Vince kissing at school.

Vince likes to kiss his girl classmates at school. Hmmm...

Bill from Edda's ER visit

So this is how much Edda's trip to the ER cost:

Ace bandage - 9 dollars
ER visit - 389 Dollars
Ice pack - 3 dollars
X-rays - 135 dollars
Splint - 113 dollars (<- wow, way overpriced)

They didn't charge us for the dose of baby tylenol that she took.

Catfish dinner

Here's a good dinner that we had last night and I think it's easily adaptable to one, for all you people cooking alone out there. :)

One catfish fillet, soak in milk for a little bit. Get some bread crumbs and mix in salt, pepper and whatever other spices you want (we used cayenne and paprika). Take the catfish out of the milk bath and dredge in the bread crumbs until coated. Place in an oven-safe pan and pop into oven or toaster oven at 350 for 10-15 minutes (I'm not sure exactly how long) until done. Test with a fork. Serve with starch and veggie. We had a mashed yam and steamed broccoli. Yummy!

A surprise for Donald...

We spent the afternoon crafting a thing-y for Donald. Hopefully I will make it to the post office tomorrow morning and mail it to him. I have to say that Katherine is responsible for the extra-special kicker, not me, I am *not* responsible.

Jason looking confused. Don squinting. 

We are back from Washougal

We came back from Washougal last night with a couple who went with us. We did some shopping and eating a lots of food. A Japanese sea food restraint buffet. I ate two robsters and other things. But I did not eat raw fish. I never had it. Chinese food over there is very good too. We also went an outlet mall bought few clothes. Daddy was tired and he did all the driving.

Came back was tough near Richland. It was very foggy. Now both of us has some kind of love bugs. It is getting better now.

Calling All Quicken Users

Uh Oh

A Beautiful Day

I'm off to Waterdog for a ride with Jason and Don. There is not a cloud in the sky!

Funeral Blues

Today was Tina's Memorial Service. People travelled from pretty far away to come and a lot of people stood up to tell some wonderful memories and stories of her. It's amazing how people know only a sliver of someone's life. For each part of er life a friend or family member would stand up and narrate. Her father would tell stories of her growing up. Her cousin explained about her school days. And on it went. The other amazing thing was how much everyone knew her in the same way. It was so ... consistent throughout. Of course Tina was a total superstar in anything and everything that she did. I doubt many people could live up to her legacy.

Sledding at Bard

This afternoon, we all went sledding at Bard at Blythwood. Here's Jeremy being the horse for Vince. Everyone loves to sled. Ruby and Trudy came along and ran around in the snow. The weather was really cold when we got up (-7 F) but by the time we got to Bard it was at least 30 F. Balmy! It hasn't been so warm for many, many days.

Help me!

Edda and Vince riding together.

Getting ready to go down the hill..

Wait for me!!!!

Moving again...

So it's becoming clearer and clearer that we are moving again. Jeremy has been mentioning it for months, but I never quite believe him. It sounds like we are headed to Dresden sometime in Q2, otherwise known as April, May or June. Then staying until the end of the year. At the beginning of the new year, we will be moving to Singapore for a 2 year contract. Since we may be staying in Germany about 6 months, I think this means I get to forget about learning any German. I'm excited to visit all the youth hostels in Europe, but I'm also getting into the groove here in Wappingers Falls, NY 12590.

Pizza day update

So today was pizza day again at Bright Horizons. I send Vince off in the morning with a Ziploc bag full of $1.50 for his 2 slices of pizza. Pick up time for Vince is usually noon, but the pie gets delivered at noon, so restrained myself and spent another 30 minutes at home today. I walked in at 12:30 and the pizza man has just arrived. Vince takes one look at me and holds his hands up like the Supremes (Stop! In the name of love) and screams, "Nooooooo!!!!". He stopped screaming as soon as it was clear to him that he got to stay for the pizza. I sat around and talked to Miss Pat, his teacher. Today was full of drama, another kid in the class split her lip and chipped a tooth in the activity room today. She was happily eating her pizza waiting for her mom to pick her up and take her to the dentist.

Vince was the slowest eater in the class. Hadn't even started his 2nd slice and all the other kids were done.

Amazon Interview

It went well. I think the guy liked me a lot. It was almost refreshing in a way. Somehow it seems more low key than all these bay area firms that i've been interviewing at. I told hiw that I didn't necessarily want to do what i did before and he came back and told me that he used to do hardware and that he's much more fulfilled working at amazon. So both people that i've talked to there have been extremely nice. I have a good feeling about it.

Keep the users straight, dad

Dad! Please blog and comment under your user name, not mom's! Be sure to logout and log back on as you. I don't think mom purged the printers, I think it was you.... It's confusing. Thank you! :)

Almost landed in Portland last night

Well, due to heavy fog in Pasco, the plant almost landed in Portland, about 200 miles away, last night.

We talked almost all night just to get the stories straight for these past several weeks. After interview on Mini, we are going to Washougal this morning. I found a lot of real estates in Washougal area for auction. Will take a closer look on this. May provide us with some opportunities.

Mom is in!

Mom is in. I will let her know how to use it when she wakes up. :)

My apartment has stairs going straight down to the front door. Doesn't it look heavenly down there? Here are my boys going off to work and school.

Computer trouble.

