Yuna’s Village - A Slice Of The Daily life

My daily read site CNN Money ran an article to discuss the pros and cons of signing a prenup. Yep, a lot of people think it is insulting to even make such a request, let along sitting down and negotiating a “financial contract” with each other.

But according to the expects, signing a prenup may not be a bad idea:

For starters, talking about a prenup (whether you opt for one or not) is an opportunity for you and your partner to get your financial lives out on the table, which is never a bad idea, since marriage is as much an economic contract as a social and spiritual one.
And, it hardly needs to be said, money can be a huge source of contention between couples, especially when it’s not dealt with openly.
“(The prenup) is about having to communicate and negotiate, which will lay a foundation for your partnership,” said Shae Irving, senior legal editor at legal information provider NOLO and coauthor of the upcoming book, “Prenuptial Agreements: How to Write a Fair and Lasting Contract.”
A successful prenup is one in which both partners feel they’ve gotten what they need. So even though you have less money doesn’t mean you have less say in deciding what the provisions of a prenup will be.
The key, Irving said, is to “focus on fairness (and on) what each person needs to feel well cared for.”

Here is the link to the article

I was totally against prenup until I realize that even solid relationship could turn sour since people change. Once that person changes, everything could change. Love could turn to hate. Reasonable person could turn into monster, etc… Yes, it sounds really harsh to talk about how to split money even before getting married. But I have to agree that having such an agreement while both partners are more likely to be fair and generous to each other during the initial stage of marriage might not be a bad idea.

This is definitely a tough cookie since nobody wants to hurt his/her lover’s feeling. But I think if we treat prenup like will – a method to prepare for the unpredictable feature and understand that there is nothing to do with the love you have for each other, it might be easier for both parties to discuss the matter openly and get the finances organized.

I took a leave of absence in Jan from my professional blog company b5media to deal with my real job. Finally, I was done with my slavery real job so I picked up my slack and started blogging for food again. Turns out, all of my proposals back in 2005 got approved so I now end up with 3 professional blogs to keep up with. That’s why I haven’t been able to do anything fun on my own site. I kind of regret that I am taking on too many blogs too soon…When I am under pressure to post on schedule, the used-to-be-fun blogging doesn’t seem so fun anymore. Well, let’s just see how this goes…

Here is a list of the posts I did on those sites in the last a few days. I am also introducing a new site I will be writing for: The Play Gadgets. It’s about video game gadgets. I am rewriting my template files to include these blogs on the side bars too. Hopefully you guys will still be enjoying reading my stuff …

Posted on Feb 22: Universal RF adapter/switch for all game consoles

Posted on Feb 22: Lazy guy’s gift guide
If you are one of these guys who is clueless about what to get for your lovely lady without breaking your bank, here is your guide.

Posted on Feb 21: Men And Calendars
Why men hate Valentine’s Day and why women have to have gifts on those dates.

Posted on Feb 16: Worst Pickup lines you can ever think of
This is my usual brew-ha-ha of the day…

Posted on Feb 15: Housework and Sex
Why neat home can lead to better sex life for the couple.

Posted on Feb 22: Why Women Make Less Than Men
Well, simple. ‘Cause we don’t ask for it the way men do

Posted from Feb 14 through Feb 21: Lessons learned after qutting my consulting career
Lesson 1: Learn to say “I can’t do it”
Lesson 2: Break that Agreement
Lesson 3: Learn to believe it is not my fault
Final Lesson: Make Changes Today

After soaking my machine in water last week and losing two replacements in a week by the carriers (talking about a lottery winning probability), I will be offline starting tomorrow until Thursday. Let’s just hope my next shipment will peacefully make it to the destination.

In the meantime, I will go to work with pen and paper and play some Lottery. If I managed to lose that many machines in a week, I may hit a home run .. You never know…

Inspired by Jee’s 8 Best Things in 2005, I gave myself 2 minutes to write down a few best moments of 2005. There are quite a few things popped out of my memory right away. There are no logical explanations as why my brain chooses to remember these events. Anyway, here is the top 6 Best Moment List minus my personal happy moments in my private life..

