Reading Time: 2 minutes That is the S&P 500 index funds. This is similar to Warren Buffett’s recommendation. He actually has more recommendations beyond stocks or bonds. Anyway, I think for most people who are still in the wealth accumulation stage (I think most people before retirement is in this category), low cost stock index funds, plus some low

Reading Time: 2 minutes Old blog post back in year 2006, I believe I wrote it 2 days after meeting my wife. We didn’t meet at Starbucks though, we met at a tea place at the Zhongshan Park and later was changed to a bank. I used to drink a lot more Starbucks and I recall about 10 years

Reading Time: 3 minutes and I got to learn how to connect the water supply to the fridge’s water dispenser/ice maker. We bought the fridge from Costco. Our old one eventually gave up last week (between Thursday and Sunday). I recall I talked about it here (this “GE Refrigerator Ice Maker not working” section). And on Sunday when I

Reading Time: < 1 minute 我的小女儿经常说的一个口头禅是如上的标题。这个好像也是my better half （aka 也就是我太太)有时头疼的一个问题。我觉得吃或者饥饿也是人的本性之一吧。我自己总的来说应该是没有因为经济的原因，在小时候饿过肚子。我太太应该也没有（她也是浙江人）。有一次我闯了一个不大不小的祸：小朋友玩捉迷藏，我好像躲在那个油菜的杆子后面，后来那家人说他们那个还有菜籽（可以榨油的那种油菜籽，canola oil), 我爸爸妈妈可能陪了他们五毛钱(no pun intended, for real)。那个时候我爸爸的月工资大概是50块钱，也就是我的错误大概是我爸爸月收入的1%。比我十三岁女儿最近的iPhone事故稍好些。那天晚饭我不敢回家吃饭，后来我的哥哥把我叫回去了。一般来说，再大的事不影响吃饭。那时候还有一个大人经常用来吓唬小孩的故事：浪费粮食，打雷的时候雷公会打的。后来在美国，我的美国host mom(她四八年生人，我不是住在他们家，但是他们对我刚来美国有很大帮助，以后会单独写），她的妈妈在她们小时候经常说：finish what’s on your plate, because in China and India a lot of pepiple are staving. 让我又想到小时候的台湾人民生活在水深火热之中，后来在美国碰到台湾人，好像他们也这么说。 我是七十年代初在浙江东北部农村长大，相对来说应该是较富的农村。但是还是很怀念过年或是暑假去我外婆（大舅小舅家的日子）。我可能是比较贪吃的人。我想起来，我五年级，我小哥初二，他有一次开玩笑说我肚子里有馋虫。我将信将疑，可能有点像我九岁的小女儿（四年级）不久前对圣诞老人的相信程度吧 🙂 还记得有一次，我在镇海中学上学，我大舅来镇海（城关镇），他的学生（我一般叫她阿姨，因为她也是我妈妈的朋友，我妈妈比我大舅小十几岁），叫我一起去吃晚饭。虽然当时我已经在学校食堂吃过饭了。我就去她家吃了个十二分饱 🙁 很多年以后，严格来说也就是在我年过半百的时候，我才慢慢意识到，在我现在这个年龄，吃饭最好最好吃个7️⃣分饱。亡羊补牢为时不晚。Better late than never. 小时候，好像总的来说，肉比较少，有时候好像要凭票。牛肉更少，好像生产队偶尔会分牛肉：我印像中一般可能是耕牛（干活的牛）可能老死了。顺便说一下，我骑过一次牛，我应该很小，还没上学，我的叔叔给生产队放牛（不是亲叔叔，但是比较近）把我放在牛背上，感觉牛背很高（多年以后我后来在美国骑过一会马，感觉有点类似）。公公（叔叔的爸爸）很能干，我现在还记得在他家吃的高粱饼的味道。我们那里一般大家不怎么种高粱，印像中高粱主要是北方种得多一些。偶尔我们也会到邻居阿嫂家蹭东西吃：比如寒假暑假里，我们爸爸妈妈要上班，阿嫂做得东西很好吃。当然，可能还有一个原因，就是跟”neighbor’s yard is greener” 类似的道理。有一次，还听说一个笑话。事情是这样的：有一家在做“汤锅”，就是没有馅的小圆子，另一家正好经过，就开玩笑说等一下做好了，就来吃晚饭吧。主人就说好的。我估计这个客人的智商可能跟我小时候的智商差不多，因为她们后来真的穿着漂亮衣服，去吃晚饭了。 为什么提到我的智商呢，其实严格来说应该是情商，就是察言观色的水平，英文叫read the room, or read/listen between the lines。就是有一次，我大概是我小女儿现在的年纪，春节期间去我爸的亲戚家做客，他的表哥家，我爸的姨娘（也就是我奶奶的姐姐）也在，他们拿出了所有的好菜。结果，我可能把我姨婆/大伯家的黄鱼给撬了。后来知道有的菜主人可能就一份，不能随便撬的 🙁 我的大哥小哥可能把我好好笑话了一下。我记得这是我去唯一一次去大伯家做客。我爸爸可能后来有去的：我倒不是觉得是因为我撬了不该撬的菜。我估计主要还是春节期间我们一般会去外婆（小舅家）住几天。也有去过外婆家旁边的姑婆家：应该是我妈妈/舅舅的姑妈，和我妈妈的表哥家。我记得有一次（我应该比我小女儿现在还小），我在公共汽车站，说口渴，我外婆就走到相对较近的姑婆家给我去倒了水喝。小时候去外婆家，坐车，走路都有。我小时候有时会觉得，如果我“聪明”一点（用现在流行的话来说情商高一点），我的肩膀上可能跟两个哥哥一样是三条杠（而不是两条了）。这个可能在现在看来很好笑，但当时是我真实的想法。我后来有一次还真的拿到了三条杠，可惜时间不长，因为我五年级很快转学了：也就“削官为民” 🙂 在我的外婆家（也就是大舅，小舅家）没有这个不能撬菜的讲究。八零后九零后出生的朋友们可能会没听说过”拿出来装样子的菜“：生活水平后来慢慢上去了。还有一个，后来也是听朋友提起，就是重男轻女，女生先不上桌。这个可能现在也好多了。外婆可能还是重男轻女的，比如说她会让我的表妹（跟我同岁）帮我洗衣服，等等，但是总的来说还好。春节在我外婆家的主要任务就是吃吃吃。我现在想起来她有时会问我们，早上，coffee time (宁波话想不起来了),

