Jeep Liberty

I picked it up because I did not have much chance to drive a Jeep and the experience has never been great. so, with a short trip, picking a jeep seems optimal.
I have to say that it drives mostly ok if you don't want to drive it aggressively. I would never get used to its transmition. it seems tuned very wiredly. too much when you try to park but too less when you kick down the pedal on the highway.
the space is not great. it is just barely acceptable. I was making joke of this that it is sort of uncomfortable to drive on road so you would like to drive it offroad.
anyway, Jeep is Jeep. it has its brand name, history and prestige.

Buick LeSabre

just realize how long I had this note sitting here without sending it out. almost a month. that pretty much means I did not travel for about a month. I got to say that is a good thing. start to really enjoy the no-travel life. This is quite an old model. but driving it can tell what means 'American car'. the suspension is so soft that you actually feel you are rowing a boat.
the dashboard is not bad. but can say the things are really made cheaplly. it is not designed to be stylish. you probably can image this is the car for the old grandpa grandma.

Chevolet Malibu

Well, I got to say that recent driving of American cars did change some of my perceptions. I guess the newer generation of american car does catch up foreign cars a lot and seems improve a lot. or just because I am getting used to?
first, I have to say that I am not really interested in luxury car, except Hummer and Mercede CLK. I definitely more interested in mid price range, mid size car. Because car is the most popular ttansportation tool, a lot of people are using it to demostrate their social status, just like the girl's wearing Hemes and Prada on tokyo subway. But ultimately, car is just a transportation tool and that is why people drive it. so I definitely admire the companis who make car for driving more than the companies making car for other purposes.
anyway, the Malibu did run smoother than I expected. I intended pick a V6 version instead of normal one when selecting the car. the interior is properly arranged. nothing extraordinary.

Pontiac G6

I was sort of surprised about the horsepower and the smoothness I am getting from this engine. It seems better than the most US car I got so far. this makes me nervous since I do't have much chance to drive on highway and mostly are local roads. needto be extra cautious not speeding.
The handling is not bad too, even the steering is a little bit heavy and the car weight seems to have influence on mavourving.
the seating is lean to hard. and lack od some advance adjusting features like its japanese and europian competitors.
it is not that spacy. the room is sort of clamp. and the view is pretty narrow. tend to give you a feeling that ur actaully in a racing oriented car.
the exterior is good. do look like a muscle car One funny thing was that when picking up the car, they have two options, fresh hot red G6 and a dark grey one. the red one seemssaying 'Mr.policeman, I am here!' so I got the dark grey one.
just a little disappointing that the one I got did not equip with the signature full-open sky window. it was quite a attracting feature when G6 came out years ago. I remembered this is also the car that oprah gave to her audiences. anyway, sometimes I just feel her behaviors are odd. but just a little. mostly her thinking seems still following the tradition culture and ethic, which is much better than most folks in hollywood.

Chrysler PT Cruiser

one of the cars which I had thinking to drive at least once. It turned out ok. the engine is proper. not extremely powerful but not lack of juice. the sitting position is sort of high and made me a little bit uncomfortahble until I get used to.
it tried to make it classic. the external style is ok. particularly the one I am driving is black. but the interior is not. heavy plastic feeling and sort of cheap layout. it tried to add some walnut insert, but seems not helping much for me. I have no chance to try the backseat yet, but does not seem extremely spacy.
I am kind of confused bt the position of this car. except being classic, what is the characterisitics of this car? I don't see anything particular

Saturn VUE

Sort of odd looking car. probably because it is the first time I drive a saturn (or I just cannot remember it).
it was a pretty interesting that at the moment I sat into the cockpit and turned the key, I immediately feel - this is a cheap car. Considering all these premium brands like lexus and BMW are marketing 'pushing start', I think this car is just going opposite. They may just want to make it look cheap, feel cheap even I doubt how cheap it really is. It probably not costing much for the product manager to design a better keylock, or spend a liitle more to find a supplier with better quality. thus I really do not appreciate this point.
the engine is pretty good. sort of surprised. Drove CRV (which I felt was in the similar class), this car definitely has more juice. the intefrior and layout are fine with me. Did not have too many problem to operate compare to Europian car (see my previous Pinto note).

I just saw a note that the engine was provided by Honda. that explain why. it was funny that in the note it mentioned that Honda is not favoring to provide engines for Saturn anymore. kind of interesting. other than producing powerful engine for particular purposes or for rich people (since they drink oil like water), it seems US is losing the competences to build the engine which is generally better for average human being. Maybe this is just a reflection of current position of United States.

