Reblog: FortuneCity - 2010

Since FortuneCity is not longer available, I figure I copy the old stuff and paste it here. Luckily, Blogger supports CSS, so it is mostly copy-and-paste, then adjust some font size. :)

2010-10-19 TUE // Jury Duty

"Nobody here wants knowingly want to convict him. I want to do so only with a clear conscious." -Jury #12 This past week to today, I was at Los Angeles County Criminal Appeals serving as a juror. I was with a man that looks a bit like Hugh Grant (work for FedEx), a guy who look like an ex-Harley biker (work at an antique shop near Whittier College), a female day-time trader, a real estate agent (Los Angeles & Las Vegas), a film production crew (in Santa Monica), and more. It is possible to talk about it now, but it would be depressing to do so. Instead, I will list the food I ate during those days. Yes, it is irrelevant, but that is my exact intention. Date Food & Price Location Friday (10/8/2010) Miso Ramen & California Roll ($15.00) Mitsuru Grill Tuesday (10/12/2010) Ribeye Steak with Onion Ring ($8.66) Colburn Cafe @ The Colburn School of Performing Arts Wednesday (10/13/2010) Wonton Noodle Soup ($3.72) Yum Cha Cafe (Chinatown branch) Thursday (10/14/2010) Sweet Corn BBQ Chicken Tamale ($4.50) Corn Maiden Gourmet Tamale (Downtown City Hall's Farmer Market) Friday (10/15/2010) Miso Ramen #1 with Corn ($10) Orochon Ramen Monday (10/18/2010) Salmon & Gyoza Rice Combo ($10.53) Ichiban of Tokyo (Los Angeles Mall) Tuesday (10/19/2010) Yen Ta Fo Noodle ($7.00) Wu Ha Thai Noodle / ก๋วยเตี๋ยวเรือรังสิต(โกฮะ)เจ้าเก่า

2010-09-26 SUN // Zero Sum Market

Stock Market is a zero-sum game. For every dollar you gain, someone else loses. -RF If you didn't know by now, let me repeat it -- Stock market is a zero-sum game. It is a knowledge gambling. There is no guarantee of gain (excluding bond, note, treasury, etc). The economy could turn sour and the company goes out of business, which will leave you with zero cent. In fact, the company can still be in business, and the stock can worth few pennies, which still leave you nearly broke. Some may call a stock exchange an investment institution, but in the larger context it is for the most part... a casino. When you buy a stock, you are not buying a share of what the company is worth. You are buying into the potential that the company could worth in the future. In another words, you are buying into the potential. Hopefully, this explains why a company's stock price is not more static, and fluctuates along with the market. The higher the hype, the greater it can fluctuate. Let's take GOOG(Google) for an example: Quarter/Annual Statistic Number(6/30/2010) Shares Outstanding 318.71M Annual Revernue 26.21B Revernue Per Share $82.56 Gross Profit 14.81B Total Cash 30.06B Total Debt 0.00 Total Cash Per Share $94.32 Qtrly Revenue Growth (yoy) 23.50% Daily Stat Statistic Number(9/24/2010) Market Cap 168.05B Stock Price $527.29 Trailing P/E (intraday) 22.90 If you did not find these numbers to be wrong on the surface, then you have to two options -- get educated. Let's look at the two basic numbers first: revernue per share and total cash per share. When you combined these two numbers together, you have $176.88/share (82.56 + 94.32). This is to say, if Google decides to close the door tomorrow, each share of Google is worth around $176.88 (it could be more from selling asset). That is right, the true price is closer to $176 and NOT +$500 that you see. So, why would anyone pay $527 for it? If you look at Quarterly Revernue Growth, you can see that the company revernue has grown 23.50% this quarter comparing to the same quarter last year. If the trend continues, then you can see why people are pricing GOOG stock over $500 instead of $176. The temptation is too irresistable --- 176.88 * 1.23 = 217.56 * 1.23 = 276.60 * 1.23 = 329.15... Where else would you find something that return 23% on yearly basis? This is based on a faith that Google will continue to give 23% every year, which is illogical beyond any common sense. And like all good things, it will come to an end eventually, and whoever hold on to those shares at the end are the losers. The house win (government and trading firms), and plenty of... unfortunate share holders. I would talk more, but it would only depress people. Hopefully, I have given you enough of a reason to learn more about economic, business, and investment before blindly "invest" in things you don't understand. Happy educating. :)