Reading Time: < 1 minute Yesterday (11-24-2023) was Black Friday, and I think I haven’t done shopping on BF for a while. Until this year. We did a bit BF shopping, mainly for our 13 year old as she was interested. She seems know some of the deals including the Bose bluetooth headset (Costco has $120 off deal). I didn’t

Reading Time: 4 minutes Surviving as an IT, especially a software developer contractor is not easy, from my personal experience and observations. I have mostly been an employee (sometimes people call it full-time), with a few stints as a contractor (my LinkedIn profile here). I worked as a contractor mostly because I needed to bring bread (or bacon) home,

Reading Time: 6 minutes What is it? (overview) It’s a “practice and timed test combo” for math fact, plus some word problems (problem solving). It’s owned by Diana D and she has run this program in the area for about 18+ years. Some people may compare it with Kumon, Mathnasium etc. I don’t have much knowledge on the latter.

Reading Time: 3 minutes I think this is true for my 13-year-old. Yesterday evening I gave my 2-year-old iPhone 12 to her after I migrated everything to my new iPhone 15. And she was happy to see the missed text messages (friend’s b-day party invitations), and the never-ending YT Shorts 🙂 Again I am thankful that she accidentally broke

Reading Time: 2 minutes I hope so. Last October the Costco U city opened, Oct 25, 2022 to be precise. A year later, we have a few more restaurants etc. opened, Raising Canes, Panera Bread, Chase Bank, Chipotle, and Chick-fil-A (open this Friday 11/17/23?). And now I walk around the area, I think it’s a notch above the fast

Reading Time: 3 minutes (Update 03-20-2024) The phone works great. But it seems I cannot get the Sim Lock to work. Also they only have 3 attempts: the 1st time I didn’t know what I was doing (I thought I was going to set it up), the 2nd time I followed the wrong advice from Google Gemini (the default