Tonight, I went off to do my best paying job ever. I went to Arif's boss' place to help them troubleshoot all theeir network problems and they pay me rather well. The only problem is that I can't seem to solve their networking problems for them!!! I spent 2 houre trying to figure out why 2 of their machines couldn't print to a network printer!!!! grr! so annoying. But I think it's gotta be a configuration problem since 2 of their computers acted in exactly the same way.... erg

Edda and Vince Splashing Around

Up Late...

Just got up like 5 minutes ago.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do today really. Probably make some phone calls. I need to switch insurance and I'll have to call that guy from sun back. I don't know why he hasn't contacted me yet. It's probably not very good sign as to how well he's organized. But a job's a job.

Mmmm. Maybe I'll have some pancakes for lunch.

Sweater progress...

So I'm making a sweater for Vince or Edda depending on when I'm finished with it. I got the pattern from Knitty. What you see here is the front of one side of a cardigan and an armhole and the beginning of the back.

This is how I usually knit with the yarn coming in from my right hand. The standard English/American way of knitting.

I hear the German way of kniting is much faster. I'm feeding the yarn with my left hand. So I'm trying to do it this way too.

I tried moving Vince to a couch and to prop him up in hopes of having him wake up, but my brilliant idea did not work.

Remember I said that Vince no longer was napping? Here he is passed out on the floor of the study. He fell asleep at gosh-darn-it 4 pm. He'll be up until midnight. ARGH!!!!

Freezing cold!

We are not going outside today. It's something like 2 degrees outside. It's amazing to us that Ruby goes outside without any clothes. Brrr!!!

And I'm finally done with geocities! Woo hoo! All the pictures and past posts are here on blogspot. I'm going to wait a few days until I'm a little more settled and then I'm going to reclaim my $5 a month for hosting my lame website on Yahoo.

401K

I am getting my 401K back, starting Feb. 1, 2005. This time, I am investing all of it to Bonds. Your Mom and I have not got into "Bonds" at all. Last year, it was the first time I did that. It appreciates $25.00 out of $3,500.00. Not too good. But, I guess it is a lesson that I am willing to pay some tuitions for it. As having more grey and less hairs, I like to look into bonds. Anyway, will keep you posted about the returns. :)

Goodbye!

Last night we had a party at Asuka and Carrie's house to say goodbye to Johannes. He's going back home to Dresden after 2 years in the US working for AMD. The people in the photo are Doris, Johannes behind me, Patrick, Asuka, Carrie, Vince, Jeremy and Edda. Carrie made chicken enchiladas, black bean soup and homemade cookies and ice cream with chocolate sauce. We talked about Carrie and Asuka's Chrismas trip to Portugal. Apparently, the Portuguese were not helpful. Carrie quit her job at a place making high-end purses because there was no running water where she worked and her boss decided to spend the $40,000 earmarked for putting in a bathroom instead on cosmetic dentistry. Can you believe you can spend that much on your teeth?

Up Late...

I spent all night at P'ng and Judy's place. We're trying to put together a slideshow for Tina's Funeral this Saturday. Everyone's been mailing Judy all these photos and I think it's been pretty hard on Judy - Especially since P'ng has been away at a conference for while.

I'm not looking forward to Saturday. There are going to be too many sad people there. While I try to let people grieve in there own ways, sometimes I just think it's stupid to cry so much. For me, it's the same thing as being diagnosed with cancer. What's to get sad over? The only option you've got is to deal with it. Same with death. Sure it's not pretty. Sure you don't want it to happen to folks before their time. But it isn't something you can control.

Anyway, I can't help thinking also, that this is just the beginning of it all. The longer I live, the more funerals I'm going to go to. It's just the way it is.

sorry if I'm a cold fish. Maybe it will be different for me when it's someone super close to me. If it were my wife, for example, I can see myself being devastated to the point of being non-functional, but maybe that's a special case. or maybe it isn't

Mom

Mom was cutting the rice cake brought back from her home town when I called. She said Donald likes it and will mail to Donald pretty soon.

Doris, please request blog to get Mom in again. Mom did something that it did not work last time. I can help her while I am at her place late this evening.

Too see Mom soon :)

Winter haiku

Snow tires a must
Wiper fluid freezes up
Deicing a pain

Monthly Rent for Mom's Apartment from Now On

Mom will stay in her apartment month by month. This way, each month costs $50.00 more. But, it also provides flexibility.

Snowing again.

It's snowing again.

Today is my big paperwork day. Gotta change addresses and things on a million accounts.

On a baby development front, Edda is crawling. Bro - can blogger support movies?

Mom is pretty low tech, just like me

After Mom got her cell phone, I have more troubles to talk to her than she was on land lines only. She does not know how to pick up her voice messages. She does not hear rings well also. Well, I am no better.

Richland locals would like to interview Mini on Friday. See what will happen.

Yesterday, I drove back to DC and shoveled the snow, watered the plants and checked out the house. Everything was fine. And I drove right back to Pittsburgh. I arrived at my hotel at 9:00 PM, not bad.

Can't wait to see Mom on Thursday :)

My son loves Britney!

So, I'm borrowing all this music from the library to load onto my iPod and I decide to check out a Britney Spears album. I am especially fond of Ooops... I did it again. Which I heard over and over again in Taiwan at the Taiwan version of Walmart: the RT-Mart. They had her video playing over and over again on their display TV. So there I am in Taiwan listening to this underage girl doing whatever. So I check it out of the library to relive my Taiwan days and I pop it into the CD player and the V-man starts bopping along. He actually screamed (!?!) when I suggested that we listen to another lovely selection from the library. "I WANT BRITNEY!" screamed the 2 year-old.