2010-09-06 MON // POV - Identify Self

On Sunday, I flipped through the different channels on TV, and stumbled on a show about adopting Chinese kids on KCET (a PBS channel). The show was an episode of POV series. This is one is called 我愛你媽媽 // Wo Ai Ni(I Love You) Mommy. This documentary followed an eight year old girl named Fang Sui Yong from China who was adopted by a Jewish-American family, the Sadowsky family. The story started with Fang leaving her foster family in China, speaking no English, and going with her new mother that do not understand a word of Chinese. If you want to watch it, it is available online until November 30, 2010. At many points in the documentary, I was quite annoyed by Donna Sadowsky(the mom) who aggressively tried to assimilate the child to the American-Jewish culture, language, and life-style. One scene in particular upsetted me the most was when Mrs. Sadowsky delightfully talking about how Faith(Fang's American name) got angry at her younger sister in GuangZhou. She repeated Faith's words about loving her new younger sister(Sadowsky's youngest adopted daughter) more than the younger sister in China. In another scene, 14 months after the adoption, was quite dis-heartened. Faith was in front the web-cam, facing her foster family. Beside Faith was a woman who was there to translate Cantonese & Mandarin for both ends. It seems Faith has lost almost all her ability to speak and understand Cantonese and Mandarin. Needless to say, Faith struggles with own identity throughout the entire process. Although, the parents did try their best to help her, IMHO their actions fell quite short. I went to sleep with those thoughts. However, I thought about my own experience about when I moved to United States over night, and woke up with a different perspective. I, like many others who criticized them, never have or adopted a kid. I tried to shift my perspective to the point-of-view of the parents. Most parents usually realize their mistakes only after the fact. There are parents out that never able to listen and understand their own biological children. This family took a chance to help a child that won't have a bright future in China. They could have adopted a new born that would bypass most problem altogether. Parents are people that can make mistake. My criticisms were nothing but unhelpful judgements. A language can be learned. A culture can be explored. Both items do not identify a person. Children with a limited view may misunderstand the two as an identity. What may be more critical to her self-identity are acceptance from the family members, the feeling of belonging, and the love from her parents. Everything else are secondary components that add to her own identity. I believe Faith won't truly identify herself as a true Jewish, a real Chinese, nor an average American. It will be a conglomerate of the three cultures with acceptance, belonging, and love as catalysts.

2010-09-01 WED // Repeating Scenes

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm" -Winston Churchill The great things about life is the unexpected. For good and for bad. For every projects there are obstacles and unpredictable factors. It can be frustrating and very tire-some. It is easy to get caught in the emotions of these bad situations: fear, panic, anger. So, what do I do when it turned out to be a bad one? I would shut up and go for a run. Take my mind off the moment. I would remind myself, nothing in life ever run its course according to the original plan; no plan and event in life is foolproof. Reading too much into failures and signs does not help.

2010-08-28 SAT // Not Nineteen Forever

Today I was going through the garage and found a stack of old newspaper. To be accurate, the was mostly comic strips section, from 1997 to 1999. This was back before any comic strip archive on internet. So, I skim through and found several interesting articles: January 1994 Norththride earthquake, Chicago Bulls won 6th NBA title over Jazz (MJ made the last shot over Stockton, 87-86), a heat wave in So.Cal, an ice-freezing East coast, etc. However, what I also found were my high school newspapers during my senior year. Each volume of these newspapers was a four page of 11x17. The pictures were mostly fuzzy beyond recognition, except for few close up pictures. I flipped through some of them, and saw an article with a cartoon drawing. The drawing show two images side-by-side: one shows an image of a student in a nice suit with a caption "how you are," and another was image of a baby with "how an adult see you" caption. (I will try to scan it next time) The article was about how most adult view them as kids that need help all the times. Adults sometimes would worry about them doing the inappropriate things, and essentially have no confidence in the ability of these high school students. It was revelational to me. Merely 11 years later, and I have already forgotten how college kids feel and think. Basically, I have become the adult in the article. I went for walk to think more about it. This resonate with me, because I do talk to 18-19 years old students in college class that I am taking. In my view, these students still haven't learn the way of people, business, and the world. They have the freedom to do anything in a semi-protected environment. For them, they are still full of pride, freedom, and a belief that they understand almost everything around them. As a friend, I tried to correct their misconception, and pointed them to the right way. Unfortunately, I over did it. If you do not allow them to make mistake, they won't understand their own flaw, and more importantly experience and learn from their own mistake. For myself, I went through colleges with few supporting people and little guidance... and yet I turned out alright. From a hindsight, I want to re-do certain things better. But from my perspective as a student, I would rather make a mistake than taking advices from others. My pride pushed me to walk five miles each way to and from college than taking a bus. My freedom allowed me to study Computer Science at Cal Poly Pomona than went to UCLA, UCI, or even better. In fact, I didn't even bother to apply to another school, in spite of ace-ing almost all my computer-related courses. These mistakes made me a better person. It changed my understanding of people, and I had to prove myself beyond the given in order to change the perspective of others on me. What I did incorrectly was trying to help when they were not looking for it -- regardless of whether they needed it or not. Trying to help is not wrong, but only when they are looking for it. I need to do that instead of blindly insisting. I have to obseve, listen, and analyze a bit more. It was a long walk today. Nine miles in total. But I feel better from understanding people a little bit more. My college class is starting Monday, and I hope to do things a bit better this time around.