Politics

Yesterday, I saw a sticker - 'politics is good'
Well, it is a sticker definitely good to stir up conversation. Actually, the attitude toward politics is comparatively calm and cool.
My personal conclusions are two points, one is good and one is bad (not exactly bad). the good point is in a well-developed countries. the legal and bureaucratic system are pretty much well definited. that means much less flexibility and ... loopholes. thus, it could reduce the interest and motivation to get involved in politics significantly. the other point is the history, europe and asia are relatively more passion about politics. the reason to be passion is not really just because they love it. Think about white terror and some harness caused by government (french revolution or china's culture revolution). If an area has been suffered from these big time, then people care about what is going on in politics, isn't it?

The first point is well supported by the low voting rates cross all developed counties. the second one may not be true, but might be applicable to US. The people here seems not sophisticated and care less about politics. the second one I was not that sure. the government suppression is another major factor. maybe it can say that developed area like US or Japan, seems there is no such history and not much government suppression in modern history, people gradually became less sensitive about politics atmosphere.

Ripley, Tennessee

I recently start traveling to Ripley,TN. Not far from people's expectation. this is really a place in the countryside!

Toyota Corolla

Don't know how many times I drove this car.

Solid, stable, nothing is really fancy and nothing to complain is the characteristic.

If you want a transporation tools, that is best value to money.

Coke Culture

Yesterday, there was a article about the caffeine in soda. Onething interested was the diet coke and pepsi are both higher than ordinary coke and pepsi. Not surprised, my favor Mountain Dew is higher than all these.

The thing is, I suddenly recall this long debated topic. What is the composition of coke? the following question is how people can trust someone who keep selling stuff to you without telling you what's in there, and then people keep buying? so call blackbox product.

The blackbox product is involving in a heated business topic - ethic. Is it business' responsibility to make public aware of the content (to ensure they are no harm), or it is business' propritary but up to the ethic of business to ensure they are safe?

Ethic of business has been challenged signficantly, especially in US. The event of Enron and the increasing corruption in US politic (which of course mix with business) are gradually increasing people's awareness of ethic.

On the perspect which company should disclosure the content, the argument is always public safety. Human being are still exploring the world of science. So, that means we don't have a conclusive list for the materials which are harming. On the one hand, scientist need to strive to identify more. On the other hand, company also need to in corporate wit the new founding to ensure the product is safe. Of course, the power of market could accept or reject a finding, then it is up to public to keep accepting a product or not. However, with a blackbox product, it is all in the invisible hand of the company. Which is the imbalance of market power.

On the other perspective, comapny should be able to keep its proprietaries. Don't have the mandate to disclosure them. But this is under the assumption taht company is like human being, should respect the social value and public safety. This will come back to the debate of categorizing company as a human entity or a set of machinary.

Well, it is just hard to believe in the initial thought that how could people drink an unknown stuff for decades? My answer is a just joking that must be American.

Fiat Punto

I got this car from Hertz@BHX. Initially I thought 'Gee, this is a tiny car' even I sort of recognize it. This car was sold in Asia some time back, but I really had no chance (and no motivation too) to look close.
Ok, here I am. Jump in the car and start my england driving adventure. It eventually took me 4 days to figure out exactly how all the things on dashboard work. Well, it might not be its fault since I was also under pressure and jumped in the car and drive immediately. Other part of the car are relatively straightforward.
I doubt in the beginning how this tiny car is going to behave on highway, it turned out to be pretty well surprisingly. I am not exactly sure it is because of road condition or what. In Germany, the nearly perfect autobahn contributes significant portion of the driving comfort. Driving at 70 or even 80 mph (not kph!), I started to concern the well-handling is making my safety under risk since I am always under the impression that the car at this size will not survive in any crash under that speed. However, it seems many many people in UK are driving at the same speed with the same size car! so, what could I say!? Driving slower probably put myself in jeopardy.
Because of manual, I can control the rpm pretty well and avoid clinches of transmission
other than those mistakes made by myself. And because of the traffic jam near university, it normally get me back to driving lesson 101
every morning (haha embarrassed laugh).
I am also wondering that this car does not have significant characterisitics like other european cars. Drove BMW and Mercedes only in the past, I have to say my exposure to european car is very limited. However, impressed by the different features on these brands (I am not saying these features are necessary better or worse), Fiat does make this car very plain. So plain that next time if you put me in driver seat, I will just purely unrecognize this is a Fiat other than the mark on steering wheel.
Anyway, as a transportation tool, it does provide all the hygiene factors. I cannot complain, it covers well and made me survive in this 7 days challenging adventure :D