Loading, loading, loading

I have been spending hours and hours moving my old blog posts from Geocities to Blogger. God help me, I'm almost done.

Nap / No nap?

So I had decided that I wasn't going to make Vince take a nap anymore. I was spending the whole afternoon trying to make him lie down in bed and then he would fall asleep at 3:30 pm and sleep until 5 pm. Then he wouldn't go to sleep until 11 and Jeremy and I would be really sleep deprived. So today, we are running around the house and 2 o'clock comes around and Vince falls asleep on the study floor. What gives?

Interview Went Well...

Went to a startup today for an interview... it was good. The guy was super nice - very euro looking. He had on glasses that didn't have frames nor pads and he dressed very well. I don't know how I did really since he didn't show it if i did badly or not. We'll see. The work sounds interesting but i'd be working hella hard. But
I really really like the dude. he'd make a good mentor.

i'm trying to learn to type on a dvorak keyboard now. my typing is so slow now but we'll try to stick with it and see how it goes. It's to satisfy the nerd in me.

Misplaces monies as usual.

Hey, dad.. Remember the check you gave us for Xmas? Well, Jeremy doesn't remember where he put it.. If you could reissue one, that would be great! Then we can go out to dinner :)

So now that the holidays are over, we are back on our budget.
Let's see how we are doing. I have a budget of $300 dollars per week. This doesn't include things like car insurance, gas bills, telephone bills, etc. The budget starts over on Sat morning, In that way, we can blow money on the weekends and eat ramen during the week... Here goes.. The $300

Jan 1 - Jan 7
20 - gas
49 -groceries
20 - antibiotics for ear infection
10 - co-pay at doctors
8 - J's lunch
138 - groceries
52 - lunch at Japanese restaurant (<- extravagant)

Total: 297 (Hooray!)

Jan 8 - 14
110 - Target (diapers, detergent, etc..)
40 - alcohol ( <- OK extra expense)
22 - gas
152 - Groceries
-18 - returned the cheese
10 - post office
11 - groceries

Total : 327 (Boooo!!!!)

Jan 15 - 21
27 - gas
41 -groceries
22 - gas
61 - Japanese restaurant (<-OK, extra again)
173 - groc

Total: 324 (Boooo!!!!!)

This week:

I won't go into details, but I have $50 to feed us for the rest of the week... Sigh... Oh well...

My New Favorite Website...

Doris. You are going to love this website. You should probably skip past all the computer stuffs. There's other household things on there too. Tho I'm sorta tempted to spend 400 on a Dell with a 17" LCD panel...

Another one for the road.

I can't see your post doris...

and I want to read it!!! grrr.

U2 or not U2?

Jeremy getting ready to go on a dog walk with his iPod. Doesn't he look like Bono? OK maye not.

ps.

It's nice to have you all read my silly posts. thanks.

Ah, Just What I Needed.

Just had my Amazon interview. It went well. It was with a guy that had no formal CS experience and he basically was a project manager. Excellent. So we had a nice chat. Just what I wanted really. A non technical interview. I excel at those. :)

Feeling Hopeless...

After these 2 interviews, I think I'm going to take a break from job hunting. My heart is not in it anymore and I don't know what kind of a job I'm looking for. That can't help. I'm thinking about maybe talking to career counselor. I dunno if it would help at all, but why not I suppose?

Katherine and Edda at our house during the snowstorm.

Crzay morning.

Everbody got back from state college yesterday at about 5 pm. It took them 8 hours to make a 4 hour trip. Vince did so well, especially with the potty training. In the car, he told Jeremy that he had to go and then waited until they got to a rest stop! So exciting. Now the whole house is a mess with unpacked luggage and everything scattered. I think Vince's shoes got lost. Oh well.

My New Dorm.

Somehow, my new place feels like a dorm. There are a lot of people in this house and a lot of things going on. We sometimes gather in the hallway to just randomly talk. It's pretty amusing. College seemed so long ago, but honestly, it's nice to be able to talk to your roomies.

On the job front, I think I've given myself about 3 more months to find a decent CS job. After that I'll have to think about what other options are. Somehow I have to find something that's more low pressure. Maybe I'll have to think about leaving the Bay Area.

My Auto Insurance is Sky High...

800 bucks for 6 months now that I've moved. It's pretty insane. I'm looking for another insurance company now. I'll probably switch to AAA. Geico - what happened? I think I'm going to get renters insurance too. It's probably about time I had some coverage in that department also.

Falcons Lost.

Not Like it's a big big deal. But the Falcons lost to Philly. Too bad. I was only hoping that Philly would lose it's fourth straight conference championship. :P

Okay. back to unpacking.

This is pretty much how we spent yesteday, inside with toys. Carla came over yesterday and had lunch with us. Brought a delicious coconut cream pie from a bakery in Rosendale. I've been eating it all day.

Trudy and Ruby out for their morning walk. The morning walk happened too late and Trudy had already peed on the floor.

My car buried under 8 inches of snow.

Just Back From State College, PA

I just came back from State College, PA after the ceremony. Ms. Sylvia Martin, Jeremy's grand mom seemed to be a very popular lady in their retirement community about her music, love of books, etc. That was great. A lot of people spoke about that in the ceremony. Although, I have never met her personnel. But, she was a tough lady, I think. A labor organizer in the anti-communist-for-anything-and-everything era. After that, the Martins had a wonderful dinner together last night. I enjoyed it very much.