2010-08-26 THU // Modern Irrationality

This month I am somewhat agitated: Lots of work until late night Waiting for an email reply that did not come. At the moment, I have given up on it The stock market keep on falling Exceedingly hot weather. Over 100 Farenheit Schools are starting to open again All these events translated to longer commute, longer work hours, and uncomfortable outdoor lunch. Also, I spent the last two weekends working on the house: painting, scrubbing, cleaning, and reorganizing. It is an exhausting month. Although, there were couple good things that happenned: went to see Inception at AMC theater, and got a chance to try black cod steak at Shiki in Studio City (it is one of the better fish place). Okay, enough with life. I thought I share an interesting TED video about a natural flaw within ourselves that lead us to continually repeating the same irrational patterns. To prove her point, Laurie Santos, had to teach monkeys how to use money. The idea of monkey using money is very fascinating(enough to get me to watch it), and IMHO her approach is quite brilliant. Anyways, enjoy this presentation by Laurie Santos Laurie Santos: A monkey economy as irrational as ours

2010-08-22 SUN // Move again!

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” — Jack London (1876-1916), American writer and novelist After visiting my site on FortuneCity last week, I noticed numerious amount of advertisements: banner ads, popup ads, and the most hated embedded-link ads (when your mouse moves over certain keywords, a small video ads popup). I do not mind banner ads, but these in-your-face tactics are unacceptable. FortuneCity is acting like warez sites that have virus-infested scripts popping up. I missed the simplicity of Geocities, but nothing will bring it back from the dead now. So, I decided to move my site again after few months in FortuneCity. After some research, I found HelioHost with various praises from many reviewers. Best of all, there is a CMS (Content Management System) with plenty of plugin modules. So, I moved my site to here. Let's see how long this will last! Thanks HelioHost!! :)

2010-08-17 TUE

Beloit College Mindset List Today, I read an article on Yahoo! about Beloit College Mindset List. This list is compiled each year by the college staff containing around 50 short facts showing college freshmen's general understanding of the world. Mostly, it shows the generational-gap information between the professors and the students. Just for fun, I decided to look at my year, 2003 (even though I graduated a bit later...): Most of this year's students entering college were born in 1981.✓ They are the first generation to be born into Luvs, Huggies, and Pampers.✓ John Lennon and John Belushi have always been dead.✓ There has always been a woman on the Supreme Court, and women have always been traveling into space.✓ They have never needed a prescription to buy ibuprofen.✓ They never realized that for one brief moment, Gen. Alexander Haig was "in charge."✓ Don't know who he is... They never heard Walter Cronkite suggest that "That's the way it is." ✓ As a youngster "60 minutes" wasn't exactly exciting to watch They were born and grew up with Microsoft, IBM PCs, in-line skates, NutraSweet, fax machines, film on disks, and unregulated quantities of commercial interruptions on television.✓ Somebody named Dole has always been running for something.✗ I still remember Bob Dole's commercial even now. "He just can't win." (from President election against Bill Clinton) Cats has been on Broadway all their lives.✓ While they all know her children, they have no idea who "Ma Bell" was.✗ Found out about them from high school's typing class. I guess the typing textbook was really old. They never heard anyone say, "Book ‘em, Dano," "Good night, John-boy," or "Kiss my grits," in prime time. ✓ They never knew Madonna when she was like a virgin.✓ Mike Myers is the Spy Who Shagged Me not the first congressman expelled from that body in a century for his role in "Abscam." ✓ They have never had to worry about the packaging of Tylenol.✓ Yugoslavia has never existed.✗ They have never seen Bob Marley perform reggae live.✓ Jesse Jackson has always been getting someone out of trouble someplace.✗ In my mind, he was a trouble-maker. Always came out to talk. Strikes by highly paid athletes have been a routine part of professional athletics.✓ The moonwalk is a Michael Jackson dance step, not a Neil Armstrong giant step.✗ John Cougar has always been John Cougar Mellencamp, or vice versa.✗ Don't know either of them Travel to space has always been accomplished in reusable spacecraft.✓ The term "adult" has increasingly come to mean "dirty." ✓ The year they were born, reports condemned violence on television and in Hollywood films for producing the likes of John Hinckley.✓ They have always been able to get their news from USA Today and CNN.✓ They have spent more than half their lives with Bart Simpson.✓ Still love the show They don't understand why Solidarity is spelled with a capital "S."✓ They don't think there is anything terribly futuristic about 2001, and were never concerned about the year 1984.✓ They have no idea how big a breadbox is.✓ Camelot refers to King Arthur's seat of government, not John Kennedy's.✓ You can blame the cartoon and NBC's King Arthur mini-series for that President Kennedy's assassination is as significant to them as that of Lincoln or Garfield.✓ They have probably never dialed a phone or opened an icebox.✗ The only thing a "churchkey" has ever opened for them is a church.✓ They have never seen white smoke over the Vatican and do not know its significance.✓ They cannot identify the last United States President to throw-up on a Japanese prime minister.✓ Ketchup has always been a vegetable.✗ Susan B. Anthony has always been on the dollar but probably never bought them anything.✓ They cannot imagine waiting a generation to get the dirt on the U.S. President.✗ Bill Clinton and O.J. Simpson ruins afternoon cartoon!! They felt pretty special when their elementary school had top-of-the-line Commodore 64s.✗ We got to play Oregon's Trail on computer instead. I admit, I was impress that school has video game. ET, Gremlins, and The Hulk provided their Halloween costumes and lunch box themes.✗ They were introduced to Kramer on the TV show Friday's.✗ They remember when Saturday Night Live was still funny.✓ They have never seen a BankAmericard.✓

