Cow’s Life - Thinking Outside Of The Barn

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:

  

You’d think that with all the bad lucks I had, things could go a bit better. No, not really.

Despite the difficulty to locate new machines for me during the holiday, IBM managed to send out one loaner earlier this week and one replacement 2 days after.

The loaner that was supposed to arrive in Nashville 2 days ago was lost in DHL’s Nashville handling center. They told me the package couldn’t be found anymore. No further explanation.

So what about my new replacement today? It was held in US Custom since it was coming from Canada. Somebody didn’t finish the paperwork on time to ensure the “Next Day” service. I was just informed that it won’t arrive until Tuesday. Great! I am leaving on Monday.

Ok, forget about the crappy carrier’s service for a second. But what are the odds to lose 2 computers and screw up every shipment in one week? It almost seems that some mighty power is making sure that I am NOT going to get a laptop.

Alright! Alright! I am not supposed to complain. Let’s turn my crappy bad luck experiences into “Lesson Learned” again. I also made my first “New Year Resolution” list, inspired by my crashed digital world. You can read both lists on my pro blog site: http://www.blogfabulous.com/when-digital-world-crashes/

Everything sort of went wrong since the Christmas day. I received a black video iPod as my Christmas gift. Turned out just like my first iPod mini I bought a year ago – it didn’t work! I spent about 3 hours on Christmas day trying to get that thing to respond to a series of reset-reload-reformat-reprogram activities and all I got was a bright shining “Do Not Disconnect” screen. When I took it back to Best Buy to exchange for a working one, they told me they had no iPod in stock and didn’t know when they would get one. So much for the iPod excitement…. That was my bad luck #1 on the Christmas day.

My bad luck #2 came a day after the “no-iPod-for-you” incident. The shower in my bathroom on the second floor had a leakage. Coincidentally, the seal was broken in the bathroom so the water came through the ceiling dripping all over on our breakfast table. Also coincidentally, I left my Laptop dead on the spot on the table the night before. The poor computer was receiving every drop of the leaking water. When I got up in the morning, my computer was completely soaked in water. It was almost like someone had plotted a perfect plan to fry Christine’s computer. I called the help desk to seek for any hope to rescue the hardware. 8 hours later, my computer was pronounced dead. I need a replacement. Great! I just lost an iPod and now I lost my Laptop.

I was so upset that I didn’t even feel like eating dinner with my family. “Gee! I never had any luck winning a 5 dollar lottery. But I keep hitting the bad luck Jackpot! This holiday is ruined!” I couldn’t stop complaining. My mother finally said to me, “If you want to talk about bad luck, those people who are dying from cancer or had a retarded baby are hitting the bad luck Jackpot. You know Mr.Lee, the nice guy who owns that computer factory. He never smoked a cigarette in his entire life and he was just diagnosed with lung cancer. That’s bad luck. Life and death is a big deal. Your computer is fried, but it’s only a computer…”

I am not a negative person, however, it is quite hard to be positive all the time when these annoying things keep happening to me: car got wrecked, missing a flight; losing a baggage; breaking a tailbone; iPod’s come and gone; and unintentionally positioning the computer in the flooding zone. But my mom is right. Comparing with those very unfortunate events, these little things are truly little and repairable. Once I started to realize how insignificant my bad luck was, my dinner became quite tasty and I finally switched the topics to something else.

It turned out to be a great evening with my family. I am glad that I finally let the bad luck and sad emotions go.

Let’s just hope that nothing goes wrong on the New Year Day!

Seeing shows is my top reason to come to Vegas. I love Cirque Du Soleil, Celin Dion (although I am not a big fan of her songs, the show’s product is simply phenomenon) and the Las Vegas showgirls shows. However, Blue Man Group is something I have been speculating for a while and couldn’t make up my mind to see it until tonight.

Before seeing the show, I couldn’t really grasp the concept of what type of show it was. Nobody seemed to be able to describe it in plain English either. Spending 100+ dollars on a show that doesn’t belong to any category isn’t exactly my style. I bought the tickets only because Mystere was sold out tonight.

WOW!! WHAT AN AWESOME SHOW! I still can’t describe what kind of show it is. Ok, here is my best shot in plain English - I’d say it is a form of creative arts blended with a mixture of beats, visually stunning colors and shapes and the humorous performance pulled by 3 blue guys with no hair. If you are type of person like myself who loves to be stimulated by creative visuals, sounds and physical interaction with the performers, you are going to love this show. I know… I know… It’s still no plain English… I guess you will just have to see it for yourself. Here is my piece of advice: bring some toilet paper to tie a nice and big head piece…hehehe… I am serious!!

One Blue Man is nice enough to let me take a picture with him.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Christmas! It’s the best time of the year to relax and spend some precious time with my family for a week or two. But this whole gift exchange thing really sucks!

I am so stuck with the following questions and have no idea what the heck I should do..