It was very tough to go out there during the snow storm. It was one of the toughest trip I have ever made. But, I arrived there in one piece without any scatches. From my place to there is about 130 miles. But, it took 4.5 hours to get there yesterday and 3 hours to get back today.

Grand uncle in Beijing just passed away due to heart attack. Uncle Joseph is organizing somethings together with aunt Margaret for the grandpa's side of the family, us.

Mom was also back yesterday. Cannot wait to see her this coming Friday :). I am flying out.

Inevitable.

Well. It happened. Tonight, Frank invited me to go to church. I knew it was going to happen. When you live with 3 Christian people, it's just a matter of time. I must say he did it in a pretty relaxed and - to me - non-confrontational way. We were actually talking about his church and the reasons he chose that particular one. (More on this later.) The Christians that would stop me in the middle of the Infinite corridor late at night were just plain rude. Don't you understand that I might be going somewhere? That I possibly have something to do? Anyways, apparently this church has somewhat of a "meat market" reputation. To be fair, that's not really the reason Frank chose it, but hey, if the women are cute, that might be motivation enough to go to church.

My Room - Sorta Neat 

Living Room - Exploded 

I Don't Deserve My Friends....

Today, I moved with the help of my friends. I rented a U-Haul. We got all my stuff out of storage. We dropped off half my stuff at Choon and Pei-Sun's. Then we finished the job at my house. We went out to eat because it's customary to treat all your slave laborers to a compensatory meal afterward. It's only fair. It's only just. Except that I didn't end up paying, and I'm not sure how the hell that happened. The check came. I was lightning fast with the Mastercard and it was back in the hands of the waitress in about .57 seconds. It should have been done. Over. Finito. But no. Somehow Choon managed to not only wrestle the bill away from the waitress, but he managed to get the waitress to be on their side! I'm not sure how that happened, but I know I feel unworthy.

Moving Day, Part Duex

Well today I'm moving all my stuff out of storage. I'm stashing th couch and the tv at Choon's place, and I'm gonna uhaul the rest of my stuff to my place to sort thru during the week and repack what I don't need. I never like arranging these things. There's too much pressure to make everyone happy and satisfied. And really it's all your fault for making your friends wake up early.

The living room will be a mess. :)

Off to State College

So the boys are off to Sylvia's memorial in State College, PA. They are wandering on the roads during what is to be predicted to be the first major snowstorm of the season. And it already seemed as if we have had 3 or 4 major snowstorms.

Just Some Thoughts..

In high school, everything came pretty easily to me. I understood a lot of the formulas and concepts. I could look at problems and have some greater sense of how everything interacted and what theories or methods applied to that particular problem. A lot of my friends didn't quite have the same insights. Somehow I couldn't understand why. I thought they were definitely smart enough to understand everything in front of them. When I gave them hints to problems they could solve them. That just reinforced my idea that everyone could grok these things.

Now I realize that they aren't held back by their intelligence. It's the fear and panic of realizing that you don't have the insight to solve these problems. That fear blinds their critical thinking that needs to be there to think rationally about it. Then it just goes downhill from there.

Anyways, dunno what my point is. Just something I was thinking about. Sorry I didn't call you back Doris. I'm OK tho.

Interesting Read..

http://paulgraham.com/hs.html

Apparently this guy is a CS dude, a painter, an author and a dot-com millionaire...

Oh Well...

So goes Nvidia. I had a pretty crappy interview. It's okay tho, they work in a sweatshop anyways but it still sucks.

Oh no! It's pizza day.

So today is pizza day at Bright Horizons. For 2 weeks now, Vince has been OK with leaving before the pizza was served at noon. Today was different. He really, really, really wanted to stay and he threw a tantrum to prove it. We asked if there were extra slices and the answer was no... He was so distraught, he peed in his pants on the way home.

On a more adult note, I was invited to the German expat morning "English coffee hour" and had a lovely time. We had tea and scones an homemade bread and butter. Also we played Boggle which I have to say, even though my English is fluent, the Germans were not to shabby.

Busy Studying.

Wow. A Flurry of interviewing action. Apparently I've got some sort of talk/interview with 3 companies in the next 3 working days. Weird. I have a lot of studying to do. laff.

Whoops. I almost forgot about my classes too. hrm. strange. Well the schedule works out anyways. hrm. I'll have to remind myself about it from now on.

Thing with Joceyn are better. We talked last night and now we're not pissy at each other at least - even tho nothing really got decided as usual.

Okay. I'm going to eat some cereal now.

California jobs?

Welcome to the California State Personnel Board

Another one...

The County of Santa Clara - SCC Public Portal

Santa Clara jobs

The County of Santa Clara - SCC Public Portal

Vincent and Phillip Kiene. Phillip's parents just moved from Dresden, Germany to New York two weeks ago. Philip is going to have a little brother or sister in about 5 months! Philip only knows German and Vince only knows English. But somehow they both learned to communicate "Mine!" to each other.

Our Lawbreaking Family

So Mom cheats on her taxes and apparently Dad uses Mom's resume to get jobs. Does anyone else have a problem with this besides me?!?!?!??!! I makes me wonder why I follow the books so closely. Sigh.