2010-08-16 MON

I have been writing Perl lately, and I am trying to summarize the problems with Perl on scalability: Constants cannot be easily exported. You either include it in EXPORT or use ISA Tedious constants usage. It is not a variable, but a function, thus you need to add "()" to ensure correct hash keyname No built-in hash keyname lock. You can use lock_keys() in Hash::Util, but you won't see the error until run-time Lack of compile-time checkings, or a pre-processing code examiner. You basically has to exercise ALL execution paths to determine a namespace error, a function parameters mismatch, a simple misspelling Anyways, I am looking into O'Reilly - Perl Best Practices to see if there is a better to write scale-able and flexible code in Perl. Also, looking for ways to have namespace and syntax error get caught in compile-time rather than run-time.

2010-08-01 SUN

We want to live the carefree days in the past      but we know better than to do so      that those feelings and good times can never last The weather this year has been quite odd. The rain and storm came pouring earlier in this year, as if to make up for the last few years. The summer heat along with a rare humidity came earlier than usual. Then autumn season just follow when it should have been an extreme temperature. This month should be interesting. Let's see if there will be a lunch with some friends from college.

2010-07-25 SUN

Going in Spiral This week I felt a little down, and got back to reading 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. At one point, I came to a section about value-based action, where you stop worrying about what others think of you, stop being a person that solely based on others' preception of you, stop letting environment dictates your action/ response/ initiative, and start taking actions that will bring values to ourselves and others. I have been quite tire and passive lately, so I planned to for a trip to Alhambra Historical Museum today, and it almost did not happened. In the last few weeks, I just felt tire. This morning is not different. It would have been easier to sit at home and watch TV. It would have been easier to read and not practice. But at 2 PM, I went. The uneasy feeling was there, but I started to feel good when I was there. Going through the antique items, and looking at pictures from the early Alhambra has lifted me up. Obviously, the final destination was Alhambra yearbooks. They have added more yearbooks in the 90s since my last visit in 2009. I got to see picutres of friends from high school. I wanted to recall all memories in those years, and wanted to know about events when I was no longer there. Looking through those times brought back the curious personality that I used to be full of. I think each one of us feel the need belong somewhere, and in order to do that we look into our own past, our own ancestrial heritage, and our hometown's heritage. We feel the need to understand ourselves better by looking at the past. It may not solve anything looking into these things, but the calm feeling and inspiration are irreplacable. I am determined to march forward again. I am not going in circle, but expanding in a spiral motion.

2010-07-22 THU

UTF-8 Editor เคยเป็นไหม ไม่รู้ว่าพรุ่งนี้ตื่นมาจะทำอะไร So I finally found an editor that supports UTF-8 display with HTML syntax color. Beside Visual Studio Express, which is an overkill app, I found EditPad Pro (a rip-off from TextPad Pro?). Anyways, I am trying out the free demo, and so far it is looking pretty good. It contains the usual functionalities: macro, syntax highlight, block selection, s, text folding, regex search & replace, etc. Couple features that I enjoy: UTF-8 display, character map, unsaved file diff, search term highlighter. Now to the bad: no keyboard shortcup mapping, no VI-style navigation (TextPad seems to be the only visual editor that does this), fewer script library. Anyways, we will see how it will work out

2010-07-18 SAT

Restoring the Old Site It is always hard to make the old code co-existing with the new one. I guess it is the cost of maintaining legacy source code. In this case, it is a mix of HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Also, converting PHP to the old fashion HTTP is pretty darn tiring. Anyways, I managed to get this done for now. More to update laters. Still need to find a good editor that supports Unicode.

2010-04-08 THU

Returned To Where It Began Geocities is no longer alive, and blogspot from Google is not exactly interesting. So, here I am, back to where I first started, FortuneCity -- my second site after Geocities. Works on this site will begin slowly as I am trying to put back everything I had written.