Driving in England

Ok, now I am sitting at the airport departure hall. Lay back, relax and have a sip of good coffee. Got to think what could be the gift for my daughter from not-many-options duty free area. It is hard to believe that I have done a driving on the left hand of the road with a manual car for a week. Initial, this seems like something scaring but turned out ok. last time I did this was 7 years ago and I was driving a auto car, which reduced the complexity significantly.
The first challenge is in parking lot. that is the place I continuously lose conscious about that I have to drive on the left side of the road. and that is the place you can see the face of astonished driver front of you. Sort of embarrassed. I think the thing bothering me most is still the roundabout. it seems a mechanism that has a lot of subtle rules built in it. the first time I drove into a roundabout, I got honked. Later, I guess I managed better since I did not get into more troubles. However, if you ask me how to drive through a roundabount in detail? sorry, I just cannot tell. I will say roundabout is a smart design. it works very well when there are not many cars running around. When traffic is getting higher, it seems everyone then has to follow all these subtle rules or it will collapse, and things get slow down significantly.
Pump station and car return upset me a little, they have to come into the shop to pay and there is always a long queue there. But I guess that is normal for europeans since I got the same things in Germany.
I avoided driving in big city, since I know it is not going to be managerial. And it was strongly adviced by friends because of recent change of traffic rules in London. The high traffic area fee is definitely a hot debatable topic. Well, got to go back to air travel and normal right hand side driving soon. I guess surviving for one week is good enough and probably the maximum :D

Broadway shows - Part 2

Now, I just finished my 'ok' chinese dinner, took a short walk to charing cross station and on the way back to hotel. The chinese dish was quite authentic kaundong cuisine . the reason I had it is just 'ok' is because of the size. a 6 pounds dish (about $12) means it should be huge in US already.
As I had, this is sort of reflection. 7 years ago, I was at the same corner of the earth, and enjoy the same joy. Before I decided to walk into Prince of Wales, I was keep wondering should I find a nice coffee shop to sit down and just review what had happened in past 7 years. Oh ya! I believe there are a lot and worthful to review!
Anyway, I decided to take MaMaMia! the famous musical which use ABBA's songs as the main character.
Well, I won't say it is bad. but definitely not reaching the excellent mark per my standard. It is just there is a distance between myself and ABBA, age and culture, all of them contribute to that I am sort of knowing their music, but less enthusiastic than the majority of the fans in the theater, including the japanese ojisan sitting next to me. oh! last time in NY for Phantom, the lady next to me was just 'excited'. This time, the old ladies on the other side is truly a frenetic fan. Ojisan was retired, just travels alone and enjoys himself. Made me wonder whether he is part of the 'block era' who just retired and divorced :p
Anyway, I enjoyed. and when I saw the single mother on the stage describing her longness and sadness for past 20 years, I was really happy to see my past 7 years was so fruitful, with a lovely family and really enjoyed my life. And I think I managed it well enough that I still can come back and be in the moment, at the place and have the entertainment.
So, I enjoyed the show, the music, the passion and the entertainment offered. And I certainly appreciate it is taking a long way to get here and I need to guard all these continuously.
Out of four major musicals, I only had two, cat and miss saigaon are missing. it is sad that cat is not in NY anymore otherwise it is much easier to access. Anyway, with my lovely kids, I guess I won't have chance like this easily. it is good that I am taking a slow train, allowing me to key down and capture all these moment. now, I got to say 'Yes, I love musical'

Broadway shows - Part 1

Am I a musical fan? I would say no. I do love these shows and sometimes would like to sing some of the famous lyrics. My broadshow experience went back when I was 27, which is drfinitely not earlier than most musical fan. some of my friends had them since childhood. Well, consider a kid grew up in the country side in a far away asian country, I already appreciate the long way to get here. and oddly, my first musical experience wew quite intensed - 3 in rows, in the place I did not have anything to do abount - London, and the interesting timeing - Chinese new year eve when I was watching the Les Miserable ..... interesting!? mmm.... that is definitely a moving but depressing musical.
My musical experience went back much ealier. some of my high school classmates used to sing some of weber's lyrics. 'Weber? what the heck he is' I was wondering at that time. of course, my life at that moment probably spent more time to study the context of Gundam 0089 rather than the background of Les Miserable ( french revolution!? the knowledge sufficient for exams is enough)
My first musical was chicago. I have to say that I did not fully grab the story until I went back to restudy. however, the one really impressed me was Les Miserable. I will say it is the one who lure me to be interested into the world of musical. the sophistication and the depth of storyline are still by far the best. It was Les Miserable to show me how effective it could be to use the mix of scene, script, music and vocal to express the feeling of human being, the sadness of poor, the poweless to fight with bureaucratic system and politics, and the loves for people and the rights which supposed to be embeded but get rip of because of systems (and ironically these are all built by humen).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUCZywEwbvo



Now, after 7 years later, around chinese new year timing, I am standing in the Leicaster square again and wondering what I ought to do.

