minlin space

this is fun to watch, joy of software developer

the long awaited superbowl is this sunday Feb 1, 2009. I have been a fan of superbowl for many years and feel it is exciting, and fun to watch, not only the game but the half time show is second to none. even the commercial is fun to watch. it is said this year it runs 3mil for 30 sec, wow!

before i came to usa, i did not like football at all. there were some football shows on tv but i have a hard time to understand why players can get 10 yards in 3 plays. i was thinking of chinese gong-fu that would be easy to go all the way with some tricks, hehe. i started to like the game when i went to the stadium to watch my university team play, and i am one of those crazy fans in the stadium to cheer loudly for every completed pass, every firth down, and for a sack. i like the excitment of the team down 5 points and having 2 min left in the game to make something happen. i like the smartness and accuracy when the quarter throws a deep ball for a touchdown, it is pretty fun.

so it is sunday 2/1/2009 3pm CST for the superbowl XLIII. enjoy the game..

one of my favorite movie sound track:

happy niu year to all my friends, hope you in the niu year:

正财、偏财、横财，财源滚滚；
亲情、友情、私情，情情如意；
官运、财运、鸿运，运运亨通。

enjoy the following 小品，by 赵本山：

This is the song from the movie Ghost by demi moore. the movie is about a young executive attempts to communicate with his girlfriend through a phony psychic after he is murdered. many years have passed since i watched the movie but the scene and especially the song left a long memory for me…

Unchained melody lyrics by Righteous brothers

Album: Ghosts soundtrack

Oh, my love, my darling
I’ve hungered for your touch
A long, lonely time
And time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine?
I need your love, I need your love
God speed your love to me

Lonely rivers flow
To the sea, to the sea
To the open arms of the sea
Lonely rivers sigh
“Wait for me, wait for me”
I’ll be coming home; wait for me

Oh, my love, my darling
I’ve hungered, hungered for your touch
A long, lonely time
And time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine?
I need your love, I need your love
God speed your love to me

My company is having the chinese new year party one week ahead of time. it was a fun event, about 2k-3k people showed up. the event was held at OCC (overlake christian church). this is a huge church, they even have a shuttle to take you from the parking lot to the church. i remembered i used to go there every week to play volleyball. the show starts at 7pm, with the 狮舞 to start the show, it then followed up with performances from within ms, local chinese communities, such as northwest chinese school, huayin, the infiniti dance school. they added 3 shows from kids, i know a friend whose daughter is in the performance, the kids show is my favorite tonight. after the kids show, kevin and chris take turns to take pictures with the little girl and we even joked about she may get her fans team and requested for signature. a boy and a girl who were born in usa did a 相声，very good considering that may kids of their age in usa dont even know how to speak chinese.

it was a fun night to kick off the chinese new year, and kevin and chris were very happy enjoying the performance.

here are some pictures from teh party:

Kevin vip book

Kevin’s class composed a VIP book this week. The book was created by his classmates at challenger kindergarten. in the book every kid in the class draws a picture and write a sentence as a gift to him. It reads: To Kevin, I like you because _______________________________ from your friend, ________.

all the pictures are quite creative, and the messages are charming. happy to see this book and glad to learn that kevin has made some really good progress at school.

Here are some pictures.

[Show as slideshow]

one of my new year resolution (hopefully i can keep it:-) ) is to work out more in the fitness club. my company provides us free fitness membership, but i have not taking full advantage of it so far. work out is like something of low priority and can be cut if i dont have time, and that happened a lot.

pine lake club is a very good fitness club about 3 min drive away from where i live, so you think there should be no excuse not to go there. it has a full exercise equipments, a basketball/volleyball court, a full size swimming poll, a kids swimming poll and 4 indoor tennis courts. i like to use the treadmill and bikes, many equipments i dont even know how to use it.

plan to sign up for a personal tour of the facilities and stick to a set of time each week. set a goal for myself, work out to reach the goal, and reward myself when the goal is reached. have fun and keep fit.

in normal days, if your portfolio lost 20% over the 6 months, it is considered not a good investiment. however in this crazy time, this is not the case.

so today we were talking about stock during lunch, once we heard colleague said his portofolio lost 20% of value the last 6 months, we look at the guy as if he is a investment guru.

this is how crazy the things are now.

long term wise, the current situation is going to rebound. short term, one needs to spend more time on managing the portfolio. for example, when it comes to ESPP, sell on the first day of purchase will usually give you a good profit, and this is especially true in difficult time. before company scheduled financial report, you can do enough research to predict the outcome of the quarter, you probably dont know the exact detail of balance sheet, but you can pretty much know if the company is doing well in the quarter, and it happens a lot that the stock price rise up a bit before the report and drop sharp after it (of course this does not always happen and it depends on how business visibility the company conduct themselves).

the basic rule still applies, buy into companies you are familiar with, buy into the companies that have good track records.

pay attention to the industries that is on the rise. the energy crisis in the past year has brought enough discussion on renewed energy and its application and adoption. although it is still time for these alternative energy to mature and in wide use, it is worth looking into the sector. this is the trend, and this is an area where there is a huge market, and also this is an area where it is relative new, there exists many opportunities.

懂得先说抱歉的人，到后来占到便宜，这叫“输了面子，赚了里子”。愈有面子的人，愈输得起面子；愈是死要面子的人，愈会输。
– well said, those who do not mind admitting their mistakes will learn from their mistakes and go further.