2007-12-26 WED

Moving On Well, it has been a while since my last update. Work, school, hobby, exercise chore, and life have occupied pretty much most of my time. In order to reduce maintainence, I decided to move on to a new website, a blog webpage at http://kainr2.blogspot.com/. Hopefully, I can get more time to do the blogging there, and less on server maintainence.

2007-11-08 THU

Color Update Last week, I came to check on this site, and to my surprise, SiteBurg was down. Not a 404 Down, but a Connection-Refused Down. This gave me quite a scare, since it could have been shutdown for all I know. Just to be safe, I decided to look around the net for another free host. After few days of comparing, I signed up with www.HelioHost.org, and was ready to start again. Luckily, SiteBurg came back couple days ago, and so this site continues. And to celebrate the return of this site, I redo the coloring scheme of this site. Hopefully, you like the more brighter color of this page.

Walk: A Place That Doesn't Exist

Today, I walked.

Supposedly, there is a store in Arcadia. But once there, there was no store by the name that I was looking for.

Supposedly, most people would be sad, angry, or disappointed after walking and jogging for 90 minutes. But once there, I have been relieved of another expectation.

Supposedly, people cannot help but to avoid pain and seek pursue pleasure. But once there, I found neither are likable or unpleasant. Neither could give me peace. Neither can comfort my eventual departure. Neither truly last in encouraging myself to continue.

I had mistook meaningful with desirability, like so many. At this point, I think it is the meaningful events of life that helps me understand that leaving, like coming, is another experience of living -- another meaningful event.

Walk: Clean-Air Car Show

It was on July 19 (Saturday), so this is a bit late. Okay, wayyyy late, but for a good reason.

It was a week ago when I came across South Pasadena Mission West Association website, which contained information about the community event back in April. Well... I missed that totally, but I didn't mind. The site show pictures of the April event and the local businesses in Mission West area. After few minutes looking the site, the photos of unique and classic buildings inspired my next walking destination.

The forward trip was over an hour, but the quiet and serene streets in South Pasadena made the trip quite enjoyable. The city had the feeling of San Marino, but with smaller houses and more cars. Three quarter of the way through, a small park appeared. I took few minutes to circle the park. A lot of young children playing with their parents watching near by, but beside that, nothing much.

As I finally reached Mission West, I found the sidewalk to be under construction. Most of the stores on the side still open, but the sidewalk was dusty and sandy. A block down further, the newly constructed city hall with a newly paved sidewalk. By now, my impression of Mission West began to wane. Up to that point, the area has not impress me. The buildings were new and clean, but neither creative nor outstanding. As I headed back, a green and white fryer caught my eye.

The City of South Pasadena proudly presents
Clean-Air Car show & Film Festival

Hmm...

Since it was only couple block away, I decided to join the festivity. I arrived at around 2:30 PM, and some of the booths were already packing up. True to the name, there were plenty of "future" and "green" cars from several brands in the area. There were hybrid, compressed natural gas, electric, hydrogen fuel cell, etc. However, overall, the car didn't look very impressive. There were no information about the gas mileage, and most of the cars were not in the market yet.

In the end, the only thing that truly impressed me was the animal shelter foundation. They brought a bunch of dogs and cats in their trailer, and each volunteer was taking care of a dog. While walking around the festival, the volunteers was walking their dogs, looking for potential adopters. After playing around with one of them for about ten minutes, I thought about adopting one from a shelter one day. But that time has yet to come, and with that I left the place.

Walk and Financial Tip: Banks in San Gabriel Valley

In the previous post, I mentioned Safe & Sound Rating from BankRate.com, so I decided to do some Safe and Sound research on banks in San Gabriel and Alhambra, including international banks. The rating is out of 5 stars (the more, the better).

• Bank of America (FDIC Insured; 3 stars - North Carolina)
• Bank of East Asia (USA), The (FDIC Insured; 2 stars)
• California Bank & Trust (FDIC Insured; 4 stars - California)
• Cathay Bank (FDIC Insured; 3 stars - California)
• CitiBank (FDIC Insured; 3 stars - Nevada)
• Citic Ka Wah Bank (Not Insured)
• East West Bank (FDIC Insured; 3 stars - California)
• Eastern International Bank (FDIC Insured; 4 stars - California)
• Far East National Bank (FDIC Insured; 4 stars - California)
• Omni Bank (FDIC Insured; 4 stars - California)
• Preferred Bank (FDIC Insured; 2 stars - California)
• Shanghai Commercial Bank (Not Insured)
• TomatoBank (FDIC Insured; 4 stars - California)
• United Commercial Bank (FDIC Insured; 2 stars - California)
• Wachovia (FDIC Insured; 2 stars - North Carolina)
  
• Washington Mutual (FDIC Insured; 1 stars - Nevada)
• Wells Fargo (FDIC Insured; 4 stars - South Dakota)
• Wing Lung Bank (Not Insured)

As you can see, WaMu and Wachovia do not look too good here.... Maybe it is time to stop saying Woo Hoo?