France

>From long time back, I did not have every good impression to France. think it is over the hill and arrogant culture.
now I am still stuck in Paris waiting for my connection flight to England.
Urr... of course, this is not solely Air France's problem. Continental booked the flight with only one hour connection and underminded the inefficiency of Charles de Gelle. and I did not wait to take the direct flight to London because of long driving distance.
anyway, since stuck here, I did some shopping and walk around in terminal, even I am pretty much exhausted.
other than good food and some fashion good. I might hope to explore some more about people and culture here. But I might... because I guess the language is the major barrier and they are realy NOT nice to those non-france speaking foreigner (espeicially english speaking)

baby boom

Ok, so I am expecting a boy baby this June. well this put another type of anxious since we are justing getting to be familiar with how to managing a girl. It as quite funny that my wife went a little bit panic on the ultrasound table saying 'how we are going to deal with a boy' 'I have never had a brother'... well I have a brother but I have to admit the way I manage our relationship is not that great. anyway, the nurse practioner in turn trying to clam her down (it is easy just a pair of jean he can survive for a week). well, I was not sure that I was that easy to manage.
anyway, my point is: other than this news, my friends start calling each other and sharing good news. and jaw dropping is, three of them simultaneously saying they are all expecting babyies in Sept!! one in japan, one in chicago and one in california. hehe.... well... X'mas or new year party baby is understandable.... but this more seems like a global baby boom. Other than the one in california which is too crowded already, all other should be celebrate by local authorities. the one in chicago could move to minnesota. it definitly will help local economics. The one in japan, the government should really cerebrate and reward them since this is the second kids, an outlier in japan already. as for mine, I definitely welcome the new challenge. as for local authorities. I guess don't bother since they are still fighting with iraqi war and who should apologize for the slavery 200+ years ago. welcome welcome, I guess mother earth is welcoming these new comer in the case if earth is not deteriorating too fasr because of human being.

Mazda 6

recently, I seldom come into office. so, not really have much time to 'type' on my MDA.
Last time I drove this Mazda 6, and funny is I got a same onr this week.

overall, it is a ok car. the interior is ok. generally better than Ford even they are sharing chess. the manuvouring is pretty good. I think the main problem still the power of engine. By kicking down, I can easily drive up RPM

Tedious

Have to admit that I am not fully recovered from vacation mode. kind of lazy for some issues.
last week, I finally gearred up for some long dued items. then, ppssss.... my laptop screen flashed, and then it never came back again. The motherboard basically bursted. Woo... for so many years of experience using laptop, this is the first time I got such fatal problem (well, this is my first Dell laptop).
ok, so I wasted three days to get it repaired, and then another day to get softwares all work (since it screwed my OS).

I need to spend more time to digest my new lesson, strategy and practice. I feel it is quite interesting, especially when talking about corporate strategy which is dominated by US and discuss it under 'europian stereotype'.

Oversea travel with toddler

Just came back from a two weeks long oversea travel, went back to my hometown.
It turned out to be great, especially for my daughter (for her is three weeks).

It is quite interesting (and suprising) to see her response in first week. Because of Jetlag and illness, she did not feel very well. The foreign environment exaggerated the symdrome. So, the first week was sort of miserable.

However, after first week, we were keeping traveling and change places from places. You can easily tell the adaptiveness. She start to get used to the changes of environment, and the attitude turned from frighten to cautious, and then eventually curious in the last week.

So, by the end of third week, it was quite difficult to manage her. She can run around in neighborhood and department store shop floor even she is just first time visiting. Even more frighten for us. She immediately learnt how to explore someone's house in the first time visit!!!

For the long distance travel with a toddler, yes, it is really a challenge. So, we were quite concern and made a lot of practices. Some of my relatives are quite suprised by the amount of preparation and the tactics required. Even just for the long flight cross ocean, the diaper bag is bigger than ever. It turned out to be great. We managed most of the journal smoothly and successfully access to many places which we thought it might not be possible with a toddler.

Overall, I am extremely happy for this travel. Not only I enjoy the relax, food and the time with family and relatives, but also have my daughter accustom to longhaul travel and dynamic enviornment.