Just Woke Up From a Nap.

Hrm. I think I'm a bit funky right now. I should be studying for that Nvidia interview but I don't have much energy right now for some reason. But I'll get to it in a minute I think.

I had lunch today with an old co-worker from Sun. She's just had a kid at the age of 38. It's pretty impressive an apparently it was a harrowing experience since there were all these complications. She's sorta helping me get some more contacts and such since she's a pretty good networker. Plus she's really good at all this political stuff and has some good perspectives on job hunting and the job market in general.

Anyways I have to decide what I want to do for a job. A lot of places right now seem to want to work you to death, and I'm not sure how into that I am. I mean if it's all that I got then maybe it's what I have to swallow but having a life would be nice too.

OK, OK, I'll get over my picture / blog obsession soon. I promise. Here's Vince "helping" with the laundry.

I joined the TKGA and I'm taking a corespondence course, "Learning to Knit" Here are my samples that I'm mailing to Ruth Knox for evaluation. From the upper left going across, you have the basket knit, the single rib + increase knit, the single rib + garter knit, the double rib knit, the seed stitch, the stockinette stitch, the garter stitch, and the stockinette stitch with decrease.

Working the kitchenaid.

We are having friends over for dinner tonight. Vince is making a cake! Greasing the pan...

Dad - a note about comments

Dad, when you are commenting on somebody's post, you can click on the "comment" link on the bottom each post and make your comment. Some of the recent posts have comments by Donald or me, you can read the to get an idea.

Family night at the grocery store - our form of entertainment

So on Tuesdays, I write out a week's worth of dinners (which I have to say is fun and draining at the same time) and we go shopping as a family on Wed. nights at Adam's. On Wed. from 6-9 pm, they have "family night" which means 10% off your total bill. Anyways, every week, we spend about $150-$160 (last night was a whopping $173), the figure includes the discount. They usually have lots of free samples too, Vince loves the apple cider. Last night we were all exhausted and Vince was bouncing off the walls. They have a small cart that Vince uses and he loves to push it all around, threatening to run it into patrons and displays.

I'm in love!

I love with Picasa. Wow. People think of really clever things.

Hold one's hand

A friend in need is a friend indeed. Mom has held my needy hands numerous times :). Looking back, appreciated that a lot. By the way, next time, say hello to Jocelyn for me.

I saw the pictures of Vince in our bath tub. Really cute. Some of the attached boxes in the blog, I cannot see, Westinghouse blocks them.

Yesterday, I almost cut off my fingers against my desk while moving my chair. Really hurt. Right now, I exercise regularly trying to lower my blood pressure. In addition to medicine, it works. Other than that, my car runs well. Except a minor inconvenience. When I open the door, the snow at the top, on the windows falls right onto the seat.

I did nothing tonight.

Something interesting my housemate told me today, "It's distinctly chinese to have other people affirm your happiness." I don't know how true it is. I don't even think about things like that. Is it not good that I don't have really good insights into this world? It probably doesn't matter so much, but it does make me think I don't have what it takes to be a software engineer.

Welding class was just a bunch of administrata. I have to figure out something to do with a 6x6 piece of aluminum. Oh yeah, and my homework is to email the instructor with my email address. funny.

Women...

Ah man. Sometimes my relationship with Jocelyn is weird. She's going thru a rough spot in her life right now and needs some support. Usually that comes in the form of someone needing to basically hold her hand. Usually I'm okay with that, but last night, I really just didn't want to deal. and then of course she gets all sad that she's so needy. great. So I'm left there wondering who's the bad guy here. Me for being insensitive to her problems or her for being needy in the first place? I guess the problem lies somewhere in the middle.

Anyways, off to my welding class. I'll see how it goes. Yikes.

I got another phone screen with Nvidia coming up and Amazon too, tho that might mean I'd move to Seattle.

Edda just after being born.

Photo angst

Crap, I gotta change over to Picasa. What the heck am I using Flickr for anyways? They aren't owned by Google.

On another note, I smashed my rowing record! 2000 meters in 11 minutes 5 seconds. Now, I'm something like 74 out of 78 participants. Watch out olympic team.

Matchy-matchy.

My boys are so cute when they go off in the morning together. Both have on puffy winter coats, both have blue jeans on, both have boots on and their colorful backpacks. Both give me a little kiss and say, "Bye, bye, have a good day!"

Mom is back to Shanghai, Mini got an interview from local in WA

Mom is back to Shanghai. Some one would like to interview Mom about MiniSystems when she is back to Richland, Ho-ho!

woke up early

I woke up early and came to office at 4:30 AM. A record!

Downloaded Picasa 2

Fun with Picasa 2 

Haircut heaven

Gave the V-man his first haircut with the buzzer.

A Tough Nut To Crack...

Getting a job at Stanford anyways. Man. I'm working the contacts, trying to get someone on the inside to help me out, but apparently it doesn't matter that you know someone on the inside or not! GRRRRR! I want that stupid job! BLAHHHHHHHH! How hard is it really? Amazing.

I have one last resort to go to. Maybe I'll have to do it tho. Manpower - Stanford.

Keep your toes warm

It is 10 degress outside. Brrrr.... Vince asked for mittens - he usually refuses them.

It is a Nice Day Today.

