bed. Not a good feeling from a father’s perspective. She is much bigger now. Today even she got fever in the evening, her activity level is almost same as usual, her only complaints is she got headache and stomachache 🙁

Categories
advice and tips finance Fun

Got CT Scan yesterday

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I have been coughing for over a year. It’s very hard to get insurance pre-authorization to get CT scan in the US, according to my primary care doctor. She said if I am willing to self-pay, it’s not too expensive. So yesterday I took the plunge, I went to Metro Imaging directly, paid the fee from my credit card, and got my scan. I used to see this CT scanner on movie/TV, and see my daughter Yoyo did it once. Now it’s my turn. A bit of mixed feeling though as I did not want to hear the bad news. The scanner looks something like this. It’s also interesting I used to work for Siemens 🙂

Siemens CT Scanner

The good news is the results is negative (I got results right away, I think this is the way medical testing should be). The bad news is I still need to figure out why the cough persists? There are two theories: allergy or acid reflux (from stomach to throat).

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    Categories
    iPhone app

    2014 Year in review

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    I was a bit late doing this, but I think better late than never.

    Family and Personal Finance
    We had baby (girl) No. 2 in the summer, baby Sophia is healthy and happy for the most part. I had to be honest, having 2nd kid is not as thrilling as the 1st.

    With the birth of new baby, we had some more challenges to make sure baby No. 1 is happy. We have achieved this to large extent. With some caveats (see below). It’s almost unthinkable that Serenity will start kindergarden in the fall. Time flies. Enjoy it while we can. Leave the iDevices/mac if I can.

    On personal finance front, I felt stretched a bit after the cost associated with new baby (hospital bill, etc.) and the preschool tuition for my older daughter. So in Sept. I made a painful decision to transfer Serenity to the preschool at church, which will save us some money. Initially I tried to bite the bullet and started some financial engineering such as refinance the mortgage (to get some cash). But it was not enough.

    Reflect on my own mistakes on personal finance, mostly on playing the stock market, and over spend on things such as organic milk. I felt not very good. But again better late than never. I started shopping more on Aldi’s and try to control the discretionary spending. Also, for the stock market part, noticing the fall of oil and the DRIP (dividend re-investing program), I decided to put some money in Exxon Mobile Drip program. I also think about the performance of my self managed IRA account vs. the other 401k/Rollover IRA accounts managed passively (all mutual funds managed by professional money managers).

    Career
    I did not change job in the last year, hopefully I can stay at current place longer than past few years (change job almost yearly, see my year 2013 review, year 2012 review). Another important thing to consider is the feel of being challenged and learn new things, plus work/life balance.

    Another interesting point is, since my wife seeing the benefits of the programmer job, and she is taking care of baby No. 2 full time now, she is thinking about learning java in her spare time. So hopefully we will have another IT professional in our household soon 🙂

    Continue reading “2014 Year in review”
    Categories
    advice and tips finance

    Missed Allgiant Air ALGT

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    I was doing some soul searching on investment recently. And I came across this Allgiant ALGT. I traded it on its IPO at $25 12-08-2006. It’s trading at $158 as of today 01-13-2015 (about 8 years later). Why did not hold on this winner while trading the other losing stock named Heelys???

    (click on the image to enlarge)

    ALGT_ipo_120806

    ALGT_price_01_13_2015

    Categories
    advice and tips kids

    Couple deals : Charmin bath tissue and Huggies diaper

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    Charmin and Bounty at Target
    $4.50 off regular price for 30 double rolls, $5 eGiftcard when one buy 2 (can mix and match). Here is the link to get to Charmin. Use Target Redcard to get 5% off and free shipping.

    Huggies Snug and Dry Plus at Costco
    $6 off large box (was $38.99 for size 3), here is the link to size 3. I ordered one box a week ago, and it arrived today. So far it seems work for my younger daughter. I recall we used mostly this diaper from Costco for our elder daughter. This promotion runs till Jan 25. Limit 2 boxes per order. Costco offers free shipping for this.

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      advice and tips kids

      Diapers, diapers, diapers

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      Baby Sophia is almost 5 months old, and she is on size 3 diaper (16 to 28 lbs). I recall she was born at 7 lbs and 3 oz, quickly reach 10 lbs which also outgrew new born size diaper. Similar thing happened to size 1 diaper, she reached 14 lbs at 2 month mark, and now we have both new born and size 1 surplus diapers 🙂

      Things slowed a bit since 2 month, she was about 15.5 lbs at 4 month checkup. Nonetheless we used all size 2 diapers (12 to 18 lbs), and started size 3 (16 to 28 lbs).

      As to diaper brands and type, we used huggies natural new born, pampers swaddler new born, huggies snug and dry size 1, a store brand size 1, huggies little smuggler size 2, and pampers swaddler size 3.

      Thinking switch to huggies snug and dry size 3 in the future, that’s what our elder daughter had most of time, and it sells for $39 per 210 at Costco. A bit cheaper than pampers swaddler.

      Categories
      advice and tips Fun

      How to set bluetooth on Toyota Sienna minivan

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      2012 LE, basic radio.

      Set the language from Spanish to English
      (it says Corolla, but it works for Sienna as well, as they have very similar audio equipments).

      Setup bluetooth

      My tip: so I followed the instruction 1 and set up bluetooth audio for my iPhone 5s with the minivan, and later on I tried to add the bluetooth phone, and I was not successful during the step where the phone tries to connect to the bluetooth audio (car multi-media). The fix is to forget the car multi-media in the iPhone, and set up again for both phone and audio (“device type” in the car audio prompt).

      (update 03-12-15) I had to pair my iPhone 5s bluetooth again with sienna, after iOS 8.1.3 update. Forgot this “forgot the car multi-media” tip initially 🙂 Note again select “phone setup” and “interior bluetooth audio”, this way it will work both for phone and audio.