• My parents don’t really care about material stuff. It burns my brain every year to figure out what the heck to give to them. They don’t need much and they don’t really know how to play with the hot techie toys on the market. I once bought a USB flash memory for my Dad when that thing just came out. It cost me nearly 100 bucks in 2003 and last Thanksgiving when I went home, it was still sitting in a box. It’s Dec 17, and I am still scratching my head…
• My guy is a very simple man who is living in a simple life. He loves high tech gadgets but is very careful with his money. If I buy an expensive toy, he’d feel he would disappoint me if he wasn’t prepared to do the same. If I buy him something simple but useful, then I’d feel bad if he shows up with a big nice super trendy toy. So… Video iPod? Camera? Tool box? Basketball? Or a big nice kiss??!! It hurts my brain when I think about this…
• I am going to a friend’s Christmas holiday dinner. I am close to only one girl but a few others will be there too. Should I just not care and bring one gift only or be polite to buy everyone a gift?

Valentine ’s Day is even worse. Those people who don’t have Valentines feel sad with no gifts while those ones who do have Valentines have to go through another round of the find-that-perfect-gift exercise without having enough time to recover from the Christmas brain and wallet damage.

It’s nice to give and receive gifts when we need to, such as on a BIG and SPECIAL occasion. But if we have to buy nice gifts 6 times a year to cover Valentine’s day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Anniversary, Birthday and Christmas, that’s just getting way too much.

An eBay seller tried to unload his/her 5 dollar Starbucks gift card. Starting bid was 99 cents. Reasonable right?

Well, check out the winning bid here, ’cause I can’t figure out why…

If someone is smart enough to figure out how eBay works, you’d think he/she can count…

The next time I am going to place this following Ad on eBay:

An empty Christmas gift box nicely wrapped with my toilet paper. The color of the wrapping exactly matches with the beautiful falling snow! Starting bid 99 cents plus $4.95 shipping. I wonder what’s gonna happen…

My Grandmother in China has 8 children. Last time when everybody was together in the same room was 1959. 3 Weeks ago, almost everybody in the Zheng’s family gathered together in Shanghai, China to celebrate my Grandma’s 90th birthday. I and my oldest cousin were the only two absentees. I probably haven’t seen a few of my cousins for more than 10 years! I am kicking myself for not making any efforts to go to the event. Although I can use “7000 miles away” as an excuse, I feel pretty bad that I missed this once in a life time opportunity.

This is a historical picture : my grandma with all of her 8 healthy children ranging from 71 to 51 years old. Can you tell which one is my father?

My first cousins from the Zheng’s family. I spent my early childhood with my older cousin Xu-Nan (the only girl in the picture) and I can’t believe that she still looks the same after I last saw her in 1995!

If you have a chance to see your family, GO and don’t let distance become your road block. Hey! It’s Christmas!

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.

I consider myself a fairly good engineer. I built-a..hmm… well… anyway, I must have built something meaningful in the past a few years. I just can’t remember now. Maybe my “software engineer” title is an exaggeration, ‘cause when I am looking at this picture, there is just no comparison between my type of “engineering” and THIS type of engineering:

A magnetically levitated train takes you from New York to London in 54 minutes! You will go 5000 mph through a 3100 mile long tunnel that was itself floating in the Atlantic Ocean.

About a year ago, I saw this on the Discovery Channel. The hour long program explained theoretically how this will work which I still clearly remember. The main idea is simple. We can’t achieve high speed because of friction. With the air friction and the contact between the rail and the train itself, today’s engineering can only achieve about 200 miles per hour speed. In order to achieve 5000 mph speed, friction has to go away, meaning that the train has to flow and the tunnel can’t have air. So, what’s gonna happen? Use magnetic field and suck all the air out of the tunnel.

Discover website just put this Trans-Atlantic Tunnel project into an interactive tool. It’s pretty cool to check out it’s “Extreme Engineering” design. I don’t know if any giant company is funding this project or not. But if this theory can really become reality, I’d be tempted to find out how my guts would feel while traveling 5000 miles per hour… Hehehe… \
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For those of you who don’t know the East part of the World War II history, Japan invaded China in 1937, ruined the entire country for nearly 8 years. My grandparents escaped from the village in Canton and migrated to Shanghai, which at that time was under the ruling of several Western countries. I was born in the old French district of Shanghai where my grandparents settled down in early 40’s. 60 years have gone by but the hate for the Japanese are still in the blood of majority of the Chinese including the younger generations like myself who were born way after the War was over. I can’t forgive them for slaughtering my three aunts like pigs by cutting their stomachs open. And I am still deeply insulted by the fact that they killed 300,000 people in Nanjing in one night and destroyed nearly every city they had touched from 1937 - 1945. If you dare to see some most disturbing killing and raping pictures, you can click the following link. Take my warning seriously; they are VERY DISTURBING because I CAN’T finish viewing them. I went through page 2 and I was about to vomit.

Nanjing Massacre Exhibit

As much as the hatred I have carried ever since I’ve learned the history, it never prevents me from falling for the beautiful Japanese culture and the arts. The stunning wood architecture, floral arrangement and the traditional painting have always captured my heart.

Although I can read only half of the Japanese characters, I would still spend hours wandering in a Japanese bookstore admiring the visual arts they have created. I watch Japanese anime and I play mostly Japan made console games such as my favorite Final Fantasy series. When Aeon Flux came out last weekend, I went to see it twice because of its anime background and the Japanese influenced architectural production settings.

I sometimes do feel guilty but I also feel that I have the freedom to appreciate whatever I appreciate. The love and hate conflict runs so deeply in my vein that I don’t think I will ever forget or forgive. But I do hope such battle can end in my generation. After all, we all need to move on and let the history become history.