I just got back from a morning ride. I dropped the car off this morning at my service place to get the timing belt changed. On the way there I bumped into Karen and her husband Brett on their way to work. I saw this crazy lady waving at me thru her window and I was confused. She must have been confused too since I'm not supposed to be awake at 7:45am.

Anyway it was a pretty crispy morning. The skies were bright and clear. I past all those tech buildings and I about all those little drones with 100k salaries. Then I wonder why I'm not a littl drone. Hrm.

Dog running

Ruby has the runs this morning. She's on a diet because she gained 5 pounds over the 2nd half of last year - up to 60 from 55 lbs - so she's extra greedy when it comes to cleaning off Edda's high chair. Last night we had steamed red cabbage as our veggie and Ruby must have eaten a whole handful or two. Now her poop is runny.

All my posts are disgusting. Sheez! How much can I talk about personal hygiene? I've even lowered myself to talking about the dog. Next, I'll be talking about the moldy cheese. (Which we did have, by the way, bought an $18 wheel of cheddar cheese and brought it home and cut it in half and the whole thing was moldy.)

Welding Class

I think to attend a welding class of $150 is a very good idea. Just as you said, it keeps you occupied until you find something. In the process, you learn something new and never know when it becomes useful. You may look at attending a regular professional school, obtaining other types of educaion or exploring other options. When needed, you can always get loans from us to do things. It is better to spend it now to bettering yourself than sitting there.

Mom told me this morning in Chung Ming that she offered a grand-daughter of her aunt a computer. She needs one. She is the one who, about 2 years ago, received a year college tuition from Mom. Mom even told me that if anyone in her family can get into Harvard while she is alive, she would certainly help. I believe she meant it.

It is bitter cold outside. It is about 2 degress. I have to go to the Beaver Valley Nuclear Plant this morning. I am waiting for the day break before leaving. I am concerned the country roads are icy and, without day light, not too good for driving.

Should I Take A Welding Class?

It's going to be during the day - MW 1-4. I'm going to pay around 150 bucks for this class and if and when I get a job, I'll have to stop going to class. I guess I should. I mean, if I get a job 150 isn't really all that much and in the meantime I'd be learning something if I didn't get a job.

What do yall think?

At Home Bored but Online.

I really have nothing to say in this post. But I'm going to study now. Ta ta.

Maxi pad wearing toddler

So, it's that time of the month and I'm in the bathroom minding my own business when Vince spies the box of maxi pads. He asks, "Mama, my underwear, please?" So I oblige and adhere one onto his tiny Bob the Builder underwear.

I am on. Folks

I am on. Folks.

Those crazy mountain bikers

So Paul Besser's in town for AMD business. We ate lunch together with him at a local Japanese restaruant. He's one of the beautiful people who went to Stanford; blonde and brawny. He told me that he'd been mountain biking on a trail in Santa Cruz that had trees fallen the long way on them, so you have to bike on the top of the of the log for 10 feet or so. And apparently the first time he went, he did it in the dark with a headlamp. Crazy! Bob and Katherine were coming in from NYC, so they also joined us for lunch. Katherine had gone to the wedding of a Bard faculty member and she characterized it as a Lallapalooza of a wedding. First, the groom's answer to the question, "Do you take her in sickness and in health" was "How sick?" At the reception, there was a bubble machine, a dry ice machine, a kissing contest which involved blindfolding of the bride and groom and kissing by random people.

You're a Superstar...

We had a birthday party for Judy last night in East Bay. It was pretty fun. We were over at the neighbor's place and they had a whole karaoke setup there so everyone was singing. At the end of each song too, the machine rates you on a scale of 1-100 about how good your performance was. Some other dude and I jumped in there and our first song came out to be a 4! And everyone else is getting 90, 86, and 74. We totally were pissed and we decided that we'd get 90 by the end of the night. So we tried and tried and tried again. About 10 songs later we were stymied at 61 and losing hope that we'd every break 65. But then, on the very last song of the night - "I Just Called to Say I Love You" - we got 95! woo hoo! Everyone was excited for us. :)

Snow again.

It snowed again last night, not much, it looks like less than an inch. I can't really tell because I haven't been outside at all today. I've have too many hobbies that I'm persuing now:

Knitting,
Photo/Scrapbooking
Piano
Rowing (working towards that 1,000,000 meter mark!)

I'm trying to figure out how to recycle yarn from old wool sweaters. So if you have any dud sweaters out there, please let them find their way to me.

Does having kids count as a hobby?

The other boot

Katherine came over on her way to NY city and had blueberry coffeecake with us. She brought us over our tart pan, the other frog rain boot of Vince's and our bottle of Zout! We are still moving out of her house. I think it will take her years to find everything we left in the Bard House. I was pleased to hear that Ruby's puke of diaper cream (zinc oxcide) came out with vinegar (acetic acid). The cream had made a reverse stain of white on Katherine's green carpeting. Im my parent's house in Maryland, Ruby puked chocolate on white carpeting. Ruby has the stain gift.

The 2 Modern Wonders of the World

I'm speaking of course of The Internet and The Kitchen.

I get to post _from my bed_! Wow!

I got to _toast_ my bagel! Amazing!

There's another half a wonder - laundry. It's nice to have just downstairs. Oh yes. It's nice to have heating too. Everyone is trying to be stingy on the heating. We are setting it at a chilly 60 degrees. For me, this is the tropics! Oh la la.