• After working 30+ hours straight without sleeping or resting, I had to get away from the world. So I headed over to the woods to camp for a weekend. It was a very hot summer afternoon. I sat by my tent for nearly 6 hours, surrounded by the trees, birds and fresh air without moving, talking or thinking. It was the most peaceful time I have ever spent. That day, I understood the healing power of Mother Nature.
• After searching and waiting for 5 years, my best friend told me that she’s getting married in April 2006. I remember these painful years she spent with a broken, painful, and frastrated heart. But she didn’t settle and kept on hoping. Finally, she found what she was looking for. Yesterday, she ordered me my Bridesmaid dress! Haha!!
• This past Thanksgiving was my mother’s retail store’s one year Anniversary. I spent almost a whole night helping her to stock the new arrivals and set up the pricing system before the Black Friday. At 2am, I was so exausted. I sat on the floor looking at the isle I just cleaned up and the new products that were about to be sold the next day. The sense of achivement was much greater than winning a reward from my own job.
• I was born and raised in cities. I am afriad of heights, dirt roads and bugs. I did my first outdoor climb in June at Golden, Colorado. Ever since then, I realized that I can do anything as long as I give myself a chance to do it. When it comes to personal ability, the sky is the limit. This is probably one of the most important lessons I learned in 2005
• On June 26, I set up Yuna’s Village and wrote this post a day later to pull myself together after some hardships I suffered. I decided to write only positive thoughts and events. Even if things are not looking so bright, I gotta find something good to write about. Half year later, I find myself becoming much happier and healthier. This blog site is the best thing happened in 2005. Even if one day I stop blogging, I know nothing will let me down anymore, ’cause there is always something bright out there if we are willing to look for it.
• I started my adult life in New York and I spent 3 years in World Trade Center area. I went back to New York City 6 months after 911 and I had an emotional breakdown after I visited the temp memorial which no longer exists. Ever since then, I couldn’t bring myself to revisit New York until this year. When I was standing in the new Path train station that was rebuilt inside of Ground Zero, I was speechless. I spent quite a lot of time in front of this picture. It was the most emotional but encouraging moment in 2005:

  

As the city glows in dark and my butt feels better, I took an easy stroll along the streets in the center city after the class. It was my first day to walk freely on the streets after feeling sick and miserable for the whole week. The carefree California air instantaneously washed off the stress I had carried from my office. Saks, Macy, Nordstrom, Victory Secret, and the Gallery with full of dazzling shops are lining up on the wavy San Francisco streets. I couldn’t help myself but to step into those mega size stores admiring the uniqueness of the goodies that can’t be found elsewhere.

Later into the evening, I was sitting by the street with a couple of girls and my Gay friend, having French dinner, laughing, drinking and bitching about guys. It was a total Sex And The City scene mixed with the California scent and LES HORS D’OEUVRES.

I couldn’t stand the big city life so I left New York. But on the other hand, I’ve always missed the city life even though Colorado has offered me the chance to live up and close with the most beautiful Mother Nature. Ahh.. humans. We are never satisfied with what we have. We let go of the things we have possessed and miss them when we don’t have them. All the sudden, I miss New York’s cute coffee shops, the summer Jazz dance festivals by the Michigan Lake in Chicago, the 4am Dim Sum in Shanghai, China, and I am going to miss the time I spent here tonight, in the beautiful charming San Francisco.

Although I am injured and not able to snowboard, I tagged along this weekend to hang out in Vail with my friends. The 1 – 2 foot fresh powder was just too good to pass. After struggling nearly 4 hours on the road, we finally arrived in Vail Village. The entire Denver must came here ‘cause the only empty parking spots were for the handicapped. After circling around a few levels in the garage, we noticed that we must have passed by a few empty handicapped spots on each level.

“Can handicapped people ski and snowboard? Don’t you think those people who ski and snowboard shouldn’t be classified as handicapped?” My friend was getting frustrated. I started to count and didn’t see a single handicapped spot being taken and we had this army of late arrivals who were still desperately circling around the garage hoping to get lucky.

I used to have a blind roommate and we always used her handicapped parking permit to get the best spots. Her sight was permanently damaged and that was how she got the handicapped blue parking tag. I don’t know if my broken tailbone qualifies me as one of those handicapped parkers. But in reality, I don’t have a permit and I really need a closer spot at this time. What are the practical use of these spots anyway if the injured people can’t park there and the handicapped people don’t come here?