Crios de Susana Balbo 2004

From Mendoza, Agentina.
50% Syrah and 50% Bonarda
I am not familiar with Bonarda at all. That is why I decided to give it a try. Young, sort of heavy and high acid. May be contributed by Syrah. From thr label, it seems this is the cheaper class of its own family. Well, when writing this, I learn this wine marker has its own style and seems quite interesting and impressive. to avoid hindersight, I better stop andl post her linkage here. this is my problem for wine trial now - did not do reseach beforehand. But comma, when you are travelling, want to drink some wine, stop at a shop you have never been and they happen to sell some nice looking wines, what you do!? thinking to put a wine dictionary on my MDA. http://www.dominiodelplata.com.ar/vinos.php

Toyota Matrix

Ok. This is much less fancy than the movie 'The Matrix'. My neighbor actually is driving it. so time to time I was thinking how it is. sort of odd looking small car in US.I was wondering why initially someone will name a car 'matrix' and what the name try to convey.
that made me recalled a story. a motorcycle called 'Freeway'. at that time. japanese motor industry was booming and some of their engineer had weird english. so I was assuming it must be named by a engineer. a motorbike named freeway but definitely cannot survive on freeway!?
so, the matrix does not drive like a matrix. it seems actually a good news.
small but not too crowded car. the engine, urr, is helpless. I think anyone could easily kill it.
the sitting is a little bit high. I tried to adjust it but still kind of awkward. nothing big I really can complain about. it is just a transportation tool. seems pretty reliable. as for comfortness, please look for something else.

2006

Today is my last day working in office. hew......
This 2006 is a little bit rougher than I expected. Not sure because the things are not going smoother as before, or just because I am getting old.
Noticed my daughter needs more attention (or I want to give more attention). Current job needs more efforts than I thought since not all things are on track and travel was more intensed than I thought. School is rough, lower than expectated quality, poor administration support and tough logistic arrangement. All these build up certain stress here and there.
I can try to establish a list of accomplishments for this year. However, I kind of feel it might be a list shorter than I expected. Even some of them are crucial for future, I still believe this will disappoint me by the end. So, I better not doing it.
Made me blue.

Toyota Camry

I have to say this first. I love hertz, especially its NeverLost system. With 10 bucks extra, damn, it reduced the stress of travelling significantly. I loved this system back to 99,the first time I used it. At that time, system was still slow on response and the POI was not that geat. Last time was my LOS trip with my wife. I aleady saw a significant improvement. This time, I was driving like no brainer and got destination without any problem. I should look for a way to invest in this area.
Anyway, back to Camry. My wife keep saying that this will be the car she want next time when replacing currnt Honda Accord V6. My answer? Nope. smooth steering and nice driving. Decent dashboard and good finishing. a little bit high for driving view and sort of cramped. the problem is really the kickdown, accerating from 50 to 70 will make RPM jumped significantly. Not having too much time to dig in, either a transmission or a low horse power is causing this issue. I won't say according is smoother on acceration, bit it has its character. Camry, na... it is the best sedan. The best driving machine if you want to plain driving and don't look for any characterisitics.
By the way, visited Madison, NJ. An impressive small-town-atmosphere place in New York suburbs. However, I heard the living cost is unbearable tought.

Marlborough Pinot Noir 2004

From Brancott New Zealand.
Light and sort of fruity. was not impressed initially. But was surprised later on after the wine has waken up. I guess the timing of drinking it will be tricky.

Domestic Economy

Couple days back, I had a discussion with my colleagues about the domestic and international economy. The topic is starting from one point, whether the english speaking is the mandatory skill for software industry in China.

My young colleague believes it is yes. Because he believe software is highly intelligent property oriented and being able to communicate and interpretate the IP from english speaking market is crucial. And he also think that companies need to operate in a global scale, and have to conduct business in English.

My position is different. Understanding IP from english speaking is easy stuff. To read patent or tech spec doc does not really need english proficiency. The key is the market. If china market growes tremedously, then it will form a domestic market which is self-sustainable to have chinese speaking and operating only market and will have some companies which only operate in domestic market with domestic language.

This is actually a very interesting topic by looking into Japan and Germany. Germany is on my colleague track, running software business in english and achieving global economies of scale. SAP is the best example. However, domestic market and domestic operating companies are basically non-existing. Japan is sort of reversed. Some of japanese software firms like Fujitsu is running at global scale. But even just look into Fujitsu, some of its subsidinary is running like a traditonal japanese companies, operate only in japan market and do everything in their own language.

Then at this moment, we also need to bring in India in this discussion also. India is also interesting. No domestics market and completely relys on foreign (english mainly) market.

So, of course we can use Dunning's OLI or Porter's five force and diamond model for this. But from market perspective, does india going to be competitive for chinese speaking software industry? the answer is no. So, in the case if china's software market is formed (means chinese language based application), then there is no doubt this market could be domestic by chinese company, or the foreign company with signficant IP which can utilize economies of scale.