I've got 3 other roomies - Frank, Eon, and Andrew. They all seem pretty chill. Frank just moved to the Bay Area, so he's pretty bored sometimes - like tonight. We both took a little excursion to Safeway and Ranch 99 in his new Mazda 3. It's a nice car. I can't wait for Choon to get his TSX.

Wow. I'm still in awe.

Goodbye Shack.

The Shack is dead. Long life the Shack.

Last night marked the end of The Era of The Shack. I packed last night for 4 short hours and that's all i really needed. I don't have a lot of stuff. I put everything into the car, went off to storage a picked up my futon this morning. The elevator to the storage place was out of commission so I had to haul my futon down 4 stories. ugh. I said hi to some people from The Bike Shop since it's just downstairs from the storage place and I hauled everything off to my new digs. So it's over. Honestly, I'm glad. Tho when I look back on it 10 years from now, I think I'll still think more fondly of The Age of the Garage.

Turd Triumph!

Another great moment on the road to promotion from diaper clad toddler to potty trained pre-schooler. This morning Vincent calmly anounced his desire to evacuate, we proceeded to the loo, stripped down, mounted, and, without fanfare, made a deposit. Not much drama, but a great way to start the weekend. Of course a green gummy life saver marked the accomplishment.

Potty Victory!

Tonight, we were making migas for dinner and Vince kept picking at his butt. I ask him over and over again if he needs to use the potty. NO! - that is his answer. We all eat dinner together and he gets down from his red chair to play with trains. Jeremy continues to talk about work. Then we hear an urgent message from Vince. "I need to go potty!" Three seconds later he was pulling his pants down and - hooray! - there is poop in the potty! We celebrate by going to get ice cream.

Spongebob

I'm ready - promotion!
I'm ready - promotion!

From the Spongebob movie.

Pics from the Ride...

Some pictures of our ride yesterday... Jason is the one fixing the bike next to me an Brian is in the other one riding his new ride.

Eating a Burrito...

Mmm mmm mmm. Greasy Goodness. I haven't a good unhealthy burrito in a long long time. Yum.

Soap operas are great. Here's a little snippet from today's Days of our Lives.

Girl - "How do you think I felt? My mom was accused of killing all these people!"
Guy - "How do you think I felt?!? Most of those people your mom was accused of killing were my family!"
Girl - "But you weren't there for me!"

Watching it snow

I'm practicing piano using my pretty new keyboard and at my teacher's request, I'm playing with a metronome (which I've never done before) and also recording the songs I'm practicing. The piano has the necessary capabilities and it's been fun. It's true I can hear all my little rhythmn mistakes and sixteenth notes that are hesitant and uneven. But it is relaxing and calming. The piano is blocking the sliding glass door. So I practing while it's snowing and raining and white and foggy outside. Vince was feeling much better this morning and went off to school cheerfully in his little froggy raincoat.

Confused...

I'm feeling a bit lost.

Maybe it's cause I've only had a GU packet and 2 Oreo's to eat today...

I went mountain biking this morning but my head wasn't really into it. Plus, I get tired pretty fast since I'm all flabby now from not having biked in 10 years. I had a good spill on my bike from doing a drop. I really made the drop okay, but sorta lost control on the post landing. Brian complemented me on how well I tucked and rolled.

My stress is still my usual stress - Job Stuff. But I have to go home and start packing up my things. I'm moving on Saturday! Woo Hoo!

Okay. I've spent enough time at Arif's. I'm off to get lunch.

Links...

Dude, your links aren't working. I manually fixed the ones in your first post.

Poo, number 2

Sigh, another poop into the leg of a pair of sweatpants. Since it's so cold, I wanted him to wear some pants, so I thought sweatpants with no undies would be just as good as no pants. But it isn't true.

The Minimalist: A Vegetarian Haiku in Four Dishes

From the NY Times:

In an article about japanese vegetarian cuisine and why one would want to not use meat in cooking.

"In Japan," she said, "the idea of focusing on a small aspect of something and then exploding it into many possibilities is an appealing notion, in both life and aesthetics. Working in a limited set and not letting it inhibit you but allowing it to take you to another level is part of the pleasure. Think about using just ink and paper instead of the whole palette of colors and media in painting; in the same way, the limits of cooking with plants force me to be more creative, to explode, almost into infinity, all of the possibilities."

Off to Play Bridge.

Well I've been in the library since about 2:45. Vicki's been keeping me company but alas she left like an hour ago. I've been doing topcoder for he past 3 hours. Just practicing my Java. I really ought to be programming in C++, but I'm much more comfortable doing what I've been doing forever.

I'm off to Rich's place tonight. It's bridge night. I'm not really in the mood for it to be honest, but I'll end up playing anyways.

Tomorrow, I'm going mountain biking with Brian and Jason. Brian's off to singapore but not before he bought this. It should be muddy and fun. I haven't been on my bike in literally weeks.

okay. I'm off. BK or MCD?

Siblings?

This blogging is so much more fun with my brother on board. Perhaps we should open it up to more Martin/Lee siblings?

poo

Poor Vince is sick today. Runny nose, cough. Still working on the potty training. Last night, there was poo flying all over the bathroom. Yucky!

9am and all is not well...

Just wasted an hour talking to a recruiter. Great. She could not stop talking about the company's entire history. blah blah blah. Maybe it was one of those things to see how much you were paying attention and asking good questions? who knows? I'm trying control my annoyance.

Regardless, I still need to study my C/C++ some more. Which also reminds me that I should send Jeremy my resume.