I accidentally came across this picture last night. Hmm, maybe I was wrong… Maybe the disabled do snowboard so Vail needs to designate 50 handicapped spots by the lift chairs.

“You can’t walk yet? But you will soon? Sorry, no handicapped spots for you! Keep circling!”

When I was at the Doc’s office, the guy told me a few things I shouldn’t do. You know, things like snowboarding, rock climbing, exercising, etc… Nothing surprising. But I am tell ya, the doc’s list is not even close to the real life experiences.

That day after I broke my tailbone, my friend took me to the ER. He is a funny guy who always makes me laugh. As usual, I laughed at his jokes and boy, my ass hurt like hell! I had to yell at him, “Don’t make me laugh, my ass hurts!”

A few days later, I had my first sneeze. I didn’t realize that my entire body shakes when I sneeze, tailbone included. I had to lie down on the couch to recover from the pain after each sneeze.

Unfortunately, I am relatively a happy person who laughs a lot and just caught cold at this moment. Talking about the perfect timing. I guess this is the once in the life time chance (I hope once is enough) for me to laugh/sneeze/cough my ass off.

Update on Dec 6 :
Defintely don’t take a flight. Stupid me flew to San Francisco 8 days after the accident and the 3 hour flight sitting in a middle seat was as miserable as you could imagine. What the hell was I thinking!? Durh..

Before I say anything, take a look at the following chart:

(source: www.crutchfield.com/TV)

The Tube CRT offers the best quality of picture in the 13” – 36” range. A 36 inch CRT old fashion Tube TV costs probably 400 bucks while a same size Plasma costs $1999! I don’t know if I can convince myself to spend $1500 more just to get a flatter look. It seems kind of waste of money. So I am going to stick with my 100 dollar 27 inch old fashioned Panasonic CRT for a while.

For the very first time in my life, I broke a piece of my bone.

I was unloading from a lift chair when my right foot slipped. My butt landed pretty hard on the binding. It was so painful that my tears came out right away involuntarily. I probably took a hundred falls on my butt ever since I started learning snowboarding and this one was by far the worst. I didn’t know I broke my tail bone at that time. I fell so many times that the pain was already part of the game.

After 15 minutes of struggling, I strapped my feet back in and rode down the hill with the rest of the class. An hour later, I found myself having difficulties sitting in the cafeteria. Even my favorite hot beef stew couldn’t keep my mind off the pain.

Three hours after the fall, the pain was still so persistent that I started having a hard time walking down the stairs. Finally, my friends put me in the back seat and drove me back to Denver. I still didn’t think I broke anything until the doctor gave me an examination in the ER and told me I broke the tip of my tail bone. I was very disappointed when I heard the news. I have the next two weekends planned to go to Wolf Creek and Vail. Now, I can’t even rock climb. Bummer!

Although I can still walk (slowly) and sit on a donut shaped cushion for coupe of hours, driving still gives me a lot of ass-ache. I tried to go to the nearby Target today and the 2 mile roundtrip was quite a struggle when dealing with the road bumps. I probably pissed off a lot of drivers by going 10 miles an hour.

My friends showed so much caring after I got injured. A girl I met just a few weeks ago postponed her night out with her friends and drove me from Breckenridge back to my apartment. A close friend of mine also missed a portion of his party and took me to the ER and got me medications and food. A few people called today to let me know that they are only a phone call away if I needed anything.

I wrote a very moody post just a week ago when I felt very lonely. But when a situation like this happens, people do care and they do anything they can to help their friends. I am truly grateful that after just a short period of time living in Denver, I’ve had a few people whom I can rely on if I am ever in trouble. This is a very comforting thought.

Thank you guys for helping me to grow my tail back. I will do the same if you ever have problems with your tails or paws. Hehehe..

I was supposed to fly from Denver back to Nashville for the Thanksgiving holiday this evening. Well, it’s 4 hours passing my original flight schedule and I am still in Denver. The flight got delayed and delayed and then further delayed until I couldn’t bear anymore. I rent a car and came home. I guess I will have to give it another try tomorrow.