Walk: Lost Glasses

Well, I guess it is about time.

So, today, I go out for another walk and photography around San Gabriel. Before I left, I was debating whether to bring my big-oval glasses, or not. In the end, I putted it in my shirt pocket, and left. Few hours later, in Salvation Army store, I searched for my glasses. It was not there anymore.

I had this big-oval shaped glasses since 11th grade. The black frame is made from Germany. It had been abused so bad that the corner screws are no longer the original screws, the brand name on the legs are no longer visible, both lenses sometime pop out from the frame, and the right lens has a permanent scratch. I chose the old-style frame because it reminded me of Shinichi Kudo from Detective Conan, which is the first scanlated manga I read back in the late 1990s.

You probably wonder why the hell I write so much about my old glasses. Well, how can I not write about something that I use so often for so long. Few people had told me that I look dorky in that glasses. They were right, but I continued to wear it because I was a dorky guy in many ways. Now that I am nearly a different person from my old self in 2006, it was a matter of time to say goodbye to this glasses too... Saturday, May 24, 2008, 11:30 AM to 2:30 PM.

Walk: Santa Anita Canyon

Stop and stare
I think I'm moving but I go nowhere
Yeah I know that everyone gets scared
But I've become what I can't be
Oh, do you see what I see?

These days, my weekends are filled with activities and chores: send my camera to be fixed, change the car's engine oil, sell those bottles and can, write my business report, read the chapters for my business class, drive around town to do this and that, etc. There never seems to be enough time to stop and think. However, on Saturday morning, my friend called me up and offered an opportunity for me to do that.

"Hey, what are you doing today?"

"Not much," my typical reply, despite all the chores, "Why?"

"I'm thinking if you want to go hiking."

A moment of pause.

"Hiking?" this is from a guy who complains about parking too far in a parking lot.

"Yeah, hiking."

And so the weekend's activity was decided. We were going to hike Santa Anita Canyon. I drove up the narrow and curvy canyon slowly with three cars trailing me. My friend did not like how slow I was driving, but he knows better than to say too much. For any passengers in my car, they know, it's better to be safe than sorry. We got to the parking lot around 11 AM, and paid five dollars for a parking permit.

Along the trail to the bottom of the canyon, we took some detour to visit few abandoned cabins. There were plenty of equipments, and rusted items filled with web cobs. I thought about how anyone could have live there in the early 1900's. It would have been a long and enduring walk up and around couple canyons. After about an hour, we got all the way down to the bottom of the canyon, where lie a spring with crystal clear water. A family with couple kids were playing around the spring. For me and my friend, we sat along the stream talking about our lives in the beautiful nature with small creatures in the spring.

It was not too long before we realized that we should have pack some food before coming here. The hike was exhausting, and it was already 1:30 PM. We headed back after 20 minutes around the spring. For my friend, who is not used to walking up hill for more than a mile took few breaks along the way. His legs were giving up by the time we got back to my car. As I drove down the canyon, three more cars followed me...

Oh, still waiting for my camera to come back, so no pictures.

Walk: Sunny Day

A genius is one that think outside the scientific standard.
An insane person is one that act outside the social norm.
The distinction between the two are not mutually exclusive.

I remember sitting in my high school English class, and my teacher read out a quote from Robert Frost that goes something like this, "On a path through the forest, I take the path least taken, because that is the most interesting one." I cannot recall that teacher's name, but many quotes that he read stuck to me.

On Saturday, I went up to Pasadena again to take pictures of a hut-shaped coffee store for my project in business class. The temperature during noon was over 90 Fahrenheit, and not see a single cloud can bee seen in the bright blue sky. The sky was as empty as air itself. The hot weather never really bother me before, and so I decided to walk as planned. In order to reduce the heat, I washed my hair with water before I left my house around noon. However, by the time I reached the second intersection, my hair was already dried.

Jogging up the hill was not easy, and it hit hard when you are unfit. I used to jog for almost 30 minutes continuously during the college days. That was with a calculus book, a 5 inches binder, and a bunch of junks in my backpack. Nowaday, I maxed out at 15 minutes with no extra weight. It wasn't pretty, but that did not stop me. Along the way, I went inside two stores that I passed by all the time in the last 10 years, but never enter them. First was Honey Baked Ham store, and another was a CVS store across the street from Honey Baked Ham. Interesting, but I didn't buy anything.

When I finally reaches the coffee store at Pasadena City College, I took out my camera and started taking picture. Since the store closes on weekend, I was taking picture of an empty hut-shaped store. Nearby, a photography student was eating her lunch under a tree, while occasionally looking at what I am doing. Maybe I was being too pessimistic and conscious, but she probably thought that I was either crazy or stupid. Who the heck take picture of a hut in those boring angles? Ten minutes later, she went back to her class.