I'm glad Edda can now enjoy the wonderful thing that is cheese. It's a brand new world baby. and Doris, I think the ice cream needs some good lovin'.

9 month well baby checkup

Edda is 29 inches long and 20 lbs 11 oz. Got 1 shot and cleared for eating yogurt and cheese. Dr. Sullivan is back from her maternity leave looking very good and happy. She now heads a household of 3 little boys, a 6.5 year old, a 3.5 year old and now a 2 month old.

Decisions

I've decided not to eat ice cream anymore until at least tomorrow.

I've Decided...

I'm not going to be stupid anymore...

whoa!

All hail the new blog style!

It Went OK.

I had a pretty good discussion with Jayant about compiler opts. I'm glad I studied. I need to study more tho. I have the basic backend optimizations down, but they want someone with a deeper understanding. I think a Phd level guy anyway. I can tell it's going to be an intense job too. I'm not sure if I'm ready for that or even if I want that. It's pretty hardcore, and well, I'd like to be hardcore or just give up entirely.

Sounds like anyways, I may talk to 4 people. They'll see if they like me or not, and then schedule an additional 4 people to talk to me.

My C++ sucks...

Winter haiku

White flakes falling down
I am stuck inside with kids
Potty training sucks

Nvidia Phone Screen Tomorrow.

For the past weekend, I've read a book on Cg (C for graphics), studied all my old compiler lecture notes, and even worked on an old problem set from school. Yikes. I'm puckered out, but I think I'm prepared.

I stopped by the bike shop today and chatted with everyone. The store seems more organized that ever before. It's actually starting to look ... presentable. Keep up the good work Jason! Too bad the shop didn't have the tool I was looking for tho. Ah well. I bought it at Performance.

Li Pei Zin had a crisis today too. She had a dinner party tonight, but her home phone stopped working so she couldn't call anyone. She woke me up to borrow my cell phone and proceded to stay on hold for 30 minutes to SBC. She ended up burning something and hanging up.

Whoops I can't post pictures... DOH!

First day of school, alone.

So Vince is off to pre-school. He is a little bit sick with a runny nose. I hope they don't kick is butt out for it. I'm not sure how strict they are with that.

Cold Spring Main St.

We went to Cold Spring today to explore. This is a photo of Cold Spring when it isn't cold. Today there was snow piled up on the sides of the walk. We brought Ruby and ate chicken salad sandwiches that were made from the leftovers of last night's dinner. Ruby saw many, many dogs on the walk in Cold Spring and she did pretty well with her leash aggression. Vince saw a train store piled with Thomas stuff. We also got hot chocolate.

Potty Training!

Hello All, This is my first post to the blog, at least for quite soem time. The excitement I have to report involves our adventures with potty training. We just started in earnest yesterday, and I am happy to report we are batting 400-500. Not a bad start. We have decided that bribery is called for, so productive trips to the potty yield a "Wiggles" fruit snack.

Roast chicken

Well, had my first piano lesson yesterday morning with Richard Devens. I had quite a nice time learning. I'm going to try and learn one of Bach's 2 part inventions and one of Shumann's Scenes from Childhood. We had Phillip Fisher and his wife Anne over for dinner last night and had a wonderful time. We are all confused about how long it actually takes to cook a chicken. The Joy of Cooking says it takes 1 hour for a 4 pound bird and 8 minutes for each extra pound at 400F, but he's found it takes much longer for it to reach the desired internal temperature of 175F. He thought the meal was a bit overdone. I made an orange, almond rum cake which turned out pretty well.

Jennifer and Brad split up!

OK, to prove to my little brother that this blog isn't as pristine as all that, I am posting this bit of celebrity gossip. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston have split up after 4.5 years of marriage! Now, I'm going to walk the doggie.

Hi! I'm at the library. I'm supposed to be looking for a job, but I'm slacking. So I'm posting my first blog on "Just Regular Folks". I'm not sure what to say, since I might dilute the style and purity of the blog.

OK, I invited my brother and my husband to come join the blogger fun. Let's see if someone comes on over..

Delightful morning at home with Edda. Vince went off to school with a minimum of fuss. My ear is still clogged with my ear infection. Bob came over last night to spend the day with Vince at school.

Yesterday, Kiki and Vince went to Vince's first day of preschool. They had a good time at Bright Horizons and we all went out for Japanese food to celebrate. Then we went up to Bard and had dinner with Ben and Johanna. We exchanged Xmas gifts.

Edda's leg has gotten a clean bill of health. I have an ear infection. 10 days of amoxicillian.

On Sunday, Jeremy baked a linser torte and we distributed them to our neighbors around Avalon View. It was very nice, we hung out with some German expats and read Bob the Baumeister. I also gave Donald a little pep talk about his job hunt...

Oh yes, Bob and Katherine are both back from Sri Lanka. Riding the New York subways.

Well, what a busy few days. On Thursday, I went over to Christine Smilth's house where we had the best play date ever. Jonathon and Jeremy went to get our Flexa beds for the kids. We were getting pretty frazzled putting it together. On New Year's Eve, we went to Karen and Melvin's house where we celebrated with their family. They have a time honored tradition where the men cook and they eat and stay up all night. Vince took off his pants and had a two minute violin lesson. Today we ran errands and started really pulling the apartment together. We are all still pretty tired from this flu, it just seemed to last for days.