After experiencing countless delay and cancellations, this scenario is no longer strange to me, although still pissing me off from time to time. A lot of you may travel to see your families and friends in the next few days; I figured I’d offer some lessons learned from my past travel experiences to make your trip a less stressful one:

1. Always buy e-ticket. If you have access to a computer and a printer, check in online, print out the boarding pass before heading over to the airport. You can go directly to the security line. How nice!
2. Instead of checking in one big luggage, bring two carry-on pieces. The flexibility is extremely important if the agents have to reschedule your flight. And you can pretty much hop on any flights on the same day without paying extra fees.
3. Always check the flight status before you leave home. Majority of the airlines let you check the flight status online and it is in sync with the airport systems. If the flight is severely delayed or even canceled, you don’t have to waste too much time.
4. If your flight is canceled, don’t line up to talk to the agent if you need to rebook. It takes forever unless you are the first 10 customers. Instead, call the airline reservation number directly and talk to someone to reschedule your flight. When a flight shows up as “cancel” status, the reservation agent on the telephone will be able to rebook you without charging you.
5. Most importantly, don’t get frustrated. It took me a long time to realize that getting stressed out of something that is out of my control simply doesn’t do any good. Try to focus on working out the alternatives when situation arises.

Hope everybody has a pleasant trip and happy Thanksgiving!

Ok, we’ve heard this enough times from the girls who just came out of the broken relationships:
“I am smarter, faster, taller, richer and prettier. So he must feel too intimidated to be with me. “

Yep, this is the best excuse we can come up with. Think about this, we are successful, we are beautiful, we make great money, we are fun and furious females (using Cosmo’s lingo). So what could possibility be the reason why the guys don’t want to be with us? They must be intimidated, we believe.

I was at Comedy Works the other night enjoying Greg Behrendt performing on the stage. If anyone is not familiar with this name, he is the author of a quite popular book He’s just not that into you. The guy had some insights of relationship topics in general so I picked up a copy after the show.

Basically, Greg’s theory is that even if a guy doesn’t think he can match up, he will still move mountains to chase the girl he likes. So when a man breaks up with a woman, all it means is that he is just not that into her, regardless how much smarter, faster, richer and prettier she is. No other excuses ladies!

Although Greg does have a good point, I am not so sure if I totally agree with him. Men find their values when they can provide for their women. If a man feels that he has nothing to offer to her, he is probably going to feel a lot of pressure and eventually withdraw regardless how much he adores his capable woman.

So, will a man chase after a woman who is 10 times more capable than him? I believe he will. But will a man stay with this woman if he finds that he has no value in this relationship? I don’t think so.

My theory (maybe I am in my own dreamland) is that a man will leave the woman for other reasons even though he is still very much into her. What boils down is whether it is a balanced relationship where both parties are able to find satisfactions. For man, I guess the most important thing is to know that he is needed.

But on the other hand, if the relationship is still at its baby stage ranged from a few hours to a few months, I guess Greg is right about that “He is just not that into you” theory.

Did any guy ever initiate a breakup while he was still very much into the girl? I’d be curious to see what you think…

The only time I had pets for a while was down in Atlanta when I was working on an AT&T account. My co-worker bought me a small fish tank and 2 Mollies to keep my daytime job a little bit more interesting. I kept on feeding them and feeing them and one day the female got pregnant. She had her first baby and we named him Dobby. I was actually amazed to see that Molly gave birth to a live fish instead of eggs. Anyway, Dobby grew quite fast. After a few weeks (? I can’t remember), he was almost a quarter of his parents’ size. Then the mama got pregnant again. And this time, she kept on popping out little fishes from her tummy. Although the mama was only a fish, it was amazing to witness such a long birth. We waited there for a long time and she kept on popping out babies. On count 15, the baby fish was too big and got stuck in her tummy. We could see the baby fish’s tail but no matter what she did, the head wouldn’t come out. She gave a final push, jumped all the way to the surface of the tank, then sunk to the bottom and died. We were all shocked and stunned at what we saw. It was a very sad moment. But we were very happy to welcome the other 14 baby fishes to live with Dobby. Just a couple of weeks later, my co-worker’s husband killed my entire tank of fishes when he was exchanging the water for them. Dobby died too. I was quite upset for a while. Ever since then, I’ve never had another chance to have pets.

Maybe one day I will have a dog. But the thought of dealing with a dog’s death does scare me a bit. Oh well. In the meantime, I’d be happy to look at some cute baby animal’s pictures.

Check out today’s photoblog : Lovely baby animals. Thanks to Bib for the photos.