I left the college after almost 20 minutes of photography, and along the way, I started to think about these walks that I am doing. Now, it just happened that one of my manager lived near by and occasionally drove on the streets and roads that I walk. In the past year, he spotted me twice on the road. To be fair, I don't walk on the same path, or go to the same place each week, but yet he spotted me twice on the random occasions. I thought to myself, who else saw and recognized me on the road? There had to be other people that recognized me out there. I don't look that much different since high school, so I am pretty sure someone noticed me, and did not say anything.

Disappointing. These people cannot stop themselves to even say "hello." Did they simply choose to ignore me, or simply cannot control themselves from moving ahead? Do these people even know that they are in control of their actions? Or is the simple act of saying "hello" is too hard? Too much time out of their lives? Too inconvenient? Too much trouble that it worth? Even a simple honk on your car would do. Maybe it has to be dramatic like the movie, where I got hit by his/her car before he/she come out, say a few words, and hope that I won't sue him/her.

Ever since I started walking, one car honk at me(couldn't tell who it was), and came across three people from high school. It is sad if they chose to ignore me. It it worse if their actions are beyond their control. Honestly, I do not mind that people act within the social norm, but I hate to see people constricted by the social norm. If you can think and judge independently, then act freely. Like they said, I am tire of excuses.


Sincerely,
Someone You Have Not Say Hello To :)

Walk: Little Tokyo

Those who dreams, but never pursue are called dreamers.
And successful people are the dreamers that tried.

                                                                   - Van Pelt

So, last Saturday morning, I drove to the usual gas station with my radio station tuned to K-Earth 101. At the end of what seems like a lengthy advertisements, the disc jockey reported about events that are happening around Los Angeles area. One of it happened to be the Cherry Blossom festival in Little Tokyo on the weekend. At that moment, I thought to myself, I have to go see this.

The original plan was to go the festival immediately afterward with my camera. After calling my friend up, he agreed to go with me in the late afternoon. The afternoon came and went, and we both did not go to Little Tokyo. My friend was tied up with things to do, and it was 5 PM by the time we were done. Back up plan, Sunday.

Two P.M., Sunday, we both were standing in front of the Metrolink train station in Pasadena. The $1.25 per train ticket was a bargain comparing to driving a car to Little Tokyo. The distant is about 15 mile one way, and the minimum parking fee is $5.00.

Train: $2.50 per person x 2 person = $5.00 total
Car: ($3.60 per gallon; 30 miles/gallon; about 30 miles) + $5.00 parking = $8.60 total

Little Tokyo is about half a mile away from the Union Station. It occupied a small area between 1st Street and 3rd Street, and the festival was setup on San Pedro street, next to Little Tokyo Mall. Comparing to Chinese New Year festival in San Gabriel, this festival is quite small, but interesting nonetheless. There were three stages for performances: martial arts stage, music stage, and main stage. The booths on the roads included food booths, business booths, and small gift shops. However, the performances were quite an interesting sight. Many of the traditional Japanese performance were done by non-Asian, much less Japanese (take a look at the pictures below). In the plaza, there were additional independent performers that draw quite a crowd. Me and my friend spent few hours around Little Tokyo getting back on the train.

Little Tokyo:

Left - Samurai practitioner; Right - Traditional performance


Left - Takoyaki store. Six pieces for $6!!; Right - Hawaiian dance


Chinatown view from the train:



Link:

• Little Tokyo's Cherry Blossom Festival
  

Walk: Blockbuster

A good photo is like a good story. It's hard to write a good story without any struggles or challenges. It's hard to find a good picture without any obstacles. Fortunately for me, my attentions always draw to the odd scenes or unique ideas. Not to say that I am a great photographer. I am aware that I am far from that. Rather it is this trait that allows me to capture a little unique perspective. Great or lame, it's only a matter of opinion.

So, on Saturday, some Chinese churches organized a fund raising event near the gas station that I normally go to. They held this event every once in a while(maybe twice a year). Anyways, I had been there few times before, but this time I took my camera. It was 14 o'clock when I returned with my camera and not my car(there was no parking anyway). Much of the commotion has already died down, but the place is still packed.

Most tents had labels written in Chinese selling Chinese snacks, which are serve hot. In winter, these snacks would do very well, but not March in California. It was 85 Fahrenheit. At the center stage, there were karate students breaking wood plates for few minutes. Later, a Chinese woman came out to play few Western-style songs with a pipa(Chinese guitar). However, the loud crowd pretty much drown out the tranquil sound of pipa. While many people continued to stayed, I left.

