Cow’s Life - Thinking Outside Of The Barn

Thanks to a natural zest for life, the happiest people are always on the hunt for new experiences. I must admit that I am a lot happier after I did something that was unthinkable a few years back : rock climbing, camping, and snowboarding. Not only these sports have shaped up my confidence in my own physical and mental capabilities, the experiences also offered me a chance to look at nature and life in a totally different perspective. To the least, I just don’t get hung up on small things anymore (most of the time… ).

As the snow season closed up, I started a new gig these days: learn how to play golf. Today is my second time taking a few swings at the driving range and I sucked. But just like every other new thing I have tried, I am going to keep going back to the driving range until I graduate. Part of the fun while learning a new stuff is the experience of failure and the journey from “can’t do it” to “I did it”. It really keeps you motivated everyday hoping tomorrow is the day that “I will finally get it”.

The experts have suggested to set a goal of being willing to make one mistake every single day. This encourages you to try new experiences you might otherwise have avoided out of fear of failure. Plus, exercising your curiosity in this manner has been proved to promote happiness: Neurology researchers have found that diving into a fresh experience triggers the production of dopamine, one of the body’s feel-good chemicals.

I am a living proof. I am a much happier person once I started trying new things I sucked at or never thought about doing.

Sometimes, I just want to chill out, use less brain cells and laugh at something dumb. Now is that moment of the day. So here I am sharing with you some of my dumb moments with some pointless laughs…

Joke of the day
Do you think the porn sites should be .org or .multi-org?

Dumb Picture of the day
Rabbit got robbed

Dumb news of the day (or yesterday)
I thought I was the only Chinese lady who needed bigger bras. I guess the entire China is aiming at larger cups. Check out the most popular odd news of (yester)day:

Bra producers have been forced to offer bigger cup-sizes in China because improved nutrition is busting all previous chest measurement records.
It’s so different from the past when most young women would wear A- or B-cup bras,” Triumph brand saleswoman Zhang Jing told the Shanghai Daily from the Landmark Plaza of China’s commercial hub.

Complete article: Tempest In D-cup as bust sizes grow

Thanks to Paco for the links.

When Breckenridge opened up its first lift chair, I couldn’t wait and had to be there on that day wresting with black, blue and green skiers and boarders on a single green run. Last Sunday was the closing day of Breckenridge, Vail and all other resorts besides Loveland and A-Basin. Despite the hot weather (Denver was almost 80 degree the day before), I drove to the mountain to board for one last time.

The snow was sadly brown at Peak 9, but Peak 8 was good enough for anyone who can deal with wet slushy ice. The weather was so warm that I didn’t even need a ski jacket.

Down at the base, people were wearing short sleeve t-shirt with their biggo baggy ski pants on. It was kind of hilarious “fashion day”. Quite a few guys I spotted were shirtless on the slope. And a group of 4 girls dressed in mini red Swedish skirts and fishnet stocking. What a view!!

Although the top peak was still snow white, the base was mostly brown melted snow reminding everyone that winter is finally gone.

Although I broke my tailbone at Breck, twisted my knee at Telluride and had to stop boarding for nearly 2 months, I had a great season. I was so proud to be able to navigate through the narrow catwalk from Peak 8 to Peak 7 with my newly learned small link turns!! And I only fell twice on my last day of the season!! Woooooohooooo!

Now, it’s time to put away all of my boarding gear and take out all of my camping and hiking gear! Colorado summer is almost here! I LOVE THIS STATE!

If you are one of my PhotoBlog lovers, you are probably pretty familiar with the following picture: The angry baby got transformed into the angry baby Eagle’s Coach.

My friend Paco, a die-hard Eagle’s fan sent me this picture:

Ok, so all the mystery of where the baby Eagle Coach come from is solved. Have a great weekend!

There is much debate going on whether our cellphone’s radio frequency (RF) energy will damage our health or not. Nobody can really draw a definite scientific conclusion (or maybe we just don’t know about it so they can keep selling these phones to us). But there is one fact that might get your attention: For a phone to pass FCC certification, the phone’s max SAR level (specific absorbed RF level by the body) is 1.6W/kg in US and 2W/kg in Europe.

Ok, that at least tells you something about the danger of RF energy. Otherwise, why do they go through such an extend to cap a limit and test every single phone?

Anyway, here are the 10 models that carry the highest SAR:

And here are the 10 lowest.

I have a Sanyo PM-8200 with 1.01 SAR. I guess I am more than half way to be brain dead if 1.6 is the max.