This is proven in Japan. In japan, there are quite some domestic companies only operate in their market. They are japanese oriented and know the market better. So, if they are in possession of enough IP, then there is no foreign company can beat them up.
SAP and Oracle are the cases which foreign company have to use more IP (like the world class process this kind of BS) and economies of scale to win Japanese market.

So, for Chinese market and software firm, the future is interesting and tie to each other. If china's software market grows and sustains, then chinese software firms will have their niche market and they even don't need to go outside (means no need to penetrate english speaking market) until they reach certain growth threshold. Recently China government's Linux case is symbolic to establish a unique market.

But if the market is not self-sustaining. Then chinese firms will end up directly compete with global companies on IP and economies of scale, and with India with cost and effiency. Then the future is more blurr.

This is sort of tie back to the domestic demand factor in Porter's dimond model. The sustainability of domestic demand by far is still the most signficant factor in the influence of a industry from country/nation perspective in my personal view. The growth of india software industry and the fail of US auto industry are two intersting and special cases. But we can talk that future later.

My MDA

Ok. This is my MDA, T-Mobile MDA. It is called Wizard in Europe and made by Taiwan's HTC. It is a nice piece of gadget. small, compact and have most features I want. Windows mobile, GPRS/EDGE, bluetooth, and Wifi.
It is also the main instrument I used for this mobile blog. Key in some text, take a photo, then I directly post it here, extremely streamlined.
I used to use it to browse internet when in restroom or anyplace I need to kill time. But with mobile blog, it is excellent since I can easily key in my thought and idea, fetch to blog without any delay.

Today, I rejected an offer. It is a really nice deal but I have to reject it. Overall, I am still pretty happy. This is the first time I conducted and negotiated through the whole processes with extremely high professional manner. The outcome is excellent and become such a achievement. Of course, letting an opportunty slide away from fingers always has some wonders. But I need to head up and look forward.

Chevolet Cobalt

This is the car I got this week. Chevrolet Cobalt. not the first time driving it thought.
the MSRP is only around 12K!? I saw some reviews on internet saying it is not competitive with rivals like civic and corolla. mmm since I did not really pay for it, my sense of money-to-value does not exist.
Overall, I think it is a decent car. The handling is not bad. The engine is not that powerful as most reviews mentioned. but I think it is an expectation thing. Who really want to drive a 3.0L 200HP Corolla? the dashborad is problematic. I have to spent time to get use to it and some buttoms are made extremely small. With the obesity problem in US, I cannot believe these US car designer can keep their jobs.

The last thing was the safety features. it got heavily critisized in reviews. As from my view, I don't know since it is better not trying to valid it :D

Not fair!

Ok. Black Friday is end and the craziness is gone. I stood in front of BB for couple hours and got most stuffs I want, except a NB which we knew it is mission impossible.
The thing is, my wife went to CC and got totally different experience. In front of BB, my last 100m was actually a spring and rushing. I really feel sorry for some old folks and cannot believe BB just let it went like that. It was completely unorganized and out of control.
My wife at CC got a well organized line, moved into the store smoothly withou any rush and interruptor.

What pissed me most was, one local restaurant handed out free coupons of a free breakfast after shopping to the people waiting in line there. Another one even just fetched a box of hot sandwiches to distribute. My wife keep saying she was so moved for these "kind community service" and make her feel cozy living in this community.

Damn, I was three blocks always with nothing and was freezing. The guys front of me kept drinking and smokingand then everyone went completely out-of-control greedy (but I heard the Walmart next block was even worse). I don't know whether these mean I was in the wrong community, or people think the people waiting front of BB are worse off (more greedy?) and not belonging here, or just ignore us (since we probably out-number CC)?

This is just don't seem fair! but okok. it was me to decide to go BB and looked stupid now. My wife and I did have a fun and exhausting BF. but next time go BB to lineup? I will give it a third thought (not only second).

The beginning of black friday 2006

this is the line front of CompUSA. the photo was shot front of OfficeMax in order to show the length of line... hohoho.... black friday 2006 start soon

100% failure rate

We renewed our T-mobile contract at the beginning of this year. Thanx to my wife she nailed a bargain. We got two cool moto razor for free.
however, after couple weeks, there are white spots on my LCD. I thought it was scratches but getting worse and worse. Eventually we reported to T-mo and found out that is a common defect. So I got mine replaced.
Last week, my wife razor suddenly went blind. Means nothing is on screen anymore. So we call T-mo again. Ban! another defect and got a replacement. It is in the photo and the box is the return (with broken in).
T-mo has such efficient return procees lead me to wonder is a market differentiator or survival factor. I was also thinking whether it is because we got a bargain so T-mo sent us thses 'guarantee fail moto razor'. Or Moto designed these cool looking phone with crapy components? Guarantee 100% failure rate!?