Walking along the main road, I came to what was once a Blockbuster store. It was only three weeks ago that I saw a poster for the brand new movie for rent. However, today, it's an empty store. They even took the Blockbuster sign on the wall. This only reminded me of the Warehouse music store that was couple blocks away from this Blockbuster. The Warehouse store was turned into a dim sum restaurant now. This empty Blockbuster store will probably see a similar fate in few short months. In my opinion, the last thing this place need is another Chinese restaurant. I would rather see someone taking an initiative to do try something different. An infusion of a non-Eastern business store would add to the much needed diversity and creativity that this city once had. Currently, there are already over 200 Chinese restaurants just on Valley Boulevard alone, adding more only going to intensify the restaurant competition. At this point, I would rather see a Hello Kitty store or an anime store(I know, these are still Eastern ideas) than another Chinese restaurant at that Blockbuster store. Alhambra's Main Street had already done this. It is not impossible.

Walk: Old School

The last few weekends have been nothing but troubles. There were rain for several weekends, and when it was finally sunny, I got a flu. So, since my weekends were filled with troubles, I decided to take a rare opportunity to take pictures on weekday instead. Indeed today(Wednesday, March 19, 2008) was a great day to be taking photos. Instead of the usual walk around my neighborhood, I decided to head up to my old college, Pasadena City College.

My college days were both fulfilling and empty at the same time. Like many other college students, my wallet was very hollow and empty. The lunch was a dollar burger from either Carl Jr., Jack In The Box, Burger King, or McDonald. Yet, it was because of this hollow wallet, I learned to explore Pasadena city with my legs. From the foot of the mountain(North) to Old Town(West) to East Pasadena(East) to San Marino(South), I have walk to the four edges of Pasadena.

Revisiting my old college again is freshing. It has been less than ten years, but a new building is being constructed on the western end of PCC. On the eastern end, there is a library, so I decided to take few pictures in there.

Afterward I headed to Cal Tech campus. The university is grand, peaceful, and beautiful. A university that host hundreds of top students across United States, and a home to Feynman. Yet of all these accomplishment, the joke in the comic section is still as lame as ever. To my surprise, there were several students walking around the campus than I ever recall seeing back in my college days. After walking around and saw the calendar, I learned that today happened to be the last day of the final exam week. My guess is that these students were taking take a good look at the sun before the next quarter comes around. If you ever visit Cal Tech, be sure to drop by the bookstore. Two things should surprise you. First should be the classical music in the background. Second would be the lighting environment. Basically, it feels like I was in a high end coffee shop; sofa and plenty of books.

After Cal Tech, I went down south to The Old Mill. Unknown to me, I have walk passed this place several times before, but never both to enter the place. After so many years, I was there to see what it was all about. To my disappointment, I did not see any mill. The historian told me it was long gone. It was used by the missionaries from San Gabriel Mission(another historical site that I entered only by accident... last weekend) in the 1800s.

The Old Mill is quite small, but the building is itself significant. It was built in the early 1800s for the San Gabriel missionaries using adobe brick. The wall in basement is five feet thick, and was used to keep the grain(granary). Unfortunately, due to the damping underground, moisture seeped through to the basement, and ruin the grain. The place was sold in the mid-1800s, and after the Mexican War, the place has been transform to a residential house. In the early 1900s, it was converted to a clubhouse for the golf course that used to cover a large area of San Marino. In 1962, The Old Mill was given to the city of San Marino, and was established as a historical site.

Walk: Sears

Last couple of weekends were full of rain, so I didn't get a chance to do any outdoor photography. As the forecast had it, Saturday was supposed to be sunny. Saturday. Sunny it is, at around 85 Fahrenheit with no cloud or wind(in another word, hot). Now, due to the long work hours on Friday and plenty of chores for me to do today, I decided not to do the usual photography weekend. Instead, I would walk on an unplanned route. This unplanned-route idea is basically to pick a busy street, and walk as far as possible. The route for today was six miles long crossing two cities.

As usual, I took the liberty to do some side trips into the local stores and point of interests as I pass them. There were few unique things to see on today's trip, including a cemetery that is over 100 years old, and a mini Statue of Liberty. However, one of a more interesting place for today's walk happened to be Sears. Yes, Sears.

It was right after I came out of a local owned furniture-electronic store that I walked into this mysterious Sears. It took me about thirty seconds, and a 360 degrees scan of the whole place before I realized something seems wrong with this Sears. Lots of clothes and no electronic appliances in sight. I had been to several locations of Sears before, and there were electronic appliances in every corners and shelves. Yet, the only high tech goods they offer here were TVs and DVDs. I strolled around the places for five minutes before leaving. It was only after I walked out to the parking lot and took a good look at the sign before I realized the reason for the unusual products selection. I laughed as I read the sign...

Sears Essentials

The essentials said it all. After several hours of sightseeing later, I came home and googled for "Sears Essentials". Found out that this is another branch of Sears that expands into the female consumers market and the fashion sector. Essentially, it means that I probably would not go in there again.

Links:
- Sears Essentials