To find out whether your model does any harm to you, click on the following manufacturer:

Audiovox/UTStarcom

Other Manufacturers

Thanks to RJ for the Links

I was taking a flight back home from Austin last week and got to the gate kind of late. I had to stuff my bag in the overhead compartment and might squash somebody’s duffle bag a bit. Since the duffle bag was pretty loosely packed, I didn’t think it was a big deal. But when the plane landed, the duffle bag owner started to yell at my face, “You are the stupidest bitch I have ever seen. See what you did to my BAG!” Of course, I wasn’t happy to hear the B word. But trying to be polite, I asked him if there was any damage so I could pay him some money. He kept on screaming, “Just stop being an idiot!” and stormed out of the aircraft. I wanted to cry. Actually, I did cry on the way home and even at home. I couldn’t understand why people would say such mean things to me when there was apparently no damage done to that person. I even offered to pay the damage if there was any. To be honest, it was hard to let it go. But finally I convinced myself, “Well at least I am not an angry miserable unhappy person like that guy.”

We hit bad luck here and there. We all had to go through some terrible experiences somewhere in life. Even the worst experiences have their bright sides. Take that airplane story as an example: at least I know I am not a crazy angry bitch.

Embracing all of your life experiences - even the really painful ones - with the knowledge that something good inevitably will come out of them is what optimism is all about.” It helps minimize fears about the future and could otherwise become debilitating, allowing you to move past them more quickly and ultimately lead a more carefree life, ” says Baker.

A classic study from University of Massachusetts found that accident victims who had become suddenly paralyzed were more hopeful about the future than lottery winners. A possible reason: The tragedy allowed them to see that most of the stuff that gets us down isn’t really worth fretting over.

So how to be a “Glass Half Full” thinker? There are many ways, but what worked for me was trying to approach a bad situation with an open mind and try to find the upside of it. So far, I have found the “bright side” in everything, good or bad.

I still believe that being happy is a personal choice: whether you choose to stay in a bad mood or let it go; whether you choose to step out the bad situation or sink in; whether you choose to do something that is meaningful and productive or be lazy and worship TV all night long; whether you choose to get out of the house and meet other people, or sit at home and feel lonely and sorry for yourself.

Research shows that people who describe themselves as autonomous and self-governing are up to three times more likely to be satisfied with their lives. These individuals know they have the power to opt out when a situation no longer suits them. So when they are not happy with their current situations, they make the active choices to change matters.

It was a while ago that I had to teach myself a simple exercise to feel happier:
Whenever the bad mood strikes, I consciously make the decision to let it go and look at the brighter side. I know it sounds dumb. But after all, everything is related to what we decide to do. When my brain decides not to feel grumpy about whatever I am feeling grumpy about, my attention shifts to something else and before I know it, I am happily doing something else.

I am sure a lot of us know a few things about the true happiness. It ain’t money, it ain’t big house.. and it certainly won’t be the 15 min fame on a Reality Show. So what is it? What are these magic ingredients that truly make people happy?

I saw an article on this month’s Redbook and I am going to turn that article around and run a 12 day series to make a Happy List.

So here they are:

Happy List Day 1: It’s a Choice
Happy List Day 2: Optimism
Happy List Day 3: New Experience
Happy List Day 4: Finding Humor
Happy List Day 4: Finding Hobbies

It’s sad to see the snow go, but Spring is finally here! For the first time in 2006, I packed up my climbing gear and headed over to Turkey Rock area to climb with my team this past Sunday.

I always thought rock climbing is a sport for human and survival skill for squirrels. But wait until you see this:
Eiger, a black Lab named after a climbing site and owned by one of the climbers came with us this time. One of our climbers made a joke with Eiger by putting his favorite stick in a small cave about 7, 8 feet above the ground. Eiger, an absolute stick lover was determined to get this stick. He first analyzed the situation by stretching his body. “Ok, I am not tall enough.. “.

He then tried to jump a few times. Check out this video. That didn’t do him any good either.

His owner Mike and our climbing team lead Doug started to show him how to use the extra piece of rock to get him higher.

Then, they showed Eiger the basic climbing techniques: Get your legs up first! Boy, this smart dog is really learning.

Check out this video too.

After 20 – 25 minutes of struggling with the climbing techniques, he finally got his body up on the rock and reached to his favorite stick.

WOW! I don’t know if Eiger realized it or not, he just climbed the hardest part of a 5.8 route! High 5 for Eiger!!

Essential vocabulary additions for the workplace (and elsewhere)!!!

1. BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.
2. SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.
3. ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.
4. SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.
5. CUBE FARM : An office filled with cubicles
6. PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on.
7. MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation’s answer to the couch potato.
8. SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What Yuppies get into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.
9. STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.
10. SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.
11. XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one’s workplace.
12. IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are Annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The J-Lo and Ben wedding (or not) was a prime example - Michael Jackson, another…
13. PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.
14. ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.
15. 404: Someone who’s clueless. From the World Wide Web error Message “404 Not Found,” meaning that the requested site could not be located.
16. GENERICA: Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and subdivisions.
17. OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a BIG mistake. (Like after hitting send on an email by mistake)
18. WOOFS: Well-Off Older Folks.
19. CROP DUSTING: Surreptitiously passing gas while passing through a Cube Farm