Admin staffs

In my previous post, I talked about how low quality of the staffs in my MBA program. Past couple days, I was ewally bothered by something they 'effectively' created.
At the beginning of this week, I suddenly receive a email to info me that the exam center I requested (which is U of Mxxxxx in US) does not have the space to accommodate my exam, and then ask me whether I am willing to change my whole travel arrangement.
ARE YOU NUTS? that was my response and think these smart Britains may not understand these dumb texan english. So I went on to explain how difficult and crazy it will be to make travel arrangement in less than two weeks and in such holiday season. I am assuming they know there is a thanksgiving in US and is a important holiday.
ok, so they KINDLY promise to me to work this out and explain to me that U of Mxxxxx has their final schedule...
Oh comma, either they think we MBA students are as dumb as potatoes or we are already recognized to be dumb enough to pick this program.
The exam location list was published in the beginning of Sept and we submitted our selection in mid of Sept. And the schedule of Mxxxxx (especially the schedule of final) should be well-known at the same time (have u be an college student?). For me, it is estimated to be a 5 mins task to pull out the schedule, take a look and make a phone call to confirm.... well, may be 30 mins.
So, our lovely admin staff just did this until 3 weeks prior exam!?
Our classmates have an assumption that the admin staffs in university, college or research institute are less competent than industries. They probably just want to have a easy job (way too easy) or just not competent enough to handle more complicate tasks. Therwise, they should be able to progress much better than stay in a slow pace environment. However, I feel they are generally nicer and I am not sure how to approve/disapprove this. But after an event like this, I am more lean to believe the hypothesis. Now I need to come up a 2x2 matrix to model this. that's all MBA students is doing.

Urrrr

Don't know what happen. I just cannot sent photo to mobile blog. This happened since couple days back and it seems mobile blog interpretate MMS as a crappy html doc so things are pretty mess up.
I am forced to clean up the text and then manually upload the photos.... Urrr... quite inconvenient and hope to work this out soon.

Shopping Season

Ok. Black Friday is approaching. to avoid a freak out BF, we decided to take an earlier action.
We bought this compaq laptop (c302) for about $350.
After a more comprehensive reseach, we found the laptop at same spec probably could be available at CC for around $300. however, it probably requires to line up by 3AM on BF and won't guarantee you get one. So we quickly dropped the ball. Yap, no matter what, it is still good enough comparing to MSRP.
It turned out to be a nice one. Performance is good and I overhaul the windows to get ride of all these HP preinstalled crap. Except some cumbersome problem with compaq's driver (highly expected), it went quite smoothly.
The last problem is the SATA. somehow the WinXP keep getting blue screen whether I enabled the SATA option... but don't see this hampering performance much so far.
My wife is thinking to get another one. And we still have portable DVD, GPS etc. on the shopping list. woopy, shopping season is here.

To-do list

I opened the To-do list on my PDA. did not do that too often until I got this handy MDA.
it is sort of scary. I have my MBA material just front of me, worrying about whether I can finish them on time prior exam. then I see these things on the list:
- 6 signa certification
- PMP
- CFA
gosh... I am definitely just moving bricks to hit my own feets
ok... maybe oneday I need to be deterministic enough to clean up the list.

wait.. but within the list, there are things I want to buy and want to eat....

I guess that is the life.... it is a trade-off. for certain enjoyments, then certain sufferings are required.

Toyota RAV4

This is the car I got this week. Toyota RAV4.

Overall, it is decent car. easy to drive. the manuvering is ok. But I don't like the interior. it seems trying to achieve certain style - rounding vent and round dashboard. I guess is sporty... However, it is just half way there. Last time I got Nissan Murano.... wooo .. it is really a different class.
another thing is the power. transmission is ok but seems the engine does not have enough power (am I driving crazy?). but with 3 colleagues on my car, the rpm will jump unexpectly

MBA - International & Service oriented

Sometimes, I think I must hit something two years ago to decide to take a MBA program in Europe. Ya, more precisely, in UK.
However thought about this less and less. couple days ago, a friend ask me how to feel so far for taking a program this far away and not well-known in US. I found I can easily describe how.
maybe sort of stereotypes, but I do enjoy the difference between US and Europe school - business school. US is good in marketing, operation and strategy. Europe is better in OB , Fin and particularly international biz. One key factor is the homogenuousness of this huge US market.
Some Europeans were joking about that US does not have good international perspective. I think that is true driven by this factors. But first point is, I think european is not better too much. the admin stuff sin my school ( comma, not wildchick comm college, top 5 univ in UK) thought Japan is part of China! second point is, from biz perspective, US don't need international biz as badly as europe. so no wonder some of them don't care.
so I enjoy the broader perspective in europe biz school. more international minded.
another enjoying thing is service oriented content. yap, manufacturing in UK is gone.. just purely gone. don't see any reason how and why someone want to do manu in UK and be competitive. a prof in strategy said ' ha! UK is screwed. it is in 'wealth driven' development (per porter) and won't be competitive againt asian countries ' I think a lot of my britain classmates stunned. but I think the statement is right.

so these two things are the two factors I enjoy most,which are quite the differentiators.

Urrr... as for the facilities and efficiency of school, europe has no way to close the gap with US. so, I think that will be the matter to manage the expectation for THESE EUROPEANS...

Escapism !?

Recently, I noticed I am more interested about the US internal political and social issues then other things I used to care with.

I think no matter what, people tend to be more care about the event, politic and social issue in or from their homeland. Like my Taiwanese friends always talk about election and politics in that island. My chinese friends talks about the life of mid class and how to make more money. My Japanese friend talk about how much Matsusaka will be sold, and my british friend keep making joke on Tony. I think that is also a safer way to make a conversation. It makes sense, you are not going to greet with your US friend by saying "hey! how is your Iraq war going?"

But why I am doing this? think about something I am not originated from? I was wondering that is it because of escapism. I even not sure whether "escapism" is a word or not. But I used it a lot to describe some of the motivation when go watch a movie.

So, maybe I am just tired to talk about something from my homeland which is barely changed, and probably never change.

Miyajima

Here are some photo from Miyajima. It is really a pretty place. It got damaged badly by typhoon in 2005 but heard recovered

Hiroshima

Back to 2004, I visited Hiroshima with my lovely wife. The purpose was to go miyajima (宫島). Miyajima is a very very scenery place, worthy to visit for a life time. I will post some pictures later
However, Hiroshima is different. After went to the A bomb museum, it turned a afternoon to be a depressed afternoon. My wife even cannot finish the whole exhibition.
disregarding who is right or wrong in a event of war. The pain and the suffer of ordinary people are significant. I served in military for a while. I was not sure what was the purpose of serving in military if the military activities do not aim to improve people's welfare. Sometime it is scarying to really try to sort out the reason to initiate a war. Do you believe that from certain perspective, Japan had to initiate pearl habor things for a good reason? I think most people don't. Anyway, I remember I saw a tv program in which a congressman questioned a general: 'if you cannot justify why our sons or daughters had suffered a for good reason for the country, then how we can convince other parents to sent their sons and daughters to fight, to die for that reason?'
Well, US is not drafting. so the reason to sent someone to battlefield for whatever reasons get complicated. However, I think the conclusion from Hiroshima still stands - ordinary people suffer most, no matter the person initiated achieved his object or not.

War crime

what is the definition of war crime?
the person who initiated a war with wrong reason, or a personal who initiated a war then failed, casued huge casualties?

MS Exchange with Mobile

woopy! the first time enable the sync from windows mobile to exchange server. Ban! everything could be sync like calendar and tasks! cool! don't need to live with t-mobile's mail altert and pop3 access anymore

Strong Army

Recently I was watching the commercial of US Army - 'us is strong because of strong army. and strong army is because of strong soilder'
I think I got two big questions in my mind. first at this ironic timing, which GOP got defeated badly by democratic because of Iraq. should people think about the meaning of 'strong US'? on convention power us is much more strong than before, compare to vietnam war. but is US really stronger? that is a excellent question.. but at least onething for sure. no one including us's past alliances would to see the strongness of US. they actually would prefer to find something to balance or even eliminate the influence of US. the powerless of us in handling iran and north korea are already a sign. and a bad sign. us is strong but losing friends
second, until when this 'strong army concept' will be gone. army could be used in only two scenarios - invasion and defencing turf. the power of invasion does not ensure the success. Iraq is already a sample. defencing the homeland? that is the last resort of defence. it seems strong army is the last priority. it would be preferred to have strong air force, navy and marine, even space force, before strong army.

I am feeling smarter enough people should avoid army. Let robot do the army job.

my cube

Yap! this is my cube. more than half of my time I am not in this cube but at least it is my cube. I need to put up my name tag soon

test from meeting

I think the main benefit of mobile blog is I can compose something in a meeting